#have any gamefaqs guides

[helladventurers]

Oh no I made the mistake of giving toukiden 2 a try, and it looks like a pretty fun monster hunter clone 😫there goes the remainder of my ps+ time I guess

[skyburger]

"fnaf is the scariest game ever" "no its silent hill" "well i think its resident evil" everyone shut up!!!!!! youre all wrong. its actually zack & wiki quest for barbaros' treasure (on the nintendo wii) but only the level "keeper of the ice". that level scared me so bad as a kid and you can tell because its the only individual level i remember the name of off the top of my head. like there is nothing scarier than a) being chased and b) being on a time limit. and you know what this level has? BOTH OF THOSE. this level is still scary to me im like AHHHHH!!!! and then i die

[socpens]

hi scorpy! i am currently in possession of a game guide book for the godfather: the game, but i don’t really have a use for it. is this something that, for any reason, you’d have interest in/you’d want to be sent to your PO box. i realize this is very out of nowhere but i truly don’t know what to do with this thing

I accept guides in the po box too! I have that game and having a guide for a game I play on stream is always helpful, it avoids having to scroll thru gamefaqs live

[hustlerose]

i don't like this sort of dogpiling, but i guess i'll give my 2 cents on the "how to pick up trans girls" article

i think a lot of ppl are having some trouble articulating exactly what is uncomfortable about it. i honestly think a big part of it is his tone, demeanor, and underlying attitude.

there's a lot of words in there like "advantage" and "plan" that betray the way this guy approaches women. this is a game, a sport, a competition. the goal is for the man to get in the woman's pants, but she doesn't want to give it up, so he needs to use a strategy guide

it's this framing that's creepy, it think. if it's a competition, then any dirty trick is fair game. speak dishonestly, be manipulative, pressure her with all you have. press the advantage

or it's the constant millenial stereotyping. as if dropping specific references will score you some points. it reeks of pickup artistry. it's all men who don't really enjoy the company of women, telling each other about how all women secretly operate

i'm honestly relieved we're all having a conversation about this, even in a shitty format like social media. i'm glad we're culturally rejecting this tired old shit. we don't need a t4t version of this type of guy. the guy who gets mad when the gamefaqs "how to pick up chicks" guide fails him. you have to actually try to get to know a girl. listen to her, in her specifics. care for the real girl, as a friend and lover. or she will leave

and please do not build an echo chamber that affirms your masculinity by making you into a misogynist. girls don't find that very attractive

[thewertsearch]

CG: IF WE CAN RIDE THIS OUT FOR A LITTLE LONGER UNTIL THE CRITICAL MOMENT, AND DAVE/ROSE CAN DESTROY THE SUN, JACK SHOULDN'T BE A THREAT. CG: CONVENIENTLY, IF THEY'RE SUCCESSFUL, THAT WILL SIGNAL THE BEGINNING OF OUR OWN ESCAPE PLAN. […] CG: APPARENTLY THE EXPLOSION WILL BE SO HUGE, IT WILL BE VISIBLE AT GREAT DISTANCES THROUGHOUT THE FURTHEST RING. CG: EVEN FROM DIFFERENT SESSIONS, LIKE YOURS AND OURS.

Alright, this escape plan is starting to come into focus.

The Sun's explosion will create the Ring's first ever landmark, allowing the trolls to pinpoint its 'location' without needing to build a Horrorterror Map. It's a little screwy that the explosion will be visible 'at great distances' when the Ring's concept of distance is nebulous at best - but on the other hand, this is no normal explosion, either. I guess the metaphysical details don't really matter here; the key takeaway is that the trolls will travel to the Sun.

CG: EVEN FROM DIFFERENT SESSIONS, LIKE YOURS AND OURS. YOU WON'T GET TO SEE IT BECAUSE BY THEN YOUR SESSION SHOULD BE WIPED OUT BY THE SCRATCH.

The kids, however, will not. The timing doesn't work out.

What I'm hearing, though, is that it is theoretically possible for other sessions to follow this new waypoint. Over time, the Sun's remains could even become a rendezvous point for sessions scattered across the multiverse, allowing Players to meet, collaborate, and share resources.

For now, though, it's just a way for the trolls to get out of dodge.

CG: SO YEAH, WE'LL MEET IN THE AFTERMATH OF THE EXPLOSION WITH OUR PEOPLE ON THE INSIDE, OR I GUESS I SHOULD SAY OUTSIDE. CG: I DON'T THINK THEY CAN COME WITH US THOUGH. EB: come with you where? who are they? CG: DEAD PEOPLE.

Dead people, as well as their cheerful psychopomp. Unlike the Ring's ghosts, Aradia could conceivably rejoin the team at this point - but I don't think she's actually likely to do so, because she's needed out in the Ring.

The Dream Bubbles are an extremely important resource, and I don't think anyone could manage them as well as her. This is her element.

CG: THE SCRATCH WILL REBOOT YOUR SESSION. YOUR WHOLE UNIVERSE ACTUALLY. SO SOMEWHERE IN THIS DREADFUL ABYSS, THAT NEW SESSION WILL START UP IN ITS OWN INCIPISPHERE, FROM SCRATCH. […] CG: THE IDEA IS FOR YOU ALL TO PRESERVE YOURSELVES BY ESCAPING THERE.

