#I would recommend wind waker (I think you in particular would really love this game)

[olibensstuff]

Oh great and wise Benny 🙏🙏 if I were to be considering getting into Zelda how would u recommend doing so 👀👀👀

This was such a hard question ooh

Response below the cut because I had.. way more to say than I thought I would

I’d say it depends on what console/devices you have! Every Zelda game can be played as a stand alone which makes the series pretty easy to approach. If you want to really get the Zelda experience and understand what the core of the Zelda series is about, my only recommendation is start with any game except breath of the wild. BOTW is a great game but it really lets go of the vast majority of Zelda tropes in order to explore and test out new concepts. Which is cool, but not a great start if you’re looking into Zelda as a whole.

The defining Zelda game ever is ocarina of time, so if you have a 3ds I think it’s obligatory for me to say that’s a great starting place. A lot of the classic tunes are from this game, and a toonnnn of the bigger lore pieces come from Ocarina of Time. Song of storms comes from this game too so it’s immediately awesome. if you have a Wii I’d also recommend playing Twilight Princess. It gets a lot of hate I feel like in the community, but it was sort of a soft remake of ocarina of time, and it has objectively the best side kick in all the games. It’s a bit empty but the characters are really full of life. I feel like the dungeons are all really really fun too. I’m honestly really biased with this game because it was my first game though so take that with a grain of salt. On the same topic of Wii/Wii U if you have one absolutely look into playing Wind Waker it has some of the most fun visuals and in my opinion the most compelling ganondorf (main villain) in the whole series. Zelda also has a lot more personality in this game that most.

Back with the 3ds PLEASE consider trying out minish cap. It’s my personal favorite from the 3ds i really love the character designs and the story. I wouldn’t recommend it as a first because it’s a bit more difficult than the ones above and it’s lore is a lot looser, but later on your journey it’s absolutely worth your time it’s so good and cute.

On the 3ds there’s also a link between worlds which I haven’t played personally but has some of my favorite lore and story beats. Definitely worth your time it’s game play is so unique and it’s got some of my favorite characters.

If I list every game I think I’d be here all day so I’m just gonna make a quick list of my recommended order!!

Ocarina of Tome (important lore)

Majoras Mask (this one is a bit difficult so feel free to skip and come back to. It’s a sequel to ocarina of time and has some tif the coolest game mechanics/story ever)

Skyward Sword (more important lore, basically the origin story for all the other games)

if you have a wii/wii u: Twilight princess and Wind Waker (two dramatic ends of what a Zelda game could be visually and story wise. Twilight Princess came out a little after wind waker. TP was super edgy and cool while WW was bright and fun. Both have some really heartfelt moments though and are sooo worth your time)

if you played WW, I feel like spirit tracks would be a fun follow up. It’s an indirect sequel with a similar art style made for the 3ds. The game play is really cool and it has one of the most developed Zelda’s, next to wind waker and ocarina of time Zelda’s)

at this point you should be well versed enough to approach basically any Zelda game! My favorites not already listed are Links Awakening, Minish Cap (MINISH CAP IS SO GOOD PLEASE OELASE PLEASE)and the oracle games!! A lot of people like four swords and tri heroes though!

take all this with a grain of salt though haha!! Zelda can be enjoyed in absolutely any way which is a lot of the appeal. I know it looks like a lot, but really playing any game at all, botw included, means you’re welcome! All you ever really need to know to be a Zelda fan is that the player character is Link and he wears green and he saves a cool princess named Zelda with the power of magic golden triangles!! unless you’re playing the upcoming game Echoes of Wisdom which is coming out in September!!!!! That one’s gonna be about Zelda where you save Link with the power of chairs im so excited

anyways if you’re crazy like me here’s a nine hour video of Zelda lore 😘

SORRY FOR THE LONG WINDED EXPLANATION BTW this is my all time favorite series since forever i get really excited

[whenyourlightdims]

I was tagged! Answering it here though so I can keep my RP blog stay RP related ♥♥♥

I have not much fandoms so I follow bhaalbabe and go with 5!

To shy to tag people! Not to shy to start with horny posting tho. No particular order.

Lupin from Lupin the third

I have a very specific type of character I fall for instantly, Lupin hits all the checkmarks. This man, I swear, I would let him rob me for one night with him! (I highly recommend start with Lupin the third: 4 if you ever want to give this Anime a try)

Ganondorf from Zelda

Muscular, villain, big, red hair, and since Wind waker where he announced his motivation of conquering Hyrule I was all ready for him! Still hope one day we will get a game where he is morally grey or even a good one? Until then I fancy the horny art around the best villain.

Ike - Fire Emblem Radiant Dawn (& The entire franchise)

Due his design I never really gave the game a chance, he looks like your casual Shonen-hero. But damn he is cool. He calls out bullshit and feels so... real? Like as a player you feel seen as he comments on some story stuff, this man came a long way and he is wonderful. No hornyposting on him because I am pretty sure he is aromantic (Tho he has canon a child somewhere in the timeline!)

Ranni - Elden Ring

No matter how often I replay this game, I always go for the route where I marry her. My beloved waifu. The kindest of souls. It is hard to explain in a way someone who doesn't know me understands but I deeply love her. Eldenring was also my most played game before Baldurs Gate, which brings us to LAST BUT NOT LEAST

Gale Dekarios from Baldurs Gate 3

"The warcrimes I would commit to date this man", but to be honest, I think my biggest love language is how much I draw him, I was always a "Original character"-artist only, was it friends one or mine, but occassionally i would draw one or two fanarts.

I literally started to draw comics with him. (And other BG3 characters). He deserves the world and I only can give it to him in silly lil doodles of mine.

10 characters, 10 fandoms

Thanks for the tag @rowanisawriter!

Tagging: @weavewithshadow, @bhaalsbabe, anyone else who wants to play!

