#and I understand that more time was probably put into the art direction and gameplay and coding than just some extra lines of dialogue

[lattuce]

shoutout to media with only one female character that’s just a vessel for a sexual assault and/or pregnancy plot line with very little or no characterization beyond that

[fizzingwizard]

Last: gameplay

I knew this game would only last a few hours or so. Still I was surprised it went on as long as it did. You do a lot and it doesn't feel empty to me at all. I'm at best a light gamer... I mean, I play the Sims... uhh... Yeah I have absolutely nothing to compare with, just saying I found this game quick but fun. And I will probably play it at least one more time to try to figure out what side quests I missed and just to enjoy the ambience. The art is really lovely and the stellar music from Sigur Ros totally makes the atmosphere.

Preeeettyyy!

This one I'll put under a cut

I played on Mac. It was so easy.Just space bar, A, S, D, and shift. Despite being so simple, there were lots of reminders and hints, so very friendly to kids. Sometimes though that simplicity was a con in the sense that, when the game didn't try to hold my hand through everything, it made me suspicious that I wasn't doing the right thing. The game does get more difficult as you go farther and the guidance eventually stops more or less. However these instances happened earlier and felt random.

I really loved the whimsical, highly Moomin-ish solutions to various problems. In the first problem with the spider, I remember being surprised that I was clearly meant to lob a bird at the spider instead of asking it nicely to leave. Then, lo and behold:

Heh. "I got your number, game," I thought. But then the spider was a jerk! A sweet jerk tbh. Who enjoys bullying and being bullied haha. So I had to lob the bird at it anyway.

I do find it VERY funny that this game, with its strong theme of needing each other and not only relying on your own wits, solves a lot of its puzzles by stepping on creatures or lulling them to sleep or hitting them with well-aimed birds.... It's 100% therapeutic but it's also so mean bahahahahaha. Like at first it seems like you'll solve every problem by hypnotizing people with the lovely melody of your musical instruments... But by the end even the drum is used to scare them off, and even flatten ferns! omg snufkin such violence

Trashing the Fillyjonk's house to make her come outside is a great example. This game just says "Chaos is the answer" and goes for it xP Imagine uprooting someone's flowers, breaking her statues, and dirtying her laundry, only for her to say "Oh, an invite to a play, how nice" lol. BUT! I do very much appreciate the reference to the Fillyjonk's need for a bit of chaos in her life. I wish they had stuck with that rather than fabricate a crush on the Park Keeper... anyway.

Loved playing with the band, wish that part had been longer/more involved. It was so much fun to have different instruments - I would have liked the drum to do more than just thud, but maybe the designer didn't really know much about hand drums.

Didn't understand the point of the Painter Hemulen, but possibly although I completed his side quest I may have missed another that came after. I really expected Stinky to be connected to the main story through Ninny. I thought he would be hiding Ninny's clothes with the theater costumes, but nope. Unrelated side quest.

I also really enjoyed the witty descriptors for items and quests, they made me giggle.

Ran into a handful of bugs/glitches as well. It could be because I'm on Mac, or because I'm on wifi. Idk if everyone experienced these. The biggest was jumping glitch. Several times I would just get stuck and be unable to jump no matter what I did. I'd try waiting for the indicator to appear, using different key combos, choosing the direction carefully, leaving and returning... Nothing worked, especially at Moominhouse (which I was sad we don't get to go inside) and these parts of the Hattifatteners Island:

Got stuck a couple other places too. It did eventually work, but with no rhyme or reason I could find. Path-finding also sometimes lead to getting stuck and I just had to wiggle around for a while before I could get out.

This above too about streamer mode. I literally can't read it on my screen. I had to cap it and zoom in in order to make out the type against the light color background.

However the worst glitch seems to have ruined the entire Hemulen's Butterflies side quest. I caught all three butterflies and was returning to the Hemulen when I guess I took a wrong turn and the butterflies left. Other times, when someone is following you and you go somewhere they can't follow, they will reunite with you when you come back to a good spot. But the butterflies flew away and didn't come back. I returned to catch new butterflies, but they appeared VERY rarely, and once caught glitched and disappeared. On top of that, the sound of my harmonica then vanished completely. I had to close the game and reopen, at which point I accidentally went too close to a loading screen and lost the chance to finish the quest. (I could have, if I hadn't continued onto the dam scene, but at that point I was too annoyed and kinda felt like the Hemulen will just have to get his own butterflies haha).

ETA: Realized I forgot some stuff!! So there are another couple quirks I ran into that I'm not sure if they're bugs or inevitable or what.

The first is that I completed many of the quests/side quests without meaning to. I gathered all the ingredients for all three of the Muskrat's stews before I even knew he wanted them. The game sent a message that I could increase my stamina by visiting the Muskrat's campfire, so I tried to go back to where you first meet the Muskrat and couldn't. Then it wasn't until much much later that I found him, and had to eat all three stews in one go. More importantly, that means I beat the game with the same stamina, never getting the increase until the very end (you don't even need it for the last park outside the dam because Moomintroll doesn't run).

I also found many other things just through playing naturally, which isn't itself a problem - but when I figured out what went with which quest, the game had trouble registering the quests as complete. It did eventually. But each time, I'd visit the character concerned, and they'd give an intro or a mid speech, then pause for a while and I'd start to leave before they'd finally give the complete speech. It was rather confusing. I do like the open world kind of feel and I def don't mind being able to do quest before they're introduced. But it was... nearly every single quest. I just gathered everything I saw that I was allowed to pick up. Some items DID seem as though they were hidden until you unlocked the quest. But most just appeared.

There were also several times I helped a bee or found an egg for a nest etc and nothing seemed to come of it? I'm guessing maybe there's a hidden "you rescued all the critters!" sidequest or something I didn't quite complete...

I really enjoyed the quests tho and my secret fav was "flattening the ferns with the drum" haha. I also think inspiration should go till level 10 only because maxing at 8 was too easy. Then again you def don't need it, musical prowess is irrelevant after you free Moomintroll, which is kinda sad since you spend so much time working on that skill alone.

I think that's about everything. Really loved the game (don't take my little critiques too hard!). A wonderful game for Moomin lovers and I hope many kids enjoy it too and become Moomin fans. Last here are some assorted bits and scraps I had nowhere else to put

The art is seriously sooo gorgeous. Also look how grumpy Little My looks in that bee costume

This close up of DLC for Snufkin. Loved it. It doesn't appear in the cut scenes but whatever.

Also... Snuf what is that plant you're eyeing??? HMM??? (Nettles lol)

And I seriously loved the chime-like music flowers and ferns would make when you run through them, and especially these gorgeous glowy mushrooms.

That's all folks!

[pixies-and-poets]

Wow, I haven't really followed the paper mario fandom, although I loved the games. But that sounds really bad. If it's not too personal, what sort of things happened? (if it is i totally understand if you'd rather not talk about it)

Wheeew! Let me tell you a sad story. At least what I experienced from my perspective.

So, I first got into the Paper Mario fandom not long before Super Paper Mario's release. This was back on deviantArt, mostly. I adored the first two games, and when I heard about SPM, I was skeptical at first. It was more like a platformer? Why was the art style so strange? ...But when it came out, it ended up being my favorite! I knew that as soon as I finished it.

Of course, not everyone felt that way, and there were already people who didn't like SPM because of how different it was, or the story didn't resonate with them. But to be honest, I didn't interact with those people very much. I was mostly friends with other SPM fans, and at the time, if they liked that game they probably had played and liked the first two as well, or at least one. It was a happy time as far as I was concerned. Most people, even if they didn't like SPM, seemed to think it was just going to be some kind of weird spinoff and they'd get back to the traditional gameplay soon enough.

....And then years later, Sticker Star came out and its complete blankness of story and personality hit us all like a speeding truck. This is when things fell apart pretty quickly. Pretty much EVERYONE in the existing PM fandom hated it, for good reason in my opinion. This is also where I became more sharply aware that certain people had a resentment towards SPM, since it was either seen as the "beginning of the end" as far as the gameplay starting to go off the rails, OR people outright blamed the story for being too out-there and emotionally charged which caused Nintendo to put the brakes on all that and go in the complete opposite direction (which was backed up by dev comments that came out around the time).

So from here on out I started to feel more and more like a weirdo for maintaining that SPM was my favorite, and a game that means a great deal to me personally. But after Sticker Star, the PM fandom just became an irreparably damaged and bitter place. Initially, the blame was put on Miyamoto because the understanding at first was that he had mandated the PM series 1) put less emphasis on story and 2) no longer be a typical RPG, really, since the Mario & Luigi series also existed to fill that niche. There were a lot of ageist comments made about Miyamoto in particular. Over time, as more info came out, the blame largely shifted to Kensuke Tanabe.

Things only got worse when Color Splash was announced and it looked like more of the same. People said the worst things about the devs, especially the people in charge, and looked for any reason to hate the new game and wish for it to fail. Even though Sticker Star and the soon-to-be-released Color Splash didn't have many defenders of their own, a lot of the larger Mario/Nintendo fanbase began to grow tired of old-school Paper Mario fans, as they... we... started to develop a bad reputation. And with good reason! Looking back, the complaints were understandable but the behavior was often unacceptable. And you know what? I got caught up in it too. I'm not gonna pretend I was above it all. Those were easily my worst days as a fan of anything. I didn't go out of my way to be vocal or mean about it in Nintendo's replies or anything, but whenever I did bring it up personally or on my own stream or discord or whatever, I was bitter. In the past few years I've sometimes come across old comments I made that I'd cringe at now. You might think of me as someone who is largely positive and tries to focus on spreading joy and dwelling on what I love, not what I hate. But the PM fandom at that time was bad for me. Between the Sticker Star and Color Splash days, I was definitely not the kind of person I try to be now.

When Color Splash came out, I didn't even play it for a couple years. But in that time, I largely stepped away from keeping up with the fandom, and I mellowed out a lot, and continued to grow into the person I strive to be today. And then when I finally did play Color Splash in 2018..... I liked it!!! The writing, the scenarios, the general creativity and even the gameplay are just SO FAR above Sticker Star and I think most people didn't even give it a chance, and because so few people own a Wii U, it might be forever doomed for people to just assume it's a slightly better Sticker Star unless Nintendo ever ports it.

