#I should play or rewatch playthroughs in the new year

[vampthropologist]

In the new year, I think I’m going to be drawing a lot more danganronpa. Just for fun. Headcanons upon ye.

[subaru-meteorlight]

I finished starforce 1-! I played the dx patch, ofc, I hunted the sp bosses but I gave up when deep space asked for a complete standard library like god bless dex filling is not my passion. Maybe one day I’ll come back to it. 25 hours across 6 days… it’s a bit sad actually, if I were a kid this would’ve taken years but now I just blitz through it in less than a week… aw.

But anyway I really loved it… I’ve never played mmsf1 before, only watched a playthrough and anime years ago so while I was aware of some major twists (pat/rey and AM-ian mega) and the boss lineup, I had forgotten a lot of the smaller details so it was still really fun… I really love geo’s character progression, depressed lonely kid who pushes others away but ends up being saved by people who insist on being in his life, insist on dragging him around and including him and consistently reaching out to him… as well as geo ultimately deciding to move on because he meets someone with the same pain as him and wants to reach out and help, so that she doesn’t fall into the same pit that he does, ending with the both of them moving forward and deciding to be strong together… it’s something I relate to/understand heavily so honestly I’m pretty floored that this is in a game for 10 year olds. If I had a nickel for every time a kid’s game smacked me over the head with its writing I’d have 2 nickels etc etc (tho it’s probably the fact that it is a kid’s game in the first place that makes me underestimate it then get surprised when it has good writing).

Geo and Mega’s relationship is so touching to me… I really love the dynamic of “oh dear god I’m stuck with this guy” but in the end it was because of mega first that geo started caring about other things, started trying new things and experiences for mega’s sake… and in return mega does learn more about caring for other people and being kinder too. It’s a minor detail that I haven’t seen anybody point out before but for transer requests in the early game areas (ie echo ridge) mega is often dismissive about other ppl’s problems (his dialogue along the lines of “ah geez let’s get this over with”/“yeah? let them figure out their own problem.”) but later on in the game he seems… disappointed? when megaman decides not to take on a request. It’s a really cute minor detail that I love. Sadly I don’t have any screenshots to prove this but you gotta trust me bro. Or you can look it up, compare say, echo ridge requests vs dream island or time square reqs.

And on mega- it’s actually very funny to me when you compare his sf1 and sf3 concept art, lol. In the art book it says that they redesigned him to have more upright posture and “handsome” appearance it’s killing me 😭 he’s a domesticated cat… geo tamed him….

Anyway! I just started zerker x ninja last night, played a lil bit of it- unlike sf1 I never watched a playthrough, only the anime, but honestly I totally forgor anything that was in it. Apart from there’s 3 main villains? And solo, god I love solo I can’t wait to meet him properly… but that was all from a rewatch of the anime op, so. First impressions of the game is- holy fucking shit mega follows geo around when you put on the visualiser?????? 😭😭😭😭😭oh my GOD. this is EVERYTHING. Tears in my eyes actually ohhh this is probably the best feature of the game. My god. It’s so cute….!!! Mega’s always by your side, geo… he’s like a following pokemon, lol. That’s a good thing. Number 2- oh, you can walk on the ground as megaman now, cool that’s like sf3- WHY DID I GET AN ENCOUNTER ON THE GROUND. When I tell you my jaw dropped…. Lmao it feels like my safe space got robbed from me </3 viruses should NOT be bothering me on the ground.

Frankly my initial opinion on sf2 was soured because of the negativity surrounding it online, which, fair, half an hour in and I can already see the translation errors… and I’m playing the lowered encounter patch so hopefully the rates won’t be too problematic for me… and ngl people saying that the game having a less heavy and serious tone unlike sf1 and sf3 is a bit of a let down, but ahh, I’ll play regardless and see how it goes. I’m excited to meet solo, at least-! Sf2 is entirely new sf content to me, so I’m way excited to experience it for the first time…!! After this I will join everybody else in the drought 💀

[mind-me-n0t]

2024: Yearkuza in review

As the year comes to a close, I would like to reflect upon what has mattered a lot to me these past 366 days. The one thing that has occupied my brain space more than anything is the Yakuza/Like A Dragon game franchise by Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio. My experience with the series started at the same time both this year and also a long time ago. Allow me to reminisce a little here.

My journey with the Yakuza franchise started a decade ago when I first tuned in to Two Best Friends Play: Yakuza 4. At the time I mainly listened to their videos, tabbed out while playing something else myself or using it as comfort noise to fall asleep to. That, alongside the game's dialog all being in Japanese and Yakuza 4's plot being... what it is, meant I didn't really understand what was happening nor did I really care.

Fast forward a couple of years and the guys did a playthrough of Yakuza 0. It's basically the same story here, expect a few more things stuck, what with Zero being a better game in all aspects. But to me, Yakuza was still that weird crime stuff Pat cared too much about.

Even more years passed and then came the Great Dissolution the channel breakup. I did try to keep up with the guys' individual endeavours but there are only so many hours in a day. However, one day Pat would start his let's play of Yakuza: Like A Dragon. And… Ichiban Fucking Kasuga! Why, I fell in love immediately, with both the character and his English voice actor! After having watched Pat play the whole game, I would go on to buy the game and play it for myself. I was absolutely smitten by the crime man with the heart of gold.

I still didn't feel the urge to go back though 0-6. The brawler combat seemed unappealing to me and the language barrier was still too big. The 7th game having English voice acting really was the tipping point for me. After all, the Japanese audio was the reason so little from the previous let's plays had stuck in my memory. I have watched my fair share of anime, Japanese is nothing new to me, but it still felt so intimidating. So I didn't even think twice about skipping them. Yakuza 7 was after all the new entry point to the series so that was good enough for me.

Enter the 8th mainline game, Like A Dragon: Infinite Wealth. Hurray, more Ichiban and his friends! Well, mostly Ichiban and his friends. Well, rather a 50/50 split. The game had such a focus on Kiryu, I constantly felt left behind. Especially all the Life Link stuff you do, looking back at Kiryu's life. And some very dramatic moments towards the end didn't hit has hard as I could intuit they should. I obviously lacked the context for why all this would be so emotional.

So back to Mr. Boivin I go. I rewatched the old channel's Yakuza 0 let's play with a renewed attention span after which I watched Yakuza Kiwami on PatStaresAt's channel. But then the bastard stopped? Fuck! I had expected to experience all the games through Pat, but he didn't stream Kiwami 2 or 3 or 5? That's way to many gaps for me to be comfortable with it. So I guess... I guess I'll have to play the rest myself then. I get a hold on Kiwami 2 and start a new game on easy. While in the middle of the game, the ever frequent Yakuza series sale popped up on Steam. 0 through to 6 all at a solid discount.

And that's where everything changed.

I'm suddenly tearing through these games, devouring them one after another. My Steam achievements tell me that I played all of 3, 4 and 5 in just 19 days. I'm in a state of mania. After having played the games out of order to fill in the gaps, I go back and play them again, now in order. I finally get comfortable with the brawler gameplay and switch to normal difficulty, hard for the NG+ runs.

Sadly my journey through the games would not be a pure, unspoiled one: First of all, my entry into the series was let's plays and those were out-of-order to boot. Secondly, I have watched a fair share of meme videos and best moment compilations along the way, and clicked on a fair few spoiler tags where my eyes outpaced my brain.

But regardless of all that, I'm still having such a good time. I go on Reddit and find the godforsaken hellhole that is r/yakuzagames and now the brainrot truly metastasises. And when I run out Yakuza to play, Steam is ready to throw a Judgement Bundle sale in my face. So now I get to enjoy the law boys alongside the crime boys.

Conclusion: In the year of our lord 2024, I have played all Like A Dragon games available for purchase on the personal computer (with exceptions being Ishin and RGG: Online). I did play Yakuza 7 closer to its release and just did NG+ this year, but all the other games I experienced with my own hands for the first time during the last 11 months. It's been such a ride.

I don't know what I'm trying to say, or if I'm even trying to say anything at all. I just love my gay little crime boys so much.

Thank you, RGG Studio. Thank you, kyodais. And thank you, Pat.

[animegirlsakurablr]

Shenanigans in the Grand Order, part 816

And Camazotz has become a whole lot more interesting.

Also, here's how My Room looks after... all that. We have a little tent.

After having to drag my ass from lack of motivation, the first half of Mictlān is over. Dear. Fucking. Lord.

This is perhaps the second most psychic damage inducing, cringe filled chapter I've went through. Genuinely, I really don't like it. I just have so many moments going, "what the fuck was Nasu thinking???"

From what I know, Nasu did the best he could with researching Aztec and Mayan history and mythology, and with the latter (mythology) already being scarce on this side of the Pacific, it's worse over in Japan. Which I should applaud him for doing such a thing. However. Mixing that with half of his word building felt off-putting. What do you mean, that the natives from PHH are enemies here. What do you mean, when you said "this takes place in Brazil" - and specifically the Amazon Rainforest - but once we get there it's Pangea. What do you mean, that the natives of the Lostbelt are all dinosaurs.

I've heard that the Deinos are supposed to be parallel to the Faeries from the previous Lostbelt, Avalon, especially with their relationship with "humans". Which I can kinda see. But also, he could've easily not gone that route, especially when he made the humans in Mictlān not only be the natives from PHH, but - as previously said - be put in the antagonistic role, practically playing the conquistadors of the Lostbelt. He could've just used the conquistadors, or maybe use an original species instead of going the "native people are evil" route.

Hell, for a while I was sure that the ocelomeh were like the oprichniki from LB1 - clearly humanoid but not human, as the latter were manifestations of Ivan's rule whenever he's asleep. But that threw out the window when our group got to México City, where it's mentioned that the women and children don't live in the city and only in the surrounding area. So, clearly living entities. Continuing on with the contrast to LB1, unlike the Yaga who are straight-up the Russian population, just turned into beastmen to survive the ice-age like blizzard - the Deinos are just the dinosaurs that survived the meteor by going underground. The Deinos, as much as I kind of like, are so out of place compared to all of the other populations in the Lostbelts.

Going back to the comparison to Avalon, the Faeries are a mixture of mythologies about fairies from English, Irish, Scottish, and Welsh, which is fine enough for the chapter. It was a Fairyland. Again, as stated, the Deinos are just dinosaurs. The closest thing to the population from the real world is the ocelomeh, who are - as previously stated - the antagonistic faction of the chapter.

There's more I could go on, like sprinkling of previous works prior to Fate (ORT and Tsukihime fan service) and the bait-and-switch of the location (which, spoiler warning, happens again for Summer 8 and OC3), but I'm tired of Nasu. I'm just tired of his writing at this point. (Also, an answer from what I asked about Koyan's backstory, specifically on the part of "animals mistook the explosion for gunfire" - that was Nasu. Because of course it was.)

Fun fact, for a while I was planning on watching a playthrough of some of his previous works (mainly Mahoyo, maybe Tsukihime), but after Summer 8 and the collab-filled year of 2024 on the JP server, you know what I did instead? I just went to previous hyperfixations. Specifically Kingdom Hearts. No joke, nearing the end of playing part 1 of Mictlān, I rewatched the Birth by Sleep cutscenes. Not only for a refresher (just in case there's KH news this year), but because I felt enjoyment. I didn't really feel that going through Avalon and so far Mictlān here. At least I felt irritated and bafflement during Tunguska. Just, straight-up nothing for Avalon and Mictlān, just an obligation to get through them. And looking into the future by anything made by Nasu in FGO, all I can feel is dread.

What good things can I say. Besides the music. Uh, well, I'm still not a big fan of U-Olga, but she's perhaps the only thing that isn't a mind boggling choice. Her amnesia actually serves a narrative purpose, unlike what happened with Ibuki in Tunguska. There's that, I suppose.

SQ used: 0

Revival stones used: 6

[laynavile]

I'm hoping to compile a completely fresh load order on my series s - and I know it's never going to be as good/run as good as series x or PC or whatever, it's all I've got to work with atm. I have a decently stable load order currently and it's nice but I feel like it could be so much better. I know I definitely want the game to look nice, run nice and look "new". I know I definitely want as much character customization as possible without it being "too heavy" and taking up too much space - I'm used to playing on PC, although it's been at least a couple years in all honesty, and having racemenu and all of the fun stuff that comes with it - I also am really in the mood lately to play as an Argonian or Khajiit, but my favorite race to play as is Dunmer so mods that enhance any of them would be appreciated. I also really enjoy having a mod/mods that make the NPCs look better, in the past I've definitely used Bijin mods but I'm willing to give something else a try for a new" look. I definitely enjoy having expanded armors and weapons and retextures like aMidianBorn and whatnot so I'd like to definitely have something that covers those as well, I also enjoy alternative armor options. I enjoy having follower mods, currently using Inigo and I love him but I'm open to trying out others. I definitely want a perk overhaul, I've been using ordinator and while it's nice there's definitely things about it that I don't quite like so I'm open to trying something new, I'm just not sure what. It's been a long time since I've played with combat mods but I last tried wildcat and it was decent for sure but I'm not sure it's something I want to add in again, or any combat altering mods at all unless they're just /that good/ that I have to have it. I'm all for adding mods that are "dlc" like, eg. Wyrmstooth, but I don't want to "overload" my load order with those types of mods so only "the best of the best" are what I would want to add. I've considered doing a load order based around Legacy of the Dragonborn - watching and rewatching Gopher's playthrough of Leonard and Inigo using it has definitely inspired that - but I feel like basing a load order around a single mod seems "silly" in that I know there would likely be a lot of incompatibilities with other things I would want to use. But maybe someday I'll give it a go, or maybe someone can show me a load order using LotD that has everything or mostly everything I'm hoping for. Any help/recommendations are greatly appreciated. I just really want to get back to playing a game I love that I haven't played much in a long time. I also am really trying to get back to and start a new playthrough in Oblivion, I have thousands of hours invested in that game - definitely my favorite of the series - back on the Xbox360, but Skyrim's "updates" have somewhat "ruined" the replayability for me, but I'm definitely trying. Anyways, I'm rambling, thanks for reading and hopefully helping me out a bit. I should also mention that I have the Anniversary Edition.