Oooo this is going to be hard because I tend to get really into multiple characters from the same thing, but let's go! In no particular order:

1. Essek Thelyss - Critical Role

He's a war criminal. He's a prodigy. He's a traitor. He's a time and gravity wizard. He's a heretic in a theocracy where his mother is a living saint. He floats everywhere instead of walking. When the gang asks if they're going to have to kill him, he laughs and says "I'd like to see you try". He crushes someone to death with gravity simply by closing his fist. "My reasons [for treason] weren't good, but they were important". He goes from not having cared about anyone in 120 years to caring so much about a bunch of weirdos in like, 6 weeks. He made his father so mad during an argument that the guy stormed off and died. What's not to love? He makes me so insane.

Honorable mention: Caleb Widogast

2. Anders - Dragon Age

My favorite chaotic bisexual disaster man. The contrast between awakening anders and da2 anders is so fascinating for me. He's this carefree guy, except he isn't really that carefree, is he? He escapes over and over and over, swimming across the lake even. He hates the circle and hates the Templars just as much, he's just funnier about it. When you start adding up the year in solitary, Karl, the fact that he must have seen all the injuries in the circle as a spirit healer, it starts becoming very clear why he is the way he is. He also sucks! He's petty, he's mean, and he's so up his own ass about how right he thinks he is about everything. But he also runs a clinic for the poorest of the poor, dodging Templars and freeing mages all the while. He does the excellent wizard hubris thing of taking the future into his own hands, even if it kills people (suck my nuts elthina). He loves a romanced Hawke so much, even as he experiences this greater calling. Plus Grey wardens are cool as hell and he loves cats.

Honorable mention: mage!Hawke

3. Merlin - BBC Merlin

This show manages to be both ridiculous and sad. Merlin is such a happy go lucky, cheerful character at the beginning, then we watch as things just keep getting worse. He cannot seem to win. By the end, that cheerfulness seems much closer to a mask he's desperately clinging to than anything else. He's an expert liar and manipulator, he's a killer, and he's so, so alone. If he ever tells anyone that he's a sorcerer, he'll be executed. And he lives in the shadow of that for years, unable to be himself even with the people he's closest to. Also characters who have their eyes change colors when using their powers my beloved.

4. Daenerys Targaryen - ASOIAF

I love her chapters - there's so much interesting and human depth to her struggles (even when her struggles are fantastical). She struggles to know how to rule, and rule well. She takes hostages but loves them too much to kill them. She struggles to create and maintain a peace for her people even as that peace asks things of her she cannot bear. She worries what it says about her that her children are monsters and she both loves and fears them. She desperately wants a simple, loving life but is also so, so doomed to never have that. She's a queen and a dragon rider and a young woman trying to understand the world. She's great. (I don't care about the tv show I'm talking books here)

Honorable mentions: Jon Snow, Cersei Lannister

5. Gale Dekarios - Baldur’s Gate

Oh yeah, another hubris wizard. He's funny and has this easy, good natured charm that makes it possible to ignore that he's an absolute FREAK. He's got one of my favorite wizard traits - a strong ends justify the means streak. He points, very genteelly, at all the ways power and knowledge drive and corrupt. He's a sweetheart but he brags all the time. Except it isn't bragging, because he can back it up. He can really, genuinely, become a god. His relationship with the dark urge also makes me insane, because I think in some ways he's both the clearest eyed about what will happen to them and the one most willing to meet them where they are and also desperately wants to believe they're a good person, even when it's clear that they aren't. His line about how their life is no longer theirs to lead, only to follow to a dark urge who embraces Bhaal is incredible. The diverging paths of who he can become over the course of the game are fascinating and there's so much depth to him. He's great. Oh, he also excuses his cat's crimes. Love that in a man.

Honorable mentions: Enver Gortash, The Dark Urge

6. Camilla Hect - The Locked Tomb

She's the most composed, controlled, meticulous batshit fucking crazy woman in the world. Unstoppable force vibes. Instead of moving on after her necromancers death she pieced together tiny fragments of his skull and then shared her body with him. She's a genius and she can't let go of her insanely codependent relationship, even when it kills her (but honestly Paul seems pretty cool and I'm excited to learn more about them)

Honorable mention: Palamedes Sextus

7. The Jovial Contrarian - Fallen London

A little more niche, this one! I sometimes find that characters in fallen london can sort of pale in interest compared to the overall lore and happenings, but the Jovial Contrarian is one of my favorites. He loves arguing and will argue with anyone about anything at any time. If you have regular debating lessons with him, people will hide behind couches rather than face you. He's part of the calendar council and hates the masters but also wants a solution that isn't the liberation of the night. Anytime his name is mentioned you know you're about to read something ridiculous. Fun guy!

Honorable mentions: Poor Edward (incredibly narsty. great villain), The Eagle, Ascendant (they have like, 3 lines of lore and they're all fantastic)

8. Midna - Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess

I remember playing twilight princess for the first time and I just immediately fell in love with Midna. She's snarky, she's mean, her design is cool as hell, and I really loved her arc as she grew to really care about people over the course of the game. She remains firmly the best Zelda companion in my mind.

9. Elim Garak - Star Trek

You always knew it was going to be a great episode when Garak showed up. He always feels 30 seconds from chewing on the scenery and it is fantastic. He's an exiled spy and maybe a little bit of a monster and he never pretends otherwise. His lines to Sisko in "In the Pale Moonlight," telling him that he must have known what Garak would do, and that if the price of winning the war is Sisko's self respect then he'd call that a bargain are some of my favorite in an episode that already has a lot of really good lines. Aw man I wanna watch DS9 now.

Honorable mentions: Julian Bashir, Captain Picard, Tasha Yar (but wasn't she lame and poorly written? Yes. But young me was extremely taken with this aggressive short-haired woman for reasons I could not articulate at the time 🥴)

10. Morgan Yu - Prey (2017)

Okay so if you haven't played Prey stop reading right now and go buy it. Don't look up any spoilers or plot or anything just do it. If you liked dishonored or deathloop you'll love it. Now: who IS Morgan Yu? Who WAS Morgan Yu? Are they even the same person any more? How culpable are they? How culpable were they? Part of the reason Morgan is so endlessly fascinating to me is because we'll never know. How integral are memories to the continuity of the self? Why did you do what you did? Did you, the person standing here right now, even do it? The game just delivers gut punch after gut punch to Morgan and I love it and I love them (whoever they might have been).

