#and yeah i know this is a general cutscene that plays even if you didn't romance hans

[asvidema]

the affection radiating from hans is palpable here isn't it

[astrxealis]

super busy but hi i miss ffxiv i played again today raghh happy 10th anniv the rising event makes me cry i love ffxiv :(( but anyway! bg3 thoughts in tags!

[curioussubjects]

I just finished Veilguard, and...I'm really not sure how I feel about it?

All in all: good game, had fun, but still didn't quite hit some of the highs it wanted to hit and it's still not as good as DA2

(Spoilers galore below for everything)

The Good:

Pretty game is pretty;

Love the codexes, especially the ones written by companions or with their commentary;

Speaking of, the Mementos had so excellent tid bits of lore flavor to them, as well;

Regrets of the Dread Wolf was a damn good quest;

Some truly funny party banter;

I actually thought it was really easy to figure out who my Rook is as I played the game, which was much harder for me to do for my Lavellan in DAI;

And speaking of Lavellan, she was in character she WOULD say that she WOULD do that. Bless;

Everything about Nevarra and the Mourn Watch, I wish there was more content there because I was so into it;

Orb and dagger mage is really fun to play, which was VERY surprising considering I don't play close range ever;

I also really enjoyed destroying blight boils for some reason lmao;

Petting cats (they PURR WHEN YOU DO);

Assan <3;

Taash being so autistic;

Teia and Viago my beloveds;

✨Friendship✨

The Solavellan of it all;

And Solas, too. Love that sadsack disaster man;

Maybe this is super basic of me but I liked Varric's narration...idk it's comforting;

Honestly, just Varric in general was a bit safety blanket in a nice way for me because the game feels overwhelming at first;

There's no party like an all Dalish party!

Exploring -- loved finding all the fun details in each location, and I know I didn't even do enough in my playthrough;

I'm weak for stories about guilt, fear and regret. And I'm even weaker when those stories are so obviously about forgiveness and moving forward. Also love. Always love.

The Bad:

The pacing. I've said this before but DAtV could've used a more explicit arc structure or have quests note which level they're meant for or SOMETHING because some times it seemed I was doing quests too early or too late for when I was in the main story. I also thought events kept oscillating from happening too fast or too slowly, and it very much did get in the way of immersion;

The romance. Literally what are you doing Dragon Age that you fumble the romance. Granted, I only romanced Davrin so far, but I'm getting the sense from looking through the tag that maybe Lucanis' romance also feels a bit off? Honestly I have so many issues with the romance progression for Davrin that it's its own section;

I hope this is only a Veil Jumpers issue, but I thought Rook was so separate from the faction. I felt very little connection to them;

I've seen some people point out NPCs talk to Rook like they're a child, and while I don't really agree with that I do think Rook doesn't have enough opportunities to be knowledgeable in their own right. Especially annoying with a mage Veil Jumper Rook! I miss the Inquisition perk dialogue options that let my Lavellan be a smarty pants;

Holy overdesigned armors! Yikes!

Not all areas are as well developed as the others: Rivain is the most egregiously empty and underdeveloped, but I actually thought Arlathan Forest was super lifeless too. So was the Lighthouse! You get the early game discovery bit and then nothing ever again and it's like oh that was really it huh (and the stuff we did get was so good please more?);

I hate to say this but BioWare missed the mark with Rook's place in the group. The companions seemed connected to each other, yeah, but Rook was like some cross between group therapist and not-so-undercover boss. There was none of the warmth Hawke got from their companions (or the Inquisitor, for that matter!). The game really needed 1. a lighthearted party hangout cutscene and 2. companions coming together to take care of Rook (the fact this isn't even a thing in the romance is bonkers to me);

Taash's personal quest being about choosing between being Rivain and Qunari as if that's how culture works is Bad Actually;

The worst minimap I've ever seen in a game wow;

Also: give me back my beacon marker;

The gods were in a regret prison but what were their regrets exactly we just don't know.

The Bad (Romance Edition):

Again, the pacing! Incredibly slow to start (and not in a slow burn way, mind!) and then super fast in the last third of the game;

In fact, the romance seemed to be running on a completely different level than the rest of the story. The last romance scene was incredibly out of place tonally, especially.

The first two romance titles for Davrin are "Thrill of the Chase" and "Hot and Bothered"...and like WHERE????

Davrin never writes about Rook as a romantic partner or as if he has any concerns with the relationship...which we later find out he has, but was news to me;

Tbh, the romance felt like an afterthought. There were cutscenes that in any other DA game there would've been flirting options, for instance, but this time there was nothing (what do you mean Rook can't make a flirty comment when Davrin is shirtless working out with Taash? It's low hanging fruit!);

Not nearly enough flirty banter between Rook and Davrin, which is nuts considering their personalities;

I'm really super disappointed with Davrin's romance, which sucks because he's actually perfect for my Rook and I really like his character. There was so much potential for a really fun romance that was both tense and sexy, but also sweet. But no. Secret good Davrin romance that exists in my head save me.

The ???:

Southern Thedas got scorched when the North didn't how?

Please tell me who was catfishing Andraste;

Making enemies super aggro on Rook unless you specifically have companions taunting was very weird.

[saberamane]

So I haven't put too many of my thoughts on Valhalla out, aside from my frustration on the anomalies, so heres some things I've liked so far, found, or otherwise want to comment on.

First off, I have to mention some 'false advertising' I've noticed. In the store section there's a 'weekly free gift' thing. This is wrong, it's more of a free gift every 7 days you start up the game. I played yesterday, the first time in well over a week, and it said I still had 2 days until I could collect my weekly gift. So 'weekly gift' is not accurate.

I really like the standing stone things, they're pretty cool. The cairns have been a bit problematic in some aspects, but not too bad.

I finished all the beast hunts. They were all cool and interesting, but I have to say I was a bit disappointed about the 3 wolves one. Only 1 head is mounted in the long house. It would have been better imo if all 3 wolves were included.

The black shuck was awesome. I wish there was more English folk legends included in the hunts and not just oversized local wildlife.

The mystery things are usually cool, I just wish they acted more like mini missions and had general goal markers and not just 'look around the large oak tree' told to me by a note or person.

The raids are pretty fun, just wish there wasn't so many things to upgrade that I need so much exotic supplies for.

Fuck those skull curse things. In general they're fine, but the fact that your movement and sight gets impaired is annoying. You want me to solve how to find and destroy this skull thing while it's hard to see and move? Not fun.

I wish the horses had more variety that's not part of a set locked behind money. You get black, graying (the dark dappled one), a dark brown, brown/white paint, and a white horse with black mane and tail. Where are the gold horses? No buckskin, palomino, cremello, pearlino. At the very least buckskin is naturally occurring in wild horses and should be available, right? And don't get me started on the Roan coats.

So yeah, horse variety for free is not great. There are plenty of raven ones though and I really like them.

