#like it's cool outside of combat. but the more complicated combat gets the more i hate the mouse-controlled camera

[ravensilversea]

Not me trying to figure out how to remap my keybindings to work for me when changing the mouse keybindings is apparently not allowed

[hemlock-dreams]

What's Spidys relationship like with the other NY bound heros?

Got a bunch of other hero asks so it's time for Ye Olde Lore Dump!

Johnny and H!Spiderman have never gotten along- in either universe.

They don't even really have any real beef with each other, they're just two dudes who grate on each other's nerves for no particular reason- like two guys at a frat party who are just waiting for an excuse to duke it out.

There's just something about Johnny's playboy easy-come-and-go vibe that makes Spidey want to plant a fist in his face. And Johnny thinks Spiderman is a fucking buzzkill.

Black Widow and Spiderman have a good working relationship. He once helped her out of a tight spot in New York and he was fast, smart and discreet about it- so when she's got some ops she needs a second pair of hands for (under the table), she calls him.

Spiderman admires Nat's competence and single-minded focus in getting things done- they all appeal to the hunter in him. (And he's got a massive crush on her.)

They usually do one or two jobs every few months, and meet up for drinks at one of her safehouses. She's also knows his secret identity, because she's just that scary.

Logan and Peter are BFFs. For real. Logan was in town to help with some shit that ended up involving Deadpool and found himself at St. Margaret's.

He and Peter struck up a friendship that ends up with them going camping every couple of months for a week or so.

Logan likes Peter's no-bullshit sincerity and can tell he's had some shit(TM) go down in his life. Peter's easy to talk to and is good at reading the room. And Peter feels like Logan fills in that space Marko left as a friend/mentor/gruff bro figure.

Logan actually picks up when Peter calls. (most others he leaves on read).

Fun fact, he has no idea Peter is Spiderman.

And another fun fact, it's not Johnny Deadpool is jealous of, it's Logan.

Peter has a very complicated relationship with the Avengers.

On one hand, he knows what they do and what they stand for- on the other hand, he's got a real problem with authority figures. He's been invited to the Avengers multiple times, in both realities.

The answer is always blanket N.O. (And, depending on whether it's stark asking, accompanied by a giant middle finger). (Though he's reluctantly agreed to have an avenger's phone in case there are any massive threats they need help with).

As for the members:

Stark gets on his nerves like nothing else. He's not super easy to rile up, but Stark's playboy arrogance (real or not), way he talks down at people, the self-appointed authority, the entitlement, and, of course, the fucking hypocrisy- it makes Spidey go 0 to 'cashmeoutside' immediately.

He and the Captain sometimes get along, but mostly when the Captain isn't in one of his preachy, pontificating moments. They do work very well together in a combat capacity, but they don't have much to talk about.

Thor is fine, but completely outside of Spidey's sphere and also, difficult to work with given his powers.

Bruce and Spidey just don't have much to talk about, and once again, Hulk is way too loud and can't particularly coordinate when they have to team up.

In general, H!Spiderman gets along with the more 'loner' heroes like Murdock, Deadpool, Black Widow, Bucky, Logan, Clint and so on.

(Side note, imagine he said all these shots fired shit to the Avengers and they were like 'no? none of this happened?' because it's not the same reality and Spiderman has to go home and die from the cringe???) (no we'll let him be cool for this)

-----

Once again, thank you so much for the asks!! I really appreciate all the love this AU has gotten and I hope these answers satisfy!!!

[least-evil-resident]

medieval resident evil au where Umbrella is a cabal of dark mages trying to unlock the secrets to lichdom and go mad learning secrets from the undead eldritch horror outside of space and time

Chris and Jill are Knights in service of the Order of Stars, Leon is a beginning town guard, Ada is still a spy, honestly not much is different

If you give them ttrpg character sheets then it's even more fun

Would guns be wands, badass Crossbows, or straight up magic, or different based on the game? They could also just be guns but that wouldn't be nearly as interesting.

Consider pistol=dagger, rifle=longsword, shotgun=axe? Grenades could be hand bombs or magic.

Or pistol=hand crossbow, rifle=light crossbow, shotgun is either special bolt or a spell

Beneath the cobblestone streets of raccoon city, where gaslamps and auto-carriages ramble, is the lair of an evil sect of mages developing spells in secret to transform humans into beasts

Could be very bloodborne-esque. Lots of fire and brimstone. Maybe STARS are more like paladins, and the bsaa is an order of Templar type organization.

If we go dnd 5e rules, Chris is a fighter for sure, Jill is like a rogue I guess? Leon could go either. It could be fun to make Claire like a sorcerer since she gets the grenade launcher

In later games I think Chris definitely fits either paladin or barbarian, where Leon goes for more rogue/maybe ranger vibes. Jill seems more rogue+fighter but magic rogue is cool, maybe artificer. Claire would be sorcerer multiclass I think. Keep any mages low powered that way.

Sherry in 6 is maybe warlock or aasimar instead of Cleric? Blood hunter would be cool. Rebecca starts as a Cleric in 0 for sure. For a low magic setting where research and Rituals are matched by quick, small combat spells, how high of a DC do you think enemies would go?

Of course, in a classless system like gurps or all flesh, this would be a lot less restrictive. What would be the best system for resident evil normally? What would be the best one for its fantasy au?

Wesker very much fits the low-fantasy vampire theme. He has a reflection and can step in he sunlight but wow it hurts his eyes. Chris rolls a 20 to punch a boulder to death.

Leon has the lucky feat or 20 in dex or something to pull off his stunts. Chris also gets Charisma as a leader for the bsaa, so paladin is up his alley. Leon's secret service requires more rogue skills, but his time in operation javier trains his skills as a Ranger under Krauser maybe?

Jill and Claire both get grenade launchers, but Jill is more Rogue with her lockpicking so it makes sense for them to switch level ups later on as claire learns more professional skills for rogue training.

Barry definitely hits fighter/barbarian with his heavy weapons. Jake is maybe more monk/barbarian but with something like a dhampir ancestry feature? Sheva is maybe rogue/fighter or paladin fighter since thats when chris starts taking paladin levels. Billy has to be rogue/fighter I think, or maybe fighter/rogue, if he even gets a second class. It would almost make sense for him to be pure rogue and rebecca be cure cleric, since she retires to become a researcher and hes never heard from again. Helena is I guess just plain rogue, hinting at her role in 6, while Leon has his ranger levels. Piers is more rogue/Ranger (or fighter archer). A lot of the one off teammates just don't get super interesting classes as a consequence of their limited appearance. Carlos... Fighter? Just fighter is fine.

Now, the problem here is that each game starts off with little to no equipment for various reasons. In the case of our spell casters like claire and jill, we can't just de-level them between adventures in the resident evil campaign. But we could give them more limited access to spell components to match the resource management of survival horror.

This is more complicated outside of dnd 5e, where a game like All Flesh Must Be Eaten has very different spellcasting rules, so you'd need to stray from a low-magic to a straight low-fantasy setting. Alchemist tools and one use spell scrolls replace your grenades and spell casting maybe? That's the issue you'd run into with treating the setting as one campaign instead of each game as an individual campaign though.

The easiest one to do is RE8. It's literally the same. Ethan starts 7 as a human Commoner, takes levels in artificer as the game goes on, since that one introduced crafting, and comes back very subtly as a human variant with a few new levels in fighter from chris' tutoring. Hey that means we can give Hiesenburg an artificer friend! Class buddies ♡ hiesenburg is probably artificer/sorcerer, giving him charisma and intelligence. Dimetrescu is maybe barbarian if she even gets class levels.

