#I really like watching reviews for games that I'm never going to play. especially since I'm not allowed to play horror games | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

mercurialmalcontent · 6 months ago

Text

Spoiler-free DA:TV Review

tl;dr -- I thought it was fantastic.

When I found out we were really for real getting a new Dragon Age game, I was interested but not excited. It had been ten years since DAI released and I'd made my peace with us never getting another one years ago, so my reaction was oh, that's cool, maybe I'll get it on sale later. As release came closer and I saw more about the game I got more interested, enough so that when I suddenly had some spare cash I decided I'd get it on release after all.

I ended up barely able to put it down for two solid weeks.

The Dragon Age writing team wove together all the many, many story threads they spun out over the previous three games into one glorious tapestry. None of the story felt like it came out of nowhere or any sort of gotchya, but that it was carefully and expertly crafted into what unfolded before my eyes.

The story is also focused in a way that Origins and DAI were not. No more meandering aimlessly around a map or ultimately pointless fetch quests; every sidequest ties into the story and has direct results… as do your decisions. There will be things that come back to haunt you, because all hard decisions have consequences, after all.

The rest is under a cut for length.

On a character level, for once I didn't feel like any of the companions were extraenous. They're all integral in their areas of expertise and, as far as I could tell in one lengthy playthrough, all have a lot of reactivity to one another (and apparently other non-companion NPCs). It's worth switching your party up regularly and going back to base after every quest to see who's chatting with who and who has new things to say to you. I'm absolutely certain I missed a ton of stuff because I'd get so caught up in questing and exploring and didn't return to base often in early game.

For the player character, Rook is less of a blank slate than the Inquisitor or HoF, but more of one than Hawke. They very much have a base personality suited to someone who can build trust and lead a team, but you have a lot of flexibility in how to express that. Mimir, for example, I played as largely stoic and decisive with a few places he was pushed into a snarling rage, but when he independently acted a little goofy and awkward after building up some trust with his team, it still made sense -- after all, how is he going to build trust if he can't unclench once in a while? I played into that in his more vulnerable moments and it worked really well for me.

I was also delighted that his background came into play far, far more frequently than I could have guessed. I chose Mourn Watch because it sounded interesting, but I had my doubts about how tied into the story it would really be. However, I got quite a few Mourn Watch-specific responses and a TON of dialogue whenever anything to do with their domain came up. Mimir was able to talk shop extensively with the Mourn Watch companion and it felt like they understood each other on a deeper level, especially coming from a culture considered weird and creepy by most of Thedas. (Some players may still find Nevarran customs weird and creepy, but personally I thought they handled death in an interesting and respectful way.)

Rook's race also plays a part in how they participate in conversations. Mimir is an elf, and while I got the occassional elf-specific option, he would often indepedently speak from an elvish perspective in relevant conversations. I really enjoyed him feeling like a part of the world without me having to make it happen.

As far as the moment-to-moment gameplay goes, I had a great time. Maps were fun to traverse, with multiple levels and full of (relatively simple but still satisfying) puzzles to get to hidden areas and secret chests. There are some jumping puzzles, but they're pretty forgiving (if you almost-but-don't-quite make a jump, Rook will grab on and haul themself up) and there's no fall damage; any fall that would have killed you just respawns you where you jumped. Maybe this takes the 'stakes' out for some people, but I'm glad they cut out the annoyance.

The combat is fast and fun, if a little frantic once the game starts throwing five to ten enemies at you at once. (I recommend playing with a controller if you can.) I went straight Adventurer (normal) difficulty and only had to use a revive a handful of times, but there's a lot of customization so you can tweak things to get gameplay you prefer. (There's also a wealth of other accessibility options too; the fixed point always on screen saved me from constant motion sickness.) If you don't want to change difficulties but still struggle, check your build; you can redo your point allocation for free any time outside of combat. I started having a hard time with my scattershot choices at around level 20, but when I refunded my points and went straight for a specialization before branching out, I was suddenly hitting a lot harder.

While I do have my nitpicks, they're pretty inconsequential. I only have two real gripes -- one is that it's not entirely clear when you're going to a one-time-only map. Unfortunately these maps are also littered with treasure and codex entries that you'll miss forever if you skip them. Being on an ostensibly time-sensitive mission but knowing you're going to miss a bunch of stuff if you don't explore is a buzzkill.

The other is more petty but still really annoyed me, and that's that enemies can block your attacks even when you're standing directly behind them. I thought maybe I was reading the screen wrong until J watched me play a bit and asked, "Uh, why was he able to block you from behind??" Good question! I grumbled "This doesn't happen in Elden Ring" far too often.

I'll be playing the game again at least a couple more times; I'm really interested in seeing how the story feels from the perspective of other races and factions, and I always have a good time in taking a closer look at how the story falls into place once I know how it plays out.

#dragon age #da:tv #veilguard

18 notes · View notes

littlealeta · 8 months ago

Text

Telltale's The Walking Dead Season 2 Review

Long post! Scroll down for a TL;DR and Aleta Rewrites Version!

I had a lot of thoughts after watching a LP of this season, but I decided to go back to the first season to see how it holds up against this one. I always felt this season was a little off, but I wasn't sure. While the first one isn't amazing, it was still a lot better than whatever this season was. But even without playing the first one, this season Is still badly written in general so I'm not going to compare the two much.

Story

To start with the positives, there are some good ideas in here. Seeing how Clementine has grown since the first season and the themes of figuring out who to trust and side with are good themes to explore. However, the execution of these things are horrible. The game doesn't actually explore the trust theme much, your choices do not have much impact on the theme of your story or the characters, the trust theme gets thrown out the window by the time Carver is introduced and you are forced to stick with this group of shady people, and Clementine is treated like an adult and forced to babysit all the pathetic adults around her.

First of all, the intro tells you all you need to know. A random b!tch comes in to bully and threaten our 10-year-old protagonist (who has never even met her in the first place), Omid and Christa are both written out of the story, and a dog dies, all happened 30 minutes in. Jeez, relax, story. Spoiler alert, yes, Christa does not come back. And Clementine just decides to forget about her. The beginning of the game does a good job of showing you how pointless and melodramatic the rest of the story will be.

The next episode has Clementine seeking help for her dog bite. No one believes her and decides to lock her in the shed. God, this season is mean-spirited. Even I think Lee was treated better in season 1 than Clementine A FUCKING CHILD. I get being worried about it being a walker bite, but why lock a literal child in a shed, like have some mercy, man.

I will explain more about the story in the character section. But what I will say is that overall, there are a lot of quick deaths and characters getting written off, so don't get too attached to these characters, because you won't get to bond with them too much. None of the characters really get much time to grow or shine due to the story writing them off 1-2 episodes in. There was potential for Nick and Luke to grow, but they both die before that can happen.

After Carver dies, the story seems to struggle with figuring out where to go. As terrible of a villain Carver is, at least he has some point to the story unlike a certain Russian guy who comes out of nowhere and the story wants you to sympathize with despite trying to kill you TWICE. Oh, and Kenny comes back... somehow.... and the story makes him out to be a bad guy all because he was trying to whip all the manbabies up into shape and protect everyone from the russian b!tch who ambushed them. In no way am I saying Kenny is a saint or that the way he approaches situations are always healthy, but the game makes him out to be a madman and everyone else is morally correct or sympathetic when everyone in the group are fucking manbabies except for Clem.

The ending is a mixed bag. I would say the choice between leaving Kenny for Wellington (due to overpopulation) or staying with him is one of the few times where I think the game makes actual sense. But the fight with him and Jane before that just feels so forced. It's just again, the game trying to prove to you through this annoyingly cynical woman that Kenny is a bad man and shouldn't be around Clem. So she does something completely heartless to try to prove that to Clem, when I'm sure many (especially a hothead like Kenny) who found out their baby was left to die would probably react that way or close to it. Why couldn't this b!tch have stayed gone? Why am I supposed to like these characters?

Characters

Nearly every character here is just unlikeable, forgettable and dumb. They are so dumb that they literally make Clementine do all the dirty work while they sit there with a thumb up their asses. I even forgot to write a couple characters into this section because they were just that unmemorable. Even the characters that I liked have their own problems.

For example, Pete is probably one of the characters that I liked more, he's one of the more rational adults and has one of the few deaths that made sense. I also like Alvin too, his love and commitment to raising the baby that may or may not be his is admirable and his death at least serves a purpose. Luke is perhaps the most rational adult in the group, but he can make some dirty coward decisions (like for example, running away from the group twice (yeah another way the story tries to keep you from bonding with these characters) and refusing to shoot Carver) and he acts out of character in episode 4. Thankfully, he mellows out in episode 5 and we get to see more of his personality as he pities himself for not doing more for the group. But then he dies, so goodbye character development.

Kenny is still the same, sometimes an asshole but also loveable and kind. Clementine is still Clementine, with a bit more sass and edge which is to be expected. I personally would've liked more done with her, but I'll explain more in an Aleta Rewrites version.

I'm in the minority when I say that Sarah (Aka Futaba) is a good character. A lot of people call her useless, but I think she's a worthwhile example of what would happen if you shelter someone in an apocalypse and she can make for some good back and forth with Clementine. I would've liked to see how she grows, but she also becomes an annoying burden and then just dies. I understand she's coping with PTSD and her father dying, I have no problem with that. But girl, you are in a zombie apocalypse and you're just sitting there letting yourself die in a house. Come on, now.

Now, for the problematic characters. Nick is just Ben 2.0 but more hotheaded and less likeable. His whole deal with Matthew made no sense because he claims that he shot Matthew for allegedly pointing a gun at his friends, but HE was the one who drew the gun first before Matthew so why he shot him, I don't understand. I think there could've been a better way to keep this storyline intact without having him going insane thinking Matthew was going to kill Clementine and Luke.

Carlos and Rebecca are just straight up assholes to Clem in the beginning and Carlos treats Clementine like she's his own FUCKING ANXIETY RIDDEN DAUGHTER, WHAT?!?!?! Like I said, I think it's interesting to show the ramifications of sheltering someone in an apocalypse but I just can't get over these two being the ones to push the bright idea of letting a little girl suffer in a shed. I would say Rebecca's story with the baby is cute, though.

Sarita... doesn't really have much personality. She's a pretty likeable character, but I think there could've been more to do with her (see the Aleta Rewrites version).

