#in order to not make the playthroughs feel too repetitive

[theygender]

If Bellara really is a mage then it might make more sense for me to play a rogue both for the character I'm building in my brain and also to balance out the party but. I don't really wanna 😭

[biggaybunny]

Games I Don't Hear Anyone Talk About, So I'm Going To Talk About Them

There's no rhyme or reason to the order here, and maybe these games do have fanbases I've just missed! But that's the premise, here we go:

The vibes to me are like, if Celeste were a metroidvania. It has exceptional platforming mechanics that are easy to learn, hard to master, and a colorful and expansive map that rewards exploration. The characters are all adorable too.

A horde survival game a la vampire survivors with a stark and effective color palette. It has tons of atmosphere and the characters offer actual differences in playstyle from one another. I admittedly haven't put too many hours into this because it's tough as nails, but I still recommend it.

A choose-your-own-adventure VN with a light card battling element, I Was A Teenage Exocolonist was both comfy and a little melancholic about finding happiness and meaning in times of change and strife. It'll take you some time to uncover the full story, and I found myself doing four or five repeat playthroughs without feeling the repetition because there are so many branching routes to take. Also, while you can opt out of the card battling to focus on the story experience, mastering it is a lot of fun!

Have you ever thought to yourself "The only thing wrong with XCOM is that I wasn't playing as a group of weird superpowered teens, also I need the plot to be more JRPG, also there weren't enough auxiliary mechanics for me to get lost in"? Have you ever wanted to see a teenage girl roundhouse kick a man so hard he catches fire?

What if SimCity was set in the future, and also made by insane people? I admit, this game has a learning curve, and is niche. But if you're as much a fan of citybuilders as I am, this is a gem. This isn't a sandbox city builder, but doesn't follow the format of traditional guided city builders. But if you do succeed, the art style and level of detail makes regarding your successful metropolis all the more rewarding

It's part battle chess and part deck builder, and all fun. Lots of combat styles to pick from as you work your way through ridiculous odds. Not much plot, but a good game for people who like games like Slay The Spire and Monster Train.

I think those are my top games I don't see talked about. Hope someone finds this interesting, but tbh, I just had fun talking about these. There's more I could add, but I could be here all day if I wanted to. There's just so much out there, I don't know why anyone's buying price-gouging triple-a games when you can get hundreds of hours out of a title asking less than twenty bucks.

[winterdeepelegy]

My Thoughts on Dawntrail

So having finished DT, here are some of my thoughts on the expansion as a whole. Expect spoilers below the cut, do not click if you haven't finished. Again these are entirely my opinions, I don't intend to present this from a perspective of fact.

Hmm. I don't hate DT, but it's not high on my list: 1. Shadowbringers 2. Heavensward 3. Stormblood 4. Endwalker 5. Dawntrail 6. ARR That said, I don't hate any of the installments of this game, but there are some definitely high and low points. Let's rip the bandage off and get the blanks out of the way: 1. DT has a dialogue problem. I don't hate Wuk Lamat as a character, it was kind of refreshing to see a green, earnest character take center stage while our characters stepped aside and provided a guiding hand. The big problem I have with her is her dialogue. She's basically a shounen character, complete with the 'I'm gonna be king of the pirates'/'I'm gonna be hokage!' schtick, and it really wears on me after a while. That's not the character's fault so much as it is the writing team. That being so, this game is best played in short stints, 1-2 hours at a time instead of trying to marathon the whole thing in short order. Any more than that and it really becomes repetitious. If they want to script it to sound like an episodic anime series, it will be best enjoyed in smaller bites. Sphene suffers from the same problem. I wanted to enjoy her more as a character, but the script made that a challenge. 2. Pacing and exposition. God. The first few hours of EW were enough of a slog with its slow pacing before getting to the first dungeon, this felt like an eternity by comparison. Up to about the level 95 content, it is a long span of exposition and lore stuffing (far be it from me to complain about abundant lore!), so much of which could have been covered in less time and with less repetition. They really wanted to hammer the tribes into our heads, and it felt like too much at times. They wanted us to care about the tribes and the people therein, but few things make me care less than overdoing it. Level 95-ish is when things start becoming more interesting, in my opinion. That's a long way to climb to reach the proverbial cookie jar. 3. The music. I'll be honest, soundtrack wise, this is not my favorite. I appreciate all genres of music, but swing jazz doesn't quite fit the feel of Tulliyolal. I would have liked to hear something closer to a cultural aesthetic to match the visuals and themes presented throughout the areas and civilizations therein. We didn't get that, and it's kind of a weird choice. The main themesong, also? Ehh... I didn't care for it in the trailer. This opinion hasn't shifted since my playthrough. I didn't really start finding enjoyable area music until Shaaloani. 4. 'My people are more important than your people'. This plot point has been done. We just dealt with the Ascians and pretty much got the same shpiel from Hades. They made Sphene and her subjects a little more sympathetic, though, so... good, I guess? 5. Erenville deserved better. Fussy Bunbun got done so dirty in this expack, the very least anyone could have done was give him a hug. He didn't even get that from his mother who, frankly, was the worst character out of all of it. He was also deadnamed repeatedly, which could have been a teachable moment. 6. Wuk Lamat and/or Bakool Ja Ja still owes me tacos. ------------ As for the positives? There are some. Thanks for sticking with me so far. 1. Pretty graphics updates - better over all. 2. No weirdly split zones - thank the Twelve for this. StB, ShB, and EW all had zones that you could only cover in part, and couldn't finish until later. The zones in DT flow pretty well for the most part, and the transition between upper and lower areas of Yak'Tel are nothing short of beautiful, especially in flight. 3. More Reflections - I'm glad to see more of these and I hope this trend continues. 4. For once, I'm not luke warm on the bard AF gear. It's actually a fresh look, but haven't found a dye pairing I like yet.

[theseasideskies]

Finished Jenna's route a couple weeks ago but I forgot to post anything, now I finished Carl's route too. Now I get to ramble about both!

I'd seen a bit more spoilers for the game at this point, especially discussion about how the older routes are less polished. The typos and repetitive narration were a bit of a shock to me. I'd have thought they'd go back and clean up that stuff before finishing development. The story still worked, but I can definitely understand the criticism around Carl's route. (Spoilers for both Jenna and Carl's routes beneath the cut)

Jenna's Route

Full disclosure that I've only hit the good ending here, and my PC's currently busted so I had to download Echo on my phone to continue playing so I don't think I'll be seeing her bad ending for a while yet.

This one felt incredibly strong to me, same as Flynn's route. The early subversion of having Carl disappear really shocked me and left me open to seeing where the story went next. The relief I felt after we heard Jenna's grandma on the radio, and then seeing that we were allowed to escape the town? That was powerful.

Super funny to me that the game where everyone feels like they're a repressed homosexual, has one of the best endings if you choose to get with the one girl in the group.

The whole thing with Duke and Brian was very intense, and I've also since seen spoilers that other routes get a lot more heavy on the sexual violence. So uh, yay I guess.

I'd also seen a post on r/furry_irl arguing that it's better to play the routes in order of release. I did the mini version of that I guess, going from Flynn to Jenna. And yeah it definitely felt like those two routes had a lot more connection. Jenna's route provided more closure on both Leo's behavior and that voice coming from the mine, as well as the stuff around Syndey's dad. I was watching bits Keith Ballard's playthrough of Jenna and he does mention being able to tell who wrote which part, and, yeah definitely. No offense to Howly or anything but especially comparing it with the older routes, you can tell.

Carl's Route

After Jenna's route I figured I'd play Carl's, since I'd seen spoiler memes about Jenna getting possessed in it so I thought maybe the themes would connect. Now knowing that I'd played the oldest route, right after the newest one, definitely makes more sense why it didn't connect after all. Maybe that also affected how I felt about the horror, not quite buying the scares when I was expecting something else to be the source.

I can't quite place why the horror didn't work for me this time around. You'd think possession would be incredibly creepy, and put me on edge a lot. Not being able to fully trust anything anyone says. I guess at a certain point the game kinda dragged on the point and it just got frustrating. (Again the repetitive narration affected that too)

The climax for both endings here was still pretty good I'd say, though definitely in different ways. The whole dubcon getting molested by a ghost thing was unsettling for sure. The added context from the good ending of "they were in the house the whole time and just hallucinating" also adds a touch of creepy to the bad ending. The heart-to-heart with Chase and Carl in the dorm was definitely sweet.

I think the other thing that rubs me the wrong way about Carl's route is the resolution not being related to the group's own traumas. Sure Carl has that thing where he realizes he needs to be more independent, but Jenna snaps out of it only when Chase assures John that the real story will get out. The fact that the group got to swim in Lake Emma on Saturday, and then the narration pointedly says "Hah, it's not that easy." really takes away a lot of the agency (and therefore connection) I had with the final act.

The fact the good ending still doesn't let you see the other members of the group was also annoying, though I will admit I might be biased coming off of Jenna's good ending and getting to see everyone together at the diner.

[thatrandombystander]

Okay so I’m kind of curious! I know nothing about Dragon Age other than a bit of what I’ve seen from you, but it looks like Inquisition is on sale on steam right now. Is it a game you’d recommend playing yourself vs watching the cutscenes? And is it like part of a continuity or mostly standalone? :D

Dang all THREE Dragon Ages (Origins, DA2, Inquisition) are on sale on Steam right now. 10AUD each. Those are good prices. Wish I only paid that much for them.

Disclaimer that I have not played any Dragon age since 2015 and may misremember some stuff or my opinions may not hold up once I get around to replaying them.

I'm incapable of being brief sorry. This is almost 1000 words. 😔 TL;DR you can play the games stand alone, and I personally would recommend playing yourself.

Are they stand alone?

So each Dragon Age game's core plots and major characters are generally independent of each other. The protagonist is also a completely different person in each of the three game. You don't need to play any of the other games but they are all in the same world occurring sequentially one after, so you do get more out of it from playing previous games.

Characters from previous games will appear (or be referenced) in subsequent games, but usually it's major characters getting a cameo, or minor characters playing a larger role. There's a few exceptions - e.g. Varric is a party member in both DA2 and Inquisition - but it shouldn't leave you too confused. Events from previous games also build into newer ones, but anything important should be covered within the game you're playing. They're designed for both returning and new fans to enjoy.

Even if you start with the first game (Origins) you're gonna feel a bit lost with the world at first, because they did a fair amount of worldbuilding during development so even in Origins they'll reference characters and events as if your character already knows about them. Ya sort of just figure it out, although I think Origins does the best job of introducing the various factions and groups in the world and how they interact with each other.

That being said, I've only ever played the games in order so I can't really comment on how well they work for new players. But at the same time I never played the DLC for Origins and DA2 either, which I later found out had relevance in later games. (I believe current Steam versions of the games come with all DLC)

Watch cutscenes or play yourself?

Each of the Dragon Age games has some gameplay problems. Origins and Inquisition are both pretty long games with some slow or annoying bits, especially if you're doing sidequests and such. Fandom jokes include complaining about pretty much every main quest in Origins (there's a even a mod to skip one section) and especially complaining about The Hinterlands in Inquisition. DA2 is shorter but also... that game was very clearly rushed out and needed more development time. Lot's of location repetition.

Personally, since I'm a character-driven person and I like fantasy, I'm happy to push through the boring bits since I like a lot of the characters in the game and I want to romance people uwu. Frankly I don't even remember that much of the gameplay or actual plot details. I remember characters and vibes.

Speaking of romance; Dragon Age is a franchise that gives you choices that effect the world and characters around you. Choices vary in the significance of their consequences, but some of those choices can carry over and effect the worldstates into the next games.

This is why I personally would not watch a playthrough of the games. I have some strong feeling about the choices I make and would be annoyed to watch a playthrough that does things differently. (Tabris is best HoF option I shall not be swayed. King Alistair players DNI, this is a Queen Anora household. Templar supporters also DNI.) It's also why I'd need to replay the other two games before I get to Inquisition, because I don't like the default worldstate.

As a new player you wouldn't have that same issue, but you do lose out being able to make those choices as a playthrough watcher. If you don't want to play the previous games and want to go straight to Inquisition I don't think it would bother you either, since you wouldn't know which choices the game has defaulted for you. But again, they're decently long games so if you're rather just watch a playthrough, that's an fair option.

Side note + conclusion

If you're interested in the Dragon Age posts I reblog, warning that they're proportionally most likely to be from DA2, although I do like and share posts about all the games. It's a love or hate game for pretty good reason (some people will just recommend skipping it) but I fall into the love camp, I think because I like the characters and the plot is on a smaller scale.

Choosing to start with Origins and play all three is valid, only playing Inquisition is valid, playing Inquisition and then maybe feeling like playing the previous games is also valid. I only wouldn't recommend starting with DA2.

Ah, also the games have mature ratings. You can look up/ask about the details on that. From memory the most distressing would be implications/suggestion/aftermath of sexual assault (I think mostly in the first two games?) and slavery being a sort of thriving institute in parts of the Dragon Age universe.

If you have any other questions or confusions about the games/characters/world at any point, you're welcome to ask me. Even if I don't quite remember the details I can check the wiki to help block you from any unwanted spoilers. ✌

[m39]

Doom WADs’ Roulette (2008): Cold as Hell

I don’t know how to start this review properly. So I’ll just say that this one will be one of the unorthodox ones where it’s based on just one playthrough (blind one I will add) and without screenshots.

Got it?  Good! Let’s finish up the 2008 roster of WADs.

G10: Cold as Hell

Main author(s): Jonaya Riley

Release date: November 2004 (original version)/November 21st, 2008 (Special Edition)

Version(s) played: Special Edition

Required port compatibility: ZDoom/GZDoom (depending on version)

Levels: 16 (intro map + 15 regular maps)

Cold as Hell is a total conversion WAD created in 2004. Now you might be thinking how this WAD got Cacoward in 2008 when it was released four years before that.

As I said, this WAD was released in November 2004 (development started in early 2004). From what I’ve gathered, people liked this WAD, but it had problems with stability and bugs alongside other controversial features in its gameplay. The 2008 version is supposed to have much fewer bugs (those that happened were patched out) and controversial stuff being toned down.

The WADs plot focuses on the alternative 1950s in the fictional US base in Greenland, where our protagonist, Henry Mills, the veteran of WWII and the Korean War, is sent there. This base is supposed to be his final post before retirement, but let’s get real people. Before retirement almost always means shit about to happen/is happening.

I played this WAD in the Action mode (or as the WAD calls it – Combat Style); these modes affect the mechanics that I will talk about later.

Now let’s see what the freezing hell known as Greenland has to offer.

