#but the drop rng in these games is bullshit

[teler-of-gallifrey]

If your playing through emulator, use save states to cheat the gambling mini-game

If you’re playing 2nd quest Zeldawiki.wiki

Use this to research things; second quest changes some mechanics in really bs ways (I hate bubbles)

I come to humbly ask for tips on how to survive in the cruel world that is 1986 Hyrule

[fipindustries]

things that trigger me to no end about board games

to be clear, these are not things that make a board game boring or tedious or hard to get into. these are thing that can genuenly make me angry or upset and make me want to flip the table in frustration

social games

i dont like it when games are dependant on you persuading other player or reading them or using theory of mind. i hate games that involve auction mechanics or trading based on barganing. i hate dealing with other people's wants and whims, i hate having to convince others, i hate being on the mercy of how good i am at being charismatic or persuasive with others. specially if the other players are in adversarial position with me. now, weirdly enough i dont mind hidden roles because that is kind of the whole point of the game, you are kind of doing nothing BUT try to guess the intentions of your opponent, but you dont have to CONVINCE THEM to work with you, unless you are explicitly lying, which you are generally not allowed to do in other games where you do trade or alliances.

2. not being able to do stuff

if it becomes my turn and there are little to no significant or useful actions i can take to advance my game state then i immediatly hate the game. youre telling me i had to wait an entire round for me to be able to do something and i cant do shit and now i have to wait a whole other round twiddling my thumbs while all the other players are getting ahead of me? bullshit. this is particularly egregious if this is based on RNG. sorry you drew a shit card or you got a shit roll of the dice so you basically dont get to play the game this round! should have prayed to god more, i guess

3. other players fucking with me by taking options away from my turn

this is basically the previous one except instead of RNG its caused by the specific strategy of the players i failed to persuade not to fuck me over. if i sat down at this table to play a game with you it feels like a mayor dick move if you dont let me play the fucking game. SPECIALLY if i didnt do anything to you first. i generally go into these games with a "live and let live, we can all get along" mentality, and i get very upset when im attacked unprovoked. im ok with games that are one on one. like if in a game of chess my opponent eats my queen then whatever, that is the nature of the game, im trying to eat THEIR queen so fair game, i have a bunch of other pieces and moves to take. but if you are like taking my cards away in catan and now its my turn and i cant build or do shit because the dice rolled such that i didnt generate any resource and now i cant play the game fuck you. but also, i just dont like it when players fuck with me in general. my ideal game is one where we all do our own thing and is just a matter of who did their thing the best by the end of the game.

3.b everyone ganging up

this is particularly egregious if its not one player but everyone collectively doing it. i understand the strategic inevitability of it if im winning and i dont blame the players for doing it. this is just a me problem but i have deep seated psychological issues with feeling ganged up on or bullied by everyone around me. if player after player keeps screwing me over is really really really hard for me not to take it personal and feel like my companions think less of me. this is just me being way too sensitive though.

4. lack of delineated turns

there are some games where you play "in real time" and winning is a matter of who can drop a card faster. i dont have a problem with games like ghost blitz when that is the whole point of the game, but in games like invocation frontier or whatever where you are basically playing yu gi oh without turns and is all about who can remember what spells they have ready and who can deploy them fastest or whatever the fuck, i hate that, i hate strategizing on the run, i hate responding to dynamic threats, i hate having to think and be fast at the same time, big reason why i could never get into RTS as a kid.

5. extreme fairness balance

this is again a me problem and is overall probably for the best if a game does this. there is nothing worse than something like monopoly where its obvious a player has very clearly won and there is no changing that but the game is not officially over until like five more rounds. still if i am this fucking close to winning and i know that at any second a player can pull some bullshit out of their hat that drops me to last place i just cannot enjoy myself, i am far too stressed out over the posibility that, no matter how close i am from winning, it could all be snatched away in a second due to reasons out of my control. the feeling just gets worse and worse the closest i am of winning to the point that even winning might not feel satisfying because im left with the vague impression it was pure chance that a player didnt get something to stop me.

thats all i can think of for now, if i can think of other things ill add them to the list

[dramarising-replacement]

Clicked over 1000 familiars. Did all the daily site actions. Spent 3 hours in boreal wood because everyone keeps saying its the best place to be. 19 chests. After trading food/crap for chests the number went up to 22. neat. I have PAGES of grimoires, mirrors and that crap but theres always one component of the trade that just does NOT drop for me. Before some replyguy goes "ackshually you just had a bad run, you should just play for longer periods of time" or "well *I* have good luck so I don't believe you uwu": it's been like this the last two years. These numbers aren't unusual for me. No-lifeing the game got me a grand total of 200 chests last year, after I had to buy chest trade food, and 7 eggs (surprise, they were all full of Garbage). Glad your randomized luck is better than mine but that doesn't really make it more fun for me lol. Jfc just kill me now i hate the bullshit rng on this site. Effort is not rewarded it's just "randomized". Between the awful drop rates and the obnoxious dodging (multiple times i got fuckin.. 8 or more dodges in a row so that was cool super) I have no patience for coli this year. Oh well, I'll just go grind on other games with holiday events instead. Have fun bois! :v

[sexhaver]

i havent touched Hearthstone in years but one of the parts i miss the most about the early (Naxx/Blackrock/GvG) meta was the way all the bullshit RNG mechanics occasionally allowed for some Heart Of The Cards moments. for example there was this one card, Piloted Shredder, that dominated the meta for most of the time it was legal. it was the best generic 4 mana creature most decks could play, and most decks that weren't planning on winning by turn 4 or 5 ran two Shredders. these fuckers were everywhere. statistically, you saw at least one of them every game on average.

this made the pool of available 2-drops EXTREMELY relevant, since any one of them could come out of a Shredder (regardless of class). whatever came out of the Shredder wouldn't proc its Battlecry on entering, which made deathrattles generally more valuable. the average outcome of Shredder's deathrattle was usually something like a 2/2 body, with highrolls like Loot Hoarder (a 2/1 that draws you a card when it dies) and lowrolls like Lorewalker Cho (a 0/4 that gives a copy of any spell you cast to your opponent and vice versa).

then there's Doomsayer.

i could write an entire post about Doomsayer as a standalone card and how it's some of the best card design i've seen in any card game, but the interaction it has with Piloted Shredder is especially hilarious. because Doomsayer triggers at the start of its controller's turn (that's who "you" refers to), if you kill your opponent's Shredder and it drops a Doomsayer, the entire board has just been wiped - you can simply pass the turn and watch Doomsayer go off before your opponent has a chance to act.

the best part about this interaction is that Shredder only dropped Doomsayer something like 0.5% of the time. that's not high enough to be noteworthy in most circumstances, but is definitely noteworthy in situations where you have literally no other possible options to survive. that was the peak of Hearthstone for me - that moment you can see your opponent pause, realize they're dead on board, and sink all their resources into killing your Piloted Shredder. you both hold your breath as the animation plays out. 99.5% of the time, they instantly concede, but the last 0.5% is truly magical.

also Unstable Portal enabled shit like this lol

[crystalelemental]

I downloaded TCG Pocket, and a week in, I am a hair’s breadth away from deleting it! Gacha elements aside, PvP seems to be less about skill and more about who the game decides it wants to win at the moment! Like, I legitimately can’t tell this RNG apart from Battle Frontier RNG! It’s that fucking bad!

