#i never finished that one on ps4 and i wanna give it a fair shake

[vantasei]

but otherwise the 100% is going great. pretty much just extra bosses and mirage arena grinding left. then triple crit and i think thats all for bbs?

so. i thought you couldnt get the secret episode on beginner mode. like. at all.

on ps3 i got it after jjing terra and aqua and nearly jjing ventus all on beginner. it randomly unlocked and was bugged so i couldnt take damage.

on ps4 it worked normally. full jjs on all 3 on beginner didnt do it. i triple critted and critted the final ep and it unlocked. it was normal and i could take damage.

but now i havent fully jjed any of the 3 on beginner, tho i did do the final ep, and randomly unlocked it while doing command grinding for shotlocks??? well. good news is that i can take damage so it isnt as bugged as my first bbs 100% experience and also i can finish this achievement on beginner. bad news is i take damage so i cant just stand there and spam mine shield. L.

[aurimeanswind]

Ice and Fire—Sunday Chats (8-27-17)

Milestones, Game of Thrones, and video game funks. Let’s get started.

First, there are gonna be some Game of Thrones spoilers in this Sunday Chats. Fair warning. Anything but the Finale which I have not watched as of writing this are fair game. Be warned.

900 Degrees of Funk

So today is a another writing milestone for me today.

Today is my 900th day writing. And I wanted to share my gaming funk situation I seem to find myself in.

I haven’t really been able to get into anything gaming wise for about a month or so. I’ve been really leaning on Overwatch, because it’s such a pick up and play game for me, and it’s also something that doesn’t require any new commitment. It’s just satisfying and fun to play, and scratches my gaming itch while distracting me from my other gaming responsibilities. My desire to get through Nier Automata is just lax, and I have Hellblade, Sundered and Uncharted all stacking up in my backlog.

It’s one of those things if i may be a little overwhelmed or just not driven. I get a ton out of Overwatch, and it’s all I want to play and enjoy a great deal, but I need to get back into my JRPGs and games to play. It’s an odd situation where I don’t quite think it’s a “rut” per se, but between this and most of my creative feelings feeling lost or misguided and confused, it’s put me in a weird spot.

Yet still, Sunday Chats is great, it’s readers are great, and all the folks out there supporting me are wonderful. Thank you all for your continued patronage and I will try my best to keep making stuff you all find cool. 

I need a new game (or maybe an old game) and new ideas and new projects to help me break out and get going, and I’m excited to start.

Forgoing the “what I’ve been working on” section today since it hasn’t been much, but I’ll take this time to remind you that next week I’ll be asking a question for Sunday Chats, so if you want to participate look for my tweet with the question in it and reply to it with your answer in as few tweets as possible.

What’s on Tap

Overwatch!

Still so good!

Very excited about the new info and changes coming to Mercy. I think it will make her a much more technically satisfying character to play, and I know she is currently broke on the Play Test Server, but as a Mercy main I’ve never been more excited to play her.

Her boosted abilities in her new Ult just seem like rad changes to make her an actual better healer, and that’s exciting again.

Nier Automata

I think I hit a big moment in the game, so I’m excited to see what’s going on next.

Going off of Time Stamps I think I am almost done my first play through of the game, so I’m excited for what’s next.

Questions

Remember you can be a part of Sunday Chats every week by tweeting your questions to me in my tweet that goes up periodically on Sunday afternoons (Eastern Daylight Time) with the hashtag #SundayChats in it.

I don’t think I am going to pick up Thimbleweed Park. it seems super awesome! It’s an adventure game that just straight up runs in the SCUM engine and Ron Gilbert is the mind behind it. But I am definitely out of the mood for something like that right now.

Also: yes. Everyone should play Overwatch. I got my friend Kaylie to play it and she doesn’t play competitive games, multiplayer games, or first person shooters really, and she likes it a lot. It seems like a great game for just about all walks of life.

I just downloaded Uncharted The Lost Legacy to my PS4 this morning, so I haven’t even touched it yet. 

