#IN MY DEFENSE I JUST NEED THIS ONE IN-GAME CUTSCENE I JUST WANNA SEE REAL QUICK

[todayisafridaynight]

suspicious

[eri-blogs-life]

Digimon Story Cyber Sleuth

This has definitely been one of the games that I played this year.

So I have... a lot of thoughts about Digimon Story Cyber Sleuth and I wanna talk about. These thoughts might not be super contiguous or all track logically, but honestly, that’s just kind of the same as the experience that I had playing Digimon Story Cyber Sleuth (I’ll just say CS for short going forward). CS is a good game, and I enjoyed my time with it a lot, but it also is a bit baffling at times and so it’s like... I like it, I had a good time with it mostly, but there are bits that made me just feel confusion as to whether I could actually call this a good game. 

So... I’m gonna try organizing my thoughts here based on the game’s title to start, cause that seems like a fun way to start out with this writeup of my thoughts.

The Digimon

So, I’ve attempted to play through this game 3 times now. The first time, I picked up the version on PS4 second-hand from gamestop and made it maybe 4 chapters into the 20-chapter story before a better big game captured my attention. The second time, I bought the Complete Edition when it came out on Switch and attempted another playthrough. I think that time I made it 6 chapters in, but issues with the game’s difficulty and my bigger interest in other games that were out at the same time made me fall off of it. Lately, I’ve been on a kick of playing through really big JRPGs on the Switch, and I figured this was the time to really push my way through. But to do that, I had to find the fun. Because my previous times, I didn’t find it to be a ton of fun - the story was meh, the experience was extremely linear, the difficulty had weird spikes and valleys all around, and it just didn’t seem that fun. But I was recently watching a retrospective on the digimon franchise (shout out to Billiam on youtube for that if you’re interested), and while watching I came to the realization that the fun of digimon has always been different than in pokemon (the comparison to pokemon is, unfortunately, always inevitable when talking about digimon - the two were so closely intertwined in popular culture in america in the late 90s / early 00′s that it’s hard to deny there’s something to connect them)

Pokemon’s about catching them all. Digimon’s about raising a partner. Digimon started as a tamogatchi brand marketed towards boys, with cool monsters you could fight with each other. The fun of digimon has always been seeing your partner(s) grow and become new forms. And that’s where I finally found the fun in Digimon Story: Cyber Sleuth.

The fun is in bonding. I found out in my second playthrough how to nickname digimon, and that became my go-to when I would get a new digimon on my team in this playthrough. Every digimon had a nickname. Early on I had a team consisting of Willis, Stinky, Specty, Babby, Evil Babby, Big Bird, Tomato, Axey, and Beedril. Over time, I got to watch these fools grow - Willis from a Terriermon into a Gallantmon CM, Stinky from a Guilmon into a Diaboromon, Specty got fused with someone called Shellby and went from Specty the Patamon to Shellspecty the Cherrymon, Babby fused with Big Bird and the two ended up as an Aeroveedramon, and so on. 

The fun of the game was in watching as these monsters I’d bonded with became stronger and changed into new and different forms. And that was the fun of the game for most of the early game for me, and continued throughout the game, mostly.

Ultimately, the game has some weird difficulty spikes at times, especially in some of the sidequests, which feel nearly impossible. I ended up focusing heavily on trying to find all my digimon final forms that had penetrating moves (moves which ignore the enemy’s defense or intelligence when calculating damage), because a lot of the game’s main story bosses are heavily focused on having high defense, and relatively low HP. So, that meant that I couldn’t just use all my favorite digimon. Some just didn’t have what it takes to hold up against certain fights, and I had to move them away from forms I really liked to try to find them stronger forms so I could complete the sidequests. It was still entertaining to play, and did have me continuing to see my digimon grow over time and we bonded, but it also felt a bit lackluster that some favorite mega-level forms just didn’t have what it took to deal with some of the late-game sidequests (at least in hard difficulty, which I played through on - thankfully you can change the difficulty during a playthrough, so I could have dropped it to try to do the sidequests, but I didn’t opt to do that. I just still haven’t beat all the sidequests, instead focusing on the main quest). 

the game doesn’t have a lot of animated cutscenes but those it does have come out strong

The Story

CS’s story is... fine. I think it’s probably a decently good story that’s just told confusingly. And I think there’s a couple reasons for that, but one of the biggest is that the translation is not the best. It’s passable, but it doesn’t always feel like things were translated in a holistic way to the whole game, rather it feels like each line was translated on its own, which leads to things feeling like they don’t all track together naturally at times, and a bunch of mistakes like the Eaters being referred to as Bakemon (a digimon name), because in Japanese they’re referred to sometimes as bakemono, which is just the Japanese word for a monster.

The other big issue I feel I have with the story of CS is that it feels like it’s all over the place, at least early on. Early on in the game, the story starts to set up a lot of different characters and plot threads that don’t seem to really connect with each other until much later in the game. That kind of story can be told well, but in this case, I just feel like the execution left a lot to be desired. For a long time, it felt like I was just playing through a bunch of different unrelated stories rather than a singular story. I’m not sure exactly what would be the right way to implement the idea to help keep the early game’s story interesting, but as it is, it felt a little lackluster.

