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escaping your purpose is impossible
#off content from mortis ghost himself…#the judge off#off game#off fanart#does this mean rerelease guys. imagine#my art
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John Lennon by his friends and son: ‘He got eight years more than Jesus’
The former Beatle would have been turning 84 this autumn. Now his son Sean and those who knew him best are keeping his spirit alive with the rerelease of his classic solo album Mind Games
Everyone wonders what John Lennon could have become. When he was murdered in New York on December 8, 1980, the 40-year-old was in his post-Beatles prime. The superb album Double Fantasy had just come out and he was plotting a world tour. His second son, Sean, whom he took time off to bring up with his wife, Yoko Ono, was five, and Lennon was feeling inspired. Seven solo records since the Beatles had split ten years earlier; a reconciliation with Paul McCartney.
“Everyone gets the time they get, and he got eight years longer than Jesus,” says Bob Gruen, the rock’n’roll legend who took photographs of everyone who mattered in the 1970s. He captured Lennon and Ono’s time in New York and is confident and chatty — until conversation turns to what Mark Chapman took outside the Dakota that day.
“John should be alive now,” Gruen says, clearly still affected 44 years on. Gruen had spent the weekend with Lennon before he died and was developing his photos when he got the call. “He didn’t die in an accident or of a disease. His death broke my trust in everything. He was grounded at the time. He learnt a lot from raising his son, about enjoying his life and being sober. Then I heard he was dead.”
Lennon would have been 84 in October — and at least we are left with his songs. But legacy is complicated. Over the years McCartney has stolen his crown as chief creative in the Beatles. Partly because Lennon is no longer here to speak. Also because, during Peter Jackson’s 2021 film, Get Back, Lennon was largely stoned, while the charismatic McCartney conjured up magic. So to redress the balance, this month’s innovative rerelease of Lennon’s Mind Games (1973) pushes design and immersion in ways few box sets have before. It features new mixes — some that amplify Lennon’s voice, others that emphasise the instruments.
It is the work of Sean, 48, who has been at the forefront of the Mind Games rerelease. Lennon’s younger son is a musician and artist based in New York near his mother, 91. “The title track is one of the most beautiful songs ever written,” he says.
The songs answer questions Sean never got to ask his father. Despite being very young when his father was around, Sean does have memories of him — talking, watching TV, playing guitar and saying, “Good night, Sean.” The song Aisumasen (I’m Sorry) on the record is an apology from Lennon to Ono.
“One thing that distinguishes my dad’s solo career,” Sean says, “is how personal his lyrics became. It is like a diary, and it is my duty to bring attention to my father’s music. Not just my duty to him, but a duty to the world. With the world as it is now, people have forgotten so many things that I never imagined could be forgotten. I refuse to let that happen to this music — it means too much to me.”
Two years before Mind Games came out, Lennon moved to New York and met Gruen. Living in New York was simpler for him and Ono. They were hounded in Britain. “One paper called Yoko ugly,” Gruen recalls. “But in New York they were just treated as the quirky artists who came to town.”
Gruen’s eyes light up. “He was just funnier than everyone else,” he says. “I’d have loved him on Twitter, he was so cool with one-liners.” He smiles. “And, also, he learnt to cook. I’d always try to go to the Dakota for mealtimes.” What sort of food? “John used to be a meat and potatoes guy, but he met [the actress] Gloria Swanson in the vegetable store and she gave him a book that acted as a way into a macrobiotic diet from a western one. He got really into healthy food, baking vegetables and steaming fish.”
And this is the frustration. In the late 1970s Lennon was cleaning up his act. For himself, for Sean — a son he was involved with, as opposed to his first child, Julian. He had changed, from the man who went on his fabled “Lost Weekend” in Los Angeles in 1973. The weekend actually ran for months, during which Lennon left Ono, on Ono’s suggestion, for their assistant, May Pang, then 23. After Lennon went back to Ono, Pang carried on in the music business and married the producer Tony Visconti, but the Lost Weekend era remains her headline. During that time Lennon enjoyed chaotic recording sessions with Phil Spector. “I wondered if he’d ever make it back to New York,” Gruen says. “I thought he might get a place in Hawaii, or just die.” But Lennon returned in 1974, for his final six years.
What does Gruen think about how Lennon is remembered? Especially in Get Back? “Well, who’s the last one standing?” Gruen scoffs. “Who gets to write the history? The survivors get to write the history. That’s the way it goes.”
Tony King was the vice-president of Apple Records at the time of Lennon’s Lost Weekend. “We’re here to talk about my friend,” he tells me sweetly. King was out in Los Angeles working on a Ringo album when Pang phoned to say that Lennon needed help with his Mind Games record.
“I wasn’t looking forward to it,” King admits. “John could be sharp-tongued. But, in LA, he was super-friendly. I was straightforward. I told him he had to repair his reputation. After Imagine [1971] he’d gone in a different direction, making songs with a political edge. It was quite easy for John to get caught up in things. He had this tendency to see someone, decide he loved them and then go in their direction. I was lucky he went in my direction for a while. He realised he had lost some fans. Mind Games was more what people wanted.” Its songs were simpler and less political.
Personally, however, Lennon was in turmoil. “May on one arm, Yoko on the other!” King says. “He was juggling a lot.” Did Lennon talk about McCartney? “They were not getting along, but he was still fond of him,” King recalls. And what about that Lost Weekend era? “He was off the walls, to be honest.
“We went to Las Vegas and John interrupted Frankie Valli during a show, saying, ‘Get your cock out!’ We got thrown out and on the way back to the hotel he was pissing up against trees and then throwing his chips around the lobby. I put him to bed. It was difficult when he drank. John had taken way too much acid and so when he drank it flipped him into another style of person. One day it was great, the next it was very hard.”
King remembers the night his friend died clearly. “I was out at dinner in LA and the waiter said, ‘He’s dead.’ I returned to a very lonely, sad hotel room.” Does he ever think about what Lennon might have achieved later in his life? “Elton and I talk about John,” King says. He means Elton John. “We say, ‘I wonder what he’d be up to?’ Well, he’d have pounced on the internet and got into AI. And he’d still campaign. I could see him hopping on a plane to see Zelensky. He was a busy person, with an arresting personality. You’re never going to forget him.”
The Mind Games reissue is a beast, a lavish celebration of a fine, melodic rush of songs. Bonuses include the Ultimate Mixes, which bring Lennon’s voice to the fore; Raw Studio Mixes; there is a Super Deluxe Edition “presented in a 13in cube”; puzzles; and even an experience on the free Lumenate app that is described as a “consciousness-expanding psychedelic meditation” and uses the phone’s torch and Lennon’s tunes to guide users into “a state of consciousness between deep meditation and psychedelics”.
We are a long way from 1973 — when the session musicians David Spinozza, on guitar, and Ken Ascher, on keyboards, were asked to play on Mind Games. They recall the recording as efficient — Lennon left his partying for later. He was in a creative peak, with Mind Games his fourth album in three years since the Beatles.
“He was a Beatle!” Ascher says. “I was thrilled to get the call. Yoko told me, around 10pm, that John would like to meet. I called my wife and said, ‘I’m not coming home — I’m meeting John.’ He played me music he liked, and we talked for hours. His humour helped me relax.”
Spinozza worked with Lennon and McCartney in the 1970s. How did the men compare? “Paul would do one song for six hours, even for a day,” he says. “With John we never worked on one song for six hours. He worked quick — he was all business. I’m not saying one was better than the other, but Paul could work on a drum sound for hours. John just wanted to get it done.”
How does Sean feel about his parents, looking back? “Their story is a love story,” he says. “They found each other across a great divide and certainly struggled through ups and downs, but never doubted their love. It is important we remember them as an example. Even through rough patches you can see my father thought about my mother. They were simply, irrevocably intertwined.”
Lovely words — and as for John Lennon himself? “Generally it’s whatever comes out, like diarrhoea,” he once said of his recordings. “A bit personal, a bit political — someone told me Mind Games was Imagine with balls, which I liked. It was like an interim record between being a manic political lunatic back to a musician again.”
Speaking in the early 1970s, after a decade of super-fame, he said he did not feel different to how he had before. “I’m still a bit adolescent,” he said in one of his final interviews. “My old friends from Liverpool got jobs after school. I’d see them six months later and their hair would be thin and they’d be getting fat. They were becoming old men — while I just keep going.”
