#all of these are things I did in gameplay

[remxedmoon]

UPDATE TIME BABY

so!! i’ve been making a lot of edits over the past few days after i noticed a few Issues so!!! i think it’d be a good idea to list them here? consider this an update to this weird little pseudo-mod i’ve accidentally created. plus there’s some extra art here (if you, uh, couldn’t guess from the sprite directly above me :3)

okay!! big news first!! thanks to @horatiocomehome, i finally have access to the actual game files! kinda. at least enough access to actually know what the files are named. so, i’ve renamed all of redraw files to be compatible with the game! this should make it way easier to mod them into the game. yipee! so sorry these weren’t correctly named before auauua

i finally made “official” spritesheets for my battle portrait redraws!! ttthese are not intended to replace @/thea2l112’s mod or anything, i just wanted to make ones that included my custom sprites! because i’m very proud of them. i don’t think the custom sprites should cause any issues, but just in case, i also included versions that exclude them! the only differences you’d actually see in normal gameplay are act5 siffrin’s buff sprite and act6 siffrin’s ko sprite (or lack thereof). you can find them in the portrait redraws folder, but i’ll also include them at the end of this post for ease of access 👍 also the fourth spritesheet doesn’t actually do anything in normal gameplay it’s just there so my custom bonnie and loop sprites have a place to go.

okay the changes here are a little less important so they’re going down here. anyways

added the afterimages(?) for the special attacks! i genuinely didn’t realize these were a thing until one of my partners actually put my cgs in the game. so those exist now!! yipee!!

predictably, isa and mira’s jackpot cgs having different aspect ratios did in fact cause issues. i put in a bandaid fix, but i still can’t actually test it out (and i don’t want to pester pastell about it) so, uh, maybe let me know if you encounter any problems with their placement??

so you might’ve noticed that there’s two copies of each of siffrin’s cgs during the final attack scene? that’s just how it is in the game files. i don’t know why. they’re identical in every way, just there to make sure things work properly 👍

made an alt version of the mal du pays death animation! nothing drastic, just cut out a hole to match the original. probably safer to use the one with the Hole for modding, i don’t know what the layering for the cg is in that scene. alas. sspeaking of death animations though!

so!!! there’s two new sprites for this little update thing!! i forgot to do siffrin’s unused battle portrait during my first batch of redraws, so i went ahead and made it! as you can see above! nothing too difficult, i just reused the lineart from my bigfrin sprite (since they use the same lineart ingame)

second of all!! act6 siffrin death animation :3. or well, i guess it could work in other contexts, but i intended it to be for the twohats fight. idk! thought it’d be fun! use it for whatever you desire

aaaand i think that’s it! again, sorry there were so many issues with this batch! i might’ve drawn these for use in mods and fangames or whatnot, but i really did not expect all the interest and support i’ve received??? at all?? it really means a lot!!! so i want to make this thing as Polished and Complete as i can!

aaaa. enough rambling. if you’ve read this far, thank you!!! i hope the redraws are a little easier to work with now!! here’s the spritesheets as promised, please enjoy :3

spritesheets without custom sprites here v

so all you need to do right now is disappear.

HHHHAPPY ISATVERSARY EVERYONE. here’s redraws for every single battle cg in the game. 36 drawings this time around, with 11 of those being custom (though admittedly a good portion of those are edits). combined with the portrait redraws i made back in september, i’ve made 114 redraws for this project! jesus christ! just like those redraws, these are completely free to use!! as long as i’m credited and it’s not for commercial purposes, go wild!! do whatever you want!!!

no i didn’t make these for isat’s 1 year anniversary this is just wildly good timing.

i genuinely can’t fit all of these cgs in one post even with the 30 image limit on browser, but i’ll still try to fit Most of them below the cut (without making this post horrifically long), along with some notes that might be important 👍

okay! once again, i labeled all of the custom art as such in the drive(UPDATE. NNOT TRUE ANYMORE. reformatted file names to be easier to mod in auau. apologies!), but if you want a full list, the customs are hatless siffrin jackpot, bonnie jackpot, bonnie special attack, bigfrin attack, and a bunch of alts which are definitely not related to any projects i’ve been thinking about don’t worry about it. and out of those customs, only like. 3 of them are actually completely from scratch.

while i did my absolute best to keep the aspect ratios completely the same as the originals, there’s 3 exceptions that i just couldn’t get to work.

isabeau’s hair in his special attack cg wouldn’t fit in frame if i kept things completely accurate to the og, so i moved his cg down a bit. it shouldn’t cause any issues with modding or anything, it’ll just appear slightly lower than it does in game. alas…

isabeau’s sleeve and mirabelle’s hair made their jackpot sprites a little larger than the originals? i’m hoping this doesn’t have too much of an effect (since the jackpot sprites have inconsistent sizes) but i can’t test this myself unfortunately. aaa feel free to let me know on discord if any problems arise!!

i managed to fix these, so they aren’t going to cause problems now, but my original drawings for mirabelle and siffrin in the final attack scene were a pain in the ass to fix. mirabelle’s sprite was slightly too talk to fit in frame and siffrin’s hat whacked bonnie in the face while i was editing everyone together. i’m only mentioning this because it took like an hour and a half to fix them and finish the scene.

all that aside, these were a fucking BLAST to work on. apparently this ended up taking 57 hours over exactly 10 days. which is a little worrying if you do the math on that but somehow i have not burnt myself out. i will be doing enemies at some point!!! but probably not for a little bit. i think my friends will actually kill me if i don’t take a break.

once again, happy birthday isat. you’ve ruined my life and i wouldn’t have it any other way (silly).

also, on an actual serious note, this little timeloop game has genuinely changed my life for the better? you guys are probably sick of hearing it at this point (or maybe not, i don’t talk about myself That Much. i hope), but i was practically a ghost for about 2 years before joining this fandom. it’s a little surreal to suddenly have friends (plural!!!) and people who Care about me, or even know i exist, honestly. it’s weird!! in a good way!!!

i don’t think i would’ve ever come back to social media if this community wasn’t so welcoming. i’ve met a lot of really great people through this game!!! so, uh, thank you isat, i guess. here’s to another year.

