#great game. its so fucking weird and kinda campy

[shoezuki]

God. Fossil fighters is a phenomenal game actually.

It starts with you, some kid, digging up and cleaning fossils and reviving dinos and fighting with them and helping some girl get her dino tokens back. Ends with you going into outerspace with some dino-alien babe to defeat a gargantuan monstrosity that exist between the planes of space and time and consumes entire planets and galaxies.

[asoulofatlantis]

That is one hell of a sudden timejump ^^' Like the game just started, but we have done NOTHING and yet, two freaking months have past.

In case you don't know that yet or you have forgotten it, this very girl is Yun-Ka-Fais very own granddaughter.

I love how games like these ALWAYS find a way to force some weird logic on you that makes you understand that you have no choice but to have a fresh start XD

Oh... do we not have to walk there ourselfs? Nice!

Oh! I totally forgot that stuff like this already existed in this game. That will be fun!

This Prolouge is annoying me for some reason I can not fully explain. The dungeon sucked because of all the levers and now we get thrown into whatever fight awaits us outside, just after one full day of dungeon exploring. But I am probably just salty because that is exactly how the pacing will be for the most part of the game ^^'

They put on quite the show to make it look real, didn't they? ^^' And even tho those two girls have noticed already that they have been training for this, they still didn't realize how awfully convenient all this is.

I totally get that this was training and preparing them for what its to come. You know, real-life situations and all that... but I still think they've overdone it a bit here.

Also... damn was that boring. Even if I had to fight the monsters on the way, it would not have been really entertaining at all. This dungeon sucked even more than the last one, because it pretended to be hard, but it actually wasn't. Once again, the monster in a non-plus-game might have told a different story but the overall dungeon wasn't great at all and this did nothing to the plot even if you didn't find out or knew you were tricked from the start.

Campanelle came with a small airplane. Whats wrong? No teleportation-skills just yet, Campi? XD

Ouroboros is always so overstaffed XD Seriously. Four people plus the two currently talking. Six members of Ourobors. Anguises among them too. Geez!

Oh! I forgot to add the Faceless. Make it 7 members. Seriously Ourobors, that scared of us, or what? XD

I forgot that we've been here before Cold Steel. And it remains a sad place with sad music.

It must have been hard for Joshua to come back here and face his past.

I am pretty sure NO ONE saw this coming. I can not remember much from my first playthrough to be absolutely honest with you, but I can remember that Joshua working with the Capuas WAS quite a surprise. They seemed to be useless silly side characters in the first game. And now here they are... protecting Joshua and being his allies while he would be otherwise all alone.

And then later on you meet Josette back in Erebonia and you like: "W-Wait a minute!" XD

I am kinda glad that this is over. But if Falcom never was good at something, that its been Prolouges ^^'

After all those years and all those games I am kind of confused were the archaism really come from. Obviously, at this point Ouroboros is mass-producing them. But it didn't start out like that, didn't it? Wasn't it rather that they found them somewhere and just reproduced them, like they did with thing like the Auraleole?

But were did they find them first? Cavard, as Kevin words suggest?

Well I mean we ARE running straight into "the end of the world" and I am not sure yet what Cassiuse did to try to prevent it XD

(I am very much aware that I am a bit unfair here. Thanks to our most beloved idiot police Detective Lloyd, most people do not even know the end of the world is coming, so its not like he COULD have done anything about it, given that he didn't have the necessary knowledge... Oh fun! I've just realized, if we fuck this up in Kai we can blame it on Lloyd. The guy who decided to not even be there, as it seems... *achem* moving on... uh... back to the past I mean ^^')

Ouroboros is quite the... colorful bunch in every way possible. Some of them are really good at blending in too. So... uh... how exactly do you want to find someone "resembling" a secret society, Agate? ^^'

I should not pick Agate again this time, as I picked him last time already. But I did have my reasons for choosing him and the reasons still apply. So... sorry Schera. But its the hothead again XD

Yeah... I've got that wrong too ^^' I guess we have to get our heads out of the gutter.

