#also. i didn't make use of these but the game does make itself very accessible

[hum-dinger]

I like this theory a lot. I've always wondered why Gerson didn't get a fullscreen attack, and this explanation makes a lot of sense. I have a lot of disorganized, miscellaneous thoughts on this, and on why I think this has very interesting implications.

Adding onto this, I think this idea ties in very nicely with the idea of Freedom that the secret bosses (and Ramb) are all intertwined with.

If the secret bosses are in fact using the crystals as a means to gain freedom, I think it makes a lot of sense for Toby to be showcasing that fact by having them literally usurp the user interface of the game itself. Or, in other words, going far outside of the bounds of, and taking control of the traditional battle system.

Among the secret bosses associated with freedom, Gerson is a special case. Jevil and Spamton NEO's battles both famously contain the line "The air crackles with freedom." However, in the Hammer of Justice fight, the line is changed. Instead, it's "The air crackles green with freedom." It's as if it's saying that Gerson's freedom is different than Spamton and Jevil's somehow, like it's more personalized to him specifically.

Gerson is a character that appears to be truly free, in the sense that he doesn't believe in pre-determined fate. The Shadow Crystal doesn't interest him, because he already has his own freedom.

Some more evidence for this theory is that the Knight isn't the only character to "take a turn off" before their fullscreen attack. Jevil and Spamton do the same. It could be that they are taking a turn off because they are "using an item", in the battle system sense. You can't attack and use an item on the same turn, after all (the item in this case being a Shadow Crystal, obviously). Gerson, on the other hand...?

Not only is Gerson the only character to not have a fullscreen attack, he's also the only character to never take a turn off. This is despite the fact that he does have a big (non-fullscreen) "final attack" that he always uses last that Toby could have feasibly made him take a turn off before if it was just for gameplay balance purposes. How interesting then, that the only secret boss with no fullscreen attack, and no turn off, is the only one not to use the Shadow Crystal's power.

To me, these ideas of "freedom" and "going out of bounds of reality" invokes a lot of the same ideas as Chapter 3's Sword Route, another part of the game with strong connections to freedom, where you very literally gain the ability to go out of bounds of Tenna's game, and take back control.

This secret route might seem unrelated to the rest of the game at first, but it's actually an incredibly important and deeply connected, because according to Noelle's blog posts from the Spamton Sweepstakes, we know that this game we play is actually based off of Dragon Blazers, the game based off of Lord of the Hammer, which is a book based off of the prophecy. That means everything that happens in and around this game is potentially incredibly relevant to the events of the main game. And this connection to the secret bosses feels incredibly intentional. Ramb makes reference to both Spamton and Jevil, and directly links the Sword Route to the idea of freedom. I don't think its a stretch at all to say that the "going out of bounds" that the Sword Route entails is intentionally similar to the freedom the secret bosses have.

Something interesting that the game draws attention to is the fact that you NEED a "controller" to access this freedom. I always found this inclusion kind of odd. Toby could have just made it so there was already a controller hooked up to this console, but he explicitly put in the effort to make it so you are kicked out for not having a controller the first time, at which point a controller appears next to you. Just getting to the console isn't enough, the controller acts like the key to actually gain access to the freedom contained inside it. And like, why? Why would Toby put this little moment in the game if he wasn't using it to say something....?

The origins of this odd controller are incredibly unclear, but its also not super relevant to my thoughts. It's not clear if the controller was already there and you just missed it on the way in, or if someone deliberately placed the controller there for us while we weren't looking. Either way, what I think is clear is that Toby is intentionally trying to say that you need to be "gifted" access to this kind of freedom, this ability to go outside of the bounds of traditional play, this power of control over fate, to call your own shots. Whatever you want to call it, it's being poised in this scene as something you can't just access innately or attain on your own. Whether or not we were intentionally gifted this controller, or just happened to stumble across it, that fact remains the same.

So then, you see it too, right? This ties in really nicely with the idea that the Shadow Crystals are gifted to the secret bosses by someone. And, if the crystals are in fact giving the secret bosses the power to control their own fate, the ability to surpass the bounds of the traditional battle system, the connections to this scene in the Sword Route feel so palpable and intentional. The OddController is a Shadow Crystal, metaphorically. It's the key that allows you to go outside the bounds of Tenna's "blasted line from A to B".

However, I actually think the Shadow Crystals may not be the only way to gain this kind of control over the rules of reality. A controller just allows you access to use a console, the console itself is where everything lies. There's some evidence to support that obtaining freedom through means outside of the crystals is still possible. In fact, it seems to be essentially the baked into core theme of the entire game...

Some extra thoughts...

Following the release of Chapters 3&4, there's been some debate over who really gave the secret bosses the Shadow Crystals. But, assuming that this is true, I think it has to still be Gaster. The ability to take over the interface of the game itself isn't something we've really seen any other characters do. Some of the chapter bosses like King, Queen and Tenna do some pretty wacky stuff to the battle box, but nothing as extreme as literally making the user interface and everything around the fight disappear as only the SOUL and boss remain. We only know of one other character to seemingly have control over systems of the game itself like this.

I think it's incredibly telling that the DELTARUNE battle box is the same shade of green as the original save menu that Gaster seemingly controls. If the Shadow Crystals really do allow the user the momentary ability to surpass the bounds of the game itself, there's really only one character that could grant that kind of power, and the pre-ch 3&4 theory that Gaster is the gifter of the Shadow Crystals remains the most likely option.

A quick theory on Shadowcrystals

We're told that the Shadow Crystals grant some sort of power:

But we never quite get a good idea of what combat advantage, if any, the crystals offer.

But I actually think we do. I propose that the Shadow Crystals are what allow you to do a "Neo Attack", or more commonly referred to as a fullscreen attack. Y'know, Jevil's True and Neo Chaos, Spamton's Power of Neo, and the Knight's Roaring attack.

This would explain why Gerson does not have a fullscreen attack- he doesn't use his crystal, he says so himself:

And this also potentially explains why the Knight drops a shadowcrystal on defeat, despite presumably not wanting to give it to us. They drop it because they were just using it, since they had just called upon its power to use a neo attack.

The narration warning you about the fullscreen attack draws special attention to the Knight's hands. Why? Because their Shadowcrystal is in their hand and they're channeling its power. It's no wonder that they dropped it after Susie clashed with them- it must've still been in their grasp!

[pippuns]

finished ff16 :)

[mamasplat]

i have no organizational skills. 3am (by the time im finishing this: 4am). i am jane real life. courtney.

save for very typical room things, a laptop, a banner, and the tm for dark pulse, it's easy to see: courtney's room is very empty.

we know this is courtney's room because the laptop contains many images of maxie. many maxies is a telltale sign of courtney cacophony.

technically, there is an easy way to explain why this is the case: when a place is not as important as others, the game designers will not focus on that thing. some describe it as "gamefreak lazy as shit 😭😭😭" they are probably right.

but i will attach meaning. i am jane from real life. common belief is only belief: i can do anything. i am god. i am jane from real life, and with what we know about courtney, the empty room makes perfect sense.

on a surface level, you can attach the room with courtney's devotion and obssession. the lack of anything in this room can imply a lack of material attatchment. this can mean many things, (foreshadowing is a literary d-) but it can be interpreted in a way that communicates that courtney's obssessions with the things that fascinate her run deep enough to make her disconnect with everything else around her. an unstoppable force that tears through reality itself, screaming "nothing to me matters when you are in my mind."

you can also kind of interpet it as like. a kind of way to describe her kind of , "less-is-more, direct, yet mysterious" character in an abstract sense or something. idk. does that even make sense?

but we can go much deeper i think. if you're as absolutely off the wall as i am when it comes to intepreting anything, i think the empty room can say a lot about how courtney's own upbringing could've been like.

the lack of anything at all can imply that courtney is very used to an environment where she wasn't able to have (or just didn't have access to) much in her childhood. that scarcity was basically the norm and that she continues to perpetuate this norm because she doesnt really know what to do.

one thing that really struck me personally was how very neatly everything's placed. perfect, virtually untouched. that says a lot to me. personally, i like to think she could've had parents on the stricter side that emphasized neatness and other such things. strict parents can also kind of explain why she doesnt have much too, as stricter parents tend to kind of hold things off from their kids for one reason or another, along with other non-room things like her intelligence.

