#i also realized that i am fond of something like an RPG but find a lot of RPG mechanics sort of fluffy and superfluous. like was thinking

[spookygibberish]

I've sort of developed a strange relationship with the concept of "realism" in the things I make.

Something I was very into as like, an eleven year old (im not implying this was immature to be into, just that it was formative for me), was speculative biology specifically for dragons, and now, specifically in the case of dragons I find a lot of attempts to make them biologically plausible fully missing the appeal of dragons at all.

Thinking specifically about the supernatural elements of JoM and where the line is drawn. The dagnyds are made from the remains of godlike entities, and are not entirely earthly animals. They have a supernatural origin. It would be fully justified in giving them magic abilities or making magic an aspect of the setting, but have absolutely zero interest in doing so. It doesn't interest me. I think about shit like healing powers or glowy energy attacks and my reaction is just "what does this even add? Why do I need this? Does this make things more interesting?" And it simply doesn't. Healing is more interesting as a prolonged process, combat is more interesting with teeth and claws and metal and blood. These are options which are more realistic, closer to real life, but the realism isn't what makes them interesting: it's physicality.

When I design a creature for this world, I am not thinking about making it biologically plausible, and yet, I try to design things which look like they could 'move under their own power'. There is a sense of heft and mechanical "soundness" which I value more than realism, but often also aligns with looking 'realistic'.

I would say that it's better to serve a narrative than strive for absolute realism, but I don't actually write stories, although I do have ideas for them occasionally. I guess a version of this which is more relevant and applicable is that i prefer to strive for a particular vibe.

[bingobongobonko]

Hi Bingo! I just wanted to say that I've been lurking and looking at your art for your lancer campaign for a while now and I think it's so cool! You've kinda inspired me to check out the system for myself too! I hope it's not too much trouble/making you retread anything you've talked about before, but I'd be really interested to hear your thoughts on the system and how it's worked out for your campaign! I really love mecha stuff, but I think the genre can be pretty rife with militarism that I'm not super into. I get the sense though that you've been able to find a good way to slot these really cool characters into the setting and focus on their interactions while also getting the fun of that sweet sweet mech combat. My inquiry is very low stakes haha, so nw if you don't have time to gather all your thoughts (I know that if I was tasked to talk about my own campaigns my head would burst into flames just trying to sift through what I'd want to say :P) Anyway, just a little friendly wave to you to say your art is very inspirational, and keep up the great work!

OH WOW this is . whuhh. WOW! sorry im like. wtff. i mean i ramble about my characters a lot but i didn't think anyone else actually gave a fuck which is completely ok, i just WHUHH..!!! holy shit. excitement aside, i get where you're coming from. honestly i was never into the mecha genre, but lancer rpg really made me realize how cool it is! like im not a really technical guy, and i feel like lancer is VERY strategy-heavy in combat; unless you know what you're doing and what everything does, you can easily get overwhelmed with all the features and all the things to consider in the math. for me its a lot because i struggle with spatial understanding and any sort of mathematics. that's my only real gripe on the system, but that might also just be every other system as well. it's more of a personal issue than that of the system, my friends all picked it up super quick. as for the genre, yeah, i find militaristic shit a drag and mecha has the same feel to me. its got a layer of professionalism and seriousness i don't enjoy, nor wish to play along with, so i get what you mean yeah. thankfully my friend who dms the campaign is just. Holy fuck; she just has a huuuge extra care for character stories and weaving them into the narrative she explores. so really, its her i've to thank for making mecha stuff FUN for me. lancer can certainly run hand-in-hand with militaristic-focused rp, i was in a oneshot with that sole focus and while it was interesting, without that interesting narrative stuff you kind of lose steam, but ive grown so fond of dog days cuz of how my friend lets our characters develop AND helps them do that. that and the way she sets up the story, just. FUUUUCK. the military is an afterthought in what is a fight against time and para-causality sinking its teeth into what little sanity we have. we fight against something that is a victim and a perpetrator. we're the worst people to be tasked to be saving an entire planet too, but here we are. as cheesy as it is, it's all about who you play with. thats the feel i get about most systems. honestly why im so ehhh about playing with strangers, when i'd rather play with people i like. all systems strike me as more of a tool; its the way you use em yk? the experience you get from them are more reflective of who you're telling a story with (or fighting alongside, there's no right way to play. i just really like narrative storytelling). so really, ive to thank my friends, especially @spaginithethird who introduced me to lancer in the first place as a dm!!!!!!!!!! TO A LOT OF SYSTEMS ACTUALLY shes rlly knowledgeable abt this stuff and very very very sweet too o7 so yeah really, its a really fun system BUT to me, i wouldnt be playing lancer if i didn't have a narrative to go by and follow with people i like. i am always sayin this but its my favorite thing when it comes to ttrpgs

[darkfictionjude]

Etymology nonnie here! 

There is so much to talk about. I used the update as a chance to play everything again from the beginning. So I have a lot to say (apologies to you, and your eyes, as I'm not sure if you have fully recovered, and yet here I am writing long ramblings). 

1) This is basically about what I became known for. Names. I became the etymology nonnie after writing about the origins of the names of the Crown siblings as I was trying to come up with a name for my MC that was the right fit. 

Well, I also did an ask a time later rambling how, while I like the name Indiana, I thought it became a bit of a meme, when placed along Cairo Crown. After all, it's almost as if Victor and Prudence went and said: “This kid is meant to be an archeologist, hence the name”. And I would have left it at that, if it wasn't because the name began to call me more as time went. As well as the idea of having the name of Imre's idol felt exciting and interesting. 

So, I ended up having my MC being Indiana, or Indy. Me, who found the name funny initially, ended up falling in love with it and now I cannot name my MC anything else. 

It doesn't help that it means now both my MC and Imre have the same initial. So, if my MC was a cheesy (and way to wholesome given what we know) boy, I could see him drawing a heart with I+I inside. Worse, it doesn't stop there. It can be ever cheesier: I+I=We. 

I just know Imre would be amused by it. I'm not sure if he would find it cute, silly, both or neither. But I know he would be amused for certain.

Speaking of my beloved. I did enjoy reading how he reacts to MC when we are romancing him. How he seems perplexed by what he is feeling, and yet actively used his charm and seduction to bring MC to his side. And I love how my MC is “I cannot trust him, I know it. And yet, I keep bringing myself to trying to”. 

The whole phone call, if it wasn't for the murder of Sammy, was also delighful in this regard. The back and forth. MC being awkward because he praised Imre's voice in a way that makes obvious he is enamored. Imre using the chance to flirt, to praise MC… As if I needed even more reasons to romance Imre. 

2) I replayed the first side quests to see which one is more urgent for me. After all, I may like my MC to be a good Samaritan, but I prefer to focus on what will help someone the most. 

Because of that, I tried to play the taxidermy side quest and the siren side quest. And, while I spent more time on the latter (and liked it a lot). The cheese rat side quest seems significantly greater of a problem to be solved. As is actually dangerous to Mr. Ewekes (I hope I got his name right). But it could become a danger to the town as whole, if left unsupervised.

That said, I love the lake side quest too. Had this been an RPG, of which I'm rather fond to, I would probably played them all. Yet, because you structured the side quests in a way that only one can be played, I had to choose the cheese rat ones. It's the biggest problem overall. Also, I do love the social classes commentary of the cheese rat quest. 

3) Speaking of which, this brings me to the Crown family and their money troubles. I realized Sally said Victor and Prudence wanted MC back. Yet, for the life of me, I cannot see a reason why they would want MC back. Then, it struck me. It's money. They probably don't have enough money to keep MC there, or they don't consider it a priority. 

Is that, or Sally is very sus. I do still suspect (although I think I'm wrong), that Victor may be dead and Sally is covering it. And the fact Sally is almost desperate when he says Prudence wanted MC back (in that scene from the previous update), when she never seemed that affectionate towards MC (if anything, Prudence seemed entirely checked off from MC) and now is way too apathetic to actually demand something as important as getting MC back home. Well… Maybe Sally is not in the best place mentally. And not just in the traumatized parentified mess we have previously discussed, but also in as something more serious. Could be Sally making this whole thing up? 

Speaking of messed up relationships. I don't think I explored everything about the emotional mess Percy is in. While it is clear he is in complete denial about Prudence affection for him and her favoritism for Orla (which may be a coping mechanism). It's how Sally treats him that probably has a stronger effect on him. 

For instance, Sally, by virtue of being parentified, does have a parental role. For MC this is obvious and clear, as there is also an infantilization of MC following Sally's parentification (which is shown wonderfully by how Sally seem surprised MC went through puberty, like, why were you expecting MC to remain a kid forever?). But in the case of Percy, he still has to more or less answer to Sally. If MC is the kid, Percy is the rebellious teenager. The problem comes, however, from the fact that Sally has decided to ignore Percy for MC in a blatant and undeniable manner. Inside the home, is not MC who is the black sheep. But Percy. Since only the brothers and MC are the ones who are effectively living and interacting together. 

So now I'm not surprised at all that Percy would trade places with MC. MC was gone for two years, has done nothing to warrant the level of affection Sally shows. And yet, he is still preferred over Percy. Sally, even if way too overprotective and condescending, is so incredibly caring to MC. While Percy is only criticized and ignored by him. 

Of course, Sally does not have a responsabilty to be Percy's parent. Arguably, none of them want that. But because of the parentification, Sally doesn't seem to know how to he a sibling. And has only widened the distance between him and Percy. It's heartbreaking, really. 

And from the flashbacks we have had… I think Percy was in a better position than currently, yet it was obvious he still was paid less attention than the rest. Sally is the heir, Orla was the only/eldest daughter, and MC was the baby. Percy was, at most, the spare.

I+I=We 😭😭😭😭 a good pun crime. I do like how you used Indiana for a male mc I feel that even though most use it for girls it serves very well in a unisex capacity like the name Ashley

Also yeah I try not to have a favourite in side quests but Mr. Ewekes has to be the most entertaining for me since it's not only funny but the choices are extreme to how to deal with it

Very interesting what you say about why MC was brought back... is Sally telling the truth?

I think how you explained it, MC is the baby and Percy is the rebellious teenager lashing out to be paid attention to and envious that MC does nothing is achieves more

[doshmanziari]

Demon’s Souls || 2020 Notes [1]

While replaying Demon’s Souls I thought it’d be fun to describe some of its special qualities and certain differences between it and the Dark Souls series. The latter has almost completely overshadowed the former, to the extent that the first Dark Souls is often treated as the starting point for FromSoftware’s post-PlayStation 2 output, so it is now arguably more worthwhile than ever before to, you know... acknowledge Demon’s Souls’ existence.

