#and it was really hard to hit their hitbox but not hers | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

immortal-elements · 6 months ago

Text

Well, it's balance patch time, you know what that means!

Yep, I'm going to go over all the elementalist changes and say what I think of them.

First up, scepter changes! Historically, scepter has been a really powerful weapon for power builds, fresh air builds normally use scepter due to the fact you can start channeling your air auto-attack, swap out of air and use some instant cast skills during the auto-attack channel, and then swap back to air to do it all again before you even finish the auto channel. These changes mostly increase the power damage scaling of the auto-attacks, as well as water trident, hurl and the weaver dual attacks. This is to help differentiate it from pistol, as the two weapons had so much overlapping identity, being mid-ranged condi weapons. In trying to incentivize power builds using scepter, pistol is finding it's own footing. I just hope they fix the fking bullet UI.

Next, dagger. Shortening the cast time of the flame and ice breath attacks is a great change, but that's not the star of the show here. Let's talk about how busted the new water 3 and air 2 are going to be on catalyst. Catalyst infamously has a hard time giving itself shocking aura. Outside of hammer, (and I guess now pistol, but w/e), air attunement doesn't have combo finishers. This was mitigated in part by things like the arcane skills being combo finishers, or swapping to air mid-cast on a combo finisher, which can be finicky. Now, dagger air 2 is a blast finisher, meaning those dagger/dagger cata duelists you run into in PvP and WvW are going to be that much more annoying, being able to reliably proc shocking aura, transmute it with dagger 3, and then get shocking aura AGAIN! With all the aura synergy in catalyst, this is looking very powerful. As for water 3, it now creates an ice field, (which ele has surprisingly little access to), and then immediately blasts it. Assuming you have no other combo fields out, that translates to area frost aura, which is very powerful in PvP and WvW, and sometimes the -10% damage makes the difference in PvE. All around, these changes make dagger a tankier option for PvP

As for staff changes, they updated the earth wall and the electric fence to do more CC damage more reliably. Gone are the days of being unable to CC xera with the electric fence because her hitbox is too small, gone are the days of whiffing on your earth wall because the boss isn't moving.

Utilities. Basically all of ele's stunbreaks got buffed by means of reduced cooldown. The two winners here are signet of air and armor of earth. Armor of earth is now an incredible defensive skill, breaking stuns every 25 seconds, giving you stability to fight through CC pressure, and protection and barrier! And signet of air already was the best in slot stunbreak, it is now down to a 20 second cooldown. Mist form and arcane shield are meh imo, some people like them, most people don't, but hey, if you happen to be one of the special 8 people who use them, they've got a lower cooldown.

For specializations, Earth! They've baked the barrier gain that used to be on earth's embrace into a minor trait, so you always get that barrier gain. They've also changed how diamond skin works! Now, instead of removing a condi if you get hit while you have over 75% health, you can much more reliably trigger this! Remove a condi from yourself every time you combo with a leap finisher, (sword enjoyers rejoice), and remove a condi from all nearby allies whenever you use a blast finisher! If you've played ele for any amount of time, you know that the majority of it's finishers are blast finishers. The additional blast finisher on dagger air 2 and the additional combo field on dagger water 3 means that this weapon is a condi cleansing machine! Dagger/dagger will now have 4 blast finishers in addition to easy access to combo fields!

And now, water. Flow like water is being changed in PvP and WvW only, it now heals you on evade more frequently, and it also lets you do 5% more damage baseline, and 10% more damage if you are above 50% HP. If you, like me, are a tank weaver enjoyer, then this change is exciting! I already dodge so much on that build, now I get rewarded for doing so more frequently? This build has seen nothing but incidental buffs in these last few patches, and I'm LIVING for it. Soothing ice buffs are nice, they now trigger on healing skill use and can trigger every 15 seconds. It should be noted that unless you are using ether renewal, playing alac tempest, or using the weaver healing skill, this cooldown reduction does not matter as all other healing skills have a 20 second cooldown. Soothing power buff is neat, healers can have an extra 300 vitality, as a treat.

Tempest! They wanted to incentivize people to play power tempest, so they buffed the power scaling on the air overload, and also made it grant fury. Neat! They also increased the amount of might that "Feel the Burn" gives, and it also gives fury. Fire warhorn 4 now always gives fury to allies, because it gives fury to yourself before copying boons! Neat! As for the traits, your boon duration no longer suffers at low health with gathered focus, and you grant allies stability anytime you overload with hardy conduit.

Weaver. I already covered the dual attack changes to scepter, so the only real change is that in PvE, Twist of Fate is still the best in slot stunbreak for weavers, they just lowered the cooldown on it, keeping it in line with the rest of ele cooldowns.

Catalyst. While most of the exciting changes to catalyst have been covered when I talked about dagger, I want to reiterate that you are probably going to see a lot more d/d catalyst roamers. It's still one of the most difficult builds to play well, but these recent changes are going to make it a lot more rewarding to play. The updates to the air and earth augments are nice too. Air augment gets a lower cooldown, keeping it in line with the rest of the stunbreaks, and the earth augment gets a shorter cooldown too, cementing it's place as a best-in-slot defensive utility.

#gw2 #gw2 balance changes #elementalist

2 notes · View notes

gaybananabreaad · 7 months ago

Note

If Knock was in Smash, what would their kit be? Smash attacks, recovery, taunts, grabs, Final Smash, shield break animation, stuff like that? Curious on what their quotes would be for different stuff too like being hit with light/heavy attacks, getting knocked out, victory quotes and all that too, but if this is all too much for one ask I totally get it!

Okay so this is actually an awesome question, and you bet your ass I'm gonna spend a shit ton of time on this. It's gonna be a bit tough since unlike most Smash characters, Knock doesn't have much recognizable... Anything really. But I mean, anything is better than Sonic's 5000 different spindashes.

So first of all, let's get the basics down first. Knock is the definition of a glass cannon. She's a lightweight with poor recovery, but she hits like a semi truck.

Her hitbox would be pretty similar to Sonic, since y'know mobians, a bit taller but that's about it.

She would hit hard, like Bowser level even. Not as fast as Sonic, obviously, but still pretty speedy. I'd say Robin is a good example of her speed, and her run animation would be long, powerful strides.

Now like I said, the drawback to her strength and speed is her weight, she's like Sheik.

NOW TO THE FUN PART, THE MOVES

Jab - Three pretty fast punches forward, each increasingly more powerful, followed by a quick and pretty strong kick.

Up tilt - Knock does a small leap straight upwards with an uppercut. Not very powerful, but fast and has some serious knockback. A great finisher.

Down tilt - Knock does almost a breakdance style leg sweep. Not super powerful, but fast with very little lag.

Forward tilt - Knock leans down towards the ground, and then does a horse kick in the direction she’s facing. Think of it like Sonic’s Forward tilt but more powerful and a bit slower.

Forward aerial - Knock does a powerful dropkick forward, with a pretty big hitbox. The move has some ending lag, leaving Knock punishable during this.

Neutral aerial - Knock does a spin in the air and swings her fist around her in a circle. Very minimal lag, but also not super strong.

Back aerial - Knock turns around and throws an overhand punch, much like King K. Rool in his back aerial, but faster and with less lag. Not super powerful though.

Down aerial - Knock does a quick one leg stomp dive downwards, and meteor smashes if the enemy is directly hit by Knock’s foot. Very fast and has minimal lag.

Forward Smash - Knock gets a boxing glove onto her hand, and winds up a punch, kind of like how Sonic winds up his punch. The punch can do some big damage, but it has some ending and start-up lag. It also sends Knock in the direction she’s facing slightly after the attack.

Up Smash - Knock does a 540 kick, much like Captain Falcon does in his Up Smash. It has some okay vertical reach, and it hits hard, but it has very noticeable ending lag which makes it very punishable.

Down Smash - Knock hops up into the air, and then does a heavy elbow drop/slam directly down, which stops until Knock either hits an opponent or ground. It is uncancellable. A pretty solid ability for edge guarding, though also a risky one since it’s a KO for you if you miss.

Dash attack - Knock leaps forward, and does a flying kick in the direction she’s going. It’s a pretty fast attack with minimal lag, but which doesn’t hit that hard.

Grabs

Grab - Knock grabs the opponent by their neck and holds them up (or downwards, if they happen to be taller). The grab is pretty fast, but has a very short range.

Pummel - Knock does a low punch to the gut, like a bully taking my lunch money. Ow.

Forward Throw - Knock swings the opponent around her before throwing them forward.

Back Throw - Knock jumps up and throws the opponent behind her by swinging them underneath her mid-air.

Up Throw - Knock lets go of the opponent for a split second before executing a double kick that sends the opponent straight up.

