#but that's a *lot* of game to replay to find that out

[mandatory-blog-stop-asking]

Replaying ME1 and 2 at least once between releases back in the day as a planned, expected part of the experience is probably a moment in time that's never repeating, because it's so hard to plan around.

People usually play games once and just accept their choices if there are any nowadays, we have the data to show this. A lot of people don't get to the end of games. But ME players were into the franchise very specifically because they were promised a paragon and a renegade experience that was just as interesting, and so they had to make it so you could play both games all the way through like that, and it could continue onto pretty much the same story.

It made a lot of moments very weird, like how in ME2 if you just low-right every conversation choice, you will kill people, because a lot of loyalty missions result in mission failure if you're a jerk to people. Or how some Renegade choices simply lock you out of content that the Paragon side would go on to carry on until 3, because Paragon was the default experience and Renegade was just an after-thought writing-wise.

And, most importantly, the fact that if you didn't have enough "carry-over" points, you were just straight up locked from the major Paragon/Renegade decisions on the left of the wheel that would advance the story to its best conclusions. The Quarian-Geth war could end catastrophically if you didn't play the entire trilogy, instead starting on the third or second game, and I always thought that was wild considering how much that is asking of people.

By making sure people were invested in the system from the get-go, they basically killed "Neutral" runs, or organically choosing anything that wasn't sunk-cost fallacy-ing your way into fully Paragon or fully Renegade. The story was made to reflect that and ultimately left you with two playthroughs instead of several, unless you just want to shoot a different gun instead of seeing what your choices could result in. Cuz it was really only one of two things.

Mass Effect was fascinating, I really miss it, but I think it ultimately means you either lock writers in a cave for a year and force them to write 5 books so that most players play the equivalent of 1, or just make the choices not a selling point. Cuz at the end of the day everyone goes through mostly the same stuff and talks to mostly the same people, otherwise you find out someone's fate through email because you were kinda mean to them in their bedroom once.

The way Mass Effect imported your save files across the trilogy was so interesting. It created this one cohesive narrative across multiple games, that really made it feel like a personal journey. But it clearly came with a lot of limitations, too.

By Mass Effect 3, most of the characters Could Possibly be dead, so they either couldn't be important (Jack, Thane, Samara), or they had to have a similar backup character who could step in as a failsafe (Mordin, Wrex, Kaidan and Ashley).

You can feel the writing team's stress over all this. Kaidan and Ashley essentially merge into a single character depending on who survives Mass Effect 1, becoming interchangeable. Mordin's got this whole thing about how it "had to be him", but as it turns out, it literally didn't, because Padok Wiks can fill his role just fine. The story is generally the most satisfying if as few people die as possible, which creates this urge to get your perfect run. But then it still leaves several characters with a smaller role than they would have had if they couldn't have been dead.

The standout here is Wrex. Because his death gets to matter. If he dies, his brother Wreav takes his place, but this is an instance where it does make a difference. If Wrex survives, he becomes the leader of his people by ME2, and he sets the krogan on a path towards peace and success. But Wreav doesn't care about any of that. Wreav is a warmonger. He will start a war he can't win, and get his entire people killed.

If Wrex dies in Mass Effect 1, it immediately tolls the death knell for the entire krogan race.

[gamebunny-advance]

Weird Pikmin 4 Thing/Speculation

I don't really count this as a spoiler, so read at your own risk, but it looks like certain castaways have different hair/suit colors on different playthroughs. Of immediate memory, Molly, Alpin and his brother, Grace, and Chewy all had different hair colors in my game from other LPs I saw.

I'm not quite sure what's causing it though. At first, I suspected that maybe it changes depending on your suit color, but literally every person I've watched play this game has used a different suit color, so I can't confirm that theory.

(Light spoilers ahead)

My alternate theory depends on whether all the castaways that can have random colors are also all leaflings. It could be that leaflings are cured in a set-order, but their colors are dependent on the order you rescue them in. For example, if you don't do the first dandori challenge in the Sun-Speckled Terrace, which is hosted by a pink leafling, will Dash, seemingly always the first leafling cured, still have pink hair?

Edit:

It seems I'm partially correct, but I still need to do more testing.

First correction is that Dash is not always the first leafling rescued, and besides that I confused him with a different castaway, and he wasn't even pink in my main game. In my game he was purple, but in my test file he was blue. Furthermore, other leaflings that I rescued in the test file always shared their hair color with the leafling cured, so there's at least some correlation there.

Second, Corgwin and Jin, two other leaflings and hosts of the Dandori Challenge/Battle practice, were purple and pink respectively in both save files. I'll need to test if they still appear if I don't rescue any pink or purple leaflings. Similarly, will it be impossible to save Bernard if you don't get any purple leaflings, or will his hair change color too?

Edit 2:

Corgwin and Jin can be any color, as I found an LP where their Jin was blue.

I did a test of rescuing and curing every possible leafling except a single purple leafling to see if the game would give me Bernard, but it seems like you do need at least 1 purple leafling for him to be rescued and unlock Hero's Hideaway.

