#I'm also wondering if he's still going to do it in four panel layouts? I believe there might be some more overarching themes with what he's

[saturnaous]

they call me. someone who is quite really normally excited about this coming out today. and not at all collecting a. bunch of things until it does.

[felixcloud6288]

Fullmetal Alchemist Chapter 35

This chapter reminded me how fast-paced this series is. If this was a weekly manga, this chapter would have ended with Ed reading the article about Maria Ross being convicted for Hughes's murder and the rest of the chapter would be the next chapter.

How did Lin get separated from the others. He was literally sitting alongside them on the train and he somehow got off and snuck outside before collapsing from hunger ...again.

We get this shot of one of the gates to Central HQ.

Central HQ has four gates located to the East, West, North, and South. After cross-referencing this shot with other images of Central, I'm fairly certain this is the East Gate. I can't say this with 100% certainty though because the layout of Central HQ is highly inconsistent between chapters. In fact, none of the other chapters show any paths crossing at 90 degree angles of each other.

The main reason I assume this is the East Gate is because one image implies there's a path going from the South Gate and traveling North-East to the East Gate and one of the paths we see in this image matches that one.

Based on the next shot, it looks like the way to enter Central HQ is you have to pass through a gated enclosure at the base of any of its entryways and then walk up the pathway to the main entrance. Since Ed and co. were outside HQ, I guess that means the Court Martial Office is outside the main HQ fortification.

Roy did that eye thing again when Ed asked about Hughes. But he's terrified rather than angry. And then we don't see his eyes as he lies to them and admits to Hawkeye how soft he is. I wonder if he was struggling to keep his composure. He kept his back to them the whole time.

Al had to lean into this shot.

Here's a fun little fandom detail. The Ed/Winry fandom uses the number 503 to refer to that ship. This was started because there's a brand of jean called Edwin 503. I bring this up because...

Arakawa knew.

And then the big breakout heist. Maria Ross has been convicted of Hughes's death without a trial and Barry the Chopper decides to break her out. Along the way, he also breaks out Lin.

The guard who was interrogating Lin deserves a commendation. He was inside Lin's cell when Barry broke in and he made sure to lock the cell before fighting Barry.

There was an ocarina in the confiscation room.

The bit when Ed and Al bump into them just reminds me of that one Shrek meme template.

And Barry make his own chibi face during the encounter.

And when Maria Ross encounters Roy in the alleyway, we don't see his eyes in the first panel, but they're doing that thing for the rest of the chapter.

back

Spoiler Discussion

Let's talk about that heist!!

Obviously, Roy didn't kill Maria Ross and the details about the heist will be explained in chapter 41 with some additional info in 42 so I'll save that part for then. For this half, I want to talk about all the details that a reader could pick up to clue them in that there was more to what happened.

Just to start off, why would Barry break Maria Ross out to begin? If he were acting on his own, he'd have no reason to want to save her. At best, he would have broken in because he wanted to chop her up personally. And he also didn't kill any guards. His comment makes it sound like he's under orders to not kill anyone. Admittedly, one could argue he's still following Hawkeye's orders when he first went into Mustang's custody. And why would he be interested in Lin being from Xing?

Now onto the body.

Knowing how the heist worked, the clearly cut chain on the band should clue you in that there's something up. Alongside that, you'll notice the band is otherwise intact. Now I want to mention that the melting point of iron is higher than the temperature used to cremate human bodies, and the cremation process takes a few hours, but Roy used an explosive force that supposedly instantly incinerated Maria Ross to ash and bone. That band should be either slightly warped from the heat or the chains should have been blown to pieces by the force.

Now onto conspirators. Obviously, Roy and Barry were major parts of the heist, but what about the rest of Roy's crew? We can say Falman was definitely uninvolved since Barry knocked him out before leaving. Meanwhile, Hawkeye seems to be unaware of what Roy was doing. Maybe he told her on the way out, but she had no involvement in it.

