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monkey-network · 5 years ago

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Good Stuff Ultimate: 1st Quarter

2020 has certainly left us already crawling for next year, but I say we shouldn’t leave all the good things behind. Time for a lightning roundup, no holds barred! 3. 2.. 1…

Kipo and the Age of Wonderbeasts

I couldn’t help but describe this as “Baby’s First Fantasy Adventure” like The Dragon Prince. It looks good, colorful, imaginative enough, but nothing about the story or characters pushed me to watch past episode 3 because I’ve no doubt seen stuff like this before but more interesting. It’s a good watch no doubt, but hardly groundbreaking to me. (Grade: C+)

The Owl House

Now this was more my speed. I definitely enjoyed the various designs of monsters and average Boiling Isle citizens far more. Eda immediately became my favorite witch character. While it reminded me a little too much of Gravity Falls, I was honestly hooked for more than just it’s otherwise eye opening demonic aesthetics. (Grade: B+)

Dorohedoro

Now THIS is a post apocalyptic series I’ve been waiting for in a while. Q really put together a world worth checking out, seeing its nooks and crannies, while giving us characters worth exploring with at every angle. She especially does a great job manga-wise where the black and white makes the edgy details pop in a meaningful way. The anime itself is just as good. Brought down by some wonky action scenes and movements, but the blend of 2D and 3D worked better than the Beastars anime. (Grade: A)

Keep Your Hands Off the Eizouken!

Talked about it plenty of times before, but this is that series that just speaks for itself, manga and anime. Smooth pacing, no contrived drama bullshit, hardly leaves any loose ends, easily accessible for anyone. It's the DMC5 of anime, meaning it is the most 'anime' anime I've seen thus far. (Grade: A++)

Duncanville

Surprisingly not a wack family sitcom. The characters are what really sell the comedy, except for Duncan himself who’s not terrible but isn’t great as the star of the show, especially compared to his mom; and it’s weird cuz they share the same VA. Plus it’s actually well animated and stylized compared to the average Family Guy knockoff. It’s worth a check out in my book. (Grade: B)

Thundercats Roar

Oh wow, a nostalgia cartoon reboot that everyone will argue over but at the end of the day, is about as average as it gets. While I can appreciate the animation when it gets dynamic during its action scenes, I came out every episode remembering nothing and moving on. If I wanted a half hour centered around safe memes or forgettable punchlines, I would’ve subscribed to Jimmy Kimmel or ankle-beez by now. (Grade: C)

Harley Quinn series

This was a left fielder for me; the trailer gave a far different impression than expected. I can definitely appreciate how they treated not only Harley’s character, her relationship with Joker vs Ivy, but the rouge gallery of DC villains and heroes. What other DC product got me to love King Shark as much as this? Plus, Harley x Ivy are the OTP, but I appreciate them giving Kite Man some respect. (Grade: A-)

Birds of Prey

I didn’t mind the movie, but it lacked that dry punch that Harley’s series gave me. It was kinda the reason why I’ve seen people say Harley was becoming DC’s Deadpool type. even when Harley was a good star of the film. Didn’t help that Black Canary and Huntress were the only other characters I liked, and I don’t wanna get into the implicating homophobia. I want to say Sionis was great, but he doesn’t work when you have both the villain and protagonist be unhinged. All in all, I’ll give it the same score I gave Deadpool 1. (Grade: C+)

Dolittle (2020)

The movie’s climax was a long dragon fart and I wanted to die. (Grade: D)

Sonic the Hedgehog (2020)

A live action video game movie about an animated character. Let me put it like this: references and fanservice is not substance, taking place in the human populace does not help the escapism, reminding me that Olive Garden sucks ass is not funny, and only being half animated is cock and ball torture. If I don’t care for realism in my video games, this DOESN’T help. It has a couple good moments, but this is mostly unimaginative, by the book, and not worth going back to. Works as a Flash movie, I guess. (Grade: C-)

Sonic Rebuilt

Sincerely the chad Sonic film of this year. Even when it’s a reanimated version of the 90s film, the creativity every artist applies for their respective scene brings better life to the original film like with Shrek Retold. Yeah, there’s live action segments in it, but it’s part of the gag not a crux of the film’s visuals. It isn’t fully original since they use the original’s voice work and music, but everyone involved gave a genuinely good spin on the pretty overlooked feature. Plus it has a Sonic that gets shit done and has the better voice. (Grade: A-)

Ishuzoku Reviewers

Kono anime wa igaito shinsendesu. Bōru o korogashi tsudzukeru hōhō o shitte imashita. Sore wa yoi owarai de, kesshite mumide wa arimasendeshita. Itsumo mitakatta ano etchina shirīzudeshita. (Grade: A-)

Meggy’s Destiny

The plot has its low points, but this is still an entertaining short film. The characters were what kept the ball rolling and the ending was that coup de gras on the main character’s overall story arc. (Grade: B+)

Trolls World Tour

This film works better than the first to me mainly because we can focus on Trolls and their musical world rather than the Bergens who didn’t offer much. The plot is simple, but it being a multi-genre musical kept me hooked. The finale especially was that cherry on top of this bouncy film. Also Poppy is still the best. (Grade: B+)

Glitch Techs

It stands to say Men in Black meets Captain N and Pixels works well as a premise for a show, and this certainly delivered by actually being ANIMATED. I’m sorry, but can corporations soon understand that premises and ideas that work better with animation stop trying to make it live action? Also, it brought Fanboy and Chum Chum back from the dead, and that is a worthwhile achievement. (Grade: A)

Doom Eternal and Animal Crossing: New Horizons

They’re honestly the same game from what I got to play. AC was a little more stressful than Doom, especially with managing my stalks, but they were both nonetheless an all around great time so they get the same score. (Grade: A)

Steven Universe Future

Had some shit episodes, had some delightfully fun episodes, and had a half shit/half delightful finale. Pretty on par for Steven Universe but I say it’s elevated above most of the original series with the grown Steven himself. Much as I wish his character was dealt with better, I was still invested in his story nonetheless even when the fixed perspective honestly fucked over most else in this series. It’s far better than season 5, not as good as seasons 1 & 2. So yeah, I liked it and I’m gonna miss this show. (Grade: B-)

Onward

The ending doesn’t make up for a pretty middle of the road film. If I wanted a film about familiar bonding in a goofy fantasy world, I could’ve just watched A Goofy Movie. The world feels creative enough, but it’s like Pixar has been losing their touch or mostly peaked when it comes to imaginative premises. I’m hoping Soul can bounce ‘em back cuz while this isn’t the worst, certainly didn’t feel like their best. (Grade: C+)

【ＡＮＤ　ＴＨＡＴ＇Ｓ　ＴＩＭＥ！】

Well that’s all for the first quarter of 2020. Quite above average all around, certainly some worthwhile things to keep your busy while this pandemic is upon us, except Dolittle. Were there any that I missed? Probably. Let’s see where the 2nd quarter provides as we carry on into the Spring months.

Stay safe out there, and see you in June.

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aro-aizawa · 5 years ago

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alright so i finished up playing all of pokemon shield including the post-game mini plot, so here’s a quick fire list of all the things i liked about it and disliked about it before i go on to explain it in more depth (also spoiler warning). here we go.

what i liked:

the graphics, a little weaker in handheld form but largely unnoticeable unless you were looking for it. GREAT graphics when playing on tv mode.

the new pokemon. they were all really cute, and i especially loved the alternate forms and new evolutions of older gen pokemon.

opal, she’s hands down one of my favourite gym leaders so far only shortly followed by bede.

bede is a nonbinary icon as proven by the fact that they didn’t use any pronouns to refer to them until after the fourth gym, and the fact that when they’re in their gym uniform its trans flag colour. it may not be canon, but its canon in my heart.

gym battles are treated as they should be -- huge spectacles that gets people amped the hell up.

dynamaxing. its so goddamn satisfying to finish off a gym battle with your best pokemon as a fucking giant behind you, no matter their actual size. tiny pyukumuku behind you? badass. huge ass wailord? bad. ass. an actual baby pokemon? bad. ASS.

the wild area. introducing camping was a good system, it definitely helped a lot when you couldn’t exactly jump back to a pokemon center so you cook your pokemon some curry to revive and heal them. i imagine they took some inspiration from breath of the wild, tho i haven’t played it to really confirm.

what i didn’t like:

they cut so many corners in the game, you can definitely tell it was made in a hurry.

a minor note here, but for me i have this annoying bug that makes it so some pokemon have the exact same cry. its a sort of whooshing noise that you’d expect for a flying type pokemon, but it frequently appeared instead of well known and familiar cries. i can’t pin down exactly what the cause of this is, or if i’m hearing things wrong, but it was infuriating.

the towns are empty and barely even give you flavor text anymore. you might as well not speak to any npcs except shop keepers and named characters.

there is exactly three cute outfits and three cute hairstyles and that’s about it. i know a lot of this point is mostly about personal taste but please nintendo, we had such a good range in the previous game.

don’t explore. there is literally no point in looking in all the nooks and crannies of this game, because i guarantee that if the game doesn’t tell you to go there, then there’s nothing there.

it’s too easy. it’s....actually crazy that i’m even putting this as a point, because i’m a strict believer in making games playable for everyone. but it’s just....too much.

