#i think it has something to say about singleplayer also

[itsak9catastrophe]

A BIG list of entirely free games therians and alterhumans can get !!! This isn't like an ad for them or anything, but when i was younger i never really had games that fit my theriotypes :( so why not start now!! this is in no real order.

These are all games where you play AS the animal, most of them being semirealistic? They're all free, so they aren't super realistic sorry!!! These are all also games i find on my tablet, so im not sure if they're available on pc!!

Wildcraft: As of today, Wildcraft updates every once and awhile, usually for the Wildpass thing they do almost weekly[? i took a large break from this game, forgive me if im misremembering.] Wildcraft was made by Turbo Rocket Games in early 2018. The multiplayer servers arent as active as they used to be, but it's still fun to play with friends sometimes!! I usually play in singleplayer though!! (Also, there is a settings option to make it first person, and one to hide the buttons!)

Playable Animals: Right now there are 12 land animals: Wolf [Default], Fox [Common], Lynx, Bear, Lion [Rares], Cheetah, Horse, Eagle, Crocodile, Tiger, Gorilla, and Kangaroo! [Ledgendaries], all of which are obtainable through the chests!! There are also 9 transformations [which are more difficult to get !!]: Raccoon, Deer, Hippo, Giraffe, Gazelle, Hyena, Rhino, Parrot, and Snake! There are also 5 Sea creatures: Dolphin [default], Stingray [Rare], Shark, Seal, and Sea turtle! You can have up to eight family members for every animal, who are also customizable! [not including transformations]

Customizability: There are TONS of skins and accessories for every animal, and you can adjust the size of their body parts, making your character entirely customizable! There are also LOTS of pets!

I give it a solid 10/10!! I've loved this game since it came out!! Me and my brother @whisperrdrrop [hii] played it like the year it came out!! I highly recommend playing this one ! >w< The community also has tons of fun creepypastas, and though the only real one is 'Niddhogg,' it's super fun to just learn about them!

Wolf Tales (Home & Heart (IT MIGHT BE 'WILD ANIMAL SIM' NOW IDK)): (The icon may have changed, my ipad doesn't update icons very much!!!) As of Today, Wolf Tales has basically stopped updating from what i can see. However this doesn't take away from the fun of it!! The game was created around 2020 by Foxie Ventures. Servers are multiplayer by default, but there is a singleplayer option!

Playable Animals: There are currently only 5 animals: Wolf, Fox, Bear, Wild/Big cat, and Dragon! All are unlocked by playing through the quests, though you can use moonstones (ingame 'rare' currency) to auto-buy most of them! Your families/packs are grown through opening chests and breeding!

Customizability: There are quite a few skins for every animal, ranging in rarity. you can obtain skins through buying the 'summoning' of the animal you'd like with moonstones and getting a random skin, or buying one directly. Skins are also not changeable! Let's say you're a grey wolf, and you get the sand wolf skin. You would have to enter your den and find that skin, and switch into that one, meaning it could have a different level! There are also LOTS of pets, though i do not remember how to get them. The only way to change your character is through changing limb sizes, there are no accessories!!

I give it a nice little 9/10, as much as i love this game i don't play it too often, but it really is fun! I think i got this game when it came out, and it was really fun watching the game and the community grow and change!! When i joined, not every player had a jump button, and there was this cool feature called 'Clans' (replaced by the player clans, sadly :() where there were 5 packs that you had to either defeat the alpha of or become besties with, and you'd get a packmate of any rarity from them daily!! My bestie pack was called 'the moonrise pack' and the #1 public enemy was 'The tooth pack' or something. I definitely recommend it :3!!

Ultimate Wolf/Fox/Forest/Savanna/Dinosaur/Cat/Shark/Bird/Jungle Simulator: they made a LOT of these games. These are only the ones that are free on my tablet, but im also seeing 'ocean,' 'dog,' 'arctic,' and 'lion' simulators for a dollar, you'd have to check and see if those are free. I'm mostly focusing on the WOLF simulator here, because i do NOT want to download all of those games. There is no multiplayer option for any of them. All made by gluten free games, no idea the release dates.

Playable Animals: The animals depend on which game you get. I know forest has bears, Savanna has cheetahs, Dinosaur has T-rex, triceratops, and ankylosaurus, bird has parrots and eagles, and jungle has tigers, but these are definitely not every animal !!

Customizability: you unlock a skin for every few levels, and you can tint them, but that's about it. For every game. There's like... 8-15 for most?

I give it a 7/10. As much as i do really, really love this game and all the memories playing it, it's really not the most entertaining game out there. If you're really bored and have nothing to do, sure, go wild with it!!

Dog Sim: I just got this game and it's so silly !! Made by Turbo Rocket Games in 2016, the multiplayer servers are surprisingly still decently active! Obviously it doesn't update anymore.

Playable Animals: The only animals in these are: (you guessed it) dogs. There's a single skin that... might? be a wolf, and there's two robo dog skins. There's a total of 38 skins!

Customizability: The only thing you can customize is your breed, sorry!

Other than that, theres a LOT to play with! With 5 bosses, 25 enemy/prey creatures, 1 map, 1 den, a max level of 200, a maximum family size of 4, 20 achievements, and 30 quests, there's plenty to do!

I give it a nice 8/10, the only points taken being because the game itself isnt the highest quality, and the models arent all 10/10, but it's still a really silly game! I do recommend it :)

Cat simulator - animal life: created in 2019 by Pocket Games entertainment, i think this one is pretty cute! With active multiplayer servers!!

Playable Animals: Just kitties! silly little kitties on big adventures!!

Customizability: Lots of cute skins and accessories!!!

There are tons of quests, camp upgrades, and more included in this!!

I didn't play this one for too long, but there are some pvp servers aswell. Overall really cute game, not too buggy/laggy! 10/10 :3

Wild Cougar Sim (3D): Another game made by Turbo Rocket games before their big success that was Wildcraft, Cougar Sim was created in 2015 (I think? I'm only finding the youtube trailer, dont be afraid to correct me.) I'm not seeing an option for multiplayer unfortunately :(!

Playable Animals: Yeah, It's just Cougars! What did you expect?

Customizability: With eight skins (Must be purchased with ingame currency), 9 coat marking options (Almost like tattoos!) including a Shark, Wolf, Lizard, Scorpion, Butterfly and Bird (Phoenix?), and options to change body/limb sizes, there's actually really good customization here!

With 3 unlockable family members, 30 quests, 20 achievements, 18 enemy/prey creatures, 4 biomes, and 8 dens, there is plenty to keep yourself busy with here! That accompanied by the fact that this isn't even a bad looking game, i honestly give it a nice 10/10! Very cute game, not much lag, pretty good in terms of realism, it's pretty cool!! :)

Dragon Sim Online: Yet another game made by Turbo Rocket in 2016, i quite like this one! With semi-active multiplayer servers!!

Playable Animals: Quite a few different types of Dragons, varying in element, colour, and breeds!

Customizability: With 4 elements, 46 (VERY pretty) skins, and limb/body adjustment sliders, you can customize your dragon pretty well!

Similar to both Cougar Sim and Dog Sim, Dragon Sim has plenty to offer: 30 quests, 20 achievements, 27 enemy/prey creatures, 3 bosses, 6 islands and 4[?] dens, there's plenty there to keep you busy! another 10/10 from me :)

[tribow]

Thinking about Unlockables in game design.

Lately, unlockables have been avoided since locking content/settings behind unlockables restricts what players have access to when they start a game. Players should have the freedom to play the game how they want right? Imagine how shitty a player would feel if they don't get to play that cool character they saw in a video. What do you mean I can't play this mode until complete all these challenges? I want to do it now!!!

I understand the sentiment, but unlockables do something extremely well that a lot of other mechanics can't. "Encouragement".

It's hard to think of a greater reward than "more content". Unlockables give the player just that. It's a strong motivator to play more of the game if you know you'll get some more stuff to play with.

They can also give a strong sense of progression. Even if the singleplayer experience is a little weak, making it so you earn new stuff as you go can add so much to it.

Plus, unlockables encourages players engage with the depth a game has instead of just reaching the credits and putting it down.

My favorite example of this is probably Kirby Air Ride. If you know about that game, you have probably heard people sing high praises about the City Trial mode, but that's not the part I'm talking about here.

Kirby Air Ride has a racing mode called... "Air Ride". It's the first thing selected on the menu screen. You open it up, start playing, and you'll see just 8 tracks to select. After selecting a track, you are given 1 vehicle to select before you start the race.

It's the most barebones experience ever. Your options are egregiously limited. Worst of all, Air Ride isn't even that good from the perspective of someone who just started the game! The controls are super simple, the copy abilities barely do anything to racers, and while you can unlock more vehicles, they're super unbalanced!

Yeah, Air Ride is an unbalanced and lame mess at first. After playing one race, you almost certainly unlocked SOMETHING. You're brought to a challenge board that shows off which challenges you completed. Some challenges unlock things like new vehicles, kirby colors, settings, and more!

You try out whatever new thing you unlocked and WABAM! You have completed more challenges! Even though Air Ride is a lame mode with little content, a player can easily get intrigued by all of these challenges. What else do they unlock?

So lets say you start doing these challenges on purpose now. There's a lot of variety there. Some are time trials, some make you perform specific tricks with copy abilities, some ask you to use specific vehicles.

Some force you to learn a ton of things about a track like, "Use every boost pad in a lap!". Now you have to explore the track to make sure you hit them all.

These challenges make the player engage with the mechanics and reveals a TON of depth without any of it being a tutorial. Through these challenges you learn copy abilities can give you big boosts of speed when used right, you learn the the many different routes you can take in a track, you learn how to go as fast as possible with each vehicle, you learn the strengths and weaknesses of them all.

In the meantime, you keep unlocking more things. The game opens up more and more to you. That initial roster of a single vehicle balloons to 15 and now you know the intricacies of each one. You learn the nuance of every track. Suddenly, there's all this depth that the player would have likely never appreciated if the game just gave them all the settings at the start.

Nothing makes a player "get gud" faster than unlockables. Old fighting games would hide extra stuff behind unlockables and it forced you to get better at the game just so you can mess with that content. It's a genius way to make a player learn and engage with a game.....

