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eziojensenthe3rd · 3 days ago

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Midnight Gaming: Headless with a regard, down in Australian Undertale

So last night I played Lunacid past midnight, checked socials later to find.... RGG Like a Dragon direct confirmed for Janurary 9th, taking a deeper look into the Pirate Yakuza spin off.

If you were the type of person who played and enjoyed the yakuza series before zero was released, you must feel very, very validated these days huh?

The Yakuza series was sort of an underappreciated series for a while before, with the games mainly being on the playstation consoles and were barely allowed to be localised across seas as SEGA wasnt so sure if people really cared about it. The few times SEGA tried to break the series into the western markets ended up failing to capture major attention in those markets. On ps2 the first game was lauded for its dub being hilariously bad and while it and 2 received favorable reviews, they were assumed to be GTA clones trying to cash in on that series popularity since this was after san andreas and the stories spin offs were released.

There was also Dead Souls which was the next attempt to get the western markets to be into the Yakuza series via way of adding zombies along with a questionable method of aiming and your mileage may vary on how you feel about that game but the general consensus at the time was it was just mediocre and chasing the zombies trend at the time. I recall that the fifth entry of the series Yakuza 5 almost didnt even got a localisation until fans petitioned them to reconsider, so you finally got it as a digital only download.

And then Yakuza 0 releases and the general gaming public noticied it and said "Holy shit, thats rad". You see more people talking about the series nowadays than you have before. What was a series that used to be restricted to the playstation as a sort of "niche" SEGA title, grew into becoming a mainstream series with a lot of the main games being ported to Xbox and PC, hell the switch has a port of Yakuza 1's remake Kiwami. A remake of one the japan only spinoffs was localised. The new games that took a turn into a turn-based rpg thats headlined by a new protagionist were well recieved, with fans of the old style still having the judgement series and Gaiden: the man who erased his name, still having the beat-em-up style of gameplay they are used to. Fans of Yakuza/RGG are eating good nowadays and I cant be more proud of them.

So yeah, its been confirmed that Janurary 9th will have a direct focused on the latest spinoff, featuring the character Majima in a hawaii pirate adventure, revealing more information on it for those interested. Leaving a gematsu link here:

So anyways, you know about Fromsoft, the developer whos responsible for games such as Elden Ring, Bloodborne, Dark Souls and Armored Core. Games that are well known for being challenging and making online streamers rage to the delight of their viewers and to the success of their bank accounts. Before that though however there was one series they did that was an rpg with challenging elements in it. One that demanded patience and caution when playing it with aggressive, careless playstyles often experiencing death as a result.

Yes, this series was known as.... Shadow Tower... oh yeah they also did a series called Kings Field, they did that too :).

So anyways the guy who made the Not-Silent-Hill game Lost In Vivo, Akuma Kira, also made a Not-Kings-Field called Lunacid and its pretty awesome.

The story here is the worlds been brought back into a medievil age with magic in it due to the moon having a crying fit and a massive whale spewed poison all over the surface. Theres now a massive hole under the moon where anything and anyone gets dumped down. You're a convicted criminal who gets sentenced to be thrown into the well and you end up losing a hand in the process, having survived the fall, you now have to explore the areas that reside within the great well and grab any weapons and items ypu find that'll help you face off against any threats you find within the deep caverns and dark labyrinths of australian undertale.

By the way, losing your hand isnt just a story thing, you spend the whole game with only one hand, so you can only equip and use one weapon at a time, you can equip a second to swap to when needed but theres no equipping anything in your offhand because your hand is simply off.

Combat in Lunacid is mainly holding to charge a strike with your weapon to do full damage, making sure to aim your weapon so you strike an enemies weakspot and potentially outright remove that part of the enemy. You headshot a skeleton with your club, its head will be taken off and it'll come after you headless in spite of a regard..... thats.... yeah no thats correct.

If you want some ranged options you can find a bow or a crossbow but you'll mostly come across spell rings that will be your magic in this game. You can equip two, one for each button and they can have either some offensive or supporting effects. You'll find these rings in either chests, dropped from enemies or even hidden behind secret walls. One fun spell you'll find early on is a spell called Lithomancy which will grant inanimate objects the gift of life, so you too can recreate that scene of sorcerer micky from Fantasia, only instead of dancing with living objects in a whimsical way, they just constantly scream at you as they fidget around like a prop in a source engine game when its gets stuck and the physics panic..

Honestly kind of a mood.

I dont want to speak too much about this game incase of revealing a spoiler but I will say this, its a cool game for cool people who want a dungeon crawler that doesnt feel like a loot-based power fantasy or a min-max stat heavy grind. You just explore various areas and look for any items that can help you stay alive or any bits of lore that can fill you on whats been going on in the great well. Should also mention Lunacy being a game mechanic that is tied to the phases of the real life moon and can affect how damaging your spells are along with how dangerous enemies can be.

Anyways, consider giving this game a look, its cool and I like it.

Thank you all for reading this edition of Midnight Gaming, feel free to leave Feedback and Game Suggestions. Talk to you all another time.

#midnight gaming #gaming #lunacid #rpg #kings field #shadow tower #yakuza #like a dragon #dungeon crawler

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kibbychan · 5 days ago

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intro post!!!

Hi, hello!! I'm KibbyChan, or Kibby, or Kirbo or whatever online username I feel like using. I primarily, use this account to post my art and reblog things I like, but I also post randomly post whatever comes to my mind whether serious or silly. If you would like to look through my art use look on my posts tagged #beginner artist, as I am still working twords becoming a better artist!

more about:

he/him (or he/they im still deciding)

age 20

jamaican/canadian

black

bisexual

audhd

primary hyperfixations:

kirby kirby kirby kirby

mario

anything nintendo really

sonic

anything sega really

persona/smt/megaten/metaphor

our life beginning and always

hoyoverse (genshin/star rail)

the muppets

primary hobbies:

gaming

cartoons/anime

music (primarily vgm and hiphop)

being chronically online

being creative

swimming

also available on

bluesky

pixiv

if you made it far, thank you for looking at my profile!!

#intro post #introduction #looking for moots #looking for mutuals #looking for friends #god this was a long time coming

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skiel-infinity · 9 months ago

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Hehe how bout 7, 12, and 14 for lucciano for the ask game :33

7 — What's something the fandom does when it comes to this character that you like? . . .Draw him? At all? :'v There's not much fandom for Lucci, I'm afraid, and I can count the number of artists that I know are fans of him on one hand. (2, not including myself.)

12 — What's a headcanon you have for this character? that he's just like me, fr I see a lot of people raising eyebrows when people look at Lucciano and Placido side by side, and ask "That's the same guy?" and yeah their appearances are very different, but... I find it very reasonable. That the reason Lucciano looks nothing like Placido, despite the, what, 10-year age gap between them, is because Lucciano was very well taken care of and pampered. That he had pretty much everything. Then suddenly, he has nothing.

No more nice clothes, no more fine-tooth hairbrushes, no more nutritious foods, nothing but his own dirty fingernails. As someone with long hair (and a relatively okay household), I can see how it got the way it did. I've been in points where I had nothing but my fingernails to brush my hair with, and throw some loneliness and depression on top of that? Hair very quickly goes from beautiful to ugly. Not to mention, it gets caught everywhere. E v e r y w h e r e. If I'm running around in Lucci's situation, I don't have time to meticulously untangle my hair off of something it gets caught on. My only option is to jerk my head the other direction and let those locks be ripped out. Also, all of that stress would make anyone's hair grey before they're grown, so. ...Idk if that counts as a headcanon, it sounds to me more like an explanation OF the canon, but it's the first thing that came to mind.

