#and my first time playing around with any sort of animation - as extremely simplistic as it is I'm kinda proud of how it turned out!

[deadofnightstudio]

FNAFuary’19 #1: Fredbear’s Family Diner/The Beginning (The Golden Age)

alldayeveryday-candycandycandy’s #FNAFuary prompt list (link)

For the final ‘Fall of the Golden Age’ painting used in the video, please check below the page break (since there’s a little more blood and eye-contact):

[bltngames]

The Balan Wonderworld demo came out yesterday. If you haven’t been keeping up with this, it’s a game by Yuji Naka and Naoto Ohshima, two of the original creators of Sonic the Hedgehog. A lot of that original team has gone on to do solo work outside of Sega, but this is the first time two former members of Sonic Team have gotten back together to make a new game.

If the demo is anything to go by, Balan Wonderworld (which I keep trying to type as “Balan Wonderland,” because it has a much nicer rhythm to it) is a game that lives deep in the shadow of NiGHTS into Dreams and Sonic the Hedgehog. It is very clearly trying to be an “Old School Sonic Team” experience, which it... sort of succeeds at, for better and worse.

This feels like a game they ripped straight out of 1995, warts and all, and remastered it with modern-ish graphics. I say “modern-ish” because in broad strokes, I think Balan looks pretty good. The character designs are charming, the level themes are interesting, but if you really stop and look at the game, it’s honestly pretty ugly, with simple lighting, limited detail and blurry textures.

One gets the impression maybe that’s because Balan is on everything -- Playstation, Xbox, PC, and even Switch. The gross texture work could be to squeeze the game down for Nintendo’s handheld, but apparently it runs extremely poorly there. On the PS4 Pro, it sticks pretty closely to 60fps, though there are occasionally hiccups here and there. Nothing worth fretting over, honestly.

But how does it play?

This is where the shadow of Sonic the Hedgehog looms large. Balan is designed to be simplistic to a fault: You get one button to control your character. Or, more specifically, every button on your controller will do the same thing (for the most part). This is right out of the Sonic handbook, as that game was also designed to be operable with only one button, as well.

Now, what your one button does can change. Scattered around levels are different costumes for your character to put on, and each costume has its own unique ability. The full version of Balan promises 80 different costumes, and there’s probably half a dozen in the demo. Each one serves a unique purpose, and some of them don’t even have the ability to jump. Which is fine, mostly, because you can carry a stock of three costumes with you that you can swap between sort of like the team mechanics in Sonic Heroes. Once you finish a level, those costumes get added to your dressing room, allowing you to customize a loadout of costumes at any checkpoint.

On paper, that much sounds fine. But this is where things start getting weird.

Costumes are not freely available to pick up. The jewels that hold costumes are locked with a key. This creates an obvious gameplay loop: find key, unlock costume, use costume to solve puzzle, right? Right.

Except that, at least in the demo, most keys are only a few feet away from any given costume jewel. On top of that, keys respawn. Crack open a costume jewel, grab the costume, but hang out for a little while and eventually the key will reappear. In doing this, you can stock up on keys early on in a level, smoothing out the process of acquiring new costumes as you go. I’m not sure why Balan does this. The time between key respawns is a few seconds too many -- just enough that it starts to feel tedious. But, as far as I can tell, there is no penalty for farming up a bunch of keys from the first key spawn point, either. It’s the worst of both worlds. If it was trying to be convenient, keys would spawn more quickly, but if it was trying to plan puzzles around acquiring keys, you can completely side step that by just waiting it out and hoarding keys early on.

You’ll not only want to hoard keys, but hoard costumes, as well. If you’re unlucky enough to take damage or even die while wearing a costume, it’s gone. You can build up stocks of costumes so you’ll always have spares to pull out of the dressing room, but that requires you to specifically go out of your way to get duplicates and bank them. If you don’t, you might find yourself at a puzzle that requires a specific costume that you simply don’t have anymore. When that happens, your only recourse is to backtrack in the hopes of finding a crystal that contains the costume you need, and characters in Balan aren’t exactly fast moving.

The chances of you losing a costume seem pretty low, admittedly. Balan Wonderworld doesn’t really seem like it’s aiming for anything resembling difficulty. Enemies exist, but only in very small numbers, and they’re easily dispatched. Most of the game is more about exploring the dream-like environments and playing around with the various costume abilities in order to solve basic puzzles.

You aren’t working against a clock, there isn’t a scoring system, and you usually aren’t being graded on your performance. Talking it over with some others, the vibe is that this could be a good game for young children. It requires little in terms of controller dexterity and is generous in every sense of the word.

The primary complaint against that, I guess, is that Balan Wonderworld is a weird game. Like, “Elsa and Spider-man Finger Family Youtube Video” weird. Every level is packed full of gently dancing ghosts that phase out of existence once you get too close to them. They’re all the creatures your costumes are based on, but they don’t exist as NPCs in the world for you to touch and interact with. Like I said, they’re ghosts, and they disappear the moment you get within a few feet. Those same ghosts will suddenly materialize when you touch certain checkpoints, throwing you something of parade. They interrupt the level music and everything just to play their own special celebration song. Move more than a few feet and they will fade back out of existence again, taking their special parade song with them, never to be seen for the rest of the stage.

It lends a strangely “uncanny” feeling to the game. I think the dancing characters are meant to add a sense of carefree fun, but they look like people wearing mascot suits, doing the same basic scripted routine over, and over, and over, for eternity. They don’t look like they’re having fun, they don’t appear to be choreographed to the stage’s music, and yet there they are, eternally dancing the days away. It’s kind of eerie. They were performing before you got here, and they'll keep performing after you leave.

The demo pits you against a single boss, which is notable for being someone who has the same powers you do, but combined and amped up. Seeing the same costume motifs come up in the boss as they draw from the same abilities that you have is actually a really fun idea, and the game rewards you for getting creative and swapping between costumes when you deal damage.

Balan Wonderland is a very odd game, and I’m not sure what to make of it. It took me a while to start wrapping my head around its aesthetic and vibes. It contains shades of something like Super Mario Odyssey to be sure, but it feels like it’s trying to elevate itself above that. Again, it’s a game living deep in the shadow of NiGHTS and Sonic, and in particular, it feels like it borrows NiGHTS’ penchant for putting artistic expression at the top ladder rung. Balan often feels like a very inscrutable sort of game, but in a way that seems to be reaching for some kind of greater meaning beyond simply gameplay. Everything in Balan feels like it might be conveying a message of some sort, even if it’s not immediately apparent. Its ideas do not come from a vacuum.

But here’s the deal: even though a lot of people couldn’t grok NiGHTS into Dreams, I did. I love that game to death. But with Balan Wonderworld, even I’m often left scratching my head. Despite its dead-simple gameplay, it may be just a little too high concept for its own good.

But at the end of the day, it’s not a game I hate. It’s strange, and charming, and even if it feels sort of impenetrably "artistic," at least that makes it interesting. The simple gameplay works its magic, making it an easy game to drop in to even if you don’t necessarily understand what you’re looking at.

Like, what’s the deal with the “Isle o’ Tims” between levels? It kind of has the vibe of a chao garden from Sonic Adventure, but the individual “tims” creatures don’t seem to have statistics or anything like that. You feed them so they crank a wheel, which builds a tower that helps them crank the wheel better. It turns in to a bizarre sort of perpetual motion machine. To what end? I don’t know. And what exactly is Balan himself, anyway? Some of his visual cues call to mind character designs for NiGHTS, but he appears to be a different sort of creature altogether. There’s a rather lengthy intro FMV, as you can no doubt see from the Youtube embed, but it’s more about swirling colors and hyperactive animation than conveying what’s going on or who Balan is. How much of this is even really happening, and how much of it is purely metaphysical? It’s very unclear.

I’ll be interested in seeing how the full version of Balan Wonderworld fares. I get the distinct impression that this will be another NiGHTS -- a game beloved by a core audience of hardcore fans, but shunned for being “too weird” by the populace at large.

I’m not quite sure which group I belong to yet.

[recentanimenews]

FEATURE: 5 WEBTOON Series We’d Love to See Animated!

  With Tower of God over and The God of High School hitting the midway point, it’s pretty obvious that WEBTOON Series adaptations are a hit, but what will come after Noblesse later this year? While we don’t have any real answers to that question, we do have five titles we think would be fantastic adaptations to see animated on our screens. The WEBTOON library is frankly huge and filled with tons of great possibilities, so we decided to try and narrow it down to five different genre titles we think would really shake things up on the “big screen!” If you want to learn about even more WEBTOON Series we think are great (some of which definitely deserve an anime), check out our previous article here.

    When deciding what would make a good anime, though, there’s more to it than just, “Wow, I really love this series, so it should totally get an anime!” It’s also worth asking the question: “Would this benefit from being animated?” What would they be able to do with it that they couldn’t do as a WEBTOON Series? What sort of changes might they have to make? As we’ve seen with Tower of God and The God of High School, action series benefit from animation greatly, but that doesn’t mean only action series deserve some lovin’. So with that in mind, I tried to grab a few different genres and styles of WEBTOON Series. But, of course, this is by no means an exhaustive list, and we highly recommend you go check out the WEBTOON website or app (available on Google Play and on the App Store) and see what types of amazing series you can find! 

  Love Advice from the Great Duke of Hell

    I’m a huge comedy fan, some of my favorite series of all time are comedies. So when I started reading WEBTOON Series, I really wanted to find something that would make me laugh. I didn’t have to look too hard, but perhaps no series has been as funny so consistently than Love Advice from the Great Duke of Hell. The main character, Paul, just can’t seem to get the attention of the woman he thinks he loves. So he chooses the best possible course of action: learning black magic and summoning Astaroth, one of the Great Dukes of Hell!

  The comic routinely features amazing, understated visual gags and humor while building an interesting and deep storyline over the course of its run. In fact, I really didn’t expect the characters and world that Duke of Hell creates to really suck me in as much as it did, but that just lends to its overall strengths. As far as an adaptation goes, I could see this as a fantastic comedy hit that either focuses on extensive, gorgeous animation for gags like HINAMATSURI, or a muted and simplistic animation style like Skull-face Bookseller Honda-san that lets the art and jokes combine without getting too big. Either way, just thinking about voice actors for the various characters, especially Astaroth, is perhaps one of the most fun fantasies to have—after all, it would need to be someone with enough gravity to play such an amazing Duke of Hell! 

  Purple Hyacinth

    Purple Hyacinth has long been on my read list and was actually one of the series that got me started on the idea of seeing WEBTOON Series animated. Unlike other series, Purple Hyacinth routinely asks readers to turn their audio on, playing ambient and specific music throughout the series to create a multimedia experience. Of course, that isn’t the only reason for it being on this list. No, Purple Hyacinth is here because it’s a type of story that, frankly, isn’t told very often in anime lately: a gritty crime mystery thriller!

  Lauren, the protagonist, has dedicated her life to avenging the death of her childhood friend and the elimination of Phantom Scythe, a terrorist organization responsible for the events that would alter her life forever. Lauren meets the assassin “Purple Hyacinth,” who just so happens to share similar goals as her. This series really just gets how to build a complex and deep mystery and the fact that you need excellent character drama to make people care about what happens next, especially when big twists and turns come! Lauren possesses the ability to detect lies, “seeing” them in red whenever people tell them. Just imagining the creative ways this could be animated alone makes me giddy at the idea of a Purple Hyacinth adaptation. But beyond that, the character drama and intrigue of the twisting mysteries here would turn this into a killer multi-season anime. I can just imagine the gleeful frustration waiting for the next season after the first one ends on a cliffhanger! If any of these series were worthy of being dubbed “binge-worthy” as an anime, I’m convinced it would be Purple Hyacinth. 

  Lookism

    Readers of our first article on WEBTOON Series pointed out Lookism as a favorite of theirs, and with good reason. This long-running ugly-duckling story packs a lot of punch, both literally and figuratively, as the story threads of school bullying, the ugly side of society, delinquent fights, and more together into a fascinating tapestry. Daniel is poor, overweight, and bullied to such a degree that his mother scrapes all the money together that she can to send him to a new school. However, his life takes a huge change upon arrival to his new school home when he wakes up in a different body: gorgeous, tall, and super-strong! The “new” Daniel gives him the ability to pursue the life he thought he wanted, but it comes with a lot more than he bargained for!

  One thing about Lookism that caught me off-guard is that it seems, at first, to be a sort of traditional ugly-duckling story where Daniel learns to love his original self while teaching those around him to be better people. But it also features heavy delinquent style fights and action. While this might sound a little dissonant, it’s fair to say that Lookism would provide tons of great material for high school delinquent action and social drama—and the fight scenes in later storylines are truly amazing to behold on the page. Lookism also features an amazing supporting cast of unique and weird characters that tend to steal the spotlight from Daniel as they get introduced, meaning there are tons of characters to fall in love with here (I’m a big Vasco and Jay fan, myself!). With a unique mix of action, comedy, and heavy drama, Lookism really has a lot to bring to the table, and when animated, would surely take advantage of its mixed genre-typing to be a big hit.

  Let’s Play

    While many of the series we’ve talked about have a tinge of supernatural action or combat to them, Let’s Play is quite a bit different—just regular people here! Of course, these regular people are involved in all sorts of turmoil and romantic drama, but that’s to be expected. Let’s Play follows game dev Samara “Sam” Young, creator of the game Ruminate, and the trouble she runs into when her game’s biggest critic, Marshall Law, becomes her neighbor. Let’s Play is a fairly interesting drama due to the combination of game dev discussion—which veers into similar territory as shows like Shirobako that delve into making things—and the personal drama of the main cast.

  Although it is indeed a romance, the most striking part of the series is Sam’s struggles with anxiety; her internal monologues and issues make her an incredibly relatable and fresh character. Let’s Play would make an amazing romantic comedy with a woman lead, which we really need more of these days! The video game elements of the story add that extra touch that, in all honesty, feel like they would be amazing to see animated and played with using various graphical touches, allowing animators to play with the adaptation in ways that don’t rely solely on action sequences. 

  unOrdinary

    If you’re an avid WEBTOON Series reader, then it’s very likely you came to this list expecting to see this exact series, so don’t worry: we agree! UnOrdinary would be an amazing anime adaptation, likely to find a huge audience of new fans who would gobble up the series premise: a world in which some people are born with powers, or Abilities, and those who don’t find themselves treated as lessers and outcasts. John, unfortunately for him, is the latter, and as a result, he is relentlessly bullied by his classmates for his powerless nature.