Down Throw - Knock goes in for a roundhouse kick that bashes the opponent onto the ground.

Edge Attack - Knock jumps up from the edge with a quick leg sweep.

Specials

Neutral Special - Knock leans down and picks up a small rock, before throwing it in the direction she’s facing. The move has a little bit of start-up lag, and doesn’t do much. Basically just her one ranged choice.

Side Special - Knock lunges forward, and quickly bites the air. If an opponent is hit by this bite, they will not only take a heavy hit, but also get poisoned. This is important for Knock’s moveset, as it gives her a solid way to do damage over time.

Up Special - Knock jumps up into the air with a backflip, and does a sweep kick around her. A very strong attack with a lot of start-up lag.

Down Special - Knock crouches down, and crosses her arms in front of her face as a block for a second. If an opponent tries to hit her during this, Knock counterattacks with a quick leg sweep that leads to an overhand punch that stuns the opponent for 2 seconds. This attack is similar to Little Mac’s down special.

Final Smash - So this was a bit tough, since most characters in Smash have a recognizable move as their final smash. I was thinking of maybe being lazy and just making Super Knock, but I refuse to give any of my OCs super forms. So, I came up with something. Knock lets out a battle cry, before running forward in a straight line. “ARE YA READY TO RUMBLE?!” Every opponent hit by her along the way is thrown into a cinematic boxing arena, where Knock beats the everloving shit out of them, absolutely walloping on ‘em, kicks and punches, before finally the screen zooms in on her fist, and with a final, incredibly powerful uppercut, sends the opponents flying! This final smash is harder to hit than most of the others, but it is always a guaranteed KO.

And now some miscellaneous stuffs!

Appearance - Knock lands on the battlefield from the sky, superhero landing style!

Idle animation - Knock blows her hair tuft up from in front of her eyes.

Up Taunt - Knock confidently flexes her arms. “Come on, then!”

Side Taunt - Knock bursts into a laugh, crouching down while trying to contain her laughter. Oh, and she has a snort laugh.

Down Taunt - Knock plays the air guitar! “Woo! Let’s do this!”

Victory Screen 1 - Knock does the rock-on hand symbol while eating a chili dog. “Hah! Didn’t even put up a fight!”

Victory Screen 2 - Knock cracks her knuckles before doing a sick backflip. “That’s it? Hah!”

Victory Screen 3 - Knock adjusts the cuff on her glove, before turning to face the camera and punching it. The camera is now facing Knock from a downwards angle, with her looking down at it. “Give me a challenge next time, will ya?”

OH AND For the music in the victory screens, I know the music would probably be just the Sonic level clear music BUT I had to also throw Junker Queen’s theme from Overwatch in here since she’s Knock’s voice claim and I feel the theme works for her a lot.

Alternate Costumes - I don’t have much ideas for this, but one of the recolors should be colored like Surge just for their similar designs.

Kirby hat - Knock’s ponytail, ears and hair tuft.

Shield Break Animation - Knock holds her head and struggles to keep standing as the cartoony stars float around her head.

I didn’t have much else for quotes since most characters in Smash Bros have just grunts and screams for their moves, and also because I suck ass at dialogue lmao. So Knock just grunts and screams when anything happens.

THIS WAS A TIME CONSUMING ONE BUT MAN I HAD FUN WITH IT!!! I would not be against doing this with other OCs in the future :>

Thank you for the question!

2 notes · View notes

purplekoop · 1 year ago

Text

A reprieve from the rabbid posting for more on those other funny guys with guns. No, not the actually popular ones.

So I've shown Poppett and explained her basic kit, explaining her to be the mobile close-range damage specialist of the cast, but when going back to touch it up tonight I think I've ended up making her one of the most technical characters in the cast.

Her basic weapon, the Blitzum Launcher, is simple: it's like a Splatoon Blaster, at least one of the more rapid-fire types, though it still has notable gaps between shots. This can be alleviated briefly with its alt fire, which lets you queue up to 3 shots to fire quickly in much more rapid fashion for a quick burst.

Her accessory, Bubblegum Bomb, is also pretty basic. She throws a gummy explosive that sticks to terrain, then after a short delay it explodes, doing a small chunk of extra damage and applying a sticky muck to enemies that slows their movement for a few seconds

It's her movement abilities that make things get a little nutty. Her basic normal movement ability is Pop Dash, a solid burst of movement that launches her forward, and can be aimed up or down to alter her trajectory. The ability is on a fairly short cooldown and has two charges, but getting a kill will refund one of these charges. The burst of speed is solid, but is lost pretty quickly once you hit the ground... unless...

Poppett has two "passive" movement abilities also enabled by her roller blades: Wall Ride and Roller Slide. Hold Crouch or Jump next to a wall to ride it, sliding along with your current momentum. You can also jump off the wall to gain a burst of speed in the opposite direction. Roller Slide meanwhile is performed by crouching on the ground with significant extra speed in any direction, or down a slope. Roller Slide has the benefit of maintaining your existing momentum, and also lowering your hitbox, while not limiting your ability to perform other actions like aim and shoot. These small mechanics (in theory at least) allow you to take bursts of speed and potentially extend them much farther and more fluidly than other characters.

There's also two alternate roller blade options which augment what her movement is capable of. The Air Riders trade one of your dash charges and the ground slide for a more potent single dash and a double jump that can maintain or alter your midair momentum. Meanwhile, the Heel Boosters replace the sudden burst of movement with a less extreme constant boost to forward movement (including while sliding and wall riding) limited by a meter that recharges gradually when not in use. You can even charge the boost in advance for a Sonic-like initial burst of speed by crouching.

The goal of these small movement mechanics alongside a more conventional burst movement option is to make an aggressive character that can make use of really expressive movement. Lucio Overwatch is (perhaps obviously) a big inspiration here, as his freeform movement is delightful, but feels somewhat wasted on a hero with mediocre damage and passive abilities that promote playing with his team, juxtaposed to a cooldown-free movement ability that encourages going wherever you want as fast as you want. Lucio rollouts are sick, but once you're there you don't exactly. Do much. A pro Lucio can disagree with me, but personally I wanted to give movement like his to a character that not only wants to get close, but outright needs to. Poppett's weapon has a hard limit to its range before the shots explode midair, so she has to get in close to be effective whatsoever. While I think basic big abilities would accomplish that playstyle, I really want the smaller mechanics to add a sense of flow that I think could be really cool and make Poppett one of the most rewarding and interesting characters to play.

This isn't a full character post yet, I didn't go in-depth on her weapon and accessory choices, but just my random late night ramblings that occured to me when refining my notes.

#koop's oc stuff #war bots #poppett #poppett war bots #yes I'm doing character tags now #living my cringe #or something

2 notes · View notes

spinningbuster98 · 1 year ago

Video

youtube

Mega Man Zero 4 Part 2: Laughing Death in the face

Pegasolta ain’t exactly the easiest boss in the game, due to having to fight him over a bottomless pit with wind pushing you in different directions and the man himself spending some time off screen. Hitting him with his weakness also requires lots of precision and timing because he can dodge attacks at the last second.

I actually quite like Heat Genblem’s stage, it’s essentially a better version of Mattrex’s from X5 and you just gotta love Zero’s nonchalance at plunging headfirst into the barrell of an active giant particle beam

The boss himself is tricky due to the way he often dodges at the last second and his really precise hitbox, especially during that attack when he retreats into his shell.

Then you have the mid-game stages and I sure hope you found a Sub Tank in one of the previous stages because Kraft is fucking tough, with a plethora of attacks that move at insane speeds. You can actually destroy most of the stuff he flings at you before it hits you but good luck figuring that out on your own in the midst of all this shit!

What follows is one of my favorite moments in the series: Zero telling off the humans of the settlement

Yeah sure Zero is a good guy and he’s not gonna change his mind about wanting to save these people in need,but he also won’t hesitate to speak his mind when he sees those same people acting like cowards and being willing to let one of their friends, who helped them so much, die just to save their own skins. He doesn’t mince his words, he calls them a bunch of cowards and, most importantly, this makes them reflect upon their actions and change for the better. And Zero holds no hard feelings afterwards: he tells Neige that the settlement sent him to rescue her, which is only half true since he doesn’t mention their initial attitude, most likely because he doesn’t want any unneccessary drama to spew forth again

What I like the most about Zero 4′s story is that it works as a sort of anti-misanthropy message.