I don't think we can justifiably say Rose is a variant human, I think she gets her own custom ancestry features for this. Sorcerer also feels better than Druid for her, but a couple levels in - you guessed it, rogue! Cover her gun and Stealth skills. You get a lot or rogues and fighters in low powered/low fantasy settings, who knew lol

[minweber]

Musings on Custodes: Assorted Headcanons

Decided to get together some of the stuff that's been rattling around in my head for a while and which doesn't seem significant enough for a topic of its own. As usual, everything presented here is basically just my headcanons for Custodes, only some of which are supported, to varying degrees, by current lore:

Custodes don't communicate with each other in combat - as in, fight and perform complicated group maneuvers without talking to each other. This is barely a speculation, because the codex straight up says that they fight silently. There, however, it is used mostly to denote that they don't have a battlecry, and they do also use Thoughtmark, so can still very much communicate while staying silent. I think it would be very cool and fitting to push it further, and take it to mean that they actually don't communicate, as in don't pass any information to each other in battle. Instead, whenever they fight as a group, each of them just knows what each of them should do, and has an absolute certainty that everyone will do their part, perfection in all things and all that. They essentially operate like a reverse hive mind, with each individual thinking for every member of the group, and it all always syncing up through the magic of Posthuman Big Brains. It is very silly, but the exact kind of Dune-like super brain powers that 40k in general seems to find so irresistible.

Custodes despise the Minotaurs - like, as much as they can despise someone who is not an actual traitor... Maybe a bit a more. Have you ever noticed how High Lords of Terra, the mighty rulers of the Imperium of Man, are not in full control of the very world from which they rule? How there is an incredibly powerful military force, over which they can exert exactly zero influence, always lurking around their seat of power? And how they seem to have created for themselves an army spear-wielding superhumans with a hellenistic motif, armored in red and... bronze? Yeah, I have no idea how intentional this was on part of writers of old Imperial Armour, but Minotaurs are 100% poor man's (lord's?) Custodes, made to imitate control over something that was forever beyond their creators' reach. And I do oh so believe that Custodes themselves would see it, and man oh man would that grind their nuts. They aren't keen on Astartes in general, and the ones that are essentially parodies of them, bound in service to those they would certainly consider lesser men? Oooh, superhuman patience or no, there would be salt.

Most custodians are what we would call some variation of aroace - this one is a full on headcanon of mine, based on nothing save my quixotic quest for depiction of warhammer posthumans that is more than just "very smart and very scary when angry". Whenever we talk about "more evolved human beings" in sci-fi context (I genuinely hope that my slight obsession with this topic is viewed solely within it), it is worth remembering that evolution is not like, a scale. Nothing is just "overall better" than anything else, it is all about adaptation to circumstance and environment. So too custodians are not simply "humans, but better" - they are shaped specifically for their role as Emperor's companions. Which, I think, would have interesting effects on those parts of them that lie outside this purpose - like experiencing attraction very differently from most humans. Here I should hurry to add that I am using the term aroace incredibly broadly, more as a closest available analogue to something that maybe doesn't exist in observable human experience, rather than in all of its defined nuance. But yeah, I like to imagine that a lot of them don't experience romantic and sexual attraction at all, their brains and body chemistry just not wired for it anymore, and those that do, do so in ways that may be alien to us. For example - being more detached about it, their feelings blending the line between emotional and intellectual, their love or lust less... visceral than ours can be? Something that is not more or less, but instead just different.

They do not idolize the Emperor, and may actually be pretty critical of him - Wait, stop, I can explain! Yeah, we begin to really veer off now - but I do so love characterization rooted deeply in contradiction. I don't challenge the idea that they are unflinchingly, mind-numbingly loyal to him and would commit any heinous crime on his word. But I also like to imagine them having the same sort of "predisposed towards the same personality traits and flaws" thing that Astartes have with their primarchs. Having their unique personalities all grow around the same powerful inherited core. Basically, they all see him in themselves - and if they thought that he was infallible, then... Well, it's not as interesting as the opposite, is it? What if instead they see him as a deeply flawed figure, and see those flaws reflected in them, but at the same time are too much like him to admit either? Isn't it delicious - to be able to see how deeply flawed and toxic are the ideals that you follow, and yet be shaped by them to such an extent that you cannot help but desperately chase them?

Kind of flowing logically from the previous two - Custodes are capable of experiencing attraction, but never to each other. It's just all too easy for them to see all the parts of him, of themselves, that they don't like in others of their kind. In fact, maybe this goes beyond attraction - maybe this is the reason that they have trouble truly working together and trusting one another?

[mayapapaya33]

I'm about half an hour into the third episode, and I see a bunch of people in the chat saying that the Gods never explain themselves, which sure, could be a valid criticism. But they have said that destroying a God is different than replacing them via ascending because their mantel of power won't be upheld. The Matron killed/replaced/erased? the previous God of Death and took their place. It has been heavily implied/ basically outright stated that the Factorum Malleus (God Hammer) would not just be the end of the Gods, but the end of their domain which does NOT just affect said God, but also all mortals, who are their creations. The phrase "never have existed" has been thrown around a couple times. If the Gods never existed, with no one to take their place in the weave, guess what, neither has anyone on Exandria, ever. That's my read on the situation anyway. Cause and Effect: Gods create mortals, no Gods ever, no mortals ever. To use a pertinent quote, it's very Wibbly wobbly timey wimey.

They also said that there are things beyond our mortal comprehension that exist outside this world that would take the combined might of ALL the Gods to defeat. Now, that "beyond mortal comprehension" bit can come off as condescending for sure, but what if it's literally just the truth and they genuinely can't explain it to us more specifically than a general outline. Go back to the beginning of episode 1 of Downfall, we couldn't even comprehend their NAMES. They were/are impossible fractal patterns and balls of light and sensation and sound and thunder and fire. Imagine all the other things that we just physically cannot process.

Imagine trying to teach quantum physics to an ant. You like the ant, the ant is really cool, and charming, and fun to be around. You love the ant and think it's great. You're very proud of the ant's achievements. The ant has impressed you with its skills. You want to protect the ant and you also want to protect yourself. You aren't trying to be a dick. But it's still an ant. How ARE the Gods supposed to translate the untranslatable Eldridge Monstrosities that lurk beyond? The things that, were you to grasp a fraction of their reality, they would break your mind and leave you a drooling mess on the floor, clawing at your head with madness. Other than by saying; 'look, there are layers here you don't understand, and also threats that require all of us to combat. Shit's complicated, sorry.'

This is all in addition to the "the Gods are a fractured family and would rather put each other in jail than murder each other" thing. Which honestly, that's fair. If someone I loved went off the deep end and started killing innocent people, I too would rather put them in jail than murder them. And many things can be true at the same time. They can both long to be a family again AND have legitimate/strategic reason for not killing each other. Not wanting to kill your family doesn't automatically make you a liar or a bad person lol. The prime deities DID choose saving mortals over getting along at thanksgiving with the betrayers and a lot of people seem to be forgetting that. From what I can tell, it would have been super easy for them to be like, 'ah fuck it, fine. Have it your way bro. Smush the ants if it means that much to you.' But they didn't.

[positivelybeastly]

X-Men #1

So. The big day!

Let's go.

Absolutely adore that it takes Hank the space of one panel to get Chief Robbins to go from shouting in surprise to smiling at him. Hank is honestly just effortlessly charming, and it really shows here.

This entire first issue is very Morrison in terms of continuity, with what I'm pretty sure is even a direct callback to New X-Men #115.

Feral bash brother and sister Magik and Juggernaut will never not make me smile. I'm genuinely so here for them to be a chaotic gremlin BrOTP in this series.

So jazzed for Idie to get some spotlight again. Outside of WatXM and her role in the Krakoan Exiles, she really hasn't gotten a lot of love, and I very much enjoyed her turn as the Storm of the team, deploying ice cover for the combat landing.

Glob Herman, you will always be iconic. Also, Hank, you're enjoying yourself entirely too much.

"B-But my husband lost his job at the Lockheed Martin factory where they make the bombs that cut children into a billion pieces! Won't you please think of our jerbs?!"

No.

Jesus Christ. Literally taking it out of him in chunks. Last time I saw Logan fucked up this badly by someone with a knife, it was in X-Force, and it was - oh. Oh yeah. Oops.

Well, anyway!