  In a lot of ways, unOrdinary is almost like a darker My Hero Academia, except instead of a world of superheroes and villains, it's a world of the “haves” and “have nots,” where people without abilities are treated extremely poorly. Like quite a few WEBTOON Series, social class, status, and bullying are a big part of unOrdinary, which gives it a sharp, dark edge to its narrative at times. Similarly, John is a fairly interesting protagonist and, without spoiling things, certainly makes unOrdinary, well, unordinary! Given the popularity of My Hero Academia and Tower of God, unOrdinary would probably be the best possible candidate to get the anime treatment next, likely becoming a smash hit in no time—especially once the superpowers start showing up!

    With the continued success of shows like The God of High School and Tower of God, it’s only a matter of time before we see more and more WEBTOON Series adapted to anime. Of course, there’s no real plans or releases yet, but we think our list is pretty solid. No matter what, it seems like an exciting time to get into WEBTOON Series and keep an eye out for the next big hit title that might be showing up on your screens in animated form!  

  Which WEBTOON Series titles do you want to see animated? Do you agree with our list? Let us know what series you like and what you think in the comments!

  ➡️ Watch The God of High School today! ⬅️  

    Nicole is a frequent wordsmith for Crunchyroll. Known for punching dudes in Yakuza games on her Twitch channel while professing her love for Majima. She also has a blog, Figuratively Speaking. Follow her on Twitter: @ellyberries

  Do you love writing? Do you love anime? If you have an idea for a features story, pitch it to Crunchyroll Features!

By: news+feed@crunchyroll.com

[lunamanar]

Off-the-Cuff First-impressions Review: Trials of Mana

I got Seiken Densetsu 3/Trials of Mana in the mail today and am surprised by just how excited I am about it. After the admittedly predictable letdowns of the Secret of Mana “remake” and the FFVIII “remaster,” not to mention the iOS revision of the former, you’d think I’d be jaded at this point. 

But! FFVII remake is Actually Good, and so far it looks like Trials of Mana is, while certainly lower budget, also Actually Good. The voice acting is kinda meh, but not bad enough to detract from the game in my opinion, and considering they are working with SNES-era scripts (the dialogue is 99% word-for-word the same as the more recent translation of the original SD3 game, so it’s going to be a bit stilted anyway) it’s really not bad at all. 

Besides, the actual meat of the game--the world, character and monster design, and the gameplay--is extremely solid and I have had very little trouble acclimating to it. It’s fun to play, it feels good to run around and explore the world and the battles are both very simplistic in a way that is familiar to an old fart like me and very satisfying in the way they function. One of the biggest weaknesses the original game had was absolutely horrendous input lag in some areas due to 1. the sheer size of the loaded map section, such as Rolante/Laurant, 2. The number of on-screen instructions the SNES had to process during battles, particularly during fights where you had massive sprites taking up the entire screen (the awful awful wall-guardian “Genova” [harhar] is probably the single hardest boss in the game purely due to input lag/drops; when you attack an enemy, even assuming your weapon swings when you tell it to, and that’s a big ‘if,’ the monster you are attacking is actually in a state which is several frames ahead of whatever state it visually appears to be in on-screen, making it extremely difficult to time your attacks properly to both defend and do optimal damage to what should have been a relatively minor “miniboss” fight). Trials of Mana, on the other hand, has none of those problems, simply thanks to more modern technology. So far every fight I’ve engaged in has been smooth and responsive as well as very visually appealing.

And wow is this game pretty. It’s not the most amazing example of the best graphical advances in gaming history, to be sure, but I genuinely don’t think that matters, as it’s still beautifully detailed and really does look like they took the original graphics and magicked them into more modern models. The re-imaginings of each area and monster are very faithful to both the aesthetic and the layout of the original design while at the same creatively expanding on them; I've had no trouble finding my way around familiar maps or identifying the bestiary, but I have found a lot of added depth to them, such as the ability to jump down on rooftops and find hidden nooks that were just static backdrops or otherwise out of sight in the original. The areas are more layered and interactive, but very importantly, nothing is missing. Not even the dogs and cats, who still bark and meow at you if you talk to them. I feel like I’m being allowed to see and explore the original maps from angles I didn’t have access to in the past. It really makes the 16-year-old in me unbelievably happy, to be able to finally, actually see and do these things I could only wish for back then. For people who have never played it, it’s probably a very pretty, if otherwise unremarkable experience, but for me it’s the granting of a wish I’ve had for a long time, but never expected to happen. 

Similarly, I think a lot of people will look at the plot for this game and go, “...what?” Because it really doesn’t seem to have been changed at all from the SNES version, aside from a few little tweaks to the dialogue here and there to ease the transition between some sections or correct for differences in game mechanics (of which there are only a few; again, this is definitely a remake--it remains the same game with the same mechanics at its core). This can lead to some pretty awkward interactions between characters, and at times it seems pretty clear that the voice actors weren’t given a lot of direction about the context of their lines. It’s not a bad story, but it’s a very simply told one, and feels more like it’s targeting 12~16 year-olds (which it probably is, to be fair) who might not care so much about nitpicking the semantics of the plot and character motivations. Which is to say, most of the characters who are not main protagonists or villains are painfully cardboard-flat. They do what they do and say what they say because it advances the plot for them to do and say those things. Elliot falls for a “trick” that I’m pretty sure most 4-year-olds would see through. The Bad Guys are 1-dimensionally evil, wanting to either destroy or take over the world, with the possible exception of Lugar and Koren who have slightly more complicated “I’m your rival” reasons. That leaves the complexity up to the protagonists to shoulder, and while I haven’t played that far into the game yet, thus far is is beat-for-beat and shot-for-shot the same as the original, so I expect that character-building will be left largely up to the player to mentally write in, especially since the game features light/dark class-changes as a feature of its progression. (I do kiiiind of hope that your choice in class changes has a more material effect on the ending’s outcome, but I think that might be asking a bit too much from a remake of this sort.) But the somewhat archaic plot and character arcs are not surprising and for me don’t take away any of the game’s charm. Nikita is still the best, the shop owners still dance inexplicably, the fact you can play a werewolf is badass, rabites are still cute, Don Perignon is still kind of a jerk. I’m very nervous/excited to get Busukaboo and Flammie and hope they’ll be as much fun now as they were then. And the whole world is so damn pretty, I’m just glad to be there. 

I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention the music. I’m not sure how much of a hand Hiroki Kikuta actually had in this remake, but the synth-orchestral arrangements of his originals are excellent so far. They’re both accessible/adaptable to the game’s sudden scene transitions (”Nuclear Fusion” starts and ends just as cleanly) while being a richer version of the themes, keeping close to the original sound while making better use of all the instruments that the SNES just wasn’t capable of emulating well. It blends very well with the rest of the game and I hope that continues to be true. 

I do have nitpicks; while I know it’s a popular mechanic, I don’t like the “shift-lock” sort of dash using the left analog stick as both directional and a button. I think the camera controls are solid, but I do wish there wan a toggle-option to have the camera just follow over your shoulder wherever you run until you either run into a battle or turn it off. The character models don’t seem especially affected by anything except the most intense/pervasive lighting and sometimes feel oddly out of place, like I’m watching one of those old movies where an animated character comes into the Real World. Some of the monster designs seem cute-ified more than I’d like. And I can’t help but think that if the game can be this nice as a third-tier title for SE, what could it have been if they’d but the resources behind it that they obviously did with FF7? I understand why they didn’t, but it’s hard not to wonder what it could have been if they had.  Seiken Densetsu is one of the most fraught series in the history of home video games and the fact that it’s even still around is something of a miracle, in my opinion. After the last...four?...titles following Legend of Mana, and the disappointment that was SD2′s (second!) remake, I really didn’t go into Trials of Mana with high hopes. I have been really, honestly pleasantly surprised. Even if you’re a diehard old-schooler who really doesn’t like modern JRPGs, if you have any nostalgia left for this series, you should give this one a go. I think it translated really well to 3D models, and what little it loses in the switch, it makes up for in playability. It’s not hard to pick up, it’s easy on the eyes and ears, it’s less grind-y than the original, and it doesn’t try to be more than what it is. I’ll probably always prefer the original, of course; there are too many memories attached to it for me, too many things that were groundbreaking at the time that are now old news or completely obsolete nowadays, and the new game certainly doesn’t push any modern boundaries. But it’s worth checking out, and especially if you’ve spent 20 years feeling let down by the Mana series, this might actually be the game you were hoping for, albeit maybe a decade late. 

[wonderfulworldofmichaelford]

Michael in the Mainstream: Pokemon Generation I & II

Pokemon is one of the biggest media franchises on the planet since 1996, and while it’s never exactly hit the same highs as it did back in the 90s, the franchise has been going strong for over two decades regardless. So, in honor of the latest entries in the franchise, I decided to take a look back at the old generations and look at what worked and what didn’t about them, though obviously in my own style. And what better place to start than the original two generations, Generations I and II?

Let’s start with Generation I, which includes the three games that started it all – Red, Blue, and Yellow, though back in the franchise’s homeland of Japan they had Green instead of Blue (hence why we got FireRed and LeafGreen, but no WaterBlue). These are the games that launched the franchise into the stratosphere of popularity, and for a long time they were held up as the gold standard of Pokemon games, attracting a die-hard base of “fans” known as Genwunners, who would bash anything outside of the first 151 Pokemon. Lately that sort of opinion has declined, though you still get the odd person here and there whining about how newer Pokemon designs look like Digimon, which indicates that the person saying that is unfamiliar with either franchise.

But what of the games themselves? What are they like? I have long expressed distaste for the Gen I games, mostly because of my hatred of Genwunners, but ultimately my opinions on the games are a lot more mixed. I do believe that Yellow is a genuinely good game and probably how the first generation should be experienced if you really want to go back to the old games, but my opinions on Red and Blue are a bit more mixed – but, shockingly, mostly positive.

You see, here’s the thing with Pokemon games – even at their worst, they’re still fun, and Red and Blue prove that. These are impressive games for their time that had the misfortune of aging far worse than a lot of their contemporaries, mostly due to the nature of the games themselves – any sort of franchise based on collecting and battling among groups of friends is going to need a lot of polish between releases, which will inevitably leave older games in the dust, especially when each generation after would add more and more Pokemon with each new generation. But even if they haven’t aged all too well, there’s still plenty of fun to be had here, though a lot of it is not in ways the creators intended.

Let’s get the bad stuff out of the way first – the balance in this game is absolutely atrocious. There are some types that are just objectively better than others, some types are so scarce as to be utterly useless, some moves don’t work like they’re supposed to, some of the computers use moves they shouldn’t know… the game is a hot mess, to put it lightly. At points the games feel frustratingly unplayable, especially when you come up against Sabrina, the gym leader wielding the all-powerful type of Gen I, Psychic.

The more mixed parts of the game are the story and the beloved, exploitable glitches. The story here… well, there isn’t one. There’s sort of an excuse plot in place - you have to beat all the gyms, challenge the Elite Four, and battle your rival (who you can name whatever, but I’ll be referring to him by his canon name, Blue). Other than that, though? There’s not really any sort of overarching plot. You kind of just wander into situation after situation on your way to the next gym. Even the whole Team Rocket plot here is mostly just you beating them up because they prove to slightly inconvenience you at every turn. Unlike in later entries, where the player is roped into saving the world from destruction at the hands of all-powerful PokeGods. Here the plot is basically “Young boy accidentally foils the Mafia while on a walk with their pet.” It’s so hilariously simple it’s hard to totally hate it, and to be perfectly fair a lot of early RPGs had rather simplistic plots, and this was one of the first handheld RPGs, so I cut them a bit of slack here, especially seeing as we at least got Giovanni out of this.

The glitches are infamous and iconic, but even them I’m a bit mixed on. Like, I love Missingno as much as everyone else, but I think tat if you need to break a game this hard to have fun, it kind of ruins things. I feel the same way about the glitches as I do the Crissaegrim in Symphony of the Night sure, they’re cool, flashy, and powerful, but they make the game so pathetically easy from that point onwards it just isn’t that entertaining anymore.

Still, this game does excel in one area: character. There are a lot of great characters in this game, human and Pokemon. A lot of the gym leaders are absolutely iconic, and the Elite Four is mostly interesting, though I will say that they lack a lot of character compared to later Elite Fours (though he Gen III remakes ameliorated this problem). It’s pretty impressive how so much character was able to be crammed into these characters even though they are ostensibly just roadblocks on your way to the next gym.

Then there are the Pokemon. The designs in this generation are pretty simple, occasionally to a fault, but there is a reason for this: a lot of Pokemon are based on yokai or tsukumogami, both of which are pretty essential in Japanese folklore. Tsukumogami in particular are something the franchise seems to absolutely love, with the Voltorb and Magnemite lines being notable examples from this generation. Other Japanese folklore represented in this Generation include kitsune, which the Vulpix line is explicitly based on, kappas, which Golduck is inspired by, baku, which the Drowzee line represents, and so in. In fact, the entire concept of Pokemon is so entrenched in the concepts of yokai and Japanese spirits that it is endlessly amusing to see Westerners nitpicking the designs, ignoring the cultural meaning behind them. Pokemon have a variety of inspirations obviously, but the weirder you think a design is the more likely it is to have been based off of some sort of yokai.

I think the definitive Gen I experience is Yellow, which is inspired by the anime. You start off with Pikachu who follows behind you at all times, you can acquire all of the starters, the game overall feels more polished (but not overly so), and you get to fight Jessie and James. It’s a lot of fun, and it doesn’t heavily alter the story, instead adding a few neat little additions, something that would become common with third versions in the franchise. The Kanto games are a solid start to a franchise, but they definitely could have used a bit more work…

That’s where Generation II comes in.

Generation II honestly feels like what Generation I should have been like, leaving Red and Blue as the unpolished alpha, Yellow as the beta, and Gold and Silver as the full release. In fact, it kind of leaves the  second gen feeling a lot more like an expansion pack than anything else, but not in an obnoxious or bad way like a certain other game (COUGHOverwatch 2COUGH). These games are so much better in just about every conceivable way, it’s not even funny.

A lot of important series mainstays made their debut here. The biggest and best is probably the introduction of the Dark and Steel types, the latter of which really feels like it should have been in Generation 1 to begin with. Steel quickly established itself as a very defensive type, and Pokemon of that type are just naturally tough due to Steel resisting nearly every other type in the game, with it only being nerfed slightly once the games jumped to 3D. Dark on the other hand was extremely cool in concept, but a lot of the Pokemon of the type were not able to properly utilize their impressive movepools due to Dark being classified as a Special type and a lot of early Dark-types running with high physical stats.

Let me clarify real quick: prior to Generation IV, the type of the move determined whether it ran off of Physical or Special Attack, no matter how ludicrous it seemed. That means Dark moves like Bite and Fire moves like Blaze Kick ran off of the Special Attack stat despite almost always appearing on Pokemon that had much higher Physical Attack, leaving a lot of Dark-types in the dust until the Sinnoh games rolled along and balanced things. Still, this bump in usability did not stop Dark-types from being popular and beloved, with Pokemon like Umbreon, Sneasel, and Houndoom all debuting here in the land of Johto.