Weil is a raging misanthrope and he doesn’t try to hide it, not in the previous game and certainly not here . He hates people for the punishment he (rightfully) suffered 100 years ago and believes that concepts such as justice and heroism are little more than masks and excuses that people use to hide their natural hypocrisy and cruelty, in reality not being all that much better than he is only they’re being liars about it. Now under his rule, not to mention after all the shit that came before, the people start acting in a way that seems to prove him right in a sense: they act cowardly, with prejudice, willing to stab each other in the back

Then there’s Kraft: once a noble hero (although just how noble is questionable since he’s described as a warrior of Neo Arcadia who used to defend humans, which sounds just like the Four Guardians who also had no qualms about killing innocent Reploids if they felt it would benefit humans, but at the very least Kraft doesn’t seem cruel and he genuinely loves Neige so he certainly wasn’t evil per se before Weil came into the picture), now a willing pawn because he’s been led to believe that there’s no hope left in a world under Weil and they should all lie down and take it and just hope it all ends as painlessly as possible

However Zero’s actions (and especially words) manage to wake up the humans of the settlement, forcing them to look back on their behaviour and start changing for the better, even starting to accept reploids as equals for the first time in centuries

Niege’s words will also have an effect on Kraft...though one that will be much more complicated...

On another topic boy does the Part system suck!

In Zero 3 you obtained chips by either finding them in the stages or after defeating specific bosses

Here they want you to build them by grinding and combining specific parts dropped by enemies

The issue is that you need to know HOW to combine them to get what you want, and for this you need part recipes, which can only be obtained by talking to certian NPCs at certain points in the game

Even then most recipies are just not told to you in any way and you will need to go over to the Internet to find out how to build the actual good stuff

And even THEN in can be a grind to get the materials you need!

Yeah I don’t even bother, it’s not like you absolutely need parts in order to complete the game, i’ve done so without them many times

It’s just the epitome of this game’s very confusing design decisions

#youtube #mega man #mega man zero 4 #my gameplay

3 notes · View notes

dozen-arrows-in-my-chest · 2 years ago

Note

Hey lune! How’s is feel to be a vex? A little guy? A little menace? How’s is feel to be tiny

"Eh, it's not bad. Walking takes too long as smol as I am, but while flying is pretty good to get around quicker turning is a nightmare. I think I need some more time to figure that out."

With so little time since the potion hit her, she definitely needs some more practice. There are no smooth movements as she dips in height frequently and has to stop dead in her path to change the direction she flies in- her flight pattern resembling that of a drunk butterfly rather than a little spirit.

"I didn't fight anything yet, but a small hitbox like that should be really good at avoiding attacks, yeah? I'll probably still die somehow. How strong are Vexes? With that size I doubt I hit hard."

Maybe she'll go and hit some villagers or innocent animals with her spoon-sized shovel to test the theory.

// Vex!Lune 3/?

#while describing her flight controls I just uncover supressed memories of awful plane flash games of mine #most frustrating strings of code #Vex!Lune #minecraft #lune #ask #ask blog #my art #potion panic event

9 notes · View notes

mzhydes-funtimes · 4 days ago

Text

Aight going back to my sonic game idea

I really enjoy when games, especially platformers have two abilities (other than jumping) to their characters

For example how megaman x, at least the boss rush section of the legacy collection has two attacks: your boss weapon/mega buster and zero's sword, a long range and a short range. Now sonic is pretty simple so none of the characters need that much complexity however i do think we can borrow from this.

We'll take knuckles, for example, i think punching could be a useful skill, especially for taking on bosses, and, before i start on downsides for an extra skill I'll explain how this would work: you have three required buttons: Spin Dash (B), Jump (A), and with this addition, Action (X). For knuckles specifically, he would have Spin Dash with B, Jump with A, then A in midair to Glide, which can stick to walls, which leaves him vunerable but can climb to get to hard to reach areas. Then X would be Punch which would knock enemies back a little while knuckles moves forward a little and can defeat enemies in half the hits a jump would do. Now the downsides to these actions, still using knuckles is it slows him down to a near stop, and can be hit from behind, and if he's in a spin attack, it takes him out of it, for example you hit x in the middle of a spin jump you come out of the spin jump, pressing A again will put you back in the spin jump, but its more to incentivize "use this on the ground to take care of enemies to scout your surroundings" or use it on a boss to keep yourself safe while dealing damage to the boss.

Taking from each characters movesets as listed in my last post about this we could have

Sonic with his midair action being insta-shield when near an enemy and homing attack when no enemies are near him, and his Attack Action (X action) being Light Dash allowing him to get to places only following a trail of rings could get but he can be damaged while doing it causing him to fail the dash.

Knuckles i already explained

Tails has Spin Dash and Fly as his midair action, we could make his Tail Spin from SADX (to distinguish from advance since its the same abbreviation) his Action with he can hit in front and behind him but he is vunerable from above, below and projectiles (but knuckles would also be i just forgot about projectiles until just now lol) and he wouldnt be able to move while performing it, but he would also be able to perform it while moving, just halfing his momentum and wouldnt be able to move while using it (due to the fact that you could just spam this at full speed and be practically unstoppable due to it lasting about a second so losing momentum wouldnt really matter so to combat this and make it mechanally different to amy rose instead of amy just being a superior version of this skill i decided that this would be the change to differenciate it)

Amy is really easy. Midair would bring out her hammer giving the spin a larger hitbox then her action would stop ALL movement but would deal damage all around her except below her, similar to how she behaves in SADX except instead of just being in front of her, its also above and behind her (the hammer attack in SADX sucks lol)

Mighty would have what he already has, (A) midair to do a slam attack similar to sonics Stomp attack in Generations, his new Action would be to curl up in his shell as a shield similar to that as in smash bros but would hvae the fuctionality of kirby's Guard skill where the longer you do it the weaker it gets and you start to get pushed around and eventually take damage if held for too long.

Espio wouldnt have a midair action but instead that gets replaced with a new skill, if he falls while running or runs into a wall(thats at an angle that you normally wouldnt be able to run up) he'll run up it like knuckles climbing but he has to continue going fast or he falls, similar to sonic in SADX. His Action would be a Shuriken from SH BUT it goes straight and when it hits a wall it becomes a temporary semi-solid platform he can stand on, unless it hits an enemy in which case itll immediately disappear and insta-kill the enemy.

Vector would be similar to knuckles and also Trip with having a circle jump instead of a spin jump (theyre functionally the same as a spin jump) and as vector's midair he can glide, BUT he cant climb walls so he can pretty much stay in midair for a long time and keeps his running speed in midair but cant climb walls. His Action ability would be taken from SH and he would spit his gum out similar to Espios shuriken but wont create a platform.

Cream the Rabbit would also be able to fly just the same as tails. For her action, however, cheese would attack the nearest enemy to cream, it deals only half the damage a spin jump would but if youre surrounded spamming would be effective or use it to cheese bosses (Cheese bosses hehe)

Shadow would be almost the same as sonic except his Action would be Chaos Spear, the downside to this being that its a projectile that hits where an enemy was when initially fired (or straight ahead) but shadow is in a prone state (in in a spin) when he does it but he would also have a meter that, when filled he could use chaos control, freezing the whole stage for 10 seconds

These last three i have no clue on their Action button but i have some idea of them

Blaze is probably the most unique one on here. Instead of a spin dash she would get a meter that starts full and would refill with rings and defeating enemies with Boost. Her midair would be a homing attack as well, but ONLY a homing attack, and her Action attack would be... not entirely sure but something to do with fire, would love some feedback

Ray would have his midair be, essentially Brawl Meta Knight, as it is in Mania, however i dont know what his action could be

Charmy is honestly the hardest character to figure out, he doesnt have many skills to pull from and he's honestly the smallest playable character in any sonic game, so i genuinely have no clue, he's the stand in for tails in Knuckles Chaotix so most of his abilities are from tails and his only other playable game is heroes where his only unique skill is he can pollenate flowers, so if anyone has any ideas to make charmy unique, please, be my guest

There are a few characters that dont have a 2d appearance so they probably cant be included those being: Big the Cat, all E-1000 series, particularly gamma (whos dead so he cant be included) and Omega, Rouge the Bat, Silver the Hedgehog, and, the least favorite of all of these characters, Sticks the Badger, but i do think if given a proper characterization she could thrive

#sonic the hedgehog #cami hydes blabbering #ive been writing this post for like an hour now

1 note · View note

yblis-gaymer-reviews · 7 months ago

Text

Dark Cloud Review!! [PS2]

[Emulated][I did not play this game on its intended platform]

[These are entirely my personal opinions and observations]

Overall ratting: 7/10

Spoilers ahead! [I have played through 10 levels of the first dungeon for the purpose of this review :3]

Cutscenes: 8/10

All of the cutscenes are pretty nice and entertaining. But oh god. Oh my fucking God. WHY IS THE INTRO CUTSCENE SO LONG. SWEAR TO GOD I WAS SO BORED DURING THE DANCE SEQUENCE 😭😭

Other than that, they are quite good!