the cut down pokedex will forever inject salt right into my veins. especially when they had the audacity to include one of the first starter pokemon, but not the other two. charizard is an okay pokemon but its overrated, nintendo please accept that.

the plot didn’t exist until suddenly it did and then it made no sense.

i hate the fact that the team in this game were just delegated to fans. i understand the whole “fake out” thing they might have been going for by getting the player to think that they’d turn out to be bad, but no. it just sucks.

fucking. swordward and shieldbert. i???? literally. have no. words. (i do but they’re super long so hmmm down below)

a game worth about £20 ($25) less than i paid for it. its a decent quality game, but not nearly nintendo quality.

wow this post is longer than i expected it to be already. but anyways, the rest is super long and under the cut further going into depth about the points i raised.

to start with, i’ll talk about the good points because honestly?? i really wanted to love this game. i really really did. maybe it was just the fact that at first i didn’t like sun and moon because they changed the formula so much, but it turned out to become my favourite game in the series. or maybe it was just that i don’t like being hypercritical of things i spent fifty fucking pounds on. either way, i wanted to like the game, and overall i sort of did but i sort of didn’t. lots of mixed feelings. anyways. onto explaining the good stuff. (or you can skip to “now on w the bad junk” for the bad stuff)

1. the graphics, a little weaker in handheld form but largely unnoticeable unless you were looking for it. GREAT graphics when playing on tv mode.

one of my favourite things about the pokemon series in recent times is seeing the process from 2d undetailed sprites to 3d incredibly detailed models. the most ambitious thing about gen 5 was the way the camera moved with your movements as you crossed the bridge, and now i just sometimes sit back and thing “wow 13 year old me would FLIP if she could see how good they got”. bc i kept just....admiring all the graphics and the quality of them.

2. the new pokemon. they were all really cute, and i especially loved the alternate forms and new evolutions of older gen pokemon.

definitely one of my favourite things about the game was seeing the new forms of pokemon we already knew and the alternate forms they’d take when dynamaxed. i love seeing pokemon with new types that completely flip the script, like darumaka becoming an ice type instead of a fire type. or the fact that they gave mr mime a galaran form and it actually doesn’t look bad.

i really loved that some of the galaran forms had unique evolutions, such as linoone evolving into obstagoon. or meowth into perrserker. it makes sense and i’m always super happy to see new evolutions for old pokemon, it keeps things interesting when pokemon other than eevee get new evolutions.

(tho that being said, still disappointed there’s still not another eeveelution. still holding out hope for that ghost type.)

3. opal, she’s hands down one of my favourite gym leaders so far only shortly followed by bede.

i’m not super well versed in the pokemon universe besides from gen 1 and gen 5 onwards (if you couldn’t tell), but its really refreshing to have an old gym leader that’s visibly elderly rather that just grey haired maybe retiree man. her personality was also really fun, it sort of felt like she literally had the most personality of all the gym leaders, which kind of sucked but it made me really love her character.

and bede i didn’t wholly expect to really like as much as i did? i mayhaps might have spoiled myself a little on their gym leader status by dipping into the swsh tag here on tumblr before i fully completed the game. but still, they seemed just generally really annoyingly stuck up? but something endeared me to the darl and i just think it mostly had to do w the fact that opal took one look at them and declared they was her grandchild now.

4. bede is a nonbinary icon as proven by the fact that they didn’t use any pronouns to refer to them until after the fourth gym, and the fact that when they’re in their gym uniform its trans flag colour. it may not be canon, but its canon in my heart.

argue with me on this point all you like, but you can’t deny the fact that in CANON they literally did not use any pronouns to refer to bede until after the fourth gym. the only mention of pronouns before that was their trainer card, which i did not check because good character development should be shown not told through an impersonal medium such as character cards.

5. gym battles are treated as they should be -- huge spectacles that gets people amped the hell up.

i’ve always loved the way the league is set up, because it makes sense. the pokemon formula works and its interesting, but in previous games most people only vaguely acknowledge it as something every kid tries but doesn’t really complete. it’s already set up people love pokemon battles, there just wasn’t a spectator sport about it unless in the anime or movies. they’re just a thing that happens that none of the npcs care about.

finally its treated like the spectator sport that it should be. like,,, hell yeah,,,

(also do you think that in the pokemon universe there’s various stories/tv shows about made up kids completing the league and becoming champions? because i definitely do.)

6. dynamaxing. its so goddamn satisfying to finish off a gym battle with your best pokemon as a fucking giant behind you, no matter their actual size. tiny pyukumuku behind you? badass. huge ass wailord? bad. ass. an actual baby pokemon? bad. ASS.

i p much summed up most of my thoughts in this point well. but i love when pokemon are so visibly powerful. like these creatures have powers that we’d equate to actual gods like summoning whole storms, creating giant waves, create earthquakes and so much more. pokemon are so powerful and to see them become giant and have so much weight and power? its so satisfying controlling that and bringing down other giant pokemon.

7. the wild area. introducing camping was a good system, it definitely helped a lot when you couldn’t exactly jump back to a pokemon center so you cook your pokemon some curry to revive and heal them. i imagine they took some inspiration from breath of the wild, tho i haven’t played it to really confirm.

i really appreciated the change that started in pokemon let’s go with some pokemon being visible and easy to encounter wandering through the grass. it makes it so much easier to search for the one pokemon that you don’t have in your pokedex yet, or if you’re looking for a specific pokemon to join your team.

i love how large and expansive the wild area is, and with the camping system you can just explore and fill out your pokedex without ever leaving if you’re fully stocked up on supplies. it makes you really believe the whole “yep this kid isn’t just blasting through the whole thing in one day”. kids sleep in tents on their journey with their pokemon and cook curry for them all. adds a nice level of immersion and convenience.

jesus fuck this is so long and i haven’t even gotten to my criticisms yet, is anybody actually reading this chunk of text??? well rip to you my friend and thank you. but now on w the bad junk.

1. they cut so many corners in the game, you can definitely tell it was made in a hurry.

they did a decent job considering it was in development for only two years w one only for the concept and the second actually making it. but they cut so many corners it doesn’t quite feel like a true installment into the pokemon universe. it feels like it was made by another dev studio rather than gamefreak. like how fallout new vegas and fallout 3 barely feel like the two installments in the same franchise.

this point sort of leads into many different points that i raised, so i’ll explain those a little bit more in depth there. but to sum it up, the easiest way to see it is just how...flat things are. if you only pay attention to the things the game directs you to, then you will not miss a single thing. flavor text is less about adding depth to the world and more just...pointless. it adds. nothing.

and in the post game when sonia gets a new assistant, even though she plays a fairly important part in the post-game plot, she doesn’t get a name nor a unique character model. she get’s a generic doctor model yet it’s treated like we should feel betrayed that nameless npc 234 went behind sonia’s back and stole from her.

OH! and i almost forgot!!!! but that one part where rose is trying to talk leon into something “mysterious”??? they straight up just used images!!!! like,,,, what???? you didn’t have time to program the minimal animations for that?? who’s fault is that for pushing the release!!! give your employees time to work at a decent pace and not crunch them to reach an impossible goal. game freak, you don’t have to release a game every november.

2. a minor note here, but for me i have this annoying bug that makes it so some pokemon have the exact same cry. its a sort of whooshing noise that you’d expect for a flying type pokemon, but it frequently appeared instead of well known and familiar cries. i can’t pin down exactly what the cause of this is, or if i’m hearing things wrong, but it was infuriating.

also p much just explain this in the point. BUT it happened all. the. time. the only pokemon i know for sure was effected by the bug was gyarados, because instead of the roaring cry i heard the whooshing sound that was probably meant to be another pokemon’s cry. it sounds wack when im saying it rn bc im not 100% convinced i wasn’t making this up, but it was the sole reason i turned the pokemon cries to get drowned out by the music and sound effects.

3. the towns are empty and barely even give you flavor text anymore. you might as well not speak to any npcs except shop keepers and named characters.

i touched on this previously in 1 but basically walking around a town and talking to npcs will not get you any interesting dialog. going into the houses/rooms, and you’ll only get one npc who’s all like “i’m brushing my hair!” and that’s about it. there aren’t any items tucked away in houses or corners of buildings for you to explore or battle people. when you acknowledge that there’s no flavor text from npcs all the towns feel practically empty whereas in the previous games it actually alive.

not to mention how little the diaglog changes? like it may just be my faulty memory at play but im pretty sure that the npcs in the previous games had more dynamic dialog in which they’d change what they said depending on your action in the town or for the plot. after a major event just happened, if you walked around and talked to everyone in that area they’d talk about it. but that happened like....once.

4. there is exactly three cute outfits and three cute hairstyles and that’s about it. i know a lot of this point is mostly about personal taste but please nintendo, we had such a good range in the previous game.

one thing i loved about the series was the increasing freedom in customisation of trainers. fashion kept getting wider and with more variety, clothes that were still cute and i’d frequently have about 2k because i just kept buying them. by the end of my playthrough of swsh i had almost a million saved up because i didn’t like most of the clothing options. i found one outfit and hairstyle i liked a quarter of the way through the game and stuck with it until the end. they drastically cut down on the options, and that sucked.

