#and even then. given that the game is still very much combat and exploration

[goldensunset]

when people refer to canon story-relevant kingdom hearts games as ‘spinoffs’ it makes me sad not only for the obvious reasons i always say but also bc like man i WISH this series had spinoffs. imagine what they could do if they had permission from nomura to truly go off the rails and ignore the greater canon for a second and just do some fun whimsical plotless thing in an alternate universe. imagine a fishing/boating game on destiny islands. kh fighting game. it is an injustice that we have been deprived of kingdom karts. can anyone hear me

[witherby]

If Punch line can trigger Jason easily what would happen is she ever met Harley?

Let's explore that!

Punchline: First Session

Masterlist is Here!

"I need your help."

Harley perks up, gasping, and rushes over to hug Batman tightly.

"I never thought this day would come," she says, jumping up and down and clutching a gauntleted hand. "Yes!! Yes I would love to be your therapist! We have so much to work on, starting with your parents. I really think you never internalized the event and haven't given yourself any space to grieve after —"

Her hands get squeezed gently, recapturing her attention. Blue eyes meet white lenses, and she furrows her brow.

"Okay, that's fine!" She sighs. "Can't say I'm not disappointed, but if one of your kiddos is looking for help instead, I'm still more than hap—"

"Not one of mine," Batman gently interrupts. "This is a...very delicate case, Harley."

"What's delicate mean in this context, Batsy?" She asks. "Delicate like schizophrenic? Delicate like CPTSD? Delicate like one wrong word away from explodin' and killin' everybody in a mile radius?"

"Delicate," he says, "like...this might hit too close to home for you."

"Me?"

Batman nods. Harley hums, equal parts curious and cautious.

"Any good psychologist worth her salt won't let a personal connection get in the way of providin' aid," she tells him. "If the patient isn't somebody I can help myself, I'll help ya find someone who can. When can I meet 'em?"

--

Your file lies scattered across the floor of the cave. Harley stares wide-eyed at your picture while she trembles on her hands and knees. Bruce, having changed out of his suit, kneels beside her with a steadying hand on her back.

"Oh," she whispers, "Brucie, she's so small for her age. And her age!! Sh-she's..."

Harley shakes her head. Bruce continues rubbing small circles in her back. When she leans against him for support, he holds her upright.

"How'd he keep a kid hidden for eight years?" She whispers, voice thick. "I know I fucked off to go play Happy Family with Ivy, but..."

"Nobody knew," he says. "Harleen, don't play the blame game, not for this. He kept her a secret for a reason; no one was supposed to know."

Harley lifts her hands to her face, rubbing her eyes before any tears can well up and fall. She takes deep, calming breaths, gathering her focus, then carefully collects the papers and stands with his help. She draws a pad and pen out of her pocket.

"I ain't promising anything," she says, looking up at Bruce. "This is...this is a whole different ball game, 'specially with that chucklefuck as the daddy. But I'm gonna try, okay?"

He nods. "Take your time. You were the first person I thought of, but don't force this if it's too much."

Harley gently squeezes his hand in acknowledgement. She walks past him and down the hall towards the containment cells, heels clicking quietly against the floor. She dug out her old coat with the name tag pinned to it and even threw her hair back in a low braid to appear as non-threatening as possible. The closer she gets to your door, the more the wonders if you would've been more comfortable if she showed up in her combat getup and mallet.

"Miss Punchline?" She calls, stopping in front of your cell. A cursory glance of your environment tells her immediately that you're under-stimulated. She writes that down. "I'm Doctor Quinzel. Do ya mind if I come in and chat with you a while?"

You cease all movement. You'd been sitting with your back to the door, gently stroking the head of the teddy bear Alfred gave you while muttering Mistress Mary's nursery rhyme, but when you hear her, you practically turn into a statue. Unless she actively stares at your back, Harley can't even see you draw breath.

"Miss Punchline?" She repeats calmly. "I won't come in if you don't want, but I'd really like to talk to you."

"...Popsy talks about you, sometimes," you say. Harley can't decipher your tone, but the words make her feel cold all over. "Says he used to miss his favorite gal."

"I'm sure he's mentioned me once or twice," she says, clearing her throat. "But I'm old news. Why don't you tell me about yourself? I'm gonna punch in the door code now, okay?"

You don't move. Harley unlocks your cell and walks inside, getting a better look at how sparsely decorated it is. The bed is clearly unused and half of the activities left here would cause an ordinary child to lose interest in about an hour without company. Overall, Bruce and his family are keeping you in a dreary room. If she accomplishes nothing else today, it's a guarantee that she's gonna get you better accommodations.

Harley walks around the room until she can see you face-to-face. Once she's in your periphery, your eyes snap to her and follow her every movement like a predator. She lowers herself to the ground, taking a seat a few feet away from you.

"There you are," she says kindly. Your smile is just as placid as the one in your photo. "I like ya make-up. The swirly pattern on your cheeks is very cute."

You don't respond, though your smile widens briefly. Highly receptive to praise. Your eyes don't leave hers, scanning, assessing, calculating. Harley doesn't feel like you're about to attack her, but you're clearly juggling something around in your mind.

"Bet you're thinking about mine," she continues. "Normally I like puttin' on the face paint, but sometimes my pores gotta breathe, you know? Well — the pores I got left." She glances down at her hands, paper white like the rest of her body from her dip in a vat of acid. With relief, Harley notes that your unpainted skin is a healthy color. Even though the bar's lower than Hell, it's nice to know that at least the Joker didn't immediately treat you to a dunk of your own.

"Punchline, I'm gonna be frank with you," she says.

"Nice to meetcha, Frank," you chirp, grinning mischievously. Harley lifts a brow.

"That was funny," she praises. "I know your, eh, Popsy, he places a lot of value on bein' funny. Used to say nothin' was worth the effort if it didn't amuse him at the end of the day. I'm sure you know that already."

"A giggle a day keeps the boredom away!" You say, pitch and cadence matching that of your father's. Harley knows that the grip on her pen is too tight. She breathes deep and forces herself to relax. "Ohh, hit a nerve, Frank?"

"I'm doin' just fine," she says. "What's boredom look like for you and Popsy?"

You separate your hands, fingers splayed wide, and make explosion noises.

"Do you get caught up in that explosion?"

Your smile doesn't change but your eyes get sharp. Harley makes a note.

"It's hard keepin' him entertained all day, every day," she says. "I would know. But I'm gonna tell ya somethin' your popsy probably never has."

Harley scoots a tad closer to you, reaching her hand out and gently taking one of yours. She can feel every bone in your hand and has to utilize all of her training to school her expression.

"It's not your job to make yer popsy happy. In fact, it's not your job to make any adult happy. Grown-ups shouldn't rely on their children for emotional regulation."

"Couldn't rely on you, either, could be?" You snicker. "Since you ran away."

"I left him because he was treatin' me like dirt," Harley says, a little more firm than necessary. "He's real good at drawin' you in, Punchline. Shows you an ounce of praise that makes you feel invincible, makes you wanna do anything he asks to get more of it."

Harley lets go of your hand to tuck a lock of emerald green hair behind your right ear, brushing gently against the shell. The edges are distorted, flatter than your left.

"He's also real good at draggin' you through the mud, makin' you feel like everything's your fault. Like you got no choice but to make it up t'him. Ya never wanna get on his bad side cause he really makes you feel it."

You tilt your head away from her hand, eyes dropping back down to the teddy bear Alfred gave you. You resume petting it, slightly faster and rougher than before. Harley makes a note.

"His anger's always more powerful than his joy, Punchline," she says, "but both of them are destructive. I wanna help ya break away from his cycle."

"No thanks," you say, "if I wanted to be a washed-up, third-rate party clown, I would!"

Harley feels a wave of pity for you. It's obvious you're just regurgitating your father's words back at her, and she's not surprised. Change doesn't happen overnight, especially not for you.

There's so much work to do, but Harley's not afraid. You may look and behave similarly to the Joker, but you're young and still impressionable and already starting to pull away from him without even realizing it.

"I can tell yer getting upset, and that's the last thing I want," she says, climbing to her feet, "so I think this is a good stopping point for today. But I'd really like to see you again. Would you be alright with that?"

You blow a raspberry at her, then cackle. Harley exhales sharply through her nose, giving you a fond smile, and pats your head as she steps past you and opens the cell door.

She can do this. She will do this. For you.

But, first thing's first.

"Brucie, you're kidding me with the furnishings! How's the richest man on the planet gonna put a kid in such a shitty room!? Don't look at me like that, mister. You brought me in t'do a job and I'm gonna do it right!!"

[sleepyconfusedpotato]

MWIII Campaign Thoughts and Reviews

(Played in the recruit difficulty because I suck at FPS games, and I want to explore and spent time in the campaign without dying too much). Leave some thoughts!

⚠️SPOILER ALERT⚠️

So… that was devastating. 

(+) To start things off, Makarov - Boy, holy shit. Yes. YESSS. They didn’t hold back with the new Makarov. He’s a mastermind, he’s a charming fella, he’s a psychopath lol. And the fact that he smiles a lot in this campaign just adds to the creepiness. I might get some side-eye here, but this Mak can go head-to-head with the OG!Mak. He’s always onto something, he’s proven destructive, had the 141 hauling ASS to chase him.

Makarov had stolen American missiles from ULF, caused false flag missile attacks on Russian Military base, and successfully orchestrated a false airplane hijacking, all under ULF's name - everything in the span of 48 hours since he got out of prison. I saw people saying that this Makarov ain't got nothing on the OG one has to be inhaling some shit copium because this is only in one single game and he's destroying shit.

I know just one game with rushed development won’t be enough for an iconic character like him, so I’m glad they didn’t kill him.

(-) I absolutely ABHOR, DETEST, LOATH the Open Combat Missions (OCM). It is so very not Call of Duty campaignesque. it doesn’t help anything with the narrative, and if anything, it even took away the narrative for us. The former missions in former games are iconic in their own way because the mission designer put a lot of thought into how the game will be played, the situations we found ourselves in.

But OCM's, we're like... Left to our own devices without any story-driven dialogues.

I think one of the reasons why MWII was so close to everyone's heart was because of the banters between the characters, especially in Alone. Here, because it's literally our choice and our time, it left us with no actual given time to know and love the characters more than we already did. Yes we love the characters, MW19 and MWII did that for us. But in this one? They said "character development is done, mate. Now go to war.”

