#and they were a huge nier fan by the looks of it too and like. come on i keep saying SURELY they can't all be like that | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

teddy-stonehill · 3 years ago

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Tagged by @comradegrantaire

1) how many works do you have on AO3?

Only 19 lol, I don’t write a lot of fanfic

2) what’s your total AO3 word count?

46,630. Honestly, more than I expected.

3) how many fandoms have you written for and what are they?

I’ve written for twelves lol. Mostly I’ve written one shots for things so I don’t often write a lot for any given fandom. And a lot of these were fics I wrote for other people so they’re not all necessarily for fandoms I actually care that much about personally lol.

The fandoms I’ve written for are: Fire Emblem Three Houses, Run with the Wind, Friends at the Table, The Flash, NieR: Automata, Mystic Messenger, Sinbad: Legend of the Seven Seas, The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, The Adventure Zone, Hikaru No Go, Merlin, and Dungeon Meshi.

4) what are your top five fics by kudos?

1. The Importance of Selfishness, which is a Sinbad: Legend of the Seven seas fic I wrote for a friend. I think I’ve only seen that movie once lol. But I do think it’s kind of a solid standalone short story, and I’m pretty sure there aren’t a lot of fics in that tag so people still read it regularly even though it’s like 5 years old at this point.

2. Disappointment, Understanding, which I do personally consider my crowning fanfic achievement. It’s a (primarily) Jumin Han/Zen Mystic Messenger fanfic written in the style of the game (text chats interspersed with cut scenes.) I managed to match the idiosyncratic style of the game really well AND the fic is almost entirely canon compliant except for the pairings getting together lol. I’m still proud of this fic. It’s good.

3. Finding the Words, which is a 2B/60 NieR Automata fic. This is another one I wrote for a friend and honestly I don’t think it’s even that good, but lesbian NieR fans are desperate for content.

4. Look This Way, which is a short, again mostly canon compliant, fic about Prince/Kakeru from the anime Run With the Wind. I think this one stands out in searches because Prince/Kakeru is the less popular pairing for that show but I stand by it as being better. Haiji/Kakeru fans are welcome to come fight me.

5. Not So Alone, which is a Midge/Susie Marvelous Mrs. Maisel fic. Again, this probably stands out because it’s a small tag. But also the fact that that show hasn’t canonically made Susie a lesbian yet is a hate crime.

5) do you respond to comments? why or why not?

Not very consistently. If I don’t have anything substantial to add I feel self-conscious about responding. And I don’t want to feel like I’m artificially inflating my comment count by replying “thanks” to every comment.

6) what’s the fic you’ve written with the angstiest ending?

Possibly Dying is Not Romantic, a short Shamir/Catherine FE3H fanfic I wrote about the potential timeline in which Shamir kills Catherine.

Or, arguably, Mercedes Dies of Cholera, also an FE3H fic, but it was written partially as a joke so I’m not sure that counts. I did also try to make it sincerely sad though lmao

7) do you write crossovers? if so what is the craziest one you’ve written?

I did once write a Jake from Brooklyn Nine Nine/Jean Ralphio from Parks and Rec fic lmao. I wrote it in the format of a television script.

But I never posted that anywhere publicly, I just physically printed it out and mailed it to my friend who I wrote it for lmao.

8) have you ever received hate on a fic?

Not that I remember, but I don’t it’s possible that I have and I’ve just forgotten. I think I mostly write for fandoms and parings that are too obscure to really inspire much hate.

9) do you write smut? if so what kind?

I usually do a “fade to black” sort of thing if my fics include sex, but I have written one actually explicit fanfic and that was... the Marvelous Mrs. Maisel one lmao.

10) have you ever had a fic stolen?

Not that I’ve noticed. I don’t think I would really care if they were.

11) have you ever had a fic translated?

People have asked permission to translate a couple of my fics into Russian before. If anyone translated them without asking for permission first I don’t know about it. I don’t really keep a close eye out for these things.

12) have you ever co-written a fic before?

Not really? I’ve written fics based on other people’s ideas/prompts before, if that counts.

13) what’s your all-time favourite ship?

I don’t really have one. I’m not that hardcore into shipping culture.

14) what’s a WIP that you want to finish but don’t think you ever will?

I wrote half of a Marcille/Farlyn Dungeon Meshi fic once that I think would have been good. But if I don’t finish a fanfic in one sitting I usually won’t finish it. I’m much more dedicated to writing original fiction, so I only ever write fanfiction on random hyperfocus whims.

15) what are your writing strengths?

I’m good at character and dialogue and I’m VERY good at matching different writing styles. I don’t write fanfic that often but whenever I do I usually get comments about how well I captured the voice of whatever I’m writing a fic for.

16) what are your writing weaknesses?

I don’t think very visually so I’m not very good at writing descriptions or action scenes where I have to think about characters existing in space.

17) what are your thoughts on writing dialogue in other languages in a fc?

I wouldn’t try to write in a language I don’t speak, and I don’t really see why this is something that would come up often. But again I don’t actually write fanfic that often and I READ fanfic even less. Is this a common thing people do? Why?

I guess it might make sense in some specific contexts but... why.

18) what was the first fandom you wrote for?

When I was very young I wrote a fic about an original character in the pokemon universe, based off of a forum roleplay. This fanfic is not online anymore.

19) what’s your favourite fic you’ve written?

It’s Disappointment, Understanding for sure. Seriously, if you were into the Mystic Messenger craze back in the day I highly recommend it lol. I like to reread it just for fun sometimes.

Other than that, I’m also hugely fond of Chance Encounter, which is a Laisu/Kabru Dungeon Meshi fic. I’m only bringing it up because I didn’t get a chance to bring it up in any of the earlier questions and I think it’s hilarious. So if you like Dungeon Meshi check it out.

I tag @heronfem, and... that’s it. I don’t know that many fanfic writers lol.

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tainbocuailnge · 4 years ago

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Couldn't be there for the stream, but congrats on finishing Nier. What did you think of it? And what game will you play next? (Maybe you already answered somewhere, if so sorry for being redundant.)

in terms of style and aesthetic the game is absolutely gorgeous. definitely one of its strongest points is the ways it uses design to reinforce its themes and provide subtle worldbuilding. the example freshest in my memory is how different hacking a2 looks from hacking anything else because she’s such an old model, but also the way the vivid colors of the regular overworld contrast with the grayscale of the bunker or the white cubes of that city where you fight adam/the tower cannon, or 9s’ fucked up memories of 2b in C and D routes using the same attacks as adam and eve’s bossfights in A and B routes. the game really leans into the strong contrast between vibrant organic shapes and washed out mechanical shapes, from the very start with the overgrown buildings of the city but also the difference between the detailed & colorful regular interface and the hacking segments consisting of straight lines & muted browns, and it will reverse that distinction at key moments to make a point. switching between different styles of video game (like the visual novel sections) is a really neat way to control the pacing of the story too

conversely i think a lot of the game’s actual playability was sacrificed for the aesthetic. hacking is really cool as concept and visually i adore the way it’s implemented but in terms of gameplay it fucking sucks. not only does it throw off the whole flow of combat but the actual gameplay of the hacking segments themselves is just frustrating as hell because it wants you to hack stronger enemies instead of fight them with 9s’ weak noodle arms but then makes specifically the stronger enemies a huge pain to hack, and if you fail at hacking you take damage anyway so in the end it’s still easier to just fight directly. stuff like the emp’s being able to seal your combat abilities or fuck up your visual processors also makes sense and enriches the game storywise, but is a huge fucking pain in the ass to deal with as someone Playing A Video Game because it means you just have to run the fuck away until the effect has worn off. switching between 9s and a2′s individual bossfights in the tower, too, is very cool conceptually but ended up being super annoying in practise because like the hacking it just disrupts the flow of combat (it was very cool when they were fighting the same enemy though)

i also feel like a lot of the fights just took way too damn long. this one might be on me since I didn’t do a lot of sidequests and thus was underleveled, but it felt like a lot of the combat was intentionally stretched out in order to pad out the game’s length. honestly i think i have a case here even with being underleveled because having to do the sidequests in order to even be strong enough to progress the main story at a reasonable pace is very much padding out the game’s length. even though it took me several dozen hours to complete the main story it still feels pretty short to me because so much of that was just dragged out bossfights. bloodborne definitely spoilt me on this point because in that one once you figure out a boss youre Done, you prove you know how to deal with it and you perform the Trick a few times and then you’re done with it but every Phucking nier automata boss was just endlessly whaling on some annoying mother fucker while i’m thinking bro just show me the next story section already. and then every other bossfight they dump lore on you WHILE you’re trying not to die and i hate that too dude i can’t fucking read and fight at the same time Don’t Call For A Meeting You Son Of A Bitch This Could Have Been A Cutscene

STORYWISE. storywise. honestly I need to rewatch some cutscenes before i can form a Real In-Depth Informed Opinion cuz we spent so much of the stream joking about horsecock that i didn’t pay enough attention to perform my true analysis no jutsu. what you’re about to read is subject to change. looking at just the progression of events in nier tomato there’s some things I don’t really understand why they happened other than ‘themes, bro’ which is not necessarily a complaint mind you because im a fate fan after all but its. hmm how do i say this. i feel like yoko taro is very much a Conceptual Writer. he’s got a strong idea of the kind of message and themes he wants to convey and then he constructs a story around that idea, but because it’s all so thematically driven the actual logistics of the story end up falling behind, like with all the above bitching about the gameplay suffering for the aesthetic. a lot of time i was like ‘no idea who i am no idea why im here all i know is im sad’ if you’re the kind of person who needs [ending EXPLAINED] videos then tomato is probably an incomprehensible robot ass simulator. speaking of robot ass I think it’s super cool that they just fuckin killed 2b actually because I absolutely did not expect that, it really puts a hard line between AB and CD routes.

it’s a very bittersweet game.... it asks “is there meaning in wanting to live when there is nothing left to live for?” and “is there meaning in wanting to protect something when there is nothing left of it to protect?” and answers with “if you want there to be, yeah” it’s about being able to die with hope in your heart as ultimate definition of humanity

ultimately it’s a very beautiful game both in visuals and emotionally and I’d recommend it to anyone whose tastes even vaguely align with mine but I don’t think I’m ever gonna actually replay it. look up story compilations on youtube at most. and it’s really such a shame because I think the way the gameplay is integrated in the story is fantastic from a thematic standpoint but it comes at the expense of the enjoyability of that gameplay so even though this is very much a Video Game Story it’s a hassle to actually consume it in video game format. [yoko taro voice] you WILL be sad about these robots and you WILL work for it

#king of asks #fefeman

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sazorak · 4 years ago

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Every Game I Played in 2020, Ranked

2020. Boy, what a garbo year huh? Didn't actually play that many games this year all-in-all. Happens! My backlog is getting pretty big, but I just find it hard to focus on games when I could be working on something. Or put off working on something, as it may happen to be at times.

My arbitrary decision from years ago to only attach a numbered ranking to same-year releases is getting increasingly silly, especially given my propensity to wait on playing games until I’m in the right mood, but whatever. That order matters than the dumb numerical numbering anyway.

2015 | 2016 | 2017 | 2018 | 2019

Later Alligator – 2019 – Steam – ★★

The style of this game is very cute, and the jokes are funny enough. But… ok, look, I’m not one to be precious about what is or isn’t a game. But this really isn’t a game. It’s a series of disconnected, unrelated challenges clipped from Atari Free Mini Game Collection 100, wrapped in a very non-interactive adventure-game. It’s cute, it’s kind of sweet, but it’s dull. Dull dull dull. There’s a pointless, mandatory sliding block puzzle early on that infuriated me by its mere existence. Them giving the ability to skip it because “wow you’re bad at this huh”, which, while accurate, also just sold the whole point meaningless of the “““interactive experience”””.