I am two hours into the game and as expected, NOTHING worth of note actually happened. So I am glad to announce that I am taking a break now.

[kingzephy]

Man. I just keep thinking about Dead Souls and how much I fucking love it. Im just gonna ramble about it under the cut

Im not finished w it yet im almost finished but. Its so criminally underrated and it sucks that it hasnt gotten a proper good localization or port that isnt janky and laggy. I dont regret buying or playing it in the slightest.

Yeah its absolutely got some issues and I could talk about them for a long time, but it scratches this itch for me that I just cant explain well. I love it. I love cheesy campy media thats so bad its good which is honestly a big reason why i like it. It doesnt take itself too seriously at all. In a way it almost reminds me of some games I grew up playing, like re4 and house of the dead in a sense. Its really nothing like those games but you know what I mean

I actually dont mind the controls too much (though to be fair I had to switch to the type b control scheme and that feels better to me). Not being able to do the auto aim and walk at the same time doesnt bother me as much as i thought it was going to but it’s probably cuz im used to that from re4. Thankfully theres multiple aiming modes which makes up for that and you can walk around with the strafe aiming which is actually mostly accurate and feels good to use

Some of the weapons like Majima’s shotgun or Ryuji’s gatling gun especially are really satisfying. Even if theres a few enemies in particular that drive me insane (the monkey boys and especially the molotov cocktail zombies are so annoying they are the bane of my existence) overall i dont have too many issues w the combat aside from. Heat snipes being difficult to trigger sometimes, the auto aim can be a little glitchy every now and then, and occasionally getting overwhelmed by hoards of zombies but thankfully theres good weapons and attacks for that. I like that they included shit like chainsaws and flamethrowers

I love all the characterization they squeeze in for Majima and Ryuji especially, Its always great getting to play as Majima of course and I kinda think hes at his best in this game in some ways for several reasons, despite the weird localization. Hes just out there living his best life and I love that for him. Its good getting to see him like. Actually kinda happy for once. Its always nice getting to see him interact with characters like Akiyama. AND it was good getting to see more Akiyama and Hana together ofc

I really love the hostess conversations and the nonchalant and casual banter, I eat that shit right up. So much interesting dialog. I really enjoy the substories quite a bit, some of them more than others but i love how they poke fun at certain tropes. Theres a few real stand out ones. The main story is enjoyable and funny in a ridiculous way, even if the pacing can be weird and the plot is objectively not done well but I love it anyway for its cheesy edginess. Theres a few scenes that have really stuck with me. I think its funny how a lot of the citizens are in denial or are straight up just unaware of the outbreak and act like life goes on like normal which is something that I think. Aged well. Given the current state of the world rn

As a fan of other survival horror games its fun seeing the very obvious references to other games and such (L4D, RE, etc). I like getting to see Kamurocho in a state of complete disarray, I think the idea of separating the unaffected areas and the quarantine zones is smart and a cool idea so theres not constant zombies everywhere, the game gives you a bit of reprieve (even if it means theres some backtracking and taking the long way around things sometimes). I like how the zones move and change over time as the story progresses and more areas get infected.

Anyway. I dont really care if a piece of media is objectively good as long as Im personally having a good time and having fun w it and I can definitely say Ive had fun. If I wasnt a yakuza fan I can tell you for a fact I would not like this game but. I dunno. I am not immune to its charm. If youre a big yakuza fan and you haven’t played it I recommend at least checking it out on an emulator or something

[deltaengineering]

Fall Anime 2019 Part 4: also, he has a gun for a head

Beastars

So here’s the CG anime that everyone for some reason decided way in advance would be the best show of the season, more or less by default. I was very skeptical of this for a multitude of reasons. First of all, that is a bad name for a show and you can’t convince me otherwise. It’s actually even worse because you’re supposed to write it in all caps, but I refuse. Second, it has a terribly on the nose conceit in which all sorts of animals live together in a high school setting and it’s all metaphorical ‘n shit. The main character is a wolf but get this, he’s actually all sensitive and quiet! Yeah, this is definitely rated D for Deep. And finally it’s by Orange, the CG studio that got an inordinate amount of acclaim for making Houseki no Kuni, the show that everyone thinks looks great and finally made CG anime worthwhile (actual real fact: HnK does not look great most of the time and CG anime was worthwhile well before it). 

