#especially when it's one I only just recently got reacquainted with but is so popular in the public consciousness

[lover-cook]

I've been thinking about Sanji still and the nuances of him as a f/o So I'm going to talk about it <3 The thing is. In my head his personality Absolutely leans more on his characterization in the Live Action but mixed with his original characterization in the manga and anime. Cause I read some of the manga in highschool but dropped off because I was borrowing the manga volumes from a friend who I had a falling out with so I never really continued! BUT THEN The live action adaptation got announced and I got rehooked instantly. And I had already liked the Strawhat Crew from the little bit I got to read but I didn't get the chance to really get attached. The live action changed that ALOT. Maybe it had to do with it not being connected to reading them as fast as I could and being able to enjoy them from a different point of view but I LOVED IT! And I particularly enjoyed Sanji! He was a character I liked well enough and found interesting but wasn't the highest on my list, probably because I didn't get very long with him! The most I remembered about him was the circumstances of meeting him, his backstory, and that he was a flirt. But OHHHHHH Did the liveaction make me think about him more. Not that I don't enjoy his manga and anime portrayal, when he's not being played for jokes I REALLY LIKE HIM <3 I haven't gotten that far in the anime but I hope that that element dies down after the time skip? Nothing against Nami lmao I adore her I think this is just the like. Second character that I've genuinely been uncomfortable/not a fan of shipping with a specific characters (Also looking at Red Son and how I feel about Dragon Fruit shipping) I'm glad to see that that element has been toned down for the most part while keeping that flirty gentlemenly side to Sanji that I really really love. And I think that's why I like the concept of my selfship with him being a mix of both portrayals, blending the elements I enjoy from both! Like for example I LOVE the way Sanji flirting is portrayed in the liveaction compared to how it's show in the anime with overthetop feminizing comedic stuff. But on the other side I actually really like the standoffish toughguy facade he puts on in the anime lmao.(Again gestures to Red Son) And I also want to do that with him visually!! Trying to mix how he's drawn in the manga/anime and the features his actor has in the live action (ie wavey hair, face shape, tongue peircing, etc) It's been.. fun! Being able to mix and match and take all of my headcanons into account and make a version of him that has all the stuff i love <3

[claudia1829things]

"HOMEFRONT" RETROSPECT: (1.01) "S.N.A.F.U."

"HOMEFRONT" RETROSPECT: (1.01) "S.N.A.F.U." There are only a handful of television shows that I am very emotional about. There are only a handful that I consider to be among the best I have ever seen on the small screen. One of them happened to be the 1991-1993 ABC series, "HOMEFRONT". Not only do I view it as one of the few television series that turned out to be consistently first-rate from beginning to end, it also has one of the best pilot episodes I have ever seen.

