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cru5h-cascades · 7 months ago

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So some time ago I was scrolling through Netflix, desperate to find something interesting to watch. While surfing through the service, I stumbled upon a strangely familiar show that I never watched. Maya and the Three. Looking at the thumbnail pic and such, the artstyle in the show reminded me of the Book of Life, a movie I loved as a kid (and still love!). I looked it up and turned out the show was made by the same folks who made the Book of Life! I knew my lil' bro would probably like this so I got him into the room and we started watching the series. During the week it took for us to get through the entire series (which was a season long btw; not because Netflix canceled it, but because the creater of the show was scared it would be canceled prior to the story's conclusion), we saw the story unfold. Incredible fight scenes, great characters, and an ending that made me cry lmao the show was that good. However, towards the end of the show some things felt a bit rushed like the romance plotpoint between Maya and possible tumblr sexyman 2024 canidate, Zatz, and Maya opening up more to her biological mother, the goddess of death. Also I felt like the realm of the gods and the gods themselves weren't explored that much, either. Which is why I decided "Hey, what if I re-imagined the series? This show only had a season anyways. It had so much potential!". And here we are now. My basic idea for a re-imagining of Maya and the Three! I might keep building upon the idea of the re-imagining in the future but I've got a shit ton of projects I wanna get out there (I gotta finish Your Side of Order, start Calamity Circus now that I got an idea of how the story will go, and brainstorm the story I had in mind for Ribbon & W.D) and because this is just a rough idea as I only thought about all of. Anyways here we go :D

Heart of a God (a re-imagining of Maya and the Three)

What I had in mind was this: Lord Michlan (now the king of all gods and the god of war in this re-imagining) has a rule about god/human hybrids: they're either taken to the realm of the gods at birth by the god that spawned them or they're seperated from their mortal family at the age of 15 and sent to the realm of the gods against their will. Either way, if they aren't sent to do something for the gods, they're stuck in the realm of the gods for all eternity.

The re-imagining starts the same way the first episode of the series does: Maya's being officially recognized as a princess and has to give up the rough and tough lifestyle she loves. But two things are different: A) Maya's brothers aren't there because to me personally they don't add much to the plot and B) the reveal of Maya's demigod-hood. Zatz crashes the party, reveals Maya's demigod-hood to the people of Teca, and goes on to tell everyone that he has to take Maya to the realm of the gods ('cause you know, the rule about demigods). However, he seems very unwilling to do this. He has a somber tone to his voice. Anyways, at first, Maya's parents are outraged and want to fight back, however, Maya turns herself in, still mad about having to give up her lifestyle. Her parents are mildly confused and shocked, only for Maya to justify that "isn't this what princesses are supposed to do? protect her people? if I can't fight I might as well do this instead, even if I don't want to. heck, maybe my birth mom is better than you two.". Maya's very clearly pissed off about all of this. She doesn't want to deal with any of this, so she heads to Zatz and the two start going to the realm of the gods. Maya's parents are heartbroken, but don't react with violence as they first indended... at least not right now.

After the first episode, we get to know more about the realm of the gods, the gods themselves, and see Maya grow as a character. At first, Maya isn't optimistic about this new life she has to live, being trapped in a world full of strange beings that have the ability to kill her in a heartbeat, but at the same time she doesn't want to go back to the life she knew ('cause she's still pissed off about the lifestyle thing and being lied to). And it doesn't help that, by order of Lord Michlan, Zatz has to accompany her throughout the realm of the gods until she's fully adjusted to this new way of life and as the story progresses, the two get closer (fixing the unaturally quick pacing of the romance plotpoint in the OG show) and we get to know why Zatz is the way he is (might elaborate further in a seperate post idk). Also, the goddess of death tries to find a way to let Maya be with her mortal parents again.

We don't spend all the series in the realm of the gods though because after a while, Maya's parents get desperate and decide to wage war against the gods and assemble an army and force our three other main characters from the OG series (Pichu, Chimi, and Rico) into this ordeal (since they're the chosen ones), sending them into the realm of the gods (again 'cause they're the chosen ones) to try to retrive Maya, with each one of them having their own emotional baggage (I liked their backstories from the OG show 'cause they were pretty solid so I'm keeping them) alongside the fact that they didn't want this. Each epsiode focusing on the chosen ones' missions will involve each of them wanting to kill the gods (especially Zatz 'cause he has to stay w/ Maya) and Maya & Zatz fighting them to get them to stop (and also help them with their emotional baggage or whateva). All of this will lead up to the finale where the mortals shatter the barrier between their realm and the realm of the gods and start the mortal v gods war, with the mortals' ultimate goal being to kill the gods (and demigods, specifically Zatz because this guy was the one who took Maya away from the rulers of Teca). Outraged by this, Michlan makes the strongest of the gods go to the mortal realm to punish the mortals, still not realizing that his rule is pretty fucked up. As the fight rages on, Zatz, Maya, and the chosen ones become determined to stop the war, with seemingly the only way of stopping it is killing Michlan since he is just so determined to keep his demigod rule in place.

Instead of killing off almost all of the best characters like in the OG series (bro why couldn't Maya just have her happy ending? I mean sure becoming the sun is pretty cool but seems kinda weak at least to me. what can you even do as a big fucking ball of gas??), here's what I had in mind:

Maya loses her arm fighting Lord Michlan (bringing the dislocation thing full circle; it kinda did in the main series but it would've been more badass than limping towards Michlan's heart thing or whateva)

Zatz and the goddess of death die, but because technically this show and the Book of Life happen in the same universe, La Muerte shows up after the battle with Candle Maker and Xibalba to intervene because all the gods are dead, and to reward Maya for her efforts she revives Zatz, however the goddess of death can't be revived because she is a god.

The turning into the sun and moon thing is ditched entirely.

And finally Maya reconciles with her parents about the events of the first episode.

And that's the basics of the re-imagining. I'll probably do more posts about this in the future since this is a pretty rough concept for a Maya re-imagining and this might need some polishing up so be on the look out for more of those ;D

#maya and the three #re write #concept idea #long post #rough draft

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onyxisnotuniqueenough · 1 year ago

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to anyone who ever wants a really good tool for character designing and character building, i very much recommend using miitomo

i have played the game tomodachi life for many years now and while it's very similar there are a few things where miitomo is better specifically for this

miitomo is down so you can get it through kaeru patcher

here's why it helped me

1. getting it this way - everything is very cheap - costumes, outfits and accessories that should be between 2k to 6k are now literally just. 10 coins. and kaeru gives you like 10k to start out so you have room to dress your characters however you want

thinking about what your ocs wear is important not only because of the art aspect but also because when you try to come up with personal style, your technical skills of how well you draw clothes and textures and wrinkles come up like an obstacle, PLUS you have defined limited options so it's less difficult to pin point what their style would be

for me, i talked about it a WHILE ago but the story i'm working on is based on greek and roman mythology, although with spicy innacuracy and lack of research 😁❤️

and even though there are literally two clothing options that would match their actual attire they wear at work or during meetings or just during their life in general in the sky, it was very interesting to construct outfits for times where they'd have to descend on earth

each character of mine has different opinions on human life and its value, and how they approach foreign human concepts and traditions, depending on how much time they spend there to work

so everyone has "human outfits" and that was very interesting to explore

i had to ask myself : does this character value comfort, style, practicality or etiquette? how much skin are they willing to show off? what are they doing on earth and how do their clothes help them blend in while being practical for the task at hand?

2. mentioned in the previous point, but the options being limited does help a lot

the mii maker is great for character designing

since the mii-from-photo option is particularly ridiculous, it acts as good randomizer for the features, and then you can work it a little more from there

here is the main character that I designed on my own :

and how he looks in miitomo :

and here are some characters i made "randomly" (mii-from-photo with added personal adjustments) in the miimaker FIRST

and there are so many more i want to make, and that i'd be happy to share with you!

having a set of features to choose from instead if being left at your own devices is nice, and the process of trying to translate those features in your artstyle is even more nice

also, taking miifotos and having fun posing them and seeing how you could make them interact serves as cute little oc things but also, maybe a reference if you don't know how to pose your characters? NOT AT ALL anatomically accurate but it's cute for ideas

for example

ummm anyway i've been so so obsessed with this app for like a week or smt now and it's all i think about 24/7 😁

ummm anyway go friend me on miitomo

this post has no subliminal intentions whatsoever i DON'T WANNA MAKE MIITOMO FRIENDS AND I DIDN'T WANT TO INTRODUCE THE SUBJECT SO THAT THE NEXT TIME I POST RANDOM MIIFOTOS YOU HAVE SOME CONTEXT DEFINTELY NOT ANS I DIDNT WANT TO JUST DUMP PENT UP EXCITEMENF ON TUMBLR !!

#miitomo #character designing #tune in for drawings of these guys #and tune in for the requests i haven't finished #and the birthday gift i javen't even started making irl (5 days late)#i don't have a procrastination problem #I DONT #ummm #i'd like to thank the server for enduring this first #and uhhh #there will be more miitomo just so yk #so get ready ig #kaerutomo #miifotos #original characters #ocs #my art #onyx's art

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sk3tch404 · 2 years ago

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Oh no Nana, what should I do? I am this close 👌 to start writing fanfics (lowkey also wanna draw but I suck at it lol)

Also, how are you :D?

-🪞/Mirror Anon

DO IT!!! You should start out by doing the scenarios and characters you love/feel like doing most!