Character Designs: 9/10

Fun and fitting for a kid's game

Bonus points for not sexualizing the catgirl!! Her design is cute and fitting and no unessary sexyness here!

The white haired antagonist is so edgy I felt middle school me there jdjaxbak

Controls: 6/10

THIS CAMERA CONTROLS ARE ATROCIOUS, so. slow. don't even try to move it, just use square instead to focus enemies and good luck

It always seems to have a lag behind after you press a button. It takes forever to respond

It was very 50/50 when it came to how intuitive buttons are. It took me awile to get used to using the quick menu for items

The shitty c��mera controls have made me lose so many times I actualy considered giving up on the game

Its a situation of "get used to it" jank that I do NOT like and would very much rather not go through

Gameplay: 8/10

The Gameplay loop is mostly what keeps me coming back to it.

I enjoy watching the houses be complete and the people start to wander

I do plan on filling everyone's house placement request, but I am a bit lazy for now lmao

I really enjoy the weapon system and I am pumped to build up one of them!

The way the resorces are put is very fun but I do think the thirst mechanic is a bit pointless. It seems to be an atempt to add dificulty and it fails at its ONLY job.

The game straight up does not tell you about things like the power of the little ponds/springs around the cave. It was quite the nightmare to navigate everything before I accidentaly went into one

Bat and ghost hitboxes are so fucking stupid when they're flying. Now, its already hard to hit without locking in the câmera, but to try and hit the bats/ghost while they're flying it just unfair. The hitboxes simply are janky

I hate the Poison mechanic. Its well done and objectively adds a fair and well balanced dificulty the game bebefits from. Im just fucking tired of the janky bar hitboxes that keep making me get bit by them

The quick time events felt like they came out of nowhere, but they work perfectly and look rather cool if you ask me, so I really don't mind them

Bugs & Glitches: 5/10

I have gotten soft locked twice so far.

One when at the start of the game the mayor did not trigger the extra resorces he gives you, so I kept dying on the second floor like and idiot. so I had to restart the game

Other when unlocking the cat. I restored the house, but no event trigered. Had to again restart it

I am not ususaly this harsh, but 2 soft locks and one at the begining of the game is just unacceptable

Closing thoughts

I really like the game overall, it makes me want to die sometimes for all the wrong reasons, which is not ideal, but the Gameplay loop is enjoyable

Although I don't think I would ever stop to play nearly as often as I do if this wasn't being emulated on a hand held device honestly

#gaming #ps2 #ps2 nostalgia #Dark cloud #Dark cloud game #Dark Cloud ps2 #game review #video games #videogame review

0 notes

moonpool-system · 1 year ago

Note

OUR CHANCE IS HERE!!!

Celeste is literally the game that started our system journey, and anon is not only right but is putting things lightly - they're expressly a system, it's just about as explicit as it can get without the two directly using internal communication to speak. Ingame, Badeline is actually known as "Part of Me", and is introduced as gaining a body due to the Mountain's power. It's important to remember she's only physically separated from Madeline because Celeste Mountain itself is expressly causing it.

Here's a quote from her first introductory conversation with Madeline:

Clearly indicating that she existed before the Mountain's power and it gave her a body, and that she was previously frustrated at being trapped within Madeline.

She then says "We need a hobby, but this..."

'"Us." "We."

Badeline is depicted not just as a part of Madeline but as a person in of herself, with her own wants, thoughts, opinions, and fears, often contrasting Madeline's, and their relationship is ever-changing. What's even more amazing is that it seems self aware, touching on many beats and roadblocks we and many other people struggle with when it comes to members similar to her. It really hits home.

Not only that, but the gameplay is probably the most accessible I've ever seen in a platformer, especially a precision one. From the lightning fast reloading times with basically no backtracking, to the way it catches you a few frames out from the ledge even if you didn't get close, to small hitboxes where I can basically stick my head in the spikes and still be fine, to an extremely simple core moveset that's easy to memorize and can be mapped to any buttons. It's the only platformer I've ever played with this range of an insanely low skill floor and the mind-blowingly high skill ceilings of optional and modded maps. There're also FOUR different ways Badeline is integrated into the gameplay herself! And if all that is still a bit too hard, there's an accessibility mode on top of that. This game is accessibility first, and it feels like it WANTS you to reach the top of that mountain. The devs care, and they understand.

The two go through a beautiful and poignant dance of growth and acceptance, the most realistic and touching depiction of plurality I've ever seen in my entire life, to this day. This game's storyline is incredible, so I'll put a couple other spoilery pieces of evidence for their explicit plurality under the cut.

Madeline & Badeline's plurality goes way beyond headcanon, her plurality and learning to work with herselves healthily is the central focus of the game. (Did I mention Madeline is canonically trans?) It's 100% worth checking out, especially since it's indie, real cheap for its quality, and available on basically every platform!

As for spoilery evidence...

Throughout most of the game, Madeline has red-orange hair and the power to use a single dash ability, shown to be used by her hair changing to be blue. However, once she and Badeline agree to work together...

We see Badeline physically disappear, now joining Madeline's body, and her hair turns pink as she "levels up" - this is the only time this happens in the game, so presumably this level is from 1 to 2? Speaking of from 1 to 2, Madeline now has two dashes due to Badeline's influence, effectively doubling her abilities because her system member is now right there with her, helping her climb.

This feels like a metaphor for the type of integration we see in healthy multiplicity where system members retain their identities. It's less about becoming one person, and more about connecting on an instinctive level and working as a team. They even still talk to each other later, so they don't just become one person!

When they reach the peak...

Madeline echoes Badeline's fears of not being able to communicate physically anymore.

Badeline is scared to lose this body she's been given by the Mountain's power, not losing her consciousness.

When you share a body, you have to depend on the host sometimes to listen to you, and that trust can be terrifying - it's poignant to Badeline's character arc to be expressing this herself. She says she can't go back to how it was before, once again reassuring the concept that she was self aware and feeling before the Mountain separated her.

After they climb down the mountain, Madeline's friend Theo calls her name and asks her if she reached the top. In response, Badeline appears physically and Madeline says...

"We."

as for fictional systems, a decent number of people headcanon madeline/badeline from celeste as a system!

Gotta add Celeste to my list of things I want to do now! (I already knew it was supposed to be a great game, but now it's a great plural game too.)

And looking at all the adorable Badeline and Madeline art here on Tumblr makes me want it even more! 😁

#prism #pluralpunk #celeste #system infodumping

137 notes · View notes

bigprettygothgf · 1 year ago

Note

what's your opinion of the malenia fight? i know you've bodied her like totally so you have some actual insight but idr seeing if you ever spoke in depth about it

i kept going back and forth on it but at the end of the day i think i really like it, to me presentation has always mattered a slight bit more than actual gameplay when it comes to bosses in these games (which is part of why i love oceiros so much even tho that boss gameplay wise is meh at best and a janky mess at worst) and she soars in that regard, that transition cutscene is 👌👌👌

and i do actually enjoy the fight itself too, correctly reacting to her is extremely satisfying once you get the hang of how her ai works. my issues with her mostly come down to how big of an impact difference in rolling weight makes on her, an issue that has never really existed to a meaningful capacity on any prior boss. you are at a noticeable disadvantage if youre not lightrolling. not that mid rolling is like impossible or whatever but it will make several things she does more annoying. take her triple slash she does for example, if you dont roll into her at medium weight it will hit you, a problem that doesnt exist when lightrolling. her spirit attack in phase 2 also becomes significantly more difficult to avoid. and then ofc theres waterfowl. the only thing i actually dislike about it is that first hitbox. its stupid. i dont have a problem with moves that are difficult to dodge, thats a good and necessary thing in hard fights, the problem is that the way to avoid that first hit isnt even remotely intuitive and unless you get lucky yourself most people are just not gonna wanna bothering figuring out how youre actually supposed to avoid it without someone else showing them how, and i cant blame them. a lot of people greatly exaggerated how bad it (and malenia in general) is in the weeks and months following elden ring's release but that doesnt change the fact that the first hit is still kind of ridiculous

oh theres also the fact that she cheats and can for some reason just interrupt and armor through your punishes but that annoys me less as time goes on. its whatever. it happens infrequently enough that it doesnt really piss me off

but anyway shes fine, idk about being one of the best but ill admit my perspective is a little skewed thanks to the aforementioned frequent bodying lol

#mansematu

15 notes · View notes

ashlynniis-bracketeers · 2 years ago

Photo

“Hey, Sharon? I think your husband has rabies-”

“-Aaaaand she’s joining in with a sword.”

