#i had to restart my game and i’ve died less than 10 times which is a lot for me

[ranuunculus]

i’m so fucking good at dark souls

[gelo-p]

Blooming in ZERO: Memories

I’ve decided to T100 the Re:ZERO collaboration! Let’s review how it went. XD

WARNING! A rather image-heavy post

Step 1: Roll for Rinko! (She’ll make my team stronger) Strictly speaking, I didn’t need her (means more work though), but I thought maybe I’ll get lucky? ^o^

I only had enough stars for 3 10-pulls though, and I have to say, this paid gacha was really tempting... (my Twitter friends all got Rinko WTF)

I’m broke though ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

We would quickly learn that we were overloading the servers, LOL. The game was very unplayable during the first two hours. During my first roll, the connection actually timed out D:

When I logged back in, I saw my stars got deducted, but thankfully I had new members in the waiting room. ^^

I actually got the limited Ako during that very first roll!

And so I tried again.

Fuck my luck. I’ve done 3 10-pulls, and all of them sucked.

Time to start playing I guess...

Oh right. The connection was bad.

Really bad. >_<

It’s been a while since I met coldgaze (P3), a fellow T10 from the Cycling Seasons event! That guy rarely shows up in the public rooms, LOL.

Also, we got a login campaign for 2500 stars! Which means another 10-pull! ^o^

...Why did I even think my luck would improve. >_>

Know what?

I SUMMON THEE! BLACK FRIDAY SALES!!!

MWAHAHAHAHAHA RIP wallet-kun, RIP being an F2P player 2020-2020

I swear to Babanbo-sama, if I don’t get Rinko using the paid gacha-

OMG D:

PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE-

YESSSSSSSSSS

I am now a believer in the Babanbo religion.

WHAT? Had I known I would be rolling both Rinko and Ako in this single paid gacha I would have started with this and avoided wasting 10k stars!!!

>_<

(Of course, I couldn’t have known. Although in hindsight, I definitely should have tried rolling the paid gacha first... but then we only got the Black Friday sale news after I already spent 10k free stars, so... ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ )

Fuck yes, Rinrin. Fuck yes.

I already had a good 4* Yukina, so I didn’t really need to roll for her anymore. Not to say I didn’t want her ^^

Anyway let the tiering continue!

First checkpoint: Almost at T100!

Let’s talk about Unite! A to Z for a bit.

I’ve been tiering since forever and one of the many gripes casual players like me (yes. I’m casual) is that a lot of the more serious players go into the public rooms and just spam the hell out of this song. I understand why they do it (tl;dr - short length, high score, aka “meta song”), and I can’t really stop them from doing it.

There are other meta songs, like Jumpin’, that give a little less score for a little longer duration, but players really, and I mean really, like to spam A to Z. I could argue that you can’t really get the full benefit of A to Z 100% of the time (players take time picking songs and difficulty anyway, and you’re not always going to be consistent with your score), so in the long run, there’s no significant harm in picking other meta songs (maybe I should do the math..?), but no.

For those players, 100% AtoZ.

And it’s gotten really annoying, to the point that players like the one in the screenshot just straight-up disconnects when AtoZ is picked.

Anyway, back to the story. ^o^

WTF? Why is Gigguk (the #77 guy) tiering? XD Is that really Gigguk?

Who knows? XD

99 ILLUSION IS MY LIFE

I feel bad for P4, LOL. Surrounded by Yukina cards. XD

WE ARE UNSTOPPABLE

Progress report: T35!

I took this screenshot just as I finished a game of AtoZ...

...and the game disconnects WTF GIVE ME MY FLAMES AND EFFORT BACK

(the score’s a bit higher since it wasn’t completely tallied yet when I took the 1st screenshot)

I’ve seen Bad Wifi Pam a couple of times during my entire Bandori career and when I saw this, all I could think was-

“Is it finally gonna happen?? IS IT!?”

“YESSSS!” XD

I’m sorry Bad Wifi Pam, but that moment really felt like I saw the DVD logo diving into the corner XD

I hope they didn’t lose too many flames though.

I told you, people just hate AtoZ XD

We didn’t sign up for a rhythm that only has one song, come on!

My connection got bad a couple of times and I was punished for it. >_<

There are 2 impostors among us.

P3, when has that ever stopped them LOL

UGH tell me about it, P4.

FINALLY A RANDOM ROO-

WHAT-

WHY, P1 WHY!?

I changed my name to encourage Random songs ^^

..not that it would work, but whatever.

We more than managed to...

Stay Alive. ;D

I’ll see myself out.

WTF is this, a Mexican Standoff???

More AtoZ haters (also known as Etuze, well, coz that’s how Aya pronounces it... We love you Aya! :”> )

Finally ran out of drinks.

It was time to burn stars for flames.

:|

:|

:|

:|

(That Orion guy ended up as T9, BTW. There’s more incentive to AtoZ spam when going for T10, but it doesn’t make it any less annoying for me.)

MY PC DIED WTF

It got fixed after a restart though, so thank fuck.

Now that I think about it, I need to really get down to the bottom of my GPU issues.

LOL, one time I picked Happy Synthesizer for the lulz, and one of the AtoZ spammers disconnected :)))

TBF, nobody likes to see Happy Synthesizer in Multi.

I’ve decided to be an asshole and just delay AtoZ. Oh? What’s that? AtoZ again? here, let me take 30 seconds to pick a difficulty.

Please note that this is an asshole move, since the other players are gonna get dragged into it. But I was really sick of it.

Hey! A friend that also hates AtoZ!

Anybody wants Miracle Crystals? -_-

Someone actually copied my name WTF XD

Woke up on the 2nd-to-the-last morning to see myself almost out of T100 contention.

Check out my challenge points tho. 8-)

It was time to burn them!

STOP THE COUNT! STOP THE COU-

Yeah nah fuck you. Count them all.

Aaaaaand we’re done! I parked at... this score, and I was fairly confident I’d still be in T100. ^^

...Unfortunately, I woke up the following morning to see that Bestdori projected the cutoff to be at 10.6M. That is waaay too close to 11M for comfort. So I panicked and played some more, even got to Level 230 in the process XD

Eventually the cutoff never really reached 11M, so I guess I didn’t have to? :3

I’d rather regret the extra effort though, than potentially lose T100 standing.

Now we’re done. 8-)

Just waiting for the event to end!

AAAND EVENT OVER! *victory fanfare*

LOL one of the T10′s got banned. Don’t cheat, kids.

IT’S HEEEEREEEEE

YukiRan SayoLisa YukiRan SayoLisa YukiRan SayoLisa YukiRan SayoLisa-

[nintendocaffeine]

Nintendo WIP

Taglist: @nintendo @niantic - @nele3299 - @hoodie-art

Nintendo is a so-called game company, but a game company wouldn't overlook such trivial details that are a huge impact on not only their games but their players. It's almost like they want to make all of their 'fans' or just people who could care less about them themselves and only play certain games not want to come back for any sequels or prequels to their games. It's like they didn't even bother to think about this mess until a bunch of people finally open their mouths about it, but that is a hard task. Even if I get no one's attention I want to make some points that at least everyone in the community can agree on.

Animal Crossing

People have either been playing animal crossing for years or only joined with the recently made New Horizons along with me.  But in the most recent games, there have been a few things that are too blaring to overlook. It's almost like Nintendo wants to watch players suffer, which if the players suffer, the company suffers greatly too.

So the aspect is to have a bunch of villagers on your island and do a bunch of DIY's that look like 5-minute-crafts came up with how to make things. But I digress, for the most part, it does make some logical sense. But when you need to craft over ten packs of fish bait, it gets more than annoying. Or need to craft maybe four or ten chairs or benches or something seasonal. to have a perfect seasonal island for a month before switching it up again. It would be more than lovely to have the option to pick more than one. I know if you mash A a bunch it goes faster but that doesn't exactly make too much of a difference if you're making a bunch of the same item. Not only that but if you're buying maybe 10+ nook miles tickets, let's say you have 40,000 Nook Points,  You can get twenty whole NMT, but pressing A and waiting, doing that twenty or more times depending on how many points you have? It's unbearable and not even finding the villager you want after hopping island to island and waiting hours and mashing A for the amount you want or need.

It shouldn't be hard to program in a counter. You make updates for all the wrong things, I feel.

Like the update to Animal Crossing Pocket Camp, needing a certain camera lens to play a game that actually doesn't require a camera lens like that? Nintendo had an update in November of last year where they cut more than half of their player base. Their phone needed a gyroscope camera, not even phones bought last year could run the game, apparently. I was one of the players affected. I spend actual money on that game. For what? Cosmetics I can't even see anymore? Can't even use? After a month of nothing I had to uninstall, I was told that I should wait but I just didn't have the storage anymore. Sadly. I went back to see the reviews, most people left even if they could still play it because they couldn't play with their friends or couldn't play period.

I want to point out Pokemon Go!

Pokemon Go uses a camera feature for their 3D Pokemon models, which is amazing! But why does that work and yet Pocket camp doesn't? Well, technically Nintendo doesn't own Pokemon Go, Niantic does. Niantic uses different software than Nintendo itself, that and they're two different apps, they were made very differently. But then why does the camera have to be a gyroscope for Pocket Camp and not Pokemon Go? Pokemon GO uses it's AR feature more than Pocket camp! This is true, but the camera feature isn't even needed with Pokemon Go either, it's optional. So then why is Pocket Camp different? Well, Google told app developers that all apps needed to be 64bit by next year. But what does 64bit have to do with a camera lens? The gyroscope lens is implemented in all 64bit phones, that's the difference. Pokemon Go might update soon too but for now, people with a 32bit phone can play it and use its AR features. But I don't know why Nintendo would conform to Google's rules, as Nintendo is its own company and if it's still getting money... Google takes a percentage of money from players as tax for the service, so both Nintendo and Google are taking a hit. I really don't get their thought process here, people are canceling their subscriptions and spending less on their games, people on Reddit and in Google reviews are both saying the same thing.

Oh, but this is where I talk about Pokemon Go now.

Pokemon Go

Pokemon Go is an amazing game that Nintendo can't touch. Until they wormed their way in with Pokemon Go Eevee/Pikachu. Soon you'll be able to transfer Pokemon from go onto your switch games! But... they can't return back to your phone. Here's the thing I want to do, if I have a two-star Pokemon in Pokemon Go and transfer it to make it a three-star with vitamins then I should be able to then send it back into Pokemon Go and dominate. But that's the thing. I can't. We don't even know if they way to make it go two ways or if it'll forever be a one-way transfer only.

I love how Niantic added Jessy and James even though Jessy as a 3d model looks... strange. I wonder if they'll add Butch and Cassidy, since they were also semi-part of the lore, they mainly just competed with Jessy and James. But this is just a thought I wanted out there. I want more diversity, honestly. But it would take a long time to implement, but I think it would be cute to see how it is implemented. It could be an event type deal and I'd still be happy just to even see them.

I want to congratulate them for finally putting in Kalos starters! I've been wanting a FenFen (Fennekin.)

Pokemon Mystery Dungeon Explorers

Okay, so I've played Pokemon Mystery Dungeon Explorers of Time and Darkness, and let me tell you the anime for it was amazing too. I wanted more. There was a 3Ds version, hated it. Circles... I gave up and restarted twice and haven't touched it for so long since it just.. wasn't as good as the original. I've been meaning to play Sky but one thing at a time. There has been a lot of people talking about the starters, and boy oh boy I'm on the bandwagon late. I was curious about the personality quiz but seeing everyone say want starter is best with what partner and seeing how everyone said 'Don't be Totodile and Mudkip!' or 'Don't be Eevee and Skitty!' it just made me confused since you... technically couldn't have two of the same type of starters. What in the heck were those people thinking? But that isn't entirely a point. The point is starters. In the switch version of Mystery Dungeon, there are some things I just cannot say. The starter selection of awful. What happened to the Unova starters? You added Cubone but not Riolu? Where did you put my baby shinx?

The starters were pretty meh, they could have added more in my opinion. The screen surely could handle it. Also, the animations for the starters weren't even special or fantastic so it wouldn't have been that hard. I hate the walking animation for Eevee. I picture for Mudkip and Skitty it's not much better.

I've played it for three days and was so disappointed. First off, my partner, an AI? I had to literally kill him for my starter could get back to the same level. Thanks, blast seeds. But if I am being honest in found it to be so funny. Not only that but in said Dungeons, on any floor the boss could just be there and without warning. You could have explored the entire floor and it just appears randomly, or might not even be there. Hate that.

Also, there are no party rooms. I miss the party rooms. The party rooms are rooms that randomly fill up with Pokemon either if you hit a tile for the party room, somehow get the room by being dropped there with or without your partner (and co), or if you enter it from a path. I barely ever get past them but it would be a good experience. Also, you can only have yourself, your partner, and whatever one Pokemon you want with you. In previous games, you could have two addons. What happened to that?

Not to mention that in the story, you suddenly are exiled and after beating two birbs you then fight, Ninetails covers for you and says it isn't you, and then everything is suddenly.. just okay? All fine and dandy? So many people wanted to literally kill you over a rumor. If you died once you would lose 5,000 P and items. Um, excuse you. At the end of the journey, I gathered a little over 5,000 P because I'm a money-hungry person who wants to open all of the camps. But again, I know we'd have to go and find Ninetails and figure out the story but that.. wasn't the way to do it. You get past maybe six dungeons and are hit with that suddenly. I would get it if it was mid-game and they suddenly found out the secret and everyone was like 'you were so nice, what happened?' 'Why was it you?' 'You lied to all of us' and it broke my heart, that just upset me. None of them even let the starter explain, and even if they did the option was literally only dots. Also, why was my partner so supportive? They're just so baby and it's killing me. That's just my take on what they could have improved on.

If you want to add on, add your own, or say anything, feel free below or to message me so we can talk about this more. Thanks for the read, lets hope this gets covered on some youtube channel for 'controversy' or just to be agreed on.

[everygame]

Cinco Paus (iOS)

Developed/Published by: smestorp Released: 12/02/2015 Completed: n/a Completion: 33 games, 632 points. Trophies / Achievements: n/a

So, Cinco Paus, then. It’s a game I’ve resisted playing for ages and ages largely because I wasn’t that into Michael Brough’s previous games (I somewhat liked 868-Hack, but I didn’t find it very compelling somehow?) but we got to a point where Metanet’s Raigan Burns just bought it for me so I decided to give it the old college try.

Cinco Paus is incredible. It’s also frustrating, unfair, probably taking the piss when it comes to time investment, and yet something that I managed to lose more time, more intensely on, than any game I’ve played in ages. Like legitimately losing 14 hours to it within the first three days.

It’s an easily misunderstood game, so I’m going to outline (first of all) that you absolutely should play it, unless you’re easily addicted to rogue-likes, in which case you probably shouldn’t. Basically, it goes like this:

You’re a wizard.

You have five wands that you don’t know the behaviors of; each wand does five things. Your goal is to compete FIFTY sets of five levels, which are five by five, by getting to the exit on each level.

