#maybe a little actiony

[taintandviolent]

*chants* part three! Part three! Part three!

That was so good!!!!

YOU GUYS ARE SOOOOOOOO SWEEEEEEEEET! And yes.... yes, part three.

[ambidexedition]

all of EPIC is good and I'm ticked that I didn't pick it up earlier (I am nothing if not an eensy bit of a hipster) but I've specifically been looping Scylla for the last hour just to hear eurylochus, light up six torches over and over and over. this musical scratches some VERY specific auditory itches.

[villainanders]

So is Veilgaurd like… a good game? Where would you rank it so far? I’ve heard so many mixed things.

I don’t think I’ll have a firm opinion until I finish it but so far: I’m really enjoying it! Having a great time with the minute to minute gameplay. It’s my favorite combat system so far (but I prefer action combat so YMMV). The cringe allegations are real but no more so than any other DA game and I think people who think this game is cringier forget how goofy the other games are. Yes, Origins too. I would say it has a similar silly to serious ratio as most of the others

So far it definitely ranks above Inqusition (which I do like) for me, otherwise it’s a little more complicated. There’s definitely some DA2like elements (companion focus, city level design, more actiony combat) which are great to see really fleshed out but I do feel like some specific worldbuilding elements are weaker than the first two games so far (maybe even inq too actually tho not as much). It seems way less interested in exploring how societies work and different groups interact with each other in complicated ways if that makes sense? Which is really key to Dragon Age to me and it’s a shame to me that as we go higher and higher with the stakes we really start to lose that. So it’s kind of hard for me to rank it with DA2 at this point at least bc I just think one is picking up where the other one is falling short. DAO always has to rank top for me for being what made me fall in love with video games and the depth of roleplaying, even if it’s janky and I’m coming to accept that I’m just not that into most CRPG combat

So basically if you only like Origins and not the other sequels/are only really interested in CRPGs, then I wouldn’t recommend. If you like either of the two sequels and enjoy actiony games/don’t mind lighter RP elements, then I would recommend, I’m having a lot of fun!

[clonerightsagenda]

Scavengers Reign thoughts after contemplating for a bit:

I enjoyed it! While the weird little guys were interesting to watch I admit I enjoyed it more as we started getting to interhuman conflict. However the weird little guys were fun. As was the amusing contrast between pastel colors/soothing soundtrack and The Horrors.

Given the emphasis on recognizing and understanding the environment around you, it makes sense that the crew ends up staying on Vesta. Hopefully since they're in one place and not passing through unfamiliar biomes, they will not all get eaten as quickly. They've shown an impressive ability to learn to work with the planet, especially Ursula.

Big fan of Ursula! She is thriving in this role. Still a little worried about the fungus incident though. I got pretty excited about Azi in the second half because she was doing cool actiony stuff but I really enjoyed Ursula's quiet observation as her souce of strength.

We don't see Levi interacting with the humans in the closing montage. (And I have no idea what's going on with the Levilings. Levilets?) I'm curious, are they and Azi still friendly? Are the other humans perturbed by one of their robot drones gaining sentience? Or considering what they woke up to are they just like 'this might as well happen'. Imagining one of the newly awoken colonists trying to give the robot orders like they're used to and Levi going lol no.

The space death cultists seemed a bit out of left field, but I'm choosing to interpret the lily as a decomposer that brings things into some kind of planetary mycelial network afterlife, with Levi as a spokesperson for it. (With a dead woman's voice, no less. I was kind of wondering if we'd see one of the flowers growing from Sam and then have Levi say something only Sam would know. The planet wanted to assimilate that man So Bad.) In that case having two different takes on centering death could be an interesting potential conflict.

Bold choice to leave the psychic baby (or Hollow, if I must)'s intentions super ambiguous. How much was an animal's natural behaviors getting distorted by new situations? How much was Kamen influencing it? How intelligent is it? To what extent did it understand what it was doing? How is it going to handle being brainblasted by the majesty of the universe? IDK

Also Kamen is just there I guess. Azi's hostile to him; Ursula seems friendly enough. I suppose a lot of the colonists were asleep when he did the redirect, and there weren't any other crew survivors, so maybe none of them know what they did. I don't think Azi's the type to spread it around, even if she's personally annoyed by him. Can he speak and he's choosing not to, or did everything he went through change him? What do you even do after being psychically controlled by a weird frog pretending to be your wife. Gardening I guess. If he'd stuck with gardening in the first place he wouldn't have ended up in this situation.