Speaking of new Pokemon, fewer were added this time around, only about 100, sort of fitting in with this game feeling like an expansion pack. A lot of the new Pokemon are odd and gimmicky, with strange creatures like Unown, Delibird, and Shuckle making their debut here, as well as the almighty Dunsparce. While time would be kind to some of these (Dunsparce and Shuckle in particular have gained niche uses and cult fandoms), other gimmicky Pokemon got left in the dust. Still, I do think having weird, gimmicky Pokemon adds some flavor to the world. If there’s one thing I am upset about, it’s some of the Pokemon that were cut from the game, revealed to the world in the prototype version of Gold and Silver that leaked online. We almst got a new Shellder evo that looked like Slowbro’s tail, as well as Pokemon like Lickilicky debuting two generations earlier (and with a far better design). Still, what we got is pretty impressive, and though I find Johto a tad bit vanilla, there are a lot of Pokemon I love in this generation.

Another great addition to the franchise is lore behind the Legendary Pokemon. Gen I did have a bit of lore in regards to Mew and Mewtwo if you chose to read all of the journals in Cinnabar Mansion, but the bird trio got nothing and sort of just felt like random bonus bosses than Pokemon really deserving the title of legends. In this game, every legend introduced feels legendary. Entei, Raikou, Suicune, Ho-Oh, and Lugia all have fascinating lore behind them, and while they don’t play a major part in the story or factor in to Team Rocket’s plans (save for Suicune in Crystal, who has its own subplot), it showed that even this early on they were working on making the legendaries feel bigger and more impressive to the point they deserved their title as legends.

Then of course there are the new additions to gameplay and collecting that helped really make the franchise shine. The introduction of held items is one of the most significant; now there were even more ways to improve your standing in a battle! Give your mon a berry, they’ll eat it when their health gets low! This feature would be expanded on in later games, but its start here introduced a whole new world of possibilities. There was also the splitting of the Special stat into Special Attack and Special Defense a choice that helped balance the games and not completely overpower the Psychic type. And speaking of, Type distribution was quite a bit better in these games, though the new types Steel and Dark as well as Ghost and Dragon were still fairly underutilized and rare.

 Then there is the introduction of gender and breeding, which allowed players to get new Pokemon by leaving two Pokemon in the same egg group in a day care together. This not only allowed for the introduction of new baby Pokemon (which are largely useless and Pokedex filler if I’m being honest), but it gave the transforming blob of jello Ditto a new lease on life, as it could breed with absolutely ANYTHING, even some genderless Pokemon. Finally, we have the introduction of shiny Pokemon, Pokemon that had a different coloration than normal Pokemon and that almost surely existed to show off the power of the Game Boy Color. Back in Generation II, shinies were guaranteed to have perfect IVs of some sort or another to make their rarity more worthwhile, but this was scrapped after this gen. Still, there is nothing cooler than having that fabulous Pokemon with its incredible sparkle pop up while you’re roaming the wild, and nothing sadder than realizing you don’t have any balls to catch it.

The story here is also improved, which is a plus. A rarity for Pokemon games going forward, these games were true sequels to the originals, taking place a few years after the events of the Gen I games, and so the plot concerns the player getting roped in to not only stopping the remnants of Team Rocket trying to rise to power yet again, but also fighting off a mysterious rival named Silver, all while trying to complete the gym challenge. The stakes are a bit higher this time, but not overly so, and the plot definitely feels bigger and more important, with their being a sense of “I have to stop Team Rocket or something bad could happen” rather than “Ugh, these guys are blocking the way to the next gym, guess I better get rid of them.” And if that’s not enough, this has one of the more impressive post-games for the series… for its time. Much has been made of the late, great Satoru Iwata’s impressive cramming of the entirety of Kanto into the game, and you won’t hear me say that for the time these games came out what he did was impressive. 

The thing is, this accomplishment has aged about as well as the games the Kanto region debuted in. Gen II’s version of Kanto has a very poor level curve, meaning you can basically steamroll through most of the gyms, and a lot of areas are blocked off, gone, or cut down. While it is cool to see all these places two years after the original games, it’s not nearly as fun when you’re crushing underleveled Pokemon and you can’t access Cerulean Cave or the legendary birds. When you finally acquire all the badges though, you get to head to Mt. Silver and make your way up to one of the definitive bonus bosses of the franchise – Red, the player character of the original games. He’s a pretty tough opponent, and the game seems to lean towards making Yellow the true canon game as Red has all three starters plus Pikachu,

There’s not much else to say, as there isn’t too much negative to say about the Johto region or the games. The definitive version is, of course, Crystal, as it has a bit of extra story and polish to it and even let you play as a girl for the first time, and though there are aspects that the remakes of these games would improve on, the Generation II games are actually extremely solid and a lot of fun to play to this day, even if they haven’t yet achieved optimal balance for Pokemon. At the very least, they’re a lot more fun and playable than the Gen I games.

It’s pretty undeniable that the first two generations put Pokemon on a pretty solid path of progression and started the franchise off with a bang. There was really nowhere to go from here but up, and boy oh boy did they ever go up from here.

[gnostic-heretic]

I'm an aph lithuania fan who is considering the hc that he's trans. Any reasons to adopt this headcanon? ( or like... what about Liet screams 'trans' to you or how does this compliment his character?)

Ah well I think it does compliment his character in a way, though I’m not sure how to explain it.

I guess it’s just that I came up with an entire backstory and a long series of headcanons related to his gender identity I guess... and I love the idea of him being trans because I project a lot of my feelings on this low budget anime man and plus... I love the idea of characters I like being trans in general.

Maybe I can talk a little about my headcanons for him? Idk it’s just a really hard question to answer anon. Because to me that alone is enough to like it and if you flipped it upside down — why should I headcanon Lithuania as a cis man? Why and how would that compliment his character?

... let’s just say people don’t ever ask this question because cis is perceived as default state of being for humans and that’s a bad idea in and for itself. But I’m going to assume you’re engaging in good faith here because it sounds like you are!

Like first of all for me it’s a way (just like all my other trans headcanons) to see more different kinds of trans people in a story and concept I like (hetalia). Cis characters in fiction usually get multifaceted portrayals but trans stories are reduced to pity porn about transitioning and how hard and sad it is and usually written as really sad people. I don’t think that’s necessarily accurate... our lives and history are filled with things that, as Mari Kondo might want to say, spark joy and more trans characters = more chances to show that. Plus we all think of ourselves and our own identity in different ways, its not necessarily simplistic as most portrayals (x trapped in y body is a popular one) would make you think. Lithuania is trans but he doesn’t think about himself and his gender in the same way Poland does for example. That’s something I love to write :D because it shows that we are all different.

I think Lithuania would be very proud of who he is and how far he’s come. His gender identity is important to him because he’s always felt like he’s a part of his people, and wants to be closer to them- so he views his own “transition” not necessarily as “female to male” (because he never thought of himself as “female” in the first place) but as the gender neutral nature of a “nation”, who is dehumanised and put on a pedestal, to “man” — the feeling of finally belonging with other humans. Tolys is a man because it’s what felt most true to him and his sense of self- and he’s lived as himself since he was very young, so his confidence is rarely shaken at least when it comes to his own sense of identity.

(I guess this is aspirational for me in a way but oh well I’ve warned you about projecting)

Also when I say “cis characters in fiction are mulitifacted while trans characters get only to be one dimensional” I also mean that the usual trans narrative is completely centered around gender conforming straight trans people when it’s... not necessarily so. In fact most trans people I know aren’t straight

For one thing views on sexuality and gender have changed so much throughout history that when a person has lived for hundreds of years there’s no such a thing as “gender conforming”. I headcanon Lithuania as bisexual with a preference for guys so decidedly not straight! And as far as presentation goes. When Lithuania first started presenting as male (the Middle Ages) in the Baltic area long hair was considered standard for men to wear. And even in this age he likes to keep his hair long because that’s how he prefers it to look and it’s a good low maintenance hairstyle— plus I wouldn’t call his sense of style masculine as much as I would call it a disaster, he just likes what’s comfortable and cheap and not too flashy. Which usually lines up with men’s fashion but not necessarily in an overtly “masculine” way

Its interesting to have a trans character like Lithuania or really all hetalia characters who lived for hundreds of years across different and very relevant historical changes because he has seen his own “position” change so much throughout history. For starters while trans people have existed forever, the label of “trans” and medical transition science are a fairly recent thing... which is why in historical fics I never use the word “transgender”, but reduce it to the bare fact of life. Lithuania knew he was a man and meant to live as one so that’s what he did.

Now take everything I say as basically speculative fiction based on OTHER pagan religions across the ancient world because there’s not much we know about Baltic paganism in the Middle Ages and the few records we have come from Christians- they’re biased, incomplete and sometimes untrustworthy. I’ve looked into the stances of modern Baltic paganism (Romuva) on lgbt people but found nothing at all— which doesn’t surprise me and wouldn’t surprise me if their stance on lgbt rights was negative because after all in Europe we live in a society (cit) that is strongly shaped by Christianity even if we try to steer away from it.. and Lithuania isn’t the most lgbt friendly place in Europe for that matter— neither is Italy, by the way, this is no moral judgement. IF anyone who knows more than me wants to correct me and or add more info I’d be not only extremely grateful but STOKED please tell me more about the forbidden romuva knowledge because I’m dumb and can’t speak Lithuanian so a lot of (i would even say most...) sources aren’t accessible to me. 😔😔😔

BUT,

The way I base it on other pre-Christian religions across the world Lithuania’s gender variance when he was a young teenager was not perceived as a negative or strange thing. For one because he’s a nation and nations were and are perceived as supernatural beings (sort of demigods) and unquestionable, at least by humans. And secondly because I like to think that in pagan times gender variance wasn’t perceived as a threat to the “natural order” (Adam and Eve not Adam and Steve and so on) but as a part of that same natural order. So a person identifying as a sort of “third gender” or “no gender” (like I headcanon nyo Lithuania would) and a person kinda deciding that their birth assigned gender doesn’t fit and he’d rather be a man, socially (because back then medical transition didn’t exist) wouldn’t be met with fear or disgust but with sympathy.

Lithuania got to transition socially in a supportive environment and then was kind of thrown into the Polish court to a complete 180 in terms of acceptance. The thing is trans/gender variant people used to be a less-known phenomenon until a few decades ago, let alone centuries ago, it used to be easier to be stealth when the regular joe had no idea what a “trans” was — so that’s what he did. And while he found support and solidarity and (gasp) romance in the company of Poland, he also found someone who conceptualised his own identity in a wholly different manner (but this is a post about liet so I won’t get into it ffs) — I don’t think it must needst be remarked that the Russian empire and Soviet Union were just as unsupportive — if not more unsupportive, but we are not here to pass moral judgement. Being stealth would have made dealing with it more simple but being stealth comes with risks and that comes into play a lot when it comes to his anxiety.

...However I think the problem would’ve been and still be mostly humans because fellow other nations (people who- again- have lived hundreds of years and likely have seen a trans person before if they’re not trans themselves) would be open to understanding and learning and not thinking of Lithuania being transgender as a big deal. In the canon hetalia lore we have chibitalia and Hungary as examples of nations who lived as one gender for a long time and then as another. And whether you see this as a trans narrative or not (I sure do) it’s worth noting that we don’t see anyone in the hetalia canon giving them a hard time over it, or being outwardly unaccepting of their gender.

TLDR I hope I could convey even just 0,0001% of my love for trans man liet to you and if I didn’t... well this is just my headcanon and I’m not forcing it on anyone, you do you. Thank you for being open to hearing about it anon because a lot of people just discard the idea before they can even consider it— but most excuses for it (it’s unrealistic, it is weird, i just can’t see it) are based on biases (are trans people not real? why are we seen as “weird” in the first place? why does our existence seem like an impossibility?) and imo not very good. So to wrap this up my question would be how does headcanoning Lithuania as cisgender compliment his character? Well in my opinion it doesn’t— it takes away nothing and I don’t mind it, but it also doesn’t add all the interesting possibilities that being trans gives to his character at least to me. :D

[zedpercyfan]

Sun and Moon’s Problem (An Honest Opinion)

For a while now the current state of the Pokémon anime has been something I’ve had mixed feelings about, and it’s been a far cry from its predecessors for sure in terms of characterization and progression. But what’s been really gnawing at me is the fact that for as bad as I find Sun and Moon, it’s shockingly what is making Pokémon — as far as some people see it — popular with the anime community and the general public!  But for as positive as that is, considering that Pokémon is something that is meant to have a wide appeal range, I can’t help but feel that it’s also at the price of loosing what made Pokémon unique.

Allow me to explain, one of the appeals for a show like Pokémon is that it’s an escape from reality where you aren’t bogged by reality where everyday you can travel across forests, mountains, deserts, oceans, and through vast cities collecting badges, meet trainers and Pokémon, and to me that was amazing.  Sure the battling aspect was amazing to have, but the adventure aspect of the anime was a wonderful factor to have, on top of the small cast of characters who could have varying reactions and solutions to deal with the issues of day-to-day travel life.  But then here comes Sun and Moon and completely messes up the formula, Ash suddenly goes from adventurer to school boy in a matter of moments, which is without a doubt one of the biggest flaws to immediately surface for the show.  Ash in all other instances has shown that that isn’t something he’d want to do, most other times he’s clashing with others, and generally it’s clear he isn’t the sort who’d want that kind of life.  It isn’t to say it’s the worse thing ever, but right off the bat putting Ash into school just felt like the first mistake, because by taking away the adventure aspect the show now feels as bland as every other ordinary school based show, and hell, it’s only ‘special’ because — hey viewers — there’s Pokémon at this school...!  ...Yeah, sure...I’m meant to be fascinated by that?

Another annoying point I’ve seen thrown about is that somehow this is making Pokémon ‘better’, now obviously I’m aware that this is subjective to the individual who is more than welcome to their own opinion on the matter.  But what’s infuriating is when these people play these changes off as ‘better in the long run for the whole series’ just solely because it’s less about battling and more about the more slice of life side of the show...but...I really question if that’s beneficial.  Pokémon lately suffers from the most mundane filer episodes ever, people say that the filler is ‘part of the story’ but I fail to see that, characters never really seem to get anything out of their experiences, the reviewers make this sound like the story is continuous but I fail to see that, there aren’t the connections established to make it look like anything was gained at all.  There’s no progression, and hell, barely any of supporting cast have interesting Pokémon, let alone gags, after Marowak and Poipole none of the characters have really had a notable encounter afterwards, the likes of Mallow, Lillie, Sophocles, Lana, and Kiawe feel trapped in this void of nothingness.  Sure Lillie has the most development but I feel she never really goes anywhere with that, and it’s even harder to see her growth when she has nothing to compare it against, she’s not talking over Ash’s battles, she isn’t catching Pokémon, she’s just so underwhelming.  Heck, the other characters supposedly according to one reviewer ‘gain more growth in one episode than the original cast did in the entire series’...what?  I’m sorry but is that really the case with Sun and Moon?

