#is this too much nuance for a franchise about giant transforming robots fighting each other?

[koukouture]

I think everyone has their own Transformers continuity living inside their head so here's mine:

(technically I have two I but think this one is more interesting)

Okay first of all I'm flipping things a little- experienced leader and soldier Optimus and a younger, more inexperienced Megatron who's a prodigy. Do you see the vision??? Optimus who leads by example and wisdom vs Megatron who has the fire of youth and wants to revolutionize everything but lacks experience and humility.

For this hypothetical universe- Orion Pax is a police officer and Megatron is an aimless youth who recently earned his freedom from the Gladitorial scene via a sponsor (Starscream but I'll get to that later) On that- Megatron has his name already because it's a nickname he got during his gladiatorial days and now he's just kinda rolling with it lol. Orion is kind to a fault but undeniably wise and is set for a promotion to chief of his precinct and Megatron is the rookie who gets to shadow him.

(Note: The age disparity isn't extreme like Orion isn't Megatron's dad it's more of a senior/junior or older brother/younger brother type situation. I don't like these two having such a large gap between them because they're yk rivals. Equals. That doesn't work when there's a power disparity. And I think Megatron's rough life has made him quite mature anyways)

They work together for a time and the most interesting part of this whole thing (at least in my opinion) is that Megatron is the much more effective fighter. So it becomes this cute buddy cop thing for a while where Megatron is the brawns and Orion is the brain which will eventually parallel how Megatron becomes the weapon or instrument of destruction while Optimus is the reason or guiding light.

So when they inevitably have their disastrous split Orion is actually horrendously outmatched and dies. But you know, Optimus rises from the ashes and his strength as a Prime gives him just enough leverage over Megatron.

This will lead to Optimus shutting down his emotions- not necessarily becoming cruel or cold but just very distant as he believed that his kindness made him weak. Megatron meanwhile isn't exactly kind- but he has compassion and conviction. He's a good public speaker and a relatable figure to many people who are oppressed. That is how he rallies people to his cause.

What's interesting about Starscream in this AU/continuity is that he's almost Megatron's mentor. Starscream is a noble who sponsored Megatron's last fight and essentially bought him his freedom. Why? Starscream is a hedonist- everything he does is in pursuit of his own pleasure and enjoyment. He frees Megatron because even as a gladiator he was outspoken and it entertained Starscream. He joins and funds the Decepticons because he enjoys the revolution and carnage. He helps Megatron initially because Megatron's ideas entertain him. Starscream doesn't actually believe in anything; that's why he's chosen to be a follower. As for his eventual and inevitable betrayal of Megatron- he does so because he felt like it. I think the moral dilemma of "what does it mean to have a "good" reason?" is very interesting because is chasing after your own pleasure hollow or is it a worthwhile endeavor? (yes it's because of final fantasy Zenos sue me)

To parallel Starscream we have Shockwave who is a nihilist. Shockwave also believes in nothing and joins Megatron's side on a whim because the Decepticons approve and would fund his inhumane experiments. My running idea here is that Shockwave was originally a pretty upbeat, cool guy who was also after his own pleasure but eventually fell into depravity which may or may not be an indicator of where Starscream ends up.

I don't have much on the Autobots for this continuity, however I will say that Sentinel and Optimus are at odds for a while as the last two Primes. Sentinel is much more morally ambiguous and desperate while Optimus is more firm in him beliefs. It's this odd inversion of Orion and Megatron's dynamic where Sentinel is spineless and impulsive and Optimus is one again the voice of reason. But you can't exactly say that Sentinel is wrong- he is willing to do anything to survive which has earned him his status as a Prime while Optimus wants to minimize sacrifice. It's this push and pull of "you cannot save everyone" and "I have to try and save everyone." Yes, even though Optimus tries to shut down his emotions he is still incredibly sympathetic and not as unfeeling as he's like himself to be. Sentinel is the same but only suppresses his negative emotions and tries to put on a brave face for the Autobots. So when Sentinel dies and Optimus becomes the last Prime standing and the sole leader of the Autobots they take a blow to their morale.

Anyways yeah that's all I got because if I say anything else stupid shit will come out of my mouth and I will also never shit up

[ot3]

i watched red vs blue: zero with my dear friends today and i was asked to “post” my “thoughts” on the subject. Please do not click this readmore unless, for some reason, you want to read three thousand words on the subject of red vs blue: zero critical analysis. i highly doubt that’s the reason anyone is following me, but hey. 

anyway. here you have it. 

