#once it runs out I’m switching to somewhere else and only doing aerial here

[algolagniaa]

annoyed bc I specifically set up my yoga schedule this week so that I would never have a male teacher but I showed up today and it was a man teaching even though the schedule showed it was going to be a woman. and he sucked ass he didn’t even do all of the poses he was having us do and spoke really quietly so I had to look around at the other students to figure out what I was supposed to be doing, and they seemed to be having similar problems since they weren’t usually all doing the same thing

[radramblog]

Ultimate^2

Super Smash Brothers Ultimate has finally unveiled its final DLC character, with reactions ranging fully across the spectrum. Hot takes abound.

I mean, statistically, just about every possible opinion is going to be represented. There were at least 500,000 people watching the reveal stream, and that’s not including those viewing through restreams. That’s insane for a trailer of any kind, let alone for a console-exclusive video game DLC.

Now that it’s been like… a day and a bit, I think most of the spciest takes have probably been made, which is the perfect time for me to chip in with my own milder opinion. More of a butter chicken, really.

(no images in this one i’m lazy tonight)

I figure I’m this late already, might as well drop some notes on the other ones first.

Piranha Plant was kind of the definition of an unexpected pick. Not only was it from an already well-represented franchise, being fucking Mario, it’s also just…not a character. As such it makes an odd choice for a DLC fighter…except for the part where it was free. If you owned the game in its first month. And frankly, I don’t think people would have been happy if it wasn’t. As it is, though, it’s a perfectly fine character- surprisingly cute, actually.

I’m unsurprised about Joker’s inclusion. With how huge Persona 5 became in both Japan and the west, capitalizing on it to make a shitload of money makes perfect sense. The character plays well enough, though the meter gimmick was kind of a daunting sign of things to come. All that in mind, though, the most surprising thing about Joker being in the game is that they still haven’t put P5 on the Switch. Atlus please.

Hero and Banjo/Kazooie were announced on the same night, and I distinctly recall someone saying that this was one for the Japanese audience and one for the Americans. I mean, I’ve never played Dragon Quest, so I guess I fell into the latter? Both series have a long, well-regarded pedigree (Banjo’s lack of recent offerings notwithstanding), so both arguably deserve their respective positions. Hero is the much more notable character gameplaywise, though, with the incredibly complex mana and spellcasting mechanics. Complaints about RNG in Smash aren’t completely unfounded- though it has existed in the past in the form of, say, Luigi’s misfiring side-B- but I know a lot of people think Hero took it too far. If I’m honest, though, the weirdest thing is just having Akira Toriyama-ass 3D models in the game. Banjo’s gameplay is…awkward. The kit is kind of a mess, but at least the gimmicks weren’t going too hard, you know?

Next was Terry, perhaps the most obscure character on the entire list in 2021. I actually really like Terry in this game- while he’s still trying to emulate a similar feel to Ryu/Ken, the difference feels more natural, if that makes sense. Maybe it’s because I’ve never really devoted significant time to them, but Terry’s kit feels easier to work within than the Shotos when going between characters.

Finally for the first Pass, we had Byleth. I think it’s for the best that they announced the second Fighter’s Pass before this released, because if both 4 and Ultimate had ended their run on Fire Emblem DLCs then people would have been pissed. I mean, people were already pissed, but like…moreso. As someone who has played Three Houses, I do think the game is worth celebrating, but having yet another Fire Emblem Protagonist (read: basically a blank slate) in the game over all the substantially more interesting characters 3H has to offer is just really frustrating. Also the final smash looks like dogshit, like FE3H has overall worse animations than Smash for obvious reasons but I’m pretty sure this attack looked better the first time around.

FP2 opened with Min Min, which brings ARMS to the table. ARMS. The only first-party fighting game Nintendo has outside of Smash, so it looks a bit less weird next to everything else but…come on, man. I think this was the most confusing pick of all of them- the game came out in 2017, and having Min Min in Smash would serve as promotion for a sequel…which hasn’t been announced. There was a graphic novel in the works, but it was cancelled earlier this year. Oops? At least the stage was fun.