I know the show got cancelled on HBO Max and we'll see if it survives the Netflix curse (probably not. Netflix loves cancelling shit) but tbh I think it works pretty well as a standalone! Bask in the majesty of nature. Do not try too hard to understand what's going on. Cheer on Azi's forklift prowess. Admire Ursula

[narnianwizard]

Halloween Film Frightstival Day 3: John Carpenter’s The Thing (1982)

Initial thoughts:

1. Holy 80’s computer animation Batman

2. The pupper already has my heart and soul, is just a happy little snow dog running in the snow, can do no wrong (for the record I maintain that Cujo did nothing wrong as well)

3. Oops I forgot that I think Kurt Russell in the 80s was kinda hot

4. The chef guy on the roller skates is gonna die (maybe first), calling it now

5. I know it’s supposed to be scary, but the concept of bloodcicles is strangely amusing to me

I know the costume department can’t cover the lead actors faces but these men are seriously underdressed for Antarctica, where’s that meme of that Irish kid talking about frostbit when you need it?

80’s movie? Flamethrower. Always with the flamethrower.

This is on par with The Fly for proof that 80s practical effects are a million times grosser than modern CGI stuff

Old white doctor man with a nose ring is a vibe and a half

Oh my god the defibrillator going straight through the guy’s chest and the ribs just munching the doctor’s hands off was probably supposed to be scary a la the chest scene in Alien, but I was legitimately cackling

The guy sticking his fingers through the other guy’s face was actually a really cool effect, it reminded me of Cassandra Nova fingering everybody’s brains in Deadpool and Wolverine, except with special effects makeup instead of CGI

Okay I totally didn’t get bored and zone out in the middle part of the movie (except I did because it was just a lot of dudes grumbling at and blaming each other, there were no stakes, I could hardly keep the characters straight and didn’t care about any of them)

I also lowkey zoned out during the very end because I didn’t realize it was the end, I hate when movies just end abruptly like that. So I don’t actually know if my prediction about roller skate guy dying was right oh well

The action was very actiony, over the top and at times overacted. The effects are really good, but the gore was way too cheesy to actually be scary. I mean come on there were like 30 seconds straight of a very obvious mannequin being eaten head first by a creature while flailing about and fake blood spraying everywhere, that’s so silly. I think the creature stuff could’ve been really scary if I couldn’t visually see the texture of whatever clay material they crafted them out of, it was really impressive as art, not so much as something designed to give me the heebie-jeebies.

It wasn’t bad per se but it wasn’t good either. The special effects and prop stuff were really good, but the plot, writing, characters, acting, etc were extremely mid. It’s gonna be a meh from me dawg 🫤

[anamelessfool]

I am enjoying inventing random OC Papas throughout time. This one I was like, dang I got to do more with him....maybe later though!

Bestiary (AO3 Link)

So if you meet me have some courtesy, have some sympathy, and some taste... Use all your well-learned politness or I'll lay your soul to waste...

The adventures of the Nameless Ghouls throughout time. Each Chapter is a different Nameless Ghoul, some canon, some OC. Romantic, weird, smutty, sad, actiony, whatever tone I want. It was fun researching this one. Dancehalls sound interesting. This poster is a riff off of a Little Richard Tour Poster. The two songs at the bottom are real and in period.

2: 1945 [Dewdrop Ghoul]

Tags: Mystery, Adventure, Horror, Alternate History, Weird Astral Shenanigans

Dewdrop narrowed his eyes, kicked a rock. If he could spit on the ground, he would. This is what they get. He pouted, making sure everyone around him knew his displeasure, but inexplicably felt drawn look at the mountains in the distance, just like the rest of them.

Musical Inspiration, More Fun Facts about my Poster and Taglist below the Cut!

Cab Calloway would be the perfect historical Papa. And 99% of running a big band is pure charisma.

Papa Camino's Papal Visage was inspired by the 1946 film "The Crimson Ghost" which is the direct inspiration for the Misfits Skull Logo.

Also this fic is what happens when you listen to an 8 hour podcast. WATCH OUT.

Thanks @kabukiaku for all the digital art help

Tag List: @historian-crown @monkberryghouldelight @in-cardi-c-we-thrust @riptide-kid @thew0man Let me know if you want to be on my tag list

[anarchotolkienist]

What would be your ideal Tolkien-inspired game?

Since I assume we're talking about video games here (and not One Ring 2nd e, which I honestly think is pretty close to the platonic ideal of a Lord of the Rings TTRPG, or war of the ring, a really really good boardgame), what will mostly be needed is an understanding of the themes of the books and of Arda for any game that engages with the wprld in a fairly direct, non-abstracted way (think something like the old War in the North action-RPG, to pick an example that was Alright if you can stand action-RPGs, or to pick the sort of platonic ideal for the worst thing to do with Arda, those fucking mind control ghost ranger in Nûrnen games whatever they're called), which I honestly don't really trust games as a medium, as immature as the artform still is, to be able to handle. But I'd like to see more artful interpretations of little-known parts, and I think that some sort of minimalistic thing that doesn't care too much about being all actiony and game-y, that doesn't have a large budget and so doesn't need to appeal much to the film crowd and that focuses on existing in world and experiencing some part of it - something a bit like Year's Walk maybe, but set in Beleriand before the fall, or in the North of the Third Age, or before the Fall of Arnor (maybe during the reign of Arvedui) - somewhere we haven't really seen in other media but we still have enough information about to be able to recognise and to see the richness of, and that takes like five hours to complete.