[madonnamadeofasphalt]

EA & Bioware honestly did an incredible job at killing any enthusiasm I had for a new Dragon Age. Fucking hell, man, I've played the first two games so much I could probably go through them with closed eyes and still pick all the right dialogue options to get My Exact Personally Canonized Plot. And the only reason I didn't do the same thing with DA:I is because it was made after EA completely gave up on optimizing their shit so the fucking thing takes up like a billion terabytes of disc space and takes 10 hours to download and install. I honestly think it's the best-written cRPG franchise to ever have a budget that doesn't involve a list of Kickstarter backers or getting an eccentric Estonian billionaire fixated on the project. And the gameplay is also there, I don't really care about that part.

Then they proceeded to fire all the talent that made me love those first three games, and scratch and restart the production twice, and be suspiciously cagey with any details or gameplay footage for a fucking decade, so my hype consistently went down and down. And yet I still managed to hold out some hope that somehow, by some miracle, it wouldn't fucking suck.

I kept that hope until the trailer dropped. You know the one. The one where we see a bearded Varric. This, I think, was the exact moment when I lost any desire to play fucking Veilguard.

Like, first of all, Varric being there at all is already an issue. Leave the man alone. His presence was already kinda forced in DA:I. And after DA:I and Tresspasser, his story couldn't be more finished if he got killed, eaten, shitted out, condemned to hell, redeemed by divine sacrifice, bathed for eternity in the everlasting light. There is no point to Varric anymore. Whatever arc they've given him in Veilguard, and I don't even give a shit enough to read the spoilers before writing this post, it has no business existing. Fuck you. The only reason he's there is because he's a recognizable IP, and when you're a certain kind of soulless corporate moron, you think there's nothing more important than putting a recognizable IP in whatever new bullshit you're trying to peddle. Maybe if you didn't fire every decent writer in your trash fucking company, you'd have someone to tell you about the importance of Ending The Fucking Story When The Story Fucking Ends.

But that's not even the core of the problem. Beard? they gave Varric a Beard? Varric I fucking hate everything that's even tangentially connected to dwarven culture with a passion which is why I've made a point to shave my beard all my life to spite anyone who gives a fuck about it Tethras? beard? you gave him a beard? He changed so much offscreen in the goddamn timeskip between these two games that he got a motherfucking berd? fucshhfdbeard? feadsgfsvarricafgfdh BEARD? yyousftoiuslyhhabevarricasgsfucningbeardandthivkimgosabedineditit?beard????

PS. (edit after finding out spoilers) I've gone to TV Tropes to read up on Varric's role in DATV after writing this (just in case I'm wrong and dumb, and there's actually a deeply compelling narrative reason for his presence), and, well, this shit is cheaper than I thought. And more importantly, just as I thought, there appears to be no justification for the beard beyond "adding a beard is a cliche way to show that a bunch of time has passed, and we didn't care enough to think this shit through". I'm fucking tired, man.

PPS. (edit after reading the rest of big spoilers) This is so much worse than I could even begin to suspect. This is worse than the final season of Game of Thrones. This is the final season of Game of Thrones if they straight-up fired GRRM, burned his notes and hired a showrunner who's only read a one-page summary of the first six seasons. This is fucking depressing, man. I'm genuinely fucking sad. So many subplots that were started over the course of these three games, that were clearly going somewhere, scrapped in favour of a simplistic good vs. evil story that would get rejected by fucking CD-Projekt in 2007 for being too basic. All because the artists who poured their hearts and souls into this bullshit franchise got thrown out like trash by its "owners". Morrigan's kid, the Well of Sorrows, all the implied complexities of Tevinter politics, the Crows, the Old Gods, Andraste. All went to shit. Death to capitalism.

[felassan]

Some snippets from DA dev Luke Barrett on the unofficial BioWare forum, cut for length:

DA:I -

User: "I am still convinced that Bioware cut the healing spells and went with barriers instead because of the Multiplayer." Luke Barrett: I can't speak to any other games directly but I can give a bit of historic context for DAI. The game was initially a more dungeon/linear delving - see how far you can get - experience and there was no barrier of any kind. As a side note: healing has always been a hot topic in design because as soon as you include it there are many other conceits you now need take into consideration for the gameplay - one of which I will call 'the Anders problem'. Anyway, as DAI got the date moved and shifted more into the pseudo-openworld the concept of attrition (see how far you can get before having to return to camp) became less relevant and we needed to help the Players have more moment-to-moment agency around their survival. Unfortunately for various reasons (one of which is the sad reality of designing a game with a shifting timeline) the healing couldn't be re-added so we ended up with more of a mitigation strategy in the barrier system. It went through a lot of iterations but eventually landed on what it shipped with which I would call... acceptable (but just barely). Now, I will concede that a part of the reason it didn't return after that shift was an aversion to holy trinity gameplay specifically for MP but it wasn't the core reason. As a side story, trying to balance the game (as that was my job on DAI - and yes, it could be much better haha) we had to all but force Players to take barrier. It is intentionally the first skill in the first tree for the Mage and all the autolevel (I also handled that) is designed to get it right away." [source]