[blazehedgehog]

So for those of you who don't know, I've opened a second Youtube channel. I have finally decided to stop treating my main Youtube channel as a dumping ground for everything, since I'm pretty sure low-view gameplay clips are probably hurting how the algorithm distributes my content.

So I've made a "Game Dump" channel for just random junk that I want to post to Youtube but isn't necessarily #content. Like I used to post way, way, way back in the day!

Anyway, today I finally posted this: a full, first-time, 2 player co-op playthrough of Shredder's Revenge from back when the game originally came out. I had a couple months of cheap PC Game Pass, so it was freely available to me.

I'd intended to maybe do something with this. Like a video review, or something. But it never manifested and now I just don't have the interest. Nor do I have access to the game anymore.

So here's our entire playthrough. We swap around the roster of characters until we find ones we're comfortable with and then finish the game. At the end, when I unlock a new playable character, I repeat one level with them. There's no commentary and I went through a small amount of effort to blur out my Xbox friends list/email/etc. when they pop up.

One minor annoyance I didn't realize until I went to upload this is how sort of bad it looks? I mean it's not unwatchable, but this monitor is like 13 years old and its native resolution is 1600x900, which is what the video captured at. But the game to renders at some bizarre resolution (1440x810), which I don't entirely understand. This leads to a bit of non-square pixels that is slightly annoying, but you do get used to (it's only really noticeable in the slow pans during cutscenes).

On top of that, even at 1600x900, Youtube drops the video down to 720p, because despite supporting tons of arbitrary resolutions above 1080p, it doesn't support anything between 720 and 1080. I could have bumped it up to 1080p myself, but re-rendering this to blur out my email/etc. already took five and a half hours. Scaling it up to 1080p would have doubled or tripled this render time.

So either it's a little blurry because Youtube downscaled to 720p, or it would be a little blurry because I upscaled it to 1080p. It's pixel art, so the result would always basically be the same.

Don't worry about it, I say.

Rewatching this, I find myself wanting to play this again. I should pick up a real copy some day...

[vegannerdgirl]

Tips for Surviving and Thriving from someone who has been self-isolating for 1+ years (while living alone)

As someone who has been doing this for over a year due to chronic illness and mobility issues, and as someone with a biology background and took classes in microbiology and ecology, I hope you’ll find this advice helpful.

1) Your Biggest Enemies are Boredom and Loneliness.

No surprise there. Finding a hobby at home, whether it’s drawing, writing, cooking, crocheting, baking, whatever, it’ll become the bulk of what you do during the day and is the most essential thing to distracting you and warding off the boredom.

Finding an online community is more important now than ever. With apps like Discord where you can talk to people for free, it’s going to go a long way to giving you the social interaction that will keep you engaged.

2) Let Yourself Relax

You don’t need to be doing something productive every moment, so don’t guilt-trip yourself. Reading, rewatching your favorite shows, finally getting to new ones you haven’t seen yet, playing video games (a great way to lose large chunks of time effortlessly), and watching Youtube series/playthroughs.

3) Don’t Hoard (but do stock up on your prescriptions)

This is my biggest concern right now, even more than food and toilet paper. Many of us can’t go without our medications, and making sure your refills are up to date and you fill your prescriptions at least a week before you need them is important. Some pharmacies are allowing you to stock up on your prescriptions for two months. Mine isn’t. So be prepared for that.

Of course, if you’re chronically ill, elderly, disabled, etc., I’m never going to tell you to NOT stock up on supplies and food. You’re the most vulnerable in the community, and if you can afford it, you should have first priority to supplies. Able-bodied and healthy people are the ones I’m shaming right now.

4) Wear a Mask Outside

Even if you’re healthy. Even if you’re asymptomatic. Perhaps especially if you’re not showing any symptoms and you’re young, because that demographic seems to be the biggest vector.

It’s embarrassing, I know, because I’ve been wearing masks outside for years. But the 6 feet distance isn’t enough. Studies are now showing the coronavirus can remain in the air in an enclosed space for up to 3 hours. So get used to wearing a mask in public, because that’s what it might take.

Social stigma around mask-wearing needs to end, immediately. Finding a mask right now might be hard, so use anything you can to cover your mouth, even a scarf or cloth mask. Just be sure to wash it thoroughly when you get home. It’s not sterile, and it definitely won’t keep out viral particles forever, but it’s at least a barrier between you and the outside world (if you keep it clean and don’t share it with anyone else).

At this point, assume you and everyone around you is a carrier, and act accordingly.

5) Limit Your Daily News Intake

It can be both a comfortable habit and anxiety-inducing. Personally, I downloaded the DemocracyNow app and watch the hour long show once a day. I also listen to the podcast “Coronavus Daily Briefing” which gives you a 15 minute daily briefing of everything you need to know. Both sources are about as trusted as you can get, taking this pandemic seriously, and basing their content on science and compassion.

6) Stay In Touch with Friends and Family

This might seem like a no-brainer, but it’s even easier to fall out of contact with people while you’re isolated. Text, call, FaceTime, do whatever you have to do to stay in touch with loved ones. You’re going to need that constant reminder that you’re not alone. Millions of people are in your exact same situation, and that’s a good thing. At the end of the day, remember that this isolation will save lives. Maybe even your own.

7) Download the free Libby and OverDrive Apps

If you have a library card, you can download audiobooks and ebooks for free. If you don’t have a library card, see if you can contact your local library to get one without having to physically go to the building. Virtual libraries during this time are also extremely important.

8) Vitamins D3, B12, and Iron (for people menstruating)

If you’re unable to get strong sunlight directly on your skin at least 10 minutes a day, you need to vitamin D3. Many of us are already deficient and have no idea. Since it’s still winter/spring, most of us aren’t getting enough sunlight, and should be taking D3 regardless.

Most people believe B12 come from animal products. This is untrue. B12 is synthesized from soil bacteria. Due to change in agricultural tactics, we no longer ingest this vitamin directly from the soil. It has to be supplemented, either directly, or through vitamin shots given to farmed animals. Many people are deficient in B12 if not supplementing, and during a time of high stress, considering buying this vitamin as well. Relying on animal products for complete nutrition, especially during a crisis and temporary supply shortages, isn’t going to work.

If you’re like me and get anemic during menstruation, taking iron is important. Most of us can get enough iron from food, but a lot of us need extra help. Be careful to follow the instructions, because unlike B12 and D3, you can easily overdose on iron.

As always, please talk to your doctor if you have medical conditions, but these vitamins are generally well-tolerated (if used carefully), and not all of us can safely go to the doctor for a blood panel right now.

What I take: D3, B12, Iron

9) Many Grocery Stores Have Delivery Options Available

This was my go-to option before. Now that the demand is so high, it will take a few extra days for delivery, and there will probably be a limit on items. So order when you’re still good on food. Don’t let your pantry and fridge go empty if you can afford it.

Don’t forget to include pet food in your grocery delivery. Grocery store brands are usually lower quality than at the pet store, but you may not be able to go to Petsmart or Petco or your local pet supply store for a while.

10) Eat Vegan (you’re probably doing it already)

You’ve probably noticed how all the rice, beans, pasta, bread, and plant-based milks are disappearing off the shelves. That’s because they’re cheap, nutritious, and keep the longest.

Canned and frozen vegetables and fruits: a staple some people forget about, but is very important right now, especially when fresh vegetables and fruit aren’t an option (any food that has been exposed to the open air and not sealed are foods I would avoid at this time).

Pasta and marinara sauce: Love it. A classic. Spice it up with your favorite seasoning (I love canned chickpeas, canned capers and canned diced tomatoes)

PB&J: Overlooked and underrated. Another vegan classic that’ll feed you for ages. (Other nut butters are available if you’re allergic)

Toast: Vegan butter, jam, vegemite, whatever you have in the pantry, slap it on some bread.

The fact of the matter is, this will not be the last zoonotic pandemic we’ll have because of animal agriculture. Governments and experts have always known this was a possibility. In the future after this crisis, it’ll be more important than ever to move away from mass animal farms and slaughterhouses, to plant-based foods and compassionate practices.

Cheap Vegan Essentials (!!!)

11) I Don’t Know How to Cook for Shit

I know how to boil water, stick things in the oven, and microwave. It’s not fancy, and it is embarrassing, but I don’t have the energy or interest in spending a lot of time in the kitchen. Luckily, if you don’t know how to cook at this point, you’re going to survive just fine, especially if you’re eating plant-based foods.

12) Invest in a Pair of Barber Scissors (and maybe some hair ties)

Good news, you can cut your hair pretty easily from home! Barber scissors (you should be able to order them online, I doubt they’re in high demand), even a good pair, shouldn’t cost more than $15. You need these scissors, as regular ones won’t do the job.

Then go on Youtube and learn how to cut your hair. Most videos are short and simple. I have very long hair and have given myself $75 haircuts from home. And I’m usually terrible at that kind of thing.

13) Don’t Take Naps (if you can avoid it)

Chances are, your sleep schedule is going to be out of whack for a while. That’s normal. Making sure you have a routine and avoiding naps if possible is important. If you do have to nap, try to limit it to a small cat nap of 20 minutes or so. A quick snooze often makes me feel more alert than passing out for 2+ hours, and it’ll help not throw off your sleep schedule.

14) Self-Care is Key

It really is. Getting up the same time every day, getting dressed, doing stretches (if possible) and remembering to clean yourself daily are all important for your mental wellbeing.

If you’re chronically ill like me, showering daily can be impossible. Dry shampoo can be a great solution to keep your hair free of grease and oil buildup, and help you feel better as a result.

15) Stay Home!

Cancel all your appointments. Routine doctor visits, dentist, hair appointments, all of it. Unless you absolutely need to leave (groceries, work, emergencies), stay home. The less you go out, the less you risk yourself and others to exposure. It’s that simple.

*If you have an ongoing medical condition and your doctor thinks the risk of going to appointments and undergoing procedures is worth it, obviously listen to them. I mean routine care as in yearly checkups and such. I’m personally having to struggle with this dilemma as I have many ongoing chronic conditions that need testing and observation, and sometimes staying home isn’t an option, especially when this crisis is going to last for months.

16) Prepare for a Marathon, Not a Sprint

From projected numbers and what we know about epidemiology, this will be an ongoing issue for at least the next year, until a vaccine is made widely available and is effective and safe. Self-care, healthy routines, and solidarity are going to be overlooked in the coming months, but I promise they’re going to be instrumental to us getting through this.

I can’t say what life will look like a year from now, but I hope my own experiences with chronic illness and isolation are helpful. As always, my asks are open if you need someone to talk to.

[fatesdeepdive]

Entry 8: Rinkah’s Burning Loins

My Castle

After fully dedicating ourselves to Hoshido, the game finally really begins. We’re given access to a customizable castle in the Astral Plane where our army waits between battles. We can talk to our units, giving them minor stat boosts or new weapons. Right off the bat, we have a farm and spring to give us resources, rooms for Corrin and Lilith, and a Hall of Records.

In Lilith’s spring, we can feed her to make her level up. Different foods affect her stats in different ways. Note that, although Lilith now has stats, she isn’t usable in battle. Other players can invade our Castle through spotpass, which I’ll discuss in a later entry, and Lilith is only usable in those battles.

Lilith

Lilith is a weird squirrel dragon thing that floats around clutching a random ball. She used to be our stable girl and is now our pet. I think she has a crush on Corrin. Her design is unique and cute, I like it. Gameplay wise, she can only use a modified Physic staff. I don’t dislike her personality, but she feels like a throwaway character added at the last minute. She raises a ton of questions that I doubt will ever be answered.

In the Hall of Records, we can see descriptions of all the units we’ll ever recruit, rewatch cutscenes, read unreadable poems, and play around with a relationship tester. The relationship tester is randomized, by the way, which kinda makes it pointless. That said, it told me that Corrin expects betrayal from Rinkah, while Rinkah’s loins are set afire by Corrin. This is now canon, I have decided.

In Corrin’s room, we can change their hairstyle and invite an ally over to chill. I chose Kaze. He complimented Corrin’s piano skills, which she apparently has, then stared at us, blushing, while thanking us for saving him from Garon.