"HOMEFRONT" followed the lives and experiences of a handful of citizens in the fictional town in Ohio, right after the end of World War II. In fact, its pilot episode, (1.01) "S.N.A.F.U." picks up not long after the war finally ended with Japan's surrender. Army war veterans Hank Metcalf and Charles "Charlie" Hailey are in New York City, awaiting a train to take them home to River Run, Ohio. Hank is unaware that his longtime girlfriend, Sarah Brewer, has been dating his younger brother Jeff, while he was overseas. And Charlie has an unpleasant surprise for his longtime girlfriend and fiancée, Ginger Szabo - he has married a British woman named Caroline. Other surprises loomed for some of the citizens of River Run. Hank's sister, Linda, had been dating his and Charlie's friend, Mike Sloan, before war. Yet, unbeknownst to her, he has married an Italian woman named Gina, who is also a survivor of the Holocaust. Both Linda and her mother, Anne Metcalf, employees at Sloan Industries during the war, were unceremoniously fired with other women employees to make room for returning male veterans. And the Sloans' chauffeur and housekeeper, Abe and Gloria Davis, receive a surprise in the return of their son Robert from the war. They are even further surprised by his embittered attitude toward the racism he had encountered in the Army and that a job as janitor awaits him at the Sloans' factory. I really do not know what to say about "S.N.A.F.U.". I had never paid much attention to it, when I last saw "HOMEFRONT" on TVLAND, during the summer of 2000. After my recent viewing of the episode, I cannot understand how I could have ever ignored it in the first place. Not only is "S.N.A.F.U." an outstanding episode, I now realize it is one of the best in the series. Is it the best? I have no idea. I would have to become reacquainted with the other forty-one episodes. I will say this for "S.N.A.F.U." - the screenplay written by Lynn Marie Latham and Bernard Lechowick could easily compete with the 1946 movie, "THE BEST YEARS OF OUR LIVES" in regard to a narrative about World War II U.S. servicemen returning home. Not surprising, Latham and Lechowick's transcript won the Writers Guild of America Award for Best Original Long Form in Television. In a way, I can see why this episode strongly reminded me of "THE BEST YEARS OF OUR LIVES". For an episode that mainly focused on the return of River Run's U.S. servicemen, it seemed filled with a good deal of bitterness, despair and a surprising tragedy. Discrimination seemed prevalent in this episode. The Metcalf women - Anne and her daughter Linda - lost their wartime jobs at the Sloan Industries because owner Michael Sloan decided women were no longer needed as employees, due to the war's end. On the other hand, the episode revealed Robert Davis' bitterness over the racism he encountered in the U.S. Army. This bitterness carried over when he discovered that the promised job at Sloan Industries turned out to be a janitor. "S.N.A.F.U." featured one interesting scene regarding both the racism and sexism faced by some of the characters. In one scene, while office manager Sam Schenkkan fires Linda, he hires Robert for the janitor job. The emotional response expressed by both Robert and Linda proved to be very interesting. Bigotry against foreigners and anti-Semitism reared its ugly head in a story line that featured the Sloans' discovery that their only son, Michael Sloan Jr., had married an Italian-Jewish woman and Holocaust survivor named Gina. Most of the episode featured the couple trying to find a way to annul their son's marriage before his return. Romance certainly proved to be a problem in "S.N.A.F.U.". Both Linda and her best friend, Ginger Szabo, expected to resume their romances with respective boyfriends upon their return from the war. Linda, who was in love with Mike Jr., learned about his marriage to Gina, upon the latter's arrival to Ohio. And Ginger, who had been engaged to her longtime boyfriend Charlie Hailey, discovered he had married a young British woman named Caroline, while stationed overseas. And Caroline, as this episode later revealed, will prove to be a handful throughout the series' run. Thwarted romance also struck another member of the Metcalf family. While Anne Metcalf's oldest offspring, Hank, was fighting in Europe during the war; his younger brother Jeff got caught up in an unexpected romance with Hank's girlfriend and fiancée, Sarah Brewer. Both Jeff and Sarah had decided she would break her engagement with Hank, so that both could declare their love for one another. However, Jeff found himself at the losing end of the lollipop when Sarah decided to remain with Hank. I have seen my share of movies about war veterans returning home. But I have never come across so much aborted romances and betrayal in one production in my life. And yet . . . Latham and Lechowick, along with the actors and actresses who portrayed these characters, made all of this romantic entanglements and betrayals seem emotionally true, instead of the usual second-rate melodrama. If I must be honest, I believe "S.N.A.F.U." is a prime example of what made "HOMEFRONT" one of the best television shows I have ever seen. Like the other 41 episodes that followed, "S.N.A.F.U." explored the post-World War II world with a skillful mixture of drama, melodrama, romance, history, comedy and some action. To be honest, no action was featured in "S.N.A.F.U.". But it did manifest in a few episodes during the series' two-year run. I also have to comment on Latham and Lechowick's exploration of racism, sexism, class and other issues in such a seamless, yet believable manner. I can only think of one or two other television shows that managed to achieve this . . . even to this day. And the more I realize this, I cannot help but wonder if most of today's television producers are incapable of dealing with more than one or two particular issues. If this is true, then "HOMEFRONT" managed to achieve something rare that may never happen again. The excellent writing featured in "S.N.A.F.U." could have come to nothing without the first-rate cast for this show. I tried to think of a performance that seemed out of place or just plain ineffective. But I could not. Everyone gave it their all, including the likes of Kyle Chandler, Tammy Lauren, Dick Anthony Williams, David Newsome, Ken Jenkins, Harry O'Reilly and Hattie Winston. But there were a handful of performances that especially impressed me. I once read that when A.B.C. eventually cancelled "HOMEFRONT" after two seasons, Mimi Kennedy had broke into tears in the privacy of her dressing room. If this is true, I can understand why. I think that the role of Ruth Sloan, the haughty and blunt-speaking wife of industrialist Michael Sloan Sr. may have been the best in her career. I have always been amazed at how she conveyed both the unpleasant and sympathetic aspects of Ruth. I also enjoyed Sterling Macer's performance as the embittered Robert Davis - especially in this episode. There is one scene in which the returning veteran is being welcomed home by his happy mother, grandmother and their friends, while he sits at the kitchen table trying . . . and failing to share their happiness. With very few words and his eyes, Macer skillfully conveyed Robert's unhappy memories of the Army and his eventual inability to share his family's happiness over his return. Another performance that caught my attention came from Jessica Steen, who portrayed Linda Metcalf - middle child and only daughter of Anne Metcalf. Looking back on it, I believe Steen had a difficult job in this episode. Her emotions seemed to be all over the place, due to what she had experienced in "S.N.A.F.U." - brother Hank's return, anticipating Mike Sloan Jr.'s return, discovering Mike's marriage to an Italian war refugee, dealing with best friend Ginger Szabo's anger over Charlie Bailey and losing her job. And yet . . . she kept it all together with some first-rate acting skills. I was impressed by one last performance and it came from Sammi Davis (1987's "HOPE AND GLORY") as Charlie Bailey's war bride, Caroline Bailey. Caroline has never been a popular character with the show's fans. Many found her selfish and manipulative. I had also felt the same. But . . . I also recalled that Caroline was such an interesting character, thanks to Davis' excellent performance. And at times, I also found her likable. I certainly found her very likable in "S.N.A.F.U.". The scheming manipulator revealed her claws in her effort to regain the down payment Charlie had given to a landlord, who welshed on them and I cheered. I also understood her anger and confusion from Ginger's hostile attitude toward her, especially since she obviously had no idea why Ginger was being rude. What else can I say about "S.N.A.F.U."? That it was a superb premiere for a first-rate series like "HOMEFRONT"? I have noticed that most television shows with excellent pilot episodes tend to go downhill by the end of the first season or the beginning of the second. Fortunately, this never happened with "HOMEFRONT". Like "S.N.A.F.U.", it remained an excellent piece of television entertainment throughout its two-year run. And it is a damn pity that the entire series has not been released on DVD.

