#i can nitpick the gameplay all i want

[lyss-sketchbox]

As one of the people who complained that Natlan was too cheery and colorful for a nation of war. I admit defeat and am happy they put ALOT more appropriate effort into conveying the war setting unlike Inazuma.

I still have issues with Natlan but Act 4 specifically was well done.

[beevean]

If I’m being honest, you are all getting way too hung up on fake diseases and attacking a writer as if he personally attacked your family. It’s a strange obsession you have and you guys always come at any small nitpick as if it’s the end of the world. It’s a weird obsession and you have all been doing it for years. Maybe you liked Sunset Heights getting a remix but you also play victim when people don’t like the 2010s games. You can see Sonic is more successful now and doing things much better but you just like to sit in your anger towards the series for years. I’ll add that you’re much more sane in your reactions than RandomtheFox, but this whole side of the fandom here is so pathetic. The endless loop of anything new coming out for Sonic, and your little posse hating on it because it isn’t the meta era or because Ian Flynn has his name on it makes me glad you guys are a small minority in the fandom.

Do you want to know why we're discussing this?

If you go back and read our discussions, see how much we brought up with this little detail!

I looked up the effects of low gravity on the human body: I learned something new about science. I tried to put into words why this detail is harder to accept than Sonic breathing in space: this is about stories and world building. I immediately found a replacement idea. We discussed about SA2, its gameplay mechanics, its cutscenes. Someone even brought up the idea of drawing parallels with AIDS and how it would affect Maria. Negativity can stem from a place of reasoning, "how would I do that?", and it makes me use my brain in a fun way. I'm aware it's a inconsequential detail, but I'm having fun!

As for the rest of the message, yeah, we are a minority. Which makes me wonder why you care so much about a group of, what, four people?

Why don't I get any engagement when I'm positive, but suddenly people are up my ass when I talk about something negative? I didn't even tag most of my posts. Bro half of the Sonic fandom blocked me already because I'm a dirty sinning IDW non-enjoyer. I am not bothering anyone.

By the way, my negativity about IDW once even resulted in me writing a fic about it. Again, creativity and genuine discussions about writing a story and its downfalls. It nourishes the brain.

I don't like this new direction for Sonic. There, happy? I don't feel catered to, as a 2000s fan, by all this "REMEMBER WHEN WE WERE COOL????" stuff, not to mention I'm just not a Shadow fan so seeing him with wings and shit does nothing for me. I am annoyed because this used to be a franchise dear to me, but the current environment, both games and fandom, alienates me. I am also aware that, precisely because I'm in the minority, I'll just have to wait until ST changes trend again.

If my writer side activates when I talk about a writing decision I don't like and I'm having fun dissecting it, let me, alright? You can find me cringe, if you want to, but I'm not doing anything different than other fans, just directed towards a less acceptable target and in the privacy of my blocked blog.

Also: to be perfectly honest, if it only takes me one day of mild bitching to get anons yelling at me that I'm a joyless bastard doomed to be sad because I refuse to be happy, it kind of makes me want to be saltier out of spite. I'm already a bad person, might as well, right?

[cherryfennec]

hot take: the bosses in super paper mario permanently damaged any chance of the game ever getting rpg mechanics, it would make the rpg mechanics feel cheap and the bosses feel boring, especially super dimentio

abandoning the flippage and making the game be fully 3d like sm64 would be a good move though

Super Paper Mario stands out in the Paper Mario games especially because of the fact that the bosses aren't turn based. The fact that they mixed RPG and platformer elements was interesting, in the end some of them hit while some miss.

The bossess definitely have quite a lot of charm from being in full motion and not locked to turns, you get to see personality through movement like O'Chunks being a little slow to react, Dimentio and Mr.L being hard to catch and Bleck taking advantage of the background. A few that especially benefit are: Fracktails entire battle, Mimi climbing the ceiling midfight (and also her and Dimentio being able to flip after you), Brobot L-type or even Super Dimentio like you mentioned.

Despite this I have to admit that some fights might feel underwhelming gameplay wise. Getting personality is awesome but if it's at the expense of difficulty or unfun mechanics then it might be better to not push it. Especially with the problem of BIG open spaces. Chapter 4-4 boss room is super open and super empty which feels a little anticlimactic while Mimis boss room is super small and has little wiggle room. Mimi was in fact harder than Mr.L just because of the fact i couldn't jump or evade her as easily.

This doesn't mean that everything should be crammed into a small area but it is a little cheesy seeing the AI struggle to attack you in the few ways it can. (again with Mr.L, he makes mighty leaps in this large room and with how slow he descends and predictable the landing spot is you can just. walk under.)

When it comes to making it 3D sm64 style it would be conceptually interesting but personally? I think it should remain paper style. A story like this would be difficult and very time consuming to execute in the mainline 3D Super Mario style, especially considering the time it released in. The main focus here was clearly the lore and dialogue which a lot of people agree is the best thing about it. It's cut like a story book, which ties with being Paper Mario, and the idea that these characters are already doomed by the narrative.

But that's an entirely different discussion so I won't delve deeper or else we'll be here much longer.

If I could personally offer any changes to SPM it would be:

The timer on the FLIP ability sucks, either extend or remove completely. I want to see all these beautiful assets and bosses in 3D which are already fully programed but the timer is actively discouraging me from doing so because of the damage penalty. "Mario is getting nauseous that's why he can't stay there long" is a cool in-universe explanation but it's not fun gameplay wise.

Personal design nitpick but some areas could use some retouches. What do you mean you associated the colour of the Pure Heart to the worlds palette only in 4 Chapters? What about the rest? Please keep going!!

Increase the difficulty a little (aka make the AI somewhat smarter). Personality and struggle is what makes a character memorable in games. (really big detour but for example take Malenia from Elden Ring, she has lore that is optional to learn and yet theres a big chance you'll remember her anyway because she's a super hard boss)

This ones more of a 'what if' but I've been trying to imagine for a while the possibility of: normally everything is 3D/with depth like the other Paper Mario games and when you FLIP it becomes 2D (basically reversing the effect). I know this ruins Fracktail and would require more work with sculpting the environments but I like the thought of the hub being 3D. If not that at least add more assets to the environment when you flip. A lot of the time every tree and rock is in 2D while 3D is just so empty. Also consider just for a moment how little people FLIP during bosses and areas, probably forgetting they even can, and missing out on these cool models. Either that or they're aware that when they do FLIP they won't see anything because the cameras obscured by a wall (looking at you chapter 4).

In conclusion I think this take has stable ground and in the end I agree to an extent! There are some rather specific cases that I feel would work better in a turn based system but overall a lot of them are good as they are!

Making the game like sm64 sounds fun but could be difficult to execute without loosing any of the beautiful charm the Paper Mario format/style provides to it's stories.

[rosewood-multifandom-writer]

DLC Review Part 1: Metal Gear Rising Jetstream Sam (With Spoilers)

What? A DLC review BEFORE the main base game? What’s going on?

There is a reason for that! The Jetstream Sam DLC story is the prequel to the main story. So I thought it would make sense for me to talk about Jetstream Sam on this DLC review the most rather than dedicate a whole section to him on the review on the main story.

Plus… I got Metal Gear Rising because I thought it was more worth it than Lollipop Chainsaw Repop. I mean… it’s also a 2013 game, and it did not need a remaster. 🤷🏽‍♀️

So now, this is the official start of the Metal Gear Rising Review Trilogy. In the words of Samuel Rodrigues, aka Jetstream Sam, Let’s dance.

Gameplay (4.5/5):

Just like when I play as Vergil, I feel powerful when playing as Sam. Even though I’m sucking hard.

Samuel plays very differently from Raiden and is unique. With big pros, there are big cons. And I think it’s a fair trade.

For instance, holding the “Y/Triangle” button will charge up a powerful attack when you successfully fully charge it up, BUT it can and will leave you very vulnerable to any attacks. Another is his taunt, which makes him more unique (because neither Raiden nor Blade Wolf have taunts) which will enrage the enemy, but will make them act reckless and then you can easily slice them up, which makes for a good high risk high reward feature depending on who you are.

