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moved-attre · 4 years ago

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Here is my review of Cyberpunk 2077! It is a bullet point list of what I liked, and did not like about the game. I mean no offense in my writing, and am, of course, willing to be educated if I am wrong about anything! But please do not send me anonymous hate. I know many fans and haters of this game can be very, uh... So take it all with a grain of salt, and form your own opinions.

This is very long and likely boring so if you manage to make it to the end, I will be very impressed! Also, I may ramble or repeat myself, sorry. There’s more bad points than good, since the game is very glitchy and I couldn’t not mention the glitches I have experienced.

Obviously, this contains major spoilers! 👁👄👁

I’ll start off by saying, this is a game where you will likely not get what you expected. If you expected Cyberpunk 2077 to be a game filled with features that were never before seen, to revolutionise the gaming industry as we know it and become the most iconic video game ever made... You will not get that. If you expected it to be the worst, most irredeemable video game ever created that you’ll hate... You will not get that, either. If you expected a game that is a fairly standard RPG with some impressive graphics when played on a high spec PC, albeit with some bad glitches and a wonky story with lots of potential, then you’ve got it!

Pros:

The majority of the voice acting, such as in V, Johnny and Viktor, was very good and emotional. Viktor in particular made me tear up! And the way V manages to sound almost like Johnny with the subtle accent change was amazing!

The character’s such as Takemura, Jackie, the LIs, Johnny, Viktor, Misty (I could go on) and even many random NPCs were interesting! I wanted to know them and loved their relevant missions. The best ones were unromanceable, of course, but that’s what imagination is for.

THE ALDECALDOS! I love them! A found family, and I wish there was more to do with them other than Panam’s missions and a few side missions. I love found family, and I’m disappointed V couldn’t form their own, so I’ll take what I can get and love the Aldecaldos, even if V can’t join them until the very end. Panam had the best missions of all the LI’s, even if the last one felt very abrupt. (At least, on her friendship route.)

Night City felt alive. There was always plenty going on, it felt like a real city, and it could be beautiful.

Jackie and Corpo V’s friendship was lovely. I loved their “To this!” inside joke, and I loved how Jackie roasted V but would jump to their defence in a second. It didn’t feel forced at all.

There’s lots of environmental storytelling. The atmosphere of a city choking to death under it’s own pollution/corruption was very apparent in the areas not lived in by the rich. Lots of homeless characters, violence, drugs, absolute poverty, trash (The dump! I felt sick just looking at it, and I couldn’t even smell it! Poor V, though.) and general apathy from a lot of the residents really sold the concept.

Johnny and V’s dynamic was the best part of the story! I hated him at first, but slowly came to enjoy his commentary and advice. His interactions with V were very funny at times, and thoughtful at other times. He was an interesting perspective for the player to consider, while still being an asshole you could dislike for much of the story. He has some really emotional scenes and I played a V that viewed him as a friend, so it was really nice hearing him call V the closest person he’d ever had. They became so devoted to each other! CDPR did good with this element, but I can’t help wishing for more. The dynamic had so much more to give, and a romance/happy ending could have worked.

And to add on, the mission where Johnny takes over V’s body to go on a bender was great! I loved all the moments to play as Johnny in V’s body. All the symbolism between them was so good. Every mission matters, and you can replay to look closer at details! He also comments on other side missions with no personal relevance to him, which was neat.

All the enemies had unique names. A minor detail, but it made me feel some guilt over killing them. 🤣 I think all character’s had unique names, which is such a nice detail.

The soundtrack was incredible, I loved every original piece and radio song. I have several saved on Spotify, which is big praise coming from me! I very rarely listen to video game soundtracks.

V can adopt a cat! 🐈‍⬛ It was adorable, and Johnny’s interaction with it made me tear up!

The size of the map was good, not too big or too small. I got about 100 hours of play in by exploring, which is pretty good to me! I got lost a few times, but always found something interesting to do in the meanwhile. I loved the Badlands especially.

Some of the side missions, particularly the more mysterious ones involving investigating deaths and the cyberpsychos, were very enjoyable! I’m a big slut for mystery, and there were some interesting cases to figure out. I wish we could’ve done missions like that with River, though, especially once he becomes a PI.

I was complaining about the lack of aliens in CP2077, but I suppose we did get a couple space themed missions which was pretty fun. I still want to go experience going into orbit, though. 👽 Or the moon!

Separating voice and body in the CC was a good idea, even if it was handled a little strangely. I’ll talk about this more in the ‘Cons’ section below!

Act 2 was my favorite part of the game, but it blended weirdly with Act 3 and that put me off. I am nostalgic for Act 1, but not eager to replay it because it felt so slow... I’m not sure on this point! I liked Act 2 because the story picked up and I was excited for more, but the more I got wasn’t as I expected. So, yes, Act 2 was good.

The scenery is very beautiful, and sometimes the outside lighting is absolutely perfect. The Arasaka parade mission was lovely to look at. I always stop the car and watch the sunrise/sunset, and I like going out to the Badlands to look at the stars!

An addition to that, is the lighting in some main quest missions. Very noir! It made for some beautiful screenshots. (Of which I sadly can’t share because my game doesn’t record well on medium settings. 😳)

The motorcycles are fun to drive! Mainly because I can zoom in between cars and Jackie’s motorcycle has a lot of sentimental value, as well as other vehicles like Johnny’s Porsche and Jake’s car. You can open the trunk to dump bodies in, which was a cool detail., and each one drives differently!

There could be amazing attention to detail, such as making Jackie look like his mother. I expected his mother to be a randomly generated NPC, but she was completely unique. It’s the minor things like that which stood out to me the most.

The scanner was a fun tool and very useful! I liked being able to find alternative ways to do a mission, it felt more realistic than the standard “massacre everybody, pick up an item and get out” fetch quests normally seen in RPGs. I could sneak in a tunnel or a side door! Perhaps irritating and unnecessary to some, but I liked it. I love utilising every possible option.

The interface color changes if you have Johnny controlling V’s body. Another small but good detail! The game is good with the minor details.

The sex scenes were not... awful. I expected much, much worse! I expected fully animated first person porn. Instead, I thought they were fairly realistic and intended to be romantic. Still very awkward, though, and unnecessary.

When they didn’t glitch, the animations were very good. Not as impressive as I hoped, probably because of glitches, but in line with other AAA games like Horizon Zero Dawn, I suppose? I noticed Judy’s animations in particular as being good, and Johnny had lots of unique ones too!

The clothing options are very fun, I like the holographic items and “Bitch” clothes, hehe. Also including Hijabs! 🧕 Great idea, and more games should do that.

The diversity of the NPCs was welcome. I enjoyed seeing Native American, Asian, Black and Latinx NPCs who weren’t there just to suffer! They would occupy important roles in the story, such as Fixers or friends/romance options for V, so they were pretty much unavoidable! It felt very natural, and they helped Night City feel more realistic.

Adding to that, the different cultures included were interesting too! I liked the Haitian characters in Pacifica.

The photo mode is pretty good. Not as good as I expected, the camera angle presets were useful but the filters weren’t very good. I liked that the photo mode could be used in cutscenes, though! It was standard, and I hope more bits will be added in for it.

A lot of the glitches are hilarious, but I recognise not all will share that opinion so I’m just adding this down here. The T-Posing NPCs are a highlight for me. Call that the Skyrim effect.

Cons:

No NB gender options/No pronoun options. Would they/them have been so difficult to implement?

No body or height sliders. There’s so many fat character’s in the game! Why can I not make my V fat? Or muscular?

Gender restrictive hairstyles and clothes. Come on, guys, it’s 2020/2077! Aren’t we beyond gender restrictive appearance options?

No tattoo parlours, no plastic surgeons and no hairstylists for V to change their appearance. I don’t understand why a CC was included at all, since we spent the majority of the game in first person. It reminded me of Far Cry.

The main story started off strong, albeit slow, picked up in Act 2, then felt very rushed in Act 3. The point of no return was very abrupt!

The celebrity cameos felt very gimmicky. The one exception to this is Keanu Reeves, who did a very good job as Johnny. Genuinely brought tears to my eyes at times... but Grimes was just embarrassing! Why was she there! A talented VA could have done Lizzy Wizzy much better, giving her actual emotions instead of just monotone “boredom”.

I don’t know what the point of owning apartments is. You can only sleep in V’s bed, what is the point of looking in the mirror? V has no use for their terminal in their apartment, they never get any messages after the first time they meet Johnny. It was so unnecessary, especially when there’s several across the map. I can access the stash of weapons and clothes from my car! Why would I ever need to go home? Judy gives me her apartment and I’m like, girl, I’m never visiting unless you have a mission to give me.

Also, there are no penalties for not showering or sleeping. I wanted character’s to comment on that! Call me stinky or tell me I look exhausted!

V doing side missions makes no sense, and no explanation is given for why we can do them. Why would V, who is dying and has precious few days left to live, be driving for hours on end to deliver packages and shoot random criminals? When they could be figuring out how to survive the biochip! Who the hell would care about a some extra money or buying every available car for sale, when they’re dying of something that could be preventable?

Some side missions were either very poorly done or obviously majorly glitched, since it felt like they skipped important parts and I was often very confused at the end of them! For example, the Corpo V side mission was so short! I expected to be able to hunt down Abernathy and get revenge for V and Jenkins, but instead, I shoot some random assistant I don’t even remember? And that’s it? Done in 2 minutes! If that! What is the point of that? I didn’t even have fun! Also, what happened to Garry? I wanted to save him but V just never follows up on it.

And, I wish we got closure with T-Bug. The fact that V never bothers to find her body and give her a proper burial was just poor form.

The endings were not... good. There are technically 6 different endings, all wrapped up into 3 parts. In my opinion, the best ending is the one where V kills themselves and has a very “Arthur Morgan watching his last sunset” vibe. It made me cry. Another good ending is having Johnny take over V’s body forever, as you can really see how much Johnny has changed as a person thanks to V’s influence. But they still felt very... eh and the story just never got that boost it needed, ending before it could take off. In the “best” ending, the Nomand ending with Panam, V ”survives” but has only another few months to live. So they die off screen. Satisfying? Uh, no. Not at all. There’s no possible ending where V has any hope of survival, but I much preferred being there with V until the very end. I disagree with the people calling Johnny’s ending the “bad” ending, because it really isn’t! I ignore all of this of course, and my V is living happily ever after.

I kind of hate that CP2077 has this illusion of options when some are clearly intended to be chosen more than others. Judy and Panam have the best endings in term of romance. Why bother with River and Kerry? Kerry is more of a fling than an actual romance, and is met very late in the game at a point where you can ignore him completely and just end the game, and River’s romance is so glitched that many people can’t even do it fully, and in every ending he dumps you, so it feels like none of it mattered to him despite him being the most “domestic” of the possible LI’s...

Takemura’s ending! He died in my playthrough, because the game didn’t tell me I could save him. That really annoyed me. Also, I recognise that V is in no place to lecture him, and there is some wisdom to his quote: “You speak against corporations yet offer no valid alternative.” But, Goro, bro... anything is better than fascist mega corporations keeping most of the city in absolute poverty, while waging devastating wars against other mega corporations? I wish we could have opened his eyes a little. There’s a good, even ground between Takemura believing Corps to be doing the best for humanity and Johnny being willing to kill 12k people for a revolution. This game went a little “capitalism is bad, but the alternative is worse!” at times, in my opinion. I wish more could have been done against the corporations, instead they just kind of... exist... in the background. And I know, “Realism! “ because we live with massive corporations like Amazon in our lives and can do fuck all about them but we’re not V. V is an absolute unit who survives death multiple times... I wish there had been two paths, like do Johnny’s path and work against the system or do Takemura’s path and work with the system? Sort of like The Witcher 2?

You know how in Saints Row, The Boss has homies they can call on for help? I wanted V to have homies to help them out in fights. It felt pointless building trust with the Fixers only to not have them help out at all with fights against the NCPD/Militech/Arasaka in their territories.

The stealth mechanics are not good. They are funny! But not very good. Often, It’s better to just attack and save yourself the trouble of sneaking only to get caught by a guard who can see through the back of his head.

The fact that you cannot get arrested and have someone bust you out of jail. Maybe RDR2 set my expectations too high, but I thought this would have been included.

I’ve read about the cut content, and I’m really disappointed they weren’t included in the game. Wall running would have been amazing! And the police hiring mercs to hunt V down? I would have loved to see it! 😔

Driving cars is terrible. Just awful. Sometimes, you crash. Other times you’re flung up into the air and break through the sky into the void, spinning for all eternity.

River’s glitched romance deserves a special mention. The relationship just drops off suddenly and you cannot interact with him properly again. It does not affect the main story at all, so you wonder, what was the point? The text messages also glitch and V will sent messages that you can’t control, leading to disappointing dialogue, like with Joss.

The romances in general were just not all that impressive. I was expecting something great, considering there was only 4 and thought they’d really affect the main story, but I’d only recommend Panam and Judy. I would have played the game just as well without romances, and they felt very unnecessary but I wanted to do one to get the most possible story content. I think we should all leave romances in RPG’s as the exception, not the norm. Some studio’s can do them well, other’s cannot. CDPR cannot, in my opinion...

Obviously the many glitches and bugs, several of which are game breaking. I usually have to reload a save at least once an hour, because an NPC won’t talk to me or I can’t move the mouse to select different dialogue options! Or my gun won’t equip, so I die.

The AI in general is very bad. Sometimes cars will stop in the middle of junctions for no reason, causing you to crash or mount the sidewalk to get past, meaning you’ll likely run someone down and get a police warrant. NPCs just walk from one end of the road and back again, over and over on a loop. It’s very creepy!

The lighting, mostly inside buildings. Everything is pitch black! Why does V not own a flashlight? The amount of enemies I’ve barrelled into and alerted because I couldn’t see is too much.

The lack of dialogue choice, it was less interactive than what I’d been told to expect. There was only two or three options, with one only ever rarely being unique to one of V’s three possible background choices and most will yield the same results with a few exceptions, like avoiding combat.

V’s personality is already decided by the game, and is not really customisable. Do not expect full control over your V’s personality, as they are very much a canon character and exist outside of your (limited) choices. I didn’t expect Baldur's Gate 3 levels of customisation, but I did expect something more like Dragon Age 2’s dialogue wheel? Nice, Sarcasm and Angry? You know?

Obviously, the seizure inducing scenes were very dangerous. I get a headache whenever I have to do a braindance, and I wish it was skippable!

Accessibility as a whole is very much an afterthought in this game, I think. The subtitles are in “speaking English”, so instead of: Hey, how are you? It’s: Heyyy, how’re ya? It is often difficult to understand, and sometimes I just couldn’t work out what was being said.

It’s nitpicky but I wanted to do a pacifist route and I realised you can’t, you need to kill certain character’s...

The main “villains” such as Yorinobu and Adam Smasher were very forgettable, and V had no personal stake in taking them out. I honestly forgot all about them. Takemura was talking about revenge and I’m like, who? Who are you talking about? Why are we kidnapping Hanako Arasaka, again? Johnny, why would I bother killing Adam Smasher? If they’d personally murdered Jackie, then yeah, I’d understand! But all V needs is to remove the chip and I don’t know... I just didn’t feel anything.

So, to summarise: I think CDPR were out of their depth. The long, very long, troubled development process was an indication of this before the game was even released, and the story I’ve experienced in the game is proof enough. I don’t think they knew what they wanted from this game, and as a result, we have a game that is honestly very confusing and frustrating with a story that always got close to gripping, but never quite makes it. All in all, I found this game to be pretty average. When the bugs are ironed out, I will think better of it. But as it stands, if I had to score it, I would give it a 6.5/10 or maybe 7/10. Good concept, somewhat misguided execution. The best part of the game was the Johnny/V dynamic, but I wasn’t satisfied with how it ended. They needed more time together! Anyway, it will be interesting to see what happens next.

#cp77 spoilers #cp77 critical #cyberpunk 2077 #I’ve already been vagued about a few times for my CP2077 opinions so I expect more to happen now I’m posting this hehe

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zeldauniverse · 5 years ago

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Fitness games have had an interesting journey through the annals of video game history. From the Power Pad on the NES to Dance Dance Revolution’s dance mat, they have seen a lot of ups and downs. It wasn’t until the launch of the Wii and Wii Fit when fitness games became a huge deal. Why just play video games or just go to the gym when you can do both at the same time?! That proved successful as Wii Fit (and its enhanced version Wii Fit Plus) sold a combined 43.8 million units, making it one of the best-selling games of all time, even beating out games like The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim.

Since then, everyone has tried their version of a fitness game, but nowadays fitness games are becoming less common. Once people started getting tired of that type of game, most companies and developers changed course and began work on other things. Not only that, most fitness games present themselves as exactly what they are. “Oh you’re called ‘Fitness Boxing’? So you box to the beat and do fitness? Cool.” They stay in their lane and don’t try to be anything else.

This is where Ring Fit Adventure, the latest game from Nintendo EPD, tries to break the wheel. From the initial teaser in early September to the announcement trailer, we saw people having fun with a ring and a strap, and then we found out it was an RPG. It feels like someone went, “Final Fantasy, but Wii Fit?!”

It’s not exactly a combination you’d think were synonymous with each other. However, Ring Fit Adventure manages to blend them well enough to harbor an enjoyable experience while also making you sweat.

Full Disclosure Nintendo of America graciously provided us with a review copy of Ring Fit Adventure for the Switch. This review is based on version 1.1.1. As such, the new additions will be accounted for.

Meet the newest Switch accessory

What’s interesting about Ring Fit Adventure is that it markets itself as an adventure game. You fight monsters, explore fictional lands, and collect items on your quest. It just so happens to be an adventure game that you control with your body.

Ring Fit Adventure’s centerpiece is the unique pair of controllers you use: the Ring-Con and the Leg Strap. The Ring-Con is a heavily modified Pilates ring. The main difference is that Pilates rings normally have two hard plastic handles with concave sides with padding so it can be comfortable when doing thigh workouts. The Ring-Con replaces those handles with some small padding for your hands. As someone used to a normal Pilates ring, it feels a little strange, but it’s something you get used to. Then there’s the Ring-Con attachment itself, where you put the right Joy-Con. The Joy-Con’s accelerometer and gyroscope detect the Ring-Con’s position, whether you’re pushing in on the sides or pulling them away from each other. The IR sensor also tracks your heart rate by placing your right thumb over the sensor. It seemed to be fairly accurate, as it was within a 1 or 2 bpm difference when compared to my Apple Watch.

The Leg Strap is far less high tech — it’s literally a thing that you strap to the center of your left thigh and put the left Joy-Con in. That’s it. The Joy-Con itself does the work of making sure your leg is in the right position for the exercises thanks to its gyro and accelerometer.

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Admittedly, the story doesn’t try too hard to immerse you, but it still tries.

At the end of the day, however, the technology is nonetheless impressive.

One thing I do appreciate about the game is that Nintendo tries to make this game a circular experience. When you load into your file, the game asks if you want to warm up with some dynamic stretches before you jump in so you can get your body ready and avoid straining or injuring yourself. During the game itself, it’ll ask you after a while if you want to keep going or cool down. When you decide you’re done for the day, the game asks if you want to do some static stretching as a means to cool down. This structure gives a nice arc that, as someone with a movement background, I appreciate.

