#i suck ass at the actual game but the characters are so important 2 me

[starbage]

got introduced to a silly little game called tf2. its pretty cool i guess

[dr-spectre]

So.... This game is 2 years old now huh?

Honestly... I don't think i have a TON to say about this game. It's just a great ass fucking video game that has given me a lot of fun and great memories!

This game came out during my final year of school, which is kinda funny considering that Splatoon 3 acts like a "finale" to a trilogy. It's interesting how those kinds of things work out eh? Splatoon 2 came out at the start of my secondary education, and Splatoon 3 came out at the tail end of my final year.

I remember thinking before the game came out, "why do we need a Splatoon 3? This is pointless, it's just more Splatoon 2." And then my mind was quickly changed once i got to play the Splatfest test fire and the actual game itself.....

I completed ROTM in such a short amount of time and i documented my reactions to my friends. Although i was spoiled in that Deep Cut had boss fights and Mr. Grizz was the final boss, ROTM still gave me a giant smile to my face all the way through. It was so fun, so charming and just a really good single player experience.

One of the things that i LOVE about Splatoon 3 is the vibe. I just love the location of Splatsville, i love the aesthetics, the lighting, the model improvements from Splatoon 2, the music, it's my favourite art style/aesthetic out of any of the Splatoon games by far. It just feels so polished, i don't know how to exactly describe it.

Also the fact that this game won best multiplayer game of 2022 over CALL OF DUTY! OVERWATCH 2 AND MULTIVERSUS MAKES ME SO GIDDY AND HAPPY!

PEOPLE GOT MAD ABOUT THIS AND THAT MAKES ME WANNA EVIL LAUGH! All of those fucking depressed and sad Call of Duty players who whine and complain about how "wahh modern gaming sucks!! There's no good games anymore wahhh!! It's all microtransactions wahhh!!" BITCH! SPLATOON 3 IS LITERALLY THE GAME YOU'VE BEEN ASKING FOR!! Yet you won't play it because it's on Nintendo huh? Yeah... You're a fucking PUSSY!! YOU'RE WEAK!! You're SCARED to be seen as less of a manly man!! You only wanna play games with oily dirty buff men.... Yet you call others who play games like Splatoon gay? Hmm..... Sounds like you're a wittle insecureeeeee!!!!

Have fun rotting in microtransaction hell you LOSERS!! GAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Anyways.... uh.... sorry....

I also fucking love Deep Cut too. I thought i wasn't gonna like these guys and i remember thinking when i first saw them "oh... okayyyy..."

But now? I love these bastards.

I love their dynamic and how they are bandits but they actually wanna help the people back in Splatsville. That is such a cool and unique take to have for Idol characters. The Squid Sisters are very cutesy and so are Off the Hook, but Deep Cut aren't. They are loud, messy, chaotic, in your face, rude, etc. They are about contrast and the character designers did a phenomenal job at conveying that theme via their backgrounds and looks.

Another thing that i love about Splatoon 3 is that it also acts as a celebration of things that have come before, Inkopolis Plaza and Square return as hubs, old colour combos from previous games act as loading screens, most of the music returns in the jukebox, it rewards long time fans for sticking around and for a long running franchise IT'S SUPER IMPORTANT to have that stuff!!!

Seeing the improvements in the model quality from Splatoon 1 to 3 genuinely makes me kinda emotional, it shows how far we've come in just a little under 10 years...

It really homes in on the point that... These characters, have grown up with us.... The Squid Sisters are about to reach their mid 20s, Pearl is nearly 30 fucking years old!!!

And the last thing i wanna bring up before i talk about the Grand Fest...

...Is Side Order.

This fucking DLC... My god... Being able to experience it by myself and just enjoy the stuff i was seeing, being able to SCREAM AND CRY AS MUCH I WANT WAS SO IMPORTANT TO ME DUDE!

When i got to the 10th floor in the tutorial and i saw Marina Agitando staring me down.... I did the loudest gasp a human could possibly do and my jaw was hung to the floor for a solid MINUTE!

Marina's first fucking dev diary made me cry and scream, THAT IS NOT A JOKE!!!! THESE CHARACTERS ARE THAT IMPORTANT TO ME!

And the final boss.... Made me cry, it broke me down, i was singing along to Ebb and Flow as best as i could, it felt like i was brought back to 2018, being in my room, listening to that song on repeat... I feel like a kid again....

I love this song... i love it so much... Like it's not the most hype finale song ever, but, the emotion behind it, the build up from Splatoon 2... The power this song has in it's meaning... It's some good shit man...

So yeah! I love Splatoon 3!!! It's my favourite game out of the series and anyone who is gonna jump into this game now is gonna have a LOT to chew on.

And... It's both sweet and sad that we're at the end. This is it... The moment we've been waiting for. The final Splatfest to end them all. The event 9 years in the making.

The Grand Festival...

I am extremely excited and so FUCKING NERVOUS for this Splatfest!!!! I know i am going to cry and be so overwhelmed with joy. Seeing the Squid Sisters and Off the Hook perform their old songs again after all of these years is gonna make me sob so loudly it's not even funny.

These characters genuinely mean the world to me and it's gonna be so fucking hard for me to watch their final major appearance and say goodbye. Cause after this, we don't know what's gonna happen. I know they will come back, they have to but... In what capacity? That's what I'm scared about...

So yeah, let's savior this moment when it eventually arrives, take all the time you need to be engulfed in the Grand Fest.

Thank you Splatoon 3, you have given me so much.... It's not time to say goodbye just yet but, i wanna watch you as you walk into the sunset with your head held high....

[penguinmerchant]

"Darkrooms" Binding

My latest binding! This is the author's copy, my copy is still in the press and looks exactly the same except I melted one corner with the iron, lol. It gives it character. Right? RIGHT?

This is a Red Dead Redemption 2 fic by Besselfcn featuring Arthur Morgan and Albert Mason--so well written, just an amazing voice and it's short but really packs a punch. I used covers like this and this for inspiration, although this one came out to be more complicated than those. Used some of my precious Duo bookcloth for the green, which looks amazing. Anyway, I think there are some really cool parts to this binding. More pics under the cut.

The endpapers, beautiful Renato Crepaldi papers that I knew I was going to use for this the instant I came across them on his instagram. They're meant to evoke a sunset (although they also look a lot like Jupiter to me--but the sunset part was what they were meant to look like, and the papers are part of the Skyscapes collection, so. Yeah.). It's so pretty up close, there are some really cool pictures on Crepaldi's instagram if you want to look at them more closely.

The spine, which echoes the wolf and moon theme from the front (I really like the spine, it's so small and usually so hard to line up right but this came out just perfectly)

The title page, foiled with toner reactive foil--boyfriend designed everything and he really liked this title page, even if it's the name of the first chapter and not the actual collection of stories, lol. But I liked it so much I couldn't help but include it. Along with:

All of the font designs and curlies were made by the boyfriend, but the pictures are all Arthur's. I found this reddit post where someone had collected all of the pictures Arthur draws in his journal, so these pencil drawings (well, printed pencil drawings) are all Arthur's actual pictures from the game. I thought it was such a neat touch and, because Arthur's journal is an important part of not just the game but this story as well, I thought it was important to include them. There are a few more random pictures for chapter breaks, etc. but they're not super fancy like this.

Anyway, not much more to say about this binding. It's getting easier to do these and I make fewer mistakes--I made the case on this just a smidge too short, or maybe made the textblock a smidge too big, but that was about it--and although the HTV is always a pain it's getting more reliable as well. This cover was a pain in the ass to weed, though, and needing to do it twice kind of sucked. Anything in the name of art though! I'm so excited for the author to see this and I'm really happy to be able to add this to my collection!