So I'm gonna put a stamp on it: Every single leafling castaway has the possibility of being different colors and are rescued in a set order, except Bernard, who must be revived from a purple leafling. I haven't yet determined if the order you rescue the leaflings in as any effect on what color they'll be, or if the castaways have a preferred color and will be revived from those color leaflings if they're available.

Edit 3:

Okay, here's my latest observation about this.

Typically, all castaways will wear suits that match their hair color. For example, the purple haired Schnauz also wears a purple suit. This is true unless the player's suit color would have matched the castaway. For example, the green haired Dalmo will wear a red suit if the player character's suit is green. This changes even if the player changes their suit color through Puddle mid-game. It appears that whenever there is a suit color conflict, then the suit will default to red.

There are a handful of exceptions to this rule, notably characters with red hair will not wear red suits unless forced to if the player's suit color matches their default.

For example, the red heads Vonda, Kaia, and Osa by default wear pink, purple, and orange suits respectively, even if the player's suit is not red. This was likely done to set them apart from Olimar/the Red Leafling, whose suit has red accents and/or were chosen around the idea that the "canon" Rescue Corps color is red, and thus can't be shared with any castaway. However, these exceptions will still follow the first rule if their default color is being used by the player. For example, Vonda will wear red if the player wears pink.

With that in mind, it's probably safe to say that in most cases, the leafling castaways' "canon" hair color would be the same color as their suit, as this is always consistent.

I've still yet to test if the castaways will use up their "canon" color leaflings if they're available, although I believe this may be false as I recall that someone had once rescued Chowder and Alpin together, whose suits are blue and pink respectively, but interestingly their hair colors were swapped as pink and blue.

Edit 4:

I can now confirm that leaflings will not use their "canon" color, even if that color leafling is available.

I rescued almost all leaflings in the first 3 areas. By the time I started curing leaflings, I had a single green leafling and several pink and purple ones, but Dash, who has a green suit, still got rescued as a purple leafling. Unfortunately, I can't remember if said purple leafling is the first one I rescued on this file (though I'm positive that it was the leafling taken by Olimar in the Sun-Speckled Terrace, so there's a high likelihood that it was), so I still can't determine if the order you rescue leaflings in changes the castaways' hair color, or if their default colors just don't match their suits the same way the regular castaways' do.

Edit 5:

Alright, I think I can more or less confirm that leafling castaway hair colors correspond to the order you rescue them in except the early game where if a purple leafling is available before you rescue Bernard, then the game will use them all up until Bernard is rescued, after which all other castaway colors should be in rescue order.

[puppppppppy]

oooh wait so the plot hole of “why doesnt a spirit medium just channel the victims spirit” is literally bc the DL-6 spirit channeling cant be repeated huh

[killjoy-prince]

This has been my experience with my replay so far

[galaxygermdraws]

I don't usually post sona related art, but I just beat the SMRPG remake and it made me just. start crying. Like i was just sobbing my way through the end of the game, and my hope for the future of Mario RPGs has never been brighter. So it made me just. Feel a lot of emotions and I didn't really know how else to capture them.

I'm very happy I got to live during a time when this wonderful game got a remake that will be more readily available for people to play. And I am so happy this game was just as good as I have been told it was. Definitely looking forward to replaying it again.

Uh. Yea. Jus kind of a personal piece I 'spose. Bonus little doodle I drew the day before the remake dropped under the cut

[kakusu-shipping]

The hardest part of Pokemon Self Inserting is Team Building.

[claitea]

i'm normal now. lying also

[elegyofthemoon]

listen i also think 2b is hot but also i am very very tired of walking into the tags every now and then only to see sexy art of her this is not what im here for im here for the existential crisis

[limielle]

idk i feel like so much discourse could be easily minimized if people learned to say "i think" instead of "it is"

[teiasviago]

you could even say that greek mythology is my achilles heel

[ruairy]

.

[loregoddess]

back on my nonsense (I'm replaying Three Hopes)

[edgepunk]

I love how you can play as a dumbass bisexual in FNV truly the game of all time

[uncanny-fellow]

started playing FF15 on a whim the other day and ngl the combat is pretty much exactly how I wish combat in Xenoblade was like

[quenthel]

will you be trying out the veilguard? i personally don't believe i will like it/doubt i will finish it, but i'm curious about like... the creature/demons/griffon/that giant skeleton/tentacle stuff aspect, even though da never focused on its bestiary all that much. what about you?

im not following the news abt it like at all tbh... like i didnt even know there were new creatures and shit lmao like to me dragon age creature design was never super good or exciting but maybe this time around they will add some cool looking ones?? i honestly dont know. i dont think ill be playing veilguard maybe once i can torrent it ill try it out but im not spending money on it for sure ... sadly dragon age is just not a franchise that can get me excited anymore 🤷‍♂️ also i dont like the art direction a whole lot from what little i did see im gonna be honest

[skrunksthatwunk]

ok i just beat lucia's campaign. it's like 5 missions shorter has an actual story and is like. wayyyy less painful