Here are my opinions on RVB0 as someone who has quite literally no nostalgia for any older RVB content. I’ve seen seasons 1-13 once and bits and pieces of it more than once here and there, but I only saw it for the first time within the past couple of months. I’ve literally never seen any other RT/AH content. I can name a few people who worked on OG Red vs. Blue but other than Mounty Oum I have NO idea who is responsible for what, really, or what anything else they’ve ever worked on is, or whether or not they’re awful people. I know even less about the people making RVB0 - All I know is that the main writer is named Torrian but I honestly don’t even know if that’s a first name, a last name, or a moniker. All this to say; nothing about my criticism is rooted in any perceived slight against the franchise or branding by the new staff members, because I don’t know or care about any of it. In fact, I’m going to try and avoid any direct comparison between RVB0 and earlier seasons of RVB as a means of critique until the very end, where I’ll look at that relationship specifically.

So here is my opinion of RVB0 as it stands right now:

1. The Writing

Everything about RVB0 feels as if it was written by a first-time writer who hasn’t learned to kill his darlings. The narrative is both simultaneously far too full, leaving very little breathing room for character interaction, and oddly sparse, with a story that lacks any meaningful takeaway, interesting ideas, or genuine emotional connection. It also feels like it’s for a very much younger audience - I don’t mean this as a negative at all. I love tv for kids. I watch more TV for kids than I do for adults, mostly, but I think it’s important to address this because a lot of the time ‘this is for kids’ is used to act like you’re not allowed to critique a narrative thoroughly. It definitely changes the way you critique it, but the critique can still be in good faith.  I watched the entirety of RVB0 only after it was finished, in one sitting, and I was giving it my full attention, essentially like it was a movie. I’m going to assume it was much better to watch in chunks, because as it stood, there was literally no time built into the narrative to process the events that had just transpired, or try and predict what events might be coming in the future. When there’s no time to think about the narrative as you’re watching it, the narrative ends up as being something that happens to the audience, not something they engage with. It’s like the difference between taking notes during a lecture or just sitting and listening. If you’re making no attempt to actively process what’s happening, it doesn’t stick in your mind well. I found myself struggling to recall the events and explanations that had immediately transpired because as soon as one thing had happened, another thing was already happening, and it was like a mental juggling act to try and figure out which information was important enough to dwell on in the time we were given to dwell on it.

Which brings me to another point - pacing. Every event in the show, whether a character moment, a plot moment, or a fight scene, felt like it was supposed to land with almost the exact same amount of emotional weight. It all felt like The Most Important Thing that had Yet Happened. And I understand that this is done as an attempt to squeeze as much as possible out of a rather short runtime, but it fundamentally fails. When everything is the most important thing happening, it all fades into static. That’s what most of 0’s narrative was to me: static. It’s only been a few hours since I watched it but I had to go step by step and type out all of the story beats I could remember and run it by my friends who are much more enthusiastic RVB fans than I am to make sure I hadn’t missed or forgotten anything. I hadn’t, apparently, but the fact that my takeaway from the show was pretty accurate and also disappointingly lackluster says a lot. Strangely enough, the most interesting thing the show alluded to - a holo echo, or whatever the term they used was - was one of the things least extrapolated upon in the show’s incredibly bulky exposition. Benefit of the doubt says that’s something they’ll explore in future seasons (are they getting more? Is that planned? I just realized I don’t actually know.)

And bulky it was! I have quite honestly never seen such flagrant disregard for the rule of “show, don’t tell.” There was not a single ounce of subtlety or implication involved in the storytelling of RVB0. Something was either told to you explicitly, or almost entirely absent from the narrative. Essentially zilch in between. We are told the dynamic the characters have with each other, and their personality pros and cons are listed for us conveniently by Carolina. The plot develops in exposition dumps. This is partially due to the series’ short runtime, but is also very much a result of how that runtime was then used by the writers. They sacrificed a massive chunk of their show for the sake of cramming in a ton of fight scenes, and if they wanted to keep all of those fight scenes, it would have been necessary to pare down their story and characters proportionally in comparison, but they didn’t do that either. They wanted to have it both ways and there simply wasn’t enough time for it. 

