#in my casual gamer era

[scarletrecords]

i want to make this kaveh goes around teyvat thing a regular on this tumblog because i really, really adore kaveh, and there are so many well-rendered places in genshin hihihi.

here he is, somewhere underground in the vast desert of sumeru, where a door, speculated to be the door leading to khaenri’ah, sits deserted and sealed (for now).

[snapscube]

Remember when people were calling you the "long lost McElroy sister"? Do you see the similarity at all, or do you think it's just because you share a similar creative niche (gaming/streaming/comedy) with the McElroy brothers?

Lol, "when" people were doing it.

I still get it to this day, friend, despite my constant protests.

I used to understand, and it was even expected initially if not personally encouraged! There was definitely a period of time where they were my biggest comedic/creative inspirations, and the truth of the matter is that I am a mannerisms sponge. I mimic people around me, and people that inspire me, and whether or not it's more than the average person I have no clue, but I will go through seasons of daily watching a particular personality or creator I'm fond of and/or inspired by and usually come out the other end having picked up certain tendencies VERY quickly, a large portion of those being speech patterns.

There's definitely a segment of my content around 2017/2018 or so where, yeah, you can very much tell I adopted a McElroy-esque speaking pattern directly (like what felt like 70% of other Tumblr users also did lol) and it was both because of how much of their content I was into at the time AND also because at the time I found their output inspiring as someone who was used to more... Loud Gamer forms of comedy, to put it bluntly. So at first I took the comparisons in stride and saw it as a signal of my own growth as an entertainer, and my ability to be funny in a way that wasn't just Loud = Funny.

But the thing you have to know about me, and my time as even a minor public figure, is that this comparison was not the first of its that was constantly levied at me, and it unfortunately was not the last one in the slightest. Some will remember the days in which I was a reasonably renowned "Bill Cipher" impersonator in the Gravity Falls fandom, and the pattern was very similar at the time. I dealt with people CONSTANTLY telling me that, despite all of my attempts to separate myself from the voice work I did as the character, I always sounded Just Like Bill even when I was just using my casual speaking voice. If this sounds familiar to those of you who have only been around since the dubs popped off, it's likely because I also go through the same thing ever since I became known for Sonic impressions.

And then outside of voice work I've had my style of content continue to be compared to the McElroy's body of work and even beyond to the likes of Jerma and other big-name-of-the-era content creators. And I have to once again stress: I am completely self-aware that it is not entirely unfounded. I mean, the most recent one I got was just the other day when on stream someone told me I had a speech pattern similar to Northernlion. And like, I even admitted right then and there.... yeah! That makes sense! I've had NL compilations going into my ears and brain for hours upon hours on end lately. So I don't mean to only complain and say "this makes no sense" with delusions that it's completely baseless. BUT, I guess if I do have to circle around to a point, it would be that, though I can occasionally understand comparisons, I would hope y'all in turn can understand why it might not be an easy thing for someone like me to hear, especially in the way it never really seems to go away? Even if one like Bill Cipher fades out, the whole "SnapCube is just a female version of [insert larger male peer in the content space]" thing is something that cycles along regardless. And I get it, it's human nature to compare and contrast. I do it too! But as someone who is always trying to stand out in what I do and make my own value as an individual known above the cacophony of content saturation, I do implore people to think twice about the language they use when making otherwise favorable comparisons. Recommending my content by saying something like "if you like Jerma/McElroys/NL/etc., then SnapCube gives off similar vibes" makes of a WORLD of a difference compared to "This stream is just something Jerma would do" or "Penny is just a female Griffin McElroy" (both things I have heard almost verbatim, constantly). They approach the same ideas, but one gives me so much more of a chance to like... start off a first impression as My Own Person and not just a derivative Girl Alternative, if that makes sense.

Whoops I talked about this way too much :) Can you tell I think about this a lot LMAO

Anyway here's the obligatory joke response that's been spread before

[yukipri]

So I've been trying out the new Star Wars Hunters game that came out on Mobile & Switch recently!

I haven't played many brawling type games like this so I wasn't expecting much, but I've actually been really enjoying it so far! I've probably put too many hours into playing (especially since I was super sick around launch and didn't have much else I could do), and I hit max level 50 and Kyber in ranked a while ago... (yeah, playing too much, I know...)

Thought I'd share my initial thoughts though, since I've put in the time!

Note: Some folks have apparently been playing the beta version for a while, but I've only started playing since the public release.

Stuff I like about it so far:

-The really creative and fun SW universe characters is the best part. A blind Miraluka sniper? (Diago) An Ugnaught driving a Droideka? (Slingshot) Literally two Jawas in a trench coat??? (Utooni) They're fun and have great personality, you can read their blurbs here. I like how they're all voiced and also all have their own theme songs (which are honestly heckin catchy)!

-Controls are very intuitive. Again, I am not much of a gamer and have very little experience with these kinds of games, but I picked it up quick. I play on my iPhone and it's great.

-The graphics are GORGEOUS. It looks beautiful, everything moves stunningly smoothly. Honestly it's hard to believe this is a ftp game.

-So far it's very much ftp friendly! Most of the money locked stuff are just cosmetics, and even then there are tons of free ones. One of the characters, Aran Tal, is currently behind a not-too-expensive paywall, but he'll apparently be available for free soon as well.

-The skins for the characters are fun and creative! Imara Vex has one that looks like Durge, and Zaina has one that kinda gives me adult Omega vibes. The store has an active rotation of skins that you can buy with either irl money or in game currency, and apparently old event skins eventually end up in the circulation too. Here are just a couple of my favorites:

-I love the locations! Each one is very Star Wars vibes and has lots of cool lil in-universe elements, like pod racers going through Mos Espa (they can run you over). The time period is New Republic era, so everything is relatively plausible for that time period in universe.

-There's a bunch of different game types, so you don't get bored, and they each have different challenges, and different characters who shine in them. It's unfortunately a bit addicting.

-The events aren't too grindy or tedious (so far).

-I really appreciate the different modes you can play on! The main two modes are casual and ranked, so it's possible to play low stakes and just level up your characters in casual, or try to challenge yourself more in ranked. I appreciate how the limited time events that sometimes throw you into random characters you might not be experienced with are never ranked, so it's okay to suck. Character leveling is the same in both casual and ranked. And I appreciate the Training mode too, where you can try out all of the characters so you're never in a "wtf does this do" in a PVP environment. I get so anxious during PVP if I don't know what I'm doing.

Stuff I hope they improve on:

-Playing with people + party invites are kind of a pain. The invites disappear really quickly, so it's really hard to time it so you can actually play with your friends. It's also hard to know whether the party is going to be playing ranked or casual, and if ranked you can't see the ranks of the folks in your party before agreeing to join, which is a little nerve wracking.

-This is less a complaint, and more just general frustration, but ranking up is pretty tedious near the top, which is to be expected I suppose. Through Aurodium, it was generous because you earn so many more points when you win than when you lose, but in Kyber, you win/lose the same amount. You are judged by your team score, so losses bring down everyone's rank, and it feels like you have to take three steps back for every one. Kyber players are comparatively more competent, but I've been in some...unfortunate matchups before. (As of writing this, I'm in Kyber III, but I've been bouncing between Beskar II~Kyber II for the past two weeks...will I ever make it to Kyber I cries)

-I think they started with a decent batch of characters, and I know this game just came out of beta and the team said they'll be expanding on them! So this isn't really a complaint either. But in the future, I hope they add more female characters (currently only 4 female characters out of 13 total, which feels a little skewed), as well as more support characters, who always feel lacking.

I'd love a few more "popular" iconic Star Wars species to have characters in support. Maybe a Togruta apothecary? A Nautolan water medic? A Pantoran doctor? And personally, I'd love a super buff Twi'lek lady as a tank! Either way, lots of possibilities to look forward to, especially given how much I love the characters so far!