I sort of assumed that the reboot session would physically replace the original, by spawning directly on top of it. Apparently that's not the case, though; it just pops up somewhere at random.

Well, that'll make it a little harder to find, since we won't know where to look. I can't really think of any solutions, either, unless reboot-Rose is kind enough to post another GameFAQs guide. Preferably one containing her exact dimensional coordinates.

EB: through the lawn ring? CG: YES.

Through the lawn ring? So, what, the Yard is a physical pathway that they can move through?

Once again, I don't have any real theories - except that if the Yellow Yard is indeed some sort of 'pathway', I have a horrible feeling we're being teed-up for a 'yellow brick road' joke.

[jesawyer]

Hey Josh,

So I’m trying to get all the achievements in New Vegas but two of the achievements I need are the caravan achievements.

Can you give me any advice to win caravan?

Thanks

Happy Thanksgiving this is the one F:NV question I'll answer this season.

This is probably the best guide I've seen:

IMO the short version is that 10s, 8s, and 6s are the most important numbered cards to have in your decks. Kings and jacks are also valuable: kings to double (or triple, or quadruple) the value of a card (or your opponent's), jacks to remove a card.

Queens and jokers have their place, but are more situational and usually the AI doesn't demand their use. When we were playtesting Caravan in 1:1 IRL games, they came up more often.

[unreone]

Glep Multiverse

Glep

- THE SILLI HIMSELF!!!

- Nonbinary icon!!!!! His sex is green thank you very much

- I think he is specifically an Enchanted Forest critter

- Assigned at social media marketing and recruitment ads. Specifically does it in this style

- He is innocent if you ignored the atrocities he have committed in his lifetime.

- The lack of atrocities he commits in the present is to be blamed on his wife Marge (positive)

- Made it a personal mission to see every meme on the internet ever (a very good thing to dedicate his long life-)

- Frequents at GameFAQs as a poster of most comprehensive guides imaginable that includes obscure secrets and easter eggs

Fleb

- Swapped personality with Allan

- Unemotive because he thinks he have seen it all. Made the unexpected moments he encounter a lot more jarring.

- Instead of paperclips, he was counting buttons for the pilot episode

- His beef with Swap!Pim is that he chomp'd on his fingers-

- He's extra sassier than Allan, with a tendency to assume he's being looked down by others. His insults goes beyond surface levels appearance, it's gut wrenching nasty levels.

- If ever involved in any physical altercation, his blows are more targeted on the weak spots

- When baking desert treats, he always make the exact size large enough to satiate you. You might look at it and be like 'Oh this thing is too big/too small' but no you feel your cravings satisfied

- His motivation in becoming jack of all trades is a mixture of boredom and spite.

Glip

- Switched personality with Pim

- It is common for his lineage to become uncaring and self-serving around his age. And so, he does the most rebellious thing ever and actually connect with others.

- Actively sought to learn multiple languages throughout his lifetime.

- Badass Adorable!!!!!

- Unlike the original Glep, he is more willing to look and act goofy to others.

- Allows Switched!Allan to carry him during their smiling missions.

- Theres another layer to the canon event of him vomiting at the Shrimp episode considering he is married to Marge help-

- Often sends personalized meme to his co-workers

- Frequents Buzzfeed and Quotev personality quizzes

Gliplii

- Shifted personality with Charlie

- Have thousands pic of Alpha Male quotes in his gallery and counting.

- No no no he does have muscles, you just don't see it because of magic

- With that said, he is able to lift things or others that is many times his weight

- He does the smiling missions

- When Jeremy annoys him the second time, instead of punching him like Charlie did, he headbutted his guts.

- Quite jaded with the internet but always comes back because God forbids he misses any drama.

- He have a grudge against Shift!Charlie since the 'boop' that happened on the pilot ends up not being a boop at all, instead, Shift!Charlie inserted his index into his mouth

- Considering he doesn't have a nose is... is his upper lip gonna be the thing ripped off instead in the Gwimbly episode?????? Helppp-

Mr. Gleps

Lmoa I just wanted him be drawn as Mr. BOSS cuz yes

[christiansorrell]

RPG Read-through: .dungeon//remastered

For a while on Twitter, I've been doing read-through threads where I post my thoughts as I'm reading through a game for the first time. I recently did the same with Snow's .dungeon//remastered, a TTRPG where you are players logging in to a dead/dying MMO and exploring the digital fantasy world. I'm adapting those thoughts here for a proper Tumblr post! Enjoy!

First up, credits! Good folks who do good work in my experience. Also, we get the first of what seems to be a common through-line here that I enjoy: an online fandom bent to this all being a sort of GameFAQ style guide for an in-universe game.

My initial impression from most of the interior spreads I've seen just flipping through it is that I really love the style and layout. I think black and white layouts are underrated generally, but it really pops here with the pixelated text/symbols and the old school GUIs.

It's interesting to have these kind of "no bigotry" rules you see in many games couched within an in-universe framing. I think this more personal angle actually makes them land better for me than they typically do in games.

Of course, the author is still powerless to stop the players (just like with any instance of these rules, and all game rules in general tbh) BUT this is worldbuilding too, and it gives me a greater sense for the kind of in-universe fandom that's risen up around .dungeon.

