#but what’s great about botw is doing something and feeling awesome

[theoretical-tactician]

They’ve done it. They’ve made a sequel that I like less than the original all by adding a cool new mechanic.

[only-by-the-stars]

Fic Promo: Song of a Champion

Now that @spacelemon has put up that amazing promo vid of the Mipha's Grace mod, it feels like a good time to do a little self-promo of my own, for something that I promise is related (otherwise I wouldn't be mentioning the vid; I am doing so in hopes of helping to get more eyeballs on it): a fic I've been writing since 2022, that is both inspired by and based on the mod. I've been lucky enough to have been allowed to play early versions of it, and was inspired to write a fic that retells BOTW with Mipha as the lead, taking cues from many plot points and armor redesigns present in the mod. If that's not enough to entice you, then please read on for my list of things that you might enjoy about this fic!

It's about Mipha Judging by the results of my poll, a lot of you like reading about Mipha! I've written a LOT about her over the past few years, but this is my most in-depth exploration of her yet. It's entirely centered on her, delving deep into her thoughts and feelings and exploring the myriad aspects of her personality as we follow her journey. Instead of Link waking up on the Great Plateau without his memories and being handed the responsibility of saving Hyrule, it's Mipha who must walk this path; unlike in the base game, she's not a fridged love interest for Link to be sad about, she's an active heroine in her own right with a monumental task ahead of her from the moment she wakes up, not to mention a lot of questions. How did she get there? Can she do this? What--and who--has she forgotten in her century-long slumber? How will she find her way in this strange new world she awakens to? What kind of bonds will she forge with the people she meets along her way? All these and more are tackled in great depth as she goes on her adventure, setting out with, initially, little more than her own courage, determination, and compassion. I've been told by many people that I write their favorite Mipha, and though this isn't my first time giving her a starring role, I fully believe this is my best character work for her so far. I've given her so much to do and act on and react to, exploring her rich inner life and personality and character FAR beyond just shipping stuff, and developed a lot of really fun friendships for her and gone heavy on her familial relationships as well. There is miphlink, but it's only one aspect, and Mipha herself is the shining star at the heart of everything.

2. It takes inspiration from Wind Waker Mainly, the concept of a character who is not the chosen one stepping up and proving themselves worthy and going on to save Hyrule. If you, like me, enjoyed that aspect of Wind Waker, then you'll like this story!

3. It plays with the lore in fun ways Do you like the older bits of lore from pre-Skyward Sword games? Like the Golden Goddesses and other deities? Then you'll like the bits of it I've weaved in!

4. It treats the NPCs with care, love, and nuance One of the things I'm proudest of about this story, that I've gotten praise from others for, is how the various NPCs are written. I've treated them all like people in their own right, who all have their own rich inner lives, schedules, interests, priorities, and feelings that don't revolve around the protagonist. Mipha befriends most of them, yes, but that's because she treats them with compassion and kindness too. Nobody is shallow here, I've gone to great pains to illustrate a world filled with people all living their own lives that intersect with Mipha's journey in various ways, and allowed people to just be human and make mistakes and have doubts but ultimately just be people. There's a lot of emphasis on Mipha's relationships with her family, and I've certainly won praise for my depiction of these dynamics, but also a ton of friendships being formed and explored, and people have told me that I made certain characters interesting and likable to them where the game failed to do so.

5. It has awesome fight scenes BOTW is a game with a lot of combat, so anyone novelizing it better be good at writing that kind of scene. Fortunately, I am! This is an action-packed story, not just for its own sake, but to show the dangerous world Mipha is traveling through and the challenges she has to face as she ventures into each Divine Beast and cleanses them of their respective Blights. I write really fast-paced action that also shows the characters' mindsets while fighting, and strikes a balance between showing off their strengths and that they're up to the challenge, while also respecting their opponents and demonstrating why the Champions of a hundred years ago fell to these things, why NPCs fear certain monsters. And speaking of respecting opponents, I've taken stuff from Age of Calamity as well as some of my own inventions, to beef up the boss fights, a certain area, and make every Divine Beast threatening (we all know how scary Medoh wasn't in-game).

6. It has beautiful prose/descriptions But you don't have to just take my word for it! Here's a sample from the rough draft of chapter 42!

Shards of light drifted across her floor, leaves caught in the current of clouds flowing over the moon. Mipha took a moment to watch them before closing the door behind herself. The water in her sleeping pool murmured a melody of rest and relaxation after a long day, calling her to it, but she ignored it for now. She’d done all her preparations for tomorrow, downed a warm elixir crafted from a few hearty lizards, and now only one thing remained to do before going to bed. It wasn’t a need, as the other tasks had been, but a want. Nothing wrong with that. She crossed the room to the old chest that lay tucked beneath her window, opening the lid with a whining creak from the aged hinges. A folded length of fabric the color of spilt starlight lay atop the item she sought; Mipha moved it aside. Her breath catching, she withdrew the armor beneath and held it up to the softly swaying illumination of the moon outside and the luminous stone lamps within.

All in all, I think this fic is some of my best work, and shouldn't be missed if you're a Mipha fan like I am (she is my favorite Zora, so if it's okay I'd like to use this as a belated submission for that Zora May prompt). She truly is the star of the show, with so much to offer as a lead character, moving through a world treated with depth and care. If you're in the market for a BOTW retelling that does something different, something no other retelling has done, and does it really well, then give it a chance! You can read it here on AO3. :3

[blueskittlesart]

So, the discussion about Twilight Princess got me thinking, and I can't help but feel like that game was very much trapped in a "We can't do another Wind Waker, that was too cute, we need something dark and gritty and mature and grown up, like the other seventh gen consoles!"-kind of mindset. And how much that mindset limited what the game could have been.

I mean, just look at it: Low contrast browns and greys and greens everywhere? Check. Agressive Bloom levels that will sear your retinas right off? Check. Large but Empty open areas? Check. Story and Characterdesigns that REALLY try to be more "grown up" and "mature" and "gritty"? They are everywhere. Spectacular bossfights against huge enemies that look awesome but often end up rather straightforward? Yep.

I don't wan't to dunk on TP too hard, it still has lots of good elements in it, heck, I actually enjoy most of those bossfights, BECAUSE they look and feel spectacular! Some of the armor and weapondesign in this game is really good (whenever you can actually see the armor and the sea of blurry, low saturation colors, that is.).

Midna is the best.

But it feels so much like a game out of place, that was made as a knee-jerk reaction instead of truly considering what would and what wouldn't work on the Wii.

yeah. all of this. I think that tp definitely suffers from the devs attempts to make an overtly grown-up and gritty game, not necessarily because gritty, dark, atmospheric games are BAD, but because the zelda franchise is not a franchise targeted solely at adults. these games are very often coming-of-age stories centered around children and young adults. they are bright and colorful and very narrative-driven because they're meant to be enjoyed by anyone who is old enough to pick up the controller. children who can't enjoy the more difficult dungeon and fighting mechanics will still be captivated by the story and characters. some of my favorite zelda-related conversations i've ever had were with my three-year-old student who LOVED the vibrant characters and story of botw. (revali was his favorite.) twilight princess, in its quest to read as more gritty and adult, lost both its visual appeal AND its narrative appeal. what story it did have relied on nostalgia and plot from oot, alienating younger fans who hadn't yet had the chance to play that game. in order to compensate for its lack of narrative direction it padded itself with filler which showed off its willingness to go darker and scarier in terms of subject matter (look! we're going to kill this child if you don't rescue him!) so much so that the pacing and cohesiveness of the game noticeably suffered. so many elements of tp feel as though they were just thrown in because they looked cool and dark and freaky (the hero's shade, the bokoblin bridge fights, the aforementioned child-stealing segment, hell even the fucking wolf form didn't have any real narrative weight or significance!!!) with no thought to how they might actually impact the pacing and theming of the story. what results is a game with great dungeon design and boss fights but... not much else to speak of. we're left with a poorly-told, barely-comprehensible story that seems almost as if it was an afterthought, held together by some good dungeons. and it's fine if you like the dungeons and don't CARE about the story that much, but insisting that the game has a well-written narrative is just. wrong.

