#anyways. its dlc time. as ive never actually finished one of these when i played the first time i got too frustrated and never finished it

[infizero]

grgrhgahahh i wanna read more pokespe but i cant do it on my phone and im not unpacking my stuff until the morning

[the-kipsabian]

its not a lake

its an ocean

[achoshistor]

final fantasy 7

spoilers for everything idk (ff7, remake&dlc, crisis core but only till like chapter four because thats how far i made it)

bro ive been tweaking out for like three months now. i bought the ff7 remake bc it was 50% off a few months ago and I was like I'm never gonna find a deal like this ever again (only for it to go on 50% again lmfao) but ok whatever it was literally 35 for the game and the dlc which is one million times cheaper than what splatoon 2 and octo expansion were and its ok because i can never own it physical anyways but bro I didn't even want to buy this game in the first place i was gonna buy ffxv cause i saw a clip of notcis or whatever that guys name is putting his lettuce on a nother guy's plate and i was like "wtf is final fantasy even about" SPOILER ALERT: TERRORISM like ????

i feel like i can never every play another game after finishing the remake and the intermission i bought crisis core reunion and theres literally LESS fighting in that game so far but it was also cheaper and i got it physical (after scouring ebay for two months to find a us edition because i dont want to even risk seeing things spelled in the british way because last time when that happened when I played great ace attorney 1&2 i couldn't stop spelling things in british every time i'd write an essay and then i couldnt tell what was wrong "its just an extra letter" no bro its messing up my diction) but anyways please just let me beat things up with a sword i wish people still used swords to fight then the fights would be more fair and the world would be a better place. but man sephiroth is lowkey a nice guy and the crashout was 100% valid not the killing people part but i would also crash out if i found out my mom was actually some 2000 year thingy they found in the ground. today i saw some snowflakes fall (they were the big ones) and freaked out for a second because i thought they were white feathers (I NEED TO GO OUTSIDE)

i also "finished" (AKA gave up right before the final boss) the original ff7 because i didnt want to deal with spoilers cause the main plot points should be the same anyways but i don't have enough patience to play retro games (the last one i finished was kirby super star three years ago) and they are like ten times harder than modern games too like i think i only got 10 game overs max in the remake but like one hundred million in the original and i was like at this point i dont even care anymore like we just need to beat sephiroth right? speaking of i really did think we just had to beat sephiroth and that he was just evil for the love of the game because all i knew was from that smash bros trailer but really everything is hojos and lowkey lucrecia's fault bc theyre bums like are you jealous of vincent or something how do you get a girl who's literally just broken up with this guy pregnant like no time bro literal bum activity im glad vincent was able to beat up hojo at the end. he was also my strongest party member (and had the hardest spell post out of all of them).

i was lowkey tweaking when i saw genesis cause i thought something seemed awfully familiar lo and behold hes just evil gackt. i saw a picture of some genshin character's sword and i was like holy sigma is that genesis rhaspodos but nope it was some genshin twink this is off topic but i HATE how like half of the characters in genshin look like children/teenagers and the other half are either whitewashed (brighter than printer paper) or have the most awful color scheme like unpleasant gradient just showed up to your door. i kept thinking angeal was named angelo because ive only ever met people named angelo and not angeal but so far his story seems too similar to sonons. zack = onika angeal = burgers OH his name is angeal like angel LMFAo

I barely edit my tumblr posts for coherence sorry if youre not one of my like 4 followers but anyways episode intermission gave me a genuine crash out. I was like "who is yuffie" but then i found out. yuffie is my goat. i hate fort condor and i still hate fort condor but i didnt know there was a literal fort with a condor on it. i was out of it bro i have nobody here that may hear this and i will be ashamed i genuinely couldnt pay attention to the game cuz of sonon hes so fine bro too bad he DIED bro i even felt bad for nero cause they forcefully made him shut up with that muzzle thing but as per usual he was a bum but theres no second part to the dlc (yet) 40 dollar 32 gb ram stick please find me (my computer will blow up) before rebirth comes out (my computer will blow up regardless) like watch the requirements be some esoteric classified government only processor like the ryzen 56 or intel i5412 like u gotta play it on one of those government super computers so the game doesnt lag the minute you start walking.

ok im done ive exhausted myself thank u for coming to my ted talk see u later my little minions

[kraefishh]

nintento direct thoughts

yeah so hi i deliberately stayed up until 7am on a work night in order to watch this and do not regret a thing.

-> splat3 dlc looks cool!! will i play it? no. does it look cool as hell? yeah!!! I personally don't like splat3's actual single player campaign so unless im able to access the dlc without finishing the main campaign then... im not playing it lmao. it looks cool as fuck though!! i like whatever the hell they had going on with the glitchy taz hunger looking goop that produced skeleton fish. pearl + marina lore is also a win in my book -> i dont actually have all that many thoughts about the smrpg showcase but MAN it looks cool as hell. at first i didnt like the revamped graphics but now theyre growing on me.... plus the trio attacks??? HELL YEA! i hope the remake will make me actually finish the game this time around instead of start it twice in the past three years and then quit within the first few areas (<- i say as if this isnt a normal problem i have regardless. thanks, its the adhd)

-> SaGa Emerald Beyond actually looks interesting?? like I know nothing about that game series but the character designs look very cool and i like the concept of a multiple outcome story based entirely on which character you play. do i think i'd actually play this game? no, probably not. looks cool tho

-> despite me being The pokemon nerd i have nothing to say about the new detective pikachu game. i dont like the voice they gave pikachu imo. i think thats just cause im spoiled on movie detective pikachu being ryan reynolds... i joke i kid. kinda. also i never like. actually played any detective pikachu games so i got nothing

-> WAS NOT EXPECTING A TROMBONE CHAMP PORT, TO BE QUITE HONEST

-> cool that were getting a new wario-ware!! not sure how i feel about like the.... forms? is that what theyre called?? w/e regardless im not sure how i feel about em. but its a wario-ware game so its bound to be weird but like ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

-> FUNKY KONG DIDDY KONG PAULINE RELEASE FOR MARIO KART WAS NOT ON MY LIST. SO SO HAPPY THOUGH. peachette is whatever. no idea where she came from

-> gotta say i completely forgot among us was on switch so seeing the crewmates i was like "are they making a fucking spin-off game for switch?" no. i just forgot. the fungle is a funny name though i appreciate it

AND THEN

THE LAST THING I WAS EXPECTING

A PAPER MARIO THOUSAND YEAR DOOR REMASTER.

I was laying there in bed at 7:40am and was like. oh cool one last thing before its over. its probably gonna be just another title release of something or a sneak peek on some dlc.

and then i hear the music.

THAT NOSTALGIC MUSIC THAT MAKES ME FEEL LIKE IM SEVEN YEARS OLD AGAIN

-> yeah anyway so i screamed "WHAT!?" at the (metaphorical) top of my lungs (because it was 7:40am and people were sleeping). ttyd getting a remaster is so so cool. and now that i know its possibly getting a re translation that makes me even more happy. give us trans vivian....... i also just think its very funny that ive been playing ttyd on twitch for the past. year now? (ive taken a shit ton of breaks) and theyre making a remaster?? now? not complaining im having a blast playing it with my cohost but HHADGHGAKDFJ

-> i'm mostly just excited for the remaster cause it'll hopefully bring traction back to the paper mario series. idk about like the general consensus of the fandom but like. the paper mario series has been needing a pick me up for a HOT MINUTE.

