#i really miss the DS era a lot

[miiversian]

[hearthomelesbian]

sometimes you play an older game and its not very good and you think "wow nostalgia was really carrying most ppls feelings on this one". BUT. sometimes instead you play an old game and its pokemon emerald <3

[harksness]

Agatha Reader Insert Blurb (SFW)

Ok idk how many ppl are gonna read this but pls I would love for this to be a bit of a discussion for how people would apply this to themselves/their little pleasures.

Agatha is really good at staying up to date with things as the times change. She needs to make sure she fits in so she doesn't rouse any suspicion, right? So she has to, for survival. Fashion trends, politics, current events, and so on she's on top of.. But she's not good at staying up to date with music. She's horrible about it. You needed to explain everyone from Nirvana to Britney Spears to Billie Eilish to her.

When the 70s hit, she fell in love with that era and hasn't left it. The Cure, Elton John, David Bowie, Fleetwood Mac, (heavy on Fleetwood Mac), and she just hasn't really kept up since. She's listened to Rumors on repeat since it was released. (Just from vibes alone I feel like she'd love Dreams and probably crushed on Stevie Nicks.)

When you two start dating and you realize this, you think it's so cute. You listen to all of her favorite albums and songs, and love to listen to her stories from the concerts she's gone to. She ends up being a bit of a music dork, she loved going to concerts back in the day but as her favorite artists grew older and slowed down with touring she stopped going to shows.

So you introduce her to more music to bring that love back out of her. (Going off of my favorite musicians) she loves Weezer (Only in Dreams!!), Green Day (LAST NIGHT ON EARTH??), Bastille (Icarus, The Anchor, Warmth??) Chappell Roan, and unexpectedly, Britney Spears!! Also specifically Dragula by Rob Zombie. ("Dig through the ditches and burn through the witches" it should be her badass theme song lmao) (Feel free to add on in the comments w your favorite artists + songs you think she'd like!!)

She'll always go back to her old music taste, but you do notice her peppering in some songs you introduced to her and humming Pink Pony Club to herself.

You bought general admissions tickets to see your favorite artist and surprised her with them. And she's so excited, a wide smile on her face and eyes scrunched up in the cutest way. She looks up the set list to make sure she knows every song.

Because even though she's really good at staying up to date with most things, some stuff slips through the cracks. Or she doesn't have time for all of it. But it's easy for you to see just how much she enjoys discovering things she's missed out on, curiosity seeping through her voice as her wondering eyes light up with interest and it just really tugs on your heart. So you're always trying to find little things she doesn't know about yet.

Poptarts? She's like tf are those let me try them now. She loves the cookies and cream flavor but can only eat one because she thinks they're too sugary. You show her your old DS from when you were young? She gets addicted to Animal Crossing, Agnes is her favorite villager and she loves having you sit and watch her play. Tik Tok? She gets weirdly into Reddit stories. She tries to deny it and calls them stupid while she goes to find part two. Then continues to gossip about the story with you. Then points out everything that makes it obviously fake. (Add any more in the comments that relate to you or you'd just see from her!)

I just feel like Agatha has devoted over three hundred years to magic and big, huge things and adventures that she never gets to really indulge in the little pleasures in life. She has a lot of them to catch up on. While she tries to deny having any interest in it, she really does love when you show her the fun, pointless little things she's missed out on and just a sweet way the two of you really bond.

[cupcraft]

Ranboo rebrand stream important stuff in one single post!:

if anything i missed pls rb and add on!

chat etiquette! They are going to be more strict with this (but not for new chatters honest mistakes).

Ban 101 -> the number 1 rule:

racism, antisemitism, homophobia, transphobia, discrimination. Instant ban, no excuse. Even bigoted jokes! 0 tolerance! you will be banned from even viewing the streams. This even counts on doing it on other streamer's chats/platforms if found out!

More rules: be funny (please!) and chill and kind and use emotes (including BTTV), dont spam chat (will be fixed/enforced bc of past issues),

other tidbits/news:

the vtuber/stuff will evolve over time, there are different vtuber outfits/costumes planned (ex they have an mcc outfit already!), the room in the background will change, they will be reaching out to ppl for collabs (feel free to recommend people but do not spam their chats!), planning to do more irl streams (will be weird/experimental and they will go wild! They will be making weird stuff!), they also have plans that they are excited to tell and its been a long time coming (this may be the cake video but i couldnt tell in stream), ranboo bakes a cake 2 will be coming TOMORROW on youtube (23 mins and incredible! they laughed at themself), ranboo plans to do experimental stuff on youtube (they have gotten into film lately!), founder's cut of gen 1 of genloss will be coming out 2-3 months ?? date/end of year, the vtuber ranjacket will be a part of the merch drop prototype at vidcon (physical jacket!), will be doing competitive/events with people (like organized little thing) (content/what it is undetermined) and he wants it to be obscure and random, ranboowaslive will start to ramp up a bit (more clips/compilations to come esp if you dont enjoy long vod watching), ranboo will be eating a nintendo DS cartridge live on stream (a joke!), MORE SURPRISES KEPT AS A SECRET + tiny plans in the works, they are moving into the new place/still have boxes to unpack (vtuber lore), he may finish the last of us part 2, subathon (really like back to back fun streams/long streams/playthrough of long games like omori) in january probably, splatoon may return,

What does the new era mean/qna stuff?

talking about old content is fine as long as you recognize that it is the PAST and not the kind of content ranboo makes now. Do not "put them back in the box".