Wands do a variety of things. You learn by shooting them (drag them to your wizard and point them in a direction; you can’t use them directly against a wall.) They don’t tell you what the thing they do is unless they do that thing so you can’t tell if it hurts an enemy unless you hit an enemy. But you also can’t tell if it does something good that requires it not to hit an enemy (the “buried treasure” ability) unless it doesn’t hit an enemy!

All the explanations are in Portuguese, so ignore them and just look them up here.

You can pick up items.

Books teach you one thing one wand does.

Gems. Collect five gems and you can unlock an artifact (you can have five) which do one (powerful) thing.

Keys. Collect five keys, which you can only do via wand shenanigans (there’s one key per level, and that always gets used up to unlock doors) and you can find a secret level (a hidden door on a wall that doesn’t contain an exit/entrance already) which will upgrade an artifact. Each artifact can have five upgrades. They’re extremely good.

Potions. Heal you one point. This is valuable, but if you’re at full health you can ignore or transform these.

Treasure. It’s just points! If you’re going for score, these are high risk because they give you nothing else. Transform ‘em early if you can, I say.

After a set of five levels, everything resets except for your gems, keys, score and artifacts. So you “keep” some progress.

If you die: you lose everything and start again.

Oh, and every set of five levels is basically the same; the layouts are close to random, but the selection of enemies you face are consistent; level 3 in your fiftieth game will have the same possible enemy selection as it would have in your first game (recounted in this excellent guide).

You die if you lose your hitpoints; you will generally die because an enemy hit you.

Enemies move after you do, semi-randomly.

If you walk into a space next to them, they will hit you. Do not do this! Make sure they move next to you, and hit them.

There are shrimp, lizards, toads and roosters. You don’t want to slug it out with the toads and roosters.

There are also Ghosts, who are weird; they will hit you if you move next to them, but if you are next to them and you move towards them, they’ll move away. That means you can’t kill them without a wand, but is also means that you can move and not get hit by them even if you think you’re trapped!

That’s… a lot. So you might be asking, what the hell am I doing?

Try and learn as much about the wands as soon as possible each run. If you can, track all the big things a wand can do (did it hit a wall, an enemy, etc).

Don’t get hit, and especially never ever get cornered (two enemies next to you) unless you have a big power that will pay off and kill them. On the first level, if you’re deep in a multi-game run, carefully slug it out with lizards if you would otherwise have to fire at point blank range. There are too many ways for things to go wrong on that first level and taking a couple of hits is more survivable than turning a lizard into a rooster, and then having the beam bounce off corners and duplicate it several times (and then teleport you in the center of them. Which could happen.)

Do whatever you can to get as many gems as early as possible; if you can dupe them, do so. If you can use transform on books/potions/treasure to try and get a gem, do it. 

Do whatever you can to get as many extra keys. Upgraded artifacts are so important.

Above all: survive. If you’re fucking up a level, just do whatever to get to the exit. Don’t get greedy. There’s always the next level, or at worst the next set.

Right. So that reads as insanely complicated, I think, but the beauty of Cinco Paus is that it’s actually extremely simple. While there’s a lot of things a wand can do, the things you can do are limited, so the play-space is always extremely understandable (the map is always 5x5; you know you’re getting a particular set of enemies next time, etc.) It’s actually extremely elegant.

The thing about Cinco Paus is that it’s the closest I think I’ve come to truly seeing genius at play in game design. Like, ok, maybe that sounds absurd, but I mean like when you think about a piece of art or music where you think “oh, I could do that” and you probably could, but it’s the idiosyncrasies of the artist that make it something far more interesting and unique and you sort of second guess any critique of that.

I mean listen. This game looks like shit. Just shit. It’s disgusting to look at. I hate it. But maybe that’s totally still necessary to what it is. And I honestly think the decision to make all the text in Portuguese is… problematic? I know it came from a genuine interest in using the language (Brough is, or was, learning it) but that it’s used to make the game more mysterious and alien (for everyone except people who can speak, as he admits, the sixth most spoken language in the world) is kinda… I just don’t think it’s good. 

And the thing is, for me it doesn’t add anything. This game could, I think, look crazy polished and feature some brilliant UI and be in English; like it could track all the things you’ve learned in a big database; fuck it could even cross off all the things you’ve tried. The game would still be extremely challenging, and if anything, more enjoyable as a puzzle.

But… would that actually be better? I’m not sure. I really can’t tell, because it’s a bit like saying Van Gogh should have just drawn normally.

So, you know, here’s to the iconoclasts. Fuck knows I’d probably have been a better games journalist if I didn’t put my best writing in a printed zine, you know? I still did it the way I wanted to.

I suppose the question might be though: why have I stopped playing? Well, I died frustratingly in the middle of my greatest run ever as it turns out Roosters had unlocked a way to warp me three runs ago and, despite being well prepared, I was warped by one where I was surrounded and literally couldn’t survive (some people might quibble.) I didn’t feel any rage, I felt pretty proud of getting that far, but the idea of starting the grind again made me really bored.

You see, in order to get to the point where Cinco Paus is really fun, you have to put up with the “starting grind” where with no artifacts yet you have to play loads of times trying to get a good start and get a few artifacts going. That’s potentially hundreds of games, and after bumping up against that for a few days I just said fuck it.

I know, you can’t question genius by my own parameters here, but I think about a similar genius (uh, actually not similar) Jeff Minter, and how he came up with that genius “high score save” where it just saved the game at your highest score each level and you could restart there. You could always restart too. Here I wish I could just pick a random artifact or two and start at level 5 or 10 with less score, even. Because it’s the getting of those that are the ball-ache when you’re so weak and shitey.

But look. It’s probably good. I kicked my habit. But I’m glad I played it. I’m better for it. I’m still not watching the Wire though.

Will I ever play it again? Maybe if he updates it, which I think has been rumoured. I’m taking a big break from Brough but I’ll be back for Imbrouglio though. Actually excited.

Final Thought: There’s no daily seed here, which might have kept me playing, but I realize that he can’t really do that because one person could just tell you what’s coming, plus doing fifty levels is, what… 8 hours or something? It’s wild that I want a game where everything is so restricted to five of anything still maybe streamlined a bit more. But as I said, what do I know? I’m not a genius.

[sambart93]

Touken Ranbu The Movie [Review]

It’s finally here! It’s finally arrived! We waited so long and it’s finally here! I’m hoping I can see it at least one more time before it stops at the cinema because it is so good!

NON-SPOILER REVIEW Overall: This was amazing! I absolutely adored and loved so many parts of this movie!! I loved the story, I loved the reinterpretation of history, I loved the twists and surprises (there are so many that you don’t expect!), I loved the action, I loved the colouring, I loved the cinematography and the camera shots, I loved seeing their pretty make up and their pretty faces on a big giant screen! They all looked amazing!! My honest to god only complaint is that (1) there is a very obvious voice dub within the first 15 minutes of the movie; (2) some of the editing and transitions between scenes were just not smooth at all. The editing was really rough compared to how amazingly produced everything else is in this movie. A few cuts really pissed me off and some transitions were so jarring. I do have one more complaint but it’s spoilery so I’ll list that below. But everything else was amazing! Cannot wait for the DVD! Rating: 8/10 if only the editing had been better.

SPOILER REVIEW

Story

We are back at Honnouji no Hen trying to stop the Jikansokougun from interfering with it. You know the story if you’ve read the history and/or watched the first stage.

Now to the spoilers...

The TouDan think they’ve finished off the Jikansokougun and go back to the Honmaru, but in fact there was still one left who grabs Oda and takes him to a safe place. When Oda wakes up he has the whole Jikansokougun army within his grasp and one of the commanders ‘Mume’ can talk to him and stays by Oda’s side. The TouDan realise what’s happened and goes back. While there Jiji actually saves and rans away with Oda. Everyone feels betrayed but they continue their mission of keeping and eye on Hideyoshi. Jiji takes Oda to Azuchi where Hideyoshi raids and tries to burn down (as per the correct history) but again the Jikansokougun interfere.

I’ll stop there so you’re not too spoiled if you did carry on to read more.

*

Using the star format as usual so it’s easier and quicker for me to get through reviews. 

General Comments

☆ This was so BEAUTIFULLY SHOT! Some of the shots are so well done and they all looked so damn pretty! They must’ve had a very nice budget for this movie because it’s visually beautiful, the colouring used is beautiful, so many shots are just PERFECT!

☆ I loved the close ups of all the swords! Being able to see their pretty faces  (which had a lot lighter make up than what they wear on stage so their natural beauty shined out more!) so close up was just wonderful ^_^

☆ Also their makeup! I absolutely adored their make up in this!! All of the swords except Nihongo have eyeliner half way across their bottom lashes (yeah this is how good the quality is and how well you can see the makeup and how goddamn observant I am xD). And they all looked SO NICE! 

☆ NIHONGO’S ONSIE for uchiba/Internal Affairs is freaking ADORABLE!!!! It’s a freaking Onsie! A ONSIE! I was losing it!! And he looked so good in it too!! It was this freaking adorable great onsie!! I can’t get over this... I can’t! xD

☆ Jiji has plot armour in this movie too as expected because he’s always givemn bloody plot armour. He REALLY should’ve died in this one. Scientifically and by Touken Game standards he SHOULD have died. But alas ‘we can’t hurt the fan favourite precious Jiji’ oh fuck off, hurry up and kill him already! Fuck sake.

☆ I really liked Fuma’s Honebami. Just like the stages, we didn’t get enough time with him. We didn’t really get to know him. But I think something between His and Mitsuya’s Hone is what I expect Hone to be so I like Movie Hone. BUT, Hone should’ve died too by the way. Just from the dire situation he ends up in, he really should’ve been killed and died. It’s not like we can’t bring these swords back!

☆ I died a little when Uguisumaru said his famous line!

☆ Tomoki as Uguisumaru was perfect JUST as I had predicted! He was great! I loved the looks between Jiji and him where they completely understood each other without having to speak! I absolutely adored how soft his voice was, very nicely matching Ugui’s image. 

☆ Also I did start laughing at one point when I remembered Suzuki and Tomoki had been in YowaPeda together. I just imagined Suzuki’s Arakita and Tomoki’s Makishima dressing up in their sword outfits. Them looking like TouDan but with their Peda character’s personalities just cracked me up SO MUCH!

☆ You can definitely appreciate the amount of LEG shown by Yagen and Fudou in this movie! The camera itself really loved focusing on Yagen’s legs! Many times there are obvious shots that are there JUST for his legs xD and there’s a scene at the honmaru where Fudou goes to sleep and you can see all the muscles in his legs and it’s beautiful ^_^ highly appreciated and thankful for these shots!

☆ I do like movie version of Hasebe. I liked him somewhat in this one. There wasn’t so much forehead acting from Wada in this (thank god) so I liked Hasebe this time around. 

☆ And I guess movie version of Jiji wasn’t as much of a dick as he is in the stage too. I do like Jiji quite a bit in this one too, but he still got that god damn plot armour.

☆ In some shots you can see the knee support around Maki’s right leg - he was still receiving rehabilitation on his knee after his surgery when he stupidly went off to film this.

☆ I am here for the utter and complete tag team of Yagen and Manba! I absolutely adored all their scenes together! I was SO down for this pair up! They were great together!

☆ If you’ve never seen the Eiga Dorobo video, I highly recommend you see it! It’s often shown in movie theatre before the movie starts and it’s gold! (see here) so for Touken Ranbu they made special ones with the cast joining in! They even had the Jikansokougun too! So far there have only been 2 episodes out and a third one should be coming. So for the two different episodes we had the appearance of:

Eiga Dorobo 1: Uguisumaru, Fudou, Hasebe

Eiga Dorobo 2: Honebami, Nihongo, Yagen

☆ Watching the movie, I had this huge moment of ‘fuck, I love Touken Ranbu’, because there are so many versions of it and anyone can make any version they want because the creators of the game gave so much leeway as to how to interpret the swords, the personalities, how they defend history, the lore of the Jikan, there is just so much god damn potential in this series and there’s so many ways and stories you can write with these boys! I just got so happy and proud while watch the movie. We can literally make up whatever shit we want so long as history goes back to normal at the end! It’s GREAT!

☆ However, as already stated above, there were some super dodgy editing in this! I really need to find out who the editor is and send them an email because some of the editing was cringe worthy. We literally had one shot where Jiji walks out but the shot is focused on Jiji’s feet for about 5 seconds while Jiji talks. No shot of Jiji actually talking, no shot of Jiji’s face, just his FEET! HIS FEET! What the hell was that shot of Jiji’s feet at the beginning of the movie?! I’ve watched this movie TWICE and I have absolutely NO idea what the point of that shot was! That was the worst one. 

☆ Other things like in the very first opening scene we are have a VERY OBVIOUS audio dub over one of the guys. Why they dubbed over the man with different lines to what his mouth creates, I don’t know why, but it does not sync up at all and it is very obvious.

☆ And the transition between scenes/days and the cut backs to older stuff in the movie was just very poorly edited too. If a scene ended, it would fade to black and for like 2 seconds there would be nothing, no music, just a black scene and then suddenly a new song would start, it felt VERY stage-y and not like a movie at all! It was cringe worthy and really wasted precious seconds we could’ve spent on the movie. Also we had some ‘flashback’ scenes and the music and sound immediately cut off from Cut 1 -> Cut 2 would be the flashback and be absolutely silent, no music -> go back to Cut 1 and suddenly the music has restarted again. I REALLY didn’t like it! It REALLY pissed me. LET ME FUCKING REEDIT THIS GOD DAMN MOVIE! The post production for most of this movie SUCKED. The editing and the sound mixing SUCKED. Ugh... that person needs firing.

☆ Also, this movie was WAY too short! We get 3 hour long stages from Marv, so why is the movie less than 2 god damn hours?! It’s barely 1 hour 45! Give me more gungi! Give me some comedy! (There is NO comedy in this besides ONE line from Hasebe!) Give me them enjoying time at the god damn honmaru! 

☆ Upon looking back, I realised that they did not show one of the bigger fights at all that happens towards the end of the movie. I really wish they had shown that fight scene rather than having it happen off screen. There was so much potential and so much you could’ve done with that fight scene. You could’ve easily had swords pop up here, there, everywhere and they could’ve done it in a real stylistic way if they didn’t have the time or money to get actual actors. They could’ve just done close up shots of swords’ costumes, or their feet landing next to the Jikan, or show two swords clashing, or a danshi jumping into the fight etc. You could’ve easily ‘brought in’ many swords into that fight scene without actual hiring any actors (especially if certain actors did not have time) and it could’ve been very creative, stylistic and interesting and it would’ve been a big flail for the fans.

☆ Also MAJOR SPOILERS HERE: the ending part with the new sword? Don’t just IGNORE that for fuck sake! Give him and the audience an explanation! Let him speak! Let him have his moment as to what happened to him and where he’s been and what he went through shit! God damn don’t just NOT explain that! Don’t just have him pop up, save the day, say his name and FINISH! What the fuck.

Wow the more I think about this movie, the more dissatisfied I get... okay, last one!

