#also i don't have to fucking parry in that game

[iserlohnfortress]

got blasphemous because religious guilt in art is like catnip to me, but the atmosphere stresses me out so much i actually picked hollow knight back up (a game that also used to stress me out a lot) in order to scratch that itch and, at long last, managed to defeat hornet a second time

[paragonraptors]

YEHAW DA:V REVEAL THOUGHTS BELOW!!

Overall: Feeling so excited for this game. I'm climbing up the walls. I can't believe that was 20 minutes, it felt like 10. Need this in my hands yesterday.

What I liked:

-Holy fuck wow wow wow the hair looks like nothing I've seen in a video game before.

-Combat seems very different but also a natural progression of gameplay past. Real-time turn-based was always a little on the clunkier side, and while it never really bothered me, moving towards something more ME-style was expected. Very excited about being able to aim a bow. Would like to know what difficulty they were showcasing bc I'm considering jumping right into a Nightmare run.

-Now that I've been soulsborne-pilled the prospect of a parry mechanic has me buzzing.

-I feel like people are gonna dunk on the "stiffer" animation, but I prefer it so much more than the BG3/HZD constant wobbling. It'll make the key performances stand out instead of mostly jangling keys in front of a baby and letting the big moments get lost in the sauce. (Not that the aformentioned games didn't have good animation, just. If your characters don't need to move their whole body to convey dialogue I'd prefer if they didn't.)

-The sublety in the facial animations is CRAZY.

-The roleplay dialogue seems really reactive!! And the cuts to inject the unique dialogues feels smooth. I'm sure there will still be moments where it's easy to tell, but still cool. Seems like they're gonna be paying more attention to your personality type like DA2 too.

-So excited about Harding and Neve as companions and can't wait to meet everyone else.

-Neve's staff/wand makes me excited to see what kinds of focus options we'll get as a mage AAAA.

-God the costumes have so much swag. One of my hottest of many BG3 takes was that the costumes were overall flavorless. (Really hoping they didn't change the Grey Warden uniforms though that would really disappoint me.)

-Cinematography looks fantastic. Lots of well set up shots.

-NGL I felt something when Solas showed up. Wasn't expecting that. And while not perfect, I liked his interaction with Varric. Their relationship from Inquisition really slips under the radar if you're not bothering to look.

-Varric has never gotten over the trauma of what happened with Anders and it breaks my heart in a good way. God you could see it in his eyes!! [chef's kiss]

-However, I definitely have to kill Solas now for what transpired in this preview.

What I'm iffy about:

-The voice peformances feel a bit stilted. Not really what I'm used to from Bioware and I feel like it's important when the animations are more subdued. Hopefully this feeling will change when I get more of the game.

-The dialogue also felt a bit dumbed down. "Solas is doing his ritual!" "Yes. Solas' ritual. The ritual that we have to stop." Again, hopefully this is symptomatic of a tutorial level/trying to onboard newbies quickly and not the whole game lol. While I prefer this to dialogue that tries to sound smarter than it is, I'm really hoping we see an overall improvement from Inquisition.

-Sort of wish they went with the Andromeda dialogue system instead of bringing back Inquisition's, but I do like that it seems all dialogue options are getting tonal indicators again and they're not as easily conflated with morality. (Though I imagine people will STILL interpret it that way.)

-A little confused about them introducting Minrathous' panopticon shit and then immediately swerving into Solas' ritual. Would have liked some breathing room on that kind of worldbuilding.

- While I'm generally open minded about the change, I Do Not Love not being able to switch to playing companions. Might turn around on this if your ability to issue them commands opens up the closer you are to them/the more you grow into a leadership role. I do like that it seems you will eventually be able to command when they use abilities a la OG Mass Effect bc that was my biggest beef with the Andromeda gameplay, esp on Nightmare/Insanity difficulty.

-Not crazy about the new Pride demon design where are their leggies.

-Not really a Criticism, but they are definitely setting up for Varric to die and while I get it, narratively, I'm NOT HAPPY. Dragon Age has been almost allergic to scripted deaths so it's also gonna feel like being dunked in an ice bath. EVIL STUFF. IN DENIAL.

[inkren]

Metroid dread has consumed my life for the past 2 days. Its now one of my favourite games ever made. There's a few problems with it mainly the world not being as memorable and easy to navigate as tallon IV in metroid prime but it doesn't matter given how amazing the game is.

I could rant about it for ages but I'll just talk about my 3 favourite things. Massive spoilers for merroid dread.

1. Whoever came up with the idea of letting Samus smack the shit out of your enemies and parrying them didn't get paid enough. Once you learn how to parry basic enemies basically become energy and missile dispensaries. Its so satisfying to parry something especially emmi's since its so hard to parry them. Its also extremely cathartic to parry a boss and start a cutscene where you can just pump missiles into them. Which conveniently leads into.

2. Spectacle. Most bossfights are so cool especially when you parry them and get a bunch of free shots in as samus in the curscene that plays does a bunch of cool flips or rides a massive monster and holds her blaster to their forehead to pump endless missiles into them while they writhe around trying to toss her off. The only thing that could make it better is if the music was more hype like metal gear rising revengeance (which is another game I have to get around to)

And how could I not mention the final bossfight too. The fight with Ravenbeak is so damn cool with it being like a dance with samus and him doing cool flips around each other. He summons black holes and stars and the climax as.... this actually goes with point 3 as well so we'll get to that.

3. Samus is portrayed so well in this game and conveys so much personality even though she says like one sentence in chozo near the middle of the game and at the end of the game she starts screaming madly.

When she meets kraid she is so clearly sick of him that as soon as he roars she shoots him in the mouth. Basically just saying "let's get this over with"

Her conversation with the friendly chozo in the middle of the game as we get a hell of a lore dump and the only words she says in the entire game being "don't worry I'll finish it" pretty sure i paraphrased that but it conveys so much. By having no other words in the game spoken by samus it gives these words so much power. She is legitimately concerned for this chozo and when he is killed she is genuinely sad but it has to wait. Because she has a job to do....and an annoying enemy to kill. (Seriously those chozo bots that jump you are so annoying. )

There's so much more I could say about her characterization in the game and that one scene alone but I wanna talk about the final fight again.

My jaw dropped when she was nearly dead as Ravenbeak choked the life out of her and then she just started screaming like a mad woman and drained the power from the flying fortress making it crash down onto the ground as she beat him up and continued to scream. It was so badass and yet so funny and I was just saying holy shit the entire time. Peak character.

And then the final bit against raven beak where he gets infected with the x parasite. And samus has her new metroid suit which looks freaky and organic and thats the point. She was pushed to this point and now she's basically an energy vampire. Also nothing quite like obliterating your foe with a massive fucking laser to the face.

Of course the cool escape sequence where I barely got back to my ship on time with like 10 seconds to spare. (BTW samus keeps hitting the self destruct button every planet has for some reason. Isnt this like the 6th planet she's destroyed? Why do they keep having to be destroyed and by what?)