As embarrassing as it is, I actually started writing on Wattpad like many other creators. They were your average x readers and had the really stupid unfunny quirky humor. Once I found out Tumblr was basically oneshots galore, I quickly migrated here and started reading.

You should set up rules, fandoms, and characters post if you really wanna start.

If there were anything I'd highly suggest for you to do, I'd say to make sure your writing is actually good or at least decent.

Now I'm not saying that to demotivate you or devalue you as a future creator and writer. No no that's not it at all! All on saying is that people like to read good sensible stories.

Grammar, wording, phrasing, separation of paragraphs, vocabulary, etc all come into play when you write. Personally, I enjoy it when a writer can understand common grammar and things as such.

I've made a random post saying this before, but I'll say it again. Personally, I am not a fan when writers have a typing style when it comes to fics.

Things like, " Walking down the hall , I looked to my left . "

"Is that so? Well then,I must have to accept your offer. There shouldn't be any complications on the way,no?"

My brain just can't handle the fact that it's so squished together and incorrect. I'm no stickler for grammar rules, bc trust me, I've had my fair share of bad writing. But this? Nah it's gotta go-

Vocabulary is important! Things like HCs dont really need a large range of words due to the fact they're just short ideas compacted into one post. But with general writing, it's much different. Many people don't mind stories with common language, but expanding your palette makes your story far more expressive and emotional.

Whatever you do, always make sure that your world building makes sense. Everything ties into each other! Making these connections may clear up questions the reader may have after and during the story. They also can have a role with the characters and events later on.

Though that doesn't mean to just lay out the rules in front of the reader. When the time comes to mention it, do it in the most efficient way possible.

Pacing!!! Slow burn is fun, but scanning through the exposition and getting to the good part is such a waste. Though, going too slow is gonna bore the reader.

RIIIIDEEEE OUT THE RISING ACTION AND CONFLICT. People love it when the juiciest part gets the attention it deserves! Though, know that the drama always has to die down sooner or later (The aftermath of the conflict can also be just as exciting)

You can spend your time with your story if it's long, just don't spend too much time on sub plots and irrelevant things when writing! Unless its vital to the plot, then I wouldn't suggest it.

Most importantly, don't exert yourself! Being a creator is difficult. This will feel much more like a chore or a long hour job the more requests you get.

But don't let that stop you from doing it! I'm glad I have my platform and love the people who like it! If I hadn't started, I think I'd be very bored and even lonelier.

I love being able to draw and write and have people to enjoy it with!

All this info basically goes into drawing but more artsy.

Don't be afraid to develop your artstyle and ask for criticism if you want.. :)

And thank you for being my anon! It's so fun to have a nice polite anon of my own to talk to about just anything other than what I make!

I've been really good after I finished my commission a week or two ago! Been grinding on Genshin just for that sweet sweet Archon and Fatui lore (Btw why does Baizhu sound kind of stereotypicalcally anime rich now? You sounded so good when you called ur snake a good girl c'mon now-)

Just having a break from Idv and hopping into something else that doesn't lag 24/7.

Last thing! Don't restrict yourself to my advice! Do what you please. It's your work, do what you want! No like I can stop you from doing what you love. Everyone starts somewhere yk? Anddddd I'm no publisher hehe

Aaaaaahhh I went on a tangent. Sorry if you didn't want my advice or nothin haha.

#mirror anon #advice #ilysm #hehe

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bluerosesburnblue · 3 years ago

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And that’s Game Over. It’s become a bit of a tradition for me to give my final thoughts on beating a game at this point, and boy do I have a lot to say about NEO: The World Ends With You. Pretty much every part of my blog’s aesthetic has been a thinly-veiled TWEWY reference from the start, so this probably shouldn’t shock anyone

That being said, I haven’t read any of the Secret Reports except for #3 and #4, and I haven’t seen any of Another Day except for the opening scene, so I can’t comment on either of those points

I should also say what I knew about before going into the game, because I did look into the demo datamine and a little bit of the Switch leak. So I wasn’t 100% blind, but I don’t think that anything that I saw really ruined the game for me. What I knew was:

Shoka, Neku, and Beat are party members. It was around the time that I saw this from the demo datamine that I started suspecting that the boy in the hoodie was Beat, but since he was listed after even Neku there was still a little doubt there until I played the game proper. I could tell it was Beat the second that he actually showed up in Gen Kobayashi’s artstyle, since he draws his and Neku’s eyes differently (which makes it pretty brilliant that they almost solely showed him with either his eyes not visible or drawn by Nomura before the game released)

Shoka is Swallow, also said in the demo datamine. It made it pretty amusing to watch everyone overthink the hell out of Swallow’s identity and dissect the symbolism, when you can actually figure it out pretty easily in the demo if you pay attention to what actually happens. Why do Rindo and Fret go to the Scramble Crossing? To look for Swallow. Who’s the first named character that they meet there (who’s shown with her phone a lot, too?) Shoka. Frankly, I’m surprised that they saved the reveal of Swallow’s identity until the very end, it’s so simple

The game is three weeks long, with the last week having two extra days, from the demo datamine

Josh is the one who gives Rindo his pin back at the start, from the demo datamine but everyone assumed it was him, anyway

Haz exists and is the Composer of Shinjuku, from the Switch leak and I went looking for this one specifically because I was way too curious about staircase guy

I also know the general gist of Tsugumi’s situation and her brother, which I think is in the Secret Reports

Honestly, nothing that I saw before I played was something that I felt ruined the game for me. The three weeks was just continuing the pattern of the first game. Shoka and hoodie boy were probably gonna be party members since they’re on the cover. Neku was almost certainly going to be one after A New Day. Haz’s situation isn’t actually explained if you’re just playing the game, so I’m actually glad I knew what was up before then because otherwise I would’ve just been confused

Anyway, I guess I should start with the negatives first. Don’t get me wrong, I do love this game. It’s not just a good game, but it’s also an excellent sequel that ticked off way more of the boxes on my “perfect TWEWY sequel” list than I was expecting

That being said, it’s really unfortunate that I can’t say that it redeemed A New Day. I does recover from A New Day, and it recovers shockingly well, but every time they referenced something from A New Day, all I could think was “this could’ve been executed so much better if they weren’t forced to reference that shitty sequel hook.” NTWEWY actually makes A New Day look worse in comparison

Biggest one is... Neku didn’t have to be dead for three years. His role in this game was actually so small that they could’ve easily had it be “Neku went missing a year ago. Shiba started his deal with the modded pins to try and drag Neku into things, so Josh made sure to get to Neku first. The two came up with a plan to get Neku out of Shiba’s reach and do recon at the same time in Shinjuku.” Like... fuck, it feels like poor Shiki, Beat, and Rhyme were forced to suffer without one of their dearest friends for years because the devs tacking his death onto their remaster was the cheapest solution at the time

Literally NOTHING that Coco did mattered. Shinjuku still got destroyed with or without Neku’s death and Sho didn’t NEED to be revived by her

I cannot stress enough that Sho didn’t need to be revived. I don’t totally blame the devs for this due to the gap in years between TWEWY and Final Remix, but the reason that there was so much fan clamor for Sho to return was that it was set up in the original TWEWY. The last time that we see Sho, his body is crushed under one of Josh’s junk piles. Reapers don’t leave bodies, they just get Erased. It was also known that Josh knew that Sho wanted to take his spot, but he kept him around anyway. People wanted Sho back because it looked like he hadn’t actually been destroyed and it would be in Josh’s character to keep him in the game. They literally could’ve just started NTWEWY as is and put a line in somewhere about Sho wanting to make Josh regret that he didn’t finish him off when he had the chance. No Coco required

Coco doesn’t even do anything unique for the Tsugumi plot that couldn’t have been done by someone else, like Hishima or Susukichi. Or Kaie. Frankly, any of the Shinjuku Reapers could’ve had a subplot about trying to free Tsugumi’s soul from Mr. Mew

Why does Tsugumi even have the Mr. Mew plush, anyway? Shinjuku was destroyed three years ago, and that’s when her soul was sealed in there. So do you mean to tell me that Shiki already established Gatto Nero and had a branch in Shinjuku mere months or even weeks after getting out of the Game? Nope, not buying that timeline

What the FUCK is up with the Dissonance Tapir? No, seriously, if Dissonance is some Angel-level power with such destructive properties and is almost exclusively employed in destroying cities, then how the FUCK can Coco just create a massive Dissonance Noise and why the fuck did she bother? Mr. H in A New Day even mentions that this is such an amazing power beyond most Reapers and how oh-so-special Coco is for it. NTWEWY does not address how Coco has this at all

Coco’s still such a nothing character, too. She accomplishes jack shit and her personality is still just “obnoxious, entitled brat.” They even did that thing that I hate where they act like she’s just totally forgiven, no harm done for all the shit she pulled just because she had understandable motives. Like, no, this little shit hasn’t changed at all and has done nothing to earn forgiveness! Just... ugh. Toss Coco on the pile with Janne Angard, Merula Snyde, and Lusamine of “characters I’m never gonna fucking like no matter how much the authors push them on me because they refuse to be better people but I’m expected to forgive them anyway”

We ever gonna expand on Coco’s illusion Yoshiya? No? Alright, fuck me, then

Coco revives Sho specifically to have him partner with Neku, and the two don’t even interact until the final week and it’s mostly for Neku to kick Sho’s ass

