#first time playing it and i wanna playthrough the series so i can like- understand lore & give my honest decisions in the witcher 3 but omg

[goth-link]

Funniest shit is playing a game from almost 20 years ago and it trying to be cinematic

Like i KNOW this was meant to be intense and cool as shit. Ive played games MUCH older than this but you’re reveling in how cool you are and bc you’re relying on your cinematics to be- cinematic i’m just fucking giggling cuz what the fuck are you doing you silly goober

[eldragon-x]

should i play a pokemon mystery dungeon game? i only have a switch atm and the only one they have is Rescue Team DX

ive only really played the main series of pokemon so far so i dont know anything about the pmd games but lots of people seem to like them and being a pokemon sounds cool and i miss pokepark

ANON. ANON YES YOU SHOULD PLAY POKEMON MYSTERY DUNGEON if you like plot driven games because pmd is basically pokemon for story-driven games enjoyers.

I havent played Rescue Team DX buuut as far as I know the story is basically the same as the original Rescue Teams plus it functions better so youre not missing out on this one unless you'd like to see how the old game looks with the 2d pixel style.

Explorers is the fan favorite and deserves it tbh. It has the strongest story which probably has the darkest tone and while you can play Explorers of Darkness or Time, Explorers of Sky has much more mechanics, Dungeons, and storybeats, including Special Episode 5 which is one of my favorite things in the PMD series. However physical copies of Sky are expensive as shit so you might wanna look for a rom or just play Time/Darkness and check out the extra story stuff on youtube. There's whole cutscene compilations of those.

Gates to Infinity is the first 3D PMD title, my personal favorite, and criminally underrated even within the community. I admit the gameplay is kinda bad but it has the best cast of characters and a really moving story about hope and nihilism and the importance of community. It also lets you build your own Pokemon Paradise with shops and fields around your house which is fun and Munna is one of my favorite characters of all time in anything ever please for the love of god give gates to infinity a chance even if you just watch a playthrough if you dont wanna deal with the gameplay i fucking love gates to infinity

Pokemon Super Mystery Dungeon is the final installment before we got the Rescue Team remake. The plot can get kinda messy but its still really enjoyable and has a unique charm and imo the best soundtrack in the series alongside Explorers of Sky. If you get into the series I'd ask you to get to this one last as the stakes get high, theres references to past games, and the ending hits harder when youre familiar with the series (though its not required to understand the story).

[great-tusk]

hii iris🙋🏽 so about these tags:

if you ever want game anime season or any other poké media recommendations I've played every game and-

watched almost every season of the anime AHAHAHA

I am here for recommendations🗣️ if you don't mind lol

I watched this 4 artist video where they made fake pokémon and gym leaders and it was sooo cool!!✨ I really wanna get into the lore because it's such a fascinating and intricate world, but there's sm content I'm a little overwhelmed��

I'm not very good at games and I don't have much time so I'd really appreciate any media recommendations that I can watch🙇🏽‍♀️

take your time responding and have a great day🍀✨

@i-put-the-s4p-in-s4pphic

@i-put-the-s4p-in-s4pphic OKAY OKAY OKAY SO! (<- incredibly excited to talk about this.) The anime and games take place in essentially the same world (but different timelines), so the world-building is similar, with a few notable exceptions. For example, most of the characters and their stories not overlapping, and a lot of ages being changed. (For example, anime Serena is 10, but game Serena is implied by other characters to be an older teenager.) There are also a few anime-only characters and a lot of game-only characters and characters who overlap having different personalities.

You can watch the anime here. The website seems to be ordered in reverse chronological order, so just scroll to the bottom if you wanna start at the beginning. Indigo League (the first season) is my favorite. I also really like Orange Islands. Diamond and Pearl is also great. You don’t have to watch the seasons in order to understand things, because most plots don’t span across multiple seasons. You can even skip around a little in seasons, but you might be a little confused about little plots. I do recommend at least watching the first few episodes of a season before other episodes to get acquainted with the characters and their dynamics. I remember that X and Y have some overarching plots that are pretty important to the story, so that one is probably a little harder to watch out of order.

Pokémon Concierge is also amazing. It’s stop motion and very pretty and made me cry. I can’t find a place to watch it online, but it’s on Netflix if you have that. (Or I’m sure that it’s online somewhere.)

You can also watch playthroughs of the games. For the most part, though, people in them do not go too into the little details of the games and will skip through dialogue. I looked around for some, and I’ve never watched his videos, but I skimmed through, and this guy seems to have done a pretty detailed playthrough of Sword. He’s also done Pokémon Scarlet! It seems like he narrates all of the lines, too, so you can even watch while paying half-attention. Another guy seems to have played Black and White, and Black 2 and White 2 in a similar style. I’ve never watched his videos, but he’s a pretty big YouTuber. B/W and B2/W2 are the absolute best games in the franchise in my opinion.

For the games, they are almost entirely standalone. You don’t need any knowledge of a previous game to understand what’s going on. The only exceptions are the rare occasions in which there will be a cameo of a character from a previous game. (For example, Red and Blue show up in the Alola region, and Ingo shows up in Legends Arceus. Although you don’t actually have to have played their games to get what’s going on. They’re introduced like any other character. Just fun Easter eggs.) Or in the only case of like a true sequel in the series, which is Black and White to Black 2 and White 2.

My personal favorite Pokétubers are these two. They don’t really do lore stuff, but I love their content. WolfeyVGC does official competitive, and has won the World Championship before! And FlygonHG is an amazing Nuzlocker and super funny. (If you’re unfamiliar with what a Nuzlocke is, it’s a challenge run where if a Pokémon faints, it’s dead forever, and you can only catch the first Pokémon you find per route.) They’re definitely not required watching or anything, but their stuff is really interesting. Wolfey talks a lot about which Pokémon are competitively viable, and Flygon has super suspenseful runs, and even manages to make the most of Pokémon that aren’t very good when it comes to battling in his runs. I love the stories and characters in the games, but I’m also super deep in the more hardcore community-focused battling and challenges, and these two fall into the latter category.

There are also a bunch of others who fall into a bunch of different niches. Here are a few guys who I watch who do pretty funny battling content with their friends.

I know this is super long, but I hope it helps.

As thanks for reading all of it, you can look at this Pokémon Rumble Rush Axew.

[awoooooooooooooooo]

where should i start if i wanna get into silent hill....

To get into silent hill first you must do or experience something terrible and evil and then lose yourself and then find yourself searching for something in this strange town that calls to you inexplicably dragging you towards it with a whisper of a promise of finding what you need to move on......or something......

Id say download PS2 emulator and play silent hill 2 on it. Or you could play sh1 or sh3 it really doesn't matter that much but I personally recommend starting with 2 because it introduces you into the world without all of the confusing insane lore that's in 1 and 3, but the storyline is still really really good on its own, it's genuinely just a fucking amazing video game, definitely the best one. IMHO

3 is also really really good and you don't necessarily need to understand the lore to enjoy it.. 1 is pretty good but genuinely just hard to play imo (and it's on PS1 so different emulator) but I think it's worth it if you're that interested in the games.

I haven't played all of silent hill 4 (when I've tried to emulate it it doesn't go well) but it's also pretty good, but this is where the series starts to divulge from the original Vibes. If that matters to you idk. I honestly kinda don't give a shit about anything released after 4 but other people do and it's not ALL garbage (I think).

You could watch playthroughs of the games if you don't wanna emulate or they're too scary or something but I really think actually playing the games is the best because you can explore at your own pace and they're just soooo goooood.. they do have easy mode which helps if you get scared of the monsters (I still do even after playing the games several times lol)

I like to watch thegamingmuse and various other youtube videos for stuff about lore and symbolism and shit like that if that interests you at all after getting your fix of actually playing the games + making sense of the lore surrounding why silent hill is the way it is and Heather/Cheryl/Alessa's story

[spinningbuster98]

Sonic the Hedgehog 3 & Knuckles (Knuckles) Part 2: Knuckles hates the circus

Now I know that unlike Sonic he doesn’t chuckle (yeah sure), but what does Knuckles have against the circus? I don’t understand why his treck through the stage has him pretty much skip 90% of the thing, was Carnival Night just not designed with him in mind?

Other than that though everything else is fine, ice Cap I like how his act 2 focuses on the bottom portion of the stage and I like how different act 2 of Launch Base is with him. It’s appropriate that he gets to fight two versions of the miniboss, after Sonic only fought one with the other two being left inactive if you noticed.

What’s less appropriate is me dying all of a sudden for no good reason because Knuckles just happened to clip through the floor as I was falling

Ok let’s go there

If we wanna talk about an “objective flaw” that Sonic 3 has is that the game is...honestly pretty damn glitchy

Now I know full well that the whole “Sonic is a glitchy, rushed mess of a series lol” take is something that Sonic fans are sick of hearing but...guys there is a degree of truth in that statement and it cannot be denied. Sonic games, even in the early days, have always had at least a certain degree of rough edges. Sonic 1 and 2 were pretty minor with this, at worst there were some physics related shenanigans but nothing too noticeable. Sonic CD was pretty problematic though, with some winky collision detection at points and noticeable slowdown when things got too hectic

Sonic 3 might just be the worst of the classics in this area and Sega must’ve known this because even the International manual mentions something along the lines of Robotnik setting some traps that might be impossible to escape from without resetting the game....which is a cute way of saying you might get softlocked while playing this and I can confirm

Now I don’t wanna say it’s as bad as Sonic 06, but every time, every SINGLE time I play Sonic 3 SOMETHING happens. Whether it’s my dying for no reason at all like what happened here or in a previous video while in the Death Egg, me getting crushed for standing too close to a crusher even though I wasn’t actually crushed by it, clipping through some terrain because I was going too fast forcing me to restart (this happened recently to me twice during another Knuckles playthrough I was doing, during Hydrocity Act 2, and another time it happened while I was messing around with the Hyper Dash as Sonic) and my most detested and frequent occurence: coming at a complete stop while rolling in some specififc loops or up some small hills which is the absolute worse: you lose all momentum and speed for no reason in a game that’s all about momentum and speed

I don’t know what it is with Sonic and glitches, the obvious answer that most on the Internet would give is that Sega likes to rush out games and that Sonic Team is clearly incompetent, but while there is truth in the former statement (as I’ll touch on later), the latter just doesn’t make sense to me: you may use this explanation for current Sonic Team, but this is the Sonic Team that brought us the original games, Sonic 3 itself, glitches aside, is one hell of a game, these guys are by no means incompetent so what happened? Honestly I think it’s partly due to Sonic’s inherently speedy nature, which makes it way easier for physics related bugs to occur.