Samus gets control of her metroid powers again before escaping and this actually brings me to a point i like about the game. It doesn't reveal there was actually more metroids because they're the series namesake. They stay extinct. All except for samus. And its revealed that metroid means ultimate warrior in chozo. So samus is the metroid now in all meanings of the word. She had metroid dna and is the ultimate warrior of the chozo. Taking the name if the franchise for herself. So next time your grandma sees you playing metroid and points to samus saying "that man's metroid isn't he?" She's half right now.

Anyway my three simple points ballooned way out of my control. Go play metroid dread. Go play every metroid game you can. Which isn't much if you only have a switch but the two metroid games it has are peak.

[robototron217]

Something I don't see people talk about whenever they talk about combat in souls games is how specific moves enemies use can inform world design in such a unique way.

Sure there's surface level stuff like "oh we're in the library and the knights here use magic as well as sword fighting" but also some enemies have sword swings that are directly references to a boss they're a recruit for, or sometimes even to another game whose design informs the one you're playing currently.

The clearest example I can think of off the dome for the former is the Enir-Ilim knights having the same swings and moves as the final boss of their area Promised Consort Radahn. You can recognize the patterns of their attacks and when you recognize those same arcs and combos in the boss there's a really cool "oh shit" moment where it clicks that these people learned from other knights, there is a style that they're fighting in that has specific moves in it.

It's actually super prominent in sekiro where these different styles have names. You know you're fighting a warrior of Ashina based on the moves they use and it is extremely effective at placing an enemy type in the world. Even more is that you can tell the hierarchy of the enemies you're engaging with because they will use the same moves but *worse*, they are clumsily appropriating their bosses moves to try and be better. Or if they're a higher ranking enemy they will incorporate the bosses moves and also mix in their own unique attacks on the style.

The clearest and most obvious references to other games is the overhead frontflip swing that PCR from Elden ring does being a reference to the Artorias fight from ds1 (they've referenced this multiple times and you can even do this move yourself in Elden ring) but they also have done similar cross game references elsewhere like with Malenia doing the kick move that the interior ministry ninjas do in sekiro. You are being told as a player of these games that this fight is designed with the same principles in mind that sekiro fights were made with. I am 100% certain that waterfowl dance would be an incredibly engaging move to parry in sekiro, but you have to translate how to dodge it in a system that doesn't let you do that which is what makes it such a difficult move to deal with.

I know that if I had played bloodborne there would be references to that game in sequential ones. it's why people say Gale from ds3 is a bloodborne boss in a souls game, and I'm making the claim that Malenia is a sekiro boss in a souls game.

It's such a unique phenomenon to these kinds of games that I find very very cathartic to recognize in real time, like "I know you, I see what you're doing and it's fucking genius"

Long and short is that I love these games and this kind of reference, I'd love for people to share anything like this they've noticed in other series or even ones I might have missed in souls borne games!

[girlballs]

wait i just realized. in spite of my recent posting about invasions and co-op balance and difficulty, lesser beast is not going to be Hard for the sake of Being Hard, like. just wanna make that clear that it's not gonna be targeted at like the annoying shitheads who thought sekiro having an easier mode would be a grave offense to the sanctity of gaming as an art form

the goal for stuff that's required to beat the game will generally be like. i'll trust the player to seek out and utilize things that lessen the difficulty if they think they need it (specific boss weaknesses, alternate playstyles with more room for error, things that can directly increase your effective power beyond the "intended" progression) or to challenge themselves More if they feel like their own skill is a little above the current challenge level (think like, the Demon Bell from Sekiro or Covenant of Champions from DS2 for some overt examples), whereas completely optional stuff will be generally tougher and might lean more heavily towards specific ways of engaging with it (e.g. bosses that Expect you to parry & deflect, and heavily punish dodge-focused and ranged builds)

also respeccing is gonna be cheap and accessible so you can't as easily like fuck yourself over early with a weird build you don't like, or if you want to see if a different build might help (or hinder!) you for a specific boss/area/etc

[cerastes]

So how is ex astris so far?

I'm still in the early game, so keep that in mind:

Fun so far! The combat system is nice and fun: You have limited AP for actions per turn, but attacks, called Skills, and characters tend to have a way to generate more AP so your other units can follow up, so for example, some attacks have the Starter property, which makes them generate AP if used as the first attack in a turn, other attacks have Downed Strike as a property, which makes them generate AP if they land on an enemy that has been Downed, and this is accomplished by attacks with the Downed property, or if you swat a Floating enemy out of the air (with an appropriate attack). There's also some attacks that are Low and High, meaning they hit ground(ed) enemies only or enemies that are either flying or have been knocked midair by a Lifting attack. You make movesets to accomplish all of these combo strings so that they land and make as much AP as possible in one turn.

Defending is very Paper Mario style: You have to time your button press with the enemy's attack in order to avoid taking damage. Yan, one of the main characters, avoids attacks as her Defense with Shadowshift; successful evasion gives you meter for your big super move. Vi, the other main character, parries instead; successful parries don't build meter, but they deal Balance Damage to enemies instead, because Vi is a big Sekiro fan. Evasion is red coded, Parries are blue coded, and some enemies have special moves that flash red or blue before coming out: You MUST match them to their respective defense in order to Defend against them, so you need to switch Defending character on the fly as well, it's fun and dynamic.

Balance is basically the enemy's posture. If you break the enemy's Balance by emptying their Balance Health, you go into Kill This Fool mode (may or may not be the official name) in which you can, for a limited amount of time, spam your attacks nonstop regardless of AP or turn order, dealing massive damage. Your super move is simple: You simply use the meter and do your super, and they have different effects depending on character. Meter is shared.

It's a straightforward and fun system, and as a big fan of Paper Mario and Sekiro, I like the mixture of both, basically having to time your Defense (and the enemy WILL fuck with your timing by using weird delays or multihits!) and empty the enemy's Balance to absolutely beat the crap out of them.

I can't speak much of the narrative just yet since I'm early, but I do feel the constraints of the mobile game: Some cutscenes really could've been better, but I feel like they tried to skim them so they could fit everything in. Maybe it gets better later when we hit the narrative highs. They've not been bad, though, just, I feel they could be better and tell more more about the characters through their body language and some extra dialogue per scene, truly capitalize on the fact that they are making a fully animated game.

But yeah! Been fun so far!

[bitter-panacea]

Goultard's introduction in the Dofus manga, his confrontation with Clustus Part 2

Part 1

Let's get right back to the fight. Clustus tells Goultard he talks too much and attacks first.

Clustus : You shouldn't have been called Goultard the barbarian but Goultard the chatty!

I still think the D at the end of Goultard's name was supposed to be silent. First of all because in french the D is usually silent in words that end in -ard-, just like here in "bavard", but also because they make a lot of rhymes with his name and none of them work if you pronounce the D. Goultard le barbare, le bavard, le bâtard etc

ANYWAY! Back to the fight. Goultard is hoping this fight won't be yet another disappointment...

Goultard : King Clustus, I hope you have more to offer me than a pityful crow spell.

Turns out Clustus isn't king of Bonta for no reason and is actually quite skilled in combat. And Goultard seems pleased to see it. Maybe this won't be as easy and boring as he expected.

Goultard : Well, well, well... This old man can do some damage.