I mean. Surprise? Trading card booster packs were already the original gacha, and adding harder gacha into this was always going to be terrible. The fact that there's a ton of bullshit RNG isn't even surprising. It probably is factoring in who paid more for random outcomes.

Like. Okay. The real reason I stopped playing Masters back in February? It was because a story broke about Maple Story, where someone found out through datamine or something, that the rates for certain things were dropped to literally 0%. There was open proof for an ancient game using these mechanics, that took over a decade to find out, had been doing this shit literally all along. And I remember the Castle Super Beast discussion talking about how, at this point, we can safely assume that literally every gacha-style mechanic is lying to you. That none of the rates are real. That every single situation is not just the stated statistical odds, but the odds that the game designers aren't actively fucking with you this time around. That you even stand a chance to begin with. And that...that got me. That snapped me into "you cannot trust a gacha at all." It's not just your luck. The game is lying to you.

[bluealexa]

I am admittedly a weird person sometimes, but a big struggle I have with being responsible for my own time is how often sleepy me calls BS on my plans.

By responsible for my own time, the stretch of time I was on leave for work injury and right now being long term unemployed with a self employment gig that goes long stretches with not a damn thing.

I tend towards insomnia. Most of the gigs I can do are as late as 1am my time. I struggle to sleep, I make plans to exercise before noon though to keep my sleep schedule from rotating - sleep brain calls BULLSHIT and refuses to get up, refuses to cooperate.

Part of this is that I can put effort into my gig work and still get nothing out of it. There's rng involved, so to speak, in teaching English online. Like right now my favorite student is busy with work this month. There's nothing I can do about that.

I know I can get more students if I put more effort into preparing more lesson plans and make posts (on the site I teach on) about having a variety of lessons on X Y and also Z ready to go. But sleepy me calls BULLSHIT and trying to get time carved out to focus on lesson plans goes poorly because I didn't exercise, so I ache sitting, can't exercise later because it fucks up sleep more, can't sleep well enough didn't exercise and stretch enough, it's just neverending crap

I'm trying to use a weird way out of it though. My best ever sleep sched (heart rate and everything) per my Fitbit was the week Tears of the Kingdom came out. With my hand injury, I took off work the week before, did the house work and exercised carefully with intent. On release day, I had timers going for stretches and breaks, etc -

Because sleepy me could comprehend how oversleeping was bad. Because sleepy me knew I needed to get going and go ahead and do stretches while cooking breakfast.

I'm not as excited for this Talos Principle 2 dlc as I was for Tears of the Kingdom, but this dlc drops tomorrow and I'm trying to convince sleepy me that what I need to do is get up, exercise, play puzzle game for an hour, go work on lesson plans, go back to puzzle game. I think it might work, crossing fingers here. The puzzles look super hard and I may be able to carrot and stick myself with "write the whole lesson plan before you ask anyone for help with this puzzle".

[worddevourer]

I pretty routinely see people making Reddit posts about their RNG in video games, so I've had some time to develop my own bit of pedantry on the subject.

That pedantry being a metric of 'how likely is it that something would occur that would have you make this post.'

For example, if you get the same rare drop from a boss three times in a row, then that's a reason to make a post. Suppose that drop is a 1/200; that's a 1/8,000,000 chance!

But if that boss has multiple rare drops, then the odds of getting the same drop multiple times in a row is multiplied by the number of rare drops (assuming all drop rates are equal). Suppose the boss has 4 rare drops, then suddenly that's only 1/2,000,000

And furthermore, if you got rare drops three times in a row, regardless of what rare drops they were, that would perhaps be worthy of sharing as well, meaning the three of a kind case is really just a subset of the any three rare drop case. And if that's the case, using our values from before, then the odds of getting some rare drop on a given kill is 1/50, bringing the odds of something like this happening down to 125,000. Still rare, but not 1/8,000,000 rare.

One common version of this is complaining about getting many rare, but entirely useless drops, rather than one particular drop that is somewhat less rare, which is a case that I'm particularly fond of, because it's honestly the most likely case, even if it feels like bullshit.

The drop you want is a 1/5000. The drops you're getting are 1/5000, or 10,000, or 20,000, but the secret is that there are like five of those, which means the odds of getting something equally or more rare, but completely useless, is really only like 1/2000, so you're actually expected to get a couple of those first, and depending how the random chance works out, it's really not that unlikely that you'll get several.

Reading some of my notes apparently a lot of people feel that they would benefit from someone sitting their asses down and learning them some probability, and to be fair tabletop RPG math isn't so complex that even an English major like me couldn't explain it in such a way that most people would understand it.

Anyway on a completely different note, the funny thing in my experience is that even if you explain the numbies and how to arrive at them, at the end of the day most people are really bad at actually interpreting those numbies. Even in percentile-based systems where your exact chances out of a hundred are made immediately obvious (a 47% chance is a forty-seven per centum [New Latin for "by the hundred"] chance) most people fall on a number of probability-based fallacies whose names I can't remember but I think Gambler's fallacy is at least one of them. Anyway what I mean is that when a number is higher than 50% it should succeed more often than fail, so like guy who has a 55% chance of succeeding voice why do I keep failing 45% of the time

[doozclops]

This is yet another violent reminder for me how much I hate RNG as a concept in video games.

I don't care what bullshit people say about "RNGesus" or "desire sensors", or whatever excuses they come up with. Having a random chance for something in a game is stupid and only exists to inflate the amount of time someone spends in the game.

I would much rather try, fail, try, fail, etc. because of my own skill than just a random number generator deciding whether I get loot or not. And then when I do succeed at the thing I'm trying to do, I get the specific reward for it. No 0.5% drop rate. No 2 out of 14 unique items can drop but they can also just both be the same item and you can go days or weeks before seeing some of them.

The only obstacle between me and getting what I want should be skill, not chance. It doesn't matter if you can improve the odds in some way. Any amount of chance is garbage design.

[n7viper]

I am so so sick of people criticizing warframe and its monetization only to be hit with “yeah but you can get everything except certain cosmetics in the game for free!! you just have to grind for it”

yes, it’s true! you’re absolutely correct. but the way that rng works in the game and the drop chances they’ve set are absolutely disgusting. I have been playing off and on for over NINE years. I have 2600+ hours in the game. I have never ONCE gotten hate or despair, but I’m fucking drowning in dread and molten impact or whatever stupid fucking mod he drops. they both have a less than THREE PERCENT chance to drop from a random encounter enemy if you've done second dream (so... most everyone). and it's only a FIVE percent chance if you haven't/his target hasn't. how is that fair?

abysmal drop rates don’t keep me engaged, they leave me feeling defeated. there is nothing I can do to remedy drop chances like that. there's no skill that I can master that will help me improve. I can't keep practicing with a certain weapon to improve. I'm at the mercy of a cruel rng system that doesn't cut you any slack.

