#You remember Black for PS2

[jaythelay]

Honestly have to wonder if the naming convention of Xbox is what largely lead to people moving from console gaming.

Sorry but I didn't know there was a Series X nor do I care to learn the differences between the exact same consoles.

Just to be clear, they're 2.99mil behind the Xbox One. This late in.

Perhaps some people don't care to upgrade, I think it's more likely the entire environment was so poor that considering xbox again just wasn't gonna happen for most people, who went to Sony and had an equally pissy poor time.

It's gotten far and a ways more expensive to game on console than PC and both companies not honoring warranty definitely adds another punch to move to PC. Something breaks in your console? Welp the whole thing's a brick. PC? Change one part and move on.

Imagine being on console when they raised prices? There's never real sales or sales in general on console. All they had was that dumbass gamepass subscription meant to normalize not owning games but liscenses (Congrats on being pay piggy useful idiots btw, we're all gonna suffer because of the enablement)

That's killer to anyone on the fence. Price increases, quality drops, worse experiences, and not supported for very long. Like ya'll why the fuck is there 3 xbox one types? Why? Who's that for? If I want real performance I'll get a Pc, not a damn console. For the most part consoles never aged past the 360 era for me, they just got dementia and angry.

Like I get the pc vs console debate is dumb but my god what a way to sabatoge a long running industry almost solely by console manufacturer hands. They got one more generation before being obsolete, mmw they're gonna jump into cloud-based gaming and cut their losses with typical consoles. What Gamepass was meant to normalize.

[worldismyne]

Iceberg Bing for layer 3 and 4.

My memory is really bad, so some of these might have already appeared in earlier layers.

AMVs - Either specific songs that were popular to use in the fandom, or any fanmade content from during the manga's run that was popular

Soul and Maka Split up - Apparently this interpretation of Maka and Soul's final discussion in the manga is a hot take. There was a lot going on in the final chapter, but here are the phrases from the manga that gave me that impression.

Will cross this box off for any analysis from that final chapter tho.

Thompson Twins - Can't remember if this specific reference was pointed out, but stands in for any pop culture references brought to light.

The Dress - This is a newer development, but at some point this dress got listed on Devil Inspired and advertised heavily on instagram.

A bunch of Chrona cosplayers independently saw it and adopted it. (There were at least 3 or 4 at the first con I went to after it was listed). It's so prolific I've seen it in fanart of Chrona now.

Mary Shelly Theory - Saw someone in the tag a while back theorize Marie might be an allusion to Mary Shelly. It would add a layer to the electricity power outside of the Mjolnir reference.

New Art - Any mention of the 20th anniversary drops. (It didn't fit well in the square)

Purple/Pink Gate - Another one I can't remember if it's already been covered. Despite most fan artists color picking a dusty rose for Crona's hair, lavender wigs are still more common for cosplayers. I am a pink wig truther.

Shinobi - Okay, this is a PS2 game that predates the manga by two years. The main mechanic is a katana that sucks the lifeforce/soul of the user unless it's constantly fed other souls. I am fairly sure this is the inspiration of the uncanny sword. Even the cover art gives post time skip vibes.

If not, both pieces of media have to be referencing the same thing.

Zagreus + Dionysus : Death the Kid's role in SE has similarities with the god of the rebirth. Particularly the part of the legends where he's dismembered and eaten. There is some confusion in greek mythology if these are just different names for the same god or just two gods whose roles overlap, thus why I put both names.

Ragnarok - Particularly how he stops being a character after Salvage. Will also check off for mention of the war of the gods.

Merch - There's a lot of merch out there. Apparently they made a speaker inspired by bonus art. I'm sure there's a bunch of official stuff I haven't seen before.

Official Cosplay - There's a few talking points here that come to mind. Like how Soul is the only weapon with an official cosplay prop. Any Spirit, Ragnarok or Tsubaki props you see were made by the cosplayer. Death the Kid rings get sold one at a time, even if they're advertised as a set.

Translations goofs - There's little things like Afreet and Kishen being used interchangeably in the sub. The Witch hunter evolutions have a few different names. I'm sure there's other translation stuff that I don't know about that might pop up.

Demi-god Black Star - Another umbrella square. Black Star's arc towards the end seems to be referencing something specific. Idk what it is, but Marie goes out of her way to put him and Death the Kid on the same level and snubs Maka at the end of the manga.

The Dread Queen - Comparing Chrona to Persephone is really common in the Kirona crowd. After listening to some deeper dives on the topic there's actually precedence for them to be an allusion ancient underworld goddess that predates Persephone and Hades, but not the abduction myth. They're never referred by name only by titles. Crona's name being literally Dark One in Japanese fits with this theme, as well as usually being referred to as the Demon Sword rather than by their given name. This could be more coincidence than anything else though.

Unlocalized content - The iceberg has already covered the games, but there might be audio dramas or other in-character content that didn't make it's way over when SE was popular in the US.

[skaruresonic]

why is Gordon x Alyx even controversial? both of them are fully grown adults. What could possibly be the issue here?

The pithy answer is "antis," but the more honest answer is that an influx of fandom tourists came in and gentrified Half-Life, twisting a canon ship into the most bad-faith interpretation possible.

Strap in, because this is a batshit story.

In 2020, wayneradiotv released HLVRAI, also known as "Half-Life but the AI is Self-Aware."

HLVRAI is to Half-Life what the Snapcube dubs are to the Sonic games: a haha funny meme series that is set in its own canon and only superficially resembles the original series. This would not have been a problem had HLVRAI not been conflated with Half-Life; for the longest time, the two fandoms were considered conjoined, and it was because of the ship wars that OG Half-Life fans had to beg AO3 to separate the tags over the course of three years. HLVRAI introduced an influx of young fans to Half-Life, but a certain subsect of new fans kicked up a ruckus because they found Half-Life's canon to be, in short, "problematic." Specifically, HLVRAI is set in a canon where Gordon Freeman has a child based on a throwaway line about an Easter egg of a baby photo in his locker. In reality, Gordon is stated in the PS2 manual to be "unmarried without dependents" and the Easter egg simply depicts a developer's child; this is worth noting in order to better understand how the fandom tourists thought about Half-Life canon.

Fans of HLVRAI shipped HLVRAI!Gordon with the character Benrey, who is an extremely spurious interpretation of Barney Calhoun, Gordon's buddy in HL2.

Benrey and Barney have nothing in common aside from sharing a face, yet fandom tourists who knew nothing about the games saw Freehoun (Gordon/Barney) as, like, a sort of "vessel" for Gordon/Benrey. As such, they started looking for reasons to justify it as The Ultimate Ship.

Being a Valhoun (Alyx Vance/Barney Calhoun) shipper myself, I was only on the fringes when the shitshow happened. At the time, the most prominent ships in the fandom were Freemance and, to a lesser extent, Freehoun. I remember Freemancers had just produced a Freemance zine before HL fandom all went to shit; however, after the dust settled, nothing like that happened again.

The fandom tourists, I kid you not, started calling Freemance pedophilia on the grounds that, and I quote: --- 1.) Gordon is "chronologically 47" in HL2, despite Eli heavily implying that Gordon hasn't aged during stasis and is still mentally and physically 27.

--- 2.) The games heavily push Freemance, which can, according to these geniuses, be taken as a problematic age gap ship at best. Freemance is also predatory because Gordon is preying on a vulnerable Alyx, according to them. In addition to ignoring how it's Alyx who makes the moves on Gordon, HLVRAI fans have repeatedly revealed their ignorance of her age. They think she's a teenager in HL2, despite her age being easily deduced from information offered in HLA's opening scene:

19 + 5 = 24. Alyx is 24 in HL2, only three years younger than Gordon. This tidbit was routinely ignored in favor of portraying her as a younger vulnerable party to a "much" older man (who in reality hadn't aged during his time in stasis). --- 3.) Upon first meeting Gordon in HL2, Alyx off-handedly remarks that Gordon likely "[doesn't] remember" her from Black Mesa. HLVRAI fans took that to mean Gordon definitely knew her when she was a child, or even babysat her, despite her words implying the opposite.

Don't ask me how that works. I don't know.

--- 4.) As an icky 47-year-old whom the game "ships" with a "possible teenager" (who despite living in a world subjugated by alien fascists must be "protected" from older white guys, apparently), Gordon Freeman thinks of the full-grown Alyx who flirts with him as the four-year-old he most definitely babysat back at Black Mesa.