☆ Also Nishii Yukito had SUCH a small role!!! I was hoping he’d have so much more screen time than what he actually got. He has about 1 minute max *so sad*

I DO pin a lot of my complaints and nitpicks on the fact I have a cinematography background; I studied film, I’ve made films, I’ve always watched BTS of making films, I love the process of film making. And I think because of that, that’s why I’m being so particular on HOW it was made and on post-production and how I would’ve made the movie. So if you’re not into the whole film making side of movies then none of these are gunna bother you. If you’re not into this stuff then I really think you’ll enjoy this movie a lot! You will definitely have a good time and be satisfied and enjoy it so much!

Okay now onto:

MAJOR SPOILER TERRITORY COMMENTS

☆ I loved this version of Saru and how he isn’t just a nice guy and isn’t just the idiot that history leads us to believe. In this he’s cold, and mean, and turned against so many people! I loved Saru suddenly going against Hasebe too! It was such a plot twist! He invited Hasebe and Nihongo into his clan but as soon as our swords let down their guard, Saru’s men attacked them and they had to run! It was such a shocking twist! And Hasebe getting shot because of this ambush too was insane!! I know it’s spoiled in the trailer but seeing it happen in that moment! I was not expecting it at all!

☆ Also I am glad I got to see Hasebe actually almost physically harming Jiji, and Manba straight up being like ‘yo I don’t trust you Mika,’ and Yagen siding with Manba! Oh my! It was such a great scene! I loved all the suspicion going on around them and them not exactly wanting to agree or listen to Jiji. Argh! SO GOOD! I was like ‘HIT HIM HASEBE! DO IT!’ and I guess this is another reason why I like Movie Hasebe much more than Stage Hasebe.

 ☆ Seriously! I absolutely loved the teaming up of Yagen and Manba!! And now I want them forever on my team in the game now too! xD

☆ My heart hurt a little when Oda called Jiji ‘Munechika’, I was like ‘YOU HAVE NO RIGHT CALLING HIM BY HIS GIVEN NAME!!’ because clearly Jiji deserves more respect than Oda xD but I think it’s purposely put in so we do feel this way.

☆ I absolutely loved the twist for Oda’s story: he didn’t die at Honnouji, he actually died at Azuchi Castle and only Jiji knows the true hsitory because he was the only one there at the time! Such a great twist! And how Jiji tricked Oda into going to Azuchi, making Oda think he’ll be fine there and making Oda think that they are changing history together! Such a good plot twist! I loved it!

☆ Even though I was spoiled for the new sword, it’s very heavily implied throughout the entire movie. Especially when Akechi uses him in defense again the Jikan, and suddenly the danshi’s (who is clothed in Jikan armour and wear)  eyes turn bright yellow (Jikan’s eyes are all a glowing red). It’s a really good and random reveal!

☆ As Jiji tries to leave Azuchi castle, Honebami meets up with him. But fucking Oda pullings his sword on Hone and pins it at his neck! He tells Jiji to work with him or he’ll kill Hone and Jiji is like ‘I can’t help you, this is how it’s supposed to be’, just, I was like YESSSSSSSSSS!!!! But in the end Oda let’s Hone and Jiji go -__- I’m sorry but Hone SHOULD HAVE been killed there!

☆ One of my favourite lines from the movie is from Jiji (surprisingly) where he says: 守りたいことが増えばっかり。 // Things I want to protect just keep increasing. Which shows just how different of a Jiji we have in this version! He actually fucking emotionally cares in this one!

☆  The very last scene has ALL the Stage swords who have appeared in TouStage up to now were ALL at the Honmaru in this final scene. Except Daihannya & Ookanehira. Those two swords were NOT in this final scene. As for the actors; every one of the TouStage actors, except Hirose Daisuke and Kento, were as their Swords, in their costumes in this final scene. Ichigo and Tsurumaru ARE in this seen but are clearly NOT the actors. They clearly had body doubles / standins in this scene and their faces were out of focus. Also in the final ending credits, these two actors' names were not listed. I was flailing so hard!!! This was a HUGE shocker and I am so happy how many of them were able to come back for this one scene! So this is the scene where the new Saniwa is revealed and we finally got a female Saniwa!!!! I was like ‘YES JUSTICE!!!’ I spent most of the movie like ‘why the fuck is it always a Male Saniwa?!?! Why not hire someone ambiguous like Yuzuki or Toman as the Saniwa?!’. But alas we got our girl at the end!! The very very very last scene is absolutely ADORABLE! The saniwa (she’s like 3 years old) grabs onto the back of Jiji (he’s sitting down and drinking tea) and holds him for a piggyback, he smiles, picks her up and piggybacks her around the honmaru! It’s ABSOLUTELY ADORABLE!! I was in absolutely tears at this scene! Ughhh someone give Suzuki babies!!! I was in a MESS of tears. And the very very very last line is him where he says ‘ Aruji.... the stuff I want to protect just keeps increasing’ arghhhh my heart!! *dead* IT’S SUCH A GOOD ENDING!!!

*

And that’s all! I hope you enjoyed this review and I hope you watch, buy and enjoy the movie!

As stated, I feel like a lot of my complaints come from my cinematic background so general people who just want a good movie are really going to enjoy this!! ^_^  Also if you ever see spelling mistakes, don’t ever hesitate to yell at me! xD

[purpleswans1]

Playing Games with a New Brother

Another addition to Villain Month and my Villain!Izuku AU. We’re back to Shigaraki & Izuku fluff. Despite the fact that my outline says they usually hate each other. Oh well, I plan on doing a massive edit/rewrite anyway.

Read also on FF and AO3

Izuku cried himself to sleep the night his father died. Kurogiri -- the villain with a warping quirk -- took him to another location and guided him to a nondescript room with a bed. Izuku probably should have tried to get out, but after the day he’d had, he just wanted to curl up and cry.

He woke up the next morning to the sound of a fantasy action game’s theme song.

Where’s that coming from? Izuku wondered.

Quietly he slid out of bed and tip-toed across the room to the door. He turned the handle -- slightly surprised to see it was unlocked -- and pushed. The hinges creaked, but it wasn’t loud enough to drown out the electronic game music. Izuku cautiously poked his head out the door and looked to the left, where the music was coming from.

The bedroom was in a narrow hallway, along with a couple other doors. The hallway ended a few feet away, with both walls dropping off to a large, poorly-lit room. The right side of the room, at least by what Izuku could see, consisted of a kitchen area with marble countertops and beige cabinet doors. The left side of the room was mostly obstructed from Izuku’s view, but he noticed a flickering light source in that direction which could be a TV or a failing lightbulb.

Izuku crept towards the larger room. When he reached the corner he leaned out peaked at the left side of the room.

The only light source currently in the room was a TV, showing an action game, the one he recognized the theme song from. Across from the TV was a two-person couch, an armchair, and a coffee table. The table had a granola bar wrapper and coke bottle on one side. A blue-haired boy, probably around 11 or 12, was sitting on the couch with a Playstation 10 controller. Another door was on the other side of the room.

Izuku looked around, including back down the dark hallway, but didn’t see the villains from yesterday. It was just him and the blue-haired boy.

Sure that nobody would be able to stop him from running to the police (like mom told him to if he was ever in trouble) or a hero, Izuku ran across the room to the door.

“What the..” The blue-haired boy said, noticing Izuku’s presence.

Izuku tackled the doorknob and tried to turn it. It didn’t budge.

The door was locked.

A firm hand made Izuku turn around. It was a blue-haired boy, though this was the first chance Izuku had gotten to see his face. With cracked lips, a wild hairdo, and bloodshot eyes he was creepier than the villains Izuku met yesterday.

“What are you doing here brat?” the blue-haired boy asked.

Creepy or not, this new boy was older and now that he’d noticed Izuku he might be able to help. Izuku grasped his arms and said, “Please! You have to help me! I’ve been taken by villains."

The older boy just looked at Izuku with confusion. “What are you talking about? Who are you?”

Tears were building up in Izuku's eyes. “My name is Izuku Midoriya. My dad took me to someone who would be able to give me a quirk, but turns out he was actually a villain and he killed my dad and took me to a new place that I don’t recognize and I just woke up and I need to get home to my mom so please help me get to the police or something.”

“...Okay, I didn’t understand most of that. You shouldn’t mumble when you’re talking to people,” the older boy said. “You said your name was Izuku Midoriya? Well, mine is Tomura Shigaraki.”

“Well, can you help me Tomura?”

“Help you with what?”

“Getting away from the villains! The door is locked…”

With that last statement, Tomura scowled. He pushed Izuku so hard he fell over.

Izuku sat up, tears tears really falling down his face now. “Wha-What was that for?”

Tomura just turned around and walked back to the couch. “You don’t know anything, brat.”

Izuku stood and tried the doorknob again, hoping it would work this time. It didn’t. When Izuku had to face the fact that the doorknob wasn’t going to budge, he walked over to the armchair to try talking to Tomura more.

Tomura was engrossed in the game. Izuku didn’t play video games very much and didn’t know the fantasy adventure game except by reputation, but he could tell that Tomura was good. He was all the way up to level 13 and frequently used super moves against the enemies. Still, the number of enemies he had to overcome this level was overwhelming. Tomura would occasionally grunt and wince with frustration.

Suddenly, the controller dissolve into dust before their eyes.

“SHIT!” Tomura swore. Onscreen, his character died and the Game Over screen played.

Izuku jumped. “Why- What- Is that your quirk?”

Tomura got up and walked to a cabinet next to the TV. “Yeah. Anytime I touch something with all five fingers it’s destroyed.” The cabinet was filled with at least 10 new controllers. Tomura grabbed one and settled back on the couch.

Izuku continued to watch Toumura play. He hadn’t noticed it before, but Tomura held the controller strangely. Both if his pinky fingers were raised, undoubtedly to keep his quirk from activating. Izuku also noticed that whenever Tomura was frustrated, the pinkies would start to curl around the controller, like he was unconsciously trying to grip it harder.

As time went on, Izuku noticed the pinkies got dangerously close to touching the controller. “Your pinkies!” he shouted.

Tomura stiffened, his pinkies flying out straight again, but otherwise continued focusing on the game.

Once the level was done, Tomura turned to look at Izuku curiously.

“Thanks, I guess,” Tomura said. “It would be a pain to restart that level again.”

Izuku smiled. “No problem.”

“Mind letting me know when I’m about the destroy the controller again?”

Izuku nodded. As Tomura started preparing for the next level in the game, Izuku cautiously asked, “Hey, do you know where we are?”

“Sensei’s house.”

Izuku frowned. “Who’s Sensei?”

“He’s the one who took me in when nobody else did.”

That didn’t really answer Izuku’s question, but by that point Tomura was engrossed in the game again. They continued like that for a while -- Tomura playing the game, Izuku warning him when he was about the destroy the controller -- until a scratching noise started coming from the locked door.

Tomura paused the game and jumped up. “Is that you Sensei?”

Izuku turned in the chair, looking towards the door as well.

The doorknob finally turned, the door opened, and All For One walked in.

Izuku sucked in a sharp breath. He ran over to Tomura and tried to hide behind the older boy. He may not be sure about Tomura, but the older boy was certainly better than the man who’d killed Dad.

“You’re back early, Sensei,” Tomura said.

“I have some stuff I need to get done over here, Tomura Shigaraki,” All For One replied.

Izuku trembled in fear. He is Tomura’s Sensei?

All For One noticed Izuku from his poor hiding place. “Ah, I can see you’ve already met young Izuku Midoriya.”

“Yeah,” Tomura said. “What’s the brat doing here?”

All For One smiled creepily. “He came to me wanting a favor, but I don’t intend to give to him for free. He’s going to be staying with us for a while. I hope you two will get along.”

“He said he wanted to get away from us.”

“Ah, well Izuku has unfortunately grown up around people who admire heroes and hasn’t yet learned how the world works. I’m sure he’ll adjust in time, especially if you help him. You’ll need reliable allies in the future, and once Izuku gets his quirk he’ll be a very useful to you.”

Izuku's whole body was shaking. He wanted to say something, to yell at All For One and say he understood enough about the world, that he wouldn’t be useful to a villain, that he’d get away and a hero like All Might would save him. But Izuku couldn’t say anything in the face of such an overwhelming villain with absolute power over him.

Tomura considered All For One’s words for a while. “So, he’s going to be like a brother? Or my Player 2?”

All For One laughed. “Both, most likely.”

“Okay, cool.”

All For One nodded. “We’ll speak more later, but if you need anything I’ll be in my office downstairs. I’m leaving the front door locked so Izuku won’t try to run again, so let me know if you need Kurogiri to get anything. Same goes for you, Izuku.”

Izuku squeaked. He didn't like that All For One speaking to him.

All For One just walked away, into the hallway. Tomura stepped away from Izuku and turned around, giving the younger boy a calculating look. Izuku squirmed under his gaze.

“Hey, you ever play Quirkless Battle Exodus?” Tomura asked.

Izuku looked up. “Um, no?”

“It’s an American MMORPG that lets you fight with pre-quirk era weaponry, like guns, grenades, and knives. It’s an attempt to bring back the old shooting game genre, but with less shaky camera work.”

Izuku nodded. He didn’t understand this stuff, but it sounded pretty interesting.

“It’s got this unique feature where not only can you team up with other players through the internet, but you can also get bonuses if you’re using local multiplayer.”

“What’s local multiplayer?” Izuku asked.

“It’s when two people are playing the same game on the same console with different controllers.”

“Oh, okay.” Izuku quickly realized what Tomura was talking about. “So, if we were to play together it would be local multiplayer?”

Tomura smiled. “You got it. I’ll finally be able to find out what those bonuses are. So, are you game?”

Izuku smiled. “Sure!” He still wasn’t sure about Tomura since he seemed to actually like All For One, but it would be fun to play together.

Tomura walked over another cabinet under the TV. “I’d recommend you select sniper when you chose your character’s stats. It’s supposedly the easiest for beginning players. Plus, you’ll be able to pick off all those assholes who attack me from out of my range…”

GRRRRLLLL

Izuku touched his tummy. He hadn’t noticed until now, but he was really hungry. He thought back to when he’d last eaten, and realized it had been lunchtime yesterday. He and Dad had left before Mom could serve dinner.

Tomura laughed. “Well, I guess we can press pause until you get a chance to eat. Want me to show you how to make cup ramen?”

Izuku nodded. He already knew how to make ramen, but Tomura didn’t need to know that.