Mike was ok until he started whiteknighting Arvo. Bonnie was a weird character. At first, she sides with Carver, but then she joins the group and is on their side while also making some dumb decisions like *coughs* Getting Luke killed on the lake *coughs* and also whiteknighting Arvo.

Jane just gave off so many red flags. She's cynical, always telling Clementine the worst that could happen like Sarah being dead after losing her glasses and Kenny being a bad person. She has a hidden evil side (willing to leave a baby in the car out in the cold). She gets involved with Luke for whatever reason. And she just seems like an extremely twisted character overall while trying to keep up the cool, nice girl act.

Carver and especially Arvo are both horrible villains. I felt like something interesting could've been done with Carver, he wants to raise the baby that may or may not be his, but he was such a confusing character. On one hand, his motivations seem clear, he wants to get rid of Alvin and help Rebecca raise the baby. But then he has another motivation is that he is a ruthless Karen who wants everyone to work with him and will hurt them if they make even the tiniest mistake. Arvo just feels completely out of the blue. Even if you didn't make the choice to steal the supplies, you still get ambushed by his group. He's clearly a villain yet the game wants you to sympathize with him at the same time. Also a confusing mess of a character.

Gameplay/Animation/Voice Acting

What about the gameplay? Well, besides me not liking the QTE events, the gameplay is still relatively the same and I don't have much to complain about it. Overall, the gameplay and the technical aspects such as the animation and voice acting are still competent. But I'm a writer first and foremost so I focus on the writing more and don't have much to say about anything else.

Overall/TL;DR

I give The Walking Dead Season 2 5.5 bells out of 10.

It was pretty hard to rate. I mean, I have so many mixed feelings about this season and I don't think it's an awful season, but it does so much wrong in terms of writing. I don't want to be too mean to it because I think it's playable at best, it didn't make me want to rip my hair out. The gameplay is competent and there are a few characters to like here (though, it really doesn't help that pretty much every likeable character is killed off and have issues of their own).

But overall, the story rarely makes sense and is just overall mean-spirited and melodramatic, filled with pointless deaths, dumb character decisions, and characters being assholes. One character from the first season gets treated like a villain despite being one of the more rational characters in the group. Characters die before they have much time to develop. Clementine is an 11 year old who's either treated like the only sane adult or treated like a clueless child. Story throws in a bunch of random conflict that throws off the pacing and consistency. Both Carver and Arvo yo-yo between being somewhat sympathetic characters (at least in how the story portrays them) to completely ruthless classic villains. Even the more likeable characters have their own problems, usually as a result of dying off too soon. Or even just other things like Luke being out of character in episode 4 and Sarah becoming an empty husk before her death. Sarita is an anomaly in that she's not an asshole, but pretty much a blank slate.

Aleta Rewrites

Clementine has no character development whatsoever and is somehow a cold, blood-thirsty killer and wise way beyond her years after only two years. Instead of being this static Mary-Sue, why not give her a coming of age story? Show her as a still sensitive, naive little girl losing her innocence as she makes some big choices and sacrifices. Make her hesitate a bit and freak out over the stuff she is doing and going through. Show a major breakdown over everything she's going through. She doesn't need to be a Sarah, but she does still need to have some vulnerability. This could make her bond with the adults (especially Luke and Kenny) much more dynamic and emotional. And THEN by season 3, we can see a cold, cynical, blood-thirsty Clementine, hardened by everything she had to go through, especially in season 2.

Luke. He should've survived at least up until season 3. I could see him having a more heroic death where he sacrifices himself for Clem. If he was able to survive longer, I think he would've had some great character development. Either it's going to be him making less stupid choices, or having to make more morally grey choices in order to survive.

Sarah (aka Futaba). They at least should've kept her until season 3 as well. Maybe season 3 would be the development of Sarah struggling to become more of a badass.

Nick, like I said, the guilt about a huge mistake he made is a good concept to explore. It was just the way it was done didn't make sense. They could've done the simple thing of having Matthew pull out his gun on him first, being suspicious about the group, which then causes Nick to shoot him. Nick could've survived a little bit longer as he tries to make up for his misdeeds, and maybe he dies while doing so.

Sarita, how about having some drama come with being a replacement goldfish for Katjaa? Since Kenny is an emotionally unstable character, maybe he and Sarita don't really get along that much and he's only using her as a rebound. But Sarita doesn't want to break up because she kinda loves him and she wants to keep him happy, it's a codependent issue.

Jane, I think is one of the characters that possibly could've been written out in this season. She's a strong and smart character, so after teaching the group all her skills, having her die instead of Luke maybe during an all is lost moment for the characters would be emotional and would cause the group to go frantic, if only she was a more likeable and loyal character.

Carver. Focus more on his motivation of trying to raise the baby. Considering that the story tries to make him sympathetic at some points, maybe don't imply he r@ped Rebecca in his backstory? I just feel like having that kind of topic even for a villain makes a character instantly unsympathetic and irredeemable. Maybe he was an old fling or flame and she used Alvin as a rebound or another fling that became a relationship or something, idk. Maybe Carver is someone who constantly steals from the group or is an assassin working for someone to kill someone or two in Carlos's group in order to make enough dough to raise the baby.

I could see Arvo being a minor villain to the story if you choose to steal the supplies, but he overstays his welcome. Instead of Arvo, BONNIE should've been the secondary antagonist after Carver. Actually, have HER turn out to be the one who wanted Carver to work for her in assassinating someone. She was initially allied with Carver when the group first talked to her so it'd make sense she'd want revenge after his death. We don't have to have that whole lake bullshit. We don't have to have Bonnie blaming Clementine for someone's death and then turning her back on her while allowing someone to point a damn gun at Clem. JUST MAKE HER WANT VENGEANCE! Seriously, how hard is it to make her be the one to shoot Luke in the leg and Clementine causing her near-death experience? Or idk, that would conflict with Arvo. Maybe don't have him in the story at all. Unless maybe Arvo gets one of your allies killed (maybe Mike, who probably lets himself die in order to make up for stealing the supplies, But also, Mike doesn't do anything so maybe he should die at some point in the story anyway by either Bonnie or Arvo).

Kenny and Luke already had tension built up for episodes and with Kenny gradually losing more and more of his sanity, it would make sense for HIM to be the one to attack Luke because their tension reached a breaking point and Luke did something that he strongly disagreed with. Maybe it was stupid, maybe it got someone killed. Maybe it was Sarita? She was the closest to Kenny.

19 notes · View notes

guiltymepleasures · 1 year ago

Text

[Series Review] Trillion Game (2023)

8/10

Full disclosure. I saw so many clips of this that I decided to watch it. And yes, I decided to watch the live-action of My Happy Marriage because of those clips too.

I already saw it on Netflix and was curious but I didn't really want to add it to my long "to-watch" list. But here we are.

I only know two things when I decided to click on that first ep: one, that it was based on a manga and two, that the two actors from My Happy Marriage were here.

The premise was so preposterous you just know you're setting yourself up for yet another drama with impossible feats - and I wasn't wrong. There is no way their start-up company would rise up that quickly. But hey, I stayed for the cast.

Meguro Ren played one-half of the duo, the mastermind and master manipulator, Tennoji Haru, and he did it splendidly. I haven't read the manga so I couldn't really compare it but he gave off that conman street smarts with skills to the dot. He was awfully smiley here too so that was a bonus.

The other half, Taira Manabu, was played by Sano Hayato and though I enjoyed him being the kindhearted computer genius, I can't really say much more about his acting here. This is my first time seeing him and he was okay. He was painfully awkward as his character demanded him to be so there's that. We never really learned why Haru calls him Gaku. I thought we were gonna get a flashback. (Or maybe it was explained but it flew over my head.)

Completing the unlikely trio (from the OG duo) is the adorably cute Takahashi Rinrin played by Fukumoto Riko. I liked her character so much, especially her Torinrin AI ego. It was my first time seeing her in a drama as well and she kept reminding me of another actress. She was the moral compass the group badly needed (of course since Haru didn't have one and Gaku mostly followed Haru).

My favorite character (and actor) hands down was Kokuryu Kirika, played by Imada Mio. First of all, I never realized how deep (and sultry) her voice is. Or maybe she deliberately made it that way for her character, but I loved it. I love her in her boss bitch era. And her looks! Slay after slay! Okay, enough about her because I would be gushing.

The plot points of the drama were so outrageous (join a competition and blatantly cheat to win; make an AI online app but wait, it's not really AI and we will answer all inquiries real-time anywhere; make a game but not really, just say we're making it to get investors). It was a rollercoaster but it was enjoyable if you just go with the flow.

When I say, I stayed for the cast, I think you know which two I meant. I wanted to know what would happen to their characters but alas, this is not a romance manga and we only get a few sprinkles of interactions in each episode. And guess what, I ate those up. They make up 5 of the 8 points I gave tbh. I also liked the Gaku/Rinrin moments. I don't know if these (and the Haru/Kirika) interactions were in the manga or just additions in the series.

So yeah, they said "See you next game!" so I'm going to wait if that actually happens. I also want to know Haru's actual motivation because he clearly doesn't want a trillion dollars just for the heck of it.

#trillion game #meguro ren #imada mio #sano hayato #fukumoto riko #tennoji haur #gaku #taira manabu #kokuryu kirika #takahashi rinrin

14 notes · View notes

edogawa-division · 8 months ago

Note

It was late in the evening when Kaoru was called out of her lab for the umpth time today. Of course, she was pretty much used to it at this point. After all, unlike other days, today was her birthday. Normally, her mother and younger sister didn't bother her unless it was important. But today was not one of those days since a multitude of gifts was not waiting for Kaoru in the family's living room, which put a huge grin on the birthday woman's face.

The first was a video game. One known as Armored Core VI: Fires of Rubicon, a rather old game that recently got a remake. Though it came out a year ago, it was still fairly new and popular, especially among action fans. Tapped to the back of it was a note, which read:

'Dear Kaoru,

Happy birthday! Hope it's going really well for you! I heard from Kanra that you got a giant robot for your birthday?! For reals?! You're so lucky! You have to promise to let me ride it sometime! Anyway, speaking of giant robots, I bought this game for you. The reviews on it are pretty good, but I wouldn't know since I've not played it yet. But let me know how it is so I can try it out! Happy birthday again!

Sincerely,

Zakari

P.S. I'm serious about that giant robot ride.'

Giving a slight chuckle, Kaoru put the game aside, turning to her next gift.