Do you like snow and military/research buildings full of brown and grey? Well good! Because Cold as Hell will offer you that. I’m not saying this WAD looks bad, far from it, but I feel like it’s somewhere in between being diversive and bland.

Like, yes, the maps don’t feel entirely repetitive and each has at least one great-looking area (the final map or two especially tend to go nuts), but at the same time, after reaching the second chapter, I started to feel like a mouse going in circles in a maze looking for cheese in the endless parade of snow upon snow outdoors and grey/brown corridors/rooms/bathrooms indoors.

I don’t have anything bad to say about the music. I might be too used to action-filled tracks instead of the ones in this WAD, but at least I understand that these tracks fit in a snow base overrun by demons while you are playing as an average soldier doe instead of badassery incarnate Doomguy.

Cold as Hell is more unlinear than a typical WAD. You have a set of objectives and you can basically do them in any order. Sometimes you might complete the objective by accident or replace one with another when the plot moves forward. Personally, while I didn’t mind most of them, I feel like there were at least one or two objectives that were annoying and made me run around the part of the base like a maniac trying to find a key or any other important item.

Oh, and by the way, the keys are now brass, silver, and/or steel; they are smaller and their colors make them harder to notice. You might run into one of these by accident.

The WAD is based on a hub system. Once you reach the second chapter, you can choose which part of the base to tackle first. If you don’t know where to go, take a look at the objectives; they show you where to do the task.

Like games that popularized this trend, this WAD has notes and audiologs scattered throughout the levels. While they mostly focus on the lore, some of them have helpful information for your objectives so it’s worth taking a look at them.

Cold as Hell also introduces the bleeding mechanic, where you have a chance to start doing it after getting hit by an enemy (no matter if it’s a scratch or a fireball). In case that happens, you can use a bandage that you can find lots of it around the base. Since I played on the Action mode, the bleeding rarely happened and I was walking with a full stock of 30 bandages in my pocket for at least half of the WAD.

One of the bigger cons of this WAD is that you move slower than the original Doomguy. At best you might be running slightly faster than walking in the original games. As if that’s not bad enough, you get even slower when you are low on health. Good luck trying to dodge fireballs while you are moving as slow as molasses.

Would I call Cold as Hell hard? Yes. Is it hard for the good reasons? Not really. As I mentioned above, because you move slower than usual in WADs, it’s harder to dodge enemy projectiles, not to mention the additional, new projectile sprites that are harder to read and the fact that you might end up screwed when you end up without ammo in the magazine and you end up reloading your gun (it’s automatic in Action).

Also, yes, there is a reloading mechanic. And honestly, I think I experienced worse stuff in other WADs with this but I don’t know.

And by the way, I don’t think there is even a singular piece of armor in this WAD.

But at least you don’t fight the hitscanners and there are moments where fellow soldiers help you.

Changing the subject, Cold as Hell adds some new enemies, most notably the previously mentioned new hell noble and two imps, along with some of the original monsters acting differently (with Pain Elementals now acting closer to Cacos).

The worst new enemy to fight were grey, melee imps, who acted like a kid on a sugar rush, jumping all around and making you waste half of your ammo in a clip most of the time before actually hitting them, and what feels like ripping your balls off by simple touching them; the windup is that small.

But at least the new weapons sound good. And they function rather well overall, with most of these acting like original guns with some stuff changes to be more akin to the post-WWII weapons plus the flamethrower and Garand that can be upgraded to rapid-firing bullets.

Now I know about the glitches and stability issues that haunted the original version of this WAD. All I can say is that I didn’t experience something like that while playing the special version. It seems to be bug-free.

Cold as Hell is a mixed bag for me. I like some of the WAD’s ideas like the overall location and weapons, but I feel like for every good idea there’s also a bad one (that and unfunny combat most of the time). It might be great from a technical point for the 2004/2008 standards, but overall, this WAD is not for my tastes.

And that’s all when it comes to the 2008 roster of WADs. Well... almost all. I still have to check if BGPA is as bad to play as Operation Overlord. I’ll try to play one to two maps in that WAD and just speak my short thoughts on it. I won’t be doing a review on it. After that, I’ll start making Revenant Awards 2008.

See you all next time.

[andrewskhblog]

Quick Write on Chain of Memories

Oct 23

Kingdom Hearts Chain of Memories wasn't the most popular when it came out, mainly because it had come out on the Gameboy Advance rather than a home console. Later it was remade on the PS2 and then put on future consoles when 1.5 and 1.5+2.5 came out. While Re:Chain of Memories is a decent game, in my opinion, I'll be coming back to Chain of Memories on the GBA more often for a playthrough.

This could be nostalgia talking because it was my first or second video game ever and first Kingdom Hearts game, but I always seemed to enjoy playing the GBA version more than Re:CoM.

One criticism that Re:CoM tends to get is that it's pretty repetitive and that's valid because it used to be a game that was on a much less powerful device and now it's been upgraded in graphics but left the same gameplaywise to keep it consistent. There's just something about the art style on the GBA that makes it so charming and really satisfying to watch the animations for. Even though both versions are decently repetitive in their gameplay loop (which is appropriate in order to make a 10+ hour RPG on a Gameboy Advance), the way that the original Chain of Memories did it makes it seem more fluid than its newer counterpart.

Another thing for me is the fact that it's way too easy to cheese the entire game. As soon as you learn Lethal Frame, the entire game is pretty much over by that point. Make one deck for farming cards and another full of Lethal Frame sleights, elixirs, and cure cards and you're set to beat even the final boss. GBA CoM lets you vary your strategy a bit more on Sora's playthrough while not losing efficiency in defeating enemies. I think nostalgia still plays a big role in this probably...

But that's enough of my opinions. I'm always interested to see what people have to say about this game in particular. There's people who have played both versions, but there are also people who have played only one of the versions. I used to be someone who had only played GBA CoM and I'd say those are a rare breed! Feel free to let me know which version you prefer or what you think about any one of the versions that you may or may not have played.

[gascon-en-exil]

Ready for the endgame route split in my second playthrough, so let's talk Chapters 11-16 in this run.

The story so far: Expelling the Roselle in Chapters 11-12 is more repetitive than protecting them, because you have to fight them in their village first and then fight Silvio and Rufus in their village, in the rain. The other path doesn't have a battle at all in Chapter 12, but it looks like Silvio dies here either way. (Also, if you've seen the map of the story structure that's been linked on Reddit and elsewhere, there's a minor error here - there's no vote in Chapter 12 regardless of which you chose in 11.) I did the Utility votes in 13 and 15, leading to a semi-stealth map at the Telliore villa - and worldbuilding for their seemingly anachronistic streetlamps, imagine that - followed by a different version of killing Thalas and Erika on the Whiteholm bridge. Cordelia takes an arrow protecting Roland here, so I suppose she's always going to get injured in this sequence. The Utility vote for 15 involves staying in the capital with Roland to deal with Patriatte's royalists, and got me Cordelia as a healer of only a slightly different flavor from Geela. Roland continues to give off Dimitri vibes when a girl tries to stab him over the death of a family member (here killed by Patriatte's troops in the name of suppressing an insurrection), but unlike Dimitri the story just keeps wearing poor Roland down by completely stacking the deck against him and making it impossible for him to be a competent ruler. It's little wonder he wants to surrender his crown and let Hyzante deal with it in his route...which I'm going to be seeing in full shortly. Worth noting - you do still get the reveal that Serenoa is Regna's bastard, clearly in order to set up the possibility of Benedict's route.

On characters: At this point I'm fairly sure I've gotten most of the character stories barring those for people I've only just recruited (Giovanna, Maxwell, and Cordelia) or that I don't have yet because they're on different story splits (Travis, Trish, and Avlora). The more of these I see the more I get oddly nostalgic for FE's lowkey horny writing, because the writing of TS is remarkably stripped down when it comes to anything approaching romance, much less dirty innuendos or fanservice-y bits. Outside of the half-naked dancer Milo openly propositioning Serenoa if he chooses to go visit his father in 15 plus a single scene of Thalas very obviously having sex with a generic NPC offscreen, there's basically nothing dirty to enjoy here. Additionally, except for Serenoa/Frederica (which itself isn't exactly bursting with chemistry as a pairing, likely to make it easier for there to be one ending where they split up and one ending where their marriage appears to remain strictly political) and little stray hints that Hughette might have a thing for Roland, there's nothing in the way of romance either. That's not TS's focus, of course, and I can appreciate that, but as I said it does make me miss FE's ridiculous fanservice and subtext.

Gameplay: The Utility version of Chapter 13 is the standout here for its stealth elements. Serenoa just hit the level cap of 50 and the rest of my characters are 45+, so unit progression is about to plateau. I still have plenty of weapon upgrades to get though as well as promoting around half the cast, so I'll have goals to work towards in later playthroughs regardless. I'm just hoping that subsequent runs don't feel too repetitive, as the Roselle arc demonstrates that TS does sometimes skimp on map variety.

[mybg3notebook]

Disclaimers

Disclaimer I: DnD, meta-knowledge, and interpretation

We need to remember that DnD usually is played in two levels: character level and player level. The player will always know a lot more than their character because they have access to meta-knowledge (deeper knowledge of the lore of the world than their character, backstory from other characters and NPCs, and extra comments provided by the DM). 

When we translate this into a video game, the information we receive in the top left of the screen, about our companions approving or not of an action, is considered “meta-knowledge”. It is information that Tav has no access to, and therefore they would not be able to use it in order to believe or mistrust their companions. This information is for the player to have the ability of reading the events between lines, enjoying the story on another level, and it is this knowledge that shows the real, hidden intentions and personality of the characters. 

It escapes me why some people can consider Astarion a character who embraces guilt from his past sins “deep inside”, since there is not a single situation where this meta-information says so (at least not in all the content released in EA). That information is our direct access to the character’s true emotions. It’s meant for the player, not for Tav. A Tav can truly believe in all the games that Astarion plays with the main character, without having any other choice since they have no way to contrast that information with the events. Unless the companion makes their disagreement/agreement explicit, Tav would never know. It is through these two pieces of information provided to the player (that is, the explicit reaction of the companion plus their approval/disapproval on the top of the screen) that we can use to discern the true intentions of the character. 

 This also means that such information should not be mistrusted or considered “Freudian”. If a character approves of killing animals while sharing comments of excitement about it, I hardly can agree with any interpretation that assumes that said character is feeling guilt and remorse deep—too deep—inside. So deep that the character is not aware of it. 

Some people can go so far in this interpretation to claim that such approval in the meta-knowledge is, in fact, an “unconscious” disapproval, because on a “Freudian level”, the character is deeply caring about the death of the animal. 

Honestly, in any case this is a headcanon. Because interpretations can be diverse and all, but they should be, at minimum, coherent with the facts and the scenes we see (not with an excess of imagination to compensate for what has never been seen or stated). The delusional  interpretation is more likely a product of self projection and personal desires toward a character than an honest approach. In any case, that construction should belong to the headcanon space, which allows us to deny a disliked canon concept and replace it with something we consider more suitable. This is fine as long as one is honest enough to separate canon from headcanon. 

I’d like to focus on the canon, using as many safe resources as possible (datamined info which is already voiced in the game, all the canon game so far we got in EA, and the most repetitive patterns in origin playthroughs—even though I prefer to avoid the latter, since it’s not developed yet—).

Keeping these vital details in mind, I will proceed to interpret the characters using a combination of their explicit reactions and words, plus the meta-knowledge that the game provides us. 

Disclaimer II

This is a meta with my personal interpretation of the character, sticking as much as possible to the facts and leaving any “desire” or “self-projection” of what I want the char to be. If I do so, I will state it explicitly in the text for the sake of analysis honesty. I want to be clear about what is the interpretation of the canon (facts shown in bg3 EA), from my personal speculation.

→ More in Analysis Series Index

[ronnytherandom]

I started Writing My Thoughts On Things Again, I'm Sorry

15/8/2021:

Mass Effect Legendary Edition (Whole trilogy w/ all dlcs, Adept Class, Hardcore difficulty, 68 Hours):

Still brilliant! I adore this series. The first Mass Effect was one of the first games I ever played back in 2010 and Mass Effect 2 is one of the games I’ve played the most accruing several hundred hours over multiple playthrough from 2010 onwards, while Mass Effect 3 is a game I greatly appreciated but have more mixed feelings towards. Retrospectively as much as I liked the first Mass Effect, I did not nearly appreciate it enough back in the day. For a first entry in a new IP it is incredibly fleshed out with interesting Lore, an intriguing story and a cool galaxy to explore. I appreciate its combat far more now than I did back then but would still argue it is relatively weak in comparison to more modern titles and its own successors. Though the VA is rough in some places it is excellent where it matters, especially in the case of Sovereign whose iconic dialogue on Virmire is etched into my brain. A key element of the first mass effect I felt was sorely missing from the later entries was its exploration. While the galaxy grew routinely larger no game after the first had a drivable Mako, a vehicle I adore, and further lacked the opportunity to land on and explore the terrain of alien worlds for resources and side missions which I feel lends a lot to the atmosphere of the setting and could be made even more compelling using updated technology and a larger selection of assets and interiors which might have emerged from the higher budget successors. As it is I appreciate its inclusion in the first game. Mass Effect was also my first encounter with impactful choices in a video game and this is certainly something I appreciate but leads me to a major criticism specifically targeting the dialogue wheel layout as it is strange to me how you can puzzle out all of these possible dialogue outcomes but put exactly all of the positive outcomes behind the Upper Left dialogue option. While this is less pronounced in the First entry as the Renegade dialogue fills roughly the same purpose while sounding more badass, it becomes truer throughout the series as renegade options routinely just become nasty and exclusionary.

Mass Effect 2 innovates in some key ways which I have grown to appreciate more in the past 20 hours of play than I did when it launched. Primarily, its focus on characters and your relationships to them. Barring a couple of notable exceptions I found myself greatly invested in every single member of the Normandy crew and I think it’s a remarkable feat that each crewmate could be written to be so sympathetic, relatable and interesting in a world so full of appreciable elements. I would go into specific examples but id end up listing every character except Miranda and Jacob. This of course plays well into the Suicide Mission narrative which is perhaps my favourite overarching plot within the trilogy as it incorporates not just all of these incredible characters and plays upon your investment in them but also relies on the threat of both the Reapers and Collectors which are two excellently designed enemies which I find significantly more compelling than Saren and the Geth or Cerberus and the Reaper Husk Armies. Mass Effect 2 has a powerful horror element composed of the Collectors phobic horror and the reapers cosmic horror and it does wonders for the game’s atmosphere. I remember at this moment the Collector soundtrack which, like the rest of the soundtrack is absolutely excellent. Inasmuch as I would criticise it from a purely musical perspective for being simple at times and perhaps overly repetitive it perfectly fits the camp space opera that is mass effect. Galaxy Map and Suicide Mission are absolute bangers. I would hesitate to call the combat great. Playing the game as a weapon heavy class is superior, I’d argue as even with an armour build dedicated to decreasing ability cooldown it is too long to adequately utilise the powers of ability heavy classes like the adept. Additionally, ability play feels far more limited than in the game’s predecessor due to the limitation of this games skill tree elements which are frankly a step too far in simplifying the interface. It doesn’t massively affect enjoyment of the game but I couldn’t help but note every time I visited the abilities menu how much I missed Mass Effects abilities menu. So while I would say Mass Effect maintains a very well balanced game with regards to combat, roleplay and story, Mass Effect 2 eschews combat and mechanical roleplay in favour of an excellent story. Additionally while lacking an exploration aspect the more structured side-missions found by scanning planets throughout the galaxy create a lot of fun moments and interesting gameplay, emblematic of the fact that mission design vastly improves between this game and its predecessor.

