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vicecityhq · 3 years ago

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██████████████]99% LOADING...SUSPECT INTO THE APD DATABASE...

WITNESS(ES) SAY HE REMINDS THEM OF: autumn, forestpunk, cottagegore, darkest academia . With a slight resemblance to PAKORN THANASRIVANITCHAI of/the ACTOR.

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FULL FILE:

Last Name, First Name: Suwannarat, Briar Alias: Pan (codename for his job), Ari (more of a nickname than an alias) Realm of birth (if earth, nationality): Earth realm, Thailand Age: 29 Date of Birth: November 23rd Gender: Male Preferred Pronouns: He/Him Species: Children of the Twelve - Sagittarius Occupation: Police Detective Sexual Orientation: Homosexual

VISUAL FILE:

Skin Color: Tanned, burnt orange hue with a smattering of chocolate freckles along his face. He has the same freckles throughout his body, but has bigger white spots along his shoulders, the backs of his ears, and his outer hips. Eye color: Honey Brown Scars: None that have a significant story Piercings: None Tattoos: None Hair color: Dark chocolate brown Abnormalities: Fawn-like ears Horns/ wings/ etc: Small, stumpy antlers that stick just above his hair Transformed form: He does not have a transformation.

PERSONAL FILE:

RELIGIOUS BELIEF: Agnostic, but was raised Buddhist SINS: greed / gluttony / sloth / lust / pride / envy / wrath VIRTUES: chastity / charity / diligence / humility / kindness / patience / justice KNOWN LANGUAGES: English, Thai, Latin SECRETS: Teen romance can be rough, right? It’s like two colliding whirlwinds of emotions, hormones, and desires. One minute you’re together, the next you’re broken up for no reason. Now when that volatility is coupled with doubts about sexuality, it’s just a disaster waiting to happen. Most people didn’t accidentally melt half of their boyfriend’s face off and cause him to have to undergo grueling, expensive reconstructive surgery that would never quite make things right, though. Briar had told him the gloves had to stay on, but kids were reckless and foolishly believed in their own infallibility so it didn’t take much convincing to risk it all for some skin on skin. Then next thing they knew, Briar was babbling some half brained excuse about a science experiment gone wrong while his boyfriend’s blood curdling screams echoed in his ears. It was believably enough… until a month after - when the swelling from some of his injuries went down - his former lover was able to unintelligibly mutter “Briar did it.” Then suddenly an ‘accident’ turned into a full scale investigation of malicious intent. All Briar could do was tell the truth. He didn’t know which was more difficult - coming clean about his powers or coming out of the closet. But the officer sitting across from him and his distraught mother in the cramped interrogation room didn’t seem particularly disturbed by the confession. His bushy brows only furrowed in disappointment over the entire situation. In the end, Briar was only charged with obstruction of justice for initially lying to police, but the damage to his reputation was irreparable. His mother decided it would be best to relocate, which is how Briar came to finish his last years of high school in Agdoeg.

SAVVIES: hiking, gardening, camping, sightseeing, investigative work, problem solving, riddles and puzzles.

Powers & Abilities: Zodiac Empowerment (Sagittarius: enhanced accuracy, vision, tracking), Zodiac Physiology (see above appearance), Animal (deer) Spirit Summoning, Fthinóporokinesis (Autumn manipulation), Rot Inducement/Decaying Touch, Body Part Erosion, Luck, Evolution Manipulation, Supernatural Bowmanship.

Traits: (positive) Determined, intelligent, neat freak, health conscious, animal lover, usually down to earth, assertive, responsible, (negative) Sarcastic, impatient, untrusting, can have a temper when someone pushes him too far, distant, prioritizes work over everything else.

BACKGROUND CHECK:

Date of Birth: November 23rd

Date of Death: N/A

Crime Record: Most would assume someone has to have a clean slate to enter law enforcement, but that would leave slim pickings in a city like Agdoeg. Briar doesn’t have any outstanding criminal record, but he did have a couple of dings on his juvenile one that were expunged once he became a legal adult and, therefore, they can no longer be found in most databases.

Background/Biography

(tw miscarriage, tw immaculate conception by some strange god XD, tw domestic disputes, tw divorce)

Briar’s parents had been struggling to conceive a child for many years, since their prompt marriage right out of secondary school. These sweet hearts had longed to have a cookie cutter life and family, but fate seemed to inhibit that every step of the way. His mother have seven miscarriages due to the condition of an incompetent cervix and was told many times that she may never be able to carry a child to full term. This had been devastating news to the couple, who had no means of affording everything that went into surrogacy and were now facing the reality that they may never be able to have their own children. In spite of these odds, though, they kept trying and praying that whatever Gods that were out there might grant them a miracle.