Honestly for as much as I love Sonic 3 to death I...don’t really have a defense for this. When I was a kid I would rationalize the bugs as this just being an older game, but not only were Sonic 1 and 2 not this buggy, no other big game from this era had all of these issues. Super Metroid, Super Mario World, Donkey Kong Country, Mega Man X,all of these games do have glitches (as all games do), but they’re mostly minor stuff that you have to go out of your way to trigger and can actually be beneficial for speedrunning. If someone were to play this game for the first time and call it mediocre because they happened to run into these bugs frequently...I wouldn’t know what to tell them. I personally believe that Sonic 3′s overall design, gameplay, music and presentation are so top of their class that it allows me to mostly ignore the rough parts, but depending on one’s own sensibility regarding glitches this might not be enough.

Of course I do have an idea as to why Sonic 3 is so much buggier when compared to its predecessors and I believe it’s mostly due to its complicated development and it having to be split in two halves and I really wanted to focus on the latter part

Whenever I hear someone talk about Sonic 3 split nature they usually go “oh man lock on technology was so cool!”

And I’m like: they split a whole game in two parts and made you buy both of them. They sold you an incomplete game only to sell you the rest later on. This is almost the same shit companies like EA and Ubisoft pull nowadays, had the 90s had DLC that’s what Sonic & Knuckles would have been. People trash modern gaming for this, and rightly so, so why does nobody ever talk about this? And I’m not saying all of this because I want to bitch about how “Sega bad” and get a free cookie from Sonic Twitter, I know about the context behind this game, I know about Sega’s deadline due to their deal with McDonalds (which, unless I’m missing some details, feels very stupid to me and proof that Sega’s decision making was pretty faulty even back then) and I know about the difficulties of putting the whole game on a single cartridge without skyrocketing the manufacturing price. Game development can get insanely complicated and messy and I genuinely have respect for Sonic Team for the quality of the final product, especially given the overall conditions in which they were working.

But in the end there’s no getting around the fact that consumers back then had to essentially buy two games to get one

Sonic 3 alone cost about 70 bucks in North America back then

(This is from a magazine from 1994)

I couldn’t find similar data on Sonic & Knuckles but I think it’s safe to assume that it had a similar price tag, meaning that, if you wanted to buy the complete Sonic 3 experience, you had to fork over roughly 100 dollars at the very least. Keep in mind: this is all without taking inflation into account

Now some might say that none of this matters anymore because nowadays you can buy the whole game cheaply off of Steam or something. I find this logic flawed: when judging a game you need to at least take into account the context in which it was made, as that was the only frame of reference that its devs could have while making it as nobody could predict the future

Let’s put it this way: consider all of the beyond half finished trash that some companies nowadays like to throw on the market, while patching it like a year later or something. Now consider that some of those games might get rereleased 30 years from now more cheaply and with their full content from the get go. Would that suddenly make everything ok? No? Then not even Sonic 3 should be excempt from this

Now I’m not saying all of this because I wanna imply that Sonic 3 is actually bad and a cash grab and Sonic was never good yadda yadda

I’m saying that while Sonic 3 the videogame is, from a qualitative standpoint, a phenomenal experience, one of the very best videogames from the 90s (though with some noticeable rough edges), Sonic 3 the commercial product was pretty shoddily, and perhaps even greedily depending on how you wanna look at things, handled. This is an indelible part of the game’s history and I think it should be talked about. For the past years I’ve seen Sonic fans bitch and moan about the prices of games like Forces or Superstars because they’re too high for games that are so short and clearly rushed etc. And they might even have a point or two but I find it absolutely unfair that Sonic 3, which has the same issues in this regard but on an even bigger scale, is never mentioned, purely because it came out when all the people who are currently bitching about the industry’s problems were kids who had their parents but them stuff and this kind of discourse was practically non-existence. It’s a matter of fairness is what I’m saying

[teddybeartoji]

you made me wanna rewatch (can't play) both of tlou games,,

i really loved the vibes of both games mainly, since you can only follow as the story unfolds - i have to admit that while your favorite is the second, mine was the first. i am weak to selfish people, i love selfishness, not necessarily as a default but more as a proof of pure individuality and i am obsessed with the ideas associated with individualism

so when joel made that choice against everything? against the entire world? against himself?? hell, even against ellie herself???? went a bit insane with that

i read the whole thing u just wrote, have to admit it has been a long while since i watched, so there's stuff i didn't get at first because i needed time to remember the names... anyways if i do go through and watch it i'll have to read your commentary again

side note but i love people that really like something and can talk about it in extended detail, i find it fascinating and there's always a new element i can learn

i also have to admit i didn't like abby because well.. an antagonist to the previous protagonists... and since i am the type to side with the protagonist no matter what.. (i actually some bojack analysis videos this afternoon and ig that's the only media for now that challenged that)

well anyways i do remember still siding with her, admiring how strong she was - and when she got close with lev?? say less good lord (i get attached to characters who are trans/have trans implications in media VERY quickly, esp when i watched tlou2 at a time where i was heavily struggling w gender (still am but repressing so it's not as bad))

overall the writing is truly impeccable, i love me some good characterization

i remember watching videos criticizing tlou2, especially its pacing - i think i agreed back then even though to me it wasn't a problem at all while i was watching. as a last info, i'll just say i havent gotten around to watch the series adaptation... i am very scared it'll disappoint and i just loved the games too much it doesn't feel necessary (even though i am the type to want to go through ALL of a media's content usually otherwise it stresses me out)

saw you were having some trouble sleeping, know that you are not alone 🥲 i feel like i'm going insane

~ ☀️

HIII SUNNYYY HIIIIII:333 I OFTEN WATCH GAMES TOO BTWW!!!!! i actually tend to always watch a playthrough as i play a game lmao,, like i'll watch it as far as i've played bc i love to see how somebody else solves the puzzles and the encounters and stuff!!!!!!!!!!

i do still really love the first one too don't get my wrong!!! i think it's fucking revolutionary like it's an incredible fucking game!!!!!!! the choice that joel makes... insane really. i absolutely love it. it does kill me just a little just knowing how much the choice he makes will bear down on ellie........

AHHH I KNOWW I KINDA JUST SPITBALLED i thought abt giving more context to some of the thoughts but i figured then it really would get a little bit too confusing with all the information lmao BUTTT I'M SO HAPPY YOU STILL DECIDED TO READ IT!!!!!! I MEANS SO MUCH ACTUALLY WAHHH!!!!!!!!!!!! ILYY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

i definitely understand why people would be upset with abby, i think that's very very normal and i mean.. i was very upset too lmao but i've just seen so many ppl blatantly hating on her and for what she's done and i think that's the stupidest thing ever honestly. like even if you're mad and sad about joel... you should still be able to look at the whole thing from her perspective right??

like imagine if we never saw ellie's and joel's side; ofc the vaccine is one thing - joel took away even the mere POSSIBILITY of a vaccine and no matter how much ppl wanna bash on the idea of developing one, i think that hope really is something that dies last okay. i don't think the fireflies are wrong about believing in that. idk how much i personally would've been willing to do for the cause but yeah i really don't blame them. so when a mf comes in with the immune kid, only to then kill the ONE person who'd be able to make the vaccine and like a million other fireflies alongside with him..... yeah i mean that just makes him sound like a psycho doesn't it lmao

i think it is enough of a reason to go after him AND AGAIN I DO LOVE JOEL I'M BASHING HIM (lol) BUT I'M JUST TRYING TO LOOK AT THE WHOLE THING FROM BOTH SIDES YK? so i really do hate when ppl don't even TRY to see it from her angle...

TLOU2 IS SOOOOOO WELL-WRITTEENNNN!!!!!!!! like so fucking well!!!!!! it hurts so much and it just keeps punching you in the face but that doesn't make it bad yk? i feel like it's all very very realistic. it's fucked up, but that's just how the world is.

AND LEVV!!!!!!!!!!!! I LOOOOVEEE HIMMM!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! genuinely love the fact that they have a lesbian and a trans character as the main characters (and abby with her physique bc that's just not smth you see all the time either)!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! and i absolutely fucking adored how they handled his storyline. with how abby handled it when the other seraphites called him by his deadname and all that. and when yara told the entire story and then the whole thing with the mom... ahh that really broke my heart he really is my son i love him sm:((((((

i would definitely disagree with the pacing thing actually!!!!! to me it really fit the way the story was progressing yk?? like obviously the start is slow bc ellie and dina are only getting into the city and they have nothing to worry abt other than the few infected as they're looting and tooting around. and then right after they do meet them it all starts getting faster and that too just felt very fitting. bc it was all chaotic!!!!!!!!!!!!! i felt like that kept me on my toes even more!!!!

mmm the show.... it had some cool moments. i did really like how they did the bloater scene buuuut overall it was a bit meh actually. i think for me it was too just bc i'm such a big fan of the games. like my hopes might've been too high. and i just hated that they changed so much; like the fact that they don't have spores in that??? that's such a cool detail so idk why they decided to leave it out. i do think that the actors were good though!!!!

but uh i won't be watching the second season. 1. they casted a bunch of zionists as the main ppl so yeah fuck that shit 2. they casted a little like 5'3 skinny actress as abby😐😐like be so fucking serious rn. i think her being jacked as shit is a very important part,, i think it's good to have that kind of a rep but ohh no they just casted the little twig. it's a hard no from me.

OMFG THIS TURNED INTO ANOTHER WORDVOMIT AGAIN HGSAFAGHSHAGSA DAMN ANYWAYY I HOPE I ANSWERED EVERYTHING I FEEL LIKE I'M ON A ROLL SO IT'S A BIT HARD TO ACTUALLY FOCUS LMAO BUT WAAHHH IT'S SO GOOD TO HAVE PPL TO TALK ABT TLOU!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! MWAH MWAH MWAHH ILYY!!!!!!!