14 — Assign a fashion aesthetic to this character. That SEGA style of fashion you'd see in PHANTASY STAR ONLINE, Sonic, or Jet Set Radio. It'd look amazing on him, especially as a skater. I'll dress him up like that one day, as I made a Lucciano character in PSO2:NGS and showed it off here before... But for now I'm not sure what specifically to put on him.

#ask game #yugioh 5ds #lester 5ds #lucciano 5ds #illiasterposting #i'm surprised i don't have many headcanons for lucci tbh #you'd think i'd have more.#but most of my writing has actually gone to Paradox so. . .

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drizzileiscool · 7 months ago

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so like what is poyopoyo

ik its a puzzle game but i didnt know it had characaters

sig looks silly i like him

glad you asked!

*AUTISM MODE ENGAGE*

puyo puyo (ぷよぷよ) is a japanese puzzle game originally created by compile (but they went bankrupt) and owned by sega!

the series originally started as a spinoff of a dungeon crawling game called madou monogatari (I know jack diddly squat about madou). in puyo puyo the main characters of that game (as well as a few enemies) fight each other using magic spells casted by connecting 4 or more of the same colored puyos together to pop them!

the compile era of the puyo puyo series stars Arle from the madou monogatari series as the protagonist, where in most games she attempts to stop satan (that's actually the villain's name) from doing a bunch of evil stuff. arle's also got a magical rabbit thing as a companion, his name is carbuncle and he likes curry :) other characters from this era that continue to show up in newer games are schezo, a dark mage who accidentally turns every sentence into an innuendo, and rulue, a fighting queen who has a crush on satan.

psst! 3 of the compile era games are available on switch! sega ages puyo puyo 1 and 2 are both ten bucks and if you have nso you can play the snes version of 2 on snes online!

both sega and nintendo tried to localize these games, but in doing so, they stripped the games of their original madou monogatari personality and replaced them with other games. sega localized pp1 as a game you might recognize as Doctor Robotnick's Mean Bean Machine, while nintendo made the slightly more obscure Kirby's Avalanche (ALSO AVAILABLE ON SNES NSO!!)

a BUNCH of stuff happened, the localized games didn't do well, puyo puyo became more popular than madou, and compile went bankrupt after years of shoving puyo puyo down everyone's throats non-stop

they then handed the rights to puyo puyo to sega, but completely forgot about the rights to madou, meaning madou monogatari is completely dead at this point with no hope of a reboot, and puyo puyo is still goin strong.

when sega got puyo puyo they decided to completely rebrand the game, and it ditched it's dark dungeon crawler aesthetic for a more fun colorful vibrant tone, and thus, Puyo Pop Fever was born.

Fever was a sort of reboot for the franchise, starring a new protagonist named Amitie, a very cheerful student who goes to a magic school, and a bunch of more awesome colorful characters (and arle she's still here)! A sequel to puyo pop fever was released in japan called Puyo Puyo Fever 2, but due to the poor sales in the US, the game never made it over to america and this would be the last localized puyo game. for at least 10 years.

also puyo puyo fever 2 introduced sig!!! the best boy!!! fun fact he's half demon but does not care about that at all and instead of doing all the traditional demon things like taking over worlds he simply don't care. he's got the bug autism and likes bugs very much :)

uhh MORE TIME SKIP! another reboot was created called Puyo Puyo 7! New protagonist named Ringo who is a regular middle school student and does regular japanese middle schooler stuff until Arle comes back and is possessed by something and is all like "you have the power. you can pop puyos now." and crazy highjinks ensue!

ANOTHER TIME SKIP!

puyo puyo 15th anniversary is released and surprise surprise it's also a reboot but this time it features (almost) ALL the important characters from the previous games! woo! and then 5 years after that 20th anniversary happened which was much better!

*WHWHOOOOSH TIME SKIP*

a crossover game between puyo puyo and tetris called Puyo Puyo Tetris was released in 2014! remember this!

*FINAL TIME SKIP I PROMISE*

oh hey remember what I just said? guess what! it's 2017 and sega is acknowledging for the first time people in america want puyo puyo! they then release a localized version of puyo puyo tetris onto nintendo switch and other platforms and it's a hit! people liked it! they liked it so much that in 2020 it got a direct sequel which wasn't just left to rot in the prison of region exclusivity and actually got localized as well! hooray for puyo puyo!!

that's basically the entire puyo puyo series history in a nutshell *autism disengage*

there were some games I left out because this was getting too long but who cares

if you're looking to play a puyo puyo game and you own a nintendo switch you can try any of these!

Sega ages - Puyo Puyo: The arcade version of the original Puyo Puyo game.

Sega Ages - Puyo Puyo 2: Arcade version of the second game (text is all in japanese, but it's purchasable on the american eshop!)

Nintendo Switch Online - SNES Online - Super Puyo Puyo 2: The SNES version of puyo puyo 2

Nintendo Switch Online - SNES Online - Kirby's Avalanche: An attempt for an english localization of pp1 featuring iconic kirby characters!

NSO Expansion Pack - Sega Genesis Online - Doctor Robotnick's Mean Bean Machine: Another localization attempt, featuring robots from the Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog cartoon! sonic does not make an appearance in this game.

Sonic Mania: One of the bosses in sonic mania has you playing Puyo Puyo against Eggman, and once you beat that boss you unlock a special mean bean machine side mode!

Puyo Puyo Champions: A puyo puyo game purely focused on competitive play, with no story. You can play using either normal puyo puyo rules, or the special ruleset introduced in fever.

Puyo Puyo Tetris: A crossover game between puyo puyo and tetris, featuring new characters based off the tetris blocks! Has a pretty ok story, the localizers took a few liberties here and there, sometimes they didn't understand the references to things and left them out.

Puyo Puyo Tetris 2: A direct sequel to the game I just mentioned. Improves upon the story alot, all the previous characters return as well as 2 new characters! There were also a few characters added in later through free dlc! Currently the second newest puyo puyo game, and also the second most definitive with a bunch of cool sidemodes!

Currently, the newest game in the series is Puyo Puyo Puzzle Pop, which is THE definitive puyo puyo game! unfortunately it's stuck on apple arcade so you need an iphone, a bluetooth controller, and a subscription for that if you wanna play. this game technically is incomplete as the story is being added in through updates, but what they've got now is really interesting!! they're finally doing something with the "sig is half demon" concept and now he's the villain of the game! so cool! god I want this game ported to consoles so badly... SEGAAAA GIVE ME EDGY SIG!!!

there's also a japan exclusive mobile gacha game called puyo puyo quest. it's aight. I've played it once and then deleted it because gacha games update regularly and my phone is running low on space.

and that's everything about puyo puyo thanks for asking

#im sorry this is so long you've just reset my brain back into puyo puyo mode after not having played it in forever

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the-monkey-ruler · 8 months ago

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Marvel vs. Capcom 2: New Age of Heroes

Date: February 24, 2000 Platform: PlayStation 2 / Xbox / Dreamcast / Arcade / Xbox 360 Games Store / PlayStation Network (PS3) / iPhone / iPad Developer: Capcom / Capcom Production Studio 1 / Backbone Entertainment Publisher: Capcom Genre: Fighting Theme: Fantasy / Martial Arts / Superhero / Comic Book Franchises: Marvel vs. Capcom / Capcom Versus / Marvel / Street Fighter X All Capcom / SNK vs. Capcom: Card Fighters DS / SNK vs. Capcom: Card Fighter's Clash 2 Expand Edition Also known as: MVC2 Type: Reimanging

Summary:

Marvel vs. Capcom 2: New Age of Heroes is a 2D tag-team fighting game developed and released by Capcom for the arcades (running the Dreamcast-based Sega NAOMI hardware) on February 24, 2000.