Mass Effect 3 goes some way to resolve its predecessor’s imbalance as the majority of the game possesses enhanced combat, a much better abilities mechanic and an excellent story. First the addition of more mobility, loadout and engagement options benefits the combat greatly, while the addition of more complex enemy types than previous games pushes you to fully utilise these new options. A massive reduction in ability cooldown combined with liberal cooldown reduction bonuses in the skill tree means that abilities are very useful and versatile and you generally feel very powerful. Sometimes too powerful if you’re thinking from a balancing standpoint but given it’s a single player game this criticism is much diminished and being powerful is fun regardless. The skill tree system in this game forms a synthesis between its predecessors’ systems and comes out the better for combining a regular sense of empowerment with interesting choices within your own character build. All of this contributes to a much-improved combat experience, especially over Mass Effect 2. This also lends itself to the old multiplayer system which I honestly enjoyed when it launched (who cannot love a playable biotic Volus?) and feel is sorely lacking from this legendary edition. I would argue the only real problem with the multiplayer was requiring a player to engage with it in order to achieve the best story outcome; the actual multiplayer gameplay was thoroughly enjoyable and it gave players the opportunity to experience combat as an STG agent or a Krogan Warlord which were both fulfilling experiences from my memory. The aforementioned story is truly excellent and successfully builds off events in previous games but primarily succeeds due to Biowares exceptional character writing which persists from Mass Effect 2. Even in the case of its worst side mission content but especially in its primary missions the stakes and outcome of events are thoroughly compelling and the involvement of beloved Normandy crewmates is bound to incite intense emotions. This is possibly the only game that makes me cry multiple times throughout a normal playthrough. Unfortunately my goodwill often runs out when it comes to consider the ultimate ending of this series which I do not approve of. I admit there are mitigating factors: you should not play the mass effect series for the culmination of its plot. This series lives and dies with its characters and all of the major character arcs reach satisfactory endings before the final moments of Mass Effect 3, so the final moments have no real meaning as the thematic purpose of the series is achieved by galvanising the galaxy and uniting all these disparate races into a single force to fight the Reapers. Thematically the game is a success but the extent to which it utilises the choices the player has made, upon which the series builds its reputation, is limited in scope. This can likely be laid at the feet of the leaks of the original story ahead of the games launch which pushed the developers to create a new ending to avoid spoilers, but the quality of that ending is poor as it boils all the choices made throughout the series down to selecting the colour of a space laser. To make an odd comparison, this is why I think Game of Thrones’ and Mass Effect’s endings are different kinds of bad. Mass Effect reaches a fully satisfying conclusion in the moments immediately after launching the final mission, whereas Game of Thrones built its whole series asking the question “Who Will Sit The Iron Throne” With the final answer being “Actually, no one” after slogging through multiple series which did not live up to the quality of the first. Mass Effect answers its dramatic question of “Can Shepard Unite The Galaxy Against The Reapers” satisfactorily following sixty hours of excellent content and the colour of the space laser doesn’t actually matter. It just hurts to think that the finale could’ve been so much grander and more interesting. I would recommend the games, the disappointment of the finale doesn’t even come close to outweighing the grandeur that is the rest of the experience of Mass Effect 3, let alone the whole series.

There are only a few pieces of content I had not encountered prior to this Legendary edition playthrough. The Mass Effect DLC Bring Down The Sky is fun in that it adds an interesting combat experience with incredible stakes and immerses you in a stellar scale event, but the experience is very short. As part of the legendary edition I recommend it but having to pay extra for it at its time of launch I would have found it disappointing. Mass Effect 2s Overlord DLC is very good, introducing fun combat encounters, an opportunity to operate the fairly fun Hammerhead vehicle (even if it doesn’t live up to the Glory of the Mako) and explore a nice open environment with a truly haunting ending which is a kind of non-choice but it is gratifying to make that choice anyway. Additionally the visuals in the final station when interacting with the VI elements are very nice. The Arrival DLC is also quite fun, with a pseudo stealth section to open it, something which I believe occurs nowhere else in the series. The general element of operating solo is quite novel for mass effect as I believe outside of this moment, the opening of the Citadel DLC and the final moments of Mass Effect 3 there is no point where you fight alone. The indoctrinated nature of the project team does not come as a shock but regardless the dlc is enjoyable as a combat experience and the scale of destruction shown necessary to even slightly inconvenience the reapers lends a lot to the scale of their threat. I do not believe I played any DLCs in Mass Effect 3 before, insofar as I did not consider From Ashes DLC content as it was already on the disk and all buying the day one dlc did was activate it. Leviathan is very interesting from a lore perspective and does interesting things with its investigative process but I find it to be a relatively passive and uninteresting experience for the most part. Omega was more my style with a lot of good combat and interesting new enemies and a bit of bombast besides but still left me largely unmoved. Citadel was excellent but mostly for its “endgame” content rather than its story content. Despite featuring many hilarious moments throughout the actual plot it failed to interest me but I was definitely there for all of the fun character moments and the party is absolutely hilarious.

Ultimately a hearty recommendation but with tempered expectations for the finale.

Deaths Door (True Ending, 13.7 hours):

A Delight. Deaths Door is a charming little game about a bird that stabs things and I love it. It is incredibly impressive that this was made by a team composed of two people. The gameplay is fun in all regards. Navigation is a good time especially when all of the environments are lovely and full of personality. Obstacles come mainly in the form of puzzles and these are at a sweet spot between ease and frustration without being at all complex. Combat could’ve used a bit more work, primarily to create more meaningful distinctions between weapons or add a little depth, but it is still engaging and good fun. While the main bosses are challenging and satisfying to defeat, I worry over the side bosses; perhaps something could’ve been done to make them more distinct from one another? But a small gripe. I like the world, the aforementioned environments are well realised, the general aesthetic is artful and distinct and the story is good if slightly sparse. One notable element is the dialogue which is very good with a quick wit. The finale of the main game has the right amount of spectacle and weight while the endgame is cool and fantastical, with an ample supply of secrets and collectibles to find. Over all the music is incredible, soundtrack full of absolute bangers. I really enjoyed completing this game and I’d recommend it to anyone who’s into action adventure and souls-like games.

The Bad Batch (season 1):

This was Allright. To open I cannot overstate how good the animation and art of this series is. It is routinely beautiful and well-choreographed. Visually there are no complaints. The problems begin with the opening episode which I feel overpromised on a relatively dark take on the Star Wars universe by immediately dropping us into an Order 66 plot full of death, danger, brainwashing and the threat of an emergent empire. Now granted this series never explicitly promises that all of this would continue but I enjoyed these elements of the first episode and I was dissatisfied by their limited usage throughout the rest of the show. This is not to say I disliked the show, I did enjoy the characters who are all good fun, and most of the plots were good. This series I felt had a lot of filler episodes, which I’d simply describe as episodes I enjoyed less due to underwhelming plot or conflict, but they were still enjoyable despite what id perceive as a lesser quality. The show also “suffers” from what I’d called Star Wars Syndrome of Filonitis which is how Everything Must Be Interconnected, with regular cameos from extended universe characters which I feel is beginning to get a bit much. These features feel to me more often like nostalgia grabs rather than organically featuring a character in service of the plot and development. For example, I appreciate the Captain Rex feature as that served to highlight the inhibitor chip problem and drive the characters to seek a solution, however I appreciated Rafa and Trace’s feature less both because I’m less attached to those characters (especially Rafa) but also because the episode didn’t serve any particular purpose or create any particular set piece which couldn’t have been achieved without those characters. This is a similar issue I have with The Mandalorian, I adored season one as it was relatively self-contained and only featured vague or subtler references to the wider canon: to contrast season two is full of cameos from the wider universe sometimes for no reason other than to have a cameo when those roles could easily have been filled with new and creative content which doesn’t rely upon nostalgia to make something interesting. Ultimately Bad Batch is worth watching for the characters and the good episodes, it is fun and entertaining, it just has its issues.

Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure Part 1: The Phantom Blood:

Its uh, its not good. Now that’s a very broad statement, as to assess this show critically at all is to take it far more seriously than you should, but to be more even handed the show certainly has a bunch of fun elements. Only from a story perspective, there isn’t really that much there; and from a pacing perspective it needs to be seen to be believed. I’m certain that if you condensed the show down to a reasonable size for the amount of content it has, you’d probably have a movie with a two-hour runtime at most which would be quite enjoyable but on a whole this first part wastes about 80% of its time on overlong drawn-out internal monologues and the dilated timeframes of the show’s fights. It also has an annoying habit of overemphasizing the weight of a moment or the genius of a characters unexpected action usually with no less than three people commenting on any slight manoeuvre which ruins the pacing beyond belief. Now I understand this is a staple of the Jojo series, only part 1 handles it very poorly in comparison to later parts. The fighting is especially hindered by this as most actual combat usually involves only four or five punches but they tend to take twenty minutes getting to each one. Additionally, Johnathan Joestar is pretty boring as a character with no notable qualities aside from being good both morally and at fighting. The intrigue of the stone mask is cool but this part deals in that very little. Like I say though, Part 1 is still fun to watch if you can disengage your brain and admire the potent meme quality of the series. It is not “good” from a critical perspective but it is incredibly amusing and the campness gives it a degree of charm. If you just want to watch a bunch of beefy men shout at each other and perform magic punches this is a good time. Speedwagon, despite being the worst offender of the “Explain Everything Twice and Ruin the Pacing” category, is still entertaining for the awful accent and endearing character. He’s also definitely in love with Johnathan and I will not be taking questions on that. Baron Zeppeli has a cool hat. Theres a lot of fun to be had as the show embraces the weirdness of everything that’s going on. So, check it out, it might just be a So-Bad-Its-Good Masterpiece.

300 (film):

This film was not so great in my eyes. I think there was one particular shot of the landscapes around Sparta which I felt was visually cool but everything else about the film lacked quality for me, barring practical effects which have aged significantly better than the graphical effects. The visuals are largely uninspiring, the washed-out colour pallet doesn’t help. Perhaps the dialogue was amusing at release but for me it’s all been memed to death. I can’t say any of the performances are particularly compelling, nice to see Magneto and Faramir though. The action could’ve been good and there are certainly moments where it has impact, but the constant application of slow motion I feel reduces the sense of power that should be there, like watching people fight on the moon. Ultimately, I can’t stomach it for two primary reasons: Historical inaccuracy and Racism, which feed into each other. The values of the Spartans do not accurately reflect ideas that historical Spartans held to and I must ask why? Historical accuracy is the default state, so to usurp those ideas in favour of others means the author of the graphic novel Frank Miller and director Zach Snyder replaced those ideas with purpose, in order to make the film more appealing to a mass audience or to express their own ideas perhaps? And the values they chose for the Spartans were freedom, justice and democracy which were things the slaving and monarchical Spartans did not believe in at least in the modern sense. This reeks of an imposition of the propagandised values of western nations on a historical society. This in itself would not be so much of an issue without the demonisation and perversion of the Achaemenid empire and the peoples therein. To establish the primary conflict as one of Civilised white westerners against barbarous non-white easterners, when historically the conflict was between two nations of a broadly similar heritage both possessing facets of good and evil, in the early 2000s? It feels as though some reactionary interpretations of the War on Terror have simply been recreated here with classical history as window dressing. Add to that reactionary attachment to the battle of Thermopylae as a representation of the western world’s struggle against the eastern world, in addition to other more problematic interpretations, and this film plays straight into extreme right-wing ideas of race. Cannot recommend, there’s a lot more better things you could be watching.

18/08/2021: Darth Vader (2015) comic (incl. Vader Down event):

This was really cool. The first comic I’ve ever actually read so I don’t have much frame of reference but I certainly enjoyed this. It was compelling, I’ve blitzed through this whole run in a single day. I think it serves a valuable purpose of demonstrating Vader’s potential and development between Episodes IV and V, as well as the nature of internal conflicts within the Empire. A side note, it is amusing that Palpatine identifies infighting as a factor in the fall of the Sith Empire and yet encourages it for his own political purposes anyway.  I felt that the art and style was very good and fit well with the Star Wars aesthetic, though I couldn’t say if it is truly excellent or just standard: it certainly wasn’t bad, though I think a few designs such as Dr Aphra’s ship were hard to read as it were. Speaking of, I think characters new and old were well portrayed. The titular Vader is unmistakably the same character as appears in the classic trilogy, similarly for Han, Luke and Leia etc. And it was a pleasure to see Chewbacca absolutely destroy someone. The aforementioned Aphra I thought was fine but she lacks distinction to my mind, the real star was Triple Zero and by extension Beetee who I thought were excellent comic relief in addition to being a genuine threat, something I can’t necessarily say I felt with regard to the antagonists. This latter part doesn’t matter overmuch, I think the purpose of these antagonists was more to present Vader with pressure to fulfil his personal goals rather than actually oppose him and they work well in that regard, but are unmemorable beyond their basic attributes. What I think this comic does particularly well is create a kind of puzzle narrative and its almost thrilling at moments when Vader’s plots might be discovered. As a result of this I am looking forward to reading more comics in future.

The Suicide Squad (2021): Highly enjoyable! A big step up for the suicide squad as a franchise and a lot more fun, playing into a brighter and more humorous genre than its predecessor to good effect; This time with good editing, soundtrack, direction… well good everything in comparison. I enjoyed all of the characters and their acting particularly the rivalry between Peacemaker and Bloodsport and Margot Robbie is still fantastic as Harley. They all pale before King however, who is endearing beyond belief and a lot of fun to boot. The “villain” if that term is applicable is very interesting and actually threatening, no mere beam of light into the sky! And the willingness to engage in more mature elements such as gore and character morality is of immense benefit, serving to distinguish it from generally more childish superhero media and reach towards more interesting themes around colonisation, foreign intervention, America and such. Only a reach towards however as I don’t think it ultimately says anything beyond “This thing, kinda bad and dumb”. As I saw noted, it observes the theme but doesn’t comment on it which is a shame as that would bring it all together quite neatly. I feel it can drag a little at times and sometimes the dialogue and specifically its humour don’t hit right but the rest is of such quality that it hardly matters. It looks good, sounds good and offers a chance to engage in a little mindless and bloody violence. I hope Harley keeps the javelin.