It was a flower terrarium, full of various flowers, but mainly orchids. Though it was a glass, Kaoru could still smell the plants. Thankfully, they weren't intoxicating like most flowers, and still smelled good. Though she could already guess who they were from, the birthday woman read the note that came with the gift anyway...

'Dear Kaoru-chan,

A most wonderful and joyous happy birthday to you. I was informed by Yuriko-san that today was your day of birth so I decided to make this for you. This was my first attempt at making a terrarium, so I hope I did a fairly decent job. I chose mainly orchids, because I believe they symbolize you very much in that they signify creativity, strength and beauty, three attributes I feel suit you perfectly. I hope your birthday is going well, and I pray you have many more. Happy birthday once again, my dear.

Sincerely,

Shisuta Heisha'

Finishing the note, Kaoru gave a sigh and a shake of her head, as this meant she'd have to find someplace in her room or lab to put this thing. Still, she couldn't fault Shisuta for thinking of her, even though she wished she gift her something other flowers for a change. Putting the terrarium to the side, she turned to the last and largest gift and had high hopes for it, hoping it was what she thought it was. And thankfully, her hopes weren't dashed.

It was a birthday cake, which got a birthday smile out of the birthday woman, who couldn't wait to taste it. Taped to the box was a letter, which read:

'Dear Kaoru,

Happy birthday once again to you. I hope it's going well. My apologies for sending this to you so late, but work has been long and hard. But that's still no excuse. Regardless, I hope this cake makes up for it. Enjoy, and see you and your family soon.

Sincerely,

Luis Kōkyū

P.S. You have Kanra-chan to thank for the anime figures on the cake.'

“Oh let’s go! More cake!” Kaoru threw her hands in the air excitedly. Luis never disappointed in his cakes and score! It was even themed after one of her favorite mecha anime!

“Kaoru it’s far too late to be eating that much sugar don’t you think?” Yuriko questioned a single eyebrow raised as she watched both her daughters eye the cake much like a predator would eye their prey.

“Yuriko please!”

“Just one slice!”

Yuriko’s lips twitched, finding the sight of Kaoru and Kanra begging just a bit amusing. She was gonna let them have a slice anyway she just found teasing them too good to pass up, especially after the mess that was the backyard a few hours ago. Oh. That was an idea.

“Fine one slice anymore, and the two of you will be bouncing all around the house all night.” Yuriko walked over to one of the drawers, pulling out a knife, utensils, and plates. “I’d like for you to go to bed at normal times for once, especially you, Kaoru.”

Slicing into the cake, Yuriko cut two pieces, one for each of the two gremlins, and placed them on a plate. Kaoru and Kanra, excited for a slice, didn't notice the mischievous smile on their adoptive mother’s face and were entirely unprepared for when Yuriko smashed the cake slices into their faces.

“Ah!”

“Nani the fuck?”

“Hahahaha!” Yuriko laughed as she watched the two of them wipe the cake and frosting off their faces. “Maybe now you two will think twice about destroying my backyard. Now clean yourself up, and then you can have your one slice you two.”

#hypnosis microphone #hypnosis mic #hypmic #hypmic oc #hypnosis mic oc #shinozaki kaoru #kuromiya yuriko #akemi kanra #zakari hiroya #shisuta heisha #luis kōkyū #kunnaki #happy birthday kaoru 2024

5 notes · View notes

voidaxolotl · 1 year ago

Text

🚨Warning: Rant incoming🚨

Strange take, I'm not the biggest fan of playing Jackbox.

To be clear, this is not really a review of the games themself- Jackbox is fun and I think people should play it. This is more so on my experience and feelings about playing it. It's nothing against the games themselves, they're fun and for the most part they're expertly crafted for late night gaming and every inside joke thats stemmed from those late night gamings are still hilarious, however that doesn't make my lack of enthusiasm about playing jackbox any better.

I'd say I'm a competitive person, but since I'm kind of bad at most things I've had years to figure out how to handle the negative emotions that come with losing (and oddly enough the negative emotions and guilt whenever I do win)

Im no master at it, but I've been able to communicate when a game is making me upset and I'm fortune enough to have friends who understand my reasonings and understand that in multiplayer pvps (mostly Dead by Daylight) I'm all for taunting but it grates on me way more if I'm on a losing streak.

I've connected that my inability isn't to the fault of others so I shouldn't be aggressive towards them when I lose, and that I just need to keep at it and I'll eventually become better at the game, which has come true for the most part. Im able to push aside the hurt I get from losing either because I know I have gotten better (DBD, Among us, etc) or its a team effort so I don't feel isolated in the lose (L4D, Among us, Phasmo, etc).

But Jackbox has a specific way of making lose feel... Worse.

For those who don't know, most Jackbox games have players pitted against each other to make clever or funny responses or prompts, the player with the most liked response or promot wins the game- a simple idea that for some reason makes losing continuously hurt more and more. It makes you feel like the least fun or entertain or even least interesting person in the group when you continuously land in 4th or 5th.

It's to the point that playing Jackbox takes a lot of my energy, each round making me feel more exhausted and overstimulated, making it harder to answer prompts in a funny or clever manner which ends in more lose and more exhaustion- a vicious cycle.

I have not brought this up to my jackbox loving group for many reasons (mainly because I'd feel like the only person at a drinking party who doesn't drink, with the other people of said party forgetting what non-alcoholic exist) as well as the games being enjoyable to watch.

This is something that I need to work through and perhaps one day I will communicate this to my group, but till thenI think I will change to just observing any future gameplay instead of actually playing for my own health.

I don't know of anyone elsefeels similar about playing jackbox orany other game, but either way I know losing sucks and makes its hard to want to get better at something, especially if it feels personal or targeted. What we can do in the face of those defeats is determin if continuing down that route would be detrimental to our health and perhaps take a step back from it, maybe till another time or never again, or keep learning from our lose and get better.

There is no shame in deciding that pursuing something isn't for you, and in this case pursuing Jackbox and trying to win would probably do me more hurt then heal so I know it's better for me to step away. Maybe one day I'll feel comfortable while playing, and maybe one day losing in it won't make me feel the way it currently does, but until then I'm going to keep myself safe and happy and you should too.

Anyways, congrats if you've made it to the end and thank you for reading!

#rant #bit of venting #as a treat #jackbox #a bit of jackbox slander?#berhaps?#emotions #yuck #just a silly little guy with silly little feelings #long rant #kind of #feels long reading it

4 notes · View notes

veyette · 2 years ago

Text

I'm really excited to see the Speedrunner vs 6 hunters coming up for so many reasons (rant ahead sorry)

1) Who's the sixth hunter ? There's already a lot of speculations (Tommy, Punz, Hannah, Spreen, Foolish, Jojosolos even...) and they're honnestly all great. And they would change so much the video, like clearly Tommy is a great player but he is naturally more fun axed, so it'd be nice to see him on serious business mode (+discduo content <3).

Punz seems more raccord with the others hunters, so it seems the more coherent to add (good PVPer, movement player, good follower too)

Hannah would be just as impressive as Punz. She may be a little less used to play with Dream and the hunters, but that's only from an outside POV, seems like she did great in Squidcraft with Sapnap and George in terms of teaming. And her prowess in MC is not to prove any longer.

Spreen would be super original, great player and great fan content (at least on tumblr, twitch and twitter) : my only worries if it's him is communication (really important in manhunt and difficult to juggle around, though it'd be super cool if they played with the usmp mod) and team play. Then again, 6 hunters is a really difficult level so maybe it's good to add some difficulties for the hunters ? Spreen is absolutely great on his own and I would love to see him 1v1 Dream on a challenge like that. He could purchase Dream with Sapnap, who'd relay info. Idk, it'd be so cool but the changes seem too important to the usual recipe for it to actually happen :(

Foolish : that'd be really good to see, especially since he watched and reviewed manhunt. He is a great addition to any group and good support. I'm not so sure about his skills in PVP and movement though (like litteraly, I don't know anything about them), but then again with sixth hunters not really necessary to have 6 great fighting opponents. But he is really occupied with the q.smp as of now so not sure where he'd find the time (same thing for BBH though so who knows ?)

Jojosolo, I admit, is a guilty pleasure. I'd really love to see her in it, seeing how good of a MC player she is and her willingness to team with Dream, and I think she'd bring many wonderful things to the game - But I doubt she'd be chosen because the team needs to work together and they, outwardly at least, never really did. I'd 100% love to see her there but seeing the new hunters are often close friends of Dream I doubt she'll chosen especially with all the others options

It could also be someone totally different lol (Callahan or RedVelvet would be a great surprise)

2) The game in itself : like, I'm 98% sure it'll be the usual formula with Dream's POV in mc, against his 5 usual hunters and a new one.

BUT it also could be an IRL one, especially now that he has the mask, that he scouted things around and that all their friends went there once.

It could be 6 hunters with totally new hunters (in which case we could have maybe multiple people seen upon) which would compensate the high number

Still think it's going to be the regular format though

3) The plays. Obviously Dream isn't a fan of forgettable videos for his most famous serie : but what will he even be able to do ? I'm not a great mc player (like, I rather build and farm than jump and fight) but the amount of things he already did in mc will restrict him a little in terms of originality. Then again, it's at least 10 videos where they find new ways to beat the game.

That's also why I wonder whether they'll change something about the format or the hunters : but all the previous manhunt got the same doubt about the originality of the play and look where we are.

4) The win. It's no mystery that both Hunters and Dream got a chance to win but to say which here... Like, logically it'd be the hunters. But often it's Dream, who uploads, that gets out victorious. But it's 6 hunters and if he wants to do a follow-up it better be a win for them so he can get revenge. Unless he needs to win so the challenge seems possible. Aaah

Also, the fact the date is unsure. I saw so many people think the manhunt release will be the 23 but it seems to be for his song (presave it if you didn't already !). I doubt Dream would post the two the same day so... I fear I must content myself with a "Speedrunner vs 6 hunters" SOON

#dreamwastaken #minecraft manhunt #speedrunner vs 6 hunters #just rambles #if someone wants to discuss a 6th hunter pls do

8 notes · View notes

bosspigeon · 2 years ago

Note

If it’s not too much, I request all of those companion!Tav questions for Pyre :3c If it’s too much to answer at once, then just the ones that intrigue you the most!

hello this has been in my ask for a while to the point that i had to dig back through my blog to find the post in question! but i have since tagged it so i can find it again~ i have not actually played the game and probably won't be able to for a while, so i'm gonna just answer the ones i can with the info i have! <3

Where can your Tav be recruited? Are they first encountered on the Nautiloid, or in the Nautiloid crash region? Or are they not recruitable until a later act?

i think of Pyre as a fairly early to grab optional companion, and he can only be recruited if you side with/protect the tiefling refugees. i think he might be a contact of Zevlor's that he tells you to seek out for help. an old brother-in-arms~ you will probably find him Chilling and Surrounded By Corpses while casually cleaning his sword.