Always here for telepathic relay bullshit. There's something really just delightful about the sentence 'Dumping them into the common knowledge pool.' It's just very Morrison.

John Sublime and the U-Men . . .

I love supportive, nurturing Scott. Legitimately one of the best hats that Scott gets to wear. Also, rebound shots are always fucking cool.

That refraction is cool shit. There's just a lot of really neat visual flair going on in the combat, and it shows rather than tells us that Scott really is just as good as Hank hypes him up to be.

Cute.

One: who the hell put that needlework up on the wall? Because that's brilliant. I desperately want to see a "Bless this Mess," or a "Live, Laugh, Love," at some point.

Two: Hank bakes! He bakes Jewish shortbread! I wonder if MacKay knows that Hank speaks fluent Yiddish and decided to expand that to a wider interest in Jewish culture and food? Fucking cool shit.

OIHEPOAIGHSDAP[OUIHGOUHG

ADE[OIGHJEADPOUIGHSGOIUH

YESSSSSSSSSSSSS.

This is so good.

That one-two punch of Hank's burning, bristling fury at his previous self for denying himself the pleasure of Krakoa as well as denying him his memories of it, and the meaningful nod in the direction of X-Force, is so fucking good.

This is exactly how I figured Hank would react, and, like, I'm not gonna go ahead and say Jed MacKay is an amazing writer just because he writes Hank like I do, but fuck, it sure as hell makes me happy!

I also really like Stegman's art here because it evokes a simple fact of Hank's appearance - he's meant to be slightly uncanny and scary and able to switch from cuddly teddy bear to beast on a dime. The Morrison is strong here, the pleasant, bubbling layer of frothy cultured genius hiding a whirlpool of complicated emotions and self-hatred, and I couldn't be more enthralled.

I can't believe I'm actually getting acknowledgement of the fact that the rest of X-Force was just as complicit in what Beast did as he was, and that they do not, in fact, get a free fucking pass for being shitheads who did morally bankrupt things on a whim.

Giggling. Squealing. Kicking my feet.

Hims.

Hank is so deeply tired of Max's shit, I love it. "This is the fourth time this week you've pulled the intimidating hover chair flex on a passing human, Max, are you going to get tired of it eventually?"

Hank is rolling his eyes at this. God, what a good voice for Magneto here, honestly, and a decent continuation of the whole Ewing retcon about how 60s Magneto's characterisation fits into the wider whole.

Hank is the open hand. Scott is the fist. Max is the sleeping dragon. God, what a fucking good trinity, I adore it.

"Henry has a soft touch. He always has."

I've run out of image space, but Magneto's, "Tell me he will die on a mission soon," in response to Quentin is hilarious.

Genuinely adore the quiet moment on the roof between Hank and Scott. It's so nice to see these two as friends again, like it all never changed. I'm deeply curious to see if the knowledge of X-Force and everything that happened will change how the rest of the team views Hank, or if Hank's the only one who holds that against himself, but regardless, it's nice to see these two just kicking it with some beers.

Love the power move of leaving the Sentinel looming, midway through powering up its laser, over the town for a bit. "Don't forget, you owe us, we don't owe you."

That teaser is nice and ominous, even if it doesn't mean a ton just yet.

Overall, really good #1! I'm intensely excited to see where the rest of the run takes us, even if we do have to wait until August to see the next part.

Now, to go make caps . . .

[illprotectyou-hearteyes]

So, the opening line of MI2 is: "Well, Dimitri, every search for a hero must begin with something every hero requires: a villain."

It's not a line I've given much thought to, what with it hardly being a strikingly original observation.

But giving it a moment, the line makes me think about how much more complex the MI series' approach to that dichotomy is than 'Good Guy vs Bad Guy'. It's far more 'a guy fighting for his humanity vs an institution that seeks to subsume him into their oppressive functions.' Ethan didn't rise from the ashes to combat an Evil Overlord or even an Evil Organization which he attacks from the outside. Dude wants a dog and a family and house, but he is trapped within an organization that leaves no options besides being complicit with its abuses or fighting like hell to subvert both it and the threat it launches him at.

That's why the villains I find most compelling in the series are ones like Jim Phelps and Solomon Lane—even Sean Ambrose in a few select moments—who contrast with Ethan specifically in how they navigate the moral death-trap that is the IMF or similar organizations. (Don't get me wrong, Owen Davion is a top-tier villain when it comes to building a sense of threat and cruelty, but by MI standards I don't find him the most thematically compelling. If I'm going for analysis, I'm more likely to dig into Musgrave and Brassel).

Still, to return to the opening line of MI2: it doesn't refer to the 'creation of a hero', but rather the 'search for a hero'. And, well, I suppose the IMF as an organization is, in its way, always on the search for heroes. But however unintentionally, it finds them not through identifying external villains to toss agents at and see who sticks. It finds and forges them through being the jailor who traps individuals inside it, and villain who will break and turn them within it unless they find the heroism to fight.

And for all its theatrics which these days tend play as rather more funny than cool, for all that its aesthetics make it easy to dismiss, that dynamic is fully present in MI2—more present even, I'd argue, (at least at this point in my rewatches), than in MI3 or MI4.

And personally, I find that dynamic really compelling, not to mention relatable. After all, I suspect it's a rare privilege among us everyday folks to find an individual nemesis against whom to sharpen our skills and wits and moral fiber. But living within systems of oppression we cannot escape, within which complacency and obedience tips all too readily into complicity with horrors, against which we learn to stand in whatever small or large ways we find capacity for even when we cannot find the means to transform it—well, my friends and I know a thing or two about that.

[yunoteru4ever]

A look at the anime adaption of "Reign of the Seven Spellblades"

The anime adaption of Sakae Esuno's ongoing manga, Reign of the Seven Spellblades, is currently airing. These 13 episodes will hopefully serve as the first season of many to come... but time will have to tell on that front.

Although this is an adaption Sakae Esuno's manga, the sad truth is that the RotSS manga is not an original story by my fav mangaka. Instead, his manga is itself an adaption of an already-successful series of light novels written by a totally different author — Bokuto Uno, who previously wrote the series Alderamin on the Sky. The point is that although this anime is an adaption of Sakae Esuno's adaption, Esuno ultimately has a limited influence on the storytelling. He basically provides a system of organization for the episodic storytelling and an overall storyboard for the visual presentation. He also was the first to portray some of the side characters in any artwork, so he likely is behind their visual design.

But that's about where his influence ends! It's not like we can expect a series of insane cliffhangers, shocking betrayals, and characters who're playing psychological games like we find in his self-written works.

......................OR CAN WE??

Yeah okay maybe CAN expect some of that, but we'll get into it.

A quick overview: Reign of the Seven Spellblades takes place at Kimberly Academy, an English* magical school for would-be mages. Students begin at age 15 and generally attend for seven years. Most students get in by virtue of their family's magical lineage, but there are also those who get scouted for their aptitude as well as those who come from families with no magical background, meaning that they have to pass a difficult test to attend. Classes include alchemic potions, magical combat, magical creatures, herbology... if you were to assume this all sounds rather like "Anime Harry Potter," you'd be PRECISELY right. At first, that is.

We follow a group of friends who are quickly pulled together by an incident that occurs during the year's opening ceremony. Our two primary leads are:

Oliver Horn, a dark-haired nice guy who's studied magic before coming here and has some mild skill as a result. He's eager to help his fellow first-years, but he's followed around by a mysterious bodyguard for reasons that are initially unknown.

Nanao Hibiya, an Asian* student who is very much a "fish out of water" in this environment. Nanao was scouted by a member of the school's faculty while she was fighting as a samurai on the battlefields of Muromachi-era Japan*; she doesn't know much beyond war, or even much outside of her home nation.

Our semi-likely heroes.

*RotSS takes place in a world that mirrors our Earth's map and borders despite not sharing our country and continent names. So in actuality, the series doesn't call England "England" or refer to Japan as "Japan." Still, these fake-named countries share the history, culture, and geography of the real ones they're based on, so I'm using the real-world names for simplicity's sake. They're the same in every way EXCEPT their names.