5. don’t explore. there is literally no point in looking in all the nooks and crannies of this game, because i guarantee that if the game doesn’t tell you to go there, then there’s nothing there.

again, already touched on this point but one example i know is this. when you go to the energy plant to battle rose, or go to the roof to battle eternus, i expected to go back to it when the event was over to see if something was left behind or because i’d been locked in a cutscene and unable to explore before, that meant there would be something now. but nope. don’t bother. even when you think you might be able to do something fun, don’t try until the game points you in that direction itself. if something interesting is going to happen in the game, i assure you they will point it out for you.

6. it’s too easy. it’s....actually crazy that i’m even putting this as a point, because i’m a strict believer in making games playable for everyone. but it’s just....too much.

hard games disinterest me. if a game is renowned for it’s difficulty, then i will avoid it. i don’t care if defeating dark souls is a badge of honor for your stubbornness or skill. i simply don’t enjoy playing a game that makes me want to quit in frustration because i am not good at video games. i appreciated how easy the games have been in recent years because it makes it a lot easier for me to actually complete them and enjoy them, it’s why i have trouble getting into the earlier gens of pokemon.

but when it got to the point where after only about an hour or two of dynamax farming, by the time that i got round to the championships i was literally one shotting every single pokemon. even when i didn’t have super effective moves. i was almost 20 levels ahead of the competition, and blasted through the whole thing in a total of 10 minutes battle time and 30 minutes dialog and cutscene time, with a 20 minute pause for a phone call.

i defeated leon with only very minimal struggle. i couldn’t one shot all his pokemon, i will admit. i two shotted them. i went into the championship fully stocked up on potions and revival items and left with all of them. none of my pokemon fainted or even sustained major damage.

while satisfying feeling that you’re op enough to utterly annihilate your opponents, there comes a point where it’s just “why bother i know i’ll win” which kind of sucks.

7. the cut down pokedex will forever inject salt right into my veins. especially when they had the audacity to include one of the first starter pokemon, but not the other two. charizard is an okay pokemon but its overrated, nintendo please accept that.

sorry to charizard fans, but please acknowledge that it’s overrated. its design is basic, and already has multiple different forms. the fact that they passed over the opportunity for the creativity that dynamax venusaur or blastoise could give, for another basic dragon design is so annoying.

not to even mention the fact that they didn’t even bother to keep the rest of the starter pokemon either. i vaguely remember one time some nintendo employee or big shot saying that the best thing about it is that every pokemon is at least one person’s favourite. the underused or underloved pokemon will always be ONE person’s favourite, and that’s why you can get the whole pokedex. but y’know fuck that philosophy in the name of getting the game out on time. when they could have very easily pushed the release date back. i’m lucky that most of my faves got included but i know that a fair amount did not. and i’m pissed.

8. the plot didn’t exist until suddenly it did and then it made no sense.

9. i hate the fact that the team in this game were just delegated to fans. i understand the whole “fake out” thing they might have been going for by getting the player to think that they’d turn out to be bad, but no. it just sucks.

these two go so hand in hand, that i’m taking the time to address them together considering in every single previous game so far the team has had some HEAVY influence on the plot in one way or another. they’re always linked to the legendary pokemon of the game and they’re always included in the overarching plot, either by driving the player to act or subtly there.

i kept seeing team yell show up and trying to work out how they were going to join the plot. were they a cult doing Science Shit in the background trying to revive the legendaries? was marnie the leader of this cult and going through the league to distract people from her totally devious going-ons? or would it turn out that marnie though the team harmless but really it was a front for her relative’s secret cult?

nope!!! they were annoying roadblocks who added literally nothing to the plot.

and when i realised that, it was the seventh gym battle and so far the only plot i’d glimpsed at was the mysterious explosions in hammerlocke city and the overarching tale of the sword and shield that had been obvious since literally the first time sonia started to talk about it. there had been no plot. there was literally no plot other than the gym battles which sonia and leon specifically called out to “leave this to the grownups, you two just focus on the gym challenge”.

and when i got my eighth badge and was completing the equivalent of the elite four, i was still confused as FUCK because where the hell was the plot???? and then the whole weird ass “we have to save leon” from a meeting with.....a chairman? how about you wait just an hour jfc it’s not that bad? he’s not being held against his will? the chairman wasn’t doing anything obviously evil or even hinted at?

the whole thing was vague and rose’s motivation was just ??????? i don’t know???? i still don’t exactly know what the whole deal was. it came out of nowhere and made. no. sense. it had completely lost me. along with the fact that they were suddenly introducing dynamax raids like we hadn’t already been doing that so many times in the wild area????

which leads me to my next point.....sigh.

10. fucking. swordward and shieldbert. i???? literally. have no. words. (i do but they’re super long so hmmm down below)

first things first, is that i hate everything about these characters. from their names, to their designs, to their motivations, to how they’re handled in canon. it was shitty and while i had fun playing with the whole “this is what a champion does after they beat the previous one” thing, it was just in general really bad.

like, i cannot get over how shitty their designs were. their hair was literally a sword and a shield. i kept thinking “wow swordward has a penis head that wiggles when he moves” and couldn’t take a single thing he said seriously. i literally wanted to weep at the horrible character design.

not to mention the suddenness of their whole schtick. “yeah we’re royalty and we’re “”””CELEBRITIES”””” even if none of you have heard of us”. like what????? the fuck????

it just sort of pisses me off to an astronomical degree that this low quality shit was jammed into a pokemon game when they were getting so good at storytelling. it felt like game freak were hammering me with a club while singing “YOU PAID 50 WHOLE POUNDS FOR THIS IN PARTICULAR!!!” like,,,, thanks. thank you. thank you for waiting until after i’d finished the game to really hammer home that point.

which somewhat leads me to my last point that really just sums up the majority of my thoughts on the whole game:

11. a game worth about £20 ($25) less than i paid for it. its a decent quality game, but not nearly nintendo quality.

if i knew what i knew about the game know, i wouldn’t pay fifty fucking pounds for it. it physically pains me to spend more than £30 in one sitting, that i actually winced while i was buying it even though i was being 100% optimistic that i was going to love it. at most i’d pay £30 for it, but only then. it’s a good game to really distract you and power through but other than that, i don’t see it as a game i’m going to come back to so i can complete the pokedex and i certainly am not going to buy the other game so i can play it again unlike how i’ve done in the past with my favourite installments.

maybe i’m just picky, or i don’t buy games often enough, but i really would not classify this as a quality installment in the pokemon franchise. if you get a free copy, or just the opportunity to play it for a few hours then fine it’s a great game. but not quite something you should want to spend your money on. but don’t pirate it. that’s a fast way to get bugs.

to sum this whole mess of a post up: immediately after finishing the game i said to myself “now time to go play a REAL pokemon game” before booting up pokemon moon.

#long post #pokemon sword and shield #pokemon swsh #pokemon #shut up danni #wow this got LONG its literally 4k words #i got a little salty #ooooppps #i really wanted to like this game #i really really did because i hate being negative about pokemon #its one of the few series that i love with barely any faults #but this......this is just painful #i should be thankful on some level because it distracted me from the fact that i was in the process of rehoming my dog #but still there's just....so many things wrong with it.....#sigh #(pls give this post attention it took me an hour and a half to write)

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purplesurveys · 5 years ago

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543

How many times have you ever ridden an elephant? Once, in Bali. I was around 15 and didn’t know any better. I wouldn’t do it again. Do you like cobblers? As far as I know those things have fruit in them, so no. What do you think about Lord of the Rings? Never followed the trilogy; I tried reading it but was BORED out of my mind from the very first book. I do remember having a PS2 game of LOTR and watching my cousins and uncles play – was pretty fun and gave me lots of memories from childhood. What kind of cup did you last drink out of? It was a plastic cup that resembles glass. Do you currently have any cuts or scrapes? Nope.