I remember looking at voruna's drop chances on the wiki after that update and saw that all of her piece bps are in rot c of some new survival node. why would i bother? I only got og octavia from prime — otherwise, I couldn’t get the last piece of her to drop from ods.

also I think the prime access pack pricing is aggressive and horrible, among other things. I hate some of the packs that you can buy in the market (fucking MOD packs and their ilk; are you kidding me??) that DE just doesn’t do much about despite community backlash. I’ve gotten suspended once for buying prime access from a cheap 3rd party and I’d fucking do it again.

sorry, I know DE are the little uwu devs that everyone loves, but I just cannot with them. the game is what it is, and it’s incredibly meaningful to me. I met a lot of wonderful people and 3 of the absolute best friends that i could ask for. it has hands down THE most amazing movement/parkour system that I have never seen matched in any other game. I love the melee weapons and stances (tonbo gang) so so much. but I think people don’t call them out on their bullshit enough. people only care to get mad when they nerf things (which yeah, deserved, but ugh)

this post has no point except that I saw yet another post where someone said warframe was "two steps up from a gacha in terms of monetization, since at least you know what you're getting when you spend way too much money on this free game" and there were lots of comments in the reblogs like "ACKSHUALLY it's not gacha, you can get everything free" and after nine years I'm fucking tired of that argument.

[hrodvitnon]

I can just see when Maddie has to do item drop RNG related antics on stream she's pulling out this HUGE stack of notes and mathematical equations while grumbling on cam that "This is some bullshit and I hate it". And that's not even getting to her having to get items from things like Sniperwilds in KH1 Final MIx. Her poor sanity and patience levels.

Maddie: Between this shit and Pokemon, and the broke-ass luck stat in Castlevania -- WHAT LUNATIC THOUGHT IT'D BE FUN TO PUT MATH IN A VIDEO GAME?!

Vivi, offscreen: I mean, at least you can just leave the area and then go back in until the thing you need to kill spawns, right? That's better than what I have to do.

Maddie: Oh, oh really? What grueling process do you have to go through to get that elusive 2% item drop?

Vivi: Seppuku.

[radramblog]

Ultimate^2

Super Smash Brothers Ultimate has finally unveiled its final DLC character, with reactions ranging fully across the spectrum. Hot takes abound.

I mean, statistically, just about every possible opinion is going to be represented. There were at least 500,000 people watching the reveal stream, and that’s not including those viewing through restreams. That’s insane for a trailer of any kind, let alone for a console-exclusive video game DLC.

Now that it’s been like… a day and a bit, I think most of the spciest takes have probably been made, which is the perfect time for me to chip in with my own milder opinion. More of a butter chicken, really.

(no images in this one i’m lazy tonight)

I figure I’m this late already, might as well drop some notes on the other ones first.

Piranha Plant was kind of the definition of an unexpected pick. Not only was it from an already well-represented franchise, being fucking Mario, it’s also just…not a character. As such it makes an odd choice for a DLC fighter…except for the part where it was free. If you owned the game in its first month. And frankly, I don’t think people would have been happy if it wasn’t. As it is, though, it’s a perfectly fine character- surprisingly cute, actually.

I’m unsurprised about Joker’s inclusion. With how huge Persona 5 became in both Japan and the west, capitalizing on it to make a shitload of money makes perfect sense. The character plays well enough, though the meter gimmick was kind of a daunting sign of things to come. All that in mind, though, the most surprising thing about Joker being in the game is that they still haven’t put P5 on the Switch. Atlus please.

Hero and Banjo/Kazooie were announced on the same night, and I distinctly recall someone saying that this was one for the Japanese audience and one for the Americans. I mean, I’ve never played Dragon Quest, so I guess I fell into the latter? Both series have a long, well-regarded pedigree (Banjo’s lack of recent offerings notwithstanding), so both arguably deserve their respective positions. Hero is the much more notable character gameplaywise, though, with the incredibly complex mana and spellcasting mechanics. Complaints about RNG in Smash aren’t completely unfounded- though it has existed in the past in the form of, say, Luigi’s misfiring side-B- but I know a lot of people think Hero took it too far. If I’m honest, though, the weirdest thing is just having Akira Toriyama-ass 3D models in the game. Banjo’s gameplay is…awkward. The kit is kind of a mess, but at least the gimmicks weren’t going too hard, you know?

Next was Terry, perhaps the most obscure character on the entire list in 2021. I actually really like Terry in this game- while he’s still trying to emulate a similar feel to Ryu/Ken, the difference feels more natural, if that makes sense. Maybe it’s because I’ve never really devoted significant time to them, but Terry’s kit feels easier to work within than the Shotos when going between characters.

Finally for the first Pass, we had Byleth. I think it’s for the best that they announced the second Fighter’s Pass before this released, because if both 4 and Ultimate had ended their run on Fire Emblem DLCs then people would have been pissed. I mean, people were already pissed, but like…moreso. As someone who has played Three Houses, I do think the game is worth celebrating, but having yet another Fire Emblem Protagonist (read: basically a blank slate) in the game over all the substantially more interesting characters 3H has to offer is just really frustrating. Also the final smash looks like dogshit, like FE3H has overall worse animations than Smash for obvious reasons but I’m pretty sure this attack looked better the first time around.

FP2 opened with Min Min, which brings ARMS to the table. ARMS. The only first-party fighting game Nintendo has outside of Smash, so it looks a bit less weird next to everything else but…come on, man. I think this was the most confusing pick of all of them- the game came out in 2017, and having Min Min in Smash would serve as promotion for a sequel…which hasn’t been announced. There was a graphic novel in the works, but it was cancelled earlier this year. Oops? At least the stage was fun.

As much as playing them is awkward and complex, the Minecraft addition was fitting. Only the best-selling game around. I think people weren’t sure if Microsoft would go for it, but they let us have Banjo, so sure. I’m mostly just annoyed that they couldn’t get any of the songs from the actual game in there- like, you got one in from the fucking mobile game, but you couldn’t just get C418 on the phone?

Sephiroth is definitely one of the hype-ier releases from this pass. The character is iconic, as is his theme and his home game. I’ve never played any Final Fantasy game, but I can still respect the name. Once I remember how to spell it. The whole bossfight aspect to his release was also quite cool, while it lasted.

On the other hand, I have no love for Pyra nor Mythra. There’s so much wrong with these ones, frankly. They’re another swordy character, immediately following Sephiroth too, and they go back on Smash’s very deliberate decision to split characters like Zelda/Sheik and Samus/ZSS up (Yes I know Pokemon Trainer does the same thing but I have a lot more leniency for them). Add in their being from a JRPG much less well-known or remembered than the previous couple characters and the designs being…questionable, I have a big issue with the whole thing. This was also around when I kinda stopped playing the game in general, and they definitely didn’t help pull me back in.

