#even those have that lol and they also build on the classic titles with newer titles and materials

[maximkischin-e]

honestly it's just a shame i am positive a good chunk of netflix fans might actually really like the games. whose spreading rumours that theres "no story no characterization" it's right there. like admittedly sometimes you do gotta dig into it to really find the meat but it's definitely like right there

[woolieshubris]

OKAY im going to preface rant with this- 1) i know none of yall know this game cuz while its popular enough to get a series, its not really popular enough to be part of the general consciousness 2) I've only played the 3rd and 4th installments, so I dont have an extensive knowledge on the series. What I'd want to see in Girls Mode 5 (Aka, style savvy 4, or new style boutique 4) 1) UPDATED TEXTURES. this game has been going on since the DS days, and they just port the old clothes into the new games to pad out the inventory. It's nice because it means you can pretty much move on to the new games with little to no regrets, however the textures on the 3ds XL screen, and emulator (because emulator is the only way to get HD screenshots lol rip) are really really nasty. It's super pixelly but not in a nostalgic way, and it clashes heavily with the newer textures and clothes, making it harder to coordinate outfits. The new game would be coming out on the switch, so the old textures would be even more noticeable when on a TV. You don't need to update the models itself, just the textures on the models. 2) KEEP THE MINI PLOTS. GM 4 has a really cute system with the characters, making it so a handful of them have reoccurring stories and plots! (Not every single one of the characters, because there are tons). I really like this, and it genuinely makes me play day after day. 3) FIX THE DAYS SYSTEM. GM 3 had a day system similar to animal crossing, where the stores and story would only update on a day by day basis. I liked the stores only updating once a day (made it less overwhelming to check for new clothing) but the story progression was longer. GM 3 did have less plot to follow however, so it made more sense. GM 4 has a day system typical of life sim games, where you go to sleep when you run out of tasks to do for the day. I like this system because it doesn't limit the things you can do in one play session, and it can make the story more engaging. It also updates the stores more often, making it easier to 100% and collect all of the clothes, however, it makes the game less engaging over time, and doesn't give an incentive to play day after day. I think a mix between the two could create a more interesting game, but I'm not sure how they would go about doing that. There are pros and cons to each system. 4) BRING BACK RAINBOW Rainbow was a character in GM 3, where by taking screenshots of the game and showing them to her, she would find and unlock hidden colors. I really like this mechanic and think it is interesting, even though it can be a bit tedious at times. Maybe a system where instead of you showing the pictures, she automatically tells you if you unlocked them + shows you the photo that unlocked it? 5) REMOVE OR CHANGE THE DESIGN CLOTHES The main gimmick of GM 4 was designing your own clothes. The game doesn't really push you to do it at all, and the clothes they have you design don't match the clothes already in the game. Most of these "customization" options in games aren't actually that useful and I personally just ignore them in favor of prebuilt pretty clothes. I think either changing it so that certain clothes can be recolored by you/dyed, or changing it so that you can recycle clothes into new ones would be interesting, and a good way to add the mechanic to future games. 6) CHANGE THE BUILDING EDITING SYSTEM. GM 3 and GM 4 both struggle with a clunky furniture moving system. The design is similar to happy house designer, however the menus feel clunky to navigate through and are overall more difficult to use. I think revamping it a bit to make it smoother would be the way to go. GM 3 had a dollhouse theme, and so changing the furniture and collecting new pieces was referred to as collecting miniatures, which I liked. 7) INCLUDE MORE STYLES OF CLOTHING. One of the biggest draws of the GM series, that brought me to it specifically, was the subculture themed clothing! They have punk/emo, classic/sweet lolita, gothic lolita, "retro", preppy, decora kei, and probably more. Adding more styles, such