"Bonhomme" is a very interesting word to me. It can mean "man" or more accurately "fellow". For example "bonhomme de neige" is a snowman, "un bonhomme" is also what you'd call a child's drawing of a person, there is something childish about it.... It's informal and can be affectionate or condescending, maybe even both at the same time. Goultard calls Joris "petit bonhomme" (little fellow), but he's not the only one who uses that word to describe him. (If I'm not mistaken, Gou affectionately calls Arty bonhomme... I might be wrong but I'm too lazy to check right now)

BACK TO THE FIGHT

Clustus invokes the royal crackler (whose name happens to be Kabor). Goultard gets crushed by Kabor and buried under the rubble but frees himself and destroys him with ease.

Rip Kabor

And Goultard starts talking again (he wants to be mysterious so bad but he simply cannot stfu)

Goultard : You said earlier that you knew me... But I'm not so sure, you must be wrong. Because, you see... If you really knew me, you would hold more of a grudge!

Clustus basically tells him to "be more clear or shut the fuck up".

Clustus : A grudge? What do you mean by that? Be more clear, if you will, I'm too old for guessing games. / Goultard : I'm much older than you, Clustus, and I still love riddles... But let's not get distracted, what I meant to say... Oh!

Goultard loves riddles apparently, (I find that hard to believe but why not.) Goultard says "let's not get distracted" and immediately gets distracted by a cool sword he saw. Clustus attacks while Goultard has his back turned (to pick up the cool sword he saw.) Goultard parries the blow and slashes Clustus across the chest (with the cool sword he just picked up.)

Goultard: As I was saying...You can't know me, we've never met before. However, I know you, and I've known, your father well. The king Balbosus Sheran Sharm! / Clustus : What... Impossible!

Goultard : a king well-deserves a few explanations before dying! You see, Clustus, I've spent wonderful moments with your father. He even almost "freed" me. Shortly before I took his life!

Clustus' reaction to that information

Clustus : It's impossible. My father died sixty years ago! I don't know what you're playing at but your story makes no sense! He lost his life facing a monster named Dark Vlad.

Goultard shapeshifts into Vlad just a moment to make Clustus understand they're part of the same entity.

Clustus : You killed my father... He was a good man... Generous and certainly the best king Bonta ever had! / Goultard : Maybe...

Goultard : But once again... That changes nothing! You all are nothing but humans. Whether rich or poor, kings or peasants... Only your combativeness and eagerness interests me!

(I will explore this whole thing with Goultard's contempt for humans, how he doesn't see himself as a human yet wishes he could feel like one, his self-loathing, in a future post focusing on Gou and the symbiote)

Goultard : And to get back to your father, know that he didn't hesitate to sacrifice his men to get me! And when time came for him to be reunited with his ancestors, he begged me to spare him...

Goultard : If you're saying the truth and he really was the greatest king this city's ever known... I don't dare imagine what the others must be like!

We don't know anything more about Goultard and Balbosus' realtionship but I go absolutely fucking bonkers imagining what it could have been like. Wonderful moments, knew each other well, almost freed him, but in the end sacrificed his men trying to capture him... I could talk more about it but It's all stuff I completely made the fuck up in my head. In my head Balbosus wished to free Goultard in a messed up dehumanizing savior complex way "I must free this creature and if I can't, i'll be the one to kill it". They fought many times but Goultard would always let Balbosus live because he was amused and intrigued by his weird obsession for him. A sick game of cat and mouse. Goultard enjoying the thrill of being chased... Until the symbiote grew more possessive of his prey, or Goultard got bored of Balbosus, or he felt betrayed when Balbosus sent his men after him... The fact Dark Vlad is the one who killed Balbosus in the end could also imply Goultard lost control at some point before he finally decided to kill him... Much to think about.

Goultard then starts to shift between his different shapes, revealing only now that, all along, Vald (who we thought was dead), was a part of Goultard, or that Goultard and Vald are both part of a whole. He talks briefly about Vlad and Vald having 50% and 5% of his potential strength, respectively. Clustus calls him insane.

Goultard : No, in hindsight... You could have only beaten me in my Vald form.

Clustus : Well, boy... Seems like you have a couple bats in the belfry! Quickly, put me out of my misery, I've had enough of your ravings... (why is he so funny)

Goultard : My... ravings? My ravings, as you say, make my immortality easier to put up with. / Clustus : If you say so!

Goultard HATES being immortal. Being immortal is a curse, unbearable without adapting by developping a dissociative disorder.

Goultard gets bored of talking to Clustus and decides to leave to find something better to do. Clustus realizes Goultard isn't going to kill him after all.

Goultard : Time has already taken its toll on you, Clustus. You're but a shadow of your former self. So don't count on me to give you the warrior's death that you dream of so badly! It's much more cruel to imagine you passing away on your throne like the senile old man you are.

Clustus shouts at Goultard to come back and finish him off. But Goultard is gone.

Volume 6 continues with Goultard's backstory and ends when Goultard finds Arty and offers him to fight. I'll probably make a post comparing Goultard's manga backstory and the animated one.

[earth-unicorn]

Here it is friends.

Game Night 2

The second game had begun. Nora, Ren, Pyrrha, and Velvet sat around the table listening to Jaune's words as he described the battle that lay before them. Each player took turns attacking and defending. Victory was near, they could feel it.

Jaune: Ok Pyrrha it's your turn.

Pyrrha rolls a D20: Natural 20.

Nora: Hell yeah!!!

Ren: Congratulations Pyrrha.

Velvet clapping: Awesome!

Jaune: Well it definitely hits. It's also a crit. Roll for damage

Pyrrha rolls 10 D6: 60 points of damage. Doubled would be 120

Jaune: 120!!! How do you keep doing that?

Pyrrha: Doing what?

Jaune: You've rolled a natural 20 every round.

Pyrrha: Beginners luck I suppose.

Jaune: Well that's definitely enough to take him out. How do you want to do this?

Pyrrha: I don't want to kill him. I'd rather knock him out.

Jaune l: Ok. You charge the man, dodging his attack you spin around a slam the back of your spear into his head knocking him unconscious.

Ren: You've been rolling Natural 20 all night.

Nora: Are you cheating!

Pyrrha: No I swear I'm just rolling normally.

Jaune: It must be Destiny then.

Jaune looked Pyrrha in the eyes with a soft caring smile. Pyrrha looked away trying to hide the blush in her cheeks.

Nora: Jaune it's my turn!

Jaune: Right. What do you want to…

Nora: I'm going to attack the closest goon.

Jaune: Ok roll for your…

Nora stands up and throws the D20 against the table, watching it bounce around until it settles on 20.

Nora snappeds her head up towards Jaune: BREAK… HIS… LEGS!!!

Jaune: Um… the mans legs snapp under the wait of your hammer as swing down as hard as you can

Nora quietly repeating: Break his legs! Break his legs! Break his legs!

Jaune: Velvet it's your turn

Velvet: Is she ok?

Ren: She's fine. This is the only time that she actually gets to “break his legs” so she kinda loses it afterwards. She'll be like this for awhile. I'll tuck her into bed and she'll be asleep in no time.

Ren gets up and drags Nora over towards the beds.