Now, something I've noticed in game that makes me believe that female Eivor is the 'canon' choice:

For one, I've noticed at least twice where, while playing as male Eivor, an NPC referred to Eivor as 'she' or 'her', and this is during main story requests.

During a recent story quest where I'm helping the alderman reunite with a childhood sweetheart and getting his wife back to france, you request the help of a 17 y/o Dane named Rollo. During most 9f the quests with him, he is shown as being about Eivor's height, maybe a small bit shorter. The very last cutscene shows Rollo as suddenly being a lot taller than Eivor.

This has happened several times. In game Eivor is on par or slightly taller than those around him, but in cutscenes he is suddenly MUCH shorter. This is both annoying because it's inconsistent, but also seems like the development was rushed or people just didn't care about this detail.

But also, if Eivor is supposed to be Odin reborn, why would he be so short? Even if you played female Eivor, they should be taller than average. Kassandra was noticeably taller than pretty much everyone she met, and when I did the mission where you run into Kassandra, Eivor is was not shorter than her. Thisnlack of attention to detail is just... bad.

Ok, rant over. Overall liking the game. Sigurd has been a dick on screen so far, but I blame Basim for that. Just found out Sigurd had his arm cut off, oof.

(Forgot to add, I loved the hidden ones bureaus, very cool. And if someone knows if Reda is in Mirage, without spoilers, I'd love to know. I'm surprised he's still alive AND a child. Is this ever explained ?)

[goldenchocobo]

Kingdom Hearts Tamagotchi Adventures

So, I got the Kingdom Hearts Tamagotchi for my birthday this year. and it was only in September that I decided to activate it (I was hesitant because I know Tamagotchi can be needy and can't be turned off). So here's my so-far roughly one month journey!

Here he is- Base Sora on day 1. I took care of him, played games, and generally fiddled about with what I could do. This was my first ever Tamagotchi, so it was a new experience to me. You fight Shadow Heartless, Dusk Nobodies and Flood Unversed occasionally with the tap of the 'A' button. They didn't happen super frequently so I was fine fending them off.

Unfortunately things didn't go well. I became ill with stomach flu the night after. The manual says it takes roughly 49 hours for Sora to change/evolve. and well...

When I was able to move again... I woke up to... uh... Heartless Sora. Everything remained the same, except the food and treat (Paopu and Icecream) turned into Heart and !. Heart being that you well- fed him hearts, and ! meaning he attacked you (I think... he vanished then appeared closer and waved his arms about). I felt really bad that my first Tamagotchi basically 'died' because of things I couldn't control. But I enjoyed my time with Heartless Sora; and after a few days, Kairi found him and saved him! Very cute 2 bit scene. Back to Normal Sora. I found an issue. You see... I'm more nocturnal; and this Tamagotchi... wasn't. He woke up at 9AM and slept at 10PM; meaning he didn't get the right care from me.. but I figured I could change the time to suit me- and did. Now he wakes up at 12PM and sleeps at 2AM- same as me. Next evo was a surprise! Sora introduced me to (and trusted me to care?) Riku!

This was when I found out each character/evo has different sleeping schedules. Riku would sleep late and wake late (I'm thankful it wasn't early due to the whole Dawn motif because I didn't want to change the clock too much again). They also have their own unique cutscenes, with Riku primarily featuring Mickey. Not much happened, and I showed Riku to Riku(My Riku... the cockatiel- named after... Riku). But He left and Sora returned. At this point I wanted to aim for Roxas- or Ventus (I'm sad there's no Vanitas). So I miiight have looked up a quick wiki to see how to get the characters. "Wow that's cheating" you might say.. and yeah- probably... the issue is that I didn't get Roxas.

Instead, Sora 'grew up' into KHII Sora. I was interested to see what kind of outfit or character I could get to show up, so I continued with normal care.

On the 28th of September... Sora.. ever the festive fellow...

Donned his Santa outfit.

I found it kinda funny, but kept him up with Normal care. I was starting to forget him (I got a little drawer handle I put him on during the evening on my right hand ride next to my monitor, and during the day he's on the couch arm- I don't take him out because I'm scared I'll lose the Tamagotchi somewhere). So He was getting upset/hungry; but if he beeped I knew he needed something. He Unlocked/locked the Keyhole to Halloween/Christmas Town, then flew off in the Gummiship, returning as Normal Sora. After 49 hours, he once again reintroduced me to Riku. having forbidden knowledge, I knew I could turn Riku into Dark Riku. and tried.

I. Felt. Awful.

I know they're just 2bit pixelart on the screen... but Riku has a special place in my heart (I named my grumpy, gay cockatiel after him!) so me... just basically neglecting Riku? it hurt :(

After this. He did not turn into Dark Riku. He left. just straight-up.

Sora flew back in on the Gummiship and my quest to get Roxas/Ventus continued.

But I was surprised when I came back after an outing to find... Sora turned into a fish

Wiki says he's from 'Bad care', but I don't remember giving him subpar treatment, and catering to what he wanted- so I'm baffled. He did come with an Aerial/Sebastian scene, though- so that was cute. He didn't stay for long and locked Atlantica's Keyhole, returning as Basic Sora.

Again- I tried to get Roxas, but instead got KHII Sora again; so I thought I could maybe get Axel or Xion; since they're included in the KHII evo list.

Nope. Christmas Sora again. Oh well- He does love Christmas.

I'll update this if I get anything interesting. I know you can get Xehanort- I recognised his Silhouette on the manual, so maybe I'll get him one day.

I'm still waiting on Roxas..

[zottower]

So I finished FF4 TaY,

3D phone version. I really have mixed feelings about it.

There are things I really enjoyed.

The game play is not too difficult, and can give some little challenges, in the 3D phone version I played the band option was fun and useful, the multiple playable characters can encourage strategy creativity. There's a cool moment when you need to search the world map for treasures and the next step of the adventure that I enjoyed a lot.

The main story with the mysterious girl was cool, there was a nice pacing, revelations and all. I liked Ceodore and Kain's relationship during the game (I like the conclusion a bit less thought), it turned out that Golbez is not my type of character but he's a fine one, and I really enjoyed Edge, Edward and Rydia's stories. I liked Polom, a bit less Palom's evolution.

The new characters are all fun and cool in my opinion. The team is a big (too big to be well developped thought ?) nice heartwarming family now. They have nice designs. Actually the art in general is colorful and pretty. There is still this very rudimentary use of the camera and the animations during the cutscenes that are sometimes really awkward, but it's forgivable.

My personnal problems are that I think I totally missed the point about the recurring theme of the father-child relationship (cultural problem ? lack of personal interest problem ?) and that I didn't like the psychologization of the darkness and light theme. As I said, I didn't like Dark Cecil, Dark Kain and insipid Rosa at all and unfortunately they are highlighted in the plot.