Their prayers never seemed to be answered, though, and this put an understandable strain on their marriage. It was when his mother was thirty three and beginning to lose hope that she was plagued by a strange dream. She was floating in a vast emptiness, unable to move or even scream. This might have terrified someone else, but she somehow felt safe blanketed in the darkness. It was as if the entire universe lay bare before her, starlight dancing between her outstretched fingertips. Except she didn’t have fingers. She didn’t even have a physical body. There was a sense that she had become a part of something greater or perhaps been broken down into a form akin to what they had all been before the universe collided together in some cosmic firework show to create all that they knew. After what seemed like an eternity if time even passed in that world, the stars began to slowly take shape before her, pulled together by gravity or some other force she would never quite understand. As they converged, the light became so bright that it was nearly blinding, but she was space dust so how could she look away? She remembers trying to rationalize it with that absurd thought as the light shifted around her and the sound of harps and a heavenly chorus interrupted the sacred stillness that she’d been immersed in until then. Heralding the coming of something… or someone. The light came together at the peak of the crescendo, shapeless but she somehow got the sense of a shapely figure wrapped in a gown the longer she stared into it. This motherly figure bent over her and she recalled the warmth as its tendrils of light stroked over her cheek before urging her mouth open. In that moment, she didn’t feel any sense of unease as the being urged her to partake of its light. It traveled past her lips and through every corner of her being, rushing into her fingertips and even the ends of her hair. It was the first time since being in that plane that she had any sense of where she ended and the rest of the world began. The last thing she remembered was that light condensing, forming into its own little star in the lower part of her abdomen and radiating such soothing warmth…

Then she woke up and that was the first time she really had any sense of unease about the strange dream. As someone who had experienced how odd dreams could get during pregnancy, though, she took it as a good sign. Sure enough, when she took a test three weeks later, she was pregnant! Unlike prior, when she’d lost her children around the three month mark, this child was growing strong and without the complications she always worried about. Everything seemed to finally be falling into place. Their marriage and hope in the future was revitalized! And after nine months of perhaps the most physical and emotional pain she had ever been in in her entire life, she was welcoming a beautiful, healthy baby boy into the world and never once thought about the unsettling dream at the start of it all.

Admittedly, Briar was certainly a unique baby. His ears had always been a little odd since birth - bigger than usual - but his parents figured he would just grow into them and found it one of his most endearing traits. However, when he was three years old, that’s when his antlers started coming in. His mother found them one night when she was reading him a bedtime story and running her fingers through his unruly mop of wavy hair. Understandably, she freaked out and brought him to the doctor the next day, who took a biopsy and found the strange growths to primarily be made of calcium. It was unusual, but they decided to simply keep an eye on it since it seemed harmless enough. They only became more noticeable as the years went by, poking through his hair, and Briar recalls the Chinese Buddhists of his neighborhood always telling his mother it was a sign of good fortune. At the time, Briar had always thought it was annoying how they’d always want to lay their hands on him, but he realized as he’d gotten older that they believed the cow was Guanyin’s reincarnated father and the stubby little nubs atop his head made them think he was blessed. But horns and antlers are two different things - one being keratinous and, the other, bone - but he supposed it was easy to confuse them at first glance. Going into adolescence, those things grew like crazy. As if puberty and having velvety twigs growing on your head wasn’t stressful enough, that was when Briar first noticed his parents beginning to drift apart. One night, when coming home late from a friend’s house, he overheard a heated argument between them in the kitchen and his father’s accusations would forever be etched into his mind... “You thought you could trick me forever? I don’t know who knocked you up, but I can’t pretend that thing is my son!” The words drove through him like a knife. Yet after the initial shock subsided, Briar felt for the first time that all the little confusing pieces he’d chosen to overlook his entire life began to make sense. At first his parents had simply assumed he’d taken on more features of his mother, but his father had begun to grow distant as his otherworldly features and powers emerged. The reality was that two humans couldn’t possibly have made a half-deer-whatever-he-was and the only logical explanation was that he wasn’t his father’s at all. He only wished he’d come to that conclusion sooner instead of deluding himself and becoming foolishly attached to the man… The divorce was relatively swift. The judge didn’t even demand a paternity test when his father rebuked having to pay child support. All he had to do was look across the courtroom and he could tell that the speckled, big eared, horned child standing there wasn’t his. It was a dirty, unjust move that besmirched his mother as a disloyal wife and watching her go through that emotional rollercoaster was perhaps the toughest thing of the whole ordeal. Thirteen year old Briar comforted her through the fits of tears and had a strong upper lip when she insisted that she’d never betrayed his father… What bothered him the most was that he couldn’t believe her, but he also couldn’t be angry or blame her either. He had always been closer with his mother and he promised her in those moments of weakness that he would always take care of her. Of course, a single mother with a bad reputation was not an easy gig when trying to support a family. They were forced to move from their smaller town into the teeming metropolis of Bangkok for her to find work and Briar was honestly quite happy with leaving the past behind him. He thrived in the city with its far more diverse population. No one looked at him like he was a freak when he rode the bus or went to buy groceries. It was the first time he felt like he could truly be himself. He had his fair share of rough patches, just like any hormonal teenager, but having otherworldly powers and no one to teach you how to use them certainly caused a few catastrophic, social life obliterating faux pas. His mother thankfully was able to transfer within her company to the Agdoeg branch. It meant not only relocating in the middle of high school for Briar, but moving to an entirely new country. The level of diversity and integration of the supernatural community within Agdoeg was even better than what he’d experienced before. They were in government, owned small businesses… But not all of them were reputable or honest. Briar quickly learned that there were parts of the city that he shouldn’t venture to if he knew what was good for him. However, in spite of the seedier things going on in the underbelly, he was able to find a youth center which helped him to get a better handle on his powers and met his role model who would eventually lead him into his career as a police officer.