Overall honorable mentions: the outsider from dishonored, garrus from mass effect, vimes and vetinari from discworld, and all my dnd characters (shout out especially to Hermès Montclair who fucked a dragon, died (unrelated to said dragon fucking), then came back wrong and fucked the dragon again! No one's doing it like you baby)

[midzelink]

So, as some of you might know, one of my GIFs was recently featured on the Tumblr Radar - which is pretty cool!  I was fairly happy with how that one turned out, especially considering that I made it rather last-minute on a whim to acknowledge Valentine’s Day.  It understandably received a lot of attention as a result of this, and I’ve loved reading through all the comments and tags (especially all the ones about how people want to eat the heart containers from TP); however, I wanted to clear up a bit of a misunderstanding surrounding the creation of that GIF, as there were additionally a lot of tags along the lines of #3d art or #artists on tumblr in that influx of reblogs.  I don’t want to take credit for something I didn’t do, even accidentally, and so allow me to be perfectly clear: the heart container GIF is not something I modeled and rendered myself! It is the original in-game model, recorded in-game using the Dolphin GCN/Wii emulator, with very little done in the way of post-processing in Photoshop.  If that sounds impossible or confusing (which is perfectly understandable, for those of you unaware of what Dolphin is capable of), I’d like to take this opportunity to give you guys a bit of a “peek behind the curtain,” as it were, to show you guys exactly how I made that particular GIF, as well as similar ones I’ve made (such as those in my #items tag).  

I didn’t take screenshots of my initial process (nor did I save the edited textures I used), so I’ll be recreating it from the ground up for the sake of demonstration, but that shouldn’t be a problem.

First thing’s first: finding a heart container! For this particular GIF, I wound up using the one that spawns after the Morpheel fight at the end of Lakebed Temple.  I’m sure many others would work just as well (I think, at the time, this one just happened to be the most accessible to me), but let’s use the same one for the sake of it.  

Morpheel: defeated.  And I didn’t even need Zora Armor! (Seriously, we do that in the speedrun.  But I’m getting off-topic.)  Of course, we’re going to need clean, close-up footage of the heart container rotating in order to do what we want to do, so let’s shift into first-person mode and and get a bit closer to the thing.

Now, because the only UI-element in this shot is Link’s health (and it’s in the corner and relatively non-obtrusive), removing it isn’t strictly necessary - but I’ve already made a texture pack that removes UI elements as part of my Text Free TP project from a while back, so let’s load it anyway, for the sake of being thorough.  This shot is also still a bit too far away, so next we’ll be utilizing Dolphin’s free cam feature (which can be accessed by going to Graphics > Advanced > Free Look and checking “Enable” in Dolphin) in order to get the heart container in a more central position. Now we’re left with this:

And we’re already looking well on our way to making a nice, solid color background GIF.  But how do we get the solid color? Well, that’s where more texture editing comes into play - and here I have to give credit where credit is due, as this is a trick I picked up from 186px, after wondering how they were able to make this GIFset of Link fighting Ganondorf in The Wind Waker in a great, black void.  (Seriously, shoutouts to them, their stuff was and still is amazing.)

But, very basically, we’ll be using Dolphin’s texture dump feature in order to find the textures that need to be edited so we can replace them with pure black ones.  Texture dumping can be enabled by going to Graphics > Advanced > Utility and checking “Dump Textures,” and the file path for these dumped textures by default is Documents > Dolphin Emulator > Dump > Textures > [Game ID].  (In the case of Twilight Princess, the Game ID is GZ2E01).  After dumping the textures in the Morpheel arena, my GZ2E01 folder looks like this:

When editing textures, sometimes you’ll have to endure a bit of trial and error until you find the correct ones.  Luckily, in this scene, the textures making up the sand floor and the stone walls are rather large, so let’s isolate the ones we’re pretty sure are responsible (plus a few others that are obviously environmental, just to be safe).

Now, when loading custom textures, it’s important that the file name you’re trying to load matches up exactly with the original texture that you’re trying to replace.  I have a plain, black, square PNG that I keep on my desktop specifically for this purpose; I copy the file names of the textures I’ve isolated, then rename and drag and drop the black PNG into the folder where custom textures are loaded (Documents > Dolphin Emulator > Load > Textures > [Game ID]).  Like so:

And now, to refresh our custom textures by disabling and reenabling them in Dolphin’s graphics settings:

And voilà! We have something that very nearly resembles the GIF I made (well, a still of it, at least).  I skipped over a few details, such as the fact that TP has a pretty significant amount of bloom surrounding just about everything, which I’m fairly certain I disabled using cheat codes when I made the original GIF in order to give it an overall cleaner look.  It’s hard to tell from this still, but TP’s heart containers also sparkle considerably in a way that’s random and not loopable; I found the texture responsible for this sparkle and replaced it with a transparent 1x1 PNG, in order to remove it entirely (as well as the texture behind the “glow” of the thing).  After that, it was as simple as recording the game with OBS, dumping the MP4 into Photoshop, cropping and cutting it to make it loop, and adding some adjustment layers for contrast and color.  So...yeah!

I hope this has served to clear up any confusion about some of the things that I’ve made in the past.  I’m not a 3D artist - just a person with an emulator and way too much free time on their hands.  This stuff is really, super simple, and also lots of fun, so I would highly encourage anyone with the means to mess around with emulation on their own some time to see what they can do!  (Even if you don’t have Photoshop and can’t make GIFs, there are always edits, such as this one I made of Midna.)  For Twilight Princess in particular, I also highly recommend checking out TPGZ; it’s a patch you can apply to a clean ISO of the original game, designed with the purposes of helping folks learn and practice the speedruns (yes, I had to bring up speedrunning one last time, kill me), but it’s got nifty features like built-in savestates, cheat codes, and HUD removal, as well as the ability to freeze actors while maintaining the ability to move the camera freely, among other things (all things that are very useful as far as making unique graphics go).  Sorry this post got as long as it did, but I at the very least hope that some of you found it educational and/or interesting.  Cheers!