[entergamingxp]

Persona 5 Royal is Already Taking My Heart

February 17, 2020 10:00 AM EST

The upcoming re-release for Atlus’s wildly popular Persona 5 is shaping up to be a unique experience featuring tons of bonus content.

Persona 5, a title many JRPG fans are familiar with, took the gaming world by storm when it first launched back in 2016 and 2017. Now with the Western launch of its re-release, Persona 5 Royal, on the horizon, how is this new version looking to stack up? So far so good, as I discovered playing through a preview build of the game at a recent event. The preview was separated into four sections: discovery of new features in the game, brand new gameplay sections to the Kamoshida Palace boss battle, the new area Kichijoji during your first visit, and Kichijoji at night during free time.

It was exciting, delving into Royal for the first time. The redone start screen animation features Joker swinging in using his grappling hook, one of the new features that will play an important role in dungeon exploration. The graphics themselves, I noticed, were also much cleaner and crisper. This is surely because, unlike vanilla Persona 5 which was developed originally for and still catered to the PS3, Persona 5 Royal is completely optimized for the PS4.

“It was exciting, delving into Royal for the first time.”

Voice acting is still absolutely solid and the returning cast nails the new dialogue. Every added scene sounds completely natural and in character, as if they were part of vanilla P5 from the start. This is no mean feat considering there’s a three-year gap in between the original game and its updated re-release.