[barramundi]

my twilight princess journey: enemies to lovers apparently

A few days ago I beat the legend of zelda: twilight princess for the first time ever!! and man...... i am not okay (positive)

I've always been a HUGE zelda fan, ever since I was a little kid. i literally can't remember a time I didn't have zelda in my life. so much i used to spend all day long playing majora's mask with my older sibling and i remember how i knew there were other zelda games but i thought all of them would look like oot/mm... and then twilight princess was announced. and i thought that was the most beautiful game I had ever seen. i fell in love with midna and i thought link was just so handsome and cool... unfortunately i never owned a gamecube and apparently my sibling was not really interested in twilight princess, so... time went by and i never had the chance to play it.

and then, back in 2012, 10 years late, 14 year old me heard of the wind waker for the first time. i immediately fell in love with the art and i HAD to play that game. i owned a Wii at the time and i remember feeling disappointed realizing WW was for the gamecube but then FEELING EXCITED REALIZING THE WII COULD PLAY GAMECUBE GAMES. i fought really hard to be able to play the wind waker. and i did!!! i played it way too much probably. i always say it's at least my top 2 zelda. sometimes even top 1, only losing to majora's mask.

and twilight princess remained unnoticed........ until I noticed it... negatively

back in the day people used to hate a lot on the wind waker because of the graphics and art style. and what they would compare it to to say the graphics sucked?? twilight princess. "TP good dark mature awesome!!! WW bad stupid kiddy game!!" UGH i was outraged. i had to stand up for my favorite game!!! before i even noticed, i already hated twilight princess.

i had some (bad) reasons like being under the impression that TP was trying way too hard to be dark and gritty and realistic and that it took itself so seriously it made it look stupid. and i would compare it to majora's mask's effortlessness in creating a depressing but beautiful atmosphere without having to be visually dark. "TP wants to be MM soooo bad it's embarrassing hihihi!!!" oh shut up you never played it, weirdo!!!!

anyways, fast forward to may 2023. nintendo releases tears of the kingdom and with it apparently the end of the old zelda format. i was so devastated and sad... ever since botw, i was hoping for a new old-fashioned zelda game; and now it would never come... but still i was longing to play a zelda game. i wanted to GET THROUGH DUNGEONS, SOLVE PUZZLES, DO COOL SIDEQUESTS FOR FUNNY CHARACTERS!!! but i didn't want to play the ones I had already played again... i wanted something new... but what!!!

i looked at twilight princess, twilight princess looked at me.... i thought "welp... i guess I wouldn't be able to run from you forever". and off i went to hyrule... or rather, to ordon village

at first I was sincerely shocked by how much TP felt like the wind waker. same engine, similar combat (but greatly improved), same sound effects, the yellow rupee... i was jokingly saying it was the wind waker's evil twin lmao

when i got to the first dungeon, it finally hit me: through all these years, what the FUCK did I think twilight princess was gonna be other than... *SHOCK*... A NORMAL ZELDA GAME?????

A VERY GOOD ZELDA GAME???? T-THE BEST ONE????

remember all that talk about trying way too hard to be dark and gritty?? dude. what the fuck. this game is fucking adorable. midna is SO cool in a sweet way, the songs are great and honestly this is my favorite link ever. i always looked at him being marketed as a MANLY MAN THE MOST AGGRESSIVE REALISTIC LINK GGRRRR LOOK AT HOW DEEP HIS VOICE IS!!!! reality: he is the cutest link. literally the cutest most adorable link. bless him forever. i want to hug him so bad............. i am going to pass out (positive)

also midna and zelda. they are dating.

so yeah, there i was having an absolute blast with this game. it has the best dungeons I've ever seen. (except for lakebed temple. i hate lakebed temple. good thing arbiter's grounds is the best dungeon in the entire franchise.)

anyways I got to temple of time and then my PC fucking gave up and i had to go get it fixed; i lost all my progress and cried myself to sleep but then i pulled myself together and went through it all over again. and i would do it again. because i love this game. i finally beat it 5 days ago and i can't stop thinking about it. might just as well start another run honestly

twilight princess has now surpassed most zelda games I've played and is comfortably sitting under majora's mask and the wind waker as my 3rd favorite zelda game. but there is a twist: i haven't played MM and WW in years and i kinda needed to play them again just to confirm or change my ranking. the problem is that i just don't feel like playing them. 'cause i just want to play twilight princess!!!

so yeah, with a new personal record of 17 years of delay, it still feels kinda weird to say that twilight princess might just be my favorite zelda game ever. 🙏

that's it bye

[raycatzdraws]

HI HI HI HI HI My initial request prompt was for silly interactions between loz characters and animals. Some requests I've received have gotten off track LMAO. Thank you for sharing your characters and ideas with me! I have so many things I want to draw and a bunch of animal requests still so Imma get to those first. I cannot promise I'll respond to everything or respond in a timely manner 'xD. It's been half a year and I'm still working on those auuuhg They're really fun, though!

Also as a general heads up to everybody- please don't send me links (as in urls lol) without explanation. I don't know if the one I got was from a bot or a person, but it's an immediate block.

To botw/totk headcanon anon, I'm going to hold onto your ask, but also answer it here:

"Headcanon suggestion; between Wild and Tears, Link has gained weight after slaying the Calamity. Zelda comforts him as his body shows that he’s letting himself rest after the scars he carried, the battles he fought, the people he saved."

This is a really wonderful headcanon! I love reading it and seeing it in comics and art. I swear I saw something like this just the other day where Link and Zelda were visiting hotsprings? If someone's also seen it and wants to link to it in the comments that'd be awesome :D This is a headcanon I see in @/gaylactic-fire's and @/the-phantom-peach's art! It's also something @/linked-maze is exploring with their Warriors and I recommend checking out their comic it's really great!

If this is a request for art I have to apologize that it's not something I want to draw at the moment. I had (have?) anorexia and the thought of dwelling too long while drawing with a character that feels,, aah,, it's that Zelda is comforting him, implying that he feels guilty or uncomfortable about his body? It's a feeling that's important to explore through art and writing and I like to see it. It's a comfort to know that I am not alone. But to dwell in that discomfort myself around one's own body, or eating, makes me feel icky, so it's not something I'm going to draw, at least not right now, sorry TvT I've been there myself and it's too easy to fall back into that feeling and remember what it was like when my anorexia was bad so for my own wellbeing I'm not going to.

I do like the headcanon of Link who's gained weight after his adventures and him enjoying his body!

I'm holding on to your ask as a reminder to draw.

(edit: I found the hotspring art I was talking about! It's the same ask, too. Thanks for including me.)

[appeypie]

as a really big zelda fan who also tends to never go into fandom spaces for the exact burnout(? ish? not really but its the best word i have) youre talking about, im really sorry to hear you arent doing that awesome right now because of that fandom, but im curious on what happened if you feel like elaborating? obviously no pressure!! and i hope you feel better soon and can enjoy the franchise outside of that experience

this actually got longer than i meant it too, so it's going under a readmore

no juicy drama happened, it's really just a combination of like 100 things over a long period of time + when i take the time to compare it to my tf2 or ut fandom experiences i'm like. wait i'm miserable LOL

i suppose the biggest thing is proship content like, everywhere. Yes I block tags, try to curate my online space, but it's unavoidable. specifically ghi//ra//l//ink is something that is so viscerally uncomfortable to me, in every context, and if you're a ghira stan you know. it's everywhere. i don't even really like talking about this stuff cause it makes me uneasy

plus it just seems like i don't vibe with loz fans as easily as i vibe with fans from other fandoms, so i feel more isolated and misinterpreted? misunderstood? idk. i feel like there's a lot more negativity there as well, whether it be about games or characters or whatever. it brings the negativity out in me, too. i never got super into botw/totk's story so i already don't connect with 90% of zelda fans. the list kinda goes on

iono. i fucking love zelda as a series, i've made a few friends :), i love ghirahim and demise so much, they've given me lots of art growth and inspiration, but hoooh it was just getting too much for me. i've never had to consciously pull myself away from an interest before, but i realized that getting worked up about this stuff all the time wasn't good for me fdjkgfg

i will inevitably be back, i will make art with them again, like for fucking sure. loz is really special to me. i just. yeah.

i am doing better though! dw about me! im immersing myself in tf2 again which has been great :) love those stupid murderers

[golvio]

Revisiting the early quests hyping up the Yiga Clan reminded me of one of the really noticeable problems I had with BotW’s writing: the inconsistent and wildly fluctuating tone for the “serious” parts.

The introduction to the Clan most people get is from the guards outside of Impa’s house describing them as “sad souls” who went off the path Hylia laid out for them with pity. Then, Paya’s heirloom quest has them built up as remorseless killers in an organized crime ring, murdering Dorian’s wife in cold blood and being perfectly happy to orphan his daughters now that Dorian himself is no longer a useful informant. If you take on that quest early, odds are the Yiga Blademaster who shows up is going to kick your ass.