But enough about my preconceptions since Beastars is... pretty good, actually. If you ignore the setting, which is indeed terribly on the nose. And there’s not much else to say about the story so far besides it. However, it looks significantly better than Houseki no Kuni because it actually has really good character animation throughout instead of a one-minute action scene with flashy spinny camera tricks every other episode. The directing’s strong too, even if the show conspicuously mainly consists of obvious manga panels. I’m still not too hot on the animal stuff but the general writing seems to be sufficiently competent it would work simply on a character level. So I don’t love it, but it seems solid enough to see if it goes somewhere with its “Zootopia but also Beverly Hills 90210 but also they eat each other sometimes″ plot.

Rifle is Beautiful

Remember the whole “anime about some assorted anime girls joining a club doing an oddly specific activity” thing? This is another one of those, and now it’s about air rifle sports shooting. Except it’s not about air rifle sports shooting because that’s apparently way too violent, so they use rifles that look like exactly like air rifles but are actually based on lasers or really bright flashlights (they can’t keep their bullshit straight between scenes, sorry) instead. I just don’t think “girls doing activities” anime should blatantly misrepresent their subject matter like that, you know? With the possible exception of idol anime that is, ain’t nobody who wants to hear about that shit. Apart from that it’s nothing special, so if you are really into air rifles and wish to watch an anime that’s not about those, knock yourself out. It goes through a whole “club needs 5 members” arc in the first half of the first episode, so I really can’t say where it goes next. Nowhere much, I would guess.

Oh right, there’s one more thing: They frequently render the bodies in CG and the heads in traditional drawings, and they do it every time when they’d actually have to draw a rifle otherwise. It’s a weird effect that I think I haven’t seen anywhere else before, and it’s not great but also not terrible. And it’s the most interesting thing about the entire show.

Kabukicho Sherlock

“Let’s take a bunch of public domain characters and put them into a hip modern setting” seems to be its own genre at the moment, and not only because the BBC did that with S. Holmes, Esq. already. Obviously this show is influenced by that (besides other public domain namedroppers like Bungou Stray Dogs), mostly in Watson and his relationship with Sherlock, but Sherlock-san is rather different here; he’s neither the classic Victorian bohemian nor the abrasive sociopath of the BBC version, and tends more towards a bumbling 90s pop culture version of autism and/or general wackiness here. These two are surrounded by a bunch of campy transvestites for some reason, and I’m not quite sure whether I’m supposed to find this particular stereotype offensive or empowering this week, but it sure is annoying. And it has the same character designer as Joker Game, so if you like chiseled, angular anime men, you’re in for a treat here - even if they tend to wear a lot of makeup and dresses sometimes. I don’t know man, it seems sort of okay-ish for the most part but it’s neither as funny as they think, nor as weird as they think, nor is the murder of the week intriguing at all. Oh yeah, he’s hunting noted public domain character Jack the Ripper. Because of course he is.

 Shin Chuuka Ichiban!