--- Hmm, said the fandom tourists, isn't it sus how Valve keep trying to push Freemance in our faces? Maybe Valve are a bunch of pedos in disguise...? 🤔 If by now you're thinking these are some Olympic-tier mental gymnastics, you'd be right. The situation really was that absurd, to the point where antis straight-up lied about canon in order to justify shipping Freehoun. Which, to rub salt in the wound, wasn't even real Freehoun grounded in Half-Life canon, but some proxy for another ship. Fandom's response to this extreme contortionist act, understandably, was "Jesse what the fuck are you talking about."

And then, being the creatures of reason and intellect that they are, the fandom tourists started doxxing people over this shit. A mutual of mine had an anon report her to the authorities for merely writing Freemance fic. The situation got so bad that most of the old guard packed up and went elsewhere, mostly Disco Elysium.

To this day folks are still tentative about even posting what used to be fandom's most common OTP because that side of fandom is just so rabid.

[littlethingwithfeathers]

I'm grumpy about Silent Hill again...

TW for discussions of suicide, self harm, abuse (both parent to child and amongst peers) and general spookiness. Y'know... the usual Silent Hill rigmarole of trauma and despair. Also be warned that I'm going to spoil a lot of the Silent Hill series, in particular Silent Hill 2 and the Short Message game that just came out. ***

So... one of my most popular posts out there is this one. It's about Pyramid head and the loss of subtlety in media. And I couldn't help but feel like we hadn't moved an inch from when I posted that back in... *checks date on post* hrrk. my bones... 2017. I'm going to die soon. Anyway. Today I watched Second Wind do a run of the short, free-to-play Silent Hill: Short Message. I admittedly had a good bit of trepidation going in just because of the marketing. Which, for all of you marketing majors out there, that is called "Not a good sign." Marketing should make you want to play a game... especially if you're a fan of the series already. But this... it was a bit of a wet blanket, largely due to the fact that it spoiled a lot of the focus of the game. It basically said "this is a game about how bullying and being chronically online is real bad. We're gonna be spooky about it now." And... straining to push aside how incredibly reductive that is... why give it away? Why say it out loud? Why did you tell us what you are doing? Can you imagine Silent Hill 2 if we'd known it was about James killing his wife from the jump? We didn't. We hadn't the first clue. We knew nothing other than that he was looking for her and she was maybe dead? But we didn't know how... possibly lung cancer or TB given that she had the most pointed coughing sequence since the movie Tombstone. And hey... the last game had someone looking for a loved one too. Maybe that's the deal with Silent Hill. Who knows? No one did at that point. It was still a big old mystery for the most part. And then the E3 trailer... like there's the weird pretty lady in jail? But what's she talking about? Who the fuck is Mary? Is that... his wife? Well then who the hell is Ms. Miniskirt? No wait... is that his wife in the VHS tape? What the hell is going on? Oh look gameplay! And... a little girl? And a weird guy with a gun... This soundtrack slaps. I'm gonna go see if it's up on Napster yet. (this was 2001... again... my bones etc) I remember combing over low-res copies of that video for HOURS when it came out. Why are the nurses different? It's not snowing? Who are all these people... And why do they all sound like they put ketamine in their coffee. It was like a great big puzzle to work out and we had a ball theorizing and researching so when it came out we were HYPE. And that was largely because in short... we knew SOME things at release. Fog. Nurses. Big stick. Weird people. Banger soundtrack. Dead (but probably not) wife. And we presumed or supposed more... cult activity? New beasties? Radio maybe? But we effectively knew nothing about the plot. And the best part was, while they had a solid hook (Find dead lady who we love so huggy buggy much) and instant intrigue (Angela in the cemetery being weirder than a film by David Lynch), and a very familiar setting (we may have improved draw distance on the PS2, but we don't have to use it!), we still didn't really know what was going on. The plot was essentially unfolding out of a black box. Silent Hill 2 was quite content to be a slower burn than trying to boil the Lake Superior with a signal flare. You don't even see the main "villain" Pyramid Head until a few hours in and, as I pointed out in that other post, there's no flashy cut scene to introduce him and go WOOOOOO SCARYYYYY. He's just chillin' behind some prison bars (which that totes is normal in an apartment complex) and staring at you like I stare at the inside of my fridge when I really would like some cheese to materialize.

And then... like we're not even really sure what the hell is going on for the longest time. We meet our wife's hot twin with the key to a strip club and she keeps getting killed over and over... and things keep getting increasingly rapey and lewd in a way that's just uncomfortable more than anything... But even at the end. Even with the big reveal of "You killed your wife." they still don't ever explicitly state "And you killed her because you couldn't have sex with her anymore." It wasn't until you finished the game, and talked to someone else about it, or let your brain cook on it for a bit that you went... heyyyy... he's a horndog! (In fact... if I'm going to chide SH2 for anything it's that right at the very VERY end they tried to frame James's actions as understandable because the woman who was dying and frightened and in pain was mean to him. Yes, being a caretaker is hard. But Christ... pick a topic for discussion.) But contrast all that with Short Message. The marketing and such all said out loud "THIS IS ABOUT BULLYING" so even going in... I was already like "yep. The bully is probably us, but we had reasons because we have to be complicated and you aren't allowed to make the player feel bad" And lo was I correct. There was no... intrigue. I was never curious about the character or the people around her because I knew this story. They already told me what story they were telling so I could practically sing along, especially as a millennial that had to grow up watching little videos and skits in school about the evils of bullying. And when you are going to tell a trope-ish story, and you tell the audience what the trope is, it becomes "say the line" writ large. This isn't me advocating for super twisty unexpected plot arcs (looking at you, Supernatural). Far from it. You absolutely should tell a story in such a way that the audience understands how you got from point A to point Z, even if there are some surprises along the way (See Sixth Sense for that masterclass). Rather, what I'm missing from this (and frankly a lot of the Silent Hill games and honestly... media in general these days) is a sense of restraint. A sense of trust in their audience to "get it." They can't just plonk us in the fog with a radio and a stick and say "You're here to find your best friend/dog/cousin/wife/business partner. Good luck. Here's a weirdo to prattle cryptically at you in order to unsettle you immediately. Bye!" No! They have to tell us what kind of story they're telling and what themes are important. They can't just... give us a Silent Hill Game and trust that we know what to do with it. It's... insulting frankly. Especially as a longtime fan of the franchise who remembers when they did trust us and they did have faith in their work. I will say this in compliment to Short Message. The environment design was pretty cool. Especially the sticky-note hallways... they looked like leaves... and sometimes teeth... and like tightly packed bones in an ossuary. It didn't... say anything really. But it looked cool. And you can't go wrong with Akira Yamaoka's soundtrack. But... while I'm on the subject of design. Y'all. An animate sakura tree in an oversized hoodie is not scary. But bless you for at least having the restraint to not make her Pyramid Head.

[amunisence]

The soundtracks and sound design for every game made by FG are so unique. I can't really talk about Rebirth and Bunker (because I'm less familiar with those OSTs), but every game from the Penumbra Tech Demo to Bunker is just so distinct and recognizable to me. I'd go as far as to say the soundtracks in these games are part of their indentiy.

(I got a little carried away so I put my thoughts on each game's OST/sound design below the cut.)

The Dark Descent has an atmosphere I've never seen (or heard I guess?) in any other game that I know of. Man, what I'd give to play a game with the same feel and atmosphere as the first Amnesia (I have similar feelings abt the Penumbra OST I'll get to later). I find it so unique that choirs and voices are heavily used in the OST/sound design of this game. The frequent presence of whispers, cries, and other voices really adds to the "haunted" feel of Brenneburg castle. The atmosphere this creates aids in putting the player in Daniel's shoes while playing the game. Makes you just as paranoid and confused as he is. Not to mention Daniel's own ramblings amongst the other voices and memories that haunt him. Slightly off topic: I wonder if Daniel's ramblings are just complete nonsense made up by his subconscious or if their indicative about how much he actually remembers in the present moment in the game. I wonder how soon ramblings can be heard. I would guess any area after you get to the entrance. I also wonder if he rambles out loud or if those are just his inner thoughts. Or perhaps I put too much thought into it. :)

There has always been a soft spot in my heart for the OST for A Machine for Pigs. I just LOVE how industrial most of it sounds and how the sound design ties in so well with the soundtrack. New Century is top notch too I never get tired of it as well as Mandus (I used to play Mandus on piano). I'm sure there's symbolism in the OST that goes right over my head too.

With SOMA, Rebirth, and Bunker, I don't really remember the OST itself too well, but I do know that the OST + the sound design are very uniquely tied to these games. Unfortunately, the OSTs aren't as "iconic" as the earlier games (Bunker does have a good safe room theme though), but the sound design in these later FG games are phenomenal.