So, let’s talk about the elephant in the room. In the Japanese version you get to rub units while in close up mode. Like Pokemon Amie except...with people. This was removed in the English version. A lot of Fire Emblem fans were pissed, crying about censorship because Nintendo of America had the gall to remove the minigame where you rub Camila’s tiddies while she moans. And I’m going to say a hot take right now: they made the right call. That stuff was weird and indulgent. It was the living embodiment of the fanservice focussed design that plagues modern Fire Emblem games. Good riddance.

Inviting allies to Corrin’s cool sex treehouse boosts our support levels. I suppose it's time I mentioned that. In Fire Emblem games, units form bonds from fighting next to each other, unlocking short conversations that flesh them out as characters. Units also fight together better when they have high supports. Now, here’s the fun thing about supports:

There are more than 600 supports in this game. Not support conversations, support lines, each of which is made up of three or four conversations. And, because God has cursed me for my hubris and my work is never finished, I’m going to read all of them.

Admittedly, I’m not going to unlock all of them. S-Rank conversations result in marriages and each unit only gets one. It’d take a few dozen playthroughs to get all of Corrin’s S-Rank conversations and I don’t hate myself that much, so I’m reading the transcripts from the wiki. I think I’m going to do four supports per Entry; that’ll leave me with a few extra by the time we reach the end, but I’ll just do a support grab bag entry or something.

Before we do supports, let’s finish up improving the castle. I built a weapon shop and a statue of Corrin that boosts her max speed. We are limited on the number of buildings we can build, but that isn’t a big deal yet because the only other option was to build a stave shop.

Support: Corrin/Rinkah

C: Corrin attempts to discuss battle tactics with Rinkah, but Rinkah blows her off and tells her to stop trying to be friends. Rinkah does acknowledge that Corrin’s authority and that Corrin saved her life, but tells the princess leave her alone.

B: Corrin pesters Rinkah until she explains why she’s so aloof. Rinkah explains that, the Flame Tribe keeps a great flame burning in the center of the village to honor the God of Fire. In the past, outsiders have extinguished the fire. One such instance was followed by a volcanic eruption that decimated the tribe. As a rule, the people of the Flame Tribe are wary of outsiders. Rinkah also explains that she’s working for Hoshido because her father commanded her to, much to her chagrin.

A: Rinkah explains that she would have preferred to die an honorable warrior’s death than be captured and resents Corrin for sparing her. Corrin says that she’s glad Rinkah is still alive, because it means Rinkah and her can be friends. Corrin also says that, despite the chaos of war, she believes in fate and its ability to bring people together. Corrin encourages Rinkah to use this opportunity to learn more about the outside world and bring that knowledge home with her. Rinkah begrudgingly agrees.

This is how the conversation will end on my playthrough, but if Corrin has a penis, you can get an S-Rank proposal conversation. I’ll be listing all of these off along with the normal conversations.

S: Rinkah comes to Corrin, blushing, and tells him that he has been a constant reminder of her shame and regret over being captured. But, over time, these feelings were replaced with love. Love that she hated, because Corrin is an outsider. Corrin says that he’s loved Rinkah since the day they met and only told her to be friendly to other people as an excuse to spend time with her. Rinkah states that, from now on, she will remember her capture as the happiest day of her life and the two get married.

Review: I really like this support line. It expands Rinkah’s backstory and culture, ties it into Corrin’s own isolation and belief in fate, and deals with the tumultuous meeting they had in Chapter 2. The confession comes out of nowhere, admittedly, but I do like Rinkah grappling with her mixed feelings of hate and love. Solid support.

Support: Corrin/Jakob

C: Corrin comes to Jakob to ask for a favor. Jakob interrupts her by humorously listing off the things he would do for Corrin. Things like slay dragons for her, which is actually kinda offensive now that I think about it. Corrin begs Jakob to allow her to be independent and Jakob refuses. Corrin explains that she’s his boss and he tells her that servitude is his reason for living. Jakob explains that, when he started working for Corrin, he was incompetent, and her kindness towards him made him indebted to her. The two compromise on the agreement that Jakob will teach Corrin how to make tea. After Corrin leaves, Jakob mumbles to himself that things might get apocalyptic.

B: Corrin repeatedly tries and fails to make a decent cup of tea. Both of them get some funny lines in, with Corrin telling Jakob that she can’t hear him because she’s ignoring him and Jakob saying that, saying that they’ll run out of leaves before Corrin makes decent tea. They meaning the nation in this case. Corrin eventually makes a passable cup, after Jakob secretly adds in sugar.

A: Jakob admits to Corrin that he messed with her tea and she laughs it off, admitting that she knew all along. She apologizes for being stubborn and accepts that she still needs Jakob’s help sometimes. Jakob says that he falls apart without Corrin. Corrin says that the two of them are alike in that way and Jakob literally faints from joy.

S: Jakob is acting more distant than normal. When Corrin asks him about this, he admits that he’s fallen for her and resigns from his duties as butler, because it is improper for him to have feelings for his mistress. Corrin begs him to say because she needs him and admits that she loves him too. The two of them get embarrassed and Corrin fires Jakob, giving him the new job of husband.

Review: This was a hilarious support that really made me appreciate Jakob’s snarky yet loyal personality. He is the perfect butler. The conflict of Corrin wanting to be independent and Jakob wanting to take care of her is a good dynamic that made me appreciate the relationship between these two characters. I do like them more as a platonic couple than a romantic one, but Jakob quitting his job because falling in love with Corrin is improper is a nice character moment.

Support: Corrin/Kaze

C: A villager gives Kaze a bunch of radishes because he’s super hot. And I mean, he is. Kaze apparently doesn’t realize that he’s hot until Corrin explains it to him. Kaze mentions that he dislikes the attention because he isn’t a good person before running off.

B: Corrin asks Kaze to follow her around so she can figure out what’s bothering him. Kaze says no, so Corrin annoys him until he agrees to hang out with him. Then he runs away again.

A: Kaze admits to Corrin that it was his fault that Garon kidnapped her, because when he was a child, he noticed the Nohrian soldiers that killed Sumeragi were in the city but said nothing about it. I don’t know how that makes Corrin’s kidnapping his fault, you’d expect there to be soldiers guarding a king. And the fact that Kaze was there means that there were also Hoshido soldiers, which means there was no reason to be suspicious of the Nohrians. Also, Kaze was a teenager at the oldest, so he should probably get some leeway. Whatever. Kaze apologizes to Corrin and Corrin, in turn, apologizes for making him live with guilt for fifteen years. Corrin also points out that Kaze led her home, meaning that they’re even now. Kaze compares Corrin to Mikoto because of her kindness and pledges to serve Corrin as her loyal retainer.

S: Corrin and Kaze joke around about Corrin’s kidnapping. It’s cute. Corrin mentions that, now that she’s spent so much time offscreen with Kaze, she likes him even more. Kaze blurts out that he loves Corrin, despite being her bodyguard, and the two propose.

Review: I found this chain a bit lacking, to be honest. The first two conversations were filler and the origin for Kaze’s guilt complex is kinda dumb. Kaze’s relationship with Corrin defines him as a character. He is so guilt ridden over her kidnapping that he would betray his country and his family to protect her. Later parts of the game hinge on this relationship. But, three of their four conversations are dull. I do like Kaze’s guilt complex as a concept, and think becoming Corrin’s retainer alongside Jakob and/or Felicia and a way to repent, but it isn’t enough to save this support line.

Support: Kaze/Rinkah

C: Kaze gets a bunch of candy for being hot and shares it with Rinkah, who secretly loves candy.

B: Kaze continues to give Rinkah candy.

A: Kaze continues to give Rinkah candy.

S: Kaze reveals that he’s been giving Rinkah candy because he’s in love with her.

Review: This one was a big let down. The fact that Kaze and Rinkah are introduced together made me think it would be about their capture, but no. It’s just Kaze giving Rinkah candy for four conversations straight. And it’s cute fluff, but it’s nothing more than that. There is something interesting below the surface with Rinkah hiding her love of candy to protect her image, but it’s never really explored.

So, off to a mixed start with the support conversations.

Birthright Chapter 7: A Vow Upheld

Team Corrin heads to a Hoshidan fort where Sakura is tending to wounded soldiers. We are introduced to Sakura’s retainers, Subaki and Hana. Suddenly, the fort is attacked by Nohrian forces. Corrin and Azura point out the ridiculousness of them attacking immediately after they arrived. Sakura freaks out because the fort is being used as a hospital and has no military value. So apparently Nohr is now being evil just to be evil.

Subaki and Hana agree to help Corrin defend the fort and argue over who’s more important to Sakura, much to her annoyance. Subaki and Hana give me a good opportunity to discuss a few interesting things about classes in this game. First off, unlike in most Fire Emblem games, classes are NOT gender-specific, as demonstrated by Subaki being the first male Pegasus Knight in the series. Secondly, the classic Fire Emblem classes were divided between the two nations. Nohr got Mercenaries, Hoshido got Myrmidons. Nohr got Wyvern Riders, Hoshido got Pegasus Knights. Etc. I really like this, it gives the two countries different feels in combat both aesthetically and mechanically. Finally, a lot of Hoshidan classes were renamed to be more Eastern, shown by Hana being a Samurai instead of a Myrmidon, or by Sakura being a Shrine Maiden instead of a Cleric.

Subaki

Subaki is a Sky Knight, this game’s equivalent of a Pegasus Knight. He can fly over terrain and has good speed and resistance, but is decimated by arrows. His personal skill buffs his hit and avoid when he has full health. Design wise, I like how ridiculously smug he looks. Personality wise, he seems over-competitive yet fiercely loyal to Sakura.

Hana

Hana is a Samurai with high speed and skill. Her personal skill damaged nearby enemies when she scores a kill. Her design is fine, if a little bland. Personality wise, she seems over-competitive yet fiercely loyal to Sakura.

Starting with this chapter, we have a prep menu, where we can choose which units to use and rearrange them on the map. We can bring our whole team in with us, so it’s a little pointless, but it's nice. Worth noting that you can have units start in pair up via this menu, unlike in Awakening where you had to pair them up after the battle started.

At the start of the battle, the chapter’s boss, a Cavalier named Silas, shouts out to Corrin that he’s her childhood best friend. She does not remember him even slightly. Okie dokie.

This map is decent. It’s a bit short, but it features a lot of good bottlenecks. The Dragon Veins can be used to open heal tiles, which is a bit pointless because you have two healers. When Silas and Corrin fight, he reiterates that they used to be friends. Corrin says that she can’t remember her past. And that confuses me, because I was under the impression that she got amnesia when she was taken to Nohr, which would have been before she met Silas. Unless he’s lying.

After the battle, Corrin refuses to kill Silas. She interrogates him about why he was so hesitant to attack them and he explains that, when they were children, he helped Corrin sneak out of the walls to have a picnic. The guards tried to execute Silas for this, but Corrin stopped them, because apparently guards listen to small children. Because of this, Silas feels he owes a debt to Corrin.

Question. Why was this random child allowed to play with the super secret hostage princess? Whatever.

Corrin eventually recovers a vague memory of Silas and asks him to join the gang. She explains that Garon is crazy and evil and that’s enough to make him swap sides. Silas is now officially the most sane character in the game. I mean, he should have probably realized this stuff before being sent to destroy a hospital for shits and giggles, but still.

Also, Silas mentions that Corrin’s favorite food is surf and turf. Perhaps this symbolizes how Corrin is stuck between both kingdoms? Or maybe it’s a random throwaway line. You be the judge!

At the end of the chapter, Saizo and a new character named Orochi show up, wounded, and report that Takumi and Ryoma have gone missing. Uh oh.

Team Corrin decide to help search for the missing princes. Sakura decides to come along, despite Corrin and Kaze’s objections. Silas also decides to come along and Saizo points out that he totally could be a spy or traitor. He’s a dick, but he is infinitely smarter than Kaze.