[hychlorions]

If you had to rank each Apollo Justice case on a 10-point scale, what would your ratings be?

honestly i like them all so much and it's been a while since i've last played AA4 so it's hard to give an answer without having to sit down and think about it :"D but assuming you wanna sit down for something long-ish, i'll start them all off on a perfect 10 and here's what i'd give deductions for:

Turnabout Trump (4-1) - i'd leave it at a 10 tbh. absolutely banger case for setting the tone for the rest of the game. i don't recall anything i disliked about it atm so i'm assuming there's nothing at all :>

Turnabout Corner (4-2) - hickfield/hotti existence. get him outta here! but on the other hand there's an exchange about klavier pausing a world tour to see the little boy that bested his brother that can mean different things depending on if you're playing the game for the first time or if you're replaying it. on first playthrough i assumed the judge's shock at klavier returning meant he hasn't taken another case since kristoph's arrest in 4-1, which. fair i guess bc prosecutors probably take cases more regularly than the waa in-universe but it's nothing to blink twice about yknow. HOWEVER replaying it after having gone through 4-4 (esp given how he mentions the gavinners to the judge) it starts to seem as if klavier ran off with his band for seven years and didn't come back until after his brother was arrested. which. >:3 hehe

-3 points for creep factor. +1 however for the simple joy of making me tear my hair out over klavier's mystery hiatus length

Turnabout Serenade (4-3) - people give this case too much shit tbh. it's the funniest case in the game and you guys just have no sense of humor 😭 me, lover of comedy, however, can appreciate it for what it is, and it's that 4-3 is the best demonstration of aa's sense of humor. my only gripe with it is that daryan's mentioned to be the first detective klavier's ever worked with. however in turnabout succession the detective shown in the flashback for the gramarye trial (klavier's courtroom debut) isn't daryan, but gumshoe. this isn't elaborated upon any further, so i am sitting here. wondering what mystery case klavier worked on that got resolved without going to court wherein daryan is the detective AND happened before the gramarye trial. i understand prosecutors but WHY pray tell are they shoving 17 year-olds into a detective position on the police force. god.

-2 for in-universe labor laws implications. +2 for klavier's weird forehead obsession (he has about three lines about apollo's forehead) and also the fact that this case has the most canonical uses of herr forehead out of all the cases in the entire ace attorney series at ~61 uses out of the total 129 (including DD). +1 more for being so rife with lines you could use as basis for headcanons ("straight except when he's depressed" "i should've learned to play guitar" "her quiet, deep song glides through the air... lilting above a sparse, but elegant piano accompaniment" i'm so sorry as a klapollo enthusiast this is the case of all time to me)

Turnabout Succession (4-4) - gorl you know the last case of the series has to be the most nailbiting one. such is the case for turnabout succession... if only the mason system didn't royally succ. do you know how hard it is to piece together the timeline for post- and pre-gramarye trial for someone like me?!?! (is forgetful) not to mention the fact that kristoph has apparently only met vera once but already knew she bites her nails when she's nervous? did you put a camera in their house or something? weirdo. however only in burning piles of rubble will real gems reveal themselves. *holding up the scene where zak explains the gramarye powers to phoenix, subsequently revealing the trucy-apollo siblingisms all along* isn't she beautiful?

-4 for being an inconvenient pain in the ass and kristoph's nail polish murder plot that crumbles under a magnifying glass and kristoph's stalking extent implications. +1 for bracelet lore you know i love me some bracelet mechanics (taps my homemade "THE BRACELET DOESN'T TIGHTEN" sign like a proud father)

Final answer:

4-3: 11/10

4-1: 10/10

4-2: 8/10

4-4: 7/10

[less-than-three-3]

Tears of the Kingdom - a masterpiece sandbox, but a flawed sequel

It really does pain me to say that I thought TotK was just ok, because I did really love BotW. It had its clear pain points but for essentially a first of its type of open world game, it was incredible. But what mattered was that the design choices felt very deliberate, mechanics like durability and shrines were super key and important to the gameplay loop of exploring.

On the other hand, TotK, while it has very clear and high strengths with a very different design direction, has design choices across the board that genuinely baffled me, and I honestly question why this game was even a sequel besides being able to reuse everything. It very easily could have been its own game as it is, a different timeline with inexplicably identical characters and geography, because there is very little of BotW’s identity or even continuity really even present. 

And before you get your pitchforks, I do want you to hear me out - I promise I won’t complain about like durability or the map feeling empty or compare it to non-Zelda games, I’m gonna be discussing things that I don’t really see many people talking about? There will be spoilers! More below:

I want to start off by talking about my experience with BotW, but if you wanna skip this and just see my thoughts on TotK I get it, it’s just context that I think is relevant. I actually didn’t play BotW until about 2 years ago, despite being a huge Zelda fan I bought into that “bad zelda game” discourse so I thought I wouldn’t like it, so when I did play it I was absolutely blown away. I can still kinda get the complaints - some of the elements people love Zelda for were fairly weak, but as a redefinition of the series it was masterfully done. It was a game that not just rewarded and kept the cycle of exploration going through clever map design and durability, but did so by allowing essentially complete freedom of pathing and direction. 

I will always tell the story of how my entire first playthrough I did not know Hestu existed - I climbed the twin peaks and the mountains nearby to get to Kakariko and just totally missed him the whole time. Not that he was placed in a bad location, in fact I’d be surprised if more than a relative handful of people missed him lol, I was just on a completely different wavelength, and that freedom is incredible. But there were limitations - stamina is a necessary evil when you have free climbing and gliding (but not for running - #bringbackwhistlerunning), and it forces you to really actually scope out your terrain to manage your stamina. And, begrudgingly, I will “hand it” to rain for trying to get you to not just climb like a gremlin everywhere (this did not stop me just waiting out the rain, every time. I hate rain.). It’s a beautiful balance of self-motivated free exploration, and the soft limitations you have for that exploration. Without stamina altogether, the climbing and pathing, for example, becomes a lot less interesting when you can just entirely bypass like every cliff. BotW is a brilliant game of exploration, but you already knew that.

TotK, on the other hand, is not a game about exploring. Its design overall has such a strange identity to me. It reuses the main map of Hyrule, that’s totally understandable I’d be surprised if they didn’t, but is there really much to explore again? Granted, yes if you played this before BotW then there is, but from the lens of sequel let’s assume you’ve played BotW. For me, personally, I checked out the major towns from the last game, and it was really nice to see how they’ve evolved, but besides that, like... I guess there are many little shiny shrines placed everywhere again, but, like, I’ve already done that (For me, 2 and a half times over). The carrot on a stick wasn’t really enough for me to care all that much either, because after a certain number of shrines I just kinda felt like I had enough orbs. The motivating factor of exploration should not be the carrot on a stick reward at the end of the shrine, anyways.

And that’s not to mention the opening of the game, which is just so... clunky compared to that of BotW. BotW’s tutorial is genuinely probably the best out there, it essentially lets you loose to do what you want, how you want, and when you’re done learning the basic mechanics of the game, sets you loose again to continue to do what you want, how you want. TotK’s is so oddly rigid. The sky islands honestly weren’t the worst thing, they had fun things to do, but I did feel like it really dragged on compared to the Great Plateau which was about as slim as it could get. But when you get off of the sky islands, you’d think you’d be free to do what you want right? ....no. And that’s so fucking odd to me. They expect you to follow the quest markers for like, a few steps of the quest before you even get the paraglider and towers, and one of those steps leads you into Hyrule Castle which, for a lot of people, would raise alarm bells for “uh oh I shouldn’t do this yet”. If you went to do your own thing by seeing shiny things in the distance, you could possibly just not have the glider or the ability to reveal your map for a really long time. That’s weird, right? That can’t just be me.

Ok but fine, we knew Hyrule would be Hyrule, and the opening is just a few hours, so what’s the big deal, there’s so much more to explore! Well, the issue is that the sky islands are such a fucking bitch to get to (and basically require you to have a nearby jump tower unlocked, or a lot of patience with zonai gear), and getting between islands of different regions is pretty much not possible. And they’re SO sparse. It doesn’t feel like a region to explore, it feels like a few islands you can check out after unlocking a tower and not much else. 

The Depths tho!! They’re basically another Hyrule!!! Yeah, it is like Hyrule, but like, a lot lot worse. Like I said in the context, one of BotW’s greatest strengths in exploration were the landmarks and map design. So, why the hell did they decide to make an entire Hyrule where you have almost no such visual feedback to encourage exploration? You basically just have to choose a direction and commit (or follow a REALLY LONG series of statues), or maybe you see a Lightroot in the distance (this isn’t common). Maybe someone finds this fun but I certainly don’t, and I really honestly expected better from the developers of Breath of the Wild. You do have the actually really neat revelation that Lightroots are in the same place as shrines, and that the mining sites are where towns are. But I think that even further takes away from the essence of exploration? It’s so odd that the Depths are the way that they are, it truly has me questioning whether BotW’s design was truly intentional or if it was just lightning in a bottle that they couldn’t recapture. But maybe that’s just me.

So yeah the game has a lot of content and a lot of area, but I never really felt like.. that rewarded or satisfied by it. I actively just stopped exploring at a certain point, across all the layers of the world (ok I think I did get all the sky islands but that is NOT a hard feat to achieve lol). I wish there were a term gamers use that could describe this phenomenon of having a ton of stuff to do that starts to feel pointless to do... Oh yeah, it’s bloat. 

But let’s put a pin in that one, I don’t want to be so negative about the game because I did still like it. For one, the music is absolutely turned up to 11 compared to BotW, in part because it is a game with much more gravitas and more moments and areas that deserve that music. And BotW already had a fan favorite soundtrack, so you know this shit good.

The powers were a mixed bag, but I want to shoutout the absolute coolest power first, the one that I am the most mindblown by, that breaks the game without feeling blatantly unfair, and the one I am genuinely impressed is so well implemented:

Recall. This is the power that actually makes you feel like 1000 IQ, and I am pretty sure the people who came up with it and implemented it are too. It has so many broken uses in puzzle solving but, even when it’s clearly unintentional, it feels like a loophole, it feels like you outsmarted the devs. An entire fucking game could be made around this single power. And this game has 4. ...sort of.

If you thought I was gonna mention Ultra Hand, I’m sorry but you’re wrong, and that’s a larger discussion I will have later. Because let’s talk about the weird ones first. 

Like ascend. What the fuck is this power like it’s so incredibly niche and not in a funny way either, like cryonis. It’s not used to get between the Depths and the overworld and the sky, it has such a tight distance limit. And when you’re using it to scale vertical heights (or go through Taluses) it’s so finicky. Its most consistent uses are when the devs clearly designed “an ascend path” or for getting out of the overworld caves, and those are just like, really boring. The fact that most of twitter consistently forgets ascend is a thing is not good. You don’t want a power you entirely forget about. This is what I got in exchange for guardian launching?