And by the time Origami King came out, I was soooo done talking about the series and debating it. I had just totally burnt out. But I was at least tentatively looking forward to the game itself. And whlie I don't love every choice made for Origami King, I liked the experience as much as Color Splash, if not more. It's a nonstop interesting game with utterly fantastic graphics and music, and further steps back in the right direction as far as characters and lore go.

And that brings us to today. There are people, sometimes people that I myself have known for years, who NEVER stepped away, who never stopped acutely feeling the pain of the Sticker Star days, and wage a campaign of complaining to Nintendo to this very day. Meanwhile, Origami King (and to a smaller extent CS and even SS- what I'd call the Real Paper Trilogy) has a sizeable fanbase of its own, especially among younger players. Oldschool PM fans tend to see fans of the newer games as simpletons who have no taste, and fans of the new games often write off people who miss the old style of PM as boomers who can't accept change and are forever bitter and annoying. And then SPM fans just kinda feel like our own thing sometimes, the black sheep of the family. But as someone who likes (almost) all the PM games, I've had people be rude to me just for talking about any side of the issue. One time I was talking about how much I liked Profesor Toad from Origami King only to have some stranger, unprompted, reply to me about how ALL OF TOK'S CHARACTERS WERE SHIT AND THEY ALL SUCKED AND HAD NO PERSONALITY and I'm like no??!!?!? That's not true!!! That's not true AT ALL! I didn't stream TOK when it came out, I wouldn't fucking dare, because when I did play Color Splash for the first time it was on stream and I had to deal with at least one person coming in and being like "why are you playing a terrible game?" despite my repeated warnings that I didn't want to get into a debate on the game's merits. And on the other side of things, I've seen people come up with the most specious arguments to claim that TTYD is actually a Bad Game because it has some backtracking or whatever and that PM as a series was never actually good. There's just... so so many frustrating things I've encountered in the fandom that I'd have to double the size of this answer, which is already a novella, to enumerate them all.

But yeah. I kinda want nothing to do with it anymore. I'm just going to keep appreciating Flavio in my own time.

[sasquach-scratches]

Unfortunately that poll of "Your Most Hated TES Game" has got me thinking again about my level of disgust across the series and tbh i kinda need to update that so I guess I'll use this to organize my thoughts lmao

For the record, though, I haven't played EVERY TES game out there and those I did weren't finished half the time

Anyways let's get into it

Arena-Actually, lemme separate them into categories cause can you REALLY compare them all equally given how different they are

The Eldest of Scrolls

Arena: Probably the only one of the old-school games I actually finished. Big ol dungeon crawler. Magic goes boom. Hard to really "hate" the game cause I don't feel too strongly about it which is funny cause it's technically the first TES game I played (I waited a month for Oblivion to arrive in the mail)

Daggerfall: Never finished it. As I understand, though, it's Arena but More. I think this is one I'd have stronger feelings about had i actually stuck to playing it till the end

Battlespire: Arena but More but Without the Extra Roleplay. Probably more polarizing but again, barely got an hour or so in lol

Dawnstar/Shadowkey/Stormhold: Never played, but want to (especially Shadowkey) I hear they're all full of jank tho so who knows if i'd enjoy it

The Modern Scrolls

Redguard: Never played.

Morrowind: Played a full game and got through half of another, but given how hogwild I go with the modern TES games it doesn't feel like it's enough to deserve that "Worlds Biggest Hater" energy from me. I do think the "combat sucks" thing is overblown, though. Not saying it's perfect but maybe y'all are too used to the actionized games and/or using the wrong weapon for your skillset. Do not like how easy it is to get lost cause if you don't have Mark/Recall or an Intervention spell you can't just jump to a familiar location.

Oblivion: In short, it's the first TES game I truly played. So I love it for that but also hate it for its shitass levelling and whitewashing of lore/the Empire in more ways than one. I love it more now because of how streamlined Skyrim is. I hate it more now cause it was definitely a low point for Bethesda's worldbuilding. LOVE the CC and I remember spending over an hour creating my first character then immediately rerolling cause oops I overdid it. It's my problematic fave

Skyrim: Love the OCs and the adventures I made for it. Hate the fandom it grew. Love the art direction in comparison to Oblivion. Hate the "gritty" filter put over it. Hate its shitass writing and quests. Love the addition of skill trees but hate their implementation. Absolutely LOATHE the downgrade to magic (idc if it's "story integration" it still sucks) Heavily dislike how little choice you get at CC as far as your skills go. 50/50 on the cosmetic side of CC cause on one hand you can't go ham on face creation but on the other you can change things like weight and nose/eye types but on the other other hand weight is just muscle mass unless you're using the fem body where it's SLIGHTLY thicker

Spinoff Scrolls 2: Finger on the Monkey's Paw Curls

Elder Scrolls Online: This one's...complicated just by virtue of being an MMO that's STILL updating. When I first played it, it was a breath of fresh air over the previous entries not just cause of different gameplay but because having multiple characters was an actual tangible thing in-game. I'm an OC whore okay. The story of the base game felt a LOT tighter, too, given it was actually linear. 'Course, the writing always felt really good or really bad and rarely was it in-between. Either way I got very, VERY invested in it in a way I knew I would never be able to experience again and I will never forget that. The CC is Phenomenal and easily the best one in any TES game so far. (Boob and ass slider? FOR MEN TOO???)

Lore also was hit or miss, with me being VERY appreciative of them touching things that Bethesda never bothered with if it wasn't for killing (i.e. types of food, clothing, toys, etc) but also while the lore team did consult with Bethesda there were and still are some glaring oversights that feel like they shouldn't have happened (especially earlier in the game's life) Given there's still some hiccups I'm guessing the Bethesda team doesn't actually consider it very important (makes sense, the main games also bend lore for the sake of gameplay/Todd's whims A LOT, just look at Oblivion lmao) I also love love love that they touch on the weirder topics, even if sometimes it's done in a way that feels too...on the nose? idk how to explain it

Recent ESO, though? Writing got more and more bland, with some standout sidequests. Lore still hit or miss so that's whatever. I stopped caring for the gameplay after...Orsinium?...when I gave up on relearning how to play with the regular changes to combat. Gave up trying to fit my OCs stories into the new content too, even with new characters (helps that they're not as developed lol) Still play out of habit but I defo think it fell off and this recent change to the yearly content doesn't seem to be helping but then I haven't touched new content since High Isle lmao

Legends: Seemed interesting but never played it much lmao, lore/story seems to follow ESO's example of being hit or miss from what I saw

Blades: It was okay I guess. Another game I developed a habit for then promptly dropped after I finished building and upgrading my town. It's a mobile game so idk what I expected, annoying ads begging for money abounded. I did all of it without paying a single cent on my Switch and it was a slog but I did it. Pretty meh about it tbh

Castles: Looks cute. Never played it and probably never will.

[fabdante]

I know its supposed to be because his eyes are sunken and he's close to death, but the dark circles around Vergil's eyes in Vergil's Downfall just make him look like he was wearing eyeliner and it got all fucked up and runny after Dante kicked his ass. Like, it's fine if he WAS/does wear eyeliner- its just that I really doubt that's what they were going for, so instead of looking like the guy is close to death he just looks... Bad.

I feel like showing more blood could've helped with this? I know he wears a black coat and a black shirt, but maybe in the animated parts, they could've shown the blood more easily? Hell, show us the gorey hole in his chest, I don't mind that shit. Maybe with some glowing angel/demon lines of power around that last stab wound from Dante to show that his Nephilim healing factor is TRYING to fix it, but just can't quite manage it, even if it's basically the only thing keeping him upright right now? Idk, just. Something. The weird, giant heart with three holes in it when he's talking to Hollow Vergil can only do so much, y'know?

Downfall I think suffers a lot from the very, very rushed development time. It came out very shortly after the reboot itself came out and I imagine most of the energy was put into the gameplay. My gripe with it's art direction has always been 2 things, I don't understand why Vergil has bangs like that and I just...don't like the cutscene style asdfghj they're going for a similar style to something they did with Heavenly Sword which worked there but just does not for Downfall due to the time constraints and it just like....doesn't feel like Vergil?

Like, I would have probably focused more on the classical art angle from the art direction in the base game and just really amped it up. Which is perhaps biased but just imagine how beautiful it'd have been if they really leaned into the Baroque and Renaissance influences like asdfghjk I'm sad about this

[3gremlins]

okay i watched the da:tv gameplay trailer and some thoughts!

-gameplay looks pretty fun and fast and swishy (i know the crpg contingent will be upset but da2 is my favorite so i'm not mad about it at this point, fast combat makes my brain go ZING. i love bg3 but the combat takes so fucking long, i've got places to be, fam). The attack lines from enemies are kind of interesting? i'm not sure about them but it feels like it'll be a little more involved than dispatching all the nameless, brainless enemies we did in DAI/previously which could be neat? we'll see. the venatori still feel a little weak as enemies to me (like kinda boring, you need to fight someone type of enemies)

-excited to finally not have to choose between arrows and daggers as as a rogue (and the switch doesn't look terribly clunky? *stares at dao meaningfully*)

-i wish they'd shown the other classes a little bit (can we not switch to/direct our companions at all? i thought they said we could somewhere. not being able to switch to them would suck a bit, how else will i know what class i want to do next?*), or even showed the rogue at a higher level for more skillz (just the one's a little boring but understandable)

-would also love to see skill trees? are there skill trees?

-aesthetic looks fairly similar to dai tbh? i kinda wish it was more like the character trailers (i know unpopular opinion) actually, like a new swishy aesthetic for the swishy gameplay (like really reinvent yourself, put your whole chest into it, but also given the reaction to the character trailer i can see why they didn't feel they could/should)

-otherwise, it does look good! the hair especially, will have to see it in cc (have we finally been delivered from eyebrow caterpillars????)

-default rook looks so good! already feels like they have more innate personality than the inkys did (like hawke). -tho i hope we can dye their clothes/gear b/c i do not love the purple/yellow lol (have they mentioned about dyes at all? there's been so much info, it's a little overwhelming) -their voice is hot, oh no bioware and the hot voices again lol like might just do a pt with default human rook??? a thing i haven't done since da2 so that's a good sign (based on the concept art, it looks like there might be a "default" rook for humans, elves, qunari and dwarves which is sort of interesting? maybe they were just playing with it tho)

-already love neve, tho her hat/veil is still weird (it is dragon age, mages have to have stupid hats i guess). good luck neve cosplayers balancing a weird board on the side of your heads!