There are more objective problems about the writing of this story : the plot devices are unfortunately sometimes repetitive, laborious, the more obvious being the overuse of the "this unexpected chatacter arrives suddenly in this desperate battle to save your team" trope. It's of course a nod to this iconic moment in the original game when Rydia saves Cecil's team in the battle against Golbez, but now it's repeated over and over, and thougt it works very well in 2 or 3 cases, the other uses of this trope are too often emptied of the efficiency, the originality, the fun of it. I didn't like that.

There is also this double sided edged idea of "history is repeating". The intention is to make the gamer feel that it's the same universe, a familiar story, in one word : a real sequel that repeats what was loved in the original work. And sometimes this choice produces enjoyable variations with a familiar pattern turned into something fun with a nice twist, but sometimes it only results in dull repetitions. Also, this choice gives the annoying feeling that the characters didn't grow since the original story. All these trials for this ? I know that in real life, people tend to evolve slowly and repeat the same mistakes. But it's a story, it can't have this moral : what's exciting about adventure if you learn nothing from it ?

To put it in a nutshell, I felt like TaY was like some cake trying to use the same recipe as the previous, but because the fans said they liked this or this kind of ingredient, let's say candied fruits, there are now ten times more candied fruits, and some of this sweetmeat is savorless or even moldy. The cake is overall good, but some bites don't taste good. I don't want to play it again in the near future. Maybe in some monthes … But Yeah … That's my thoughts on this.

[rawliverandgoronspice]

Nah, your mention of the teacup scene was honestly perfect, because, just like P-Z it just feels so weird, and just kinda pointless/disjointed. Heckers, even the people I know who LIKE the story of totk, did not seem to like the teacup scene. Also, if I can throw in: It felt like a scene that, in its idea, should have been in the DLC. Maybe actually focus on just Sonia and Rauru as people, instead of the weird "talking around the bush, your powers don't work, Link, and the other piddly talk." Like in the botw DLC, the focus was more on a "slice of life" peek into the Champion's life. It's such a waste of main-story content, and literally established nothing new. Heck, I actually hate that scene because it's just such a lazy way for Rauru to find out who Link is, and then later tell Ganondorf about Link. Additionally, while we're talking about disappoint scenes/bad writing. Zelda's "I didn't remember anything from being a Dragon." It was such a bad cop-out, and it annoyed me to no end. They didn't need to mention it, leave it up to the player to interpret if Zelda remembers, and what she might have remembered or forgotten. The way it gets dropped is also like a hard rock. Riju: "So how was it?" Zelda: "Lol idk, don't remember." It's weird how you can put Botw-Zelda's sacrifice against Totk-Zelda's sacrifice, and Botw she just sacrificed a lot more, even though Totk really plays up the severity of the "Sacrificing yourself to become a dragon"-thing, only for it to just be the most overhyped McGuffin to get Zelda back into her time.

Hey, thanks for the follow-up!

Yeah, agreed. I have talked extensively about the dragon problem somewhere??? I'll try to find it. Here! Which is basically that even if I agree the dragon thing is super cool and powerful and visually jawdropping and emotionally something, it's... kind of not a lot of what it claims to be.

But in addition to that, you made me think of something else by having this comment; there are multiple times during voiced cutscenes specifically where lines are used (I say used because every voiced line costs *so much money* so producers will always beg you to keep them to a minimum) to reassure the player that nothing truly bad is happening.

The thing with Zelda telling you she doesn't remember her time as a dragon is a great example, but there are many more. The first time I actively noticed it was during the Sealing cutscene where Rauru dives in to put his hand in Ganondorf's uhh tender heart (and he steals his magic? I wish something was actually done with that it could have been great if Rauru was corrupting himself voluntarily or something), and there is a whole dialogue where Ganondorf goes "hahaha thousands of years will pass in the blink of an eye", which could be a way to just brush off Rauru's actions as negligeable, but could also be a way to minimize the toll of time taken on both of them the same way it did for Zelda, especially since they semi-turn to stone immediately after. There are a lot of dialogue bits that feel like they are here for damage control and reassure us that the nice things are nice and the bad things are bad (a lot of the gerudo Sage dialogue also reads like that to me as well).

But yes, in general, it is a game that is incredibly averse to consequences, which does a lot of harm to its narrative tension in my opinion.

[hard-times-paramore]

Hi! Unicorn Anon here, from Sharon's DMs. I saw your response. Good thing I was still on time to send this ask!

What can you tell me about Age of Empires? I thought it was a multiplayer game, didn't even know it had a story. From what I could see, it reminds me of what I know about Assassin's Creed 3. Makes sense that you included that Kaniehtí:io cameo.

Age of Empires is a game series from the late 90s to mid 2000s, and it's a Real Time Strategy game where you basically build towns and armies to fight other towns and armies. It's mostly known for it's multiplayer, yeah. I don't even think the first game has a story mode. The second does but it's very simple, cutscene slides with a historical overview that gives your game level unique objectives while playing against AI instead of other players.

The third one had a - also very simple - story mode with a fictional story about several generations of a mixed Native family fighting cultists who wanted the Fountain of Youth so they could conquer the world. Each campaign had 8 levels, and the story is told in a very superficial manner. You can see all the cutscenes here if you want.

The thing is I've played this game since I was 7, so I got attached to that simple story and characters. They were my toys growing up. So I wrote that fanfic about them. Also as a way to write about disability and flex mine and specially Sharon's research skills about the American colonial era.

Which is exactly what led us to discover Assassin's Creed. We found AC3 first. A couple of the chapters from AoE3 takes place in the exact years that span AC3, and both games feature Kanien'keha:ka characters (Connor's ethnicity). That's why I snuck a Kaniehtí:io cameo in my fic later on.

I wish I could give you an epic crossover between Age of Empires 3 and Assassin's Creed 3, though most of the ideas would be extrapolated from the game's brief plot and probably make Aoe3 look way deeper than it is. Plus I haven't found anyone else that also has that same fondness for this game - save from the people I dragged into it myself.

Could be a fun idea though. Hey, Assassin's Creed fans, consider playing that!

[beevean]

Thinking about it LoI's cutscene with Mathias kind of clarifies why Dracula keeps being evil even after Alucard told him of Lisa's last wish and he himself even apologizing to her for his actions.

When Leon calls him out on his bullshit claiming that Elisabetha would never approve of his actions Mathias....just ignores the question

He simply states that she was a kind woman and that's why he's pissed at God and then proceeds to ask Leon "Hey you would've done the same don't judge me"

But inadvertently he kind of answers Leon's question by claiming that Elisabetha was kind which means that, on some level, he knows that what he's doing would disgust her yet he represses that truth so that he can keep walloing in hatred.

Dracula knows that Lisa would hate him for his actions yet he keeps doing them because he can't let go of hatred. When he apologizes to her it's probably not just for what he's done already but for not being able to meet her wish in general

Similarily, in DoS, Soma knows full well that giving up to his dark self would be awful yet he tries to go along with Celia's plan anyway upon thinking Mina died, even apologizing to her for what he's about to do

Yep! Dracula is a selfish bastard. He claims to love his wives, and yes he certainly saw something in them and was fond of them... but he didn't actually care enough to put their wishes above his own.