I’m going on an Adventure!

The story is fairly standard. You control an athlete who meets a sentient ring, and together you explore the world and fight a bodybuilding dragon named Dragaux (yes, you read that correctly). You explore many worlds, help people along the way, and gain new abilities by constantly butting heads with Dragaux.

The plot is cookie cutter, but it also doesn’t try to be anything it isn’t. The basic story line works here. It’s moderately self-aware in parts, and it’s mostly enjoyable. It’s a tad basic at times, and Ring (the only character who is fully voiced) tends to repeat lines a bit, but it’s not enough to ruin the experience.

Expecting too much from the story would be a mistake, but it will help you pretend it’s not just exercise.

The game itself is very straight forward. Levels consist of two different modes — exploration and combat. The exploration is on rails, which makes sense because you move in one of two ways, either jogging or running in place or by doing small bends (what Nintendo calls “silent mode”). Silent mode is supposed to be a way to play the game without disturbing people by running in place. It was also the mode I used more because I dislike running.

As you traverse the levels, you can pull and push the Ring-Con to release gusts of air to hit boxes and suck up coins. Additionally, you can use the Ring-Con in other positions for specific actions, like pointing it down in order to jump, twisting it from side to side to row across a river, or pushing inward with your abs to destroy rocks blocking your way. You’ll gain experience as you continue, making you more formiddable in combat.

Speaking of combat, it plays out like a traditional turn-based RPG. You attack by doing various exercises from one of four different groups: Arms (upper body), Stomach (core), Legs (lower body), and Yoga (dynamic poses). The game telegraphs how long you hold the pose and then the release of it triggers the attack. Some of the exercises make you hold position for a while (the squats are rough), while others have you move to the beat. Certain enemies are affected more by specific moves; for example, red enemies are susceptible to exercises focusing on upper body. You get to decide what exercise to use, or you can shuffle the exercises, so there is a variety. The game also aids you in combat with lots of outfits and smoothies, Ring Fit’s equivalent to potions. Outfits have a set attack and defense stat like any armor in a typical RPG. There are also smoothies to consume, which have various effects ranging from from healing damage to boosting attacks of a specific type.

You face Dragaux multiple times through your adventure, and he does have some variety in his attacks. He’ll occasionally throw boxes at you that you have to shoot with the Ring-Con, in addition to just flat out attacking you. The game also doesn’t penalize you should you die in boss battles either — it will let you just skip right to the boss fight if you want to. That choice is nice.

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Ring Fit Adventure sticks fairly well to many traditional RPG elements.

That includes the nemesis that monologues and swears this meeting will be the last.

It’s not as complex as franchises like Final Fantasy or Pokémon, but it does enough to be enjoyable. And with 20 worlds to explore, there is enough content here to last you at least 20-30 hours of just adventuring alone. Additionally, during your quest, you’ll come across certain minigames. These minigames, like trying to get points by tilting your body side to side, add an extra bit of variety to the overall gameplay.

Ironically, where Ring Fit Adventure drops the ball a bit is in its overall design and music. When I think of an adventure game or an RPG, I expect a vast array of beautiful trees, vistas and dungeons. Ring Fit sets its levels in one of three locations — a trail through nature, where you explore vistas and go through caves; a wooden obstacle course built in a dojo-looking area complete with treadmills, hoops, and more; and a ruins area for the boss fights. It got to a point where I noticed how often the areas cycle between each level. After a while, it does start to feel stale.

Ring Fit Adventure’s music is pulsing, upbeat, and modern to pump you up, but most of it is also forgettable.

Music is vital to how RPGs and adventure games create the mood you should experience in combat and cutscenes. Ring Fit’s music is pulsing, upbeat, and modern to pump you up for the exercises you perform. This is great for a fitness-centric game; however, most of the music is a bit forgettable. The music often gets drowned out by the sound effects and Ring’s lines, and, when you do hear it, it doesn’t really feel like I’m a hero exploring the world and fighting monsters. I feel like I’m in a fitness studio. For a game that’s marketed to be an adventure game first, it feels like they came too short.

Additional fun to be had

Of course, the adventure is only one part of Ring Fit Adventure. The game also provides some additional modes if you don’t have time to spend on the main campaign. The Quick Play mode has a fairly robust set of minigames and exercises you can do, separated into three categories: simple challenges (where the goal is to get the highest reps possible); minigames (more specific exercise with concrete goals, like making pottery while squatting to raise and lower the hands); and sets (consisting of pre-selected exercises from upper arms to glutes or from aerobics to flexibility). You can adjust the strength setting to make things easier or more challenging depending on your ability, and these modes are a very good way to quickly target a small set of muscles.

Your scores for these are also put online to see how well you stack up against other players. At this point, the rankings are all that online is really utilized for. It’s sort of disappointing that Nintendo didn’t add a way to play the adventure mode with online co-op, but maybe that’s just me.

There’s also Custom Mode, where you can make your own workouts using all sorts of different exercises. They have some preset options, or you can pick and choose from the standard Upper Body, Core, Lower body, and Yoga menus.

At least the devs acknowledge you’ll be binging Netflix at some point. “Multitasking,” indeed.

Lastly, there’s Multitask Mode, where you can work out using only the Ring-Con while you’re not playing the game. Basically it records the number of presses and pulls you do with the Ring-Con while the Switch is in sleep mode or turned off. Once it’s enabled with the right stick, you can continue doing other activities, like watching The Mandalorian on Disney+ (at least that’s what I’m doing) and exercise while you do it. The next time you boot up the game, you’ll get a bonus in the Adventure Mode according to how many presses you did. It does limit you to 500 reps, which seems low to me, but considering that most people are going to just sit and watch a movie or a TV show for more than two hours while exercising, I understand.

A nice way to gamify exercise

Despite the story falling a bit short, Ring Fit Adventure is still a very enjoyable experience with a lot of replay value. It has several different modes to play, a terrific variety of exercises, and is great if you want to get some workouts in when you don’t feel like leaving the house because of bad weather. If you’re a fan of the hardcore mechanics of RPGs like The Elder Scrolls, Final Fantasy or Pokémon, Ring Fit may be basic, but that’s not what it places its emphasis on. The mechanics are accessible so that anyone can pick it up and enjoy it, and maybe It’ll get people into traditional RPGs. The only thing holding it back is not doubling down on the adventure/RPG genre in terms of scenarios and music.

Score 7.5/10

Review: Ring Fit Adventure may be basic, but it nevertheless makes exercise fun Fitness games have had an interesting journey through the annals of video game history. From the Power Pad on the NES to…

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komahinasecretexchange · 5 years ago

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Title: hiraeth

Author: @slickandsolangelic

For: @usernamefieldhere

Rating/Warnings: T (warning for existentialism and disassociation)

Prompt: Hinata dealing with the consequences of having Kamukura as a past self, au or canon

Author’s notes: I hope this is to your liking, and I hope it’s okay that the au I picked is dnd-esque fantasy! I had lots of fun with this, and I can only hope that you do, too ^^

The Isles of Jabberwock are oft a pleasant place to be in, their sand a fine gold that lets itself be swept away by the lapping currents from the crystalline blue ocean that surrounds them. Better yet is the sun there, bearing down on them with its golden rays, easing flowerings into bloom and saplings into growth. Hinata is very, very glad that they managed to rescue it from being leveled down by those ambitious bandits from the east.

An adventuring life was unpredictable at its core, but unusually gratifying after a job well done.

Which is to say, it feels really fucking good to beat up some bad guys and get money for it, but such a thought is embarrassingly self indulgent and thus will remain at the very back of Hinata’s mind, where it belongs.

Nanami looks up from the weapon she’s examining. It’s a medium sized spear with a silver tip. She seems to weigh it in her hands for a bit, before letting out a satisfied hum.

“Komaeda-kun, would this be good to use if you ever wear yourself out using your magic?”

“Oh, Nanami-san, that’s really kind of you to think of me,” Komaeda starts to say, looking up from the item he was examining, a small flute embroidered with bronze trimmings. “But I’ve never really been good with sharp things. And as I’m already worn out, I’m afraid I might just point it the wrong way and, as per chance’s design. Being impaled sounds like it’d be inconvenient for our party!”

“Yeah,” Hinata says solemnly, because he’s traveled with Komaeda long enough to know that this is entirely possible.

“Yeah,” Nanami says, and she puts the spear back.

“I like this,” Hinata says. He raises both his hands to show them them silk pouch nestled in his palms. “It’s magical, so you can put up to three hundred pounds of stuff in there.”

Komaeda is at his side then, gliding past the tables laden with strings and wooden instruments. His arm brushes Hinata’s when he reaches from the small card attached to the golden thread around the pouch’s hem.

“It’s also worth five hundred gold pieces,” Komaeda says.

“Oh,” Hinata says.

“Oh,” Nanami agrees.

“If Hinata-kun really wants it, I can-” but Hinata is already putting it back.

They wind up circling the aisles of items for a few more hours, the other two interjecting with commentary when one makes a suggestion. It’s more comfortable than anything, Hinata muses, surfing through their options with one another together like this. Battles where their competence and trust in one another made the difference between loss and success, between life and death; that’s something that’s undeniably special. Something that matters, in a way, and Hinata knows that, and he is grateful- but he much prefers the quieter moments like these, when all that matters in the moment is their group effort at bargaining with the shopkeepers, the sunset’s rays framing their silhouettes as they journeyed through the winding paths of towns they’d saved or served.

There’s something he’s come to appreciate about their regular time spent together as friends rather than adventuring companions. It’s more bothersome than jarring (in a way that makes Hinata feel equal measures irritated and fond) when Komaeda answers a yes or no question with a tangent which existentially questions the universe and when Nanami turns out to have been asleep with her eyes open for the past hour they were going over plans.

It’s nice, Hinata thinks. It’s just… nice, to have moments of quiet in between. Away from threats to their life during the day, and away from his night terrors when it grows darker.

The Isles don’t really have much to offer aside from scenery and impressive craftsmanship when it comes down to it. They have a good time crossing the bridges that lead up to the separate islands, though (it doesn’t take them that long to haul Komaeda out from the water when he falls off one), and the locals aren’t unpleasant folk to converse with.

The third island has a slightly less relaxing ambiance than the others. Of the six, it’s certainly the loudest and most vibrant of the bunch– Komaeda almost immediately identifies it as the art venue when they pass by a Bard-run tavern by the name of “Titty Typhoon”. It sounds like hell in there, but hell in fifty different types of musical instruments and also wildly out of tune.

“Well,” Komaeda says, looking cheerful. “They’re having fun.” His hands are clasped together, and his eyes are widened in something that’s either wonder or contemplation. Hinata’s learnt to recognize when Komaeda begins to form overly complex thoughts over things that really aren’t that deep, but he chooses not to intervene.

“Very loudly,” Hinata says.

“And out of tune,” Nanami adds, but she’s smiling.

“Everyone’s Bardic inspiration manifests in different forms.”

“Yeah, well, it also helps when it manages to inspire without being a Bardic pain in the ass.”

“Hinata-kun speaks very boldly! Well, I guess I can’t really blame you for not finding that kind of music to your fancy, not when your own bardic prowess is unique in a way that’s unrecognizable to most regular people such as myself.”

“That was months ago, holy shit-”

“The sweet melody still haunts my dreams.”

“You’re horrible.”

“You’re the most inspiring artist a commoner like me has ever had the pleasure of hearing.”

Hinata’s shoving him now, trying to stifle a smile behind the sleeves of his leather armour plating, and failing quite spectacularly.

“Asshole,” Hinata says, but there’s no bite to it. Komaeda gives him a smile that’s a different kind of unsettling, only because it makes his insides turn funny. It’s wide, but soft around the edges, and it makes his eyes crease ever so slightly. Then he looks away, and that’s that.

Hinata hasn’t slept in what feels like three fucking days.

In reality, it’s only been about two and a half- the other half he spent goofing around with Komaeda and Nanami in the Isles of Jabberwock, hooking up their party with new shit for the next challenge.

This is bad. With the map of the nearby continent spread out before him on the scratched and damaged inn table, he should be getting in the mood to mark their next exploit. It’s a pretty good map, even if the dim yellow glow emanating from their lamps doesn’t do its details much justice.The sharp strokes that form the peaks of mountains are unmistakable nearby the expertly woven lines of rivers and streams, cutting through grassy landscapes and flat wastelands. There are circles and lines which mark territories and label them, categorizing them as either off limits or safe to explore.

But with how tired he is, Hinata’s beginning to circle around the same thought over and over. In fact, is that a fucking city, or a firefly? Is that a firefly on his map? Hinata isn’t sure if what’s on his map is a firefly or a city. That circular dot of yellow– is it a firefly, or is it a city?

“You don’t look well,” says a familiar voice. The dot of yellow buzzes and leaps into the air and onto Hinata’s nose. He swings back suddenly in an effort to swat it with both his arms. The momentum drives his chair backwards.

The quiet tavern folk don’t care to stop their chatter when Hinata crashes to the ground with a sound thud, and so the warlock is left to stare at the ceiling with unblinking eyes and his palms cupped around his nose as the minuscule sphere rises and floats away. Nanami’s concerned face hovers above him.

Ah, so it was a firefly.

Their next quest is for a blond wizard hailing from an important family. Hinata thinks he’s kind of an asshole, but Hinata also thinks that five thousand gold is maybe a sufficient price to get a job done for an asshole. He wants them to retrieve this artifact called the “Eye of Fate”, something that apparently reflects a person’s psyche and innermost desires. This is worrisome considering the Asshole Status of the person they’re retrieving it for, but according to the client, the Eye of Fate is trapped within the body of a topaz crystal gollum, a probably slightly more dickish creature to bestow such a relic upon.

Nanami helps pick him up off the ground, but he needs to take a handful of moments to gather his bearings.

“You need to take care of yourself. We won’t be able to get anything done if you neglect your health.”

Hinata thinks this is rich coming from Nanami, who never seems to sleep and yet spends half of the time she’s awake in a state of trance that’s impossible to break her out of. He means to tell her this, but instead the words that come out are “Lord Togami is an asshole.”

“He’s not easy to work with,” Nanami agrees.

“He’s a big fucking asshole.”

“Okay,” Nanami says patiently, sitting him down on the chair.

“I hate rich people who offer lots of money for ridiculous quests.”

“Mhm.”

“Nanami, there was a firefly on my map.”

“Yes,” she says. “Yes, there was.”

“It flew.”

“I think fireflies tend to do that.”

Hinata presses his face against the scratchy surface of the map. He traces a finger along the Mountain Range of the Dead, across the Red River, and straight through the continental tunnel into the cavernous entrance of the Cave of Wonders.

“Yeah,” Hinata mutters. “’S cause of their wings.”

“Sure is.” Nanami puts a hand on his shoulder.

“Yeah,”

“Yeah,” she says, and pets his hair gently. “Go to sleep.”

The journey is harsh, but not unbearable.

Through the rocky mountain range they pass, tearing down groups of chimaeras, hopping between camping sights near the valleys. Komaeda picks flowers by one of the crevices, and Hinata feels bad when they wither under his bare hands.

They stop just a clearing away from the bank of Red River for the night. The sun kisses the horizon and turns it a warm shade of purple that lulls Hinata to slumber.

He dreams.

Hinata’s by the Red River.

His pants are rolled up to his knees, and the sky above him is as dark as the waters he’s lowered his feet into.They lap at his skin, icy and unforgiving. He pushes closer to the river side, sinks his legs further in until his calves feel numb.

Below the surface of the water, something is stirring. Moving like a shadow through the already dark film that covers the waters, closer than he wants it to be.

A voice says, “Haven’t they told you that this river is red with the blood of the fallen?”

Hinata doesn’t respond. He watches the figure grow closer and closer, a monster baited to the surface. His legs form ripples in the water when he moves them to and fro. He watches the spray of droplets disrupt the dark surface, and tries to hum away the panic in his chest.

“…You’re not listening anymore.”

The darkness is coming. Hinata is not afraid. He’s not afraid. He’s not.

(He’s terrified. He can’t move anymore, can barely breathe. He is helpless in a way that makes him angry at himself, useless in a way that makes him regret its existence.)

“You’re going to have to. It’s irrational to think you can run away forever.” The voice is calm as it says this.

It is nowhere. It is everywhere. It’s the full moon that lights up the stars above his head, the ripples his legs have stopped making in the river, the all encompassing darkness that wants to eat him whole, devour him until nothing is left of his existence.

Hinata wakes up with a start. His hands aren’t quite steady. That is to say, he’s shaking bad.

Hinata steps outside for a moment. It’s dark out still, so he snaps his fingers and watches a small flame flicker to life in his lantern. Their tent’s still steady against the breezes coming from the north. (Nanami had done a good job hammering it in right, after all. She’s always been good with practical skills like these, even if her proficiency was healing). The leaves sway high above his head on their host of towering trees, though, and the wind’s whistle is unmistakable and sharp, cutting through the night.

Hinata shudders.The bite of the air is akin to the sting of frost at his knees in the dream.

A hand lands on his shoulder, and he nearly jumps a foot into the air.

“Hinata-kun?”

Oh. It’s Komaeda. Hinata tries to be subtle about the breath of relief that leaves him, but he’s sure he failed. Whatever. God, whatever.

Komaeda retracts his hand. “I’m sorry,” he says with the kind of sincerity only he seems to be capable of. “I called for you before, but you seemed preoccupied.”

“…Ah, yeah.” Hinata tries to go for a smile, but it slips off his face at astronomical velocity. He’s exhausted, tired in a way that makes his bones ache and his heart stutter at every step. “It’s just that…” For a few long moments, he contemplates his next words, painfully aware of the tentative silence between them. Komaeda doesn’t break it, and even though Hinata’s looking away, he can feel the weight of Komaeda’s gaze pressing into the back of his head, sharper than the wind that pierces through the thicket of trees surrounding their campgrounds.

Hinata says, “You’re a bard, right?” Of course Komaeda is, that’s out of the question. When Hinata whips around, he sees the look of tempered confusion Komaeda is giving him. His head is tipped sideways, and his gray eyes blink at Hinata questioningly.

“By the standard definition, I am,” Komaeda says. “Perhaps not entirely deserving of the title, but that is the most conventional term to reference what I do.”

“…Right,” Hinata says. He tries to swallow back the lump that forms in his throat, and finds he can’t do it, just as he can’t quite bring himself to dispel the anxiety eating away at the pit of his stomach. “Yeah, I know. You’re a good bard, Komaeda, we’ve had this talk.”

“And you’re changing the subject, Hinata-kun,” Komaeda responds quietly. He’s still looking at him with those intent eyes. Fuck. “Is there anything I can do for you?”

Silence. And then a howl from the wind hollow and loud all at the same time.

“Have you heard of the Ender of The World?”

More silence. And then, a laugh.

“Kamukura Izuru… who hasn’t?”

“So he has a name?”

Komaeda sets his own lantern on the ground, then lowers himself and takes a cross-legged position. Hesitant, Hinata follows suit.

“You didn’t know? They named him after the original Wizard, the one whose discoveries helped incorporate the plane of magic with our own.”