As much as playing them is awkward and complex, the Minecraft addition was fitting. Only the best-selling game around. I think people weren’t sure if Microsoft would go for it, but they let us have Banjo, so sure. I’m mostly just annoyed that they couldn’t get any of the songs from the actual game in there- like, you got one in from the fucking mobile game, but you couldn’t just get C418 on the phone?

Sephiroth is definitely one of the hype-ier releases from this pass. The character is iconic, as is his theme and his home game. I’ve never played any Final Fantasy game, but I can still respect the name. Once I remember how to spell it. The whole bossfight aspect to his release was also quite cool, while it lasted.

On the other hand, I have no love for Pyra nor Mythra. There’s so much wrong with these ones, frankly. They’re another swordy character, immediately following Sephiroth too, and they go back on Smash’s very deliberate decision to split characters like Zelda/Sheik and Samus/ZSS up (Yes I know Pokemon Trainer does the same thing but I have a lot more leniency for them). Add in their being from a JRPG much less well-known or remembered than the previous couple characters and the designs being…questionable, I have a big issue with the whole thing. This was also around when I kinda stopped playing the game in general, and they definitely didn’t help pull me back in.

Kazuya might have, though. With the exception of him and Sephiroth, all the characters from the Fighter’s Passes were pretty much protagonist-types, but this motherfucker pulses with the essence of bad guy. What I’m saying is that he’s fucking cool, and while he’s ludicrously complex, that makes perfect sense since…I mean just look at the combo lists from Tekken 7. His inclusion also kinda rounds out the list of biggest fighting game franchises out there being rep’d in the game, though I imagine now I’m going to have stans from Mortal Kombat or whatever on my back. They’re not going to put a fatality-capable character in Smash, guys!

Finally, this rounds us around to the original point of this article. Let’s talk about Sora. And by that I mean…I don’t really have a huge amount to say about him. Kingdom Hearts is a franchise that completely passed me by growing up, and I don’t think I have the time or energy to devote to it now. I’m sure it’s good, people seemed really excited for him to be in the game so they have to have gotten that love from somewhere, but I don’t share that feeling.

That’s not to say that I don’t think he deserves a slot. The idea of “deserving a slot” in Smash Bros is kind of an odd concept, even though it’s come up a lot so far this post. But a slot in this roster isn’t just a place in a popular fighting game, because at this point, Smash is kind of a museum of (mostly Nintendo) games- and so having representation is a forever acknowledgment that the franchise is, or has been, an icon to so many. Kingdom Hearts, to my knowledge, has 100% earned that position, and so Sora getting to be playable here makes perfect sense. He wasn’t my pick (Touhou representation never I guess), but I’m happy for those who wanted him.

As far as the actual gameplay looks, he reads like a character that kept in mind what people didn’t like about Hero when he released. It’s another sword-based character, which I think at this point speaks more about the demographic of video game characters than it does about Smash. But I appreciate that the Magic Bullshit is toned down, and that it’s also his only real gimmick (The 3-hit combo feature is A Thing, but other characters e.g. Bayonetta have already done that, so whatever). His recovery potential looks patently absurd- like he just gets Pikachu/Pichu’s Up-B as a Side-B that can also be chained with his actual Up-B? This guy better be light as hell or he’s going to be super hard to take out. I dunno, I think he looks solidly fun enough- more dynamic and aerial than the other swordfighters, at least- and that’s good enough for me.

And I guess that marks the end of Smash Ultimate. Not with a bang, but with a key…dude. It’s been a very solid run, the game managing to keep itself fresh across several years of development, even as other games have risen and fallen. Smash is kind of forever at this point, I think, though the finality of Ultimate’s ultimate character implies that this particular iteration may be coming to its end. And seeing as it is always one Smash per console, I wouldn’t be shocked if the Switch itself was nearing its endgame as well.

Okay but also it’s pretty funny how they heavily censored everything Disney out of Sora’s DLC except for that little Mickey charm on the trailer, like how much must that one shot have cost them, was it even remotely worth it, I don’t know but I kinda want to

[blindtaleteller]

TEASER : Chapter 8 - Ocean Eyes

                                       (Still looking for the artist!)