[moonsidesong]

just caught up with Your Turn To Die and absolutely adored it the whole way through. it goes unbelievably hard. calling it Danganronpa But Good feels like an insult. but like... yeah what if danganronpa was good? or rather. game that makes me wish danganronpa was good.

it really keeps you on your toes the Entire time, which is why i ended up saving like......... every five to ten minutes, most times. i would say the only slower part is the minigames during chapter 2? but, i thought those were fun, and they were still broken up by plot important stuff, so i really didnt mind.

ive heard the game had a soundtrack release on CD a few years ago, but i cant seem to find much information about it? much less any resell listings. how sad... i love cd...

i wanna talk more in depth from here on out so spoilers under the cut! warning thoughts very disjointed. and i havent seen absolutely Everything the game has to offer yet (havent done any of the side stories, we'll do them soon probably) so if my takes are disproven by anything ive yet to see please do not tell me htank you

first off OHHH MY GODDDD THIS GAME IS SO MUCH LESS CREEPY ABOUT THE MINORS AND ITS SUCH A BREATH OF FRESH AIR COMPARED TO DANGANRONPA. its not perfect, of course, i do not entirely love the jokes(???) about keiji (known grown adult man) going on dates with sara (known teenage girl), but like, this game does not make me feel gross all the time? thank u nankidai for not making your teacher character with a close relationship with one of his former students a groomer! the bare minimum! im gonna hit kodaka with a stick this should not be a point in the game's favor.

anyway! ended chapter 2 with Reko and Sou (shin) alive, ended chapter 3 having lost Reko .. . :( shes my favorite... i was so sad... ranmaru we're not friends anymore/.... you suck... you killed my best girl... we um, did make a grand total of 175 save files though, so at some point me and the friend i played with are gonna go back and scrub through anything and everything that we missed. maybe after we do the side stories though, not sure yet. reko yabusame i swear to god i will crawl into the screen and kill ranmaru myself for you. i will save you. i love you so much mwah

for years ive only known midori as The Guy That Kids On Danganronpa Discourse Instagram Put Overdramatic Yet Also Somehow Extremely Haphazard Trigger Warnings on every post that included him, so i was really excited to meet him. and boy he did not disappoint this guys NUTS!!! HES CRAZAY!!!!!!!! he has such a perfectly striking look about him. i love how he almost never stops looking straight at you, and how his suit is stark black so it obscures a lot of his shape when he's in the dark, its so cool. they absolutely nailed the atmosphere whenever you're around this guy.

but the first jumpscare when he like reaches out at you from the coffin just kinda made me laugh. me when i get you

also, if you're this far in to care about my opinions on games you probably know that i am Known Danganronpa V3 Hater. i think in particular Kokichi Ouma is way too good of a character for how dogwater the game's actual plot is, and Shin Tsukimi, while not being the same, obviously, scratches that itch of a guy trapped in a death game that spends all his time lying and living under a persona because he's afraid of dying perfectly While Being In A Game That Doesnt Make Me Feel Like Eating Sheet Metal . i love this dude and his ugly several clashing colors outfit. he wants my ass like mega dead right now but thats not important surely

also, i think its sweet that joe and sara are just best friends and they rarely ever even entertain the idea that they had romantic feelings for each other. i think its extra sweet and tragic that joe was able to tell sara he loved her in the end, meaning it as his best friend. and the way the game completely ceases showing you flashbacks of him after that point and just lets the image of the hallucinations replace his actual memory overtime is so good and haunting. this doubled down by the way her memory of him is completely locked up as soon as she starts trying to actually remember the way he really was, its so good.

i think thats all i have to say for now, but umm!!! really really good im excited to go back and fill in the gaps i missed. especially regarding kanna becasue i have a lot of theories about her that i hope im on the right track about #lol. but even if i dont i want to see her i miss her. yaay!!! i love when video games are good. i love you video games.

ill probably make more posts down the line with more thoughts after i let them marinade in my brain for a while... mostly when i have thoughts ive been sending them to the friend im playing with so we can discuss theories together LOL

[elendsessor]

hey update on the nocturne no fusion run: it’s gonna be on hiatus.

ik this is sudden especially since it’s lucifer time but i got insanely burnt out. the last few weeks haven’t been great (seasonal depression especially sucks ass) and though i’m finally climbing out of that slump, whenever something like this happens, i need to take a step back from whatever i’ve been playing so it doesn’t cause some sort of relapse. this goes for a couple other games i’ve been working on and have live-blogged about. this doesn’t mean i’m abandoning anything!!! i just likely won’t get around to it until much later.

i still have a lot of grinding and skill resetting to do and tbh it hasn’t helped much because it kinda just. made my brain more mushy than it already is. i’m all over the place in general so sorry.

since i’m not sure when i’ll finally finish what i started, i did want to share some thoughts because i’ve gained a bigger appreciation for nocturne all by running through it again.

first off i forgot how fun team building can be. maybe it’s because without fusion i can’t do much with the demons i can get, but dammit it highlights a problem with a lot of turn based rpgs being the very little breathing room with how you can set up your team.

look, i adore monster collecting games but god there tends to be a definitive “don’t use this unless it’s in a specific way” tier that applies to nearly every one of them. pokemon kinda avoids this problem because of hms/tms and the breeding mechanic but that takes significantly more time and a vast majority of the games are kinda fucking easy. challenging for a kid especially when you get to the stuff like the battle tower, but there’s no incentive to build a good moveset outside of competitive play, and trust me—as an ex-competitive player—it does ruin the non-multiplayer combat in a ton of ways.

but ps2 era onwards megaten somehow gets around this still via mechanics like skill mutation. it’s random and hard to trigger but there’s still freedom, plus the way the games have always encouraged team building and learning how mechanics work is so rewarding. rpgs (action or otherwise) are my bread and butter but so many of them do fail to understand the importance.

nocturne’s combat flavor is so weird. it’s broken. really broken. somehow that’s the fun in it? when people talk about bullcrap smt moments there’s a reason nocturne comes up because it’s designed to be bullcrap. it fits the whole “the vortex world is harsh and unforgiving” angle.

the story structure is something i appreciate a lot more despite how flawed it is. talked about it a ton in a previous post analyzing how it handles characters like chiaki.

there’s so many fun and unique shots and angles and general framework that tbh isn’t something any other megaten has captured since, assuming they try. for all the ones that do post-nocturne, dds is the one that got the most cinematic but it doesn’t play with colors nearly as much. i love the raidou games (especially 2) but 2 got rid of most of the cgs and you could tell both games had much less of a budget than other atlus projects during that era. 4 and 4a have beautiful art and do fun camera movements but the hardware limitations make it so there wasn’t a ton of actual proper cutscenes. 5 is also beautiful and is aesthetic af but camera angles aren’t played with during conversation scenes.

the actual general issue is that talking stuff. nocturne doesn’t have a lot of strictly talking scenes, and the ones that are there are so spread out that you kinda forget they’re there. plus, some of it comes from pov shots like when talking with hijiri which does help with perspective. not many games period actually take the time to play around like that, making a lot of scene set ups feel samey. megaten is no exception especially in the ds/3ds era, and it kinda got abandoned tbh. the portraits and art are good yeah but they can only carry scenes so far.

also gained a bit of appreciation for tde. no it’s not the best written ending—the “bad”/demon ending and freedom ending are definitely the winners here mainly due to thematic importance. yes, it’s really shitty that going for other routes gives you half the content. you can do the amala labyrinth and then back out after beating metatron (as long as you don’t get to the bottom afterwards you can go for any of the other endings), but that’s still tde adjacent. however… i love how morally ambiguous tde is.

it is promising in several aspects but the consequences of said actions are huge. there’s still manikins in the vortex world, an entire society being built from what remains of tokyo even after the whole fight for the right to creation stuff happens, but siding with luci means destroying everything they’ve worked towards. the demifiend can liberate his and other universes from the cycle of death and rebirth, but that’s only if yhvh is defeated and, by extension, the great will. the great will has appeared before in megaten and isn’t actually a being, more a concept, only able to be fought in a comprehensible state. it’s literally existence itself. who knows what’ll happen if someone kills off existence?

gonna be completely honest, this is probably my new favorite mainline game. there’s a lot to it that i keep discovering and loving. (also on like a fandom standpoint i haven’t had a bad experience with the nocturne side yet/haven’t seen much of the toxicity so i’m biased lol). actually fucking slaps. it’s not perfect and some of it is more learning to love than love at first sight, but dammit it’s good.

[insufferableprotagonistpoll]

Round 2

Propaganda why Gregory is insufferable:

This boy is so poorly written, it hurts. In the gameplay, he just acts annoyed and pissed off the whole time. Then, in the endings, he becomes a whole other character who acts scared and sad, which does not match the previous hours of gameplay AT ALL

But that just annoyed me

What really made me hate him was the GGY and Robot Gregory stuff, because OH NO, Gregory could not just be a normal kid who got into this situation, he has to be a robotic recreation of the Crying Child, despite not acting one bit like CC, or, according to the GGY story in the books, he's responsible for multiple murders and is Afton's/the Mimic's apprentice.

Just let this kid be fucking normal!