-> no i am not going to play the remaster of ttyd for stream. maybe on my own time. we'll see. i dont see the point of finishing the og only to then, like a year later, play the remaster. especially when i have a TON of games backlogged on my list since i only stream once a week. more often than not, not even that. i am planning on doing rpg tho

[rharyx]

Follow up to this post, where I started cataloging my Final Fantasy journey.

Crisis Core I watched a playthrough back in high school cuz I thought Zack was cool as shit and I loved the theme music, but I never actually played it. But since I finally played 7, I knew I had to follow it up with this, and I went with the Reunion remake since I heard the combat is a lot better. Which I guess it is? I can't compare it to the original since I never played it, but the combat here was real fun and snappy -- I spent hours just doing side missions. And of course the story was as good as I remember it. Only downside is Zack's new actor is nowhere near as good as his original, and that really brings it down a tad. But it still doesn't kick Zack out of my "Top 5 FF characters" list. Also, I always liked Genesis, which I guess a lot of people don't? But I think he's just so funny. Like he actually stops his mission to kill Hojo or whatever to info-dump Loveless lore on everyone in the room. Dude's so weird, I hope he's in the remake trilogy. I think a 8/10 is fair.

Final Fantasy IV Took me a bit to finish this one since stuff got in the way. Not really much to say about this one, though, I guess. The story was good, and some areas and events were cool (like the giant robot thing), with lots of characters who show up and do their thing then leave. Cecil is pretty cool, Kain sure is a guy, and I like Rydia a decent amount. Love how that dude Edge is just straight up called Edge though lmao -- I imagined him having a sort of Johnny Bravo/Might Guy voice, which really elevated his character in my head. But otherwise, the whole game was a pretty standard affair. I kinda thought the vehicle stuff was pretty interesting -- like how you had to use the hoverboat, to get to the ship, to get to the better ship, etc. That was neat in its own way. Fuck the final boss, though, that shit felt unfair. 6/10, I guess? Definitely the mainline FF I've been least into so far, but it's still nowhere a "bad" game.

Final Fantasy XII I heard this was one divisive, but I don't see how? Like, this was really good. I did hear the original release was pretty bad compared to the Zodiac version I was playing, which made me think...... Between 12's initial release, 14's initial release, and 15's initial release...is 16 the first mainline game in over a decade that came out completely fine without needing an overhauled re-release or oodles of DLC to smooth things over in some way?? (I haven't played 13 yet, so that may have been fine upon release.) Anyway, to speak of the game itself, the License Board and Gambit System was really interesting and I kinda hope they bring it back in some way in the future, cuz I love tedious grindy stuff like that where you slowly fill up an ability grid (reminded me of the Sphere Grid, kinda). And the story -- while sometimes feeling really overwhelming with the amount of terms and names I had to memorize -- was well structured and I like how everyone's stories wrapped up by the end. Vaan is truly not a protagonist though, is he? lol. If anything, Ashe was the main character of this story, which I did kinda fuck with, even if she's not one of my favorite characters from the game. Also, I loved how many areas and differing locales we went to on the journey. I wasn't expecting such an array of distinct and visually engaging locations. One thing, though...why did half the voice over audio sound like it was being recorded through a soup can? It was so weirdly mixed. Like, you get used to it, but what happened?? Anyway, as a FF14 fan I though it was neat to see where all the Ivalice inspiration came from, and overall the game was really enjoyable to play. I've definitely not scratched the surface when it comes to the optional content, like Espers or whatever, but idk if I'll ever have the time to complete all that anyway. But for the main game itself, definitely a solid 8/10. Maybe even an 8.5.

Not sure what to do next, maybe try V once it goes on sale. Or probably just jump into Remake and Rebirth.

[givrali]

hi gamers im pretty much finished with my playthrough of pokemon shining pearl, i have about 80 hours on there right now so heres my review!

i dont normally post game reviews but since many of you know me as that sinnoh loving guy i figured reviewing a game i wanted for such a long time, a remake of one of my fav generation's pokemon games would make sense, and its easier to post that kind of thing on tumblr so here it goes. also this whole review is spoiler-free.

summary - i really like this game and i recommend it to anyone who loves diamond and pearl or has interest in playing them for the first time! they fix a lot of issues with the originals however there are many missed opportunities thatll talk about under the cut. this game is a good return to form of the adventure that many of us older fans felt when we first played these games as kids. i do not want this to seem like a huge blow to these games but they are not without flaws either.

graphics:

I know the chibi art style was a huge miss by many fans when it was first shown off, but ive always found it cute and fitting of the game. in its final form, the graphics of bdsp are very charming and cute and the natural scenes and backgrounds are better than theyve ever been in a mainline title. this game really does feel like how we would have imagined it as kids! the top-down style works best for this type of game and its very polished. if you still arent sold on the style, i promise that if you just get into the game and start playing it for a bit itll convince you. also this game lacks screen tearing that the originals had (yay!) and the overworld is a lot nicer to look at color-wise.

music:

I have to say i was kind of worried about what they'd do with the music, because it is probably my favourite out of the whole series, but its actually breathtaking and many tracks are a million times better than they were before. they really emphasized the jazzy-ness of this game's music which i really appreciate haha. they even added some new tracks for the post-game area and also the DS sounds key item which is so so great.

new additions:

bdsp greatly expands on the underground feature by letting you catch pokemon down there! this is a feature i never knew we needed but now that we have it oh man i could never go back. its so fun hunting for pokemon down there and digging for statues. i do kinda wish there was more multiplayer stuff you could do down there, cos rn all you can do really is dig together, but honestly thats fine by me since i didnt even get to do That in the originals.

this game also changes how contests work compared to the original dppt. i do kind of miss being able to dress up your pokemon but i do have to wonder how that would even work in a 3d game. anyway i do like the new "rhythm game" approach to pokemon super contests. they are a lot faster to do than they were before so you can do more of them in less time. sometimes the old one felt like rng cos you had to perform moves to a judge and just kinda hope no one else picked the same judge as you. i havent done a whole lot of the new contests just yet but as of now it seems like a welcome change.

bdsp also introduce walking pokemon in the overworld in almost every area, when before you could only walk with a select few in amity square. i think walking pokemon is always a welcome addition but its a bit strange to me how it was done in bdsp. its a huge upgrade from sword and shield (dlc) though i have to say. it really kinda sucks in those games because your pokemon will run to catch up with you and constantly bump into you. they dont do that as often in bdsp but there are times where if you have a slower pokemon they will just never walk with you and are always teleporting about. i think hgss really mastered the walking pokemon because they were always at the same rhythm as you were, and it just seems very half-baked into every other game they've tried to add it into since. (except let's go....it's actually pretty good in let's go.)

also, its worth mentioning that the sinnoh games are no longer extremely slow. youve all seen the meme with blissey and close combat right? yeah that doesnt happen anymore, neither does saving a lot of data (rip), and you surf faster than a snail now.

but the biggest and best feature that bdsp added was the hidden moves app in the poketch. basically, you no longer need to teach a pokemon an hm move (a field move that cannot be forgotten under normal circumstances) you can just open your watch with the R button and use a hidden move from there. its extremely handy and id recommend these games over the originals just for this feature alone. dppt have the most hms required at once time out of the entire series and not having to worry about them anymore is a HUGE plus. you can also access your pc boxes out in the overworld too instead of having to go to a pokemon center, which is awesome.