The story itself is… uninteresting. It plays out more like the flimsy premise of a video game quest rather than a piece of media to be meaningfully engaged with. RVB0 is I think something I would be pitched by a guy who thinks the MCU and BNHA are the best storytelling to come out of the past decade. It is nothing but tropes. And I hate having to use this as an insult! I love tropes. The worst thing about RVB0 is that nothing it does is wholly unforgivable in its own right. Hunter x Hunter, a phenomenal shonen, is notoriously filled with pages upon pages of detailed exposition and explanations of things, and I absolutely love it. Leverage, my favorite TV show of all time, is literally nothing but a five man band who has to learn to work as a team while seemingly systematically hitting a checklist of every relevant trope in the book. Pacific Rim is an incredibly straightforward good guys vs giant monsters blockbuster to show off some cool fight scenes such as a big robot cutting an alien in half with a giant sword, and it’s some of the most fun I ever have watching a movie. Something being derivative, clunky, poorly executed in some specific areas, narratively weak, or any single one of these flaws, is perfectly fine assuming it’s done with the intention and care that’s necessary to make the good parts shine more. I’ll forgive literally any crime a piece of media commits as long as it’s interesting and/or enjoyable to consume. RVB0 is not that. I’m not sure what the main point of RVB0 was supposed to be, because it seemingly succeeds at nothing. It has absolutely nothing new or innovative to justify its lack of concern for traditional storytelling conventions. Based solely on the amount of screentime things were given, I’d be inclined to say the narrative existed mostly to give flimsy pretense for the fight scenes, but that’s an entire other can of worms.

2. The Visuals + Fights

I have no qualms with things that are all style and no substance. Sometimes you just want to see pretty colors moving on the screen for a while or watch some cool bad guys and monsters or whatever get punched. RVB0 was not this either. The show fundamentally lacked a coherent aesthetic vision. Much of the show had a rather generic sci-fi feel to it with the biggest standouts to this being the very noir looking cityscape, which my friends and I all immediately joked looked like something from a batman game, or the temple, which my friends and I all immediately joked looked like a world of warcraft raid. They were obviously attempting to get variety in their environment design, which I appreciate, but they did this without having a coherent enough visual language to feel like it was all part of the same world. In general, there was also just a lack of visual clarity or strong shots. The value range in any given scene was poor, the compositions and framing were functional at best, and the character animation was unpleasantly exaggerated. It just doesn’t really look that good beyond fancy rendering techniques.

The fight scenes are their entire own beast. Since ‘FIGHT SCENE’ is the largest single category of scenes in the show, they definitely feel worth looking at with a genuine critical eye. Or, at least, I’d like to, but honestly half the time I found myself almost unable to look at them. The camera is rarely still long enough to really enjoy what you’re watching - tracking the motion of the character AND the camera at such constant breakneck high speeds left little time to appreciate any nuances that might have been present in the choreography or character animation. I tried, believe me, I really did, but the fight scenes leave one with the same sort of dizzy convoluted spectacle as a Michael Bay transformers movie. They also really lacked the impact fight scenes are supposed to have.

It’s hard to have a good, memorable fight scene without it doing one of three things: 1. Showing off innovative or creative fighting styles and choreography 2. Making use of the fight’s setting or environment in an engaging and visually interesting way or 3. Further exploring a character’s personality or actions by the way they fight. It’s also hard to do one of these things on its own without at least touching a bit on the other two. For the most part, I find RVB0’s fight scenes fail to do this. Other than rather surface level insubstantial factors, there was little to visually distinguish any of RVB0’s fight scenes from each other. Not only did I find a lot of them difficult to watch and unappealing, I found them all difficult to watch and unappealing in an almost identical way. They felt incredibly interchangeable and very generic. If you could take a fight scene and change the location it was set and also change which characters were participating and have very little change, it’s probably not a good fight scene. 

I think “generic” is really just the defining word of RVB0 and I think that’s also why it falls short in the humor department  as well.