-------====CLINT - (out of the frying pan..)

“ That encroaching fire, -is- going to be a problem… “ was annoyed, at the very best. He could see the force behind his motions bringing up a few screens to the side and then; just stopping. He was focused on a corner of the main view. “ Dark screen up. Iggy, enhance LLQ 1. Are those -civilians?- “

The side screen shifted, and sure enough well behind the line of ground troops holed up behind what had once been a fence lined with flower pots in the woods and running, trying to keep ahead of the fire and what was falling in behind them; was a whole pack of people. All sorts; number unconfirmed but the visible was somewhere between a hundred and one-twenty. Loki zoomed and scrolled back, to the tail end where the fire was pulling down trees; just in time to watch an explosion from what was probably distance napalm delivery take a good dozen of the living out of the laggers behind. “ Shit. “ from Quill as he sat up and set his tablet aside, as Clint grit his teeth.

It took a moment to realize they were adjusting course. And another moment to realize the heat had kicked on; but the temperature inside the Stiletto had dropped, by almost five degrees. “ Lau. “

The consoles under his fingers were showing cold-stress; fog ringed fingerprints that might have only stayed a few seconds for the heat combating it, but it was there. “ Lau. We .. “ a breath when another shot went off. Clint knew very well what he was thinking. “ ..do we have -time- for this? “

“ Are we going into that? Like; -in-, to that? “

“ -I- am. Even if I -could- ignore that. Even if. “ he heard the bite and hiss to those particular two words. No, he couldn’t; ignore that: and Quill was up heading for the table where he’d hooked his holster, checking everything else he had gearwise otherwise. Apparently, they were all on the same page. “ That fire -has- to be stopped. “

And Clint was all in for this. They were already here, and watching that: no, just no. He’d seen them; there were kids out there. “ What’s the plan babe? “

“ Peter isn’t ready to try his hand at the Stiletto yet. Not like this. I am more durable, and the both of us know the equipment we'll be deploying better: so you will take her.. “ he was bringing up extra screens he hadn’t played with yet. They both heard the cha-kunk of panels opening on either side. “ I’m dropping shield beacons behind the barricades. So long as they remain undamaged, that will help keep any more firebombs from being dropped from this side at least and to an extent. Once the back wall is dropped and raised, you’ll need to put out what’s already on that side. Iggy, translation program; drop a small volley of relay drones with the message I’ve prepared. Let the men behind those barricades know we are friendlies here to assist their civilians. They don’t need to know anything else, yet.  Make it fast, I want in without excess incoming fire. We’ll pick them up again on our way out if possible. “ Seven round metallics about the size of track and field balls were dispatched almost immediately, as they veered further north-west along the road at a much higher speed: and dropped stealth.

There were a few shots, before the view locked onto various points along the flowerpot-and-sandbag littered barricades those drones had arrived at started to pop up. A grunt as Loki took note of the large clearing furthest nor-west. It was set up clearly as a refuge camp, but well down the first set of cliffs the falls were roaring over. “ That’s Chilsipnisi Park. There are two major drops in the terrain, that the falls drop over; one right on it’s edge. Our main target is in between, near the first drop. I’ll drop and run with them; “ was not exactly a plan he liked, but. “ I’ll take a set of hover lifts and Iroga rings with me. That will get them, and me; down to the next level, and into Chilsipnisi. Clint, get closer, ready to switch. Peter, you said you’ve used propulsion boots. If you reach up above the table, there’s a long black handle tucked into the ceiling. Pull it down. I don’t use them myself, for other reasons; but there should be a set and stabilizers on the left side, underneath. Can you handle taking a few extra drones and putting out the larger incoming weapons fire; and if possible neutralizing some of those single mobile shooters? “

Okay, it was a little nerve wracking, but he did like a couple things about this. Firstly, he didn’t think he had ever experienced this side of Loki, to this extent. Or if he had, he didn't remember it. Clint knew he thought fast; was an amazing tactician when it came to manipulating a situation; but he had never really seen him go at this kind of bigger, military confrontation. Thor had made very brief mention of an instance or two since he had come back and they had started their training and war games at night. But this was an entirely different speed. In a matter of minutes, his trickster had assessed started up and brought a solid plan to deal with .. everything, on the field that was an immediate danger. He had come across four star generals who couldn't be that decisive without more intel.