• It is a little ironic that the visually darkest of the Souls games is not any of the ones with “Dark” in their title; it is, in fact, Demon’s Souls. Demon’s is full of spaces with utter or near-utter blackness, spaces which only reveal their structural character until you’re a step away from a wall or colonnade. This is an exciting quality on its own, one that makes the areas you’re navigating retain a sublimely threatening aspect separate from that of the mortal threats the enemies pose, and it becomes especially exciting when comparing it to Dark Souls 3′s inappropriate brightness on even its lowest lighting setting.

• Relatedly, Demon’s Souls is the only one of these games which bothers to explain your character’s illuminative capability: a small, brightly glowing stone (perhaps a good luck charm and a practical item) is attached to their hip. Dark Souls 2 and 3 and Bloodborne allow torches to be used (Bloodborne, too, a lantern), but your avatars otherwise exude an inexplicable light.

• The Dark Souls series represents a break from Demon’s Souls’ level design not just by way of its variously realized interconnectivity but also by distancing itself from constricted meandering layouts. Although Demon’s Souls’ areas are organizationally diverse -- one couldn’t be mistaken for another --, there are pervasive architectural motifs such as halls no wider then your person, slim towers or verticalities with staircases or planks tightly winding up and down the walls, and bits where you can miss a thin portal or doorway by not swiveling the camera around your entire immediate surroundings. This is, perhaps, one consequence of differing staff on level design and of Demon’s Souls’ adjacency to the King’s Field series.

• I’ve written before about how adventurous Demon’s Souls is with its boss fights, and I’ll write about it again! Oftener than not, bosses’ rooms are extensions of the preceding level design, rather than stripped down, isolated rings. Think of the church wherein the False Idol appears: this is a struggle where offensive tactics assume equal importance to weaving around the obstructing pews and hiding from magical projectiles among the side aisles. For this trend, we might be able to partly thank a lack of confidence in the mechanics sustaining head-on, arena-based fights. It is also notable that a number of bosses have fairly passive designs (e.g., Phalanx, Adjudicator, Storm King, Maiden Astraea, the Dragon God in its final phase, or King Allant). Opponents can be vulnerable and pitiable, creating an emotional variety and accentuating the narrative of us being the “demon” in the game’s title.

• Demon’s Souls doesn’t allow you to access the Nexus, the game proper, without firsthand experiencing your own death. Dark Souls shows your person as having already hollowed; Dark Souls 2 marks your entry into Drangleic with a cinematic wherein you pass through the threshold of a vortex; Dark Souls 3 shows you rising from your grave. Bloodborne may be the closest to Demon’s Souls: most of us will have likely died our first before coming across a lamp, and thus will be introduced to the Hunter’s Dream -- Bloodborne’s home base -- by death; but this is still unlike Demon’s Souls, which establishes a significantly fatalistic atmosphere with this moment of utter requisition.

• With its visuals’ technical effects (e.g., the warm, distinct halos surrounding candles’ flames), the muted palettes, and the plain attire of other characters and architecture -- often severe, and lacking any ornamentation or just minimally articulated -- Demon’s Souls recalls King’s Field IV. Monolithic sites and structures can impress a domineeringly absolutist effect by their scale and degree of aesthetic anonymity/repetition, and Demon’s Souls’ architecture utilizes this effect in places like Stonefang Tunnel, the Tower of Latria, and the Boletarian complex to create a world capable as much of intimidating as it is of suggesting monomaniacal psychologies and historical dramas.

• Demon’s Souls has the unique, relative to the Dark Souls titles and Bloodborne, contextual mechanic whereby your person can mount a higher tier if you continue walking against the designated rise in terrain. Fall damage is also drastically slight, so you can fall farther distances and survive. To me, these two particularities create a subtly broader sense of exploratory possibility that you don’t get in FromSoftware’s later Eurocentric games, despite Dark Souls’ addition of a running jump mechanic. This sense of possibility is not proportional to what you can actually do; rather, it is about what you feel that the game might allow you to do.

• For a miscellaneous conclusive entry: I went through the 2009 reviews for Demon’s Souls on Amazon a while back to see what English-speaking/writing people were comparing it to. Nowadays, we have the bland, readymade term “Souls-like”, but, a decade and several months ago, Demon’s Souls seemed to many people outside of Japan to have come out of nowhere, making their likenings interesting to read (of note, too: even among the 800+ reviews, spanning from 2009 to 2020, King’s Field is mentioned less than ten times). I recognize that the image is blurry, and have, for accessibility, written the selected quotes out below.

This game strikes out to be a bit of a throwback 1980s style RPG in both difficulty and handholding (or lack thereof). If you played and enjoyed the original Wizardrys, Ultimas, and AD&D *Gold Box* games, this is your ride. This game was designed for you.

This game is not hack n’ slash. I repeat, NOT HACK N’ SLASH. Those of you expecting a game like Diablo 2 or God of War will probably be a little confused when you are getting destroyed by every little puny enemy in game.

I like this game, but I wanted to love it. I was hesitant to own it because I am a little old for hardcore games that everyone praises for their difficulty, but I was persuaded to try it because of fond memories of a wonderfully difficult combat RPG called Severance Blade of Darkness. Unable to find a rental I bought it. Sadly, I think this game does not measure up to the reviews.

The RPG system of Demon’s Souls is quite reminiscent of Vagrant Story’s, allowing players to increases stats and equipment as they like, without following a set path. You must choose a particular class to begin, but you can then develop however you like. It is entirely possible to start as a barbarian and become a mage, or choose to spread your stats equally. The path you choose will, however, have a drastic effect on how the game is played.

This Demons Souls has definately redefined a “HARD” game. Reminds me of the game ICO, yet makes me feel that Im actually there. You may die alot, but each time you do, it is always your fault. I mean this in the literal sense. No more button mashing.

Some people may compare the toughness to games like the Devil May Cry or Ninja Gaiden series, but in my view, although it may be as tough, it’s in a very different way. Whereas with DMC or NG you had to wide awake and really on top of things to both enjoy it and actually get anywhere, I find it’s actually possible to play Demon’s Souls while half asleep. DS is more about being careful and not entering an area until you’re absolutely sure your character is completely prepared.

1st: this game is very much like a modernized old nintendo game, for better & worse. I would liken it even to Deadly Towers(gasp!), but I mean that in the good way. You’re dropped in an extremely difficult gameworld with almost no introduction, you’re character starts out very weak and you need to explore (carefully!) to find some loot that will begin to make you stronger.

Gameplay: It’s hard to describe Demon’s Souls since it feels like something you’ve played before yet you couldn’t think of it if you tried. Essentially imagine the 3rd person swordplay of Oblivion, world traversing of Zelda and RPG elements of pretty much every one you’ve tried in the past 10 years.

[thetygre]

30 Day Monster Challenge 2 - Day #2: Favorite Frankenstein

1.) Mary Shelley/Bernie Wrightson

Put simply, there’s no beating the classic. Mary Shelley’s original monster is a landmark in literature, the coalescence of an idea about monstrosity and humanity that has been developing since the dawn of civilization. Alright, so that might be a little grandiose, but the point stands; the original Frankenstein’s monster is still the best. Like Dracula, every new generation brings a new interpretation, and makes new connections to him. The monster has, through his influence on culture, succeeded in becoming the father of his own race. He is a true monster of God, a divine omen, an abstract entity that conveys the importance of man’s reaching scientific knowledge. He makes us question our limits, our humanity, and how much we as a species are meant to stretch and bend away from the natural order. And to this day, nobody has managed to quite capture that ideal perfectly.

But the late great Bernie Wrightson came pretty close. Known mostly as a comics artist, Wrightson’s version of Frankenstein is the one that comes to mind for me whenever I envision the monster. He is simultaneously majestic, horrifying, and pitiful. Built like an Olympian god with a face like a corpse. Wrightson’s work on his expressions can convey anger, sadness, and the creature’s own weariness for existence. Wrightson’s monster, to me at least, comes the closest to invoking Shelley’s description of Frankenstein’s attempt at an ubermensch, and his subsequent failure.

2.) Boris Karloff

There’s a lot to be said against Karloff’s Frankenstein. It created a pop cultural image that is ultimately at odds with Shelley’s work. The monster’s eloquent suffering is replaced with a series of moans and grunts, and his arc is ultimately threadbare. And yet, Karloff’s Frankenstein brings something absolutely essential to the Frankenstein mythos; innocence. The creature is a victim of its own creation, too powerful and too strange for this world. The damage it causes is the byproduct of its father’s meddling in things man was not meant to know. That’s a perspective we didn’t get a lot of in Shelley’s original novel, and for all that the Universal movie is different from the novel, it meshes with the novel’s morality by reminding the audience of an important message; the value of humanity. Karloff’s monster appeals to our humanity on the most basic level, that of an innocent suffering. In that, I think even Mary Shelley would be proud.

3.) Shuler Hensley

Aaaaand now we’re back to Van Helsing. Okay, legitimately? I think the Frankenstein’s monster is the best part of Van Helsing. I am dead serious. Like Castlevania’s Dracula, the monster here is an amalgam of all the different parts of Frankenstein pop culture. There’s alchemy, mad science, and body horror, but there’s also a search for humanity and a desire to find meaning in life. Also, like everything in this movie, overacting. Just some grade-A overacting. Hensley screams his lungs out shouting Byronic prose, which I always took to be a kind of fun dig at the original monster’s own flair for the overdramatic.

4.) Peter Boyle

Boyle doesn’t bring a lot to the table as the creature in Young Frankenstein. The movie is a loving parody, and it clearly derives mostly from the Universal Studios movie. And yet, there are some subtle hints of brilliance in this portrayal of the creature and Frankenstein. The Universal movie was a source, yes, but Mel Brooks also drew from the novel for his own spin. At the end of the movie, Gene Wilder’s Frankenstein departs from Shelley’s (who is also the character’s grandfather) by taking responsibility and trying to help his creation. And in turn, the creature forgives and protects Frankenstein. I know it’s all just for good fun, but when you start viewing it through the classic metaphors applied to the novel, it creates a more optimistic picture about human progress. (Plus, I’d be remiss if I didn’t include one of my favorite movies on this list.)

5.) Christopher Lee

Christopher Lee’s Frankenstein is actually the version that turned me on to the character. When I was a kid, Boris Karloff’s Frankenstein did nothing for me; he was too sad, too sympathetic to be a monster. Frankenstein’s monster was supposed to be scary to me; stitched out of corpses, with greasy black hair and dead eyes, angry at all the world. (Also dressed in a stylish black suit.) Lee’s monster delivered that to me. The moment I first saw him, I knew that this was how Frankenstein’s monster was supposed to look. Now that I’m older, I can appreciate Boris Karloff’s performance more, but I’ll still always have a fondness for my first favorite Frankenstein.