Did you like Barney as a child? Did I like Barney? Honestly it was all I ever watched as a kid, other than Magic English and repeats of Toy Story and Finding Nemo, hahaha. I think we had all the Barney DVDs, too. What color vacuum do you use? We don’t use a vacuum anymore but we used to own a very big and bulky white one. Do you have a lot of clothes hangers in your house? Yes. Have you ever been in a Latin class? Nope. I never had to take a foreign language elective and I’m also not sure if my school even offers Latin. Have you ever had bubble gum stuck in your hair? Yeah, when I was like 5. Weirdly enough it was easy to remove it, though. Is there any pet hair stuck to your clothing? Right now, no. What do you smell? Nothing significant in particular. Have you ever watched The Gremlins? I have not. What is your favorite type of seashell? I don’t have a favorite; I find them all pretty. Do you love 3-D movies? Waste of money. The movies are just as good when watched in 2D, and you even get to save 100-200 bucks. But ya know, whatever floats your boat. Have you ever used Proactiv? No. Is your cell on charge? It is, but from my laptop because I’m also charging the latter and there’s only one charging port available from where I’m sitting. Do you like dirt or sand better? Sand is fun to play with. When's the last time you had a hamburger? Tuesday. Do you own an iHome? I don’t. Do you own a BEST FRIEND charm or firgurine? No. What do you think about rainbows? I think they’re pretty. I feel nice when I do see them. Are you wearing anything on your head right now? I've put on my hairtie to style my hair in a ponytail. Are you watching cartoons? Not at the moment. Do you own a pet spider? I don’t, and I’ve never had a pet spider. Do you like mouthwash? Idk, I don’t really use it. Have you ever used a Ped-Egg? I have no idea what this is. Do you like Olay products? Nope...I don’t use skincare products, period. Have you ever gone on a cruise? Yep, I have. Do you use green pens? When correcting papers, sure. Do you own anything that has a striped pattern on it? I have shirts that have striped designs. Do you watch Wheel of Fortune? I don’t. They don’t air it here so I don’t really have a reason to want to watch it. Are there any fake tattoos on you? No, I haven’t done this since I was like 14 lol. When's the last time you saw your grandpa? Father’s side, last September. Mother’s side, 2015. Is there a rocking chair in your house? No. Do you call your animals "baby names"? Huh?? What does ‘baby names’ mean? Why does George Lopez say "I GOT THIS!!" in that voice? ??? Do you have homework? Yes but don’t remind me lmao this day is for taking surveys onlyyy. Have you ever gone to a Monster Truck show? No, that sounds really boring for me. Well, have you ever seen the Nutcracker? Nope, but I would love to. Where did you get your bed sheets? Pretty sure my mom got them from a department store. Do you always use manners? Of course. Have you ever been stood up? I don’t think so. Are your lips chapped? No, they aren’t. Have you ever been kicked in the throat? Wow, that’s terrible but no. Do you own a fishtank? I don’t. When is the last time you were sick? I have no idea; I barely get sick. It was sometime in high school, definitely. Do you like the song "Barbie Girl"? Not really, but I don’t actively hate it. What do you usually order from Taco Bell? I get one of their burritos, but tbh I’ve only ever been to Taco Bell twice that I can’t even call their burritos my usual. If you have a cell, is it touch screen? Yes. Do you own a feather boa? No. Are you allergic to peanuts? I am not. Do you wear ribbons in your hair? No, I wouldn’t know how to tie them. I think they’d look pretty on me, though. Did you get into the Livestrong bracelet kick? Never did. How many pictures are on the wall of the room you are in? There’s five pictures and two paintings on my bedroom walls. Do you use cheat codes on video games? I used cheats on my Grand Theft Auto games. Have you ever gone mudding on a fourwheeler? I have not. Is there a rolly chair in your bed room? No. What is your favorite flavor Jolly Rancher? Ugh this survey is such a drag skskksksksk I have not tried Jolly Ranchers ever. Who is your favorite super hero? I don’t like any of them. Who is your favorite Villan? I don’t have a favorite Villan. Have you ever been to a church camp? No that sounds insanely boring. Is there a trampoline in your back yard? There isn’t, and we never had one. Have you ever played Dance Dance Revolution? A few times before at Kaira’s place. I hate dancing though so I usually let my other friends hog the game instead. Have you ever swam in a creek? Nope. Do you enjoy running? When I was younger, sure; that’s why I took up track for a couple of years. Then I found out it wasn’t the sport for me because my endurance is just terrible. How long has it been since you last slept? It’s been around eight or nine hours. What are your thoughts on Myspace? Iconic, I guess, but I was always too young for it. It was dying by the time I joined it. What is the last thing you dropped? My phone charger. How many nickels are in your posession? I don’t have any nickels and I’ve never had. Is the sound on your laptop or computer turned off? Nope, it’s turned on right now. How many items do you have in your "favorites"? You mean my bookmark bar? A ton. I have important links, articles to read, quirky websites I don’t want to forget, and even my own bookmark folder for surveys that I save for future reference hahaha. Would you ever slide down a razor blade slide into a pool full of alcohol? What the fuck. What is the last infomercial you saw? I recently saw a HILARIOUS ad for a local water dispenser that was styled as an infomercial. How many magnets are on your refrigerator? Too many. My dad technically travels for a living and he has always bought magnets from every single city he’s been in. He’s been to every continent except for Africa and Antarctica, I think. How many keychains do you own? I’m not really fond of collecting them. JM did give each of us Ferrari keychains from his recent trip to Singapore for the F1 races, however they’re called. Do you own anything with a peace sign on it? I’m not entirely sure, but I don’t think I do. Have you ever been to Johnny Rocket's? I went there, once. There was a time when Tumblr decided that Johnny Rockets was a cool retro place for the hipsters, so I asked my mom to take us there. Food sucked and was WAY too expensive. How many stuffed animals are in your room? None. Was never into them. Look up, then to the right. What do you see? The wall and a small TV. Have you ever done the "Cupid Shuffle". No. Do you know how to do the Solja Boy dance? I know how, I just won’t dance it lmao. Are you currently being stalked by anyone? As far as I know, no lol. When is the last time you wore shorts? Right now. Do you like elevators or escelators? Escalators. Have you ever layed on a tampur pedic? No. Have you ever been in Karate? No. What color is the nearest lampshade? There aren’t any in this place in the house. Is there anyone in the room with you? I’m in the dining room, but my sister is in the living room which is just super nearby. How long has it been since you've eaten a Reese's? 2-3 weeks ago.

When is the last time you went to Walmart? Never. Do you own any body glitter? I don’t. What brand of hair straightner do you own, if you own one? I don’t have one. What is your favorite brand of chips? PRINGLES What time was it 20 minutes ago? 3:51 PM. When is the last time you pet an animal? A few minutes ago. Do you own anything from Aeropostale? No. Did you have fun with this survey? Meh. Was it random, or no? It was random, but I didn’t know 2/5 of the things that were being talked about and it was almost purely yes or no.

#survey #surveys #tbh don't take this

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tornrose24 · 6 years ago

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What animation rivalries must have been like in 2018

Pixar: Oh gee, another year of possibilities and good old competition! Well, it took us a decade and a half, but we FINALLY released Incredibles 2!

Incredibles and Pixar fans: *screams in delighted joy*

Aardman Animation and Wes Anderson: Who wants more stop motion animation?

Stop motion fans: *are happy*

Studio Laika: We got a movie for you guys next year!

Stop motion fans :*screams of insane happiness•

Disney: Well, as promised, we have our Wreck it Ralph 2 sequel–

Wreck it Ralph fans: *screams in delighted joy•

Disney:–which of course doubles as a huge love letter to ourselves and how we are slowly taking over the world. But hey, we got the Disney princesses in this ones like we–

Disney fans and fans of the Disney Princesses: *louder screams of delighted joy•

Pixar: So Dreamworks, how’re you doing?

Dreamworks Animation: Eh, nothing this year. We wanted to take a break. But we do have new shows on Netflix, including a new She-Ra cartoon–

She-Ra fans new and old: OH MY GOD, YES!

Some dumb hater: Lol your redesigns suck!

She-Ra fans new and old: SHUT UP, JERK FACE!

Dreamworks Animation fans:–A Trolls cartoon–

Trolls fans: *sings songs of joy at top of lungs*

Dreamworks Animation: –We also revived Rocky and Bullwinkle–

Rocky and Bullwinkle fans new and old: *extremely loud cheering•

Dreamworks Animation: Both Trollhunters and Voltron are going to have season finales–

Trollhunters and Voltron fans: *awkward silence*....We are heavily divided on the endings.

Dreamworks Animation: But we are doing part two for Tales of Arcadia with ‘3Below’

Trollhunters fans:*immediately brightens up* NEVER MIND, WE’RE GOOD!

Voltron fans: Well... at least we got a gay marriage at the end. Even if Steven Universe beat us to it.

Dreamworks Animation:–Also we actually had a Captain Underpants cartoon ready this whole time–

Captain Underpants fans: *tears of joy* YES! FINALLY! THANK YOU!

Dreamworks Animation:–and a Boss Baby cartoon!

Everyone: *long awkward silence•

Others: You’re joking, right?

Disney: Well hey, we made OUR small screen fans happy too!

Star vs the Forces of Evil and Ducktales fans: *awkward, confused silence*

Star vs the Forces of Evil:.. What is even happening anymore?

Ducktales fans: I don’t know. We want to be happy.... but... what is even happening anymore? Why are they forcing us on these roller coasters of emotion?

*MEANWHILE at Cartoon network*

Steven Universe fans: Yeah, we are with those guys too. What... what is happening? We had a huge reveal this year and–I DON’T KNOW WHAT TO MAKE OF ANYTHING ANYMORE!

Adventure Time fans: *sigh of bittersweet happiness• Well, it was fun while it lasted. Oh by the way, congrats SU fans for your show featuring the first gay marriage in an animated kids show.

Steven Universe fans: *happy* Aw thanks Adventure Time fans!

*BACK TO THE MAIN FEATURE*

Cartoon network: HEY! WE GOT AN ANIMATED MOVIE FOR TEEN TITANS!  Everyone: *groans in annoyance•

*LATER*

Most everyone: It was... actually ok?

Sony: Hey guys! To make up for our crappy movie from last year, we got another Hotel Transylvania 3!

Many people: *groans in annoyance*

Hotel Transylvania fans: We have a new ship for our harbors. :D

Warner Bros: So we got one more year until the Lego Movie 2 right? Well we got this movie ‘Smallfoot’ in which HUMANS are the mythical creatures–

Many people: *more groans of annoyance*

*ALSO LATER*

Most everyone: Well ok, I guess it wasn’t bad.

Others: ZENDAYA! OUR BEAUTIFUL GODESS! Hallelujah!

Sony: We also have worked on Marvel to make a new animated Spiderman film.

EVERYONE: HOLY S***!/NO WAY!/IT LOOKS AWESOME!/YAY!/MILES MOARLES SPIDERMAN!/NICE!/JOHN MULANEY!!!/ETC.

