#good game. 10/10. sometimes playable

[jacqcrisis]

Hmm, I've never done the tiefling party without sleeping with Astarion and I've already done Gale's Act 1 romance, so what happens when Al goes to sleep?

Oh well that's kind of cute if odd phrasing, but I dig it-

The scream I scumpt.

Alfonso. My man.

[ominous-horse-noises]

as someone who fell off of genshin for similar reasons (gameplay loop became meaningless busywork way too quickly, the story became too self-referential and unfocused, etc.), i also want to add that i feel like the writers wrote themselves into a corner from the start with the traveler.

the traveler's motivations are kind of counterintuitive to the interests of players. from lumine's (the twin i played) perspective, she wants as little interaction with this world as possible, and thus any story conflict she's drawn into has to be kind of against her will. sure, lumine can make connections with the characters, but genshin isnt really written well enough to express a lot of those relationships as organic and a meaningful obstacle to her objective of grabbing her twin and leaving teyvat. there are exceptions (xiao, for instance, has actually been built up to have a close bond with the traveler specifically), but overall, the writing strongly implies that if it wasnt useful for her to be helping others, she would have stopped by now.

full admission, i stopped playing soon after sumeru dropped- partly because i had gotten bored with the gameplay, and partly because a lot of the new mechanics and puzzles introduced were too dense to parse easily. however, from streamers i watch who've played up to fontaine, there seems to have been an overarching arc of the traveler's good nature being taken advantage of so often and for so long that they're starting to become embittered over having to lend a hand at all in all threads of the plot- because the writers keep having characters (usually the archons or similarly high ranking members in each nation's society) promise them progress and then go 'teehee guess i can't help you after all' in a cycle that feels a little like the writers taunting the players themselves.

now, i say this is counterintuitive to the players because the players WANT to linger in the world. they want to get to know all the characters, they want to explore every inch of the map for puzzles and chests, they want to do all the quests, they want to understand the lore. so now the story is caught between inventing more and more grating reasons why the traveler has to get involved with the narrative of the world against their will, the characters seem more and more like assholes for being able to provide nothing useful in return (bc as op accurately pinpointed, the writers keep holding their story cards tight to their chests), and the traveler becomes more exhausted and cynical about doing the things that the player is playing the game to do. its basically a running joke in the fandom at this point.

the difference between botw having a similar 'racing to save someone dear to the protagonist but getting involved in the minutiae of an open world' and genshin is that botw is VERY clear why link can't just grab a few overpowered allies and run straight for the castle. in genshin, because the story is so bloated and yet underdeveloped, the player doesn't get a real sense of the scope of the danger beyond cryptic allusion and other characters just saying so.

and the tragic thing is hoyo knows this is, objectively, a bad set up to tell a story like this from, because the first thing they did with the protagonist of honkai: star rail (i have complaints about the storytelling from the second world, but overall, the writing is head and shoulders above genshin by every metric) is give them no past and stick them on a crew of people who are literal do-gooders. amnesia is a cheap writing trick for player avatars, but it ends up working because the avatar is put with a group of people whose whole motivation is to travel and help others, which gives them an easy and plausible reason to get involved in conflicts of both A plot and C/D plot importance.

so. uh. in short, writing a protagonist whose express purpose is to get out of the world the entire game takes place in as soon as possible punishes players who want to try and be immersed in the story and their avatar's goals with endless frustration.

i kinda really wanna see a big ol vent/rant from you about genshin now lol. I would read an essay

I'm not sure you understand the insanity you just unlocked in me but ok

genshin impact is probably the clearest modern example i can think of of capitalism absolutely eviscerating a creative project. For context, I started playing genshin in 2021, just after the 1.4 update. it was venti's first rerun/the first windblume festival if that means something to you. and I really genuinely thought that it might have had something special. It was a gacha that didn't FEEL like a gacha, which was a huge feat to me.

it began with a very simple story pitch--you, the protagonist, are one of a set of twin siblings traveling through space. you come upon a seemingly unassuming world and your attempts to continue your journey are suddenly stopped by a mysterious, all-powerful figure. you are separated from your sibling and wake up alone on the shores of this planet you were attempting to leave together. throughout that opening cutscene and scattered through the world and your character's dialog there are implications that all is not as it seems, that your character is something unique to this world and that they possess powers and abilities that you've yet to unlock. You are told that you must travel the seven nations of this world in order to find your sibling, which is great--a simple, zelda-like objective which drives the player to explore the secondary narratives of the world. none of this is bad on the surface. in fact i'd argue it's pretty good. there's a ton that can be done with these story bones. even at launch the map and combat system were full of potential as well.

Note: for ease of reading, i'm going to label the different storylines of the game now. A-plot refers to the central objective of the entire game; the find-your-sibling plot and everything that encompasses, including the abyss order/dain, the heavenly principles, the fake sky, etc. B-plot refers to the secondary objective present in each new nation, usually meeting the archon and/or solving a problem for the archon. (A and B-plots will occasionally intersect.) C-plot refers to any story, location, or background information which remains in permanent gameplay but which isn't directly related to the A or B-plots, such as dragonspine, the chasm, enkanomiya, etc. D-plot refers to any story, location, or background information which is confined to limited-time events and does NOT remain in permanent gameplay, regardless of its connection or lack thereof to the A and B-plots, such as the golden apple archipelago, the infamous albedo/dragonspine event, the infamous kaeya/diluc event, etc. Lore as i will refer to it in this post refers to any information which is present in permanent gameplay but which is not directly told to the player within the A or B-plot story quests and objectives, including books, weapon, artifact, and item descriptions, world quest dialog and puzzles, etc.

So now we're in mid-2021, there are two nations' worth of B-plot story quests released in full, and we've run into our first problem, which is that the game isn't finished yet. I don't have any actual information about how the game was/is written, but based on what i've observed over the past few years, my best guess is that the A-plot has been fully written since the beginning, at least in some form. there were very early-game events and information pertaining to the A-plot that would take years to see any actual payoff in the main story quests (kaeya's origin story, the 1.3 scaramouche fake-sky drop, the flowers in lumine's hair, etc.) but those kinds of A-plot story easter eggs very quickly dropped off when the game absolutely EXPLODED during the pandemic.

this sudden burst in popularity was the true beginning of the end for genshin, i think, because suddenly they had a HUGE fanbase that desperately wanted more content faster than they could pump out new A-plot or even B-plot story quests. one of the most pervasive complaints about the game when I began playing in 2021 was that there was nothing to do between story quests. update 1.4 (which was the update I started playing at) was important in that it was the first time since genshin's release over a year before that players recieved any new A-plot, in the form of the archon quest We Will Be Reunited, also known as the quest with the most fucking misleading name of all time. you'll never guess what doesn't fucking happen during this quest. anyways. we were a year into gameplay, two nations out of seven released and a third on the not-so-distant horizon, and it seemed obvious that players were owed some sort of A-plot payoff. and that's very much what WWBR was advertised as, from the quest's name to the banners full of art of the twins staring wistfully at each other. The thing is, what i'm describing as A-plot payoff was actually. not really A-plot payoff at all. WWBR was the reveal that the protagonist's sibling was working with the abyss order, and that the abyss order was connected somehow to Khaenri'ah, which at this point casual players would only have known about from THAT QUEST and MAYBE kaeya's character descriptions if they were diligent enough to get him to friendship level 10 (which, btw there is no indication that you should do to get important context about the story of the game, because kaeya is a 4-star starter character and the only character in the entire game that actually has genuinely important story hidden in his character descriptions.) So what I'm calling A-plot payoff felt at the time a lot less like A-plot payoff than it did like an abyss sibling cameo in an attempt to satiate everyone who was begging for more story. We actually gained almost net 0 information. this is very quickly going to become a pattern.

As I've already alluded to, the motives behind this writing decision are transparently obvious. Genshin is a free gacha game which relies on a consistently active and engaged userbase to make its money. With fans getting restless about the lack of engaging story at the time and a new, very ambitious B-plot quest gearing up for release that would require major support from that fan base in order to remain profitable, the writers were backed into a corner. they HAD to throw the fans some sort of bone in order to keep them engaged with the A-plot, since it was originally pitched as the driving force for the story as a whole, but they were also clearly not at a stage of the writing process where it was prudent to give the player any REAL information about the A-plot. This is how we ended up with a 10-second abyss sibling cameo and an offhanded mention of Khaenri'ah, a nation whose plot-relevance was at that point still basically unknown.

The real problem is, WWBR worked. at least, it worked as intended at the time. It satiated story-focused fans in the interlude between B-plot nations, as hyv was gearing up to release inazuma, which required a lot of time in preparation. WWBR was followed almost immediately by the C-plot golden apple archipelago in 1.6, widely regarded as one of the better events of version 1. GAA was memorable especially because it was the first event that involved an entirely new, limited-time-only map, meaning the event had much more longevity than the standard events players were used to. This is, imo, most likely the update combination that led to the standard formula which hyv uses for its quests and events nowadays. the back-to-back release of WWBR and GAA satisfied both fans who wanted A-plot story AND silenced criticisms about the game lacking endgame playability, which at the time must have seemed like a goldmine to writers desperate for a solution to their content-to-fanbase ratio problem.

From here, genshin started following a standard method of release for their next three nations--inazuma, sumeru, and fontaine. the formula generally went as follows: one major version update (usually version x.0) containing a major map update which included all B-plot relevant locations in the new nation, and the first chapter of the B-plot story quest relevant to that nation. this would then be followed by 2-3 version updates which would each contain the next chapter in the nation's B-plot story quest, sequentially. After the nation's B-plot quest ended, during the downtime in which the next nation's story and map would be finalized, subsequent updates would be largely C-plot, and would contain minor expansions of the map to increase endgame playability via exploration and world quests. This is how we ended up with updates like the chasm, the several extra islands in inazuma, and the quite frankly ridiculously large sumeru map, as well as the offloaded maps like enkanomiya and the sea of bygone eras. with the possible exception of the chasm, none of these areas are A OR B-plot relevant. hyv has realized that artificially inflating the map makes their game technically more engaging during the downtime between nations. However, this comes at a price. While the scenery and set design of the game remains consistently beautiful, the actual, mechanical gameplay that populates that scenery very quickly became mind-numbingly boring if not borderline unplayable. While the 1.0 questlines were not perfect, there was at least an emphasis on the player actually DOING things. 1.0 B-plot quests would have you going to mini-dungeon temples and completing challenges which would acclimate you to the combat system while also serving narrative purpose. There were quests that required you to navigate open-world dungeons. Because your characters were lower-level, combat challenges that arose during these quests were CHALLENGES, rather than two-second buttonmashing segments. By the time we get to sumeru, though, both B-plot AND C-plot quests have become little more than moving your character from location to location and tapping through (usually unvoiced) dialog. there's no GAMEPLAY in the quests anymore, because gameplay isn't what makes money. What DOES make money is giving players 300 hidden chests to find in an open-world map segment, each of which gives them 1/80th of a gacha pull. And so the story suffers and the map gets bigger.