missed opportunities:

ok, now as we get into some more negative parts I have to say, yes I am aware that this game was never supposed to be a platinum remake. its a faithful remake of diamond and pearl, it is exactly what it says on the tin. (i have to say this phrasing has bugged me since the start, though, it feels like an oxymoron. of course a remake is going to be faithful?) and you know, they did add some platinum dex mons into the game via the underground feature i mentioned earlier. but my issue is, why did they only add some of them and not all? why pick and choose which pokemon we can access when the entirety of the platinum dex IS IN the game? we already know about the rotom in the old chateau and the gift eevee from bebe so why not let us access those? they seem to be walled off for absolutely no reason. and there are still so many of gen 4's added evolutions that you just cannot access within the main story, such as gliscor that you have to wait til postgame for. there is no point to these restrictions so why have them? it was literally not like that in platinum, so why go back to it? and i also like some of the changes to the gym order and designs inside the gyms they did in platinum. but plat is my fav pokemon game of all time so of course i am biased in that regard.

i also have to say that not using platinum teams for trainers like flint and volkner was a missed opportunity too. i like that gym leaders added new moves and abilities onto their team members to keep the battles fresh, but why did we have to go back to these stinky teams when we did it right in platinum? it just seems like two steps forward, one step back to me.

and this is a pet peeve to me but....where is looker???? he hasn't been in gen 8 at all???? he was introduced in gen 4 so....why not bring him back now? and where is the battle frontier gamefreak i want answers.

as for the story, ORAS is one of my fav pokemon games and i love how they freshened up the hoenn region in that remake, and i would have loved for something similar in BDSP. they ended up not doing that and we still have a good game on our hands here with bdsp, but i do think it could have been even better. i think remakes should set out with the goal to transcend the originals and create a definitive version of that generation's game. i think bdsp fell a little bit flat in that regard. we still have legends arceus coming out in about a month though. I do think that this is going to be the game that transcends and im really excited for it! but i think bdsp could have been more too.

also, why did they go back to single use tms? who is responsible for this??? i need a word.

another peeve of mine is that they did not add any pokemon past gen 4. as a kid i desperately wanted to bring my gen 5 favs into sinnoh, so that was a huge blow. again, they should have done it like oras. i dont think anyone would have minded if most of the later-gen mons were post-game anyway. and im not going to mention megas much but i like them and they would have fit so well here ok bye

glitches and crunch:

if youve been following these games since launch you know that they come with their fair share of glitches. of course, most pokemon games do. they are known for it, really. and most of them, even in bdsp, dont really come into play during your actual playthough, you have to actually go out and initiate them, and many of them are being patched right now. however, this game was also released unfinished, with a day 1 patch being required to download in order to get all of the cutscenes, music, and more. now personally i dont agree with that practice...i grew up in the sticks with the worlds slowest wifi, and i was also the type of kid who wanted to play their new games on the ride home. if your game needs an internet connection to download half of your game, that's just annoying. i know that's just the way nowadays...other consoles do it all the time, when you buy a ps4 game on the disc you have to wait for it to download too. in the age of internet its easier to patch games. back when the gba games had a glitch in them (look up ruby and sapphire berry glitch) you had to send your game back or go to a special kiosk to fix it. now you can just leave your switch on at night to download the updates. so while i definitely disagree with this decision, i can see why they did it. i really hope that doesnt become a mainstay for pokemon games going forward. its a real hassle, and encourages the harsh deadlines that nintendo and gamefreak have in place to continue.

challenge level/difficulty:

this game has a....weird level curve in it. it uses the gen 7.5/gen 8 experience share, which means that every pokemon in your party gets experience after you defeat or catch a pokemon. you are not able to turn this off, but you can put pokemon into your pc boxes to stop this effect. anyway, the original games did not have this, and were not designed around it. Around the 3rd gym or so i really felt the effect of it. my team was really getting up there in levels, and it doesnt help that the 3rd and 4th gyms are the same levels, either. so yeah it was getting clear that i was overleveled and the gym leaders and boss fights started to get kinda easy. ok, you might say, of course they were, its a kids game and a game and one that ive played before. not everyone is going to have that experience. however, the pokemon in the underground scale to your badge level, meaning they are typically around your level or higher when you go down there after a gym battle. meaning. you are going to get your ass handed to you down there. but then...not by any of the trainers in the story? probably not until the elite four, who each have ev-trained pokemon (this means they have really beefed up stats that compliment what moves theyre gonna use) with competitive battling move-sets and items. and then the champion, who has a completely cracked competitive team with items on all 6 pokemon. now many of us were thinking that they would dumb down the champion battle, but they beefed it up so so much. as an adult player of the series i really do like this level of challenge. even if youre just doing a vanilla playthrough its bound to be a little difficult. i mean it took me 3 tries! and then if youre a kid playing this game....well its never been easier to grind in a pokemon game than in gen 8. so...i dont know what to say about this i just think the difficulty in this game is kind of lopsided at times.

should you play?

as a new player: yes! these games are more accessible than the og diamond and pearl, which go up WAY past the $60 msrp if you want a legit copy. and with the additions in quality of life i think they are definitely worth it. also, they have online play which the old ones dont anymore. you can emulate, sure, i won't stop you, but if you do emulate either dppt or bdsp you wont have the multiplayer aspect either way. multiplayer adds a lot of mileage to a pokemon game.

as a veteran player: yes! these games miss a lot of content from platinum and are basically the same story, i won't deny that. but they are full of nostalgia for if you love gen 4 and have felt like newer games have been missing the mark. and if you didnt like gen 4, a lot of its issues are solved here like the hm one. this is a good opportunity to give it another chance.

[cruddyborderlandstheories]

athenas or the new ign videos... hmmm

im gonna go for the ign videos (moze gameplay and sanctuary-iii, no guns yet, i have a reason for that) because athenas hasn’t gotten its sweet instagram video yet. once that’s released i’ll do a full post on it. by the time i got around to finishing this post, they had released the video. oh boy... gonna do the gun post then the athenas post, i think. alright, off we go.

tl;dr: we read the entire end user agreement DAHL thrusts upon us for using the ECHO device, talk about some stuff like how (spoilers) it seems like Lilith will be getting her powers back at the end of the game, and a voice line Lily says that sounds like “Tyreen took my powers. it’s like Tannis said: [inaudible] Siren” (altho im not 100% sure on the [inaudible] part because 1) it sounds weird and 2) there’s a drum beat and also the devs are talking over her, the Siren part seems fairly accurate because of the way her mouth moves). so you know. im gonna be agonizing over that until i can hear what she says. ive already spent an hour just repeating it over and over. i nearly fell asleep lol

we’re gonna start with the moze gameplay (the first 14 minutes of bl3) because chronologically it’s first in both timeline and release date

i love the license plates on the right there

also it looks like they added in claptrap’s old welcome sign from windshear waste! time to stand in front of it for 30 minutes to see if any messages pop up like bl2

fast travel station as well, definitely going to see if/where i can teleport and going there immediately. i imagine this is more for DLC stuff and grinding tho.

also! i do believe we saw Covenant Pass previously. good to know this is actually where it is!