Fuse is also a little weird to me, it’s fun but I feel like the novelty wears off a little quickly. On arrows it’s absolutely genius and a very wonderful replacement and addition to the elemental arrows, but for weapons? I know many people see this as addressing durability and collector’s anxiety from BotW but like, it doesn’t do either of those! They nerfed durability across the board for every weapon you get from the overworld except for sturdy wood sticks (which feel lame), and otherwise you have to either get zonai weapons (ok these are fairly abundant) or go underground and look for those statues holding unrotted weapons? This was supposed to address issues? All they did was push the issue of hoarding from your weapons inventory to your items inventory, which is a step forward for sure, but that’s not a solution, that’s them trying to trick us into thinking it’s addressed. You’d previously save your strong weapons just in case you need them later, but now you save your strong monster parts and gems in case you need them later. It’s the same damn thing, you just have actual bag space for it now so it's a little better! I’m a durability defender and I’m still confused by this.

Ok but the star of the show for most people is Ultra Hand, and I totally get it. Building the penis robot, or a mecha, or fucking drones is really cool and really funny. Breaking the limits of the game by attaching together a bunch of different things to solve puzzles in ways that they really shouldn’t have is cool (but Recall does it better). If you love sandboxes to just fuck around in and make a bunch of really cool or broken contraptions and doohickeys, you will love this. I just like.. don’t. Building a tank sounds cool but when I got at the helm I just kinda felt nothing from it, it wasn’t really that fun because the only input you can really give is the direction. I don’t feel like I’m playing the game. And I feel like it really disrupts those necessary limitations I was talking about at the beginning - I don’t find it satisfying to just entirely bypass a climbing challenge by just making a hot air balloon or rocket, and I don’t find it satisfying to just mow down enemies by holding forward as opposed to actually engaging with them. The battery is a limiter but is it even really that much of a limiter when the recovery items are so common (and in the case of rockets and hot air balloons entirely irrelevant)? This is on top of the vehicles despawning when you enter shrines so exploring with them feels AWFUL (easily the MOST baffling mechanic in the game). I dunno, they did really shoot for the moon and I think if you like this I’m very happy for you, but I do also think they really lost sight of what made BotW so revolutionary.

“But you control the buttons your press, if you don’t like it don’t use it!” I agree, and I didn’t really! I’m very happy with being able to use towers as jump towers which, with the wing suit, let you pretty much cover the entire region. But like, you still need to use Ultra Hand for shrines and temples. It’s fairly good in the temples, but I want to talk about the shrines, because some of them are great and maybe better than the best in BotW, but that makes the stinkers really stand out. There are a handful of mid-game shrines (as opposed to like, shrines right around Lookout) which were just “drive the vehicle we gave you” or “build a basic vehicle with the 3 obvious parts we laid out for you” like... that’s not a puzzle. (There was one shrine with a sick track layout and I’ll give that one a pass). I didn’t do all shrines, like I said I got tired of exploration, so I can’t speak to all of them, but this mixed bag didn’t help that either. At least there aren’t really combat trials outside the beginning.

While we’re on the topic, let’s talk about those temples, because one of the biggest talking points right before launch were the “big varied dungeons” that they added to the game, compared to the Divine Beasts in BotW which, while fine, were very samey and ultimately just 4 shrines squished together. So, what about the Temples? Well uh... let’s rank them, best to worst.

1. Fire Temple. Yunobo’s power may suck the most out of the 4 sages but I’d be lying if this temple and the road leading up to it didn’t slap. Using the minecarts the traverse around with changing tracks and figuring out how to guide the very finicky Yunobo Launcher into the rocks blocking your path was fun! Not my favorite temple ever, but it was a very good translation of the format. The boss also felt super traditional Zelda in the best way possible.

2. Lightning Temple. Besides the Fire Temple all the temples kind of take a “go in any direction and do these separate shrine puzzles united by a unique gimmick” and it’s pretty much just a reskinned Divine Beast, I don’t know who they were tricking. The Lightning Temple had the most interesting gimmick at least, essentially being light puzzles that were pretty satisfying, plus a killer boss fight.

3. Wind Temple. This was the first one I did and I was a little disappointed that it was just a divine beast, but the layout was in hindsight relatively interesting, and the whole path up to the temple with the sailboats was actually really really fun (and entirely irrelevant for the temple). People are loving the boss but it’s like ok? I think it’s just because people are just so used to the blights that a huge worm with Giant Enemy Weakpoint is cool by comparison. 

4. Water Temple. Water bubbles are sorta cool and the boss is a little shit. Sidon’s power and the goop was really annoying to use. The temple design does not even try to pretend it’s a temple, it is just 4 different islands with 4 different puzzles.

5. Spirit Temple. this shit sucked I’m sorry, getting the parts back to the center was ok and had some clever puzzles but otherwise it was kind of a slog to get them all, and the reward is a mech that was so slow and a little clunky and I just ultimately walked my ass to the boss. Maybe it’s because I just don’t really like the contraptions. I dunno, this was really meh. Boss was incredibly easy because he just gets instantly staggered by the cannon he drops lol.

And speaking of presenting us the same things as BotW with a fresh coat of paint, the dragon’s tears were also kind of dubiously implemented. They are definitely a clear improvement over memories in a lot of ways, but that really isn’t that high of a bar to clear. But because of the much stronger linear narrative structure of everything, you’re pretty much missing out on a lot by not doing these in the order that you find with Impa and that’s... really limiting? It only reinforces my assessment that this is not a game about exploration because when I see a giant fucking geoglyph I wanna check it out, I don’t want to look at my pictures to check if it’s “the next one I need”. Plus this order kind of encourages you to railroad your exploration of the regions in a specific order. It’s weird. But at least the story is really good.

And speaking of the story, yeah it was great, and it was genuinely tragic to experience those last few memories and have the very sudden realization of where Zelda is. But can I just ask, what happened to like anything from BotW? Where are the Divine Beasts, can they help? Was Zelda a dragon the whole fucking time, and we just somehow never saw her once in BotW? Why does no one outside Lookout, Teba, the Rito remember us? The only things that even remotely reference the very cataclysmic events of the last game are essentially throwaway filler dialogue from side npc’s and that’s weird right? 

Why is this game a sequel? 

I think if this was a Majora’s Mask situation where they were blatantly going in a very different direction in a different timeline and completely restructuring everything, but just reusing maps and models, I would get it. But it’s not, it’s the Sequel to The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. But it doesn’t feel like that upon even just a little bit of scrutiny. If they full sent the sandbox and new world and lore and origins of Hyrule as a whole new timeline and separate game, maybe they wouldn’t have felt obligated to keep so many of the incredible elements of BotW that ultimately either get trampled on or feel a little half-assed, and maybe it’d be even more fun for those who enjoy that type of game. Though to be clear, it’s not a case of mixed identity, I do feel all these elements can coexist, but I think it’s a case of them losing sight of or missing what really made BotW tick.

And again, not to say this is a bad game. I fairly enjoyed it, but to me it doesn’t meet the standards and expectations set by BotW, especially not as a sequel. But that may just be me, who does not care that much about sandbox elements. If you love them, and love the game, that’s great! My issues shouldn’t get in the way of your enjoyment, but I just have to say man, I wish I liked this game more.

[todayisafridaynight]

THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR TRUSTING ME BRO I COULD CRYYYYYYYYYYYYY 😭😭😭😭😭I hope it does not disappoint... REAL THOUGH about the drama you mentioned in your tags, that's exactly how I felt reading If My Wife Becomes An Elementary School Student's title, for example, but I'm told it's wholesome☠️☠️I would love to hear about the one you were thinking of though!

I WILL BEAR IT IN MIND TO PREPARE FOR ARACHTAGON WHENEVER THE TIME COMES... totally understandable to get frustrated with RNG on top of that, RPGs can be so evil 😭😭😭still, again, I'm glad you're back to it! Also totally understandable to want to play on the original consoles... NOTHING beats the experience... the availability of playthroughs nowadays is nice for sure to be able to experience the series without investing that much!

I would LOVE to see more Normal interactions between Ichiban and Jo for real😭they have so much potential for silly moments... ever-thankful for your content and I Can't Say Enough always looking forward to whatever you might have in store :] whether it's that or something else :]

I EXPECT YOU'RE DONE WITH EPISODE EIGHT NOW AT MINIMUM SO I WILL JUST SAY the Ohashi arc and Episode Ø [<- why the hell is ep eight called this] are peak to me I am soooo glad you enjoyed the arc... LOVE the OST too, Yugo Kanno is a legend. HOWEVER all the songs on it are titled words that start with S and P so you get titles like Scarlet Pussy 😭

OH BUT SPEAKING OF SP'S WACKASS STRUCTURE pleeeeeaaaase consider watching SP: The Motion Picture and SP: The Motion Picture: The Final Episode after you finish the show... there is A Cliffhanger and those are the true conclusions to the story... and SP Final In Specific is what blew my nuts clean off...

STOPPP NO THAT'S EXACTLY THE DRAMA I WAS TALKING ABOUT BUT I DIDNT WANNA SNITCH ON MYSELF 😭😭 it really is a cute show..... im ngl it has some of my fave tsutsumi scenes/performances like it TRULY blew my expectations out of the water. i just feel SOOO awkward about it cause.. with a title like That and a premise Like That i wouldnt blame a single person for giving me a weird ass look so i generally try not to talk about it ☠️ its my guilty treat so to speak and i cant even tell if im making it sound worse than it actually is (╯x╰ )

in any case... i finished Security Police SO !!! onto After The Rain for me when it comes to Media Thats Awkward To Talk About But Please Believe Me When I Say Its Not What You're Thinking :]

LMAO PLEASE like... so long as you have the right equipment you don't even really have to do much extra grinding by the time you get to him... it truly is just hoping RNG doesnt dick you over ☠️ i've been cruising through the game since tho ! i dont expect myself to get into anymore awkward blockades anytime soon and then i can finally say i finished this game (●ˇ∀ˇ●)

THANK YA THANK YA it aint much but its honest work..... i have been real dead this week tho and i always get scared if ill draw again durin periods like this- i HOPE to come up with something soon cause there really is an untapped well of Good Stuff to be explored :]]

THE SOUND DESIGN OF SP WAS REALLY GOOD IN GENERAL THOUGH LIKE not just music wise was it good but i really loved hos inoue's migraines gave me migraines... immersion... but also just knowing when to keep things dead silent (like finding nishijima's corpse) did SOOO well to put emphasis.. the weird as hell names are just bonus points by now like. Gotta Let Bro Have SOMETHING As A Thank You For The Sound Design (╯▽╰ ;;) OH BUT IM GLAD THERE'S MOVIE TIE-INS CAUSE THE LAST SCENE HAD ME CONCERNICUS LIKE 👁️👁️? i was only able to find the first 2010 movie on the site i usually go to but its somethin...