Do the other companions have special comments or reactions upon recruiting your Tav?

Wyll for sure makes a comment about Pyre being "one hell of a tiefling" (haha) just based on size alone. "So they were definitely exaggerating about his size... but not by much." He's probably heard stories here and there from folks around the camp that know him/know of him. might even have a fun little kind-of-awed war story or two he's been told that are definitely a bit overblown after so long. Astarion just calls him something like a Wall Of Meat and sounds Vaguely Hungry about that. Karlach wants to see if she can goad him into a sparring match~ Shadowheart, ofc, senses Selunite magic and is not pleased...

Does your Tav have any comments or advice when you recruit other companions?

Pyre is going to be polite and not just look straight at Astarion like "You know that's a vampire, right?" but he will probably say something along the lines of "Make sure you keep an eye on the pale one." Definitely has heard glowing reviews about Wyll and Karlach, but probably has some comments on their being... a bit green, but well-meaning and skilled nonetheless. He is polite about Shadowheart too, because he's not the most devout of paladins and is more focused on his vow rather than outright worship, but he's a very Cautious Type, so he's the sort to go down the line and give a Pros/Cons list lmao. "Idk she might betray you, she might not tho you decide" cryptic and not too helpful but he never said he was. He also has a plan prepared on how to kill literally anyone he meets if he thinks they're a threat in any way, and if he likes you enough, he might share <3

What sort of general actions raise or lower their approval?Are there any instances where your Tav can permanently leave the party, depending on player character actions?

Lumping these ones together because HOO BOY YEAH Pyre does not fuck around with certain things. His vow means he cannot sit by and just watch certain things go down. Obviously you won't even meet him if you side against the tieflings, so any sort of behavior that puts them in danger? You are suddenly hearing boss battle music. definitely gonna get some disapproval points for keeping that tome of Thay or giving it to anyone but him so he can destroy it, but he might still stick around, just side-eye you intensely. he doesn't really approve of most types of necromancy, but he's surprisingly civil with Withers. Basically any sort of treating people like chattel or tokens to be bartered, especially children or those who can't otherwise defend themselves gets HEAVY disapproval and to a certain extent straight-up Aggro~

Do they have any secrets that can be revealed? What are the prerequisites for this secret coming to light?

OH BOY SEVERAL. the one he's most careful about? that fact that he is not even a tiefling. he's a cambion. that one is more likely to come out than the rest of it, which is that he's half-succubus specifically. dealing with Raphael, he'd probably make himself pretty scarce, while also warning the player not to trust him. the whole House of Hope situation will have him tense and quierter than usual. He is staring daggers at Raphael the entire time, daring him to say something (which I'm sure he would eventually, if you continuousy involve Pyre in quests with Raphael) and i feel like Pyre's origins would come out specifically upon dealing with either Haarlep or Mizora.

What do they say when the Player Character asks them to stay in camp? How about when the Player Character asks them to come adventuring again?

Leaving him at camp: [Judgemental Grunt]

Come Adventuring: [Approving hum.]

Does your Tav have any escalating conflicts with one of the other companions, like Lae’zel and Shadowheart’s knife-fight?

the only thing that really comes to mind is Physically Depositing Astarion at the MC's feet and telling him to keep his teeth to himself hfdkjshgjl. idk he's kind of the king of staying in his own lane.

#pidge replies #long post #oc: pyre #I MIGHT ANSWER MORE LATER IF ANYONE IS REALLY CURIOUS HGDJKHDG #it's just really hard to do it all in one go #and i also gotta think about some of them a little more lmao #the romance list has me LOOKIN tho

2 notes · View notes

flyingcookierambles · 4 months ago

Text

dawntrail predictions?

so below the cut for spoilers and such that i discuss that i have seen without context and such and how i predict dawntrail will go based on those lol

i'm on the rite of succession msq btw, still very very beginning once you have the parade of sorts that introduces wuk lamat's brothers and also bakool ja ja

so....if i had two nickels for every time a south american based region and story got criticized as the worst content and story in the game, i'd have two nickels. which isn't much, but it's weird that it's happened twice.

lmao. ffxiv and genshin. tural and natlan. oooooh boy. the timing is possibly the funniest coincidence possible. i should make a meme edit later of the epic handshake lol.

so, i've seen some posts and such, completely out of context, regarding dawntrail and it's story being weird. and i've seen preach gaming's short video review of 7.1. so. it seems that it kinda gets a bit better in 7.1. and so, now dawntrail is stormblood 2.0.

lyse was naive and annoying in stormblood 4.0, according to public opinion, but the stormblood patches gave her characterization that made her a more mature and reliable leader.

now, since i'm suuuper slow in everything, i joined ffxiv in shadowbringers and i started dawntrail literally yesterday, i've had the reward of getting random spoilers and social media posts to help me uhh. lower my expectation i suppose.

i didn't mind lyse being annoying and naive because i *knew* ahead of time that that was kinda the point of her character and also that she will get better, i just gotta be patient.

lyse had this sheltered life, or as sheltered as a refugee could get, safe away in sharlayan, away from the oppressive garlean colonial rule of ala mhigo/gyr abania. she was likely raised with this nostalgic patriotism from the real ida and mostly interacted with other rebels in the resistance, not the average citizen who has had their spirit broken. this really showed in the early cutscenes, especially in ala gannha and when meeting the Skulls/Fordola. she can't fathom what the average citizen has been through and can't understand why the ala mhigan youths might join the garlean army for a better life. she is disappointed and admonishes the average citizen for not fighting, not really showing empathy for how their repeated years of trauma might not make them the most excited to join the rebels.

through out the msq, but mostly the patches, lyse really grows into an empathic leader who tries to understand things from other's point of view.

now for wuk lamat. so, i've heard some things about her voice acting. totally out of context, i've heard of the infamous "SPHEEEENNNNNNEEEE" while some song called smile plays in the background??? so, i know that people have clipped this scene/video, however, i've only read about it in comments. i've never watched any clips/videos of this scene. i want to experience the hammy camp voice and the song, which i've been told is good but the timing was just bad, completely fresh. like i've avoided listening to flow or close in the distance on spotify and youtube for an entire two years of endwalker, i will avoid watching this or listening to smile. i think it's only fair that i keep this one thing to myself lollllll!!!!

anyways, sena bryer has been in other things and, so far in the early msq, wuk lamat sounds pretty decent. i think she can act, if given good directions by the ADR/voice acting director. sadly, it seems that most voice acting in DT was just...weird? i've read that y'shtola's is not good, however some lines were re-recorded and fixed in 7.1. this is because her voice actress was recording from home and not a studio, as she was on maternity leave. cat woman mommy became a mommy frfr! lol

anyways, i'm not like an expert in voice acting or anything, and i also really don't like how many transphobic ffxiv fans took wuk lamat's voice line quality as ammo to use against the voice actress, a trans woman, instead of going after the voice acting director, the real culprit. i'll have to look at the staff credits of ShB and EW closer to see if the director changed between those two and DT. and that's all i'll say about wuk lamat's voice acting criticisms.

so, her character. now, i thought that she was young, since i keep seeing naruto comparisons. i've seen a reddit comment that she is 30????? HUH?? well, i guess we can't confirm until the 4th addition to the encyclopedia eorzea or something lol. either way, i've read that she, despite saying that she loves her country, doesn't seem to know it very well. she is ignorant of the different cultures and such, which is why you have to go around and meet everyone.

hmmm. i guess i'll just see this when i see it in msq. so i am guessing that were they going with a naive and sheltered princess who needs to learn more about her country before she can rule it, but it came off as so ridiculously ignorant, that she became unbelievable, is that it? i can definitely see if that was their goal but the writing and stuff was just annoying after a while?

during the cutscene that just happened to me, the parade of the candidates, erenville makes a comment that bakool ja ja doesn't seem to really have any policies or goals except to win the contest. maybe they could've gone with something similar to wuk lamat? like, she was also so laser focused on stopping bakool ja ja to preserve her father's peaceful legacy but also has literally no policies or anything for when/if she wins the throne, but throughout the journey/msq, after meeting people outside the capital city, she learns to really appreciate and love her nation. like, if they just started with her love for her father at the beginning msq but ignorance of life outside the city, and then she really learned to love all turali cultures, i think it would be interesting.

right now, at the beginning, when she is saying that she loves tural and all, it seems like superficial. it's like when metro man in megamind says "and i love you random citizen!" but he doesn't really know who that random citizen's name or hopes and dreams are, you know?

she mentions going to another ethnic group's town for a festival that her father took her to, but it seems by her wording, that she's never returned there to see the everyday life outside of holidays. she's never like really gotten to know the people there.

would an approach like that have fixed wuk lamat? hmmmm.

anyways, that's my current impression of her. so far, lyse 2! i know she'll get better, and i am patient, but as an outsider to dawntrail right now, it seems that the hate around her is sooooooo crazy overblown. like it's all i see. its hilariously confusing.

idk, maybe, since i've actually read all 700 chapters of naruto and also all of homestuck, my tolerance for weird anime bullshit and patience is longer than the average ffxiv player? lolll.

well, i'll try to get through dawntrail quickly and return to this post for edits and/or a repost with part 2 of my impressions of how wuk lamat really was during 7.0.

anyways maybe natlan and tural will just be mid and all the hate is overblown, idk. i just want capitano to be playable. da wei, i'm coming for you and your incel gooner waifu bait decisions! i loved genshin, but this pivot is literally driving away many of the playerbase that is the average person and/or female, the only audience being incels who want anime waifus is just unsustainable for profits in the long run. BRUUUUH ugh

#games n junk #games

0 notes

zghostreviews · 5 months ago

Text

The Arcane Review

I have not used this account in a long time but I feel like I need to yap a bit after Season 2.