3. The Comedy

Funny shit is hard to write and humor is also incredibly subjective but I definitely got almost no laughs out of RVB0. I think a total of three. By far the best joke was Carolina having a cast on top of her armor, which, I must stress, is an incredibly funny gag and I love it. But overall I think the humor fell short because it felt like it was tacked on more than a natural and intentional part of this world and these characters. A lot of the jokes felt like they were just thrown in wherever they’d fit, without any build up to punchlines and with little regard for what sort of joke each character would make. Like, there was some, obviously Raymond’s sense of humor had the most character to it, but the character-oriented humor still felt very weak. When focusing on character-driven humor, there’s a LOT you can establish about characters based on what sort of jokes they choose to make, who they’re picking as the punchlines of these jokes, and who their in-universe audience for the jokes is. In RVB0, the jokes all felt very immersion-breaking and self aware, directed wholly towards the audience rather than occurring as a natural result of interplay between the characters. This is partially due to how lackluster the character writing was overall, and the previously stated tight timing, but also definitely due to a lack of a real understanding about what makes a joke land. 

A rule of thumb I personally hold for comedy is that, when push comes to shove, more specific is always going to be more funny. The example I gave when trying to explain this was this:

saying two characters had awkward sex in a movie theater: funny

saying two characters had an awkward handjob in a cinemark: even funnier

saying two characters spent 54 minutes of 11:14's 1:26 runtime trying out some uncomfortably-angled hand stuff in the back of a dilapidated cinemark that lost funding halfway through retrofitting into a dinner theater: the funniest

The more specific a joke is, the more it relies on an in-depth understanding of the characters and world you’re dealing with and the more ‘realistic’ it feels within the context of your media. Especially with this kind of humor. When you’re joking with your friends, you don’t go for stock-humor that could be pulled out of a joke book, you go for the specific. You aim for the weak spots. If a set of jokes could be blindly transplanted into another world, onto another cast of characters, then it’s far too generic to be truly funny or memorable. I don’t think there’s a single joke in RVB0 where the humor of it hinged upon the characters or the setting.

Then there’s the issue of situational comedy and physical comedy. This is really where the humor being ‘tacked on’ shows the most. Once again, part of what makes actually solid comedy land properly is it feeling like a natural result of the world you have established. Real life is absurd and comical situations can be found even in the midst of some pretty grim context, and that’s why black comedy is successful, and why comedy shows are allowed to dip into heavier subject matter from time to time, or why dramas often search for levity in humor. It’s a natural part of being human to find humor in almost any situation. The key thing, though, once again, is finding it in the situation. Many of RVB0’s attempts at humor, once again, feel like they would be the exact same jokes when stripped from their context, and that’s almost never good. A pretty fundamental concept in both storytelling in general but particularly comedy writing is ‘setup and payoff’. No joke in RVB0 is a reward for a seemingly innocuous event in an earlier scene or for an overlooked piece of environmental design. The jokes pop in when there’s time for them in between all the exposition and fighting, and are gone as soon as they’re done. There’s no long term, underlying comedic throughline to give any sense of coherence or intent to the sense of humor the show is trying to establish. Every joke is an isolated one-off quip or one-liner, and it fails to engage the audience in a meaningful way.

All together, each individual component of RVB0 feels like it was conjured up independently, without any concern to how it interacted with the larger product they were creating. And I think this is really where it all falls apart. RVB0 feels criminally generic in a way reminiscent of mass-market media which at least has the luxury of attributing these flaws, this complete and total watering down of anything unique, to heavy oversight and large teams with competing visions. But I don’t think that’s the case for RVB0. I don’t know much about what the pipeline is like for this show, but I feel like the fundamental problem it suffers from is a lack of heart.

In comparison to Red vs. Blue

Let's face it. This is a terrible successor to Red vs. Blue. I wouldn’t care if NONE of the old characters were in it - that’s not my problem. I haven’t seen past season 13 because from what I heard the show already jumped the shark a bit and then some. That’s not what makes it a poor follow up. What makes it a bad successor is that it fundamentally lacks any of the aspects of the OG RVB that made it unique or appealing at all. I find myself wondering what Torrian is trying to say with RVB0 and quite literally the only answer I find myself falling back onto is that he isn’t trying to say anything at all. Regardless of what you feel about the original RVB, it undeniably had things to say. The opening “why are we here” speech does an excellent job at establishing that this is a show intended to poke fun at the misery of bureaucracy and subservience to nonsensical systems, not just in the context of military life, but in a very broad-strokes way almost any middle-class worker can relate to. At the end of the day, fiction is at its best when it resonates with some aspect of its audience’s life. I know instantly which parts of the original Red vs Blue I’m supposed to relate to. I can’t say anything even close to that about 0.