“ Yeah I think so? “ was given a nod as Loki set things up for him so he could concentrate on flying, and just press buttons and follow prompts. It was almost a turn on how fast he worked; and he said as much even as Pete reached and pulled that handle, bringing the whole ceiling down behind him: the huge rack-like tables locking into place with the one they usually ate at; taking up space between the rail and the shut-in bed. Quill whistle, getting it a glance. And okay, he wished he had known that arsenal had been up there. Armor and other worn equipment on the right, everything else --quite a lot of everything else-- to the left. There was something there that caught his eye, briefly; a bow; some hundred arrows quivered or lined up in packs by type to the far left. He wondered, if those were his; before he refocused.

“ Take extra armor too, and as many other toys as you’re comfortable with. After fire suppression, Clint; you’ll stabilize a line just past the west bank. Iggy is now picking up anti-aircraft as well as mobile launchers on their way from the south and south-west. He is tagging them through satellites now. I only have four EMP packets on board, but those should stop them outright; if not slow them down… “ and he started to stand, switch was easy enough; they had practiced a few times and Clint was glad for it now. “ Babe, what’s the plan for the stone? “

A nod as he drew his hair back in a messy loop at the back of his head snapped up a few items Clint couldn’t pay attention to at the moment. “ That will depend on whether any of the plan changes, but mostly: the area needs to be secured first. “ The retreat of his voice told him he was already on his way past the steps. “ Once you’ve taken care of those things, and I’ve set up a better perimeter for the civilians at the least; we’ll go after the Stone and leave the rest to them in favor of getting it out of play here. So long as the beacons have power and remain undamaged -- “ the alarm, the rush of air below as eh switched to his headset; and he saw a second one come online on another screen. “ --they should hold. As it is they have a five day charge, at best. I would say three under this kind of fire though. So.. hopefully they will be able to hold out long enough to evacuate, or at least move their civilians somewhere more secure. “

“ And if things go bad? “ from Clint made him pause, as Clint brought up the view of the loading ramp. “ The only thing we can do, of course. “ He watched him pat Quill ahead; and their favorite almost-ginger dove out without hesitation; immediately making an aerial beeline for his targets, and immediately dodging incoming bullets. “ We improvise. “ and the next moment he looked, Loki was gone; the tether to what he had unlocked from cargo yanking after him and rolling out .. well things he didn’t think anyone else among them could even think to drop out of an airborne craft with, moving at this speed. “ Love you babe. Starlord ..watch your butt out there too. “

“ You got it Loxley. “ made Clint smirk a little at the next Robin Hood reference in line as he tracked them both. Loki being the showman he was and probably wanting to spook the ones taking shots at him; didn’t bother with any from of deceleration; which.. Made his stomach lurch a bit, but less so, knowing he’d dropped from much further heights in New York alone. “ Same applies, dude. And speak up, if you need an extra hand. These things are a lot speedier and more responsive than mine. Might be able to finish my end up faster than usual, with the HUD zoom engaged. “

Proved to be pretty true as he flicked his gaze back to the screen tracking Quill while he dropped the first line of fire suppression. “ Sooo been holding out on us, you asshole. I am getting you to my range back home, or into the training gym in New York when we’re done. I wanna know which of us is more accurate. “

“ I suck with a bow. “

“ You ever even shot -one- arrow in your life, Starbutt? “

“  Nope. That’s how I know I suck at it. “

“ We’ll trade back and for--  the FUCK was that  ?!  “

Middle of the second pass, the shadow fast-dropping for the woods below was big, intimidating, and hard to miss. Iggy was catching up with it still as Quill called it. “ Shit! Lo! Incoming interspatial! “ but it was the next, familiar combination of letters that followed that instantly raised the hairs on the back of his neck and had him loading up the first EMP on an immediate adrenaline spike. “ P.C.C.! ... “

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READ FROM THE START AND MORE ON AO3 HERE:

https://archiveofourown.org/works/19248328/chapters/45772732

[bearpillowmonster]

FF7 Remake Review (Gameplay)

Great big pizza in the sky? Ha, yeah!