(source)
#god save me from mainstream beatles articles#still some interesting snippets#john lennon#sean lennon#paul mccartney
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NEO Penerope, Mayu, and Rin
TWEWY designs: https://www.deviantart.com/circifox/art/Penerope-Akira-and-Rin-842661069, https://www.deviantart.com/circifox/art/Makoto-Mayu-and-Kanon-842663029 I'm still amazed that a proper sequel to The World Ends With You finally came out after years. I did preorder and play through NEO back in 2021, and I have been meaning to work on completing it and really engrossing myself in like I did with the original. I think I'm still not as used to it just due to the differences in how the Reaper's Game operates and who is in charge, but I did enjoy the characters and the story. It also finally gave me a clearer way as to how to proceed on the One-way series rewrite. When I originally began that series, it was at a time where there was just. The original game, Kingdom Hearts, and some rereleases. I also did read more fanfiction at the time, like some proper sequel ideas. When Final Remix came out a few years back, it did leave me hanging with A New Day (as it should have), but I also feared it was prepping for a sequel that may not happen. I'm so glad it did come out. Still don't like Coco though. Maybe she'll grow on me eventually. Still, I could do a whole media discussion on it as I am truly passionate about these games. Dream Drop Distance introduced me to The World Ends With You way back, and I'm glad it did. With these designs, I mainly based them from the newer shops in NEO, but also the time skip I'm planning to work with (when I finish the second part. The second story has always been a pain). And also just working with these guys in young adulthood. Penerope looks the most visually different in ways. She goes through a more drastic shift compared to the rest of her friends after Final Remix, mainly with grieving Neku and her unusual state of being a living hybrid. She does get into a rough fight with her friends (specifically Akira and Makoto) and becomes somewhat of a hermit. Not entirely though. Her grandma wouldn't allow it. She becomes an underground idol and has a vtuber persona to hide her face, besides disguising her voice when she livestreams. She also dabbles more into music production besides honing her powers further. Rin and Mayu are soon to start university. Penerope still talks to the both of them, but not as often. Mayu is trying to discover herself more, while Rin continues to fight against the expectations of her family. Despite that, she's not sure what to do with herself or what her goals are meant to be. I imagine she wants to get back into martial arts and mostly works odd jobs while she's figuring herself out. The World Ends With You- Square Enix Penerope Shiro, Mayu Ueda, and Rin Uendo- Me (@circifox)
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#TWEWY#NEOTWEWY#The World Ends With You#NEO: The World Ends With You#twewyfanart#oc#twewyoc#fanarttraditionalart#traditionalart#coloredpencil#coloredpencils#coloredpencildrawing#tonedgray#timeskip#futuredesign#redesign#one-wayseries
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On writing sex and violence
There are only two kinds of scenes that I absolutely hate writing: violence and romance. I was going to give this post a clever alliterative title like "Fighting and Fucking," but I think it's probably better not to be so flippant about it. I also don't particularly want to make people imagine that I'm going to discuss fuckfighting, which is either a way for two characters to fight each other while also fucking, or a way for two characters to fuck each other while also fighting, depending. I'm not writing about that. I've also never written those kinds of scenes.
But when it comes to writing fight scenes, I just don't think they're that interesting. I don't think that they're that interesting when I see them on TV or in movies, either. Sometimes they can be visually impressive, but they're often just flashy spectacle that doesn't mean much to me. It's like watching an acrobatics display at the circus. It's fun, but I don't think they should be jammed into the middle of something else.
It does, in fact, make a lot of superhero movies less fun to watch.
I don't mind it if the point of the work is to have fun action scenes. Jackie Chan movies, for example. The whole point is that you've got this incredible athlete and acrobat doing incredible martial arts choreography. That's fine.
It's the same with sex scenes. I don't really need those jammed into the middle of a movie that isn't about that. Showing me the rhythm of a male character's thrusts in and out of someone isn't going to tell me anything I actually care about regarding that character.
Unless, of course, that's the point of the work. I don't just mean porn, either, though of course I do also mean porn. If I'm watching porn, then I'm probably there to see the sex scenes.
Not always. I'm surprised I haven't talked about it on this blog before, but I can't find it using the search bar, so maybe this is the first time I'll be mentioning the old adults-only Japanese visual novel "Tsukihime," which I totally downloaded from a site that had a bunch of other adults-only Japanese visual novels because it was advertised as having a better plot than most.
It did. It does. That was the game that convinced me that I couldn't learn Japanese on my own and that I should take classes. That led to me deciding to minor in Japanese when I went back to college for my Bachelor's degree, which led to me studying abroad in Japan for six months, which led to my three-month Japanese internship, which changed my life.
And I guess it's fair to say that it was porn, or at least sold along with a bunch of other porn. I'm told that the developers added sex scenes to the game later just because they knew it would help it to sell at least a few copies. I don't know if that's true. I just know that I've been told it. There is a rerelease of the game coming out soon in English that doesn't have any explicit sex scenes in it. I would like to play it.
In any case.
The point is that the book I'm writing now has sex and violence in it, because it's an action/romance novel in a fantasy world. The main characters get into fights. The first chapter is a lengthy fight scene between the main character and multiple bandits. He kills them all, because he's just sooooo strong and cool.
I hated writing it. I hated trying to think of the right way to choreograph the way that one man would kill five others. I still did it, and I think I did a decent job. My guiding principles were to keep it short, keep it brutal, and keep it difficult. Those are my guiding principles when writing any fight scene.
So the hero is shot with a crossbow, and, in return, shoots two of the bad guys with his longbow before the other three even get to him. From there, he hacks two of them to death with his billhook. One gets hit in the arm, the other across the neck, and then the first gets a couple of "whacks" to the top of his head to finish him off. It takes only a few seconds, and during that time, the second guy plants a knife in the hero's arm. So now he's been shot and stabbed, and there's only one guy left. I don't even explain how he kills that guy. I just say that he doesn't want to, but, because the last guy attacks him, he does kill him.
That's the fight scene. If you were to watch it on TV, it'd take about twenty seconds. That's intentional. This isn't an even match. It's one guy who knows how to kill and is very good at it even though he doesn't want to, against five guys who aren't very good at it and want to do it very badly. I decided to give my guy a little bit of extra luck and ferocity in the fight, but he's trading blows. They get in a hit, he gets in a hit. They get one, he gets one.
Later, the other main character, an orc, gets into a fight with nothing but her fists against a much bigger orc who is carrying a club. Same principles apply. She sucker-punches him in the head. He staggers, and comes up with his club to hit in her in the stomach with it. She pivots and punches him in the stomach with her other fist, which doesn't hurt him much, so he brings his club arm down onto her extended arm. She dodges it enough to turn it into a glancing blow, and turns that dodge into a grab for the survival knife on her belt. She stabs him between the ribs, jerks the knife out of his heart, and he dies.
She punches, he clubs, she punches, he clubs, she stabs. I figure that a big guy with a club is going to lead with that club. He's not going to bother trying to do any fancy grappling moves. He won't headbutt her. He won't kick her. He won't bite her. He's just going to keep swinging that weapon, because that's what people with weapons usually do. People with weapons rely too much on those weapons, in my experience. It's a common thing you're taught when trained how to use a weapon: don't forget that you have lots of other options that don't involve the weapon. I figure I'll make this big guy with a club forget his other options. It makes the fight winnable. If he went for a bear hug, I'd have to write in a headbutt or a bite from her to get free, and it would just extend things.
Keep it short, keep it brutal, keep it difficult.
Eventually, those two main characters fall in love and get married. A year later, they have a kid together. Presumably, they had sex in between, but I'm not going to write it. It wouldn't be fun for me to read it, and I don't think it'd be fun for anyone else, either.
How would I write that first sex scene between them? It's funny to me to imagine mumbled explanations afterward as they try explaining, hey, you know, about last night, neither of us have been with anyone at all in over ten years, and nobody of another species ever, so we were kind of rusty in general and didn't really know what we were doing, but hopefully next time will go better. But I know that that'd wind up being the scene in the book that everybody remembers. People would quote that shit back to me later. It'd distract from the whole rest of the novel if I did that.
And on the other hand, if I wrote about how they rock each other's worlds, how they both have a fantastic time, and I write in detail about engorged or throbbing or sensitive body parts covered in various sticky or viscuous fluids, then that'd be what gets quoted at me later, and I don't want that, either.
So I won't. I won't write the sex scenes between them at all. I won't even try to be cute and imply anything about them, either. As much as I believe that good communication is key to good sex, I don't think it helps the story to have the two of them follow that advice. Maybe they talk about it later, when we aren't there watching them.
I always think of what Margaret Weis and Tracky Hickman described in the annotated chronicles for Dragonlance as a "boot scene." They said that they got it from Star Trek, the original series. Captain Kirk and a beautiful woman kiss, it fades to black, and then we see Kirk sitting on the side of a bed pulling his boots on. We know what happened. We don't need to see what was in between.
Truthfully, I don't even think I need to show one of those. I think it's enough to show that they've fallen in love and decided to marry each other and then fade out. No need to show them falling into each other's arms or pulling on boots in the morning. Probably, like all married couples, they fucked. When we see them again a year later and there's a baby, that's pretty solid evidence.
I might have guiding principles on how to write fight scenes to keep them brief and believable, but when it comes to sex scenes, my main guiding principle is simply not to write them at all.
In case you were curious.
#text post#long post#ratralsis writing#this post has been kicking around in my head for a few weeks and i'm glad i wrote it but i didn't have as much to say as i thought
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Is there the full list of brandersons favourite games reposted somewhere?
i dont think so? or not that ive seen. u can literally just sign up for the newsletter on his website but screw it ill just post them for u. it sure was a TRIP scrolling past these to get to the interlude though. undertale is on this list.....im shakign at the thought that adolin was based off ff10 tidus but i cant get it out of my head now
#10: Katamari Damaci
I love things that make me look at the world in a new way. Katamari did this in spades. It is an imaginative, bizarre vision with unique gameplay. It is like nothing else in the world and I love it for all its strangeness and occasional lack of gameplay polish.
I was transfixed the first time I played it, and have looked forward to it being remade and rereleased on multiple different consoles. I love the cute—and somehow creepy at the same time—storyline. It feels like a fever dream more than a game sometimes, and is probably the closest I’ll ever get to understanding what it’s like to do drugs.