RVB is an absurdist parody that heavily satirizes aspects of the military and life as a low-on-the-food-chain worker in general that almost it’s entire target audience will be familiar with. The most significant draw of the show to me was how the dialogue felt like listening to my friends bicker with each other in our group chats. It required no effort for me to connect with and although the narrative never outright looked to the camera and explained ‘we are critiquing the military’s stupid red tape and self-fullfilling eternal conflict’ they didn’t need to, because the writing trusted itself and its audience enough to believe this could be conveyed. It is, in a way, the complete antithesis to the badass superhero macho military man protagonist that we all know so well. RVB was saying something, and it was saying it in a rather novel format.

Nothing about RVB0 is novel. Nothing about RVB0 says anything. Nothing about it compels me to relate to any of these characters or their situations. RVB0 doesn’t feel like absurdism, or satire. RVB0 feels like it is, completely uncritically, the exact media that RVB itself was riffing off of. Both RVB0 and RVB when you watch them give you the feeling that what you’re seeing here is kids on a playground larping with toy soldiers. It’s all ridiculous and over the top cliche stupid garbage where each side is trying to one-up the other. The critical difference is, in RVB, we’re supposed to look at this and laugh at how ridiculous this is. In RVB0 we’re supposed to unironically think this is all pretty badass. 

The PFL arc of the original RVB existed to show us that setting up an elite team of supersoldiers with special powers was something done in bad faith, with poor outcomes, that left everyone involved either cruel, damaged, or dead. It was a bad thing. And what we’re seeing in RVB0 is the same premise, except, this time it’s good. We’re supposed to root for this format. RVB0 feels much more like a demo reel, cutscenes from a video game that doesn’t exist, or a shonen anime fanboy’s journal scribbling than it feels like a piece of media with any objective value in any area.  In every area that RVB was anti-establishment, RVB0 is pure undiluted establishment through and through.  

[themadcapmathematician]

all i know abt transformers is the shia movie and the fact that darren criss plays one in the cartoons i think? should i get into transformers is what i'm asking

Oh god this is my favorite question. I’m not sure how to answer it but its my fave. Pull up a chair. I hope you’ve got some time on your hands.

The short answer: yes. You should at least give it a try. Transformers is a 30+ year old muti-media franchise that gets rebooted almost every 3 years so it basically has something interesting to offer almost any fan. If you end up not liking it that’s cool but there’s a lot to try before you decide.

The long answer is: yes you should and here’s why and here’s a rough idea of all the options you have to sample. I’m about to go on a long rant anon so you can check it out now or later or whatever but I’m just warning you ahead of time.

The basic Transformers plot (which I’m sure you know but I’m gonna go more in depth in a minute) is that a race of giant robot aliens who can turn into vehicles and other things have been engaged in a civil war that has lasted millions of years. This is the basic plot that all tf franchises spawn from although some explore slightly different subject matters. If that doesn’t appeal to you I mean there /might/ be a few other things you might find worth sticking around for because there’s just so fucking much of it, but you’re welcome to turn back now because that’s the basic things tf has to offer: giant robot aliens, cars and planes, fighting, some drama. Those are what tf is best at, with some variation.

It has a very active and long lived fan base and each section of the fan base is interested in different stuff with some crossover. There are people who literally only care about collecting the toys, people who wont try any other series except g1, people who only like the comics, etc. Etc. You’ll probably find people who like what you do pretty readily. If you like the toys there are toy forums and blogs. If you like the cartoons there are forums and blogs made for that too. If you like the comics, same. There’s a pretty active following of the comics and cartoon series on Tumblr alone; I would try searching the #maccadam tag since most tf activity has been moved there since the bay movies came out. Id also use the tf wiki liberally because it has pm all the information you’ll need to know about the fandom and the canon lore. There’s also plenty of fan fiction on Ao3 and ff.net if you’re into that and pm anyplace that hosts fan art has tf fan art.

Now there are several series, including comics, cartoons, the Michael bay films, the cartoon movie, spin off books, and video games. I’m gonna go over my personal favorites because I like and know them best but there are more than these if you’re interested in digging deeper.