“Ah,” Hinata says. His throat is dry. “I, uh, never looked into it too much. I tried to, well- avoid. That sort of stuff.”

“…I see,” Komaeda says, and there’s an obvious question in his tone. To his credit, he doesn’t ask it.

“Well, Kamukura Izuru… Well, to start, he’s beautiful. I saw him, once.”

Hinata’s heart stops. “You did?”

“I did,” Komaeda says, and smiles. There are no creases under his eyes this time, no softness to the edge of his mouth. Only a wide curve that increases Hinata’s unease. Komaeda’s eyes watch the purple flame in his lantern flicker and sway.

“When I was still travelling alone, I took shelter in a sea-side town. I was still young then, maybe in my mid teen years, and so I was still learning how to get around alone, and still learning how to cope with my abilities. Naturally, no one wanted someone whose magical energy was as unstable and harmful as mine.” Komaeda makes animated hand gestures as he speaks, his voice remaining light and unbothered.

“So I tried not to use any, even when it got cold and I needed a fire, even if I had to defend myself. As soon as they realised their flowers wither around me and the grass their cattle eat from is poisoned by my magic, they’d throw me out. I couldn’t afford to let that happen yet, not when I was in such desperate need of a sustainable place to stay.”

“Komaeda…” Hinata starts to say, a crease forming in his brow. But Komaeda just continues.

“This is why I ended up staying by the port, where there was less organic matter for me to visibly hurt. And then he was there, and the stories? They were true,” Komaeda says. “He was- ah, I’m afraid I’m not nearly eloquent enough, but he was something else. He didn’t hurt anyone then, didn’t turn any cities to dust or erase landscapes with the swipe of his hand, but his existence was like…” He holds up a hand over the lantern, and his eyes are wide enough to hold the entire sky within then. Komaeda clenches his fist over the lantern’s glow.

He whispers, “Like fire. It was burning with the demand to be attended to. It was like being charmed, but worse, but better. And where he floated, Hinata-kun? It was over the sea, which had begun to turn inky below him. It was like void. Like nothingness was just overcoming the blue, erasing it.” Komaeda’s still smiling. How is he still smiling?

Hinata tries to regulate his breathing, but he feels sick. His head spins with a thousand visions, of tarlike darkness invading crystal blue, of lonely teenagers by ports, of magical essences strong enough to burn themselves into the hearts of spectators.

Hinata’s voice sounds hoarse to his ears when he speaks. “…And? Was he- was he evil?”

Komaeda laughs again. “Evil… Well, I suppose it depends on the standards of one’s morality. I just think he was hideous.”

“Huh?! Didn’t you just say-”

“I meant what I said.” Komaeda says. “He was the wrongest thing in the world, in that moment. Something that wasn’t destined to be. He was beautiful, too, and it had made me feel something. Now, I can identify that feeling as what it is.”

“And what is it?”

Komaeda turns to look at him then, eyes wide still. He closes them for a moment, but the smile doesn’t fade. Komaeda says, “Disgust,” and Hinata feels like he’s been kicked in the ribs.

“Oh. Um, I suppose that makes se-”

“I think he was just empty. I don’t understand how someone can have such power over destiny and be such a shell.” His smile takes a dip, then twitches back into place. It looks wrong, not that it ever really looked right to begin with. It looks… sour.

“People will call Kamukura Izuru beautiful, or they will call him horrible,” Komaeda says. “I just think that he’s like me.”

“Like you?” Hinata’s heart is pounding.

“I don’t mean to sound egoistical,” Komaeda says quickly, holding his hands up, His smile returns to its default vacancy again, “Of course, I could never hope to be as powerful. But Izuru-san and I have something in common.”

There is quiet now, and even the well timed howling of the wind fails to shake Hinata out of his semi-trance state of contemplation. He recognises that Komaeda’s given him an opening to ask. The tension in his gut notwithstanding, he does.

“What is it, then?”

Komaeda hums. His gloved fingers close around the handle of the lantern and pull it up to his face. Illuminated so closely by the glow, Komaeda looks like a flame himself. It’s a haunting kind of beauty that Hinata can’t fully wrap his head around. (His heart aches). He blows his flame out, and just like that, the world grows dimmer. Komaeda stands up, and Hinata wants to reach out and grab at his sleeve, but he’s too tired, and Komaeda’s too swift, and it’s too cold out here, so cold and dark and god, Hinata’s so tired.

“Well, when I looked in his eyes, I could tell. I could tell that he had nowhere to go either.” Through the mist of darkness, Hinata can’t see his features, he can sense it when Komaeda’s gaze leaves him.

He whispers, “Good night, Hinata-kun.”

Then he returns to their tent, and Hinata’s left alone.

There is a flash of light.

Pillars of light come together to form a gollum, at least 12 feet tall, its arms made of diamond shards which reflect the yellow light pouring out of the empty holes in its head that make its sockets. The gollum is a beautiful, monstrous thing, its voice caught somewhere between roar and song. It’s a compound of light shards taking the form of rocky limbs and sharp shoulders. Like tears, the light that runs down its head burns into the cavern’s ground, acidic.

They get in order. Hinata raises his wand, and Nanami prepares her wooden staff. The amethysts that stick out of the ground by Komaeda’s feet begin to lose their vibrancy as he puts his flute to his lips.

Hinata casts.

Nanami points.

Komaeda plays.

And the gollum unclasps a dark mouth trapped between jaws of silvery-gold crystals, and showers their attacking silhouettes in stunning light.

You are born.

You are a creature! And how alive you are, how real- your hands are small and pale, your hair back length and a light shade of a pretty colour. And you are not clothed, not yet, but you are so alive.

Besides you a person with shaking arms and a trembling form. They say, “O-oh, it worked, it worked,” and they sound like they’re going to cry.

You reach out to them, and you feel concerned.

Disorientation. Fear. Hinata’s head is spinning, and he can’t tell his head from his feet, not anymore. The world is nothing but a dull blur of colour, and all he hears is a the quiet hum of the gollum’s voice, a guttural, chilling sound.

And then the next flash of light comes.

II.

You are alone. Ash falls between the spaces of your fingers, the remnants of the home you once had. The sky cries for you, but you do not cry. You cannot cry anymore, not when you know they were right all along. Right to abandon you, right to throw a creature of destruction and havoc.

You are disgusted with yourself, with the pulse of energy that crackles like lightning beneath your skin.

Your hands dig into the ashes that were once meadows and gardens and homes, homes you grew up in, homes you weren’t hated for existing in.

You let out a scream that tears your throat in two, and you are heartbroken.

He can’t tell if he’s breathing.

He can’t tell if he’s seeing. He can only hear the roar approaching.

But he feels it, too, the third flash of light slamming into him.

III.

Magic is difficult.

Magic is unnatural- it’s strange, because for your family, it seems to come as easy as breathing. Generations of wizards have thrived from their line, after all, each with magical energy in the very air they breathe, clear in the way they carry themselves, evident in the gleam in their eyes.

Except for you, that is. You have grown up looking at your hands and hating them. You have grown up with the words of the divination mistress inscribed in your head from when you were but a youth, her raspy voice calm and factual as she tells your parents, This one’s a branch that’s been severed. He’s dry, he is.

And you are. You attempt to cast spells. Nothing happens. You try your hand at passive magic, tries to see if you can work out divination, or magical forgery, or bardic inspiration.

Nothing happens within. Your hands remain plain, pitiable things, empty of even the telltale scorch marks and scar of a beginner magician. There is disappointment in the looks they give you. There’s judgement. There’s torment in their stares, a searing fire that burns away at you in the expectations you know you’ll never be able to fulfill. A tiresome, constant hum of unease.

So plain.

What a shame, that one- think of the potential!

Maybe he’s just a late bloomer?

But you aren’t.

You press your palms to your face and try to feel for a hum of something more that isn’t there, was never there, will never be there.

Until one day, not many days from now, at the hands of a circle of wizards who promise your family prowess, progress, and most importantly magic- it is.

And you feel… nothing.

You don’t feel at all.

A flash of light.

Your hair is trimmed to your shoulders. You are dressed in a cloak of silver with a green hood, given a staff crafted of rosewood and embroidered with your initials. You are given a name. You are given a purpose.

The person who made you is loving. They are kind. They don’t make you feel like the tool that you are, but you know, and you think it’s okay.

And another.

II.

You learn that the leaves of plants wither first when you play. And then gradually, so do the stems. The petals are last to go, turning a sorry shade of gray that disintegrates to ashen black the more you continue.

You feel sorry.

And yet another.

III.

There is more magic in the air than has even been. More horror in your heart than you ever thought possible. They are chanting incantations, murmuring things in languages you can’t recognise, humming in tones you don’t understand, and you are scared, but your want to stop disappointing overwhelms this fear. Your want to be something that surpasses ordinary, something that beats worthless.

So you stay still.

And you drift, further and further away, into a space where you can’t feel your heart and can’t contain your soul.

And for a while, you don’t return. Not really.

Another.

You learn that you are a cleric. You learn that your name is Nanami Chiaki, and that you can wield light and speak seven languages and be very, very useful.

You find your place among an adventuring party, and you set off to do your job as a cleanser of despair.

When will it stop?

II.

You feel smaller than you should, a quiet mass of stark white hair and shaky hands that suck the life out of every unsuspecting thing. But you learn- you learn to sleep in the hollows of large trees.You learn to survive days without fire and food. You learn what you have to do to live, what you have to do to continue, but often you wonder if there’s a purpose at all.

And then you see Kamukura Izuru turn the ocean’s blue into void, and immediately realise what you have to do.

Hinata hears what sounds like a thump, but maybe it’s just the dull beat of his heart. Does he still have a heart?

III.

It is

Dark.

It is so dark , and so quiet, and you are not there, but you are, but the world isn’t, but you are, but you’re dead, but you’re not, but you’re in pain, but he’s not.

And he’s you.

Or you’re him.

Maybe you’re both and he’s neither. She finds you somewhere between existence and death, surrounded by the skeletal remains of the seven wizards that made you what you are.

She examines the circle of black glass and scorch marks that used to be their mountain, and the grin on her face can cut through the fabric of the universe and weave it into something new. She holds out her hand, and says, “Confused, aren’tcha? I think I have something that’ll work for you.”

And before you know it, the world is ending at your hands.

There is the sound of something falling multiple times all at once.

You love them so much.

You love them so, so much. But you do not, because you weren’t made for this. You don’t know what love is.

Do you?

It’s getting closer.

II.

You are a being of misdeeds, a creature of filth and ugliness.You are a pawn in the hands of luck and a facilitator of fate. And it’s fine.

It’s fine. You don’t deserve to feel this companionship. You don’t deserve the moments when his eyes meet yours and you feel something akin to hope. It’s selfish. It’s foolish.

It’s fine.

(It’s not.)

They are footsteps, Hinata realises distantly at the back of his head, and they fall like hail.

III.

You wake up in another circle of black glass. Your head is full of memories that aren’t your own, your back breaking under the weight of sins you earnt. You hands are pale and unscarred and yours, yours, yours, but you don’t know what’s yours anymore, so you dig them into the hard ground until your nails chip and bleed and you’re screaming because the pain is the only thing that makes you feel real.

You don’t know how long you lay there, but when you come to, you can cast flame, you can create light.

And it takes you so, so long, to pick yourself up, to tear away your memories and the bards’ songs of Him, of You.

You are sick of your own existence, but most of all, you’re not sure when you’ll be him again. You’re not sure how long you have as you.

(You’re not sure when you started to think of this in terms of you and him.)

When you find yourself a party, you worry.

When you sleep at night, you worry.

When your companion’s piercing gray greens look at you and tell you, “Good night, Hinata-kun,” you worry.

What’s a sense of self for someone without one at all?

Crash!

Splinters of diamond scatter across the cave’s floor, yellow and white and shades of off-orange, shattered, sharp and everywhere.

Komaeda is panting by the now screaming, headless gollum, its guttural screeches now reduced to weak yelps that sound more like windchimes. The splinters that caught him in the face send blood streaking down it, and he’s breathing heavy.

In his right hand Komaeda holds Nanami’s abandoned spear of light, semi-tangible and fading in his grasp. Nanami rises to her feet besides Hinata, only a distance away. Cuts and scrapes line her arms and legs where the crystals caught her, but she is healing faster than any of them can process, and she points her staff at the gollum, lips drawn in a thin line.

When Hinata gets into position besides his companions, his heart thrums with something that’s maybe determination, and that’s definitely the desire to beat this fucking thing to the ground.

Their eyes meet. When Hinata catches Komaeda’s, Komaeda gives him a tired, bloodied smile which he tries to return.

They attack.

LEGEND.

There is a legend in the land about a sorcerer. Or at least that’s what they think he is. He’s certainly not human- it’s not clear if he’s much of anything the people of this world can recognize.

He’s like something out of a night terror, spectral and haunting, ethereally beautiful in ways that are hard to encapture. Bards fail to find music befitting of him, and the storytellers, their hands bleed of their efforts to weave tales and tapestries worthy enough. An artist’s maddening, he is, a being of darkness, or maybe light, or maybe divinity.

He razes lands in his wake.

It only takes a flick of his wrist for the grandeur of towering spires, raised peaks and settlements, so many settlements built with caring craftsmanship and loving ambition, to become ash.

There are no scorch marks to tell of despairing fires, no bloodstained marble and cobblestone to tell the tragedy of battles lost. Only the memory of what used to be and the dust that remains of its existence.

Some call him the Destructor. Some call him a God. Most merely call him The Ender of The World.

And he is as beautiful as he is terrifying, the story tellers swear. He doesn’t function on malice, they say. It’s impossible to tell what his motives really are, but he doesn’t thrive off of evil nor off of death. He does not need to thrive, really, not when his very existence is that of raw energy and power, not when he can make himself a living deity on command of his presence.

Others have different stories to tell of him, all with the staples; the beauty, the divinity, the grace. But they speak of different powers- armies of the dead animated for seemingly no reason. Stormy clouds of gray that encircle him, a crown of booming thunder and imminent destruction.

Eyes the colour of rubies, painfully empty despite the ocean’s worth of magical energy they surely have.

The World is ending.

And then it isn’t.

The cities of ash remain as they are, as do the hearts of endless storms continue to beat with the booms of thunder. Every tapestry and abandoned sheet of song remain, but the Ender of the World does not.

At the gollum’s husk, Hinata brings down a spectral axe he summons; once her spear of light is back in her hands, Nanami maneuvers close enough to leave a gaping gash of oozing yellow where its abdomen was; Komaeda’s flute plays notes that manifest into spectral hammers which descend upon it, blown after blow. The amethysts around them are now a darkened gray.

With each hit that lands, crystals shatter across the floor.

Soon, all that remains is a gradient of gold in pieces at their feet.

And their prize reward, the gollum’s heart: an ornate circle of the very same gold, its surface clear and reflective like a mirror. The Eye of Fate.

Komaeda collapses on his knees.

He’s making a noise that sounds like giggling, red faced and dizzy, and then he collapses to the side, spent. Hinata isn’t fast enough to catch him, but he tries anyway. Chest still heaving from the effort of battle, he takes the time to brush away the red that bleeds from the wound on Komaeda’s forehead. The amethysts are more like coal now, a tell-tale sign of the energy he’s expended.

Nanami kneels beside him, and she’s not out of breath at all. But she looks just as tired as he feels. All her wounds have closed up. Hinata almost finds it funny- he always thought the reason her wounds were so quick to heal was because she was an extraordinarily healer. While that was true, he now more or less knows that there’s more to it. And she… they both…

Well, they both know now, don’t they? But the panic hasn’t really settled in just yet.

“I’ll get him,” Nanami says, and she nods towards Komaeda. Already her hand is on his chest. “You have to go retrieve the mirror. Hinata-kun, you know what to do with it.”

Hinata nods. Rises to his feet.

He heads towards the Eye of Fate, back turned to Nanami. It feels smooth and light in his hands. The surface reflects his face, bloodied and plain, and it all feels deceptively simple.

Nanami says, “Hinata-kun? I know you’ll make the right decision. I know you’re a good person, and you can make your own path.”

He feels the smile in her voice as strongly as he feels the sting in his eyes.

“Right,” Hinata says softly, and examines the glassy surface.

He throws it to the ground experimentally. It lands quietly without a sound.

And then he crushes it under his fucking feet. Over and over until it breaks apart for good.

Nanami laughs softly from behind him.

Hinata says, “All right, then. Now that that’s over with, let’s go home.”

Home isn’t anywhere but the three of them.

The journey back isn’t as tiring as Hinata thought it would be, but it’s every bit as emotionally taxing. He wallows in his anxiety on their trip back, just as he wallows in his thoughts.

He and Nanami don’t speak of it.

And he understand that she needs time, and she understands that he needs courage, or perhaps strength of will. But she smiles at him like he means something still, like he’s more than lost identities and failure and magic that isn’t really his, and he’s grateful. He smiles at her too, a bit less patient, a bit more jaded, but he hopes it lets her know that she means something to him like he does to her.

And then there’s Komaeda.

They’re back at their camp grounds when he finally wakes. The sun’s beginning to rise above the horizon, painting its line a faint white and streaking the blank sky with shades of pale blue and orange.

Nanami’s gone to bring them firewood for later on since they’re all too tired for conjuration. Hinata’s fingers clench and unclench into a fist. He counts the fading stars that are eaten by the sunrise, and wonders if he can still see the faint outline of the moon provided he tries hard enough.

Komaeda sits opposite from him. Neither of them says a word.

The silence is quiet and tangible, and when Hinata looks at Komaeda, really looks at him, he pauses. Komaeda’s fully healed and unscarred but for a nick that the gash on his forehead left, and even that is hardly notable. His hair is even messier than usual, dirtied and gray with dust and dirt from their encounter. His pallor is still prominent, but thankfully, it doesn’t look like he’s about to fall seriously ill.

"Hey,” Hinata says.

Komaeda raises his head to look at him. He’s giving him that look again, a look of uncomfortable intensity that Hinata feels in his bones.

Komaeda say, “Hinata-kun,” by way of greeting, and they fall quiet again.

Hinata looks at his thumbs.They’re shredded from the shrapnel of crystal, scarred in little crisscrosses.

He says to Komaeda, “Well. I mean, god. Let’s- let’s cut right to it. Talk to me.”

And so they start to, the rising sun a backdrop to their conversation.

“You know now,” Hinata says.

“I do.”

“You wanted to find me. Or him. Whatever.”

“I do.”

“You still do?”

He tips his head sideways, and light curls frame his curious expression. Very sincerely, he says, “I do.”

Hinata feels a tightness in his chest.

“You’re weird.”

“You’re a god.”

Hinata gives him an annoyed, incredulous look. Now he knows Komaeda’s messing with him.

He says, “You know I’m not,” and can’t help the edge in his voice.

“Of course I do,” Komaeda says, voice hushed in a way Hinata’s never heard it before. “I felt your thoughts, Hinata-kun. We both did.”

He knows this. And it’s frustrating, infuriating even, to have something like that taken away from you and broadcasted so intimately. Looking at the mess he made of his own fingers, Hinata wishes he hit harder, attacked harsher.

And then he looks at Komaeda, and oh. He sees it now, the tightness around his shoulders, the tension in his frame. The sharpness of his present smile, guarded and ingenuine.