And then you actually enter the Yiga hideout and the same Blademasters that beat your ass when you were a lower level now have animations like this:

This isn’t an “uuuuuuuu y aren’t villains cool n edgy anymore like my beloved ‘90s comic books 😭” post. I’m okay with Kohga being silly. I love the concept of a character who’s at once funny and entertaining but also a really dangerous and skilled combatant who uses his clownish first impression to get people to let their guard down. The main problem I have with it is just that the tone is not consistent at all. The clan feels less like the complex, multifaceted organization that arose from a complicated and traumatic historical situation it deserves to be and more like all the scenario writers had great ideas but somehow forgot to get together and talk to each other about how to weave them into a coherent whole. It swings wildly back and forth between them being this scary force of assassins capable of infiltrating even the Sheikah secret service undetected to “Haha, look at these dork-ass losers! They were dumb enough to serve Ganon! Only a total dweeb would be scared of these banana-obsessed clowns!” Which is, y’know, kind of insulting to the Sheikah who actually did have legitimate reasons to be scared of these people based on what we saw with Dorian.

It’s like what bugged me about the main conflict within the Zora. It wanted to tell a story about generational trauma and bigotry, but was so terrified of presenting anything unflattering to the player and the lost kingdom of Hyrule that it turned everyone into goofy, exaggerated caricatures performing for our amusement. The Zora elders weren’t a bunch of extremely traumatized people who needed to heal, they were just a bunch of curmudgeonly old fuddy duddies who were out of touch and needed to get over themselves (Which they instantly did, because of how cool and awesome the player is for putting up with their stubborn old people nonsense. You’re so cool that the hot Zora princess everyone’s mourning was throwing herself at your avatar! Isn’t that awesome?). And Sidon wasn’t allowed to be a character in his own right, doing what he thought could help heal his people while risking a revolt or a forced abdication for breaking the ban against outsiders behind the elders’ backs! He’s just Your Funny Friend Who Encourages You, because he exists solely to get you to your objective at Vah Ruta, and the game never lets you forget it. And the younger generation of Zora, some of whom remember Link before his death, aren’t symbols of the younger generation trying to move forward at the risk of starting a major generational conflict with their parents/grandparents who’re still traumatized from the Calamity because it was practically yesterday in Zoran terms. They’re just funny clowns who put on a show for you and point you towards the bridge where Sidon’s waiting.

It’s like…they wanted the royal advisor seeing the armor Mipha made for Link to be this big, emotional moment, but the writers spent so much time assuring us that we didn’t need to respect the Zora that it felt…like something was missing, emotionally. Like, “Oh, you don’t need to take those old coots seriously! Sure, they’re all mad at Link for something he had no control over, but they’re just stubborn and old! You don’t need to take their cold silence so personally! Just keep your chin up and eventually they’ll realize how stupid they were being for ever doubting you, the great hero who’s come to save them!” And when Muzu’s looking up at the statue of Mipha, there’s not a sense of this broken community coming back together to heal, or a man in deep denial of his own grief coming out of the dark place his heart had been lost in to the point where he treated the little boy he once knew as a scapegoat, and more just him being, “Oh, right! How could I have been so stupid?”

It’s like…these people are traumatized. The Zora are grieving because the apocalypse practically happened yesterday. The Yiga were traumatized by the royal family, who their religion told them they were born to serve, attempted a genocide against them. Both of them are understandably lashing out against a world that they think forgot them, that blithely moves on, unburdened by the grief they caused them, not a care in the world. The game doesn’t want to sit with these emotions because it might make the player uncomfortable, interrupt the hero fantasy, spoil their fun. But in exchange for trying to maintain a lighthearted tone throughout, it just feels like the writers aren’t really respecting their NPCs as much as they should, and deliver a somewhat jarring experience where the emotional pendulum wildly swings back and forth depending on the whims of whichever writer was at the helm when they wrote that quest/sidequest that day.

The whole game is a story about trauma, or at least, it wants to be. The main character himself lost his identity after a near-death experience, either because of brain damage he suffered after the physical trauma he endured, or as traumatic amnesia caused by his mind desperately trying to protect him from the memory of something no one should have to endure. But the game just can’t sit with trauma. It doesn’t want to tie the concepts it introduces into a coherent, consistent theme that spans every inch of the world, every character. It just wants to introduce its cool new UI and have fun. Which…there’s nothing necessarily wrong with that, but can you at least make up your minds about what kind of overall story you want to tell as opposed to spitballing interesting pieces of story ad infinitum?

I’m a little worried about dropping this take, particularly because we all now know that BotW was designed to be the first part of a series, and so suffered a case of what I like to call “To Be Continued Syndrome.” It was built to introduce the world of Hyrule and its new mechanics & concepts to its audience first and foremost, with far less time being spent on the story. For all I know, TotK could resolve a lot of my complaints with what appears to be a stronger focus on story than BotW with more actively present characters, as opposed to Ganon and Zelda kinda hanging out at the castle and not really affecting anything until it’s time to beat the game.

But, it’s like…I’ve seen games at least try to treat their NPCs with more respect and put more thought into their storytelling without having to sacrifice gameplay or exploration, both in big budget and smaller indie titles. I’d like the Zelda series to finally catch up, too. I love the series, and I know they’ve got the potential to tell really compelling stories that don’t treat the characters who aren’t destined to be great heroes like nobodies you can just breeze past. I saw that in Majora’s Mask. I know they can do it again. I hope that’s what they meant when they said they wanted TotK to feel more like Majora in tone.

[ghosts-and-blue-sweaters]

What's your favorite kind of car?

Do you like video games? Which is your favorite genre? Specific favorite game?

Favorite dog breed?

What's your morning routine?

Favorite writing space?

Best fictional character of all time?

You have a microphone that makes you heard around the world. You can say one thing. What will you say?

Okay, I honestly don’t… care much, for cars. They’re just meh to me. I like bikes better :D

I used to play Mario Galaxy and Mario Kart and Super Mario Bros Wii alllll the time when I was little, and to this day they’re still incredibly nostalgic and hold a lot of good memories. I think I was… six, when I played Mario Galaxy for the first time. My dad played Mario and I played the little player two star—it was freaking awesome, and always something I looked forward to. One of my favorite things to do was collect star-bits for my dad, and freeze enemies. It was just… awesome. So much fun.

However, as I’ve gotten older, I’ve liked video games less and less. My brother is the video game guy, and he is a hekkin nerd about it XD

I don’t really play any video games now, and haven’t played any for years, BUT! Zelda Breath Of The Wild has amazing cutscenes and a great story and ZELDA IS VERY LIKABLE and LINK OH MY GOSH LINK MY BELOVED!!! HE EATS ROCKS FOR FUN!!!

I went through a phase a year or two ago where me and my sister came up with loads of fanfic ideas for BOTW, and I still want to write them!! I think it’d be really fun! I’m just preoccupied with DSMP at the moment :)

So long story short, I’m not a video game person, but I really really like BOTW for the story (and also Tears Of The Kingdom).

Favorite dog breed oh goshhhh

I love golden retrievers (special dogs, and also the same breed as Shadow from Homeward Bound, which is my Most Nostalgic Movie and I need to see it again) and I also like golden doodles (same breed as my dog Ginger <3) and I also like german shepherds (really cool dogs they look so awesome) and I also like great pyrenees (giant fluffy darlings the lot of them and they protect sheep)

But I also really really like wolves :D

I don’t have much of a morning routine, to be perfectly honest; I’m a night owl, and mornings haven’t ever been my thing 😅

I guess they’re… chill? I don’t know, not much happens. I don’t even eat breakfast, most of the time.

FAVORITE WRITING SPACE I LIKE THIS QUESTION!!! Okay, so until just a couple months ago, I didn’t have much of a writing space. If I wanted to write, I usually wrote on a very uncomfortable chair in the living room, or sometimes in my bed.

But at the start of this year, I (somehow) got into a writing routine; every day at 8-8:45pm, I’ll sit down at the tiny table in the kitchen, where I stay until 10pm. It’s been my writing place for a while now, and it’s gotten to the point where I feel wrong when I write anywhere else 😅

So definitely that! Actually here’s a picture:

Now you get to read part of my romance story ajsgajsvjav I honestly had No Idea what I was doing as I wrote it

I can and have written other places—a park bench, a cabin, the notes app on my phone—but I much prefer the kitchen table!

Best. Fictional. Character. Oh boy. Deathy. I will probably ramble. Oh boy.