This is all merely the tip of the iceberg, because I'm not going to get into issues like the struggle for demi-human rights or the fact/concern that 20% of the academy's students historically die before they can graduate. There's even a labyrinth beneath the school that contains some cool beasts as well as a very disturbing, are-we-really-doing-this one that I'd rather not talk about, THANK-YOU-VERY-MUCH.

But I digress; the first six episodes of the anime primarily focus on getting to know more about the world, the complicated politics within it, how some of the magic works, and — of course — the personalities of our characters. This includes explaining what exactly a "Spellblade" is. (For the record, it's not a magic sword.)

It's not until the end of the sixth episode— much later than the standard "three-episode rule" will carry any skeptical viewers — that we get the reveal that changes what we thought this show was about. And that reveal provides the story with the cynical edge I've come to expect from Sakae Esuno. (Naturally, in the light novels this is a reveal that drops at the end of the very first book.)

SPOILERS FOR Reign of the Seven Spellblades BELOW THE CUT

In an amazingly left-field twist, we learn that Oliver Horn is actually the son of a woman who championed equality among mages and wanted to stop the encroachment of magical beings from other realities who were entering our world and taking over communities. She was trying to change the landscape of the culture — especially in regards to how it was causing suffering in Europe's most oppressed and impoverished communities. But when Oliver was just a child, his mother was betrayed by seven former comrades. They tortured her and murdered her, with the final strike being executed by her best friend... who is now the headmistress of Kimberly Academy.

In fact, all seven of those former allies of Oliver's mother are now on the faculty of the academy. And Oliver is attending this academy solely to kill them all. To that end, he's manipulating said faculty through his actions, carefully maneuvering their attention to serve his interests. I won't get into exactly how he can successfully kill these mages who're at a far higher level than him, but suffice to say that the answer is QUITE satisfying.

Oliver's not even his mother's last relative, as he also has cousins and other allies embedded within the student body who are here to support his quest. Once he kills his first quarry, he's declared the leader of their group. But even as OIliver continues on his mission, the lessons of Nanao's samurai code has gotten him wondering whether the path of vengeance will truly satisfy him.

Frankly, I hope it continues to satisfy him, because it sure as hell satisfies ME. The way Oliver takes out his first victim is such a left-field twist and utterly goddamn awesome. This show went from "anime Harry Potter" to "HOLY FUCK this is unbelievably badass" in less than 10 minutes. And the flashbacks to his mother's horrific betrayal aligned very well with Sakae Esuno's established cynicism regarding human nature.

Now that we have a mission of revenge and murderous justice to follow, the whole setup is instantly much more than what it first appeared to be. And it's impressive how they managed to keep the biggest reveals completely hidden until it was time to spring them on the audience while simultaneously still laying groundwork, obscurely hinting at the twist to come without ever tipping their hand.

So yeah, I'm a fan of this. I imagine I'd like it even more if it was totally Esuno's baby, because that's just how much of a mark I am for his work, but this is still great stuff with a really nice cast of characters at its center.

[kajinovaa]

Some questions I feel like are okay enough to ask about Hitsuji; if this isn't okay, ignore this!

1. What is Hitsuji's favorite color?

2. Who is their best friend? (Ex. Izuku, Shinso, Monoma, etc.) And what person do they not get along with? (Ex. Mineta, Denki, Katsuki, etc.)

3. What's their favorite thing to do in their free time? Training? Sleeping? Eating?

4. What hero do they look up to? Endeavor? Eraserhead? Possibly Gang Orca?

5. If they had a partner (you do not have to answer this if you don't feel comfy!), how would they treat them?

6. How big is their family? Do they have a lot of siblings? Are they the only child? Do they have a good relationship with everyone?

don't worry, these questions are totally acceptable!

1) Bold colors - oxblood, vibrant yellow-orange, royal blue, ultraviolet purple

2a) Because of their personality type, it tends to be those that have a particular niche in handling/tolerating wild ones. Top bestie is a waturbby named Haru (a friendo's blorbo :>). Eijirou falls into this category pretty well, and so would Izuku, but Izuku's a bit more of a special case, kek. There's also Katsuki, it's very complicated with that man. >>;

2b) KATSUKI 100000%. A classmate of theirs named Yata, who's an oc of a friend (scrunkly foxboy gets headbutted any time he breathes in Hitsuji's general direction). Mineta's a generic classic distaste, especially since Hitsuji's afab so those creepy antics really get under their fleece. Believe it or not, Yoshinori's on the list, and even dared to run the former symbol of peace over one time.

3) Horticulture and charity! Family's got a long line of farmers, and they're fond of helping out small businesses (like mom and pop shops) with any handiwork + offering his fleece donations for those who still rely on organic resources.

4) Mirko is first on the list for embracing the frenzy-like instincts on the field and making a name with it. Not only is Mirko a hybrid, but more importantly the prey category, yet still intimidates her opponents with her tenacity and sheer brute strength. Her fighting style's also heavily observed/referenced for Hitsuji's own combat. HUGE FAN!

Endeavor's a close second; powerful, regal, methodical, bold, and doesn't crumble under pressure. Hitsuji doesn't look at the family problems he's got dragging behind him - It's strong traits that interest Hitsuji the most.

Deku's surprisingly in third place. I mean, there's gotta be something there if they asked for an internship from him. :)

5) At first, they'll be a nervous mess on the inside, but on the outside they're tryna seem cool af. In this puppylove stage, they're more on the defense with their actions - keeping a distance and forging an iron cast fortress around their heart. They despise being vulnerable in any situation, so the fact that their partner is interested at some level surprises them. They're rough around the edges, a stubborn mess, doubting the relationship will last. A bit of a pushover, blunt even, but it's all in the name of love I promise. If the relationship seems to last longer than the initial assumption, they'll start to warm up. Rough handling turns softer, more tender, partner would be constantly headbutted VERY LIGHTLY in a silent acknowledgement and affection. Hitsuji can and will protect no matter the cost, maybe a tad possessive, but in a caring way.

6) Decently big. About 7 siblings, several aunties and uncles, and a good basketful of rowdy cousins. Hitsuji's the oldest amongst their siblings and thoroughly embedded into their family, and is actually the first of their generation to strive for a hero permit. There wasn't really a necessity since the family does live and feed off of the land, but Hitsuji felt they could do more, therefore becoming a protector for the family/citizens would be the ultimate accomplishment in their dream :)

[golvio]

Revisiting the early quests hyping up the Yiga Clan reminded me of one of the really noticeable problems I had with BotW’s writing: the inconsistent and wildly fluctuating tone for the “serious” parts.

The introduction to the Clan most people get is from the guards outside of Impa’s house describing them as “sad souls” who went off the path Hylia laid out for them with pity. Then, Paya’s heirloom quest has them built up as remorseless killers in an organized crime ring, murdering Dorian’s wife in cold blood and being perfectly happy to orphan his daughters now that Dorian himself is no longer a useful informant. If you take on that quest early, odds are the Yiga Blademaster who shows up is going to kick your ass.

And then you actually enter the Yiga hideout and the same Blademasters that beat your ass when you were a lower level now have animations like this:

This isn’t an “uuuuuuuu y aren’t villains cool n edgy anymore like my beloved ‘90s comic books 😭” post. I’m okay with Kohga being silly. I love the concept of a character who’s at once funny and entertaining but also a really dangerous and skilled combatant who uses his clownish first impression to get people to let their guard down. The main problem I have with it is just that the tone is not consistent at all. The clan feels less like the complex, multifaceted organization that arose from a complicated and traumatic historical situation it deserves to be and more like all the scenario writers had great ideas but somehow forgot to get together and talk to each other about how to weave them into a coherent whole. It swings wildly back and forth between them being this scary force of assassins capable of infiltrating even the Sheikah secret service undetected to “Haha, look at these dork-ass losers! They were dumb enough to serve Ganon! Only a total dweeb would be scared of these banana-obsessed clowns!” Which is, y’know, kind of insulting to the Sheikah who actually did have legitimate reasons to be scared of these people based on what we saw with Dorian.