I found this line (links to a clip) from Xrd, when Slayer wins against Axl. If his accent is hard to understand:

“Opponents who fight at range are my natural foe, and I confess I may have therefore lost my temper. Are you able to stand?”

Translation: “Due to my dedication to fisticuffs for sportsmanship’s sake, zoners/ranged/keep-away fighters make me noticeably tilted, so my apologies for any unneeded salt aimed towards you, Axl.”

I found myself maining Slayer in +R and Xrd (though I’m not any good at him sahdkasd), and I find myself getting smoked by... any opponent with range/projectiles (Robo-Ky, Dizzy, Answer, Sol, etc.), really. I’m a scrub. Slayer admits feeling such a way himself in that voiceline hsajkdghs. He doesn’t say it at Elphelt (i.e. polite to ladies), but he says this to Axl. Axl. Just Axl.

Now we have Strive. And in Strive, we have... Happy Chaos. Who uses a gun and who is maligned even by people who play him for fostering an extremely hated “Red Light/Green Light Guardcrush loop you from fullscreen lol” nonsense playstyle, and who’s notoriously cocky and probably not owed much in the name of formality by his enemies jgdaydsg. I do not like fighting Happy Chaos as-is as a Faust main: I can at least respect Rushdown HCs for being honest to GG’s “Gorilla Gaming” thing, but fullscreen zoner HCs neeD TO GET THE HELL OVER HERE-

Slayer’s big weaknesses are his lack of ranged options and the fact that he’s slow (he has an invincible teleport in place of a ground run, though it can be cancelled into jump/moves to give them invulnerability), which is a recipe for disaster against a Zoner Happy Chaos. Giovanna may have no ranged options, but her thing is speed (proper run + unique dash + momentum) which allows her to close distance with proper dash-FCing and a weird standing hitbox. Slayer... doesn’t have that. He’s supposed to fish for Counter-hits to multiply his already eye-watering damage (i.e. his nickname as “The first Strive character” despite not being in Strive yet lmao), shove his enemy in a corner, make them afraid to press buttons with his staggers and frame data, and beat them into the dirt. He admits to feeling salty fighting just Mr. Chain-Sickle Axl Low. You... see where this is going, right?

I have a feeling that Slayer would not like fighting Happy Chaos. Not one bit.

Anyways, I hope you like it!

Original template this is based on below.

#meme #memes #Brackets Draws #Brackets's Art #Brackets Memes #Guilty Gear #Slayer #Guilty Gear Slayer #GG Slayer #Happy Chaos #Guilty Gear Happy Chaos #GG Happy Chaos #lmao

26 notes · View notes

phoenix-is-the-hottest-thing · 3 years ago

Text

ok so PSA for those of us who have been personally victimized by Husk Nihilus in ER:

If you give up the floor, it's actually a pause button, not a failure. (do NOT click "give up and finalize", that is the real admit defeat button. you'll have to start over.)

In a pinch? hit pause. hit give up. confirm. you get back to the main screen but you can continue from the beginning of the floor. I assume the intention is for players to not lose all progress if something comes up? no more excuses to miss diner, folks.

By doing this, instead of restarting from the beginning, you can restart from the floor you were just on. For example the Nihilus floor. You will be stuck with your signets and the health you had going in.

You can exploit this to beat ER easier. This works with every single floor.

ER registers whether you failed a floor when you get the "Defeat" screen. If your HP hits zero but you didn't get it yet, you CAN still hit pause and give up and restart the floor. You're likely to have the computer be faster than you, though, so I recommend playing it safe and giving up whenever your HP is too low for comfort or your timer is too close to 0.

End of timer is automatic loss. No grace period. You lose immediately. The hard give up cheat limit on the timer is 1s. You have a liiiittle more leeway on HP, but barely (probably related to the death animation).

I have not tested whether you can reroll portals with this exploit, but I doubt it.

Note (edited): I have been told that if you win the floor but don’t go through the portal, you can replay it. Good way to get a bonus signet you missed! You keep the same portals though.

Will this make Nihilus (or the subsequent Elysia/Mobius) easier to beat? No. But you'll get a lot more practice in, pick up on their patterns better, and save a ton of time and motivation.

Note 2: sometimes if you replay the same floor over and over you'll get lucky and bug the AI. There was a couple times Elysia forgot to attack me. Sadly without dodging her hits I didn't have enough damage to kill her............. pain.

Boss specific advice under the cut.

Nihilus specific advice:

- Start the floor by dodging. It ALWAYS starts off full heelies yeeting into you like, thrice, your camera won't keep up, and it hits super hard.

- Overall maybe get VK in there to do damage for you and distract it while you run away screaming. (I did that. I use Raven. She's squishy.)

- Unless your damage output is REALLY nice, you probably can't afford to focus on the IMG mobs so just... ignore them.

- Watch out for img taint and the bullets of the mobs.

- If you think you dodged Nihilus's hit, keep running. The hitbox is usually a stupidly wide circle.

- If you've never fought Nihilus anywhere else and keep dying early, look up its patterns, there's a special phase where you have to break a bunch of gears and you need to be prepared to deal with that and fast. Whittling down its HP is not gonna be enough on this one. The faster you break the gears the less HP you'll have to hurt it through all over again.

- When that golden phase starts, run away, it might hit you midway and kill you (talking from experience). When you go back in make sure to dodge the clock hands.

Elysia specific advice:

- You fight her after a cutscene on the secret floor immediately after Nihilus. She always appears a bit far away off to the side instead of right in front. Watch out.

- Watch your health and watch the timer or you'll have to beat up Nihilus all over again. I cannot stress this enough. Fight Elysia super cautious unless you want to have to beat Nihilus all over again. This won't matter nearly as much after you beat her in story because she's a secret boss.

- You can move a little before the cutscene starts, so if you have Jingwei's Wings you CAN heal right away if you're quick enough.

- I'm 90% sure Hua signets buffs are accumulating during the cutscene so waiting through it is actually good for you. Someone test it pls I'll rectify if I'm wrong.

- Unless you're doing ludicrous damage, your fail condition isn't dying to her, it's her self heal after she hits you enough to fill the transformation bar. You'll know if she starts pulling pink light from you. She heals TONS and FAST and drains your SP, you'll prolly lose to the timer if she does it.

- If you're concerned about losing out on cutscene save: You can skip the Mei power walk CG without any consequence whatsoever, the rest is rapid click through.

- Unfortunately, Elysia's tower crystal thingies are tough to break, so get really good at dodging because you probably can't afford to take your eyes off of her.

- The crystal towers WILL distract any summoned valks you have, so try to summon them away from them if you need them to mob Ely herself.

- If you wanna break them crystal lazer towers, ideally you want Elysia to spawn them all very close to each other. You can achieve this by sticking close to the first she summons when she charges up that attack— it always appears next to you.

- Most important bit: you do really need to dodge her arrows. They're hard to notice normally and almost impossible to spot once the battlefield turns into utter chaos. I'm sorry.

#psa #hi3 #honkai impact #elysian realm

55 notes · View notes

zydrateacademy · 3 years ago

Text

Current Activities on Elden Ring #4

Minor spoilers about one of the six endings, but not in great detail. Here I was starting a CA series on Elden Ring but after 192 hours played (maybe a few of those are afking in menus), I might be winding down. I’ve been playing my Astrologer and the gameplay is exhausting. I do not understand how people consider magic in ER (or often, in any souls) to be “easy mode”. Even with the speedier casting talisman, at the 60 INT cap with a +10 staff, the stuff in the crumbling whatever endgame zone... I only do so much damage before the enemies close the distance and 3-shot me. I’ve literally just had to respec her into Rivers of Blood like my main just so I can kill anything. People say to use rock sling and abuse the AI from jumping around and there’s a few problems with that; 1) Cool, but one or two of my rocks hit a wall so I’m only doing a fraction of the damage. 2) It takes an hour to cast, allowing the enemy to dodge and close the distance. 3) Even at 45 VIG (My main usually sitting on 60), she’s so much squishier than everyone else because there’s less points in Endurance so she’s wearing robes and shit. 4) Can’t dodge when in the middle of casting rock sling or comet azur. I’ve seen youtube videos of azur doing amazing things but I guess in my hands it means nothing. I pop the 15 second no-fp potion, cast, and the enemy will just twitch out of the way because the hitboxes are amazingly precise so it just goes under the dragon’s wing or something. Also it doesn’t even do that much damage in comparison to say, the more mundane rock sling (when all 3 ever bother to hit). I’ve tried multiple different spells. The Carian greatsword spell does have some aoe capabilities but that only seems to be useful against trash mobs (basic wolves, imps, etc). Basically any time spent casting is time spent not dodging away from the enemies, so despite her high vigor she’s just taking so much more damage (in conjunction with her lower armor stats). I’ve played the endgame a couple times now and I know where some enemy popups are but there’s no preparing spells. No rune traps like in Skyrim. On RoB, I can prep my art of war and eke past the corner and hit mobs that are ready to pounce but my caster does not have that luxury. Every enemy can just close the distance if I try running back to a vantage point. It was fun for a little while but I think I just prefer my melee characters moving forward. I’m about to hit the end of the Frenzied Flame ending because I’m at 40/42 achievements, which is just that final ending and “Have all achievements” achievement. I haven’t 100%’d a game of this magnitude since Skyrim. It’s within my grasp but I’m frustrated with the caster playstyle. And she lacks some of the trinkets my main has because she did kind of make a beeline towards the endgame. Granted, I’m sure I could still do the Millicent stuff.

