#just. odd. and does not match the lore they have set up for almost 20 years now

[blu-et]

i'm a good 15 hours into veilguard and no one has made negative comments toward my elven rook? not even in minrathous where elves are literally slaves? no mention of alienages except in the codex and not one ear-related slur. it's like they are trying to rebrand thedas as a land of tolerant, multicultural liberal democracy. very strange!

[killscreencinema]

Doom Eternal (PS4)

Rip n’ tear!

Rip n’ tear!

Rip n’ tear!

5 stars.

End of review.

Nah, just kidding, but that does more or less summarize my feelings on Doom Eternal, the sequel to the masterpiece soft reboot of Doom that came out in 2016, other wise known as Doom 2016.  On a side note, who would have thought “Doom 2016″ would have ended up being an omen of the following four year?  Weird.

Anyway, speaking of Hell on Earth, Doom Eternal’s plot revolves around an all-out demonic invasion of Earth, with humanity’s only hope being the DoomSlayer (aka, the Doomguy).  A lot has changed since he last thwarted Hell’s efforts on Mars, such as the DoomSlayer’s swanky new mothership known as the Fortress of Doom.  Where did he get it?  That information is probably provided in the loads of codex pages you find throughout the game that fill in the gaps in the lore.

Which brings me to my first problem with the game - too much story getting in the way of my ripping n’ tearing.  I know, I could skip the cutscenes, but that ain’t really the point.  Part of Doom 2016′s charm was its middle finger to story intensive gameplay and obnoxiously extensive game lore.  What minimal story there was in the game was carried out organically during gameplay, similar to Half Life 2.  Nothing ever felt like a cut scene or a complete interruption of the game.  Also, the story pretty simple - you are a legendary badass who has been resurrected to save Mars, and by proxy the Earth, from the forces of Hell.

Doom Eternal tries to expand on the lore by giving Doomguy a backstory, involving him belonging to a race of demi-gods known as “Sentinels” who have stood in opposition to Hell throughout the ages.  That’s pretty lame, as the appeal of THE DOOMSLAYER to me is that he’s just a regular dude who is so good as slaying demons at will, they’ve built a mythology around him as an unstoppable killing machine and the only being demons fear.  That’s enough for me - I don’t need him to be part of a lineage of “Slayers” or some shit like that.  YOU’RE OVERTHINKING THINGS BETHESDA! 

I won’t lie though - there were some cutscenes I enjoyed, such as any time Doomguy interacts with other humans, who all scurry out of his way in fear or are just paralyzed in awe. 

Another issue I have with the game is THERE’S TOO MANY WAYS TO KILL THINGS!  I know, it’s an odd complaint, but bear with me here.  So you have 8 standard weapons, but each weapon, except the Super Shotgun and the BFG, have two mods each that fundamentally changes them into new weapons essentially.  So counting the mods, and the chainsaw, you have 21 weapons to choose from!  That’s... a lot of goddamn weapons.  I envision Doomguy comically approaching a demon fight, both hands full of so many weapons they clatter to the ground as he tries to pick the best one for the fight.  Then there are the frag grenades, the ice grenades, the flame thrower, the “Blood Punch”, and eventually the one-hit-kill sword.  All this results in me either pushing the wrong button for what I want (”Ah shit, I meant select the sword, but I accidentally switched my frag grenades to ice grenades!”) or getting pounded by projectiles in slow motion as I go through my weapons and try to figure out the best one for this particular encounter. 

Oh shit, and then there are the Runes, which give you different abilities while equipped AND you can upgrade the Praetor suit.  Oh, and you can upgrade your stats by finding crystals along the way.  It’s just too much, and a little overwhelming to juggle at first.  I just wanna shoot things, Doom Eternal!

Well, fortunately the game has plenty of that and then some.  The combat is just as intense and frenetic as Doom 2016, with “glory kills” still in full effect and a nice variety of demons to maul.  There’s nothing quite as satisfying as the visceral thrill of tearing a Cacao demon to pieces.  Doom Eternal can also be extremely challenging, especially if you dare to venture into the harder difficulty settings.  I tried playing through it on “Ultra-Violence” (the Doom equivalent of “Hard”) and got my ass humbled back into “Hurt Me Plenty” (aka “normal”) pretty quickly. 

While Doom Eternal might be a little too bloated, like a Mancubator on a Golden Corral binge, it’s still, at its core, every bit as fun as its predecessor.  The graphics are amazing, especially the lovingly crafted, ultra detailed level designs.  There were many instances, in between battles of course, that I would just stand there and take in the environments.  So if you loved Doom 2016, and current events make you wanna tear things to pieces, preferably virtual things, then Doom Eternal is a solid playthrough.

  UPDATE

Since posting this review, I have gone on to play the online “Battlemode”.  Normally, I don’t care for online multiplayer games.   Playing games have always been a solo activity for me - a way to take a break from people.  Also, playing online games seems frustrating in that you almost always start with a huge difficulty curve as you often play against people who LIVE AND BREATH the game 24/7, and therefor, have the uncanny knack to destroy you utterly and immediately before you have a chance to move, much less “get gud”. 

Anyway, I started playing Battlemode solely to pop the PS4 trophies associated with it so that I can Platinum the game.  I must admit, now that I’ve taken the “PS Plus plunge”, I’m curious to check out other online games people seem to be nuts about like Rocket League (which honestly looks fun as hell, I must admit) and Overwatch.  So I figured it was only fair to edit my review to include my impressions of Doom Eternal’s online mode, which is thus..

My usual gripes about online death match difficulty curves aside, “Battlemode” is incredibly lopsided with its premise of 2 player demons versus one player Slayer.  Not only are the odds stacked against you as the Slayer, but the demons also have the ability to summon minions to pester you, make your loot disappear (thereby making health replenishment a pain in the ass), and they respawn if you don’t kill them both within 20 seconds.  As the Slayer, when you are up against two players who are extremely good as demons, the round can be over in seconds, which is infuriating and not remotely fun.   

Meanwhile, playing as a demon is much easier for all the reason listed above, despite some demons handling better than others.  The only difficulty is that the Slayer is inherently faster and more agile than any demon you can choose, which is the only real advantage a Slayer has.  None of this would be a problem if you could just knock out the trophies as a demon, even though it’s a bit of an irritating grind, except one trophy REQUIRES you to be the Slayer - the Weapons Expert trophy, wherein you must kill player demons with each of the 8 weapons at your disposal, including the BFG, which you only have the option of using should you survive to Round 4 (which odds are you won’t).  It’s an incredibly frustrating task, but I got lucky and found a lobby where the player demons were either exceptionally bad or were away from their controller a lot.  So I was able to knock out this trophy at my convenience then, but only after several incredibly frustrating failed attempts.

The only other trophy where being the Slayer is ideal is the “Blood Bath” trophy, where you must kill 200 opponents.  This goes by a lot quicker as the Slayer if you can manage to consistently kill both player demons every round in every match, but you’ll be lucky to kill even one.  However, even then, that can work to your advantage because when they respawn, you can kill them again and rack up another point towards the trophy.  Trying to pop this trophy as a demon is less of a headache, but still sucks because it’s too slow and possible your demon ally will get the deathblow, thereby stealing your point.

So the point of all this is to say I hate Battlemode.  I hate it with a burning passion not unlike the fires of Hell.  I wish the online feature of this game could have just been a good ol’ fashion Death Match.  It’s also bullshit that the game even has trophies you can’t pop unless you play online, because what if you’re a late comer and nobody is playing Battlemode anymore?  Does that mean you just can’t Platinum Doom Eternal?  It’s also mild extortion in that it forces you to pay for PS Plus if you don’t already have it.

So there you have it:

Doom Eternal solo campaign = good

Doom Eternal Battlemode = bad

Happy slaying!

[animebw]

Binge-Watching: Pokemon, Episodes 1-3

And so we begin our longest journey yet with our first tentative step. Does this show still hold up 20 years later? Is Ash as annoying as you remember? What’s it like to look back on where it all began after marinating in everything it’s become? Welcome, folks, to my adventure through the Pokemon anime!

The Wayback Machine

This is gonna be the weirdest analysis I’ve ever done for this blog.

I am not that familiar with Pokemon as an anime. The most I’ve watched of it has been the movies up to Arceus and the Jewel of Life, as well as pretty much the entire Diamond and Pearl saga. At the same time, though, I am hugely familiar with Pokemon as a cultural phenomenon. I bought all the games from Emerald to Black and White, I dove headfirst into the increasingly dense Pokedex data, and I absolutely fucking loved learning about each and every new critter Game Freak added to the canon. I devoured their stats, their lore, their type advantages, the mythos behind them, what kind of concept they were all based on, the human characters that interacted with them from trainers to villain gangs to gym leaders to Elite Four, and everything in between. I’m familiar with Ash, Misty, Brock, Team Rocket, Officer Jenny, Nurse Joy, Giovanni, Pikachu, Mew, Mewtwo, and all the rest of the original 151 pocket monsters. I love OG Pokemon. I don’t know a single nineties-aughts kid who doesn’t. It really was the perfect toy concept, endlessly merchandisible and utterly ubiquitous. Pokemon was just as much my childhood as everyone else’s, a staple of the young imagination that took root like nothing else.

And now’s the first time I’m actually freaking watching it.

This is the kind of prior expectation setting that no other franchise could possibly hope to match. Pokemon is a giant, massive, multimedia franchise, with trading cards and video games and plushies and everything in between, and it’s entirely possible to get the “story” of Pokemon in its entirety, as it were, without ever having to actually watch the most story-based element of it. I now know pretty much everything there is to know about Pokemon (at least up until Gen 5, after which I lost interest for a while), all the heaps and mountains of context that color what this franchise has become. But this original anime didn’t have all that outsized context. All it had were the initial few games and the barest beginnings of the goliath Pokemon would become. It had to be the bedrock upon which everything else was built, the foundation that would grow into the inescapable tendrils of pop culture that ensnare us today. The kids of twenty years ago didn’t go into Pokemon with decades of cultural expectations built up; they went into it with fresh eyes, discovering an entirely new world, with entirely new characters, being told a story that had to hook them in completely with its own merits. And now, here I am at last, analyzing a marathon right from its starting point when all I’ve ever known of it has been its finish line. How the heck am I even gonna make sense of all those conflicting patterns of thought? It’s almost like I’m gonna be re-watching a series I’m experiencing for the first time.

But you know what? I tackled all 367 episodes of Gintama no matter how many times it left me emotionally broken. I suffered through abominations like Guilty Crown and Future Diary and lived to tell the tale. I re-watched Neon Genesis Evangelion, Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood, and Angel Beats, three of my top five anime ever, and still found new and exciting things to say about them. This blog has been nothing but me overcoming seemingly insurmountable odds, finding the words to communicate the extreme, indescribable, sometimes incomprehensible feelings anime can leave me with. I am a writer who lets nothing stand in my way. So what’s one more impossible task to complete? What’s another thousand episodes of setting familiar eyes on something I’ve never seen before? If I’ve survived talking about anime as long as I have, then I can survive Pokemon too. Who knows, maybe that dichotomy of past and present experience will make my analysis even richer than it otherwise would have been. After all, there’s something really powerful about standing at the end of a long journey and casting an eye back to where it all began.

So bring it on, Ash Ketchum. You and I both have a long-ass journey ahead of us, so let’s make every step count.

Living in a Pokemon World

So, with all that rambling word salad introduction out of the way, all qualifiers and asterisks set aside, how are the first ever few episodes of Pokemon? Well, they’re good! Very good, even, in some respects! It’s definitely far from perfect, and the product of being cash-cow kids’ show translated by an equally cash-cow marketing team isn’t exactly subtle. The animation isn’t always the best; there’s a particularly goofy moment where instead of animating Pikachu’s thundershock attack, the screen just pinwheel-cycles between four still images of the attack as they rotate around the screen’s corners. Some of the dub voice acting is quite good, while some characters- Gary Oak, Misty, and Officer Jenny- can get seriously grating with how rough-edged their voice-actors are. I’m also taking a little to get used to Ash’s voice, as the only version of Ash I ever heard was after the actor changed in Diamond and Pearl. It’s goofy and corny and very simplistic at times, with characters who can act like insufferable brats in the worst-case scenario. But you know what? I’m still really fucking enjoying it. For all its numerous flaws, it’s driven by a sincere, imaginative passion that really shines through. There are so many charming moments, so many clever touches, and so many ideas that really made me sit back and say, “Wow, no wonder this show caught on like it did.” This isn’t just a cash-in money mill for the profit machine, it’s trying to be a genuinely inspiring, horizon expanding adventure story. And despite how long the road ahead looks, I’m genuinely excited to follow it.