Then again, is OCM a product and evidence of MWIII’s rushed development? 100% yes. I don’t give a shit if they cover it with “oowh we make OCM so you can play the missions differently each time without repeating the same mission over and over again!”. Let me ask you this, Activision - Have ‘repeating the mission over and over again’ been a problem with us campaign-enjoyers? No! I played the MWII campaign like 5 times, in all difficulty (except realism I still love my life), and I enjoyed it, because the mission designers took a lot of time and thought to it instead of just creating a map, putting a bunch of loadouts scattered around the area and throw us in it. So yes, it’s clear that OCM is a product of rushed development. It sucks the life out of the campaign missions.

Some people may enjoy it, but I play the campaign exactly for the linear style missions, not DMZ style.

(+) Look, I said it before that I will go to the campaign with the lowest expectation possible. I expected Mak to be sub-par, I expected them to play safe with the characters, and BOY WAS I WRONG. Setting aside the point above where the character feels stuck on the character development (which is a huge minus btw), all the characters have time to shine in their own missions, especially Price because I feel like we play him the most. However, I do also love the fact that the girls get shit done here. Farah and Laswell did their work so beautifully and apparently it was revealed that Laswell will be a MP operator, so that’s cool. 

(+) Ghost being a menacing presence, can stood his ground. Price being level-headed though at the same time unhinged as usual. Gaz being the voice of reason throughout the entire fucking game LMAO. Soap being the brave man he is, the passion and fury is evident throughout the campaign. Farah being badass and dependable as usual. Alex being the main supportive guy to Farah (Faralex is canon at this point argue with a wall). Nikolai being our most reliable get-away guy.

And of course, Graves and Shepherd being the fucking goofy ahh duo I actually find interesting. The trial cutscene was such a goofy scene LMAO the fact that they backstabbed each other in the ass is real funny. I side with Graves though. However wrong and unhinged he may be, Graves is just a guy doing his job and did what he’s told to do.

(+) I love the fact that Mak tried to frame Urzikstan to pin the blame on them. It's exactly what the OG!Makarov did but in HD. The Passenger mission is phenomenal and more damn traumatizing if only it was a bit longer and more stretched. There are many more reference to the OG games and I absolutely love it.

Now…

Soap’s Death

Remembering all the MWII missions with Soap... It hits differently now, man. 

(-) I've read a lot of people's arguments about it that the fact that it happened is just for shock value and kind of disappointing. Because let’s be real here, Soap is an SAS who got the name Soap because of how much of a slippery bastard he is. Granted, Mak is an ex-Spetsnaz and can fight with Soap. But how he went down in a goddamn takedown without any chance of fighting is just… it’s not it.

To add to that, the reaction from the boys is just... Underwhelming? Like I get it they're battle-hardened SAS soldiers, but let them show some damn emotions for fuck’s sake. One of the main reason why the OG!Soap’s death is really painful is because of Price’s reaction to it. How he said “NO. NO NO NO SOAP!!” While he shook Soap’s lifeless body in the table. At least let Price kneel to him, straighten his body, touch his vest. Close his eyes, gather Soap’s hand and PUT HIS GUN ON his chest all the while Ghost and Gaz knelt beside them. I do love the fact that they literally went to Scotland to let go of his ashes with Ghost holding the urn though. I cried in this scene. 

And the fact that it happened with the shortest campaign out of all the reboot MW games, it just felt rushed. Yes. It’s completely rushed, there’s no doubt about it. Again, the result of rushed developments.

(+) Now, with that said, I kind of want to shed light on how Soap is literally the youngest guy in the group. He had so much to live for. He's a sunshine in the middle of this gruff emotionally hardened man. He's such a joy to be around. He's brave. He's fresh. The fact that he's got so much to live for adds to the sadness and bitterness, which I actually like.

Sometimes I do kind of like those kinds of deaths, where the character is too soon to die,  because it hit so much harder and in a different way than the OG! one. We got to see the OG!Soap went from when he was an FNG, turn to a captain, to a man of fortitude that  earned Price's honor and sacrificed himself to protect Price. We saw how he developed and changed. We saw his entire career with us throughout all the OG!MW trilogy.

Reboot!Soap's story barely even started, and the fact that he's still so young, imagining how he'd be one hell of an officer, how he'd lead his team in the future. 

OG!Soap’s death is sad because all the times and memories we’ve been through with him, but Reboot!Soap’s death is equally sad for the times we could’ve gone through with him.

I want to say this though, some people said that Soap's death is sudden, but I wouldn't agree with that. I think the telltales are all there.

In the helicopter scene after Price and Soap caught him in Verdansk, Mak literally SAID HIS FULL NAME. That is a literal pinpoint death sentence from Makarov. And how emotional Soap’s reaction is compared to the other boys when the airport blew up. The signs are literally all there! I saw it coming actually. 

So is Soap’s death rushed? Yes. Could it have been executed better? Yes. Is it for shock value? Yes. But is it as sad? Yes. Honestly, I blame the rushed development and due dates for this. Activision is a cash grabber who wanted a yearly release so they can catch more money. I fucking bet my ass that initially they didn’t want to kill Soap, but it’s like a last-minute decision to make this game actually look like it’s worth 70 dollars. 

Like by the end of the game, nothing has been accomplished. Big Bad Guy is on the loose, and we lost Soap. Yea we did stop some of Makarov's attacks, but we ended with a loss. It's a completely sad ending. I just wish we get to continue with more missions after Soap's death like in OG!MW3 though :(

WHAT'S NEXT?

Now. Shepherd is positively fucken dead. Price is now an actual criminal and a fugitive. He just killed a 4-star US Marines general in his own office. Price is entering his insane and unhinged era. I do wonder if he'll go even more unhinged than this.

The story will undoubtedly continue in the MP seasons (although probably only 2 seasons that mattered because it'll also undoubtedly be filled with skins and collabs and shit). I think it will also focus more on transitioning to the next CoD games, which will be Black Ops (It is confirmed that for the 2024 and 2025 CoD, it will be Black Ops games).

We're talking future here, so if there's going to be a CoD MWIV, It might be possible that this is the game where we'll finally defeat Makarov while the 141 copes with losing Soap. I do wonder if Price will become too unhinged and will get rid of everything on his way to kill Mak. Price's reckless acts will become too much for Gaz that it's starting to hurt other people and himself, and Gaz will do something against Price's command or wish - and Ghost will have to choose a side. Now that's the kind of drama I want to see.

What do I score this campaign, what do I score this campaign... The story is actually good, but because the development is evidently rushed, the packaging feels a bit hollow. It's a 7/10 for me!

---

Wait you know what

We get to pet a dog named Riley. 10/10, Game of The Fucking Year.

Reboot!Logan/Hesh (?) 👀

---

So there it goes! If you've read this far I love you and Activision will pay for my therapy (ʘ ͜ʖ ʘ)

[hitomisuzuya]

Don't mind this, everyone. This is just me high typing cause I am lonely. I should probably be typing fluffy Childe smut, but I digress. Bear with me.

I really love the idea of self aware Genshin characters. It's such a Yandere thing. I am gonna include my own experience a little in farming for Scara and using him in game for the sake of flow of whatnot so I can talk about this. The narration may change a bit in some places. I'll change the font style and whatnot, continuing on.

My best friend has this fun little headcanon that Scara came somehow manipulate the game in some way, make it glitch for lack of better word. Like, he would know when you are playing him. He would sense it, mainly being able to feel how you feel through your hands, seeing as how, especially if you are a mobile player like I am, your hands around your phone the whole time.

He could feel when you are happy, and when you get unsure about something. He would notice like dependent habits you have, like if you have him in your party and rotate him out for say like his cool down for his burst or ESkill, or to put up a shield with whatever character (for me, it would be Noelle, my girl🥰), he would feel the unease you feel having to rotate him out for a few moments.

Or if you are fighting and have another character on field, and you freeze in the middle combat whether it be because you hesitated or weren't sure about having this particular character on field, and you rotate him back in and he instantly feels you relax because you can rely on him to carry you (no joke, get that boy up in the air and let his tracking go to work😌).

You depend on him, and that's what validates him. He can feel how you feel about him. It sends him reeling when he realizes that someone could depend on him. Could love him? You loved him despite everything he did, and everything he'd been through. You trust him, love him, and rely on him with every fiber of your being.

You were loyal. He can even hear the affection in your voice when you tell him good morning or good night. He loves that you love him.

Basically, the more he feels you through your hands, the more he comes self aware. This feeling is doubled, especially if you are in a high stress situation like..*twitch*..The Spiral Abyss. My two teams are obvious strike teams built around Scara and Childe.

He always went on somewhat of a power trip whenever you went to the Spiral Abyss. You built one of your teams so carefully around him. He'd felt how much thought you'd given it. If he had it his way, you wouldn't need a second team.

He was the only one you needed. Meandering in the Spiral Abyss was just another way for him to prove that he could take care of you.

You were his.

He is even able to see what you look like, being able to widdle away the barrier between you, him, and the game. Soon, very soon, he would be able to breach the barrier and reach his fingers into your very world.

I'm sure we all remember putting our noses to the grindstone farming for him. We all twitched from the same trauma of farming Rukkhashava Mushrooms, all while still exploring a newly released Sumeru. And the Handguards.

He wondered what it had been like preparing for him. You'd had everything all gathered in a nice neat pile for him. He hated that you'd had to rely on another character even though you were preparing for him (for me it was Xiao).

He couldn't stand that you inevitably do have to be away from your phone (or whatever you use). He has a lot of time on his hands to whatever in Teyvat until you returned, but all he could think about was you.

What were you doing? Who were you talking to? Or who you were with? He wouldn't need to worry about that much longer, he could by now hack into your phone and find out whatever he needed to know.

He has to have you now, especially when he saw just how in love with him you really were. Question is, would he stay here in your world with you, or would he steal you away and take you back with him?

Those two questions echoed in his mind as he looked down at you in the dark of your room while you slept. His precious treasure was now close enough for him to touch, to brush some hair off of your face.

Who the hell is gonna read all this 😂 But, I am going to bed now, I gotta get up early tomorrow. Thank you if you even read this far. Goodnight, everyone.

[esamastation]

Gamer girl gets transmigrated into a farm boy Chapter 6 [<<Prologue | <Chapter 5 || Chapter 7>>] Ao3 link

-

Tutorial in Age of Tales goes like this:

The main character is woken up by Janelle, who calls him a sleepy head and tells him to get the cart ready, because her daddy wants to go to town. The game teaches the player how to move, climb, jump, and interact with objects there.

The main character drives the cart to Westbrook in a cutscene and gets a chance to explore the town for a moment before Mr. Gylcross concludes his business. It's implied that it's a rare visit for the main character, and he's still new to town. He's given only enough money to buy a few health items maybe, just enough to learn how to interact with shops.

The main character returns to the farm with Mr. Gylcross and there's a time skip to the next day where, after they're done with their various farm-related duties, Josel approaches the main character and says…

"Hey, Van - there's some rabbits in the field again. Do you think you could take care of them?" 