So far, I've been playing on my iPhone and it works pretty smoothly, though I've heard of some Switch users having trouble with lagging/connecting. I think I've only been booted out once, and even when I'm forced to pop out of the app for a moment (last night, I got an Amber alert that paused my screen), I was able to continue playing with barely any pause, which is honesty impressive. I've heard controls are easier on Switch, but I think I've been doing okay on mobile.

Have you tried this game out??

Here's the launch trailer if you're interested, it's Pretty:

And a self plug!

Feel free to add me, I'm Akaz!

I main Skora (Rodian support) and prefer to play her in ranked, but also have Aran Tal (Mando, he's my baby boi), Sentinel (Stormtrooper tank), and Diago (Miraluka sniper) also at max level. Working on leveling up the others in casual mode!

I'm very happy to play casual mode with anyone! (and I play casual mode a lot to level up my less-used characters, and recommend spending some time there for new folks before diving into ranked)

I'm also happy to play ranked!

(but be warned, you'll kinda want to know what you're doing, or they will slaughter you in Kyber)

I might type up a follow up review giving my thoughts on each individual character and maybe some general tips idk

[silviakundera]

Did a speedrun through modern cdrama Everyone Loves Me because I'm a fan of both leads. A fairly well constructed romcom for a specific trope, AND also one of the most valid examples of the critique that cdrama storylines are pointlessly over-extended. This would have been a great modern drama at 12 episodes. Unfortunately, it's at least 10 episodes too long. The literal gaming (characters interacting while playing videogames) is very light - it's an initiating plot device piece but doesn't consume much actual screen time. The real genre is IT workplace romance with Hidden Identity trope.

Do you like:

* Capable & ambitious female lead x male lead with a competency kink whose turn-offs are white lotus & green tea girls and turn-ons are brash ladies who can cuss you out; dressing up to impress is not required

* Romantic dynamic of equal partners (2 strong personalities, not active/passive)

* "We don't know yet who is going to be the breadwinner. My goal is to be a CEO."

* Low heat (just a few kisses),

* modern workplace dramas (so much working)

[heavy spoilers below]

The actual set up & outline are:

* Online friend group who casually game together, in the last days of university. One of the guys starts catching feelings for the girl, our FL (let's call him Gamer Friend). FL isn't romantically considering Gamer Friend at all, because she has a crush on a guy from her uni.

* This crush is Gamer Friend in rl! 😮

* ML isn't open to being crushed on by anyone at rl uni, because he is already hung up on FL (as his online friend) 🙈

* FL asks for advice from her gaming buds on how to pursue her rl crush. Gamer Friend doesn't want her to succeed, because he wants to win her heart, so he keeps giving terrible advice to chase him by acting out the soft-spoken innocent maiden archetype (the opposite of FL's real boisterous & brash personality)

* This creates a comedy of errors where ML in rl is being pursued by the woman he's in love with, but he's shooting her down left & right. This culminates in her confessing and he publically rejects her in a harsh manner. When she comes crying (and vengeful) to the group, the guys all realize the identity confusion. Appropriately horrified, bros have no idea what to do. (This whole scene is gold tbh.)

* This plotline covers 7 episodes, but should have been dealt with in 4.

* Next 5 episodes (should have been 2!): Gamer Friend, toiling under karma, tries to be virtually supportive of his beloved while in person desperately making gestures to show remorse & have her less willing to obliterate his RL person. (this is all complicated by them both hired into the same company post-grad; there's a whole gaming dev & art design subplot - like in Lighter & Princess, the writers did the research so the setting is reality-based). This arc ends with identity reveal: she finally knows irl crush = Gamer Friend

* Next 6-7 episodes lead her from being (rightfully) furious and humiliated to them finally becoming friendly & supportive of each other. He waits to ask for more until he feels truly forgiven for the shakespearean hijinks that kept them apart. Includes work drama and fake-dating For Reasons. This arc, again, could have been 3-4 episodes.

* Final 5 episode arc is dating era and culmination of the gaming dev plotline. Heavy emphasis on work drama. Only 2 out of the last 5 episodes had significant romance material for the main couple, which was the major flaw in the drama. Avoided the separation cliche but also no marriage scenes at the end - we just see that they're still close, supportive partners a year later. Should have been 3 episodes ;)

The structure is right for a simple rom com set up of: one party pursues, gets rejected, then the other party pursues & corrects their mistake. The misunderstandings are logical enough; FL is assertive and we see evidence of her talent (not just told); ML likes her for herself & doesn't want a childish, obedient woman like the idol dramas represent; they are shown to make a good team & respect each other; the wronged party isn't a push over and their forgiveness has to be earned. It's clear why they like each other and that they work as a couple. (Though the emphasis is on compatibility & domesticity rather than sexual heat.)

The showrunner just needed to compress each arc and spend a lot less time on corporate minutiae. The way I engage with this type of drama is to binge, skip all 2nd couple scenes, and liberal use of fast forward ⏩⏩.

[gaysheep]

Touching is Good: A Retrospective

My trusty Nintendo 3DS, which has held out since I was gifted it for my 15th birthday, has turned one decade old with my 25th birthday this past November. Given new life with custom firmware and nds-bootstrap via TWiLightMenu, the 3DS is stellar for visiting any past handheld title or console title up to (and somewhat including) the N64. (Quick plug for the CFW/hacking community for the less popular PS Vita, too, which has accomplished some pretty crazy-cool stuff this last year.) I use my 3DS more often than I use my Nintendo Switch most weeks.

The Nintendo DS (minus the three) launched in late 2004. The second display and stylus support were novel tools for developers to experiment with, and the NDS is best remembered for its robust catalogue of RPGs and visual novels. Where it lacked in power, narrative-focused games flourished under its technical limitations.

That being said, while browsing the ROM archives on Vimm's Lair to pick up some titles, I was reminded of what an interesting era the mid-to-late 2000s were for games. While Sony and Microsoft were fighting over the "core gamer" demographic, who had outgrown Nintendo mascots, Nintendo led a series of wildly successful marketing campaigns for its hardware after the light failure of the Gamecube, where the Nintendo DS and then the Wii were targeted at...everyone else.

[Image source. Image description in alt text.]

If you look at ads for the DS and the Wii, you'll see that adults are featured much more prominently than children, especially women and seniors. (This did not go unnoticed, as I found this ancient relic of misogyny while looking for images for this post.) A Nintendo handheld was already an easy sell to parents with small children (though I think it's also notable that ads which do focus on children often prominently feature girls. Munchlax is pretty hot...), but Nintendo's angle for the DS and Wii was that their hardware wasn't just for children. The Wii was a way to get up off the couch and to play board games with grandma. The DS was a great gadget for a working woman to keep in her pocketbook.

This worked. The Wii and DS were two of the best-selling consoles of all time. In particular, the DS's marketing campaign only worked because it came out in the perfect window of time. PDA-phone hybrids had been around since the 90s, and the Blackberry had been kicking around for a few years, but the iPhone wouldn't be introduced until 2007, and the 4G LTE standard wouldn't be released until 2009. While the Blackberry was popular with businesspeople and the PDA was out of style, smartphones were luxury toys for several years; they wouldn't become near-ubiquious until the mid-2010s. I didn't get my own smartphone until probably around the same time I got my 3DS, a full handheld generation later.

Browsing the software library for the Nintendo DS and DSi with that in mind is really interesting. Many titles released for the platform serve the same purposes that would be fulfilled by simple smartphone apps less than a decade later: planners and diaries, fitness trackers, calculators, language learning and SAT prep software, even a guide to the then-most-recent version of the driver's test in the UK. These proliferated with the release of the DSi's virtual store, but they existed even with the base model. You could go to a brick-and-mortar store and buy them on physical cartridges. (You might be wondering, "Why would you bother carrying those around over just buying a Blackberry?" You can't underestimate how expensive the service bills for a smartphone were before companies realized they were the most powerful spyware tool in history.)

There was never a time where every single businesswoman in New York carried a DS Lite, but adults did buy and use them, and a not insignificant portion of the DS's software library is aimed at a casual adult audience. Another niche covered mostly by smartphone games these days—games designed to be picked up and played in short sessions on-the-go, in places like waiting rooms and subway commutes.

