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gamer2002 · 4 years ago

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Danganronpa - Review2002

Danganronpa is a mystery VN, where 15 high schoolers are trapped in a murder school, and in order to get out one has to kill another and frame somebody else for it. Observed and manipulated by the headmaster of the school, a sadistic robot-bear called Monokuma, our main character, Makoto, has to survive and not lose his hope. Because there is a lot of despair. And hope. Despair. Hope. Despair. Light. Darkness. Kingdom Hearts.

But we’ll talk about that later.

Despite all the murder thingy, the game is just an edgy shonen and is very animu. It’s not a bad thing, because it’s entertaining, and that’s what matters the most. Characters are mostly simplistic, often stereotypical, but are distinguish and memorable (aside from meh protag). What is good about the cast is how the group dynamics changes with each case. Thanks to that, the characters seem more alive, and the surrounding drama seems more impactful. And sometimes the drama is really good, though it’s dragged down by the meme writing. But about that later.

The trials, where we try to figure out the killer’s identities, are good gameplay-wise. Aside from the rhythm minigame. I get the creators wanted to demonstrate losing arguments by lack of confidence, but, until half of the game, that minigame had nothing to do with logic or deduction. Every other minigame was good or ok, though.

Comparing to Ace Attorney, the trials were more dynamic, with constant new arguments and questions. It helps that the equivalent of AA’s testimonies is briefer (as it’s on a time limit). Not to mention, the filled with moving camera direction really made non-animated and non-moving characters feel alive. The music was ok – it serves its purpose, but it isn’t memorable.

The gameplay between trials was ok. Investigations didn’t drag too long. The free time did sometimes, but that’s because I was collecting more coins than it was necessary. The coins are spent for presents, which we can give to other characters, in return for learning more about them and gaining upgrades for the trials. But, to be frank, some upgrades were “turn off the setting we put to make the gameplay purposefully shittier”.

It’s an entertaining game with some good ideas, which earns 7/10 in my book. But there are reasons why this game doesn’t earn any higher, which I’m going to elaborate on. The subject is Kingdom Hearts Meme Writing, Monokuma being a letdown villain, the big revelation being a lot of nothing, and how the writers could’ve made the Hope vs Despair nonsense actually work. The last two are impossible to write about without spoilers, but I can explain the first two without them.

Despair. Despair. Despair. Despair. Do you get it? I hope.

I know this is a shonen, regardless how edgy it is, and the writers were pretty self-aware of this. But the despair/hope meme drags down the writing. Monokuma goes on and on about how he will turn all the hope into despair, and this is just as ridiculous as a talking cartoon bear that kills a man by literally blasting him into space can be. It’s a meme writing. A ham-fisted, forced meme writing.

Other examples of meme writing is Kingdom Hearts, with its light and darkness, or Ace Attorney, with its truth. We all roll our eyes over that. Characters are bringing up some concept in a melodramatic way, repeatably, with a ridiculous zeal that doesn’t just seem alien, but straight out autistic. But it’s okay, all those titles, including Ronpa, are still shonens. Kingdom Hearts is a battle shonen where you fight against forces of evil alongside Donald Duck. You can turn your brain off and enjoy yourself, no biggie. But turning your brain off is a bit harder in, you know, a murder mystery.

Yeah, Ace Attorney is murder mystery as well, and yet I give it a pass. That’s because ��truth” is just an ideal of idealistic characters. Phoenix, Edgeworth, and the rest, are melodramatically motivating themselves by simplistically expressing their ideal. And melodrama is part of a wrestling, and logic wrestling is what Ace Attorney boils down to. So, why this isn’t the same in this logic wrestling game?

The problem with hope/despair is that those are not just some concepts or ideals, but those are emotions. Emotions that the writing does attempt to make you feel, sometimes pretty successfully. Case 4 is an example of a beautifully set up tragedy, it’s the game’s emotional peak. The reveal is shocking and sad, and the dramatic confession is filled with genuine emotion. And then the confession has the word “despair” in it, and my brain is immediately going back to Monokuma and his antics. Good thing that the official translation team has realized that they would have killed the mood sooner, if they had included that word in an earlier appearing evidence. Same thing happens whenever the word “hope” appears – it just makes us recall the memes.

In my AI: Somnium Files I’ve explained to you the need of being explicit about what is supposed to make the player feel emotions. But you can’t be ham-fisted about what the player is supposed to feel. Turning hope and despair into KH’s equivalent of light and darkness is turning them into a material for jokes. It is a repeatable telling us what to feel, and that simply can’t work. If the game didn’t do that, a lot of good moments wouldn’t be dragged down by being a reference to something we joke about.

Monokuma is just the biggest kid tier villain

There are spoiler reasons why Monokuma fails at being a villain, but I’ll mention them in spoiler section about improving the whole hope vs despair conflict. But the basic problem with Monokuma is spoiler-free, because it all boils down to the game’s initial setup.

Generally, Monokuma is a recurring type of villain that mixes nihilism, cartoonish silliness and cruel sadism into one, disturbing package. Other examples of such villains is the Joker, or Killer the Butcher from Zambot 3. When you look at Monokuma alone, he is (aside from spoiler reasons) a good example of such a villain. He is over the top, entertaining, scheming, memorable, gets all the attention in every scene he is in, and is constantly disturbing. All his bases are covered, so all is good, right? But only when you look at Monokuma alone.

Character in a story isn’t just some element you can look at alone, it’s an element you see among all the others. Great villain needs a great hero. Great hero needs a great villain. If one is unimpressive, the other can’t impress us with their triumphs.

The reason why the Joker is a great villain is because he is a challenge for the goddamn Batman, creating a clash of an unstoppable force against an unmovable object. Killer the Butcher’s enemies are kids piloting alien giant robot with superior firepower. What makes the Bucher a good villain is that, regardless of his lost battles, he still succeeds at causing significant collateral damage, which constantly contributes to his stated goal of slowly killing all humans. And Butcher doesn’t just rely on his show reaching logical conclusions about consequences of battles between giant robots, the entire arc before heroes directly attacking his HQ is about him using a weapon they can’t fight with a giant robot – kidnapped people turned into living human bombs. The amount of sacrifices, losses and traumas that kids from a 70s (!) super robot show have to go through is why Killer the Butcher is an impressive villain you love to hate.

But Monokuma isn’t an unstoppable force going against an unmovable object. Neither he is battling heroes that are capable of beating him in a direct confrontation, forcing him to rely on different forms of accomplishing his goals. He targets fifteen uninformed kids, with like three giving him a reason to worry, and puts them in a situation where they can’t initially defy him at all. It’s not a spoiler to say that the kids initially can’t find any clues that would’ve allowed them to free themselves from Monokuma. Their exploration of the school is limited, and next areas are unlocked only after class trials. Meaning, Monokuma limits kids’ ability to gather information required to beat him, until the next killing occurs. If the kids don’t kill anybody, they can only hope to (hah) apathetically accept their imprisonment by Monokuma.

To sum it up, all that Monokuma accomplishes is making some confused kids kill one another, when they are in a situation where it’s their only option to free themselves. Wow, what an impressive villain, doing whatever he wants with helpless children and driving them to murder.

It doesn’t help that the actual conclusion of the conflict with Monokuma is underwhelming, and all his actions only make us respect him less as a villain. But more about that later, in the spoiler section. But not immediately, because first we need to focus on the game’s disappointing big revelation.

Who cares that the world is over?

All attempts to escape the murder school were pointless – the world has already ended! Play the laugh track.

To give the writers credit, Genocide Jill’s explanation of that was funny and played out as a dark joke. And that’s the only way this revelation could be played out.

When it comes for the twist being a twist, it’s okeyish. The twist itself isn’t hard to guess, by the end of the first trial, and it’s almost given away by the third one. On the other side, there are photos of kids that died in previous chapters, and you could wonder if they aren’t going to reveal that everybody lives and this all was a simulation, or something. It can be easily guessed, but there is room for speculation, and you may not know which route the writers will go. Even if those routes are “predictable” and “a disappointing backpedal”.

But even if you end up being surprised… it’s an emotional bunch of nothing. Makoto gets his answer to what could’ve happened to his family, and he still doesn’t even realize it. That’s how the writing poorly handled one way it could’ve made us care about end of the world – through Makoto’s reaction to it.

Makoto is such an uninteresting, purposefully average, and ultimately unimpressive main character. We know he has family, parents, and a younger sister, but one picture of them is all we got. We don’t know the dynamics of their relationship, and we don’t know why Makoto loves them. Just saying “they are his family” isn’t enough. When Superman and his family are written well, we know why Clark Kent cares deeply about them – Ma Kent is such a great mother, Pa Kent is such a great father, and each scene with them demonstrates it.

Through the game, Makoto could’ve flashbacks to his family, as an ongoing C plot. That way we would’ve been shown why Makoto cares about them, why he wants to make sure they are safe, why he could feel tempted about escaping via murder (leading to him rejecting that idea because his family wouldn’t want it that way). And then boom – yes, the world has ended, and they are probably dead.

But Makoto never ever connects the state of the world to the state of his family. And that’s a big mistake, because that was a way to spice up the ultimate clash between Hope and Despair.

How to argue that Despair can be better than Hope

Before I focus on the topic, let me first expand on the topic of Monokuma being a disappointing villain, by telling you why Junko is a disappointing villain.

Junko just pulls everything out of her ass. Ok, she happens to have a super soldier sister, who was capable of killing Academy’s entire adult staff, letting her to take over the school. This part is acceptable by shonen standards. It was the Acadamy that was responsible for sealing the building and setting its defense, ok. But then everything else is an unexplained bullshit. Endless Monokumas? She has them because the writer says so. Ability to take away memories? She has them because the writer says so. Hijacking all TV channels? Performing ridiculously complex executions? Securing supplies to the Academy in a post-apo setting? She can because the writers says so.

She simply isn’t a formidable villain. She is nothing more than a bored girl, that could’ve been successful as a normal person, but the entire universe decided to grant her everything to let her play a supervillain. She doesn’t accomplish any impressive feat by herself. Even taking over of the Academy was solely thanks to her sister. With her granted unfair total advantage over the cast, there was no other way for her to lose than keeping screwing herself. She can’t even gain respect as a formidable opponent from sticking to her rules, because she not only purposefully handicaps the most competent person in the cast, but also keeps breaking her own rules.

The second aspect of a good villain is understandability. And Junko is a stupid incomprehensible mess. She always feels despair, and that somehow makes her constantly bored. But she wants to prove that’s better than hope. For some reason, she is a sadist. She is also happy about facing ultimate despair in form of her own death, but she didn’t yearn to that enough to off herself before all her plans. Nothing adds up, and she just does whatever crazy shit the writers needs her to do at the current moment. This is the aspect where she just sucks as a Joker-type villain. Such villains, when done well, aren’t just twisted, wrong, crazy edgemasters. When done well, they are also, despite everything, still somehow understandable. That’s what makes them actually shocking. It isn’t just shocking that they do horrible things, it is shocking that they can argue that everything they do serves a purpose and is consistent with a coherent belief.

Joker (when written well) and Killer the Butcher do have nihilistic philosophy that is wrong and twisted, but does have some shocking points. Joker believes that normal life is pointless, because one bad day can drive you mad, so it’s better to embrace awfulness of the world as your entertainment. And this philosophy is consistent with him wanting to commit macabre crimes. Killer the Butcher believes that humans are ungrateful bastards and will even treat their saviors like crap. And this philosophy is consistent with him wanting to kill all humans. Even if you don’t agree with their believes (I hope), you understand why somebody with such believes would be doing what they are doing. This understandability is what elevates banal conflict against a bad guy that does a bad thing that has to be stopped, into a conflict against a personified idea. Batman doesn’t just fight the Joker, he fights a nihilistic view of a pointless mad world. Zambot 3 kids don’t just fight Killer the Butcher, they fight view of humans as unworthy of living and being saved. That is why those conflicts aren’t banal.

Meanwhile, Junko makes a big promise for a Hope vs Despair conflict, arguing that the latter is better than former, but...

What is “despair” anyway? Is it to give up from stuff like escaping the school, and accepting whatever you end up having, however shitty it is? But what does it have with Junko’s boredom and embracing her own death? What is the point of the over-the-top executions? Junko is gleefully sadistic, what about despair makes you sadistic? Did she want the cast and her viewers to embrace sadism as well? How’s that better than hope? It’s incomprehensible, and fails to make any point. The blame lies pretty much on the out-of-place sadism that exists just to make Junko an edgelady.

Danganronpa is a murder mystery. And despite being an over-the-top shonen, it does focus, decently, on motives for committing murders. Every single killer in this game is understandable. Their actions were wrong, but you understand why they did everything they did. There is just a sole exception to this rule – the games’ main villain.

During the final confrontation, Junko was arguing that futile hopes of previous murderers drove them to committing murder. That alone does make a good point. Then she offered everyone safe peaceful life, if they acknowledged her belief and abandoned all hope. Ok, that’s a good dilemma. Surprising that with such a good prepared dilemma Junko bothered to handicap and eliminate Kyoko, when she could just guide the cast towards Junko and this dilemma faster. Still, Junko does make a point about despair being better than hope, and does make the cast face a dilemma, in a way that is consistent with her belief. But then she adds she wants to punish someone for lulz, and that person has to be our bland player character.

And how killing Makoto proves that despair is better than hope? It was a yet another act of Junko’s pointless sadism, which only made it more difficult for other characters to agree with her. Anyway, Junko is ultimately unimpressive, because she loses to Makoto just saying “let’s have some hope, guys”. All that buildup of understandable motives of past killers lead to a rather banal final conflict with a completely banal resolution.

Things would be different, if Junko didn’t forget about Makoto’s family and did bring them up during the final argument. I still think that trying to kill Makoto was counterproductive, but I understand the need of putting MC’s life at stake. But Junko could single out Makoto for execution because he was pushing for the idea of everyone leaving the school, despite the revelation about state of the world, and she could accuse him for selfishly risking lives of others, just for a hope of reunion with his own family. Imagine that being the payoff of flashbacks to Makoto’s family and his wish to reunite with them. Sure, here, Makoto has proved he wouldn’t directly murder anybody over it, but would he willingly disregard safety of others? He can’t really refute that, without giving up on leaving the school.

And that’s how Junko could undermine Makoto and make her point. Living trapped in the school and abandoning all hope for the outside world was bad, but it could be worse. At least it was safe, peaceful, and they had food plus entertainment. Looking for anything better outside was risky. Hoping for anything better was risky. Hope was bad. The state of despair, where you no longer hope for anything better than what you have, was good. Unable to accept this Makoto was spreading ideas that were dangerous for the well-being of others. How Makoto, willing to selfishly drag everyone else into a dangerous hell-word and risk their lives, was that much different from every other killer? Sure, they killed others directly, but at least none of their victims had a slow and painful death. Makoto was willing to potentially doom others to that. And this is why he had to be put down, like all the other killers had to be, regardless of their understandable motives. In the current state of the world, any reckless hope is a dangerous thought crime.

Here, the final debate could be more complex. Makoto could’ve pointed out that, even if he could be accused for having a selfish hope, it was the same with others. Everyone else wanted their situation to improve, and giving that up for hollow safety wouldn’t do. Hope is better than despair, freedom is better than safety. The future of post-apo is libertarian, and if we can’t live with the freedom to pursue our hopes, then we won’t live at all. No more lockdowns!

You don’t have to agree with such a statement, but at least it is some statement. Here, we have a clash of hope that accepts the risk against despair that is unwilling to accept any risks. Unlike what we got, where despair is somehow tied to sadism, and hope simply rides on the power of friendship.

#danganronpa #video games #video game review #story review #review #visual novel #vn #murder mystery #story #writing tips #writing #review2002

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travllingbunny · 6 years ago

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The 100 rewatch: episodes 3x11-3x16

This post contains reviews of the following episodes:

3x11 Nevermore

3x12 Demons

3x13 Join or Die

3x14 Red Sky at Morning

3x15 Perverse Instantiation, Part One

3x16 Perverse Instantiation, Part Two

And with this, I’ve finally finished season 3. It took much longer than I planned, because I got behind with these write-ups due to actual work, and had to write a bunch of them at the same time. But the good thing is, since, like so many other fans, I’ve already seen 6x01 and 6x02, I can now give myself more time to finish my rewatch - two more weeks, before 6x03 premieres. 18 days should be enough for 26 episodes, I hope. It’s also a good thing that I’ll be able to talk about the first 2 episodes of season 6 in my season 5 write-ups.

In these posts, I spoil all of the first 5 seasons, but I won’t talk about season 6 before it officially premieres.

3x11 Nevermore

More literary allusions: after Dante, we get an Edgar Alan Poe reference – and of course an episode focusing on Raven Reyes would be named after a quote from “Raven”.

Timeline: This episode starts pretty much immediately after the end of 3x10 (Jasper, taking a rover to save Raven and run from Arkadia, runs into Clarke) and takes place during one night, during which our group of friends stay at Niylah’s place and try to free Raven from ALIE’s control, while ALIE is trying to find out their whereabouts, because she wants to find the second AI, which is contained in the Flame/chip that’s currently in Clarke’s possession.

This is where the season finally has a big upswing in quality, and it really helps that this one and the following episodes are focused on the original characters from season 1, whose bonds with each other have been developed since the start of the show, but who have mostly been apart, not just physically and emotionally but also narratively - as part of different storylines – during the first part of the season. It also helps that it’s so focused and that it is not all about the plot, but about the characters’ emotional states.

The interactions between Jasper and Clarke are just as unpleasant as you could expect, knowing that Jasper blames Clarke for Maya’s death and for pretty much anything ever, which he does throughout season 3 and at least some of season 4. It’s understandable and annoying at the same time – he’s being very unfair most of the time, but he’s also in a bad place, struggling with mental illness, so I can’t really blame him.

Just as Jasper is blaming Clarke for everything, Octavia is blaming Bellamy for pretty much everything, and that also continues throughout season 3 and a lot of season 4, but I’m struggling more with this – after all, Jasper may say harsh things to and about Clarke, but he hasn’t beaten her up. Octavia sums up Bellamy’s actions in season 3 this way: "You were hurt and you lashed out, because that's what you do"… which is not wrong, but it’s also ironic she says that, because who does that also remind you of…?

Jasper also has a moment where he calls Bellamy out (which is a really rare thing for him, since he’s usually focused on blaming Clarke, except for an occasional moment when he blames Monty), when he gets annoyed with Bellamy for trying to calm him down and telling him not to get angry, and reports: “When you are angry, people die” Which reminds me of Bellamy’s angry words to Clarke in 3x05: “When you’re in charge, people die”.

There’s also the 4th time, by my count, that Clarke’s friends tell Clarke she doesn’t have the right to give them orders (Bellamy, Raven and Octavia did that at various points in season 2) – this time it’s Jasper. But while Clarke normally does have a tendency to take charge when there’s a problem, this time it makes perfect sense for her to be telling them what to do since she’s the only one with a clue what’s going on.