#9: Undertale
This is an oddball on this list because I think it’s the only game that is not a franchise from a major studio—but is instead an indie game, which I believe was originally funded on Kickstarter.I loved how this felt like a novel as much as a game. It was one person’s vision; a single story told really well, with a huge amount of personality. The humor was just my kind of wonderful/terrible, and I was instantly enamored with the characters.That probably would have been enough, but it is a nice deconstruction of video games as a medium—and has not one, but multiple innovative gameplay mechanics. Together, the package left me enamored. This is a work of genius that I feel everyone should at least try, even if it ends up not being for them.
#8: Fallout: New Vegas
I have played all of the core Fallout games, and I was one of the (it seems few) who was really excited when it moved from turn-based tactics to first-person shooter. While Fallout 3 was good, it didn’t have the charm of the first two.New Vegas delivered on everything I was hoping to see. The charm was back, the writing sharp, the quests imaginative. The gameplay was engaging and branched in a variety of directions, the gunplay was solid, and the atmosphere immersive. I of course love the first two games in the series—but New Vegas combines everything I like in gaming into one package. (As a note, I own the Outer Worlds, and am looking forward to digging into it. Consider this item on the list a recommendation of other Obsidian games—like Knights of the Old Republic Two—regardless of genre, as I’ve found them universally to be superior to their contemporaries.)
#7 Super Mario World
When I was eleven, I flew (alone, which was very exciting to me) from Nebraska to visit my uncle Devon in Salt Lake City. Before I left, my father gave me $200 and told me to pay for my own meals while on the trip—but of course, my uncle didn’t allow this. At the end of the trip, I tried to give him the money, which he wouldn’t take.I mentioned my dad would take the money back when I got home, but that was okay. Well, my uncle would have none of that, and drove me to the local mall and made me spend it on a Nintendo Entertainment System. (This uncle, you might guess, is an awesome human being.)Since that day of first plugging it in and experiencing Mario for the first time, I was hooked. This is the only platformer on the list, as I don’t love those. But one makes an exception for Mario. There’s just so much polish, so much elegance to the control schemes, that even a guy who prefers an FPS or an RPG like me has to admit these are great games. I picked World as my favorite as it’s the one I’ve gone back to and played the most.
#7: The Curse of Monkey Island (Monkey Island 3)
I kind of miss the golden age of adventure gaming, and I don’t know that anyone ever got it as right as they did with this game. It is the pinnacle of the genre, in my opinion—no offense to Grim Fandango fans.This game came out right before gaming’s awkward teenage phase where everything moved to 3-d polygons. For a while after, games looked pretty bad, though they could do more because of the swap. But if you want to go see what life was like before that change, play Monkey Island 3. Composed of beautiful art pieces that look like cells from Disney movies, with streamlined controls (the genre had come a long way from “Get yon torch”) and fantastic voice acting, this game still plays really well.This is one of the few games I’ve been able to get my non-gamer wife to play through with me, and it worked really well as a co-op game with the two of us trying to talk through problems. It’s a lovingly crafted time capsule of a previous era of gaming, and if you missed it, it’s really worth trying all these years later. (The first and second games hold up surprisingly well too, as a note, particularly with the redone art that came out a decade or so ago.)Also, again, this one has my kind of humor.
#6: Breath of the Wild
I never thought a Zelda game would unseat A Link to the Past as my favorite Zelda, but Breath of the Wild managed it. It combined the magic of classic gameplay with modern design aesthetic, and I loved this game.There’s not a lot to say about it that others haven’t said before, but I particularly liked how it took the elements of the previous games in the series (giving you specific tools to beat specific challenges) and let you have them all at once. I like how the dungeons became little mini puzzles to beat, instead of (sometimes seemingly endless) slogs to get through. I liked the exploration, the fluidity of the controls, and the use of a non-linear narrative in flashbacks. It’s worth buying a Switch just to play this one and Mario—but in case you want, you can also play Dark Souls on Switch... (That’s foreshadowing.)
#5: Halo 2
Telling stories about Halo Two on stream is what made me think of writing this list.I’m sometimes surprised that this game isn’t talked about as much as I think it should be. Granted, the franchise is very popular—but people tend to love either Reach or games 1 or 3 more than two. Two, however, is the only one I ever wanted to replay—and I’ve done so three or four times at this point. (It’s also the only one I ever beat on Legendary.)It’s made me think on why I love this one, while so many others seem to just consider it one of many in a strong—but in many ways unexceptional—series of games. I think part of this is because I focus primarily on the single-player aspects of a game (which is why there aren’t any MMOs on this list.) Others prefer Halo games with more balanced/polished multiplayer. But I like to game by myself, and don’t really look for a multiplayer experience. (Though this is changing as I game with my sons more and more.)I really like good writing—which I suppose you’d expect. But in games, I specifically prefer writing that enhances the style of game I’m playing. Just dumping a bunch of story on me isn’t enough; it has to be suited to the gameplay and the feel of the game. In that context, I’ve rarely encountered writing as good as Halo 2. From the opening—with the intercutting and juxtaposition of the two narratives—to the quotes barked out by the marines, the writing in this game is great. It stands out starkly against other Halo games, to the point that I wonder what the difference is.Yes, Halo Two is a bombastic hero fantasy about a super soldier stomping aliens. But it has subtle, yet powerful worldbuilding sprinkled all through it—and the music...it does things with the story that I envy. It’s kind of cheating that games and films get to have powerful scores to help with mood.The guns in Two feel so much better than Halo One, and the vehicles drive far better. The only complaint I have is that it’s only half a story—as in, Halo 2 and 3 seem like they were one game broken in two pieces. And while 3 is good (and Reach does something different, which I approve of in general) neither did it for me the way Two did, and continues to do.
#3: Final Fantasy X
You probably knew Final Fantasy was coming. People often ask if the way these games handle magic was an influence upon me. All I can say is that I’ve played them since the first one, and so they’re bound to have had an influence.On one hand, these games are really strange. I mean, I don’t think we gamers stop quite often enough to note how downright bizarre this series gets. Final Fantasy doesn’t always make the most sense—but the games are always ambitious.Ten is my favorite for a couple of reasons. I felt like the worldbuilding was among the strongest, and I really connected with the characters. That’s strange, because this is one of the FF games without an angst-filled teen as the protagonist. Instead, it has a kind of stable happy-go-lucky jock as the protagonist.But that’s what I needed, right then. A game that didn’t give me the same old protagonist, but instead gave me someone new and showed me I could bond to them just as well. Ten was the first with full voice acting, and that jump added a lot for me. It has my favorite music of the series, and all together is what I consider the perfect final fantasy game. (Though admittedly, I find it more and more difficult to get into turn-based battle mechanics as I grow older.)
#2: Bloodborne
Those who follow my streams, or who read other interviews I’ve done, probably expected this series to be at or near the top. The question wasn’t whether Souls would be here, but which one to pick as my favorite.I went with Bloodborne, though it could have been any of them. (Even Dark Souls 2—which I really like, despite its reputation in the fandom.) I’ve been following FromSoftware’s games since the King’s Field games, and Demon’s Souls was a huge triumph—with the director Hidetaka Miyazaki deserving much of the praise for its design, and Dark Souls (which is really just a more polished version of Demon’s Souls).As I am a fan of cosmic horror, Bloodborne is probably my favorite overall. It really hit the mix of cosmic and gothic horror perfectly. It forced me to change up my gameplay from the other Souls games, and I loved the beautiful visuals.I am a fan of hard games—but I like hard games that are what I consider “fair.” (For example, I don’t love those impossible fan-made Mario levels, or many of the super-crazy “bullet hell”-style games.) Dark Souls is a different kind of hard. Difficult like a stern instructor, expecting you to learn—but giving you the tools to do so. It presents a challenge, rather than being hard just to be hard.If I have a problem with Final Fantasy, it’s that the games sometimes feel like the gameplay is an afterthought to telling the story. But in the Souls games, story and gameplay are intermixed in a way I’d never seen done before. You have to construct the story like an archeologist, using dialogue and lore from descriptions of in-game objects. I find this fascinating; the series tells stories in a way a book never could. I’m always glad when a game series can show off the specific strengths of the medium.In fact, this series would be #1 except for the little fact that I have way too much time on Steam logged playing...
#1: Civilization VI
This series had to take #1 by sheer weight of gameplay time. I discovered the first on a friend’s computer in the dorms my freshman year—and I can still remember the feeling of the birds chirping outside, realizing I’d been playing all night and really should get back to my own dorm room.That still happens, and has happened, with every game in the series. I have a lot of thoughts on this series, many of them granular and too specific for this list. (Like, it’s obvious AI technology isn’t up to the task of playing a game this complex—so could we instead get a roguelike set of modifiers, game modes, etc. to liven up the games, rather than just having a difficulty slider that changes a few simple aspects of the game?)I’ll try not to rant, because I really do love this game series. A lot of people consider IV to be the pinnacle of the series, but after V unstacked units—and VI unstacked cities—there was no way I could ever go back. If for some reason, you’ve never played this grand patriarch of the 4X game genre, it’s about starting with a single stone-age settler who can found a city—then playing through eras of a civilization, growing your empire, to try to eventually get offworld with a space program. (Or, if you prefer, conquering the world.)It’s a load of fun in the way I like to have fun, and I feel like the series has only gotten better over the years. My hat is off to the developers, who keep reinventing the series, rather than making the exact same game over and over.Now, about that request for difficulty modes...
there are runner ups but for the sake of anyone whos on mobile and cant get past a read more (first of all omg im SO sorry) ill refrain. anyway he thought WHAT loz game was the best before botw?