Along with the map expansions, downtime between nations usually also nets us one A-plot quest, usually involving the character dainslief, who was the driver of the initial WWBR quest. This is the second half of hyv's magical formula for keeping fans happy between major releases. the A-plot quests will, as a general rule, give players either very little new information or no new information at all, but will dress up the delivery in such a way that it ALMOST feels as though the protagonist has moved forward somehow. the most recent example of this writing style, the 4.7 quest bedtime story, amounts to about an hour and a half of gameplay and, while it DOES contain a segment in which the protagonist finally actually has a conversation with their sibling, that conversation literally begins with the line "I have so many questions, but for some reason I don't want to ask them right now," ensuring that the sibling will not actually be required to give away any plot-relevant information whatsoever, and the quest ends with the protagonist FORGETTING THAT THE CONVERSATION EVER HAPPENED IN THE FIRST PLACE.

As I think I mentioned before, the cardinal problem of genshin impact's writing is that fans want answers faster than the writers are prepared to give them. I don't doubt that there's a game bible or relevant equivalent somewhere within hyv which contains the explanations we are currently lacking in regards to the A-plot. the game is consistent enough in its storytelling for me to believe that this isn't all just being made up as we go along. But I'm also certain that a lot of the late-game A and B-plot that is planned (especially if the Khaenri'ah is truly planned to be the 8th nation of the game) hinges on the player knowing very little about the A-plot. this would be fine if genshin was a standard single-release video game that players could work through at their own pace, but it isn't. it's unfinished, and each nation in the game releases months to years after the last, leaving the writers to scramble to fill in the gameplay gaps and players struggling to remember plot-relevant information when it's brought up literal years after they last heard it mentioned. Not only does the time between updates leave players frustrated about the lack of A-plot, it makes the A-plot harder to understand when it is brought up, because the writers are required to throw in so much dense C and D-plot just to keep engagement high enough to make the game profitable in its downtime. we joke about the insane convolution of genshin's lore, but that is first and foremost a byproduct of its financial model. the game requires engaement to be profitable, and adding lore for players to look into drives up engagement. The fact that having so much story with so little plot relevance muddies the waters and makes the A and B-plot stories considerably harder to understand doesn't matter as long as money is being made.

I want to take a quick detour here to talk about the release of sumeru specifically, because this is when I really began to clock the fact that genshin was declining. on paper, racial sensitivity issues aside (Not that they're not important, but i'm doing this deep dive from a storytelling and game design point of view, nothing else. that's a whole can of worms i don't have time to get into here) sumeru was a really promising addition to the game. The new B-plot quest which was set to drop in 3.0 was highly anticipated for several reasons. Two fan-favorite characters (kaeya and scaramouche) were expected to play major roles, because of earlier C and B-plot quests, and much of the nation's scenery that was teased in trailers and promotional content appeared to tie into the A-plot. the most exciting draw about sumeru and version 3.0, though, was the major update to the combat system.

Arguably genshin impact's most interesting feature upon release was its combat system. The map was basically a botw clone at that point, and the story quests, while decently engaging, were rough around the edges to say the least. What genshin DID have going for it was a unique real-time combat system that rewarded strategy and quick thinking.

Genshin's combat system is elemental, and on release there were 6 elemental affiliations: anemo (wind), cryo (ice), pyro (fire), hydro (water), geo (rock), and electro (electricity.) in a sort of pokemon-like system, certain elements were weak to other ones, but more importantly, certain combinations of elements could drastically boost combat stats. Players got to construct four-slot teams of characters, each with an elemental affiliation and certain "skills" which would match their element, and you were encouraged to use the interactions of these elements to build teams. very quickly, a huge community formed dedicated to optimizing teams and tiering characters. People would even make a game out of building teams specifically to do high-level damage with "bad" characters or characters who weren't designed to be damage drivers (my 100k jean burst was an incredible moment fr.) this was, of course, also a picture-perfect driver for the gacha aspect of the game, which was how players obtained new characters.

Pre-3.0, combat was... well i won't say it was balanced, but there was no elemental reaction that had any MAJOR advantage over the others. when you actually ran the numbers, i believe vaporize was the best reaction in terms of damage output, with the best team being raiden national with kazuha for EM buffs. but a well-built freeze or melt team could do similar numbers, or even better numbers depending on your artifact rolls. (ayaka permafreeze you will always be my #1.) Despite a steady stream of new characters with each update, characters from the earliest version of the game like xingqiu and xiangling were still topping the charts in terms of usefulness and versatility in teambuilding. However, as early as 1.0, players had been teased that a major update to the combat system was planned. There was a seventh element, dendro (plants) which pre-3.0 only existed as an elemental affiliation for menial enemies. there were no playable dendro characters, and the only elemental reaction that existed relating to it was very low-level and not particularly useful in combat.

Originally, dendro was projected to be added to the combat system somewhere in version 2, but its release was delayed substantially, meaning it came out along with its affiliated nation, sumeru. And as soon as it came out, it basically broke the combat system. I assume that the scaling they ended up going with may have been out of fear that players would be hesitant to integrate a new element into their pre-established team builds, and thus they may have been worried about sales on their dendro character banners, and i assume that the fact that 3 elements are required to get the highest-level reaction was an attempt to make the meta more balanced in the face of that scaling, but, well... it didn't work. At this point, the genshin impact combat meta is basically "if you're not using hyperbloom what the fuck are you doing." there's basically no reaction in the game that comes close to it in terms of both damage and ease of use. you are not going to beat a hyperbloom team with anything other than a better-built hyperbloom team. combat is now very heavily skewed in the direction of dendro, meaning that if you DON'T want to use a dendro team, you're going to be doing significantly lower numbers. And since enemies are added with each update, post-3.0 combat becomes difficult and annoying if you don't have a hyperbloom team on-hand.

The major gripe i have with dendro isn't even the scaling, though. I mentioned offhand earlier that the 1.0 B-plot questline had a section which taught you the basics of the combat system via mini-dungeons. These mini-dungeons, of course, taught you the version of the system that existed pre-3.0, so there's no tutorial for dendro reactions. Rather than integrating the tutorial into the story and world like they did in their early quests, upon playing 3.0 for the first time players were given a popup that explained, very wordily, how dendro reactions worked. there was no opportunity to test these reactions in an environment without consequences--if you wanted to try them you'd have to remember the relevant information, build yourself a team, find an enemy to try them on, and just hope you got it right. This lack of integration is something i began to notice more and more with genshin as it progressed, especially in sumeru. where in mondstadt and liyue open-world puzzles would be explained to you by an npc or via environmental context clues, in sumeru you'd be stopped while exploring every two seconds by a popup explaining some puzzle or another which, of course, you wouldn't read, because you didn't want to do the puzzle right that minute anyway, and then by the time you DID want to do that puzzle you'd have no in-game way of figuring out how to do it. The puzzle popups may seem like a small thing, but it's one of the clearest examples in the game to me of the fact that the player experience is so clearly not being prioritized here. the game doesn't even TRY to be immersive anymore. they have no qualms about pulling you out of the story to read a paragraph about how the puzzle works. they don't care how your character, in-universe, is supposed to have acquired that information. they don't care why your character, in-universe, is doing the puzzle in the first place. because they know the reason YOU are doing the puzzle, which is to unlock a hidden chest that gives you 1/80th of a gacha pull.

That was not "a quick detour" was it lmfao. ok anyways. back to the story. Now i want to talk about D-plot, meaning limited event stories, and lore as i defined it earlier, meaning contextual details not present in quests or playable story. This is where i think genshin's story becomes completely inaccessible.

Already, we've covered the fact that in order to consume the very basic story, players have to be willing to wait years between A and B-plot quest releases, punctuated by irrelevant map expansions and interlude quests. I mentioned before that genshin's incompleteness is one of the major problems of its story. the fact that players have to wait years, remembering plot-relevant information that they have no way of knowing will even BE plot-relevant, for the payoff of these narratives is frustrating at best and actively malicious at worst. But in theory, there should be an obvious way to circumvent this. One could just wait until the game IS completely finished to play the whole thing. Sort of like buying a game in early access but waiting until it's actually finished to play it all the way through. that's theoretically possible. but, as i have been hammering home this whole time, genshin is a free game, and therefore genshin relies entirely on a consistently engaging fanbase in order to remain profitable. if genshin does not have a base of players who are willing to log in every day, or at the very least once every update, the game's financial model collapses on itself. therefore, genshin puts on limited-time events. this is a standard in gacha games, as a way to keep the fans consistently engaging. What is not standard, however, is the way that genshin uses these events as vessels for its story. about 19 out of 20 limited events in genshin impact will be useless menial bullshit with no effect on the story or really even the player aside from maybe making you fucking angry. 1 out of those 20, though, will be innocuously named, with nothing in the banner or event description to indicate that it's special in any way, but it will contain serious A or B-plot relevant information that exists nowhere else in the game. My personal favorite example is the infamous 1.3 scaramouche appearance, in which he showed up, told the protagonist that the sky was fake, and then immediately fucked off again. Scaramouche did not show up again until at least 2.0, and the fake sky wasn't so much as MENTIONED again until 3.2, almost TWO YEARS LATER. but there are others, such as the (almost equally infamous) albedo doppelganger event in which a major character's loyalties are called into question, or the event where major biographical information is revealed about kaeya, the only playable character with major known connections to the A-plot and Khaenri'ah. With all of these events, once the event period ends, the information contained within them vanishes from the game completely. there's no way to replay old events that you've missed, even sans rewards, so if you miss a plot-relevant event the ONLY way to catch up on that story is through word of mouth. again, this is a transparent way to keep genshin's userbase engaged during downtime between B-plot quests; if you don't log in and play every event, how will you know if you've missed something important? You might not be able to fully understand the future story if you miss out on the D-plot now!

The D-plot problem is something that I think could, in theory, be circumvented by dedicated record-keeping. if the wiki had anything resembling an easily accessible event database that marked story-relevant events and contained summaries or gameplay videos, at the very least you wouldn't have to fear being completely lost on the off chance that a random throwaway line in an event from fucking 1.3 becomes plot-relevant. but hyv obviously doesn't want that, because it undermines their financial model, and the sheer number of events and the amount of rerunning of irrelevant events they do makes the task of recording and categorizing them all daunting if not impossible.