[oldtumblhurgoyf]

so this research project

I was a little surprised at how much the analytical approach they’re taking appeals to me--not that the approach itself appeals to me in the first place, but rather that there happens to be a research group roughly in central Ohio that happens to be rigorously studying a way of looking at the world which I’ve long felt on a deep level is the best way to do things

but more on my personal outlook on it later

also a way I’ll probably suggest to the researchers that Magic might be able to help them

general deets/process

without going into specifics of the study because I’m not entirely sure how much I’m allowed to share at this moment, essentially it’s a holistic and removed way of looking at a problem to arrive at an answer

so say you’re asked to determine the odds Bernie Sanders wins the Democratic nomination and then the odds he is elected president after that. instead of bothering with any specifics of the actual scenario in the world today, you would identify broad structural elements that apply to the situation. then you’d look for historic examples of campaigns that shared those structural elements at similar levels. so say you identify structural elements as 1. name recognition, 2. funding, 3. “outside man”--that is he’s not the typical sort of candidate this party would elect

you take those 3 structural elements and look back in history for campaigns that roughly share them at the same level. having identified those campaigns, you can then look at how many won their party nomination and from there how many made it to the White House. with these stats you can actually create generalized percentage based on like two dozen campaigns just from the last 50 years or so and use that as a baseline before you factor in specifics from the question at hand

the idea is to try to create some understanding of the situation that’s removed from the charge and personal closeness of current events. not that you’re going to stop once you have percent chances based on historic precedent. but it provides more solid ground to start on, then you make predictions from there. like in the example above maybe you decide the US is more primed for the sort of message Bernie has (perhaps because a good chunk of the examples from the historic data come from the Cold War era or just after and that rhetoric benefits more conservative world views) and thus you project higher chances than the baseline percents would predict

the example of Sanders’ election chances is great because there are so many campaigns in US history alone and some real numbers in the forms of polls and funding that you can look into. some situations don’t have the same historic comparisons and are harder to draw comparisons in this way. like imagine you’re trying to determine the chances another 9/11-like terrorist attack occurs in the next 10 years. how broad can you make the structural similarities while still remaining useful? how do you even define “9/11-like”? use of commercial planes? overall loss of life? monetary damages? structural damages? real life gets really messy really fast. that’s one reason they’re doing this sort of research. they want insights into how to better apply it to more unique real world situations

my personal take on it

so I’ve long entertained a very deterministic and fatalistic world view. I had arguments with friends and family about the nature of the universe and the idea that if you could turn time back or “restart the universe”, assuming nothing changes in those starting conditions, things would play out the same way. that is, random chance down at a subatomic level is likely caused by rules we just don’t entirely understand. our inability to understand that stuff currently doesn’t mean it wouldn’t work out the exact same way over and over and over again

now that’s a decade old take from me and my views have evolved since then. I was a lot more comfortable making that sort of assumption and since then I’m much less inclined to do that. but the underlying idea here is essentially (as I see it) that they want us to find a way to apply rules to a type of situation so we can use what we can now identify as similar situations for comparison. it’s the closest we can get to restarting the universe.

it also strikes me as a more rigorous attempt at a very human presumption. “what would have happened if I had done X instead?” or “how would things have changed if X did/didn’t happen?” except instead of just a daydream to play out in our heads, it’s backed as much as possible by real world data

it also occurs to me that I was doing some sort of variant of this at my last job. I had a chart with a breakdown of hourly sales for each day of the week for the past four weeks, and then the average of those numbers for each hour. so I would leave that up on the computer and then compare our actual sales for a given Wednesday against the last four Wednesdays and the average. then I’d try to cut labor or send out samples or whatever based on those numbers. It was never a perfect comparison--sometimes sales were way up compared to the average and then just died. sometimes they were down then we got a late rush or some last minute catering. some days it rained or was a holiday or whatever. but I had real numbers from the past to guide me.

but yeah, point is I just lucked into a research gig that happens to align with teenage me’s outlook of the world, but in a more reasoned way

Magic as a tool for the research project

so the way they look at this stuff, at least in the project, is to set starting variables and then run hundreds of simulations off that to get overall data

then they give us a specific world report or three from among the hundreds they ran, propose what ifs, and ask us to use that limited data to answer the what ifs. then they run hundreds more simulations with the what if changes and see how our answers compare. how accurate were we using this process?

Magic strikes me as a good potential candidate to test this because it’s got specific rules and it’s relatively easy to do these iterations (despite being such a complex game that AI can’t solve it). were I to attempt this with Magic I’d do the following:

Have a 4 player game, each with distinct 60 card decks. AI plays out that game hundreds of times with those decks (AI doesn’t need to play perfect or even very good Magic tbh, what matters is that with hundreds of games played we have a pretty solid set of stats about what to expect from any given game)

we screenshot the board state of one or two of those games at certain points (the “screenshot” would provide perfect information with regard to hands, graveyards, and probably libraries minus telling the specific order of cards in the libraries). Say one early turn (3 or so), one mid-game turn, and then the turn before the winning player wins

then we offer a what if to start from the early turn screenshot state. It could be anything from player A has one card randomly inserted into their deck which is a 0 cost instant that reads “you win the game” to player B’s hand is exiled to an emblem is applied to the game which reads “whenever a creature enters the battlefield, it deals damage equal to its power to a random target”

it could be a combination of changes. then your participants figure out historic similarities and make conjectures. you run simulations with the change(s) in place and see how things shake out. Magic is just so modular and the ability to make discrete but unprecedented changes at any point in the game is really incredible. Just by virtue of setting up a particular board state but having libraries in a different order means no game will play out exactly the same

[ghostmartyr]

Pokémon FireRed Nuzlocke [Part 10]

Welcome back to the tenth part of me trying to beat Fire Red doing a Nuzlocke with no grinding! That’s right, no grinding! The only experience allowed is against other Trainers!

Where are we in this harrowing journey now?

Aheh.

To heck with it, I’m naming myself Blue this time.

Do you know why?

I’m blue, if I were green I would die (da ba dee da ba die).

Oh yes, we’re doing this.

My ID # this time is... 50685. Which means...?

Bulbapedia says 4-6 is Fire.

Uh.

You know what. It’s hard to tell because this is done through text posts that are not posted when they are done, but I just did everything up to Brock with a Charmander an hour ago.

But okay! We’ll do it again! But better this time!

I will name you... Left.

Cool.

Left is Rash, so we should get along great.

Fetch quest? Complete.

Pokedex? Get.

Route 1 Rattata? Get.

Her name is Down.

Route 2 Pidgey? Get. Sidey.

Viridian Forest Caterpie? Get. Nalley.

Viridian Forest? Get wrecked.

Route 22 level 2 Mankey? Get. I dub thee Weast.

Green, whose name should be Blue except our name is Blue?

Get. Wrecked.

Now Brock’s Gym, where we shall be punished for our arrogance.

First and only trainer? Done.

Brock?

Eeeeeeeh.

Geodude goes down to a few Metal Claws, one of which raises Left’s Attack. But Geodude wasn’t the issue last time. Accuracy concerns, using Ember, and Onix being Onix were the main problems in that very near past.

Metal Claw doesn’t really uh. What’s the word... help. So. uh. now we. hm.

Yeah, now we be horrible. Weast, you are sacrifice the first. Down, you next. And if you live long enough, maybe you can use Sand Attack!

Or you can die.

Left, you’ve had your Potion. Get back out there!

For future reference, Ember is useless, stop trying to make it happen. You are not going to get the burn. Suck it up and cry when Metal Claw misses.

Okay! So Left is down to 13 HP. But Rock Tomb hasn’t missed yet! So!

Hey, it missed.

Now it just needs to like. Do that again.

It did.

.

.

.

See, the problem here

is that now I have to live with actively killing Weast and Down.

Look.

Guys.

I’d say I’m sorry, but I don’t have to fight Brock again until something else goes horribly wrong, so we’re calling this a win for our team! Everybody cheer! You supplied your friend that you knew for like maybe ten minutes a serious victory with your deaths!

My brother called me a horrible person for what I did to Tarle in the round of this that made it to the Elite Four.

Gotta say.

I get that.

But more importantly, I get Running Shoes. Life is okay. Not that Weast or Down will ever know that again.

Then Left tries to die to a level 9 Pidgey that knows Sand-Attack. He doesn’t. But he really does try. Then hits level 16, and just like Heero before him, becomes a Charmeleon. Oh happy day.

.

I miss Heero.

I don’t think I went over it extensively, because the horror of doing exactly what I am now was setting in worse than grief, but Heero and Allenby and Sprinkle and Zaft and Po... they were a good team. Left has got some gigantic shoes to fill. He’s alive, and that’s a great start, but. Oh. The pain of not being able to say that it’s Heero time anymore?

That will endure.

Time to see if we’re catching something to throw into the rotation or not. Route 3 option, show me what you’ve got.

Gee. no. really.

My Pidgey’s actually still alive, even. Caught and not dead. Like a pro.

Okay, found a Spearow.

Now we find out if Left (level 19) can kill a level 6 Spearow with Scratch. Let’s watch.

Yes. Yes, he can.

Route 3 is as dead as that Spearow.

Compensation for killing the route is 49 exp.

I can’t remember if I’ve brought it up before, but for the purposes of this playthrough, accidentally killing things is fine. Losing the Pokedex slot is punishment enough. This is hard enough without going out of my way to be mean to myself.

Intentionally killing things for exp is very much not allowed, though. If I don’t want the thing, and can’t catch it, I run. Snorlax, looking at you, bud. I don’t have high hopes for you not killing my entire team when we reach you. Catching Po was my one miracle, I think.

I still really enjoy the art done for the different tourist traps across the map. v pretty.

Sigh.

And we lose out on catching Zubat.

...do I need things in my Pokedex to get Flash? I think I do.

Left, you’re way too strong for something that will die if Misty blinks in your direction. It’s a problem.

Add on 54 more exp to the illicit gains pile. I think after this if there’s not a level jump (I think there’s a small one before the next patch of grass), I have to start throwing a ball first thing. I probably should have done that with the Zubat, but. optimism.

Optimism has gotten the grindlocke into heaps of trouble, when you stop and think about it. It will continue, but oh dear yes, we see how this happens.

Hey, Ember finally burned something.

A Clefairy.

Thank goodness. Much danger. Such fear. Wow.

I still don’t really dispute this. Poor guy.

Grabbed the Helix this time. I don’t think there is a way for it to matter less, but there we go.

Made it out of Mt. Moon! Hark and rejoice!

Now we’re going to start breaking out speedrun strats. In slow motion, so obviously mine will work out better. You might recall, if not from this experiment then from others, that there are two Move Tutors outside Mt. Moon.

Mega Punch and Mega Kick.

Mega Punch does 80 Normal, with 85 accuracy.

Mega Kick does 120. 75 accuracy.

So the reason we’re doing this is that we’re about to come across the areas where I have a chance to get an Oddish. If I end up with an Oddish, all will be well with Misty (hopefully). If I don’t, my options become majorly limited. Left will be the One True Starter and Finisher. He needs to be able to down the Starmie in one hit.

It will come down to luck, so we’re going to maximize the possibilities of that luck.

Mega Kick. Welcome. Later, Scratch.

Okay. Bought some more poke balls in Cerulean, also bought some Repels to see if a thing works. If it doesn’t I will avoid further comment on it.

Route 4, SHOW ME AN ODDISH POR FAVOR.

A Mankey is not an Oddish. And we already killed one, so next.

Spearow. Well, we killed the last one, so sure.

If it could use Growl a few more times, Metal Claw would become an option... Yeah, it’s an option, let’s go for it.

Yay, Spearow’s not dead!

.........

I forgot I was playing a Nuzlocke. Did not nickname the Spearow.

Damn it, Spearow.

Invalid pokemon go in the box.

So with no Oddish, Left is going to have to tackle our rival and Nugget Bridge all alone. Yeehaw. Then we can hit grass that might possibly have an Oddish. We want to do that first after the bridge, because there are enough trainers to make the Oddish a real asset in the Misty fight if it’s allowed the exp.

Assuming we get an Oddish.

First thing’s first, though.

Tiny things continue to amuse me.

Left is level 23 now. Pidgeotto’s Sand-Attack is honestly the largest threat. ...Not that Water Gun isn’t making a show of it. Geez, I’m going to have to buy Potions after this. If there is an after this. I missed Mega Kick every time except the last time, and since Squirtle was busy Withdrawring all through that, not only did I miss the chance to do useful damage, when Mega Kick finally hit on the last shot, it did not help.

So now we’ve used Smokescreen a few times in an attempt to even things out.

...

I think I’m about to lose.

Crap.

Uh.

I have to be the worst again.

Left needs his accuracy back.

Um.

Nally... would you uh. mind uh.

Nally the Caterpie is now dead, continuing this run’s trend of being inexcusably awful.

WELL UNLESS OUR LEVEL 3 SIDEY (PIDGEY) CAN WIN, I’D SAY IT’S RESTARTING TIME AGAIN.

She can’t.

She dies.

Welp.

Our name is GM this time.

Our rival is NPC.

This time our ID number is............ 59916.

-looks up-

Bulbapedia says 4-6 is Fire.

OKAY THEN.

Maybe I’ll just lose against NPC. That would keep the restart time down.

For now and forever.

His name is Scyther.

Scyther gets to stay for a little while longer. He’s Sassy. Great.

Fetch quest done.

Ugh.

I almost universally dislike the beginnings of Pokemon games. Unless nostalgia is kicking in, or the game is completely brand new. Being back at the beginning is very much Not Great.

Though this time I learned that you can choose to leave home without talking to your mother. Wow.

First encounter is Rattata. Rattata’s name is Pidgey.

Route 1 done.

Route 2 gives us a Pidgey. Its name is Rattata.

Route 22 has a level 3 Mankey. Now named Machop.

I think. Sigh.

I think that no matter what starter I end up with, my strategy for this is going to be to have my starter handle the first Gym. If I keep getting Charmanders, that will mean a lot of fails before luck goes with me, because luck was the only way we made it through Left’s run.

...

Damn it, Scyther.

No Viridian Forest catch.

May the +30 exp somehow help.

Through Viridian Forest, which means it’s back to Rival-san.

Rival-san is defeated. That’s probably going to be his actual name next time.

We doing this?

Yeah. Sure.

Hey guess what. That +30 exp means Scyther is level 15 instead of 14! Yay! Does that mean anything?

Why did Onix use Bind.

(Better question, self. Why did you use Ember. Your optimism is killing all your pokemon.)

Rock Tomb. After lots of Binds.

Why is Onix killing the rest of my team in slow motion. Stop using Bind. stop stop stop. just kill them.

Thank you.

FUCK YOU, THAT’S MY NAME THIS TIME.

YOUR GRANSON’S NAME IS ALSO OAK.

ID NUMBER.

WHAT HAVE WE GOT.

26268.

HELLA.

BULBAPEDIA SAYS “7-9 is Water type” SO FUCK YALL WE’RE GETTING A SQUIRTLE.

HELL YEAH.

ITS NAME IS OAK.

GOOD JOB OAK.

GO CATCH A PIDGEY ON ROUTE 1.

ITS NAME IS OAK.

RATTATA ON ROUTE 22. ITS NAME IS OAK.

CATERPIE ON ROUTE 2. ITS NAME IS OAK.

o shit.

His name’s Acorn.

Squirtle learns Bubble at level 7. AKA the most useless Water move ever. I suppose I finally understand why Rival-san was using Tackle instead.

Hi! Oak!

Bulbasaur is going to be a pain. Oak learned Water Gun at 13, but. that doesn’t really help.

Bulbasaur is only using Tackle. That helps greatly, and we’re done.

So. ARE WE DOING THIS THIS TIME?

YAAAAAAAAAAAY.

YAY.