Good thing Clarke noticed one of the Delinquents’ wristbands at Niylah’s place in 3x01, since they turned out to be crucial for disconnecting the chip and ALIE’s influence from Raven (through some technological mumbo-jumbo I won’t even try to understand). But until they do, ALIE uses the opportunity to use Raven to taunt the others and try to torment them emotionally by trying to get to what she thinks are their secret fears and insecurities, so they would lose their cool and maybe reveal theie location to ALIE. However, since ALIE has never been inside Clarke’s, Bellamy’s and Jasper’s minds, this has to mean that the things ALIE!Raven says are at least partially the things Raven has thought about her friends or that Raven thinks would be a good way to hurt them. And while Raven normally wouldn’t say such hurtful things, she can certainly be b*tchy at times and say harsh things to her friends – but this is way exaggerated beyond what normal Raven would say.

When it comes to the actual things ALIE!Raven says to taunt them, the first two things that always came to my mind were: it’s all kind of sexist? Just compare the way she tries to undermine Clarke’s confidence - telling her she’s “poison” to everyone who gets close to her, including blaming her for Finn’s death not just because she mercy killed him but because she previously “broke his heart” (because it’s a woman’s fault when a guy does awful things because of his feelings for her, even though she did nothing wrong and definitely never wanted him to do any of those awful things? Let’s blame her “feminine wiles” or whatever instead of the guy who chose to do these things?) to how she tries to do it with the men – calling Jasper weak and calling him out on failing to save his girlfriend; trying to undermine Bellamy’s sexual confidence (that was the first thing she went for, but it didn’t seem to do anything), later implying that Bellamy is in subjugated position to Clarke and is taking her orders? Which is BS. If she wanted to make a case for Bellamy being a “follower”, citing his relationship with Pike would have been a much better argument. But what’s worse for a man than to be taking orders from a woman, right? I choose to interpret that as ALIE being sexist or thinking that sexist ideas are what humans believe in, so that’s how she should get them, because otherwise I’d have to think that either Raven is sexist (which I don’t think is true – in spite of her bias in how she blamed Clarke for Finn’s failings, which is more of a reflection of her blind spot regarding Finn and her bitterness over him falling in love with Clarke and loving her more) or that the writers are.

And secondly, while some of what she said may sound like “harsh truths”, it’s actually mostly very skewed, unfair or just pure BS. I would hope that there aren’t many people take these things literally. But, unfortunately, I know that there are portions of the fandom who do take some of it as gospel truth, in spite of what source is comes from. I think (or at least hope) that there that there aren’t many people who really think Clarke is to blame for her father’s or Wells’ or Finn’s or Lexa’s deaths (blaming her for Finn’s death especially gets me angry, because of all the reasons above and because she has already been blamed for that and for Finn’s murder spree in season 2, which was the biggest bull*hit ever and angered me the first time as well). And whatever Jasper is, he’s certainly not a coward, as ALIE!Raven calls him. But I can see a lot of people in the fandom agreeing with her when she says “we’ve all lost someone – you don’t see us falling apart” – which is an unfair argument as people simply react to trauma differently; some people break, but that doesn’t make them weak and annoying, and some people can endure and soldier on, but that doesn’t make them insensitive. Or, for instance, she blames Bellamy not only for deaths he directly caused, but also those he indirectly caused (the culling) and even his mother’s death – because he tried to do something nice for his sister. This is a small child’s – or an android’s - view of how morality works – only the consequence of actions matter, not the motivations, intent and whether you even know what would happen, or whether your action was good or bad in itself, all it matters is what the result was. (Which is, for instance, why small children can’t understand why an attempted murder is a worse crime than accidental killing.) But some fans will cite statistics from the 100 wiki as to how many deaths this or that character “caused”, directly or indirectly, as if context and motivation don’t matter. And then there’s another thing that a lot of fans definitely take too literally…

“A good little knight and his queen” – This line is interesting for more than one reason. First off, it’s the first time anyone in the show has ever tried to define the relationship between Clarke and Bellamy in any way – except for the general reference to Bellamy as one of Clarke’s “friends” or her “people, and vice versa. (The fandom, reviewers, people working on the show may talk about them as friends, best friends, platonic partners, non-romantic soulmates at the moment, etc. but on the show, Clarke and Bellamy have never actually defined their relationship or put it in words what they are to each other. Most of the time, neither do people around them. ) And it’s a romantic reference – “knight and his queen” invokes the Courtly Love tradition. (The other time someone on the outside – in that case, not a close friend, but someone who’s just met and observed them – puts a label on their relationship, it’s Diyoza in season 5, who assumed Clarke was Bellamy’s girlfriend.) In case someone missed that, ALIE!Raven also taunts Bellamy by comparing his feelings for Clarke and his feelings for his now dead girlfriend: “Too bad you were never that devoted to Gina”. Bellamy says she has no idea what she’s talking about, so he may not be thinking of his relationship with Clarke in the same terms, though, not at this point. I don’t think he has really defined what Clarke is to him, at this point. (He doesn’t stay silent and look guilty, as he does in season 5 when Octavia calls him out on loving Clarke.)

But there’s also the implication that Bellamy is supposedly subjugated to Clarke and is a “follower” – (“She has just returned and you’re already taking orders”), which a lot of people in the fandom have cited (usually to bash Clarke and Bellarke). And I’m asking, when? How? This may be what Raven/ALIE senses Bellamy fears or is insecure about, maybe what he really is insecure about – but I really don’t think it’s the objective reality. Bellamy and Clarke have always had an equal relationship; sometimes they work together and consult and support each other, other times they disagree and even get into conflicts, and things don’t go as well then. They were co-leaders in season 1; in season 2, Bellamy got demoted, but that wasn’t because of Clarke, it was because Kane and Abby and the other adult elite from the Ark came down and took over. Clarke only had some say because she was the Chancellor’s daughter. Then Lexa, and with her the rest of the Grounders, saw Clarke as the leaders, which allowed Clarke to take the power away from her mother – and Bellamy was already on his mission in Mount Weather at the time. Mission which was always his idea and his plan and that he insisted he wanted to. (Something that many fans, oddly, tend to forget.) Then she left and he was the one who was looking over the Delinquents, though with Abby and Kane as the official power in Arkadia. (Which was the objective reality, even if Bellamy had wanted to challenge that status quo, he didn’t have Grounders behind him to stage a coup like Clarke did in season 2.) ALIE!Raven even asks him if he’s upset that he doesn’t get “credit” for the “genocide” at Mount Weather – I think he was upset because he wanted to share that responsibility, but Clarke kept taking it all on herself. But as to the reason why Clarke was called “Wanheda” and considered her the only one responsible – that’s simply because Grounders saw her as the leader in season 2, and Grounders tend to assign all responsibility to just one person that they see as the leader (because they can’t imagine a power structure that isn’t as hierarchical and based on obedience as theirs is). Bellamy was in subjugated position to the Chancellors, and one can certainly argue he started acting like a follower in season 3 with Pike, and to the lesser extent Kane previously, but Clarke? She already came back in 3x05, and she couldn’t Bellamy to do what she wanted, at all (she had much more success with getting Lexa to do what she wanted). And now that Clarke is back again… well, as I said, the fact is that she’s the only one (except Raven) who knows what’s up with the chip and the Flame and what to do, so it makes sense for people to listen to her. (And in season 4, when Clarke is the leader in Arkadia, she is consulting with Bellamy the same way he did with her in season 1, when he was more in the semi-formal leadership position.) Frankly, I think this is something similar to the phenomenon of people thinking that women dominate conversation if they talk 30% of the time, let alone 50%, because women being in power = shocking, conspicuous, OMG, let’s all talk about it. But Clarke was shown listening exactly at this point, so she may have been thinking, is this how Bellamy, Raven and the others see her, as someone who just goes around and gives them orders and acts like some sort of a tyrant?

Also, regarding the “knight/queen” thing is a pretty big oversimplification of their relationship, since Clarke has done at least as many things to save/protect Bellamy as vice versa, (Not to mention, if we’re talking Courtly Romance, the Knight’s “subjugation” to the Lady was basically a poetic convention, a pretend thing, not actual social reality – in reality, it was the Lady’s husband who usually had all the social power.)

Bellamy was the only one out of the three who did not lose his cool, no matter what ALIE!Raven was throwing at him – and she kept throwing various things and changing tactics. But he later showed anger when he left the room, so at least some of it was actually upsetting him. I would say that most of all, it’s the guilt over his recent actions and killing people, because that’s what actually bothers him - making mistakes that cost lives, causing deaths, failing to save people. I don’t think he loses much sleep over the rest.

But ALIE gets lucky because, while Bellamy didn’t crack, Niylah overheard the part about his role in the killing of Lexa’s army. And, as she told Clarke earlier in the episode, her father was one of the warriors who were killed – but Clarke claimed that none of them had anything to do with it. So not only does Niylah find out one of Clarke’s friends she brought with her was one of the people responsible for her father’s death, but she finds out in a really bad way – so it’s no surprise she loses it and lets ALIE see her, which lets ALIE know where they are.

I was a bit uncomfortable the first time I watched season 3 with the way Clarke was treating Niylah – not that it was ever malicious or callous, it was the situations she was in, but she was kind of using Niylah whenever she needed something, first she found a place to stay when she was roaming around on her own, some comfort and casual sex in 3x01 when she was only able to get intimate with someone she had no stronger feelings for, then she left without goodbye, and only returned now that she needed help with Raven and brought a bunch of friends, and then lied about Bellamy because she was scared they wouldn’t be let in (understandable, but not right), which Niylah called her out on. And Niylah just told her she lost her father recently, but Clarke is instead spending all the time worrying about how Bellamy feels and trying to comfort him. But to be fair, at least Clarke never pretends to feel anything stronger than she does – Clarke may be manipulative, but she’s never using love or sex or friendship for that purpose. Instead, she gets people to do what she wants by appealing to who they are – like telling Niylah she knew she isn’t someone who would let an innocent girl (Raven) suffer. And I feel better now that we know Niylah was eventually pretty chill about all of it, as we see in season 4, and didn’t expect anything from Clarke emotionally that she knew she couldn’t give her (if she had some feelings of that kind in season 3, she certainly got over them), so no one was getting hurt.

Bellamy being confronted with Niylah was a very important moment for him, because seeing someone who lost a loved one because of him made him confront his guilt the way he hadn’t before – not just saying “I’m sorry” to Niylah (an apology which she wasn’t ready to take– though later she seemed to not have a problem with him, though we’ve never really seen them talk to each other again since), but to really question his whole mindset and change it. This is where he realized “I was just trying to save my people” is not a good enough justification, if you end up hurting/destroying other people. It allowed him to progress beyond that mindset.

Another callback to season 2: “What do you do when you realize you may not be a good guy?” – Bellamy questioning everything he had believed in. He was where she was before. And Clarke’s answer is Abby’s line “Maybe there are no good guys”.

Like Bellamy, Clarke also gave an apology that wasn’t accepted – to Jasper, for Maya’s death.

Bellamy/Clarke moments in this episode are quiet, subtle and, at first, somewhat awkward. It’s the first time they see each other after their last, explosive confrontation, and at first, they just stop in their tracks and look at each other. If this was Clarke from seasons 1-2, I would have found it weird that she wasn’t even somewhat upset with Bellamy over the way he treated her that last time, but she’s been much mellower this season and more forgiving in general, and after she forgave Lexa for a massive betrayal in just a couple of days, it’s not surprising that she’s not showing any anger at Bellamy. Especially since she is still worrying whether he is still angry at her, feeling bad that she hurt him by leaving after MW, and feels relieved that he doesn’t act like he hates her. They are not ready to talk about any of it, but while they’re wrapping each other’s wrists, the physical touch looks a lot more meaningful and feels like the first step towards reconciliation (and visually recalls and feels like a contrast to the handcuffing scene).

After being freed from ALIE, Raven smiles at Jasper and apologizes for the things she told him. (We don’t see her apologizing to Clarke or Bellamy, though.) Those two have always had a sweet friendship.

Speaking of sweet friendships, Octavia and Monty’s friendship never got a huge focus, but it has some of the nicest moments between Octavia and anyone. These two go on a mission to the dropship to get an important piece of technology, and run into Monty’s mother, chipped and determined and almost unstoppable, the way chipped people are, due to not feeling any pain. Monty has always been the unsung hero of The 100, but season 3 is when we really get to see his quiet strength and heroism. He suffers some of the biggest losses and has to make one of the biggest sacrifices, when he is forced to kill his mother to save Octavia.

Earlier, Octavia wanted to leave and said she feels like she has no home because she lost Lincoln, who was her home. But Monty reminds her of the bond she shares with the rest of the original 100. This bond was something that was severely tested and almost broken for all of them. He gets through to her – in the end, she changes her mindset and tells the others that they will survive together.

But Monty and Jasper’s friendship is still in a bad place, and this time, Jasper tried to offer Monty comfort for his mother’s death, but Monty didn’t want to accept it. Maybe he felt angry because Jasper is always showing his pain, while Monty swallows it and soldiers on.

When Octavia thanks Niylah before leaving, it’s the first little signs of the friendship between Octavia and Niylah, which is going to develop in season 4.

They come pretty close in this episode to destroying the Flame (and this is not the last time this happens – see: fake Flame-smashing scene from season 4). What saves it is Clarke not wanting to destroy it because “it’s Lexa”. Kind of? I’ve never been sure how exactly the Flame is supposed to work, but this is another thing that the fandom tends to take too literally – a version of/remnant of Lexa may be in it, but so are Becca and a bunch of other past Commanders, so whatever it is, it’s not exactly a person, or not one person. In any case, it’s fortunate they didn’t destroy it this time, since they needed it to defeat ALIE, but at that point, they still weren’t aware of it. But there was also the fact that they needed it to expose Ontari and get her away from power – another good reason for Clarke to not want it destroyed.

Body count:

Hannah Green, killed by her son – another character still “alive” in the City of Light.

Rating: 9/10

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3x12 Demons

I like the way the opening scene plays with the horror genre tropes. It happens at night, Miller tells a creepy ghost story to Harper and Bryan, and then they all get abducted in what looks like a scene from slasher movie. In fact, the entire episode plays out a lot like a slasher movie, with creepy atmosphere and an initially threat/monster abducting the characters one by one.

Most of the episode is about Emerson’s attempt to get his revenge on Clarke by watching him kill her friends before killing her. It was always obvious that letting Emerson go would result in him returning to cause more trouble, and kill more people (poor Sinclair was the victim - RIP). But at least he’s finally dead. All the leading figures of the Mount Weather regime were evil, but none of them were as annoying as Emerson had become by season 3. I have zero sympathy for his obsession with revenge, because dude is a major hypocrite. Here he was doing things like using his dead son’s toy/music box (IIRC) as a distraction and symbolically, because it’s supposed to make Clarke feel bad for the deaths of the children at MW, including his son. I kind of wish someone had told him that they feel sorry for his son but not at all for him, which is how I feel. Dude, you were killing and torturing people in cold blood for years and tried to kill all of Clarke’s people, and you have the gall to blame them for defending themselves when you pushed them into a corner and left them no choice? F*ck off.

Emerson again says that Clarke “murdered 381 people” – which is a wrong number, but as I realized after 3x06, the writers were clearly lazy and didn’t bother checking the numbers of Mountain Men still alive by the time of season 2 finale.

Before the whole Emerson thing goes down, our heroes go back to Arkadia, now completely empty. They find Lincoln’s body and his things.

Clarke explains the whole Nightblood and Flame thing for everyone and why they have to look for Luna to achieve both goals – expose Ontari and remove her from power, and defeat ALIE. Octavia finds a drawing in Lincoln’s sketchbook that includes a drawing of the map to Luna’s place.

Becca’s journal, which Clarke took with her together with the Flame, proves useful, as Raven reads it and starts figuring out how to activate the Flame. It has a password, as an actual computer, and Sinclair is the one who figures out, thanks to his knowledge of Latin, that it’s Ascende superius” – “Seek higher things”. This proves especially important later when Clarke uses the Flame to kill Emerson, because it kills non-Nightblood people it bonds with. (BTW, the Flame looks creepy AF when it starts connecting with someone’s head – it looks like the computer version of a parasite or the Thing.) So, in a way, Sinclair gave Clarke the means to kill his murderer.

Raven says that the Flame’s program got degraded over time and that parts of it have been lost. This may be a way for the writers to try to explain the plot holes such as, why did the Grounders lack all of Becca’s technological knowledge? But then we later see that Madi does have some other Becca’s memories…? Also, it’s weird that this has never come up since.

In any case, we know from 3x11 that Clarke genuinely thinks, at least at this point, that Lexa is really in the Flame, and this episode and at a couple of other late season 3 episodes have moments when she tenderly looks at the computer chip (she even says “Sorry” to it in 3x15 after not being able to find it a host), and little moments when Bellamy notices her looking at it. It’s only been about 2 or 3 days since Lexa’s death (and the rest of season 3 finale takes place over a few days, so the season 3 finale happens less than a week since her death), so that wound is very raw.

Just like with the Flame, there’s some debate over whether people are still “alive” in some way in the City of Light. When Monty wonders if his mom is still alive, Raven says “that depends on what you think is alive”.

A lot of nice relationship moments in this episode:

Seeing Octavia grieve, Jasper tells her he knows how she feels. It’s the first time they’ve interacted since 3x02, when she was offering him comfort.

Sinclair and Raven try to save each other (and trying to save Sinclair is how Raven gets caught).

Even though Bellamy and Clarke have not really made up yet, they work together and reaffirm the trust and care they have for each other: Clarke entrusts Bellamy with taking the Flame to Luna, because she plans to offer herself to Emerson for their friends. She says blames herself for letting Emerson go and feels responsible for Sinclair’s death, and says she won’t let anyone else die for her mistake – which is almost the same as what Bellamy said earlier in the season (when she was not around) “I won’t let anyone else die for my mistakes”. But Bellamy, of course, says there’s no way he’s letting her risk her life herself, and this time he does suggest something else when she asks him to give her another plan, to attack Emerson while she distracts him. But unsurprisingly, this fails the moment Emerson uses Bellamy’s ‘weakness” and threatens Octavia’s life.

How many times throughout the show has Clarke offered her life for her the lives of people she cares about? How many times has she saved them? Count this episode on the list.

Before Clarke, Bellamy, Octavia and Jasper leave to find Luna, while the others stay in Arkadia, they have a funeral/cremation for Sinclair and Lincoln, Bellamy says “Your fight is over” in Grounder speak.

The B-plot takes place in Polis and is mostly about Murphy and Emori.

Emori has learned that Murphy was Ontari’s new Skaikru “Flamekeeper” and believes that he’s running a really good scam. He kind of tries to explain to her that things aren’t exactly like that and that Ontari is crazy (“and coming from me, that says a lot” – good line), but doesn’t tell her the whole story or or the fact that he’s her sex slave.