I think what stands out the most is how deeply committed this show is to wringing out every last ounce of potential from its concept. It doesn’t just want you to love Pokemon, it feels like it sincerely loves Pokemon itself. I can only imagine what this must have looked like to the kids of twenty years ago experiencing this world for the first time, not knowing all 151 original Pokemon and seeing everything with fresh eyes. Why is a three-headed bird crowing like a rooster to signal the dawn? Why does Ash’s alarm clock have a face on it and spring open to reveal a bird figure inside? Who are all these mysterious creatures we see Ash running by as he escapes from the murder birds, and what cool powers might they have? What’s that giant fucking water serpent that almost eats his face off? What’s that majestic bird we see flying over the rainbow at the end of the first episode (side note, HOW IS THERE A FUCKING HO-OH IN THE FIRST EPISODE WE’RE NOT IN JOHTO YET ARE YOU SHITTING ME)?  It’s easy to forget with how ubiquitous the brand is now, but the concept of a world populated by hyper-competent super-animals that integrate perfectly into human society is kinda freaking bizarre, yet this show completely sells it. You feel just how much deeply entwined humans and Pokemon have become, how carefully this entire society’s been constructed around their presence. Even that one scene of Caterpie and Pikachu talking in episode 3 was really charming; it’s remarkable how much chemistry you can establish between two characters who can’t even use words. I can only imagine what it must have been like seeing all this for the first time, marveling at the endless possibilities this world would allow. And we’ve only just got into Type advantages and Evolutions; how fucking cool must that have been seeing it for the first time?

And heck, even for a grown-ass adult like me who’s been marinating in this stuff for decades, there’s still stuff here that really sparks my imagination! I love the goofy primitive voice chat that uses corded telephones connected to the computer monitor, the wet dream of communications technology past. I love the bizarre way that actual living beings can be stored and transferred through a network connection at the Pokemon Center. Heck, I’m even intrigued by the mystery of that mural in the Pokemon Center with the four legendary beings depicted on it; at first glance it just seems like the three Legendary Birds, but Ash seems to think one of them’s really Ho-Oh, so is that actually true? And who’s the fourth Arcanine-looking guy in the bottom right? And then there’s the residual angst of seeing Ash break so many of the rules from the video games, which made for more than a few moments of complete expectation readjustment. Seriously, he catches a Caterpie without any damage, he catches a Pidgeotto with just a single Thundershock’s worth of damage, he gets to keep his Pokeballs even after failing a capture with them, and he takes down two trained and dangerous poison Pokemon with a single use of fucking String Shot, and then his Caterpie evolves after just two battles? Somebody get Game Freak on the phone, because they’ve been stiffing us poor players for years while Ash gets to break all the rules. Clearly, even a lot of stuff I think I know can no longer be taken for granted in the wild world of Pokemon.

Gotta Ketchum All

If I’m being honest, though, the most promising aspect of the Pokemon anime isn’t the fascinating of the world itself and all the ways it can incorporate the titular critters into it. Shockingly enough, what gives me the most hope for this anime success is none other than Ash Ketchum himself, the perpetual butt of jokes since 1997. It’s easy to pick on this perpetual ten-year-old for his brash arrogance and how it took him 22 years to actually become a Pokemon Master, but I was stunned by how quickly he wormed his way into my heart here. Sure, he’s definitely reckless and a little too proud of himself, but what sticks out the most about him is just how committed he is to doing the right thing. He’s gotten so much shit thrown at him already, between oversleeping, Gary’s jackassery, Pikachu’s initial disdain for him, and his constant bickering with Misty, not to mention a certain trio of Poke-nappers gunning for his new companion. But for all his exasperation and attitude, he consistently tries to do right by the people around him. When Gary’s giving him sass in the first episode, Ash still tries to make friends with him over their shared love of Pokemon, eager to hear about which one Gary got from the professor. When Pikachu’s refusing to obey him, he does his best to listen to its demands and give him free reign instead of confining to for a Pokeball. And even after bristing against Pikachu’s stubbornness, he doesn’t hesitate a second to throw his own life on the line to keep his new pal safe from the attacking Spearow flock. Ash is the kind of guy who can easily bitch and moan about his misfortunes, but when the chips are down, he’ll quickly step up and make the right call, because his heart’s genuinely in the right place.

In short, Ash Ketchum is one part the animal-loving softie of Steve Irwin, one part the prickly defensiveness of Yusuke Yurameshi, and one part the wanderlust-driven traveler Gon Freecs (side note, when did Hunter x Hunter start in comparison to the Pokemon anime? Because the whole concept of a shonen protagonist kid setting off on an adventure across a modern, yet undiscovered world, chasing the profession that his absent father once performed... yeah, I got questions, Togashi), and that combination makes for a surprisingly fun protagonist to be around. He’s driven by a genuine love of Pokemon, and it’s clear he has great respect and admiration for the many remarkable critters he comes across. When Misty’s freaking out over his Caterpie, he doesn’t hesitate to comfort the poor guy and give it the encouragement it needs. He’d even let it travel on his shoulder alongside Pikachu, because that’s how quickly he’s come around to the idea of treating Pokemon with kindness and respect. Heck, when Caterpie’s crawling off in a huff, he even crawls right alongside it rather than just spend five seconds getting out of his damn sleeping bag. This kid might be a few good multiple choice answers short of an SAT, but he’s ready and willing to jump right into the thick of things, mess up however he has to, and keep on trucking until he finds the right way forward. If nothing else, you really gotta respect that gumption.

To Protect the World

And now, folks, it’s the moment you’ve all been waiting for: the moment when the true stars of the show take their first bow. Drum roll, please!

*ahem*

To protect the world from devastation!

To unite all peoples within out nation!

To denounce the evils of truth and love!

To extend out reach to the stars above!

Jessie!

James!

Team Rocket blasts off at the speed of light!

Surrender now or prepare to fight!

(Meowth, that’s right!)

Christ, is there a single more iconic villain motto in any other anime? In any piece of media ever? Heck, is there a more perfect villain introduction than these three hooligans using a fishhook to snatch their own wanted poster from the comfort of a hot air balloon emblazoned with their head honcho’s face, only to complain that their photos aren’t flattering enough? You tell me, because I’m not seeing one.

There’s no getting around it folks; there is no set of fictional antagonists quite like Team Rocket. Jessie, James and their talking Meowth are the stuff of villain legend, some of the most perpetually entertaining foes ever to grace the silver screen. And even with just two appearances under their belt, I completely understand why they exploded in popularity to such an extent: they are an absolute delight. They’re all the pomp and circumstance of villainy mixed with the buffoonish incompetence of the Three Stooges, masters of showmanship and grace but complete morons at actually, y’know, being evil. So they’re able to be as enjoyable over-the-top as the best scenery chewers without any of the associated sense of danger that more competent villains give off, and the result is possibly the single most perfect villainous banter and chemistry of all time. You get all the enjoyment of the villainous flamboyance with none of the associated risk, because these lunkheads can barely go two seconds without descending into infighting. There the rarest of all treasures, some of only few villains who you’re capable of loving unconditionally, even rooting for their success safe in the knowledge that they’ll never cause any actual harm. Bottom line, I’m already enjoying the hell out of them, and I look forward to many more happy blast-offs to come.

Odds and Ends

-Yep, that theme song is still killer.

-asdjhasd I didn’t expect it to start with the freaking game graphics

-WHY DOES HE HAVE CHEELREADERS ISTG GARY

-”The early bird gets the worm. Or in this case, the Pokemon.” Wow, Professor Oak really let him open all those empty pokeballs instead of just telling him up front. ASSHOLE.

-”Shocking, isn’t it?” PUNS? That settles is, Professor Oak is the real villain of the series.

-”Oh, you’re playing catch! You’re friends already!” Ash’s mom is a delight.

-”Enjoy your last moments of freedom!” Don’t think about it too hard don’t think about it too hard don’t think about

-”It also comes to open fields to steal food from stupid travelers.” WOW, way to call him out, Pokedex.

-”I’ll give it back someday!” Ash Ketchum, Kanto’s Most Wanted.

-I. I forgot about the Pokerap. Why is there a Pokerap. WHY.

-”You know there’s a driveway.” The way Nurse Joy says this, it makes me think Officer Jenny must barge in through the front doors a lot. Hmmm. Hmmmmmm.

-”Oh my goodness, I left my motorcycle parked at the front desk!” ...fuck it, I ship it. JennyJoy for life.

-”I suppose that proves it!” Oak continues to be the most chaotic presence in this entire show.

-”Well... money isn’t everything, right?” akjsdhaskjdhaskjdhaskjdh

-”Mmm, anchovy, spinach and pineapple pizza!” Out of all the surprises I was expecting from the Pokemon anime, Professor Oak being the secret evil mastermind was not one of them, yet here we are.

-Okay, so some of the Pokemon’s voice actors are putting in a lot of effort to sound like animals, and then there’s Goldeen. Just... Goldeen.

-Ash Commits Domestic Terrorism(tm)

-”No, not this again!” He’s already sick of their intro askjdhasjkdhasd

Hot damn, here we go. Still over 1,000 episodes to go. Can we make it? Only one way to find out. Thank you all for joining me on this new adventure, and I’ll see you next time!

[dire-vulture]

16, 35, 42, 43, 45, 49, 53, 62, 63, 69, 79!

THAT is a lot of numbers omg,, let’s do this

16. answered here!

35. How in-tune with their native element are your dragons? Does it vary? If you have any dragons that aren’t, why is that?

OH yes does it vary. I have some dragons who are very elementally inclined (no mistaking Tamarind for anything but a Nature Boy), some who outright refuse their birth element (Zaffre is native to plague, but uses lightning magic), and many who are just neutral. I’d say the majority of my dragons don’t have any sort of magic or strong affinities. But the ones that do have magic often have powers that don’t have much to do with their element at all. As for why, I guess that’s just the way it is haha. Zaffre just never jived with Plague. And same with Bergamot, who hides his plague eyes with green goggles... And Kyurem has light eyes, but they’re as icy a dragon as it gets! Moraine doesn’t have magic at all, but she still relates more closely to her family’s ice roots than wind. and Gushers is wind too, but she is ALL about the arcane, it’s what interests her the most. i could list more but i think that suffices haha...

42. If your clan leader went off the deep end, who would stand by them no matter what?

Oh well, my clan has four leaders: Tarragon, Moraine, Zaffre, and Tamarind... them going off the deep end, not totally sure what it would entail omg. They’d probably all try and stand by each other though, though if they were doing like, truly horrifying stuff the others would do their best to try to figure out and ultimately stop the situation dfadsfsdg otherwise they’d do their best to be understanding of why one of them was suddenly so distraught or whatever? i think i good portion of the lair would want to like, help too. (though it also would depend on a lot of factors.

I guess if you want some more specifics, Ingot would be the most likely to stick by Moraine? Ingot really respects and trusts Moraine and they are very good friends! Kyurem of course would stick by Zaffre, they’re partners and have known each other for like 40 years by this point and have gotten closer than ever the latter half of that. Tamarind has had a bit of harder time getting support from dragons other than Tarragon and Moraine, and his heaps of exes in the lair doesn’t help, but I think I’ll say Hallow would be most likely to stick by him. They’re exes too, but it ended amicably and I think of anyone in the lair, Tamarind probably helped Hallow come to terms with the loss his charge the best, so Hallow has the utmost respect for Tam. And lastly, Tarragon... Tarragon is so lovable, friendly, and gentle that finding dragons in the lair that like him is as easy as it gets...but truthfully he isn’t super close to a ton of them outside his fellow leaders. I think the one who’d be most likely to stick by him is his younger brother Paragon, who throughout their whole lives the two have always done what they could to support each other, even if they find themselves at odds sometimes. Paragon isn’t the most popular dragon in Florabrisa, but Tarragon is always there to defend him anyway, and Paragon would definitely return the favor should something strange ever happen.

oof that was long im gonna put everything else under a read more fadsfd

43. How has your clan changed since it started? This can mean when you first joined or in-lore.

Well, in lore, the clan’s certainly grown a lot in the 20 years it’s been around! It’s still a small community but it’s bustling! The gardens of Florabrisa will always be its major feature, but it has a lot more on offer now.It’s always been pretty agrarian, but there are much more food options now than there used to be. Crystalspirit has grown his art gallery considerably through the years and now with Ardest joining the clan, there could be a local art scene coming... I also wanna get some theatre in, Florabrisa definitely has one and i think Tabbagh is gonna be a big player, they love the stage. Ricotta too honestly, she’s very theatrical. and Bomoseen will probably be trying to introduce film to the lair (though they currently don’t have the tech for it. Bom needs to talk to Xana.....)