[paterklatter]

Do you have any video game opinions/hot takes?

ok so i ended up writing like an entire essay so i'm gonna put this under a cut

-hades is not that amazing of a game, while it's fun it hardly qualifies as a roguelike and the gameplay lacks depth. the only reason it's so loved is its absolutely amazing character design. it's not bad just the definition of a 7/10 game (which i need 7/10 brainrot games in my life. that's why i've played shit like hades or steamworld quest to completion as their lack of gameplay depth made them easy to play with my brain in the wash)

-"cozy" games have quickly grown repetitive and i genuinely question the need for 500 "stardew valley but fantasy games" or otherwise generic farm sims with one catchy steam page gimick

-the direction of the yakuza franchise is actually such a fucking mess right now. the change of the name to "like a dragon" after the series has already established itself as yakuza is such a stupid fucking move. no one calls it "like a dragon." some fans may call it rgg (including me), but no one calls it like a dragon. the annual release model also just isn't working. these extremely long story based games are a huge time sink and require anyone who wants to play 8 to play all of them, so new fans are going to get burnt out quick. even people who has played all the games are gonna get burnt out fast, especially considering you HAVE to play the new to understand the one coming out later that year. i think 7 was a really good way to sidestep that without leaving fans of the other games hanging as you can go into it having played none of the games and still understand it perfectly well. i'm not the craziest about the turn based combat but i definitely prefer it to whatever the hell the other dragon engine games were cooking because the ragdoll physics of kiwami 2 actually almost made me drop it (one of the reasons i think it's the worst game in the franchise behind 5). i think dropping that to do ANOTHER kiryu send off is stupid. some people didn't like the ending of 6, but changing your mind after switching to ichiban (who has the potential to be a better protagonist than kiryu) is actually so fucking cheap. i'm sure i would make this paragraph even longer if i had played gaiden or 8 but i'm actually so fed up with this franchise. also doing a ground up remake for ishin instead of just a translation with maybe some quality of life improvements or updated characters was stupid and also the combat was bad.

-totk sucked ass nintendo didn't cook. there was NO reason for it to have taken longer to make than botw. the main gimick is cool but i personally didn't like it (though i'm in the minority on that) and while its impressive how bug free it is it doesn't feel play tested. like yeah sure the physics are consistent but it feels like there isn't as many fun ways to use it. after 5 hours you realize what same 7 things work and use them in every situation. also it has some major ux problems (HOLY SHIT JUST LET US PRE-FUSE ARROWS I DON'T WANNA GO TROUGH A DROP DOWN 3 TIMES MID-AIR). the exploration is completely gone for anyone who has played botw as well. the depths and sky just don't have enough going on and again this game took longer than botw to come out despite have absolutely not map change and don't even get me started on the train wreck of a story

-people who have watched playthroughs fundamentally had a different experience to people who actually played the game and that gap can sometimes make them just not able to engage in discussion in the same way. it depends on the game definitely but something like disco elysium relies so heavily on individual experiences that watching someone play it isn't even the same game. even like fnaf which is THE let's play game, you don't truly feel any of the stress from doing mental management by watching someone else play it

-overwatch 2's characters have been such a step down from the first games it's insane. not even as kits but in actual personality and story. with the exception of ramattra who i think is one of the strongest overwatch characters overall (who also has been definitely cooking since mid-ow 1), ow2's characters have been like. not even bland just straight obnoxious. kiriko, venture, lifeweaver, and juno have the same stock "snarky" personality that makes them really obnoxious. kiriko is the worst of that though, her design is also ugly and her entire existence genuinely makes no sense and why is she blizzards golden child what are they cooking. sojourn is just like. boring. junker queen is really fucking annoying and it's a shame as in the cinematic she seems like a much more fun character than someone screaming in my ear. mauga was such a waste of potential because he's also been cooking since before bap's release but he lacks any personality and is again. obnoxious

-fortnite needs to put the collab skins DOWN. the shop has anywhere from 2-8 different collab pages on any given day. and while i'm sure they sell, it just looks so obnoxious and honestly the original skins are just better and more interesting. having to dig to find the signature style page is so annoying. also they need more skins in the rotation because it's the same 5 fucking skins i swear. lego fortnite has absolutely trashed the shop, fall guys will make this problem even worse i imagine

-no more souls likes pleaseeeeee i never fucked with the genre in all honesty but this oversaturation has to be bothering even avid fans of the genre

-nintendo's current re-releases make no sense because why is metroid prime's remaster $40 but fucking luigi's mansion 2 hd $60. also why have they been holding wind waker and twilight princess hd hostage those are easy ports that would sell. i've been wanting to replay twilight princess as i remember it fondly and want to tell if i'm tripping or not but don't have a wii u and you got me fucked up if you think i'm digging up my dead old wii to play it

-on that. twilight princess gets too much shit. of course some of this could be wrong as i'm going off very biased memory as it was my first zelda title and one of the first i 100%ed, but it's so much better than everyone says it is. the aesthetic is very edgy for sure but it also has some of the weirdest character designs and personalities in the franchise and they work so well with the gritty visuals somehow. midna is the best companion as she has an actual personality and isn't BUZZING IM MY FUCKING EAR THE ENTIRE GAME HOLY SHIT FI YOU ARE MY OPP. zant is an amazing villian as well. some people hate on the game's slow opening but i love it because it gives link so much more character and makes you connected to the villagers so you actually care when shit goes down. tp has one of the best stories in the franchise and THE best link and i truly believe that. tp link has so much personality and his connections to characters feel real. it also has some of the best dungeons in the franchise, this is a take many people share at least so i know i'm not tripping on that one

[bryastar]

word salad #2

here we are, day 2!

....kinda

yes I did make a journal yesterday and am currently writing one today, but it's technically the middle of the day for me.....at midnight. yeah, working nights makes days confusing a bit (which doesn't help when I can never seem to remember what day of the week is). and honestly, yesterday's journal was only the first half of my day.... granted what happened before that was I was at work, driving home from work, and then going to bed and waking up and started the day hanging out with everyone at home. aa. maybe I should be primarily focusing on the day before when I make these entries.

anyway

so after writing my entry yesterday I spent most of my day playing sonic adventure DX on Xbox, primarily focusing on raising a power Chao for the Chao races. it's a bit of a grind because the quickest way I could do it is from the mystic ruins garden I dash all the way across the map, and pass through two loading zones to head to red Mountain. here there are not only primarily power type animals (and the random parrot like yuosdhfjkhsd no I don't need you!) but I've played this level so much I can easily get 250-350 rings in one go without getting hit once (except by those red bullet bill things that spin fire everywhere which always seem to hit me at the worst times grrr). and then after that it's going aaalllll the way back to the Chao garden, wrastle up all the animals so they don't keep falling into the pool and having the Chao sit still long enough while I'm trying to find the animal but it decided to hop right back into the pool hfuiashcjdsk aaaa...

anyway wanna see them~? lookit the babies!

afterwards Amber and I finished the main story for Mario rpg on switch. even though I've watched playthroughs of the original before, it's always nice when you still finish a game, especially with amber also playing and helping me with battle strategies while I primarily helped with the puzzles. it was a lot of fun and I'm glad I got to finally play it.

afterwards (I'm just repeating "afterwards" for now until I find more clever ways to say it x.x) I decided to play starfox 64 on the switch. before, while I had been impressed with how the SNES game was able to use primitive 3d graphic, but the game itself I had a rough time playing it without either getting bored or dying way too early on and feeling discouraged. but then I randomly decided to boot starfox 2, the formerly unreleased SNES sequel, and.......I don't know what it was but suddenly it just clicked with me and I was able to beat the game on Normal.......and that's how I realized that starfox is actually a relatively short game, heck it's literally a shoot em up, just in 3d. sometimes in my head I just imagine this and suddenly I'm less overwhelmed by the low res and choppy frame rates. heck, the walker segments used tank controls....yet I was able to work with that just fine strangely enough..... ok going way off topic but, I think I'm starting to understand the starfox series a bit better (and now I can see a bit better why starfox fans would be offput by starfox adventures on GameCube since it's practically an entirely different kind of game, altogether!

ok this entry is getting kinda long so I'll stop here oops. hope this was at least enjoyable aa

uhm

pizza 🍕

[eri-blogs-life]

Fire Emblem: How Engaging Really Is It?

Fire Emblem: Engage has been out for two weeks now, and I just finished my first playthrough, and I figured it captured my attention enough that I wanted to write up some of my thoughts about it on my blog. And that’s what this post you’re reading now is! :o

So, first off, I am not gonna avoid spoilers, if anyone cares about that, just as a heads-up.

Second off, tl;dr: if you don’t wanna read what’s probably gonna end up being a lot of paragraphs about this game, then here’s my short answer: It’s a good game! Probably one of the best games in the fire emblem series... in certain respects. But it’s also got some big issues which may not be issues for everyone but which did cause me to have a hard time getting into the game at the beginning. If you want to know whether I’d recommend it, I’d say it’s absolutely worth picking up if you have liked any other FE games before, but as an entry to the series I think Three Houses is probably a better first pickup on the Switch.

Alright, so let’s break it down. Broadly speaking, I think the game is really good. It also serves as a nice love letter to past fire emblem games without overdoing the callbacks

But let’s start with probably the most obvious aspect of the game, the aesthetics:

(Alear, the protagonist of FE: Engage)

The main character of FE:E is Alear. Alear has very striking features. And mind you, there is an understandable story reason for it. (As you might guess, basically she lies halfway between two states of being in the story and so that’s represented by her blend of red and blue.) (Also, you CAN play as a male Alear instead but I play with female avatars and will likely continue to refer to Alear as a she throughout cause that was my primary experience with Alear in my playthrough.) (Also also, my friend mentioned they might’ve colored her red and blue specifically because as a reference to the switch’s default joycon controllers? But IDK about that.)