The main thing I don't want is what has been happening, which is triple-A action games set in Middle Earth, they have been universally awful.

[gu6chan]

okay so while i still remember to ask it, genuine question can anyone in the loop explain to me how alice madness returns is seen as a survival horror? /gen Because like,,, it HAS spooky elements, nothing I'd say is overtly scary but that's not even the main thing because I feel like survival horror is more on item management and at times putting a HINT more emphasis on (quite literally) choosing your battles??? And both AMR and AMA feels a lot more 'actiony' than that I'm no expert on either genre so by technical definitions it VERY well could be though it's always registered to me as just "Action/dark-fantasy game maybe with horror elements at MOST" but I've been seeing a few people call it survival horror and im ???? 👀 i'm a little confused, am i late to the party or so? sdhjfgdfkjh

[catchyhuh]

if you cheat at mario kart one more time we're kicking you out of the polycule

this is so specific. why the fuck would their stance on video games mean anything? i wrote it down anyway

lupin: 

has fun with ‘em but doesn’t really play too much. he’s busy! got places to be! but he doesn’t often say no if offered, and probably knows the most pop culture about them compared to the others. like he knows who kiryu is. he knows cloud.

he loves puzzles. especially like space distribution related ones like tetris and sliding blocks and shit, but really he’ll play anything if someone’s sold him on it enough. he doesn’t really care a lot about adventure, actiony types cuz he can just. go outside and do that. unless it’s absolutely batshit insane enough like. idk bayonetta. can’t imagine lupin the third would have an ulterior motive for liking bayonetta!!

does he actually cheat at mario kart: Yes. enough said there but he still gets 2nd place somehow?

jigen:

“i’m too old for that” this guy had a ds lite in 2009 don’t listen to him. of course he mostly had the boring shit and it was really more of a novelty to him than anything but still. it was the silver one.

console games are not really his thing. he could have a little fun at an ARCADE though and i’m not just saying that because of the like. ghostbusters shoot ‘em up cabinets. the ticket incentive would get to him. he knows it’s just junk but let’s be honest the idea of him actually working to “earn” some shit instead of just stealing it, and the earned bounty being a glow in the dark spider ring is priceless. and you know lupin LOVES to help with this

backseat gamer though. speaking of lupin, he fucking ALWAYS does this to him. “hey you missed that chest.” “that weapon is ass why didn’t you equip the one i told you too” “is this game that hard or are you just that friggin bad at this” until lupin snaps “OKAY DAMN! SHUT UP!” and puts in like wii music or whatever. he still insists he’s playing it wrong.

does he actually cheat at mario kart: usually sits out, so unless you call purposeful sabotage of “don’t fuck this up” talk directed at the ones actually playing REPEATEDLY through the lap cheating, nnnno. even when he does play he doesn’t really bother cheating. pretty content with 6th place and up. It's Just Not That Serious

fujiko:

depending on. whenever she was a kid/teenager since the timeline in this franchise gives me a headache, i’d bet solid money fujiko was bigger on them than you’d expect back in the day. definitely started that stupid fucking pokemon truck rumor in the day

now she’s kind of passive. it just doesn’t interest her like it used to, she’s got more intense passions than animal crossing can fulfill. she’s not like rolling her eyes and calling you a stupid child for offering to Game with her but she just kind of pauses. and shrugs. she might play in a group if it entertains her enough, but that’s more because of the human element than the game itself. she fucking LOVES competitive shit just because of the shit she can stir up with it. free comedy

does she actually cheat: fucking look me in the eyes and ask me that again. mains rosalina to look cute but also exploit the fact she’s the fastest heavyweight class. or was i think they nerfed her WHATEVER

goemon:

i know people are split on goemon’s actual level of technical ineptitude at times but i really think you could get this guy hooked on bejeweled or some shit. not candy crush. too gaudy.

have you ever (mostly directed at people with siblings) have you ever played a video game FOR someone else. like they tell you “let’s go in that cave” or “wait no choose this dialogue option” like it isn’t backseat gaming, it’s just them essentially using YOU as the controller? goemon does that.

you could maybe get him interested in a visual novel but he’d probably have an easier time just reading the damn thing

does he actually cheat: he’d get the hang of it easy, he can drive (ignoring that one gag and looking at like everything else HE CAN DRIVE) and it really is just like. pressing two buttons and turning the controller. he’s too focused in on the track to think about cheating, or even attempt to figure out HOW to cheat? he’s too invested in delfino square dude he can’t be fucked to save that bullet bill for when he’s in 3rd place.