But my vacation week has come to a close, and I really want to try to get through the Crumbling Farum Azula because the Capital of Ash is a bit more straightforward and easier to summon assistance for. Once I beat the game on her, that’s basically it for casters for me. After that, I have a sort of casual playthrough in mind. Wherein I try to deprogram the usual “gotta go here, do this, get this trinket, get this sword” because, just like my Skyrim days, it’s gotten a bit checklist-y. Not the game’s fault, it’s just a side effect of having beaten it 2.5 times, having 192 hours played across six or seven characters. I talked before in post #1 how I just kept rotating between alts because I’d find a cool greatsword, spell, seal, incantation, katana, or some faith scaling thing that each and every alt can’t individually use so I just kept hopping around. I am still working on a proper greatsword/colossal user but apparently of all the playstyles that’s basically the most “hard mode”. So maybe I just need to take the warrior girl I have, scale back my expectations and just start exploring the southern, pre-Atlus areas of the map and see what kind of cool loot she can acquire.

A lot of my gameplay has just become “See cool thing on wiki, do everything you can to go get that thing”. This game really shined in the first 20 hours when it was all new and different but now a cave is just another cave. Again, not it’s fault. Still a great game, highly recommend it. Very approachable for those new to the genre, and was shocked at what I was able to accomplish. As per mentioned in previous posts, I haven’t been able to solo -many- bosses outright, but yesterday I did the the likes of Maliketh, Fire Giant, Astel and a couple others on a NG+2 by myself without any summoned players for help. Still had my mimic tear with me the whole time, though. Some phase 2′s gave me trouble more than phase 1′s did, but I still managed it. Multiple times, and I did that. So pretty soon it will be shelved to await various DLC’s or updates. Hope they don’t completely gut my Rivers of Blood during this hiatus :P

#Elden Ring #Gaming #PC Gaming #FromSoftware #FromSoft

2 notes · View notes

corviigay · 4 years ago

Text

Things that I've learned so far while playing Dead by Daylight as a survivor

don't attempt to unhook yourself unless everybody else is hooked, you have a specific perk or you're the last person alive (not only do you buy other survivors time, but you also have such a low unhook chance already that it isn't really worth the risk)

this is purely circumstantial, but sometimes when you think the killer saw you, they really didn't. if they aren't looking directly at you, hold still and don't move or they will probably hear your movements before they see you.

hug walls during chases if you can. 'fake' vaulting can be useful if you want to try to make distance. watch the killer's red stain carefully.

camping pallets is very dangerous if you don't have fast reflexes (and DBD can have some wack hitboxes. lmfao)

if you start a match with other survivors, work on a gen with them- but don't stay with them. split up after the first gen or two to cover more ground.

unless the killer is a t-bag killer and friendly, do not spam crouch at them if you do not want to be tunneled. It isn't inherently friendly. they will not appreciate it.

pointing gesture: hey you / go away / boop / stop being a fucking fool or im gonna slap the shit out of you

wave gesture: follow me / come here / slap / feel free to hit me (@ killer)

NOED? wack

don't unhook near the killer unless you absolutely have to or if you have Borrowed Time

if killer's hook/proxy camping a survivor, just work on gens. more often than not you can pop a couple of gens while the killer's being busy wanting a single kill

if killer is not quite out of range or if you begin hearing their terror radius AND if you have a gen nearly complete (like...90%+), dedicate yourself to it if you can take a hit.

--- ------ ------ ------

Countering Killers (only consists of killers I've encountered a lot. I may come back and edit and add more as I improve)

Bubba [Leatherface]

if you can, jump in a locker if he charges up his chainsaw. probably the smartest decision you can make in this instance.

window vaulting is your friend if you have enough distance

don't don't don't go for an unhook near him. he'll just chainsaw and down you both.

BBQ & Chili? try to hide behind a gen's aura when he hooks somebody or hide in a locker while he picks up a survivor to hook them (unless you can help stun him or are in a short range)

cry a little bit if you get hooked in the basement

Sally [The Nurse]

Try to make chases unpredictable. She ends chases quickly with her blinks, try to juke her by pretending to run in one direction and then backtrack when she blinks (or run straight towards her as she blinks)

if it's a good nurse, you probably won't want to pallet slam unless she messes up and you get lucky.

Amanda [The Pig] 🧩🐷

boop her snoot!!! she might let you.

At 'unsafe' pallets, if she crouches, leave the pallet if you don't know how to counter it. In all likelihood if it's a good pig, she can juke you here. If you're confident in your abilities, you can try to throw down the pallet.

Try to use obstacles to block her ambush. Do not 360. 80% of the time it may not work because she's in control of her ambush and can turn right around with you.

Be vigilant, have a plan. Keep an eye on your surroundings.

Anna [The Huntress] 🪓🐰

While working on generators and you hear a max charge notification of her hatchet, stop repairing and crouch in case she's attempting to hit you. Your hitbox is bigger while you're repairing gens.

The above also can include healing others. Out of courtesy, if you can, take the hit for the survivor you were healing.

Study and become aware of her mind games- she will usually draw her hatchet at pallets and pressure you into slamming them or running. Try to make it hard for her to land these hits so she's forced into a m1 chase instead of using her throwing hatchets.

Please for the love of heck don't hide in a locker near her. She could find you by accident when reloading hatchets.

Tall loops are your friend. Long corridors are not your friend.

#dbd #deadbydaylight #dbdtips #icanalwaysbelearninghotobebetter #rank10survivor

32 notes · View notes

feralphoenix · 4 years ago

Text

BUT THAT DOESN’T MEAN YOU’RE NOT PREPARED TO TRY

if you’re following my blog or if you read my fanfiction, you may have seen me talking in tags or comments about how the radiance hollowknight was a pacifist. “feral, wtf?” you may have thought. “she’s the freaking final boss and tries really, really hard to kill you and all her attacks do 2 entire masks damage. where on earth do you get pacifism out of that???”

to you specifically i say, that’s an understandable reaction! the short version of how i got here was that i started thinking about the story implications of radi not inflicting contact damage and took a deep dive into game mechanics and lore. when i came up for air i had made myself Very Sad.

if this intrigues you and you would like to know more, come along with me, i am happy to point out the things i noticed and share the Big Sad around.

this essay is also available on dreamwidth for accessibility purposes, since my layout’s text may be too small for folks on pc with high-res screens.

CONTENT WARNING: This essay discusses pseudo-zombie plagues and associated body horror, colonialism and genocide, horrible things that happened in real life Australian history... you know, the usual topics that come up when I’m talking about Hollow Knight.

ADDITIONAL NOTICE: TPK fans of the “TPK meant well/was working for the greater good��/“TPK and Radi are equally bad”/“TPK is bad but Radi is worse” variety please give this one a pass, it ain’t for you.

finally if youre from a christian cultural upbringing (whether currently practicing, agnostic/secular, or atheist now), understand that some of what i’m discussing here may challenge you. if thinking thru the implications of this particular part of hollow knight worldbuilding/lore is distressing for you, PLEASE only approach this essay when youre in a safe mindset & open to listening, and ask the help of a therapist or anti-racism teacher/mentor to help you process your thoughts & feelings. just like keep in mind that youre listening to an ethnoreligiously marginalized person and please be respectful here or wherever else youre discussing this dang essay

BUT THAT DOESN’T MEAN YOU’RE NOT PREPARED TO TRY: The Radiance Doesn’t Deal Contact Damage And That’s Kind Of Fucked Up And Sad

The vast majority of hostile creatures in Hollow Knight deal contact damage: This is to say, if the Wandering Knight (who I’ll probably spend most of this essay calling by their affectionate fan name Ghost) touches a hostile creature, this harms them.

There are exceptions to this rule. The most notable and most oft-memed example is the game’s literal actual true final boss, the Radiance. Not only will Ghost not be harmed by running into any part of her body, but during her stagger animation, where she drops to the boss arena floor on her front with her whole body splayed out, Ghost still isn’t harmed if she lands on top of them! What’s more, this holds true for her full-power form Absolute Radiance, the secret final boss of the Godmaster quest/endings.