Oki doki.

Now I have to think.

Is Acorn a real teammate, or not?

Rival-san having a Bulbasaur means that he’s going to end up with a Gyarados. Electric moves are very, very useful against such horrors. Electric moves are also very useful for, say. Misty.

I think I’m going to give Acorn a shot. Maybe I’ll have to shove him out into a box in the end, but there are enough useful points in his favor to train him up a bit. All the Speed EV pokemon are going to Acorn. When safe.

!_!

!!_!!

My Route... 4? I think 4. Route 4 catch!

His name is Tree.

And he is actually from Route 3.

Here’s where things (already) get a bit sad, I think. I have limited resources. I do not want to devote time to training something I don’t think I can use. Nidoking is a fantastic pokemon, and in a normal Nuzlocke, I would be so happy to have one.

However, his move pool is not going to help me enough, I don’t think. Maybe my mind will change. Maybe I’ll be wrong. But each member of my team needs to have a specific relevance.

...Maybe that relevance will turn out the be the reminder that I can’t count on getting a Snorlax this time.

Uggggh.

Fine, I’m digging up the pokedex.

I already know that Lapras is out. The leveling process is too painful. Hitmonlee or Hitmonchan can be options, because I think by the time I have access to them, they’re at a level that I can make use of. Eevee is technically an option, but. Flareon isn’t the best. I have a Water pokemon. I have Acorn.

If I don’t take the Eevee, that leaves room for something else from Celadon. If I catch a Magikarp sometime before Celadon, I can guarantee having a Grimer, which has the kind of move pool I think I want for a run like this.

Brute force is my usual tactic, but brute force only works in a run like this if I’m working with things that excel in force.

Other Celadon pokemon include things from the Game Corner. Pinsir has zero naturally learned Bug moves in this gen, so no. ...Oh. It’s also only an option in LeafGreen. Dratini takes too much exp to train into usefulness. Clefairy and Abra are too underleveled. Porygon is too laughably expensive. Scyther is hypothetically very useful, but doesn’t learn a Bug move until level 46. The main benefit until then would be Typing aid. A damn good one, and if it lived long enough, I could certainly make some magic happen.

The one thing I know for sure I want right now.

is a Diglett.

So assuming everything magically works out the way I’m intending, our future team has a Blastoise, a Raichu, and a Dugtrio. The question is what, out of my limited options, best adds to that.

...Tree. I don’t think this is your run, friend.

We soldier on.

Our Mt. Moon is a Zubat again. Yay. ...Oh, whoops. Huh. I only have one Poke Ball. Hope it catches our new friend.

It does!

Zubat’s name is Oak.

Oooooh, Oak learned Bite.

The Squirtle Oak.

Now Wartortle Oak.

Bite at 19.

One arduous Mt. Moon later, Acorn is at level 13, and Oak is at level 21. Now before we do anything else, we’re running to the Pokemon Center for healing, and then the Mart for Poke Balls. We’re clean out of those, and I refuse to go through caves without Flash. I refuse, I tell you.

No Mega Kick of Punch this time. Oak and Acorn should be okay to handle Misty. ...I think.

Route 4 gives us an Ekans.

Its name is Oak.

LET’S TRY THIS AGAIN.

Acorn tries to deal with the level 17 Pidgeotto because we’re all about risk now. He gets it to orange and paralyzed. Hopefully that’s enough for Oak to clean up.

It is! yay.

He sends out his Bulbasaur next, and with any luck, Bite over and over will handle any and all problems.

Wow. Lots of luck. Poisonpowder misses, and Bulbasaur just keeps flinching. Sorry about your luck, Rival-san. I’m taking it all hostage.

I don’t think Abra has an offensive move, so it’s all Acorn’s.

Only a Rattata left, and...?

Thank fuck.

So since we finally hit one, let’s end this on that high note.

Next time, Nugget Bridge awaits.

[waiting4morning]

Anthem - 10 hour trial thoughts

So I just finished my 10 hour trial and wanted to write down a few thoughts. No story spoilers!

+ The main game seems way better balanced than the demo. My first few solo missions I was able to complete fine on Normal, where in the demo I struggled a little with the difficult. The only time I had trouble solo-ing was when I forgot to equip a new javelin with level-appropriate gear. I died about 5 times before I restarted the mission.

+ Which leads me to... soloing. You can tell this game wasn’t meant to be played on solo. The battle areas are huge and there are a lot of enemies. Also, they really don’t want you to play on solo. You get less XP and loot apparently. During my trial I tended to play most of my missions on public matches and only 1 time did I have an issue. For some reason, one of the missions I went on loaded me a few seconds (minutes?) late so I missed whatever opening story dialogue that came with the beginning of the mission. Then, I was so far behind the only other person on the mission that I missed a bit more dialogue because of the mission catch-up thing that boots you ahead. It was really annoying... but I’m wondering if it was just a one off, because unlike every other mission I played, this one only had one other person. Maybe the matchmaking system had trouble finding others for this particular mission, so when it did finally find one it just booted me in a little late? Not sure.

+ The weird thing about the MP aspect is that the story doesn’t acknowledge the presence of other freelancers. All the conversation with Owen (your cypher partner) or Brin or Matthias (agents you get contracts from) goes on as if they are dealing with you alone. And even the first mission post the tutorial is solo. It’s almost like the first iteration of this game was intended to be solo.

+ Speaking of Owen, Brin, and Matthias: you can tell Bioware’s deft hand at character writing here. They are all instantly recognizable as unique and people you feel like you could have fun getting to know them throughout the game. But I think the immersion would be better if your pilot was in 3rd person. I’m not sure why they picked 1st person. It doesn’t make sense with the rest of the game, if I’m honest. Maybe they just wanted to save on animation of your character?

+ That brings me to another good point: the facial animations and body animations are waaaay better than I’ve ever seen in a game before. So good on Owen, in fact, I wondered if they did face capture. There’s a subtly in some of his expressions that is really great, and then the not-subtle expressions are just right, not creepy or too uncanny valley either. Not every NPC has the full range, but enough of them do that it’s clear they spent some time on this.

+ Ft. Tarsis is fun to explore, even with the 1st person feeling a bit clunky. There were Codex entries all over and these refreshed every now and then, so there would be new things to find and read.

+ Microtransactions. I know that some people are grumpy about any microtransactions at all, but I don’t mind them as long as they’re fair. As far as I was able to tell, it is possible through going on missions that you’re doing anyway, to earn enough in-game currency to buy stuff. It felt to me like ME3′s lootbox system: you can earn coin just by playing and it’s not too grindy, at least to me. I bought an N7 vinyl and a new torso piece in the 10 hours I played, all without spending a dime. Of course, if you don’t want to wait, you can spend real money, but this doesn’t feel like a situation where you have to otherwise you’re going to miss out on content. As far as I’ve seen, all the microtransactions will be for cosmetic stuff only and the base game comes with a LOT of customizable option that you really don’t need to shell out real money.

+ Overall: I think this will be a fun game to play. The main story so far seems interesting, and I enjoyed all the side missions too. But is it an insta-buy for hardcore BW fans? I don’t know. If you don’t mind solo-ing on Easy and not getting the XP and loot from a MP experience, then sure. I’ve had a lot of fun, but I also see how a person who wants a traditional BW experience might be a little frustrated.

[akingdomtheorist]

KH Catch Up: KH2FM The FINAL PART

THE FINAL PART WITH LESS THAN TWO MONTHS TO CATCH UP. HOLLOW BASTION

"I forgot how to play this game."

-fleeing enemies- "Because why deal with your problems when you can just nyoom."

SPACE PARANOIDS

"So how does it feel to be pewpewpew'd back?" "Is this what I do to people?"

"I give these Heartless a 3/10. Not a fan."

He went Wisdom Form had no pewpewers remorse after that.

"Is this way to the I/O Tower?" "Well if you walk up to the entryway it'll tell you. You may have to go through a few maps." "Well okay that's great but which way is the I/O Tower?" -literally walks up to the entrance- "I'm sorry."

"Why don't they just reformat the computer?" "That's what the disc is for." "You don't need a program to do that!" "You do when they're sentient!" "Why don't they just CTRL+Alt+DELETE the MCP then?" "He's Win10." "Even Win10 lets you do that! He's Win11."

"Wait, did Leon not put the fuckin' disc in the computer? Aerith put it in the drive?! Leons from a futuristic setting!"

-walks into boss fight- "I didn't save."

"Man, he did deresolution him, he's at 144P now. He's like a JPEG."

Poor guy has hit the Limit Break instead of Delete so many times.

"We just deleted System32."

HOLLOW BASTION IS NOW RADIANT GARDEN

I force him to try Assault of the Dreadnought with the ships I have.

And then we realized where the Full-Auto setting was after all this time and he laughed at my agony.

"This is the most StarFox this game has been." "You don't even KNOW."

"This isn't bad. I've played StarFox Assault and that's not bad."

"Sorry I'm gonna disappoint you with the panic." "Oh we're not there yet."

I got to Mission Level 3 for him to try. Just waiting for the moment... He died BUT MY ENGINEERING WORKED SO WELL! We created Code Rave and our new Teeny Ship 'MAXIMUM PEW' to take on this break in the story. After finding out we need the power of Neon Orb all day all the time, we go back to Atlantica.

ATLANTICA

"We kind of destroyed her (Ursula) last game. Right, that's a thing we did?"

"Did we just have a fight off screen?" "Nah."

"She's plagarizing her!"

"Way to go Eric, you really... really leaped into action there."

"Just kill her, you have a trident, stab her."

"Really? We're having a dance-off to save the universe?"

"Why didn't Triton just impale her? Like Eric just did? When his daughter was in danger?"

Now we need to come back later with Thundaga. Except we don't the game just kicked us out anyway.

There was some trouble that totally didn't happen  with the last song.

"Wait we didn't use Thundaga once."

TWILIGHT TOWN

"Oh it literally won't let me go anywhere else. Well at least they could give me a skateboard."

"Hey Mickey-wait guys stop everything I gotta restart Share Play."

"Well since that's the obvious direction of the plot, let's go the other way."

"Touch. The beam..."

"That's my data. That's me!"

Then he spent 5 minutes theorizing the name because clearly Xehanort is a Nobody name.

"Hi Axel. Why should we leave?"

"Ohh... it's just me..."

"Axel's just like 'don't mind me I'm just casually dying here'."

"Oh stop making puns while you're dying motherfucker."

"Aw he just wanted to bring his boyfriend back."

"Alright fuckin' wannabe Sephiroth." He's upset at Saix.

THE WORLD THAT NEVER WAS

"I'm betting it's Riku."

"Oh it's Roxas!"

"What's my dodge button? That's not the button-THAT'S NOT THE BUTTON!"

"You gotta dodge my dude." "Yes-thank you."

-tries Strike Raid- "OH NO THAT WORKED ON RIKU THAT DOESN'T WORK ON YOU!"

He died. Take 2.

He died. Take 3.

He died. Take 4.

Through the power of technical use of Limiting for more magic and drives, the lock on+dodgeroll tactic, FIVE TIMES THE CHARM.

The Two Become One has been obtained. I await the moment

THREE ANTI-FORMS IN A ROW. I made him try Master form and IT FINALLY HAPPENED. FINAL FORM ACHIEVED.

"Alright these mother fucker's got a giant flyin' saucer..."

"Namine's like, 'I'm bustin you out!'"

"Is this to the final boss?" "Nah."

"He's disguised! He's disguised, that's Riku. He's disguised right?" "Not exactly."

"Kairi's just like no, we're not- no, it's not happenin'."

"KAIRI GETS HER OWN KEYBLADE!"

"Is that DiZ? I mean I knew he was Ansem the Wise but I called that like ages ago."

"Is he gonna Luigi's Mansion all the Heartless into that thing?" "No." "But it looks like it does!"

"Organization XIII is real sassy for people without emotions."

"What are his weapons? How is he supposed to use them? Oh they're guns! I didn't think they'd give him actual guns."

"He doesn't have just a gun it's a fuckin' Halo Needler!" "Does this upset you?" "No, I just think it's a little cheap." "Oh it will though."

He died.

The second time around he abused the speed of Anti-Form to avoid ALL THE BULLETS and ended with a "FUCK YOU" to Xigbar.

"Did he (Berserker Nobody) just Minimize- did he just fuckin' minimize? No more of that."

"Oh Kairi just- cats outta the bag!"

"Riku took hair tips from Axel."

"Oh he's gonna Luigi's Mansion Kingdom Hearts!" "No he's gonna reverse ReBoot it."

"Ohh these are all the Organization Members I've killed? What's Marluxia the- oh of COURSE he's the Graceful Assassin."

Now it's time to play a game with Luxord. It was fairly easy though late on learning all the games was fun to watch in failure.

"Of course your weapon is called Soul Eater you edgy bastard..."

Time to go beat up angry moon barbarian.

"Oh what happened did you lose your weapon buddy?"

He did it first try.

"Yeah no Roxas didn't spend eight hours fighting this fucker."

"Too bad it's impossible [For Roxas to meet Sora] but I'm not gonna say it's 100% impossible, because this is Kingdom Hearts."

"Calling it now this is gonna change Riku back into Riku. I CALLED IT HIS HAIR IS BACK TO NORMAL. Back to his Axel hair."

"Riku get your bangs out of your face."

"Riku is a tol."

"We're finally working together! WE ARE GONNA FIGHT SOMEONE TOGETHER!" "Yeah, you are." "YES, YES-I can't shout because people are sleeping-BUT YES."

"He's- oh my god I'm basically playing as two people. I love this."

"Oh his sword- look it has an angel wing! I just noticed that! Riku dah best."

AND THEN THE GRINDING OF 8 HOURS COMMENCED

We are joined by one more friendo who has completed the game. They will be F2 in conversation quotes.

"Oh that's a lot of Heartless."

"You murdered people. You had a choice to not murder people."

"Okay, is this round one? Yeaaaahh..."

"Okay first round done. I've played the first game I know how this is gonna fuckin' end."

"Well he's dead, we can go home!"

It’s victory, or oblivion. "Well I have Oblivion so, it's just victory then."

"Is the castle fucking alive?"

"Oh we Dr. Strange now."

-uses slicer reaction command- "ALRIGHT Sora just, slice a building in half."

He thinks this is the best part, and he's only just begun.

"We're destroying the engines now? Oh no they're giant Death Star lasers."

"Of course this wouldn't be a Kingdom Hearts game if it didn't have you fighting an old man on a spaceship."

"Mickey uses his powers of darkness! No."

"Is Namine about to Cortana us--OH GOD OH GOD ROXAS JUST WALKED OUT OF ME."

"Roxas and Namine shipping Sora and Kairi together just because they wanna hang out."

"Riku, why do we always lose Kairi? Can we put a tracker on her so when we inevitably lose her again we can just find her?"

"Hey Riku do you wanna pick me up? This seems incredibly unsafe, I'm just standing on a platform."

PHASE FOUR INITIATE

"Did we do it? At least this phase? Are we onto the next phase?" F2 "-laughs- Oh ho ho we're only just getting started buddy."