Jaune: Ok Velvet it's your turn.

Team JNPR's door opens to reveal the rest of team CFVY.

Coco: Velvet it's time you come back to the dorm. It's getting pretty late and we have a mission tomorrow.

Velvet: Come on Coco at least let me finish my turn.

Coco sighing: Fine. Make it quick.

Velvet: Yes! I would like to attack that last guy.

Jaune: Roll for an attack.

Velvet rolls a D20: 12

Jaune: Sorry Velvet but that won't hit. It's the enemies turn now.

Jaune rolls a D20: 18

Velvet teary eyed: H-hit

Jaune: The man parries your attack and drives his blade forward into your chest. The attack drops your HP too 0 and kills you.

Velvet wipes her face and gets up from her seat: Ok C-Coco I'm done.

Coco doesn't budge from the door.

Coco glared at Jaune: Oh Hell no! We aren't leaving. Guys sit down it's our turn.

Jaune: What about your mission tomorrow?

Coco: Fuck the mission. Those assholes hurt Velvet. They will pay dearly for it.

Ren tucking Nora in: It's just a game.

Coco: Shut up! It's time for team CFVY to enter this fight. Start it over nerd.

The rest of team CFVY enter the room and take a seat at the table. Coco pulls Velvet back to her seat.

Coco sliding her sunglasses down: Let's do it the right way.

Author Note: I'll wait till tomorrow to post it on Twitter. It's 11:08pm and I'm tired. I'm going to bed

[lifeweaverspeach]

Update of my adventure with Lies of P

(yes you are not escaping it, I am so excited to tell people my thoughts and experiences)

I have played a bit yesterday and I was not ready to be THAT BAD. The first mini-boss(?) aka the big puppet in the train station kicked my ass a few times before I managed to kill it. And ngl, the sound he makes when he hits that corpse is so fucking creepy.

Amd basically I was coming back to fight and saying "Hey, I'm back here again! Miss me?" XDD he didn't :(

Then I was a little stuck outside the train station because I am still used to the mechanics of the game. The marking enemy thing got me a little confused a few times.

Unfortunately I have a little habit that I need get rid of, which is clicking the mouse a little too much during the fight, so I can't block/parry. Need to unlearn that. And I need stop using R so much because, for those unaware, in game its used to use a pulse to regenerate health and in Overwatch its used to reload. So yeahhh

Also enemies scared a couple of times, because of both the atmosphere and because suddenly they walked out of the corner or there was a second right behind and I was having a OH SHIT moment. I am esly scared and startled so i am not even surprised by my reaction.

Also a little fun fact that I am not fond of - petrification disease was translated to zespół petryfikacji. In Polish zespół besides meaning band, also is a word for syndrome. I was honestly hoping for them to use word choroba which can be translated to sickness or illness. That's just me complaining about what sounds better, but hey, if you're not Polish or don't speak the language, you leaned something new, HORAY!

At this point I am on my way to the circus where to fight the game's first boss.

Besides a messy start into the game and a little bit of disappointment in my lack of skill, I am still very positive about the game and can't wait to experience more!

Might make more silly little post of my experience with the game, mostly because it's fun to be able to tell others about my (messy) experience with something I'm excited about!

[lastintheserverbox]

Okay.. okay! Sick! Sick cool just uh. Mm.

Okay so it's probably best to just crack one game at a time because I dont know the specifications of the system you run on and depending on how bad the wifi is it could take longer, so you can just pick from this list of torrents I have and I can send you one to start with.

I promise you it's super easy once you have the file. The tricky part usually is finding a download that isn't laced with trojans, but these are ones I've already verified.

Minecraft is a pretty easy one as all you need is a cracked launcher like SKlauncher. I'd just have to send the download n stuff and it's a real easy set up.

The Sims 4 is one I got too. It's a two part set up through the CMD terminal, super easy and the only hard part is being patient for the download lmao. There's a loooot of dlc so that's why it takes forever. And if you wanna just skip on the dlc, the base game is free, and modding is again; super easy.

Actually the cracker I have for Sims 4 can also do any other EA title games, so if there's another you might like I can show you.

Anything on steam I could figure out for you too,

Nintendo stuff is a bit harder but I'd do it for you guys

....

Oh god I fucking rambled again just ugh okay whatever uh if you're struggling with choice Sims 4 is pretty good to get lost in so if you just need something to take your mind off stuff that's a good bet

Okay cool cool

- 💾

[Amie tilted his head curiously. He had. No idea what any of these were. He glanced at Parry]

"I don't know any of these, do you?"

[psychangels]

been thinking abt the different dynamics and general relationships between the gang. so here's those thoughts summarized, with my more in-depth ones under the cut

chai and peppermint they have a very fun dynamic, with their bickering and bantering. the evolution of their relationship is fascinating and sweet, and i will forever love how peppermint starts caring about chai fairly early on and lies horribly about it to his face because she doesn't want to admit to anyone—least of all herself—that she's getting attached

chai and macaron their dynamic is just nice and sweet. chai helps macaron grow more confident and tries to help him relax. macaron helps chai by rooting for him and complimenting him when others won't. it's also rlly cute how they're the only ones to refer to each other with nicknames/terms of endearment (mac and little guy respectively)

peppermint and macaron endlessly fascinating to me how they both love roxanne and what she built so much that, despite not meeting due to her keeping them at arms length, they're ultimately brought together

macaron and cnmn their dynamic is so fun! cnmn's bluntness contrasts well with macaron's cautious nature. love how macaron built cnmn because he didn't want to be alone...and was self-aware enough that he needed help to also make them a therapy bot

chai and cnmn such an interesting dynamic. the guy that supresses basically any and all negative feelings and hides his past and pains; the therapist robot that recognizes that, but is just tactful enough to not call him out on it...for the most part

cnmn and peppermint kind of a similar dynamic to cnmn and chai. she appreciates cnmn for his more analytical side than his goofiness

cnmn and korsica these two can be fun. korsica definitely appreciates how direct cnmn is. i think post-game, they probably bond a bit over how they both got pretty fucked up by kale physically.

chai and korsica their dynamic is just...truly fascinating to me. mostly bc of their parallels. i've made a post talking about that in the past, though, so i won't repeat myself. but i also really like their differences. the main one that i always think of is her drive to challenge herself and need to do more, which contrasts with his more lax nature

peppermint and korsica they're neat. they get along well because they're pretty similar. both assertive, tactical, and confident in their own skills; share a distaste for puns and a need to keep busy; total dorks. post-game i imagine they grow pretty close.

macaron and korsica these two have a lot of potential for a interesting dynamic. they both look up to and respect roxanne a lot, and knew that something was wrong with the company but did not act due to their own beliefs. her levelheadedness is a good counter for his anxiety.

chai and peppermint their relationship starts off the most strained out of all of them, with the exception of korsica for obvious reasons. something that i find interesting is how she starts to care about him fairly early on. despite being (understandably) mad at him for blowing her cover, she checks in on him and compliments him throughout the parry tutorial. later, when she shows up at macaron's lab, she runs in saying, "don't be dead!" and lies horribly about being worried about him when he asks.