I never played the original FF7, all I know is the stuff from Kingdom Hearts and (spoilers) Aerith dying which puts me in a unique position. If my opinion is a little swayed then it’s because this is my first experience. However before you say I don’t have any experience and you don’t care what I think, I did play through a decent amount of Crisis Core before I lost my save file but finished by watching a cutscene compilation on YouTube and got the whole scoop. This will be spoilers since it’s been a while since the game came out but I’m doing it through exposure, gameplay first, characters next, then story, if you don’t want any of the first two spoiled then I suppose you’re already sold on the game but I’m making then separate parts because of how much there is. There will be some things I’ll compare to the original game in the later parts, only because I looked it up after beating the game.

Let’s start with gameplay. I’m not a fan of turn based, which makes it a good thing that this game doesn’t exactly have that. There are a lot of things I could compare it to and people are going to say it originated from somewhere else but I don’t care. So the combat is more real-time action based, so you can actually hit square and you’ll attack vs picking a command and having turns. You do have commands to heal and use special abilities and magic like Kingdom Hearts and bringing up that command menu slows time so much that it’s almost a stand still so you have time to think about what you’re going to do. The core combat is regular, kind of like FFXV but better (much better in my opinion.) There is a stagger meter which I’ve seen in FF13, you attack consistently and the enemy will break under pressure and is vulnerable to more damage, some abilities may be stronger in this instance and is also used much better in this gameplay style.

It’s true you can play as other characters, this is during combat, it’s really enjoyable playing as them. If you’re really feeling up to it, you can command them what to do, what to focus on, what attacks to use, while controlling your main. You’re going to have a harder time in some instances with Cloud than you would using a more effective character like Barrett. Imagine turrets that are high up, it’s hard to reach with a sword right? That also goes for if an enemy traps you, just jump ship and play as the other character to get the enemy off. (Imagine playing as Donald Duck to heal Sora instead of waiting for him to do it himself as an NPC) plus maybe you equipped a specific command to a character or want to use their specials. I like the fast pace and how they’re actively telling you stuff that needs to be done, during both combat and regular gameplay, there’s always a conversation. One thing that you need to keep all your party members in sync by the ending, I gave 3 of my characters the good and maxed materia while I just had regular stuff for the other, rotate your materia and make sure you have one readily available for each member to use rather than switch it out when the time is right, I’ve had to fight bosses weak to something such as lightning and not have it equipped because the two party members that do have it equipped, aren’t in the battle so I had to cheese it just using limits and abilities.

With the gameplay variety comes different types of weapons for each member, for example, with Cloud if you use the buster sword, it’s the combat I’ve described along with Punisher mode which is heavy attacks in sets, but I believe your guard is lowered a little, you can’t dodge, and you can’t do aerial combat in this mode (don’t worry, you just press triangle to change it) but with something like a Nailed bat, he powers up his swing which can take some much needed time but has a strong impact (seeing as you’ve upgraded it) and some come with naturally better stats, like higher power/magic. Trust me, it sounds more complicated than it actually is, I even thought it looked more complicated in the E3 presentation but no, don’t take its looks at face value, just feel it for yourself, you can ease into it.

The way it interweaves between cutscene, venturing, and combat is very smooth, comparable to how KH3 does it because gone are the text boxes of yesterday, and here are the full fledged voice acted cutscenes (with subtitles) of today. This is very nice but at the same time, I like to talk to randoms and then skim and walk away in most games, but this one makes you wait until they finish saying their sentence, which isn’t bad, it’s only a sentence but just a thing I do in my impatience. It does help with the world building because even just walking around, you’ll hear people talk and the sidebar will have their dialogue so it’s out of the way and not in your face and you know it’s just side stuff.