Then, of course, there's lore. this is arguably what genshin is infamous for in certain circles of the internet. You know that unraveled video where bdg reads every book in skyrim? if you tried to do that with genshin the video would probably be about 10 hours long. and it's not just books; genshin hides (potentially) plot-relevant information in weapon and artifact descriptions, in random hidden world quests, in character bios... the list goes on. and 9 times out of 10, the information is essentially written in code. Plot-relevant characters will have multiple names, or the relevant information will refer to them as vaguely as possible, presumably to further the "mystery" and encourage theorizing among fans. but the sheer amount of information like this that exists within the game makes it all but impossible to determine what is plot-relevant and what isn't. For a topical example, the most recent A-plot quest bedtime story mentions the name Rhinedottir in connection with events in Khaenri'ah, suddenly making that name A-plot relevant. Rhinedottir is an alternate name for the character Gold, whose existence you would only have known of before this point if you'd unlocked and read the character Albedo's character bios. (Albedo is a limited-run character who hasn't been available since november 2022, btw.) the only other information about Rhinedottir permanently available in the game comes from the description of the weapon Festering Desire, which was only obtainable from a limited event back in 2020, anyway. So basically, if you wanted ANY context for that remark, you'd have to have been playing the game since AT LEAST 2022, AND you'd have to have taken the time to go over your weapon and character descriptions with a fine-toothed comb. keep in mind that as of right now (june 2024) there are 85 playable characters in this game, each with 10 unique unlockable character bio sections, and over 150 weapons, each with their own unique descriptions, not to mention over 50 artifact sets, each with 5 unique artifacts, which all have their own unique descriptions as well. there are also 51 different collections of books which contain written lore as well. the idea that any player could keep up with all this, or that anyone could even sift through it all to pick out the important things that they NEED to keep up with, is insane, especially when the game makes a point of withholding crucial plot information from its players within the A and B-plot quests. this amount of written lore only exists, again, to drive up engagement in the hopes of subsequently driving up profit. Even if the average player isn't reading and absorbing all this information, the fact that it's there coupled with the fact that the writers consistently refuse to reveal anything beyond surface-level A-plot information means that there's basically ENDLESS theory fodder. and THAT means that people will be posting their theories and talking with each other and getting into arguments. it means "genshin impact" trends on twitter. it means engagement, and engagement means money.

basically what it comes back to is that everything is so transparently money over player experience with this game. I think what we're witnessing with genshin is what i would call an end-stage gacha game--a gacha game that's gone on a little too long and gotten a little too popular, and so the veil has started to slip a little more than usual. Gachas work primarily because they operate by toeing the line between what is fun to play and what is a predatory mechanic. As long as the actual gameplay remains engaging and rewarding, players can ignore the unsavory business practices underneath. At this point, genshin has swerved too hard into the money-hungriness and is still hoping that they can use their old tried-and-true engagement farming methods to remain popular regardless. currently, it seems like those methods are still working, unfortunately. Like I said in the post that prompted this, i really can't wait for the hyv writer NDAs to expire 10 or so years down the line, because I can only imagine what an insane shitshow writing for this game must be. I want to see the tell-all articles. I want carnage.

That being said, I played genshin impact religiously from 2020 to 2023. I loved the game. Despite myself, I am still really, REALLY interested in the A-plot. I want to know what's going on with the protagonist and their sibling; where they came from, what happened to them, what the heavenly principles are, what role celestia plays in all of this. I want to know Kaeya's full backstory, what role Khaenri'ah plays in the overarching story, and what happened to it in the past. but I don't really have any faith that I ever will, because I know that as long as keeping their fans in the dark and stringing them along remains profitable, that's what hyv will continue to do.

Do I think genshin impact is unsalvagable? in its current state, yes. If I was given the ability to turn back time and convince a bunch of executives of the profitability of this venture, I would change almost nothing about the story of genshin and completely rework the mechanics of its release. I would make it a series of single-release self-contained games rather than a constantly-updating gacha. Each game would be one B-plot quest, or one nation, eight games in all, preferably released once every year. Removing the gacha mechanic, players would be given access to a certain pool of characters to build teams at the start of each game, and then periodically unlock new characters as the story progressed. for example, if you were playing the inazuma game, you'd start out with only your protag, and after progressing to a certain point in the story you'd get a pool of inazuma 4-stars to teambuild with freely. Then, as the story progressed and you met plot-relevant inazuman 5-stars you'd add them to your pool. I'd change basically nothing about the combat system except for a properly integrated introduction of dendro when it makes its appearance in sumeru. Once you completed the story in that nation, you could move onto the next game in the series if it was out, or if it wasn't, you could continue to explore the open world while waiting for the next release. Would this be as profitable as the gacha model? probably not, but what it WOULD do is allow for much more consistent pacing and writing, with the added bonus of not making your userbase feel like you'd shoot them in the head for their pocket change.

[indierpgnewsletter]

Playing Rabbits in an RPG from 1976

(This continues our 2024 series, 10 Games From The First 10 Years. First published in the Indie RPG Newsletter)

It is genuinely surprising to me that in 1976, within two years of D&D coming out, someone published a game about being rabbits. It makes a little more sense when you realize that it was inspired by Watership Down and the designers were, I believe, zoologists or something similar. But having read it, the premise is the least interesting part of this game. It has so many fascinating little ideas.

Bunnies & Burrows is a game about rabbits … but these aren’t just rabbits, they fight, explore, gamble, study herbs, see the future, parley with beetles, find love, have children – and the list goes on. The end result are characters that ironically feel more human than you’d imagine.

As I play more games, I learn about games, sure, but I’m also learning a lot about myself. And a rule of thumb has slowly emerged: I want to play games that lead to interesting, surprising, unique things being said by the players. I’ve sometimes phrased it as “people want to say cool shit at the table”. I’m people.

Bunnies & Burrows starts with D&D as a jumping off point – there’s that old, familiar rolling 3d6 down the line to get your stats. But that’s more or less where the similarities end. You have rules for fighting but it’s not D&D combat – this game is often described as having “the first martial arts system” but what this means is that fighting is mostly weapon-less and involves declaring actions that flow into each other as patterns or c-c-combos. Basically, some actions set up other actions – you can’t Rip into another rabbit unless you already pulled off a Bite & Hold in the last turn. Some actions like Run aren’t possible if you’ve just done a Pin or a Rip in the previous turn and so on. I didn’t actually get to play out a fight but these rules got me grinning.

And the whole thing is like that. The study and application of herbs is meant to be a little puzzle where through trial-and-error and dice rolls, you slowly figure out what’s good for you and what isn’t. The languages and persuasion rules mean that certain characters can become envoys to other species. Because a language can mean the difference between things turning violent and a peaceful negotiation between rabbits and a mother scorpion that has accidentally wandered into their warren.

Don’t get me wrong. Most of these little pieces are eccentric and inelegant – always more convoluted than you’d like but still a major leap forward in playability because in the end, it’s a d100 roll under a target number. All the fiddliness – and there’s a lot of it – lies in the absolutely esoteric ways this game invents for calculating that target number. But I find it easy to forgive this in an old game, especially when the most interesting part of the game doesn’t lie in the mechanics but the negative space the rules seem to create.

The donut hole in the centre of this game – fruitful void? uncrowded centre? – is the question: What is rabbit society like? This is a setting question – or rather, a system of relation question – that is never asked but it must be answered. The mechanics have some opinions. For example, every player picks a profession when they make a character – Empath, Seer, Storyteller, Scout, and so on. Some of this comes from Watership Down, which can, of course, be your ready-made answer – it’s the unstated but obvious setting sourcebook for this game. But if you don’t go down that route, you’ve got a juicy problem: What do we value? What do we despise?

[thelakesuite]

The Rusty Lake Story in Bitchass Baby Terms

this is ALL off the top of my head (and i haven't experienced like 10% of it maybe?) so i might be wrong but i don't care right now

the lake itself isn't, like, that well established 'cause it's a mystery game or something so we don't need full exposition. it's some deity-like thing as old as the mammoths (not canon) that eats time. or rather memories that are stored in lil cubes. and it gives its zookeepers immortality so they can keep feeding it. they call themselves the Rulers of the Lake but we all know the truth. 'immortality', or rather enlightenment, is represented by you becoming your fursona and living maybe an extra century. mr. owl's looking for a new heir pretty quick in the process but we'll get to that.

corrupted souls are kinda a byproduct of all this. truly the lake's farts. when a person dies horribly, when their memories get extracted wrong, or when the plot demands it, they become corrupted. corrupted souls still talk, and some of them are even sensible (like your mom oooooh), but generally they're jumpscare beasts or wet little puppies. sometimes both. yes you can get corrupted when you're enlightened, and right now it's the more likely outcome actually. there's a whole 'elixir of immortality' that gets harped on, where one drinker gets corrupted and the other gets enlightened, but that is literally only a thing for roots and a little bit of cave so don't worry about it too much. unless you're making dramatic fanart in which case leverage that shit.

cubes come up a lot in cube escape, believe it or not! black ones are bad memories, white ones are good memories, blue ones are connected to the past in a way that's somehow not a memory, gold ones are connected to the future, red ones only exist in my fangame that ellesian recently unearthed, and green ones are jello yum. also suck it anyone who told me pre-tpw the gold cube thing was unestablished. anyway. it was a big thing mr.'s owl and crow were working on, creating a golden cube (presumably to extend their own lives) as seen in cave, but then one just kinda appears in the past within when albert does electric jujitsu. jury is still out on that.

onto the actual narrative i think.

in paradise, you're mr. owl pre-owling (1790-something). the lake's current suckass servants are your family who tried to sacrifice you to it way back, but your mom took your place for mom reasons. now mom's corrupted and guiding you to... well, to get sacrificed for real this time. but with your powers combined (yes mr. owl was two people, no it is never addressed) you get enlightened and tell your family to fuck off 'cause you're building a hotel on that island now. you also get a tease in the secret ending that dale and laura will do a similar fusion dance to be the lake's next suckass. we've been waiting 6 years for that to happen.

in roots, two alchemist brothers get that elixir shit going (1860-1935). one of them becomes mr. crow, while the other becomes a playable character for a game. and corrupted. you rope your whole bloodline into this, harvesting their body parts (usually after they die from other means, but you totally caused most of their deaths) for a reincarnation ritual involving a magic seed (that also only exists for this game). this is where the best characters come from because rusty lake actually wanted to tell a story with this game. you reincarnate into a woman! don't think about the implications.

in samsara room, the inside scoop of reincarnation is fuckin' weird, dude (1935). the original was made before rusty lake began, so it's not truly part of the narrative, but it got folded in for the fifth anniversary.

in hotel, you do not get the backstory of the third bird man (1890ish). instead, you get to kill mr. owl's family again, but one-on-one as animal people. how did they become animal people? fuck you that's how! mr. owl probably did it on purpose to spite them with shit sandwiches and bullets to the brain. oh, also, there might be an evil twin of mr. rabbit that shows up later.

