#other bosses made it into the many gauntlets this game has

[gamebunny-advance]

That's Groovy~

Spoilers for a Pikmin 4 Mid-Game Boss

Ya know, Groovy Long Legs is the only enemy that plays music in the Piklopedia. This is likely due to how intrinsically linked the music is to its mechanics, but that does imply that its theme is actually diegetic.

But I guess that makes sense given that a speaker pops out of it too.

[drsp00n]

Enough time has passed and everyone's wrote their thought pieces about it so I'm gonna chip in with a little bit of my own.

NMH3 is kind of ass in spite of its limitations, not because of them. The priorities are all over the place.

The gameplay loop becomes incredibly repetitive very quickly. I've seen people try to play word games about the semantics of a hallway of enemies across multiple screens being the exact same as a gauntlet in one room, but at least the fucking environment changes instead of being the exact maybe 8 rooms over the course of 100 possible battles.

There's little in the realm of unlocks. You can play the game start to finish without even touching the chip crafting system or the stats tree. No new moves, death glove chips or weapons. All you really need is to raise your attack to deal with the same enemies with just a larger health pool later in the game. Your kit doesn't change from start to finish.

The open world does fucking nothing for me. You could have made one map with less to explore but more to interact with, instead of five barren and flat maps with nothing to do. I know why this is, but I'll get to that in a bit.

The narrative is significantly weaker than TSA which is a huge shame. I'm imagining that they didn't want the characters to be so wordy in fully voice acted cutscenes like they were in TSA, but I would have loved to see more of the IBM style cutscenes if it meant getting to know more about the characters. Everyone just feels so underwritten so you have to fill in the blanks with your own preconceived notions and the stereotypes they're supposed to convey, something people give NMH2 shit for doing with its characters.

Fu and Damon are NOT compelling characters, one's a brat and the other one is a boring evil CEO archetype. They have zero depth, and for the time that they do give them on screen, all they do is bitch about Travis or everyone around them. Travis doesn't seem even interested in either of them beyond killing them for being annoying. Badman was just fridged to establish Fu as a threat, as if fucking killing every single civilian wasn't enough.

The stuff with Henry could have been interesting if the story had given it any kind of significance or time to breathe. I'm with Travis on that one, I really don't fucking care anymore. There's a giant space alien ship up there dude, that seems a little more important right now than our sad crybaby backstory that will go nowhere because NMH4 is never getting made.

And lastly, I think this game is the most suffocated by all the pop culture references. The premise of the game is a reference, the intro of the game is a reference, many of the bosses, side missions and characters are references, the final boss is a reference. All of this is cool in small bits, but it makes me feel like NMH3 has no real identity of it's own. Which leads me to this conclusion:

Suda should really have doubled down and made something weird and different again. Instead we got a game that is flanderizing No More Heroes itself. People like the open world of 1, boom, open world. People hated the combat of TSA, here's 100 fights. Look, it's the mowing grass minigame. Look, it's Destroyman. Look, it's Henry. Look it's a Marvel reference. Look, it's a Miike reference.

It just feels like the weakest of all the games to me. It tries to do a lot, and what it does is not very good. I don't hate it, I've beaten it a couple of times. I just feel like it wasted a lot of it's potential appealing to the loud majority instead of just being a smaller but better experience, but that's just me.

[elionwriter]

Metaphor: ReFantazio thoughts on tropes and characters and how they stand up vs the Persona games

I know, nobody asked for my take, and I haven't actually written a take on just about anything for the past year or so as I find myself in the middle of my greatest block ever. But who knows, maybe giving my two cents will help me get out of it.

I just recently finished the game on ps4 and I actually started a new playthrough on game+ mode, and I must say it really is great! Similar enough to the other Persona games to find my footing but novel enough to be excited and curious about it. The art in particular, I found captivating and I loved how the prologue cutscene already gave me the gist of the story. It's a rush to the throne in a very unstable country. I love when stories are clear from the get go on their intent, because that means you can then toss as many twists and turns to the plot as you wish, like this game does, without risking of losing the point. And a point is very, very clearly made across the game. If it wasn't clear enough from the title alone, this story is a metaphor to our world's political and emotional state. Actually, I feel like the main theme of this game and the one of P5/P5R are analogue and complementary. Even through some corney dialogue and unlikely scenarios, I feel both games tell us something very important: even in a moment where disillusionment and nihilism are peaking and the political class seems to be greedy, self indulgent and corrupt more than ever, we all have the choice and the duty to take arm against it and pull the reigns to our own individual paths and say no to it. Because even if you are the lowest outcast out there, you can still make a difference for yourself and those around you, however tiny, and that may inspire others and ripple out in unexpected ways. P5 tells us to rebel against the powers that be, and ReFantazio pushes us to not let the fear and anxiety of the unstable world around stop us from trying. I think that is very important to hear, no matter how simple and seemingly obvious it might seem. Videogames, more than any other medium, have the power to make us feel more the impact of the story through our choices and their outcome since we as players are literally at the steering wheel and into the protagonist's shoes.