Toothpaste-chan, as Alear was affectionately called by the community after her original reveal (among other nicknames), has a very striking design with those two colors mixed like that. It looks weird as heck at first glance, and continues to look weird as heck throughout the game. But you get used to it.

As I understand it, the Fire Emblem team hired a notable japanese visual artist who’s done a lot of vtuber designs before, so when Alear was first revealed people were all “oh you can TELL this was made my someone into vtubers” (said in a derogitory kinda way), which does kinda suck. It’s a real offputting design at first, but it also is a design that kinda works in a nice way to capture a big part of what Alear IS. Alear is the bridge between Good and Evil within the setting and story of Engage, at least to some degree - the bond that draws together people from all over the wartorn world to unite together and work as one.

Though, if we look at that as a piece of political commentary it gets kinda weird. Alear unites all the people of her world to fight against a common threat, the evil Lord Sombron, but that threat is revealed to come from outside the world. He’s a foreign entity and Alear as the hero units the people of her part of the multiverse to kill that guy who came from elsewhere. But I guess they do also ally themselves with the Emblem, people from other worlds, so it probably is more intended as a story to be about fighting for the world alone vs together.

(Vander, one of the early characters, when you speak to him in your hub area)

The other characters of Fire Emblem: Engage range from being relatively mundane in their appearances, to even more out there than Alear. And a lot of the really weird designs are front-loaded, and relegated to story-significant characters (looking at you, Timerra).

And... I get that. From a character design perspective, you want your main characters of your story to really stand out and stay in people’s minds, as well as making them easy to identify what they’re all about at a glance. And Engage’s designs certainly do stick in your mind! BUT not all for good reason.

The game also puts a lot of the weirder characters early in the story, and the story early on really isn’t all that strong, being a kinda generic forgettable adventure until about a third of the way through the game, but I’ll get to the story later.

I REALLY dislike a lot of the character designs in Engage (and I really like a lot of the others), but I’m absolutely willing to put up with the weird ones. Because...

(The greatest Override I have ever or will ever accomplish)

Fire Emblem: Engage’s gameplay is AMAZING. As a long-time Fire Emblem fan, who’s been into the series since it came to America in the GBA era and has played every game save for a couple of the older ones, I have to say... FE:E may be my new favorite game in terms of gameplay. There’s a decent variety of maps, lots of mechanics both old and new that blend together really well, lots of different objectives on maps both required and not, which push you in different directions and do what I think any good strategy game should do - make every turn its own puzzle, custom-built by the decisions you and your opponent (the computer) have made over the course of a fight.

The big new mechanic is obviously Engaging - there are twelve Emblems (kind of? There are twelve main ones, but then there’s also like some shenanigans late in the story that change it up, plus you can also get extra emblems from the DLC too). These Emblems are heroes from previous Fire Emblem games, though within the world of Engage, those emblems are known to be something like effigies of the spirits of heroes from another world - not the hero themself, but a representation of them. During combat, characters who have an emblem’s ring equipped can Engage.

This mechanic lets them fuse with the emblem to become something new, getting a new costume and new abilities. The new abilities a character gets depends both on which emblem they’re using, and how strong their bond with that emblem is, with bond being mostly built up from fighting together in previous fights. Bond can also be built up with training in the Arena, or with another new mechanic you can do in your home base area, the Somniel.

You know that mechanic that got cut from Fire Emblem Fates where you would invite allies to your home base and you would have to pet them with the touch screen and that would increase your relationship with them? Engage has something like that, but it feels even creepier somehow, and this one didn’t get cut for censorship reasons

(Technically, there’s nothing perverted about this scene, but it still feels off)

You can have different characters polish the rings, thus increasing their bond. But it’s a mini game where you have to move the cursor around and press A to polish, and the emblem gives you words of encouragement along the way and it just feels... off. It feels perverted somehow. I don’t know that I can elaborate how or why, but it is one of many Somniel activities I just stopped doing entirely like 2/3 of the way through the game.

There were a lot of those.

Like in a few recent FE games, you have a base that you can run around between missions, called the Somniel. In the Somniel you can eat meals with your team to increase your supports and get buffs for the next fight, work out to get Alear temporary buffs for the next fight, farm animals to get eggs and stuff (or exclusively ingots once you realize putting dogs on your farm gets you ingots), and all kinds of other activities. Honestly, it just got to be too much for me. I was spending way too much time in the Somniel and not doing the fun strategic puzzle gameplay that I WANT to be getting up to in a game like this.

So eventually I just stopped polishing rings, eating meals, and just about anything else. I’d just come back to the Somniel between missions to restock on healing items, inherit any emblem skills I had finally unlocked for a character, and check out any new Bond and Support conversations.

The Bond conversations, between characters and emblems, are all pretty lame. They’re usually a two-sentence back-and-forth, with just some pleasentries exchanged that don’t really say much about either character in the exchange. Supports are better than that, at least. A lot of them feel really light, though, in my opinion. Short. And they are REALLY poorly animated, using a lot of repeat stock character animations that don’t feel like they fit the mood of the scene at all.

But, to be fair, there are definitely some cool characters in the game, and even if the support conversations feel kinda short, and even if their designs visually sometimes leave a lot to be desired.

(one of the bests of the bests in terms of characters in this game)

One big appeal about the Fire Emblem formula definitely is digging into the personal lives of all your characters and learning about what makes them all tick and what they get up to outside of the ongoing war, and even if most characters will appear on the surface to be pretty tropey and one-note, being just a class and a gimmick, supports usually flesh those characters out into being much stronger characters overall. And Engage certainly does a decent bit of that, in my opinion.

One aspect I really liked about a lot of older FE games was seeing how a character’s supports you’d built over the game changed their ending in the epilogue. Unfortunately, Engage doesn’t seem to have any characters pair up if you max out their supports in the ending, at least as far as I saw on my first playthrough, which is a bit disappointing. Like, I think Celica and Alcryst would make a great couple, for example.

But you can get a special relationship with a character of your choosing and your protagonist in this game, which is pretty cool. And you can be gay!

(i obviously married best girl Yunaka. my assassin wife <3)

(there’s even unique CGs for which character you marry, apparently! which means I’m going to have to replay a bunch of times to see all of them I guess lol)

And that’s cool. Cause relationships is definitely a big part of Engage. Not just romantic relationships, though. Bonds, Supports, the Pact Ring (the marriage item), they’re all part of trying to tie into what seems to be the narrative core of the game:

At least, that seems to be the narrative core of the game once you get up to the final battle. Before that... well, I didn’t really pick up on any specific themes that really felt strong up until you get to that last third or so of the story.

But yeah, let’s talk about that story a little.

Fire Emblem: Engage’s story is definitely FUN, I’ll say that. It starts off really weak, though. The first third or so of the game is fairly slow, mostly just introducing you to the world and a lot of the major characters, but having a fairly generic story about going to fight against some guys who stole your cool rings from you. Which isn’t necessarily a bad story on its own, but its execution does feel like it leaves a lot to be desired.

(Also, quick side note, in like the second chapter Alear’s mom dies, but because of the way the story’s set up neither us nor Alear really got much time to spend with her, so what feels like it SHOULD be a big dramatic moment in the story rings REALLY hollow as the player. Like, why is Alear crying over someone she basically met, like, yesterday?)

But things really pop off about a third of the way through the story, when we start getting some good character development from Alear. Alear starts out fairly bold and confidant, but gets her ass handed to her about a third of the way through the story, and we get to see her rebuild up her army and her confidence.

And about two-thirds of the way through the story, we get some reveals about the nature of the world, and things really start to pop off. This is when it goes from being a solid story that’s enjoyable as a backdrop for the amazing gameplay, to being a point where I was REALLY invested in the story.

And then we go to what is basically a fucking meteor in space and fight an epic final battle against a dragon and it’s amazing

(Sombron, the big bad, summons Dark Emblems that represent the big bads of previous games, but they’re subtle enough as references that it feels like a nice nod to past games while still letting Engage do its own thing. This also makes the final fight into a really cool puzzle challenge of its own that isn’t just all about wailing on a lonely old guy)

(Also, if you do Game Over during the final fight - which is hard to do since you can normally use your Time Crystal to reset to a previous turn of the fight - you actually get a Bad Ending, which surprised me when I was expecting to just go back to the title screen)

So... I think that sums up most of my core thoughts. Here’s just another fun set of screencaps I took. I started the game taking like <10 minutes per map:

Then through the midgame I took roughly 30-50 minutes per map, until we get to the final fight:

Almost 2 hours. Damn.

Anyway, I think I gotta wrap this up. I enjoyed the heck out of my time with Engage, even if it felt really weak at the start. I’m looking forward to my next playthrough, just gotta decide what to do with that playthrough (maybe if I can do the new tumblr polls I’ll make one of those).

I’ll just end it with one last screencap. My feelings for Engage overall I think:

[apompkwrites]

reader impact || first meetings: unreconciled stars

series masterlist characters: scaramouche, fischl, mona genre: fluff summary: a game has been released entitled genshin impact, consisting of otherworldly abilities relying on the basic elements of nature. the game follows the story of an interdimensional traveling twin in search of their other half. along this journey, they meet different characters that live in this world. including you. notes: i'm sorry fischl and mona's aren't that good :(( this is actually my first time writing for them but i hope you enjoy <33

scaramouche's playthrough -

oof scara

scara scara scara

this boy hates his chat and at this point they don't care.

it's not like he'll badmouth them, right?

think ludwig.

that's him.

he's a very angy boy please--

as for what he does?

much like childe he'd do a lot of pvp games.

he's not too keen on showing off his personal life.

he prefers that boundary between his viewers and himself, y'know?

he honestly doesn't even understand why his viewers like him.

he knows he's a mean person and yet here they are :/

he doesn't take requests from his viewers he just kinda plays whatever he wants.

imagine his viewers' surprise when they see him streaming genshin--

they asked why a lot.

"it seemed cool."

this man just wants to play some good ol' anime games.

his chat calls him soft and he just glares.

anyway now he's actually playing.

he's not really into mondstadt's characters they're all... okay to him.

he feels a bit better in liyue.

not because it's pretty oh no no no.

because look at all the enemies outside >:))

he'll clear the whole field don't test him.

anyway, now onto the unreconciled stars event :00

this man really doesn't like katheryne--

anyway at this point he's tasked with find fritz, which he doesn't really want to do.

he sees the dude on the ground but that's only after he sees someone standing next to him.

and then he sees someone standing next to him :0

"is the guy on the floor sleeping?"