in arles, you're vincent van gogh. that's it. he's not relevant. but it is funny seing the death date of paul gauguin in the timeline docs.

we're talking about the past within later but the 'past' segment takes place around here. 1926 iirc?

in birthday, your parents get shot (1939). you're going to be an important detective, dale, but like right now you're getting traumatized. or rather you're experiencing that memory, then doing blue cube magic to fix it and have your grandpa shoot evil mr. rabbit instead. is your grandpa actually mr. crow? no. shut up about it now.

in underground blossom, your mom gets abducted (1935-1972 maybe). okay, well, not you. this is the laura backstory metaphor game but you're actually playing as the third bird man who is both her stepdad and her pet. and her grandpa albert takes her mom rose for his own nefarious reincarnation schemes maybe probably. rose is surprisingly okay with it but characters rarely put up a fight with the plot anyway. laura's a lonely kid, starts dating robert, picks up art to soothe her nightmares, gets murked, then reaches some kind of epiphany that we just train ride away from before finding out what actually happens. she's your daughter, damnit, you should support her transcendence. not enlightenment importantly. also, no, laura's life didn't literally happen at train stops, it's just a vehicle. not even a pun don't fucking laugh i see you snickering.

in seasons, you set up a really interesting plotline that gets utterly countered by everything that came after (1960's-80's). it's just laura time in there, and she uncorrupts herself, thank you very much. the series has been struggling with how laura gets her corrupted self to 1980-whatever, and so far only one other game's even taken place after 1972. and that game's the past within which also counters every other plotline. sigh. maybe we're not smart enough for these puzzle games. at least harvey's cute and bird-shaped. key point that's impossible to fuck up is that laura dies in 1972, and it's unclear whether it was a murder or suicide. that's why we get a detective.

in harvey's box and the lake, uh i don't know really (1969). these are early games that are basically spinoffs of seasons. they help with the overarching stuff but aren't much for the narrative at this point. also they suck

in case 23, dale starts investigating laura's death and gets wrapped up in the lake stuff (1972). it was supposed to be just another murder case, but he got too into it and it got too into him, so he gets teleported to the lake chapel and ferried off to. somewhere idk. he goes into an elevator that takes him down memory lane to the lake floor.

in the mill, mr. crow is really trying to clean house before dale gets here (1972). this is where laura gets her ass corrupted by mr. crow, and we find out how the lake eats memories or whatever. it's supposed to overlap with case 23 and it almost succeeds. whatever skrunk is still there is forgiveable, this was the flash era after all.

in theatre, dale learns about ripoff hinduism, goads a man into suicide, and abandons his darling toilet fetus son (1971). it's like birthday again, where this is a memory we're seeing, but that is a light distinction. robert kills himself at the bar, and we take his memories for legal reasons. there's some sixfold wheel we learn about that doesn't matter much.

in the cave, mr. crow still cleans house before dale gets to the Magic Memory Machine (1972). mr. owl's kinda sorta dying, and dale's been elected his son or something. gotta get his mindmeats. you read a textbook about cubes, pilot a submarine to the lakefloor, put dale and laura in a surrogate fusion dance machine, then give dale the golden cube it makes before sending him up the elevator again. hotel did imply something serious was gonna happen when he gets to the top, but that was eight years ago. the devs probably forgot and fell too in love with albert vanderboom in the meantime.

in the white door, robert unkills himself and gets wrong psychiatry (1972). as it turns out, mr. owl has a front business running a for-profit psych ward to extract totally good and healthy memories from people. this one is an actual factual spinoff but is kinda relevant for the greater rusty lake metropolitan area.

in paradox, fuuuuuuuck who knows maaaan, isn't it all just a metaphor? (1972). there's a consensus that none of the stuff that happens in paradox actually happens, and that it's all in dale's head while he's in the Magic Memory Machine from cave. even though there's five different endings, he kinda walks away at the end, which might be the worst ending of the lot. the information's solid though; mr. owl spells out the whole heir thing, there's bits of backstory for dale and laura everywhere. also the movie's sick.

in the past within, albert becomes a mechanical engineer for the sole purpose of making plot armor (1926/1984). yeah, remember that guy from roots? the voodoo murderer who got third-hand alchemy information to make up for his lack of pussy? yeah, he invented a time machine decades ago. and he enlisted his daughter to talk to her past/future self to grow him back to life in 1984. with a gold cube that he somehow got. and somehow his scar is genetically coded in him. and we don't see his wiggly lineart dick. what does he do in 1984? trap his daughter in a time loop then who the fuck knows. he's stuck in his jumpscare beast ways from being corrupted for so long. how did he get corrupted when he was literally buried in the ground and salvaged bones from? next game!

there's an ARG that i never saw a thing of because i hated it, best kept memory. from what i gathered, it was another front scheme for memory harvesting, except in the 2000's. does that mean it's enlightened dale/laura doing this one, since mr. owl presumably passed on the title then turned into a fish? i'd like to know too!

also, a chapter of underground blossom i haven't completed, and a paper-based game coming out within the next two years or whatever. i don't know how much they'll clear up.

toodles!

[p5x-theories]

What We Know About Cherish

(last updated 10/26/24!)

Masaki Ashiya, codename Cherish, is a flower-loving third-year student at Kokatsu. He joins the team as a Phantom Idol, or cognitive teammate.

His All Out Attack finishing touch text says "Be true to my friends".

Notably, the names of his files, and the voice lines in Kiyoshi's Confidant, indicate that Cherish was originally going to be the character Take-kun that Kiyoshi and Wonder help out in Kiyoshi's Confidant, and eventually befriend. His files are named with the codename "Wuhexi" instead of his canon codename Cherish, which seems to just be Take-kun's real name in Chinese (first name Hexi, last name Wu). However, this was evidently changed, and now Take-kun uses an NPC model while Cherish will have his own Confidant.

His Japanese voice actor is Takafumi Maeuchi.

Masaki is a Confidant of Wonder’s, though exactly what the earliest point it becomes available at is unclear, as he was added in a later update. His Confidant focuses on his struggles to connect with others around him, and his overwhelming focus on and interest in plants.

He also had a special animated promo video focused on him.

His Confidant rewards are all related to Tycoon, including unlocking additional rewards in the shop and unlocking Masaki himself as a playable character in Tycoon.

Later, he was described as: "Because both of his parents are botanists, he has a deep affection for flowers and plants. He comes from a good family and has never worried about money, but in order to get closer to flowers and plants, he works part-time in a flower shop in Shibuya. He has a gentle personality, but is not good at grasping the sense of distance from others, so he gradually becomes alienated from others. He has great trust in the protagonist who is willing to become his friend, and often takes the initiative to treat guests to dinner."

The above is evident almost immediately upon starting his Confidant; while Masaki is extremely knowledgeable about plants, and very caring towards them, he struggles with social cues and expectations. He cites a childhood spent in his greenhouse rather than socializing as the reason for this, though he desperately wants to make and retain friends. However, he's not offputting because he's a bad friend; quite the opposite, he can be overwhelming with how immediately friendly, familiar, and generous he is. He invites Wonder to his house in their very first conversation, and later brings him to a fancy sushi restaurant for what was supposed to be a casual dinner hangout.

He doesn't seem to be entirely alienated from his peers- he mentions his classmates wanting him to come along for a school trip, but then when everyone broke off into groups, he was left alone- but rather is simply unsure the "correct" way to act as a friend, without accidentally being overbearing. When visiting places with Wonder, he frequently asks questions about what would be socially acceptable, and generally seems to want to build his understanding, even if it's a bit of a struggle.

Besides plants, he also expresses a love of Tycoon, and card games in general, mentioning watching poker championships sometimes. He claims to have a bit of a sixth sense related to this, although it's unclear how serious he was about it or how exactly he believes it to help him. He frequently plays Tycoon online, and invites Wonder to join him.

Cherish's Persona Amalthea (based on Zeus' foster mother, whose skin was used to create the aegis) is categorized as an Ice type, and resists Ice while being weak to Bless.

Amalthea is a Defense Persona, meaning he’s good at protecting teammates and keeping them alive, and his trait gives all allies one "Seal of Integrity" (grants a shield for two rounds) at the start of combat. When an ally with Seal of Integrity takes damage, Cherish gains "Bravery", and if he has at least four Bravery at the start of a round, he consumes four Bravery to gain "Declaration of Justice", and all allies are given one Seal of Integrity again.

His ice attack skill hits one enemy for a large amount of damage, and deals a small amount of damage to any other enemies, with a chance to freeze, and grants Cherish two Bravery (If he's in the Declaration of Justice state, this skill does additional damage based on his defense stat, but Cherish only gains one Bravery). His first support skill grants one teammate one Seal of Integrity with a stronger shield, and buffs their defense based on Cherish's defense stat, for two rounds; if they have over 60% of their health, enemies will be more likely to target them while this is active, and they'll gain an additional Seal of Integrity at the start of Cherish's next turn (If he's in the Declaration of Justice state, the amount of Seal of Integrity Cherish grants is increased). His second support skill grants all teammates two Seal of Integrity with stronger shields, as well as "Holy Spirit" (which grants an additional shield, lasting up to three rounds, that's consumed first), one level of Guard, plus a damage boost based on Cherish's defense stat for two rounds.

His passive skills cause Cherish's shields to also buff defense, as well as resistance to other effects.

In combat, his melee weapons is a longsword, while his ranged weapon is a crossbow. His Highlight is shown from 2:50 - 2:59 in this video, and it grants Holy Spirit to all teammates, and reduces their incoming damage taken, for two rounds.

His recommended card sets are 1) 2 of Swords (Peace) + Knight of Coins (Belief), 2) 2 of Swords (Peace) + Page of Wands (Acceptance).

The game recommends teaming him up with 1) Fox.

[fireemblems24]

Azure Gleam - Special Chapters

Spoilers for the special chapters below.

SHEZ VS BYLETH

I didn't get the special chapter for SB or GW. SB, I just straight up did not care. GW, I tried, but it involved an "escort Claude" part and he just sat there and didn't move forward, and I didn't care enough to bother with the chapter a second time.

Shez sounds like Arval. Did Arval take Shez over? I'm guessing to go after Sothis?

Oh, cut scene! Shez vs Byleth again.

Byleth holding his own against Arval!Shez. Good to see. Shez is trying to hold Arval back though.

So . . . if we kick out Arval out in these chapters, does Shez loose their abilities/special class, because no :(((((

Felix, Dedue, and Dimitri are worrying about Shez and Byleth (also, awesome to see all my favs). Rodrigue has news about what happened.

Scouts report that Byleth and Shez are fighting. Felix accuses that Dimitri suspected this.

Dimitri tells how Shez worried that TWSITD would take over her. And Dimitri's promise to kill Shez to stop her from killing others.