In less philosophical terms, one of my favourite things about the game is that our silent protagonist FINALLY isn't so silent anymore. God, I'm so glad 'Will' actually has voice lines. One of the things I like less (which becomes more obvious mid/late game) is how certain activities are purely locked to the gauntlet runner and to certain moments on the gauntlet runner. So, say I maxed out all my royal attributes and none of my friends is up for chats, I can't go to the gauntlet runner to do laundry, clean up, plant, cook or the likes because it's not running, so I practically have nothing to do. And that's without bringing into the mix fishing and bathing in the hot tub, which become increasingly hard activities to do. Also, if there is a way to change Archetype mid-battle, I have not discovered it yet, which is not ideal. And if I can have one more complaint, but this is more towards all Atlus games and maybe RPGs in general, the end battles become, from a story perspective, a bit of a mood killer, to me. Like, I can only take you, big bad villain, seriously up till the 2nd time you tell me that you have more power to show me. WHY DIDN'T YOU BRING YOUR A GAME IN THE FIRST 3 ROUNDS OF COMBAT, EVEN AFTER YOU SAID YOU WOULD NOT HOLD BACK ANYMORE?! I feel like this breaks the tension for me instead of heightening it and I feel like the message of the story starts getting shoved down my throat. We get it Louis! You'll stop at nothing, ok man, you want to destroy the world. Sheesh.

Beyond that, it's great. Talking about final battles, the 'secret boss' and the revelation of who 'that' major character had been all along really caught me by surprise. Actually, all the characters are really good in this game, not just your teammates. One of my biggest qualms with P3R was that I really didn't care for most social links and that felt somewhat true for P4 and P5 too (I'm looking at you, Drunken journalist) but here, I can't say there is anyone I didn't care to know better. You really feel for characters like Brigitta or Alonzo and others like Maria really warm your heart, with Bardon you see the crash that's about to happen and Neuras, good ol' Neuras, is just a guaranteed good laugh, not to mention that you are very well rewarded for quickly deepening these bonds.

But protagonist aside (which I feel Joker still might take the cake for me, even though Will has come neck to neck) this may be my favourite party yet. Up till now, P4 held the golden medal in that regard, but Strohl and Hulkenberg have tipped the scale in Metaphor's favour. Gallica is a great companion (waaaay better than both Morgana and Teddie), Hulkenberg is hilarious (the fact she doesn't intend to be funny makes it even better), Heismay and Basilio make my heart bleed out, Junah is a kick-ass energy bomb and Eupha is the tender sweetheart that rounds everything out. And Strohl? He instantly became my favourite Atlus character. It's like he has all in one my favourite traits of P3's Akihiko, P5's Ryuji and especially all the best ones of P4's Yosuke without their short comings. He's smart, empathic, determined, brave, loyal, noble-spirited and outspoken without coming off as 'too perfect to be relatable'. He really steals the spotlight for me. Also, much like Yosuke/Yu and Joker/Ryuji, Will/Stroll have a great chemistry and balanced energy. You can definitely see why these characters immediately bond and befriend each other with such fierceness.

I'm actually really glad that unlike the Persona games, Metaphor steered away from romance and actually feel like that touch they added towards the end with Eupha really was shoe-horned in and would have been better cut off entirely. And that has nothing to do with Eupha herself, since, like I said, I really like her as a character.

As for Will himself, I like how sweet and cute he is and how fundamentally different his 'silent personality' is compared to the other protagonists. Like, Joker is the menace who's silent only to drop bombs and one-liners at the best (worst!) moments and burn you down with a death glare. Yu is silent because he is just such a chill and unflinching guy. Makoto is silent because, well.....he's a dead man walking. But Will? It almost breaks my heart how Will learned to use silence and his small stature to basically turn himself invisible since he lives in a world ready to hate, hurt and berate him simply for being an Elda and so disappearing and not causing problems becomes his best shot at survival. And then, later on, this trait becomes a metaphor itself for the kind of King he is: someone who is more prone to listen to the needs of his people than a figure of grand speeches and ego like Forden, Louise and most of the other candidates. Also, I love that he is 'Fantasy personified', a walking dream made of magic, and that as he becomes his own person he goes from Reader to Writer, from creation to creator of other, new fantasies and to new, evolving utopias. Also, it's of little consequence, but there is just so much personality packed into his little running animation as he goes ahead beckoning his friends to follow, and I like it very, very much.

One last thing I'll say, but just because I haven't seen anyone mention it yet, is that I found a LOT of comparisons between this game and another, even more than the other Persona games. That's Final Fantasy X. Think about it: The protagonist who's a walking dream; an ancient civilization run by machinery that disappeared almost overnight; Eupha like Yuna being a 'Summoner', a holy figure and an anchor point for her people who's willing to sacrifice herself for their sake but then learns that her world view was wrong and she can better serve everyone by living on; Sanctism and the Faith of Yevon committing horrible acts by discriminating entire groups of people, covering up their deeply corrupted core, brainwashing people into blind submission and Covering up major historic events; a mixed party that brings together all the different races and religions of the world (almost in ffx's case); heck I would say that even Seymour and Louis share a lot of similarities especially in their background; and obviously the flying battleship that takes you anywhere you need to go and up to the final battle. In both stories, the final battle isn't the end but just the beginning of a long and hard road to recovery and reconstruction. I can't be the only one to see that, right?

Anyway, this post has gone on long enough. I doubt that anyone has followed me up to this point, but if you have, thank you so much for reading and let me know in the comments what you think.