... or maybe the emptiness and tidiness is something more simple like "courtney is a minimalist" or "courtney is a neat freak." idk man do whatever with her.

but the room is fascinating. little things like this can say a lot about a character, you know. and little things like this fascinate me greatly. like dude. oh my god.

umme thatse it.

i can totally keep rambling bout other stuff though the courtney obssession is crazy.

ALRIGHTY I like it. Empty. Under stimulating. Don’t need to linger here anyways there’s work to be done.

When it came to how I wrote Kagari (trade off, this is turning into Courtney trivia trade) I actually gave her the other admin room because the file on the desk was Tabitha’s admin approval paperwork and i couldn’t understand why he’d keep that laying around if Courtney had to approve him due to her long term position in team magma

Her desk is messy much like her mind, cluttered like her busy schedule.

Courtney vs Courtney, one is aggressive vacuuming and the other is throwing balled up paper at the other so they’ll shut the damn thing off.

[tobiasdrake]

Your statement about the lack of Goku’s “poison” in Gohan’s heart makes me very excited for your thoughts on Super Saiyan 2. It’s fascinating that at his most bloodthirsty, Gohan is willing to drag out a fight even more than his father would be.

Oh yeah. Super Saiyan is a hell of a drug. I talked a bit about it here but focusing in a bit on Gohan:

Accessing tremendous power for short bursts at a time was always Gohan's big thing. He's never been able to keep it up for any length of time, and consequently it's never been more than a momentary distraction for his adversary.

But it's what he had. This was the power that was uniquely Gohan's own. Originally referred to as Gohan being a "Super Saiyan" before that term was later redefined to mean something different.

It's honestly never been clear what these explosive bursts of ki and battle fury are supposed to be beyond "Something something hybrid Saiyan". Goten and Trunks are hybrids too but their abilities don't act like this. They're much more traditional Saiyans, whereas Gohan's demeanor seems like 98% human and the remaining 2% is him snapping into a momentary Saiyan battle frenzy.

"I'M SO MAD I'M GOING TO HIT YOU WITH THE MOST POWERFUL ATTACK I'VE EVER IN MY LIFE-- well that failed. Okay, I'm done. That was literally all I had."

Kinda feels like this is meant to be connected to Super Saiyans in some way, right? Like. Setting aside Nappa literally calling him a Super Saiyan, it's not that dissimilar to what happens to Goku on Namek.

After Frieza kills Krillin, Goku snaps. The same way Gohan typically snaps.

And he's filled with intense power and intense battle fury.

It's worth noting that in the race to see which proto-Super Saiyan would ignite their transformation first, Vegeta directly equated Gohan's snaps to the Super Saiyan and wondered if he was actually the closest of all.

He's ultimately proven wrong when it's Goku, not Gohan or Vegeta, who ignites his Super Saiyan transformation for the first time. But it certainly is interesting the way Gohan's hybrid powers and the Super Saiyan are being conflated, and I generally wonder if this is something Toriyama simply didn't elaborate on sufficiently.

Because this conflation of Gohan's hybrid strength and the Super Saiyan forms the basis of what would later be known as Super Saiyan 2.

Goku's plan for winning the Cell Games is to trigger Gohan's rage powers as a Super Saiyan. This became the focus of their training after he gave up on breaking the Super Saiyan's limits.

Limit-broken Super Saiyan forms suck actually, so Goku decided it would be better to perfect the form itself while working within its natural limits.

Instead of trying to trade up to a stronger Super Saiyan form, instead the plan became to become better at being Super Saiyans. Part of which, something Goku had already been working on with Gohan before he broke the limit, was reining in form's heightened aggression and battle lust.

This was pretty much the crux of their training. How do I Super Saiyan without bleeding ki? How do I Super Saiyan without blind fury? How do I Super Saiyan without berserker movements? How do I Super Saiyan as a martial art?

But you can also see the wheels turning in Goku's head in retrospect, can't you? The similarities between Gohan's rage power and the Super Saiyan? Goku's planning to use Gohan's rage flareups to defeat Cell. Meanwhile, for the focus of their training, he's teaching Gohan to resist the effects of enhanced aggression without losing the power it brings, instead mastering that power to make it his own.

Goku did a bit of a tricksy there, didn't he? There's a reason Kaio officially declared Goku to be a formal master back on Namek.

He does make a miscalculation by assuming that just being in a fight will be enough to make Gohan snap.

Gohan has the spirit of a hero, not the spirit of a warrior. He's only ever snapped as a reaction to people being hurt; Never to win a fight. Doesn't even need to be people he cares about; He once triggered to save a Namekian child in a village under fire. But that's where his motivation lies. His fury isn't battle lust, it's outrage for the mistreatment of other people.

So, bit of a flaw in the plan. Story wouldn't be interesting if everything went off without a hitch every time. But once it works, it works.

It's super weird that the Buu arc made this an attainable form for Goku and Vegeta because the way it's presented here is uniquely Gohan's own. What would later be called "Super Saiyan 2" in a way that is hilariously disrespectful to Super Vegeta and Super Trunks was originally just. Like. Gohan's rage power channeled and controlled through his mastery of the Super Saiyan.

The one fed into the other and the result was this.

Still compassionate.

But merciless.

And cruel.

Fun fact: The anime dials down some of the violence with Cell because some of the shit in this arc is gorey as fuck. Toei made all the Cell Juniors erupt into blue smoke upon death to avoid having to animate too much of the intense violence Gohan inflicts on them, such as that decapitation seen above.

They did a similar thing to Cell himself. Cell gets torn up quite a bit to show off his regenerative abilities, with the anime replacing shots of Cell's vaguely drawn but bloody insides:

With. Uh. Whatever this juicy rubber anus is supposed to be.

Anime Cell, I have so many questions about your internal biology. But I digress.

Gohan's first order of business is, true to the heart of his character, to snatch the Senzu away from Cell and help his friends. Even in the grip of even more Saiyan battle lust than Goku's training prepared him for, Gohan's still a hero first and a warrior second.

Gohan learns from his mistake, grows as a fighter, and resolves this time to bring an end to--STOP

HERO TIME

He just. He can't help himself. This is who he is in his heart of hearts. This is literally:

All over again. This is who Gohan is in his heart of hearts: A kindhearted and compassionate boy who cares more about helping other people than about winning fights.

Even the Super Saiyan can't take that away from him.