Now, I understand the drawback. The freedom is restricted for this to work. Multiplayer games would get shunned to hell for hiding content behind unlockables. I believe in a multiplayer experience, players should have access to whatever they want, but when they go into singleplayer unlockables should absolutely be utilized.

and when I say unlockables I don't mean collectibles or stat buffs or items or whatever. I mean actual parts of the game you just don't have access to until you unlock it. I think it's cool I want to see more modern games do it.

Y'know, most of the shit that gets locked behind microtransactions would have been super cool as just unlockables. Shame.

[curiiositycabinet]

You mentioned knocker likes when you name pets after him, is it possible for him to name animals himself? (I know with anomaly he renames animals to stuff in game) but in your general lore do you think he'd do that if he managed to get his hands on a nametag?

Probably something really stupid to fuck with you too

My initial thought is to say yes, but giving this some more thought, I think I'd actually say no? I don't think it'd even cross his mind to care for mobs unless they got in the way. I know I said he doesn't care for the other entities in my imaginary modpack, but that also goes for every other mob in the game. Naming anything is a waste of time when he'd rather be harassing you

On that note, I feel like he would mess with the player's pets. Particularly wolves - making them randomly stand up and aggro onto him so he can lure them away. This usually leads to your pets randomly going missing and being later found in a random area, particularly a cave. If your reputation with him is horrible, though, he'll either lure it out and kill it or, if you try and cheat/avoid his encounter, he'll pause for a moment before killing off one of your pets, usually leaving behind a mocking sign in their place.

If said pet is nametagged, it has a chance of saying something like "here lies ___"

Now that I think about it, he probably doesn't understand why player(s) get attached to their digital pets. He'd probably mock you for being so terribly lonely you need a fake animal if you're on a singleplayer server ,,,,

the reasoning for him liking when you name a pet after him is purely just him getting amused . I like to think he'd even avoid killing it, but has a much higher chance of luring it away . clearly, this mob belongs to him . its even got his name on it

[corviddrawsstuff]

Thinking about armour stands in HermitCraft

I love when hermits include armour stands in their builds and I headcanon it as a very intricate craft, creating the mannequin’s structure and their faces.

But I was also thinking about the faces that they choose…

A very overwhelming majority of armour stands on HermitCraft feature the other server member’s faces. Yknow how they say that when we see people in our dreams, it’s actually a face we’ve seen before because our brains are incapable of coming up with new ones?

I think a huge part of Minecraft in general is the loneliness. It’s not a bad loneliness, just the knowledge that you’re the only person in this infinite world. That’s a bit different in multiplayer servers because you see people and the things they create; but at the end of the day, HermitCraft only has 26 members and that’s not a lot of people.

Singleplayer survival worlds rarely feature armour stands as decoration. When they do, they use mob heads, because the player has never seen another human’s face.

I think there’s a ton of headcanon potential here. Something about Cleo spending hours learning how to sew/carve/paint another players face, then repeating that one face so many times it’s second nature. Teaching that technique to Scar, who seems to know exactly how to pose the mannequin frames to make them look alive (there’s definitely some elf magic involved). Tango creating his own armour stands with conductive materials so he can hook them up to redstone.

I just loove worldbuilding and unique crafts and minecraft’s lonely atmosphere… I’d love to hear some other peoples headcanons about armour stands!

[uinferno]

A part of the response to Duskbloods is interesting. Like not even the manner of exclusives—a completely valid gripe—but just how much vitriol held for multi-player games as a concept. It's fine to be disappointed or think that it's not for you, but the way people talk about multi-player as a concept makes it seem like their own perception of multi-player as a platform is exclusively for sweaty tryhards who will send death threats and call you slurs. Constantly fighting against MMR and being branded as a "Guy who's shit" from your lack of skill.

While it's certainly not identical to single player games, it's also not nearly a big of a deal as many make it out to be. Especially for less competitive games. Maybe it's cause my big two main games atm is Warframe and Monster Hunter, but the vibes of both are less actively clashing with others and more working on your own thing in the same room. You and the others have your own goals, but periodically, you'll meet someone else going on their own journey. It's less group project and more sharing public transport. Everyone drops in and out at their own pace but you don't really need to fret about what the others think of you for being there. Or, at least, you shouldn't fret about what others think. There will be assholes on the bus on occasion, but there will also be little moments of serendipity. Charming encounters that will stick with you.

I use both Warframe and Monster Hunter as an example because while they both are exclusively cooperative games, my perception of them is less "Multiplayer" and more "Singleplayer with others." Parallel play, to use more fancy terms.

While Duskbloods certainly is a departure from the other for having an emphasis on PvPvE, distinct from my other examples—as information has been coming out about it, it sounds like "PvP" aspect is... not overblown, but oversimplified. Miyazaki himself mentioned not being a multiplayer guy but wanting to explore things you can't get out of singleplayer. Specifically the briefly mentioned "role" system. Because by the sound of it it's less "competitive" and more "uncooperative."

Unlike similar "Free for all games," players don't share the same goals. You don't go in expecting to kill everyone, but instead are given a task that intersect with other players and their own objectives. Sometimes it involves opposition like having a mark or killing everyone, but other times, it seems that your objective is supportive or even completely detached from the other players. Maybe you have to protect someone, maybe you just need to get in, find a certain non-player enemy, or maybe something irrelevant to life and death entirely. From the sound of it, the game's core concept is finding a way to produce drama and politics and complex webs of relationships between players.

Person A needs to kill person B, but they're being watched over by person C, and person B doesn't need to kill person A back because instead they're needing to track down this boss. Same with person D, but killing B isn't critical and they can even cooperate, but, there's a separate Person E who needs to kill at least 3 others—doesn't matter who, which might lead to them helping Person B fend off A or help A track down B. That's not even mentioning Persons F through H, who may have their own issues. In a sense, it's applying the core of Social Deduction like Mafia or Among Us to more action based games and trying to produce emergent drama and dynamics to tell a story not through writing but gameplay.

And frankly. That's far more interesting than "Battle Royale Soulslike." Its trying to make roleplay truly multiplayer sans-NPCs. It also sounds like the core loop is more Hades-esque where progression isn't locked behind success but instead any outcome leads to developing situations, and you might be able to have some say in what tasks will be given to you.

Even if none of this sounds the slightest bit interesting to, that's fair, but I do think it's a bit reductive to chalk things up to trend chasing or being the new Fortnite. Not even mentioning that if you really want to you probably could trick yourself into believe they're really advanced NPCs.

[theaceofspaades]

Orwell Franchise

Star Ranking: ★★★★⯪

Tags (on Steam): Indie, Simulation, Political, Dystopian, Story Rich, Choices Matter, Political, Adventure, Singleplayer, Detective, Interactive Fiction, Mystery, Hacking, Visual Novel, Puzzle, Atmospheric, Great Soundtrack, Point & Click, Multiple Endings, Investigation 

Steam Reviews: Mostly Positive (as of 3/9/25)

Reviews: 1,278 (as of 3/9/25)

Developer: Osmotic Studios

Publisher: Fellow Traveller

Orwell: Keeping An Eye on You and Orwell: Ignorance Is Strength might be two of the most relevant games in this day and age. In an era of digital surveillance, we find ourselves extremely used to being watched, observed, or monitored. We are all, on some level, aware of the fact that nothing we say online is private. Yet many people don’t take this fact seriously. To me, the Orwell games felt like a call to action on that front. 

Though fictional, the Orwell franchise served as a reminder to me that we do not know everything that goes on within the government and that we can never be sure about what we read. Everyone has a bias, some are positive and some are negative, but even things marketed as “bias-free” are never truly free from the little demon we all carry known as bias. This is what makes the world interesting, and by extension, what makes people formulate ideas. Even if something is still grounded in fact, it does serve to further an agenda or idea. 

Although these games show an anti-government bias as villainous and a pro-government bias as heroic, many of the messages portrayed in these games (rather laid out plainly or in subtext) are very against government surveillance and full-scale government control. I look at the Orwell games as a warning for what may be to come in this digital world we inhabit. 

In the Orwell games, you work for the government of an area known as “The Nation,” specifically a specialized division known as “The Office.” In both Orwell games, you are an investigator. Not just any investigator, though, you’re part of the team responsible for using a software called Orwell. What is Orwell?

Orwell is a digital surveillance software used by The Nation’s government. As an investigator, you are responsible for utilizing this top-secret software to gather information on possible suspects of crimes. While most of these crimes are heinous and large-scale, most of them build off of smaller, less severe crimes. In the case of Orwell: Keeping An Eye on You, your main suspect (Cassandra Watergate), was involved in a protest against The Nation’s government that turned violent quickly. Cassandra was responsible for injuring a police officer in an area known as “Freedom Plaza.” The Orwell software allows you to go through her internet posts, her criminal record, et cetera. All while dealing with the ethical and moral dilemma that comes with the fact that you are essentially stalking her. 

While this is legal under something called the “Safety Bill,” it still raises a few questions. Are you doing the right thing? Do you trust the information you see from her social posts or do you trust her friends? When faced with conflicting evidence, you’re required to make a choice: Which do you think best fits the situation? 

You’re given the option to arrest Cassandra Watergate based on information you submit to Orwell, but some of the information may not be necessarily true. Was Cassandra at the wrong place at the wrong time or was she associated with the violent acts of terrorism you’re tasked to solve? That all depends on the information you submit and what you find. You dig through news articles from The Nation’s main news source: The National Beholder, while also looking at conflicting blog posts from Cassandra and her friends that may lead you to question the integrity of The National Beholder and The Nation altogether. 

You choose what you want to submit and what you wish to believe, but the game may never confirm or deny if the data chunks you submit to Orwell were correct or not. When a data chunk has no conflict, it’s assumed that is the correct information. However, data chunks tend to conflict with each other. Do you trust the medical reports of a patient or do you trust their story? The choice is yours. 

In the second installment of the Orwell franchise, Orwell: Ignorance is Strength, the game is shorter but the message is much deeper and darker. While the information you receive in the first Orwell game doesn’t necessarily tie into the main part of the second game, certain characters (Such as the previous game’s Adviser/Interpreter, a man with the codename of Symes) do make smaller cameos and may be referenced. You don’t necessarily have to play the first Orwell game to play the second one, but it does provide some interesting background. 

While the main conflicting character, Raban Vhart, is a new character with no real connection to the previous game, he does show the same ideologies as some of the previous conflicting characters. Characters from the original game like Abraham Goldfels and Nina Maternova mix in the form of Orwell: Ignorance Is Strength’s main antagonist. 