User: "Merry Christmas Luke! Sooo what was the hardest class you had to balance? [DA:I]" Luke Barrett: "I feel like anyone who was around for the post-launch content will already know the answer to this as it was the bane of my existence when I got put exclusively on MP after launch but the Knight-Enchanter barrier absorbing was a pain. Stuff like that is very challenging to feel good without being broken as they are relative to damage so scaling is fairly open-ended. Too little and the casual players won't get use out of it, too much and the character builders will be wildly OP. We actually had a 'no nerfing' guideline for the SP side so it was a hard battle to fix that silly thing 🙃." [source]

"As a fun fact, I did all the logic for autolevel on DAI and the guideline I was given was literally "make functional builds, but don't make something optimal that you'd play"." [source]

DA:TV -

User: "If you can, say thanks to the people making the no die option possible." Luke Barrett: "Done! My team handles this stuff so I let them know 😊" [source]

"Comically, I designed the majority of the items and skills and I am still finding it fun making awesome builds (been almost entirely doing playthroughs lately" [source]

"Was really important to the team that everyone could play the way that felt best to them." [source]

"Each specialization has a focus around a few specific mechanics, some of which are the weapons or damage types but you can go off script and make it work for sure (this was intentional in the designs)." [source]

"I designed all the skills and so they're each enjoyable to me to some extent. I have been playing through the game over and over the last couple months for balance purposes so I've played them all fairly extensively." [source]

User: "Necrotic sounds like it could be either Spirit or Nature." User: "For Rogue, it replace "poison". For Mage, it replace spirit (Spirit bomb). For Warrior, it's more spirit (especially Reaper), but some skills could work as poison too. So basically they merged spirit and nature." Luke Barrett: "Thats pretty close to spot on. They were actually heavily iterated on throughout development - I can't (at least currently) go into specifics as to why though." [source]

"the target for the progression vision is that you can make a viable build out of almost** any aspect of the gameplay." [source]

"As for timelines, We started DA4 in October of 2015 roughly. The entire team was moved to MEA for about 3-4 months to help it ship and I also spent all of 3 weeks helping out on Anthem. But otherwise I've been on some incarnation of DA4 for about 9 years now - pretty ready for it to release 😅." [source]

"yes, years of working on the same thing can cause some burnout but I've played through the full game probably about 8 times in the last few months and it's still fun (though some of the specific levels that haven't changed in a long time I've done 50+ times easily and I could do without ever seeing them again 😂)." [source]

User: "I do kind of feel that at this point the DA team has put so much work into creating and improving their tools and learning the ins and outs of Frostbite [...] But who knows what the devs in the trenches really feel" Luke Barrett: "I will say it does some things very well and some things poorly, relative to other engines. Personally I really enjoy Frostbite but I've been using it since 2012. In an ideal world, many engines would be viable and developers would make games suited to the strengths of a specific engine." [source]

User: "Since this game is much more stat heavy than prior titles, specifically when it comes to skills and gear, there's likely a need for some balance changes to be made post-launch. Does the game being playable completely offline hinder the data capture side for your team (in terms of analytics), or is this a non-factor?" Luke Barrett: "Generally speaking, most people leave data analytics on so we get more than enough data coming in. Additionally, I'll personally be watching several channels for things that are underperforming (relatively speaking) and not have to nerf anything. The rpg side is vast though and I'm sure people will find OP combinations/synergies that might need 'adjustments' but as long as it's fun and not an "I win" button that trivializes combat I'm pretty cool with it." [source]

Luke Barrett: "I can safely say there are many builds for each class that will feel very powerful if you're not on the highest difficulty 😉. What I'm really excited for is when the guides comes out that show people the fastest way to get some of the uniques that unlock 'special' gameplay 😊. Let's just say I love the feeling of rushing to Patches in DS1 and kicking him off the bridge for the Crescent Axe (iykyk)." [source] User: "Speaking of guides. Will there be a guidebook like there was for DAI? " Luke Barrett: "Not that I'm aware of but I'm happy to help feed info to somewhere like fextralife or the dragon age wiki after a week or so to help with those pursuits. Have to leave some time for exploration and discovery before the optimizers streamline the experience 😉" [source]

"Effectively, at least until the game launches (and likely a week or so after), you won't get anything interesting out of any of the devs save Mike Gamble or John Epler. Longer term I hope to be very active, at least for build mechanics and all the combat/rpg nuts and bolts conversations." [source]

"I started "da4" in October 2015 and so after 9 years of effort (minus 3 months on Andromeda) I'm quite excited for tomorrow and the launch week. I don't know if I'd say nervous, I feel pretty confident in the product, but definitely that eager kid before Christmas feeling 😊" [source]

"As the person who did all the balance, I will say that if you are comprehending how to make a cohesive build and understand the combat mechanics, you should play on Underdog. One of the downsides to having a lot of power growth vectors is the difference between people who engage vs those that don't becomes a chasm quite quickly. If you start blowing enemies up rapidly, turn up the difficulty (or play on nightmare where that will not be the case) - basically if it ever feels super easy or like enemies are health sponges you're probably on the wrong setting for your skill level. The custom difficulty settings are there to make the gameplay enjoyable (for whatever that means to you)." [source]

"As a tip from me, the balance is subtly tipped in the players favor until the last fight of the 3rd combat mission. Be warned if it's feeling too easy you may want to wait until after that to decide." [source]