I am told this is the sequel to episode 19 of a 52-episode anime TV show from 1997. Okay. I am also told to not dare watch this without the important setup therein, which makes me think I should pay less attention to what I’m told because understanding Shin Chuuka Ichiban and its backstory is not hard at all. Kid is superawesome cooking champion in ancient China and goes around clowning on lesser cooks, got it. It’s not a complicated setup and it’s not a complicated genre either: This seems to be mostly about sick shounen cooking duels. Besides the setting, the main difference between this and Shokugeki no Soma seems to be that SnS goes for ridiculous and Chuuka Ichiban goes for epic - which is to say that it fancies itself emotional as well. Apart from that it’s what you’d expect from a cooking shounen, big moves, big reactions, huge twists and so on. One notable thing is that this show looks really, really nice. Production I.G seems to be establishing a sideline in taking stuff from the 90s and updating it with smoother animation and shinier lighting, while keeping the overall look intact; They did it for Mahoujin Guru Guru, and this looks much the same. Still, I’m just fundamentally not really interested in what appears to be a very straightforward cooking shounen from the 90s.

Assassins Pride

Straight from the Department of Chuuni, we have this light novel masterpiece about a cool as fuck teenage assassin who teleports behind u and nothin personells fools all day. He then meets a princess he’s supposed to off but just kinda decides not to, probably because she seems to be smitten by his m’lady act. Now he has to use his sick skillz to keep them both alive. It’s awful and terrible and no good and also kind of adorable. This truly is the most 13 AND A HALF MOM years old anime in a while, and it’s not even isekai! The writing’s just so amateurish and corny you can’t help but smile when princesses exposit their backstory for no reason while being accosted by pumpkin monsters (without knowing that Awessassin McCooldude happens to be listening in, which is certainly convenient). Or when the episode ends with the man just reading the synopsis of the show out again, in case you were too fascinated by this plot to pay attention to what it’s about. Yeah I’m not going to watch this in a thousand years, but it sure made me chuckle. Your mileage may vary.

Mugen no Juunin - Immortal

Speaking of 𝔱𝔥𝔞𝔱 𝔫𝔦𝔫𝔢𝔱𝔦𝔢𝔰 𝔢𝔡𝔤𝔢, another anime adaptation of Blade of the Immortal appeared! You know, the manga for the cultured and historically minded guro fan. The first episode of Blade of the Immortal runs with this and is an arthouse production that someone most definitely directed the shit out of. I don’t think I’ve seen this much directing since, well, Sarazanmai, but “Ikuhara amounts of directing” is pretty much the idea here. And most of the time it even works! The quickly edited, disorienting style gives episode 1 a feeling closer to horror than to a cool swordmen action show, and that really brings out the best in the material, which is grotesque splatter bordering on the comical - It’s somehow a better Junji Ito anime than the actual Junji Ito anime. I think it tries too hard in a few places, but at least it does try.

But then I watched the second episode and that one’s a fairly conventional splatter-comedy swordin’ anime. I am not at all pleased with this development. The third episode was better again and seemed to split the difference between 1 and 2, even if it mostly uses the tricky editing to save on effort in the action –  I would much prefer actually readable fights and the wacky mannerisms in the more psychological stuff, thank you very much. Based on episode 1 I thought we might have something special here, but as of episode 3 I’d already merely call it pretty decent. I guess I’ll still stick with it but man, that’s a real bummer.

No Guns Life

No Guns Life is a neo-noir thriller about a guy who has a gun for a head. That’s fuckin rad and exactly the kind of silliness I am totally down for. He also has a gun for a hand, and there’s also some battle nun’s who carry revolvers with two cylinders, so in short I think the title is false advertising. This sounds very wacky (and it is), but it also takes its noir very seriously, down to details more wannabe neo-noirs tend to neglect (like being set right after a big war). The look and feel is pretty excellent, with sharp design and high-contrast artwork, and the music goes all in on the moody saxophone as you’d expect. And there’s some really adorable “look mom, I’m writing” stuff about how Man With Gun For A Head really “needs someone to pull his trigger” and so on (which is, as the astute reader might remember, at the back of his head). It feels like a throwback but then I can’t really think of many 80s/90s shows like this, so it’s actually more like the sort of faux-retro idea Trigger/Imaishi would come up with on a lark. Trigger/Imaishi would, of course, make a far worse anime out of it, so it’s all good. Well, it has some pacing problems and as always it’s a fine line between amusingly camp and not so amusingly camp anymore, but No Guns Life seems to have enough real qualities that it can probably stand on its own even when its conceptual gimmick eventually doesn’t suffice anymore. I give it a two gun’s up.