The characters aren’t a group in my view, they feel more like individuals that are crowded without any real reason to get into each other’s businesses, and they never really have any meaningful conversations with one another, there’s never a change in them or their dynamic.  They don’t fight and make up, they don’t go from acting one way to another via any particular event, there’s no change in them.  People say the OS group had trouble but at least they experienced change, Ash and Misty went from hating each other to inseparable, Brock went from not confident to stand up for himself to being able to take the lead in his life.  With Sun and Moon...you really don’t get that feeling, Lillie’s barely shown improvement aside from touching Snowy and the others, and it’s not like Sophocles is helping others out with their issues of telling the truth...heck, Mallow feels like she’s experienced nothing at all so far.

Another issue is the handling of the Pokémon...it just doesn’t feel right, at all.  Isn’t the whole crux of having Pokémon is to have partners who can grow to be strong and have their own quirks?  Hell, remember when Togedemaru seemingly had a thing for Pikachu?  I miss that now that I remember it was a thing, sure at first I hated it (btw, as of the dubbed Marowak vs. Electivire episode, that has returned) because it kept popping up and ruining the stories flow, but heck, even that every few episodes wouldn’t be bad because these days it’s as if Ash’s Pokémon don’t have any developed relationships among themselves or with any of the others.  It never feels like there’s anything going on, they feel generic, they don’t have enough interactions with each other because we seem too focused on Ash and co. instead of equal Pokémon and human moments in the past.

Another thing about the Pokémon anime is the inconsistent idea that Ash is trying to be the best, I’m sorry but Gladion is hard to process as a rival, aside from being strong, there’s not a lot that seems to be driving Ash to call Gladion his rival. Gladion isn’t Gary who Ash just hates because of personal reasons, Gladion isn’t Paul who Ash is trying to prove a point to, and Gladion isn’t even Sawyer, who for as much as I hate, was at least someone tat Ash was showing off too, heck Misty wanted Ash to get stronger...but here in Alola it feels like he’s just goofing around with no one trying to make him improve.  In other series Ash was always seen battling his friends and rivals to get better, his Pokémon sparred against each other whilst others watched and cheered, but here there’s something extremely static about it, Ash never battles long enough, nor shows off any skills, instead it’s just an exchange of moves without anything behind it.  Maybe I’m speaking into the void, but the lack of this consistent training on screen, learning new moves, maneuvers etcetera makes every battle Ash has seem...not as cool as it used to be, it’s like he only trains when it’s important to the plot according to a case by case importance in each episode, as opposed to the long run.  Not only that but it’s like he’s not striving for victory...though maybe that’s just me.  Look, I’m not asking for the return of something akin to this apparent ‘Shojo Battling’ theme like in XY, but the least they could do is give us back the relevance of what it means to train strong Pokémon like say in OS-DP. Make the training look good, and show some progress, not simplistic class battling.

I just can’t bring myself to say this series is good.  With the changes they’ve made, it feels like Pokémon have alienated their older viewers who liked them back when they were more focused.  You see one thing about content making is that, yes sure, try to appeal to a wide range, get the most viewers in, but see that’s the problem, when you try to get out to a larger whole you’ll always miss a few people, whereas if you actually try and focus on a specific cohort, you will see the most success because you are capitalizing on what that group wants, as opposed to try and reach out to everyone.  Now I should note that I am by no means a media expert, I’m not going to sit here and pretend I’m a veteran critic or that my words should have significant weight.  That isn’t me, I’m not like other people online who act like they’re experts, this is just my a collection of my opinions as a long time fan of Pokémon speaking out to those who are like me.  I don’t wish to invalidate anyone over their views on SM, but to me I feel alienated, the show isn’t as good as it could be, there’s an inferior dub, and the dynamics and direction of the show just doesn’t strike me as special.

I’m not asking for hyper focus, but I’m asking for a more quality writing and characterization, something that actually has a cause and effect on what is happening let alone for it to be actually entertaining.  I’m not asking for it to reach the point where every episode is a must watch, but I ask for at least dynamic consistency, and a bit more entertainment value and character growth, puh-LEASE!

David, aka zedpercyfan’s ramble over.  By the way, I wrote this quite a while ago, and only now am up to publishing it.

[zenosanalytic]

Zenofriend did you see the New Amplified Official Homestuck Personality quiz????? what are!!! your thoughts!!!

Ok! This is VERY LATE, but I am finally ready to give My Extended Zodiac Thoughts. This is Long :|:

First off, I found the possible answers really limited and limiting. For example #7 -Which option best describes what’s more important to you? Understanding yourself, and fully knowing who you are? Or thinking rationally, and making strong decisions?-is a false choice/dichotomy. Leaving aside the questionable adjective-choice of “strong”(I mean: wth does a “strong” decision even mean???), rational decisions require information, and the more the better; specifically, they require knowing yourself. To make a “rational” choice is to make a choice from reasoning, which is to say “based on reasons” using “Reason”(working from one point to that which it implies). If you are unaware of yourself and your interiority -your biases, your wants, your tendencies, your susceptibilities, your emotions, your impulses, your psychological needs, etc- then you can’t make rational decisions because you aren’t aware of, and aren’t considering, how the “irrational” architecture of your personality and behavior could be influencing your reasoning, nor are you making explicit(to yourself or others) the full set of potential reasons for why you are making the decision the way you are. Indeed, not only are these two NOT opposite extremes and NOT mutually exclusive, they are mutually Necessary. Just as one must “know thyself” to rationally know the world and rationally navigate it, so too must one be able to look at oneself rationally -to dispassionately assess oneself as a subject, as if with the eyes of another; judging your behavior, wants, and biases as a stranger might- to “understand yourself and fully know who you are”. Meaning to do good is irrelevant if you do harm and, if your concept of “good” requires the harm of another, then obviously they will not judge you as “good” and you will not be good, regardless of how you feel about it. The true answer to this question is that you can’t achieve either without achieving both, but that doesn’t fit into the simplistic(and sadly too common in Euroculture) Manichean dualism this quiz is built around -in this instance that emotion/interiority is the opposite of “Reason”/Intellect. And, more broadly, that the specific/practical and general/ideal are at odds- and so it isn’t a choice.

Many of the available answers to the questions are equally limited; some by false dichotomy, some by, just, insufficient choice-scope:

In #6: what if the result sought by the project is learning the process??? 

In #2: what if you prefer to help people learn through the Socratic method; by asking questions? Are you showing them, in that you are modeling for them the process of reasoning their way to an answer with the information available to them, or are you encouraging them, in that you are asking them to collate the information they have and extrapolate from it and doing so non-explicitly?

 #1: what if you see yourself as a protagonist of your story, but also understand that everyone sees themselves as the protagonist of their own story? What if you see “Society” as the emergent, evolutionary outcome of an inevitable “Egotism of Being” coming into contact with innumerable iterations of Self? What if you conceive of your existence as fundamentally lonesome but also of society not as a natural and essential aspect of environment, but as a natural and essential aspect/expression of personality, such that the equal personhood of all “characters” is inescapable, such that “lonesomeness” is a social act/choice just as much as “ensembleness”, and such that “protagonism” can only be understood as a purely narrative conceit and choice? These povs don’t really fit with the choices available.

#3: can’t it be both things? Can’t mystery inspire you to both learn and invent? Can’t learning lead to the realization of new mysteries, which is part of why Curiosity is so satisfying to you in the first place?

#8: to understand the consequences of your behavior is to understand your potential; to understand your potential is to understand what consequences your behavior can effect.

#9: What if your strong convictions are precisely what drives you to deconstruct arguments which said convictions deem inaccurate, limited, and poorly reasoned? What if you deconstruct arguments not because you find them particularly offensive, but because you hold a strong conviction that “Knowledge” is much more difficult or complicated than people tend to think it is, ala Socrates, or even impossible to attain by your own efforts, ala Medieval Christendom and anti-empiricism? “Can’t Decide” implies an ambiguity, indecisiveness, and moral disinterest in the question that would be inaccurate to these mindsets.

#10: doesn’t choosing “burn it all down” imply that one considers “burning it all down” to be a “better” state than the status quo? Wouldn’t it, then COUNT, as “A Plan” and “something better” waiting in the wings??

#11: what if your desire to help others is driven by an instinctive empathy and moral-revulsion towards situations which cause suffering, and allowing suffering to continue? The answers frame the choices as in opposition and empathy as something either to prevent or which prevents action, rather than compelling it.

Ok I’ll stop, but you get the idea.

Second, I thought the lean of each question was really obvious; to the point that you could practically score each available answer along a scale between the two binary choices the question engaged with(probably because this is exactly how the test works). The result of this is that the Test is easily gamed, and thus not really “impartial” or “rigorous” in any way. This is somewhat complicated by the test’s Built in Biases(Hat Tip to @the-awkward-goldfish for chasing this down), which basically require you to “no opinion” every non-Aspect-related questions to get anything “below” Light, but even that just goes to show how partial and contrived the test is, and thus how bad an assessment of one’s “Nature”, or affinity to the Aspects as presented in canon, it provides.

Which, you know, OBVIOUSLY -it really isn’t MEANT to be those things(well, one could reasonably expect it to be decent at Aspect-Affinity)- but this is a central problem of “personality tests” in general, and I’m going to rant about it for a second. When a test asks about The Thing it appears to be asking about, Social Animals will give it either a)the answer they think it wants, b)the answer they feel fulfills their social “role” in the test/situation, c)the answer they would like to be true about themselves(or would like you to think is true about them), or d)the answer they feel creates the least social stress in the situation, rather than an honest answer. Similarly, test-makers will, with stupefying regularity, render their own biases implicit within the tests they create if collaboration and strict oversight are not a part of the test design process. This is because Social Animals are Social Animals, and part of being Social Animals is 1)a near-instinctive awareness of The Rules of whatever Social “Game” happens to be being playing at any moment, and 2)an instinctive desire to project ones personal “Rules” onto the world[1]. This makes gaining an honest assessment of Social Animals(and even asking Honest Questions about them), independent of their own objectives and social assumptions, difficult. This is why modern psych studies are neither upfront about what they’re really studying, nor obvious in their design, and why the question of Method and Test-Design is so important to the field.

None of this matters when personality tests are seen as just A Fun Thing to Play With, but unfortunately lots of people take them really seriously(I will not speculate as to why), so I kinda feel like the huge biparagraphic spiel above about social psychology and why it means personality tests are A Crock is sort of necessary. Though, Ironically and completely tangentially, this also all means that the ominous and impenetrable Voight-Kampff machine and Turing Test it is used to administer from Bladerunner are actually closer to what an “accurate” psychological test should look like than most of the “personality tests” people are familiar with.

Third, I found the Test really unsatisfying from a canon-perspective. Some of them fit, others kind of fit but with important provisos, and others are just wildly far off. For example:

Sagittarius. Equius might count as an enthusiast, but inconstant? His interests are long-term and rigid. Expansive? He is self-effacing to the point of suicide. Magnetic? Everyone but Nepeta and Gamzee find him repulsive(though Aradia is attracted, at times, by her disgust for him). Rebellious? 8/ Optimistic? 8/ 8/ Surprising? 8/ 8/ 8/ Not Knowing his own Strength? He obsesses over it. Skeptical? He accepts Alternian Convention without question or complaint(Aradia being the notable semi-exception). Secretive? While he doesn’t put himself forward, neither does he keep his opinions -no matter how offensive- to himself, ever. A stronger argument could be made for this description fitting Roxy, but even then she’s rather single-minded and constant in her interests and feelings, and, contra the description of Derse-dreamers, not terribly self-aware, as symbolized by her dream-self -a metaphor for her self-knowledge- being asleep, albeit ambulatory, until she dies(minus seeing Rose once). Her most important arcs are about seeking answers, not accepting mysteries(Rose and Calliope).

Sagiries&Sagipia: Again, the Sagittarius description, specifically the “enthusiast” and “inconstant” bits, don’t really fit either Dave or Rose. While they ARE “enthusiastic” about their interests, those interests are rather constant, focused, and rather than trying to teach or pull others into those interests, they display them through creative endeavor. “Derse” fits them both pretty well, minus the “self-awareness”, and their approach to hiding insecurity is the opposite of “self-deprecating humor” and “false humility”; they do it through “evincing hyper-competence” and “false arrogance”. Dave is certainly a “Fighter”, but against Fighting, and while he can be goal-oriented he much prefers perambulation, even to the point of contributing to problems which he then must rush to fix. Really I’d say the description for Space fits him better than Time(though this Time description entirely ignores the repeated recycling/recontextualizing/remixing theme in Time characters in HS). Light fits Rose better, but it ignores how her interest in mystery and the unexplained drives her interest in learning, how personal and not “for its own sake” her seeking is, and how actual knowledge can petrify her if she is in the wrong place emotionally.

Sagigo: This is nitpicking, but I wouldn’t describe Jade as “careless”, and she, mostly successfully, struggles to remain tactful in the face of universe-ending levels of buffoonery and extra-amphibian-interference.

Leo: Again, Nitpicking, but I don’t think Nepeta can be described as having herself as her “favorite subject”. I think the rest fits well though

Gemini: Sollux isn’t preachy, nor railroady in conversation, nor difficult to understand, and his interests -at least what we see of them- are all about computers, networks, and the internet. The description of Doom I’m iffy on: it certainly describes him, but his willingness to drop everything and dedicate himself to a project he believed would save his planet, even though he hates it, doesn’t really fit with it.

Pisces: “Forget to actually do things”, “enigmatic”, “recalcitrant”(i.e., not being open about their feelings), “worrier”, and “trouble with follow-through”, are not things I would describe Feferi with. Meenah clashes even worse with this description.

Scorpio: “Blue Signs are the ones to watch”? Yes for Vriska, Aspirational for Aranea. “Those bound to the aspect of Light are the universe’s knowledge-seekers. They are, above all, driven to learn and understand”? “learn about it” certainly, but I don’t think either Vriska or Aranea feel any real impulse to understand anything. They’re more about hoarding information and manipulating it to their advantage/purposes, and Vriska’s interest in knowledge is highly selective, personal, and instrumental. “Marked by a flexible optimism”? For a given, and extremely idiosyncratic, definition of “optimism”; and provided it allows for bouts of deep negativity, and an intense, arrogant cynicism about the world and others. “They have a mask for every occasion”?More so for Aranea given he secretiveness about herself, but Not Really for either of them as Aranea really just has the one. “They often resent those they see as more well-positioned than they are”? This fits Aranea well, but I never got the sense Vriska was envious of her “social betters”; she seemed to be more envious of people with healthier relationships to less overbearing Lususes, and who had an easier time forging relationships.