Not... to turn this into yet another rant about A New Day. It’s just a real shame that I know this game could’ve been better if A New Day hadn’t been such garbage. I did like the reveal that Neku and Rindo’s visions were actually Tsugumi’s Psych, though

A few other, non-AND nitpicks in no particular order:

Did anyone else find it weird that, like, there wasn’t a single girl on any of the other three teams besides Kanon? Logically, I get that they wanted to save on resources and most of the other team members were just recolors of each other, but... not even one female design for any of them? What’s the implication there? Is it just that no women ever die, somehow? Or that girls overall don’t qualify for the Game? It was just weird in a mildly immersion-breaking way once I noticed it, especially since the original TWEWY was fairly balanced. It did still favor male characters, but pretty much every player’s first team was male-female (Neku/Shiki, Beat/Rhyme, Sota/Nao) and Kariya and Uzuki were a consistent pair, too, despite being Reapers since they were basically foils to the Players. So having the Players so overwhelmingly male this time around just felt noticeable

Motoi had a lot more potential than I felt like he lived up to. He and Kubo paired together make really interesting negative split-foils to Mr. H. Kubo took the idea of an Angel influencing the game and guiding the Players to his desired outcome for the city and went “what if his goal was malicious?” He’s pretty much the perfect dark counterpoint to Hanekoma

That left Motoi open to take the other half of Mr. H’s character, namely the “artist that the protagonist greatly looks up to and admires” to its alternate conclusion. I think that’s what they were going for, because he is so perfectly set up as a foil to Mr. H. While Neku started growing paranoid and suspecting that Mr. H aka CAT was the Composer and a villain, trying and failing to shake the thought, Rindo refused to think of An0ther/Motoi as a villain despite the hints (like the false intel on Susukichi) until the truth was thrown in his face over and over again

The issue is that what made Neku’s concern over Mr. H so compelling was that Mr. H was in a position of authority. He was THE source of info on the Game the real-life players had, he clearly had some clout to make Uzuki cut her shit out, etc. Neku and the player respected him, so it we also felt betrayed by the idea that he could’ve been playing us. Motoi never felt like he had any authority to me. Nominally, he was at the same rank as Rindo. Sure, he told us a bit about the game, but so did Susukichi and Shoka. I wish they had just done a little more with him. Maybe establish that while the Ruinbringers always win, the Purehearts have always come in a close second. Like, they are THE other team to beat, so that Motoi ends up on a pedestal. You could even run with that, with a major conflict in Week 2 being that Kanon wants to set the Twisters up to win, but Motoi wants to use the Twisters to help the Purehearts win. Then we get the conflict of it seeming like a better idea to help the Purehearts since they’re always in second anyway (and knowing that if the Twisters win, Kanon’s team would be sure to lose to the Purehearts the next week) until it’s revealed that Motoi was just using the Twisters to try and take a spot with the Reapers and leave his team behind because he doesn’t actually believe that there’s any beating the Ruinbringers. I dunno, the Motoi plot just felt like it needed a little editing

He also needs a better design, tbh. All I can think of when I think of Motoi is “bright blue.” Like... he’s just a blue blob. He needs differently colored pants, or a pattern, or something. Maybe a better hairstyle. His design just screams “NPC who dies in Week 2.” Motoi looking more like a main character who’d be sticking around to the end (maybe even a teammate?) would’ve heightened the reveal. There’s just no detail work anywhere on his clothes

Week 2 in general felt like it dragged a bit. Week 1 we know we’re still in the “learning the Game” phase, so it’s expected to go a little slow. But it really doesn’t feel like much happens in Week 2 until the last couple of days, and the missions start getting really drawn out. Especially the second Scramble Slam and the amount of points they want you to rack up for the prizes. I tried my best and didn’t even come close to the lowest prize. And then they do ANOTHER Scramble Slam (though this one had mercifully low point scores and I did get all the prizes for once). Like, it was a neat idea for a mission the first time, but it just got formulaic fast

The Plague Noise felt a little half-assed. Not really in terms of their part in Shibuya Syndrome, more in the design and their weakness. They feel like a Taboo analogue, but they just don’t have the same spark to them

Their weakness is ultraviolet light? Really? So I just, like, have to believe that they shoved a battery-powered blacklight into Nagi’s backpack or something, and it never runs out of juice, and they always have the time to whip it out and turn it on whenever the Plague Noise show up? It seems like they wanted an excuse to have them come across as untouchable and scary, but then realized that it was clunky for gameplay so it just does not apply after the heroes figure out the weakness, even if that weakness isn’t just something that you can do on the fly. Thing is, they already perfected this with the Taboo Noise by having them take so little damage without the sync boost or Josh’s powers. The blacklight thing just feels like an inelegant solution, when something like “attacks do almost no damage unless you get off a single Mashup” would’ve made more sense

I also just hate their design? Applying a uniform metallic-prism texture to the whole body just looks beyond lazy and... has really nothing to do with them thematically? I don’t mind them being recolors of regular Noise types, I just think this was the laziest way to recolor them. They’re supposed to be draining people’s souls, right? And regular Noise are neon? Then maybe we could go with the idea of “true black” for the Plague Noise, where their bodies are pitch black and shading effects can’t be seen on them, like they absorb all light and color in their surroundings (maybe even have a slight filter around them that makes the area around them look grey?) and a hollow, wireframe-esque mesh on the parts that would glow on regular Noise. This is just an off-the-top-of-my-head design idea. I don’t know how feasible it would’ve been to program, but visually it would probably be more striking

It’s also kind of weird that Ayano’s Noise form is a flower. And just her, too. If all of the Shinjuku Reapers had their Noise forms based on plants with Shiba as the butterfly, that would’ve felt more cohesive and made them feel more “other” when compared to the Shibuya Reapers

I can’t give this one too much of a hard time because it’s not like the Shibuya Reapers in TWEWY had any real theme to their Noise forms other than “were animals,” with Sheep (Higashizawa) > Lion (Minamimoto) > Tiger (Konishi) > Snake/Dragon (Kitaniji). Just more of a missed opportunity brought on by Ayano having a noticeably different Noise form than any other Reaper in the series for seemingly no reason

Unpainted is a better boss theme for Phoenix Cantus and World is Yours is a better boss theme for Shiba. They should’ve been switched, and I cannot believe that the song all about painting a happy ending was not used for the rainbow bird final boss (and I just didn’t care for World is Yours. Definitely a mid-tier song in the soundtrack, imo, which is not something you want for your final boss)

Speaking of, why is it called Phoenix Cantus anyway? “Cantus” is usually reserved for Reaper Noise forms, which Phoenix Cantus is definitely not. Was “Phoenix Pulvis” not cool enough? I know that “Pulvis” means “dust” (and Soul Pulvis is just... Noise made of soul dust basically), so maybe “Phoenix Coetus” since it’s a group of Soul Pulvis and still sounds similar to Phoenix Cantus?

Those are all literally my biggest criticisms, though. And if “still couldn’t fix shitty writing from a few years ago and they ignored it instead” and a handful of actual nitpicks is all I have against the game, then it’s a really good game

Like, okay, holy shit. Reverb Shibuya with the alien sky and ever darkening buildings and people. What a fucking cool setting for the final week. For anyone who read my FFXV sort-of-rant, this is exactly what I wanted out of FFXV’s World of Ruin. It’s so freaky and chilling to wander a Shibuya, which you’ve had two in-game weeks (or five if you played TWEWY) to get to love in this distorted state with a dark, unnatural sky and everything slowly getting progressive more and more warped. And it’s fully explorable. The first time I saw someone under the Reverb, with the “...” thoughts and the ��@DownWiththeSyndrome” username was kinda freaky, but I just brushed it off as this game’s version of the “what a wonderful world such would be” Red Skull Pin stuff. But the first time I saw one of the mid-Reverb thoughts? A person almost completely gone, but still spitting out a broken, distorted version of a familiar thought bubble I’d seen throughout the game as though those half-remembered thoughts were the only thing they could hold onto... THAT was chilling

I almost wanted Plague Noise wandering around like the Taboo used to, too, to give just a little more sense of edge. Maybe it’s a blessing, though, since the regular Noise in Week 3 hit a pretty big difficulty spike. Kinda surprised that the Plague Noise weren’t called Reverb Noise, though

Also, the music for the first couple of days heavily featuring DIVIDE and Revelation (NEO Mix) was sooooooo wonderful. I fell in love with both of those songs when I heard them in the trailers and they set the mood so well. Mmmmmmmm the start of Week 3′s atmosphere is so good. And then they start adding in SCRAMBLE and LAST CALL and I’m just like... yo they saved some of the best songs in my opinion for last

Reverb Shibuya is almost what my mental image for TWEWY’s Week 3 always was, even though I know that TWEWY’s Week 3 was just... regular Shibuya. But for some reason I always visualize it as dusty and distorted. But NTWEWY’s Week 3 executes a Shibuya on the verge of destruction so much better than even my weird, imagined version of TWEWY’s Week 3

Kubo’s a perfect Mr. H foil. Older gentleman who ends up being a major source of info on the Game, constantly showing up to offer advice, who ends up being an Angel trying to guide you to specific end, except this time he’s a villain? It’s so good. Especially with the implication that Kubo is what the Angels want, as someone who’s a scheming asshole willing to destroy or “cleanse” cities in a horrific way regardless of suffering, while Mr. H was the Fallen Angel for trying to do the right thing and save the city. It paints a really interesting picture of the world of TWEWY. The Angels already came across as assholes in the original, and I’m so glad they leaned into that