6.) Rory Kinnear

The youngest monster on this list, Rory Kinnear played Frankenstein’s monster, referred to variously as Adam or Caliban, in Showtime’s Penny Dreadful. Think a cheaper, tawdrier League of Extraordianry Gentlemen. Appearance-wise, Kinnear’s Frankenstein is... it’s- it’s not great. This show had the special effects budget of some pocket lint and the grace of God. But the character is what stood out here. Kinnear’s creature, more than any other, struggles to find his identity, to find a means to turn his monstrosity towards good. His constant failure as people use him and reject him embitters him even more against his creator, but gives him a common bond to other characters. In the show’s last season, Kinnear’s Frankenstein reunites with the family of the man who’s body was used to create him, stepping in apparently returned from the dead. And that and what happens afterward with the character are, I think, worthy additions to the Frankenstein mythos.

7.) Junji Ito’s Frankenstein

Leave it to Junji Ito to create the first truly repulsive Frankenstein. Lee’s came close, but Ito’s portrayal of the monster is nothing short of revolting. In the novel, it’s never made clear why exactly people are repulsed by the creature’s appearance; it might even have been all in the character’s perception. But Ito’s Frankenstein is simply hideous; it’s the first Frankenstein I can think of where you can imagine what he smells like, and it’s like rotting meat. The monster is imposing, too; Ito, like Wrightson, didn’t skimp on making his creature gigantic in proportion. It’s hard to feel sympathy for this creature, and it almost seems to take pleasure in the evil it commits against its creator. It’s easily the nastiest version of the monster you’ll ever meet.

8.) The King of Toyland

Like Van Helsing, The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen is just something I’m going to keep coming back to during this challenge. League’s Frankenstein is mentioned only in passing, making an actual appearance only as a background cameo, but what little is given might just be the most heartwarming version of the character I’ve read. After the canon events of the novel, Frankenstein’s creature wanders the Arctic Circle, despondent and immortal, unable to kill himself. In his wandering, the creature finds a land populated entirely by sentient dolls and toys, hidden in the North Pole behind a magical field. This is Toyland, from the Noddy series of English children’s novels.

The residents of Toyland are ruled over by Olympia, the automaton girl from the opera The Tales of Hoffman. The toys, instead of rejecting the creature, ask him to stay, claiming they need his strength to protect the land. The toys don’t see the creature as unnatural; to them, he is simply another misfit toy, an oversized doll. In time, the creature and Olympia fall in love and marry, and they rule as the king and queen of Toyland. The creature, at last, has found a place and a people he can call his own, somewhere where he is accepted, a purpose for his strength. And somehow, this was all written by Alan “Old Man Yelling at a Cloud” Moore, without a shred of irony or cynicism. And if you don’t think that’s the most sentimental shit in all of Frankenstein lore, then I don’t know what to tell you.

9.) The Flesh Golem

Before even Christopher Lee, the first version of Frankenstein’s monster that I really loved was the one in the 3rd Edition Dungeons and Dragons Monster Manual. Well, okay, it’s not actually Frankenstein’s monster; it’s just a ‘flesh golem’. But energized by electricity, afraid of fire, made of dead men cobbled together? Come on. My older cousin used to tell me that her idea for Frankenstein’s monster was that Frankenstein ran out of human parts, and had to resort to animal material to finish the creature. Frankenstein might have the nose of a pig, or the eyes of a horse; anything to finish the work. That idea never left me, and I thought of it every time I stared at the flesh golem, taking in the metal frame and oversized claw. I remember the first time I actually read the novel, I kept drifting back to that lanky, stitched-up construct with its monster parts and lop-sided face.

10.) The Prometheans

Another tabletop rpg rendition of Frankenstein’s monster, this was a whole game built around them. Promethean: The Created was the fourth of the New World of Darkness line or Chronicles of Darkness or whatever we call it these days. In it, players took on the role of artificially created beings, filled with supernatural energy, whose very presence twisted and corrupted the world around them. Normal humans can’t stand to look at them as a supernatural field makes them immediate targets of hatred, and they are hunted by their own twisted, monstrous bretheren who want to consume their divine power. And yet, for all that, it was a fundamentally optimistic game. Promethean marked a trend in the World of Darkness line that turned away from doom and gloom towards seeking salvation. The ultimate quest of the Prometheans is to gain their humanity, and their journey is about undertaking a pilgrimage to their ultimate realization. Promethean is about personal horror, and defining one’s own humanity.

[oglokonighthawk]

Odyssey is a beautifully crafted world with fascinating history, but I feel like it’s directionless story wise. It’s almost like they threw so many things into the game that it’s just over saturated. I for some reason however, am completely addicted to the game even when I feel as though I’m slogging through it (though it is a relatively light slog when compared to other games of this scale).

The Assassin’s you play as have almost always been very charismatic characters, even if they are personally directionless, they still have this drive to carry out their missions because of a higher goal: avenging their family, upholding the Creed, solving an ancient mystery, or freeing a nation. Alexios and Kassandra, however, seem to be primarily motivated by drachmae (money). Which makes sense as far as their being mercenaries, but it doesn’t make for a compelling character. Yes, there ARE other things that drive them, but almost every single conversation ends in talking about pay, even when more pressing concerns are present or the NPC is already helping the “Eagle Bearer” (player character).

I also find myself having a hard time listening to the Eagle Bearers voices in the game. One issue I’ve been having is their accents sound like I do when I’m trying to do a bad Russian accent, which is a bit distracting, and they sometimes sound like a person doing a bad Arnold Schwarzenegger impersonation . Even with the player able to make dialogue choices in the game, there is almost no way to make them sound intelligent for longer than half a sentence. Even when you’re successful at making them sound smart, their next dialogue options seem to not follow up on that.

[Did the Mega Seeds dissolve in their anal cavities or something so they could spit out one Bruce Banner line before going “HULK SMASH!” on the next?]

I have a feeling that when I get to the end, I’m going to have an “ahHA!” moment and the whole story will make sense. Where all the seemingly random threads all tie together in a knot and I’ll look at the game with the same fondness I have for the much maligned Dragon Age 2. (Should have realized that a fight between the mages and the Templar’s was coming to a head, but it wasn’t till the last quest of the game that I realized this.)  Hopefully, I will get to the end of Odyssey and everything will just click. I would still recommend the game especially to fans of the series and even more so to fans of open world RPG’s as there is a ton of stuff that you probably will enjoy.

Followup Review

After 96 hours into the game and 95% completion of the story, I have to say that Assassin’s Creed: Odyssey is the biggest disappointment in the series for me. Bear in mind though, that I always have thoroughly enjoyed every entry in the series so my bar is set EXTREMELY high so don’t light the torches just yet!

By the time you find out that Alexios/Kassandra is still alive, and Layla offers them the Spear of Leonidas, and it is just discarded as junk by them, that was probably the final nail in the coffin for me. Nearly the entirety of the game revolves around their families lineage and the Spear, but by 2018, its garbage? And they couldn’t have a longer conversation with a person who lived 2400 years? Millennia of knowledge and almost none of it could be passed on beyond a cryptic message saying that it all has to end in a very “Last Jedi” sort of way?

Its been over a month now since I’ve last touched the game, but after seeing the trailer for the Legacy of the First Blade DLC, I’m cautiously optimistic. The trailer depicts what appears to be the Order of the Ancients which served as the proto-Templar antagonists in AC: Origins. I’m hoping it serves to somehow connect Odyssey’s story to the overall story of Assassin’s Creed as I still don’t think there is much link between them. 

Assassin’s Creed: Odyssey Review Odyssey is a beautifully crafted world with fascinating history, but I feel like it’s directionless story wise.

[likegston-blog]

 shows  up  10  years  late w/  an  intro/info  post .     as  we  all  well  know  from  the  ooc  blog :  i’m  cosbo !     i  still  play  pokemon  go ,  i  create  things  you  never  asked  for  in  photoshop ,  i’ve  been  in  love  with  gaston  since  the  age  of  four ,  &  i  don’t  think  i’ve  ever  once  gotten  enough  sleep  in  my  life .     under  the  cut  i’ll  give  you  a  rundown  on  your  favorite  self  absorbed  french  asshole  &  how  i’m  playing  him  +  an  important  note  regarding  my  activity  in  the  upcoming  weeks !

MY  WHAT  A  GUY ,  THAT  GASTON !

 if  you’ve  heard  the  catchy  song  you  probably  know  that  no  one  does  literally  anything  quite  like  gaston .     &  true  enough  gaston  is  talented  plus  he’s  probably  one  of  the  most  handsome  people  you  will  ever  meet  but  the  downside  to  that  fact  is  he  is  fully  aware  of  it .     gaston  thinks  he  shits  gold  probably .     he  shows  up  to  birthday  parties  with  no  present  &  say  his  presence  alone  is  a  present .    he’s  the  king  of  entitled  white  boys .     &  unfortunately  he’s  not  quite  familiar  with  the  word  NO .     if  he  thinks  your  pretty ,  he  may  lay  some  moves  on  you  &  if  you  try  to  turn  him  down  honestly  he’ll  just  be  more  interested  just  ask  belle .     this  mainly  goes  for  just  girls  but  am  i  gonna  sit  here  &  say  he  can’t  appreciate  a  pretty  man ?     you  bet  your  sweet  ass  i’m  not .     no  one’s  bi  like  gaston !     however ,  he  does  come  from  a  time  where  any  form  of  non  heterosexuality  was  highly  frowned  upon  so  …  he’s  coming  to  terms  w/  that  one .     it’s  fine  he’ll  get  there .