He’s hurting, too.

And god, Hinata’s so selfish. This entire time, his own anxieties have been overwhelming him, and he wasn’t able to realise sooner that his companions have their own plates full to the brim.

Of course. Of course he’d hurt. He’s felt it vividly, Komaeda’s loneliness, his pain, just as he had Nanami’s doubt in her existence, just as tangibly as they felt his own aches.

Hinata reaches towards Komaeda, who tenses like he’s about to flinch away, but… doesn’t. He places a hand on his shoulder.

“I’m sorry,” he says.

And Komaeda says, “I was wrong.”

“Wrong?”

His gaze bores into Hinata. “Wrong to call you beautiful and hideous.”

Hinata puts away his hand. He says, “Then what would you call me?” and feels bold for it. The way Komaeda says ‘you’ instead of 'Kamukura Izuru’ or 'The Ender of the World’ or some other superficial title makes him shiver.

“I would call you hopeful,”

“Uh, what?”

Komaeda puts a hand over his heart. And there it is again, that terrifying earnestness in his eyes.

“Hopeful. You’re not like me, Hinata-kun. Despite everything, you’re still here. You’re still doing good after what she made you do.”

What she made you do. The illusion of guilt, the vision of the perfect monster, it’s gone. It’s all gone.

Hinata is shaking just the slightest bit. His hands aren’t as steady as he thought they’d be in his lap. This is hard.

“But– so are you.”

“So am I what, Hinata-kun?”

“You’re here too, aren’t you?”

Komaeda falls silent.

Hinata can’t quite read his expression right, was never quite able to, but the stunned look of bewilderment that twists his features isn’t hard to note.

“But I- that’s not… That isn’t how it works.” Komaeda argues, a confused frown twisting his mouth.

“Isn’t it?” Hinata is smiling, and as he does, he feels the tremors start to calm.

“It isn’t! Hinata-kun, if you’re as good at drawing conclusions as you are at playing instruments-”

“Stop trying to backhand compliment me, I probably can play if I really try.”

“Backhanded compliments? How rash of Hinata-kun to jump to such a conclusion, I was only trying to speak my mind.”

He flicks Komaeda’s forehead. Komaeda doesn’t make a move to flinch this time.

Hinata dares to push back the hair that falls in front of his eyes, heart beat mingling with the songbirds’ melody. He waits for Komaeda to stop him, but he does not. He rubs his thumb over the small scar on his forehead.

“…You were good out there with Nanami’s spear,” Hinata murmurs. “Maybe you should actually consider buying one.”

“Oh,” Komaeda breathes in response.

Sunlight makes him look even prettier.

It’s quiet here in these woods, and it’s not “home” forever. Nothing will be for a while. But the permanence of home and the worries of tomorrow mean nothing when Hinata sees that smile again. A smile soft around the edges that make his eyes crease, a smile that makes Hinata not want to let go.

“Is this okay?” Komaeda says, and his voice is quiet. His eyes begin to flutter. His gloved hands reach tentative towards the back of Hinata’s neck as he moves to lean into Hinata’s touch. Komaeda’s hands are light, their pressure barely there, like he’s afraid to hurt him.

Hinata says, “It’s okay.”

And when he kisses Komaeda, it feels like the relief of something long awaited. It feels like comfort. It feels like something right. Hinata’s hands reach to cup his face, and oh.

He kisses him again, and again, and again, and everytime Hinata pulls away, he sees that smile and just can’t stop.

They’re going to be okay.

#komahina #komahina secret exchange #fanfiction

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wonderfulworldofmichaelford · 5 years ago

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Michael After Midnight: Dragon Age II

Dragon Age is a series very near and dear to my heart; ever since playing Origins back when I was in college, I have been inspired by the stories, characters, and lore. Hell, Origins alone is a huge inspiration to my writing, and why wouldn’t it be? It has great locations, deep lore, a core main party without a single weak link with each and every party member you have being unique and entertaining in their own right, and an epic story with all sorts of twists and turns. And it only has two really shitty segments in the whole game! It’s truly a great first entry in a series.

But despite my love for it, I put off playing the sequel for most of the decade, only playing it for the first time this year. And why is that? Because… the critics said it was bad… yes, unfortunately in my younger years I took what critics said without any grains of salt. Dragon Age II was not very popular back around the time it came out, mostly because of its radical departure from the style of the first game, with more hack-and-slash-esque combat, a much more simple and self-contained story, and a cast of characters far more divisive than the first time around. It’s only over time that people have started to give it the respect it deserves, but much like fellow fantasy series The Legend of Zelda it comes at the cost of the current game being bashed.

So how is this red headed stepchild of a sequel, anyway? Did the critics have a point, or is this really an underrated gem? Well, I’m happy to report that this is indeed a fun and fantastic game, and I heavily regret being kept apart from the lovely Merril for so long due to poor critical reception, but there are a lot of problems too. For everything it does really well, it kind of shits the bed in other areas, and a lot of that can be contributed to a rushed development cycle that got this game churned out just over a year after the first one, leading to things like all items lacking the detailed descriptions they would get in the first game, which doesn’t sound like much, but then you get an item called something like “Uncle Horky’s Spanking Rod” as a magic staff and there’s no explanation as to why it’s called that and you have to imagine up some ludicrous backstory for it.

The lack of flavor text is a minor gripe, though, compared to the obnoxiously repetitive environments of dungeons. Reusing and flipping dungeons around and reusing assets would be one thing, but here they literally just take a map, flip it a bit with no changes to the details of the level, and just block off doors that lead to areas they don’t want you going. The worst part is on your mini map you can see the blocked pathways you likely saw ten minutes ago in another dungeon, which just makes a lot of the missions feel bland and samey. It also doesn’t help that enemy types are rather paltry, so you’ll be fighting a lot of the same mooks in the same maps over and over as you grind for items, gold, and EXP.

And then there are some of the characters. The worst of the bunch are sadly two characters who are returning from the first game and its expansion Awakening – Anders and Isabela. Isabela is arguably worse, because she honestly seems rather fun and nice at first, if overly and aggressively flirty, but as the story goes on, it’s revealed that she is actually the cause behind some of the biggest issues in the first few acts, which she neglects to tell you until it is far too late and unless you decided to maximize your friendship with her, she will run off and never return to your party. I can’t deny that this completely soured me to her, and at the end of the quanari invasion of Kirkwall I was only upset I couldn’t find her in act three and kick her ass for what she did.

Then there is Anders. Poor, poor Anders. In Awakening, he was one of the most funny and charming characters, a nice little substitute for Alistair that I actually ended up liking for than the Weenie King of Ferelden. Here though? Anders can not go one fucking conversation without bringing up how oppressed mages are and how much the templars suck and blah blah blah. The worst part is I do agree with him, but he’s just so whiny and obnoxious about it I left him behind all the time, dooming my party to having no healer even as I fought high dragons, blood mages, and Corypheus. It was worth it to not hear Anders bitching about templars and insulting Merril and Fenris. Oh, and Anders nukes the chantry and sets off a civil war. Isabela may be a nasty bitch, but Anders definitely comes out looking like a huge cunt by the game’s end.

The entire endgame is kind of an utter mess too, seeing as no matter whose side you join you end up fighting the same two bosses, with one of them just not making any sense whatsoever. And then the game just sort of ends on a very unsatisfying cliffhanger. And as much as I just complained, all of this stings because really, the rest of the game is quite good, and the story is fun if scaled back from the epic tale of Origins.

Let’s get the obvious best part out of the way: Varric. Varric is literally the best part of the entire Dragon Age franchise. He’s a snarky, wisecracking surface dwarf with no beard who writes best-selling novels, constantly has his shirt open to show off his magnificent chest hair, and has a crossbow named Bianca that he is uncomfortably attached to. He is one of the greatest characters ever created, and there was not one single moment I left him out of my party, because he is a blast to have around, and what’s more, if there’s ever a situation where the dialogue wheel pops up and you can let him talk… you’ve won. This guy can talk his way out of any situation. There’s nothing bad you can say about Varric, and he is in fact the only companion in the game I can wholeheartedly stand behind as a paragon of great writing.

I love the other characters, don’t get me wrong, but they have their issues. Aveline and Fenris in particular, with Aveline being a bit too by-the-books at times to the point where she exacerbates the quanari conflict by demanding that elves who killed a guard who raped one of their own be turned over to her after they converted to the Qun. This is all despite her knowing full well that the poor elf girl would have otherwise gotten no justice seeing as how city elves in this setting are second class citizens at best. Still, she has a rather adorkable romance questline where you hook her up with one of the guards, and she’s not a bad person, just a touch misguided at times.

That last sentence can also apply to Fenris, but on a grander scale. He’s a cool, edgy, brooding elf who absolutely fucking hates magic with every fiber of his being. He is the Anti-Anders, though he’s far less annoying about it, and it’s hard to really blame him for being bitter seeing as he was a sex slave for an evil wizard for most of his life and then just had misfortune after misfortune piled on him. I really hated how mean he was to Merril, but otherwise I warmed to him and befriended him.

And that brings us to a very special girl, Merril. Merril is an adorable, klutzy, scatterbrained blood mage elf who is hated by her people due to the lengths she is going to repair an ancient artifact to bring a piece of her people’s heritage back. While she can be a bit arrogant and stubborn about the whole thing, it’s mostly due to how no one around her seems to believe in and support her; naturally, I believed in and supported her, and while things still managed to go south, she seemed at least to learn a little bit. Overall I found her to be an absolute sweetheart, and she never left my party, much like Varric; frankly, I was going in expecting not to like her and was going to romance Fenris instead, but as it turns out Merril won my heart immediately and my Hawke went lesbian this playthrough.

On that note, as much as I like how Merril, Fenris, Isabela, and Anders can be wooed by either gender in principle, I do kind of feel making everyone bisexual with no rhyme or reason kind of cheapens things. It’s weird for me, a bisexual myself, to be saying that, but it just feels off to be able to get together with everyone, with everyone being Schrodinger’s Bisexual until a romance is initiated. It’s nowhere near as bad as Skyrim, but I just feel it kinda cheapens the romance options. I prefer Origins and Inquisition in that regard, where you don’t have all the options but you do have some unique choices. But, hey, at the end of the day I’m hardly complaining that my Lady Hawke got to polish Merril’s Eluvian, if you know what I mean.

Aside from the characters, I think the game’s real strength lies in its story, which is fitting since the entire game is framed as a story being told by no less a storyteller than our pal Varric. It has a three act structure, with each act detailing a different year in Hawke’s rise to become the Champion of the city of Kirkwall, which is a crime-ridden wretched hive of scum and villainy. The first act mainly has Hawke making a name for themselves, living in the slums with their uncle, doing dirty work to try and get back a little prestige, and recruiting all of their allies, with the act culminating with a trip to the Deep Roads, every DA fan’s favorite location. It’s a nice setup for a lot of twists and turns later in the story, and choices you make in certain dialogue options or quests actually can change what sort of quests you get later. Then again, this is Bioware, so this sort of “action have consequences” gameplay is expected.

Act two deals with just how Hawke becomes the Champion. Rich from the expedition into the Deep Roads, Hawke gets to do all sorts of fun things, such as track down a serial killer who ends up murdering their mom, being stabbed in the back by one of their friends, accidentally inciting a race war that nearly burns down the city, and having to duel the warrior leader of the qunari to the death in combat. Yeah, act two really piles it on to Hawke, but it does tie into the game’s themes of how no matter the level of success, great actions will also come with great consequences, even actions meant to better one’s lot in life, which also resonate in the personal quests of characters like Merril and Fenris, who despite ultimately achieving their goals in the third act feel hollow, lost, and even broken by the end, and that’s not even getting into what Anders does. However the conflict with the qunari is resolved, Hawke is declared the Champion, and things seem ok.

But then comes act three, and boy do things go wrong. Knight-Commander Meredith has gone cuckoo for Coco Puffs and conflict between templars and mages seems inevitable; this act is basically wrapping up hanging plot threads and companion quests until Anders finally nukes the chantry and all hell breaks loose, leading to the final battle. The ending here isn’t particularly happy, with Hawke ultimately ending up a fugitive in the epilogue, and things can get even worse if you make poor choices in Inquisition, but that’s just the way the cookie crumbles.

Here’s the thing: everything I just said? It could be entirely different from my playthrough depending on the choices you make. Sure, some things are inevitable, like Anders committing terrorist acts, Hawke’s mother dying, and Meredith going absolutely bonkers and making you fight statues, but depending on how you play, maybe you’ll like/romance Isabela, maybe you’ll resolve things with the Arishok differently, maybe you’ll side with the templars… the story ends the same but there are so many ways to make your story different. Throw in some great lore, some fun DLC that reveals some shocking truths about the lore, and the fun albeit simplified combat, and you’ve got a game here that has a lot of replay value if only to see where all the plot threads can lead.

I definitely think this is a good game, even a great one. It has its share of problems, but so did Origins, and frankly I’d sooner put up with the backstabbing pirate hooker and the pissy mage terrorist again then go through the fucking Fade and Deep Roads one more time. If you liked the first one, definitely give this a shot; you may end up liking or disliking some of the stuff I dislike and like. That’s the fun of these Bioware games, different aspects are going to appeal to different people. The question is, do I find it better than Origins?

In some respects, yes; I much prefer the simpler combat here, and I like the more down-to-earth story in this one, but at the same time Origins just had stronger characters overall and I’m a sucker for “save the world” fantasy tales. While Origins infamously had some real mind-numbing slogs in the form of the Fade sequence and the Deep Roads, while those environments were tedious at least they weren’t boring. But on the other hand… Origins didn’t have Varric.

It’s really a tossup, frankly, and I love both games a lot. I think each of them has their place and each of them brings something interesting to the table for the series. It’s one you really need to play for yourself to get a good grasp on; don’t be like me and put it off for nearly ten years, give it a go right after your done with the first game and see how you feel. Your experience is going to be a lot different than mine, that’s for sure.

#Michael After Midnight #Review #video game review #Dragon Age #Dragon Age II #Bioware

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curestardust · 6 years ago

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this is a seperate sequel to Aikatsu with a new cast and story | more character and plot focused

Aikatsu Stars! changes some things up compared to its previous season, for better or worse.

Aikatsu S1 seemed to focus on introducing as many new girls as possible. This worked for making sure that everyone found their “best girl” but was also a drawback as basically as soon as a specific girl’s arc ended you may not see them perform again for the next 50 episodes. Stars is vastly different. We have a set cast of characters and only get a few new ones introduced when the anime has spent enough time fleshing out the original ones. Almost none of the important characters get forgotten and dissappear for long periods of time. Which is great if you found a favourite character. IF, you did.

In Aikatsu S1, we didn’t have anyone with an “offensive” personality. They were all tolerable and you could easily get used to them. Stars! is different and starts out on the wrong foot. We get our main, Yume, who is a typical ditzy blonde. This immediately made me uncomfortable because the reason I loved Ichigo was because they didn’t force her into those typical main character tropes. Then we have her best friend Koharu, who basically gets showed into the back, making her somewhat irrelevant for the first half of the anime. And then we get introduced to the rest of the main cast; Laura, Ako and Mahiru. The problem? All 3 are a certain level of tsundere. Ako is 100% one, Mahiru is like 50% and Laura 30%. This was NOT a good decision. As I said, the first half of the anime mainly focuses on these 4 and as someone who doesn’t like the tsundere character type I got annoyed by their behaviour numerous times.

Fortunately, this gets better as the anime goes on. As we enter the second arc, the attention somewhat shifts on a new group fo characters and everyone goes through a lot of character growth. Still, I feel like they spent way too much time before committing. For example, Ako’s main character development happens around episode 80...of the 100 episodes. Like...

There’s also a bigger focus on the overarching plot. In Aikatsu, the story mostly consisted of smaller challenges like auditions and units with there not really being a bigger end goal. In the first half of Stars! the main plot is preparing for the S4 Selection and in the second half for the Aikatsu Rankings. There’re plenty of side stories and fillers but in the end the anime always comes back to advancing towards the main plot.

There are less songs and performances in Stars! which is kind of a bummer, however the songs are all amazing as usual and their performance dresses and stages are even prettier and more detailed than in Aikatsu.

The original season was a simple weekly wind down with minimal stakes, cute characters and pretty performances. Aikatsu Stars! becomes more of an actual story. If you go into this right after the 170 episodes of Aikatsu, it’ll be kinda weird. But as the anime goes on, the characters grow and form friendships and the plot keeps you interested. You don’t need to watch Aikatsu to enjoy this season as they’re almost completely seperate. [7/10] (x)

Recommend: HELL Yeah! | Yes | Eh??? | Nope | This anime killed my parents

if you want: MICROBIOLOGY / to know the inner workings of the body / charming cast of characters / creative writing

I’m finally delving into the plentiful Summer Season offering, starting with “Cells at Work!”

I didn’t even take me a second to add this to my PTW. Science? Hell yeah. Overly dramatic portrayal of science in anime form? HELL YEAH. I’ve always been a sucker for stuff like this and I just couldn’t skip it.

So, how was it? Eh...there’s good and bad and seeing how popular this anime is, this review might get me killed but here we go anyway.

First off, let us get the small stuff out of the way. The music is fine but nothing remarkable. The animation is uh....questionable. The artstyle itself is a bit weird but it is not something I judge but the movements of the characters is so...uncanny at some places? Just watch the opening where it opens on the 2 main characters running and there’s just something wrong there. Fortunately, this problem isn’t very noticable most of the time as the anime uses a lot of quick cuts between dramatic stills and short action sequences. Still, the animation and the art is, also, just fine.

There’s no overarching plot, which is neither good or bad. The episodes are well....episodical. Very much so. One episode ends with a seemingly deadly antigen invading the body but the next episodes don’t even mention it.

I feel like it is also important to mention that if you’ve never studied biology in depth IN ENGLISH then some episodes can get insanely hectic. Whenever there’s something happening with the body, there’s a new antigen or a new cell showing up, the show stops and a very nice female voice explains what they are and what they do. However, there’s so much science lingo in these explanations that 50% of the time I was like ???????? BUT this doesn’t mean that the anime is completely incromprehensible, especially if you don’t particularly care about the real life explanations and just want to see some action.

So, why is Hataraku Saibou so popular? From what I’ve seen, there are mainly 2 reasons: the cast and the creativity. It is clear that the writers have a deep knowledge of the base material and they also love it. I see some fans reading about microbiology, trying to connect the things that appear in the anime with their real life equivalents. From just one look, “Cells at work” looks like some mindless fun somewhat based on the inner workings of the body but, no, this shit is DETAILED.

And the cast. People seem to be in love with the 2 main characters’ personalities and relationship (oh the shipping!). There’s also a nice secondary cast of characters surrounding them. The designs are all very distinct; White Blood Cell U-1146′s full on white body gear and Red Blood Cell AE3803′s Red cap and jacket are already quite iconic and easily recognizable.