(Also, unlike a lot of people, I really enjoy what the Ruin DLC did to his character. And don't try to say that's still the mimic, the mimic recycles dialog from the main game. This Gregory uses completely unique dialog, and unless the mimic was able to form new words in his voice all of a sudden, that's still him. He had to make a tough decision, one life or over hundreds and I can respect that)

Suffers from being made into another one of Matpat's ""is actually a robot theory"". It is annoying as hell. We do not need robot children theories in a game about possession, child murder and serial killers. Especially not dumb theories about him being a 'recreation' of someone with a completely different personality. It has completely ruined any enjoyment I had in that character because we're just going back to the Afton family again

Someone made a good point about how his personality seems to be reminiscent of a certain trend where a video game protagonist has to be snarky even though it would’ve worked better for the horror atmosphere if he was more scared because it would’ve made the player feel his fear. I recall people being surprised about his personality and expecting him to be more scared, and I assume the developers were just afraid of ppl calling Gregory “whiny”, but it still feels like a missed opportunity

Propaganda why Heywood Floyd is insufferable:

He pulled strings to be put on the crew and is kind of an ass to everybody

In the second book/movie, he's a huge jerk to Hal 9000, a character who technically didn't do anything wrong (he killed his crew in the first book/movie because of conflicting orders) Orders that Floyd claims to not know about....despite his signature being on them.

Also, he just sucks as a husband and father (in the 2010 movie, his kid actually sounds disappointed when Floyd says he won't die on his space mission) There's literally no reason I should root for this guy, (Hal ends up being the hero of the story in 2010 book/movie).

In 2061, he drinks water from a comet and.....let's just say it screws with his insides......and he's so insufferable, I laughed about it (as did people on two Discord servers, and it's now kind of a meme there)

Kind of smug and doesn't address his own flaws or the consequences of his own actions

He's smug and kind of an ass and says nothing was his fault when his signature was on the mission plan. An important plot is he put a cutoff switch in the ship's computer without asking anybody in a setting where a computer shutdown is Really Bad. He hides it from the crew and we are told this is heroic.

[courfeyracs-swordcane]

For the ask game: Kyrie, 1, 6, and 17 (I forgot the numbers highkey. The last one is whatever one the grudges question is. I think it’s 17)

1. How did you choose their name?

Oh WORM let me get you the screenshots— it was a Process (1, 2, and 3 are Kyrie, Alonzo, and Ari respectively)

(I did NOT actually know that the Kyrie part of kyrie elision meant god at the time but I AM a massive enjoyer of the “she’s the city and her name is god” bit)(the hunchback of notre dame reference is on purpose tho her ass literally lives there)(St Ely’s tower in the modern end of things is like if you combined the functions of the Notre Dame and the Space Needle into a guy who looks more like Coit Tower SF)

6. What attribute of them (some facet of their personality, their history, their look, or whatever etc) would you find most important to somehow preserve if they were transplanted to an AU fanfic?

USED TO BE A COP but QUIT really dramatically (there’s a modern au that takes place in like 2010 where half of the saints work at a Verizon store and Kyrie was a first responder at 9/11 but walked out a couple years later and now she lives on a couch in El’s basement)(being a fuck boy dirt bag piece of shit is also an important component. She sucks so much (affectionate))

17. Is your character holding any grudges? Are they likely to stop?

OH BOY HOWDY DOES SHE!! A lot of them against herself but also notably she does spend a significant amount of time trying to assassinate Ari’s dad (city governor/RF puppet) theoretically for being a puppet for the RF and letting the city be a police state but mostly actually for the fact that he was the one who promoted her from foot soldier #7284 to the RF’s special little mascot guy so she views him as a guy with a LOT more power than he actually has (also. Even if he did have the kind of sway she thinks he does. He’s a useless aging twink of a nepo baby who got this job when he was like 22 specifically bc he’s easy to push around. His ass wouldn’t really do shit even if he could.)

[girlmodepod]

Episode Number Blog

Robin: Hello and welcome to Girl Mode. 

Willa: THE BLOG.

Robin: Yes, the blog. As you may have noticed, we haven’t had a new episode in two weeks. That’s because I’ve been sick and I can’t finish a sentence without coughing. So we have decided to try a little experiment instead. Think of it like a podcast that you don’t listen to with your ears, but with your eyes. We’re calling it a blog. We made that term up.

Willa: Kind of like how Hideo Kojima made up the term “movies”

Robin: Basically exactly like that. We’re the Hideo Kojima of podcasts. Does Hideo Kojima still have a podcast?

Willa: That’s a good question. Look it up while I talk… or write rather. So just running through the motions like we do on the pod, should we talk about some news that’s been happening lately in the industry? Because a lot has been done in the two weeks we’ve been off.

Robin: The last episode of Hideo Kojima presents Brain Structure was in March 2023. So I guess he gave that up.

Willa: He should bring it back to have Hunter Schaefer on. 

Robin: We should have Hunter Schaefer on.

Willa: So. News. 

Robin: Yeah, it’s been a fucked up couple of weeks. Or, honestly, there’s just been one fucked up thing sort of dominating news for the past couple of weeks, which we’ve planned to talk about for two weeks in a row now but couldn’t. We kind of missed the boat on it, which is actually a good thing I guess because it shows just how short-lived this sad little attempt at launching Gamergate 2.0 was that it seems to be on its last legs now.

Willa: Yeah if you want to know the details of it, there are several good articles on it, but honestly my favorite take is Ash Parrish’s which just calls the whole attempt at a movement “smaller and sadder.”

Robin: Yes! I actually wanted to talk about Ash’s take too, and it’s fortunate that it just came out. I think if we had talked about this two weeks ago, I would have said “here’s how I wish people were approaching this,” and last week I would have said “people are starting to approach it the way I hoped we would” and now it seems like Ash have kind of wrapped up the whole conversation perfectly. Which is, in short, the people going after Sweet Baby Inc and diversity in gaming are doing it in an incredibly pathetic attempt at feeling important. She’d probably put it a nicer way, but that’s how I see it.

Willa: For me, the thing that I keep coming back to and want to remind people of is that these groups are just such a vocal minority in the industry anyways. Like the industry is getting more diverse naturally and most players want that. GLAAD released its first gaming report this year and overwhelmingly players said queer characters in a game wouldn’t dissuade them from buying a title. 

Robin: Totally! I think that’s an important thing to keep in mind. No matter how loud these people are, they are essentially trying to shout loud enough to stop the seasons from changing and it’s just not gonna happen. 

Which isn’t to say that it’s nothing! Like, yes they’re a small and annoying buzzing in our ears, but they’re also trying their hardest to be something more than that. So while they’ll never achieve their stated aims of making gaming less diverse, they can be a real pain in the ass in the process! I had my own little taste of that this week when I tweeted something critical of Capcom using one of the biggest instigators of this whole mess to market Dragon’s Dogma 2 and it’s been nonstop bullshit since then. I just checked and I have 704 comments on that post. They’re probably not ALL shitheads, but most of them are! So I do just want to acknowledge that being on the receiving end of that kind of sucks, and I do think it’s important to call that behavior out and also be aware when someone you know is being brigaded and make sure they’re ok.

Willa: All very true. Should I let you monologue a bit longer?

Robin: Shut up. Yes. I really just want to add how weird of an experience it was to have this much shit thrown at me by like the most incompetent people in the world. You got some of this when you wrote about the shitty Harry Potter game, and I’d always kind of been afraid of it, since being a trans person in public seems to be enough to incite mobs. But I’ve got to say, and this is maybe a weird comment to make, but these people are fucking corny! There’s sort of that thing about transphobes only having one joke, and it’s true! They have like three maybe. But before I stopped paying attention, it was shocking how much people were just repeating literally the same message, sending the same shitty memes and all that. It just lays bare how much all this behavior is about trying to impress each other in this really sad way.

Anyway, that’s all I’ve got I think, except to say, it’s a good idea to read up on everything that’s gone down and keep informed about it, but it’s also a totally valid personal reaction at that point just to say, “These people seem like assholes. Diversity is a good goal to aim for so I don’t really need to pay any more attention to people who want to stand in the way of that.” Like, the worst-case scenario for the people pushing this harassment campaign is that more marginalized people get hired to write more marginalized characters in games, so just saying that that's actually a good thing and that fighting against it is incredibly stupid is enough, I think.

Willa: Can we talk about how cool Unicorn Overlord is now… please?

Robin: Your transitions are just as smooth in text I see.

Willa: Ok. So, Unicorn Overlord rocks! 

Robin: It does.

Willa: For those who don’t know, Unicorn Overlord is Vanillware’s latest game and it's a tactics RPG that’s also kind of an RTS game. It has a medieval fantasy story that doesn’t matter at all. The main attraction is the combat, which is fantastic and has a lot of crunchy systems and numbers to fiddle with. We both reviewed it, and both liked it a lot.