However, that really only applies to the early game. And the late game, though in a bit of a different way. Around chapter 8 out of 20, the story starts popping off, and the individual stories concerning all the side characters start coming together to reveal the bigger picture of what’s been happening in Tokyo and Eden lately, and what issues that’s leading to in both the real and digital worlds. And from about chapter 8 through 19 or so, it feels really good and strong and there’s a clear singular direction that the story is taking, and every new piece of information seems to feed into the major plot in some way. 

And then as you get into the last chapter, things start to feel a little less narratively tied together again. See, yes, the mysteries were building into a singular situation that was threatening both the real and digital worlds, but the game feels like it lacks a narrative throughline, or even multiple narrative throughlines for each major character. It feels like there’s no moral being focused on here, rather, it feels like there’s just a series of events that happen because it would be cool to have them happen. And they were cool. But... to really make a story feel good to me, I feel like there needs to be some sense of a complete narrative moral, and I just didn’t feel that way from this game. The closest I could tell was one line from the ending,

“You will now be the master of your own future.”

But... that feels weak. It didn’t feel like being able to control their own future was much of a theme for any of the main characters, except maybe Arata. And even then, it was a pretty weak theme. (I suppose an argument could be made that the game’s very linear story means your character doesn’t have a lot of freedom from a gameplay perspective, so the gameplay supports you not having control over your future, but... that’s a pretty weak argument.)

So, the story is interesting, but it’s also pretty weak. 

fusion evolution is apparently gay as hell and i love it

The Cyber Sleuthing

There’s not really any actual sleuthing in this game. It’s really just a narrative device to give your character a reason to help out with a variety of random situations. You very rarely, if ever, have to actually solve mysteries/puzzles during your journey. So... not much actual sleuthing. But the greater mystery of the story does get really interesting in the mid game, so I’ll give it that. 

Other stuff

Here, I just wanna talk about some other miscellaneous thoughts I have about this game, and then kinda sum it all up. 

I loved Persona 5. It was a wonderful game, and such a powerful turn-based JRPG, that it’s influenced my perception of basically every JRPG I’ve played since. And it feels weird to do that. Like I feel like CS is a really decent game taken on its own, but when I’m comparing everything in some way to Persona 5, CS feels like it sucks. Like there are so many aspects where I can see ways to improve upon the game - the translation is lacking, there’s no english dub, combat is fairly smooth but Persona’s combat always feels like it’s a puzzle to be solved but CS’s combat feels like it’s just ‘have the right type digimon in play’, add more social elements to let me grow closer to Yuuko, Nokia, Arata, and other characters. 

There’s this narration near the end of the game to explain how things change after the big final boss battle, and it’s narrated by one of the in-game characters, Nokia. And it’s amazing, because Nokia’s character can be kinda... ditzy, I guess is the right word? So there are parts in that bit of narration where she’s just like “and, you know... stuff changed” or whatever. It’s both funny, and leaves things fairly up to the player to have their own interpretations for what happens with everyone after things are over. There’s some small scenes after that narration that show some of what the main cast has been up to since the events of the final battle, but nothing that gives too much of a clue as to what happened.

----

There is a running gag throughout the whole game about how your mentor character likes experimenting with coffee, making weird blends like adding red bean paste or seaweed to her coffee, and she loves pushing this on other people who often react in horror. But there’s also this really nice scene in the finale where it shows the main character, without Kyoko around, drinking mayo coffee, and I think it’s just cute as heck

There’s a canon nonbinary character in the game, who complains about being forced to choose between either a male or female avatar when logging into the online system, and I absolutely love that kinda shit <3

My favorite status effect is one called Dot, where it converts your digimon into a sprite form and prevents them from using special attacks. And I love when JRPGs add fun unique statuses like this, which make sense within the context of the world

In Summary

So, to tie it all together, here’s my final thoughts:

I enjoyed my time with Digimon Story: Cyber Sleuth a ton. But I’m a fan of digimon and jrpgs. I think the game has its fair share of problems that mean I couldn’t really recommend it to just anyone, but if you like digimon and jrpgs, it’s worth picking up. And the complete edition comes with two games for the price of one, so all the better. 

[dragongirlafro]

Miscellaneous things I liked about Sun and Moon

-Kukui coming to your house and just letting himself in.

-Kukui asking the main character to find the kahuna without actually giving a short fill in on who he is, other than “he looks just like a kahuna”.

-the little wobble effect when you’re crossing the bridge to save Nebby.

-The main character asking Lillie if she’s a kahuna, either jokingly or because they genuinely have no idea what a kahuna is.

-Hau’s theme. I mean, I’m psyched for Hau in general, but I really loved his music.

-the cutscenes. No seriously. I like reading dialogue and interactions between characters. The cutscenes at the beginning of the game really set the right mood and tone for me imo.

-Trainer models behind their Pokémon during battles.

-finding Ledybas on route 1.

-Kukui yelling “Oh yeah, Rockruff! My body is ready!” from inside his lab, giving the impression of a hilarious double entendre.

-The Rotom pokédex’s witty personality.

-And the wide variety of Pokédex entries ranging from “really sweet” to “how did this get past ERSB’s ratings?”