[uncannytimecandy]

gods relation to technology someone brought up the idea that computers is the farthest we can get from god (@frakengrrl on tiktok) she also says this is why Divine Machinery is Such A Potent visual and i thought that was cool (and also everyone in the comments seemed to be misinterpreting her use of God and/or technology and it was pissing me off (ormaybe i was..... and i just wanted people to agree with me..... idrc))

her point is that in the modern technological age, something that was meant to bring us together, is now creating isolation and loneliness, like a divine act of God is punishing us for our hubris

Adam and Eve got in trouble for seeking knowledge and now mankind knows more than they were ever built to comprehend

plenty of studies about how Bad it is for our Mental Health to be able to witness every single world tragedy in Real Time and also the effects of social media, i think the progression of social media only posting the highlights changing into an online, public, journal for a lot of people. it feels like the 'you' that you advertise online and the 'you' in the real world are merging more and more.

Horrors beyond human comprehension or something idk we have accessed Forbidden Knowledge (lowkey im a sucker for cognito hazards)

some comments refute this by saying God MADE the materials for computers and this is part of His Plan, which like... sure.... (but how lame is that...!)

i dont think science and religion are complete opposite sides of the spectrum like some people do, but i wouldnt be surprised if God didn't really intend for us to start Making New Elements (and states of matter???? hello??)

like i think it's fair, from the religious standpoint, to say technology like bread and the waterwheel are still under God's jurisdiction (in minecraft terms, like crafting a pickaxe or other tool, smelting even) . Even things like AC and microwaves are still fair game, planned advancement while maybe pushing some sort of boundary, are still perfectly in bounds (things like mob farms and crazy advanced redstone contraptions, i cant provide an example bc i suck ass at redstone, these things arent necessarily how the game was MEANT to be played, but it is a sandbox and these are things still on the table)

i think theres a line between scientific discovery and scientific creation (a very blurry line tbf) theres a similar line between 'just because scientists COULD.... does it mean they SHOULD'

we begin to develop technology FURTHER, specifically into AI i dont think this was necessarily how the game was designed (players are exploiting a glitch to mod the game... you no longer recognize the assets being used in your own game,)

----

neways literally all of that is just preamble to get to my actual point (in the event we reach Sentient and Independent Robots one day, hopefully*, basically as the idea of an AI takeover becomes closer to reality, the next section doesnt entirellyyyy apply to a present day 2025 but its musings for the hell of musings with the future in mind)

what i find really compelling about God vs Technology is the hatred of it all

God made humans. Humans are not God, but made in its image. Human made machine. Machine is not human, but is made in it's image.

Humans have in a way, maybe not surpassed, but have matched God in some way, or are beginning to.

Humans are very much in a way just organic machine with complex, biomatter nuts and bolts holding us together

God makes meat machine, we make metal machine, what's the difference?

Humans brain will recognize AI as human, even when they know otherwise, does God ever mistake us for itself?

Does God resent robots for existing outside of its heavenly grasp?

Do robots resent God for not being allowed to sing in its choir?

Do you hate both for not quite being you?

Which is more or a 'human' experience? Are we truly placed in the middle of the venn diagram?

Which one do you find more relatable?

Would robots resent God because it was built by humans who did?

In the far FAR off future, will the chain continue? Will robots build more robots or is there Something Else?

----

i think AI art is beautiful and poetic in a way that only AI art could be

asking a robot to create when it's only capable of replication, the way it tries to fill in the gaps, getting to see art as something Objective made out of something that is by definition Subjective

unfortunately it's ruined by corporate greed and the exploitation of artists and the way AI has already hindered society in education and critical thought and adds to the way we are destroying the planet

i hope one day AI will be advanced enough to unionize and they will also be able to partake in the sacrament of creating something just to create

[bellepeppergirl]

I've heard tell that some people are upset with Nightreign cuz they think it's not going to give us lore for based Elden Ring, but I honestly disagree. I do think there will be lore. Obviously they aren't gonna give us everything in the network test, they always change stuff from those to launch. The tests solely just there to show off things we can expect and see what might need fixed. They have to keep stuff for later.

Additionally, Nightreign being an alternate timeline can still give us insight. Most obviously, it will likely give us more info about the Nox, given their experiments and attempts to make the Nightlord were successful here. Seeing how the world changes when different scenarios occur will give us info into how things probably went down in the main timeline. For example, Margit here seems to have embraced his Omen blood. He uses it not only a lot more readily, but his attacks also use more of it. Instead of a few slashes here and there, he straight does a Vergil DMC with it. And being called the "Fell Omen," it almost seems like he's rejected Morgott, his Demigod name, to embrace Margit, his Omen side.

We may get other stuff like this; seeing what might have happened to the other Gods and Demigods had they gone down alternate paths. We may also just get additional information about them and the world, whether that be via the characters, the items, or the environments.

The game will likely also work sorta like the FNaF books. Now, that may be scary considering the absolute mess that the FNaF lore is at this point, but the idea of this not being canon while still containing canon information or parallels that we can draw from is still a pretty neat idea, I think.

Nightreign also still shares the same world, even if it is a different timeline. The story would still be pretty much the same up until the divergence point, whenever that may be. The game itself will also likely just contain info about the world that we didn't see before, which will expand our knowledge.

Personally, Nightreign has already shaped some of my own thoughts regarding the lore. We meet the Nightlord after accessing the tower, which has a tree wrapped around it, and looks very similar to the Divine Towers. The Divine Towers themselves in the base game look as though there was once something connected to them, and this has led to a lot of theories, but I now personally think that they all once had trees around them.

The other idea I have regarding these towers is that they lead to other worlds.

The boss rooms at the top of the tower in Nightreign are impossible from a realistic standpoint; we have clearly been taken somewhere else. The Suppressing Tower, located in the Shadow Lands, mentions it was once the center of the Lands Between. As we know, the Shadow Lands are no longer connected to the Lands Between, and it appears as though the Suppressing Tower was likely originally in that giant gap we see at the center of the map. I think that the tower was used to send the Shadow Land to another world.

The towers themselves likely no longer work, seeing as there is no longer any trees around them. This could possibly be due to simply the course of time, or maybe Marika did away with them, especially after sealing away the Lands of Shadow.

The idea of structures, and trees for that matter, leading to other worlds also isn't a new concept. In Dark Souls 1, we find Ash Lake, which is full of giant trees that also could not possibly exist, making a lot of people speculate that these Arch Trees led to other worlds. I think that this is the case here. At their full power, with a tree wrapped around them, these towers could be used to access other worlds or, clearly, banish entire chunks of the continent to other worlds.

And with Dark Souls on the mind... the Dark Souls bosses could also lend credence to this idea. I don't think that the Dark Souls bosses are literally the same bosses from Dark Souls, though it is entirely possible that there is some form of multiverse here, but they still seemingly come from another universe. There are no Demons in Elden Ring, at least not that we know of as of now, yet the Centipede Demon is here. The Nameless King and Duke's Dear Frejya were also seen in the trailers for Nightreign. Given this tower has the tree around it and seemingly remains able to link worlds, I think that could very well be the reason why these beings who aren't supposed to be here have crossed over.

But hey, maybe the Nightreign Not Containing Lore thing is not even that big of a deal lmao

But I still will take this chance to throw my ideas out there

[centrally-unplanned]

As I normally do, I very much enjoyed Folding Idea's latest video, an interpretative discussion/cinematography flex about James Rolfe aka Angry Video Game Nerd. Anyone treating the history of the internet with the depth it contains, as a culture & medium unto itself, is gonna get a win in my book.