-love the dialogue wheel but am also biased b/c DA2 = <3 I hope the dialogue choices build up similarly to how they did in da2 (where you'd get unique dialogue options based on how sassy/nice/decisive you were)

-i am underwhelmed by the on the ground city design they showed idk some of the environments feel like stuff i've seen in the other da games a bunch (esp that last bit of rubble with the sliding into the solas area, like it looks very much like the first bit of dai where you fight the pride demon. but i also played that game too much and most people didn't so it might not matter).

-also having us fight a pride demon AGAIN in the introductory sequence feels kinda same-y (i'm sure it's supposed to be a nod, but it feels kind of re-tread). hopefully we get enemies that aren't demons/venatori (or at least not the same demons/venatori). Would have to see more to really decide but it did feel a little empty/dai-ish (negative) in the sequence they showed

-i know they're hiding plot stuff/unfinished things and probably more combat but every time the trailer went to a black screen with white text it felt like an "it's always sunny" meme like "The Gang interrupts an ancient ritual" XD and i could not take it completely seriously

-the varric/solas dialogue does feel a little weird, like i never felt they were all that close tbh (like it feels like the only person who could do that would be a friend/lover inquisitor). It also kinda felt like an Anders-redo to me, like putting the varric/anders friendship onto solas instead? idk didn't love it, but i get why it's there (narratively)

-varric is def going to die isn't he? i kinda hope so, like i love him but he also is starting to feel a little shoe-horned into things/a little overplayed (plus if they have to kill someone, he feels like a meaningful choice?)

-varric still looks weird with really dark hair, like i'm fine with him going grey but his hair was def redder/browner in previous games (hoping it's just the lighting/water?). hc that he's dyeing it for vanity reasons

-curious about the party choices where you take certain people with you, is it like ME where certain people need to do certain things or they'll die? and it's not obvious (like in suicide mission where if you want companions to live, leaving them behind to do a job is actually the better choice)

-the teaser silhouettes at the end there?!?! lets go unleashed, unhinged evanuris rampaging through thedas?!? **

-still really need solas to turn into a giant multi-eyed wolf (and have the option of a romanced lavellan inky talk him down), like we've gotten so much of the list already, pls bioware (♡ヮ♡)

----

tl;dr: i am most excited about the new companions! the combat looks like it'll be fun/fine, i am tentatively excited about the plot (there is a griffon but they did not show the griffon in this trailer which was foolish, i am easily won this way)/narrative beats. Will play for sure, but going to try to not get too excited (tooo late haha)

*like i'm not going to have 1000 pts and play all the classes but i still liked playing AS companions to get a feel for their skillz and stuff

**thinking about this more, i kinda wish they hadn't gone for the same grandiose opener as DAI and it was instead more of a murder mystery type of framing? like the veil's down, the evanuris are loose and they're not rampaging, they're doing subtle nasty things and we have to track them down (kinda like the forsaken in Wheel of Time). that would be an entirely different game probably tho lol

[teememdee]

thoughts on new lol narrative direction

Okay so today’s dev update basically confirmed my suspicions that the narrative team has deliberately moved away from short stories as a medium for lore. Which… if they have the evidence that people don’t engage with them as much as they’d like then I can understand why they made that decision but I’m still a little sad about it. Out of the way sure, but short stories are really effective on giving a character voice and personality along with a deeper insight to their thoughts and feelings about the world in a way that is shown and not told through a written biography or out of universe voicelines. I would hope they still return to written narrative for parts of bigger things (like the big Star Guardian ‘22 story) or just small gaps to be filled, like the random Yorick and Illaoi post-Ruined King story they dropped months ago.

Naturally it’s hard to have a full opinion on this as they’ve just said they’ll be exploring other mediums without specifying what those mediums will be. Short stories (while still requiring great care and effort from a writer) are definitely an easy and very accessible way to get information across quickly. Comics like the Katarina comic from earlier this year I really enjoyed, I’d definitely love more of those. My fear is that they’ll put a lot of hope into Riot Forge games. I love Ruined King and I know others have enjoyed Mageseeker, but games both cost money to experience and as of right now, all RF games are different genres, which appeal to some and don’t appeal to others. I haven’t played Mageseeker because it doesn’t exactly look like my kind of game but I might find the story really interesting. The thing that I like about League Lore is that it’s so detached from the actual video game you can consume and understand and be invested in it without ever playing a single round of it. Yes gameplay videos and everything get uploaded to the internet anyway, but I personally generally prefer going to an official website that I know would contain everything. So I don’t know. I hope these mediums they’re going to explore can still somehow provide the depth that short stories can, as well as be generally accessible to all who might be interested.

And maybe this is just the art student in me currently taking a class about artist books, but part of being easily accessible is how easy these short stories are to share. If you’re talking with a friend about the lore and they want to see for themselves, you can just send a link to the short story. You don’t have to be all like “well 15 hours into this one spin-off game there’s this cutscene and hidden piece of paper on the floor that says—” like that’s. Annoying. Additionally just for going back to check references the short stories are really easy to pop in and check on. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve gone back to one to check a detail or characterization moment. Much easier than having to remember some gameplay moment or scroll through a wiki to find something that hopefully someone has uploaded. You know where everything is if it’s plain and simple on the Universe site.

As for Arcane being canon now I don’t particularly care? Like I’ve never minded the non-canonness of it but also because I’m not deeply knowledgeable about Piltover / Zaun champs and lore it might as well canon for me personally, and given the ratio of people who know everything about P/Z lore and the number of people who have watched Arcane I can understand why they made this decision, it’s easier to make the popular thing actually canon instead of having like 10 people on twitter scream at others for how it isn’t. I don’t know exactly how far the ripple effect of lore changes this makes will go. But basically I don’t mind. Those 10 people are going to be mad and I can understand to an extent but I’m not one of them.

Hextech and Skarner stuff, as the video says, has probably the largest ripple effect. Again I don’t super care and perhaps it’s too early to judge and cry “booo they’ve ruined Camille!” or “they’re retconning the whole lore!!!” before we even see what these changes are. Maybe I’m too much of an optimist. I like Seraphine and they’ve already mostly adjusted her to this non-Brackern Hextech lore situation so. I think she’s fine as is now. Again we’ll see. How we’ll see though??? Would love to know. I really don’t quite understand how they’re going to do things without short stories or without a big focus on them. Like not even champion color stories? Weird.

I think there is hope for me for the Kassadin and Kai’Sa reunion to actually happen now. If they play it out in a full cinematic in any way I think I might actually die. But that’s a pretty big thread that’s just been hanging over these two characters I love so much and Kai’Sa is a true It Girl at this point so. I think it’s coming. Please go poorly. Please give Kassadin’s wife a name.

One of the devs said they’re going to focus on actually getting the narratives up before focusing on how they’re presented on the Universe site, which… these seem like things that should happen pretty much at the same time but okay. Does this mean the map will get updated ever?

Lastly, of course as a Music Universe Lover I can’t help but wonder how these changes to the base lore could reach over into the AU. Riot Games Music used to post just a simple picture / illustration of what the music-verse characters were up to maybe every two to three months and I’ve really missed those. It’s really felt like they’re leaving that kind of immersive world/narrative behind, but maybe they were just focusing on preparing for this boy band to drop. Still wish it was K/DA or even better, True Damage getting another song? Why did we need another group. Pentakill has three full albums. Anyway.

tl;dr - I’m genuinely bummed about them moving away from short stories and can’t truly get excited for more without knowing exactly how they plan on telling stories in the future.

[nagito-kissmaeda]

Curious: what are your general thoughts on the mainline Danganronpa games (Trigger Happy Havoc, Goodbye Despair, Ultra Despair Girls, Killing Harmony)? Like which one’s your favorite/least favorite, etc?

Ooh fun!! I do have lots of thoughts. I guess I’ll do them in order of fave to least fave. Under a readmore because I had too much to say

SDR2 - BRILLIANT, absolute pinnacle. I think the main reason sdr2 works so well is that it understands most players will be returning from THH so it ramps the tension up to 11 right from the get go by revealing that everyone has lost memories straight away. Most of the murders are really cool, trial 5 is the best one in the series, obvz. The island setting is nice too, it’s very different from the first game but not in a way that is too jarring. Oh and the cast is the best I think. Obviously I have issues with Hanamura but they have the sense to kill him straight away so no biggie. My only other character issue is that I really wish they did more with Owari, she’s kind of nothing and that’s sad. Also tragic that Saionji didn’t get her character arc :(( OH AN TSUMIKI NEEDS TO NOT FALL OVER SO MUCH THATS STUPID

Komaeda is there and he is the most interesting and coolest character ever. +100000000 points

UDG: okay okay, controversial for me to put it so high I KNOW. It’s got so so so many problems and yet….it compels me. I love Komaru, she is my favourite protag and I always liked Fukawa, so it’s nice to see her sort of come into her own and get to be a bit of a hero. UM THE MUSIC IS THE BEST. I like when it goes YEAH YEAH YEAH. I also actually really like the setting of Towa city? It’s cool to see the effects the tragedy had on the world as a whole, and it’s fun to explore. Gameplay is messy, but I don’t hate it, I have played much worse.

I had a lot of issues with the warriors of Hope in general and do wish they stuck with the initial plan of having the remnants of despair be the boss fights. Sigggghhhhhh, so upset that it was taken from us. That would have been the COOLEST.

Wish the tickle machine wasn’t in it. Wish the pedophile was dead. Wish Kotoko didn’t fall down so much. Wish Fukawa toned it down with the incest jokes.

I need servant carnally.

THH: THE OG MY BELOVED. I have a lot lot lot of nostalgia for this one, it’s very soft to me, I feel like I grew up in hopes peak lol. For serious though, Hopes peak is a cool af setting, it’s such a weird school and the art direction is absolutely stunning. I mentioned in a previous ask that it’s probably a bit too slow going, but it’s fair because this really was the first game of its kind and they have to tell you how to play it.

The reACT mechanic is funny and useless. I am glad they got rid of it, but it makes me laugh when I see it.

I love all the characters, they are like children to me. I even like Yamada, it’s the truth. I think they majority of characters are more toned down in this game, which is to its benefit I would say. Some characters in later games are a Bit Much.

I also like all the motives! They actually make sense??? And it’s the only game where Monokuma doesn’t cheat with a, “kill before arbitrary time limit or everyone dies” which is the worst motive and I hate it.