Kazuya might have, though. With the exception of him and Sephiroth, all the characters from the Fighter’s Passes were pretty much protagonist-types, but this motherfucker pulses with the essence of bad guy. What I’m saying is that he’s fucking cool, and while he’s ludicrously complex, that makes perfect sense since…I mean just look at the combo lists from Tekken 7. His inclusion also kinda rounds out the list of biggest fighting game franchises out there being rep’d in the game, though I imagine now I’m going to have stans from Mortal Kombat or whatever on my back. They’re not going to put a fatality-capable character in Smash, guys!

Finally, this rounds us around to the original point of this article. Let’s talk about Sora. And by that I mean…I don’t really have a huge amount to say about him. Kingdom Hearts is a franchise that completely passed me by growing up, and I don’t think I have the time or energy to devote to it now. I’m sure it’s good, people seemed really excited for him to be in the game so they have to have gotten that love from somewhere, but I don’t share that feeling.

That’s not to say that I don’t think he deserves a slot. The idea of “deserving a slot” in Smash Bros is kind of an odd concept, even though it’s come up a lot so far this post. But a slot in this roster isn’t just a place in a popular fighting game, because at this point, Smash is kind of a museum of (mostly Nintendo) games- and so having representation is a forever acknowledgment that the franchise is, or has been, an icon to so many. Kingdom Hearts, to my knowledge, has 100% earned that position, and so Sora getting to be playable here makes perfect sense. He wasn’t my pick (Touhou representation never I guess), but I’m happy for those who wanted him.

As far as the actual gameplay looks, he reads like a character that kept in mind what people didn’t like about Hero when he released. It’s another sword-based character, which I think at this point speaks more about the demographic of video game characters than it does about Smash. But I appreciate that the Magic Bullshit is toned down, and that it’s also his only real gimmick (The 3-hit combo feature is A Thing, but other characters e.g. Bayonetta have already done that, so whatever). His recovery potential looks patently absurd- like he just gets Pikachu/Pichu’s Up-B as a Side-B that can also be chained with his actual Up-B? This guy better be light as hell or he’s going to be super hard to take out. I dunno, I think he looks solidly fun enough- more dynamic and aerial than the other swordfighters, at least- and that’s good enough for me.

And I guess that marks the end of Smash Ultimate. Not with a bang, but with a key…dude. It’s been a very solid run, the game managing to keep itself fresh across several years of development, even as other games have risen and fallen. Smash is kind of forever at this point, I think, though the finality of Ultimate’s ultimate character implies that this particular iteration may be coming to its end. And seeing as it is always one Smash per console, I wouldn’t be shocked if the Switch itself was nearing its endgame as well.

Okay but also it’s pretty funny how they heavily censored everything Disney out of Sora’s DLC except for that little Mickey charm on the trailer, like how much must that one shot have cost them, was it even remotely worth it, I don’t know but I kinda want to

[belphie-in-wonderland]

Huge Salty Rant here, you have been warned.

That moment when even your pay 2 play audience is bitching about the sheer amount of bullshit the cost of the event rewards are now, you know there’s a problem.

I was seriously hoping this game wouldn’t become a play to win but it’s heading there. But even the ones paying will start to drop it because you’re having to drop some serious bucks to finish all the pages now.

As someone who has given a good ass chunk of money for this game before, They’re doing some slimy shit now. Especially dropping a mammon’s rip off sale RIGHT AS THE NIGHTMARE COMES OUT.

Nightmare rng sucks but you could always get something nice from the event if you can’t get a new card from there. Guess what? Not anymore lmao cause it’s almost 100k to clear the FIRST BLOODY PAGE. Fuck outta here.

[roaminromans]

I actually fucking hate crafting in video games

I want to have fun, don't make me collect arbitrary bullshit for 15 hours

Especially if it's a random drop so I can grind for and never get it

Fuck crafting, fuck collectathons and fuck RNGS who interfere with my enjoyment of games

[dumbfinntales]

So I just beat Remnant: From the Ashes.

A pretty fun, but somewhat flawed experience. I can totally see myself replaying this game for a bit to upgrade some weapons and see some extra content.

So at its core Remnant is a somewhat souls inspired third person shooter, which is also randomized. The souls inspiration is kinda there, but I feel like the game is different enough to have its own identity kinda like Nioh. The game relies more on player skill than the loot you got, although having good weapons does help. The randomized elements are interesting. Your first playthrough is going to be different from your second one. Bosses, items, enemy spawns and even side quests are randomized. This gives you just about enough incentive to play through the game again, maybe even on a harder difficulty.

One system that I loved about this game was how the bosses and boss loot was handled. At first I hated how each boss was accompanied with helping minions, but over time they kinda just became walking ammo carriers and they didn’t bother me so much anymore. Although almost every boss in this game would be a cakewalk if they didn’t have minions. Each major boss in the game has two ways to kill them, two special drops to get and two weapons you can make. Boss weapons are amazing and even if you do encounter the same boss again, you can just kill them in the special way to get something good. Although figuring out the alternate kill can be a pain, but I rely on wikis like any sane human being. The Defiler handgun that I got from one of the bosses was my favorite weapon in the whole game. Using it is so satisfying and its mod is so powerful. Imagine a shotgun packed into a pistol. The beam rifle and the Ruin rifle were really fun to use as well.

The game does have some design decisions that I feel like hold it back. Protecting NPC’s from enemies, especially if you can permanently fail till next playthrough suck major ass. The story related “protect root mother” was garbage and not fun in any way. I encountered a similar side quest later on where I had to protect two NPC’s, and this is where I failed permanently without knowing. One of the NPC’s died and I was locked out of getting the full reward with no way of retrying. I was beyond pissed off and felt like dropping the game there. Getting the same event is up to RNG, but at least I know better. I do feel like the game eases on bullshit around the time you leave from Earth, but those couple missions made me so sour.

Random generation has its flaws too. I started recognizing areas in the first map, and you’ll be seeing a lot of similar terrain in dungeons and the main world. Due to this nothing looks unique. There are very few awe inspiring sights in the game, and the rest is randomly generated. I ran through the same exact office building at least 5 times when I was exploring Earth. The game also has random open stretches of absolutely nothing that you have to run through. Why are they there? There’s no interesting scenery or anything to find, just a bunch of open space for the sake of it.

But yeah, gotta say that in the end the game impressed me. It’s a lot of fun, offers a lot of replayability, is fun with friends and is just a pretty well designed game. Despite its shortcomings. Remnant: From the Ashes gets a oh that was terrible/I’m in trouble!

[kriscynical]

I smell bullshit

So I saw a video from two days ago by Austin John Plays this morning talking about his suspicions that people have found out a way to cheat at Tetris 99 because of what he’d been experiencing while playing. All I can say is thank God somebody else is having the same suspicions as me.

Straight up, I know I’m good at Tetris because I’m fast. Like “my family doesn’t understand how I can process where to place the blocks instantaneously” fast. Out of 240 games played I have 43 wins and over 250 KOs, and in the games I haven’t won I’ve placed in the top 5 about 90% of the time. I’m good at Tetris. 

I also understand that there are some stupidly amazing Tetris masters out there who can do all sorts of t-spins and other strategies on top of my “go really fast and get lots of back-to-back Tetrises” strategy. But there’s a limit to that.