Also: when a huge part of your game is WOW WE ANIMATED EVERYONE REALLY GOOD, text boxes that reveal word-by-word, far away from the animations that occur when said characters talk? Kind of stinks!

8. Carrion – 2020 – Steam – ★★

What Carrion does well— the whole “You’re controlling The Thing and just rippin’ people apart!” shtick— is really neat. They made that bootleg The Thing animate real-ass good.

The actual game as a whole though? Kind of garbage. Imagine a Metroidvania with zero actual exploration, where every opportunity you have to venture off the path instead results in immediate railroading with constant, utterly inexplicable one-way pipes. It’s not that it’s linear, it’s that it actively slaps you when you attempt to explore. It’s very frustrating! Add the fact that the tentacle-monster-shtick makes challenging to actually, y’know, move around and control all your bits… the only reason I finished the game was due to foreknowledge of its extreme brevity.

I think if the game were more open and less obsessed with constantly handing out upgrades, as well as having less of a focus on pure combat, I think I’d have enjoyed it more.

SD Gundam G Generation Cross Rays – 2019 – Steam – ★★

It is well documented at this point that I am both an active Gundam fan, and as well as an on-again-off-again tactical RPG aficionado. A SD Gundam game appearing on Steam with a good English translation and localization is… exciting, to say the least. That said, I have never had much context for this game series beyond the basic facts that the combat tended to be pretty well animated CG, and that it’s vaguely similar to Super Robot Wars. Turns out… it’s really different from SRW? I dunno how the rest of the series fairs, but Cross Rays is weird as hell.

For one, there’s zero tutorialization at all. None. Almost all of what I’m going to explain here is me figuring stuff out by trial and error, or by reading junk online. Gundam is insanely popular, you’d think they’d be interested in explaining how it all works, but… nope. Even Super Robot Wars has multi-level introductory bits for new folks to show them the rope these days.

So: Cross Rays is a tactical RPG where you can playthrough the storyline of various Gundam AUs. You can play through them in any order. These playthroughs are fairly literal translations of the stories. You take control of the lead mecha from those series, fight enemy mobile suits that show up in SRW-like tactical RPG combat, until all reinforcements cease. Pretty straight forward. There are occasionally mission variants like “prevent enemies from reaching X” or “prevent enemies from destroying Y”, but even those can be just reduced to “kill everything very quickly please.”

But here’s the thing: while there is a story progression, the characters in the story itself actually have no character progression. These characters and mecha are actually considered guests, despite it being ostensibly their story. Instead, you are able to field “permanent” mecha and pilots of your own choosing, which do have progressions. There is no plot justification for this or anything like it. The game does not recognize that it’s weird that during Iron-Blooded Orphans intro where nobody knows what a Gundam even is, you can have 25 Gundams show up at once and just fire lasers at everything. That’s because this game is actually about repeatedly grinding the same set of missions over and over.

Pilots are recruited by completing certain in-mission requirements. Mecha are acquired by either by getting enough kills with the progression-less “guest” mecha, combining mecha you already have gashopon-style, completing certain quests, or by leveling up mecha and then “evolving them”. This is the actual core of the game.

SD Gundam G Generation Cross Rays is basically Disgaea, it turns out? You’re grinding story missions at various difficulty levels in order to complete missions, try to recruit specific pilots, equip them with stats and levels to make them stronger, and then hitting mecha together in a sort of quasi-SMT fusion system until you get all the powerful mobile suits you desire.

The combat itself is kind of… bland? There’s a lot of systems, but they mostly seem in service of making an already easy game easier, or burning through tedium. There are four different difficulty modes, because there’s not actually that many different missions you can play through. The expectation is you’ll just work your way through every story beat while ramping the difficulty up over time to where the “guest” mecha would not be able to handle on their own. In fact, letting the story mecha act out the story beats is actually bad after a point, unless you’re still trying to get those lead mobile suits, or if you’re trying to complete some mission requirement in order to recruit Named Wing Grunt Pilot #246.

There is something to the notion of “I want to get N and N and N and N on a team, piloting weird but powerful mobile suits, and just solo every Gundam AU in a row,” but the whole premise seems kind of against purpose. Why bother recreating story beats at all, then? It’s not like the game even acknowledges any of that going on.

If the point is that I’m supposed to be, like in other grind-heavy tactical RPGs, breaking the systems to my own end in order to proceed… why not make the missions you play challenges focused towards that? The story progression literally only exists to facilitate the mission-based unlock conditions, which makes all the energy put into making them JUST LIKE THE ANIME really damn pointless.

I like tactical RPGs, I like breaking RPG systems so as to beat hard challenges (I beat all the insanely hard extra bosses in FFXII for crying out loud), I looooove Gundam. I should like this. But I don’t really have the “god, I NEED TO FILL THIS LIST” gene that some folks have… except as an excuse to continue to engage in gameplay I enjoy. The gameplay here seems in service of the collection, rather than the way around.

7. Pokemon Sword: The Isle of Armor – 2020 – ★★★

Pokemon’s first foray into actually doing DLC is… a mixed bag. As a positive, they’ve improved the Wild Area concept I liked from the main game, and even brought back buddy Pokemon walking behind you. That’s neat. On the other hand: the actual progression in it is completable in like an hour, it doesn’t scale with you, so you’re bound to be over leveled for it, and all the raid stuff, while still conceptually neat, is just as flawed as in the base game. And so, you’re just left with even more new Pokemon to RNG grind on to continue to catch-them-all. Nah, I’m good.

Astral Chain – 2019 – Switch – ★★★

Platinum knows how to make good character action games. They’ve made a bunch of them. Bayonetta, Nier: Automata, Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance. They also know how to make some kind of mediocre character action games. Transformers: Devastation, Wonderful 101, their various shovelware character action games like Korra. Astral Chain falls somewhere in the middle, I guess?

Astral Chain has all the production of their good games. It has some stylish, cool action. It has a neat core mechanical idea, in that it’s essentially a two-character action game where you control both characters at once. It has a lot of the old mechanics from some of their best games brought in; witch-time last second dodging from Bayonetta, Nier’s shooting-and-slashing combination, the Zandatsu mechanic from Metal Gear Rising, even Wonderful 101’s multi-unit shenanigans. The setting is different, and there’s some neat world flavor all in all.

But, of all games I’ve played over the past few years, Astral Chain made me more vividly angry than any other. It’s not that it’s too hard— far from it, really, I found its combat incredibly mashy. No, the problem is that it has so many shitty mechanics slathered on that it become a chore to get to the “good bits”.

Why would you put forced stealth sequences in your character action game, especially when your movement controls are not suited for it?

Why the HELL would you put platforming sections in your character action game, constantly, especially when your stupid ghost buddy can accidentally yank you off the edge, your auto-combos can just throw you off the edge, or literally anything can knock you off the edge and make you lose life?

Why would you put so many constant excuses into the world to force me use the digital sensor in the game, that also makes it miserable to walk around while using it?

WHO THE LIVING FUCK THINKS THESE SHITTY BOX BALANCING MINI-GAMES ARE FUN???

These games are supposed to encourage me to perfect everything, right? Why keep putting fucking fights you need to complete in order to get an S rank behind backtracking, or Legions I don’t have yet? That isn’t adding replayability, that’s just wasting my time. There are even in-level missions that have fail conditions that you never even know about. Surprise!!! A lot of them involve chasing after guys and catching them with your chain, which is really obnoxious to do!!!! SURPRISE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The story is just Bad Evangelion, straight up. Every story beat from Evangelion is here, executed worse. They also make your character have a twin just so they can have a character who can talk and feel emotions, because your boring-ass protagonist is stuck being an emotionless audience cipher. Cool!!!

Tetris Effect – 2018 – Origin – ★★★

It’s drugs Tetris. I personally don’t use, or have synesthesia for that matter. I imagine this game is better if you do. It’s an enjoyable enough experience but it feels incredibly slight for what I was expecting from it, or even compared to something like Lumines, which has tons of replayability by way of its difficulty. Tetris just isn’t that hard, unless you’re forcing yourself to do weird shit to get points. I WILL NEVER LEARN HOW TO T-SPIN. Never.

Castlevania Anniversary Collection – 2019 – Steam – ★★★

Kind of an unremarkable Castlevania collection. Neat that it has an official translation of Kid Dracula in there, but also… look, I prefer Metroidvania Castlevanias, OK?

6. Spelunky 2 – 2020 – Steam – ★★★

I’m not entirely sure why this doesn’t click for me where Spelunky 1 did. More annoying intro levels? Too many fiddly requirements for different ending-progression? Gameplay additions that just make things more annoying? Spelunky 1 was hard, but there was a kind straight-forwardness to it, even with its weird secrets, that made it much easier to grok and continue banging your head against. I’m just not having as much fun with this. Difficulty should be challenging, not a hassle.

5. Stellaris: Federations – 2020 – Steam – ★★★

This is the year that Stellaris just broke for me.

Federations itself is a good DLC; it adds some really interesting mechanics tied to various types of multi-national unions (the titular federations, as well as the Space UN), as well as the addition of unique “origins” that allow you to further specialize your gameplay. The origins in particular are a great addition that allows more specialization and roleplay.

I’m just tired of the sheer amount of busywork Stellaris forces you to do. Every DLC adds more junk you need to keep an eye on, and the fact that the AI doesn’t even bother with it (compensating with copious economy boosts in order to keep up) makes the whole thing frustrating. It’s like playing fetch with yourself; you just get tired of chasing after your own ball after a point.

I have to wonder if they’re pivoting towards a notional Stellaris 2 at this point? Might not be a bad idea for them, though it is weird with all they talked up adding more origins when Federations came out.

4. GranBlue Fantasy Versus – 2020 – Steam – ★★★★

This is probably the fighting game I got most into over the past few years. There’s just this nice, almost Street Fighter-esque ease of execution to the controls, and that Arc Systems Works 3D-as-2D style continues to just do work. I don’t give a single shit about GranBlue Fantasy (frankly, I think I’d enjoy this game more if it wasn’t attached to a property) but the characters are fun enough to play and look at.

The big problem here is two things: no crossplay, and no rollback netcode. In the span of a month, this game became a total ghost town on PC, and it doesn’t sound like PS4 faired that much better.

Ring Fit Adventure – 2019 – Switch – ★★★★

I’ve fallen on-and-off this game all year. At its heart: it works, it’s a fun exercise game. I don’t think it really feels like a “game” (in the sense that I’m not really coming to it for riveting gameplay or anything) as much as just a guided exercise experience, but… that’s fine? The in-game story is kind of flat, but funny in the fact of it existing at all. Buff Nicol Bolas and all.

XCOM 2: War of the Chosen – 2017 – Steam – ★★★★

XCOM2: War of the Chosen is a great answer to what XCOM2 struggled with. As I discussed back in 2016 (Jesus Christ), XCOM2 tried to push against player’s worst instincts by incentivizing them to keep being aggressive through a whole bunch of timers— which, kind of just weren’t fun given how much accidentally walking into an ambush could “ruin” dozens of hours of play. War of the Chosen dials that back in some intelligent ways, by instead making the encounter designs themselves, as well as much more grab-and-bail mission types, encourage players to push ahead instead. Smart!

The addition of the Chosen makes the game feel more alive, and they really do make missions harder— particularly early on. But they’ve somehow accidentally fell into the hole, where XCOM just… isn’t that hard? Early on it’s challenging, particularly with the resource restrictions and all. But they keep giving you more and more options (that aren’t especially meaningful choices) that make your team more and more powerful, without increasing the strength of the enemy as time goes on. By the five-hour mark, you basically know if you’re going to steam roll the game or not.

The amount of additional character and variety in the gameplay is great, I just wish it had a more challenging difficulty curve. Maybe make the meta-layer of when enemies show up more targeted to where players are at. If a player is doing well, ramp up the difficulty, if they’re struggling, pull it back a bit. I should always feel like I’m just barely keeping ahead with XCOM, not like I’m bored. And by the end of War of the Chosen, I was kind of getting bored, really. Oh well.