Naturally, when it came to exploring the first dungeon, I decided to meander around before getting to the point, but it made discovering the new mechanics that much more satisfying. Admittedly it was also nice to stretch my proverbial P5 muscles and get reacquainted with both the combat system and dungeon exploration in general.

In those avenues, it plays just as I remembered. You can avoid encounters by paying attention to enemy locations on the mini-map while hiding behind objects as foes pass by. This is also the best way to sneak up on and ambush enemies and gain the advantage once a battle is initiated. During any given encounter, you can weaponize the One More system to take advantage of enemy weaknesses and gain extra turns.

Something else I was pleasantly reminded of is P5’s excellent UI as it allows players to instantly choose between several options without wasting time cycling through them, making fights far more efficient. I appreciate these quality of life changes as an avid JRPG player who’s more than impatient when sorting through options takes too long solely because of sluggish UI and sloppy menu design.

Persona Negotiations are naturally back, a resurrection of the Demon Negotiations system used in both mainline Shin Megami Tensei titles and the first and second Persona games. Negotiating with a persona is fun and an excellent way to recruit new Personae to your party (versus doing so with cards in Persona 3 and 4) but as someone coming from more hardcore Megaten titles, it’s much easier to gain their favor in comparison. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing as it takes out a lot of the RNG induced frustration of negotiations, knowing that if you make the right choices, you’ll be rewarded the vast majority of the time.

Guns also make a comeback although they work a bit differently here. Unlike in Persona Revelations and both Persona 2 titles, you can fire off multiple rounds in a single turn but at the cost of a hard ammo limit per dungeon run. It’s an interesting give and take of dealing stacked damage with a limited resource.

Then there’s the Baton Pass mechanic. When the currently active character has gained One More turn by scoring a critical hit or exploiting the enemy’s weakness, the player can choose another party member who also has Baton Pass to pass the turn to them. The one receiving the turn has his/her attack and recovery power boosted for that turn. And if they score another One More, they can then pass on their turn to another ally, further increasing the power of the boost. It’s a great way to increase the damage output in a single turn and allows for more strategic depth and maneuvering.

One mechanic brand new to Persona 5 Royal that I was able to try out is the grappling hook. It’s been integrated into dungeon exploration, which opens up brand new areas to explore. The controls are surprisingly tight and simple as players only need to approach specially designed hooks and then press L1 to activate the hook. In my demo, Joker was immediately pulled up and then landed on a balcony like section with little issue.

While I enjoyed having a new exploration mechanic available to me (it’s very sleek and suits the aesthetic of the game well), it would have been an even more solid addition if players had more freedom in its use. Although it technically opened up new areas, they’re still predetermined areas. I would have killed to have freer exploration that opened up alternative routes to traverse dungeons, such as being able to swing around barriers and above enemies.

Using the grappling hook, I came across a secluded balcony and room. Inside this room is another new feature of Royal: Will Seeds, a term Morgana coined for these mysterious items. According to his explanation, distortions that occur in Palaces due to their rulers’ cognitions gather and coalesce into the form of a Will Seed. Each Palace has three seeds scattered throughout. You can view the ones collected so far through the map menu. Each one is named after the vice that the particular Palace is fashioned after. For instance, Kamoshida’s Will Seeds are known as Lust Seeds. When you find a seed, your party’s health is partially recovered.

After the dungeon, I was able to try out the new inclusions to Kamoshida’s infamous boss battle. The original P5 fight involved a cognitive that took the form of a cartoonishly sexualized Ann, representing how he views her. In Royal, we have the addition of two more cognitives: Yuuki Mishima and Ann’s friend, Shiho Suzui. Their involvement makes perfect sense and flows well, turning what was previously a somewhat generic attack setup (his special spike attack) into a genuinely horrifying experience.

“[Kichijoji] is the perfect fit for Persona 5 Royal, as it makes for a great spot for the party members to hang out.”

In both cases, the player must make a decision whether to keep attacking Kamoshida and stop his special attack by dealing enough damage to him, or to switch targets and rush down Mishima and Shiho to prevent the attack that way. I chose the latter option, which is much more manageable, and defeated them both. It was by far the more emotionally taxing path, especially hearing Ann’s anguish at having to fight and hurt an image of her best friend.