About three days ago I suddenly noticed a RIDICULOUS change in game play, as in I would have two lines of blocks on my own grid but be shot up through the top and KO’d via garbage in literally less than five seconds. I actually counted a few times after I started noticing it. And this would be happening while I was only being targeted by a single person, and they never had more than four or five lines of tetrominos on their own grid. 

Now, I’ve read that when you’re being targeted by multiple people that adds a bonus to how many lines of garbage you send down on people, including when you have your game set to attack people who are attacking you like I have mine set to do (as opposed to random players, number of KOs, or badge status). This makes sense for the gameplay I was experiencing at launch.

But I am sorry, there is no way possible for me to get 20+ lines of garbage dropped on me instantaneously from a single person who doesn’t even have enough lines of tetrominos to get ONE Tetris let alone the multiple back-to-back Tetrises or double and triple t-spins that would be necessary to generate that much garbage, regardless of how many people they were being targeted by at the time. 

My suspicions have only been heightened this morning because as I was playing, at a time of day I’ve consistently been playing, all of that ridiculous impossible hell just... stopped. It’s gone. Things are back to the way they were in the first few days after release. You can still get tons of garbage sent to you really quickly, but not 20+ lines instantly from a single person within the first 30 seconds of a match. You have to be targeted by three+ people for over 10-15 seconds for it now if the RNG decides to fuck with you. 

I’m just about convinced that there were some exploits being used for the last few days to enable people to win by cheating, Nintendo caught wind of it, and those exploits have now been blocked from use. And I certainly hope anybody who was caught using them was banned, because come on, seriously? How is it fun to win when you don’t earn it?

If my suspicions are correct and that really is what’s happened, all I can say is thank GOD. The game is fun again without getting so frustrating that you want to throw your Switch across the room due to bouts of “How the fuck did they even DO that that’s IMPOSSIBLE!” after being KO’d instantaneously out of nowhere.

[moistwithgender]

Media Roundup (February 2019)

I wanted to try and squeeze in one last finished show into the last day but I ended up having a really bad sleep schedule hiccup. Anyway, here’s what I finished this month:

Games:

This is actually the shortest list this month, on account of me mostly playing through a single game somewhat slowly. If you follow my posts, you might be able to guess what series it’s a part of.

Super Robot Wars EX (SNES): At the end of the previous post I warned that if you want to get into SRW, SRW2 is an extremely rough starting point, even though it’s canon to the four or five original SRW canon games mostly on the SNES. Thankfully, there is a youtube video that shows you all the dialogue and combat snippets from SRW2. That said... if I wanted to stick hard to canon, I would have either played SRW3 first, or waited for the incoming re-fan-translation that will drop probably at the end of March. BUT, I wanted to play SRW and not jump to a game so far ahead that the mechanics alienate me to the earlier games, so I started EX. EX is largely a contained side story that takes place in and revolving around the original properties of SRW canon. Said original properties involve La Gias, the world that exists inside of planet Earth, and a three-sided war involving mechs that run on magic. There’s a lot of politics and strategic talk and fantasy worldbuilding grounded in fantasy science and it’s actually really fucking cool. They take the time to explain how due to a (magical) scientific phenomena, prophecies are always accurate in La Gias (yet preventable with the right effort), which is exactly the kind of bullshit I love.

However, due to summoning rituals, the setting is also flooded with “Surface Dwellers”, AKA people from different mecha anime who have been written into a melting pot setting that contains all their narratives (sometimes cleverly tweaked to allow and complement each other). This isn’t just a hand wave, but worked into big plot points. It is genuinely stunning how much the creators of these games actually tend to give a shit about making these narratives believable and interesting. I say “believable”, though it’s also worth noting that, as with manipulated inclusion of various IPs, canon is general is somewhat malleable in SRW. There are usually multiple plot options in the games, and EX features a unique system with three separate campaigns that, depending on the order you play them, and also depending on the choices you make and how well you play, change the sequence of events in other campaigns as they weave into each other. It’s not handled amazingly, and to see everything, you may play the campaigns some three times each. I don’t really have that kind of patience, because these early SRW games are also sufficiently challenging games. While not nearly as bullshit as SRW2, EX features a fair amount of incentive to save and reset for better RNG, and you might spend an hour or longer on later maps because situations get really tight. EX is also considered one of the easier early games (phew). Despite that, the maps are almost all really enjoyable, you just have to be willing to work for your victory at times.

The writing, with much credit going to the stellar fan translation imo, is also a compelling read, and dialogue is frequently hilarious despite how much it also focuses on political intrigue and fatal drama. The “hard” campaign (at times equally or less difficult than the “intermediate” campaign) has you playing one of the main series antagonists, whose right hand minions include an oujosama who openly talks about how horny she is, a princess with hardcore stockholm syndrome (or is it?), and a semi incompetent little blue bird as a psychic familiar. A running gag is them chastising each other for using rude words. These characters have apparently been popular enough to reappear even in the modern titles, which largely are self-contained timelines of their own, with their own canonical tweaks.

Last point I want to touch on (this single game just has so much to it) is that playing this game out of order is interesting in how canon is referenced. In most self-contained-stories-in-greater-narratives, you’ll get somewhat forced exposition drops when a character is (re-)introduced. Most of these games so far tend to treat pre-existing characters on the same ground as OCs, where a character doesn’t say, for example “yo I’m goku I come from earth and I’m a super saiyan”, but kind of just realistically reacts to the scenario as per their characterization. If you learn more about them, it’s mostly via seeing them interact with other heroes or villains from their own canon (though later games include library bios to catch you up if you want). While this creates an interesting experience where, if you don’t know a series, you get that curious feeling of walking in on the middle of something, but instead from the beginning. The most interesting aspect of this, and what I consider the defining aspect of the game’s storytelling, is that the same delivery is used with the original characters. From the get-go, the original characters in SRW EX talk about other elements the way real people do, without vaguely audience-oriented exposition. Some people won’t like this, but it makes it feel much more real to me, and complements my recent exploration of the breadth of mecha, where I know a ton of names and have very little context, and slowly accumulate context as I go along. It’s a lot of little micro-mysteries. EX didn’t start this, either. SRW2, which is both the first SRW with a plot or even dialogue, introduces the main OC of SRW, Masaki and his Cybuster, who has a lot of his own lore, and tells almost none of it. You are left for the entirety of SRW2 to only grasp the fringes of what Masaki’s story is, and when he says “hey I’m actually leaving now in the middle of the game because I have my own plot bye” you just deal with that. SRW establishes that the world is way bigger than you, even though the core concept of the series is rooted in fanservice. Now, part of this is that Banpresto and Winkysoft probably had a big MCU-style plan from the beginning (cough most ambitious crossover in history cough), because, well, look at this release timeline and associated narrative chronology:

-Super Robot Wars (Game Boy, April 1991) No plot, or dialogue, but establishes the Big Three (Gundam, Getter, Mazinger) as playable characters and has the kaiju villain from an old 70s Getter+Mazinger crossover movie as the final boss. The pilots don’t exist, the robots are all apparently sentient beings. -The 2nd Super Robot Wars (NES, December 1991) Beginning of plot, introduces a proper antagonist (Bian Zoldak), an antagonist force he leads (Divine Crusaders), light political intrigue, Masaki Andoh and his nemesis Shu Shirakawa are established vaguely while having a separate plot that is not explained. IMAGINE juking your audience with your own main character like that. He doesn’t serve as protagonist yet but is clearly, like, the most important OC? Bian and Shu even serve as the final bosses and you don’t even know who Shu really is. The kaiju villain from before comes back for a single map and evolves into a stronger form unique to the game. The heroes from SRW1 also all acknowledge that SRW1 happened and they know each other. This establishes that you cannot rely on canon. -The 3rd Super Robot Wars (SNES, July 1993) Haven’t played yet but I hear this is where they really started playing with canon. Mixes the Divine Crusaders plot with the plot of the original Gundam series. Multiple endings exist now, and plot regularly splits into dual branches. -Super Robot Wars EX (SNES, March 1994) Here’s where it starts to get complicated. This focuses on Masaki’s setting, while continuing off of SRW3′s plot. Elements introduced here will continue to be referenced in SRW4 (the ending screen even explicitly states that, which reinforces my idea they planned this all years in advance). Multiple campaigns with malleable canon means nothing is concrete ever again. -The 4th Super Robot Wars (SNES, March 1995) Campaign now splits into Super Robot (Getter, Mazinger) and Real Robot (Gundam) routes, which is easier to handle. This game finishes up the “Classic” SRW timeline, but would also canonically be replaced by two remakes on the PS1 (SRW F (1997) and F Final (1998). However... -Super Robot Wars Gaiden: Masoukishin - The Elemental Lords (SNES, March 1996) Masaki gets his own game five years later, beginning his narrative. This game has no mecha IPs, and is exclusively OCs. The most complicated aspect is that this game is split into two chapters: the first, at the start of Masaki’s story, and the second, which... if I have this correct, follows after EX and SRW4. The previous games have, supposedly, been referencing this game that has not existed until now, and this game references what has come before. Playing SRW feels like being lost in linear time. This game starts off its own timeline of games that, I hope, stay confined to the OC-centric games. 

So here’s the timeline:

First half of SRW Gaiden SRW2 (loosely referencing SRW1) SRW3 SRW EX SRW4 Second half of SRW Gaiden

As a result...I can never be comfortable writing a suggested order of play. In playing these games, you simply must accept that the world is bigger than you, and at all times you will be an outsider to some degree. You know, until you’ve played all of them. Which you can’t yet, because they aren’t all translated yet.

Phew! That’s a lot of words about Classic Timeline SRW, and I’ve only played through two games. Thanks for reading all of that, I hope it kept your interest. Despite how complicated that got, EX is a great game and easily in my top SNES RPGs now, up there with Live A Live and Dragon Quest V. Let’s move on for god sake!

Oh, right. Almost forgot: (SRW EX: Masaki’s Chapter: Beaten 2/9/19) (SRW EX: (One of the two versions of) Lune’s Chapter: Beaten 2/15/19) (SRW EX: Shu’s Chapter: Beaten 2/20/19)

Fun fact: In EX, if you use a cheat code on the title screen to play through Shu’s route with a suped-up absurd final boss-strength version of his mech, and run into one of the other protagonists, then when you later play as that other protagonist, you’ll have to fight the cheat version of that mech as a boss.

Orbital Paladin Melchior Y (PC): I had to play something else this month, and because I’m trapped in a fugue state, I made it something mecha related. Melchior Y is a small, hour-long visual novel/shoot em up made by John D. Moore, who I know mostly as a_new_duck from the selectbutton.net forums. I’m... not gonna have as many paragraphs to talk about this, or anything, as I did with SRW EX, so if he sees this I hope he doesn’t take that as a negative. Reportedly, this has multiple routes, though as of this writing I’ve only played one of those. I don’t know if that means multiple endings! I liked it for the small gamejam game it is, though. John is an academic and a mecha fan (and did his thesis on mecha, iirc) and so this is reasonably an introspective mecha story focused on children conscripted for space war purely for their utility, and adults who boss them around despite no longer being allowed to pilot once they hit the very beginnings of adulthood. It gets dark! A smaller positive about it is the matter-of-fact inclusion of queer identity, comfortably existing alongside religion without having to immediately make the plot about the conflict between those (at least in the route I played). I enjoyed it, and if you have the patience to explore artier games that aren’t polished AAA cash houses, you might gain something from it too. Here’s a link if you’re curious, it’s currently free.

Anime:

Rascal Does Not Dream of Bunny Girl Senpai: I already wrote about this last time, oops! Still, despite a couple stumbling points, this is fun character-driven supernatural lit, and if you’re mad at Persona games for bad political takes, then this... at least this doesn’t have those! The funniest thing about the series is that the bunny outfit is easily removable from the plot and barely relevant past the first couple episodes. (13 episodes, finished 2/5/19, Crunchyroll/Hulu)

Punch Line: I actually went in expecting something akin to the sort of wackiness I remember way back when FLCL was fresh. I didn’t get that, necessarily. What I did get was (as I would discover after I wiki’d it later) a fucking Kotaro Uchikoshi story. That’s not a bad thing, but if I had gone in knowing that, I would have been prepared. Uchikoshi writes light novels. Extremely convoluted, mysterious, non-linear light novels. As I was watching this show, I actually thought the whole time “is this a fucking light novel adaptation?” It wasn’t, but it was by the guy who wrote Nine Hours, Nine Persons, Nine Doors (one of my favorite DS games), and Ever17: The Out of Infinity (probably one of the most miserable game experiences I’ve ever had), and I was easily identifying his particular brand of storytelling. There is a LOT that can be said about his style, but I’ll try to keep it short with a paraphrased example (don’t @ me if this doesn’t explicitly describe any one of his plots, it’s close enough). He likes to tell stories that start as quirky or high-concept, but somewhat mundane, skip a scene at one point, and then progress until you suddenly hit a big plot point that turns everything on its head and, in my experiences, causes things to immediately end tragically. Then you see the scene you missed. The scene held a plot point literally so important that it completely changes what the story was ever about. From then on you are fed a trickle of left-field plot twists until eventually the plot is unrecognizable from how it started. His work is as stupid as it is clever, and he’s got the strongest grasp of continuity I’ve ever seen a human being have. This is the polar opposite of SRW’s “fuck canon” philosophy, and that’s not for the worse on either account. Punch Line starts as a story about a boy who dies, becomes a ghost, and then has to figure out... something? (I should clarify I watched all of this overnight while not sleeping as as the story built more and more upon itself I had to fight to keep following it) BUT ALSO, if he sees panties twice, he’ll accidentally destroy the earth. Those details are, like, one percent of the secret plot that the show is built upon, and by the end when the wacky dorm sitcom has become a full blown world war with government conspiracies, I was like “wait why is that girl a superhero again?” Everybody deserves to experience an Uchikoshi story once, just for the wild novelty of it. I don’t think this is his best work (I think 999 is better), but it perfectly exemplifies his style.