Currently, I am looking forward to some PS4 Chloe. Seeing her come back and being able to play as her with two incredibly badass female lead characters at that is super exciting. A female led Uncharted absolutely checks all the boxes for me, see: the new Tomb Raider games.

So like, I’d wanna be able to turn into something cool, my go to is ALWAYS a Wolf (see Brandon’s animagus question from a few weeks ago) and I’d love to just be a fucking wolf because they’re rad. But I think being able to turn into something more practical would be more legitimate and useful, ya know?

So maybe a bird of some kind. If I had to choose a bird to transform into, it’d be an Owl probably, just because they have that mythology is being wise. Plus, they’re nocturnal and just the perfect mesh of inconspicuous and also still rad.

I would ask Joel from The Last of Us if he regrets what he did.

All I’d want to know is a yes or a no.

This is probably top 5 Sunday Chats questions ever.

Definitely the Tricks bunny, because he is hype af. Tony the Tiger or bust. Count Chocula because he is the dude. And to round it out, no heist is complete without The Captain. Cap’n Crunch that is.

Okay so this is very much an inside joke and I’m sorry that not everyone is going to get it.

But to answer your question, I said Oak tree originally, but that’s not accurate.

He would either be (one) a very tall and beautiful redwood tree, like the tall redwood forest north of San Francisco, or (two) and beautiful and sprawling Elm tree.

I love Jacob Bryant and miss him.

It’d probably and almost definitely be Spelunky. Ultimately it’s one of my favorite games ever of all time, it’s the platformer I have by far put the most time into. I was actually playing it just this morning, and beat it, yet again, for the 40th (ish) time on PS4. I fucking adore that game and few platformers give me as much joy to revisit and play as that one.

Yeesh. Topical.

Aside: we have a bad president who is also just a bad human, if you weren’t aware.

Buuuuuut if I could, I’m not like a violence person, so definitely not hurting anyone, I would probably just take a bunch of rad expensive stuff from a Best Buy.

Or commit insurance fraud and somehow get pardoned and get to keep the money. Something like, not offensive just like, skeezy, ya know?

Haha it’s for sure Fast and Furious, because Game of Thrones kind of set the tempo for the unexpected really early on what with the magic and stuff. It’s definitely gotten even crazier, but Fast and Furious had people actually assaulting an airplane base while it was still in the air.

And Vin Diesel fighting a tank.

Absolutely! This has happened a few times for me. Honestly, funnily enough, one of the big ones for me was Uncharted 4. When I finished it I was definitely moved, but it was writing out that big long critique and getting my feelings on the page that really defined how I felt about that game and where I was at with it.

I think, just like with dissecting rhetoric from novels, doing essays and reviews and write ups on things helps you actually peel back the layers you haven’t consciously processed in your head about hidden meanings and symbolisms, and that stuff appeals so much to me that it usually results in me liking a thing far more.

It’s also true of reading other things about games written by many other talented folks.

Paige from Beyond Good and Evil.

Paige fucks.

Easy.

Murray also fucks. Hard.

But for real, I had a huuuuge crush on Penelope from Sly 3, but....

SPOILERS....

They went and made her evil in Sly 4, and honest to god I thought it was the most bullshit thing ever, and I felt personally attacked.

It was a whole thing.

So far, my least favorite would probably be this most recent episode. Which is to say, I loved the episode, I thought it was great, but the pacing is definitely intense. I think they’ve all been bangers though, so that was just the east banger of them. Not as bad as people have been saying, I think the rushed pacing was handled really well, honestly, but it was definitely rushed.

As for my favorite. Well...

‘Nuff said.

Haha, I have it! Haven’t played it yet.

But yeah, I love Uncharted set pieces. I think in retrospect the Plane from Uncharted 3 is fucking crazy and unbelievable, to an extent. I don’t think it hit me as hard in the moment as the train sequence from Uncharted 2, but I do love it.