[bronanlynch]

I enjoyed doing this last week so this is. a thing now I guess. click through for roundup of whatever media I’ve been into in the past week (will normally be on thursdays I think bc that’s the day I’m usually free but my schedule this week was weird) (inspired by the tuesday again thing that @girlfriendsofthegalaxy does)

listening: the new Mountain Goats album Getting Into Knives is very fun and full of bops, for a given value of both “fun” and “bops” because it’s The Mountain Goats so it does have that edge of depression but quite a few of the songs are a bit more. cheerful? than a lot of their other stuff, for lack of a better word

favorite track is probably The Rat Queen

listening (podcast edition): this very fun episode of Overinvested tearing apart the new movie adaptation of Rebecca which I have not seen and was not planning on seeing but I do enjoy people smartly analyzing why things aren’t good and also I do love discussions about Gothic romance

reading: The Mermaid, the Witch, and the Sea by Maggie Tokuda-Hall is probably a very good book that someone else will enjoy very much, as lots of people whose opinions I generally trust already have enjoyed it. and I possibly will enjoy more if I give it another chance, once I’ve gotten over being disappointed that it wasn’t what I was looking for right now. the premise is neat! the worldbuilding is cool! the characters are interesting! mermaids, witches, and seas are three of my favorite things and also there are pirates, my other fave thing!

the reason I bounced off of it so hard is that I kept seeing it hyped up as a trans/nonbinary book, and then felt kinda let down when I started reading it and realized that the main character whom I’ve seen described as genderqueer is 1) dressing as a guy because someone else suggested it for safety reasons and 2) this was several years before the story starts and this character still refers to herself exclusively (disclaimer that I didn’t read the full thing but. as far as I got and also I skimmed toward the ending) as she and by her feminine birthname. and those things are fine, that’s a valid gender story, nonbinary people can absolutely keep their old pronouns and names and it doesn’t make them any less nonbinary, but the way it was framed in the parts that I read felt to me more like the old classic ‘girl dresses as guy for plot reasons’ thing, which isn’t something I personally wanted to read more of right now, especially not when I went in expecting something that would resonate more with my gender experience

watching: I’ve been rewatching Leverage, since I only ever watched the first season many years ago because that’s what was free on hulu at the time, and the thing that’s really getting to me is how fundamentally hopeful it is. like, yeah, sure, the premise of it is about how capitalism is designed to fuck people over and there is A Lot about specifically health insurance being really really awful. so there are parts of it that are a lil bit too real, but then at the end of the day they always win and punish the rich capitalists and help their victims and it’s just. nice to see that kind of happy ending

the specific episode I’m having lots of thoughts about is the Mile High Job, which is about the team is trying to protect a potential corporate whistleblower from being murdered by her coworker while on an airplane. at first they’re not sure what’s going on because they weren’t expecting two people from the corporation to be on that flight, so they don’t know which person is the one they should be focusing on. one of them is an anxious younger woman and the other is an extremely generic man, and from the moment they decided that the woman was the one they had to protect I was dreading the plot twist of “no actually you just helped her take out her target and you should’ve been protecting the other guy” which would’ve felt just. so mean-spirited and cynical but it’s the kind of thing I expect from media I guess. and then once it was clear that nope, that twist wasn’t going to happen, I expected her to turn around at the end and be like “actually no I’m not gonna testify against the corporation because I’ve realized how dangerous it is.” and I kind of hate that I’ve become so jaded by both media and also the real world that I’m so ready to expect the most cynical option, because I’m not used to stories about how even though the system is corrupt and oppressive and exploitative, people can still help each and they do and sometimes they make things better

playing: got back into playing Dishonored after taking a couple weeks off because I got stuck and frustrated and also kept playing for too long at a time and giving myself headaches. Lady Boyle’s Last Party (which I am going to completely and entirely spoil so if you don’t want that this is your warning) is probably the mission that I have the strongest mixed feelings about. I love the approach to the party, I love the concept of sneaking into a masquerade ball, I love signing the guestbook with your actual legal wanted fugitive name while wearing the mask that you commit all of your crimes in, I love a good fancy party mission I cannot stress that enough it’s the sexiest possible setting

HOWEVER. trying to sneak around upstairs fucking sucks because the ceilings aren’t high enough for there to be places to hide, like convenient hanging lamps or pipes to blink up to. my least favorite room in this entire game is that art gallery because you can get on top of the cases and you think you’re safe because you’re Up but then the guards spot you instantly and sound the alarm and the entire party shuts down and then you let them kill you so that you can go back to your last save

ADDITIONALLY, fuck the nonlethal option for this one. I hate it so much and feel so incredibly gross about choosing it but I also feel extremely not great about tricking her into meeting me alone and then actually assassinating her. the conversation is so uncomfortable that I tried to be like “actually no nevermind” which causes her to think you’re weird and creepy and she has the guards ““throw you out”“ which apparently in Dunwall is just how you say that she’s gonna have the guards murder you. but anyway. she's a shitty rich lady but she doesn't deserve either of the things that could happen to her and she's only a target because she's sleeping w a guy who sucks. she hasn’t done anything! she isn’t actually responsible for what happened to Jessamine or Emily! which works on a narrative level in my opinion because this is the last mission before you go after the lord regent and it’s becoming clear that the loyalists are just using Corvo for their own agenda and don’t actually care about Jessamine. but it’s still unpleasant to be the one enacting it, y’know?

also on a narrative level, I really like the concept of doing a clean hands run except killing each of the actual targets, because I feel like that would be a cool inversion of the trope where the hero kills a bunch of mooks and then refuses to kill the big bad because murder is wrong. on a gameplay level, I’m still gonna do the nonlethal options because I refuse to risk getting the bad ending, and I’m proud of the fact that I haven’t killed anyone since getting out of prison. I do wanna do a high chaos playthrough at some point though just to see how it goes, since I went low chaos last time too

sorry for writing an entire essay about Dishonored but. the funniest thing from that mission is that apparently if you get spotted by one of the maids in the basement where you are not supposed to be (the guards will immediately attack if they see you) instead of raising the alarm she just says “welcome to the party.” love that solidarity.

making: none of my cosplay stuff is at an especially picture-worthy stage and I didn’t get pictures of the pesto I made for dinner last night so there’s not gonna be much that’s interesting here but I did go to Spirit Halloween after Halloween when everything was on clearance and got a bunch of stuff that I’m gonna use for cosplay eventually

writing: soon I will finish the Eddis/Attolia Queen’s Thief fic that’s been rattling around in my brain ever since I finished the last book. hopefully.

[magicwaaaze]

Mo I know you posted about it like 2 hours ago but I love kindergarten 2 and havent seen any content or opinions about it since it first came out so I would really enjoy hearing you talk about it honestly 🥺🥺🥺

oh my god?? 🥺🥺💕 thank you so much for giving me an excuse to talk about it hygsgdfg

i haven’t seen a lot of kindergarten 2 content either ever since the hype died down. i rewatched jacksepticeye’s playthrough recently and now i’m just kinda searching the tags for new art/headcanons 😔 but! i guess i might as well put my own content out there now that i have the chance! here are some headcanons and opinions and pretty much everything i’ve been thinking about it

personal opinions:

nugget is a king as per usual 😌✨ we stan a true intellectual

the huxley twins are by far my favorite characters in the series (sorry nugget-). i just really like their dynamic and it just seems like there’s a lot of ✨lore✨ behind them. i probably have more headcanons for them than for anyone else tbh

i hate the janitor with a burning passion he makes me want to throw hands with an 80 year old. monty gave him less than what he deserved 😤

60% of me loves ozzy and 40% of me wants to give him a bouquet of green flowers

he reminds me of sammyclassicsonicfan

there should be a third alternate ending to cain’s not able where felix gets a redemption arc, learns how to not be a dick to teddy, and they both live happily ever after. 😔 alas.

i think penny should’ve been the one to kill the principal. she deserved it after all of that :(

jerome is criminally underrated. i love him and he deserved more screen time :(

lily and billy are so cool what the h*ck

stevie was just trying to do his job i’m so sad-

honestly, i don’t ship felix and cindy at all. if anything, they make me think of a married couple who got divorced and stayed best friends afterwards- but i do love how much of a chaotic duo they are

buggs: *breathing*

me:

seriously someone please just hug him

okay but WHY did the principals want to turn the kids into monsters? i get it but like i wanna know their motives. the female principal said that she wanted to take over other schools in the area but for WHAT i’m curious

clout glasses felix was the best thing to come out of the fandom and you can’t change my mind

i gotta know what that trip to the nugget factory was like for felix and nuggie wuggie. did they have a bonding moment. did they just go to mcdonald’s. did they h*ld h*nds. I Need To Know

dr. danner deserves to say one swear word. as a treat. he is so tired

headcanons:

penny is alive (figuratively speaking) and well after creature feature. monty and carla rebuilt her with danner’s help and she’s not a pile of robotic parts and goo anymore,, monty’s family ended up taking her in because they think she’s just a sweetheart

the main character and nugget both don’t have parents/family and live on their own. gang gang 🤟

buggs is much wiser than he lets on. he’s supposed to be in first grade but got held back

nugget has a diet that consists solely of different brands of chicken nuggets and honey mustards

ozzy and ted are secretly best friends

ozzy wears gloves 24/7

monty has a new york accent and the huxley’s have british accents you Cannot change my mind

ted literally thinks that felix is the coolest person to ever walk the planet. he pretty much idolizes him. which is why he never stands up for himself when felix starts being... well, felix. he justifies all of his brother’s actions even though he knows they’re wrong

the twins eventually learn how to be good brothers to each other because i’m dumb and i want them to be happy together :’(

buggs and penny eventually become very good friends (he pretended not to want her friendship bracelet, yet he wears it every day)

that leg in the nugget cave? penny’s. :)

ted plays violin and felix plays piano

monty actually comes from a really wholesome family, but they don’t have a lot of money. he uses his earnings from his side business to help them out because he loves the hell outta them

the huxley twins’ mom isn’t apart of their lives. she and mr. huxley got divorced when he got caught cheating 👀 it was a huge scandal and after they divorced she straight up ditched them. at least, that’s what father tells them

theodore is just ted’s evil alter ego okay. it’s his emo persona okay. that’s not my boy, he’s just going through a phase, thAT’S NOT m

[stop-breaking-my-heart-telltale]

Yeah! If you had any tips I’d really appreciate it! : D

Okie-dokie!

I guess we can call this CJ’s jumbled writing tips for fanfics haha 

Just remember that these are things that help me and they may not help everyone. 

Write what you know/do your research!

This may be obvious, but it really does help. 

There’s a reason why I only write for s4 rather than for s1, s2, or ANF- I know s4 way better than I do the previous seasons. 

Like, if you asked me to write a fanfic where, I dunno… Kate died instead of Mariana, for example, I don’t really know if I could do it. 

Or, at least, do it well. 

Even though I enjoy ANF and love Javier Garcia with my entire being, I’m not nearly as invested in the characters and stories, which makes it difficult to actually write them. 

On the flip side, I could probably write 50k fic about Louis and a good day that he had. 

Again, I love Louis with my entire being just like with Javi, but I’m way more invested in his character as well as the characters around him, his relationship with Clementine and the others, and the story he’s a part of. 

So, with that, I’ve played s4 a lot. Like… a whole lot, and I like to think that I’m pretty familiar with Louis’ character and have a certain interpretation of him that I can express through writing. 

Replay/rewatch the season and taking notes. 

Now, that might seem like a bit much for some, but really? It helps so damn much. 

The more you play or watch these games, the more new things you notice or pick up on and the more invested you get! Crazy, right! I like to go back and replay the season whenever I have the notorious “writer’s block” with little to no motivation to write. 

I know that this always works for me because I just recently finished up s4 again and that resulted in [sit with me a while], a fic that wouldn’t have existed if not for that playthrough. 

Now, I know that not everyone can actually play these games or they can but don’t have time to sit through the whole season again, but there’s a simple fix for that: Youtube. 

Not necessarily let’s plays [because for me personally, I always get frustrated watching some of the bigger LP’s because their commentary can get on my nerves, and most of them are invested but not really, y’know?] but there are several videos like “All Aasim choices/moments in The Final Season” or “Full Clementine and Louis/Violet love story” that you can sit down and watch and take notes that way. 

And if you’re going to be writing a character like Mitch, it’s helpful to search for a video containing all of Mitch’s dialogues and choices, including the bad ones so that you get a feel for how he reactions. Mitch isn’t going to react to a piece of dialogue the same way Ruby or Aasim will, so it’s always good to keep that in mind. 

When it comes to studying these characters, regardless of who it is, you do end up coming up with your own headcanons for them without really thinking about it, y’know? 

For example, a little line from Louis of “my grandma’s phone number” resulted in me eventually forming the headcanon that Louis and his grandma were close and he because an absolute chess master because of her. 

Stuff like that really does help when writing these characters. It gives you the opportunity to put a personal spin on them and make them interesting for yourself and those reading. 

Read, read, then read some more

And I’m not just talking about fanfics. 

Though they do count. 

I’m mostly talking about books, though. 

Y’know, the kind that you hold or listen to. 

I stand firmly with the belief that the more you read, the better you’ll write. If there’s one thing I have going for me, it’s that I never go to bed without reading a little bit of my book. 

Hell, fun fact about me: I’m a goddamn book hoarder in recovery. Kind of. To be fair, I’ve given away a lot of my books so I don’t have nearly as many as I used to but like…

I have bookcases of these things, I have to restrain from spending full paychecks on books, and I have too many books that have been on my TBR for years…

Reading is a great way to see different writing styles and pick up on different techniques/words/phrases to try in your own writing. 

Also! Audiobooks! 

More recently, I’ve been listening to audiobooks while getting ready in the morning, on my lunch break, while driving, ect and they help just as much. 

Again, this is something that helps me, but usually reading and writing go hand in hand so I thought I’d throw it in here. 

Actually, y’know… WRITE

This is the part where I should take my own advice yeesh

So, aside from going back to the games or watching clips on youtube, it also helps to give yourself a daily goal to write. Again, I’m aware that there are those who don’t have time to sit down and write every day, which fair enough I barely have time these days ugh. 

But, for those who do have spare time but maybe aren’t sure what to write or how to go about it, do a warm-up. 

Seriously, pick a character and a topic and write a drabble [100 words] about that. 

Example: Violet and flowers. 

Does Violet like flowers? Do they agitate her nose or give her allergies? What’s her favorite flower? Did she not really care about flowers until something made her character? 