Also, I spent the full binge watch (which I rarely do) thinking it was a visual novel adaptation. Absolutely convinced. But, it turns out that, no, he just writes like he’s making a VN game. The “panties = genocide” concept is so obviously a choose-your-own adventure mechanic that I thought it had to be. On the bright side, an actual VN adaptation later came out, and even came out in English on the PS4. And they added in apparently ten episodes’ worth of significant extra plot, so I might play that.

Also, it’s called Punch Line because in Japanese it sounds like “panty line.” That’s it. Also maybe it’s referencing plot twists, or mortality, idk. (12 eps, finished 2/6/19, Crunchyroll/Hulu/HIDIVE)

Mobile Suit Gundam II: Soldiers of Sorrow (Movie): A month later, I finally got around to the rest of Gundam 0079. I think I might like this movie best of the three, even if it does feature a lot of character death is kind of a downer at times (granted, that’s kind of most of Tomino’s work isn’t it). This movie is where most of Kai Shiden’s character development occurs, and it’s nice to see his go from a bastard to a sympathetic, uh, bastard. He’s terrible and my son. (Finished 2/9/19)

Mobile Suit Gundam III: Encounters in Space (Movie): You know I really like the original Gundam in concept, and even execution, but sometimes I’m chewing through it. Even when boiled down to the compilation episodes I’m just pushing through at times. I mean, I think part of that is my burnout and executive dysfunction issues preventing me from fully enjoying things, but it could also just be that I’m baby. This was the movie I liked the least, despite having some of the best moments in the series. The final showdown is genuinely incredible, and there’s probably a lot of essays out there discussing the recurring theme in Gundam of invoking the figure of Newtypes, while also regularly denying being one (even to oneself!) after engaging in a lot of telepathy. My problem with MSG3 is that they packed the most plot points into this one, and it gets to a point where it was hard for me to follow. Mirai goes through two separate love triangles, and a huge tactic (bordering on the severity of a war crime) happens and then is iterated on in such a small amount of time that I actually lost track of who had it and how I was supposed to feel about it. If I were to rewatch it, I might grasp it better. I spent this movie feeling like I should have just watched the 50 odd episodes instead, for the sake of comprehension. Idk! Hate to end this on a negative note, because this series has layered characterization, complex examinations of war, the things people do in war, and the ways that war changes people, and also cool robots. It’s probably something you can revisit multiple times and gain new value from each time. (2/15/19)

Mobile Suit Gundam: The 08th MS Team: Guess who watched this on Adult Swim a long time ago and almost totally forgot! This series is amazing and probably going to stay my favorite Gundam series. The animation is consistently beautiful and consistently had me comparing it stylistically to Cowboy Bebop, from the body language to the lavish mechanical displays to the character writing to the excellent english dub. The US got it ater it was complete, but the original airing of it was spread out over three and a half years, and given how flawless it is, I can understand why. If you’ve have a spot in your heart specifically for watching the switch axe change shape in Monster Hunter, you’re gonna lose it watching them do maintenance in this show. Character-wise, while 0079 was about watching whiny teens complain and break protocol on a regular basis, 08th MS Team is as much about living army life as it is about going on missions. There’s soldier superstition, there’s writing to girlfriends back home, there’s complaining about staking out in the desert for five days. I haven’t watched MASH, but the things I have heard about it make me link the two. 08th MS Team is also about a super unfortunate star-crossed love between people on opposite sides of the war. This plot element is a recurring one even back in 0079, but here it feels the most heart-wrenching, and with the very weighty and believable mech combat (it’s so pretty, good god), I was constantly worried about the well-being of all the characters, Fed and Zeon (except for Ginias). If you have any interest in anything, you have to watch this. I’m not good at selling things.

I watched all of this when Hulu was threatening to remove it, but now it appears to still be up? Uh, so go watch it I guess. Oh fuck, right, I almost forgot. The last episode of this is so bad they didn’t even air it on TV in the US. It’s tangentially related to the plot, claims to be about the main characters but instead centers on two side characters and like six new ones, has zero character development, has comparatively/definitively awful animation, relies entirely on misdirection towards the viewer to keep the plot barely hanging together, and has no satisfying payoff. Thankfully, it’s sort of an omake episode, and you can completely skip it. (12 eps (minus 1), finished 2/20/19, Hulu)

I can’t find a decent HQ poster so have this you filthy animal.

A Place Further Than The Universe: It’s not about robots! Wait. Is it about robo--it’s not about robots! I had heard about this show for a while, it was almost universally agreed upon by everyone that follows seasonal anime to be easily the best show of all of 2018. And wow they were not kidding around about that. APFTTU (oh god that acronym) is about four high school girls who decide to go to Antarctica. It is a feelgood comedy with occasional ventures into very real drama, and is rooted very realistically. The show is semi(?)-educational with the attention it gives to showing how real life expeditions work, while also liberally flowing into the poetry of the concept and experience of such a thing. The four girls are all hilarious and innocent without being cloying and, and this is the most important part, without being written with voyeuristic appeal. It is not off-base to have concern for the ways in which a significant number of female cast anime are written with intent to appeal to lonely men who want to feel a safe ownership of something innocent and attractive. It’s not all of them, but it’s a significant amount. Male gaze exists even in the lesbian shows, it’s something you sometimes have to roll with. Here, however, these girls are fully realized and believable, it is obvious that they are developing people, and that is treated as its own value, not as something to covet. If you’re lookin’ at thighs in here, that is your problem, and I’m calling God. A subplot that comes up involves a guy who gets a crush on one of the older women, and he tries to make it about his narrative and is immediately shot down by the whole cast, because this isn’t a vehicle for his romantic conquest. This isn’t anyone’s romantic conquest, really. It is significant to me to say, “this is an anime I could show to my mom and not be worried about.” I know I just said 08th MS Team was required watching for everyone, but A Place Further Than The Universe is required watching. (13 eps, finished 2/26/19, Crunchyroll)

Giant Gorg: At some point I picked this out to watch on CR without any prompting. Wait, I had one prompt. I knew nothing about this show except I think for seeing it on a short list of tumblr user @lightningclone’s favorite anime. It kind of floors me that this came out a year before Zeta Gundam and has way way better animation. Granted, Zeta has twice the episodes, which might be a big factor. The defining trait of this show is probably way it unravels itself, focusing for multiple episodes on exploring what of the great mystery of Austral Island and Gorg has been established to the audience, before revealing something more an deliberately taking it’s time as it takes you to the next reveal. The reveals don’t feel like twists, because a twist comes out of nowhere and sidelines you. The reveals here feel organic, and expected, but all the same compelling. Another good trait of the show is the characterization. Everyone fits into a very different role both in terms of personality and function, they all have their own motivations, and they all complement each other in unique ways. Also, this show has an Usopp. Back before Usopp was a thing. He’s Dr. Wave, and he’s the best character. 