Unlike Raiden and Blade Wolf, he can double jump and dash forward in midair.

Like Raiden, he can use Sub-Weapons, like grenades and rocket launchers.

Now here is a personal nitpick of mine: Taunting is impractical in battle, and it’s worse than leaving yourself vulnerable while charging up an attack. Nitpicks aside, Sam’s gameplay is so much fun. In fact, his gameplay is just as fun as Vergil’s from Devil May Cry. I went through the first playthrough without having to use his taunt at all.

The VR missions just like in the base game are designed to test your skills and abilities and best for those wanting a big challenge other than story mode’s hard mode or the most challenging mode.

Story (5/5):

The story lines up nicely with the main story and feels plausible. Armstrong and Monsoon are expecting Jetstream Sam to arrive to attempt to take them out, just like he did a few drug cartel members plus the dude who killed his father (more will be expanded upon in the base game review), and Sam arrives on his motorcycle at Denver, Colorado, and slices two police officers in half after taunting a couple of them.

The first boss is Blade Wolf (Wolfy), where Sam appears to pity Wolf a little even saying that the orders Wolf is given are stupid and tells him (in a mix of sarcasm and genuine advice) to think for himself. After the fight, Sam decides to tell him straight up, that Wolf is being forced to follow these orders. It really shows just how close Wolf got to Sam off-screen after Sam joined the Winds of Destruction.

He also encounters Monsoon and is forced to fight off Metal Gear Ray with that epic Rules of Nature song playing and then Sam explains himself further, saying that he is there to take out people like the people involved in Desperado. But that is jumping ahead a little.

Sam, with the player knowing Sam’s true motivations and intentions (not me still accidentally making a Vergil joke lol), goes up and beats the final boss of Sam’s storyline, Armstrong. Collective Consciousness plays as Sam gets concussed a lot (because I suck, even with Auto Assist Parry lol) and Armstrong disables Sam by stabbing his shoulder to the point where Sam couldn’t even hold his sword anymore. Armstrong then offers Sam a job.

Not seeing any other choice, Sam laughs sadly and agrees to work with Desperado.

Then… the rest of his faith is sealed in the main story.

Jetstream Sam Himself:

Samuel is a man from Brazil who has taken out cartel members and uses a High Frequency version of his late father’s sword which he uses as both a tragic keepsake and his main weapon. He CHOSE to go down this path, and in the case of this storyline, it was for revenge. He wanted to take down evil organizations besides Cartels, like Desperado.

And I’m gonna talk about that a little more, because Kevin’s codec calls on Sam expands on Sam’s background, where his father owned a dojo

This is where I then start making parallels between Sam and Raiden, because Sam is willing to take down evil organizations like Armstrong’s because he believes that Armstrong is just like every evil organization, with Armstrong sitting back in his comfy office, letting innocent people die for his benefit.

Whereas Raiden is looking to take down Desperado through illegal means (just because what Desperado is doing is legal does not make it right), Samuel tries to take down Desperado from the inside out.

When it came down to Armstrong, Samuel also found Armstrong’s reasons for his villainy to be a load of bs and was ready to kill him right then and there. But… you know the rest of the story.

Sam is “offered” the job after getting disabled, and Sam looked defeated when Armstrong offered his hand and the job to be Desperado’s fighters. He is laughing, yes, but laughter sometimes comes from being nervous or in Sam’s case, being overwhelmed with sadness or defeat. He did not have a choice at that point. Plus, if he refused, he was as good as dead either way.

Jumping ahead before the base game review, Jetstream Sam’s theme “The Only Thing I Know For Real” does state at the end of the song, “looking downward from this deadly height, never realizing why I fight.” Sam does die, not fully knowing why he fights towards the end of the main story.

Off screen wise, Wolf does take a liking to Sam and has a positive relationship with him, in contrast to the negative relationship Wolf had with Mistral, which I will expand upon my Blade Wolf centered review.

But Sam in my opinion is one of the best written rival characters in gaming right next to Shadow the Hedgehog and Vergil. Those three are who I think of as the best rival characters in all of fiction.

As a character, Samuel Rodrigues is one of my favorite characters in Metal Gear Rising next to Raiden himself and Blade Wolf. He gets a 5 out of 5 in terms of character.

Overall?:

This DLC is the best addition to the game, and it shows more of Sam’s character from HIS perspective. When playing from Raiden’s perspective in the base game, Raiden and at first the player themselves cannot get a good read on Sam’s motivations and why he’s doing what he’s doing.

Metal Gear Rising is available on Steam. As of this post, it’s 40% off, so instead of spending $30 on it, you would instead spend $18, either way, I think it’s worth it. I mean, $30 for a 2013 game is already better than remastering said 2013 title that ran on the same consoles Metal Gear Rising ran on (like the PS3) and selling it for $45 or $60.

My expectations for Blade Wolf are high after playing Sam’s story.

[mister-e-muss]

Hello all! If you’ve followed me since last year, you might know what this post is.

That’s right, it’s September ‘24’s Backlog Report

Mega Man X3

I’ve heard good things comparatively about this game, but being completely honest, I think this might have been my least favorite in the first half of the X series.

Really the only track to grab me was the intro stage theme, while everything else just wasn’t really my cup of tea.

As for gameplay, it’s mostly great, with my only complaints being that the enemies hit like a sack of hammers, and the upgrades and extras are a bit too out of the way. Even those complaints though get mollified by the armor upgrades. I wish more Mega Man games had a stage map. (The overworld map in ZX does not count.)

Mega Man X4

This is probably one of the best Mega Man games, period.

The presentation is smooth and excellent on almost all fronts. Even the infamous voice acting can be gotten around by playing the Japanese dub (which is the complete opposite of bad). It’s quite clear that Capcom wanted to be ambitious for their attempt to bring the Blue Bomber into the PlayStation generation. The mostly succeeded.

Offering nitpicks though, I will say that the extra life and weapon energy tanks were almost useless. The extra lives because even getting a game over doesn’t set you back that far, and the weapon tanks because you’re hardly going to need more than one or two to complete any given stage.

Fire Emblem Echoes

I preface this by saying I only did the main story, with no postgame or dlc. (This means I will not be joining my mutual @felikatze in Fell-Dragonology.)

This one is a bit of a nail for Fire Emblem fans. Plenty see it as the height of the series, with a gripping narrative and a well-balanced cast, involving the player in two stories that play off of each other. Others see it as a dull slog through uninspired plots and maps.

I have to say that I can see both sides. I absolutely loved the story, and that was definitely helped by the top-notch voice cast. However, the gameplay is more than a bit messy.

I don’t know if this was unique to my run, or if the game is coded to just hand out bad level ups consistently, but it felt like every time I tried to bring a character up to snuff, they’d be hit with bad level after bad level, leaving my with snipers that couldn’t snipe, and paladins that couldn’t pal. For that matter, support conversations have been made unnecessarily worse, by having them take place on the maps themselves and not showing who can support with who until they fight together. (Clair and Clive deserved a chance to be siblings, dammit!) While I find the idea of dungeon exploration in a strategy game intriguing, I don’t think it was handled altogether too well. The dungeons are too spacious for how simple they are, the pre-existing encounters respawn too often, and the maps that do try to add interest tend to be irritating. Part of my irritation may just be from me bing bad at strategy games, but part of it is in fact the wide open, un-obstacled maps that you must move units across one, by, one, for turns on end.

I still enjoyed the game. More specifically, the characters and plot were enough to keep me engaged(Heh) from beginning to end. Even with my gripes, I still recommend this game.

[quibbs126]

I can finally post this, after weeks!