3. Animal Crossing: New Horizons – 2020 – Switch – ★★★★

This is probably the video game that I spent the most time with hours-wise this year. I’m not entirely sure why? It’s a nice evolution of New Leaf, in that the crafting, environment shaping, and general quality-of-life improvements made are quite nice. There’s clearly been some thought on how people play these games, and ways to make the experience less frustrating.

… and yet, they kept so much tedium in the game. Like yes, the schedule stretching is the point, I get it. As someone who for some reason decided not to play with the clock, I only just recently finished the fish, fossils, and insects for the museum. But there’s just so many weird, little things that just make it hard to keep coming back to it. It’s like… to what end? When I’ve unlocked everything, and basically seen the entirety of the item list at this point, and the holiday events all being the game meaningless collectathons…. Why? I’m not going to try completing the collection; the museum stuff is about my limit, really (and even the paintings I can probably pass on).

I guess even an idealized, digital representation of a quasi-domestic life has the spiritual emptiness of consumerism-for-consumerism sake. Thanks???

Hypnospace Outlaw – 2019 – Steam – ★★★★

I grew up on the internet of the early 00s. I had an AngelFire website, mostly consisting of shitty sprite webcomics and hosted Gundam pics. I remember when Google wasn’t really a thing and you would heavily rely on website compilation sites like the Anime Web Turnpike in order to find anything of value online. It was weird, it was wild. It was exciting!

The internet seemed so different back then. There was a ton of garbage online, but also, like… there was a sense of optimism to it. Folks were shitty, there was plenty of bad stuff online, but it felt so disconnected from the fabric of the physicality of real-life that it was at the same time a perfect escape.

I was young when I first got “online”, something like 12. I remember having this notion that the internet was going to be this great equalizer, that it had infinite potential to change how people behave and interact. Boy, huh.

Hypnospace Outlaw is essentially a splendid alternate universe GeoCities recreation, where you’re a volunteer moderator of a grouping of websites on HypnOS, an internet-analog you access while you are sleep. At the surface level, it’s mostly about poking around the weird alternate-historical version of the internet they created, full of kids feuding, bizarre historical divergences, and plenty of amazing bespoke weirdness. All of this is great; there’s an incredible amount of content that’s just great to poke at, listen to, and explore.

Below the surface, there’s also a rolling plotline about the ethics of this industry-owned platform, those who run it, and the way corporations handle new technology, new platforms, and emerging digital societies. There’s a late game turn that’s pretty damn affecting. And as someone who has moderator his share of internet forums in his time, trying to balance ‘do it for the community’ and what your ostensible ‘bosses’ require of you, it was kind of a weird throwback in more ways than one.

Minecraft – 2011 – PC – ★★★★★

Turns out, Minecraft is really as good still who knew??? Started playing a bunch more of it this year due to Giant Bomb deciding to do so, and yeah: still good!

2. Hades – 2020 – Steam – ★★★★★

I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again— Supergiant makes damn good games. I’d been holding off on checking out Hades until its full release due to my tendency to burn out on games easily, and I’m glad I waited. Hades is a fantastic rogue-lite experience. The way it makes narrative progression part of the reiterative, randomized rogue-lite structure is just perfect.

It’s got all the usual Supergiant bullet points. Great characters, voice acting, narration, and music. In terms of gameplay, it’s probably their least ambitious game— playing something like a cousin to their original game, Bastion— but it’s also been polished to a mirror sheen. It just feels really damn good to play, over and over and over.

That being said, the second (final?) ending feels kind of…. Tacked on? It’s fine as a goal to go for while continuing to do the game’s relationship mechanics for additional story bits, but it ends up feeling kind of unfulfilling compared to the payoff of the first one.

1. Crusader Kings III – 2020 – Steam – ★★★★★

I never could get into Crusader Kings II. Despite my interest, the sheer mechanical heft and unintuitive interface made the game a wall that I just couldn’t get over. I’m sure if I’d dedicated myself I probably could have learned it, but… ehhhhhh.

Crusader Kings III, on the other hand, has a good tutorial, a cleaned-up UI, and a very helpful highlight and tooltip system that make it much easier to understand how to actually play the game through resources inside the game itself. And, as it turns out: I rather love this game.

I mean, conceptually it’s an easy sell, isn’t it? Historical politics is something I enjoy broadly. I liked Stellaris but wish it had more narrative, roleplaying elements. They outright say that “winning” isn’t really the point of the game. Instead, it’s more about emergent storytelling and playing with the different systems and seeing what you can do with it.

My current game has had me taking the Haesteinn dynasty from its Viking origins into England, forming a London-seated Northern Sea Empire that encompasses all of Britannia, Iceland, Holland, Norway, and Denmark. I am currently working on hegemonizing Norse religious control over enough Asatru holy sites to finally reform the religion, such that more unified feudalization can occur. To that end, my current ruler’s predecessor invaded West Francia and conquered the whole of its territory, substantially reducing the foothold of Catholicism in mainland Europe… which seems to have kicked the hornet’s nest, given the Crusade I’m going to need to contend with next time I boot up the game.

Of course, a complicating matter is that my current ruler— the Emperor of the North Sea, King of Ireland and the Danelaw, liege of the King of Denmark, was elected from the extended Haesteinn family via Thing, the Scandinavian council of his erstwhile vassals. Where the previous emperor, the one who manufactured the invasion of Francia, was quite religious and beloved for his adherence to the old ways, I discovered as I took over as his successor that he really, really is into just boning down across Europe. We’re talking constantly attempting to seduce neighboring Queens and Princesses. His vassals are not thrilled with this. They also don’t care for his propensity for torturing people to death, constantly.

I had no real say in this; attempting to stay on top of a dynasty is kind of like riding a bucking-bronco, so many things are only tenuously under your control that some weird shit can happen. This is especially true when you use the systems that make it easier to maintain the coherency of your domain. The Norse religion encouraging concubinage results in you having a lot of kids, which means there’s a lot of domain partition going on (someday, primogeniture, someday). Naturally, using Thing election reduces that, but also makes you sometimes end up having to play Emperor Stabbo-Fucko because they thought he was the best candidate at the time. Hell, I thought he was the best candidate at the time until I discovered just how many people he’d be laying with on the low. But you just have to roll with it.

The way the game forces you to play ball with character traits is great. Doing things that match with the character’s traits makes them lose stress. Doing things against their character increases stress. Too much stress can force you to make the character take up vices (which can make them suffer health or opinion maluses, as well as altering their aptitudes), or even die outright. And sometimes those vices and attitudes can be boons, given they open up opportunities for different character interactions.

Emperor Stab-and-Fuck-Kingdom is perhaps the most relaxed person alive, it turns out, because his sadism makes him really enjoy sacrificing infidels, which makes the gods happy. It also freaks the fuck out of all of his vassals, so they’re a good supplicant mix of both appreciative of my religious sentiments and also utterly terrified of my skull piles. Some especially brave vassals occasionally try to assassinate me, but my lovers keep jumping in front of the knife and saving my life mid-coitus. Iiiiiit happens! :D

The game can be incredibly fun to just watch, as it becomes emergently weird. Georgia right now is incredibly Jewish in game. I’m not sure how that happened; I guess someone made a random Jewish guy into a vassal, who somehow moved up enough in the world to make it a movement? The Byzantine princes elected a Coptic as Emperor, which over the course of the decade resulted in very accelerated balkanization as Byzantium just lost its shit. The Middle East and notional HRE haven’t really unified in a meaningful way, so I’m curious how things are going to go if/when the Mongols unify and roll-on in.

It’s one of those “Just one more thing” games that can completely devour time. I have more than a few times checked the clock mid-game to see that it’s 4AM and that I’ve totally ruined my sleep schedule in the process of play. Oooooops.

I highly recommend checking it out if you’re curious; the introductory, pre-release video series Paradox put out showing off the game does a pretty good job of showing the core gameplay loop and also how weird it can get.

#GAME OF THE YEAR #GOTY #nonfiction #thinkpiece #2020 #Crusader Kings 3 #Hades #SD Gundam #Animal Crossing

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bahamutgames · 4 years ago

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Nier Automata: [A]fterthoughts

Game: Nier Automata: Become As Gods Edition (June 26, 2018)

Console: Xbox One (Via Xbox Game Pass)

Alright so I’m trying something a little different this time with my opinions on a game. Usually I will share this on Twitter in a thread. However, I feel like I’m having more and more to say on games I play lately. And Twitter threads just don’t feel right for sharing massive amounts of text. So I thought I’d give this a shot now. However, this isn’t meant to be a review or an indication of whether or not YOU should try the game. This is just me pouring my heart out about what I’ve played and giving my honest opinions about what I just experienced. This is just for anyone interested, and I highly recommend you try out this game and any other game I choose to talk about in the future, to get your own opinions on how you feel for it.

As such, this isn’t a very well written piece either. It’s mostly just me throwing up thoughts into a post. But, if that’s your thing or you’re just curious about what I have to say, you can read my huge info dump on my feelings about Nier Automata in the readmore!

Spoiler Warning for some parts of the game, including the finale and ending.

Opening

About 2 days ago, I sat down and beat Nier Automata for the first time. And after sitting on it for a bit, I’m ready to talk about my time with it. I wasn’t originally planning on doing a big thing for playing this game (I was saving it for a different game.) But plans got sidetracked, and by that I mean Microsoft had a sale on 3 months of Game Pass for $1. And I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to try it out. I was really excited to see they had the game on the service, as I’ve been wanting to play it since it came out. So naturally, I jumped at the chance.

Stuff I liked

Honestly, I really liked this game. I thought was cool and loved a lot of the topics it covered, as they’re things I really enjoy seeing games tackle. Evolution of life, the existence of religion and our relationships with god and death, strange surreal things, androids and robots becoming more than just androids and robots. The story has so many aspects I really loved seeing. A highlight for me was seeing the robots start to become sentient and deal with grief, family bonds, how they should live outside of what they were programmed to do. It was endlessly fascinating to me.

Game also had tons of fantastic characters. I think my favorites may have been 6O and Pascal, if I’m being honest with myself. But also also really liked all 3 of the main playable Androids, and I found myself falling totally in love with the pods too. There’s tons of other great and interesting characters you don’t even get to play as or see that much, it has a fantastic cast I really loved. Particularly, I thought the designs of the androids were really interesting. Dressed in all black with white hair is a cool aesthetic. My favorite design may have been 2B’s, obviously I thought she was really hot. But I think her outfit is actually very cool and classy in a way that understands how to make a character hot without just being in your face about it? If that makes sense. I also really loved A2′s look, being able to see her joints is a really cool underused aspect for an android design. I wasn’t super into the robots themselves at first, but I found myself really loving how they looked by the end of it. Their weird and minimalist designs really leant themselves to the sad and peculiar story they had to tell.

Nier has a fantastic gameplay style too. I was shocked to learn that it was a Bullet Hell! Bullet Hells and Shmups are my “secret favorite” genre, that I really love but rarely actually tap into. I thought the game had really fun use of Bullet Hell gameplay, with fun Shmup sections and fun action RPG sections. I was particularly impressed with how much fun the crossover of the two genres would be. Fighting back against a bullet hell in this type of gameplay style was incredibly fun and endearing. And I think it handles these two completely different genres really well in a pretty cool way. I also loved being able to get multiple weapons for the androids and pods, though I did mostly stick with the same the whole way through. Just the standard weapons and the beast slayer. Plus the laser for my pod. Hey, if it works, why fix it, right? I also really liked the chip system. I had a ton of fun figuring out which chips suited my style the most, and I liked feeling powerful because of them.