That scene with Mathias himself is also very telling. My man just finished confessing to having ruined Leon's life, to having used him and Sara for the sake of his plan, and then he offers Leon to join him in immortality and pulls a surprisedpikachuface.jpg when Leon understandably tells him to go fuck himself. He's been swallowed by his rage against God for "taking Elisabetha away from him", he appeals to Leon's grief by saying "after what you've been through, you should know" probably expecting him to renounce God as well, but didn't expect that he would feel the same towards Mathias for pretty much doing the same thing. The lack of empathy is astounding.

"Elisabetha was a kind, honorable woman. She was concerned only for me to the very end… That is why I hate Him! Am I wrong?!" You can nearly see Mathias starting to think "huh, yeah, my wife was a good woman, she'd probably be concerned for me for what I'm doing"... until he retreats in his anger again and chooses to blame God once again. I mean, he just ruined so many people's lives and absorbed Walter's soul to become a vampire, a little too late to accept that he fucked up.

And this is baby Dracula. It's easy to imagine that, by the time of SoTN, sunk cost fallacy more than applies. He died and got resurrected so many times, he killed so many people, he spread so much misery... and for what? For him to realize that his loved women would hate him? No, he can't go back now.

As for DoS, the line "If it means getting Mina's revenge, I'll do it. Make me the dark lord" really hurt the first time I played :( all this time spent rejecting his fate, and he's aware that he'll lose himself and become the sworn enemy of his friends... but he just has enough of seeing his loved ones die. celia is so fucking dumb

Needless to say, NFCV barely touches this point, despite the whole "appeal" of N!Dracula being that it expands upon his grief. S2, through Godbrand and Carmilla, insists on the point that Dracula's plan was stupid, that he won't think about how vampires will feed, that he only wants to die, and why didn't he just turn Lisa into a vampire, but IIRC no one among the heroes (and yes I'm talking about Alucard in particular) points out his sheer hypocrisy and lack of respect towards the woman he's supposed to love.

(although, to be fair, I love the line "Kill for the endless lifetime of hate before me". He also knew that he would never recover from his rage. until he did but shhh)

[geddy-leesbian]

HEYYYY !!!!! so i was just wondering a few things if that’s okay

1. what re games have you played?/which is ur fav

2. did u like luis the moment he was introduced or did knowing his full story really connect w you?

3. rare pairs!! i love rare pairs so please explain any of the ones u like with luis :-) not asking about any in particular i just like to see people talk abt stuff they like

TYSMMM BYEEEE

YAYYY ASK!! IT'S MORE THAN OKAY

1. so my RE pipeline was kinda wild. In 2020ish I watched my sibling play through RE4 on our wii, but didn't have any strong feelings, like nothing stuck with me. I literally forgot Luis existed, I had zero memory of what he was like in that game. Then last year they showed me this fantastic youtube video and I was hella interested in Leon/Luis so they replayed RE4R (they're insanely good and had already beaten it several times) and I became OBSESSED with Luis and Leon and RE generally. After RE4R they binged and replayed (with me watching ofc) some of REmake, RE2R, RE7, and Village. The games I've actually played myself are RE1 but only the DS port, Revelations, RE4R, both Chronicles games, and this obscure beauty that is incredibly noncanon but actually very dear to me:

(and I've at least read about/watched some cutscenes from all the other games)

This is insane of me, but honestly I fucking love Darkside Chronicles so much that I almost want to say it's my favorite, but I won't go that far and just say that RE4R is my favorite with an honorable mention to Darkside. 

2. My first real exposure to him was from that youtube video so like

yeah I was hooked immediately and then got deeper and deeper into RE lore and loved him even more 

3. Of course I love Winterserra. I just love that they're both what they need, that they save each other; Ethan needs saved from his infection/the corrupt part of the BSAA, Luis needs a malewife someone to save him from himself and his guilt, making him feel like he deserves to live and pulling him out of his depression. 

I'm also going to gush about a nonromantic pairing that I really love: Luis and Alfred Ashford.

It all goes back to Darkside Chronicles:

My brain worms honed in on "traitors to Umbrella" and went "ah yes so Luis Serra would have been in Rockfort if he'd tried to sabotage the Nemesis Project instead of quietly disappearing to Valdelobos. Interesting." That spawned a whole AU where Luis avoids execution by being charming as hell. Seeing as Alexia Ashford was a child prodigy, Alfred is 👀 when he finds out that a prisoner he received is also a child prodigy (I imagine Luis being the first and last child prodigy to end up in Rockfort, most would just be too brainwashed and manipulated to want to break away. I mean I guess technically Wesker and Birkin were child prodigies who broke away but Luis would still be the only one that ended up in Rockfort) and has Luis moved and treated better than other prisoners. Luis learns to roll with Alfred and stay on his good side, eventually managing to con him into believing that a) he did not betray Umbrella at all but got framed by his coworkers and b) an elaborate bullshit story about Luis actually being nobility.

... which Alfred REALLY likes and he gets to be the first non Ashford to enter the private residence, where he's supposed to be Alfred's companion until Alexia wakes up. I'm going to cut this ramble off here but being Alfred's BFF is actually hell on earth tbh (Alfred is genuinely very fond of Luis and tries to treat him well, but the problem is that Alfred Ashford is a mentally unstable absolute WEIRDO that has no idea what normal people enjoy and their basic needs so like. Yeah. It's better than being physically tortured/executed/a guinea pig, but still a very bad time!) but Luis hangs in there and eventually escapes back to Valdelobos, but as a very different person, a very bitter one who would really, really not want to help Leon and Ashley… but still would eventually.

My last Luis rare pair is Luis/Annette but there's not much to elaborate on really. Annette likes fucking him because she's trapped in a loveless marriage and William hasn't had sex with her in years and Luis is young and pretty, and a lot better in bed than William. Luis likes fucking her because he feels like a monster for his work and misses Leon (this is an AU where they knew each other as teenagers) and sneaking around with a blonde reminds him of sneaking around with Leon back in the day. There's nothing emotional, just two people using sex as a coping mechanism to distract themselves from how deeply unhappy they are. (i kinda lied it does get a bit more interesting with Annette entrusting Sherry to him when Everything Went Wrong, but up to that point the "relationship" is 100% physical, only sex, no feelings.)

AGAIN THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR ASKING I ALWAYS LOVE ANSWERING ASKS <3

[sazorak]

Every Game I Played in 2023, Ranked

I debated moving this list to Cohost (after all these years, the Tumblr text post interface still makes me want to punch a wall) but whatever, here we are! Keeping it relatively short this year.

A lot of the games I played aren't going to be on this list because I don't have much new to say about them (MTG, Dwarf Fortress, Strive, etc), but for those that I do, here's the games I played this year.