Now finally, Penumbra my beloved. Lately, I've been remembering how much I loved the Penumbra Series--especially the OST/sound design of these games. The OST/SFX have big PS2 era horror game vibes (I specifically realized this while playing Resident Evil Remake for the first time recently), but the OST is still very unique to Penumbra. The OST/SFX in the Penumbra games are unique to the environments in each game. Like the frozen mines in Overture, and the Archaic facility in Black Plague. I will say the sound design in these games are a little weaker than the newer games, but still iconic to its identity. I would love to play a new Penumbra or a remake kinda along the vain of what Counter Current Games does with the fan games, but I digress.

Those are all my thought on the soundtrack/sound design for all of FG's games. It's one of my favorite topicsshdxjdjevefkeb

[the-afronick]

Normally I like to tally up everything I've beaten on an annual basis but I've been lacking the last two years, so this is three years' worth of finished games: 2021-2023. Also been lacking in finishing stuff until the last third of this year but I think I've got the swing of things again. There are other games finished/completed I've chosen to not count here as they were simply different ports of games I've already done before, but I'm still counting MW1 Remastered to make it a nice even 50.

Since this is all getting typed up right now in one afternoon, enjoy some quick thoughts on each of these.

Finished

Yakuza Kiwami (2017) - Yeah it still feels like a weird version of the immaculate Yakuza 0. I'm not the authority on these but I'm unsure if I'd recommend this over the PS2 game to someone who is willing to play the original.

Call of Duty: Black Ops II (2012) - I liked the split campaigns, though moreso the 80s one. Probably need to play Arma 1 or Reforger to satisfy that Cold War craving now that '83 is canned.

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare Remastered (2016) - I think I got this with Infinite Warfare off of a keysite primarily to use this remaster as an excuse to replay CoD4. Still enjoyed it and really ended up liking the enhanced visuals/touch-ups in animations. 2007 is still fine to play but this was a fun detour. I want to try the Wii version at some point.

Death Stranding (2019) - A game I was way more curious about its story than I was its gameplay pre-release ended up being enjoyed the other way around. I loved Hiking Simulator 2019, cresting peaks and sliding down into cities while some Low Roar kicks in... and everything about the environments as you head west are the greatest. I'm probably gonna get the PC version of Director's Cut to play it again at some point.

Shellshock: Nam '67 (2004) - What should be a simple arcade third-person shooter ends up being frustrating because reticle bloom is way too much for some of the engagement distances. Not the worst I've ever played but I'm probably not going back to it ever.

Thunder Force AC (1990/2020 Sega AGES release) - I mean I like Thunder Force IV more but hey III's pretty good, and so is its arcade version.

Vietcong (2003) - Originally recommended to me by a friend and I kick myself for not getting to it sooner. Fun, tense campaign of having to take caution every with every move, guns felt great, and overall I had a good time. Regrettably couldn't play the online but ah well.

Postal 2: Paradise Lost (2015) - More of what I remember from playing Postal 2. It's still silly.

Touhou Youyoumu ~ Perfect Cherry Blossom (2003) - This is the one. Yeah, 6 gets the recognition because it's the reboot and has the top-tiered fan favorite characters but 7 takes the wrinkles of 6 and irons them out to a fine crispness. Good patterns, good bosses, and good music. I have no complaints. Want to play a Touhou game? This one.

Touhou Reiiden ~ The Highly Responsive to Prayers (1997) - I first played this at an anime convention in a hotel room full of Touhou cosplayers on their laptop they had hooked up to their TV, mainly wanting to show off where it all started. Touhou's kinda fun as a Breakout game, but this is more of a curiosity than anything nowadays.

Ninja Gaiden (1988) - My second favorite Castlevania game, but man FUCK Act 6.

NieR Replicant ver.1.22474487139... (2021) - I mean what else can be said that hasn't already. It's nice that Nier 1 got a revisit after Automata set the world on fire and even though this didn't do its numbers, I missed my friends :)

U.N. Squadron (1990) - Glorious. The SNES/SFC version offers a fantastic and better conversion from the arcade game allowing for choice in mission order and choice in plane selection (though the YF-23 and F200 are effectively the only way to win) to work in tandem with your pilot's unique skill. Not particularly a great adaptation from Area 88 if you're looking for its story and characters but that's not what this game is aiming for - instead, it takes the elements that would work in a shooter and only those elements. You're mercenaries so money is the key to everything, mainly your weapons loadout. There are large superweapons, some taken straight from the manga. The only downside is the grinding element to get more money for better planes in the form of a strafing run special stage that you'll have to play over and over. Highly recommend.

IKUSAAAAAAAN! (2018) - I actually can't comment too much on this one since I only played it through once but it was fun and highly energetic, and Iku is my second fave 2hu so that's a plus.

Halo: Fireteam Raven (2018) - "hey let's play this since we're all together and it's a Saturday night which means bad co-op game night but now IRL!" (moments before friend temporarily lost their wallet.) We finished the fight, but at what cost? About $20 and an hour.

F-Zero X (1997) - Everyone likes GX (and you should) but I like to describe X as the first five feet of stairs on the difficulty curve of F-Zero. You absolutely can lift yourself up those missing steps but wouldn't it be better to ease your way on up? Very fast and grippy compared to SNES F-Zero. I also like the rock/metal soundtrack as opposed to GX's industrial (which again, still good, just not as good). Dream Chaser the greatest. Also that arranged music album is killer.

Project Wingman (2020) - Did you like Ace Combat Zero? Of course you did. Here you go, have some more. It's kinda weird how even with the option to bring in multiple types of special weapons, the strongest thing you're armed with are your normal-ass machine guns.

Neo Contra (2004) - The Shock Troopers 3 we deserved. All I have to do to sell you on this is show you the opening to the one stage where Bill and Jaguar are running on top of helicopter blades.

Udongein X (2021) - There are a surprising amount of Mega Man-inspired Touhou fangames out there to the point where they can be divided into inspired by classic series and X amongst others (maybe there's a Battle Network one too?) This is the latter and since it felt most like MMX1 to me, I liked it a lot.

Dimension Tripper Neptune: TOP NEP (2022) - Welcome to the Fantasy nep Zone.

Mega Man 8 (1996) - I hate this fuckin game.

Made Man (2006) - Frustrating. I was expecting a mafia clone of Max Payne but instead it's a cover-shooter with the most mediocre gunplay and braindead AI I've seen in a while. Also the bullet time only activates once you fill the meter and upon manual-deactivation, you lose all of the remainder. Kind of a shame too because some of the setpieces are fun (one of my favorites being a gunfight in the rafters above a rock concert at Madison Square Garden) but it just sucks otherwise. The main voice actor, Rick Pasqualone, does too good of a job for this game when everyone else is phoning it in and I'm glad he got a second shot in a better game as Vito from Mafia II.

P-47 Aces (1995) - Recommended by my friend @bizarredawdler. I got my ass beat.

Carrier Air Wing (1990) - If you liked the arcade version of U.N. Squadron specifically, this is more of the same. Not as good but hey, dogfighting the space shuttle isn't something you do everyday.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Shredder's Revenge (2022) - This was fun, and probably the first beat'em up that I began to understand rather than just fumble my way through. Would like to do a co-op run with friends at some point. Played as Donatello, he seems cool.

Freedom Planet 2 (2022) - My GOTY 2022. Despite my teasing in numerous late night calls that this was one of those games where the slightest inconvenience resulted in a delay, I can honestly say my expectations were met, exceeded, and blown away. Enjoyed Freedom Planet 1 a lot back in 2015 and while originally hesitant that the artstyle change would bring a gameplay change, all of that faded away when that first demo came out. It's still just as fast and hard-hitting as the first one if not moreso. The reworks to each characters' movesets are nice. Neera is a great additional player character. God I wish someone could get these homebrew'd onto a Saturn because that's the only way this could get more perfect. My one (1) complaint is now Classic Mode being locked behind beating Story Mode once which, while I like the cutscenes and characters, makes it a little harder to recommend to people who just want the pure gameplay that you could immediately access in 1. That's the only thing I'd change.

Panzer Dragoon: Remake (2020) - It sure is Panzer Dragoon 1 but prettier, but oh boy I would not recommend it for full-price precisely because it is Panzer Dragoon 1 with all of its under-an-hour length intact. There's an achievement for playing it for 100 hours... also one for dying once. Don't have either!

Drainus (2022) - Team Ladybug caught my eye and captured my heart with Touhou Luna Nights, and ever since then I'm on board with whatever they've thrown at me. I still haven't finished Deedlit in Wonder Labyrinth but I did play this, which was a pretty fun, if not easy STG. Looks nice too!