[on DA MP] Luke Barrett: "It was actually pretty fun but very much not what most people wanted us to make (including internally). Also we had, let's say, limited staff who had a passion and background in MP so it was definitely the right call to go SP only. Now, it would have been nice had we just started that way but so it goes sometimes." [source] User: "You still play it yourself from time to time (DA MP), or have you left it be?" Luke Barrett: "After playing variations of DA4 for so many years (9!!!) it's hard to go back to anything with DAI controls/gameplay speed. Even the initial Joplin prototypes I was doing were much more snappy/twitchy - for everything good about DAI the combat was definitely in the middle of two different styles." [source]

[on aiming bows] "we actually used to have separate buttons for ADS and ranged attack but it was wildly overloading the controller. These RPG games need controllers with at least 2 more buttons (fingers crossed for the next gen)" [source]

User: "After the last few games, I'm really surprised by the current skill... tree?" Luke Barrett: "I call it a skill graph - aside from the beginning where you have 3 choices the entirety of it is 2 choice splits and it'll essentially make a build for you. Just go a little at a time and aim for whatever specialization seems most fun to you 😄" [source]

"Loot is not random so theoretically guides with drop locations should appear pretty soon." [source]

"Yep, Spellblade is the only spec that directly impacts fire damage but you can get benefits from most of them and still go fire. As for the specs, yes it would have been nice to support all of them but just wasn't in scope unfortunately. Mage has Mourn-Watch, Shadow Dragons, and Antivan Crows specializations - only the Rogue has a Veiljumper one. Deathcaller left side you can go beam based and use a Fire weapon. Evoker you'd likely need to do a hybrid ice/fire build." [source]

User: "Bit of a side question, but for those who intend to make more characters, is BioWare considering upping the amount of playable character slots you can have (currently at 3)? Or is there a hardware restriction here given the game is offline playable?" Luke Barrett: "Don't quote me as I don't handle the technical side of this but my understanding is we have to allocate a specific amount of HD space on the consoles so we basically have to pick a limit, relative to our save file sizes, and then divide that by number of careers. I'll inquire if this is something we can increase with an optional download or something but I suspect consoles are stuck that way, unfortunately." [source]

[on Patch 1] "It's been awhile since I actually did the content for this patch so I'd have to check but I have a pretty anti-nerf policy for SP games. I know I fixed up a couple enemies that weren't as hard as they were supposed to be and definitely boosted a bunch of synergistic things though. I'll take a look tomorrow but for those that don't know, the turnaround time on these things is about a month of it's not an emergency due to certification process with consoles. Longer term my goal is to keep an eye in telemetry of any underused abilities and items (or enemies with too many kills under their belt) and audit them just to double check if they need a boost or if people just haven't figured them out yet 😉." [source]

"The equippable items are all predetermined with a minor exception*. Some items are class specific (all the weapons, a small amount of armors and accessories, 2 runes) so when you play a different class you'll see your classes 'version' of that item. Things that are random (from a table/pool) are valuables. Exception: Near the very end of the game we do a few checks on what equipment you haven't acquired. A bunch of those final drops, and inventory on the final merchant, simply find stuff you don't have and give it to you. That's basically the only major RNG we have with loot. If you notice even 99% of the skills and item mods employ an effect after a condition is met X times rather than a more traditional 'proc chance'." [source]

[on modding] "Once this starts to pick up, feel free to PM me if anyone needs help 'finding' assets or has questions about how one might mod something. We don't officially support mods buuuuut we don't have any kind of anti-modding stance either" [source]

"To give the high level gist of the resource economy: - each class starts off with minimal ability usage, this is intentional to force people to learn the other combat mechanics as they're a necessary skill and it's easy to lean on a crutch like ability spam and kiting - abilities are designed to feel powerful on use, thus they all have a decent cost and can't be spammed* - weapon attacks generate your resource - in the bottom right of the center skills area is a node to make each class's resource easier to manage - halfway down all starting segments (N, SW, SE) there is always a node that boosts generation - there are +max nodes on all sides of the skill graph for each class, this is particularly important for the Mage as they start each fight at max - each class can build into being ability focused but starts intentionally rounded - loastly, the first ability is always a resource spender and 1 or 2 of the next available ones will be cooldown gated. It is recommended to have at least one cooldown based ability slotted" [source]

"So loosely the rogue momentum works like this: - each ability costs 50 momentum - hitting enemies generates ~2 momentum per hit (base), you get extra for bow weakpoints - when you are directly hit, you lose 15% of your current momentum, this means the more you hold the more you will lose (this loss has a small cooldown so you don't lose a whole bar when you get hit rapidly) - momentum carries forward between combats (compared to warrior rage which decays when out of combat) If youre having issues, make sure you get that skill in the middle section that reduces momentum loss when hit. As a helpful tip, the Quicken buff generates small amounts of momentum each second so it's a good way to get more if you're having issues." [source]

"I highly recommend using the belt that grants Quicken early game until you can generate momentum faster yourself. And yes, the time dilation affects everything in the world except the Player so all your buffs and things still tick at normal speed" [source]

User: "If I knock an enemy off an edge, if they were supposed to drop something will it appear on the edge, or is it lost for good?" Luke Barrett: "It should appear on the ledge. I will say the 'real' loot from enemy drops are all hand placed. The actual random stuff is just valuables and materials." [source]

" The way it actually works is very complicated with a lot of necessary exceptions but loosely - each ability has a base damage and ones that hit multiple times have an offset multiplier. - That value is multiplied by the sum of all your stat bonuses, conditional bonuses, resist and layer modifiers. - We then subtract enemy defense and multiply by 1-resist (with penetration being calculated here). - this new damage then gets multiplied by 1+crit+weakpointpoint (so those bonuses always feel meaty) and then multiplied by a random number between .95 and 1.05 just to give a little range to the floaties (basically just a presentation thing) - we then multiply again for buffs and debuffs so they, again, always feel meaningful - lastly, we take all added damage and add it flat on top" [source]

"Specific enhancements make enemies immune to the matching affliction. For example, Fire Enchanted enemies are immune to burning. Juggernaut enemies are immune to being staggered but otherwise it should work in everything." [source]

[justmaghookit]

I've seen a lot of reviews and even casual saying that dav is "a bad dragon age game but a good action rpg" but i gotta say i...