 GASTON’S  PAST :     we  don’t  know  much  about  gaston’s  past  other  than  he  did  fight  in  a  war  ( given  the  timeline  of  beauty  &  the  beast  being  mid  18th  century  there’s  a  few  possibilities  in  which  war  he  fought  in  but  we’re  gonna  say  it  was  either  the  war  of  austrian  succession (1740 - 1748)  or  it  was  the  seven  years  war (1754 - 1763) )   &  he  became  a  war  hero  &  an  army  captain .     it  was  also  stated  by  luke  evans  in  an  interview  that  gaston’s  celebrity  status  in  the  little  village  of  villeneuve  comes  from  the  fact  he  protected  the  village  from  a  pack  of  portuguese  marauders  in  1740  when  he  was  just  16 .     in  the  book  it  also  states  that  this  war  he  fought  in  &  became  a  hero  in  was  12  years  prior  to  the  story .     what  baffles  me  the  most  abt  that  is  he  still  wears  his  uniform .   who  has  clothes  that  still  fit  &  look  pristine  for  12  years ????     anyway .     speaking  of  his  uniform  an  interesting  thing  to  note  is  that  gaston’s  war  uniform  is  bright  red .     in  the  18th  century  ...  the  french  army  wore  blue .     the  red  coats  were  the  british  so  ...  from  that  we  can  assume  gaston  fought  with  the  british  army  which  i’ll  have  more  on  that  deal  in  the  family  section  of  the  intro  post  but  what  i  wanna  talk  about  here  is  on  one  hand  we  can  believe  gaston  was  a  british  war  hero  who  had  ties  to  france  that  had  him  live  there .     on  the  other ,  &  i  think  this  better  fits  gaston’s  horrid  personality ,  gaston  could  be  a  deserter  from  the  british  army  who  stabbed  the  british  in  the  back ,  turning  on  them  &  becoming  a   war  hero  for  france .     he  is  fond  of  stabbing  backs  it  seems  like  him .   now !     moving  on !     gaston  does  have  ptsd  from  the  war  ,  even  luke  said  this  in  an  interview ,  though  he  keeps  it  under  wraps  by  feeding  off  the  praise  he  gets ,  making  himself  feel  useful  &  wanted  rather  than  focusing  on  how  empty  his  life’s  been  since  the  war ,  &  burying  it  under  his  inflated  ego .     underneath  that ,  however ?     yeah ,  he’s  pretty  broken ,  jaded ,  &  when  he  doesn’t  get  what  he  wants  his  anger  comes  forth  in  a  very  militaristic  fashion  that  seeks  to  destroy  anything  in  his  path  to  what  he  wants  due  to  the  fact  that  part  of  him  is  still  seeking  to  return  to  the  war .     not  even  tweleve  whole  years  have  shaken  the  battle  out  of  gaston  &  his  mind  since  it  just  hasn’t  been  able  to  settle  back .      some  part  of  him  has  wired  itself  to  live  on  the  adrenaline  &  action  of  the  war  &  his  frustration  with  his  inability  to  settle  back  into  a  peaceful  life  has  made  him  crave  the  war .     he  seeks  for  the  thrill ,  the  high ,  of  war  similiar  situations  &  while  most  once  shook  their  head  at  this  they  would  come  to  find  out  that  his  war  hungry  half  can  be  something  more  far  more  dangerous  when  his  anger  is  tested  along  with  it .     it’s  times  like  that  when  gaston  hardly  realizes  he’s  partly  acting  on  his  frustration  &  anger  with  mundane  life  &  subconscious  need  for  the  chaos  of  war .

 GASTON’S  FAMILY :     we  know  nothing  of  gaston’s  parents  …  but  one  can  assume  he’s  probably  from  a  well  off  family  &  he’s  most  definitely  an  only  child .     one  headcanon  i  do  have  is  that  while  gaston’s  mother  was  french ,  his  father ,  though  of  french  decent  hence  the  surname  legume ,  was  from  england .     in  the  2017  film ,  lefou  says  ‘je  ne  sais  quoi ?’   &  gaston  responds  that  he  doesn’t  know  what  that  means .     pretty  sad  for  a  french  guy ,  yeah ?     they  way  i  headcanon  it  is  that  gaston  was  born  in  england  &  his  family  moved  to  france  with  but  his  mother  soon  left  he  &  his  father  when  gaston  was  still  very  young .     so  gaston’s  british ,  technically .     he  &  his  father  simply  didn’t  move  after  his  mother  left ,  it  was  too  much  a  hassle ,  &  gaston’s  father  spoke  most  only  english  &  also  sought  gaston  out  an  english  tutor .     from  living  in  france ,  yes ,  gaston  has  indeed  picked  up  some  french  but  he’s  actually  not  fluent .     he  knows  a  good  amount  of  basic  conversation  &  could  hold  a  decent  one  &  then  he  also  knows  military  commands  but  that’s  about  it .     through  most  his  life ,  when  having  trouble  with  the  languge  be  that  trouble  speaking  it  or  listening  to  it ,  he  would  often  turn  to  lefou  to  translate .     anyhow ,  back  on  topic ,  much  of  gaston’s  personality  comes  from  his  extreme  need  for  attention  as  a  child  &  his  father’s  spoiling  of  him  in  addition  to  his  father’s  insanely  sexist  view  on  masculinity  which  he  inherited .

 GASTON  IN  THE  ENCHANTED  FOREST :     we  all  know  how  beauty  &  the  beast  ends  for  gaston .     he  does  a  cheep  shot  at  the  beast  from  behind  then ,  afterwards ,  the  structure  he  was  standing  on  crumbles  &  he  falls  to  his  death .     well ,  the  last  thing  gaston  remembers  is  falling .     that  is  the  point  of  beauty  &  the  beast  that  i’ve  taken  him  from .     that  being  said ,  this  mean’s  gaston’s  anger  &  deranged  violent  nature  is  at  critical  level .     tick  him  off ?     you’re  getting  hit .     he’s  extremely  angry  at  belle … yet  still  wants  to  marry  her  because  now  it’s  just  a  matter  of  pride  kinda  thing .     if  you  bring  up   the  beast  or  just  anything  about  his  story ,  probably ,  he  will  snap  a  bit .

 MISCELLANEOUS HEADCANONS :

 yes ,  gaston  can  read !    unlike  his  cartoon  counterpart  who  only  likes  picture  books .     now ,  he  doesn’t  read  any  of  the  books  they  have  in  the  village ,  of  course ,  as  they’re  all  in  french   ( save  for  romeo  &  juliet  as  it’s  by  an  english  playwright  but  gaston  would  not  subject  himself  to  reading  gooey  romance  shakespear  when  things  such  as  hamlet  &  macbeth  exist )   &  he’s  even  less  terrific  at  reading  french  than  he  is  at  speaking  it .     mostly  he  reads  only  from  his  father’s  small  collection  of  books  which  he  grew  up  with  &  has  now  inherited .     his  favorite  is  actually  macbeth ,  seeing  as  he  quotes  it  in  the  mob  song .

he  really  loves  breakfast  food  you  guys .     does  he  really  eat  5  dozen  eggs  a  day ?     may  have  been  an  exaggeration .     but !     he  does  eat  a  good  heap  of  eggs  every  morning  &  it’s  at  least  slightly  concerning .

 most  of  the  time  he  will  only  do  things  that  somehow  benefit  him .     this  is  how  he  is  &  if  he  doesn’t  see  gain  in  his  end  in  whatever  you’re  asking  him  to  do  he’ll  most  likely  turn  it  down .

 if  doing  something  will  get  him  adoring  fans  he’ll  do  it  &  he  won’t  let  anyone  else  help .     he  lives  for  praise .     oh  there’s  a  child  in  a  burning  building ?     you’re  going  to  save  it ?     not  anymore  he’ll  tie  you  to  a  tree  so  that  he  can  do  it  &  get  the  glory .     he’s  a  very  bad  team  player  for  sure .

 WANTED  CONNECTIONS :    i.  LEFOU .   connection  taken !    gaston  abanoned  lefou ,  who  only  spent  his  days  adoring  gaston  &  being  in  literal  love  w/  him ,  to  die  after  using  him  as  a  human  sheild  &  letting  him  crushed  by  candenza .    as  horrible  as  gaston  was  to  lefou  in  the  end  he  does  know  that  lefou  is  his  biggest  fan  &  before  his  jealousy  &  anger  took  him  over  he  was  genuinely  friends  with  lefou .     lefou  has  been  his  friend  since  he  was  young  &  fought  in  the  war  beside  him .     guaranteed  to  anyone  who  brings  me  a  lefou :  heartbreaking  plots ,  many  tears ,  my  constant  bothering  of  you ,  sad  headcanons ,  MY ETERNAL LOVE!!!!! ,  any  gif  icons  or  static  icons  of  lefou  you  may  need  i  will  make  them  for  you ,  &  more !     a  josh  gad  fc  would  be  preferred  but  ik  he  doesn’t  have  the  most  abundant  of  resources  so  if  you  have  someone  else  in  mind  that’s  fine  but  like  just  hmu  first  if  you’re  using  someone  else .     i  seriously  will  make  you  static  &  gif  icons  if  you  use  josh ,  though ,  like  i  will  make  resources  for  you .     LISTEN  I’D  JUST  LOVE  A  LEFOU  SO  MUCH ! 

+  COSBO’S  ACTIVITY  NOTE  6/3 !

 i’m  moving  in  two  weeks !     yeah ,  i  joined  a  rpg  at  not  the  best  time  but  it’s  fine .     see ,  you  may  notice  that  on  my  app  i  say  i’m  in  pacific  time !     well ,  i’m  actually  currently  in  central  standard  time  at  the  current  moment .     but  i’m  going  to  be  moving  literally  across  the  country  to  california !     i  put  pacific  time  on  my  app  though  because  i  thought  it  pointless  to  put  the  timezone  of  somewhere  i’m  not  even  gonna  be  for  much  longer .     this  means  i  will  be  packing ,  routing  my  trip ,  trying  to  get  a  new  job ,  working  at  my  two  current  jobs ,  &  spending  time  with  friends  before  i  leave  all  in  the  upcoming  two  weeks !     i’m  very  busy  but  i  will  try  to  get  on  here  as  much  as  i  possibly  can .     if  worse  comes  to  worse  then  i  will  request  a  semi  hiatus  until  i’m  successfully  across  the  country !

***UPDATE :   I’VE  MOVED  SO  NO  WORRIES  ABT  THIS  NOW  LMAO

[adam16bit]

The Legend of Zelda!  I just played through the first quest on my NES Classic, and I found pretty much everything minus the Red Ring in Level 9. I stumbled on Gannon first, and well, that was that.  It was so much fun!

I’m not going to say an unassisted play through of The Legend of Zelda in 2017 is for masochists only, mostly because if someone is going to go that route I assume at least you know where it’s going and it’ll probably be over in less than an hour.

If you’re old enough, you remember that such niceties as text or tutorials were a rare item indeed in the 8-bit generation of video games.   The story largely came from the manual, talking non-playable characters basically sputtered cryptic clues and gibberish, and companies like Nintendo made special maps, guide books and other special items in-pack or sold separately to take advantage of the fact that the game basically tells you nothing about how to play it.  If you didn’t memorize the instruction booklet on the drive home from Lionel PlayWorld, you had no idea what the Hell was going on.  I also remember it  being $34.99, cheap.