And out of lore, I think I still have more or less the same concept as i did at the start! The biggest change might be that at first Tarragon was the only leader, but I later decided to elevate Moraine, Zaffre, and Tamarind to be his equals. Tarragon leading by himself just didn’t really make sense to me haha. Also adding the swamp was a pretty big deal! Picked up some many swamp aes dragons this year haha... Also, initially I did think that breeding didn’t have to be a relationship thing, but admittedly I’d done absolutely nothing with the concept so that’s probably not the case anymore dfafd I’ve definitely aged the lair too, like a lot of dragons I initially saw as kids have grown up now :`) i do wonder how much further along i’ll take the timeline, since I do have some dragons in my lair who lorewise intend to leave Florabrisa within a few years. I could probably stick them in my den, or just let them stick around anyway...?

45. How competent would your clan say your leaders are? How competent are they really?

Tarragon, Moraine, Zaffre, and Tamarind have been leading for almost 20 years now, so I’d say the clan thinks they’re in good hands haha. All four leaders have their different personalities and roles and balance each other out in many ways, and they all take the clan’s needs very seriously and the dragons of the clan feel respected by them! They do what they can for the clan and get the job done as best the can, so yeah the clan would say they’re very competent! And I’d say so too, they are good bunch together :D

49. Who’s the “clan mom”?

Ooh, there are a few dragons who could fit the bill, Moraine being an obvious one. Ricotta probably fits the bill even better than her though! Ricotta will really go out of her way to make sure dragons are getting properly fed..or at least eating plenty of pasta haha. She is incredibly caring for the wellbeing of the lair and does what she can to make her fellow Florabrisians happy and blessed by her presence haha. Ricotta admittedly does tend to pick favorites though dasfsda And there’s Clash too, who is very nurturing and along with her wife Antikyra has taken care of younger dragons of the clan for awhile now! Many of them definitely think of the two as parental figures. The list of dragons under 20 years old who have called Clash ‘mom’ is probably quite long.

53. What dragons make up your most disgustingly cute relationship? What makes them so cute?

OH man lots of strong contenders here. I think Prim and Proper are the best answer! They have matching aesthetics, are pretty much inseparable and utterly glow in each others’ company, they share everything, and of course THEIR NAMES omg... No one in the clan knows if like, they just coincidentally have matching names or if they did it on purpose. (honestly I think it’s a mix of both. they happened to have similar names then just..made them match better haha this isn’t 100% set in stone but i’ve considered their ’full names’ are Primrose and Prosperity. Either way Prim is definitely short for Primrose, it’s Proper’s name i’m not as sure about.)

62. Who’s the clan troublemaker and who has to clean up the mess?

The clan troublemaker is Prank Master Patlican! You never know what to expect with her. She’s most famous for hiding vegetables in strange places, but she will do almost anything. From good old fashioned handshake buzzers to leaping out at poor unassuming dragons to switching locations of Tarragon’s potted plants, she has a large prank repertoire... Her friend Ottomy does his best to clean up her mess. He’s very often the target himself fsadfaf

63. Are there any rivals in your clan? Are they friendly rivals or bitter enemies?

Oh yes, I got some rivals! There’s definitely some stuff going on with Xana/Iolite versus Matrix/Micron. I think they’re more friendly than anything, but then again they probably subscribe to ‘keep your enemies closer’ haha... Matrix also has some sort of rivalry with Lisianthus, who is mostly just confused by it tbh. They’re probably ultimately friends though.

Millisievert and Falcata were pretty fierce rivals and hate everything the other one stands for. They’ve mellowed out a bit over the years and mostly just try to avoid each other now.

Tamarind and Kyurem also probably count to some extent? Mostly Tamarind is bitter that Kyurem managed to take both his wife AND son (and not even a son from said wife dfdsaf) They do try to be adults about it and are generally cordial to each other, though Tamarind is definitely like ‘that guy’ under his breath.

OH and how could i forget. Marglobe and Warglobe! Marglobe just wants to grow tomatoes and Warglobe won’t stand for it for some reason. 

69. Who misses their old flight/home the most?

Ooh hmm..most dragons are quite happy to be staying in Florabrisa and came in part because they wanted to get away from their home for whatever reason.

There is Tamarind! I imagine he misses his Nature home every now and then, but he is chargebound to stay in Wind. That said, his charge being the native flora of the Windswept Plateau is like, obviously it can take care of itself so he doesn’t really need to stay there, he can definitely leave for a period of time if he so desired, but it’d still feel wrong to him to do so. Plus all his friends are here!

Osira probably gets a little homesick too. She is very strongly an arcane dragon and I’m not really sure why she left? Maybe she just wanted to go exploring, or just needed to take some personal time. It’s likely she and her gf Gushers will decide to move to the Starfall Isles at some point, but for now they’re happy together in Florabrisa c:

79. How religious is the bulk of your clan?

Not very religious at all! Florabrisa doesn’t exalt or really follow the teachings of any deity, aside from the general influence of Wind culture. That’s right. Florabrisa commits tax evasion fdsfgd

There are some members who follow a particular deity or two, like Qirrasi is very devout to the Plaguebringer, and Inermis is by far the biggest Windsinger follower around, but yeah in general deities are talked about very little in Florabrisa, and rituals are few and far between.

That said... I also gotta mention Ricotta. She claims to be a goddess. Most of the clan doesn’t really think she’s one, but there is a small handful of dragons who do, and she is happy to accept their prayers and offerings and give them blessings for it! (though she’s happy to share her divine food with almost anyone in the clan anyway, as long as they aren’t rude to her!) Some of her known followers include Macaroon, Artichoke, Calabasas, Nutshell, Sicliane, and Marbles! (and even some that don’t really believe in her are happy to play along anyway haha) There’s also the newer goddess in town Lemuria, but considering her complete inability to back up her claim, I don’t think she has even one follower so...RIP her.

thank you for the ask omg!! this was a Lot, but it was a lot of fun too :D

[proheromidoriyashouto]

Quirkless Hero!Deku and Artist/Youtuber!Shouto AU expansion

Shouto was expelled from the Hero Course by Aizawa after the Sports Festival for his refusal to use all his might (neglecting half his quirk) when the chips are down. Shouto went to General Studies and after some serious introspection post-Hosu (he was dragged along by Ende*vore to do grunt work as punishment and happened to come across Tenya and an Idaten intern he didn't know facing off against Stain) began to find solace in art and writing classes and decided to take his life into his own hands.

Shouto started a gaming channel because Ochako- while introducing him to Super Smash Bros Ultimate- noted that he has a nice voice and he likes the story-telling capabilities of games, so why not? What does he have to lose? His striking appearance and slight fame will surely garner him a boost in viewership early on, and they do.

He initially has to run the channel from Tenya's home since Ende*vore would never allow it. He starts off playing multiplayer games because those are what his friends introduce him to so they can play together, but he inevitably shifts toward single-player games that devote quite a lot of time into compelling story campaigns and exploration. His first delves are into Horizon: Zero Dawn, God of War, the Fallout series, Portal 1 & 2, the Witcher series, and the Last of Us since these are the most prominent games at the time (remakes of games in 22XX tend to release in the same year and order the originals did to get the most playtime out of fans). He’s not good at it to start. He reads from a script and he’s stiff and uncomfortable in front of the camera. He thought he was desensitized to that given his time in the limelight thanks to his name but there’s something about talking to a small webcam that feels, well, silly, and... intense. Personal. It’s a serious detractor, and the comments he receives about it are almost enough to shut down the channel for good. His friends’ support gets him through though and he starts to develop a considerable following.

Before he realizes, he’s spending all his free time playing games with purpose, creating new videos on a nearly daily basis, brainstorming how to structure  theory and lore episodes, and worrying about how his uploads are perceived. He runs charity live streams, plays fan-picked hero games, scours every last hint of lore from side-quests, get those sweet sweet completionist Platinum trophies that only like 1% of players get for every game.

Ende*vore cuts him off from his money, and inheritance. Shouto tentatively starts support pages and is surprised by the number of people willing to shell out for him. He starts to really feel the burn-out as he struggles to create more video content for awards before Momo suggests making things. Real, physical things for awards that will give him a break for the grind, and that he can use to improve his art skills. He smacks himself when he realizes that he can also use art as a way of re-connecting with his mother.

Visits at the hospital become days spent drawing, painting, sculpting, and knitting. His mother shocks him in a display of lace-making and he feels a pang of grief when he learns that it was a tradition in her family that she hadn’t been able to pass down to him. She’d taught Fuyumi and Touya a bit but Ende*vore found out and put a stop to it, saying that his legacy was the only one they needed to concern themselves with. She was too afraid of the harm her husband would bring upon the children if she tried again with Natsuo and Shouto. After hearing that there’s nothing more Shouto wants to learn (lace-crafts are his awards for months, and then on occasion for years to come).

His channel, SpicyHeathenGaming, steadily grows over the years and once he graduates from U.A., he devotes himself entirely to running it. By the time he has the formal encounter with Deku, he has millions of subscribers and has become quite comfortable in the public persona he’d crafted (it’s easy to slip into given his natural penchant for straight-man-esque dry humor). He’s almost 25, successful in a precarious field, and... happy. Genuinely at peace. There are days when he misses the rush of a fight, the satisfaction of post-rescue, and on bad days, he thinks of all the people he never saved. He schedules an appointment with his therapist and moves on.

Deku is the one to note that the Day They Met wasn’t at the construction site as he thought, but during the battle of Stain vs Team Idaten Round 2 (and U.A. Students) as the media has labelled it. Shouto is shocked but not for long. The similarities to his then-Idaten costume are prevalent in Deku’s short white mask, midnight leg guards, and heavy black soles but the rest is substantially changed. He’s vaguely reminiscent of a teal/aqua All Might- especially with his cowl on- rather than the Ingenium line now.

He’d become infamous for becoming a hero “the old fashioned way“ through interning and shadowing directly with Pros for years, foregoing hero-high school altogether.

While none of the schools outright forbid quirkless students from applying, Deku had said in his debut press conference, despite passing Ketsubutsu, Shiketsu, and U.A.’s entrance exams, I was denied admittance. They all said something to the effect of ‘I had a “weak constitution”’, ‘my “supposed passion” had been deemed insufficient hot air,’ and ‘my “heroic spirit” wouldn’t be enough to match the rigor of a top-rated hero-course’s training.’ A good friend of mine, Tenya Iida, had been at the same U.A. entrance exam as myself and after learning about my struggles put in a word for me with his family. I didn’t ask for a handout, but when the legitimate options are not truly available to you, what choice even is there? I wasn’t going to turn down the one chance I had left. Team Idaten was good to me and I wouldn’t be the man I’ve become if not for them. In all honesty, Deku shrugged, an almost apologetic look on his face, almost. I was starting to fall into a pretty dark place. I might have become a villain.

Deku had faced ire from Pros, alumni and non-alumni from the schools alike for those remarks, and public opinion had been torn between disdain for slandering the institutions of hero education or support for him having become a hero despite all the odds against him- a true, old-school origin story. All Might had surprised many by showing Deku support, and many U.A.-borne Pros had followed in his example. Ketsubutsu and Shiketsu had not been nearly as kind, with few exceptions. Deku’s rivalries with Dynamic Blitz (one-sided feud in reality), Magnitude, Cloudburst, and Sideburn Tress were almost as well-known as All Might and Endeavor back when they were heroes.