Much like the previous game’s antagonist, Vhart is in opposition to the Government and The Nation as a whole and he is a notorious blogger with a large following. Similar to the original game’s Thought group, Vhart runs an internet blog called The People’s Voice. While I won’t cover everything related to The People’s Voice here, much like Thought in the original game, they’re an outspoken activist group that is rooted in anti-National beliefs*, while Vhart is portrayed as an antagonist, most of his beliefs are very reasonable.

Similar to Thought in the original Orwell, The People’s Voice is heavily biased and has been put under investigation because one or more of their members have been linked directly back to a violent crime. As the game progresses, you follow Rhaban Vhart and various other members of The People’s Voice as they try to navigate their complicated personal lives, all while being somewhat unaware of the fact that they’re being watched.

Unlike in the original Orwell game, Vhart is much more experienced at dodging or evading Government interference than the members of Thought were. While the concept of “Orwell” or a government surveillance device was met with skepticism and disdain, when Vhart is presented with the idea of a Government agency watching him or his site, he is already well aware of the possibility and he weaponizes it against the members of the Nation’s government, including the player character. 

Throughout Orwell: Ignorance is Strength, unlike in Orwell: Keeping An Eye on You, you find yourself actively fighting the media. As the game progresses, it grants you the ability to manipulate the media and requires you to turn those affiliated with The People’s Voice against Rhaban Vhart. It’s an interesting addition to the Orwell storyline that adds another level of depth to the game and its story.

The main problem I have with Orwell is how short the games are. Specifically in the second Orwell installment. While Orwell: Keeping An Eye on You had a relatively average playtime (4-5 hours) just to complete the base game, and approximately 2 extra hours of playtime if you decided to go and progress through the side-quests and additional objectives. While this isn’t a major gripe, Orwell: Ignorance Is Strength was noticeably shorter. Despite this fact, the story was still satisfactory and had an interesting conclusion. 

All in all, I would heavily recommend these games for a variety of reasons. Still, the main reason I had to play them personally is the fact that they are highly relevant to the current and possible future of the world we live in, especially with the rise of ethical surveillance and spyware. The Orwell franchise reminds us that everything we post, in or out of context, is permanent and can be used against us. 

[jaquin]

Dr. Robotnik's Ring Racers

I've been playing Ring Racers alot in my free time and it has been in my mind ever since it came out, I feel compelled to write how it makes me feel just to let it out. I don't think most people truly realize how amazing this game really is.

The kart racing genre is something I was never super into. most i've played was some Mario Kart games. However, I've always appreciated and continue to appreciate Kirby Air Ride for trying really creative things that still sticks with me, I also just love the presentation and execution of its unique ideas. I never thought a kart racer would ever match that level of creativity again untill I played Ring Racers.

Mario kart was always too simple and easy for me to play on my own or even online. srb2kart felt like a more challenging Mario Kart to me and I loved playing it way more than any other racing game, the controls are as simple as Mario Kart but it takes a bit of mastering and understanding to do really well, My only real gripe with it was that there wasn't much to do other than just playing online with other people since singleplayer content was basically non-existant.

But Ring Racers, oh man. I could not care less if it's not friendly to casual players. It is such a vast improvement from srb2kart to me. I've never felt so engaged with a racing game before. So many creative ideas, mechanics and content that never feels boring when i'm playing. I always feel challenged playing this game and It's so satisfying to get good at. I love how much more technical of a racer it is. It also is just a great sonic fangame, this is exactly what I would want an official sonic kart racing game to be. Kart Krew has really made something amazing here and I'm having the most fun i've ever had with a videogame in a long time. I feel extremely grateful to be able to experience this.

Perhaps i'll make more posts about other games i've played/been playing just to give myself a reason to use tumblr.

But yeah, ring racers is a great videogame. thats all i rly wanted to say.

[princevontwix]

(warning, LOONGG late night rambling post)

ok, so you know about Yume Nikki Online? that really good online multiplayer hub hosting both the original game and a collection of fangames? i feel like that idea could apply really well to OFF and its fangames too! and i got the perfect name for it, OFFline.

i imagine it can go with a similar premise of YNO but just allow people to talk and gather around in OFF-related games. but i see a lot of potential for OFFline to include some kind of PvP-dedicated fangame, which I'll call Engage. which, with how many ideas i have for it, might be best to not make in EasyRPG.

the basic idea i have in mind is that there's a central hub where people can just chat and hang out which has three divisions:

Versus

Team Battle

Arcade, subdivided into Campaign and Endless.

what all of these modes have in common is a shopkeeper. it'll probably be better to make them an original character, but basically, for Versus and Team Battle, at the beginning of a match, you're given a set amount of credits to purchase from a list of items, weapons, and armor. for consistency's sake, i think its best that certain items are locked for certain characters only (say, no one else can use weapons and armor for Home characters), but healing and damage items are fair play for all.

whoever hosts a room will be able to dictate which select fangame they'd wish to fight in (as in, which cast of characters both users must use), OR decide that anything goes and both users are free to make the party of their dreams (its also here that they'd be free to select which battle theme plays).

Versus mode is between two players, who have full control of their own parties. while Team Battle is a 4v4, where each player will have control over their selected party member.

as for Arcade, its basically just singleplayer fun; the intent is that with the large amount of enemies and bosses from the multitude of fangames present, it will bring something different each time via randomizer. Campaign i would describe as being similar to Smash 3DS's Classic Mode, where you're given 3 branching paths with varying difficulties. the more difficult ones you beat, the more credits you earn, where you can make a pitstop before each boss to stack up (with zodiac orbs being pricier). referring to the sketch above, yellow cubes are enemy encounters, red cubes are bosses, and purple is for the end-game boss (the final boss from the og game/fangame, if applicable). i figured that every 3rd or 4th encounter being a boss will help prevent the gameplay from being monotonous beatdowns of regular enemies. you'll get choices for enemies and bosses, but there's only one endgame boss and that's random each time.

and lastly, Endless mode is just that. this time, you're given a larger supply of credits to use and once you enter the first round, there's no going back. each round will supply a minute amount of health or energy items to use, but will progressively get more difficult. my hope here is that it isn't just more enemies each round, but for it to sometimes bring fewer but beefier enemies, and maybe even a miniboss. you progress through each round by clicking on the individual cube labeled with the appropriate number. i figured like this it'd be more reasonable to fit within RPG2k3's limits but at this point it would be bloated so oh well. and of course, once you die, it ends. a public leaderboard will be on display to show the top 10 players and their scores.

now to get the obvious out of the way, online functionality with this many features would be difficult, if not impossible, to implement. as such, i would not be opposed to taking an approach similar to the UT fangame Don't Forget, where OFFline will be developed on an engine like Gamemaker and attempt to re-create RPG2k3's vibe and the individual games being hosted, along with Engage. the problem with the latter is that i think its more realistic to just let EasyRPG do all the work in porting the fangames like YNO, rather than recreate each one in a more modern engine. but at the same time, that would be the only feasible way of having any of these planned features to work without any fuckups. of course, i suppose a workaround to having multiplayer work in RPG2k3 would be to have a Parsec session or something similar, but that'd only be a solution for Versus mode at best. it would definitely not work for Team mode and might conflict with general offline.

in fact, the idea of OFFline might take some mad wizardry to even make it work, and i wouldn't be surprised if it barely works. making it in EasyRPG and using 2k3 as the basis vs. making it in a modern engine is the double-edged sword of this whole hypothetical. i'd love for something like this to happen, but i imagine it would be too much work to not only develop, but to keep the servers online for an otherwise niche fanbase. still, i cant shake away how much potential and fun this could be.

with that said, rambling is now over!

[gaming-of-the-shrew]

F's Weekly(?) Roundup, vol. 2

LATE JAN-MID FEB 2025

When I said weekly, I didn't say every week, now did I? Lucky for you, I've got a hot, fresh batch of takes and impressions to savour. Let's get started.

Honourable mentions to Balatro and The Sims 2, which I've been playing a lot of.

GAMES

BLADE CHIMERA (2025)

SCORE: ?

Completed in: 11 hours.

First off, I'm copping out. I've got a longer piece about the amazing/awful/mediocre (delete where appropriate) metroidvania Blade Chimera in the works, so you'll have to wait just a little longer if you're fanging to know exactly how I feel about it. Watch this space!

Crypt Custodian (2024)

SCORE: 5/10

Completed in: 7.5 hours.

Two metroidvanias!

Crypt Custodian is a charming little game about a recently-deceased cat's journey through the afterlife.

Now, when I say 'afterlife', that may conjure to mind visions of the traditional Abrahamic hereafter, but CC's portrayal is a little more radical: the afterlife consists almost entirely of a series of rectangular platforms above the void; level design misses in this one, I'm sad to say. This is a problem, because an argument can be made that a metroidvania's strongest asset is its world - this is a genre built on exploration and hunting for secrets, after all.

It's not all bad, though. Although the actual traversal of the world fails to light a fire, the visual design is very charming in that simplistic 'macabre cute' kind of way, and it has to be doing something right because I blew through the entire thing (no 100% completion, however) in two sittings without growing fatigued. I'm not sure exactly what it's doing right though - the combat is pretty rudimentary, bosses particularly easy, and story threadbare. You're just going to have to believe me when I say it's at least a bit more than the sum of its parts.

Yellow Taxi Goes Vroom (2024)

SCORE: 7.5/10

Completed in: 4.7 hours.

From strict genre-adherence to something a bit spicier, Yellow Taxi Goes Vroom is a racing platformer collectathon type thing. Relentlessly fast-paced and cheerful, just about the only glaring flaw I have to point out is the comedic writing - don't quit your day job.

Other than that, YTGV is a perfect example of how good game design lessons can come from humble places. Let me explain.

Tapping a button begins a windup animation for a dash. Tapping that same button during this preliminary animation allows you to cancel the dash and instead perform a short hop. This can be done anywhere - even in the air. In just this small decision, the game has expanded its potential for dynamic movement tech, diversified its level design options, and eliminated the frustration that comes from falling from a high platform; just hop back on. This is only one example, and the game is absolutely chock full of these little gameplay conveniences and intricacies which come together to make a movement system which is a complete delight from start to finish.