Nintendo made crazy bank in the seventh console generation. Publications of the time talked about a console war between Sony, Microsoft, and Nintendo, but the real battle was between the PS3 and the Xbox 360 over the gamer demographic. Nintendo was producing hardware for a niche who would quietly disappear once smartphone sales began ballooning by hundreds of millions per year over the course of the early 2010s.

After the failure of the Wii U, Nintendo's marketing strategy pivoted again, though I doubt they'll ever completely abandon their family-friendly image. Currently beat out only by the PS2 and the DS, the Nintendo Switch may very well climb to a status as the best-selling console of all time before the end of its lifespan, but the "gamer" demographic is much bigger than it was two decades ago at the dawn of the DS. As more and more devices become consolidated into the Swiss army knife the smartphone has become, consoles can only carve out a role as dedicated gaming machines.

I'm not sure we'll ever see anything like the Nintendo DS or the Wii again. I think they're worth looking back on for their uniqueness in that way as much as they are for the more celebrated parts of their libraries.

[dare-to-dm]

Xbox Research

Okay, someone just asked me if my research into xbox games from both the 360 and xbox one era revealed any changes in demographic trends between those two generations.  So now I get to rant about my results!

First!  I will describe the data I was tracking.  I made a list of all the games officially released for both of those systems at the time I started the research.  This came out to about 2000 games for the Xbox 360 and about 4500 games for the Xbox One.

Then I started categorizing each game based on the following factors.

Genre: I chose 27 genres for this project, and allowed each game to get a maximum of 3

Mode: Each game was designated as Single Player, Multiplayer, or Both

Protagonist Gender: Classified as Male, Female, Player’s Choice, Unknown, or Not Applicable

Protagonist Race: Classified as White, Person of Color, Player’s Choice, Unknown, or Not Applicable

I’m going to put the rest of this under a Read More, because there is A LOT

I say I “started” categorizing them, because I will be honest and admit that I did not fully complete all this data for every game in the data set.  I prioritized my research by which games were the most popular, ranked by how many players in my data set had played them.  I did get all of this information for every game played by at least one person in my data set, which comes out to about 3100 games fully categorized.

As for my player data, I took 90 players (45 self identified men and 45 self identified women) and used their achievement data to track which games they played.  This differentiates my data from a lot of stuff that’s widely available because rather than tracking sales, I was tracking what people actually played.  If there’s anything I’ve learned in my years as a gamer, it’s that there’s a big difference between what people buy and what they play.

Anyway, on to the trends!

Genres Rise, Genres Fall

The top genres between to the two systems were fairly consistent.  Top 5 for the 360 were Shooters, Sports Games, Action Adventure, Brawler/Hack’n’Slash, and Racing/Driving Games, in that order.

For the Xbox One, the top genres were Shooters, Action Adventure Games, Platformers, Roleplaying Games, and Sports Games, in that order.

The biggest difference between the two system generations is that producing indie games for console became a lot easier in recent years.  So, not only do we have a lot more games overall for the Xbox One, but many of those are from smaller studios.  I believe this is why platformers crack the top 5 in the One era, and why sports game fell from the 2 spot to the 5 spot.

Some genres did have a dramatic shift in popularity between the 2 systems.  Walking Sims functionally didn’t exist in the 360 era, but there are a full 32 of them in my data set for the One (and they continue to grow in popularity - I believe the number/ranking would be higher if I had continued to track this to the current day).

Party Games (defined as more casual games meant to be played with local multiplayer for short sessions) dropped massively in popularity.  This is no surprise given the shift to online gaming and many franchises dropping split screen capabilities.

Music/Rhythm games also had a massive drop in popularity.  Again, no surprise.  Guitar Hero, Rock Band and Dance Central were once huge franchises, but now there aren’t really any equivalent major releases.

Classic Adventure Games (defined as character/choice driven games with stories but no or little action) have risen in popularity.  Again, this is largely driven by the expansion of indie titles in the space.

Simulation games, survival games and visual novels have also become more popular.  I would argue that survival wasn’t really an established genre in the 360 days, but it definitely is now.

ALSO: The prevalence of game modes has shifted greatly!  In the 360 era, games largely needed to have both single player and multiplayer modes, with fully 71% of games falling into this category.  That has shifted over the years, with only 37% of games for the XBox One era having both.  Numerically and percentage wise, exclusively single player games are on the rise.  That being said, only one exclusively single player game (Fallout 4) cracked the top 20 most played list.  The 360 era had 3 single players games in the top 20 (Hexic HD, The Walking Dead and Assassin’s Creed).  So those publishers who claim that single player titles just don’t sell as well anymore?  You might not like it, but they aren’t lying.

The Glass Ceiling For Women Was Raised a Few Inches

When it comes to gender representation in games, my results largely speak for themselves.

360 Games With

Male Protagonists: 46%

Female Protagonists: 4%

Player Choice: 36%

Not Applicable: 9%

Unknown: 5%

Xbox One Games With

Male Protagonists: 33%

Female Protagonists: 11%

Player Choice: 32%

Not Applicable: 17%

Unknown: 7%

So, women are getting a bigger market share of protagonists these days, but it’s still only a small percentage.

Also, I will note that Player Choice is not always as equitable as it sounds.  In addition to games where you get to create your character, any game with multiple playable characters and even one female option was put into this category.  So, for example, a Dragon Ball Z fighting game with 20 characters would count even if only one of them was a woman.  This type of thing was (and still is) pretty common.

And this probably goes without saying, but for all my gender neutral folks, nonbinary options were not purposefully excluded from this study.  Rather, there were so few relevant examples that any few that could count got lumped in the Not Applicable Category (which also included protagonists of species with alternative gender dynamics).

Things Not Getting Much Better for People of Color

The numbers here are bleak.

Xbox 360 Games With

White Protagonists: 35%

POC Protagonists: 4%

Player Choice Protagonists: 37%

Not Applicable Protagonists: 18%

Unknown Protagonists: 5%

Xbox One Games With

White Protagonists: 35%

POC Protagonists: 4%

Player Choice Protagonists: 26%

Not Applicable Protagonists: 27%

Unknown Protagonists: 8%

As you can see, by market share, people of color have not made any gains.  In fact, if you look at games that give you a choice, there has been a backslide!  I will note that I think this number can largely be explained by the rise of indie games on the platform, however.  Character creation clearly comes with a higher development cost than many indies can afford.  And, well, frankly a lot of stuff indie studios are producing isn’t more progressive in this aspect anyway. 

While these numbers are not promising, there is one area in which things are not as bad as they look.  Namely, popular and triple AAA games are getting more diverse, at least through the avenue of letting your create your own protagonist.

In the 360 era, 7 of the top 10 games features canonically white male protagonists.  You don’t get to a canonically nonwhite protagonist until number 14 on the list (Lee, from the Walking Dead).

In the X Box One era, only 3 of the top 10 games features canonically white male protagonists.  The rest let you choose.  (Lee from Walking Dead is still the most played canonical nonwhite protagonist, followed by Kait Diaz in Gears 5 and Beatrix LeBeaux in Slime Rancher).

This category was particularly fraught because race can be subjective.  For example, can we really say that Kait Diaz qualifies as a person of color?  We’re talking about a franchise that takes place in a fictional earthlike setting, so we don’t have any real history to pull from.  Her skin tone is ambiguous and her voice actress is white.  But I feel her name and design puts her in the category of latino coded, and after a discussion with someone who actually played the game, that’s where I put her.

There were a lot of cases like this in this category, so do look at these numbers with a grain of salt knowing that I often had to make a judgement call as to how to classify a character, and other people may have made different judgement calls.

ANYWAY if anyone has any questions about any of the data I collected, please let me know because I could talk about this all day.