The Fujisaki problem is very present, unfortunately. I still don’t think they were meaning to be offensive anyway, but ya know. I’m pretty chill with any interpretation, but I usually consider them a transwoman

V3 : Hm. I do not like. The school is very very big and so easy to get lost in, where the first two games feel very distinct and easily navigable. It’s also not much different than Hope’s Peak, which is a little boring.

I want to punt the Monokubs into a volcano. V3 feels even slower and longer than THH and I blame them. They talk so much and so often and it never progresses anything and UGH.

I’m iffy on way more characters. Like I mentioned before they can be a Bit Much. I’m meaning your Tenkos and Mius. They have One thing, and that’s all they do and are, which is uninteresting and ANNOYING. It feels like so many of them have been boiled down to one trait, even characters I like such as Tsumugi and Himiko are like that, but their trait is less loud so it doesn’t annoy me so much.

Motives are stupid and dumb almost always. Hate them. Fucking necronomicon makes me want to chew glass.

The protag switch is cool. I like it, but I miss Kaede every single day.

The ending I do not like. It would be a whole five more paragraphs for me to explain my issues in full, but it sort of betrays it’s own messaging and renders the rest of the game meaningless (at least in my opinion)

Cospox makes me want to die

The music and UI are very good though!!

This was so so so long. I have more Thoughts, but I will save you from them for Now

[greenjokwe-blog]

Pyre - Finished 20/02/2023

Going back through my Supergiant game journey after putting it on hold for a year and a half, playing through them all in order has been a very interesting experience for me. They’re a studio who both haven’t released any bad games and not only have improved more and more over time, but with the massive success of Hades warranting their first direct sequel, it’s very fun putting all of their other games in context to that without having played the game for myself. Pyre in a lot of ways is technically more impressive than both of their previous games, although for me in terms of favourites I’d probably put it in the exact middle right now.

Firstly, the structure is completely different this time. While it does keep a lot (maybe even most) of the studio’s staples, some aspects are much favoured over others, such as the more narrator-style of storytelling being changed for it’s more multi-choice, choose your own adventure story, hell most of the game is basically a visual novel! While I loved the old story presentation, seeing how perfectly it was executed in Transistor, I’m happy to see them strive for new ideas, and this game definitely shows the heights of the new formula at certain points.

First off, I must talk about the best part about this game - the characters. The cast is easily the best Supergiant has ever done, there will be at least a couple of characters you’ll be invested in their character arcs throughout, and wanna stick out from them. Which is when the game reveals its biggest secret and greatest strength; its understanding of character progression and levelling with player investment, leading to some reveals that hit the player like a brick.

Although that being said, once the game first drops its biggest ball about four hours in, the rest of the game never really seems to hit quite as hard, which is fine because it still has its moments that shine very bright, but considering that when this released it was the studios longest game, and that a lot of that is bogged down by large dialogue of lore dumps, the game really shined only as bright to me with the characters I liked and the choices I made. Towards the game’s end the game suffers the most, but also created this unique feeling of melancholy I definitely appreciated and is befitting of Supergiant's body of work as a whole.

But uh yeah, rest is as you expect. Beautiful art, wonderful soundtrack, the gameplay... even more unbalanced and exploitable than usual. I definitely still do like it, and I think that’s due to my love of sports RPGs sparked by Inazuma Eleven, but it definitely suffers from character playstyles that aren’t great or synergize very well with other party compositions, trivializing a lot of encounters or making some character styles suffer when the game forces you to use them. Still, at its best, it’s incredibly involving and exciting, with incredibly tight controls and decision-making play.

So yeah, Pyre isn’t without its flaws, but I’d still say it’s a very good game. Honestly, I’m just really glad to see them try something new, and if Hades uses the character dialogue presentation of story (which from what I’ve seen of what Hades story is) and improves on it as much as Transistor did with Bastion’s roots, I think I’ll definitely love that game as well. But considering it’s longer than the length of every Supergiant game up to this point combined, I’m not in a rush. I’d still recommend this, the most slept-on Supergiant game that’s definitely worth checking out.

[legionofpotatoes]

we decided to watch all story cutscenes from the new resident evil village videogame on a whim, since it’s not really our cup of tea gameplay-wise but seems to be this massive zeitgeist moment that made us morbidly curious. And I know how much everyone cares about my thoughts on things I know very little about, so. let’s get into it huh gamers. and yeah spoilers?

for context, I’ve only played resident evil 4 and a small portion of 5. I also read the wikipedia entry for 7’s plot recently. all this to say I was only vaguely aware of how tonally wacky the series was going in

I also completely gave up following the plot of the mutagens’ soap opera, so that paid off in spades here as you might imagine

anyway so that baby in the intro. that baby’s head is just massive. humongous toddlerdome. when ethan finds the baby’s head in a jar later on. there is no way that head would fit into that jar. bad game design. no not even game design. basic stuff. one hundred years in prison for jar modeler

if I see a single functional hetero marriage in video games I will cry tears of joy. I understand their misery is kind of The Point irt them badly working through the hillbilly romp trauma but like. sheesh. at least set that up as an emotional story goal the plot will help resolve. but nope they start off miserable and it goes nowhere

I know I know the mia thing has a huge wrinkle in it but like. not really in terms of dramatic function?? set up a happy end to the re7 nightmare (miranda can keep up appearances for all she cares) and then take that all away from angry griffin mcelroy for manpain. it will still absolutely work to set up the dramatic forward momentum. why throw in this cliche Hollywood Tension in their marriage if you’re not going to address it oh maybe because it’s normalized as automatically interesting because nuclear families are a self-propagating pit of a very narrow chance at emotional happiness relying on social stigma to preserve their empty function oops my baggage slipped in yikes abort mission

I called him griffin mcelroy because I saw his face on twitter and. yeah. I will continue to do this occasionally. my house my rules

... fuck the reason I’m hung up on this is specifically because the rest of the game is so tonally dexterous (which is a shining point to me! more on that later!), and yet they felt weirdly compelled to create the aesthetic trapping of a family-at-odds trope without following it through too well. a sign of both the good and the bad stuff to come

but listen the real reason why I wanted to talk about any of this is to nitpick the fascinating backwards-engineered nucleus of the entire thing; in that this game essentially creates a melting pot of just SO many disparate horror tropes and then makes a no-holds-barred unhinged effort at weaving thick lore to piece them all together. it is truly a sight to behold. like straight up you got your backwoods fright night situation, your gothic castle vampires, your rural-industrial werewolves, and don’t forget your bloated swamp monsters over there, with then a hard left turn into robotic body horror, and the entire ass subgenre of Creepy Doll writ large, and the bloodborne tentacle monsters, and a hellboy angel bossfight, which rides on the coattails of a mech-on-mech pacific rim bonanza, and just jesus henry christ slow down

almost all of these are textural hijack jobs that don’t really get into the metaphor plain of any of those settings but the game sort-of makes an argument that the texture IS the point and revels in it. It is kind of admirable almost. The same reason why the intro felt boxed in and unmotivated is also why the rest of the game just blasts off of its hinges to the point of complete and self-indulgent tonal abandon. I kinda loved that about it. lady dimitrescu made sure to hold her hat down as she bent forward in mahogany doorways and then suddenly she’s a giant gore dragon and you settle in your temp role as dark souls man with Gun to take her ass down. Excellent??

this rhino rampage impulse to gobble up every horror aesthetic known to man comes to head when the game wrestles with its FPS trappings in what is the most hilarious solution in creating visceral player damage moments. Since most cinematics and the entire game is in first person, that leaves precious little real estate for the devs to work with if they really want to sell griffin’s physical crucible. To wit. This dude’s forearms. Specifically just the forearms. They are MASSACRED throughout the story. The poor man lives out the silent hill dimension of a hand model. by the end cutscene he looks like a neatly dressed desk clerk who had decided to stick both his grabbers into garbage disposal grinders just a few hours prior. like in addition to everything else it manages to rope in that tinge of slapstick violence into its general grievous genre collection except this time it IS for a lack of trying! truly incredible

but wait his miracle clawbacks from everything his poor paws go through are retroactively explained away, yes, but far too vaguely and far too late to console me as I sat and watched everyone’s favorite baby brother reattach an entirely severed hand to his wrist stump by just. placing it on there. and giving it a lil twist ‘n pop terminator-style. and then willing his fingers back into motion right in front of my bulging eyes. this game just does not care. it does not give a shit. and boy howdy will it work to make that into one of its strongest suits

cause generally speaking resident evil was THE premiere vanilla zombie content destinaysh for like a decade, right? and as the rest of the world and mainstream media started encroaching and bloodying its blue ocean it went and just exploded in every single conceivable horror trope direction like a smilodon on catnip. truly, genuinely fascinating franchise moves

yeah the big vampire milf is hot. other news; grass... green. although I do love the implication that her closet is just identical white dresses on a rack. cartoon network-level queen shit

apropos of nothing I’ve said there’s also this hobo dante-devimaycry-magneto man, and I can’t believe this sentence makes sense. anyway he made that “boulder-punching asshole” joke referring to chris redfield and it was probably the only easter egg that really landed for me and boy did it land hard. I have not seen him punch the boulder in re5, mind. I had only heard about how funny it is from friends. and here this dude was, probably in the same exact mindset as me, trying to grapple with that insane mental image. with you on that ian mckellen, loud and clear

I advocate vehemently against the shallow pursuit of hyper photorealism in art direction but I gotta admit it works really in favor of immersive horror like this. the european village shacks especially gave me super unchill flashbacks to my rural countryside retreat in western georgia. I could smell the linoleum dude. not cool

faces are weird in this game. can’t place it. nice textures, good animation, but the modeling template is... uuh strange? and the hair. it has that clustered-flat-clumpy look that harkens to something very specific and unpleasant but I just don’t know what. sue me

griffin’s mental aptitude to take all this shit in stride and end every seemingly traumatizing bossfight involving some fucking eldritch being yet unseen through mortal eyes by essentially throwing out an MCU quip is just. What the fuck dude? I mean that was funny how you casually yelled the f-word at a god damn werewolf that you considered a fairy tale an hour ago but are you like, all right?? it was swinging a sledgehammer the size of a bus at you, ethan

oh oh the vampires are afraid of cold and your last name is winters. I get it haha

Pro Gamer Nitpick: boss fights seemed a bit unnecessarily long?? idk why the youtuber we picked decided the ENTIRE propeller man fight counted towards the vital story scenes he was stitching together, but man mr big daddy lite there really had some get up and go huh??