Similarly, here's the game's unique version of safety tools - an in-game help menu that reworks things like lines/veils, x-card and more into the game world itself. I really like this.

Once again, the art in this is just great. I love the Fez-like runes/symbols. My ARG brain wants to know if there's a hidden message here.

I was surprised it was jumping right into the starter adventure, Tutorial Town, but I quickly found out that this is character creation AND a starting area/adventure all wrapped into one, video game-style, and that's so cool.

Each room of the starting area introduces a step of character creation. It's interesting that stats are based on real-world (not you the player at the table real-world but your PC at the "real-world" computer playing the game) ability. Your game knowledge, response time, etc.

As a long time Dota player, I also just really enjoy that the saving throw-like stat here is TILT. I have tilted many times and known many of my teammates to tilt regularly. Just fun to see that phrasing in a TTRPG.

There's more of the in-universe real-world player here than I expected coming in. Definitely has some really intriguing potential. I do wonder though if the intent is to be playing a "real-world" level character or if you are "playing" as yourself at that layer. Both would work.

Monster statblocks. Easy to parse and straightforward to run as the GM (tho at time the layout does have one two many things laid on top of one another that can make them hard to read at first glance - like where "GOBLIN" is here):

Health here is SYNC, and it's shared across the whole party - I'm interested to see how that full mechanic plays out and how it may affect play.

Reaction rolls. I'm surprised to see them given the video game setting, cus mobs in MMOs just always attack you. I've gone back and forth on it with my video game-inspired TTRPG. Don't think it's a bad choice, just one that means the game world is more than a usual video game.

So you have your real-world level Job (based on your characters' out of game job) and your in-game "Role" which follow the classic "holy trinity" of MMO design:

PCs and monsters can team up to attack and can forego damage for stunts - potentially fun/interesting moments happening from that. Monsters deal dmg to SYNC but only per type is interesting, means a crowd of one-enemy is more a long trickle of damage than an overwhelming burst.

Not knowing the ramifications of SYNC damage yet, I'm not sure what the Risk v Reward looks like for Respawns but it's intriguing. Letting your avatar die to keep the party in a stronger position overall (but being able to re-join after a fight) is definitely unique.

This is another fun room (and I like that other than saying late 90s/early 2000s it leaves appearance options open). I am not sure where to find the starting origins tho (they aren't on this spread and there's no page reference). Sadly, the PDF isn't bookmarked either, it seems.

This feels like a smart roadblock to place in player's paths early on. It's unlikely they'll have a lockpick at this point so really, it's about getting players into that creative mindset. What is in the room for you to exploit? What gear do you have you can use in a new way?

Might seem basic, especially to the OSR-experienced out there, but you'd be surprised how many players don't have experience with thinking more freeformly about the game in this way. No fault to them, most trad games condition you to use your PC's abilities/skills as a menu.

Another cool interaction between the layers of the game here (tho I do wish they all played more off of something more than just the tarot card being in the real-world layer). Still wondering if most folks play as themselves or as a real-world level PC.

This is interesting. I wonder if there is going to be a real-world layer to play or if this is meant to be the amount your party can heal between sessions of play (like when the actual real you stops playing in actual real life - this meta layer stuff is tricky to communicate).

I like this - a very short and sweet travel system.

I continue to love this art. Also, this tease here around dual-wielding requiring the discovery of new Roles out in the game world somewhere first is really enticing (I added the highlighter there btw).

This is fun - there are both in-game NPCs and PUGs which are other real-world players' in-game avatars. That extra layer to those types of NPCs is really fun and them running the gamut of fully out-of-character chatting to being hardcore RPers is fun to consider.

Whenever it leans into the digital world aspects, I'm super into it. Very much my kinda thing. I do wonder though how often players can swap their Roles. I don't believe I've seen that said yet - my inclination would be once on the fly (like Final Fantasy's Job systems).

And if these various layers weren't enough, .dungeon also features in-game collectible cards that are sort of enchantments and buffs. I wonder if my real-world level character can spend real money to buy Bytes to buy more packs from a merchant in town? lol

I won't spoil/detail too many more of these but these kind of fun (and common to video games but rarely seen when thinking of the world of a game or the intended way to play) moments are really appealing. Also, this game has Goons in it. Oh no.

Now I'm thinking the intention is the "real-world" level of play should be the real actual you, the person playing .dungeon the TTRPG (as opposed to a real-world level character still within the fiction of the game) since stuff like this would be tricky to track. Cool item!

Tutorial Island is cool, a good blend of char creation, intro to what the game is, and just a fun adventure with a session or more of play to it. I'd have to run/play this to really see but I find the Sync being tied to essentially your real-world session length interesting.

This stuff is cool and leans into that meta/fan-level play that only comes out of these big community-driven games, both MMOs but also things like Dark Souls.

A lot of these kind of possible secrets come as comments in the text, possibly just to inspire the GM and to get players interested in ways that the table can build out on their own over time. So far, I don't see some of the more esoteric secrets to be laid out (which I like).

The rest of the book, as far as I've seen, is lots of resources, gear tables, monsters, etc. to build out the game after player's leave Tutorial Island. The game world here has that anything goes Final Fantasy bent to it. There's swords & wagons, but laser guns & skateboards too.