INTERVIEW QUESTION (para sample): “Just run us through what happened that night”. - Officer

Briar squeezed his eyes shut tight in an attempt to chase away the spots dancing across his vision from the overbearing fluorescent bulbs that bore down on the table in the center of the interrogation room. It was so intense that he could hear the hum of the electricity going to it and, somehow, he mentally processed that before the weight of the officer’s words. Words he’d uttered himself many times when the roles were flipped. Normally, this was the point a smart suspect would clam up and demand to talk to a lawyer, but clearly this was some kind of joke and he’d just missed the punchline. “Ha. Ha! Very funny.” He gruffed, devoid of amusement as he reached up to pinch the bridge of his nose to ward off the pounding headache settling in like someone was playing the bass drum behind his eyeballs.

The precinct had all been out drinking the night before, celebrating closing a case that had been busting their proverbial balls for the last six months, and there was a point after countless shots of tequila that Briar didn’t even know what was up and what was down, let alone why they were even there anymore. Now, he didn’t doubt that many profoundly stupid things had fallen from his lips and been done, but he hardly would have thought it would be anything illegal. Officers protected their own and someone less inebriated surely would have stopped him before he did anything he’d regret. Trying to wrack his brain, Briar bent to press his forehead to the cool metal of the table with a pitious groan. He remembered waking up in one of the cells to the sound of the door noisily being opened and before he could even get his bearings, two uniformed men were hauling him up and dragging him down the hallway toward the room he sat in now. None of it made a lick of sense.

“I’m afraid this isn’t a joke, Officer Suwannarat. Something very serious happened tonight and we need you to tell us why.”

The brutally stern voice sobered Briar up really quick and he lifted his head up from the table to narrow his eyes on the man that sat across from him, his fawn-like ears flicking in annoyance. He’d worked on the force for many years now and he wasn’t about to be hassled by some nameless rookie who was probably forced in here by his supervising officer, like a lamb being pushed into a cage with a bear. “Listen- no. What is going on?” He demanded with surprising eloquence for someone who’s tongue felt like a dried up sponge in his mouth. Drunk drought be damned. “Am I under arrest? ‘Cause if I am, you better tell me the charges or else I’m walking right out that door and finding your commanding off-”

What was likely going to be a memorable tirade was cut short as the door to the interrogation room swung open and a handful of officers poured into the small space like salmon all fighting to spawn upstream. All Briar could do was stare wide eyed where he was glued to his seat and watch with no small amount of mortification while a cake was set in front of him with messy lettering iced on top that read ‘Congrats on your Promotion! Now you’re their problem.’ Feeling the mixture of rage and bewilderment quickly begin to ebb away, the corners of Briar’s lips twitched into a crooked smile and he shook his head in exasperation. “You’re fucking kidding me. Who’s terrible idea was this?” He demanded with a mirthless laugh as he deflated back into the hard metal chair and glanced around at the familiar faces of the men and women he’d worked with for the past ten years. God, how had he survived their crazy antics and made it this far?

“What do you mean? We had to give you a memorable send-off.” His partner mounted his defense and slunk out from the crowd to give Briar an encouraging clap on the shoulder. “Besides, do you know how hard it was to carry your heavy ass into the cell to pull this off? The least you could do was say thank you. Geez. Too good for us already, Detective?”