100 words. Write it. 

Not only will it help with getting into the character’s mind and give you a feel for writing them, but it’ll get you started and it could potentially lead to something amazing, like a full-blown fic. 

I’ve actually thought about making one of those chart things? You know the ones where you do the whole “The first letter of your name is a character and the last letter of your last name is a topic! Write a drabble!” or doing something like that and making it a thing to help get words flowing for our fellow writers. 

I dunno, let me know about that one, guys. 

Dialogue is fun, guys

If you’re having trouble with a scene between two or more characters, write the dialogue first and mark/color code it, the write the actions and thoughts around it. 

This is a little trick I picked up in a creative writing class back in high school and it’s saved me more than once.

Writing is hard and sometimes you can’t think about what the characters are doing right now, but you know how you want the conversation to flow and this is a great way to do that. You can fill in the blanks later. 

Angst is fun, too

I know you specifically asked about angst and how to make readers truly feel it. 

This is what works for me: I write what would make me cry. 

Simple, right?

A great example of this is dead Louis. 

Dead Louis makes me want to curl up in a ball and sob. Y’know what else makes me want to do that? Clementine dreaming about dead Louis. Clementine talking to dead Louis knowing full well that this is a dream and nothing more. Clementine and Louis can’t be together because he’s dead and she has to live without him while constantly being reminded of him through the music room, Tenn, and her missing leg. Clementine taking her notebook and writing letters to Louis even though he’s dead. 

That is what breaks my soul. After finding out that this is one of the canon endings [Save Louis/Don’t trust AJ] and receiving a certain prompt, I thought about all those things and that’s how [write to me] came together. And yeah, I teared up when editing that thing, just like I did with [sit with me a while].

Think about what breaks you, take those emotions and put them into words. Try and make yourself upset, or cry, or whatever. 

And really, this doesn’t just apply to angst. You can apply it to writing romance, too. What kind of romance do you want to see? What makes you giggle and feel mushy gushy when reading a romance? 

This pretty much boils down to that good ol’ saying: Write what you want to read. 

That’s all I have for right now. 

But, really, the best advice I can give you is to keep writing. You’ll find your style and continue to grow, trust me. 

Another fun fact about me: I’ve been writing stories since I was eight-years-old. We used to write stories all the time in my third-grade class and ever since, it’s all I’ve ever loved doing. 

I’ve written mostly original works, but when I was younger [around 12-14] I dabbled a bit in fanfiction for another fandom. I still have access to the stories and they’re horrendous. 

Anyway, I’ve been writing for a very long time and I still have so many things that I need to improve upon in both my fics and original works. I’m far from a perfect writer but I love doing it, regardless.

I hope that my mess of “tips” has helped some, and if you have any further questions, never be afraid to ask. That applies to anyone else out there, too.

You’re gonna create an amazing story, anon, with or without tips or help ❤️ 

[greyias]

OC Asks 3. How did you choose their name?

Also asked by @captainderyn​

Hahahahaha… okay, the short answer?: I’m an idiot. I didn’t realize I was going to love this game or this character as much as I did.

The long answer, well, I’ve alluded to it once or twice in the past, but I guess I should actually delve into it for real. But under a cut, because it’s probably going to get long.

I’m not sure if this should come with any kind of warning, but it’s kind of long and does delve into some personal stuff. So hopefully that doesn’t bother anyone!

Okay, so, when I first heard about this game in 2011, I had been out of fandom for several years, and had played a few MMOs here and there, but never really got into them for very long, mostly because I got bored very quickly with how repetitive they were. And then I read about this supposedly story and character-driven MMO, and I was intrigued. I was talking to my sister-in-law at the time about it, and ultimately realized I’d never be able to play because I didn’t have a PC capable of running it, and I was heavily into debt because of medical issues, to the point where I was having a difficult time affording my car payment, mortgage, and groceries.

So then Christmas rolls around, and my family has just about finished all of the presents when my brother and his wife go and bring in a special gift they’d been working on for several months: a frankensteined gaming PC that had one game installed on it, with several months of a subscription pre-paid: Star Wars the Old Republic

Needless to say, I was kind of bawling because no one had ever done something that nice to me before. And like? It’s kind of hard to describe what that previous year had been like without having a long, long side story but… it was difficult. It kind of sounds melodramatic to say it was hellish, but looking back on it? It kind of was. I was barely doing anything besides surviving, much less having fun. And here my sister-in-law had actually listened to a one-off conversation about how I was interested in this game but probably would never be able to play it, and like… took it upon herself to make that happen.

So of course the first thing I do is hook up my brand FrankenPC, load up the only game on it, and create a character! But it’s a MMO – and even though it’s billed on being story and character-based, I kind of don’t really believe it? Or at least don’t think my character is going to matter. So I do what I did with every other MMO, I used my online nickname to make a character (Greyias) so my friends can recognize me if they’re in-game, create a character that vaguely looks like me, and get to adventuring! 

The last name came when they rolled out legacies, and hey, I used “Highwind” for my short-lived Pirates of the Caribbean MMO toon. It’s also the last name for one of the main characters in my abandoned steampunk novel series, but that’s another story for another time.

(And then after about three days of learning the mechancis, re-roll said character on a different server, because OOPS! That wasn’t the server my brother and sister-in-law had started their guild on. She looked a little less like me this time. Probably should have changed the name, but I just wanted to see how the story turned out and eventually quest with my fam)

I realized my mistake around Coruscant when Kira joined up as a companion and I went “…uh oh.”

Because I’ve started to recognize I get a certain feeling when I like something, really like something to the point when I get… ideas. Story ideas. Character conversations and wondering “what if”. Of course, this is still in the open beta period, the game hasn’t even launched yet, there’s still long queues to log in and the grind is real, and I just want to see where this story is going and what Darth Angral is going to do, and why is this character so damn sincere and genuine and I don’t like characters that are the literal embodiment of sunshine, I like snarky snarksters and–oh. No I actually do like the Sunshine Jedi. A lot.

Now, a few of you may be like “I really don’t see what the problem is” – this is kind of an old school thing, and something that seems to have thankfully gotten a lot of pushback in the time since I had left fandom and the time since I rejoined it, and that is: The Dreaded Mary Sue

From about the time I had started writing fic when I was in my early teens and onwards it had been drilled into my head that Mary Sues were a bad thing. And self-inserts were worse. Especially if they were *gasp* FEMALE CHARACTERS. (We can’t have those girls having characters they identify with now, can we?) And like, those very relevant discussions aside, I was kind of… ashamed? That I had made a self-insert without realizing it? Despite the fact that like, the character that resulted from my playthrough was very much not me. Like, a significantly different person.

But I was starting to get story ideas and snatches of character bits, and like, I hadn’t written in so long, I hadn’t been inspired in so long. And honestly I just loved this little do-gooder goober, in all of her naive, happy-go-lucky glory. As well as her red-headed sidekick and this amazing dynamic that I had only really seen depicted between male characters previously. And so I promised myself if I got a story idea, I’d write it out and… just change Grey’s name to something else. So no one would know my secret crime, and I would be free, freeeee to scribble in the margins of canon.

It was a great plan, except, I had been playing with subtitles for the game on, so every time Grey would speak, her name would appear above it. And wouldn’t you know? I associated that name with that face, and well, I didn’t get that story idea yet, so it was. Fine I tell you. FINE.

I kept playing the game. In fact, I played the game a lot in the middle part of 2012, because wouldn’t you know? I had another round of medical issues that put me on short term disability and I actually had to retrain my body to sit in a chair for long periods of time (look, it’s a really long story, and this post is long enough as it is). So let’s just say… I got really attached to my little Sunshine Jedi who could go out and save the galaxy when I could barely walk a hundred feet.

And continued to play it off and on over the following years, until finally, finally the devs removed the grind wall in preparation for KotFE, and I was able to finish the Jedi Knight storyline and see where her story ended up. Then I played the next expansion on Makeb. Which was fun. Then I made the mistake that we all know I was eventually going to make: I played Shadow of Revan.

And met Theron fucking Shan. And my perfect little Jedi suddenly fell in love and oh crap. I’m escaping out of cutscenes to rewatch them. Like rewatching them an absurd amount of times. And as I’m going to sleep I’m like, getting entire bits of narration and brand new scenes and fic ideas in my head, and oh god. It finally happened. I try and resist the pull, but I play up through KotFE and I have no more story to stall any more. And the snippets just keep lulling me to sleep every night and… okay.

I probably need to rename this character now. Like, there’s an actual ability to do that in-game so I should get to it. Chop chop.

Nothing works. Nothing at all works. This should not be that hard, she can have any name, no one will know. Why can’t I think of a different name? I go to every single name site known to man, and none of them are her. Besides the fact, that’s her name, and I’m starting to feel kind of guilty for taking it away from her. Poor girl has been through so much in canon and now I’m taking away her name? What kind of monster am I? Okay, fine. I roll up a different Knight during the Dark vs Light event, gave that one an actual name that was not my online writer name just to see if I could trick my brain into writing about them.

Nope.

Maybe I’ll change my online name? “Let her keep the name Grey and I can just have a different name and…” – at this point I’m starting to realize I might be getting slightly neurotic over this whole thing.

Completely annoyed with myself for spending nearly a year trying to come up with a new name I’m starting to get desperate, thinking up ways to maybe just… write around it and not let people know her name until they maybe fall in love with her and hopefully just forget how it’s weird. That can work right? Okay, whatever at least I’m writing and it’s shutting these two up, and it’s all going good for several stories in and then suddenly I get to a scene that has more than one female character and I’m like “Shit… the jig is up.”

Meanwhile, I’ve started up a Dragon Age Origins playthrough, and like a dumbass, DO THE EXACT SAME THING with a female Cousland, and start whining to poor @for-the-flail on Twitter, on my fainting couch about how I can never write this character’s name because I named her after myself, and, bless her heart, she’s just like: “…um. Why?”

And I’m like “Because… we share a name… and that’s weird for people…?”

She goes “It’s not that weird. Why don’t you just write your stories? People will like them or not.”

And sheepishly, I realized she was right, and stopped being so diligent about hiding poor Grey’s name, and eventually, because you are all such lovely and encouraging people, eventually embraced it. (Come to think of it, I never did wind up writing about poor Cousland!Grey. Oops.)

So! That’s the long and ramble story of how she got her name and why it never changed despite my best efforts.

In summary: I’m an idiot 🤷‍♀️ but I think you guys love me anyway?

[mikumutual]

answers aa themed questions nobody asked because i’m cool and sexy

also i havent played the 5th or 6th games so

YOUR FAVOURITE…? 1. Favourite Ace Attorney game? honestly? phoenix wright ace attorney! everything’s fresh, there aren’t many weak characters, and the plot is remarkable (especially the fifth case). the whole trilogy is really good as one unit though 2. Favourite case? 1-4, 1-5, 2-4, and 3-5 are tied lol, i can’t make a decision to save my life. 2-1 is really really funny tho 3. Favourite defendant? as a defendant, lana skye. as a person, edgeworth 4. Favourite prosecutor? as a prosecutor, franziska von karma. as a person, edgeworth 5. Favourite ship? wrightworth obviously... ive probably put more thought into them over the last 3 years than any other ship 6. Favourite victim? probably mia fey or gregory edgeworth... but for non-relevant victims, neil marshall :( 7. Favourite murderer? shelly de killer, i LOVE that guy. but dee vasquez was very cool as well 8. Favourite assistant? maya fey!!!!!!!!!! but i like kay faraday a lot too (im so sorry ema) 9. Favourite witness? adrian andrews... or maybe iris? i mean i didn’t like iris but god what a person 10. Favourite quote? “It doesn't matter how many underhanded tricks a person uses... The truth will always find a way to make itself known. The only thing we can do is to fight with the knowledge we hold and everything we have. Erasing the paradoxes one by one... It's never easy... We claw and scratch for every inch. But we will always eventually reach that one single truth. This I promise you.” - Miles Edgeworth i made this one of my senior quotes :]