Call of Duty: Black Ops III (2015) - God the campaign sucked except for one part (you know the one). If you get this, only get it because Zombies workshop support is still alive and well.

Halo 5: Guardians (2015) - I cannot, cannot, cannot stress enough how many times I said "Halo 4 did this better." An absolute goddamn slog of a singleplayer with a dumbass story. The teammate AI will not save you or will kill themselves trying to save you despite the game being designed around squad mechanics. Halo's never been good at boss fights, so here have the same one over and over and now there's three of him hahahaha! I hear "multiplayer is good though!" sure it might be, wouldn't know, don't really care to know.

Dolphin Blue (2003) - Neat little run and gun. Liked the 2D sprites on 3D backgrounds here, very vibrant.

Demonizer (2020) - Neat little shooter, though it does punish you harsher later on for taking hits and losing your allies. One of those if you mess up late you might as well restart.

Ace Combat: Joint Assault (2010) - I really enjoyed Skies of Deception, the other PSP Ace Combat. This one is not that, dropping the Strangereal setting for our own and going with a plot involving insurance CEOs I think. Back to linear mission structure, no choosing the order. Could not play the Joint missions in which you and friends tackle operations at the same time affecting one another which is this game's entire gimmick. I don't remember any of the original music but there are plenty of AC2/3 tracks here which are good.

Demon Front (2002) - Kinda hard run and gun, though it's something I'll have to put more time into to get the groove of it. Otherwise, neat Metal Slug-inspired game! Recommended by a friend who I'm not sure wants to be named.

Raiden II (1993) - I like Raiden. Raiden II is more of that. Simple as.

Burnout (2001) - Another one of those games where you probably played a later one and went back only to discover there's kind of an idea here but it needs to get flushed out a little bit more. I started on this one back in the day and only finally got around to finishing, this time on the Xbox version. Not a whole lot going on here apart from being a standard AA racer of the time with a crash mechanic that's more discouraged than encouraged like its later entries. That AI rubberbanding isn't nearly as bad as NFS Underground 1's but it gets pretty bad. I don't regret playing this but I don't see myself going back, especially now having started 2 which is the ideal form of early Burnout.

Final Fantasy XIV Online: A Realm Reborn (2013) - After teasing my friend @thathomestar for years about it, I finally caved. I don't know MMOs or their systems or what makes for a good one, so I won't speak to its quality. I can make my catgirl fish so hell yeah.

Quake: Dimension of the Past (2016) - Where's the ammo? My gun needs more food!

Quake: Dimension of the Machine (2021) - Gameplay-wise it's more Quake which I love but holy shit do some of these levels look good.

8-Bit Commando (2011) - I thought this would be an okay Contra clone but instead it's subpar. I do like the verticality of your path, but it does feel more linear than it should be. Difficulty is easy even on Hard Mode. There's this weird thing where it'll upload replays of your gameplay as workshop items if you let it, so turn that off as soon as possible. Otherwise, you can't buy this anymore outside of keysites. Done to get footage of the dopefish in it.

Operation C (1991) - Quick, easy, but it is Contra, and nobody does it like Contra.

Contra III: The Alien Wars (1992) - Much like Super Castlevania IV, the jump to the Super Nintendo meant that Contra was gonna get a boost in just about every aspect... and much like Castlevania, I still prefer the original NES game to its SNES sequel. That said, I do think Contra III comes out ahead of CV4 with the amount of cool moments that happen, and abilities like locking the aim direction or standing in place and rotating your angle of shooting are accounted for in the increased difficulty. Very cool title, but personally not my favorite.

The Citadel (2020) - This is a fascinating game. While riding the retro-FPS wave, it still includes mechanics from modern shooters like bullet drop, travel time, weapon condition, hunger(?), full-body awareness (even as sprites!), and so on. Levels are really monochromatic. Very bloody and loud when it gets violent, and boy howdy does it get violent. And yet, there's this certain bleak serenity during level exploration that I haven't felt in a while. Looking forward to the sequel.

Castlevania: The Adventure (1989) - You know what? "Battle of the Holy" isn't just a good song, it's good even by Castlevania standards. And that's about the only good thing I can say about this dull game. I'll have to play ReBirth at some point.

Castlevania II: Belmont's Revenge (1991) - Better, but I'd rather be playing something else.

Risk of Rain 2 (2020) - This is cheating since I've only seen credits twice or three times, and I normally don't do the roguelikes so again I won't speak too much to it, but I like this one. I've had a fun time alone but it's definitely a lot of fun with friends, and I hope we can come back to it.

Kid Dracula (1990) - What if Castlevania was Mega Man? is my clickbait attention grabber, but also a pretty apt description. It's easy apart from this one railcart section which I felt like I got through on sheer luck than anything else. Still enjoyable.

Sonic the Hedgehog 2 (1992/2021 Absolute Version) - I've never actually beaten Sonic 2 legit, half from getting pissed off by the special stages and half because I get bored by the time Oil Ocean rolls around. Now that the special stages are actually in 3D and have a draw distance, I finally was able to get through and grab all Chaos Emeralds for the first time without save states or sound test cheat codes. And I was finally able to appreciate just how good Sonic 2 is once that weight was lifted. The levels are fun and a vast improvement over Sonic 1's, and the 2-Act structure works a lot better for pacing. And during the final boss, doing it legit gave a level of pressure that a final boss should rather than turning on debug mode and spamming rings to help out. I think I can go beat this even more legit on my Genesis without the modern assists, but it is thanks to this version that I gained the confidence to do so. Just needed a little help up is all.

Sonic Triple Trouble 16-Bit (2022) - I had a big old dumb smile on my face the entire time.

Sonic After the Sequel (2013/2017 DX version) - I enjoyed this one too. A bit more lengthy due to a four-act structure per zone and the special stages are slightly more miss than hit for me, but it all worked out in the end. The true final boss had my friends and I laughing.

That's all. I'm gonna try to finish up a couple more Sonic games in the new year and also try to beat the Burnout series, with some other stuff along the way.

[toyota-supra]

for context, I did have a lot of consoles throughout my life bc as I've said video games pretty much are my life but they were:

Mega Drive 3 or whatever its called yknow one of those TecToy things that comes with games already in it - older cousin didn't want it anymore

Polystation (famiclone) - 1980's console sold in the 2000's yeah this was probably like 10 dollars. we gave it away eventually. my parents barely remember that we had this but if there's something I don't forget it's video games

PlayStation 2 Slim - cheapest version of the PS2 you could get at the time when the PS3 was already out. I think my parents divided the cost with someone else in the family. we pirated all our games.

black Nintendo DSi - my mom asked a friend of hers who was visiting the US to get it there cheaper and she'd pay it back. I was disappointed to find that every other kid on the planet had a DSi XL instead which deeply insulted me because 90% of them stopped playing with the thing as soon as it wasn't cool anymore and my hands grew to be larger than average so I kind of needed that. I pirated all my games.

normal white Nintendo Wii - I don't remember how many years after the console's release this was but it was a standard Wii. my uncle who doesn't live here happened to have bought this in fucking Syngapore and gave it to us. yes that means it used PAL games. in a region that only sold NTSC games. we pirated all our games except for the Wii Sports and Wii Play discs that came with the console and the second controller respectively

normal 8GB storage release year Wii U (as opposed to the 32GB black one that actually came with a game already) - my parents divided the cost with another family member and bought it for me on the christmas of the year that thing released because I really really really begged them so I could play Smash 4. I didn't know how to mod a Wii U, so this was my first console with original games. I had to wait a month or two after I got it to actually have something to play though, since they couldn't afford it. I don't regret wanting a Wii U, all things considered

release year Nintendo Switch with the red and blue joycons - I got this used from a colleague in late 2022 (nearly 6 years after it came out) because of how expensive this shit is. the joycons were brand new due to stick drift replacements. I got a few games since then and found out that I actually don't like this thing at all it feels so bad to play in any form possible and every game is like 300 bucks

besides that I would play stuff on old used laptops or whatever we could get emulators running on. always keep gaming and buy a ps vita for me if you can

[dragon-snoots-a-boopin]

Ranking All The Star Wars Video Games I've Played!

I am going to do a quick ranking thing here where I rank all of the Star Wars videos games that I have played. I am going to be ranking from nine to one, nine being the least liked and one being the most liked.

#9: LEGO Star Wars III: The Clone Wars. This one isn't truly bad or terrible because none of the games on this fall into that. This one is just more of a neutral thing. It does a good job retelling some of the Clone Wars show. There were some levels I didn't care for but it's really not a bad game at all.