#mix between HARDCORE judgement and like. yea. yea ff10 was pretty good wasnt it#but i dont think its anywhere near the best of them#long post#im read mores dont work imm so fucking sorry this is so long#MOST of these games are good its just so wild its so wild its SO wild#asks#Anonymous
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Neverwinter Nights: Enhanced Edition is great because of the multiplayer.
Originally posted 4/25/18 on Kotaku’s community blog “TAY”. Posting it here because of TAY’s uncertain future as a way of preserving some of the stuff I wrote there.
https://tay.kinja.com/neverwinter-nights-enhanced-edition-is-a-great-remaste-1825288724
These days we so often see remasters or other ports of games that people can sometimes question the necessity of releasing them at all. Other than for the cash. At first glance developer Beamdog’s Enhanced Edition of Neverwinter Nights doesn’t really seem that spectacular compared to the cheaper old version available at certain digital stores. Just a few months ago I replayed Neverwinter Nights single player campaign after I got a free copy on GOG, and it worked fine playing on a modern PC. Even if it has always been a unpleasant game to look at.
The Enhanced Edition does little to improve the games graphics other than making it possible to play in higher resolutions. But beyond than that it’s hard to find any differences that stand out. I know I read somewhere the lightning and shadows are much better this time around. But I can’t say I notice this while playing. So if you already have a working copy of the old game I would seriously question why you would need this version.
That’s it, of course, if you are only interested in playing it single player.
What made me instantly buy the new version of the game was the news that the multiplayer will once again fully work and with it any mods and player made levels from the old game. (I suspect this is a big reason why improved graphics are so limited) That means any server still running Neverwinter Nights can become available instantly in this new version.
When the original game came out in 2002, it was originally developed as a toolkit for anyone to create and host their own D&D adventures and then make them available for people to join online, or to write your own single player adventure. The toolkit was rather easy to learn but complex enough that you could recreate Baldur’s gate completely if you wanted to. This spawned a large community of different servers with their own lore, rules and settings. Many of them felt like their own MMORPG where the players base controlled what happened in the world. A large part of these communities were also strict on roleplay, meaning that you have to act your character. While Neverwinter Nights is far from the only game that players have roleplayed in, few other games have successfully grown such a large community around it. Rather, in many games offering the possibility of roleplaying it feels like a minor part of the online community. In Neverwinter Nights it is a huge part of the game’s overall design.
One of the types of servers I enjoyed playing on was Zombie Survival. It turned the D&D-based game into a zombie survival simulator. Deaths were often a permanent affair, meaning that your character, which you might have spent plenty of time creating could disappear instantly. The highest level you could achieve on these servers was often around 5. By D&D standards this meant you would always be a scrub. Besides, reaching the highest level wasn’t an easy task because you could only gather significant experience points by exploring the world and gaining certain items. This was extremely risky, because there were few areas that were safe from the undead and healing yourself was always limited. In many regards these servers were unbalanced and could be extremely hard for new players, but once you learned where to find certain items you could become hard to kill. This also lead to interesting scenarios where players were roleplaying desperate characters of whom a great many died, but a few grew into veteran survivors.
Although as the years went by and the multiplayer communities decreased in player numbers, NWN always managed to keep a dedicated player base and a few strong servers running. Eventually Gamespy, which hosted NWN’s server list, closed down. After that you could only join a server by typing the IP address yourself. Which to many felt like the death of the multiplayer. This is because the lack of a server list made it almost impossible for any new server to make themselves known and even if the game was still being sold, very few of those new players would go through the effort required to find a single active server.
So for me, the old version of Neverwinter Nights being sold today is half a game. Even if you technically could play the online multiplayer, it was so inaccessible it was probably completely unknown to most people.
Which brings me back to me buying the Enhanced edition the day it launched: Even if the game is now 16 years old and considered dead by most, a few servers have stayed alive for all this time. Most of them were instantly accessible to log into from the Enhanced edition’s new server list, though many of them required mods. This was not much of a problem though, as the Developer had made many of those mods easily available with the addition of Steam workshop support. Small things like installing these various mods and packs could be a hassle even at Neverwinter nights’ prime time and doing so has never been as easy as it is now. This has made a lot of old players and servers return to the game, and to my pleasant surprise, among the servers was Zombie survival.
It’s hard to describe how nostalgic all of this has made me feel. Imagine if a game you loved that has been completely unavailable to you for 12 years suddenly came back. When I saw that a Zombie Survival server was available to play I was so excited to experience it again that I instantly gifted a copy of the game to an old friend to join me. A friend I met online 15 years ago in the very same game on a similar server. Once we logged onto the server, we had a discussion about if we should roleplay at all or just try and avoid other players and stick to ourselves. As soon as we were there though, we had automatically slipped into our old comfortable roleplaying habits. One of our first meetings with other players was running into two self appointed “knights” who were a bit too nice. They started by offering us some aid in finding food and asking if we would like to go exploring with them.
“So you guys are friends, huh?” My character asked them.
“We are comrades in arms” One of them replied. We quickly started to suspect they were more than just comrades though, as they kept flattering each other constantly.
Afterwards we met a party consisting of an female Druid, a rogue and a paladin so full of himself that we all secretly hoped the zombies would get him. Together as a big group we came to a particularly dangerous cave unavailable to players most of time as accessing it required a certain rare item. Once inside though, we knew we had a higher chance of grabbing some better items. If we could survive the zombie hordes filled in the tiny hallways of the cave. After we finished looting and were about to get back to a safe location the following discussion broke out:
The Druid started the conversation: “I hope we can get out of here.”
“As long as I am here we’ll be fine.” Harold the paladin answered confidently.
“If you fight like that, you’ll die sooner or later. Probably sooner.” I replied.
Larry the rogue was not having it: “Don’t be so pessimistic lass”
“I’m a realist.” I responded.
Unfortunately for all of us my character’s instincts were right and several of our group died on this adventure.
As I kept playing, I realized how long it has been since I was able to engage in this sort of immersive, in character communication with other random players. For me, it’s less about acting the role of a character and more of a chance to be creative with your writing among other people. While I recognize that this kind of exercise can often end up being silly or immature, few games that I have played make something like this work so well between random players. That was a large part of why I spent so much time playing the original Neverwinter nights, and it is something that I’m so happy to be able to experience once more.
None of that would be possible if Beamdog hadn’t put their effort into creating a new version of the game, complete with a fully functioning multiplayer mode that supports old content from the community. To be honest, I think they could have probably gotten away with not touching the multiplayer at all, and focused solely on providing access to the single player campaigns on modern PCs. Playing this new enhanced edition I realized that the remakes or other forms of rereleasing old games that I feel are the most important, are those of games that isn’t available anymore. Even if Neverwinter Nights has, in some form, been available to play this whole time, it is only now that you can experience the actual full game again.
Thank you for reading! I’m a swedish dude by the name of Joakim Jonsson who enjoy playing and analyzing all sorts of games, but perhaps the most with RPGs. If you wanna read more stuff by me I have an article about Witcher 3, and every Tuesday I host TAY’s Open Forum. If you wanna send me an email go ahead at: [email protected]
Also a large thanks to Jussi liimatainen who spellchecked and edited this.
The screenshots in this article are slightly modified to make the chat between players more visible.
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The Tachyon Web
Bantam Books, Inc., 1986 197 pages, 14 chapters + epilogue ISBN: 0-553-26102-9 LOC: CPB Box no. 677 vol. 12 OCLC: 14404988 Released July 30, 1986 (per B&N)
The Tachyon Web is a network of satellites that creates a sort of hyperspace fence. It defines the boundaries of the Union, and no civilian craft is allowed to venture across it. But the Excalibur, piloted by high school kids, finds a loophole – literally – in the form of a star gone nova that shorts the Web and allows them to get through. Of course, messing with interstellar nuclear physics never goes smoothly, and the Excalibur is crippled. In the effort to save their ship and themselves, the friends discover a whole race of people also fleeing the nova, also without much knowledge about their future, and also fearful and anxious about the days ahead.
When I got into Pike, he was well into his career as an author, and already the majority of his books were published under the Archway Paperbacks imprint of Pocket Books. When I went looking for his new books or stuff I’d missed, that’s the bulk of what I would find on the shelves. There were a couple ways to know I’d not read one:��
The inside front cover had a long list of Pike’s books under Archway, so I could go down and check or cross them off as I easily found them.
On the author notes page, after the history and outside interests, he’d list all of his works (getting longer by one every time), not limiting himself to the Archway stuff.
The Tachyon Web was always in those author notes, second-to-last. (Getting Even never was.) But without a printer or a publisher, I had no idea how to find this book. Remember, this was pre-Internet, pre-public-Web. I couldn’t just Google it because it was pre-Google. I couldn’t ask Amazon to find it because it was pre-Amazon. (Earliest purchase in my Amazon history? Getting Even, which I requested in January 1998.)