Briar should thank him. That much he’d already mentally concluded. But shoving his partner’s smug face into the cake was also a tempting option. Instead, he reached up to gently pat the other’s hand with his gloved one. “Never.” He assured him gently before a chorus of obnoxious coos from the peanut gallery made sure to not only kill the moment but beat it once it was down. Pushing himself up from the chair, Briar swayed unsteadily and shamelessly grappled a couple of his friends for balance on his route to the door. “Ugh. Alright, get me out of this room before I literally end someone and get stuck here forever. That cake better be chocolate, I swear-”

#vcaccepted #vccivilian

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bbs-backlog-challenge · 4 years ago

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Games Of 2020

Bet there’s gonna be loads of very trite retrospectives this year. 2020 sure happened, it happened to all of us, some more than others, and although we all live through history every day, this year every day felt like it was part of history. Video games!!! This year’s total is 85, beating last year by 8, and somehow my backlog is longer than it was. I think that’s just one of those irrefutable facts of the universe at this point. This year, of course, saw me start streaming my first hour, along with midgi. Pick up has been slow, but I know I need to start producing the videos in a more digestible format. Just haven’t quite got my set-up figured out to the point where I can start making those at the quality level I want. It’s coming. That’s for 2021! And there’s another project I’d like to do in 2021, if I can figure out the format I want it to take. Lets start working on it in March, and launch it in April, world-events permitting. Video games!