On that note: HELLO worldbuilding. I’m legitimately shocked that they didn’t expand on the alternate worlds from the first game since those are definitely canon and played a huge part in Josh’s survival. But then they expanded on other things and in ways that recontextualize the first game in a much more interesting light so I’m okay with what they did

The biggest one being the “destruction of Shibuya” that the first game was about. Pretty much everyone was under the impression that Josh was just going to destroy the UG, but now with the destruction of Shinjuku it seems obvious that it was more than that. He could’ve eradicated the whole city and everyone in it and no one would know. Memories of Inverted cities and their inhabitants are erased, and the people in the cities are so beyond gone that the only things left are fragmented thoughts. We see a girl from Shinjuku like that, who’s so far gone that she’s barely even a ghost to people in the UG. It’s horrifying, but makes the stakes of the first TWEWY so much more real and Josh so much more of a threat (and, conversely, his mind change more impactful)

Glad that they implied Shinjuku could be brought back with work at the end of the game. Unclear if the people could be restored, probably not, but at least we get something. Would’ve been too dark otherwise

Living Players were touched on slightly because Kariya mistakes Josh for one in TWEWY, now we get to see the full extent of that. Like how a person can’t exist in two planes at once, so their existence in the UG is effectively forgotten while they’re in the RG (except, it seems, to past Players who this game seems to imply have had a sort of sixth sense awakened). I wouldn’t have expected them to take this route, but I like the fact that the stakes are different enough. In TWEWY, everyone just stays dead. In NTWEWY, Rindo, Fret, Nagi, and Beat risk their existences being wiped from the world

I was totally not expecting them to actually answer what happens to people from timelines that Rindo changed. Horrifying. Horrifying is what happens, as they simply cease to exist but the energy that they were has to go somewhere, so it collects in the main timeline as distorted Noise

Actually, on this, I was kind of expecting Rindo’s time travel to have some sort of drawback at least partway through the game when they pointed out his pin was changing. The twist was very Madoka Magica-esque in the way that Homura’s constant resets to get the best timeline were building up Madoka’s potential, so that when Madoka did become a witch it was more and more powerful every time. Once the pin was pointed out, I was able to guess that something like Phoenix Cantus was where they were headed, though part of me was a little worried that Rindo was going to be part of it and we’d have to fight against him

Speaking of, this twist really was beautifully foreshadowed. I connected the birds appearing to Rindo’s time travel about the second time it happened, but I didn’t notice his pin. The first time they pointed out that his pin was different than the others, my first thought was “Was it always like this? I can’t remember. Did Josh hand him a special pin back?” The second time it showed up and was obviously changing, I was suspicious as hell and kept my eye on that thing every single day, until at one point I went “that’s definitely a fucking bird.” It’s such a tiny detail on the HUD, but I looked back and it’s changing as early as the beginning of the game. You could spot it, but why would you think to?

Beat. Ohhhhhh, my boy. I feel bad because half the time I forget him in the original group (Shiki being first partner and Josh making the biggest impression) but he’s actually the best character in this game. I adore how he starts getting all “protective big brother” with the team (even though Nagi’s older than him), he’s still a lovable doofus with so much energy, and how easily he got back into the groove with Neku was just so heartwarming and just... I love Beat. I love my boy

The fucking... battle dialogue where Beat shouts “BOOYAKA” and then there’s half a second before Rindo awkwardly goes “Rrrrrrrright” kills me every time

And Soundsurf is just so smart. Turning the run mechanic into a mini rhythm game that gives combat bonuses is so brilliant for a game as music-oriented as this and it just feels nice to have the song title in the corner

Speaking of the cast, I think it’s really incredible how naturally the new characters integrate with the old cast. Rindo, Fret, Nagi, and Shoka are all really distinct from the TWEWY kids, but they feel like they belong there either in spite of or because of the massive diversity of personality among them. And the only bad thing I can say about either Neku or the Shinjuku Reapers is that I feel they were underutilized, but “I want MORE” isn’t all that negative! I don’t think there’s a single bad TWEWY character except for Coco

I’m actually so glad that they went with what they did. Two points on my “perfect sequel” list were “new cast because the old ones had their arcs, if the old cast shows up it’s in mentor roles” which gets a big old check, and “the Game’s rules are changed to reflect both Shinjuku’s different style and the fact that the controls are different” and the team structure does exactly that

I’m eternally grateful for Kanon Tachibana. Rest in peace, you were such a cool lady and we were blessed to have you, especially since your first appearance set you up to be a major antagonist

Uzuki got that promotion and even made Game Master! Hot damn, real proud of that girl and I’m so glad that she and Kariya are still a duo

Pretty much all of the voice work was GREAT, too. One of the things I love about TWEWY is how obscure most of the VAs are, because when I know too much about a VA or if I hear their work too much it actually kills my immersion no matter how good of a job they do because all I can think about is their other roles or IRL personality. So not only does TWEWY sidestep that entirely, but the VAs they do use do a fantastic job which gives the game such a unique audio experience. Andy Hirsch as Sho Minamimoto, Crawford Wilson as Beat, and Bailey Gambertoglio as Shoka Sakurane were all big standouts

Frankly, it’s a miracle that they made Shibuya so much easier to navigate for me. I think it’s the way that the streets are drawn on the map. Made it a lot easier for me to visualize how things were connected and where I was going. The camera does take a little getting used to

I really can’t commend how creative the gameplay is enough. I didn’t think they could top what they did with the DS’s dual screens to have you control two characters at once, but they manage to have you controlling an entire PARTY OF SIX at once. And yet, they still manage to keep the “team working together” feeling that was so integral to TWEWY’s combat with the Beatdrops and Mashups/Killer Remix. It feels both very TWEWY and very distinct from TWEWY. It’s such a natural evolution

SPEAKING OF NATURAL EVOLUTIONS THEY STREAMLINED THE PIN EVOS. No branching evolutions thank GOD

The compact collections menu with percentages made me so happy as a completionist you have NO IDEA

My only issue with the gameplay was entirely personal, because I’ve been playing a lot FFXV and I kept accidentally hitting the Mashup button when I meant to dodge because of muscle memory. Goddammit, I had to unlearn my KH muscle memory when playing FFXV and now I’ve gotta unlearn THAT. Square! Standardize your damn buttons!

It was so interesting how they went and expanded on the themes of the first game, which was about opening up to other people. This game still has that, as Rindo doesn’t really put himself out there, Fret is disingenuous to appear friendly but protect his emotions, Nagi is too empathetic that she gets overwhelmed, and Shoka is so aggressive that she scares others off, and they have to learn teamwork. But then it takes it a step farther when Haz comes in. Friends help you grow, like in the first game, but they also make the world around you special, too

At this point I’m kind of running out of things to say about the game, but it really is a worthy successor to the original TWEWY, and I say this as someone who 100% completed the DS version. It was actually one of the first games that I ever did 100% complete (can’t remember if I did this before or after Bravely Default). The game oozes style, and really all I want is just... more, if it’s going to be of this quality

I would never want this series to turn into KH (and don’t even get me started on how much the KH fandom pissed me off in the leadup to this game. Jesus Christ shut the FUCK UP about the “Nomuraverse,” there’s no such thing), but... I think they have the groundwork to pull a sort of 358/2 Days-style game with the Shinjuku Reapers telling the story of Tsugumi and the fall of Shinjuku. An “Another Side,” if you will. I hear the Secret Reports mention some of it, but I want to see it. I want to see the Shinjuku Reapers as the big family they claimed they were and how it fell apart, especially with how that would compare to the Shibuya Reapers in TWEWY who were always in the middle of power games and ready to backstab each other. What made the Angels and Haz want the place “cleansed?” And I know they set this game in Shibuya because they felt it was iconic to the games, but... I dunno, I feel like the visual style and worlbuilding are more important than it being in Shibuya, specifically

Also, still wouldn’t pass up that Josh prequel. Just saying

Might have more to say once I play Another Day and read the Secret Reports, but I’m gonna take a break from NTWEWY for a bit to finish up the FFXV postgame stuff and DLC so it may be a while before I actually do say anything. But I am looking forward to getting back to it when I do! Given how much I tend to get into a “you must COMPLETE THIS GAME and cannot move onto another until you do” mindset, I think it says a lot that I took the time to start playing this game at launch and didn’t stop at all. Great game, would recommend this to anyone, would love to see more as long as more looks nothing like A New Day

#liz plays #the world ends with you #neo the world ends with you #twewy #ntwewy #neo the world ends with you spoilers

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divinity-infinity · 4 years ago

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For your last last game hum 13,17,31,36,41 👉👈 please!

Hdnrjsj thanks for asking!!!

13: How do you feel when you re-read your own old posts?

When it's been like a few weeks or so i feel like narcissus staring into his reflection in the water hdndjdjd but if it was from like months or years ago i either cringe and delete, cringe and post about how i was back then (it's more like taking screenshots and sending them to my friend group gc though dhdndj), or cringe and let it be hdnddnj

17: What is your idea of a great first date?

Hdndjd i never really thought about how i want to date but i feel like i want it to be some mundane thing that grows into some sort of habit me and the person im dating get into, i might prefer something study or learning related like library/bookstore dates, museum tours, our just a study session date asjdjdjshdj

31: What was your best experience on tumblr? Why?