But yeah, this here is something I made to celebrate the 9th anniversary of Evoland 2

Some people may remember this work in progress from weeks ago, but now I can finally show the finished product. Which I finished 2 weeks ago

It’s based on the 3D picture you get when you finish the game, specially the 100% completion, and more specifically, my screenshot that I took when I first completed the game and got 100%

Though I should probably also note that this was the only picture I had of the beach scene until I was mostly done with the picture, so there are some inaccuracies between it and the original. Except for Reno in place of the Prophet, that was completely intentional

This game was I think the first (and will probably be the only) game I’ve ever 100% completed, and when I did it the first time, it was just because I knew that games would have extra things for those who 100% it, and I wanted to see what the game would give me. It’s the only time I was so invested in a game that I had to know what I’d get if I got everything. It’s also the only game where losing nearly 10 hours of progress due to a (maybe) glitch does not make me give up the game in frustration, but instead complete the entire thing within a single school week

I may gripe about my issues with the game, but I absolutely love it, and I have a lot of fun playing it. Well, aside from the parts I’m bad at, but that’s just because I’m bad at them. I feel like I have next to nothing to complain about from a gameplay perspective (which is in part because I don’t know how to critique gameplay, but also because I think any issues I have are my own fault), it’s just narrative stuff. And even then, I wouldn’t nitpick it so much if I wasn’t so invested in the world, story and characters

Maybe today I’ll start replaying it again, seeing how I’m pretty sure I’m free today from any schoolwork

I’m still holding on to some admittedly delusional hope that a 3rd game could release one day, even if I know it’ll almost certainly have nothing to do with this one, but even if it never does, I’ll still have this game to play over and over again, so I can accept it

I was disappointed that I missed the last two, since I first played the game in 2022, but not this year, I remembered!

Now to just talk about the art itself, the reason there’s two versions is because I originally made the background lineless, but after finishing the characters I thought it maybe clashed a bit too much, so I made a duplicate of the picture to do a lined version. But I also spent so long on the lineless version that I didn’t want to just leave it in the void, so I’m showing it too

Admittedly now I think I can say the lined version probably is the better one, but I can still show off both

I used the card colors for the characters, since all of them have cards for reference, but now I’m looking at the colors and thinking they look somewhat wrong. At least on Menos

Also as mentioned prior, I switched out the Prophet for Reno. I know I’m biased but I really think he’d fit in this picture of all the main characters far more than the Prophet, considering he’s kind of the reason the plot started, the second half happened, and he’s the main motivation for one of our party members. I mean, I see why the Prophet’s there in the original. He’s really the only other semi-important character with a 3D model, and Reno never had one, so they’d have to make an entirely new one just for this extra thing. Also it doesn’t make sense for him to have a 3D model in the first place, especially not of his Present era self. But not only is this now a drawing where I have the power to do what I want, this scene isn’t canon in the first place, so put Reno in the background there!

Overall though, I’m honestly surprised the piece turned out as good as it did. Those who follow me know that I was really struggling with drawing during the summer, more specifically drawing people and the Evoland 2 cast. But despite all that, I think the characters turned out pretty well. Certainly not the best, but better than I was expecting. And not only that, but the background turned out so much better than I thought it would, especially since I don’t usually do backgrounds. Though I suppose it does help to have a reference for all this though. But yeah, there was a reason I was so proud of how the sketch turned out, and while the final product may not have entirely been what I was hoping for after the sketch, it still turned out pretty good

As long as I can remember it next year (which I really hope I can, considering that’s the 10th anniversary), I’ll try to make something there too, hopefully with much improved drawing skills, since I’m still trying to figure all that out again still

Not sure what I’ll draw then. Maybe I could redraw the beach scene, or make an entirely new beach scene concocted by my brain. But it’s also the 10th anniversary next year, so maybe it should be something more special

Ah well, that’s next year’s problem. For now, have this to celebrate the game’s anniversary. For the minuscule amount of people who actually play this game, I guess

[itsbenedict]

Games I Played In 2023 And Whether Or Not I Thought They Were Good (Part 1/4)

Once again, a year has passed, and I spent a considerable chunk of it on video games! Here's what I thought about [e: some of] the ones that I played.

1 - [2] - [3] - [4]

Potionomics

This game is- well, I've never played a Recettear game, but apparently it's a Recettear knockoff? You run a potion shop, and you hire adventurers to go into dungeons to get ingredients for your potion shop, and the whole thing's on a timer where you have to pay off a big debt by the end... apparently there's a formula it's aping that I'm unfamiliar with.

But it's very fun- it's got two main unique mechanics, one of which is a potion-brewing minigame about balancing ingredients in certain ratios which is challenging- and the other of which is an STS-style deckbuilder card game where you haggle with customers in lieu of combat. Both systems have a lot of depth and interesting options and I enjoyed them a lot.

Other standouts: the cast of support characters you can rank up social links with are great (love love love the coffee-addled workaholic moth girl and the comic relief cat pirates with a surprisingly dark backstory), and the fully-animated 3D character portraits are really fun and expressive.

Nitpicks: the time system having one time block reserved for the hour it takes to go home after visiting town is... an awkward choice (holdover from the Recettear structure they're aping?), and lategame you kind of cap out in potion-making capacity and it becomes kind of tricky to progress. Also the story's kinda predictable and the villains who don't later become party members are paper-thin.

Horizon: Forbidden West

God this game pisses me off.

Horizon: Zero Dawn, its predecessor, was a fun open-world game about hunting robot dinosaurs and uncovering the surprisingly elaborate story behind why there are robot dinosaurs. I enjoyed it a lot!

Forbidden West has everything Zero Dawn had... and also mountains of tedious cruft to pad out the game's runtime which all infuriates me to no end.

The story is still quite good! And the robot dinosaur fighting is still quite good! Those are the important parts, and they nailed them... but I have complained at my friends for hours about the bafflingly bad design choices that plague every other aspect of this game constantly. It's... there's so much, I want to like, make a video going into the details, but in short...

The cool and versatile weapons from the last game have been split up into piles of slightly-different weapons with different elements so you have to carry around and upgrade ten times as much crap and are forced to spec into a build that locks you out of effective experimentation

Every little noncombat action in the game has some very realistic and pretty AAA graphics animation that takes too long and wastes your time constantly during basic gameplay and kills flow dead

The very cool procedural climbing mesh thing... gets arbitrarily turned off in inexplicably oiled-up puzzle ruins that very badly want you to push a crate around in every way it's possible to push a crate around in order to waste the maximum amount of your time

Cooking "system" which is the most comprehensively useless thing anyone probably spent dozens of hours implementing in their video game

Item wheel that contains every consumable item in the game regardless of whether you currently have any and is basically unnavigable during tense situations like, say, combat, when you need it

So many repetitive sidequests about some poor fucker who went missing and might be in danger and is every single time dead to a bunch of robot dinosaurs obviously. Lot of missions designed to kill time rather than show you something cool or have interesting story.

There's a lot to like and it's super cool but god there's so much to be mad at. Respects the player's time 0%. I'm gonna go off about this more later for sure.

Disco Elysium

Oh my god, this game. It's... really something. You might be familiar with it from memes on Tumblr, about its comically inept slash deranged protagonist and his partner with the patience of a saint- but it's doing so much more than I expected from the out-of-context screencaps.

Like- yes, it's fucking hilarious. I love that about it. But it's also this incredibly detailed work of worldbuilding that creates this whole setting that's doing... some wild stuff. Like, you've maybe heard it's very political? Well, it is, but about weird alternate universe sci-fi politics that sort of halfway resemble our own, and it's thought through all of these invented social dynamics. And it's got a great sense of atmosphere- it knows when to be funny and when to be solemn and how to blend the two for maximum effect. It's a dark comedy, but it's all built on a dead-serious reality and a really effective story.

And- it is a murder mystery game about solving cases! It works very well on that level! It manages to be open-ended and let you solve things in a variety of different ways using this complex RPG stat system of creatively-designed psychological stats, while making sure the central whodunit (and a bevy of fascinating satellite mysteries) stays on track. Extremely good on a game design level.

(also some shit happens in this game that i was not at all expecting and can't even go into without spoilers, but- but holy fuck, the way this game opens up and the things it manages to hide in plain sight... just mind-boggling. incredibly impressive.)

Tunic

Speaking of hiding things in plain sight- neither this nor Disco Elysium came out this year, so I can't call either of them GotY, but... if they had, I'd have a hard time deciding.