I’m not going to go through all of these obvsl. There are those -like John’s, Terezi’s, and Kanaya’s- that fit near-to-perfectly, and those -like Eridan’s- that fit thematically while being wildly off-base on the specifics, but mostly I found them disappointing.

Fourthly, I object to it aesthetically. The signs are well designed; what I mean is that I very much dislike the idea that this is a complete Troll Symbology. If it were, it would make the Troll world and society much smaller and less creative than I would like it to be. There’s not enough signs here for a population as large as the Trolls would need to support a galaxy-spanning empire, and certainly not enough for sign-repetition in the context of such a vast population to be so rare as to become a mythical sign of genetic reincarnation. There’s not enough room here for imagination and invention. Part of what I liked about the Homestuck Fandom, and still like, is the empty places in it for the fandom to fill in. Presenting this as a complete list of signs, based on a complete Hemospectrum(and yes, I also object to the canon Trolls having the only canon blood-colors; minus Lime which apparently Karkat is now, which doesn’t make any sense[2]), makes the Homestuck Universe a far, far, smaller pond to swim in, which is less fun from a fan perspective.

And it also, through the “True Sign” designations, makes the canon Trolls far larger and more obvious fish than they(minus Feferi and Kanaya) ought to be. If the rest of the signs are seen as derivative of the “True Signs”, as the phrase and the EZ’s naming conventions imply, and the signs are associated with specific ancestors, then it’s reasonable to assume that the Ancestors associated with those signs would be seen as “Truer”, or perhaps more Significant and Primary to Troll History, than the ancestors of the other signs. Those who inherited them would then be inheriting not just the unfinished business of their immediate predecessor, but a historical heritage that every Troll would be taught to consider “Truer” and “More Significant” to Trolldom than that of the other signs. I don’t like this idea. The Betas were hardly social coded in a way that would have made them completely representative of Earthican culture, so why would the Trolls? And also: why wouldn’t any of the signs bear any resemblance to their writing? But this is getting into worldbuilding :T

So, basically, I think it’s a fun thing to play around with. But, I also find it a bit inconsistent, more than a bit biased, a bit limited, somewhat backwards and somewhat derivative(all signs derived from 12 prefixes and suffixes, themselves derived from the Earth-Zodiac, which was only made up of the signs of those Trolls who played The Game? Really??). As additional fan-fodder, it’s ok; as something comprehensive that invalidates fan-signs and fan-theories, I take exception.

[1]a weird sort of “Personification”. Coincidentally, we also see this in philosophy, where the pronouncement that moral decisions “declare a rule for all” can be found from Kant to Sartre.

[2]”Candy-Red Blood” is a mutation. It isn’t natural. Which is to say: It doesn’t fit into the Hemospectrum. The “Signless” had no sign because of this. So the idea that it would be the “True” Cancer symbol, rather than a later addition so insignificant that the breeding-bureaucracy didn’t even notice when it was snuck into the registry, is doubly ludicrous. Also: Why would the breeding registry 1)not notice a new Lime sign being added when the Lime Bloods were exterminated, and 2) not immediately destroy the grub when it was assigned the sign of a blood-caste registered for extermination? How is giving a mutant blood a caste-sign that would get them immediately destroyed any better than them not having one??

[morshtalon]

Majin Tensei

(Part 6 of the MegaTen thing)

Welp, Majin Tensei was a thing, wasn't it? Not a lot of people have played it, almost no one remembers it, there isn't a page on it on tvtropes, and the SMT wiki itself just has a few short articles here and there, but it sure did exist! It even spawned a sequel that, to my knowledge, gathered a bit more notoriety.

But why is it that the game flew under the radar like that? Well... Probably because the fan translation patch only came out in 2018, but I feel a little more comfort knowing about the game's obscurity, even compared to other titles in early SMT history, and imagining it to be the byproduct of the effect the game's quality had on the few people that actually did play it.

I say that, of course, because Majin Tensei was quite a miserable experience for me. It's a tactical RPG spinoff that translates series conventions into a strategy game format (Yes, another spinoff, but at this point I'd like to think MegaTen is kind of an all-encompassing thing with no true mainline games and spinoffs, just a whole bunch of products with baseline thematic/gameplay similarities organized under different banners representing closer similarities). Now, I have no problem with tactical RPGs at all, and some of the most fun I had back in 2017-2018 was when I started to work through the Fire Emblem series, but playing tames like Majin Tensei really helps one visualize exactly how all the elements piece themselves together to create a stimulating sRPG experience in a Fire Emblem title, and when these elements are not well-balanced, sometimes even at a level that you wouldn't realize at first, much frustration can ensue.

Naturally, the reason I say that is because Majin Tensei takes a lot of inspiration from Fire Emblem. The maps are similarly structured top-down boards, there's different types of terrain affecting movement one way or the other, there's a bunch of "classes" (a nice opportunity to make the demon races a little more distinguishable from each other), the attacks consist of the attacker striking then the opponent countering, your units are blue while enemies are red, and in general it just seems to operate through the same rough guidelines as an FE title

However, just as much as it takes mechanics from FE, it also changes around a lot of other stuff and introduces quite a few quirks that help distinguish it and make it a unique (said in a not particularly favorable or unfavorable way) experience. Let's make a rundown and compare them to how it would be in Fire Emblem!

Stats work much more like they do in MegaTen. On level-ups, you can select which stat you wish to increase; HP goes up to 999 instead of the mid-to-high double digits; levels go up to 99 instead of 20 or so; demons don't level up, but they can sort of pseudo-level up and acquire skills which can be passed on to demons made with them through fusion (I realize now, I think this is where the skill inheritance comes from. Huh...) and it plays a lot more like a translated regular RPG than something specifically tailored for the format it's using. I don't think I need to point out the likelihood of something that borrows mechanics from a different subgenre being better than something that was originally crafted for use in an sRPG (it's pretty minimal), but regardless, the point is, the attack/damage formulas and correlations of Majin Tensei are very difficult to pin down. In an RPG, it's completely fine to play around with unpredictability, but in a tactical game, you need to give the player agency and control over the game's minutiae to better allow them to piece a plan together. In Fire Emblem, the numbers are very low, and formulas are simplistic enough that the player can do some basic math and map out a course of action several moves in advance. Not so much here, as the eluding nature of the relations between strength, defense and damage means that you'll be going into most fights guesstimating what their result will be. That being as it is, the game's design isn't too concerned about tightly creating stages and enemies to take advantage of the player's exposure to this degree of information, and most maps feel much less involved than anything an FE title can offer. I'm not saying Fire Emblem is perfect or anything, but it does provide good insight into how to approach the RPG elements of something like this, while Majin Tensei, aiming to simulate the inner workings of more normal franchise titles, sacrifices immersion and makes a lot of maps dull because of that.

Oh, and rest assured, there's no shortage of them. While most FE titles hover around 25 maps, Majin Tensei has a staggering 59 scenarios, some of which far bigger and more filled with enemies than an average level in FE. I'm not exactly sure how long the game is, because it doesn't keep track of playtime, but it felt like an eternity. I was hoping the game would end at scenario 25, because it seems like it's at a point where it reasonably could stop the plot, but nope, it only stops after more than double that amount.

But if you thought only some vague notion of stat design is what made me deem the stages uninteresting, boy, you've got another thing coming. First of all, there's only one set of tracks (player phase, enemy phase, neutral phase) through the entire game, with the rare exception of boss maps, which use a single track that's shared between all of them (for all phases), and the final boss which also gets a unique track of its own. For comparison, Mystery of the Emblem has 3 sets of tracks and 24 stages, and Genealogy of the Holy War, though it is 2 years younger, has a unique set of tracks for every one of its 12 chapters. I will say, the music in Majin Tensei is quite good. It has a nice collection of samples, some enjoyable, prominent basslines, and encapsulates the chaotic setting and tone quite beautifully without having to resort to power rock stuff like SMT 1 did (I like the music in SMT 1, by the way, I just think the soundtrack here is a bit more matured). I actually think the tracks themselves are superior to the ones in all Fire Emblem titles for the Super Famicom. But man, listening to Flame Up Fragment's intro for several turns through 52 or so stages really starts to get under my skin.

Secondly, many stages are wide open fields, and the game tends to make enemies haul ass towards you whenever it can. This means that, optimally, you're just gonna bunch up somewhere narrow and relatively safe-ish and wait for the main wave of enemies to come toward you instead of doing anything yourself. Later maps have generators that basically serve the same function reinforcements do in FE, so you're gonna have to move to block the generators at some point. It can't help but feel arbitrary, though. You're not moving because you have to, or because enemies are trying to lure you to then, or because of a natural reason like that. You're moving because the game put some generator on the opposite end of the board, and even though the enemies the generator produces are hilariously underpowered compared to you, the stage requires you to defeat all enemies, and before you can kill a wave of generator guys, another one is produced, so you have no choice but to block it. I realized through Majin Tensei that destroy all enemies is a very risky thing to make your baseline objective for scenarios. It's kind of like if you were forced to kill reinforcements on a Fire Emblem map.

Point is, there's a lot of waiting involved, way more than in FE, so you'd at least expect them to include ways to expedite the process, right? Well, if there are any, I sure haven't found them, and you can bet your ass I tried, a lot. There's no way to speed up or skip enemy phases, and scenarios can have up to a maximum of 30 enemies in them. Furthermore, the AI takes a fraction of a second to decide where each enemy will move to, and that fraction of a second adds up pretty fast. There's a scenario late in the game that I swear was designed to annoy the player into ultimate frustration. Throughout the map, there are 30 level 3 kobolds spread out randomly. However, there are generators at key points, and whenever you kill a kobold, the generators immediately spawn another one until there's 30 in the map once again. Since at that point you are omnipotently stronger than this type of enemy, you're not really gonna bother summoning a lot of your demons, because it's just gonna be a waste of money and magnetite, so you just choose 3 of the good ones and leave it at that. So, each turn, the AI takes upwards of 2 and a half minutes to move all its units, then you move yours closer to the generators for five seconds, rinse and repeat. Heaven forbid you actually get surrounded by a bunch of them, because the combat "animations" (really just a barely animating sprite of the target getting struck by a generic RPG slash effect) also can't be skipped. It got to a point where I was so bored and frustrated, I did something I've never done before in any game in my life: I used emulator tools to fast-forward through enemy phases. Being a borderline OCD player who abhors the use of tools and even sometimes forgoes using mechanics in remakes that didn't exist in the original versions of the games, you can see how miserable I was.

I guess I should take some time to say, the artwork in the animations is very detailed and big compared to other games so far in the franchise. The demons look pretty good, but I feel like sometimes they're drawn a little weird, like Orthrus having some weird proportions and Maya looking unintentionally hilarious. There's also very rampant palette swapping, to the point where it can sometimes kill the excitement of seeing a new demon on the map because you know they're gonna look the same as 3 others. The most egregious example I could find was Empousa looking the same as Abaddon, of all things, which I found extremely odd when you compare it to any other game in the series. Some of the fairies and catwomen look really sexy, drawn with no clothes, and have a flirtatious personality, but I can't see anything other than a group of middle aged japanese men getting all hot and bothered writing the lines for these demons.

Overall, the game is, again, pretty easy. Not because of anything the player will feel is their own credit, but because periodically, neutral demons will show up. While enemies have a variable chance of even beginning conversation with you (from 0% to 80% depending on the phase of the moon, which changes at the beginning of each player phase), these demons will pretty much always talk to you (the game says 80%, but I never had it fail) and have no level restrictions to enter your party, unlike demons you can make through fusion and enemies you can convert. Most of the time, these neutral demons are massively overpowered, far stronger than anything else you'll have for several maps, and when you do get to the maps that have similar enemies, your own troops will all be at the maximum pseudo-level, so they'll still curbstomp the enemies into oblivion. Only at the tail end of the story do you ever have to really start taking relationships between demon races seriously into account and use your minions cleverly, but still, all you have to do is watch the effectiveness indicator at the bottom left. If you still find it too challenging, you can save at the beginning of every turn, which... Never really goes well for these types of games in terns of presenting the player with a reasonable, well put together challenge. Since you can fix mistakes at a moment's notice by save scumming, being careful is hardly ever necessary, and since demons aren't unique, there's nothing preventing you from sacrificing a few for the greater good, so it's very, very rare that you'll have to use your brain much. This is a strategy game, and you can just blast through most things!

The only stage I found truly challenging was scenario 45, I believe. It's actually the same premise as the kobold level from earlier, except when you kill an enemy (and you will, because they suicide on you), the generators, which are far out of the way and are only accessible by flying units, replace them with level 50 leviathans instead. The whole level turns into a race as you have to use your fliers to quickly cover the generators while trying your best to delay the onslaught of leviathans as much as possible, then carefully manipulate positioning and backup troops to minimize the damage that the leviathans that inevitably start pouring out after a while deal to you. It's a rage-inducing level at first glance, but it was pretty much the only time Majin Tensei actually delivered a well thought-out stage that has its concept introduced earlier then turns it into a game of using your units for purposes that require out-of-the-box thinking (like using your fairies as meat shields because they can't kill level 3 enemies in one hit). I would have appreciated the game so much more if it were just 18 or so stages of clever stuff like this. It would have been harder, sure, but damn man, this genre is basically made to offer a more thinking experience for the player, and Majin Tensei does have a lot of mechanical complexity with all the correlations between things, so why does it only use it in extremely rare occasions like this?

As it stands though, Majin Tensei was loathsome to me. All the things I appreciate about it are for the vast majority of the game in service of a dull, neutered tactical experience that offers little over passively going through the motions 59 times in a row until you get to the end. There's a plot, but it's hardly even worth talking about. It's a spinoff, so the game feels it can just do the same shit over again, and it's basically one long trek through Tokyo, then the underworld, then it ends. There's nothing stimulating about it other than some questions the demons ask the hero pertaining to the reasons why he's fighting or something, but it's so underdeveloped, nothing substantial comes from it. There are multiple endings, but it has nothing to do with law or chaos, it's just standard good/normal/bad endings. Maybe the good one offers some more closure, but it's still an overly simple plot spread as thin as possible among the game's sheer bloated girth. It's exhausting just to think about it.

Given that, this game is a 2.9 out of 10 for me. Yeah, that's pretty low, and I considered giving it a higher score based on its sort of complex mechanics and enjoyable interactions, but while playing I felt nothing but boredom and irritation, and while it felt like an eternity had passed while I was playing it, now that it's over, it feels like it came and went in a nanosecond. I'm actually starting to think it was just some weird fever dream I had, and thinking about it definitely brings me images of being sick, so take that for what it's worth.