as Mori, would be a good move for the series, and also a good way to market it to a young teen demographic, especially as dress up games become more popular. 8) REMOVE/CHANGE THE BOHO-CHIC ITEMS. A lot of the boho-chic items in the game are actually just culturally appropriated from native americans, which while true to the style it is trying to emulate, is a bit weird to see, and could cause controversy later in the line. This game is made by a japanese company and translated to english, so I understand why they are still in a game that came out in 2017 but still, it isn't a great look for nintendo. 9) ALLOW YOURSELF TO CHANGE YOUR PERSONA LATER IN THE GAME. In GM 4 and 3, at the start of the game, you get to design a character and choose facial features, skintone and height. You should be able to edit the character later in the game, possibly through settings or something. Fixed character customization is a bit of an outdated thing anyways, with most modern games allowing you to change your avatar as much as you want. 10) CHANGE ONLINE PLAY. Currently, in GM 3 and 4, online play usually consists of sharing the building and your personas outfit. I think there should be less of an emphasis of sharing the building, and more emphasis on sharing outfits, since that is what the game centers around. Obviously the boutique interior is the place you are going to see the most in the game, but focusing on outfits you have created makes more sense for the series and genre. There are more additions/changes to the series that I'd like to see, such as a larger male catalogue/allowing to pick a male avatar, a range of body types, LGBT rep, or disability rep, however, I know those are mostly too much to ask for a light hearted dress up game RPG made for a young female demographic, sadly. I think marketing the game largely to young teens on platforms such as instagram and tiktok, and emphasizing the subculture styles such as punk and y2k would be a great marketing strategy, especially since those demographics are flocking to online dress up browser games that have a similar focus. Promoting the shareability of the ingame outfits by having an easy/quick to use photo booth and an easy way to crop the photos/videos to fit a phone format would also be a great way to have the game spread through word of mouth. Of course, nintendo can kind of suck at marketing their games, especially more obscure titles like this, so I don't expect most or really any of this to happen.

[hellzyeahthewebwieldingavenger]

Spider-Man 2099 v4 #1 and 2099 Omega Thoughts

This is literally the third time I’ve purchased a comic book called Spider-Man 2099 #1 in 5 years. Technically more if we include reprints. Isn’t that kind of ridiculous?

Fun fact, I wasn’t buying any comics (sans some pre-OMD Spidey and Deadpool Classic trades) between 2009 and 2014. It was the 2014 Spidey 2099 run that got me back into the game, for good or ill.

This issue wasn’t nearly as good at series. And Omega was…lol…it was so bad and essentially an extension of Spidey 2099 I’m covering them together.

I remember fondly my hype when I saw Miguel in ASM v5 #25 and my hype for this one shot, back when I didn’t realize it was just part of a larger event.

Oh boy did this let me down.

Let me start with some superficial praise.

The art for Spidey 2099 and Sandoval on Omega were decent. And there was some interesting ideas pertaining to the world of the future, such as the removal of money and instead having everyone’s value depend upon what they can contribute. A society built upon meritocrisy, albeit with harsh reprisals if you can contribute little. Also the idea of corporations fixing things so only insiders can gain employment speaks to the corporatocracy  of the 2099 universe (one severely undermined when we consider Doom is ultimately in charge anyway…). People intentionally using drugs to keep up their work productivity is another great idea, and a genuinely interesting twist upon the original depiction of the rapture drug from Spidey 2099 v1 #1.  Finally people essentially enabling identity theft in exchange for drugs was an interesting sci-fi concept.

But beyond that…this was bad.

When I began covering this event proper with 2099 Alpha my dominant critique was ‘who is this for’.

A reboot of the 2099 line over 20 years since the original line ended and less than 3 years since the revival of it ended? A reboot intended to modernize the 1990s’ take on the future, a take that frankly proved 99% accurate anyway. And finally a reboot that alternated between doing spotty world building, killing off new characters, tie-ins to modern canon events and most of the time communicated its ideas in confusing and baffling ways.

I put forward that it was doomed to displease the old 2099 fans like me because it was erasing what we knew and loved. But it was also so poorly communicating its rebooted vision that new people were going to be alienated.

I’m only slightly going to backtrack on what I said. Because the Punisher 2099 issue was if you like the greatest argument in favour of the reboot. It wasn’t just the best issue in this mess, it was a bona fide awesome story just in general. It actually dived into an aspect of futuristic sci-fi that the 1990s 2099 series (to my knowledge) would’ve struggled to cover as it pertained so much to 2010s life and technology.