Tunic is incredibly clever. On the surface, it's an isometric soulslike thing with a low-poly Zelda-y aesthetic... but there's not just the surface. There's layers and layers to this thing. The first layer it hits you with is that most of the game's UI is in a made-up rune script, which you have to learn, which is a fun challenge and caused me to spend a few hours making a tool to catalogue and decrypt the damn thing- though I eventually learned to sight-read it. But that's just- that's like, the tip of the iceberg, the most obvious twist to what this game is.

There's, like... I don't want to spoil what there's like. The whole thing is about peeling back the layers and figuring out which seemingly arbitrary aesthetic choices were secretly meaningful, and seeing how the game transforms as you figure out the different sorts of secret structure layered on top of each other. It's actually best compared to The Witness, although there's still a pretty meaty and challenging action-adventure game to tackle while you're uncovering the hidden patterns and deepest lore. It's a fascinating intellectual challenge and highly recommended to anyone who likes giving their noggin something to chew on.

The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom

Man, so... this game is very impressive, but it's in a weird place due to some awkward design decisions and cut corners.

This is a direct sequel to smash megahit Breath of the Wild... sort of. It's very weird what it's doing. It really wants to be a self-contained thing, to the point of throwing out major setting elements and story concepts from BotW entirely so it can do its own thing... but on a mechanical level, this is the same game, with some very cool new mechanics and a cool-ish new story bolted on.

(Said story... it has one extremely cool plot twist that's also a gameplay twist, delivered effectively in a nonlinear way that creates this great sense of dawning comprehension. Otherwise... kind of a nothingburger. Ganondorf is boring and has no coherent motivation, there's no explanation or real plot relevance to the [spoilers] that seem like such a central thing, and... the whole thing revolves around a technologically advanced precursor civilization that's completely different from the technologically advanced precursor civilization established by the last game, of which all evidence has been meticulously scrubbed from the world to... I guess avoid confusion? The one huge central plot beat really works, and the rest is... low-effort nonsense.)

So, mechanically... the developers made this very odd choice to... have the game take place in the exact same map from the first game, except warped and remixed by geologic upheaval just enough to force the environment designers to redo every bit of landscape more or less from scratch. Like, all the same recognizable locations, but a step to the left. In theory, not a bad idea- but then they layer on top of that a threefold expansion to the world.

TotK has three world maps- Hyrule, the sky (full of floating islands now), and a third spoilery area that's the same size as both of those. The game's economy is thus weirdly trifurcated- crucial resources are located in all three areas, so you need to go up and down and up and down a lot. And so is the game's content- there's a roughly comparable amount of stuff in BotW and TotK, but TotK splits it across three maps, making each area feel largely empty, with a lot of wasted space.

This effect is especially noticeable in Hyrule, which... if you've played BotW, you won't really find anything new there. It's all the same places with a few tweaks, so there's not much sense of discovery if you played the original. There's a bunch of landmarks and areas that exist purely because they were there before and it'd be weird for them to disappear... except now instead of some secret or loot there, there's just nothing. Wasted space. And both the sky and the other new map are pretty homogeneous and unrewarding to explore once you've seen the four or five types of things they have to offer- they're mainly made up of recycled assets.

TotK is... I think strictly better than BotW, with more content and more fun core mechanics, but it's a worse experience than BotW if you played the first one. If you haven't played BotW, Hyrule will still be fun to explore, and you probably want to jump straight to TotK.

-

I'm... gonna have to break this post up to get to the 21 other games I played this year, otherwise it's gonna be stupid long and take forever. Stay tuned!

1 - [2] - [3] - [4]

[oddnub-eye]

Throwing my hat into the Dawntrail review ring now that I've had the time to sit on it.

Pacing is definitely Dawntrail's weakest point, but I think an...underrated feels like a weird word to use here, but its all I got, so underrated "weak point" of the expansion is that a lot of it feels like a lot of the set pieces can fall victim to a bit of player dissonance.

Like, the biggest victim of this is Valigarmanda, who gets a ton of hype in the build up to his trial, but as you settle in for the fight, they start hyping it because its a big bird that controls the weather and -

Oh hey final boss of 3 expansion ago, what are you doing here?

Its not totally unexpected from an expansion meant to set up a new story arc, but it feels like a fair few of Dawntrail's set pieces suffer from the sequel problem of "Member of the old cast is way too strong to scale to a challenge that would reasonably be a satisfying challenge for the new cast"...except they can't write around that problem because the overpowered question in character is you, the player character.

Like, the scenes where Koana reminds Wuk Lamat that she hasn't surpassed her father yet because Valigarmanda hadn't fully recharged its aether or when Allisae talks about how dreadful fighting the shade of Gulool Ja Ja would have been if Koana's team hadn't helped just like

Don't land.

Not 5 levels ago in the Endwalker Patch Quests we had a scene dedicated to our allies hyping us up about how we've overcome every challenge possible, right before we smack around what amounts to a voidsent primal made from fusing a dragon and the remnants of fucking Zodiark's aether. In Endwalker proper, we outright kill Zodiark, fight the Endsinger into becoming Metion again, beat Zenos, etc etc. There's nothing in Dawntrail that makes me go "yeah, this is a reasonably high stakes situation for the Warrior of Light" until Sphene and Alexandria come in. And that wouldn't be a problem, but it also feels like the expansion wants us to feel the same level of triumph we get from actually overcoming the challenge like it did in previous expansions - and while its fun on a gameplay level, when it tries to give that same feeling on a story level, it all falls apart.

One of the best set pieces in the expansion is the duty where you play as Wuk Lamat to fight against Bakool Ja Ja. The Warrior of Light is removed from the situation, complete with dialouge options to be a bit cheeky about it:

(say hi to Klar everyone)

You can be encouraging or warning or just outright trollish. Its the same as back when Wuk Lamat was kidnapped and the Warrior of Light captured Bakool Ja Ja's attention so well they were able to set up Thancred and Koana up to do the actual important parts of the rescue.

These are both set pieces that write around the Warrior of Light extremely well while letting the new characters take the spotlight - Wuk Lamat's duty allowing her to affirm her growth and show off her resolve by defeating Bakool Ja Ja in a one on one, and Koana showing his care for his sister by being the one to actually catch her.

Ultimately - in spite of going on about it for 6ish paragraphs, this is a relatively minor nitpick. It's something I only really felt for a moment before getting swept into the excitement of the next story beat, and only really bugs me further on deeper reflection. But it does contribute to a feeling that I think is the root of a lot of people's issues with Dawntrail (that being that the Warrior of Light feels really awkwardly implemented).

Most of the set piece issues do utterly vanish once we hit solution nine, however. Zoraal Ja going full Vergil in particular absolutely fucking rules.

That being said, outside of the pacing (which has been talked about enough) and the hit-or-miss nature of the set pieces, Dawntrail is a very good expansion. In particular, I think Dawntrail really shines in its characters.

Wuk Lamat is a very fun character to follow (and she better be, given how central she is and how much circles back to her). Her character arc is less about needing to grow or evolve her ideals, and more about needing to refine them and understand what they actually mean. Its not a particularly dramatic transformation, but it is nevertheless fun character growth to watch.

Bakool Ja Ja is Bakool Ja Ja. What else is there more to say.

Koana went in a character direction I really wasn't expecting. While his ideals and vision is thoroughly proven false, the background with his abandonment provided a background to those ideals that I didn't expect going in, rather than him being set up as someone purely enamored with progress for progress' sake. Staking his anti-tradition viewpoint in his birth parent's abandoning of him also set up a fun contrast where he is able to make the decision his birth parents weren't: he's able to change his ideals to accommodate for the people who matter for him, his birth parents weren't.

Zoraal Ja is fucking goofy. And I love him for it. There's a lot to read into his character - and he probably would have benefited from like...an echo flashback or a few more levels to let him stretch his muscles, but ultimately his themes of expectation and how they crushed him do come through. It is also the case that he spends most of the expansion doing Metal Gear Villian monologs, gets really close to becoming a cyborg, and goes full Vergil complete with summoned swords. He may not have been the most cooked antagonist, but he had insane amounts of sauce about it.