Season 1, keeping it short and brief cause I don't have any real issues with it or anything. The animation and art style used in Arcane is beautiful and such, love that, very appealing to my eyes. The music used is......well it makes you remember this is based on LoL at least...I liked the intro song used and simply tolerated like 70 to 80% of the other music. I stayed firmly on the side of Zaunites throughout my S1 watch especially and barely cared for the Pilties except for maybe Mel but it was more of in a "why are you with a man who looks like he uses 7 in 1 body wash instead of your secretary who looks like she wants you" and the "your mom genuinely fucking sucks" sorta way. On the topic of Ambessa though, I CAN understand why people think she's hot but like I can't get over the whole warlord and genocider thing but anyways. I liked the first season, the pacing seemed great to me I thoroughly enjoyed it even though it has basically zero rewatchability for me.

Now Season 2, I actually have a lot to say about it since its fresher on my brain.

Dawg........Season 2 was kinda shit.....it makes sense why Fallout won over Arcane(even tho I think that it was a very missed opportunity NOT to have Maybe play when the bombs started dropping in Fallout the show) this time at the game awards(aside from S2 of Arcane JUST wrapping up close to the end of November) The pacing and writing felt off and everything felt incredibely rushed and I don't get it? They're making another Arcane series anyways so I dont get why they could have had three seasons instead of trying to mesh together two acts in one 8 episode season? Whoever made it standard that seasons for shows should be 13 episodes or less instead of at least 20, your mom's a hoe‼️

I'm gonna be real for a moment and say I was purely here for more Sevika content that was promised and they FUCKING LIED!! My wife don't even say a singular word in Act 3 aside from "GRAAHHH" LIKE WHAT. Like we still know basically absolutely nothing about her even though she was Silco's right hand and had to take care of Jinx and Isha.

And then the stuff with Cait??? Is just not really addressed???? Cause she went full on dictator and shit after her mom's funeral. That was all her own choice and I don't know why people keep saying "it's because of Ambessa" even though Ambessa literally hadn't even spoken to her yet during her initial crash out, the scuffed shit she was doing to Zaun citizens and pointing a gun at a literal child??? Cait made those decisions literally on her own dude.

Another thing bothering me that was just never addressed is how Ambessa literally had hired those Zaun people with the full intention of no one stopping them from assassinating Mel, HER DAUGHTER. Unless that was something her right hand staged without her knowing???? We don't know because that shit was never addressed afterwards and we can only assume that Mel learn that her mom or her mom's right hand was about to get her killed to make it seem like all of Zaun was evil either.

And the thing with Viktor was...something...he turned into Jesus and started going a bit crazy with power. My main thing with him is that...he is from Zaun, right? So wouldn't he know who Vander and/or Silco are in some way even if he only spent his childhood there?

And then there's the lesbian sex scene which I feel was just..........terribly placed.....? And the writing surrounding what leads up to it is weird too....? Throughout the entirety of Season 2, Cait....I literally like her less than I did in S1 cause she literally called Vi "one of the good ones" in S2 and that was fucking crazy. But Cait has had like zero sympathy of any kind for Jinx, even when Jinx was like super clearly wracked from trauma and grief from seeing, Isha, a child, a child that was in her care, die in front of her. Like I'm pretty sure Vi and Cait also witnessed that too....and the aftermath so you'd think she'd be at least a little bit sympathetic but no???? Unless I missed something????

Then afterwards when Vi arrives and does try to talk to Jinx about what happened, clearly it's still a fresh wound and she does NOT wanna talk about it due to how painful it is so she lashes out and locks Vi in the cell, and very clearly eludes that she's gonna go off and kill herself and no one is gonna stop her. And then sometime after that, Cait comes by and unlocks the cell and Vi is like "she really hasn't changed..." and its like huh?????? You JUST basically heard her say she'd gonna go off herself and THAT was your conclusion??? Even after the time you got to spend with her prior to the event inadvertently caused by Jayce??? Then Cait just kinda shit talks about Jinx to Vi and trying to reaffirm that "yeah girl! She hasnt changed and I told you so!" in between the comfort and then they start kissing and fucking in the jail cell Jinx had spent days starving herself and wallowing in her own grief and sorrows in.

I'm sorry but was that supposed to get my clit perking up????? Cause it didnt.

And then there's the Black Rose plot, which was just confusing and proves that Act 2 and 3 should've been their own seasons cause it just made everything even more messy and kind of hard to keep up with. Like...???? Question marks was all that was really cause it just provided more questions than there already were.

I thought the fish guy would be of importance cause of how many shots he was getting, the whole thing with Maddie, and that guy Vi was hanging out with that was giving Vander vibes, hell I even thought that one Jinxer would've been important in some way cause she got a few shots too. But nah, all of them just die with little to no fanfare except fish guy whose name was Stev or something, I dunno.

And then the montages were....also annoying to say the least? It seemed like more of an excuse to make a mini music video really.

Did I watch Season 2 all the way through? Yeah. At times it felt like a chore to actually get through it, but yeah.

But did I walk out of it perplexed? Also yes!

I rate season 2 like a 7.5/10

S1 gets like a 9/10

#ghost reviews #long read #review #long post #arcane #arcane netflix #arcane spoilers

1 note · View note

safestsephiroth · 8 months ago

Text

completely unbiased objective factual review of every MSQ in FFXIV as of the release of base dawntrail (pre-7.1) (Part 2: SB and SHB)

A repeat of the intro from last post, which can be found here: https://safestsephiroth.tumblr.com/post/762492923054047232/completely-unbiased-objective-factual-review-of

Just to clarify, I know some people are bad at reading tone through text. This is, of course, the objective truth because it's my opinion and my opinion has never been wrong ever, and I take this as deathly serious as a hostage negotiation, a military standoff, or an argument about vtubers.

[And if you don't already know this is written tongue-in-cheek with that, then you might not enjoy what's to come. Especially if you cannot stomach negativity. If you keep reading from here that's on you tbh.]

[This series of posts will not be tagged with anything relating to the game because I have learned over the years not to tag things when you're being a hater. If you hate this, it's not likely to come up again on here so just ignore this post dude it ain't hard. Press the J key. Or read and laugh. I'm writing this for me, your enjoyment is not a concern, audience!]

STORMBLOOD

Here's the point that everyone who started playing this game in either Heavensward or Shadowbringers finds out they're WRONG AS FUCK and always have been: Stormblood is good. Stormblood MSQ is GOOD. Characters that are at worst mid and by and large pretty great; regions that are (sometimes) visually interesting for the first time since A Realm Reborn; some of the coolest parts of the lore added in the game to this day; some of the most interesting political questions and situations.

Heavensward and Stormblood both ask the question: what does it take to have a political upheaval in a society? Can you restructure a society that might be too far gone?

Stormblood asks this question about countries who, within living memory, used to be free of the worst dictatorship in the setting (Allag is gone and Garlemald are fanboys of it so it has the tiniest bit of bonus points in the same way modern Rome fanboys are even worse than ancient Rome was because they're not even good at understanding the upsides of that ancient awfulness and think the worst parts are the best) and go figure that leads to a far more interesting exploration of the societies at play.

As someone who used to be a big fan of Ala Mhigo and how it was a really neat way to incorporate concepts and ideas from Ivalice without actually just copy-pasting Ivalice wholesale into the game (hm!) I was largely disappointed with its treatment in this game, but you know. It's there! It's better than More Goddamned Ishgard! I do think it's keenly disappointing that by and large the ala mhigo zones are just Pollution And Ruins but whatever.

Incidentally, did you like the part of Stormblood where the Emperor of Garlemald looks directly into the camera and says "JUST IN CASE YOU DIDN'T KNOW, WE'RE THE BAD GUYS. THE ONE PURE RACE IS THE ONLY WAY FOR THE WORLD TO CONTINUE. DO YOU RECOGNIZE NOW THAT WE'RE AN ANALOGUE FOR TOTALITARIAN NIGHTMARE SOCIETIES? DO YOU GET THAT WE'RE RUSSIAN NAZIS? DO YOU GET IT? DO YOU UNDERSTAND YET? WE'RE THE BAD GUYS. GARLEMALD IS BAD. IF GARLEMALD WINS, THAT'S BAD. GARLEAN RULE IS A BAD THING. PLEASE UNDERSTAND THAT GARLEMALD. IS NOT THE PEOPLE WHO SHOULD WIN. 'ARE EORZEA THE BAD GUYS' NO. JUST MAKING SURE YOU UNDERSTAND, CRYSTAL CLEAR, THAT THAT'S WHAT'S GOING ON."

Anyway by and large Stormblood has exactly as much subtlety as it needs and I appreciate the subtlety that is there. I appreciate that they decided to try to wean themselves off of killing women for no reason by killing a woman for some reason. Good work. Baby steps, FFXIV. Baby steps.

Anyway, remember that time Zenos attacked Rhalgr's Reach and we had no hope of winning and we fought him anyway because instead of watching him massacre people we decided to try to intervene because we're heroic and heroes take fights because they're the right thing to do, even if they lose? Don't worry, I'm sure that won't come up in a future segment of these reviews.

OVERALL, I think, Stormblood does a great job conveying its overall themes and playing to them - revolution does not come from an individual but only when everyone works together, even enemies that feel insurmountable are not invincible, even in fantasy setting equivalents Japan fucking hates foreigners and has a corrupt government, isolationism and neutrality are the same as collaboration with the winner of a conflict and "neutrality" is in essence a lie and an appeaser continues to be a man who feeds his fellows to an alligator hoping to be eaten last.

So anyway.

Stormblood is also the point where class gameplay hit its peak (DARK KNIGHT! ASTRO! MY BELOVED! COME BACK! PLEASE! COME BACK TO ME! I NEVER SPOKE LOUD ENOUGH ON YOUR BEHALF BEFORE! Give me back everything class gameplay was in stormblood my GOD) and also where encounter design really just completely fell to shit. It also might be one of only two points in the entire game where the mandated formula does not excessively hinder the MSQ.

Spoiler alert, the other time is probably the best expansion overall to date.

However, Stormblood is not perfect - it introduced the Ivalice raids whose impact on the setting and how much I FUCKING HATE it cannot be overstated. It also introduced the laziest raid series to date (Fuck it just throw in cameo characters with no real context beyond "a robot did it" and have cid and nero be gay at each other and call it good. It feels completely pointless to have a sidequest that TOTALLY is saving the world bro we swear it's just that it has zero impact on anything visibly. There's no giant robot you're stopping from climbing out of a lake, no giant shards of evil dragon prison or any real sense that you MUST give a shit about Omega to be honest with you. Anything good about this raid series is a retcon. Fight me.)