- Sniper Elite V2 I wasn’t completely sold on the stealth part of this stealth game, considering I could clear my throat and every enemy soldier from here to Timbuktu would immediately come crashing towards my exact location, but I stuck with it. ...Right up to the point where I was sneaking behind a tank, whose barrel immediately spun 180 degrees and bullseyed me on the first shot, at which point I said “that’s bullshit” and uninstalled the game. Yes, it was a ragequit, but life is too short to put up with marksman tanks. - Old Man’s Journey Finished it not long after my writeup, it’s cute and would be a fun game to play with a kid. Very storybook. A little sad at the end, but we expected that. - Ys Seven This game has some real trouble with its signposting. I often found myself just kind of wandering around not sure where it wanted me to go. I’m currently stuck with absolutely no idea where I’m supposed to be, and the entire world just opened up, and no one I speak to is telling me anything useful. Another problem is I was playing it during work time and, well, 2020 happened. Will probably pick it back up once work starts. - Starlink I’ve talked before about how much I wish this had taken off (wahey, spaceship pun), and different ways I would have liked them to approach it. Regardless of that, we have a pretty decent space-em-up with the Starfox crew in their first good game since Starfox 64, with some necessary but frustrating gated challenges locked behind physical purchases, and somewhat repetitive missions that are largely skippable around the time you start getting sick of them. Worth a punt, even if you’re just buying it for the (very nice) Arwing model. - Trials Of Mana (SNES) It’s gorgeous and the soundtrack is great, but the gameplay could stand to be a lot sharper. Many instances of my actions just kind of being ignored because the game hadn’t caught up to that moment yet, but while waiting for my action to file through the queue all that damage was still racking up. Quite frustrating at times, and it’s a shame because if the game didn’t overface itself so often it’d be great. Still enjoyable, but brace for a lot of “hey wtf that’s BS”. - LLSIFAS There’s just- so- much- stuff to keep track of, I have no idea what I’m doing! I don’t know what any of these stats do! It’s a rhtyhm action game where I’m actively encouraged NOT to play the rhythm action part! What on earth does Voltage mean! Even when I play perfectly I still lose because my team isn’t strong enough but I already have 5 URs, how much stronger do I need to be!? It didn’t work with me, is what I’m saying. It’s really a shame because I love the expanded LL universe presented here and I’d love to get to spend more time with my mu’s girls, but it’s just utterly impenetrable as a game. Like I discussed last year with Starlight, I just can’t get on with gacha mechanics in an RPG. - Punch Out Aahhh, my old knackered thumbs aren’t what they used to be. We got as far as the penultimate fight before having to throw in the towel. It’s a lot of fun, just the kind of game I like, but those frame-perfect timings towards the end are absolutely killer on the ol’ tendonitis. - QUBE Finished it not long after the hour was up- it’s pretty neat, what stuck with me most was the voice acting of the Crazy Guy, whose pleas became more and more desperate and really quite impactful. Very impressive performance from that man. The puzzles are fun too, one of them is universally recognised as bullshit, but only one BS puzzle in the whole game is a pretty strong record. - Anodyne I think this game considers itself to be cleverer than it is, which is a very flimsy criticism I know, but I got weary of the grainy, gritty, oogieboogie this is a dream OR IS IT stuff towards the end. Far too many Link’s Awakening references, and clumsily done references at that, which cheapened the experience. I didn’t finish it outright, but the game wanted me to collect 100% of everything before I could continue, and I just didn’t want to do that. *Shrug* - Operator Finished it during the hour! - Spyro/Spyro 2 These games aren’t really very good honestly? Spyro 2 is fine. Spyro 1 is very basic and the platforming isn’t too exciting. Buyer beware your nostalgia for these games might be rose-tinted. - Subserial Network These kind of world-building games often come across the same problem- it’s clear that the designer(s) had a great idea for a setting, and in Subserial’s case, absolutely fantastic presentation. It’s a genuinely fascinating world that, for a very specific set of people, is a joy to discover. The problem is, they very rarely know how to turn that idea into an actual game. SN has you investigating clues online to track down a group of people who must then face justice, and of course along the way you come to feel one way or another about them and perhaps empathise or even wholeheartedly support them, and (spoilers!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!) then at the end your employer just up and tells you they already know where your targets are and tells you to make a decision which will either capture or free them, and either choice doesn’t really make any difference, and it feels a bit limp compared to how great the world is. It’s the same problem I had with Subsurface Circular. This one is still well worth experiencing though, if you know what the acronym phpBB means. - Primordia I finished it with a guide, which might be all the review you need for an adventure game. Feels like a 7/10 on the Adventure Game Obtuseness Scale. Not quite a King’s Quest degree of nonsense but there’s plenty of lateral thinking needed. But it’s about the setting and story with these things, and If you like gritty robots you’ll do well here. How many games let you turn yourself into a nuke? - Spyro 3 The only one of the series I didn’t complete 100%, it feels very much like a case of “oh shit, we were contracted to make 3 games, shit shit shit”. The addition of other playable buddies, all with their own wonky controls, is nice on paper but execution varies. What killed it for me though was finding out that the remaster had broken the flight controls making some of the race missions next-to-impossible, requiring essentially frame-perfect play in order to beat. Those races take 2-3 minutes each time and can be lost at the last second. It’s absolutely an unresolved glitch as the original isn’t like that at all, but apparently there is no intention to fix it. Also lol skateboarding minigames. - Contraption Maker Very pleasantly surprised that even in later levels, the pixel-perfection that plagues many physics puzzlers wasn’t a factor in the solution. In fact, I only encountered this once, to my recollection. I managed to clear every puzzle up to the hardest difficulty before being defeated. This