#8: Star Wars: The Old Republic. Yes, I have spent a lot of time on this particular one and yeah, that is why it's on the low end of the list. Again, not really a bad game here. However, there's just so much you can't do without being a subscriber to the game. Plus, I find that the combat is just really, really boring. It does have a lot of good though, mostly in the way of it's really good storytelling and unique stories for each class you can play. Not bad but could be better.

#7: Star Wars: The Force Unleashed II. Force Unleashed II has a lot of good going for it. But, one major downfall is just how short the game is compared to the first one. Plus, the ending fight against Vader is really annoying. But, the rest of the game is really good and really fun in my opinion.

#6: LEGO Star Wars: The Force Awakens. The only Star Wars movie to get its own LEGO game for some reason...okay. There's a lot of good here honestly as a lot of the shooting combat was refined in this game which did get implemented into The Skywalker Saga so, there is that. However, the game overall is incredibly short, even with the extra levels and yeah. Not a bad game though.

#5: Star Wars: Battlefront II (2017). Now, look, I know that when it released there was a ton of issues and I know all the controversaries this game brought to the world of loot boxes in video games and all of that. However, I played this one far after launch and I honestly have had a good time. It's got a pretty decent single player campaign, it's got the arcade mode where you can play bot multiplayer matches and the actual multiplayer matches can be fun too if you don't get hackers in the lobby to ruin everyone's fun.

#4: Star Wars: Battlefront II (2005). Now, this is a really good game through and through. However, there's one mission in the campaign that I could never get through and I hate that. The thing for me is that it doesn't feel all that different from the first game, aside from the campaign actually telling a story this time around. Doesn't make it a bad game but it just kind of makes it more of the same to me.

#3: Star Wars: Battlefront (2004). I can't deny that this is indeed a good game. I do wish though that the so called campaign told an actual story rather than just basically being bot multiplayer matches but, I suppose it's alright. But, I honestly found a lot more fun playing this game over its sequel but that's just me.

#2: Star Wars: The Force Unleashed. Now, this one is a little bit nostalgic for me. It was the first video game that I ever pre-ordered and that was a PS2 copy of the game that also came with a four inch Clone Trooper Commander figure, which I still have and I have the Black Series Gaming Greats version of it too. The game is honestly so, so good and the story it tells is so good too. Just a really good and fun game.

#1: LEGO Star Wars: The Complete Saga. This one also has a bit of nostalgia for me. I don't the exact year but I remember it was Christmas and I opened my first ever Nintendo DS Lite and then I opened this very game. My brother got it too so we could play the game together. Of course, all these years later I own the PC version and it's still an amazing and super fun game to play. Pretty sure most people who game has played this game, it's that good.

[ccattre]

So, my favorite part about Jak X combat racing is the autosave glitch that's in the black lable copy only, and effects the ps2 slim only, and makes it so you have to take out your memory card once you start the game to disable auto save because if you don't there a chance it will corrupt your entire memory card, and it was such a big problem at the time that playstation was reaching out and offering to fix jak x corrupted memory cards isnt that so cool, that's my favorite part of Jak x combat racing.

Ajsjswbdwdn yesterday my friends and I went to keep playing Jax X, and all the save data was COMPLEYLY GONE dont even know why, ps2 told us its never seen that shit before, also for some reason our Jak 3 save data was also deleted????? I wonder if it killed any other games cause It wasn't my memory card to remember. It's so annoying we have 2 fat ps2s, but one has a broken disk reader and the other is a Japanese ps2, so screwed up Jak X gameplay it is, also while I'm yapping I'm mad there's no cool japanese cover for jak 3 and X big let down.

[noellevanious]

Have you only put up one thing so far or have things just sold that fast

Apologies, I only have one thing so far! I made the post rushing out the door (got hit by a payment i thought i already got put through), but here are some things i plan on listing after i get home from todays interviews -

Limited Edition Pink Analogue Pocket w/ MicroSD card

Blue and Black Nintendo New 2DS XL

Various fightstick peripherals (Gamerfinger/Punk Workshop/Sanwa/Seimitsu/Crown buttons, Seimitsu and Sanwa Levers)

Some games (Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 2X, Katamari Damacy for PS2, a few other I don't remember)

A rare Mario Party 4 Wario plushie

These aren't all, and depending on how bad I need support I may list more or less!

[derekscorner]

Kingdom Hearts: Recompletion Tangent

Intro

It's been a while since I had an actual KH Tangent barring my mad ravings about the cosmology. It was more about the random things I think about rather than an actual tangent.

Although both that post and this one have spun off from a literal shower thought. Anyone who has been through my tags before also knows that I've had issues with how the Nobodies were handled for a long time.

They're something that I truly consider better on paper than in execution. It may even be something that's near impossible to put into practice entirely.

They're too Human

The main reason for this is the corner it puts you in as a writer. These are supposed to be beings born lacking a heart, the core of what they were as a person. Their very emotions and connection to the world.

Back in the day the story went with this notion that the human nobodies act human based on memory. They can't feel emotion but they can remember having them.

For what reason they did so was more or less left up to your interpretation. What was made clear is that they're desperate to become "whole".

The reason for that is because they are slowly fading away. Even in the modern KH era I think that rule stands. Their black coats and crusade for Kingdom Hearts was to avoid fading back into the void.

A fate that Yen Sid brings up in KH2 when explaining the nobodies to Sora.

As far as execution goes the lesser nobodies do it perfectly. They move in otherworldly ways, come in a variety of shapes based on how strong their heart was as a person, and we see them speak yet we can't actually hear the voice. (when the dusk talks to Roxas)

Where the concept hits a hitch and finds itself in that writing corner I mentioned is with the human variants. You are stuck between portraying them as they're described which would be boring narratively due to lack of emotion.

They simply wouldn't react to anything.

So you're stuck having to make them act human which then pokes a hole in the concept. You could excuse Roxas and Namine since their "somebody" still existed. That connection was there and even before Days or DDD you see it affecting Roxas in Kh2 as well as Sora in CoM whether it's the GBA or PS2 version.

Likewise, Namine's face, powers and desire to belong in someone's heart is her connection to both Sora and Kairi at play.

"How is that a problem????"

Quite frankly my reader it's not. At least it wasn't back then. As I type this I may have to reconsider my initial stance and say that Nobodies as a concept work well when used once because it's the expansion that's the issue.

I say this specifically in regards to KH DDD, KH3, and beyond. We not only get the Organization back either in human form or nobody but how they act is all over the place.

Ienzo, Dilan, and Aeleus come back both human and supposedly remorseful. We don't see much of it since Dilan and Aeleus don't talk while Ienzo is far more sociable than he is feeling guilt.

Even is revealed to have became a nobody again yet the guilt he felt upon awakening human and chose to be a double agent of sorts.

This raises a lot of issues to me personally.

Firstly, they can just go between nobody and human. I'm not saying it's an easy process but it is exploitable. Not only did the memories carry over as if the nobody was just revived with a Phoenix Down but apparently emotion was too.

Secondly, it highlights how pointless having nobodies return was because they're acting the same as they were prior in KH2 but also the same as they would if human. There is no distinction between the human and the nobody.

Barring have-to examples like Xemnas or Ansem there is no reason to do what they did. Worse, someone like Xigbar not only can exploit this mechanic but he does.

Being the current host of Luxu means that Xigbar can not only reclaim his long lost keyblade (Xehanort's No Name) but still freely use the powers you gain as a nobody.

Luxu now has his heart, his weapon, a potential legion of nobodies, and other dark powers to more freely as he wises with dark corridors and his manipulation of space. (his own unique nobody power)

This also makes the whole weight of nobodies being able to develop a heart of their own feel cheap to me.

Them gaining a heart of their own makes the whole nobody concept cheap for me to be fair but it is a KH stable that anything can have a heart so I'll begrudgingly accept it.

But to just jump between man and monster without seemingly losing anything as it's portrayed in KH3 just irks me. It makes the decision to become a nobody again feel without risk.

Given the nature of Luxu you could ignore it once but for Even to just carry over everything when becoming Vexen 2.0 is a step too far.

I also ponder why nobodies would even obey the revived Organization because while emotionless the lesser nobodies are not mindless.

Seeing this makes me question why they weren't questioning their superiors. They can think, plan, and surely more than a few can spot bullsh*t when they see it.

My Point

By now you likely wonder what my point with all of this is. If you've read this blog before you likely expect me to offer a solution or rewrite.

That's the maddening thing my patient reader, I don't have to offer such a thing because my friend @blackosprey did years ago.

And it ties back into the other new mechanic introduced after KH2, recompletion.

See, when a heartless is destroyed in the right way the heart will be freed. The two ways we know of so far are using a keyblade or the light of Kingdom Hearts.