My only sources were the bookstore or library card catalogs, and while everything else had gotten a reprint (my copies of Slumber Party and Chain Letter are like 20th printings), The Tachyon Web never did. It was also a time when bookstores could, like, survive, so they didn’t have to put used and new books together on the shelves. My school library snootily didn’t carry Pike (though they sure had goddamn Stephen King and R.L. Stine) and the regional one didn’t have a copy. My local bookstore had a used and out-of-print book finding service, but come on: they’re looking for historical editions of classics of literature, not some pulpy juvenile sci-fi paperback that’s only eight years old. And so I resigned myself to never seeing this one.
But then this happened.
Reprint, Pocket Books, 1997 211 pages ISBN 0-671-69060-4 OCLC: 970433587 Rereleased January 15, 1997 (per B&N)
Now that I think about it, I have to imagine that Pike was subtly putting pressure on Pocket to reprint this story. Why would he include it in his accomplishments if it went away so fast because it actually sucked? (N.b. consider the absence of Getting Even.) Wouldn’t he have known that as he grew in popularity there would be a groundswell from fans to get an easily accessible edition of this story that almost no one had ever seen? Regardless of their critical acclaim, the sales of the books alone would have been enough to give him some leverage to have this one put out there again.
I mean, I can see why it might have disappeared so fast back in the day. The Tacyhon Web is hard sci-fi: lasers, aliens, spaceships, hyperdrive, force fields, supernovae. It’s not what anybody was looking for from the Slumber Party guy. Let’s be real: authors get pigeonholed into genres from the start, teen horror was historically (and probably still is) marketed to girls, and sci-fi has long been a no-girls-allowed clubhouse. The shift in YA speculative fiction to female-driven future dystopia stories, I could argue, isn’t so much a loss of traditional sci-fi as it is an adaptation of that traditional horror to bring in some sci-fi elements. Which Pike eventually figured out, but again, he wrote largely before YA was received critically as “real books.” And honestly, his type of fiction might be more of a reason than a victim.
More than any of his other books, The Tachyon Web requires Pike and his readers to think about the implications of meddling in the affairs of another culture. Eric and his friends can quite literally save an entire race, but is that their right or their place to do so? Should we share this huge technological leap with a people who might not be ready for it? What if the Kaulikans are greedy and protective, and start to use the new power to subjugate humans? What does it say about humans that we immediately think this about someone else? This examining of culture and society is all in the narrative, to be sure, but not with the degree of complexity that either sci-fi fans or readers from the future have come to expect. It just wasn’t asked of a teen author in the ’80s, and Pike doesn’t waste too many words on it.
None of this consideration keeps Eric from playing great white savior for the Kaulikans, either. (Though, as he’s described as a soCal boy with brown skin and black hair, I imagine Eric as Latino. More hidden representation for me!) See, he fell in love with the first alien girl he laid eyes on, and now he wants to make sure she can live beyond the spaceship. His friends mostly buy the human party line that we can’t give our tech to an unproven people, and he has to literally hijack Excalibur to give it to the Kaulikans. Except, oh shit, here comes the human army to take the ship back! Turns out they’ve been watching the whole thing and let the fucking sun explode on these people without helping. And now their orders are to retrieve the hyperdrive at any cost, but the Kaulikans obviously can’t let the hopes of an entire people, now within their grasp, be simply taken away from them. We’re at an impasse.
If you thought the humans would see the light and let the Kaulikans have the ship, you’re better than the people in charge. If you thought they’d escort the Kaulikans somewhere safe and then take the tech away, you’re overthinking a solution. It ultimately comes down to one dude with a conscience who has suffered a terrible loss in his past, who knows that he should help but has been ordered not to intervene, who has been looking for an excuse like Eric to act like it wasn’t his fault that the aliens discovered the tech. So he gives up instructions to build the hyperdrive on what amounts to an SD card (which can conveniently be read in alien computers). The humans get Excalibur back, and Eric’s friends are going to be OK, but he was sitting in the meeting so he knows too much and can never go home. It’s a good thing he already found love, just like it says on the back!
If I hadn’t been so into Pike when this reappeared in 1997, I’m not sure I would have been eager for or even interested in this story. (When it came out, all we’d gotten for a year was Spooksville stories and Last Vampire sequels; I was aching for something different.) The characters just don’t have the depth we got in Slumber Party, which is still the gold standard he’s trying to write up to at this point. The situation is an interesting one, and the problem arises because of mistakes the characters themselves make, but it gets a little too big a little too fast. The expectations and limits on kid lit at the time simply didn’t give Pike enough room to explore everything that needs to be addressed. And the reprint is just that: aside from some edits to improve understandability, it doesn’t change anything.
But then, these limitations might be what make the story realistic: we’re stuck trying to understand interglobal and racial dynamics from the perspective of an eighteen-year-old who’s never wanted for anything and has to absorb and process injustice on the fly. He’s still neurotic and insecure, like all of Pike’s main characters, but he lives in a society that prizes his culture, his language, and his abilities. It’s got to come as a shock to see that this foreign one is not only considered inferior, but that we aren’t even going to risk contact, let alone help it survive. Interesting that YA fiction is the genre taking so much more initiative to make us think about these issues today, where thirty years ago a book on it didn’t perform and almost went away forever.
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The big post about how i love my sneasel who is great
Welcome to that post. It might get long.
Reaper the level 100 Naughty nature Sneasel with Keen Eye who experienced pokerus once and has contest ribbons from too many regions oh my gosh Leeeeeeets get going on how much I adore my little guy!
Okay, the story behind him. He is kinda unofficially my starter pokemon?
Cos of course there was no way to keep your mons from RBY and GSC back then, but I’d kinda only had one pokemon anyway. I was a dumb kid who just solo’d both games with my raichu Chuppy. And sadly I ended up losing them even before the whole transfer issue, someone stole my Gold cartridge during school and when I found it half smashed in the playground all the data had been corrupted. It did actually play though, just with some colour issues I think? I never really restarted cos it felt cruel to Chuppy to do it. So I’m happy that the virtual console rerelease let me reincarnate Chuppy and even make them a cool new alola form! (though they had a different gender this time, but meh i get to headcanon my chu is trans like me, haha) So yeah thats the story of my official first pokemon, but Chuppy didnt really have any personality or headcanons back then cos I was so new to the franchise. And Reaper ended up lasting way longer and sharing every single other region with me, so he kinda took the spot of ‘starter’ even if he wasnt ‘first’. (I still was really happy to welcome reincarnation Chuppy home tho!)
Reaper actually came from Pokemon Colosseum, of all places! His OT name is the completely-wrong ‘Tom’ cos he was from when I restarted my game after getting stuck and just buttonmashed one of the default names out of frustration. I actually caught him in a master ball just cos I was that excited to hug the lil guy! Sneasel was my fave gen 2 mon but i never managed to catch one actually in GSC, i didnt know it was limited to a rare encounter in the very last area. And even before I caught him I knew sneasel was in this game via guides, so i was waiting with baited breath and establishing headcanons even before i found him. Then I just COULD NOT WAIT, hence the master ball! XD I kinda preemptivel based him on the iron mask marauder’s sneasel from the celebi movie, cos shadow pokemon are similar to his brainwashing stuff. And I always liked his sneasel, scizor and tyranitar, for such minor roles they are. It was a nice nuance for the bad guy’s pokemon to be shown as VERY MUCH not evil, just enslaved by magic brainwashing and mistreated. It warmed my heart seeing them freeing each other and escaping in the end once the control was broken! But also it established sneasel as a really cool badass fighter that I wanted to have someday, yknow?
So yeah I got this guy from colosseum before I even played RSE, and he ended up being my ‘starter’ in that game so much that i cant even remember which one i picked. I boxed it right away and never thought about it again, I was a callous kid! It was actually really interesting playing ORAS and finally getting to see what the hoenn starters are actually like, lol And Reaper remained my best friend across like ELEVEN OR MORE REPLAYS of every single gen 3 game except emerald. Cos at that time in my childhood i literally did not have any other games. i spent around three or four years with just sapphire, leafgreen and final fantasy tactics advance. (Oh boy that game’s script is stuck in my brain for all time) And getting attatched to the characters and making new ones all the time was how i kept from getting bored this way ^_^ Buuuuut... it kinda meant that I just discarded most of them super fast to make more. the only other pokemon that migrated to sinnoh with Reaper was Nether the sableye, who was kinda his rival/best friend. (Tho I mispelled it as Neava so he’s stuck that way, lol. And both of them are in all caps forever...) Nether is kinda the basis for my recent oc Malachi, so he’s like an entirely different story for another time. But he was my Sapphire buddy and Reaper was one region older via the power of spinoffs.