The setting here is also explicitly queer (mostly seen so far in the "real-world" PUGs) and includes things like sex workers and other elements that it maybe could not have had but that would certainly lessen the richness of its world, the fandom presented throughout, etc.

The spellcasting uses the in-game money as mana points essentially. That's a cool way to limit spellcasting and motivate player's, especially spellcasters, to get out there and make some $$$.

Okay, here's the real-world explanation I was waiting for (after the in-game gear lists and such). This is cool - it's fun to have a real-life layer to this and to have the game's world support that sort of dropping in and out, doing things outside of a full party session, etc.

I know a lot of folks do this with ongoing campaigns anyway, but this is one of those fun things to include here to build that in as an expectation in play. You have your raid nights with friends and you have your little solo sessions after work where you sell your loot.

Now, the rest is a nice collection of random dungeon, NPC, settlement, hexfill tables and more. Everything you'd expect from an OSR-like ruleset but occasionally with some fun added meta-layers.

Players getting a quest from an in-game Moderator and then being able to become a Mod themselves is a really fun idea and something I could envision becoming a long-term goal for one or more players at a table. The threat of encountering an Admin is scary as well!

To finish it up, we've got a cool AASCII-style character sheet, complete with MingLiU-ExtB font (my beloved)!

And that's .dungeon//remastered! I really enjoyed reading this, and I think it has a strong core that's really enhanced by its real-world interaction layer. Gonna put this on "Play Soon" list. There are some smart rules in particular I'll likely steal for a future project.

.dungeon//remastered is available digitally NOW with, I believe, physical copies coming soon. I backed the Kickstarter to get this digital version. CHECK IT OUT HERE!

[fruitytrollroll]

Nine Sols' narrative themes inform every gameplay element btw. if u even care.

saw someone call Nine Sols' gift sysrem for Shuanshuan "too dialogue-heavy" and "pointless" and I went temporarily insane

if the quest moments with Shuanshuan feel "pointless", it's because they are meant to be their own reward and you did them out of obligation!!! why!!! nobody was holding you at gunpoint to MAKE you raise this beautiful precious forgiving baby boy who loves you and nursed you back to health—but like a deadbeat dad on a custody visit just to be compliant with a court order, you spent time with him anyway and you resented him for it. WHAT!!!

also can NOT overstate how the games' themes of revenge and redemption tie into these scenes. they are not by ANY MEANS pointless!!! the way Yi goes out of his way to preserve his culture, by sharing it with the APEMAN he's raising, speaks VOLUMES about Yi's character growth in the 2 years since he and Shuanshuan began living together.

I was personally endeared by Shuanshuan immediately, and was delighted I had gifts to give him—AND that they each had bespoke cutscenes that revealed lore information about Solarian culture, and background information about Yi and Shuanshuan'a lives together?? do you guys know how rare and special it feels to have a gift system that WORKS like this??? SO many games give you garbage trinkets to throw at your companions for a quantifiable affection boost, so I cannot overstate how deeply impressive and heartfelt and dedicated to their story Red Candle Games clearly was to have put in the time and effort to make their gift mechanic so deeply character-driven, with custom animations and environmental changes for every skill you teach Shuanshuan. 🥺🧸✨️

if you don't like social sim elements in games, or the characters didn't succeed in endearing themselves to you, that's fine. They're not for everyone—but I suspect my experience was the intended one! you're supposed to like and care about these characters enough to bring them the gifts you find on your travels of your own volition!!

if you DON'T care about the characters, you can skip their scenes, and the game respects your time by LETTING you do that, AND by giving you an ending that is less involved in the characters' lives. but if you resent these scenes because "ugh i HAVE to do this to get the TRUE ending 🙄" then idk!! I think you are playing the game wrong!!

I think RCG gave players an opportunity to not care, and a perfectly satisfying ending despite it all (THE BETTER ENDING AND LESS EMOTIONALLY DEVASTATING ENDING, IN MY OPINION, BECAUSE RCG IS SO MEAN TO ME 😭), and if you passed that up for completionism's sake... IDK!!

I genuinely think achievments have poisoned too many games that don't benefit from them! Gone are the olden days of playing your big sister's SNES games blind—no online guides, no guardrails, just getting lost and wandering around the overworld, just playing by vibes alone and if you get stuck u just have to take a break and come back later instead of looking up a guide online because there wasn't even a GameFAQs page for it yet—but on GOD we need to get back there. Play games blind. Don't look up guides. JUST ENJOY IT, JUST ENGAGE WITH THE MEDIA, WE DON'T NEED INSTRUCTIONS I PROMISE, YOUR INNOCENT NASCENT FUMBLING IS ENOUGH, YOU CAN PLAY THE GAME AND HAVE FUN WITHOUT SOME CHODE ON "HARDCOREGAMER" DOT COM GIVING YOU A DISRESPECTFULLY SPOILERIFIC BREAKDOWN OF A PATH OR BOSS FIGHT OR ITEM LOCATION THAT ROBS YOU OF THAT JOY OF DISCOVERY!!

anyway. yes, if you forced yourself to sit through the dialogue of character-driven scenes for characters you didn't even like or feel compelled by, just to get the "True" end, then I imagine it would feel "pointless" and like "too much text". But failing to catch your interest is not a failure of the game's storytelling if you only disliked it because you were forcing yourself to do it for the achievment, just to get an ending that wasn't made with your play style in mind!!!