More poignantly though, the problem with this event is that there was no over arching vision between the titles. Not every one shot had the same problems but they all in different ways displayed problems that smacked into the very premise of this event.

F4 2099 was literally pointless as it spent a whole issue introducing a new F4 then killed them.

Conan 2099 could’ve been virtually the same if Conan was like 20 years in the future not this new future we rebooted.

Arguably Punisher 2099 relied upon familiarity with the Jake Galloway Punisher 2099 before it subverted your expectations.

Ghost Rider 2099 was fun but the writer clearly LIKED the original take on the character to the point where he essentially minimized changes to the rebooted version making the act of rebooting the character pointless in the first place and failing the mission statement of the event.

Venom 2099 was a weird tie-in for Cates current Venom mega arc involving Knull that was nonsensical as it proposes that Knull is still en route to Earth and thus in theory there is no tension in Cates’ run. Moreover it wasn’t much of a futuristic take on Venom himself and fundamentally hurt as there was no Spider-Man for Venom to act as a dark reflection of.

Doom 2099 in fairness had a cool twist, but a cool twist that didn’t make sense in and of itself and was also reliant upon familiarity with the original 1990s character.

And then we come to these issues.

These issues I’m sad to say just absolutely fundamentally fail conceptually.

He’s incredibly passive and very bland as a character so newer fans coming in with no knowledge or attachment to the Miguel O’Hara of old are unlikely to warm to him. His defining trait is being someone who cares enough about the suffering of others that he will not actively take part in it, but will also not actively do anything to help like his brother Gabe. This is then set up for his brother to die, cue a less good retread of Peter Parker’s origin story but minus much action of Miggy in costume. On paper the idea of a guy experiencing Peter’s ultimate failure and from this being motivated to OBTAIN super powers is interesting but it’s just not examined all that much in the story. What I’m saying is at a time when there is a sea of Spider-Heroes to read about on the stands this version of Miguel O’Hara is lame, derivative and the execution of his character half-hearted.

Then on the other hand you have the older fans’ perspectives. Obviously old Spidey 2099 fans are unlikely to take to this new version just on principle. But when you realize you lost the old character for THIS guy…oh boy does that sting.

Original recipe Miguel O’Hara was cool because he zigged where Peter zagged. He was kind of an asshole, but one with limits on how little he cared. And he became more heroic over time, but never the same type of hero as Peter. And above all he was a sarcastic, sardonic, cynic who you could tell was thinking ‘I can’t even with this Spider-Shit right now’. Case in point, he was okay with straight up killing opponents. He was more unique and much more compelling than this version, as were his cast. Lyla is basically the Aunt May of this story and not the source of humour that she was even in the first 3 issues of the 1990s run. She also lacks her iconic Monroe look, and isn’t even consistent with how she looked in ASM v5 #35.

Losing a cool character for a lame one would be bad enough but then the story straight up invalidates both itself and the entire goddam event.

It does this by having the rebooted Miggy start to see visions of the pre-rebooted (prebooted?) 2099 timeline, meet an aged version of his prebooted self and then have even more flashes of the prebooted timeline. *

Wow…Just….Wow…

Let’s pretend that the vision of 2099 in this event was a temporary thing, an Age of Apocalypse or a House of M just for 2099 and the plan was always to go back to how it was before when the story wrapped up.

That makes this entire event pointless. See the reason AoA worked (and HoM in theory could have worked) is because it was a temporary change of pace.

That doesn’t apply to the 2099 line, a nostalgic, discontinued line of comics and characters that are unlikely to get a full on revival and who’s last attempt at a revival wrapped up over 2 years ago.

THIS event should’ve been a nostalgia trip for the old fans and a chance to introduce that line to a new generation. Instead it discarded the old in favour of something new which was seemingly intended to go nowhere.

Good job Marvel, any new fans you MIGHT have gotten hooked just got fucked over and people like me who pre-ordered this event thinking we were going to get the characters we knew and loved also got fucked over.

And in fact the entire exercise was an example of intentional redundancy.