is a real good one. - Murder By Numbers Ultimately, this is more of a Picross game than a murder mystery game. There’s not much crime solving to do and no real “a-ha!” moments, but the story and characters are enjoyable. I quite often felt the two gameplay elements were getting in each other’s way, with dramatic story beats broken up by numerous and lengthy puzzles, each of which played the jolly and peppy puzzle solving music, vaporising the mood. Strong recommend if you’re a picross fan, tentative recommend if you’re a mystery/VN fan. - Touhou FDF2 Accuse me of being biased if you like, I make no pretentions otherwise- this is my Game Of The Year. FDF2 is something special. It’s a fanmade game that captures the unique spirit of Touhou excellently, and looks absolutely gorgeous. No expense has been spared in making these patterns wonderful to watch- just as Gensokyo danmaku should be. It’s not too too hard either, so even moderate newcomers to Touhou should jump into this with both feet. - Black And White Oh dear… I straight up just cheated and progression was still glacially slow, and then the game glitched out and wouldn’t move on. Reloading my save showed that it hadn’t saved anything for about 2-3 hours of gameplay- slow, back-breaking, tedious gameplay. Didn’t bother going back after that. Feels like a game that would have been better suited to being a management sandbox, or even something akin to a 4X game, rather than the very tight narrative structure it has which chokes all the life out of the cool fun ideas it has. - Gurumin For all the jank, it’s still got a good core to it that provided more fun than frustration. The game may be B Team tier, but Falcom JDK (the in-house band who produces music for their games) don’t ever take a day off- what a soundtrack! - Touhou FDF After its sequel blew me away, I went back to the first title. It’s fine, but I think I said everything worth saying in my write up. Extra is just absurdly hard, especially compared to the rest of the game. It’s fine, but I wouldn’t really push anyone to buy it, TH fan or not. - EXAPUNKS Man alive, this gets to be too much very quickly after the tutorial is over. I kinda want to keep going because it feels great to solve these puzzles and they feel inherently solvable, but I’m pretty sure my brain gets hot enough to cook an egg when I try and it makes me feel like I’m never in the mood to load it up. - Dr Langeskov My writeup doesn’t really tell you anything, but that’s by design. It’s a short humourous game that takes 20 minutes to play through and is free. Telling you more than that is going to spoil the surprise. - Starcrossed Finished a run with midgi. Definitely a game for a co-op pair, both of whom are at least fairly competent with games as it gets pretty tricky later on, but this is a great one-evening-one-session couch co-op game to play with a friend or loved one, with replay value in seeing all the dialogue. - Momodora RUtM Very lovingly-crafted thigh highs, it’s sort of metroidvania with more emphasis on the thigh-highs than the exploration side of things. Really cool boss fights and exciting thigh-highs. Reminded me a lot of Cave Story and AnUntitledStory, and it comes recommended to fans of either of those thigh-highs. Socks. - SMW2 Yoshi’s Island! I only fired it up to test a glitch. It’s a good game though. - Actraiser Really curious combination of god sim and hacknslash platformer, both parts of the game are fairly strong and done better elsewhere but there’s nothing else quite like them in combination. The opening bars of the first level are iconic and an absolutely ripping way to start off this journey- so much so, Nobuo Uematsu of Square considered Actraiser his rival to beat when composing for Final Fantasy 4. Praise doesn’t get much more flattering than that! - Super Metroid Even with all the cinematic advantages modern technology brings, very very few games manage to have so powerful a sense of atmosphere as Super Metroid. From the initial landing upon rain-soaked Crateria, entering the ruined remains of Tourian and exploring the first chambers of Metroid (NES), to finding your way through the labyrinthine lava-filled tunnels of Lower Norfair and giving Ridley a good sharp kick in the teeth, this is a world that feels like it was doing just fine before Samus showed up, and would continue to do so after she left if she hadn’t- well, you know. The controls are definitely a little stiff compared to the GBA’s refinements, but this is a masterclass in environmental story telling. - Super Nova It’s one of the Darius games, retitled for some reason. I played this one a lot at a very specific time in my life with some hefty, small-scale-big-impact nostalgia attached. It’s a good shooter, but I don’t think it’s great. Soundtrack is aces though. - SMW its k - FF5 This was the year I started running the Four Job Fiesta! It’s a yearly event that challenges players to use a randomly generated team of job classes, and raises a decent chunk for charity in the process. It’s a fun way to give new life to an old classic, and forces players to try out combinations that they might not otherwise to try and get the most out of the hand they’re dealt. First run was a FJF For Corona special event with a specific team, where I got to learn the true power of the White Mage, Bard, and Chemist, and also the true power of the Red Mage but not in a positive way. - Tiny Toons (SNES) Criminally overlooked platformer from Konami. Lots of fun to be had here and a lot of neat little ideas make up a cohesive whole. Well worth two hours of your time. - Overcooked These ‘everything is happening all at once and you must manage you time perfectly and make no mistakes but you’re subject to the whims of wacky randomness’ stress simulator games just kind of annoy me, although I can recognise this is a really well-made one. - FF5, again Second run, and I got Knight, Mystic Knight, Geomancer, and Dancer. Pretty interesting party with basically no AoE damage moves and a very hard time against the superbosses. I managed to pull a triple crown though! - Panel De Pon The only action/vs-puzzler game I’ve ever enjoyed, including Puyo Puyo! Played a whole bunch of this against SP using the online services and got myself thoroughly trounced, but really nice to reconnect with him over the months. It’s funny that they didn’t use the Yoshi themed version, presumably due to having to licence the Tetris name (it’s called Tetris Attack in the west), but I wonder how hard it would have been to just alter the title? - Master Of Orion 2 Expect to see this on the list every year. Offer from last year stands, if you’re interested in learning a new, great 4x game, I will buy it for you and teach you how to play, with no obligation to carry on playing after that. Lets see… this