zenigata:

he doesn’t insist he’s too OLD for it. but he doesn’t really have the patience for it exactly. and what’s REALLY lame about it is that he doesn’t even play like. the dull “serious type” games like windows 98 blackjack or whatever because, his reasoning, why wouldn’t he just. play it normally?? in real life?

definitely the kind of person who looks at you like you’ve grown a second head for explaining what a let’s player is, and even more so when you describe how insanely popular they are. because he really just does NOT understand why you wouldn’t just PLAY IT YOURSELF (the more you explain it the more stunned he is, just don't bother it'll only give you both a headache)

however. if you make ANYTHING a competition it’s a completely different story. freakishly high score in monkeyball. speedran through metal gear like it was nothing while still somewhat comprehending the plot. through the fire and flames on expert IT’S AMAZING WHAT THE RIGHT MOTIVATION CAN GET YOU WITH THIS GUY

does he actually cheat: he’ll deny for hours. it’s a semi-common lup gang truce, they’re at one of those bars that has a wii on the floor for some reason, and lupin is insisting, and you know EXACTLY who saves that bullet bill for when he’s somehow pushed his way to 1st place. arguments break out but he won so who cares! let’s gooooo team zeni!!!

wait should i have given all of them mario kart mains. speedrun for the others: peach (excuse to look at cute girl) or diddy kong (obvious joke), shy guy (specif black hood variant yes they bought the dlc), yoshi (inexplicably vibes with him) and uh. luigi? oh god i can’t think of zeni’s main. not bowser. easy “go karting with bowser” joke but no it's not bowser. MARIO. IT’S MARIO HE *WOULD* BE THAT GUY TO JUST FUCKING PICK MARIO

[spinningbuster98]

Metroid Other M Part 2: Permission to play, Adam?

So the most common criticism against Other M’s gameplay is that it’s not a true Metroid game, that it’s an action game disguised as one

But why is that?

Usually people tend to cite the fact that it’s so linear and restrictive, while also citing the more actiony take downs and generally “cooler” and more aggressive take on the combat

However I feel that leaving it at this is far too simple, after all: Fusion is also about as linear, yet people nowadays rarely have a problem viewing it as a Metroid game. Similarily the Mercurysteam games certainly up the action quite a bit, and there are certainly people who have criticized them in a similar vein as Other M....but I’ve never agreed, I’ve never viewed those games as action games first and foremost. It’s not until replaying Other M for this occasion that I think I’ve finally realized what the real differences between it and those other games are.

See when you look at it from a macro perspective the game’s structure really isn’t different from Fusion: you’re told where to go (and much more often too), you’re given no freedom of exploration, always needing to follow the story, the game will constantly prevent you from backtracking and the map will always look you back to earlier points whenever you need to backtrack, making it so that you’re always on tracks, much like Fusion. The Sectors are also completely seperate from each other, being connected only through an elevator, like Fusion...though unlike that game Other M will usually prevent you to even acess the other Sectors between mission objectives, so that’s certainly even more linear and forced

The main difference, I believe, is in the quality of the level design itself.

Metroid games are designed to be zig zaggy and labirinthyne, not just in terms of linearity in general, but in terms of how areas are structured: even in a game like Fusion, while you may be constantly led on a linear path, said path will have you go up down, left and right all the times, all the while mixing things up with a good dose of platforming.

Platforming in Metroid is not meant to be challenging most of the time, Metroid doesn’t have bottomless pits or instakill obstacles during normal play. Platforming is generally meant to break up the level design, you jump on floating platforms, swing on the Grapple Beam, wall jump, climb surfaces, grab onto ledges, slide under gaps etc. It’s there to add some variation and to prevent the player from just mindlessly going right all the time, never letting go of the forward direction

And that’s the issue with Other M, that’s what it often feels like: roughly 50% of its map design is composed of halls and corridors that only have you going forward with little else to do. Maybe sometimes you’ll have some minor platforming here and there, or some minor puzzles, but for the most time you really feel like you’re just pushing forward all the time. There are a couple of bigger, more uniquely designed rooms but they’re usually either designed more as combat arenas or are simply composed of mostly empty space. This feeling of constantly moving in one direction all the time only excentuates the linearity of the game, even though it’s not different than Fusion on a macro scale

Puzzle solving and Platforming are indeed present here, but they’re not organically impemented in the level design, they’re not something that you do all the time normally, you have the occasional platforming challenge and the occasional puzzle that break your pacing in between sessions of running in a straight line

To give credit where it’s due: I actually think that Other M’s puzzles are better than Fusion’s: that game would often lock you into a set of room and ask you to bomb the correct surface with no real indications, only rarely offering something more unique. Other M often has you look around (though in first person mode which is its own can of worms) searching for hidden switches or computers that turn off some holographic projections. It’s a tad bit more natural and inventive given the 3D nature of the game and there’s a little bit more variation as a result.