YOUR LEAST FAVOURITE…? 11. Least favourite Ace Attorney game? uh fucking apollo justice. literally what the hell was that 12. Least favourite case? turnabout visitor wasn’t very strong? i guess it’s fine as an intro, but it’s also wonky with the timeline of aai 13. Least favourite defendant? max galactica. he’s better in the anime though 14. Least favourite prosecutor? manfred von karma, obviously. i like every other prosecutor (who i know of) though, even winston payne is pretty funny in hindsight 15. Least favourite ship? “miles edgeworth/female oc”. there are a lot of bad ships though, mostly involving phoenix & his assistants. dont do that please 16. Least favourite victim? zak gramarye for kickstarting that shitty, shitty game 17. Least favourite murderer? again mvk... but also fucking frank sahwit LMAO 18. Least favourite assistant? i guess trucy 19. Least favourite witness? fuck everyone from turnabout big top unless it was the anime episode 20. Least favourite memory of Ace Attorney? repeatedly trying and failing to download the emulator for aai2 hbjsjhdb i eventually got it but someone had to send me the download fully pre-patched and i felt kinda useless DO YOU PREFER…? 21. Phoenix Wright or Apollo Justice? phoenix wright. fuck that “GOTCHA!” mechanic jesus christ 22. Maya Fey or Trucy Wright? maya fey. nothing personal against trucy but i just dont like aj hbjsdjhsdb also maya is really sweet and fun and she has the best sprites. she seems like she’d be a good friend, it’s too bad that she doesn’t have the time for them as a spirit medium and all :( if maya ema and kay got to hang out together itd be wild 23. Investigations or trials? trials are easier in my opinion because investigations have several things you could be doing without such a linear style, so if you miss something, you won’t really know until you wander around forever 24. College Phoenix or Hobo Phoenix? college feenie!!!!! he’s like trilogy feenie but more emotional and less witty. i like to pretend that hobo phoenix doesnt exist 25. Klavier Gavin or Kristoph Gavin? who would say kristoph 26. Ace Attorney or Ace Attorney Investigations? ace attorney but only because phoenix is in it lmao. im actually rewatching a playthrough of aai now, and playing aai2 at the same time, so while it is on the mind, i feel like the cases characters and mechanics - while loved - don’t hold up to the OGs 27. Apollo’s perceive, Phoenix’s magatama, or Athena’s Mood Matrix? i actually kinda like the mood matrix more than anything because it has a really good UI and the magatama is kinda grating. but FUCK the gotcha mechanic it is SO FUCKING STUPID and IMPOSSIBLE TO USE.  where is logic chess 28. Ace Attorney trilogy or Apollo Justice and Dual Destinies? you already know my answer to this one 29. 3D models or sprites? i do like the 3d models a lot but i like the original sprites more! imo original pixel sprites > 3D models > HD sprites. mostly bc the hd sprites are garbage (see here, here, and here) 30. Ema Skye as she is in Rise from the Ashes or Ema Skye as she is in Apollo Justice? rfta !!!!!! shes actually really nice as an assistant, esp considering the fact that we actually see her interact with her sister, which is something maya didn’t have very often. also her random appearance in aai was well appreciated by me

MISCELLANEOUS 31. Did you like what they did to Phoenix in Apollo Justice?

NO I AM SO FUCKING MAD WHY WOULD THEY DO THAT TO HIM ISN’T HE A LAWYER WHY COULD HE NOT JUST DEFEND HIMSELF FROM THE FACT THAT HE “FORGED EVIDENCE” IT WASN’T EVEN HIS IN THE FIRST PLACE SOMEBODY ELSE FORGED IT AND HE DIDN’T KNOW THAT, MANFRED VON KARMA GOT AWAY WITH A FUCKLOAD OF NONSENSE AND SO DOES EVERY OTHER LAWYER SO WHY IS IT THAT PHOENIX CAN SURVIVE EATING A POISONED GLASS NECKLACE AND GETTING HIT OVER THE HEAD WITH A FIRE EXTINGUISHER AND FALLING FROM A BURNING BRIDGE INTO A RUSHING RAVINE AND BEING HIT BY A CAR BUT HE CAN’T FUCKING DEFEND HIMSELF LIKE HE DOES IN EVERY OTHER CASE BECAUSE THAT’S THE POINT OF THE GAME AND ALSO HIS ENTIRE CHARACTER

32. Your opinion on Dai Gyakuten Saiban? haven’t played it! it looks pretty cool though

33. Do you think Dai Gyakuten Saiban and/or Miles Edgeworth Investigations 2 will get localised to the West? doubt it, since the creators have said that it won’t be. but the fan translations are pretty good, so i think it’s okay

34. Do you think Miles Edgeworth should get another Investigation-game or do you think another character deserves a spin-off? i mean he already has two, so i guess he doesn’t need another? like i love edgeworth but he’s not as fun without phoenix around. ngl i would play a franziska game. or a maya game, or any spinoff revolving around a side character. hell i’d play hotti game if it meant it took place in the trilogy era

35. Opinion on the soundtrack of the Ace Attorney-franchise? REALLY good. really really good. i love how each game of the trilogy has different composers but each track has the same theme and feel!!!

36. Do you like where the franchise is heading or did you prefer the atmosphere in the original trilogy? seriously absolutely completely prefer the trilogy. i’m sorry but the rush of youth and trust is way, way more enjoyable than whatever “i’m 35 and therefore middle aged” nonsense is happening in the 2020s

37. Capcom suddenly announces that Phoenix will no longer appear in the Ace Attorney franchise! Your reaction? He’s been replaced by Penny Nichols. Fuck you.

38. Capcom suddenly announces that the Ace Attorney franchise has ended for good! Your reaction? it was me i ended it

39. Would you like there to be another Ace Attorney/Professor Layton crossover game? i didnt play it but i really like the idea!!!!!! aa crossover games are really funny to me, i mean have you seen edgeworth in project x zone 2, lmao

40. Would you like an Ace Attorney anime? we have one now! honestly i don’t think it did a very good job of representing the cases, but it did do a good character remix of turnabout big top so that they’re not creepy anymore. they also did a really good job with the anime-specific cases, like the one on the train! it feels a lot better paced when it’s intended for that medium rather than just adapted.  also the childhood episodes made me cry

41. Opinion on anime cutscenes in Ace Attorney? like in 5 and 6? mm, the art style is kinda weird, and i don’t really like the voices, but i guess not everything can be pachinko and prozd

42. Would you want to play an Ace Attorney game where you take on the prosecutor’s role? YEAH ACTUALLY!!!!!! it might be kinda weird being on the right side of the screen though lmao

43. Do you like having DLC in Ace Attorney-games? uhhh i hate having to buy extra things, but i’ll admit that they are pretty funny

44. Opinion on Lamiroir’s storyline? i only played aj so if shes in other games idk but i thought she was fine

45. One thing you think the Ace Attorney games can improve on? stop having creepy characters please. also jesus christ if phoenix and edgeworth arent wearing rings in aa7 i will become the ceo of capcom myself

46. Capcom suddenly announces an Ace Attorney movie! Would you like it to be based on an already existing case or would you like an all new storyline? i mean the musical did a pretty good job of adapting existing cases, so it might as well be new. it would be kinda hard to balance the games’ timeline & character development without being repetitive or an au

47. Capcom suddenly announces an Ace Attorney movie! Would you prefer it being live-action, 3D animated or 2D animated? stylized 2D animation, probably? i would want it to feel more like into the spiderverse than an anime, though. in my dream ace attorney movie, they’d just need a high art budget, several plausible deniability wrightworth scenes, and prozd to voice edgeworth

48. If there could be an Ace Attorney crossover with whatever franchise you’d like, which one would you choose? (Does not need to be a video-game franchise) your turn to die is probably closest in characterization, although its premise is more “locked in a room” than the open-world investigation of aa

49. Opinion on recurring witnesses? (Wendy Oldbag, Lotta Hart, Larry Butz, etc.) honestly, i like them a lot! i don’t know why people hate them so much - i mean, i know lotta lied, and wendy is a horrible old flirt, and larry just kinda sucks all around. but they’re also pretty funny to have around! larry is a constant comic relief who reminds you how much better nick & edgey are in comparison, lotta is likeable as a general character (like in 2-4, although yeah, not remarkable), and wendy oldbag is really funny. she’s so fucking funny. none of you appreciate wendy oldbag’s quirks and you are SLEEPING ON IT!!!!!!!!!!!!

50. Do you think Dual Destinies deserved its M-rating? no idea, holy shit, it got an m-rating? i mean every game before it has had blood violence and very mild swearing, and since DD probably doesnt have anything too sexually risqué, i doubt it deserves a rating any harsher than the rest of the series

okay thanks thats all

[annakie]

Thoughts on a DW Rewatch & Mass Effect replay.

So I’m in the Eleven / Clara half-season now.

Also I’m now replaying Andromeda.  I have thoughts, about both.  I’ll start with Doctor Who then label it when I get to Mass Effect stuff.

Oh my God this gets long and rambly.  Apparently, I have a lot of thoughts.

So, season 702... I’m ready for it to be over.  I miss the Ponds.  I felt like most of the first half of this season was pretty great, honestly.  I’d forgotten how fun some of those episodes were, I think at the time we were anticipating a new companion so heavily that it was harder to appreciate those episodes?  I feel like there was a lot of criticism levied towards them that now I felt like was a bit too much.  The western episode was kinda meh but still not bad.

I’m not sure what exactly it is about these Clara / Eleven episodes that I’m still not connecting with but I’m in the middle of the Crimson Horror episode (which is a Vastra/Jenny/Strax heavy episode and enjoying it more than anything else so far this half-season.  

*edit later* NOPE NOPE NOPE I’D FORGOTTEN HOW THE DOCTOR FORCES A KISS ON JENNY.  GROSS.  SUPER GROSS.  SHE’S A MARRIED WOMAN, A LESBIAN AND DID NOT CONSENT TO ANY OF THIS.  BAD DOCTOR, BAD.

Honestly even with some excellent guest start acting, the Russian Submarine episode was STILL a slog and the ghosts in the 1950′s episode no better.  Like they still weren’t ridiculous and unwatchable but... just didn’t feel fun or interesting at all?  The Journey to the Center of the TARDIS episode was decent, and I felt like that wasn’t nearly as cool as it should have been..

I remember reading a criticism of these episodes early on where they said that the biggest fault is that they failed to give Clara any real characterization or solid personality other than “girl the Doctor is obsessed with”.  She’s SUPER IMPORTANT but not only do we not know why at this point but it really doesn’t feel... earned?  I don’t recall it ever feeling earned that Clara was supposedly always so important?  “The most importantest companion EVAR!”  

And as someone who stanned the hell out of a character who was hated in the fandom for “replacing” a previous companion I’m checking myself to make sure it’s still not because I Miss the Ponds.  Like, I don’t HATE Clara, I just, at least at this point in the rewatch, can’t find any reason to really LOVE her?  She’s there, she’s fine, Jenna-Louise Coleman is doing a great job with what they’re giving to her but... I don’t know.  It all feels... off.

I had forgotten all about the “the Doctor rides a motorcycle up the side of a skyscraper” moment and something hit me in that moment that made me remember that wow people hated that moment.  It felt really... shark-jumpy somehow.  

I love Eleven, but this half-season isn’t connecting with me, AT ALL. It feels like the writers just went and dug through a bunch of rejected script ideas, polished them up and were likle “let’s just do this until Matt Smith is gone.”  I’m anxious to get to Twelve.

Mass Effect Stuff

OK TECHNICALLY I haven’t finished ME3.  I still need to do the party and the goodbye scene, (Citadel Epiloge Mod installed) but I’ve gotten all the Stuff and done all the missions in the arena.  I just wasn’t quite ready to say goodbye yet, so I started Andromeda a bit early.

-----------------

OK look I had a point I wanted to make and never quite got where I wanted to go with it right here.  I’m too tired of trying to fix it, so this stands as written.

This playthrough had me ruminating a lot on Kaidan and Garrus.  I really love both of those characters, though in my heart I’ll always primarily love Kaidan, I’ve done the Garrus romance and wouldn’t mind playing that character again to see the romance one more time.  In ME1, I bring Kaidan everywhere all the time, and pick which other companion I bring to the story-based missions based on what I know is gonna happen like I’m sure most people do.  Wrex for Therum, Tali for Feros (though I REALLY wish you could switch before going to see the Thorian), Liara for Noveria, Ashley on Virmire, Garrus for Ilos/Endgame.  I rotate through all five for sidemissions.  

In ME2, Garrus is my always-bring companion, with Garrus + Miranda being my favorite team.  Except after the Omega relay, where characters with Throw really shine with all those husks running at us, Jack holds the bubble, and Miranda and Thane, who both have Warp to help take down the Reaper Baby, are the preferred team.  Also so Miranda can tell TIM to fuck off.

Then in ME3, once the game opens up, Garrus is back on the perma-team, with a preference towards bringing Liara along... until we get Kaidan back.  And then I realized I didn’t bring him to a single thing except a side mission or two until Earth.  Mostly, this is because I’m following the Kaidan Banter guide and it turns out Garrus is a real banter hog for most of the missions.  At leat he’s not James, who I literally never use unless I’m going on an N7 mission and feel bad that I haven’t taken him off the Normandy in awhile.  I mean, even Javik gets more play.  Also EDI doesnt leave the Normandy til near the end when all of a sudden she gets real important.  

But Garrus is always on the team for Priority Earth.  And that always felt like the way the main game should end, with your two favorites.  (Also what kind of monster wouldn’t bring Wrex to the combat-centric areas of Citadel DLC?  I keep thinking I should have runs where I bring other people but... Wrex is my other fave and we don’t get him with us AT ALL since ME1.)  

I love Garrus, so much.  And I was thinking with this whole parallel DW rewatch / Mass Effect replay think I’m doing right now how both Rose Tyler and Garrus Vakaraian are characters that were ruined for me for awhile due to their respective... overly enthusiastic fanbases who a small percentage of were dicks to people who loved other characters.  The Kaidan tag (and from what I understand Thane got some of this too, but not nearly as bad) was a pretty hostile place for awhile (and yeah I used to check the Garrus tag too and there was a small amount of tag-invasion there but uh, like 5% of what the Kaidan tag got) which made loving the character of Garrus a lot harder for awhile.  But when actually watching seasons 1 & 2 / the end of 4 of DW, or actually playing the games, those characters are awesome.  