I don't think it's a good action rpg? I think it's kinda mid?

I'm not gonna go on about the story and characters because you all already know how i feel about that. But the gameplay???

The gameplay doesn't innovate in anyway that hasn't been done before and done better by other games.

As I was playing I often turned to my partner and says "It feels like I'm playing God of War, but less fun." I remarked that Atreus was a far better combat companion than you companions in this game. That a character that was literally a CHILD was capable of taking down enemies on his own where the supposed Heros of the Veilguard cannot.

I felt like I was doing all this combat alone and the only thing my companions where good for was combos and occasional heals. I saw my partner desperately struggling to play as a ranged mage because there really are no dedicated tank options to pull enemy agro and the ones you DO get are inefficient. If you want to feel like a powerful ranged character you literally have to go into the combat settings and turn enemy agro DOWN.

The gameplay is also hurt by trimming the party down to a total of three instead of four.

Maybe I'm just a tactical games pilled bitch but i think to do away with those parts of DA entirely have hurt it. I think letting Rook use the dagger to access all your companions abilities was a mistake.

You SHOULD have to go back and switch your companions out to access hidden areas! And the maps should be flavoured in such a way that the companion who calls them home should be able to flex more when on their home turf!

"ooooh but its tedious" i hear you cry

and i cry back "i don't think you actually enjoy rpg's!!"

Personally I find a game holding my hand and going "its ok sweetie we did away with all those hard gameplay decisions for you" beyond insulting!

the repetitive enemy hordes, the copy and paste mage boss fights, the environmental puzzles that aren't really puzzles because you have the master key in your back pocket! You don't have to think about your party composition because everyone can heal and they're only useful for combos really because their damage output fucking sucks.

Honestly it just adds to the feeling that Rook is shouldering everything on their own, even though the game repeatedly tells you you aren't!! Look at all your friends helping!! Aren't they cool and strong and powerful? Best in their fields!!

And i go "really? i don't see it"

Your gameplay isn't good when every time I'm fighting a new repetitive horde of enemies all I could find myself thinking was

"Damn I should play BG3 again." Or "Man I should play God of War again."

And of course the always in the back of my mind "I wish i was playing Bloodborne"

[jadeazora]

All of this. There's also eschewing Platinum's fixes to characterization (especially when it came to Cyrus. Fortunately, Masters exists but why should it be the responsibility of a niche mobile game to save the characters?) and pacing too.

It makes some improvements to gameplay, but as Mikey mentioned, it's really inconsistent in how it does things like the Dex and difficulty (easy before absolutely sucker-punching you at the League), and that what it does add are just QoL updates found in pretty much every modern Pokemon game. It also just wasn't what I was hoping for in a DP remake, I was really hoping for an updated story and redesigns. ORAS was my gold standard for how they improved on characterization, and we've gotten character redesigns in every other remake. Maybe they didn't want to change designs because of Masters or whatever, but it just felt lazy.

Imo, it's really the only remake that's worse than the original third version: FRLG is dated now, but was mechanically better than any G1 game and had Sevii. I was never fond of the GO features in LGPE, but it still felt unique enough with the changes they made, plus it's the most beautiful Switch Pokemon game. HGSS added a fair amount of new features, a battle Frontier, and improved characterization for Silver. ORAS feels at least like it stands on par with Emerald, improves the Dex, really fleshes out the characters and story more, added Soaring, it felt like a pretty fair trade-off for what we lost. Still a bit salty no Battle Frontier when I was dabbling in competitive, but it's not a deal-breaker. With BDSP, the QoL changes, Legendary hunting, etc. are expected by now, so that mostly leaves story, which was pretty much untouched from the original DP. There's cool things like the expanded Underground and the Shadow Giratina battle, but it's not just enough to really salvage it in comparison to Platinum.

It was possibly even more glitchy than Scarlet and Violet were upon release, which was a big complaint for people at the time (tho people did abuse the glitchiness in a lot of funny ways or to speedrun the game).

It was the only Pokemon game I never actually bothered to finish, like, I think I only ever got up to the fifth badge. I just literally couldn't find enough to really enjoy or be invested in when Platinum exists and does the things I actually was interested about in DP better. Tho tbf, with it getting outsourced, it was clear it was never the main focus, and according to the Teraleak, was only pushed out in case PLA turned out to be unpopular with fans.