Platforming however is where we have problems: at best the game throws you some really basic “jump on these things” moments, which are fine, but more often than not the game will force on you segments that grind the pace to a halt because they’re really slow and there’s not way to speed them up. How about riding a couple of slow moving lifts that will take you to your destination? How about having to wade through water at the speed of enthropy (and boy does water absolutely blow in this game more than in the others, even the rate at which Samus shoots is slower!!) only for you to make your way back and THEN ride the slow-ass lift? Or how about having to grab onto a rotating ledge and having to wait until it slowly brings you to the next slowly rotating ledge? Other M’s platforming is often really slow and boring and does the exact opposite of what it does in the other games

Level design in Other M tends to be really inorganic: you have the puzzle moments, the platforming moments, the combat moments and the running in a straight line moments, but they rarely come together organically, so the weak points of each of them are not covered up by the others’ strengths

So Other M is a game whose world is just not very interesting to traverse (though I will spare my thoughts on actually finding secrets for another time). This alone makes for a good argument for it not being a very good adventure game, but what seals the deal I think is what the game actually puts most of its focus on

Over the years I’ve seen people accuse Samus Returns and Dread of being action games with no exploration, much like Other M...yet I have never been in agreement with this take. I’ve seen people claim that this is because they’re too linear...even though Fusion is even more linear than them, yet nowadays most people consider it an exploration game all the same. Those games are said to be too actiony, and yeah there’s definitely a greater focus, especially with the counter and the flashier cutscenes, all things that are most certainly borrowed or were influenced by Other M...but here’s the thing: outside of boss battles, which are action setpieces by their very nature no matter what game it is. When you’re actually traversing the world the way you fight enemies...really isn’t much different than how it’s been since the start of the series. Yeah you get more aggressive means of taking down foes, but at the end of the day you’re still dispatching them quickly, no enemy should take you more than 10 seconds max to dispatch. None of those games ever truly force you to defeat all the enemies in a room to proceed either, so in the end fighting enemies is not the central focus, that’s still navigating through an area, the focus is still simply reaching your next objective through an area, enemies are there to simply be obstructions in your way

Samus Returns is certainly quite flimsy in its execution due to its enemy placement being far too crowded and the enemies often being too tanky, leading to the often mentioned issue of overly relaying on the Melee Counter, but the fundemental focus of the game is still on going around the world looking for Metroids, which puts its focus on level traversal and exploration. Dread fixes that game’s issues through more sensible enemy placement and design, and by further improving Samus’ movement and Melee Counter. Basically, with the semi-exception of Samus Returns, in these games combat is not in opposition to exploration/level traversal, it’s something that simply happens naturally as you play without breaking the pace ( not too much in Samus Returns’ case and depending on your preference)

The same cannot be said about Other M: this game likes to lock you into rooms every minute, forcing you te beat all the enemies to proceed. Said enemies are also often not quickly defeated, requiring you to spend several minutes on them unless you’re really good. This alone indicates a shift in priorities to me: it’s no longer about traversing a well designed world (whether linearily or not) while fighting enemies along the way to your next power up that will allow you to progress further into the world, now it’s about going from one big enemy encounter to another, while the world mostly just serves to break up combat encounters. Its design philosophy is almost 1 to 1 that of character action games like Devil May Cry, God of War and the Ninja Gaiden reboot, which should not come as a surprise given that that’s where Team Ninja’s expertise lay.

But here’s the sad part: Other M...isn’t even that great as an action game either

It really couldn’t have been in any way I feel: Samus is a long ranged fighter, characters in this genre typically fight in close qurters with a wide variety of weapons, with long ranged ones typically serving as little more than combo extenders. Samus mainly fights with her Charge Beam, which is functional, even fun at first, but becomes samey quickly, it alone just cannot sustained a whole fighting system, and that’s without taking into account the game’s controls

For the record: I’m emulating for recording purposes, so some of the fuck ups in terms of controls that you’ll see will actually be my fault, howevere I’ve played the game on an actual Wii before so i can still criticize its controls

This game ignores the existence of the Nunchuck, instead using exclusively the Wiimote, usually in its horizontal position and controlling Samus with the D-pad

Moving Samus around a 3D world with a D-pad is actually not horrible, mainly due to the simplistic level design, but this creates a bunch of issues during fights

Jumping on top of enemies to perform an Overblast often feels like a luck of the draw because the controls prevent me from being as precise as I’d like. The Sense Move is a neat idea, having you dodge by timing button presses, except said button presses are if the D-pad, with said timing being as wide as an elephant, meaning that you can literally just mash the D-pad and automatically dodge, except for when stuff gets too hectic, in which case you may still get hit, but also because the game will so often just throw a bunch of stuff at you you will basically have little choice but to spam the D-pad because many enemy formations don’t have much in the way of actually recognizable patterns, at least not when they’re attacking you all at once. To be fair: the game will often ask you to go into first person mode in order to use missiles to hit weak points, meaning that you can’t always just stay on the defensive....