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27/08/2021: JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure Part 2: Battle Tendency: TW: Mention of Nazism, Discussion of Sexism

This is MUCH better. Part 2 covers most of the problems I had with Part 1. The Monologues are less egregious so the pacing is much improved; the lore is fully integrated into the story and creates a genuinely good narrative and Joseph is a much more compelling and interesting protagonist with a quirky and entertaining personality. The Pillar Men are excellent villains and the fights are fully engaging. Even when you know that Joseph will pull out a “And next you’ll say” twist at the end of a losing fight it’s still surprising simply by dint of the strange and wacky solutions he creates. And these adventures are even more bizarre, playing into the weird camp of the series which works so well. All in all, the quality is excellent here HOWEVER there are some highly problematic elements. The show being set in the 1930s is a neat part of the travelling through time factor of the series but when you’re globetrotting around Europe you need some solution to the problem of Nazis popping up everywhere and this show does not provide one, and fails so drastically to offer even a slightly critical perspective on the fascist characters. The noble sacrifice of Von Stroheim and his later resurrection and heroism serve to idolise a Patriotic German Nazi Officer, which is not good, and this unchallenged perspective on an Actual Nazi is troubling especially when the character himself is an unrepentant mass murderer. Additionally, the show has a horrible attitude towards women, who exist almost exclusively for sex appeal and romantic interest in this show. Lisa Lisa does demonstrate ability and character but when presented with genuine combat is relegated first as a bit of eye candy during the fight with Esidesi (notably eye candy for Her Own Son) and later as a Damsel in Distress during her fight with Kars. Women are frequently used as objects in this part; Caesar Zeppeli uses women as props by controlling them with his Hamon powers and Suzi Q exists only to be rescued from Esidesi and then to be romanced by Jojo. It’s pretty ridiculous to be honest. I am informed that this improves over the course of the series but as for this part in particular it is a lot of fun just so long as you can ignore some incredibly troubling portrayals.

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13/09/2021: Rick and Morty Season 4:

There is ultimately not much to say as Season 4 is simply more Rick and Morty and operates as such. It is good, even very good. It’s still very funny. Its voice acting is still the pinnacle of such work. It is still smart and has a lot of interesting ideas, only not to the extent of the copypasta fan boys. Its sci-fi universe is cool and its design and aesthetic are still excellent. I feel the show has passed a threshold however as there’s only so much time you can spend on the “dysfunctional family is dysfunctional theme”. I hope season 5 proves me wrong once I get to it, but season 4 is fun and I’d recommend it all the same, it’s just more Rick and Morty and I think that’s enough.

Shang-Chi and the Ten Rings: Spectacular! Very easily amongst the best if not The Best Superhero Movie (aside from Into the Spiderverse). To begin with complaints as they are limited, the colour grading was a bit dark in a couple of the fight scenes and in some moments of the climactic fight the CG effects are a little Too Much and distract from the central action of Shang-Chi, Xialing and a Dragon owning the shit out of a multiversal super spectre, which incidentally is fucking epic.  Additionally, the standard MCU comic relief dialogue is a little meh at times but what’s new there? They still need to get a handle on that, especially because this film was really strong when it was serious. As much as I love Ben Kingsley’s Trevor Slattery, he was just a tad much here. Aside from a few moments of weak dialogue however the rest of the film is excellent. Acting is good, effects are good, the film is quite beautiful primarily once Ta Lo is reached and the score is bangin. I appreciate most of all the fight sequences which to me look well-choreographed with interesting arenas which were always appropriate to demonstrate the characters abilities; the sequences serve to develop character and plot at key moments also. The way the camera is handled during the fights is also a big step up, with wide perspective and long shots rather than the snappy close shots of old which serve to really show off that choreography and don’t muddy your understanding of the flow of combat. There is a good thematic line throughout the film of reconciling the bad and the good of your familial and personal history, to understand yourself better and channel that into developing and achieving your ambitions and I adore how that ties in with Shang-Chi and Wenwu’s final confrontation due to the nature and treatment of the Ten Rings themselves. They are a very interesting fantastical element especially once Shang-Chi acquires them and the way that he utilises them create a very cool combat style I can’t wait to see more of, even considering that their full potential is yet to be unlocked. I additionally approve of how they have been differentiated from their comic counterparts which to my understanding are just slightly weaker infinity stones; thus, a one-to-one reproduction would’ve been a boring mistake to make. It’s a fantastic film, go see it.

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26/09/2021: Sable (20 hours, 99% complete) Sable has the makings of an absolutely fantastic game, it just has a few hiccups and hurdles to deal with. Thankfully most can probably be dealt with by patch as there’s nothing fundamentally wrong with the game; but a game should never be released in a state where it needs a patch to function normally. This game is incredibly buggy. Probably one of the buggiest games I’ve ever played at launch, and I preordered Skyrim. Most of my complaints are with the menus, which simply do not work properly sometimes, but there are other documented issues with collision detection and weird bike movement among others including one annoying persistent issue with the soundtrack being replaced by random ‘bong’ noises. For these reasons I cannot recommend the game Right Now until it is patched or if it is on a significant sale. However, once the bugs are fixed this game will be a stunning achievement. The story is good and leads to powerful emotional moments, aided along by an excellent atmospheric soundtrack and beautiful visuals. The style and colour give this game an exceptional look, though diminished by a fairly rapid day/night cycle. I understand that this creates a visual contrast to make the daytime feel more vibrant and impressive, but I would also hold the sun still in the sky if that were an option. The world is well built, with interesting lore and cool design work. Varied environments show off a range of colourful landscape all with their own distinct atmospheres and landmarks which are good both for navigation and exploration, this being the bulk of the game. Exploring these environments is satisfying for curiosities sake but also offers collectible Chums that I adore and an intriguing backstory and world history to consider. Riding a hoverbike is cool and fun, and the customisability is nice though I would take issue with the “balancing” of bike parts as the best bike can be acquired only a few hours in and must be bought, where bike parts earned through long quest chains pale in comparison. This annoys me as I believe players should be rewarded more for great deeds than for acquiring currency, besides which the quest bikes look cooler. This is of little importance however as the game is a very casual and chill experience, keeping an excellent balance where it is not strictly challenging but does maintain your focus and attention. This world is full of strangeness and a little sci-fi magic; though I would argue it could use more of this I think that would threaten to overwhelm the player when even this world’s most mundane elements are still stunningly cool. I think a thick coat of bugs covers what is ultimately a magnificent game with many cool things to explore and even marred by its worst features I still had a great time playing it.

27/09/2021: The Matrix

Brilliant. A very cerebral action movie which definitely earns its place as an iconic work of cinema and its clear to see why its influence is so widespread. Fantastic action with a clear and open perspective which utilises the interesting and dynamic cinematography that runs throughout the movie. I particularly enjoy how over the top the fights are in terms of environmental destruction and gestures as a whole, with a great deal of emphasis added by practical effects which I enjoy. Cool characters, good dialogue and excellent performances across the cast. And, an interesting world well-built and designed. The robots particularly are quite intimidating and I like their arthropodal form. All of the design works well to create the feeling of a greasy industrial post apocalypse which contrasts sharply with the boring homogenous simulation, the latter having its own value as a setting due to its familiarity which would’ve been especially prevalent when this film first released. I love the soundtrack, especially the final feature of Rage, but most of all I love how deeply you can read into this film and its meaning. Having watched many videos about it I was primed on the trans allegory going in and it is very clearly a present part of the narrative before even considering the context around the Wachowski sisters and their own experience. It is a very interesting part of the story and plays well into other themes built around deconstructing the illusions pressed on us by our society, drawing strong parallels between the struggles of living as a trans person and fighting against an imperialist capitalist society. It is worth watching for any of its constituent parts but together they form a magnificent work of art.

28/09/2021: Star Wars: Visions

The series is a bit of a mixed bag. It definitely overpromises with its first episode which is of a remarkably distinct style, is incredibly cool and has great wacky moments in addition to tasteful call-backs to the wider Star Wars canon. I love the umbrella sabre, it’s a fantastic idea and there needs to be more of them. From there a few episodes are fantastic, The Elder and the final episode, and id rank the Ninth jedi just below them, but the rest of the series is definitely not to my taste. The wide variety of styles on show are all fantastic and the animation is universally very good, just some of the plots are more childish than I would appreciate and the rest are simply not engaging for me to the point that despite a great deal of spectacle occurring I would often be distracted. It’s worth a look if you’re into animation and unique takes on star wars but I find generally lacking.

Django Unchained (2nd Watch) TW: Discussion of Racism and Slavery

Red Flag: Tarantino Movie is good. Very good. Stellar performances from Jamie Foxx, Kerry Washington, Leo Di Caprio, Christoph Waltz and everyone else in the movie to be frank; a special note for the trivia about Leo Di Caprio’s cut up hand during the dining room scene, a lot of respect for a man who can keep working through that kind of injury. We can go through a Tarantino Checklist say the film is well shot with beautiful environments; has excellent and witty dialogue with good attention to detail and mannerism; and finally has great and gory action which does not flinch from terrible injury and really appeals to a perverse bloodlust that seems to crop up from time to time in normal people. Strangely enough however, I could not recall if Tarantino indulges in his predilection for feet here. This film does indulge in Tarantino’s other predilection however and that’s the N-word, but here I respect it. Unlike his non-period works, the use of the N-word is a facet of slavery just as chains, whips and plantations are and slavery is the subject of this film which seeks to be historically authentic. If anything, the absence of the N-word would be very wrong in this case despite being the project of a white man as without it the film would lack the context of a key form of oppression that still exists today. I think Django does an excellent job documenting and commenting on the institution as it existed in the pre-war period. Django experiences every level of status a black person would encounter in this setting: first a slave, then a freedman, a black slaver and finally a Liberator and the final message of the film is that slavery deserved to be destroyed and any argument made for its return is horseshit which is kind of a “Duh” statement but with the state of modern politics and the state of education in the US it’s something that needs reiterating. You can interpret this beyond the bounds of slavery itself in addition, by arguing that there are existing powers in this world which seek to discriminate based on skin colour amongst other factors and create oppressed minorities for the benefit of a wealthy few with power and should the systems that create this environment be completely destroyed it would be cause for celebration. Beyond this I particularly enjoyed the historical authenticity of the environments, of the very varied biomes of the wilder parts of the US at the time, and the contemporary outfits especially King Schultz’ coat which I desire more than any item of clothing I’ve ever seen. The film is good at building suspense both in the moment to moment and through longer story arcs, particularly the second act, but I do feel like the 2nd act lulls a little, perhaps spends slightly too long reaching its climax. This is a great spectacle of a film which looks and sounds fantastic, puts excellent performances on show, tells a great story and has quite a bit of meaning bundled into it.

29/09/2021: The Road to El Dorado (Unfinished)

Despite not finishing it I think this film is actually really good. It certainly has a few elements which don’t fully gel with me but I enjoyed my time with it; I only felt like I should really be doing something else and that I wasn’t fully engaged with it, potentially as I’m not keen on cons and high stakes acting as it feels like a form of vicarious embarrassment for me which makes me immensely uncomfortable. Personal hindrances aside most everything about this film is excellent, I loved the animation and the very colourful world. The characters were fun, the voice acting good, the constant horniness was a great bonus also. I take issue with the music, much as it’s not my right to criticise Elton John, I feel it would’ve been better fully incorporated into the film. I enjoy animated musicals more when said music is diegetic and I think them beginning to employ non-diegetic music is part of what led to their downfall, outside of market saturation. Additionally, I was not a fan of The Trail we Blaze, just not a song that worked for me. I also appreciate the integration of 3d and 2d animation here as I felt the styles were reconciled better here than in most movies, especially for the time. I might take issue with what seems to be a plot about two Spanish men of the colonial age coming to central America and “enlightening” its people through humanitarian acts and music as that would reflect some troubling attitudes but I hold out hope that by the end of the film they decide to come clean about the lie, return the gold and help defend El Dorado from Cortez and his troops. Its enjoyable, I don’t feel drawn to finishing it though.

 30/09/2021: Hunters Moon, Ghost

Here’s a new one, music reviews. This single is pretty good I enjoy it a lot. Opens slow and gentle and rapidly builds into some strong rock with a very 80s feel which scans with Ghosts whole historical rock and metal style they’ve always employed but have gone in extra hard on since Prequelle. The lead riff the track opens on is really nice and I would love to have seen it explored further, but the heavier style that ramps up progressively as the song continues is still great climaxing on the 9/4 post chorus riff which goes hard as fuck and I love that bit especially. It feels like it would be spectacular to witness it live. The bridge is a moment I’m not so keen on, the initial bass work is a little bare bone and overly repetitive but it definitely picks up once the guitar and vocals come in, even if just for the final moments. The final chorus leads into a good finale though I think it’ll serve better on an album version with a transition into another track, as I usually prefer to be fair. Technically I enjoy all of the different sounds and effects employed on all the instruments, especially in that leading riff, all of which are played well with good time. The vocals are great as usual. It’s a great track, I feel it was maybe a little short and could’ve explored some of its musical ideas or given them a bit more time to breathe; perhaps less time could have been given to overrepresented elements like the bridge and given over to work more into the very atmospheric leading riff but this is still a hard and heavy rock track and I enjoy it greatly.