Listen, I personally didn’t get into Hataraku Saibou. It was a fun, educational albeit somewhat mediocre one time watch for me. BUT I’ve been part of big fandoms before and I can see the appeal. The cast is charming, the world is vast and the writing is full of creativity. If you’re even slightly interested in this anime, watch it! And hey, maybe it will suck you in just like it did with a bunch of other people. [6/10] (x)

Recommend: HELL Yeah! | Yes | Eh??? | Nope | This anime killed my parents

if you want: (quite weak) horror/thriller / RPG maker game adaptation / unique chemistry between main characters / somewhat religion themed??

Gotta say that it’s been a while since I’ve seen something as incompetent as Satsuriku no Tenshi. This anime is an adaptation of a “horror” game that was created with RPG Maker. Now...people are capable of creating some great games with RPG Maker, I’ll not deny that. However, I’m pretty sure that everything that was lacking in the game got transferred over to the anime itself. I watched some short gameplay videos and the first thing most will notice is the quite weak dialogue.

I’ll start with the few positives I found. The story itself is quite intriguing, as it is the reason I gave this a watch. The chemistry between the main characters are unique and I didn’t find it sexualized either however the fandom generally seems to ship them which makes me wanna vomit as Rachel is 13 and Zack is 20 so it’s....ughhghghgh.

The Opening and especially the Ending track are quite nice and uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh... yeah. Now let’s talk about the BAD.

Character designs are incredibly generic and resemble a 12 year old’s DeviantArt OCs. The OST would be alright however the same tracks repeat over and over and over again and it drived me up the wall! The dialogue is incredibly bad. The characters have the exact same conversation at least every episode if not multiple times in an episode. And they lack pauses. As soon as the action stops someone starts talking even if what they’re saying is irrelevant and could’ve been left unsaid.

However, the worst offender is the pacing. The creaters of this anime completely failed in adapting a video game into a series. If you’ve played RPGs you’ll immediately notice the patterns the characters follow. Enter Room. Dialogue prompt which gives you quest. Go somewhere. Pick item/push button. Go back. Dialogue prompt. Repeat. There’s even a segment where they are solving a puzzle and while that part of the story was quite tense as important information was being revealed, I can imagine this working SO MUCH better in the game itself, where YOU are the one solving the puzzle while YOU are under pressure. In the anime version a huge part of the appeal is lost and it’s basically like watching an animated gameplay.

I’m seeing people praising this anime. I don’t get it this time, at all but whatever. Personally, I’d not recommend this anime. It’s a drag and a waste of time. (3/10) (3/10) (x) (x)

Recommend: HELL Yeah! | Yes | Eh??? | Nope | This anime killed my parents

#dusty reviews #aikatsu #aikatsu stars #hataraku saibou #cells at work #satsuriku no tenshi #Angels of Death #Aikatsu Stars!

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gameridernews · 7 years ago

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Ex-Aid review: Choh Superhero Taisen

Ex-Aid's spring movie, from a distance, just looked like the familiar Rider/Sentai crossover format doing its usual thing. But recently, a producer at Toei has confirmed that they will no longer be doing crossover movies in the spring, meaning that Ex-Aid - turns out - has given us our final "so-called spring movie" experience.

In this world where weird and questionably written crossovers may cease to exist, let's see if it at least went out with something akin to a bang.

Choh Superhero Taisen is a bit of a silly name. I mean, it implies this is a SUPER version of the usual spring movie crossover, but to be a little more accurate, this movie is... kind of like a better version of the first couple swings they took at the Rider VS Sentai angle.

To recap, we got a Fourze-era crossover that did not really give a good first impression, then a Wizard-era crossover I can't remember a single thing about except Space Shocker. Gaim and Drive went the route of Rider VS Rider, both in kinda interesting but shaky executions, and Ghost had a focus on the original Kamen Rider making a modern day appearance.

Oh and just to quickly establish the timeline here, Maximum Gamer premiered in the show and Kuroto got what he deserved. Bit of a shame since I’m sure he’d have a lot to say about the kid in this movie. Anyway, let's begin!

The movies opens up in Korea being attacked by the game Xevious. The Kyurangers send all of their attack stock footage at the invaders, which you would think the Cyber Rescue Center would know about but they are instead dealing with a strange patient who apparently has a tail. Oh hey, Zyuoh Tiger!

The way the movie plays out beyond this point is really weird. It feels like when Inoue wrote the OOO portion of Movie Taisen Core - things are oddly slow and somber for a series known for being bright and peppy.

It’s uncanny. Hiro literally proclaims he will operate on Zyuoh Tiger even if she's an animal and no one bats an eye at that comment. That’s how weird it is. And when they see the Kyuranger mech land in the middle of the city, it’s treated as a quiet ominous moment like something bad is about to go down.

Okay, to be fair, that part is ominous because the Kyurangers are here for Poppy since they think this video game character is linked to other video games attacking reality - I guess since they have a lot of research at their disposal, because they know what Bugsters are!

But just as the Ex-Aid VS Kyuranger stuff begins, it quickly ends once Shishi Red... decides Kamen Riders are heroes because there's a game called Choh Superhero Taisen that Riders and Rangers are both part of. I mean, he's not wrong?

So yeah, that's a thing! Choh Superhero Taisen is a game that’s invaded this world and challenges Ex-Aid. Among its returning Riders/Rangers is an alternate version of Hiro, transforming into Kamen Rider True Brave.

I was VERY interested in learning the backstory of this character - is it an alternate universe thing, or what? Turns out, he's a video game character... and for story reasons, it’s a Hiro who took a different path in life.

It sorta makes sense, I promise.

Things get interesting once Ex-Aid and Poppy enter the world of Choh Superhero Taisen, which is more or less a bunch of Toei's usual filming locations but with returning actors accompanying them!

The first being Kyoryu Gold from Kyoryuger, Utsusemimaru - or Utchy for short. I watched at least half of Kyoryuger so I can appreciate his cameo. He does his Brave Daze thing and he gets some good action.

More importantly, you can't have a bunch of returning actors without Toei proving they can somehow keep getting all of the Imagin from Den-O. And I can understand someone being sick of them by now, even if you were a fan before, but the scene where Ex-Aid has to pick his team makes me smile. Although... considering ToQGer's premise, should Urataros really be flirting with one of the girls?

MOVING SWIFTLY ALONG, Emu chooses a "Gorider" team, with Momotaros being Pink - it's a pun. Ex-Aid uses Robot Action Gamer to cheat his way into the Red slot, which I kinda wish someone called him out on.

Ao Ninger makes an easy return as Blue, providing a nice callback to Ninninger as he basically takes charge and tell's Emu to pick his master, Magi Yellow, who taught him magic - but ends up calling Beet Buster from Go-Busters instead, because same actor. That was cute.

Lastly, filling out the team’s Green slot, the out-of-nowhere return of Zolda from Ryuki! I... y'know, it's best they didn't address his cancer since this is supposed to be the "game world" Zolda. Instead, they lean into his lawyer-ness - it felt very appropriate for him to dismiss the Gorider thing and only take part if they signed a contract. I also enjoy how he keeps referring to Momotaros as Goro-chan. It’s cute. I don’t have the heart to tell him Goro is in Zawame.

With a team decided upon, this starts to feel like an entirely different movie with Riders VS Rangers. My only gripe here was I could've used at least one more fight. You get a nice tournament chart that shows you all of the different fights happening offscreen, and to be quite honest I needed to see the Dandy team in action.

Right, so I should talk about the kid now. There's a patient Hiro was responsible for, who made the Choh Superhero Taisen game and disappeared afterwards. This is where things get interesting because Hiro has this logic of "I won't perform surgery on a patient unless they want it", which was used well in the show. Hiro presented the kid a chance to be cured, and he said no, so Hiro reluctantly accepted the kid’s choice.

Essentially, Alternate Hiro was made in this kid's game world as a personification of Hiro's guilt, and acts as his aide. It kind of works. But it kind of doesn't? Which is really a good way to describe spring movies as a whole.

However, I dig the alternate Hiro in concept. He isn't an evil version of the character like you'd expect - he has some sense of justice to him, he's protecting this kid after all, it's just that he's wrong in the eyes of the actual Hiro because it conflicts with his own ethics. This may be the best part of the movie, or at least the part with the most depth.

Oh right, so Ex-Aid and the others on his team become Kamen Sentai Gorider... which is a combination of the original Sentai and the original Kamen Rider... and it's about out of place as it sounds.

It feels right at home with all this chaos, I guess. But I don't have much to say about it beyond that. I still gotta watch the actual Gorider special.

Not a shocker for something to feel out of place in one of these movies. You know what’s also out of place? Shocker! Yes, the original villains are back again, and this time-- they don't have a different name, but I'd like to call them Game Shocker, because it implies they're living on in yet another form.

They also have a new young leader, Shocker Leader III to be exact, which I was admittedly interested in learning more about. The actor made a big deal about how he thinks of Shocker as a group that admires the Kamen Riders, quoted saying "I want you to understand Shocker's feelings".

In all honesty, though, the character doesn't stand out to me as being any different than a generic Rider movie villain, and would have probably been better off in a different movie. A shame too, because I love the idea it sounded like he was hinting at.

The movie is all over the place, and there's some things I wanna talk about but feel like I don't need to dedicate a whole screencap to. Let's go through these real quick...

Among the many cameos, we get the Kamen Rider Amazons crew, which includes Alpha, Omega and the then-new Neo! I haven't seen Amazons and this cameo taught me... they fight aggressively. I’ll be honest, I really felt nothing from this cameo. But I can appreciate how they added the dramatic lighting Amazons is known for. And Ex-Aid cleverly added some game logic to the fight by looking for a hidden power-up. He probably connects all of the pork chops in Castlevania.

The Zyuohgers make a cameo! That's pretty fun considering this is one show later. Unfortunately this cameo also made me realize Amu really did not have much to do with the story. I legit forgot about her while writing all this.

Brave uses Galaxian Quest Gamer, which wins the award for most pointless and rushed movie form debut. Like, I think he put on the armor and fought some dudes real quick and you never see it again. Galaxian played some part in the game world destruction earlier, but now that I think about it, you could replace that with Shocker to make them fit in better...

To end on a positive note, Ex-Aid uses a special giant Energy Item with Maximum Gamer to grow to Sentai mech size and fight alongside the Kyurangers' mech, which was a very fun visual since it involved a unique transformation in which Ex-Aid grows in size as the armor builds around him. This felt like a "They knew this was cool and wanted to take it a step further" moment.

Since I sped through all of that, let's get to the ending.

There's a nice moment with the kid and Naga from the Kyurangers, as they both share the inability to properly express emotions, and I can appreciate how they made use of Naga even if I have little exposure to Kyuranger - that was nice and heartfelt.

Through a combination of Ex-Aid's previous efforts and Brave's current efforts (pretty cool having both of them involved there), the kid is saved, everyone who got sucked into the game world is back out, and the status quo returns to normal.

The credits roll with a nice collection of cards based on all the characters in the movie.

So how did this one turn out? Well, as a movie, pretty awful. As a toku movie, not great. As a Kamen Rider spring crossover movie, it's a'ight I guess? I feel like I'm a lot more forgiving of these than others - even though I'm not opposed to making fun of things like Tsukasa's bad hair day or Space Shocker, I do get something out of these, so that's why I watch them.

With the idea in mind that this is the final spring crossover movie we'll get out of Kamen Rider and Sentai - as the upcoming spring movie is gonna be about Amazons instead and the future beyond that is uncertain - I think they could have ended on a far more typical clusterfuck note. Arguably, they did? But I think among the far-too-many ideas this one had, some of the ideas were good. And for a movie trying to make heroes fight other heroes, it's doing so in a fun way by making use of Ex-Aid’s game motif.

I'm gonna miss these movies. They weren't great, but they were fun eye candy. I'm gonna be interested in seeing what they do with that spring movie slot - will Amazons be the last spring movie entirely, or will it be Toei's go-to for "We just wanna make some kind of thing" movie projects? Only time will tell!

I think you know what comes next, right? I’ve got the first winter movie reviewed, now the spring movie - so obviously spinoff material next. Or the summer movie! Whichever happens first.

#kamen rider exaid #reviews #feed

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vjdarkworld · 7 years ago

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The Witcher 3 Review (NO SPOILERS)

Score: Recommended, for people that enjoy Storytelling

Best:

Storytelling

Adult content

Difficult Choices

Embodiment of Polish folklore

Quests

Good:

VisualsOnce you have a lot of good tools to use, gameplay is funExploration and Open World

Observations:

Lots of tools but all singular use, instead of few tools with dynamic usage.

Bad:

“Slavic jank”

Requires playing of Witcher 1&2 OR read the books

Performance

Best:

Storytelling

This not only includes how the stories unfold, but as well the characters and world they inhabit.

One word to describe it would be believability. Of course, it’s fantasy but the way standard fantasy things would be handled is done well due to the characters.

A plot is a series of character interactions, so ultimately a story is only as good as the characters it has. Truly what sells the world is how the characters interpret it, and they all have differing viewpoints. Some take the Dark Fantasy world seriously, others find it a chance for a Fun Adventure, and most attempt to drink their sorrows away. But my personal favorite interacts in the series is between Geralt and his friends.

This is where it becomes real for me, relationships. Throughout Geralt’s adventures he meets many people. He doesn’t get along with most, but there are some he actually befriends. And even though nearly all his friends are eccentric which contrast the stoic white wolf, he still has long and ongoing friendships with em. As the director of the game said, “friends are the backbone of your life” (he was talking about life not the witcher but oddly enough it connects to the witcher for me) and that is exemplified by Geralt.

All in all, the relationships between the characters make the storytelling real.

Adult content

While other games have sex in it, The Witcher series has been able to portray sex for what it is…. Sex. Bioware has the lovely dovey sex after you Romance them, but in the Witcher it’s different and more Realistic. Adults have sex for various reasons and it’s not always romantic. Most of the time it’s just for the act itself, having a single fling cus sex is Fun.

Since witchers shoot blanks they have the stereotype of being promiscuous. It’s up to the player (no pun intended) if they will let Geralt succumb to Hook Up Culture, or actually stay in a dedicated monogamous relationship.

Something like this just isn’t address in any other mainstream RPG.

Other serious topics are brought up as well related to sexual violence and racism. They are all handled well due to one simple theme present with each situation. That is the fact that you can’t be neutral, you have to pick a side.

Difficult Choices

It’s funny cus the white wolf almost embodies the “grey area” of neutrality that generally serious RPG fans walk the line of. That the player will be understanding for all Characters and trying to figure out a solution. But most situations aren’t like this realistically. Theoretically sure you can be critical of Both Sides, but in practice you HAVE to pick a side. Or maybe you don’t pick a side and “stay neutral” which can be the worst option cus you could be letting bad stuff happen that you could of prevented. This is why when choices pop up for Geralt, it’s pretty serious. Especially cus the effects of them happen way later in the game before you realized what you did wrong.

These choices impact the fates of certain characters, among other things. Choose wisely, or you may not be happy with what you did.

Embodiment of Polish folklore

I’m no expert in Polish culture, or of ye’ old slavic and pagan mythology, but the entire game reeks of something being different. It just doesn’t seem like your typical Tolkien fantasy. There’s a unique twist that is clearly the result of the entire game being developed in Poland, thus polish culture shining bright within it.

Some people joke that the Witcher series is Poland’s main export, but atleast for entertainment it seems quite true. It seems like a major group effort from creative minds of Poland, banding together to present their folklore to world. Major props and respect to the CD PROJEKT RED team!

Quests

Quests are designed like episodic content. For side quests and hunter contracts, they all tell a good standalone story from start to finish of the quest. Sometimes quests interconnect too, reference each other, presenting how much the world is connected. It makes doing the quests quite addicting cus you want to see what’s going to happen next in the quest, and then when you finish it you want another good story so you start another one. It’s almost like bingewatching a tv show. Having good stories for the quests makes even the most mundane tasks more appealing too. Trying to tell a story… WHAT A CONCEPT!

Good:

Visuals

They are pretty nice looking if you got the Specs for it. Sometimes regular real lofe animals like cats and dogs look weird but overall its good. Landscapes pretty, monsters spooky, humans all raggedy. The aesthetic sells the world quite nicely.

Once you have a lot of good tools to use, combat is fun

When starting out the game, you have limited options for combat. But through the course of the game, gaining abilities, new gear, etc etc, gives Geralt more tools to play around with. This is when the game opens up and you can mess around a bit. The white wolf can get pretty OP too if you play your cards right. To which if you think the game is too easy, you can always play on higher difficulties.

Observations:

Lots of tools but all singular use, instead of few tools with dynamic usage.

Due to how alchemy and signs work, signs, oils, potions and decoctions generally have only a Specific situation use. Some are more versatile, but most times you will be looking up the Bestiary to figure out what tools to use.

On one hand this kinda makes the combat seem flat, cus of the limited options you can do, BUT thematically it makes sense why. It makes sense why it’s like this for a hunter of monsters, there’s a lot of monsters and they all have different weaknesses so it makes sense as to why the design is like this.

On top of that, it’s kind of deceptive cus you CAN experiment but only when you have a LOT of the tools and you know what all their purposes are. It’s a barrier, but you can get over it.

But still, in the end the gameplay still isn’t as dynamic as other combat systems which is a shame in my opinion.

Exploration and Open World

Points of interest are labeled on the map. You get good loot and fight monsters at these points most of the time. It doesn’t truly make the game world feel Alive necessarily, it just seems more like extra stuff to do. I appreciate the effort of given the player stuff to do if they completed quests and are bored, and you get neat goodies from going these places but it’s really just There.

Bad:

“Slavic jank”

There’s a bit of a joke about games made in slavic related areas. They are often associated with janky games, but games with so much dedication behind them that even though they are janky it’s so unique that it’s fun. Something like S.T.A.L.K.E.R. for example. This phenomena is due to how the gamers in these territories are completely out of the typical western Triple A bubble. And generally dedicate their time to old CRPGs, which causes them to grow a fondness for more Detailed and Dense design instead of Simple and Elegant. This isn’t a bad thing, and this type of thing can be seen in The Witcher series, where it’s both Triple A BUT has that old school CRPG style to it.

All that is good in my opinion…. But I have to be honest and say that the gameplay can be too janky at times. Movement in general feels weird with its velocity and acceleration. Roach controls awkwardly and doesn’t feel like a horse, more like you’re on something sliding around. When you run into other animals or enemies on Roach you just push them away and not run them over.

Also, for some reason the controls completely change when in combat mode and you can’t control at all when combat mode happens. This causes awkwardness where you are not moving the same way as before, as in… an enemy triggers you to go into combat mode but they are too far away for you to hurt so you are stuck moving around weird. It’s just an odd system, which I prefer to have a full range of movement and attacks, not being arbitrarily pushed into combat mode.

Also, the inventory is a bit confusing to navigate especially if you are trying to find a specific item hidden in the Other tab.

The whole character upgrade screen too is not clear cus there’s clearly abilities that are better than others WHEN you actually know their potential, but unless you’re looking up guides and the wiki you won’t really know which are the good ones to actually invest in.

All these little things that kind of ruin the “game feel” make people not want to play it past a couple hours cus they think the game is “janky” anddd the game is actually kinda janky. I have to admit it, can’t lie. There’s other open world games that have better movement overall, and I wish that this game did.