I gotta start with Ghostbur, of course. My beloved, the ghost of all time, lover of the color blue and sheep, Innocent, weirdly relatable, wearer of yellow sweaters… the perfect guy <3

The way cc!Wilbur treated him is criminal. cc!Wilbur needs to be tried for his crimes and found guilty of malicious intent, murder, enjoyment in other’s sufferings, and Far More.

AND THE FANDOM!!! DON’T GET ME STARTED ON THE FREAKING FANDOM!!! People either see Ghostbur as an overgrown toddler who can’t understand anything, or they see him as this strange mystical Being who is serious all the time and never smiles and is always sad and depressed.

Neither are true! Stop it! It’s annoying and terrible! Freaking stop!

Ghostbur didn’t deserve what happened to him, and he doesn’t deserve the awful fandom interpretations.

Ghostbur deserves the whole world, and all the sheep in the world, and the softest sweaters imaginable <333

I also really really like Wilbur, Tommy, Tech, and Maul :D

Oooh… hm. That’s a tough one.

I think I’d say…

GOSH DEATHY THIS IS HARD!!!

I’d want to say something about Christianity, but there’s so much to say, and I’d want to make sure people understood and didn’t get confused, and I wouldn’t want to say the wrong thing and give people wrong assumptions.

Oooh… maybe I’d share some of my story, like when I dealt with doubts about my faith. That might help people. Oooh :0

Thank you soooo much, Deathy!! This was quite fun to answer :D

[narsh-poptarts]

I came here to tell you that your art is amazing and AAAAA I love it so much!! Your Angry Sky honestly made my day

Also, I don’t know if you’re still doing the “ask me about Sky” thing but if you are...what are your thoughts on the silent realms? I don’t see enough Sky content related to them but to me they have so much angst potential??? And also are a proof that Sky didn’t have it easy at all during his adventure?? Idk I find them very interesting

aaaaaaa thank you so much!!!!! honestly every tag and every message yall send me just makes me so happy, i’m so glad y’all are enjoying it!!!! :DDDD

OH BOY THE SILENT REALMS!!!!!!!!!

YEAH you’re right!!! there’s not a lot of content there!! lucky for you, this is also another topic from Skyward Sword that I have thought extensively about, I have many many headcanons for what the Silent Realms are like.

okay first of all, the Silent Realms are a very unique kind of think in the LoZ series. The concept itself is repeated a couple times but the reasoning WHY is different. Usually link has to go through trials in multiple different games to prove himself and his courage or whatever in order to get the master sword or other such very important item. and then in Twilight Princess (it did come first but whatever) you have those light trial things? i don’t remember what they’re called but you collect the tears of the Light Spirits and they’re all trapped in bugs or whatever. So the basis for the trials or their main mechanic is not a new concept.

But! what is very interesting and unique is, like I said, the reasoning WHY Link has to go through these trials. in botw (this may be wrong, i haven’t played it), you have the trial of the sword, basically a big gauntlet to improve the sword and prove your worth, in addition to the “you must be this tall to ride” thing with your health. but that’s about the sword. in TP, the light trials are about restoring light to the land. they’re not even really trials, and iirc, there’s not,,, really trials for TP. i may be wrong.

anyways, what makes SS different is that it’s specifically about upgrading your spirit. the Hero’s Spirit. Link never has to prove himself to the sword because,, well, the damn thing is his companion. in the zelda timeline, he’s one of the first heroes ever so there’s not even a Hero’s Spirit to have because he hasn’t made it yet. same with the Master Sword. 

so therefore, no other Link has had to create or upgrade their Hero’s Spirit. It’s simply not a thing they’ve had to do because Sky did it all those millennia ago. One and done, cool and awesome. He has a uniquely different and alienated experience because he set the foundation. Probably feels alienated from the others because he never had to prove himself to the sword, and then because of the prominent upgraded spirit, got them easily and recognizably cursed (thanks Demise).

SORRY i realize i just went on a related-but-not-your-question tangent, but now to the actual Silent Realms themselves :D

so, in terms of what I think Silent Realms are like.... first of all: terrifying!!!! If my own playthroughs of them are anything to go by, Link is terrified out of his mind!!!! no weapons, no items, no Fi, you’re completely on your own, you have a time limit, and you’re being LITERALLY HUNTED. and god, that music when the Guardians wake up is actually a heart attack, botw guardians have NOTHING on these bad boys.

From the inside perspective, I imagine the Silent Realms are just that: silent. not dead quiet, not still, silent. There are no sounds in the Silent Realm, not even a ringing in Link’s ear. and also these trials are a test of the Spirit. the body stays behind. This is a plane somewhere within the overworld, a layer formed from many. There’s no air there. They’re spirits, and entities, they don’t need it.

And having no air is a little disorienting at first, hell being a spirit is a little disorienting at first, but Link finds it a little cool, not feeling the need to breathe and not being able to feel air move in his lungs when he does.

And when Link is safe, whether by standing in that first safety circle or by virtue of collecting a tear, it doesn’t feel calm. Calm is exactly the wrong word because calm is flying out on the open air with your loftwing. Calm is sitting, for just a moment, on a stool to regain some health (and maybe take a nap). Calm is not whatever this is. This is like sneaking through the sleeping dragon’s nest, or feeling the chill of a graveyard, or walking down a dark alley at night. Every inch of link is telling him something is very very wrong and he is in danger. and, to be fair, he is.

Now for when the guardians are awake, it’s like a bomb of adrenaline and panic goes off. He doesn’t hear anything but he can feel them coming, feel their presence just behind him, ready to take him down, ready to make him fail and start over. He is a trespasser, taking pieces of an ancient spirit and make it his own, and he is hunted for sport. every inch of him, every screaming inch of him is crying desperately for him to move, run, flee, desperately grab at the next tear, we don’t have time, we’re going to die. screaming screaming over and over, a pounding in his brain like war drums, a sharp, painful insistence out of desperation to survive.

He can’t hear them coming so every other sense goes into overdrive, and he can feel where they’re coming from. The screen in the game actually has pulsing rings at the edge of your screen to indicate that there’s a guardian off screen right over there (which is a very cool indication imo!) and their intensity indicates how close they are. it’s like this sense of dread goes into overdrive in a desperate attempt to keep him alive and he just knows by feeling it that “don’t go that way, you’ll die”

And dude, do you know what the official explanation is for when you fail? the wording they use is “your spirit will shatter”. Shatter!!! that’s gotta hurt!! what do you think it feels like to have your spirit shattered?? Luckily i think both for gameplay and the story itself, if you’re determined enough, you can retry as many times as you like.

but i imagine, for the sake of drama, getting your spirit shattered has Link shunted back into the real world, clutching at his chest in pain, heaving and crying as his spirit stitches itself back together piece by piece until he’s ready to try again. It’s not a pleasant experience.

and speaking of coming back, i imagine actually succeeding isn’t all that great either. the silent realms are silent. there’s no sound at all. coming back to the real world and suddenly getting hit with the sound of the wind and the birds and the ambiance and the sounds of your clothes and the sword and your heavy breathing and too much too much too much!! I imagine it’s very overwhelming. the silence is not a pleasant experience so Link is very glad to have sound again but it’s just too much at once.

you’re very correct anon, there is a lot of angst potential here. i’ve really wanted a Skyward Sword manga or something like that for so long because I really wanna know how the Silent Realms would be interpreted. 

also i’ve kinda got a fic idea were basically Sky has to end up doing the Silent Realms again while on the LU adventure because something something Hero’s Spirit is messing up and he has to reupgrade it. and it’s bad and traumatic and the other boys have to watch as each instance (there’s four of them by god) just leaves Sky an utter mess and they don’t know how to help and he won’t tell them what’s wrong either or what exactly happens in the trials to get him to react so badly when he gets back. i don’t have anything written down but basically “Sky doesn’t know his own limits and won’t ask for help” the fic.

also oh boy this is long, sorry

[inconnusmademoiselle]

1-5 for video game ask!

1. Do you try and stay away from walkthroughs?

Typically, yes. I try hard not to rely on them, but sometimes I just get impatient lol. I do like to go back and replay games with walkthroughs though to see if I missed a side quest.

2. Company you’re always loyal to?

Nintendo. 99% of the time, I enjoy whatever they put out there. Growing up, I felt like they took forever to make new games since my preorders kept getting delayed lol. but now I can definitely appreciate that they take their time and try to give us something special with every new release. I also love all of Nintendo’s trademark characters and games for nostalgic reasons lol. It’s what I mostly grew up on.