[chasedeys]

https://www.tumblr.com/chasedeys/768170997377597440/httpswwwtumblrcomchasedeys768169507136159744

Oh 100 % I agree that they had a talk afterwards. Both of them have emphasized communication throughout the 6 years they have been “together 😭💀,” so no way they didn’t have a heart to heart they never get like that with each other

they couldn't have not have the talk lbr like that fight was kind of crazy had people talking about bengals downfall burrow-chase connection fallout etc they got to have a heart-to-heart 😭 though i guess it wasn't really actually a fight?? ja'marr just got so fucking angry and joe had to cool him down and the way to cool him down quick was to yk shove at him and yell at him right back ig though 100% nobody else but joe would've away with it on that field lol

i've talked about it a bit here in the end!!

also after that infamous kc game shove, i definitely think they had a very tough heart to heart where ja'marr maybe spills his full feelings over the contract and how he hasn’t been getting the ball to actually make big plays and how his worth as a wr1 is being brought to question and joe probably spills on his own feelings on how ja'marr held out so long and had last minute (?) changes of playing that week one ramps up joe's own anxiety and hang ups like i definitely feel like he had some unchecked anxiety over playing with his wrist that first game that ja'marr probably said something incredibly insane yet uplifting about in response. the next game its like they mended some unseen frayed stitch of their connection! first drive banger of a 41 yarder td for jamarr, two tuddys for the game in fact lol!! joe gets him his deep ball, then the insane way joe rushed at him after his 63 yarder in the next game, its like that first touchdown against minnesota again. i just wish the very best for them, to keep making these insane passes and insane runs they’ve been making since lsu.

that's pretty much it lmao but there's some more word vomit below that might a bit much tbh:

okay like i was new at this during the first few weeks okay I've not been here for their lsu to bengals run and my understanding of their burrow-chase throw-catch connection by which i mean like actual football playing qb-wr gameplay was still being learned!! i absolute did not know any rules of the game that first week i watched 😭 didn't even know how you got 7pts out a touchdown etc etc sorry i really was just there for the pretty men who had their faces covered by helmets 90% of the time lmao and from what i saw it was kind of meh you know???

like I've watched their highlights before don't get me wrong i know they got it. the touchdowns??? the way joe throws and ja'marr runs??? crazyyyyyy how the fuck does joe know exactly where ja'marr was going to run, how the fuck did ja'marr know exactly how far joe was going to throw, and like this could absolutely be attributed to the way they plan things with coaches and play calling etc but!! doesn't change the fact that in the end it just takes two people to do that shit and they've understood each other so well to have done it near perfectly!! like it made me understand why there's so much poetry and romance in sports!!! the trust the connection the whatever i can't find words the point is i didn't really like......see that in the first two games??? like there was some kind of disconnect yk and like idk they played like shit 😭 but keep in mind i was completely unknowledgeable of football like at all and i refuse to rewatch those games so maybe i was just stupid and didn't see it lmao

BUT THEN???? the week 3 game?????? ja'marr's first touchdown of the season???????? THAT was the shit i was waiting for like iirc ja'marr and tee were running their way down by the sidelines getting double teamed (?) each idk ja'marr was definitely double teamed had me doubting they'd make it but joe threw an absolutely beautiful ball at him and ja'marr caught that shit over his shoulder!?!?!?!??! brought it right home too!!!!!!! i was so gassedddddd i was exhilarated like completely 100% fell in love with the sport that was amazing that was literally my first live burrow-chase touchdown!!!!!!

(another fucking list sorry) me being the Master Speculator of Shit that i am made my own stupid ass narratives about how:

they were unsure of their game and each other's lmao hear me out. joe's first game back after the devastating wrist injury that was hell to get back into form to, had to deal with all the noise about him never going to be able to throw the way he used to again and knew just how many fucking eyes would be on him that first game back watching his wrist like bloodthirsty hawks. even if i believe that he's the type of person who can completely block out that noise without flinching, some subconscious and fearful part of him had to have been holding him back. the numerous, numerous, painful clips of him twisting his wrists repeatedly, fidgeting harder than he's ever fidgeted before, the water bottle stupidity that he actually got asked about, etc (god i can't imagine being a celebrity having your anxious shit caught on camera and analyzed so loudly over the internet). and then you add in how ja'marr's been in a contract holdout and clearly bothered as all hell about it because it's just not getting done at all even d-1 of their opening week!! insane. there were questions of ja'marr even playing game 1 and joe of course said unflinchingly that ja'marr would be ready week 1 regardless but completely understandable if he's rattled okay!! if ja'marr wasn't really planning on playing (wasn't he listed as questionable due to illness idk i forgot) suddenly switching up however many hours before to actually playing that's gotta fuck up joe's steady structure that he already prepared beforehand of not playing with ja'marr you know??? like basically a) anxiety over his wrist, b) ja'marr's sudden status as active messing up his pregame, and c) everybody and their grandmothers all up in his business for his first game back.

ja'marr's contract situation. people absolutely saying the foulest shit about his decision to hold out, the amount of money he asked, saying to boot him out, calling him a diva /derogatory, comparing him to justin, tee's contract situation, etc. the fo being the one to open convo about his extension only to not be open to his numbers??? sensible numbers if you think abt it btw and now well lmao good luck fo his agent must be smug as all hell. it maybe planted seeds of doubt and insecurity in him on his worth as WR1 you know?? like why are they acting like he isn't worth all that fucking money. incredibly emotional highly intelligent sensitive pisces that he is gets understandably more and more pissed off and defensive about literally everything but he fucking loves this sport and he loves his guys so he decides to play the game 1 anyway and. well. just. sigh.

the game went to shit and ja'marr played idk better than the rest of the receivers but in all honesty everyone was kind of shit?? and like. they lost to the patriots. who literally got beaten belt to ass by the dolphins last week. but anyways game 2 against ja'marr's most Hated capital h and everything fucking chiefs 😭 yeah with the whole contract situation still up in the air there was no way he wasn't going to have some sort of meltdown tbh. hence the fight....where joe got physical with him.....where his actions definitely contributed heavily to their loss which should have been a win.