Vtuber: will not be used all the time. They will do facecam streams too. Depends on how he feels.

why the r800: the 8 looks like a b LMAO

this is just the start of rebrand. He will re-establish a lot, things will be easier to find/reorganized, slowly over the weeks things will be changing.

what will happen tothe alt twitter (ranaltboo)?: new pfp, same energy (see below my shitty sc). art creds to mochi!

not only just a rebrand for him and the look of the content. But also it is a rebrand of how they act around and view their own content. they may not be as in the community as he has been (liking fanart/in chat/etc.) out of recommendation from people! If ranboo needs to be aware of something THEY HAVE PEOPLE to make him aware of important issues/emergencies and they will be focusing more on themself and the content overall. they are thankful to be allowed to do this, as they dont want to keep seeing things they dont want to see/have that anxiety. Less scrolling = more content!

They will probably have longer streams again!

will move to more mature jokes/phrases and may have content labels on the streams. Overall, streams will be pg-13 mostly.

TITS stands for twitch integrated throwing system [insert ranboo's giggle here]

All proceeds donated to ranboo's channel only go to charity! Not to them at all! They have a list of charities that he supports and will be changed 1-3 months at a time like usual!

Please make stuff. This is how he gets ppl who edit and the emote makers/artists. Not forced. Just encouraging ppl who make stuff to make stuff and he appreciates it and loves it! Even if it is not about him just make it! AND SUPPORT ARTISTS BOOBERS!

[ghenry]

What do you think of GHMs more "Mainstream" titles such as LC, SoTD and NMH3 compared against their more underground works like Killer7, Silver Case and NMH1. I find the latter has a sense of mystique and weirdness that's missing from the former when the studio seemed pigeon-holed in a brand of "Sex, Violence and quirky"

I've been meaning to write about this here, so good question! I gave it a lot of thought after finding a JPN copy of Killer Is Dead and seeing this within the box;

Here's a quote of Suda reflecting on the production of said game;

Suda was not interested in eroticism when it came to his company's games. However, the more mainstream games GHM made (without his direction) were full of instances that were little more than eye candy. Sex appeal for the sake of it. And much of that was against Suda's will;

Paula running around in a thong (and even tits out a couple times if you played the NA version) throughout Shadows of the Damned also reminds me of Tim Rogers recalling his time working at Grasshopper as a designer in the late 2000s. He sat in a lot of meetings with Suda talking to EA and mentioned a time Suda talked about a save function idea he thought of while reflecting on Travis always using a toilet to save in the NMH games.

An early idea was Garcia going to bed with a woman every time he had to save. This was likely when the game was still going to be open world-ish and Garcia was single. From how Tim Rogers talked about this, it was pretty much the only idea Suda had that EA actually showed interest in. Obviously this idea never panned out, instead saving being delegated to a little demon that poops to signify a saved game. Funny that it connects to NMH's toilet save function in that way.

Something else worth bringing up would be the "gigolo missions" from Killer Is Dead. This also derived from a concept Suda had for Shadows of the Damned where Garcia was gonna take girls out on dates, bring flowers, and it'd actually be cute and romantic. At least, from how he described it.

(These screenshots are from Feel the Magic, a DS game where you played mini-games as you tried to win the heart of a girl throughout the story)

This idea was repurposed for Killer Is Dead, but, according to Suda, the sexual aspects of it were conjured up by Hideyuki Shin, the game's director. Therefore, it devolved into x-ray glasses, staring at boobs, and giving gifts to a robot that repeated animations. A cannibalization of the original concept.

Suda seemed afraid of Grasshopper's reputation being mutated into an identity he didn't consent to. Sex appeal is not something he really thinks about when it comes to making games. It's not his style;

The only times Suda has shown sexuality in the games he directed is when it's discomforting or deeply disturbing, almost never for eye candy.

I still appreciate games like Shadows of the Damned, Killer Is Dead, and Lollipop Chainsaw. As much as this era of GHM was railroaded to chasing some mainstream trends and trying too hard to be quirky, they still had unique aspects that help them stand out above other games of the same subgenre. But I can't help but notice a fissure between these games and the ones he actually directed. The nuance, mystery, and thought-provoking stories are most prominent when he's the one directing.

I'm not going to fault people for liking eroticism and such in video games. I've played plenty of horny games too, and there's obviously an appeal there. But anyone still expecting that from Suda is barking up the wrong tree. Looking at how he's been handling everything since 2018 makes it even sadder when you reflect how these publishers tried cramming Grasshopper Manufacture into this box they didn't want to be in.

One last thing I have to retort, though. I don't lump No More Heroes 3 with the quirky "mainstream" games the way you did in the question. Sure, NMH3 definitely went for a more mainstream marketing plan and the game got super silly at times, but it still has an interesting narrative with a ton of nuance. Way more than any GHM game between 2010-2016. Hence my 4+ hour long analysis of the game;

Many people even rejected this game outright because the eroticism and scantily-clad female cast was mostly absent. This was likely expectations they built after experiencing games like NMH2, SotD, LC, etc.

Speaking a bit more on the sense of eroticism, it's funny to think how that was admittedly present in NMH1, obnoxiously expanded upon in NMH2, and then mostly done away with in NMH3. Going as far as turning Naomi--and her balloon tits--into a goddamn tree!

However, I don't believe Suda turned Naomi into a tree for the sole purpose of removing her sex appeal. I believe this just further accentuates how that aspect is not something he's interested in or finds important for the game itself. He likely didn't even think of it that way, but instead "Hey, she should be a tree now."

And then there's Kimmy, whose death was not only a very harrowing moment in the game, it was also depicted in a sexual manner. Similar to Bad Girl's death in the original NMH. Note the motions and angles in her death scene.

Like I said, this rather disturbing sense of sexuality is more Suda's vibe. And I'm happy to see he hasn't lost that edge, so many years later. Anyway, thanks for the question! I had a lot of fun writing out this answer.