Requires playing of Witcher 1&2 OR read the books

Now you may wonder, what’s so bad about that? Well, I was being critical about this games jankiness, but really it’s not in the slightest as janky as Witcher 1. Witcher 2 isn’t as much janky, but Witcher 3 improved on a lot of Witcher 2’s problems so Witcher 3 is in fact the least janky.

Now it would be a hard sell to say “you need to go through 50+ hours of the previous installments to play this?” BUT if the other installments were as polished as this than it wouldn’t be as much of a problem… But it’s like I can’t tell someone “Oh you have to play through these janky games to play this game, don’t worry it’s worth it bro” cus that’s disrespecting their intelligence AND worst of all their time. Not everyone has time to look play through decent games to get to an Amazing game just so they can understand the story… which is sad.

Cus don’t get me wrong, I adore Witcher 1 more than most, but I can’t lie and say it’s worth “slogging” through the awkward gameplay to see the amazing story unfold down the road.

Why? Even if it’s a unique OK… there are better games to play that are more than just OK.

And to the book point, you shouldn’t need to read a book series before playing a videogame, the entertainment should be as singular as possible. The witcher videogames too have a different storyline than the books anyways, so it’s a moot point of them being in the same continuity and being “required”… even though they technically can help if you didn’t play the other games. Still not fair though, so nah, just nah.

Performance

You need to make sure you have a midrange build atleast so you can run the game. But man do the frames drop in cities. Back on my old-midrange build I could play at around 50-60fps outside of Novigrad… but IN Novigrad I had 10-20fps due to NPCs and who knows what else. Also just some areas would lag on that build regardless if something was at low or medium. Very finnicky. I think by now with all the patches and optimization it’s probably better buuut I can’t say the game is well optimized. It’s serviceable with a good build… but ya get kinda screwed if you don’t and that’s a shame.

#thewitcher3 #thewitcher #review #nospoilers #geralt

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gyrlversion · 5 years ago

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32 Products Thatll Have Any Miyazaki Fan Squealing

We hope you love the products we recommend! Just so you know, BuzzFeed may collect a share of sales or other compensation from the links on this page. Oh, and FYI — prices are accurate and items in stock as of time of publication.

A set of tree spirits from Princess Mononoke you can add to a planter or simply keep at your desk for some much-needed company.

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Added bonus? They glow in the dark!

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A Totoro water bottle to sip out of on your commute while wishing you could travel via Catbus.

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A Calcifer quote pin inspired by Howl’s Moving Castle that’ll definitely ~spark joy~ when you add it to your bag or jacket.

Miyazaki socks featuring a variety of the films, so you’ll never have to choose a favorite flick while accessorizing.

Amazon

I have these socks and they make me smile every time I wear them. I like rocking them with booties or letting the characters peek out of the tops of my sneakers. They’re the perfect combination of quirky and cozy. Seems like the people of Amazon agree with me, as they have a 4.9-star rating!

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BoxLunch

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Spirited Away on Blu-ray, because literally 1,820 fans have taken the time to give it a 5-star rating so you DEFINITELY need it in your movie collection.

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Spirited Away was the first Miyazaki film I ever watched and it quickly got me hooked. It’s a trip, as any real fan will know. You might as well own a hard copy so you can watch it over and over and display it proudly.

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Studio Ghibli shot glasses you can break out to impress your fellow Miyazaki-loving buddies. Just don’t drink like No-Face, ingesting everything and anything, and you’ll be golden.

Complexwish / Etsy

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Amazon

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10.

Minimalist Studio Ghibli–inspired posters, perfect for incorporating the whimsical movies and their characters into your home.

Amazon

Promising review: “These posters are just as vibrant and detailed as shown in the photographs. This was an impulse buy; we didn’t need anything new. Though as soon as I saw them, I showed them to my spouse and we knew we had to have them. Our friends have made countless comments/compliments and requested where they could get them. I only include this information, because I feel it’s important to note that we’re not just biased toward them. So grateful to have something this lovely in my home.” —Jenny

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11.

A Porco Rosso sticker you can refer to anytime someone tries to pull the old “when pigs fly” line on ya’.

Redbubble

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13.

An illustration of the bathhouse from Spirited Away printed directly onto an old dictionary page, a must-have for your very own bathroom (gross sludge and bath tokens not included).

PrintsWithStyle / Etsy

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14.

A plush version of Jiji you’ll love snuggling up with while watching Kiki’s Delivery Service for the thousandth time. Just don’t try to feed him pancakes (he’s a stuffed animal).

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15.

A replica of Howl’s ring, so you and your own Calcifer can feel connected at all times.

sophofcourse / Etsy

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A notebook and pen that’ll make you feel like you just ventured through the bushes and landed on Totoro’s belly for a nap every time you open it.

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17.

A necklace you’ll find to be as loyal of a companion as Jiji is to Kiki during her first flights.

Hot Topic

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18.

A coat hook that recreates the iconic scene where Totoro and Satsuki wait together in the rain, sure to bring a smile to your face every time you enter and exit your home.

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Promising review: “I am so happy I decided to buy these hooks. The quality is above and beyond anything that I was expecting for the price. It is very sturdy. The hooks are generously sized and it looks great! Exactly what I was looking for to hold dog leashes and keys! Even my husband likes it and he isn’t a fan of decorating the house according to my Totoro/Ghibli obsession” —AllieKryptonite

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19.

A T-shirt that’ll help you pay tribute to arguably the fiercest BOSS in the Ghibli universe; Yubaba.

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20.

Or Kiki’s Delivery Service stickers you can use to cover every inch of your laptop with your favorite young witch.

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22.

A Catbus planter you can leave on your desk and count on to provide a mid-day ~pick me up~.

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A Calcifer sticker that’ll have anyone who notices its sassy message saying “oooooh, burn!”

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24.

A soot sprite window cling for keeping you company in your car. Be sure to keep some star-shaped konpeito on hand in case it gets hungry!

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25.

Or a soot sprite dad hat to keep the sun out of your eyes the next time you venture into a dusty, but magical house, looking to spot one of these creatures.

Hot Topic

Promising review: “I love this hat! It’s adjustable, comfortable, and very well made. It’s a nice subtle way to show some Ghibli pride.” —SIPPYSIPPY

Get it from Hot Topic for $11.83.

26.

A phone case chock-full of Studio Ghibli characters, so perfect you’ll never want to buy a new device again.

Amazon, amazon.com

Promising review: “If you are familiar with the movie that came out, I must say, this is COMPLETELY different. Yes…it’s mostly the same in the beginning but other than that, much of the plot is different as well as the ending. I really loved this book and love Howl’s character. It’s a ‘feel good’ book that gets you hooked right away.” —~Butterfly214~

Get it from Amazon for $8.54.

28.

Leggings with an all-over print of Kiki, her bow, and Jiji (obvs) that’ll accompany your broomstick nicely.

Hot Topic

Promising review: “I cannot say how satisfied and happy I am with these leggings! They’re comfortable and stunning, gorgeous! Absolutely in love. Definitely a must have without a doubt. Worth every single penny!” —DEC25STEPHANIE

Get them from Hot Topic for $19.95 (available in sizes 0–4).

29.

An entire book about Hayao Miyazaki’s life and work you’ll definitely want to read from cover-to-cover then proudly place on top of your coffee table for all to see.

Amazon

Promising review: “Susan Napier has been writing about animation for years, and she has a special place in her heart for Studio Ghibli and Hayao Miyazaki. That passion shows through in this volume. If you have any interest in Miyazaki, Studio Ghibli, or any of their works, this is a must-have book.” —Fumitaka Joe

Get it from Amazon for $16.50+ (available for Kindle and hardcover).

30.

A temporary Catbus tattoo you can wear as a test run before deciding to fully commit to getting the real thing.

31.

A Totoro crossbody bag that looks like a vintage book cover and will leave you plenty of room to store all the seeds you discover in the forest.

Hot Topic

Promising review: “Really cute and well made! It’s been my go-to when I want to carry a small bag with just the bare essentials, and I always get compliments on it from other Ghibli fans.” —BRITT G

Get it from Hot Topic for $27.99.

32.

And a pocket tee with a hidden surprise any Studio Ghibli fan will be delighted to discover and show off time and time again.

Dorkypop

When you pull the pocket of the shirt down it reveals No Face’s monstrous mouth ready to consume gold (and possibly…you!) There are also adorable designed featuring Totoro and the soot sprites!

Promising review: “The shirt is absolutely amazing! High quality and not thin and flimsy. The shirt fits true to size for a unisex-style shirt, so I purchased a large (I’m 5’10” and like my shirts a bit looser). The shipping was extremely prompt and the shirt came with a personalized card inside, which I thought was really sweet. I will be purchasing from Dorkypop again!” —Patricia V.

Get it from Dorkypop for $32 (available in unisex sizes XS, M–2XL).

You, patiently waiting for your Studio Ghibli products to arrive:

Studio Ghibli

Some reviews have been edited for length and/or clarity.

The post 32 Products Thatll Have Any Miyazaki Fan Squealing appeared first on Gyrlversion.

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kapanbenernya · 6 years ago

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Horizon: Zero Dawn -- There’s Only One or Two Giant Dinosaurs

Did you know that I own a PS4? Of course you don’t, why the fuck should you care? I’m literally a stranger on the internet that communicates to you via an internet post floating on the information superhighway like a piece of turd lost in the everflowing sea of turds in a septic tank. But enough rambling on the subject of human feces and back to the topic at hand, I own a PS4.

I used to own the PS2 and I remember having a CD holder shaped like a thick book that holds all my PS2 DVDs, and I remember it being filled to the brim until I have to double-stack the DVDs or else it won’t fit. So why did I bring this up? Because I want to compare that to my PS4 library which consists of 4 blu-rays. No I’m not fucking kidding, I only got 4 games, two of which are a copy of Bloodborne that I had to buy twice because I bought the wrong fucking region and the DLC won’t connect.

Maybe right now you’re asking yourself, “What’s with the rambling man?” and well... Here’s the thing, I’m gonna be honest from the start: I wasn’t that into Horizon: Zero Dawn (HZD). I bought it just as a filler, to bulk up my library of PS4 exclusives. So yes, I just wasted two paragraphs explaining that I didn’t buy HZD because I think I’ll enjoy it, I bought HZD just to own it and maybe get a kick out of it or two.

Oh well, let’s talk about the game anyway

In this game, you play as Aloy, a woman without a mother in a tribe that places value on matriarchy, which is why she is branded an outcast by her tribe. Wait what? Doesn’t matriarchal society puts more privilege and power on women? So why was she shunned? She’s a woman! Shouldn’t she be given power instead of you know, kicked out?

Something tells me this tribe doesn’t respecc whamen as much as they think they do

But Aloy isn’t all alone in this cold cruel robotic world, she’s got a foster dad whose name I already forgot. I mean it’s not my fault, he’s not that important anyway. All he does is teach Aloy everything she ever knew so that she can go to the yearly outcast acceptance tryouts, nothing important there. Sarcasm aside, it’s still kinda true that his only purpose in the game is to be the plot advancing sacrificial lamb. No spoiler alert needed! His death flag has been raised ever since he become the parental figure of the protagonist, kinda like Batman’s parents or Uncle Ben.

But no worries, his sacrifice wasn’t in vain because Aloy finally gets accepted into the tribe! By virtue of being the sole survivor of the test because some tribe of edgy fuckboys killed everybody else. And not long after, some killer robots showed up at the door, late to party and and thrashed the place up some more. With the tribe left in tatters, Aloy is appointed as a scout and sent into the world to figure out the threat that looms over the world. Also, Aloy may or may not have been born from a mountain and now have a personal quest of finding out about her origin. And if she had extra time, probably find out whatever it is the old Shaman smoked until she came to the flawless logic that mountains can give birth to humans.

The threat is, as usual: robots gone apeshit

Have I mentioned that the setting of the world is a post-apocalyptic world where people formed tribes and most animal have been replaced by robots? So yeah, two very important aspect of the HZD world. Anyway, the robots and the humans live happily among each other, and by that I mean they kill each other every time their gaze meet. But so far, things have been manageable as long as the humans stay the fuck away from the robot’s territory and vice versa.

Let me explain about the robots a bit. The robots are various versions of wild animal replacements: stags, bulls, leopards, hawks, saber-toothed tigers, giant fire-breathing chickens, and 30-foot tyrannosaurus rex with frickin’ laser beams.

We all know the mastermind behind the fucking dino, don’t we?

As you can see from my incomplete list alone, the robot variety is rather robust. And the variety is supported by the uniqueness of each robot species. Every robot has different weaknesses based on elements and since the design of each robots is largely varied, the locations of the weak points can be very different. I can see the love and care that went into designing each species, and it shows. Although I gotta admit the herbivores are kind of boring when compared to the carnivores. The herbivores are kinda samey and lame, all you get to do is maybe ride it to town and turn some primitive heads. Meanwhile, the carnivore’s got all the nice toys. The kind of toys that shoots laser and kills people. And guess what? You can shoot the turret off with an arrow then you can pick it up and fire it up their tail pipes.

Now I gotta say, the first time I see the robots, I was like “fuckin’ sold, this shit is G U C C I”. But then after I actually play the game and have come face to face with a lot of them, I wasn’t into them anymore. I don’t know why, but I find the enemies boring after a while. Perhaps its because somehow I find fighting the animal bots has become a chore and not a fun activity to do. I mean the animal bots tend to flock together, so you’re almost always outnumbered, and the bots usually can kill you in a few smacks. This results in a lot of untimely deaths during what I thought would be a sunny stroll in the meadows. Also I think the big machines have too much health. As you can see, I don’t think this is a good thing, the same way a rubber tire isn’t an excellent snack just because you can chew it longer. However, you can actually make all of these problems go away if you choose to stealth it up and crouch like the little bitch that YOU ARE. Hey, dev-person-man-guy-thing, nobody in their right mind looks at a robot T-Rex and say, “Boy, I can’t wait to stealth crouch around this bad boy”. You know what we wanna do? We wanna ride it, or kill it, or ride it AND THEN kill it. Maybe take down a few rival tribes in the process.

And that’s just the fuckin animal bots, there’s also the war bots that looks like a cereal box that grew spider legs. Not only is it visually boring, it’s also plays like shit. Either you have to go play hide and seek with it or it’ll blast you with piss like you’re a really tough shit-stain on the toilet bowl. But the worst of the worst has got to be the human enemies. Fucking hell, in a world filled with creative animal robots, adding human enemies will just bring the standard down. They’re boring to look at, boring to fight against, and just plain stupid. I hate how the so-called “stealth kill” alerts every motherfucker in the area. I hate how you can’t stealth kill the “elite enemies” until you unlock a certain skill. In short, I just hate humans in general.

Not in real life, mind you, I’m a God-fearing peace loving man of the people, man.

Great, since I’ve run out of places to spank HZD, I’m just gonna randomly list all of its best parts.

I like how we can grab some healing items that can be used on-the-go in an instant, and I like how it can be easily found in the wilds like some drive-through salad. What I don’t think I like is how the plants aren’t that easy to differentiate from one another. I mean if I’m gonna make a jump, roll, tumble, and scoot myself down a goddamn hill while dodging lasers fired from a turret mounted on a 20-foot robot tyrannosaurus, that plant better be the healing plant instead of that useless resist fire plant.

Another thing I like about the game is the weapons. There are quite a variety of weapons at your disposal, and it’s the good kind of variety. The kind of variety that makes each weapon had a distinct feel and different purpose, and I like them all. My favorite is the the tripwire weapon that’s the greatest thing since the invention of fire. The sleeper hit was the sling that I thought was shit but it’s actually great because it can fire ice projectiles that immobilizes the big enemies and freeze their armor.

This very very tight weapon system is also supported by your ability to craft ammo on the fly. This might seem like a trivial thing, but hear me out now: by enabling you to craft ammo mid-fight, the game makes sure that the pace isn’t halted by the fucking menu screen and you get to keep your focus and maintain the flow of the battle. Because you know what kills my combat boner when I’m in a middle of a tense fight against robot dinosaurs? Having to pause the game and open up the crafting tab because my arrows ran out.

That’s it, that’s about everything I can say about my experience playing the game. There are some things that I actually left out of my review like the world design, the characters, etc. It’s because I think that it’s not that important to mention or it’s just mildly mediocre and not worth reviewing.

In Brief

What’s wrong with me? Do I not like video games anymore? 10 years ago, all I had to do was fire up my PS2, boot up GTA: San Andreas and just grab a bike and cycle from Los Santos to Las Venturas and I was having fun. 5 years ago I finished Dark Souls after 2 years of git gud, and I didn’t let the difficulty break me. Now I’ve got a game filled with creative and challenging enemies, a big open world to explore, and a fuckin robot dinosaur for God’s sake. Why didn't I have fun with it? I don’t think I have an immediate answer for it, but at least I know there’s two possibilities. One, is that I AM actually losing my touch and I’m not that into video games anymore. Probably all this adult thing and living my life that’s gotten in the way. The other one is that my tastes has actually gotten better with time, and now I notice the intricacies and can distinguish whether a game is good or bad, and I simply did not want to waste my limited time with games that I didn’t really like that much, including HZD.

I guess we can learn something from the animal robot designs. No matter how well you design an element of a game; visually or audibly, it won’t be appreciated as much if it does not add much to the gameplay --or worse-- plays like shit. Because you ARE making a game, and all the elements that you design will ultimately be judged from how it feels as a game. You can paint the robots with naked titties, but if they’re boring to fight, people will still think of them as badly designed. As for the case of the war bots and the human enemies? Dogshit.

9/10/2018

#horizon zero dawn #ps4

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maddiebiscuits · 8 years ago

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Maddie’s Big Gigantic Breath of the Wild Write-Up Where I Talk About Things I Like and Things I Didn’t Like

And regrettably, there are many things I did not like. But that doesn’t make this any less of a fantastic game that I enjoyed - I just wanted to put all my thoughts down in one spot. And yes, there’s spoilers.

--------------------------------------| Things I Like | ----------------------------------------

You can read any review for the game and that’s pretty much this section. There’s not much to say about the core game that hasn’t already been said, dozens and dozens of times, by professional or at least more knowledgeable game reviewers and critics out there.

Breath of the Wild (BOTW) is a big return to the uttermost classic Zelda feeling, of being a plucky hero in a big world that’s yours to traverse and discover, and get through on your wits and skills alone. But I’d actually argue that BOTW does the sense of open world and exploration far better than any other Zelda game comparison, not for the size of the maps (and man oh man they are big) but in that it gives you all the tools you need to explore within the first area and then kicks you out the door into the world. Any and all Zelda games, including the first, regardless of how “open” and non-linear you think they are, have a formula in that to progress through certain points, you must find an item that allows you to do so. BOTW dismisses that notion entirely and teaches you the core game mechanics and gives you the tools to explore wherever you want after the first area, and that’s a good thing. I spent the first several hours (upwards of a collective 20 or so) getting lost and just exploring, cooking food, finding side quests, fighting monsters, scaling mountains, and in a big way that’s sort of how the game is intended to be played. It’s full of creatures to hunt or befriend, hills to snowboard down on your shield, an expansive and hilarious physics engine to exploit, NPCs to meet and quests to be found and completed.