-just the sentiment of going out into the islands with your starter and just one or two low level Pokemon.

-Pokémon Refresh!! I had no idea how much of an improvement Refresh was to Amie! Like you can just give a Pokemon two sparkly rainbow beans and they’ll love you forever!

-the ability to just go into a PC and grab your pokémon or move it around without any of that “withdraw or deposit” bullshit.

-that adorable scene where Rotom takes a picture of you, Hau, and Lillie.

-Rotom thirsting over “that dreamboat Ilima”.

-The Skull grunts at the berry farm. More specifically the one who had self-esteem issues.

-when the Skull grunts think you can’t tell them apart cause they’d switched positions so they swap places and are like “how’s that?”

-Totem Pokémon being three times larger than they normally would and scaring the crap outta you.

-The fuckin anime-ass pose your main character does whenever they get a Z-crystal

-in fact Z-moves in general. A lot of older fans seem to dislike them but honestly they were one of the only things that convinced me to buy the game.

-Ride Pokémon!!!!No HMs!!!!!!!

-Also being able to program any Ride Pokémon on the D-pad. That’s become like second nature to me.

-that cutscene when you’re on the boat from Melemele to Akala island.

-and that little exchange between Lillie, Hau, and Kukui when they reach the shore.

-The shopping music. Holy fuck do I even need to tell you how amazing the shopping music is in this Gen???

-meeting Dexio and Sina again. I didn’t really care for the whole Zygarde thing but just seeing those two again was really sweet.

-Paniola Ranch and its chill af vibes.

-Lana trying to find a “strapping young swimmer” when she’s supposed to be guiding you through her trial.

-and her trying to convince you that her trial site has a Kyogre in it.

-The frickin Water type Z-move dance. Oh my god that wavy hula dance is the cutest thing ever.

-The whole “Professor Kukui wtf are you doing” “Who is this ‘Professor Kukui’ you speak of I am the Masked Royale!!” exchange.

-and then he just blurts out “and now we have our foursome!” and all the characters ignore it and move on as if that’s a normal thing to say in everyday conversation

-Kiawe’s trial. Just… everything about Kiawe’s trial.

-But mostly Hiker David.

-“Press A to pound the ingredients.”

Honestly tho that was the only redeeming quality to Mallow’s trial Totem Lurantis can go fuck itself in USUM.

-Professor Burnet’s groovin’ dimensional research lab theme.

-when Olivia does the Rock type Z-move dance and the camera just zooms in on Lillie gawking over her.

-OH YEAH that Pyukumuku chucking thing where you can get 20 000 pokédollars a day. I hope they bring that back because that was a real good way of making cash.

-And those missions in Pokécentres where if you’ve caught a set amount of Pokémon or if you’ve caught a specific Pokémon they’ll pay you like 10 000 dollars or something.

-Meeting Wicke for the first time and her being incredibly sweet and nice.

-That small bit when Hau can’t believe that Lusamine’s more than 40 years old and she’s really flattered.

-battling Nihilego for the first time.

-That scene on the boat to Ula’Ula Island where Hau talks to you and offers you a Malasada. That really solidified his friendship with the main character for me.

-Speaking of which that part where you’re at Malie Garden and Hau asks “hey, did you know-“ and you can just say “yah i know” and he’s like “dude come on I haven’t even asked the question yet.”

-that little side quest where you have to find a woman’s eight Stuffuls on route 10 that’s like really sweet but also why does she have so many stuffus?

-The Skull grunts who fucking try to steal a bus stop sign.

-Molayne. I liked his relationship with Kukui and Sophocles.

-and I especially liked the part where he gave you Kukui’s mask and when you give it to him Kukui’s just like “oH uhhhhh I’ll um give it back to the Masked Royale when I uh see him”

-Blush Mountain. It has such a nice name. Blush Mountain.

-Acerola’s, um… Little brother and sister? Kids she’s babysitting? I wasn’t too clear on how they were related to her, but they were cute either way.

-the whole bit where rotom’s afraid to go into the haunted store because “spoopy scary ghosts” despite him literally also being a ghost.

-On the subject of those two kids, the event where Team Skull stole the girl’s Yungoos and she gives you a Rare Candy just to get it back fucking broke my heart like oooooohhhh sweetie you didn’t have to give me this I would have gotten your Yungoos back either way!!

-Plumeria!!She was so underrated!

-uncle Grimsley’s cointoss bit where you could pick heads or tails but if you picked neither then he’d just say that Skarmory swooped in and grabbed it in midair, even though that obviously never happened and he was just bullshitting you.

-Also just the mere fact that Grimsley refers to himself as “Uncle Grimsley”

-Nanu. Enough said.

-The fact that all the Team Skull grunts in Po town are gay. Every. Single. One of them. gay

-That scene where Nanu does the Dark type Z-move pose and the main character and Gladion just stare at him and there’s just an awkward pause until he goes “there you cleared your trial or whatever”.

-actually now that I think about it, Sun and Moon had a lot of subtle humour.