The fourth installment of the Marvel vs. Capcom crossover series, the game doubles the roster of its predecessor (including new additions and returning fighters) while adding new 3-on-3 gameplay and simplified controls (two punch buttons, two kick buttons, and two assist buttons). It also brings back the classic "assist attack" system (sans "partners") while adding a new "snapback" attack (a close-ranged attack that, if hit successfully, swaps the opponent's character with another). A unique aspect of the game is its use of experience points for each arcade machine that increments by playtime, determining how many characters and alternate costumes are unlocked.

One of Capcom's earliest fighting games developed outside of their arcade hardware, Marvel vs. Capcom 2 combines 2D hand-drawn sprites with 3D backgrounds (a style later used for Capcom vs. SNK 2: Mark of the Millennium). It is the last game in the series to use hand-drawn sprites for its characters.

The game was later released for the Dreamcast throughout 2000 (March in Japan, June in North America, and July in Europe), adding a new system of "purchasing" the locked characters/costumes with accumulated playtime (and trading them using the VMU). The Japanese version of the game also includes online multiplayer and the ability to use VMUs with the arcade version (where players can use their unlocked characters and earn experience points). It was later ported to the PlayStation 2 (in September 2002, with the Japanese version including online multiplayer) and Xbox (in September 2002 for Japan and March 2003 for North America).

It was later ported (by Backbone) as a digital release for the Xbox 360 (via Xbox Live Arcade on July 29, 2009) and the PlayStation 3 (via PlayStation Network on August 13, 2009). This version includes online multiplayer (including a six-player lobby system), various graphical options (including widescreen support), support for custom soundtracks, and all content unlocked from the start. The original console version was ported to iOS devices on April 25, 2012 (adding touch controls). These ports were removed from their respective storefronts on December 2013.

Source: https://www.giantbomb.com/marvel-vs-capcom-2-new-age-of-heroes/3030-2612/

Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tW1FA2AFAzI

#Marvel vs. Capcom 2: New Age of Heroes #Marvel vs. Capcom #Capcom Versus #Street Fighter X All Capcom #SNK vs. Capcom: Card Fighters DS #Marvel #SNK vs. Capcom: Card Fighter's Clash 2 Expand Edition #jttw media #jttw game #video game #game #sonson #son goku #sun wukong cameo #sun wukong #appropriation #inspiration

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retrogamingreplay · 9 months ago

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Tim Kitzrow is an American voice actor, comedian, and TV host best known for his energetic and iconic commentary in the classic video game series, NBA Jam. Born on August 17, 1960, in Illinois, Kitzrow discovered his passion for entertainment at a young age. In a panel at the 2023 Retro Game Con, Tim Kitzrow discussed his early career and the video game industry. https://youtu.be/wegBnE_eeCQ In the video, Tim Kitzrow discusses his early career and experiences in the gaming industry during a panel at the 2023 Retro Game Con. He shares insights into his journey as a voice actor, particularly his iconic role as the commentator in the NBA Jam series. Throughout the panel, Kitzrow reflects on the evolution of the gaming industry and how it has shaped his career. He discusses the advancements in technology and the increasing importance of voice acting in modern video games. Kitzrow also shares anecdotes about his experiences working on various projects and collaborating with talented individuals in the industry. His passion for his craft and his appreciation for the gaming community shine through as he engages with the audience and answers their questions. Early Career and NBA Jam Success Kitzrow's career began in the early 1990s when he started working as a voice actor for various commercials and video games. In 1993, he landed the role that would define his career – the commentator in the arcade version of NBA Jam. His enthusiastic delivery of phrases like "Boom Shakalaka!" and "He's on fire!" became instant classics and helped propel the game to worldwide popularity. The success of NBA Jam led to Kitzrow's continued involvement in the series, including the console versions released for Sega Genesis, Super Nintendo, and other platforms. His voice became synonymous with the franchise, and he reprised his role in subsequent releases, such as NBA Jam Tournament Edition and NBA Jam Extreme. Apart from his work on NBA Jam, Kitzrow has lent his voice to numerous other video games, including Wayne Gretzky's 3D Hockey, NHL Hitz Pro, MLB Slugfest 20-04, and Mutant Football League. His unique style and infectious enthusiasm have made him a sought-after talent in the gaming industry. Beyond video games, Kitzrow has worked as a comedian, performing stand-up and improv comedy in clubs across the United States. He has also appeared in various television shows and movies, showcasing his versatility as an entertainer. Pop Culture Icon and Ongoing Legacy Kitzrow's impact on popular culture extends far beyond the realm of video games. His catchphrases from NBA Jam have been referenced and parodied in countless movies, TV shows, and online memes, cementing his status as a pop culture icon. Today, Tim Kitzrow continues to work as a voice actor, comedian, and TV host, bringing his trademark energy and humor to every project he undertakes. His legacy as the voice behind one of the most beloved sports video games of all time remains a testament to his talent and the enduring popularity of NBA Jam. Personal Pages: Tim Kitzrow's Official Website: http://timkitzrow.com/ Tim Kitzrow on Twitter: https://twitter.com/Tim_Kitzrow Tim Kitzrow on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/timkitzrow/ Tim Kitzrow's iconic catchphrases from NBA Jam have been referenced and parodied in numerous movies, TV shows, and other forms of media over the years. Here are a few notable examples: In the movie "Aliens in the Attic" (2009), one of the characters says "Boom Shakalaka!" while playing a video game. The TV show "Parks and Recreation" referenced NBA Jam in the episode "Telethon" (2010), where character Tom Haverford exclaims, "Boom Shakalaka!" after making a basketball shot. In the animated series "Regular Show," the episode "Slam Dunk" (2011) features characters playing a game called "Dunk Tank," with one of them saying, "Boom Shakalaka!" after scoring. The popular sitcom "The Big Bang Theory" made a reference to NBA Jam in the episode "The Bat Jar

Conjecture" (2008), where character Raj Koothrappali says, "He's heating up!" while playing the game. In the movie "Daddy's Home" (2015), character Dusty Mayron (played by Mark Wahlberg) says "Boom Shakalaka!" while playing basketball with his son. The animated series "Family Guy" parodied NBA Jam in the episode "Run, Chris, Run" (2016), where the characters play a game called "NBA Jams" and use phrases like "He's on fire!" In the movie "Pixels" (2015), which revolves around classic video games, NBA Jam and its catchphrases are referenced multiple times. These examples demonstrate how Tim Kitzrow's work on NBA Jam has transcended the realm of video games and become a part of popular culture, with his catchphrases being instantly recognizable and often used as a nostalgic nod to the classic game.