Memori have sex for the first time (that we know of) – in Becca Pramheda’s shrine.

They have a talk about Becca, and it turns out that Emori had no idea how Commanders were made, Murphy had to explain it to her. I find this really hard to believe, that ordinary Grounders would know so little about their whole tradition/religion/succession rules.

Unfortunately, Emori has already been chipped, so their relationship is, at this point, mixed with betrayal, because chipped people would do anything ALIE tells them to. It turns out that Jaha is planning to chip Ontari. Murphy’s hatred for Jaha resurfaces as he hopes Ontari would kill Jaha, but she instead almost kills Murphy for revealing her secrets to Emori and this way to Jaha. Murphy is locked up again, while Jaha wins Ontari over, convincing her that he can make her a “real Commander”.

And with this, all our season 3 villains have fallen by the wayside as ALIE becomes the one and only threat.

Body count:

Sinclair, killed by Emerson

Emerson is FINALLY dead, killed by Clarke using the Flame as a weapon, which connected to him and made him bleed internally (certainly an original way to kill someone!)

Rating: 8/10

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3x13 Join or Die

This is by far my favorite season 3 episode, and this is in large part because of the flashbacks. I always love getting flashbacks to the life on the Ark before the timeline of the show (so far, there has been four such episodes – the previous ones were 1x03 with Clarke’s flashbacks involving her father, mother, Wells and Thelonius Jaha; 1x07 with Bellamy’s flashbacks about his relationship with Octavia, going as far back as her birth; and 2x08 with Raven’s flashbacks that showed her relationship with Finn, what really happened with the ‘spacewalking’ and how Finn ended up imprisoned, and Sinclair deciding to give her a job as mechanic in spite of her health issues).

But this time they don’t only help give more insight into Pike and who he was as a teacher of “Earth skills” on the Ark, they are also a nostalgic look into the past – very recent past, technically, as they set only six months before the present day due to the show’s compressed timeline, but it feels so distant. It’s a reminder of just how much everyone has changed, including the show itself. Nothing highlights the difference more than the brilliant show motion scene in the last flashback, with the Delinquents walking towards the dropship, set to the Koda slow, plaintive cover of “Radiactive”. It’s one of the best uses of music on the show, with a stark contrast to the energetic, poppy original by Imagine Dragons, which played in the Pilot when the kids landed on the planet – and which seemed to promise a relatively light-hearted teen soap.

Quite a few of the dead Delinquents made a comeback in the flashbacks: while Finn was not there (he was presumably in another group, since 98 students in one class would be too much), we see a lot of minor characters like Roma, Dax, John Mbege (died in season 1), Fox (season 2) and Monroe, who died very recently in season 3. (There’s one other guy called Jones, but I had to look him up and we never saw him die.) We also get to see Octavia, Jasper, Murphy, Harper and Miller with their season 1 looks and remember the way they used to be then, which is a stark contrast in the case of Jasper and Octavia.

There’s also non-chipped, rational Jaha, Kane and Abby at the time when they still didn’t get along because Kane was a bit of a d1ck back then.

How convenient that there were 99 teenage prisoners they were initially going to send to Earth, two weeks before the Pilot (including Clarke, who was in solitary still, as she had been for a year, because Jaha didn’t want to risk her telling the population the truth about the Ark dying) - so when Wells got himself arrested for something so he could follow Clarke, just a day before they were to leave (just how much more obvious he could be?), he made up the nice round number of 100.

Some people have argued that Pike’s flashbacks should have happened much earlier in the season, so viewers would get a more complete and sympathetic picture of him, but for me, they only confirmed what I figured in the first place, that he is a fighter and was someone who genuinely wanted to protect his people, but that this eventually led him down a dark path. You can see his basic character traits in the flashbacks – that he wanted to protect the kids so much that he begged Jaha to let him go with them, and his final and main lesson to the kids – to “keep fighting at all costs, against all odds” is very much in character. You even see him resorting to questionable methods in desperation – like hitting Murphy to get all the kids to fight against him, in order to teach them to stick together and fight, since he wasn’t allowed to tell them the truth that they were going to be sent to the ground, and they didn’t take anything seriously since they didn’t know the truth. (Ironically, he decided to play the role of a villain in that ‘graduation’ class to spur them into action.)

The last flashback also includes an unconscious Clarke being carried onto the dropship, while Kane has a moment when he’s nice to Abby and tells her he’s sorry about Clarke; and Bellamy barging in pretending to be a guard and dragging a random girl by the hand - which happened to be Roma; the same girl who would later become one of his friends with benefits and a part of the group who went to rescue Octavia and died at the hands of the Grounders in 1x06, which Bellamy felt guilty about, because he knew she only came along because of him. The last flashback is a reused shot from the Pilot, with Clarke awake on the dropship, and brief glimpse of Wells

The flashbacks were nicely intertwined with the present day scenes, which highlighted the contrast between the characters as they were then and now – e.g. between the old Kane, and the new, idealistic, bearded and Jesus-like Kane, who gets literally crucified for refusing to take the chip. ALIE observes that Kane is strong (as she had previously said about Raven), and Jaha agrees: Yes. Always has been”.

The initial attempt to have chipped Abby seduce and manipulate Kane into taking the chip fails, because Kane knows her well enough to see the difference between chipped Abby and the way she is when she is herself. He withstands torture, but eventually caves in when Jaha threatens to kill Abby. Threatening loved ones is one of ALIE’s methods to get people to do what she wants – that’s how she got Abby to take the chip (to save Raven’s life), it’s how in 3x14 she gets Luna’s husband to take the chip (by threatening Luna) and how in 3x15 she tries to get Clarke to tell her the password, to save Abby’s life, but that time she failed.

The scenes in Polis were generally horrific, with ALIE’s army of chipped, almost mindless slaves, blood in the streets, and crucified people. The cinematography was interesting: ALIE’s red dress deliberately stood out in, while everything and everyone else was in muted greenish-yellow colors.

This is where the unlikely alliances of everyone not-chipped start, with the really unexpected partnership-by-necessity between Indra and Pike. But first, after they found themselves in the same big cell with Murphy and a few others, Indra starts having her revenge by doing the “300 cuts thing”. Pike is also being himself and going “so get on with it” and enduring it, as she apparently does quite a few cuts (but conveniently, those are mostly surface cuts across his chest and not the horrific scenario Lincoln described in season 2 as something that would happen to Finn; actually, we didn’t see that scenario – mutilation, gorging eyes, etc. – with Gustus, either, for obvious reasons, it’s CW) that didn’t disable him, before Murphy and another Grounder woman changed Indra’s mind (just as she was about to kill Pike) and convinced her that they need Pike, as a strong fighter he is, to fight their way out and fight ALIE’s chipper army. Murphy asks Indra: “Do you want revenge or do you want your people to survive?” and she decides she wants both, but “I’ll get my revenge but not today”. Getting that pragmatic is a sign how much character development she’s had since she was introduced in early season 2.

(But since Indra used a rusty nail she pulled from the wall to cut Pike, realistically he was going to get an infection if Octavia hadn’t killed him in the S3 finale.)

Meanwhile, Clarke, Bellamy, Octavia and Jasper find the way to Luna’s place but are confused since it’s a beach with some rocks, but with some luck and help from Lincoln’s notebook, they find a way to signal Luna’s Boat people. They spend most of the episode on the beach before Luna’s people show up, but it is an opportunity for some important character moments.

I was glad to see that Bellamy has finally had enough of Octavia’s constant blaming, and that he stands up for himself a bit, by reminding her of the fact that he came to her and offered help to get Lincoln out, and she declined it. But as he starts to say: “If you had trusted me...”, he stops himself, probably realizing what he’d be saying and that it’s the last thing she needs to hear - that Lincoln’s death was partially her fault. It is much easier for her emotionally if she just blames him instead. So he just turns and walks away, while Clarke is looking at him, concerned.

I think that their confrontation in 3x05 made Clarke realize how hurt Bellamy was because she left, and chose to deal with her Mount Weather trauma on her own, instead of letting him support her emotionally and supporting him emotionally, so she is now very attentive to Bellamy’s emotional needs, and she now believes they can only get through their traumas together. It’s a bit funny that Bellamy starts by trying to act tough and telling her he doesn’t need her help, even calls her Wanheda and tries to talk as if he did in 3x05, but as she just keeps looking at him in the same caring, compassionate way, it all falls away in 2 seconds and he starts confiding in her about his problems with his sister. This is a dynamic that continues well into season 4 – Octavia still blaming Bellamy, Bellamy unhappy over it, Clarke trying to comfort him about it.

Bellamy says “Forgiveness is hard for us” – and some may see it differently, but I think he means himself and Octavia. Clarke has, in fact, become one of the people who forgive fastest and most easily, and she rarely even holds grudges the way she did in season 1 (against her mother, Wells, Finn to an extent). Octavia definitely finds it hard to forgive; Bellamy is debatable. He can hold grudges, but he’s also shown an extraordinary capacity for forgiveness. But at the same time, that does not have to mean full forgiveness. After all, he already has had a pseudo-parental relationship with Kane – but he’ll still throw it in Kane’s face in season 4: “You floated my mother”. The fact that by season 5, not only is Murphy one of his best friends, but Echo is his girlfriend, says a lot. But it did take him 3 years of being stuck with her on a ship with just 5 other people to forgive her. He forgave Clarke at the end of season 5 pretty quickly, as soon as he realized how she felt about him – but whether it is full forgiveness in his heart… that’s another matter. Back to this episode – he tells Clarke “I was so angry at you for leaving… I don’t want to feel that way anymore”. It’s not that he’s not angry anymore, but that he tries to work on not being angry. And he’s certainly right about his relationship with Octavia, as she is the one person he is refusing to forgive as of the end of S5.

When the Boat people turn up, their Captain calls them “Skaikru are Bringers of Death” – which is something we saw a Grounder say in season 2. So, that term (which I’ll never stop rolling my eyes at, since it’s obvious that Grounders had lots and lots of death in wars between clans and at the hands of Mountain Men way before any of the Sky people landed) has been a thing for a while, we don’t know how it started – maybe because of those llares that ended up burning a village. But how did the Boat people hear it, when they seem so isolated from everyone?

Octavia is the first to go with it and take the pill that makes people lose consciousness (but that, as far as they know, may as well be a poison) – saying “I trust Lincoln”. Jasper does it next and says his repetitive catchphrase “See you on the other side” (which he first said in the Pilot, and which will never sound again after you have seen 4x11).

Sorry, but it’s almost funny – these Bellamy/Clarke scenes are some of the most romantic-looking stuff I’ve seen: the incredibly intense and long hug, where both of them seem to lose themselves in the physical comfort of it, and which only ends because Luna’s people interrupt them; the way they drink the potion at the same time, gazing into each other’s eyes and repeating their catchphrase “Together”- “Together”(it’s the second time they are using it, the first one was in the season 2 finale). It’s almost as if the people making the show are running some sort of a social experiment to see how far they can go and still have many people argue “What? It’s just how BFFs act with each other!”

Luna finally makes an appearance, after being talked about since season 1. The rising music and everything in the scene makes it look like it’s going to be a big moment where she says yes to Clarke’s suggestion to take the Flame and become the next Commander, but she flat-out says “no”.

The episode ends on the reveal that Luna’s people live on oil rig. (Which is the second time that an episode ends with a reveal that a Grounder location is actually something we recognize as a piece of modern technology.)

Timeline. The present day events seem to take place over one day, as most episodes of The 100 do –they start during daytime (when Clarke, Bellamy, Octavia and Jasper get to the beach), continue during that night (which the four of them spend on the beach) and it’s morning/daytime at the end of the episode when they wake up on the oil rig. Most of the action in Polis scene takes place during the night. Which should mean that it’s been about 3 days since Clarke reunited with her friends, or about 19-21 days since the start of season 3.

Flashbacks: The first flashback is set six months before, which is two weeks before the Pilot. This is the first time we get a clear info on how much time has passed since the 100 first landed on Earth. The last flashback takes place at the time when the 100 plus one are on the dropship, five and a half months before the present day action. Season 1 probably lasted a little over 3 weeks, season 2 even less than that, then there was a time jump of almost 3 months (86 days) between the seasons, and with the 3 weeks that season 3 has lasted – it makes up almost 5 and a half months (a little less, actually).

Body count: An unknown number of people in Polis-(some are seen crucified, blood is in the streets) – presumably the 3% who refused to take the chip, so it depends how many people lived in Polis to begin with

Rating: 10/10

===================

3x14 Red Sky at Morning

According to The 100 wiki, the title comes from an old saying that goes:"Red sky at night, sailors' delight. Red sky at morning, sailors take warning". I suppose that’s a way of saying, dangerous waters ahead for our characters?

Luna was one of the most interesting and charismatic characters on the show, and her Boat People are a refreshing new addition – as the first Grounder group we see that doesn’t have the warlike way of life and doesn’t believe in Blood must have blood and all that stuff. They’re unique so far, almost like an isolated hippie commune, who accept orphans and try to help people in need, and maybe the only community in the show that seems like they’re living a good life.

Clarke and Luna discuss Lexa briefly, and Clarke says that Lexa was “special, she was working towards peace”. I get why Clarke says that, since she had fallen in love with Lexa and Lexa died just a few days ago, but it’s a pretty simplified and idealized picture. Lexa only worked for peace for the last few days of her life, after Clarke convinced her; before that, she spent most of her life and rule adhering to the traditionalist views of war, and revenge, ruthlessness in service of your people – so it’s ironic that Clarke is saying that to Luna, who had rejected violence all on her own when she was a little girl.

Luna’s history, which we learn here, is also fascinating – that she was traumatized by being pitted against her own brother in the Conclave and killing him, and then ran away from that terrible custom not because she was afraid of losing, but because she knew she would win – killing other kids and getting to be the next Commander. Lexa was the one she was supposed to meet in the next round, which I guess was why Lexa was reluctant to talk about Luna.

Clarke’s decision to force the Flame onto Luna is something that initially quite upset me, because it’s obviously wrong and a serious violation. I was agreeing with Octavia, who was against it. Bellamy wasn’t too happy about it, but since he (just as in Mount Weather) couldn’t come up with a better plan when Clarke asked him to, he agrees with Clarke’s decision. This is one of the reasons why I don’t understand why so many fans argue that Bellamy convincing Madi to take the Flame in season was OOC, which was motivated by the same things that this was – a pragmatic move to save your people by making a new Commander who will have the authority among Grounders to oppose a tyrant.

Well, this time, the Sky people did end up being the “Bringers of death” – because ALIE was following them, and found the Boat people that way, which resulted in several deaths – including Luna reliving her trauma and having to kill her husband Derrick, after he had been chipped (which he agreed to because ALIE made other chipped people torture Luna).

A minor in-character moment: Bellamy is naturally the one to immediately look to the little girl, Luna’s daughter, and make sure she’s safe.

Jasper meets a new love interest, only to lose her immediately because of ALIE. This brief moment of hope and the way it is crushed made his emotional state even worse and more vulnerable – making him take the chip (which is only hinted in this episode and revealed in the next).

I used to like Luna a lot (I still do quite a bit), and I was upset when she had her sudden character turn in 4x10, going from her non-violent philosophy to “everyone should die”. But now on rewatch, her flaws are more obvious to me. She gives good anti-violence speeches to Octavia (immediately reading Octavia and summing her up: “You know only of fighting and death”) and she makes good points to Clarke that she has become too ruthless, too ‘end justifies the means’, which is indeed a problem with how Clarke has changed because of everything she has had to do. But when she said: “You believe that to defeat an enemy that will stop at nothing, you must stop at nothing… How is that different from blood must have blood?” – I was thinking: but it is different… because one is about revenge, which is not necessary, and the other is about doing whatever it takes to save the world and stop an absolute disaster, such as ALIE making everyone into brainwashed slaves. By refusing to get involved, Luna is basically shirking responsibility and letting the rest of the world go to hell, even though she has the power to save it, because she doesn’t want to get her hands dirty again. She prefers to keep her moral high ground and judge others, like Clarke, for ruthless things they do to save people and the world. But Clarke is the one trying to save the world. Maybe Luna’s eventual turn is not so out-of-character after all – it was the ultimate expression of her judgmental views of people: either they are perfectly good and don’t engage in violence or any ruthless actions out of necessity and desperation, or they don’t deserve to survive and should all die.

Seeing the outcome of this plotline – after pretending to agree to take the Flame, Luna makes the group drink something to lose their consciousness and sends them back to the shore after the boat has left – makes all of this like a huge waste of time. After all the build-up, Clarke, Bellamy and Octavia are left where they started, wondering what to do to stop ALIE. But knowing Luna’s role in season 4, the story had a purpose.

In Arkadia, Monty had two huge things happen to him: the beginning of his relationship with Harper, and having to “kill” his mother for the second time.

Marper would become one of the healthiest and happiest romantic relationships on the show, but it starts more or less out of the blue, with very little build-up (except for Monty defending Harper in season 1 when Jasper called her “low hanging fruit”, and a few scenes of Monty caring about Harper’s life in season 2). Harper decides to make a move and Monty is pleasantly surprised and goes for it. It seems like a “we could all die, so let’s have sex” kind of thing. But Harper says in bed that she hasn’t felt happy and safe in a long time.

Raven is determined to find a way to shut down ALIE for good, instead of waiting for Clarke to come back. It’s personal for her at this point – she even tells ALIE “I’m coming for you!” But Jaha again has an idea how to get to people – by using Hannah against Monty. (Jaha has been a huge asset to ALIE because he understands humans, which ALIE probably does not by herself.) But Monty stays stronge even after his mother’s consciousness tells him “I love you” – he says “I love you, too” and deletes her code. This is probably one of the two best scenes in this episode.

But just as Raven was preparing to hit the kill switch, ALIE withdraws, It’s one of the rare moments when Monty loses his temper (and they all happened this season – the last one was after he had to kill his mother in 3x11) and takes it out on Raven, blaming her and asking her if she wants to take the chip again.

The best moment in this episode and one of the best lines belongs to Emori. Unlike her brother and Gideon, she did not change her body in its digital version in the City of Light. When Jaha tells her she could correct her defects, she replies “I would, if I had any”. She has not internalized ableism, her disability is something she accepts as a part of herself – she just would love to change the fact that the world treats her as an outcast over it.

Timeline: It has been two days since 3x12 (Harper says: “Two days no one has been trying to kill us”), so I guess it’s been 20 to 22 days since the start of season 1.

Body count:

Shay, because all of Jasper’s love interests must die.

4 people in Polis controlled by ALIE: 2 killed by Indra, 2 by Pike,

4 Boat People controlled by ALIE, killed by Luna – including her husband/partner Derrick and the Captain

A Polis sentry who got to live on in the City of Light. Interesting that everyone in the City of Light modern clothes, including the Grounders – though the guy still has the Grounder tattoos.