why are they saying dimitrescu.. like that. is it really how you say that word or is the english language relapsing into its fetish for ending every single word with a consonant at all costs

I’m not saying it’s a dramatic miss of a twist in context of all that’s going on, but the “you died in the last game actually and have been DC’s clayface ever since” revelation is low-key. it’s. it’s just funny to me, I dont know what to say. century-old god-witch fails her evil plan after she mistakenly removes heart from what was definitely NOT just some white guy with eight fingers after all

chris realizing he’s about to become the player character and immediately swapping out his tsundere trenchcoat for the muscletight sex haver sweater

the little bluetooth speaker-sized pipe bomb he taped to his knife was nuclear?? really??? I must have missed something because that is just too good. I buy it though I totally buy it. chris just got them fun-sized nukes in his car trunk for, you guessed it, Situations

anyway this is all for now just wanted to briefly touch on how unexpectedly funny and tonally irreverent this seemingly serious game turned out to be. did not articulate any cathartic story beats whatsoever but my god it had fun connecting those plot points. he just fucking put his severed hand back on his stump and it Just Worked todd howard get in here

[maxismatchccworld]

Welcome back to our latest - and last! - Deep Dive into the gameplay of The Sims 4 Nifty Knitting Stuff Pack. I’ve really enjoyed sharing the designs and development of this pack with you, and I hope to continue doing these sorts of posts in the future. It’s been a super cool experience, and I hope you’ve enjoyed reading these! In today’s post I’ll talk about the feature that is core to everything in this pack, Knitting! Once again, I have to remind you that we’re still in active development on the pack and so some things may change between now and the final game. Now, let’s talk about some nifty knits!

READ IT I PROMISE YOU GONNA LIKE IT!

In order to start knitting, you’ll need to purchase a Yarn Basket from the Build/Buy catalog. You probably remember voting on these baskets a while back. This was the winning design, presented to you now in all its colorful glory! Don’t like color? That’s okay, because we included a solid black and white variant.

We have one more knitting basket coming too! Remember this one?

The basket acts as the crafting catalyst(neat term, huh?) similar to the Easel or Woodworking Bench in The Sims 4 base game. But unlike those examples, the Yarn Basket is meant to live in a Sim’s inventory so that they can take their knitting anywhere they want to go. Knitting itself is relatively straightforward: click on the Yarn Basket in your inventory, OR, with the basket in your inventory, click on the chair you want to sit in while knitting (perhaps a rocking chair?) and select the Knit interaction. Your projects are saved to your Sim, so you can pause your progress at any time and resume later, and even juggle multiple projects at once. Starting a project costs a small amount of Simoleons for the cost of yarn, but nothing too outrageous.

(Children can knit too!) As a Sim levels up their knitting skill they’ll have access to new patterns. They’ll start with knitting socks and beanies, but as they grow more skilled they can tackle more challenging projects like sweaters and toys for kids. But if you only want to specialize in one thing - perhaps knitted mailbox cozies? - that's fine too! Just keep knitting anything and everything, and you’ll be level 10 before you know it. Speaking of knitting skill, sometimes your skill is reflected in your knitted work, or rather your lack of skill. Knitting projects can fail, and when they fail they can get weird. But it’s all subjective, and maybe you’ll end up accidentally knitting the cutest derpy companion, or the perfectly itchy sweater. No mistakes, only happy accidents!

(Just own it.) One of the niftiest parts of the knitting skill is unlocking the ability to Teach to Knit, where Sims sit down together and have a knitting pow-wow. We wanted this to feel special, so we got a really sweet animation for it (Thanks Haeju!). Now that you can infect other Sims with the knitting bug, no yarn ball will be safe!

(The knitting needles aren’t finished on the Teach To Knit interaction yet, but trust me it's SUPER CUTE.) So, what can you do with all these knitting projects? Lots of stuff! Not only can knitted objects be listed on Plopsy, but you can also Donate them to charity. If you want to surprise a loved one, try Gifting a knitted object too. If you want to destroy all traces of your knitted failures, you can Frog the object and start again! If it's a particularly nice Sweater that you made, consider Adding it to Wardrobe to make it available in Create-A-Sim to all family members.

(Everyone appreciates a nice gift!) We want Sims to be able to knit something for their whole family. Not only will Sims be able to knit Toddler Onesies, but Baby Onesies as well. So put your little grubworm in a handmade knitted outfit. I’m sure they’d thank us if they could! (And if they didn’t like it I’m sure they’d be polite about it.)

(Here’s a sneak peek at some of the concept art for new clothing for the littlest of Sims!) It also felt like a good idea to add an Aspiration to tie this passion for knitting all together. So if you want to master the fuzzy art of knitting, consider signing your Sim up for the Lord(or Lady) of the Knits Aspiration. With yarn running through your veins, there will be no knitting mountain too hard to conquer! Master the Aspiration and you’ll be rewarded with the Sacred Knitting Knowledge trait. What does it do? Lots of stuff! What does it unlock? Something special! Am I being vague? I am! Come on guys, I can’t share all the secrets quite yet.

As I’ve mentioned previously, we’re trying to get as much cross-pack functionality for knitting as we can. Cats can play with Yarn Baskets and Yarn Balls, there will be new Club rules for Knitting, new class electives at University, and knitting counts for Emotional Control, just to name a few. I’m hoping Knitting feels nice and snug alongside our other gameplay systems. Now let's have a chat with our lead Object Modeler, Beth Mohler! Conor: Can you tell us a little bit about what an Object Modeler does on The Sims 4? Beth: As an object modeler I spend a lot of time trying to figure out how to make objects work in The Sims 4. This is actually a very involved process, and somewhat different from the wonderful work our environment team does. We work with designers, concept artists, engineers, animators, vfx artists (basically everyone!) to make sure that Sims can use an object properly in an animation, or that all of our objects will work with each other. Once we understand the design for a new object, we will create a rig, a block model (a very generic version of the object used to help us make more of the same object in the future), and a footprint (tells us where the object can go and how Sims move around it). Once those are tested by animators and other disciplines we can model the final version, create UVs, and add textures. We also hook up and test everything in the game to make sure it all looks good. There is a lot to think about when it comes to making objects because we know players can find so many interesting ways to place and use them in game. That makes it a very fun challenge to make them work with everything else we’ve built before. Conor: What feature are you most excited to work on in Nifty Knitting Stuff? Beth: I’d say I am most excited to work on the rocking chairs! I love that we are bringing them to the game and can’t wait to see them in some cozy living rooms or on porches. Conor: What are some of the challenges you are facing working on this pack? Beth: One of the biggest challenges is ensuring that the knitting itself looks good and is fun to watch! This is a challenge given that it needs to work for everything you can create. Figuring this out takes a lot of iteration between modeling, animation, engineering, design, and art direction so that we come to a conclusion that will work the best given our time and technical constraints. Another interesting “challenge” is the fact that I crochet as a hobby myself! When you are knowledgeable about something (yarn!) in real life, working on it in the game it can sometimes be hard to separate the things you know and may expect in reality from what is possible or best within a video game. I have to make sure to keep a balance and to conceptualize how we can best convert the knitting experience into The Sims 4. As someone who also generally enjoys interior design and architecture, this is actually one of my favorite challenges and one of the things I love about working on objects in The Sims 4. Conor: What is your favorite feature you have ever worked on in The Sims 4? Beth: I think it has to be a tie between the mini fridge or the robotics table in Discover University. That pack was the first time I got to really take an entire feature from start to finish. I’ve been with Maxis for a while, but I’m relatively new to The Sims 4. Both of these objects had some complex features we wanted that required a lot of iteration. I learned a ton about the technical aspects of our game during the process as well. I’ve also worked on a few very cool things between then and now, but those can’t be shared yet ; ) As a fan of The Sims since the very beginning I am so happy to be able to share a little about what I do on a daily basis on The Sims 4 with you! I haven’t been on The Sims 4 for quite as long overall, but some of you may also recognize me from my time on Sims Mobile where I shared some of our workflows on Twitter for making a juice bar. Thanks! Conor: You shared a screenshot of the In-Progress Rocking Chair in our Rocking Chair Deep Dive. Can you share an updated screenshot now that the Rocking Chair is further along? Beth: I would love to! I hope everyone has been enjoying seeing the progress on this object so far! Here it is a little further along. This program allows us to set the rules for the object materials, footprint size and rig it should use, as well as all the color variants and swatch colors you see in the catalog.

Thanks Beth! By the way, Beth is on Twitter @SimGuruBeth, so be sure to Follow her! And thanks to all of you Simmers for following this pack’s development, this has been a really fun project in a very crazy time. A big thank you to my Stuff Pack teammates, and especially SimGuruSarah who edited my inane ramblings and wrangled the miscellaneous bits for these posts. While this concludes my design Deep Dives, we still have more forum posts with development insights on the way! Keep checking the Community Stuff Pack forum and we’ll have more fun stuff to show off in the weeks to come. Until next time, SimGuruConor

Source: The Sims Forum

[henpendrips]

Top Ten #1 - Final Fantasy X (PS2)

Yup, it's this'n. So let's get right into it.

Boy, oh boy, Final Fantasy X. Is it the best entry in the series? No. Is it a better game than God of War 2? Definitely not. Yet as I struggle to write this summary, there is no other game that I can think of that would fit the #1 spot. And that's because, not only do I love the turn-based RPG genre, but... it was also the first Final Fantasy game that I really got into; from first coming into contact with it to finally buying and playing it for myself, a game that easily consumed five years of my life.

The story and world in FFX might be the most blatant in terms of points made, and as the last SquareSoft Final Fantasy, it also marked the end of an era, while being the start of another, more superficial and uninspired future for the series (with the MMOs and FF12 barely scootin' by, considering what was to come). However, that doesn't stop me being enamored with the two protagonists and the journey they go through: Tidus, the energetic blitzball superstar that functions as the audience surrogate; and Yuna, the reserved summoner carrying the weight of the world on her shoulders.

While most previous FF games start out small, and opened up as you progress, FFX presents you with big questions right from the start, and Tidus' clueless ass is the perfect vessel for players to take in this adventure one step at a time. His own confidence and playful nature also helps set the audience at ease, rather than feeling lost amidst the chaos. But it is through Yuna that the story of this game moves forward; she is the reason the party (and through Tidus, the player), continue this journey, her pilgrimage across the land of Spira, in the hopes of achieving a means to stop the cataclysmic monster Sin. And that's also why Yuna is my favorite character in the entire franchise (Zack Fair is a close second), as her determination and drive are apparent even through her shy and meek demeanor when you're introduced to her initially; and given how, unlike Tidus, she DOES understand what her journey might entail, she is aware of the consequences that might present themselves, and how her faith is challenged every step of the way, really showcases a strength not just in the character, but the writing as well.