Sphene. Sphene Sphene Sphene. Admittedly, I did not have the best first impression of Sphene. I streamed a lot of the back half of dawntrail to the homies and so a lot of Sphene's screentime was eaten up by us going "i don't trust her." and fossil fuel jokes. However...Sphene gets stronger the longer you have time to sit and think on her. Sphene's in-built purpose to preserve Alexandria at all costs was always going to clash with the base of "Queen Sphene" that she was built on - and one was always going to break. Its very reminiscent of the tragedy of Elidibus, who was so dedicated to his purpose that he, ironically, forgot what his initial motivation even was. Elidibus lost his reason, and Sphene ultimately resolved to cast aside "herself". Bringing the "meta" aspect of the inevitability of tragedy to the literal text of Sphene's story only makes the overall tragic nature of her story that much stronger, in my opinion. Ironically, that "criticism" of how untrustworthy Sphene seemed that I referenced earlier ends up being retroactively heartbreaking: you watch as Sphene builds up sympathetic scene after sympathetic scene with the knowledge that you'll probably confront her eventually, just like she does.

Her trial does, however, suck shit. Which is a little disappointing since most of the dungeons, duties, and trials absolutely knocked it out of the park in the gameplay department.

That's another thing that's really good about Dawntrail. The combat and design of most of the encounters felt really good. It was challenging without being frustrating (except for Sphene), and everything felt learnable without sacrificing challenge. It makes me really want to actually do the raids for this expansion right away instead of putting them off like I have the rest of them (although I probably should do Bahamut and Pandaemonium first for story reasons).

Solid story, extremely solid gameplay, with one moderate flaw I didn't even bother to talk about and one nitpick I blew up into 6ish paragraphs. All in all, I'd say that's a damn solid - no, damn good, expansion.

[neoaya]

Hot take!!! (Nuclear tbh)

People are way too shitty to the LW devs, especially Yumeno Rote.

This guy is responsible for every single piece of non-story card character art in the game, that includes units, costumes, alts, expressions, Music Video CGs, etc. Seeing as a new unit is released per week, along with 2/4 event costumes and 2/3 rebirth costumes at the end of the month, this guy is at MINIMUM drawing 8 fully detailed illustrations and backgrounds per month, for three and a half years straight.

The only other gacha to my knowledge that has one artist doing all the character art like this is Limbus Company, which even then has a significantly longer period between new art being added to the game. (I'm aware there are likely a lot more, but most to my knowledge have multiple artists)

So when I see a post criticising Lost Word, what do you think is being criticised 90% of the time?

Is it:

The fact it's a gacha game

Genuine criticism of the game itself and its mechanics or story

Hell, even criticism of the questionable work practice of having one guy do all the game's art

If you guessed 4, "near insignificant nitpick of Rote's art, AUs shown, or a VA (in a game where you can pick from 3 for every character) because it doesn't fit within their headcanon in a game about multiple different universes" you'd be correct!

Don't get me wrong, I have seen the first two plenty of times, but they're always either fair critiques or people who just don't want anything to do with gacha games and don't care which is understandable.

But for 4? The sheer amount of hatred and seething vitriol people express for details most people wouldn't think twice about is insane to me. It never seems to come from a sincere place of disappointment but rather fear to fit in, like "Oh this relates to me, I better lay in to it as much as possible since everyone else shits on it, wouldn't want to give people the impression I'm weird for liking it after all". It just seems depressing to me that people feel the need to act miserable out of peer pressure and not wanting to stray from the popular opinion.

As someone's who played the game since launch at this point I feel more than qualified to tell you it's FAR from perfect, hell I wouldn't even call it all that good. Gameplay fluctuates from playing the game for you to forcing you to have a full understanding of the meta, grinding is a chore, drop rates are far too low, the nature of the game forcing normally evil aligned characters to act more reasonably, and I unironically think the lack of representation and downright bad writing for Aya until now is singlehandedly responsible for making her drop by one place 3 years in a row in the THVote popularity poll.

So why do I still play it after all this time? Because I genuinely just want to see what they do next. I like seeing what new takes on characters they come up with, I like seeing where the story goes, what the next event will be and I love Rote's art and all the other art contributed by the JP community, I even think the Hifuu and RoM section of the story is genuinely good. It's nice to have a constant and reliable stream of Touhou media to read through in-between the wait for actual new games.

Somehow I don't feel that guy in the middle would want to come on livestreams 3 and a half years after launch if he didn't find it fun, same goes for all the artists and doujin circles that have contributed their art and music, especially those with more than one card or song.

If you want anyone to blame, blame GoodSmile for publishing this game and making this the complete extent they're willing to promote it and Touhou as a whole. (Last new character from them was a Reisen nendo from six years ago btw!)

In conclusion, I think LW has objectively done more good for the series than harm. You can not understate the fact that this game is responsible for introducing Touhou to so many new people and giving the spotlight to characters that are otherwise overlooked. Inaccurate character portrayals are rarely an issue when the series embraces differentiating itself from the source material, that's the nature of doujin culture. That and it seems silly to try and gatekeep people who got into the series through Lost Word, telling them they're experincing it wrong only serves to turn them away and I don't blame newcomers when official touhou media is still hard to come across in the west and the three most popular games in the series still don't have a digital release.

As a tangent, I used to have a problem with how Aya was depicted in a lot of fan media, even from people here, but a friend taught me I shouldn't let those alternate interpretations ruin my enjoyment of her and that I shouldn't fault them for seeing her that way. I feel others should be able to learn from that.

(I definitely forgot some stuff but this is ranty enough as is, I just wanted to get it out of my system)

[inventors-fair]

From Nothing, Victory: The Origin Winners

~

Our winners this week are @genericaura, @horsecrash, and @nicolbolas96!

@genericaura — Nilix, Scholar of Nothing

First up is this curious specimen, taking a distinctly mathematical approach to the idea. D'you think their associates ever tease them about their title? At any rate, this is a fascinating piece of design. Copying spells is by no means untrodden ground in these colors, but the requirement for the spell to have been free is such a bizarre wrinkle that I can't help but be enthralled. It's a pretty hefty buy-in to get the effect online, too, so the card feels more fair than you'd think something centered around cheating mana costs to be. There's a decent amount of depth to the use cases, too. Sure, chaining this into a Mind's Desire is positively rapturous, but there are plenty of spells that are already free, or cast something for nothing as more of a formality, and suddenly those become worth their weight in gold. This really got the wheels in my head turning, and I can't really ask for more. Although, it is kind of odd to have a bird without flying. An ostrich aven, perhaps? That's just nitpicking, though. Good show!

@horsecrash — Hogaak, Tide of the Dead

Hogaak's back, baby! And hopeful not about to ruin a format this time. I saw a design like this tossed around several times this week, a card with a cost reduction mechanic that gets a bonus if you manage to shave it down to zero. None of them require quite this much reduction, though! The chance to get a huge beater that also traumatizes you (which is a sentence I don't get to say often) is a supremely tasty carrot on the end of the stick, though, and it sets my self-mill loving heart aflutter. Consume makes a fascinating companion to convoke here (although I'd also be interested in seeing what you can do with it by itself), allowing a real scale of quite how hard you want to commit. That's assuming you want the mill in the first place; an 8/8 trampler on the cheap is nothing to turn your nose up at. I appreciate the reminder text clearing up any confusion around the intersection of the mechanics, and I could see plenty of times when you'd rather tap but not sacrifice something. I'm not quite as sure about the inverse, but it's always good to keep the option open. My one concern is that the fact that any way to get this onto the battlefield without casting it (so reanimation, blink, or what have you) also counts for the effect feels a bit against the spirit of the card, but it's hardly a dealbreaker.