the two of them both seek out loneliness and prefer to be on their own. but it's interesting how, despite being described as the "loner hacker girl," peppermint is actually far more inclined to seek help and companionship than chai. she clearly doesn't want to admit that, though, considering how, as i said earlier, she lies about being worried about him. she does sort of let it slip when she mentions how 808 provides companionship as well as being a spy drone, though

the two of them have a very fun dynamic. they bicker and banter. their interactions are often filled with a sort of confidence, if that makes sense. not really sure how to explain. all of the lines they say to each other when she gets called in are sort of assertive in some capacity; that same confidence. there's a growing trust there.

chai and macaron their relationship and dynamic is very nice. there isn't as much to say as the previous dynamic, but that's because they don't rlly have a whole lot of growth in terms of theirs. it stays basically the same the whole time. but that makes sense and works well, because macaron's growth is centered around him becoming more confident. which chai is great for, because he's probably the most confident member of the whole gang aside from peppermint and probably cnmn.

they're the only members of the gang to refer to each other with any sort of nicknames/terms of endearment (chai calls him mac; macaron calls him little guy), which is neat. also really cute.

also, to discuss the lines that they say when he's called in: they're actually fairly assertive and confident. they have no lines where they check-in on each other, but this time there are no exceptions. i honestly find this a little strange, i feel like out of all of them, macaron would want to check on chai the most.

peppermint and macaron something that i find so interesting about their relationship is how they both seemed to be very close to roxanne despite the ways she held them at arms length, yet they never met until recently-ish. it makes sense why. but it really does make me wonder if roxanne never even had pictures of her kids in her office or anything similar. i also find it fascinating how their love of roxanne, and what she built, is what eventually causes them to meet

we don't really get to see them interacting one-on-one much, but they seem to get along relatively well. they have a lot of similar interests and hobbies (stem stuff), which definitely helps with that. i can imagine them helping each other out with projects when one of them is struggling with a certain bit of code or figuring out a design or...other tech-y things

macaron and cnmn the bffs! i love them. it's really interesting to see sort of a reverse of peppermint and chai, who sought loneliness and preferred being on their own, with macaron, who was sort of forced in many ways to be on his own but chose to seek companionship by making cnmn. i also find it fascinating how he specifically chose to build them with the purpose of being a sort of therapist. it shows how self-aware he is. i also find it hilarious that he named him CRAP, most likely without meaning to

their dynamic is very fun! cnmn's bluntness has a nice contrast with macaron's more nervous nature. the way that macaron prefers peaceful options, whereas cnmn is totally down to fight, but simply can't due to macaron's preferences being reflected in their design. inaction vs action, but in a friendly and compassionate way

chai and cnmn such an interesting dynamic. the guy that supresses basically any and all negative feelings and hides his past and pains; the therapist robot that recognizes that, but is just tactful enough to not call him out on it...for the most part. i get the sense that chai is sort of wary of cnmn in some ways because of that. but he also respects them and enjoys their company. they have fun! they're both silly fellas! they enjoy puns!

i love how cnmn has his own sort of growth, and chai, while he doesn't fully know how to help them with it, does what he can: offer his support. it's very sweet. it's also interesting because it's the reverse of what you would expect. you'd think cnmn would be the one helping chai with his insecurities, but instead they're the one being offered comfort and support

cnmn and peppermint kind of a similar dynamic to cnmn and chai, but i don't think peppermint's really wary of cnmn. she enjoys his company more for his analytical side, rather than his goofy one. i think she appreciates his bluntness. she also appreciates that he knows when to and when to not share his thoughts and perceptions, for obvious reasons

i wish i had more to say about them, but similar to macaron and peppermint, we don't get to see the two of them interact one-on-one. and they don't have As much in common, aside from that cnmn knows how to hack. the two of them likely aren't particularly close, but that doesn't mean they don't care abt one another.

cnmn and korsica these two can be fun. korsica definitely appreciates how direct cnmn is. i think post-game, they probably bond a bit over how they both got pretty fucked up by kale physically. they would try to help her feel less self-conscious about her scars, and offer support on the whole in regards to some of her insecurities. in turn, she would teach them to fight and help them with their own insecurities in regards to how they feel like they don't do enough for the team

in terms of actual canon interactions, this is another one where we don't get to see very many, so i don't have much else to say. but i do think they'll become fairly close

chai and korsica these two are so interesting to me. they're the only ones with voice lines when she's called in where they ask one another if they're okay ("korsica, you got this?" "you alright, chai?"). she also actively compliments him, unlike the others ("good timing!" "very precise, chai!"). and, of course, she has her moment where she compliments him in the hideout after she joins the team. also special shoutout to him calling her "vandelay security's finest" (heard if you perform one of her jam combos)

their dynamic is just...truly fascinating to me. mostly because of their parallels. i've made a post talking abt that in the past, though, so i won't repeat myself. but i also really like their differences. the main one that i always think of is her drive to challenge herself and need to do more, which contrasts with his more lax nature

peppermint and korsica they're neat. they get along well because they're pretty similar. both assertive, tactical, and confident in their own skills; share a distaste for puns and a need to keep busy; total dorks. post-game i imagine they grow pretty close. peppermint helps korsica with her implants and things down in security; korsica helps peppermint with getting rid of some of kale's bullshittery that's still left

i'm viewing their dynamic here from a more platonic lens, but peppermint's crush is important to take into account. though i'm not sure how much it would really change up their dynamic, aside from peppermint's flustered-ness causing potential cute/silly moments

macaron and korsica these two have a lot of potential for an interesting dynamic. they both look up to and respect roxanne a lot, and knew that something was wrong with the company but did not act due to their own beliefs (macaron didn't want to fight; korsica pushed down her feelings because she had finally achieved her dream). they also both have arm implants, which i'm sure macaron helps her adjust to

her levelheadedness is a good counter for his anxiety. i imagine her presence, though perhaps intimidating at first, can actually be rather calming. especialy since she is known to offer reassurance to those that need it (her interactions with chai being the primary example). i see the two of them as pretty good friends

[ordinaryschmuck]

Finished the main story campaign in Spider-Man 2

What I liked

There were some AWESOME action set pieces. Sandman's boss fight, the prison transfer, Kraven's den, chasing Black Cat, and hunting the Lizard just to name a few.

The swinging is still fun and I LOVED the web-wings. There are times when I go in for a glide, hoping to get to the checkpoint without needing to swing. It's more addicting than it should be.

LOVED Kraven. Probably the best adaptation of him yet with an interesting motivation that makes sense for a character like him.

Miles' little story with Mister Negative is ALSO interesting, and I like how it ended, especially with what they do with Martin in the end. It's pretty good.

The boss fights are a huge improvement, adding in a health bar that lets you know how far along you're kicking ass and making each fight feel like a battle WON. It's frustrating that I got MY ass kicked more times than not, but each time I finally beat the boss it I EARNED that victory.

That brief moment where I was killing people as Venom was super fun in a sick way. PLEASE make that Venom Spin-off game, Insomniac. We want you to just for gameplay alone.