3. Best game you’ve ever played?

Oh this is hard lol. I think I gotta say Twilight Princess (I played the GameCube version, just to clarify lol) The art style/graphics were so unique, that soundtrack was amazing, and I thought the controls were great. I also can’t say enough about the story line. I LOVED the way it was connected to ocarina of time but didn’t really piggyback off of it too much. I don’t know if you’ve ever played it, but the damn twist that Midna a was this beautiful Princess all along really just blew my mind lmao. I remember my jaw dropped to the floor the first time I saw that cutscene. The character designs were also awesome. Princess Zelda looked so mature and refined ❤️ I need to stop right now because im going to write a damn essay about how much I loved the dungeons.

Best fighting game though? DBZ Budokai 3. I am unbeatable lmao.

4. Worst game ive ever played?

Superman 64, hands down.

Honorable mentions: Ju-On the grudge haunted house simulator and DBZ Sagas lol

5.a popular series /game you just can’t get into no matter how how I try?

This is going to be very controversial, but Breath Of The Wild. The Zelda series is my all time fave, and I usually love every new entry, but im just not feeling it. The more I play it, the more I realize that I just don’t like open world games all that much. I like structure and direction I guess lol. I’m also not that crazy about the voice acting. And one of the biggest things that bug me? Link’s costume design. The blue tunic is awesome! But I was really hoping that a new twist on the classic green tunic would have made an appearance before the final showdown with calamity Ganon (and have receiving that tunic be part of the story line). The chosen hero always wears green!!! 😫 I also wish it had dungeons with distinct soundtracks and aesthetics. God I probably sounds like a picky snob lmao

Are the graphics amazing? Is the soundtrack great? Is the storyline memorable? Absolutely. I can give that game credit where it’s due, but it just isn’t for me lol. On that note, I’m kinda bummed that there’s going to be a BOTW 2. I’m still patiently waiting for them to do a game that looks like this E3 tech demo. 🤷🏻‍♀️

Thank you so much for the asks!! ❤️😃

[cheekbites-moved]

ok i still havent gotten the secret ending but farming for it might take me a bit so im gonna make a thoughts post for age of calamity now:

Major spoilers obvs so ill put it under a read more

things i enjoyed:

revali beatdown simulator

the controls for the divine beasts are a bit clunky, but i think the angles they used for them did an excellent job at really making the player feel like we were actually controlling a divine beast. so i think it was done well.

link’s personality really gets to shine full force in this game with the amount of cut scenes and it was wonderful to see

every character clearly had a lot of love put into how they operate. they truly all feel unique, & all of their play styles fit them really well in my opinion

the game does a really good job of making you understand what a real threat the monsters are. like in botw they’re intimidating at first, but once you’re far enough into the game they become just an inconvenience to work around if anything. this game managed to actually make certain monsters intimidating for me again, and i think that’s a real accomplishment

the blight battles are actually somewhat challenging in this game and that is truly a commendable achievement lol i think all the bosses are good tbh. i didnt rly dislike or not enjoy any of them.

the way daruk and link’s friendship & urbosa’s motherly relationship towards zelda got to shine was. so good. it’s all i could’ve ever wanted

seeing the descendants again was really nice & it was awesome to see the champions interacting with them!! especially sidon and mipha omggggg. that was. really fucking good shit

kohga. just. kohga in general. getting to see more of him was really rad, he’s such a fun guy! and his english va was Excellent. you could really tell he was having a lot of fun playing him, and it was lovely to see! :)

zelda getting to really shine in this game was also lovely to see. and her being so assertive and badass by the end? omg. it was so wonderful especially after botw. man. 

the combat is done very well imo. im rly glad that they took so many elements from botw, but also added their own flares to make it feel fresh. it was rad.

sidon’s tagline is “winning smile” and his power is “boundless optimism” and i think that’s beautiful

the music in this game is SOOOOO good oh my god. multiple times during playing i had to pause to just appreciate it. it’s pretty much all remixes of botw with a few originals for the new characters, but they all slap. there was not a single song in this game i didn’t like. it is definitely one of my favorite video game soundtracks officially. maybe one of my favorite overall soundtracks in general tbh.

the visuals obviously look just like botw, but it still looked fucking gorgeous at some points. like. man. they really went off to make it look not only faithful to botw as far as appearance goes, but also as far as capturing botw’s beauty and it was. excellent to see!

if anything is true to botw’s backstory, it’s definitely how op link is. cause he was established to be op in botw, & when u finish botw he is also op as hell. he is so fun to play as the higher leveled he gets. he absolutely kicks ass. especially with a two-handed weapon??? daaaaammmmnnn. thats my badass baby boy!!!!

link eating rocks not once, but TWICE. just showing PEAK gremlin energy. 10/10 for those scenes they were great

the ending was really beautiful actually and i did cry like a little baby for it what about it

things i didn’t like:

obviously first and foremost.. this is not the game we were advertised. and no matter how much i overall enjoyed the game, it will always have some layer of being tainted attached to it due to the false advertising. this is not the prequel we thought we’d be getting. & not using “prequel” specifically doesn’t matter when all the advertising, including the box art talks about this being the story of what happened 100 years ago. with no indication it wasn’t the story of what happened 100 years ago in the botw timeline, but a separate universe/timeline entirely. i do hope we get dlc for the game at some point giving us what we were advertised, but at the same time... rly wish that the story that’s in the final game was dlc, & the story we were promised was the original :/ or just having the game have two separate storylines originally would’ve been cool. i just wish it wasn’t falsely advertised. 

fort hateno can fucking eat my whole entire shit WHY is that part so needlessly obnoxious compared to everything else oh my god

being forced to fulfill revali’s power fantasy TWICE hurt my soul

fuck any mission where you have to protect the useless hylian guards. i hate them. they suck.

the ai for player characters when you aren’t playing as them can also be pretty useless. it was really frustrating failing missions because my fellow party members weren’t helping me, and i was basically expected to be in two places at once to get shit done myself. :/ ik you can just switch between characters to make it easier, but like. i like playing as link the most. he’s my favorite character, & ofc since he’s mandatorily played for most of the story, he’s gonna be the most leveled up character regardless so he’s just the best to play as in general especially for harder missions. it was annoying to be forced to play as other people Solely cause the ai was so useless.

king rhoam’s attempt at a redemption arc. i’m not sorry that i just fucking hate this man. i don’t mind him entirely in botw bc you can see clear, genuine remorse during the cut scene at the end of the great plateau. but the redemption arc he gets in this game? after all the fucking shit he does in this game? especially when after his ~redemption arc~ i had to sit through a cut scene of him being an absolute fucking asshole to baby zelda after her mother just died????? absolutely fuck that shit. i don’t appreciate that crap at fucking all. he’s a verbally abusive piece of shit and i hate his guts.

obviously there was gonna be some retconning of how certain things worked in botw in order to make this kinda game work but the way sheikah technology works in this game is so goddamn confusing i do not get it. the works of botw are never outright said or explained completely, but it’s straightforward enough that it doesn’t really matter. this game does try to explain certain things and it just becomes. really clunky and confusing very quickly. 

the story is alright, i guess, but..... really confusing/convoluted as hell at times to a point that it’s. really fucking distracting. especially in comparison to how straightforward botw’s story is. like..... cannot help but be annoyed that such a problem wouldn’t have been a thing if they stuck to botw’s story.

i was sad when the egg thing died but i dont like the egg thing.... it is the MAIN reason shit was retconned so much & i just. dont get its purpose. but i did really like the reveal that zelda made it herself. that was good shit!

also the egg glitched out like. a LOT. idk what the fuck was going on with the poor thing but there was multiple times during a cut scene or when i was just sitting there that it was freaking out in the background and it was rly weird

elemental overworld boss monsters................. obnoxious. especially elemental guardians like goddamn bro what the fuck

i know warriors’ games aren’t about exploring anyway but the limitations for exploring was really sad/frustrating. this is still somewhat the world of hyrule before the calamity, which is something we’ve always wanted to see. not being able to explore even the immediate area at certain points because of shit like timed missions was really upsetting, man. :( i just wanted to see hyrule castle Before the calamity why was did they have to rob us like that.....

creepy corrupted egg’s transformation. why. what was that. what the fuck

even though i did enjoy the boss fights, it did get. incredibly taxing eventually to have to fight the SAME bastards so many times. like yeah botw is also guilty of this with the blights, but goddamn.... at least i have a choice to avoid certain encounters with them? this game has you fighting the same bitches like upwards of 3-4 times. it was. really annoying tbh. like the fights themselves are enjoyable, but damn we added new characters and it still inevitably lacked variety in boss fights.

no playable kass >:( if he’s available later in dlc then fine but i wish he was playable in the original game. so many random choices you’d never expect are. why couldn’t he also be there >:(

overall:

it will forever have that sour taste for the false advertising attached to it unfortunately, but that aside, i overall did enjoy the game! i think it has a lot to love in spite of the issues i encountered. as someone who has this as their first warriors game as well, it did lend itself to letting me see the appeal of them. idk if i’ll get more, but i do get why they’re so beloved/popular now. it was an alright time, with some amazing highlights that i’m gonna think back on very fondly for a very, very long time. if i had to rate it..... 7/10 

[hannah-deactivated20220725]

Reasons Why I Love You

Now, I know that I have already started showing appreciation to people through TPP and BotW, but you guys (well, most of you) know me... when I get to drinking, I get to loving.