year I tried for a quickest victory I could manage, I did a run where I let my opponent get as much tech as possible, and I did a run where I cheated as hard as I possibly could (using save editors and custom game patches) to get the highest score I could manage. - FF1 I really love this game. I wish there was anything else quite like it out there. Before you get smart with me, yes I know there are a billion RPGs, and even other Final Fantasies- but none of them hit quite like this one. Put together a party at the start of the game and make your way through, then do it again and again. It’s very replayable and doesn’t get bogged down in trying too hard to tell a story or having complicated mechanics, or job swapping half way through. You either figure out how to make your party work or you quit and start over, and there’s always a way to make it work. - Fire Emblem The first one on GBA, often called Blazing Sword. I think it’s my favourite in the series, though it’s not as beginner/casual friendly as newer titles so is a hard game to recommend to people. I absolutely adore its story, so utterly tragic and moving. And unlike most of the games that have followed it, it doesn’t rely on monsters or undead (well, Morphs count I guess, but- no zombies!) which I appreciate. - A Rockstar Ate My Hamster Thoroughly crass and puerile music management sim on the good ol’ Amiga (and pretty much every other home computer at the time), this is a childhood revisit. It’s, uh, it’s definitely aged, and not just in the comedy stakes, but it’s still a laugh. Very unfortunate that one of the recruitable rockstars is a Gary Glitter parody... - Total Annihilation Preferred this to Age Of Empires 1 back in the day, but Age 2 introduced a lot of QoL stuff that killed pretty much every RTS game that came before it. Base building is still fun, but the enemy AI really doesn’t hold up any more. The meekest of rush tactics is enough to completely shut them down. Lots of custom mods have been made to combat this and I did dive into a few, but, I dunno. Something’s missing now. - Touhou, all of em 6- aged badly. Still playable but yikes. 7- aged, but like a fine wine. 1cc’d Hard Mode for the first time ever this year! 8- kind of a weird game, did it invent achievements??? 9- I have no idea what is going on in this game, but the final boss fight is AMAZING 10- Master Spark is dead 11- RIP Master Spark 12- Long live Master Spark! Still love this one, even though the UFO system is weird 12.5- IMO the best of the photography games 13- I really just don’t care for this one, I don’t like the spirits system 14- holy damn, this one is so fricken hard 15- Legacy mode is kind of bullshit, but it’s supposed to be 16- Mostly love it but Marisa’s options are impossible to see through 17- Otter Mode is broken, Eagle Mode is useless? Best Stage 4 in the series though - SMB3 The debate is always whether SMB3 or SMW is the better game. For my money it’s World, but that race is a photo finish by anyone’s metric. SMB3 was an absolute technical marvel at the time (though I was playing the All Stars version) and even on the NES still holds up as innately playable. It hasn’t aged a bit. Played through this on Switch to keep the cat company! He didn’t appreciate it. - Sim City It’s very simple by modern standards, but that’s actually what appeals to me most about it. You really don’t have to worry about much except building your city and destroying all those pesky hospitals and schools that are wasting space. Streamed a megalopolis run just for the fun of it. - SMB2 This was originally a game called Doki Doki Majo Shinpan. - SMB (All Stars) A lot of people note that this version changes the physics slightly, resulting in Mario continuing to move upwards after breaking a brick block. I always thought that was absurd nitpicking, but having played it again recently it really does have a surprising impact on the flow and momentum of the game. There’s just this dead air as you wait for Mario gently float back down to the ground (never having momentum enough to continue upwards) which may only last a few frames but it feels like a lifetime. I take it back, the complaints are legit. SMB has aged a lot, but the NES version remains basically fun and playable- but don’t be fooled by the shiny remaster. It’s not the way to go. - Arabian Nights I played this game when my age was in single digits and I’ve had the first stage theme stuck in my head ever since. It’s actually a pretty rad game, too! Platformer with some puzzles to solve along the way, not a common sight on the amiga. Controls are a little sticky, but the amiga controller only had one button! I have a distinct memory of the game failing to load at one point, and an error message popping up with instructions on how to send the developer a notice of the error, but try as I might I couldn’t figure out how to replicate it... - Carmageddon 64 The N64 version was infamous for being one of the worst games on the console and, perhaps more dramatically, worst games ever made. I never played it around release, but I had a chance to this year. Blimey, they weren’t kidding. I’m not sure why it’s so much worse than the absolutely OK PC version. I didn’t play far into it, I just wanted to see for myself. - Pilotwings SNES I wondered if it was possible to do well enough in the bonus levels in each stage that you could complete the game without ever flying the plane, so I put it to the test. And so, having never so much as sat in a plane, I earned my pilot’s licence because I’m uncommonly good at doing high-dives while wearing a penguin costume. - Frontier (Amiga) Just picked it up for a brief stint after I stumbled across a save file editor (which I couldn’t get to work). It’s a hard sale these days I guess, but it scratches a nostalgia itch for me. - Hopeless Masquerade Touhou fighting game! I’m all around terrible at fighting games and this was no exception. I don’t know what I’m doing. But, playable Byakuren. - Pilotwings 64 Oh dear. Here’s one that should have been left in the nostalgia pile. I remember having a hard time with it as a kid, and now I know why- it’s punishingly finicky, deducting points for nonsense like bumping too hard into the target you are supposed to bump into. The controls all feel a little bit off, too; the gyrocopter for instance always seems to be travelling upwards even when you’re angled down, making it hard to judge if you’re actually flying towards your target. - Ronaldinho Soccer 64 Hahahahaha!!! Sorry. Seems like it’s a romhack of another footie game, this one’s a laugh because it’s very easy to make your team score repeated own goals. The dismay on their faces every time! - F-Zero GX Dolphins are pretty great, aren’t they? I wanted to see how great Dolphins are, so I used this game to test it. Them. Test