In terms of exploration and level design, while FFX might have been a big step forward for the series, shedding the pre-rendered backgrounds of the PS1 era, Spira is left quite linear and restrained. It's no FF13, thankfully, as you're allowed to revisit almost every area you go to, and after a later point in the game, unlocking an airship gives you free range on where to go, including some optional dungeons and secret areas. It's no grand expanse, but you're given plenty of reasons to explore every nook and cranny for sidequests, extra gear, and additional skills. The equipment mechanics are interesting in concept, the ability to craft and graft specific abilities to your weapons and armor, but given the limited models for it, and the existence of Celestial Weapons, like a lot of aspects in the game, it comes off more like a means to extend gameplay needlessly, as several other games of that time did.

The combat system, meanwhile, is undoubtedly my favorite in the whole series, because it embraces the fact that it's a turn-based RPG. I've never been too keen on the ATB, and have definitely disliked the real time/turn-based hybrids that are leading the franchise further and further away from its roots, but FFX knows what it is, and fully embraces it. Based on specific stats, the Conditional Turn-Based Battle (CTB) system places every participant in the fight on a specific order, and every action taken by a character will affect how subsequent turns play out. Spells such as Haste will accelerate and give a character more turns, crippling abilities will push enemies further away from taking their own turn, and with the ability to switch party members on the fly, you have an approach dedicated to the player controlling the flow of combat, by taking advantage of enemy weaknesses and impeding them from attacking at all, something that, as the game progresses, especially with optional superbosses, develops into quite the challenge that is still all in control of the player.

Probably the most distinct aspect to FFX combat, however, is how summons, called Aeons, act as their own characters, all with stats and abilities of their own. All of them are informed by Yuna's development, and spamming them will definitely leave your other party members lacking, but it's always thrilling to drop yor giant monsters on the field and let them lay waste to your enemies. This also provides you with the Summoner fights, where Aeons can't be summoned by both parties at the same time, and how several bosses can easily destroy your summon, leaving you to plan out when it is most appropriate to use them. A very nice touch that is in line with the story of the game.

The progression system in FFX also deserves a highlight. The Sphere Grid replaces the usage of EXP with AP, and each character is placed upon a giant grid with slots to fill up, so as to increase their stats and learn new skills. Special key slots keep your characters on set paths at first, but you'll eventually be able to cross characters onto others' sections, allowing you to increase each party member's usage beyond their initial limitations, while minimizing their weaknesses and shortcomings as character-locked roles. It's definitely another aspect of the game done to extend gameplay, especially given how you can customize the entire Sphere Grid for all seven characters, but after playing FF12, I'm much more content with a system that provides unique roles to characters, letting you familiarize yourself with them, and then expanding their arsenal and abilities later on. Seriously, if you want to play FF12, which I recommend as my fourth favorite FF game, play it on PC with a merged License Board mod, it'll be so much more satisfying.

And to close it off, given how most of the positives above also provide some detail on the negatives, the art direction in FFX is just the right amount of overly-detailed before going down Belt Buckle Avenue. There's an overall ocean theme to the designs, with a lot of spirals and natural patterns to the architecture, character design, and even the monsters, that I enjoy massively (and the PS2 limitations probably kept it from going balls-to-the-wall insane). There's an obvious jank when it comes to facial animations and how a lot of voice lines are delivered, but the emotional peaks are all there, a prime example of both the good and bad being one of the speeches later in the game, how the animation and delivery contrast immensely with all the other characters in the scene. And of course, how can you forget the ridonkulously catchy tunes such as 'Hymn of the Fayth', 'Challenge', and 'Otherworld' (the song that until recently, I still believed had been composed by Ramnstein).

With that, it's done. Years ago, when I first thought of which game was my all-time favorite, I definitely had a big thunk on whether it was God of War 2 or Final Fantasy X. But in spite of all that has happened since, the state of the games industry as a whole, and how I changed in terms of standards, taste, and preferences, putting FFX on the #1 spot of this list is not a regret. It defined me as a person, as an enthusiast, I'm very happy that it opened so many doors and how it motivated me to push forward as an artist for several years now. Also, Rikku with X-2 costume was top tier first waifu, fite me.

[nikibogwater]

(Long post incoming. You have been warned)

Reasons Niki is Excited for the Diamond/Pearl Remakes:

Diamond was Baby Niki’s first Pokémon game and I don’t think I could even begin to express the impact that game had on me. My gaming life was practically dominated by Pokémon from age 10 to 18, and it all began in the Sinnoh region. So yes, Nostalgia is a big factor in this.

I have wanted a 3D Sinnoh remake ever since I played Pokémon X for the first time. Being able to see the Pokémon actually move and emote brought so much immersion to the Pokémon experience for me, and pairing that with the deep, expansive lore that the Sinnoh games offered is the perfect union of my two favorite elements from the series. 

Like a lot of people, I was initially put off by the oddly-proportioned chibi overworld sprites, but it is already beginning to grow on me. I think the idea was to capture the look and feel of the original DS games as much as possible, and to that effect, I think this art style does really well. Everything else about the game looks very crisp and nice to me. The environments are lovely, the backgrounds are interesting, and most importantly, the Pokémon are heckin’ cute. 

I didn’t have access to the wireless functions in the original game as a kid. I didn’t get to experience connecting with others online until X and Y. And with the confirmation that the Underground will be returning in the remakes, I am so excited to finally be able to have the full D/P experience that I missed as a kid.

I’ve been really disenchanted with the mainline Pokémon games for the past few years. I think Sun/Moon is where I began to feel disconnected from the series, like it wasn’t bringing me the sense of childlike wonder and excitement that it used to. I initially chalked this up to my simply becoming an adult, but then I played Pokemon Let’s Go Eevee, and found myself sucked into that little game almost as much as the games of my childhood. Looking back on it now, I think maybe it was an issue of immersion for me. With the demands of both fans and whoever is forcing Game Freak to produce a new main series title every flipping year, a lot of immersion had to be sacrificed for the sake of getting the game out on time. Because Pokémon Let’s Go was a comparatively smaller game that only featured 152 Pokémon, the developers were able to spend more time making the environments and the Pokémon feel more alive. We got Pokémon following you, Shinies appearing in the overworld, Pokémon you could ride, dynamic backgrounds for battles, clean lines and lag-free rendering...none of which were carried over into Sword/Shield, because that game was simply way too big for the amount of time they gave themselves to make it. For me, if you simply cannot give yourself the amount of time needed to make a massive game feel polished and immersive, you should stick to creating a smaller game with less content, and more polish. I’ve always been a Quality over Quantity person, I guess, and Pokémon main series games were not delivering on that front for me anymore. 

BUT with the D/P remakes, I am already beginning to see that a great deal of the Quality I want is going to be delivered; Pleasant scenery with clean lines and nice colors (instead of the strangely blurry mess that was Sword/Shield’s environments), a significantly high chance that there will be far fewer lag/rendering issues, and a faithful adaptation of one of the few Pokémon main series games with a story and world that I can legitimately lose myself in. (Oh I dearly hope they’ve kept the Legendaries as terrifying as they were in the originals...). 

I guess for me, I do not need a Pokémon game to blow me away with something new. Simply having them improve on what has already worked in the past is enough of a reason for me to come back and buy the newer titles. I wouldn’t mind having the series go in a completely new direction, create something that we’ve never seen before, give us the ultimate Pokémon experience with insanely good graphics and mind-blowing story--but given how much they struggled with Sword/Shield, I’m beginning to think that that is just too much to ask for when Game Freak absolutely refuses to let a year pass without cranking out a new title (this is why I’m still a little skeptical about Pokémon Legends: Arceus, and am withholding any excitement over that one until we have more information). Big games take time to be made well, and since Game Freak has made it clear they do not want to give themselves that time, I’m more interested in seeing them use what time they do give themselves in the most efficient and beneficial way possible. 

In keeping with the above point, the trailer explicitly said that the only Pokémon available in the D/P remakes will be the ones that were present in the original games. Again, I think this is a smart move on their part, because it means they can devote more time to making the Pokémon they do have feel more alive and full of personality, rather than having to pour all their time into programming in the literal 1,000+ Pokémon there are now. I know this kind of thing will upset a lot of people, but again, I’m more about the Quality over the Quantity.  But we'll see if Game Freak was able to deliver on that front like I’m hoping.

THE MUSIC. ‘Nuff said. 

While the trailer made it clear that they are trying to stick as close to the original games as possible, I am holding on to the hope that they will have made the necessary quality of life changes: the return of the optional Exp Share that lets all the Pokémon in your party gain xp from a battle, the elimination of HM moves that take up a battle slot, and an easier way to customize Pokémon EVs, such as candies or the Super Training feature from Gen VI (seriously why did they take that out in Gen VII???). Game Freak has slowly been inching forward with the series these last few years, introducing small changes that greatly improve the gameplay as a whole, and I think there’s good enough reason to hope that they will be smart enough to incorporate those changes into D/P remakes. 

I’m a little mystified that the general response to the remake announcements is already so overwhelmingly apathetic and even negative. I can understand not liking the art style, but for me, art direction is only one small component to a game, and even if it isn’t done perfectly, it can still be made up for in other areas. The fandom has been pestering for Sinnoh remakes for years, and now that Game Freak is trying to give us what we want, I would have thought more of us would be making a more positive fuss about it. Then again, the original game is 15 years old now. Most of us who played it have probably already moved on from the franchise as a whole. But for me, I know I’m going to buy this remake and enjoy it, even if it has imperfections. Because really, that’s all I want from a Pokémon game--to feel like a kid again and have a good time. Maybe it’s simplistic and naïve, but that’s just Niki in a nutshell for you. ✨

[thesims4blogger]

The Sims 4 Nifty Knitting: Knitting Deep Dive

SimGuruConnor has released a forum post providing details on The Sims 4 Nifty Knitting!

Welcome back to our latest – and last! – Deep Dive into the gameplay of The Sims 4 Nifty Knitting Stuff Pack. I’ve really enjoyed sharing the designs and development of this pack with you, and I hope to continue doing these sorts of posts in the future. It’s been a super cool experience, and I hope you’ve enjoyed reading these!