Robin: Yeah it rules. I think the whole time we were playing it, we were texting each other like five times a day about how good it is.

Willa: It’s definitely one of the best games the genre has seen in recent years. Hell, even Yasumi Matsuno can’t stop talking about how good this game is. And while I agree with him that this game is amazing to play, the one thing it lacks when compared to Matsuno’s games is the story. It doesn’t need a good story with combat this good, but god I wish it did have one, 13 Sentinels: Aegis Rim showed they could do a great narrative and that would have really made this a home run. But again, that’s a nitpick. The game still rocks.

Robin: I’m watching you type so I saw you say something like “one of the best games in this genre” and then delete it, but I don’t think you need to restrict it to “recent years.” I really think it’s one of the best strategy RPGs ever. Everything about it just goes so unbelievably hard. Except the story, yeah. Do you want to talk about the story a bit? It’s something we both critiqued even coming out of the preview and I didn’t have the room to really fit much about it into my review.

Willa: I mean I barely even touch on it in my review just because there is truly so little. You are a prince building an army to take back his throne, which was taken from his family by an evil guy. That’s it! 

Robin: They really should have known he was evil from his armor even before he overthrew the queen.

Willa: The thing that I was more interested in picking at was how the mechanics intertwine with what little narrative there is in weird ways. Like the game has no interest in investigating what makes Prince Alain a good ruler, and the literal handwavey magic explanation for why the game’s bad guys are bad but not actually and don’t have culpability for their actions is a big head scratcher for me. But the game just isn’t interested in investigating those potential themes.

Robin: Yeah, it really is just about getting the good king back and throwing out the bad one. The thing that really sticks out to me is, like you said, the handwavey magic bit. So in the game, the evil bad guy just like casts a spell on a bunch of people and turns them into the leaders of his army, then Prince Alain uses his own handwavey magic to free them. It just seems so odd to me that they would choose what must be the least dramatic way of telling this story. All the major enemies are just mind-controlled, so they can become your friends after you beat them in battle. It’s so strange to me that they sidestep any potentially interesting political intrigue in favor of a plot that feels ripped out of a saturday morning cartoon.

Willa: Basically I think if you want a great tactics/strategy game you should pick this up. But if you need a story, then this will not spark joy in you. I am surprised by how much buzz this game is getting though, just in my office I’ve had a bunch of non-gaming writers come up to me to say how they have bought the game. You love to see it. Like Yoko Taro said, everybody should be buying Vanillaware games!

Robin: Yeah that’s actually surprising! It feels like such a niche thing that would only appeal to real sickos, but somehow it’s getting tons of attention. It’s well deserved, just surprising. And I do love seeing all the Vanillaware appreciation. I’ve followed this developer for so long and it’s honestly shocking that this is the game that’s finally getting them this much press when it feels like one of their least accessible. I mean, it is just that good though. Even now when we’re both spending all our time playing [REDACTED], I still want to go back and play more Unicorn Overlord if I can ever find the time. 

Willa: All I want to do is spend all day talking about [REDACTED], but with that teaser, should we run through what we’ve been doing for the past two weeks?

Robin: Sure, everyone has probably stopped reading by now anyway. So, as I said I’ve been sick for a couple weeks, which is taking up pretty much all of my time. Shoutout to eating chicken noodle soup on the couch. Otherwise, just playing a couple things for work that I’ll be able to share soon enough. I guess I’ve been watching a lot of Deep Space 9? It’s kind of a comfort show for me, so I can put it on when my brain is too fuzzy to watch anything new and just be soothed by… horrible interstellar conflict I guess? 

Willa: Sounds relaxing. 

Robin: Yeah it’s got some hot aliens in there too, so that’s nice. What have you been up to?

Willa: Well I haven’t been sick in bed for a week, so I’ve been doing stuff. Outside of games, I’ve really been enjoying the show Shogun lately. I also started reading the new Ultimate X-Men comic by Peach Momoko, which rocks and you should read the article I wrote about it.

I think with that we can wrap up here. I’m excited to record another episode this week but also we should do this again. Maybe we will get the hang of it one of these times. Though that hasn’t been true of podcasting so…

Robin: Yeah but we have a lot more practice with written words than spoken ones. But yeah, I’m finally on the mend so we should be back to the normal schedule next week. If you’ve somehow made it this far though, and even more unlikely, enjoyed it and want more stuff like this, let us know! If you don’t like it, keep it to yourself.

Willa: You can find us on socials and any podcast provider, that’s all in our linktree that you can just click on here. 

Robin: Yeah I guess that wraps up the first Girl Mode Blog Edition, and maybe the last if no one reads this. If you do want to see more, maybe like this post so we know that anyone bothered to read it!

Willa: Normally I just let the fade to music cover our bad endings, but we don’t have that here. Bye.

Robin: I’ll try to find a way to make this just fade out so it feels the same and people can just imagine we said something interesting afterward. Bye!

[pikawarrior]

Welcome back to reaper talks bitches, i just finished my first playthrough of Shadows Over Loathing and have already started on my second and

Oh.

My.

Gods.

I fucking love this game. I mean its made by the people who made of my favorite games ever, West of Loathing so yeah im gonna enjoy it.

But this, this is new, this limits me in sooo many different ways but also opens up the game in ways i couldnt have imagined

[Alot of spoiler filled ramblings of a mad man slightly broken by a weird time/dimension loop that are only vaguely understandable under the cut]

Okay first off, not picking you class right at the very very start is great weirdly enough, atleast for me.

It gave me time to see the world through the basic unfiltered lens of someone who has an idea whats to come cuz of me playing the previous game but also no clue as the game hasnt given me any story yet.

Literally, it starts off with you having a copy of LOOK magazine on your face. You also get to really choose your look or well hair situation mainly, you're a stick person hair and accessories are all you got and its early game soooo

But anygays, it doesnt give you story till thr bus ride and even then you dont know your class or if there will even be classes!

I choose pigskinner or whatever my head is running at a million miles per hour rn cuz this hyperfixation is really new and free so double the speed of thoughts

And yeah i could have tried something new especially since 2 out of my 3 wol saves were that game's pigskinner class (cow puncher(?)) But come on, i like my familiar class also i suck as magic/effect heavy builds outside of my spamming of stuff like bleed or on fire

But anygays, the uncursing stuff is super fun tho pretty confusing. Thankfully you cant mess them up to my knowledge, they really test you puzzle skilss and you remembering that most things in this game are interactable (very very important)

Also omg i love any chance to piss a narrator and there are some great ones, the main ones that i can remember rn is the one about you working at all these different places and even being employee of the month despite you either being super young or not born at that time. And the one about you digging wet globs of hair out of sinks, mainly at frat houses. Gross i know, but i fucking dug through every single spittoon in wol, nothing can stop me anymore

The narrator def regrets following this dumbass (me) around but they cant leave so HA

But back to the uncursing, the sickle curse was actually super scary. Like that scarecrow was after ME, not the person i was currently in the body of, no he was after ME, my character also nick come on buddy you dont take loans/favors from The Shadows, thats like rule #265, your ass deserved a lawnmowing.

Also wtf i got sent the lawnmower i made with a note that said "see you in 66 years" or something like that. Like HELLO???? WHICH BITCH GOT MY ADDRESS AND WHO WANTS A PIECE OF ME AND MY LAWNMOWER

Seriously the sickle curse was hands down the scariest part of a game ive played in years and ive somewhat play resident evil 7

Also gods i love the to do list, don't get me wrong i loved asking my companions for reminders but this is super convenient and go for when my companion cant you know, accompany me somewhere

Plus being able see everything together and whats a main quest vs a side quest helps. And making my own notes in game helps since i still havent gotta a notebook for my gaming notes yet

Also the whole thing with the mob was great, 10/10 i love being chaotic and getting paid the big bucks for it. Seriously its worth it and theres even some more pacifist options in those quest lines to. Im very much a nice person to my core despite my nature darkness and chaos, so being able to handle things nicely or well with limited blood shed is nice. Also helps with you, like me, tend to avoid battles you dont gotta fight. Its also a nice puzzle sometimes cuz i cant just shove like 9 different thing down my throat and kick ass. Its one potion and one food at a time.