Deku was a world-wide icon for the roughly 2 billion quirkless people in existence, only one of a hand-full of quirkless Pros throughout the world since the dawn of quirks, and the first ever in Japan’s history. He was leagues above Shouto. Shouldn’t have paid him any more mind than any other civilian he’d saved. If not for Shouto’s disastrous inability to handle situations like anything resembling a normal person. He’d seen a strong, handsome, trend-setting, status-quo defying, internationally known hero up close in person, who not only recognized him for his channel but his private art blog and shop, reaching toward his evidently panicking self and had activated his right side as though it was the neglected half, and frozen their hands together.

He’d made a fucking fool of himself... but still... wound up with a number in his pocket and a wink emoji. He never got such lascivious flirting sent his way. Curses, that wink emoji. Not with his scar and eye-straining coloration and lack of proper skin and hair care. No way. What if Deku winked at him in real life? In public? Scandalous. What was he going to do?

Fuyumi. Tenya, help me.

Um, sure?

With what?

...kill me.

-Shou-!

W-why would you-!!

Please, just, vaporize me right now, I’m staring at the moon just take me by surprise, I’m begging you. Actually call Aoyama I have money.

Little brother! What’s brought this on?

That’s not an explanation! If you need help-

I... I have a date.

(Shouto is verrrr out of practice with his powers and dating and is a complete disaster gay. Izuku’s kinda suave and you can thank Tensei’s Big Brother Influence for that. Izuku saved Eri and Kouta okay I promise I have an explanation. All Might was a dick and never found Izuku to apologize. Izuku’s kinda bitter about it but he’s living his best life so :///////. OFA? Never met her. Mirio would be OFA’s 9th in this AU after losing Permeation. Will expand into a proper fic and post to AO3 when its done- I already have too many AUs at once going on.

Population estimates put humans stabilizing at about 11 billion in the 2200s - BNHA was already in modern day when quirks came and its been 200 years since then as per canon- and 20% of the population is slightly more than 2 billion. 2 billion quirkless people.

Dynamic Blitz is that motherfucker. You know who Magnitude and Cloudburst are~. Three guess as to Sideburn Tress’ identity. He wasn’t outwardly hostile but something about him set off red-flags for me. Also strikes me as having a lot of school pride.)

[poipoipoi-2016]

Since Google Plus is going away,  I’m going to back up Steve Yegge’s platform rant.  And confirm the opening paragraph.  

One thing that struck me immediately about the two companies -- an impression that has been reinforced almost daily -- is that Amazon does everything wrong, and Google does everything right.  Sure, it's a sweeping generalization, but a surprisingly accurate one.  It's pretty crazy.  There are probably a hundred or even two hundred different ways you can compare the two companies, and Google is superior in all but three of them, if I recall correctly.