[tdrcycle09]

Rags To Riches Ball Part I: Unconventional Talent Category

In our first part of our Rags To Riches Ball, our queens had to create their own unconventional outfits using objects that made us gag! And, as an extra part on this category, the girls had to create a talent video. Let’s see how they do!

Analyse Thropic

Lila:  UGH! UGGGGGHHHHH! I am absolutely adoring this entire thing from head to toe. Every little piece has a detail, every little thought is so meticulously planned, and I live for it. Looking at this now, it’s no joke - what you’ve done in 7 months, across charm school, across this cycle, you’ve became this truly unstoppable force of powerhouse talent, and this outfit really stamps on the map how much you’ve progressed, from not even sewing at all, to becoming this powerhouse of DIY. Mary, I salute you.The ONLY THING - and it’s absolutely miniscule - your mushroom cut is doing the same as what happened to me - one of the hairs is flaring out making it off-kilter and once I noticed it, I’m like “ugh, this is glaring at me so much”. For your talent - I genuinely respect that you sat there, created a little scene and could master really singing without the camera’s audio clipping or distorting. You’re not the best singer, yes, but honestly, I was dancing to the song and having the occasional chuckle. I’m glad we didn’t get that stilted Weather Girl™ shot you’ve been criticised for in the past, and you kept me entertained for the entire video. I loved this, and you’re cementing yourself to be such a powerhouse in drag!

Letha:  Analyse, the amount of work and detail that went into this look is honestly astounding. The playing card skirt, the accessories, the little crown, even the little nails, it's all so great and is a smart use of them materials. I think the stole/wrap would have worked better if it was just a piece on the shoulders, as it kind of closes you off. The hair has such great volume but I think the structure fell apart a bit from when you initially styled it. I will say I'm not loving the shape you've created, as it's a bit boxy. Either more flare from the skirt or more cinch from the corset would have helped define the silhouette a bit more. The makeup is very graphic and cartoony and is some of your best work of the cycle, as far as blending goes. Your talent video was hilARIOUS and very on brand for you, very Quirky Dique Pigue. You have a good voice and the sing/speak style worked very well. All in all, you really impressed me with your work on this challenge!

Toni: 301’S ON THE BOTTOM I C O N I C!!!! I really like this look, I think it was smart to take a character for inspiration and build the look around that. I love that from head to toe you used unconventional materials, even down to the brows and nails, so props for creative use of uncon. I do wish you had a bit more shape and a bigger bottom skirt for this look because it really would have pushed that wow factor for me. I also think you could have benefited from a staff or a scepter The wig is a big rough on one side and I wish you had taken the time to fix that up. Onto your makeup I live that you used 301’s on the bottom, and cards as the brows.You did a good job of keeping your makeup from getting muddy but I do wish you had lined your lips with a darker color. Onto your talent I think you really picked a strong talent, along with a strong song choice that really showed off who you are as queen!! I think it could have been done with a little editing such as the parts where its like you jumping from conversation to conversation. You could have easily edited that to have a fade between each one just to have it make more sense.

Gluttoni:  This look is an ace Analyse and you look like a fucking QUEEN! This is the type of tedious, detailed work that makes fashion great.  And my sweet you look fucking great. I’m such a fan of classic fairytales and I’m obsessed with your nod to the Queen of Hearts. You really excel in whimsical fantasy looks. The hair looks very grand so congrats on the styling of that and the makeup with card accents are great tie ins to this extravagant look. All in all, I loved the styling of this look. The only this is that I compare it to past looks that have done exactly like this but otherwise this a finished, polished look. Your talent! WOW. I’m not too versed in musical culture besides the one that let me keep my gay card intact but miss lady, YOU DID THAT. I was fully immersed in what you were doing. The set up was simplistic yet effective and I loved the concept beyond words because we’ve all had that awkward Tinder date before. Excellent work in showing us the fact you are multitalented. You went off with these other girl’s head.

Avana Noir

Lila:  Wow. Wow, wow, wow. This is above and beyond, and I’m loving this concept a lot. It kind of has this twisted element of like Wonderland meets Final Fantasy meets the Cloud District, and the animals kill all the civillians and you’re killing your ex husband and the fucking full body shot of you with the blood - wow. The blood must be mine after this - that wig is not doing this concept any justice for me. It’s such a lovely colour and it’s those bangs. If you rat combed through it, really detangle it and get it as flat as you can, it would work - because the volume and the raggedy anne of it bar the bangs fit this concept super well, it’s just those bangs - you could’ve done an egg head dress if you wanted the illusion of it looking lace frontal-y and teased it out even more just so the volume stayed, but honestly - that’s just a nitpick. Overall, really cute and a great execution from yourself! Your talent was kind of a little bit here there and everywhere - I know how much of a videographer you are and editing is one of your strongest talents, and for me, there were standout moments, however there were still cracks in what could have otherwise been something really special and showcase-y. It reminds me of those really upclass OOTD videos that are on YouTube, and the only things that could be improved are the set dressing, and perhaps less shaky camera work. All in all, this was extremely fun to watch!

Letha: Hey bitch, it's Avana Noirrrrrrrrr!!!! You are serving straight up Playboy Easter Bunny, and the sex appeal works to balance out the shape of the middle, which could be argued is a bit bulky, but works as whole. I think a tiddy contour could have helped add some definition, though. I love the theme you went with, you better GET that Easter shit on clearance and make a look out of it. The makeup is fun, but a bit sloppy/messy in some places. I know you were going for a bit of a horror vibe here, but I think if there had been some sfx work over a flawless base it would have worked better than just smudging it. The wig is quite frankly a WRECK, but I like the nails and ears. I was confused a bit by your talent when I first saw it, but looking at it as an example of film it's pretty well done. Good job!

Toni:Lets start with your talent. BET. I thought that was a really smart way to do you talent and to give the judges a good look at your makeup and clothes. I love how in the first part you connected the first look to the second and then it had that huge mood shift. I wish you found a way to connect the second to the third because I think that was really cool and made it seem more professional.  I think that this look is really cool and super out of the box for you. It was smart to tack the easter supplies that were on sale and sue them that way you got more bang for your buck. I think you could have painted the nails to look like little carrots and that would have been really cool. You also needed some form of strap to really hold everything in place on your shoulders. I think the makeup is very cute and very fitting, but that wig is rough girl. I think if you had styled the bangs down to hide that harsh line you would have been better off. 

Gluttoni:  Avana! You made it my love. This look is fucking amazing. I love anything cute and dark and you are giving me that! I love that you are giving us Easter feels for this springtime finale. The easter egg bodice almost had me stumped when you mentioned it but you really turned it as far as construction and execution goes. This is very good look and you should be proud of all the work you put in this because it shows. Your talent left me wanting a little more. I get what you were going after but it really just didn’t hit me over the head with feels y’know?

Lexi Lamour

Lila:  Your pictures this week are a little hard to make out, but either way, your costuming is absolutely spot on. This is extremely amazing work, honestly. It shows how much effort you can really put into something and it’s just so great to see this crazy flower rainbow display. The colours work so well in this and it’s just an exciting mix. The only thing that I would really change is the hair’s length, the length is sort of swallowing you up and it would’ve been much more perfection if the hair was a little short or pinned up. Your talent was kind of hit-and-miss for me. I don’t brand myself a comedy queen but I’m an embarrassment and also tragique, but some of the jokes could’ve landed a lot better. The sound was kind of swallowing your recording up a lot more too - Some elements were just off and for me, really, the funniest part was at the end when you showed some goofiness. I think it’s because there’s not much of that crack into being “goofy” so the jokes come across rather as a story than jokes. All in all, this category was good for you.

Letha:  Lexi, a flower after my own heart. Obviously I love me a good flower look, and the way you combined both the flowers and the colors to make a rainbow is really great. I love the butterfly accents as well as the cloud/bird's nest, and the bright red hair is GREAT, it makes for a really cool gradient blend into the outfit. My only critique would be that the color of your tights kind of throws me, but I know how hard it can be to match them so that's understandable. I think the makeup is very pretty, but I feel like you could have done a bolder lip to keep up with the oomph of the rest of the outfit. For your standup comedy talent video, I must admit I wasn't the biggest fan. There were a couple funny parts and some clever editing choices but all in all it was pretty flat. All in all, it was kind of a mixed bag for me, but I do LOVE the look!

Toni:Hey Lexi! So I really love this body suit with all the flowers, I love the colors on the front but then you turn around and on the back it’s something totally different!!! I think you’ve accessorized it well with the cuff and the butterflies but I do wish there there was something going on towards the bottom because it does get a bit top heavy with the shoulder pads (that I do love). I think the hair is beautiful and really fits the look. Your makeup has improved so much over the cycle and I think I like the eye done with blue more than they one done with yellow and this face would have been perfect if you had done them both that way. Onto your talent that was really funny! I got a lot of good chuckles out of that and it was clear that this is something you’ve practiced and worked on. I think what could have helped this best is by letting the jokes breathe a little and putting more air time in it so that the audience has time to get the jokes. 

Gluttoni: Lexi, Lexi, LEXI! You are here to go out with motherfucking bang I see and I’m totally on board for it. You slayed crafting a look out of these materials and I couldn’t be more proud of your work. You look fantastic in red hair and the monarchs were an amazing touch. You look like a rainbow dream and the styling of this is something I didn’t quite expect from you but I must say I love it. Your talent is something else completely unexpected from you. I was on the floor laughing and I’m glad you can really make fun of yourself even through your trying time and that is the makings of a true queen.

Sugar Monroe

Lila:  This by far is one of your strongest outfits you’ve created. I believe what you’re selling, the plastic is such a great fabric and because it is layered, it gives this nice effect of white kind of fibery fabric. The pink colour scheme is such a fun look and the entire headpiece is such a fucking strong point of interest. With that being said, where are your backlighting photos? I’m a little let down that there isn’t a light feature that you promised us, but that’s besides the point. I’m proud of this look, I think you should be too. Your talent on the other hand, ehh, it was alright. Alright in a way that I was expecting kind of a little bit more effort of a tally of you getting it wrong or right, maybe seeing the lyrics on screen whilst you sing the songs you were asked to do. You have such a beautiful voice and I’m really glad you always give us a listen to it - you’ve really given us such a great insight into what you can do this cycle and I’m so proud to see you shine where you can stand.

Letha:  Sugar, I must say, of your three looks, this is the best put together, and my personal favorite. I would go so far as to say this is the most intricate one of your outfits has ever been. I wish you had done a pic with the tea lights more visible, as that would have been really cool (like in your runway), but I still really like it. Love the headpiece a lot, and the hair is simple but works well with the rest of the look. The makeup is also cute, I would've liked a bit more blending/softening around the edges of the eyes, though. For the talent portion, the singing was okay, but the organization of the video/editing was a bit of a mess. For about the last half, you're out of focus, which sucks, but at least the audio wasn't affected. With that in mind though, this is a solid submission and a testament to your growth throughout this cycle. Great job!

Toni: I think out of all your looks this one is easily my favorite. I think this is so beautiful and exciting to look at. It has so many different layers and textures, along with the lights, head piece, and styling of the with it all really just comes together for me. I really love this look from you. Onto your talent I think it was lacking a bit. The best parts of it for me was when you’d mess up and we’d get to see that spark of sugar humor, I loved that. I wish you had done more of that and just really worked your personality into this, or done another talent that had showcased your humor and personality it would have had a huge payoff. 

Gluttoni: Much like all the other judges have said this is by far your crown and glory of all your looks. This outshines your queen look in the terms of being regal and royal looking. You look fucking ethereal in all honestly. I think you’ve had a very smart mindset in how to use your unconventional materials because they are very well placed. The headpiece is so ornate and beautiful so the straight hair fits well. The makeup is so good. I’d personally would add one more lighter color to blend edges out of the pink on the eyes. The talent aspect was just a dry for me although your singing was good. I definitely think you brought it in this category. 

[zeroviraluniverse-blog]

The Simple Optical Illusion That Makes an Image Look Like It's Drawing Itself

Visit Now - http://zeroviral.com/the-simple-optical-illusion-that-makes-an-image-look-like-its-drawing-itself/

The Simple Optical Illusion That Makes an Image Look Like It's Drawing Itself

iStock

iStock

Artist James Nolan Gandy invents robot arms that sketch intricate mathematical shapes with pen and paper. When viewed in real time, the effect is impressive. But it becomes even more so when the videos are sped up in a timelapse. If you look closely in the video below, the illustration appears to materialize faster than the robot can put the design to paper. Gizmodo recently explained how the illusion works to make it look like parts of the sketch are forming before the machine has time to draw them.

The optical illusion isn’t an example of tricky image editing: It’s the result of something called the wagon wheel effect. You can observe this in a car wheel accelerating down the highway or in propeller blades lifting up a helicopter. If an object makes enough rotations per second, it can appear to slow down, move backwards, or even stand still.

This is especially apparent on film. Every “moving image” we see on a screen is an illusion caused by the brain filling in the gaps between a sequence of still images. In the case of the timelapse video below, the camera captured the right amount of images, in the right order, to depict the pen as moving more slowly than it did in real life. But unlike the pen, the drawing formed throughout the video isn’t subject to the wagon-wheel effect, so it still appears to move at full speed. This difference makes it look like the sketch is drawing itself, no pen required.

Gandy frequently shares behind-the-scenes videos of his mechanical art on his Instagram page. You can check out some of his non-timelapse clips like the one below to better understand how his machines work, then visit his website to browse and purchase the art made by his ‘bots.

And if you think his stuff is impressive, make sure to explore some of the incredible art robots have made in the past.

[h/t Gizmodo]

Tessa Angus

Surprising Sculptures Made From Fallen Feathers

Kate MccGwire, Orchis, 2012

Tessa Angus

Kate MccGwire is a British sculptor with an unusual medium: feathers. Her surreal, undulating works often take the form of installations—the feathers spilling out of a drain, a stove, a crypt wall—or stand-alone sculptures in which antique bell jars, cabinets, or trunks contain otherworldly shapes.

MccGwire developed her obsession with feathers after moving to a studio barge on the Thames in 2006, as she explains in a video from Crane.tv recently spotlighted by Boing Boing. The barge was near a large shed full of feral pigeons, whose feathers she would spot on her way to work. “I started picking them up and laying them out, collecting them,” she remembers. “And after about two weeks I had like 300 feathers.” At the time, concerns about bird flu were rife, which made the feathers seem “dangerous as well as beautiful.”

When not supplied by her own next-door menagerie, the feathers for her artwork come from a network of racing pigeon societies all over the UK, who send her envelopes full every time the birds molt. Farmers and gamekeepers also send her fallen feathers from birds such as magpies, pheasants, and roosters.