Fanbases can be amazing or terrible, and time and time again I think you start to realize that no matter how great a fandom is, there are going to be a few people who can only enjoy themselves by feeding on drama, or on lifting up what they love by stomping on other people/characters/plotlines.  Going back through my blog reminded me that even the TAH fandom had some of this, with a small percentage of fans being real dicks to two prominent female characters in favor of their favorite ship, which soured even that just a tiny bit.  

It’s not fair to characterize everyone who loves a popular thing as someone who does this.  It’s also hard to avoid completely because there will always be jerks, or young/new people who don’t realize what bad form they’re showing.  I did learn by trying to fight it for a year or two, that responding might help that one person not do it again, but it’s not going to stop overall.  Maybe yelling a lot about Martha Jones did change some people’s minds.  It still isn’t that good of a look now, even knowing that in general I was pretty polite and logical about it.  I might respond to an odd comment now and again in some favorite character tags, but in general, turns out that kind of fight just isn’t worth it.

And those fights seem so stupid in the light of everything else happening in the world today.

Anyway, don’t be a dick about the things you don’t like.  

-----------------------

I also wanted to say, and I know I said it in a few other posts about this ME3 playthrough, but seriously I cannot believe how much ME3 is a changed game because of the modders.  I cannot imagine ever playing ME3 again without these mods.  There were so many small things that I kept thinking I should take note of to talk about and I’m sure I forgot 90% of them, but there’s things like... adding in mentions of the Andromeda Initiative, closing a few plotholes, mentioning Emily Wong, adding in many more Spectre console options which end up having their own plotlines, adding in an entire plotline about the VI civilization that had previously only been talked about in like, social media or Cerberus News Network posts, having the Normandy be so much more populated, seeing so many more other species on the Citadel with more variety in clothing for those species that have clothing / could have more variety, way more female Turians.... every time I play ME3 the game is more and more like the game we wanted when it came out.  

I am kind of itching to go back and replay it even now.

But hey, instead, its time to talk about Andromeda.

-------------------------

So first of all, yes, mods for Andromeda.  A few appearance mods, a lot of convenience mods.  

After having recently played DA:I and I think Andromeda and DA:I are a lot more similar than Andromeda and the previous trilogy, I had decided it was time to cut down on the stupid stuff Andromeda does, like “Oh, you want minerals?  Spend 10 minutes in each mining zone finding the PERFECT place to gather materials or you’re fucked”  No, thanks.  I’ll mine but give me that “one probe placed anywhere and you’re done” mod.  

Make the modifications and crafting materials I use actually matter. 2% damage increase is nothing.  Make my squadmates not suck because I remember doing 90% of the work myself before and that got exhausting with the number of spawns.  

I tried to not go overboard so things feel like cheating, but there’s enough out there to just get rid of the stupid stuff, and it’s nice.  And works together a lot easier than the DA:I mods did.

One thing I did do was install the Multiple Romance Mod.  I enjoyed it in DA:I, even though ultimately I only did 2 full romances.  I am **NOT** romancing Gil or Cora with the mod, I just wanted to experience all the content available for female Ryders at once, since I’m not going to have the energy to replay this 100+ hour game enough times to see every romance on its own.  So I am poly-romancing Liam, Jaal, Vetra, Suvi, Peebee, Keri, and if it lets me, Reyes when it’s time.  

I’ve only gotten all the way through Andromeda once (where I romanced Liam)  My second playthrough was right after my first and stalled out about halfway through (was romancing Jaal.)  It was one of those “I’m totally gonna get back to this! (She didn’t.)” things.  I’m gonna be honest, I enjoyed the Liam romance and was enjoying the Jaal romance, I’d done a fling with Reyes but not the full romance my first time through and the fling with PeeBee on my second.  Reyes was probably my favorite out of all of them.  So this time I decided.. let’s see which I love the most, all at once.  I don’t know if I’ll do this in the future, but this game is too long to not see all the content I wanna see, TBH.  

And you know, I still really do like Andromeda.  It’s a GOOD game.  And I’m forever going to be mad that we’re not going to see how this story ends.  This story deserved to finish being told.  Like, there are a lot of very legit criticisms about Andromeda, but it didn’t deserve the harshness it got.  And the worst thing about it, and DA:I both is that... there’s just a little TOO MUCH of it.  100 hours is an amazing amount of game but... it’s also just too much.  For now I’m not trying to 100% this playthrough.  My plan is on each planet to get the planet to 100%, take out the Kett or whatever major base, the Remnant Architect, and yeah probably clear out the sidequests that show up on the map, but fuck quests that are like “visit random Kett camps until you find the right datapads that don’t show up on the map!” or “scan random blobs in the forest that don’t show up on the map!”  

So like, do the content, not the filler.  

I still hate the vaults.  The first one is cool.  The rest are tedious.  But they’re mandatory.

I love everyone on this spaceship though.  They did the Tempest stuff SO WELL.  All the companions I think are... good?  There’s no one I don’t like, even the non-squadmate shipmates ship have so much interaction and so much to do/say.  It’s not like “a bunch of randos and Joker, with occasional appearances by Chakwas and the Engineers”  There’s no randos, it’s just a few people you have real interactions with, and its great.

The lack of enough beds in the bedroom will never not annoy me.  There’s 4 beds for... Lexi, Liam, Cora, Suvi, Kallo, Vetra and Gil?  Even if Liam slept on his couch, and Vetra put a bed in her supply room... still doesn’t add up.  What, do Salarains not sleep or something?  Does Lexi sleep in a medical bed?!?  Peebee sleeps in the escape pod, Jaal brings a bed with him, and Drack’s like “Eh I’ll just sleep in the kitchen”.  WHAT?  THE KITCHEN?

I mean sure there weren’t enough beds, even with the sleeper pods, on the Normandy either, but somehow that was less disturbing.  

Also, I know you’re supposed to HATE Director Tann but I love Kumail Nanjiani so I find it hard to be a total dick to him, even if he usually deserves it.  If he wasn’t an anti-Krogan racist I think it’d be easier to like him.  He was thrown into a pretty shitty situation and... did actually hold things together for some time.  He’s not doing anything out of malice.  He’s a dick, but also doing what he needs to do to keep the Initiatiave going.  Oh, except for being a anti-krogan racist.  (Honestly, I also think  “until he turned Cerberus Udina was just doing his job pretty well” too, so...)

Taking some screenshots as I go.  I mostly just take screenshots for me now.  I have a few thousands screenshots from a dozen or more games rotating through my desktop background, and I keep adding to it, and love it.

Anyway, I’ve gotten Eos, Voeld and Havral to 100%.  Time to go save the Moeshe.  I’m having fun.  

*edit from later* I’d forgotten that... idk if the dialog they recorded for Jaal was the first thing they recorded for him or they used a different VA or what but on the Save the Moshe mission his voice is VERY DIFFERENT and oh man, that is still bad.

Might take a break for when Onslaught comes out for SWTOR, though.  I haven’t really played SWTOR in months. Oops.

[scrawnydutchman]

Why “Super Best Friends Play” is the Hypest Let’s Play Channel on Youtube

Let’s players are a popular, albeit divisive lot on youtube. On one hand, many go on record saying the Let’s Play format is cheap, lazy and maybe even a bit exploitative, as when it comes down to it it’s basically just some random people playing a game you could play yourself instead. On the other hand, many others love Let’s Players because they think there’s something endearing about seeing other people experience the things you love in their own unique way and it’s a very down to earth way to get to know some of your favorite online personalities. So where do I land on this? Well, I think Let’s Play is like any other format in that there’s a right and wrong way to do it. If you fall into basic tropes you can tend to blend in with other generic personalities in your field. If you do it, you gotta have a charm and an appeal that really stands out and can grow a dedicated fan base if not a particularly large one. That’s where Super Best Friends come in. I’ve been following the shenanigans of Matt, Pat & Woolie (and for a time Liam) ever since I first saw the Machinima episode on Spider-Man games I’ve had years of entertainment that both genuinely intrigues me on some solid game design and makes me laugh to tears. The Best Friends Zaibatsu are some of the earliest pioneers of the “group” format of Let’s Play in the same vain as Game Grumps, Achievement Hunter and Funhaus, where the appeal is not in a single persons interaction with a game but in a groups interaction with both the game and each other. It reignites the feelings of playing alongside a good friend and having some laughs fucking around with a videogame. But even with the charming concept of watching some good friends bond over their love for media, it wouldn’t work if important elements weren’t in play. Super Best Friends Play is the hypest Let’s Play channel on youtube for the following reasons: They have distinct likable personalities, they give genuinely interesting insight on the games they play, they’re downright hilarious, they genuinely put in effort for their presentation and they use their means to hugely benefit other communities.

Likable Personalities

The format of group let’s play is arguably a completely different ballpark than just doing a let’s play by yourself because it conveys a different challenge. The challenge is to be entertaining as part of a group, NOT to be funny on your own. It’s easier said than done because there are many cases in which one member receives way too much attention or another is becoming increasingly toxic. It’s why removing and adding new members to your group can be such a risky move for your fan communities; the chemistry of the group becomes completely different (Dan-era Game Grumps is an entirely different beast from Jon-era Game Grumps). Luckily the Best Friends have wonderful chemistry with each other that never gets old. Matt’s always the endearing leading man with the golden laugh, bottomless bag of Simpsons references and hilariously derailing one liners. Pat always brings his deadpan wit and sarcastic tone (and makes for a great straight man as a result). Woolie is the Zaibatsu’s hype man; knowing how to make any epic moment a million times better with his reactions. Former member Liam was often the quiet sensible one but when he got a laugh MAN was it a big laugh. They’re all such colliding personalities but they come together in such an endearing way that makes the whole experience lovable but not overbearing. These guys are a fundamental part of my sense of humor today. It’s the reason that unlike other let’s play series on Youtube the Zaibatsu let’s plays have great rewatch value. It also helps that they actually complete most of the playthroughs they start (cough *Game Grumps* cough). Whether they’re referencing old media, getting hype over a great game moment, laughing their asses off or are getting in stupid arguments (I recommend the “shitting pants” argument from the L.A. Noire series) watching the Best Friends is always a great time.

Great Insight on Games

So remember that old anti Let’s Play argument about how commentating over recorded game play is so easy anyone can do it? Well, I have a rebuttal. Yes, anyone can do it . . . that doesn’t mean everyone SHOULD do it. Aside from personality being a driving incentive for anyone to sit through a 10 minute video of some random person playing Detroit: Become Human, one would argue you should also present some knowledge of the game you’re playing. Otherwise it doesn’t matter what game you’re playing; there’s nothing distinguishing one let’s play series from another. Every episode of Conan O’Brien’s Clueless Gamer is just Conan’s unfunny improv set to canned audience laughter as he does a show out of necessity and not out of passion. Not knowing about the game can also cause other impeding issues such as the series taking forever to progress or the player becoming unlikable as they disregard fundamental aspects of the game (DarkSydePhil). When it comes to knowing something about the games they play, Super Best Friends not only express intoxicating passion for the medium but also express some applied knowledge on game design which makes for more interesting commentary. It’s very appropriate since the lot have been game testers on a number of titles. Whenever they have something to say about how to activate bugs, tight controls, decent polish on mechanics or even how well the games narrative is woven into the gameplay it teaches me a little more about how the medium works. They’re also clearly very passionate about their favorite franchises, such as Matt’s take on the Final Fight series above (I recommend you check out all of the Best Friends independent channels btw, which I will link to below):

Matt: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCiP_FwGyJQ_6P8k5ON5mncQ

Pat: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCpmNJI_KhjkpXw1UPmtC3-Q

Woolie: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCyOJzQzyDGihKpTO3-zyhYg

Liam: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC7zkWVkHBSMGpfHVgaFqr1A

They’re Downright Hilarious

I really don’t have a lot to say here. I know humor is largely subjective and these guys spout so many obscure references you may not even get a lot of them, but . . .goddamn . . I don’t think anybody on the entirety of Youtube has made me laugh as hard or as consistently as these guys. For the best of the best, I recommend their Spider-Man Machinima episode (my introduction to them), the Punch Out Outtakes (which oddly enough is funnier than the actual episode) Their L.A. Noire playthrough, Their Punisher Playthrough and their Gang Beasts Fisticuffs. You can see all you need to know about their chemistry, wit and delivery. Links to all below

Spider-Man: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gea09ImEtmM

Punch-Out!!: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tOwQXNxcRRM

L.A. Noire: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-bPqjD_zg5g

Punisher: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wznGw9fJNCc

Gang Beasts: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GhFGjK_ZUEk

They Put In Effort For Their Presentation/They Largely Benefit Other Communities

*this is just one of many outstanding animated intros commissioned by Super Best Friends, courtesy of Volta Bass*

If there’s one thing I can always use as a defense for most Let’s Play internet celebrities, it’s that they use their means to really benefit other communities. Say what you want about Markiplier, but there’s a reason he was awarded celebrity of the year by the Make-a-Wish foundation. Say what you will about Ihascupquake but she played a fundamental role in launching Jaiden Animations very successful career. Needless to say the popularity of Let’s Players has had a hugely positive effect on countless communities and that’s something we could always use more of, especially in an age where a lot of role models are . . . not great.