Marvel fans: *see’s Peter Parker’s death date in trailer being 2018. Recalls what happened a month before the film’s release and smiles to the heavens.* Excelsior.

Disney: Well Illumination, what do YOU have to compete with us on November? Another crappy Minions sequel?

Illumination: So we decided to adapt How the Grinch stole Christmas.

*Most everyone stares in horror*

Some: No.

Most: Oh no.

Those who remember 2012: OH GOD, NOT AGAIN! NOT AGAIN! I HAD TO TAKE THERAPY TO RECOVER FROM–

Live action Grinch fans: *laughs* Yeah, good luck with that!

Illumination: Well, we actually learned our lesson this time. Also, we refuse to abuse Max in our take, because that’s just mean. We actually stayed faithful to the story AND included the title character... unlike YOU Disney with your live action Nutcracker film!

Everyone: Yeah, what the hell Disney?

Disney: Uh... Oh look we brought back 2D animation for ‘Mary Poppins Returns’! *runs away while everyone is distracted*

Dreamworks Animation: Oh yeah, actually we are releasing the last How to Train your Dragon movie next year.

HTTYD fans: *screams of joy drown everything out*

Pixar: Well, I guess that’s that. Hopefully we won’t get any weird entries for the Oscars or the Golden Globes like last time.

Oscar judges: D’oh ho ho. We’re a bunch of old geezers that only nominate the most talked about or what appeals to us as adults! We don’t give a crap about animated films that try to deviate from the norm with toys or have unique animation designs! Certainly not like– *notices two groups of royally pissed off fans of two specific films that ESPECIALLY got denied certain nominations in 2018.*

Lego Batman Movie fans: You guys suck! You nominated f***ing Boss Baby over OUR movie?! ESPECIALLY over Lego Batman movie, which scored higher than most DC films thanks to the obviously smarter critics and fans?!

Captain Underpants fans: Seriously, what the hell?! Do you have any idea how much both our movies getting nominated could have meant for the animation community as well as for the kids watching them?! ESPECIALLY considering the themes and representations OUR film supports?!

Oscar judges: Oh please! Like we want to tarnish our reputation by allowing a film involving actual toys or a grown man in his underwear join the ranks of our considerations–

*both groups proceed to attack judges*

Pixar: Well, here’s to another year of animation!

Toy Story fans/Everyone else: Toy Story 4 better not suck, Pixar! We were happy with it ending on the third one, so you better not screw this up!

Pixar: Err.... sure... *laughs nervously*

Hopefully 2019 will be a good year for animation. And I’m sorry if I didn’t list all the animations of 2018. There was too much to keep track of.

…..

…Oh yeah, wasn’t there also a sequel to that film about those garden gnomes?

…..

….Like I said, too much to keep track of.

#animation #disney #pixar #dreamworks animation #warner bros #sony #too much to keep track of #no seriously there's too many titles listed #and i'm too lazy to write out all the movie titles #marvel

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metalandmagi · 6 years ago

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August Media Madness

Well, August may have sucked for me personally, but that doesn’t mean I didn’t keep track of all the media I consumed this month! And spoiler alert, I watched a lot of movies involving adorable talking bears. Although, I have a feeling that as soon as the fall television premieres start, I’ll be watching a lot less movies.

July’s media

Movies!

Dear Evan Hansen

Thank you bootlegs. This isn’t a movie, but I didn’t want to make a separate category for plays when I’ve only seen one this month. Anyway, if you haven’t heard of it, Dear Evan Hansen involves an incredibly anxious teenage boy who is tasked by his therapist to write motivational letters to himself. Unfortunately, Connor Murphy, an angsty boy who goes to Evan’s school sees one of the letters, takes it, and promptly decides to kill himself, with the letter still on his person. Everyone ends up thinking he and Evan were friends and that this letter was a suicide note that Connor wrote to Evan...and a beautiful fake gay relationship friendship was born. Call me basic as hell, but I’ve watched this show twice now, and listened to the soundtrack more times than I can count, and it’s turning into my favorite musical. There are so many important messages in it, and it takes you on a roller coaster of emotions. Every character does good and bad things, and no one is blameless or innocent...except maybe Zoe Murphy. If anything just listen to the soundtrack. 10/10

Night on the Galactic Railroad

Cats...on a mystical train...This seems like the kind of movie they would show you in film school. Very dull plot and characters with the themes being the main takeaway. What even is the plot of this movie? Darker, grittier, furry version of the Polar Express? Incredibly boring slightly more religious version of Over the Garden Wall? I just kept watching it because the main character looks like a cat version of Kagayama Tobio in middle school...cat-gayama. 4/10

Paddington

An adorable bear from South America travels to London and gets into all sorts of trouble with an English family. It’s very charming and sweet, and the aesthetic in this movie is on point, like Wes Anderson directed a children’s movie. This is one of those movies you hear about where everyone loves it, and you think it can’t possibly be that good, but then you watch it and you were wrong! So wrong! 10/10

Paddington 2

Naturally. This time an adorable South American bear goes to prison, and his family tries to clear his name. Again, A+ aesthetic and imagery, but I think I preferred the plot of the first movie a little more because everyone was all together. 9/10

Christopher Robin

Do you like Winnie the Pooh? Do you like jaded adults finding happiness in their lives again? Do you think the movie Hook had a good premise but was extremely long and kinda boring and could have been a better movie with a little tweaking? Well this is the movie for you! Christopher Robin has grown into an overworked adult, and his old friend Winnie the Pooh inadvertently helps him reconnect with his wife and daughter (and also his inner child) just by being the sweet, clumsy, dry humored bear we all know and love. I was so skeptical of this movie at first, and I was absolutely blown away by how funny and meaningful it was. 100/10

The Road to El Dorado

Two lovable Spanish con men named Miguel and Tulio are accidentally swept away on a journey to the fabled city of El Dorado, where everything is made of gold. Once they reach the city, the locals believe they’re gods due to an (un)fortunate series of coincidences, and the con men try to keep up the charade with the help of the best character in the movie, Chel (who I’m pretty sure caused an entire generation of lesbians’ sexual awakening). This is one of my favorite animated movies of all time and one of the reasons I wish Dreamworks would go back to their 2D animation days, where the visuals and music were just as stunning as 3D movies are now. This movie is a classic, and I desperately want a sequel! 10/10

To All The Boys I’ve Loved Before

When Lara Jean thinks it’s a good idea to write 5 secret love letters to 5 boys that she’s had crushes on over the years, everything is fine until her little sister mails the letters to all the boys (because even a 6th grader knows Lara Jean is lonely and emotionally stunted as fuck). This is a Netflix original movie that was adapted from the book by Jenny Han...which I haven’t read, but now I really want to. Overall, this was super cute, but I wasn’t really crazy about the boys. They weren’t horrible people or anything, and they never pressured Lara Jean or made fun of her for being “innocent”, but they were just kind of bland. I’m much more interested in the other boys we didn’t see in the movie! But the family relationships were so heartfelt, Lara Jean’s fashion sense is AMAZING, and the acting/casting was awesome. 8/10

Summer Wars

I...don’t even know how to describe the plot of this one. A teenage boy named Kenji goes on a country holiday and pretends to date an acquaintance of his in order to impress her enormous family...but it’s really about an AI that becomes sentient and wants to mess up the world through this universal internet program called OZ that’s kind of like a mashup of Facebook and Second Life...but actually no it’s about family sticking together and using a Japanese card game to save the world…but apparently it’s got the same plot as the Digimon movie because they’re both directed by Mamoru Hosoda. Yeah...

Guys, I have a confession to make...this has always been my favorite Mamoru Hosoda movie. Everyone falls all over themselves saying Wolf Children is the best Mamoru Hosoda movie, and that’s great for them but it doesn’t even come in second for me. Summer Wars means a lot more to me personally because I come from a big extended family, and when I first saw this movie, I was blown away by how accurate the family dynamic was. There are so many characters, but everyone has their own personality. Not to mention the music makes the summer atmosphere so on point. And I’m not going to lie...I bawled like a fucking baby the first time I saw this movie. So anyway, I like Summer Wars more than Wolf Children, thanks for coming to my TED talk. 10/10

Atlantis: The Lost Empire

Unappreciated researcher Milo Thatch goes on an expedition to find the lost city of Atlantis.

Okay, there are two kinds of Disney fans in this world: Treasure Planet fans, and Atlantis fans. And I will support Treasure Planet as the best underrated vaguely steampunk inspired Disney movie until you can pry my 15 year old dvd copy away from my cold dead hands. But Atlantis is pretty good too. I could write essays comparing the two and why both of them should be successful but weren’t. My main problem with it is that the characters are great, but I feel like we don’t see enough of them, and as a kid a lot of the humor went by so fast that I completely missed it. Also the glowing eyes and spirits taking over the Atlantian princess’s body freaked me the fuck out as a child. NEVERTHELESS! This really is a great movie, with extremely well developed lore and well designed characters that chills me to this day. 8/10

Deadpool 2

The merc with a mouth is back, and man there’s so much going on in this movie I won’t even try to explain the plot. I literally had to go back and add this in because I was so into this movie when I was watching it that I forgot to write it down! Even though I really liked this sequel, I think I liked the first one better, just based on how much I laughed. There was so much going on plot wise, but it really seemed to work for this movie. There were also a lot of great new characters (Domino is my favorite character of the franchise now), but since there was so much stuff going on, a lot of jokes and plot lines were sort of hit and miss. Anyway, I’m sure everyone’s seen this one by now but just in case, I highly recommend it. 9/10

Books!