...but first person mode comes with its own slew of issues! Having to suddenly swing the Wiimote vertically and back in the middle of a fight is all kinds of awkward, switching between camera modes can be disorienting and you can’t move while in first person, with dodging being possible only by wagging the wiimote when the screen turns green. Once again: this wouldn’t have been as much of a problem if I could use a Nunchuck and the game used a button to switch between camera modes

I...actually don’t have big issues with Concentration, from an action game perspective it makes sense: you need to find the correct moment during the heat of battle to perform it, it puts your reflexes and overall awareness to the test, but having to once again do a particular motion to perform it feels off.

To be clear: Other M’s controls are nowhere near the same ball park as the likes of Sonic and The Secret Rings or other Wii games that were heavy on the motion controls, they’re just needlessly convoluted and awkward, they want to be more simple yet they end up feeling more complicated, and so much would have been fixed by simply using the Nunchack!

Finally, on that note: despite all that I’ve just said I...actually wouldn’t say that Other M is a complete trainwreck, it’s not awful. Storywise? Oh yeah, sure, it’s a goddamn dumpster fire, but as a game? It’s needlessly awkward, it’s not a good adventure game nor a particularily good action game...but it’s functional. You can get a small smidget of enjoyment out of it with the right mindset, though I will add that the reason why I can adapt to stuff like needing to use the D Pad in a 3D space and having to switch to first person to look around due to the lack of camera control is most likely due to me having experience with PS1 games...which Other M isn’t and has no real excuses for being like this

I know this is more faint praise than anything, but wham I’m trying to say is that there’s a big differene between a mediocre game and a truly awful one. This isn’t like Sonic 06 which is truly broken at the fundemental level and features a structure that is all kinds of meandering. It’s not like Mega Man X7 whose camera, controls and level design make Other M’s look like the Mona Lisa. It’s a helluva lot better than DMC2 I can tell you that much! Hell I’d say it’s also not as bad as the likes of Shadow the Hedgehog, whose structure is not only impossibly repetitive but also features missions that are just straight up bullshit on all fronts, or Mega Man X6, whose level and boss design might just be more punchable than Adam’s face, or, if we’re counting other Metroidvanias, Castlevania Circle of the Moon. Yes I know this last one will anger a lot of people but screw it, at least Other M’s controls don’t feel that sluggish, it doesn’t have scren crunch and I don’t feel the need to look up on the Internet which enemies I should grind just so I can gain those specific abilities and items that will allow me to survive the game’s bullshit

I think it says something that even the worst Metroid game is still somewhat competent unlike other franchises’ worst entries, I suppose it’s a testament to the series’ sheer quality, but just because Other M isn’t the worst thing level that does not mean it’s much good either, especially since this is one of those games that really wants to be a movie and makes it pretty much impossible to ignore its story which...

...well we’ll get to that in due time

[solcomfortssouls]

Anime watch list Summer 2023

✅️Taisho otome fairy tale: super cute show. Magnificent hurt/comfort, mature themes, doesn't shy away from some gross stuff, but it's all very pointed and beautiful. Great characters, conflict and MC girl that wins you over with her care.

Oshi no ko

My happy marrage (ongoing)

✅️Heavenly delusion - well-made, investive, interesting. A little too flat and unmemorable in the end though.

Kanojo ga Koushaku-tei ni Itta Riyuu

Skip to Loafer

Paripi Koumei

Heroines run the show

Koori Zokusei Danshi to Cool na Douryou Joshi

❌️Dangers in my heart: This one just didn't work for me. The animation is super disproportionate. Both of the main characters are weirdos. Nah, not for me.

Honorable mentions

Love after world domination

Bed and breakfast for spirits

Sacrificial princess and the king of beasts

Watched Spring 2023:

Yamada-kun to Lv999 no Koi wo Suru: Very good. Best series of the season and one of my top three romance series this year. Thoughtful, adult student setting at University, heartwarming characters, great friendships, everyone looks out for everyone. There is strenght in kindness and independence in how the MC's niceness. A guy who is blunt but way too kind is a great conflict.

Hell's paradise: The visuals. The characters. This series manages to make you invested for everyone with the littlest screen time. Epic and different and actiony and with many philosophical musings and moral dilemmas along the way.

Mashle - Shameless Harry Potter rip off, but funny and twisty in its simple way. When you love that setting, you will enjoy this one.

Legendary hero is dead - This is funny and ironic and the MC is so unapologetic and terrible it even becomes funny and likeable.

Shikimori - older series with a killer posing as a student at an academy for gifted. A villianness that starts to question her mission. Great development. Original in its brutality and show of brainwashing.