"That looks bad. Hey Riku I don't like what's happenin' right now. This is a solid 3/10 experience for me."

"Okay Lich King wannabe round 2."

PHASE FIVE INITIATE

"Is it safe to use my drives? Is it? What if- OHHH FUCK." "Remember when I said what if you got knocked off the edge?"

"Oh whaaaaaat oh no."

"Let's just throw buildings at him, that seems to work."

"Hey remember how you have that reaction command that's a shield?" "Shhhhhhhhhhh."

"LET ME AT THE BUILDINGS!"

FINAL PHASE BEGIN

"Buddy... buddy... you are not the Aztec concept of nothing!"

"I can Limit Form!"

"Nope, nope nope, NOPE. STOP IT!" He isn't a fan of the lasers.

"Was he actually damaging me during that?? Let's just heal up!"

"You're gonna wanna spam Reversal." F2 "The DBZ fight continues!"

"Press the button as fast as you can." "Oh, OH IT'S A LIMIT OHHH."

"Oh hey we Roxas now."

"I think I did it?"

"I know you're in Kingdom Hearts 3 Riku, you won't die. Or at least you'll come back."

The final cutscene.

"Awww, Riku's a sap now."

"Sora how does your hair stay like that, you were underwater."

"Mickey just, Pikachu'd Riku." F2 "That's just how things work in this world, don't judge." "I didn't know Riku was Mickey's Pokemon Trainer."

"Riku get your hair out of your face. Don't you have a mom that can cut your hair?"

"Who are you? Some Anubis motherfucker-WHO ARE YOU? Why are we in Destiny now?!"

"Those are our keyblades..."

"Oh my god... that's a lot of Keyblades."

KH2FM has been beaten! At least, the main game anyway. I have a few more things I'm going to make him do first.

LINGERING WILL ATTEMPT TIME!

"Why is there a black hole in our castle?" F2 "I think we should go into that black hole."

F2 "Remember that place you saw thirty seconds ago? That is not this place."

"UHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH...."

"I don't like this."

"I'm not Xehanot, I'm not-I'm not-I'M NOT!"

"OH GOD HIS HEALTH WHAT THE FUCK?!"

He died in about thirty seconds. His second attempt was in two seconds!

"Well that's it for that boss!"

CAVERN OF REMEMBRANCE

-sees the car heartless- "Nope we're not dealing with these fuckers nope."

-takes look around the second room- "Help."

"Help. Help. Hlep."

Yes I helped him, I'm not a demon. No that third one is not a typo.

"That might have been the one time you wouldn't have wanted to revert." "Oh really? Whatever."

"Wait, is this the longest hallway?" "WELCOME TO THE LONGEST HALWAAAAAAY."

-beats first quarter- "Am I done now?" "Oh you sweet summer child." "You know you could just say no." "Yeah but that's boring."

Nothing says the longest hallway like eleventeen uses of Final Form!

"Fuck that place, fuck that hallway."

"Garden of Assemblage? Oh it's a place to redo all the boss fights!" "You're missing some because you need to do the absent silhouettes." "Aaaand we're done with this game!"

I made him to attempt Sephiroth.

"So a tip. When you fight Sephiroth, spam triangle." "Okay?" "While the cutscene is loading, spam triangle."

"Why do you have knee wings Sephiroth?"

He tried twice and gave up.

Well that's it, it's now 358/2 Days watch next! That’ll be all one part

[lindafrancois]

The Ultimate Guide for Restarting Your Fitness Journey (5 Steps to Respawn Today!)

Today we’re going to tell you exactly how to restart your fitness journey.

Whether this is the first time you’ve had to “respawn” or the 50th, you’re in the right place.

We help folks restart their exercise or nutrition routines as part of our 1-on-1 Online Coaching Program…and we’re really freaking good at it! Today, we’ll share with you the same strategies we deploy with them.

This time can be different. Learn how a NF Coach can help.

Here’s what we’ll cover:

Why It’s Okay to Start Again

Restarting Step 1: Forgive Yourself

Restarting Step 2: What Went Wrong?

Restarting Step 3: Change a Variable

Restarting Step 4: Respawn

Restarting Step 5: Supercharge Your Results

Get Back in the Fight (Next Steps)

Let’s do this.

Why It’s Okay to Start Again

So you fell off the wagon already.

Welcome to the club.

It’s called “being human!”

There are like 7 billion of us.

So how did I know you probably fell off the fitness wagon already?

Because statistically speaking, MOST people have already abandoned or missed out on a lot of the resolutions they’ve set for 2021.[1] Seriously.

However, have no fear. Since we treat life as a videogame around these parts, we’re all very comfortable with restarting or “respawning.”

First, we must…

STEP 1: FORGIVE YOURSELF

I heard a podcast interview recently about a man who had made a huge realization through seeing a therapist.

Specifically, their therapist asked them “Would you talk to somebody the way you talk to yourself?”

I bet the answer is a RESOUNDING “No.”

Nobody deserves that kind of abuse.

We’re often our own worst critic and our own worst enemy:

Do you know that voice in your head, that one calling you a loser or a failure?

Treat it like a different person.

You’re under no obligation to listen to it! It’s not you.

“Oh you think I’m a piece of s** and that’s why I can’t stick with a workout routine? I disagree strongly. I might have some faults, but I’m here, and I’m still trying. So shut up and get out of my way.”

You’re reading this, which means you’re trying. Forgive yourself. Then move on.

STEP 2: ASK WHAT WENT WRONG?

Your goal of working out 2 hours a day and only eating Keto failed after three weeks.

Congratulations!

You conducted an experiment that did not have the results you expected.

That’s neither a good nor a bad thing. Like any other experiment, it just… IS.

So write down specifically what your experiment entailed. 

What did you try to do?

I was going to exercise every day.

I was going to run a mile each morning.

I was going to eat strictly Paleo every day.

Look at your list: this is a combination of variables that don’t work for your lifestyle.

SIDENOTE: Learning from the millions of people that have come through Nerd Fitness over the past decade, my guess is that your experiment didn’t work out for one of two reasons:

Your goals were too vague: “I should exercise more this year” – For how long? How often? What kind of exercise?

You tried to change ALL the things: eat 1,800 calories a day (instead of your normal 3,000), go running 5 days a week (when you don’t exercise at all now), and get 8 hours of sleep a night (normally you get 5).

STEP 3: CHANGE A VARIABLE IN YOUR EXPERIMENT

You’re reading this guide, which would lead me to believe you’re interested in trying again to lose weight and get in shape.

To avoid getting the same results, we need to change the variables in the experiment to try and get different results.

You know…

For your next attempt consider adjusting one of the following variables.

Remember, any good experiment has accurate measurements for their changing factors! You don’t just put “some uranium” in a nuclear reactor. You know the exact amount.

We need to be exact with your variables.

Let me give you some suggestions:

Change the exercise variable: Did you actually enjoy the exercise you attempted? If you discovered that you hate running, great! Never do that again. “Exercise sucks,” so I would pick something you actually enjoy.

Try a substitution rather than addition: ADDING a brand new exercise routine into a busy schedule can be really challenging. Fortunately, you can focus on substituting or adding in a way that doesn’t take up more time: nutrition! How you eat is 80-90% of the weight-loss equation, and you’re already eating every day. So focus on substituting a vegetable for fries once a week, or swapping sparkling water for soda. You can also keep a food journal and change up your breakfast twice a week.

Adjust your “win scenario”: I get it. You were able to train in your home gym for the first few weeks of this year, going for at least an hour. But THEN…work got busy. And you only had 30 minutes, which wasn’t enough time to get through your workout. So why not set the win scenario at “30 minutes,” or “15 minutes,” or just “1 exercise”? Lower the bar!

This is a 10-year journey we’re on here, so the exercise itself is not nearly as important as building a routine of working out that fits into your life. Lower the bar for what a “win” scenario is.

Example: if you roll out your yoga mat for 1 set of 1 exercise, it counts as a win. Doesn’t matter if did a full hour workout or just a 5 minute set of push-ups. It all counts.

STEP 4: RESPAWN, GET BACK IN THE FIGHT

When you play a challenging video game, you’re going to die. A lot. (I died literally thousands when playing Hollow Knight, one of my favorite games in recent memory).

What happens after you die in a game?

You respawn, and try again!

You’ve learned a new tactic or pattern. You have a new technique. You’ve uncovered a secret. Or you’ve just gotten better. So you try, again.

And again.

And again.

And when you finally succeed?

Nirvana. Adulation. Pure joy.

There’s no shame in failing when it comes to weight loss. We have hundreds of stories of people who kept failing, but kept reading and trying, and then finally – something clicked.

And that next attempt is the one that changed their life’s path. Like Joe, who made like a dozen weight-loss attempt until he changed the right variable and got results:

So try again today.

Keep these things in mind when restarting your fitness journey:

Change your nutrition variable – try calorie counting instead of Paleo or vice versa.

Change your workout variable – try strength training instead of running.

Focus on building the routine by making the ‘win scenario’ super small.

Write down your plan, and start executing.

STEP 5: SUPERCHARGE YOUR RESULTS

I know hacking your experiments to get better data isn’t exactly “scientifically smart” or “morally responsible,” but I’m the one writing this email and I have more important stuff to say. So you’re just gonna have to deal with it.

Once you start your new experiment, here’s how you can stack the deck in your favor:

#1) Write everything down. Write down your workouts. Write down what you eat. Treat it like a science experiment, and you’re collecting data! Plan ahead. Be PRO-active (“I will do Strength Training Workout A at 4pm and tonight I’ll have roasted chicken and bacon-wrapped asparagus) instead of RE-active (“What should I do for exercise right now?” and “Ah, what’s for dinner? Oooh, Burger King!”)

#2) Recruit allies to your team. Don’t go this alone, as you’re more likely to succeed based on the people you spend time with and hang around. So recruit allies. Start spending more time with healthy people that empower you (even virtually), rather than unhealthy people that enable you and drag you down. Join a running group online. Find a lifting “accountabilibuddy,” or someone you can check in with.

#3) Hire a professional. There are two types of coaches worth the investment:

An in-person trainer if you are looking to supercharge your form on specific exercises like Olympic lifts, squats, deadlifts, etc. An in-person trainer can be good for people that need the accountability of somebody they’ve paid to meet them in the gym. Although to be honest, with the ongoing pandemic, gym availability and safety can be hit or miss.

An online coach that represents mobile, worldwide accountability. I’ve had a coach for 6 years and it’s changed my life. Knowing that I have a workout and nutrition strategy to follow each day is game-changing.

GET BACK IN THE FIGHT

An old mandrill named Rafiki once taught me: “Yes, the past can hurt. But you can either run from it, or learn from it.”

Okay maybe he taught that to Simba in The Lion King, but I too learned the same lesson:

TO RECAP:

Forgive yourself. You wouldn’t talk to somebody else the way you talk to yourself, so have some freaking compassion. You’re trying.

Identify what experiment you JUST tried. Write down what you believe went wrong over the past few weeks. Congrats – you found a strategy that doesn’t work.

Pick a new path, try a different variable. A good scientist meticulously tracks their data and writes down their hypothesis. I would change one of the following:

Exercise: do less – focus on building the routine and doing it consistently.

Nutrition: change less. If you couldn’t stick with a diet for 3 weeks, it was too restrictive. Try a different path.

Win scenario: don’t let “perfect” be the enemy of “good.”

And then try again.

If you want help here, I have two perfect ways to respawn today.

#1) If you want step-by-step guidance on how to lose weight, eat better, and get stronger, check out our killer 1-on-1 coaching program.

Many of our clients kept respawning for years, and it was only when working with a trained professional that they finally learned how to maintain progress.

Our Coaching program changes lives. Learn more here!

#2) If you want an exact blueprint for getting in shape, check out NF Journey. Our fun habit-building app helps you exercise more frequently, eat healthier, and level up your life (literally).

Plus, there’s a nice shiny button you can press so you can respawn in our app whenever you want! No judgement, restart whenever.

Try your free trial right here:

Alright, that does it for me today.

For the Rebellion!

-Steve

PS: If you want more tips and tricks on how to stick to your goals this year, check out 5 Hacks to Effortlessly Build Healthy Habits in 2021.

###

Photo Citation: Oh My Goodness! Shut Me Down, The Iron Giant, “Hello, old friend. Is he ready for me?”, Happy Halloween!!, At the blacksmith’s (Part 2), Medieval Blacksmith

Footnotes    ( returns to text)

Forbes has a pretty good look at this.

The Ultimate Guide for Restarting Your Fitness Journey (5 Steps to Respawn Today!) published first on https://dietariouspage.tumblr.com/

[blacknovelist]

Yknow what? This post has been sitting in my goddamn drafts for almost a year, so I’m gonna step back into the BNHA Desolation AU stuff for a bit and do a spontaneous thought dump of timeline, plot, concept, and canon parallel stuff. Not necessarily in that order.

So the timeline of Desolation AU is a looooooot more stretched out than in Canon, bc everyone needs time to do pretty much everything (Adjust to moving to Musutafu, train for the military, practice with and learn about Quirk Replacement/Simulation tech and actual Quirks, etc.), and as a result of this, Izuku does actually go out on missions without One for All. Its necessary as part of his regime (since he’s to be All Might’s successor, presumably, and Toshinori had to do this stuff too), and it helps promote good bonding with the rest of his troops. Izuku spends a good few years out on the field without the Quirk before Toshinori officially declares him his successor.

Nana died in battle against AfO and his men (AfO himself was mostly watching, and was not part of the battle until the end of it, when he and Nana fought briefly before he mortally wounded her and ordered a retreat). Toshinori was with her along with a few others like Gran Torino, and though they successfully got her back to Musutafu, she died of her injuries some time later. By this point, Nana has already passed on leadership over to Toshinori, but that didn’t make things easier. A lot of people really loved her.

Anyway; most of the Desolation AU stuff I’ve already talked about concerns backstory and world building and is generally really dark and dry and stuff, but that’s not really how the actual plot is. Like canon BNHA, I really want it to be kind of hopeful, kind of bright, kind of optimistic of a story even though everything is shit right now (and will be for some time). I’m a sucker for that kind of stuff.

While the song (Cut Apart from the Transistor OST) is very empty and, well, desolate sounding, which is why I though of a wrecked post-war world, I like the eventual progression back into a brighter and happy world (which is why I mentioned elements of both Transistor and Bastion in Desolation AU’s original ask post, since Bastion is much happier of a game)

The plot itself is, more or less; Following decades of war, the two factions have finally reached a tentative peace. Both sides are looking for a way to restart the war and end it once and for all, but a secret third faction from a city called Musutafu is moving in to combat years of ingrained hatred against the other side and encourage peace and prevent war from erupting again. All Might is the leader of Musutafu and the face of peace between Quirked and Quirkless people, but he’s looking for a successor to inherit both his Quirk and the responsibilities of being the head like he is. So, more or less the same plot as BNHA, except instead of heroes and villains it’s military factions. Did I mention I don’t really know much about what I’m talking about like, 85% of the time?