"i believe so. i've tried everything, but he won't wake up."

he will pause to look at your outfit.

it's so complex but it's so cool!!!

his chat suspects something's up but... he'll just snap at them like he normally does.

but he'll silently admire you <3

also yOU'RE T I N Y ! !

and then paimon points out your clothes and the cameras pans up your body--

"heh... and by "this person over here," you mean me, right?"

he will choose the "those unique clothes are quite beautiful" option in a heartbeat.

he doesn't care that his chat is teasing him, he just wants you to know :))

he's kinda sad when you leave, though...

"please come back soon..."

his CHAT HAS NEVER SEEN HIM SO SOFT BEFORE

skip to a few events later when the constellation is revealed to be leonard's.

the sudden cutscene catches him off guard because he's prepared to fight someone.

"hi! sounds interesting... mind if i join you?"

he won't say anything but he will physically relax at the sight of you.

you make this man soft please--

he's lowkey angry when his character is teleported away from you :(

(name): the sixth of the eleven fatui harbingers

HYPEHYPEHYPE

YOU'RE SO COOL!

of course he doesn't say that but his chat can tell that's what he's thinking.

this man's eyes go wide when you order the fatui around.

please help he really likes you. you're so assertive and cute and cool and just AGH--

fischl's playthrough -

fischl can and will do cosplay streams.

her fans like to watch her because of the "character" she puts up for the camera.

honestly she just does this because she genuinely enjoys cosplaying and bringing characters to life.

oz is the nickname for her pet bird :))

she definitely gets a lot of trolls in her chat that make fun of her for her cosplays and "dumb" way of speaking.

in which case she'll just yell at them using her "dumb" way of speaking.

she really does care about how people see her but her chat comforts her a lot after, so she feels better after a few minutes :))

the games she plays are very fantasy based and take place in worlds that don't exist.

once she gets into a game, she'd pick her favorite character and cosplay as them everytime she streams that game.

sometimes she does sewing streams where she actually makes her own cosplay with her fans.

they like to make it with her if they have the materials :D

genshin impact was a game her fans recommended because they actually want to see fischl cosplay the characters.

they will beg her to do the cosplay creation on stream.

(they defintitely know who she'll choose to cosplay but it's fine)

when she reaches the unreconciled stars event, she's really excited to learn about the fated meteorite granting sleep upon touch.

she's ready to go around teyvat in search of an answer when...

"katheryne! vassal of the immernachtreich, do mine ears deceive me, or didst thou cry out mine holy name in earnest supplication not one moment ago?"

some of her chat is obviously confused by your speech but her long time viewers can understand some of it.

oz, who fischl had brought with her to play, seems excited to see your familiar flying to you :)

fischl is just as excited as he is!!

please you speak just like her and you're voice is so nice and it actually sounds like the developers put thought into what the speech would mean in "proper speech."

"a pleasure to meet you again, katheryne."

YOU'RE FAMILIAR IS JUST AS COOL AS YOU ARE!!

some of her viewers will beg for her to skip through your dialogue.

when she sees those comments, she will purposefully let your dialogue play out, proceed to read out that same dialogue, and respond to you as if she was actually talking to you.

not just to spite them but because it's also a lot of fun for her <3

"it would seem the gods have blessed us with meeting such a well-respected being!"

translation: she's really excited to have met you.

as soon as you spoke she decided she would cosplay as you.

she's already planning out all of the materials she'll need and how much time it would take.

if your familiar is a bird, you best bet oz will be in her photo shoots for your cosplay.

most of the time you're on screen, she'll talk to her viewers about you in her classic chuunibyou style <333

she's really sad when it's time for you to leave :(((

"... goodbye, fischl. you are a good listener. i enjoy chatting with you. to be honest, most of the other adventurers in the guild only ever talk to me when they wanna hear (familiar)'s reconnaissance reports... this little journey we had... it was a great adventure. i'm just sorry that is has to end so abruptly..."

she might cry wait--

she relates to you even more now :(

"ah! what am i doing? i totally broke form..."

you're too cute pleas--

mona's playthrough -

mona does a lot of nightly streams.

it's very rare for you to catch her streaming with daylight.

she likes to share things about astrology while sitting outside drinking something warm.

she'll do a lot of nightly gaming streams as well.

mainly calmer games that people can vibe to in the background.

she prefers to keep her streams lowkey and chill, much like the life she wants to lead.

if only she had the money to do so...

yes, mona is still struggling with money even as a streamer.

she greatly appreciates any donations her fans give to her because she practically relies on them to pay her rent and daily necessities.

of course, it's not like she's completely struggling, just enough to barely get her by.

anyway, her fans ask her about playing genshin impact, inticing her with their talk about the stars and night sky in the game.

she's the type of player to take her time in the environment and take a lot of pictures of her character at night.

she's actually really excited when she hears about this new event centering around the stars and sky :D

soon enough, she gets around to the part where she is need of an astrologist.

she's HYPED to hear there's an astrologist in the game.

"someone looking for me? who is it?"

she will squeal, please.

look at you!!!

your whole design has stars and is space-themed and you're so cute and you're voice is so soothing ! ! !

she really likes listening to you talk about astrology because your voice gets even softer than before.

that scene where you go to the cliff??

please she has that scene as her lockscreen <3

you just look so cool when you start to do your process.

you're so focused and the way they animate your process in the game is beautiful.

and then the fatui harbinger interrupts one of your meetings :00

you grab onto mona's character and teleport away in a cloud of stars and specks of your elemental vision.

she's kinda embarrassed when you scold her about getting involved with the harbinger--

but not only are you really cool and awesome, you're super strong, too!

please be sassy more she really likes how proud you sound :))

[noeggets]

Sorry if this is bothersome, but I noticed you're a mega man fan and I've wanted to get into the series myself, and I'd like to know what game you'd recommend to a first timer. =)

i do not recommend the 1st game of the classic series for starting because its very hard but if you wanna try it be my guest it is how everything started but thats just my preference that i myself wouldn’t play any of the first series games but maybe megaman 11. 

i do recommend the X series or the zero series because i like those the most and there is a easy mode included (if you have the switch ver) also it isnt that hard once you get on your feet with the game. my very first megaman game i played was the zx series but that was because i had watched a youtuber playthrough all the games already and knew the story up to that point and i wanted to play a megaman game.

(said youtuber played every game and if you dont wanna play them yourself but you wanna know about megaman here is every game played by MegaQuint) link

if you want megaman but its not megaman i do recommend battle network watch the anime and play the games cause its different but the same material kinda. the battle network series isn’t that easy its kinda hard not really but you can play that first if you want, it kinda all depends on what kinda gameplay you like what you start with but storywise if you wanna play it in order then play it like this guide below

chronological order of games and small explanation of what is happening in these games also in comics related to the games story

the original megaman series

a old man name dr light creates a robot called a robotmaster his name is rock

the original series has 11+ games 2 tv shows? and 2? comics and mangas. you dont have to watch the tv shows or read the comics if you dont want to (but it puts some story to the games and i like it and i recommend it) the comics and the tv show is just a retelling kinda so its perfectly ok not to get into all that BUT AGAIN I LIKE THEM AND I WOULD READ THE ARCHIE COMICS

the X series

100 years have passed sense the first series and now you are a blue robot name X fighting confused robots called mavericks 

the X series has 8+ games a few mangas 1 remake 1 novel? and a anime episode to show what happen and how it all started

i enjoy the x series so i can actually tell you how to play them

Mavrick hunter X/X1 X2 Xtreme 1 X3 Xtreme 2 X4 X5 X6 command mission (<- alternate universe) X8

Mavrick hunter X is a retelling of X1 that comes with a little anime episode to watch so you understand what i just explained under the X series the game wont explain what the the day of sigma (thats what the episode thing is called day of sigma) watch it you dont have to watch it but watch because i said so.

command mission is played like a rpg and doesnt really matter but i enjoy it so i recommend it cause its a fun time

you dont have to play Xtreme its just a replay of X2 and X3 but a small story that doesnt really matter to the plot or story at all but if you wanna be die hard fan you can i havent played those games because X2 is kinda difficult and i dont wanna play it again.

the Zero series

a alternate universe split from X6 100 years (again) a war happen and now you play as a red robot name Zero

you will learn about Zero in the X series because he is X best friend me even telling you about Zero is kinda a spoiler but not that much so its fine.

the zero series has 4 games alot of audio tracks and a retelling that is down right silly of the games im currently reading myself

the zero series is great thats all im gonna say it becomes super easy if you have the switch ver because easy mode makes it super easy if your just here for story.

the ZX and ZXA series

after Zero 4 humans and robots live together but there are some side affects to that you play as either a girl name Alie or a boy name Vent sometime after this game you play as either a boy name Grey or a girl name Ashe

it only has two games and it is very easy ZXAdvent is after ZX

if you play as Aile you meet and Grey Vent and Ashe do not exist

if you play as Vent you meet Ashe Alie and Grey do not exist

this is because Vent is Alie if Alie was a boy and vice versa its like picking the boy character or the girl character but for ZXA if you play as grey Ashe dies and if you play as Ashe grey dies there is no saving the other thats just how it be for some reason. 