-when you were infiltrating Aether Paradise and a good amount of employees were set on stopping you but there was like that ten percent who were like “whoa shit’s gettin wild out here lmao do you want us to heal your ‘mons? We could even take you back if you wanted i ain’t about to lose my job over some space conspiracy fuck that noise”

-That one Skull grunt who was all like, “wanna see me get hit by a Hyper Beam?”

-When you Battle Guzma outside of Lusamine’s mansion.

-LUSAMINE’S BATTLE THEME. HOLY SHIT.

-“Doot doo doo, just a Kahuna, taking a stroll through the laguna.”

-when Hau compliments Lillie over her outfit makeover and Gladion immediately pulls the defensive brother card.

-Seafolk Village’s night music. Oh my lord I’ve never wanted to marry a video game meledy before it.

-Hapu!!! Another underrated character!

-That scene where Lillie and the main character are in the cave on Exeggcutor Island in the rain.that was super cute.

-Vast Poni Canyon! Love me that guitar and flute!

-Mina!!! I can’t wait for her trial in usum I love her so much!!!!!

-when you go to Ultra Space and Rotom is unconscious because you’re disconnected from your world.

-When Lillie gave that whole speech to Lusamine and her sole reaction was basically “¯\_(ツ)_/¯” that absolutely slayed me

-After all that shit in Ultra Space and catching Nebby goes down and then Nanu’s just chilin’ at the Altar and is like “oh, hey, you can challenge the league I guess, if you really felt like it.”

-Kahili!!!!!

-THE MOTHERFUCKING CHAMPION THEME!!!

-that corny-ass scene where Lillie was gonna say something to the main character after the festival and it was all set up like a love scene from the final act of a goddamn comedy romance film and then they get shouldered by the fireworks. My heart can’t handle that kind of sappy cuteness and I need more of it.

-Looker and Anabel. Those two were adorbs.

-oh. And Alolan Raichu. When I first saw that Pokémon revealed in the trailer last July I knew that I had to buy Sun and Moon. Alolan Raichu is what got me into Pokémon.

[thegeminisage]

more botw blogging, SUPER spoilery

this is a real long post sorry normally i break these up and this time i didn’t

and finally, off we go to a new province

this time im making its tower my first stop, since i can see it from here

i tried to paraglide across the river but i didn't have enough height so i landed on the cliffside and ITS RAINING!!!!! for fucks sake

i cant believe this game actually got me to hate rain..........

not only that but when i died in the water it didn't reload me back to where i started to glide from but a bit of cliff i stood on lol so #struggles right from the first minute

rain for the next 3 hours.......and i gotta climb it in the rain....jesus

i guess i could fast travel but i'd have to walk all the way back there :/

hmm. maybe the gae's throwing me the rain on purpose. an npc mentioned this river was notoriously difficult to cross :///

yep as soon as i turned away: it cleared. Great

well i see some bridge-like things further downstream i guess i'll check that out

lol jk i managed to glide across a different part and climb

like i saw my forecast change but then it changed back to sun so w/e i'll take it im up here now

aaaaah i can see so many cool things from here!!!!! i cant wait to explore them all!!!! that #new province feel

i hate like, feeling obligated to track down every last bit of stuff in the old ones when you're seeing new exciting stuff

but i love the feel of getting to a new one and not even knowing which cool thing to check out first

ohhh my god lol there's a big-ass bokoblin camp on the way to the tower i think i see a moblin but im not sure

aaaand im dead

at least there werernt any moblins!

tbh it isnt a difficult camp i just wasnt vigilant about healing

me every time i see something new: what the Fuck is that!?

in this case it was an ice wizzrobe which made it snow EVERYWHERE oh my god

That Was Difficult

if i didn't have my fire arrows and lynel bow it would have taken way longer

i died again!!!

those weird pattern bokoblins have SO much attack power ):

come on i have to clear out the camp AGAIN? and kill the wizzrobe?

naw dude i am skipping this nonsense i am going straight up the fucking cliff

HA i sniped them from above >:3

w

there's a zora on top of this tower!!!!!!!

omg poor thing he can't get back down i wish i could carry him on my paraglider

man i love the tower cutscenes and music and the way they unfold it's so cool

BIG SHINY NEW PROVINCE YYYYEAH!!!!

oh hey i found another zora down near these bridges

they all want me to go see their prince haha noooo i have too much to explore!!!

oooh it's so easy to get all turned around on these bridge thingies

man i love this province it's SO pretty

ah i found a goron on a sandbar!! how did you get out here with all this water...

nooo the blood moon again i knew it was coming the music has been funny all night >:(

lol jk the music faked me out its 2am and i warped to the stable for nothing (i was trying to get that one dude's reaction)

i came back and did the shrine and found another zora!! lol they all really want me to go see that dude

there's a thing i need to climb but ugh rain

while i was bored i chopped grass and attached octo balloons to things

now i am in the wetlands which are AWFUL to walk through i can practically feel the mud squishing between my toes and i want to die lmao

there are horses here!! i miss mine ):

ive done enough shrines now to get another upgrade but i dont feel like doing all that backtracking blegh

oh noooo i see a guardian out here, a moving one ;_;

ah it's been awhile since i failed to fight the still ones on the plateau...i wonder what the start screen meant by "the right tools" ive got a lot of damn tools!! did they mean arrows??

lol yet another zora telling me to meet with the prince.........dude

this prince must be either desperate or spoiled

uh

okay maybe its a glitch but i think?? i see?? a flying island in the distance? What The Fuck

wait no it looks kind of like a ship or giant bird??

my pins don't stick to it, it's definitely moving around

jesus fuck

AHAHAH FUCK THE GUARDIAN SAW ME

HAD TO TAKE REFUSE IN THE FUCKING SHRINE

jesus christ i hate those things!!!! you can't kill them!!!!!!!