Super Best Friends is not only a great example of this, but is probably the best example I can think of. Why? Because they do more to benefit both the indie game community and the animation community than any other let’s player despite being one of the smaller channels out there (criminally small I might add). T.E.C 3001, Skullgirls, Shovel Knight and Divekick ALL owe a great deal of their success to the Zaibatsu’s funding and influence and each game has some sort of mention of them attributed. Also, as an animator myself I HIGHLY appreciate the Zaibatsu for their regular employment of animation talent like 2Snacks, Plague of Gripes, CrankyConstruct and Volta Bass. Because of how much they hire such talent every new series has a stunningly gorgeous intro and outro for each episode. These guys are an indication that some Let’s Play Channels larger than them have to STEP UP THEIR GAME when it comes to hiring talent and making strides in the indie community. *P.S, if anyone in the Zaibatsu is reading this, I would be honored if you would have me do an animated intro/outro for a series. Just say the word and I’m there*. 

But their effort doesn’t stop at hiring other talent. They also do great in providing their own entertaining edited content. Just look at this intro they made for Saturday 

Morning Scrublords: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ljDcHWHKueM&t=286s

One will notice this hilarious intro is a parody of their already amazing intro for Friday Night Fisticuffs. And this isn’t the only variation of the intro they’ve ever done either. That’s what I like about these guys the most; they’re genuinely passionate about being entertaining. They aren’t just let’s players; they do a little but of everything from sketches to animated adventures to podcasts to livestreams. You can tell they have a huge blast doing all of it.

In conclusion, if anyone wants to start a genuinely entertaining Let’s Play Channel, they ought to take some notes from the Best Friends. They’re great because they diversify, they put their money and time into making great content, they have solid insight, clear passion and they’re goddamn hilarious. For these reasons, they will always be the HYPEST LET’S PLAY CHANNEL ON YOUTUBE.

[entergamingxp]

Definitive Edition Review — Reyn Time Has Never Felt So Good

June 17, 2020 12:30 PM EST

Xenoblade Chronicles: Definitive Edition has become the best and only way you should experience this fantastic RPG.

In 2011, the question as to whether or not Xenoblade Chronicles would make it to the U.S. was in limbo, with signs not looking too good. Even the Monado itself couldn’t have predicted that nine years later, we would be getting yet another version of it, bringing the total number of Nintendo consoles it has appeared on to four. Xenoblade Chronicles: Definitive Edition brings with it so many improvements and new elements that fans have little reason to ever revisit the previous versions.

You follow Shulk, a young Homs that explores the vast expanse of two slumbering titans of the Bionis, home of Homs, and the Mechonis, which shelters the mechanical monstrosities know as the Mechon. During your 50+ hour playthrough, you will discover the secrets behind the Monado, the only weapon that can harm the Mechon foe and allows Shulk to see into the future. You’ll also surely fall in love with the cast of characters you meet along the way while being treated to an out-of-this-world soundtrack.

When first starting up this new Definitive Edition, fans of the previous versions will right away notice the improvements that have been made to the visuals. Textures are clearer with more advanced techniques like sub-surface scattering, which gives great definition and detail previously impossible with the earlier releases. Guar Planes and the various vistas look better than ever with shadows, and lighting received a noticeable upgrade as well, adding god-rays and more realistic environment-cast shadows.

“Xenoblade Chronicles: Definitive Edition brings with it so many improvements and new elements that fans have little reason to ever revisit the previous versions.”

The most significant jump, however, comes in the new character models. Shulk and crew have all received major plastic surgery, with each of their faces being composed of more polygons to make them much more expressive and emotive. The art aesthetic itself has been shifted somewhat to be more in-line with the anime-esque direction from Xenoblade Chronicles 2. Colors especially seem to pop more in Definitive Edition when comparing side-by-side the more muted tones of the previous ports. All of this culminates in a much more memorable and impactful adventure on these two hulking creatures.

Audio gets its fair share of improvements, too. Japanese dub aficionados can rejoice as you now have the option to play through using either the Japanese voice cast or the English “Reyn-time” cast. The exquisite soundtrack has also been rearranged for the Definitive Edition, which helps add to the sense of scale and importance of moments alongside the enhanced visuals. Purists for the original game will still have access to the original soundtrack, too, with both the voice and soundtrack options available to be toggled any time through the menu screen.

Improvements don’t stop at the visuals and the soundtrack, however, with numerous quality-of-life updates making Xenoblade Chronicles: Definitive Edition an overall more manageable experience for new and returning players. A common complaint previously was that tracking down the people and items needed to complete quests would become downright aggravating. Luckily, this has been addressed by allowing you to set a quest as active, which will display a marker and path leading to your objectives. Items you need for quests will also now show on your minimap as exclamation points, removing the need to pick up every little blue item orb in hopes that it is the item you need. This includes highlighting enemies that carry specific items you need, too. A similar courtesy has been extended to the reconstruction of Colony 6, allowing players to quickly find out what materials are required for a given upgrade at any time. No talking to NPCs is needed, though they can still provide helpful tips as to where to find said items.

Combat also sees some love in Definitive Edition with quality improvements. Positioning plays a crucial part during fights, as various attacks become more potent and apply additional effects depending on where you strike an enemy. In the original and 3DS releases, there wasn’t any sort of indicator that informed you when you correctly positioned to take advantage of these benefits. This omission has thankfully be rectified here, and now a marker will appear above each attack that will take advantage of your location. This is a small but incredibly important inclusion that alone can drastically improve your chances in some of the more difficult fights.

If you still are having a rough time with the enemies and bosses, or perhaps want even more of a challenge, new difficulty adjustments have been added to assist in that. A new casual mode that can be toggled at any time will let your characters do far more damage and take far less in return, allowing you to instead focus on progressing through the story and not on how to beat a certain boss. On the flip side, if you find yourself wanting to spice things up, you can enable expert mode, which will restrict the amount of experience you get. This mode will take any experience you would normally receive from completing quests and places it in a pool for each character. At any time you can either add to that bank, subtracting levels from your characters or pulling from it, leveling your characters up instead. These are nifty inclusions that can prove useful for any skill-level.

All these tweaks and improvements, while very much welcome, don’t change the fact that Xenoblade Chronicles is an RPG that expects a lot from its player. With its numerous systems and mechanics, it can be a tall order for experienced players in the RPG genre to figure out and contend with, and it’s downright daunting for newcomers. Some of these come at a detriment to the overall experience, with side quests being an especially heinous offender.

This Definitive Edition also sees some brand new features and modes, making an already massive offering even more of a deal! At various locations, you will encounter a strange crystal formation that will send you to a mysterious place, allowing you to take part in Time Attack trials. Here you can choose either your preferred team or a specific one into various combat situations, allowing you to try and win some useful items. The better score you get on each level, the better rewards you will get. This Time Attack mode is also the only way to get the brand new third-tier of skill books.

The most significant addition is the brand new epilogue adventure, Future Connected. Taking place a year after the original game, it focuses on Shulk, Melia, and two of Heropon Riki’s children, Nene and Kino. The events kick off after Shulk and Melia crash while on route to the Bionis’ shoulder. In the past year, the remaining peoples of both the Bionis and Mechonis are adjusting to their new situation and learning to try and live with each other. Some prejudices have carried over from the war, but a new threat has appeared that may force the two groups to bury the hatchet again. It falls to Shulk, Melia, Nene, and Kino to save the day.

“Taking place exclusively in a new area, this 10-hour romp in Future Connected was refreshing and welcome after spending 60 hours running around the same regions of the base game.”

Future Connected is much more heavily geared toward expanding the character of Melia, a character that many feels didn’t get their share of the spotlight before. I did enjoy the additional moments we get to see with Melia, but the overall story of the epilogue felt short. Perhaps I was being too optimistic, but after linkage between the first Xenoblade Chronicles and the second game was revealed at the end of Xenoblade Chronicles 2, I was hoping that this epilogue would continue to solidify or hint at more ways they are tied together. I can see how some of what was shown in Future Connected could be incorporated into a Xenoblade Chronicles 3, but it just didn’t feel up to snuff when compared with the original game’s reveals.

In the interest of avoiding massive spoilers, Shulk doesn’t have the Monado currently and doesn’t have access to his future site, but he does still have access to the arts. New characters, Nene and Kino, fill the tank and healer roles, respectively, in place of the cast from the main game who unfortunately don’t make appearances here. Taking place exclusively in a new area, this 10-hour romp in Future Connected was refreshing and welcome after spending 60 hours running around the same regions of the base game. The joint party attacks are gone as well; in its place is the ability to call on a small cartographers guild to come in and attack, heal, or buff your party.

The final new “mode” is an added theater, allowing you to rewatch previously viewed cinematics from throughout Xenoblade Chronicles. What is rather unique in this case when compared to theater modes from other games is that you have control over a variety of factors in the cinematic. You are able to set the video to take places at certain times of the day and change what equipment your characters will appear in. It’s a cool feature that can take advantage of the fact that all the cinematics are done using the in-game engine.

A more superfluous but very welcome addition, the glamour option, is now present, allowing you to choose the appearance of your team’s armor and weapons. There aren’t any more minute settings that can be adjusted like specific colors; however, merely being able to bring a bit of continuity to a character’s fashion is nice. No more will your team look like they were dressed by a three-year-old. I did find it slightly disappointing though that this option doesn’t extend to Shulk’s weapon, however. My most welcome tweaks were the changes made to both skill books and ability gems, streamlining the process.

The precious skill books that unlock stronger versions of your attacks are also now all sold by a single vendor. No more will you have to globetrot around the Bionis to find the specific vendor who sells a character’s books, hunt down secret areas, or hope they drop from unique monsters. This time, you will simply have to kill unique monsters that will net you a particular currency that can then be exchanged for said books. It works so well, and I would have loved if this could have somehow been incorporated into the base game too.

Ether Gems got an equally convenient tweak in Future Connected. Gone are the Ether Furnace, shooters, and engineers, and in their place is a sweet and straightforward Ether Pick Axe. Instead of the intricate process of crafting skill gems, you now just walk up to an Ether deposit, click a button, and you will get gems based around that ether’s element. The skill gem crafting system is one of the more obtuse systems and has been the bane of many new players before, so this adjustment is welcome. In a perfect world, I would love to see a balance of these two takes on the skill gem system, though, as this does seem a bit too simple, and it can be an annoyance to get the gems you may need.

Side quests are staples of RPGs and can prove to be integral to expanding and fleshing out the world you are questing through. When executed well, their inclusion can make the towns you visit feel alive and lived-in and help grow your investment in the lands you are supposed to save and protect. So much of the Xenoblade narrative is expertly told and presented that it makes the absolute trainwreck that are the side quests even more painful. Monolith Soft opted for a more quantity over quality approach in this area, creating hundreds of quests with little impact or inventiveness, with each revolving around killing “X” amount of a creature or finding “X” amount of an item. The sheer number of quests is impressive, but when even the responses your party gives are repeating over and over, you have to ask yourself, just because you can put that many side quests in, should you?

That being said, the main story found in Xenoblade Chronicles: Definitive Edition is beautiful and crammed full of plot twists, intrigue, and genuinely tear-jerking moments. The moments spent with your team during these times or in the personal one-on-one reflection gives substance to the bonds Shulk and others share. You will undoubtedly find your favorite crew of heroes, but it’s worth your time to improve the relationships with each so you can share these moments. They are by far some of the best aspects of this game.

“Xenoblade Chronicles: Definitive Edition is a beautiful example of what the RPG genre is capable of, and it is easy to recommend checking out or revisiting.”

Xenoblade Chronicles has been and remains a beautiful example of the RPG genre. Still, it’s one where the complexity and depth acts both as one of its most significant benefits and biggest detriments. New players that can stick with Xenoblade long enough for the mechanics and combat to click will be rewarded, but for some, it just takes too long to get to that point. Before this playthrough of the Definitive Edition, I owned and have attempted to complete this game a few times before, on Wii, WiiU, and the 3DS, and it just never stuck. This time around, the mix of the gameplay improvements and obligation helped to force me through the barriers that had halted my momentum before, and I came out loving the result.

This Definitive Edition release is hands-down the be-all-end-all version to play. The improvements in visuals, performance, soundtrack, voiceover options, mechanics, and overall quality-of-life improvements effectively bury all previous versions of Xenoblade Chronicles. Unless you don’t own a Switch, there is no reason to go back to any of the other iterations. Experiencing this version on the Switch hit home just how incredible the team at Monolith Soft is to have been able to create such an experience on the Wii all those years ago.

For those that can stick with it, Xenoblade Chronicles: Definitive Edition is a beautiful example of what the RPG genre is capable of, and it is easy to recommend checking out or revisiting.

June 17, 2020 12:30 PM EST

from EnterGamingXP https://entergamingxp.com/2020/06/definitive-edition-review-reyn-time-has-never-felt-so-good/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=definitive-edition-review-reyn-time-has-never-felt-so-good