"it doesn't even affect the game's ending :/" *LOUD INCORRECT BUZZER*!!! ALL the sidequests have the CUMULATIVE effect of changing the ending! this is because Yi is a ruthless, analytical scientist deposed from his seat of political power in New Kunlun on a quest for revenge—yet he spent precious time doing a bunch of "pointless" sidequests for his friends he's come to care about, which allowed the villain's brewing plot the precious time it needed to come further to fruition. Yi is on a REVENGE quest, and it is the very act of saving Shuanshuan (thus alerting the island's security systems to Yi's presence) that puts a timeline on that revenge. He exposed himself for someone he cared about, putting his revenge in jeopaedy—and he postponed that revenge still further to make amends to the apemen he once thought so little of as to be complicit in their heinous exploitation!!! YI IS GROWING HE'S CHANGING, SHUANSHUAN CHANGED HIS HEART, AND IT'S ONLY IN THE TRUE ENDING YI CAN COMPLETE HIS CHARACTER ARC BY REALIZING HE FUCKED UP AND ACTUALLY REPENT (EVEN IF I HATE IT BECAUSE IT'S THE SADDEST ENDING, FUCK YOU RED CANDLE GAMES 😭)

also combat is focused around the parry because this game's primary thematic underpinning is giving proof to the age-old adage "fuck around and find out" (it's revenge it's about reVENGE IT'S ALL ABOUT FORGIVENESS AND CHANGE AND REVENGE)

[yiga-hellhole]

I just bought Ocarina, Majora, Awakening, and Link Between Worlds. Never played any of them before.

Got a tip, tricks, warnings?

always assume the water temple makes you want to tear your hair out. frequently revisit areas after clearing temples and whatnot to talk to random as fuck NPCs because they might have something for you. open up the oldest crustiest looking gamefaqs page (like, the actual website, if theres ascii art at the top of the guide you're good as gold) you can find and avoid ad-filled clickbait websites for guides for the ideal experience. try and get AS MANY BOTTLES AS POSSIBLE.

for majora's mask, god help you. i couldn't even do that one

[centrally-unplanned]

I played silly 90's eroge game VR-DATE Simulator May-Club, which some lunatics made a browser port of, as I saw people mentioning it on the dash. First off, these old eroges occasionally get remasters, and I just don't understand why they toss out the aesthetic of these things when they do:

You got rid of all the bold pixelation highlights! My dithering! You got rid of the framing box UI!? Look at how they massacred my boy -_-

Seriously those UIs are one of the greatest legacies of the PC-98 era, I am curious as to why they were so common (probably due to limitations on resolution flexibility, so they wanted to keep the main screen defined in scale, but I am just guessing). All ports should preserve them, but I do think there is a development limitations there; modern VN engines aren't quite built for it.

I found the game charming because it is a very comedic game - the main dude wants to bone before starting his corporate wagecuck conglomerate job, and finds a VR world where people date anonymously. So hijinks ensue and you spend tickets to go spin some plates, but half the time you meet up with girls you talk about gender discrimination in the corporate workplace? The difficulties of work-life balance? Handy tips on how to double-tap your company expense accounts for some light financial fraud at hostess bars? And those things are also played for laughs, it just isn't what I expected to find given the tone.

Early dating sim games are often funny this way because they were incredibly expensive - I don't have a price source for this one specifically, but they could approach ~$100 USD and that is in 1990's dollars. Which meant that their market was mainly just working adults, this wasn't primarily teens slipping lunch money over the counter. So the work is full otaku, but a niche of otaku such that you get a certain kind of blend of silly tropes and more adult jabs.

By the way, the game was actually localized to the US, in the 90's? I don't have a rock-solid source but apparently the explicit scenes for two of the routes were removed due to the designs of the characters in question. Which uh:

Yeah, not shocked at that choice.

I found it weird that this "VR world" just looks like the regular world?

Explicitly so, our main dude comments on it. Which you would think, okay, its a budget thing right? This way you get to portray the real world and the VR world with the same assets as you walk through both. But you pretty-much never do that; 99% of the game is in the VR world. So why have that plot detail at all? It made me notice it, and now I am questioning why they went with something so un-VR-like for the setting.

It really doesn't do much with the VR setting alas, though I didn't do all the routes. I love 90's era "the future will be virtual" stuff, but this one didn't deliver on much of any vision for what that would be.

I also can't check out all the routes quickly as I could not find any cohesive Let's Plays of the game. Normally that is how you experience all of these games these days, given their propensity for padding and difficulties in emulating. Maybe I should solve that problem myself lol. Since I did have to play it, shoutouts to Ben Woodhouse from 2003 for your GameFAQs guide and beautiful ASCII calendar of appearance times for helping me get through it

Anyway Akiho is best girl fuck your sexist bosses and get 👏that 👏bread👏; she absolutely has the best collection of facial expressions and her ending has a real touch of heart to it, respect.