Hoshiai no Sora / Stars Align

And finally, here’s an anime about middle schooler softboys playing a tennis just as soft as themselves, while being henpecked by the elites on the girl’s team. This is not an “actual” sports anime though: for starters, it’s not based on some shounen manga and is an anime original with quite some staff pedigree instead. It’s also more of a character drama that already goes to some surprisingly real places by the end of episode 1, reminiscent of the recent and quite good Run with the Wind. Furthermore, it looks delicious, with minimalist but distinctive and varied character designs and animation that’s both extremely detailed for a TV anime and also not trying to shove that fact into your face with flashy stunt cuts. In short, this show seems very simple at first glance but every aspect of it just oozes quality. If nothing else, it’s already worth watching just for the excellent ending sequence where the characters show off their “best” dance moves and the chunky student council president dunks on everyone. This one caught me by surprise and it’s an easy pick for most promising show of the season.

[citrusandbergamot]

do people ever get tired of being critical?

like, it’s so endless. so needless. take the bad with the good, I mean, come on. like, type in RWBY into the youtube search bar and half the videos are reaction ones about why RWBY sucks now, ‘why I stopped watching’ blah blah blah. 

like, I get being frustrated and being annoyed that your expectations are not met but seriously

no piece of media is perfect to all people. it just isn’t. it’s really easy for something to feel awesome when it’s new. few things end stronger than they begin. Few things have a strong ending, period. But being so goddamn down on stuff makes the creators feel like shit. It makes people not want to finish things. 

You know what’s worse than a character death you hate? A show/series never, ever having a conclusion, something just...drifting away. Like, I don’t super love the ending of Naruto. I actually really dislike it and what’s happened in the sequel. I don’t like most of what JKR has come out and said since the ending of HP. And I fucking hated the epilogue. Words cannot express how much I disliked it. 

Can you imagine the agony if those stories had never actually ended? If they had given up, halfway through? Good god, it’d be awful, just awful. The what if, the endless what if. Do you think people are going to love the end of Rebuild? Do you think it can possibly match the expectations that have been building all this time? Eva fans want it to be perfect; they want it to be exactly as good as they imagine. Is it any wonder why it’s been delayed so long? The whole damn thing is probably torture for Anno. Do you think the ending of One Piece is going to satisfy its millions of fans? Maybe, maybe not. And that world is so rich, so complex, so consistent, so deep. It still has to end, eventually. If it’s not everything you want it to be, will that sour all the joy it brought to you before? 

Can you name for me things that have met your expectations and exceeded them? things that ended as strong as their original promise, their beginning? 

endings are weird, always. Even great endings, there’s often something that feels unfinished. There’s always a let down, it’s just the way that stories are shaped. Eventually the plot twists and the motivations and the consequences have to end, the camera has to stop rolling. Things that feel flat or disappointing sometimes just feel that way because we don’t want things to end, or because we want things to go the way we’ve expected them to. Like, I remember being so disappointed in Revenge of the Sith. And yeah, some of that comes from I think valid criticism of the pacing and emotional depth of the story, but in the end, I’m glad to have had that story, I’m glad to have the prequels. Shitting on them endlessly, needlessly, doesn’t do a damn thing to change it. It only generates more negativity and shitty, reactionary behaviour and stifles creativity, and makes the people involved in the project feel like shit. It doesn’t feel great inside either, all that negativity. Like, what’s the fucking point?