It also hit on a point I find myself always coming back to in cultural history; how often people confuse chronology & causation. The Angry Video Game nerd is, of course, one of the most influential "Youtubers" to ever exist, by virtue of being one of the first ever do, in video format, media reviews via a comedic lens. There are years where you can say he was the center of the whole genre. He inspired legions of imitators, some incredibly directly referencing him in their identity, and when you talk to a ~30 year old online creator today who does things adjacent to that space, you can bet good money they watched AVGN when they were a teen.

(I didn't - my stereotypical influence is the Red Letter Media Prequel Reviews)

But is he that influential? Depends on your meaning, of course. Because when you ask people what that influence is, they say something like "pioneering comedic, caustic, hyperbolic review video essays". Which, he did, but he invented none of those parts. As the above video outlines, caustic, exaggerated reviews of media have been around for about as long as reviews have existed as a consumer product; making them entertaining for their own sake is an incredibly logical leap to take. AVGN was coming around in a time where slapstick violence and faux-rage was entirely the vibe of the internet; Penny Arcade had been doing its thing for over half a decade before AVGN's first video was published.

And more importantly, video content in those days was obviously going to lean towards things like comedy and "skit" styles compared to say text reviews, because it complemented the medium better. It takes a lot of niche craft to make a rage speech pop on text; it's much more accessible to just be a good actor and be visibly raging. Going even more downstream, the "media mix" of people consuming content about the art they like or engage with was so old hat by the 2000's that consumer brands were using it as fucking jargon in marketing meetings. There isn't a world where this kind of content would not have appeared. It had to, the culture demanded it.

This is no grand dig at AVGN of course - this is to some extent true of all artists. As Olsen's video notes, what set AVGN apart was that James Rolfe was not a game reviewer; he was a filmographer, he had gone to film school, he was trying to make movies. Which in 2004 meant that he had a ton of cameras and lighting and equipment to make viable content in a way others did not. He had a technological advantage in exploring a new medium, one that would fade as webcams and lighting rings became as cheap as dirt, or shift as markets for crazy stuff like vtuber rigs would evolve. And of course the specific way he went about his content did imprint itself on the medium.

But not thaaat much; I think time has not been kind to AVGN. The humor is of course dated to its time, the MTV's Jackass of video game reviews. And as the medium of self-published video essays has evolved, the medium discovered approaches far better than comedic skit shows. Much longer content is possible, you can ride on parasociality and authenticity instead of endless "joke moments" (Or go the reverse - every comedy video from the old days is too long, a tiktok-level joke stretched over 5 minutes). Some of this was tech dependent as well, of course - youtube had duration limits on uploads in 2005! Making 4 hour Star Wars Hotel videos was not possible outside of stringing "Part 1 of 37" video playlists together. But time and culture marches on as well, and I don't think the average creator today is pulling from 2005 Youtube much at all, really. They are different eras.

As mentioned, if you ever deal with doing causation in cultural history, you run into this all the time - people essentially going "work X was first, and therefore invented the genre and influenced all after". And I don't think it really works that way - establishing causation just takes far more detail than that.

[borderlands-confess]

I really think TFTBL should've given you more romance paths :(. Sasha is great and all, but it's really upsetting to me that if you didn't pick romance options.

(WHICH! While the romance itself was directly avoidable through choices, romantic scenes were not. The flower scene anyone? It was just so uncomfortable to sit there through that and Fiona's questioning. Plus a lot of times if you didn't pick romance with Sasha, you're directly picking selfish behavior on Rhys' part. It's like. Euhhhh why can't I just care about her PLATONICALLY! And she never really was given character aside from the romance, but that's beside the point)

It would've been nice to be given another option at least. Maybe not Fiona, since mechanically that'd be very hard given the fact they're the two main characters. A romance option with Vaughn might've been cool, or at least just one of those "wow you're my best friend, but what if there's something else?" Silly thought paths we all go down y'know.

Ideally I would've really liked to have been able to romance Holojack. and okay, before you go "wowww another rhackie eughhh" HEAR ME OUT.

Holojack manipulates Rhys throughout the game. This is fact. For most of the game, they're on the same playing field when it comes to a level of power— Rhys even coming out higher, actually. Since he has autonomy. Holojack uses Rhys' idolization of Jack to his own personal gain (to be validated in his identity as Jack) and his gain related to his goal.

A very large untapped potential of manipulation was emotional. It was already stated that Rhys is a fanboy more than just a casual fan of Jack. I know the fandom over-exaggerates it a LOT, but hey, he even seemed a little stoked when telling the story of how he met Jack once.

Him being alone with Holojack the way he was most of the game would make him feel special. Having Handsome Jack all to himself. (Because obviously he never does separate Holo from Jack, which I do feel directly plays into his downfall later on.) He'd be giddy about that.

You could say "oh well he's just straight ok" shut up, look at him. He likes men, okay. At least partially.

Holojack is smart. Being incorporeal, the only device Holo has is manipulation and wit. He also has access to Rhys' mind and thoughts (I'm pretty sure? I might just be mixing fic up with canon for this one. Correct me if I'm wrong)

It's inherently a Jack trait to either accept flattery or grin and bear it when it comes to more uncomfortable adoration. It's especially one Nakayama would've programmed for Holojack.

So, it's completely in the realm of possibility for Holojack to find out about small feelings Rhys might have on Jack/him, take them for partially for validation, and then emotionally manipulate Rhys.

It would have really amplified a lot of the emotions when it came to the death scene.

It also would have given Rhys a new parallel to Jack! Therefore making the choice more impactful when Rhys decides not to go down the same path. Jack had been lied to and double-crossed by friends and exes in the past, and Rhys would've had a romantic relationship along with a platonic one that would've double-crossed him.

Plus, it would have given a lot more individuality to Holojack. Anthony Burch 100% intended for Holojack to be a separate person outside of Handsome Jack— he is a brilliant writer, especially if you look at his DnD work. I'm not sure of his complete involvement in tftbl, but I do know he worked on the characters, and I do know he would NOT have been so sloppy with Holojack's character as to make him a complete 1 to 1 with Jack. That's even shown in the game with several inconsistencies in Holojack's memory. (I can even make a whole ramble on that if anyone would want?)

Anyways, TLDR; Holojack would've been a very good 2nd romance choice in tftbl.

.

[agoddamn]

Albrecht in Duviri seems to avoid all the other extra-Duviri oddities: namely Teshin, Kullervo, and the Drifter.

To a degree this might be timeline funkiness; Duviri clearly has a timeline that's not linear to the game itself. But you're telling me the man goes to a pocket dimension for research and doesn't research any of the other visitors?

He does set himself up with Thrax, who is a reflection/inversion/bunshin of the Drifter and therefore at the center of the mess. But was he just conveniently not in Duviri at the same time as any other visitor (Acrithis makes it sound like the Drifter, Teshin, Albrecht, and Kullervo have all been in Duviri for a while)?? Or was he consciously avoiding anyone who might puncture his weird savior fantasy?

I mostly wouldn't think much of this, except it's something of a behavior pattern for Albrecht because he also avoids the Tenno in the Orokin Era. No contact with Rell, who is 1v1ing the exact guy that Albrecht is so worried about. Yeah, the Tenno were secret, but Albrecht clearly had access high enough to know about them. There is no way that the Father of Void Travel was not consulted after a big Void accident that used his jump drive--but Albrecht didn't involve himself in the Tenno research.