It’s like what bugged me about the main conflict within the Zora. It wanted to tell a story about generational trauma and bigotry, but was so terrified of presenting anything unflattering to the player and the lost kingdom of Hyrule that it turned everyone into goofy, exaggerated caricatures performing for our amusement. The Zora elders weren’t a bunch of extremely traumatized people who needed to heal, they were just a bunch of curmudgeonly old fuddy duddies who were out of touch and needed to get over themselves (Which they instantly did, because of how cool and awesome the player is for putting up with their stubborn old people nonsense. You’re so cool that the hot Zora princess everyone’s mourning was throwing herself at your avatar! Isn’t that awesome?). And Sidon wasn’t allowed to be a character in his own right, doing what he thought could help heal his people while risking a revolt or a forced abdication for breaking the ban against outsiders behind the elders’ backs! He’s just Your Funny Friend Who Encourages You, because he exists solely to get you to your objective at Vah Ruta, and the game never lets you forget it. And the younger generation of Zora, some of whom remember Link before his death, aren’t symbols of the younger generation trying to move forward at the risk of starting a major generational conflict with their parents/grandparents who’re still traumatized from the Calamity because it was practically yesterday in Zoran terms. They’re just funny clowns who put on a show for you and point you towards the bridge where Sidon’s waiting.

It’s like…they wanted the royal advisor seeing the armor Mipha made for Link to be this big, emotional moment, but the writers spent so much time assuring us that we didn’t need to respect the Zora that it felt…like something was missing, emotionally. Like, “Oh, you don’t need to take those old coots seriously! Sure, they’re all mad at Link for something he had no control over, but they’re just stubborn and old! You don’t need to take their cold silence so personally! Just keep your chin up and eventually they’ll realize how stupid they were being for ever doubting you, the great hero who’s come to save them!” And when Muzu’s looking up at the statue of Mipha, there’s not a sense of this broken community coming back together to heal, or a man in deep denial of his own grief coming out of the dark place his heart had been lost in to the point where he treated the little boy he once knew as a scapegoat, and more just him being, “Oh, right! How could I have been so stupid?”

It’s like…these people are traumatized. The Zora are grieving because the apocalypse practically happened yesterday. The Yiga were traumatized by the royal family, who their religion told them they were born to serve, attempted a genocide against them. Both of them are understandably lashing out against a world that they think forgot them, that blithely moves on, unburdened by the grief they caused them, not a care in the world. The game doesn’t want to sit with these emotions because it might make the player uncomfortable, interrupt the hero fantasy, spoil their fun. But in exchange for trying to maintain a lighthearted tone throughout, it just feels like the writers aren’t really respecting their NPCs as much as they should, and deliver a somewhat jarring experience where the emotional pendulum wildly swings back and forth depending on the whims of whichever writer was at the helm when they wrote that quest/sidequest that day.

The whole game is a story about trauma, or at least, it wants to be. The main character himself lost his identity after a near-death experience, either because of brain damage he suffered after the physical trauma he endured, or as traumatic amnesia caused by his mind desperately trying to protect him from the memory of something no one should have to endure. But the game just can’t sit with trauma. It doesn’t want to tie the concepts it introduces into a coherent, consistent theme that spans every inch of the world, every character. It just wants to introduce its cool new UI and have fun. Which…there’s nothing necessarily wrong with that, but can you at least make up your minds about what kind of overall story you want to tell as opposed to spitballing interesting pieces of story ad infinitum?

I’m a little worried about dropping this take, particularly because we all now know that BotW was designed to be the first part of a series, and so suffered a case of what I like to call “To Be Continued Syndrome.” It was built to introduce the world of Hyrule and its new mechanics & concepts to its audience first and foremost, with far less time being spent on the story. For all I know, TotK could resolve a lot of my complaints with what appears to be a stronger focus on story than BotW with more actively present characters, as opposed to Ganon and Zelda kinda hanging out at the castle and not really affecting anything until it’s time to beat the game.

But, it’s like…I’ve seen games at least try to treat their NPCs with more respect and put more thought into their storytelling without having to sacrifice gameplay or exploration, both in big budget and smaller indie titles. I’d like the Zelda series to finally catch up, too. I love the series, and I know they’ve got the potential to tell really compelling stories that don’t treat the characters who aren’t destined to be great heroes like nobodies you can just breeze past. I saw that in Majora’s Mask. I know they can do it again. I hope that’s what they meant when they said they wanted TotK to feel more like Majora in tone.

[pillowfriendly]

Would you be so kind as to soliloquize about Pathfinder? I don't know anything about it except the common tagline of "D&D but better". What's better, in your opinion? I've got my issues with D&D 5e but I'm curious what the differences look like.

ohoho you've enabled me

SOLILOQUY BEGINS: I've played a handful of different ttrpg systems, and Pathfinder (2nd edition specifically) is what I've been mostly playing for the past 2-3 years.

My number one favorite difference is the way the action economy works. Instead of movement-major action-minor action, you have three actions (and a reaction outside of your turn) that you can spend how you like. This adds so much flexibility in combat- if you don't have to move, you can spend that action on another attack instead, or setting up something defensive! You can spend all three on certain spells to make them more powerful, or spend all of them on running away if shit's fucked! Etc etc. It's very freeing.

There's also a TON of skills and feats you can choose from. Classes are much more customizable, with lots of flavor for both in and out of combat. 5E is practically railroad-y in comparison.

Paizo, the company that makes it, has made everything publicly available online. You have to buy specific campaign books if you want to play those ofc, but outside of those storylines, all the rules/classes/equipment/world information is free to access. WOTC eat your heart out.

(Paizo also has a sci-fi version of it called Starfinder. It's got a lot of cool classes/skills, but is less developed than PF2E. There's not as many adventure paths published for it, the space combat was Not Fun to the point my group just started skipping it, and imo overall it suffers from system bloat.)

BUT YEAH I enjoy PF2E way more than D&D and won't go back. Big caveat though: it is definitely more complicated than D&D. There's a lot of potential combat status conditions/effects and larger skill trees. I don't know how cumbersome this gets if you're playing pen-and-paper style. My groups play online on Foundry which mitigates this, so I can't really speak to it. The variety of options is part of what I like about it, but if your group is averse to a more crunchy system, then I wouldn't recommend it. If they are chadly cronch-enjoyers however, "D&D but better" is exactly how I'd describe it.

[icarusthelunarguard]

This Week’s Horrible-Scopes

It’s time for this week’s Horrible-Scopes! So for those of you that know your Astrological Signs, cool! If not, just pick one, roll a D12, or just make it up as you go along. It really doesn’t matter.

Yet again we’ve been requested a themed Horrible-Scope. So here we go. This week’s ‘Scopes are all based on Characters from Star Wars. Now pull up a seat, add more butter-flavoured oil to your stale popcorn, and get ready for the THX Audio Logo.

Aries 

You are the Mos Eisley cantina musician “Figrin D’an” from “The Modal Nodes”.  His Kloo Horn playing was so good he earned the nickname “Fiery” Figrin. This week do your creative part and don’t get between people arguing over stupid things… like who has the most death sentences.

Taurus 

This week, Momaw Nadon is your spirit guide. Otherwise known as “Hammerhead”, he knew secrets about agriculture that the Galactic Empire didn’t know about. How there’s a possibility to hide plant-growing information is anyone’s guess, but his species did. This week… start a compost pile.

Gemini  

This week you get to sing and dance in a band with your spirit guide, Greeata Jendowanian! She’s a Rodian with orange hair and green skin, working as a singer-dancer in the Max Rebo Band for Jabba the Hut. This week just remember: If the money is good, a gig is a gig is a gig is a gig, right?

Cancer Moon-Child 

For you Garindan aka “Long-Snoot” will be guiding your path. He’s a shrewd, professional finder-of-information who can be bought by whomever has the best credit line. This week stay away from Docking Bay 94.