Arguably, the consciousness of Hannah Green

Rating: 8/10

=========================

3x15 Perverse Instantiation, Part One

I prefer this first part of the season finale to the second, because it has some strong and tense emotional scenes, especially between Jasper and Monty, and between Clarke and Abby.

Roan is an interesting character, and it’s fun to see him again. He has an fun dynamic with Clarke and Bellamy, and there’s even a rare light-hearted moment when Bellamy shoots and lightly injures Roan to make sure he’s not chipped – taking an opportunity to get him back for the knee injury in 3x02 – and Roan comments: “Now we’re even”.

The fact that Clarke is now ready to put the Flame into Ontari shows just how desperate she is to stop ALIE. After the Luna plan failed, she thinks she can either do that, or go looking for another Nightblood throughout Grounder villages. But the latter might make ALIE destroy another community and they could still fail.

But plans keep failing – the plan they come up with fails because Jasper is chipped and ALIE has all the info about it. Roan gets injured and everyone is captured by Jaha and ALIE’s other slaves. The plan was for Clarke to tell Raven the kill switch, but now that it failed, Raven wants to find a way to kill ALIE herself.

In Arkadia, the reveal about Jasper being chipped comes right after a too-good-to-be-true scene in which Jasper seemed happy and at peace and apologized to Monty for all the trouble he had caused. But he was happy only because of the chip. ALIE-controlled Jasper goes on to stab Monty and knocks out and takes Harper hostage, trying to stop Raven in her plan to shut down ALIE. Monty, Raven and Harper have to find a way to defeat their friend.

Jasper reveals the full depth of his hopelessness in this speech where he says to Monty: “They sent down here to see if the Earth is survivable… from what I can see, it is not” and starts listing all the Delinquent deaths that happened since they landed. (Some of what he says is factually wrong – he’s skewing facts the same way a Clarke hater fan would: for instance, he says Clarke killed Dax, when it was Bellamy, and it was in self-defense after Clarke saved Bellamy’s life; he also says “death by Clarke” as a cause of death of Atom and Finn, not mentioning that both were mercy kills.)

Clarke is captured and tortured by ALIE, chipped Abby and Jaha, trying to make her tell them the password that ALIE needs to access the Flame. Clarke tries to do the “mom, I know you’re still in there” thing, but it doesn’t work – you can’t just talk down a chipped person.

After Clarke withstands torture, Abby tells ALIE that she was right when she pointed out that Clarke is more likely to break if someone she cares about is tortured or threatened: “Her friends are her weakness… Start with Bellamy Blake”. This is the second time it’s been implied that Bellamy is Clarke’s “weakness” – since 2x09, when Clarke first heard that “Love is weakness” and tried to not let her feelings for him interfere in leadership decisions, so she wouldn’t be “weak”. Abby is right that a danger to Bellamy’s life is the easiest way to get Clarke to agree to something – as we’ve seen in 2x12, 3x02, and later in 4x05. Clarke is terrified and in tears at the prospect of Bellamy being tortured or possibly killed if she doesn’t give up the password. But it never comes to that, since Murphy, Pike and Indra come at the right moment and save Bellamy and the others.

Instead, Abby decides to threaten/take her own life to make Clarke fold, so she hangs herself. It’s a very intense, emotional scene, where Clarke is crying and begging her mom to stop, but somehow manages to stay strong and not give up the password, knowing she would be condemning the human race to being brainwashed and enslaved.

Octavia showed concern for Bellamy when they were about to take him away, which is one of the very few times she shows warmer feelings for him in season 3b and 4.

There’s some snark between Murphy and Miller, and then Bellamy and Murphy have their first conversation since season 2. It’s kind of awkward, because Bellamy doesn’t trust Murphy yet and is confused as to why Murphy is doing anything heroic. Murphy is like ‘you’re welcome” – but he should understand that saving people doesn’t mean you don’t have to apologize for the crap he did in the past (and he will realize that and start really trying to do better in season 4). He compares Bellamy’s concern for Clarke for his concern for Emori, saying “You’re not the only one trying to save someone you care about”, but he’s still doing putting on the antiheroic, cynical front, saying he will stop doing the right thing after this.

The reunion between Bellamy and Pike also may be slightly awkward, since Bellamy turned him over to the Grounders the last time they saw each other, but Pike doesn’t seem to particularly care about this. He’s still his old self, but now focused on the new threat (or rather, the threat whose importance he failed to realize back in Arkadia when he was in power and Jaha started preaching about the City of Light, but Pike doesn’t tend to question himself or look in the past, as Bellamy does).

There’s a lot of fighting in this and the next episode, but at moments, it was hard to see what was going on, because it all took place inside the tower, in half-dark.

Indra has finally started using guns! She also gets to fight chipped Kane and saves him.

Bellamy tells everyone to try to not kill any of the chipped people, but Pike and Indra don’t care about that and kill them anyway. Bellamy only does it when he’s forced to in order to save Murphy’s life, even though it is obviously difficult for him now and that he feels bad about killing someone again.

Octavia can’t stop thinking about killing Pike, even though Indra tells her they have to focus on fighting ALIE’s slaves instead. Octavia again expresses how hopeless she feels without Lincoln, saying “he was my home”.

As they finally get to the throne room, Murphy saves Abby, while Bellamy gets the Flame, but the plan to put it into Ontari can’t work because Jaha hit her on the head with a hammer ,which left her braindead.

Is this the only time in the entire show when an episode has ended with “TO BE CONTINUED”?

Timeline: This episode seems to take place over roughly 24 hours – during daytime, night, and the daytime of the following day. Which means, by my count, it’s been 21-23 days since the start of season 3.

Body count:

9 chipped people: 1 is killed by Roan, 5 by Pike and Indra (2 Grounders, 2 Arkadia guards, 1 Delinquent - ?), 2 Grounders shot by Pike, 1 Arker shot by Bellamy

Ontari is braindead, which made me incredibly relieved the first time I watched season 3.

Several other people were injured – Roan was shot and injured, Pike and Bryan were by Kane, Jaha shot by Bellamy (again!), but all the major characters except Ontari survived.

Rating: 8/10

==============================

3x15 Perverse Instantiation Part Two

This is the only The 100 season finale I’m not a big fan of. The first time I watched it, it was one of my least favorite season 3 episodes. The fact that, after all the tensions and complicated conflicts in the previous part of season 3, everything turned into “let all fight together against the evil robot” felt dull and anticlimactic, and it didn’t help when so much of the finale was Matrix-lite. After all, it’s not like the viewers were ever in any doubt if they were going to defeat ALIE or not. Yes, we could guess they were going to defeat the Mountain Men in season 2, but what was shocking was how they had to do it; season 1 finale wasn’t that surprising, but the shocking part was what Clarke had to do to save the Delinquents. There was no real sense of danger in this fainel. The only thing I really found exciting was the reveal about the upcoming Praimfaya.

I liked it a bit more this time, but not much more, because I didn’t expect anything from it this time, so I could focus on the good moments.

After all the talk about how only people with Nightblood could take the Flame, it feels like a bit of a cop-out that, as it turns out, one can temporarily bond with it if they simply get a transfusion of black blood – though, of course, it’s still a risk. And of course it’s Clarke who takes it upon herself to have a transfusion from Ontari, take the Flame and take the chip in order to defeat ALIE.

The Matrix-lite scenes in the City of Light were moderately OK, but nowhere near as good as many other virtual reality storylines I’ve watched. It was a nice touch to see Clarke having the hair and clothes more like those from seasons 1-2, instead of the ugly Grounder-style pseudo-dreadlocks (WTF was that even about?) and an equally ugly dress that looks like a cheap reject that no one wanted to buy at a Goth clothing store, which she has been wearing throughout season 3. But there’s just not enough interesting things happening:

Clarke sees a bunch of people who don’t see her, I liked the part where Clarke meets Jasper eating an ice-cream.

Then they see her, after ALIE alerted them, and she is chased by them.

Then Flame!Lexa appears, fights them and saves her, and they kiss and Clarke tells her “I love you” for the first time. It says a lot about how messed up Clarke’s love life has been, that she’s only ever said ILY to people who are about to die (Finn) or already dead (Lexa). The only time she’s managed to say ILY to someone who’s alive and likely to stay alive was not romantic - it was to Madi in season 5. I used to think this Lexa was very OOC, because she was much warmer, nicer and more open than real Lexa was ever when alive. But I suppose Flame versions of people are different – maybe that’s what Lexa would be like without the role of Commander, without power and responsibility.

However, where are all the other Commanders? Why do we only see Lexa and Becca? Aren’t the others at all interested in what’s going on with ALIE? Also, for some reason, Flame!Lexa repeats the line about her spirit choosing wisely – even though it doesn’t make sense. Her spirit didn’t choose anything – Clarke chose to have the transfusion and the Flame and the chip so she could save the day. That line never made sense once we learned about the Conclave, anyway: previous Commanders didn’t choose anything, it was a bunch of kids fighting and killing each other.

Then Clarke meets Becca and ALIE and they have a talk, which is supposed to be the climax of theseason, but I still find Becca to be an insufferable megalomaniac and don’t care about her. Clarke argues with ALIE about pain and happiness, and that pain should not be removed, as ALIE believes – one must overcome it. Clarke admits that she tried to run away from pain, and this should be a great moment that rounds up her season 3 arc. This would work if Clarke had a great, well developed arc in season 3 about learning to overcome her pain, but unfortunately, I don’t see it. She did start off running away from everyone and ended up getting back and acting more like her old self, but what was in the middle felt plot-driven and ships-driven more than it was about any deep characterization. I see really good character arcs for other characters in season 3 – Bellamy, Jasper, Monty, Raven, even Octavia, but Clarke, not so much.

In the real world, Octavia lets her desire for revenge overtake the need to fight the chipped army, and gets Pike in danger, before Bellamy saves him. Bellamy has two conversations that are supposed to be resolutions of his character arc in S3. To Octavia, he says that she shouldn’t let the desire for revenge overtake her, and that his own “need for revenge” made him to awful things. But that line doesn’t work, because that’s not what actually happened – back in 3x04-3x08, Bellamy was not motivated by revenge. At no point was he like “Grrr, Grounders killed my girlfriend, now I want to kill them!” No, he was motivated by the desire to protect his people in a better way, and his fear that trusting the Grounders again would make him fail them and make the same mistakes that he did when he trusted Echo in 3x03.

The talk between Pike and Bellamy is better-written. They argue about whether they chose to wrong side – and Pike says it wasn’t the wrong side and brings up the likelihood that the Grounder army would have attacked Arkadia the moment Lexa was killed and Ontari took over. Which is a good point. That’s the thing with Pike, he makes some good points, but his solutions are all too extreme and unlikely to ever lead to any positive outcome, just a constant cycle of war and violence. Pike doesn’t question himself or feel guilty, which is a huge difference between him and Bellamy, who thinks of the people he killed and replies that all he knows is that he has to live with the things he has done.

One really bizarre minor moment is when Abby makes Murphy massage the heart of his braindead former rapist, so the transfusion could work. And hey, how funny is it that we literally get to see Ontari’s black heart?

In the final moments of fighting, there was a mayhem where Pike saved Octavia’s life, while chipped Kane almost strangled Bellamy. After ALIE is defeated, everyone is relieved, except Jasper, who is again in pain and desperate, while Monty tries to comfort him, and they apologize to each other for the violent things they did to each other while Jasper was chipped. Clarke tells Abby to go to Kane (she’s picked up on her mom’s new relationship pretty quickly – maybe she had already figured out before that something was going on there). Clarke and Bellamy have a moment, but he sees that she doesn’t seem like someone who has saved the world, and she replies that the world is not saved, because she’s learned about Praimfaya from ALIE.

And then the last moment of the finale is Pike about to make some sort of a gesture of respect/”you fought well”/bygones, and Octavia stabbing Pike. It says a lot about how bored I was with this finale the first time I watched it, that I was glad this happened even though I didn’t hate Pike or want him dead. I was simply glad to see at least one character not singing Kumbaya like everyone else was doing. I didn’t want all the tensions and conflicts of season 3 – even if they were badly done – to be simply forgotten because the evil robot was defeated. And Octavia was being in character; that’s who she is, and you always knew that’s what she was going to do to the person who killed Lincoln. In hindsight, it was a necessary moment in Octavia’s arc. I’m neither upset nor happy about Pike’s death – he simply had Pike “had” to die not because his crimes were too bad for him to live (I mean, come on, even Echo, who was worse and less developed, got to survive and get a so-called ‘redemption”…) but because Octavia would never spare him.

Timeline: the entire episode lasts a few hours, and season 3 on the whole between 22 and 24 days, at most.

Body count:

Four chipped Grounders, 2 shot by Bellamy, 1 killed by Pike, 1 shot by Abby (I took this from The 100 wiki, there’s no way I would have noticed how many people were being killed in all that mayhem.) This is the first time Abby has killed someone.

ALIE, terminated by Clarke.

Ontari, braindead and then presumably dead-dead after Murphy stopped massaging her heart.

Pike, stabbed by Octavia.

Rating: 6/10

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darkzorua100 · 6 years ago

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So we can blame Ai for the stupid naming of Earth. Why am I not surprised by this turn out? And he was the one to make fun of Windy’s name choice...yeah sure that naming wasn’t much better but at least it wasn’t actually his attribute type’s name. Let’s just be so thankful that Yusaku named Ai when he did or else we would have to be calling him Darky right now. And thank god for that because I would have to be sharing a name with him if that was the case.

But yeah, episode 66 was really good when it came to the information dump. We got to meet Earth, who isn’t a little sh*t like Ai, Flame, and Windy are, and somewhat of Aqua, somewhat debatable on her until we actually get to see her in person, as well as some information on the Ignises and the Cyberse World in general. Apparently the Light Ignis was the leader of the group while Aqua was the second-in-command. From what we have seen of Aqua in Ai’s flashbacks, she was the one to always get on his case for being lazy so I figured as much when it came to her but the Light Ignis being the leader is really interesting to me. When it came to the Ignises as a whole, they didn’t seem to be the type to appoint a leader as a whole between them. Each of them were the leaders of their own territories but they all seemed to be on equal grounds between them. When Flame talked about how him and the others had to have a group meeting to discuss if they could trust humans or not, it seemed like they had a council system but if Light was the appointed leader, shouldn’t he be the one to make the call and the other Ignises would follow his lead? Or maybe he was just as divided as Earth is that he couldn’t make a right call without hearing his kin’s opinions first? Who really knows at the moment when it comes to the final Ignis. Ironic how the Light Ignis is the one that they are keeping in the dark from us. Then we have Aqua who Ai describes as the one who can tell the difference between the lies and the truth. She’s apparently the reason why the Cyberse World has never had any civil wars between the Ignises. Earth also describes her as almost like an oracle as she was the one to inform him about how the Cyberse World is going to fall apart from the battle between the humans and the Ignises and asked which side he was going to take when this war between them is going to happen. Some interesting foreshadowing there to the potential full out war between the Ignises who side with the humans (Ai and Flame) and the Ignises who aren’t (Windy). Who’s side Earth, Aqua, and the Light Ignis will take remains to be seen but something that Earth said is really making me question more if the Light Ignis is actually the ??? guy. I’ve been saying from the start that the Light Ignis can’t be the ??? guy because why would an Ignis want to destroy their own home world and Earth in this episode even states the same thing. But now that even he is saying this, it makes me wonder if they are really trying to throw us for a loop here by trying to make us think that an Ignis wouldn’t destroy their own home world for their own ambitions, whatever those are. The appearance of ??? can even be explained as well if that actually is the Light Ignis because it isn’t actually the Light Ignis but an AI that they created for them to stand on like how Windy has Echo and how Earth created this tree servant for him to duel upon. I’m kinda split now on what to think about this theory because I feel like that would be to obvious but at the same time, not obvious enough.

Speaking of that tree servant thing, lord and behold, Earth might actually be Spectre’s Ignis. I’m only saying might because Earth hasn’t confirmed that detail yet but yeah, for the most part, they revealed another Lost Child and Ignis pairing! And thank god I was right on that one so now I don’t have to change anything in Nemesis! I also liked how this episode actually established what the Ignises are based upon from their Lost Children. We knew they were based on their dueling data and this episode shows it since with the two other Lost Child and Ignis pairings we have got, Yusaku/Ai and Takeru/Flame, we haven’t see Ai and Flame duel. Spectre has a calming, laid back dueling style, talking advantage of his opponent's moves and that shows in Earth’s personality being the soft spoken and, as he calls himself, socially awkward being that he is. Yusaku lost a lot during the Hanoi Project and it shows in Ai being not the most intelligent of the Ignises, as Yusaku more then likely misplayed a lot to have caused his dueling data to take that form. As for Takeru and Flame, when he wasn’t being traumatized by Despair from the Dark, his dueling must have been rather aggressive to have made Flame the way he is. Funny how that in turned caused, from what it is looking to be like, the Ignises to have opposite personalities from the kid they were based on. Now that we got Spectre = Earth confirmed, for the most part anyway, and some details about Light’s personality, it is kinda hard to figure out which one of the remaining two males, Windy or the Light Ignis, belongs to Jin. If the Light Ignis is the leader type, it is looking more and more like he could be Jin’s since he’s the one that totally shut down. That just remains Windy and a still yet to be introduced final lost boy, who if Windy is anything to be based upon, has to be completely humorless and/or emotionless. As for Aqua’s human, since she seems to be the caring one and the one that has the foresight to everything, her human has to be selfish and thinks of things in afterthought. If we are still going with the Aoi theory, yeah that sums her up pretty well but if not, her human is going to be interesting to meet when that time comes.

Not much to say dueling wise. Since Playmaker knows he is dueling Spectre’s Ignis, he is playing on the defensive. Earth’s dueling is nothing to amazing at the moment but the episode ends with him literally summoning Aqua’s heart onto the field and I loved how the landscape around them changes instantly, really showing that Aqua is really the heart and soul for the Ignises. I’m interested to see where she went off to after giving Earth her card. Same can be said with Earth. He’s not going to beat Playmaker, that’s just a fact right there, and after losing, he’s more then likely going to join the human’s side (or not because of something that Playmaker says or does during the duel (which would be an interesting plot twist there) and after that, I can see Earth doing one of three things: he’s going to go off on his own (to do whatever he needs to do), he’s going to be Ai’s new roommate (which would be super funny to see happen) since he can’t go to his kid without getting murdered on the spot, or he actually does go to Spectre after this duel and try and convert him over to the human/Ignis side. I really hope it is the third one because I really want a Spectre and Earth meeting now and just to see the Knights of Hanoi again in general. It would be a good way to really add them back into the story again and give Spectre some character development in the process.