Oh, we cut straight to the battle and have to defeat Shez. Makes sense. I'm guessing do it before Byleth dies?

My Shez is, eh, a bit stronger than Byleth, so I'm a bit worried. But Dimitri's such an overkill at this point, he's just going to blaze through this chapter like he did the last one.

It's weird not having Shez among my playable characters. I'm using Jeralt instead of Shez for my missing 8th person because he's the highest level (and I can't use Byleth either so).

Edelgard is around somewhere? Claude showed up to hunt her down.

My Byleth is like 10 levels below Shez. It's not going well.

Atrocity is one hell of a drug. Took Shez out.

Defeating Solon feels good. Got a cut scene too. He just ran away though. Wait, Arval/Shez killed Solon? Ohhh, like Solon killed Kyrona. A sacrifice is needed to open Zaharas. Karma I guess.

Claude and Dimitri talking is kinda cool. And weird Edelgard showed up. It's so amusing to me that they wrote themselves into such a corner with Edelgard they just yeeted her brain lamo.

ZAHRAS

Arval is talking to Arval.

Dark Arval created Normal Arval because Dark Arval wanted typical TWSITD nonsense, domination, restore the world to TWSITD, etc . . .

And in the most shocking twist, Normal Arval is programmed to kill Sothis, so therefore Byleth, and while Arval took over Shez.

Oh, Shez woke up! And Claude's there with Dimitri.

So they all got sent to this Zahras place.

Shez doesn't have a lot of memory of what just happened, and tells Claude and Dimitri about Arval, who's gone though.

Now they have to find a way out of this mess.

Dimitri found Edelgard. Since there's like 4 people, no one plans on fighting each other until they get out. Then it's time to kill people.

So Edelgard doesn't remember what happened and got some spell cast on her by TWSITD.

Claude cheerily tells her what a fuck up her country is lamo.

There's this mini map with the 3 lords just standing there, chilling, in this dark abyss place. It's pretty funny looking.

All my other units are gone, but I expected that. Dimitri's my most overpowered unit anyways.

DIMITRI & CLAUDE

Is this like some kind of support?

So AG Claude wants to get rid of the central church and kill Rhea. Like, I'm down for removing any sort of political power from a religious institution, but this fixation on Rhea is weird.

Lamo, is this game serious? Did it really just blame nobility and arrange marriage on Rhea?? OMG.

I knew Claude went completely dodo bird in this game, but he somehow became even more of an idiot?

I'm kind of impressed lol.

He drank the Edelgard koolaide.

Dimitri's like, well, as long as you just dislike the church and not Faerghus.

It's interesting for Dimitri to acknowledge that his personal beliefs and his beliefs as a king are sometimes at war.

He also lays out why Claude's plan is an awful idea. Meaning, all the death and suffering he'll cause.

It's just a classic, Claude is too rash - Dimitri is too cautious.

Claude tells Dimitri that he's too good for him. And that they could've been friends if kingly stuff didn't get in the way.

It's overall a fine support, except this absurd idea that the church is solely responsible for stuff human nature always comes up with, and I think it's more a symptom of a huge flaw in the Fodlan games as a whole than anything else.

DIMITRI & EDELGARD

Dimitri finds it hard to talk to Edelgard because of all the people she's caused the death of. But way more polite.

Edelgard doesn't feel that way. Which, not surprised. She doesn't really care too much about the people who've died like he does.

Lamo, she also is way less polite and is like "you don't want to talk to the tyrant who's gotten everyone killed." See, though, it's acknowledgements like this that make me like this game more. She knows that's what she looks like to everyone not in Adrestia.

Dimitri gets annoyed with her for placing words in his mouth. And good for him. That's always annoying.

Edelgard is less confident than Dimitri that he has no regrets of his actions and carefully considered all of them.

Oh, good, Dimitri asks about Patricia. But Edelgard doesn't know what happened either. So, still no answers about her.

Dimitri wants to just end the conversation. I am loving how much he really doesn't want to talk to her. It's so different from Claude who he was curious about.

She falls down because dark magic place does it's thing, then helps her stand up, and they get a picture, which is cool.

It reminds her of when she fell once and took the help without thinking about it. Now she thinks about it.

Dimitri remembers helping a girl up.

I see where this is going, but it's funny such a mundane thing will trigger important memories, lamo.

Edelgard is like, yeah, knowing you, you probably helped a lot of people get up who fell down.

I'm living for these supports acknowledging that Dimitri's a way better person than the other two lol.

He's like, naw, it was you. Edelgard keeps insisting it wasn't her.

He calls her El at the end.

Is this the same support in SB? It works for AG, but man, this asshole just killed Sylvain (and Annette, and Gilbert, and Ingrid, and Rodrigue, and tons of other people from Faerghus simply bc she wants that land back), so I'd be furious seeing it there.

In AG, though, it makes sense.

BACK TO THE CHAPTER

Dimitri's the only one who asks about Shez's wellbeing. Does their dialogue change in different routes?

Oh, cool, I had some access to stuff like the blacksmith, which makes no sense, but ok.

Bad Arval showed up behind Shez, but she alludes it.

Arval says none can escape. But I doubt it.

Dimitri's like, that's bullshit, bc there's no way they'd build this without a way out, and if they can get out, so can we.

And then Dimitri's proved right when Arval says he'll leave, alone.

Ok, I learned this other Arval's name, but I am not going to spell all of that.

So like, after this, do they all just go back to war? Because if they do . . . lol.

They let you use all the 3 lords, but I'll probably only use Shez and Dimitri. Neither Edelgard nor Claude impressed me much when I started this game (and at the time I started, I liked Claude a lot more than I do now).

Oh, so a dark Hubert, Hilda, and Felix showed up. A bit sad it wasn't Dedue, though. I feel like he deserved to be the BL rep even if Felix is more popular. But maybe it was for variety? Like Dedue is another axe like Hilda, but then switch Claude's people out.

At the same time, Felix makes sense, esp in Hopes. He and Dimitri are practically married lol.

Dimitri's like, that's not Felix. He wouldn't get mad at me for doing this and not avenging people. He's not wrong.

Ohhh, not they're fighting phantom versions of themselves.

They had some throwaway lines explaining why Edelgard is normal now.

Lamo, Edelgard doesn't trust herself.

Meanwhile . . . Dimitri . . . is like, really excited about this. Because he gets to kill a version of himself. :((((

Claude's line wasn't as interesting as the other two. I know. Shocking. /s

Dimitri wants to thank Arval for letting him fight and kill himself. I cannot with this man.

Evil Claude just about totaled regular Claude. Edelgard isn't scratched though.

Edelgard and Claude were way more normal about reactions to fighting themselves lol.

I had to make Claude an adjunct. He was nearly dead. It's actually surprising how much worse he is than Edelgard. (Dimitri's not fair to rate against them since he's more built out and not dropped into this map for a one-time battle).

Ok, he summoned more dudes to protect him, and one was a Shez copy the other Dedue. So Dedue got credit too. So now I'm less conflicted about Felix making an appearance.

Shez is upset at fighting herself.

Dimitri feels awful about fighting the shades this time. He's only motivated by all the people he's kept alive in real life.

I defeated Epimedes. That seemed too easy.

Cut scene fight between Shez and Epi. It's pretty badass looking in the dark magic place with falling rocks everywhere. Like, in a cheesy but just roll with it way.

Shez wins. Arval pops back up and they almost hold hands. Arval's never felt more alone :( Honestly, kinda sad things end badly for them. So not recruiting Byleth gives Arval a better ending? Will Arval not be there in the final map before the final battle?

They escaped!

Dimitri's like "it felt like a strange fever dream" and honestly, not a bad way to describe it.

They lost Edelgard and are we back to the normal stuff? Oh, no Shez asks to go back to the search for her and the others. Claude wants to get back to his people too.

Ok, so moving onto the final chapter now.

xxx

[thefirstknife]

Getting real sick of a certain subset of Destiny players complaining that it’s a baby game and crying to Bungie to nerf exotics and abilities when their ENTIRE POINT IS TO BE STRONG in specific ways as if they are being locked into using them.

IF YOU WANT AN EXTRA CHALLENGE STOP BEING SUCH A DPS GOBLIN AND JUST EQUIP SOMETHING THATS NOT TOP TIER META AND STOP COMPLAINING JESUS FUCKING CHRIST

MOOD. Go off.

It's incredibly annoying to me. They always use the argument of "the game should FORCE me to do things, I should not SELF-IMPOSE challenges." And like. ? I'm sorry but what? It's a video game for a big audience, it's here to be playable and accessible to the widest possible playerbase. There are plenty of ways to make the game difficult for yourself, so knock yourself out if that's your thing, but don't force others into it.

Like, I enjoy hard content, I regularly at least attempt day 1 raids, I do master raids, GMs, solo and solo flawless content and all that. But only when I want to. Sometimes I don't and I don't want to suffer in a patrol zone or struggle in a seasonal activity I'm doing for the story. The majority of the players don't want that. Designing games for the professional gamers only has NEVER been a good idea and never will be. Fifty streamers can't sustain a video game. It needs casual players who will want to come back to the game instead of feeling defeated.

One of the reasons I really enjoy helping others is because I know that casual players tend to struggle in stuff that's basic activity for me. I've seen people unable to get through a strike. I've sat for 10 minutes rezing someone who couldn't do the jump in a seasonal activity. I want those people to be able to play basic content without feeling frustrated and I want them to know that there are people out there who will help them out.

And this doesn't apply just to basic content, although it should start with that. I think all dungeons and raids and everything should be things that all players can complete. Fine, doing a master raid with all challenges should be tough, but it should be achievable with time and practice, not impossible. What a lot of these "pros" want is just completely divorced from reality.

It takes days and days of practice every time a new master raid is out for me and my team (all with thousands of hours of playtime) to get comfortable to finally finish it. We're far from casual players and it still takes a lot of time to be able to finish hard content. Making it even harder is insane to me. Like, if something is so hard that my team full of people, each with 5000+ hours of playtime and a coordinated team that's been raiding together for years now can't finish it, that means it's absolutely impossible for probably 90% of the playerbase. That's wild to me. Raids and GMs should have more people playing them. If master raids are too easy for you, Mr. I-Play-Destiny-For-A-Living, that's on you buddy. Unequip the super god tier god roll meta guns and loadouts or play something else.

And ofc, another excuse they make is "if I don't use meta, I am not going to win a raid race!" Then don't. Idk. Let me play you the tiniest violin. This affects literally nobody except a grand total of 50 people. Run your meta in day 1, and play with random shit otherwise. Play raids with all white weapons. Play without mods. Play without a HUD. Do things solo only. I don't know, make up a way to spice things up for yourself. I'm not interested in that and neither are 99% of the players out there. The game is genuinely hard enough for the majority of the players. On top of that, I am here to feel like a powerful space fantasy superhero. I am NOT here to die to dregs in patrol zones. If there's ONE thing that I know for a fact that put people off from Lightfall (as in this year of Destiny), it's the difficulty changes. They're annoying, frustrating and for some a barrier to entry more than anything else.