Taking this into account, it makes it all the more bizarre that other systems are so seemingly superfluous. For example, some levels have a Crazy Taxi-esque timer and passengers to deliver. However, time bonuses are so generous that running out of time is virtually impossible, and even if it weren't the only penalty for running out is a return to a checkpoint (which does not undo progress). I guess I prefer this to the alternative, but it's weird it's there at all. There's a full-blown Crazy Taxi-type mode which is great, but I think the timer should've stayed relegated to that rather than spreading throughout the game.

The soundtrack is also terrific. Definitely recommended.

Pikuniku (2019)

SCORE: 6/10

Completed in: Singleplayer about 3 hours, co-op probably around 1 hour.

To start, I'd like to say that I never feel like I can give an adequate review of a co-op experience because basically anything is fun if you're doing it with someone you love. I like that the car horns play Take On Me, though. Singleplayer, then.

I feel like I remember this one making some serious waves, and I can kind of see why. It's not doing anything absolutely out there or crazy but it's varied, has a lot of personality, and knows not to overstay its welcome and that does seem to be the secret formula for making a universally well-liked and charming indie game. It's colourful and whimsical, which is honestly all it needs to be.

Overall reminds me of a flash game - but one of those longer, more premium-feeling adventure-y ones like Magic Pink Man.

MOVIES (and some anime!)

Hitman (2007)

SCORE: 2/10

Okay, obviously this one was bad, you don't need me to tell you that. What surprised me was just how many ways in which it sucked: not only are the performances flat and the action subpar, this movie also manages to completely miss the appeal of Agent 47 as a character, going as far as to make him into a mumbling, shy teenage boy of a man with a tediously predictable love interest. In fact, the whole film kind of comes off like it was written and directed by a fourteen-year-old.

It's true to the games in that it has an incomprehensible international political espionage story which gives up halfway through, so there's that.

Dragon Ball Z: Fusion Reborn

SCORE: 6/10

Hitler is in this one.

Dragon Ball - Goku's Traffic Safety + Goku's Fire Brigade (Both 1988)

Image taken from Goku's Traffic Safety.

This is a pair of safety PSAs aimed at kids featuring the cast of the original Dragon Ball series. Honestly, I didn't think I'd have anything to write here, but I found the traffic safety one especially interesting, being as it is essentially a completely ordinary episode save for the handful of times Goku is called upon to properly observe traffic safety regulations.

I've never really seen any of the early Dragon Ball, and this kind of put into perspective the more human/grounded stories they were able to tell when the series' power scope wasn't as unimaginably broad as it is now.

I've always been fascinated by PSAs aimed at kids, and have seen basically all there is to see of UK and USA offerings. Very interesting to see how it was approached here! Definitely check out the traffic one if you're into this sort of stuff too. Goku's Fire Brigade is a little less engaging though.

Kino's Journey (2003)

SCORE: 9/10

I'm a pretty big fan of anime and manga, though you wouldn't know it from my relatively sparse diet of it (Dragon Ball notwithstanding...). I like to wait for something that really piques my interest to come along before I get invested, and when fellow shrew J.C. recommended I watch this show, I knew they'd found something special.

Kino's Journey is a fairly novel 'philosophical monster of the week' type of show. We're always following our protagonist Kino and their talking motorcycle Hermes and their circumstances are always the same at the start of every episode - they're travelling the world, staying in every city-state they encounter for no more than three days. Episodes are fragmented into short stories of varying lengths, with the longest being a two-parter pair of episodes, but they can be as short as a few minutes.

There are a lot of ideas discussed here, but what I find interesting is the consistent throughline of Stoicism and Buddhist philosophy. Kino is interested only in exploring the world and living their life consciously, not in judging others for their particular ways of living. We're presented with both ends of the spectrum when it comes to human morality, but through Kino's lens of impartiality it all feels like an invitation to think more deeply about how we approach philosophising as discontinuous organisms.

I genuinely think anyone who's even the slightest bit interested in themes like these will get a lot out of Kino's Journey. Give it a try if you like.

Star Trek: Section 31 (2025)

SCORE: 0/10

A bona fide piece of shit. I've never seen any of the newer Star Trek (I've seen TNG and a little DS9), but if it's all this bad I can see why people have such a low opinion of it. Reads like a disjointed collection of scenes with little to no relation to each other. An honestly impressive amount of F-tier performances from otherwise provably competent actors, especially Michelle Yeoh. Some of the most dreadful comedic writing I've ever heard.

The Usual Suspects (1995)

SCORE: Difficult to rate

Late to the party here, I'm assuming most people have seen this one by now. Drags a bit, but has an extremely juicy payoff which is worth sticking around for. Definitely would be a fun one to rewatch if you're into that sort of thing.

I also watched Me, Myself & Irene and The Cable Guy, both Jim Carrey vehicles, but I haven't got much to say there. The former was dreadful, the latter exactly what you'd expect from a Carrey film.

Okay, that's all for now. Stick around for the Blade Chimera review, and for the myriad delights to follow. Stay safe out there.

[bluebudgie]

Behold! The long announced whiny pissbaby gamer rage essay that noone on the internet asked for.

Disclaimer up front: This is about Eff Eff Sixteen. If you're a fan of this game I advise you to just ignore this because I genuinely don't want to piss into your morning coffee with my negativity. I will rip this game several new assholes. You have been warned.

FAQ Q: Don't you have anything better to spend your time on than writing a ridiculously lengthy internet text post about a video game whose existence you are free to simply ignore? A: Yes, but this matter is personal. I'm writing this for the sake of carthasis. Closure. To be free of the rage that has possessed me for the past months. Q: Have you tried touching grass? A: I have sat in a field of grass for a prolonged amount of time prior to writing this. I am beyond the need of touching grass. Q: Do you expect anyone to actually read all this? A: No.

Spoilers ahead, obviously. Let's go.

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Table of Contents

Introduction: Is this the worst game ever made? 1.1 It's personal 1.2 Pre-release & producer statements

The battle system

The narrative 3.1 Storytelling and morality 3.2 Pacing 3.3 Visuals 3.4 Characters 3.4.1 The game's biggest mistake 3.4.2 The state of women 3.5 Music

Credit where credit is due 4.1 It's personal again

Conclusion

------

1. Introduction: Is this the worst game ever made? What a strange way to start, you may think. Shouldn't this question rather be addressed in a conclusion at the end? I want to set the record straight from the start: No, it is not the worst game ever made. All things considered I don't even think it's the worst game of its series. And yet I have never in my life felt such unbridled hatred for a video game, or honestly, any piece of entertainment media I can currently think of. Why is that?

1.1 It's personal Usually I'm pretty good at doing the sensible thing people should do when they don't like something - ignore it. Why bother wasting your energy deliberately seeking out something that you know will make you angry?

Hear me out for a moment, I'll have to go on a tangent here.

I didn't actively get into the series until a year before FFXIII released - which at this point in time is 15 years ago now, but considering we've had only two more (singleplayer) mainline games since then, it's still a relatively late entry point. This is to say: I don't think I'm wearing the worst nostalgia goggles, but I do have a long history with the series nonetheless. These games have played a big role in my life for those past 15 years.

I used to roll my eyes at the "the series died after FFX" crowd. FFXII is one of the best in the series, sure FFXIII was a landslide miss for me, but... that's one game, right. Then FFXV's release drew closer. I did not like what I saw, for many reasons I won't detail now. What did I do? I blacklisted the game's name on all social media platforms, and didn't hear anything about it anymore. To this day I haven't actually seen much of it, though I do know the rough outline. And I know that while the game has a dedicated fanbase, it has also received its fair share of harsh criticism.

Why am I telling you all this?

1.2 Pre-release & producer statements

A few years ago, FFXVI was announced. And I have to be honest: I was negatively biased from the start. I hadn't been happy with SE's general direction for years and I wasn't particularly hopeful for this entry either. But - and I want to make this very clear - I was open to give this game a fair chance. The announcement trailer didn't really hook me but it looked alright, some visual and audio gripes aside. I was... cautiously curious. Not quite enough to call it optimistic, but I wanted to be hopeful.

You know what's excellent at crushing hopes? Game producer interviews that range from "that's a severely stupid opinion to have but you do you" aka (paraphrased) "our traditionally turn-based series can't be turn-based anymore because in order to get the production costs covered we have to appeal to the masses, and the masses are kids who love action and not outdated combat systems in which you have to navigate menus to act" (source); to downright offensive statements such as "we are creating a fantasy world based on reality and therefore black people can't exist in our european medieval setting" (source); and "I have gamer pride so I don't want to feature an easy difficulty setting in my game" (source - for clarity's sake there are accessibility options in the game in the form of equipment that helps simplify combat, however the statement itself is still really goddamn stupid).

And I know these statements have been called out by some - but it definitely didn't blow up as much as it should have considering the popularity of this franchise. It's an open secret why this is the case (if you're out of the loop: the game producer in question is an untouchable god with a really large cult fan following), and quite frankly I believe this is probably where the first seeds of my hatred were sown. Knowing that no matter what FFXVI was going to be it would have people defend it out of their blind commitment to the team behind the game's development, left a.... spiteful aftertaste in my mouth.

Ironically looking back now, and plain offensive statements aside, my biggest concern for the game itself was actually the combat system. I'm definitely part of the old-school "a main series FF game needs turn-based combat" crowd. Oh sweet summer child.

At this point I decided it would be better to go the FFXV route (which, by the way, had some similarly stupid dev comments at its release). All marketing made it clear that I was not the target audience for this game, so best to just ignore its existence.

That worked... alright...ish... until the demo's release. I guess you could say curiousity killed the cat. I decided to take a look at someone's playthrough... and that's where my initial "pissbaby gamer rage" draft that I ended up not posting came from. Go big or go home, if I wanted to be angry about this game in public I should at least be fair and wait for the full release. Not judge the game by its (admittedly generous in length) demo. Get the full receipts, see it for all that it is in its entirety. I think in a way I still didn't want to give up hope completely.

And that's where we are now, two months later I've watched a full playthrough of the game including all sidequests. It's been a wild ride to say the least.

2. The battle system

Let's get this out of the way before we finally get to the really meaty part: As mentioned earlier my primary concern before release was the combat system since it's so far removed from the older entries of the series. Ironically, of all things, this is probably the smallest issue I have with the game now.