Which then teaches the main character the very basics of combat, specifically long ranged combat, seeing as the beginner weapon for the main character of Age of Tales is a sling. In the game, there's auto aim you can turn on, which helps with long ranged weapons, but they were never a particularly well designed part of the game.

In this sort of real live version of the game…

"How the hell are you supposed to use this damn thing," Van mutters, trying to fit a pebble in the sling and figure out how to spin it in a way that didn't send the rock flying off prematurely.

Unfortunately it's not one of those slingshots with a y-shaped piece of wood and elastic band, no, this is the much older kind with a woven cord and a small pouch in the middle where you put the rock and then spin it around before releasing. Which is, it turns out, pretty tricky to master.

Katie had kind of loved the sling thing, though. It was very historical, she felt. Traditional weapon of commoners. Very cool that they included it in the game. You could even do some real damage with magical ammunition, though it was never as good as just specialising in magic, or even being a ranger. Still, with auto aim it was a cool beginner weapon for ranged combat, and considering that the early fights were all about running away…

It never made much sense for the main character to have it, though, because Van wasn't actually a commoner.

Van tries to spin the sling, and the stone slips out of the nest, landing in front of him with a thud. He grunts, frustrated. "System can't you help me out here? There's the automated chore thing - why isn't this automated? I should know how to do this, right?"

The System opens up his character window, which is not very helpful.

[Farmboy] [Van] [Lvl. 3 Commoner]

[Status:] [Constitution: 10] [Strength: 10] [Dexterity: 1] [Intelligence: 1] [Wisdom: 10] [Charisma: 1] [Luck: 1] [You have 4 unused Stat Points.] [You have 2 unused Skill Point]

"That's not very helpful - wait," Van says and peers at the list of stats. Intelligence is highlighted. "Huh - I need intelligence to figure out how to use a sling? Wait, wait, wait," he pauses, coiling up the sling. "Say I wanted to become a… rogue. I want to sneak around and assassinate my enemies. What would I…?"

The status screen shifts, and it's dexterity that gets highlighted this time. "Huh," Van says again. "Okay, that's actually really good to know." It's nothing he didn't already know - he had played as a rogue before, but still. It's neat that the System is giving him this kind of info. "I didn't need intelligence to use a sling in the game, though. Also, why are chores automated but this isn't? It makes way more sense for me to know how to fight, doesn't it?"

System just highlights intelligence again.

Van really doesn't want to spend any stat points yet, not before he decides what class he's going for - also, who knows what will happen in Westbrook. He might need a sudden burst of charisma to persuade the bad guys not to kill him, or dexterity to avoid being skewered, or any number of things. Intelligence is only good for Wizards, and Katie did not enjoy Wizard build all that much. It was too slow, and the combat didn't quite have the oomph of getting up close and personal with a big sword.

Shaking his head, Van closes the System window and continues working on the sling. He does figure out how to get the stone to stay in the sling, but trying to get it to fly even to the right cardinal direction…

Hm. Maybe he could put one point in intelligence? Just to see what it would do?

… No, he will not be tempted. He'll save the points until he needs them.

At any rate, the rabbits have been dealt with - he might've not hit any of them, but he definitely made enough of a racket to scare them off. Shaking his head, Van puts the sling away, his ammunition pouch five pebbles lighter. Whatever. He's got more important things to figure out right now, anyway.

Like how to make a spear.

-

The tutorial goes on to then try and deepen the main character's relationship with Josel and Janelle - giving the player a chance to eavesdrop on them during a cute moment. Van gets that opportunity too.

While he's doing a little bit of gathering in a copse of trees, figuring out how to get a Wooden Pole as opposed to mere Branches he's been finding, Van happens to spot Josel, picking up flowers out in the meadow just beyond the forest's edge. And then Janelle just so happens to come across Josel, greeting him cheerfully with, "Hey there, Josel - what are you up to?"

"Well, uh, I just, um," Josel stammers, looking between her and the sorry bunch of flowers he's holding. Then he tries to, comically, hide them behind himself, as though they haven't been fully on display already. "It's - it's nothing!"

"Oh?" Janelle asks, instantly mischievous, and skips forward. "It's nothing, is it? What's that behind your back, Josel, what have you got there? Hmm?"

Josel squirms and backs away while she tries to sneak a peek past him and it's very cute until he finally gives up. "It's stupid, I didn't -" he says and then holds the flowers to her. "For you, Miss."

"Oh, for me? Why, thank you, Josel!" Janelle says cheerfully, accepting the flowers with a little bow. "You are most kind, sir. You didn't have to."

"I thought it would - that it would brighten your day," Josel says, flushed bright red all the way down his neck and wringing his hands with embarrassment. "It's nothing, just a bunch of flowers."

"Well, I think it's very sweet," Janelle answers warmly, hugging the flowers and then grinning. "Say, have you ever made a flower crown?"

It's almost unbearably saccharine, the whole thing, but Van can't help but watch, leaning onto a tree trunk and grinning fondly as Janelle gently bullies Josel into learning how to weave flower crowns, before plopping the one she made on Josel's head. The whole thing is so blatantly wholesome that the first time Katie saw the scene, she'd shouted out loud, "Oh, they're definitely going to die!"

Van is half impressed that the developers refrained from including promises about the future and how they'd make flower crowns for each other until the end of their days. Or reminisce about their past as childhood friends, or something. Honestly, Janelle and Josel didn't really have much of a background beyond their roles as cannon fodder for the plot.

Still, it is pretty cute.

Janelle finishes the flower crown Josel can't figure out how to tie properly and puts it on her head, smiling. "There, now we match," she says with satisfaction, making herself comfortable amidst the flowers. "It's been ages since I did something like this."

"You're very good at it," Josel says earnestly.

Janelle laughs, hugging her knees. "Thanks! I used to make wreaths for the Flower Festival, you know - I won the first Prize and everything!" she says and then her smile fades. "We haven't really gone since Momma died. I thought maybe next spring would be different. With you and Van here, Daddy is in much better spirits these days."

"I'm glad we've been able to help," Josel says, adjusting his crown. "If there's anything else I can do to help out, you just let me know."

"Thanks," Janelle says with a chuckle and then looks at him. "Van's not going to stay until the Flower Festival, though, is he? I don't think he's even going to stay over winter."

In the shadows of the trees, Van folds his arms, interested.

"What makes you think that?" Josel asks. "Did he say something?"

"Not really. He's just acting a bit weird, isn't he? Like he's waiting for something," Janelle says and sighs. "I think he's remembering stuff from before."

"He hasn't said anything to me," Josel says, frowning.

"Me neither, but he's all… I don't know," Janelle sighs and looks away. "I just think he's getting ready to leave. It's funny, he's not even been here for that long, but I was kind of hoping he'd stay longer. Daddy's been a lot more active since he appeared, you know? Like with more people around, he has a purpose again."

"Yeah. Mr. Gylcross has seemed more energetic."

"Yeah," Janelle says with a sigh.

Josel looks at her like he's not sure what to do or say. For a moment it looks like he might put an arm around her, before awkwardly refraining. "Well, I'm not going anywhere," the farmhand promises earnestly. "Even if Van leaves, I'll always be here, ready to help you out."

Janelle laughs. "I know I can count on you, Josel," she says and rocks back and forth before rolling up to her feet. "Come on, let's head back - you can help me catch a chicken for dinner."

Van watches them leave, leaning his head against the tree trunk and frowning. He still doesn't feel any particular attachment to these people - it's hard to, really, after Katie had watched them die over and over again in the exact same way. Even the most sympathetic NPCs stop looking like people when you can see their strings being pulled. Even so…

It would be nice if he could save them this time.

Glancing up at the sky, Van tries to gauge how long he has until sundown. Then, shaking his head, he heads back into the forest, to find poles for his spearheads.

He got maybe three hours until the Rift would open and no proper weapon yet.

He really needs to get a move on.

-

And then, the Rift.

In the tutorial, it's not expected of the main character to have a proper weapon when the Rift opens. That's why the farm is littered with low grade farming tools - though they barely had any attack power, they could be used as weapons in a pinch, usually to comedic effect. The whole point of the Rift is to mess up the farm, kill everyone there - except the main character - and send the main character running to town.

Most of that happens in cutscenes, of course. There was no way to stop the Rift from appearing, or close it once it had, and there wasn't meant to be a way to stop the demons coming through, either. You could kill a few of them, maybe, but they kept coming and coming in an endless, steady flood. The whole thing was meant to be a hopeless fight.

Of course, no good set piece survives contact with players, and it took less than a day after Age of Tales launched for people to turn the traumatic Rift event into a mob farm.

For a Gylcross Mob Farm you need at minimum two things, plus a weapon to kill the mobs with. You need one of the carts, parked in a specific location before the Rift opened, and a barrel, set down just a little to the right of it. Because the rift opens right next to the barn, the demons coming through can move only in three directions, and the cart and barrel block two of those, creating a bottleneck. If you do it right, the arrangement cuts down the number of enemies you have to fight to a single one at a time.

And the Rift never stops spewing enemies at you. So, in effect, you can just stand there, for hours, for days, killing imp after imp after imp, just collecting exp. Add to this some better gear and those sweet, sweet Draughts of Memory… and it takes you approximately eight hours and fifty four minutes to boost the player character up to level 100.

Van might not have those potions - but he still intends to take advantage of the Rift's mechanics as much as he can. Without the Draughts it would take literal days to reach the same effect - but right now, he'll settle for ten, twenty levels at least. Just something to get him started properly.

Assuming, of course, that the Rift worked the way it did in the game. If not, well, it still wouldn't hurt to prepare.

"Uh, Van - what are you doing?" Josel asks, watching Van push the cart into place.

"I'm going to clean up the barn. Getting the place set up for the harvest, you know," Van answers, huffing while turning the cart around, aiming to get it just below the window. "Just… getting this… out of the way."

Josel looks at him, at the cart, at the barn, and then scratches at his cheek. "… Okay, you need a hand with that?"

"Sure - grab that barrel in the back, will you?" Van says and then thinks better of it. It wouldn't hurt to over prepare. The game mechanics haven't exactly been on his side so far. "Actually, let's move the other cart first."

In the game once you're done with fighting the Rift, however long you take, the player character escapes in one of the carts that's, mysteriously, ready to go with Bell strapped in and everything. It's very dramatic and convenient, and Katie could even forgive the plothole there - here… here Van doesn't think he can trust the plot holes to be on his side.

Better get the cart in place for easy access.