Outside of all that, the game looks and sounds AMAZING. The aesthetics particularly really got to me. I’m a huge fan of cities and buildings reclaimed by nature, and I’m a huge fan of sci-fi aesthetics mixed with modern and medieval aesthetics. And the game has both of these used in really great ways. Mix in some of the weird and creepy visuals thrown in throughout some of the game’s darker and sadder scenes? And it’s beautiful. I thought the music was really good too. I wasn’t crazy about it while playing it. But listening to it in the background while writing this makes me realize how good of an OST it is. I really love Pascal’s village theme, Treasured Times, and the credits music.

I also really adored a lot of the interested 4th wall breaks and ways they play with game mechanics and tie them into the functionality of the androids. A scene that really comes to mind is that the settings are actually your android settings. And having to go through them for the story mode, then getting to see it again as 9S. I also thought parts where your vision gets glitched out was very interesting, and things like that were really charming to me.

One of my favorite parts of the game, was absolutely the finale. Huge spoilers for this part obviously. I was teetering between not really liking the game anymore, and loving the game by the end. So the finale was really going to make or break it for me. But ultimately, I think the finale was AWESOME. Having to play as the pods fighting the credits to get a better ending was really cool and genuinely exciting to me. I had a total blast blazing through one final, tough bullet hell finale. Also, seeing all the cool little messages players left was so nice and genuinely heartwarming. I got messages from the USA, Mexico, even one from North Korea! It was so cool! And such a good idea. And getting help from everyone at the end was so awesome. Ultimately, I chose to give up my save data because the ending scene was actually pretty tough for me and I’m not that bad at bullet hells. So I figured it’d be selfish not to lend someone a hand out there in the world. (plus... to be fair, when my game pass expires, I won’t be playing this game much more lol.)

Stuff I didn’t like

With all that praise though, I don’t necessarily think the game was perfect either though. There was a lot of stuff that really rubbed me the wrong way. The gameplay had a lot of stuff that just didn’t feel right and was oddly frustrating. A big one for me was the lock on just being completely useless for some parts of the game, jumping around the enemies far off when there was something right in front of me ready to get hit. It made killing some enemies genuinely more challenging than needed. A huge issue I had with the gameplay was actually that there aren’t enough Shmup sections in the flight units. Most of them take place in hacking sections, which, in my opinion. Aren’t that fun, or at least considerably less fun than the way superior flight unit sections. And that’s the type of gameplay the ending uses. Which is a shame.

And there are some parts I sang praises about but I still have issues with. Like, I enjoy the game messing with the way you play because you’re controlling androids. But when you have to walk somewhere and the game disables your movement, or you have to kill something and the game disables your combat. It’s mostly just annoying. I really love the concept, and I think it’s not THAT bad. But it’s still annoying enough that I thought to mention it. And while I didn’t run into this issue, the really cute and touching aspects of the finale. Are you just completely locked out of them if you can’t pay for online? That really sucks and kind of kills the vibe of that ending. Same with having to delete your save data to help others. It’s cute! But why is it there? It all just feels so antagonizing for no reason.

I also had a big issue with Story B. You play through nearly the entirety of Story A again as 9S. Normally, I love stuff like this. Sonic games come to mind right away for games I enjoy that do this. But for Story B, it is the exact same game and story with minimal changes through it. Sure the opening and towards the ending, it’s different. But mostly, it’s identical. And then there’s just small snippets of way more interesting stuff with the way robots became sentient lightly peppered in to break up the monotony of doing the same thing twice. This second playthrough should’ve focuses HEAVILY on the robots. Even if it’s from 9S’ perspective, more should’ve been changed to show the robots. The part with the singing robot was BRUTAL, and I LOVED it. But you get very few new scenes like that. Perhaps Story B should’ve followed Pascal or a random enemy robot instead of 9S. Considering you also play as 9S for a lot of Story C. Imagine how gut wrenching it would be if Story B followed a random enemy robot evolving and learning about life and free will, only to get killed at the end by 9S or A2 or something. Idunno.

There’s also some gripes with the story. A big one is the fact that, and this is a HUGE spoiler. But 2B doesn’t feel like the main character. It feels like the main character is 9S, who I like, but isn’t as cool as 2B by a long shot. You barely play as 2B or even A2. SO MUCH of the game feels like it’s all about 9S and I gotta be honest, I’m not that interested in 9S. I like him, but maybe we could learn some more about the robots and their interesting problems instead of just seeing more about how 9S is so smart and awesome and genius so he has to be killed a bunch. Speaking of which, I don’t think I care for that aspect of 2B either? She has to kill 9S over and over because he keeps learning the truth about Yorha. In the end, even 2B is just a part of 9S’ story. Maybe that’s just me though. I feel like that whole concept could’ve been removed, and you could’ve had 2B and 9S having to deal with learning about the truth together. idk.

Overall, my biggest complaint is just that the game spends a little too much time on 9S and not enough time on all the interesting aspects it skims over. Again, the robots, I talked about this at length but I really would’ve loved to learn more about them. How about the existential reality that androids and robots have been fighting a meaningless war for dead masters for centuries? WHAT THE HELL WAS EMIL? There’s so much cool stuff in the world of Nier Automata that feels like it’s all skimmed over in favor of stuff that just didn’t really need to be there? I think a lot of these are relegated to sidequests, but they should’ve been a part of the main story. Maybe it’s just me.

Final Thoughts

Well, even after all those complaints and nitpicks. I have to say, I liked Nier Automata. I think it’s a cool game that explores things I thought most people weren’t interested in exploring. Both in its world and its gameplay. Especially not from a big triple A title. Some of these are things I’d like to explore in my own games so it’s nice to see a game with an interest in the same weird topics as me. I’m certainly interested in this series. I only own Drakengaurd, but I’d like to give it and Nier a shot sometime in the future if I can.

I like the hopeful nature of the ending and I liked the emotions I felt through the whole playthrough. Even when the game was scary and sad, I still had a good time with it, and I hope somewhere out there in the multiverse, the characters are living a much better life in peace.

Thank you so much for reading, or just skimming through. Or just scrolling to the end! I appreciate it a lot! This is my first time really writing up my feelings about a game in a huge more organized way like this, and I hope you enjoy it. I’m certainly going to try and do more stuff like this in the future, maybe I’ll still make some of them twitter threads if I’m lazy or don’t have much to say lol. But, regardless, thanks for your time! I hope you have a fantastic evening! Play a video game that makes you feel something :)

#2021 #Thoughts

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sunsreign-moved · 5 years ago

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Get to know the blogger!

Tagged by @lapeirla (thank you sunshinee) I’m tagging @xkuja @thiefreign @irnmaidn @moonstonetm @7thlight @verumking @svartbutler @witchingrey @hurcales @spiriitum @brawlfists @eatingthem @pristinette ANYONE ELSE.

FIRST NAME I don’t give out my actual first name.... I’ve been rping for like seven years and I think maybe only 5 people know it ... I just don’t like it ... so I prefer aliases ~ SOoo Fauna

STRANGE FACT ABOUT YOURSELF I really like coarse textures.... for example, I love the feeling of sand in my hands .... or bath salts etc.. it’s weird I know, but you asked for a strange fact.

TOP THREE PHYSICAL THINGS YOU FIND ATTRACTIVE ON A PERSON Pretty hair, youthful face, -- and......like... in really good shape.

A FOOD YOU COULD EAT FOREVER AND NOT GET BORED OF Any sort of curry. But it has to be spicy ....almost everything is BORING unless it’s packing heat.... aside from like... dessert ...

A FOOD YOU HATE

Mushrooms. (and olives) ....but Mushrooms are revolting ....

GUILTY PLEASURE Honestly?? ...maybe RP? I don’t tell anyone in RL about it and .

WHAT DO YOU SLEEP IN A bed... with my mini dachshund. Luckily my (or well, my sisters) doggy likes his own bed. but my dachy is my baby ..she’s been sleeping with me since she was a little puppy...

SERIOUS RELATIONSHIPS OR FLINGS Mmmm...I’m not particularly interested ..but I’d say serious relationship?

IF YOU COULD GO BACK IN THE PAST AND CHANGE ONE THING ABOUT YOUR LIFE, WOULD YOU AND WHAT WOULD IT BE I’d change being so insecure. I got bullied a lot in school ........ for my twin sister being special needs ( developmental delay) it caused a lot of damage .... maybe if I stood up for myself --maybe things would’ve been different.

ARE YOU AN AFFECTIONATE PERSON

not really, my family wasn’t ever that affectionate typeeee .... but sometimes I am with close friends etc.

A MOVIE YOU COULD WATCH OVER AND OVER AGAIN

Gonna be honest...I have a horrible time re watching movies .... the only time I’ve done it is for like --- rp purposes fjifewfj3

FAVORITE BOOK The last unicorn ....and the original peter pan.

YOU HAVE THE OPPORTUNITY TO KEEP ANY ANIMAL AS A PET, WHAT DO YOU CHOOSE A goat. I really like goats. I reaaallllyyyyyy ......like goats.

TOP FIVE FICTIONAL SHIPS [IF YOU ARE AN RP BLOG, YOU CAN USE YOUR OWN SHIPS AS WELL] I’m just gonna post my favs in general Roxas and Xion. (kh) 2B and 9S (Nier automata, it’s actually my ultimate OTP ever....) Serah and Noel ( XIII2) Cassunzel (Punz and Cass, tangled. I do like new dream too. ) Chihiro and Haku (Spirited away) and....I know this is more than five but... Peter Pan and Wendy. (Oh Jack frost and Rapunzel)

PIE OR CAKE AHHHHH.... I love both.... I guess it depends on what flavor it is.... I lean toward fruity flavors than like chocolate ...or things COVERED in whipped cream ..... I’d literally it a whole of whipped cream.....

FAVORITE SCENT Anything fruity .....strawberry in particular ...

CELEBRITY CRUSH None ..... I don’t keep up with celebs... but when I was a young teen I thought Justin bieber was a ‘megaaaa hottie’ ....

IF YOU COULD TRAVEL ANYWHERE, WHERE WOULD YOU GO Disneyland for the third time or disneyworld....I was supposed to go to disneyworld this year but coronavirus happened... SOBS.

INTROVERT OR EXTROVERT Introverted usually ....

DO YOU SCARE EASILY it depends on the situation ....I can be a bit jumpy .... but I LIKE haunted houses and horror movies....

IPHONE OR ANDROID I have an Iphone...

DO YOU PLAY ANY VIDEO GAMES YES.... My favorite game in the universe is Nier Automata. A close second is ai the somnium files. It’s so underrated ....and made me BAWL at one point .... more people need to play this amazing gem. I was also a huge fan of the Harvest moon / Story of seasons games. growing up ...still am. I like them better than animal crossing... I also like the fire emblem series and --- I’m a big fan of Persona 5 .... . been trying to get through Royal before I have to go back to work.

DREAM JOB Professional goat petter.

WHAT WOULD YOU DO WITH A MILLION DOLLARS Help my Momma out .... move into a nice house, pay off student loan.... get like, a goat farm. uMMM.... go to disneyland/disney world as much as possible.... give myself a makeover .... try like the most expensive desserts in the world .... and then make a nice donation to a charity that’s legit and worth it.

FICTIONAL CHARACTER YOU HATE I don’t think i have a fictional character I hate......... ummmmmmmm. OH.. but when I was a young teen, like... 14?.... I hated Rena Ryuugu from my favorite anime/visual novel, Higurashi........ because... my OTP was Mion and Keiichi ...and she was getting in the WAY.... *note* higu is a very violent and graphic horror animu so if you look it up..... beware....

FANDOM THAT YOU WERE ONCE A PART OF BUT AREN’T ANY LONGER

I still think I’m sorta a part of most fandoms....... nothing really comes to minddddd

#♔‘ﾟ‣ {Ooc } — ❝ Sundrop speaks❞#long post #dash games

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poetryandnightmaress · 5 years ago

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♬ , for all your f/os. Also a bonus question: what song(s) do you associate with your f/os?