Peter giving into the madness of the symbiote is handled pretty well. It DOES feel like he becomes a little more evil quicker than he should have, but I blame that on me going through the game's story mode and actively avoiding the side missions until I finished the campaign. Everyone's gameplay experience is different and something that feels fast in the story might not feel as fast to others.

MJ's stealth missions are actually pretty exciting this time...a bit bullshit that SHE can take care of certain goons, but at least I'm not wasting time hiding anymore. And that final mission with her was surprisingly fun and intense.

I liked those prequel scenes of Peter as a teen. Really sold how young he was when starting out as Spider-Man.

What I Didn't Like

THAT GOSH DANG PARRY SYSTEM! I'm willing to blame my own lack of skill for this, but I HATE parrying. I almost NEVER get it right, and it sucks when fighting foes where parrying is a requirement to beating them. And it's extra bullshit when the game throws in attacks you HAVE to dodge and get super FUCKED when you parry instead. It made combat more frustrating than fun, and actually hurt my enjoyment in the combat, which I INTENSELY enjoyed from the first game and the Miles Morales spin off.

And don't even get me started on those horseshit checkpoints! Every time I start over, I am filled with DREAD that I have to do all that annoying difficult shit all over again because I didn't get to this exact point the game wanted me to get to.

It doesn't make sense that Kraven has goons. He works best as a solo act and I don't get what his minions get out of working for him. I know it's to give us more people to fight against, but it doesn't work for me.

Norman Osborn is surprisingly underutilized in this game? Like, with how much of a prominent role Harry has, there's not much of a need for Norman, nor a valid reason to be there other than get pissed off over what happens near the end. It feels like his character was an afterthought, which is strange for someone who's meant to be the Green Goblin soon.

Harry's character...gets worse the more the game goes by. He started out interesting as someone both clinging to the past and trying desperately to pick up his life right where he left it. But as the game goes on and it tries to push this...idea with him, it doesn't really work as there's not enough time to properly develop it. It was a good idea with not that great of an execution.

Miles' suit...I don't hate as much as the rest of the people who played the game, but I do think it's nonsense that Miles made it while the city was being destroyed. Yeah, Peter made a new suit in the end of the last game, but there you can argue that it's for practicality purposes in order to get the upper hand against Doc Ock. Miles just made a new suit because he thought it looked cool...It does not.

AND WHERE ARE THE AVENGERS?! It didn't make sense that they didn't show up in the first game, and it makes even LESS sense now! Like, you really expect me to believe that NONE of the Avengers were available at the moment? NONE?! Not even Hawkeye?! At this point, I expect the third game to end a similar way Peacemaker did, where Peter and Miles are carrying away a bleeding out MJ after this big apocalyptic fight, and the Avengers show up JUST as its over only for Peter to go, "You're too late, assholes!" And now that I say it...that would actually be pretty funny. But it's still nonsense that they're not there!

And that's about it. 8/10 game, not as great as the first one, but still pretty fun.

[alelelesimz]

tips for making combat as easy as possible in the switch zelda games? i get so nervous with every single monster and can barely play the game 🫣

oh babyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy thank you for letting me yap about zelda this is my favorite thing to do!!!!!

i'm gonna talk about totk bc that's what i'm playing rn but if you're playing botw and something here doesn't really work, let me know and i'll help you out! i had strategies for every monster too. i'm also not talking about actual bosses so if you need help with any of those also let me know, they're all very easy once you understand their mechanics :)

if you're not good with flurry rush or parrying or any of those things, don't worry neither am i! so here's a list on how i brute force everything as efficient as i can!

careful, long ass post below :D

some little tips:

every monster has a mechanic, you just need to learn their patterns and repeat them a bunch

you can always pause to change your armor or weapon or heal and your inventory is huge so you can have a bunch of food that will help you

if all else fails, you can teleport yourself somewhere else and come back when you feel ready!

if there's a specific enemy that scares you too much, there's no shame in checking a map online to mark them in your game to avoid them

read what npcs tell you about monsters, they give you a ton of hints on how to fight many of them

if you're playing botw, stasis is an amazing tool! once you upgrade it you can freeze creatures for a bit which is very useful. also great to detect if a decayed guardian is still alive or if a big rock is actually a talus

if you're on totk, you can also detect monsters like taluses and evermeans with the camera!

other tips: if you know all of this skip to where i start talking about monsters

FOOD: very important! what makes zelda so easy is that you can literally pause at any moment and fill your hearts. and you don't really need to be a chef you just need to know what ingredients do. if you add five of the same ingredient it will give you a better effect. here's an example of stuff i use often:

hylian tomatoes: a bunch of hearts

hearty truffles/radishes: max hearts + extra hearts

sundelions: restores gloom damage

mighty bananas: attack power

ironshrooms: defense

(in botw durians were the best fucking thing in the game bc they were so easy to farm. i miss them sm!!!)

etc. you can google this if you wanna learn more but basically always have some of these in your inventory for when you're going to attack monsters

ARMOR: in this playthrough i just maxed my champion's leathers, hylian hood and hylian trousers. they were easy (just time consuming) to upgrade and it's not bad for when you're getting hit.

other than that i'm trying to upgrade as much as i can the snowquill set so i don't get frozen, the flamebreaker set so i don't get cooked in the volcano, the desert voe set so i don't melt in the desert and the depths set so gloom doesn't destroy me. for electric attacks i just use the lightning helm and in another universe i would also upgrade the barbarian set bc of the attack but i will NOT be fighting a bunch of lynels absolutely fucking not.

remember to use the correct set when you're fighting elemental monsters btw! many times the elemental attacks literally won't hurt you at all if you have the set bonuses

other than that i don't really bother upgrading almost anything else bc it's annoying and not worth it! this is the only completionist thing i don't care about

WEAPONS (kinda useless for botw): FUSE 👏 YOUR 👏 WEAPONS 👏 monster horns are good for fusing, fusing weapons with other weapons is good too (especially the gloom ones so they don't hurt you!). i'm killing a bunch of talusses and flux constructs, the thing they drop is always good to fuse. go crazy with fusing! remember you can also fuse stuff to the master sword!!!

also remember to fuse stuff to your arrows!

bomb flowers: your absolute best friend (rip auto bombs)

eyes: hits monsters right on their weak points

chuchu jellies or elemental fruits: amazing for elemental monsters

puffshrooms: monsters have a harder time noticing you

gibdo bones: easy to get in the desert and add A TON of strength to your arrows (bad for melee weapons tho)

another thing is shields! i barely use them bc i'm bad at this game, so i have most of my shields fused to rockets!!! since revali's gale is gone (rip) this is what i use now to get out of a tricky situation or to avoid climbing a lot.

SAGES (also useless for botw): hot take but i actually like having them around, i only dismiss them when they get annoying but they're actually quite useful. they usually take down small monsters like keeses and octorocks before i even realize i'm being attacked and when fighting a big monster or a horde of monsters they help you take them down faster! mineru is the only one i never use

okay i can't think of anything else so here's my strategy for every overworld monster (not actual bosses like ganondorf)

MONSTERS!!

(if you're on botw you don't need to worry about frox, gleeok, constructs or gloom spawns btw, also remember stasis is your friend here and the champions abilities are amazing, especially urbosa's)

HINOX: [weak point: the eye] easiest monster to kill. just throw an arrow with an eye and you will hit it right in the eye lol. once it's down get a double handed weapon and long press the Y button to do that spin attack or do the fast attack with a spear weapon, that works too.