BUT LISTEN TO THIS i believe in the Alie and Vent are siblings and fanonly i can say grey and ashe coexist so dont worry about that too much.

the megaman legends series

3000 years? later you play as a completely different character name Volnut who looks like rock from the first series but he isn't. 

 legends has 3 games legends 1 legends 2 and The Misadventures of Tron Bonne

it is a disappointment this series was never finished but you can still play it if you are really die hard i have never played this game cause i do not own any psp or whatever original system it came on but you can watch a playthrough if you are interested cause it did come after ZX in the story of the game.

parallel universes that has nothing to do with the original games has a complete different background and is just a stand alone spin off parallel universe.

the battle network series

in this world you play as a fifth-grader named Lan Hikari and his NetNavi MegaMan.EXE exploring the internet because everything is the internet now.

battle network has 6+ games a few mangas and a anime with 4? seasons one still being translated unofficially. 

mmbn1 mmbn2 mmbn 3 mmbn4 red sun or blue moon mmbn5 team protoman or team colonel mmbn6 cybeast falzar or cybeast gregar

the battle network series is like megaman but what if it was completely different from what the megaman games actually you really dont have to play and replay both blue and red but i recommend it cause thats what im doing if you wanna play through the whole game but with a different cast of characters who you may start to love more then others

red has protoman.exe and a whole other cast of characters while blue has colonel,exe and a different cast of characters what im doing is i played through red because there is a character i really like in that run so im just gonna play blue to the boss and just skip on over to the next game.

 the starforce series

Man Battle Network and Mega Man Star Force series, are canon to one another but not the other series. so this comes after battle network.

im not sure myself what happens here but you play as Geo who has a alien named Omega Xis and they cross fusion to make themself megaman

i have never played or watched the starforce game or anime but its just like the battle network series thats all i know

OVER ALL

if you actually read all that you know how informed i am in megaman GOOD FOR YOU i typed all this for you so you better read it lol

play the X series watch the day of sigma play the zero series play the battle network series watch the battle network anime I WILL EVEN GIVE YOU LINKS TO WHERE YOU CAN WATCH IT WATCH THE BATTLE NETWORK ANIME

i recommend watching all the animes 

here is a youtube link to the day of sigma

day of sigma

here is a link to the megaman timeline

Wikipedia 

here is a link to the battle network animes

MMBN dub (i recommend the dub its funny)

season 1

season 2

sadly the dub didnt do the next seasons so you have no choice but to watch the rest subbed

MMBN sub

season 1

season 2

season 3

season 4 and 5

Starforce anime

a menu for all the battle network and starforce anime guide so you can watch whatever you want

this is really not as complicated as im making it im sure somebody else could explain this better and shorter but im giving my thoughts.

[inactivepersonnnnnn]

Markiplier played the newest game from the Henry Stickmin series (Completing the Mission) and I’m crying it’s so good-

(Me just gushing over stuff after the cut because I don’t want to spoil and I typed out so much stuff)

The Henry Stickmin series lets plays were one of the first videos I’ve watched from Mark. Why is this a big deal? If I hadn’t watched them, believe it or not but my life would probably be so much different from how it is now. So, seeing him playing a game from the series gave me MASSIVE nostalgia. Also has made me realise that I’ve been watching his content for five years which frankly is amazing.

If you don’t know the Henry Stickmin series, you better play/watch a playthrough of them before reading because I’m going to spoil it so much. From what I know, the remaster of games 1-5 as well as the newest one is found on Steam but the original 1-5 are on Newgrounds and Stickpage.com. (Technically there are 7 in the series but whatever)

I really like the references in this one (mainly because I got a lot of them) and they were hilarious. The Undertale reference made me laugh a bit, I think I would’ve liked it more when I was Undertale trash 5 years ago. The Minecraft references were pretty good, the one where Henry was bridging to the rocket made me laugh waaay too much. Them making him go ‘oough’ when he died was a good nod to the old death sound. 

Aside from that, the text on the fail screens have just been amazing. I specifically remember the drill fail where it said something like ‘haha drill go brrrr’ as well as the part where they downgraded the animation and said the budget ran out. 

The choices this time were awesome. I LOVE the fight scenes. I don’t really watch anime but I really like how they put in one of the characters just talking during the fight and explaining everything. The funniest part for me though would be when you pick the barrel, Henry and Ellie get shot up, and you need to do a combo with Charles and the choice ‘Grab’ just makes him give you a high five before you fall. That fail had me laughing so hard it hurt. It’s probably one of the funniest fails along with Henry 360 no scoping Ellie, Charles crashing the helicopter, and the dancing distraction (all from Fleeing the Complex).

The callbacks to the previous games were also really heccing great, the dancing distraction fail was one of my favourites and I love how they made it work this time. The teleporter too, the entire scene was so well made and I love how Henry didn’t even want to use it because it screwed him over so many times. Oh! I almost forgot, in one route, the fail screen says ‘Henry will remember that’ which is a really nice nod because it references the text you see from the Ghost Inmate ending when you leave Ellie behind (’Ellie will remember that’)

I also really love how the characters from the government, the tophat clan, and the wall all appear in the game. It’s just- I love it, so so much.

Ellie and Henry’s dynamic is also really, really good. It reminds me of Joe and Cleo’s (Hermitcraft) dynamic. On his own, Joe’s chaotic but he makes it work in his own way. On her own, Cleo feels more organised and logical. Together, they do stupid things. (Terrible summary but give me a break, it’s late and I’m tired but I wanna finish this) I just really, really like their friendship and I find it so great that they’ve only known each other for like what- a day or two? And, Ellie trusts him enough to follow through with his plans even when she doesn’t fully understand them.

Okay, Ellie and Henry are great but can I just gush about Charles? 

Best. Character. In. The. Game.

Him with his plans back in Infiltrating the Airship and Fleeing the Complex were enough to make me love this guy but Completing the Mission just made Charles SO GOOD. I love his chemistry with Henry (plus Ellie) and his dialogue is absolutely hilarious. Seriously, he probably has the best lines in the entire series.

Also, he is SUCH a good friend. He’s only met Henry either once or twice (depending on the endings) but in the Valiant Hero ending, he seemed perfectly fine with exploding because Henry was safe and the mission was complete. And, his final lines DESTROYED ME. His dialogue was all written out in the captions but the voice never completed it.

When watching the video, I legitimately CRIED for Charles’ death. Markiplier did NOT leave enough time to just process and get over his death. In that ending, Charles died a hero but it was so SAD. His final lines- oh g od. 

“We did it though. We got' em. Pretty good plan. You could say it was the greates-” 

...

That being said, favourite ending (and the one I consider canon in my head) is Triple Threat. I want an ending with both accomplices alive please.

I’m still not over Charles’ death aaaaa-

[itsclydebitches]

I got witcher!Ciri too! I kind wonder wha would happen if she died tho, dont wanna put geralt or her through that but I love angst lmfaoo. The game got really confusing at point cause I you have to learn a bunch of politics and how this world works and I didnt pay that much attention so I'm sure I'll get those moments in my second playthrough too I'm playing something in the hearts of stone thnig, it was lower level so I'm assuming you should play that first? a main quest with the asshole ghost in the wedding and wow I fucking hate it, it's so umcomfortable to watch geralt be this gross n weird lol, I'm not too familar when Shani either so watching her get mad when I get geralt to say he wouldnt do what the ghost is doing is so annoying lol, OH AND the ghost is a creepy fuck! shani babe you can do much much better than an asshole who talks about his dick and fucking "maidens" every other sentence!! Geralt really does get thrown into so much shit huh I'm tempted to read the books cause I do rly like the world and most- some characters but yeah reading about yen being yen wold be one of the things to stop me, what are some of the plot points that put you off? if you don't mind sharing And yeah I'd so be up for more content esp with ciri, would be cool to see them work together, even with how combat works in this game with npcs lmao

Woo witcher Ciri ending! :D If you enjoy putting yourself through pain I recommend looking up that other ending on YouTube because there are definitely some nice angst shots in the cut scenes. I watched and then promptly went, “I don’t need to play that for myself” lol. But yeah, hard agree on things getting confusing, especially towards the end. I completely missed stuff like the fact that my actions would actually impact this war, rather than the war simply being backdrop, or that Ciri’s powers were more than just the ability to teleport short distances. So by the time I was getting called on to murder kings and Avallach was taking us to totally different worlds, I had a very John Mulaney approach of, “This might as well happen. Things are already so goddamn weird.” Which, you know, really isn't the game's fault. It's what I get for jumping into the third game first and while I don't regret that at all, the story has absolutely deserved a second playthrough where I actually understand all the basic stuff I should have known going in.

Yeah, Hearts of Stone comes first. You can do any of the side quests you’d like from either DLC, but I’d recommend keeping Blood & Wine’s main storyline for the final push. But yeah, that ghost dude is, uh… something. I quite like the wedding on the whole—I really enjoy Shani, dancing is fun, O’Dimm is being a wonderfully evil dude—but yeah, dead dude is definitely a creep. Which is partly one of the things that turned me off from the books. It has the same ‘Guy trying to write women’ energy of the games but… worse. I’ve read a lot of excerpts over the years and so many of them turn me off. There are a ton of small things, like Triss importantly informing the witchers (who are all like 100+ years old??) about periods and that Ciri can’t train today because of hers (a moment that much of the fandom celebrates as... progressive?), or Triss and Yen getting super catty with one another over Geralt, to much bigger things like Ciri nearly getting raped/being involved in intimate acts with really questionable consent. A lot of the Witcher has a “This didn’t age well” vibe to it which, to be fair, isn’t entirely the fault of the author. The story is the product of 90’s Polish culture and, again, a man trying to write some pretty complex subjects from an arguably ignorant place, which makes much of the work eye-rolling for me at best, outright uncomfortable at worst. (Which I think is why I enjoy the games far more. I have agency in this questionable world, the ability to tailor it somewhat to my own beliefs and desires, which makes moments when that's taken away, like Geralt automatically commenting on how good Yen looks at a funeral, all the more frustrating). I obviously am not a Geralt/Yen fan, which sours a great deal of the plot. From what I got through the pacing felt like a slog and, more importantly, much seems to have been lost in the translation from Polish to English. (I continually hear about how amazing the dialogue is, but sadly that hasn’t come across in translation for me. Much of it is... awkward.) The parts I’ve heard about/read excerpts of that I’m most interested in—Geralt’s hanza—ends tragically and I’m… just not here for that right now. Which isn’t to say it’s badly written or anything, just that it’s not my personal cup of tea, especially nowadays with a pandemic and what all going on lol. I look at what I know of the series as a whole and go, “Do I really want to read five books filled with outdated representation for women, that old-school fantasy violence that turned me off GoT, with a super depressing ending, all wrapped up in an iffy translation and a style I don’t think does well in long-form storytelling? … Not really.”

Still loved most of the short stories and I’ve heard that many people liked the audio book versions when they couldn't get into the text, so I might give that a go someday. I’d prefer to actually have read all the source material for a fandom I’m spending so much time in, but I sadly just haven't had the urge yet. If you do read them, anon, you’ll have to tell me what you think. It’s becoming quite the divisive topic, especially as Netflix fans turn to the books, and—putting aside that everyone’s tastes will always differ—it’s interesting to hear not just whether someone had fallen in love with the books or not, but if they haven’t what about them prevented that. It's very much a case of one person's "That was awful" being another's "Are you kidding me? That's the best part!"