[purplesurveys]

1936

[sarajade @ bzoink]

What were you doing one hour ago? I was in the car at the parking lot of the mall we were at, waiting for my family to finish shopping. I wasn't in the mood to stroll + besides, it's Halloween weekend so the mall was fucking packed with kids asking for candy and running about...I couldn't handle the energy LOL so I asked permission to go ahead in the car, where I had no problem waiting for them.

Where were your parents born? My dad was born in a province an hour away from Manila; my mom was born within Metro Manila but I'm not giving away the city.

Have you ever used public transportation to get to work? No, I honestly don't know how to commute. I'm not willing to learn until this country gets their shit together and improves our public transport system. I've booked trips to the office via Grab, though, but that's the closest to commuting that I'm willing to do.

What do you miss the most from before Covid times? Honestly...very little. Society is ever so slightly a lot more slow-paced now, which I feel is an effect of the pandemic that we were all successfully able to carry over into the post-pandemic era. People are a lot more conscious about personal space; we're all a lot more cautious whenever we need to cough or sneeze; most offices follow a hybrid set-up except for the few assholes who've implemented a full RTO...things like that.

If anything I only feel regret that I wasn't able to spend all four years of college onsite.

What has been the best thing to happen to you in the past year? Geez, it would be hard to tell. This year felt like a fucking car crash, but I guess it's also my quarter-life crisis in action. Hm...I like that I saw Seventeen, I like that Jin and J-Hope are back from the military, and I like that I was able to travel to Vietnam. Those three I would say have been the highlights of the last 366 days.

Who do you have listed as emergency contacts in your phone? I don't think I have anyone, but in general I usually list my mom.

Are you prone to jealousy? No, I'm pretty nonchalant these days.

How did you get through the lowest point in your life? I drowned myself in work + discovered BTS.

Have you ever been someone's first love? I think so, yeah.

Have you ever played frisbee golf? Not sure what that is so I'll say no. I casually played frisbee in high school, though.

What is your favorite silly, feel-good movie? 13 Going on 30 :) To be fair, the older I get, the more problematic I increasingly find some of its plot elements to be (Jenna tracking down Matty?? Matty cheating???), but I guess I haven't and can't let go of how cute I found it to be at some point.

How old were you when you got your first gaming console, and what kind was it? I never really got gifted 'my own' console because I was never a gamer to begin with, but the first one I had exposure to was the PS1 just because we already had one when I was born.

Who in your family has the coolest job? I really admire my cousin, who's a teaching assistant in economics at our alma mater.

Is cereal technically a soup? Well, no, it's just milk.

Have you found your first gray hairs yet? They come up every now and then but always irregularly.

What is something that drains your energy really quickly? Unreasonable clients, clients who message on the weekend, clients who have sky-high expectations...you get the route I'm headed.

Did you parents teach you how to make a budget before you moved out on your own? They never taught me anything about money. They've just sort of expected to me to learn on my own, which I guess is not wrong but I do wish I got guided just a little bit.

What is your favorite food to put gravy on? Just fried chicken. I'm not so much a fan of gravy...

Do you know anyone from Canada? I've had a couple of friends/family friends move to Canada. It's a fairly popular country for Filipinos.

What's your opinion on astrology? No.

Do you use TikTok? Yeah but only because it makes up a sizeable portion of my work. I'm constantly working with influencers and digital media, so I need to know who's been getting popular/what the trends are.

What do you have going on the rest of the day? I printed out coloring sheets that I'll be filling out. I'm also gonna play a bit of my rhythm game tonight.

[ratsoh-writes]

hai!!! one match up please ^^ (ty btw as like a pre-added ty!! ur cool)

personality traits: im super loyal, nice and goofy, weakness has gotta be how im constantly sleepy, lack of social awareness, and im indecisiveness

Deal breakers/pet peeves: gotta be suddenly getting cold and rude. like a random 180?? HATEE THOSE. another pet peeves gotta be when someones eating and they keep SMACKING ON THIER FOOD RAAAH-

traits that i likey: TALL PEOPLE>>>, glasses are also like awooga, dark/edgy(?) aesthetics are SOO COOL I LOVETHOSE STYLES. they gotta be nice tho, or at least not overly rude like can take a hint to knock it down a peg!!

Hobbies!: ART. (main reason why im sleepy 2 bc i onlydo art at night ;-::), cooking/baking and GAMING bc im a GAMER.

Favorite items!: my headphones omg i cant go without em i heart music, my tom nook pillow!!!, my slowly growing pin collection, and ps5 bc it has overwatch and i need my overwatch-

Hmmm alright, yours was a bit tricky but I think I’ve got the right guy! I match you with… HOOK! Seafell sans!

While he isn’t the tallest, hook definitely has that edgy dark style down if you like a pirate theme! Plus hook is a HUNK. He looks great under those clothes, and he knows how to use that pretty body of his ;)))

Hook is a fell monster, he can be aggressive with people, but with friends and his SO hes more like a goofy pit bull. Deep down hook is just a silly nerd who wants someone to tease and be besties with. He’d definitely be able to match your own playful energy

You like art? So does hook. He’s OBSESSED with the renaissance period of art! And he likes other eras too, but they’re his favorite. Hook tends to lean towards artistic SOs as well for this reason. He sadly doesn’t have a single artistic bone in his body, so he has to live through his skilled friends instead. He’ll always geek out over whatever you make.

One thing hook loves to do to his SOs is just casually carry them around if they let him. So expect yourself to be treated as a living stuffed animal lol.

[basedkikuenjoyer]

Sophomore year of college for me when the fifth generation dropped, so now we're really seeing the nostalgia aspect bloom. And this is why I respect Unova making a gutsy decision. Whole new cast of Pokemon. Especially when we've had three gens establishing the rough 50/50 mix of old and new I like. But it was easy enough to buy in when I saw the most beautiful starter choice. I take the grass type, that's it. Serperior is my favorite of all of em. Chandelure is also a favorite introduced here and I think the Unova Pokemon are well designed.

Speaking of, Unova is a fun region. Based on the US, very metropolitan vibes. Excellent stuff and well designed to give you a good post game. I also really liked at the time how it got over some of the old "bullshit" features. Reusable TMs were awesome here! And like, yeah it still feels super over-the-top like Gen 4 but N's whole hyper-PETA angle was worth it. Finally we see someone acknowledge the cockfight RPG.

Like Gen 4 I played this one when it came out and sorta just moved on. But I do have a lot more respect for this fifth outing. Fittingly for a series who's first entry was so clearly inspired by Dragon Quest V, Black/White really do feel like the end of the classic era of Pokemon. Don't mistake that as me waxing nostalgic for some lost Golden Age though either.

Like so much other nerdy pop culture stuff, this was the era most fandoms had to come to terms with how toxic the environments can be. I'm glad the edgy trend breaks here. It's nice to have all these features and stuff to play with other people and have post game challenges...but not when they're gated behind a bunch of mechanics that take a lot of time and the developers don't like to fully acknowledge. The problems here are similar as ones you'd see with Skyrim or Smash Bros. Brawl, it felt almost like a black or white choice between appealing to gamers or casuals.