The cultural associations around birds are a big part of what inspires MccGwire. “The dove is the symbol of peace, purity, and fertility,” she told ArtNews in 2013, “but it’s exactly the same species as a pigeon—which everyone regards as being dirty, foul, a pest.”

The same duality is present in her own work, which she frequently shares on her Instagram account. “I want to seduce by what I do—but revolt in equal measure. It’s really important to me that you’ve got that rejection of things you think you know for sure.”

You can see some pictures of MccGwire’s work, and watch the video from Crane.tv, below.

Amazon

13 Stunningly Beautiful Coloring Books for All Ages

BY Alvin Ward

February 7, 2018

Amazon

The rise of adult coloring books comes with a similar, exciting trend: extremely ornate and beautiful coloring books. These tomes make aesthetics the first priority by utilizing the work of extremely talented illustrators. Check out some coloring books with unusual and stunning artwork, perfect for when you’re looking for something a little different.

Mental Floss has affiliate relationships with certain retailers and may receive a small percentage of any sale. But we only get commission on items you buy and don’t return, so we’re only happy if you’re happy. Thanks for helping us pay the bills!

1. DOODLERS ANONYMOUS EPIC COLORING BOOK; $13.21

Doodlers Anonymous is a collective of artists that works as a home for eccentric and unconventional illustration art. For this unique coloring book, 90 contemporary artists from all over the world came together to lend their illustrations. Each page features a different artist and a different style.

Find it: Amazon

2. OUTSIDE THE LINES; $14.70

If you’re unimpressed by 90 different artists, how about 100? All sorts of creative minds—like animators, cartoonists, fine artists, graphic artists, illustrators, musicians—offered their talents to make this incredible coloring book a reality.

Find it: Amazon

3. ANIMORPHIA; $11.93

You may know artist Kerby Rosanes from his Sketchy Stories blog. Rosanes creates mind-bending scenes of objects and animals bursting into tinier objects and animals. The wildly detailed illustrations promise hours of coloring enjoyment. For added fun, certain pages are intentionally unfinished and encourage the colorer to draw their own designs.

Find it: Amazon

4. MID-CENTURY MODERN ANIMALS; $5.17

Illustrator Jenn Ski has a flair for mid-20th century art and design. She created a series of coloring books in this style that ranges from folk art to botanicals. This animal-themed coloring book features simplistic but beautiful designs that are perfect for animal and design lovers alike.

Find it: Amazon

5. NATURAL WONDERS; $5.77

Patrick Hruby’s artwork is striking for its solid blocks of contrasting colors that pop right off the page. Now you can pick your own color scheme for his blocky, minimalist style. The 32 illustrations feature natural scenes of animals, flora, and landscapes. There’s even a guide in the back of the book that shows what each picture looks like with color.

Find it: Amazon

6. CHARLEY HARPER COLORING BOOK; FROM $6

American illustrator Charley Harper is also an artist known for his blocky and colorful artwork. These pieces are perfect to translate into black and white linework to put in a coloring book. The horizontal coloring book features Harper’s iconic drawings of birds and illustrations he did for Ford Times. When you’re done, you can peel the work right out of the book and stick on a wall or fridge.

Find it: Amazon

7. MANDALAS; $8.67

This book of 92 intricate, beautiful mandalas makes for a meditative coloring session. Pair with yoga to achieve maximum zen.

Find it: Amazon

8. SECRET NEW YORK; $10.87

Created by Paris-based artist Zoe de Las Cases, this coloring book focuses on the little things in New York City. Color your way through Manhattan to Brooklyn, one tote bag or sneaker at a time.

Find it: Amazon

9. WILD SAVANNAH; $9.48

Illustrator Millie Marotta creates extremely intricate coloring books that are so beautifully detailed, they almost don’t need to be colored. Her patterns of the savannah’s flora and fauna offer a great way to relieve stress and be creative.

Find it: Amazon

10. TATTOOS; $7.29

This book features classic images like anchors, skulls, and roses. Once you’re done coloring, you might be tempted to get the completed work tattooed on your arm.

Find it: Amazon

11. MAGICAL CITY; FROM $7.52

Illustrator Lizzie Mary Cullen takes cityscapes and deconstructs them into swirly abstract designs perfect for the creative colorer. Cullen took inspiration from cities like London, Rome, and Luxor when creating this unusual coloring book.

Find it: Amazon

12. THE ART OF NATURE; $8.35

For the budding scientist in your life: A coloring book filled with scientific drawings from the 18th and 19th centuries. There are 60 pages of vintage illustrations of animals and flora to fill in.

Find it: Amazon

13. ALEXANDER GIRARD COLORING BOOK; $9.93

Bring home the illustrative magic of Alexander Girard with this coloring book that transforms some of his work into simple line art to color. Girard, also known as Sandro, was an interior and textile designer who made some extremely charming and retro artwork.

Find it: Amazon

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[recentanimenews]

Staff Picks: Our Favorite Video Games of 2017

Welcome back to Staff Picks, wherein we list our favorite anime, manga, and video games of 2017. This time we’re living up to the second half of our name with video games, featuring lists from Ani-Gamers Podcast co-hosts David Estrella and Evan Minto. As usual our six choices are hardly able to capture the many great games that came out this year, but they provide a glimpse into a year that was startlingly good for the medium. Nintendo launched the Switch, which set sales records and provided a platform for a number of fantastic, at times generation-defining games, some of which made it onto our lists. Indie games explored mental health, classic animation, and outer space while major studios (and one particular indie darling) unleashed massive open worlds and raucous online experiences. Without further ado, our picks for the best video games of 2017.

David Estrella

#3: Doki Doki Literature Club

Doki Doki Literature Club is a game-changing, earth-shaking, cataclysmic event that all visual novel readers would hope to live through. It’s exactly as cheap, cruel, and malicious as you anticipate … until suddenly it’s not, the ground disappears below your feet, and you re-evaluate whatever brought you into this position in the first place.

That is to say, why are you playing Doki Doki Literature Club?

I cannot speak about this game in terms milder than complete, ecstatic passion.

It is a fully realized expression of the medium, of what it means to be a visual novel, and a glimpse at the frontiers yet to be explored. Doki Doki Literature Club is the story of a generation buried underneath mountains of digital garbage, interpersonal failures, and the burdensome ghost of a future — the lie that we are all on the right track and that we are all going to be fine.

Doki Doki Literature Club careens into the boundaries. Occasionally this ride teeter-totters over the edge, and it’s only because of how far it pushes against what is safe and acceptable in our media that the empathy found in the resolution reaches so deep into my soul.

Doki Doki Literature Club is a visual novel about joining a high school literature club. You can choose to romance your childhood best friend, a pink-haired tsundere character, or a mature, mysterious beauty. Help Club President Monika and the rest of the girls make a big debut for this fledgling club at the school festival.

Doki Doki Literature Club is my Number 3 Staff Pick in Games for Ani-Gamers, but it is Number 1 in my heart.

#2: NieR: Automata

To reiterate what I said on Ani-Gamers Podcast #088, Yoko Taro’s sad robot game is a title few expected to succeed outside of those in the know. I was already prepared to like it (and I did, quite a lot), so the real story here is how deeply it resonated with the outsiders — those with no qualifications in action-heavy, beat-em-up, hack-n-slash games; with those who haven’t followed Yoko Taro’s drunken nihilistic oeuvre since Drakengard (2003); with those who came into this game with no greater motivation other than being extremely horny for 2B. (Is this supposed to be 2D?)

Automata, a mess of a game, is poorly matched in direct competition against Nintendo’s masterfully crafted Breath of the Wild. Zelda is untouchable when it comes to fun, but in terms of raw anger and frustration slathered with cold, gelatinous scoops of depression, Automata makes a decisive victory.

Why would anyone want to spend 40 hours playing a game that sets out to make the player miserable? Was I really miserable during it all? I can’t answer that succinctly in 200-300 words. Gamers must find the answer for themselves.

Many games are fun. Few are sad. Even fewer are sad and developed by Platinum Games with aspirations of tertiary mainstream success on PS4 and PC. Only one beautiful, bittersweet game blindsided the critics, astounded the bean counters at Square Enix, and made the Gamers cry.

Hint: It wasn’t Final Fantasy XV.

#1: The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild

OK, yes, here it is, The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild — the easiest and most boring selection a human being could make for their GotY 2017. I actually just want to take this time to talk more about Doki Doki Literature Club since I’m sure Evan will effuse enough praise for this game in his own write-up for the both of us.

Personally, my favorite Doki Doki Literature Club girl is Monika. I know it’s a weird pick since you don’t get to spend much time with her, but that sort of thing is pretty common with visual novels, isn’t it? There’s always a character that gets the short end of the stick and it almost feels like the devs forgot to write a route for what could be a really interesting character. Sayori hangs on the reader’s self-insert character like her life depends on it and Yuri can get a little overbearing. That just leaves Natsuki but I’m not too hot on the tsundere archetype.

I was hoping there was a secret mechanic with the poetry writing segments in the game to unlock Monika’s route, but I guess no one else has found anything like that. The options to share poems with Monika are there, so hopefully Team Salvato is intending on implementing an update that will let Monika Maniacs such as myself spend more time with her.

Breath of the Wild is the Game of the Year, but truthfully, all I need in this life is Monika.

Evan Minto

#3: Night in the Woods

In 2017 it seemed like everything was political, and for good reason — in the US, the election of Donald Trump added fuel to a growing culture war between left and right. So it’s not all that surprising that indie darling Night in the Woods, an adventure game about talking animals, comes with a clear leftist political message and takes a side in the generational divide between millennials and baby boomers. What originally attracted me to the game was its simplistic, paper-cutout visual style and its hilariously sardonic writing. The characters have a rapid-fire, always-on sense of humor and a penchant for dorky self-deprecation that accurately captures the irony-drenched reality of being a young adult in the 2010s. Its main character, Mae Borowski, drops out of college and returns home to her Rust Belt town to find her favorite haunts closing up shop and her friends stuck in dead-end jobs. It’s a little like Scott Pilgrim, in that it’s a nerdy dramedy that explores the things that young people do to form connections and find meaning while beset by economic hardship and mental illness. Plus the characters play in a band where they perform original songs like “Die Anywhere Else” and “Pumpkin Head Guy” via a rhythm mini-game, so I was destined to like this game. The ending is vague, evocative, and explicitly political, but what will stick with me about Night in the Woods is its dynamic and lovable characters, many of whom remind me of my own friends back home.

#2: Super Mario Odyssey

Nintendo understands fun like no one else. For proof, look no further than Super Mario Odyssey, a video game that starts off fun and never stops, even after you beat Bowser and save Princess Peach. Mario’s got all his usual tricks, but this time he also has a talking hat named Cappy who can possess enemies and inanimate objects to aid in their globe-trotting adventure. That Odyssey takes you out of the Mushroom Kingdom is in itself is nothing new; Mario went to space in Galaxy! But Odyssey feels fresh thanks to a charming tendency for surrealism and the bravery to break from the visual conventions of a 36-year-old franchise. There’s a kingdom with dinosaurs, one with a city full of normally proportioned humans, and even one made entirely of food. The game design itself is masterful, with the Cappy mechanics adding a new layer of discovery and technical skill that starts simple but grows as players progress and find new objects with which to interact. Meanwhile, dozens of Moons (the equivalent of the Stars in old games) are strewn across each level, hidden behind simple puzzles, complex platforming challenges, and everything in between. Most importantly, Odyssey rewards exploration and experimentation by reducing punishments and discontinuities and hiding coins and Moons in unique, hard-to-find locations. I’ve been out of the Mario game for a couple years, but what a joyous return this is!

#1: The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild

In any other year, Mario Odyssey would be my Game of the Year, but alas, 2017 was the Year of Zelda. Breath of the Wild is easily one of the best Zelda games of all time, even rivaling my love of Majora’s Mask and Ocarina of Time. Nintendo boldly threw out many of the 3-D Zelda conventions that have been around since Ocarina, allowing free-roaming exploration across mountains, rivers, and seas, with no predetermined order to the dungeons. The game’s massive world is filled with over 100 mini-dungeons, nearly 1,000 environmental puzzles, and countless open-ended monster encounters. Tying it all together is a set of mechanics that interact and resonate with each other in unexpected ways, allowing for seemingly endless experimentation. Weapons can start fires, fires create updrafts of wind, bombs are carried by the wind, the list goes on. Breath of the Wild captures the appeal of other open-world games but cuts out their tedium and stat-crunching nerdiness, leaving a pure sense of flow and a gnawing curiosity that makes it impossible to put down. In fact, it came out in March and I’m still discovering new items and locations as I approach 150 hours of gameplay. This is a fantasy adventure video game the way they were always meant to be, full of wide-eyed wonder and stunning beauty.

For more 2017 Staff Picks, check out Evan’s manga list and look out for our upcoming anime list!

Staff Picks: Our Favorite Video Games of 2017 originally appeared on Ani-Gamers on January 11, 2018 at 5:26 AM.