My peak tumblr experience was like, back when i first made one, i mostly followed writing prompt blogs and haikyuu blogs and i actually just made a tumblr because i interacted with this one haikyuu blog frequently and i wanted to like get off anon and actually talk to them through reblogs hdjfdjdjdj

The best single experience i had though was back in 2018 when @/biggest-gaudiest-patronuses was at their peak popularity and i felt the pure joy of reading through their 50 strange questions answered post and felt the true [tumblr] vibes radiating through the post

36: What was your life like two months ago?

Two months ago was when I started seriously learning to do animatics and when i started changing my artstyle, i was still quarantined and that was when i think i started getting back into haikyuu.

41: Think of the last person you called; tell us something you said.

So the last person i called was a bunch of classmates for a group project and i remember telling them about how i wrote down our self imposed deadlines for the different tasks we need to do to finish the project and telling them that I'm sending a copy of out project plan to the teacher

#ask games #welcome to divinevale

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mckittyarts · 6 years ago

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(1)alright. let us talk about your links then so first of all, your artstyle is really pretty! and the links look amazing in it!! Now, Time can I just say his “:)” emotion is so fucking relatable? Valid!! Strange!! Grandpa!! 👏 let 👏 him 👏 act 👏like 👏 a 👏 kid 👏 I am //very intrigued with the Goron tattoos and him being zelda's twin brother (can't say heard that before) pls tell me more. tired!! Sky!! he looks so cute!! I mean cranky but, you know, cute! I support your tired boy

THANK YOU SO MUCH ANON FOR SO MANY KIND WORDS……… I LOVE YOU AND YOU MADE MY WHOLE WEEK THANK YOU LOTS!!!aAAA im so happy you like my headcanons asdfghj,, i was a little nervous to share them at first so it really means a lot!! to elaborate on the ones you asked about though;Time: - first about his Goron tattoos: you know how the Gorons in OoT have those markings on their shoulders? it’s like that, he has one on each shoulder and they’re basically like a physical representation of his oath of brotherhood with the Gorons. (I headcanon that it’s a tradition in Goron culture to get those when you come of age, there’s this whole ceremony where the birthday boy swears to uphold brotherhood and everything) here’s a quick example of what i mean;

- the whole thing about him being Zelda’s brother is a headcanon me and a buddy of mine stumbled across some years ago and build on because we liked the idea! i don’t remember exactly what the reason they were split up was(i think it was something about the children being illegitimate because the king weren’t married to his mistress or something but he still wanted an heir?? idk) but i like to think that’s the reason why Zelda felt this immediate bond with him instead of it just being because she’s a dumbass,, plus i like sibling-like bonds in stories better than the classic princess and her hero type of thing so it’s a fun way to spice things up! (they’re also the only two blonde hylians in the game as far as i remember?? don’t quote me on that but it just adds fuel to my headcanon fire lmao)

Warrior: - about Warrior and his muteness: Yes!! he uses sign language now and out of the group Wild is the only one who can translate for him which is,,,, chaotic,, Wild is pretty much never nearby at any time and also hes way too rowdy to be paying attention to my poor boy dfghjghjk,, poor thing just uses general gestures to get the rest of the group to understand at this point (it should be mentioned that Minish knows a bit too but he’s by no means fluent and/or willing to speak to anyone so there’s that)

Design Elements(?):- the ears - thank you!! i think ear size and shape can be a really good way to differentiate different characters, especially when they already look as similar as the Links generally do! i didn’t get to mention this in my other post, but they can actually move their ears just a bit in accordance with their emotions, but the type of their ears make it more or less obvious - for example, Time’s ears are much easier to move around while Sky’s are virtually immovable. here’s a few examples of what i’m talking about;

aaaaaand i think that’s it??? sorry for rambling i just love to talk about these fools,, but if there’s anything else id be more than happy to answer!! i hope you have a good day anon!!(also not to sound like a dumbass but i have no idea what LU means and now im wildly curious about it whoops)

#THIS IS LIKE THE MOST ENTHUSIASTIC ANON IVE EVER HAD AND HONESTLY IM SO HAPPY #THANKYOU AGAIN ANON I SUPPORT YOU #the legend of zelda #tloz #ask #anon #long post//#headcanons #if you think that the last one is just an excuse to draw minish a million times then youre absolutely correct i love that lil fella #link

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comicteaparty · 5 years ago

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January 27th-February 2nd, 2020 CTP Archive

The archive for the Comic Tea Party week long chat that occurred from January 27th, 2020 to February 2nd, 2020. The chat focused on HOPE KILLERZ by stc019.

Featured Comment:

Chat:

Comic Tea Party

BOOK CLUB START!

Hello and welcome everyone to Comic Tea Party’s Week Long Book Club~! This week we’ll be focusing on HOPE KILLERZ by stc019~! (https://tapas.io/series/HOPE-KILLERZ)

You are free to read and comment about the comic all week at your own pace until February 2nd, so stop on by whenever it suits your schedule! Discussions are freeform, but we do offer discussion prompts in the pins for those who’d like to have them. Additionally, remember that while constructive criticism is allowed, our focus is to have fun and appreciate the comic!

Whether you finish the comic or can only read a few pages, everyone is welcome to join and chat with us!

DISCUSSION PROMPTS – PART 1

1. What did you like about the beginning of the comic?

2. What has been your favorite moment in the comic (so far)?

3. Who is your favorite character?

4. Which characters do like seeing interact the most?

5. What is something you like about the art? If you have a favorite illustration, please share it!

6. What is a theme you like that the comic explores?

7. What do you like about the comic’s story or overall related content?

8. Overall, what do you think the comic’s strengths are?

Don’t feel inspired by the prompts? Feel free to discuss anything else that interested you!

SAWHAND

Ooh! The first thing I'm noticing about this comic is the colors, which are lovely!!

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

agreed! the characters designs made me laugh, too. Haven't finished it yet but will definitely pop in to say a few words when I do

LadyLazuli (Phantomarine)

I'm going through this too - what an awesome style!

RebelVampire

I'm a prompt kind of person, so I'm gonna answer this a bit going by those. XD I like how the comic opens up, mostly at the end of the prologue with the ominous phone message about Isa and Scotty being dead. Like, just when you thought things were ominous enough, there's already a quick payoff, and I like that about this story. It's not holding its punches. As for a favorite moment, I really liked the argument between Hodori and Behzad, because that moment didn't go how I expected. I actually thought Behzad would include Hodori, not go for immediate betrayal. So to me that was interesting and I like things that don't go with my expectations. This is why they are also my favorite characters to interact, cause I liked Hodori was also the one to know what was going on, and I can't wait to see how Hodori will react when Behzad's sort of betrayal is revealed. For a favorite character, at the moment Chaker cause I think Chaker is the most mysterious and I'd love to learn more about Chaker. Who doesn't like mysterious characters with secrets?

In terms what I liked about the art, I find the use of color interesting. I'm not sure I'd classify as like persay, but it's interesting to see how the colors are used to sort of experiment with the mood or each image. Which for me I feel is the comic's strength. Regardless of how you feel about the content, the comic is intriguing to look at and catches your eye.

Comic Tea Party

DISCUSSION PROMPTS – PART 2

9. Do you think what Behzad wants is justice or vengeance? How will he get it ultimately do you think? Overall, what do you think the story might show us regarding the line between the two and how the pursuit of either can change someone?

10. How do you think everyone’s relationships with each other will be challenged given both Behzad’s solo pursuit of the murderers and some of the team member’s withholding information? Will the team be able to survive the conflict?

11. Do you think the characters will be able to recover their hope after losing Isa and Scotty? Overall, given the themes of hope within the story, what do you think is the overall message regarding it?

12. What do you think the ultimate plan of 58 is? Why does it involve murdering Isa and Scotty and replacing them with doubles? Why do you think Behzad wasn’t killed yet, and what might the villains have planned for him?

Don’t feel inspired by the prompts? Feel free to discuss anything else that interested you!

snuffysam (Super Galaxy Knights)

I'm absolutely loving Hope Killerz! The artstyle is amazing, as everyone's said. I love how each panel sets the mood with its unique playing of color palettes! I am curious as to what the ultimate plan is, replacing Isa and Scotty with doubles and seemingly wanting to use this version of Behzad too. Perhaps... 58's plan is to create a team consisting of the most "bold" versions of each hero? Like, Behzad went off on his own rather than waiting around for an investigation - 58 wants a whole team of people like him. As for why... perhaps vengeance for 58 losing his own team?

RebelVampire

Vengeance is plausible. Although I kind of feel there's gotta be more to it than that. Since you can get vengeance without needing to create doubles.

I really like that this comic kind of explores the theme of justice vs. vengeance. With the rise of superhero movies and such, it's kind of easy to forget that there is a really fine line between them. Which in this case, I think Behzad definitely wants vengeance, although I don't think Behzad will get it. I think someone will knock some sense into the idea before it gets that far. However, overall though, I think the story does a great job that it only really takes one step to go from justice to just wanting to hurt people because you're hurt - even at the cost of your personal relationships. Which is definitely going to be a big thing. I definitely think the other characters, especially Hodori, is gonna feel betrayed by Behzad's action. Maybe empathetic, but no way there isn't a rift created. And as more comes to light, none of them will be sure they can trust each other, and that will make Isa and Scotty's loss even more poignant and bring up the question if the group can survive without them.