[rottenappleheart]

I finished “Heaven’s Vault,” that archaeology/alien translation game that everyone was so excited about before it came out, and then I never heard of again. I think I know why. 

Short version: it seems as though it was made by people who were very good at the worldbuilding/linguistics parts, and not very good at making a video game.

Long version:  I did enjoy the game, eventually.  Beat it in just under 20 hours, feeling fairly good that I hadn’t missed anything major and had done everything I could find to do before the end. I also see now that there’s a New Game+ which gives the opportunity to spin things out again in a different manner, with more information, and this really neat article (spoilers ahoy) talks about how the mere concept of a NG+ is part of the worldbuilding (the Loop religion centers around the idea that everything that has happened will happen again.) 

The learning curve was very steep at the beginning, because of the aforementioned gameplay problems getting in the way of the “meat” of the game. Some low points:

The controls are extremely janky and remained frustrating throughout. I had to turn the mouse sensitivity to its very lowest setting to avoid spinning like a top, and the restricted camera angles often send you walking off in a direction you never meant, leaping back and forth through doorways when you just wanted to enter (or exit) a room, etc. 

The mandatory and constant “sailing” minigame, while beautiful, is aggravating and not as fun as I assume the developers thought it would be, given how much you have to do it. Whereas Wind Waker’s equally mandatory and equally constant sailing is a feature of the game, here it was mostly a lengthy interruption between the snippets of actual content. Except that bits of the story are also spun out in conversations between Aliya and the robot Six on these sailing interludes, so you’re encouraged not to skip them, the few times you are even given that option.

The graphics are... odd and awkward, unfortunately. The developers tried a very neat thing with (beautiful and detailed) 3D rendered environments, populated by (also beautiful, but jarringly animated) 2D hand-drawn characters. Who don’t have feet, but kind of fade into invisibility just below the knees, so as to avoid rendering walking animations, I guess. It’s very strange. There’s also no “collision sensor,” so your 2D player character is constantly clipping through other 2D NPCs, which sometimes interrupt everything you’re doing for a 15 second animated scene where they greet you, then walk away. There’s no way to avoid this. And when that happens, it overrides and cancels any ambient but plot-relevant discussion you were having with Six, which was deeply frustrating.

Speaking of which - there are a lot of strange, time-consuming transitions. Walking out of one section of the Elboreth marketplace into another takes another 10 second scene triggered by you entering a doorway, just to show you walking through a side alley. Every single time. When you show artifacts to a colleague, he will walk all the way to the other side of his office and walk all the way back before offering the same dialogue as every time before. Realistic, to grant him time to check his data? Yes. Extremely frustrating as an element of gameplay? Also yes.

Also, my game glitched multiple times, everything slowing to an infinite limbo as a triggering event failed to trigger, requiring a full reset. Any interaction with Oroi, for whatever reason, had a 33% chance of glitching. 

All of this adds up to a game that creaks and clunks, and is deeply frustrating to play. These are all things which seem fueled by bad design/poor planning, and it takes away from the GOOD parts of the game. Namely:

It’s really beautiful (once you get over the 2D/3D intersection.) The music is lovely, and all the designs are top notch. I really enjoyed spending time in these various worlds and discovering their history. (Actually WALKING through the worlds, less enjoyable, but...)

The development of the story and the character interactions is mostly organic and nuanced. Like a Bioware game (I’m sorry to reference them but it’s the easiest comparison), your responses to different plot events and side characters, and the order in which you discover things (or even what conclusions you draw! there isn’t necessarily a single right answer!) shapes the narrative. Unfortunately, it quickly becomes obvious when the NPCs have run out of interactions for you... such as when you take a twenty-minute sail to revisit your home planet, suffer through endless clipping issues and mandatory transitions, only for your contacts there to have zero dialogue options. (Whoops, this was supposed to be the “good” section.) 

The translations, which are the heart of the game, become really fun after the first few. Initially, you have ZERO information when you are given your first line of text to interpret, and have to guess blindly. In a little bit, you are given more information to determine whether that first guess was right or wrong. It’s a little frustrating, but I think what the developers were going for is that Aliya is already roughly familiar with Ancient script, and whatever initial guess she makes is about 50/50 correct. Each new line of text you uncover builds on the glyphs you already know. It became very fun to make more educated guesses - ah, I recognize the symbol we identified as “Gods,” so maybe combined with this other symbol, it might be “Prayer” or “Temple” - something related. Or when you start breaking down the “me/you/we/my/your/our” glyphs, it all makes SENSE. That was the fun part I eventually couldn’t get enough of - parsing out what Ancient meant, and piecing together the story behind the Nebula.

I genuinely did gasp when I figured out A Big Thing about the world story.

I really love stories about robots. Long-suffering, mildly sarcastic robots who are trying very hard to keep you alive while you do stupid things like climb down cliffs they can’t follow. I am very glad I was warned about the risk of losing Six forever and could avoid that particular path, because I think the last third of the game would have been a real bummer without Six as a companion.

Do I recommend it? Yes... mostly. Yes, with the caveats above about how clunky and frustrating the gameplay is. I probably will replay it in a while, taking advantage of the NG+, but not right away - I need to play something less inherently frustrating.

I wish there were more games like this, but I also wish it had been better developed, so that the good parts of it could really shine.

[attract-mode-collective]

Just Another Late Night At The Game Center

And just another massive dose of game culture, as originally shared on the Attract Mode Twitter account, (most of) everything that was shared in the latter half of February. The first half was covered here.

Before I forget: the above is courtesy of erickimphotography.com.

Again, given how short Feb is supposed to be, I figured this post would be too... and it's not. So am wonder if going weekly might best going forward?

Anyhow, where did I leave off last time? Oh yeah; Valentine's Day. And here’s Amy Rose, from the day after, reminding us all that, as great as love can be, it also hurts (via sonicthehedgeblog)...