2015 | 2016 | 2017 | 2018 | 2019 | 2020 | 2021 | 2022

SD Gundam Battle Alliance - 2022 - Steam - ★★★

I really wanted to like this- you know I like me some Gundam- but the experience is simultaneously too thin, too grindy, and bereft of stakes. There's nothing like "oh no we have to preserve the Gundam metaverse from hackers ruining the archived story!" to make me go to sleep.

There's something about the progression system of every "hey, gotta catch 'em all!"-ish Gundam games that is designed exclusively for people who either played these games in the early 00s, or people with addictive personalities. There's been little in the way of evolution. Yeah, the gameplay here is different as a sort of Action RPG, but this is far more Dynasty Warriors than it is say Armored Core.

Just not for me!

... Where's my new Super Robot Wars at damn it?

9. Pokemon Scarlet/Violet DLC - 2023 - Switch - ★★★★

I talked last year about how I mostly liked this game in spite of its many, many issues. The DLC mostly plays to SV's strengths: fun plot and characters, improved open world catching system from Sword/Shield. They also run considerably better, due to a year of opportunity to make things more stable and address bugs.

That said: It doesn't address any of the other issues that have always been there. Open world exploration becomes kind of pointless when you have the ability to invalidate any level geometry. There is such a thing as too much mobility, believe it or not, when you can just jump over everything. At the same time, the ways cutscenes work is soooo slowwwww, to the point that getting through them to the "action" can be quite tedious.

This DLC also continues the unfortunate thing that drives me nuts about all these DLC, that the level scaling is just awful. It basically assumes you have done literally nothing since finishing Scarlet Violet, and not engaged at all with the post game. Which hey, works out for Lil Timmy who is experiencing this DLC in-line with the base game or only after beating it (since it does dynamically scale for earlier progression), but it makes the whole thing kind of a rote exercise for those who actually played the game more than that?

I realize this is multiple decades now of me barking that hey, it'd be nice if Pokemon didn't exclusively try to appeal to 5 year olds, which is definitely a lost cause at this point. We don't even get stuff like Battle Towers or Frontiers anymore really. Ah well!

8. Street Fighter 6 - 2023 - Steam - ★★★★

Ok, here's the thing: Street Fighter 6 is overall a very good game, lots of care and polish, but I got a few bones to pick with it.

1. I kind of hate its input buffer. Just drives me nuts, particularly with how it handles supers and specials with overlapping inputs.

2. World Tour while is neat, the progression of it is so goddamn grindy and miserable. So much HP for enemies as you go on, and you don't have access to a fighter's full skill set even at the very end due to how special "slots" work.

3. The cast feels too safe. I like the new additions a lot, and in general the old chars have been rendered quite well, but there's just not a lot of innovation going on. The system mechanics are quite good, but it's the thing where no one on the cast really calls out to me. Personal taste thing.

Marvel's Spider-Man - 2022 - Steam - ★★★★

I don't think I have anything particularly unique to say about The Spider-Man Experience beyond hey: that's a pretty good Spider-Man. I think the DLC was obnoxious as shit, and a number of the decisions tied to box-checking-completionist stuff were mean for someone like me who has the stupid brain that thinks it's important to do Everything no matter how tedious it is, but overall: a good Spider-Man. Some of the villain stuff felt pretty weak though.

7. Resident Evil 4 Remake - 2023 - Steam - ★★★★★

A great remake! They trimmed down some areas a fair but, but none of them particularly egregious (some of them, particularly a last act boss being removed, was quite appreciated), and the mechanical additions are fun.

Does it invalidate the old version? I dunno, maybe?

6. We Love Katamari Re:Roll - 2023 - Steam / Switch - ★★★★★

Hey, you know what's also a very good game? We Love Katamari. Not much new to say beyond hey: the name is accurate, and you should buy and play it. I liked it enough to buy it twice on two platforms, which is silly but it gave me the excuse to play more Katamari so quite understandable.

A thing that does annoy me about the game is them reusing certain models from the other Katamari Remake, even when they were deliberately replaced in We Love Katamari and are even called out as different in the item descriptions despite not being so. Arrgh. It doesn't really matter, but I got the dumb brain for that kind of thing.

5. Granblue Fantasy Versus: Rising - 2023 - Steam - ★★★★★

A fighting game that I enjoyed years past now has actually good netcode! The mechanical additions have been very nice, and I've been enjoying myself grinding away for my meager gains. It's also funny having skipped all the base game's DLC and coming in now, since it's like this release just added 20 more chars I'd otherwise not engaged with before.

A ton of polish has made this a fantastic package across the board, so many smart decisions and little details. I'm sure for GranBlue gacha fans it's probably incredible as something that pays tribute as well.

… but see, my main annoyance with the game mostly ties to being unable to stand the source material it pulls from. It's not enough to diminish my positive feelings for the game, but none the less: man, everything about the lore and characters themselves just does NOTHING for me. This is nothing particularly unique to GranBlue itself even, it's pretty in line with how I feel about every gacha title that exists to roll out chars and appeal to as many niches as possible without real forward movement or actual story, but hey here we are.

Looking forward to that 2B.

4. Baldur's Gate 3 - 2023 - Steam - ★★★★★

A game I admittedly haven't completed yet (I got up to a certain kidnapping in the last act and had to set it aside due to stuff repeatedly coming up for the past couple months) but still: this is a very good tactical RPG. I enjoy the writing, characters, and gameplay quite a lot. A ton of polish went into this.

I don't think I have much to say about it that hasn't been said by others, especially with all the Discourse that has circled it for months-to-years now across Early Access into release.

If there's one thing that does kind of annoy me about the game design, it's the way the player characters are handled. You have the option during character creator to create a character with a number of character-build-y backgrounds, or use their pre-built characters that have existing stories. This choice is lose-lose.

A fully custom character is blank, unimportant. There's nothing special about them beyond their affinity with a certain orb and being Protagonist Man. Their background doesn't really matter, even as you express your personality. You have nothing behind you that meaningfully comes up or affects the story (no Gorion, etc) beyond your role in the conflict. In other words, there's not a lot of reason for you to exist except as a cypher for the named characters.

Playing one of the named characters also sucks, because you lose those the writing for those characters. If I'm stuck aping Karlach, I have no Karlach in my party. You barely even get voice acting once you choose to play those characters either. You effectively end up with less writing and characterization, which kind of sucks! Yes, you do get your backgrounds being looped in and mattering more, which is indeed something, but not enough.

There is secretly a third option that, the more I think about it, is the correct one, they just don't tell you it. You can choose your character background to be tied to the Dark Urge, which results in a lot unique interactions, gives your character an actual background and comes up, etc. They don't outright make this the main option presumably because it comes with a lot of baggage (which, yeah, it does), but it seems completely worth it by comparison to just flitting through the story as either a ghost or the phantom of a real character.

3. Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective Remastered - 2023 - Steam - ★★★★★

Play Ghost Trick.

2. Armored Core VI - 2023 - Steam - ★★★★★

From Software continues to not miss. Fantastic game, some of the most satisfying mecha combat I've played. Story is great; it's still your usual "oops we're not explaining much other than in medias res or by circumstantial details" that From Soft has continued to double down on, but I really enjoy that stuff so hey. I 100%'d this game, got all the endings etc. Great stuff.

Really want some proper DLC so I can do even more, though.

1. The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom - 2023 - Steam - ★★★★★

Let's face it: this wasn't going to end any other way. Breath of the Wild is probably my favorite game of all time, and this is basically just more of that, remixed and remastered into a Second Quest that builds on the first one.

Something I kept thinking about while playing is that while there is volumetrically more to do, more things happening, more mechanics, etc etc, the different approach it takes in terms of focus and approach doesn't make it necessarily a "strictly better" version of Breath of the Wild.

Breath of the Wild was deliberately spare, quiet, and minimalist. Like the name says, its about the quiet wilderness, a poignant world that you explore. Tears of the Kingdom drops much of that, in many ways turning into a kooky madcap version of BOTW. You don't spent nearly as much time smelling the roses and taking in the scenery, as you're often too busy blasting by using any number of the new movement abilities or combat tools or literal flying machines you can now Nuts and Bolts together.

It's a deliberate escalation, one that in my opinion requires the preceding part to work. They add together into one complete singular experience, rather than pulling against each other. That's awesome, exactly what I wanted. Now I get to have two favorite games of all time that are secretly just one-and-the-same.

Some minor thoughts:

1. Lots of great writing and characterization, built up well on BOTW there.

2. It's kind of funny how much it goes out of the way to avoid talking much about BOTW in case someone plays this game first.

3. The last of a Master mode this time around is kind of a bummer but oh well!

4. The vehicle crafting system and everything about it, including the way it plays into the existing physics system is fucking insane. Absolutely incredible game design. Bonkers.

I'm really curious how the hell they're going to follow these games up. Going back to square-0 from this formula- one that is so built up and diverse, seems like it'd be impossible to me. What the hell could you do? Looking forward to finding out.

[veebs-hates-video-games]

So I finally got around to Final Fantasy VII Remake. The short version is it's the game that convinced me to never play another Final Fantasy game again. It's less dramatic than it sounds though because that decision was based on a lot more than just my experience with this one game, and I don't even think it's a bad game or anything.

I'm someone who played the original forever ago, before FF8 was even out, who overall didn't really like the remake. Yeah, I know, there are tons of people like that. Unlike what seems like the vast majority of them I think almost everything the remake changed made it better.

I only ever thought the original was pretty good, and it was never one of my favorite games ever. I've always been kind of surprised that so many people were so superlative about it and kept demanding more spinoff games and media and an entire remake and going on about how it was one of the best games ever made. Like sure, I had a good time with it, and it was hugely influential, but really? I suppose I have weird taste sometimes.

Anyway pretty much all the changes to the story and writing improved things as far as I'm concerned, although some of that's probably because the translation of the original was pretty rough. A lot of it is because they fleshed stuff out so much more though. There's a lot more backstory and worldbuilding and explanation of people's motivations, so it's much easier to tell who's doing what and why and what their goals are, which helps the story a lot.

Even more than that though is how much better the characters are developed. Some of that is because they stretched it out into three games and have more time to spend with everyone, but a lot of it is just that the writing is better and the characters have more personality. Aerith is so much more of a gremlin than back when she was still Aeris, and it's great. Jessie and Biggs and Wedge being actual characters adds so much too. I feel like they got better development in this than most of the main party members did in the original, and I care more about their stories in this than I did about most of the main cast before.

Unfortunately dragging it out across three games also means it does a fair amount of Hobbiting, although that's mostly on the gameplay side. The story/character additions are mostly good, but the gameplay ones are...well, they just really aren't. Some of the areas really start to drag for a while, and the pacing suffers for it, just running around huge spaces fighting a bunch of random crap just to pass the time so they can justify this being three $70 games instead of the story ending after 20 hours.

And speaking of the gameplay, I don't love it. It's not terrible, and it's at least a step in the right direction after FF15, but it's still a pretty mediocre action game. I may be a little biased coming off stuff like Astral Chain a little while before this one, but come on. I don't even need it to be on that level. Trials of Mana felt much better to me, so someone at Squenix knows how to do it.

I think my biggest problem is just that a lot of animations feel way too long, so nothing's as responsive as I want it to be. It's particularly egregious running around in the world having to wait like two seconds for Cloud to smash boxes and put his sword away afterward before I can move normally again, or the 5-12 second cutscenes squeezing through tight spaces, but it affects the combat to some degree too.

And you know what? The people who made the game apparently agree with me, because Yuffie's animations for all that stuff in Episode INTERmission are all like twice as fast and feel so much better. She's absolutely delightful to play as compared to the base game, whether it's running around the world or fighting stuff. She's also just delightful in general, which definitely helps.

Anyway, the thing most "they changed it, now it sucks" people seem to hate the most is the story changes, and I'm pretty sure they're wrong because that's the best thing about it. Well, the idea behind what they were trying to do is the best thing about it. I kind of love that they took a remake people had been demanding for years and putting really high expectations on and made it into a metacommentary on retelling stories people already know and the expectations they have for it. Finally a JRPG where instead of defeating god you defeat the concept of your ability to tell a story being constrained by your audience's demands.

But as much as I like it conceptually the execution was kind of hit or miss for me. In hindsight that's to be expected, because that's happened with literally every Nomura/Nojima game I've ever played, with zero exceptions. They're great at creating characters I like (both in terms of design and personality), interesting worlds, and fascinating premises, and then at some point the story inevitably falls apart and just doesn't really do it for me overall.

In conclusion, I've instituted a new policy: I am no longer allowed to play Final Fantasy games or other things made by Nomura/Nojima, at least not if they have significant creative control (so Nomura designing a few characters in XC2 is fine, but that's about the limit of it). It'll probably be healthier for everyone in the long run because I'll get to do stuff I like more instead, and everyone else will have to suffer through less of my bitching as I try to force myself through it.

It's a shame though, because I really did like what they did with Aerith and Yuffie a lot and wouldn't mind spending more time with them. The main game struggled to keep me as engaged when Aerith wasn't around because she was so good for the group dynamic, and the side story was at its best when it was all Yuffie all the time instead of trying to tie back into the main story too directly.

Ah heck, I forgot to be a hater about a couple things. Episode INTERmission really fell apart at the end for me. I have zero investment in Dirge of Cerberus/Crisis Core, and the drastic change in tone for the last like 15% of it really ruined things for me. I was genuinely having a pretty good time up until that point for the most part, but that left me feeling much more negatively overall.