Josel gives him a weird look at the very precise way Van wants to position the cart once outside, conveniently close to the stables and nowhere near the barricade. The other farmhand says nothing, though, confusedly helping him situate the cart just so that Bell could be easily strapped on in a hurry. Van makes sure all the necessary straps and such go in the cart as well.

The barrels and boxes and other things from inside go to and around the first cart, with Van carefully situating them around to box in the spot where the Rift would be, enclosing the space as much as he can.

By the barn doors, Josel pauses. "Did you make these?" he asks, taking one of the spears Van has lined up against the wall.

The shafts Van had made for them are pretty rough - they're basically just trunks of young oak trees, which had been the only things to register as Wooden Poles to the System. Cleaning them and attaching the spearheads to them had taken some effort, and Van can't say he's particularly confident about his woodcraft skills - but after he'd sharpened the spearheads, the System had approved his craftsmanship by re-designating them as Rough Spear, lvl. 2s, each with 15 Attack power, so Van's satisfied with them. The enemies he's about to face are only lvl. 1, and with his strength stat lvl. 2 weapons would be more than enough to handle them.

"Yeah - just leave them there," Van says, hauling another barrel in place and testing its stability. Yeah, that wouldn't go anywhere. "I'll deal with them."

Josel gives him a rather concerned look but leaves the spear where it is. He goes to pick up the barrel lids sitting in a stack beside the spears instead, but Van tells him to leave them, too.

"I'll need them for something later," Van says, inspecting his Rift barricade, trying to fill in the gaps

"... Okay," Josel says slowly and then shakes his head. "I guess I'll get a broom and start sweeping then…"

Van lets him do it and finishes up his barricade, leaving just the one opening for the imps to get through - the one he'd be covering with a spear. With his mob farm ready, Van brushes his hands together and then heads inside to join Josel in "cleaning".

Another hour or so until sundown, and his preparations are just about ready. Now he just needs to wait.

-

"Van? Van, my boy, are you in here?"

Van, who's sitting on the hayloft just in case he needs to be in a specific position to trigger the Rift, peers down. It's his boss, peeking into the empty barn. "Yes, Mr. Gylcross?"

The farmer looks around the empty barn and then outside at the Rift barricade. "Would you like to explain what's going on here?" he asks, baffled.

Van goes down the ladder. "I just thought of doing a bit of cleaning," he says. "Before the harvest, I mean. I, uh," what would be a good explanation, "I heard some mice or something the other night, and I thought we should close up all the holes before bringing the harvest in. I'll put everything back tomorrow, I promise." Nailed it.

"Mice, hmm? I see," the farmer says, anxiously twiddling with his moustache. "And the - the spears?" he asks worriedly. "What's that about?"

Van looks at the spears and the various barrel and pot lids he'd gathered to serve as shields. "Uh," he says. "A new hobby?"

The farmer looks at him, looking very concerned indeed. "My boy, is everything alright?"

"Yeah, everything's fine," Van assures him. "I'm just trying new things, that's all."

"I know about your visit to the tailor - Ms. Arbury sought me out," Mr. Gylcross says slowly. "As I understand you ordered something quite expensive, and she was a tad concerned. Where did you get all that silver from, Van?"

"Uh," Van says. Well that explains how and why Mr. Gylcross knew about the gambeson. "From the inn?"

"Van, surely you didn't just… take it?" Mr. Gylcross says, anxious.

"No, no, nothing like it - I gambled," Van says quickly. "And taught a gambler a trick about how to play Echo better - she paid fifty silver for it."

Mr. Gylcross doesn't look quite convinced, eyeing him with grave concern before turning to look at the spears again. "And - and then spears?" he asks. "What do you need spears and a gambeson for?"

Having no better explanation to give, Van tells him what he told Janelle. "It just… feels like I need them?" he says awkwardly. Hooray for amnesia as a convenient excuse for weird behaviour. "I can't really explain. It's just a… feeling."

That doesn't seem to quite soothe the farmer's mind, though his look of worry turns into something more serious. "You know you can always come to me if you have concerns, right?" the man says earnestly. "If you remember something, if you have issues. I know waking up here the way you did was quite traumatic."

"Um, yeah," Van says, awkward. "Thank you, Mr, Gylcross. I'm grateful that you, um, took me in," he adds, which feels like something the character would say, had this conversation been in the game.

"You looked quite rough, when Janelle found you - like you'd been in a fight," Mr. Gylcross says sadly, shaking his head. "Have you remembered what happened?"

No, though Van knows about it from the game. The player character had been hit over the head with a hammer while trying to escape assassins. Very creative of the developers. "No, I haven't. Sorry, Mr. Gylcross."

"That's quite alright," the farmer says and looks at the spears. "I didn't really expect you to remember much, not after all this time - though it looks like something's getting through anyway," he mutters, considering the weapons. "I'm not sure I'm comfortable with having weapons on my homestead, Van."

"Oh. Um. I'll put them away tomorrow, then," Van offers. If Mr. Gylcross still objected to their presence by the morning, he'd be pretty surprised. "You won't have to deal with them, I promise."

"… Very well," Mr. Gylcross says and then gives him a look. "You'll still stay for the harvest, though, won't you? I planted a lot more than I would've without you here - we'll need all the hands we can get, to get the fields harvested in time."

"I won't go anywhere just yet, Mr. Gylcross," Van assures the man, and smiles. "I'll see my job here to the end."

"Good, good," Mr. Gylcross says and clears his throat, looking at the makeshift barricade before peering up at the sky.  "Well, at least it doesn't look like it will rain tonight… I suppose it's fine, this once," he then says, moving to leave. "And you'll put the spears away?"

"I will," Van says - as soon as they wouldn't have any more use, he would. "Have a good night, Mr. Gylcross."

"You too, my boy - sleep well."

Van smiles at the sentiment, nods and then watches as the farmer heads back to the house, making sure the man is inside before going to double check the barricade, just in case. Everything is where he put it, nothing has been moved. Good.

There's maybe another half an hour until the Rift opens.

No one would be sleeping in Gylcross Farm that night.

-

Proofread by @nimadge [<<Prologue | <Chapter 5 || Chapter 7>>]

-

Cue suspenseful background music...

Gotta say guys, not really seeing point in posting this on tumblr anymore. Might just post on ao3 after this.

[flarunie]

Some idea that I would like to explore in tfO

1. Non combatant that serve under the 13 origanal Prime

For exemple medic,scientist,ect

cuz aint no way Sentinal was the one managing everything or have every old staff member defect to his side after killing there boss

I mean Sentinal is and aft hole but he is not stupid enough to remove everyone else who serve under the Primes right after there death

And he still need someone to keep Cyberton up and running while he enjoy being in power

These staff could make an aperence in the next movie it could be someone like Skyfire or Ultra Magnus

So maybe that why Orion was still not caught after so many antic because some of these old staff had taken a liking to him

2. Story time

Orion love to tell D-16 about his finding in the archive and the subject is veried from history to biology, geography and so much more

That when other bot over heard it and started asking

Soon it develope it to a sorta of habit were miner would gather together during break time to listen to Orion story the number was small at first . But as the number grows it concern the manager or smt and they have to dissban it.

I mean with all the discrimination aganst cooglessbot bouns a miner most of them would have a relatively small list of thing they could do in there free time . Even though they have some kind of archade game i assume there wouldnt be much or enough for the miner

3 Why does the archive have those laser thing ?

To be honest idk

But i think the section with this kind of securties mesure are like the forbidine area or smt cuz sentinel would definitely wouldnt like if some one dig up his dirt

And he didnt want to just raze and entier archive to the ground to bury his darkest secrect

Plus he got beter thing to do so blocking the section of was faster and blame that it was shut down for mataince or smt

Then enter Orion

4 Intergration

There would surely have some kind of tension betwen the newly cogged bot and those who allways have one

Imagine your having a friend die just a short time before recving a cog

The anger and saddness that hit them after the joy stetal down would be tremendous

The ex-miner take up there passion or finding one

Learning and explore the world outside there mine shaph

6. The removed cog

There were mech who had to do all the dirty work like removing those cog and I was currious about those mech like did my guy had any remorse

Hope they appear in the next movie

And Sentinel probbly sold the cog to the quintison

6.Name

Why some degsignaton got number like D-16 and B-127 while other miner got actual name like Orion Pax , Arcee or Jazz

Was it like a self naming trend then what there origanal name

If not then why they were given such differnt name

[esquie]

unfortunately. i’m having less fun with avowed the more i play

part of this is because of bugs, glitches and performance issues which may be sorted with the day one patch which will come with the games official release

but the rest of it is unfortunately just with. avowed.

like roleplay is super limiting so far, lots of dialogue options have ended up being the same thing said slightly different. i’ve seen no opportunity to play an evil aligned character, the best you can get is sometimes you can be Super lawful in a way that’ll piss people off or you can be a bit of a dickhead sometimes, but not often. at one point a companion said he was leaving and i was given 4 dialogue options all basically saying “please don’t go” in different flavours, when it could have been really cool to say okay, leave then if you want, even if it ended with him asking to stay or the other companion saying hold on a minute we need you. yknow?

also the companions you’re with make this harder: you cannot dismiss them, so once you recruit the two first you’re stuck with them until you get your third, but you’re still stuck with one, until your fourth who is apparently recruited in the final act. so if you dislike anyone, well get fucked. you’re with kai for what feels like forever so you better like him: but also he’s a very nice guy, very good aligned, doesn’t like you mistreating anyone, but particularly lawful, killing bad people, or generally anything bad vibes. and he will voice it! so if your roleplay is mismatched to his personality good luck, you’re gonna have an annoying time. also marius is okay but he’s like a tsundere in kai’s words so he’s rude and closed off but that’s his affection. i guess. okay. and from what i can tell none of these characters lean at all towards “not a good person” so. your dickhead envoy is hanging out with a bunch of losers for the entire game. like even marius whos quite selfish in a “survival first” way isn’t a dickhead in the “lawful” way. so if you’re roleplaying your lawful envoy who does everything the lawful way… they’re not gonna get on with you very well

also i’m being driven insane by this because i don’t really like kai or marius at all. i’m rushing through not exploring or doing side quests because i just wanna get rid of them! i’m not really enjoying their company! but i’m at like 8-10 hours now i forgot to check and i still don’t have my next companion! i’ve met her but she’s not joined me yet. oughhhhhhhhhh at least let me dismiss them and leave them behind for a bit!!!

also part of the main quest is boring me to tears and it seems to be what so much of is. which is politics and people hating me and me disappointing everyone and i’m not even given the opportunity to roleplay my opinions on it, at least enough that it’s felt impactful … the cool part is the stuff with the voice and i haven’t experienced any of that for hours 😭 though i did meet lodwyn and she was like i vaguely remember you but you bring back feelings i haven’t felt in a long time..seeing you was not unwelcome… because i made us ex lovers lmao that was the best but idk

also i hate to complain about this but some npcs literally seem to have the exact same faces. especially the women?? idk what’s up with that. also the facial animations are soooooo bad sometimes it’s a little scary watching people talk. and that has been taking me out . the immersion is struggling .