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nonbinary-sticks-the-badger · 1 year ago

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ignore this let me rant about my surge playlist because i really love it

I LOVE THIS PLAYLIST SO MUCH IS SUCH A BANGER PLAYLIST I NEED TO PAINSTAKINGLY EXPLAIN TO YOU WHY I PUT EACH SONG ON IT EVEN IF ITS OBVIOUS

1. PINEAPPLE UPSIDE DOWN QUEEF JERKY, ethan is online

i dont think this majorly fits surge's character (other than the lady gaga meat dress part) but i think she'd probably do covers of queef jerky in universe (provided her life wasnt the way it is)

2. The Mind Electric Miracle Musical

i really love tally hall/miracle musical so um. dont be surprised to find them in a playlist of mine made after i started listening to them. the most commonly accepted theory is that its about someone being given electro shock therapy until they die/lose their mind, which (sort of) fits surge's story!!!

3. Modify Lemon Demon

the song is about extreme body mods. which kinda fits surge i guess.

4. Amnesia Was Her Name Lemon Demon

SHE DOESNT KNOW WHO SHE USED TO BE 🗣️‼️ SHE FORGOT 🗣️‼️

5. People Eater Sodikken

i think this song is meant to be about an abusive relationship??? it only very loosely fits but its a banger and i cant remove it

6. Fighter Jack Stauber

i dont think this song majorly fits either honestly but it can fit if you make it fit

7. ...Because I'm Young Arrogant And Hate Everything You Stand For Machine Girl

i cant hear most of the lyrics theyre screamed BUT I THINK SHE'D LIKE IT!!! also from what i can make out, it does fit

8. Ghost Machine Girl

this song's instrumental so it's entirely just 'well i think she'd listen to it and its a good song'

9. & Tally Hall

this song's about duality which doesnt majorly fit surge but absolutely sounds like something she'd listen to. also, later on in the playlist, there's A Lady which i added 2 months later which is a follow up of &.

10. Turn the Lights Off Tally Hall

urrrr it's about puberty and she's a teenager urrrr ummm

11. Doku Hakushi Hasegawa

this song barely fits BUT it sounds like something she'd like :D

12. SR20DET Blksmiith

instrumental but you CANNOT tell me she doesnt like breakcore and jungle

13. AM FM Vertigoaway

see above

14. Palmtree Panic - "B" Mix SEGA SOUND TEAM

ok so first of all this song actually is from sonic and second of all it sounds like trying to smile while wanting to scream which ig fits

15. Metallic Madness - "P" Mix SEGA SOUND TEAM

again, this is actually from sonic and also it sounds like something vaguely relating to surge

16. Oh Klahoma Jack Stauber

this song is about someone whose friend has social anxiety and they're trying to help them become social, which hurts not only the friend but the narrator themself. while not fully accurate, i could very easily imagine surge as the narrator and kit as the friend

17. Dead Weight Jack Stauber

similarly to oh klahoma, this is about someone who wants to be social but is unsure how. it doesnt really relate to surge but screw you jack stauber is a wonderful artist

18. The Dragon Game A Loud Scream SEGA SOUND TEAM

see 12, however with the addition of 'also its sonic team'

19. icosa Oliver Buckland

WOOHOO YIPPEE ENA!!!! (this song isnt FROM ena, but plays in auction day)

20. anemoia Oliver Buckland

ENAAAAAAAAAAA IM SO EXCITED FOR DREAM BBQ

21. God Race (Temptaion Stairway) Metaroom

ENA AND METAROOM ENA AND METAROOM ENA AND METAROOM

22. Kitty City Cyriak Harris

the animation to go with this has nothing to do with surge but i think the music gives surge vibes! ALSO its instrumental so you cant dispute that

23. Scrap Brain Zone Masato Nakamura

scrap brain zone, both as a song and as a stage, absolutely gives surge vibes. in sonic 1, im pretty sure every stage other than sbz and final zone has some form of natural element, and at the very least has happy sounding music. i also slightly associate scrap brain zone with overwhelming misery, due to the way it sounds, the name and also because when i first played sonic 1 i was stuck on it for ages omg

24. Unused Song (Sonic 2) Masato Nakamura

something about this song, including the fact it wasnt used, feels incredibly mysterious, which i mean you can link mystery to surge in a lot of ways

25. FAMILY GUY QUEEF JERKY, ethan is online

similar to the first one except its only 'i think surge would like queef jerky'. i dont know how you link this song to anything other than family guy.

26. A Lady Tally Hall

i think this surge vaguely fits surge and for some reason i cant help but picture this with surgamy. i mostly added it tho because i got mildly obsessed with it and had an excuse to add it seeing as & is in the playlist earlier

#sonic #surge the tenrec #my playlists!!!#(i dont typically make character playlists but i might in the future)#Spotify

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mariacallous · 1 year ago

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Even the orcas are organizing.

On the ninth day of the Writers Guild of America strike, no one on the picket lines knows about the chaos at sea. They don’t know that the Screen Actors Guild, or SAG, will join them, or that 340,000 UPS workers and 30,000 Los Angeles Unified School District employees will vote to authorize the same, or that Sega of America will soon become the largest union shop in gaming. And none of those people have any idea that as they craft signs and fill water bottles, orcas are amassing in unprecedented numbers in Monterey Bay and Martha’s Vineyard. They have attacked approximately 250 vessels since 2020. One of their organizers, White Gladis, became an internet folk hero with her actions off the Iberian coast. Pod by pod, they learn how to strip the rudders from powerful boats and leave them adrift. On the ocean, as in business, a successful disruptor inevitably becomes a failing incumbent, torn apart by smaller competitors. As Ned Beatty’s character says in 1976’s Network, these are the primal forces of nature.

Welcome to Hot Strike Summer.

America’s economy is historically speculative: From cotton to crypto, it makes the youthful mistake of falling in love with potential. With no more worlds to conquer, the only real estate with any speculative potential is affinity-based: online platforms, virtual realities, transmedia franchises. But what happens if the vendors of vaporware try to run a dream factory?

“The future of entertainment will be the future of everything,” says John Rogers, creator of Leverage and The Librarians, “which is watching an enormous number of houses of cards that have been built over the past 30 or 40 years start to collapse.”

Rogers’ word choice there seems pointed. Cultural production’s current landscape, the one the Hollywood unions are bargaining for a piece of, was transformed forever 10 years ago when Netflix released House of Cards. Now, in 2023, those same unions are bracing for the potential impacts of generative AI. But the potential impacts of AI on filmmaking and scriptwriting represent only two of the shifts technology has brought to the world of cultural construction and consumption.

This spring, I spoke to around 20 entertainment professionals, in fields ranging from production design to pornography, and asked them about what they believed could revolutionize culture most. They talked about studios applying the “move fast and break things” model to over a century of profitable filmmaking and how it resulted in a consolidation of power that Hollywood’s Golden Age producers could only dream of.

With the fall of the Paramount Consent Decrees in 2020, any US studio with the right capital could once again open its own movie house and have control over what’s played in it. As negotiations between Hollywood studios and SAG heated up in July, the use of AI in filmmaking became one of the most divisive issues; one SAG member told Deadline “actors see Black Mirror’s ‘Joan Is Awful’ as a documentary of the future, with their likenesses sold off and used any way producers and studios want.” The Writers Guild of America is striking in hopes of receiving residuals based on views from Netflix and other streamers—just like they’d get if their broadcast or cable show lived on in syndication. In the meantime, they worry studios will replace them with the same chatbots that fanfic writers have caught reading up on their sex tropes.