Marcus saying “And Welcome to Pandora!” in the beginning confirms that, yes, they’re going to be on a bus!! i wonder if there will be a fight scene before that though. it’s interesting Clappy mentions that “those jerks who tried to murder you are the children of the vault!” so i mean... there’s gotta be... right?

im also convinced this intro is going to be a mirror of Borderlands 1. i stg if it starts out with the first few notes of Ain’t No Rest for the Wicked and then swaps songs I’m going to lose my mind

also also, the order is totally going to mimic the bl1 one. Fl4k = Mordecai, Amara = Lilith, Moze = Roland, Zane = Brick. We even have Lilith taking Angel’s spot as the mysterious voice in our heads, and probably Marcus driving, AND being dropped off at a bus stop.

bet the reason they changed it from ‘Moze as the Bot Jock’ to ‘Moze as the Gunner’ is because it fits under ‘Roland as the Soldier’ better. Also, ‘Zane Flynt as Himselfs’ would be a play off ‘Brick as Himself’. Amara as the Siren is obvious, and ‘Mordecai as the Hunter’ vs ‘Fl4k as the Beastmaster’ is pretty similar as well, given Fl4k has all those Hunter skills.

the 4 basic emotes im guessing. im so glad we have the option to boop our friends in the face with emotes.

also moze’s little bunny skin is adorable

the ECHOnet used to be called “Riftspace”, “the Spline”, and... “MercTel: A Cyber-Dahl Joint” lmfao

specifically calls out Pandora. also, “artificial megastructures”??? THAT’S SO COOL

AND FUCKING

SENTIENT MEGASTRUCTURES???? 

gearbox. please. i have never ever wanted anything more in my life. please. it’s probably my birthday. PLEASE GEARBOX

also interesting that the user agreement specifically notes ‘Respawns’. I assume this is a joke because New-U stations have been confirmed not canon

“Core law”. Core law? Core... daddy? ... ????

core as in like a core government somewhere that’s not the border worlds? that’s interesting...

“The Legion”, okay, acknowledging TPS, that’s dope

“Project Blackrakk” ... im interested

“Thresher Company” lmao

im curious if Axton was apart of any of the mentioned ones. i don’t think it’s been stated, but i could be wrong

“Chieftain Oort”. also ‘Recently Legless Gary’, lmfao poor dude.

oh yeah im sure this is fine. also holy shit did they google the synonyms for ‘change’ and just start listing them? lmfao

“implicit subscription to the Digby Vermouth ‘Dig’s Gigs’ secret concert subscription service” 

sorry, what?

if this doesn’t come up again in the future- if we don’t get a spam letter or 3 in our mailbox about this concert subscription thing i'm gonna be so disappointed

Dahl hates you if you’re not a fan of hyper-jazz, “you snob” lmfao

my brain hurts, they’re good at writing these 

damn phones exist? i thought everything was ECHO. aight, that’s good to know. i guess there just aren’t any phone networks around the border worlds

also “shared dreamspaces” sound really cool

hm. that’s no good lmfao. also i love that the buttons are ‘Agree’ and ‘OK’. there is no escape, once you agree, you can’t even leave because you’re agreeing that you’re trapped with these rules even if you cancel.

that’s fucked up, DAHL. can’t believe you treat your user base the same way you treat your employees. i guess i shouldn’t be surprised.

anyway, shoutout to literally the only TOA I’ve ever fully read in my life.

also, clicking through this TOA too fast WILL end claptrap’s voice line early. so be careful if you want to hear what he has to say!!

oh shit lmao I gotta go edit that Fl4k post

ok im back ~time magic of being able to save things in drafts and post them at a later date~

sliding preserves momentum, so you can actually slide (nearly) the entire way down! i love this.

small, but claptrap bends his antennae when trying to be stealthy. i thought that was a pretty cool detail

“and some guns include an alternate shooting mode~! try it out!”

player: `immediately shoots claptrap in the face`

i died lol

a very nice look at this sign.

good to know that the twins really are tempting people to join with promises of food. i mean it makes sense, i imagine most of the cultists are desperate for stability and a reasonable life on pandora.

also, Shiv calls himself “holy influencer of the children of the vault” lol. i love that. gearbox really is going for the internet’s throat, isn’t it?

i do like that hovering over an NPC will give you their name only and not name/healthbar.

a better look at one of the signs referencing the Mother!!! i was waiting for this, the only real look we got at one was in that one scene with Moze and IB

“Behold the Mother strength surrender to the truth” 

yeah that’s not ominous...

i assume the mother and father are intended to be tyreen and troy? but idk how i feel about that implication...

i like the new little gear/spring effect for the magnet lol

new lilith! i know a lot of people don’t like it, but i do. she looks better than the bl2 vers. altho i think it’s weird they swapped both bl1 and bl2′s ‘AI’ effect to those dots and then didn’t bring it to BL3. the dots effect felt cleaner. curious why they’re not applying it to bl3 when they went thru all that effort in 1 and 2.

... back up please.

i like that there is a changing icon for long pressing now

“time to check out our slay of the day!” sounds like Tyreen but tbh i legit thought this was moze’s reaction to opening the chest at first lol 

you can hear someone start screaming in agony while she’s walking up the stairs, so i know it’s not moze, but im so used to the VHs talking when they see a new piece of loot my brain just assumed.

also THE MUSIC IN THE BACKGROUND IS A REMIX OF BANDIT SLAUGHTER!!! IM SO HAPPY ABOUT THIS I WAS FREAKING OUT THE FIRST TIME I HEARD IT

also, claptrap when dropping health yells “this could save your life! then, you’ll owe me a life debt!” bullshit im pretty sure you already decided we owed you a life debt the moment we stepped off that bus

“i see it... the great vault” - a line from a cultist you kill

i know i mentioned in this post that the Great Vault may be already opened, but it could also just be a Vault they’re planning on opening and using the propaganda to convince the cultists to help them find it. 

“if you help us get this vault open, you’ll be handsomely rewarded! you’ll get superpowers! you’ll get regular meals! you’ll get money and guns and dates!” you know, the usual stuff. 

either way, elevating the Vault to a higher state (god/heaven/whatever) makes sense if you’re running a cult.

btw there is a hidden chest in the scaffolding to the left of the door, if you’re interested in grabbing some better guns before shiv. personally, i’ll be using the toy guns.

also the TVs are actually playing propaganda now!!

this one is asking questions that i cant understand due to the sound effects of the chest and claptrap talking, but it says something about “... the dust? ... join the Children of the Vault!”