Also I have never, ever understood why Sephiroth is so popular and people have been so excited about him whenever he shows up anywhere in anything, and this did nothing to change that for me. Quite possibly the biggest gulf ever between how hyped a character is vs how uninteresting I find them. I'm absolutely baffled by people who say Jin from XC2 is bad because he's just discount Sephiroth. Yeah, he looks vaguely similar because he was designed by the same person, but I actually like Jin's design more, and I find him much more interesting as a character, especially after the Adventures of Tomboy and Sadboy DLC.

Ok I'll shut up now. I think I've gotten my very mixed feelings on Final Fantasy from the past 30 years since I first played one out of my system.

Edit: Oops, forgot one thing. The motorcycle segments are my new least favorite thing in any FF game. The first one was mildly annoying, but they had to include it because it was in the original. The second one sucked enough that if it had gone on for a minute or two longer I was ready to just force quit and uninstall the game right then and there. Chocobo breeding and racing in the original is definitely worse, but it's also completely optional, while this is required for story progression so it's more offensive to me. I was pleasantly surprised by Fort Condor being the least worst minigame in the game though, when I expected it to be the actual worst.

[felikatze]

Do you feel Awakening's plot was let down by the need to be a male power fantasy, IE: kill lots of ugly people without remorse, get praised by everyone, all the woman want the avatar, ETC?

hmmmmm. good question. I don't think it's a power fantasy, per se - FE heavily ascribes to the design philosophy of "only beautiful people can be good", which is horrible for a lot of reasons, but I feel in this aspect it's plot structure is more hampered by the fact that it is a video game, and every chapter needs a Battle.

That's how you get basically every single generic brigand. There's a lull in the action, as characters talk, get to know each other, travel to the next relevant location. But you can't put any important battles inbetween, because those moments need to be slow - thus, an enemy who could just as easily be removed from the story without changing it.

In another game I like, Lord of Heroes, it's almost a running gag - the protagonist sees someone important, and wonders when they'll have to fight the next new guy, cuz We Need Boss Battles, even when the characters have no real need to fight each other. This is how you get comical misunderstandings only resolved after trashing each other, or your typical "I need to test your strength first" shtick.

These characters are engineered to be unimportant, for their deaths to mean nothing except some extra exp. It's just a problem baked into every FE game's chapter structure.

To compare to another SRPG, Triangle Strategy - you don't have plot unimportant combat in the story, ever. It's all optinal. Like yeah, there's bandits now and again, but the bandits are actually reoccuring characters, one of whom you can recruit, so they are made to be enjoyed as characters and sympathized with. The bandit characters even make good points sometimes! There's a part in the game where the main characters are involved in a black market smuggling deal, and bandits catch them transporting illegal goods. So, the bandit questions, what makes you rightous in this situation? Why is it right when you're doing it, but wrong when she does? What, because your goal is noble? What does it matter when you've sunk to the rock bottom of morality already?

However, Tristrat has an entirely different plot structure to FE. It also has a chapter system, but not every chapter includes combat. Some chapters only feature cutscenes, or exploration segments.

The game is just set up differently in a way that lets the plot breathe without forcing conflict. Combat gameplay isn't the main draw or a necessity. I'd fucking adore Tristrat if it had no combat whatsoever - It's the opposite of FE. Plot doesn't exist because combat needs to happen, no, combat only exists because the plot occasionally necessitates it.

Okay, this has been my triade on the disposable enemy archetype of Generic Brigand. To the next point - well, is Awakening a male power fantasy?

From the main plot? Not really. Like, yeah, sure, the avatar is the only person who can marry whoever. That's to give the player the opportunity to romance their favorite, I won't deny it. But the main plot itself doesn't have anyone fawn over Robin (besides Chrom). Hell, you could even go without finding out about Tharja's devotion to them if you benched her and never read her supports. Since her whole thing with Robin isn't included in her recruitment chapter at all. That utterly blindsided me when I played, cuz all I knew about her was "Robin simp." and then she didn't even simp robin in her first appearance.

If we're talking "recruiting lots of girls to your army constitutes a harem" then like, every FE game would be a harem. They're not. The game even forces you to be monogamous. I'd argue Fates is worse in this, because characters start falling in love and blushing profusely by A-support, even when they're already married, so everyone is Schrödinger's Cheating. In Awakening support chains, there's never really any romance outside of the sudden S support marriage proposal. I'll admit S-supports are well put together in recontextualizing the previous supports as falling in love, but all of them can also be left at A for a perfectly fine platonic dynamic between all characters.

Robin themself doesn't emphasize their own strength and intellect much, even if it is impressive in the world of the game. It's all about their bonds with others, how others give them strength and hope and all that good stuff. Robin is a well-developed character with positives and negatives. They're not just a blank slate. Hell, man, there's a whopping three choices you can make in the plot, and only one of them actually changes anything, and the first one is actually a choice for Chrom instead. Robin has their own thoughts and feelings and a great arc and if you ignore that in favor of "they're just me fr" then that's a you problem tbh.

You can argue till the cows come home about beauty standards and colorism in FE enemy design, fuck knows that I can freely admit a lot of Awakening enemy designs are racist as all hell, but that's sadly not unique to Awakening. Generic Brigands are ugly to signal that they're unimportant and morally corrupt and it's fine to kill them because only pretty people have morals. The only black people in Awakening are the shadowy desert cultists and the leaders of the "barbaric meathead" nation, so go figure what the game was trying to signal on that front. It's just shit design.

Awakening's finale actually makes me think of your typical fairytale hero story, and it's a great subversion of "the knight in shining armor kills the evil dragon to save the land." In that way, it's also a great subversion of other FE stories, since that summary is a lot of them in a nutshell.

Binding Blade did the subversion first though. Grima is just Idunn 2 (actual bastard edition) and I adore them for it (that much is obvious).

So like TLDR no, I don't think Awakening is a male power fantasy, because the main plot itself doesn't focus on romance or how awesome the main character is whatsoever. Less power fantasy, more "power of friendship" fantasy.

[tumblezwei]

I'm glad to see your enjoying HSR, I love Genshin but Honkai has always been way been more effective at being cohesive at utilizing its MCs and storybeats. I've always had an issue with how despite the game giving you the option to choose Lumine or Aether as the MC its apparent that all the supplementary content for the game and everything else has Aether preset as the default MC compare this to HSR where it feels the same regardless of which MF you choose and only thing that's different is slight gameplay adjustments really and some other small details. But you can tell the devs really tried to make them both different. Idk but I can't help but feel this way

Yeah I definitely agree lmao

I do remember seeing a lot of frustration at how Lumine is almost completely ignored in the game's marketing and side content. But I also think that in general the Trailblazer has been given more of a character than the Traveler. Aside from having a voice, they interact with their environment in unique ways that aren't always up to player choice, they're dialogue is consistently either helpful or fucking weird, and the story has already taken more strides setting them up as an Important Character with Mysterious Circumstances than Genshin ever did with the Traveler in my time playing.