The Adventure Zone Graphic Novel: Here There be Gerblins by Clint McElroy (technically all the McElboys) and Carey Pietsch

Yeah yeah, for anyone who doesn’t know I’m Adventure Zone trash okay. TAZ is a DnD podcast where 3 brothers and their father create one of the most famous campaigns in history involving three idiot adventurers going on a quest to find a missing person and getting sucked into a much larger grand plan to protect the world. This graphic novel is a visualization of the first arc. I don’t even really like Here There be Gerblins all that much, and yet here I am. Oh well, the art was amazing, and of course I already knew the story. But it was kind of hilarious to see the name changes they had to make to some of the characters and places. I was a little disappointed that the ending was so rushed, and we don’t really spend time around the moon base before The Director is in our face changing the Lunar Interlude parts but whatever. 10 dead gerblins/10

The Darkest Minds by Alexandra Bracken

When a disease that only affects children kills off nearly all the kids on the planet, the survivors are left with supernatural powers and are taken away to concentration camps in order to “protect” the public. I’ve been wanting to read this for a long time, and since the movie just came out I thought it was the perfect time. This is one of those books that some people adore and some people hate. I thought it was just okay. For everything that I didn’t like, there was something to make up for it. Personally, I felt that Bracken focused on the wrong part of the story. Everything takes place years after this disease has come, and I think it would have been more interesting to see everything from the children’s points of view when this disease was first starting. I would focus on each different character as a child and how they wound up in their respective camps. Oh well, there’s way too many pros and cons that I could delve into, but you like the YA dystopian genre then I say go for it. I didn’t like it enough to read the other two books (not yet anyway). 7/10

TV Shows!

Camp Camp

You know how there are summer camps that specialize in science, or acting, or space, or whatever? Yeah Camp Camp is about a summer camp that throws literally everything you can think of into one summer camp. If you don’t believe me, just listen to the theme song. Seriously though this is one of the best shows I’ve watched all year, but boy howdy this is not one for young children. It’s like Gravity Falls and Rick and Morty had a baby! Anyway, the characters are both surprising and hilarious. David the camp counselor (voiced by Miles Luna) is genuinely likable when you think he’d be the most annoying person on the planet, and the kids are so accurate it’s scary. Also Yuri Lowenthal is in it. And Griffin McElroy has a recurring role where he plays A GHOST! I’ve never been into Rooster Teeth stuff, but they have a winner with this one. 10/10

The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel

After her husband leaves her, Midge Maisel gets super drunk, goes on stage, and gives a hilarious rant about her relationship at a small comedy/talent club and somehow gets sucked into becoming a rising comedian as a woman in the 1950s. It’s good. Great acting pretty funny, but Midge and her agent/manager Susie are the only likable characters. Everyone else just kind of...sucks 8/10

Voltron Season 7 (spoilers)

Okay, I know everyone had mixed feelings about this season, but I did come out liking a lot of it. It had a lot of flaws (I really thought it would be Shiro’s season, and man was I wrong), but this is the sort of thing we can’t really judge until the last episode of the series is finished. I like to think of the positives: the action was amazing as usual, HUNK IS GETTING MORE AND MORE DEVELOPMENT EVERY SEASON, I refuse to believe the team introduced Adam just to have him killed off immediately so he’s still alive in my mind, we get to see everyone’s reunions with their families, the lost in space episode was cool, and say what you want about the game show episode, but I loved it! There were a lot of good things so it was easier for me to look past the...not so great aspects of the season. 7/10

Galavant

A musical comedy mini series involving a renowned medieval hero named Galavant on a quest to rescue his ex girlfriend from her “evil” husband King Richard. But maybe she doesn’t want to be rescued. Well, that’s just the first season. It’s best to go in knowing as little as possible. I remember liking it when it first came out, and it’s still pretty cute...but sometimes I feel like it’s trying too hard. A lot of the music isn’t really...memorable, but the characters are likable so it’s still worth the watch. 8/10

Disenchantment

Speaking of medieval comedies...Princess Bean doesn’t want to get married, mystical elf Elfo doesn’t want to live in an enchanted forest where everyone is happy all the time, and Bean’s personal demon Luci just wants to watch people suffer. Honestly, I wasn’t very into this show at first, but something compelled me to just keep watching, and by the end I was totally into it! This is one of those shows where you think there isn’t going to be a plot, but then the last few episodes come up and smack you in the face! 7.5/10

Round Planet

A documentary parody...mockumentary...satire...That’s really not a great way to describe it. It’s a nature documentary with funny commentary. I like nature shots and animals so I liked it, but there’s a lot of tangents and running jokes and British references that sometimes don’t land. Oh well, if you like unconventional documentaries, just watch it. 8/10

Honorable Mentions

DnDnD: I don’t think I’ve ever talked about this podcast before, but there’s a DnD podcast made by Practical Folks (aka the Drunk Disney youtube channel). It’s pretty good! I want an Adventure Zone crossover now!

The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild: Every time I think I’m out, it pulls me back in. I finally got the DLC and spent most of this month playing this freaking game AGAIN!

The Heathers soundtrack: I finally listened to the Heathers musical soundtrack...and I didn’t love it. There are some good songs in it, but overall I’m unimpressed. And I never could really get into the plot, I’ve always thought it was really weird and over dramatic.

Legendary by Stephanie Garber: I’m about halfway through this book, which is the second in the Caraval series. And it’s pretty good! More on that next month.

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nullset2 · 4 years ago

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Why New 3D Mario Games Suck

Before I go to bed I want to write a quick article about my opinions of Mario games. Ah, Mario games... I will never tire of you. Crisp and clean, to the point and joyfully so. Just jump, mofocka. Games that revel in the concept of moving around, making it inherently fun. Is there more noble of a proposition in gaming? Has there ever been more lucid game design?

Yet, I think that modern Mario games suck.

Like everyone and their grandmother (and if your grandmother plays Mario send her my regards, she's cool as hell, dude) I've been playing Mario 3D All Stars to have me a nice time. However it does reinforce this idea that I've always had, that Mario games, even though they may share the same broad aesthetic values and mechanics, are different from each other by nature. In this article, I propose that this change over time has actually been for the worse, leading to a loss of complexity in platforming game design with each successive iteration which is being traded away in favor of more cinematics and bombastics.

First things first, we have the beautiful Mario 64. A timeless classic and most of us' first foray into 3D games (yes, this was the very first game I ever played where the notion of the third dimension actually mattered. I had already played Star Fox but in Star Fox you don't really move in three dimensions, you're just in a plane going on rails and you cannot move completely freely). I played this before I even touched Doom or other first person games of the sort.

Minor parentheses by the way: did you know that Star Fox was inspired on the Inari Taisha temple? The beautiful, big long mountain shrine in Kyoto full of orange gates?

Fox translates to Inari and its creator, Dylan Cuthberth, who loved Japan a lot, got inspiration from it which he applied to his new bizarre fucking mind bending 3D tech which he then pitched and sold to nintendo and then became the basis for the Ultra 64, which was to come, and thus one of the main pillars of all modern 3D gaming as a whole? Holy shit, right? In Star Fox you cross gates to gain powerups and to make it fun to maneuver around with your Airwing... How come that I had never seen the connection?

But anyway. Back to Mario 64.

It is commonly told that Mario 64 was created by Miyamoto parting from the concept of a "secret garden". Most of the development time initially, it is said, was spent on Miyamoto and Tezuka, Mario creators, fine tuning the movement system in an isolated garden map without any enemies or hazards.

The purpose of the secret garden was threefold: first, the team was used to designing Mario games as 2d platformers and they were uncertain about how to take Mario games into the 3D era (a literal, flat-out equivalent conversion of classic mario, think Super Mario World, powerups and all, was considered at a certain point in development, creating linear, obstacle course stages with a beginning and a goal, the remnants of which still linger in the final game as the bowser stages, an idea which was finally fleshed out with the Mario 3D series on the Nintendo 3DS and Wii U, 20 years later (!)), so they needed a way to hash out ideas about how to design this new installment.

Second, Miyamoto took as one of the goals of the project to design Mario's movement with a supreme level of fidelity, so he'd use this area to test and test and test all of Mario's acrobatics, to make them feel smooth, convincing and entertaining to play. He'd say that as long as a move didn't feel right in the garden, it couldn't be used in the final game, creating in the end as something that feels a little bit like ninja acrobatics on rollerskates or ice skating.

Third, the team eventually realized that, since 3D content was incredibly expensive to create back in 1995, when commonplace computer 3D animation and design was still quite in its infancy, they needed to develop the skill to design little sandboxes which were good enough to run around in over and over without getting tired of them (think of it as if constructing a highly detailed, complex diorama, an idea fleshed out finally in Captain Toad from Super Mario 3D world, again, 20 years later (!)). This was to create more content for the game while reusing the same architecture and geometry for the levels, since resource usage had to be maximized. The remnants of the garden are still present in the final game, as the Castle Grounds.