[nihilnovisubsole]

phew! finally a weekend where i can set aside enough time to type up The Promised Endwalker Stream-of-Consciousness Post. i finished the base story... a month ago? but work has been busy, and i think tumblr benefits from me being quiet sometimes. anyway, what a ride. when you've been building up to the end of your arc for a decade, you want to hit it like an earthquake, and that's exactly what they did.

i think people love endwalker because it fires on all cylinders. it returns - in both story and vision - to the eorzea we love, and the dev team gets to show off everything they've learned. the dungeons and boss fights are dynamic and imaginative and colorful and bring the game's epic sense of scope to bear. the story callbacks are juicy. the music is orchestral again. we're back home, and we're saving the galaxy. what's better than this?

i love that we go to garlemald. i don't - i mean, you know, i don't like garlemald. i shouldn't have to qualify that. but it's hugely narratively satisfying to see the face of the enemy we've been fighting since the first few hours of ARR. you don't think about them when you're beating them up in castrum centri or ala mhigo. they're star wars bad guys. then you meet them on their own turf. you observe firsthand how they starve and cannibalize their own people to feed their obsession with state power and military strength. the wintry environment makes it seem all the more barren and desperate. my favorite part by far. i wish we'd spent more time there.

actually, on that note:

there is an argument that endwalker should've been two expacs. i've heard similar about stormblood - ala mhigo should've been the whole thing, and doma should've been either patch content or an expac of its own. the prevailing theory is that, after ARR, the devs are afraid of letting arcs run long. i can't speak to that, but i wouldn't have minded, that's for sure!

i won't pretend not to be biased. i've noted in many xiv posts that it hurries through its political plots to get to the magic stuff. i felt more conscious of it in heavensward and especially in stormblood. i made peace with it in endwalker. with dessert this good, who am i to complain? i can do small character drama on my own time. for now, the game wants royce to be a big damn shonen hero, and that can be fun, too.

speaking of characters, urianger and estinien have grown on me. this is the arc where, for me at least, the scions have congealed. they're all good, but with any large cast and custom player character, you tend to form the meatiest bonds with a few specific ones. i think royce appreciates urianger's cooler, more mature head. they're both so formal. he realizes she's someone he can confide in. i think she sees estinien as a gifted, but hotheaded whelp, which i find very funny. patience, child. stop sulking. do your breathing drills.

i love thancred's MGS sequence and in from the cold too. they're stressful, but i love that the team tried, you know what i mean? the fact that you can fight enemies in a pinch makes those duties way more bearable than some other games that experiment with stealth.

in from the cold as a whole, honestly. If You Know, You Know

all right, i can't avoid referencing spoilers anymore, sorry. there's a sense of classical tragedy to the whole elpis sequence. it's like watching macbeth or hamlet. you know how it's going to end, and you know you're powerless to stop it, but if they'd just made that different choice! but we had to leave eden. the warrior of light had to end up where they are to finish what elpis started. i don't do fate/destiny plots, but this? i'll take it.

i also knew what would happen going into ultima thule and still came away from it moved. it's strong writing. that's all there is to it. sure, the visuals are haunting, but the dialogue has to sell a gauntlet of difficult character moments, and it pulls it off. on the design side, there's some interesting intentional friction that forces you to linger in the zone and sit with its sense of despair. that part where you have to search the empty park for signs of life? oof

with the majority of the MSQ under my belt, i started sniffing around for what else there is to do ingame. i tried ninja. did terribly. i tried sage. did terribly too, but at least that gave me access to the healer role quests, which, ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°). the nier raids are gorgeous. i even did the controversial werlyt quests, and terncliff is so cute. i kind of wish we could have another story there!

what's next? i dunno! right now i'm burning through the hildibrand quests before i continue on with endwalker's patch story. the field operation stuff seems interesting to do after the MSQ, in a "hey, you saved the world, but we have more missions for you" way. i've also contracted Triple Triad Collector Disease, so that'll keep me busy for a long time.

all right. one last thing. Real Gamer Moments: i was in a mount-farming party recently, and i said that i sort of collected mounts, but only used the ishgardian chocobo. it's a roleplay thing - it's the chocobo royce took when she ran away from ishgard. one of the party members said "haurchefant would be proud of you." AUGH

[moonsidesong]

ok ive finished puyo chronicle. dont play puyo chronicle. if you want to see puyo chronicle just watch the precise museum video uploads of it and ignore the fact they dont have eyebrows because its in citra. im gonna talk about puyo chronicle now.

absolutely miserable slog of a video game. every single open area is nearly completely empty and full of dead ends. every chest is full of lame rewards that i almost never got use out of and i eventually just stopped opening them so i wouldnt have to fight mimics anymore. you dont want to explore anything because there's hardly any reward for it and your movement speed is so slow there's even less of an incentive to go out of your way to trek to a random corner of the map for 200 coins that you wont use.

the final gauntlet, which is a 15-story tower, comprises of like, three stories where something happens and the rest are completely empty and only occupied by common enemies, which by then you will be tired of fighting and actively be avoiding encountering. the devs made a bunch of maps and said thats enough game design for today<3

and then, at the end of it, you fight a final boss that had literally nothing to do with anything else up until that point. rafisol really had the potential to be an extremely cool antagonist if she had been involved in the plot from the getgo but instead she shows up having not at all been foreshadowed prior, you do the same lame fighting style youve been doing for almost every encounter up until that point, and the only saving grace of it is a really cool battle theme. its pretty bad presentation to just watch this supposedly UBER powerful absorption themed final boss just float there menacingly and occasionally throw a line of nuisance puyo at you. rafisol has a lot of cool animations, i dont know why you'd rob her of the chance to show them off in a dramatic way!!!! aaah!!!! its all really disappointing because she's the only female final boss character besides doppelganger arle and shes stuck attached to this soggy sad nothing burger of a video game. i want my evil women INVOLVED sega