Looooooong text below the cut

Stevey's Google Platforms Rant I was at Amazon for about six and a half years, and now I've been at Google for that long.  One thing that struck me immediately about the two companies -- an impression that has been reinforced almost daily -- is that Amazon does everything wrong, and Google does everything right.  Sure, it's a sweeping generalization, but a surprisingly accurate one.  It's pretty crazy.  There are probably a hundred or even two hundred different ways you can compare the two companies, and Google is superior in all but three of them, if I recall correctly.  I actually did a spreadsheet at one point but Legal wouldn't let me show it to anyone, even though recruiting loved it. I mean, just to give you a very brief taste:  Amazon's recruiting process is fundamentally flawed by having teams hire for themselves, so their hiring bar is incredibly inconsistent across teams, despite various efforts they've made to level it out.  And their operations are a mess; they don't really have SREs and they make engineers pretty much do everything, which leaves almost no time for coding - though again this varies by group, so it's luck of the draw.  They don't give a single shit about charity or helping the needy or community contributions or anything like that.  Never comes up there, except maybe to laugh about it.  Their facilities are dirt-smeared cube farms without a dime spent on decor or common meeting areas.  Their pay and benefits suck, although much less so lately due to local competition from Google and Facebook.  But they don't have any of our perks or extras -- they just try to match the offer-letter numbers, and that's the end of it.  Their code base is a disaster, with no engineering standards whatsoever except what individual teams choose to put in place. To be fair, they do have a nice versioned-library system that we really ought to emulate, and a nice publish-subscribe system that we also have no equivalent for.  But for the most part they just have a bunch of crappy tools that read and write state machine information into relational databases.  We wouldn't take most of it even if it were free. I think the pubsub system and their library-shelf system were two out of the grand total of three things Amazon does better than google. I guess you could make an argument that their bias for launching early and iterating like mad is also something they do well, but you can argue it either way.  They prioritize launching early over everything else, including retention and engineering discipline and a bunch of other stuff that turns out to matter in the long run.  So even though it's given them some competitive advantages in the marketplace, it's created enough other problems to make it something less than a slam-dunk. But there's one thing they do really really well that pretty much makes up for ALL of their political, philosophical and technical screw-ups. Jeff Bezos is an infamous micro-manager.  He micro-manages every single pixel of Amazon's retail site.  He hired Larry Tesler, Apple's Chief Scientist and probably the very most famous and respected human-computer interaction expert in the entire world, and then ignored every goddamn thing Larry said for three years until Larry finally -- wisely -- left the company.  Larry would do these big usability studies and demonstrate beyond any shred of doubt that nobody can understand that frigging website, but Bezos just couldn't let go of those pixels, all those millions of semantics-packed pixels on the landing page.  They were like millions of his own precious children.  So they're all still there, and Larry is not. Micro-managing isn't that third thing that Amazon does better than us, by the way.  I mean, yeah, they micro-manage really well, but I wouldn't list it as a strength or anything.  I'm just trying to set the context here, to help you understand what happened.  We're talking about a guy who in all seriousness has said on many public occasions that people should be paying him to work at Amazon.  He hands out little yellow stickies with his name on them, reminding people "who runs the company" when they disagree with him.  The guy is a regular... well, Steve Jobs, I guess.  Except without the fashion or design sense.  Bezos is super smart; don't get me wrong.  He just makes ordinary control freaks look like stoned hippies. So one day Jeff Bezos issued a mandate.  He's doing that all the time, of course, and people scramble like ants being pounded with a rubber mallet whenever it happens. But on one occasion -- back around 2002 I think, plus or minus a year -- he issued a mandate that was so out there, so huge and eye-bulgingly ponderous, that it made all of his other mandates look like unsolicited peer bonuses. His Big Mandate went something along these lines:  1) All teams will henceforth expose their data and functionality through service interfaces.  2) Teams must communicate with each other through these interfaces.  3) There will be no other form of interprocess communication allowed:  no direct linking, no direct reads of another team's data store, no shared-memory model, no back-doors whatsoever.  The only communication allowed is via service interface calls over the network.  4) It doesn't matter what technology they use.  HTTP, Corba, Pubsub, custom protocols -- doesn't matter.  Bezos doesn't care.  5) All service interfaces, without exception, must be designed from the ground up to be externalizable.  That is to say, the team must plan and design to be able to expose the interface to developers in the outside world.  No exceptions.  6) Anyone who doesn't do this will be fired.  7) Thank you; have a nice day! Ha, ha!  You 150-odd ex-Amazon folks here will of course realize immediately that #7 was a little joke I threw in, because Bezos most definitely does not give a shit about your day. #6, however, was quite real, so people went to work.  Bezos assigned a couple of Chief Bulldogs to oversee the effort and ensure forward progress, headed up by Uber-Chief Bear Bulldog Rick Dalzell.  Rick is an ex-Armgy Ranger, West Point Academy graduate, ex-boxer, ex-Chief Torturer slash CIO at Wal*Mart, and is a big genial scary man who used the word "hardened interface" a lot.  Rick was a walking, talking hardened interface himself, so needless to say, everyone made LOTS of forward progress and made sure Rick knew about it. Over the next couple of years, Amazon transformed internally into a service-oriented architecture.  They learned a tremendous amount while effecting this transformation.  There was lots of existing documentation and lore about SOAs, but at Amazon's vast scale it was about as useful as telling Indiana Jones to look both ways before crossing the street.  Amazon's dev staff made a lot of discoveries along the way.  A teeny tiny sampling of these discoveries included:  - pager escalation gets way harder, because a ticket might bounce through 20 service calls before the real owner is identified.  If each bounce goes through a team with a 15-minute response time, it can be hours before the right team finally finds out, unless you build a lot of scaffolding and metrics and reporting.  - every single one of your peer teams suddenly becomes a potential DOS attacker.  Nobody can make any real forward progress until very serious quotas and throttling are put in place in every single service.  - monitoring and QA are the same thing.  You'd never think so until you try doing a big SOA.  But when your service says "oh yes, I'm fine", it may well be the case that the only thing still functioning in the server is the little component that knows how to say "I'm fine, roger roger, over and out" in a cheery droid voice.  In order to tell whether the service is actually responding, you have to make individual calls.  The problem continues recursively until your monitoring is doing comprehensive semantics checking of your entire range of services and data, at which point it's indistinguishable from automated QA.  So they're a continuum.  - if you have hundreds of services, and your code MUST communicate with other groups' code via these services, then you won't be able to find any of them without a service-discovery mechanism.  And you can't have that without a service registration mechanism, which itself is another service.  So Amazon has a universal service registry where you can find out reflectively (programmatically) about every service, what its APIs are, and also whether it is currently up, and where.  - debugging problems with someone else's code gets a LOT harder, and is basically impossible unless there is a universal standard way to run every service in a debuggable sandbox. That's just a very small sample.  There are dozens, maybe hundreds of individual learnings like these that Amazon had to discover organically.  There were a lot of wacky ones around externalizing services, but not as many as you might think.  Organizing into services taught teams not to trust each other in most of the same ways they're not supposed to trust external developers. This effort was still underway when I left to join Google in mid-2005, but it was pretty far advanced.  From the time Bezos issued his edict through the time I left, Amazon had transformed culturally into a company that thinks about everything in a services-first fashion.  It is now fundamental to how they approach all designs, including internal designs for stuff that might never see the light of day externally. At this point they don't even do it out of fear of being fired.  I mean, they're still afraid of that; it's pretty much part of daily life there, working for the Dread Pirate Bezos and all.  But they do services because they've come to understand that it's the Right Thing.  There are without question pros and cons to the SOA approach, and some of the cons are pretty long.  But overall it's the right thing because SOA-driven design enables Platforms. That's what Bezos was up to with his edict, of course.  He didn't (and doesn't) care even a tiny bit about the well-being of the teams, nor about what technologies they use, nor in fact any detail whatsoever about how they go about their business unless they happen to be screwing up.  But Bezos realized long before the vast majority of Amazonians that Amazon needs to be a platform. You wouldn't really think that an online bookstore needs to be an extensible, programmable platform.  Would you? Well, the first big thing Bezos realized is that the infrastructure they'd built for selling and shipping books and sundry could be transformed an excellent repurposable computing platform.  So now they have the Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud, and the Amazon Elastic MapReduce, and the Amazon Relational Database Service, and a whole passel' o' other services browsable at aws.amazon.com.  These services host the backends for some pretty successful companies, reddit being my personal favorite of the bunch. The other big realization he had was that he can't always build the right thing.  I think Larry Tesler might have struck some kind of chord in Bezos when he said his mom couldn't use the goddamn website.  It's not even super clear whose mom he was talking about, and doesn't really matter, because nobody's mom can use the goddamn website.  In fact I myself find the website disturbingly daunting, and I worked there for over half a decade.  I've just learned to kinda defocus my eyes and concentrate on the million or so pixels near the center of the page above the fold. I'm not really sure how Bezos came to this realization -- the insight that he can't build one product and have it be right for everyone.  But it doesn't matter, because he gets it.  There's actually a formal name for this phenomenon.  It's called Accessibility, and it's the most important thing in the computing world. The. Most. Important. Thing. If you're sorta thinking, "huh?  You mean like, blind and deaf people Accessibility?" then you're not alone, because I've come to understand that there are lots and LOTS of people just like you:  people for whom this idea does not have the right Accessibility, so it hasn't been able to get through to you yet.  It's not your fault for not understanding, any more than it would be your fault for being blind or deaf or motion-restricted or living with any other disability.  When software -- or idea-ware for that matter -- fails to be accessible to anyone for any reason, it is the fault of the software or of the messaging of the idea.  It is an Accessibility failure. Like anything else big and important in life, Accessibility has an evil twin who, jilted by the unbalanced affection displayed by their parents in their youth, has grown into an equally powerful Arch-Nemesis (yes, there's more than one nemesis to accessibility) named Security.  And boy howdy are the two ever at odds. But I'll argue that Accessibility is actually more important than Security because dialing Accessibility to zero means you have no product at all, whereas dialing Security to zero can still get you a reasonably successful product such as the Playstation Network. So yeah.  In case you hadn't noticed, I could actually write a book on this topic.  A fat one, filled with amusing anecdotes about ants and rubber mallets at companies I've worked at.  But I will never get this little rant published, and you'll never get it read, unless I start to wrap up. That one last thing that Google doesn't do well is Platforms.  We don't understand platforms.  We don't "get" platforms.  Some of you do, but you are the minority.  This has become painfully clear to me over the past six years.  I was kind of hoping that competitive pressure from Microsoft and Amazon and more recently Facebook would make us wake up collectively and start doing universal services.  Not in some sort of ad-hoc, half-assed way, but in more or less the same way Amazon did it:  all at once, for real, no cheating, and treating it as our top priority from now on. But no.  No, it's like our tenth or eleventh priority.  Or fifteenth, I don't know.  It's pretty low.  There are a few teams who treat the idea very seriously, but most teams either don't think about it all, ever, or only a small percentage of them think about it in a very small way. It's a big stretch even to get most teams to offer a stubby service to get programmatic access to their data and computations.  Most of them think they're building products.  And a stubby service is a pretty pathetic service.  Go back and look at that partial list of learnings from Amazon, and tell me which ones Stubby gives you out of the box.  As far as I'm concerned, it's none of them.  Stubby's great, but it's like parts when you need a car. A product is useless without a platform, or more precisely and accurately, a platform-less product will always be replaced by an equivalent platform-ized product. Google+ is a prime example of our complete failure to understand platforms from the very highest levels of executive leadership (hi Larry, Sergey, Eric, Vic, howdy howdy) down to the very lowest leaf workers (hey yo).  We all don't get it.  The Golden Rule of platforms is that you Eat Your Own Dogfood.  The Google+ platform is a pathetic afterthought.  We had no API at all at launch, and last I checked, we had one measly API call.  One of the team members marched in and told me about it when they launched, and I asked:  "So is it the Stalker API?"  She got all glum and said "Yeah."  I mean, I was joking, but no... the only API call we offer is to get someone's stream.  So I guess the joke was on me. Microsoft has known about the Dogfood rule for at least twenty years.  It's been part of their culture for a whole generation now.  You don't eat People Food and give your developers Dog Food.  Doing that is simply robbing your long-term platform value for short-term successes.  Platforms are all about long-term thinking. Google+ is a knee-jerk reaction, a study in short-term thinking, predicated on the incorrect notion that Facebook is successful because they built a great product.  But that's not why they are successful.  Facebook is successful because they built an entire constellation of products by allowing other people to do the work.  So Facebook is different for everyone.  Some people spend all their time on Mafia Wars.  Some spend all their time on Farmville.  There are hundreds or maybe thousands of different high-quality time sinks available, so there's something there for everyone. Our Google+ team took a look at the aftermarket and said:  "Gosh, it looks like we need some games.  Let's go contract someone to, um, write some games for us."  Do you begin to see how incredibly wrong that thinking is now?  The problem is that we are trying to predict what people want and deliver it for them. You can't do that.  Not really.  Not reliably.  There have been precious few people in the world, over the entire history of computing, who have been able to do it reliably.  Steve Jobs was one of them.  We don't have a Steve Jobs here.  I'm sorry, but we don't. Larry Tesler may have convinced Bezos that he was no Steve Jobs, but Bezos realized that he didn't need to be a Steve Jobs in order to provide everyone with the right products:  interfaces and workflows that they liked and felt at ease with.  He just needed to enable third-party developers to do it, and it would happen automatically. I apologize to those (many) of you for whom all this stuff I'm saying is incredibly obvious, because yeah.  It's incredibly frigging obvious.  Except we're not doing it.  We don't get Platforms, and we don't get Accessibility.  The two are basically the same thing, because platforms solve accessibility.  A platform is accessibility. So yeah, Microsoft gets it.  And you know as well as I do how surprising that is, because they don't "get" much of anything, really.  But they understand platforms as a purely accidental outgrowth of having started life in the business of providing platforms.  So they have thirty-plus years of learning in this space.  And if you go to msdn.com, and spend some time browsing, and you've never seen it before, prepare to be amazed.  Because it's staggeringly huge.  They have thousands, and thousands, and THOUSANDS of API calls.  They have a HUGE platform.  Too big in fact, because they can't design for squat, but at least they're doing it. Amazon gets it.  Amazon's AWS (aws.amazon.com) is incredible.  Just go look at it.  Click around.  It's embarrassing.  We don't have any of that stuff. Apple gets it, obviously.  They've made some fundamentally non-open choices, particularly around their mobile platform.  But they understand accessibility and they understand the power of third-party development and they eat their dogfood.  And you know what?  They make pretty good dogfood.  Their APIs are a hell of a lot cleaner than Microsoft's, and have been since time immemorial. Facebook gets it.  That's what really worries me.  That's what got me off my lazy butt to write this thing.  I hate blogging.  I hate... plussing, or whatever it's called when you do a massive rant in Google+ even though it's a terrible venue for it but you do it anyway because in the end you really do want Google to be successful.  And I do!  I mean, Facebook wants me there, and it'd be pretty easy to just go.  But Google is home, so I'm insisting that we have this little family intervention, uncomfortable as it might be. After you've marveled at the platform offerings of Microsoft and Amazon, and Facebook I guess (I didn't look because I didn't want to get too depressed), head over to developers.google.com and browse a little.  Pretty big difference, eh?  It's like what your fifth-grade nephew might mock up if he were doing an assignment to demonstrate what a big powerful platform company might be building if all they had, resource-wise, was one fifth grader. Please don't get me wrong here -- I know for a fact that the dev-rel team has had to FIGHT to get even this much available externally.  They're kicking ass as far as I'm concerned, because they DO get platforms, and they are struggling heroically to try to create one in an environment that is at best platform-apathetic, and at worst often openly hostile to the idea. I'm just frankly describing what developers.google.com looks like to an outsider.  It looks childish.  Where's the Maps APIs in there for Christ's sake?  Some of the things in there are labs projects.  And the APIs for everything I clicked were... they were paltry.  They were obviously dog food.  Not even good organic stuff.  Compared to our internal APIs it's all snouts and horse hooves. And also don't get me wrong about Google+.  They're far from the only offenders.  This is a cultural thing.  What we have going on internally is basically a war, with the underdog minority Platformers fighting a more or less losing battle against the Mighty Funded Confident Producters. Any teams that have successfully internalized the notion that they should be externally programmable platforms from the ground up are underdogs -- Maps and Docs come to mind, and I know GMail is making overtures in that direction.  But it's hard for them to get funding for it because it's not part of our culture.  Maestro's funding is a feeble thing compared to the gargantuan Microsoft Office programming platform:  it's a fluffy rabbit versus a T-Rex.  The Docs team knows they'll never be competitive with Office until they can match its scripting facilities, but they're not getting any resource love.  I mean, I assume they're not, given that Apps Script only works in Spreadsheet right now, and it doesn't even have keyboard shortcuts as part of its API.  That team looks pretty unloved to me. Ironically enough, Wave was a great platform, may they rest in peace.  But making something a platform is not going to make you an instant success.  A platform needs a killer app.  Facebook -- that is, the stock service they offer with walls and friends and such -- is the killer app for the Facebook Platform.  And it is a very serious mistake to conclude that the Facebook App could have been anywhere near as successful without the Facebook Platform. You know how people are always saying Google is arrogant?  I'm a Googler, so I get as irritated as you do when people say that.  We're not arrogant, by and large.  We're, like, 99% Arrogance-Free.  I did start this post -- if you'll reach back into distant memory -- by describing Google as "doing everything right".  We do mean well, and for the most part when people say we're arrogant it's because we didn't hire them, or they're unhappy with our policies, or something along those lines.  They're inferring arrogance because it makes them feel better. But when we take the stance that we know how to design the perfect product for everyone, and believe you me, I hear that a lot, then we're being fools.  You can attribute it to arrogance, or naivete, or whatever -- it doesn't matter in the end, because it's foolishness.  There IS no perfect product for everyone. And so we wind up with a browser that doesn't let you set the default font size.  Talk about an affront to Accessibility.  I mean, as I get older I'm actually going blind.  For real.  I've been nearsighted all my life, and once you hit 40 years old you stop being able to see things up close.  So font selection becomes this life-or-death thing:  it can lock you out of the product completely.  But the Chrome team is flat-out arrogant here:  they want to build a zero-configuration product, and they're quite brazen about it, and Fuck You if you're blind or deaf or whatever.  Hit Ctrl-+ on every single page visit for the rest of your life. It's not just them.  It's everyone.  The problem is that we're a Product Company through and through.  We built a successful product with broad appeal -- our search, that is -- and that wild success has biased us. Amazon was a product company too, so it took an out-of-band force to make Bezos understand the need for a platform.  That force was their evaporating margins; he was cornered and had to think of a way out.  But all he had was a bunch of engineers and all these computers... if only they could be monetized somehow... you can see how he arrived at AWS, in hindsight. Microsoft started out as a platform, so they've just had lots of practice at it. Facebook, though:  they worry me.  I'm no expert, but I'm pretty sure they started off as a Product and they rode that success pretty far.  So I'm not sure exactly how they made the transition to a platform.  It was a relatively long time ago, since they had to be a platform before (now very old) things like Mafia Wars could come along. Maybe they just looked at us and asked:  "How can we beat Google?  What are they missing?" The problem we face is pretty huge, because it will take a dramatic cultural change in order for us to start catching up.  We don't do internal service-oriented platforms, and we just as equally don't do external ones.  This means that the "not getting it" is endemic across the company:  the PMs don't get it, the engineers don't get it, the product teams don't get it, nobody gets it.  Even if individuals do, even if YOU do, it doesn't matter one bit unless we're treating it as an all-hands-on-deck emergency.  We can't keep launching products and pretending we'll turn them into magical beautiful extensible platforms later.  We've tried that and it's not working. The Golden Rule of Platforms, "Eat Your Own Dogfood", can be rephrased as "Start with a Platform, and Then Use it for Everything."  You can't just bolt it on later.  Certainly not easily at any rate -- ask anyone who worked on platformizing MS Office.  Or anyone who worked on platformizing Amazon.  If you delay it, it'll be ten times as much work as just doing it correctly up front.  You can't cheat.  You can't have secret back doors for internal apps to get special priority access, not for ANY reason.  You need to solve the hard problems up front. I'm not saying it's too late for us, but the longer we wait, the closer we get to being Too Late. I honestly don't know how to wrap this up.  I've said pretty much everything I came here to say today.  This post has been six years in the making.  I'm sorry if I wasn't gentle enough, or if I misrepresented some product or team or person, or if we're actually doing LOTS of platform stuff and it just so happens that I and everyone I ever talk to has just never heard about it.  I'm sorry. But we've gotta start doing this right.

[ramajmedia]

Star Wars: 10 Movie Plot Holes Filled In By The Marvel Comics

The Star Wars saga has been going strong for over 40 years now, so it’s hardly surprising that several plot holes have cropped up during the time. While these gaffes are occasionally addressed on-screen – like when Attack of the Clones indirectly clarified that Yoda trained Obi-Wan before Qui-Gon took over – typically, it falls to other tie-in media to plug any storytelling gaps that arise.

So if there’s a particular continuity error that’s really bugging you about everyone’s favorite galaxy far, far away, chances are there’s a novel, TV show or comic book that’s already fixed it. Indeed, Marvel’s Star Wars comics in particular have built a well-earned reputation for crafting satisfying answers to many of the saga’s biggest unexplained questions – including those we’ve rounded-up below.

RELATED: Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker: 10 Showdowns We Want To See

10 Why Does Vader Take Orders From Tarkin?

The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi firmly position Darth Vader as the second most feared guy in the galaxy, with only Emperor Palpatine surpassing him in power and authority. So how come the Sith Lord plays second fiddle to Grand Moff Tarkin when we first meet him in A New Hope? It’s one of the biggest discontinuities in the original trilogy – but fortunately, Marvel’s Darth Vader comics have it covered.