Jesus fucking Christ.

Oh and it doesn’t make a lick of sense.

So Miguel was thrown back in time when his timeline was starting to be erased and replaced with the rebooted timeline, then he was erased in ASM v5 #34, which began this new rebooted timeline…but he is alive in it, remembers it, can give his past self visions from the old timeline...

…I’m a Doctor Who fan and that’s not any kind of wibbly wobbley timey whimey nonsense. It’s just regular ass nonsense, just like the Man-Spider monster Miguel encounters who repeats ouroboros to him, the same word ReedDoom said in the Doom 2099 issue. How and why would the Man-Spider creature say that to Miguel. How would prebooted Miguel know it said that? How and why would rebooted Miguel see Spidey 2099 in costume spray painting that?

Shit what the fuck does ouroboros even mean?????????

*one google search later*

A snake eating its tail as a symbol of endless infinity…what the fuck does that mean?

That Miguel makes himself Spider-Man 2099 always?

There was a cool idea in the Omega issue wherein we learn Doom essentially erased everyone’s memories with magic so they’d forget the Age of Heroes altogether, but the rise of the characters in the one shots represented that spell breaking down. Too bad it doesn’t add up given how Venom was always going to exist and existed SINCE the Age of Heroes and people obviously remember Thor as there is an entire tribe dedicated to him!**

However the Omega issue’s biggest sin is showing us how truly pointless most of the issues of this event were. Honest to God you only need to read Doom scenes from Alpha and then Spidey 2099 and Omega. Those are the only plot relevant issues out of this whole event.

Over all, these issues and this event have been a humungous, insulting disappointment. Check out some of the art but literally nothing else sans the Punisher.

*I mean if you want to get technical the 2099 universe has technically been rebooted multiple times. The version of it presented from 2013-2017 actually differed from the original 1990s version in various ways, e.g. Miguel’s love life panned out very differently. When I refer to the pre-rebooted/prebooted timeline I’m referring to the version from 2013-2017, just to be clear.

**There are other contradictions in these 2 issues as well, like how poverty and bad health have been erased but…we see they haven’t as there are multiple examples of both in the one shots.

[supergenial]

Top 8 Doujin Albums 2019

Hi everyone, Superthony Genialtano here the internet’s busiest doujin music nerd, and it’s time to bring out the yellow flannel for the yearly roundup that I completely forgot to do last year. Just a neat little list of my favorite doujin albums of the year.

I will include releases from last year’s winter comiket, and won’t include things from this year’s winter comiket though. As I always say: “If you want to be included in yearly rankings, then don’t release your shit in december”, much less in the very last 3 days of the year which is when winter comiket usually takes place. I will also simply list my favorite picks from the year without any kind of objective measuring or strict order, consider them to be placed at random as I do not believe in strict numeric rankings for music. Having said that, click below to continue on to the list and happy holidays to you all.

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

-Gensou Crisis by IRON ATTACK! (Metal)

As I often say, Iron Attack is very hit or miss, and this one's a complete hit. Ever since sadame yuku kamikaze they hadn’t made a song that truly wowed me but this time they went ahead and exceeded expectations not once, but 5 times. The eponymous Gensou Crisis, Nihon no Stage, Isekai Stage, Space Stage and Last Boss Stage are some of the better work they've ever done in my opinion. I also just like how the american stage is chock in the middle of Isekai Stage and Space Stage, like sure, that is a totally normal level progression, America is somehow more badass than a whole other world but not as much as space, sure. Just an awesome album, can easily recommend this one. 

(Also pretty funny that they tried to re-capture the glory of Nihon no Stage in their latest album, Japonism, but the results weren’t as good)

-Metatron by DJ DEPATH&M​-​Project (electronic, hardcore, rave) (Bandcamp)

Yeah, I listen to non-chu2 non-denpa stuff too, don't genreshame me. This album is a banger, just sick, can’t even call it a rollercoaster because it never slows down for any reason. Throughout it's longitudinal 16 tracks it keeps me hyped up, I'm parsing really hard to try and find a song to say something negative about but I just fucking cannot, these guys really went out and made an album with no lulls in it, just a full hour of non stop climax action, though to be fair it is a compilation of their older works so it had to be at least this good. Still, awesome, 10/10.