puyo characters have never been the most complicated to figure out but they are NOTICEABLY flatter and more annoying. you can see it the most on sig and ragnus who refuse to talk about literally anything other than "bug!" or "im the hero from videogame world!" respectively. the plot spends all its time being completely aimless other than the vague idea of "if we find these stone pedestals, something will happen questionmark???" up until ally randomly starts getting sick when rafisol starts ready to hatch from her evil egg or whatever. the plot's idea is that satan modified this story because he wanted to go on an adventure with arle. and well chroni writers i have to say you guys arent really doing a good job of conveying that when the only places you see satan are at the very beginning and very end of the game.

hey speaking of characters hanging out with arle. theres. too many. of them. i think they were just trying to make the whole skill battle team thing make sense in universe but i think itd be a lot easier to just focus on like. the A trio and Ally and you only hang out with the other characters in the areas they're actually relevant. and they just go "well arle ill be there to help you if you need me!" but they dont physically come with you and then we just pretend that makes sense.

anyway despite it all i still like ally and i still like rafisol despite both of them having terrible haircuts god bless but i wish they were in a video game that didnt suck absolute egg!!!!!!! like i said earlier rafisol couldve been extremely cool if she was involved early on and wasnt just some unrelated problem girl. ive been playing around with a few re-write(ish??) ideas that ive been sharing with my friends to keep my sanity while trudging through this videogame and i might share some of those some other time.

until then please look at this picture again. my favorite part about this game is when accord holds popoi like this. every time popoi was on screen i briefly forgot how much not fun i was having

[aotopmha]

Oh, looks like I have a draft with a bunch of little unrelated thoughts about FF16 I couldn't really fit anywhere else.

So here's some random observations.

(Spoilers for the entire story.)

- I really like how the relationships are handled in this story.

It feels so "normal" to me.

In many stories it sometimes feels like a single relationship is the only element that remains of a character once it gets underway.

This is especially true with female and gay characters and also teen romances (and in that case there is grounding to it, considering how teens are working themselves out to begin with and how huge of a deal relationships can be to them), but it happens in so many stories with adults, too.

Dion and Terrance act like a regular couple who care for each other.

(This especially cool since, as said, gay characters tend to only be their relationship.)

And especially after they get together, Clive and Jill do, too.

Sometimes adults are even made to act like teens.

But while Clive and Jill have an element of awkwardness at first, too, they are adults. There is a lot less shame about simply being in a relationship or talking about feelings with the opposite sex. Clive's hesitation doesn't come from her being a woman, it comes from his traumatic life.

And while I think the sex is pretty empty shock value in most of the scenes, I think Clive and Jill get the best scene because it's just as much about the feelings as it is about the sex.

And afterwards there is simply a shift to their relationship becoming that of an actual couple rather than two people trying to connect despite their baggage.

And if you notice, the scenes with both of these couples are about feelings concerning both halves of the relationship.

There is criticism of Jill mostly featuring in romantic scenes with Clive by the end of the game, but I feel like they're scenes that are always about the both of them. And both of them always bond over something they both know.

Be it their struggles or worries or childhood memories.

It's such a solid part of the story to me.

- The fact that Joshua wss willing to save his mother was such a cool character beat because the truth is that Annabella did treat him well and he didn't go through the same gauntlet of horrors Clive did that completely changed his opinion.

It's such a little detail, but super neat because that's how family relationships work.

Dion killing his father goes under this, too. His father clearly wasn't the best person anymore, but Dion clearly bore with it because he cared about him.

Dion is a really, really good concise character you learn a lot about in basically every scene he's in.

But this element of complicated family ties/caring about awful family members considered here is super cool to me.

-Ultima's presence as a alien manipulator speaking in an alien language was kind of fantastic.

How he tried to use Clive's own face and lack of control to lead him to the path he wanted, but initiated his growth instead, how he manipulated Kupka using his love for Benedikta and Clive's face and how he used Annabella and her new child to manipulate Dion's father and in turn break Dion.

His eventual more obvious role was so frustrating to me because I think his manipulation was so neat and used the humanity of the Dominants in a cool way.

- I like that Torgal has his own little arc of protecting his friends by turning into Fenrir and I like that his main connection is actually to Jill because she's Shiva, but also because he hung out with her the most. It somehow felt like it made Torgal out of all characters also have a complete story.

- Ultima's theme is the one that has stuck to me the most out of all of the tracks in the soundtrack. I love how it is used in combination with Clive's across the final boss encounter.

With all of this said, I think I truly might be FF16'd out for now.

Story is still living rent free in my head, so this is on somewhat shaky ground, but feeling like taking a break about talking about it because I've posted about it so much.

[chandelierslayer]

Finished Tri Force Heroes and Oracle of Ages today. Now there are only four Zelda games I haven't completed yet. I'm taking a break before I work on any of them though, because the only one I'm really looking forward to is FSA, and I'm probably saving that for last.

I DID say we would talk about Echoes of Wisdom, didn't I?

I... I love it. It is definitely the best Zelda game that's come out for... MANY years now. I was overrun by hype at first, but now that my hype has subsided, I'm able to form more sincere opinions. Some spoilers below the cut...