“hey shiiiiiv all your dumb friends are dead!!”

shiv be like

“all my friends are dead”

some cool level-up art! I notice these are the same pictures as used on the japanese site. i wonder if they change depending on which VH you’ve picked (If you’re playing Amara/Fl4k, do you get pics of Amara and Fl4k? the player is playing moze, afterall).

also also “it’s a KIA on the knife wielding maniac. suuuper dead.” 

it’s cool that the VHs have specific lines for the deaths of bosses. i hope that continues and it’s not just a ‘15 min of intro gameplay’ thing. you know, where everything is super detailed in the beginning and then slowly gets less and less as the game progresses? anyway, moze’s little chuckle is fuckin adorable lol

ah. the door closes now so you can’t even explore Shiv’s room before Lilith shows up. gearbox plS you know me too well, i was looking for a g l i m p s e

claptrap’s voice line for getting released is SUPER off time, he hits the ground before going “you did it! i’m sa-ahhhhhhhh!” it’s weird, wondering if that’s just a glitch.

also also we get a nice listen to the revive ally sound. i could’ve sworn it wasn’t in the first look at this mission we got, because i heard it for the first time during the coop Zane/Amara gameplay on Promethea. i might be wrong, tho.

im very curious what these symbols are claptrap is beaming up

i mean you know what im gonna say

they look eridian

and they do

so wtf clappy why u beaming up eridian letters to Lilith

i assume maybe Tannis gave clappy some weird upgrade or something so he could communicate with the crimson raiders without the CoV listening in? it could be that Tannis or someone is decoding this message since Tannis does know how to translate Eridian (as shown in her bl1 ECHOs)

... or at the very least she gave Lilith a translator

the darkening makes it so that you can see the crackening. also this COULD just be a beam that lilith can see from wherever she is, but i want to believe there’s more eridian stuff. bc eridian stuff is fun.

this is so fu cking crisp im dying i love it

lilith’s tattoos spreading down her fingers

same symbol as her chest tattoo. maybe the symbol denotes new powers? like how lily has one on her chest for phasewalking, and a new one on her hand for teleportation

i love how her wings look like actual fire. i fucking love this

lilith is looking so fucking good in the new engine

im glad they got rid of her super red eyes, tbh it looked a bit weird

i think they are really pushing her fire affinity, im sure we’ll see Maya has an elemental affinity as well (im calling corrosive) and im sure Tyreen will too (slag). Amara looks to be Shock because that’s her ‘default’, but who knows until (if) bl4 comes out. but corrosive wings on maya would look SOOO fucking cool. please. please please please.

god she looks so good compared to bl2. i love how the tattoos softly glow in the dark, too. i gotta play this mission late in the day...

“you’re... the voice in my head, right?” i love this so much, i really hope my shitpost comes true.

lilith gives you a grenade mod for completing her mission! im really glad they are PUSHING through the tutorial/intro so you can get right into the game. bl2′s ‘intro’ of all these tutorials was brutal. especially waiting to unlock your action skill.

in 3 you get your action skill automatically at level 2!!! which is insane, i love it! they’re jumping right into it, it’s great. and they seem to be pushing for you to get all the stuff you need right away. 

it’s curious to note that in bl3 we get our class mods at the end of the Promethea demo (after Gigamind), since in bl2 you get your first (usually?) after the hunting the firehawk mission and both seem to take place immediately after we get to the ‘base of operations’ of the game (Sanctuary vs Sanctuary-III).

yep that quest is 100% in line with the quest marker. 

i imagine From the Ground Up may be discovering where the Vault Map/Key actually is? maybe bringing people to the Recruitment Center (notably Tannis)

for this scene. i hope this takes place after the HBC, because i seriously... can’t imagine the twins showing up, taking the Vault Map, bringing it to the HBC, and then NOT taking Lilith’s powers/trying to kill Lily and accidentally taking her powers. it just doesn’t make sense, Vault Hunters be damned, we are level 2 they could melt us easy peasy. 

If anything, it feels like we COULD find the Vault Map in the Recruitment Center, Tannis tries to activate it/fix it, we find out it’s mega broke, and then the Sun Smashers show up and take it. but i seriously can’t imagine Lilith nor the new VHs allowing that to happen while they’re still there. maybe if Tannis sends us to do something while Lilith is gathering other CR members? then it could make sense if they attack while Tannis is alone with the Key...

OR

we end up finding something in Shiv’s room that shows/helps us realize the Sun Smashers bringing the Vault Map to the Calypsos. tho this would mean the quest From the Ground Up is SUPER short and I imagine it’s not. Maybe we raid a camp of theirs like the one in front of Sanc-III with the bridge/ramp? We need to be about level 6 before we go and we start From the Ground Up at 2 so there’s obviously something DEEP we’re missing here. maybe this is a mission where we go gather the other Crimson Raiders? HMMMMMMMM...

.... oh.

nevermind lmfao

she opens her ECHO immediately after this LOL i feel kinda dumb now

raiding their camp it is! the Droughts sounds like a fun location. Very much like the dust. you guys think there’s a Shade situation going on there? i’m excited to see it. Still think we’re going to use Shiv’s room to get that lead, though. i just really wanna watch tv lmfao. i hope this means the bandits run from the camp to the HBC, or we find info that the bandit warchief sent a party to the HBC with the Vault Map. either way, i just don’t want the twins showing up until after the HBC or i will have so many questions. “why didn’t you kill lilith?” being the first. “the god queen wants her head!” ur goddamn right she does, so why doesn’t she (try to) kill lilith???

85% already?! hot damn

also

that’s one badass description there, Moze

also also

while having gun slots locked is pretty normal, im surprised they’re locking class mods and relics, too! i wonder when we’ll be able to equip relics. maybe when we first go to eden-6 or smth. or maybe after we meet up with Rhys. shit maybe he’s just handing us an artifact (im gonna interchange these a lot, sorry!) in that Promethea video lmfao

“ready to chuck some boom and frag some maniacs” lol moze i love you

if you’re playing Zane... `equips grenade mod for checkmark` `immediately equips second action skill and never actually uses grenade mod`

“it’s the firehawk! the god queen wants her head!” 

like i alluded to before, i would not be surprised if Tyreen doesn’t know she can absorb Siren powers... when she goes to succ lilith in front of Sanctuary-III, it’s totally possible she actually was trying to kill her. That could explain why she looks so intrigued at her hand like “oh shit okay lets see what this can do”

might be why she was okay with sending her cultists after her instead of showing up herself.

“alright, we got a foothold. maybe things are turning our way. come on killer, you’re with me” we are going to explore the SHIT out of shiv’s room.

alright alright alright

let’s move on to the Sanctuary-III stuff

yessss

i love the quest objective thing, it looks like we will be able to swap through our quests with the push of a button! also im curious why exactly we’re going to promethea right away. i wonder if the twins say something about moving there after getting the vault map/lilith’s powers, or if we hear from rhys. im expecting something about the vault map, since our vh will admit they don’t know rhys at all when talking to lorelei. but for some reason we need to be within the city limits? since lily says ellie got us within the city limits. 

hmmmmmm. okay, okay, maybe the map was trying to lead us to promethea for vault reasons during that short amount of time that we had it and it was working. maybe promethea is what we see when tannis is activating the key during that one cutscene? ohhh shit how dope would it be if we got that fucking easter egg message? omg “Children of the Vault. Come to Promethea. We are not on Pandora anymore. Tannis is not what she seems. Do not open the Vaults.” and everyone is like ‘uh did that thing just mention Tannis by name??’ and now it’s REALLY important to get the map back just so we can figure out wtf it’s trying to tell us. 

i will question how ‘Tannis is not what she seems’ would affect character relationships, especially if it’s said so early in the game. so perhaps we only hear the first part of the message. maybe it’s corrupted because it was recently broken. iunno. just playing around with ideas. the canon of this game is like flarp putty until sept. 13th

anyway moving on because this is literally the first f r a m e of the video

i like that you can see pandora’s eridian scar. if the destroyer is speaking through eridium to people, it’s gonna bust outta the side of this planet like you wouldn’t fucking believe lmao. eridium is a window to the soul and if you stare long enough into its glossy, shining sides, the destroyer stares back

that or it’s just like a beacon, slowly spreading its influence across the universe. but i like the idea that the destroyer can waltz out of a big enough hunk of eridium. so it will bust out of pandora’s eridium scar. F in chat for pandora but also lmfao the amount of tentacles and rage would be unparalleled.