The combat is definitely different but more in a "its harder to be able to wipe everyone out in seconds" then a "heres a whole new system to learn good luck"

In wol its stupidly easy atleast for me to become a lesser god and wipe out half the map basically even during early game. Tho thats mainly cuz of my past experience and cuz i was raised really good and weirdly so my skills work with this-

But in sol the fights are actually pretty tough, i found myself really rationing my items out even in late game but also heavily relying on them and effects

Which btw go fucking on items and stuff that cause effects like bleed and on fire, trust me its actually kinda necessary

Also the last(?) fight (and the optional golem fight) are like stupidly hard even with all tbr help (finale(?)) While the golem is apparently a push over yet also god number two idk im working on it, apparently they didnt play test it and honestly it kinda shows (neutral)

ALSP WTF IS THAT BITCH AT THE FUNAL LIKE HOKY HELL DO NOT BE AFIARD MY ASS THAT A BIBLICALLY ACCURATE ANGEL WITHOUT WINGS RIGHT THERE AND ITS ABOUT TO SEND ME TO HELL PERSONALLY

Also i fucking lost, i can go back but i decided to learn from my mistakes by starting fresh instead of fixing them after they've already been made

AND im gonna help more people, im gonna save those two kids from that monster that haunts their family, im gonna help rufus find my past/other self from the first game, IM GONNA HELP EVERYONE I CAN ESPECIALLY THE ONES I FAILED BEFORE

Reaps now signing off to work on MEP parts see yall in like another 6 months

[rosegold-lovers]

you should gushpost about ibara. grabs you like a squeaky toy. wat drew you to him :] also also whats ur favorite card of him!!

OH HEY ummm i'm usually shy to gush about him + i'm afraid to spell anything wrong bc my english sucks but i'd love to do it more :((( he makes me so happy i want everyone to know that (long ass gushing under the cut)

anywayy he was one of the first enstars characters i put my eye on and my first thought was like "ohhhh little guy look at him smiling" then i watched the anime and he was so much more than that (even if the anime doesn't show much details about the story i was happy i could find more about him) but that was just the start

he has always been my favorite eden member, not my favorite character overall but i did a lot of research about him and his stories, search fanart and etc because i have a friend who liked him a lot at that time so i was always sending ibara content to him (@fushigina-daiarii IT'S ALL YOUR FAULT👁️ /pos) and that made me even more interessed!!

also at that time i was having a really hard time especially because my ex was being kinda toxic to me?? she kinda stalked me and stuff and the end of our relationship made me feel very guilty and y'know... ibara was one of my main sources of comfort (if not the main one) and seeing anything related to me always made me so happy... he really helped me during this fucked up situation and it may sound silly but i'll always feel grateful for that

since that time i couldn't see myself anymore not giggling with his cards and art and well every single thing about himJDBDKDBKDH and it's been 2 years and 6 months i'm self shipping with him he'll always be important to me

now speaking about my favorite cards... i think i'd choose those three (winter live unbloomed, summer snow unbloomed and his fs2 unbloomed. yes. specifically the unbloomed versions of them)

the thing is... i love how soft his expressions are there (he looks especially silly in the first one tbh)!! the way he smiles so softly on his summer snow card... it actually made me so very happy when i got him instead of fs1 yuuta when i pulled for him that was the card i wanted the most on the game at that time

ALSO!!! his expressions during the fs2 motion... it always gets me...

i also have a soft spot for his valentines card i've waited so long for his center event so it really caught me off guard (i was literally crying three days straight after the release of melting rouge soul mv because i was proud of him /srs)

[talesfromsiteredacted]

Fun and Modded Games with 035, Or... Did You Just Caboose Me? So Wrong, Dude.

My first test with 035 aka Dyo. Just little ol me, the Possesive Mask, and a modded to hell copy of a quasipopular 4 v everyone zombie shooter. What can go wrong? Everything.

Well, it's time to meet the Possesive Mask, for a few "friendly" games. 035 walks in, and sees me setting up my gaming rig. If he could raise an eyebrow, he would have.

"What's going on? I was told I'd be testing. Didn't expect to test with 049's girl."

"Yeah... it's not really an official official test. And I thought since the Doctor is important to me, thought we should actually meet on less formal terms." I smile, extend a hand. "I'm Rabbit, nice to finally meet you, Dyo. Wanna blow up some boomers?"

"Boomers?"

"Big, nasty explody undead bastards. It'll be fun, I promise. And, since we're not being overly monitored, feel free to swear at the lumbering sacks of boom and acid."

I fire up the game, hand him an extra controller. And... break out laughing. My dumb ass forgot to switch off my mods. So, the shamblers are all Bernie Sanders, the spitters are dilophasaurs, the boomers are all the heavy from Team Fortress 2, and the witches... are the most demented version of Princess Peach ever seen. Hell, I still left my character mods on, meaning I'm stuck as a neon green Amongus and Dyo is... Caboose from Red vs Blue. Our weapons are modded, Dyo running with the BFG 1000 from Doom, I picked dual plasma cutters. Our online teammates are modded up too, 'Sarcasm&4Gauges' is ready to wreck shit as Lord Heisenberg from RE Village, and our last teammate is fucking Sailor Moon. Yes, Usagi is in the house. We get to it. After an initial learning curve, Dyo is on it. He took out Peach one shot. Massive legend. But... not without cost. My Amongus died, after Sailor Moon shot me in the back. Twice.

"Ayo, Sailor Moon? You Caboosed my ass. So wrong, my dude. Don't hate on your squaddie for being better as a rook than you, not our fault you suck with aiming."

"Kiss my disco medallion. Not my fault YOU were in my way."

Dyo pipes up. "Dr. Bright? Don't you have more rules to break before they're written? Teamkilling is almost as low as teabagging. Get your worthless ass back to Crystal Tokyo, heard Queen Beryl is on her bullshit again." Sarcasm&4Gauges loses it on the in-game chat.

"Damn, that was both thematic and cold as fuck, dawg. I can see why 049 chills with you. Savage."

"We do work well together, kind of a Beauty and the Beast deal. Of course, I'm the Beauty."

"Not in this chat, Dyo. Rabbit be fiiiiiine."

"And the Killer Rabbit is good with her honey. Back off her, Jack. Go perv on Rights again."

"Damn, Cleffy be dropping bodies without a shot. Thanks, Uncle Alto. Nice spot job on the herd of Bernies. Not into that kind of getting ate out."

We're back on our zombie slaying grind when... a wild tank appears, modded into a mini 682. Clef dies laughing on mic.

"Maybe I need to chill with the mods, the prospect of soloing a mini 682 brought out Clef's Scooby-Doo villain for real. Oh shit... Caboose dropped the BFG, Clef grab that big fucking gun and get nutty with it."

"Naw, Rabbit. I'm gonna Thor this punk ass. Time to drop the hammer." Clef runs up, the wind up is good... but mini 682 tail-yeets his ass into a wall. Dyo nods at me, and I drop a nice little surprise... a Juggernaught from COD. I toggle on theme music, Dyo pumps his BFG, and we see who kills the Unkillable Lizard first. Just as Dyo lobs the first volley, an Enderman pops up behind him, ready to drag him off. I shoot him with my cutters, Ender fall down, go immobile. Bright is back up... throwing his fucking tiara at 682. Who just laughs in 'what part of hard-to-fucking-KILL do you not get, bitch?' He drops like a bad habit after getting stomped. After several rounds of fire, multiple revives, and several death threats against Dr. Bright for friendly fire, the big scaly butt-ugly undead asshole dies.

"I don't even want to play this game anymore."

"Fine by us, Jack. You suck."

"Yeah, well at least I'm not cuddling up to 049."

"You. Did. Not. Just. Besmerch. The. Doctor's. Rabbit. If I get out of Containment, I am going to curbstomp both you and that tacky as hells medallion into the next reality. And not even 343 will save you. Be ready."

"Dyo, chill. Let me handle him. I have a plan."

"Please tell me you're going to freeze his mouth shut."

"Of course not. Why debase high magic for such low intellect?" I give Dyo an evil grin, and mute my mic. "First, I've arranged a nice Tinder date for him, and he won't even have to leave site. I know a young lady who would love having him over for dinner. Then, after dinner... how about a nice 963 under 60 meters of ice, floating in deep space? Far, far away from our galaxy."

"Rabbit, you're cold-blooded, evil, vindictive... and too bad 049 met you first. I'm honestly impressed."

"I learned at the sandaled feet of THE masters of dirty tactics, 076-2 and Clef. Let's just say I'm rolling the Mastermind perks up in here 24/7. After all, you gotta bring your A game to even match Abel. And Clef? Dude literally wrote the book on reality warpers, and I paid attention. After all, it's hard to learn much from the dead, let alone as one of them." I sense my new gaming buddy is a bit nervous. "Tell you what, you play a few rounds of Modern Warfare with me, we'll call it a non-aggession pact. Hey, maybe we can stomp Bright on and offline, heh?"