@nicolbolas96 — Desperate Necromage

Yeesh, desperate is right! This is one of those beautiful cards that completely reshapes the game around itself the second your opponent is aware of it, because now every single decision they make has to be made in respect to it. Cards with both first strike in deathtouch can often be unblockable if they don't give your opponent a compelling reason to interact with them, and while that's true of this for most of the game, boy does that flip on its head the second your life hits zero. It really does crystalize that feeling of being on the brink of death, but just one more good hit and you can take them out! I do really think the life loss on attack is deceptively important here. Obviously it advances the card's win condition, but by doing that it encourages you to be aggressive with a card that would otherwise sit back as a deterring blocker. Even more than that it introduces a real sense of riskiness, because if this is removed too early, even before you hit zero, you can suddenly find yourself in a very bad position. After all, a deck designed to lower your life total probably isn't packing many tools to raise it, and the lower you go, the more risk you run of being abruptly blown out. All in all, this is the kind of intersection of flavor and gameplay that just captivates me.

Runners-up to follow shortly, then commentary (hopefully) later today. See you then!

@spooky-bard

[dlamp-dictator]

Okay, finished up the main story of Wuthering Waves and slowly getting a feel for how the day-to-day grind is going to be in this game. And... I gotta' be honest here.

I'm enjoying it. A lot.

The game is fun. Very fun. It's got flaws, glaring flaws, but frankly I haven't had this much fun in a game like this since maybe DmC 5 if I had to compare it to something I'm familiar with. Ultimately, despite my love of the game I like it in spite of its massive flaws rather than because of its minor strong points, but it's a game I honestly think I'll stick with for awhile.

However, I'm not here to talk about the gameplay this time around. I wanted to talk about the story first because that's honestly the roughest part of the game. And I'll be frank, this is more a mad rambling in the sense of the younger Allen X than the current one, but I just can't get my thoughts on this game steady yet, so try not to mind the vomit I'm about to throw at you.

But first, as always, that synopsis.

Wuthering Waves is set in a futuristic post-apocalyptic world after a catastrophe called the Lament wiped out most of humanity and caused unknown beings and monsters, called Tacet Discords to appear. However, humanity soon adapted to the threat and over time rebuilt civilization. The story follows the amnesiac Rover, who has awoken from a deep slumber and sets out to explore this new world.

Let it be known that I stole this from the wiki because that's how little I care to summarize this story myself. There's... a lot to discuss. I'll be here all day if I nitpick and talk about every immediate problem I have with the game's story, so I'll try to summarize my issues with three main points. Emphasis on try, again the game's still very new and my thoughts are overall still very scattered. With that said, here are the main points:

There's no real ground for us to care about the world or its people.

The game overloads us with unfamiliar terms and makes following the story hard.

The military sycophancy is... annoying.

Alright, let's break this down as best we can.

Yeah, Let's Just Knock Out the Military Sycophancy

So, while I'd like to start with the most pressing matter first of the game's hook-less intro and lack of intrinsic motivation for Rover or the player aside from gacha rewards, this is the most controversial thing to discuss and I'd rather have it out in the open and talked about first so we aren't too distracted with my other messy points.

So, Wuthering Waves' first 3-ish Acts (especially Act 2) and honestly the whole Huanglong chapter of the main story has rather... pointed moments of focus toward military branches of Huanglong and Jinzhou. There's a lot of heavy praise for the military, how they're keeping out enemies and invaders, how they need to be supported at all cost, etc.. And on its own it's fine.

Like, really, no bullshit, I'm honestly fine with this on the surface.

A quick reminder folks, Wuthering Waves, for all it's technology and advancements, is still in a post-apocalyptic world where literal Sound Demons™ come out of the void to slaughter people with reckless abandon. This is shown the very first time you leave and enter the city of Jinzhou, as NPC soldiers are actively fighting Tacet Discord, some of which will die if you don't intervene and help them clear out mobs on your way out of the city. The training barracks is right outside the gate, there are military bases and camps in even the more remote places where you can also see more NPC soldiers fighting mobs. The lore states that only recently they've forced non-Resonators out of the army because they will legit die instantly to these things.

In this world having a strong military and being proud of it, especially when your city is the first line of defense, is something that's obviously going to come up. In the world of Wuthering Waves, a military force isn't there to potentially conquer another country and take their stuff, work as some glorified bodyguard for the nobility, or protect luxury resources of elite national interest. In Wuthering Waves, the army is thrown into the frontlines to be the wall against the Tacet Discord and likely die or be horribly injured in droves during the process. Make no mistake, despite Jinzhou elegant and peaceful appearance it is on the northern border where almost all the major Tacet Discord are formed. It is very much Chinese-Kislev with Sound Demons™ instead of Chaos Daemons. Not to mention you're traveling around with Yangyang, a member of the scouting military branch, who would obviously have strong opinions about the organization she serves, and Jianxin, who's an errant monk trying to still learn about the world and only has the words of her masters to go off of, and her masters are very pro-military.

It. Makes. Sense.

But the game sure as shit doesn't really show a lot of that in the text and dialogue. It really does come across as brown-nosing, and since the only voices against are main group are the Fractsidus it's hard to take their words at face value. It's not like the game plays up the fact that Yangyang is a military officers aside from Act 2, or that Jianxin is in actually kind of a childish musclehead that's only really good at martial arts and little else as her later Intimacy voice lines imply. The Military Sycophancy is more a product of rushed and lacking characterization than outright brown-nosing. Some minor dialogue in later acts actually question how righteous and moral some of those military leaders are in the heat of the moment, but you have to look for those voices to be heard.

But speaking of lacking characterization that brings me to my second point.

There's Not Really a Grounded Hook, is There?

To give a brief summary of the Huanglong story, the main character, Rover (yes, that seems to be the canonical name) wakes up after a vision/mysterious event of sorts while having no memories of their past or their goals. They are awoken by a friendly soldier and town guard and travels with their new companions to the city of Jinzhou after some shenanigans. The city's local leader, realizing an prophesy involving Rover is about to set off big things, attempts lure them to their side through both friendly and mysterious means. As Rover follows the trail they come to learn several parties and factions not only know about them, but have plans for them that don't require them to even know of main purpose of them being brought to the world, and those factions tease Rover with information hinting about their purpose before fleeing the scene. Through these meetings and the connections Rover makes throughout the story, they decide side with those that housed, protected, and cared for them and help save their country, unbeknown to them and several others going all according to the city leader's plan at the end of the day, even if said leader gambled a little at the end.

And while I'm skipping a lot of details here and there, namely involving the Fractsidus, Black Shores, and other parties, that sure as hell is a better summary of the plot than you'd find in the game. I kept out a lot of the terminology, but that's the basic idea. You're an unknown element, you have several people interested in you because of it, and... that's really it.

There's... nothing to truly hook you.

Look, I know using the G-word is bad form, but I'm gonna. In Genshin the story is simple: You're Aether/Lumine, some asshole god stole your sibling (or sent them back in time or something), you want to get her back and you have to solve every country's problem along the way while Dainslief just stands their menacingly. In Arknights...

...

...

Okay, honestly Wuthering Waves' story intro is about as bad as Arknights' with all the unfamiliar terminology and introducing people you don't care about until 3 more main story chapters, but you get my point.

Wuthering Waves doesn't have much to get you truly invested in the story. There's no real incentive for you to do things aside from mild curiosity and the gacha rewards. The fact that the little scavenger hunt Jinshi sends you on is super-lore heavy doesn't help either. There's a few good moments like most Jiyan confronting the phantom of his former superior, most of the stuff with Aalto and the Black Shore, Scar's occasional moments, and all of the final act, but those are few and far between with all the lore, exposition, and Yangyang's voice actor not having the greatest voice direction. You're dragged around a lot, but you don't really get to stay long enough to really care about the group. I think the only time they did was when they had you with Yangyang in Qichi Village learning about the place's backstory. That was good storytelling and world-building, as you are immediately curious about why the village was so fucked up and the implications were so... twisted. And best of all Scar was able to bring the lore explanation to a human, understandable level with his analogy of the wolf, shepherd, and sheep.

Which brings me to my last point.