Well, okay, I haven’t even opened my bottle yet, but this is some pre-drink love. :p

(btw, I recommend every blog on this list to you guys!)

Okay, so there’s a few people that have really stuck things out with me through an amount of time. And I know generally when I make these, I try to make them about new friends (and I will probably end up doing one of those today as well, but for now...), but right now I just want to make an appreciation post for people that have stuck it out with me through the highs and lows of this blog, because trust me... I am not ALWAYS so social and chipper.

So! Without further ado...

The first person I wish to recognize is @franky-ts. She is one of my first friends I made on tumblr, if not THE first (out of the people I still talk to). We call each other our twins/sisters because we’re so alike and are both Tauruses with water moons (mine’s Pisces; hers is Scorpio). She is so fun to talk to and she is always willing to lend a listening ear, no matter if it’s good bad or ugly. She’s been here for me for years! Since like 2014 or 2015! I’m so grateful to have a friend who’s always there for me and who lets me return the favor. We have picked each other up from so many lonely nights and so many tears and such... and I’m so grateful to know you. I hope to get to know you in person one day, that would be such a dream!

Next I wanna talk about @mvcreates. Mina, much like Franka, is a woman that has been here to talk me through a LOT. And she is incredibly patient and understanding. And intelligent! And wiiise. She always knows what to say and how to say it to make me feel better or to calm me down when I’m freaking out.

But it’s not just that. She’s so in love, and it’s so obvious and so inspiring. I love and look up to her relationship in ways that very few relationships have ACTUALLY inspired me. I love this girl and I’m so grateful to the interweb Lord for putting her in my path because I can’t imagine tumblr without having such amazing friends such as her.

@leave-her-a-tome is next. Our friendship started with a comment on an idea post of mine about Death Has a Face, when Ikuisuus was only a concept, a random idea that popped into my head. She said she loved the idea and that it’d inspired her to draw something, and the beautiful friendship blossomed from there. Now it’s been over a year (can you believe that!?) of friendship and I wouldn’t trade it for the world.

Eris inspires me in many ways. Her kindness, her friendliness, her TALENT!!! I mean, have you seen the drawings she made for that WIP? Good god is she talented!!! Eris is amazing through-and-through and I’m so glad to have her in my life. We haven’t chatted as much as I’d like, but that’s probably a lot my fault. I focus so much on making new friends, sometimes I’m not the greatest at maintaining my current friendships. I hope to end that trend soon.

Then there’s @dawnoftheagez. Dawny-poo, as I call her. ;) Dawn is one of the first people to show my new writing on this new blog the enthusiasm and support and LOVE that she did. But it was more than that. She shows ME love and support every time we talk. She’s always checking up on me. She’s always making sure I’m okay. Yes, I have other friends that do it too, but she does it every time we talk. She genuinely cares about me, as I do her. And I hope she lives the happiest life she possibly can.

Next up is @jade-island-lives. Good god. Jade. My girl. My little mermaid-loving girl. One of the people I got closest to the fastest (along with Franka and Dawn). She is so friendly, so talented, and it breaks my heart when I see her suffering or doubting herself. She has so much to offer this world, and I wish the world would reciprocate the love and effort that she puts out. I hope that you live the happiest life possible as well, Jade, because you deserve to be happy, to feel safe and to feel at home. You deserve to be HAPPY with your life and to have confidence in everything you do, because frankly... everything you do leaves me speechless and awe-inspired.

@gloriousdevourerofstories - we haven’t spoken much lately. But I still consider you a dear friend. A wonderful mutual since the days of my old blog and so fun and exciting to talk to! Her love for reading and writing knows no bounds and she will support you no matter what. She deserves to have the same love and support and enthusiasm that she gives to others. I hope that you are happy. We haven’t really spoken in a while, but I hope whatever you’re up to, you’re happy doing it.

@confundere. Girl. Another great friend that I received through the blessing of support. You are... amazing. Such a blessing on this world. You are so warm and friendly and sweet, so fun to chat with and get to know. Someone I feel like I can open up to, even when you say the wrong thing or don’t know what to say... I still know you have my back because you genuinely care and I not only appreciate that about you, but it’s only one of the many reasons why I love you. You are an absolute sweetheart and I’m so glad to have met you on this damned site. I’m so grateful to everything you’ve done to me over the last 1+ year(s) and I’m so glad that we’re friends, even if we, too, haven’t really chatted in a while. Thank you for being a friend.

Another one I’ve known for a while, though I’m not really sure if you consider me as much of a friend as I consider you, would be @fatal-blow. Your art... is inspiring. It’s SO BEAUTIFUL! You are SO full of talent that it just warms and amazes me. You are so friendly! Even when I’m having self-doubts and feeling like my enthusiasm is annoying you, you are right there to reassure me, as many times as I need, that it’s not and that you appreciate it. And I love that; people that are willing to explain and re-explain their thoughts and feelings about things, even though they’ve said it ten, fifteen times... are my favorite kind of people, as a person with pretty damn bad anxiety. So thank you. Also, you’re just awesome.

@ofvisitorsthefairest, we haven’t chatted in a while but I still consider you my friend. People get busy, life happens and I totally get it. But I do appreciate you and your friendliness and how great you are. (: Thank you for being my friend and I hope things are going well for you right now. I hope you’re happy, because you deserve the world. No, the universe. (: stay healthy, friend!

@ramblingsofabourbondrinker is another person that I found again after I came back to tumblr. Though he now goes by his first name instead of his middle name, it was easy to find him because his blog name remained the same. That same ol’ bourbon drinker. :p if we ever meet up, I am totally going to a bar with you! I feel like you’d be such a fun person to drink with and swap random stories & story ideas with. (: I get SO EXCITED every time that I see you on my dash!! I’d be lying if I said you weren’t one of my tumblr crushes. You’re too amazing and wonderful not to be. But I hope that we stay friends, and keep our social life for a long time, because you’re one cool stud xD

@pens-swords-stuff was another of the first people I met through my writeblr, back on my old blog. We used to have long chats via her ask box, long enough that I’d keep having to wait for the hour to be up because I’d always send her all 10 asks within the hour and be too shy to message her. However, Undine is FAR from being a person to be scared of. She is warm and friendly and so helpful! She’s always there for the people that look up to her and that ask her questions, but it’s more than that. She’s isn’t Google for writers. She isn’t here to be used to get ahead in your writing. She is a wonderful, funny, friendly and kind-hearted person that deserves so much out of this life, and I hope she gets it! Thank you for putting up with me all these years, friend. <3

@theshadowsofthenight is someone that, maybe I haven’t spoken to A WHOLE LOT but I still consider a friend. Shadows is so friendly and nice!! And they’re always there to play my prompt games with me (they used to have so much fun with me, playing my 4 random words games, especially when I first started playing them), and I’ve loved every interaction with them. Stay your wonderful, beautiful self, friend!

And I’m sure there are so many that I’m leaving off. But I’m afraid this post is long enough. To every one of you, new and old, thank you so much for following me. Thank you to all of my friends for being my friends and thank you to all of my followers for loving my writing/blog/games/events enough to click that follow button. I hope you’re all having a wonderful week this week so far and now... after this long-winded post... I’m going to finally open my liquor and take my first shot. xD

Thank you, everyone. Good day.

~Hannah S.

[mememan93]

too 10 zelda games and why?

an ask? sick!! ok top 10 zelda games with reason coming up! (why cant i tag asks??)

1: skyward sword (duh)- Everything about this game is amazing, the soundtrack, the Npcs that feel like people, the puzzles, the controls, just everything! The storyline was linear, but really worth it! This might seem unpopular, but i also loved fi, from her aesthetic to her theme, hell i didnt mind her tips, no matter how many times i play through the game! People say they dont like having to fight the imprisoned/ghirahim 3 times. I loved the ghirahim fights and didnt mind doing it 3 times. And while the imprisoned was annoying, it was there because of plot consistency. The old woman says that too much power will draw it out, and if that didnt happen every time yall would be complaining about plot consistency. Skyward sword also had some of my favorite characters: Ghirahim and this version of Zelda!