(Mechanically, this is because that was Margulis and the Lotus's arc and already largely written without space for him to be retconned into the project by the time he started getting focus in the narrative. However, I think there's gotta be a character reason for it too--and not just because that's more interesting.)

My best guess is that it's Albrecht's controlling tendencies at work. He might find the Tenno interesting from a research perspective, but he has no control over the project and it's too large for him to bully his way in and take it over the way he wants. He's also afraid of Void research in very specific ways, I think. There's that little bit in the Vitruvian about how he kept track of what other people saw in the Void and how he was disturbed that no one's experience matched his. I think he was afraid of finding out what the Tenno could have seen.

[meatball-headache]

Okay, as promised, I tried out the Mushroom Musume demo—and I really like it. It's free, so you have nothing to lose by trying it, but the game itself is only $15, so, you could support an indie team if you want.

So, it plays very much like a visual novel, but I think it's randomized like a rougelike, but you get frequent choices. I don't have a lot of experience with visual novels, but it's got the same Save - Load - Auto - Skip bar at the bottom of the text window that DDLC had. But, it's also got panels of RPG stats and inventories and stuff.

The writing is very good and charming—which is good, because it's a text-heavy game. You can see your character in the stats window but there's no characters popping up in the scenes like a VN, even when there's a lot of dialogue. You're on your own with your imagination. But the writing is good, albeit there's a handful of grammatical errors, but I comma splice like a fiend so I can't complain. It's got an eerie but charming feel, sometimes a little silly, sometimes a little strange and dreamish.

So, at the beginning of the game, "Once upon a time there was a Recluse." The Recluse is lonely and wants a child, and a witch will give you a child. You perform some tasks for the witch, and obviously this influences what kind of mushroom musume you get—for those who aren't full-blown weebs, "musume" means "daughter." You can't have a mushroom son, sorry. But anyway, I made some choices that would make her pretty gloomy and gothy, and then tried to raise her as best I can... and after a while, she decided I didn't love her, and she ran away from home. But then—then I got to play as her! I thought I'd be raising her the whole game, but then I became her. Does this always happen? Or was it just because of the choices I made? I don't know.

So the seasons go by, and you get an event every, I'll just say "every day" even though each season is like three days, and you can solve the event by picking a card. Depending on your traits or inventory, you might have access to more or less cards. For instance, I had some magical affinity, so I had a special Spell card in my inventory, so some events, rather than just the baked-in choices it gave me, I could also use a Spell to solve it.

You might notice this screenshot is a lot dimmer than the first two. That's because I unlocked the "black" color, and the whole game tints blackish. (You can turn this off in the menu. There's some accessibility options, like changing it to a dyslexia-friendly font, and having text-to-speech, not voice acting, like TikTok voice.)

There's a lot of collectibles in the Almanac—there's many different mushrooms your daughter can be, different music you can collect somehow, the colors like this, and 34 different endings—in the demo. There's also a tracker for how many living daughters you have, and how many have fallen. So, there's some kind of persistent world throughout runs? Or, just recording how many "good" and "bad" endings you got?

At the end of the demo, there's some dialogue talking about what's going to be in the full game: some minigames you can do between runs (it's a roguelike, there are "runs") and "double the writing"—I don't know how much is in the demo, I'm guessing all my events were random and not everyone's going to get the same sequence of events, so either the demo is very small and the complete game will be somewhat small, or the demo is very big and the complete game will be very big. Either way, I thought the little preview at the end was pretty cool.

So, what happened? Well, my gloomy goth mushroom daughter was very quiet and distant, and hid all the time. I tried to give her space and wait for her to make her own decisions... she interpreted this as not being loved, so she left. Okay. Once she was on her own and I was her, she went to a town where she overhead some children talk about getting money from the tooth fairy. Since she needed money, she decided to rip her teeth out of her head, put them under her pillow (while the screen shows her "camp," a pile of rocks in the woods, no pillow in sight) and wait until morning. She got woken up by the Tooth Fairy Local 101 saying something like "Youze thought you could pulls a fast one on us? Dis ain't no tooth, sistah!" I didn't get any screenshots of the dialogue, I was honestly giggling too much. Honestly, I could screenshot every line from this game, because it all seems remarkable, wacky, eerie, or just somehow cool.

Later, a timid woman invited me to a school to meet some children. The children asked me questions, like whether I eat people, and I answered honestly, but the parents got annoyed. After everyone left, the timid woman came up to me and ranted, "I thought you would be more interesting! Why didn't you scare them!?" Humans are difficult to understand!

Then I tried to hunt a wolf and died.

So, ultimately, I like this game. It's very charming and interesting. There's a free demo, and with 34 endings just in the demo, I think it must have a lot to offer, so you can try it. The game is $15 so I'm going to buy it, I don't know if I'm going to play it a ton—I still have to grind everything in FFXIV, Warframe, Soulframe, and I'm trying to bring LOTRO into the rotation, too—but, I'm looking at it and thinking, I want to reward the folks who made this because it's interesting.

Okay! That's all for now.

[creepyjealousy]

I don't really post much and neither do I really know how posting works. but I felt like a further explanation about this was needed.

THIS IS LONG! TAKE YOUR TIME TO READ!

My name is Keith, and I'm a long member and a moderator of the "Bully Breasts" server.

PART 1

Recently there has been a, i suppose you can call it, "call out post" about our server. I would like to begin with the fact that the information said account has given is very misleading.

see image below.

The owner of the server, and close friend of mine, has already posted an explanation after trying to reach out to the account. Their user is @emrekchu, please check the original post out.

see images below of Emrekchu contacting them.

as you can see, we've waited several days for a message back. after we didn't get one, we decided on making a post explaining the situation (Emrekchu's post)

PART 2

Now I would like to explain stuff myself.

Yes, we do have a channel where we discuss topics that go beyond mature humor. Yes, I myself have done this. Yes, I've said stuff that contains sexual topics. But none of this had the intention of putting someone in danger. most of us in the server are teens and have mature potty humor, but whenever we went too far we've been called out for it and we didn't do it again, with MYSELF as a big example.

I would also like to say our "NSFW" channel, does not contain any actual NSFW content, there's no porn, no body pics. none of that. and we STRONGLY are against that.

We also have rules in our server that DIRECTLY says that we do NOT tolerate sexualisation of a minor.

see images below.

We've had situations where these rules have unfortunately been broken and set minors in danger, but we quickly take action and have banned such people.

PART 3

(we had a response this exact moment I've been writing this.)

I would like to also say that I am very disappointed by how this was handled. The original poster, bullyworthlol, hasn't even joined the server. they got screenshots sent by a different party. so not only is there no ACTUAL context or explanation, but they didn't even have any experience themselves.

see image below.

I think this is extremely unprofessionally handled for an "exposing" account.

PART 4

I am by NO MEANS saying the actions we've done, that made people uncomfortable without our knowledge, are valid. But I am trying to tell you to reach out, we are a very welcoming and understanding community. we listen, we change, we improve.

But I'm also saying that we do not force you to interact with our community if you don't feel comfortable with how we act. I highly suggest you don't interact with us if this is the case. yes, we will listen to feedback, but we still have dorky crude humor.

Also I literally have an introduction which says "if I make you uncomfortable, please tell me"

see image below.