[nowoyas]

I'm interested in Harvest Moon but I hardly know anything about it. Could you point me to the games you'd recommend? Or just give me general information about it? If not, no problem :)

ALRIGHT now that I've slept and worked I can address this.

tldr: friends of mineral town, magical melody, tree of tranquility OR animal parade. honorable mentions to the rune factory series and "innocent life: a futuristic harvest moon".

the FIRST thing you need to know is that there's two Harvest Moon franchises out there. the bokujou monogatari games are generally what people mean when they think of harvest moon--this was the name for the english localizations of bokujou monogatari BEFORE 2014. the short version is, the people who handled translating the game to english were the ones who owned the "harvest moon" name, NOT the people actually making the games, so when they stopped working together, that localization team decided to take the name and make games under it to take advantage of the series' popularity. after 2014, if you're looking for bokujou monogatari games, you're looking at the story of seasons games. (as an odd bonus, this means that any remakes that come out nowadays are called "story of seasons" followed by that game's subtitle, making it easy to differentiate.) a lot of the modern harvest moon games DO feel like they were just made to capitalize on the name--they're missing a lot of what I personally feel is key aspects of the farm life sim genre, like content, and characters. see harvest moon one world for an example of this

as a good rule of thumb if you're just getting into the genre or coming from stardew valley: don't play harvest moon after 2014. if you're curious and would like to, absolutely don't make it your entry into the genre, and ideally don't pay for it if you do play them.

a note: if you are playing earlier games/not playing the remakes of a specific game, you often cannot gay, and there is a different version for male or female protagonists. as a rule of thumb, play the version for the set of characters you want to be romance options. the version with the male protagonist will usually also be less polished--the girl version was an afterthought, but they couldn't do patches back then, so they patched those games for the girl version releases.

an additional note: many games after the era of "harvest moon" and "the same harvest moon game but for girls" come in pairs. an example would be island of happiness and sunshine islands--the same general gameplay and usually the same protagonist, same set of characters give or take a few, different story and sometimes different location. the second in a pair generally tends to be preferred because it tends to be the "refined" version.

AS FOR STARTING POINTS:

if you're coming from stardew valley or another more recent game in the genre eg. coral island, those stem from a clone of early harvest moon games. stardew valley was created to clone those games as a way for eric barone to practice game development, and he added features that he wanted those games to have. (see this reddit link--concernedape being the game dev). for a similar experience to that as a way to branch out, friends of mineral town is a really solid entry point into the series. it's a lot of people's favorite for good reason--while it has the genre-typical grind of a gameplay loop, the characters are memorable, the world is well-fleshed out, and it doesn't try to do any major gimmicks for the console it's on. (some of my favorites in the series fall victim to this--island of happiness/sunshine islands is a pair that is HEAVILY DS touch screen reliant, to the point where you move and use basically all your tools with the touch screen. I enjoy the games, but I understand why many people don't.) this one has a remake, but you can also emulate it fairly easily.

magical melody is another entry I would highly recommend. I think it has a really good balance of having a specific target audience without making it feel inaccessible to those outside the target audience. (by which I mean, it feels aimed for kids, but not in such a way that it's annoying to play if you're older than ten). the art style is a bit cutesier than most, but I think it really works for what it is! it's for gamecube and/or wii and doesn't currently have a remake, although some suspect that it's the next one up for it. if you emulate it, don't get the wii version. you can't choose your character in that one, so you're stuck playing the male mc and only able to date the bachelorettes.

if you're able to emulate or otherwise access wii games, tree of tranquility or animal parade are also really good choices. these are in the same game pairing, so you have the same general character set in either. animal parade is considered the better one from what I've seen, and you have four (4!!!) protagonists to choose from, which is REALLY rare for farm sims, which normally just give you either boy or girl, if anything at all. (more recent games do allow for reasonable customization and the like. I haven't recommended any here because I haven't played many that I feel like really shine, and I'm not a fan of the art style that story of seasons has been leaning towards recently, as well as certain gameplay decisions made to appeal to younger players.) it has a good sense of progression, and despite being for the wii, I don't recall it leaning super heavily on motion controls or anything of the sort, and I feel like it has a good cast.

honorable mentions: rune factory and innocent life. these are both spinoffs of the harvest moon series. rune factory is more combat/rpg-focused, and in my experience, it tends to feel like you have more of an impact on other characters. innocent life is for the psp and I adore it. you're a robot. you can't romance anyone but it's fun and I don't see people talk about it.

[boyslit-moving]

just rambles and thoughts

i think having to wait 36 hours for my phone to dry out kicked some sort of clinginess to social media and just my phone in general. i mightve been extra clingy with the despair/disappointment/self-loathing from the no longer having a job thing

it also completely blew my mistplay streak which was over 430 days but like. also i dont really care? if we could actually get better points for long streaks that'd be one thing but it's literally only two points a day no matter what so there's no incentive for a streak.

hm. anyway i guess i mean i've not been on tumblr as much either, on average. partner and i are watching a playthrough of ghost trick by one of our favorite streamers and it's a delight. i miss the DS era, a lot

fingers crossed the snap approval comes in soon. im running out of gatorade powder and i would like for us to have some vegetables, soup and fruit that bf doesnt feel guilty eating -_- and i want some chcocolate...............

i think i've been betterish? recently at not eating so much processed sugar. trying to eat more vegetals. and fruit and granola in my yogurt. i do have to have something packaged next to my bed for waking up and taking meds tho. if i dont eat my stomach starts dragging a sharp knife very loudly along the lining of my stomach in a threatening manner

still need to improve vegetal intake tho. i dont like most things. carrots are hard to chew and i can only eat peppers and celery cooked. corn is blegh. i maybe eat too many green beans but like thats good for me ig

idk. gonna eat my yogurt. no more cascadia farms granola, i dont want rice krispies messing up my crunchy texture >:(

[bryastar]

word salad #4

happy twilight Thursday!

today is a work day and something I'm thinking about right now is, yes just because this may be a daily blog doesn't necessarily mean I need to go into full detail about how every part of my days go. otherwise I'd be ranting about work for a vast majority of these entires.