[baeddel]

we tend to think of an exercise of skill in kinesthetic videogames as requiring both analysis and execution. if you successfully execute the winning move, without previously conceiving of the move in the stage of analysis, we say that you got "lucky." yet if you figure out the right move, but can't execute it, then you didn't win at all.

the analysis can be done at any point prior; repeating a move that you learned from your first play through years ago doesn't diminish the display of skill to us. sometimes it's not even important that you did the analysis yourself; you could learn the trick from your brother, from gamefaqs, etc. in this case being able to analyze the game is not part of the display, and the knowledge only matters as a token of prior intention.

in some non-kinesthetic games coming up with the winning move yourself is important, eg. puzzle games. in the 90s using guides to adventure games and RPGs was considered cheating, and they used to have tournaments to see who could beat the game first (this is the subculture Scorpia came from); this is an attitude that has changed over time in a lot of genres. in Nethack, information about the game's mechanics are called 'spoilers', and very few people today play without them. the opposite is generally true of kinesthetic games; not only do players enjoy sharing and consuming mechanical information about the games they play, it's usually expected among high level players ('no vid, no did'). in the past this wasn't always the case; DoDonPachi had a somewhat stormy transition from secrecy to transparency when some high-scoring glitches were rediscovered and used to beat famous records from the 90s which had used them.

players who possess one piece of the winning coordinates but not the other will often express frustration. if they've made the analysis but can't execute the move they'll say, "come on, I know what to do, so just let me do it." meanwhile, players who have executed the move in the past but still don't really know the solution will try anything and everything and say "come on, it happened before, so just give it to me again."

[valle-de-sombra-de-muerte]

Homestuck Reread: Act 2, Part 2/3 (p. 440-614)

Read the previous post here. Read the next post here.

We pick up this second third of Act 2 by reading another section of Rose's GameFAQs walkthrough.

Credit where it's due, I like this section title.

Rose wants to know more about this hypothetical Pornsprite. This girl is freaky. Too bad Ao3 didn't go into open beta until a few months after Homestuck began, she would've been all about it.

Interesting how she only cites part of her guide as "logorrheic sludge." Honey, that's the entire guide. Brevity is not your strong suit.

Rose and Jade's first pesterlog. I'll use this as the jumping off point to talk about Jade since she has only appeared sporadically at this point and none of her logs were worth talking about.

Actually, she did have one log in Act 1 where she asks John about his present. The one interesting thing is that she apparently didn't know what Sburb was when John mentioned it.

So John, Rose, and Dave all knew about Sburb and none of them thought to tell Jade about it? Huh... guess that tells us a lot about the dynamics of their friend group.

Anyway, I realize this might be a "hot take" given her inexplicable popularity in the fandom, but I don't like Jade. And unlike with John, there never was a point where I did. I am of the mind that Homestuck would've been much stronger and have a tighter pace if she was cut from the cast of kids (or at least, this version of her. The story could also work if she had some heavy rewrites) and it was limited to John, Rose, and Dave. Rose and Dave alone make for an engaging pair, and I suppose John acts as a sort of "anchor" to ground their increasingly esoteric insincerity and bullshit. If he was fleshed out more, it definitely would've worked.

But Jade doesn't help with this dynamic at all. Like John, Jade is also much more grounded and sincere, but her personality is also coupled with an overwhelming optimism where she believes everything will be okay if left up to chance. If John is true neutral, Jade is 100% positive. He barely reacts to the otherworldly things happening to him, but she actively seems to enjoy them (the meteor crashing near her house is something she wants to explore regardless of the risk, and John struggling in Sburb is "exciting").

She doesn't serve as a convincing counterbalance to Rose and Dave and comes across as more of an extraneous extension of John's lack of danger sense than anything else. Do we really need two happy-go-lucky kids with slight variations on the same niche? The very fact that the story is able to progress without her involvement thus far shows just how little she matters.

These first two acts shroud her in so much mystery, and we barely know anything about her even through these sparse pesterlogs. (As we later see, this amounts to nothing, so all this intrigue is unfounded and only leads to an unsatisfying payoff). At this point in the story, we only know that she lives with her grandfather and someone named Bec (which Dave refers to as a "devilbeast"), she has a "goofy modus" which frustrates even Dave (who, mind you, mocked John for using a simple modus earlier), she lives in a far-off part of the world, and that she has some degree of inexplicable precognition.

Jade's cutesy cagey attitude about her precognitive abilities is fucking annoying, and it is perhaps the worst thing about reading her logs. "oh gee i know all this stuff but its a secret and you gotta find out on your own tee hee! :)" This truly is typical hackshit writing when handling characters with prophetic knowledge. You can't make them too useful, or else there won't be suspense or conflict. Instead they have to act as a ineffectual plot device to softly guide the characters along. Except she doesn't do any guiding. She just unhelpfully alludes to things that the others don't know yet and leaves it at that.

In fact, Jade as a whole is less of a character and more of a plot device, by which I mean she doesn't have any sort of character to speak of. Her overbearing cheerfulness is not endearing to read, neither is her dropping hints that she knows more about what she lets on. She doesn't have any entertaining chemistry with the others either. Her interactions with John are like watching two morons acting excited with each other while the world is literally ending around them. Dave intentionally strips himself of his personality because he has a crush on her and wants to impress her by being "nice," but she doesn't seem to reciprocate his feelings at all. Also, come on, dude, Rose is right there.