And oh man yeah i totally loved the shadow pokemon plot lol! I just headcanoned his plot with regards to that was the same as the marauder’s mons. Perfectly nice tiny sneasel boy is kidnapped and experimented upon by evils, but my love saved him and now he is soft once more. He didnt really have much angst from it, but it helped such a wild spirit grow to trust my hero and trust humans in general after such a rocky introduction to them. I imagined it was like training a dangerous dog to be a police canine, with that arm guard thing that they bite! Shadow pokemon training must be WAY more tough than it seems on the surface! So like ash’s charizard plot, where it ends up with really fire forged family love after all the hardship. I think that before he met my trainer he was just like a loner robin hood type character who valued his freedom and thought that tamed pokemon were all wusses. But alas, he was forced to experience human hugs, and now he’s addicted! but he’d still be quite rebellious and wild and have a lot of goofy cute interactions as he tries to learn all this complicated stuff about being a pet. Why cant I pee on the carpet?? Why do I have to eat pellet food? Why are you mad when i bring you dead mice and pidgey eggs?? bad bad influence on the other mons, but also a softhearted big bro who WANTS to be a good influence. He pretends to be all aloof and stoic cliche angsty antihero, but always messes up and looks cute instead! And he gets crushingly sad if any of his lil siblings actually does get afraid of him. Noooo the grumpyness is for the humans! Not for you!! No-one is allowed to pet the sneas except the other pokemon. It my duty to protect my new pack of strangely shaped sneasels! Oh and he likes booze. In human terms he’d be around 25-30, but still its not good for animals to drink human liquor. Never stopped him though! He’d always find ways to sniff it out and swipe half-finished cans from the trash and stuff. Bad angstman! I know thats part of your archetype but stop it!
So... basically he was like.. cloud? original version from ff7 where he was sassy and goofy sometimes, except reaper is like that all the time with less angst and pretty much zero ego. He’s just like a kind yet not completely competant fun uncle who tries his best to put up a cool guy front to impress the kids (and push away scary humans) but his innate sweetness means he always messes up. And he’s super tsundere about the fact he considers his trainer part of his infinate pack of children, even if every other human is DANGER MODE. Must protect this human from the other ones! Must teach them the ways of the sneas! Oh, and I imagined his appearance as a gijinka would be kinda like Squall from ff8. cos he actually started off as a parody of that unlikeable angstman archetype, and i didnt even know Cloud existed until yeaaaars later. (Played the ffs completely out of order...) So i figured he’d be like squall but with dark skin and a kinda sirus black hairstyle. (Cos that guy contributed the kind uncle part of his inspiration!) Oh and of course a sneasely colourscheme for the fur coat. And I ended up making him hold Blackglasses so often that it was an in-joke that he actually wore shades 24/7 even in normal pokemon form XD
When I first got him in Collosseum he was really useful for his Brick Break move, and im actually really happy that the brick break image on bulbapedia is the collosseum sneasel using it! It was very very good as one of the few mons available with that move in the very limited choices you had for that game. But his signature move kinda ended up being Surf, even though his stats would have been awful for it even if I’d ev trained him properly XD I just found it so bizarre that sneasel of all things could learn that HM! I imagined he formed a surfboard out of ice to carry the trainer, cos there’s no way you could stand on the back of a 30cm tall weasel...
And man lets just have some random sneasel headcanons now!
* Their feathers exist to sense wind fluctuations, which are useful in their natural environment to anticipate snowstorms and track prey in low visibility.
* The ear feather is just for this, its the more sensitive one. The tail feathers are more for manipulating objects and other day to day life. They’re more matted and dont really have the same hearing ability, but the joints are way more flexible so they can be moved independantly like three actual tails. Sneasels can pick up small delicate objects by brushing them up between the tails, then rolling them down their back to reach their mouth. they also use the tails to brush away dirt, hide their tracks in the snow, form surprisingly intricate igloo-like nests and groom their fur with the utmost precision.
* Sneasels will outright resent any attempts to groom them by anyone but their closest human friend, since inevitably humans cant do as good of a job. But humans can scratch behind your ears and give cuddles, so it all works out!
* In the wild, sneasels eat primarily eggs, some nuts and berries, scavenged semi-rotten meat and not so much live prey. Even though they’re very skilled, they’re also very fragile and cautious because of it. They’ll only hunt in extreme situations, instead preferring to confuse and mislead their way to dinner. Sneasels are very social and loyal to each other even if they’re not to anyone else. Their most common strategy is the whole pack wards off a dangerous foe while one lone unit sneaks past and robs that pokemon’s food stores, to share with the family. Even if they’re forced to hunt their own prey, they still follow these strategies and try to just outrun the enemy until it dies of exhaustion or freezes in the blizzard. They’re experts of making cuts that disable but don’t kill- going in close enough to deliver that final blow means risking a valuable pack member’s life!
Not really a headcanon now but back to reaper himself, I always kinda imagine him looking more like a real weasel. I like sneasel’s design but the bipedal humanoid proportions arent exactly the best thing, yknow? i feel like it should have had shorter more pawlike back legs and just been top-heavy with the super claws. Like.. I imagine kinda a furret? just the appeal of actual weasels and stoats plz. I love sneasel but when i looked up weasels as a kid i was like MY HEART!!! they’re sock puppet babies with lint fuzz faces Also I think sneasel’s claws are kinda comically short and boring considering theyre like its Big Feature. I liked when they were drawn a bit longer in older artworks, and i always imagined reaper had longer ones like scyther-y level. Thats why I named him that! Crescent moon claws of awesomeness, striking in the night~! ...he would be really cool if he wasnt such a cuddly dork. I love him so much, he’s my baby. And my dad. And my uncle?? he’s just a very good friend and im happy videogames can touch my heart like nothing else let me love my nonexistant magic weasel from cyberspace forevermore~!
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Kingdom Hearts 3 Full Review
Here I am 6 years later and I've beaten Kingdom Hearts 3. Was it worth it? What did I think of it? This will be an extensive review. So bare with me because I'm going to cover almost every little detail however I'm going to try and keep it spoiler free in terms of story! (I'll nod to the people who finished it with vague comments as you already know what happens) I spent a lot of time on this review so it will work out to fully explain my thoughts on this game without hesitation, I don't want to hold back from criticism even though it's my favorite franchise and the most long awaited game for me.
I will say this to both people who haven't played the games and casual fans. DON'T COMPLAIN YOU DON'T KNOW WHAT HAPPENS IN THE STORY. The negligence of some of these reviews is appalling because they haven't played the past games. Square Enix has went out of their way to go and rerelease all of the games ebfore the release of this one, put up a summary video, put nods in the intro to the game. As well as put seperate summaries in the menu of the game, so I don't want to hear the whining, if you want to play it so bad, play the other games first, that's all there is to it. Yes it is confusing, but make an effort to understand it.
There are no more pesky text boxes like the other games, this is all cutscenes baby! So it may seem like a lot but think how many text box scenes were in the previous games and translate those into full cutscenes.
Let's talk about the menu. Yes, the menu. It's BRILLIANT. I love the transition from the past games, you look at the first two games, Sora with that fish in his mouth looking to the side, then the second with Sora turning slightly but with a sea salt ice cream, and now we have Sora turned all the way around with a paopu fruit. The way the music is presented is excellent, I couldn't get enough of it. In fact a lot of the music is great, both Utada songs are top notch despite me not originally seeing why she made those songs specifically, they make some sense now. Now the actual battle themes and stuff were instant classics for me in KH2, I would unintentionally hum some of the tunes, in this game I might have to get used to them though and familiarize myself. I'm sure if I heard the theme out in the open, I would recognize it though.
I worked my way to try each of the keyblades a decent amount (about one world each and that don't need unlocked through version exclusives and Ultima weapon yet but I never get ultima weapon anyway) The fun part about that is that each keyblade has a different ability and a different form so no more drives. I especially love using all of them in the Monsters world because it changes the color of Monster Sora.
I'm not going to talk about all of the worlds but just the ones revealed through trailers because I want you to experience them blindly or to their full capacity without the knowledge of what's ahead so I won't mention anything in any particular order either. I'm going to refer to the movie they are from and not the actual world name, to make it easier on you. Let's start with Pooh since that was the shortest. The minigames are just eh, I mean I love Pooh as a character and I like the idea that he's in the games but I've never really found his actual world all that because it's just minigames, I can't really bash it because that's what they did in the past games. Also at the end of Winnie the Pooh, why was that happening? Was something made to throw us off?
Now let's talk Twilight Town. I love Twilight Town, it is my favorite non-Disney world to explore in Kingdom Hearts 2 and when I saw we would return and see the characters we love, I got all excited. This Twilight Town however seems kind of condensed because it's just a section of it. You don't get to explore as much of Twilight Town as I would have liked but they do make references to it through the townspeople such as mentioning Seifer. There's a certain group of characters we saw a lack of but after the secret ending I'm starting to understand story-wise.
Frozen. We all saw it coming and I can say to you that it's not a rhythm based world. YAY. They do sing at times but you don't play those parts. I just think Frozen is ok as a movie so this world wasn't too hyped, I did like seeing Marshmallow though, that part is fun in fact any part you fight an actual Disney character I just adore. As for the actual landscape, it's different than I would have imagined, the heartless are interesting but there's no draw back to make me want to go back to that world. This, technically Pirates, and Tangled are the two world that just follow the movie plot, the others have their own new plot.
Toy Story. I have to say that I like the Toy Story 2 game and I really like the idea of exploring the Toy Story world, even just exploring Andy's house. I knew we weren't going to see the whole house like TS2 but it was still fun to see everything there as I remember it. Galaxy Toys is a new area though, pretty cool to play through because it's not hard to navigate, there are 3 floors and you go through all the stores, interact with objects, and get this really cool and interesting mini boss. There are these mech robot things that I've come to love and each color has a different ability, making it just that much more fun to play around in. I particulary like the purple one because it's the fastest but even when you're in a keyblade form the mech will change colors with you (usually a bluish green in my experience) but that was a cool little tidbit I noticed. The story just surprised me with how involved it became with it's characters especially Woody.