As a kid, this was my favorite game - I considered it to be the best game of all time for quite some time, too.  As I’ve gotten older I’ve moved away from “this game is long so it’s good” to “this game is short so it’s good.”   My replay was just a couple of hours, but only because I knew where stuff was.  You could spend dozens of hours walking around killing things before you realized that the candle could be used to burn trees, or exactly how and where bombs were best deployed on rocks to find secrets.  I loved the combat, and the discovery was very rewarding.  It was a big deal to get a sword upgrade from a dude behind a waterfall or in a graveyard.

The basic format of the game is largely unchanged for the entire series - you’re Link, there’s a big world map, there are a series of dungeons, and you need to collect something or other to put the world in order before Gannon comes back and wins the electoral college, or something like that.   Despite being super simple, I loved the creature designs.  Tektites were crickets crossed with spiders.  Octoroks were little land octopus things that could spit rocks.   Peahats were invincible flowers... until they stopped moving.  Leevers, I don’t know what those are.  I know what they look like.  There’s a flared base.  (Naughty naughty.)

The bosses were really cool - there were two strains of dragons, giant spiders, some dinosaurs that hated smoking, a four-headed piranha plant creature that lived in something that looked like a swastika because nobody here really teaches grade schoolers about Buddhist symbols being modified and co-opted by history’s greatest monsters.  But I digress.

It was always a treat to figure out what to do or where to go, with the real prize being what amounted to a free sequel with even more new rules once you beat the game.  A couple of new enemies plus the ability to walk through dungeon walls were added to the mix, and how you were supposed to know that without a friend telling you is beyond me.  A reworked overworld with all-new dungeons was a heck of a bonus challenge, especially when you can’t exactly afford a new game due to not exactly having a job.  (I’ll probably ramble about that later.)

The dungeons were clean and easy to read, with surprisingly good sound effects for opening doors and the creepy rumbles of various monsters.  You could blow holes in the walls, open passages with keys, or move secret blocks that acted as a switch to reveal hidden staircases.  Again, how you’d know this is beyond me.  It’s amazing any of us ever finished it, but it provided the best video game boot camp for players and designers for year to come.   Now you knew there were new rules - Mario just asked you to hit some blocks or jump down a pipe.  Zelda needed to make sure you pushed and burned and blew up everything, and saved your money to buy stuff, and killed monsters along the way.

The kingdom of Hyrule supposedly had a castle and royalty and people, but all you ever met were merchants, hoarders, and people with gambling problems.   Later games would give you more quests and more people to save, but that doesn’t mean that the original Zelda wasn’t quotable in its dubious translation.

“It’s a secret to everybody.”

“Buy somethin’ will ya?”

“Grumble, grumble.”

...the latter of which is regularly featured in my work communications.  I still love this game and I have the Jakks 8-Bit Link action figure trio on my desk right now - I bought the Amiibo as well.   I wouldn’t recommend it to new gamers due to how obtuse and frustrating it is without full documentation and a real dedication to patience, but I’m sure you could cheat your way through it on a Saturday afternoon.   Over the last decade I’ve found I’d much rather play the oft-maligned sequel Zelda II: The Adventure of Link thanks to its proto-RPG elements, distinctive combat, and generally Metroid-esque layout.

As I got older, the series has lost me a bit.  I beat the first four games and loved them.  I never stuck with the N64 ones long enough - thanks, college - and am currently procrastinating going back to the Wii U HD remake of Twilight Princess.  If nothing else, the series has showed how old I’ve become.  I adored A Link Between Worlds on the 3DS, but at this point I don’t know if I’m at all eager for anything that isn’t effectively a new 2D Zelda.  I don’t think it’s a reflection on the games so much as my desire to pound the pavement in Hyrule and explore every last area without resorting to assistance. 

I have such a fondness for this game that after having beat it moments ago, writing about it makes me want to jump in the second quest when I wake up tomorrow.  If that’s not a seal of quality, I don’t know what is.

[victorluvsalice]

AU Thursday: Tell Me Where To Find Shelter -- The Reboot

Okay, so -- this past Saturday, I brought back the Pentatonix/Lindsey Stirling cover of Imagine Dragon’s “Radioactive,” and commented that part of the reason the song was on my mind was because I’ve been really getting into Fallout 4, which I’m playing with Victor as my Sole Survivor. This mean that, of course, I have a Valice AU for the game -- “Tell Me Where To Find Shelter.” I originally came up with a rather simplistic version of the AU aaaalll the way back in 2016, based on what little I knew about the game (and the series in general) from getting into the Fallout Shelter mobile game and seeing a friend’s posts about her Sole Survivor. That original version could be summed up as basically “the prologue sequence, only Victor and Victoria are secretly in a poly relationship with Emily, who dies too when their kid is stolen, and Victor discovers Alice alive in the Vault as the only other one who made it -- they go out into the Wasteland together to discover what happened to Victor’s kid.” Pretty simple, right?

Yeah, you can throw all that out. Now, I have actually played the game, spoiled myself on the main quest and a lot of the side quests because I don’t give a damn, and have done a bit of research on the history of the Fallout verse as a whole. (Short version: It sucks. It sucks a lot.) So I have a lot of new ideas, meaning it’s time to reboot this verse! I wouldn’t expect a full-fledged story to come out of this (you’ve seen me panicking over the size of “Londerland Bloodlines,” right? Which is based off an action RPG that is reasonably linear and has a timeline of a month? Fallout 4 is open world and while the main quest is linear, the fact that I’ve been able to ignore it for MONTHS in-game because I can’t say no to Preston Garvey is -- eeep), but I may at least do a few snippets and whatnot.

So! Let me share what I’ve got regarding Victor’s history as the Sole Survivor of Vault 111 -- I’m gonna try to keep it to more general thoughts as I’m not totally up on the history of the Fallout world, and things may have to be adjusted if I later discover that something in the canon strongly contradicts it:

-->I have got his birth date: June 9th, 2050. This makes him 27 at the start of Fallout 4, which I felt was reasonable based on the Fallout Wiki stating both Sole Survivors were likely born between the early 2040s and the mid 2050s.

-->I still want him to be born in England, and have his family move to America a little later in his life -- though when is complicated by the whole Euro-Middle Eastern War and the New Plague putting America under quarantine for a while. The latest I can imagine is them making it over in his early teens or so, having left the broken-down wreck of the U.K. to rebuild fortunes in America.

-->They do indeed rebuild fortunes in America -- Boston, Massachusetts, to be precise. William sets up an extremely lucrative fish-canning business and makes sure to support the military extensively. (The Four Leaf fishpacking plant is almost certainly one of his in this timeline.)

-->The Victor/Victoria/Emily poly thing still happens, kicked off by Victor’s parents pressuring him into dating Victoria (whom he likes), Victor making friends with Emily (whom he also likes) -- and Victor accidentally asking Emily to prom via trying to rehearse his lines to ask Victoria to prom. Feeling bad as Emily is coming off a really bad breakup with an ass named Barkis (who stole a lot of money from her in a long con), he clears it with both girls to take Emily, and later they help defend Victoria when Barkis returns during the party and try to rob her. This leads to a close friendship, which eventually becomes something more.

-->Victor ends up being pulled into the Sino-American war straight out of high school -- William attempts to buy his way out, but for once his money doesn’t work, and Victor ends up fighting in Anchorage, Alaska.

-->This version of Victor, while still into butterflies and moths, is also a tinkerer, and quickly becomes known among his fellow soldiers in Fox Company (108th Infantry Regiment, 2nd Battalion) as “that guy who can fix anything with duct tape and Wonderglue.” (I do enjoy my armor and gun mods -- everything must be deep pocketed!)

-->I’m not sure what Victor does to earn his “decorated war hero” status yet (probably saved the lives of a lot of men with some quick repairs and shooting), but it’s enough to finally get him discharged around 2076. Victoria and Emily had gotten together while he was stuck fighting, but are only too happy to let him into their relationship. Victor officially marries Victoria to keep his parents happy, and they move into Sanctuary Hills with Emily pretending to be their “eventual live-in babysitter” to avoid scrutiny from the parents.

-->And then, during a park escapade, Victoria ends up pregnant. Baby Shaun is welcomed to the world July 31st, 2077. Everyone is thrilled, and Victor picks up a Mr. Handy soon afterward to help with baby care.

-->And then, of course, the bombs drop on October 23rd, 2077. Victor, Victoria, Emily, and Shaun just barely make it into Vault 111, and end up in cryonic suspension -- Victoria is later shot when her and Victor’s pods are reactivated during the kidnapping, and Emily dies quietly when the life support is cut to all but Victor’s pod. Victor is absolutely devastated by their deaths, and takes Victoria’s wedding ring and Emily’s favorite butterfly hair clip as mementos to remember them by before leaving Vault 111.

-->As for the actual game stuff:

Victor’s starting SPECIAL stats were Strength 4, Perception 3, Endurance 7, Charisma 2, Intelligence 8, Agility 3, Luck 3. I’ve been mainly improving Strength for carry weight, though I recently started working seriously on bumping up Charisma because I have realized making it a dump stat was probably not the greatest idea.

I can’t list all his current perks off the top of my head, but Armorer and Gun Nut are up there -- he’s very much a shooty-bang-bang kind of guy, and I believe I mentioned loving deep pockets?

Victor hasn’t met all the factions yet, but -- he’s definitely a Minuteman. I am so easily distracted by those quests, it’s not even funny. ...Well, it’s a little funny. XD He was only too happy to help Preston Garvey’s group set up in Sanctuary Hills, and he and Preston are best friends now -- aka, Preston’s the first companion who idolizes me and whose perk I got. He’s a LITTLE awkward about the whole “General” thing (”Preston, you’re the one always telling ME what to do”) but he’ll grow into it.

As for the other factions -- he’s met Paladin Danse and helped him out at Arcjet, but refused the offer to join the Brotherhood. . .he might go back and do some missions with them, but I don’t think he’s going to like Elder Maxson’s views on synths and ghouls (Super Mutants -- okay, Super Mutants are assholes). He hasn’t met the Railroad yet, but I think he’ll like them and join up to help, even if he thinks some of their methods need tweaking. The Institute -- I think he’ll be of the mind that their discoveries are good, but they’re using them for such evil purposes, and -- ugh.

That being said, I’d like to go for the Minutemen ending that does not require warring with the Brotherhood of Steel, simply because there are kids on that airship and I’d feel bad shooting it down. If there was a way to just get rid of Maxson and maybe yank the Brotherhood closer to its Fallout 3 views. . .and if not blowing up the Institute was an option, Victor would be for it. Getting rid of the top brass who have completely written off the Commonwealth is one thing -- but the building, with all its advances? That could be useful.