[headlessstar]

finished watching all the mk games' story modes and characters' arcade prologues and endings.

astounding how even with the phenomenal production value, sheer artistry on display, and more or less good script writing, the nrs era games were such a bore to get through. maybe mk9 is the exception as that one had a tighter story with an ending that capped off on what the opening showed.

still, it feels like mk has lost that charming experimental feel it had in the midway era. even with the mixed results those games had, they never felt identical to each other. each one offered something that the others didn't have.

it feels like the nrs era, following the success of mk9, just stuck with that formula for the story presentation and over time exacerbated its flaws.

seriously, at point i was just skipping gameplay sections just to get the cutscenes (and tbh those cutscenes got WAYYY too long) and when that happens, when a viewer/gamer doesn't feel immersed enough to engage with the game as a game, then there's something seriously wrong in the formula.

not that it's all bad, there's a reason these games became so beloved by the casual audience.

mk9 was good for the most part, even if it had many unnecessary fights, weird power scaling, and the antagonists being all losers in these fights (I'm still not over stryker's chapter like damn why did they have him beat reptile, mileena, kintaro AND ermac back to back that's ridiculous if they wanted to introduce him like "you have much potential" like nightwolf says maybe just have him beat one of them. now I can't even take them seriously).

mkx did a good job with the introduction of so many new characters, even if I couldn't bring myself to care about any of them. it also reduces the feel of some fights feeling unnecessary or over misunderstandings that mk9 had. unfortunately, this game negated the whole point of having a reboot in the first place, placing us right back in messy, consulted storylines and too many characters and subplots that the overall story loses focus. i still think the lin kuei mission/test was the perfect set up to introduce frost to the kombat kids team as she would bring an interesting dynamic to the team.

mk11 is where it hits rock bottom for me, not only is the story too long and slow-paced, especially with the addition of aftermath. it's just... it's nothing. i struggle to think of any positives besides the amazing visuals and character designs. this is where the series become too concerned with making a movie-like experience rather than a video game one so that might also influence my feelings on it. the handling of characters like scorpion's death and sindel's retcon left me feeling too bitter to appreciate their subplots. even noob saibot's appearance didn't excite me as much as I would have thought :\

mk1/mk12 was much more entertaining than 11, it had the tall order of introducing a new continuity/setting and the re-imagined characters, and I feel it did okay for the most part. it still had most of mk11's issues but they were limited due to the smaller caste. too bad that the story caught fire and fell flat on itself when it entered the multiverse segment of the story. it was unnecessary and only trivialized the current story further. it would have been better to just have it be two timelines, liu kang's and shang tsung's, and have the final battle be between our heroes (the characters whom we spent the whole story building) and shang tsung's timeline counterparts. maybe this way we would have less awkward stair fights with surreal character abominations.

overall, it was alright. i just hope in the future they abandon the one or two characters per chapter formula as it's more detriment to the story than anything else. maybe also stay away from special forces, like man I know racism is a given with these games since the begging but all these references are making me cringe every time.

[scarletrecords]

perhaps i’m really biased towards kaveh, but i want—demand—him to participate in a summer patch because i feel like it just suits his creative nature, and being someone who practices design and art, it only makes sense that he’d find the time (and budget, i guess) to travel around and enrich his knowledge and appreciation even more. yes, i’m probably just biased, which is why i toured most of the simulanka realm with kaveh.

(also, i could’ve cropped the genshin watermark on the photos, but i guess that’s just for another time. i do wish they can do something about that since hsr has an option to hide the game’s logo when taking photos. that said, i do think that between the three current popular hyv games, genshin’s camera option is the most optimal since it captures the scenery the way you last framed it, where as with hsr and zzz, i’d take a few minutes to set up the scene i want to capture just to get the desired composition.)

this summer patch isn’t really something that i was super excited about compared to the previous summer patches, but i really liked how the simulanka world was designed, especially with the origami characters of the forest of blessings! actually, it’s because of the realm itself that i kept on coming back every time i log in because i just like going around there and taking photos. in spite of feeling nonchalant about this, i do feel that sadness i always feel after summer patches because even in games, i am bad with goodbyes (T^T )

natlan patch is tomorrow, and i can already see how busy my week will be as a hyv games enthusiast (not sure if i should be proud of it because gacha is another form of gambling, and i play genshin, hsr, and zzz so what does that make me, right?).

[euphorial-docx]

what video games would the be each of the marauders era character favorite?

i’m gonna yap about it and i hope you guys do too.

remus would play red dead redemption a lot i think— the entire series. his friends would play with him too. they’d run around being annoying cowboys online, with remus being the only one *actually* good at the game.

i think sirius would play the grand theft auto series and i really don’t know why? maybe i just feel like he’d enjoy being a menace on the roads, going to the strip club, and being a demon in online servers.

for james i was initially gonna say street fighter, but i personally prefer mortal kombat and i am biased so he would play mortal kombat. he’d always choose kitana if possible because he had a crush on her as a kid.

peter gives me fortnite vibes. he’d love building shelters and running people over with an op car and doing the little dances. rip peter pettigrew you would have loved fortnite </3 he’d play as one of the banana characters or something

lily would play animal crossing. need i say more? no, but i will! she’d have a big garden, keep all the cute villagers ONLY, and her house would be decorated so nicely. she’d love it. she’d have her friends visit her island all the time.

regulus was really hard for me to place, but i eventually landed on baldur’s gate. i feel he would dig the high fantasy vibes and the freedom of player choice, while also fucking heavy with the strategy aspect. he’d like being a sorcerer because of the added difficulty of sorcery points, and always play a drow because he gives me drow vibes.

mary would play the sims. probably the sims 2. she’d always have really dramatic households and also have a shit ton of custom content. i don’t really see her as a gamer, so she’d be more casual about it.

marlene would play roblox lmao. she would be such a troll in bloxburg, and take dress to impress VERY seriously or VERY unseriously. she’d probably also get banned a few times.

i tried so hard to think of a good game dorcas would play but all i could think of was movie star planet. that game slaps though, so she’d be great at it. she’d be one of those msp players that has the subscription and the best clothes that none of the kids on msp could buy. iconic.

barty would play cyberpunk 2077 to death. he be an absolute terror in night city. also he’d constantly go to joytoy locations and nobody can tell me he wouldn’t. barty would love the depravity of the cyberpunk aesthetic.

evan would play league of legends. he’d complain about it and say the game sucks, and yet he’d be playing it 24/7. he’d usually play as mid lane characters like sylas or, for my arcane fans, ekko.

pandora would play wizards 101. she’d be infamous on that game in the community and would log on almost every day. she wouldn’t care if people think it’s lame or childish as long as she’s having fun.

[chavinz]

Let me tell you 'bout

LE SSERAFIM

Hi guys! I'm Charles Cuevas, ABM student at St. Mary Magdalene School, but lets keep this casual. Actually, my dream before is to be a pilot, but as my academic years goes by, I've realized that business path is for me. This leads me to choose ABM as my strand in senior high school. But, academically aside, I want to share my comform things in my life.

Well, I'm a coffee lover since I've entered my high school era, I find conform in this drink, since for me it symbolizes our life. Sometimes, we cannot get the balanced and right mixture for our coffee, sometimes its too bitter, sometimes its too sweet for our liking. This simple scenario allows me to think that life is not perfect, due to our actions, we can change the run of our life, making it better or even more worse than ever.

Next, lets focuses in these two beautiful ladies, they are the 2 japanese members of k-pop group LE SSERAFIM. The first girl is Nakamura Kazuha (Stage Name: Kazuha), she is a professional ballerina, studied ballet ever since she was 3 years old. Her fluidity and harmonious movements makes me to love her and making her my second bias in the group. That is why we referred to her as "LE SSERAFIM's Swan".

The next one is the "unnie" ("older sister" in korean) of LE SSERAFIM. She is Miyawaki Sakura (Stage Name: Sakura), one of I've known idols who are in the industry for many years, she became an japanese idol in July 2011. In 2018, she debuted on IZ*ONE (temporary grouped formed by a survival show) and redebuted again as a LE SSERAFIM member last May 2022. What I love about her is her humor and wittiness, as she is also a gamer who always win on her group's games and challenges. Beside that, her name is one of my favorite flowers, Cherry Blossom (Sakura in japanese). She became my bias since her IZ*ONE era, because of her "anime-like" visual and having the same bias in BLACKPINK which is Rosé.

Finally, lets talk about the song above, entitled "Swan Song". This song caught my attention because of its simple yet calming vibe, my music representation for the swans. This is the 3rd track of album "EASY" by LE SSERAFIM released last February 19, 2024. At first listen, I really find myself so calm that makes it one of the comfort songs. Before I end this simple blog, LET ME TELL YOU 'BOUT LE SSERAFIM, they are:

5-member girl group under HYBE subsidiary, Source Music.