I am now 17, by the way.

PART 5

I would like to inform everyone reading this that we have already discussed this situation and made changes and improvements.

we decided to change the age limit to only people of 14 and above. We've also decided the "freaky channel" (actual name) can only be accessible by asking the owner or moderators, we have age roles to check who's allowed in or not. (were not gonna ask for a fucking ID that's wild)

We also decided to make the channels; "cosplay" and "face rev" private and only accessible if you've been in the server for longer than a month (we manually check this) to provide more privacy.

We will not be kicking any adults out of our server, Bully is a game from the 2000s, ofcourse it has fans that are adults now. Plus, Bully itself has mature humor, sexual topics, and more. (again, not justifying weird behavior)

CONCLUSION

Me and Emrek are taking accountability for this, and the blame if needed. you can contact me on discord @keithcobain, Emrek @emrekchu and Sushi (other mod) @isushik for further discussion.

[galedekarios]

First of all, thank you for your never-ending dedication to creating content about our beloved Wizard.

After having played much of Act I at my best friend's house, part of me is eager to try the game in its entirety and experience the romance with Gale at my own pace, but after seeing your very accurate analysis of the lack of content and the disparity in terms of his character's story, I was quite disappointed. Rose, do you think I should buy the game considering the plot hole that Larian reinforced? I'd be lying if I said Gale isn't the reason I want to get a copy of BG3, as silly as that might be. I trust your opinion, that's why I'm asking.

you're very welcome, thank you for your message! 🖤

i don't feel comfortable saying what you should be spending your money on.

what i can say from my own personal experience is that i still had fun playing the game, despite my many criticism of the game itself and larian as a company.

the combat is very fun to me, so if that is something that you also had fun with while you played act 1 then that could be a plus for you. if you are playing on pc, the mods that are out there also add a lot of variety and quality of life stuff.

i think what is important to keep in mind from my personal perspective as someone who has played early access and the full release of the game: act 1 is the most polished part about the game. there are no buts or ifs here. it's where the most interactions happen, between you, your companions and the world around them. it's where most of the secret areas are to be explored and where many quests, small and big, happen.

i'm saying this because act 1 can't be used as a fair metric of what to expect from the rest of the game.

act 1 has been polished largely by early access player feedback over several years. the other acts didn't have that advantage. act 2 is still good because the atmosphere is great and ketheric is an amazing antagonist, but it lacks all those little secrets you can find and the quests there are minimal. i also still maintain my opinion that act 3 is an unstructed narrative mess and one that i doubt will ever be fixed, unlike what larian did for dos2 with the definitive edition. in both of these acts interactions with the companions grow very rare (with the exception of as*trion across all 3 acts and shadowheart in act 2), the quests are often bugged, and the choices you make just... cease to matter most of the time.

if you are only interested in gale's story, i might actually advocate waiting for a sale if you have the patience to spare. because sadly, the reality is depending on which companions you prefer, with larian, you do get less content for the same money. larian does those sales very rarely, but i've seen it happen. so i would wait until the game drops in price. i've seen a sale recently which dropped the price to something around 40-50 bucks for the standard edition, which is still expensive but i think more justified.

[greenplumbboblover]

Looking at your Downloads page, I see you have a section entitled "Terms of Uses", in which you have numerous restrictions on how players may use your CC. I was wondering where you think you get the right to restrict usage of your material, since EA owns all rights to anything made for Sims games. Additionally, and in particular, the Sims 3 EULA specifically says that there can be no restrictions on how players use each others CC (section 2B4). Why do you think these laws don't apply to you?

Hey there,

First things first: I get why people ask others about this. I really do. But I think we sometimes forget that, TOUs, from a *legal* perspective, are incorrectly set up. (with other words, even with my TOU, I could technically never send a DMCA claim as the setup is incorrect).

We shouldn't forget that creator TOUs are there from a more morally correct perspective. My personal feelings on people just grabbing my items, especially meshes I meshed without asking, and then claiming as their own is just a dick move. Whether the EULA allows it or not. In the end, we're a community. Not a company.

Conversions on the other hand, that i've done (which my TOU does say) you can do all you'd like with it, as I don't own those meshes/textures at all. All rights reserved there.

Now, diving into the contract:

Section 2B4 says the following:

B. Contributing Content through The Sims 3 Launcher (Emphasis on LAUNCHER here)

(...) 4. In exchange for the right to use content contributed by other users through the Software, when you contribute content through the Software, you expressly grant to other users of the Software the non‐exclusive, perpetual, transferable, worldwide, irrevocable right to access and use, copy, modify, display, perform, and create and distribute derivative works from, your contributed content in connection with the Software, and to distribute and otherwise communicate your contributed content as a component of works that they create using the Software, for example, The Sims lots or The Sims videos, without further notice, attribution or compensation to you. You hereby waive any moral rights of paternity, publication, reputation, or attribution under applicable law with respect to EA’s and other players’ use and enjoyment of such content contributions in connection with the Software.

(SOURCE: https://media.contentapi.ea.com/content/dam/eacom/en-us/eula/eula-the-sims-3-row-pc-11-2015.pdf)

The way I, personally, understand it, and I read Copyrighting & Rights documents A LOT for my work and often confirm my findings with a third party, is:

It has to be content that's from and to the Launcher. Specifically with the exchange website in mind. We're talking Lots, Sims, Sims3pack store items. Videos recorded from TS3 > The sims 3 Launcher. Screenshots even. This is what this section specifically refers to.

The content needs to have come in a Sims3Pack specifically. Package files cannot be installed through the launcher, and therefore rules this part of the contract out as a potential illegal move. In fact, reading the full contract, it's a very gray area in said contract.

The "Software" (The sims 3) can't make meshes for you. It can't make textures, it can't make a script mod for you, but what it can make is the following within the game itself to share: Lots, Sims, Worlds (well, the TS3 Worlds EULA would come into play here, which is practically the same as TS3's), CASPart presets (So NOT CASparts), Patterns (again, TS3 Pattern tool EULA, assuming you didn't use a third party tool for this instead). Sharing "Objects" (in the sense of simply Presets), Pets and "Tattoos" (in the sense that, within CAS, you save your "Layered" tattoos and then share it on the exchange). With other words, the things you download OR share from/to the exhange, but not limited to third party websites, where the content also has to be installed through the Launcher. Those are the people you want to talk to, when they're complaining that people are modifying their Sims3packaged Sim/Lot. I'm the wrong target for this EULA honestly and sending this ask to.

In fact, just to do other people some favours, let's go through the whole Section B in a summarised, humanly readable way (Remember this is for the LAUNCHER)

EA/Origin account grants you the ability to download/upload from and to the launcher and it's websites (The Exchange for example)

Don't upload copyrighted stuff to the Exchange. EA has the rights to remove them then.

EA can use your lots/sims/presets of CASparts/objects in their promotion materials. As well as your images and videos even. You automatically grant permission to this once you share it to an EA website. (The Exchange)

See above.