In today’s post I’ll talk about the feature that is core to everything in this pack, Knitting! Once again, I have to remind you that we’re still in active development on the pack and so some things may change between now and the final game.

Now, let’s talk about some nifty knits!

In order to start knitting, you’ll need to purchase a Yarn Basket from the Build/Buy catalog. You probably remember voting on these baskets a while back. This was the winning design, presented to you now in all its colorful glory! Don’t like color? That’s okay, because we included a solid black and white variant.

We have one more knitting basket coming too! Remember this one?

The basket acts as the crafting catalyst(neat term, huh?) similar to the Easel or Woodworking Bench in The Sims 4 base game. But unlike those examples, the Yarn Basket is meant to live in a Sim’s inventory so that they can take their knitting anywhere they want to go. Knitting itself is relatively straightforward: click on the Yarn Basket in your inventory, OR, with the basket in your inventory, click on the chair you want to sit in while knitting (perhaps a rocking chair?) and select the Knit interaction.

Your projects are saved to your Sim, so you can pause your progress at any time and resume later, and even juggle multiple projects at once. Starting a project costs a small amount of Simoleons for the cost of yarn, but nothing too outrageous.

(Children can knit too!)

As a Sim levels up their knitting skill they’ll have access to new patterns. They’ll start with knitting socks and beanies, but as they grow more skilled they can tackle more challenging projects like sweaters and toys for kids. But if you only want to specialize in one thing – perhaps knitted mailbox cozies? – that’s fine too! Just keep knitting anything and everything, and you’ll be level 10 before you know it.

Speaking of knitting skill, sometimes your skill is reflected in your knitted work, or rather your lack of skill. Knitting projects can fail, and when they fail they can get weird. But it’s all subjective, and maybe you’ll end up accidentally knitting the cutest derpy companion, or the perfectly itchy sweater. No mistakes, only happy accidents!

(Just own it.)

One of the niftiest parts of the knitting skill is unlocking the ability to Teach to Knit, where Sims sit down together and have a knitting pow-wow. We wanted this to feel special, so we got a really sweet animation for it (Thanks Haeju!). Now that you can infect other Sims with the knitting bug, no yarn ball will be safe!

(The knitting needles aren’t finished on the Teach To Knit interaction yet, but trust me it’s SUPER CUTE.)

So, what can you do with all these knitting projects? Lots of stuff!

Not only can knitted objects be listed on Plopsy, but you can also Donate them to charity. If you want to surprise a loved one, try Gifting a knitted object too. If you want to destroy all traces of your knitted failures, you can Frog the object and start again! If it’s a particularly nice Sweater that you made, consider Adding it to Wardrobe to make it available in Create-A-Sim to all family members.

(Everyone appreciates a nice gift!)

We want Sims to be able to knit something for their whole family. Not only will Sims be able to knit Toddler Onesies, but Baby Onesies as well. So put your little grubworm in a handmade knitted outfit. I’m sure they’d thank us if they could! (And if they didn’t like it I’m sure they’d be polite about it.)

(Here’s a sneak peek at some of the concept art for new clothing for the littlest of Sims!)

It also felt like a good idea to add an Aspiration to tie this passion for knitting all together. So if you want to master the fuzzy art of knitting, consider signing your Sim up for the Lord(or Lady) of the Knits Aspiration. With yarn running through your veins, there will be no knitting mountain too hard to conquer! Master the Aspiration and you’ll be rewarded with the Sacred Knitting Knowledge trait. What does it do? Lots of stuff! What does it unlock? Something special! Am I being vague? I am! Come on guys, I can’t share all the secrets quite yet.

As I’ve mentioned previously, we’re trying to get as much cross-pack functionality for knitting as we can. Cats can play with Yarn Baskets and Yarn Balls, there will be new Club rules for Knitting, new class electives at University, and knitting counts for Emotional Control, just to name a few. I’m hoping Knitting feels nice and snug alongside our other gameplay systems.

Now let’s have a chat with our lead Object Modeler, Beth Mohler!

Conor: Can you tell us a little bit about what an Object Modeler does on The Sims 4?

Beth: As an object modeler I spend a lot of time trying to figure out how to make objects work in The Sims 4. This is actually a very involved process, and somewhat different from the wonderful work our environment team does. We work with designers, concept artists, engineers, animators, vfx artists (basically everyone!) to make sure that Sims can use an object properly in an animation, or that all of our objects will work with each other. Once we understand the design for a new object, we will create a rig, a block model (a very generic version of the object used to help us make more of the same object in the future), and a footprint (tells us where the object can go and how Sims move around it). Once those are tested by animators and other disciplines we can model the final version, create UVs, and add textures. We also hook up and test everything in the game to make sure it all looks good. There is a lot to think about when it comes to making objects because we know players can find so many interesting ways to place and use them in game. That makes it a very fun challenge to make them work with everything else we’ve built before.

Conor: What feature are you most excited to work on in Nifty Knitting Stuff?

Beth: I’d say I am most excited to work on the rocking chairs! I love that we are bringing them to the game and can’t wait to see them in some cozy living rooms or on porches.

Conor: What are some of the challenges you are facing working on this pack?

Beth: One of the biggest challenges is ensuring that the knitting itself looks good and is fun to watch! This is a challenge given that it needs to work for everything you can create. Figuring this out takes a lot of iteration between modeling, animation, engineering, design, and art direction so that we come to a conclusion that will work the best given our time and technical constraints.

Another interesting “challenge” is the fact that I crochet as a hobby myself! When you are knowledgeable about something (yarn!) in real life, working on it in the game it can sometimes be hard to separate the things you know and may expect in reality from what is possible or best within a video game. I have to make sure to keep a balance and to conceptualize how we can best convert the knitting experience into The Sims 4. As someone who also generally enjoys interior design and architecture, this is actually one of my favorite challenges and one of the things I love about working on objects in The Sims 4.

Conor: What is your favorite feature you have ever worked on in The Sims 4?

Beth: I think it has to be a tie between the mini fridge or the robotics table in Discover University. That pack was the first time I got to really take an entire feature from start to finish. I’ve been with Maxis for a while, but I’m relatively new to The Sims 4. Both of these objects had some complex features we wanted that required a lot of iteration. I learned a ton about the technical aspects of our game during the process as well. I’ve also worked on a few very cool things between then and now, but those can’t be shared yet ; )

As a fan of The Sims since the very beginning I am so happy to be able to share a little about what I do on a daily basis on The Sims 4 with you! I haven’t been on The Sims 4 for quite as long overall, but some of you may also recognize me from my time on Sims Mobile where I shared some of our workflows on Twitter for making a juice bar. Thanks!

Conor: You shared a screenshot of the In-Progress Rocking Chair in our Rocking Chair Deep Dive. Can you share an updated screenshot now that the Rocking Chair is further along?

Beth: I would love to! I hope everyone has been enjoying seeing the progress on this object so far! Here it is a little further along. This program allows us to set the rules for the object materials, footprint size and rig it should use, as well as all the color variants and swatch colors you see in the catalog.

Thanks Beth! By the way, Beth is on Twitter @SimGuruBeth, so be sure to Follow her! And thanks to all of you Simmers for following this pack’s development, this has been a really fun project in a very crazy time. A big thank you to my Stuff Pack teammates, and especially SimGuruSarah who edited my inane ramblings and wrangled the miscellaneous bits for these posts.

While this concludes my design Deep Dives, we still have more forum posts with development insights on the way! Keep checking the Community Stuff Pack forum and we’ll have more fun stuff to show off in the weeks to come.

Until next time, SimGuruConor

[slade-neko]

My Thoughts on Super Smash Bros

Just something I wanted to write up since Smash Bros is one of my favorite game series and kinda got me into video games.  (WARNING: Its fairly long...)

Super Smash Bros. (N64 & Melee)

Super Smash Bros. was my first 3D game. Got it one year for Christmas when I was a little kid with a Nintendo 64. That game introduced me to video games. Before that I had only played Super Mario Bros. and Duck Hunt on my parents’ NES console. I wasn’t hooked on video games until I got my hands on a Nintendo 64. “Whoa! The graphics are so 3D!” It also introduced me to so many major Nintendo characters I did not know about like Link, Samus, Fox, and Kirby. It was the best gateway a kid could ask for to “get into” video games. Inevitably I ended up getting a Gamecube with Super Smash Bros. Melee as my first game on it too. Melee was great just like reliving that original feeling all over again. What made these games even more special was unlocking the characters. In a time before internet, you had no clue who was in the game and how to unlock them. The excitement of seeing that “Challenger Approaching” screen was like nothing else. A lot of your information came from questionable  sources of kids at school. Rumors with no real answers (until you get an official guide book.) No internet leaks or spoilers. Those were good times! 

One word I would use to describe the overall feel I got from Smash 64 and Melee would be Classic!

Super Smash Bros. Brawl

Years later, Super Smash Bros. Brawl came out. I’m not sure why, but I really got into that game. It was probably due to the timing and circumstances. The longest wait between Smash games being Melee to Brawl was 7 years and that brought a lot of desire for a new Smash game for me. Also the memories of being a kid playing this with my friends after school on weekends, big sleepovers, using the game’s crappy wi-fi connection, good times! I also did not understand the game’s mechanics as a kid and why people hated them, so I couldn’t complain about that. The art style of the game wasn’t necessarily my favorite, but it worked well for that game. It went from the bright vivid colors of Melee to a more dull, colorless, gritty style. Best example is Ocarina of Time Link being swapped over to Twilight Princess. Oh, and the game really picked up as a lot of fun when I began modding it. Turns out Wii’s were very easy to Homebrew and Brawl was fairly easy to mod. That brought out a HUGE replay value of installing new mods, making my own mods, and all sorts of endless possibilities with the game. Getting Project M (a fan mod for Brawl that reworked the entire game more competitively) really opened my eyes to the competitive side of Smash and showed me why normal Brawl was so bad.

One word I would use to describe the overall feel I got from Brawl from its art style, orchestrated full choir theme, to its fantastic Subspace Emissary cutscenes would be Epic!