A lot of people find this amusing, because it’s a little absurd that a game’s final boss is an exception to such a consistent element of gameplay! Hence all the “haha moth too soft and fluffy for contact damage” jokes. It is objective facts that Radi is very soft and very fluffy, so it’s very easy to understand why people don’t overthink this too much.

Thinking about things I like in gross detail is unfortunately my hobby. When it comes to Hollow Knight this usually leads to me making myself really sad. I’d like to share the fruits of my theorizing with the class, so other people can be sad with me.

Now, from a game design perspective I can think of a lot of reasons why Team Cherry chose for Radiance not to inflict contact damage. Her hitbox only covers the central part of her body. Her limbs are large, so because of the way she floats, if she did contact damage she would be protected from nail strikes from below and to either side. This would give a player who prefers nail combat a punishingly small margin through which they could inflict damage without also taking a hit, potentially forcing them to adapt to a new and unfamiliar play style at the very end of the game. That’s not fun for anybody and tends to make players feel very frustrated.

In addition to this, Radiance’s attacks are all bullet hell-style spells. All of them except the floor hazards inflict two masks of damage, meaning if you want to stay alive and identify points where it’s possible to heal, you need to learn the spell patterns and dodge a lot. Radi is a large boss. If running into her hurt you this would make the bullet hell elements of her fight extra punishing.

So, I think the purely game mechanics reason for Moth Too Soft And Fluffy is in interest of keeping her boss fight fair, and helping players feel like they have a chance of actually defeating her.

Part of why we all love Hollow Knight, though, is that there’s not much in the game that only exists for purely mechanical reasons. There’s always some form of story or lore integration.

So what on earth is the story reason behind why Radiance doesn’t deal contact damage?

OTHER ENEMIES THAT DON’T DEAL CONTACT DAMAGE

Radi isn’t the only enemy (here defined as fightable/killable creature) in Hollow Knight who doesn't inflict contact damage, so let’s take a look at her fellow exceptions to the rule to see what we can learn.

Broadly speaking there are two categories of Enemies That Don’t Deal Contact Damage. The first is enemies or bosses who used to be hostile, but have become friendly to the player. For instance, when characters like Ogrim and Hornet are not being fought in boss battles, touching them won’t cause damage to Ghost. These story characters who Ghost has more or less reconciled with can’t be damaged by the player out of combat either.

In terms of generic enemies who used to be hostile but have become friendly to the player, we have the mantises of the Fungal Wastes and the Siblings/Ghost’s Shade. We learn from the game’s lore that the mantises Did Not Like The Pale King and were hostile to Hallownest, but that they established a ceasefire conditional on their keeping the people of Deepnest (who were also hostile to Hallownest) from leaving through the area’s main entrance/exit in the Fungal Wastes - essentially the two native kingdoms were pitted against one another by the Pale King.

Now, just because there was a ceasefire, that doesn’t mean the mantises take kindly to Hallownest bugs brazenly trespassing into their dang house; they will get in your face and try to kill you unless you have permission to be there. But once you’ve defeated the Mantis Lords in combat and proven yourself worthy of the mantises’ respect, they’ll let you pass through their turf unmolested. They are no longer actively hostile and don't deal contact damage.

(You're still able to attack them, though - maybe because you’d be locked out of receiving the Hunter’s Mark if you complete the Respect quest/achievement before you��ve successfully killed enough mantises? - and if you attack them, or if your pet charm familiars attack them, any mantises you aggroed will fight back and deal contact damage again.)

The Siblings, as well as Ghost’s Shade, are initially indiscriminately hostile. Our window into Shade psychology is limited, but we know that the Shade died violently and the Siblings probably did too; they may be lashing out. They’re also Void creatures, and Ghost looks a lot like the Pale King, whom we can guess from context clues pissed the Void off significantly by using it as his personal play-doh to make tools and toys with and also using its house as his personal garbage dump for baby corpses.

However, once Ghost recalls their past and breaks the mask of the Kingsoul charm to reveal the Void Heart at its core, the Void recognizes them as a part of it, and Ghost becomes able to direct/lead the Void to some extent. As an extension of this, the Siblings and Ghost’s shade become docile and can now be killed by any weapon in one hit instead of just the Dream Nail (which is made of Radiance’s Light and is the Void’s natural weakness). They don’t deal contact damage anymore either.

That’s it for “enemies that inflict contact damage at one point, but stop inflicting it after becoming friendly or neutral to Ghost”.

The generic enemies which don't inflict contact damage include shrumelings, maggots, maskflies, and lightseeds/lifeseeds. These enemies are incapable of inflicting any damage on Ghost whatsoever, because by themselves they are completely helpless entities with no natural defenses.

Shrumelings are infant members of the mushroom clan who are usually protected by adult fungi like shrumal warriors and ogres. Lightseeds and lifeseeds are harmless single-celled organisms. Maskflies are similarly harmless. Maggots, we glean from the Hunter’s Journal and dialogue from False Knight/Failed Champion, are the bottom rung of Hallownest’s society because they are weak and helpless, and are forced into menial and slave labor by other Hallownest bugs because they cannot defend themselves. The maggots’ plight is the whole reason why False Knight/Failed Champion stole Hegemol's armor in the first place, as he wanted to protect his people.

All of these enemies flee when Ghost approaches them. (Some maskfly groups’ flight triggers are set to specific areas on a map and won’t flee if you can avoid stepping on/passing through those areas, but this is clearly due to a programming oversight because their whole Thing is running away.)

But, there’s something interesting to be observed in the case of lightseeds and maggots: They can fight back against and harm Ghost if they use tools. The little flock of lightseeds you chase around the Ancient Basin eventually get sick of Ghost’s shit and take over Broken Vessel/Lost Kin’s corpse, which they puppet around to try to murder you. By doing so they gain access to Broken Vessel/Lost Kin’s considerable combat prowess and become very dangerous, contact damage included in the bargain. (The lightseeds’ doing this seems to evoke the vessel’s spirit, since they reach for Ghost when defeated. That’s not a gesture the lightseeds have any reason to make. The Lost Kin fight, by which the spirit seems to gain some form of closure, becomes available here too.)

False Knight/Failed Champion’s fights work on the same general principle. Now that he has a weapon he can attack Ghost, and his armor deals contact damage. The maggot inside the armor does not inflict contact damage; essentially both his boss fights consist of your whacking the armor until he’s stunned and pops out of the armor for a moment so you can hit his vulnerable real body, which is the only part of him that yields Soul when you smack him. In fact, his boss fights will last forever if you let him recover from being stunned on his own.

Between these two groups, Radiance very obviously doesn’t fit in the first, as she’s the final boss and is very vigorously trying to kill Ghost with various magic spells. You can tell from her Dream Nail dialogue that she’s furious about what the Pale King did to her and her people, and is afraid for her life. She is willing to use everything at her disposal to try to destroy Ghost so she can survive, go free, and get revenge for the Pale King’s crimes. If she could do contact damage to Ghost she would.

So, the only logical conclusion to make is that Radi falls into the second group of enemies that don’t inflict contact damage. She is physically incapable of causing any harm to anyone with only her body. Her magic is deadly as all get out and the 2 masks damage explosion noise probably haunts the nightmares of anyone who’s struggled fighting her, but without it she is helpless.

WHY CAN’T RADIANCE DO CONTACT DAMAGE?

It might be pretty hard to reconcile the fact that a character with Audre Lorde energy as potent as Radi Hollowknight’s is has a whopping 0 ATK. The biggest clues we get in terms of story context for her inability to inflict physical harm of any kind can be found within the culture of the moth tribe, who were her people.

Thistlewind, the backer-designed moth ghost who can be found in the Resting Grounds, tells you that the majority of moths were pacifists, and that individuals like them and like Markoth who learned to wield a nail were in the minority. Thistlewind appears to have learned to fight as a means of self-defense while they explored the crater area, and describes Markoth as having done so in order to “[brave] the edges of this world, hoping to uncover a truth long forgotten”. It sounds to me like Markoth was trying to recover parts of moth culture that were lost when their tribe was assimilated into Hallownest, or maybe even searching for Radiance or trying to learn what happened to her. (Judging that his corpse is hidden behind one of the Pale King’s shade gates it seems this didn’t go well. Thanks TPK.)

As far as fighting moths go there’s Marmu too, but she seems to be a special case, possibly raised in Hallownest's culture instead of with her tribe. We don’t actually get any sort of canon explanation for how a baby moth wound up as a child soldier who died defending the Queen’s Gardens, but given the overall tone of Hollow Knight as a game and all the colonization/Australian history parallel subtext, some horrifying possibilities come to mind.