Oh, and yes, he is adopting Synth Shaun -- but he is letting the kid know who and what he is, to help him forge his own path in life. (Synth Shaun also correctly guesses his new Dad feels awkward calling him by his predecessor’s name, and they decide on “Chester” instead.)

As for companions he’s currently met -- mentioned already that Preston’s his best friend, and he’s a solid supporter of the Minutemen. He adores Dogmeat and has made him a doghouse to live in at the Red Rocket near Sanctuary. He likes Piper Wright and her desire to spread the news quite a lot (and finds her attractive too). Danse he admires for his commitment to his men and his cause, but doesn’t really know him beyond that due to not joining the BoS. He IS very thankful for the gun, though -- Righteous Authority is useful! Codsworth and he had some rough moments at the beginning (I gave Mama Murphy some Jet for a vision, and poor guy got in the way of some friendly fire on an early trip), but seeing Victor get his modding on has improved their relationship quite a bit (Codsworth sees it as Victor getting back to his old helpful self). He’s encountered Ada and has grown quite fond of the little robot, wanting to help her avenge her slaughtered caravan family (WHY CAN I NOT HUG THE ROBOT). And he’s rescued Strong from Trinity Tower. . .and ended up getting sick of the Super Mutant’s constant negative comments toward humanity and inability to figure out stealth. He was helpful in taking back The Castle, but currently Victor’s got him living with a couple of settlers as a “guard” of sorts, in the hopes it’ll keep him busy and out of Victor’s hair.

And now you may notice there’s a strange lack in this longer-than-I-anticipated write-up. . .namely, where the hell is Alice? Well, that question has three answers:

-->For the purposes of my playthrough, I’m designating Piper as Alice -- she’s going to be Victor’s romance option in this game. (Me turning my attention to boosting Charisma may have been inspired by being unable to flirt with her during an affinity conversation no matter how many times I reloaded.)

-->An idea I had recently to put Alice in the verse was have her as a native-born Wastelander/escapee from a Vault (latter would probably be best to keep her history -- oh cripes, maybe she was from a Vault where BUMBY was OVERSEER, imagine THAT horror) who discovers the history of the “Order of Mysteries” (a group of women, lead by the old voice actress of the Mistress of Mysteries, who turned herself into a legit superhero post-Great War -- unfortunately betrayal led to the group dying out) and decides to take up the mantle, much like the Sole Survivor can become the Silver Shroud. She’d show up not long after Victor starts Shrouding around, asking to meet -- they’d have a little spar, end up fighting another enemy together, and she’d join up as a companion, leading to eventual romance.

-->But the first idea I had to get Alice into the story was. . .well. . .

Let me put it this way -- for quite a while, I was playing both Vampire: the Masquerade -- Bloodlines and Fallout 4 at the same time.

. . .yeah, I think this is going to need another post.

[ciathyzareposts]

Crusaders of the Dark Savant: Yada Yada Yada

The game is fond of text interludes. Normally I applaud this kind of thing, but Crusaders takes it a bit too far.

               It’s taken me a while to get going with this one–I’ve had two entries basically covering the opening minutes–but at last I feel like I’m “in” the game. I find it quite a bit harder than its predecessors, although part of that has to do with the growing length of things. In a simple game like the original Wizardry, a single combat takes far less than a minute. It may have been functionally harder than this seventh entry, but there you could grind a fighter from Level 1 to Level 10 in less time than it takes here to explore the opening wilderness.

As I previously noted, I started over with a new party, and I think it’s safe to say that I spent longer analyzing, planning, and creating the new party than I have with any previous RPG. This is what I came up with:

             Gideon, a male human fighter. I wanted a lord, but I couldn’t get quite enough bonus points, so I figured I’d dual to a lord at a later date. I’ve concentrated his weaponry skills on the sword and shield and his academic skills on mapping.

Svava, a female dwarf Valkyrie. All her weapon skills go into the “pole & staff” (which includes spears), and academically I’m having her specialize in mythology.

Noctura, a female Dracon thief. I also have vague plans to dual her to something later. Damned 7-character limit on names kept me from putting the second “n” in there. She’s also a sword specialist, but academically she’s our item-identifier. At least, she will be when she gets good enough. I have too much unidentified stuff sitting around.

Bix, a male hobbit bard. He’s a third sword specialist (perhaps I’m going to regret not diversifying) and the party’s diplomat.

Esteban, a male elf priest. He strikes with his staff (and thus specializes in pole & staff) from the rear, and academically I pour his points into theology.

Prenele, a female faerie alchemist. I’ve split her weapon skills into several categories: wand and dagger, throwing, and sling. Basically, whenever I have some cool stuff to shoot or toss, I give it to her (I try to get everyone else into melee range). Her academic points go into alchemy.

          One of my new characters.

         I thought this setup gave me a decent melee party but with several characters (priest, alchemist, and Valkyrie) capable of casting healing spells in early levels. The bard comes with a lute that provides essentially unlimited “Sleep” spells, which were very handy in the opening area. I’ll think about changing classes for some of these characters at some point, particularly since this configuration leaves me impoverished in classic mage spells.

I’ve been putting physical points mostly into swimming, with the exception of Noctura, who has to build her “skullduggery” skill to disarm traps and open locks, and Bix, who has to master music. I had hoped that I could stop once I got swimming to 10, but now I realize that’s just the bare minimum to avoid drowning if you have a full stamina bar. One dip into one water square cuts that bar neatly in half. Unless I want to rest after every breaststroke, I’ll need to keep feeding this skill.          

My map of the outdoor area. Later, I found that north is to the right. I need to swim and to be able to avoid poppies to explore any more.

          With the new party, I set out to fully explore the wilderness area and then to re-do the opening dungeon. The wilderness area is a bit smaller but more irregular than I expected. It’s designed to funnel a character adopting a “rightmost path” strategy to the starter dungeon and then to New City. If you follow the left “wall” instead, you end up fighting quite a few battles against forest denizens before finding a skull and a treasure chest near an entrance to the sea. The chest contains an automap. I don’t know what the skull does.            

Finding a chest can be a wordy experience in Crusaders.

           To the north of the starting area, there’s a field of poppies that put you to sleep before you have a chance to walk more than a few squares. I mapped as much as I could here, but clearly I need something to avoid the poppies’ sleep effect.

The battles in the wilderness were mostly easy enough for my new party, particularly with Bix putting everyone to sleep every round. The most difficult was the ratkin ambush on the way to New City, which I probably should have saved for after the dungeon. It took me about six reloads to win that one.

The starter dungeon proceeded as the first time, greatly assisted by the healing fountain. Bix, who started with no weapon, finally got a sword, although I still don’t know what kind it is. By the time I left the dungeon, my characters were only one level lower than their imported counterparts, and with a better allocation of skills.

I had expected New City to be something of a resting point, the way most cities are in most RPGs, with comfortable places like stores, inns, and temples. While it does offer a couple of “shops” (individual characters who sell things) and one quasi-temple, it’s more hostile than I expected, the area having recently been conquered by the Dark Savant.

The Dark Savant’s soldiers occupy a bunch of buildings and often show up as random encounters. They come in two types–savant guards and savant troopers–and both of them are tough to defeat at this level, particularly since they don’t respond to the bard’s sleep tunes (I suspect they’re automatons). In comparison, a large number of “Gorn spearmean” were much easier to defeat, but I got the impression that they were natives and thus felt bad about killing them. There were also more ratkin.            

Killing these guys feels wrong, but it really added to my leveling.

           Many times, I had to annotate a building for later return after facing an undefeatable party. Sometimes, I learned, it’s worth trying a couple of times, because the fixed encounter that offered three savant troopers and four savant guards the first time might only serve up two savant guards the second time. But in other places, the enemies were just consistently too hard no matter what I tried. I have to say, I’m getting a lot of use out of the “terminate game” button, which thankfully allows you to end a hopeless combat instantly instead of fighting to the bitter end.           

This is an unwinnable combat at my level.

            The other annoyance I found within New City was an abundance of locked doors. Lockpicking involves the same kind of mini-game as in Wizardry VI, where a series of colors rotate beneath each tumbler, and you have to click when the light is green to trip the tumbler. The proportion of green to other colors is based on the character’s “skullduggery” skill. If your skill is high enough, a light might just stay a consistent green, and if it’s low enough, it might stay a consistent red. Just as with Wizardry VI, the lights change too quickly to time them (unless you cheat by cranking down the emulator speed), and clicking at the right time is more like taking a chance than playing a true mini-game. Either way, if you screw up, the door can become jammed, which is no good for anyone. There’s theoretically a way to force doors, but I’m having less luck with that than lockpicking. I had to annotate a lot of doors for later return.           

Even if I could time my click, I can’t tell the difference between green and red.

          Because of both tough enemies and locked doors, I couldn’t explore a lot of the city. In particular, there’s a prison with some trapped NPCs (one of them calls out a rear window for us to free him), but I can’t fight my way through the enemies just yet.              

An NPC asks for help.

              There were a few standard NPCs in the buildings, and the game adopts the convention found in Wizardry V and VI for full-text dialogues. You have to type entire sentences and end questions with question marks, or the game doesn’t always understand what you mean. Here’s a talk I had with Sogheim, someone living in a southern building:

M: Who are you?

S: I am Sogheim

M: What do you do?

S: I live here, by the sea

M: Why do you live here, by the sea?

S: It is rumored a great monster guards the secret of the seas! (I tried several questions related to the monster but couldn’t get him to add anything.)

M: Do you know the Dark Savant?

S: Dread ruler of Galaxies!

M: What’s happening in New City?

S: New City is where everyone eventually ends up!          

I didn’t cover all his conversation options. 50 gold pieces is a lot.

         I met a couple of NPCs that I didn’t know what to do with. One, on the road, was named “Ratsputin.” Another, in town, was named an Umpani whose name I neglected to write down. Neither responded to my requests for a “truce,” and I ultimately just avoided them by hitting “leave” at the initial encounter screen. I hope I wasn’t supposed to do something more productive with them.             

In case you keep forgetting who the lead developer was, moments like this repeatedly remind you.

            A few other encounters worth noting:

A copper penny found in an abandoned bank vault bought my way into the “Curio Museum of Amazing Oddities,” where I found a chest containing a magic cloak and “deadman’s hair.” More on this chest in a bit.

            The tradition of putting a question mark in front of unknown items goes back to the first Wizardry.

           A weaponry shop was guarded by a large Umpani who insisted that he was closed, “PERMANENTLY!” However, I later heard that he ran a black market, and when I returned and said “black market” to him, he relented and let me see a selection of weapons.

              I think that’s supposed to be some kind of gun, not a horn.