Oooo god, this will be a huge one. I like this ask already, so let's go uwu

(No gifs as well otherwise this post will become a titan and will slay my mobile data)

Toma: He loves Acoustic Covers, Upbeat music and (secretly) dark romantic songs...if you know what I mean- He also likes Alec Benjamin.

When I listen to something he doesn't like that much, he won't say a word. He wants me to be happy, so he keeps silent. I try to tell him every time he can listen to what he wants as well, but he's stubborn.

Song: My girl is mine - Sunrise Avenue (It just fits him so so well. Also, I listened to a lot of Sunrise Avenue when I got a crush on him)

Trevor Belmont: This guy is all about slavic folk music and Heavy Metal, especially stuff like Iron Maiden. We both go wild when we listen to this, since we both love metal.

When it comes to music, and I want to hear something he doesn't like, we will have an "argument" about it ("Hey man! I thought we agreed to listen to Master of Puppets, not Master of Stupids!").

Song: Fear of the Dark - Van Canto (It's an quite epic cover, who reminds me of him, an epic vampire hunter.)

Dante: Good ol' Dante loves himself some Old Metal and stuff like Twisted Sisters or Steel Panther. Recently, he also listens to more new metal stuff as well as Synthwave Metal.

When we argue about the music, he will try to get his goal with a mean trick- "O come on, sweetie, won't you make your legendary Devil Hunter happy?". Sadly, this often works.

Song: The best it's gonna get VS Tainted - Celldweller (I listen to this song non-stop when making a Headcanon post about Dante. Now I always think of him dancing when listening to this)

V: V's Taste in music is quite special. He loves all the dark stuff, as well as Rammstein and Halvati. Or IAMX.

Since our music taste is very similar, we rarely argue about the next song we listen to. But if we do, he takes me in his arms, pulls me close to him and whispers "Little wanderer, I will choose the next song." Gets me every time.

Song: Where is my mind - Unlike Pluto (Shoutout to Insomnish's Edit.-)

Aymeric de Borel: This dude likes himself some medieval and choir music. And since I love both of those as well, we rarely argue about the music as well.

If we should decide what to listen to next, he will tell me really softly that, since he is commander, he is in charge of the music now. But if I'll be nice, he will let me change it. Then he winks, and I get weak aaaa.

Song: Arms of the Ocean - Blackbriar (Idk why, but I can imagine him with this song so so well-)

Noctis: Noct seems like an Emo, but he likes more Nu Metal, Progressive Metal and stuff like Three Days Grace or Celldweller. We have a very similar taste as well.

When we have to decide what to listen to, he will tell me thousand reasons why we should listen to his music, while smirking. What a men...

Song: All around me - Flyleaf (I listened to this non stop when I thought about him. The lyrics quite suit him Ig)

Lon'Qu: As long as you can train to the music, he listens to everything. He just needs to train to the music.

When I play a song which is too slow, he will say something like "Ey! I need something more powerful, tiny one!" He loves to call me tiny -//-

Song: Killing Butterflies - Lewis Blissett (I assosiate him a lot with Butterflies, and the theme of the song fits him as well sooo yeah.)

Chrom: He tries to be hip and to go with the flow, so he listens to everything in the charts. Except rap. Cinnamon roll doesn't like rap. But he cries over overly romantic love balads.

He will rarely argue about the music I play. If he does, he kindly asks me if we can listen to something else, while kissing me on the cheek.

Song: Lights - Klaypex (I listened to the nightcore version way back. And on the thumbnail were Chrom and his daughter. Yeah-)

Jakob: On the outside and in public, he claims to love violin music and piano music. He does, but secretly, he admires witch house and gothic (and my singing voice almdls). He listens to a lot of Blackbriar and Nightwish.

He will never say something, when he doesn't like my music. He just agrees with my taste and listens to it, until it's over.

Song: Comatose - Skillet (He's rude to everybody except me, and...yeah. Whispers in the dark also fits a lot to him)

Shiro: Shiro loves Pop, not so serious Rap and a bit of Rock. He's a big fan of traditional japanese music and Lo-Fi hip hop as well.

When I choose something he doesn't like, he will pout, asking me if we can listen to something else.

Song: Yuve Yuve Yu - The HU (it just fits him idk why D:)

Angel: She adores bad girl music, especially Lady Gaga and Ariana Grande. You will most likely see her dance to her favorite music.

But when I turn on something dark, she will pout and say "Chocooooo. That's so saaaad, you should listen to something happy dappy, Sweetieee." I love her.

Song: Don't Call Me Angel - Ariana Grande, Miley Cirus and Lana Del Rey (Do I have to say more?)

Kusuriuri: He is a huge fan of old japanese music. And experimental music. And music to meditate to. And A bit of Lo-Fi.

When I change his music, he calmly asks me to change it, while stroking my hair. He's so mysterious yet...woah omo

Song: when I'm home I need to look up the title-

2B: Loves herself some gothic and industrial metal. And Piano Music. She will get quite emotional over piano music tho- Her favorite artists are Mr. Kitty and Within Temptation.

Don't I dare to change the music tho. She will lightly slap my hand, telling me "No. We will listen to this". I love this woman-

Song: Machine Hearts - Sound of Miracle (It's a song inspired by NieR;Automata what did you expect?)

A2: Being able to growl and scream death metal lyrics, she is a huge fan of Jinjer. She also likes everything that sounds aggressive or dark.

When I dare to change the music, she will go full tsundere mode, saying "Noooo, we will NOT change the music, lil baby." I love this woman as well-

Song: City of the dead - Eurielle (It just fits her so. much. ;;)

N: Lo-Fi, Folk Music, The ancient music of his home region... As long as it calms him down, everything is fine. And he really likes AURORA.

He doesn't like wild music that much. When something like this comes up, he will kindly ask me to turn it off or switch to something calmer, since he gets nervous.

Song: It happened quiet - AURORA (This song got such meaning to me in the last few days)

Raihan: Metal?! YES!! Metal which is the incarnation of epic?! YESSS!! Pop which slams/! GIMME!! As long as it kicks, he loves it.

The funny thing is: when I change the music, he will pick up the radio and change the dong. Since he is a giant, I can't do anything...dork.

Song: Take it off - Kesha (Don't ask. Idk why either)

Leon: He loves some old hard rock and pop. And when, for example, Bastille comes up, he turns the music on as loud as he can. Well, as loud as I can accept it lol.

If something comes up he doesn't like (Which is quite rare), he will listen to it for a bit, before asking if he can change the song. I never said no, I just love him so much.

Song: Skulls - Bastille (KDMDÖDLDL)

Kogami: He loves himself some dark piano music and something he can read to. Something thoughtful. Something deep.

So, when lil Choco comes along, turning on her metal music, he will either let it play or stand up and change it. I mostly say "EY!" but he just pats my head and says "Shhhh.. it's okay."

Song: Nightcall - Kavinsky (It fits his anime, it fits himself, it f i t s)

Link: good boi loves slavic folk music, music reminding him of the nature and the forest as well as fantasy themed music. He can play some songs on some grass blades as well. GRASS BLADES!!

If a song should come up, which I like and he doesn't, he will hug me, asking me if I want to listen to this or not. Such a cutie. ;;

Song: Faolan - Faun (it's a german song, but I listened to it so much when thinking of him)

OK IT TOOK ME 1 HOUR AND 10 MINUTES BUT I DID IT AND I'M PROUD OF MYSELF-

#Tysm for this ask!!#I had so much fun with this one ngl!!#Tumblr please lemme post this ty #choco f/os hc #self ship ask #self ship asks #self ship #f/o asks #f/os #romantic f/os #romantic f/o

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devilfic · 3 years ago

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Hey!! Sorry i didnt answer sooner. I didnt plan to be busy, but it is what it is 😔

Its cool that you know about crisis core!!! Not many people do, i think. Honestly, i would love to get the remake, but im not sure if i can? Like, i only have my laptop and its not exactly built for gaming. Thats why i've only been playing old games for the nostalgia, like assassins creed (the ezio trilogy). Although, persona sounds pretty cool!!! And i do hope that my laptop is strong enough for yakuza 0. I looked up the spec requirements and its not as heavy as i thought.

Thats really a lot of artists that you like!! I've only liked kpop since 2018 because of ikon's love scenario. It was really huge back then!!! So yeah, ikon was my first. After that, i got into winner, and they became my most favorite, still. Then i started to like seventeen, and also bts. Last year, i somehow got into 2pm and btob. I know nothing about the newer artists, so uhhhh yeah. Its the same for me too. I dont really keep up with them as much as i used to. I still listen to their music, but im not as updated about them.

Sooo what other fandoms are/were you in?? Aside from the stuff you wrote of course!

-cain

no worries, cain! take ur time

yeah!! when the ffvii fandom revived for the remake I saw a lot of older fans talking about it. that and the advent children movie (haven't seen yet). but also RIP ;-; I hope that you can at least get yakuza! it's a fun game (tho heads up, it's all japanese voiced so lots of subtitles. I know some people don't like that). I also forgot to shout out a good game I'm in love with called nier: automata! it's a stunning, beautifully written and composed game and is definitely worth the money if you're able to get it. look how pretty

oh sweet! my friend was in love with ikon, love scenario was what got me casually into them. but it sounds like you like a lot of the older more hip-hop boy groups, I wonder if you'd like block b (rapper zico's old group)

lord have mercy sdjsjfa so many throughout the years. I've been on tumblr since I was a kiddo so I started out with stuff like superwholock. then got into boy bands like 1D and 5SOS. got into kpop, marvel, and video games and now it's just a mixture of everything. one I'm actively in that's kinda funny is twilight. I wasn't allowed to read it much as a kid and now I'm just super into it lmao. but what about you? what fandoms are you in?

#cainsau #mjanswers

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dlamp-dictator · 7 years ago

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Allen’s Ramblings: Reminiscing on Elsword

Well... looks like the Second Seinen Adventure will have to wait until tomorrow along with my Dictator’s Works on fanfiction, so apologies for those that are waiting on those. I’ve been having a lot thoughts about the MMO Elsword recently. The MMO Closers finally has an NA server and I’ve taken a good hour and a half to see what that was all about since I’ve been interested in at least trying it out for the last few years now. It’s a nice dungeon-crawler/side scrolling MMO that has some good animations and style in the combat department, and it’s controller friendly as well which is always a plus for me. My only issue so far is some of the audio mixing, as the music instantly blared out my laptop speakers when I was connected to my bluetooth speaker. I’m also not a huge fan of the soundtrack so far, but I’ll save my detailed thoughts on Closers for another time. But in playing Closers I felt like going back to Elsword for a bit as well. Elsword is also a Korean side-scroller MMO, and... I just wanted to see something familiar now that my interest for the genre sparked back up again. And with the final drop of the 3rd classes on the Korea severs announced along with the second drop of 3rd classes for the NA severs, I think now is a good time to finally talk about this series in depth.

So how about I start with my history with this MMO? Well, from the very beginning. And folks, I mean the very beginning.

I started playing Elsword when it first came out to the US in 2011. Actually no, my experience with Elsword can go back as far as when Fists of Fu was a thing, an MMO that was directly ripping off Elsword. Hell, I can take this a bit further and say I’ve been around since Grand Chase was a thing, Elsword’s spiritual predecessor. A little history for those that might not know, Elsword’s sister was originally called Elsa instead of Elesis, likely to not confuse Grand Chase player with continuity. I still remember the fan wars between Grand Chase and Elsword fans... what times we lived in back then when Allen was still a young 13-year-old. But yes, I’ve known of Elsword since the very beginning. What attracted me was the mix of the artstyle and the gameplay. It looked like a mix of generic fantasy combined with a manga artstyle. Character close-ups would have manga panels textures over them before doing a big move, all the characters had a very bright and flashy character designs and colors, and those of us that were Grand Chase players were curious about how the game would played by comparison. It was a lot more combo based and played pretty close to a fighting game in some regard. It was very simple to pick up, but hard to master, especially if you were playing Aisha at the time with her pitiful physical damage and dependence on Chain Fireball for damage.