I still don't think the combat is good, mind you - this is mostly a matter of personal taste but I'll never see how button mashing and a series of QTEs overlayed over 20 minutes of cinematic cutscene is supposed to be more impactful or fun than the oh-so-outdated turn based menu inputs. Then again, I didn't play the game myself and can therefore obviously not judge how good or bad it feels in the heat of battle. I say "button mashing", by the way, as what I've gathered from other people's reviews - who genuinely enjoyed the game - the combat is really watered down and repetitive in comparison to games with similar systems like the DMC series. While you do pick up new abilities over the course of the game it seems like once you've found one combination that works you can solve every single battle following those exact inputs. This is one of the two really big complaints about this game I've seen consistently in almost every review.

Speaking of combat, the game has the weirdest way to pull you out of the action and emotional moments by freezing mid cutscene, showing a "you won the battle - here's your loot" screen while blasting an epic choir rendition of the classic FF fanfare, before picking that same cutscene right back up. I don't know who thought this was a good idea, but it's honestly jarring. For an extremely cinematic game that supposedly wants to break with "outdated" traditions, implementing that very video game-y results screen is a strange choice.

You could say this last point is nitpicking, and if this game had no other issues I would probably not mention it at all, but as it is this little detail is indicative of a much, much larger issue.

3. The narrative

[The sound of cracking knuckles can be heard in the distance.] Let the slaughter begin.

Prior to release the game was marketed as a departure from the rest of the series - the setting was advertised as a darker, more mature, political intrigue for an adult audience. ('But the masses of kids that like action com-' Who? What are you talking about?) Because as we all know, no other FF game has ever been dark before (/sarcasm).

What we got was storytelling and character writing with about the maturity level of a twelve year old teenage boy in his edgelord phase making his first Game of Thrones fanfiction drafts. This game oozes of sexism, really stupid slavery allegories, the most dumbed down black and white morality with a matching set of one-dimensional black and white characters, godawful pacing and some of the worst NPC dialogues I've ever had to witness.

But I'm getting ahead of myself.

3.1 Storytelling and morality

So this dark and mature political story... I'm still searching for it. I know GoT started this trend where writers will use "politics" as a buzz word to make their games look complex (FFXVI hasn't been the sole offender in the past years). Then they expose you to a few kingdom names, show you a map with territories, drop a few year dates with barely any significant relevance to anything over the course of the game, and pretend that's a deep political intrigue. I have news for you: It's not.

Alright, then... this dark and mature... oh. Oh you mean that's because there's a plethora of blood splatters and people say "fuck" and "cock" and "whore" and there's goofily censored sex on screen? Ah... oh. Alright, I see. If that's what you'd call that... sure.

But surely the people who are tattooed like cattle and used as slaves due to being born as magic users will have an interesting role in the story dealing with the very delicate topic of slaver- ...oh, uh... what do you mean the perfect king beloved by everyone is the good guy because unlike all the other people who held slaves, he treated his slaves nicely? And, before you ask.... No, this isn't some sort of commentary the game wants you to question. This guy is unironically, unambiguously portrayed as the perfect good guy. Brought up many, many times for how flawless he is.

And that... is where we're diving into one of this game's biggest and most glaring issues. The writing is so mindnumbingly black and white with not the slightest room for ambiguous or grey morality it's painful. Everything and everyone in this game is always either good with no failings - or so stupidly evil they may as well be a bad saturday morning cartoon villain.

Good characters are always good, and always act out of the pure kindness of their heart. When you think a good character fucked up and actually did something bad, it will later be revealed that either it wasn't them at all and it was all a scheme, or they were possessed by the big baddie and therefore not actually responsible for their actions. Can't possibly risk anyone appearing like a realistic person with character depth now, can we?

And don't worry, just in case you have an extremely bad case of media illiteracy with the slightest hint of doubt of anyone's alignment on the binary moral chart, the game will make sure to overexplain literally every tiny detail to you in the worst way possible. You see, the evil woman right at the start? The one who looks really evil and moves really evil and the first thing she does is being mean to the slaves and being dismissive of her own son? In case you didn't get yet that she's evil, there will be guards whispering about how evil she is when she leaves the scene. Also a scene later the good perfect king will point out how evil she is. And worry not, in case you forget in the few hours she's not on screen, characters will make sure to remind you how she has not a single redeeming quality and every breath she has ever taken has been filled with evil.

And this might sound like I'm exaggerating. But the game is like this with Every. Single. Thing. Sometimes I found myself genuinely wondering if the writers were actively trying to insult the player's intelligence with this condescending amount of overexplanation. Characters constantly comment on everything that is visibly happening on screen - for God's sake if you want to make a modern game that moves away from "outdated" mechanics then write it this way. If you show what is going on with detailed realistic graphics, you do not need characters monologuing a description of what they're seeing. You do not need to voice a character saying "I'm sad" when you can clearly see their facial expression. You do not need to make a character loudly ask himself with noone else present by his side "Is he hallucinating?" when showing another character's hallucinations. Old games did that because they had limited visual capabilities. If you sit on your high horse talking about moving the series forward while spitting into your old playerbase's faces, then do it right at the very least.

Once in a while you'll be exposed to some textbook philosophy theories, which in essence wouldn't be a bad idea at all if those philosophies were somehow smartly woven into the game's narrative… but instead you get characters quoting essentially the wikipedia summary of what that philosophy is about and call it a day.

I wish this was the only issue with the game's writing.

3.2 Pacing

This game's pacing is atrocious. Genuinely, utterly awful. And there`s mostly one thing to blame: Sidequests. If you've heard a single criticism for this game even from people who highly praise it, it's this.

The sidequests are absolutely horrendous filler content on so many levels. Gameplay wise they're usually "follow 10 meters of a linear corridor to defeat an enemy and then grab a carrot at the end" fetch quests. Visually they are not just a nose dive but an entire plane crash compared to the well animated main quests, consisting mostly of the same three reused conversation animations from FFXIV (I'm all for reusing assets if it helps developers save time, work smarter not harder, but this one is blatantly obvious in all the worst ways). And the writing.... oh boy.

NPCs go on and on and on and on having the most blandly written expository dialogue. I get that the writer's intention was to give the world a bit of context and make it feel more alive with random people telling you about their life stories and everyday hurdles, but they failed miserably at making this remotely engaging. They may as well have had people read the dictionary. And maybe this would have worked better as purely written textbox dialogue (if about half of the dialogue was cut, which would still leave more than enough padding around the actually relevant information) - but in a game with voice acting, making people audibly speak in ways noone would ever speak to another person, just doesn't work. It's stilted and unnatural, and really awkward to listen to.

Delivery aside, the stories told in these sidequests vary from "farmer's everyday life issues about growing their crops" to "random child ends oppression by convincing an angry mob of adults they shouldn't be stoning someone because that someone has been a valuable asset to their society (by reminding them they need to keep the streets clean) and suddenly every adult in range is free of bigoted feelings". And then everyone in the bus clapped, I guess. And again, I get the intention behind these stories but they're so clumsily written.

And yes, these are sidequests - you are free to ignore them. But they do make up a considerable chunk of the game. And, unfortuantely, a fair handful of the main quests follow this same fetch quest formula.

This game goes long, very long stretches without anything substential happening. And it's good to have downtime to breathe - the game's big main story moments pack a punch in terms of epic adrenaline filled battles. But this game honestly feels like 60 hours of filler fetch quests with the occasional relevant story sequence sprinkled in between.

3.3 Visuals

I'm not a film student so maybe it's not my place to comment on cinematography, but I felt like visually many of the cutscenes were also really... bland. Not necessarily bad looking (if you can see anything behind the millions of particle effects) but it definitely felt like less care was put into choosing narratively interesting image composition compared to a game like FFXII.

And then it also does this really annoying thing where it will constantly fade to black for absolutely no reason.

Character A: Oh that seems like an exciting story! Tell me all about it. Character B: Okay, so this is a long story... [screen fades to black] [screen fades from black to the exact same shot we had before the fade] Character B: So the story goes like this... (starts telling the story you thought was told off screen indicated by the black sreen)

This and similar instances happen fairly often and I just don't get why. It's nothing to hate the game for but it's just... really strange. Just like those really silly "In the meantime..." text overlays for scenes that are very clearly happening in the meantime. Seriously, we get it. You don't have to spell it out. But whatever, this is one of those things I'd look past if it weren't for the whole rest of this trainwreck.

3.4 Characters

Speaking of trainwrecks. [Takes a deep breath] I've avoided this topic for long enough now. This is where the last seams that hold the game together break and make it fall apart entirely. This is where the pile of shit that's been tossed across the room finally hits the fan.

If you're remotely familiar with any Final Fantasy title you know how important a solid cast is to those games. Your allies and party members you meet over the course of the game, their stories and views on the world's happenings... a charismatic villain. Well, how about we just simply didn't have any of that.

3.4.1 The game's biggest mistake

FFXVI's writers made the decision to focus the game's narrative around a single character, our playable protagonist. There is a small supporting cast of characters that you meet, and occasionally travels alongside you temporarily, but most of them have... not much to them. The game makes it clear: This story is about Clive, and him alone.

And... I don't think having a story focused on a single character is necessarily a bad decision per se, even if highly unusual for a series that was driven by party systems for decades, but... If you decide to do that, then your protagonist needs to have more personality than a soggy wet sponge. It's bad enough that pretty much noone in this game has any sort of depth to them, but if you sideline literally every character in favour of your protagonist's narrative then... at least give that protagonist a character?

This man's personality is nothing beyond helping people because it's the right thing to do. The attempted "he feels guilty for killing his brother" (which naturally he didn't actually do, because that would be too complex of a story) subplot gets dropped a few hours in and he's just... that guy who runs everyone's errands with no input of his own. And it doesn't make him unlikeable necessarily, it just makes him terribly boring.

What is really, really grating however is how every other character portrays him. Named characters and unnamed NPCs alike will throw pity parties for him over and over, going on about how he's so self-sacrificial, always doing everything for others while never expecting anything in return and never taking enough care of himself. It's exhausting. We get it. He's the perfect heroic nice guy, just like his (slave having) dad, the unfailable king. And unlike his evil witch of a mother. Who is so evil, by the way. At times I felt like Clive was some sort of dream fantasy guy self insert of the writers.

I'll say it plainly now: the lack of a well developped playable party is, in my opinion, the game's downfall. Clive alone can't carry the narrative because there isn't nearly enough depth to him, and everyone else has deliberately been stripped of any sort of meaningful screentime. Narrative aside I also feel like multiple playable characters would have done a lot for more variety in terms of gameplay. And before you raise your pitchforks - yes, there are few, very few characters that have their own little story moment. But boy... at what cost.