Once that heart is freed it'll find it's vanished body and if that body has become a nobody it'll wait until the nobody meets it's end.

In that moment the original person is revived. On the surface that can make the nobody concept feel cheaper because it's essentially a "get out of jail card" for dying.

A mechanic that Luxu is fully capable of abusing in the current narrative btw.

But here's the crazy thing. Osprey just occam razored the whole issue and I have never forgotten it.

Her idea? Just make that nobodies death permanent in some way.

For example, lets say that you recomplete Marluxia. In this amazing idea you'd still get Lauriam back but the ego that was "Marluxia" is gone.

Lauriam would revive without his memories of Marluxia.

It's the most perfect solution to every gripe I have about nobodies ever told to me. It almost angers me that this isn't a thing!

Yes, that's right, you're not reading me tear down Kingdom Hearts to vent or talk about how bad it is. I'm not going to claim I can do this better than Nomura.

No no. What you're reading is me losing my sh*t because I think about this often. Just imagine how much that adds to the story, this idea of Osprey's.

The Potential was There

Not only do you keep all the stuff added to nobodies after KH2 but you keep the weight of their ephemeral existence.

Hell, it makes their existences more tragic because they'd eventually gain hearts to feel the dread of such a death. Knowing full well they "as themselves" would vanish for the original to return.

Those outbursts of emotion in defeat, the desperation to claim Kingdom Hearts, it all just flows so much better.

Sure, you still have Luxu abusing this human to nobody system but that'd just be one person out of 13. (no I didn't count Xion since she's a replica)

Sure, Vexen's role in KH3 would need a tweak or two but that's easy to do. You could even add that to his motives because he not only "ceased to exist" but comes back to see what he couldn't finish in his research.

Or you can spin it so that Even actually is remorseful upon seeing Vexen's research.

The potential there is endless and I can't help but think about it often. I'm going to go scream about it into the void now.

GAHHHh (bye~)

[suzuran777]

Review: Angel's Feather (Blue Impact)

Years after watching the Angel's Feather OVAs I finally decided to try the visual novel, and it's... pretty good, I wonder why I never tried playing it before? Angel's Feather was released in 2003 by Blue Impact, the BL branch of Studio e.go. There's also PS2 port, but this review is about the PC version only!

Synopsis

A clan of people with white wings lived in a land far away from the human world. Peaceful times suddenly came to an end when a mutation caused individuals with black wings to be born. Those with black wings were also able to use magic, which was eventually used to take over the kingdom of the white-winged clan, who didn't have the ability to use magic.

Meanwhile in the human world, Shou Hamura, the winner of the national kendo championship, is transferred to an all-boys private school. He soon realizes his younger twin brother Kai also studies there, though he doesn't seem to remember him. Soon after his enrollment, a series of strange events take place within the school, and black-winged individuals start attacking Shou and his friends.

Visual novel elements What is pretty unique about this game is that the visual novel parts of the game often let you pick which character you want to play as. At first you can only play as the protagonist Shou, but after that you can also pick Anri, Kurisu (…should I just call him Chris?) and eventually Kai. Because of this, it's also possible to pair up almost every character with whoever you want. Later two other characters, Shion and Sena also join the team.

Even though there are a lot of romance options, the game is very story-heavy and pretty much all romance is optional. I do think it's impossible to unlock all romance scenes in a single playthrough because even if you re-load your saves, some scenes later in the game won't unlock if your character hasn't previously interacted with them. To unlock all CGs, you probably need to re-play the game many times which might get a bit… tedious, so I recommend just picking a pairing you like in advance.

I do personally think it's not necessary to unlock all these scenes because most of them are short and the r18 scenes also aren't voiced. I'm not sure if that's always the case, but I applied the 18+ patch and those were the only scenes that weren't voiced (the game's all ages, but they did release an official patch which adds NSFW scenes).

Which reminds me... because the system is rather old, there really aren't a lot of save slots either. When you load your saves, they often make you replay the entire scene rather than the exact location you saved at. It wasn't a big problem, but it just surprised me a little bit.

RPG-like elements Like other older BL visual novels such as Ouji-sama Lv1 and Teikoku Sensenki, this game combines the usual visual novel gameplay with RPG elements. Occasionally you'll be able to walk around the school, but it's only limited to a few specific areas. Almost all enemies in the game are random encounters, making it impossible to avoid them unless you run away. I do recommend fighting them because they drop useful items and it's also easy to level up. Especially during the second part of the game, you'll spend a lot more time walking around and fighting enemies, so these items and experience points will be useful later.

The game doesn't really explain how the gems, elements, or even items work, but to be honest the gameplay was not super difficult so I didn't have much trouble finishing the game, even if I admittedly had no idea what I was doing sometimes. Also, most boss battles aren't ridiculously hard and they usually only know a few different attacks.

Plot and overall impression The game mostly focuses on battling the black winged characters and discovering why there's a conflict between the white winged clan and the black winged clan. There are not that many big plot twists, but it's a pretty fun fantasy story and I enjoyed playing it! Sometimes I was a bit confused if the main characters even knew they were part of the white winged clan, because they suddenly grew wings but didn't always… seem surprised by it?

There are several side characters in this game who have pretty well-developed personalities too, so I had fun trying all kinds of choices and talking to different characters. I'm also a big fan of older BL game artstyles, which is another reason why I wanted to try playing this game. When I looked at the artbook and some of the extra content the company released, I learned that all the art was originally hand-drawn and later scanned to turn them into the game CGs, which I thought was really cool.

I also had a bit of trouble with the in-game music because the noDVD patch somehow removed all of the background music. So if you can, I recommend not using this patch (you can either insert the DVD disc or use a tool like Daemon Tools to mount the ISO file before you play), because the soundtrack is also pretty good!

Kohaku no Hitomi The game also has a shorter sequel game, which takes place after the events of the main game. It's split into two different chapters, with the first one focusing on a new character called Kaoru, who's the child of the family that used to live next to Shou's family.

Chapter 1: This part mostly consists of the RPG-like gameplay style, until you beat the final boss. The battle system is mostly the same, but it does look a bit different this time. Instead of the pixel art they used in the first game, this time they used sprites for the main characters and the enemies. You can also only use 3 characters at the time, but you can switch them out anytime. All characters still gain experience points even if they're not in the team you're using. I must admit, the first part of this game is a bit... grindy, you have to visit 6 different areas and the level of the enemies increases quite drastically sometimes.

Chapter 2: After fighting the final boss of the story, the characters all return to their school. This part of the game is just normal visual novel gameplay and you can choose which characters you want to hang out with during the school festival. The plot isn't super serious, but I thought it was pretty fun! This time it's pretty easy to unlock all kinds of different scenes with all the characters, so it's easier to check out different pairings. There's some pretty funny scenes, for example the characters reenacting Romeo and Juliet, or a scene in which you can pick which character crossdresses.

In my opinion playing the second game is completely optional, the new character did have a lot of backstory but it's also nothing too different than what the characters in the first game experienced. The second part of the game was my favorite because there's a lot of funny scenes I enjoyed. There was actually also supposed to be a third Angel's Feather game, but unfortunately the staff left the company and no information about it was ever posted again.

Overall, I had lot of fun playing both games! I watched the OVAs a long time ago and had no idea what was going on, so it was really interesting to finally play the games 10 years later. The OVA added characters that aren't in the original game and also suddenly ends after only a few episodes, so I'm not surprised it made absolutely no sense to me back then. The games are unfortunately only available in Japanese, but you can use machine translation tools like Textractor if you really want to play!

[sevrai]

Armored Core

I went on a journey this year. Or maybe I should say I continued an old journey.

On July 10th, 26 years ago, the first Armored Core released in Japan. On an unknown day about 20-ish years ago a young me stumbled upon a copy of Armored Core 3 for the PS2 in a used game store.

It's been some time since I decided to indulge in a lengthy, meandering post about my loves and hobbies outside of awkward Twitter threads, so I wanna air my thoughts on the Armored Core series! (This is gonna be a long post, primarily for my own enjoyment. You have been warned.)

Most who know me online or read my comics will know of my penchant for fantasy, but not all may know of my love for the "Real Robot" subgenre of mecha. As someone obsessed with DBZ and magic, you'd think I'd fall more into the epic "Super Robot" camp of mecha anime, but growing up I felt captivated with Gundam Wing and the Universal Century OVAs that aired on Toonami and Adult Swim. They hard-wired my DNA early on. (With the Escaflowne film later impacting me so hard with it's grounded mecha and magical fantasy setting that it played a huge role in inspiring WOE, though my comic is noticeably lacking in Guymelefs.)