IDK!!!! when i started to play i was so excited and it was all so exciting and now all that’s fading it’s becoming a bit. mediocre

also it keeps telling me i can upgrade items and it’s fucking shit i’m not using but i’m holding onto for various reasons like to sell at a shop. SHUT UP. SHUT THE FUCK UPPPPP

there’s still parts i really enjoy… i like parkour… the game is pretty when i’m not stuttering… magic is cool…. combat is genuinely challenging… at one point i pissed off an entire gang and they haunted my fucking every move and it was terrifying and i nearly died so many times… i like the voice and the memories stuff a lot…. lodwyn is the only cool character in the game so far (and yatzli but i haven’t seen much of her yet… or lodwyn tbh)

idk. i might wait for the day one patch before i play again. there’s definitely stuff that interests me here im just. not getting enough of it . honestly though? i think i could look past most of my issues if i really enjoyed the companions i had, and i wasn’t thinking “god i wish yatzli didn’t join in the final act”. at least in other rpgs you can choose not to bring companions who annoy you or piss you off if you just don’t like as characters . idk man

[ashaflemythal]

I haven’t seen any real critical takes on veilguard on here, so I wanted to add my 2 cents and open up a discussion bc at this moment I would say I’m beefing with BioWare lol.

Firstly, did I have fun playing veilguard? Uh, yes? I guess? Technically? I would definitely say the combat system and a lot of the gameplay itself is far better than it has been in previous games, and made me more engaged.

However, the writing issues at BioWare came to a major head here.

1) i didn’t feel like they went into the political and social implications of what was going on at all?? The elven gods coming back would bring so many other consequences beyond the destruction and blight. We didn’t see how this affected the way elves were treated, especially somewhere like Tevinter.

2) what happened to the Templar/mage conflict? The implications of the elven gods being alive and back are that then the chant and chantry are mostly wrong. There is no “magic was made to serve man and never rule over him.” This would likely make mages lash out at templars for being oppressed over what have turned out to essentially be lies. The templars then would likely split into those that leave the chant and focus on the real threats before them, and those who dig in their heels and decide that mages should still be oppressed bc of the dangers no matter what the chantry says. This would be such an interesting political shift to witness! And I’m sad we didn’t get this amount of depth

3) what happened to Solas’ followers? There was something so interesting to explore about having current elves helping him because they felt he was doing the right thing. We don’t run into any of his followers at all! And elves would definitely have more than enough reason to seek the world of the ancients and return to Arlathan given tevinter slavery and general oppression across Thedas, so what happened to that?

4) the only complex companion relationship that is allowed in-game is with rook and whoever was hardened with the treviso/minrathous choice. Otherwise, you can’t really have an antagonistic relationship with any of them. The only way to not progress a good relationship is to not engage in their content which I feel like is very weak writing. In DAI, you walk in on Cassandra and varric physically fighting and have to side with one of them. You can tell Cullen to keep taking lyrium. You can pick the wrong option in a companion quest and worsen your relationship. Where was that in this game?

5) the roleplaying, or lack there of. Sometimes I would pick the most aggressive option and it would still sound pretty nice, all things considered, where is my ability to feel differently outside of the very narrow window the game provides?

6) the STAKES of it all. The companions all seem very chill about things, all things considered. They are finding out things that would politically turn thedas on its head, and they’re having these calm discussions around a coffee table. I’m currently on my second play through, and it feels like none of these discoveries are given the weight they deserved, after three games of built up lore.

7) the gods’ allies. The motivations of the bad guys can pretty much be summed up by saying “want power” and that creates such shallow villains. Like yeah, obviously they’re bad bc they just want power and don’t care about people, but what about villains that do care about others? Villains that are complicated? I mean hell even though Alexius was mostly like “yes corypheus power” there was that grounding aspect of him wanting to save his son who was sick. I don’t feel like we had anything that tangible or real from major villains in veilguard

Ok, long post, but I do feel like BioWare has started to shy away from nuance and gray areas in a way I don’t like. It is important to show the complicated perspectives of evil people because that is the same thing we have to deal with irl. As an action-adventure game, it’s fine, but veilguard can scarcely call itself a true rpg. I don’t know, my feelings about it are complicated but all I know is that this game was quite disappointing to me especially compared to DAI, and I want to hope for better from the next game but given the way their BioWare’s last couple releases have gone I can’t say I’m expecting a lot. Anyway, how are yall feeling fr?

[apostaterevolutionary]

Collecting some thoughts on veilguard cause tbh I really don’t know how to feel lmao so. Unstructured ramble time

I’ve watched the trailer and the demo and I feel very. Idk? Still ‘wait and see’ mode for me. It’s been 10 years. Inquisition imo was the weakest of the 3. And while I have kind of moved on from DA there is a part of me that wants this to just blow everything out of the water and be amazing. I’m just not sure if that’s what I think will happen. Right now, I just think it doesn’t feel dragon age-y enough (in terms of what I, personally, consider the defining traits of the series) but I don’t want to jump to conclusions with so little information

The trailer was. Fine. Vibes were a little off but given its Varric narrating, it makes sense (also. Unpopular opinion lmao. I love Varric but I don’t think he should be a companion again. If there’s a carry over companion, it should have been Dorian. And tbh he could still be there, considering they said 7 companions but Varric is not included in that. So did they mean 7 *new* companions and maybe a few others? Advisors again maybe? Idk. Maybe Varric is a temporary companion, but I don’t think he should be there except maybe as a cameo. Scout Harding is an unexpected but fine carry over though). I don’t really have an opinion yet on the companions themselves cause there’s just. Nothing to base an opinion on other than the character designs

Gameplay demo shows that they’re definitely going very Inquisition-y. As in, continuing further down the path it started. Which isn’t unexpected, but is a bit disappointing, though not necessarily a dealbreaker as of yet. It’s probably smart tbh to go more in an action rpg direction than back to the crpg roots given it’s going to be compared to bg3 no matter what they do - better to differentiate as much as possible. Though I don’t think that’s why they did it, probably more a happy accident. I just. Idk, I found inquisitions combat a bit boring and I haven’t been impressed by what I’ve seen yet. But a 20 minute demo is probably not enough to really form an opinion

I feel like you can still see the echoes of this being a live service game at one point too. Healing potions coming from pots found in the environment (I never got over healing spells being cut btw lmao, bring back spirit healers already), the “ability wheel” (unsure about that too, given it sounds like we can’t control companion characters anymore? Kinda really don’t like that :/), stuff like that. I still feel like DA2 combat was the perfect balance between fluidity and strategy but it is what it is. It performed badly, so they’ve disregarded it wholesale rather than consider that some aspects of it may still be worth exploring. It sucks, but that’s capitalism I guess

As for all the other little things, idk, I really am not sure what to think yet lmao. Some sound good. Some less good (why only 2 companions, I don’t like that at all - also weird that the demo shows you won’t have a tank for the initial bit of the game. That’s a weird choice). Nothing to make me go aaaaaa either positively or negatively yet. I don’t even know what to say. My feelings are just so complicated about it, but also kinda empty at the same time. Like. It’s a bit of kombucha girl meme but also muted? I would like to feel just. More about it. But I don’t yet. I’m too unsure. Not quite numb, but almost tbh

At this stage, I feel like I’m gonna wait till it comes out and see what happens. No pre-ordering until I get a better idea. It’s like. With origins, I’ve played it a lot. DA2, even more - countless times lmao. Inquisition though, I played 2.5 times immediately after release and have tried to play it multiple times since but. I only ever get 10-20 hours in before I get bored and can’t make myself continue. I’ve tried many, many times and idk why but I just can’t do it. I never even played any of the DLC, so like. I kinda need to do that first if I’m gonna play veilguard but I have never succeeded before so idk how I will now lmao. But I feel like at least trespasser is necessary and I have genuinely never played it. And I gotta play the rest of the game first to get there and I genuinely don’t know if I can sksksjs

And with that in mind like. If inquisition is that unappealing to me, a game that feels very inquisition-y, potentially leaning even more into the stuff I didn’t like about it, is. Definitely not what I was hoping for. It’s still possible it’s leagues better than inquisition and actually playing it will be a great experience. But right now I just don’t know. I probably won’t be able form any kind of opinion until it comes out and I start getting info from trusted folks that I know have good DA opinions lmao

Idk. I’m not trying to be a wet blanket or a hater, and I genuinely don’t think I am being a hater at all, but I am just. Very tired and nervous. But also cautiously hopeful. I’ve said ‘idk’ a lot lmao but I truly don’t know at this stage. I guess we’ll see. Let’s hope it’s actually amazing and the very thing we need to make the series as a whole feel like it used to for us lapsed DA fans

[orrianreaper]

GW2 people - Pitch me YOUR idea for an Expansion!

What's the theme, where are we going, what lore threads are we picking up on, what's the story premise, what mechanics do you think it could have.

I love spitballing ideas when I'm talking with friends so I'm posing the question To Everyone because I know everyone has some pet concepts floating around. As self-indulgent as you'd like, as unrealistic as you like, just throw ideas around, I wanna hear them!

The One I think I have the most rounded ideas for would be an Underwater Expansion. Picking up on the threat of whatever is terrorising the deep oceans, having some exploration of the Largos and bringing back in the Quaggan and the Krait maybe!

I love the sort of depths we get in maps like Frostgorge sound, and underwater combat has badly needed a rework and a tune up - there's loads of skills which straight up don't work and break entire builds underwater, and this would be a perfect excuse to try bring it up to speed. Maybe even make the underwater weapon sets function on land, to satisfy those who're after more weapons. You could make the maps a mix of true underwater and perhaps giant air bubble caves so you still had some land exploration even in maps otherwise set deep under the ocean. A map meta split with land phases and water phases. Additionally as personal bias wish, I'd love map event/meta design more like HoT. A map-wide Story with a few chains with specifically Build into the actual true Meta. I also simply love the idea of having a bunch of enemy designs based of the ocean and the abyss, there's so much incredible inspiration and interesting marine life. and biomes too! Give me a hydrothermal vent section in one of the maps, hell underwater 'water' in the form of brine pool 'quicksand'.

The Turtle might get some more use out of it's underwater, and skimmer would absolutely get spotlight as a skyscale isn't going to get you too far here - hell maybe even some speedy new underwater mount could be a fun addition to the roster.