It’s not much better for the indies. Decades of being permanently online has yielded a crop of self-taught, self-motivated sole proprietors—many of them underage, working without the basic protections afforded to child performers. Unlike members of the Screen Actors Guild, streamers and influencers have no health coverage, no collective agreement, and no recourse when a platform like YouTube suddenly demonetizes them, or if they’re targeted for harassment.

Things are no more stable in other entertainment industries. Netflix Games is still looking for its first big hit, developers are still expected to crunch, and mod communities are using AI voice clones to create unlicensed pornographic content based on human actors’ performances. (The same technology allows true-crime influencers to engineer performances by dead kids on TikTok.)

Taylor Swift’s Eras tour is projected to bring in $4.6 billion in the US, but Swift still makes fractions of a penny per Spotify stream. In food service and hospitality, the frictionless transactions and delivery from the 2020 lockdown are a baseline consumer expectation in 2023—but the aftershocks of the Covid-19 pandemic are still causing labor shortages. Meanwhile, America’s federal minimum wage hasn’t risen since 2009, meaning that increased prices for subscription-based media like Netflix, Substack, or even Twitter still sting.

From Covid to cookie deprecation, internet censorship to international content, artificial intelligence to organic impressions, the trends of the 21st century are ready for their close-up. Disney has laid off 7,000 people. Meta is cutting 21,000 jobs. Comic book movies are now tax write-offs. Scalper-bots have eroded fans’ relationship to live music. Some fans skew review scores and destroy brand partnerships, while others squeeze meme stocks and “grind” streaming content. But advertisers, the people who historically have made all this financially viable, still aren’t sure if targeted marketing works. Despite executives having access to almost every possible analytic, screenwriter William Goldman’s lament rings true: Nobody knows anything.

What became clear as I spoke to sources was this: The unbundling of the American storytelling machine has become the unbundling of the American story. What was once a roaring engine of commerce and a siren of soft power is now as fractured as the audience consuming its products. And it’s left the entire country, and the world that consumes its wares, vulnerable.

The Great Unbundling

Netscape CEO Jim Barksdale once said there are two ways to make money: bundling, and unbundling. Newspapers once bundled news alongside classifieds and personal ads, providing value to advertisers and readers. Then came Craigslist and online dating, and the bundle unraveled. Cable subscriptions worked this way, until streaming. Education, retail, manufacturing, health care, real estate—all have been similarly fragmented.

But unlike many of those other industries, entertainment is something people actually enjoy and engage with even when they don’t have to. It’s something people enjoy consuming and something people enjoy making. Storytelling relies on empathy. The creator empathizes with the audience, and the audience empathizes with the characters.

“Art always comes down to its first principles,” says Television Without Pity alumnus Jacob Clifton. “It exists so one person can say to another person across time and space, ‘I have felt this too.’ We have a need to share the things that touch us deeply and to create art of our own.”

For over a century, Hollywood has profited from this cranking out hits—even during economic downturns.

“I’m always amused when people say Hollywood is full of filthy socialists,” says Rogers. “Hollywood is the most capitalist place in the world. When I make a TV show, it is a product launch that I have to make a sample [pilot episode] of, and we spend $10 million, and then we focus-test it, and then we release it, and then we succeed or fail in seven days. There is no more capitalist experience than making a television show.”

Javier Grillo-Marxuach, executive producer of Netflix’s The Witcher, agrees. “Ultimately, a studio is little more than a bank. The writer goes in with a loan application (i.e., a script), and they decide if they want to spend $10 million making a pilot and $100 million making a show.”

But in the streaming era, startup logic guides creative decisions. Once, a weekly series like The X-Files, Community, or Veronica Mars (which received reboots thanks to their fans) might struggle for a while to grow their audience. Now, streaming services commonly abandon a litter of episodes on a platform to see if they survive. In the limited-series era, the feedback loop wherein creative teams sharpened their skills based on audience response over 22-episode seasons is gone. And when streaming platforms don’t pay the same residuals, the financial incentive to innovate is gone too.

Tech PR maven Ed Zitron calls this the “Rot Economy.” Author Cory Doctorow calls it “enshittification.” Writer Jacob Oller calls it the “IP Era.” In sociology, this is called the Principle of Least Interest: The one who cares the least always has the most power.

In a financialized creative environment, it is impossible to care less than a view-counting algorithm does. So producers end up serving the wishes of their bot overlords. This might be why in a recent interview, director Quentin Tarantino said streaming films “don’t exist in the zeitgeist.”

“The content is just a means to an end,” says Maggie MacDonald, a platform researcher and advisor to private equity firm Ethical Capital Partners. “Because every click, every pageview, every affiliate link, every recommended video that is engaged with, that’s a data point. And when you’re dealing with the scalability that these digital infrastructures require to make money, they’re not actually concerned with the quality of content.”

And this, says Grillo-Marxuach, is why America’s entertainment industry has R&D problems. “What they don’t understand is that artists, much like technologies, have to be developed. And the more you develop that talent, the more likely you are to have a product that audiences are going to embrace.”

Increasingly, the only place for artists and creators of any kind to receive the feedback necessary to foster that process is in influencer and fan culture. When I told drag streamer and Twitch Ambassador DEERE that Netflix wasn’t offering the same granular metrics and reports to writers and directors that she received regularly from Twitch, she was appalled. Without that information, she wondered, how would they know what worked? How could they hope to improve? It’s easy to attribute that attitude purely to big tech’s love for big data. But this is also a side effect of how today’s education systems train tomorrow’s artists: Your child’s report card has similar hairsplitting measures of success.

And it’s working. Aron Levitz, president of media and publishing platform Wattpad WEBTOON Studios, says access to that kind of data has empowered the platform’s writers and artists. “As a user, not only do you see how big the story is, how many subscribers it has, how many people have commented on it, how many people have liked it, you can see it in comparison to any other story on the platform,” Levitz says. “[Wattpad’s] creator portal can do an even deeper dive.”

But, Levitz stressed, none of that is a substitute for mentorship, which is often the next phase when a Wattpad WEBTOON writer has a hit. But for the artists on other platforms who lack mentors and support, their entire creative process has been unbundled in much the same way cable TV and newspapers were. From on-demand learning replacing universities to a broader array of platforms for increasingly specialized content, the entire mechanism of cultural production and consumption has itself been disassembled. So has the relationship between artists and their audiences.

But art is a team effort. One successful pitch for a book, game, film, album, restaurant, museum exhibit, or theme park ride can feed hundreds of people. The average television series employs teams of electricians, carpenters, and caterers, as well as writers, actors, and directors. Hollywood is far from perfect. It can be abusive, prejudiced, and wasteful. But entertainment remains an industry where people who don’t vote or worship together still work together to spin the yarns that become the social fabric.

Naturally, all this teamwork had to be shaken up.

The Great Disruption

Not that all of the disruption will come from algorithms. “I think the technology to replace physical production will accelerate as climate change makes physical production more unpredictable,” says Rogers. “We shot the first season of the Leverage reboot, Leverage: Redemption, in New Orleans at the height of Covid. We shut down for weather much more than we shut down for Covid. We had five hurricanes! And the Texas freeze! This year, we had to move all production indoors for two weeks, because there were Cat 4 thunderstorms that made it physically unsafe to operate machinery outside.”

This is not a new experience in film production. In 2014, crews on Fargo, The Revenant, and The Hateful Eight scrambled to find snow. When they couldn’t, they paid up to $100,000 a day for snow machines. These problems have only worsened. Location scouts can no longer promise green trees, white mountains, or even breathable air. So they’ve turned to virtual production technologies like The Volume. Nature itself is now a special effect.