I like the provinces on the map, they’re either classic Zelda locations or call-backs to places from past games that weren’t always in Hyrule (large Majora’s Mask vibes, which makes sense, as this game takes place within the Child Era timeline). Even places that seemed the same at first ended up having subtle or severe differences, and of course the crisply-rendered graphics make the world vibrant, bright and inviting. While I miss the big orchestral scores I’m used to from other big console Zelda games, the subtle atmospheric music ended up being very nice and tonally appropriate, with familiar tunes sneaking in here and there in fun and sometimes beautiful ways.

NPC designs are unique, expressive, and full of character. Towns and hubs have a real sense of being lived in, with their own culture and way of life. Locations have their own passive dangers and benefits that make the world feel exciting and treacherous, and you can take any kind of approach to all kinds of situations. You can make special buff food or elixirs (one of the most fun things to do because I love watching the little food bits jump around in the pot) to brave the elements or give yourself extra bulk, or you can wear specialty armor or clothing, or do both. You can dye most outfits too, and tame and register your own horses and customize them. While a part of me misses the iconic green garb, being able to traverse Hyrule on a jet-black steed decked out in skulls and tattered leather while my Link was adorned with sleek black armor and cloak is kind of the best (and you can get the garb later, and then just build a custom green outfit yourself, which is how I went into end-game) Any weapon is fair game to wield as well, which was another part I greatly enjoyed and gave an added sense to exploration and that “get by on what you can find” survival aesthetic the game provides.

There really is a kind of subtle, almost accidental thoughtfulness to this game’s incarnation of Link. The background plot of the game describes, shows, and in some areas at least implies that Link was not a plucky hero from humble beginnings that the series is used to - Link was a prodigy in BOTW, a son of a proud and excellent knight who was to follow in his father’s footsteps to defend the kingdom and the royal family. Since he was a child he was groomed for this roll, despite the stress it caused him, until he became a trained and powerful warrior, even going so far as becoming the knight appointed to Princess Zelda, and wielding the Master Sword. He was the Hero from the beginning and was raised and trained his whole life to fulfill that role.

And he failed.

For all intents and purposes, Link in BOTW more or less dies (well, it’s implied he’s just unconscious and on the brink of death, but for my joking need to continue this “Link is the Chosen Undead” Dark Souls joke, yeah, he died). All the pomp and circumstance and careful, strict training surrounding his life ended up meaning nothing in the final grand scheme against Calamity Ganon. And this narrative carries not just to Link, but to the other cast of characters and Hyrule as a whole - years and years of careful planning and preparation was not what was needed to defeat Ganon.

The game starts with Link being resurrected, with no memory of what happened 100 years ago and nothing to his name but a shirt and some shoes (and the Sheikah Slate I guess). But it’s this Link, stripped of everything, who has to cross the wilds and adventure, working his way up from scratch, completing test after test and trial after trial laid out by the ruined Hyrule and the ancient Sheikah sages in their shrines, who reclaims the Master Sword, earns the green garb (or doesn’t - you only get it if you complete all 120 shrines, which I think fits tonally because I wouldn’t exactly dub a guy who failed the first time a hero until he’s been thoroughly re-tempered for the task) and defeats Ganon. It’s not a bunch of strict, stately training given to a person who’s told their destiny from a young age and forced immediately to live up to it that makes a hero in Zelda games - it’s the plucky adventurer coming from little, courageously taking on feats bigger than them for the good of Hyrule and the people within it, working up to the final encounter.

Hyrule and the NPCs you meet echo that tone as well. It’s a world that’s had to pick up the pieces since Ganon re-emerged and laid waste to their world. Descendants and spiritual successors of champions from the past risking themselves for the good of their people, unprepared and outmatched compared to what they’re up against, but coming out on top with determination and follow-through in the end. The main story of BOTW has a bittersweet, but ultimately powerful and true-to-form Zelda tale that, on top of the immersion and pure fun the game provides is why it’s so easy to see why people have rated it so highly.

Unfortunately, extended playtime with this game revealed a ton of flaws and personal nitpicks, because despite what these scores claim, no game is perfect, and neither is BOTW.

----------------------------------| Things I Didn’t Like | -----------------------------------

BOTW gets...repetitive, and at times annoying and even vacuous. I’d find a lot of really cool places during my exploration of Hyrule, but found that a lot of them just ended up being set-pieces to the world, with maybe a Korok hiding there (or maybe not, which was just super frustrating, climbing to a high mountain peak to find nothing up there). The game became measurably more enjoyable when I upgraded to full three stamina wheels, which took a lot of my early shrine upgrades to do, and that ugly, ugly little green wheel just constantly reminded me of how much I loathed it in Skyward Sword. I’d climb and climb and climb, usually not finding much of anything at the top later into the game. I’d find a set of interesting ruins, clear out the same enemies I’d fought 200 other times during the game, and not really find anything of interest within them. And god the enemies are repetitious. the same three core enemies in different colours, the same four or so core world bosses in different colours, the same Lynel and Guardians in different colours with ridiculous health bars that hit for 12 hearts a strike to impose the illusion of difficulty, when you end up just hitting them with ancient arrows, or using upgraded Stasis on them, or some other cheap trick because the combat and the difficult-to-time parrying and dodge/flurry attack prompts are not fun to activate (and if you fight them “properly”, especially the Lynels, get ready to run through all your resources).

When I go to a new area I want to see new enemies. Where are things like...I don’t know, Gibdos? Redeads? Poes? Darknuts? Skulltulas, Deku Babas, Gohmas, Armos, Dodongos, Aeralfos, Peahats, Likelikes SOMETHING ELSE besides these damn Lizalfos that keep JUMPING AROUND. I had one amazing encounter with a serpent dragon on an icy mountain peak, and had thought that I would have similar awesome encounters with the other two dragons in the game. Turns out the other two just sort of float around in locations and you don’t do anything with them except try to shoot them to farm items, no special encounters. Why.

I’d find a weapon I’d love but it would break quickly, so I ended up forming this habit of hoarding good weapons, bows, and shields, thinking I’d have to save them for later for fear they’d break, then ran into a problem where I was constantly getting showered in weaponry and had to play min-max on their attack numbers to decide what I was taking with me and what I wasn’t. I’d run into Koroks constantly to upgrade my storage space, but over time the malaise of searching for them after about 270 (out of a grand total of 900 Koroks) became too tedious and I stopped doing hyper-thorough canvasing of areas, especially because the canvasing didn’t really yield anything that exciting. I began, less and less, taking my horse places with me, because I could fast-travel and paraglide to locations I wanted to explore, and very often they were places I couldn’t even take my horse to. Armor variety, which I liked, ended up making a big chunk of food and elixir buffs superfluous and I no longer really felt a sense of danger or need to prepare for big exciting ventures into the bitter cold or so on. And upgrading armor ends up being a nightmare, as high-end stuff requires farming very precious materials, and if there’s one thing I did not like about Skyward Sword, it’s farming for materials.

Environmental hazards that could not be overridden with food or armor, particularly rain, halted my gameplay. I’d be trying to scale a cliff and, whoops - it was raining, which means you slip all the way down or exhaust your stamina trying to force through it. I’d have to go somewhere else and halt my progress on that spot, or attempt to find a place to make a fire and wait out the rain, which seems realistic in theory, but disrupts gameplay in practice. There’s also this weird abundance of cold areas in the game, but only really one hot area and only one “you’ll literally catch on fire here” area. A lot of shrine tests revolve around the same combat trial against the same enemy with a fluctuating health pool and do not get me started on the frustrating motion control mechanics for a few. I played the game on the Wii U as I did not want to get a Switch just yet, and suffered draw distance, framerate and even freezing issues. I figured this was an issue with the Wii U hardware, but hilariously it turns out this is an issue on the Switch as well (as an aside...it’s not really a good idea to have your flagship launch title with your new console be a game that the console can’t even run...)

Then there was the story. I know I just talked a lot of good about it, but the thing is, the tones and storytelling I was talking about come across as...accidental, a sort of side-effect of the game as a whole. I don’t really play Zelda games for top-tier story - let’s be real, Zelda games do not necessarily provide enriching, unique narrative experiences. They are fun, generic adventure games with action-RPG elements, and that alone is enough to make them classics beloved by so many. But it’s been 25 years and the world of Zelda has expanded into a deep-reaching and ridiculous lore, enough that it has enough content to provide for a hard-cover art book, a historia featuring a collective timeline with three branching routes, and an upcoming encyclopedia. As years go by, narrative elements in Zelda games, such as story and character development, become larger and more prominent as the series develops. This is not a bad thing, and as a huge Zelda lore nerd myself it gives games a bit of extra appeal for me personally.

The issue with BOTW, and maybe the Zelda series as a whole, is that it’s kind of “blooming late” on the story and character narrative department in a generation where huge arcing epics with deep and relatable characters run regular in a lot of mainstream triple-A titles. BOTW, for example, is the first Zelda game to feature voice acting, something I was very wary about when I first heard about it, and ended up being rightfully wary. No it’s not terrible - the cast is doing the best they can with the stilted dialogue and passive direction they clearly had to work with, but it creates a very underwhelming and at times embarrassing experience that shouldn’t be so in a time when English dubbing/voice acting and localization is at some of it’s best (though not always of course), especially for a big-name title like Zelda from a big-name company like Nintendo. If this was the first time they were going to try voice-acting, this doesn’t really inspire me to look forward to it being a repeated trend in other titles. And even then, there’s actually only a handful of scenes that are actually voice-acted, with the rest of it being the usual textbox scrawls with some vocal sounds over top like in previous games, which begs the question as to why they bothered to go with the voice work at all.

BOTW does something I refer to as A Plot and a B Plot, the A Plot being the main over-arching story of the game and the B Plot beside an over-arching side-story of the game. Typically, A Plots are the here-and-now of a form of media, it takes place in the present, with the B Plot being in the past, the future, or behind the scenes but being woven into the A Plot. When I set out to play BOTW, I thought that the failings of the past and it’s events would be the B Plot, with the A Plot as the here and now, focusing on new characters who would pick up the mantle of those who had fallen and see me into battle with Ganon. I thought I would follow the trials and tribulations of Princess Zelda in the A Plot, as well as the four champions, but it turns out, I was wrong.

When the game starts, the four champions are dead, and Princess Zelda is keeping Ganon trapped within Hyrule Castle, her power about to expend. At first I thought this was tonally appropriate - after all, they did fail, and it is supposed to paint a bleak picture of Hyrule. But this also meant that the only way for me to really learn or care about these characters was through optional flashbacks, and flashbacks are not really good tools to tell a story most of the time. I went and collected every memory, but didn’t really end up learning anything particularly new or exciting about any character other than Zelda herself - a wonderful character and incarnation of the classic princess, who is, honestly, a nerd. She’s an insecure scholar, burying herself in research to escape the stress of her failed ability to use her magic (Triforce, Light Force, I don’t know - the Triforce doesn’t feature at all in the game), the loss of her mother, and her honestly mean and scornful father and the doubtful whispers of her kingdom. She’s in over her head, and while her abilities and passion are best suited for studying the ancient technology and the Divine Beasts, at every turn it seems that she is forced away from this and told to focus on her destiny, that of using her sealing power to trap Ganon away. It plays again on that theme that pre-conceived notions and strict preparation in the name of prophecy and destiny and what have you still lead to failure, and that it’s through the heart of adventure and discovery that heroes that can defeat the darkness are forged. I expected that new champions would rise to replace the failed ones of the past, born from the adventure and sudden struggle of Ganon suddenly re-emerging, without any preparation beforehand. I expected Zelda to get her big moment where she proves that she doesn’t need old rituals and prayers to unlock her power, and that her inner strength comes from her true passions, and uses her research and scholar prowess to find ways to balk Ganon and use her power. I expected new heroes to rise and take control of the Divine Beasts in the steed of the failed champions of the past.

Well that doesn’t happen. The Divine Beasts get piloted by the ghosts of the fallen champions, who are ultimately dull and kind of not really likeable save maybe one or two. The new characters who help you get onto the Divine Beasts, which act as the “main” dungeons in the game, fall to the wayside and are forgotten after, apparently unable to become champions themselves (as only “champions” can board the beasts, apparently) despite the trials they face to assist Link and fight back against Ganon to save their people. The main dungeons lose their luster quickly too - they’re puzzle-based, requiring the same mechanic for each one (find five terminals, beat the boss at the end, each boss looks kind of the same). Something I thought was interesting was that each beast can be controlled from within, and you use that mechanic to solve puzzles. Two of the beasts end up using the same tilt mechanic though, and three beasts require shooting arrows at it to board (two of which are bomb arrows), and with the beasts’ interiors all looking the same it just sort of gets...a bit dull after a while. Been there, done that, done this, again. I really do miss more classic Zelda dungeons if just for the cheese factor, but this game does not have them.

Since the game has to use flashbacks instead of a continuous story to show the development and relationships of the characters (where dialogue is delivered unnaturally), the original four champions seem very one-note, defined by maybe one or two traits. The case of Revali is especially frustrating. Why is he so mean to Link? Is it his pride, did something occur between them, is it something else? We don’t know, we never learn, because primary characters introduced are not developed, he’s Just The Rival character, to fulfill the trope. His introduction in a mandatory flashback comes from Link literally looking at a bunch of planks of wood on a flight landing (I’m serious), and Revali is more or less an arrogant jerk to the end because That’s His Character I suppose. While we’re on the subject, the entirety of Rito Village is a wash - NPCs talk about how there’s nothing to do there, the Divine Beast is not causing any serious harm, it’s just not letting the Rito fly as high as they like and is being a general nuisance, the Rito that helps you board is just Some Guy and you don’t really see him again unless you want to do yet another optional and inconsequential mini-game. The dungeon is easy, borrows a boarding scenario from another beast, and borrows its in-dungeon mechanic from another beast. The whole area is such a let-down.

And then there’s Zelda, my poor, poor Zelda. She fails, just as everyone does, and I thought, and hoped, and prayed, just as I said before, that her inner strength would come through in the form of doing things HER way, using her research and her smarts, sticking it to the father and the people who didn’t believe in her by succeeding with the very methods they disapproved of. Well no - she activates her sealing power at the last second to protect Link because she loves him. It’s “tru wuv” that sparks her big character moment, where she does exactly what destiny pre-determined she do, not some awesome defiant moment where she pools her strength and self-confidence through her research and herself. She doesn’t even get to research and discover for herself that the power is apparently so closely linked to her “heart” or whatever generic nonsense works the magic this time - gotta love The Boy, that’s what makes you strong. And this is not extrapolating - when you complete all the shrine quests Kass the Rito bard gives, you can see him at Rito Village, where he tells the story of his teacher and the events just before the Calamity, and how his teacher fell in love with the princess, but the princess was in love with her appointed knight. The song his teacher taught to Kass after his teacher witnessed Zelda unlocking her powers was how her love for her knight was what brought it to the surface. Even the Zora champion Mipha, who I guess was supposed to be some callback to Rito from Ocarina of Time in a way, hints that her amazing healing ability is born by “thinking about who she cares about most”, and that’s not her family or friends or anything, that’s Link - who she loves and adores and wants to marry because that’s the Rito callback I guess.

I was so angry, it’s trite and tropey and ruins half the tone the game manages to do so well. Show me a BOTW Zelda who overcomes after failure not through “true love” and all the pre-destined nonsense that lead them all to failure to begin with, but the scholar she is using her research, her passion for knowledge, her wisdom, to unlock her power, to stop the Guardians, to seal Ganon.

Oh and then there’s Ganon. “Calamity Ganon”, now a non-character - just an amorphous, shadowy entity of no real interest. I suppose you could say that after the events of Twilight Princess or Four Swords, Ganon(dorf) is really no more, no longer a proper physical entity, no longer the Gerudo man who had ambitions or menace or a tangible presence when he entered a room - that person was long since defeated properly, and it’s only the lingering malice, that sort of twisted essence of the primordial Demise from Skyward Sword, that remains. From a lore perspective that works, but it doesn’t make for an interesting villain, just like flashbacks don’t make for interesting storytelling and character development. The final battle in and of itself is hugely underwhelming too. Calamity Ganon’s first form is an apparently “incomplete” gooey, robotic spider...thing...it’s very ugly as a design in a game that’s had largely strong character and enemy designs, except for the Divine Beast bosses which, I guess fits tonally. And unlike other enemies where you can kind of take multiple approaches to the battle, you MUST bounce the laser beams in the second half of the fight back at the boss with either a shield parry or the Master Sword, which I think is the game trying to do the old “tennis mechanic” callback but it’s really...kind of janky and often unresponsive? The second form LOOKED much cooler and more tonally appropriate, with a huge, flaming Dark Beast out in Hyrule Field that I’d ride around on my trusty steed fighting. But instead Dark Beast Ganon just faces one direction only, shooting lasers at nothing. Your horse sort of meanders around and you just ride updrafts or stand safely beside it waiting for Zelda to shout very loudly and clearly about the GIANT GLOWING TRIFORCE-SHAPED WEAK POINTS you can hit with your Light Arrows - it’s all an exact, even easier version of all the “boarding the Divine Beast” scenarios you did earlier in the game.

Zelda re-appears, seals Ganon, gives these really wishy-washy smiles and lines. The ghosts of the king and the Champions linger in the silhouette of Hyrule Castle and say nothing. We get no closure on the king and Zelda, who as far as the game wishes to imply in flashbacks and a hidden diary the king left in the castle, parted on extremely tense and unfavorable terms. the Champions get no final word in either. Zelda is shown after the credits kind of just...acting like everything’s a bit “back to normal”, saying her and Link need to go to Zora’s Domain to give the king closure on Mipha which...it’s been 100 years he’s...more or less made peace with the death of his daughter by now as was shown earlier in the game. Zelda says she can no longer hear the “voice” in the Master Sword and admits her powers must have weakened over the course of 100 years, but she’s actually okay with that for once, which I think would have been a bit more powerful of a statement to her character if she’d previously shown that her own determination and smarts were her true strengths all along, and not this HUGELY powerful magic. There’s a shot of the Silent Princess flower at the end, a flower that in the game Zelda comments on, saying that it cannot bloom in captivity and only in the wilds. Again, it would be a very thematically-appropriate metaphor for how Zelda’s true strength came from her journeys in the wild, focusing on her unique strengths and not those pre-determined by her destiny, but the game has her...literally in a state of “captivity” holding Ganon back. If anything the Silent Princess flower metaphor makes a stronger thematic statement for Link, not Zelda, and that’s really telling about how inconsistent and weak a lot of the story-telling is in this game. It was clearly supposed to really be about the relationship between Link and Zelda and their character development, but since they spend the entire game separated and only show shallow interactions of them together in short flashbacks that only really serve to develop Zelda (as well as her diary entries found in the castle), things end up feeling...vapid, forced and ultimately weak.

And I just...want to fight. A Darknut. One damn Darknut and have a cool sword fight. Or a Poe. Not another dAMN LIZALFOS. LET ME CLIMB TO THE TOP OF A MOUNTAIN AND FIND A WHOLE DUNGEON UP THERE.

I MISS.

HEART PIECES. AND UPGRADES.

AS REWARDS FOR EXCELLENT COMPLETION OF MINI-GAMES. IT INCITES. YOU TO REPLAY THEM.

AAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

In summary, Breath of the Wild is excellent. But I’m a huge nerd and it’s clear that a lot of people who reviewed this game only went in for about 20 or so hours and didn’t complete it before passing final verdict. I hope Nintendo builds from this game’s strengths and learns it’s weaknesses.

#zeldablogging #maddie's writing #botw spoilers

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theloadingscreenblog · 8 years ago

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Mass Effect: Andromeda Review:

With every new entry into an established franchise, there will be hype and anticipation. For Mass Effect, that is an understatement. When Mass Effect: Andromeda was announced, fans around the world couldn’t wait to explore the universe. Well, the ship has finally launched and fans have gotten their hands on the new adventure. The initial response, not so good. Now don’t get me wrong, as you will see towards the end of my review, my opinion differs from what other outlets and tweets have been saying. Yes, there are some animation issues, but is it so severe that it detracts from the game? No, not one bit.

While I was playing the game for this review, I really wanted to separate this game from that of the original trilogy. It is an entirely new story made by an entirely new team starring an entirely new cast of characters. It would be unfair to compare this new entry to the colossus of the Original Trilogy, especially when I can see that this team is trying to set themselves apart. I really think this is where a lot of other review outlets made a mistake. My score will be that of a game and not that of a Mass Effect game which in its entirety are two very different things.

Story and Gameplay

So, the game takes place alongside the story of Shepard. No, you do not reprise your role as the Commander, but instead take over the character of 1 of 2 Ryder siblings. Upon starting the game, you’re able to choose which Ryder you will play as, either the son or daughter of the famous Pathfinder Ryder. The siblings are twins and you can fully customize each character regardless which one you choose to control. The customizations you choose reflect upon you father, the Pathfinder. Now, you’re probably wondering what or who a Pathfinder is. Well, without giving away too much, the races of the universe (Humans, Asari, Turians, Krogans, and Salarians) have heard the message sent loud and clear from Shepard about the incoming Reapers. Concerned for the durability of their Home worlds, they set off to find habitable planets far from the Reaper’s reach to call home. They set off on a 600-year journey to find these Golden Worlds, with each race in an Ark of their own/ A Pathfinder, oversees investigating and finding these potential new home worlds. Your father is one of these Pathfinders. In a turn of events your character also becomes a Pathfinder and must help find these worlds. That is the overall arch of the story. Now, there is another race, one that is unknown to all other races, that have interest in these potential worlds. It is your mission to investigate the Golden Worlds, study a new-found Alien tech, and fight through this new alien presence that seems deadest on stopping your plans.

Fight you must and let me say, the combat in this game is awesome! There are tons of weapons, mods, and abilities to use and upgrade. There is a new class system that allows for more customization and tailoring by the player. Want to be a biotic soldier? It’s possible! The combat is where this game sets itself apart from the original trilogy. The gunfights feel satisfying and fun and the loot you can acquire or build seems varies greatly. Research elements, minerals, and objects throughout the game with your scanner to earn research points that help you make better weapons and armor. You can make weapons for you squad mates that are tailored to their combat style. Speaking of squad mates, I honestly like every single one I encountered (except the Tempest engineer…that guy is a jerk). Their backstories are given early on and it does seem easier to build a relationship with them. All in all, the story is full of detail. The story is full of lore, however, most of it is hidden behind Intel that you must find or acquire through interactions and story progression. If you take the time to read it though, the universe starts to build itself in front of you.

Multiplayer

Back again is the horde-esque multiplayer. APEX Missions as they’re called, offer a 4-player experience that is exciting the entire match. You will face off against AI enemies across multiple rounds all while completing objectives and culminating into an extraction vie shuttle. The rounds get harder and harder with more and more special enemies presenting themselves late into the match. It gets hard. Even on the easier tier, some of my squad mates were going down. However, it isn’t too hard that it’s not fun. I can honestly see myself playing the multiplayer mode in junction with the main story mode. In fact, you can do that exact thing and earn research points in the story mode! With tons of unlocks, characters, and varied matches the multiplayer mode has potential to be an extremely fun aspect of the game as a whole!

Conclusion

Overall, I really enjoy this game! I have yet to find myself feel bored with anything that is going on. I love how much there is to see and how many side quests are offered on each planet. The story could be relayed more directly, but if you read the Intel findings, it pans out in the end. The relationships among your squad and crew is revealed quickly, but not lacking compassion for them. The multiplayer mode is a fun break and unique compliment to the main story mode. Animation issues aside (and some are funny looking) the game stands strong. The Loading Screen Blog gives Mass Effect: Andromeda 8 Mass Relays out of 10!

SCORE: 8/10

Pros:

Combat is amazing!

Multiplayer is a nice addition

Tons of customization via weapons, abilities, etc

Cons:

Animations (Honestly not that big of a deal)

Story is buried in items or encounters that require discovery

Relationships can be built too quickly

#Mass Effect #mass effect andromeda #bioware #review #gamer #gamers #game #games #video games #video game #videogames #videogame #gaming

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barbosaasouza · 4 years ago

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Review: Paper Mario: The Origami King (Nintendo Switch)

Paper Mario: The Origami King is another action and adventure game from Nintendo. I have personally been waiting for a new Paper Mario game for a long time. When this was announced, I counted down the days until release. Yet, I worried how good this game would be considering the past few Paper Mario games have been subpar. I’m pleased to say that Origami King did not disappoint.

The beginning starts off like any other Paper Mario game. Mario and Luigi get invited to Princess Peach’s castle for a party. When they arrive at Toad Town, things are strange. No one is around and Peach is… different, to say the least. Instead of flat paper, she’s folded into origami.

King Olly, the antagonist of the story, makes his appearance. He wants everyone to be crisp as origami and not full and flat like regular paper. He has crumpled up Toads and turned enemies on his side, folding anything and anyone they can. He binds Peach’s castle using five streamers strung across the Mushroom Kingdom. Thus, Mario and Olivia, King Olly’s sister, go on a quest to get rid of the streamers and ultimately defeat King Olly.

I have to admit, considering most of the games have about eight levels or worlds, I was sad to see there’s only six in The Origami King. The Paper Mario games are fairly short, so I thought this would be shorter. However, each world is pretty long. It takes a few hours to get through one world, and you need to set aside a decent amount of time for the boss battles. (Trust me, you don’t want to start boss battles over!)

Needless to say, I’m happy to pour hours into this game. It’s so great that I want it to last as long as it can. So, let’s get into the mechanics that are good (and some that are not so good).

While this game is tough at times, the overall difficulty level is fairly low. Anyone can pick up and play this game, which is great. But for Paper Mario veterans, it may not pose much of a challenge.

Seeing partners in the trailer made me excited. Yes, there are partners in the game, though it’s not how it used to be in Paper Mario 64 or The Thousand-Year Door. A partner will stay with you for a single area, and they don’t come with you to the boss battles at all. I enjoyed all the partners, especially Bobby the Bomb-omb. They all had great personalities, and I wish I could have spent the entire adventure with them.

Let’s talk about the battles. I wish it were more RPG-like. The battle system in the first two Paper Mario games, especially, was wonderful. Mario had various jumps, hammers, and items, and his partners had their own unique skill set as well. The battle system in Origami King is vastly different.

Mario stands in the middle of the ring while enemies surround him. You then need to move the circles around you or move each section up or down to line up the enemies. This is timed, and you only have a certain amount of moves to line them up just right. You can buy more time and you can also cancel your moves if you made a mistake. So, if you have the coins, you can take as long as you want on this.

Or you can let the timer run out if you’re truly stuck. The point of lining up the enemies is so that Mario will get a 1.5 attack boost and it’ll be easier for you to defeat the enemies in one turn.

I didn’t care too much for this system because I prefer strategy for battle over a puzzle system. Plus, it made the battle incredibly one-sided (especially at the beginning of the game).

With that said, there is a bit of strategy to the battles. Mario has his regular boots and hammer, but you can get items such as iron boots (that stomp on spiked enemies) and a flashy hammer (that does more damage than a regular hammer). Each row of the rings on the battlefield, if you will, have four sections where the enemies stand. The hammer packs a punch, but it can only reach the first two rows. The boots can only stomp on enemies in a single-file line.

I enjoyed that strategy bit, but I felt it could have been done without trying to rearrange the rings.

The boss battles add a little more flare. You still need to rearrange the rings, but they have panels on them such as arrows (that control where Mario moves), hearts, a treasure chest, a letter (to give you hints on how to defeat the boss), an attack spot (you must land on this in order to attack), the Vellumental panels, and an “on” switch (to turn on the Vellumental panels).

You need to carefully plan out Mario’s trek through the rings to get to the boss and effectively attack them. Of course, every boss is different, and most of the time you can’t attack right away or you need to attack a certain spot. This is a reason the boss battles take so long. Usually, I needed to read the letter to figure out how to attack. The obvious answer usually wasn’t the correct way to attack.

I will admit that the bosses usually did something to the rings to make the battles harder, which was a nice challenge. I found the mini-bosses of the Vellumentals to be more fun (and sometimes tougher) than the main bosses.

The Vellumentals are a major part of the game. These are elemental mythical beings with certain powers. Upon defeating them, Olivia will learn how to fold into them and harness their powers such as earth, water, etc. These powers are used in boss battles for big blows or outside of battle in order to complete a puzzle and progress further into the game.

When it comes to gameplay mechanics, Paper Mario: The Origami King has a lot to learn. It’s easy to play and not at all difficult to get the hang of. However, there will be times you’ll get stuck on a puzzle thinking you’ve exhausted your options, and then you realize you forgot to try one thing. This game makes you think, which is great.

Each world is unique, as well, ranging from a vast desert and underground mine built by Monty Moles to a western amusement park run by Goombas, Toads, and Koopas alike. You also get to sail the Great Sea Wind Waker style.

The graphics are stunning. I expected no less from the Nintendo Switch, but the paper and origami aesthetic is strong and the game overall has a polished look and is satisfying to watch. The music, as always, is top-notch. It holds true to the type of music from previous Paper Mario games, even with remixes from old school Mario games.

The story is also strong. It’s unique from the other Mario games (though it holds onto those paper puns, which great). The writing is humorous. There’s hardly anything to dislike about this game.

If you love the Paper Mario series or enjoy playing Mario games in general, you’ll certainly have a lot of fun with Paper Mario: The Origami King. Between the main story, finding crumpled Toads, and collecting the various treasures, you’ll pour a lot of hours into this game.

The post Review: Paper Mario: The Origami King (Nintendo Switch) appeared first on Pure Nintendo.

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cheatgamesonlineblog · 5 years ago

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MARVEL Future Fight Hack Cheat - MARVEL Future Fight Crystals and Gold

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terryblount · 6 years ago

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Fallout 76 First Impressions: Shockingly Fun!

I went into Fallout 76 sure I would hate it. I mean, instead of taking the effort to actually develop a proper story with actual characters, towns, and factions, it seemed like Bethesda just pushed something out with as little work as possible. “Every character is a real person” sounded like marketing garbage and an epic fail.

And then I played the game. And the hours flew by. And I’ve been engrossed and engaged and have woken up each day wanting to jump right back in! And now, 15 hours along, I’m still excited to find the next delightful discovery!

A big wide world to explore! Fields to frolic in. Fiends to cut down with my machete!

Not since Fallout 3 have I felt this strong feeling of optimistic wanderlust! This feels like coming home to another comforting Bethesda open-world, and I’m taking my time to learn, adapt, and loot everything not nailed down!

Consequently, I must face the shocking and unlikely truth: I’m really enjoying this game despite the online nature! I almost cannot even believe I’m saying this! I’m the survival-hating, MMO-despising, single-player-loving guy! I was supposed to hate this!

Before you roast me in the comments, let me explain my unexpectedly joyous Fallout 76 first impressions!

No NPCs, No Worries

Perhaps my biggest surprise is how little I’ve missed having alive NPCs and “proper” quests. Instead of feeling huge disappointment, I’ve been quite happy to simply have my “quest giver” be a dead corpse with a note or a computer terminal.

This guy could have been an NPC that would jabber on and on. Now we sit silently in peace.

All NPCs being dead has actually streamlined my exploration, letting me avoid all the “run around town talking to bland NPCs” stuff that was becoming very tiresome for me in Fallout 4. Speaking of which, I actually think my enjoyment of Fallout 76 is tied to my disappointment in Fallout 4.

After Fallout 4, it was clear Bethesda was never going to give us a truly intelligent choices and consequences Fallout with realistic characters and well-written dialogue such as Fallout New Vegas. They just aren’t capable of creating this. As such, Fallout 76 wisely sticks to Bethesda’s strengths by eliminating the direct NPC interaction.

I greatly enjoy finding fun locations to explore, take pictures, and look pretty!

This radical shift makes sense to a degree. Bethesda’s games are always overwhelmed by game-breaking quest logic bugs and NPC scripting failures, so that’s mostly been deleted to focus on Bethesda’s best-in-class environmental storytelling. No one builds worlds quite like Bethesda!

Those Pesky Real Humans

It’s not all happy exploring of course. The online component comes with the usual issues. When I first began in my room in Vault 76, the very first sound I heard was a crying baby. I actually had a flashback to Fallout 3’s start, and I thought maybe this vault had a baby in it?

I hunt down and destroy all annoying real-life players. (Just kidding; I just mute/ignore them.)

Nope. It turns out some real-life father was playing the game with his baby in his room. Then other real-life voices, usually with low-quality mics, started clashing, and I was totally unable to hear the actual in-game voice speaking to me.

Despite that dubious vault-start, things became much more pleasant as I entered the wide world and players dispersed from that choke point. Each server contains a maximum of 24 people, and the world is huge. Therefore, I only occasionally ran into other players.

Enjoyably Infrequent People

Having such a low player count works out very well. I know there’s others out there (easily tracked yellow dots on the map), but I usually only have to deal with them if I so desire. And there’s easy mute/block tools to ensure people don’t get too annoying.

There’s some really atmospheric and excellent views. I built a nice little camp nearby for fun!

This isolated yet sparsely populated approach also makes so much sense from a lore standpoint. The idea is you’re one of the few dozen Vault-dwellers let loose upon a newly annihilated world, so occasionally bumping into each other and working together actually aids the concept of the game world. I wasn’t expecting that!

The Joys of Friendship

I should make clear I generally prefer playing solo, taking my time to explore. However, Fallout 76 gives me something the prior games haven’t: the dream of discovering together with a real-life friend.

I’ve run into very kind players, and we’ve teamed up and explored several locations together. We’d point out ammo stashes and workbenches, and help protect each other. I found myself having a truly unique and memorable cooperative Fallout experience!

Nate the Ripper was a cool guy, and we had a great time playing together! Friendship achieved!

And isn’t this what so many have wanted? Not some Fallout/Elder Scrolls-MMO rubbish but a simple coop mode where we can team up with one or two trusted friends and engage in jolly cooperation! So far this is what Fallout 76 has given me. I tell you the truth!

What makes Fallout 76 so great is how it feels like a single-player Fallout that gives me the option to team up. As stated, I play mostly solo, but if I run into another player, we can share stories and team up for an hour or so. Then we go back to the lonesome road, finding our own meaning in this desolate world.

Performance & Online Woes

I’m actually amazed at how well Fallout 76 runs. Sure, the game engine is outdated and Bethesda don’t know how to optimize a game to save their lives. Yes, the framerate is bad compared to other proper games. However, I can manage to reach the 63 FPS hardcap (locked FPS and FOV is terrible) with my pretty powerful Intel i7-3930k CPU and nVidia GTX 980 Ti GPU.

I found this piano out in the world and played it for a while to get a buff. That’s how life works!

I’ve been disconnected twice, but almost no progress was lost for me. The game stutters and freezes for a second or two when loading certain areas. And of course enemies will glitch out like every other Bethesda game. Both the AI and load times are…a bit too slow.

It should be noted Bethesda has announced plans to improve and update that game, so waiting a few months or longer to play is always a fine plan. But I will say my experience has been good for a new online game, and the game is very playable in its current state.

What’s the Online Point?

Perhaps the largest issue with the game is how you don’t really impact the world at all. There are no world-defining choices to make like Fallout 3’s saving or destroying Megaton.

To highlight your lack of impact, quest items and events respawn over and over, giving you the feeling the game doesn’t even care that you’ve already found and repaired that station twice already.

This is a broken down school bus. It isn’t important, but I enjoyed discovering it. That is all!

Instead of some grand destiny, you’re just one vault dweller, who’s unlikely to do big things or save the day. Some will question the point of it all and feel this is a letdown from the classic Fallout games.

However, I had a revelation of sorts after about 5 hours. The point of Fallout 76 is my personal experience. I was “chosen” to be in Vault 76, but once I enter the world nobody has chosen me for anything beyond “go explore” and “try to rebuild.”

Don’t fear, I am here to rebuild! Or at the very least I’ll wander around and loot tons of stuff!

There’s a freedom in this ambiguous directive. I get to explore this beautiful yet barren world at my own pace. I can follow the well-voice-acted “main quest” holotapes, but I can also just wander off to discover or build a settlement. Whereas other online games belong to the developer and dictate your play, Fallout 76 feels like my world.

First Impressions Summary

For me, it all clicks. I’m loving the discovery, the isolation, the occasional coop, and the overall Fallout feel. Sure, I wish there was more impactful storytelling. I wish the game engine and graphical quality wasn’t so poor. I wish there wasn’t a real money shop.

I’d use more varied poses but they have to be purchased from the cosmetic shop. Why!?

And yet, right now I want to stop writing this and delve back into the West Virginia wasteland. In 20 more hours will it get boring? I don’t know, but Fallout 76 is giving me a comforting dose of familiar Fallout mixed with a new but appealing cooperative cocktail. Maybe it’s the irradiated water talking, but I’m gulping Fallout 76 down!

PS: some people are talking about the “end-game” and nukes and all that. Don’t let this scare you. I highly doubt all the PvP-nuking stuff will negatively impact the experience for us regular players.

Here’s various points broken into the good, the bad, and the rad!

This feels like a modern Fallout

Exploration is as mesmerizing as ever

Some truly beautiful scenic views

Photo mode is a great way to document your exploits

A bleak portrayal of nuclear winter (everyone is dead)

Slowly unlocking crafting and recipes is fun

Friendly cooperative play is encouraged

No hackers or jerks or griefers so far

The first few hours are plagued by other newbie players

Open microphones by default, get ready to mute

The terrible console menus, hardbound keys

The visual details are generally very ugly up close

A lack of lasting impact on the world around you

The “events” are mostly tedious fetch/escort stuff (skip them!)

The looting lag (containers take a second to display contents)

The shooting lag (enemies warping, not all damage registers)

PvP is stupid (the end-game nukes are probably stupid too)

Inon Zur’s atmospheric soundtrack is so brilliant

Such nostalgic Fallout feelings when things go well

A huge world I can take months to explore and enjoy

The coop dream of discovering with a best friend

Playtime: 15 hours total. Nick’s reached level 12 and explored a fraction of the map. There’s dozens more hours of exploration ahead!

Computer Specs: Windows 10 64-bit computer using an Intel i7-3930k CPU, 32GB of memory, and a nVidia GTX 980 Ti graphics card.

Fallout 76 First Impressions: Shockingly Fun! published first on https://touchgen.tumblr.com/

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