And how might things have gone more smoothly if Roy had been upfront with Ed and Al when he met them? They might have all stayed in their hotel room to mourn or maybe spend the day with Elicia and Mrs. Hughes. But because they didn't know anything was wrong, they went about their evening like normal and Al ended up finding a newspaper.

Also, remember this image from the backside of the newspaper. It's relevant later.

[zachsgamejournal]

COMPLETED: Time on Frog Island

It's cute. A Short Hike meets Link's Awakening trade quests. I almost really like it. Graphics are totally my style and I respect the attempt, but I'm not as impressed by the execution.

As soon as the opening cinematic revealed a beautifully textured low-poly boat, I was like Thor: yyyYYYESSSsss!!! This is the art style I wanted in AER. At least concerning the blockiness.

The game is played top-down, but the level layout is very organic. Immediate A Short Hike vibes are present. And like a Short Hike, the game is populated with quirky but friendly NPCs. Unlike A Short Hike, there's no dialog: just thought bubbles with pictures. They can be a little hard to interpret, but still effective.

But for some reason the inhabitants are frogs. Its not explained, but it doesn't need to be. There are creatures that wander on four legs that I assume are children, and thus the walking stage post tadpole. But they also bark. So I dont know.

The story involves a shipwrecked sailor trying to fix his boat. At night he gets sleepy. You can build a campfire to pass the time (which becomes a helpful mechanic) and he dreams of what I assume is a former lover. He and the lover, according to the dream panels, built the ship together and had a great time. Then she got sick and died. Now he sails alone.

Cheap.

Assuming this isn't based on a biographical experience of the writer or designer and I've been terribly insensitive, a death of a loved one is an easy drama gag, like Michael Scott always pulling a gun in his improv class. Grief stories should be about how the character is dealing with the grief.

Take Rime (spoilers) the game is about a father going through the five stages of grief regarding his son's probably death at sea. The thing is, you don't know you're the father. You play the child finding a mysterious island. On the island the child sees a red caped man and follows them. The child remembered being a boat with the man and the man falling overboard. This sets the tone that we're reuniting father and son. Or the ghost of the father is leading the son him. But then the world becomes dark and horrible. The scene of the man falling overboard is shown again, but this time its the child that falls. The game ends on the father looking out to sea. We NOW realize everything we played was the father's imagination hoping that his son survived amd is alive and thriving somewhere out there.

The whole game is more or less the father's hope as it slips into depression. It's the father processing grief.

There's no processing grief here. A sailor's boat is broke. He fixes it. The end. I'm not going to speculate on how to improve it cause the game just isn't set up as grief processing.

The goal is to fix your boat. To do so, you need to do favors for the local frogs:

Retrieve missing scarecrow heads.

Refill the keg with ice flowers

Obtain blue paint for an artist

Locate a missing child

Stuff like that.

Sometimes you need an item for frog A, but it's held by frog B. Frog B needs something that can only be obtained by helping Frog D. And it gets confusing as you're never sure what you should be focusing on. I spent the first hour roaming cluelessly around the island unable to satisfy any frog requests. But once I found random item A in random place B, things started to fall into place.

Because there's no dialog, the directions aren't great. Worse, you don't really get to know the characters. Sometimes helping a character doesn't net a reward. The character doesn't suddenly become your friend and help out. It's not really about the reward, but there's no relationship either. The frog is happy now and you're no closer ro your goal.

You can supposedly build a house. I wonder if that's a secret alternate ending. I don't know. I was so annoyed by the hour or so of wandering aimlessly that I was ready to "win" in whatever way that meant.

While the game is prettier than A Short Hike, I didn't feel as touched by it. The exploration in A Short Hike offered many rewards outside of pure objectives, so no exploring felt wasted. And through dialog, the characters in Short Hike became more real and had their own stories and journeys.

The game is cute and right up my alley. But it felt unrealized, which isn't great since there's near zero originality here. I'm glad I played it, but I'm also glad I didn't pay for it...(nervous laughter).