Rose is the only one who shows any scrutiny about Jade's "quirky" clairvoyance. But even so, she only expresses this through occasional, bemused remarks. Jade dodges the question whenever Rose asks how she knows about things she realistically shouldn't, and Rose doesn't ever press further.

So Rose had prior knowledge about a game that will bring her cat to life. We later find out that this opportunity to revive Jaspers was her her motivation for playing Sburb. Doesn't seem worth ending the world for, but whatever. I daresay this casts Jade in a bit of a villainous role for planting the idea in Rose's head in the first place.

Actually, if Jade ended up being a twist villain, that would've been interesting and provide, you know, intrigue! Or if nothing else, it would've at least added something of substance to her character, something she desperately needs. Even ignoring that angle, you'd think the other kids might be more than a little resentful toward Jade since she knew the world was going to end, yet never told any of them about it.

But no, Hussie can't implement anything that would've been conducive to good storytelling. Especially if it leads to, gasp, conflict!

Okay, enough of Jade, let's get moving.

I want to bring attention to this passage and compare it to the earlier "symphony impossible to play" one with Rose. First of all, it's worth noting the rain/drought contrast between their respective settings. Unlike the more elegant and cerebral prose in Rose's section, this one reads more like a stream of consciousness from Dave's perspective. Loose and casual, even ending with a Snoop Dogg-esque rhyme at the end before transitioning to an actual Snoop Dogg verse.

Yeah, for those who haven't caught on, John Keats didn't actually say that. Very easy to miss, I'm sure. For those counting, this is also misattributed quote gag #5. I am positively rolling with laughter.

I find it noteworthy the room where Bro has his whole setup is stated to be the living room, not a bedroom. I'm quite certain that the Striders live in a one-bedroom apartment where Dave gets the room and Bro has all his shit in the living room and kitchen.

Dave's relationship with Bro is an inverse of John and Rose's relationships with their guardians. Whereas Dad and Mom decorate their homes with shit they think their kids will like in order to seek their approval, Bro isn't doing any of this for Dave's sake. He fills his home with his puppets and weapons because he's the one into that shit (ironically or otherwise, it doesn't matter). Dave in turn adopts Bro's mannerisms because he craves his approval.

The amount of mental hoops he needs to make in order to justify his brother's fixation on sex and puppets is concerning. Is Bro even being "ironic" or is that just an excuse he tells Dave so he doesn't have to explain this stuff any further? I think the love of Lil Cal, his childhood possession and best friend, led to a love of puppets being a core part of his personality. Everything else that extends from that is up to interpretation.

Like Dave, Bro is also a hipster doofus who does things seen as patently "uncool" in a bold display of being unique. The logic is such: a disregard for what society deems "cool" is what leads to it becoming "cool" ironically. At a glance, Bro's interests include typically "cool" things like ninja weapons, video games, and rapping. Bro plays with expectations by using these interests, which he may very well only enjoy ironically, in conjunction with puppets, which he loves genuinely but passes them off as ironic since most people deem them creepy and uncool. Applying a sexual element to the puppets makes an interest in them even creepier, so Bro does so if only to make his love for them appear even more ironic.

Convoluted and confusing? Yeah, that's Bro Strider, baby.

I don't know how necessary it was to show just how Dave gave Lil Cal a fist bump, but I do like this panel. One of the few reminders we get that these characters are, in fact, small children.

Bro's 6-character password is "puppet" right? It has to be. (Correction: a helpful anon has informed me that the password is actually "lilcal"). Also, just like his home, his desktop organization is also a mess. There's no method to this man's madness.

For all the negligence and questionable parenting methods Bro is guilty of, he still cares for Dave in some capacity. He stays up to date on his webcomic and blogs, and even hangs up one of Dave's SBaHJ drawings on the fridge. I wonder if Bro, on some level, likes the idea of raising a kid that he can raise to be just like him, but is just a woefully inept guardian that he doesn't know the first thing about parenting.

Remember, these are the kinds of websites Rose says she likes.

Just gonna say perhaps it's not ideal that Dave is being exposed to this kind of thing at such a young age. As much as he idolizes Bro and wants to emulate him, he can't get over the fact that all this sex stuff disturbs him. Yet he doesn't even view it as sexual, only as a form of irony, one he can't comprehend until he can somehow overcome his aversion toward it. It's kinda sad, really.

Unsettled, Dave's first recourse is to talk to John to try and calm down. John leaves him hanging. Such a good friend, am I right? He then goes to Rose, where they have the earlier conversation where she says she likes Bro's websites, but this time we get added context.

Dave of course is attempting to act casual about the whole thing, only slightly alluding to his deeper distress, and Rose is just like "That shit rules. I like it." This whole exchange is both tragic and darkly comedic.

Rose really does come across as a little pervert sometimes. She casually drops sexually charged phrases in conversation ("sun's lurid glare"), her username is a lewd double entendre (tentacle the... I'll let you finish that phrase), and she does show a marked interest in sexual topics (Bro's websites, the Pornsprite... honestly I'm surprised she doesn't suggest that to Dave at any point).

Both she and Dave play with innuendo and act as though they're mature and know all about sex. However, Dave's attitude toward sex is more a response to his exposure to it at a young age, whereas Rose is more casual about it and sees her flippant attitude toward it as a mark of maturity. She must love treating sex as this trivial little thing that might make others uncomfortable, but not her because she's soooo grown up.