Early issues in the series establish that the Emperor initially played Vader off against the Empire’s top brass, which meant occasionally taking orders from the likes of high-ranking officers like Tarkin. What’s more, we later witness a violent encounter between Vader and Tarkin that seemingly engenders a lasting mutual respect between the pair, and explains the collaborative relationship they subsequently adopt on-screen.

9 How Does Princess Leia Remember Her Mother?

 Revenge of the Sith’s protracted denouement ticks off a laundry list of major Star Wars moments fans had been waiting to witness for over two decades. Arguably the most important of these is the birth of Luke and Leia Skywalker, which fittingly coincides with their father’s rebirth as Darth Vader. It’s a suitably emotional scene, and it’s made all the more emotional when the twins’ mother, Padmé Amidala, passes away shortly after.

But this also causes a problem for the saga’s official canon – after all, in Return of the Jedi, Leia tells Luke that she remembers their mother (albeit in fairly abstract fashion), which seems…unlikely. Enter: the Princess Leia mini-series, which subtly suggests that our heroine’s latent Force potential is the source of her otherwise impossible childhood memories.

8 When Did Luke Learn To Use A Lightsaber?

The original Star Wars trilogy features several memorable scenes of Luke Skywalker learning to become a fully-fledged Jedi Knight, but his lightsaber lessons are almost totally glossed over. Seriously: Obi-Wan Kenobi only taught Luke the absolute basics – deflecting incoming blaster fire – while the days, weeks or (if you want to be really generous) months he spent training with Master Yoda didn’t include a single saber technique tutorial (on screen, at least).

That leaves continuity-conscious fans in a bit of a pickle: how do they justify the formidable swordplay Luke displays when duelling Darth Vader or tearing through Jabba the Hutt’s cronies? It’s simple – they catch up on Marvel’s main Star Wars title. Set between A New Hope and The Empire Strikes Back, this ongoing series elaborates on the lightsaber combat coaching Luke underwent with the Gamemaster, as well as additional theory on the subject he gleaned from Obi-Wan’s journals.

RELATED: Star Wars: The Highest-Grossing Films (According To Box Office Mojo)

7 What Happened To All The Prequel-Era Technology?

While the technology seen in the Star Wars prequels is (generally) less advanced than the hardware of later generations, it’s nevertheless hard to swallow that none of this gear crops up in subsequent episodes. You’re telling us that nobody has any use for mobile weapons platforms like the droidekas, or could see the appeal in zipping around in a Jedi starfighter?

Fortunately, Marvel’s Star Wars comic books have this covered across the board, and prequel-era tech appears prominently in several stories. From Darth Vader heading up a squad of battle droids to Thrawn collecting buzz droids, and right on through to Luke Skywalker squaring off against MagnaGuards, the comics continue the proud tradition of recycling the saga is famous for.

6 Why Didn’t Chewbacca Receive A Medal?

 OK, we’ll admit it: as plot holes go, Chewbacca not being awarded a medal during the closing moments of A New Hope is hardly galaxy-shattering stuff. But dang it, the flagrant disregard the Rebel Alliance shows for Chewie’s pivotal role in the destruction of the Death Star has always bothered us – to the point that we’re worried the Rebellion might have xenophobic tendencies!

Thank goodness for the Chewbacca mini-series Marvel published back in 2015, then. Here, we see the kind-hearted Wookiee bestow a medal identical to those seen in A New Hope upon a brave young girl named Zarro. The clear implication here is that Chewbacca did indeed receive a medal for his services, presumably at a separate ceremony not depicted on the big screen.

5 How Was General Grievous A Match For Jedi Knights?

Jedi Knights are legendary for their Force-powered prowess on the battlefield, however that doesn’t mean that non-Force sensitive opponents can’t defeat them on occasion. But even if the Republic’s sworn protectors aren’t unbeatable, it’s a bit hard to swallow that General Grievous supposedly cut down enough of them to line his cloak with their lightsabers, as shown in Revenge of the Sith.

We think we’ve found the answer to this conundrum though, in the pages of Star Wars: Age Of Republic – General Grievous. In this mini-series from Marvel, it’s revealed that the cyborg General – who is basically just a brain and a few organs inside a droid body – has inadvertently severed his connection to the Force, a horrific condition so unique it’s likely to blame for throwing his Jedi assailants off their game.

RELATED: Star Wars: Rey's 10 Best Moments (So Far)

4 Why Is The Jedi Temple Still Part Of Coruscant’s Skyline?

Before Star Wars was sold to Disney, the saga’s creator George Lucas was notorious for tinkering with the original trilogy each time it was re-released on home media. One of the less controversial changes Lucas made was the addition of two familiar landmarks to the Coruscant skyline during Return of the Jedi’s montage sequence: the Senate and the Jedi Temple.

At first, this seemed like a rare instance of Lucas inserting elements from the prequels without causing any damage…but did he? After all, it doesn’t make a whole lot of sense that Emperor Palpatine would preserve a gigantic monument to the Jedi Order. Luckily, Marvel’s Thrawn mini-series saves the day here, clarifying that Palpatine converted the Temple into his Imperial Palace – which is exactly the kind of perverse gesture we’d expect from the Dark Lord of the Sith!

3 Why Is Vader’s Fortress On Mustafar?

Darth Vader’s castle being located on Mustafar in Rogue One left more than a few fans scratching their heads. Sure, Sith Lords are all about maintaining their rage – and living in the same place where you were dismembered and burnt to a crisp is enough make anyone cranky – but it still seemed like an odd place for Vader to set up shop, given his options.

Why not his homeworld, Tatooine, instead? Dude has a whole bunch of terrible memories to draw on from his time spent on that desert planet, not just a lone (admittedly horrific) experience. But as it turns out, the very nature of Mustafar itself is the reason it plays host to Fortress Vader, not Tatooine. As recounted in Darth Vader: Dark Lord of the Sith, a locus for Dark Side energies resides beneath the volcanic world’s crust, which Vader can tap into via his Fortress’s tuning fork-like properties.

2 Why Did The Death Star Take So Long To Build?

Moon-sized battle station the Death Star took a long time to build: while construction commenced during the finale of Revenge of the Sith, it’s not finished until Rogue One nearly 20 years later. At first glance, this stacks up – we’re talking about a humongous feat of engineering here. However, the second, even bigger Death Star’s much shorter assembly period – although not quite complete, it was famously fully armed and operational in four years, tops – turns this logic on its head!

Happily, the Thrawn mini-series came up with a solution to this dilemma that is both a stroke of genius and painfully obvious, and it all boils down to secrecy. Prior to A New Hope, the Empire still had to tiptoe around the Senate, which meant resources needed to be sourced covertly. Once the Senate was abolished, keeping things hush-hush was no longer a concern, so construction on Death Star II could be fast tracked.

1 When Did Vader Find Out That Luke Was Alive?

Another instance of George Lucas altering existing Star Wars lore, new dialogue added to The Empire Strikes Back – coupled with the baby bump on Padme’s lifeless body in Revenge of the Sith – indicates that Darth Vader only recently became aware his son Luke was still alive. This is problematic, as the Sith Lord is shown to be aware of Luke’s existence already, in scenes that appear prior to the inserted exchange – so when exactly did Vader discover his kid had survived? And is this a glaring goof?

Not according to the Darth Vader comic book series, which confirms that the iconic baddie received the news about his Luke shortly after the events of A New Hope. The intel came from none other than famed bounty hunter Boba Fett and Vader kept it to himself – which means that he was only playing dumb when Palpatine later presents him with the same information in Empire (which is sorta implied, anyway).

NEXT: Star Wars: 10 Things The Comics Added To The Canon

source https://screenrant.com/star-wars-plot-holes-comics-fixed/

[terryblount]

Octopath Traveller – PC Review

I am one of those weirdos who loves to buy JRPG’s off the Android store rather than taking refuge in the haven of emulation. Many frown when I tell them this, and some check if I remembered to take my medication that morning. Fact is, the store has built up an excellent collection, and these days I can often be found curled up on the couch, working my way through the classics on my tablet.

Through sheer luck, I just finished Dragon Quest IV, and it was fresh off this experience that I fired up my review copy of Octopath Traveller. After making my way through close to fifty hours or so in Octopath’s unforgettable world, I kept noticing the striking similarities it shares with the fourth Dragon Quest game, but also with many JRPG’s of the mid-nineties in general.

Initially I thought the developers, Square Enix and Acquire, had intended to pay homage to their successes in the early scene. After playing Octopath Traveller for myself, however, I realise this game is something more. It has everything we loved about the early days, but with a few tweaks, refinements and innovations that turns the experience into a ‘love letter’ for the genre as many have said.

If this does not impress you then I am done trying!

This game is truly exceptional, and now that we finally have a chance to play it on our favourite platform, I feel like no collection will be complete without it. I finally get why Nintendo insisted on Octopath Traveller as a timed Switch release since I know people who bought their console just to play this game. This is a stellar and accessible JRPG, and you should go try it as soon as you can.

Octopus caliper

I wasn’t being cute when I mentioned there are some hilarious resemblances between DQ IV and Octopath Traveller; one could easily write a whole article just comparing the two. Basically, Octopath Traveller takes the character driven chapters from the opening sections of DQ IV, and inflates it to fill an entire game. As such, this is certainly a JRPG driven forwards by its protagonists rather than its narrative.

When the game opens, you are asked to pick your first-in-command, who from then on represents the hero/heroine in your party. I measure a game’s consistency by opting for unconventional characters, so I selected Primrose, the dancer and former noblewoman (and nearly an exact copy of DQ IV’s Meena, but that’s another story).  Turns out she is also an escort with the ability to ‘allure’ people… definitely a first for me.

Be that as it may, Octopath’s wholehearted committed towards developing its characters is clear from the start.  As the story of Primrose’s life began to unfold, it was a heart-braking tragedy of seeking her father’s murderer. She has to descend to the lowest, most sordid pits of society to gain clues about the killer. Dignity means nothing in her task, nor does the appalling abuse from her handler.

Each character’s story has this deep, evocative writing.

Okay who was cutting onions in here, dammit!? In any case, the player then takes over her story when she finally makes a break in her search, and I helped her to escape the crummy pleasure house. From there, you can set off to any of the nearby villages to encounter seven other heroes and heroines that match Primrose’s story of ambition and self-completion.

This is the modus operandi for Octopath from there on in as you will steadily take each of the eight protagonists through the story of reaching their main obsession. As you probably guessed by now, this little companionship eventually begin to recognize how their paths are intertwined. The gang of misfits soon figure out that they are being set on a course by higher powers in order bring about the resurrection of a powerful force, and the destruction of the world.

Better get going!

The side-missions are rather dull, though. They mostly involve talking to one NPC, and then going through a trial and error system of trying each character’s unique ability on another NPC. For instance, the thief can steal something off them, the merchant can buy something off them, or the warrior can duel them.

While it was strangely hilarious challenging a bent-over old woman to a sword duel, I feel like these little side tasks could have been cut altogether. The payoff for their completion was rarely worth the squeeze.

En guard, you old bat! Give me the recipe for that potato pie or I stick you!

It all comes together

When protagonists themselves have to carry the show, they had better be interesting. While I agree that the eight narrative threads are not the most unique – bordering on cliché even – they have all the heart and depth to match Primrose’s tale. Each character has been given a well-written and interesting story that the player will complete over four chapters for each.

This is how Therion’s story begins.

This had the pleasant upside of keeping things fresh narrative wise. RPG’s tend to make the player work to keep up with their narratives and lore which is nice when it works, but there is always the risk of shattering the player’s  immersion in the game’s central plot. By moving the story forwards one character at a time, Octopath finds a welcome alternative to this hazard. By the time the player has filled up the gang, they will know each character like an old friend.

Unfortunately, it is here where Octopath also makes its biggest mistake. Namely, characters feel almost completely isolated and at odds with one another. They never appear in each other’s cut scenes, and your party will be limited, in most cases, to four players at a time. Jason Schreier in his Kotaku review made the remark that the game might as well be called ‘Quadpath Traveller,’ and I feel inclined to agree.

I get that having eight people crowded together on screen might not have worked, but the interactions between the heroes themselves are far too sparse. The game gave absolutely no reason for why a thief, merchant, apothecary, exotic dancer and a hunter would want to work together.