STONE TALUS: [weak point: ore on top or back] get underneath it and use ascent to get on top, then use a double handed weapon with a rock fused or something to make a hammer and hit it with the spin attack on the ore thing. for taluses with the ore on the back just spam arrows with bombs (not in the ones in the volcano caves tho they will explode in your face!!!!) for frost talus just throw a fire fruit at it to stun it fast and same for igneo talus with ice fruits. for battle taluses try to kill the bokoblins first if you can bc they're a nuisance, then ascend on the platform and hit it. oh and i just learned that if they throw their arm at you you can throw it back with Recall omg!!!!

MOLDUGA: [weak point: the belly] these bitches were so much easier in botw with auto bombs but worry not they're still pretty easy. they can't see you but they can hear your steps in the sand so all you have to do is get on top of any rock or building and throw something at the sand like an apple or something you won't miss. it will hear whatever you throw and come out of the sand to attack it, this is when you throw an arrow with a bomb at them to stun them. now just get close and hit it on the belly and that's it just get back on top of a rock when it goes into the sand again.

FLUX CONSTRUCTS: [weak point: the one different cube that moves around] for these guys Recall and Ultrahand are the tools you need. use Ultrahand to grab the weak point cube, if you miss it just keep removing any block you can grab. once you grab the correct one you will take apart the whole thing so just find the weak one and smack it as much as you can. for the one attack where it throws a bunch of cubes at you just run to the side so they don't hit you and then get on top of one and use Recall on it, it will bring you right to the weak point.

FROX: [weak point: the eye] for froxes you can do the same thing that you do with hinox where you throw an arrow at the eye but i find it easier to wait for it to inhale you kirby style and this is when you throw a bomb at it. it will stun it quickly and you have enough time to get on top of it and destroy the ores it has on its back. if it charges at you just fucking run to the side so it doesn't eat you.

GLEEOKS: [weak point: the three eyes] the scariest one so far but not that bad after you fight it. as always just throw an arrow with an eye at it but this time throw three as fast as you can! if you have a lynel bow that does x3 arrows that would be better but if not just spam eye arrows. like with any other elemental, fire against ice and ice against fire, but any eye is fine so don't worry if you don't have enough. once it's down hit it on one of the heads. if you can manage to kill it fast then yay you don't get to the hardest part but if not! it will fly up high and charge at you some elemental attacks:

frost gleeoks will throw some icicles at you, you can see where they fall so avoid them, then get on top of one and use Recall to go up high. also it's better if you don't have any flame weapons equipped at this moment cause they will melt the icicles!

flame gleeoks throw a big fireball, get the hell out of there so the impact doesn't hit you. this will create an updraft that will take you close to it

thunder gleeoks throw lightning at you, but before they hit you, you'll see some beams of light on the floor. avoid them and after they hit they also create an updraft that will get you up there

once near the gleeok just do the eye arrows thing again and it will fall down. they take fall damage so i usually just have to do this whole thing once!

LYNELS: not a boss thank god but probably harder. my strategy: avoid them :) but if you have to fight them: throw a puffshroom so it can't see you, once you're closer throw an arrow with an eye to stun it, then run to the back of it and mount it, once on top you can hit it five times so get the strongest fucking weapon you have! then repeat the whole thing until it's dead 🙏 it's better to fight them from up close cause they have pretty hard attacks when you're far away

GLOOM HANDS: RUN!!! jk (kinda) they can't climb anything so get on top of a platform or something and spam bombs at all the hands. don't wait too much tho cause the hands will reappear if you don't kill them all. then there's phantom ganon but i don't find it that hard? just hit him a lot and have some good food on you cause it does hit hard. i avoid these fuckers as much as i can bc they're too scary lol and not that worth it. the worst part is that they appear out of fucking nowhere so i always mark their location on the map and get the hell out of there.

people will tell you that phantom ganon and lynels give the best weapons which is true but i find them not that worth it considering how much i hate fighting them! so don't feel like you need to fight them if you don't want to

THAT'S IT I THINK??????? don't be scared remember that they all have very specific mechanics so just repeat the patterns and you will get rid of all of them super fast!!! if you need help with literally any other monster let me know! i actually love combat in these games cause it's pretty easy and many times very silly

[thankskenpenders]

So! As expected, I've been playing a lot of Frontiers. I plan on doing a longer writeup after I've finished it, but here are some basic bullet point thoughts so far, as of reaching the third island

I'm enjoying it a ton so far, warts and all. It's a flawed game for sure, primarily via some physics/control hiccups here and there that shouldn't be unfamiliar to people who have played a boost formula game before. None of that's a dealbreaker for me because by god this game's got HEART

Exploring the open world that's just a big playground of rails and springs and whatnot is fun. The new combat is fun. Lots of enemy designs that make interesting use of Sonic's skills

Cyberspace levels are more hit or miss (they're all short and the 2D ones tend to be weaker), but they're a very minor part of the game compared to the open world and should be treated as such

Both of the titan fights I've done so far have been absolutely fucking bonkers setpiece moments that outshine most final bosses in the series. I died like eight times on the first one (I should've gone in with more rings and also I didn't realize you're just supposed to hold down the parry buttons instead of timing it) but I was still having a blast from the sheer spectacle and that MUSIC

I'll avoid story spoilers but y'all. Ian did it. It takes a bit for his style to really come through in the script, but once you start getting more into the story it's clear as day and I am HERE FOR IT. It is so unbelievably nice to have a Sonic game where everyone finally feels like themselves again and the characters are engaging earnestly with the story they're in. (And holy shit is that story going some places.)

This is also the most emotional range the current Sonic voice cast has ever had to display lmao

And yeah Roger's voice is a little deeper sometimes. But not all the time? I don't know if it was an intentional it was but you get used to it

And, finally, there are some really cool voice lines referencing certain characters and past games... but I have absolutely no idea how people are triggering them??? I'm glad there are clips going around because I would've missed almost all of them, I've seen exactly two so far

[beasts-of-jadewood]

Super Lesbian Animal RPG Is The Best Video Game I've Played Since Minecraft

Now that I've finally regained my ability to make publicly visible posts, I'd like to take a moment to gush about the critically acclaimed indie game classic Super Lesbian Animal RPG by @ponett and associates.

Holy shit. Holy shit? This game is so fucking good you guys. Are you kidding me? I know the title sounds like a stupid joke and there is actually a lot of humor in this game but you know what? This is a video game that's worth taking seriously. I've never given a shit about romance as a genre before getting into @slarpg because all the romance stories I've seen as a kid are either dragged-out "Will They, Won't They?" types, painful divorce stories, or fucking Romeo and Juliet. There seems to be this overwhelming belief in the genre that the greatest obstacle faced by a truly happy couple that's meant for each other is the process of getting together, and once they've gotten together the story can end. Of course, anyone who's ever had parents knows that shit isn't true, which is why I'm so fucking happy that SLARPG is a romance story about a couple that's already together and it showcases how they can have disagreements and awkward moments but still overcome them and keep going. I love that shit.