"Non-aggression pact? Meaning?"

"You don't kill me or 049 attempting to bail, I look the other way as much as I can. Maybe accidentally drop a few helpful items."

"I'll think about it."

"The pact, or the game?"

"The pact. I honestly like playing with you, you're in it to win via chaos. Very entertaining."

"Thanks, Dyo. You're pretty good yourself." I turn my mic back on. "So, gents... who's up for COD?" Clef opts in, but Bright backs out.

"You bailing, Bright? Can't handle playing unmodded?" Clef teases him.

"More like I can't deal with Rabbit. She's brutal, more so than Mongolian death metal, and she scares me."

"Can I train, or can I train? Not my fault you got no game, zero drip, and lo! No maidens."

"Why are you guys so mean to me?"

"Uh... my dude. You. Have. An. Over. 800. Item. List. Of. Things. You. Specifically. Are. Forbidden. To. Do. Do you really need us to tell you that alone got you disinvited from ALL official functions not directly related to your job? Plus, you have all the culture of garden soil 073 danced on."

"Ouch. That wounds me, 035."

"I have not yet begun to wound you, you backshooting idiot. Now, get off our server." Sonic rings, then a message: Admin Clef has booted G04tedwth963 from the server. "Thank you, Doctor Clef. You get dibs on my first care package should I die before getting it."

"The other team better pray to 343 it's not a gunship."

[dearestaeneas]

resisting the temptation to ask you every one of the questions from the writer ask game and instead asking: 2, 3, 7, 13 (i'm guessing i know the answer to this but consider this an open invitation to share some fun lore), 26, 29, 30

kicking my feet and writing your name in hearts all over my dream journal

2) my two newest ocs are Matt + Justin! i was working on a thing for a zine i want to submit to, and the theme was 70s/80s/90s campy horror, so i picked just two lame ass 90s boy names. it's a silly little queer slasher story that i didn't expect to go so in-depth on!

3) uhhhhhh. my biggest self insert is probably that John Dearheart character i post little blurbs about sometimes. i realized i'm probably gonna need to change his name if i post more about him, though, because i completely forgot he's a Discworld character. i've been rereading Going Postal lately and while i was waiting for the library loan to come in i was scrolling through its tumblr tag and got whiplash seeing his name. it is deeply humbling thinking you had an original name and not only seeing its an already-established character, but an already-established character from a BOOK YOU'VE READ BEFORE. outside of him as my vent character, i put myself into all my characters! i'm very vain! Branwen and Ardan are my two biggest ones from hh, and lately its been Branwen more just for the sake of story themes :3

7) Celeste and the Old God is actually one of my favorite pairs to write about, and it's wild to me that i don't have them interact more. i think what really gets me about them is that Celeste's entire deal is that she's...normal. she has a "normal," healthy relationship with religion, and criticizing it is included in that, i think. and for that reason, those two are the closest to being equals. having one character be a devout believer/her religious trauma being something you actively get to see be established throughout the story (branwen) v. another character who's extremely cynical to the point of numbness who doesn't believe in anything (ardan), and in a context where branwen is genuinely helpless vs. ardan having more control than he realizes/freaks him out when he does realize it, it's so fun to write Celeste as being on equal playing ground. it's important to me that her entire deal is "actually no fuck you, you need me just as much as i need you." and i think that equal playing ground is why they have kind of a begrudging friendship.

i also like writing branwen and ardan together because they are bisexual.

13) not really any of them i don't do that kind of stuff<3*

26) American Gods!!! And Slaughterhouse Five. those are the two i always automatically say when asked! i read If We Were Villains sometime last year and it rewired my brain, also. i found it because of The Secret History, which also rewired my brain. Both of those books fundamentally changed my brain chemistry, but secret history did it derogatorily, if that makes sense. great book. i never think i have feelings about it until i start talking about it. Donna Tartt i am nearing your location. (also Piranesi!<3)

29) probably Harry Potter? unfortunately? (also, sucks that i have to say 'unfortunately'. like most people, those stupid books were very important to me at one point in my life! mostly because of the stuff i did with my friends because of it! go fuck yourself, Joanne!) i deffo wrote fanfic, though. i had a huuuuge fic i handwrote with a bunch of my friends

not my first fandom, but i thought you'd appreciate: i was also a huge percy jackson kid. obviously. probably more so than harry potter. i took latin in middle school, and one year we had this pretty big multi-part project where we could pick different prompts for different parts. super cool and fun, had i been the person i am now who actually like, cares about things and puts effort into them! but i suffered from the disease of all middle schoolers where i Fucking Sucked. i didn't realize one of my parts was due one day, and during the lunch period i speed-wrote percy jackson fanfiction that i had to Read Out Loud To The Class and then hand in for a grade. i got a 100, but only after reading it out loud, having what i believe was my first out of body experience, and then going back to my seat where one of my friends leaned over and said "was that the fucking plot of Mark of Athena"

30) good!!!! we're actively getting a snowstorm and i'm hoping it keeps up so work is cancelled tomorrow! who knows how lucky i'll be but i can hope!!

*if i was normal i could have left 13 at that and just let myself be funny, but i am nothing if not verbose. obviously hh! in taking up your offer to share fun lore, there's one character who i have been avoiding talking about because i think everything about him is so integral to the plot that like, making goofs about him would be a spoiler (is that...full of myself to say? it would be, though). that said, since the idea of "equals" is so relevant throughout hh, he's been fun to write because he technically falls on the Celeste end of the spectrum, but he's using it for evil. literally. a lot of his deal is unintentionally "what makes a god a god" and how he's this sort of nebulous figure because no one can agree what his deal is. he is accidentally my Odysseus character, and it kills me to admit that. little pansexual freak who wants to kill god.

[demonfox38]

Completed - Baroque

This would probably be the favorite game for "Silent Hill 3"'s Vincent. Ya know. "They looked like monsters to you?" being absolutely the point.

So, you know how you can't trust algorithms? More in the "can't trust corporations to make ethical decisions with them" kind of way this time. Less in the source data sucking kind of way. I bring this up because the YouTube feed algorithm for my account was responsible for me hearing of this game. See, I was actually doing research for "Getsu Fūma Den: Undying Moon", and I think it made a couple of hops into presenting the RagnarRox video for "Baroque" that was released a few weeks ago. Like, "We know you're into survival horror, and we know that you've been researching one particular horror-based rogue-lite game, so here, loser. Watch this."

For once, the machine had my number. I mean, other than 38.

"Baroque" is a hybrid first-person dungeon crawler / rogue-lite video game set in the ruins of an apocalyptic future. Your character is a nameless, mute, amnesiac man blessed with the ability to purify the mutated humans around him. And by purify, it's…basically murder. But it's okay! God gave him the ability to do that after making out with him. Yep, God's real. And in the basement of a tower. And mostly blood vessels / tentacles, but also part anime girl. And going nuts.  Obviously, that's not great. So, your mission is two-fold: sort out your own problems, then sort out God's mental health. No big deal, right?

Yeah, this game is weird. In many, many ways.

The most recent groundswell about this game came as a result of an English translation patch produced in August of 2022 by Twitter user Plissken for the 1999 Playstation port. Not that this is the game's initial release, nor is it the first time this game has been released in English. See, this was originally released on the Sega Saturn in 1998. Then, in 2008, publisher Atlus picked up a third-person version of it for the Playstation 2 and Wii for the American audience, which sandbagged itself on impact. For the moment, this is about as close as the average English speaker can get to the developer's intended vision, barring someone pushing out a Sega Saturn patch or a sudden brain spike in Japanese literacy. Which, hell. If any particular variant of God wants to do that for me, it might be helpful. Throw in some Italian as well.

What's the importance of seeking out the original vision for "Baroque"? Perhaps a lot of its content can be felt out intuitively. I mean, you can't swing a bat without hitting massive religious or mystic content in Japanese works, particularly in those from the 1980s and 90s. The appeal of the original "Baroque" games is absolutely in its raw, esoteric presentation. This was a game that had a physical model sculptor, Goddamnit. These monsters are as real as that Momo puppet was. Its music ranges from industrial sample explosions run amok to Vangelis-adjacent synthetic sweetness. It is a black game with level loading akin to "Silent Hill", all surrounded with weird people doing and saying weird things.