3.4.2 The state of women

! Rape & suicide mention trigger warning for this section !

So you know, Clive's sidekick? No, not the dog, the girl. Jill. The one who spends most of the game sick in bed, kidnapped, or otherwise missing, and whose single personality trait is being Clive's pure and innocent love interest. Surprisingly, she has her own 30 minutes of side story! A side story that essentially boils down to finding out she was held captive by a weird cult that had no relevance prior to this point and will have no relevance at all after this point. You get to beat up the cult's leader who is revealed to sexually assault underage girls.

Is that ever addressed again at any point? No.

But worry not. We still have a few more women in the bigger roles of the game. One of them, Benedikta, is an early game antagonist whose entire thing is seducing men, and most of the screentime she has is sex scenes. Once you defeat her in battle she flees, and a randomly passing by group of bandits is implied to attempt to rape her. This triggers a flashback of a past assault she was rescued from, and she goes mad. You fight her again, now in her powered up form, and kill her. Then she gets decapitated and her head is sent in a box to her lover to fuel his man rage. Don't worry, you'll get more sex scene flashbacks with her after her death.

But hey. We have another woman in a leading role. The supposedly main antagonist before the real big baddie (who is so boring of a villain i can't even get myself to say anything more about him) is revealed to have business with her. Clive's evil slave-mistreating mum. Her purpose in the story is breeding a flawless heir. What fuels this dignified ambition? Hell if I know. She's written in a hateable way for the sake of it. Likely to contrast Clive and his flawless dad. Absolutely zero depth to anything.

Guess her age here.

If you guessed "at least in her 50s" you are correct! Do I even have to say anything more about this.

The moment her perfect heir is killed, she loses it and slits her own throat. A very anticlimatic conclusion to her non-existent character arc.

Yes, there are a couple more secondary female characters who aren't necessarily walking misogyny targets, but they're pretty much irrelevant to the plot.

Here's a quote from my girlfriend, who is a woman, about the state of women in this game: "I have scarcely felt this alienated by the depiction of women in a video game."

! Trigger warning ends here !

So, uh... how do we move on from here... Let's head somewhere less offensive.

3.5 Music

Usually I'd give the soundtrack a lot more attention since I'm of the opinion that music is one of the most vital parts in a game and can absolutely make or break it - but quite frankly I don't have much to say about this one in detail. It's largely generic epic orchestra music with nothing much unique going for it. The regular battle theme is fairly memorable; and then there's that really aggravatingly annoying acoustic guitar ambient song that seems to play for about half of the game's time. Seriously I hate that one. It drove me nuts. In general I don't know if there's more than 10 songs in the OST because I don't think I heard more than that. Either that, or they all sounded the same.

What stuck out negatively to me especially (apart from that godsdamned acoustic guitar) was the overusage of over the top orchestral arrangements for the tiniest occasions, which was unfitting at best and really tiring at worst. I got used to it with time, but still a good soundtrack isn't just making every moment sound like it's as epic as the final boss, it's making varied music that fits the moment and sets the ambience.

Also not to ruin the OST for anyone who actually enjoys it, but the game's leitmotif sounds like Army of Lovers' Crucified. Noticed it during the demo and couldn't unhear it for the entirety of the game. You're welcome.

4. Credit where credit is due

As should be evident by now, I'm not finding much redeemable in this game. And yet - I would be lying if I said I didn't find myself liking some aspects of it.

Some of the armour designs are pretty neat. In general the character design as a whole feels coherent and mostly fits the setting, some questionable haircut choices aside.

There are chocobos. In different colours. They look nice. Not a big surprise, I suppose.

The voice acting is really good. I can't comment much on the English dub since I only watched the demo in English and then watched the full game with a streamer who played in German; but the German voice actors did an amazing job, and I've heard only good things about the English cast as well. Listening to a few comparisons I was surprised how deep English Joshua's voice is. He sounds like a teenage boy even after the last timeskip in German. That took me out a bit. I also realized I'm very partial to Dion's German voice acting. His final scene was extremely strong in that regard.

Speaking of Dion....

4.1 It's personal again

Alright. Listen. I hate this. I fucking hate this. For weeks I suffered through this game, nothing but this burning passionate hatred within me, ready to shred and tear every single aspect of it apart.

And then. So close to the end. In the final stretch. When I've almost made it through with nothing but rage and hatred by my side. This fucking stupid garbage game attacks my one goddamn weak point: The gay prince and his lover share a small "it isn't meant to be" moment. And I genuinely enjoyed the little gestures in that cutscene. It was a good cutscene.

And at this point I was unfortunately confronted with a hard to swallow pill: I had been kinda looking forward to every time Dion showed up on screen. I'll be honest I'm not sure I would have made it through the game without the driving force of "hey maybe he'll show up again". Over time he turned into my single point of fixation, and it's sad because ultimately he too is pretty much a wet sponge of a character, though maybe the least wet and spongy one. I think he does have some of the stronger scenes in the game (as well as the most visually appealing boss battle - whatever was going on with that bullet hell laser fight in space). He's also unfortunately a sad blond Final Fantasy prince and. Uh. Yeah. Ahem. Alas, he's kinda ugly. Subjectively. But he has an absolutely mighty hip swing when he walks. And a pretty cool spear. Good weapon choice.

In general, props to SE for including an unambiguously gay character in a decently written way. We all know this company is pretty behind in terms of diversity and representation, so seeing that was a pleasant surprise.

Anyway I really REALLY hate to admit it but I've been kinda held hostage by the game over this stupid prince. I'm hoping this is a temporary side effect (derogatory) from being exposed to the game for a prolonged amount of time and in a few weeks I won't care anymore. I hate it here.

5. Conclusion

When I finally finished watching the game after having spent 2 entire months with it I was mostly asking myself one question... What is worse in regards to an art medium? To hate it so intensely that you're willing to dive into every little aspect of it; or to feel complete indifference?

I can't tell you if I think FFXVI is the worst game in the series. It's the one I feel the most passionate hate for, that's for sure. But a game like FFXV seems so inherently unappealing I don't even care to look at it. Not because I think I'll dislike it any more, I just think it will bore me. (Irrelevant side note - I do plan to finally watch a playthrough of that one too in the future. Might as well commit now.)

There are aspects of FFXVI I do think are inexcusable in an objective way; delicate topics handled badly, developers that need an attitude check, and also... by god go meet a woman in real life, please.

For a game that was said to modernize and move the series forward, it makes terribly outdated choices in many regards. It somehow tries so hard to be a departure from the other games in the series, losing a lot of what makes a good Final Fantasy game, and simultaneously clings so hard to references that feel so empty when the core of these games has been trampled on. No amount of preludes and FF1 overworld theme rearrangements and corny "this will be your final fantasy" puns can bring the series' essence back that this game failed to capture. A sense of adventure, a compelling story with a meaningful cast of companions, a world to explore beyond grey corridors.

It should have been a spin-off, not a main title game. Obviously a different name wouldn't have changed the quality of the game, but I can't shake off the feeling that had it been called FFXIV: The Offline Singleplayer Experience (which quite frankly it feels like in many regards), I might have been a bit more lenient with my judgement.

Still...public reception of the game seems, surprisingly, fairly mixed. My fears of the game being hailed as the second coming of Christ didn't actually become true. At the very least the gameplay is oftentimes heavily criticized. And while I really have to wonder if all the people who praise the story and character writing have watched the same thing as I have, seeing the game actually receive some nuanced opinions from both people who like and dislike it alike is a refreshing twist I didn't expect. (Just in case this comes across wrong: I don't consider my opinions to be nuanced. I'm just a hater. But I'm right. Ha.)

Well... uh... After all this I don't quite know how to end this. I feel like I've said more than anyone should say about this game and somehow nothing of substance at all. Topical, I suppose. Oh well. Congrats (I guess) to this game for sparking something in me (negative) no other game has ever done before. For all it's worth, it strengthened my bond to some of the older entries I used to judge more harshly. I know better now.

-----

If you're the single person who made it this far, I think you deserve to have some pictures. Here's my favourite battle phase: (Something about those symmetrical orb patterns was very aesthetically pleasing. Better in motion though.)

And here's an exclusive look at parts of my initial draft and some discord liveblogging:

anyway peace out ✌️ go watch dions death scene in german

[amskvaris]

oops. maint hit during a pse burst bc i forgot. oh well! one of these days i'll actually pay attention to what's going on.

reminds me... sometimes i worry. i know there's no wrong way to play the game but that doesn't mean i stop being self-conscious. personal rambling under the cut.

tbh i don't really play the game to play the game really. i play bc it's fun to mess around and i don't feel like it's a waste of time, like a singleplayer game would be for me.

i Can play the game properly if i want-- i play enough to have a head start whenever (if ever) i get serious about it. that's why it's not a waste of time to me, i think.

however.

i've always been overleveled bc i'm not really interested in having to overcome challenges. i just want to have fun, and difficult content isn't fun for me. i'd rather do something else if i can't do something i feel like doing right away... if i don't want to work up to it then i don't really care to try again.

but if i don't want to get good at the game, being a part of a community will be way out of reach. and if i'm not in one, it feels like a waste of time, just like a singleplayer would.

that's also why it's a little overwhelming to talk to other players about it. too tired of being seen like an idiot that doesn't know anything, you know? and that's what always happens when i start talking to other people about a thing i'm new to.

sometimes i try to share something and i get "But this is already--" or "This is a thing tho--" and it's like. please let me have my fun and look away if you don't want to see my WIP ideas.

(this is part of the reason why i've been avoiding talking on discord lately.)

i'm just going to burn out and do something else if i try to absorb the franchise/game all at once like a college course... but until i do i'm just gonna look like an idiot. as usual. it's kinda lose-lose if i try to talk to people before i know what i'm talking about.

i just talk to myself on this tumblr instead. is it lonely? yes. do i have a choice? doesn't feel like it.

more detail on what i meant by "my fun" aka what do on this tumblr:

i really just want to liveblog ideas instead of just reactions. i have no issue making new ideas, developing old ones, changing them up or throwing them away when canon says otherwise. that's just how i enjoy doing things.

really... i just prefer to be creative with what i have in front of me. i don't think people would understand that.

honestly... i only want to do things in ngs. but it's like everything is tied to the massive story/lore of the base game... which everyone has so much nostalgia about and seems to know like the back of their hand...