As for the rest of the episode, nothing to crazy. Queen tore Akira a new one as we all thought she would, Go is apparently on some kind of secret mission (when Akira called him back before Soulburner was captured by BS) and this episode proves that the Ignises are so stupid that they are clever. Ai is out blogging to the world about his amazing advantages with Playmaker and then we have Earth who contacts Yusaku in a public chat room. I love how everyone in this episode even says that the Ignises are to smart to do something so stupid but no, they are just stupid. Don’t even get me started on Hayami when it came to this. My god, she is so frustrating. I seriously do not like her. She is supposed to be funny but all she is doing is pissing me off so much.

I think that about does it for this episode. Episode 67′s cast list only has five names, those being Yusaku, the three Ignises (Ai, Earth, and Aqua), and Linkuriboh (best character) so it should be mostly dueling and plot between Earth and Aqua from what the preview shows. Like I said, I’m interested to see what Earth’s resolve is going to be after this duel is over and since we haven’t gotten the summaries/titles for September yet, I really hope it is Earth going to Spectre after this because I really want that meeting now. If not, I’m not sure where the show is going to go from here after this duel. I am expecting another Soulburner duel to be confirmed though since it was just announced he is getting a Structure Deck based around him so they are going to have to show off more of his cards for that. Crossing my fingers for Soulburner vs Revolver still or maybe even a Soulburner vs Spectre duel now if we are trying to get Spectre to flip sides with Earth’s introduction into the story.

#vrains #vrains spoilers #Thoughts #theories

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charlottelan01 · 5 years ago

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A Rapid Launch to Artificial Cleverness For Regular people

Healthcare App Development ServicesRecently, artificial intelligence has been quite definitely the hot subject in Silicon Valley and the broader tech scene. To people of us involved with that scene it feels as though an unbelievable momentum is building around the topic, with all sorts of companies creating a.I. into the primary of their business. There's also been a growth within a.I.-related university courses which is observing a wave of extremely shiny new talent moving in to the employment market. But this isn't a straightforward case of confirmation bias - curiosity about this issue has been increasing since mid-2014.

The noise around the topic will still only increase, as well as for the layman it is all really perplexing. Based on what you read, you can think that we're headed for an apocalyptic Skynet-style obliteration as a result of frosty, calculating supercomputers, or that we are all heading to live permanently as solely digital entities in a few kind of cloud-based artificial world. Quite simply, either The Terminator or The Matrix are imminently going to become disturbingly prophetic.

AI is very good at certain specific tasks. But we're still a long way ... News of the future, now. ... The Power, and Limits, of Artificial Intelligence. Read about related to Live streaming App Development, Healthcare App Development Services, and much more. Visit the website for more information.

Should we worry or excited? And exactly what does it all indicate?

Will robots dominate the environment?

WHILE I jumped onto the A.I. bandwagon in past due 2014, I understood very little about any of it. Although I have already been associated with web technologies for over twenty years, I keep an English Books level and am more involved with the business enterprise and creative likelihood of technology than the research behind it. I used to be attracted to A.I. due to its positive potential, however when I read warnings from famous brands Stephen Hawking about the apocalyptic problems lurking inside our future, I normally became as worried as anybody else would.

THEREFORE I did what I normally do when something concerns me personally: I started studying it so that I possibly could understand it. Greater than a year's worthy of continuous reading, talking, hearing, viewing, tinkering and learning has led me to a fairly solid knowledge of what everything means, and I wish to spend within these text writing that knowledge in the hopes of enlightening anybody else who's curious but naively afraid of the amazing new world.

Oh, if you merely want the answer to the headline above, the answer is: yes, they'll. Sorry.

The way the machines have discovered to learn

The very first thing I uncovered was that artificial intelligence, as a business term, has actually been going since 1956, and has already established multiple booms and busts for the reason that period. In the 1960s the A.I. industry was bathing in a fantastic period of research with Traditional western governments, colleges and big businesses tossing large numbers of money at the sector in the expectations of creating a brave " new world ". However in the middle seventies, when it became obvious that A.I. had not been delivering on its guarantee, the industry bubble burst and the financing dry out. In the 1980s, as computer systems became popular, another A.I. growth surfaced with similar degrees of mind-boggling investment being poured into various enterprises. But, again, the sector failed to deliver and the inevitable bust implemented.

To comprehend why these booms didn't stick, you need to comprehend what artificial intelligence happens to be. The short response to that (and trust me, there are extremely lengthy answers out there) is a.I. is a variety of overlapping systems which broadly offer with the task of how to use data to produce a decision about something. It includes a great deal of different disciplines and technology (Big Data or Internet of Things, anyone?) but the most crucial one is an idea called machine learning.

Machine learning basically involves feeding computers huge amounts of data and permitting them to analyse that data to remove patterns that they can pull conclusions. You likely have seen this doing his thing with face acknowledgement technology (such as on Facebook or modern digital camera models and smartphones), where in fact the computer can identify and body human being faces in photos. To carry out this, the computer systems are referencing a massive collection of photos of people's faces and also have learned to identify the characteristics of the individual face from forms and colors averaged out more than a dataset of vast sums of different illustrations. This process is actually the same for just about any program of machine learning, from fraud recognition (analysing purchasing patterns from credit card purchase histories) to generative artwork (analysing patterns in paintings and arbitrarily generating pictures using those discovered patterns).

As you might imagine, crunching through enormous datasets to extract patterns takes a Large amount of computer handling power. In the 1960s they simply didn't have machines powerful enough to do it, which explains why that increase failed. In the 1980s the computer systems were powerful enough, however they uncovered that machines only learn effectively when the quantity of data being fed to them is large enough, plus they were not able to source large enough levels of data to give food to the machines.

Then came the internet. Not merely achieved it solve the computing problem forever through the enhancements of cloud processing - which essentially allow us to gain access to as much processors as we need at the touch of a button - but people on the internet have been producing more data every day than has have you been produced in the whole history of the world. The quantity of data being produced on the constant basis is completely mind-boggling.

What this signifies for machine learning is significant: we've plenty of data to seriously start training our machines. Think about the amount of photos on Facebook so you start to realize why their facial reputation technology is so accurate.

There is currently no major barrier (that people presently know of) stopping A.I. from attaining its potential. We are just beginning to work out what we should can do with it.

When the computers will think for themselves

There's a famous scene from the movie 2001: AN AREA Odyssey where Dave, the primary character, is gradually disabling the artificial intelligence mainframe (called "Hal") following the latter has malfunctioned and made a decision to try to kill all the humans on the area station it was designed to be running. Hal, the A.I., protests Dave's activities and eerily proclaims that it's scared of dying.

This movie illustrates one of the best fears surrounding A.I. generally, namely exactly what will happen after the computer systems begin to think for themselves instead of being managed by humans. Worries is valid: we already are dealing with machine learning constructs called neural systems whose structures derive from the neurons in the mind. With neural nets, the info is fed in and then prepared through a greatly complicated network of interconnected factors that build cable connections between ideas in quite similar way as associative individual memory does. Which means that computers are slowly needs to build-up a collection of not simply patterns, but also principles which ultimately business lead to the essential foundations of understanding rather than just recognition.

Imagine you are considering an image of somebody's face. When you initially see the image, lots of things happen in your brain: first, you recognise that it is an individual face. Next, you may recognise that it's female or male, young or old, dark or white, etc. You'll also have an instant decision from the human brain about whether you recognise the face, though sometimes the identification requires deeper considering depending about how often you have been subjected to this specific face (the knowledge of recognising a person however, not knowing right away from where). All this happens virtually instantly, and computer systems are already with the capacity of doing all this too, at almost the same quickness. For instance, Facebook will not only identify faces, but can also let you know who the facial skin belongs to, if said person is also on Facebook. Google has technology that can identify the competition, age group and other characteristics of the person structured just on the picture of their face. We've come quite a distance because of the 1950s.

#Healthcare App Development Services #Live streaming App Development

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eliaspsuedo · 7 years ago

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Fire Emblem Warriors thoughts

12-16 hours, DONE! At least with story mode, I still have history mode and all the unlockable characters to get through.

I’m sure the main Dynasty Warriors games are good. They should be if companies keep making spin-offs based on them, but my general thoughts on these Dynasty Warriors spin-offs is that they’re fun diversions but they get repetitive without any decent hook, either in the story or gameplay. I played Dynasty Warriors Gundam 1 back when I was young and Dragon Quest Heroes in preparation for this game. From what I remember of DW Gundam, it’s that I liked it for the first few hours till it got stale, but I’ll always remember the original mode. The interactions (always loved seeing the Zechs, Puru, and Domon), the scenarios, and it was the first time I saw stuff like G Gundam and most early-UC shows. Dragon Quest Heroes is one I really enjoyed for the gameplay and bits and pieces of character interaction. It felt a tower defense game, where you get medals to summon monsters as your sentry, it really livened up the combat. Lastly, because I was more familiar with DQ, I got to understand all the fanservice, references, and the joy seeing my favorite DQ characters interact with each other. So, now that is the context of where I’m coming from in terms of DW games is clear, what did I think of FE Warriors?

First up is the negatives of the game.

Story mode was pretty bare-bones, which I expected but I was hoping for a little more flavoring in what little meat I got. The plot was pretty average: Young Lords, Chaos Dragon, obvious betrayal, etc. all that stuff you’d see in a FE game, but what really made the whole story come out as “meager” for me, was the lack of cross-game interaction and involvement in the main plot. There are brief bits of cross-game interaction, like Lissa talking to Oboro or Camilla praising Robin, but they’re brief and there’s little impact on the plot. This is important because this is a chance to either flesh out the characters out of their element or give us a pair that we’d never thought about, but now we want to see more. I go back to the Zechs, Puru, and Domon group from DW Gundam. They were all from different series, had different alignments, and completely different personalities, but seeing them work together, and even get out of their comfort zone by acting out of character really made them stand-out.

But what about the Supports? That’s a problem, cause by relegating the fun and interesting interactions there the player will miss out and the story will suffer. You have to work to get them, which is harder since maps last longer, rates feels slower, and for all that hard work you get 3 minutes of character portraits talking to each other. It’s ok in regular FE because there’s more opportunities to raise levels, you get more talk, and it mostly helps side characters. Let me put it this way, would you rather see Frederick fix Leo’s collar in a text box and read about it, or fully animated while you’re in the game?

The characters in Warriors are should be an ensemble, meaning their skills, personalities, and talents are equally spread out and given a proper time to shine. This is not helped by what keeps the characters we want to see together, the main characters. My friend who only plays FE Heroes, likes Dynasty Warriors, and doesn’t like Rowan character design, helped me put it into words: “They feel like discount Sharena and Alfonse.” I agree with that, cause there’s not much to Rowan and Lianna. Aside from what they are (twins, royals of the kingdom, etc.), who they are is lost on me. Rowan gets off better, cause he has aspirations and liking to knights, but that doesn’t change the fact that they are pretty much there. Since a large chunk of the plot is about them, we got less time to get a feel out of the Heroes.

Going to DQ Heroes, I got more fun out of Luceus and Aurora, the male and female characters of that game. Now, Luceus thing was he prattled on complicated battle strategies (something I wish Robin did in the game) and took an analytical look, and Aurora was his foil that summed up his plan and just attacked and did what she felt was needed. What made them so fun to watch was how we saw those interactions during a supposedly tense moment, and it lightens up the mood and brings up the energy for hack and slash.

Another thing, voices are repetitive, especially in menus.

I saw a piece of trivia on how Rowan and Lianna were made sword users to help with the tutorials. I can see why they did it, but I have a better idea: how about making them wield all the different weapons? It lessens the oversaturation of sword users, it really make them feel like our avatar, and allows some variety in the animations. Though rigging up 5 different weapon animations seems like a hassle…

The last big negative is how many characters have little to do. This is most apparent with Marth’s group as, aside from some scenes including one with Darios, they really don’t do much in terms of the plot. In fact, now that I think about it, even the other groups don’t much to do either. The most I remember is moral support and speeches, but for active and direct actions? Not much. Takumi disarming Darios, the Shepherds teaching the group, Sakura finding a cure for Rowan, snapping Corrin out, and the Gleamstones, those all are out of the top of my head. I’m glad Celica and Lyn aren’t in Story mode cause they’d have even less to do! I doubt adding more character from the other FE games would help. With a plot this thin, I doubt we’d see more of, say, Ike that we’d see of any other character. I guess if you want to see the older cast, that’s what FE Heroes is for.

There definitely could’ve been more to the story. At best, it’s ok. I think the problem was the story was too serious. In the above DW spinoffs, while it had dramatic moments, there was a lighter or fun tone in all of them. Cause you’re reveling in all the carnage, fanservice, and characters. The story of Warriors didn’t feel like that, it just felt like another cut-out FE story, and that’s sad. If it joked around for more scenes (one or two scenes of Owain and Niles don’t count), maybe the bland story would’ve been more forgivable.

So that means I hated FE Warriors, right? NOPE

It actually surpassed my expectations!

A big part of that is the gameplay. With the added FE elements, it manages to turn the rather repetitive combat into a tactical action RPG. First, the weapon triangle means you have to think who engages what. You defeat enemies faster and easier when you have the advantage, and vice-versa. This means team composition is crucial, giving you some thought in who you pick. Do you add archers cause there are fliers? Do you add mages cause there are dragons? Can I deal with being at a disadvantage? Combine this with the second: Commanding units, and you got something just like a FE game. During gameplay you can command your units to attack certain enemies or defend forts. You cannot ignore this and power through, you have to manage your units to efficiently win. This means you have to constantly go to the map and give orders, lest you have the AI dilly-dally, and pay attention who’s attacking what. For example, Takumi is guarding that fort, so I’ll order Corrin to kill him but not let Camilla go anywhere near him since he’ll shoot her down (Fun Fact: I did defeat Takumi with Camilla). Add to the fact the AI, which can handle themselves competently (though you do have to wrestle with it a lot), takes a while to defeat enemies, then you really have to do a lot of the work with your 4 playable characters to get the job done. This leads to a very engaging and frantic juggling act, and makes the core gameplay really solid.

Next, the pair up system was a really useful feature. You pair up two units and that unit will be your sword and shield. It adds another layer of strategy to your fight since now you can swap between a sword and a lance user to easily adapt to the situation. It comes at a cost though, as it cuts your commandable units. So that’s another thing to consider, losing a possible defender. Plus, the dual guard makes attacks not hit you and it is a life saver when you’re completing Anna missions that require you to not get hit.

The maps were also impressive. Taking advantage of fliers ability to, well, fly as well as using Dragonveins to improve the map for you units. It’s a really nice touch. There weren’t too many spaces without enemies, so there’s always something to do.

Let’s talk technical, because on the Switch it’s amazing. A steady framerate while docked (you can pick between 30 or 60 FPS), and undocked it works just as well. Especially with local co-op. I was impressed on how it ran undocked with two players. A little choppier, but it remains consistent and having a buddy around enhances the tactical edge, since you have to coordinate your actions.

History Mode was another thing I like. I haven’t completed it since I’m underleveled, but I am enjoying it more than Story Mode. On a FE map (complete with sprites), you select enemies like they’re missions and defeating certain enemies expands your area. The challenge here is to get S-Ranks to get Master Seals and other good stuff. It’s missions like defeat 500 enemies, or only use magic users, is varied enough to keep me interested, and there’s some story bits in it that seems interesting. Female Robin makes an appearance in the Awakening map, with Male Robin and Chrom watching in astonishment, it’s an interesting angle to say the least.

Finally, it’s the polish. The stunning animation, how it runs, how good the cutscenes look, and just how it feels like Fire Emblem. I had the same feeling with FE Heroes. Different format, same series, wonderful feel.

So in the end, I wasn’t expecting much, but I got more than what I asked and I definitely recommend it. Now I’ll just wait for my beautiful wife, and hope the next FE game on the Switch comes soon!

Now, let’s do the odyssey~

#elias plays fire emblem warriors #fire emblem warriors #fire emblem warriors spoilers #DONE!

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dlamp-dictator · 8 years ago

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Allen Rambles About Tales of Berseria

AKA Allen’s Ramblings XIII, but I can’t really tag the fandom with that title now can I?

So yes, I’ve gotten in roughly 18 hours of Tales of Berseria and I loved just about everything in it so far. It’s been quite some time since I’ve gotten so engrossed in a game that I’ve played it for hours at a time like this. After dropping Tales of Xillia 2 and Tales of Zestiria because of some issues I had with their core mechanics I was a bit worry this game wouldn’t be worth it and just bought out of loyalty alone.

I’m glad to say I was wrong.

This game has been fun so far and nothing has made me frustrated or want to walk away from the game save for me taking a break. If you didn’t like Tales of Zestiria and were hesitant to buy this game because Berseria is basically a prequel to that game’s canon I can assure you Berseria is leagues better, and you don’t even need to know about Zestiria to enjoy it. Now I’m just gonna’ start rambling about all the reasons I’m liking this game so far, so... be ready for that.

The Good Stuff

60 FPS

Now I’m not the type of gamer to care about having high frame rates. I’m a console player, I'm not really able to care too often since frame rates are locked for me. However, the thing that kills my interest in a game the fastest is frame rate drop (looking at you Drakengard 3). Tales of Zestiria had a few moments of it, at least in terms of combat gameplay, but nothing glare. However, Tales of Berseria has kept a constant 60 FPS throughout, and it’s glorious. Everything is just so damn smooth and so damn fluidly. Even the fields are in 60 FPS and damn does it feel good watching these characters move in cutscenes and combat. I haven’t seen any major drops in framerate, so that’s good sign. Hope it continues.

Cristina Vee The Voice Cast

So I was going to just gush about Cristina Vee for, like, five paragraphs, but I think I should talk about the voice cast as a whole and keep this simple.

The first thing I should say that Tales of Berseria has both the English and Japanese dub available from the get go. Glad to see Namco is learning from NISA and having dual audio be a thing for their games. That said, I’m more of a dubs-over-subs kinda’ guy so I have nothing to say about the original voice cast. In terms of the English voice cast everyone sounds great, believable, and in character. Okay, Laphicet sounds a bit iffy in the beginning and Bienfu... well, he’s no Teepo and I’ll leave it at that. I’m... not exactly an expert on acting or voiceover so I won’t say more than that.

Though I’ve got to admit I’m surprise how well the woman that plays Noel Vermillion, Mio Akiyama, and Kotori Minami is the same woman playing this female Edgelord so well... then again Cristina Vee also voices Killua from HunterxHunter so...

Anyway, the cast is great.

Combat is Fun

This is kind of what killed my interest in Zestiria, the combat just... didn’t feel right to me. I felt too dependent on Armatization for both fighting and healing myself, and the element section for some characters was very lacking to me. It... wasn’t fun. And Xillia 2 basically made playing as Ludger a requirement since he could use all three physical damage types. That... wasn’t fun either since I mainly played as Alvin and Leia in the first game. Berseria’s combat is a little like Zestiria’s without the Armatization, which makes it a lot more fun me. I can customize my skills and moveset a little to cater to certain enemies, and everyone can more or less fight at both close and mid range. Also, up to four people can play this game again, which is great. Armatization didn’t really allow for 4-player coop in Zestiria, so now I can play this with Infall and Ninjaweeb when we get the chance to met up again.