NO oh my god there's a hinox over here too

why this Why This

lol the hinox fighting music is giving me trauma flashbacks

actually that wasnt so bad with a defense elixir on

maybe it's just me but this province feels kinda small? i feel like i could finish exploring it p quickly, which is nice

not that i'm not having fun but i know i'm going so slowly ):

me every five seconds: i miss my hooorse i want one to ride around to go faaaaster

i guess...i could catch...one of these

and like. not register it bc the stable is 10000 miles away but

a temp ride. let's see if i can. need to use up some of my sneak potions anyways

i caught one and rode it awhile, but my heart's not in training it...i want My Horse

oh my god wait i hear town music!! is this a stable right here!! AAAAAH

so i did catch a pretty black one and named it luna - had to let the first one i caught go lol but it didn't have great stats and i only rode it once so it'll be happier in the wild probably

KASS IS AT THIS STABLE IM SO HAPPY SO IS HESTU

he's playing epona's song i'm gonna CRY

I MISS EPONA IM DYING

oh my god he had a story for me!! the same one that impa told!!!!! man

the music is still so good. fuck.

lmao i was talking to one dude and he was like well might as well head back inside ugh that place is so filthy and the women so free you might as well call it a manfill

UM?? NINTENDO??

i can see hyrule castle super close from where i am and it looks super scary and i super want nothing to do with it rn

i get the feeling you can like, go in there whenever? maybe even do the endgame stuff early? but oh my god i Dont wanna

OMG i just mounted a bear

i read that you could ride things other than horses but holy shit lmao

i mean

it killed me after i got off, but man

sadly i must now board my horse and continue with The Story see i explored the non-story bits of that province SUPER quickly dang

oh no

this shrine is called a minor test of strength

Oh No

Why, God

oh. that was actually like SUPER easy compared to the other two haha phew

this lady at the crossroads said the prince was creepy omg i knew there was something, ahaha, excuse me, "fishy"

whoa i love his music theme!!

lmao i always get so SHOCKED when they talk!!! even still!!!!!

voice acted cutscenes of this game are like fmvs of final fantasy games in generations 5-7 lol

oh my god...the wink/sparkle thing...he's such a HAM

he's flattering me TOO much omg dude what do you want.......

ok, ok, i like him

he doesn't seem very trustworthy but since his people are in trouble i'll cut him some slack on that one

oh nooo i gotta climb this in the rain......

ah, it's sunshowering tho! that's kinda neat

i just got attacked by octoroks and my heart wept a little because traveling up zora's river dodging octoroks to get to and save zora's domain...I've Been Here Before

listen, i could write a book on this

(lol i did write 300k on this but shhh that was a long time ago)

like...if link is actually a reincarnation does he get flashes of memory

oot happened in every timeline but i know wind waker didn't

but do you think assuming this is in the same timeline as wind waker something in him feels at home the first time he sails a raft again

or hears kass play epona's song at the ranch

or ducks an octorok on his way to zora's domain

people treat the incarnation thing as a kind of tragedy - the world will never be free of evil so long as ganon/ganondorf exists

but maybe there's happiness in it too

no matter what happens, no matter how sad the ending - i mean hell, in this very game, link and zelda LOST

no matter what though, it's guaranteed that they'll see each other again

over and over and over without end, link and zelda are gonna meet and be together for awhile while they defend hyrule again

frankly if that's not a soulmate idk what is

and frankly i'm perpetually offended that they don't develop ganondorf the man more like they did in wind waker...that was the Peak tbqh

i would kill for something like that again

anyway

i love how present the current here is, like with the stuff floating down the river, thats a NICE touch

tbh it's actually really nice that he keeps uselessly checking on me on the way up the river

like, i've been so lonely

even now i miss my companion going "what's WITH that guy" like they probably would if i had one

so this is nice. tbh.

i know it was probably a deliberate choice and makes the game stronger but a companion for this game, someone to share it with...that would've been cool

even just zelda as the protag, she could do some internal narration

but the whole thing is just so quiet.

this place is so pretty tho?? in the distance i see these like, pink coral looking plant things, and the blue columns and bridges are gorgeous

OH NO LIGHTNING GOD WHY

i think its an area thing too i cant just wait it out lmao im gonna Die

oh jk it's just rain now

idk why my entire forcecast changes to a particular type of weather and its only like that a few seconds...super weird and annoying

lol sidon all "you're almost halfway there i believe in you!!" and not helping fight and link's little "k" wave

i love link as a silent protag even if i did have him talk in my writing like it's so endearing

i wonder if link is like sgr like "i am 100 years old what is this zora kid even doing. what is he EVEN DOING."