Check out this devastating big boot from Mario, one that would make the WWE's Undertaker or Kane proud (via suppermariobroth)...

You're no doubt familiar with Julie Bell's work, but are you aware of the close resemblance between her art & the artist herself? (via slbtumblng)...

Some nice, pixelated sukajans we have here (via kauzara)...

Look at these hipsters...

Look at these hipsters standing around, on a Brooklyn rooftop...

Look at these hipsters standing around, on a Brooklyn rooftop in leggings based upon the interactive menu for the Super Famicom's satellite modem peripheral. (via minusworld.co.uk)...

Am legit thinking of getting this shirt covered with quotes from people trying to figure out which Metal Gear character is gay (via kotaku.com)...

Am rather fond of Data Weave, which has more than a passing resemblance to the Eliss scarf that helped put the Attract Mode shop on the map (via prostheticknowledge)...

When you go to bed, don't forget to never use your Dreamcast as a pillow (nor should you ever place it on a bucket filled with leafy greens either, but you probably already knew that one; via posthumanwanderings)...

Not sure which SNK 40th Anniversary shirt I like more (via miki800.com)...

It's just Hidetaka Suehiro, playing... I think The Last Blade? Criminally underrated Neo Geo game btw (via nintendu)...

And the late, great Robin Williams playing Ground Zero Texas for the Sega CD (via celebgames)...

Plus the President of Turkey, circa 1990, playing Galaxy Force II for whatever reason (via historium)..

Pro-tip to any & all custom arcade cabinet sellers: if you're going to photograph someone playing a game on your thing, have said person actually play the thing (in this case, Robotron utilizes dual sticks and no buttons; via arcadephile)...

Today's recommended reading is a follow-up to another older post, one that's all about Willie Williams, who not only inspired Virtua Fighter's Jeffry McWild but also Tekken's Paul Phoenix (via lordmo)...

After seeing this gif of a young woman punching a dinosaur (or possibly a dragon) in the crotch, I may have to give Capcom Fighting Jam a second look (via kazucrash)...

Sticking with the subject of crotches for just one bit, everyone out there's familiar with PuLiRuLa, right? (via kazucrash)

Just a friendly reminder of how wacky commercials for the PlayStation 2 were back in the day (via kurhl)...

Back to the subject of dinosaurs... yet still sticking with fun under the sun (via sidestorygaiden)...

If I'm gonna share fan art of unofficial PlayStation 1 era mascots, then I have to pass along this rendering of Abe (via it8bit)...

Seen countless folk play music with a Game Boy or a NES... but a Dreamcast? @slowmagic is the very first, and with a Hello Kitty edition Dreamcast no less...

Does anyone know if these figures of Dorimukyasuko & friends were commercially produced or if they were just made for the Sega no Game wa Sekai Ichi~i~i~I ad that the image comes from? (via vgprintads)...

We've gotten snowfall here in NYC over the past few weeks, once during during sunset, but alas it wasn't nearly as pretty as this (via kirokazepixel)...

It's been ages since I've posted any Game Culture Snapshots, despite countless promises that I'd fix that. Well, until that finally happens, here just one, from IndieCade East 2018. Which was an epic bust, but hey, at least I finally got to play that Bill Viola game I first encountered at GDC 2008...

PLEASE tell me that GBA Video carts are the new hot means of distributing bootleg Hollywood flicks (via @katribou)...

This part from The Thing always reminded me of Asteroids on the Atari 7800 (via pixpunk)...

I posted this on Twitter, not realizing that I had shared it on the blog once before. But since I can’t find that original post, and since it's so damn nice, plus totally worth looking at again (via humanoidhistory)...

I also need to re-share that Tron movie poster cuz it's the first lead up to this Blade Runner-related spread from Joystik Magazine (via mendelpalace)...

As someone who fetishizes old video game magazines, I'm legit ashamed that I didn't know about Joystik sooner (via here & here)...

Please enjoy a healthy helping of scans from Lovely Sweet Dream, the dream journal that would become the basis of LSD for the PlayStation 1 (via here & here)...

Sorry, but I still think the idea of a multi-billionaire sending his sports car into space just cuz he can to be kinda cringey, yet that doesn't mean I'd don't think this pixelated recreation is any less pleasant (via it8bit)...

I've never been to Beverly Hills, so I have no idea if this portrayal according to Super Chase: Criminal Termination is accurate or not; maybe it was when the game was produced? (via obscurevideogames)...

Meanwhile, closer to where I am (somewhat; am not all that far from Long Island) is Mario & Yoshi & the Book of Revelation (via greathaircut)...

Are you playing Mario? Or is Mario playing you? (via suppermariobroth)...

Game Boys. And Game Girls. Mostly Girls. (via contac)

Before anyone asks, no, I do not have a bigger/wallpaper appropriate-sized version of this super sexy image of a couple of Wiis (via klaus-laserdisc)...

I think I kinda need to do this to my PlayStation (via dreamcast.tokyo)...

... Which reminds of those fancy, souped up by audiophiles PSXs I mentioned a whiles ago...

I celebrated Cat Day in Japan by posting this fave official King of Fighters illustration (via videogamesdensetsu)....

... along with this Monster Hunter fan art (via kerriaitken)...

... plus this highlight of a fave WarioWare: Twisted micro game (via suppermariobroth)...

So yeah, Flash sucks, I get that, but as the platform fades away, so does the opportunity to play games like Fear Less! (via zombie-chaser)...

Thankfully, WORLD OF HORROR, "a love letter to the cosmic horror work of Junji Ito", is something that's much more accessible (for now at least)...

I don't know much about Dujanah, which has you assuming the role of a Muslim woman with grievances against a military force that's occupying her Islamic homeland, other than it looks extremely compelling...

Yet another game I need to check out is CONTINUUM, which is a shmup that combines time manipulation and Tetris? (via alpha-beta-gamer)...

It's a legit shame that Jetpack Squad has seemingly fallen off the map (via shmups)...