And now I'm gonna talk more bc you opened the flood gates

With Genshin my main problem was always the presentation of it's story. Like, I've seen the lore videos, I've seen the theories and the backstories and the pretty 2D cutscenes, but imo the presence of deep lore doesn't constitute a well written narrative. If the way I'm learning all of this story is through walls of unvoiced dialogue where two characters stand opposite of one another, or through missable collectables, or through timed events that I missed or didn't know were important, then I'm not gonna have a good time lol.

I get so annoyed when I see people saying "Genshin's story is actually good if you pay attention." Like, sorry I'm on my hundredth dialogue box with this nobody NPC who's been running in circles explaining some conflict that I got the gist of 20 sentences ago and I started skipping through.

And while HSR has some of those same issues, they're not as pervasive and spliced up between far greater chunks of genuinely good story and character building. The dialogue is quicker, flows naturally, and almost always voiced (and voiced incredibly well). The quests feel tighter, and the story definitely feels more focused. Every character we meet (sans like, Pela, lmao) are solid, well-defined, and contribute the story that they're in in a meaningful way. Every character feels like they exist for a reason within the story and not just to pad out the roster.

Now, to be fair, I have only just finished Belabog, so my opinion may change in the next segment or it may even change as the game gets more story updates and I'm left disappointment. I actually have no doubts that as the story progresses we're gonna get more fluff characters that don't really add anything because above anything else, a gacha's gonna gacha. But I hope at least I'll still be able to enjoy the story we're getting bc I genuinely think it's great.

Also, if you like Genshin and disagree with everything I said that's fine lol. You enjoy your thing, I'm not gonna stop you.

[thessalian]

Okay. I am willing - provisionally - to give Bloober Team the benefit of the doubt. Yes, even after the shit-show that was The Medium. On at least one level, they're doing it right. Because this is the kind of shit I haven't seen in years. I don't mean the wonky combat - I may not have played the original games myself, but I watched them played, and that's not new. I don't mean the avoidable combat either - same deal.

What I mean is a gameplay trailer like this. It wasn't just fifteen minutes of in-game cutscene. It wasn't choreographed flashy combat like that gods-awful "combat trailer" that apparently Konami made Bloober release (because apparently Konami forgot that Silent Hill was never about combat sometime after they took it from Hideo Kojima and turned it into a fucking Pachinko machine). It's the kind of gameplay trailer that reflects a lot of what you're going to do - looking around, interacting with things, figuring out the odd puzzle, being really really tense every time your radio gives you feedback, dodging what combat you can't avoid, rationing your ammo because you don't get very much of that (usually by knocking down a creature with a gunshot and then beat it with a lead pipe while it's trying to get up to attack you) ... and yeah, the occasional cutscene too, but mostly just enough to see how well it flows with the rest of the game.

This isn't the kind of gameplay trailer we normally see these days, because of how the AAA gaming companies operate. They have been trying to follow the Hollywood movie formula for success - 'blockbusters', mostly. And you know what most film trailers are like right now - all the flashy moments, often out of context, sometimes moments that didn't even make it to the final cut, and basically the cinematic equivalent of clickbait. Also ... let's face it - a lot of the video games industry are effectively trying the MCU model - milk a franchise until it's dead by throwing together the popular characters and sufficient explosions and a few faux-witty one-liners that were apparently crafted by committee. The kind of thing I always fear will be the result of an AI-generated script, frankly.

AAA game companies don't actually want us to see their games anymore. Mostly because they know that if we saw actual gameplay - not just the flashy in-game cutscenes and skyboxes and a couple of snippets of action shots, but what we will spend most of the game doing - we'd think twice before pre-ordering. We might say, "Hmm ... maybe I'll wait until it's on sale", especially in this economy. They don't want us to make informed decisions about our purchases. They want us hyped enough to blow Significant Money on a deluxe edition pre-order so that they'll have our money before we find out that the game isn't quite as advertised. Hell, it's the only way to keep that sweet, sweet pre-order money coming in, given that we're not having to go to a physical shop and preorder a physical copy to ensure that there will be enough copies at the store on release day.

But I will say this: I don't pre-order games very often. After Dragon Age 2, there was a long stretch where I was happy to wait until release day. There have been two exceptions in just over thirteen years - Dredge, and Horizon Forbidden West.

This might be the third. Mostly because it's willing to show me what I'd actually be getting, and I fucking love it.

Dear video games industry: DO MORE OF THIS, YOU COWARDS! With varying degrees of regard and disdain, Thess

[kokomiin]

loose thoughts on persona 4 golden finally (I always say this and then the post ends up being super long)

I'm really glad this is the version I played first, being able to do Adachi's social link, the cast's pair attacks, the updated artwork, and Marie were all wonderful. I was especially surprised by how much I ended up liking Marie, if I didn't know Golden was a rerelease I would barely have realised she was a new character. She fit in with the themes of the game well, especially in the ending.

My biggest gripe, and what probably made me take so long to really get into the game, was the dungeon gameplay... when I first played it was like "oh, nice, it's just persona 3 again" but the enemy balancing and monotonous procedurally generated dungeon style was legit painful at times, in natural persona fashion it got much easier to deal with once I had a stronger team later in the game (Kanji + Yukiko + Naoto sweep) but I would love a remake someday if only for them to improve on the dungeons. there is a lot more they could do with them if they implemented a more P5 palace style to them as well, since they're representing the minds of certain characters. Even though Tartarus is also a procedurally generated dungeon, that can get repetitive, the gameplay cycle (at least in portable) felt better for progression and the enemy balancing was definitely completely different - maybe the way they had multiple minibosses along the way to the end of each block is what made it feel better? idk

I heard that some people disliked Marie's dungeon, but I honestly didn't mind it at all. I thought the gimmick shook things up in a way that was necessary since at that point I was just destroying everybody, I liked it more than Izanami's dungeon.

For the story, I had already been spoiled on the culprit as you all know, but I still thoroughly enjoyed the writing and the way everything unfolded really caught me off guard at times and had me still wondering what was really going on. Mitsuo, Namatame and Adachi were all great antagonists and each of their chapters of the game were memorable to me, especially the kidnapping of Nanako. The game was great at making me feel uneasy.

By the end of it, I felt super satisfied. I didn't get to finish a lot of the social links - some of them I didn't know existed - but I finished the whole investigation team and Nanako and Dojima, and really loved how all of their arcs progressed through the game. I went through a real rollercoaster with Yosuke, thinking he was cool, then thinking he was annoying and gross, and then being like yeah wow I really like the journey he's had as a person. The epilogue ending for Golden was really perfect, and I wish P5R had gotten something like that instead of what they did to the last cutscene...

I might have forgotten some stuff, but basically game good! Great even! I think it is right behind P5 as my favourite persona game so far. Now for the character tier list...

see you next time when i finally finish tears of the kingdom