It's also where gameplay really hit the toilet with the worst dungeon design at the time, Omega ending the concept of Raids being anything more than glorified Trials, and the addition of jump potions meaning you get the dumbest motherfuckers in the world coming in complaining the game they don't want to play is too hard (as if there's any amount of ease you can bring to the game that will make those people happy. As if their opinion is worth more than a handful of sand applied directly to your unprotected eye.)

I also think it's important to note Stormblood came out not super long after Final Fantasy 15, a game where you go on a road trip to save the world with four identical prettyboy JPOP bandmates where it was made explicitly clear to us you couldn't possibly do that story with, GOD FORBID, the presence of a woman in the party, and then Stormblood is Alisaie and Lyse going on a road trip to save the world and it's glorious.

Also if your complaint about Stormblood is that you hate Lyse, but you DON'T recognize that everything bad about her is just describing Aymeric's character too and crow about how great you think Heavensward is all I can conclude is you prefer white bread yaoi elves to white bread jock women and I think that says a lot about you frankly.

Stormblood is a 7/10 MSQ and 6/10 on the gameplay front, carried entirely by the class gameplay despite dreadful encounter design. A lot of people say it was bad because after 5 years of playing the same video game it's kind of normal to get burnt out.

Wait, Stormblood had Eureka. Right.

4/10 on the gameplay front.

Shadowbringers:

Statistically speaking, odds are very high if you're playing FFXIV right now in the year of our lord 2024, your first expansion was Shadowbringers. Shadowbringers in many ways is extremely good. It's got phenomenal worldbuilding, excellent character writing, a marvelous plot, and is gorgeous. The concept of LITERALLY bringing back the night is baller as fuck and you're a fool if you disagree. You better believe I'm disappointed in how few Light Up The Night AMV-equivalents there are for Shadowbringers. (What do you call an AMV made with FFXIV cutscenes?)

It's also the first time we're REALLY the main character of the plot instead of someone who accompanies the main character of the plot. Don't worry, this won't come up again later, probably.

Shadowbringers story-wise is near flawless. Maybe if I really dig I can find nitpicks, but it's extremely tightly-written. The antagonists by and large avoid the trap of being one-note and all tie extremely well into the overarching themes: what do you do in the face of inevitability? Is it ever worth giving up? Is anyone truly strong enough to weather absolute despair? Is it possible to overcome impossibility completely alone? Does imperfection still have value? Is someone a furry if they have cat ears and want to fuck someone with a lion face?

Shadowbringers DOES begin one of the most annoying trends in the entire fanbase (X is shard of Y character!!!!!) but I forgive it for that because it's not like it demanded the fanbase do this they're just Like That.

Shadowbringers as an expansion has many flaws its MSQ doesn't have, though. For my money, the absolute worst part of anything gameplay-wise in the entire game is the final "pull" of Holminster Switch, and if anything ever is worse than that then this video game needs to be euthanized for the good of society. (Fortunately it's looking like that won't happen.) However, Shadowbringers has the worst 24-man and the worst trial series (probably; I didn't bother to do Endwalker's so idk). Sorry not sorry I don't care about Plot Device Van Baelsar's man-pain.

Eden gets a pass because it's gay, but its encounter design is a fucking embarrassment overall and I know most people didn't comment on that because they're so happy that square was able to tell the story of FF8 in a way that didn't suck ass like FF8 did while also correctly identifying it's made better by Ryne and Gaia being turbo gay together. And that's valid, but also, FUCK dude that gameplay sucked.

Hey remember how jobs used to have resources and depth? Shadowbringers was the death of that. Dropping TP was a disastrous decision. Destroying what little unique traits the healers had in Stormblood so that every one could be IDENTICAL henceforth (don't argue, it makes you look stupid to try to go into the minutiae of how ackshually AST and WHM have SO MANY DIFFERENCES!!! for instance, one has STAR particle effects when they heal and the other has GLOWY WATERY LIGHT particle effects) and AST cards could be COMPLETELY meaningless, DRK could have all gameplay depth removed, and zero jobs could have depth added. Dancer in Shadowbringers was pathetic, Gunbreaker was simpler than the simplest tank job in Stormblood but now the most complex tank job because they nerfed the complexity of EVERYTHING so fucking hard, and that is an unforgivable change. Shadowbringers was the point I completely switched over to "This game's story is good enough to justify suffering through the painfully mediocre/bad gameplay. Mostly."

Also I didn't bring it up earlier, but Shadowbringers has a fucking excellent soundtrack that's the pinnacle of FFXIV to date.

Story wise Shadowbringers is an 8.5/10 and gameplay-wise it is definitely a 4/10 but I need you to understand that the fact it's the source of everything that came after means it DESERVES to be the worst of them all in a sense.

1 note · View note

stereogeekspodcast · 1 year ago

Text

[Transcript] Season 3, Episode 4. Ghost of Tsushima Game Review

Something a little different. The Stereo Geeks enjoyed Ghost of Tsushima on PS5 so much, we reviewed the game for our podcast.

Listen to the episode on Spotify.

Hello and welcome to a new episode of Stereo Geeks.

I'm Ron.

And I'm Mon.

Today, we're doing something a little bit different.

We're reviewing a video game.

We're going to be talking about Ghost of Tsushima.

For PS5.

Some background to our gaming.

I can't say that we're huge gamers, but we do like playing our games when we get a chance.

The PS5 was one of those consoles that everybody really wanted.

And we weren't very far behind in that craze.

I think the tipping point for us to actually want the PS5 was this game.

We heard so much about it.

And then there was a short period of time when you used to watch game walkthroughs.

During the pandemic, one of the ways that I could stay calm during the day was watching game walkthroughs of Ghost of Tsushima.

And the beautiful colors, the graphics, it was almost realistic and I was just blown away.

Same with me, I couldn't wait to get into this beautiful, expansive world.

That being said, it still took us a good two years of dithering before we finally took the leap and bought this console, as well as a bunch of games.

And of course, the console had to be inaugurated with Ghost of Tsushima.

In our defense, when the PS5 first came out, wow, was it expensive.

Exactly.

I remember talking to two of my colleagues who straight up told me, you're not going to get it right now.

Exactly.

There was not only a huge demand, but there was also the problem of people buying in bulk, hoarding them.

It was terrible.

It was a little bit like people could not get PS5s, and they could not get toilet paper either.

It was a funny time, the start of the pandemic.

We say through tears.

But eventually, two years later, the price went down, there was a discount, and we made the big decision to buy it.

Yeah, and also let's not forget, the prices of games are also expensive.

So that adds up, you don't just buy one game, you buy several, even if you don't go and buy them all at the same time.

So we have to be really careful when we're making these decisions.

Also shout out to the Best Buy guy who had a really long, detailed conversation with us about the merits of the PS5, especially since our last console was an Xbox 360.

Who we still love.

Who is still with us and still a good companion.

So not going to knock that guy.

No, no, he's sitting there right next to our PS5.

Exactly.

So let's get into it.

We haven't reviewed games before.

So this is a little bit new for us.

But honestly, we had so much fun.

How many hours did you say we clocked?

135 hours.

Okay, that's a lot of hours.

Obviously, we didn't clock it all in one.

It's taken us months.

Exactly.

And I have to say, maybe some people clocked far fewer hours and they might be like, oh, these guys are slow.

I don't mind that.

I don't care.

I honestly spent so much time just wandering about.

I think you got bored watching me play because I would just wander.

I would just trot along on my digital house and just check out the landscapes because it was so beautiful.

It's so stunning though.

We have a lot of nice greenery and stuff around us, but we've been having very short fall seasons.

This year, we got a bit lucky.

We had a longer fall, but just being amongst those vistas of beautiful, colorful flowers and trees, you kind of can't help wanting to stay there.

And they make it immersive.

You are supposed to wander these beautiful lands because, well, you never know what you'll come across.

It could be beautiful flowers, a Inari shrine, a Shinto shrine, Mongol cohorts.

You never know.

A bear.

Exactly.

So let's get into the story.

Ghost of Tsushima takes place during the medieval period when Tsushima is attacked by the Mongols, led by Khotun Khan.

Our protagonist is Jin Sakai, voiced by Daisuke Tsuji, who also did the mocap for the character.

Jin is pretty much the only survivor of the first Mongol invasion into Tsushima.

He is desperate to free his lands, but he also needs to free his uncle, who is initially believed to be dead, but then it's discovered that Lord Shimura is alive, and in Khotun Khan's dungeons.

So we then follow Jin as he tries to make his way to Khotun Khan's castle, commandeered castle.

Along the way, he makes some friends and allies.

He learns interesting things about his own history.

Jin is a man with a lot of baggage.

Yeah, so are everybody around him.

My goodness, that's a lot to put on one man.

There is so much going on, you never know who you're going to meet, if they're going to be a friend or foe.

Sometimes they're both.

There's such a variety of plot twists, like, okay, it's a video game.

You don't expect the stories to be completely out there, but there were times when I was just like, whoa, I did not see that coming.

It's not like they're baton switches or something like that.

They are interesting and they flow from the storyline, but definitely they're there to surprise you at every turn.

You are just not expecting this to happen.

And yeah, well, they went there.

And I like how they use these plot twists, not just to make the story exciting and keep you playing, but you learn a lot about Jin and the people around him because of the way they react to really shocking information.

Sometimes you and I were stunned.

Just to mention that while the outline of Tsushima matches the real thing, they didn't copy the actual facade.

So I'm sure the actual Tsushima looks different from this one.

And also remember this is from medieval Tsushima, not current Tsushima.

But also Tsushima is a character in the game as well, just like the human characters who we meet.

And one of the ways that Tsushima is a character is how off the land sometimes Jin has to be and these other elements that they have in the game, which brings the land to life, like the haikus, the bamboo strikes, the shrines, the fauna and the flora.

I really loved that about this game.

I think one of the first times I realized that this gaming experience was going to be different was when we accidentally came across a fox den and the fox took us to an Inari shrine.

And once we had completed the quest, we could pet the fox.

That became like the highlight for us when we were playing the game.

Just to have this feeling and connection with the culture, not saying that all of Japan or Japanese communities are doing the same things or honoring the same kind of deities, et cetera, but to have that feeling that you are in a different country which has its own systems, I really loved that.