[transguyedgeworth]

OH HEY YEAH i think the main difference that makes my opinions on certain aa things like. differ from like general consensuses or whatever is the fact that I HAVENT ACTUALLY BEEN PLAYING THE GAMESSSSS i own the first one and played it a long long time ago but other than that. sdfhdfjd i kinda feel bad abt it tbh but whats done is done honestly,, but yeah ive been watching those no commentary walkthroughs on yt since 2, basically i havent done aai2 yet bc i went to aai after 4 and after that i was like I MISS PHOENIXXX so ive been on dual destinies and im abt 2/3 through that.. so my plan is to then go to aai2 and then soj. and tbh i might actually try to emulate and like PLAY those but ive never emulated before so shits scary... whether or not i do that tho i do think i wanna get the turnabout collection for my switch and then i can play thru 2 and 3 eventually n all that shit i am not immune to consumerism smh

as for reginas theme idk man its just me i dont like it u cant make me like it.. like tbh i actually think its like good as in its Effective i think.. but like my ears just hate it idk. i feel like its repetitive too and so it just gets like annoying to listen to for me.. anyway yeah i do agree basically w what you said abt 2-3 and if id played it im pretty sure id hate it too but i mean the shit i like Liked abt it was like. everything you didnt mention jdfghersdhf i love the shit that has nothing to do w the actual fuckin case ie That Part in the plaza w franziska GOD THAT PART.. and also i said this to a friend who id also been talking abt it with another time and like may as well share it with you, au where regina is 20 the ventriloquist is the one who died and everything is Fine.

k laters <3

OKAY OKAY NOT TO LIKE. PRESSURE YOU OR ANYTHING BUT. PLAYING THE GAMES YOURSELF IS A COMPLETELY DIFFERENT EXPERIENCE THAN WATCHING A PLAYTHROUGH. both my partner and i can attest to this, i tried to watch a playthrough of aa1 years ago and it was SO BORING but then when my current roommates wanted to play the series with me i immediately got sucked in. like. there’s some stuff you just... need to Experience for yourself i think but maybe that’s just me?? idk i don’t think i’d even be into the series at all if i hadn’t actually played it myself. 

my roommate and i ended up playing aai and aai2 after trials and tribulations because he was telling me that that’s the order the games take place in chronologically and also cuz he knows i kin really like edgeworth ghdfnd honestly i’m afraid i won’t be able to get through aa4 for like. a similar reason that you had for skipping aai2 because I Will Miss Edgeworth. 

also emulating is totally not that scary i promise the scariest part is finding the roms. emulating is totally safe and as long as you have decent antivirus software (like windows defender or just. common sense not to click on shady links) you can basically just google ‘[game title] rom’ and find stuff pretty easily. i think it took maybe 5 minutes total for me to find roms for both aai and aai2.

and bro it’s like. totally fine to have differing opinions on music i prommy. i can def understand the repetitive part but considering most of the songs are played on loop in the background anyway i start getting annoyed by any song in the games that loops more than like 3 times in a row (it’s the Sensory Issues). 

my main issue with turnabout big top (besides the ped*philia which according to my roommate didn’t even exist in the japanese version) definitely has a lot to do with having to play it. the investigation is long and tedious and the reveal of what actually happened is just so fucking Stupid and Ridiculous. when i played with my roommates i kept making guesses as to what happened with the ringmaster and how the culprit flew and shit and every time they were like “i wish that’s what actually happened, it would make more sense” ghfjfdnf and yeah i like the part in the plaza with franziska too and all the times they mention edgeworth and we get to hear more about what exactly Happened and shit but. that Cannot save the case for me. those bits do not cancel out the utter bullshit that case put me through it still fills me with rage just to think about it (other than regina my angel whom i adore).

and yeah literally just. keeping regina Of Legal Age would fix the ped*philia stuff but i probably still wouldn’t like the case just because of how stupid and rage-inducing the plot twists and reveal of the actual events were. 

[laureviewer]

Persona 5 Royal: A Review

It’s finally time to review one of my all-time favourite games.

I first played Persona 5 around 3 years ago, and I’ve really grown since then in a few ways. A few thoughts before I begin: a) since my first playthrough, JRPGs have cemented themselves as one of my favourite types of games; b) I don’t hate all turn-based RPGs except Pokémon anymore!; c) after my first playthrough I went to Japan, and as Persona 5 is set in Tokyo, playing Royal was a lot of fun as I knew a lot of the locations, which meant I could dive into the setting deeper than the first time; and d) my 250 hours of playtime in total across both playthroughs can most likely be attributed to the incredible writing and masterful character development.

Warning: HEAVY story spoilers

I’m not trying to sell you a game. I want to give you an in-depth analysis of the story, characters, gameplay and all other aspects of this brilliant game, spoilers and all. I want a discussion. So, dive in and see what I really thought, no holds barred.

The Silence is Deafening

‘…’ – a direct quote from our protagonist, there. Our silent hero, codename Joker, is a victim of circumstance. Wrongfully accused of assault by a mysterious man who is angered that a kid prevented him from forcing a woman into his car et al., he must move away from his hometown to wait out his probation period and live a normal student life. Why must he live above a failing café under the guardianship of the cranky owner? Not to mention: why is he banished to Tokyo of all places, somewhere very likely much more exciting than wherever his hometown is?

Either way, Joker isn’t going to tell you. He’s quiet and lets the other many, many other characters do the talking for him—a usual trope of JRPGs, but it is still an issue as he is also put on a pedestal as an incredibly special, talented, empathetic and all-round great guy. He’s the only one capable of saving the world, as he has abilities no-one else has, for some reason.

But this isn’t as bad as I’m making it out to be. Sure, it doesn’t really make sense why you have such a huge following when you don’t have much of a personality, but that’s the beauty of the silent protagonist. You, the player, are the protagonist. The fact that you can even put your own name in as his name is telling. You make the decisions, you make the friends, and you carve out your own destiny from the choices you make. It’s always these kinds of games that, when I talk to my friends, I say ‘I messed up with Sojiro’ or ‘I went to the arcade today’—and it is me. Because even though I’m not a woefully silent Japanese male teenager with glasses, for the time I’m playing Persona 5, I am.

So, you are the protagonist. You learn that there are mental shutdowns all over Tokyo, making people go crazy and kill lots of people, such as a conductor crashing his train, or simply killing people on the spot. It’s weird, but what can you do? You’re just a student with his own problems: not only do many of the students avoid you because you are a delinquent, but the volleyball coach, Kamoshida, seems to be harassing students, from the ones on his team who seem terrified of him, to girls that are being hit on. When a strange app appears on your phone, you accidentally find yourself in the metaverse, along with Ryuji, who also has a good reason to get revenge on Kamoshida.

I Am Thou, Thou Art I

What teenager doesn’t have a rebellious self hidden deep within their subconscious? Well, these teens can utilise that hidden self past its usual constraints to overcome the crappy adults that suppress them and make detrimental decisions for them. Once Joker and Ryuji, and later many other young adults, realise this potential and recognise that these adults need to be stopped, they are awakened to their Personas. A Persona is a manifestation of a persona user’s personality, which the individual can use to face hardship and overcome injustice, even if just in the Metaverse, the collective unconscious world.

But, really, there’s no ‘just’ about it. Here in this world, which take the form of Palaces, the Phantom Thieves (you and your friends) can defeat the ruler of the Palace (the adult with a distorted desire) to convince them to change their heart. In this way, the ‘real’ them in the real world will atone for their actions and justice can be served. So, really, your actions are vital to solving crimes, dealing justice and, eventually, saving the world.

These Personas are like Pokémon for adults. You are special, as you can catch and wield multiple Personas, allowing you to have a whole array of powers, but your friends have one that they train and evolve throughout the course of the story. Catching them is a skill: you have to learn their weakness, and use a skill that takes advantage of it to ‘down’ the Persona. This gives you a chance to either: perform an ‘all out’ attack which sees all your allies fight them at once for increased damage; ask them for money or an item; or negotiate with them to convince them to become a part of you (and thus catch them for use later). This gets harder when there are multiple different Personas to battle at once, all with different weaknesses and strengths that means you must time your combat precisely to ‘down’ them at the same time.

Personas are one of the best parts of the game, as you can see.

Not happy with a persona’s moves, or you want to create stronger ones? Go to the Velvet Room, where Igor and the Twin Wardens Justine and Caroline will fuse two or more Personas together to create new ones.

This is where the Pokémon element is better and worse. You can get completely new and stronger Personas immediately, which is cool, but if you are particularly drawn to one it doesn’t make sense to keep using them as they will level up far quicker if you fuse them than if you keep them. I struggled with this at first, as Arsene is your first ‘official’ Persona, and I couldn’t quite believe you are only meant to have him for the first few hours. It’s like Ash giving up Pikachu after defeating Brock!

Also, have you seen how you have to fuse them? It’s so dark and unnecessarily vivid! You have to guillotine, electric chair or hang them in order to create these new Personas, which is so different to Persona 4 where the Personas are cards, making it less gruesome to get rid of your companions. It definitely made me feel bad for fusing them, but that didn’t stop me!

Essentially, the Persona franchise wouldn’t be the same without all the incredible Personas you fight and capture along the way. It really encapsulates what the games are like: stylized and deeply considered, exuding character and imagination throughout.

Take Over, It’s Time to Put You Down

Using these Personas are a lot of fun, too. The moves are elemental as well as physical, they can inflict ailments such as ‘sleep’ and ‘fear’, and evolve as you and your Personas level up. Personas all have strengths and weaknesses, and by fusing them, you can create Personas with stronger moves and resistances that, as you get towards the end of the game, means that you can fuse some incredibly powerful Personas that can fight any and all enemies, if you’re smart with the moves you inherit.

This all sounds very similar to Pokémon, right? Well, there are other more showy, fantastically fun elements that integrate beautifully with the stunning graphics to make every battle (which have the potential to become very repetitive) exciting and challenging. When a character manages to ‘down’ an enemy by using a move that is strong against it, they can either do another attack or choose to Baton Pass to an ally, chaining super-effective attacks to down multiple enemies in one round, which is useful if there are a lot of different enemies with different affinities and weaknesses. Then, once all enemies are downed, all allies can come together for an All Out Attack for an extra boost of damage.

As much as this is useful for the player, if the enemy downs one of your allies, they can also do a secondary attack, which means that they have the potential to wipe out your team very quickly. Plus, some moves are one hit kills, which may have low accuracy but is still extremely frustrating sometimes, particularly in regular 5 where I found the combat more challenging. The worst boss fight was Haru’s dad, where I actually had to change difficulty for the only time throughout the game—who decided it was a good idea to revive the robot shadows if you didn’t kill them in three moves?!

The Showtime moves, new for Royal, bring a fresh new element to the game. As you progress through the story, your allies start forming bonds, which will then be reflected in combat. At seemingly random times, they can join up with fantastic new animations (such as Yusuke cooking Ryuji some yummy food at a bar, who get interrupted by a shadow coming in the door, and they both take it out) and inflict massive damage. I was sad that Joker doesn’t get one, until the Royal section where baes Akechi and Sumire both team up with you respectively for new Showtimes. It made me wonder whether Joker just wasn’t as close to the rest of the team as he becomes to Akechi and Sumire, which actually also made me glad that I focused on both of them heavily in my playthrough!

Every song that plays throughout the game, including combat, is a banger, so even though my husband got annoyed hearing it coming out of my TV for 120 hours, this soundtrack will remain one of my favourites to date. Overall, the combat is great, and thankfully not too repetitive after so many hours of gameplay.

Adulting is Hard

The story of Persona 5 is deeply gripping, and keeps you invested and interested the whole way through. It didn’t absolutely destroy me like other JRPGs have done (see: Final Fantasy XV), but fun, emotive and has huge repercussions if you don’t succeed in your mission, including people dying and the world ending. No pressure, then.

Your actions, then, are crucial to making the world a better place: and the villains that you encounter are integral to succeeding. In true revolution fashion, it’s the kids that need to stand up to the adults to rid them of their distorted desires—but it’s not all random. The adults are truly abhorrent (the first one, Kamoshida, sexually assaults female students and physically abuses members of his volleyball team) and they continue a running thread from first to last—that is, the ones who you think aren’t connected at all seem to be connected to the final villain by the end. It’s very clever, and kept me gripped the whole way through—something that’s needed with 80+ hours of gameplay.

The writing is absolutely fantastic. All characters have their own distinct mannerisms, personalities and stories, which you get to explore with the Confidant mechanic (see below). The voice acting is great, and as I progressed through the Confidants, I really started to feel like they were becoming my friends, and that every time I turned on my PS4 I was hanging out with my pals again. It’s the way games should make you feel—like you actually care about what will happen to them.

This does make the game quite stressful (in a good way), as what you do has actual repercussions. It’s a bit frustrating sometimes that some of your dialogue doesn’t affect the game at large, as well as your romance choices. None of the characters acknowledge you have a girlfriend, and if you date Ann, for example, she won’t act any differently than if you decide to not even become her friend. While that’s disappointing, other dialogue choices can completely affect your game so that you always have to be very careful with your decisions. Will you get the ‘bad’ ending, where you fail to stop the final villain; the ‘good bad’ ending, where you accept his distorted view of the world; or the ‘true’ canon ending, where you revert the world to normal? A lot of choices throughout this lengthy game affect what ultimately happens, so you do feel like you’re affecting the story a lot more than, say, Pokémon. In fact, in Royal, you can even miss out on a whole section of the game…

Ascending to Royalty

As long as you max your Confidant links with Akechi (the renegade teen detective), Kasumi (the new gymnast freshman at your school) and Maruki (the school counsellor), you get to experience the 30+ hours that Royal adds to Persona 5. And—major spoilers here—once you’ve defeated the God of Control and exposed Akechi for the unhinged betrayer that he is, you should go to juvenile detention and your ability to use Personas should be gone for good, as Momentos has been destroyed.

However, in Royal, Maruki has figured out how to use cognitive psience—and you’re the reason why. His sessions with you has helped with his research, and so now he can make the world a better place by granting everyone’s desires in the collective unconsciousness.

As you can see by his actions, he’s not your typical antagonist. His heart is completely in the right place: he wants to make everyone happy by granting their desires for them, such as bringing back Futaba’s dead mother and helping Ryuji recover so he can get back on the track team. I resonated with that, and actually wondered whether it would be worse for certain characters, particularly Futaba and Haru who get to spend time with their respective dead parents, to reject the “blissful ignorance” reality that Maruki had created for them in favour of the truth.

By this point, I had grown rather fond of the deranged but entertaining firework that Akechi has revealed himself to be, and once I learned that Akechi would die (as he did in regular 5) if Maruki’s reality were to be revoked, I almost chose to accept it. But Akechi being adamant that he was going to stop Maruki no matter what as he didn’t want to live under anyone else’s rule helped make that choice for me. It was difficult, though. Akechi’s is a motive that is simultaneously selfish and noble: selfish as he doesn’t want anyone else to control him, even if that means other people are happy, but noble because he values the truth above all else. Plus, the fact that he was one of the main villains throughout the story up until this point made me question whether we should continue to trust him, even though he had decided to help us, even if it were primarily for his own gain. I think my fondness for him (perhaps because he is a fully-fledged Confidant in this game, unlike regular 5) and the wildcard elements he brought to the game made me feel a certain brand of loyalty towards him, and so I chose to honour his “dying wish”. And, of course, this path led to the ‘true’ ending!