Kim Chaewon (leader, vocalist, dancer), Miyawaki Sakura (vocalist, rapper, dancer), Huh Yunjin (vocalist and rapper), Nakamura Kazuha (sub-vocalist, rapper, dancer) Hong Eunchae (vocalist, lead dancer, maknae (term used for the younger member of the group)).

Debuted on May 2, 2024 with their 1st mini album "FEARLESS".

Originally a 6-member girl group, but due to baseless allegations, Kim Garam had left the group, making them a 5-member girl group.

Fandom Name: FEARNOT

Official Fandom Color: Fearless Blue

Thats all, I hope this blog helps you to know my comfort things in life, to finally end this, always remember to STAN LE SSERAFIM, thank you so much. 🤎

[baronvonriktenstein]

I'm not much of an avid gamer, I'm no good at it, but I have a couple-a SNES games, a couple-a PS2 games, and like some GBA games

Those are sort of the eras I'm most interested in.

There's a chance I might get my hands on a switch lite soon. doesn't look like I can get Silent Hill for it, and I'm adding Deadly Premonition to my wishlist (if I get the system)

Any game recs? Is there like a snes package kinda thing? I think I saw a sega genesis one casually browsing.

[adelle-ein]

Lace's Engage Review: The Good, The Bad, The Ugly (minimal spoilers)

So I ended up deciding to get Engage shortly after it released, and I uh…have some thoughts about it. Far too many thoughts. As usual.

This is intended to be a spoiler-light review for those on the fence. There's pretty much no story spoilers, they all pertain to gameplay aspects. Also these are my opinions. They're subjective. You'll probably disagree with me. And I don't want to fight about it. Like at all. Okay? Okay.

Overall, I think the gameplay and general style puts me most in mind of the GBA games, with maybe a splash of 3ds-era (Fateswakening, that is, echoes is really more its own thing.) The general focus on the maps and battle, the feel of said maps, the game mechanics, the relative length and varied quality of supports, some characters being very gimmicky while others are more layered — it definitely doesn't feel like Three Houses, and it's more of a return to traditional FE form wrapped up in a strangely-colored package. The story is quite bad, but in a more "average FE story way" — some sweet moments, not a bad concept at all if a common one, but poor and very straightforward delivery. Alear is very Corrin-like in that they aren't the smartest and get largely worshiped just for breathing, which is definitely tiring, but they do actually have a consistent personality and characterization unlike Byleth. C-B supports are mostly (not all) for humor, but several A supports are surprisingly thoughtful and well-done. Unfortunately, the game falls down hard in what, for me, are a few key areas. Basically, maybe this is a three out of five stars? Something like that?

The Good: 

Let be known, for starters, that I am a ~casual~ gamer. I'm bad at video games! Some of this is disability and some is just me! I like to play things on easy! So obviously my perspective will be different from someone playing the whole thing on maddening-classic-ironman-nuzlocke-yunaka solo-what have you. Also, I've played FE7-16, along with both Warriors games, played Heroes since day 1, and read/watched other people's playthroughs of 4/5/6. So those are my "qualifications"…so to speak.

Starting off: The graphics, character designs aside, are really very nice. Everyone is much more expressive, things are much smoother and less jagged than in 3h, and the environments and scenery are very pretty. The pre-rendered cutscenes look detailed and high-quality. The lighting is good and fairly dynamic, and textures are crisp and don't have that photoskinned look to them. Sommie is very cute, honestly. You can run around and explore the maps a little bit after battles, and it's clearly just a mechanic so the devs can show off how good the environments look. Honestly, they're very good! Cute, detailed (you can see inside buildings sometimes and they're fully furnished,) and well-designed. There's also some other cute and well-done details around the Somniel. For example, there's a ton of different models for the various cooking meals (I'm not sure I ever saw any reused? There's a LOT) and they look pretty nice considering you only see them for like ten seconds apiece. Also, I do think Three Houses had a prettier interface, but Engage's is much more comfortably readable with its font choices. Minor thing, but a good thing.

The maps and battle system are clearly the focus of the game, and the game continues to throw new things and gimmicks at you without feeling cheap or getting stale. The Emblems being used both by and against you contribute to this, but there's also some single-map gimmicks and returning ones, such as unique boss AI or moves, that add variety. Offensive staves, more varied weapons and maps, lots of fun ways to mix it up within the main story maps. Just the fact that bosses now have multiple HP bars, for example, adds a lot to gameplay and makes every map just feel like a unique challenge, which I haven't gotten from FE for a few entries now.

While the characters overall aren't quite as layered or deep as Three Houses's, some are genuinely very good, and many are likable in spite of that. Honestly, sometimes when Three Houses pulled out the "depth" card, it just ended up ruining a character for me (ie the Gonerils' child slaves that are never mentioned again…). There wasn't anyone in Engage that I hated at all, really, and that was refreshing. No womanizer character, no "racist but they feel bad about it," nothing like that. I enjoyed them a lot, I think they were fun and colorful (if perhaps maybe too literally colorful) and while a few were reduced to gimmicks, they weren't the majority, and nearly all show a lot of deeper motivation once you get digging. Sure, some of them bring up their hobbies too much, but uh, I'm one to talk. I think they were a fun, lovable cast overall, if perhaps not the ones with the most depth, but a good level of depth for what I personally want out of a Fire Emblem game. They also didn't feel clogged up with "filler characters" the way the earlier games sometimes do. You do get a few prepromotes thrown at you in lategame just in case, but no groups of four cavaliers with interchangeable personalities in case you fuck up and kill two. Everyone feels like they have a reasonable amount of characterization and care put into their writing, even the cast's weaker members, and the result is a generally memorable and likeable group.

While the supports aren't as long and many aren't as deep, they all go up to A, and a lot of them are just fun and enjoyable to watch. If you've only played Three Houses, or only like Three Houses's cast, then yeah, they'll feel weird to you, but if you do like the casts of older FE games, I don't think they're any worse than those (and frankly, they're better than some.) They're fun, some are quite creative, and I don't get any of the "ugh, we HAVE to include these" vibes that sometimes came across in Awakening and Fates. Those two games suffered from needing to include S options for almost every M/F combo, and Engage enjoys being freed from it. Characters are paired together because of their existing connections, traits in common, or because the writers just had an idea, and things flow very well. Overall, it feels like a throwback to FE6-10.

This is a personal note for me, but Three Houses felt like the writers had just discovered the concept of mental illness and wanted to use it as a crutch. Engage steps away from that, and for me personally, that's a huge improvement. After so many "hates: herself" characters, so much depression and anxiety that was portrayed downright callously or even cruelly, and the absolute nightmare of a parody that is Bernadetta, it was a relief to not open every support wondering in which way the writers were about to mock me. I know some mentally ill people liked the way characters were written in Three Houses. I am not one of them, and found it awful. I'm so glad they've decided to step away from their "PTSD is sexy, anxiety is funny, listen to characters tell you they stopped being suicidal because of [Player], listen to Bernadetta scream at the top of her lungs as wacky music plays because agoraphobia is a laugh riot" crusade.

The overall "throwback" feel of the game is genuinely nice. I had sort of missed getting to play what feels like a "regular" Fire Emblem. Personally I like it when the game varies formula, but it frustrates me when FE does two extremely similar games in a row (like how Fates tries really really hard to just be Awakening Again), and I was sort of expecting FE17 to be Three Houses Two (again, because Three Hopes is already that…). It was a pleasant surprise to find that Engage overall has its own identity while going back to basics with other aspects of the formula. I don't love everything that came from this (as you'll see below) but there were many things that I really enjoyed, mostly the actual gameplay itself and how fun it was.