Leo 

You won’t believe your luck. For you we have Grand Moff Wilhuff Tarkin. The only Moff that was able to keep Darth Vader on something resembling a leash while allowing him to flex his Force powers enough to instill fear in his subordinates. This week remember - it doesn’t matter how smart you are or how many battles you’ve won, Hubris will, eventually, come knocking at your door.

Virgo 

And for you, we have Moradmin Bast. You likely won’t know who that is until we remind you of his famous line, “We've analyzed their attack, sir, and there is a danger. Should I have your ship standing by?” This week remember that someone else’s hubris could cost you everything. Keep your friends close and your own escape routes closer. 

Libra 

The first droid on this list, you get K-2SO. The problem with this reprogrammed Imperial Security Droid is… well, his looks. Those long, spindly arms and legs, the squat body and small head give him a very Sirenhead feel to him. This week do NOT pilot a plane through the air; you are NOT a leaf on the wind.

Scorpio 

Your character is Romba… not ROOMBA. He was an Ewok who lost his tribe to the Empire when they built the Shield Generator on Endor. He joined a nearby tribe, helped with the fight against the Empire, and gained revenge for his tribe. This week remember, it doesn’t matter how furry you are on the outside, but the size of your will on the inside that counts. 

Sagittarius 

And finally we get to a Jedi! Follow the teachings of Aayla Secura, a Twi'lek who served as a Jedi General of the Grand Army of the Republic during the Clone Wars. She was a courageous General, fighting alongside her soldiers in multiple combats… only to be shot in the back when Order 66 was given. This week don’t stick your neck out so much.

Capricorn 

Let’s take a fun twist and give you Maz Kanata. Maz is a complicated character who’s lived a complicated life. She’s been known as Maz Kanata the Usurper, Kanata the Despoiler, Kanata the Benevolent, and Kanata of the Free Fleet. She’s old, wise, looks like she’s spent way too much time in the sun, but she’s got the coolest glasses. This week find your own Inner Name and the glasses frames that go with it.

Aquarius 

The leader of Red Squadron, Garven "Dave" Dreis was a fighter pilot extraordinaire. He knew his way around an X-Wing, fought off TIE Fighters, coached a first-time flier in the middle of active conflict, and it took no less than Darth Vader himself to take him out. This week follow Garven Dreis’ example and get a nickname that doesn’t make any sense at all.

Pisces  

You need to get out more. You need to do new things, get in better shape, and stop being such a grump about everything. We expect that by the time you’re done with your workout your muscles will burn, but you’ll have lost a lot of weight. This week follow Owen Lars’ example and complain to the manager when you’re sold defective merchandise of dubious legality.

And THOSE are your Horrible-Scopes for this week! Remember if you liked what you got, we’re obviously not working hard enough at these. BUT! If you want a better or nastier one for your own sign or someone else’s, all you need to do to bribe me is just Let Me Know! These will be posted online at the end of each week via Tumblr, Twitter, Facebook and Discord.

[gamersonthego]

GOTG Review: Mutant Year Zero

This is the next game in my Backlog Roulette series, where each month I spin a wheel to randomly select a game on my massive backlog that I must play (though not necessarily to completion). These wheel spins occur on the monthly preview episodes I co-host with my friends on The Casual Hour podcast.

I can’t remember the last time I shouted “oh, fuck off” as often as I did during my last Mutant Year Zero play session. 

Mutant Year Zero: Road to Eden, the 2018 breakout turn-based tactical shooter from Swedish developer The Bearded Ladies Consulting, fools you into thinking you control the battlefield when in reality, the deck is eternally stacked against you. 

If you’ve read or listened to any content from Gamers on the Go before, you’ll know I love this genre. Fire Emblem, Advance Wars, Super Robot Wars, XCOM, Into The Breach, Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon: Shadow Wars (a criminally overlooked launch title for the 3DS) — these are the kinds of games where I feel most at home. But being a big fan of a genre can be a double-edged sword, because now I’m pretty particular about what makes a good one of these. 

Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon: Shadow Wars was way better than it had any right to be.

Mutant Year Zero has some cool ideas, but it’s not "a good one of these." Your ragtag group of mutants — a pig man named Bormin, a duck man named Dux and a…normal lady who sometimes kind of has nature powers named Selma (you do get a couple more recruits over the course of the story) — are Stalkers, a group of capable hunters and scavengers keeping humanity’s last bastion of hope, the Ark, from the brink of collapse. Complicating this are Ghouls, who roam the post-apocalyptic Zone outside of the Ark, looking to bring the whole thing down. And you need to use your cunning and strategy to stop them while also finding Eden, a place that may be a salvation for the ruined world. 

And therein lies my problem with Mutant Year Zero: my cunning just can’t make up for the amount of ways the game demands to fuck you over. One of the big selling points of MYZ is how you can explore areas in free roam until you or an enemy locks eyes and starts combat. This gives you an opportunity to pick up resources scattered around the environments or listen to your characters talk about the current events of the plot (which mostly involves Dux asking “isn’t this all kinda weird?” and Bormin saying “yeah, but shut the fuck up anyway,") but most importantly, it allows you to scout and position your units to ambush enemies for the next skirmish. 

A snipe like this is the coolest the game gets, but it's nothing you haven't done a million times before in XCOM.

There’s something satisfyingly cool about posting my sniper up in an elevated position, then getting my tanky boar behind some cover down low to rush in and finish the job so that the enemies never know what hit them. This isn’t perfunctory either, as MYZ rewards you for being patient, doing a stealthy sweep of the area and even picking off a handful of stragglers with silenced weapons before it’s time to go loud and mop up whoever’s left. It’s a great system…when it works. But too often, engaging with these mechanics is a tedious or even impossible pain in the ass. 

Tactical games all hinge on information. When you have information available to you, you can make smarter, more strategic decisions that let you take down bigger or stronger enemies. For example, in Into The Breach, you are given perfect information about exactly what each enemy is going to do on their turn even before their turn has started. So it’s up to you to find the best way of mitigating or redirecting their damage to protect your units and the city. Fire Emblem lets you turn on enemy range indicators so you can bait out some enemy attacks one at a time while avoiding the wrath of a full army. XCOM does hide enemies in a fog of war that are too far away, keeping you from getting the full picture of a battle, but it’s easy to scan around the field and position your units to make the best of what you have. Mutant Year Zero however routinely makes it difficult to know what you’re up against until it's much too late.

The first area you're in is a dense, dark forest. Then you get to this snowy area with so much crap on the ground that you can't really see anything effectively. And the zoomed out camera isn't doing you any favors.

The environments are incredibly dark, with plenty of debris to further block your view. Enemies have vision rings around them, but they don’t appear until you’re very close to them, making it nigh impossible to know if picking off this close enemy is going to provoke and enemy much further away. And there’s no map (mini or otherwise) to help you get a lay of the land. You do get a compass at the top of the screen that tells you where your objective’s destination is, as well as the direction of nearby enemies, but enemies also move around, and there’s no way to tag them to better keep track of where they go. But the worst of the issue of the bunch is an oppressively locked isometric camera that doesn’t ever seem to give you good sight lines of where you're going or what's out there. You can’t plan around what you can’t see, which often leads to your attempted ambushes getting ambushed themselves as more enemies you couldn’t detect come out of the woodwork to oppose you.

To make matters worse, even if you are able to fully scout out an area, there aren’t many opportunities to clear out those stragglers before the big firefight, even though that is kind of the game’s central thesis. Even when you do find them (which takes a significant amount of time, both with the game’s glacial walk speed, and waiting forever for enemies to get into the right position on their patrol path), the enemies in these situations can often take more than one round of combat from your stealth weapons, leaving them in a position to call in backup and/or retaliate with an attack of their own. But more often than not, enemies will be found in stubbornly stationary pairs, which further complicates your goal of a silent execution to remove a threat from the board. Why would they make a core tenet of their game so difficult to achieve? I don’t have a good answer for you, but it leads to a lot of standing around waiting for a plan to fail, only so you can reload and wait even longer for it to fail in a slightly different way.