Playing through vanilla Persona 5, the concept of adding in two more cognitives was one that didn’t cross my mind. Royal showed me what avenues can be explored in these boss battles and how these additions tied in much closer to each bosses’ arc. It also made me aware of how more intimate and gripping each battle can become as a result.

My only gripe is that I wish Shiho’s segment was longer and more interwoven in the boss battle’s mechanics, considering how important a role she plays in the story proper. However, Mishima’s short segment is a more than accurate representation since Kamoshida sees him as so completely insignificant that he wouldn’t have much of an impact in his Palace.

My time with Persona 5 Royal also introduced me to Kichijoji and its new features. In real life, Kichijoji is a compact but very popular commercial area in Tokyo with a full range of shops, restaurants, bars, and coffee houses. This means that this area is the perfect fit for Persona 5 Royal, as it makes for a great spot for the party members to hang out.

When Kichijoji opens up, the protagonist, Ryuji, and Morgana explore the area for the first time. It’s a nice bonding moment between the two and Ryuji fans will be pleased with the extra scenes starring the dim-witted yet lovable friend and comrade. As a little bonus, there are a few scenes with Makoto tailing the three as they walk around the neighborhood, a nice detail that tied in this segment to the main story well.

You can choose to speak to the information attendant to learn more about the area, shops, and hangout spots. Speaking with her gives the protagonist a bonus in his Knowledge stat, which is nice. There’s also ample time to wander around and explore the vendors and items unique to this area until you reach the Darts Lounge that Ryuji has been raving about the whole time.

The Darts Longue is a place home to two mini-games: darts and billiards. Upon your first visit, you automatically play darts with Ryuji, netting even more scenes with him. This ends with a boost to his Baton Pass rank, giving bonuses to damage output and HP recovery. Morgana then points out that while the first visit to Kichijoji is free, any subsequent visits after will cost train fare.

Kichijoji is also one of the few areas explorable during nighttime, making it a very useful resource for boosting Baton ranks. The train fare is 200 yen, which is more than reasonable at this point in the game. You also need an additional 800 yen to choose between a session of darts or billiards, a slightly steeper asking price.

“While I wasn’t able to play through the full assortment of new content that Persona 5 Royal has to offer, what I got my hands on is so far quite promising.”

For this next session, I went with billiards and chose to invite my teammates to play with me. Once the game is finished you receive a boost to Charm. If you invited your comrades, it gives boosts to their Confidant ranking as well. The first time you play billiards, a man approaches and recommends a book called Expert Billiards that’s found in a specialty shop versus a normal bookstore.

However, choosing darts again reveals the playable mini-game in which you start by choosing between the 301, 501, or 701 ruleset. The controls are interesting yet work surprisingly well once you get the hang of them. You aim with R2 in the general direction you want the dart to go in. A white dot appears and automatically moves in the section that you designated and once it’s in the exact spot you want, you flick the controller forward — taking advantage of the motion controls — to fire off the dart. Depending on whether you called in teammates or are playing alone, you either switch between them (with that character being AI controlled) or continue to play each round on your own until you bring your score to 0.

Kichijoji is overall a great addition to the game, adding in new items, shops, events, opportunities for stat bonuses, and more. It’s integrated well, feeling like a natural extension of the after school activities available to the main character. Not to mention, it being available as a night activity makes the new area an even more desirable choice.

While I wasn’t able to play through the full assortment of new content that Persona 5 Royal has to offer, what I got my hands on is so far quite promising. Despite its minor drawbacks, the developers clearly worked hard integrating these enhancements and I look forward to seeing the full range of surprises that this remaster game has to offer.

Persona 5 Royal will release later this spring on March 31, 2020, exclusively for PS4.

February 17, 2020 10:00 AM EST

from EnterGamingXP https://entergamingxp.com/2020/02/persona-5-royal-is-already-taking-my-heart/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=persona-5-royal-is-already-taking-my-heart