So Many Goddamn Terms

The fact that they reference this in later Acts does not help, but the game has a lot of terminology in it. To summarize some of this, the world of Solaris-3 is a post-apocalyptic world based off frequencies, wavelengths, and a biiiiit of Chinese/Eastern fantasy thrown in for flavor. A lot of things revolve around that, but goddamn are there a lot of terms here. Even the official site just barely covers the basics. The Black Shores, the Fractsidus, the various nations and locations of importance. There's... a lot. A lot that isn't cover in as much depth as it should, or should just be simplified to its most important points. Part of me thinks this is because it's a Chinese game first and translating all the terms into something a Westerner can understand is just a mess in and of itself. However... this game also had quite a few years to cook as well and... it needed another year in the oven for reason aside from the glitches and lag.

Smaller Issues

Just gonna' put these in list form because I'm very tired now.

The Voice Direction: I think it's clear the voice acting isn't great, and I want to say its the director's fault. We've got a lot of decent talent here and a few people with good line reads. It just feels something is holding a lot of them back or the director isn't giving them enough context. Maybe now that the secrets out and we know who's voicing what they can actually direct things better now. Either way I'm hoping it gets better.

The Glitches and Stuttering: I'll save gameplay discussions for another posts, but for now I'll say I'm filling it minimally. It's not as bad as others, and I took some precautions to not deal with it as much, but it's still bad.

Rover's Character: So Rover actually has a lot more speaking lines than the average gacha self-insert character, almost to the point of them being their own character. However, the words coming out of their mouth are often just exposition, which only characterizes Rover as someone either intelligent or observant, which clashes with in-universe other characterizations of them being an almost mindless TD-destroying slaughter that cuts through mobs like its an addiction.

Uuuuugh... I know I said I'd say some positive things about the game, but... this has already left me a little drained. I'll talk more in detail about the positives at a later date, but for now I'm gonna' chill for a bit and maybe do a weekly boss.

I'll see you folks later.

[aerithium]

FFVII: Rebirth Review!

This review does contain spoilers!

★ Score: 11/10 ★ Date Finished: March 15th, 2024 ★ Final Thoughts: This game is a beautiful remake and reimagining of my favorite portions of the original FFVII. The purists probably hate it because its not the exact remake they might have wanted but this game might be the best game I have ever played. The story in this game feels brand new, despite being fairly the same as the original. I was constantly filled with wonder and excitement to play even though I technically knew everything that would happen, a feat that is rather impressive when creating a remake. The devs blew it out of the water with the character and party interactions, making them even better than before. Each character not only feels important to Cloud but also other party members such as Red XIII and Aerith having a close friendship, Aerith and Tifa having fun with one another like teenage girls, Tifa and Yuffie acting like siblings to one another, and Barrett and Yuffie having an adorable father/daughter like bond. It makes the course of the story even more impacting and sometimes gut-wrenching as you realize that not only you as the player adore these characters, but they also adore one another. Cloud's characterization in this game is also phenomenal and his personality constantly shifting as he slow loses his identity over the course of the game was chilling to watch. I could ramble forever about the characters in this game, as I find that each one of them holds a deep place in my heart. The gameplay of this game is also phenomenal for many reasons. The open world is extremely expansive and can be rather rewarding, though occasionally overwhelming. It was hard to balance story and exploration but once I figured out the best way to do things, I found both rather enjoyable and they balanced out well. I ended with about 84 hours on the game and still have a lot of content to explore. A new mechanic is also introduced so that the player can track their bond with each party member, something that I enjoyed as I was attempting for a specific character for the dates. The side quests in this game are also really fun for the most part, I didn't love all of them but there were plenty that made me laugh, smile, and sometimes tear up. Finally for gameplay, the combat is much like remake's but it only gets better as each character unlocks new abilities and can be played in many different ways thus having the potential to make characters very strong! The music is also crazy, hearing my favorite tracks from the original game be remade was such an enjoyable experience but the new music in the game is also really nice and I am eagerly waiting for the OST to drop online. Overall this game is a gem among modern day games and the devs did a perfect job both remaking and reimagining all of the segments of the game, if it tells you anything, I cried about 16 times while playing through this game. Many of these being at the endings as the devs created such a beautiful, heart-wrenching, unique yet familiar ending to this installment of the trilogy. I found myself reaching moments that I had looked forward to seeing in the game and whispering to myself "No no no I don't want to do it" I was terrified and I loved it. There are things in this game that I could nitpick if I wanted to but it doesn't feel worth it because the overarching final impression is that it is truly perfection, while I wasn't happy with everything it was all so minute that its not worth trying to remember and mention. I'm probably bias about this game but I think I just witnessed perfection.

[drbatsponge]

My thoughts on Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League...

I recently have been playing Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League and thought I would share my thoughts on it.

I'll start off by saying that yeah the game is getting a lot of flak for various different reasons:

It being a live service title.

It being a part of the Arkhamverse.

The fact you actually kill the Justice League in the game titled “Kill the Justice League”, lmfao.

And finally the whole situation with Kevin Conroy and the fact that this was one of his last performances.

(As we know now it wasn't THE last performance he gave as Batman, he'll apparently be in part 3 of the Tommorowverse Crisis movies.)

I'll start off by saying that I actually did enjoy the game, it's certainly different from the Arkham games being that it is a looter shooter akin to say Destiny, but I didn't actually mind the gameplay and actually think it's rather satisfying once you've upgraded your character enough and get some cool weapons.

I played as Deadshot for the majority of my playthrough of the story, switching sometimes to other characters, especially Boomerang, and I find each is somewhat unique enough.

I really like each character's traversal but HATE the cooldowns, that's a mechanic I find especially annoying, like I want to fly or speed around the city without having to stop every once in a while, lol.

Anyways, shooting and blowing enemies up is pretty fun, especially with the affliction mechanic you get from Ivy, I love the freezing mechanic specifically because it's much easier to mow down enemies.

There's also Gizmo's vehicles which are ridiculously overpowered and I can't lie and say I don't love blowing things up with them, lol.

As for the story... it's a little undercooked, seeing as it is part 1 of a larger narrative, being as this is a live service game it unfortunately ends in a cliffhanger to set up future DLC content.

I think I would be bothered by this more if the DLC wasn't totally free, so instead I'm not gonna nitpick this aspect too much, as I said the DLC is free, if they had made me pay for it I would've probably been more cross.

I do think the world building in this game is really good, there's like remnants you can find of the citizens of Metropolis and what they were doing at the beginning of the Brainiac invasion that I found especially interesting.

Also Metropolis looks and feels amazing, it's probably one of the best open world designs I've seen in a video game, so Rocksteady definitely didn't skimp on the art design with this game.

There's also audio logs you can find about what happened to the League and it's particularly tragic and I think the entire cast of voice actors do a great job.

As for the main story, there's a lot to like and there's a lot to dislike.

Obviously one of the main gripes I see is that you actually kill the Justice League in this game, and... it doesn't bother me too much? I guess that's because I caught on to some of the hints they were dropping about the JL, and without going too much into spoiler-territory, I'll just say things aren't as they seem with them.

Now for the elephant in the room which is how the game treats the Arkhamverse and obviously Batman, considering this is one of Kevin's final outings as the character.

I'll start by saying that Kevin Conroy gives a fantastic performance in this game, he's great as an evil Batman and you can hear it in his voice, he was absolutely not held at gunpoint or anything to record his lines for this game, lol.

There's obviously some issues to be had with how it ends for his Batman, but like I said... not everything is as it seems, so I definitely don't think this is the last we'll be seeing or hearing from Batman in this game, that's all I'll say.

Also there's a tribute at the end for Kevin that's really heartfelt and it made me tear up a bit. 🥹

As for how they try to weave the Arkhamverse narrative into this game? I think it's a bit sloppy all things considered.

Like yeah the museum that Jack Ryder made is cool and all but you literally could've made this game not connected to the Arkhamverse with a few changes and things would've been fine, lol.

(Also I'm not too happy about Arkham Origins being discluded from the museum section, what is your problem with it Rocksteady!?)

The Arkhamverse itself is sloppy sure, and there's fair criticisms to be had about it, but I just don't see a reason why this game is set in that universe to begin with, I guess because Rocksteady thought people wouldn't be interested unless there were some connections to those games.

As for the game being live service, that hasn't entirely bothered me yet.

As I said the DLC is completely free.

And most of the live service stuff is for cosmetics.