But I don't think it's all hopeless. I kind of feel that despite their feelings at the moment, time will heal the teams wounds and that they'll find the resolve to hope. Cause you can basically pull hope out of nothing.

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

Unfortunately I'm feeling a bit lost in the story. There are a lot of characters and a lot of scene changes, and I'm having a hard time differentiating the personalities of all the characters. Maybe I just wasn't reading closely enough? Or maybe the plot'll be more clear in the future? The story is just getting started, after all, so I figure the author is kind of front loading all the setup and character introductions. I do really like the art. It's fun and different. I stumbled across this comic a while ago but didn't read much of it, and the art was memorable enough that seeing it again in the bookclub I immediately recognized that I'd seen it before. 9) Both. Don't think he's really thinking straight due to his grief, and is mostly just driven by emotion right now. 10) Probably, just going from the tone of the comic and the art I feel like this will have a happy ending. I think this is an optimistic comic. 5) The author seems to have a love of drawing butts. I appreciate that. Particularly in the little end chapter sketches. 1) I liked everything about the beginning of the comic. Though it was very strong. Not often do you see a vigilante character feeling regret over their chosen path

Comic Tea Party

DISCUSSION PROMPTS – PART 3

13. What are you most looking forward to seeing in regards to the comic?

14. Any final words of encouragement for the comic?

Don’t feel inspired by the prompts? Feel free to discuss anything else that interested you!

RebelVampire

For this comic, I'm definitely looking forward mostly to finding out about 58's plan since there's a lot of directions the story could go at the moment. I'll be interested to see which path will be taken. Regardless, I hope the creator continues with the color experimentation in the comic since it makes it visually stand out, and it'll be interesting to see how this plays out when the comic is further along.

snuffysam (Super Galaxy Knights)

Yeah for Hope Killerz, what I'm really looking forward to is... more. Like the art is so unique and so stylish, and the characters have interesting motivations behind them, I'm just curious to see where this all pans out.

Comic Tea Party

BOOK CLUB END!

Thank you everyone so much for reading and chatting about HOPE KILLERZ this week! Please also give a special thank you to stc019 for volunteering the comic and creating it! If you liked HOPE KILLERZ, make sure to continue to support it via some of the links below!

Read and Comment: https://tapas.io/series/HOPE-KILLERZ

stc019’s Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/stc019

stc019’s Ko-Fi: https://ko-fi.com/stconineteen

stc019’s Storenvy: http://stc019.storenvy.com/

stc019’s Twitter: https://twitter.com/stc019?lang=en

#ctparchive #comics #webcomics #indie comics #comic chat #comic discussion #book club #bookclub #webcomic book club #webcomic bookclub #comic tea party #ctp #hope killerz #stc019

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kenmaiii · 6 years ago

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stop being jealous and bitter!

Now i know you cant outright just throw away your jealousy in the art community. You see a really cool popular artist or just someone with absolutely amzing art and you think “wow holy shit their art is so good i wish that was me and that i could do that....” I understand that spite can be a good thing sometimes; it can be what motivates you to improve and do well, especially if the artist is well... not the best person in terms of personality. Great, that’s even more motivation to do well right!?

But when does all the comparing go too far?

----------------------------------------long post incoming------------------------------------------

Now i’ve had people very close to me do this. I’ve been told that im ‘popular’ which im honestly not seriously. They could probably be reading this right now, but this has been bothering me for awhile so i must get this out there. Let’s step into a certain mindset for a moment:-

You hate your artwork. You hate your current skills. Sure there are artists you like. But then there are ‘THOSE’ ones. You have very specific artists you follow just because theyre so good and popular they make you feel bitter and you still check up on them regularly to fuel that bitterness. You know good and well that they make you bitter and angry and peeved but you just keep going back.

Step back for a moment and think.... why on earth am i fucking doing this???? Comparing and feeling bitter about another persons skill or popularity and letting yourself stay sad and bitter isn’t good for ANYTHING, art aside. It’s good to want to feel validated at the work you spent time on but it WILL get tiring if you keep complaining that ‘your art is bad’, ‘your art isnt good’, ‘its shit’ or ‘garbage’. Your brain is just internalizing that and hindering your work and future improvement. It’s most importantly WASTING YOUR own time, YOU the creator. And not to sound snobby here, i really truly dont intend for that, but some of you know good and well that you keep belitting you work because you only just want people to compliment your art when youre only doing the bare minimum to improve! I can only tell you as a friend or an on-looker that i love your art so many times (as much i really do love it and hope for your improvement) if you continuously decide to still turn around and say you hate your work and tell me im wrong!!!!!!!!!!!!! Why reach for compliments then! Why continuously turn them down?

And i’m not saying you cant ever not like your art (cause it happens) or decline a compliment, but to do it every single time....it leaves a bad image for your work. You either start to believe it, or the person complimenting you will get put off from your negativity!

It makes people feel bad, especially if theyre also artist AND also your friends. You can’t keep saying you prefer their work and still put down your own. It makes your artist friend uncomfortable. They might not know how to respond when you keep doing it. And im sure they wouldnt want you to keep making yourself feel bad. Personally, i wish all my art friends success and improvement, and i want them to love and feel proud of their work more than the times they hate it. We really need to uplift each other as artists.

Thanks.

What you think and say is what you become and if youre always negative and comparing youre gonna tear down both the person you admire and yourself. Ie, if youre constantly thinking ‘ill never be as good as this person’,’no ones ever gonna like my work’, ‘i cant color as well as they do’ or saying that your work is only ever garbage... newsflash asshole! your mind absorbs that negativity and makes you believe it! u fool!!!!! Because brains are stupid and can be your worst enemy at times!

Sometimes you just need to stOP looking at certain peoples work completely if it gets you that bitter or angry or sad. Unfollow them! Block them! Delete their name from your search history if you have to! Stop hurting yourself and forget about them, it’s like trying to think about an ex thats moved on. Pointless.

Negative emotions such as sadness and anger are our brains direct ways at trying to reach out to ourselves.

You: seeing cool art Your mind: remembering you dont have some of those skills or popularity + comparing = sadness/ anger/ bitterness at not being able to be at that lvl withtin the same timeframe or less

Your brain is trying to tell you to fix this! But you know you might not have the tools to gain that much popularity or become so good at anatomy, coloring , compositions or backgrounds overnight, so the only solution for your brain is to self-sabotage.

It’s just the same as suddenly feeling sad for no reason. It’s your mind trying to work out a problem you never resolved. Maybe your friends haven’t replied in awhile and you feel ignored. Or you subconsciously remembered a bad experience without really realizing. You’ll get sad. Your mind is is saying ‘Hey asshole im sad. I know it might be out of your control but I’ll stay sad about this one thing until you resolve it somehow. ’ (whether it be blindly distracting yourself on purpose or fully wallowing in the feelings)

So we realized youre feeling intensely about this persons work vs your own...then what exactly happened there? The answer is pretty simple. Some kind of information processing happened in your brain. The result of this processing made the your mind conclude that one of your existing problems (art in this case) can never be solved; whether conscious or unconscious, and this explains why your mood might change all of a sudden without any kind of warning signs (in relation to what you saw).

Inspired VS Jealousy When youre inspired youre working against yourself in a GOOD way. You’re feeling motivated to make something great! Youre feeling motivated to make something better than the last piece!! And honestly thats wonderful!!! That is a lot nicer than being in art-block, comparison negativity hell.

YOU are the only one responsible for where you are as an artist. That goes towards every artist of every skill level! There’s always someone better than you and there’s always someone worse than you. People get better at art in different intervals depending on how much they take in or put into practicing. Some people just get some concepts and fundamentals a lot easier and quicker than others but that doesn’t mean they naturally had that ability from birth. They put in the work just as you should be doing instead of feeling so intensely negative! But when you’re jealous and negative all the time, that’s when it starts to go downhill. :/

Jealously is a very human emotion at its core. And im not saying its super easy to deal with and just suddenly get over, but there are things you can do to slowly help yourself do it at least a little less.