2: Spirit tracks (wii u virtual console): this was my first Zelda game, I used to play it at family events with my cousin on his ds because social anxiety. You might think that i have it so high for nostalgia, and while that was the case for a while, i recently got the virtual console version, and played though it twice (you know when you do something recently it loses its nostalgia?) the soundtrack was great, i loved anjean, and zelda in that game was incredible. Taking the form of a phantom to help you, literally all of zeldas and links interactions were adorable. People said hey didnt like the touch controls and while they did take some getting used to, i adjusted kinda quickly, and when i played phantom hourglass afterwards, i kept dying cause the rolls were different.

3: Ocarina of time (3D): yes i didnt have an N64, fight me. Oot is a fan favorite, and for good reasons. It basically invented the zelda formula (if i have my release dates straight?) not counting alltp. Shiek is one of my favorite characters in anything ever, and admittedly, i did get a little sad when navi left. The soundtrack is good, but short when compared to other zelda games (that and it keeps getting taken off of youtube gdi!) again, ive never had an n64, so idk what the water temple was like back then, (i know about the iron boots gear screen) but from some of my cousins reactions, it seems to be a LOT better in the 3ds version

4: A link Between worlds: This is a really solid entry in the zelda series. Its got just enough difficulty that i dont remember literally everything, but easy enough that i can listen to something like TAZ while playing and understand whats happening in both. Ravio is a good character, though i wish you could steal for him. The items system was really cool, but i like that feeling of “whatre ya gonna get in this temple” that most zelda games have.

5. Minish cap (virtual console wii u): the minish cap is an all around pretty game. The graphics are just beautiful, the soundtrack is amazing, specially minish woods! And its got another of my fave characters, Vaati! Ezlo was also a great character, and sure the kinstones are annoying if youre tyring to 100% the game as are the figures, so this is why we dont 100% things! /s

6. Majoras Mask (3D): Disclaimer: i havent finished this, i was in ikana when my sister lost our copy of the game. But i know the story. MM is a game with only 4 dungeons, so it would seem short right? No, because of the 3 day system it takes longer than expected and wants you to plan out what youre doing. It had a lot of memorable sidequests and the masks were really fun as well. The soundtrack takes those OOT sounds and creates a whole new feel and its a heckin good time!

7. Twilight princess (wii): another game i havent finished! This time because spider scary, and im worried about encountering another one. Midna is super awesome, as is the wolf form and twilight sections, but on the wii, the controls are… awful. Anyone who complains about skyward swords motion controls has obviously never played this version of the game. Zant was cool, but then he was immediately overshadowed by ganondorf with little explanation. At least in Skyward sword ghirahim makes it clear that all he wants is demises resurrection. 

8. Wind waker (HD): for a lot of people this is their favorite, but idk it just never really clicked with me. Maybe its because i saved in the wind temple and Makar vanished so i had to reset my game? The soundtrack was good, but not really my fave, and i didnt like the king of red lions all that much. But other than that, it was a pretty solid game, just not one of my faves.

9. Phantom hourglass (wii u virtual console): after i beat spirit tracks i just HAD to play phantom hourglass, and i gotta say, i was pretty disappointed… the temple of the ocean king was like the tower of spirits, but the time limit. Oh the time limit. Also they fucking nerfed tetra in this game cmon! Ceilia made navi nosies, which i found funny for some reason. Honestly, the only saving grace is linebeck. his theme is amazing, he did grow on me, and the final boss fight against him was *chefs kiss*

10: Botw (both wii u and switch): yeah i just dont really like botw all that much. Half of the soundtrack is pretty decent, but the other half is * 5 piano notes* “what you want MORE???” I didn’t like botw Zelda. At all. At best she was quirky and kinda annoying, and at worst she made me wanna slam my head into the wall. I also didnt care about the champions, no matter how much the game wanted me to. The divine beasts were pretty bad, and the shrines were just kinda tiresome. The graphics were pretty cool (THANK GOD THERE WERE NO SPIDERS) i mean its a cool game, just not a cool zelda game, ya know? Also this is the only game thats made my wii u crash. And it wasnt just one time. Do with that what you will

[amostheartman]

You must have thoughts about that BotW sequel trailer, tell us about them!

Oh golly, where to start!

first off I’m totally stoked for whats going on in this next game, it KILL ME that we didn’t get this level of story intrigue in the first BOTW.

everything Major happened in the past in BOTW and we never truly get to experience that classic Zelda story feel in the ending.

but this…

This is more than what I could have asked for to fill the void of BOTWs ending.

It’s teasing at that darker adventurous story I have been craving ever since Twilight princess set the bar.

nothing feels more menacing and threatening than an imprisoned Ganondorf breaking free of his binds.

I’ve always wanted Zelda to ride on the line of darker side of story telling but still keep its charm like in Majora’s Mask and Twilight princess.

I feel the series is at its best when it pushes the line of “family friendly” and respects its fans to handle what it can dish thematically.

Also, it looks to me that Link and Zelda may have actually been the cause of all this entirely by mistake. Like, they weren’t intending to find Ganondorf but rather exploring a recent disturbance or searching for something Zelda read about.

Plus, (as fast as it goes by) the trailer sets up a good quick story of whats to be expected to set up the events of this game.

in the trailer the ground break from underneath  Zelda and she starts falling but Link manages to saved her. However HE then starts to fall also and the hand that was holding back Ganondorf came to the rescue for some reason…

 but in doing so set Ganondorf free!

WHAT AN AWESOME SET UP!!!

on top of that I’m begging BEGGING that Zelda herself becomes a companion/ playable character.

something like in the wind Waker where you would switch between Link and Medli for puzzle and dungeon exploration.

It would be sooooOOOO cool to have Zelda use the sheikah slate and her intellect while Link would use his items and weapons.

something like this ^

One thing I’m really curious about is how is Hyrule gonna change? at this point in time we have no idea how long its been after the events of BOTW. So Hyrule could have a repaired castle town, new villages and all kinds of new stuff. Or Ganondorf could just trash everything all over again.

He is the triforce of power after all, and for the underside of Hyrule castle to have an explosion that large after his awaking is quit telling of his capability.

Oh! And the Master sword is already with you from the get go! (or so I’m hoping)

As much as I love BOTW I hated how they nerfed the Master sword. Even after you completed the DLC  and boosted its power it still wasn’t the unstoppable blade it’s always been in the other games. I really REALLY want new sword attacks like in TP. DMC5 has spoiled me rotten to sword fighting gameplay and TP’s hidden skills have yet to be topped. So this is a great opportunity to see Link put his solder skills to the test!

Man, its really exciting to think about what they could possibly do with this game.

lastly, I’m in love with the extra gear on Link’s tunic with his hood down.

THIS IS WHAT I WANTED IN BOTW, to put the hood down and layer the armor up.

BUT THEY WOULDN'T EVEN LET ME DYE THE ROYAL TUNIC!!!!!!!!!

also alos…

Zelda’s new hair style is cute. :3

but for the record I’m still a bigger fan of her long hair. lol

So yeah, I’m beyond exceeded for this game!

so much so that i can’t even get all of my thoughts out in a proper manor.

I almost wish I didn’t see it, because its ALL IM GONNA THINK ABOUT FOR A GOOD WHILE.

thank you for letting me have the opportunity to erupt my thoughts upon the internet. lol 

-Amos :)

[bandicoot88]

My Cyberpunk 2077 thoughts...

Gonna go into some spoilers, which I’ll hide under the cut, tho for now, I will share what I thought of the game. I finished my original playthrough a while back now, and did a second, with my same V but with a few different choices (and going back so I could take a bunch of snaps in photo mode, as you may have seen!)

  The game is definetely overhyped tho. Did I enjoy myself? Yes, but the game could’ve been better had it been worked on either more, or taken a step back... and made sure the game ran nicely. There are problems with it, and I’ll share this video here from videogamedunkey who does a good job of explaining the good and bad:

    The length of the game:

  Too short. For about 2 days I was doing side quests only to look for Brendan and Theo, voiced by Bryan Dechart and Ameila Rose Blaire, and even then, I felt like the story just... ends. When I went to do the final mission, I actually didn’t realize it was the final mission. It does say a point of no return, and I’ve experienced that once before in a game, but I just thought it’d be a really long mission, not the end of the game.

  There’s too many side missions I feel, and as mentioned in the video, a lot of copy and paste kinds which are boring, while some are worth doing, but you can’t tell which is which until you visit those locations.