Pirates. This opens so nice, it begins with Sora being excited to be brought back and then we eventually get a mini-boss (there are quite a few compared to the other worlds) where you can ride the heartless, that's really cool. We get some ship gameplay where you can shoot down other ships and basically sail around all the islands, they aren't all required so exploration is pretty vast. A really cool idea is that with the shotlock command you can shoot on over to wherever it can lock onto, that way instead of making your way all the way back to the ship then trying to find a way to climb back up it, you just use the shotlock and boom you're back!
In the Tangled world, it takes the time to show you some of its great design with Rapunzel pointing things out such as how nice the grass is and how when you use Aero on the dandelions, they fly all over the place, then you can splash in the water, it's her first time experiencing it but it's also a nod from the developers showing you the amount of work they put into it and it's well deserved.
Monsters Inc. I mentioned about how the forms change the color of your monster and I really adore that. You can actually go into Roz's place! There are some places that would be interesting to see but wouldn't do much for story, just be to explore so I can kind of see why they aren't in the game, same with Big Hero 6. This is where the railriding really comes into action and I must say is pretty fun. There is also a dive option when you get up to a certain height then it will have you free fall and you can press X to dive bomb, it's all over the place in this game but it's just another good addition.
Olympus. Not the Colessium, we saw that before. This is brand new ground and is quite a joy to explore, I would be disappointed if Greece didn't actually look like that. I beat it the first night I had the game and I've revisited multiple times for other content, this was essentially my first impression of the game as well as everyone elses and it delivers. This as well as Tangled have a town full of people. I love hearing the little conversations they have and even going around and interacting with them. There's a side mission to collect these Golden Herc dolls (I finished after the game) that reminds me of the odd jobs at the beginning of KH2 that I actually have come to love, however those were mandatory, these are optional.
The Gummi Ship system is awesome, I mean I don't see any multiplayer coming to this but it's fun. I like being able to customize my own gummi ships and unlock new parts to put on it. The only complaint I have with it is small and that's when you're creating a gummi ship, it's not always easy to know which way is up considering you can change all different angles, so you may end up building your gummi ship upside down if you don't pay attention when you start. I've saw this problem quite a bit in the community as well as experienced that mistake myself but it's nothing too major, can probably be fixed in a future patch to just have a little note pop up that says "This is the front". Big Hero 6 is the best world in my opinion. I love all the worlds in their own unique way but this has momentum. A lot of the worlds have their own original story but this one seems to use that to the best effect. This one has an atmosphere that is open and easy to navigate, it's all one big area. You can fly with Baymax during a certain part which I would have loved to do that all the time but then what would be the point in using your fly ability you get at the end of the game?
At a certain part at the end we see some of the heartless move slower, like the framerate is down. It does not affect your gameplay and the thing I'm talking about is only visible stuff, but once you reach that part you will understand why it's like that. Voice acting is pretty good, they didn't get all the same voice actors for some of the characters such as Buzz and Woody, Mike and Sully, etc but they got a pretty decent amount of the characters their original voice actors and I respect that. The ones that are standing in, do a really good job though to the point I had to actually listen to try and find faults that differ from the originals. Old man Xehanort also has a new voice actor, I mean nobody can beat Leonard Nimoy but this guy seems to do a different take on the way the character sounds so it might take some getting used to but it's nothing bad just different I guess. I think they should've given you more space in your camera because there's a whopping 90 hidden mickeys and 100 slots, so you better make those 10 extras count if you want to get that secret ending. (However you can delete pictures so I don't know if the hidden mickey still counts if you delete it but I wasn't risking it) If you try to take a picture of a character (mostly any character) they will pose or smile, I love that.
Kairi doesn't get enough. I'll be honest. We don't get enough Kairi, she was great in this game and we see her grow, in fact I'll argue we probably see her more than the other games but they could have given her more spotlight.
The final battle is interesting, I like how it turned out but I will say you take on a lot at once. I liked the change of pace, but at the very end with the final 4, I say you should have taken them one by one. I also expected a different order because (we all knew this was coming so it's not a spoiler) but I thought they were going to make us fight Xemnas and Ansem then Old Man Xehanort because if we beat Young Xehanort first then wouldn't they all disappear? I mean it does work out in a way that makes sense but I just would have liked that way too.
Also aging, we can see visible changes to Sora, Kairi, and Riku from age but what about the rest? Will it just continue like nothing ever went wrong or…I mean they left a few things open for future games but don’t think they ended it on a cliffhanger to where you feel cheated in any way. It’s not like that, it still makes you want to play future games without cheating you of the full experience. I know that’s a concern for some people. Critical mode doesn’t make an appearance but that’s fine, if they end up releasing it in a patch or something I might play it but it’s nothing bad, just some people complain about it and say that they left it out on purpose for DLC but I highly doubt that and even if they do put it in a DLC be rest assured that won’t be the only thing. I don’t know Square Enix to cheat fans, you get what you pay for and DLC is a new avenue for KH if it decides to go that way, if it does I’ll be there for it but I think it’s fine without it. Look at FFXV for example, they put out full episodes based on the side characters with new gameplay, story, and various weapons and skins, I’d say that’s a pretty good deal and if I get far enough in the game I might get it and I’m not one who buys DLC at all unless it comes with the deluxe edition. So stop complaining about that, you don’t know what will come of this game.
I love the recovery command, I never used it in the older games (inexperienced noob) but this is more or less my first experience getting strategic. As well as the kupo coin where you get one last shot after a fatal blow. I can't tell if I actually got good at the game or it's just that easy but because of that Kupo Coin, I only actually died once or twice.
I cried. Once (before all the soras ;)) and of course at the end and even just thinking about the end afterwards. They throw back to one of the most well known gameplay parts in KH2 and in my opinion made it even better. Goofy is the smartest one in this game, like I found myself surprised at how aware he was. I knew the Big Hero 6 keyblade would be my favorite the moment I saw it in the trailer, I was right, I played with it until the very end and upgraded it (The monsters keyblade is a close second along with the one you get from Classic Kingdom). However...the snowball is the most powerful weapon hands down.
Flowmotion is fixed, but the shimmer effect doesn't need to exist. The sparklies that indicate that you just hold the control stick in that direction and they'll parkour it wasn't always as functional as you might like, I found myself just jumping my way up whatever villain had it some of the time, but again it's no big deal, it gives you that freedom to do whatever you want.
The attraction flows are fun but what threw me off is that you get more or less all of them from the start, you don't progressively unlock them. This led me to think that they will get repetitive but no they really weren't, I ended up skipping some of the events from time to time just to challenge myself but I never found myself bored with playing with any of them. I will say that once the command pops up, there can be another one above it and there's a time limit for each of them, I actually didn't know that you can choose between reaction commands (using L2) until after I finished it...so that happened. As well as learning that you can change keyblades on the fly just using the D-Pad.
My favorite attraction is either the teacups or the Buzz Lightyear blasters because the train is awesome but you only get to use it in certain parts of the game. The worst one is probably the carousel in my opinion just because it's more rhythm based and overall doesn't seem to do much damage. Some of the finishers get stuck or caught and I think that's a little bit of a problem, like the Pegasus chariot that you get with the Hero's Origin keyblade; I wish you could actually control that rather than Pegasus doing whatever and you just press X but there's such a variety of them so there's bound to be a few that aren't as good.
This game reminded me why Sora was originally my favorite character. You can look at him as naive but it's part of his character, I actually want to be friends with this dude in real life. All of them really but Sora has that vibe where he'll accept just about anything and find a way to work through it. You can play as a few of the characters and they all feel different to me, I like the subtle differences in gameplay but having the same core, it's very fun which makes me wish there was more of us playing as them.
How does it stack up versus the rest of the games? Well it's hard for me to say because I love them all, KH2 is my favorite game of all time and this is actually giving it a run for it's money. I do like this better than KH1 though (KH1 is my second favorite KH game so it's better than the rest too)
The graphics are impeccable, like I literally can't say they could have made this look any better, even going farther into the game it almost looks better than the rest (given there are more higher quality cutscenes such as the end of the Disney worlds just because of their importance) I was a bit worried about a few of the characters from the trailers such as Xemnas and Young Xehanort. In the earlier trailers they looked just eh but in the actual game they look way way better. Mickey even has fuzz on the top of his head but just by the secret ending alone, I was blown away by how real it looked for a cartoonish styled game.
Speaking of the secret ending I mentioned earlier, it took a hot minute to realize what it meant exactly, until I found a post on tumblr (on reddit too) about it. I won't link it or anything but just know there's an explanation/theory out there if you end up watching it. It makes me give it more credit for what it's worth.
Now the big part...how long was it? I won't tell you how long it took me to beat but I will say it logged more hours than any of the other games. I knew this was coming, because no matter how long this game was, I was going to want more, I'm actually going back to play through some stuff since it lets you keep your stats and puts you back before the final bit, so I will keep playing it and I will more than definitley play it again. I've played the beginning of the first game so many times, just haven't beaten it as much, same with KH2 (though I always end up farther in KH2 than 1) . I want to challenge myself, I want to take on hard mode, see how far it goes since I beat standard already, collect the secret reports, get ultima weapon (first time in a KH game if I can beat this stupid Frozen minigame). I kind of see where they changed some stuff from its original state, perhaps way back from the conception in 2013 but still to see the growth and adaption makes me feel really connected to it.