By: David Estrella

[bruce-the-candy-batman-blog]

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Summoners conflict not summoner competitions never to be taken wrongly along with the plastic card membership summoner competitions, heavens market features greatly excellent artwork and production importance, and limited center mechanics to begin with the staple device selection mechanics an online-based on market combat - all while outstanding entirely free-to-play around, in-membership orders. There's also recommended dungeons readily available for the requirements of milling, levelling and maturing your summon selection. Summoners conflict skillzoom2 within a switch-based on membership from which understanding have the time to recuperate and may be rationed and timed strategically, any of these features mesh properly to offer individuals strategic worries. |Skillzoom a fireplace-choice fairy, such as, doesn't quite frankly have one other elemental alignment when compared to the typical the water-choice fairy, even when they are making time for tell related foundation stats. Beast categories monsters belong to differing jobs a little too, to provide an example attackers, tankers, followers, and protection. There are a selection of rune styles accessible to the online gamer for every single beast which is 100 % as much as her or him concerning how she or he optimizes them for effective play around. Summoners conflict rune finding out runes is easy. Inspite of the regular move a electric power strategy, there is even so quite a lot to carry out in this particular jewel. Summoners conflict area final result: first-rate (5/5) generally speaking, Summoners War Hack No Download: heavens market is definitely a all round succeed in personally. that this label might well be well worth installing for helps to keep. Atmosphere area headquarters - construct your hub city in the ground-up. Go physique. |Extra eq generators are in need of this choices! Is tempered interestingly because of the silly judgment to control communicating to individuals who're levels 8 or improved only. A mixture of symbols on-screen beg the online gamer to find some thing powerful. It's less pricey. Never the less, its faults along with the purchase price level for 100 % actually purchase-in imply that it isn't for all, if you are able to owning an adjustable iap strategy suggests that it's well worth looking at either way. The main reason in the sporting activity is overcome, but violence will not be bloody or graphic, devoid of amounts really truly die. have remarkable mana crystals with the help of useful "summoners" who are going to deal with a selection of remarkable monsters. If you find yourself presenting with other individuals, what information is not ok to Summoners conflict carries a worldwide standard review report credit score of a few.9 on android. There must be some help to extra money, but the feeling which your gamer must spend profits (rather than enjoying a tremendous amount great that they wish to fork out) will troubled them. It really is a fabulous resolve once you think about it: minimize the chance attached empowering associates change their ineffective achievements for your that can help them getaway holding somewhere around. |The heatmap reveals a common discontentment that forestalls summoner’s conflict from owning ideal opinions. Advantageous gaining knowledge of process while plodding along with the scenarios, brought which includes a considerably chatty journey. Attribute benefits (wind>water>fire>wind) might be the initial aspect somebody discovers and purposes, in the future lumination and darkish link up with this solution. lessen into the valley of grind. Never the less right after a positive level, the marginal worth of degree time fork out holding somewhere around exceeds the marginal assist you in getting once you attain anything so But on a single topic area, my only meat is this usually takes quite a lot to levels your amounts (not forgetting finding out a few of the truly really good amounts), with just a few solutions getting truly difficult to acquire. The training is really congrats, guiding you with creative ideas while having entire move life-span, never ever owning terribly annoying. It may seem it's being unfaithful to declare they've through 400 along with the simple fact which they can consist of such as a werewolf which counts as 5 differing monsters in the event you consider the differing essentials: i.e. |In conclusion i offer a tenOr10. These summoners wield lousy power on the battlefield, very cold their foes in position, emptying their adversaries of capability, combined with owning rains of fireside lessen included in the heavens. We investigate Summoners War Hack No Download: heavens market, a different Will the sport play around proposed in summoner competitions transcend time, or has it'd its daytime? Keep reading to identify out… your entire components in the create (minus helpful tips handbook). Substantial importance! In summoner competitions you be a summoner. Champion equipment are very useful equipment with improved episode and medical in comparison with usual equipment plus they will often end up with a significantly more useful consequence a little too. Observing injure is without a doubt simplistic with the wound tokens currently offered. The start gamer does overlook their pull, summon, and play around special event credit cards phases, but has the ability to action 2 equipment and episode with as diverse of the equipment that should make this happen. Ouch! I definitely liked just how a membership play around happened to run from part to part devoid of truly getting to vary depending an extreme quantity of on the research unit card. |The whole thing grew to end up being all-natural and all sorts of i needed to be concerned about was my program along with the chance using the roll within the overcome. The operate-away from is perhaps you can possibly greatly reduce one on the initial switch, interestingly this is really mitigated since you can revitalize your power pool area a great deal much faster. There aren't any not as much as 24 differing factions currently available for purchase as a result of all collections and expansions with just a few fairly neutral credit cards tossed into the prepare to construct deckbuilding much easier. I am aware i’m only a handful of the person who needs the really good searching summoner competitions sleeves for the reason that one! Summoner competitions was first produced exactly like a two-gamer membership. Her ideal equilibrium of program, chance, and reasonable play around. A succession of dreadful moves for nearly all you need to do can make you into a considerable negative aspect - this really is appropriately prevented there. Summoners conflict: heavens market has drastically that resembles related secretes to provide an example courageous frontier, placing individuals transforming into a summoner who may consider forth monsters to carry out their investing in a estimate. Various kinds of summon scrolls confirm the rarity and quality of your own monsters, various from 1 to your five-star ratings. surplus animals to supply with. |On the other hand, it's possible to purchase the combo bring for those of you 8 factions for $7.99 (about half purchase price). The game's outdoor patio-developing automatic technician actually works properly, with 3 champ and 18 usual (non-special device) slot machines a outdoor patio. The game's ai is fairly wonderful, idea the asynchronous multi-gamer is how the game truly shines. Never the less, its faults along with the purchase price level for 100 % actually purchase-in imply that it isn't for all, if you are able to owning an adjustable iap strategy suggests that it's well worth looking at either way. (8) cyberspace play around needs to have a chess clock for simple (30 or 15 min eq generators). Like 30 mere seconds or 2 a few minutes. For me it successfully outshines hero academy and outwitters. This is usually a very good introduction of the very good membership. |My only grievance relating to the stats is that lots of choices unseen within the dishes and not quite intuitive to seek out - could be more transparency on finding out these stats would go a lengthy way. Orcs and dwarves v. And so the man or woman which includes a summoner still left get to carry out a comfortable party... I understand that it will require more energy to equilibrium a game label from which I definitely supplement the fashionable for performing a extraordinary place of employment in acquiring being within the playable competitions. One particular step to observe (that one i've not reached the judgment for the most part appreciate it or otherwise) might be the very little outdoor patio sizing - around 30-35 credit cards. Or, if you would like take a look at more of my opinions, you should think about the summoner competitions learn create (definitely), but you may also consider the strength, yomi, and battlecon. |If you are searching for that permits you to purchase the expansions, you could possibly take a look at small sector (advertisement above the website) - i am just truly planning on buying the newest small amount of loads of models from them two or three days back! I'd picked out included in the reinforcements for 4 from This randomisation is aggravating as it can genuinely dash probably the most ingenious strategies for parts, however it does levels the market between these new and knowledgeable individuals considerably. The switch series and amount of play around may be a tad bit not easy to grasp at first, but mercifully summoner competitions posseses a wonderful and tremendously invaluable training to steer rookies along with the phases. Sadly, what this means is the disposable-to-play around adaptation on the software program online store is dependant on nothing more than an attempt adaptation with quite frankly one playable faction devoid of multi-gamer. Which means the randomize aspect fails to do the job. (undoubtedly, he’s also agreed on publicly he loves the endgame automatic technician from killer bunnies And trying to find the exceptional moment in time carrot, so you might like to reconsider seeing and hearing him.) power carrot away, tom’s best suited. |Thankfully, you don't have to put together my mistake… since men and women at plaid cap eq generators does a wonderful place of employment on the compartment art for the summoner competitions learn create. Oh yeah, yeah, there is some credit cards within the, a little too.

[technologywearables]

HTC Vive and SteamVR review - Hands on with Paris Games Week VR demos

Virtual reality is looking established to be the next big point, yet it hasn't been a fast transformation, or one with a systematic message. Oculus Break has actually been the PC video gaming area's darling considering that 2013 (though Facebook's purchase may take the sheen off that romance), then more recently we've had Sony's PS4-powered Morpheus, the smartphone-based Samsung Equipment VR, as well as the Google's VR-for-all Cardboard viewer. VR headsets are going to come thick as well as quickly over the next year, and also today we reached experiment with the HTC Vive, made in collaboration with PC-gaming leviathan Shutoff under its SteamVR initiative.

Speaking of behemoths my initial experience with HTC Vive was absolutely nothing except wonder causing. Basing on the deck of a submerged ship, I edged towards the prow to look down right into the watery void below. Noticing, or possibly hearing, something over my left shoulder I relied on locate a massive whale had snuck up on me while I was sidetracked. I backed away from it in shock, and after that wondered as this wonderful leviathan slid past me contemporary of reach, its huge and comprehensive eye monitoring me as it went.

Yes, you read that right, HTC Vive not just provides an immersive headset, it also has a place radar, which permits it to track your actual motions as well as create them in the online world. What a lot more it works brilliantly, with both relocating and also transforming tracked with extraordinary accuracy, this allows you go down to your knees then peer out laterally past something in the video game world.

HTC Vive

The HTC Vive actually consists of 3 components, the Vive headset, a pair of place sensing base stations and two SteamVR control sticks, one for each and every hand.

The headset looks high as you 'd anticipate. It's a normal strap-it-to-your-head VR headset which is similar in dimension as well as weight to the current Oculus version. They're both behind Sony's Morpheus below though, with it's clever ring that disperse the weight in a hat-like style as well as leaves the screen simply touching your face, instead of pushed against it.

It's similar inside too, with a pair of 1,080 x1,200 OLED screens, one for each eye, yes you could still go to the pixel grid if you look difficult however if you're not attempting to select openings then it stands up extremely well. These refresh 90 times a 2nd and so provide very smooth comments in reaction to your movements. It has a 100 level field of view, as well as everything looked crisp in the centre of my sight, but tailed off when I aimed to look to the side with my eyes, rather of transforming my head. In this respect though it's similar to various other VR headsets.

The base terminals look more pre-production compared to the headset, being little black cubes with a variety of chips on the front. You put them in opposite corners of your area, developing a square up to 5x5m. Lasers in the terminals are then tracked by the headset, which as you could go to is studded with sensing units, in order to determine its exact placement as well as angle, to a tenth of a level apparently.

Finally you have the SteamVR controllers. These stick like gadgets do not appear like considerably, with a single trigger, a touchpad on the front - which is extracted from Shutoff's Vapor Controller design - as well as an oddly angular head, once more to situate it using the laser positioning. You will not be looking at it like that, as in the digital globe it transforms right into a range of more appealing forms and also devices.

I began off in the white area of the first calibration room. I attempted asking for 'weapons, great deals of guns' yet to make use. Exactly what I could do was produce balloons but shooting on the controller, which would certainly then pump up from the top of the gadget (or instead a virtual representation of the gadget in radiating white). The balloons rose slowly but I can bat them away with the controller, whose activities matched my own to perfection. The balloons flew off as anticipated, the only point doing not have being any concrete feedback as I bopped them.

Cabled up

A few much more enagaing experiences later on, I was absolutely submersed in Vive's virtual truth as well as had actually greatly forgotten the dim space I was actually stood in, somewhere on the just-opened show floor of Gamescom in Perfume. The only snag, literally, was the wire extending from the rear of my head, as I obtained mesmerized in it a few times when stepping backwards.

For VR encounters when resting down it's not a huge problem, but when you're stiring a wire could be a responsibility, so we'll have to see if HTC could think of a means to keep it out the method, if it was strung at waistline height rather than snaking throughout the flooring. The cord exists to link the headset to the heavyweight gaming COMPUTER required making those 90Hz visuals run smoothly.

And that's where Shutoff's participation can be found in with its SteamVR campaign. SteamVR is an overarching name consisting of the present HTC Vive Programmer Version headset we tried, the SteamVR controllers and also the free-to-use SteamVR APIs which let designers reach holds with the hardware.

Job Simulator

Virtual Reality could be rather disorienting in the beginning, particularly when you include the full array of movement offered with Vive, but Job Simulator is a dazzling method to obtain adapted to it. In a world where robotics have actually changed all human works, the 'Task Simulator' allows human beings discover exactly what it resembled 'to work'.

The cutesy animated scenes are basic, do not overwhelm you (unlike the jaw-dropping whale trial, which could be a little scary the very first time you experience it) yet handle to submerse you all the very same. Paris Games Week was the very first chance to experiment with the most up to date Work, a workplace employee simulation.

As with previous demonstrations, this 'experience' is expected to have been envisioned by robotics, so the key-board at your desk only has a 0 as well as a 1 trick, your co-workers are all disembodied CRT displays as well as the copy machine essentially duplicates anything you put right into it. Nearly everything could be interacted with somehow, including the desk toys, staple weapon and also paper aeroplane that will gain you refusing looks from your neighbouring employees. The humour is securely tongue-in-cheek, and being able to dual-wield staplers in rage versus your co-workers will have Office Space fans whooping with delight.

You really did not need a massive amount of room in the demo I played, either, which will make a great deal of individuals with little spaces loadeded with furnishings quite delighted. You're in a workplace cubicle, so a few square feet was all that was needed. It's easy, yes, but it's fun, as well as we've only seen a fifth of exactly what designer OwlchemyLabs wants for the last game, which is a verified Vive launch title.

Dota 2: Secret Shop

The high factor of the trial came at completion when I reached mess around in the Valve-created Secret Store. While the different demonstrations were limited in extent, graphically simplistic and in some cases both, the Secret Store is a delicious dream encounter with nods to Valve's mind-bogglingly popular Dota 2.

Set in a little, weak hut made in the vibrant as well as colourful style familiar from Dota 2 (as well as from most of Blizzard's fantasy franchises too), the Secret Store starts dark. The rotund storekeeper shows up as well as offers a small magical light for you to wield. Using this you can discover the store (which in dimension roughly associates to the location of movement that the HTC Vive permits) and also reduce down in dimension to obtain up close with its details.

We enjoyed in scary as a little crawler, not rendered substantial in our eyes, approached over a desk. We checked out a rack and also were shocked by a substantial toad, and also ultimately the roofing of the hut was swindled by a dragon. It's extremely immersive things and also wonderfully rendered, with lovely, highly-detailed graphics that truly show just what VR could do.

We desired we 'd had an additional 10 minutes with the demo, however we believe that would be possibly enough. That declaration can be made about much of our VR experiences however. There simply isn't really enough content out there yet to convince many people, me consisted of, to component with their money. I 'd strongly suggest you attempt VR offered a possibility but the chicken-and-egg trouble of material as well as users could come to be an issue (though HBO, Lionsgate and also Google are listed as partners).

Can it surVive

HTC and also Shutoff's partnership on SteamVR as well as Vive is looking extremely strong. The hardware is up there with the finest presently offered as well as the motion tracking as well as controllers are remarkably carried out. In a sector where 'following year' has practically come to be a concept, the Vive's fast step from concept to execution goes over. Nonetheless, given that writing this article, HTC Vive has slipped from an unclear 2015 launch, to an obscure Q1 2016 launch (omitting developers).

Timing aside, the inquiry is will there suffice software program to warrant a purchase?

Serious COMPUTER gamers need to be the first targets, as they currently have the sort of Computers needed to supply the Vive with pretty visuals. To day Oculus has made the bigger sprinkle, but with the Facebook purchase, many such players prefer to pick a Valve-supported headset. We assume the Vive will deal with a slow-moving start, partially because of its high entry needs, however likewise due to the fact that numerous will simply wait as well as go to how it tones up to the Oculus in 2016, yet in the future it stands a great opportunity of success. Or as excellent as any sort of VR headset at the very least.

[jack-o-chica-multiverse]

((I’m mostly just going to post my FNAFuary pieces over on @malady-red-rp and my other DON-related accounts, but I figure boosting the event once more on this account can’t hurt- it isn’t too late to join in with this super laid-back art challenge!!! JOIINNNNN USSSSSS!!!))

FNAFuary’19 #1: Fredbear’s Family Diner/The Beginning (The Golden Age)

alldayeveryday-candycandycandy’s #FNAFuary prompt list (link)

For the final ‘Fall of the Golden Age’ painting used in the video, please check below the page break (since there’s a little more blood and eye-contact):

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