so instead I wanna talk about... retro 3D platformers

a while back I came across a game called Cavern of Dreams. it claims itself to be inspired by retro 3D platformers. it features low poly graphics and textures with simple lighting effects, reminiscent of late N64 games. the gameplay feels very much like if Conker's Bad fur day was lighthearted and wholesome. what's also neat is camera controls are more reminiscent of later games, Mario sunshine and Zelda wind waker immediately come to mind for me. I've gotten through the first part of the game and really loving it so far, and the controls are probably the best I've seen in a long time.

but while thinking about this, I sorta made a bit of a realization... growing up, games like this were referred to as adventure games instead of 3d platformers. heck, I don't think I've seen the term "platformer" until around the mid 2000s. even Mario games I think we're more well known as action adventure games, or Zelda games being a puzzle adventure. PC adventure games tend to be point and click games, which is vastly different than what consoles typically offered. I personally think that NSMB for the DS may be in part why we now make this distinction as the 2D Mario games play vastly different than their 3D games, notably being easier to pick up and play.

but while on this thought train, I sorta began to wonder what sort of similarities that 3D platformers from this era had vs a point and click adventure game. what I ended up deciding on was: exploration. point and click games, you topically make progress by exploring the world around you and finding clues and solving puzzles by exploring the environment and talking to npcs. 3d platformers is... actually kinda the same, while typically focusing on item collecting, many similar elements show up such as exploring worlds and finding ways to progress by interacting with the levels and different characters.

while on that thought about collecting items...

a lot of late 90s and early 2000s platformers would feature collecting a long list of items. one prominent example is donkey Kong 64, which tends to be known as the game that killed collectathons. I have some thoughts on but I'll save for another entry, but I guess I will say that calling such games a collectathon very much misses the point of what the game is actually about. is it a game where you are sent out into a level and made to collect all the random items scattered on the ground, or is it a game where you're friends have been captured and your hoard of bananas have been stolen and you must rescue your friends and recover your bananas in order to progress while learning new moves and meeting interesting creatures who either help you or try to intervene. I dunno about most, but I like the latter premise better. (or maybe I out much more weight on a storyline for a game as opposed to the gameplay)

I hope this entry wasn't too hard or confusing to read, I guess I'm mostly rambling and jotting down bits and pieces of what's in my mind when I get a couple minutes of free time.

uhm..

pineapples (I need a better way to end these aa)

[katyspersonal]

Re: This post

First off, congrats on three years, girlie!! This is so cool, man. I love seeing Soulsborne games change people’s worlds and give them passion and inspiration for years afterwards <333

(Now hurry up and get to over ten years like me you scrub 😎😎)

Asfghajsdg but in all seriousness, I love that we both started getting active around the BB tumblr fandom around the same time, because even though I was a Soulsborne junkie, I had never found a stable group of lore-friends to enjoy it with, and throughout 2020-2021, I was just drifting aimlessly after watching my old fandom community collapse.

I had been only using tumblr for random shit on another account before this one, but one day I looked up something about the Doll and Gehrman, kinda wondering if the whole “Even the Doll” creep-theory had any other interpretations. I just didn’t like the idea that Miyazaki had written his main “sad old man” of Bloodborne to be a weirdo because it didn’t sound…right? Something felt really off lol. His “sad old men” types usually are dark because of their grave mistakes that led to the deaths of people they cared about/innocent people.

It’s always more tragic than it is gross, and Miyazaki is big on that type of story-telling. He likes his refinement. Sure enough, that gave me the hunch that the Doll wasn’t…ya know.

And voila! I stumble across your brilliant post! I think it was one of the things that made me finally create a Soulsborne blog because I wanted to reblog it. I’m not sure if that’s the exact timeline, but it was definitely part of what drew me over here.

And now here we are, going strong, trying to move on after going through fandom drama hell, and it’s been three years!

Honesty? You are kicking ass <3

Girl you say this, but at the almost same time, Fantomette also started scouting the fandom and figured she wanted to stick with me over that post :pensive: That post makes me extremely nostalgic! It was just... so chill, so nice, so leveled. 0% fatigue. Where did that nice version of me go and who is this angry unlikeable bitch typing this ask response now? xD

But yeah, overall, Soulsborne games are just written in such a way that it genuinely helps to know all of them on at least basic story level to understand each of them individually! The more I learned about reoccuring themes in other games in the series, the better my lore understanding became. You know I would not do shit on Research Hall and Deep Sea without DS3, or better grasp ER characters without entire DS trilogy! If you don't want to play, just learn their themes and story, I promise it helps a lot!

Anyways thank you for the nice words; I had not even noticed how fast the time went by! It feels like I have not done "enough" considering three years span, but maybe I am underestimating myself and focusing too much comparing amount of my drawings compared with faster and more talented artists. After all, fandomry is first about discussions and passion, and I've had nothing BUT that on the way x) So yeah, let's just give up and die watch fandom crash and burn. Because, you know what? THE very "system" that made it crash and burn to begin with will also, eventually, crash and burn, and something good will sprout from the ruins. And we won't miss it! Except, that good era will also crash and burn eventually. And then the thing that destroyed it will. And then what people build from THOSE ruins will. And then another thing... and another thing... and another thing.....

STILL I want you to be there for me through every turn of the downward spiral, you chicken <3 *stabs u affectionately*

[tomyo]

Hometown Story

The expectations of this game can be summarized as C grade ds game to awkward mobile game era game to one of those games that they really mean it when it takes time to warm into.