(More under the cut)

G1: there are a lot of forms of what fans refer to as Generation 1 or G1 but if you live in the US its likely they’re talking about the very first cartoon series.

Summary: the autobots and the decepticons stripped their planet of resources and went looking for a new planet to continue surviving on. They both crashlanded on earth where they lay dormant for millions of years until conveniently awakened somewhere during the 1980s, where they continue their war all over again

Why you should try it: listen its cheesy as hell and full of nonsense plotlines and animation errors but not only is it good fun but at least watching an episode or two might give you a decent grasp on what spawned this enormous franchise in the first place.

G1 movie: this movie was a game changer. Its technically right in the middle of the g1 cartoon but it works as a standalone film too. while it has many trappings of the cartoon its better animated and has a more consistent and dramatic story.

Summary: Optimus Prime and Megatron fight, OP dies (yes he fucking DIES for the very first time. thousands of 10 year olds bawl their eyes out), Megatron gets mortally wounded, and the Matrix of Leadership (aka an autobot holy item/macguffin [this is the proto-cube btw]) has to choose a new leader.

Why you should try it: decent animation, classics lines, tons of 80s rock music, and it establishes a lot of tf conventions that would be carried over to all series that come after it.

Beast Wars: haha the 90s couldn’t be left out of the transformers fun, now could it? This was one of the first all-cg cartoon series in history and while its not much to look at nowadays, it was a big step in the 90s.

Summary: the series doesn’t center on Optimus Prime and Megatron but their decendants. The war is long over but some factions are starting to clash once again. Several members of these factions do the whole “crash land on earth while fighting” thing except they wake up during times before humans and instead of taking vehicle modes, they take animal forms, thus the name.

Why you should give it a try: it establishes the idea of Sparks for the first time, it has historical significance in the cgi realm, and it has a decent storyline with interesting characters. If you can muscle through the 90s-computer-animation look it might be the show for you!

Transformers: Animated: I dont think its a secret that this is one of my favorite tf series of all times. It was the first cartoon series I ever watched of tf and it also features my favorite toy line.

Summary: Optimus Prime is much less a war hero and more of a ..janitor really. He flunked out of the academy and spends his time repairing space bridges. One time during repairs though, they stumble across the Cube and just their luck, Megatron and some nearby cons are looking for it. They portal away to earth where they, you guessed it, crashland, until they’re awoken sometime in the future and go on adventures in futuristic Detroit.

Why you should give it a try: I like tfa’s art style and story and characterisation best tbh; Optimus is younger and more unsure of himself but also more earnest, with more visible baggage. The rest of his team feel like a ragtag band of misfits (which I have a weakness for no lie lmfao) who are still trying to find their place in this conflict and the future ahead of them. Sari is also one of the more beloved human companions and the show’s take on classics characters feels fresh and interesting, and the interpretation of the autobots and decepticons themselves is surprisingly nuanced.

Transformers: Prime: remember that 90s animation? Kiss that shit good bye my friend. This cgi is some beautiful shit. More than a few fans wish tfp is the art direction the movies had taken, storyline aside.

Summary: the autobots are already on earth, staking it out and fighting a more subdued sort of conflict with the cons. One day they get some human kids involved and stumble across some conspiracy shit and it all spirals out of control from there.

Why you should give it a try: great animation and atmosphere, gorgeous character designs, a solid interpretation go the characters, and it offers a more serious take on the story over all.

Rescue Bots: I’ve noticed this show doesn’t make the list a lot which is a shame? It has a much younger audience than any of then other series but its still quality and one of my fave tf series.

Summary: the ship of four non-combatants who were left in stasis before the war detect a transmission telling autobots to go to earth, so it…goes to earth. There they wake up on some island and are told they’ve gotta start building a repatoire with the native species…but they can’t reveal that they’re sentient aliens yet.

Why you should give it a try: ok ok, most of the series are made for 7-12 year olds with the teen and adult fans sort of in mind, this show…is a show made for pre-K kids, no joke. Its a lot less…murder-y, and this is especially saying something because it came out at the same time TFP did and in fact is supposed to take place in the same universe!

BUT, but it has a consistently well-written story and characterization, it addresses stuff I never thought it would, and its a nice break from the ridiculously high stakes of the other series. Honestly Rescue Bots is great and I wish more people talked about it because its a series totally worth watching, certainly as much as any of the others.