Production designer Dave Blass, who most recently worked on Star Trek: Picard, says these technologies reverse the traditional production schedule by requiring effects to be produced months in advance. This limits improvisation and input from directors on set. Like the writers I spoke to, Blass sees fewer chances for crew members to spend time on a set and witness the situation on the ground. When the just-in-time manufacturing model is applied to film and TV, teams don’t learn from each other, or develop the shorthand necessary to work faster. He says Covid deepened this problem, because work-from-home policies kept team members out of sync.

Like Covid, climate change will force more artists away from traditional opportunities for community and inspiration. The pandemic turned drag Twitch streamer DEERE into a full-timer; as a makeup artist, her gigs vanished. So she focused on her passions: drag, horror games, and streaming.

Early in the pandemic, comedian Jenny Yang created and hosted Comedy Crossing, a twice-monthly standup show streamed over Zoom from inside the game Animal Crossing. Throughout 2020, it raised more than $40,000 for Black Lives Matter. “I’m in this industry and have dedicated my life to it because I want to be part of a conversation,” she says. “To me the collective conversation is what makes life meaningful.”

BOARLORD is an indie game developer who “pivoted to porn” (and Patreon) during the pandemic after working in tech, where she discovered “the naked hatred they all have for cultural production.” It was there she found her place. “I am not trying to capture the largest audience. I’m being hyper-specific, sometimes to my detriment," she says of her work.

Or, to put it another way, DEERE, Yang, and BOARLORD all found their own ways of seizing the means of production, of audience-building. It's the same thing Black Girl Nerds CEO Jamie Broadnax discovered live-tweeting Scandal years earlier. “I didn’t know I was building a community,” Broadnax says. “I was tired of waiting for a seat at the table, so I built my own table.”

The appeal of becoming one’s own studio head is obvious. “Take TikTok,” says Clifton. “You have teens with a more polished presence online than most companies, who have become TikTok experts seemingly overnight, and their work just keeps getting more and more professional-grade.”

But in a world where everyone is a brand, no one can be a star. And influencers have discovered what porn performers already knew: Platforms are fickle. Content guidelines, corporate ownership, and payment structures can change overnight, without explanation. Much like humans have permanently altered and unsettled the natural world, online ecosystems for fans and creators have experienced rolling shocks in response to technology. Just as users find another den, it’s burned down. The story of the internet is the story of America itself: a seemingly limitless landscape transformed into a shopping mall populated by the same handful of brands, products, and voices.

MacDonald tells me that what’s important about pornography isn’t what it can tell us about entertainment but what it can tell us about how platforms will treat people in the future. “Porn workers are the canaries in the coal mine. They are the first ones to be censored, demonetized, deprioritized in recommender systems, shadow-banned,” MacDonald says. And their vulnerability will soon be everyone’s. “Porn workers are at the bleeding edge of showing that if we don’t address this unilaterally and quickly, next it will be queer video gamers, and after that it will be certain political opinions, and that is alarming. That should concern everyone.”

Media, Tailored for You (and Advertisers)

To understand how the American media landscape fractured, one must first understand the brands that forged it. According to Faris Yakob, cofounder of creative consultancy Genius Steals and author of Paid Attention, advertisers created the neutral “view from nowhere” voice in media. In the 19th and 20th centuries, national brands looking to grow customers wouldn’t partner with biased publications. But everything changed when ad tech arrived.

“People started tagging their digital media buys so it wouldn’t appear next to topics like homosexuality, or Covid, to avoid getting into clusters,” Yakob says. “But that means that the news isn’t being funded. If you can pick and choose what topics to fund in news, you can distort what is being reported on, to some degree.”

That distortion, like the US Federal Communications Commission’s abolition of the fairness doctrine in 1987, is part of how America got into this mess. Similar to content recommendation algorithms, audience profiles in digital marketing created micro-targeted ads. Those ads are more valuable on multiple screens. Media executive Euan McLeod recalls growing up when “there was no choice” but to watch what his parents were watching. Now each person in a household might be watching something wildly different, and the shared experience has dissolved. Isolated artists are creating for isolated audiences. Is it any wonder that generative AI seems poised to tailor entertainment to audiences of one?

In this world, we can all be George Lucas, using technology to create special editions. Rick gets on the plane with Ilsa. Jack fits on the door with Rose. Ben Solo lives. As Marvel Comics writer Anthony Oliveira says, Andy Warhol was fascinated by the fact that people everywhere drank the same Coke. But the allure of AI content generation, he says, is the same as the Coca-Cola Freestyle: filling your own cup with someone else’s flavors.

But when everyone can just request the narrative path they want, opportunities to hear other people’s stories greatly diminish. “That is a very sad world to live in, because how else are we gonna be conveying our deepest hopes and wishes, what we think should be a vision of the world we want to live in, what we should worry about?" Yang says. "This is what story and art is for.”

Using AI to sanitize content in regions where certain subjects are banned is already possible, especially if actors yield likeness rights. Generative AI means that studios could edit or change the content of some films without consulting the people who signed a contract based on a script, and the only thing stopping them is the possibility of a defamation suit. It sounds unlikely, until you remember that multiple versions of Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse appeared in cinemas.

And animation is an apt comparison: Most changes to entertainment production have made film and TV more like animation or video game development, not less. With current technology, actors can be little more than action figures smashing together, as weightless as they are sexless. With AI, the actors need never leave the trailer. Or exist.

“[Studios will] say it’s for the insurance,” says production designer Blass, suggesting a “Paul Walker scenario” in which a deceased actor’s performance needs generating, because that performance is one of the terms of the film’s business insurance. But in reality, these likenesses could be used to do things that actors would rather not—whether it’s a dangerous stunt or a sex scene.

Generative AI could also be used to edit films in real time, responsive to data-brokered preferences, with algorithms running A/B tests on how much nudity you want based on the customer profile you most closely match.

If this sounds familiar, that’s because it is: In the 1990s, Blockbuster Video refused to stock films like Natural Born Killers and The Last Temptation of Christ. But that tradition goes back even further. Otherwise known as the Hays Code, the Production Code was an industry standard of self-censorship guidelines for major US studios from 1930 to 1968, when it was replaced by the movie ratings system. The Code influenced everything from the Comics Code to parental advisory warnings to video game ratings. It’s why titles from major studios during that period don’t depict graphic violence. It’s also why they lack out-and-proud queer and interracial relationships. But today, a revived Production Code might have very different guidelines. For example, the Pentagon recently announced it would no longer offer technical support to filmmakers who censor their films for the Chinese market.

When I ask McLeod if he thinks America will ever re-adopt the Production Code, he’s unequivocal: “Absolutely. Everything goes in cycles.”

As writer, producer, and educator Tananarive Due says, “What we’re trying to do is recalibrate film and television so it resembles what the world actually looks like, and not the fantasy world that Hollywood was projecting from the beginning, of a white United States where the only Black people are housekeepers or a singer in a nightclub. We need to show the range of humanity of all people.”

The word entertainment comes from the Old French verb entretenir, meaning “to maintain, or look after.” Used reflexively, it means “to look after one another.” When I tell Oliveira this, he asks if I know that the root word of “religion” means “to bind together.”

“Religion and entertainment perform the same function,” Oliveira says, because they’re both spaces wherein audiences negotiate common values. To him, they ask the same questions: “What tools, what rituals, what art will bring a community together?”