[godofclosure]

TOA Anniversary Munday!!

I, too, have stolen this from Neffi. I’m sorry you keep getting robbed crime has truly become such an epidemic in TOA it’s a shame really. Will no one keep our streets safe 😔 (if it wasn’t obvious that was a joke ty neffi)

Name: Metal

Pronouns: She/Her

Birthday (no year): 10/6

Where are you from? What is your time zone? PST! (So like 3 hours ahead of TOA time), AMERICA RAAAAHHHHHHH‼️‼️🔥🔥🔥🗣️🗣️🗣️🦅🦅💥💥

-

How long is your roleplay experience? That. Is complicated. Not entirely sure but let’s just go with 3 years i think.

How were you introduced to roleplaying as a whole? Okay so like looking back I was totally roleplaying with friends in elementary school via text but like we didn’t call it that so that didnt even register until I’d already been in TOA for a year so idk if that counts

How were you introduced to TOA? Mindlessly scrolling the Fire Emblem Three Houses tag and for some reason some random acceptance post caught my attention and then I couldn’t stop thinking about it

-

Do you have any pets? One dog, two cats!! Do not ask for pictures you will never stop receiving them this is for your own good

What is your favorite time of year and why? (Season, holiday, general period) Winter because the bugs are dead and I can live without fear!!! (+ I live in some weird climate vortex where the temperature never gets lower than 60 or higher than 80 so I don’t have to deal with whatever temperature nonsense is going on everywhere else)

What is your IRL occupation? Student x2 😔

Some interests and things you like/enjoy? Hatsune Miku has me in a death grip. My world is a shrine to her being. So is yours. So is everyone. Hatsune Miku is all. The world is hers. SEKAAAIIIII DE—

What non-Fire Emblem games do you play? Genshin, pjsk, pokemon, sometimes I stare longingly at persona 3 but I haven’t had time to actually play it yet, whatever random farming game has decided to trap me in my room for the next month straight

Favorite Pokemon type & Pokemon: Fire and Torchic :)

-

How did you get into Fire Emblem? I’m ashamed to say I’m one of the smash players who was confused by the random anime men 😔 at some point mentioned it to a friend while playing and he was like “oh the mobile game is a good starting point” and forced me to download it which started the spiral (my disappointment when I learned Sakura is not actually a cat and it was just a Halloween alt was immeasurable)

What Fire Emblem games have you played? Three Houses, Heroes, Fates (all three), Awakening, Engage (+I own Shadows of Valentia but I haven’t opened it I’m sorry I’m a fake fan)

First & Favorite Fire Emblem games: First: Heroes 😔 but if that doesn’t count then Birthright, Favorite: Three Houses

List your 5 favorite Fire Emblem characters across the series! No particular order: Edelgard, Plumeria, Líf, Yuri, Kagetsu

Who was the first character ever to make you go “ooh I like this one in particular” and why? Can be any context and reason! Ashe. I have no idea why. I do not feel this way now I forget he exists frequently sorry buddy

If you’ve played (or are familiar with) the following games, who was your first S support? Who would you S support nowadays? - Awakening: First: Chrom (accident, wanted Henry), Now: Chrom (on purpose)- Fates: First: Jakob, Now: Kaden- Three Houses: First: Ashe, Now: Yuri- Engage: Kagetsu. And I’d do it again. Love that guy.

Favorite Fire Emblem class? Dark Flier

If you were a Fire Emblem character, what would be your class and stats? Would you be playable? I want to say “random village npc that lives a peaceful life and doesn’t get involved in the war” but every school I’ve ever been to has had the stupid house system so I cannot deny the truth. I am random academy phase npc that dies on the first mission.

If you were a Three Houses character, what would be your affiliation? Realistically Golden Deer but my heart lies with you beagles

If you were an Officers Academy student, what would be your boons, banes and potential budding talent? Boons: Reason & Riding, Banes: Faith & Gauntlets, Budding Talent: Heavy Armor

If you were an Engage character, which nation would you originate from? Probably Firene if only because I would die in any other climate

-

How do you pronounce TOA? 🤔 letters. It took me months to understand why everyone kept talking about toasters

Current TOA muses: Elise and Embla!!

Past TOA muses? Constance, Sothis, Kaden, Kagetsu

Who was your first TOA muse? If you no longer have them, can you see yourself picking them up again? Constance, but I don’t see that happening. The more I looked into her character the more I made connections to stuff irl that I felt like I didn’t have the right to talk about and that fear of accidentally offending someone slowly killed her off

Do you believe you have a type of character you gravitate towards writing? I have three moods: “blonde girl that dyes her hair purple sometimes”, “hyperactive man”, and “what”

Do you have characters or types of characters you don’t think you can handle writing, but wish you could? Plumeria my beloved writing you would make me so uncomfortable which is technically IC but I can’t put myself through that I’m sorry girl I’m not strong enough 

What kind of scenes, situations etc do you believe you enjoy writing the most? I like the silly. I do very much enjoy the drama of course also though. Haha emotional pain :)

Do you have any scenario in mind for your muse(s) that gets you thinking “man I hope I get to write this one day”? TOAAAAA!!!! DROP AN ASKR MUSE, AND MY LIFE, IS YOURS. (No pressure to anyone though of course!)

Favorite TOA-related memories? So many. Too many. Cannot list them all here this is long enough as is. I love you TOA :)

Normal size text, small text, no preference? Small text is too much effort for me but I don’t ever notice the difference unless it’s right next to normal text tbh

Got any potential muse delusions to share? 😉 He lurks. Every day he grows stronger. I don’t know how long I can fight off his return. He has a sword and he is strong and he knows it. Also Metodey for some reason??

[optimismxmagicism]

TOA Anniversary Munday

(TY for the template Neffi!)

Celebrating TOA and the people who contribute to make our group what it is.

Repost, don't reblog. Only fill in what you feel comfortable sharing!

Happy anniversary, TOA! Here's to many more years spent together.

Name: Queen

Pronouns: She/Her

Birthday (no year): October 18th

Where are you from? What is your time zone? Netherlands, CEST

How long is your roleplay experience? Uhhh about 10 years now I'd say?

How were you introduced to roleplaying as a whole? Gamefaqs had a thread where you could create your own Fire Emblem Fates character. I joined out of curiosity when i was like 13 or so and things just kinds went from there.

How were you introduced to TOA? Rosie, my online big sis, sometimes shared snippets of her experiences with me. I got curious and the rest is history.

Do you have any pets? I have an elderly doggy named Beef :)

What is your favorite time of year and why? (Season, holiday, general period) Winter, definitely. I'm a cold over heat kinda girlie and I like the early nights and cold weather. Perfect for soup!

What is your IRL occupation? IT support service worker and Maid Cafe waitress during the weekends.

Some interests and things you like/enjoy? I'm big into cooking, gardening and cleaning.

What non-Fire Emblem games do you play? Final Fantasy, Genshin Impact, Persona, Danganronpa, Pokemon, Tales of, Uchikoshi games, just to name a few. Also big into Otomes and BL games.

Favorite Pokemon type & Pokemon: Fairy! Favorite is probably Sylveon and Vivillon.

Tell us some funfacts and trivia about yourself! - I am an auntie to 3 adorable little nephews. Love babysitting them :) - Truly I am a girly girly girl. I love pink and cute things and all that goodness. Always have firmly believed that femininity is strength and anyone who disagreed with me has been ground to dust under my heels :) - I used to have a YT channel where I uploaded my own vocaloid covers. I stopped though because I lost interest and the videos gained little traction.

How did you get into Fire Emblem? *Deep sigh* Ike x Marth Yaoi during the Smash Bros Brawl days.... This was before I knew anything about either character and just thought they looked cute together.

What Fire Emblem games have you played? All of them except for Gen 2 of Genealogy (glitches killed that run) as well as Thracia. I'll get to them someday...

First & Favorite Fire Emblem games: My First game was Shadow Dragon. My favorite is a tie between Sacred Stones and Three Houses

List your 5 favorite Fire Emblem characters across the series! Ashe, Ewan, Nils, Nina, Dimitri

Who was the first character ever to make you go “ooh I like this one in particular” and why? Can be any context and reason! Wolf. This was because I was still young and just entered my "started liking boys that weren't squeaky clean" phase.

Any Fire Emblem crushes? 😳 Dimitri.. If you know me you know I'm down horrendous. Sorry kwdjwkdj. Chrom and Xander are also hot.

If you’ve played (or are familiar with) the following games, who was your first S support? Who would you S support nowadays? - Awakening: Chrom forever and always. - Fates: Tsubaki was my first. Nowadays its Xander, Jakob or Shigure. - Three Houses: Dimitri. Its always Dimitri. If I play BL and I don't choose Dimitri I have been killed and replaced. - Engage: Diamant was my first! I also really liked Kagetsu and Amber.

Favorite Fire Emblem class? Dancer!

If you were a Fire Emblem character, what would be your class and stats? Would you be playable? I'd be the cleric that needs to be babied at first but gives cracked heals later on. High magic/speed/resistance, low Strength/Defense.

If you were a Three Houses character, what would be your affiliation? (Black Eagles, Blue Lions, Golden Deer, Church of Seiros, Those Who Slither in the Dark, unaffiliated civilian, other - for example Almyran) Blue Lions baybeeeeeeee

If you were an Officers Academy student, what would be your boons, banes and potential budding talent? Boons: Faith Reason Authority - Banes: Axes, Brawling, Heavy Armor

If you were an Engage character, which nation would you originate from? (Firene, the Kingdom of Abundance; Brodia, the Kingdom of Might; Elusia, the Kingdom of Knowledge; Solm, the Queendom of Freedom; Lythos, the holy land of the Divine Dragon; Gradlon, the desolate land of the Fell Dragon) Wherever Kagetsu's from.

How do you pronounce TOA? 🤔(separate letters, to-ah, other?) To-ah.

Current TOA muses: Ewan, Nils, Byleth M

Past TOA muses? Uhhh from the top of my head: Saleh, Rolf, Nina, Takumi, Male Corrin.

Who was your first TOA muse? If you no longer have them, can you see yourself picking them up again? Ewan was my first! I don't think I'll be dropping him for a long time as he's just become so special to me :)

Do you believe you have a type of character you gravitate towards writing? Characters that put up a front of being easygoing or simple, but have a lot of inner troubles they hide from others. Those that like to make others happy.