Here’s the best things you CAN do instead:- - Write down some of the things you find yourself feeling bitter over about, especially when you look at another artists work? Ask yourself why these specific things? If it’s something you yourself can work on in your own pieces then maybe uh do that? - Find the time to practice your work. - Practice even more. - If it’s your style that you arent happy with think of the artstyles you like and set aside time to mimic the way that artist might draw something (hence adding that to YOUR style). Take a sketchbook page or two and just draw entirely in those styles. - Practice. I can’t stress this enough. I know artists say this a lot and it can kind of just be thrown around carelessly, but if you keep putting this off and saying you don’t want to practice or talking about how time is going by when you should be practicing things.... and STILL refuse to practice then???? I cant help you sorry. Time waits for no one, so sometimes you need to grab time by the horns and kick its ass for awhile. Put in that effort! - Please use references. Even better if you use it nearly EVERYTIME you draw something, especially yknow...if its a pose, body part or background that you know you have no idea how to properly express! Find a stock image or a variety of websites to use! Save poses that you like from online magazines, other artists and photographs you see anywhere online. I like to look at online magazines from other countries or photographers, and there are tons of places like pinterest or instagram and whatnot. - Stop comparing and being bitter. Ii cant say this enough it gets me so ticked off, but my stubborn taurus self refuses to fully go off until it all piles up and this post is the result lol. If you know you can’t let go hating on a certain artist (for no good reason) then dont hate-follow them! Don’t check up on their work constantly! Don’t even talk about them!!!!!!! Try to get them out of your head for goodness sakes. Majority of the time they dont even know who YOU are so why are you worried about what they’re up to. - STOP SHITTING ON YOUR OWN WORK. - STOP IT RIGHT NOW. - AS THE ARTIST SOMETIMES YOU HAVE TO FORCE YOURSELF TO SAY ‘’hey, my work isn’t exactly where i want it to be at this point in time and it may never be but i can appreciate that i’ve gotten better at a lot of things and im better than where i was a few years/ a year/ a month ago/ even weeks ago.” - ”I’m proud of this piece and can’t wait to get even better.” - Art is a struggle that takes time, effort and a lot of work. There’s always going to be someone better than you and there’s always going to be someone worse than you. You can only strive to get to the level that would make you happiest, otherwise you will get irritated with it and feel absolutely miserable about everything you produce. - PUT IN THE WORK TO GET YOUR ART OUT THERE. Social media has been both a curse and a blessing to artists all around. It’s made it easier for us to share our work around and opened paths for making money online and at home and connecting with other artists, but competition grows everyday as more people post their work in the same market. (ie another reason why it can be hard to get your commissions out there) Also as artists we want that dopamine rush you get from people liking your stuff, i get that its gucci. -But if you aren’t tagging your works well, posting somewhat consistently, not really bothering to talk to people in certain art communities (even people in your fandom because hey potential friends and even partners on future projects), not adding your works to groups (a big problem i see with people on places like deviantart mostly), joining and sharing them in art group chats/aminos/discords, joining events to get yourself out there (such as zines/big bangs/gift exchanges etc), giving tips and advice or even little helpful tutorials to people then how do you expect to be noticed? How. If youre not doing at least TWO of these things then hoW can you complain about not getting attention. :(

Of course you dont have to do ALL of this. Im just saying ...if you arent out there advertising how will more people know about you? This leads to you thinking no one likes your art (skill level excluded because even my cringiest old art would have a few comments or encouragements to see my future improvement, and i still want to hide when people like/comment/reblog said old art to this very day).

I understand mainly OC artists feel this way that no ones gonna like their characters, or it just doesnt get reblogged enough in general but thats understandable too. No one is ‘selling out’ if they only do fanart. No one is ‘snobby or scared to get themselves out there’ if theyre really enthusiastic about their stories and worlds. Otherwise we wouldnt have fandoms int he first place, theyre all someones work. And hell, good for you if you draw both. It really is just a matter of how you put yourself out there!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

It’ll take some time but there IS always someone out there that likes your stuff. And sometimes you just have to be content with making work for yourself, work that makes you happy. The online art world is tough especially when youre small but once you fall into the depths of bitterness its hard to rewire your mind...

This is how yall should be looking at your/others work majority of the time: You: seeing cool art Your mind: omg thats beautiful! i wish i could draw and paint like that. i should practice more , try out some poses and anatomy or implement what they do into my work. i wanna make a cool ass piece like this too i feel so pumped to draw and work!!

And that’s that! Do yourself a favor and be happier you bastards! Its tiring being negative and sad all the time and i want tf out of it. Its so very tiring and annoying to be sad and bitter as shit!!!!! My goD

I can’t really think of anything else to add to this and the text may appear angry sometimes as i was very heated when i wrote this but tried to tone it down a lot hfkds. Im not some ‘art guru goddess with supreme skill uwuw’ but advice is advice! It’s always up to the person listening to take it or not.

I’m gonna end this with one of my favorite art quotes of all time from t h e Arin Hanson himself. Because it really is true.

Get yourself out there, practice towards a level that makes you content and try to have more fun with loving your work.

It’s taken me a long while to post this, as i’ve been feeling this way for...at least a couple months??? but i finally put it all out there i just needed to do this lol. Sorry if i mightve repeated info sometimes here and there?

This post is just as much of a call out to my own actions but more so @ those of you that specifically do this!

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incompletionism · 3 years ago

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Hands On with...Tunic

A green-garbed hero wakes up on an island. Their mission - retrieve a sword & shield and get to work vanquishing evil. Sounds familiar? Well this hero’s the cutest I’ve ever seen. And a fox. (Disclaimer: The author of this piece is acquaintances with one of the developers of TUNIC and received a few hints from them on where to find things over the course of the demo.) Tunic is an adorable isometric action-adventure game that wears its inspiration from the Legend of Zelda series on its sleeve. From the clay-like character models to rows of rubbery grass, you might think this is coming on the tails of 2019’s Link’s Awakening Remake, but Tunic was unveiled by publisher Finji back in 2017. Despite some similar aesthetics, Tunic is very much it’s own beast, so I’ll try to keep comparisons light. Now, an unexpected source of inspiration for the game (that admittedly didn’t click until I saw so many people posting about it) is Dark Souls.

You’re probably familiar with the ‘Souls-like’ formula : kill-kill-kill as you explore ruins or a town (or even ruins of a town), die over and over to scary ghouls as you slowly learn their strategies and weaknesses, and uncover a shortcut or two as you go. All of this applies just as easily to my time with Tunic and the grimness of repeated deaths is an interesting contrast to the game’s cute artstyle. And what an artstyle it is! I know I’ve already made my feelings clear already, but the banquet of cute details - like how the (canonically nameless) Tunic Fox takes the time to give every enemy they walk past a good look - made my six hours with the demo a delight.

Sunlight filters through the leaves as the waves lap the shore and armoured feet pound the cobblestone, all with the same level of care put into them. Everything in the demo was a treat to the eyes and ears thanks to the art of Eric Billingsley and developer Andrew Shouldice, not to mention Power Up Audio’s excellent work on the sound effects. The demo -- which presents itself as a “remix” of the final game on its faux manual page -- is crammed with secrets and gives a good picture of what the core gameplay loop is going to be : explore the island, slay/run away from beasties, keep an eye on your stamina meter so you can keep dodging and blocking attacks, collect stronger weapons to defeat more powerful enemies, pray at shrines to respawn at them when you inevitably get blown up by a Slorm, and - whatever you do - do NOT try to fight the giant skeleton. Dubbed “Mr Bones” by those lucky enough to play Tunic’s demo during its limited-time availability at Gamescom’s Indie Arena Booth two weeks ago, the giant skeleton lingers off the beaten track and hints at the difficulty curve to come in the final game. Only after I scooped up every health potion around the island (love the fox’s swig animation, by the way) and bombarded Bones with a barrage of bombs was I able to defeat them.

It’s likely Tunic will wall off things for later in the story this way, which feels faaaaaar more organic than an invisible wall or the “I don’t want to do that” monologue of other games. In fact, there won’t be any monologues in Tunic at all if the demo’s anything to go off of. No text either. Every sign you come across while exploring the island is plastered in a series of indecipherable glyphs and the occasional picture - with the exception of the SEALED FOREVER message when you try to open an enormous gold door to the north of the starting area that I think was only put there so demo players wouldn’t waste too much time trying to jam the collectible gold medals inside of it’s medal-shaped crevices.

The aforementioned manual (which you appear to be able to collect pages from) also has a smattering of English, but largely just so players know what the button’s do. Quite a departure from Finji’s last game - the text-heavy Chicory - but Tunic should have no trouble reaching an international audience from launch as a result. Coming at some point in the next century (my money’s on a surprise release early next year - based on nothing at all) to Xbox and STEAM as what I believe to be a timed exclusive, Tunic is the action adventure game that’s far more than a Zelda-like. Will you be buying this game day one, and why is the answer ‘yes’? Do tell in the comments. And if you liked this piece, consider supporting my emigration to a single blog. https://catherinebroxton.blogspot.com/2021/09/hands-on-withtunic.html

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madameyavi-blog · 7 years ago

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How we make games - about workflow, things from the past and lessons we learned

I like to seperate the games we make into two categories: Game Jam games and actual™ games. For those of you who might not be familiar with the term – a Game Jam is basically an event where people make a game in a very short amount of time, like two days just for example. In most cases there‘s also a given theme the game should (but must not) match. But that‘s not the kind of stuff I want to talk about today, let‘s save that for another post (we participated in three jams last month so I have a lot to recount :‘D) Let‘s focus on the latter – the actual™ games. We‘ve made two so far. Intra-System: Trust Issues, our very first game, and Flufftopia. When it comes to the work process these two have nothing in common though. That‘s because we were a three person team when working on Intra-System. Not long after we started working on the next project (which was Devastated: Andrew‘s Dictaphone) we parted ways with our former programmer due to some personal stuff. Also Devastated was meant to be a completely different game at that point, but I‘ll save that for another post too (damn, while writing this I get so many ideas for future posts :‘D). And at that point we decided to put Devastated on ice because we needed to restructure the team. I only made the graphical stuff for Intra-System and Daniel wrote the story, made music/sounds and coordinated the overall workflow. We decided to stay a two person team and not search for a new programmer simply because we realized that doing everything on our own seemed to work best for us. We also wanted to be as independent as possible. Well, that meant that one of us needed to start learning something programming related though.