I love the world, first and foremost. I absolutely adore it. A Link to the Past is the Zelda I spent most of my childhood playing, and its world is sacred to me, and I will always hold it dear to my heart. So to not only bring that world into a larger scale, make it pop the way they did, but to EXPAND on that world, show us some stuff to the West and East of its boundaries, is truly a gift I have the utmost appreciation for, and will cherish for a long time to come, if not forever. It hurts to see some things different, but of course things are going to be different. I would have LOVED to go inside the Desert Palace, for instance, or to have the Tower of Hera still exist. Though I love that Turtle Rock is just a yeti's house, like, excellent usage for that. But there are so many nods to ALttP (and the classic series as a whole) in this game, and I've squee'd with joy more times than I can count!

As for the characters: I love Tri, I love this Zelda, I love all the non-binary Deku Scrubs, they make my heart happy. I love the NPCs in general, they're cute and it's wonderful to get a feeling for their personalities. I absolutely adore the main NPCs! Dohna is my number-one favorite! But they're all so wonderful!

The gameplay is super fun, I love creating armies of monsters. I wish there were Dodongos, but sadly, no... But at least I have Keese and Wolfos and all kinds of other wonderful monsters! I love how powerful Swordfighter Mode can become! The clockwork mechs are really cool, but I gotta confess, I very rarely used any of them. Much more effective to just use a monster. I love the dungeons in this game, the puzzles are super fun (for the most part) and there were some really cool bosses! The dungeons were mostly a lot less complex than I had originally thought, and it's kind of a letdown, but when you consider all the new kinds of puzzles, or new solutions to old puzzle types, it pretty much evens out.

The story was... well, a story. I loved getting to interact directly with the three Goddesses! And like I mentioned, the main NPCs are wonderful - they really made this game's story shine. But there was one thing I really, really disliked. And if you've finished the game, I'm sure you saw this coming.

When we finally reunite with Link and are about to start the final gauntlet, we just... give him his weapons back. Just like that. He gets his weapons back, and we get... nothing. I felt like this was the biggest failure of the game. A huge missed opportunity. I seriously thought that there was going to be an anime-like scene where Zelda awakened the true power inside her and got her own version of swordfighter mode that didn't rely on weapons (or something!). But the time went on and... nothing.

I've... seen a lot of arguments lately on whether or not this is sexist. IS it sexist to take away a woman's power and give it to a man without giving her anything in return? ...Yes. I don't think that's a controversial statement. But whether or not you think it's sexist, you've got to admit that it's messed up to treat Zelda this way, in the one game where she gets to be the main character.

I honestly had such a bad time of the final boss, because I felt like the wind was taken out of my sails. I got the impression that I could've just stood there and done nothing but dodge, and we'd still win. That's so ridiculous. The ending of this game could have been done so much better.

*siiiiigh*

With that one huge thing out of the way, here's my verdict: Echoes of Wisdom is a great game. I recommend it to everyone. I don't appreciate the final part of the game (other than the Lost Woods, that was really great), but the rest of it is a lot of fun. I can definitely see myself replaying it sometime this year. Does it go in my top five...? Eh... Not really. Probably in the top ten, though. And I'm really hoping we get more Zelda games with Zelda as the main character. She deserves the spotlight. More than anything, though, I want a Zelda that feels like classic Zelda, even more than this did. If that means more remakes, bring it on! I would love Oracles remakes. And I've said it before, but I'll say it again: Zelda II needs a remake more than anything else does.

[maximuswolf]

Sekiro is still king!

Sekiro is still king! I’ve played a lot of souls-like games. It’s honestly, albeit not really a genre, one of the best gaming genres for me. Now all the hype is of course with black myth wukong not to mention my all around applause and well-deserved praise for the game and its developers. In my opinion, it honestly teeters on that souls like ARPG vs your regular ARPG (like fallout or Witcher) because of the fact that character builds and grinding play a larger-than-usual role in beating these really difficult bosses. Sometimes I honestly feel like I’m not even playing the game in a good-enough skill level as I get hit so many times, barely get dodges in, but still manage to beat the boss. I wouldn’t want to go into this whole tangent but it’s important in making my point. On the other hand, you have sekiro. Very little you can put into grinding. The bosses have to be defeated in a specific fashion with only very little wiggle room for build-freedom. Yes there are the weapons you can play around with but it pretty much boils down to dodging, parrying, and that jump-step mechanic for you to defeat the best bosses in the game. Because of this, in my (possibly unpopular) opinion, sekiro’s gameplay particularly boss-figthting mechanic is still king.Nothing else can beat that glorious satisfaction of beating the hardest bosses with perfectly and consistently timed parries when it comes to souls-like games than how sekiro does it. It just feels so good hearing that thing! sword-clash sound effect constantly one after the other while the boss does nothing to you. It just makes me feel like A BOSS! I feel really accomplished when it seems like I’ve fooled my opponent by jumping or stepping on his weapon for a quick counter slash. The game doesn’t just rely on dodges or brute force. You have to really train your reflexes into understanding the timings of your parries and dodges and that jump-step thing. I don’t know but beating bosses in sekiro gives me a greater sense of victory than any other souls like games. Now maybe you can say it’s not a fair comparison as I do believe that the route the game devs took for wukong is entirely different. I believe they made it so that you have a large part of your build available to you. It’s a game mechanic that you should of course take full use of. But then what happens is, in my opinion, it makes defeating bosses less about skill. AND when I say less about skill, I’m only saying this relative to sekiro. I’m not saying at all that wukong doesn’t use skill as it is a brutal game. Other souls games are of course somewhere in the middle where the more builds, gear, grinding play a role in making your character stronger, the less skill cap needed to beat bosses. Just to push my point even further, on the other side of the spectrum are ARPG’s like Diablo or witcher where bosses become very easy when you’ve grinded enough or have the best gear. So finally, because of the fact that sekiro has little dependence on builds and gear, and the gameplay mechanics, sekiro is still the best souls like game in my (possibly unpopular) opinion. Edit: I forgot to add that the game also lets you redo bosses ad nauseam. The game also has these harder versions of the bosses you can defeat in like a gauntlet kind of way. Edit: grammar Submitted September 07, 2024 at 08:10AM by zav3rmd https://ift.tt/M1A54gn via /r/gaming