More Than Meets the Eye comics: there are a lot of comic series but so far this is my favorite one lol

Summary: the war is over, Optimus is done with everyone’s shit and splits the matrix in half, giving one to rodimus and they other to bumblebee. And what does roddy do with his newfound matrix half? Decide he’s going on a quest of course! And who better to go with than literally every unqualified misfit the autobot and neutral factions have to offer?

Why you should give it a try: ridiculous shenanigans, horror, drama, intrigue, strong characterisation, and a killer aesthetic. Damn it may not always give me what I want but its got a lot of exactly what I’m always looking for.

There are some video games (Fall of Cybertron, War For Cybertron, Transformers: Devastation), other comic series (Robots in Disguise, G1/UK comics), and the Robots in Disguise cartoon, however I don’t have a decent enough grasp on them to describe them super well I just know they’re pretty good and have had people recommend them to me. You’re welcome to try those as well of course.

Also if you’re into toy collecting or want to get into it there’s a lot of materials you can read and such but my personal advice is pretty simple:

1) go to walmart, target, a store that sells collectibles, a convention, or a garage sale

2) buy a cheap toy that you like. Don’t spend over like $20

3) decide if that was a fun experience or not and if you like having this toy or not

If you liked it enough to keep buying, then congrats, toy collecting might be right for you! Do your research, Don’t blow too much money too quickly, take it easy, have fun.

But yeah sorry this is really long but I do hope you consider giving transformers a try since I know I love it a lot and it really has a lot to offer. I hope this wasn’t like…a crazy response. That a crazy person might give. And that I didn’t scare you away or anything XS

the key is to try some stuff and have fun and if its not your thing that’s cool too! Have a chill night anon

[jackleveledup]

Game of the Year 2016: My Top Three

It's been a long road for Game of the Year and 2016 in general, but we finally made it to the top three! In case you missed it, there were a ton of other games I loved this year that I wrote about in a post I called "Very Good Games".

And one last thing before we close this out: thanks for reading!

#3. Hyper Light Drifter

This year, no single moment compared to the rush I got from my first chain-dash in Hyper Light Drifter. There's a primal satisfaction to the accelerating timing it demands, as each flash of pink and teal raises the pressure of the impending button press. Eventually I learned that it's not that good in combat and it's only one of many means of survival, yet it was at that precise moment that the game won me over.

I say this without exaggeration: Hyper Light Drifter is a visual masterpiece. Fans and Kickstarter backers have been drooling over screens for years now, and the reality seems to have even exceeded expectations. Environments overflow with lightly muted colors and all kinds of mystery, like enormous Evangelion-inspired beasts, esoteric symbols, and ruins of a civilization long since past. Animation is beautifully handled frame-by-frame, highlighting the tension in each action and closing off with a shimmer of vibrant neon.

It's not an easy game by any means, but success becomes its own reward. Every battle is a fury of bullets and blades with far more dead bodies than dead air. I found myself often getting lost in the chaos, only realizing a room was clear when my darting eyes couldn't find anything new to shoot at. What's unusual, though, is that I didn't find the boss fights to deliver the same sense of exhilaration as the average encounter along the way, but as a capstone to a difficult journey, they work well enough. Maybe I should just be grateful I was never tempted to chuck a controller.

Hyper Light Drifter is enthralling, both in its hectic gameplay and its unwordly atmosphere. I know without a doubt that I'll be back for another shot at deciphering what the hell happened to this world.

#2. Kirby: Planet Robobot

If you've ever daydreamed about what you'd do with your own giant super robot, Kirby: Planet Robobot is a game you need to play. I mean this in the best way possible: it seems like the game was designed by a 6 year old with complete creative authority.

"Give it a giant drill! No, saw blades! Give it flamethrowers! Make it transform into a car! AND a jet!"

Yep, those are all things you can do, and it owns!

The heart of Kirby games has always lied in their diverse power-ups: fire, ice, spark, hammer, bomb, and dozens of others. This time, the sizable set of abilities is doubled by applying not just to Kirby, but his huge, face-shaped armor suit. If Kirby gets a sword, his mech gets two massive beam-sabers. If Kirby gets a jetpack, his mech transforms into a jet! Discovering all of the ways these forms could be used was a joy that lasted me the entire length of the game.