reality is that the twins are probably farming this scar for eridium to turn into slag for multiple purposes. like brainwashing their cultists, giving them powers, and ensuring their guns have their manufacturer’s quirk (im getting to this in my next post bc im just gonna compile all the ign gun videos into one big post)

the floor art is different from the actual sanc-iii demo. i mention this first in my behind closed doors panel analysis, but im gonna mention it again because this is ~official~. the floor list on the first walkthru of sanc-iii we got had the names of all the crimson raiders and lines leading to their shops. so we had the infirmary/tannis, marcus, moxxi, etc listed on the floor. i imagine this new sanc-iii will change as we get more people on board or if we do a sort of re-decoration of the ship.

also also, it’s cool to see that we have 4 rooms on the minimap, likely one for each of the VHs (and your coop buddies). ive seen speculation that the other, non-played VHs will hang out in their rooms when you’re not playing them, and tbh i really hope this is the case.

we also know this version of sanctuary-iii is after pandora, so there are no promethea citizens aboard yet. which makes me double certain the first sanc-iii video we got takes place either after endgame (explaining why Lily has her tattoos back) or right after Athenas (explaining why Maya is there). which... i mean... spoilers, guys. 

that’s one good lookin fast travel station, holy shit

im in tears over here because “Caution: no steppy”. this is so fucking funny to me

no steppy on me

okay moving on because i will cry laugh over this for forever im allowed

moze’s room is so much different than amara’s

also i notice she’s on the left of the two on the top, which makes me hope the other 4 are reserved for the other VHs (or your coop buddy).

compared to the official sanc-iii demo video

and amara’s room

moze’s is so barren oh my god

someone get this girl like... a colorful throw pillow or something

baaank. also doubles as the secret stash. kinda upsetting, because that is infinitely less loot i can store when i make a lot of characters. also if i upgrade the bank once, is it upgraded across all my other characters too? or are the guns i put in storage slot 11 locked up until i buy the upgrade?

either way, i am saddened because no more mule characters. and way less space the more characters you make and more gear you find, because all gear you put in here is there across all characters. i hope this means our backpacks will be a lot bigger this time around!

supamax mfg shows up again

ppm/04-02 matches up with the number behind the fast travel station. i wonder if this will come into play. if the number changes later in-game im going to freak the fuck out bc that means wherever we are isn’t actually sanctuary-iii

ppm/04-02. remember that 👀

also, the wall behind the golden chest changed from red to steel/greenish. can’t tell the actual color. same as the floor

you know. that color.

“golden keys are popular. you can get some in-game and also get them online”

in-game you say??? im interested! i wonder if there will be some sort of arena (like moxxi’s) where if you complete it you get a key as a reward. i saw people speculating about some sort of randomized boss rush, that could definitely be a way to get gold keys, as well.

oooo engine room! im excited to explore here.

original size is 16. so, we have 40 backpack slots! still... you know... only 1 above the max of bl2, but hey. at least that’s an upgrade. as small as it may be

on the bright side: bank upgrades increase capacity by 5. with a base of 10, and 8 upgrades, we have 50 slots to fill. which is a big leap from the original 24. it is still a shame we have to share these across characters, tho

offline cultist stream? makes me think the CoV really was trying to steal/take over sanc-iii from the crimson raiders and we went to go take it (back?) in Taking Flight. either the CoV found/ordered Sanc-III, or the crimson raiders were building it/fixing it up, their stronghold got taken over, and the CoV were prepping it for takeover.

the shooting range. and if you notice that little CoV symbol in the bottom left there? yeah pretty much backs up my previous theory

all those red bits are tied to ellie’s crew challenge. so we’ll be collecting things for her!

an altar for scooter 😢

“we’re gonna get those cultism sumbitches, believe you me”

where you get yeeted out of Sanc-III. im definitely going to try jumping in it to see if it kills me. doesn’t look like the drop pods are available yet

that’s not clappy, pretty sure he’s hanging out on the bridge right now

schematics for veronica

the thing i was most excited about in this video!

loooots of customizations! which excites me because i know eridium used to get useless late game when you’ve grinded all the raid bosses. it looks like eridum is going to be in ultra high demand. but u can bet ur ass im gonna be unlocking all those fucking customizations asap.

veteran rewards is also super super interesting

hgggggg i wanna know what the shields do!!! 

i like the vault symbol at the top of the item card as well, shows you its a special type of weapon/item. im honestly surprised we’re able to buy ‘veteran rewards’ so early in the game? i mean obvi we won’t have enough eridium (look at the costs!) but it’s wild it’s even accessible. im personally a fan of the first bonus ‘anointed: gain life steal on action skill end’

looks like these guns have been chosen

to give them those special bonuses

i do see that just anointed is not class specific, but the ones that say anointed gunner or maybe anointed siren will be (confirmed by the devs in video).

you pay with eridium, so maybe the vending machine has some way to confer the power of eridium to the guns. or some shit. iunno. it’s possible this won’t be available until the end of the game, hence veteran rewards, and is only being shown to us right now since this is a showcasing video.

pandoran civilian. no promethea civilians today folks! i am CONVINCED that the old sanc-iii demo takes place after the end of the game. at least after athenas.

it’s weird seeing moxxi hanging outside her bar.

is also cool to know that the 4 slot machines are actually available. seems like npcs can play them, but we can use all 4 if we want to. which is really nice

the one on the far left is called the ‘loot boxxer’ and it gives mostly guns lol. i see they are taking jabs. good for them

better pic of the leftmost machines

Zer0 seems to have a bounty board? not sure if this is like a physical bounty board or if they will contact you when they want something dead, but it is cool to note. this isn’t shown in video, just the devs speaking about it.

similarly hammerlock has ‘big game hunts’ where you find “rare, challenging creatures” and kill them for him

apparently we’ll be killing something known as a manvark

this book

i fucking recognize this book

HAMMERLOCK NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

in all seriousness tho

hammerlock probably isn’t in his room because we haven’t rescued him from eden-6 yet.

a cool thing about the crew challenges: as you progress through the game and do these challenges, sanc-iii will ‘grow and change to reflect the things you’ve accomplished’. altho another dev says “sometimes these are optional things, like challenges” 

so now im like oh shit we’re gonna change sanc-iii as we play the game. i wonder if that means we’ll be changing the hull, too. because you know. the blue paint job. we gotta go STEALTH. sneaky beaky into the calypsos fleety

tannis doesn’t have the saurian on her table. also, interesting note, she DOES have the eridian log in the corner. meaning she must have had that before eden-6. interesting... maybe we’ll find more on Pandora.

she is still covered in blood tho. idk i don’t have an explanation for that. don’t think i want to think of one, to be quite honest.

oh no. (those are skulls next to all the gurneys)

“tannis plays a much bigger role in bl3 than she has in past games”. bigger than borderlands 1? that is... impressive. she’ll be running the health vending machines (which is weird bc i could’ve sworn in the promethea demo, zed was still running them... hm.)

another angle of sanc-iii

clappy? you good there?

the devs said they’re using him to plug a hole. i assume the calypsos shot at the ship as we’re leaving or smth.

lily with no tattoos, who also looks significantly more pissed than her other sanc-iii demo counterpart

you know. because she got her tattoos.

also

fucking

lilith says something right here. all i can make out is “Tyreen took my powers. it’s like tannis said. ..... [inaudible] Siren.” maybe some weird word i haven’t heard before? i swear she’s saying ‘like tannis said: a ‘m...’ Siren” but i am not 100% sure. if someone could help me out, that’d be rad.

so its sounding like lilith rushed in with explicit warning from tannis about tyreen stealing her powers, and tannis knew tyreen was some sort of Siren and warned lily, but lily didn’t listen. it could also be that lily is saying something like “im not a siren” but i can’t really hear it if she is. it sounds like she saying a word that starts with m to me. if someone could help me with this i’d owe you my life

whew. i am. fucking TIRED.

im gonna sleep for like 3 hours and then wake up and make food before the fl4k streams start.