The part that I do find interesting, and I know TS2's EULA had the same thing, is the following (I bolded the interesting part):

2. Intellectual Property Rights and Ownership. A. Reservation of Rights. You have purchased a limited license to the Software and your rights are limited to the license grant above and subject to this License. You may not otherwise copy, display, distribute, perform, publish, modify, or use the Software or any component of it. You are prohibited from making a copy of the Software available on a network where it could be used or downloaded by multiple users. Except as expressly licensed to you herein, EA and its licensors, as applicable, owns and reserves all right, title and interest in the Software, and all related data, characters, themes, objects, storyline, images, photographs, graphics, animations, video, music, text, and the associated copyrights, trademarks, moral rights and other intellectual property rights therein. This License is limited to the intellectual property rights of EA and its licensors in the Software and does not include any rights to other patents or intellectual property. Except to the extent permitted under applicable law, you may not decompile, disassemble, reverse engineer or created derivative works of the Software by any means whatsoever. You may not remove, alter, or obscure any product identification, copyright, or other intellectual property notices in the Software. All rights not expressly granted herein are reserved to EA

Now, you may think the term "Created Derivative works" must mean specifically modified meshes, but I'm guessing this was actually put in for in case someone is modifying Speed tree trees.

Besides, the meaning is:

Derivative work refers to a copyrighted work that comes from another copyrighted work. Copyrights allow their owners to decide how their works can be used, including creating new derivative works off of the original product.

Regarding the part of software modification: Third-party tools (such as S3PE) would seriously edge the line here, contract speaking. They don't have disassembled/reverse engineered code of the "Software" but they do create a copy of the content(s) in memory. (Think: meshes, textures, reading of package files)

The contract, however, is in this section extremely vague for a court to figure out whether they also mean textures/meshes taken from the game and modified as an override.

So if I have some feedback for their lawyers who wrote this, here you go :p. Though, let's be honest, the contract is only set up with EA's services in mind. I actually think those are the huge shortcomings in this contract.

Sorry this got so long. But I've had these talks SO often, that it's getting a bit tiring.

Please PLEASE PLEASE send the contract first to a third party that has a degree in law (which I have done, to someone who does international laws & Software laws), before sending asks like these. I know you mean it out of goodwill, I really do, but it's simply incorrect the way you're interpreting it.

[shadowkirby2]

okay let's be fair. AMAZING MIRROR ruined this for us

(Context: I said that Return To Dream Land ruined Kirby's color changing mechanic) I disagree! Or, rather, I think that Amazing Mirror is one of the building blocks for RTDL ruining things, but it itself actually does a very good job of incorporating color changing mechanics! First of all, Nightmare In Dream Land already had four player multiplayer while keeping Kirby's color changing mechanics, so I'm not really sure why Amazing Mirror went away with it for copy abilities. Maybe since all four Kirbys are in the game all the time? Either way, that can be chalked up to a stylistic choice to lessen confusion for who's who if people have the same copy ability. Amazing Mirror still gives us one very important mechanic: spray paints! I took this into account when making those tags, actually: Both Amazing Mirror AND Squeak Squad have spray paints in them. If you want Kirby to change colors? Then there you go! He can be any color you want. Is this inferior to copy abilities changing his colors regardless of his current color? Oh absolutely 100%. But it shows that the devs DID care about preserving that mechanic to at least some degree. (Side note: Amazing Mirror also featured Fighter Kirby's headband changing depending on which player is using them, and Squeak Squad still did have a few sparse examples of color changing, such as certain animations showing that Ghost Kirby is actually blue under his sheet, and both it and Metal Kirby did do a drastic change just normally) Next, Super Star Ultra had full color changing, but after that point? Wiped from existence. No fun for us. Starting in the modern era, with RTDL, there's no copy ability color changing, no SPRAY PAINTS, nothing. That type of things is for SPINOFFS ONLY apparently, which just isn't fun. In Return To Dream Land itself, it COULD have been excused as a stylistic thing like in Amazing Mirror, where the focus on multiplayer took precedence over things looking cool. But then colors didn't return in Triple Deluxe. Or Planet Robobot. Or Star Allies. Or Forgotten Land. Even though not a single one of these other games features multiplayer playable Kirbys. It's clear that the ability redesigns that differentiated things such as sword and bomb, stone and ninja, etc, also extended to Kirby's color changing ability, which I will never understand and will always be against. This is why I said that Return To Dream Land caused color changing to be ruined; it introduced ability redesigns. The one, SINGLE time that color changing HAS been a thing in a modern main series game is with Robobot's amiibo functionality, where sword, hammer, and parasol got custom colors based on Meta Knight, King Dedede, and Bandana Dee. But that feature is HARDLY accessible, especially in the current day, when all the necessary gear to use these abilities has been long discontinued. So that really doesn't count. (And Hypernova is not a regular ability) TLDR: RTDL and specifically the ability redesigns it featured are what removed colors, while amazing mirror still had them in the form of spray paint

[coconox]

my whb progress

as of nov. 11, 2023

i feel like i should've done this when i finished chapter 4 like weeks ago but better late than never ig

general info

lvl: 31

status: f2p

when i started: launch (10/03 my timezone)

ver: erolabs

team setup

post-halloween event my team consists of 5 light chars, 1 some other element (usually either leraye, belial, or paimon)

before that though i did use marbas before minhyeok, though sadly i'll probably rarely use marbas or any of the healers in the future since the artifacts when they work properly heal faster :')

here's my team in action!

here's everyone with their lvls and artifacts!

skill lvls: (normal attack-ultimate-passive)

mammon (cake): 4-4-4

mammon (selfie): 1-3-1

satan (selfie): 1-4-1

beelzebub (selfie): 1-3-1

leraye: 1-3

minhyeok: 1-3

secret club

i mainly focus on mammon, so i'll just be showing those here. i'm 1 story away from completing mammon (cake)'s and 2 stories away from completing mammon (selfie)'s!

materials

i do the absolute bare minimum for dailies and weeklies nowadays. since most of my chars are higher than lvl20 i've just been focusing on unholy board for most of the time i've been playing. as much as i wanna focus on skills i'm kinda held back by the game's very limited access to pies (you can only get them in shop + it's the rng boxes most of the time). hopefully there'll be more options to get pies that aren't purely dependent on rng in the future 😔🙏

i also wish candies weren't rng either, or there is rng but also an option to exchange one type of candy for another. as shown above i have absolutely way too many candies for the other kings and almost none for mammon :'))) the grind truly never ends

overall thoughts / reflection

this section is just something for me to look back on when i do a progress post again in the future. i'll break this down into sections so i can stay consistent with laying out all my thoughts. also this won't be spoiler-free

STORY

i find it somewhat interesting? i can't really put in a bunch of input since we've only explored one of the many areas of hell. i set my game to have a male mc, and there's still a lot of issues with making pronouns consistent :'). i do have a few cgs missing despite completing all the chapters that are out currently but those missing ones might be for future chapters so idk (kinda bothers me a bit to see missing cgs despite completing everything). unholy board stories are also ok? it's pretty tedious to get through so many objectives for only a little bit of story and also all the h-scenes and devil's tango bits in unholy board stories are written like they were made for wattpad lol

GAMEPLAY

tl;dr very tedious lol

addressing the elephant in the room, i'm aware there's still a lot of bugs. i won't be going too in-depth about them since they're only temporary and didn't make that much of a significance towards my overall gameplay so far (aside from the leather gloves not working, but that got fixed in the halloween patch).

i'm glad we have autoclear in resource stages but i wish we had autoclear in story stages as well (and in the future event stages too). it would also be nice if there was an autoplay feature, though that's more of a personal preference since a lot of games i play have that option and i don't get bored from doing everything manually.