-Crimson of the Sleeping Princess by Elymusia (Gothic Metal) (Booth)

I was not expecting to fall so hard for this album but here we are. We've previously translated 2 songs from the album and will probably get around to doing the rest Someday. Tokeitou no majo, owari no hajimari and the eponymous song are all just absolutely amazing tracks among my favorites for the year. Sure, the eponymous does go on for a bit longer than it should, but I still listen to it entirely so that's quite a feat. Kuro no majo Athena is also a really cool track. Steam World and Tada Sore Dake no ohanashi, to be fair, are not amazing but at least they set the tone for the character Machina. The contrast of steampunk characters fighting gothic witches is a really good idea, so I dig it even if the shift from the first to second song is a bit jarring.

I also find it hilarious how in trying to go for an english name for 深紅の眠り姫(Crimson Sleeping Princess) they went and added two unnecessary words, but idk, it makes it funny so it’s cute. Overall great album, liked it from the beginning and it has only grown on me further. 

-Kyousou Rinne Roosen Renetto by Ariabl'eyeS (gothic) (translations)

The sequel to a classic. Anyone could've predicted this is one of my favorites for the year so there's really no surprise here. SUI's song is still a stand out for me, but the eponymous song is also pretty amazing. I really, really would've loved to attend the live as they told the audience beforehand to sing along with a certain part and I'm sure it would've felt so fucking powerful to be there, but we are but slaves to our own prisons in this life. Still, great album, also as far as Ariabl’eyeS goes this is actually their album with the least recycled tunes since automata, so good going for them on coming up with some new stuff every once in a while.

-SPD GAR 02 by Megarex Label (rave) (bandcamp)

I've had my eye on Megarex Label for a while since their Fugene albums, and they have not disappointed me yet. Just really exciting, new-sounding music. I was actually really debating myself on which was their better album of the year between SPD GAR 02 or NEONSTRIDE and I ultimately went with this one but it's a pretty good sign when a group can put out two amazing records within a single year, even if to be fair it's a collaboration between several music producers and talents. Speaking of putting out too many records in one year-

-Mugen Ayakashi Yakou by Hatsuki Yura (neo-japanese) (lyrics)

Look, Onyx Veil was an amazing album, sure, I like basically every song in it, sure. BUT I ASK: does it have Yura singing about taking lives with her demon blade? In a duet song with a cool male voice for the sword? No? Didn't think so. Therefore, Ayakashi Yakou edges out a victory if only slightly. This album goes for a japanese sound rather than sticking to the fantasy tunes Yura usually brings us and boy, it fucking works, if you enjoy the likes of Wagakki Band then you gotta give this one a try. Right from the get go Oiran Yagyou is an absolute banger and it's about a cool prostitute, then Renkai shifts things up by being fairly cheerful and when you least expect it, bang: Youtou Raikouzan. Give a nerd a song about a girl with a demon blade and he won't shut up about it. I'm the nerd. Excellent album, but then again Onyx Veil is also high up there for me even if this one edged out the victory, maybe it's just the recency effect why I prefer it, who knows. Also make sure to visit Meri's blog where she has extremely in-depth translations for these and many other albums by Yura, god bless her soul.

-Mukunaru Hoshi no Koujo Planetalica to Yutaka na Shikisai to Uta no Koujo Asterika, by el ma Riu (Fantasy) (booth)

Very conflicted on this one. The imagery to the album is pretty captivating with those two princesses on the cover and the way the title turns upside down, I'm sure Claude Von Riegan would get along with Asterika. This album has my favorite song of the year, which is undoubtedly Ancient Call「火」. Yet the rest of the album is simply good, not super fantastic and not nearly on the same level as the first track. 