[y01te-moved]

🌻🌻🌻🌻🌻🌻🌻🌻🌻🌻🌻🌻🌻🌻🌻🌻🌻🌻🌻🌻🌻

i almost cant even count how many this is but im doing every single one anyways and you cant stop me despite the fact that this obviously took me ages to actually answer

1: if ur reading this ur legally obligated to follow max (sender of this ask) Right Now. Just Do It.

2: i think more ppl with my sense of humor should watch Spider Riders bc listen..  if somewhere along the line that show suddenly gained more popularity again in this fine year of 2019 id be both actually funny for once but also revolutionary. by all technicalities some of my hcs are fucking great but i dont think i could say a lot of them and even be comprehensible outside of orientation based ones that are just rlly controversial. granted im not even sure i could or would actually recommend the show to people cause its kinda dumb a lot of the time and also fairly long at least to my standards so its harder to finish unless ur like really invested in it :pensive:

3: also on that note the next time a horny person even THINKS about Corona im Going to break into their home and then break their knees. i hate that she has so much fanart thats basically just fetish art or otherwise managing to be nsfw in some way shes like 15 at best fuck off!! its rlly only a problem on like. deviantart but it still makes me die inside.

4: character development is hard i never actually keep my ideas and what i have written down on like.  my actual bios for everyone on the same pace so its a confusing mess and i wish i was better at combating that

5: anon and kanon r such good loids i wish people used them more but i think a part of the problem is that i dont always look That hard for things that use them ahdbsadgashdj

6: alex is the best sdv bachelor and im not accepting criticism on that notion. 2nd best would probably be like..  sam except i havent tried hard enough to be friends with him yet which i feel bad abt bc he seems nice

7: i miss the cracking open a cold one with the boys meme that was still one of my favorites

8: (goes BACK to thinking about SR shdfjds) the anime had no right having like so many characters base their ideals off of how brade used to be in the past and all those good takes on like not necessarily Having to resort to violence as the ultimate solution and all that good stuff just to be like, “surprise!! he actually IS still around! but also he’s going to be minimally helpful at all until the last few episodes and otherwise we’re going to make a ton of gags about him trying to hit on the like 2 girls in the team who are also like 15 while he ignores practically everyone else because thats funny!” im still so mad about it. he is the absolute worst and he has no rights. there was also so much potential they seemed like they could have used and were trying to hint at using in terms of further developing more important details about the history of the inner world or at least some of the things that had been going on well before hunter ever showed up and then they didn’t do anything but hint at the idea of brade having known hunter’s grandfather. but even that wasn’t 100% confirmed bc they dodged around it the one time they had hunter ask. its a mess.

9: my taste is so fucking weird and i hate it bc its mostly just, “oh yeah i heard abt this thing and it seems cool im hoping to start getting into it soon!” for most things that are actually cool or popular or all that and never actually get into it, but then i see smth dumb as shit that i know would probably make me look like an absolute fool for liking and im like, “oh yeah yknow what i can do this one” and then i do like it but i cant say much about it either cause i dont wanna look like.   a fool.

10: these have been depressing as fuck so im gonna lighten the mood and say that himbo is a fucking hilarious word and i love it

11: also axel (kh) is a himbo. why? he just is.

12: im also bad at character design i think bc i always worry that my characters look too similar in terms of hair style like all the time and idk if its rlly that bad or not jfhgkf.  that and like. so many of my characters just wear jeans and boots in terms of the lower half of their body its so unoriginal but it always works so well…

13: still disappointed in myself for having never 100%’d even 1 tlodw game. lunatic mode.. Difficult

14: i dont keep up with ace attorney fans but i hope everyone out there agrees that miles has peak vampire energies based on the way he dresses alone

15: re:zero fans have no rights only bc i only ever see ppl talking abt rem and ram like. wh..   was no one ever going to tell me about reinhard or was i just supposed to watch him get introduced in the first few eps and then fall in love w/him immediately before even finding out hes supposed to be a knight which makes him 20x better

16: leon and/or leonhart is like genuinely a good name idk why it just sounds rlly nice

17: ive had like so many technical difficulties with this site since trying to answer this i hate tumblr

18: im pretty sure im like. genuinely just gonna go mute or some shit one day cause honestly ive mostly only ever gotten worse and worse about not actually being able to say things even when i know exactly what thought im trying to say, both physically and like. online. its so weird i feel like i just cant say things. it may just be being self conscious but i restrict myself soo heavily and its WEIRD….  its like being trapped in ur thoughts and it sucks.  probably doesnt even actually mean all that much but it still makes it hard for me to accomplish anything ever which i hate.

19: despite all the titles like ssbu and all that existing for the switch i think id only want one to play the new(er) inside system games i havent had the chance to yet like the spinoff card game and rudymical and also brave dungeon but w/neville and klinsy and whoever else was dlc on that game cause obviously i own the 3ds port but also neville..  good…  i wanna see how she plays..

20: i miss when i could be passionate abt cave story it just makes me feel tired seeing it sometimes at this point but it also still holds a great significance to me so its just confusing and im not sure how i feel abt it

21: the SR novels were cowards only on account of not giving us any official design for petra but also for writing igneous like.  That.  novelverse igneous is just too bitter in general and like i get it but they couldve done a lot more with him even though he is still somewhat respectable in the end, granted its hard cause like holy shit hes so fucking mean to hunter literally who asked for that. im just glad the anime let him be somewhat more idk..  i guess sociable while still keeping a lot of the inherently essential aspects his personality had like his almost over the top loyalty to the prince and taking things like training/combat in general very seriously. its just good and animeverse igneous is so good id die for him thanks for coming to my tedtalk

[matayu-sometimes-writes-stuff]

On Final Fantasy XIII-2

           I had only intended to play Final Fantasy XIII, on account of we don’t own a copy of Lighting Returns. What I didn’t count on was two things: falling in love with the characters and the setting, and Final Fantasy XIII-2’s plot revolving around time travel.

           You have to understand something about me. I’m a huge slut for time travel stories.

           Final Fantasy XIII-2 uses the same combat system as XIII, which as I stated while talking about that game, is hard to master but I love it. XIII-2 makes the assumption that you played XIII already, but there’s a handy refresher about XIII’s plot on the title screen, and there is an option tutorialize the first handful of combat instances. It’s a much shorter tutorial than XIII’s. Nineteen and a half hours shorter. Combat also moves a lot quicker; they shortened the default time the ATB gauge needs to charge by about half a second. It’s a very little change, but it feels much better. Also nice is that if the current party leader dies, control swaps over to the other character, instead of giving you a game over.