When I first picked up the game I picked up Elsword. I wanted to go for a simple character to warm myself up. I played around with everyone, at the time, but I settled on Rena since she could class change into a martial artist class, and that’s usually my preference in terms of character classes. I mained Jin and Amy in Grand Chase at the time after all. 7 seven years later and I am still now, and will always be a Windsneaker!Rena main, even if she’s utter garbage in PVE nowadays (and honestly PVP too as of late).

At that time, Elsword only had a level cap around the 40s or 50s if I remember correctly. There were only three characters: Elsword, Rena, and Aisha, there was a completely different skill tree system that focused on special point distribution. 7 years later and we have quadruple the characters, three class types, and three job advancements for each class. We have full English voice acting (with my favorite voice actress voicing my favorite character). We have an actual story with visual novel style cutscenes and very in depth lore for those that look deep enough into it. We have a level cap of 99. We have a costume cash shop that is teeming with options for mixing and matching outfits. To just looking back and seeing how far the game has come... I’m honestly proud to say I’ve been here since the beginning, even if I’m barely active nowadays.

And I think it’d be criminal of me not to mention the artstyle.

I think one thing that’s definitely improved about the game is the presentation, the one thing that shows how long it’s been, is just seeing how much better the art has gotten over the years. I’ve always loved a lot of Elsword’s character designs, my favorites design-wise being Eve, Raven, Lu/Ciel. Yeah, Rena isn’t my favorite design-wise, but... well, she’s Best Girl in my heart anyway.

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And, of course, all the little animations are nice too. The poses and movements of the characters before starting a dungeon and after they beat one can range from cute to badass depending on the character. I’m honestly tempted to go back to Chiliarch/Dreadlord just because I like their animations a little more, but Diabla/Demonio is a bit more rewarding in the gameplay department even if they make pretzels of my fingers.

If I had to name one of this MMO’s downsides it’d be how it handles its cash shop. It’s an issue of probably all MMOs, but Elsword can feel a little cheap at times with how some of the class advancement quests go, and even some of the quest to unlock certain skills. I don’t mind that non-paying players have work a little harder to get certain rewards, but... it can feel a little insidious at times. Now, I personally don’t mind giving money to MMOs, they have to make money somehow and if the base game is good, then I want to see it continue. I have probably sunk in about 450-ish dollars into this game over the last 7 years. That’s about 65 dollars a year, which is about $5.50 a month. That’s probably just a little more than my Crunchyroll subscription, so I’m fine with that, and they have sales and deals around Black Friday/Christmas time that I try to take advantage of as well. I only feel like that want you to pay for progress around the time you get to level 60-ish, when endgame stuff and PVP start to really pop into your mind. I’ll let the fandom decide on how pay-to-win this game is, but from a player that only plays this monthly for PVE, it’s fine.

And then there’s just my general mindset in terms of how I play MMOs and video games in general. I mostly play console games, so I tend to play something for a month or two at most, then move onto something else. It differs a little with RPGs or shorter platformers like Sonic, but I don’t tend to play a game for the long term. Like I said, I pop in Elsword once or twice a month. I’ve had a Windsneaker!Rena for a few years now, but I only have her at level 60-ish in a game that now has a level 99 cap. That’s... a lot of grinding I personally don’t want to do when I’ve already got Dragonball Fighter Z and Nier Automata to play at the moment, but I hope to get more into Elsword this year since there is an actually story going on in this game that I’m curious about.

Overall, as a long time fan of this game, I think Elsword is fun to play and is worth getting into, despite some of its flaws. My personal favorite characters to play is Windsneaker, Diabla/Demonio, and maybe Rune Slayer. Feel free to ask for my usernames if you want, but just know... I play this thing monthly.

#elsword #your dictator is speaking

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coolgreatwebsite · 7 years ago

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Cool Games I Finished In 2017 (In No Real Order)

Civilization The year is nearing its end, so that means it’s once again time for one of these. 2017 has been rough for pretty much everyone, but even divorced from the state of the world this was unquestionably the worst year of my life. 2017 was a goddamn nightmare where nearly everything went wrong for me in the most major way possible. Consequently I didn’t get to do as much writing as I would have liked, and I ended up playing fewer games with almost all of them being 2017 releases. But! The video games were very fun!! So it all cancels out!!! Everything’s okay!!!! Here’s a bunch of cool games I experienced for the first time in 2017.

Dandy Dungeon: Legend of Brave Yamada (iOS, 2017)

Dandy Dungeon is weird as hell, which makes sense given that it was made by a lot of people who originally worked on games like Chulip and Freshly-Picked Tingle’s Rosy Rupeeland. It’s a free-to-play phone game that’s sort of a cross between a puzzle game and a dungeon crawler. Guide your semi-nude hero Yamada to the exit of the 5x5 dungeon grid in a single line, trying to touch every tile along the way, gathering treasure and beating up enemies to level up. Solving the floors and making the perfect line is satisfying, the story and enemies are all very strange, and there's a ton of content. The free-to-play monetization isn’t too obtrusive either, you can either buy straight up convenience features like unlimited energy and a mid-dungeon item storage system or buy rice balls that can be used as gacha entries or continues if you die in a dungeon and don’t want to give up your treasure. I felt 100% okay with giving the weirdos who made this game money. The same people put out another game this year, Million Onion Hotel, and I barely put any time into it because I just kept playing Dandy Dungeon. I’m very much looking forward to really playing that whenever the hell I finally burn out on this.

Yakuza 0 (PlayStation 4, 2017)

Yakuza 0 is a hell of a game, and a hell of an introduction to the Yakuza series for anyone who hasn’t played it. Set in 1988, the game follows series mainstays Kiryu and Majima as they deal with the events that made them who they are in the games to follow. While I ended up still liking Yakuza 5 more if only for the sheer scope and variety of it, Yakuza 0 is very easily the second best game in the series. It has one of the most straightforward, coherent and engaging narratives out of all of them, it pulls off its setting so well that it made me sort of nostalgic for an era I wasn’t even alive for, and the localization/writing is unquestionably the best the series has had. Almost every single sidequest is funny or memorable in some way and I just can’t say that about the rest of the games. It’s not flawless. The combat unsurprisingly pulls very heavily from Yakuza 5 but with multiple fighting styles for Kiryu and Majima taking the place of multiple characters, and I mostly found myself just sticking with one style for each of them. Beast and Breaker were just too good. The story, while mostly good as previously stated, does have its stumbling points. Some characters and events definitely aren’t given enough breathing room, mostly on the Majima side of things, and weirdly enough the game holds back on having Kiryu and Majima interact for the most part. Overall though, Yakuza 0 is a fantastic encapsulation of why I love this series so damn much and the absolute best jumping on point a newcomer could ask for. Plus Space Harrier is in it! Every game is better when you can also play Space Harrier.

NieR: Automata (PlayStation 4, 2017)

I feel like every year I do one of these lists there’s a game where I start off by saying “This game is good, but”. NieR: Automata is this year’s game. NieR: Automata is a good game, but I did not have the fervent, visceral reaction to it that most other people seem to have had, and my feelings are muddied even further by the lingering feeling that I SHOULD have. I love the first NieR. It’s one of my favorite games of all time. I love PlatinumGames. They’re one of my favorite developers of all time. Yet I came away from Automata somewhat... I don’t know if it’s disappointed. I guess “left wanting” might be a more accurate description? Again, don’t get me wrong here, this is a good game. There’s a lot to like in NieR: Automata. It’s a wild ride, but for me that’s... kind of it? The game shuttles you from crazy setpiece to crazy setpiece, but the second I stopped to think about anything that happened in any sort of detail it all just got real murky. I didn’t feel connected to any of the characters, outside two exceptions, and one of those is a character from the first game that I already loved. NieR: Automata’s storytelling is much more reliant and focused on its themes and imagery than anything that really actually happens during the course of the story, and I’ve never been a huge fan of narratives like that. I need a strong connection to characters and events and places, and whereas the first NieR had that by the truckload, Automata super doesn’t. There’s also the part where a lot of what Automata does, I feel the original game did better. Automata’s music is good, but NieR’s is better. The multiple playthrough system feels like it’s just tacked on because the first game did it, where in the original it was absolutely vital to that game’s story. Same goes for the choice you make in the final ending. The most I can say as far as improvements go is that the combat, while about as mindless, certainly looks better and overall the sidequests are less tedious and grindy. It’s been a very weird experience seeing the huge, widespread positive reaction to this game essentially mirror my feelings on the first game while I’m just sort of left to grumble about how the first game did all that better under my breath. Not that I’m not glad it got a positive reception! It’s great that this game has been such a success and that so many people have finally had their Yoko Taro Moment™. Like I’ve gone out of my way to state multiple times: the game is still good. There’s some wild shit to see in NieR: Automata, and while it didn’t leave a positive lasting impression on me, I very much had a good time with it in the moment.

The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild (Nintendo Switch, 2017)

I thought I was done with open world games. I had pretty much decided I was two years ago. I was so tired of the checklists, the boring traversal, the endless swaths of fucking nothing between mission A and mission B, the heaps of useless collectible garbage littering the ground trying to trick you into thinking you’re doing something. I was perfectly content with never playing an open world game again, and when Nintendo started promoting the new Zelda with that familiar Bethesda-esque “go any direction, climb any mountain” rhetoric and showed you climbing towers to reveal the map, I for all intents and purposes checked the fuck out. I didn’t care that it was Zelda, I didn’t care that it was Nintendo, I was just fucking done with all of that... I thought. The more time went on, the more impressions got out, and the more impressions got out, the more of my individual sticking points seemed to have been addressed. Yeah, you climb towers, but all that does is fill in the topography of the map. You don’t get flooded with a million activity and collectible icons, it’s up to you to scope out what looks interesting. And most importantly, while the landmass is large, there’s always something around the corner. I decided to get Breath of the Wild along with my Switch and I’m so glad I did. If I hadn’t been whittled down by pre-release chatter I would have missed out on one of the best games I’ve ever played. It’s like Nintendo explicitly set out to fix every problem I had with open world games. The way the systems in the world interact with each other, how much of a joy it is to explore and traverse the terrain, and the fact that there really IS always something to find make for a breathtaking game. If you go in any direction, you’ll trip over dozens of neat things to do and see. If you climb any mountain, there’s a good chance there will be something waiting for you at the top (and along the way), from a simple Korok seed puzzle to a full-blown shrine dungeon. The game gives you no truly firm direction once you leave the tutorial area, so it really is up to you to explore and find what you want. You can even run straight for the final boss if you want! The traditional Zelda-style puzzles are all super smart and satisfying to solve. I even liked the Divine Beast dungeons and boss fights, which I feel like I’m in the minority about. I finally took on Ganon after about 100 hours of playing the game and I hadn’t been so sad that a game was over since I beat Persona 3. Breath of the Wild is just an incredible, once in a lifetime game. I can’t wait to do it all again next year when I do another playthrough with all the DLC.

Persona 5 (PlayStation 4, 2017)

Persona 3 will likely always be nearest and dearest to my heart, but Persona 5 is objectively the best Persona game. They’ve polished the Persona formula to such a perfect mirror sheen in this one and I’ve never seen a game so consistently and effortlessly ooze such a concentrated amount of liquid capital-“S” Style before. The plot doesn’t intimately revolve around the cast to the degree Persona 4′s does, but they’ve made another charming band of anime teens nonetheless. They’ve either restored or re-worked nearly every mechanical aspect that was dropped between Persona 3 and 4. The soundtrack is incredible, there’s actually a decent amount of non-party S-Links again, the end of the game sticks the landing in a way Persona 4 very much does not... I could keep going. Persona 5 just plain rules. It’s the only game in the series where (even though I haven’t yet) I’ve actually wanted to jump in and do a New Game+ run.