Naming 4 songs the exact same and having them each represent a different element, I would've expected a fairly similar rhythm to all of them but instead they're all entirely different. I do think the fire one is the real bomb in the album so maybe building up to it would've had a better effect than dropping it right out in the first track. I say all this because prior to listening to the album I remember being super impressed with the last track which is the one she uploaded on her youtube. But once I listened to the album entirely all I was thinking was wow, I want more of that first track, I need more. Not that the rest is bad, but just, the first track is so amazing dear god.

Still, it got me to follow el ma Riu more closely and her twitter presence is honestly adorable, she uses emojis all the time and even name searches herself and gets super excited whenever people praise her and basically, she rules, and her newer albums Vert and Akatoki were also pretty cool so it's an overall victory. Also check out this more recent artwork of the two girls, they’re so cute.

-Zettou no Labyrinth by Ariabl'eyes (gothic) (tumblr won’t let me embed more videos lol)

Yes I'm putting them twice, you know I have favoritism for them so might as well not dance around that fact. No announcement this year has made me as excited as knowing they'd revive chiisana majo to himitsu no hon even if only for one of the 6 worlds in it. Yes, that shit hyped me up even more than the Bravely Default 2 announcement.

It’s also just so weird, like it’s fanservice for me or like I summoned this into existence, like a monkey’s paw. “I want chiisana majo to himitsu no hon 2″ bam, this does it, a forgotten project from over half a decade ago revived for no reason. “I liked that witch better when she had no back story” bam, this has an evil witch with no backstory. “The best songs are the ones with both Luna and Rena” bam, this has like 3 of them, way more than usual. Are they reading me? I doubt it, but this means that their japanese fanbase has been thinking the same things as I so it actually feels pretty cool how we’re on the same page. Like Bunnyhop said about Death Stranding: “I know it’s pretentious to say you have a personal connection with a work but...” yeah, it does feel like that for me.

The album does take six minutes to get going (with two small narration tracks sandwhiching a decently rehashed old track), but once we get into it kokou no megami, ao no kajitsu and zettou no majo are amazing songs even if they so, SO blatantly rehash older sounds of the band like come on, the influences from automata and coffin are so blatant it's almost a parody, not to mention we also get a girl in a coffin and an evil witch trying to bring about the end because she's a dick so it's like, you're just gonna rehash coffin and romanesque like that and call it a day? Not only do you rehash sounds in every album but also stories now? Yes, that's exactly what they did and it still worked. Aaaahhh, I hate to love this band, they have me grabbed by the balls and I can't escape, awesome album I loved it.

And that is it folks, what a nice year for doujin music this has been, I truly hope the next is even better because I really do have fun checking out new bands and shit. Also in case if you want more well let’s give it up for those that almost made the cut.

Runner ups:

-Artificial Flower by Mame (gothic) (booth)

This album is a diamond in the rough, it’s truly excellent just needs a bit more polish to make it into the big leagues with me, plus maybe a more scarring vocal performance. Not that it’s bad, it almost made the cut! but the vocals are permanently subdued in their tone, just give me some fang and I’ll swoon.

- ななめが王国 by ななひら and mega  (denpa) (translation)

I mean what can I say, 4 tracks are ok and the other 4 are amazing, it balances out. Plus if they do conquer the world one day I don't want to be on their gulag list, might as well praise them while it still counts.

-Vocis Helix by Sennzai  (fucking epic) (booth)

This is like the epitome of "music I'd like people to believe I listen to, but that I don't actually listen to that much". 

-Extra in Out by Cytekinesis (lolicore) (bandcamp)

“Lolicore? I haven’t heard that name in years...”

-Papermoon by Polysha (electronic, psytrance) (bandcamp)

A surprising latecomer, maybe with a bit more time it’d be up there with Megarex but alas, fate and synchronicity did not work in it’s favor.

.

.

.

And many others, we could be here all day! so let’s cut it short and call this a darn good year for doujin music. Next year I’ll probably spend less time listening to doujin music as I’ll be gushing over the inevitable new Sound Horizon album and the Bravely Default 2 soundtrack, plus it’s inevitable Linked Horizon album about it. Yes, this is the year, Rinne HAS to be this year folks. Anyway, see you all next time and remember: if you like an artist with a very small audience, tell them about it, they’ll probably be thrilled.