Given my years with Harvest Moon/Story of Seasons, I was genuinely expecting a much more in depth experience but came to an admittedly mid experience. When you find out it was also released on iphone with minimal downgrade, it suddenly makes it clear why I was able to buy a sealed copy for $4 . It isn't bad, it's a different focus and while admittedly too bare bones at the start, once I found a good gamefaqs guide for event triggers I found my rhythm. You really don't have to do much in the game, walk around, pick up everything you find, maybe buy some stuff from the village but definitely come to buy from the 2pm merchant, and stop in your shop to check a bunch of people out every so often.

Things I wish I better knew starting out:

Your tables are not limited, the game has you start out by just dropping one down but you can in fact immediately put more down. My dumb ass went in game weeks with just one item for sale awkwardly waiting around for someone to want it thinking I had to desperately wait for the merchant to have more.

The day doesn't start till you open your shop so if you want to reorganize a little first, do it at 6am.

Sometimes events are triggered by putting up key items to be sold on shelves. I didn't want a rando to buy it but the won't. However, also put it into unreachable corners since you won't need to restock those shelves often. I would definitely cross check guide info on what items go to what event if you dgaf about spoilers like me because sometimes you'll get them for characters you haven't even met yet which takes up valuable space. Then there's ones like the masterpiece which might require in game months of sitting around for their event to trigger.

Fill your store with fruits and sewing kits initially as some characters require that for unlock.

ALWAYS. BUY. WOOD. I was so used to wood being such an easy resource but this game has made it hell for me to wait to get 5 pieces. It can only be bought from the merchant and while he stocked it often at the start, suddenly he never had it. I'm making so much money but I'm stuck on level two because of not having wood.

Thus far I've gone a 12 hour playthrough probably with some gratuitous pausing to read several half finished sources to know that I'm supposed to do. I'm the type of person who like to tailor a guide for my HM style games so my ADHD doesn't overwhelm me trying to keep up with all the tasks so having a lot of very barren wikis and gamefaqs is stressful to say the least. It's been more of a game of patchwork this time. Speaking of said ADHD, the point was I'd say I've made it about half way through the story. I'm at a very awkward point where I feel like I've finished some quest lines while still not having met some pivotal characters to the story. So far I think I'm missing 7 story based characters. It is pretty annoying that the cutscene activation is fickle, I'll follow everything but sometimes it just won't activate that day. I'm barely one month through and I'd even say it's possible to see that whole game in just that one month, maybe two at most but its dependent on things you can't control. Multiple items sit on my shelf waiting to introduce a character to me for weeks in game while I had two item based cutscenes for a character back to back. I mean like literally the moment I placed the next item down after having watched the first. The imbalance in that can only make me think I might end up getting stuck in a slow down after this point.

I personally would like to see the story through if I can. I've been mostly playing this while sick at this point so I've had the time to rip through it.

I think the most unexpected thing about it is how the scenes kind of actually stick with me. As a long time fan of the series, I feel like I've always had a surface level relationship with villagers in farm games. I would say older ones give relatable struggles but don't get too deep into them, maybe even the closest being A Wonderful Life but that's a series I consumed as a kid when a lot of things went over my head and admittedly a lot of my backlog is just catching up on a series that admittedly, looks to have gotten extremely fluffier as it went on. Olive Town has not been that deep. I think one of the bachelors has a somewhat deep plot but since I'm not romancing him, I'm just off with my horsegirl girlfriend having cute dates and befriending the locals when I'm not drowning in makers. And then on the other hand theres Stardew Valley which for some reason only hit me in the last year how like, all the townspeople are just as terrible as the villians.

Maybe that's a stretch but it slapped me in the face when I realized the reason why I spent so much time on my farm was because a lot of them had pretty unlikable traits. So in all the places to feel emotionally invested, I did not expect the half baked spinoff to be it. Yet something about how the mayor and his wife are actually kinda cute with each other or how the mayor's wife coyly has an unaging friend wanting to bring her puddings, or the kinda real moments where the fisherman and the girl from the sea are clearly in an intimate moment and I'm let to realize this isn't even a rival moment like it would've been in some other game. This is it, you are irrelevant to the relationships these characters have.

I think maybe there was some really good power to that. The fact that it seems intentionally most of the romancible npcs are the last characters to arrive in town (two still have not moved in for me) but that you aren't in control of the relationship and can't even date till after the main storyline I think is actually a function that would benefit it's parent series. Imagine a Bokumono where you spent the majority of the time focusing on your farm, building the relationship you have with the town, and saving the day (the town, the harvest goddess, the farm etc) and then after all that some of the friends you met turned out to be people who might like you as more than that. I get why the formula is what it is, this series started in the 90s as a simple 'work hard and raise a family' type of life sim narrative and while it's been modernized that's still at its core but when we talk about franchise shake ups, I could see this being a really good one. I think to some extent people look at the marriage candidates as a check list goal rather than characters to bond with and sometimes that dating check mark even made me not really associate with other villagers outside of benefit. I can't say I'm still not doing that to some extent but the fact the character cutscenes are the progression checks has some satisfying merit to them. I can't ignore the village anymore and it's made me appreciate the characters beyond their benefit to my part in the story. How do I put this, I like the idea of being with Reina in PoOT because I like the idea of her with me and it also feels wrong that she's the only person in the whole town who lives in a basement and I could change that. I only ever saw Rick as an absolute dick as a kid because well he was but also out of some competition to win over Karen and I could never understand why she would go for him. In games like Animal Parade, I'm debating my spouse based off of what kids they'd have moreso in the way I'd miss out on content rather than think about how those characters work with each other or why they'd like each other at all. But hell, again I see this fucking probs a mermaid and fisherman and the way he's bothered she likes being with him and its like okay wow fuck, I'm feeling things for these baby faced sprites.