Naturally that awe and love for such works made me feel incredibly drawn to Armored Core 3 when I first saw it. It was my introduction to a series that I wouldn't comprehend the true breadth of for well over a decade.

I was terrible at it, both due to my lack of experience with TPS games and the oldschool control scheme, but the customization, detail, and overall atmosphere of the game were incredible to experience all the same.

It wasn't until the holiday season of 2008 that I was finally able to fight through an AC campaign, when I was gifted a PS3 and several games, among which was Armored Core: For Answer. It blew me away. I already had fond memories of bumbling around AC3, but For Answer's over-the-top presentation, haunting soundtrack, challenging gameplay, and dystopic atmosphere really sucked me in.

Along with Demon's Souls it kick-started a general admiration of FromSoftware and the distinct games they developed. After getting swept up in the excitement of Dark Souls, me and a friend dabbled in Armored Core V and Verdict Day, even playing a decent amount of the territorial multiplayer, but it never drew me in like AC3 and AC4A did.

The years went on and although I always adored Armored Core, I took my sweet time getting around to going backwards in the series. I've always been a fan of emulation and rarely used to feel a particular drive to collect physical games, (can't say the same for myself nowadays. Sorry, wallet!) but I always remembered how much AC resonated with me, and when walking around used game stores I would muse to my friends that I wanted to someday collect all of the Armored Core games in physical form.

I made relaxed progress grabbing the games when I saw them over the years, but at the end of 2022, the Game Awards hit everyone with a bombshell reveal. The show faded to black, the screen eventually being lit by the Bandai Namco logo, followed by a little red light. Something in my soul knew what was coming as soon as I saw that simple red light start to glow, I jumped out of my seat and exclaimed out loud "Armored Core!?"

It was a trailer for Armored Core VI: Fires of Rubicon, the first new AC game in ten years. It was a surreal moment that still makes me smile now.

The series was always niche, but since it went dormant From has achieved superstar status as a developer thanks to the Souls series and Elden Ring. There's now more attention and interest in Armored Core than it has ever gotten in the past. It didn't dawn on me until a buddy messaged me shortly after the reveal that the prices of the old games were gonna go crazy from the huge amount of people who were From fans but had never heard of AC, and were now interested in trying the old games.

Some were content to wait patiently to see if the market and prices would calm down, but I took a gamble and started shoring up my collection ASAP. Sure it felt embarrassing paying so much more for several of them than they were going for a mere few weeks earlier, but I supplemented my hunt by selling a few rare old SHF and Figmas.

After a few tense months of scanning listings for good prices with some very focused personal criteria, the result was expensive but satisfying;

On top of this investment I even went all-in on the Premium Edition of ACVI. Perhaps people should rightfully poke fun at me for throwing so much money around for video games about giant robots, but it's not often I can say I accomplished a goal of this caliber in my life.

Now with all the games in hand a new journey had begun; from collecting to playing. I've played Armored Core games off and on since the early 2000's, but I was only just now finally making the pilgrimage through the series proper from the very first release, alongside the huge wave of newcomers dipping their toes into the old games before the new one comes out. Like an Armored Core version of Billy Madison.

I started playing the PSOne Classics release of AC1 on my PS3, before transitioning to my PS2 Slim once all of the PSX games were in my hands. Learning that both systems used funky software emulation for PSX games I went on a subquest of ordering and cleaning up a SCPH-39001 model PS2, (which was super nostalgic in it's own right since I started with a fat PS2 in 2003,) hooked up to a massive KV-36FV310 via component cables. I even went down a DualShock 2 model rabbit hole. Every game now looks and runs like a dream on this hedonistic setup.

As of the day I'm posting this silly blog post, I am seven games deep. I have 100%'d, (all parts unlocked, all missions complete, all enemy AC beaten both optional fights in missions and in the Arena,) without any Human PLUS enhancements or OP-INTENSIFY used, and even sticking with the default control scheme:

Armored Core

AC: Project Phantasma

AC: Master of Arena

Armored Core 2

AC2: Another Age

Armored Core 3

… And right now I'm just a few percent shy of 100%ing AC3: Silent Line. Sorry if this sounds like juvenile bragging, but it's always been hard for me to focus on and finish games. My ADHD has me jumping from game to game for years on end, never seeing many of them through to the end, so I want to indulge in a bit of pride being able to spend several months blasting through these games without slowing down, and without taking any shortcuts.

Admittedly I haven't played on Hard Mode in any of the games that have offered it, and Silent Line is really pushing me to my limit demanding S Ranks on every mission, but I'm still enjoying it and hoping to finish it up in time to sample a bit more of the games I missed out on, as well as make a nostalgic return to For Answer, by the time ACVI comes out.

Returning to Armored Core 3 felt especially sentimental. Like a return home. I'm sure many people can relate to the feeling of returning to a childhood game with newfound abilities and knowledge, finally able to do what your younger self could not. Having beaten the game that started this whole obsession for me about two decades ago is a really great feeling.

I adore these games. I always loved the few I did play as a youngster, and knew that From was a consistent enough developer that I would enjoy the rest as well, but not to the extent I truly have. Despite the time and money spent collecting them, I still underestimated just how much I'd fall in love with each and every one. Even the aspects others struggle to return to. I love the FCS quirks, the turn speed, the bunny hopping, the heat and energy management, the opponents riddled with cybernetic enhancements pushing you to your limits, I even love the old controls of using L2/R2 for vertical camera movement. For all it's quirks and older design philosophies it's such an engrossing and immersive series.

ACVI will be a very different, (and streamlined,) beast. I'm okay with this. My adoration for old Armored Core will only make it easier to return to and appreciate this storied series I've gone to such lengths to collect, even after the new one releases. I trust From to do the series justice, no matter how easy it is for newcomers to jump in.

I love Armored Core, I love this genre of mecha, and I hope lots of people will learn to love it as well. I want the new game to do well so we can see more in the future. I sincerely doubt anyone will actually have read all of this, but if you did, thanks for your time. I know my rambling can be unfocused and pretentious. I don't need to put this much effort into waxing nostalgic about video games, but I miss the part of me that used to do this on a regular basis.

(I also apologize for how much my comic updating will probably slow down when ACVI drops, regardless of what momentum I can build through July and August.)

[bbnitez]

YOUR STEREOTYPICAL MASCULINE SIDE

you love hoodies.  you love shorts.   dogs are better than cats.  it’s hilarious when people get hurt.   shopping is torture.   sad movies suck.   you own a car racing game.   you played with hot wheels cars as a kid.   at some point in time you wanted to be a fire fighter.   you owned a ds, ps2, n64, or sega.  you used to be obsessed with power rangers.   you have watched sports on tv.   gory movies are cool.   you go to your dad for advice.   you own like a trillion baseball caps.   you used to collect hockey or baseball cards.   baggy sweats are cool to wear.   it’s kinda weird to have sleepovers with a bunch of people.   green, black, red, blue, or silver are one of your favourite colours.   you love to go crazy and not care what people think.   sports are fun.   you talk with food in your mouth.   you sleep with your socks on at night.   you have fished at least once.

YOUR STEREOTYPICAL FEMININE SIDE

you love to shop.   you wear eyeliner.   you wear the color pink.   you go to your mom to talk.   you consider cheerleading a sport.   you hate wearing the color black.   you like going to the mall.   you like getting manicures and/or pedicures.   you like wearing jewelry.   you cried watching the notebook.   dresses are a big part of your wardrobe.   shopping is one of your favorite hobbies.  you don’t like the movie star wars.   you are/were in gymnastics.   it takes you around one hour to shower, get dressed, and make-up.   you smile a lot more than you should.   you have more than 10 pairs of shoes.   you care about what you look like.  you like wearing dresses when you can. you like wearing high heel shoes.  you used to play with dolls as little kid.   you like putting make-up on others.   you like being the star of everything.

APPEARANCE

i am shorter than 5’5”. i have scars. i tan easily. i wish my hair was a different color.   i have friends who have never seen my natural hair color.  i have a tattoo. i am self-conscious about my appearance. i’ve had/have braces. i’ve been told i’m attractive by a complete stranger. i have more than two piercings. i have/had piercings in places besides my ears.

EXPERIENCES

i’ve gotten lost in my city. i’ve seen a shooting star. i’ve wished on a shooting star.  i’ve seen a meteor shower. i’ve gone out in public in my pajamas. i’ve pushed all the buttons on an elevator.  i’ve kicked a guy where it hurts. i’ve been to a casino. i’ve been skydiving. i’ve gone skinny-dipping. i’ve drank a whole gallon of milk in one hour. i’ve crashed a car. i’ve been skiing. i’ve been in a musical. i’ve caught a snowflake or snow on my tongue. i’ve seen the northern lights. i’ve sat on a rooftop at night.  i’ve played a prank on someone.  i’ve ridden in a taxi. i’ve seen the rocky horror picture show. i’ve eaten sushi. i’ve been snowboarding.