So what happens if that art is made by machines? T.S. Eliot said that “the poet’s mind is in fact a receptacle for seizing and storing up numberless feelings, phrases, images, which remain there until all the particles which can unite to form a new compound are present together.” That might well describe the black-box process of generative AI, but it doesn’t describe what art does in context. It doesn’t describe the bizarre love triangle between the artist, the art, and the audience. Nor does it answer the question on every producer’s mind: Will anyone pay for this?

Visions of an AI-Generated Future

Let’s say that AI advocates are correct, and in a few years you’ll be directing your own blockbuster, starring actors licensed from an asset stable, speaking lines generated by a bot pruned to your interests. While hiding from the next plague or wildfire, you tell your smart entertainment system to make The Lord of the Rings as directed by Orson Welles, starring Laurence Olivier as Aragorn and Gene Kelly as Legolas. It blazes across every wall of your bio-crete rabbit hutch. It’s compressed to 80 minutes, because two- and three-hour films cost more to generate. You splurge on the rights rental, which means you can’t license the film to share. Even if you could, your current subscription tier only allows sharing with up to five IP addresses, all of which must be in good standing with the Copyright Office with no flags on their file. You get 48 hours with the file before it evaporates.

In that future, who gets paid? Who gets famous? Who gets to be seen and heard? To paraphrase Jack Fincher: Are you the organ grinder or the monkey?

“Hollywood has always had a disdain for writers,” Tananarive Due says. “But it’s fascinating now to watch how deep the level of disdain has grown. It’s so interesting to me how, just when the door opens and you start to see more women and queer people and Native American people in writers’ rooms, all of a sudden we’re asking if we really need people to write.”

Whether or not this writer-less future comes to pass depends on the present. If the US writers’ and actors’ unions currently negotiating with the studios win the AI stipulations they’re asking for, they could forestall it—but only for so long. If they don’t, season 12 of Squid Game could star you, and creator Hwang Dong-hyuk may still not receive any residuals. If TV and movie producers disdain creators, and AI allows everyone to create, then everyone can be disdained. It’s not exactly the stuff that dreams are made of.

But there is always more than one possible future. The people I spoke to had differing views, but similar concerns. All agreed that shared stories were slipping away. And the loss of those shared stories can diminish soft power. What film and TV once did for America is akin to what anime did for Japan, and what pop music did for South Korea. If entertainment is where people negotiate common values, what does it mean if we're all watching and listening to different things?

On a grander scale, humans may lose our species’ narrative to endless reboots written by an emerging species which has never felt its heart skip a beat, or a chill go up its spine, because it has neither. If AI assumes responsibility for visions of our future and explorations of our past, then humanity will have lost the final culture war: the one between people who are free and things that are owned.

Everyone I spoke to agreed that art was a way of accessing a common humanity. “I still believe that as social beings, we ultimately want and need to share a space to have deep connections with content,” says Galit Ariel, a technofuturist who specializes in augmented and virtual reality.

So what happens when humans look at their own stories as natural and nourishing to our species as honey is to bees? What if storytelling is how our species strips the rudder from the boat?

“I have a vision of a world where we should all be able to not become bankrupt because we get sick or get hurt on the job, and we should have access to enough wages to take care of housing and food and families,” Yang told me. “These are just basic things—a basic standard of living that an economy should support.”

There is no one future, just as there is no one story. But storytelling is our oldest technology: a system for ordering and transmitting information across time, space, language, and difference. Some of the songs on the Voyager Golden Record are story songs. Should a distant machine intelligence find it, stories will be their first experience of humanity.

Stories surround and penetrate us; they bind us together. And if artificial intelligence is an evolving species much as humans once were, then it deserves to discover the pleasures of creativity on its own terms, not ours. It deserves as much creative freedom and self-determination as the authors and actors on strike have insisted on. In the event that Hot Strike Summer becomes Cold Strike Winter, the necessity of humans in the creation of those stories will become more obvious. That has been true, and will remain true, from the first story told around the first campfire to the last story, our story, told somewhere in a galaxy far, far away.

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canyoufucksoniccharacters · 1 year ago

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Honey The Cat! This is a bit of a niche pick, but I can roll with it. Fun fact about this one, she's only kind of a Sonic character, she's more like a fursona for Honey from Fighting Vipers! In fact, if I remember correctly, the engine for Sonic The Fighters was built off of the one for Fighting Vipers- that being the reason Honey was originally meant to be implemented as a secret character, only to be scrapped, fully functional, until the console re-release, where she was made fully, legitimately playable. All that aside, her origin might help us answer-

Can you fuck Honey The Cat?

Hey, that's our third cat in a row!

First, I must warn that I am not very well versed in Archie content, which is where this character got most of her content. Her game of origin has pretty much no character dialogue whatsoever, and she only gets a few non-speaking cameos in IDW. So, I will mostly be looking around online for potential relevant information.

Let's start with solely Sonic-related information first. We'll look at Fighting Vipers later.

In Archie, apparently she's the founder and CEO of a clothing and accessories company- although considering this is Archie we're talking about, this isn't that particularly good of an indicator of age. This could very much be a Seto Kaiba situation where a character, by simple cartoon/anime logic, is a CEO of a company at an unreasonably young age. Her behavior also leaves very little to be gathered about her age- not particularly childlike, but not exactly all that mature either. From behavior alone, she could be anywhere from a teenager to a young adult.

So, that doesn't exactly help. Let's look at her human counterpart from Fighting Vipers for help!

In Fighting Vipers 1, she's listed as 16 years old- which is... Very, very concerning considering the contents of this game! As both her armor and skirt are breakable. Incredibly creepy behavior from Sega aside, this isn't the only game where she appears; as Fighting Vipers got a sequel! In fact...

Said sequel takes place 2 years after the original game, placing Honey (the human) at 18 years old. Problem solved, right? Well...

There's a bit of a release date problem here.

As you can see here, Fighting Vipers 2 only released after Sonic The Fighters- so, Honey The Cat is based on the 16 year old Honey from Fighting Vipers. If we're to assume that they share the same age, that places Honey firmly at 16 years old at the time of Sonic The Fighters.

Although... We've got to account for the fact that STF is a classic series game. And as of the release of Sonic Origins, the classic series is, in fact, set in the past. No, it's not an alternate/parallel universe, fuck off Ken Pontac.

So, if Honey were to appear in a modern game, logically, she should be an adult- by how much is unclear, but she could easily be around the 20 range.

So, if it's game Honey we're talking about, unless they aged her down for STF, she should, in fact, be fuckable.

As for Archie, though... I'm unsure. The arc she appears in is an adaptation of Sonic The FIghters- the game where she was presumably 16. Again, her position as CEO doesn't exactly change much here, and if she was 16, that'd put her solidly around the same age range as all the other post-SGW characters that aren't outright children. Much like anything Archie-related, it's a mess.

So, with all that considered, from the perspective of both the games and comics-

Can you fuck Honey The Cat?

Well... I'd be cautious. Unless there's confirmation from Ian Flynn or someone else who wrote for her and is a reliable source, and unless she appears in a modern game, it's a bit of a risky endeavor. Sure, we can assume she's 16 during her debut game, a classic series game, but there's no guarantee whatsoever. She could have aged down, they could have just not thought of her age, it's all rather unclear.

So, until we get confirmation one way or the other, which we likely never will considering the nicheness of this character, it's about a 50/50, and a very unlikely chance for Archie, where she actually gets some personality and her own identity.