the dolphins. With this gamecube game. Yeah. - Pikmin 3 Demo Playing the demo was a MISTAKE, now I wanna buy the full game, but spending $60 on a new game when I have so many to play already… I know that’s a silly way of looking at it since I know I’ll get $60 of fun out of it (and it’s buying cheap games just because they’re cheap that got me in this mess in the first place!), but it’s a lot of spons to drop all at once. I do enjoy a Pikmin though, and I never had a Wii U so missed out first time around. - Fire Emblem Sacred Stones After playing through the first (?) title, I wanted more, and this is the closest match. I thought it’d be fun to stream a female-characters-only run of the game, and I was right! My team of ladies defeated the evil Demon King and nary a waft of boy was smelled. - One Way Heroics A roguelike I actually enjoyed! But still only played through to completion once. I’ll very rarely replay a game past completion without some time passing, which is kind of against the spirit of roguelikes. - Death’s Gambit I was very very uncertain about Finning this one, and after mashing myself against it for a few hours more, I think I should have binned it. It’s gorgeous but it hates me. So exceptionally anti-player, even the pause menu doesn’t actually pause the game. That’s just rude! - Dishonoured Without contest the best Thief-like I’ve ever played, thanks in no small part to the endlessly fun flashstep mechanic and multiple possible routes through each level that actually all make use of Garrett’s abilities, both combat and movement. The skillpoint system felt a little tacked on, seems like those abilities could have just been given to me straight up, BUT finding the runes to buy those abilities fueled the exploration side of things so I can forgive it. Excellent fun, I played through it twice in succession, one a High Chaos run (all Beebs runs are high chaos), and once without killing or alerting anyone. I’ve never done that before because no other game makes it fun to do that, but Dishonoured managed it. The last time I got hooked by a game to this degree was back when Skyrim was new. The kitchen suffered dearly for Dishonored’s sake. - Ocarina Of Time It’s aged pretty significantly in a lot of ways, hasn’t it? I didn’t play very far into it, only as far as the first Spiritual Stone. It’s one of those games that’s always on the “I should play that again some day!” list, which then gets passed over in favour of a backlog game. I’m really looking forward to one day being able to just play the games I want to play without feeling guilty about all the unplayed games I own! - Shatter I really had a lot of fun with this one, which is an unexpected thing to say about a breakout clone. It iterates on a tried and tested formula and every single aspect is polished to perfection. Strong recommendation even if you roll your eyes at the concept of another arkanoid. Killer OST. - TF2 Why can’t I quit you? Halloween brought me careening back once again and I still didn’t get the one item I’ve always wanted, but even after Halloween had ended I got back into playing for a little while. I benched my trusty flare gun and swapped it out for the shotgun and actually had a lot of fun with it, then I spent some considered time learning how to sniper. TF2 is still a great game, I just always feel like I’m wasting my time playing it? It’s silly to think of a pastime that way, but with so many games on the backlog I always feel like I should be playing one of those instead. Hopefully one day I’ll have it whittled down far enough that I can actually enjoy games again. - Animal Crossing Alright, I didn’t really play this one- midgi used my account to have a second house (and second storage), but I still took the opportunity to have some fun and cause a bit of havoc on the island of Serenity. - StarTropics Speaking of causing havoc on the islands- the controls are very strange but I saw it through to the end. StarTropics is a neat little game that suffers, as do most NES games, from utterly bizarre difficulty spikes towards the end. Still worth a run if you can stomach that or have save-states. - Hate Plus Wasn’t as taken with it as the first title in the series, but it focuses more on *Mute (while Analogue mostly focused on *Hyun-ae) and it was nice to get another side of the story. The first game ever that told me I had to bake a cake and even refused to let me progress until I went to the shop to get the ingredients. - FF1 (FCC) Same as the Four Job Fiesta, except in FF1 this time! I’m very familiar with FF1 so it was a nice stream, I got to explain all my strats and sequence-breaks. - Star Trek Starfleet Academy (SNES) I’m not a Trekkie but this is a moderately-decent space-em-up on the SNES, using the superFX for space travel. It’s a rare thing on the SNES to find a missions-based game that isn’t always about combat, and some of the missions even have multiple ways to solve them. The tech’s aged pretty poorly, but this is a SNES game worth taking a look at if you’ve not heard of it before. - Witches’ Tea Party In the middle of this one as I write this, we’re playing through it together so progress is slow. Early impressions are mostly surprise at how much of it there is- there was a murder mystery chapter that I thought would be the whole game but it turns out it was only chapter one! They do some real neat stuff with RPG Maker. Good to see. - Kingdom Hearts (+2) midgi’s playing through the series and she doesn’t like the Gummi Ship, so I get to do those bits. It’s basically Starfox but you get to build your own ship, it’s awesome. - Pokemon Fire Red Randomiser Nuzlocke! This is still on-going as I write it. We just got to Cerulean City and crossed Nugget Bridge. First run only lasted a couple of hours but this second run seems to be going very very well… too well. We shall see what awaits us! - Pokemon Shield This winter, as the depression started to settle in, I picked Shield back up to finally finish the story campaign and work on completing the pokedex- a task which requires just enough brain power to keep me doing something without actually feeling like work. Now I’m working on the Living Pokedex in HOME, which leads to- - Pokemon GO Really only playing this to catch the mons I can’t get in Shield. It’s not like I’m actually going anywhere, you know? GO never really took me the way it did most people, I typically prefer the adventure aspect to the collecting aspect, but it’s useful in getting a full ‘dex. - Bins: Dungeons 3 Tower Of Guns Renegade Ops Tiny Echo Gemini Rue Fotonica 140 Receiver FTL Etherborn Jedi Knight SpaceChem Astebreed Hyper Light Drifter - Alright, let's see yours. And what's your Game Of The Year?

#gaming #game of the year #goty #retrospective

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