... so i'm doomed unless i want to watch 24+ hours of someone on youtube play it (and i don't really want to, especially if their characters don't visually fit in the setting.)

the wiki and lore/summary videos have been great too, but. there's only so much those can do.

even then, i can't absorb things very well just by hearing them either. but these are video games. i doubt if people generally care to write transcripts either... so i'm just. doomed lmao.

-

hmmm that feels nice to get that off my chest actually, even if probably only to a few of you.

(irrelevant note... due to all this i'm considering finally doing some of my fully original things too, but right now i have pso2 ngs brainrot too bad so those are on hold.)

[crescentfool]

"completed" side order (got the credits roll and currently have four developer logs), some thoughts about the gameplay + lore under the cut 👍

i really enjoyed playing side order! i felt that a lot of my experiences in salmon run carried over with having to assess situations and maneuver around large mobs of enemy. so it's not much of a surprise to me that the gameplay structure really scratches an itch in my brain...!

i've played side order for around 10 hours so far (5 hour sessions each)... it wasn't intentional, but i really felt that each run taught me something about the chips/specials and i couldn't help but want to give another try again... (and i do appreciate that the game does allow for breaks between runs, even if i didn't utilize it this time around!)

the only thing i didn't like gameplay-wise (so far) was the weighted rates for certain chips depending on palette, i didn't particularly enjoy my run with charger (even though it's my favorite weapon class), but it could've just been bad rng giving me chips that weren't that fun/interesting...? there's some modifications that i want to explore, but it can be hard to do that with the weighted rates.

that said, i personally think the developers did an excellent job of blending together splatoon's mechanics/objectives with the rougelike style of games! i definitely want to play more sometime, there's still a lot of lore, chips, and palettes i've yet to see. i think it's a breath of fresh air from the other singleplayer parts, but i also recognize that it might not be for everyone (the structure of side order inherently requires a lot of patience and endurance).

as for the story and lore bits, i really liked the framework of the memverse! i do think that some of my affection for it stems from the fact that it has some parallels to persona games (i legit messaged a friend saying "omg it's like apathy syndrome but for splatoon"). but i think side order's a pretty fun follow up to octo expansion, i like that there's potential closure for sanitized octolings and whatever happens to the deepsea metro afterwards. i think it's a pretty cool basis for ocs which is nice!

the bits of character interaction were nice too, pearl and marina are endearing and lovely as always (they are so in love)! deep cut reporting on the side order things before/after the campaign was really funny too, i really liked it (especially after watching the nintendo live 2024 concert).

i think i found the story more satisfying than rotm- the stakes made... more sense to me, but also the setup was just, really interesting to me (persona fan moment). i'll need to check more of the dev logs when i unlock them and reread some things, but, overall, really enjoyable!

anyway, the short of it: side order was fun for me because the gameplay scratches the grinding itch in my brain (salmon run player moment), and also i just like the premise of the memverse because i'm a persona fan and it reminds me of that. LOL.

[alicefromtheabyss]

1. The Switch is pretty neat I guess. I also absolutely love the DS/3DS line of systems. But currently, I play most of my games on PC for, uh, *puts on pirate hat*, reasons

2. In no particular order, Pokemon White Version/Pokemon HeartGold Versiin, Xenoblade Chronicles Definitive edition, Octopath Traveler, Hollow Knight, Xenogears

3. The Radiance, because I get to live out my fantasy of beating the shit out of the sun

4. Ughhh, there are so many good ones. But if I'd have to narrow it down to one, it would probably be XBC.

5. So, the first gym in Pokemon BW always makes you fight the gym leader with the elemental monkey that's strong against your starter. What you are supposed to do is go talk to that one girl in the Dreamyard who gives you the monkey that's strong against the gym leader's. But because, as a kid, I basically never talked to npcs or engaged in proper exploration, I didn't get the monkey until after I had already beaten the gym. So what did I do? I grinded my Snivy to level 16 and overpowered the gym leader through sheer force.

6. Pokemon White Version

7. Haven't finished it yet, but Trails in the Sky (pretty good so far!)

8. Ys 10 Nordics

9. *sigh* fire emblem heroes. probably. but if we're talking about genuinely respectable games here, Pokemon HG

10. Also Pokemon HG.

11. JRPGs of all kinds, be it turn based, action or strategy. Metroidvanias are a close second.

12. Samus Aran

13. Grimm

14. Ys 5? Maybe? That game isn't really bad, it's just...kinda undercooked in a lot of ways.

15. Thracia 776. That entire game is a certified Kaga Moment

16. Singleplayer

17. Not anymore, fortunately.

18. There's quite a few, with the most recent one I can think of being the PSX version of Grandia.

19. XBC

20. Xenoblade Chronicles 2 broke me twice, with both times being during moments I had already been spoiled on.

21. XBC2 (again). I thought I'd like the gameplay but not the story, and ended up loving this game about as much as the first one.

22. Yeah, I guess

23. I mostly just go with whoever has the best drip, which, in most cases, just so happens to be the female option.

24. Probably in the world of Pokemon. I mean, it's literally just our world, except better, and with even funkier animals.

25. Gaur Plains, though Valak Mountain is also up there, as are a lot of other snowy areas in games. Also like a bunch of areas from XBC2. These games just have the best world design imo, so much fun to just run around in.

26. Swamps, especially poisonous ones (sorry miyazaki)

27. Metroid Prime

28. Yes

29. Pokemon White Version

30. Depends on the game. But a good OST is something that any game should have.

31. Pokemon White 2 for being Pokemon White 2 and also having like the most stuff to do in the entire series

32. I haven't really ever rage quit a game, but I have taken breaks or even dropped games due to getting frustrated. For example, FF2. That game isn't nearly as bad as people say it is, but it also is a game that is actively hostile to the player, and as such, can be kinda exhausting to play.

33. I could figure out how to deal damage to a specific boss in Metroid Dread despite it being pretty obvious.

34. That one sequence in Xenogears where Bart's butler guy comes in to save them on that crab helicopter thing

35. Uhhh I have a few plushies if that counts

36. Sigurd from fe4 if you know what I mean

37. Uhh fuck Klavier ace attorney, marry Testament guilty gear, kill The Radiance (I hate the sun)

38. I like XBC2 more than XBC3. Actually, liking XBC2 in general could be considered an unpopular opinion.

39. Silksong

40. The og Secret of Mana boxart. That shit deserves to be framed and hung on a wall.

Video Game Related Asks for Gaymers!

Platform of choice when gaming?

Top 5 games of all time.

Favorite boss?

Best game soundtrack (full album or single track)?

Most memorable gaming moment?

First game you ever played?

Most recent game you played?

Most anticipated upcoming game?

Most hours you’ve put into a single game?

Game you’ve replayed the most?

Favorite game genre?

Favorite game character?

Coolest enemy/boss design?

Worst game you’ve ever played?

Hardest game you’ve ever played?

Single player, multiplayer, or both?

Do you play mobile games?

A game you started, but never finished.

A game that you wish you could play for the first time again.

A game that made you cry.

A game you thought you wouldn’t like, but ended up loving?

Do you watch any other gamers?

Do you typically choose to play a male or female character (when asked to pick)?

If you could live in one of the games you’ve played, which one would it be?

Favorite environment in a game?

Least favorite environmental hazard (e.g. poison swamp, fire/lava, etc.)

A popular game that you just can’t get into.

Do you still buy physical games?

Favorite childhood game?

Favorite aspect of a game (e.g. exploration, combat, fashion/customization, environments, graphics, bosses, roleplaying, etc.)

If you could only play one game for the rest of your life, what would it be?

Have you ever rage quit a game? If so, what game and what caused the rage quit?

Most embarrassing gaming moment.

Funniest gaming moment.

Do you own any gaming themed memorabilia? (e.g. collector’s editions, posters, prop replicas, statues, clothing, etc.)

Hottest video game character?

Kill, Fuck, Marry (choose three characters)

An unpopular gaming opinion you have.

What’s something you want to see in the future of gaming?

Best game cover art.

[nova-ayashi]

Today, the long-awaited “Happy Ghast” update seems to have finally hit both versions of Minecraft. This, of course, means that the Bedrock version now has the spicy visuals, and Java just the Ghasts. Which is fine. The Happy Ghast is an inversion of … uhm, the Sad Ghast? Is that what we’re calling her? And you can find them around fossils in the Nether. Which is exactly what I tried to do in a world I’ve been building on for a couple of months now.

A while back I wrote about how The End poem sort of helped me re-contextualize life, and I feel like that’s still true, now. Even if actually beating The End of Minecraft kind of left me feeling like there’s no real other bigger goal to work toward, aside from spawning a Wither and fighting to the death for a chance to get the ingredients for a beacon.

An item I feel is kind of worth having, but at the same time, is that it?

But now we have potential flying mounts to use in the game in the form of joyful ghosts that don’t shoot fireballs at you and blow up all of your hard work!

I’ve already built a dock, ready and waiting for my first Ghast.

But little did I know what was ahead of me …

So, over a month ago, when I first heard of this update, I went into the Nether and I made sure to find myself a Soul Valley where I could easily find fossils, and, in turn, a Happy Ghast. Flash forward to me having more knowledge, little did I know … These things would not spawn on already discovered chunks.

This means that, for hundreds and hundreds of chunks, or blocks (?) around me, there was no chance at all that I would find a Dried Ghast anywhere near my base location.

Awesome.

I didn’t really know what else to do, so I started running. And what did I find?

More fossils with zero Dried Ghasts! Oh no!

With just my tools in my inventory, a compass pointing to a lodestone in my base, and some obsidian, I decided that this was enough to take a risk (mind you, before I made it to this point, I died and lost my entire set of Netherite tools).

And then I was off, and I think I ran for a couple of minutes before I hit the Crimson Forest. The dastardly, red-everywhere and piglet honkers threatening to eat my face off, biome.

A mother frikker of a forest that would go on, and on, forever …

Until I eventually hit … more Crimson Forest!

This was, by far, the largest amount of this type of biome I’ve ever seen in my Minecraft history, and I’ve been playing since 2010. But, not all was despair. I did find myself a pretty strange Bastion. A structure I hadn’t previously been able to locate before.

But, these structures are also pretty tough, if you’re not busted out in fully enchanted weapons and armor. Those axe-wielding pigmen are, needless to say, a pain in the ass, and absolutely not worth fighting a whole platoon of them, just for maybe finding some Netherite.

So I kept going.