Another shmup that I really, really want to play (though it's starting to feel increasingly unlikely) is AEROBAT, which looks just as gorgeous (and insane) today as it did the first time I laid eye (via shmups)...

Yet another game that was never meant to be, and the only thing we have here is some incredible looking concept art; if it ended up happening & was any good, I wonder if I'd be a PC-FX owner? (via videogamesdensetsu)...

If a Tokyo Dark Souls was ever to happen, which artist's take do you prefer; this one (via visor-visual)...

... or this one? (via mendelpalace)

You know about celebrity roasts, right? Well, a comedy club in Long Island City had one for Mario, though I have no idea how it went; I had kung fu practice that night...

Me, when the coffee kicks in (via anthony10000000)...

I had no idea that Typing of the Space Harrier was even a thing (via posthumanwanderings)...

It's a bit unsettling how some of Dreamcast Magazine's advice on how to survive Y2K are still useful today, in particular their words of wisdom regarding Seaman (via posthumanwanderings)...

Megadora Man, a Tokusatsu-esque take on the Mega Drive, for Beep! Mega Drive; am assuming his foes are inspired by the Famicom and PC Engine (though am not totally sure which is which; via obscurevideogames)...

Question: how hard would it be for someone in the US to get the first three issues of Famitsu from the Japanese Kindle Store? (via miki800.com)

Been well over a decade since first laying eyes and I FINALLY know the identity of the artist behind a series of Mario illustrations that has long left me stupefied: his name is Ishihara Gōjin (via videogamesdensetsu)...

I woke up the other day with a sense of purpose, with the knowledge that I finally have a mission in life: to do whatever I can to make this dancing kid from Sega Splash Golf a viral sensation (via sonicthehedgeblog)...

Though speaking of morning, been feeling run down as of late, though it's my own damn fault for not having breakfast. Which is why I can't wait for my Persona 3 toaster has yet to arrive (via gasp-theenemy)...

Had no idea that MAME can also emulate those crappy, Tiger handheld games; naturally there's not much to look at, since none of the background is part of the game's code (via lanceboyles)...

Eggman has a sense of humor (via voidirium)...

Eggman also has aesthetics (via posthumanwanderings)...

When you mess with the textures in Wind Waker for the sole purpose of making Vaporwave Link (via pmpkn)...

Man, I really wish each and every mech in Tech Romancer actually had its own anime (via ultrace)...

Before Mappy was a video game, it was a physical game involving real deal robots (via namcomuseum)...

And I swear, one of these days, we'll make available online Zac Gorman's print from Comics Vs Games 2...

In my time I've encountered lots & lots of BMO fan art, so much that it has become increasingly difficult to take notice and be impressed, yet this one managed to do so regardless (via it8bit)...

Let's all take a moment to appreciate the instruction manual for Cubivore, shall we (via skincoats)...

Cubivore's Japanese box art is also very nice (via gaygamer)...

An important message for all parents out there, concerning Minecraft (via reddit.com)...

When you can't afford the licensing fees for Miami Vice, Ghostbusters, Barbarella, I think... and maybe Logan's Run? (via mendelpalace)...

Given how Platoon ended up as a NES game, the idea of the Terminator on a Tiger handheld isn't totally far-fetched (via rewind01)...

And finally, PUT THAT CONTROLLER DOWN, NOW! (via fuzzyghost)

[concentratedevil]

More Thoughts on Breath of the Wild and Game Design Sins

You know, I'm really happy if people think the new Zelda game is just the bee's knees. Good on them if they love it (but fuck any of them who attack people for their own opinions on the game).

I'm still going to complain about weapon durability and the annoyance of maintaining stamina though. I'm glad to see others say that weapon durability is bullshit. It makes all of the gear you get feel inconsequential and meaningless. Who cares if you get a new lightning sword? It's just going to break eventually making it feel just as disposable as the other trash you pick up off the ground. Even the Master Sword feels severely neutered because it's kind of weak in the first place and it needs time to "recharge" after being swung a few times.

I'm a little frustrated with myself since I've been harping on the shortcomings of Breath of the Wild more than I've been praising it for what it does right. So before I dive into the second subject of this essay, here are somethings I think BotW does well.

It allows you to come up with clever solutions for puzzles and defeating enemies. Even watching Nintendo's three part YouTube series on the making of Breath of the Wild, I discovered a couple of ingenious ideas. For instance, lighting a field of grass on fire so that it creates an updraft and using that updraft to allow you to take on a group of enemies with an aerial assault. Cool stuff.

The shrine puzzles are mostly great. Some of the more clever puzzles I've seen in a Zelda game in a while. While going forward I think I'd like to see these incorporated into more standard dungeons again (versus an environment that always looks the same), at this point most of the puzzles are clever enough that I don't mind. Also shrines serve as fast travel points, so I understand the decision to spread them out like they are.

The story is paced well since you can get to it whenever you feel like. While it isn't a great story, it's serviceable. And at least it's not like Twilight Princess where it forces you to deal with a painfully boring introduction which is filled with the most mundane tasks. Breath of the Wild lets you play the game and that's definitely worth praising. Please, Nintendo: Don't ever go back!

It allows you to change your armor to fit your situation. I'm not really missing the standard tunics this go around because armor is much more flexible and has multiple purposes. Whether you want to sneak or protect yourself from the elements or you just want high defense, there's something for you to wear. And if you do miss the classic Zelda tunics, several Amiibo will unlock classic Zelda costumes. I'm working on the Ocarina of Time, Wind Waker, and NES Link armor sets right now. I'm also looking forward to getting the Dark Link costume. (Also armor doesn't break! ... except for shields)

Cooking and creating elixirs is a nice change of pace from praying that a heart will drop when you need health. In one sense, it does make the game easier if you have a pack filled with food, but it's up to the player to abuse the system if they want. You're free to go hungry and pray for the best if you'd rather play that way.