So like yeah, this was low key working up to talking about the big spoilery plot twist that they kill the local boy. He's literally every generic child boy character to exist in one of these games. He's excitable and adventurous and like, I acually hate kids y'know? But fuck if they didn't masterfully try to fuck with your heart to grow attached to him. Of course they use him for a bunch of like, early level questlines. He's basically a tutorial kid but then the town starts to expand and he gets some fellow snot nosed kids in town, a girl he likes and a 'in the shadow of my manly dad' best friend and y'know conveniently he's always there in storylines. His mother has a few about her restaurant and he's there fucking up making a sign because he's a hyper and excitable 9 year old or something. His sister is interested in medicines so one of those episodes revolves around him. Pretty much everything related to his Peter being sidekick to his grizzled shonen warrior dad has him chilling in the background as well or if there's a crowd around some newcomer of course he's apart of it. I applaud how well they probably actually fucked with the few who played this who then had to deal with a dead kid. Digs up a whole bunch reading The Bridge to Terabithia as a teen.

Like I said, I'd love to make it to that point if the spread of content last well. I don't think I'll play much after this weekend of the game if I don't but I'd say in the end $4 is worth the experience I got.

At first the town looks garishly barren. I still can't fully say it looks good either. A lot of areas start to get a couple of houses in it as it goes on and it really changes a lot though I feel the Town Square needed some much more in it. The map is confusing as hell and the fixed angles are nauseating at first but I've mostly worked out a rhythm. It was hard to stick through it this far if I'm honest but I think it was worth it.

[starlight-time-machine]

Week in Review

04/13/2025 – 04/19/2025

Sunday

Hmmmm

Monday

Finally had time to sit down and play Mario & Luigi: Brothership today… For context, Bowser’s Inside Story on the DS was the First game I ever played to completion, and I have a lot of fond memories of it and how it was my first real foray into gaming. I remember one lunch break where I was trying to beat the trash can boss with my friend, and we would quickly switch off who was holding the DS depending on what move the boss was making so that whoever was better at defending against it could control the Bros. I watched a playthrough of Partners in the Time back in the day, and then when I had money and a 3DS I devoured Dream Team and the Superstar Saga remake and 100%’d the Bowser’s Inside Story remake and had so much fun with all of it. Needless to say, I’m a huge fan of this series, and it really broke my heart when the studio that made them shut down…only for it to suddenly be rebuilt when they announced Brothership in a Direct out of nowhere. I’ve had it on hold at the library for months now, so it’s been a long road to get here, and you can imagine my excitement at getting to play a new entry in the Mario & Luigi series after so many years…

But now that I’m finally playing it…I’m sorry to say that I’m a little disappointed. I know that the long cutscenes at the beginning of an RPG can get a bit boring and unwieldy, but they’re still really necessary to set up the stakes and make you invested in the conflict that’s happening… Here we just have Mario and Luigi isekai’d into some random world, and all the conflicts of that world are just plainly presented to them and they agree to help out almost as a matter of course, not because they have much personal stake in it. Yeah, sure, they have the nebulous goal of finding their way home, but there’s no real tension in any of it. This feels like a game that’s just going through the motions of its predecessors without understanding what made those games engaging in the first place, but I suppose I shouldn’t have expected much when this game wasn’t made by the original studio…

Also, I don’t want to be mean, but the music is so boring and generic…I miss Yoko Shimomura so bad… I don’t care for the character designs either…Connie is cute, but I lowkey hate the socket faces of all the NPCs (give me a million Toads any day) and how they clearly tried to make each island’s inhabitants themed to their island, but with how monochrome everything is it’s hard to even tell the difference between them all anyway. Just varying shades of ugly. The islands are so boringly designed, too – oh you just chose a single gimmick and designed a whole island around it? Okay. All of this coupled with the extremely unmemorable dialogue just makes it so I can’t bring myself to care about this new world at all, which in turn means that I don’t care about the story in the slightest. It’s just generic “bad guy doing bad stuff to some innocents so we have to help” business. I don’t like most of the enemy designs either…not to keep nostalgia posting but I miss the design sense from the Partners in Time and Bowser’s Inside Story era…

I’m going to power through this game because I finally got my hands on it and I feel obligated to play it all the way through, but I’m just really sad about it.

Tuesday

I guess I would describe Brothership as having a 3D Mario game vibe, where you’re just going to different islands/levels, doing whatever challenge you face there, and leaving… The writing feels way weaker because I don’t care for any of these characters or their basic and generic struggles, I’m just going through the motions of dotting every i and crossing every t and completing the missions and side quests set out for me without any personal investment in seeing these characters succeed. It doesn’t feel like a grand RPG adventure like the other ones…I feel like they kind of shot themselves in the foot with this setting of multiple different little islands with their own gimmicks. It just turns into a total gimmick-fest without the room to let each island really breathe and gain an identity beyond their theming. I can’t help but compare it to Origami King (much like I did when I played the Thousand-Year Door remake) – that game also had the setup of “go to a number of different locations and surpass their challenges to restore a piece of the world”, as many Mario RPGs do, but in that game we really got to soak in the atmosphere and dare I say the cultures of each location, and each section reached a satisfying peak with a proper fight against whoever was causing trouble throughout this part of the story. Here we kind of just get dropped back to an island I don’t really care about to fight some guys I don’t really care about, and there’s very little narrative cohesion for me. It just feels like they came up with the gameplay setting first, and then wrote in a story to justify it…

The way they’ve streamlined the ocean exploration process just makes the whole thing feel entirely perfunctory. Like this could’ve just been a Galaxy 2 esque World Map with what little engagement mapping out my current path is giving me. What’s even the point of going through the currents and telescoping onto islands and reefs pointed out for you on the map anyway? It’s just extra unnecessary set dressing for you to get through before you jump into the “level” and do some actual gameplay. This game certainly is no Wind Waker.