I can see a plot being around trying to work with the Largos, The 'Terror of the Deep' being a danger and learning from them about how to survive the hostile environment and also convince them work with you to Hunt the 'Terror'. Maybe you come to the area of the ocean with the Quaggans and it's convincing the Largos to take them seriously as allies against whatever you're fighting? A quaggan companion character would be really fun, and you could easily bring back Sayeh al' Rajihd from the personal story given Largos involvement. I think not only would it be something very different in terms of the maps, which granted quite a few people might not like (thalassophobia reasons, or general Dislike of Water Gameplay reasons), but I think a rework of the underwater mechanics would benefit a bunch of places and it's something that really doesn't get touched outside of base game and maybe like, the Leviathans in EoD. There's so much neat creature design inspiriation swimming around out there, and I know so many people love the largos and even if not playable getting to see more of them could be neat! Also - it'd finally make all those legendary full people happy. A Legendary Aquabreather :P.

And a new suite of legendary underwater weapons since the G1 set. (and not themed pretty please make them all Unique.)

[alexissara]

Top 10 Games Of The Year 2024

It's time to look back at this years games I played and go what are the best this year?  I would say on the whole this year was worse for games both on the industry level but also in terms of the quality of releases but luckily this list isn't about that but the games I personally played so they could be from any year. 2024 saw tons of industry layoffs, tons of game delays, tons of game cancellations and a lot of strife in general. Still, the art form was still arting and I want to share my feelings on this art. I played over 150 games counting demos this year in my hunt for Sapphic games to share with people here and across the internet although many of those were demos or otherwise incomplete games. 

I will not be including Early Access games on this list since they are not done and therefore I don’t think can really qualify for being compared with the rest of the games. Still, I want to mention Elemental Survivors, Hades 2, and Fields of Mistria all of which were some of the most fun I had playing games this year but are all experiences I intentional cut myself off from because I don’t want to hit content walls and shit.  To that effect I am not including game demos or incomplete fan games or whatever so a game like Pokemon Odyssey or the updated Gales of Nayeli Demo couldn’t show up here even if they were both also fun experiences since I want to compare a full experience of a piece of art [I don’t think you need to beat a game to experience it enough to talk about it but here I want to have explored to my satisfaction]. 

If you enjoy my little top 10 lists and want to see the lesbians I make ahead of everyone else go to my patreon https://www.patreon.com/AlexisSara it helps me make lists like this and have the time to play games, enjoy art, make little lists and not just hustle and try to pump out as much “content” as possible. 

10. Kitsune Tails 

Mild spoiler but there is a second campaign of the game after you “beat” the game and that really elevates this game from what felt a bit like a slog to me to an exciting platformer. The game sells itself as a lesbian platformer but you know minor spoiler the first character has like an acearo arc which is nice representation although when I came in thinking I was gonna be getting a poly lesbian arc I was a let down. There is still lesbians and bi women and stuff so we do have good sapphic representation I was just during the time of the plot really not sure how to feel. Still despite that bit of jarring plot and I think a slow start to the game I really liked the way the game flows with it’s second protagonist, her movement is just a lot more fun and smooth rather than the kinda boring tride and true Super Mario World formula of the first protag. I am not the biggest platformer head, I played tons of them but these kinda classic games aren’t my favorite so it’s not “made for me” in that sense and I often found it a little too annoyingly hard for my taste but luckily the easy mode makes the game very playable for someone who just wants to do the plot and have fun on any given level without worrying too much about platforming. 

9. Dragon Age: The Veilguard 

I kinda don’t like this game yet I can’t lie the Sierra Laider, my rook took up so much of my brain space for so long it would be a lie to not put this game somewhere even if I did the heavy lifting for the game. In basically every area but the core combat loop the game is flawed and Combat suffers from repeated enemies and stuff like that. Yet, the game would have been an excellent First shot by a new team trying a new fantasy game series. And while this was a fantasy game it was blessed and cursed with the dragon age name which I think hurts this game more than it helps because while certainty engaged the lore in so many places It discards things or ignores them and it feels lkke death by 1000 papercuts. Umm i played it a lot and you can be trans [but not a lesbian you can never talk about that] so I do love those things. The hair looks Great. Welcome to the top 10. 

8. Pokemon Emerald Rouge 2.0

So this game was technically on the list last year but it got a 2.0 version in 2024 and it was an amazing glow up for the game that was already good enough to be in a game of the year list and managed to show up twice. There was just so many improvements to this game, the overall hub was massively improved, the experience of getting pokemon was improved, runs are fast and fun with a massive roster of pokemon to capture, you can give your pokemon Herbal Remedy Tea [HRT] to change their gender, you have so many different challenge runs you can do and it feels like you can always shoot for better and stronger runs. It’s just a really great game that has more flavor to me than any other attempt at Pokemon Rouge Likes I’ve played so far. If you enjoy Pokemon battles and collecting pokemon then this game is perfect. 

7. Fire Emblem: The Marrow’s Golden Country 

There is a lot of little things in this game that erk me but overall I can’t deny that this is one of the best Fire Emblem games ever made, one of the best SRPGs, etc even if I don’t love every design choice in this game. I didn’t enjoy being made to change parties for multiple maps with no option to skip, I didn’t like this forced death map near the end of one of those maps where I crushed the high difficulty enemies with my tactics turn after turn after turn just doing totally fine and turns out oh you just have to lose not because I got ran out fast enough but because I just realized oh I got like everyone to max level killing these guys again and again. I also find the second male lord the game adds to the party to be annoying an unneeded and it really felt like it was there cuz idk Sacred Stones has two lords or something cuz Zeke doesn’t really add much to the plot where Blair is clearly the star here. Final complaint is that there is  secret lesbian poly route I wanted to unlock but I had done exactly 1 support with a guy with Blair and that meant I simply couldn’t unlock it, there was no way to remove the support, just one time accidentally talking to a man once removed the option for CLair to have her 5 girlfriends. It was a really feels bad moment and it’s something I realized in the last chunk of the game making for a really awful feels moment.  That said I mean there is a fucking secret lesbian poly route in this game with the main lord and that’s fucking amazing. The ability and map design in this game is fantastic and we really get a lot of fun takes on the Fire Emblem formula though the playthough. The plot itself is up and down in quality but it’s overall a fun story with some great characters I really loved. If you like Fire Emblem you should play THe Marrow’s Golden Country, it lacks some of the modern QoL i’d really like to see but you know use save states and it’s kinda like having turn wheel. While I said a lot of negative stuff it’s more like the disclaimers because everything else is just really great, it’s firmly in my top 10 FE games and it might just be in my top 10 SRPGs. 

6. Saints Row Reboot 

When the Saint’s Row Reboot came out people hated on it but I was cautiously optimistic yet I refused to download epic so with the game finally coming to steam and going on sale I went ahead and finally grabbed it. I honestly really loved this game and I don’t really get why people were haters outside of the racists who I understand were mad that the default protag was a black woman instead of a white man in this game you can do character creation with and the canon queer cast of saints row had a pride flag in their home unlike the previous canon queer cast which simply didn’t have a pride flag? Regardless, I think the gameplay is fun, maybe it’s because I don’t play Triple A games but for me I wasn’t like “Oh it’s another open world game” it felt like I as playing a saints row game which are open world so it was just another one of those. I thought the cast was actually super charming and fun, they were cute and had a great friendship dynamic. There was a fun payoff for playing in co-op mode too near the end of the game you get some special lines for playing in co-op where it was normally ignored. It’s a crime that this studio was shut down I would have loved to see where the next Saints Row went but at least this game is a banger. 

5. Granblue Fantasy Versus Rising 

I genuinely think this is a contender for best fighting game of all time it has a lot of little issues but this game is also kind of top of the line in almost every single area. While the plot is…not great and centers the male protag gran rather than allowing the female protagonist to be an equal to him in the plot it still has a story and the story mode allowing you to fight generic enemies and play in co-op is a really fun single player mode and having plot at all is nice even if it’s mid AF. Then all the arcade modes have nice little ending arts, there is the side modes, there is a lot to do other than just going online and climbing later which is great and something really every fighting game needs. The visual presentation makes for one of the best looking video games of all time and the voice work certainly is the very best in all fighting games by a long shot. This games cast has the ideal 50/50 gender ratio for a mixed gender fighting game always presenting men and women in equal amounts rather then just throwing a few women in and feeling fine with them being the “sexy” roles every gets to full be their own weird character.This game also has multiple instances of canon queer representation with multiple trans women, a lesbian and a non playable bisexual boss woman. Among the other subtexter characters. It be hard for a better fighting game to be made. 

4. Tales of Berseria 

A sadly common case of a fantastic game held back by a terrible ending yet Velvet and Magliou are both still such great characters that it elevated it to the upper half of this list. The gameplay of this Tales Of Game is also really great with the party feeling really good together and the action RPG combat feeling just really solid and smooth to use. As often happens in these Tales Of games some of the Sketches are really bad and you can feel the old japanese man writing the story take over the mouths of all the characters so everyone can hear their feelings about how men and women are. It feels super unnatural and actively makes the characters worse where some sketches feel great and add more context, it’s this cat box of if I open this i may be annoyed or I may be delighted but it’s just not consistent enough to know. Despite the random little flaws I liked all the characters in the cast, I had a lot of fun with each character and I wish for them to all have better fates then being stuck in a prequel game that required a status quo to be reached. 

3. Vampire Survivors 

This has become my go to “stiming” game, when I just need something to play with almost no thought while I am chatting or working or something, this is a perfect game to just have my hands doing something while I work. The Ode To Castalvina DLC is brilliant, expansive and fun and fills the game with amazing music. With that amd their 2 non IP DLCs along with the core game I've loaded with things to do while also having fun things to do to unlock a large chunk of the roster though there is definitely stuff I did and will use codes to unlock if they sound boring. Even the built in cheat code system really does improve this game though it really let's the player set their own fun and way more games need to bring it back. 

2. Potionomics When I first played Potionomics when it released I really felt like the game needed voice acting and then sure enough this year it got it and I finally decided to beat this game with all of it’s fancy new features. The voice acting, cozy mode and polyamory took this from a good game to one of the best games ever made. This is truly a polished masterpiece and a true showing of the love of the devs to make their game so much better and for free for PC players too since they thought this was stuff the players who bought it before deserved to have. I did eventually hit a point where I stopped wanting to make potions and just wanted to do plot in my cozy mode run but luckily I was pretty capable of doing that since I had so much extra money. 