The blatant Freudian nature of Link's relationship between himself and the Great Fairies is off the charts. I think this part of the game is hilarious. The game is even pretty blatant about it if you pay attention to what the fairies are saying. Lots of jabs at masculinity and making men feel small next to a powerful woman. It's so ridiculous and great.

The four major dungeons are pretty good and make you feel smart when you solve some of their puzzles. While I'd like if they didn't all look the same, they're pretty good dungeons that aren't too long or too short. Also, the special skills you get for beating them are pretty cool. I would greatly recommend doing the Rito and Zora dungeons first since those skills are the most useful.

The four special skills you get at the beginning of the game that replaces the traditional Zelda equipment are pretty good. They are remote bombs, magnesis, stasis, and freeze. And instead of being limited resources, they're closer to how equipment is in A Link Between Worlds where you basically have infinite uses, you just have to wait a little tiny bit before you're able to use the skills again. I don't even miss series staples like the Hookshot since I feel I have a good arsenal of tools that help me solve problems.

I like that Breath of the Wild doesn't force any Zelda shared timeline stuff. That idea was dumb in the first place. Why can't a game stand alone even if it's part of a series? Bless your heart if you think all of the Mario games are connected too.

I like getting to a vantage point (say the regional watchtowers or a tall mountain range), scoping out the land, and then using the glider to travel to your next destination. This is pretty fun and thankfully stamina doesn't drain super fast when gliding.

I like that you get to choose where you want to go and what you want to do next. Outside of the four tutorial shrines at the beginning, there's no set linear path that you have to embark on. Breath of the Wild does an even better job of this than A Link to the Past since you get all the traversal tools you'll need at the beginning of the game so there isn't a dungeon-specific item blocking your path to progress.

Now for my list of "game design sins" -- or, more accurately: "shit I find annoying in games".

Equipment durability: Worrying about equipment breaking is never fun. It makes me not want to use what I have. It causes needless anxiety. It makes me want to install mods.

Stamina/limited running: Especially in vast games where you do a lot of running from location to location. This is very annoying and makes playing a game more grueling than it should be.

Unskippable/unpausable cutscenes

Season passes for DLC: Often the contents are not even revealed and game companies ask that players take a gamble that the season pass will deliver... something.

A disrespect for the player's time: Dialogue/cutscenes that go on for too long. Excessive grinding. Boring/required tutorials. Banal fetch quests. Long introductions. Long load times. Lack of checkpoints and autosaves.

Pre-order bonuses/exclusive content

Unable to change button mapping: At least let me change whether the analog sticks are normal or inverted! Most games are good about this now though. I'm hoping that Final Fantasy XII HD remembers to fix this...

Run buttons in 3D games: There's an analog stick that gives players the range to walk and run. Use it! If Super Mario 64 figured it out in 1996...

Games with only one save file: I'm thinking of Pokemon in particular. You can't play the game over again without erasing all of your progress. While the Pokemon Bank eliminates a portion of this annoyance, I don't see a reason that you shouldn't be able to replay a game if you want to.

Squeaky anime voices/bad voice acting in general: I'd greatly prefer to read anyway (theater of the mind!). Just because you can put voice acting in your game doesn't mean you should... especially if you're not going to bother to ensure quality.

Missables: Items or events that are permanently missable can be very annoying -- especially in long games that you probably won't want to immediately replay. Missables are especially egregious if it's never communicated to the player that they just screwed themselves. I suppose this gripe is genre specific. In Super Metroid for example, finding all of the items is part of the fun.

Games with gimmicky controls: See: Many, many Nintendo games that shove things like motion controls and touchscreens down your throat.

[goron-king-darunia]

The Tales games are some of the best to come out of Japan, though some of the mainline games are better than others. Here’s our ranking of the best Tales games.

=======================================

Annon-Guy: Found this a while back.

Bet you disagree with what the ‘worst’ title is though. 