and so: the talk. like i said they both talked about their anxieties no holds barred literally all the shit i wrote above and apologized to each other the way men usually do idk bro hugged it out maybe. i genuinely think ja'marr went off on joe on not getting the ball more like????? i can't explain it damn it he definitely chewed him out on it and joe was like 'fuck okay'. ja'marr says he never notices shit about how joe throws the ball so maybe he doesn't notice anything about joe's wrist acting up. but maybe he notices that joe's holding back or there's some sort of hang up over the way he plays and needles it out of him point-blank like the person that he is and joe finally talks about it and ja'marr responds by being 100% insane like he usually does and that sort of devotion and sheer stubbornness on one's belief in who you are has to have some kind of impact on joe damn. they probably got some professional therapy too btw at least i hope so :'). but basically ja'marr just wants the ball more and joe gets him the fucking ball.

ja'marr said something along the lines of him finding joy playing again 😔🤚 this was such a comment like god he hasn't been playing happy at all and when he put to rest the contract shit he finally gets to play a sport he loves with joy!!! him being happy is so fucking important to me wow 😭 i think I've said this before in some post idk but he knows he messed up, he knows the contract negotiation fucked up his emotions so bad he brings it on the field so he nips that shit quick and done. no more contract talks until the next offseason. probably made it clear to joe though that he will not leave but fuck if he's listening to any bullshit from the fo when he's got a game to win and a super bowl to get to and idk about you but that probably healed something in joe like there is the guy who gets him. who's as hungry as he is for a win, for a ring, for a championship. who's got his back, who he can trust to be there on the other end of the field to catch his throws.

the next game!!!!!!!!! god i really am not the person to talk about routes or strategy or whatever but i know for damn sure that that was a beautiful throw and that was a beautiful catch and that was a one-of-a-kind connection. like they fixed something that was unknowingly dented in their connection and like they're finally trusting themselves and each other again to make the big plays they've done before the injury and the contract drama you know????? aurrugrgrhrh i can't word anything out i feel like saying more about this but i cant please get me anyway 😭

this entire emotional roller coaster thing was also the main reason they had those kind of helmet bonks on the next 63 yard td and 70 yard td btw. been a long while since they've had those kind of plays, probably had some unnamed unknowing unacknowledged doubts that they would ever have it again, so it was like the first time all over again lol. (was one of the things joe said to him in that little bubble of their celly after the ravens 70 yarder something like 'see i knew we still got it. i knew you still got it.' god i feel insane)

ok bye......

[weepingtalecowboy]

If we take a look at the disaster Hyrules

It gets pretty clear that Hyrule's Hyrule has by far the least amount of problems

Like yeah no hate towards people who portray his Hyrule as a disaster but it really isn’t that deep

(I love the fanfics anyway and it is just fiction so people can do whatever they want … it just isn’t very realistic but still interesting)

There are enough settlements to avoid inbreeding (probably even having the most out of any Zelda game)

The forest population is not great but could be a LOT worse (it is not as bad as it could be … grass also helps with creating good places for trees to grow in and there is more then enough in adventure of link)

And the NPCs don’t hate him or anything they are just a bit weary (wanting something in return and not letting a random stranger into your house is basic common sense people)

They don’t hate him and give him clues if they know something…even letting him heal for free

Even the one village that wouldn’t let you in was fine with you the second you told them that you had buggo's permission

The monster might be a problem but certainly not the people

The whole game also showed no implications of food shortages or anything like that

No cursed soil , no cursed water (honestly I like to believe that Hyrule just thinks the water is genuinely cursed because he can’t swim)

No dying trees

And while you could say that there are no animals it also has be considered that it is a game that has trouble with interactions as a whole

They probably just didn’t bother with anything not gameplay related

Ganon was already dust and while Hyrule certainly was hunted down

If you stay in a town there is no interaction implying that monster are trying to destroy the town just because you are inside it

But also the same happens in any other Zelda game like obviously monsters are outside and spawn to beat you up (I know the disappointment of not getting into castle town in ocarina of time lol)

But that doesn’t mean that Hyrule has to live in permanent danger

Heck he can just live in the sole town to have a bridge so that even if monster try to get him they would not be able to cross

Even if the century that passed was the equivalent of doomsday or something…

Windwaker , Breath of the wild and even twilight princess also had disasters over 100 years ago (ocarina of time , the flood , calamity ganon )

In fact Breath of the wild recovered perfectly from absolutely annihilation and a loss of monarchy

And only twilight princess has canonical cursed land that affects the Flora and fauna

Why nobody portrays twilight’s Hyrule as having a very bad time with food and hunting will always be a mystery

His Hyrule essentially is Lorule 2.0

Windwaker has the canonically worst recovery of all timelines because the flood took lots of land to live on and to farm on

The entire sea has no fish and remaining people are very few in comparison to Hyrule’s twenty what towns

Like literally only having four settlements (rito included) is not a good thing

Having no hero spirit

No monarchy means nothing as we see in wild's Hyrule but peaceful anarchy with a few leaders in every settlement is not ideal

The goddesses also left

And so did their blessings

Like wind's ganondorf literally just wanted land lol no dominance because the remaining settlements are not worth it

And still the timeline where everything that could go wrong did go wrong still went and figured stuff out

And we have Spirit Tracks as proof that even this Hyrule was able of surviving

[stardusted-petals]

The way I've been playing the game is pretty different from how sweet Ty is in the cutscenes

[a2zillustration]

Makin our way

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[[ All Croissant Adventures (chronological, desktop) ]]

[[ All Croissant Adventures (app) ]]

[citrusai]

weekes saying all that mythal shit is up to interpretation is so weird to me because instead of worrying about leaving all of solas' past up to vague interpretation to (new) players because you're too chickenshit to stand by your established lore you could've focused on ghilan'nain and elgar'nan and who they were and what they became. elgar'nan literally let the other evanuris slay his wife and he watched on, and then he rotted in a prison made by what he referred to as his wife's "lapdog" and second in command general. and what of ghilan'nain? what is their relationship? why is it just the two of them in that prison when there were more evanuris trapped in there? why are they simultaneously this omnipotent threat capable of spawning blight at will but also two dimensional villains chasing their own tails half the game while solas just poses and speaks in his riddles in the fade. also a fragment of mythal is inside of morrigan, does no part of her gaf that her husband is literally terrorizing the world she loves? hello??