As far as the main plot, in a spoiler free version: the idea was good, the execution was off. Pacing is kind of a mess, and the writers fail to give the deuteragonist and other significant secondary characters enough material and screentime to get you as attached to them as they clearly want you to be. This seriously drags down the whole thing. Take the exact basic concept, rearrange the ordering of the chapters and the priorities for screentime, maybe don't fight the Hounds QUITE as many times (it gets ridiculous by the fourth go around and you're still not done…) and certain scenes would hit a lot harder. The emotional core just isn't there because the pacing is so wonky. Parts of the script, animation, and voice acting also fall down at key moments (one character's scream of grief and rage just looks and sounds absurd.) I do like some of the messages, which break up the usual Fire Emblem narrative in key ways, and I don't think it's a terrible plot. It's just another mediocre one. I would personally rank it similarly to Binding Blade or Awakening, which is to say, unimpressive and predictable, but not horrifically bad or anything. It's a bit frustrating though, because I think it had the potential to be genuinely heartfelt, but unwillingness to provide any lore combined with really bad pacing combined with badly distributed screentime leads to kind of a mess. I have more detailed/spoilery thoughts on the plot here, but be warned, I SPOIL EVERYTHING.

The CGs are really well drawn and pretty-looking. Minor but true. The credits are really very nice, I enjoyed them and wish other FE games had something similar. The S-support CGs are not as well done, but the faces are not as, well…Bad as they are in 3h. I'll take it, basically. The rest of the CGs and illustrations are good though! The ally logbook and the little screenshots you unlock of the characters are also cute.

Also Sommie is admittedly adorable. I had to warm up to it but the way it follows you around the Somniel making its little footprint noises? Fucking precious. And hey, if you don't like it, you can just not feed it and it'll stay in its shrine so it won't bug you. Overall, the Somniel is very optional. I don't like minigames (and some of them are too painful for me with my health issues), so I didn't play any of them much, and that was totally fine and didn't slow me down. I personally see this as a plus. Also you can design a cute little card to hand out to anyone you do multiplayer with. With stickers! Lots of stickers!!

…If every aspect of this game had as much care put into it as that card designer, I would be rating it five stars. Alas.

The Bad:

The UI and quality of life features leave a lot to be desired. It is not easy to find or figure out how to do things in this game. For example, you can raise your bonds with Emblem Rings in the Arena area of Somniel, unlocking skills from them that you can then inherit. Great! But, uh...to inherit those skills, you have to go through a loading screen and travel to an entirely different area of Somniel, the Ring Chamber. I've spent a very long time traveling back and forth between the two as I unlock skills. It's a strange oversight, and one that is unfortunately repeated again and again all over the game. The menus are cumbersome, weird, and annoying, and sometimes really frustrating to navigate because there are just too many things going on in a single interface (The ring menu is just not enjoyable to use in my opinion.) Auto-equipping things sounds great until you realize it takes everything off your non-deployed units and the choices it makes are nonsensical. You don't have any kind of notification for support conversations being unlocked, and neither supports nor bonds are indicated as being available from menus either. If you're trying to win over a particular character with a pile of gifts, you'd better hope they randomly happen to spawn into Somniel, or you can sleep over and over until they do, because it's just luck of the draw. There's just a lot of weird, nagging little details that make things very cumbersome.

The thing that really bugged me, personally, is that Engage has no real way to fix up your lower-level units. Thanks to the royal/retainer setup from Fates returning, Engage throws a lot of characters at you very quickly throughout midgame. You can't use them all, so many have to hit the bench. Oh, but that's okay, right? There's skirmish battles infinitely respawning on the map, after all! Well...wrong. The level scaling for those skirmishes is based off the toughest members of your army, and is usually actually higher than whatever story chapters you currently have unlocked. Left Jean on the bench? He's staying there, since every enemy you can spawn for him to face will kill him by blinking. And the levels scale fast. Even sitting out a few maps can be terminal, as it was for my poor Yunaka. No matter how fun you might find some of the characters you skipped, you'll simply never get to use them. The modes in the Somniel are specifically set up to be anti-grind, and have limited uses...or don't gain EXP/supports/SP...et cetera. Weirdly enough, characters will also complain in this game if you don't use them, for some reason, since you can't actually do anything about that. Guess what, Panette, if I deploy you now you're going to immediately be Corrupted food, and there's nothing I can do to fix that.

This extends to every other traditional FE "grind." Other than a few potential exploits people have found, which are very, very slow, there is simply no way to reliably support grind with non-Alear units. Non-Alear units ONLY gain support points with each other by using staves on each other, eating meals or doing arena battles with each other, or...by defeating an enemy on player phase only and only with the units directly adjacent to them. And you can only have one mealtime between every two battles, not endlessly stuff yourself with different duos a la Byleth and Shez. Even with Corrin's support-gaining skill and regular mealtimes and arena battles, supports gain at a crawl. Gold runs out fast and the only way to get more is the miserably difficult, high-level skirmishes.

I have one massive file each in Awakening and Fates in which I have every single unit fully built, all their stats and A supports maxed, and full sets of skills (except for my least favorite units…), from both spamming reeking boxes and the DLC maps, all just for fun. That's not possible in Engage. Awakening/Fates didn't have NG+ because they didn't need NG+. Engage does. In Awakafates, you could, if you wanted to, have a fun, enjoyable postgame/lategame to collect everything and try completely wild combinations out. In Engage, there are a number of skills and builds and abilities that, while cool in theory, are just never possible to try in-game without insanely slow grinding. Finishing the support log is a nightmare ask and pretty much impossible in one file unless you are insanely devoted to having units healing each other with Micaiah's ring in the corners of high level maps for IRL days on end. It’s pretty much impossible to max all donation levels or collect all bond rings, because again, no NG+. This certainly doesn't matter to many players, but it does to me, so that's why I'm sharing. I wouldn't be surprised if we get some DLC maps designed to help fill this in a little, and personally, I think that sucks. Sure, the DLC maps in Fates/Awakening speed things up a lot, but they aren't absolutely necessary as you can still use map battles easily enough. If they add DLC grinding maps to Engage, they will be the only options available. Lame. Even if it’s a free patch, the game currently feels like it’s missing a basic feature. Withholding that for hype or money reasons is just obnoxious.

The throwback paralogues, meanwhile, are…kind of a slog for me. The Emblems make a fairly bland speech about their motivations and then fight you on a map designed to look like various random maps from their corresponding games (and I mean random — some of these choices were far from iconic and downright inexplicable. Why a random beach for Celica? Why is Sigurd on a Seliph map, albeit a well-known one? Why is Lyn's map from FE6 aaaaaaaaa.) While the gameplay on these maps is tight and challenging, that's pretty much where the well-done fanservice begins and ends. Actual characterization of the Emblems is few and far between, pretty much limited to Bond conversations. In the story proper, they're exposition bots.

The Ugly:

Just coming out to say it: God, these characters look so bad. Alear is hideous. The colors are all over the place and clash with each other horribly. The battle outfits are just eyesores (although the Somniel ones are generally improvements, you can't equip those in battle, so what's the point?) The job outfits are REALLY ugly (that sage outfit is goddamn hideous.) Nearly all the characters all have either Boy Face or Girl Face, and Girl Faces all look like they're about eleven years old. The weird medieval/modern/fantasy/??? mashup look doesn't work for me. Every non-pre rendered cutscene had girl Alear making her blank stupid blob face, and no matter what expression she made she just looked really weird. Her design is, for me, simply so weird and ugly as to be distracting at all times. Meanwhile, so many characters like Yunaka, Panette, and Hortensia are just downright distractingly bad looking. I can't take the face stickers or clown dresses seriously at all, and they're not even fun to look at. Orientalism, as usual, abounds in both some default outfits (Seadall is...so bad) and dress-up options. The artist was a poor choice for FE, but I don't think most of the blame lies at her feet — the choice itself was bad, and there's no direction to speak of when it comes to the overall look of the characters. Most of the countries don't appear to have any coherent cultural identity in clothing designs the way Nohr and Hoshido did, for example (barring Firene's passion for flowers and some recurring patterns among the Brodians.) If it weren't for the copy-pasted faces, many of them would look like they came from different games altogether. Even the generic soldiers look awful. It's disjointed and ugly. The entire design team fell down hard on this one.