lol just had to dodge some rocks rollin down a hill

you see this is what i mean. there's a weird sense of familiarity and nostalgia if you've played the games a lot. i wonder if the spirit of the hero feels that way with each new adventure, too

like if he's okay doomed to an eternity of fighting and parting with zelda over and over

because in the end he always gets to do this again

like i can see the spirit of the princess/goddess being high key miserable about those circumstances but i wonder if the spirit of the hero is maybe secretly glad

because part of him will always yearn for the next adventure

he never COULD be happy settling because this is what he was born for

WE love doing this again and again and again, maybe it's not such a stretch to think the spirit of the hero does too

or maybe i'm projecting so hard onto him because undertale has so successfully blurred the line between the player and the game for me LMAO

oh man i just noticed all the names on this map

lulu, mikau ;_;

i miss them!!!!

just once i wish zelda games would feature the same side characters in two or three titles

we never got to see saria or darunia or lulu again

we get to come back to the world but every friend we've ever made has been gone

like some narnia shit i swear to god

lol this is why i should never do story all i do is rant about My Zelda Feels, which are literally endless

oh NICE battle with a blue moblin on the bridge!!!!

ah i like the zora history here too please give me all the worldbuilding i wanna know everything about this world that i can bc rn all i know is "we got Fucked"

i guess i also know about the automans but i need More

i say, while procrastinating on getting to the story

in other news i have an ice and lightning rod which i havent bothered trying to use

bc when i tried to use the boomerang i failed utterly lol

but these? holy shit dude these are Powerful when you actually land a magic hit like Dang

i Love them im never avoiding another wizzrobe again (thats where they drop from)

oh wow

i finally made it, and

man. oh man. it's so beautiful

i wish i could see if better

jesus the zoras always had the prettiest parts of the games imo

OH NO THE MUSIC

OH NO!!! im gonna cry omg

it's the same melody from oot i think!! oh my god!!!!!!

omg there's a zora here named rivan who says he knows me?!?!

omg no he's listing some of link's old pals from Before im so sad why can't he remember

OOOH i shouldn't speak to the elderly bc apparently i am "guilty" of something?? i love this development PLEASE tell me more

i love that they all age so slowly #nice

am i walking into a fucking execution lmao sidon don't play me......

omg the little zora kids are adorable!!!

omg there's a statue of the zora champion ;_;

man this is all so cool i wanna know EVERYTHING about what happened back then!!!!

lol the shrine here was SUPER nerve wracking god you had to like, roll the giant ball down a hill and stop time at JUST the right moment skjghf

oh my gosh ANOTHER zora who knows me (lol "linny")

im so ;w; they all know me!!!!!!

i slept on the blissful water bed at the inn and was mystified and alarmed by the sound effects but i got an extra stamina wheel and 3 extra hearts!!! god damn you can't beat that shit

im so amazed at how many people knew link and like, blame him? i wanna know so bad what happened, i wanna know more about mipha

ten bucks says she's still alive and like trapped in the divine beast but corrupted

or a ghost or something like the old man ;_;

aww zoras sleep in the water aw aw :3

i'm loving this theme of link sleeping for so long like at first i thought of sgr but i just realized it's also like oot (and i can't believe i didn't make that connection first...)

like in oot the people who knew him Before are so happy to see him again and are sure he can help them

but in this game it's a bit mixed

and in this game we don't know the details of 100 years ago yet ;_;

zora's domain here is like. so GLOWY. reminds me of waterfall from undertale tbh lol i wanna paint it

so i'm talking to the king and this one elderly zora goes "the hylians abused an ancient society's power to turn hyrule into what it is today" & like...tbh my dude you have a point. if they had never gotten those guardians out then they couldn't have turned on them

oh my GOD

i just got my first look at a divine beast and i can't believe i was calling them jaegers

my jaw dropped irl holy shit

like that thing truly looks both divine and beastly (this one is an elephant)

is mipha still in there as like a ghost ;_;

it's so clear how much everyone misses her

and she seemed so sweet in the one short memory i recovered

every time sidon does his sparkle smile i love him a little more

i didn't trust him at first bc he seemed a little too eager but now i see he's just doing his best!!!!

especially as someone who thinks radically and progressively in a society where elders stay around hundreds of years

YESSSSS I GOT ZORA ARMOR!!!! YES!!!!!!!!

SWIM SPEED UP!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

omfg and it's an engagement thing just like the sapphire

MADE BY MIPHA?

thats right that other lady said link was supposed to choose between her and mipha

listen mipha seems cool and all but i've been shipping zelink for 19 years, so

oh NO, mipha had feelings for link

oh no poor mipha...oh my god

WAIT AM I ABOUT TO GET ANOTHER MEMORY??? OH MY GOD!!!!!

duuuuuude

"no matter how bad the wound i will ALWAYS" heal you and then link wakes up in water

did she do that!!! did she save him ;_; oh my god im going to cry

"you are quivering like a hatchling" PLEASE protect my poor son

muzu is making me sad dude he misses her so much and he hates this so much

ooooh i have to fight another lynel for shock arrows...good Lord im not looking forward to that

I KNEW IT

"calamity ganon took control of the beasts and trapped the champions inside" yep either she's still alive like link and zelda or her body is in there and so is her fucking ghost