There's so much respect given, even though it's not necessarily, maybe not 100% authentic, but I'm also fine with that.

Most of the games that we've played tend to be rather US-centric.

Yeah, I think the only different one for us growing up was Prince of Persia, which honestly, it has nothing to do with Persia, and like the Prince is, well, not very Persian, but at least it had a different vibe and flavor and look to it than all the other games.

So I have to say the cultural angle was definitely one of the highlights of this game.

The beautiful rendering of the landscapes was honestly something to behold.

We could look out our window and get this beautiful vista, and then we're looking at our TV screen and getting a different vista, and it's just the views are amazing no matter where you look.

It wasn't just the landscapes that were amazing.

The characters were really stunningly done.

It seems like they based most of the main characters on the faces of the actors who were voicing them.

Great job.

Honestly, a lot of familiar faces in there.

That's really nice to see.

And yes, they are of Japanese and Chinese heritage or origins.

That is great.

But we've got to talk about Jin's wardrobe.

Oh, yeah.

For a guy on the run and being chased and fighting Mongols, wow, he had an extensive wardrobe.

I have never seen that much headgear on anyone.

The options are staggering.

Sometimes you and I did not know which one to go with.

Exactly.

Sometimes there are options for the armor, the dye, the color.

There are options to try different helmets.

You're scrolling for so long, you actually lose track of what you're wearing, what you're looking for.

And you're like, oh, no, that looks cool.

I'll just randomly wear this really random looking thing.

We were literally going with, you know, what's matching with the color more than, you know, what abilities is it giving Jin?

No, we don't care.

Exactly.

We tried that from time to time.

Obviously, we did use some common sense when we were dressing the man, but from time to time, we just went with the look.

And some of the outfits that he got were actually earned.

So those are very interesting quests, these mythic tales.

I don't know how much of it is based on the reality of the time, but I found it really fascinating.

And we'd go into this, you know, cut scene, which is really beautifully rendered.

So we learnt a lot, and we got to be really immersed in this, the culture of the game, at least.

Yeah, I absolutely love that.

We had the director's cut version.

We did not get around to playing much of the Legends mode.

That is a multiplayer mode.

We don't do multiplayer.

But that being said, whatever I tried, our Legends mode, I was terrible at it.

I'm not a good gamer.

Maybe not the best person to try this out.

You just need some practice.

It's true.

The director's cut did come with the downloaded EK.

Tales section, and that you're supposed to play after the entire game is finished and you've completed the main story.

I really liked that as a bonus feature.

It was like we'd finished the game and it let us have it on call.

That was good.

I do feel, and this is a, this is something I guess we should talk about because Jin is our main character.

I do feel Jin didn't really come alive till he was on Iki.

I agree.

Right?

It was like who is this man?

All this while he was just doing stuff and being told stuff and learning about his past and the people around him.

They were all very interesting, very fleshed out because it is their past that he has to contend with to save them and to protect Tsushima.

But he himself, I felt like Jin got lost in the main story.

That's a really interesting point.

I think once the main story was completed and he'd resolved his issues with Lord Shimura and he'd kind of understood where he was within the new Tsushima that had been created.

Ikki kind of gave him time to just be himself instead of a man on the run trying to fight all the time.

And for him to actually reflect on his own life, his own past.

Whereas in the main story, he kept reflecting on other people's lives as they coincided with his.

Yeah, that's a good point.

That's a good point.

Because one of the things when we were playing the Ikki section was I really felt like I wanted to see Yuna there.

And Yuna is this character who's pretty much there from the beginning of the game.

She's Jin's right-hand person.

She's the one who kind of teaches him a lot of the stealth mode that we use throughout the game.

And that becomes the point of contention between Jin and Lord Shimura.

But even though I missed Yuna's presence in that section, it was really good to just spend time with Jin and his past.

And through the flashbacks that we keep getting, we learn a lot about why Jin became a samurai, why he became this particular kind of samurai.

I don't think the main story really gave us room to figure those things out or challenge those ideas with Jin.

Interestingly, I did read a review of the Iki Tales, and somebody was like, they didn't feel like it added anything to Jin's story or his backstory, and it didn't really help them enjoy the game anymore.

And I have no idea what this person is talking about.

The Iki Islands part of the tale was its own game setup.

I mean, it had its own rules, own sort of vibe and look to it.

For me, I felt like Jin was just a stand-in, just a catalyst for a lot of the story points before then, and he became a real person in the Iki story.

Listen, to each their own, maybe in the main story, some people connected with him more.

I connected with him.

Like, I really enjoyed the character, and this is down to, of course, Daisuke's excellent performance and the beautiful rendering of the character, etc.

But yeah, he's just, everybody else is much more interesting than him.

Jin was interesting because of the company he kept.

Oh, nice.

Whereas on Iki, Jin was interesting because he was Jin.

I like that.

But what really works for this game is that it is such a great experience to meet all these people and to learn about them.

And of course, the combat is excellent.

It's pretty hard sometimes, but it has a new layer to it when you get those different powers, learn different techniques.

All that helps the entire experience.

When we started it, we started playing on medium mode.

I forgot about that.

Which was fine.

And then I kept getting killed.

And then it actually offered me the option to go into easy mode, which I took.

So maybe had we played on a different mode, our enjoyment of the game would have been different.

But on easy mode, I had a lot of fun.

I got to kill the bad guys while also enjoying the rest of the game.

I agree with you.

And the game also has an option to turn the gore off and on.

So I really like that.

It's not very gory, but after all people are battling each other.

So there will be some blood.

Did we have it off or on?

We had it on.

Okay, it really wasn't that bad.

It really wasn't.

It wasn't.

But would you have changed anything in the game?

Was there anything that you kind of wish had been better?

So there's one thing I would have changed, but there's three elements that feed into it.

And that's the guiding path.

So we have the guiding wind, which tells us where to go.

And we also have the fireflies that indicate some particular items.

And we have the golden bird, which takes us to particular places.

All three of them are connected in the sense that they all have a vendetta against you, and they will throw Jin off a cliff.

I would have changed that part.

Yes.

Yeah, I think that's the only bit that I would have changed as well.

Because I think when we were in the very first act in Izuhara, I was really struggling with certain parts.

And by the time we got to Toyotama, which is the second act, I was a lot more comfortable with a lot of stuff.

And Toyotama kind of finished really fast.

And by the time we got to Act 3 in Kamiagata, I was just like, this is a breeze.

And like even the big battles, I guess it was because we were on easy mode.

They weren't terribly difficult.

Yeah, they were complicated.

And there were some times when I was just like, oh my God, this stealth section is so hard and I can't do it.

But it wasn't extremely difficult.

Like I was having fun.

Yeah, not to the point where you say, oh, I give up.

Yeah, I think that's why I'm glad that the game gave me the option of easy mode, because I really just wanted to enjoy it.

Like we had been waiting so long to play this game.

Why play it on hard mode?

I mean, who are we trying to prove anything to?

Exactly.

We can always play hard mode once we know how to use the techniques better, and especially some people who do not know how to do anything with the bow.

I'm talking about me.

I am terrible at archery.

The archery was really fun, though.

I really liked it.

I mean, I liked it.

I just can't shoot a straight shot.

But here's the thing.

The reason why I'm complaining about the guiding wind, the golden bird and the firefly, is because we ended up getting lost or doing the same thing over and over because we did not know where we were going.

That's one thing that I would say, again, like Red Dead Redemption.

It's sort of, it's like Waze.

It sort of reworked its path according to where you were and what you were doing.

If you're on a horse, you're going to take a different route to when, you know, you're on foot.

So I really would have preferred them to fix that, because sometimes I was like, where is this bird taking me?

Yeah, and sometimes it was really down a cliff.

Exactly.

Otherwise, despite all that, you know, we got to explore a lot, and sometimes we'd end up rescuing a poor person because we were following the fireflies.

So it was still fun in its own way.

Yeah, that's true.

I think maybe the only other one that I may have tweaked would have been the boss battles.

While everybody has a different technique, I felt like we can win the boss battles in just a singular way.

I'm not going to reveal what, you need to play the game.

But I just feel like if they had switched that around a little bit, would have kept things more interesting.

Well, I think with the progressing boss battles, you did get different things that you did have to complete.

But it wasn't so significantly different that it was too hard.

So yeah, maybe they could have changed it up a little bit.

Like Prince of Persia, they do have very set techniques for different kinds of bad guys.

But then Prince of Persia is also very mythical.

That's true.

It depends really.

Different games require different techniques.

But still, I would have liked a little bit more variety when it came to the fights and battles.

So here's a question.

Would you play this game again?

Yes, but I'd give it some space.

Mostly because I enjoyed a lot of it, and I don't want to get bored.

That being said, we did not know what we were doing for most of the first act.

So this would be interesting for sure.

Yeah, I think we need some time away from the game.

We've been very immersed in it.

We've been playing it off and on for months.

And this is the only game we've been playing.

It's not like we switch games or switch consoles.

This has been the only one.

We need a break from it.

We need to try out other games in the PS5 console.

I'm interested to see how they use the same controls for different games.

And also the experience and visuals.

I'm almost concerned that we've ruined the PS5 experience because we got the best looking game and played it first.

And not just the best looking game.

Ghost of Tsushima was very highly rated just on gameplay and story.

Yeah.

And some of our other games, I have not read the best things.

Exactly.

Sometimes you buy a game because you want to buy a game.

It may not be the best, but I'm really hoping that it's still fun and enjoyable and immersive.

And we don't keep comparing everything to how much we enjoyed Ghost of Tsushima.

Well, I'm trying to think about our Xbox 360 experiences.

We played a few Batman games on that.

We played Prince of Persia and they were very different.

The Prince of Persia game was much simpler than the Batman games, which were quite complex in terms of, you know, fight combinations and quests.

But we've played all of those a couple of times, and we've enjoyed them a lot every single time we've played them.

So I'm going to give PS5 games a chance.

Before we wrap up, I don't think we can ignore the fact that there are a lot of similarities between this game and Red Dead Redemption.

I don't know if those similarities exist only for us, because we were literally just playing Red Dead Redemption before this game.

Maybe, but I have to say it really did feel like we were experiencing a much more beautiful, better rendered, gorgeous version of Red Dead Redemption.

There were a lot of similar gameplay aspects to it.

I think that's probably what made it easier to get into Ghost of Tsushima, because it already had the Red Dead experience, and we did end up enjoying Red Dead Redemption.