Do you have characters or types of characters you don’t think you can handle writing, but wish you could? Very masculine types. Manly Men or Muscle Himbos are characters I greatly enjoy but just don't like to write.

What kind of scenes, situations etc do you believe you enjoy writing the most? I like writing scenes where characters bond with each other, either over an earnest heart to heart or silly shenanigans.

Do you have any scenario in mind for your muse(s) that gets you thinking “man I hope I get to write this one day”? I would love to write a scene where the mask just fully crumbles and the entire truth is revealed about my muses deepest feelings. Also for Byleth specifically I'd love to write post timeskip scenes where he's in touch with his emotions and takes on the role of Archbishop.

Favorite TOA-related memories? A specific one was Andrei's turnaround on Ewan during the halloween candy game. It was one of the first major bonds Ewan would end up developing.

Present or past tense? I Try to say I'm past tense mostly but sometimes I jumble things up a little.

Normal size text, small text, no preference? I've started trying small text recently, but I'd say I have no real preference.

Got any potential muse delusions to share? 😉 Nope! I think I'm set for now. There is one character that, If the opportunity ever arises I'd want to get but not right now.

[bratfied]

Windy City Roleplay

#Bratfied Fivem Servers

- - - The server is nice, and the community is great sometimes but can be very helpful sometimes (Not Always). Few admins can be bia, admins below Lead Amin should learn how to not pick and choose. The Server is still in beta, so please don't be surprised that the server to going down a lot, developers are fixing situations and really fast making the server a workable and playable place for New users and returning users. But I Can Say Windy City is amazing, V3 Is very fun and very different from V2, I have been here since the first time the server went up and there are a lot of things that have changed. Very impressed with the owners and developers. Shoutout to the Mang team and developer team for making the server look just like Chicago.

💜 ─── Server overview;

Roleplay Experience:

Roleplay from males: Can improve, less trolling; more being serious. It's very rare to see non-Staff teams that roleplay correctly, but there are a few people that are not staff that can roleplay correctly, but I can say. I love how they're kicking noobs out, including banning them! Great work. 7.6/10

Roleplay from females: Females can improve... 8.9/10

How Serious is the server?: The server can be serious if the community wants to be serious. But I have seen a lot of players be serious, few can be nooby, but It's not as bad as V2. 9.8/10

Faction Roleplay: I believe, a few factions are overpowered and love talking sh** to random people they don't know, must improve... gang members don't randomly check for someone inrl when the other party hasn't done anything. So if you join this server be alerted, a lot of faction roleplay can be nooby, But when the staff team is involved in Faction's is very a great place to roleplay, there are a few people that are not nooby into factions that are not staff, kinda rare. 6.9/10

Whitelisted Jobs/Business: Never actually had a job in the game myself, but I saw a lot of great ownership and leadership with the whitelisted Jobs, discord is organized; promotion is well-made following with their promotion flyers, can't wait for Jobs to open up. 10/10

Server's Staff Team:

The owners: The management team can be fair, Annoying, Cap & Zarty . Has a very awesome leadership on this server, they worked hard and made a very creative map I had never seen on a server before. If there was anything I believe these three people should change is the Staff team, A few of them are fair but a lot of them are not fair to other people, it's a pick-and-choose favoritism thing.

Lead Admins: lead admins are almost like what management does, but they are active in helping other people around, few of them are fair; few are not. But I will say my favorite Lead Admin that gives out great verdicts and amazing explanations is: Billion, Qac & Rey. These three leads are an amazing choice for the team and the community. They're willing to help at all costs!

Staff on Forums: Like I said, there are staff friends of friends with someone and do favoritism some are not and actually here to work, but one thing I can say is, that they do answer forum questions/reports/ bands quickly, also Whitelisted applications, It won't take more than 24 hours to view it.

Requirements To Join Windy City Roleplay:

Gaming PC/Good Wi-Fi/GTA & FIVEM Computer Requirements.

Must-Have a Forums account and pay for a whitelist in the Upgrades section

Must understand the simple rules of roleplaying on the server.

(ps. Be sure to learn all the basics about roleplay before paying for the whitelist, if you know all the rules you can purchase prio, it helps you up in Q, without it, you will be in a Q for a very long time, a lot of people are interested in the server)

SERVER JOIN INFORMATION:

Discord: Here

Forums: Here

Twitter: Here

[ganonfan1995]

Sometimes I feel a bit at odds with LoZ fandom, but only because of how old it is and how much it's constantly changing.

I generally love to engage with the lore, and I love to play with the characters and setting...But good god is it exhausting.

I genuinely feel like my exposure to OOT and WW early on as my only point of reference for years have greatly shaped the way I look at games as a whole...So at times it can be super frustrating to communicate with fans who jumped on between the SS and BOTW era.

There are unique generational gaps in this fandom that I haven't observed before in other spaces. In part because playing older LoZ titles is just not possible for a large portion of new fans, but also because LoZ has always had a "current" game that doesn't require the player to have knowledge of previous games.

Each game can be a stand alone as much as they can be a piece of a larger picture.

I've been thinking about this a lot lately as totk draws closer and closer. It's impossible not to run into a popular theory or a speculation that I find incredibly misplaced. And even harder to remember that the basis for these theories comes from the lack of exposure to the rest of the series.

I feel like SS takes up waaaay too much space when it comes to current lore. But also when it's one of the only other newer LoZ games playable on modern consoles for the last 10+ years, it's only natural that it would.

HD remakes and reboots are great, Nintendo needs to be releasing the entire LoZ franchise for switch like yesterday.

I see so many ppl talk about Ganondorf incorrectly or from a post SS point of reference...but really I am just begging y'all to play WW....preferably immediately after OOT as a sequel if you can. (not TP, because he really was 2 dimensional and bland in that game. Even if he is daddy to me.)

[bosskie]

More Practicing

I would really like to draw some 'proper' traditional art but I don't have enough time for it since well, then I would like draw/paint for 10 hours barely taking any breaks... So, I just focus on this quicker stuff.

But yeah, I really wanted to draw yet another Molluck from a difficult perspective, and I chose that expression because I love his teeth... And while I was looking for my reference frame (Yes, I look at those cutscenes frame by frame.) I noticed new things about Molluck's head... Man, even I have been looking at him so closely for 2½ years I still notice new stuff!

Frankly, I wondered if I would show that previous sketch at all since I tend to think that my sketches ain't worth of seeing but well, I can still show them like this. Yeah, I'm not personally a fan of my own work and see just a messy sketch here, literally too since my hands and desk got messy while doing this... I drew this before I went to sleep (+ improved after waking up) and it helped me to feel better and relax since I felt quite depressed before drawing this... Molluck just helps me so much to keep my head together...

Also I would like to say that I have been wondering the fate of that 2D Molluck game thing I have been doing and well, I think that the best thing would be that I just finish the stuff I have already implemented and move on since I gotta learn other kind of game development tools but also 3D stuff. I'll show you that 2D Molluck game (again) after I have finished that stuff but in a silly way since well, I can imitate Molluck and the Sligs. I still use quite often my Molluck voice to entertain myself... Frankly, I also miss doing those dubs... I'm just too busy to have time (and energy) for that stuff...

Welp, I can do still some creative stuff regularly for my studies since I'm doing another 2D game project thing but I don't know if I'll release it. But I can say that that game is kinda about my own mental health issues and decisions matter in that game. It's not about Molluck, so I'm not gonna really talk about it here but I can say that yes, I'm studying game development stuff (programming, graphics etc.) since I wish to become a game developer. So, this is the biggest reason why I let that particular Molluck game to be but I just change what I do to 3D Molluck stuff (maybe I still do some 2D stuff but using another programming language). I just see inside my head how awesome it would be to do Molluck and his office in 3D! And well, then make it as something playable and/or animated.

Of course, I won't charge for that stuff if I release something in public since I do not own Molluck and I'm doing that stuff just to learn and out of love. I just cannot help myself but I love that Gluk so much... He just means so much to me... He is like the cutest thing for me too...

Yes, this was my reference for that previous sketch, and I just somehow love his face so much here... His expression is just so adorable... Well, I feel like Molluck looks cute to me no matter what expression he has... I just love the way he looks like when he is angry too, though I don't still like him being angry in a sense of that I wish him to feel good.

Oh, and well, I don't know if you saw that OWI's 'Molluck's Majesty' (Molluck dress up thing but with dresses) post but since I saw it I have truly been wondering what like Molluck would look in a dress... Frankly, it would be a somewhat practical outfit for him! Molluck is such a pretty Gluk like he is but man, I'm actually curious to see him in a dress and wearing some pretty jewelry... He could show off his beautiful hands and arms! I'm not sure what kind of dress it would be but maybe pink with pretty details since well, like you might have noticed, I think that pink does suit Molluck. I'm not even a fan of pink myself, so yeah, that's not the reason for it.

Yeah, some Molluck stuff again, kinda to distract myself too since like I have told you, I suffer from self-hatred and depression. Sometimes I think that there's no darkness when Molluck is around (his eyes glow). It really touches me to think that... He is kinda a sign of that there's still light inside me because he is just imagination. I just feel too bad to really think about my 'real' loved ones, what they would think if I, well, did something awful to myself since my ill mind just wishes that they didn't care, makes me feel sorry for them to have me... I have a difficult condition and it has kinda gotten worse despite of the help, even some stuff has gotten better too.

But yeah, Molluck basically gives me life.

[three-dee-ess]

i played attack of the friday monsters to saturday the bonus stage and you know what this game feels like? it's like a game adaptation of a nonexistent movie older than a decade that you keep close to your heart because you watched it so many times as a kid but forgot its name after a few years

then when you randomly scroll through social media, there it is, the childhood movie you love! then you google it to confirm it is the exact thing you cherish and see some adults not filled with whimsy rate it a 4/10

later, you rewatch the movie filled with joy and end it with joy too, what were those losers rating it low thinking? then you read through the wikipedia page to see more info on it and it turns out there's a game adaptation so you go to get it just to see what it's like

you finish it and it's great, not as great as the movie but it didn't cut anything too important out, the graphics are as beautiful as the source material, they even made the fictional game playable, and got the original voice actors

sorry for the essay but i just had to describe this super specific vibe im getting from finishing this game, maybe this is vision is from a past life idk

anyway, i love it! i just wish it was longer because i didn't want to leave this world yet

YES YES YES you get it exactly.

it's part of a series called Boku no natsuyasumi (My summer vacation)

attack of the Friday monsters is actually considered a short title in the series and the first to be translated to English. the only other one to be translated to English is the crayon Shin-chan tie in game 😭 it's really good but admittedly I know nothing about crayon Shin-chan so I might be missing a lot. I have it on the switch, it cost about $60. I think it's wonderful but holy shit sometimes I make bad purchases. I think there might be a steam port? so uh. you know. wait till that goes on sale.

wait post cancellef the second game just got an English patch released oh my god well I know what I'm doing tmmr huge day for me

[dragonchris]

Game Review: Crosscode

Imagine if you were playing an Augmented Reality Multiplayer Online RPG but instead of actually playing an Augmented Reality Multiplayer Online RPG you played as a character who was playing an Augmented Reality Mulitplayer Online RPG? Welcome to Crosscode, an absolute BANGER of a RPG and the single game I’ve been obsessed with for the last two months or so.