I don't like the argument that first-person games are inherently more horrifying than third-person due to the perspective. I think you can make either work well. But, in this case? Absolutely. You've got to be smashed face-first into this bizarre landscape, lost and disoriented, surrounded by towering creatures ready to kick your ass. That's definitely the appeal of the Sega Saturn and Playstation variants of this game. To put it another way, the difference between playing the PS2/Wii version and this version is the difference between seeing a teenager's airbrushed, Photoshopped replica of Goya's "Saturn Devouring his Son" on a computer and being in Goya's house after his death and looking at it plastered all over the goddamn wall. And then there's 13 more frescos with it.

Also, God, does the English voice acting for the PS2/Wii versions detract from the mood. Although, hearing Michelle Ruff's Fujiko voice come out of a scientist's shoulder-face was hilarious enough for me to actually pick up a Wii copy. There's worse ways to spend $20 USD, right?

I know I keep banging on about the game's aesthetics, but man, I was impressed. Like, most of the enemy design is based on Tarot cards, right? And for 2/3rds of them, I would say that they match well. But then, there's taking into account that the main character's multiple unions with God are responsible for the shape of the world around him, and certain pieces become more striking. There are people with multiple heads conjoined in strange places. Two enemy types are multiple organisms joined together. Oh! And your character is carrying guilt for being the surviving half of a conjoined twin that perished as a result of being physically separated, and you're living through that trauma again by being forced apart from God. Like, goddamn. And it's no wonder why the monster shown in the opening attract screen is the monster based on the Lovers Tarot card. It is two organisms fused into one body with a vaguely pregnant shape that opens into a horrible vagina maw. Congratulations, Eisaku Kato! You nailed the theme of the game in a single enemy type. Well done!

Although, I have to admit that one enemy ended up being goofy to me, but not of its own accord. It's hard to be scary when you look like Mr. Krabs.

Right! Okay. Let's put aside the aesthetic talk for a second and actually talk about the game part of the game. So, what does being a first-person dungeon crawler / rogue-lite mean? It is a lot of word salad, after all. The dungeon in question is presented in a series of floors known as the Nerve Tower (or Neuro Tower, or Nurve Tower, depending on how you want to split hairs.) Static entities exist on each layer. However, the layout of the floor's rooms and its item contents vary from run to run. You have a whopping four statistics to keep track of, including your attack, defense, hit points, and vitality. I think most of these are self-explanatory, but to save some head-scratching, vitality is basically a timer on how long you can remain in game. Statistics can be restored, improved, or degraded based on item usage and enemy attacks. You can also get boons or status ailments, depending on enemy aggression and your items. The big thing is keeping your health above 0. Obviously, if that runs out, you die, lose all of your stuff, and then get pushed into a new loop. But, if you make it to the lowest floor, you also get a stat and inventory wipe before being pushed into another cycle. It's just that this wipe is considered successful.

Now, you are allowed to save certain item types by the use of sense spheres, which pass the item you select back to the surface for use on your next run. And, despite having constant stat wiping, you will notice progress over time. Explicitly, certain characters will ask you for items. Getting them those items will further the plot, potentially opening up new layers to the Nerve Tower. You could play this game infinitely, if you want, but there is a distinct ending condition. Hell, there's even an appropriately named Hell Dungeon if you want to get all Chrysler Building up in this game. Just know that all you've really got to do is heal yourself, then heal God.

Being successful in "Baroque" comes down to three skills:

Recognizing Floor Layout Types

Properly Managing Items

Mitigating Enemy Threats

Of these, floor layout handling is the easiest. You'll get used to knowing who is on what floor, and you have a button for reviewing an auto-filling map when needed. Generally, you'll want to find the important character or device per floor, then get out. (Some characters can be skipped, for what it's worth.) Hell, the only major decision might be deciding when to grind for levels and when to book it as fast as possible to hit the bottom floor.

Item management seems simple on the surface, but has some quirks that you can use to give yourself a boost. You've only got access to 20 items, and at least three or four of those will be dedicated to equipment and plot-critical items. However, you can use items in ways that may not seem readily apparent or useful. Like, sometimes, you get status-restoring items that you may not necessarily want. But, you can also use them up to get a quick health or vitality pick up. (At least, I was abusing Detox and Eyeball injections to get a vitality boost when I didn't need them.) If you have a sword, a box, or even a coat you don't want, you can throw that shit at the enemy for damage! Hell, you can even use certain healing items at full health to give yourself a permanent HP or vitality boost. The one major piece of advice I would give is to always chuck your equipped sword and coat into a sense sphere when you are on the penultimate floor of the tower. (You'll know you're on it when you see an impaled angel.) Keeping at least one good sword and coat may be what propels you the furthest in game. I mean, I ended with a +6 Comet-infected Sterilization Sword and a +2 Beast coat, and I wouldn't say that was a stellar combo. But, hell! It got me to the end.

Finally, there's fighting the aptly named Grotesques (and less-aptly named Meta-Beings in the PS2/Wii game. See what I mean about needing the visceral element?) Honestly, fighting monsters may not be as important as you might think. It's definitely a curve where you want to fight a lot in the first half of a cycle, then taper off as your objective floor gets closer. There's no boss to speak of, so you don't have to focus on leveling up in that sense. It's more about getting the monster's personal baroque—a shining pearl—to restore your vitality and continue your play time. Maybe even getting some items, if you're into that. While leveling up does come with a minor health boost, I think you'll get more benefit from proper item management than grinding against Grotesques. Honestly, pick your battles wisely. Learn enemy A.I. and circle strafing, then use it when necessary.

You know what? I blasted by something too fast in that last paragraph. Do you know what a baroque actually is? I mean, I gave a super basic definition, but "shining pearl" isn't entirely correct. Baroque, as it is used with pearls, refers explicitly to pearls that are not the standard spherical shape. They're globby, or they're tear-drop shaped, or basically anything deviant. Baroque, as it refers to art (and what you likely know it from), is a period known for being exceedingly excessive when it comes to ornamentation, detail, and dramatic (often religious) subjects. "Baroque", in quotes, the video game, is a game about deviations from the norm, about a world so different from our own that the character that seems the most relatable to us is a formerly conjoined twin suffering from the loss of his brother. Like, think about this! How many times do you see conjoined twins in video games that aren't portrayed as monsters? God, does that say something fucked up about our media.

Not to say this game is sympathetically perfect when it comes to mental health and trauma. Be prepared for some brain shock if you do some research. There's at least one enemy that has a backstory similar to Angela from "Silent Hill 2", if you need a quiet content warning. You don't really come across it in game, but it's definitely part of the creator's mindset, so…fuck. Shit! Damn, maybe. Son of a bitch. Pick a more elegant curse word and put it here.

I could probably go off on a side tangent on how interesting it is that the women outside of the Nerve Tower lack self-identity while the ones inside are story drivers with immense agency, but hell. I think we've done enough navel gazing for one examination. If you want a brain pick while whacking away at a randomized dungeon filled with psychological horrors based on Tarot iconography, here's your fucking game. It's basically the worst ending of "Silent Hill"'s universe several times over, but honestly, it's not the most frightening place to be, either. It's kind of like how the good ending of "Eversion" is both the main character and their princess turning into monsters and falling in love. It's just how their world is, man.

Those that reject "Baroque"'s world suffer greatly. Those that create it see it as perfect. And most people in that world aren't even sentient enough to grasp its nature.

Fuck, dude. I think playing this game might count for taking a Philosophy course.