DUDE!! i just swam up my first waterfall and it was AWESOME!!!!!

so im at shatterback point now hwere lynel is just bc i wanted to swim up a waterfall but probably he will kill me quickly lmao

apparently you can mount him too which. sick.

but idk i dont have any good food or elixirs or weapons ready im just up here for science im probably gonna knock off soon i gotta Draw

Oh Fuck There He Is ):

it's super tedious to have top go back and delete every fucking picture i take for my copendium one by one those shouldn't save in my album automatically come on dude im trying to take a picture of this lion centaur thing here

aaah there's a rainbow here too #nice

ah well got him about a quarter pf the way down before i died :/ not bad for being completely unprepared

tbh i only had one defense food?? had i had more i could have whittled him down eventually

anyway thats all for tonight!! i doubt i'll play anymore tonight bc i have drawing to do

lol this is a long post but it's all in one bc i'm typing them in notepad now and don't have to worry about them getting too long

[tumblunni]

LETS THINK ABOUT BREAKFAST RPG Protagonist: a cute lil girl of some sort. Maybe named Cherry or Gateau or something adorable. Maybe a cherry shaped hat? Maybe shes like a chef magical girl. Or maybe just use default assets from rpgmaker cos the point is to get the game done and not over think it. And then like a tutorial character/rival who's like THE BRUNCH DEMON or something! Some really inexplicable reaper-lookin monster who has a goofy cute personality and is protag's friend/enemy/Robbie rotten. She runs a rival restaurant, comes in like plankton to steal le secret formula but also inexplicably constantly pops up in the tutorials, having a tea party with protag on the loading screen, etc. Self-sabotaging helping the poor kid out because deep at heart she's a nice ol monster! And then the third character is just The Office Guy. Some completely ordinary working Joe who has a breakfast magical girl pop into his life for no rational reason. *toast keeps appearing* *screams* First level is just you making him breakfast (and him freaking out), then you progress through stuff like impressing his boss with a birthday cake or whatever, to improve the poor sod's life. (While he continues screaming at all this magically appearing food, probably starts seeing a psychiatrist) And then eventually he just accepts it and you open a restaurant together. ...and then he has to compete against this giant monster brunch chef, and starts screaming all over again. STATS AND ELEMENTS! Maybe just keep stats exactly the same but give them funny renames? Or rename em to what they symbolise within this particular game. So like... Maybe speed = overall cooking skill? Cos it means you can attack faster and use more actions before the end of the time limit, its basically the most important skill for making complex foods. And I dunno, attack and magic attack could be... Cut and whisk? Savoury and sweet? Food and drink? If you had to divide all breakfast items into only two categories, how would you do it? I'm not sure what to do about the two kinds of defense. I mean.. I know what I want them to be but its hard to summarise it in one word. Could just be like defense against food based injuries (burning, etc) and defense against food-spoiling moments (getting eggshell in the bowl, overcooking, etc). Like one is actual defense and one lowers the odds of random events that harm you. So you get less penalties for failing. Oh, or maybe just have it as savoury defense and sweet defense and then luck affects your failure penalties/success bonuses? But I wanted to rename luck as ~love~ and say its the most important ingredient! XD "Elements" would be where the cooking styles come into play! Enemies would have a lot of tags, like tomato is savoury, fruit AND vegetable, and classed as an entree rather than a main dish component. Can only be used as ingredients, toppings and side orders. And most food would have a flavour but I dunno really what to define tomato as? Or potato. So there should be a sort of neutral flavour element that's just as important as the others. Like.. Calm flavour. Balance flavour. Foundation flavour. That's what potatoes and breads and carbs are, they lower down other flavours and act as a base to absorb those flavours, yknow?? They're important! But tomatoes aren't the same even though its hard to categorise them into a flavour. Maybe flavours can combine to make flavours? Tomato could be like... Salty + sweet? Maybe everything has a particular amount of each flavour that they contribute to the dish. So tomato would give +2 salt and +1 sweet. And +1 moist or something. And then your attacks are divided into multiple elements separate from the food elements. Your elements are all cooking techniques, like boil, chop, etc. And levelling up elements unlocks more skills for each one, like triangle cut or finely chopped or minced, or a passive skill that let's you cut tougher stuff like steak! And maybe it'd be clear cut weaknesses like sweet items are weak to mixing, or maybe its just individualized for each ingredient enemy and acts like the real ingredient in real life. I mean it'd be weird if tomatos were weak against going in a fruit pie or whatever... And then like... Combatttt!! I could just go with really basic default battle system but I wanna do elemental madness! And I wanna make it so you have a limited amount of turns, cos that means certain skills wouldn't be viable early on if they take too long, ensuring a good learning curve without having to limit the options too much. Like maybe complex chopping deals less damage but gives better results, so you have to fight harder to achieve that sandwich! Whereas you can just smash the tomato for a one hit kill and have a terrible sandwich. Triple weak to kneading, but logic dictates you ain't wanna do that :P (...maybe get an achievement called Undyne for seeing all the critical fail cut scenes? XD) And I dunno, maybe if you can't defeat the enemy before the time limit you just get an undercooked food that loses some points. And maybe if the enemy defeats you its like "somehow you slipped on a tomato and broke your back" Office dude better appreciate what we do for him! This kitchen is a deathtrap! And maybe early on you just have to complete the recipes the