Also, if Rose truly did give a shit about psychoanalysis, she probably would've picked up on Dave's cries for help in his messages. She really isn't as perceptive as she lets on.

Thank you, Rose, for saying what I was thinking.

Rose gets a kick out of Dave's webcomic and laughs when John makes references to it. Also, she doesn't tell John about what Dave told her earlier about the puppets when he mentions it. How nice of her. John is a fucking jackass though. Seriously, fuck him.

I'm putting a pin in this for later. Rose being able to "see only [...] what John can see, or has seen already" will be important to note later on.

Another tragicomic exchange where Rose continues to make light of Dave's distress. I wonder if she is incapable of seeing Dave as being sincere in this moment and thinks he's overreacting as a part of their usual back-and-forth.

Here it is. My favorite Homestuck page.

Dave wants to please Bro and goes along with his shtick no matter how far he pushes the envelope. This only encourages Bro to go further and further in his methods of fucking with Dave. Is his end goal to push Dave to a breaking point, or does he truly hope something with click that will make Dave truly understand him? Either way, it's fucked up.

I didn't want to get into Bro Discourse during this reread. I know there are opposing camps who either think he's a monstrous child abuser, or a silly guy who did no wrong. Personally, I think that while he doesn't read as outright malicious, it's safe to say this dude is a menace and has no business raising a kid.

It's really skeevy of Bro to incorporate his underage brother in his fetish videos, which will doubtless be uploaded to his site for others to view. This is probably the one of the more damning things he's guilty of.

Bro has reduced the kitchen as a storage space for his weapons. It's a wonder how he's able to take care of himself, let alone a child.

It's stated that Bro doesn't have anywhere else to store his stuff, which further reinforces my theory that Dave has the only bedroom in the apartment.

Yes. Thank you. One can only watch characters launch objects at high speeds for so long.

Dave's sylladex shenanigans are a little more tolerable than John's. Assigning different names to objects in order to make them fit in the modus is more fun than watching things eject once the deck is full.

This metaphor caught me off guard. It's so abrupt and out of pocket, I love it.

Shit's about to go down. Let's see how things resolve when I finish Act 2 next week.

[themosttenderestofbees]

2 questions 1. What's your opinion on people getting into older fallout games through the newer ones. 2. Any tips for getting into fallout one and two, I've bounced off a couple times but would really like to give them a playthrough.

1. absolutely so cool with people getting into old fallout through the new games and even the show. I mean, most peoples starting point for the series by nows probably gonna be 3, 4, the show, or new vegas for a lot of different reasons. really im just excited for more people to be playing the originals regardless of how they start

2. for the love of god, look up character build tips and the game guide. honestly finding a pdf of the game guide is a tip I give for any game older than like. 2010. because old games either had a ton of stuff in those that they don't have in the game proper

as for character builds, the older fallout games (and older roleplaying games in general) are gonna be harsher about your characters stats and how you choose to build them than the newer games (even new vegas). keep in mind that these games weren't really made with a general audience or modern game play in mind, so its gonna be frustrating and obtuse while you're still figuring out how the game works.

So, knowing how to build a character that won't just keel over immediately every time you try to start the game (or in the late game) is really the most important part of playing any old roleplaying game. I look up character building tips for something even as recent as oblivion personally.

its also good to get some general tips from people who are familiar with the game if you aren't a freak like me who enjoys dying one million times in a game until I figure things out. things like "don't go north of goodsprings unless you REALLY know what you're doing" is everywhere in fallout 1 (I haven't played 2 for myself yet) at least in my experience. getting some general advice can help ease the awkward and frustrating figuring stuff out phase that old games tend to have

this all sounds like a lot, but its honestly not too much of a hassle if you just take some time to look up a couple gamefaqs threads or something. it can even be fun to figure out once you've done it for enough games (ive been making my way through the elder scrolls series from daggerfall and let me say. thats a series with some interesting quirks). honestly some of the fun I have with games like fallout 1 and 2 is just throwing stuff at it and seeing what works.

wow this all ended up way longer than I meant it to. tldr, if youre not an uber nerd, look up advice from uber nerds cause they know what they're doing. and hey, maybe games like fallout 1 and 2 just aren't for you, thats fine too. I support playing whatever games you feel like tbh

[fostersffff]

Casting glances towards Xenoblade 2, and one of the things I've heard about it the most besides obnoxious culture war shitflinging and people despairing over not getting KOS-MOS from the gacha is that it does a godawful job of explaining how to actually play it.

I'm inclined to believe this, since I don't think Xenoblade 1 ever actually explains anywhere in game what the Tension system is, but I also wonder if this maybe isn't a case of people being bad at RPGs, since I've recently seen people reminiscing about the GameFAQs days where every RPG guide was like "grind for 20 levels before leaving the first dungeon to make sure you don't have to engage with any intended mechanics".

[legandairy-horror]

Does anyone have any examples of "fake GameFAQs guides" or fanfics formatted to look like game fans guides? The only one o can think of is SBURB Glitch faq back in the day but that's it. Wanna try my hand and writhing a fanfic in that format, see if that does anything for me