The Emblems honestly leave a lot to be desired. Some aren't bad, but that blobby girl face doesn't really work for most of the female Emblems. Celica and Eirika's hair looks atrocious (do they have terrible bedhead or something?) and Leif just looks incredibly off in a way I can't quite define. Design-wise, this is a very bad looking game. Which is a shame, because all the animation upgrades now feel completely wasted on terrible designs.

And, of course, Fire Emblem gonna Fire Emblem: the S-supports are just a mess overall. The datamined ages don't appear to be present in the game proper, but based on the under-18s being made platonic in the NA localization, I'm assuming they're still canon. This means Alear is 17 and capable of marrying a number of people in their twenties and above, even in the localized version. To be fair, I think the localizers were fucked no matter what they did here. Leave in marriage to Anna and the game will rightfully be slammed. Take out every romantic relationship and the backlash will be incredible. But where do you draw the line for a 17-year-old dating a 15-19 y/o? There was just no way to win this one, and I guess going with 18 makes as much sense as anything. This is not me defending the original devs, who suck. This is just me thinking about how the localization team really just could not make any good choice here, thanks to the original game's fucked up "lol you can marry anyone" choices. Whole thing is gross all the way around. There's a pretty small handful of characters that are both left romantic and not creepy choices for Alear, so we're back in the same situation Fates and 3h left us in, where all the super popular avatar ships are just weird and unpleasant and people call you a monster for not liking them. Great, thanks a lot, intsys. All of this being said: the game itself really doesn't include these ages, and most people aren't even going to realize they're a thing. You need to go online to even find out. So who only knows why they exist to begin with (Anna etc romantic S-supports still gonna be real bad no matter what, though.)

And no, there's no romance or paired endings between non-Alear characters, just some vague non-explicit implications in certain a-supports, as per usual, because playersexuality is all that matters to anyone anymore. Let's all publish thinkpieces about how FE said gay rights or whatever though! Woo-hoo!

Verdict:

So, all that being said…Engage is really fun. It is also a hot mess and while the gameplay is overall strong, there are certain aspects that don't seem to have been thought through at all. Its greatest strengths are its map design and focus on core gameplay, but its weaknesses lie in quality of life and options for grinding and more casual fun. There's no postgame/ng+/etc whatsoever despite the game really needing it. And the designs look terrible. I personally don't think it was worth the $60 (maybe more like $40), and mostly decided to go ahead and buy it so I could lend it out to the family. Of course, your mileage may vary, but those are my full thoughts on the game as a whole. 

Also don't ask me how it ranks in the series overall, it'll take at least a few months before I can form concrete thoughts on that. All I can say it doesn't inspire sheer frothing rage and I will probably play it again. No the best FE game but not the worst either. That's all I got.

Stan Sommie.

[theautisticgamer]

Sonic Superstars: My Thoughts Before Release

A while back, Takashi Iizuka said that Sonic Team’s long-term goal would be to produce main-line games in the open-zone format roughly every five years, with the interim containing 2.5D platformers to appeal to casual audiences. We’re finally seeing the realization of that interim plan with Sonic Superstars releasing this fall. Here are my opinions on various aspects of the game.

I won’t be discussing the graphics here. Fans with a classic bias miss the pixelated style of Mania, while fans with a modern bias, which hated Mania’s pixel style, are eager for a modern polygonal take. My personal opinion, as a gamer heavily influenced by both of Sonic’s eras, I say either style is good. I'm also very glad that they are keeping Classic Sonic active to represent the side-scrolling platformer game style and keep it visually distinct from the open-zone games. This should be overall beneficial for marketing Sonic games both now and in the future.

What’s more important to me than the graphics are the physics, which I suspect are harder to emulate in the polygonal graphic route, but people from the Sonic community that were invited to play the demo, like Gamescage (Sonic’s self-proclaimed hype-man of YouTube and Twitter fame) say the physics feel exactly like the classics, so I trust his and others’ judgment. And no wonder the physics are so good, Naota Oshima is on the project!

Which is the beginning of my concerns. The game is being developed by Naota Oshima and his studio Arzest. At a glance, it doesn’t sound like that’s a problem, since Naota Oshima created Mr. Hedgehog/Mr. Needlemouse himself. The problem comes with Oshima’s reputation and credibility. Oshima and Arzest worked on Balan Wonderworld, a major failure in the game’s industry that severely cost the game’s publisher, Square Enix. What specifically caused that game to fail were poorly designed functions for character abilities, poorly laid out stages, poor animations, and bugs. While some have claimed Oshima and Arzest didn’t have much involvement in the specific parts of Balan Wonderworld that caused its failure, I find that hard to believe because Oshima was co-heading the project. I’m not calling Arzest into question here as much as I am Oshima; for one we don’t know which Arzest team members were employed there at the time compared to now, and we don’t know who contributed to which problems. But one thing hard to argue with is that Oshima was responsible for ensuring both his employees’ work and the work of other Square Enix employees had been up to snuff on the project, and he fell short of this. This doesn’t mean Sonic Superstars is doomed to fail, it could be a much-needed test to see if Oshima/Arzest can learn from their mistakes by what we’ve seen so far of the game, they have.I know this was a long section, so the TLDR of this section is that Naota Oshima and Arzest have some rough history and we could expect some bugs at launch.

I also think we should expect different level design from Sonic Mania. Sonic Mania was developed by Christian Whitehead and a team full of other indie creatives not just from the Sonic fanbase but beloved/trusted by them, now under the studio name Evening Star. I may talk more about why they’re not working on this game in a separate article, but Evening Star was inspired by Sonic 2 and 3&K when working on Sonic Mania’s level designs, games that were considered the best in the classic trilogy. However, Sonic Team had been split in two during the classic era, half of its members going overseas to the USA to create STI (the Sega Technological Institute) with members from the Sega of America branch. Sonic 2, Sonic 3, and Sonic & Knuckles were made by STI (fun unrelated fact, current head of Sonic Team, Takashi Iizuka, was part of STI starting in Sonic 3). Naota Oshima, however, was involved in Sonic Team’s work in Japan, so his contributions were on the original Sonic the Hedgehog and Sonic CD. While these aren’t bad games, they pale in comparison to Sonic 2, 3&K, and Mania. I do think the levels we’ve been shown look better than Sonic the Hedgehog or Sonic CD, so I’m glad to see that, but I still wouldn’t expect the levels from this game to be the best we’ve seen so far.

I am excited for the game having co-op, but sadly it’s only local. This is a major missed opportunity to make the game fun to play with online friends, in the way Super Mario 3D World in its recent Switch port. I’m hopeful that with enough petition from the community, we can get them to add online co-op post-release. If not, there still should hopefully be a way to loophole some online co-op through Steam’s program made during the covid pandemic, Remote Play Together, which allows players to use local co-op features online.

While we haven’t seen the announced Lego DLC yet, I’m genuinely interested in the decision and I think it will provide fun additional content for the game. And since they added skins to the game for Lego, as well a DLC skin for people who signed up for the games’ newsletter (in the form of Amy’s modern clothes), what other skins could we be getting? Even though it was cool to see skins in Sonic Frontiers, we really didn’t get enough of them and I would love a chance to unlock a bunch of skins in Sonic Superstars as a reward for completing various challenges. This could further add to replayability on top of the character roster.

Speaking of the character roster, I’m glad to see Amy Rose added to it, giving us female representation, and while I’m glad Origins Plus DLC paved the way for her here first, I’m looking to her first genuine debut as an intended playable character in a classic Sonic game. It is suspected we’ll also be able to play as a fifth character as due to suspicious gaps in the title sequence and opening animation. Whether this will be Fang, the new character Trip, or even perhaps a return of Mighty as Plus DLC, we’ll have to see. I think that wraps up my thoughts on Sonic Superstars. The TLDR is that while some aspects of the game should be approached with caution this will be a fun experience and worth being excited for. What are your thoughts on Sonic Superstars? Do you agree or disagree with any of my points? I love interacting with the Sonic and gaming communities and would love to hear from you in the comments.