Wednesday

Ugh

Thursday

Agh

Friday

Ngh

Saturday

Watched the Drag Race finale today… I really loved Lexi’s and Onya’s solo performances (the return of the rollerskates…Onya’s amazing vocals…), but that was about it for the episode lol. Realistically, I wasn’t expecting Lexi to win the season (it was definitely Onya’s season to lose), but since her Alter Ego lip sync was my favorite of the season, I was hoping that she would make it to the final lip sync at least. But considering how many tricks she had up her sleeve, I guess the conspiracy theory is that she would’ve handily beat Onya in a head to head lip sync, and production couldn’t have that because they wanted Onya as the winner. But that’s just pure speculation on my part, so I’ll just say congrats to Onya and goodbye to season 17. Thanks for a…middling season of Drag Race, I guess? There were some fun bits of drama and some good outfits, but because I never really cared about anyone as much as Lexi (and Lexi didn’t exactly have an amazing run) I didn’t find myself all that invested in the season. (And the two things I mainly watch Drag Race for, the runways and the lip syncs, were honestly kind of lacking , so that was another reason.) But with All Stars 10 coming up soon, there’ll be plenty more Drag Race to be mildly entertained by in my future.

[ghastigiggles]

IM NOT NORMAL ABOUT OKAMI PLEASE ELABORATE

-🥯

OK so if you dont know what Okami is and why it getting a sequel almost 20 years after its initial release is such a big deal;

Okami was a game made by Clover Studios under Capcom's ownership that follows the story of the Goddess Amaterasu in wolf form restoring an edo-era Nippon with the power of art, companionship, and resolve, and it is a beautiful game that still makes me cry every time I play it (it's available on almost every platform. if you don't own this game SOMEWHERE you are missing out.)

Unfortunately Clover ended up shutting its doors and Capcom admin ended up fighting a lot with the game's director, Kamiya, alongside several other members of staff. While they had their own plans and thoughts for an Okami sequel, Capcom shut them down every time, and Okami became a cult classic for awhile. There was a spiritual successor by way of a DS game in OkamiDen, which follows Amaterasu's son, but it genuinely kinda kerfucked like All of the established canon and had (iirc) none of the original writing or directorial staff onboard. It was all the fandom really had and we still love it, but it's kind of wildly re-interpreted and rewritten to mesh a little better with the universe when possible.

Since the release of Okami HD on PC in 2017, there's been on and off whispers of a potential sequel, since Capcom seemed invested in porting the original release forward to keep it alive. Kamiya reportedly expressed interest, but little hope - until 2 years ago, when there was a video post with him and another writer (I'm so sorry I don't remember her name) saying that they had been in negotiations with Capcom to revive the series.

At that point a lot of the fandom didn't want to get our hopes up since the bad blood seemed to run deep.

Tonight at the Game Awards, it was announced that Kamiya is directing a hard-confirmed Okami Sequel.

I'm actively sobbing by the way so if the delivery here is fucked I'm so sorry I just. This game is THE game to me. It means everything. The fact that we actually will get new content for this thing that quite literally changed the trajectory of my fucking life is just. Oh my god

[glitch-in-the-code]

i had a wii u that i played the hell out of and it makes me really sad to hear people talk about it the way they do. like, sure, nintendo made a lot of bizarre decisions regarding it, but it also had so many good games despite that. it was an awkward console but i feel like neither gamers nor nintendo afforded it any grace and now because of it stuff like the miis are being phased out entirely because nintendo associates them with that awkward "failure" and wants to adopt professionalism. i miss the little game loading jingles and startup animations! i miss the miis! there was so much charm in the wii/ds and wii u/3ds era that's just gone now.

YES!!!! YOU UNDERSTAND COMPLETELY!!!!!

I miss booting it up and seeing the miis in the plaza!! I miss the fun miiverse posts, I miss the fun icons the games had!!

I played Minecraft on the Wii U for hours and apparently the game is considered rare on the console!

I honestly think the Wii U was a brilliant successor to the Wii and everyone was too blind to realize that

[probablygayattorneys]

While we're on the topic of the remake of Another Code

(⚠️ SPOILERS FOR THE WII SEQUEL PART OF THE GAME⚠️ I'm going to try to not get into it in too much detail but I'm still putting the warning up)

I personally never owned a Wii, and for the longest time I wasn't even aware there was a sequel, so I was very excited to experience it for the first time in the Switch remake. I played it completely with no prior knowledge at all and i thought it was nice! But after finishing the game and doing some research about the sequel, it turns out they especially changed a lot of stuff compared to the original Wii game. I think they changed more in the sequel than in the original DS game?

There were some changes that were pretty nice, like them adding a couple more characters of colour when previously, Ashely and her mom were the only non-white people in the whole cast. I also like some of the characters' redesigns way more than their original designs.

Some other changes were a bit understandable, I guess. Like the remake completely removing two extremely minor NPCs who only had like 2 or 3 lines. Sure, that's fine

The changes that surprised me the most though, was the game completely changing a major character's backstory. In the original game, the character is alive, but in the remake, they had them actually be dead the whole time. Their motivations are very different too. There's also a side story that got removed from the remake as well. I don't understand why they felt the need to drastically change so much

Again, as someone who never played the Wii sequel before, I thought the remake version was pretty good and I had fun with it! But after learning how much was changed, I do feel a teensy tiny bit disappointed since I was really looking forward to seeing what exactly I missed out on, but I can't really do that with the remake.