Like initially, we struggled a lot, but we took a long break from that as well, remember?

And then we came back and suddenly we were magically better at it.

I credit you for that.

I am no good at gaming.

I just…

Hey, you won that horse and cart race, which was extremely hard.

Yes, thank you.

But Ghost of Tsushima is a beast of its own.

It was just magical, fun, immersive, beautiful gaming experience.

We had a really great time.

It was worth the wait, I would say.

Yes, I absolutely agree with you.

I am, however, concerned about the film adaptation.

Oh, yes.

How do you take something which is so expansive and layered and beautiful and turn it into a two hour movie?

It needs to be a trilogy.

Nothing short of a trilogy will do.

Yes, I like that idea.

But I don't know if they're going to do that.

But here's hoping we get something really good out of this.

If you have 135 hours to play with, this is the game for you.

Totally.

See you next time.

You can find us on Twitter, at Stereo underscore Geeks, or send us an email, at StereoGeeksPodcast at gmail.com.

We hope you enjoyed this episode, and see you next week.

The Stereo Geeks logo was created using Tampa.

The music for our podcast comes courtesy AudioNautix.

#stereo geeks #podcast #ghost of tsushima #jin sakai #ps5 #ps5 games #playstation 5 #playstation

0 notes

bahamutgames · 2 years ago

Text

AFTERTHOUGHTS - ROUNDUP ROUND 7

September 2023

Happy October! I'm a little late here because I had to take a health break from being online for a few days. But I'm back now! It's getting colder outside, and Halloween (my favorite holiday!) is right around the corner!

Also... hello new followers! This blog has basically been a ghost town since I started it but unexpectedly, some gifsets I made last month REALLY took off! So now I've got almost 50 followers. Usually I wouldn't do so much preamble on a roundup post but I feel the need to explain myself a little bit. This is what this blog is mostly for, posting my thoughts and opinions on games I played recently. To keep them neatly organized and also not clogging up everyone's feeds. I understand this is NOT what most of you followed for, so feel free to unfollow if you like. If not, I hope you enjoy what I have to say!

As with EVERYTHING I share here, these are not reviews. This is just word vomit from me sharing my thoughts on games. Nothing I say should be taken as fact, and if anything I talk about is interesting to you, you should absolutely play it and form your own opinion!

That's that on that, let's tackle the September games!

Rayman Origins (November 15, 2011) - PS3

Hey! Look! I beat my first Rayman game! Similarly to BB, I actually got this game years ago, but never managed to beat it at the time. But with the Rayman Mario + Rabbids DLC out (which I still haven't bought lol BUT I WANT TO REAL BAD!) I figured it was time to finally take the plunge into this series! And I LOVED it! I was having such a killer time with it! Super gorgeous visuals, AMAZING music (I love how goofy it is the lum song was stuck in my head forever afterwards lol), genuinely funny plot, very fun gameplay, the works. But... Partway through the game, suddenly the whole plot changes and you're no longer dealing with demons? And then you have to go through all the worlds a second time and fight a final boss that has nothing to do with the story? Only to then afterwards be told to go through AGAIN and collect almost all the electoons so you can fight the ACTUAL final boss in a super long, super brutal level that's just a long string of memorization. It felt like the second half of the game was made by a different team, it just didn't feel nearly as good and it kinda killed the game for me in the end. I did enjoy the first half a lot though, so I will absolutely check out some of the 3D Rayman games soon, but I might steer clear of Legends atm.

One thing I have to say though: dude the Nymphs are SO hot! Like, they are SO fine it's actually insane. A lot of games will make horny character designs and flaunt them constantly and they're just okay. But no, Rayman Origins earned it. I'm so thirsty for them, that character designer deserves a raise. ANYWAY-

Mortal Kombat 11 (April 23, 2019) - Xbox One

And here we go with my first gamepass game of the month lol. My sister was very kind and gave me a month for my birthday, and one of the first things I beat was a simple arcade run of MK11! MK is a series I actually have an odd amount of history with, but it's also a series I just never really got into. But I did find myself watching the 11 story mode, and I'll try it out whenever it comes into my path. So, here we are. I played as Scorpion, who tends to be my favorite especially whenever Reptile isn't available, and just did a run of the Arcade ladder. I had a good time with it! I'm always impressed with how simple it is despite how edgy it is. And I think being able to make your own custom movesets is super cool (mine mostly just consisted of his classic moves cause they're all I know lol.) Game looks great, has some really gorgeous stages, again, considering how edgy it is, and I thought the final boss was really neat. My only complaints come from the lootbox stuff, I know you can unlock everything for free but I really hate when games put all the customization options behind random chance rather than just putting it in a shop where I can pick and choose what I want. Injustice 2 did the same thing, but thankfully in MK it looks like you don't have to pay for anything. Neat time other than that though.

Gyromite (August 13, 1985) - NES

Next up is a game I didn't technically "beat" since it has like 99 levels. But I did play through the first few levels out of curiosity and I actually enjoyed it so much I wanted to give it a shout out! Gyromite is actually one of the NES games made to work with ROB from Super Smash Bros. Brawl (they made the NES after that game came out). And I wanted to see if I could emulate ROB... I could not. But I already had Gyromite downloaded so I decided to play it myself, and I gotta say. I think it's more fun by yourself with 2 controllers! You play as a scientist trying to get all the bombs without getting touched, and you use the second controller to lift and raise gates to help bridge gaps or stop enemies. Also, you can collect carrots to distract enemies. It's really basic but it's actually a SUPER fun game that I think deserves more love! If you haven't tried it, I do think it's a neat little experience that really deserves to be on NSO.

Dracula X (July 21, 1995) - SNES

Hey, my second Castlevania game! And uh... man idk I did not like this nearly as much as Super Castlevania 4 lol. Idk what the consensus on this is, I know fans consider it to be a non canon stripped down version of a much better game. But I figured I could play this in a night, and I was right! Also, I'm no good at Metroidvanias so I figured I'd play the platformer. And yeah, this game kinda sucks. Feels super clunky to play, has some bizarre enemy placements that make the game almost impossible at some scenes. And generally, outside of some nice sprites and the always BANGING Castlevania music, it's just kinda boring. The only real praise I can sing (outside of the super good music) is that the Wolfman totally kicks ass! He was so cool and genuinely the best boss fight in the game. So while I wasn't really into it, I know that if I had played the REAL game this was based on, it would probably have been a lot better.

Venba (July 31, 2023) - PC

Next up is another Gamepass game! I wanted to play Venba since I first saw it because it just looked really nice and cute! And that's exactly how I'd describe it now that I've played it! It's a very nice story about an immigrant mother, her relationship with her husband, her child, and the food she cooks. And so each level consists of you trying to cook a meal with your mother's cookbook, which has become really messed up over the years. Each level is a puzzle where you try to figure out the right way to cook, and see how it brings the family together. I really had a great time with it! These simple and cute games are always a blast to play and a nice breath of fresh air. And it actually made me pretty emotional. Obviously it's not the same experience at all cause I'm white but it did seriously make me think about my relationship with my mother who also came to America for similar reasons. The game actually almost made me cry lol, but more importantly, it made me hungry! I might have to try cooking some stuff they showed in it! Biriyani in particular really caught my interest as something that just looks CRAZY tasty. And hey, maybe I'll ask my mom to help me make some Romanian food too haha.

Outside of that, the music is really nice, I think most of it is licensed? Or at least is lyrical music performed for the game and it's great. And I particularly loved the art style, which no outlines and a more spraypaint looking brush. It's incredibly unique looking! And Venba herself is SO cute, she's so fine. I love her. I want her to be happy. If you're looking for a nice, short game to play through for an easy and relaxed experience, I can't recommend Venba enough!

Metroid: Zero Mission (February 9, 2004) - Gameboy Advance

Remember when I said I didn't like Metroidvanias a game or two ago? Well, sometimes you gotta step out of your comfort zone. I've only beaten 2 games in the genre before, Ori and Radical Rescue. Ori was good and RR was... neat. But I've never beaten a single metroid in my life until now! I chose Zero Mission for a few reasons, but two big ones are that it's a remake of the first game. And the second is that I actually did play and enjoy this one in the past. But clearly I did not get very far cause I didn't remember SHIT lmao. I planned on playing this side by side with a walkthrough, but I'll admit I actually had a faster and way more fun time just genuinely using the maps the game gave me and just running around. It's fun to figure it out and get upgrades and be like "OH I can do that thing now!" it's like a collectathon lol. The music is nice, the sprites are KILLER (I'm a huge GBA sucker after all).

But of particular interest. Dude. Oh my god. The Zero Suit scene. Holy shit. It's so scary! I was seriously screaming during it! It does such a good job of building tension and just making the situation so scary and dire, and then jump scaring you when the space pirates actually go through doors and climb through vents. It was seriously so bone chilling. But then getting the full power suit and running back through the ship and seeing all the space pirates cower in fear at your might, even hiding in the places you had to hide before? Genuinely brilliant. It was so exhilarating and got such a good reaction out of me. I absolutely ADORED this game! Idk if I'll play many more Metroidvanias past this but damn am I glad I gave this one a go!

Punch-Out!! (May 18, 2009) - Wii

And last, and least! Punch-Out!! Another game series I've never beaten any games in before! I could have played the NES one which probably would've been shorter, but again for a few reasons I decided on the Wii one. It's the newest, seems to be the most popular(?), and also was new when I was a lot younger so I have some nostalgia for when it was coming out. So I played it and uh... Yeah I really did not enjoy this game at all. I know this series is SUPER beloved with tons of fans but I just do not get the appeal. Tons of memorization, the characters are all kinda ugly and also yeah it's kinda racist, boring gameplay. Idk I just was not really into it. Full disclosure, it is a bit of a skill issue. I could not beat Soda Popinsky so I had to use an infinite Star Punch cheat lol. Everyone else I beat legit or at least did the first round and then cheated (I only did this for the characters after Soda, when I stopped caring). But not, him I could not do.

It's not all doom and gloom though. I do think the music is also pretty good in it. And I do have to give the game some props, everyone who comes from another region does legit speak their native language I believe. Which fucking rules actually. And I guess it gave us Little Mac in Smash Bros. Who is fun. But idk, yeah I just wasn't really into this. Oh well, different strokes for different folks. At least I played it!

#2023 #roundup #thoughts

0 notes