At that point I sat down and basically spent two months doing nothing else but gathering as much knowledge as possible about the Unity engine. We decided to pick Unity for various reasons: 1. Real™ programming, a framework etc. wasn‘t an option because I had no programming background at all and it would have taken too long to learn that much. We wanted to be able to continue with games ASAP. 2. We were mostly focusing on 2D games at that point and Unity seemed to provide everything we needed. We of course could also have chosen a more 2D focused engine like GameMaker or RPG Maker but we wanted something that was capable of 3D too because we knew we would want to make 3D stuff in the future and learning different engines for both seemed redundant. 3. Unity‘s pricing policy was the one we most likely could live with. So that’s why we didn’t end up using Unreal and whatnot. So yeah, I made a very small very shitty clicker/idle/incremental game (why are there so many names for these?) in the learning process which really isn‘t worth talking about. Let‘s just say that Daniel was bald at that time and I took this as a theme for the game. The game is completely in German though because I didn‘t think that I would ever show it to more than 10 people.

And around that time we came up with the idea for Flufftopia. We really enjoy experimenting with existing genres so we thought of ways to mess with the clicker game thing a bit. Eventually Daniel came up with the basic idea for the story and the twist. I don‘t want to tell too much because it would take off a lot of the experience – you can check it out yourself if you want to. It‘s free and should only take you 20-40 minutes. The first thing I wanted to have was an artstyle. When talking about the idea I imagined something supercute and I think I didn‘t fail that too hard. First of all I drew a background to get an overall feeling of the direction I wanted it to take. At that point I didn‘t really know where the background would eventually end up. Now it‘s the main menu.

The designs for the unlockable buildings and the basic idea for the Fluffs, the residents of Flufftown (I still love how fluffy all of this sounds ♥) followed.

After that I felt all of the fluffiness deep in my heart and was ready to start putting things together. Fortunately I was able to reuse some code from the first clicker game thing so I had some basic stuff going on pretty fast. But then we started putting in the story aspects and more features… and that‘s when everything started to go south. Let me tell you one thing: simply following tutorials and trying to figure stuff out on your own are two very different animals. Especially if you basically don‘t have a clue of what you are doing there.

It‘s working! But why? It‘s not working! BUT WHY?!

I‘m glad that I don‘t have that struggle that often anymore. I still do, but I sometimes think I know what the problem is. I‘m wrong most of the time, but that‘s how learning works I guess. Also: Another reason for choosing Unity! The community is huge and it‘s very likely that someone has had a problem you are having right now before. There are thousands of entries in the forums and up until now I always found something that could help me out. Back to Flufftopia. I really like to run off the track. We managed to finish it somehow. The last weeks before release were pretty tough though. We needed to delay the release and cut many things we initially wanted to have in the game. A save system for example. And a second game mode. And much more. I simply wasn‘t capable of these things at the time. Especially in the short amount of time we had left. Lesson learned: Try not to bite off more than you can chew. You most likely will anyways, but at least try not to. But nevertheless the feedback we got for the game was unexpectedly positive – with over 3000 downloads it was our most successful game up until now. We also definitely want to make a large update somewhen in the future to hand in all the stuff we wanted to be in the game later. If you want to know even more details about the development and release, I recommend you to read this article Daniel wrote some time ago. Is the stuff I‘m telling you even interesting? I don‘t know. But that‘s it for Flufftopia. There‘s one more thing I‘d like to talk about in this post. When people ask what our specific tasks are we often answer with something like „Angela does art and programming and Daniel does the rest.“ And that often seems to confuse people. They assume that it’s me who‘s doing all the work. And that‘s absolutely not the case. First of all – Daniel is the idea guy. I wouldn‘t consider myself a creative person when it comes to coming up with game ideas, concepts and stories. I like being creative in graphical art for example but I need a base to work with. Also sound is something that shouldn‘t be underestimated. Many people don‘t realize how much of the atmosphere rises and falls with sound. And even though I kind of make music from time to time (up until now I made the title track for Flufftopia and that‘s it X‘D) it‘s mostly Daniel who‘s taking care of these things. Also he‘s the one coordinating everything. And when I say everything I mean everything. I‘m a total disaster when it comes to anything related to organization. So yeah, that‘s something he‘s taking care of too. All day. Every day. Thank you, Daniel. He also started to learn 3D modeling because that‘s of course something you need when making 3D games. And he‘s doing pretty well. And I‘m pretty thankful for that because I wanted to learn using Blender once and I rage quitted because it‘s… well, let‘s just say it‘s a very special program and I can be a very impatient person sometimes. So Daniel started making sinks and toilets for some reason. But hey, I think they look pretty cool!

And then there‘s also marketing and PR of course. And all the other stuff I don‘t want to take care of. And he makes amazing coffee!

#gamedev #indiedev #indiegames #devblog #game development #game dev blog #post mortem

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espytalks · 7 years ago

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I just finished Explorers of Sky last night, so hunker down, folks, this review is long.

The Pokemon Mystery Dungeon series has been one that has stuck with me since I was a child. I remember the first time I woke up in Blue Rescue Team as a mudkip, and made friends with my partner to rescue innocent pokemon in need. It was a fun time, and I absolutely loved the story. The ending was one of a few games that made me cry, and when I played through the sequel, Explorers of Darkness as a bulbasaur, it was even more emotional.

For quite a while now, I’ve been feeling nostalgic. Playing through earthbound for the first time got me in the mood for more retro games, so when looking through the eshop on the Wii U, I was excited to see Explorers of Sky on the virtual console. It was the version I played the most, so when I saw how cheap it was (it was 10 bucks?? wow????) I jumped on the chance to play it again after all these years.

Let me just say, first of all, that the opening theme to the Pokemon Mystery Dungeon games is nothing short of iconic. When I started the game and saw the opening cutscene about a week ago, my heart leapt for joy. It felt like no time had passed since the last time I played this game, laying underneath my covers on a school night, as I fought through dungeons and explored far off places. It’s not to often that music affects me so strongly in a game, but the music in the Pokemon Mystery Dungeon series holds a very special place in my heart.

And I'm proud to say as an artist myself that this game is absolutely gorgeous. The pixel art is bright and colorful, and the cinematic shots that scroll across the top and bottom screens are just as beautiful now as they were when I was a kid. I’d love to redraw some of my favorite scenes in this game, like the opening of the game - a beach at sunset, with bubbles blown by krabby floating gently in the wind, or the shots of the underground lakes with the time gears in the distance.

The gameplay is simple but fun. Your goal is to navigate mazes to find the exit to the next floor. There are useful items scattered throughout the maze, and there are enemy pokemon that more often than not you end up having to fight. Just like any pokemon game, you have four attacks maximum, and you gain experience from winning battles. You also have a basic weak attack that doesn’t use up your main moveset’s PP, or power points.

Depending on what your mission is, you either need to explore a dungeon entirely, or navigate it partially in order to rescue pokemon, or apprehend outlaw pokemon. For most of the game, random pokemon may want to become a member of your team, which can come in handy sometimes, especially if you’re going to fight a boss at the end of the dungeon.

As for the story, it opens up like most PMD games: you, a human, wake up to find you are now a pokemon, with no memory of who you were before aside from your name. This time, your partner finds you unconscious on the beach at sunset. After you tell them about how you’re a human, they are robbed by two mean looking pokemon, and your partner asks you to help them recover thier precious treasure, which they call the Relic Fragment.

After the two of you recover your partner’s stolen treasure, they ask you to join them in becoming aprentences at Wigglytuff’s guild, which is a guild full of pokemon who all are training to become explorers. The guildmaster Wigglytuff allows the two of you to join, and you begin your adventure as an exploration team.

Together, the two of you uncover the mystery of your mysterious power to see the past and future related to certain objects, discover why time has been flowing so strangely in certain places, and face off against powerful enemies, and eventually save the world from falling into darkness. You bond with your partner and become close friends, and they rely on you for the strength to be brave in the face of danger.

All in all, it’s a very charming game. It’s somewhat simple, and the characters have very clear personalities, which is understandable, considering this is a game aimed at children. But for what it’s worth, it doesn’t treat you like your a child. It’s simple and clear, sure, and a bit repetitive in dialogue, but I think it makes the characters very memorable and distinct from each other. They’re not stereotypical for the most part, and most npcs have lots of unique dialogue if you care to talk to them. It’s completely optional, but I feel like it gives the world more depth, seeing all the unique pokemon living together and talking about current events, especially since some of them have unique opinions from most. It makes me care about these pokemon, and I want to save the world for them because I like them, and I want them to live happily in peace.

I had a wonderful time playing this game again now that I’m an adult. My experience was somewhat different now that I’m older, wiser, and actually knew the whole story before I played, but it was a fun time nonetheless. It was relatively easy compared to games I play now, but between the artstyle, the story, the music, and the characters, It made up for it completely.

Whether you’re looking for a good game for your kid, or you’re a pokemon fan yourself looking for a good entry point to the PMD series, I highly recommend playing Explorers of Sky. This version is identical to Explorers of Time and Darkness, but with added pokemon and (if I remember right) more post-game content, as well as extra missions themed around some of the other pokemon in the game. You’ll get slightly more from it, but any of the three games would be good if you just want to play through it casually for the story. Explorers of sky just happens to be my personal favorite version in the franchise, and continues to be one of my all-time favorite games.

#espy talks #i'm sorry if this doesn't show the break on mobile cause it's very long #but ya know i like writing what i think about games #i remember wanting to be a book reviewer when i was a kid and read a lot #...video games are kinda like books right?

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