You might wanna stay home in that case, Tressa. Also, you can see the resemblance to Torneko’s story in Dragon Quest IV.

Worst of all, the experience you get from completing quests and defeating enemies is not shared with idle party members. I can imagine many players will find themselves swinging around a broad sword with a level 50 fighter who has to babysit a level 18 merchant or apothecary towards the home stretch. At least this compels the player to circulate more often between party members, which prevents sinking into that grinding slump where the same attacks are used over and over again.

These are few of my favourite things

I do not own a Nintendo Switch, so up until now I had to get by with play-throughs on YouTube. I never realised how these videos utterly failed to translate the beauty on display in this game. Perhaps it is the fact that my modest PC can run it in 4K at buttery-smooth frame rates, but now that I actually have it playing out in front of me, I must say I have never experienced anything quite like this.

Damn this game is pretty!

Octopath really is a landmark game in terms of how modern tech can fuse 2D sprites with 3D visual effects. The characters and in-game assets are virtually indistinguishable from what was on our screens in the late nineties, however the shadows, depth of field and lighting effects are all in 3D. It makes that old, pixel art style come to life in a way that dropped my jaw, and when you add the vignette effect on the edges of the screen, the overall look is almost dreamlike.

Then there is the audio. Boys and girls read this carefully because I do not say this lightly: This is the best music I have ever experienced in a role-playing game. It ranges from enthralling, up-beat, folk style guitar jingles matching the lawless cliff side landscapes, to lonesome, harp-infused overtures in the mystical forests scenes. Then there are full, orchestral symphonies to heighten the more sharp and intense moments during battles and dramatic plot moments. It makes for a stunning, aural backdrop to your gameplay, and it is worth the price of admission alone.

I should point out that I found the cast far too chatty during battles, though. Perhaps this would have been more bearable if not for how often they said the same thing. I can only hear Olberic yell “My blade is UNBENDING!” so many times, and the same goes for that awkward giggle Therion makes every time it comes to his turn to fight. Just turn down the dialogue I guess, which is a shame in light of the solid voice acting.

The combat

There is no need for me to go into the specifics of how the combat mechanics work as it is bog-standard, turn-based battles. Players attack enemies with either a melee weapon or a selection of abilities, and then wait for the opposition to make a move. The developers have gone through considerable lengths to make the menus and sub-menus streamlined, which I found to be a nice touch.

Typical combat scenario. Notice the little blue shield indicating how many hits until the enemy breaks, and that the vulnerabilities of each character has been displayed underneath.

What is actually worth explaining are the three distinct layers Square Enix and Acquire have built into the combat encounters. One layer is the offensive or defensive moves you act out towards enemies, the second is the boost points.

In Dragon Ball Z style, you can boost offensive or defensive moves by ‘charging up’ a character very much like Goku. Every turn grants you a free boost point for a maximum of five, and you can augment your character’s abilities up to a maximum of three levels. Whereas a sword attack or a lightning strike attack might normally do 20 damage for instance, it might do 35 at a level two boost, or 45 at a level three boost.

Little small, sorry, but the yellow dots in the top right corner show boost point available to that character.

Then there is the ‘break’ system which is the game’s strategy to familiarise the player with enemy weaknesses. Each enemy appears on screen with a shield displaying a number. When the player attacks this enemy’s weaknesses directly, this number drops steadily to zero. This is when the enemy experiences a resistance ‘break,’ meaning that they are stunned for a whole round of turns.

All three layers add up to a really engaging combat experience that ensures skilled turned-based veterans can refine the protagonists into a death squad without the risk of newcomers being overwhelmed. I just wish that battles were somehow not random since they occur just a tad too frequently. I would be hard pressed to call Octopath grindy, but repetitive certainly springs to mind.

One of the classics

I never intended to make Octopath Traveller sound like the perfect game. It’s not, but I must say that I think its first reception back in July 2018 was overly harsh. ‘Squeenix’ and Acquire have done a great job with bringing the unforgiving and cryptic JRPG’s of the early nineties forward a few generations. Best of all, they have somehow kept the essence of these games alive in a palpable way.

Boss battle. Bet you cannot tell which one the boss is…

Octopath Traveller looks absolutely gorgeous, is a musical masterpiece and never tries to overcomplicate things. It is rare that the hard-core Final Fantasy and Persona fanboys can sit at the same table as the more casual players who only dabble in this genre from time to time. In this case, Octopath makes one heck of a conversation piece, and it only weighs in at 3.5GB!

Beautiful music

Unique visuals

Character development

Overall simplicity

Somewhat repetitive

No character exchanges

Lackluster side quests

Experience only affects active party

          Playtime: About 54 hours . Admittedly this was a bit of a rushed playthrough, and I would recommend investing in leveling up

Computer Specs: Windows 10 64-bit computer using Nvidia GTX 1070, i5 4690K CPU, 16GB RAM – Played using an Xbox One Controller

Octopath Traveller – PC Review published first on https://touchgen.tumblr.com/

[twitchesandstitches]

4. What is their most embarrassing memory? 17. What are they like when they’re drunk? 20. Fears? 21. Favorite kind of weather? 22. Favorite color? 23. Do they collect anything? 61. When bored, how do they pass time? 78. How do they act when they’re particularly happy? For: Odina, Tamm, Wicke, Tionishia, Centorea, 18, 21 and Mama Defleni.

under read more because it got kinda long

4. most embarassing memory

Odina: Shit. Thisone time, uh. This one time, i was in the same room as one of thoseinfinite magic creating generators they dig up from time to time. Andyeah, me? And something with limitless magic? My ass got so huge itswelled up and got me stuck, right in a doorway. I was trapped therefor HOURS. Some shithead used me for furniture, they sat on my buttand slept there! God… so mortifiying.

Tamm: In my earlydays of learning to take on a bird form, I got lost in the body. Abody you take does have its own instincts and it can overwhelm yourmind; some take on a new form and it takes their mind, and theyforget who they are, becoming just another creature with faintmemories of someone who is gone now. Fortunately I didn’t go thatfar, but I did wind up eating carrion and little bugs. Theembarassing bit? A student saw me do it, and never let me forget…!

Wicke: OnceLusamine and I wore matching uniforms, along with our assistants, topresent the image of a united group to our backers, this being beforethe Aether Foundation became a distinct organization, mind you! Theproblem is, the tailors weren’t given my own… extreme…dimensions in mind and the hips were far too small! The skirt justshredded when i tried to walk; I had to spend all day trying to avoida wardrobe failure and I just know they noticed…!

Tionishia: I oncehad a human boyfriend and I greeted him with a hug so tight he… ah,had some back trouble. It was so embarassign! I learned the hard waythat humans are rather fragile, you know?

Centorea: As youknow, things around here tend to get more than a little odd with thetransformations. The first time I grew a few extra set of breasts onmy horse section, rather like an udder I suppose, I got… verymilky. And sensitive. And unfortunately I sat down on my speciallyadapted couch but didn’t realize someone was on it, and thatsomeone was Suu. There were complications but a long story short, aLOT of milk flooded everywhere and then right into her; she gotkaiju-sized and we had a DEVIL of a time calming her down…! Ugh.How dreadful.

Android 18: I gotsome energy absorbing relay coils installed and I dared Krillin totest them out with some ki projectile fastball. I caught ‘em, yeah.Not so good at the CONTROLLING the blasts thing. Accidentally losthold of the things and blew a huge hole in our house. Ugh, lookinglike a loser in front of your cute, tiny husband… awful.

Android 21: Ionce turned all of the planet Jupiter into a giant chocolate ball. Iwas AIMING for an asteroid, but, well, my aim isn’t always perfect!And of course, so much tasty sweetness got me hungry and I would haveeaten it all if I hadn’t been stopped…! As it is, well, now thereare more than one gaps in it.

Mama Defleini: Afriend hugged me from behind when I wasn’t expecting it and…well, I gushed ink EVERYWHERE. Milk ink, at that, over the entireauditorium. And since I was playing on a band at the time, there isphotographic evidence. Tends to come up when I am trying to beserious, which is not at all helpful!

17. What are theylike when they’re drunk?

Odina:Surprisingly mellow, a bit passive, but even more of a stone wallthan usual. Tends to just ignore everything.

Tamm: Very much abit of a chatterbox!

Wicke: Extremelysweet and affectionate, tries to be helpful and often just falls onyou.

Tionishia: Veryhuggy; this is both dangerous from her immense strength, and comfy,because at least her massive bust is soft!

Centorea: Becomesunexpectedly gloomy, but swings into happy mode for no apparentreason.

Android 18: Angrydrunk, MEAN drunk. She will fight you for looking in her generaldirection, or breathing near her and sucking up her air. She willfight you and it will hurt.

Android 21:Becomes very hungry and eats random stuff; will start chewing ontables and gets really sleepy, really fast.

Mama Defleini:Not really any change at all, but she becomes a bit more talkativethan normal.

20. Fears?

Odina: Shequietly dreads that, one day, she’ll turn on her magical powers andit won’t turn off; she’ll keep draining and growing without beingable to stop it. She’s also scared of getting caught up insomething that’ll go VERY badly for her, and get her killed orworse.

Tamm: Herdaughter killing her, again. Alternatively, she dreads the return ofthe loathsome True Fae from their mysterious realm, for when theycome, they will leave nothing behind.

Wicke: Beinghelpless to stop something truly evil and wretched, or worse, beingcomplicit in it. She dreads her own potential passivity.

Tionishia: Herimmense strength killing a human, or similar species. Just hug sohard, and then hear a horrible little snap. And then, blood onher arms, and a death on her hands.

Centorea: Failureto uphold her duties, so that her lord and her family dies on herwatch. More than that, she fears failing to uphold her oaths and thatshe may act in a dishonorable way, shaming herself irredeemably.

Android 18:Becoming destitute and homeless again, and worse, dooming her familyto the same fate. She would do anything rather than suffer such adoom, and it motivates her to some ruthless acts.

Android 21:Losing control of herself, and becoming a mindlessly gluttonous andcruel monster that would devour her own children, friends and alliesjust to slake the fiend she has become. She dreads the multiversebeing broken by her appetite.

Mama Defleini:She speaks little of her own fears. But in the depths, she has knownthat SOMETHING is coming, however distant, and she hears the echos ofsomething vast and indifferent to mortal suffering, and it is coming.She fears, more than anything, that the ages will  come and destroyall that she has built… and worse, that she can do nothing to stopit.

21. Favorite kindof weather?

Odina: “I likeit rainy, a bit stormy. Feels good, you know?”

Tamm: “As longas it is wet, I enjoy it. Heavy rain is my preferred sort.”

Wicke: “I loveit sunny, more than anything! GIve me open sun and strong light!”

Tionishia:“Strong winds, and cool, dampness.”

Centorea: “Iprefer my days a bit cloudy, to be honest.”

Android 18:“Overcast. When it’s sunny, it’s too hot. Rain is not fun,either. Snow’s the worst. That shit can kill you.”

Android 21: “Idon’t have a preference, honestly! I like it cool, but that mayjust be my body; easier to hold myself together, and it’s not thatmuch of a fondness.”

Mama Defleini:“Mist and cool weathers please me the most.”

22. Favoritecolor?

Odina: “Red, Iguess?”

Tamm: “Purplesare lovely!”

Wicke: “I lovepink! It’s my favorite.”

Tionishia:“Yellows look cute and heroic!”

Centorea: “Ilean towards blues, I suppose!”

Android 18:“Black.”

Android 21: “Ido love greens.”

Mama Defleini:“Magenta, dear. Can’t you tell?” (Rubs her tentaclesaffectionately)

23. Do theycollect anything?

Odina: Collectsvideo games, preferably ones that are a bit more obscure or havegenres unknown in the modern day.

Tamm: Likes tocollect little knick-knacks and enchant them; her chambers andworkplaces resemble a witch’s cottage mixed with a magpie nest.

Wicke: Herfriends joke she gets younger boyfriends. She generally collectsplush toys of all sorts, ranging from obscure toylines to variationsof a given model, and takes pleasure in organizing them to the minutedetail.

Tionishia: Cuteaccesories and fancy hats!

Centorea:Collections of medieval books, old lore, and Arthurian legendry fromover the ages.

Android 18:Books. Until recently they were a luxury for her; they’reexpensive, difficult to carry on the go, and require careful keeping,so she was unable to have any until she and her brother came to theattention of the Red Ribbon army. Now she takes pride in being ableto get as many as she wants.