[thebramblewood]

Big day for all of us vampire girls: Gwen's trashy romance novel is a hit and (despite the extreme awkwardness of their last encounter) Elvira dropped the L-bomb and suddenly this thing is real.

[ganondoodle]

something i just realized about the sages (ignoring how frustrating to use i find the sages abilities overall) when they get their enigma stone they are like wow look at how much stronger i am now!! when its really just a ... clone of them, without the parts that make them interesting- the personality, and they "give" it to you (it doesnt feel like its really yours tho bc, unlike botw, its not intergrated into your moveset- which could have been solved by just adding them to another ability wheel- so it doesnt even feel like they are really yours) but ok i can see why its stronger even if i find it boring to just duplicate the character isntead of actually making their ability be more-

but then at the very end, they join you in the battle and .. dont even make use of it? what where the engima stones even for then? i guess you could bend over backwards and say well its bc their powers cant reach you all the way down there so they have to physical join you- BUT .. when they are right next to you .. shouldnt the connection to them be back anyway? so their clones should return shouldnt they? or is the entire arena just so surpressive of that power that it wouldnt work either way? then again ... what was its use then to get them to have those stones? like how ultra hand is supposedly the focus of the game but doesnt matter to the narrative at all?

(can you unsummon them when they are there?? i havent tried it but i dont think so ..)

like obviously it would be wayy too chaotic if all sages where there twice, especially together with all the ganondorf clones too- but it kinda .. once again... makes it feel meaningless that you even got them the stones? sure they only get to you when you do it but its really just again another check box with no substance, isnt it?

(... actually .. did anyone actually need the stones? aside from ganondorf getting that huge powerup somehow- like even the original sages and sonia and stuff, are you telling me she couldnt rewind ..................................... a tea cup, on her own? or i guess the only time sonia does anythign with her stone is when she gives its power to raurus laserbeam attack he never does again ... and the other sages arent shown to gain anything from it either?? are they?? what even would minerus ability have been bc she wasnt a -utterly useless- mech back then ... the shield she does doesnt seem unique to her either bc rauru literally does it too after sonia gets falcon-punched to death to block ganondorfs .. goo beam .... i mean i guess it doesnt matter anyway bc all we see them actually do is .. stand around and talk, sometimes "hurt" (dirty) sometimes not ... so whatever i guess?)

[aurorangen]

After graduation came a break before work started for Renee. It was also Jay and Miracle's wedding! Renee and Vincent travelled all the way to Chestnut Ridge for this special occasion and it was such a joy to see Jay again! Though Vincent felt a bit light-headed upon arriving. He was just tired from the long journey, right? But don't worry he felt a lot better after a nap on the bench.

Transcript:

Renee: Finally we are here! Now where are we meant to meet Jay and Miracle? Vincent: Uhh my head [takes a moment to respond] Didn't he say New Appaloosa? The town centre? Renee: Let me check google maps again. Aha! We are in New Appaloosa.

[Renee continues looking. She zooms out to Oasis Springs, to an area of endless desert…just out of curiosity] Renee: I guess they couldn't update the map as there's no evidence. So this place must be Strangervil-

[Vincent's mind goes blank for a second and suddenly Renee's voice seems so far away. His head sways to one side and his eyes struggle to stay open. He could see Renee but everything looks blurry] Renee: Vince! Are you ok? [she grabs hold of him and they walk towards a bench to sit down]

Vincent: Shit. I just blanked out for a sec. God, I'm so knackered from the flight. Renee: Here have some water. We'll rest for a bit longer, there's time [snuggles close to him] Vincent: [smiles and rests his eyes] What would I do without you Renee?

Jay: [clears throat] Ahem still recognise me? Renee: Jay!?! Ahh Jay, it really is you! Damn, it's been so long! Jay: You're the same as always! I missed you, Renee.

Renee: And Miracle [squeals] Woah you're so beautiful in person! Miracle: Thanks gorgeous! You're exactly how Jay had described! [sees Vincent resting] Oh is Vincent OK? Renee: Yeah he's just tired. Hey Vince look who's arrived.

Vincent: Oh it's Jay and Miracle! Sorry, my head's a bit [he blinks a few times] It's so good to finally meet you two, just call me Vince, any friend of Renee is a friend of mine! And congrats, we can't wait for the big day! Jay: We've been dreaming about it forever, right Mir? And I've heard so much about you Vince.

[The guys continue walking as they get to know more about each other] Vincent: [nudges him] Oh god what did Renee tell you? Hopefully only good things eh? Jay: Well…interesting to say the least [they laugh together]

[skeletalheartattack]

[lelianaslefthand]

my survival desert island base :D

[thedrotter]

as a little treat i am sharing with you little Aya doodles I've done over the last few days to unwind ww just little expressions based on lines in-game because those are always fun to draw. nothing too special just biscuit

it's Aya because upon doing bizarrely throughout playthroughs of the game for still unspecified project purposes I've gained a soft spot for her she's my daughter now my mental tier list on my favorite characters is so confusing right now