1. Sword Of The Necromancer  Sword of The Necromancer really blew me away and easily became one of my favorite games of all time after finishing it this year. An unbury your gays adventure where a woman does everything for the love of her life. I just really love everything about this game, the art style is really great, the voice acting is really solid, the animated opening is fantastic, and the music is great too. I really like being able to summon the little guys with the necromancer sword and have them fight for me, I am a big summoner enjoyer so I enjoyed that part of the gameplay and the combat being fairly simple was nice for me. I beat the game in about 9 hours of gameplay so it’s not super long just a nice lesbian adventure and honestly, I suck at games so it might be extended by my own deaths and stuff.  I don't want to wax on forever so read my review [https://www.tumblr.com/alexissara/750871073687535616/sword-of-the-necromancer-review] for more.

[eagle-eyes-sideblog]

That Medical Anomaly

Summary

An AU where the reader is the subject of a secretive experiment that leaves them the perfect Player... among other things.

Possible triggering themes for this AU/story include medical trauma, descriptions of chronic illness, ableism, depression, and death. If I've handled anything insensitively, please let me know.

A more 'formal' introduction, along with rambling about my thought process, under the cut.

Self Aware MadCom belongs to @saltymongoose. The concept is really interesting to me, even aside from the xreader stuff (although it's definitely also that lmao). So I thought I might explore that a bit with a concept that's already been floating around my head for a bit. The world that the reader is from is deliberately left a bit vague, but it's sort of magical realism. Most relevant to this AU: there are things like doctors and computers existing alongside curses and other magical ailments.

Also, this doesn't really include much MadCom or SAMAU... Well, no interactions with the characters, anyways. It's mostly just an introduction to my ideas for this AU, so it describes more of what your life was like beforehand and how you found the series. Do also note that I've never played either M:PN game, so there might be some inaccuracies.