So, do you see the level of SOUL invested here? The level of care, the amount of love placed into each and everyone of Mario's moves in Super Mario 64? And the results show it: the game allows the player to tackle all objectives at their own pace, in their own terms, however way they can. The game forces nothing down your throat: blast to the island in the sky? Well, maybe just long jump to it if you're gutsy enough, no need to wait until you unlock cannons. Or get the 8 red coins first if you want. Or just fuck it, and go and release the chain chomp first because he looks very cool and this is probably the first power star that all people who play the game get first. Or just, fuck it, you can skip that objective all together if you want, just collect enough stars for the next door unlock.

Jump, double jump, triple jump, dive, dive from jump, punch, breakdance kick, backflip, turn and backflip, long jump, wall jump, grab objects and throw, jump-shortkick, slide down, ground pound, fly from triple jump, swim, crouch... and even crawl. I count a total of 20 possible interactions with the environment, maybe even more I'm missing. All movements completely available to you from the start to mix and match the way you best see fit (except for flying, which is unlocked like 15 minutes into the game). The world is yours and you're free, go nuts son. The only variable is your skill at the movement system.

So you can probably see why this is delicious design. There's never a single way to clear most power stars in the game, instead the decision is left to the player, which the game trusts is smart enough to figure out solutions to problems on their own. Wanna jump for it? Sure, if you can. Want to wait unil you got the powerup? That's cool too. Want to go play another level? Sure thing! OR FUCK IT! JUST RACE THE KOOPA IF YOU WANT!

So you can probably see why I loathe the fact that the sequel was based exclusively on giving people a dumbed down version of the same shit, with a fucking dumb water pack.

Come 2002 and under pressure to perform, the team releases Super Mario Sunshine and it's the most bland, dumbed down sequel ever (though, could anyone really live up to such a predecessor's prowess?). In an attempt to make the game accessible to more players (tm), the game is stripped out of its complexity. Mario no longer moves as a gracious, roller skating gazelle that can navigate the world in the most agile and beautiful way ever. Instead you screech down to a halt the second you stop pushing the direction stick instead of providing people with that most delicious sense of momentum and friction SM64 had. Boo Hoo! Baby think 3D platforming is too hard? BABY CANNOT HANDLE PING PING WAHOO ON THE N64? Then we give babby a water nozzle which will allow them to correct any miscalculated jump ever (it's insulting that this is the best solution they managed to come up with) HOORAY!

But hey! Sunshine has good things about it! Uh... the water is pretty! (that's probably where all the development time and resources probably went anyway).

SAY WHAT? WE GOT TO RELEASE THIS YEAR? AND THEY WANT US TO INCLUDE 120 STARS AGAIN? FUCK! WE RAN OUT OF TIME; JUST ADD BLUE COINS, DUDE! YEAH WHATEVER! SHIP IT! THIS IS THE GAME! I'M GONNA GO LIE DOWN AND HAVE A BEER! FUCK IT!

Mario Sunshine is not a bad game, but it's not a bold, groundbreaking game like its predecessor was. It detests and rejects the fact that you are a competent platforming game player. It nerfs everything down. It makes it almost impossible to lose. It plays things too safe and too easy, replacing action game design with flashing lights, prettier graphics, and an easier experience; it has its moments but it's an inferior game mechanically: jump, double jump, triple jump, hover, rocket jump, turbo run (why), walk on tightropes (why), spin in air (why), spin from ground into high jump, turn and backflip, swim, spray water, spray water and dive, wall jump, ground pound. It's only 16 moves -- less than its predecessor --, and they have less complexity and are easier to execute.

Not only that but you're no longer free to tackle objectives the way you see fit. The world is now a container for several course-clears, and no longer allowing for the freedom of open world games. If you pick Shine 1, you WILL clear shine 1 in that run of the level. If the game wants you to watch a cutscene (of which there were none in SM64), you WILL watch the fucking cutscene. Wash rinse repeat until you get enough shines to clear the lamest end boss in video game history.

Again, it's not a bad game but it reeks of suits getting involved in the process and demanding shit to be made easier because otherwise it wouldn't sell. It reeks of misplaced priorities. It's a pretty game and it's nice for an afternoon, but after that you just have blue coins left and hooooooooooooo weeeeeee I'm not touching that shit. The most asinine side quest I've ever seen in a video game: to find blue coins hidden in random spots, usually by cleaning a spot of graffitti, and exchange 10 of them for a single shine, the collection of which cannot be stacked and forces you to watch a cutscene every time. Reeks of laziness.

Then Mario Galaxy comes out and Jesus Christ. It's like they don't give a shit at this point. Open-world, acrobatics-centric 3D Mario is just fucking gone. This is probably the point where it became cheap enough to make 3D content en-masse that they just started copying the classic Mario formula in 3D to churn out content.

The bad thing, is that at a certain point it feels as if the games play themselves and I've always been against it and will always be against it because I'm into games due to the fact that they're something which engages my brain. I don't like games which just keep me there, passively looking at the screen, reacting to quick time events. I want to be immersed, engrossed and I want to feel that nice sense of exploration and fun experimentation that you only get with open world games.

The games are back to linear now: even though, in Sunshine, they made an effort to at least make things seem open world, they don't care anymore in this one. It's all just linear levels happening in planetoids which you visit in a sequence, to, yet again, remove all hazards and all notion of challenge and complexity, even more than before. And you have to shake the wii remote to spin to top it off, and this gives you a free save if you miscalculate a jump. The galaxy games were extrapolated through the 3D series: Super Mario 3D Land and 3D World (strong candidates for most bizarre title to a video game ever), to form which is called the "course clear" vein of 3D mario games, starting from the Galaxy games.

See, nintendo themselves differentiate between "Course-clear" 3D Mario and "Open World" 3D Mario. Once Super Mario Oddysey got announced, they came out with this interesting infographic about their classification for 3D Mario games:

Don't get me wrong again, there's nothing inherently bad about these types of Mario game, and Galaxy 2 and Mario 3D World are both some of the best video games ever created, but I think that something got lost in transition when compared to the sublime finesse of the movement system in Mario 64. The way it respects your intelligence, the way it drops you in an open world and gives you freedom, the way that its worlds are built, I think that all of this has never been paralleled, not even by nintendo themselves for some reason, and I think the reason why this happened is that, maybe the excellence of Mario 64, quirks and all, was a product of its time and the limitations in production ability for 3d content and graphics that surrounded its creation at the time.

Yet, Lo and Behold! 2017 is here and Super Mario Oddyssey is in the horizon and it promises to be the Next Big Thing (tm) since sliced bread. A TRUE and HONEST return to form, to the Glory Days of Mario 64! And the game is way too enthsiastic with its embracing of Super Mario 64 nostalgia: there's literally a whole level inspired after the Mario 64 castle grounds in Mario Oddysey and the whole notion of absolute freedom from Mario 64 (somewhat) returns (but not completely because you still are subject to doing a main big event per level, after which the rest of the level unlocks; once you clear the game, the second half of the game unlocks even). And the emphasis is back into acrobatics again, which is a good thing: playing with your hat can get you places if you're handy with it.

But my biggest gripe with Super Mario Oddysey is that it's not completely honest as it claims to be. It's a course-clear game hidden under a coat of paint of an open world-game. It's literally Zelda Breath of the Wild's half-assed design all over again: big empty world full of collectibles, with tiny "levels" to be found. Once you find a game, it's time to do a thing --wash rinse repeat. In Mario Oddysey you explore around until you find a pipe or a door or a character and you get plunked into a Super Mario 3D World style course-clear game with additional collectibles. So it's not really the game which it was told to be. The levels don't feel like beautiful dioramas, and the acrobatics, even if nice, are nowhere near as rich as the SM64 acrobatics. There's infinite lives this time around, so there's no real feeling of risk. The game rehashes its own content, you make a tower of goombas, cool. Then you make it again, twice as long. Then you make it again, in the water. Then you make it again, in the beach level. Then you make it again, in the ice level. Then you make it again. Then you make it again, then you make it again...

You could argue that they were onto something with the capture system, because it's an attempt to enhance the movement system while at the same time it's trying to keep things interesting, but the bad thing is that this is really not the case. Captures are contextual, and you're expected to capture an enemy, do something with it, then leave it behind, so it's not a skillset that you build up on, it's yet another course-clear level in a disguise.

So even though it's a good game, it's not the game that it set out to be, I'm sad to say. The Brilliance of Super Mario 64 is yet to be rivaled, and Nintendo should feel ashamed of it. It's been 20 years, man. Where has your mind been all along?

Alright Nintendo, to conclude, here's a freebie for you. This is how you design your next Mario game so it fucking kicks ass: you bring back the SM64 movement system and ADD ONTO IT. Do NOT take away from it, just ADD. Complexity is good in games. All of your fans are fucking 30 year olds, they can handle a complex game.

Next, you develop a vast, broad, massive open world. Think GTA-size. You set up 1200 stars and you place them all over the world in ways where it is EXCITING by itself to explore the world. Make it so people can collect stars at their own pace, ANY WAY THEY WANT, and expand the world accordingly. Keep the Super Mario Oddyssey persistence, where once you capture a moon you don't have to go back to a menu screen, that was a good addition. Embrace the diorama mentality and go nuts with the world. Fill it with waterfalls, caves, chasms, canyons, and provide the player nothing but their acrobatics to clear everything in the world. Avoid pre-scripted sequences (they can still be good for some things like bosses). And make the world seamless, none of this island in the sky thing anymore. Moving around and getting stars should be their own reward, not "getting to find a course clear level".