computer gives you, only being able to get bonuses/penalties depending on time taken and etc. Then you can start deciding how you wanna behave during battle- like triangle cut sandwiches or swapping the salad dressing! Then you can actually start selecting from multiple recipes, and multiple ingredients. It just says 'sandwich' and a vague description of what the person likes ('spicy' and 'traditional' and 'vegetarian') and its your job to figure out what to pick to satisfy that. Like maybe they don't want a hoagie or a toastie, and maybe they'd prefer brown bread? And definately can't rely on the easy +5 spicy sausage, we have to battle the far stronger peppers this time! And all the time we'll be seeing new recipes with longer steps and stronger ingredients!! And maybe move on to satisfying multiple customers at once? Have to make a food that contains all their fave things without getting so complicated that it defeats you. Or have no information about what they like and you have to just make multiple dishes that try and cover the full spread of logical possibilities so everyone is happy. At least one vegetarian option, and take care to make sure there's no nuts or gluten on ANYTHING cos we dunno which one the allergic coworker will eat! And then you can move on to outright alchemizing your own recipes by combining different ingredients in a practise mode. You don't get any penalty if you're wrong, and you can help out later missions by unlocking more recipe options, but you still have to pay for ingredients in order to practise. And I'm gonna make sure it is actually possible to win with just the default story unlock recipes, even if it might not be as easy or be able to get five star results. Oh, and probably a mission replay practise mode and/or sidequests, where you can make more money and grind for experience! Maybe even be able to get relationship points with different characters? Like, every day there's a repeatable side quest to keep making breakfast for office guy, like you did in the first level. And it gets more complex as you go on, so you could be making the world's best sandwich by the end! I think maybe also have some kind of morals meter for the [plot thing] that decides what ending you get. Like its not actually good and evil, but its a positive ending and a negative one. Like the best ending requires friendship with both office guy and rival demon, and higher [certain stat]. But you could also get like... Low stat rival demon ending has you selling out to her and the restaurant becomes awful and office guy lives in a cardboard box but at least you're rich. And positive ending might be that you still ditch office guy and fly off together, but you decide to travel the world finding other people in need of cheering up via magic breakfast and bring much happiness to the world~ Its lonely cos you always have to say goodbye to your human friends but at least you have demon rival buddy along for the ride in your immortal brekkie quest~! So yeah! A lot of ideas! I most definitely won't get them all done during the timeframe but I could at least hopefully make a playable demo. So like... Try and get as far as possible using default rpgmaker assets and basic framework, then release it as a teaser for people to see. If it does well then I have a whole bunch of ideas already on how to expand it into a full game, and I could draw fully original art assets and cutscenes to enhance the fun~! I just need to try and decide what the time limit is gonna be and when I'm gonna do it. And raise a lil hype from my friends cos seriously seeing comments and crits on my work is what motivates me beyond all else! Oh, actually, maybe I could do like... Multiple challenges?? "Hey bunni see how much you can make in one weekend" Then release that demo, and see people's comments and crits. Then if people are interested I could try working on it for a week next time and see how much I can improve it! And so on! That'd be good, with feedback and breaks in-between and stuff. And if one idea fails then I can just go back to the three day challenge with a different idea next time ^-^ Making a game out of making a game is a good way to get used to becoming more confident~! Maybe when it gets going then people could even add bonus challenges or something? I'd keep a tally of how many of these challenges I've done, and pretend its 'points', so I have a clear perspective on how productive I'm being. And then bonus points for how much positive response I got from the project, or how many downloads, or something. And then people can start throwing in requests like genre or how many words of dialogue or 'hey, include a shape shifting skill' or 'it has to be only black and white'. That'd help inspire me on what to do AND be challenging fun! And bonus productivity points for learning a new thing!! THIS IS A GOOD CONCEPT YES I could make like a points counter page or sideblog or something. Maybe have a lil doodle of me as a cliche RPG fighter character and when I hit point milestones I level up and draw a new outfit! And switch to magician or whatever when I run out of ideas. Need to find fun ways to motivate myself!!! I have dumb anxiety compulsions to count the tiles on the floor like that'll somehow make my luck better, counting nonexistent points is a nice way to make it less dumb. And making the reward be just the right to draw myself in a cute outfit means I'm guaranteeing I'll draw at least one thing that month, and drawing is a reward and not a job. And k dunno, maybe later on make the rewards stuff like 'you get to work on the big idea you actually wanted to do', so games are a reward not a job. Or 'you get to go to the cinema', so going out alone in scary crowds is a reward not a job. Or just even earn the right to buy a caffeine drink once a month and then that's a better way of beating my addiction! I've been trying to go cold turkey but I've never made it past 15 days cos there's really no reward or incentive or way to tell if I'm doing good. And sometimes I feel like having a lil energy boost would actually help me with finishing a project or something, versus when I'm just drinking it every day for no reason except yum. So if I can have one drink a month I might not even necessarily drink it right away, I'd save it for the last day of a challenge when I'm racing the deadline~! Lotsa ideas!!!