Story and World Building is Compelling (so far)

I gotta’ say, I didn’t think they’d stick with the whole revenge plot this long. Most Tales Of games usually go from going a simple, but believable semi-medieval quest of justice, to stop the apocalypse and second coming of the Daedric Princes about half way through. In Berseria however, we still have the revenge plot going, it’s just that how we’re getting their and the reasons for Velvet’s revenge are getting more and more... confusing? Morally debatable? I mean, save for Velvet herself, everyone is pretty apathetic to her cause. The world building is sort of giving Velvet some justification for off the “big bad,” but... eh, it’s kind of hard for me to explain.

Speaking of the world, this game does world building leagues better than any Tales Of game I’ve played since maybe Symphonia... okay, Xillia. I’m really learning a lot about the world through the side conversation and the optional text they give. This game actually makes them worth reading through (and the voiced areas help too).

No Bad Camera Angles (Thank God)

They were a thing in Zestiria, they aren’t a thing anymore... thank God.

The Characters

Like every Tales Of game the characters in the main party are definitely the highlight. Velvet’s Edgelord personality surprisingly meshes well with the rest of the cast. I don’t want to post any spoilers to the game so far, but I’ll just give you the quick rundown of every character.

Velvet is a female Edgelord without the angst and is socially inept at times.

Laphicet is the precious cinnamon bun of the group that surprisingly never hinders the party despite being the child of the group.

Magilou is... Magilou. I think her character trailer says more about her than I ever could.

Rokurou is Brokurou and I think that basically sums up his character nicely.

Eizen is the voice of reason that helps add some more world building with his knowledge of... the world, being a well versed pirate and all.

And Eleanor... I’d be spoiling the first fourth of the game if I said anything about her, but she fits into the party surprisingly well.

The Not So Good Stuff

Okay, so... I’m just gonna’ list off all the not so good stuff of Berseria now. These are mostly nitpicks, but they’re still worth discussing. Keep in mind I’ve been playing Tales Of games since Symphonia, so I might come off as an elitist when I start listing off these points.

While the combat is better than Zestriria it’s still a little too simple for my taste. It basically boils down to mashing the X button once you’ve customized it to fit enemy weaknesses. It works, it’s engaging, but Tales of Hearts R and Tales of Graces F did it a bit better.

The game feels like it wants you to play as only Velvet. She can heal herself quickly by spamming her claw attacks, and her aggressive playstyle fits the general combat flow of Berseria better than most of the other characters save for maybe Eleanor.

Playing spellcasters like Laphicet and Magilou doesn’t really feel as fun as playing Cheria and Malak in Graces F or Beryl in Hearts R... I dunno’, I think that’s just me, but its worth saying.

There isn’t a main healer in the party (so far). Eleanor, Magilou, and Laphicet all have some healing artes (one healing arte each really), but not enough to really keep people alive during the harder boss fights for me.

The game feels like it really doesn’t want you to grind. Being low leveled in an area isn’t too bad so long as you know how the combat works and can sidestep effectively, but at this point I’m roughly level 25 and I’m in an area with level 32 enemies so... my luck/skill is starting to run out.

Duel Boss Fights are hell and I swear the AI cheats... that’s not a nitpick, that’s just my opinion.

I don’t think anyone has artes that effectively attack human enemies, and that makes those duel boss fights a pain sometimes.

This game still only has 4 main elements and its annoying... but more manageable than Zestiria.

So yeah, save for some nitpicks, this game is great and if you haven’t gotten it yet... I’d still wait for a price drop since I don’t like spending more than 50 bucks on a game.

#tales of berseria #your dictator is speaking

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aurelliocheek · 5 years ago

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The Making of The Surge 2: Germany’s Best Action-RPG

Deck13 is one of the most successful developers in Germany. A studio that is not afraid to compete with the big ones. Read all about the development of the latest Deck13 masterpiece.

Action-RPGs are among the most popular, but also the most elaborate games. Whether Mass Effect, The Witcher or the Souls games from From Software, huge teams work for years to inspire as many millions of players as possible with their works.

In this illustrious squad, games “Made in Germany” are in short supply. But there is one studio that has been battling strong international competition for years: Deck13! The Frankfurt based studio was founded in 2001 by Jan Klose together with three former shareholders, who have since left the games industry. In 2009 with Venetica and five years later with Lords of the Fallen Deck13 already delivered solid action RPGs. Still, especially with the “Science-Fiction-Dark-Souls” The Surge 2017 they became the favourite of critics and players alike. The control with a focus on targeting body parts was outstanding and offered many tactical possibilities.

Two and a half years later, the successor The Surge 2 followed with an even bigger, more varied game world and even more deadly boss opponents. The Surge 2 and developer Deck13 were nominated for five awards at Deutscher Entwicklerpreis 2019: Best Game Design, Best Game, Best Graphics, Best Story and Best Studio. In our cover story, we’ll take a detailed look at the development of The Surge 2. The creators talk in detail about level design, AI improvements and much more.

We will start The Making of The Surge 2 with an interview with Jan Klose, Founder and Managing Director at Deck13 Interactive. More to come in the next few days!

Making Games: How did you celebrate the success of The Surge? Jan Klose: The last few months of development felt a bit exhausting, so I think there was a great sense of relief when The Surge was finally out and getting really good reviews. We had a big summer party in the office yard where we celebrated with our families and with friends from all over the industry. It was great to finally see people playing the game, and we constantly watched streamers, commenting on their progress and action. It was great to see that they enjoyed the game so much.

Did your team grow after The Surge was so successful? A bit, but we didn’t want to become too large. We’re around 70 people in our Frankfurt office right now. In fact, there were several new hires but we also tried to stay flexible and a bit familiar. Therefore, instead of employing a much larger workforce, we expanded our outsourcing contacts so that we would have specific people available at the time when we would need them.

You’ll need to carefully study your enemies, rather than blindly rushing and wildly swinging your weapon without focus – even the weakest of enemies can be deadly!

How did you approach the development of The Surge 2? What have you done differently? What things did you keep? First and foremost, we tried to gather as much player feedback as possible. Having so many gamers out there streaming The Surge and talking about it gave us such a wealth of information that it wasn’t quite so easy to find out the most important points. Also, reading feedback is one thing but turning what people don’t like into the right new features is another pair of shoes. Overall though we saw that people wanted more variety, more different features, or to sum it up: More choice. Some parts of The Surge 1 felt just a little limited, for example, the possible paths to move through a level or the options how to defeat a boss. Sometimes there was just that one solution but RPGs live from the variety and player choice. So we decided to offer just that in the next part, which was easier said than done! Regarding level design, people actually enjoyed the layout of The Surge 1, especially the shortcuts leading you back to the Ops rooms, but players also got lost in the larger levels. So we worked a lot on the level structure, offering more pathways through a level and also giving more guidance, both visually and with supporting tools like maps on the walls. Regarding combat, we added way more possibilities to fight, a new blocking mechanism, better-ranged combat options (which also worked in the boss fights this time!) and also more and different equipment. So that players were able to choose their very own playstyle instead of just playing the game the one way the designers intended them to.

Have you achieved all your goals with The Surge 2? I think we achieved a lot, but some things still fell short in our opinion, even if they weren’t all on top of peoples’ list. For example, while people enjoyed more freedom in regards to when to tackle what part of the game and while we offered more characters and side quests, we couldn’t attach players to the background story and main mission the way we intended to. And regarding enemies, we aimed for a larger variety in humanoid foes, but in the end, we weren’t able to offer everything we wanted to. Some just feel a bit too similar for our taste. But all in all I feel that The Surge 2 is a major step up from the first game, and that was quite an achievement for our team.

What problems did you encounter in the process in general, and how did you deal with them? Doing a part 2 game was way harder than we imagined. As a developer you feel like you’re in a comfortable situation because you’ve done it before but that’s also the major problem: While people want the things back they loved in the first game, they also want a totally new and fresh experience in the new game, and that’s something that’s close to impossible to achieve at the same time. What helped a lot was that one of our early premises was to change where the game takes place: Moving from a factory complex to a city gave us an environment that was fresh but could still cater for many of the mechanics from the first part.

More abilities, weapons, implants, and drones give players a vast arsenal to build their character with.

How do you feel about crunchtime? What experiences have you had with crunchtime in recent years? Personally I don’t think that people are very good at accomplishing a great project without a lot of very hard work, no matter the industry, and I also think that it’s happening every time that things are just not finished when they should be and still there’s a deadline that can’t be shifted any further due to outside constraints. So work has to be increased in order to meet the goal. However, this should never be an excuse for bad project planning and for not reducing stressful times as much as possible, as well as not offering ways to make up for it afterwards. We’re always trying to work with safety time buffers and to have a good overview of the project, and project planning is very high on our list. While we can’t always avoid work-intense phases, we always try to do as much as possible in order to provide a healthy and fair work environment. I know that we’re not always achieving this goal, but I think we got a lot better at it over the past few years, and I hope that the compensation we offer feels fair and well balanced.

How did the collaboration with your publisher Focus Home Interactive go? You seem to be quite satisfied with Focus with its predecessor, was that also the case with The Surge 2? Yes, that’s why we’ll also start a new project with them. I’d say that Focus is the best publisher we worked with so far, or maybe just the best fit for our team and how we work. They have a lot of faith in our creative decisions and we take their feedback and criticism very seriously, trying to deliver the best possible game. Also, we think that Focus is doing a tremendous job to build up studios and brands in the “AA” game section, just below the major blockbusters but still with significant budgets and great marketing support.

Rampant machines roam the rubble, military forces carry out mysterious plans, and survivors are left to fend for themselves.

You use your own engine for The Surge. Nowadays this is rather unusual with Unreal and Unity almost being omnipresent. Are you still satisfied with this decision? Do you plan to license an engine in the future? Having our own engine still has many benefits for us. For example when there’s a platform change (e.g. from a Playstation 4 to a Playstation 5), we don’t need to rely on a third party to have their tech available early; we can go there ourselves. This helped us big time when we moved from PS3 and Xbox 360 to the current generation with the game Lords Of The Fallen. But while this is great and while we can deliver exactly those tools to our team that they need for the current project, we’re at the same time not programming everything ourselves: We do use several middleware components in order to complete our engine framework.

In our cover story for The Surge (2018), you self-critically admitted that you didn’t always manage to capture the player emotionally with the story in the game. What was your approach to The Surge 2 and how satisfied are you with the result? I’d say that we’re still not where we wanted to be. With The Surge 2 we tried quite a different approach and created a stronger main story with more memorable moments and cinematics during gameplay. But on the other hand, we emphasized the free decision-making for the player, starting with a character creator and a lot of side quests. I think there was the problem: We offered more freedom for the player but then didn’t provide the right focus for all the world background, character building and quest goals to really make the player care for their actions and the NPCs in Jericho City. I think we learned another lesson and I think that we can still be much better and more focused in the way we want to pull the players into the deep lore of the game world and make them care more for their in-game decisions.

The player gets support from a combat drone, which can be equipped with guns, explosives and other deadly technologies.

How satisfied are you with the reviews, the feedback from the community and the sales figures so far? We’re very happy with the reviews and community feedback. We have the feeling that we did somethings right, and overall the reviews are better than The Surge 1, and that’s cool, it really feels like significant progress, and the higher the ratings get, the harder it is to get some better average score. Besides that, we were especially praised by streamers, but of course they weren’t only happy, there was also some well-justified criticism that we’ll address for sure, for example with patches and future updates to the game, in upcoming DLCs… and in the games to come!

How do you generally see the current situation of games funding in Germany? What has improved, what needs to be improved? Well, there’s a bit more seed funding available now on a state level, but that doesn’t always prove effective. Generally not much has improved for higher-budget productions like The Surge 2. And that’s a big problem. When there’s millions to collect in France, in Canada, in the U.S., how are we ever to see big players in Germany? Why are there well-known games brands to be found almost everywhere in Europe but not in Germany? Does Germany want to build up a game development industry at all? I really doubt that, or something would happen. The government funding as high as 50 million Euros per year is okay, but still not a game-changer. It doesn’t look too promising in that respect; studios are generally left alone. It’s no wonder that there aren’t any big German publishers left, and it’s no coincidence that our publisher is from France and not from Germany. Well, at least the money stays in Europe!

Jan Klose Managing Director

Jan is one of the founders of Deck13 Interactive and Managing Director of the successful company. Deck13 started in 2001 as a traditional development studio with a focus on adventure games, but they soon moved into the RPG genre. With the “Deck13 Spotight” label the team established a publishing service in 2014 to help independent developers bring their projects to wider audiences.

The post The Making of The Surge 2: Germany’s Best Action-RPG appeared first on Making Games.

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hermanwatts · 5 years ago

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SUPERVERSIVE: A Look at Slice of Life

Slice of life was never my favorite genre, but there are a surprisingly large number of excellent slice of life anime out there, some of them among my favorite shows of all time. Below I’ll highlight some of the best.

JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure Part 4: Diamond is Unbreakable

Yes, this is slice of life and no, I’m not being ironic. Diamond is Unbreakable is the fourth part of the JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure Saga. This time around our protagonist is Josuke Higashikata. Josuke is a typical Japanese high school student living with his single mother in the seemingly quiet town of Morioh. He’s popular with the girls, has great hair, and is generally a pretty swell, if goofy and a little mischievous, guy.

Naturally, nothing is as it seems. It turns out Josuke is the son of Joseph Joestar, the protagonist of JoJo’s part 2. He has the Stand ability Crazy Diamond, which has the power to break apart and repair whatever it can punch. And not everything in the little town of Morioh is quite as quiet as it seems. In fact, you might say it’s all a little bizarre…

JoJo’s tends to tackle a different genre every part, and while slice of life isn’t the first thing you think of when you think of JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure, it is a surprisingly effective fit. The cast of part 4 is the most likable of all the JoJo casts, and this is in no small part due to the time we spend seeing them hang out and go on their weekly adventures. Despite having a spectacular villain in Yoshikage Kira (whose episodes are admittedly the best parts of the show), it’s that slice of life, teenagers-just-messing-around vibe that makes part 4 feel so unique. Of course, it helps that part 4 also has some of the coolest Stand battles in the entire series as well. Highly recommended.

Ancient Magus Bride

Chise Hatori is a sixteen year old Japanese girl who has totally given up on life. Unloved, unwanted, and alone, she makes the decision to sell herself into slavery, under the theory that at least the person who buys her would want her around.

At the auction she is bought for an enormous sum of money by a mysterious mage with a…cow?…horse?…skull in place of a head. The mage, Elias, is hundreds of years old, and after giving Chise a home in Britain and treating her with kindness, he tells her his true motive: To make her his apprentice and, one day, his bride.

“Ancient Magus Bride” is an utterly gorgeous show, both visually and musically, with one of my all-time favorite soundtracks – “Here” has to be one of the greatest OP songs of all time. It is impossible to listen to it and not understand the sort of show you’re about to see, to get a sense of the otherworldly fantasy that makes up its heart.

And heart is the name of the game. “Ancient Magus Bride” is full of heart. It takes its time, building up the unusual relationship between Chise and Elias and expanding its world. Luckily, both Chise and Elias – especially Elias – are compelling and fascinating characters.

But it’s no secret that the true draw of Ancienct Magus Bride is its setting. “Ancient Magus Bride” technically takes place in the modern day but feels timeless. The way it captures the world of fairies and magic is dead-on perfect: Dangerous, mysterious, and inhuman, but beautiful too. The rules are never fully explained but it all makes an intuitive sort of sense: This is just how magic works.

In its second half the show drops in quality a bit, but it’s nothing extreme – certainly not a “Death Note” level collapse. In fact I wouldn’t call it a collapse at all. It remains high quality until the end, though I have a big issue with a writing decision made in the finale. But that’s ultimately a small part of what is overall a fantastic, and highly superversive, show. VERY much recommended.

Dennou Coil

Dennou Coil follows the daily lives of a group of children who live in the fictional city of Daikoku. The children have adventures and navigate school and relationships. Nothing special. Your typical kid show….with one difference.

“Dennou Coil” takes place in a cyberpunk future where special glasses overlay a virtual world on top of the real one. The virtual world has realistic animal AI and is incredibly tactile, seemingly a part of the landscape as much as physical objects. Hacking is illegal, but in the kids’ world, hackers are at the top of the social totem pole. And maybe there’s more to the virtual world than meets the eye. Maybe it’s not so virtual after all…

Ah, I love “Dennou Coil”. It’s absolutely fantastic, up there with my very top tier of shows along with standouts like “Death Note”, “Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood”, and “Silver Spoon”, among others. The setting is one of the coolest I have EVER seen. “Ordinal Scale”, which also used this idea, didn’t do it justice. All of the ramifications, good and bad, of such a system are thoroughly explored.

The animation and art style are also top notch. I’ve seen comparisons to Ghibli but I think the style is closer to Mamoru Hasoda than anything Ghibli has done. It feels incredibly distinct, and very fun to look at.

At the risk of sounding kind of social justice-y I also like the fact that the main character isn’t your typical adorable moe girl. She isn’t ugly or anything like that, but she’s average looking and kind of nerdy. It’s a refreshing change.

The mystery that undergirds the plot is also fantastic. The episodes leading up to the finale get increasingly intense, reaching an explosive and incredibly superversive climax. This is more than a merely excellent show, but a transcendently brilliant one up there with the greatest anime of all time. I can’t recommend it enough.

Haibane Renmei

An giant egg pops up out of nowhere in a mysterious town called Glie. A girl, who is soon given the name Rakka, hatches from the egg, where she grows wings after hatching. The girl has no memories of her life before she ended up in the egg, yet is able to talk and function normally; all she can remember is a vague dream of falling.

We learn quickly that this is a normal occurrence in the town. The winged people – who are soon given halos as well – are known as the Haibane. They live in abandoned buildings and can take or use whatever items the regular humans leave behind. Despite this arrangement the humans treat the Haibane kindly, and the Haibane in turn work various jobs throughout the town, up until the day they take their “Day of Flight” and leave forever. Throughout the show Rakka slowly learns more about the origins and secrets of the Haibane and about her best friend, Reki, the oldest Haibane who hasn’t yet taken her Day of Flight.

That’s a long set up for a pretty high concept show, and to its credit the show takes advantage of that concept. “Haibane Renmei” starts off as a dreamlike and fascinating slice of life, but as the story goes on and some of the mysteries slowly get answers the bits and pieces add up into a sort of psychological mystery centering around Rakka and Reki.