It's a good game, don't get me wrong!! But yeah if anyone wants to experience what the original story was like, it's best to play the DS and Wii versions or watch a playthrough on youtube. The Switch version is more of a retelling of the story

I actually haven't played the sequel yet (I was undergoing a treatment that severely affected my memory and starting a completely unknown puzzle game while in that state seemed like a great way to miss a Chekov's gun until it shot me in the face, and then during that time a new girl started at work and we were talking about our hobbies and I mentioned my love for DS-era puzzle games "like Ace Attorney or Trace Memory" and she lost her shit because she had played Trace Memory when she was younger but then forgotten it's name and had been trying to remember for ages, and then since I wasn't using my switch at the time, I lent it to her so she could play the remake and she still has it, so I'm just... logging hours in Sims while I wait for her to finish it) so this is helpful information to know! I definitely want my first experience with it to be actually playing it myself, so I'll wait until Karina is done (though I also told her she could play all the other puzzle games because so help me god I will BRUTE FORCE HER INTO MY INTERESTS) (though I think the one she wants to play the most next is Hotel Dusk since we literally work at a hotel, so we'll probably trade off DS for switch and I'll have the chance to play it then) and then look up a playthrough or something. That's interesting that they made so many changes and also makes me even more wary and protective of Hotel Dusk. I will Kill Anyone Who Touches It.

[melloggd]

Review: Another Code: R - A Journey into Lost Memories

CiNG • Nintendo • 2009 • Wii Read it on Backloggd: (x)

Its now been three years since I first beat this game, lazily playing it together with my roommate after we'd both individually beaten the original Another Code, and I still have a lot of bubbling thoughts about it. Out of the five games CiNG released in their Nintendo-exclusive era, the two Kyle Hyde games are the obvious critical darlings. Strikingly unique artstyle and distinct identity by way of Hold-DS-Sideways, mature themes tackled by memorable and well written characters, et cetera. Needless to say that the Another Code duology, one a crusty-feeling, short "tech demo"-type game for what kind of puzzles the DS can do, and its sequel locked away from the US and stuck on a region-locked console, was always going to be swept aside in comparison.

And, looking at the games in direct comparison to Hotel Dusk and Last Window, its also kind of understandable why less people are drawn to them. They lack that hook of a mature, intricate story, that feeling that what you're playing is something truly unforgettable. Yet...Another Code R really has been unforgettable, in a way that's been hard to articulate. What it lacks in heavy storytelling and investment, I feel it makes up for with atmosphere and just general vibes, much like the quirky DS game its following up on. The painterly landscapes, the soothing music, the cute bond shared between main characters Ashley and Matthew, all taking you back to a very "human" story, focusing on mental health and who you hold dear in life.

Playing the game is like taking your mindset back to summer vacation, without thoughts on how to pay your fees or what errands to run, what assignments are due...it's a game about you, and a friend, and how you're doing. Talking to each other. Helping each other. As simple as that sounds, it really does do a great job discussing that simple topic. "Friendship" is a broad theme that applies to every heroic story under the sun, and my point is less that Another Code R pioneers it above every one of its contemporaries, but rather that it doesn't also try to focus on saving the world, or uncovering a conspiracy, or so on. Its a slow, meandering, uninteresting, simple game - and I want you to read all of those adjectives as positives, because they're key to the game's cozy, laid-back and warm feeling.

That's not to say there's not some actual game in here too, of course. While a little less puzzle-heavy than the other CiNG games, it uses the Wii remote to some truly fantastic extremes with puzzles I'm now confident in saying no other developer would've come up with. The only thing I can think of this game doesn't utilize about the Wiimote is sending you clues to the mailbox - everything else, and I do mean everything, is up for grabs.

While solving puzzles and reading dialogue, much like Professor Layton, is part of setting the comfy experience, just being able to freely walk around Lake Juliet in general also goes such a long way in making the game truly click. Would the game be more convenient, less slow paced, with a fast-travel system, taking you to every "important" part of the game faster and "wasting less of your time"? Absolutely. But then, in my eyes, you're missing the point of the game: The slow burn of taking in the world.

Thus, there's honestly little I can say this game doesn't do right, because it knows very well what its trying to be. It will never reach the highs of Last Window or Hotel Dusk, because its not trying to do so. And in that sense, the game is perfect. Another Code: R is atmospheric, serene, calming and warm. Like a blanket, the appeal of it is not the grand mystery to be found by digging deeper into it, but the comfort that simply being near it can provide.

[Playtime: 22 hours] [Key Word: Healing]

[amagicdoctor]

hey no problem, i've been enjoying my ride here as well as the doc strange content i got from marvel! you know having characters that sound like actual people and with interesting lore around them. like you, the ds and mk writers have been giving me just that and i just...! hhh i've missed it. didn't realize how much i did since putting xmen behind me.

with how the x-staff overly relies on exterminating mutants to keep readers coming, there hasn't been any interesting lore about them or good worldbuilding after hox/pox. that entire "mutant culture" they keep bragging was like what? resurrection? racial slurs towards humans? nationwide cult-like mentality? a mutant religion? those were the only things mutantkind has done that set itself apart from humanity... it's all we got after 4 years

i've missed actually rooting for characters in a story, i really like clea rn for example. i felt nothing towards any of the main mutants in any of the series that came out; nobody from legion of x, xmen red, immortal xmen, new mutants, ... crazy but they are all self-centred asses going around twirling their thumbs and shooting themselves in the foooooot all hours of the day everyday

Aw I'm really happy to hear you're enjoying yourself here, thank you for saying so!! Having a fandom blog like this kind of eases the insanity that is canon, and I'm glad people are able to follow along.

You're definitely not alone with any of your thoughts, but I'm honestly over the Krakoan horrors by now 😅. Last summer when I first started reading, all the shock and horror hit me then but I'm good now. It is what it is. Again, diverting to fandom blogs and having friends to talk it through makes it all worthwhile, even if it is just mocking the current state of things.

Definitely hope you can find some healing in other comics! And Marvel isn't going to get it right every single time. I know a lot of people are quitting, especially some of my own friends, but I'm a very optimistic person and I find joy in so many things. So I'm still looking forward to the Fall of X era which does start this month. And there are a couple other series outside of the X-Men I'm looking forward to too. The FF haven't failed me yet and I'm catching up with DC too.