This indecision is shown most clearly in Maruki’s palace, where you have to deduce what decisions in certain situations Maruki would think is the ‘right’ one. It really helps you understand where he’s coming from. For example, his question ‘if your friend is being attacked, and you don’t have much time before they get seriously hurt, would you a) run to get help but you might not make it back in time, or b) join the fight to help but you might get hurt yourself?’ Neither answer is necessarily wrong, but b) is correct as Maruki simply wants you to look out for yourself over others. The crux of his viewpoint is that you should endeavour to make yourself happy or safe, even if that means others may not be. It’s a very interesting conundrum, and one I enjoyed debating philosophically whilst playing.

The concept of right and wrong and mental health was also tackled in this game through Kasumi/Sumire. Ultimately, even though Maruki wanted to help her by allowing Sumire to pretend to be her dead sister, as she blames herself for her death, he ultimately did her more harm than good. With the support of Joker and the others Sumire was able to overcome her delusions and grow into a strong, confident young woman. This cemented for me how backwards Maruki was and that reality is the most important thing, even if it’s not always what we want, because that’s life. In this way, I feel that Royal added something to 5. Even though going into someone’s mind palace was about mental health, I never really considered it until Royal dealt with an innocent traumatised girl and a misguided man attempting to heal her. I applaud Atlas for tackling something so difficult pretty well.

Confident in my Confidants

It’s a good thing the player can really get into the story, because it’s heavily dependent on personal decisions and making friends.

In order to get stronger within the Metaverse, Igor, the man inside the Velvet Room, tells Joker that he needs to strengthen the relationship with his friends first. This is absolutely true—not just with your teammates, but with other individuals who live in Tokyo too, in the form of the Confidant mechanic. For example, while your teammates all get skills such as curing afflictions and taking fatal hits for Joker, others give just as much if not more valuable perks, such as Kawakami giving you more free time or Mishima allowing all teammates to gain experience even if they don’t contribute to the battle once you max them out.

The way you level them up is through socialising. This passes time, but is also incredibly interesting, as each Confidant has a gripping story (except Ohya!). You can’t downgrade a Confidant, but picking the right dialogue choices can make leveling them up much quicker in a game where time is everything. It’s also necessary to level up your stats, such as knowledge, kindness and charm, to allow you to progress with some Confidants and be empathetic or charming enough to deal with the situations thrown at you. I loved the dual play style of dungeon battles and social simulation—in a lengthy game, it broke up gameplay and kept it fresh.

As this was my second playthrough, I already knew that maxing certain Confidants would yield the best results, such as Kawakami and Yoshida who eventually allows you to negotiate with and catch shadows of a higher level than you. But in Royal, the new additions of Counselor, Faith & Justice—Maruki, Kasumi & Akechi—freshened things up. Technically, Justice isn’t new, but you can now hang out with him instead of his progress being facilitated purely by story.

Time to rate my friends from worst to best!

21: Ichiko Ohya Devil Arcana

I found this alcoholic journalist very annoying. Her story isn’t that interesting, she isn’t very nice, and the skills that she gives you to allow you to sneak around Palaces easier aren’t worth it either. I only maxed out her story near the end as I had time, but honestly, she shouldn’t be a priority.

20: Iwai Munehisa Hanged Man Arcana

Didn’t think anything of him until Royal, where I had more time to learn about his time in the Yakusa and his son. Useful for guns (which aren’t even an integral part of combat, really), but other than that I barely used his shop—plus you have to have high Guts in order to progress. Definitely better Confidants out there.

19: Tae Takemi Death Arcana

The fact that this doctor is a sexy goth is probably the best thing about her. You can level her up quite early on, so she is quite exciting at the beginning as she’s one of the only adults you can turn into a Confidant at that point, but after a while she stopped being interesting to me. In my Royal playthrough I found I didn’t need many healing items—SP was far more important!—and in the end I didn’t max her out. A fun outfit, but can leave her.

18: Shinya Oda Tower Arcana

Definitely annoying (but what little brother isn’t?) but there’s a sad reason for that—his mum is emotionally abusive, even if she doesn’t mean to be. In the end I wanted to max him out to save him from that life, but I never quite got that far. At least I managed to change his mum’s heart before I finished the game.

He’s also quite useful in buffing gun attacks and bonuses for downing and negotiating, so definitely useful for combat. I just ended up feeling bad for him, but he was also a bit of a shit, being a bully to his classmates; his big bro Joker helped with that!

17: Hifumi Togo Star Arcana

I never got to know her in my first playthrough, and I didn’t realise how useful she is for battles. She eventually allows you to swap players in combat, hastens escapes, improves money hauls, and allows back-up members to do follow up attacks. I’d definitely give her a shot for just those bonuses, even if you don’t want to romance her—but she is sweet, if very detached from the rest of the story.

16: Chihaya Mifune Fortune Arcana

I maxed her out pretty quickly so I could get the fortune readings; affinity was especially useful, as you can level up Confidants a tiny bit quicker, for a price. And, after she takes 100,000 from you near the beginning (!) and eventually gives it back, she’s lovely. Nothing special, and definitely not one to romance, but nice.

15: Twin Wardens Justine & Caroline Strength Arcana

Their Confidant path was slightly different: you have to show them Personas with specific moves, and they will level up. This was very interesting, and also put a natural brake on their relationship, as some Personas can’t be made until you are a certain level. They are also very useful as you eventually unlock group Persona fusions and can fuse Personas of a higher level than you, for a price. Always fun to get the ridiculous Personas a bit earlier on! Also, their story was super interesting, due to the mystery that surrounds their identities…

Also also, Royal gives a new element to your relationship with them. You can now take them out of the Velvet Room to show them ‘human things’, like aquariums and cinemas. I didn’t utilise this much as you only get skill cards, and no actual level progress, but I wish I had more time, as the dialogue in these sequences is hilarious as they try to understand why humans would do certain things. The fact that I’ve ranked them so low is telling—there are so many fun and useful Confidants that mean they rank this low. 

14: Yuuki Mishima Moon Arcana

I actually think you’re a bit mean to him—he’s definitely your friend, but every time you are asked to clarify this the dialogue choices make you seem like a dickhead when you say he’s only ‘sort of’ your friend! He’s helped you so much, stop being such a dick, player. Plus he helps increase EXP, as well as allows EXP to be given to back-up members so it’s definitely a good thing to max him earlier. Plus, he’s sweet, and gives you Momentos requests. Justice for Mishima!

13: Takuto Maruki Councillor Arcana

Lovely. What a gent. Shame he turned out to be distorted by deciding to change people’s realities by interpreting their vague wants instead of actually asking people if they’d WANT their realities changed or not. Sounds a bit like Thanos to me, but with a better reason to be evil.

The bonuses of Maruki though are: he’s interesting; he’s lovely; and his bonuses are mainly SP based, which is always hard to recover in Persona, especially in the early stages of the games. He raises your SP, gives you a chance to instantly recover ailments, gives you a chance to become focused and therefore raises your attack, and gives you a chance to recover your SP when low. Very useful, and you can’t play the Royal storyline without maxing him out before November 18th anyway.

12: Haru Okumura Empress Arcana

Again, I wasn’t too much of a fan of Haru on my first playthrough (perhaps because she’s quite a late addition to the team), but this time round, I had more time to get to know her. I really wanted to save her from her awful fiancé, and hoped I’d be able to say ‘don’t marry him, marry me!’ if I chose to romance her, but alas. I was also quite surprised with how business-orientated she is, which was a surprise. However, she was just too prim and proper for me, and even after her story showed her to be evolving into a confident woman, she didn’t evolve quite enough for me to be interested.

She’s useful, though, as all the Confidants are who are your team members, so leveling her up is a must, for help in combat and to evolve her Persona.

11: Morgana Magician Arcana

Morgana was the most useful as the support hero—I always wanted him in my party, particularly in hard battles, just to keep me and my allies alive. Plus, who doesn’t love a talking cat? Though, at one point, he does get moody and very annoying. While Morgana as a character was never that exciting past being the initial reason they can become Phantom Thieves and the mystery surrounding where he comes from, Royal switched that up by turning him into a dreamboat with piercing blue eyes when Maruki made his dream of being a human come true. They kept saying throughout this sequence how beautiful he was, which was amusing. A nice twist on the original game.

10: Toranosuke Yoshida Sun Arcana

I learnt to level this fallen-from-grace politician up quickly from my first playthrough as, once you max him out, you can negotiate easier with shadows of your own level, and negotiate with higher level shadows and add them to the compendium—absolutely necessary. Also, he’s basically a massive socialist leftie, so he rocks.

9: Yusuke Kitagawa Emperor Arcana

I didn’t like him much in my first playthrough, but now I appreciate him far more—he’s flamboyant, artistic and, best of all, happy to be in his own mind and be himself, no matter what people think of him. He’s a bit stuck up sometimes, but all in all he’s an outsider who fits in better than he really should. And he provides funny dialogue, particularly when interacting with Futaba. I also love his Showtime moves with Ryuji and Ann.

8: Ann Takamaki Lovers Arcana

I’m quite surprised she’s this low down for me, but even though she’s the first girl you befriend and she’s hopelessly beautiful to everyone who meets her, she doesn’t quite push past the ‘ditzy girl’ trope. The story does try to make her more nuanced, and to an extent it works—she’s also fun, thoughtful and empathetic—but there’s just too many misogynistic and ditsy jokes that even only a few years later don’t land anymore. Saying that, she literally uses her sexuality to break free of the misogyny that surrounds her body and the sexual abuse and prejudice she experiences, at the most from the volleyball teacher, and at the least from everyone around her. It’s a steep hill to climb, but she’s doing it.

I drew the picture below!

7: Sadayo Kawakami Temperance Arcana

Kawakami’s your teacher—what could possibly go wrong? Well, she’s also a sexy maid who comes over to clean up, though she won’t go any further as you’re her high school student. Yet. It’s a bit dodgy, especially as she acts like your mum, but even so, the forbidden fruit angle is fun. Her story is also compelling. Not only is she an interesting Confidant, but one of the most useful ones for the amount of extra time she gives you when you level her up. Why on both my playthroughs did I not level her up immediately?

6: Sojiro Sakura Hierophant Arcana

He’s your guardian who takes you in when you have to move from your hometown after your alleged assault to live out your probation. He starts out cranky, but has an absolute heart of gold. He ended up being one of my favourite Confidants—plus, he’s one of the most useful, as he is one of the only ways to get SP in the early game by making coffee and curry. You need to understand the pride I got from making coffee that met his expectations!

5: Futaba Sakura Hermit Arcana

Sojiro’s adopted daughter is so much fun that I romanced her in the first game. While some may think she’s more like a little sister, she’s just a bit more immature because of her hermit lifestyle and Arcana. She’s funny, loves games, and has great references; she is one of the only instances of a game that has a young girl who doesn’t sound like 40-year-olds trying to sound like teenagers. She has a heartbreaking story, but her personality keeps it light. She says it how it is, no matter what anyone else thinks. She’s great.

4: Kasumi/Sumire Yoshizawa Faith Arcana

I chose to romance the gymnast honour student in Royal, because how can you not romance the new girl? Though I wasn’t sure at first, as I found her quite twee at the beginning. However, she became a lot more nuance when she became Sumire, which is to be expected. Plus, she is really well integrated into the story and really makes you feel she cares about you. She has an amazing costume when she is Codename: Violet, and gives you some truly useful abilities, such as ambushing from a distance and avoiding being surrounded by shadows. She’s a great addition to an already great game.

3: Makoto Niijima Priestess Confidant

She’s bestgirl in terms of smarts, badassery, and simple relatability. She is Student Council President, an honour student, and has been manipulated by evil adults for their own distorted desires. Her parents have died, which instils her with deep guilt for being a burden on her sister. She’s also the only one whose Confidant story doesn’t actively revolve around herself: she changes, but it’s through helping her friend who may be a victim of trafficking rather than her own self-interests. She’s sharp, poised and even more badass when she awakens to her Persona, Johanna—it’s a freaking motorcycle!

2: Ryuji Sakamoto Chariot Confidant

Your best buddy. I’m always drawn towards these ones, who are treated a bit dumb but are loyal to the end. He’s also hilarious, like when he complains the Phantom Thieves are in the shadows and not getting any credit, and I chose the option ‘I like the shade’, he says ‘what are you, moss?!’ I really do wish I could romance him, because I can see a lovely storyline where he’s unsure at first but the fact that they’re soulmates transcends gender.

1: Goro Akechi Justice Confidant

I’m almost hesitant to admit I find him the most fascinating and fun. Not only is he dangerous, exciting and unhinged, he's at the centre of an incredible twist. He’s one of the most interesting characters, and you never know what he’s going to do next. I would definitely date him if Japanese games let gay relationships happen; he has all the best attributes for a crazy romantic relationship. Not IRL, but in a game, why not?

I love that he didn’t die and teams up with you in Royal, and that . He’s also the first character that Joker gets a Showtime move with, which made it quite special. When it is revealed just how evil and crazy he is, his whole character changes, including his Persona, his Phantom Thieves outfit, and his demeanor—it’s scary how excited he is by killing, but at the same time, he is absolutely certain of his viewpoints and won’t compromise for anyone. Many of these points would be a reason why he shouldn’t be my number one, but I can’t help it.

Honourable Mentions: Igor (Fool Arcana), Sae Niijima (Judgement Arcana) & Jose

Igor is the ruler of the Velvet Room, and the person who facilitates your rehabilitation in changing peoples’ hearts. However, ‘person’ isn’t quite right for Igor: he’s the God of Control, born from the desires of the collective masses who want to be controlled and be told what to do rather than make difficult decisions. It was a cool twist to realise that the God of Control had been impersonating the real Igor; I don’t know if Igor was lovely in the previous games, but he certainly is once you restore him at the end of 5. Despite him being interesting, I never felt like I had a connection with him, as you level up his Arcana automatically throughout the story, and he never tried to have a personal relationship with Joker.

Sae has her own palace and Arcana, but she’s not quite the same as the others. Like Igor, you level up automatically throughout the game when you confess to her the whole Phantom Thieves story, and while she does have a Palace, she doesn’t through any huge transformation other than realising that learning the truth is better than trying to win at any cost. She’s cool, and her outfit in her Palace is sexy, but you can’t romance her and can’t change much of what you say to her. I wish in Royal she could have been a fully fledged Confidant instead.

Jose counts even less. A new addition to Royal, he helps you change the cognition of Momentos by collecting stamps as you go further down, and he gives you items in exchange for flowers, so he definitely makes Momentos better. However, his addition is nothing world-shaking, and he only shows up randomly, which makes him quite annoying. I could have done without him, but at least he made Momentos more interesting than in the base game, which, compared to Palaces, was quite boring.