I will probably post updates to the review whenever the DLC comes out or once I get level 99, ultima keyblade, etc. so take what you will with it. It is currently up there with my favorite games of all time which isn’t so easy to get to.
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E3 2018 Press Conferences – Something for Everyone?
E3 began today, Tuesday, June 12th, with the official opening of the expo floor in Los Angeles. It feels, for those of watching from afar, like E3 ended this morning with the last of the publisher press conferences/presentations/ media briefings that began on Saturday and traditionally feature the biggest reveals and news about the coming years in games. Starting with EA on Saturday and through this morning's Nintendo Direct, here are my quick (editor's note: ha!) thoughts and takeaways from each presentation.
EA kicked things off on Saturday and did every other company a favor by setting such a low bar to clear to appear interesting. Their sports lineup was represented with announcements for FIFA, NBA Live, and Madden. Madden 19 will mark the franchise's return to the PC, which immediately had me worried about hacking. It's no secret these games' Ultimate Team modes make EA tons of money via microtransaction-driven card collecting/team building and I imagine within hours of release the more creative members of the PC scene will have accounts with tons of in-game currency and/or the best cards available in the mode. There was also a bit of a lackluster showing of Anthem, the new game from Bioware that's poised to be EA/Bioware's Destiny. I enjoyed having the developers speak, but I didn't come away feeling like I have any idea if Bioware is making a game that I would expect and want from Bioware vs simply aping the model of Destiny. We also got a tease of Respawn's Star Wars game, with studio head Vince Zampella revealing the name (Jedi Fallen Order) and that it would be set between Episodes 3 and 4. No gameplay or trailer was shown, just a name given and a release date of "Holiday 2019" that I would already bet is actually more like "Spring 2019." Finally, the Star Wars Battlefront II team from DICE addressed overhauls to progression and upcoming content updates, saying on stage they got things wrong at release. It was nice to hear, but I'd bet all the money in my pocket against all the money in yours that NO ONE at DICE made the business decisions that led to Battlefront II launching with the broken, exploitative progression system and loot box set-up they took so much heat for. EA's CEO, Andrew Wilson, was there to say all kinds of nice things about the upcoming line-up, it would have been better to see him eat just a bite of humble pie for the disastrous decisions behind Battlefront II.
Sunday was a much better day, with Microsoft and Bethesda having strong presentations outlining defined futures for their companies. Microsoft touted 50 games being shown and equally impressive numbers of "world premieres" and "exclusives" even if those phrases mean less and less and the market changes. Of the 50 games shown, the things I'm excited for are: Gears Tactics, an Xcom inspired strategy and tactics game in the Gears of War universe, Crackdown 3, which was delayed again until February 2019 but still looks like the open world toy box you want from Crackdown, And Forza Horizon 4, which brings changing seasons to the open world driving franchise. Some other announcements got my attention, like Chis Avellone writing Dying Light 2, a sequel whose predecessor didn't connect with me at all, very good trailers for Tunic, Shadow of the Tomb Raider, and Metro Exodus. Microsoft also announced they were beefing up their 1st party studio portfolio by acquiring 5 new studios, including Playground Games (Forza Horizon), Undead Labs (State of Decay franchise), and Ninja Theory who released the underrated Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice last year. Even if some of the big reveals didn't connect with me (Devil May Cry 5, Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice), it was a strong showing for a company that's been on the defensive since the poor reveal and launch of the Xbox One. They ended with a trailer for CD Projekt Red's Cyberpunk 2077. That game has a look and a tone already that I'm into to the degree I'm almost prepared to say "Show me no more until I can download it and play it myself."
Bethesda spent the first half of their event covering the bases they needed to: service games like Elder Scrolls Online and Elder Scrolls Legends (both of which I enjoy!) got stage time to mention upcoming content or changes, but those types of games see updates and changes so frequently that their communities are better served by dedicated streams or community events. Quake Champions is still alive and being supported. Wolfenstein; Youngblood was announced as more Wolfenstein, focused on BJ Blaskowitz's now grown twin daughters. Pete Hines also announced a VR Wolfenstein title, "Wolfenstein Cyberpilot" that is part of their "never ending mission to bring the message of 'Fuck Nazis' to every platform possible." Todd Howard then spent 30 minutes or so doing what I wish Bioware had done for Anthem, explaining what the game would be and how it would differ from prior, mainline Fallout experiences. I'm eager to play with friends after seeing what they had to say. And then they teased Starfield and The Elder Scrolls 6, which I'm imagining won't be actual products until 2020 and 2022, respectively.
Square Enix kicked off Monday with a video presentation. They showed almost nothing new that interested me; I was already going to play Shadow of the Tomb Raider, Dragon Quest XI, and Octopath Traveler. It was still nice to see trailers for them. The Quiet Man was the only intriguing new thing to me, and even then I have no idea what the brief mixed live action/gameplay thing they showed was or what the game actually is. That's not a bad thing – sometimes a "teaser" does its job by "teasing" you with what may be.
Ubisoft had a typical Ubisoft presentation, opening with a dancing panda bear accompanied by a marching band. I could tell you it was to promote the latest entry in the Just Dance series, but would it matter? It was still a dancing panda bear and marching band and was wonderfully weird with or without context. Beyond Good and Evil 2 made an appearance with an impressive trailer and some pre-alpha footage. Less impressive was the announcement of a partnership with Hit Record to crowdsource assets for the game. Don't do spec work, and multibillion dollar companies should pay the people who make their products. Also worth mentioning, The Division 2 got its first extended trailer after an earlier appearance of gameplay at Microsoft. I enjoyed aspects of The Division, and it sounds like the dev team is aware of less than stellar aspects of that game that were a drag, i.e. bullet sponge enemies. I have incredibly mixed feelings on The Division 2; the trailer includes the phrase "America is on the verge of collapse," and, like, maybe read the room in a nation hurtling towards being a fascist police state? Also, when your game explicitly focuses on a world where government-sanctioned agents operate as an ad hoc paramilitary organization, it's disingenuous at best for the developers to say the game is "apolitical." On the other hand, the shooting feels good and the loot treadmill sure was rewarding in the original The Division. It's out on March 15th, 2019, so maybe the impacts of the repeal of the US's net neutrality protections will be clear by then and help me make up my mind about playing an on-line only game. The pirate game Skull and Bones had a significant presence and looks intriguing since it's the boat combat from Assassin's Creed Black Flag turned into its own game. Assassin's Creed Odyssey also got a full reveal and while I was looking forward to more time to complete AC: Origins, that game was so good I'll happily play the next entry.
Sony embodied the feeling of "something for everyone, but maybe not a lot for me" I felt during a lot of E3. They opened with The Last of Us 2 which is 100% my jam. The trailer/demo they showed opened with protagonist Ellie at a barn party for her community, clearly watching another young woman dancing with some guy. The music shifts to a slower song, and Ellie and her crush, Dina, then dance, having a genuine moment that showcases developer Naughty Dog's ability to do human interaction, emotion, and storytelling better than almost any other AAA developer. There's a kiss that's impressive in its techincal aspects and in Sony any Naught Dog being willing to show an openly queer character as the lead for their major tentpole release, and it fades into black and returns with a 7-8 minute gameplay section highlighting stealth and combat. Animations are fluid and natural, and the attacks, be they up close stabbings or gunshots, appear to have a weight behind them. It's technically impressive, but I worry about the balance between the story and character moments I enjoy from a Naught Dog game and these frankly brutal sequences of intense gore and violence and how they'll be balanced. While I have those doubts, the trailers ends by returning to Dina and Ellie, with Dina making a comment to Ellie that resonates in the context of the two contrasting scenes and Ellie's facial expression changing in an amazingly natural way, both in terms of the technical animation aspect and in the context of the small story we've seen play out. On the "fun violence!" side of the scale is the PS4 exclusive Spider-Man game that looks like a ton of fun with plenty of combat powers to explore and combine in protecting New York. Other big Sony exclusives Ghost of Tsushima and Death Stranding (from Hideo Kojima of Metal Gear fame) look technically impressive but just do nothing for me in terms of story or gameplay.
Nintendo closed the presentation part of the show the same way EA kicked it off: disappointingly, at least for me. They did confirm a new Fire Emblem title is coming to Switch in Spring of 2019, which is great news, along with a remake/rerelease of The World Ends With You. Mario Tennis Aces and Octopath Traveler are out this month, and Captain Toad; Treasure Tracker hits for Switch in July. The rest of the show was mostly focused on Super Smash Brothers Ultimate, the latest entry in the Smash Brothers series. I have zero interest in Smash Brothers, and a good 30 minutes of the presentation were dedicated to revealing the entire roster – all 64 characters – and going into the minutia of every kind of change you could make to a fighting game. Details abounded about action animations and stages returning and new costumes for fighters and oh god please make it stop.
Games are for everyone. Not every game is for every person. I'm glad I saw a number of things I can be excited about, and I hope the people who really love other franchises and styles of games get what they want from the titles that spoke to them. But boy am I excited for Cyberpunk 2077.
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