So, if Thistlewind, Markoth, and Marmu are Outliers Lepidoptera and should not be counted, how did the majority of moths spend their time? According to Seer, who knows more about the tribe’s history than most (and to Quirrel, who points you to her if you defeat Uumuu before picking up the Dream Nail), the moths’ main prerogative was cultivating and developing dream magic. From the way the Seer describes dreams as a living history as you collect Essence, dream magic seems to be a parallel to the Dreaming (or Dreamtime), a spiritual concept in Indigenous Australian religion related to both history and myth.

To translate this into simple terms, the moths were by and large pacifists whose culture celebrated art, history, and spirituality.

Team Cherry tends to adapt at least some aspects of real-life bug behavior and biology into their sad cartoon bugs, so moths-as-pacifists tracks: Real moths do not really have any way to fight. They defend themselves from predators via their mobility and their markings, which tend towards either camouflage that helps them hide or bright markings intended to scare predators off by indicating they’re poisonous (therefore not good to eat) or look like the face of something much bigger and more dangerous than they are.

There's not that much we can glean about the moths in pre-Hallownest society aside from Seer’s dialogue, because Hallownest destroyed their civilization so thoroughly: Except in the Dream Realm (which is filled with Essence spirographs and the wisteria charms that decorate Seer’s room), their architecture can only be found anymore in hidden parts of the Resting Grounds and at the very top of the Crystal Peak where Radi’s statue and a fuckton of lore tablets Ghost doesn’t know how to read are located.

But, we know that the crater pre-Hallownest was home to a ton of diverse bug nations - the mosskin, the mushroom tribe, the mantises, Deepnest, the Hive, the flukes - and every SINGLE one of those had some kind of warrior tradition, as well as their own unique cultures. In the midst of all that it was only the moths who were pacifists, so from there we can tentatively assume that they were on good enough terms with their neighbors for there not to be any fighting. The mosskin in particular also had and still have a Higher Being on their side, though in the modern day Unn seems to be rather conflict avoidant to say the least.

And we know from Hallownest’s past dealings with the mantises and Deepnest that even having Two (2) Higher Beings isn’t enough to keep rival civilizations off your nuts if they hate you, so it’s improbable that Radiance just did all the moths’ fighting for them.

The only hint that the moths ever had beef with anyone at all is one of Radiance’s Dream Nail lines, “ancient enemy” - this is popularly theorized to refer to the Void and might be corroborated by the Void’s willingness to follow Ghost into Radi’s boss fights and fight alongside them. As the Void seems to be some sort of Higher Being/god of darkness and nothingness, and the Dream Nail’s only offensive ability is to kill Void creatures, the Void and creatures of Light appear to be in a position of mutual vulnerability. Some of the Pale King’s writings in his workshop, which identify the Void as a power in direct opposition to his, support this too.

It’s unclear whether the Void civilization and Radiance ever directly came to blows or whether they were just giving each other the stink eye over being natural enemies - personally I think the latter is more likely because the two civilizations existed on opposite sides of the crater*, and again, the moths were pacifists; plus when Ghost brings the Void along to Radi’s boss fight she is quickly and gruesomely overwhelmed by it.

What I am saying here is that if pacifism was such an integral aspect of moth culture, and Radiance epitomized her people’s culture, and she is 100% incapable of inflicting physical harm, she was probably a pacifist too.

DEEP DOWN YOU KNOW YOU WEREN'T BUILT FOR FIGHTING

Hallownest flourished for a long, long time between the Pale King and White Lady first establishing it and the initial outbreak of the Infection.

There’s no conclusive information in-game as to why this is. We can only guess: Maybe Radiance was so badly hurt or weakened by the moths’ assimilation that it simply took her That Long to become capable of the mass dream broadcast to Literally Everyone In Hallownest that would eventually become the Infection when Hallownest’s people tried to suppress it. Or, maybe it just took a long time for her to come up with a way to fight back. It’s possible that it took her a while to find the resolve to actually fight back, too, with her principles of pacifism in conflict with the necessity of defending herself and taking her people back. Maybe there was a change in the moths’ situation in Hallownest somewhere down the line that compelled her to step in - all the moths are super extremely dead at the time Hollow Knight starts, after all. Even Seer is eventually revealed to be a revenant like Ze’mer the Grey Mourner, only lingering in the world to pass on the Dream Nail and tell Radiance’s story. Maybe it was a combination of all those factors. Barring Team Cherry dropping in to explain this bit of Sekret Deep Lore, we are never going to know.

All we DO know for sure is that when we mosey into Hollow’s brain (and/or Ultimate Showdown of Ultimate Destiny our way to the top of Hallownest’s Pantheon) and challenge the literal actual sun to a fight, Radi takes the challenge with extreme prejudice and comes in swinging.

Something interesting I noticed while comparing the Radiance boss fights with the Pure Vessel fight is that some of their attacks are vaguely similar. Where warrior-mage characters like Xero and Markoth have physical weapons that they summon and manipulate with magic, Radiance and Pure Vessel both create nails and daggers out of Essence and Soul respectively. Both characters’ magical weapon attacks are similar in nature too: Some are used to create hazards that must be dodged or avoided, and some are fired directly at Ghost in radial patterns.

This begs a very sad chicken-and-egg question. Did Radi and Hollow develop these battle techniques independently of each other, has Hollow in their prime form somehow absorbed similar techniques to Radi through osmosis since they’re currently chained together by the brain... or is Radi mimicking and innovating on these attacks she knows Hollow can do?

All her other attacks seem very obvious for a light-themed character, after all: Beam attacks and blobs of light. A flash of bright light is also how she shakes off the Void the first time it tries to grab her, too, making for a strong argument that that’s the original natural defense she possessed, and that’s what she based most of her attack magic off of.

Making sword’s and knive’s from Essence when most of her people didn’t even handle these sorts of tools even at the height of her power and influence, though... that seems less like something that would come naturally to her. i don’t really know i don’t have a definitive answer or theory for this one it just Seems Possible and it’s fucking me up guys

Even the Infection - which began life as Radiance’s attempt to communicate, let’s remember, before it progressed to “The End Of Eva Disease Will Continue Until Someone Actually Listens To Me” and then finally Radi screaming “FUCK U LET ME OUT, GET THAT NEW SUNNY D BOTTLE THE FUCK AWAY FROM ME, HALLOWNEST EAT SHIT” during canon - does not appear to be fatal to living bugs until the tumorous growths grow so large they impede bodily functions, like real cancer. We can observe this phenomenon via a number of NPCs and enemies that are rediscovered as tumorous corpses after the whole Crossroads area becomes infected.

At least to me, all of this points to Radiance being a character to whom violence and causing harm doesn't come naturally, and who has resorted to these methods in desperation.

It actually reminds me a lot of False Knight/Failed Champion. It’s a very common theory among fans that when he stole Hegemol’s armor he killed Hegemol - this is a reasonable thing to believe, since Hegemol is the only one of the Five Great Knights of Hallownest who never appears at all in-game, not even as a corpse like Dryya and Isma. Like Radi, False Knight/Failed Champion is a character who rose up and turned to violence in order to protect his people, despite the maggots not being a belligerent species.

False Knight is one of the game’s first major bosses, sometimes the first boss that players encounter at all. And so Hollow Knight’s story bookends with two separate victims of a predatory system, one who lived within and was cannibalized by it, one outside of it who was deliberately targeted by the Pale King. Neither of them started out as a fighter, but both of them still adopted violence as a tool to protect themselves and their people. Radiance is as doomed as False Knight by the Pale King’s genocide, but just like False Knight, she has no intention of going quietly, and will rage against the dying of the light as only the literal actual sun can.

Cue Deedee Magno Hall voice clip. You all know the one.

*A footnote: There’s no conclusive evidence to tell us whether the Void civilization was contemporaneous with the other pre-Hallownest indigenous bug nations or whether it predated them. Mask Maker has a line suggesting that the Void civilization tried to expand throughout the crater in its heyday and that maybe this was linked to its collapse, but in general the Void lore is just too darn thin to draw firm conclusions - it’s like trying to speculate on the ancient stone age cultures of the Americas that came before pre-settler Indigenous countries when the only sources you can easily access are elementary school level US history textbooks. (To non-Americans: We mostly teach kids propaganda until they hit college-level courses and it sucks so much ass.) This is very realistic worldbuilding, but also please Team Cherry I want to know more about these ancient bugs who apparently got lost in the sauce

#hollow knight #hollow knight spoilers #hollow knight meta #the radiance #hk radiance #essay #long post under cut -#bad and naughty catholics go in the catholic wiggler

93 notes · View notes