  Game machanics:

  I’m an easily confused person, but I still felt like the game doesn’t really explain... much. All this tech, upgrades, add-ons, abilities, weapons, hacking, and WHY THE FUCK AM I OVERHEATING!? Like... did anyone else feel overwhelmed? I’d be hours and hours into the game, and I still didn’t know what did what. Heck, there’s stuff now I still don’t understand, like... consumerables. I never use them, EVER!

  I just find them kinda pointless, and they’re fucking everywhere, which is probably my problem because I pick EVERYTHING up. I just wanted the game to explian things better. Even BOTW just throws you into the wildness with little to go on, but it’s easy to pick up and understand once you know how (yes, I know the games are totally different, but CP77 could’ve learned something from games such as that on how to introduce players on how to literally play their game).

  Crafting:

  Did anyone actually craft in this game? I crafted very little, and by that I mean I crafted a few grenades to use. I thought weapons could be upgraded, but I was wrong I think, and legendary weapons could be crafted instead? Either way, I never found enough material to craft anything legendary, and with how often I looted... something ain’t right there.

  Selling stuff:

  On PS4, it’s a fucking nightmare. It’s sooooo slow. It would’ve been nice to have an option like ‘sell all commons/whites’ or selecting multiple items and then go ‘sell’. But no, you have to sell each item individually, and with how the game performs on PS4 currently... yeah, not fun.

  SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS!

    -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

        The story:

Confusing. I got the impression that Arasaka were the bad guys, since y’know... killing Jackie, the son killing the father, etc. Then Takemura enters the scene, thinks we’re the killers, then we both get attacked by robo ninjas, who I haven’t got a fucking clue are, and then... Takemura is trying to save me. When it said ‘finish him off’, I thought it meant Takemura (I think I ignored the prompt, thinking Takemura would die in that moment).

I also kept getting confused on character names within the Arasaka’s, namely Saburo and Yorinobu, constantly getting lost on what and who Takemura was referring to, but I think that’s a me problem and not the fault of the game.

Romances:

  I still have yet to romance someone, but my first encounter with a romancable character was Panam. Little did I know... that she’s straight, so my female V cannot romance her. So. Lame. There’s 4 romances in the game, and we’re limited to 2 per gender? Judy is nice, but I really liked Panam... Why not just make them all bi so from a player perspective, there’s more choice? That’s what Joytoys are, with Skye and Angel as prime examples. Just put the gay/lesbian representation in game elsewhere, but not with romancable characters that are limited, because that’s just lame to me. AC Odyssey didn’t have that problem... It’s really not difficult. According to a YouTube comment on Kerry’s romance, in the Cyberpunk board game, Kerry was bisexual anyway, so... what gives?

Character deaths:

I hated that Jackie died. Seriously? That lovable goof giant just killed off in the most anticlimatic and lame way? If you’re gonna kill off such a great character, at least go out with a bang. The guy didn’t get enough screen time and he was such a lively character in the doom of gloom of Cyberpunk’s world.

It also sucked that T-Bug and Dex died too. T-Bug... how did she even die? The game doesn’t explin anything, and the way she went off comms like that made me think that we’d see her late, as I didn’t realize she was actually dead for a good while, expecting her to make contact at some point.

As for Dex... yes, he did screw us over, but I still liked him. The way he talked, his voice, his style... I just felt he could’ve had more to give.

Then there’s Takemura, another death that I thought had to happen, but the game fucks him over by giving no indication that he could’ve been saved. According to the PS4 trophies, it says 0.8% had Takemura get his revenge for Saburo’s death near the end of the game, so... hardly anyone knew he could be saved.

They couldn’t have done like a decision that could’ve saved him? If they didn’t want to make it obvious, fine, don’t label literally “save Takemura” and “leave Takemura”, but have a decision there at least. Or, explain at some point in the game (maybe near the beginning) that following what the mission says doesn’t have to be taken so literally. When gamers are told by a mission on what to do, they do. How would we ever know to crawl in a tiny hole and find Takemura that way? Again, I assumed we’d meet up later, waiting... waiting... Hanako makes no mention of him whatsoever, and eventually I realized he was dead. Even called him on his phone to confirm it. So lame...

  Smelting legendary weapons:

  I think I accidentally smelted down Johnny’s Revolver, and I fucking loved that thing! The damage, the sound, the awesome reload animation... So now on my other playthrough I’m gonna try and not mess that up. How on Earth are Johnny’s clothes non-sellable/smeltable, but his gun is? How do you mess that up!? Let me mark certain weapons so I don’t accidentally sell them. Again, CP77 can learn from other games...

  Buying cars:

  I’ve bought... one car, and I hate that buying cars are labelled as side missions. Why would I want to buy a hoard of cars? I’m not made of money? I can’t just spend 22k on a car I don’t even really want, especially when I got Johnny’s car, and the bikes of Jackie and Scorpion. Just... have a single place where you can go to buy cars instead of littering the map. I read somewhere that buying cars is the Corpo path only, but I’m not sure?

  The endings:

  I think the ending I got was a common one. I understand there are 5 endings? I chose to go back to Earth and... eventually die I guess, because I didn’t trust Arasaka. I picked the other choice to see what happens, and I wish there was some explaination. You’re just stuck in some program, waiting for a body? If one will even be available? I felt like both endings kinda sucked, and dare I say, the ending you can get much earlier sitting on the roof was oddly more satisfying to me, because you get an actual cutscene with Johnny, and overall, it’s just a nice heart to heart moment. Sure, it’s sad, but there was emotion. The other 2 common endings just felt empty to me. I still have to watch the other, more rare endings.

  Okay I’m done. This is mostly a big rant, but I did still like the game. It just wasn’t ready for release, even after 8 years, and it did had problems, outside of bugs and performance issues.

[stuckonlevelone]

Genshin Impact Closed Beta Shots N’ Thoughts

Within my first few minutes in Genshin Impact, it was obviously clear where many of their ideas came from: Breath of the Wild.

The vast open world full of wispy green grass and run down castles, the ability to scale almost any walls, the glider, the camps of enemies (that can be approached in many different ways), the stamina bars, and even the opportunity to cook.

I don't see a problem with this. We wouldn't have many of the great games today if companies didn't borrow ideas from those that blazed trails.

And in fact, Genshin Impact does just enough to separate itself despite containing several similar elements from BOTW.

Here are 5 take aways from the closed beta.

1. This is an very much an anime styled game. Yes, the world does look similar. But the characters, abilities, and story scream classic anime. This alone gives it a much different overall tone and feel than Zelda.

2. The character switching ability is one of my absolute favorite parts of GI. During my time of testing, I unlocked and played as 4 characters (the Hero, Amber, Kaeya, and Lisa). Each one of these characters is beautifully designed and you can switch between them easily (with a minor cool down).

3. Each character has their own INTERESTING unique abilities. The 4 characters each align with a specific element (wind, fire, ice, and electric) which make solving puzzles and defeating enemies exciting. You can even hold down the middle mouse button to see what an enemy may be weak to.

My favorite ability though was one of Amber's. She can throw a mini chibi version of herself that dances around to distract enemies...and when they destroy it, or the timer runs out, it explodes! Loved it.

Each character has a main attack, special ability, and an ultimate ability. Your abilities have a cooldown, much like in a MOBA.

4. Defeating enemies with environmental statuses keeps combat fresh. Is your enemy in water? If it is, you will see a "wet" icon. Here you may want to switch to Lisa and electrify the water around them or have Kaeya freeze the water and the mobs with it! This again goes back to something I mentioned earlier: there are multiple ways to best your foes!

However, you can also receive these status effects, causing elemental damage to be more harmful towards you as well! Very interesting mechanic.

5. When in the thick of it, combat feels much more fast paced than BOTW. I truly enjoyed using my abilities and thinking about which character would be best for a given situation. Combat felt fluid and I loved the animations. Amber may do a little dance and Kaeya even does this awesome "What else you got??" kinda hop when you complete a string of moves. It adds flair and personality to these characters.

It's not perfect! I didn't really come across many challenging puzzles, I only saw a few types of enemies, and I was never truly in a situation where I felt I was in trouble. Hopefully these are things they will address in development and with feedback.

This game is also developed by MiHoYo, the company who made Honkai Impact 3rd. Honkai Impact did have several micro transaction opportunities, which I am hoping does not have a home in Genshin Impact (unless strictly for cosmetics).

But this game shows a lot of promise and I'm beyond excited to play the final version!

Genshin Impact will be releasing on PC, Android, and iOS. Keep an eye out!

Cheers!

- Solo