With so many power-ups there's a staggering number of game mechanics at play, which HAL Laboratories take full advantage of in the level design. Whether its a puzzle requiring a certain power-up, a rare boss or ability, or simple visual flair, each stage has some kind of "gimmick" to separate it from the last. Ideas reappear only seldomly, and not without being somehow altered and built upon. Sometimes the game even pretends to be something else entirely, like the shmup style stages that utilize the "Jet" version of the robot armor, or the auto-scrolling stages in the "Wheel" armor. All of this leads to a collection of stages that feel memorable and worth revisiting.

Between its game design and its vast possibility-space, Planet Robobot executes on its concept almost as perfectly as I can imagine. I know Kirby isn't the top Nintendo franchise for most people, but given the run the series is having right now, I'm starting to seriously question how long my little pink creampuff will go underappreciated!

#1. VA-11 HALL-A

VA-11 HALL-A is a visual novel that sounds extremely good in theory - just read its tagline: "cyberpunk bartender action." You play as Jill, who works at a bar called Valhalla in a futuristic city of perpetual darkness, poor people, robots, androids, and most of all, strife. It operates pretty differently as a video game, though. It's often assumed that gameplay exists for the sole purpose of fun, but even for a visual novel, VA-11 HALL-A's simple mechanics took me more than a few drinks to warm up to. Kinda' like in real life, the process of mixing "Brandtinis" and "Bleeding Janes" isn't especially exciting after the first few times, and almost everyone visiting the bar seems to have way more going on in life than you. I just wasn't seeing how it came together. It took some time and careful thought, but by the end of the game it had shaped into something incredible.

It's all thanks to the bar's atmosphere that I stuck around at all, and man, did they nail it. First and foremost, this soundtrack is phenomenal. What woud otherwise be your average cyberpunk setting becomes a wondrous dystopia thanks to Garoad's deft, moody composition. Its implementation is sharp, too. Instead of having music set to match each scene, you're handed complete control over the playlist while on duty. There's a palpable realism to incidentally having serious talks over loud, upbeat music, or joking during an ominous buildup. It helps to give Jill some believable agency as a bartender, too. You can always decide what drink to serve, how strong to mix it, or what music you want to play, but not who comes in that night or what to talk about. Details matter, and the developers at Sukeban Games were paying careful attention.

While Jill herself doesn't seem to bring much nuance to the story (...at first), the rest of the cast handily pick up the slack. The pixel-based character portraits are surprisingly expressive and go a long way in realizing the game's zany, reference-loaded dialog. Dorothy is a definitive fan favorite - she's an android that was specifically engineered to have weaker emotional responses to things that humans often find traumatizing. This trait colors every one of her conversations with typical humans, especially once you figure out that she's a sex-worker. Her career is almost completely inconsequential to her and she LOVES to tease people about it, so the scenes that ensue whenever she meets someone new at Valhalla are pretty entertaining, to say the least. In general, though, Sukeban Games have a firm grasp on how to both play into tropes and subvert them, which allows them to hit their punchlines without compromising any drama during more serious scenes.

My favorite part about VA-11 HALL-A is how much of the narrative the player is trusted to piece together. For a visual novel there's suprisingly little exposition - almost none, actually! It's basically all conversations, and not even ones explicitly about current events. Your only glimpse at what's happening outside of the bar is limited to what you happen to hear, what you choose to read in the news or on shitty forums, and most importantly, what connections you can draw between them. It's amusing to talk to some of the bar's customers, for sure, but your impression might completely change when you realize what they're up to before they stop in or finish their last drink.

The way in which VA-11 HALL-A dismantled my first impression continues to impress me. As the credits rolled it made perfect sense that the bartender would feel less interesting than the guests she serviced. Maybe it shouldn't feel "fun" to Jill when she mixes a drink for a grumpy customer. Maybe it makes sense that a struggling bartender wouldn't have the clearest picture of the "what's" and "why's" of her city's politics. None of that is crucial to finding happiness anyway. VA-11 HALL-A highlighted aspects of life that I don't usually give a second thought to, in a way that feels uncommonly literary for a video game. It's probably not going to be a game for everyone, but to those that seek it out, the narrative at work is nothing short of intoxicating.