Speaking of “Out of the way”, I get anxious over menus and sub menus and certain games being complicated, hence the reason I don’t like turn based combat, the two seem to go together, but this game takes everything that I don’t like about them and turns it on its head, it’s really good, nothing is cluttered, yet I don’t have to search for stuff, very good organization and capitalized on the stuff I actually like from FF.

With that being said though, this still has side quests and I kind of hate a lot of the side quests in FF games in general, with FFXV, I would get a roadblock because I needed more EXP before going any farther and the only way to do that is through side quests, I was able to do it a bit better with this one though especially since it’s only available during certain chapters and you’re always on the move fighting enemies for EXP anyway. If you’re going to do the quests though, you either do it all at once or not at all (for that chapter) because it gives you what I would call a grace period of an allotted time to explore the place and do some side quests but you can’t go back and do them, so you can’t switch between main quests and then do a few side ones which in a way I can respect because it keeps the narrative rolling in my opinion since you’re going sector you sector but just something fundamental that is either respected or hated. That is until after you finish the game, then you get chapter select, which is a great idea makes me glad I can just jump back in if there’s something I want to do really bad.

One of the main things I hated about FF12 is that I had no idea what I was doing or where I was going, in fact the only reason I got that game is because I got my Roman numerals mixed up and thought XII was VII and they just ported VII to the PS2 but no. This game is decent at telling you where to go, however, it expects you to explore for some of them, it doesn’t always show where to go on the map. Internet is a lot more convenient these days so it’s not too much trouble, I never spent a lot of time on being lost, let’s put it that way. XV has those really tough enemies in certain areas that you could just run away from if you’re under leveled but with this more linear setup, it has a lot more control with its leveling. That reminds me, whenever you do finish a side quest, it asks you if you want to fast travel back so you don’t have to go through the hassle of running back.

One thing I do regret is not seeing where the summons were because by the time I actually got into it, I had already passed most of them so check up on that as well as limits. Another interesting and funny tidbit is that I went through the game with basic spells, yeah, I didn’t know how to change from Thunder to Thundaga, that includes Cure so I had to use it multiple times to even make a dent with my characters and I still had a blast? (Hint you just go to use the base command and just press right on the D-pad) Like it wasn’t even overly difficult like you’d expect, it just costs less MP. I did the same thing with KH2 by not equipping a new keyblade/chain until the Xaldin boss so it’s just me being oblivious. Serves me right for trying to do it blindly.

Also I would ask myself how each boss was after I played it and even with the annoying ones, I would think “I still had fun.” Except maybe the Trypapolis’ if you consider those a boss, there’s 3 and they are during the Chocobo retrieval side quest so it’s not even mandatory but I did all the Ch.14 ones and oh boy this boss isn’t hard, no. You can use an ability called “Assess” which tells you what you can use against it for maximum damage and what not to use against it, well these things don’t have a weakness but they are resistant to attack and magic, those are how you beat any enemy so you would think “use an item?” Right? Nope. “Stagger and get more damage?” Nope, the stagger only lasts a literal second. You sit there and do chip damage, they are literal sponges and only attack every so often with a few Aerogas, pointless time wasting battle. FFXV is open world which is a love hate relationship for me, FF13 is very linear...not much to say about that. This is a middle ground, the soft spot, I’m comfortable within its confines, and that’s supposedly one of the main complaints I was seeing in other reviews so it’s just whatever you prefer I suppose. Look at it this way, it was a PS1 game before, why would it suddenly be open world? I’d compare it to the original MGS, though I think there was more backtracking in that one. I would also compare it with, once again, Kingdom Hearts 3 because that’s pretty much all I ever play, it depends on what area you’re in and what’s going on and this that and the other thing. One more thing, Chapter 7’s lever puzzle is stupid, I did exactly as it said and it wasn’t enough.

Man, I haven’t done a review this long and in depth since KH3 but there’s so much to talk about here, it’s unreal. Check out the next 2 parts:

(PART 2)

(PART 3)