In my opinion, the most important thing a turn-based RPG developer needs to do is make sure the plot of their game is solid. With a more action-oriented game like the Souls series or Armored Core, the story doesn't fucking matter and nobody cares about it. People are in it for the exciting, challenging gameplay. If you show them a crisp parry animation that feels better than sex when you time it perfectly or a sick-ass command grab from a boss or whatever, then they're already sold without even knowing who any of the characters are. But you can't have those things with a turn-based RPG so the story is the most important part, and holy shit did SLARPG have the story nailed down on a cross and ready for worship.

See, I've spent my entire life searching for more stories that are relatable to people who live in the real world but at the same time provide a better alternative to the bleak reality we all know and don't love. SLARPG is one of those stories. Melody and Allison will talk about shit like housing being too expensive and Claire will mention how she doesn't talk to her transphobic parents anymore but they're also able to find happiness and stability with the power of love. It gives the game a sort of hopeful undertone that it's meant to represent the real world if people had the courage to do something about all the awful shit we have. Basically, SLARPG shows that misery exists in its world without normalizing it. Every drop of tear shed by Melody is treated with the immense gravity it deserves. At no point did the game say "This suffering you feel is just what happens in the world, better get used to it kid." but it also simultaneously shows how it's possible to move forwards from that sadness one step at a time. I fucking love that shit.

Read more for spoilers.

Now, getting into spoiler territory. I really like how this game also managed to marry its personal, emotional conflict with its greater, physical conflict. At no point in the game are you made to feel like the action-packed excitement of "Fight enemies, save the world." is interrupted so the characters can work through their private emotional insecurities. No, the characters' emotional insecurities and the world-ending threat they face feed into each other and feel as though they're one in the same. Even the main villain was revealed to be someone suffering from similar insecurities in the end and it's the protagonists' ability to make a positive example of themselves that played a key role in defeating her.

Speaking of the villain, she actually made me briefly consider not liking this game since she initially said that she wanted to destroy all the world's evil and recreate the world in a better state, only for the heroes to immediately try and stop her. I had a huge issue with this plot development at first because I hate it when people who wish to change the world for the better are portrayed as the bad guys for some reason. That is, until SLARPG revealed that its main villain was just making up an excuse and simply wanted personal revenge for the perceived murder of her wife that didn't even actually happen, while the heroes wanted to stop her because they were understandably ignorant and afraid of what the fuck her plan actually meant and how many casualties it might cause. In other words, the villain never actually intended to make the world a better place and was thus not portrayed as a bad person for doing so. She wasn't portrayed as a bad person at all, in fact. Rather, she's more depicted as someone blinded by her own rage and victimized by enabling trolls who wanted to start shit for fun, which made her far more relatable and interesting in my opinion.

All in all, I think SLARPG was great. It's a thematically consistent and tonally hopeful story with a good message and relatable characters. The game itself also left quite a few unaddressed antagonists like the evil crypto-mining corporation that keeps the reanimated corpses of former employees as slaves, or the mysterious being from the astral plane that possessed the protagonist and was never truly defeated. These things make me hopeful that we'll get a sequel or DLC or something one day, and I'll be there to support this series every step of the way. Bobby, if you're reading this, thank you so much. I haven't seriously enjoyed a contemporary work of fiction for years now but this game reminded me of how it feels to actually love a video game for once instead of playing through it out of spite like I did with the Souls series. Keep up the good work, for real.

[elinaline]

Dragon Age Veilguard first six hours of gameplay from someone who hasn't waited a decade for the game and who absolutely loved every part of Origins yes even the fade yes even the deep roads yes even the brecilian forest yes even the circle yes even denerim yes

Well first off be ready for the game to have a SHIT optimization. I had to restart my guy a grand total of six times until I was able to progress past the first rage demon crossing the screen three minutes after the introduction cinematics. My recommendation is get rid of the shader cache on your PC settings, delete the shader cache folder in the game files, lower the resolution settings, uncheck the hair strand animation that looks like ass anyways, and maybe restart your computer for good measure after that. Doing all this by trial and error went from the game loading 96% of the shaders in 45 minutes then crashing to starting in 3 seconds and not crashing (that is. Until the cinematic with Morrigan four-five good hours later which prompted me to go to bed. I suspect my PC of overheating and the shader cache to still be too large)

Now that your game is up and running well. Well that character creator is fucking amazing innit. It's a really good mix between all previous BioWare character creator iterations and it allows to make guys with very interesting facial features and good control over pretty much everything without being too huge and overwhelming, and still retaining some of the physiology of the different people from the previous games (contrary to what some steam comments would have you believe about the qunari –who had one (1) face model in DA2, cmon)

As for the fights, they've completely changed from the previous games, bye bye real time strategy and welcome final fantasy 7 type combat with perfect timing dodge and parry, and sometimes asking your companions to do some special actions (not ATB gauge tho, but you DO have a cool finish). And to my great pleasure, hello difficulty calibration ! This bangs. I'm gonna make the enemies even a bit more dangerous than I already did because I'm still not really challenged during the fights so far :)

Speaking of calibration I am extremely impressed by the accessibility tools, there's the now usual screenshake toggle, but also a screenshake slider, a size and opacity slider for subtitles, adapted colors for colorblind people you want it you name it !

Keyboard and gamepad binding are fully customizable, which is nice because you have quite a lot of tools during the fights and it takes a while to find a comfortable way to play. Luckily, the introduction is long enough that you don't feel unsatisfied by the fights you use as calibration I'd say.

In terms of the game itself the fights are quite fun ! I do miss the strategic aspect of DAO but I can also always replay DAO if I want that lol. There's still puzzles which I love, making you explore the environment a bit more, and the environment seems dense at first but is pretty easy to read thanks to a solid artistic direction. I love you artistic direction I am kissing you on the mouth. Yup this game looks a bit "cartoony" in its art they've chosen to go away from hyper realism and boy am I glad. In my opinion, the game looks a lot like Origins if it had better, more recent lighting tech and cleaner textures. I really like it ! It's still quite dark, at least in those first few hours it's been quite fucking dark lmao I don't know who out there thinks it's just silly goofy but may I remind you a recurring theme of Origins, the game where there's a dozen of you fighting a war against a living plague that eats the world while the royalty has sent assassin's after you, is that the country smells of wetdog ? Dragon Age has a lot of silly moments. It's true that Veilguard so far suffers a bit from the Cool Quip disease but I'm still very much at the beginning and I trust that I'll see the relationship develop between characters. Overall my biggest fear is that with only three choices carrying over from Inquisition (who you were in a couple with, did you disband, what'd you tell Solas at the very end), the game might make me face a world state I had no part of and that will frustrate me from the "everything carries over across a twenty year history" game franchise. Already felt weird getting a letter from Isabela due to the background I've chosen and not reading a word about Hawke. I wanna hear about Dagna and the Warden commander and how the royal family is doing in Denerim and whether Sebastian fucked off forever in the end and how are Leli's nugs doing >:( and I want to see Sandal again >:(

Overall fun time so far will come back to you all with more and with screenshots and shit over the week !