All in all, my main issue with the Confidant system as that you still can’t date boys. We’ve been saying for years ‘that’s just the Japanese way’, but considering the crazy hentai they bring out (still with only very little amounts of yaoi/gay hentai) it may be time to stop excusing them for not being with the times. Catherine: Full Body aimed to dispel that somewhat—perhaps Persona should too.

A Momentous Game

Overall, this is one of my favourite games of all time. The gameplay keeps me entertained for 100+ hours (though, to be fair, I do love long games) and the characters and writing makes me emotionally connect with the story they are telling. I’d suggest playing for at least 8 hours, as it’s a slow burn, but once that hurdle is jumped the real obsession begins.

Time to go and play Persona 4 Golden, as I’m not quite ready for the fun to be over yet.

[demoiselledefortune]

What do you think the developers of fire emblem three houses could've done to let the white clouds section feel less repetitive across the multiple playthroughs?

I think the game would have been more interesting if you don’t pick a house at the start, but only towards the end of White Clouds (or right at the end)

This doesn’t really fix repetitiveness as such, especially since that goes against having more variable month mission depending on which house you are in (which would be another fix, since the missions we get at base are fairly Blue Lion centered); but I think it would center it more on the choices you make each time, which is another way to help.

Either you’d have a basic class of students you start with and then you must recruit the rest. (for ex, Leonie, Felix, Dorothea, Lindhart or Mercedes, Caspar or Sylvain, Ignatz), is a fairly balanced cast that can make sense based on which students are most interested in Byleth at the start (ok Ignatz is there as filler based on what niche wasn’t filled); or the students you get are based on the first choices you make for Byleth (so either the birthday and possibly the gender, or introduce new questions for that sake) for even more variation in each playthrough.

Each Lord trying to win you over would continue during the year. And some times the missions are different, or let you learn different info depending on which Lord you sided with for that month mission.

At the end of White Clouds, you have to commit to a side. You need to have managed to get enough support point with each lord (and Rhea) in order to have the option at all to take their side.

(This would decrease your ability to custom build each Lord though. There may be different ways to mitigate that, by still letting you set their skill objectives and by not making tutoring so essential to reach skill benchmarks in general idk more of a question of gameplay balance. I think it would be neat in general to allow characters that are recruited latter in general the class masteries of the class they’ve gone through canonically because that’s another thing that’s kind of tedious with late recruitment)

During the second part of the game; I would also mostly leave the monastery (except maybe for a few months if it makes sense then); and replace it by a “War Camp” environment. Instead of most of the monastery minigames/facilities, we get new ways to spend Activity points; some of them being more along the line of “War Table” missions (à la Dragon Age Inquisition). They help fill out some of the political weaving and dealing that in the game mostly happens in the background/by narrative fiat. They can help setting up quest missions as well (with a little bit more narrative weight to them than just random auxiliary battles) for rewards; but also for extra scenes and in some case unlocking different endings for some characters (like for example one of them could offer you to deal with Lorenz’s father and his complicity in the death of Raphael’s parents, and you can make different choices that may be better politically in term of gain, but narratively costs the characters morally).

I think there should be more characters you need to actively re recruit, or need to convince to join you.

(I think Monastery being still the same in 2nd part plays a part in how tedious it is when you start again there when you replay, that’s why I want to change that as well).

Anyway, you gave me an opportunity to talk about stuff I would change to the game which I’m not entirely sure fixes the problem of white clouds feeling too repetitive. Though one effect of a latter fix is that for some players at least the could keep a save just before the big choices and then restart for that if they don’t want to redo it all XD

[anotherbeingsworld]

My Favorite Pairing

Dr. Bryce Lahela x F!MC (Dr. Alessia Lyxienne) 

(The moodboard was my aesthetic for Bryce and Alessia’s relationship! I hope you all liked it! 💖😊 ALSO, I APOLOGIZE FOR THE REPETITIVE PICS FOR THE QUOTE. I DIDNT REALIZE IT UNTIL ITS TOO LATE 😅)

Thank you for the tag @bitchloveskcbaseball​ and @mvalentine​ ! I had fun knowing your fav pairing! I hope all of you enjoyed the long description for their relationship. ❤❤ 

P.S: A few of the points were taken from the book itself, and some of them were my imagines for them! Some of them had appeared on my fics and, a few of them was just... something to have fun with! 

Book: Open Heart 

Pairing: Dr. Bryce Lahela x Dr. Alessia Lyxienne (I used a different name in my playthrough, but her personality is based on Casey from my fics! And, its just... the same person but a different name!)

Relationship status: Not official yet! They are still casual eventhough they are somehow official on how they act with each other. They are indeed in love with each other.  (PB, WE NEED TO BE OFFICIAL SOON WITH OUR LI’S!)

Song(s): I Like Me Better (Lauv) // Delicate (Taylor Swift) // More Than Words (Extreme) 

Ideal date: They don’t have dates often since their schedule would be tight by working in a hospital! But, they would have unexpected dates either at 4 in the morning or 8 at night. Bryce would always encourage Alessia to live in the moment! Their dates can go from a rooftop date, a movie night date and sometimes.. just talking to each other whilst enjoying each other’s company in the doctor’s lounge would count as a date! Sometimes, they would just go to any concert venue that Bryce had found out from a friend or co-worker. 

A show they watch together: Alessia enjoys watching sitcoms! Sometimes, they would just have their day-off binge watch Brooklyn 99 or FRIENDS, any sitcom that could ease her mind after a long day! . (which I am obsessed now lol) Sometimes, they would do a Disney marathon with Keiki as Alessia would share a piece of her childhood with both Bryce and Keiki! 

Their favorite meal to share: Alessia is definitely a Joey! (Joey doesnt share food lol) especially during the time of the month where she would eat a whole tub of ice-cream on her own! But, Bryce would definitely share his food with her. Sometimes, when Alessia is being nice... she would definitely share, but... in the end... She is Joey Tribbani. 

Favorite thing about each other :  

Physically: 

1) Alessia’s top favorite would be his bods and abs! (I mean who doesnt lol) Above all that, Alessia love his eyes. Everytime he holds her gaze, she would definitely melt! Besides, his hair! Something about his hair make her smile, its messy and unique its own way. Finally, she loves his magic hands (DUHHHH) !!! Those arms when they were hugging made her feel at home and she really enjoys all the hugs he give! 

2) Bryce’s favorite thing about Alessia would be her smile. He would try his very best to make her smile, and its just lights him up! Besides, he really loves her hair! He would playfully ruffled it sometimes making her mad, but... she really didnt mind! To put it short, everything about her is beautiful in his eyes. Every time she would be insecure about herself, he would be the one to show her that she is amazing, just the way she it. 

Personality: 

1) Alessia adores Bryce’s confidence! She sometimes would get jealous at his confidence since she is far from it. Alessia adores his flirty banter that made her laugh everytime, as he would flirt at her every chance he gets! But, above all... Alessia adores seeing his vulnerable sight! They would have late night talks and, she loved seeing his walls come down as she saw the real him. Like, the moment Bryce revealed his past to her. She somehow, felt more in love towards that persona of him. 

2) Bryce adores her empathy towards her patients. Especially in the Mr.s Martinez case, where she wanted nothing but to make her dreams come true. At that moment, he had fallen deep. He knew she was an amazing doctor, but... seeing her being selfless towards her patients made his heart soft. Also, his heart went aww everytime Alessia and Keiki are bonding. The way she cares for Keiki made him happy, as she loved her like a sister she never had. 

Who …

made the first move: Definitely Alessia! She took the chance in the supply closet at him and the rest is history. *winks*

cooks better: Neither of them! Alessia knows a few basic recipes and that’s all. They would either order take-out or do a cooking marathon with Keiki whilst watching the Food Network! (And they would make a huge mess afterwards)

dances better: Bryce Lahela all the way! I would imagined Bryce being trained when he was young since he is from a well known family before he rebelled against his parents! Bryce would often lead the way as they danced with each other at the bar or even, just... dancing in his living room to live into the cliche fantasies that Alessia enjoys! 

wakes up first: Both! Since their doctors, they would be waking up as early as 4 AM! Sometimes, they would survived an all nighter together. 

is funnier: Bryce Lahela! Alessia tries to be the jokester, but... she would failed miserably. One day, she attempted on a joke and.. nobody laughed. She never jokes about anything after that unfaithful day. 

is more organized: Alessia! She has been an organize persona. She could be a messy person depends on her mood. Sometimes, she would have a clean room, but.. when she is in during her mood swings; it would be a mess. Bryce is a bit of both (50:50) He can be organized at times since sometimes he dont have much time to do all the tidying! But, with Keiki around.. the house tends to get more organized as she would fill her time by doing some organizing at his apartment.

has a better taste in music: Bryce would have a good taste in music since he would often explore what’s new! (He love to take Alessia on random concerts as and just... live in the moment.) Alessia’s taste is a bit old school in Bryce’s opinion since she loved all the classics from the 80s that was influenced by Alessia’s family. Bryce would sighed everytime she played her playlist but deep down he enjoys it and have been caught humming through a few of her favs! 

is more romantic: Alessia! She is a hopeless romantic at heart, and sometimes.. she would imagine herself dancing in the rain with Bryce! She would practice in front of the mirror to ask him, and.. she ended up stuttering as she invites Bryce to dance on their way to Donahue’s! He laughed at the suggestion, and they would dance on the sidewalk as Alessia imagined in the movies! (It is their own secret *wink*) Bryce has its romantic side, as he knows how to make her flushed instantly! But, if they had a contest.. Alessia would win in this game named Love. 

is more likely to scream at the sight of a spider: 100% Alessia! She has this fear of everything bugs related. Bryce would mock her about it and he loves teasing her about it. 

cries more at movies: Definitely Alessia! She is a sensitive bean at heart, she cries at anything. She once cried watching a Disney movie and Bryce would comfort her at times. Bryce didn’t cry while watching since he is not ‘weak’ but... he has it moments because Alessia once caught him wiping tears away whilst watching Toy Story 3 although, he would never admit it.

is more likely to steal all the covers at night: Both of them! Mostly, Alessia since she would always fall asleep in a cocoon and without it, it would feel incomplete! Sometimes, Bryce would hog the blanket as a way to make her curled up around him. And, most of the times... the covers would be gone from the bed since they had a war on who can take it! (The end result is, neither of them lol) 

the first to fall in love: DR. ALESSIA LYXIENNE. Her hopeless romantic persona makes her fall for him, when their first encounter at the supply closet! She realizes she is in love with him, when everything good about life ; he would be the first one to know! Despite, their early moves (hooking up and etc ) towards one another,she knows that Bryce means a lot to her and she can’t imagine a life where Bryce Lahela didnt exist.  

the first to say I love you: It’s both of them, maybe... they would say to one another after an adrenaline rush! Or.. Alessia would suddenly blurted it out, after she had talked about it with Keiki who is shipping them silently!  (THIS IS MY HEADCANON, but.. its gonna change depends on the book!)

Bonus: Bryce and Alessia would get matching bracelets and ended up getting tease by their friends! Bryce found it quite cheesy and cliche, but... deep down he is very excited about it. // Alessia would silently take loads of pics of Bryce especially when he is in a candid especially when he is eating, she gushes about him a lot on her pictagram making her friends frustrated at the amount of Bryce content she posts online! 

Tagging: @storyofmychoices​ , @raleiighcarrera​ , @lahellacute​ , @aylamwrites​ , @mrsbhandari​ , @brycelahel​ , @choicessa​  ,  @princess-geek​ , @lahellacute​ , @kacie-0156​ , @simp-for-villains​ , @annekebbphotography​ , @brycelahel​ , @mrsbhandari​ , @dcbbw​  , @fantasyoverreality98​  and anyone who wants to do it! (I AM TAGGING MY TAG LIST SINCE THIS IS SOMEHOW A FIC-ISH // HEADCANON FOR BRYCE AND MC IN THE FUTURE.) 

[starrymothwings]

Fate 21, 22, 23

Now because of the very nature of Fate and Fate Grand Order in particular, you can make the arguments that there aren’t a whole lot of crack ships in general? Now if we’re talking about the regular ol’ human and mage characters then that’s one thing and I don’t have any strong opinions on that. Ship what you want as long as it’s not, like, incest or pedophilia.

However if we’re talking servants or ships that involve servants?? Understand I’m going to mostly talk about FGO because that’s the part of the franchise I’m most familiar with, but

One of the most popular ships is literally between the alternate darker versions of Jeanne d’Arc and King Arthur who is also a woman in this.

Now there’s context for this but that doesn’t make that sentence not buck wild, right? Another ship the game teases is between Martha (like, Saint Martha) and Sasaki Kojiro who is technically one of many possible nameless swordsmen who can take up the mantle of Sasaki Kojiro by taking up and mastering his techniques. As far as ships I’ve seen art of, there’s Semiramis and Amakusa, Gilgamesh and Arturia (King Arthur but woman, also this ship is one of divided opinion for very good reason), and even Tesla and Thomas Edison. You know, Tesla and the guy that stole his inventions--oh but let’s not forget that in the Fateverse Thomas Edison is merged with all of the American presidents which for some reason makes him a fucking buff punch wizard with the head of a LION.

I’m rambling, but my point is: by the very nature of Fate, there aren’t a whole lot of characters you can stick together and properly call it a crack ship. It’s one part of the ridiculous that I love about Fate, which is that you don’t have to go out of your way to imagine any number of scenarios between all sorts of colorful characters.

This is....Hard for me to answer. Very hard.

So, the thing is, there aren’t any popular characters I can say that I hate. Either because the popular characters in the Fateverse tend to be popular for more reasons beyond the fact that they’re pretty (The original VN was an eroge, yes, but that was because of marketing. You take out or ignore the eroge scenes and you have a well-written, interesting visual novel) OR it’s because I just simply don’t have enough context for that character.

For the latter, let me use Tamamo and Nero for example. These are two characters that I KNOW are popular. They’re also characters I’m not super fond of--however, that’s possibly because I don’t know them well enough. I’ve played through Fate Grand Order and Fate Extella Link. I’m currently playing through Fate Extra for the first time, but I’m on Archer’s route. I have not played Extella Link or the other two routes in Extra, I have not watched a playthrough of CCC yet, I have not watched Last Encore, I have not read Foxtail, I have not played through Extella. 

That’s a lot of context, story, and character for those two that I haven’t experienced yet. I don’t like Nero’s character in FGO because they try to erase everything she did wrong in life, or just sweep it under the rug. However, I’ve heard that she’s written much better in the game that she debuts in, Fate Extra, and that the loose anime adaptation of it, Last Encore, has something good too.