Story:

Meet Lea, an amnesiac playing through the Augmented Reality game of Crossworlds to relearn her memories. Through the story, you meet incredibly fun characters and explore a gorgeous futuristic world, uncovering the secrets of your past and figuring out who you are in the present. This game’s got some twists and turns that kept me gripped the whole way through. I wanted to squeeze every dialogue option out of all the characters I met to learn everything about them that I could. Man this game has a story that’s so rich and plentiful I feel like I’m wallowing in a five-star course. I love a good lore-filled game.

Gameplay and Controls:

As Lea, you travel through a 2D RPG, exploring new places, solving puzzles, and fighting monsters to level up! The world is vast and well-designed, the puzzles are immaculate, but one of the most fleshed out parts of this game is its combat system. I’m usually more a puzzle gameplay person than a combat one but man the combat just feels good. The enemies are interesting and varied, you’ve got an extensive amount of control over how to build the character that you want to play, and its super satisfying to go back to earlier levels that you’ve toiled through and just fucking disintegrate every enemy in your path. And there’s accessibility options too, for both the combat aspect of the game and the puzzle aspect!

Sound:

The music is a treat and is very intuitive to the mood of the story and the environment, But also, past that, just the sounds in general are great too. I didn’t realize what a treat it was for certain attacks to sound so nice until I was using them. There are places in the game where the waterfall effects are a bit too loud, but other than that, the game is just really nice to listen to.

Art:

Crosscode’s got a nice pixel style which lends a special charm to the game, almost calling back to older games with its style while making a story about a futuristic gaming environment. The only gripe I have with this style is that, due to its 2D nature, it can be hard to gauge perspective sometimes which can make platforming a bit tricky.

Playable, Replayable, or Unplayable?

God, there is so much in this game to do. It’s worth playing it, it’s worth going back and replaying it. For an indie game, it’s so richly made and there’s so much love put into it that I can’t recommend it enough. If you’re looking into this game, I’d HIGHLY recommend also yoinking the “A New Home” DLC, which offers a whole-ass epilogue chapter. And if you’re not sure if it’s the right game for you, try the free demo out! Man, I love this game. 10/10.

Steam

[scrunkore]

Scrunkore Media "Thread" 2023: Part 6

the scrunko core has burned out, rebooting

63) Cassette Beasts (PC, 2023)

This is a really cool monster tamer RPG, it came up with a really fun type interaction system and there are are excellent designs in it especially with the eldritch-style bosses, that's super fun. Big fan of the setting and its unique vibe too, if you've played the game you'll know what I mean about that. Great indie I enjoyed my time with, though the romance feels tacked on and I thought the ending was just Fine. [4★]

64) Doctor Who, Series 6-10 (TV, 2011-2017)

Moffat's entire tenure with the greatest TV show in Britain, knocked out within the year, and honestly I think it was quite good. Plenty of flaws, like his messy ambitions, how weird he is about women sometimes, and how some episodes just genuinely fucking suck, but you get that with every era of the show really. The highs are damn high, especially with Capaldi's Doctor in episodes like Heaven Sent and The Doctor Falls, and I think that's enough to outweigh the bad. And I feel like series 10 in particular is often overlooked more than it should be, pretty strong one that is. No rating, but I love Doctor Who when it's good.

65) Mad Rat Dead (Switch, 2020)

MAD RAT MONDAY!!!! I played this game because of the soundtrack, which totally bangs and of course you need that in a rhythm game like this one. Fun one it is too, it has options to make it less challenging and the story is unexpectedly pretty cool. I'm not very good at it, but I beat it and I had a fun time doing so. Rats rule. [4★]

66) Doctor Who: The Lonely Assassins (Switch, 2021)

This is apparently the only good Doctor Who game still officially playable, and yeah, I can see it. Immersing yourself in a mystery contained within a smartphone featuring an iconic monster and fun appearances from existing characters is pretty cool, though it can be kinda janky and there's not that much to it in the end. Certainly an alright experience though. [3★]

67) F-Zero 99 (Switch, 2023)

My only experience with F-Zero so far, the surprise announcement that jumpscared fans of the series before turning out to be a battle royale type game that's actually... kinda good? Chaotic fun with decently engaging gameplay, it's something you pick up and play for a bit before doing something else but don't play for hours once the honeymoon phase wears off. Sure helps add something to NSO, sure hope it doesn't get taken down in a year. [3.5★]

68) Sonic Superstars (PC, 2023)

A good new Sonic game! From Sonic Team! The series really has been popping off lately, and though some people complained about this one, I genuinely think it stands at least close to the classic titles it's following up from. Levels are fun and creative with the only real bullshit being in the optional postgame (which does kind of suck if you're not good), and though the soundtrack has plenty of duds it's still pretty decent overall. Cool cast of playable characters too, and it's great seeing Fang come back, with the new character Trip also being a fun addition. I don't think this is peak Sonic, but for me it was a good time that I enjoyed for the most part. [4★]

69) Super Mario Bros. Wonder (Switch, 2023)

Oh 2D Mario is so fucking back, this takes the formula that the "New" series was running with and gives it a super aggressive shake-up and an injection of creativity that it really needed. It has a really nice visual look, actually cool level design that is great to run through, fun powers, and a large roster of playable characters including Daisy finally. Not to mention it sounds good, the music is a great important part of it and the talking flowers in every level are honestly just fun. One of the best platformers on Switch right now, I like it more than Odyssey honestly. [5★]

70) Shaun the Sheep: Farmageddon (Movie, 2019)

Bit of a silly watch this was, but in all honesty I'll always be a fan of Aardman's work and this is a pretty fun movie that all ages can enjoy whether they like Shaun the Sheep or not. It's animated as well as you'd expect, does some cute stuff, and honestly I kinda like the music in it too. Just a funny little adventure with that silly sheep and his weird cute alien friend. [3.5★]

71) Suika Game (Switch, 2023)

Suika Game.

72) Mario Kart 8 Deluxe: Booster Course Pass (Switch DLC, 2022-2023)

Dropping a two-year DLC that doubles the track list and adds a bunch of new characters and balance updates to a Mario Kart game we thought was over was a fucking wild thing to do, but Nintendo did it and honestly it worked out quite well. Sure, it's clearly all Tour ports and a lot of them don't look too hot, but for the sheer quantity of it I don't think I can complain too much. They even chose pretty good tracks for the most part, with only a few favourites being left out that I can only assume will be remade in the next game and therefore end up better than ever. I think the game is actually done now, and I think it's probably the best Mario Kart at this point. Not bad at all. [4★]

73) PLUTO (Anime, 2023)

An anime that took ages to get made, and it shows all the polish that much time of production should have you expect (perhaps too much polish with all those unnecessary digital effects). It's a pretty complete adaptation of a much-praised manga about war, robots and consciousness, some strong science fiction with quite good writing based on an old arc from Tezuka's Astro Boy manga. It's pretty tragic how things turn out for most of the characters, but it's so good how it goes about things, and I think it was worth the wait. One of the best Netflix-distributed anime, I'd say. [4.5★]

74) Super Mario RPG (Switch, 2023)

Geno fans have not shut up for years, so how does his game hold up now that it's been polished up into HD? Not bad, honestly. It's a solid RPG experience with simple yet engaging battle gameplay that laid the foundations for other Mario RPG titles to come, and now it's all shiny and stuff. It's a fun journey through a whimsical Mario setting with the quirks you'd come to expect, apparently a pretty faithful remake with only a few new additions and script edits that it sort of needed. I don't think this game is really that special in 2023, but I liked it plenty. Funny that Geno is barely a character though. [4★]

Last post

Next post

[sodapaladin]

✨Top 10 Games of 2023✨

It’s time for my annual list. As usual, these are games I played this year, not that came out this year. So despite all the hits this year, don’t expect to see many of them!

10. Fire Emblem Engage

While I was wary of the new character designs and anniversary excuse-story, Engage turned out to be more enjoyable than I expected. Not my favorite Fire Emblem, but a good one nevertheless.

9. Paradise Killer

What *style*! I went and bought this game immediately after my friend showed me the song “Paradise (Stay Forever).” Going in blind was wild. I sure didn’t expect the protagonist to be part of an extra-dimensional cult. I love exploring the vaporwave island.

8. WarioWare: Move It!

A worthy successor to Smooth Moves. While the amount of extra context seems oddly lacking for a WarioWare game, I love all the creative uses for the joycons. With the major exception of Jimmy’s boss minigame, everything works shockingly well.

7. Super Mario RPG

I debated where to place this. On one hand, I don’t feel like the remake added too much. The QoL improvements are nice, but the SNES original is still perfectly playable. It’s also quite short for an RPG, and on the easy side. But it’s just so charming anyway.

6. Darkstalkers 3

AKA Vampire Savior, not to be confused with another game. On the quest to capture the magic Third Strike had for me, this comes pretty close. If only I could find online matches now.

5. Suika Game

I had to see what the hype’s about, and I understood. So simple and cute, yet challenging. A great way to kill a few minutes.

4. Advance Wars 1+2 Reboot Camp

I held off on this for a while, since I have both original games, and it didn’t seem like much was changed. The QoL improvements have been nice, though, such as speeding up the CPU’s turns. Most importantly, it no longer cheats during Fog of War, so you can actually strategize as intended instead of cheesing certain maps.

3. It Takes Two

Playing this co-op game with my brother was a blast. Solving puzzles through teamwork is a satisfying joy, and I’d love to play again as the other character sometime.

2. Vampire Survivors

So addicting. It was hilarious to find out the dev works on slot machines. Now it’s quite clear that they know all the right bells and whistles to set that dopamine off.

1. Monster Girls and the Mysterious Adventure 2

It’s incredible when you can feel the amount of love poured into the development of a game. I picked up this solo-dev passion project thinking it’d be a cute little indie game. I didn’t expect it to be my favorite mystery dungeon experience.

Everything from the writing and QoL features show how clearly the dev loves this genre and wants to make the best version of it. The balance is wonky, some of the recruitment requirements are questionably difficult, and the English translation is extremely rough, but I can’t help but be charmed by the whole package anyway. I’ve put in around 50 hours getting to the “final” boss of the story, and there’s still a massive postgame dungeon. I wouldn’t recommend it to everyone, but for fans of mystery dungeon games, absolutely.