If the game had made me pay for more than just outfits for my characters, I would've probably been more upset, so this game isn't really all that predatory with the live service elements imo.

(You also get some free cosmetics in-game for completing Riddler races, so that's cool.)

I do think it's a bit of a bummer that the game has to be always online to play it, but Rocksteady did say there is an offline mode coming soon.

Also I only had like a few connection issues, so it never really interrupted my time playing all that much.

Anyways, I would say Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League is a solid 7/10 game, it has some flaws sure, but nothing that made me think the game is as bad as some people are making it out to be, I definitely have enjoyed my time playing it and am interested in the DLC going forward.

I certainly hope it lasts longer than most live service games, but you never know with these titles unfortunately, either way I still think you all should give it a try while it's still going!

Well, that's my thoughts on SS: KTJL, I hope everyone enjoyed reading them!

As always stay tuned! Same bat-time, same bat-channel!

[asingingpenguin]

Some thoughts now that I have finished it (and knowing there's going to be a patch to fix some bugs I had).

Gameplay: yeah, it's more action and can be repetitive, but anyone who struggled that literally is a skill issue.

The writing as a whole is fine. There are heavy-handed clunky parts, and things I wish could have been dealt with better or in a way that wasn't so jarring but it is what it is. The game is for a wider audience and you need to make your point clear. Please stop making games for people who are new when it's the 4th title of a continuing series. The writing wouldn't be as clunky then!

I also have my own issues with how some of the trans stuff was handled. Again, awkward writing both using modern terms that don't feel like make sense in the setting, but you have to make it clear for people who might not know (or try to deny what it is). There is no easy way around that. And this is just me personally: Rook seems to have had a few extra options when it came to talking about their experiences of being trans, but none felt close to mine, which did suck a bit. I get that always knowing your trans (maybe? More so nonbinary) isn't actually a common experience, but it's also not just a stereotype a lot of fiction used to use. I also am also just tired of coming out stories, more so about younger people. There should always be more, but I'd love more queer stuff about people my age.

Also, I'm sorry you want a full role play experience, but then you can't really have a voiced protag. And I don't mind a silent protag! But you're going to get better voice work if the character has a least somewhat of a defined personality. Erika (American feminine voice) did a great job, and I feel like them being able to be more set in how Rook would act made it better. I also do like I could pitch their voice down even if I wish I could have more control over that pitch like in SaintsRow.

I do miss having three party members, and was a pro and con I felt the need to change up who came with me all the time.

After romancing Josephine in Inquisition, it was nice to be able to have my LI with me for a good chunk of the game and her calling me "love" in my party during the final push. ;;

After DA2 with it's rushed end and BG.3 that felt like they didn't really bother with act three, it was nice that the game was written with the end in mind! It didn't feel like a huge letdown, or like nothing I did mattered. A game that's actually finished SHOULDN'T be surprising, and yet here we are.

Manfred and Assan are perfect, and I have no notes there.

It's honestly for me a solid 7.5 given the rough start, some of the mechanics, and my own nitpicking like some of the animations/lip syncing (but it's not like they've ever been good at that). It's still fun overall and still DA.

Major spoiler under the cut

Still upset someone does HAVE to die, and I figured that going in. I hate that the choice is the one black guy (and Assan ;;) or Harding who you've spent two games with and might be more attached to because of it. Me and a friend romance both, and I'm SO happy I saw Spoilers because I would have been so fucking mad if my LI died and happy to give my friend the heads up too (but just the choice to make, not the consequences). I just wish after doing LITTERALLY everything everyone could live.

[translucio]

ok heres my veilguard thoughts so far. pretty minor spoilers below cut

char creator and visuals

character creator is indeed pretty amazing, probably the best character creator i have ever experienced. i do have some gripes with it but they are minor

qunari don't look TERRIBLE, the 5head can be mitigated, but i do still wish there were more options for horn bases and hair. it's true that after looking at them for a long time you become a little desensitized to it but i still think they could've done better.

THAT SAID. there are a lot of different horn options which i appreciate

the hair is hands down the best hair ive seen in a video game i think. certainly the best curly and afrotextured hair in a game. they put in the work to make it good and it shows. for the first time i have been able to make a character with the same hair texture as me, that looks GREAT and moves beautifully. there was a moment when i was creating my character where i went "wait, that literally looks just like me" and i have NEVER had that in a video game before. props to bioware for that for sure. they even have different beard textures!

the only minor nitpick i have other than wanting more hair options for qunari is that i wish you could add grey hairs for a salt and pepper look, like you can in elden ring or bg3. you might be able to do it but i couldn't find a way that looked like i wanted

gameplay

combat is fun. im feeling a Lot of god of war inspiration. i think they did a good job. their combat systems seem pretty deep. it is definitely more action rpg than strategy/tactics, but still requires some thinking - just quick thinking rather than planned out. i find this kind of action rpg combat more challenging than tactical combat Because it requires holding a lot of things in your head and maintaining a lot of awareness while also making quick decisions, as well as more input mastery. but i think it's challenging in a good way. certainly an improvement over inquisition's combat which i never found fun.

the level design is working for me so far! much better than inquisition. again feeling a lot of influence from god of war

characters, writing, story seem fine so far. im not far in but im having a good time. i have a lot of questions but im waiting to see if they get answered

there are a couple of gameplay things that i Haven't seen and im not sure if they're just not a part of this game, or if i just haven't gotten to them yet. namely...

it seems like you can't just talk to your companions outside of unique scripted scenes with them at specific story points? waiting to see if that's true or i just haven't gotten to it yet. but i liked being able to just drop in and choose topic(s) to dig in on with all the companions in previous bioware games.

similarly seems like you can't just talk to minor npcs as you explore the world. again waiting to see if that's actually true

[baku-usagi]

I'm about 20 hours in now so small veilgaurd monologue!

Gonna tag correctly of course but also gonna put it under the cut for safety.

I have been going down a check list in my head based off that one stupid man (skill up?) s review.

I've been keeping all of his nitpicks that sounded reasonable at the time in the back of my head, and I've been actively trying to find things to dislike.

And lemme tell ya, pleasantly surprised.

There are complaints to be had, and I will get to those eventually but for now I wanted to talk about the good because the game is getting dog piled enough.

Firstly: all the people who said it just didn't feel like a dragon age game are straight up lying to you. This game feels as true blue dragon age as they come. It is not, a tactical rpg, it is still an action adventure rpg (rest in peace origins gameplay system, I loved you) but both two and inquisition stepped away from the trpg side of things so I don't feel like that takes away from the dragon age vibe the game carries.

The gameplay is amazing in a lot of different little ways

Combat is fun, it is mostly simple but it's no where near as repetitive as people would have you think. It is actively less repetitive then da2 and inquisition.

You can swap between two weapon styles at will which has been absolutely delightful.

For mages there is classic staff combat but there is also orb and dagger combat which is everythingggg I have had so much fucking fun.

That being said some of the up grades and specializations I've seen so far have been a little lack luster, but that could also just be because it is decently different, operating on an actual skill tree.

The animation and skill tree for veilgaurd is really similar to the newer God of war series, the cutscenes, the combat ect tends to kind of pull inspiration from that.

The lay out of the maps are also semi God of war adjacent, but more importantly, it feels like what da2 wanted to be.

It's very veryyyy similar but better, when you revisit areas you're almost always unlocking new places to scoure.

For all the dragon age games it mimics it feels closest to 2 for me but in the best way possible.

Some other aspects continue to feel inquisition adjacent as well, collecting things, the actual environments, ect.

They also brought back a lot of story telling similar to origins on my opinion, though this is mostly done well with narrative story telling. The dialog and the voice acting is unfortunately a week point.

The actual concepts delivered are great though, and there is more grit and grime happening that feels more adjacent to origins. The suffering is once again the somewhat lack of a good reaction to things from the cast of characters, who are fairly emotionally uninvolved unforch.

Anyway the stuff that's good is really good. There are some cool ass cameos already that feel good, and well done. The choice system feels good, though you're simply not going to have the role play freedome that was had in da:o and da:2 to an extent. It still works for what it is. Anyway that's all for nowww