For the Kamino Ward stuff (my honest to God favorite stuff to think about at all times), I’m thinking that what happens is Musutafu’s camps are breached for the first time by AfO, who sends Shigaraki to oversee the operation with everyone without taking part. Bakugou is dragged off, presumably so they can try and sway over to their side and, failing that, get info from him. Musutafu stage raids on the area they confirm he’s being held - the group who snuck out in Canon (Deku, Shouto, Creatie, Red Riot, Ingenium) are, in the AU, instead assigned the warehouse area to raid with several others, since at this point Izuku has inherited OfA (not that anyone knows yet) and they are all soldiers in their own right (due to timeline stretching, they should be in their early twenties or older at this point). I’m playing with the idea of this being when the world at Large learns that Toshinori no longer has the quirk that put All Might/Musutafu on the map and the Musutafu guys leak it that he gave it to his successor like all the other Musutafu leaders, to make him into the symbol of peace and sacrifice I mentioned in previous posts, but I’m not sure I wanna keep that. Either way, like in Canon, this is the end of his career.

The equivalent of the sports fest arc will probably end up being a rapid fire series of missions and raids that put them into the spotlight for a bit and garner attention from the big man Endeavor himself.

To steer my conscience back to the timeline itself though, here’s a rough draft of the timelines (canonically AfO’s reign presumably spans several generations, and the same goes for Desolation. Let me know if I messed up somewhere though, I did this half asleep):

–> The start: Quirks start cropping up. Later on, AfO makes his debut on the world scene. –> He publically goes too far, provoking tensions between Quirked and Quirkless and thereby instigating a slowly escalating war between these two factions –> What starts as one region of the world at war with itself turns into pretty much the whole world fighting against itself –> At some point, OfA slips off, rescues people, and founds Musutafu –> Timeskip at several generations: the treaty is signed –> A couple years later; Musutafu surfaces the world scene, and stays in the shadows –> Nana Shimura leaves her family behind to join Musutafu –> A couple years later, she joins the mission that rescues Toshinori’s hijacked convoy and takes them to the city –> About five to ten years later, when Toshinori is a teen, he joins the military –> Less than a year later, the news of her husband’s death reaches her. She spends months using her resources to look for her son before being forced to assume him dead –> A few years after Toshinori’s enrollment, Nana declares him her successor and gives him her Quirk to start direct training –> After two and a half years of training, Toshinori takes on his mantle of All Might and becomes leader of Musutafu. Nana conditionally retires and continues to work with their troops and go on missions. –> Over the course of the next fifteen to twenty years (give or take a good few years), All Might puts Musutafu onto the map and world scene as a radical declaring peace, and turns himself and Musutafu into symbols of peace –> Towards the 10-year mark (give or take a couple), Nana Shimura is mortally wounded in battle against AfO and dies to her injuries –> Several years later (anywhere from two to five), AfO stages a drifter attack to kill All Might, only to be mortally wounded. All Might is likewise injured but the city is saved, marking victory for Musutafu. Both are forced to temporarily fade from whatever spotlights they’d been under –> A few months after that, AfO finds Nana Shimura’s son being shipped off via convoy and spirits him away –> Toshinori spends his time looking for a successor when he’s not hiding his condition and going on missions, before the eventual mission to Izuku’s hometown –> Musutafu receive Intel about a series of drifter raids on a group of cities and set out to intercept them –> Following the First Episode-equivalent events of the drifter attack, Izuku and Bakugou’s families decide to move to Musutafu (for their own safeties) –> Izuku and Bakugou enlist in the military cadets program (not unlike cadets irl, except a little more intensive) for the UA corps (TBD if that’s the name I’m keeping) so they can join properly when they’re of age. –> Izuku is doing this on Toshinori’s recommendation, and they meet regularly to talk about pretty much anything –> *Insert several year training montage here* (the entrance exam, hero vs villain and USJ arcs all fall under here) –> They’re eventually enlisted formally (approx age is likely 18-early twenties), after this is prob the sports fest equiv. –> Toshinori gives Izuku OfA somewhere in here. –> That’s more or less all I got for now (chronologically at least)

[rtf393q-latina]

Journal 5

This week I played Mystic Messenger, a Korean mobile visual novel game, released in 2016. I gather that a more literal translation of the Korean title might be “mysterious messenger,” which make sense because the premise of the game is that you download an app, which you don’t know much about, but which jumpstarts this narrative journey full of its own mysteries. Thus far, there have been no mystic elements to the story; photos the characters send have an urban contemporary feel, with recognizable markers of the everyday like public transit, ear buds, or ketchup bottles. Gameplay consists of selecting responses as you participate in the app’s chatrooms, get messages, emails, and phone calls from the characters in the game world, synchronized to your time zone, as if it were happening in real time. The most extensively used element is the chatroom, and a note on its aesthetic because it’s exceptional: in addition to drab bubble text, characters might send an animated emote, chibi image of themselves; they can briefly shake the screen with an angry face that blips in and out as an overlay of the chatroom; they also sometimes send their text in a bubble shaped expressively as a cat or a fluffy cloud, as if written on a cute stationary sticky note; finally, they will also send photos. In addition to the phone calls (recorded in Korean, but with English text to translate on screen), these emotive speech acts go a long way in both making the characters come to life and just in general making it fun and engaging to follow along. In the previous visual novel I played, clicking through text as it endlessly populated at the bottom of my screen in a uniform font would get tedious.

Interesting visualizations in the chatroom. (source)

The narrative and gameplay has three levels. The first, most openly marketed level, is the romantic simulation: there are 6 characters and you can play through to gain the love of one of them. The second level is that you and the 6 romanceable characters are part of an organization that is organizing a big charity party; to get a good ending, you must convince at least 10 guests, whose contact info you collect over time from the romanceable characters, to attend through choosing the right three replies to the potential guests’ emails. The third level is that you are slowly figuring out what happened: the person who had your organizing job before has died or at least disappeared under mysterious circumstances and the way you join the organization is also rather mysterious. So, on the third level, I assume you solve these mysteries. Before I realized the game would not save in the middle of the introductory segment, I ended up accidentally restarting the game 3 times. To keep from being bored, I really tested the different choice routes and got a bad ending right off the bat, thereby discovering that the person who adds me to the charity organization is a malicious-seeming hacker (and if I refuse to follow his instructions he threatens to end me or enslave me and the game ends—very dramatic—I expect more of this as this level of the story unfolds).

Main game screen, demonstrating the different mechanics. (source)

A word on the monetization. 3 romance routes are available from the get go; 2 you need to pay 80 hourglasses for; and for the last one you have to pay 300 hourglasses (there are also some additional dlc-s and one more romance route since the release, which all have an hourglass cost as far as I can tell, in the ~100 range). A guide I read claimed that by playing through each romance route in order, you win enough hourglasses to play the next tiers. This seems reasonable: you can pay money to play exactly the romance route you want right away, or you can invest your time to eventually get there. The other major application of the game’s hourglass currency is that you can pay 30 to unlock all of the chatrooms for one day; therefore, you are able to override the game’s scheduled gameplay and play them all at once or go back to ones you missed because you were not available to play when they opened up. Unlike the other visual novel I played, here money feels like a luxury rather than a necessity; I may be missing the 1am and 3am chatrooms, but I get a brief overview of the main points the characters discussed without me (I just miss sending replies and winning photos and their favor from giving the correct replies). Furthermore, every few hours I earn a randomized bonus and I’m slowly but steadily gaining hourglasses, making me feel like eventually I’ll be able to unlock things while still being free to play. Overall, the monetization feels less predatory as compared to the other visual novels I’ve played so far.

Main monetizated interactions. (source 1, source 2)

Initially, Mystic Messenger does not seem like the best game to discuss with this week’s readings. Rehak argues that “our extension through various media is predicated on the body as root metaphor” and “the body becomes an inescapable aspect of fantasized experience” (21). And in fact, the readings have to do with identifying with an on-screen body. In Mystic Messenger I do not have a game body because the game is in first person perspective. I can however pick a little picture to represent me in the app, much like in regular messenger and email apps. I will elaborate on this aspect in more depth.

The game offers 5 pictures to represent you, or you can upload your own. 4 of the pictures match visually in design with the romanceable characters, and the last is more stylistically exaggerated: an anthropomorphized unicorn with a giant head and enormous eyes. The other 4 only differ in hair color and hair style; 3 have luminescent pale skin and 1 has vaguely tan skin. Overall, I think these 4 pictures are conventionally attractive—light skin, young, thin. As Shaw notes, we can understand some of the creators’ intentions through analyzing the available images. Much like in Martey and Consalvo’s analysis of Second Life, light skin is normalized though these avatar choices. In picking these beautiful characters, players would be gravitating toward beauty like the Second Life players. The game does offer some counter choices, with the tanned character, the comical unicorn, and the choose your own options. I wonder if these singular alternatives only work to emphasize how they stray from the norm and highlight the normality of the 3 light skinned characters.

In order of the game, the first 4 avatars. (source)

To understand why people choose the avatars they do and whether they identify with them, Shaw argues we must use ethnographic methods, so I will try to breakdown my own choices and compare them to the relationships between players and avatars of Mystic Messenger found online. I was not concerned with the questions Martey and Consalvo tackle because I did not expect my choice in this single-player game to affect me functionally or socially. The unicorn suggested that the characters would not take the avatar as a representation of me, which set aside questions of social narrative and whether I would want to embrace or resist the group dynamics of the characters. These questions would not be influenced by my dress.

The unicorn avatar. (source)

I first lingered over the unicorn and considered the chose your option (until I remembered I blocked the app from accessing my photos and cameras; I tend to deny permissions unless I know how the app is explicitly using these things). The reason I moved away from more conventional characters I think has to do with my relationship to femininity. My preferred expression of female-ness tends toward the androgynous end of things and I mostly dislike overt markers of femininity, like pink, flowers, makeup, nail polish, jewelry, skirts, and long hair. Interestingly, I do not find the counter of these things any less feminine because I have a pretty firmly feminine self-conception, I just find things like big baggy pants and short hair have a much more interesting potential for femininity to explore for me personally. Given my relationship to femininity, I often find like Shaw notes that ��texts meant to hail us as audience members can if fact distance us from them" (77). Mystic Messenger is in the otome genre of games targeted to women and the avatars reflect conventional femininity. This whole genre of games has initially alienated me because I do not get much from conventional femininity and I would have kept on not playing them were I not interested in why people like them for this class.

In the end I skipped over the unicorn because its long flowing hair and long eyelashes were too feminine for me. I briefly considered the darker skinned character with the shaggy hair because I felt her skin color and less polished hair style suited me better, but I felt reluctant to claim the darkest available skin color. In the end I landed on the blonde with short hair because her hair style looked like mine. Crucially, what I was so obsessed with was not that the character represents my body, but that the character represents my values related to femininity. The blonde was an imperfect choice for my goals, but I treated her from then on as just a picture because one needed to be there to represent me. I did not identify with her or imagine her as a character in the game; she might as well have been a bunny rabbit, in the words of Shaw’s test subjects. But, though the on-screen “body” did not matter to me, much like Shaw concludes about her subjects, the not mattering was a result of not having something that might matter. If there were a character design that I found genuinely cool, would I have identified with her and would it have improved the gameplay? I don’t think my avatar being a placeholder for me makes the game less enjoyable, and that much is supported in Shaw’s findings as well; nevertheless, finding a cool female character, something I feel passionate about because so many representations have been inadequate for me, would have been really special. 

Example of a player-uploaded image as an avatar. Could certainly be the actual player, but interestingly, looks like perhaps it is a Kpop star to me. Is this an idealized self? (source)

Screen grabs of Mystic Messenger online reveal that some people definitely put up a photo of themselves into the game. Ultimately I decided I do not like this because then you don’t match the aesthetic of the game and it doesn’t feel like you are a part of the game world. Although I could’ve put up an image that did represent all the things I wanted it to, it would’ve broken unity with the game for me.

I’ve also encountered fanart of the romanceable characters with a specific avatar from the initial 5 options, suggesting to me that some players do get attached to a specific image as a character and/or as a self-representation. I searched online if there was an “What your Mystic Messenger avatar says about you” article, and I did not find one, but I can see the choice being something that unites people in a common understanding/vision about the game. People like to choose identifiers, from clothing to objects and avatars. They like taking personality quizzes.

Fanart of Jumin, the game character, his cat Elizabeth III, and “Red MC” the avatar (source)

This brings me to back to a discussion of Rehak. Although he is interested in the difference between a camera-body and a game-body, he does elaborate on how the camera in both movies and games hails the viewer, giving them “a sense of literal presence, and a newly participatory role” (19). Although my physical presence in the game is very limited, the camera-like function of making the game like just another messenger app on my phone, fusing the game world with my real world through the phone interface, having the characters address me constantly, hails me as a participant in the game. Seeing them react to my responses is pleasurable and I can recognize myself as a bodily participant in the game. (They also constantly ask if I’ve eaten, or if I’m sleeping, showing concern for and calling into being my physical existence.) At the same time, the reflection is never perfect and never will be, especially for games like this where your response is a selection out of two or three options. But there’s something fun about that failure to match. The potential of my physical self existing differently is evoked. (There are some overlaps here with Munoz’s disidentification as discussed in the Shaw.) As Rehak describes it, “"players derive pleasure from avatarial instability. On the most basic level, avatars enable players to think through questions of agency and existence, exploring in fantasy form aspects of their own materiality" (21). More succinctly, my non-self in the game allows me to "toy with subjectivity, play with being" (21) in a way that is harder in real life. Moreover, going beyond the acknowledgment from Shaw that players can enjoy roleplaying their avatars rather than identifying with them, Rehak’s statement prompts me to consider the fun of the physical experience of my body as part of the game. Yes, there are many moments that remind me that the game is imaginary and allow me to play with my identity because I can be someone else in the game; however, there are also interesting, fleeting moments that hail me as a material being that are very interesting. For Rehak clearly these moments can happen both in the third person and in the first person. In the third person seeing your avatar die and recognizing it as an extension of the body may have an effect. It’s also interesting though, how the first person can play more directly with that visceral-ity. It’s something I want to explore more later.

As a final tidbit: reminding me of our discussion about the goose, people sure got a big kick out of imagining the unicorn as an animal character in the game world. Perhaps the real work that remains to be done on avatars and identification is what we do with animals (and furrys).