It’s hard to say anything more about it, because what makes this show great – and it is great – is best experienced without knowing about it in advance. It is an in-depth exploration of the themes of redemption and forgiveness, ending with the conclusion that life really does have inherent value and meaning. The slice of life elements are interesting because the setting and concepts being explored are interesting, but what brings it to the next level is the nuance and intelligence with which it explores its themes and resolves its character arcs. Once again, this is very highly recommended.

Silver Spoon

I already wrote about “Silver Spoon” at length, so I’m keeping this short. “Silver Spoon” is the story of Hachiken, an extremely intelligent first year high schooler who succumbed to intense pressure from his overbearing father and bombed his entrance exams. At the recommendation of a counselor he makes the decision to go to an agricultural school, presumably to get a new perspective on life. And that’s the story. No fancy sci-fi or supernatural elements here.

Mostly what I want to do now is clarify something: I don’t think I made it clear enough that I REALLY loved this show. It’s so good, it shares an honor with “Magi” as being the only unfinished anime whose story I decided to continue through the manga (which is also fantastic and highly recommended – man I hope it gets a season 3 one day…).

The characters are fantastic, and it shares the theme from “Fullmetal Alchemist”, Arakawa’s other masterpiece, of exploring the value of life, this time through the food we eat. The soundtrack is gorgeous and it has some of my favorite tracks in anime, like “Hello Especially”, which somehow manages to have a Japanese-country twang to it. Like “Dennou Coil” before it, this is a slice of life that transcends the category of “Great”. It is among the best anime I’ve ever seen, and I can’t recommend it enough. Considering it’s me we’re talking about, you KNOW it has to be great at everything it does if I’m recommending it despite it having no real action, magic or gadgets. It really is THAT good.

Robotics;Notes

Robotics;Notes is the story of Kaito and Aki, two childhood friends, now in high school, who start a robotics club with the goal of building a giant robot of their own and winning a robotics competition. As the story unfolds a conspiracy is discovered involving the company that makes the robotics ubiquitous in society, ultimately culminating in a one on one battle to, uh…actually I’ll let you all see that one for yourself.

Nobody ever really remembers “Robotics;Notes” exists, yet it was a big enough deal at the time it came out to get a dub. It’s too bad, because I honestly love the show. What makes it are Kaito and Aki. Kaito starts off looking dangerously like he’s going to become unbearable quickly, with the “gimmick” that he’s obsessed with video games and will only do favors for someone if they can beat him in a game. It becomes clear pretty quickly, however, that Kaito’s too-cool-for-school attitude is a persona he uses to cover up the fact that he’s a compassionate and kind person, willing to go out of his way to help people and prepared to make sacrifices for those he’s closest to.

Aki is great as well. She’s your typical super-cheerful anime heroine, whose boundless optimism and drive to accomplish her goals move much of the plot. Like with Kaito, this exterior masks an interior depth, with her optimism fueled largely by a deep-seated fear of failure and the ever-present feeling that she’s somehow disappointing her more intelligent older sister, whose parting words before leaving their home constantly haunt her. The likability of the leads is the main thing that keeps the viewer invested in their story.

The conspiracy underlying the whole plot ends up getting convoluted and more than a little absurd, but I can’t deny that it lead to more than one great scene and a cool as hell finale. It’s a shame this show has become so forgotten, because I highly recommend it.

Interesting side note: “Robotics;Notes” is one of a series of shows that takes place in the larger “Steins;Gate” universe, but outside of a couple of very subtle references this can basically be ignored completely.

I have watched two other slice of life anime, “Clannad” and “March Comes in Like a Lion”. While neither was bad, per se, I did not like either show for a variety of reasons I may go into another time.

I can confirm that, for those of you who like such things, each show has a very good dub but “Silver Spoon”, which has no dub at all, and “Diamond is Ubreakable” (“Clannad” also has a horrendous dub, incidentally). “Diamond is Unbreakable” may have a good dub, but I can’t tell you as I’ve never seen it.

I’m quite glad I decided to give slice of life a shot in the end. If I hadn’t, I’d have missed out on some excellent shows. Give them a shot and see for yourself.

Next up: Recommended comedies. It’s coming!

SUPERVERSIVE: A Look at Slice of Life published first on https://sixchexus.weebly.com/

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The best PC games around – essential pick-ups from every genre

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The best PC games around – essential pick-ups from every genre

The best PC games

With unparalleled accessibility and endless upgradability, it’s no wonder that millions of gamers around the world think PC is the best place to play. Because of the platform’s history, curating a list of every great PC game throughout the ages would be a tough task, so we’ve put together a listing of modern titles that’re the best PC games to spend your time with right now.

So, in alphabetical order, here’re 50 of the best PC games around.

Cities Skylines- Honorable mentions: Prison Architect, Tropico 5

In an alternate universe where EA and Maxis didn’t drop the ball, this slot is occupied by the latest and greatest SimCity release. In fact, Cities: Skylines developer Colossal Order was miserably certain its project wouldn’t be greenlit thanks to SimCity’s announcement- but its subsequent pratfall only stimulated Paradox more eager to bring PC gamers what they wanted most.

The best way to describe Cities: Skyline is” SimCity but make use of people who liked the same things about the series as you did “. The indie squad has demonstrated tremendous commitment to ongoing support, too.

Civilization 6- Honorable mentions: Total War Rome 2, Endless Legend

Dissatisfied with the style of the world right now? Fire up Civ 6 and it’ll be 2019 before you know it.

This latest entry into Sid Meier’s Civilization series is an astonishing day sink, with the possibility to spend more than 1,000 hours across multiple games scrapping your style to global domination using strategy, diplomacy, and, when everything else fails, all out war.

The AI can be shonky at times- confounding itself and get stuck in the same flurry of actions- but there’s a lot to love here. Each of the present 24 civilization leaders are colourfully animated and bursting with personality, and there’s enough variety in their strengths, weakness and unique divisions to make playing different nations fun.

CS GO- Honorable mentions: Arma 3

To be honest we didn’t think anything could ever out Counter-Strike: Source as the go-to competitive shooter on PC( and for some people, both CS: S and the original CS remain their primary shooter ), but good ongoing support on top of the experience and panache of Valve’s development team has proved us wrong. Counter-Strike: Global Offensive is now one of the top eSports titles in current circulation, and a damn good time even for the less competitively-minded.

Global Offensive was also available on consoles but like every Valve game support outside of Steam was restriction. Steam is where you’ll find the best of the best, if you fancy being humbled.

Cuphead- Honorable mentions: Nuclear Throne, Binding of Isaac: Afterbirth

Because of its unique art style, Cuphead has been on just about everyone’s radar for years. Thankfully, when it ultimately reached, the game was just as good at it seemed.

Cuphead is tough but accessible, and while the amount of projectiles on-screen can reach near bullet-hell different levels of madness, it entirely nails that artery-bursting, desk-smashing difficulty that has you fistpumping with every hard won victory.

DOOM- Honorable mentions: Wolfenstein 2, Bioshock Infinite

If your rig can run it, DOOM on max sets is a beautiful sight to behold. Well, as beautiful as monstrous demons from hell getting ripped to pieces with a chainsaw can be.

Fast-paced and ultra-violent, DOOM isn’t for the weak of belly- not just because the enemies leak strawberry jam like a poorly packed barbecue, but the ardor with which Doomguy doles out infernal punishment from a first-person view can leave some feeling nauseous.

This is no-holds-barred action at its eye-widening, engrossing best.

DoTA 2- Honorable mentions: Heroes of the Storm

DoTA- and MOBAs in general- might have started life as a Warcraft 3 mod, but with DoTA 2, it’s blossomed into a fully-fledged cornerstone of the eSports MOBA scene- with nearly $140 million won as prize money to date.

There’s a vast amount to get to grips with in DoTA 2, where developers Valve attained the trade-off of a steep learning curve for unparalleled depth. Once you’re up to velocity with the meta heroes and builds though, DoTA 2 offers a tense and engrossing competitive experience.

Dark Souls 3- Honorable mentions: Nioh, All of Dark Souls

Souls is a special series, and picking simply one game to represent it on a list is tough. It’s fitting then that Dark Souls 3 plays like a greatest hits, with all the strengths and weaknesses that come with that tag. It might not be as zeitgeist-shaping as the original, or have the same context or subtlety, but everything that you fell in love with is there in spades.

Dark Souls 3 also manages to be the most accessible Souls game, but doesn’t lose any of the challenge. The motion velocity might be quicker and some of the systems streamlined to be less confusing, but that doesn’t detract from the same core loop-the-loop that sits as the foundation for the whole series- die, and get ready to die again until you achieve glorious victory.

Dishonored 2- Honorable mentions: Deus Ex Mankind Divided, Prey

Immersive sims are synonymous with PC, and Dishonored 2 utterly nails the genre. Each map is a rich sandbox where you’re given a simple objective and how you reach it is your choice- leaving you to use every weapon in your arsenal as you see fit.

This means that every level plays almost like a puzzle to be solved, and you’ll be constantly be thinking, “what happens if I do this”, and “what happens if I go over there? ”

Dishonored 2’s dual playable results, Emily Kaldwin- the usurped queen- and Corvo Attano- the grizzled royal defender- have distinct power defines. Emily’s youthful indignation lends itself to a more destructive, violent playstyle, whereas Corvo is more adept at remaining undetected. This only adds even more replayability to a game that are currently has a whole host of different solutions.

Divinity: Original Sin 2- Honorable mentions: Tyranny, Shadowrun Dragonfall

For more than 15 years, Belgian maestro Larian Studios has been churning out quality RPGs in the old-school mould of genre classics. The recently published entry, Divinity: Original Sin 2, is a sequel to 2014 ’s Divinity: Original Sin- which itself is a prequel to the 2002 OG Divine Divinity- and a high water-mark for the already acclaimed series.

Original Sin 2 expertly mixes its nuanced tactical combat and memorable narratives and side quests with an incredible sum of option. The variety of potential interactions that can arise in every situation mean that the game’s formula bides fresh for the entirety of the its considerable length.

What’s more, you can party up with three friends and explore in four-player drop-in co-op, and this is an experience well worth sharing.

Dream Daddy- Honorable mentions: Huniepop, Danganronpa: Trigger Happy Havok

The world of dating sims can be a strange one, but the best in the genre approach their characters with a heartwarming earnestness that makes them a pleasure to befriend.

In Dream Daddy you play as a single Dad who’s upped sticks to a new township with your daughter, Amanda, in tow. In a fortuitous turn of events, your new home Maple Bay is stuffed full of eligible daddies just waiting to be wooed. With Amanda’s blessing, you can choose to date any of seven hunky parents, revealing more and more about their personality as your relationship grows.

There are normal and secret ends to unlock for each perfect pop too; enough to keep any would-be matchmaker busy.

Elite Dangerous- Honorable mentions: Star Citizen

A few years ago it felt like you couldn’t move for all the upcoming space sims, but very few of them have materialised in any form a sane person would pay a retail price for. Elite: Dangerous practically wins over its genre buddies by default just by being a playable, full-featured game you can buy as opposed to something you’re allowed to look at in trailers while gibbering for a release date.

It’s also great, though, which is why it’s here. We don’t have much hope for the console constructs, to be honest; what you want is a powerful old beast of a PC, all the situates turned up as high as they can go, and a gorgeous universe to go and explore. At least one of those things is yours for the taking, courtesy of Frontier Developments, and nearly justify an investment in the first one so the second becomes a potential.

Europa Universalis 4- Honorable mentions: Hearts of Iron 4

Ah, grand strategy. How better to live out your imperial fantasies than at the helm of an endlessly growing empire that responds totally to your beck and bellow.

While Civilization V also occupies this list, Europa Universalis 4 stands out because of its straighter representation of history and the world as we know it, rather than a haphazardly made map each time. You’re still guiding your nation through centuries of diplomacy, trade, and warfare, but now there are random events to contend with as well. These can reflect the real world challenges that a nation in your opt part of the world might face, or come entirely out of leftfield- meaning there’s always room for a spanner in the works of your best laid plans.

To deplete Europa Universalis would take hundreds of hours on its own, but add the ceaseless release of new DLC packs and- even if they’re a bit pricey – you’ve got a strategy game for the ages.

EVE Online- Honorable mentions: Warframe, Black Desert Online

EVE Online is like nothing else out there. Where most games are lorded for their deep worldbuilding and painstakingly crafted lore, EVE’s greatest legends played out in real period between real players.

Hardcore members of this profession-based space sim have formed sophisticated corporations which fuel the game’s functioning economy. In times of peace the organic-feeling world is a marvel of role-playing. But when shit makes the fan, EVE Online plays host to more political intrigue and calculated backstabbing than a glossy series of HBO drama.

If you’re in the market for a “living, breathing world” that’s more than a marketing buzzword, EVE might be your purse.

Fallout 4- Honorable mentions: Skyrim

One of, if not the, best thing about Bethesda RPGs is the exceptional community of modders that painstakingly add hundreds of hours of fun to the vanilla experience with their hard work. So when the “Enhanced Edition” of Softworks’ previous highwatermark, The Elder Scrolls 5: Skyrim, was released and broke years of mod support, it was a weep shame.

It induces sense then to recommend one of Bethesda’s more recent endeavors, Fallout 4, which not only offers another romp into the transcendently awesome Fallout universe, but updates the underlying game mechanics enough to finally make it a competent shooter as well.

While the newly-voiced main character hampers some of the game’s ability to provide flexible role playing, the main narrative is interesting, the side quests are superb, and there are plenty of secrets and pop-culture references to unearth in all regions of the Commonwealth.

FF14 – Honorable mentions: Elder Scrolls Online

Final Fantasy 14 is one of the greatest redemption narratives in gaming. After a bumpy launch which find the game scrapped just after release in favour of a wholly revamped version, Final Fantasy 14 re-emerged with a reworked interface and gameplay, better optimisation and a snazzy new tagline: A Realm Reborn.

Now with virtually 12 million characters generated worldwide, FF14 is a thriving MMO community that’s merely been bolstered by the release of the critically-well-received Stormblood expansion.

The main depict for new players is the story missions, which tell the suitably grand tale of war between the adventurers of Eorzea and the invading Garlean Empire. But there are plenty of side quests- called Leves- to combat through as well; each oozing with that trademark Final Fantasy panache.

Fortnite- Honorable mentions: Team Fortress 2, Totally Accurate Battlegrounds

Fortnite is the biggest game running, and it’s not even on Steam. It’s been a slow-burn, but right now, Fortnite seems unassailable in its global domination, violating well and truly into the mainstream thanks to its popularity on mobile and with kids and streamers alike.

While the paid Save the World PvE game mode is fun enough and a good way to earn free V-bucks, it’s the F2P battle royale mode that’s taking the world by storm. The combining of a low barrier of entry, a simple to learn but hard to master gameplay loop-the-loop, and tense player-versus-player opposes constructs Fortnite a compelling proposition.

GTA 5- Honorable mentions: Saints Row 4, Sleeping Dogs

Yes, GTA 5 is on our PS4 and Xbox One best of listings. Yes, it’ll likely go on every listing we ever stimulate. It is just that good. It is a titan of our times.

But also it’s especially good on PC. Even though Rockstar has not been staggeringly supportive of modding( arguably fair enough, given how hard it must be to police GTA Online ), the GTA 5 mod scene is a gift that maintains on giving. The video editor has enabled some cracking bits of art and craft. And, of course, on Ultra decideds the PC version of GTA 5 outshines all the others. Sorry.

Gunpoint- Honorable mentions: The Swapper, Sperlunky

First there was nothing. Then there was Gunpoint. Now there are imitators- but nothing does it quite as well as Tom Francis did that first time, even if you can knock it over pretty quickly with your whizz-kid brain.

Gunpoint is a sort of stealth puzzle game in which players must infiltrate various houses without being identified by guards. Making use of existing securities systems and eventually even rewiring grids altogether is far more satisfying than merely ninja rolling across a doorway.

Hearthstone Witchwood expansion- Honorable mentions: The Elder Scrolls Legends, Chronicle: Runescape Legends, Gwent

Hearthstone, with each passing expansion, cements its place at the head of the card battling table further and further. While its original appeal might’ve had more to do with WoW nostalgia than anything else, it’s grown into its own distinct entity, and is now just as popular with gamers that’ve never set foot in Azeroth.

Regularly updated with new cards- like the most recent Witchwood expansion- Hearthstone manages to stay fresh by constantly introducing new mechanics. The RNG can be frustrating and the implementation of the new standard competitive format, which rotates cards out of circulation after a certain amount of time, can make it difficult to maintain a competitive deck if you’re not playing all the time. But the additions of the Dungeon Run solo adventure Monster Hunt mode have stimulated it immeasurably easier to enjoy the game for cheap.

Hollow Knight- Honorable mentions: Ori and the Blind Forest, Owlboy

Hollow Knight is a beautiful indie Metroidvania filled with lush animation, tight platforming and tense action. You play as The Knight, a mysterious character exploring the ruinings of the insectoid kingdom of Hollownest.

Despite its nebulous narrative, Hollow Knight is gripping thanks to its absorbing environments and original character design.

It’s not an easy game either, owing to some twitchy platforming and combat. A lot of foes won’t go down without a fight, and you’re almost certainly going to die a couple of times on some of Hollow Knight’s more difficult boss.

Homeworld Remastered Collection- Honorable mentions: Stellaris

If VG247 expanded its editorial remit to cover classic games, this would be a very different listing- but in both parallel cosmoes, Homeworld builds the grade. One of a number of properties put up for auction when THQ folded, support for Homeworld had well and truly ended and you couldn’t even buy the classic games any more, so the fanbase was hungry both for a re-release and for something new.

Gearbox’s Brian Martel was one of those fans, in the enviable position of being able to do something about it. The developer is not merely gave its boon and financial support for spiritual successor and now official sequel Homeworld: Shipbreakers, it put together a wonderfully tasty package in Homeworld: Remastered Collection. Both games in classic and updated kind, with a combined multiplayer suite? Yes, please. The classic gameplay is as strong as ever, by the way.

Into the Breach- Honorable mentions: Invisible Inc

From the sadistic minds behind FTL: Faster than Light, Into the Breach is an addictive turn-based strategy where you squish bug-like foreigners with giant fighting robots. What more needs to be said?

You fell your mechs onto a square grid populated not just with foes, but obstacles and objectives based on the type of mission you’ve undertaken and terrain you’re battling on. Your task is then to clear the field of hostiles in a certain amount of moves, involving considerable forethought and planning to get the job done effectively. While the premise is simple, completing the hardest challenges Into the Breach has to throw at you isn’t- and once you factor in the scalable difficulty modes, there’s some serious replayability here too.

Kerbal Space Program- Honorable mentions: RimWorld

In Kerbal Space Program you design, build and launch rockets from first principle. If this sounds like a doddle to you, you’ve been playing too many crafting survival sandboxes; constructing things takes more attempt than slapping the appropriate number of resources down on a blueprint.