Super Smash Bros. 4 

Smash eventually died down for another 6 years until Super Smash Bros. 4 came out. Man, Smash 4 was exciting because “Hey, new Smash game!”, but seeing it in full... it was honestly very weird. The 3DS version launching first felt like a big demo... at 240 pixels... wow. (I hated 3DS for taking wonderful games like Smash, Monster Hunter, the N64 Zelda remakes and dragging them into a low resolution, portable Hell!) That aside, I forcibly played the 3DS version until the Wii U one came out. Then the true game began and well it still wasn’t the Smash I was hoping for. It was fun, some cool new characters, but some more cuts too. Questionable new game mechanics among other things that made gameplay pretty un-fun. Hearing about how the 3DS version dragged down the Wii U version was quite disheartening too like Ice Climbers getting cut because they simply would not work on 3DS and the two games just HAD to be the same was stupid. The 3DS was a horrible anchor weighing down the game. Oh, and I don’t think they had a very clear direction with the art style of this game... The Zelda characters are still Twilight Princess designs, but are now bright and vivid? It just looks weird and out of place for them. Ganondorf looks exceptionally ugly because of that. 

One word I would use to describe the overall feel I got from Smash 4 from its theme music and the whole game’s aesthetic feels very Sporty. 

Super Smash Bros. Ultimate

Not long after and Super Smash Bros. Ultimate came out of the dark to save the day. Ultimate is really amazing. They took the crappy Smash 4 and cut its chains from the 3DS so it could soar above and beyond. A lot of it is Smash 4 assets ported over from the Wii U to a better console, the Switch. They somehow got EVERY single character back with a ton of new ones, almost every stage, so much amazing music, and well it truly is deserving of the Ultimate title in terms of content! 

So the game is pretty great and has A LOT of content, but its still not without issues (at least for me.) This is me being overly critical with the game and my MELEE FANBOY BULLSH*T opinions coming through, but there are quite a few things I don’t like about this game. The theme music (albeit catchy) is super sappy anime bullcrap music. I don’t mean that in a negative way, despite how I worded it, IT is very sappy anime music about the forces of good fighting evil together. The World of Light mode isn’t a lot of fun at least for me it wasn’t. It wasn’t Subspace Emissary, which I know its wasn’t meant to replace it. I had the most fun with Adventure mode in Melee and would’ve preferred to have a little mode similar to that instead. Spirits are seriously just the stickers from Brawl. I frequently call them that unintentionally when playing the game. Doing Spirit Board battles is nowhere near as fun as doing nicely planned out battles like Melee’s Event Matches (nothing can top Event Match 51!) Spirit Battles are typically just jokes that can be beaten in less than a minute. Also no trophies... I understand why they chose not to because of how much work they require, but it still doesn’t mean I can’t miss them. The gameplay is definitely an improvement over Smash 4, but I still crave that fast paced action Melee/ Project M had. Heavier gravity, harder to recover, quicker to KO, L-Canceling, hit-stun and proper combo potential are all things that made faster, higher speed action. I’m not super big into the competitive scene, but even I think the faster pace of Melee-style gameplay is far more fun to play and watch. 

Then there’s issues created because the devs are pushing too much into the competitive side of the game such as picking stages first then characters second, not having the game remember my character when returning from a match, having to make new rulesets just to change a few options. I’m pretty sure these are all things competitive people want that help out in tourney situations and stuff, but I don’t like them for normal matches. These are small issues in the long run, but I am bothered by them every time I play and I don’t see them ever changing that. All they need is a few new options to fix this. Toggle an option for stage select or character select first, a quick customizable ruleset option and have saved rulesets separately, and the option to remember your fighter. Heck they could even go a step further have it remember your preferred color to each character saved to your name data like how Smash 4 3DS did (that was a cool feature!)

The one word I would use to describe Smash Ultimate is HYPE! Nothing builds hype like a Smash Ultimate trailer. Every single trailer builds more hype for this game. From the original reveal trailer with the Inklings, Ridley, King K. Rool, and now Sephiroth?! Seeing those trailers, I can’t help, but smile and get hyped up and excited! Despite my nitpicky issues I have with the game, I can still say its a pretty darn good Smash game! I applaud Sakurai, the dev team, and Nintendo for going big with this game and putting so much effort into it and I can still enjoy it even if its not quite at the exact level I want.

[bmaxwell]

Number 1: Darkest Dungeon

Ruin...has come to our family.

Every so often a game comes along that feels like it was made specifically for you. So it was with Darkest Dungeon. First off, the game’s art style is breathtaking, I’d never seen a game look quite like it. The heavy shading on the characters gives everyone a severe, mysterious look. The combat is turn-based, with the twist that skills and abilities are based on where the characters are standing in a formation. It invokes HP Lovecraft* and makes the emotional stresses of being sent into dangerous places to battle horrors and abominations into a gameplay mechanism. The music is great. There’s a cool, spooky narrator. There are a bunch of different classes, and a town hub to upgrade. Darkest Dungeon ticks...all of my boxes? Almost. Make the adventurers high schoolers who attend classes, form social bonds, and manage relationships during the day before fighting monsters at night and you’d have it. 

I’ve played several hundred hours of Darkest Dungeon, and I still rarely skip the intro video when I launch the game. 

The first time I saw the above video, I was immediately reminded of two things:

- Eternal Darkness, a Gameube game about exploring mansion of your recently-deceased uncle and discovering an evil book that has been passed down through the generations.

- Lurker at the Threshold, which was my first HP Lovecraft story.**

This is my kind of horror. I dislike blood and guts slasher horror, but I love cosmic horror. This is very difficult for most games to capture, a lot of Lovecraft-inspired games tend to be about fighting tentacle monsters with tommy guns. And Darkest Dungeon is about fighting cool scary monsters, but Red Hook implemented a system in which your characters will have to deal with the psychological toll that living through life-threatening encounters with unspeakable horrors would take on a person. 

It’s easy to boil this down to just another meter to manage. “Oh, this monster monster used an ability which inflicted 6 points of stress on my Crusader, he is only 13 stress points away from his limit.” Most games can be boiled down to their mathematical skeletons. This is where the game’s incredible writing, art direction, and voice acting come through. Combat actions are often accompanied by a line of dialogue written over a character’s head and/or a line from the narrator (the excellent Wayne June). 

For example, you encounter an enemy called a Madman - a fairly disturbed fellow in a loose straightjacket. One of his attacks his one of your party members, inflicting stress and a debuff. How this looks in practice is like this: this dude in an unbuckled straight jacket who has been holding his head in his hands suddenly points and screams something muffled with one hand over his mouth. One of your party member’s screams “I-I don’t want to die here!” and the narrator says “Gasping...reeling...taken over the edge into madness!” The imagination doesn’t have to wander far to picture this distraught man suddenly pointing at you and screaming something he can’t possibly know about you. This marriage of theme and mechanisms is something that makes video games special. 

As someone who has always enjoyed the math puzzle-like nature of turn-based combat, Darkest Dungeon managed to somehow feel both familiar and innovative. Having combatants lined up from left to right seems like such a simple thing, but it brings into a play a whole layer of strategic considerations. There are abilities that can only be used from certain positions, or can only hit specific ranks on the enemy side; there are abilities that push and pull, that lunge forward or fall back. On any given delve, you are choosing a party of four from 17 classes, each of which has an assortment of abilities to choose from. Early in the game you can kind of get by with whatever party you choose, but as the difficulty ramps up you have to really think about your party makeup before setting out.

Darkest Dungeon’s late game features a fairly brutal difficulty spike. Most of my plays of the game are me having a laid back good time with the game until I get my ass handed to me in a few Champion dungeons, then putting the game down for months before starting a new save. This understandably turns a lot of players away from the game. Shit can go wrong in a hurry. Shit WILL go wrong in a hurry. If the enemies focus on a specific character and/or get a couple of critical hits in succession, you can lose party members permanently, and those setbacks can be deflating. You can’t avoid bad luck, but you can mitigate it and plan for it. And overcoming an “unfair” challenge is exhilarating. 

One of the things the game does brilliantly is give you those hopeless situations and occasionally offer a beacon of hope. This is by way of the game’s stress and affliction mechanism. When a hero’s stress level reaches 100, they will either become afflicted with a negative trait such as Paranoid or Abusive, or they will become virtuous, gaining a trait such as Stalwart or Focused. This seems to be tilted in favor of affliction about 70/30. Either way, this event is accompanied by a line of text from the character, and a callout by the narrator. 

In the case of an affliction, things go from bad to worse. Characters will change positions on their own (a fearful character will move back in the formation, or a masochistic one might move toward the front) or skip their turn altogether (if they’re hopeless). Afflicted characters will stress the rest of the party out as well whether it’s by being mopey, or verbally abusive - a paranoid arbalest who misses a shot will say “WHICH ONE OF YOU BUMPED MY ARM!?” and so on. On the other hand, sometimes when hope seems lost a character will become virtuous. They will shout encouragement, grant buffs and healing and the such. 

The game’s other big source of drama comes from its death’s door mechanism. When a character reaches zero health, they do not die. Instead they are in a state called death’s door, which means that any damage they take while at zero health could kill them. This leads to every attack being accompanied by held breath and a tightly clenched asshole. The game’s design lends it so much personality and breeds so many memorable stories. 

As impressive as the game’s design is, it is matched by the game’s sound design. Stuart Chatwood did an incredible job with the score. The music is deeply unsettling, a low thrum while you make your way through poorly lit dungeons where traps lie in wait and horrors potentially lie around every corner. Distant howls and screams  help set the stage. The battles themselves are against pounding drums and upsettingly realistic sounds of blows landing and gasps and chokes. 

Wayne June’s contribution as the narrator cannot be overstated. He is the heart and soul of Darkest Dungeon. Hs voicework captures the game’s dark humor, hope, despair, triumph and everything between. I cannot envision this game without him, and was thrilled to learn that he has signed on for Darkest Dungeon II.

It’s a game of long odds, despair, determination, and triumph. As someone who lives with depression, the game probably means more to me and hits me differently than most. The idea of throwing yourself headlong into a situation that seems hopeless, falling into despair, then getting back up and going again means something to me. The game brought tears to my eyes the first time, when a hero hit their stress limit and became Stalwart rather than afflicted, I heard Wayne June deliver the line “Many fall in the face of chaos. But not this one. Not today.” 

Darkest Dungeon isn’t the best game ever made by any metric, but it’s my favorite. 

*I’ve managed to make peace with enjoying Lovecraft’s fiction while being aware of what a racist, xenophobic shit stain he was

**Technically more August Derleth than HP Lovecraft I know.