[narrativecollabortiveproject]

Linear Narratives

A linear narrative is a narrative that follows a story in chronological order. In a game, the game designer writes the story and throughout the game the story is shown to the player in chronological order. There may be many ways to achieve the end of a level but no matter what the player does the story will always remain the same. There are examples of games that use this type of narrative below:

Gauntlet: The Slayer Edition

Gauntlet: The Slayer Edition follows the story of one of four characters, an elf, a warrior, a wizard and Valkyrie. You have to defeat Morak to win the game and the story follows you to eventually fighting him at the end the game. The story can't be changed by the players action and the game will always end with you fighting Morak. The story is delivered to the player through cutscenes at the end of some levels throughout the game.

Cuphead

In Cuphead, the main character Cuphead is trying to get soul contracts to escape the devil claiming his soul and his brothers Mugman. You have to defeat bosses to claim their souls to give to the devil. It does not matter what order you defeat the bosses in the story will always remain the same. This is the case because you get cutscenes when you travel to a different island to ensure that the story is the same. This is cleverly done and thought through for the player experience to be the varied and the story to be the same.

Assassin's Creed Unity

Assassin's Creed Unity has a linear story. You are given missions to complete and when they are completed a cutscene reveals a bit more of the story and gives you more missions to complete. The player can do side quests but this will never change the main story of the game. Side quests will only give you things like weapons or money that won't change the narrative of the game.

Unravel

Unravel is a game with a linear story about a character made of yarn in a woman's house. Every level is a photo in a frame in her house which functions as a level select are. These represent memories of the woman and her life experiences with her family. As you play the game, you learn about her life and you explore the beautiful landscape in Unravel. The levels are one after the other so the story can never be changed by the player because the levels cannot be completed in the wrong order.

New Super Mario Bros

New Super Mario Bros is a level based game where the story of Mario trying to save Princess Peach from Bowser is played out. It is linear because the cutscenes that show this story happen after the end level of every world is completed. This means no matter what level you choose to complete when there's a choice the story will remain the same.

[flowersdaggersviolasandblood]

Flower Girl

Name: Pero Ophiin (She/Her)

Race: Wood Half-Elf

Class: Druid (Circle of the Land)

Background: Outlander

WARNING SPOILERS AHEAD!

Picking up where we left off, we finished the trials of Shar and was able to get all the necessary orbs so that we can descend further into the temple. Before going, however, I decided to take care of Balthazar for good. So, you know those youtube vids where people would just carry around those smokebomb or fire barrels and just place them near the enemy and blow them to kingdom come and get the easy kill? Well, while I admire the work, I don't like it. For me, it breaks the immersion of the game and the story it's trying to tell me. On top of that, I also don't want to spoil the fun of actually defeating the boss and feeling like I put in my hard work and experience to defeat them than just "hehe, I make them go boom." While I appreciate that Larian gives us the option to do so, I have mostly avoided doing such tricks....However, I have made a slight exception.

One, I was ready to leave that place. Two, I tried to approach it with sword and dagger, and I got wrecked. So, I decided to "cheat" the game by finding a few barrels and placing them near that necromancer shit. Fortunately, it got rid of Balthazar at least, so I still got to experience the turn-based fight with the flesh golem and the other ghouls.

After covering all my bases and exploring the rest of the Gauntlet of Shar, I was ready to look for the Nightsong. Before continuing, Pero decided to talk with Astarion and Shadowheart. Pero decided to ask Astarion about the ritual and hear his concerns. Astarion, being the constant downer, expresses that he's damned if he continues to run away, and damned if he decides to confront Cazador. So he much rather take the fight to his old master, hoping that there's someone in Baldur's Gate who may have gotten close enough to Cazador to know anything worthwhile. Even if that means talking to Astarions fellow Vampire Spawn brothers and sisters.

As for Shadowheart, Pero has noticed that she's been having inner doubts about going forward with being a Dark Justiciar. Shadowheart claims that these doubts are nothing, but at the same time, she wonders if these self conflictions is why her Mother Superior didn't deemed her ready to be a Dark Justiciar. Pero urges Shadowheart to listen to these doubts, secretly dreading the moment that Pero will have to strike Shadowheart down if needed.

As we were going into the inner sanctum of the temple, Lae'zel finally decided to speak up about the delay to the Githyanki Creche. She threatens to leave, and Pero, with little feeling and all the coldness of winter, simply tells her to go. Pero doesn't hate Lae'zel, she has grown to accept Lae'zel's personality, especially since a long time ago, Pero did learn that she had a rough upbringing due to Githyanki teachings and their methods. But Pero has stopped caring about anything else aside from how to stop the Shadow Curse and how to kill Ketheric. Not only that, but innocent people are at stake! Pero is not wasting her time and energy going out of the Cursed Lands to seek out her people.