Be ready to see this screen a lot.

Once the bullets do start flying, you’ll find yourself at a disadvantage almost immediately. Your attack ranges are painfully short, while the enemy seems to be able to take shots at baffling distances. Even when you do have a shot, good luck hitting anything. While MYZ certainly has some XCOM: Enemy Unknown influences — especially in its UI which will feel instantly familiar — one of the ways it tries to simplify is in its hit percentages. MYZ only deals in percentages of 100, 75, 50, 25 or 0. It all makes for a lot of missing, especially on your overwatch shots, leading to many wasted turns of missing, followed by more wasted turns of reloading your weapons. Meanwhile, a Pyro enemy is tossing molotovs at you like they were going out of style, and you’ll find yourself loading up your last save time and time again, leading to further frustration. I knocked the difficulty down to its easiest setting, and still routinely found myself in impossible, or brutally attrition-filled situations, and this is a style of game I feel pretty comfortable with!

It’s not quite all negative. The characters have pretty enjoyable personalities, both in their aesthetics and their mechanics, each with a unique skilltree of mutant abilities you’ll unlock over time (Bormin’s knockdown tackle is a personal favorite since it gave me another crucial stealth damaging tool, incapacitating a target long enough to follow up with two or more shots from my other characters, stealthily finishing the job.) And while the quantity of weapons in the game is low, the variety within that small set is very nice, with a number of distinct firearms with added abilities like knockdown or incendiary rounds. You can also find armor out in the world, which will cosmetically be displayed on your characters during play (I gave a top hat to Dux, not just for the increased damage buff it gives him while on elevated terrain, but also just because it looked dapper.)

It's a good hat! But also, this is a 75% shot? From my sniper character? Give me a break.

But those niceties don’t make up for the molasses walk speed, poor autosaves, murky environments and painfully inaccurate weapons, which all combine to make for an experience that is equal parts exhausting and annoying, even in a game that’s as short as 10-15 hours. The Bearded Ladies new game, Miasma Chronicles looks like a big improvement to many of my MYZ complaints: The environments are cleaner, better lit and easier to both navigate and survey, which could make a huge difference in my enjoyment if I play it.

But Miasma Chronicles is not the game my backlog wheel landed on, Mutant Year Zero is. And I can't help but feel extremely disappointed. I’d heard many good things, and had often thought about playing it even before my backlog game required it. But unfortunately, a few fun ideas isn’t enough for it to rank in a genre packed with other excellent titles. 

[glassmarcus]

UI Overlord

So after going through the Kingdom Hearts games again, I've been thinking a lot about menus. Mainly what percentage of a game can I handle being comprised of navigating menus. And I'm gonna cut to the chase and say that my conclusion was that the percentage doesn't matter at all. Navigating menus actually rules as long as the menu is worth navigating.

I've found that a good menu is either extremely complex or extremely simple. Look at the first Kingdom Hearts game for a perfect example. There are 4 options and 3 drop downs. That's it. In fact it’s so lean that it expects you to play an action game while navigating the menu in real time. Secondary actions such as using items, magic, and summons are done though menu navigation. Simplicity breeds brevity, and Kingdom Hearts keeps it simple so that you spend as little time in a menu as possible. And this isn't cutting out the fat, this is turning menu navigation into an entirely new layer of challenge in a way that Active Time Battles were never able to do. Active Time Battles are basically normal turn based battles that replace turns with cool down timers added to any character action. I've always disliked them because they add unnecessary stress in a way I don’t find all that engaging. I find no pleasure in navigating a menu quickly if that's the only thing I'm doing, so I'd rather just sit still and play at my own pace. The menu in Kingdom Hearts acts as a way to do non standard actions in combat as opposed to being the sole interface in the game, hence why I’m perfectly content with how it is implemented.

Navigating menus is not stimulating, at least not for me. Thinking is stimulating, which is why I love complex ones as well, as they show you a myriad of options to solve any problem thrown your way. Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories has more of a rolodex instead of a traditional menu, which isn't any more or less complicated than the original. The complexity comes from the deck builder outside of combat. This is the actual fun part of the game. The combat is just executing on a gameplan you decided on before the encounter started. Ordering cards in the perfect sequence and predicting where the cards will be positioned later in a fight. That's the good stuff and it's certainly better than playing the actual game.

What does this have to do with Unicorn Overlord, the 2024 Vanillaware developed strategy RPG? Well, in Unicorn Overlord, the menu IS the game. It's got wonderful art, charming writing, and a simple yet engaging story, but if you look at its body composition it is like 80% menu. Setting up your party of 50 soldiers is done through a menu. Customizing your character's actions for specific scenarios is done through a menu. Positioning your units before a skirmish is done through a menu. You can explore the overworld to your heart's content, watch the gorgeous fights play out, and view a few cutscenes every now and again, but it won't be long until you return to the warm nutritious bosom of the unit editing menu. And I wouldn't have it any other way.

What separates Unicorn Overlord from a lot of RPGs I've experienced is that you don't play as individual characters, but multiple groups of characters. You normally expect to control a single party of colorful protagonist, or in a lot of SRPG’s cases, multiple individual characters. Unicorn Overlord does both, having you build multiple RPG parties that you can control on a field. I found that the core joy in this game was constantly tweaking my units so that they synergize perfectly. I've always enjoyed doing this with a single party in games, so it's not surprising that doing it with 10 parties gets a little addicting. It’s fun forming a team built for a specific niche and tunnel visioning them into a special ops unit. It's fun getting all the characters you find aesthetically congruent into a squad and making then work. If fun making the most busted all purpose posse you can make. And a big part of that fun is that it lets you use its large cast of wonderful characters instead of letting them rot in the reserves.

I've talked a bit in the past about RPG party structure and I how I prefer all characters be involved in some way rather than being benched for the whole adventure. The way Overlord gets around this is by just having a large amount of those characters be playable at once. There are 10 parties of 5 characters you'll end up making by the end of the game. This means most units are gonna see some action as there are only like 60 unique characters you’ll end up recruiting. I say ‘only’ as if that's not a huge amount, but it really doesn't feel that way. You're never overwhelmed by choices in party members. As you get more available slots for your initially small roster, there will continually be a few characters left out of fray. Every new unit you get and every new slot for your party you unlock makes you rethink your team’s composition and your ability to do so slowly grows. You'll steadily end up managing dozens of characters, eventually building parties not only by battle strength but character affinity as well.

Each character has their own social link with any other character. This link is built up through having them fight in the same squad and dine together (a completely optional mechanic that allows the artist of this game to flex their ability to draw mouth watering food). As the social links build, you unlock buffs to show how your characters are now working with each other more effectively. They unlock scenes which you can find on the map that show off that individual character dynamic. Basically, it's Xenoblade Chronicles, but with 10 times the amount of party characters. And just like in Xenoblade you can track the affection of every character through a large yet easy to navigate menu. Everything in this game is pulled together through menus. I don't really have a larger point than that, I just think it's neat how engaging menus can be. Probably didn’t need to write that much about Kingdom Hearts in the beginning. They’re really only superficially connected. This write up is a mess.

A few more things I wanna mention about this game. For as much of it is quality menus, its time spent being interactive gameplay is just as good. There's a solid gameplay loop in exploring the continents, finding new villages, saving villages from enemies through missions, foraging for materials to give to the villages, and repeating the process until the whole nation is prosperous. On map enemy encounters are also fun because they introduce a way to gain experience and practice without doing missions.

The story is not 13 Sentinels tier. Few things are. But it's satisfactory for what it is going for. It's a simple fantasy narrative, with great voice acting and it is easy to get attached to characters. And boy these characters all have banger designs. Not a single miss. Especially Selphie, Rosalinde and Yunifi, a trio of girls which mark so many of my boxes it's kind of eerie. There's something for everyone here, and most of them aren't extremely horny. There's clearly restraint taken. Though if you are a degenerate, you will be served as this is still Vanillaware we’re talking about. I really want to go back and play their entire ludography one day, because they seem to just never miss.