Wonder Boy: The Dragon’s Trap (Nintendo Switch, 2017)

As I may have mentioned in a certain other article from this year, I have had very little love for Wonder Boy over the years. That changed a bit when I decided to try out Monster World IV a few years ago, and I think I’m officially a Wonder Boy Liker after playing The Dragon’s Trap. A remake of Wonder Boy 3 for the Master System, Dragon’s Trap is essentially just an extremely pretty coat of paint on a very early Metroidvania sort of game, but it’s remarkable how well the core gameplay holds up. You start as a human and very early on you’re transformed into a dragon, and you explore the world until you reach a boss which, upon being defeated, transforms you into a mouse. Your mouse form has the ability to enter narrow spaces and stick to certain walls, which allows you to reach new areas, bosses and transformations. Defeated enemies drop coins that you can use to purchase new weapons and armor from shops hidden across the world. It’s fairly simple, but I think that’s the reason it’s still so enjoyable today. The controls are tight and responsive and it doesn’t really date itself in too many ways. They went to great lengths to recreate the original game, down to being able to swap between the remade and classic graphics and music with a button press. Old passwords from the original game even work in the remake. The new art and music are beautiful and the game is the perfect length to not overstay its welcome. You can tell the people who made this really love the original game, and they absolutely did right by it.

Resident Evil 7: Biohazard (PlayStation 4, 2017)

I never in a million years expected to like Resident Evil 7 as much as I did. I played the demo back when it came out and thought it was okay, and I mainly got the full game so I could play something on my PSVR. It’s kind of crazy how, after so many years of Resident Evil stumbling, Capcom managed to just get everything back on track just like that. They made Resident Evil tense and scary again. The VR is insanely effective but even playing through on a regular ol’ TV, which I did multiple times after my initial VR playthrough, they manage to capture a really good, persistent sense of dread. For most of the game, anyway. The last third definitely slips a bit too far back into action game territory, and while it’s still enjoyable it’s definitely weaker than what came before. I beat this for the first time right before the next game on the list came out, and even while super deep into that I couldn’t stop thinking about Resident Evil 7. I really need to go back and play all the DLC.

Super Mario Odyssey (Nintendo Switch, 2017)

2017 was Nintendo’s year. They released my favorite console in a good long while with the Switch, launched it with one of the greatest games of all time, and closed out the year with another incredible game in Super Mario Odyssey. Mario Odyssey has finally dethroned Mario 64 as my favorite 3D exploration Mario game. It’s like Breath of the Wild in that there’s something to find in every nook and cranny, but condensed down into multiple, more tightly designed areas. It’s an absolute joy to play. I 100%ed the game and not once in the 50-ish hours that took did I get tired of controlling Mario. The movement options all flow together so naturally and complement the spaces you explore so well. Landing a long jump > hat throw > dive > hat bounce > dive combo across a huge gap was the most satisfying thing in the world to pull off even as I grabbed the very last power moon. The variety of the worlds and challenges and things to capture kept me in a constant state of excitement about what was coming up next, and the game is consistently charming in both weird new ways and a couple of very effective nostalgic ones. My only real complaints are that I think it’s maybe the easiest Mario game ever made, and I wish more of the platforming challenges were baked into the worlds proper instead of cordoned off into their own little challenge rooms, but basically everything else about the game manages to make those minor somehow. Mario Odyssey is distilled happiness in video game form, and the world needs more of that.

Sonic Mania (PlayStation 4, 2017)

Ohhhh myyyyy Goddddddddddddd Sonic Mania. I cannot fucking believe how awesome Sonic Mania is. I love the Genesis Sonic games so fucking much and while I like Sonic Adventure 1 despite itself, there hasn’t been a good Sonic game since Sonic 3 & Knuckles. The Genesis games always were and will always be great fucking video games, despite what internet fuckboys say because Sonic’s an easy target to dunk on. I’ll take Sonic 3 & Knuckles over Super Mario World any day of the fucking week. Fight me. I’ll cut you. With Sonic Mania, there is FINALLY, fucking TWENTY-THREE GODDAMN YEARS LATER, a legitimately great Sonic The Hedgehog game again, and I’m stunned. I was INSANELY skeptical about this game from the minute it was announced until basically the moment I played it. Yeah, they brought in people from the hacking and fan-game community to work on this one instead of letting Sonic Team touch it, but I’m close enough to those communities to know that that on its own is NOT enough to guarantee the game would be good. Yeah, Taxman and Stealth made an extremely good replica of the Sonic 1-3&K engine, but they absolutely did not have the design chops to tackle anything but ports successfully. That new version of Hidden Palace they added into the iOS port of Sonic 2 was a complete trash fire. Thankfully they linked up with PagodaWest Games, a company made up of a lot of the non-insane elements behind the old Sonic 2 HD project, who as it turns out very much did have the design chops. Together they made something incredible. It obviously controls perfectly given the engine, but the levels are so fun and well-crafted. The classic levels manage to mix in so many different elements from other levels that didn’t quite make it in the game on top of there being weird twists on those on TOP of all the completely new elements, and the brand new levels are lavish with all sorts of super fun new gimmicks and details. The game looks fucking gorgeous, going for a sort of “what if they had made a 2D Sonic for the Saturn” look that it pulls off great, even going so far as to render the special stages in low-poly 3D. The music is P-H-E-N-O-M-E-N-A-L, sounding like a lost ‘90s Japanese arrange CD but without all the bad aspects that usually come with those. There’s so many dumb, great little details for hardcore classic Sonic and Sega fans littered throughout the game. They managed to fucking combine Oil Ocean and Sandopolis, my least favorite zone from Sonic 2 and one of the worst zones in the entire SERIES, and have me come away from it not hating it. It’s masterful. It’s beautiful. It’s right up there with Sonic 3 & Knuckles for best in the series. Nothing this year made me so genuinely, personally delighted. Sonic Mania was made just for me and I love it and I want another one with all original levels as soon as possible. Please let these people make video games for me forever.

Xenoblade Chronicles 2 (Nintendo Switch, 2017)

The original Xenoblade is one of my favorite RPGs of the last generation. Then they released Xenoblade Chronicles X for the Wii U and broke my goddamn heart. They tossed out nearly everything I loved about the first game in favor of haphazardly dumping as many disjointed game mechanics as they could on top of bland open world exploration and needlessly grindy progression. It was such a hard swerve that by the time they had gotten around to announcing a proper Xenoblade 2 for the Switch I had basically abandoned all hope of it being a game I’d like. But for some reason, I still decided to give Monolithsoft one last shot. And I’m glad I did! While not quite as cohesive and instantly-endearing as the original, they definitely righted the ship. There’s a bunch of weird mechanics, but in the good Xenoblade 1 way where they mete them all out at an appropriate pace and explain them and they all fit together. The cast of characters is likable, the music is great, the gameplay is engaging all the way through. They managed to pull it off, and I’m back on board for a potential Xenoblade 3.

These games were also cool, I just had less words to say about them: Splatoon 2 (Nintendo Switch, 2017): Splatoon is great. Splatoon 2 is more of that. The new weapons are fun, the new maps are cool, Salmon Run is the most fun I’ve ever had with a horde mode. I played it for like 100 hours already. Not too much else to say! Play Splatoon 2! Hitman (PlayStation 4, 2016): Hitman is an amazing sandbox. Whether I was following along with the authored ways to kill my targets, doing things my own way or trying to get out of a situation that went completely south, Hitman constantly surprised me with the variety of things I could do and options I could take advantage of. And there’s so damn much content to do it all in. DDRMAX, DDRMAX2 & Dance Dance Revolution Extreme (PlayStation 2, 2002, 2003 & 2004): This doesn’t really teeeechnically fit on this list but I would be remiss not to bring up my rekindled love affair with DDR this year. My very good friend who I am very appreciative towards at all times Geoff generously gifted me an old Cobalt Flux dance pad back in like June and I have been playing DDR again ever since and it’s still great. I can clear some songs on heavy now. Thanks Geoff. Glittermitten Grove (Steam, 2016): A very normal game about fairies, and not about shaving. Tekken 7 (PlayStation 4, 2017): Tekken 7 is the first Tekken game I’ve cared about in like a decade. I couldn’t really tell you exactly why, to be honest, but the fact of the matter is that Tekken 7 is very fun to play and I highly recommend it. Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus (PlayStation 4, 2017): I think the gameplay of this is worse than the first game, but everything else is stronger. Hopefully they fix it up and make a game that’s great all around next time. Gundam Versus (PlayStation 4, 2017): Gundam Versus is basically a team based Virtual On. I had a lot of fun with an old version of the game at various events I went to throughout the year and I had a lot of fun with this one even though I didn’t play it nearly as much as I wanted to. Clowning on people with Guntank in 1v1 is probably the hardest I laughed all year.

And that’s it! That’s 2017! It’s done! Good riddance! Thank you all again for bothering to read my video game words. If you need me, I’ll be training to deliver many extremely savage elbow drops to 2018 until it gives me what I want.

#article #year wrapup

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gamerzcourt · 7 years ago

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Nier, Psychonauts, And Other Devs Discuss What Games They Admire MostNier, Psychonauts, And Other Devs Discuss What Games They Admire Mostvideo games

New Post has been published on http://www.gamerzcourt.com/nier-psychonauts-and-other-devs-discuss-what-games-they-admire-mostnier-psychonauts-and-other-devs-discuss-what-games-they-admire-mostvideo-games/

Nier, Psychonauts, And Other Devs Discuss What Games They Admire MostNier, Psychonauts, And Other Devs Discuss What Games They Admire Mostvideo games

These past few years have yielded an amazing roster of games that we personally love. With so many fantastic experiences out there, we began to grow curious over what games developers particularly enjoy. During our time spent at this year’s GDC, we had the opportunity to interview a wide variety of game developers and key figures in the industry, so we decided to ask what current game they find inspiring and admire the most, and why.

As you’ll see from the responses below, the games each developer adores might not come as a surprise to you, especially if you’re familiar with their work or tastes. Others had some surprising picks that you probably wouldn’t expect. What current games do you admire the most? Let us know in the comments below. And be sure to check out feature detailing the 25 best games you might’ve not heard of that we saw at GDC 2018.

Chad and Jared Moldenhauer, Directors of Cuphead

Jared Moldenhauer (left) and Chad Moldenhauer (right)

Jared Moldenhauer: I have a library of 100+ games that I’m working towards currently. But one of the earlier games that I chose and found very rewarding was Hollow Knight. It’s an interesting and challenging Metroidvania. And the visuals and the universe that they created, and the feeling within all the characters; I was happy playing every minute of it.

Chad Moldenhauer: I recently started and really enjoy The Witness. I was looking forward to that for a long time!

Yoshinori Terasawa, Danganronpa Series Producer

Yoshinori Terasawa: I love the Persona series. I adore the sense of personality that those games have. I really like how cool and stylish they are.

Rami Ismail, Producer of Nuclear Throne

Rami Ismail: So many games have really sparked me. Games that really stand out to me are Engare and Farsh, by Mahdi Bahrami, both games based on this Iranian heritage. I was very impressed by This War of Mine, which gives a unique perspective on war. Just seeing that tremendous shift in perspective translated into a game that is so powerful and poignant, that reminds me that there is so much more out there.

Tom Kaczmarczyk, Producer of Superhot

Tom Kaczmarczyk: Our game director [Piotr Iwanicki] who actually came up with the idea, he often cites an indie flash game called, Time4Cat, as one of the inspirations, because it did have the same sort of time automation mechanic. For me, I love Hotline Miami because of its action sequences. A lot of what we pick up come from action movies, and from the way people design cinematic experiences where you fall into a certain archetype of a situation, and you immediately understand what’s going on.