(Source 1 2 3)

[vimesbootstheory]

so I decided to steamroll through all the negativity and buy mass effect andromeda this morning, ‘cause I had a day off today and the temptation was too great. A couple of thoughts after about an hour and a half of gameplay:

- must address the facial animations immediately since it’d be weird if I didn’t -- yeah, they’re sometimes weird. but if people hadn’t been talking about them so much, I would have just reacted with a quick “heh” and more-or-less immediately got used to them. it’s really not that big a deal. I think the situation is exacerbated by the fact that people keep seeing the worst examples in silent contexts -- when someone’s speaking and their face is a bit weird, idk about other people but for me the personality of the voice kind of takes over and compensates for the unnaturalness of the face. the same was true of the original games -- instead of weird facial animation, they just had very little facial animation, but the voice acting was great so it didn’t matter. - I might even have been more distracted by the fact that when ryder is on a planet and it’s raining and she has her helmet on, the rain effects land on her face? and not her helmet? it’s so weird. - random tip for character creation -- first off, don’t use default fem!ryder, there’s something wrong with how her face is set up and it’s terrifying. second, one of the weirdest thing about the faces is how the eyeballs are set in the face, but this is dramatically reduced if you create a character with epicanthal folds. she looks a lot better, and hey, a good excuse (if you needed one) to have your ryder be a woc.  - movement is so fun and smooth omg. at one point I actually gasped and said “that’s so COOL” out loud like a dweeb when I discovered how you can quickly jump up and then hover in the air while shooting... I can’t really describe it properly but trust me, it’s cool. - even though the criticism of the game from other people discouraged me a lot, I’m glad I read a lot of other people’s opinions to modulate my expectations going in. like I was warned that the beginning of the game was quite slow but picks up some hours in (I’ve heard somewhere between hour 6 and hour 10 -- which is a lot of hours but I can already tell it’s a huge game). having been given that expectation, I was pleasantly surprised at the pace. the very very beginning has a kind of fantastic mundanity (fantastic in the sense of fantasy) in its pacing which I found oddly endearing, like welp just another day at work, landing on a planet in a galaxy humanity has never touched before, same ole same ole. I can see the potential for an awkward “hinterlands phase”, if you will, a la dragon age inquisition where you spend too much time in the starting area and then finally trigger the story proper and go “... goddammit I wasted so much time and that wasn’t even really the game”. so maybe that’s what people mean. - speaking of da:i, the aesthetics and in particular the sound design of the first mission remind me a lot of the very beginning of da:i, with the toxic green colour palate and the intermittent lightning cracks. the sound design is a strong point of this game so far, it has very satisfying audio.  - the only squadmates I’ve met so far have been cora and liam. cora’s dialogue is quite corny but I’m currently choosing to interpret that as just her being a thoroughly corny dweeb. liam seems cool, I’ve seen a lot of complaints about him and ngl I think this is at least in part a case of the gaming community having unreasonable standards for black characters. he’s already noticeably more charming than kaidan ever was. - combat is super fun, although I miss the function of being able to pause combat and assess and choose the right powers with some deliberation. I’m not that nimble with my fingers. I’ve already died once :\

yeah so those are my extremely early thoughts. I’d have more to say but I kept restarting to put progressively less makeup on Vass Ryder. makeup is distracting.

[forevermagik]

January 2017 Recap

Well, @rarmaster does these, or did these last year anyway.  So I figured I would too.  The basic concept is to write things you did every day on a wall calendar.  My mom got me a wall calendar for Christmas.  I figured I should do it. 

Jan 1-I started sketching.  It... hasn’t been something I’ve done every day.  But I’ve been sketching sorta on and off.  I didn’t write anything else down because I couldn’t remember.  (I didn’t have the calendar until the 6th and didn’t start writing on it until the 12th.)

Jan 2-We found this Irish pub.  The drink I ordered had a glowstick in it.  It was only after I’d brought the glowstick home that I realized it was also a straw >.< But hey, it looked cute in my hair!

Jan 3-I soloed in an airplane! It was my second solo overall and it went really well despite someone else severely messing up the pattern.  Then I went to a computer store with my boyfriend so he could buy new computer parts since his office computer died a sad death.  Also I skyped my friend who would be DMing a one-off campaign and we built both my character and @rarmaster‘s character.  She was a viking.  I was a psychic!

Jan 4-I couldn’t remember anything...

Jan 5-I did an “unusual attitude” flight.  Basically I get myself into weird flight position and have to get back out of them.

Jan 6-I left to visit home! While at a layover, I got to sit in a cockpit.  That was pretty cool.  Then I had Christmas at my grandmas.  That was pretty okay, all things considered.  Also I really got to listen to my “Top Songs from 2016″ playlist on Spotify and that was pretty nifty.

Jan 7-The ladies in my family pretty much all wore blue.  It was amusing.  Then we visited my aunt.  Then we went to Firehouse subs for dinner.

Jan 8-We played DnD.  I almost saved the possessed ice witch.  Almost.  I seem to play characters who have a complex about saving other characters.  Go figure.  I also ate WAY too much food and had a food coma.  When I got back to my mom’s apartment, we started casually watching AGDQ.  But then we pulled up the GDQ of DAO done in less than an hour.  That was SO BROKE.

Jan 9-I helped rar find her classes on campus.  Then I personally tried to break DAO, but it didn’t work because I have too recent of a patch.  So I just modded rar’s game.  I also made my mustard thighs for my family and got to see a pretty sunset.  

Jan 10-I saw one of my friends from college for dinner and then we walked around the park catching pokemon.  Then I stayed up super late texting my boyfriend.  

Jan 11-I watched the speed runner BREAK Ori and the Blind Forest.  It was crazy.  I then walked 4 miles around town catching pokemon and getting a ridiculous amount of steps.  I talked with my dad about politics and went to the bar with one of my friends.  

Jan 12-I flew back home.  I also read the first Mistborn in a day.  It was SO GOOD.  The lady on my last flight was super impressed to learn that I’d only started it earlier that morning.  I also took over a pokemon gym at the Kansas City airport.  

Jan 13-I did a murderous leg day and played some KH2.

Jan 14-I finished my Rinnie sketch.

Jan 15-We all walked around the boardwalk and went to Hopjacks.  I then filled out my plotting board for the rewrites of book 1.  My boyfriend and I stayed up super late talking and plotting :)

Jan 16-It was my girlfriend’s pre-birthday since it was the school holiday.  We had ice cream cake.  Then the three of us stayed up super late plotting for 3.5 hours for book 2!

Jan 17-I flew! Stalling the wings and such.

Jan 18-I finished Well of Ascension.  I played some KH2.  I adjusted some of the timeline for books 1 and 2 (they happen literally back to back so one affects the other).  I also started a Vin playlist on Spotify since 8tracks is stupid now.  (click on it it’s super great!)

Jan 19-I started Hero of Ages.  I also fleshed out some more plot for book 2.  Woot blizzards!

Jan 20-I Colored the Rinnie sketch.  I also made really good sushi rice for sashimi. 

 Jan 21-I finished the transcription for the book 2 outline.  I always just record the conversations we have with a voice recorder so I don’t have to remember specifics later.  Then I transcribe them.  It takes a while to get through 3.5 hours of recording.

Jan 22-I did the Battle of 1000 Heartless arc in KH2.  Now my girlfriend understands all the “Goofy’s Death” jokes.  Also I only had to restart Demyx 3 times and 2 of them were because of the stupid time limits. 

Jan 23-I finished Hero of Ages.  I cried.  Then I posted a ton of stuff on Tumblr.  You can check out my tag here.  Me and my girlfriend also created a phonetic alphabet used by the people on the novelization world.  Then in DAO, I did Leliana’s personal quest. 

Jan 24-I had a really good flight this day!

Jan 25-I read Mistborn: Secret History.  More like Kelsier: NO! The book.  I also played some more KH2.  I went into antiform twice.  In a row.  In Beast’s Castle.  But then I defeated Xaldin in the first go and didn’t go into antiform once.  So there’s that!

Jan 26-I worked on the map for the novelization planet.  I added in a layer of major cities and stuff.  I also finally uploaded my backlog of photos to Facebook.  O.O  I then started a data transfer from stuff from my laptop to my new external.  I’m going to switch to a desktop soon.

Jan 27-I started building  my desktop.  Unfortunately, the motherboard appears to be bad and I’ll need to contact Amazon and/or Asus to get it replaced.  

Jan 28-I took the computer into the shop to have them look at it.  Then we found a really good Mexican food restaurant for lunch (it’s hard to find good Mexican out here).  

Jan 29-I set up my new monitor and speakers, hooking them into my laptop.  My new monitor is SO HUGE!!!  Leliana is now my girlfriend in DAO.  Also I came up with a Human:Noble!Mage AU with the help of my girlfriend and rar.  

Jan 30-I did Agrabah and Pride Lands for the sole purpose of opening up the latest bit in Hollow Bastion.  I also worked on the Novelization timeline some more. 

Jan 31-I had a good flight! I figured out steep turns.  I also made some good headway on my Vin playlist.  (Only having 1 hour of listening time on 8tracks makes getting ideas hard).  I also started making notes for editing, which I plan to start today!

[zachsgamejournal]

PLAYING: Oddworld: Abe’s Oddysee

What hopes I had for this franchise. From my recollection, it never quite achieved the epic status it deserved. But replaying it now, I still love it as much as the first day I tried it.

This game has great vibes--even before the main menu is loaded. Mysterious and magical audio tones hauntingly accompany in-universe visuals that identify the makers and producers of this glorious game. Then we’re shown the towering paramite temple as the camera pulls us into the entrance, turning the screen black. Then the title: Oddworld: Abe’s Oddysee is revealed by magical purple sparks. It’s so 90s.

I used to watch this well-produced opening just for fun.

Then we see Abe as he speaks his iconic “Hello”. I mean, lots of people say hello, but not like Abe. Here the player can experiment with the “speak” function. It’s a great mechanic, though maybe the developers were overly proud of it. Basically You can tell friends to follow you and wait. You can also whistle and fart.

So the game starts and we’re shown a massive industrial complex. I used to love mechanical stuff. I don’t know why, i just loved the aesthetic of rusted machinery churning out smoke and pollution. I was whole heartily against pollution, but this is a video game. We enjoy many things we should not in video games.

Abe introduces us to the scenario, he and his people are slaves at this large meat processing plant called Rupture Farms. Because of over-hunting, they’ve depleted some of their meat resources, while also losing profits. The board wants to know what CEO is gonna do to fix it. He’s gonna start grinding up Abe and his fellow Mudokons into meaty treats.

As a teenager, the conflict was obvious: exploited workers were going to literally be ground up for profits of a few rich, greedy folks. I didn’t realize then how true to the world of capitalism (especially American capitalism) this was. I thought it was just a game. But now I see it as a strong metaphor. Exaggerated, but all the sentiment is pretty accurate. Workers are only valued for their profitability. And profits today are more important to sustainability tomorrow.

After the great opening, the game starts. My plan is just to play through fairly casually: hopefully getting the 50 Mudokons for the good ending. I don’t have the patience to aim for all 99. The game tricks you early on, often suggesting you pull levels that immediately result in a mudokon’s death. It was funny, but irritating. Luckily, unlike Jedi Fallen Order, the game reloads quickly and not too far from your failure/death.

I absolutely love how the full-motion-video cinematics seamlessly blend into the 2D gameplay. While the game is played on a 2D plane, the various cutscenes that move us around the environment create a sense of 3D space. Also, this is from the late 90s when CGI film was still fresh and mostly undeveloped. Even a 10 second shot barrels being stamped with a product label was exciting.

Luckily, the cinematics aren’t all for show. The game is telling a story and setting a mood.

I’ve replayed the opening several times. All my favorite things where there: Possessing a slig and forcing him to run through electric bolts and exploding as his evaporating remains step on a mine is one my favorites. It’s gross, and cruel, but so are sligs. They...well, they kind of deserve it.

I love that in this oppressive, industrial manufacturing plant, it’s birds that create portals for escaping mudokons. The battle of nature vs machine is very present. We never know why Abe is able to form portals with his chanting, or take over sligs. We never know why he didn’t attempt this before. Oh well.

One of my favorite things is to sneak between shadows right behind a slig. It’s ridiculously cartoonish--but presented under the context that if you’re caught by the slig, you’ll be riddled with a hundred holes from his machine gun. So the comical nature breaks the tension.

I love how the hints in the game, within the factory, are presented via message boards in the background. There’s also hints and messages presented on billboards. It keeps everything in-universe, but also helpful. It doesn’t break the suspension of belief for me at all.

One sign warns that if you leave the area, all 15 mudokons on this level will die. This is confirmed one a “scoreboard” of sorts once you leave, showing how many mudokons remain imprisoned, how many have been rescued, and sadly...how many have died. While I’m not going for secrets, I make sure to rescue every mudokon I find in the main level, and restart if one dies.

After escaping the inner plan, we’re treated to a comical video of Abe falling into a barrel, and then getting his head hit against a pipe--which causes him to fall inside the barrel, hiding him from the sligs stationed around the corner. Very slapstick, but not excessively goofy. It plays up the idea that Abe is an unassuming hero. He never thought of himself as great, nor did he have lofty dreams of being a savior. But fate has moved him into position to change the world.

Now, we get to the factory exterior. This is when we first see scrabs, but they’re in silhouette, so we don’t get a good look. This part is aesthetically interesting, As Abe moves away from the factory, the sky changes from a sickly green, to a haunting blue. Metal platforms, guard towers, and industrial equipment give way to a rocky, barren waste with some abandoned wooden structures sprinkled through out. Sounds of machines are replaced by chirping bats. Tips are not presented via magical fireflies instead of digital marquees.

We’re in transition to nature, but the transition is not sudden. It’s a fade. But the presence of sligs, mines, and lethal security devices have not faded with industrial scenery.

I just keep going on-and-on and I’m barely an hour into the game. It’s just great, and genius, and perfect!

While the aesthetics, tones, themes are perfect--this is a game and we need to discuss gameplay:

Movement can be very exact. It’s not as fluid and free form as something like Crash Bandicoot or Donkey Kong Country. But that’s good, because there’s a lot of challenging traps that require precise timing. Unfortunately, this makes the jumping while running weird. You basically have to press jump right before you actually want to jump. The game, after receiving the jump input, waits until Abe is in the next “space” before performing the jump. It took a few minutes to get used to it agin.

Talking to mudokons is simple, but fun. It’s unfortunate that you can’t have more than one mudoken follow you. It leads to a lot of back tracking, and repeated actions. But it’s not been too annoying yet. Farting to make the mudokons laugh is also enjoyable.

Speaking of talking, it’s fun to taunt the sligs. As Abe, if you say “Hi” they express disgust. But as a fellow slig, the reply in kind. Also as a slig you can say “Look out” and they’ll often respond with help. Screaming “look out” also causes Mudokons in the area to duck, giving you clean shots at enemy sligs.

While the game features platforming and shooting, I really see it as a puzzle game. There’s some room for less than precise solutions ,but for the most part every section and frame is designed for the player to overcome it a specific way. This isn’t too frustrating, as it doesn’t take much to resolve the solutions, and somehow it doesn’t feel like scenarios repeat themselves exactly. Because the screen doesn’t scroll, each frame you walk into feels like its own mini-objective. So you’re not over-burdened with solving the whole area at once. You take it bit-by-bit.

While the game slowly introduces new elements and challenges, often repeating the same scenarios with the slightest of variations, because the environment and storytelling are so interesting, you don’t worry about it as much. You just enjoy the ride. And as gory as the game can be, there’s a certain entertainment to even dying. I don’t get frustrated, so much as chuckle: “Well that didn’t work”.

I didn’t expect to write so much, but I’ve loved this game and I’m falling in love all over again. I’m also not going to check for typos--so good luck to any poor soul that bothers reading this (and future me).