              A statue in the center of a courtyard surrounded by water. My skill isn’t good enough to swim to the statue.

            More blah-blah-blah.

            “Thesminster Abbey” held a priest who, with the right dialogue choices, let me go downstairs to a healing fountain. It would have been more useful if it didn’t mean passing through so many messages and dialogues to get to it (see below).

            These are always handy.

         Because of my exploration pattern, I reached “Paluke’s Armory,” the putative reason I was in the city, quite late. It was underwhelming. He had a few armor upgrades to offer, but nothing extraordinary. 

               I’ve made very little money since the game began.

             Throughout the gameplay, I began to get annoyed with its unavoidable wordiness. Normally, I like textual encounters and lore, but somehow the way Crusaders presents them gets in my nerves. The first problem is that the text says simple things as if they’re profound. Here’s a message that you get when you step near New City’s docks, for instance:

         The great Sea of Sorrows spans before you like a vast and dense space flattened unto the sky, spreading into the far distant horizon as a desolate plain of shimmering ether. Its deep waters chant a thousand silent tales, and its unseen borders but hint of far distant lands. How universal such a compelling motion, as if behind every veil of boundless unknown lay cloaked an invisible beacon, endlessly calling. Such solace these sights bring, as if a reminder that though the trappings of mortal man be forever enshrouded in a sea of passing discords, he has but to open his eyes that he may bear witness to some greater existence of which he is only a momentary traveler.

      Beyond the sophomoric wordiness are  couple of problems: Not only that the game is putting sentiments into my own character’s minds, but also that they’re a bit misplaced. Romanticizing the sea and the boundless lands beyond its horizon is something that you do on your own world, when the sea is a true frontier, not something that you’re likely to do after you’ve just arrived on this planet, having crossed the galaxy in a starship.

Anyway, the game feeds you this text one screen at a time, using a font far larger than necessary, and often not using the entire screen, so that you have to acknowledge six screens of text before you can move on. And if you accidentally return to the square, you have to go through all of the text again. Oh, and there’s an annoying delay after the text appears but before you can hit ENTER to move on. I could suffer this rarely, but about a dozen times in New City, the developers felt they needed to hijack my gameplay with some unnecessary twaddle that did more to confuse the plot than to enhance it.               

Part of another long description that I have to suffer every time I want to use the healing fountain.

                  As I finished my first loop through the city, my big problem became the need to cure the disease that my fighter incurred when we opened the chest in the “Curio Museum.” The healing fountain in the temple doesn’t cure it, and the priest doesn’t seem to offer other services. None of the potions I’ve found are “cure disease” potions. I was hoping that one of the shops might sell them, but no luck there. The game manual warns of an increasing horrible fate, and ultimately death, suffered by a diseased character, and it warns you not to rest if anyone is diseased, so it’s affecting my entire party. My best hope is that the “Cure Disease” spell pops up as an option the next time my alchemist or priest level up, but I hate to put all my eggs in that basket. I wonder if the healing fountain in the dungeon will take care of it.

Either way, I feel like I need to grind for a couple more levels before taking on the city again, hopefully exploring more buildings this time. One point in Crusaders’ favor is that leveling up feels extremely rewarding. You watch your attributes increase–sometimes three or four per level–and then you can put a bunch of skill points into your chosen skills. So far, each level has a palpable effect on the next few combats.            

I have some misgivings about the game, but leveling is as addictive as ever.

           I hope to have some more momentum going by the time of the next entry. I’ve got a lot of work and travel this month, so my posting schedule might continue to be erratic for a few more weeks.

source http://reposts.ciathyza.com/crusaders-of-the-dark-savant-yada-yada-yada/

[zhaoly]

ok really long post ahead, sorry for mobile users since i dont think the spoiler break works on mobile iirc

i finally finished the main quest for fo4.. um.... was that it?? that was kinda my first reaction lol. ok i have SO many thoughts as i always do when i finish a game.. maybe more for this one tho

so i ended up doing both the minutemen and bos endings because they split relatively late in the story so i just made two separate saves... they were basically the same except i thought following liberty prime was kinda fun lol. i liked watching him pick up a behemoth and then just throwing it to the ground

so now that i’ve like... finished the game.... i guess i can see why people complain that fo4 is more of an fps than an rpg

like.... i’ve dumped a ton of hours into this game, but that’s mostly because i’ve spent a lot of time building settlements lol. besides that, the story does seem to be lacking a bit. i think it definitely had potential, but nothing was really fleshed out that well... like if i try to think back on what i did, i’m like.. ??

maybe part of that is because four main factions was a little ambitious? i just feel like there wasn’t much opportunity to actually get to know each faction and like actually feel like you were involved with them

1) minutemen - i mean, you got a shitton of radiant quests from preston (which drove me crazy very early on and got modded out)... and then what? you claim settlements and that’s about it. reclaiming the castle is as deep as the story gets. besides that all you have is radiant quests

also there were like... zero named characters besides preston who were actually really involved with the minutement. like there was ronnie shaw but she just ends being a merchant later, and i didn’t even get the proper armory quest from her because my game glitched out. so basically she was just a unique merchant for me

and like... who else is there?? there’s the sanctuary crew and some named settlers but none of them are really part of the “minutemen.” so like you didn’t really get to talk to members of the faction and stuff and actually feel like you were immersed in the story. like i know that the story is that you’re rebuilding the minutemen so there’s supposed to be no one but preston, but later on as you claim settlements and expand the minutement and stuff there’s still nothing... no new story, quest, npcs... you have to do some dungeon clearing quests for some of the named settlers but that’s literally it.

i liked their general “for the people” thing but like... they never really expanded on it... they did end up being one of the two factions that i sided with because of their cause but i just think the story (or lack thereof, really) with them was pretty bland

2) railroad - well i was considering joining them very early on cause i do think their cause is decent, i like deacon, and i accidentally spoiled for myself that danse is a synth (i like danse because i mean you know me and my beef)... but then i felt like they were a little too focused on the synths. like that was literally just their entire cause. and i just felt like that was just too narrow.

and you met these characters that you really just.... met and then nothing ever happened later with them! like high rise, mister tims, idk what the point of drummer boy was, etc..

and again there were just a ton of radiant quests... at least they were all finite, but like there was what? helping that one safehouse (forgot the name), mila quests, and pam’s caches. the ticonderoga quest was kinda interesting but i wish there was something more besides “here’s ticonderoga. oh whoops it gets destroyed later. haha!”

3) institute - well i disliked them right off the bat because they were the ones who not only MURDERED MY HUSBAND but also KIDNAPPED AND BRAINWASHED MY CHILD (yes i consider it brainwashing)????? like come on. i take this stuff very personally man. it’s the same reason why i joined the stormcloaks in skyrim (before realizing what a bunch of racist assholes they are but.... i digress) cause i was like WHY tf would i join a group that tried to execute me with absolutely zero cause

so i’m just like why would i join a group that murdered my husband (right in front of my eyes i might add) and kidnapped my child. hello??? like yeah i hated the fact that they gave you a goddamn baby in the first place, but since i had it i was like WELL I AM OUTRAGED THAT THEY DID THIS TO MY CHILD.

then there was the whole deal with them actually taking real people (and presumably murdering them) and replacing them with synth copies. i HATED that a lot and it was a big turnoff on top of all of my personal grievances against them. their elitist attitude towards the commonwealth was annoying as fuck as well as their manufacturing of gen 3 synths for what was basically slave labor. also there were like random conversations that would occur between scientists and synths and the scientists were such assholes.

oooooh and the part where you ask shaun why he decided to let you out of your cryo pod and he’s like “well... i suppose that i just wanted to see what would happen” and i was like BITCH WHAT?????? EXCUSE ME?????? THAT’S YOUR REASON?? 

like the shaun/father thing was an interesting twist in the story... but it def was not enough to make me want to join the institute. esp with that craphole reason that he gave me for letting me out of the cryo pod. and like the dude is basically a stranger to you, why tf would you just join the institute bc he’s “”””family””””? i suppose they tried to make it a more difficult dilemma by really trying to push your character’s story in the “i’m looking for my son!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!” direction before you actually find out what happened to shaun, but i didnt find that a very compelling plot point in the first place.... so it had pretty much no bearing on my decision

also. the synth shaun. he made the synth shaun which is like super weird and a little creepy. like this kid’s never gonna age.... i mean 50 years from now he’s gonna be a 60 y-o in a 10 y-o’s body!!!!!!!! who tf thought that was a good idea?? i mean i’m on the “gen 3 synths are truly sentient” train cause the game basically does nothing to show you otherwise. you have institute scientists telling you that they aren’t, but literally everything in the game shows you that they are. also danse

and then their cause... they say they’re the “best hope for humanity” and stuff but like what are they actually doing to help humanity. the only beneficial thing they did was create gmos like that huge pumpkin (while replacing roger ww in the process which as i mentioned before was something i hated). besides that, wtf are they doing besides hiding away in their blindingly white laboratories experimenting w/ synths?? 

anyway yeah i hated the institute but i guess in terms of “story” they did a little better than the railroad and minutemen. but they honestly got a helping hand from the fact that shaun was involved with them and a large part of the story early on was looking around for information about shaun and being able to ask npcs about the institute. however once you proceeded past a certain point they also fell into a very boring routine of having a handful of radiant quests available and not much else involving them

4) bos - well.... i def felt like they were super culty when i first went onto the prydwen. and i really dont like their stance on gen 3s and non-feral ghouls. but i do like that theyre out and about clearing the commonwealth of super mutants, ferals, and raiders lol. 

i really really hate the whole danse thing tho and how close-minded they are about him :( i did see that there was actually cut content where you could challenge maxson and danse would get his rank back and i kinda wish that they actually implemented that. i dont really want the elder role but i’d like the chance to do something where you could shift the bos’s opinion on gen 3s, even if only slightly... like THAT would be a good story element, come on! 

but w/e. i really didnt like them at first but i like their aesthetic compared to everyone else and their general cause (at least theyre not like opening fire on the slog, right... ?) ..

anyway i might just stick with their ending as my “main” playthrough cause afaict they’re not much diff from the minutemen ending except i get the sentinel rank, and you actually have some named people that you can interact with about your choice.

ok im actually really tired of writing this post... i actually have so many more thoughts haha but i dunno if i’ll be able to get them all out because as if on cue i’m getting tired around midnight.. anyway

yeah so the story was eh and i wish it went more in depth. like, even though i wasnt super fond of fnv’s story, i did think it was more immersive and detailed... i think fo4 had a lot of potential but sadly didn’t quite deliver. tbh i think the game couldve gone without the railroad if four factions really did just spread them too thin while in development.