Tim Schafer, Founder of Double Fine (Psychonauts, Brutal Legend)

Tim Schafer

Tim Schafer: Lately, a game that really made a big effect on me–it sounds really cliché–but Breath of the Wild was a huge thing. I just loved it. Everyone loves something different about games, there’s no one game that’s perfect for everybody, but it made me realize that my number one thing is exploration. I’m constantly exploring and surprised and I just love it and I play it all the time. I also love Loot Rascals, which is a great roguelike, and I’ve recently been playing Persona 5, which is just amazing. Amazing style and tone, it’s so polished.

Jason Roberts, Director of Gorogoa

Jason Roberts: In 2017, I was a big fan of Inside and Night in the Woods; those were big games for me. I’m big on tone, mood, atmosphere. These are important to me. And I love those games. And I also, this year, I think Florence and any game from Annapurna are just very carefully, precisely created with tone and atmosphere. That’s what I value.

Dean Ayala, Hearthstone Senior Game Designer + Dave Kozack, Hearthstone Lead Narrative Designer

Dean Ayala: Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup. It’s a roguelike released back in 1997. A lot of the Hearthstone design team plays it. It’s super old-school.

Dave Kozack: It has been in continuous development; it’s one of those community projects. That’s why the name, Stone Soup. But we played a lot of rogue-likes while we were working on Dungeon Run, and that was one of our favorites. It’s just something we keep coming back to as a team. It’s a lot of fun.

Ian Dallas, Creative Director of What Remains Of Edith Finch

Ian Dallas

Ian Dallas: For me, the last game that affected me emotionally in a strong way was Universal Paperclips. A game about clicking on buttons and manufacturing paperclips that I just found myself lost in for 8 hours. It was really like a troubling emotional experience, and it’s amazing that it comes out of just text on a webpage. It reaffirms the power of video games and the way that they can teach you things about yourself and about the world that you couldn’t really internalize in any other way.

Chelsea Hash, Technical Artist of What Remains Of Edith Finch

Chelsea Hash: Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice. Their commitment to the multimedia format and drawing from different rendering styles to support their vision was something that I was glad to be able to experience, something that was willing to think outside the box.

Damon Baker, Nintendo Publisher and Developer Relations

Damon Baker: I can’t choose one game. It is like choosing my favorite child! There are so many different types of experiences. Most recently I am working my way through Night in the Woods. I haven’t been able to play that previously, and having a lot of flights lately has given me more flexibility to get through a lot of indie content. Of course, I totally enjoyed Celeste. I vowed not to use assist mode on that game at all and beat it; but it took me 1800 deaths or something to get through it, but it was a beautiful game.

Matt Thornson, Director of Celeste

Matt Thornson: I’ve been really enjoying my time with Into the Breach. It’s amazing!

Victor Kislyi, Wargaming CEO (World of Tanks)

Victor Kislyi: Civilization. All of them, because I started playing from Civ I. Now, believe it or not, before playing World of Tanks last night I was playing Civilization and I was playing on the plane on my way here. Civ 6 is amazing, and it was my MBA. I’m a physicist by education but, playing Civilization, all those layers, economy, exploration, politics, military, science, religion–your brain is trained to juggle those multiple layers like almost instantly, or at least very, very correctly. And, that’s a good analogy with business, people, finance, media, failures, exploration, etc., etc. I think Civilization, as a concept, as a game, actually, is more valuable to humanity than Mona Lisa.

Yoko Taro, Director of Nier: Automata

Yoko Taro: I think that Grand Theft Auto IV and Super Mario Bros. are two big games that influenced me when making Nier. But with games from the past–not modern games–I felt more freedom or challenge as a player. Let’s say we have a black background with a white dot on it and let’s call it the space. I feel like that really creates freedom, especially in terms freedom of imagination, and challenging the dev team to create a world without really being able to express that world visually. In that sense, I feel that in the past, game developers were trying to create a new frontier. They were trying to expand the world, expand the universe of gaming industry.

Yoko Taro (left) and Takahira Taura (right)

Now that the game industry has matured pretty much now, a lot of people actually go for a more safe game. They try to make all the consumers happy with that one game. I think that that actually limits to what they can do and I feel that no one is really trying to expand that arena or expand that world anymore. I am a little bit sad about that.

Takahisa Taura, Designer Of Nier: Automata + Metal Gear Rising

Takahisa Taura: When The Witcher 3 came out, we all played it and had fun with it, but we also looked at it to see what would we do if we created a game like this. We were using The Witcher 3 as a learning experience on how to create an RPG. I think that’s where it all started. Well, that’s where we came from, so it wasn’t too difficult of a task to create a JRPG.”

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shylaxgameblogs · 7 years ago

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Shylax’s Top 10 Games (Played in the Year) of 2017

Yep, it’s the return! You’re going to be here a while, so...

10. Mario Golf World Tour (2014)

Yep, that’s right, a golf game. It wouldn’t be right without one, and here it is.

I really wanted to play this game because @pawelcyril kept gushing about it, but I don’t really play it anymore. It’s not a bad game, it wouldn’t be on this list if it wasn’t, but it could have been a lot better than it was. There are a lot of 9 hole only courses, which is disappointing. The single player story mode is fun, but short. Online’s loading times are disappointing. Being able to create and customize a Mii golfer is fun, but the Mii’s driving distance sucks compared to Star Mario. The tournament system is fun, and solves World Invitational’s cheating problem by just letting you go as many times as you like, but...Hot Shots Golf World Invitational was so much better. That game had so much more staying power, even with its own flaws.

9. Fire Pro Wrestling World (2017)

I remember playing Super Fire Pro Wrestling X Premium on a SNES emulator. That was my first experience with Fire Pro, and it was so much different than any other wrestling game I had played before. Probably the closest that comes to the Fire Pro experience are the aki wrestling games, most notably WWF No Mercy.

If you’re a fan of American-style wrestling, this game will probably disappoint you, because even though you can create your American favorites and have them battle each other, this game doesn’t feature the wild and crazy antics that make American wrestling tick. There are no storylines here, and no cutscenes. This is pure puroresu. Japanese wrestling is treated more like a legitimate sport, and so does this game. It’s all about the competition.

This game has no license, but it has a robust Create-a-Wrestler system, allowing you to create your favorite wrestlers, characters outside of wrestling, or original characters. You can even create bear wrestlers if you’d like, which is a major plus in its favor in my book.

However, the meat of the game is its robust wrestling engine. It’s 2D at its very best, relatively unchanged since the SFPWXP days, although it does look much better. The action is displayed in a 3/4 isometric view, and the grappling system is unique, and unlike American wrestling games, punishes button mashing, instead of rewarding it. There are three styles of grapples - weak, medium, and strong. You have to build up with successful weak moves before moving up - if you try to go for medium and strong moves too early, you’ll get countered.

The only reason I don’t play it more is it’s still in Early Access, and more features are being added and refined. Online play is there, but the netcode is pretty laggy. There’s not a story or career mode, so unless you have friends who are ubercompetitive at this game, its only other real use is as a supreme @tangobunny Watch Mode game.

8, Parascientific Escape Gear Detective (2015)

The sequel to 2014′s Parascientific Escape Cruise in the Distant Seas, which was a refreshing take on the Zero Escape formula, adding in powers you could use during “escape” sequences, and being able to backtrack to rooms you already completed, was a huge improvement over the original. The first game felt like a teaser for a much larger story, and felt pretty generic and cheap (the localization didn’t help).

Gear Detective (the Parascientific Escape games are eShop only games for 3DS) wasn’t anything groundbreaking either, but it was a much better use of your $5 than the original. While it seems to abandon the story the original set up, it is a more fully fleshed out story, feels more complete, and has multiple endings, which the original did not feature.

It still doesn’t compare to more full-budget and full price titles like the Zero Escape series, but the escape room genre is pretty limited, and this game is well worth your $5. I’m hoping to play the third game in the series soon so it can be eligible for next year’s list.

7. Pokemon Moon (2016)

This game was a mixed bag for me. I really enjoyed it, but there were some annoying decisions that prevented me from playing it more.

First, the good. I really liked the character designs in Sun/Moon. I enjoyed Alola more than Kalos, I enjoyed the new Pokemon in Alola more, and I appreciated that they tried to do something different with the Trials instead of the Gyms. I liked that they tried to breathe new life into old Pokemon with Alolan forms.

The downsides: Breeding is still a hassle, even with quality of life improvements, so competitive is still a hassle. Online was a huge step back, no more Super Training, no more being able to access online features while playing, you have to go to a separate screen. For its flaws, the PSS >>>>>>>>>> the Festival Plaza. Let us be able to chat via text and speech online, you cowards! There was a golfer character, but no golf minigame.

6. Pocket Card Jockey (2016)

Pocket Card Jockey was an unheralded 3DS eShop game that combined horse racing and solitaire. But while I played it, it was oh so addictive. I loved raising my horses, racing them, and naming them after obscure video game systems. If you don’t have it, you should definitely buy it. It’s a great way to pass the time.

The art style is incredibly cute as well, you’ll love your horses.

5. Dream Daddy: A Dad Dating Simulator (2017)

I almost forgot this game. @hopeies would have killed me if I had, so I put it on the list. I’m not super keen on romance-based visual novels, although I did put Katawa Shoujo on there last year. Being a heterosexual male, I did not think I would enjoy this game, but I was pleasantly surprised. I got to enjoy meeting and getting to know the various dads (Damien and Hugo were my favorites), but the game got some things right with the whole visual novel experience (and some things wrong).

My favorite thing about Dream Daddy, is that you can romance who you want. You can just go, “I want to romance that guy”, and YOU CAN FUCKING DO IT. No decrypting mysterious route conditions, no looking up a guide. And if you don’t know who you want to romance? You can get to know the various dads before committing to one. It also makes it very clear when you’ve pleased or displeased a dad, and pleasing or displeasing a dad is obvious if you’ve paid attention to what they like and don’t like. It takes a ton of the crypticness out of visual novels, and other VNs should take heed.

On the other hand, it doesn’t feature basic visual novel features like being able to backtrack or see a chat log, which is disappointing. DDADDS manages to mix up things by including minigames, made possible by the Unity engine. It also allows you to create your Dadsona, averting the typical blank slate protagonist of most visual novel games.

4. Mystery Chronicle: One Way Heroics (2016)

I bought the original One Way Heroics for 78 cents on Steam and loved it. It was a delightful hybrid of 16-bit JRPG and roguelike, and I was so excited when I heard Spike Chunsoft was doing an enhanced remake of this game. I haven’t played it as much as I want to, but it’s the original game but better, and that’s all I wanted.

To keep you from dawdling, you have to keep moving forward, or else the left edge of the screen will consume you. You also have to keep track of HP and hunger levels. Once you die, that’s it - but you can transfer items between playthroughs and gain perks that will help you do better in future playthroughs.

It’s such a delightful throwback to the old days, and a fun roguelike.

3. Love Live! School Idol Festival (2014)

This is the first ever mobile game to make the list. I knew I wanted to download this once I joined the mobile world - Cute girls, trading cards, and music? What’s not to like? The rhythm game aspect is very good. It’s very responsive, and fun. The visual novel aspect is kind of hit or miss, but I love the girls, so it’s all good. It’s basically just the characters being themselves, and no real story of importance. I wish the game was a bit less stingy with love gems, but otherwise, I love it.

2. Nier (2010)

Nier is kind of punching above its weight here. While the game itself isn’t anything special, it’s wrapped up in this awesome music, beautiful graphics, and innovative storytelling that makes it something special. Besides, Yoko Taro is just a great guy. I can’t wait to get a chance to play Automata, so I can surely put it on a future list.

1. Castlevania: Symphony of the Night (1997)

This is the video that convinced me to give SOTN another try:

youtube

It truly is a masterpiece, but some of my own thoughts: It’s a shame Sony discouraged 2D games on the PS1, because the 2D games on the PS1 are timeless. 2D is timeless. 3D ends up looking like shit later, and the PS1 3D games surely do look like shit.

#shylax original #text #video games #shylax top 10 of 2017

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