With Lae'zel out of the Party, we reached a flooded pool area where Shadowheart makes her prayers to Shar and present herself ready to kill the Nightsong and become a Dark Justiciar. Pero, because she was worried, decided to peer into Shadowhearts mind and felt the very presence of Shar. Shar ratted Pero out, but welcomed the Party into her domain to make the sacrifice.

Upon entering the pool, the Party were sucked into the Shadowfell, specifically the area where Shar reigns true. While traveling the darkened lands, Shadowheart continues spilling many litanies as we inched closer to the Nightsong, being encouraged by spirits of either successful or failed Justiciars. When we reached the main stage, we discovered one shocking revelation that was revealed to us even before this moment. The Nightsong isn't a relic, it's a person! A Aasimar to be exact!

Pero has been told over and over again that they would have to sacrifice a Selunite priest in Shar's name, and she was ready to stop Shadowheart from doing so, but she didn't expect that Nightsong herself to be the sacrifice. Pero begs that Shadowheart reconsiders her decision and Shadowheart said "square up? "

Pero would never fight Shadowheart, especially since in this moment, it would call for her to kill Shadowheart. The Nightsong, however, comes in clutch as she reveals that she knows about the night when Shadowheart was taken by the Sharite priests. This brings further conflict within Shadowheart and she asks for Pero's guidance, but Pero puts her trust in her friend that she will make the right decision.

Shadowheart was able to conjure the spear that we found in the temple of Shar and threw it away, refusing to kill the Nightsong. With this, the Nightsong declares her alliance with us by armor-ing up and going straight to Moonrise Towers. Shadowheart grieves over her disobedience against Shar, knowing that she has now become public enemy #1 to her Sharite brothers and sisters. Having experienced the reverse with Lae'zel on Admaer's run, I'm very much loving the "fucking over these devoted woman's chances of appeasing their goddesses" routes that you can go with them.

When Shadowheart claimed that she had no friends, I can imagine Pero calling her out and saying that she's wrong right there on the spot. Reminding her that she still has her, Karlach, Wyll, Gale, and Astarion at her side. Even hearing the comments at camp about the event shows that everyone...Mostly everyone because Astarion will be Astarion lol, sympathizes with Shadowheart and values her presence.

I was able to find the route to Moonrise Towers, but I wanted to explore the rest of the town before continuing. That led us to meeting Gerringothe Thorm and Thisobald Thorm.

I attempted to fight Gerringothe, but learned immediately that that was perhaps the stupidest idea unless I knew a way to cheese the fight. I admit no shame that I had to look up a written tutorial, because the second I saw that she had 600+ HP, I knew I wasn't about to fight her. Which some people say that, yeah, it's best to just kill her and Thisobald with words. I was able to get rid of Midas Touch lady, gained a shit ton of gold from her and moved on to Thisobald where I was also able to kill him simply by talking with him. He gave some information about Ketheric, but I guess I didn't select the proper dialogue options because I didn't get much out of him aside from Thisobald being Ketherics' son.

I also found the waypoint titled "The Road to Baldur's Gate" and avoided it like the plague as it looked like something that I should do afterwards. After explore all I could in Reithwin, we finally make our march into Moonrise Towers. Jaheira decides to follow us in, ready to make this her last stand with us against Ketheric.

[less-than-three-3]

Convergence - like Ori but with time powers

The title pretty much summarizes my impressions. The comparisons to Ori might not be super fair across the board but for the most part I think it lives up to it, which means this game is pretty damn good.

If you don’t care about league or Ekko (how could you not though??) I still think this game has a great deal to offer you even if it’s a little short, as the story, like pretty much all side league content, pretty much doesn’t require you to have any knowledge of the game even though it does have references for you to pog at if you’re in the know. The story isn’t like, arcane level or anything (not that I was expecting that) but the character interactions are charming and it serves well enough to keep you interested. Full thoughts below, spoiler free.

As a preface, I did play this on hard mode with all the hard mode toggles on. And to be completely transparent, I wouldn’t really recommend that lol... specifically the “enemy aggressiveness” toggle makes things so chaotic and not necessarily in a good way. It does make the bosses harder though, so maybe keeping that on and turning down enemy count is better? Tinker around with it and see what fits you.

Despite that, though, the combat is pretty dang satisfying. I’d say it’s like a step below or maybe on par with Blasphemous (which I’d also recommend!) once you get some skills learned. At the very beginning it’s definitely a little basic but once you start piling on abilities both from the tree and progression, things start to really flow together well. I think the parry is really fun to use especially! You have to really quickly learn not to abuse rewinds much or else you’ll run out, but once you get past the learning curve they’re such a powerful tool to reassess or correct execution errors. Altogether it makes for a really smooth experience, maybe not best in genre but certainly near the top (and incidentally looks pretty close to that new prince of persia game that I’m also looking forward to).

Health and rewind refreshes are hard to come by especially during gauntlets of enemies, and I don’t exactly know how to feel about that. On one hand, I should just get good, but on the other hand it definitely made me always feel anxious to be running around with like 3 rewinds and 2 health or something like that. I think between bigger encounters it would be nice to have more of that recovery, but maybe that’s just me. At least they really give them before bosses.