Android 21: Worksby influential figures she respects; also comic books and manga ofall kinds! She prefers lighthearted and jokey things instead of moregrim or serious material.

Mama Defleini:Apparently, ships. Not model ships or toys; ACTUAL ships. Presumablysome of these are relics from her time as the Kraken of legend, butshe’s diversified into spaceships in the here and now.

61. When bored,how do they pass the time?

Odina: “I liketo read. And enjoy the boredom; it don’t last long, usually.”

Tamm:“Birdwatching is usually a fine hobby to pass the time.”

Wicke: “I liketo take naps, dear! Or perhaps watch some television.”

Tionishia: “Iplay with the local pets; with the people we associate with, there’splenty to find!”

Centorea: “Iwork out! A knight must always refine her body, for it is her finesttool!”

Android 18:“Watch TV, I guess.”

Android 21: “Iread as well!”

Mama Defleini:“Painting, usually of visions I experience or of the unreal imageryI am heir to. It tends to give mortals headache to look at them, butI think they’re pretty.”

78. How do theyact when particularly happy?

Odina: Verymellow; tihs ia clue in itself, as she is normally very guarded andgrim. Any sign of happiness at all is a pretty damn big deal!

Tamm: Softsmiles, gentle asides, ocassionally some faint noises that sound abit like pleased chirps. She’s not too demonstrative of herfeelings.

Wicke:Ebulliently cheerful, almost radiant! She becomes a beacon ofemotional light!

Tionishia:Extremely huggy, to the point that her grasp over how much strongershe is becomes looser than usual, and spines are put to GREAT stresesfrom her hugs. From her arm strength, and her massive boobs; theymight be soft and milky but they’re also EXTREMELY heavy

Centorea: shetries to be tactiturn, in the image of the unflappable knight, butwhen super happy, she ironically acts more like the lady of a courtlyromance; flushng over small feelings, beaming brightly, and speakingin poetic phrase. It’s noticable since usually she IS somewhatstoic.

Android 18: whenhappy, she tends to loosen up a lot; she leans back, probably plopsinto a couch (possibly breaking it) and gets friends/family inaffectionate headlocks. Her happy tends to have a bit of the ‘flirtygirl bully’ vibe.

Android 21: Itcan honestly be difficult to tell, as she doesn’t act TOOdifferently from how she mght otherwise, but she acts a lot like herrobot son Android 16, whose core personality was her biological son;she gets a little more open, more expressive, and she doesn’t seemso closed off.

Mama Defleini: Ingeneral she affects an air of genteel cheeriness; there’s not a lotof interplay between her moods of ‘not super happy’ and‘genuinely super happy’. When she’s sincerely happy, though,she gets very warm and easy going, and parts of her body becoming abit more ink-goo than normal. She literally loosens up!

[terryblount]

Octopath Traveller – PC Review

I am one of those weirdos who loves to buy JRPG’s off the Android store rather than taking refuge in the haven of emulation. Many frown when I tell them this, and some check if I remembered to take my medication that morning. Fact is, the store has built up an excellent collection, and these days I can often be found curled up on the couch, working my way through the classics on my tablet.

Through sheer luck, I just finished Dragon Quest IV, and it was fresh off this experience that I fired up my review copy of Octopath Traveller. After making my way through close to fifty hours or so in Octopath’s unforgettable world, I kept noticing the striking similarities it shares with the fourth Dragon Quest game, but also with many JRPG’s of the mid-nineties in general.

Initially I thought the developers, Square Enix and Acquire, had intended to pay homage to their successes in the early scene. After playing Octopath Traveller for myself, however, I realise this game is something more. It has everything we loved about the early days, but with a few tweaks, refinements and innovations that turns the experience into a ‘love letter’ for the genre as many have said.

If this does not impress you then I am done trying!

This game is truly exceptional, and now that we finally have a chance to play it on our favourite platform, I feel like no collection will be complete without it. I finally get why Nintendo insisted on Octopath Traveller as a timed Switch release since I know people who bought their console just to play this game. This is a stellar and accessible JRPG, and you should go try it as soon as you can.

Octopus caliper

I wasn’t being cute when I mentioned there are some hilarious resemblances between DQ IV and Octopath Traveller; one could easily write a whole article just comparing the two. Basically, Octopath Traveller takes the character driven chapters from the opening sections of DQ IV, and inflates it to fill an entire game. As such, this is certainly a JRPG driven forwards by its protagonists rather than its narrative.

When the game opens, you are asked to pick your first-in-command, who from then on represents the hero/heroine in your party. I measure a game’s consistency by opting for unconventional characters, so I selected Primrose, the dancer and former noblewoman (and nearly an exact copy of DQ IV’s Meena, but that’s another story).  Turns out she is also an escort with the ability to ‘allure’ people… definitely a first for me.

Be that as it may, Octopath’s wholehearted committed towards developing its characters is clear from the start.  As the story of Primrose’s life began to unfold, it was a heart-braking tragedy of seeking her father’s murderer. She has to descend to the lowest, most sordid pits of society to gain clues about the killer. Dignity means nothing in her task, nor does the appalling abuse from her handler.

Each character’s story has this deep, evocative writing.

Okay who was cutting onions in here, dammit!? In any case, the player then takes over her story when she finally makes a break in her search, and I helped her to escape the crummy pleasure house. From there, you can set off to any of the nearby villages to encounter seven other heroes and heroines that match Primrose’s story of ambition and self-completion.

This is the modus operandi for Octopath from there on in as you will steadily take each of the eight protagonists through the story of reaching their main obsession. As you probably guessed by now, this little companionship eventually begin to recognize how their paths are intertwined. The gang of misfits soon figure out that they are being set on a course by higher powers in order bring about the resurrection of a powerful force, and the destruction of the world.

Better get going!

The side-missions are rather dull, though. They mostly involve talking to one NPC, and then going through a trial and error system of trying each character’s unique ability on another NPC. For instance, the thief can steal something off them, the merchant can buy something off them, or the warrior can duel them.

While it was strangely hilarious challenging a bent-over old woman to a sword duel, I feel like these little side tasks could have been cut altogether. The payoff for their completion was rarely worth the squeeze.

En guard, you old bat! Give me the recipe for that potato pie or I stick you!

It all comes together

When protagonists themselves have to carry the show, they had better be interesting. While I agree that the eight narrative threads are not the most unique – bordering on cliché even – they have all the heart and depth to match Primrose’s tale. Each character has been given a well-written and interesting story that the player will complete over four chapters for each.

This is how Therion’s story begins.

This had the pleasant upside of keeping things fresh narrative wise. RPG’s tend to make the player work to keep up with their narratives and lore which is nice when it works, but there is always the risk of shattering the player’s  immersion in the game’s central plot. By moving the story forwards one character at a time, Octopath finds a welcome alternative to this hazard. By the time the player has filled up the gang, they will know each character like an old friend.

Unfortunately, it is here where Octopath also makes its biggest mistake. Namely, characters feel almost completely isolated and at odds with one another. They never appear in each other’s cut scenes, and your party will be limited, in most cases, to four players at a time. Jason Schreier in his Kotaku review made the remark that the game might as well be called ‘Quadpath Traveller,’ and I feel inclined to agree.

I get that having eight people crowded together on screen might not have worked, but the interactions between the heroes themselves are far too sparse. The game gave absolutely no reason for why a thief, merchant, apothecary, exotic dancer and a hunter would want to work together.

You might wanna stay home in that case, Tressa. Also, you can see the resemblance to Torneko’s story in Dragon Quest IV.

Worst of all, the experience you get from completing quests and defeating enemies is not shared with idle party members. I can imagine many players will find themselves swinging around a broad sword with a level 50 fighter who has to babysit a level 18 merchant or apothecary towards the home stretch. At least this compels the player to circulate more often between party members, which prevents sinking into that grinding slump where the same attacks are used over and over again.

These are few of my favourite things

I do not own a Nintendo Switch, so up until now I had to get by with play-throughs on YouTube. I never realised how these videos utterly failed to translate the beauty on display in this game. Perhaps it is the fact that my modest PC can run it in 4K at buttery-smooth frame rates, but now that I actually have it playing out in front of me, I must say I have never experienced anything quite like this.

Damn this game is pretty!

Octopath really is a landmark game in terms of how modern tech can fuse 2D sprites with 3D visual effects. The characters and in-game assets are virtually indistinguishable from what was on our screens in the late nineties, however the shadows, depth of field and lighting effects are all in 3D. It makes that old, pixel art style come to life in a way that dropped my jaw, and when you add the vignette effect on the edges of the screen, the overall look is almost dreamlike.

Then there is the audio. Boys and girls read this carefully because I do not say this lightly: This is the best music I have ever experienced in a role-playing game. It ranges from enthralling, up-beat, folk style guitar jingles matching the lawless cliff side landscapes, to lonesome, harp-infused overtures in the mystical forests scenes. Then there are full, orchestral symphonies to heighten the more sharp and intense moments during battles and dramatic plot moments. It makes for a stunning, aural backdrop to your gameplay, and it is worth the price of admission alone.

I should point out that I found the cast far too chatty during battles, though. Perhaps this would have been more bearable if not for how often they said the same thing. I can only hear Olberic yell “My blade is UNBENDING!” so many times, and the same goes for that awkward giggle Therion makes every time it comes to his turn to fight. Just turn down the dialogue I guess, which is a shame in light of the solid voice acting.

The combat

There is no need for me to go into the specifics of how the combat mechanics work as it is bog-standard, turn-based battles. Players attack enemies with either a melee weapon or a selection of abilities, and then wait for the opposition to make a move. The developers have gone through considerable lengths to make the menus and sub-menus streamlined, which I found to be a nice touch.

Typical combat scenario. Notice the little blue shield indicating how many hits until the enemy breaks, and that the vulnerabilities of each character has been displayed underneath.

What is actually worth explaining are the three distinct layers Square Enix and Acquire have built into the combat encounters. One layer is the offensive or defensive moves you act out towards enemies, the second is the boost points.

In Dragon Ball Z style, you can boost offensive or defensive moves by ‘charging up’ a character very much like Goku. Every turn grants you a free boost point for a maximum of five, and you can augment your character’s abilities up to a maximum of three levels. Whereas a sword attack or a lightning strike attack might normally do 20 damage for instance, it might do 35 at a level two boost, or 45 at a level three boost.

Little small, sorry, but the yellow dots in the top right corner show boost point available to that character.

Then there is the ‘break’ system which is the game’s strategy to familiarise the player with enemy weaknesses. Each enemy appears on screen with a shield displaying a number. When the player attacks this enemy’s weaknesses directly, this number drops steadily to zero. This is when the enemy experiences a resistance ‘break,’ meaning that they are stunned for a whole round of turns.

All three layers add up to a really engaging combat experience that ensures skilled turned-based veterans can refine the protagonists into a death squad without the risk of newcomers being overwhelmed. I just wish that battles were somehow not random since they occur just a tad too frequently. I would be hard pressed to call Octopath grindy, but repetitive certainly springs to mind.

One of the classics

I never intended to make Octopath Traveller sound like the perfect game. It’s not, but I must say that I think its first reception back in July 2018 was overly harsh. ‘Squeenix’ and Acquire have done a great job with bringing the unforgiving and cryptic JRPG’s of the early nineties forward a few generations. Best of all, they have somehow kept the essence of these games alive in a palpable way.

Boss battle. Bet you cannot tell which one the boss is…

Octopath Traveller looks absolutely gorgeous, is a musical masterpiece and never tries to overcomplicate things. It is rare that the hard-core Final Fantasy and Persona fanboys can sit at the same table as the more casual players who only dabble in this genre from time to time. In this case, Octopath makes one heck of a conversation piece, and it only weighs in at 3.5GB!

Beautiful music

Unique visuals

Character development

Overall simplicity

Somewhat repetitive

No character exchanges

Lackluster side quests

Experience only affects active party

          Playtime: About 54 hours . Admittedly this was a bit of a rushed playthrough, and I would recommend investing in leveling up

Computer Specs: Windows 10 64-bit computer using Nvidia GTX 1070, i5 4690K CPU, 16GB RAM – Played using an Xbox One Controller

Octopath Traveller – PC Review published first on https://touchgen.tumblr.com/