No guns life - Great world, idea and setting, but it sure put me off after first 3 episodes for the deutragonist doing exactly what the villian just did to him. Brr.

Honey and clover - I really wanted to like this one. Students, love, relationships, fame, good rating...its slow and confusing and I give up.

Sacrificial princess and the king of beasts - interesting premise, fluffy, very shallow though. If you want something relaxing maybe

[chadhunkler]

Character Themes - Chad and Kasha

tagged by @archaiclumina aaaaaa thank you!

I have a few playlists for Chad and Kasha already, I'll try to grab a couple from each for them

Chad's got some varied emotions in her Workout and Relaxation playlists

Action - Dirty Little Animals by BONES UK

One of the songs I listened to while doing fight RP with Chad! I enjoyed the show, and only after watching it figured out that Chad's kinda similar to Vi lmao. GOOD SHOW GO WATCH ARCANE IF YOU HAVEN'T

More action - RISE by YMIR

Very metal, loud, Chad's favorite type of fighting. A more recent addition to the workout playlist, but YMIR's on there a bunch

Dejected - It's Beginning To Rain Again by Little North

Something to evoke the feelings she'd felt after losing a bunch, being accused of overworking, forced to rest. When nothing went right... Little North very good quiet jazz yyeyeyey

Chilling - Curicó by Kiltro

Love Kiltro, got to go to a concert of theirs recently! Very chill, acoustic, Chilean-inspired music. Definitely something Chad would listen to on a day off.

Lyyhia ♥♥♥ - The Water's Fine by The Family Crest

One of the songs played when they went out on a fishing trip in Yanxia, up in the Plum Springs, where Chad first confessed her love...

Kasha only has one playlist for now, maybe I'll split it later. Hers is very good too. It was very hard to pick songs... all of hers are so good...

Forest - Gilded Runner by HOYO-MiX

A blast to her past, before becoming an Onmyo Mage. Imagery of rushing through the jungle of her homeland, hunting for dinner, dodging the Garlean occupying forces.

Spooky - Through a Cloud, Darkly by Chris Christodoulou

Chris is something else he don't miss... Otherworldly, alien song with resonant bells, exactly the kind of vibe Kasha's trying to give off.

Spooky x2 - YESTERDAY'S PAIN by Lorn

Same as before, spooky, unnatural sounds... Noises to put fear in yokai.

Regal, Powerful - Yone, the Unforgotten by League of Legends

ok this one's on the nose but I had to, it fits Kasha too well. Actiony, Japanese-inspired music is perfect for her!

Eccentric - CLOSET by Yoh Kamiyama

I like the funk this song gives, and the lyrics kinda fit too

Thank you again for tagging me!

If they wanna, I'll tag @rasenkaikyo @shroudkeeper @the-littlest-kojin and @amurr-reha and anyone else who sees this, if you wanna do it, go ahead! (God im bad at tagging people aughe)

[fractured-shield]

WIP questionnaire tag

thanks for the tag @honeybewrites!

What’s the first part of your WIP that you created?

Four of my characters: Therien, Oenith, Idhren, and Leithe. Everyone else (and the setting) came later.

If your story was a TV show, what would the theme song/intro be?

Oh, good question, I haven't really considered that too much. I could see it maybe being something like the TLoVM theme but a bit less actiony? still very character-focused with lots of group shots lol

What are your favorite characters that you made? Why?

Oh, Idhren, no question. Therien's in second place and she would like it that way. Idhren is like...the comfort character of highest honors for me. I swear, the man's been a better influence on me than my own damn family. My last therapist was like "you should consider writing a character that's what you feel you needed as a child" and I had to be like "ma'am I have been doing that for a decade I'm way ahead of you"

What other pieces of media do you think your fanbase would share?

I already said TLoVM/CR and like yeah definitely that. fun fantasy setting with a bunch of queer idiots and so much emotional damage. vax stans pspsps i have something to interest you. also just like. the lotr/silm influences are heavily apparent in the "mourning the ruins of your people" and "living a long life is a unique sort of grief" and "doing something with the situation you're given even when you're scared and nobody important" and a couple of the characters don't worry about maithyr there's nothing to see there

What has been your biggest struggle with your WIP?

mostly just sharing it, I think? I've been through enough drafts and major overhauls, and seen enough progress that I can let myself relax and trust that the characterizations and plot details will iron themselves out. but for as compelling as these characters are to me, there's a lot of "is this any good / is this cheesy and blatantly generic / is anything i'm trying to say coming across right"

Are there any animals in your story? Talk about them!

yes!! so first of all there's dragons. they're not like, inherently more magical than other species, but the lochieru will use them in rituals the same way other mages might use the occasional feather or bone. but dragons are unique because their eggs are incubated in the earth and drain nutrients from the land while they develop. this is because the god who created dragons was removed from the gods' order for their actions, and was unable to finish their work and make dragon eggs grow without stealing other life. ...there are also horses and other livestock, which I try to give attention to as well. I have a degree in animal science and used to work with horses, so there's lots of "character is struggling with sheep handling for hours and now smells like lanolin and dirt" and "distinct personalities and quirks for everyone's horses"

How do your characters travel/get around?

aside from the lochieru and their dragons, mostly just...horses, whether ridden or in harness. sometimes ships, though trade with the western expanse is mostly dried up so there's little use for boats large enough and sturdy enough to make the journey

What part of your WIP are you working on right now?