[dillweedshole]

not a good sign i come bitching about it the day after it launches.

sparking zero's story mode is fucking terrible, just from first impressions.

let's get the one obvious but really good out of the way, the sparking episodes seem to be absolutely amazing. just pure what-if bliss it's so fucking cool.

and for the game itself, it's so beautiful. it looks amazing, sounds phenomenal, and has all the dragon ball fighting game bells and trinkets that make this series so much fun to watch and enjoy. every character looks great and their supers all look and sound perfect.

okay bitching time- the way this story mode is structured gives me horrific back pain.

you start out playing as goku fighting raditz, not completely wrong, then you go out with piccolo and go to fight raditz. first issue arrises immediately: you do not get to play as anyone else during a character's story path. if you chose goku, you are ONLY playing as goku, no switching mid-battle for more canon fights, and i'm bringing this up later for SURE. so anyway you beat raditz, second issue pops up right after that, i said you're only playing as goku on his story path and that applies to the story. you get small pieces of information going into the fight but you don't get to see piccolo training gohan, kami's lookout doesn't feature, you just go straight from raditz to nappa. there are like 2 or 3 fights in between that belong to OTHER characters' paths but not goku's. this is all just so i can say

why did they fucking make the story mode segmented by character and not by fucking arc/saga that's so fucking ridiculous

the story does not flow like that very well at all. it cuts out character switching, completely skips important pieces of the story, and it's not even presented that well either, the cutscenes are either fairly okay or it's the biggest piece of dog shit

to explain how to play the game in chronological order, you have to play through a fight, then stop and quit out to the menu. if the next fight you're about to play is playable with the same character, just go into the fight and continue, but if it ISN'T, you have to stop, go back to the character select, select said character the fight belongs to, THEN go into that very fight that was skipped.

when it would've been so much easier and completely okay with me and others like me if they just.. fuckin made the game with arcs in mind over character paths. it allows for character switching, an actually decently made episode map that gets to be properly fully explored, and could possible make the presentation not get so weirdly lazy sometimes.

and holy SHIT, some of these fights are probably terrible (again i haven't made it that far) with all this in mind.

there's a later what-if where you have to fight all of the ginyu force with a regular Goku (Mid). that's it. you get no extra health, they all have just as much health as you, and you have to fight all 5 members, one after the other.

are you FUCKING SERIOUS??? first off, again you get no extra health AND no character switching. you start with the 40,000 health and that's it, against a total of fucking 200,000 health, and the average super blast (which these guys LOVE using) can easily take away a solid 10,000 by themselves. it's ridiculous and not at all fair or fun. your best bet for victory is to spam supers/ultimates, which sucks ass.

[thebuttsmcgee]

What's wrong with keanu reeves

I'm not sure if there's actual things that are really Wrong with reeves, there's been talks of it but I mean I haven't been able to find much info for both that are recent, so I'll leave that to whoever chooses to discuss it

Why he sucks being shadow tho is cause I mean c'mon that's just so lame. They opted to choose big-name celeb who had a role or two that was somewhat similar, that nearly every geeky ass article site had as number 1 choice for the voice, instead of looking for actual voices that fit beyond the trendy loud fan demand. It's like if knux was voiced by the rock or tails as tom holland, it was fitting if you didn't wanna take it seriously and only make trendy corny memes about.

It's why the Hayden Christensen rumor was upsetting, cause that WOULD have been both a pleasant surprise and great, he has a younger voice that can easily be brooding, it fits into the (unfortunate) studio expectation of a character being voiced by A movie star, and he was barely suggested before the rumor, not like reeves or adam driver or reeves or pedro pascal or reeves or jon bernthal or reeves. And you know why he was so heavily fan casted?

2 solid reasons.

1. John Wick. He uses guns and is angsty. People think that fit shadow.

2. The keanu reeves moment in sonic 1. They thought it'd be funny if he ended up being shadow because callback.

Barely anyone looked at his track record and said "I think his voice reflects that of David Humphrey and Kouji Yusa's soft yet emotional performances or Jason Griffith's gravelly yet loud performances." No, they said what if sonic pointed at shadow and said he sounds like keanu reeves and shadow said what, cue some rough draft meme "animation" that has keanu reeves lines with shadow posed over it.

And look, I get it, an actual video game VA was never gonna happen, cause tails is the sidekick to sonic in the eyes of the execs and thus, isn't as important to their cash flow like knux, eggsy or shadow. But the fact that they just went with the most bland decision, and not even for predictability, but cause the "this one role reminds of this character and that means they r perfect" deal, just greatly, highly, immensely disappoints me. They did not scroll over who could be a great casting choice for Shadow, they just chose who every casual moviegoer wanted and got it.

Anyway, take this

[eurofox]

Yakuza 6 review

I finally made my way through them all. I have some mixed feelings on this one however. I don’t know if i’ll bother with 7 with the turnbased combat so I’ll move on to judgement instead.

Spoilers:

The good shit:

Fully voiced substories are great

Looks good

I like the dragon engine, ragdolling people is funny

Onomichi is easy enough to navigate and makes a nice change of pace

The Hirose crew is likeable, once again I’m impressed by how they make characters who should be annoying as fuck likeable.

Daigo gets a nice letter acknowledging all the bullshit Kiryu put him through

Kiryu and Haruto interactions are funny and cute

Onomichio

Peak dad Kiryu

THat jingweon guy was kind of cool, especially his battle theme.

Throwing exploding barrels is great

Troublr was an ok distraction

Akiyama finally calling Kiryu out on his dumb bullshit and having one of the funniest fights in the series.

The baby tossing scene was hilarious

Date thinking ahead for once, doesn’t work but hey, he tried

Yomei alliance being neutral was  interesting until it went off the deep end.

I like the way food is implemented in this game

I actually got into clan creator once I realised you could use codes (daigo’s code being Kiryusavemepleaz killed me)

Big Lo was a bit of a change when it came to villains, he deserved more time.

Yuta wasn’t too bad. He’s a total dumbass sure, but he’s sound.

Stardust being turned into a male strip club/brothel thing. Twist on the usual formula

Ghost photos

The Bad Shit:

I like the Dragon engine but it felt unpolished here compared to K2. Real lack of heat moves.

Sugai putting that ugly ass table in the Tojo Clan HQ. Fuck outta here with that

Very weak soundtrack, Theory of beauty is all that stood out to me. Shame as most of the series has a fantastic soundtrack

That weird gimp in the brothel long battle. WTF was that about. I looked it up and apparently he’s some kind of running joke but it just felt dumb and out of place. 

The Yomei captain was boring as a character and sucked as a boss. I beat his ass flat in 2 mins.

Baseball minigame fucking sucks

Hard to trigger some substories

Where the fuck is my drugstore? I need my staminan royales

Game in general feels kind of unfinished, lots of Kamurocho being inaccessible for example. Important events happening off-screen, like the Tojo boss’s all getting arrested.

Someya is weirdly popular for a guy who beat his wife. And his death is pointless lmao

Honestly, a lot of issues with the plot in general, made all the worse by the fact this is supposed to be a send off for Kiryu:

Starting off with him going to jail, again for some bullshit about ‘responsibility’. Daigo says he can get him off but noooooooo, he chooses to abandon the kids again, when they really need him.

Repeat of 2 with everyone being Chinese instead of Korean

Haruka gets daigo’d and spends most of the game in a coma and her final reunion with Kiryu is an anti-climax. He risks her BF’s life in a stupid battle in Millenium tower after he said he wanted them to be there for Haruto. Then he let’s her think he’s dead. I was never the biggest haruka fan but she deserved better.

The age of some of these characters was just silly. A 90 year old making a triad boss quake in his boots? Dumb. I think someone on the development team has an interest in WW2 and wanted to shoehorn it in somehow even if it made things absurd.

Kiryu feels sidelined in his own send off for the secret of onomichi bollocks. 

Majima, Saejima and Daigo get shafted in this. They appear in the beginning and then are just gone until the epilogue. That’s the 3rd time Saejima is jailed, ENOUGH. That was disappointing. At least Daigo get’s a letter. They got pushed aside for the Hirose boys and although I like them it kind of sucks. 

Why doesn’t Akiyama hide somewhere else instead of living in a sewer. That felt silly.

I never liked the Florist or purgatory but the way he was just absent in this game, when you are looking for people, makes no sense. Wrote themselves into a corner there.

Hirose is just Kazama 2.0, which was the point I guess, but why is everyone so cool with father figures who murdered their real dads in this series.

Kiyomi added very little to this story. Same with Someya tbh. He does point out Kiryu’s dumb luck when it comes to plans working out and explains why the yakuza are changing.

The whole of onomichio not telling Kiryu that haruka had been  there all along, Really now.

Honestly the triad felt really intimidating at the beginning but their story fizzled out in favour of that damn boat conspiracy. Sugai eventually felt like an afterthought. I wish they just focused on the Tojo/triad stuff and left the boat crap for another game

The shit with the Fixer I was confused by. Surely anyone involved is old as shit now. That boat is very outdated at this stage.

Kiryu abandoning everyone seemed silly, the kids only got to see him for a day. At least Date gives out to him about it.

Yeah so although the game was fun, some of the best substories, the plot as a whole felt messy and unfocused and the ending was lukewarm (plus it seems Kiryu comes back after all, so lol). The new gang was strong for the most part, but it came at the expense of the old Tojo crew, who just get arrested off-screen and do nothing, only appearing in  the last second. Kiryu makes so many dumb decisions here that it got hard to watch, I get he’s emotional with all the shit going on but c’mon. For an ending to Kiryu, it’s disappointing.