like i think the part of the story with kellogg was good... the whole thing about trying to find the identity of this guy, searching his home, searching for him, looking through his memories, etc was pretty interesting. i liked how we were able to see his backstory and something about him that wasn’t just “dude who murdered my husband.” like that was all good stuff! but the story REALLY deteriorated after that... i mean you just end up having to kill the guy and then he’s just out of the story completely.

oh and like related to that--what was that whole deal with nick speaking in kellogg’s voice briefly after you finish in the memory den??? why would they just throw in a line like that and not expand on it at all???? that bugged me SO MUCH because again there was so much potential there!!! if kellogg had somehow gotten into nick’s mind you could be presented with so many new options. like how do you get him out? can you get him out? who do you go to for help? etc etc etc NOT JUST SOME THROWAWAY LINE THAT ACTUALLY DOES NOTHING AHHH

speaking of which. fo4 seems to do that a LOT. like maybe it’s recency bias bc i really dont remember all the details of fnv to be able to compare, but i feel like fo4 has a ton of little throwaway things that are interesting details but aren’t expanded on at all. like not even a little bit. i think there needs to be a certain balance between details and mini stories... like fo4 dangled SO many of these little details in your face that you just never got to expand on at all.. i love an interesting world where you can discover things that dont really have an impact on the main story or anything but these scraps just drove me crazy.

also there were like... no vaults??? i feel like fnv had a lot more... fo4 has vault 95 for cait (and a kinda boring purpose/story imo). the vault of triggermen where you find nick. the vault for refining human genes. vault 81. and that’s it.. i felt like i spent a lot more time in vaults in fnv? and they had some creepier stories/experiments too

ok like my brain... is really slowing down but i will at least get a few more thoughts down before i go to sleep

SETTLEMENTS. LORD HELP ME. again, a great concept with so much potential but poor execution. i really enjoyed settlements--with mods. vanilla settlements are just so horribly lacking. for one thing not being able to clean up your settlement is just terrible. you really would just have to leave piles of trash, garbage, debris, 200-YEAR-OLD SKELETONS, etc, lying around your settlement!!!!! where you’re supposed to have people living!!

settlers themselves also have some pretty terrible ai. theyre stupid af. their pathing is godawful. i am extremely proud of them when they actually are able to successfully navigate a structure i built because it is such a goddamn struggle for them! like they’re literally coded to take the shortest possible straight line path so i get tons of them walking into walls trying to get to their destination instead of walking around them, going through doorways, using stairs etc (yes theyre all navmeshed)... it’s actually so aggravating

also settlements themselves are incredibly and frustratingly buggy. the resources getting messed up in your pip boy bug is super annoying. there’s a shit ton of other bugs with them that i’m just too tired to list but i’m like ahhh god i feel like i’m playing a beta version of this shit! also what’s up with them spawning on top of buildings in sanctuary?

ok yeah i have a lot of crticisms for the game so it may not seem like i enjoyed it but i actually did. i think the story was decent up until after you finished kellogg’s part, cause after that it just got really boring (which is lame because seriously, the story gets boring after you can start decided which faction/s you want to join??)

but mods def contributed a lot to my enjoyment, esp my settlement mods... like most of my mods are settlement mods lol. so like... if i played vanilla fo4 i do doubt that i’d have enjoyed it as much. i do actually like the fps aspect of it, but i think there are too many places that are overloaded with enemies.. so you’re constantly fighting shit. it gets kind of annoying after a while.

OH THAT JUST REMINDED ME. GUNNERS. another thing that had potential but ended up just being... ??? raiders but fancier??? you could literally switch out all the gunners for raiders and nothing would change. when i first encountered them i was really excited cause i thought it was a new side faction but they’re literally just... raiders. but fancy. it’s disappointing af. there’s no story behind them... you can get into gunners plaza and find some holotapes from the leader and some members but then there’s nothing else! you don’t ever get to find out what the story is behind all of it! again with dangling some details in front of your face and then just never expanding on it at all. ugh gunners were seriously a big disappointment for me.

okay i’m actually done now cause i’m tired and typing this out actually took a lot of time lol. i still have a ton of thoughts but i need to sleep. lame

[bigboobshaunt]

Here’s the voice meme I was talking about! It’s creeping up on 10 minutes soooo strap in.

The last two questions and part of the previous one got cut off in recording somehow, so I’ll have to re-record them another time :/

Transcript below the cut.

"Heya, this is Jack Bisexualowain speaking and I'm about to do this sort of voice meme because I realized I didn't put my voice out there that often, which lead some people to inquire about my accent, so I decided to take questions from Tumblr dot com. So here they are!

Anon asks: What are some cool video games you first played this year?

"Gosh there's many... I feel like most games I've played this year have been good. Some underwhelmed and/or annoyed me, but no real stinkers I can think of. My favorites I think were Stardew Valley, Dragon Age: Origins, Dragon Age 2, Bayonetta, Fallout: New Vegas, Night in the Woods, Golden Sun and its sequel."  

Trish @ingleaisle asks a threefer: Adélie Penguins or Rockhopper Penguins? Fave citrus smell/look (since they're all gros, velvet-feeling, and inedible)? East or West Gastrodon?

"Uhh I feel like my honest answer to the first might be Adélie Penguins BUT with the eyebrows of the Rockhopper Penguins, but since that kinda chimera doesn't exist yet, I'll go with the vanilla Adélie. My favorite citrus smell would be boring lemons, because I am a w-word who steals them from their trees, and though my autistic mouth also finds them gross, they at LEAST smell clean, which I can’t really say for oranges.... As for Gastrodons... I think both are pretty good, but if a gun was put to my head I'd go with the East Sea, love that blue-green mix!"

Anon2 asks: How many active blogs do you have?

"Let's see, there's my main of course, Bisexualowain, then there's my Fire Emblem sideblog, currently Braveprincesslucina, my gaming sideblog, where I post my liveblogs, which is Owainsgamecorner, and then my not safe for work sideblog, which I will not name here, but that I assure you contains no less complaining than my others blogs."

User @sheseesthefuture asks: What would you say are your top 5 personal fave horror movies :?

"Really tough question. I do like horror as a genre a lot, buuut I feel like it's not even an uncommon opinion that... most of it is bad? But either way, I have a fondness for the Scream series, Halloween series, Hellraiser, Jacob's Ladder (which is a good, cerebral one) and... well this is a weird one but Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me, which isn't scary all the time but still."

Anon 3 inquires something I was not expecting at all: do you think well see renewable energy overtake non renewable within our lifetimes?

"My hopeful side wants to say yes, because it's not like we don't have the tech ready, buuuut also I feel like capitalism is such a broken system that it just will not happen that easily… makes me angry just to think about it."

Moving on,

Wiz @heywizards asks another three-parter: What is the first video game that you played that you fell in love with and couldn't put down? Which video game genre is your favorite? How cute and great is Shane from Stardew Valley? :3c

"I would have to go with Pokémon Ruby, which was my first video game. I always wanted a system but I don't think my parents ever GOT them until the neighbor's kid got this, so they allowed me to ask for one for my birthday, and I loved that game so much... even though I didn't speak English at the time and got lost and sidetrack pretty much constantly. I somehow managed to beat Pokémon Crystal before it, even though I got Crystal like a month after.  I don’t think I'm MUCH of a genre person, I'm pretty adaptable as long as the game feels good, but I guess I'd say it's either RPGs or Survival Horror. As for the last one aaaa I’m already getting flustered just thinking about it, but Shane is such a wonderful character, both objectively and from his writing and due to the way I relate to him and besides, he's so cute and loving once you get past all the layers of self-hatred and insecurity... but even those make him very human in a way that's attractive to people with similar struggles and all, I guess. I love him so much!"

Anon 4 asks: Hey Jack! Do you play Fire Emblem Heroes? And if so, who's your favorite unit?

"Heya! Yes I do! For the longest time my phone didn't support it, because it was a dino, but I recently got a new one that DOES run it. I think you'd need to follow my sideblogs to see my posts about it though. But uhh my favorite unit is definitely Cain. He's the one I was looking forward to the most since before getting the game, and I was so SO lucky to summon him super early, haha! He's just really handsome and charismatic... plus he seems to be having a good time in it, as opposed to his last outing in FE12 when he was dealing decidedly with a lot. I also really love Festival Dancer!Olivia and Lady of Ballads!Azura, along with Brave Princess!Lucina, which I guess you could gather from my naming of my sideblog."

Ohhh alright this one... @calamitaswrath requests me to recite the opening narration to "Avatar: The Last Airbender"

"Alright here goes nothing! Sorry for my enunciation, because I didn't grow up with the english version, but: Water... Earth... Fire... Air. Long ago, the four nations lived together in harmony. Then everything changed when the Fire Nation attacked. Only the Avatar, master of all four elements, could stop them. But when the world needed him most, he vanished. A hundred years passed and my brother and I discovered the new Avatar, an airbender named Aang. And although his airbending skills are great, he still has a lot to learn before he's ready to save anyone. But I believe Aang can change the world... save the world. thaat sucked.

Anon 5 asks what my favorite second generation units from FE14 are?

"In no particular order: Ophelia, Shiro and Rhajat."

Then Liesel @florinian asks: pick a character you love and what's one way in which you and this character are alike and one way in which you're different?

"I'm gonna subvert expectations a little here and pick Leliana from Dragon Age. I love her to death, but I'm about the least religious person I know, short of actually being an atheist (I'm agnostic for reference) and though that one's more setting-specific detail I also haaaaate Andrastianism. The way I'm similar to her is that I like to believe the best in other people and I wanna change when compared to the way I used to be, and just like in her story, I don't want to see myself becoming the people who've hurt me... sorry if that got kinda deep, oops."

Anon 6 says: Do you have rarepairs you wish weren't rarepairs?

"Rarepairs… that’s a funny word. Doesn't everyone? I feel like the one that comes to mind right now would be Mathilda/Sonya, which I kiiiiind of built myself? Other people ship it now independently of my influence and that's pretty cool, but I was definitely the… definitely the earliest earliest, so that's kinda something I'm proud of. I just think they'd gel pretty well together and could work on issues with mutual support, if only they ever interacted…"

Lastly, Ayla @gentleralts asks me what my quirk would be if I lived in the BNHA world.

“I’m kind of a sap when it comes to questions like this, and I usually pick teleportation, but I feel like that’s too vanilla for BNHA, so I guess the drawback would be that if someone were to shut my passage through time and space I would just get totally quantum-fucked… so if Horikoshi wants to kill me this way, I guess he has an out.”

And that’s about it… I’ll probably hate listening to this later but… fingerguns tchau tchau.