Tamamo just...Bores me. But! I know even less of her character than Nero. It’s way too soon for me to say whether or not I dislike her when I’m only taking her at face value.

I may not like the two of them for now, but my answer may change once I have all the information.

Again, I can’t say that I there are any popular characters I hate, however...

Robin Hood (pretty sure he’s at least fairly popular) is one character that I do like, but not nearly as much as I’ve seen. I just...Don’t really get the hype? Again, haven’t played through Extella or watched someone play CCC but I HAVE played past his roles in Extra and FGO. Like I like him but I can’t say he’s a favorite of mine, or even near that spot.

Nightingale, however...Nightingale I don’t like. I don’t hate her but I don’t like her either. There were spans of time in the America singularity that I was either bored or annoyed with because of her. Does she make good points and say some dope shit occasionally? Yeah. Most of the rest of her dialogue however felt very very repetitive. Like yes I know that your shtick is that you’re a nurse and you’re here to treat the illness and disease in the singularity and Cu Alter is a prime candidate for treatment because his character as he is in that current iteration is diseased, yes yes yes. But there’s only so many times I can read her talk about illness and disease before it starts to get on my nerve. Yeah she has Madness Enhancement EX, but you know who else does? Saber Gilles. Cu Alter has it too, and they’re both coherent. Also, and more importantly, I fucking hate her pose. The art in her ascensions is fine, but the pose?? I get what it’s supposed to be but it looks so stiff. It’s an insignificant detail but she looks like a balloon person and it’s upsetting.

There are...A few. But I’m gonna talk the most in detail about one of my earliest favorites when I first got into Fate. I just mentioned him, actually.

Saber Gilles. I need to specify the class because his Caster self and Saber self are completely different (well, no? It’s complicated) and Saber is the one that’ll always hold a place in my heart.

Because I have a very soft spot for pious people who are goaded by a darker side and struggle with that darkness. Saber Gilles de Rais is not the infamous Bluebeard. Saber Gilles de Rais is the man that came before Bluebeard, the one who was known for fighting alongside Jeanne d’Arc. Saber Gilles is lawful good while Caster Gilles is Chaotic Evil. At a glance, these two are completely different, but the horrifying (and there’s beauty in that horror) truth is that he’s not. And nobody feels that horror quite like Saber Gilles himself.

Fate Grand Order tells of Gilles’ struggle not through words, but through visuals.

In his first ascension, you have him in his ‘purest’ state. You can literally call him a knight in shining armor. This is the honorable man that fought alongside Jeanne, plain and simple.

Then you have the second ascension, and you can immediately tell he’s been tainted. Something isn’t right. His cloth is bloodied, some of his armor has been stripped away and you can see a bit of a dark cloak resembling what he wore as Bluebeard--having replaced that white cape. In his hand he holds a sword. His armor has become sharper, more detailed. He is still a general, yes, but something in him has changed.

Then, the third ascension. It’s a dramatic change. One thing to note is that when servants ascend, they generally gain something in appearance, but Gilles? Gilles has lost. More than half his armor is gone, and now you can very plainly see that Bluebeard-esque garment underneath. The chestpiece bearing a cross? Gone. Every piece of white cloth? Gone. And in his left hand he holds Prelati’s Book. For context, Prelati is the being that convinced Gilles to give into his darker impulses and that led to Bluebeard, or Caster Gilles. That book is also what Caster Gilles wields. In this third ascension we finally see the man who struggles with and fears what he knows he becomes. 

Again, Saber Gilles is not Caster Gilles, cannot but Caster Gilles, but the two are not so different. Caster Gilles is not an alter of Saber Gilles, after all, but rather the two are the same man at different points in his life. As we ascend him we see him transverse the point between when he is a man with strength in his convictions, to a man fighting an inner conflict and change that is coming but will never come to him. Servants generally don’t change much because they are aspects of heroic spirits, but Saber Gilles has to change.

It’s even reflected in his battle sprites. Notice the change in the third sprite? His smile and optimism: gone.

Then, we get to his final ascension art.

THIS. This is still one of my favorite final ascension arts if not my favorite. I’m pretty sure I can’t say anything about it that I haven’t already said above, so I think it’s okay to let the image speak for itself. It’s so fucking beautiful and telling all on it’s own. The angel and devil over your shoulder imagery. Note how it’s not the side with the angel that’s closer to the viewer, that’s in the foreground. I love everything about this piece and if I could buy this as a big poster to hang up in my room I would do that in a heartbeat.

I just love Saber Gilles so, so much. The way he’s written has me smitten. I know it likely won’t ever happen, but I desperately wish he gets another interlude in the future, or a serious role in an event.

...Okay, so I did want to discuss some others but this post is long enough, so I’ll just say some other unpopular characters I love are Fionn Mac Cumhaill, Amadeus Mozart, Fergus, Yagyu (more underrated than unpopular), CALIGULA, Mephistopheles, PHANTOM, Gilgamesh (NOT unpopular just decisive and one of my big favs so I have to mention him), and Salieri if he counts. Really tried to get a lady in there but I can’t think of any that are unpopular. I’m only thinking of the FGO cast because the roster is already so long.

I wouldn’t mind (read: I would LOVE) if someone asked this question again so I can go into detail about some of my other unpopular favorites. I have more that err on the more popular side too, because my heart is big and full of love. OR just straight up send me an ask, anon or not, because I have a lot to say.

Sorry about the long post and thank you for the questions!!

[gundamgamer]

The Last of Us Part II: "There Was This Sequel... Wasn't As Good."

After seven years of what felt like forever, The Last of Us Part II has finally arrived on PS4. And…well, after the leaks were released in late April of this year, it has left the fanbase, and the Gaming Community polarizing, to say the least. Some cancelled their pre-orders, others gave the game the benefit of the doubt, and see for themselves, and then there were those who had no choice because they were getting paid to play and review the game…Only to have mixed feelings of the story. But what do I personally think of the game, overall? Well, after playing through it for a week, and processing the entirety of the main story, I don’t think it’s “the WORST thing ever”…But it’s definitely not masterpiece worthy. Let’s begin with the simple, NON-SPOILER aspects of the game:

 GAMEPLAY:

At first, I thought there was a lot of changes made with the gameplay, since the first game. I wouldn’t say the Combat Mechanics, in TLOU1 were perfect by any means. But, for a 2013 game, they were pretty solid. Though there are times where things can get glitchy and finicky, the controls felt fine…In THIS entry, however, it just feels the same. There’s little to no changes with the controls and, at times, they felt stiff to the point where I would freeze in the middle of picking items up or performing a “T pose” while getting shot at by nearby enemies (Yes, this actually happened to me during my playthrough). Granted, I do like that they gave players the Aim Assist feature, seen in the Uncharted games, which can SOMETIMES make combat a little easier, but that’s not saying much when you’re trying to aim at enemies that have the advantage. And I do feel like the jumping action was pointless, since all you had to do was run off an edge and hope to God you made it to the other side of wherever you were jumping to. Since most of the actions require you to press the Triangle (△) button, this action felt needless. The weaponry has somewhat improved, since the last game, with some familiar returns (such as the Flamethrower and Shotgun) and newer weapons (Semi-Auto Rifle, Hunting Pistol and Crossbow), the variety, on how you choose to kill your enemies, is literally at your fingertips. Finally, there’s a neat guitar mechanic where you use the pad on your DUALSHOCK 4 controller to strum the chords and play tunes on a guitar. A small but neat feature. GAMEPLAY: 3.5

 VISUALS & MUSIC:

There’s no doubt the Visuals have vastly improved since the first game; from the far horizons of Jackson to the deep overgrown forests in the Seattle area, the environments and locations look phenomenal…For the most part. Some areas, however, look so bland that they all look the same just for the purpose of Gameplay. Now, I know that sounds absurd, but hear me out: Using the same environment, for the purpose of Gameplay Mechanics is FINE. However, you need to use a different variety of location designs and settings. Otherwise, the gameplay will feel repetitive at best, and lazy at worst. But I digress. Overall, the Visuals are gorgeous to look at, especially in different season settings. Of course, it wouldn’t be a Last of Us game without the Music. Composer Gustavo Santaolalla returns to give the game life with his score, which (and I know it’s gonna sound crazy) isn’t as memorable as the first game, but is still remarkable to say the least. I also do like that they made him a character, in the game.

VISUALS: 4

MUSIC: 4

AND NOW, WE COME TO THE MEAT OF THIS REVIEW: THE SPOILERS! SO, IF YOU HAVE YET TO PLAY THE GAME, I SUGGEST YOU STOP READING, FROM HERE ON OUT…YOU’VE BEEN WARNED.

I’d also like to point out that NO, I have absolutely NO PROBLEM with LGBT+ representation in any form of media (Gaming, TV, Film etc), as there is a character, Lev, who’s LGBT+, and that is FINE. But…it’s the story that needs to get a beating in all of this. Let’s begin:

 So, let’s talk about the Story, because I have a feeling that a good number of us will agree with me when I say…IT’S ABSOLUTE DOGSHIT!! …I really have no idea where to begin.

This game’s writing is all over the place, and it’s backwards at best and atrocious at worst. Everything from feeling sympathy for the main antagonist, Abby; because it’s revealed that Joel murdered her dad while he was about to operate on Ellie at the climax of the first game (as if we were suppose to know that), to PLAYING AS ABBY FOR A GOOD TEN PLUS HOURS, A CHARACTER THAT HAD SHITTY DEVELOPMENT TO THE POINT THAT NO ONE GIVES A FLYING FUCK ABOUT HER OR ANYONE ELSE AROUND HER! Not to mention that, between Ellie and Abby, you play through flashbacks in flashbacks. This is not creative writing, this is fan fiction bullshit, and it fails FAST. Seriously, I wanted Abby’s playthrough to be done because I did not give a shit about her and wanted to go back to playing as Ellie. Can’t also forget how little to no point these characters serve in the story, from Abby’s side or Ellie’s, they all range from forgettable to needless, in the end. Aside from Dina and her ex-boyfriend, Jesse (yea, he’s pretty forgettable too, but at least he gets shot later on, by Abby), these characters serve little to no purpose to the story besides Story Progression that COULD’VE been done better. But nothing, AND I DO MEAN NOTHING, can compare to the atrocity that is the ending of this game:

Ellie finds out where Abby is heading, months after the what happened in Seattle. I’ll also mention that, for a bit you’re playing as Abby again, however it’s…somewhat forgivable as it’s only for a short period of time. Afterwards, you’re playing as Ellie throughout the Climax of the game. You come across a group of Rattlers who hunt down and take prisoner to lost travelers, when you [as Ellie] learn where Abby is kept prisoner. Once you find her, and her friend Lev (who TL;DR, identifies as a boy, but was born a girl, and his mother wanted to marry a guy but he refused so her mother went nuts and he killed her…yay?), she follows them to some nearby boats. But Ellie isn’t done with Abby yet. As the two fight it out, Ellie finally has her in the water and makes her drown. But then, for a LITERAL SECOND, she has a flashback of Joel sitting on his porch with his guitar…and feels guilt…So much so, that she lets Abby, the one person who she; wanted revenge on, set out on a mission that killed multiple people, even someone who nobody really gave a shit about (Jesse), risks just about everything to get to this point…And for what? A moral epiphany…Oh god…Ellie then returns home for Dina and their child JJ, only to find that they’re not home. She learns that they both left Ellie, for Dina could not take the chance of losing her. And so, with her ring and pinky finger, on her left hand, bitten off by Abby, she tries to play guitar and has yet another flashback with Joel. This seems to be the last time they encounter each other before he gets axed. It, for the most part, is a nice little moment between the two, as they discuss some issues that need to be resolved. But mostly that Ellie wants to forgive Joel because he lied to her about what happened in the hospital. Afterwards, she sets out on what could be an unforeseeable future…

As you can see, the story isn’t necessarily the greatest…In fact, it doesn’t even come close to the first game’s story (which by the way, won Best Storytelling and GAME OF THE YEAR. Yea, let that sink in). The reason why the first game was so successful is because it focused on the development and bond between Joel and Ellie. How they grew as characters and learned to endure and survive in a chaotic, post-apocalyptic world setting. And we, the fans, WANTED to see that again in this game. But instead, got bamboozled by false advertising. Oh yea, that scene in the trailer where Joel pulls Ellie back and asks “You think I’d let you do this on your own?” NEVER. FUCKING. HAPPENS!! Instead, it’s Jesse in that position. Seriously? WHO THE FUCK CARES ABOUT THIS GUY?! NOBODY, THAT’S WHO!! We don’t care about any of these characters. We just wanna see the ones we cared about grow and learn more from each other. We actually wanted to see if anything changed from these two, over the years. The closest we get to ANY of that, in this game, are the flashbacks with them; from the museum setting (which makes some not-so-subtle nods to Jurassic Park and its sequel, The Lost World: Jurassic Park), to the only good scene in this ENTIRE game, in my opinion: Ellie heading out to the hospital, from the first game, finding out Joel lied but having Joel confess and tell the truth…That was such a powerful scene, and the acting from both Troy Baker and Ashley Johnson was superb. It shows the emotion between the two, from guilt to betrayal, how both Ellie and Joel lost so many people within their lives, only to go their separate ways after a crucial and impactful reveal…But none of that matters to Neil Druckmann and the crew at Naughty Dog. They just wanted to push ideas that nobody really cares about, especially for a game that’s set in a post-apocalyptic setting. We play games to escape reality and venture into worlds that could NEVER be real for the sake of entertainment and fantastic storytelling. These types of media are slowly fading away, and being replaced by writers who really don’t even give little to no shit about constructive writing, internal consistency, and above all else, THE FANS!! (even if they claim to do so…Looking at YOU, Rian Johnson)

In the midst of it all, the reason I didn’t cancel my pre-order was that I was one of the few that gave this game the benefit of the doubt. Despite only vaguely knowing what those leaks had and how they could’ve affected me, I still played it through beginning to end…Only to be disappointed by an entry I – and MILLIONS more -- had waited seven years for, only for Druckmann to say “You see this? THIS ISN’T WHAT YOU WANTED! THIS IS MY STORY!! AND IF YOU DON’T LIKE IT, YOU’RE A BIGOT!!”…However, to be fair, I’ll say this: don’t take my word for it. Maybe there CAN be something to your liking, in this game. Maybe there’s a little something for everyone…just don’t expect me to play through – scratch that – suffer through this mediocre attempt of a sequel ever again. There are ways this game COULD’VE been as fantastic – if not, MORE – than its predecessor. I might have to do that in another essay, sometime. Til then, this the last of my playthrough of this gigantic disappointment.

STORY: 1.5

CHARACTERS: 2.5

THE LAST OF US PART II: 3.5/10