[jbt7493]

see so kwarrtz has. Waht the fuck the post editor is different. kwarrtz has some points about possible flaws in the combined-battlefield/3dmoba fps/dark souls melee shit with veihcles thing. like. just sorta intrinsically theres some problems with having melee combat be actually usable at all on very large scale maps with open sightlines, vehicles, non player combatants and all that shit.

unfortunately i am unsure how you would even have melee interact with the vehicles positively. and i kinda like guns / medium range spells. they also allow a lot of neat interactions and gunplay is generally fun. I think in general the concept of this 'game that exists solely in my head' wouldnt work that well outside of my head. but beside the point, and there would also be even more complicating systems i havent described here, but beside the point.

uh I think the idea of putting like a dozen different movement systems does actually rock for real. put like mirrors edge and mario 64 and hell throw in like a skateboard and a grappling hook as well. You should be able to do like seven backflips over a lower skill player before skewering them with your blade and/or shooting them with a cool gun / magic spell.

(the problem is ranged combat doesnt care as much about the positioning between players in active gunfight, and if it does its mostly distance, not location. which doesnt allow for as much neatness in the 'use skilled movement to defeat another player' besides 'move faster than they can aim at you' / surprising them (with high enough ttk that this is a very significant advantage. it obviously matters your tactical positioning before getting into the fight but even then that is not necessarily as high as the significance for melee because fewer things will affect the actual fight itself in terms of positioning as they would for melee combat. so that will obviously not necessarily work as well with doing all sorts of mirror edge shit as melee would. And listen I know what titanfall is. and titanfall is cool and I want the gunplay in this conceptual game to be like titanfall except even without having played titanfall I know i would suck ass at it and i would wanna be good at it. But. titanfall combat is still not really that like. nuanced once youre actually shooting at people right)

[racke7]

Me vs FF14, part 3

I've now finally gotten every (free) class up to lvl 50 (not including Blue-Mage).

There's some interesting ones, and a few that just drive me insane.

Cut off, because geez this got long

Healers:

For dungeons, I've enjoyed White-Mage a lot, because it's relatively straight-forward.

You give the tank Regen, you AOE-heal when you see a bunch of people losing health, you don't stand in the enemy-attacks, you keep a DoT on the enemy, and then you just... press an attack-button and keep an eye on the tank's health. It's a good way to learn a dungeon (your role is "follow the tank, and stop them from dying" so you don't have to worry about getting lost), and honestly kind of fun. It gets more complicated in Raids or (Hard) Trials or what-not, because there are more people to keep track of. And since you do kind of have a responsibility (don't die), it can get really stressful in some situations. But mostly, being a WHM is pretty chill. (Even if you have to learn to be fondly amused at people running to their deaths, instead of angrily frustrated at having to resurrect them.)

Scholar is very similar to WHM, except you don't get "Regen". Instead, you have a fairy that does that role for you. So early-levels it's less infuriating to play, but later levels (when their less potent heals and lack of AOE-regen kicks in), it's easy to start getting a bit stressed-out about it (they also technically have more attack-buttons to press, and it freaks me out. That's just unnatural).

Astrologian is very similar to WHM, but with an added RNG-Buff mechanic that you're supposed to be using, which means that you have even more shit to do. So I feel like that one is only fun for masochists.

Tanks:

Compared to Healers, where it's an "easy way to learn the dungeon/fight", a Tank is the one where you kind of have to already know it.

Basically, as a Tank, you have to be the one running in first, drawing the aggro. Which means that you need to know where you're going, and which paths should be taken (and leading the party in that direction). So, if you end up in a dungeon/fight you've never been in, or one you don't remember? You end up feeling really foolish and out-of-your-depth. But when you know that shit? You look so fucking cool. Like, following after a Tank that knows what the hell they're doing? They just fucking leg it, and everything goes so fucking smoothly, and it's just... so cool. And then you can do it too.

Paladin was really boring to level, but it's so nice to be able to see a Boss' charging an attack and going "nah" and just triggering a defensive-skill to negate most of the damage.

Warrior was slightly less boring to level, but is honestly kind of... shit? Like, I keep running into moments as a Warrior where I'm so fucking close to dying. And as a Tank? That's really worrying? I mean sure, there's that "can't fucking die"-skill, but... it doesn't feel so good to have to trigger that just because you pulled a few too many mobs and you're worried the Healer isn't paying enough attention to your health.

Dark-Knight is... interesting? It's very damage-focused, but it does have a bit of damage-reduction (even one specifically against magic, which is a bit of an awkward distinction to keep in mind). I think it's probably the most fun outside of dungeons, and not quite as bad as Warrior in-dungeon.

DPS:

For the Main-Story Questline, I've mostly been using Monk.

It's... pretty comfortable? It's a DPS-class, so I don't have to feel like I'm constantly just out-lasting the enemy. It's a melee-class, so it's relatively non-squishy. And it has an easy-to-understand but relatively complicated mini-game of an attack-rotation, so you won't get horribly bored with it. It's squishy enough that I've gotten killed a few times, but it's mostly been alright. And again, the ability to have the combat-rotation feel like you're doing something is a life-saver in some of the MSQ-fights. Tried doing a Raid once as a Monk though, and trying to keep track of where I need to be standing and what enemy I ought to be attacking when and how and-... It wasn't for me.

Machinist has been pretty chill for speed-running dungeons, even if it feels like they've got too many buttons to press during boss-fights.

It's mainly for those times where the tank can just keep running forever, with an ever-increasing amount of mobs following behind them. With the instant-AOE with decent range, it feels like most enemies kind of disappear from that mob-train pretty quickly, and it's a nice feeling. I can only assume that Bard (or maybe even Dragoon) could be similar if I could just figure out how to play it. (They're at level 50, but I didn't say I'd done anything with them.)

Ninjas give me a headache. I've mostly just been using them to run around grabbing mat-drops for crafting, and apparently they get even more complicated at higher levels? Ninja is... a lot.

Summoner gets automatically leveled alongside Scholar which is... neat? But it also means that I basically don't play it at all? And it's... a mix between "this is complicated" and "this is pathetically simple" so... not really sure what to think about that one (the level 60-set is sooo fucking pretty though).

But for Raids? Raids is where Black-Mage is actually really fun.

See, during Raids, there are so many people everywhere, that one DPSer more-or-less isn't going to matter that much. So the "pressure to perform" is pretty much nonexistent. And because you're a Black-Mage, and therefore constantly trapped in "can't move, I'm casting a spell"-situations, nobody is even going to be surprised when you get yourself killed. Targeting is also really forgiving, because you have a charge-time to doing damage, so there's no point in you targeting the low-health enemies. And also, a lot of your DPS is AOE anyway, so just throw some of that at the biggest guy and hope that you're helping. It's like the chillest fucking class to play during Raids, and I love it to bits. (Even if the wait-times kinda suck.) I will however note that leveling? Sucked (so many levels to unlock the fun mechanics). Speed-running through dungeons? Sucked (can't keep up with the running). Fighting outside of party-situations? Sucked (they're so fucking squishy).

So... all-in-all?

WHM is the nicest for dungeon-running (also, shortest queue) and very good for learning dungeons/fights.

BLM is the hands-down best for Raids (even if the queue-time is way too fucking long), but sucks at everything else.

Monk is fun for non-dungeon encounters.

Paladin can be really fun (you look so fucking competent and cool) if you know the fight/dungeon, but also kind of humiliating if you don't (they also usually have a pretty short queue).

PS. Also, as a WHM-main? The times I've seen some DPS stand in the middle of an attack that they should be dodging? A few? It happens to the best of us? I have no strong feelings on the matter? I keep Swiftcast ready for Resurrections for a reason, and up until that point? People getting hit just means that I have a reason to do something other than pressing my single attack-button, so I'm fine with it?

PPS. But to the one Tank who went back in to stand in front of the boss when they were using a constant flame-thrower attack? And got like half their health shaved off in a fucking instant? Fuck you specifically.