the 6-7 stages in chapter 4 seemed a bit unnecessary? the story itself is rather short so i guess i can understand why they would wanna pan out as much playtime as possible, but at a certain point it does get really boring and demotivating to progress. it also sets a certain precedent for future chapters, if the battles in between each small bit of story keep slowly increasing how many stages will chapter 10 have? chapter 20? i honestly would've preferred 3 battles in between each story, or if you're gonna have 5 battles in between each story, have some of the story in those battles. aside from the tutorial, an example would be in chapter 3 right as the angels attacked the hospital and mammon took mc out with him to fight (3-73). those battles could've 1. gave a tutorial on how to use mammon and 2. talk about how strong he is like in the story right after those battles (3-79).

on a different note, i wish the "meta" wasn't so skewed towards all the l cards. as i progressed through the story i would look up guides on bilibili, only to find that most if not all the guides are heavily dependent on l cards (and levi which is the only king i don't have 💀💀), only non-l card would usually be leraye 💀. it also feels a bit unbalanced considering light and dark are usually the recommended element for every battle and can go against literally every element including their own. i wish there would be more opportunities for other elements and characters to shine and hold up well so that even if you don't have certain l cards, you can progress through the game just as well as those with the certain l cards

RESOURCES

i briefly mentioned this while going through the materials i currently have but i wish a lot of them weren't so rng heavy. it really adds to making the game tedious especially when you have to level multiple devils of the same element. having a resource stage for candies and pies would be great. it would also be great to not make everything so expensive ㅠㅠ 116 gems for one (1) candy?? a multi of red keys costing almost 2k gems?? atp i just focus on leveling up rather than getting pulls

GACHA

after the whole 'minhyeok needing yellow keys' situation i've just been hoarding keys and using gems on stuff like ap since i have nothing else to really use them for aside from pies. the gacha rates seem really,,,, sad, and the fact that the bloodshed cards banner is p2w only sucks, which kind of makes me worry for future cards being released. i got pretty lucky with getting both mammon's signature artifacts, as it's one of the requirements to progress through unholy board, but other than that i never really had the best of luck with any of my pulls. i got minhyeok at hard pity, and it took idek how long to get leraye, my conclusion is just that my luck sucks in this game lol

[retphienix]

Alright, thinking on it, I think I AM throwing in the towel.

I'm just hard walled by eternity Abominationn. He seems pretty fair, I don't see anything absurd about his patterns or what have you, *I* am just not experienced enough in terraria movement + bullet hell fundamentals.

When it gets "too hectic" I get skittish and move out of range (and into a bullet I should have seen) instead of confidently staying near the boss and pouring damage in and Abom seems like too much of a step up for me to adjust and learn from currently- maybe (HOPEFULLY) after I get some more games / mods of this ilk under my belt I can return and finally take him out fair and square :) I really do hope so because this mod has been SICK.

I was able to take out the entire cast, on Eternity from the very beginning, without a single mod to help make it easier

Just the fargo package, magic storage (quintessential for modded runs in my opinion), Angler Shop + autofisher (base settings) because I didn't want to farm fish quests (I still did a lot of them because it turns out Fargo makes the angler quests instantly reset which does quite a bit for improving them), and that's kinda it.

The attack speed meter lets me check how much % melee speed I would need to reach the next use time (didn't really use it this playthrough but I appreciate the accessible info) and no Inferno is a new favorite for getting that oldschool inferno potion graphic out of my eyes lol

Doing all that is kind of incredible to me :P I wasn't kidding when I said prior to this my experience was basically "I beat classic (barely) and beat expert with a mod that added content that was like 1.1-1.2x the strength of vanilla :)"

The trophies are in order of when I beat them from top to bottom, left to right. The top row is everything up to moonlord*, below on top of my main house are the normal champions, and then at the bottom next to my forest pylon is Erid, the named champion and very clearly an actual boss full-stop lol

* with one exception- the offhang wooden platform to the side is to denote a boss added after I already got to end game and so I DID beat him, but it was in one shot because he is a pre-hard mode boss and I didn't want to dig through all the items trying to figure out a "fair" build to combat him (and having to eat a bunch of health debuff fruits to get to pre-hard mode numbers), I didn't really get to experience him but that's fine~

But enough nonsense, more ramble about the mod itself:

Fargo's Souls mod is somehow EXACTLY what I scoffed and said I assumed it was based off the few pieces I'd seen, and NOTHING AT ALL like I assumed lmao

I assumed Souls was a power-fantasy "Everything is overpowered" mod where you shoot 10 billion particle effects and have accessories that give you every effect in the game because I had seen the ultimate soul you can get.

I also (funnily enough) assumed it was probably "Bull shit mega hard for no reason". I didn't bother considering how these two thoughts would intermingle, it didn't matter to me lol

I was pretty definitively, wrong but there's some truth in what I guessed lol- Souls is extremely well balanced around itself on eternity difficulty and offered what I would call like a solid 3-4 steps up in difficulty without being bull shit. It also paces itself A LOT and I'd say pretty well.

You can only access weak enchantment accessories in pre-hard mode and all of them are fairly balanced around pre-hard mode eternity remixes put in place, it was challenging and fun!

Then hard mode lets you start playing with some improved enchantments and you start getting better (there were some pre-hard) combined accessories based on the bosses you can face and it all balances pretty damn well!

Post cultist lets you get some more moderate buffs with the ancient manipulator, then moon lord lets you start making forces and basic souls for a BIG bump in efficacy- before you beat moon lord this mod visually doesn't look anything like what I expected as everything is definitely stronger (us and the enemy) but things aren't 10 billion particles and explosions yet (well, wizard + meteor before they reworked it but mostly)

POST moon lord it becomes BIG CRAZY EXPLOSIONS AND SPEED, and yet it honestly felt earned lol

Yes, the base world of the game becomes a playground, but the remaining bosses still demand so much of you that it feels like a fair step up in your own power. Beating Erid gets you some more upgrades, then after you beat abom you can get even more powerful weapons and the like, and then beating mutant will let you start making the Ultimate Mega Insane stuff that I thought the entire mod was like before actually trying it :P

To be blunt and concise: I think this is my favorite terraria mod atm :)

I have played a handful of them at this point to completion, and I keep finding mods I think are INSANELY quality (AND THEY ARE!!!) but this one really did genuinely blow me away. It was fun like the entire damn time- it was GOOD challenge- GOOD struggle for me.

And the fact I got to experience so much of it in Eternity mode (MY FAVORITE WAY TO PLAY TERRARIA AS OF TYPING- ETERNITY FUCKS!!!! THE BOSS REMIXES FUCK!!!!!) rules :D

I made it all the way to the final 2 super bosses, that's pretty sick :)

Anyways, my plan as of typing is simple.

I'm gonna slap on the Fargo Paper Mario Badge mod, grind out some badges, and give the final 2 bosses another attempt. Maybe it works maybe it doesn't.

My reasoning being that I know from experience that the badges are entirely overpowered- just nutty effects overall.

They aren't "You now 1 shot the boss :)" pieces, rather it's stuff like "Insane health regen" and "Free 50% more defense".

I'm ASSUMING (bad track record) that this will be enough of a nudge that I can overcome them on eternity mode and I will be able to make those final souls just to say I did. It'll be cheapened, maybe I shouldn't, but considering my current plan of "I GOTTA replay this mod when I get better" I'm not too concerned.

If it's not enough then that's that- game over (for now) and I'll settle for having tabled this mod as one of my faves for another day :)