I'm starting a new first draft, meaning the first draft after major plot/setting overhaul number...four? something like that. I'm just finishing up the first act, in chapter 6. this draft has been really interesting, it's the first time I feel I can see forward clearly and also still be surprised by new directions the story wants to take

What aspects (tropes, maybe?) will you think draw your audience in?

I keep saying chosen family, but it's more like, a bio family that was separated and chooses to repair their relationships and figure out how to be close again. the protagonist is aroace and pretty far from the whole "hyper-competent young protagonist" trope. there's elves and dragons and magic so that's something lmao. also like, what i hope is a very well-handled depiction of trauma and mental illness represented in a couple different characters in different ways

What are your hopes for your WIP?

I kind of just want to be able to share it in its finished form, I guess? like whether that's traditional publishing, serialized self-pub online, whatever. I love these characters and I think they deserve to be appreciated and remembered outside of my own head, even if it's just by one or two people, and I want to have something tangible like a finished set of books to show for the decade+ and counting of work, even if it's just a single copy for myself

tagging: @diabolical-blue @the-golden-comet @ryderwritings @leahnardo-da-veggie @finickyfelix (sorry if anyone's been tagged already) and anyone else who wants to join!

[sigmastolen]

oh btw ocean's echo was very good! i think it was a little more of a page-turner than winter's orbit, or at least, a little more actiony*, but it didn't destroy me emotionally as much -- mostly bc i didn't overidentify with anyone's trauma this time, so that's probably positive actually lol. and this both satisfied my itch for more worldbuilding re: the larger galactic situation while also leaving me feeling like i know nothing and wanting still more, there's some really wild stuff happening here and i loved it. and again, i just like tennal (despite everything about tennal) and surit so much, i could stay with them for more stories, but as before, they're ready for their lives to be lower-stakes and that's fine, the ending is not unresolved. overall, this book has made me even more eager for another angle on the universe maxwell is creating. maybe someday there'll be, like, a reunion special where we see all our heroes, all grown up and successful?

[randomstupidchaos]

for this oc ask game: 🌠, 💫, 🥀, and 🌻 :D

I haven't looked at all of these yet, just the 1st one, haha, so I'm going to do all of these for *debates* Mal from Nomadverse.

🌠 - On a scale of 1-10 how baby is he?

He is MY baby, 10 for sure. But, like, in the story? Maybe like a 3, haha. He's too serious and mature to really be a soft baby, aside from being a softy at heart.

💫 - Favorite fact about him and why

OKAY. SO. I haven't talked about Nomadverse in a while so this is something a lot of newer people won't know. Mal is from the series I've partially shelved after working on it for 9? 10? years. I wrote 12 of 14 planned novels in the series, so it was an extensive series. Actiony. Fair amount of death and destruction. My favorite fun fact about Mal is that of all the main characters in the series, he is the only one who never kills someone. This is a conscious choice of his, because he refuses to cause harm. It's especially notable as the series progresses 'cause everyone is forced into pretty bad choices, and they all struggle with it, but he manages.

🥀 - How would your OC decorate a notebook or journal? What kind of things are written in there? Could you give an example of a nice entry?

Oh my god. Mal would NOT decorate a notebook, but Nora would absolutely find it one day and decorate it for him. The inside would be the most painstakingly neat writing you've ever seen in your life. He would take notes on all of the group's cases and probably document Nora and Dusty's hijinks in the margins with a dry sense of humor.

🌻 - What little things do they notice about people or the world around them that make them happy? What tiny little treasures do they find in the normal every day that makes the world seem a little brighter for them?

Mal comes off as a snob because he dresses nice and likes expensive things. But he secretly loves nature and enjoys being outside. Blue skies, sunlight on leaves, birds flying overhead...

[ehgood-enough]

After the grey man nextflix recommended 6 underground…. Ryan Reynolds action movie? Sure why not

It’s a Ryan Reynolds action movie, what more is there to say. I love Ryan Reynolds action movies you pretty much know what to expect it’s great. This one maybe should have been a little shorter it did start to drag a bit but it wasn’t bad

Not really a movie I’d seek out to watch again but if I’m browsing for something actiony and amusing I might stop on it