It was a couple of minutes more (maybe 5?) of treading ground beyond this Bastion that I eventually found myself in an undiscovered Soul Valley, and, although I forgot to take screenshots of this part, every single fossil had a dried ghast near it. So, I grabbed a few, for good measure. Because I ain’t coming back to this place any time soon. Heck no.

But then I turned around.

I wonder if there’s a record for how fast someone’s built a Nether portal? Regardless, I got away and jumped back into the Overworld, with quite a bit of my health missing from the jump. And, also coming to find that I was a few thousand chunks? Steps? Blocks? … away from my base.

This was the easy part though. I had the compass pointing at the lodestone. All I had to do was follow the red arrow for about ten minutes or so, right?

Well, basically. Except I had to traverse a massive ocean and be shot at by about 400 Guardians.

But when I finally found land nearer to home, I found this …

An unoccupied igloo type base? Is this something that spawns now?? Is there someone living in my singleplayer world??? The stranger part, was that this little hovel was lit with redstone torches, which raises even more questions. Those things don’t really provide any light!

I wasn’t quite sure what I stumbled upon here, so I just kept on going, climbing over like three different mountains, until I finally made it back. And once I did, I built myself a little Ghast-growing-enclosure behind my base, and plopped this little dehydrated dude down.

For this (and a few other) Dried Ghasts, I had to travel probably the equivalent of the span of West Virginia, and then back again. And, although I now finally have what I’ve been waiting months to decorate my world with, I have to ask Mojang just one thing: Can you guys please make it so previously rendered chunks UTILIZE NEW CONTENT?

Thanks.

Source: Original Post

Posted via Python, written by @daemon_nova

[syrupspinner]

ive been playing a lot of Marvel Rivals lately

i can explain

so i know i prop myself up as like, The Indie Game Gal. that playing singleplayer indie stuff is like, my whole thing. well, i enjoyed overwatch when it first came out, for some reason. i stopped playing pretty quick when i realized i wasnt having fun, i was just making myself play more matches for the lootboxes. also the community was kinda shit. anyway, rivals seems like its got the fun factor without... as much baggage

so the first thing i noticed is the monetization. the thing that always keeps me away from live service games, especially free to play games, is that theyre almost always designed around tricking you into spending money on a game you hate. ive done this song and dance with cookie run before: "isnt it annoying that youre not really progressing that fast, and we're making you wait to play the game more, and theres too much locked content? well, you can stop playing this unfun game by giving us money!" has always been stupid to me. why would i give you money to make the game less unfun, when i can simply stop playing the unfun game for free? if you are designing a game to trick players into paying to skip frustrations, whats stopping them from just... not?

so thankfully, theres nothing here that impacts gameplay. if you turn textures off, the experience of a first-time f2p player will be identical to a whale. i dont play a lot of live service stuff so im not sure how standard of a practice this is, but... no, im not gonna praise something for the bare minimum.

thats not to say there isnt the stink of live service bullshit. theres still daily challenges and a battlepass, but you can buy some (but not most) battlepass items with purple currency you earn from these challenges, which can include the blue currency you use to buy shop items, and the yellow currency that you use to buy the luxury battlepass or convert to blue currency, but watch out because the purple currency expires when this battlepass is over. fuck this. fuck all of this. we all know the only reason theyre doing this is to obfuscate the cost of things and trick people into spending more money

so my advice is to literally completely ignore all of it. never open the store or battlepass menu. the literal only measurable effect this will have on your gameplay experience will be improvements. you wont be tricked into pouring more time into the game than you want to for some carrot-on-a-stick pittance of funny money. nobody cares about your sprays or your skins.

okay. now we may talk about the video game.

...its really fun. its got that sauce where all the characters are pretty easy to learn, but they have well-designed kits that let you get creative and play into their niche.

for example, my dps main is squirrel girl, a character rated 1/5 on difficulty. her abilities are jumping a lot higher, and throwing something that locks the opponent in place for a bit. she can also eat an acorn that lets her do both of those again. this is very simple, but theres still a lot you can do. because her projectiles are arced explosives, its great for hiding behind something and picking away at crowds. this means shes surprisingly good as a sniper, since her jump lets her both get in to high positions and get out of dodge in a panic. this also makes her a great flank character, since her high damage can let her take a lot of enemies out before they realize the damage isnt coming from the frontlines.

every character (except black widow, lmao) is like this, where they have really solid builds that let them excel at something specific while still allowing for player freedom. moon knight is another example, where his ankh gives him great utility as a sniper, a flanker, and just about any other word that means "taking the enemy by surprise" while also being great for frontline crowd control.

uh... thats kinda all you need, i think. the fundamentals of a hero shooter are its characters, and if you nail those then youre golden. the maps are all fine, the aesthetic is great, this game's base is great

it is also a multiplayer game. as a counsellor in training its basically mandatory for me to say that the brain "fully developing" is a myth so misguided i hesitate to even call it pop-psychology. that being said, i was a very stupid teenager for a lot of reasons, so im gonna say that my time playing overwatch (2016-2018 for those curious) doesnt count. i didnt really engage with the community, and my gameplay wouldve been the same if everyone but me was a bot. here im actually doing my best to interact with others

i got to gold-III on comp, and the difference between that and quick play is kinda staggering. im not gonna be the douchebag that says casual doesnt count, thatd be stupid, but if you have a good team comp vs a bad team comp its like a different game

why does nobody want to play tank? i think its because a lot of people dislike slow defensive play, but like, penni parker is really fun and strategic. i havent played the others but, uh. magneto looks cool i think?

anyway what im saying is i get why most quick play matches end up with me as the only tank, or as one of 2 healers while everyone else goes dps. those are the fun ones. i want to get better with stormand my first thought was to take her through some low-stakes quick play, but im not gonna be the 5th dps

but dude, when things line up and theres a balanced team that plays well together, it kicks ass. and that only really happens in comp, or if you get a ream of people together in discord

and honestly? the matchmaking is kinda fucked. in my climb to gold this season i had so many games that were an unfun wash in either direction. either our team dominated with no resistance or we couldnt get a word in edgewise, it was bizarrely eclectic

this leads into how im kinda surprised there werent a lot of ragers? back when i played overwatch, i tried playing mercy (the only good healer) literally once ever. when i tried i got singled out and told over the mic that i need to stop playing. i was terrified of playing support in rivals as a result, but not only is healer way easier than the medi-beam structure by just making your basic attacks heal AND do damage based on if they hit an enemy or a teammate (and everyone seems designed around healing the team), people just seem... nicer?

its not perfect, ive gotten people saying the our wolverine was trash and that our team sucks, but like 8/10 times its been pretty alright. but god DAMN people dont seem to understand that for a payload to move forward you should probably stand close to it, where are you guys going

final verdict. it is fun. my id is 1623948266 hit me up

[wavepriisms]

liveblogging every after school dice club chapter that did not get animated (LONG ASS THREAD)

most of it is on mangadex now so i checked it out!!

these became liveblogging around chapter 46 because nao showed up and she is a freak (negative) (DEEPLY INFATUATED WITH MANAGER-SAN)

chapter 32, "nightmare," right after the cultural festival/board game cafe. miki plays onirim, a singleplayer card game. at some point she gets sick, and during her fever, she dreams that she's in the world of onirim. she can't escape until she sees the photo taken at the board game cafe (GAYYYY. GAY. HOMOSEXUAL)

chapter 35, "let's save the world!" right after the chapter where emmy fucking sucks with directions. three potential hires for a tabletop game company have to play pandemic as their final test before employment. they have one hour to do so. the boss is midori's dad surprise!! also at the end there's an extra about the mangaka's wedding, which is sweet <3

chapter 36, "do adults enjoy stock trading?" it's down to just aya, miki, and midori for this chapter. kamiya shin'ichi, the first part-time hire at saikoro club, shows up to visit. he and the girls play acquire, a game about (you guessed it) stock trading and mergers. i'm going to affectionately call this chapter "the gang learns about american capitalism." kamiya starts venting because he fucked up big time at his real job (which is. stock trading and mergers) and got fired. objectively really funny when you remember the whole dice club is like 15. he learns the joys of Not Being A Rich Asshole

there was a gap between chapters 36 and 46 but that's 10 chapters they probably did not animate

chapter 46, "the black cat and the caterpillar," we have a new girl!! she shows up on the cover of later volumes as well. it's a new school year. her name is nao and she lives in a shitty apartment, has no friends, and her mom seems like a drunk considering she thought the apartment reeked of booze. there's also a stray kitty she takes care of. manager-san brings her to saikoro club. she and manager-san play heckmeck. SHE THOUGHT TO HERSELF AFTER LEAVING THAT THE HEIGHT AND VOICE REMIND HER OF HER ABSENT FATHER?? MANAGER-SAN FOUND FAMILY ARC??

chapter 47, "the lost cat's gloom," nao returns to saikoro club. midori is there. she does not like midori's presence. midori and nao play famiglia. nao thinks midori is dating manager-san 😭😭 manager-san says he doesn't have anything like that and there's a photo of him and a girlfriend?? also nao got extremely flustered around manager-san and was gonna ask if she's not good enough for him. girl you are a freshman

chapter 48 "memorial lovers" (first half), starts with a flashback from manager-san. he is with the girl from the photo, clearly a girlfriend. a semi truck hits them head on on the road, and he wakes up. this is a reoccurring dream. he is allowed to say fuck which is wonderful and should be in the anime. nao arrives with food and lets herself in. he says an unmarried woman can't go in a single guy's house, lest people think something is happening, and she asks if he's gonna do something to her (flustered). i do not like where this is going. there aren't enough male characters so she has to crush on a 30 something. then she starts fantasizing about him shoving her against the wall and calling her obedient?? please stop that. they play quarto and nao asks about it and reminds him of his old girlfriend and i'm gonna Cry. i'm not even halfway through the chapter

chapter 48 (second half, this is where the game comes in). quarto!! simple game. like connect 4. SHE MEOWED AT HIM I CAN'T DO THIS. she loses and begs for another game and REMINDS HIM OF HIS GIRLFRIEND AGAIN PLEASE GOD NO... she won and saw the photo and now she's jealous. girl you are 15 manager-san is not gonna go for you. ex-girlfriend is not dead by the way. despite being hit by a semi truck all that happened was she started dating the doctor who took care of her

gonna cease liveblogging for now this post is long enough. see you for part 2, starting from chapter 49!!