From Uncharted 4 though, I loved the Clocktower scene, and thought that was amazing, and obviously the car chase is surreal, especially when you’re crawling out from under the car and the fire is burning at the end. Absolutely incredible.

This is such a good question!!!

I love so many places. I’ve always loved Winterfell, because I love the snow, I love the north, and obviously I love the characters there. I also really liked Meeran, even though too much time was spent there.

Currently, the Maester city, Oldtown, is probably one of the coolest looking places on the show, and I just love the presentation of that place.

A very nuanced question.

Wendy’s is probably number one in my heart. Going off of “traditional” fast food, because like, I don’t count Chipotle or Jimmy Johns in something like this. I love Wendy’s french fries (because they’re the best) and they have BOTH a mean chicken sandwich AND a mean cheeseburger.

Taco Bell is #2. I know, it’s disgusting, but whatever. I love it. They always have something new to try. Their food tastes great. I love it.

Third is probably Checkers, or Rally’s for other folks around the country. They’re food is cheap, great, they have a mean shake, and rad fries. ‘Nuff said.

This is such a hard question. I don’t know if I have a solid answer to this. Do we mean musical performer? Actor? Podcaster? There are too many variables.

I’ll say this: the best performance, musically, I have ever seen, and my favorite concert I have ever been to is the Ninja Sex Part/TWRP/Starbomb concert I went to last September/October. Easily the best concert I have ever been to. So much love. Such incredible talent.

Dan Avidan is one of my heroes who I admire endlessly, and he is also my favorite vocalist of all time. He is also my favorite song writer of all time, and he is humble, honest, and incredible. Him and Arin on Game Grumps are fantastic and bring me joy literally every week, and I can’t thank them enough for that. Dan puts on one hell of a show.

I’d probably want to be an indoor cat. I’d love to get up to some cat adventures, but if we are gonna take a minute and step back and be REAL here, if I personally was a cat, you couldn’t trust me out in the world. Like, let me sleep 18 hours a day and knock your plates off the walls the other six, because that’s what my life is all about.

Stop. Nato. Stop.

I’ll download the demo. Just please. Let it go.

And it wasn’t even your GOTY last year.

Okay so listen, I listened to the song right when it came out, because I wanted to be cool and have an opinion on the Internet and stuff, but like... It’s not great, but I honestly don’t get all the Taylor Swift hate. Like, I do get it, like I understand why people think she is a shitty person and is two faced and is playing the victim or the myriad other 140-character thoughts I’ve seen on the internet about her and this goddamn song, but like... I dunno, she is just another pop artist. She is by far the most popular female pop artists right now (as far as I know???) but like... She’s fine. She is just doing what she has always down. Or at least has for as long as I’ve been aware of her.

The chorus of the song is pretty bad, but outside of that I think it’s alright.

Five stars my dude. 

The Checklist

Just a couple this week, first up...

Uncharted The Lost Legacy and the Power of Female Friendships — Cassidee Moser — IGN - http://www.ign.com/articles/2017/08/25/uncharted-the-lost-legacy-and-the-power-of-female-friendships

I haven’t even read this one yet since it does apparently contain spoilers for Uncharted the Lost Legacy, which I just downloaded to my PS4 this morning and have not played yet, but Cassidee Moser is a friend, one of the best in the biz, and when she gets to write pieces like this she is in her prime. I recommend it whole heartedly before even reading it, and I can’t wait to read it soon.

https://henrysaurus.tumblr.com — Henry Monteiro

Henry is a rad dude who used to be a part of BaiaZonaGamers with my good friend Barrett Courtney. He just started up a new blog and his first post is about Taylor Swift, and he asked for a shoutout, so of course. Go check it out, give it a follow.

I’m very tired. I am VERY ready for Game of Thrones, and I am ready to sit back, relax, and enjoy a nice evening to myself.

Thank you all. From the bottom of my heart. For your viewership. For your support. For everything. 

Much love.

Keep it real.