All that being said... enjoy!

~~~

You, along with several others, were the subject of an experiment when you were a teenager. It was so secretive, you were never even given the details of why it had been conducted. That, or you had forgotten, given that one of the major side effects of the experiment was memory loss.

The experiment itself was something about deliberately letting specific kinds of contagions into the subject's body. You knew a few of them were fungal, and many were magical in some way, although they were different for every experiment.

Apparently if they chose the right infections for the right subject and 'balanced' them properly with the individual's immune system... they would stabilize. This led to the subject gaining supernatural abilities based on whatever magical infections they had.

Of course, most of the subjects weren't so lucky. The various infections would usually just take their courses; often the combinations would very quickly kill the subject. Those that survived were left with permanent problems ranging from aphasia to compromised immune systems to seizures.

You were their star subject, the one better off than all the rest. The staff made sure to remind you of that every time you complained about anything. "Be grateful," they told you. "At least you can still speak. At least you're still recovering. At least you're still alive." They never said it out loud, but you heard the implication. All of this is only happening because of us.

Bullshit. You were only 'better off' because of sheer dumb luck. Had they succeeded? Maybe. But their idea of success didn't even take you into account.

And their idea of success still left you with problems. Yes, you have sharper senses now, and you can draw energy from more than just food. But you're face-blind, and your hands and feet are numb, and you sometimes hurt so badly that you can't walk.

Not to mention how unethical the experiment itself was. They didn't even study people who already had these conditions; they deliberately induced them. Hell, one of your roommates was six years old! Why they let her participate still bothered you today.

...But it wasn't all bad. You cherished the friends you'd made there, even if you'd lost contact with most of them.

Not just your fellow patients, either. Most of the staff were... annoying at the very least. But a few seemed to actually have your best interests in mind. For example, your favorite nurse, Max, recommended an animated series that might help take your mind off of things when you were in the depths of depression.

You very quickly fell in love with Madness Combat. The simple graphics, where characters were denoted by outfit and style rather than facial features, seemed perfect for you. You grew to adore Hank, Deimos, Sanford, Tricky, and every other character, getting invested in their fights even when nothing else made you happy.

And the episodes were just plain fun to watch. Even when you had issues with your memory, the fight scenes interested you more than enough to make up for it. The community, too, seemed to welcome you, and you came to cherish the friends you made there.

Not only that, but you found a little game on Newgrounds. Although your numb hands made it hard to play, it really did capture the things that made you adore Madcom to begin with. Your favorite nurse approved too; after all, it was an exercise in hand-eye coordination!

Naturally, you were beyond thrilled when Project Nexus came out. By that point, you'd already left the facility. And your memory had recovered enough to get well and truly obsessed with the lore.

You smiled, picking the Tourist difficulty and sitting back to watch the intro cinematic. This was going to be fun.

(Unbeknownst to you, it would also be much, much more than you bargained for.)

[dailycharacteroption]

Retrograde Revision 5: Battle Scout

(art by John-Stone-Art on DeviantArt)

Time to take another go-around my old stuff, and today we’re starting off with the Battle Scout for the ranger class!

The original version of this entry was when I was still doing whole run-on paragraphs for the archetypes, but at least I was a little more poetic in my writing there, but definitely still needed work.

In any case, the battle scout is unsurprisingly, a specialized ranger that focuses on helping large groups (typically advancing armies) move through the terrain. As such, they have a keen eye for spotting the literal and practical pitfalls in the terrain.

Those who wonder why such training exists don’t know the history of invading armies pressing into lands with unfamiliar terrain. No matter what nation it is, such invaders always think that their technological superiority and numbers will win the day, only for the jungle, or the frozen tundra, or the desert to eat them alive long before they even encounter the defenders. Countless lives thrown away on the hubris of men who command them.

Now, while one shouldn’t necessarily shy away from complex subjects in games, military invasions is hardly the only use for an archetype like this. Scouts that guide merchants or caravans through hostile terrain, survivalist experts accompanying explorers of foreign lands, and more are all possibilities. The only consistency is their skill at quickly understanding the terrain and making the best of it for themselves and their allies.

Given their role of guiding others, it should come as no surprise that these rangers choose to bond with those they travel with over a bond with an animal.

A core part of their skillset is taking the time to study their immediate surroundings. As long as such terrain is familiar to them, they can study it and pass on information to their allies, starting with pointing out likely enemy hiding places to give allies a leg up if combat arises, then progressing to important notes about terrain features, things to watch out for, and more. Finally, but studying even further, they can point out clear paths through even seemingly impassible terrain, improving their own mobility.

However, sometimes one must venture into the unknown, but by using their keen observational skills, they can briefly treat unfamiliar terrain as familiar.

The keen tactics of these rangers eventually are honed to the point they can instruct the timing of ally movement to better serve the flow of battle, more so if they have fully studied their surroundings.

The most masterful of these scouts are able to study the terrain fully with uncanny speed, and do so over a much wider area, as far as they can see in many cases.

If your party is likely to go traipsing through terrain hazards or getting caught in ambushes, this archetype may indeed be the pick for you. In optimum conditions, they’ll halt the party as soon as they see such a hazard or detect an ambush, study the situation for a moment, then buff their allies with these signature abilites. Beyond that, remember that you don’t get as many favored enemy buffs, and build however you like.

No matter how jovial or unserious these rangers typically are, the role of a scout is a very serious duty, so I imagine that while on the job they are laser-focused, when they speak, it is of grave importance, and the wise among their companions listen.

Gadvera Bramblehide is perhaps one of the most famous still-living scouts from the Blackmouth War. Now, the elderly half-elf is retired. However, when the dragon Blackmouth returns to his mountain lair after centuries of exile, a brave new team of adventurers will need to call upon her to guide them to the site of the hidden relic that magically banished the dragon tyrant long ago, if they can put up with her sour ways.

The merfolk of the Sea of Kelp do not often go to war, but when they do, their forces are guided by battle scouts, masters of attacking from the kelp beds, only to vanish silently. Truly terrifying still is when their locathah allies cast spells to allow them to traverse land, proving their deadly skill even out of water.

Moriok the Roost, called such for his ability to wait with such stillness and patience that birds mistake him for part of the forest, watches the forest with eagle eyes, directing his hidden compatriots with animal messengers. It may take months to spring one of the legendary scouts traps, but no one escapes once they are sprung, if rumor is to be believed.

[bluebudgie]

I accidentally sausagefinger deleted my 20k DA4 review so you get an abridged version now. No more nuance and elaboration, i can't be arsed to retype all of this.

Tl;dr

- Solid game with many flaws.

- If you already are a DA fan it's worth playing

- If you want to get into the series don't start here unless you really want to for a specific reason

Not entirely spoiler free:

Liked the game overall. Also no game has annoyed me this much in years.

Here's some good stuff:

- Beautiful, gorgeous environments.

- Overall cool and likeable cast with mostly interesting companion quests and fun character interactions.

- High quality german localization and VA (didn't try english)

- Appreciate the inclusion of gender neutral pronouns which is even less a given than it is in english since as of now there is no officially recognized equivalent for they/them in this language

- Loved the little things. Returning voice actors. Punching Solas in the face. Dorian Pavus.

- Great sound design during the Weisshaupt quest. Felt very immersive.

- Rivain exploration Tangled Depths moment. When you look at your destination 5 meters above your head and go HUH?

Stuff I hated that's extremely subjective:

Combat. Least fun combat I've experienced in any game ever. Every battle is a pvp match against 10 longbow bear rangers that spam point blank shot with no cooldown. Spending 98% of the battle dodging isn't fun

- Why is there a parry build in the skill tree when half of the enemies have huge hammers you cant parry (skill issue?)

- Party members being invulnerable pets that do nothing but use 1 out of 3 skills off cooldown is bullshit

Soundtrack. Ok no listen I didn't spend the last two months agonizing over this to give you the abridged version now. [takes a deep breath] Here we go again.

"I'm not angry with you, I'm just very disappointed." [Heavy Silence]

Seriously what the fuck was that. The biggest nothingburger that ever nothinged. Or burgered. Like cool they got Hans Zimmer or whatever but if they only had the budget to pay for 2 songs and 3 chords then maybe... don't?

Half of the game is dead silence interrupted by the same 3 notes. Once in a while you dare hope that a song starts playing only for it to fade out within a few seconds. Even many of the battles (including story battles) are fought in silence. And like. Don't get me wrong here. Silence can be good if utilized effectively. I like a good ambient soundtrack. Inquisition had great ambience (mage quest or winter palace bgm anyone?). Super Metroid has great ambience. Hell my favourite gw2 map has insect chittering for music. But this game. They really went "Go girl give us nothing!" with full conviction.

The little music that is there is largely generically inoffensive but also extremely repetitive. And despite all the repetition it's still forgettable as hell. Dictionary definition of an orchestral slop soundtrack. And also the dictionary definition of disappointment. Good god.

Ok moving on with the abridged review. The following points are things that sort of bugged me and I could imagine that other people feel similarly.

- I mean the main story with those saturday morning cartoon villains speaking in stock villain lines was silly but that's just kinda bioware storywriting so all as expected. We're here for interpersonal relationships and side stories anyway.

- So I said I liked the cast. They're too likable. Too safe. Too sanitized. Has everyone forgotten how to be an asshole?

- It's almost impossible to have companions disagree with your decisions. Where are the contrarians? Who do I throw fists with? Why is everyone licking main character boots? I know we've all* hated on Solas for years but that doesn't mean we can't have dicks in the party anymore? We're not babies?? *not you

- Also why does main character get to do life altering decisions for everyone 😭 Bruh none of your business... In some cases it made sense, but some of these... (Taash...??)

- Taash's questline sucked we all agree on this right

- That extremely unsubtle choice pop up whenever a decision you made had an influence on something. Like bruh ok you don't have to tell me about every little choice branch, where's the surprises man

- Companion quests being a mandatory gameplay element isn't the worst of these things but I did prefer when they were entirely optional so it was your bad when you missed out on relationships etc. Plus the gameplay loop created by this in da4 was very tedious after a while

- I don't like how the main character was kinda predetermined as a sassy jokester no matter which dialogue choices you pick but you get used to it

- The also extremely unsubtle faction meter that practically screams "if you don't fill the meter it will have consequences during the final battle". Again where's the surprises?

In general the game felt too predictable and too sanitized to be the least amount of inconvenient as possible.

And that's all I can think of right now.

Overall I'd say

DA2 < DA4 < DA:O < DA:I

[exhausted-archivist]

Concept Art Moments and Ideas: What I Wish Was Kept

Pretty sure we've all been there. Seen some of the concept art and thought how cool it was and how much you wish it had made it in the final game. These are some of mine, I won't go too much into why they're not in the game, the answer is usually either one of the following or a combination of: they needed to narrow the scope of the project, frostbite was a new engine they were struggling to make do what they needed, time, they didn't feel it had enough narrative weight or purpose, or it would make the world states branch out far too much.

I'm not really wanting to discuss whether or not I agree with cutting them either. I just really think these are neat concept, ones I've thought out how they would fold in, possible ways they could have played out, and some that personally I have worked into my fic just to fully explore the ideas.

Most of the images that don't have a source link came from either the art book or the BioWare Stories and Secrets From 25 Years of Game Development (B25) book.

Now lets start with the most common one:

[Source]

I'm know others have said this, but I really wish that it had been feasible for you to become Divine. Though, honestly this only would have really worked as decision at the end of the series. While personally in my canon world state I don't have anyone I would want to put in that role. I do have an OC who I did design for that and would have been nice to see it play out. Especially come Trespasser.

These are story boards from the art book of the prologue walk through Haven. The voice lines for this are still in the game files even though they're cut. Something I always wanted in the prologue was something to actually motivate me. There is no real sense of danger, and the walk through Haven hold no real weight. It's mostly telling and no showing, it feels hollow after your first play-through where you aren't curious and uncertain. It honestly would have been interesting to me if this was in there and if there were non-standard ending option outside of combat. Provoking the scared survivors to where they mob you, a timer on the mark instead of just the one check point. If it started draining your health the longer you took to get to the Breach. Things that could easily be removed if you decreased the difficulty level and wouldn't impact the game overly much.

[Left Dragon Age Art Book, Right World of Thedas vol. 2 p. 245]

To continue on with my desire for the steaks in Inquisition to be more intense, for you to actually feel some type of risk or hostility from the world. These two are more of an expansion on the attack on Haven. I wish Corypheus was given a more dramatic entrance than being seen on the hill with his Commander. That when he arrived to scoop you up, that it was more ominous and threatening. Something to illustrate as him having this overwhelming presence and force.

In Hushed Whispers had the concept art of King Alistair going with you and honestly, I feel like it is a missed opportunity. Not only would it make sense but there is a sort of thematic element with Alistair once again having to save Redcliffe from a mage. I think this also could have worked if he was king or warden. If he was a warden, it would have been a very nice way to tie in the Warden plot for Alistair and even Loghain. Would have really given the Inquisitor a reason to care about choosing between them or Hawke in the Fade.

[Source]

Matt Rhodes labeled this as Anders in the tags, and I am really intrigued by this prospect. We know by the end of DA2 if he's alive he doesn't have many friends with the displaced mages of Kirkwall after awhile. It would have been nice for him to come back in that Warden role they were considering for the cancelled Exalted March DLC. But what really makes me curious, is why he's out in what we might think is the Western Approach/Hissing Wastes and what happened to his missing right arm.

Alternatively, another scenario I would have liked to see with Anders comes from the B25 book. We see they explored the idea of Anders, as a Grey Warden in the cancelled Exalted March DLC. Honestly, I feel as if he would return regardless of if you killed him or not because we know that Justice can and has prevented fatal injuries from killing Anders before. This could have been an interesting thread to not only pull his story to an end in dai, but also introduce the Warden contact instead of the ones we had. Because he was on the run and the Wardens would offer a degree of protection so he would be unwillingly forced to return, couple that with him knowing of Corypheus - which would likely be the thing that forced the Wardens to keep him alive once they found his prison empty.

[Source]

This is Western Approach concept art, specifically this was suppose to be Adamant. Matt Rhodes describes that it was suppose to be a monastery, self-sustaining, and a place where they could cultivate their own food, weave their own fabrics. It would have been interesting to be able to see it like this, to see the game use this to not only explore how the Wardens survived out here but also how they recovered the fortress after it was wrecked in Asunder. It would have tied in nicely with exploring the fact that the reversal of Tranquility was found here, a fact known to everyone in game at this point (they just didn't know the Seekers hid it from the Chantry and mages). It would have been an excellent way to fold in Rhys, Evangeline, flesh out Cole's backstory and personal quest, and even show another side of the mages - the ones who didn't want to be involved in the war and fled to the Wardens.

Two Words: Giant. Scorpion.

Look how massive that is. I love mega fauna so much. I want something massive to be living in the Hissing Wastes and I want this to be fighting dragons. It would have been amazing. Look at the boards they put out.

[Source]

I want to believe this is for the Western Approach given the ground type and the smoke in the background. If this thing was guarding the sulfur fields by Griffon Keep? It would have been epic. Or even if we saw it fighting the Abyssal dragon. Honestly, I think more areas should have had a competing predator for the dragons to be fighting. It would have been cooler if they kept great bears (previously known as Dragon Bears) at their massive size to fight a dragon in the Emerald Graves too.

[Source]

That said, this scorpion concept gets even better when you see the concept art for smaller versions being Venatori mounts.

How do you not get stabbed bud? How do you domesticate/train this? What is the intelligence of this little critter? I can just picture a play on the scorpion and the frog happening here. This would have been really cool as mini-bosses or something of that nature. Particularly around the ruins, Venatori operations, or raids against the keeps.

Another piece from B25, we see new concept art of the Inquisitor leaving Skyhold with the Inquisition as Skyhold is destroyed in the background. We learned from David Gaider that at one point Skyhold was actually suppose to be attacked by Corypheus, but it ended up being cut due to time/scope. This is something I wish they kept, having your second base attack, you home at the point where you felt the strongest and potentially after a recent victory.

It would have reminded the player that Corypheus and his commander, Calpernia or Samson, were a real and active threat. Something missing from Inquisition honestly. It would have been interesting to see if we had to find a new base of operations or if we had to rebuild. When first settling in Skyhold everyone mentions being able to see the enemy coming, about not retreating from Skyhold. They really built up an expectation that at the very least a scare of an attack would happen.

There would have been a sort of poetic sense to Skyhold being leveled. Considering it is of Fereldan make, built on top of a leveled elven site. To have the site once again leveled, the history brought back to its foundations. It would have been a thematic foreshadowing to what Solas plans to do as well.

These are clearly just things I found interesting, things I feel would have really added to the game, and some others might not agree with. There are other things I wish they hadn't cut, but I didn't want to include anything that has been post-humorously mentioned by the devs because I wanted to focus more on the concept art aspect. A lot of decisions were shaped by circumstances we'll never really know the full scope of, and sometimes I wonder if they had gotten more than the 3-4 years they had for Inquisition and maybe on an engine that wasn't so fickle and worked better for the style of game how different it would have been.

[saruin]

I can agree that Veilguard has its issues, there are some things I’m not a big fan of and some choices that as someone who’s played through the entirety of the series multiple times and read the books/comics don’t make a lick of sense to me, but overall it’s a good game imo. I’ve been taking my time and exploring in it but to me it read like if DA2 was given time to be fleshed out properly while still being new. I think because of the lore and previous writing they wrote themselves into a bit of a corner, but that’s was inevitable at some point. If this is supposed to be a soft reboot then maybe that means the next game goes back to having that more open choice RPG feel people are saying it’s missing

Personally, I went in with no expectations because I love this franchise and I know most of my headcanons and thoughts aren’t EA’s world state, which is fine. But I’ve been really enjoying the game. The combat is a bit of a learning game curve compared to what we’ve had before but the heart of the games has always been the story and the interaction you have with your companions but that’s just me. People can be mad and upset and complain about being a “DA purist” or complain that they don’t like the art style but at its core everyone has a different experience and connection to the game and no single DA game looks like another. The styles are all different! And if something doesn’t match with your story for your player character you can literally write fix-it fics and headcanons if you’re really mad about it *cough cough all of us who wanted the Hawke/Varric romance that they scrapped*

At the end of the day, I’d say take everything everyone’s been saying about the game with a (large) grain of salt. Take your time, explore, and enjoy it. It’s a got beautiful scenery, you can pet the cats and Mabari, and the cc for both Rook and the Inquisitor made me tear up because I literally haven’t seen my girl in 3 years and here she is with pretty flowing hair and still (in my mind because I haven’t seen her in game yet) is a rebel with a cause

Sorry for the long rant and rambling also, it’s just neat seeing creators and blogs I follow on here get excited about what is pretty much my favorite game series when in my offline experience is that it’s a very niche series to like. Also love your content for sims btw! I always get excited seeing when you’ve got something new cooking

Thank you for this. I think it's easy for people to forget that everyone doesn't experience games the same way. I don't listen to critics and I ignore people's opinions on stuff I'm genuinely excited about because I want to judge it with my own two eyes. I appreciate other people's perspective but I don't have to agree with them, what fun is that.

I remember when I was about to start playing Mass Effect and was asking friends for input (cause I didn't understand at the time that people could be extremely biased) I was told over and over again that ME3 was the worst game ever and to not even play it, to just get the story online somewhere. Well I ended up playing it despite their opinions and ME3 is my favorite game in the series.

Thank you again for giving me your opinions and I'm so happy you're enjoying the game. Also thanks so much for liking my content 🩷