           The camera is about the same as the previous game, but as I went on to XIII-2 directly after XIII, I didn’t notice it as much as I was used to it. The one other major change to gameplay is that instead of a party of three characters, your party is made up of two characters and a set of three monsters, Pokémon-style. I don’t much care for monster-collecting in games that aren’t specifically Pokémon, but it was less of a hassle than I was expecting it to be. It helped that this is a five-year-old game, so there were plenty of guides online for how to best set up a party.

           Yes, unlike XIII I did have to resort to internet walkthroughs to find my way around. Not so much for maps of the areas, but to find the “artifacts”, or keys, needed to open every time gateway. There are ten almost completely optional areas, but I voluntarily hunted down the artifacts needed to access all of them, because I enjoyed playing this game almost as much as I enjoyed XIII. “Almost”, for reasons entirely related to the ending, which I’ll come to in due time.

           Basically I liked this game for the same reasons I liked FFXIII. Every positive that I talked about in conjunction with that game (save the linearity) also applied here. I’m pretty sure I spent most of the game overlevelled, but that’s how I like to play RPGs. If I’m not a holy terror to the basic enemies, something is wrong. The leveling system changed from the first game, but was similar enough that I didn’t mind the changes. It would have made raising the best monsters tough (as it would require farming for materials), except that I didn’t give enough of a shit to put the time in for that. Nor, fortunately, did I need to.

           The one huge complaint I had heard about this game is that it retcons the ending to FFXIII. Which indicates to me that the people making that complaint haven’t actually bothered to play the game, as the premise is that “something retconned the ending of FFXIII, FIX IT”. The game acknowledges that the ending to XIII has been changed for the worse, and the plot of the game (initially, at least) is to set it back the way it was. If you don’t like that the “retcon” happened, good, because neither do any of the characters.

          The characters are still fantastic. The plot of the game is that something went wrong during the ending of Final Fantasy XIII, and Lightning has been missing for three years. A boy from the future named Noel Kriess appears to Serah Farron and tells her he has a message from Lighting: She’s in service to Etro, the Goddess of Death, and needs Serah’s help to fix everything that has gone wrong with the timeline. Noel, meanwhile, has his own quest: to change the future so that the girl he loves, one Paddra Nsu Yeul, won’t have to die.

          Let’s face it. Serah didn’t have much of a character in XIII. Her role in the plot was as an object for Lightning and Snow to rescue, so it’s nice to see her as the protagonist for once. She’s a lot like her sister, to the extent of being willing to go to the literal ends of the earth to save her. However, she’s also definitely distinct from Lightning. She’s willing to be emotionally open where her sibling isn’t, and will willingly put her quest on hold to help others where Lightning would (in her initial characterization, at least) have pushed on, ignoring them. They share the same resolve, though, shown in Serah’s acceptance that doing what’s right will likely lead to her own death, yet still doing what she felt was right anyway. She definitely grew into her own character, and we were given much more of a feel for how strongly the two sisters care for each other.

          Noel Kreiss shares a name with my cat. This amused me. I was expecting there to be something unlikeable about him due to that same air of “these are bad games” feeling surrounding the FFXIII trilogy. There’s nothing wrong with him. His relationships with Yeul and with the game’s villain, Caius Ballard, drive the main part of the plot. Yeul is blessed/cursed with the ability to see the future; the ability kills her when she reaches the age of 15. Wherupon she reincarnates, knowing she’ll only live to see 15. Caius, on the other hand, is functionally immortal and had been Yeul’s bodyguard for millennia until he became sick of watching the girl he loved die again and again and again. Noel was only present for the latest incarnation of Yeul’s cycle, 700 years after Serah’s time. The world is dying, and after Yeul passes and Caius vanishes, he’s the only living human. He is just as determined to succeed as Serah is, because he knows what will happen should he fail.

          The entire main cast from XIII gets a look in, although some are only in small roles. Fang and Vanille only have a short cameo, as for most of the game they’re still in crystal stasis, only appearing to Serah through psychic contact to break her out of a lotus eater-type dream world. Sazh and Dajh also don’t appear until the very end, though reference is made to Sazh by several characters in different time periods, implying he’s on his own journey (he is, in a DLC scenario that I could not play as we only had the base game). Snow is also on a journey to find Lightning, and he temporarily fights alongside the party in a certain time period. He and Serah are still just as devoted to each other, which pleased me. I can’t believe I was actually happy to see him show up.

          Lightning and Hope get somewhat larger roles. Lightning spends most of the story fighting her own battle against Caius in a place out of time to defend Etro; her story is also told in a DLC scenario (that I do not have). Hope, meanwhile, has aged by 13 years since we saw him last, and is now the head of a scientific institute that will endure for 500 years. He even puts himself in a sort of stasis to oversee a project that takes that long to complete. I like adult Hope. It was nice to see him come into his own. Plus, he’s cute.

          I should make an aside regarding Caius, because his story is quite tragic all on its own. Remember that I’ve only played the first four Final Fantasy games aside from this, where the villains are a brick joke (I), an emperor that’s evil because it’s fun (II), a demigod pissed because his immortality was revoked and nobody else thought that was a bad thing (III) and a moon person sealed in a can (IV, which I still haven’t finished). So Caius is perhaps the most human villain I’ve seen in a Final Fantasy game, and everything he did could have been avoided if he’d just listened to the person he loved. Yeul was fine with dying and reincarnating, because it meant she’d never truly have to leave him. Caius’s plan was to stop time so that Yeul would never have to age and die; unfortunately, he chose to stop time at a point where the Yeul in that time period was already dead. So instead of saving his beloved, he cursed himself to an eternity without her. Whoops.

          And since I’ve mentioned it now, let’s talk about the end of the game, why I “almost” like XIII-2 as much as XIII. The heroes lose.

          Caius either tricks Noel into killing him, which Noel had been trying to avoid for literal years, or impales himself on Noel’s sword (the player is given the option of performing the killing blow or not, but it amounts to the same thing), which also kills the Goddess Etro. With the Goddess of Death dead, time stops flowing, and no one can age or be born. Serah, who was given the same life-shortening “gift” that Yeul received, gets one final vision of the future implying that there’s still hope, which kills her. Noel, Hope, and Sazh are left with her body, Vanille and Fang have been extricated from the pillar but are still in stasis, Snow is off god knows where, and Lightning has voluntarily frozen herself in stasis to ride out the end of the world. It’s a shitty situation for everyone involved, including Caius, who now has to face eternity without Yeul, knowing that it’s all his fault.

          There are alternate endings to FFXIII-2, but I didn’t have the energy to go through and achieve them after seeing the true ending, which I did first. The biggest saving grace of this was that it ended with a “to be continued”, implying there would be a Final Fantasy XIII-3.

          There are arguments to be made in film and other mediums whether a bad ending spoils the whole product. In this case, I don’t think it does. The game is a solid sequel, I just wish the ending could have been a happy one for these characters I care so much about. On the plus side, though, this game featured a return of the combat system I loved, coupled with a fun time travel mechanic. I got exactly what I wanted from this game in terms of a sequel to XIII, and I got to see (most of) the characters I had grown to love again. Ultimately, it’s the downer ending that makes FFXIII-2 a bit lower on the list than FFXIII for me. XIII could be its own contained story, meaning that the sequels are optional, and just fun additions. The story of XIII-2 doesn’t conclude in XIII-2, which is always going to be frustrating. I’m still glad I spent the time to play it.