If I have any criticism for the show, it all comes at the end. Near the end a character does a heel turn that, while a little twisty, is hinted in the beginning of the show, and in his heel turn the writers go a bit overboard and have him commit some sexual violence that goes on for an intentionally uncomfortable amount of time, and features frontal nudity. I know we’re supposed to think “oh god he’s a horrible person actually,” but 1) the main character is a child, I kind of expected this to lean family friendly with the occasional dark element (ignoring all the hilarious New York graffiti at the start that says FUCK in several places because America), but... okay! And 2) the stakes rise to a point by the next episode that the characters, including the victim of that violence, all just shrug it off, like whatever! The character is even redeemed by the end, which I wouldn’t mind if the betrayal itself was less physical. It’s a bit much for me, and I wish they hadn’t done it. Aside from that, I feel like the ending itself is a bit anticlimactic, but everything up to these two points had been so solid that I still think it was worth the watch. Worth it if you like mystery, adventure, and big robots, but worth bearing in mind the trigger warning for near the end. (26 eps, finished 2/27/19, Crunchyroll)

Manga:

Shin Mazinger Zero Vols 1-3:

[Serious Content Warning For Everything]

Shin Mazinger Zero is reprehensible garbage and I hate it. While inspired by Go Nagai and intentionally over-the-top, the absurdity is juvenile, offensive, and often just empty. Now, it may seem hypocritical of me to complain about transgression in something based on Nagai’s works, but I genuinely don’t find this transgressive, just extremely self-indulgent of toxic masculine fantasies, both sexual and violent. It has interesting ideas, about how Mazinger is both a tool possible of great good or great evil (literally the mission statement in every Mazinger work), and it wants to explore alternate timelines to see how characters can be corrupted or overcome corruption. The visual of a demonic Mazinger is genuinely pretty rad.

...Okay maybe he’s not, he’s kind of overdesigned. I like the toothy grill, though.

The problem with that exploration of corruption is that sometimes a character is just a horrible monster for no reason, without much explanation (so far?) for how that comes to be. Maybe in volume 4 they’ll get more into that, since they are currently in flashback mode, so there’s no undoing the damage.

Anyway, female characters so far are hypersexualized and submissive or motherly, or hypersexualized and, like, totally unreasonable. The hot robot girl sat on my lap in her underwear and did sex moans, why are you mad, main love interest? Men are testosterone as FUCK. The hero is constantly yelling to the point of visual distortion, no matter how the drama of the scene is being portrayed. The old man villain Dr. Hell is, for some reason, jacked as hell, and in the backstory to the main timeline (it’s all post-apoc) he shows his superiority over everyone by crushing Not Obama’s balls in his grip. I know exactly the kind of dude that would find this appealing and that’s the kind of person I avoid.

Honestly I knew this series was going to be a trashfire from square one and just kept reading out of morbid curiosity. The story starts in media res at the end of the world, with sexy girl robot disintegrating the hero so his soul can go back in time and try the timeline again. Okay, sure, I’m on board. Immediately next we’re shown what I would assume is The One Timeline To Get It Right, after establishing that there have been thousands of timelines where the hero is corrupted by evil. Pretty normal storytelling. And then, uh, the hero’s grandfather molests and murders the hero’s girlfriend, because the hero might become evil. My face is in my hands at this point. The incomprehensible shame. The hero is then corrupted and goes on a killing spree and humanity’s caught in the crossfire and the world ends. After *that* we get the One Timeline. Why? Why say things have always been bad (and I guess imply that bad things are the default) and then waste my time with the worst shock value trash that comes after for a full volume before actually starting the story? It’s edgy garbage! Why is this an official Mazinger work? Stuff like this is what makes me stop and think “wait are all Nagai’s works like this and I’ve been lying to myself when I like it?” Christ, this turned into a rant. Moving on.

[Content Warning Over]

Dumbbell Nan-Kilo Moteru? Vol 1: Idk if talking about horny manga after that mental breakdown is gonna make me look weird but hear me out.

Hot girls lifting weights.

You still here? Okay, good. I started this on a mutual’s recommendation and while it’s not regularly engaging with my own things (I’m more of a “watching fit woman deadlift and hoping she drops it on me and I disintegrate like so many dead leaves” person), and with the two main girls being high schoolers, I try to avoid engaging with that in that way. Luckily, there’s a teacher my age with a bob cut, so we’re good! More interesting, though, this is in the same genre as that Skullface Bookseller Honda-san anime (though less biographical), where the author just wants to explain their job or hobby while also using likable comedy characters as the vehicle. Anime made edutainment work.

I’m starting to get tired and I wanna wrap this up but unfortunately I have a bit to talk about regarding the last manga I read in Feb.

Tokyo Ghoul Vols 10-12: I’ve been reading this for the past, uh. I read it a lot last year, I don’t know when I started, though. Around 8 books in I started slowing down and taking long breaks because phew! I’d hit the end of the series’ big bad story arc and was having trouble picking up from there. I’m glad I did, though, because the story is still getting good. Here’s hoping I can handle the sequel series, because Tokyo Ghoul itself only has two books to go.

I’ve talked about TG a few times before, maybe just on Twitter. It’s very intelligent “vampire” lit that ramps up the stakes of transition by saying “you can’t just suck their blood and let them go! Human meat is your food and you’ll suffer without it.” At first, I was like “oh wow lol this is edgy” but the last twelve books have talked about trauma, alienation, and most importantly loss of innocence. It’s also about the importance of the bonds between people. The main character is perpetually at odds with himself, trying to be a good person in spite of the fact that being a ghoul is literally and figuratively being a monster. It could easily be an overwrought story of self-indulgence and angst but everything in it has been careful and effective. Ghoul culture is thoroughly built up and balances concepts of territory and posture along with careful deception for the purpose of staying a part of, and hiding from, human culture. It’s about predators who cannot remove themselves from their predatory nature, even if they want to be people with families and educations. There’s an organization that wears white and hunts ghouls with weapons crafted from ghoul bodies and functionally I can’t fully argue with them, sort of, but hey we’re starting to discover that corporations are corrupt (who knew?) and that’ll be fun.

But forget the poetry and human condition, the best thing this series does is that unashamedly works the Hot Topic aesthetic. The main character likes reading books and wears an eyepatch to hide his heterochromia and works as a barista. He wears a mask that evokes an S&M lifestyle. Ghouls can only eat people and all other food taste rotten. Except for black coffee. There’s also a number of ghouls with black nails and eyeshadow, and very heavily coded queer male characters (some more flatteringly portrayed than others but that’s a whole other thing). If Sui Ishida never listened to Three Cheers For Sweet Revenge, I’ll eat my fucking feet.

@sun-eater-official I think this might be up your alley. Or maybe not! But these aesthetics sound like you. Actually, you should probably watch 08th MS Team too, for the Bebop vibes.

So that’s everything! I thought I had a short list but apparently it was all things I had a lot to say about. Again, if you read all of this, thanks a lot, I hope I end up introducing you to a new favorite. In the future, I may have to split these into separate posts for each category. I have a lot of free time to write these lately. Writing two roundup posts back to back is a bit tiring, but I don’t have to do another until April starts.