=======================================  GKD: It’s gentler to DotNW than some other rankings I’ve seen. I tend not to trust people that like Vespiria best “because the writing is good” to like DotNW at all because they’re looking for some VERY different things in the narrative than I am and most definitely will not like Emil as a protagonist if they like Yuri as a protagonist. I agree that Abyss belongs pretty high on the rankings along with Symphonia and I agree with the rankings of the other games I’m at least aware of (I haven’t played most of the titles yet but I’m planning to and know a decent amount through osmosis.)  Most people that don’t like DotNW tend to have the same few complaints: “Lloyd bad? No! GAME BAD!” Like... Lloyd stans, I love y’all, but I know a fair chunk of people refused to play the game because they heard Lloyd was the villain and instead of going “that’s not Lloyd, Lloyd would never do that, I wonder who it actually is or if we’re playing as the real bad guys.” a lot of them went “That’s not Lloyd, Lloyd would never do that. Therefore the game is bad for implying Lloyd is any different than the Lloyd I loved playing as.” This ties into the second group of people that don’t like DotNW for the “nostalgia goggles” reason. Symphonia was probably their first Tales game and they loved it so much that this game not being everything they wanted out of a sequel made them so disenchanted with it that they can’t enjoy the parts of it that make it a separate game and just see all those parts as “places they could have made it MORE like the game I loved” instead of “Ah yes, the new content that’s good on its own and is kind of ruined by the fact they tried to cram the old cast in here for me.” Then there are the people who hate the mechanics which is... fair but... unless a game’s mechanics have made it impossible for me to do something because of a poorly timed button press (see the rope swinging levels of Wind Waker which were easy for me as a kid and make me want to scream as an adult with slower reflexes.) I’ve never hated a game for the mechanics alone. If people find the game unplayable or unpolished because the mechanics don’t gel or aren’t intuitive? That’s fine. That’s just not something I’ve ever had a problem with before. Then there are people who hate the story. These people and I will never see eye-to-eye because apart from a few unanswered questions, which kind of leave intrigue more than frustration, Marta’s development being completely shoved into the journal and a few skits, and some of the best content (the Alice and Decus and Richter sidequests) being too easy to miss, the story is one of my favorite things about the game if not my FAVORITE thing. Maybe they like the plot to spell everything out for them. Or maybe they like even more vagueries. Maybe they want more twists like in Symphonia. Maybe they want a straightforward narrative and hated the plot contrivances. I’d be curious how the haters of DotNW’s story would react to the original Baten Kaitos and the prequel Origins, because I think it would be about the same. I think Symphonia lovers would like BK but not Origins and DotNW lovers would like Origins and either dislike or just kinda enjoy the original BK. And then there are the people who hate DotNW because of Emil. And again, I don’t think I’ll ever see eye-to-eye with them. Emil’s development as a character is almost perfect to me. IDK if people just happen to prefer silent-protags with snarker options like some of the new Links from the Legend of Zelda series, or just hated having to play in the shoes of someone who wasn’t always heroic, but I honestly LOVE when a game doesn’t give me just a cookie-cutter protag like Lloyd. If a game wants the protag to be a version of me? Then I want things like the Elder Scrolls where you can customize a fair bit about your character including the dialogue, even if it’s just window dressing. If the game wants me to play as a character they invented? I want that little bugger to be interesting. I want to get attached. And DotNW does that for me with Emil. Baten Kaitos did it for me with Kalas. I don’t need them to be perfect. I need them to be interesting. I don’t need them to be my mouthpiece, I need them to be fun to watch. Sonic the Hedgehog is a perfect example of that. Sonic’s personality is completely independent of my actions in the game. He’s a free-spirited 90s kid who likes to go fast, though his exact aesthetic seems to update depending on the demographic playing since he wasn’t always a 90′s kid aesthetic. XD To me, the entire point of DotNW is watching Emil grow (it would be nice if it was about watching EVERYBODY GROW, like Marta and Richter and even the original cast.) Having Emil start out as a whimpering little “coward” and watching him grow as he learns more about himself, the world, and how he fits into that world is so good. Lloyd was always kind of cut out to be a hero especially because the plot bent around him to ensure basically anything and everything he wanted was “the right choice.” Lloyd never had to change. He never had to grow. He stuck to what he believed and made the world change around him. I guess that’s powerful to some people, believing they can change the world and are already perfect as they are. But Lloyd never struck a chord with me the way Emil did. And before I started liking Colette more, Zelos was my fave from Symphonia because he WASN’T PERFECT but also wasn’t a shitty dad like Kratos. XD Emil was WAY more captivating and engaging because HE HAD TO CHANGE to make the world around him change. He had to go from being Ratatosk -  a powerful summon spirit, alone, depressed, enraged, vengeful, completely broken after what happened to him - to a human boy - timid, weak, but caring an passionate - and then spent the entire game becoming a synergy of those two aspects. Merging the best of both sides into something BETTER. Perhaps getting closer to what Ratatosk was before his tree died. Mithos did say that Emil’s kindness and Ratatosk’s strength and confidence are what he remembers most about the original Ratatosk. So Emil might not have gotten fully back to that, hell he may NEVER be that Ratatosk again, but the fact that he PUT HIMSELF BACK TOGETHER AT ALL, the fact that he didn’t have to become unkind to be strong again and the fact that he didn’t have to stay weak to keep his kindness was VERY POWERFUL as was the message that kindness is a strength of its own, maybe even more powerful than physical strength, because it’s only when the characters show each other kindness that things really seem to change (and kindness takes COURAGE which as we know is the magic that turns dreams into reality.) Like... the game was SO MUCH MORE about emotional beats. So as much as I like the original Symphonia, the OVA is WAY better because Lloyd actually has a bit more personality and HAS TO CHANGE if only a little bit, though he still has MASSIVE plot armor. DotNW might fair better as an OVA since it could linger on the emotional aspects I liked a lot more and it might provide that separation for people who just hated DotNW because it “made them play as a sniveling brat.” And then there are people that hate it for the monster-catching thing. Which was like a bonus for me because I love Pokemon but like... if you don’t like catching Monsters then just... don’t? I sucked at catching Monsters and I still got strong enough that the later half of the game was manageable my first time around. If you don’t like your “worse version of Pokemon” then just... don’t use that mechanic. You can level up enough by grinding like the original Symphonia to get strong enough for the rest of the game. I’m sorry you joyless people don’t like adventures with cute critters. The monsters, other than Richter and Emil, are my fave characters in the game because they’re ALL SO CUTE! XD But yeah. These aren’t all the reasons I’ve heard, and just because I disagree doesn’t mean they’re not valid reasons. Liking or not liking DotNW is an opinion and everyone is allowed to have an opinion. People can like what they want and dislike what they want. So I was glad to see an opinion piece that didn’t eviscerate DotNW off-hand (some critics never even played the game and this person at least seems familiar with the controls so they played at least a bit.) It’s still always sad when people don’t like DotNW, and it’s especially sad since a lot of DotNW’s fans are the JP audience that I can’t talk to very easily because I’m an American idiot that only speaks basic Spanish and only knows minimal Japanese from being a teenaged weeb. But I’m happy that at least this particular critic recommends the game for Symphonia fans, even if they didn’t like it themself. I’m also very happy that Bamco made it a main title and not a spin off so it’s canon now and people can stop saying the game doesn’t matter or doesn’t count because they didn’t like it. I’m fine with them still hating it, but they have to at least acknowledge that this is a story the developers wanted to tell in line with the main series and not just “something they made because Symphonia made lots of money.” I do think that DotNW would have done better with the USA and European audience if the team had gone with their original idea and set it far enough in the future that the Symphonia crew wasn’t there or that only the half-elves and possibly Lloyd and Colette (or Zelos since he’s technically an angel too) were there. Emil’s story, Richter’s story, and (the good parts of) Marta’s story are all interesting enough that they could be told without the Symphonia cast being involved at all. That being said, I LIKE the old cast being there. But because they had to change the old cast to fit the new narrative, I know that it disappointed a LOT of people who were expecting “more of the same” from the old cast and didn’t get it. So while I love the game as-is and wouldn’t change it, if it had been released according to the original vision and NOT had the original Symphonia cast in it, I think it would have been at least a little bit more well-recieved.