HONESTY/CRIME

i’ve done something i promised someone else i wouldn’t. i’ve done something i promised myself i wouldn’t. i’ve snuck out. i’ve lied to my parents about where i am.  i’ve cheated while playing a game. i’ve ran a red light. i’ve witnessed a crime. i’ve been in a fist fight. i’ve been arrested.

RANDOM

i can sing well. stolen a tray from a fast food restaurant. i open up to others easily. i watch the news. i don’t kill bugs. i sing in the shower. i am a morning person. i paid for a cell phone ring tone. i am a sports fanatic. i twirl my hair. i care about grammar. i have “?”’s in my screen name. i’ve copied more than 30 cds in a day. i bake well. my favorite color is either white, yellow, pink, red, blue, black, purple, or orange. i would wear pajamas to school. i like martha stewart. i know how to shoot a gun. i laugh at my own jokes. i eat fast food weekly. i’ve not turned anything in and still got an a in a certain class. i can’t sleep if there is a spider/cockroach in the room. i am ticklish. i love white chocolate. i bite my nails. i’m good at remembering faces. i’m good at remembering names. i’m good at remembering dates. i honestly have no idea what i want to do for the rest of my life.

vi aqui no museinspo !

[m0e-ru]

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P4G 3/20 attendant confrontation jp dub YAYYY. A compilation of isolated Japanese voice lines of the MOEL Gas Station Attendant during the confrontation on 03/20. This is the Golden version specifically because the some lines were retaken to be a bit more consistent with the newly recorded ones i think lol.

Here’s the original PS2 version, and a comparison of the voice lines being played back to back.

translation notes & script sorry for all the footnotes in the video lol ↴

English Transcript

My, aren't you troublesome. You defeated the Sagiri I hid within Adachi and Namatame, as well as having saved that diminutive dwarf of a life.

“Are you talking about Marie?” “So you're the one behind everything.¹” “I heard about you.”

Fufu... it's such a ridiculous thing. What would you even get with saving a life like that? Getting rid of that needless fog was the only thing such rubbish could do.

...Hm? Ahahaha! Don't tell me... She was still carrying that thing around!

Aha, excuse me... It's what you have, that old bamboo comb of yours.

“I got it from Marie.”

Yes... I know. After all, that gift² I gave her, a “comb of separation,” you see.

“What about it?”

Fufu... with that look on your face, you don't know who gave her that comb either. That comb right there... is simply a gift² I gave her. A “comb of separation,” you see.

“Why do you laugh?”

Fufu... My apologies, this whole thing is just so amusing. That comb right there... is simply a gift² I gave her. A “comb of separation,” you see.

It's such a foolish thing... That comb I placed a curse on³—to think she cherished⁴ it all this time. How much she wanted to cling onto anything so gravely... Even being so tenacious⁵ has its limits!

“I will not forgive you.” “Don't you look down on Marie.” “You've messed with me as well.”

Hmph, and what are you going to do about it?

Had the last time we fought not satisfy you? As I've expected of one who posseses such power.

“What do you mean?”

I've seen it in you, the potential⁶ you posses.

“Why did you choose me?”

Of course, it's the extraordinary potential⁶ you hold.

“Who are you?⁷”

You must know by now... Is that not why you came?

Your friends were guided by the “spark” I gave you, thus, they awakened to their own powers, and how they found themselves where they are. But, to think you would arrive here to me... Truly, I never expected this at all. You certainly are interesting.

That “spark” I gave you... do you not remember? The day you first arrived here, I gave your power a little push. Just like... this.

You're not the only one here I've greeted with a “welcome handshake.” Just like you, I granted it to others from the outside. And just these individuals that come from the outside were already enough to stimulate this small world.

However... It appears that the stimulus was greater than expected. The fog enveloped this place, and soon, cleared. And above all this, you're unsatisfied with the role you played, thus you stand here before me... All of this... and for what reason?

“To end everything.”

Fuun, the fog has already cleared in your world, and you're still not content? Fools, always so full of deep desire by nature, are they not?

“To learn the truth.”

This pursuit of the truth... what would any of it attain? Fools, always so full of deep desire by nature, are they not?

“I don't really know.”

Ahaha... You truly are interesting.

  Translation Notes

00:19 : 1 黒幕 literally means "black curtain," but also "wirepuller; mastermind; backroom manipulator; éminence grise; power broker"

01:05 : 2 The original word was "手向け" which means "offering to a deity or someone's spirit" or "tribute to a person who is about to depart." I don't know how to make it sound natural in English, so I used "gift" for further connotations.

01:49 : 3 The original was "私が呪いの言葉を込めた櫛を" and I wasn't too sure how the action was being used. Not sure if it was "giving the comb with a curse on it" or "putting a curse on the comb" if you have any insight on how particles are supposed to work like this I'd really appreciate it. It's like learning a bunch of math formulas individually and tests have you use 7 of them in the same problem. 4 It used 後生大事 which means "with religious zeal; with utmost devotion; take great care of" exaggerating how absurd Marie thought of the comb

02:07 : 5 未練 "reluctance to abandon or depart from something." Using "clingy" didn't feel right but "tenacious" felt too rough but I couldn't find anything I wanted in the same formal tone oh whatever I think it's enough

02:30 : 6 The kanji is 適性 and dictionaries give me 適性: "aptitude; aptness; suitability." I was digging around and found that it "is related to someone's learning speed or future potential rather than their current ability," so I stuck with "potential" anyway. https://japanese.stackexchange.com/questions/91567/whats-the-difference-between-%E9%81%A9%E6%80%A7-and-%E8%83%BD%E5%8A%9B-or-%E6%89%8D%E8%83%BD

02:42 : 7 The question is "��者だ?" which is "who; what kind of person" I think it's cool.

"Spark (きっかけ)" is emphasized that way because it's different from "power (力)." Izanami means she only assisted awaken the "power" of Persona, the "spark" being the access to enter the TV. If the protagonist couldn't enter the TV World, then he would never have awakened to Izanagi or got Yosuke or Chie inside the TV World either.

[7grandmel]

Todays rip: 26/12/2023

Castelia City's Gaia Temple

Season 6 Featured on: SiIvaGunner's Highest Quality Rips: Volume FF

Ripped by SonicHeroesFan1

SonicHeroesFan1 was one of the earliest rippers to ever be featured on the blog, with Fighting for the Dreams ~ Space Port Collab being the second-ever rip I wrote about here. So in that sense, you could say that the guy's been an inspiration to me in a lot of ways - his rips, sure, but more specifically, its his evident passion as a fellow Sonic fan and rip enthusiast that's really struck a chord with me. Because really, you do not get a rip like Castlelia City's Gaia Temple out of just any run-of-the-mill Sonic fan.

Sonic Unleashed is a game that's so big, its legacy involves two wholly seperate games under the same name. Discussion on the game is rampant in the community, with diehard fans and avid detractors on every side, yet all sides still make very clear distinctions and separations for *which* Sonic Unleashed they're talking about. And while there's a lot of difference between Unleashed on the PS3/360 versus the game on PS2/Wii, one area where you wouldn't think there'd be much difference is music. Indeed, for most of their runtimes the two games share the same excellent soundtrack, with a few extra tracks only featured on the high-def version - yet, the less popular, less discussed, and in general less-fondly-remembered Wii/PS2 version eeked out a single win, with the Gaia Temple theme. A piece of music that's forever part of Sonic Unleashed's legacy, despite being inaccessible within the game that's most defined it.

And really, it's just that simple acknowledgement of the Gaia Temple theme that draws me to liking Castelia City's Gaia Temple so much. It's a fusion of so many things I already like: Pokemon Black and White music (SonicHeroesFan1 also did Neo Castelia, fun fact!), the Gate themes from the two Pokémon games to have them (remember Gate Happy?), Sonic music, and SonicHeroesFan1. But most of all, it's just a damn good arrangement of a tune that I really do feel doesn't get enough acknowledgement and attention!

And really, it's that part that really makes me love SiIva, like I've gone on and on about several times already. Its people like SonicHeroesFan1, who always just know what they like and go to such great length to remind all of us viewers how much the ripping team cares about their individual interests, that really end up meaning something to me. Because I can almost always feel that passion - it just so happened that this time, it was passion for a franchise that I also love.