Getting Kerbals into space is hard, but every time you blow one up or leave them endlessly orbiting the moon as a corpse, you’ve gained something: you’ve learned what not to do. It’s almost like a rogue-like with persistent character progression, only what’s being carried over is your knowledge. Get your little Kerbals to new reaches of the solar system, and then get them back again, is an absolute triumph.

League of Legends- Honorable mentions: SMITE

Another of the heaviest eSports hitters around, League of Legends is easier to get into than Dota, but is still retains a high level of strategic depth.

LoL has the largest roster of heroes of all the major MOBAs, with original and interesting champion designs that mean you’re pretty much always going to find someone new you want to try out. That choice is limited somewhat if you really want to play the metagame, but there’s still decent variety in the top pickings.

In terms of gameplay, we’re talking bread-and-butter stuff- two teams try to destroy each other’s Nexus while working to raise their individual power level- but here it’s executed brilliantly. The delicate balance that League of Legends manages to create between fast-paced action and strategic positioning attains it one of the best in the genre.

Life is Strange- Honorable mentions: Dreamfall Chapters, TellTale’s The Walking Dead

Originally episodic but now totally bingable, Life is Strange is an engrossing narrative of high-school drama, rekindled friendship, and day travelling. What’s better is that the first episode is now free, entailing you can get a savor of the waterside township of Arcadia Bay with no strings attached.

As Max, an 18 year-old wouldbe photographer, you explore the parallel mysteries of your new-found powers and the disappearance of fellow student Rachel Amber, all the while trying to fit into a new school and make friends.

From its drizzly Oregon setting to its jangly hipster boulder soundtrack, Life is Strange perfectly captures the feeling of teenage angst and adds a supernatural twisting that’s interesting until the credits roll.

Minecraft- Honorable mentions: Terraria

You can argue that it wasn’t until its Xbox 360 release that Minecraft entered the public consciousness, but it was and remains a culture phenomenon on PC. More than 20 million purchases on a single platform is a huge amount by any measure, but the PC version of Minecraft is also where updates drop-off first, where mods and custom servers happen, where most of the amazing video content is attained, and where educational programs are carried out.

Minecraft is also credited with kicking off or at least popularising a bunch of industry tendencies- paid early access schemes, crafting sandboxes and of course indie as multi-million dollar success tale.

Overwatch- Honorable mentions: Team Fortress 2

Overwatch’s charming cast of playable heroes inspire undying fealty in their legions of fervent fans- and it’s easily to find why. The visual design of this lavish and slickly presented competitive shooter is as stylish as its gameplay is tactical and engaging.

It might’ve been a bit light on content when it first made shelves, but Acti-Blizz’s ongoing supporting has consistently refreshed the competitive meta with tweaks and new heroes. There’s something for everyone the roster, with strong heroes in every architype- from twitch-heavy offensive characters like cyborg-ninja Genji, to slower-paced, defensively minded characters like the mounted gun Omnic Bastion.

Recently Blizzard has doubled down on Overwatch’s esports potential with the multimillion dollar Overwatch League, where teams representing cities from around the world compete for a huge award pond.

Papers, Please- Honorable mentions: Her Story

Papers, Please starts off simple- check the documents, stamp them or reject them- and get very hard very, very quickly. It’s not just the increasingly finicky regulations handed down by your government overlords and the constantly ticking clock; the misery of applicants and the escalating political tension stimulates your role as a border guard feel like a penance. Of course, it pays the bills- if and only if you do a good enough job.

Channeling a kind of generic Cold War East European flavour, Papers, Please isn’t really about any specific place or time so much as it is about depressingly universal themes of hope, hopelessnes, bureaucracy and everyday people whose lives are just grist in its mill.

PayDay 2- Honorable mentions: Hotline Miami

Oh sure it came out on consoles, including current-gen, but the PC version is simply the best PayDay 2 experience. Not to get all Master Race on you, but PC multiplayer aficionados are generally better equipped to deal with the kind of gameplay PayDay 2 fosters and often demands- leadership, teamwork, communication and patience, as opposed to racing to get the most kills.

Overkill Software has kept up support with new content and patches for PayDay 2 over the years, and you are able to even play the game wholly in VR. There’s always something new to find and collect, and the nature of the game means even running the same missions repeatedly can have wildly different results. Get a crew together, example the joint, and go for the loot.

Pillar of Eternity- Honorable mentions: Planetscape Torment, Wasteland 2

Once again, imagine if this were a list of the best PC games of all time. Clearly it would not be complete without a bunch of Infinity Engine games like Baldur’s Gate and Planescape Torment , not to mention other classic CRPGs like Fallout. In the absence of these vintage treasures we offer Pillars of Eternity, a love letter to a golden age of PC RPGs, crowdfunded to be the successor fans wanted even if they did have to wait ten years for it.

Pillars of Eternity is remarkably faithful to the formula, with a huge casting of diverse, complex characters, robust customisation and oodles of compelling content. If you’ve never tried a classic CRPG it may not be the very best basic starting point, but if you’re even partly interested you’ll find plenty to love.

It’s sequel, Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire, is a brilliant game too- and well worth the investment if you enjoyed the first.

Portal 2- Honorable mentions: The Witness, SUPERHOT

Portal 2 is a victory of clever design and exceptional world-building, managing to make the player feel like they’re ingeniously breaking the game at every turn, when that was the correct solution all along.

It’s not just top-quality puzzles that constructs Portal 2 stand out from the crowd though- there are plenty of laughs from Ellen McLain’s star turn as GlaDOS, writer of The Office and Extras Stephen Merchant as Wheatley, and the lovably stupid turrets.

Project Cars 2- Honorable mentions: DIRT Rally, Assetto Corsa

When you think of the lackluster recent efforts from once great racing series, it’s brilliant to ensure new names lining up at the grid. Project Cars 2 is a strong racing sim that offers a solid driving experience, great visuals, and tons of licensed supercars to push to the limit.

Racing fans are notoriously hard to please, but there are some growls that have to be aired. The aggressive AI is sometimes difficult to deal with and penalties can feel unjust, while some players report issues with graphical stuttering. If you can get things tuned how you like them though, Project Cars genuinely hits the place.

PUBG- Honorable mentions: H1Z1 Battle Royale

Though the fervour around PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds may have cooled somewhat in recent months, it was better provides one of the tensest competitive shooting experiences around.

With a stronger focus on realistic weapons and environments than it’s cousin, Fortnite, PUBG laid the groundwork for the battle royale genre to take the world by storm. Not merely does it require intense concentration to hold your nerve as you stalk the large surroundings in search of unsuspecting prey, but the bursts of explosive activity require deadly precision and lightning-fast twitch skills.

It’s still buggy and rough, but there’s tons of fun left to be had.

Rainbow Six Siege- Honorable mentions: Insurgency

When it first released to decent reviews, we don’t believe anyone expected Rainbow Six Siege to have the sheer staying power it’s demonstrated since it dropped in 2015.

Now in its third year of consistent content updates, Six Siege offers something different in the competitive shooter space. There’s less emphasis on all-out fragging, in favour of coordinated team maneuvers in tight, destructible environments. Get used to constantly evaluating the bullet-repellant abilities of every surface around you- and try not to let the habit bleed into your everyday life.

You choose from nearly 40 Operators- each with their own kit and special abilities- and fighting in various categories of small squad game modes. Year Three kicked off with Operation Chimera, which added a new PvE horde mode where you fight infected zombie-ish animals.

SOMA- Honorable mentions: Outlast

Back when YouTubers only attained hundreds of thousands instead of millions of dollars, squealing at jump-scares was in vogue and Frictional Games’ Amnesia: The Dark Descent was many content creator’s go-to. But while it won popularity for its noisier moments, what Amnesia did better than pretty much anything else was create a creeping gothic ambience that dripped tension and menace- so that when something did inevitably emerge from the dark “youre ever” good and ready to shit your gasps.

Five years later, with a few lessons learnt and a new sci-fi setting, Frictional re-emerged with SOMA, an exceptionally immersive and unsetting experience that stays with you far past the game’s near ten-hour runtime.

SOMA improves on everything that stimulated Frictional’s back catalogue great, as well as being mechanically tighter too. As you explore the underwater PATHOS-II research facility, solve light puzzles, and investigate the mystery of your surroundings, things start to get weirder and weirder before the tension reaches its crescendo at the game’s disturbing conclusion.

Starcraft 2- Honorable mentions: Warhammer 40 K Dawn of War 3

The StarCraft franchise was essential to the growth of the eSports scene. Shooters have always been important, and MOBAs have risen to prominence these days, but the tens of millions of dollars handed out at prizes at tournaments today would never have passed without Starcraft. What says eSports more than a packed arena of cheering Korean fans threatening to Zerg Rush their heroes on the stage?

Starcraft 2 is the template that most modern competitive RTSs follow, and has earnt the reverence that it’s afforded in the gaming community.

Stardew Valley- Honorable mentions: Slime Rancher, Farming Simulator 17

Stardew Valley is simply the best farming sim around. While it might not be the most realistic, or the most visually impressive, Stardew Valley more than induces up for those working deficits with exceptional charm and oodles of magical moments.

The game centres around the player’s revival of their grandfather’s dilapidated old farm, raising livestock, sowing crops and making food to sell at marketplace. There’s also a number of light RPG parts where you can fight through dungeons filled with ogres, craft items and forge relationships- some of them romantic- with the townsfolk in surrounding villages.

Developed almost single-handedly by designer and programmer Eric ” ConcernedApe ” Barone, Stardew Valley shows how a clear vision exacted by a lean team can produce something that’s severely special.

Sunless Sea- Honorable mentions: Don’t Starve

“Eat your crew” is a hell of a tagline, and you will eat them, at the least once. This unusual rogue-like is set in the same fascinating universe as browser-based escapade Fallen London, but in addition to the darkly beautiful fiction this time there’s a stressfully difficult survival and exploration game to conquer as well.

Roaming the Sunless Sea in silence as your food and fuel ticking ever downwards, eyes and ears straining for any sign of ogres or pirates, hoping to find a port in need of whatever bizarre cargo you’re carrying – it’s a unique and challenging experience. Survive long enough to pass a trait to your successor and begin constructing a heritage of captains; Sunless Sea is not a game to be conquered in a single lifetime.

The sequel, Sunless Skies, is currently out in Early Access, but due a full release soon.

The Forest- Honorable mentions: Ark, Dying Light

Early Access survival-crafting games were all the rage in 2014, but while some remain in a perpetual state of beta, others are actually coming out as full releases and starting to look properly good.

The Forest situateds itself apart from its contemporaries by being both a fulfill resource-gatherer and spoopy as flippin’ heck. You find, the wooded peninsula that your player-character determines themselves on isn’t as idyllic as it first seems. Infesting the woodland and network of subterranean caves is an intelligent society of cannibalistic mutants that grow more twisted and freaky the deeper you delve.

During the working day- while the mutants are less aggressive – you have to stockpile your resources and craft a fortified base, because come nightfall you’re going to need everything you are able to lay hands on to fend off the ravenous beasties.

The Stanley Parable- Honorable mentions: The Beginner’s Guide, Firewatch

Nominally a game with a very straight forward if surreal story line and a clever narration gimmick, The Stanley Parable only opens up for those who wilfully play with it. While many games expend a great deal of effort ensuring the player knows they have to go from A to B and trying to prevent them doing anything else, The Stanley Parable openly engages with the tropes of modern story-driven gameplay by rewarding you for doing the things a few gamers will always do: disobey. Wander off. Fiddle. Wall hack.

In this sense, The Stanley Parable is one of the very few gaming experiences with a narrative to tell and respect for its players as more than a passive vehicle for the creator’s artistic vision. Also, it is hilarious.

The Witcher 3- Honorable mentions: FF 15

Few games are lauded with as much ardor as The Witcher 3, and it truly deserves every plaudit. This is the high-watermark for character-lead RPGs, constantly telling richly layered and engrossing tales across its main quest, side missions and narrative DLC.

The Witcher 3 follows Geralt of Rivia throughout the Northern Kingdoms on parallel quests to find Emperor Emhyr var Emreis’ daughter, Ciri, and solve the mystery of The Wild Hunt.

Geralt’s world is densely populated with Monster Hunts, hidden rich, and secrets to uncover, entailing you are able to spend well over 100 hours finding it all- as well as mastering the deep potions and crafting mechanics and combat ability tree.

The DLC packs are some of the best around too, meaningfully upgrading the core experience with even more quests to devour and areas to explore.

Titanfall 2- Honorable mentions: Battlefield 1

In 2010, some of the top brass behind the world-conquering Call of Duty franchise left Infinity Ward to find their own studio: Respawn Entertainment. After a spluttering start with the multiplayer-only Titanfall, they found their feet- critically at the least- with the brilliant Titanfall 2.

By blending the same frantic action and eye-bulging set pieces that stimulated Modern Warfare’s campaign live so long in the memory with an affecting buddy-movie storyline, Respawn crafted one of the best shooter campaigns in years.

It might not be the longest, but is often on sale for cheap.

Total War Warhammer 2- Honorable mentions: Warhammer: Vermintide 2

For years, Creative Assembly has been king of the historical strategy war game. With Total War Warhammer 2 they’ve brought the same ingenuity and depth to the table, just this time you’ve get Lizardmen instead of Carolingians. And when is anything not improved by the addition of Lizardmen?

Owning the first Total War Warhammer as well as the second is pretty much a necessity, since it unlocks a ton of content in this more recent game, but it’s worth it for the life-consumingly awesome campaign mode where you take part in an epic battle to control the Great Vortex.

Undertale- Honorable mentions: Kentucky Route Zero

The breakout indie hitting of the last few years, Undertale won hearts the world over by perfecting the delicate balance of in-joky, referential witticism without overdoing it.

Developed virtually single-handedly by inventor Toby Fox, it’s not just the story that induces Undertale special, but also the variety of its combat mechanics and puzzles. It might look like a typical retro JRPG throwback, but there’s a lot more going on than first satisfies the eye.

There’s also an entertaining meta-narrative that gives you a properly compelling reason to run two or three different play-throughs, and memorable soundtrack that blends classic game sounds with haunting piano and guitar.

West of Loathing- Honorable mentions: Jazzpunk

Back in the working day, flash adventure games were awesome. They might not have been the most graphically impressive, but they more than made up for it with sharp humour and chuckles-a-plenty.

West of Loathing is like the best flash comedy-RPG you’ve ever played- full of silly jokes, clever puzzles, and a simple combat system that’s fun without doing anything too fancy. Every area across the stick-figure Wild West has the potential for chuckles, and- like the best cowboy gunslingers- the jokes reached more than they miss.

What Remains of Edith Finch- Honorable mentions: The Vanishing of Ethan Carter, Gone Home

Modern narrative adventure games- sometimes pejoratively referred to as” walking simulators”- can often prioritise style over substance and start to crumble under their own pretence. What Remains of Edith Finch however, is a exceptional journey through the lives of the Finch family, as told through a series of varied and delightful vignettes.

One minute you’re exploring the eerie rooms of the Finch household, then you’re flying through the air as an owl, or swimming as a shark in the ocean. The narrative is still at the center of its own experience, but the new levels of interactivity and inventive storytelling that developer Giant Sparrow has managed to craft into What Remains of Edith Finch make it a real standout.

World of Tanks- Honorable mentions: World of Warships

A former VG24/ 7 editor once called World of Tanks ” niche” on Twitter and was wailed at for days. The competitive online shooter has a huge and devoted playerbase from all over the world, because, it is about to change, the desire to get in a tank and blow up someone else’s tank is quite universal.

If you get really into it, World of Tanks can be incredibly expensive. There’s a massive variety of premium tanks available for buy, and its premium model in general is particularly aggressive. However, the glacial firing rates of your hulking war machines make for something truly unique in the online shooter space, forcing players to stance themselves strategically and overcome foes tactically rather than with brute force.

On PC, the piece de resistance is World of Tanks’ recent 1.0 update. By some miracle Wargaming kept the same minimum requirements while entirely overhauling the game’s graphics engine to bring it in line with current gen gaming. You can run World of Tanks on a potato too, so it’s good for those of us that aren’t blessed with infinite coffers.

World of Warcraft: Battle for Azeroth- Honorable mentions: Guild Wars 2

There’s life in the old girl yet. While it might not be at its pre-Cataclysm peak, World of Warcraft continues to be played by millions of subscribers around the globe.

Endlessly imitated, WoW streamlined and standardised the blueprint for a modern MMO with its rich lore, differed action-RPG gameplay and deep roster of high-level and endgame activities. As a new player, the sheer quantity of content to slog through is a daunting proposition- especially when you’re forking out $15 a month for the privilege- but there’s a reason this game is venerated above all others.

The upcoming expansion, World of Warcraft: Battle for Azeroth, introduces four new races to the mix, raises the level cap to 120, as well as adding a host of new dungeons and raids including the golden city of Atal’Dazar.

XCOM 2- Honorable mentions: Templar Battleforce

PC has always been the home of turn-based tactics, and there are few games out there that do the genre better than XCOM 2. Set 20 years after the first XCOM reboot, Enemy Unknown, XCOM 2 freshens up the formula with a higher tempo to the gameplay and new mechanics like the concealing phase, which lets you carry out covert missions while you remain undetected.

XCOM 2 is a tough game, and it can feel a little capricious when your highly-trained super soldiers miss their target from point blank range, but it’s that moreish difficulty that keeps you coming back for time and again.

Your soldiers are vastly customisable, so it’s great fun to give your squad their own panache and personality- or recreate your favourite characters from other games. The only drawback is that it’s all the more heartbreaking when their head is inevitably squished by a hostile foreigner.

Battlefield 5- honest mention

The latest title from DICE assures us return to WW2 for some truly innovative and exciting FPS action. While items like the Union Jack gas mask might be a bit tone deaf, Battlefield 5 captures the camaraderie described by those who survived through the war, whilst giving you a taste of the horrors that would have ensued on the battlefield. War is hell, after all.

You can play the single-player War Stories that take you across different theatres of war or leap straight-out into its multiplayer, with an emphasis on tactics and positioning over twitch skills and a keen focus on team-playing and support classes.

Evergreen list

The best games of each platform

Best 3DS games Best PS4 games Best Xbox One games Best PC games Best Nintendo Switch games Best free Steam games Best Epic Game Store games Best free PS4 and Xbox One games Best PS4 exclusives

Best of genre

Best 3DS games Best PS4 games Best Xbox One games Best PC games Best Nintendo Switch games Best free Steam games Best Epic Game Store games Best free PS4 and Xbox One games Best PS4 exclusives

Best of series and misc

Best Witcher 3 mods Best games of 2018 Best Minecraft skins Best Final Fantasy games Best Metal Gear Solid games Best Minecraft seeds Best apolitical games Most riling things in video games Best Mario games Best Skyrim mods on PS4 and Xbox One

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