#works

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vgrpg-blog · 8 years ago

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Old games have more to offer than nostalgia

Yooka-Laylee has just come out and has received lukewarm reviews from critics. Yooka-Laylee is a game funded on Kickstarter that is meant to be the spiritual successor to N64 Banjo-Kazooie. A common sentiment expressed in the Yooka-Laylee reviews is the idea of that people are looking at old games with rose-tinted glasses and they’re just not as as great as we remember them to be. I say that’s hogwash. One of the reason I think that is because many of my favorite video games are old games that I discovered during the modern era-- but I still fell in love with them. Back when I had a Gamecube, my copies of Intellivision Lives! (a collection of Intellivison games) and the Mega Man Anniversary collection (it has Mega Man 1-8) received far more play than many of the modern Gamecube titles I owned. Around this time I set up a SNES emulator on my computer with a usb controller for my baby brother so I could show him games from “my time”. This kid was addicted to Animal Crossing on the GC, but when I showed him Yoshi’s Island, he absolutely fell in love with the game. Heck, the Game Grumps ( a very popular gaming YouTube channel) played a bunch of Intellivision games and absolutely loved Thunder Castle. One of them even said that it was a game that they would genuinely play for fun, and not just for the sake of playing old Intellivision games. Imagine that! It doesn’t surprise me at all because that is one of my favorite games as well. It’s just a good game regardless of how old it is. Now it’s true that some games have aged better than others, but I just hate the sentiment that old games are only worth playing if it’s something you played as a kid and you have fond memories of it (nostalgia). Bull. Crap. Not EVERYTHING has improved in gaming. For instance, I think old games have a tendency to have tighter controls. I think Super Mario World controls better than New Super Mario Bros. The controls in SMW are just a bit more precise and they’re also simpler. There’s a certain satisfaction to playing simple games with tight controls. Another thing that I like more about older games is the music-- today’s music tends to be more ambient, while music in old games often had a strong and catchy melody (that was always playing). Finally, I love colorful 2D graphics, and I am aware that there are indie games that feature these as well (and I play them). But the combination of great music, colorful 2D graphics and tight controls really does it for me. And I don’t think it’s nostalgia. Anyway video game journalists really have their heads up their asses. They give extremely clunky and awkward games like the Elder Scrolls stellar reviews but pan retro-revivals. They hate old games. They think new is necessarily better. And while many correctly point out flaws in the design of old games (or new games designed in a similar way to old games), they fail to see that modern games have their own flaws. Pressing down on the L-stick to crouch is clunky as fuck. Holding down L2 and trying to navigate a radial menu with the R-stick sucks. The realistic facial detail on character models is hideous. You can throw in the awkward facial animations as well. Taking at least 5 minutes to actually start playing a game sucks (because of the long console and game bootup sequences, and this is when the game doesn’t need to be patched first). Blah... I’m running out of steam now /endrant

#video games #retro #yooka-laylee #gamecube

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lancecarr · 5 years ago

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One Word: Lightfarm on Visualizing the Brainҳ Struggles after Traumatic Injury

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After a brain injury, people often struggle to regain the ability to do things we ordinarily take for granted, like organize thoughts, understand speech and even talk. It’s hard to imagine what that recovery process must feel like, but that was the assignment Rio de Janeiro-based Lightfarm took on while working with New York health advertising agency Area 23 on “One Word,” a video promo for Learning Corp’s new Constant Therapy app. Using a combination of Maxon Cinema 4D, Blender Eevee, Zbrush, SideFX Houdini, and Adobe After Effects and Photoshop, Lightfarm and Area 23 spent two months working on the video, which recently won a Gold Lion for Best Film at the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity.

We asked Lightfarm’s Creative Director Rafael Vallaperde and Director of Animation, Kawe de Sá, to describe the making of “One Word,” which begins with a toddler’s nap and turns into something much more ominous. (Watch the making-of video here: https://vimeo.com/342775927.)

Kawe de Sá often uses Post-It notes to organize ideas when coming up with the baseline for stories. “Because if a shot will work in that small space it will work anywhere,” he says.

Why did Area 23 choose Lightfarm for this project?

Rafael Vallaperde: We’ve been partnering with them for quite a while and felt like we were building up to doing special projects like these. And when the opportunity did come, they chose us.

Kawe de Sá: I think it’s also because Lightfarm is known for doing projects that are outside the box. Most clients come to us with very unique briefings, and we have to work closely with them to figure out a way to make their ideas viable.

Modeled from scratch in ZBrush, the baby went through many iterations, including this one that was deemed a bit too cute and cartoon-like.

How did you hone Lightfarm’s style and get your name out there?

R.V.: Whenever we have time, we work on our own original projects where Lightfarm is the client. It helped when we hired Kawe because I, and Milton Menezes, who co-founded Lightfarm with me, come from a print background. Kawe helped us come up with interesting videos, and we’ve spent a lot of time creating those because we knew we wanted to do this kind of work, but we didn’t have anything to show we could do it.

Those projects always help us learn how to do different things and try out creative ideas. And posting them has helped clients understand what we can do and how we can put energy and style into their brands. They’ve definitely attracted some new people to us. [Check out Lightfarm’s personal portfolio.]

Bloom, the story of a firefly who discovers nature’s dangers, is one of Lightfarm’s many personal projects.

What kind of direction did you get, and how did you decide how to tell the story?

R.V.: It was a difficult briefing because the client wanted us to do something abstract rather than figurative, and we needed to convey something very complex. We spent about two months trying out ideas, but neither us nor the client could decide on a script that we could follow and really liked. They had, like, a 15-page script for a two-minute video, so we knew that wouldn’t work. I think it started working when we put things in place to just tell the story visually so we could convey the emotions of desperation and fear and confusion people feel when they are struggling with a brain injury.

The story ends with a mother using the app in a room with an empty crib. The meaning of the scene is left open to interpretation.

de Sá: There were points in the 15-page script that we tried to hit, but mostly we just tried to make everything very fast-paced and action-packed like a roller-coaster ride. You see the baby and she’s all cozy and then suddenly she’s sucked up by a hurricane, which is conveying a sense of what trauma really is. You see the baby go through all of these scary things, but the baby is not really the focus of the story.

To create the model of the bee on a tight deadline, de Sá says he ��just messed up the model by pulling vertexes around to get a weird, terrifying look.”

That’s why we don’t show the action from the baby’s point of view. This was our way of showing what the mom was feeling as she tried to connect the links in her brain to remember the word baby. Not having the baby in the crib at the end was really hard for us because we got really attached to that baby. But the client wanted the ending to be focused on the mom, so you’re left wondering what happened to the baby. Was there some kind of accident?

Were you trying to make the video look and feel like an illustration?

de Sá: Yes, we were really chasing an illustration feel and we wanted it to look stunning. We didn’t have time to create a storyboard or an animatic, so we started by placing a camera in Cinema 4D and sculpting a background that worked. I animated the camera from there, and we had to test things out a lot. That was really interesting from start to finish. We used Blender, which has a new engine called Eevee that allowed us to render in real time. And [Adobe] After Effects was great for giving the render a 2D look that our illustrators painted over to integrate the 2D and 3D feel.

Color keys created in Photoshop by Lightfarm artist Giselle Almeida served as the team’s “Holy Grail,” as they worked in 3D.

This was the first time I’ve ever animated anything that had one camera and no cuts. We just went from one scene to the next, and we’d be thinking ‘Okay, where do we go from this angle?’ We were always trying to follow the motion from the best angles, which we had to discover as we went along. We took screenshots from key moments and our illustrators went over them, which really helped give us a sense of how the video would go. After we were done blocking and creating color keys, we started splitting the continuous shot into scenes and that was easier to work with.

Just when you think the baby is going to get a little time to rest, the cute teddy bear turns into a frightening monster.

Do you have a favorite scene?

R.V.: The evil teddy bear was a lot of fun. The client first thought the bear wasn’t evil enough, but then it opened its mouth and they were like, ‘Oh, that’s so scary!’ We really wanted a contrast between the tiny baby and the huge bear, and the baby’s wondering what she’s going to do now. After making the 3D model in ZBrush and Cinema 4D, one of our illustrators worked in Photoshop to get the dynamics of the saliva right. We were on such a tight deadline, we did what we could to make things work, like you can see how the jaggy look of the low-poly model gives the feeling of spiky hair.

After modeling in ZBrush and Cinema 4D, Lightfarm artists used Photoshop and After Effects to enhance details, like the bear’s saliva, in 2D.

How was this project different from what you normally do?

R.V.: We discovered so many things about this project as we worked. I think some people might call us crazy, but we were always trying to make this really great. We weren’t afraid to take risks, and sometimes we had to tell our client something just wasn’t going to work, but we did it in a positive way and we have a great relationship with them. We were working right up until the deadline on this. I think we rendered the last scene a day before it was due because we were going back and forth so much on changes.

It was a lot of pressure and everyone felt it. But everyone also felt like this project was special, so we’d tell people to go home and they’d be like, ‘No, no, I want to stay and finish this.’ In the end, it was an important process for the studio. We learned a lot and earned our first big prize, and that was great.

The post One Word: Lightfarm on Visualizing the Brain’s Struggles after Traumatic Injury appeared first on Studio Daily.

https://www.studiodaily.com/2019/09/one-word-lightfarm-visualizing-brains-struggles-traumatic-injury/

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