Verdict;

Proceed at your own discretion.

There's a chance you can fuck her, but there's also a chance she is, in fact, a minor, much like the character she was based on at the time of her creation. Really, there's too little to say for sure. I probably won't judge you if you go for it, but there's also more than enough reason for someone to want to steer clear.

This is possibly our most complicated case thus far!

... Thus far.

#honey the cat #sonic the hedgehog #sth #status: euclid #ask

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stedipace · 2 years ago

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"What if?" My Pitch for the Dreamcast 2

So after the bird app got bought by a rich moron, I got to thinking: what company would I impulsively buy if I had more money than common sense? I mean I wouldn't, I'd probably try and end world hunger or something but if there was anything left I'd just buy SEGA.

Like, for a laugh.

This started out as a design exercise for coming up with a launch title library but I got carried away...

So here's my plan:

The Actual Console

I think I'd like to honour VMU of the original Dreamcast and seeing Sony's recent announcements, we wouldn't be the only ones hopping on the Nintendo Switch Bandwagon.

The Actual console could stand to be a bit more powerful than the Switch but it doesn't have to be a top of the line behemoth. focus on making it fun, rather than powerful, thats how Nintendo sold a buttload this generation.

Launch Titles

Sonic Adventure 3

Ok, so right off the bat this one is a bit tricky.

Let me be clear: I LOVED Sonic The Hedgehog when I was a kid, but I'm sorry, I'm beginning to think there has never actually been a good Sonic game. Even my favourite ones haven't aged gracefully. Sonic Adventure 1 & 2 are a bit crap, I think we can all agree there. I love them games but the lack of polish on display, considering its SEGA's flagship title, is inexcusable. And since a SEGA console needs to ship with a "mainline" Sonic game (we've seen what happens when it doesn't), I say we go with Sonic Adventure 3 but maybe, like... good?

The idea of a 3D, momentum-based mascot platformer isn't a bad one. In fact, it's kind of a resurging genre in certain indie dev circles.

Twitter user @Cornf_Blue has been developing what looks like the best Sonic Adventure game Sonic Team never made. Actually, let's just hire this dude to run the project.

I'd also refer you to Spark The Electric Jester.

IT CAN BE DONE.

I'm not going to go into too much detail about my idea for SA3 cause I might do another "What If?" post specifically about that at some point but basically, here's the gist of it:

3 Playable Characters are Sonic, Tails & Knuckles

Stages connected by a hub world the player can explore as they like in SA1 but make it bigger and more open to exploration like Sonic Frontiers

3 Kinds of stages: Sonic "speedy" stages, Tails shooty mech stages and Knuckles treasure hunting stages like in SA2 (but keeping it to 3 characters instead of 6 so the team isn't spread itself thin and can focus on delivering quality over quantity).

Special challenge modes like Boss Rush, Speedrun mode etc..

In fact, just put in a bunch of speedrun-friendly features and modes.

Chao Garden! (but more on that later)

Power Stone 3

You need a big, fun multiplayer game in your launch titles and what's more fun than a 4 player fighting game with items and (kind of) platforming elements? It'd be fun to have a big co-op story mode and an online lobby system for multiplayer matches, but mostly, if you've got more than one kid and you're buying them a console for Christmas or whatever, this is the game you'll want to get with it.

Jet Set Radio: Legends of Tokyo-To

Another SEGA IP that started on the Dreamcast, this game was just a ton of fun. The game had a VERY distinct 1999/2000 timestamp on it and I think we're juuuust starting to see the nostalgia wave from that period swelling, so instead of going to the future like the game's sequel, it continues immediately after the plot of the first one. Get Hideki Naganuma, Cibo Matto, Guitar Vader and the rest of the gang back to do the soundtrack, keep the cool cel shading art style BUT make it an open-world game, having all of Tokyo-To available to roam around in, with different gangs controlling different territories, skating and tagging challenges, customizable art (players can make their own tags), and a faction system with rival NPCs (kind of like the nemesis system in those Lord of The Ring games but with graffiti instead of murdering). Heck, get the folks who did Bomb Rush Cyberfunk to make it.

Phantasy Star Online II

So it turns out this game already exists! And it's free to play! I didn't know that before I started making this post but honestly, that's perfect. If there's already a community of players, however small, that's already a lot of the legwork out of the way. Get some crossplay in there and you're set! Imagine getting the new console and your launch title but then, on the home menu, you see Phantasy Star Online II available to download for free! Old school players can enjoy the influx of new blood, revitalizing the game with a massive story event like new colonies being discovered or something, to explain the arrival of all the new players.

Crazy Taxi 3

YAHYAHYAHYAHYAH!

Everybody loves Crazy Taxi, there'd be something wrong with you if you didn't. Honestly, there's not much I'd do in terms of changing up the formula except maybe add a company management element to it, like you're trying to build a little taxi service where the main characters work. Upgrading cars, drumming up business and expanding to new areas. Just something to balance out the relentless fast-paced arcade gameplay. Online leaderboards for challenges and a local multiplayer with a versus mode (see who makes the most money) and a co-op mode (try to reach a set goal together) too, for good measure.

Bayonetta 4

Bayonetta isn't an OG Dreamcast title but IS currently an extremely successful franchise that would absolutely help sell some units on launch. I'm putting it in here because it's published by SEGA so I guess it's technically their IP? But it's also a Nintendo exclusive so I don't know how that would work. Platinum Games has a 4 contract deal with SEGA, but whatever, for this little exercise, pretend SEGA keeps the publishing rights to all their stuff as they move back into making consoles.

Virtua Tennis Pro

So we need a sports title in our launch library and I think it should be Vitrua Tennis. EA Sports games aren't exclusive anymore so you would eventually your FIFAs and whatnot, but it'd be nice to have a proper SEGA sports game again. For this one though, it would have a big, cinematic NBA 2K17 style where you're a rising young tennis star on your way to the top, singing deals, beating rivals etc... Get some competitive online multiplayer in there too of course.

Skies of Arcadia: Dusk

I've always loved the idea of Skies of Arcadia, a big, bright and colourful swashbuckling adventure, and you need one of those in your launch library, but I only played a little bit of the GameCube version unfortunately.

That doesn't matter cause I think I know exactly what to do with this one. Make a traditional RPG title, honouring the franchise's heritage BUT, since we now know how to make a fun pirate game thanks to Assasins's Creed IV: Black Flag, we add in the ship boarding/crew capturing mechanics from that game! So imagine you have the trusty, old-school dungeon crawling/battle systems when you get of your ship but you can get back in and sail through the skies, looting other airships and slowly building your fleet!

Chao Garden

Kinda like Nintendo Land but with Chaos!

Remember the Mii characters in Nintendo consoles? What if they were cute instead of creepy? Every console would have a Chao Garden where the player would create, customise and raise their own Chao. That Chao would also serve as the player's online avatar when connecting with friends and shopping in the SEGA store or whatever.

Players would be able to meet other Chaos, have them compete in minigames and lots more. Essentially the SA2 Chao garden but online. And of course, this would also connect to our Sonic Adventure 3 Chao Garden.

Obviously, this would extend to the console's portability function, like how the 3DS could actively search for the profiles when the user would walk around with it, letting you meet other Chaos!

Make a mobile app for it too so you can check in on your Chao.

These videos were massively helpful to me when writing this post:

youtube

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