And sometimes endings take a while to settle. Sometimes, it takes awhile to really understand that it was the only way a story could end. I loved the way Life on Mars ended, but I know my brother absolutely hated it. I didn’t like the way Fight Club ended when I first saw it, but it grew on me and now I cite it as a brilliant, brilliant ending. I hate the depressive way Rogue One ends, but that last sequence with Darth Vader is one of my favourite scenes in the Star Wars universe. I actually think Return of the King has a terrible ending, but I understand why Peter Jackson chose it and it still makes me cry. I don’t think having the scouring of the shire would elicited the same emotional reaction. Trainspotting has always been perfect though. I think Supernatural should have ended in season 5, but if it did, we wouldn’t have had the bunker, or Abaddon, or Charlie, or season 8, or the way Jared looks right now, or Sam’s like, complete mental torture since season 6. ...season 4?? And all that shit has been awesome, to varying degrees. All that shit has brought some enjoyment, even if mostly (for me) as fuel for fanfiction. ((It’s brought about other things, more negative and terrible as well. Supernatural fandom would not be this way had it ended in season 5 and the fandom is so goddamn abusive and toxic it’s hard to talk about the good points of the show without bringing that up. But that’s not the show itself per se.))

And yeah, things sometimes live way past their expiration date. I really hate when Sam and Dean have the same old conversation - I want my characters to change. But i also know that other people don’t feel the same way - they want Sam and Dean to always be SamandDean. Take FMA. I think Brotherhood is tighter, more cohesive story. I think the 2003 version is darker, less simplistic, but with a lot more strife between the characters. Which has better growth? The one with the deeper plot/conspiracy and triumphant, satisfying ending? Or the one with the heavier consequences for the individual characters and more ambiguous ending? I love me some Brotherhood, I love it a lot. But remember what happens to Scar and Liore in 2003? Remember who killed Winry’s parents? Remember the final fight with Sloth? Do you remember the final fight with Sloth? Holy shit, holy shit. So I thought Dante was kinda a weak villain. Is that the only thing that matters? 

Like....I’m pretty glad I live in a world with both versions. And I really cannot say which one is better, as each has their faults. Being needlessly critical of creative choices is just so exhausting and....well, childish.  

Youtube tried to recommend a vid about why Captain Marvel is going to cause the downfall of the MCU. And I’m like....????? it hasn’t even come out yet???? To be that critical before even seeing it?? It’s just plain misogyny  entitlement packaged up as ‘intellect’. 

No show is going to stay exactly the same. What RWBY was pre-volume 3 is impossible to return to: the world is different post-fall of Beacon. The structure of the characters world, their expecations, their security, their drives...it’s all different now. The show is bigger, has a bigger budget, has better animation. The story, with the world building and the multiple factions and a clearer look at the end game, is so beyond what it was at the start, where everything was new, where Cinder was still mystery and seemingly all-powerful, where we didn’t know what was possible in the world. Where a goddamn Nevermore was the biggest Grimm they’d ever seen. Where Monty was still alive. 

The show is going to be different. Different is not bad. Maybe they lost some of the potential but of course it’s going to, because it had to choose a path forward, it couldn’t stay exactly the same...! How could it have? I miss things about the early seasons a lot, but it worked because they could move the plot at a snail’s pace. Remember all those eps about Jaune being bullied? Remember all that shit with the dog and going to class and becoming friends. It was light-hearted and happy-go lucky and that made the action scenes pop and our favourite villain was campy and charismatic and not actually the one in control at all. Now we have darkness on all sides and the mysteries have been revealed for the dangers they actually are, and the emotional scenes and the connection between the characters and their resolve is the only thing that can push back against that darkness. Do I wish it was a little darker at times? Yes, yes I do. But it was always going to be a little simplistic. 

It’s a web-series about teenagers. Chill the fuck out, you aren’t entitled to shit. 

yes this is about Adam Taurus can you tell, if people couldn’t see it coming I don’t know what to tell you. If you couldn’t see it coming, we haven’t been watching the same show.