Traversal, though, is a fucking dream. It’s easily the biggest highlight of the game, and comparable to or possibly better than the Ori games. In a vacuum mechanically it may be hard to say that, but the platforming challenges both in the main routes and in the side paths are so incredibly satisfying to put together, I wish more of the game was this! Putting together all your movement abilities, with rewinds to help you course correct, is always so satisfying, and this game really nailed it. It might be better on controller, since I played on keyboard and it kinda felt like I had a lot to juggle sometimes (especially during combat). 

And like Ori, too, this is a fairly linear experience. The map is a little small for my liking even then, but I know many people would appreciate the more focused traversal, with a waypoint for the main quest and optional (and fairly obvious to spot) side challenges. And of those side challenges there are platforming and combat challenges, the former of which I’ve touched upon, and the latter of which I found kind of annoying to do sometimes (probably because of my difficulty settings lol)? But yeah this is only a Metroidvania in that you get movement upgrades, don’t expect a giant sprawling map to get lost in, which may or may not be a good thing depending on your tastes!

Ironically though, something that was noticeably missing was Gareth Coker’s soundtrack contributions - something that both Ruined King and Mageseeker had and really made them come to life. The soundtrack in this game isn’t, like, bad? But it’s certainly nothing really that memorable to me. It’s just kinda funny that this game has so many apparent similarities to Ori is lacking the one thing that other Riot Forge games have in common with it. I don’t mind, I just hope to see more of Gareth’s work in future Forge games. 

The story, without many spoilers, is not the greatest thing in the world admittedly. It’s not bad per se, but I felt a little disappointed by how everything was ultimately wrapped up, especially since Ekko makes a really interesting partnership in the later hours of the game, and I felt like there were many better avenues for the story to go. But I thought the character interactions were really cute, even if most of the supporting cast isn’t really super deep. This is no arcane, you’re playing this for the buttery smooth movement and strong combat, not the story.

All in all, this was a really damn good game. Ruined King still remains as the golden child of Riot Forge’s published games so far, but this is definitely a close contender. Convergence has definitely restored much of my faith in the publisher, and it’s a game I would strongly recommend to anyone who likes action platformers or Ekko. Definitely one of the strongest indie games I’ve played from one of the better indie publishers in recent memory.

[electricopolis-net]

S02E06: The Game Show Killer (Part 2)

2. The New Normal

Bob Sparker remembered the feeling of the VHS tape inside his jacket, the hard plastic pressing against his ribs. He remembered laughing as he walked home, swaying from side to side, bruised and aching from his altercation at the Paradise Hotel. Paulina Sweet had tried to make him defect from his company, and her henchmen had beaten him when it hadn’t worked, but Bob was the one who had stolen the only bargaining chip she had.

The tape was a gritty, grainy, almost certainly faked piece of evidence implicating Percy King in rigging his game shows. There were too many holes in her story to make it likely that she was telling the truth, but it didn’t matter one way or the other. Bob was nothing like her, and Mr. King was nothing like that. Neither of them could be manipulated so easily. After all, not even a string of scandals could oust Sparker from his place at the top of the ratings.

So he returned to his work with a newfound zeal. He watched over his contestants, cheered them as they endured the gauntlet of electric shocks, and far more often comforted them as they surrendered; and more than one, this time, left in a stretcher. But that was fine, because there were always more lining up to take their place. His electric chair was never empty.

And gradually, contestant by contestant, episode by episode, Bob Sparker began to change…

Margaret King stood in the corner of Bob Sparker's dressing room, her arms folded in disdain. The star himself was seated at his large mirrored vanity, with Mr. Percy King, his boss and Margaret's father, seated close by.

“What’s wrong with these people?” Bob complained loudly, pulling at his white hair with his brush. “Mr. King, you gotta get me some better contestants. These ones are made out of paper. They can’t even take a little shock.”

“They can take a little shock,” Margaret said, “but that's not what you're giving them. You have to be more careful, Bob.”

“She has a point,” Percy mused, stroking his chin. “Remember what happened with Miss Lang.”

“Miss Lang was a fluke,” Bob snapped. “How long are you two gonna lord that over me? Besides, if you got me someone bigger--someone tougher--then we wouldn't have to worry about it, right?”

“You're missing the point,” Margaret argued. “These aren't just toys for you to play with, Bob. They're real people.”

“They’re real people who line up around the block to get a shot on my show,” he retorted, jabbing his hairbrush towards her. “As far as I'm concerned, for the half-hour I've got them in that electric chair, I can do whatever I want to them!”

“Within reason,” Percy coughed.

“Within reason,” Bob added quickly. “And they eat it up and beg me for more. You've seen them,” he said. “So what's the problem?”

“The problem is--” Margaret struggled to get the words out. She gestured emptily, frustrated, and then finally turned to her father. “Dad, tell him it's not right!”

Percy glanced between them, his brow furrowed in thought, and then he let out a nervous, unnatural-sounding laugh. “Now, now, no fighting,” he said patronizingly. “Margie, you don't have to worry. I'll make sure to find someone sturdy enough for Bob's show.”

“That's not what I--” she began.

“Actually, there is something,” he said, opening one eye slowly. “Have you heard of this fellow making the rounds on daytime TV?”

“Who?” Bob asked. “The guy who won at the quiz show? The one with the bag on his head?”

“The very same. He was on The Twenty-One just last week and swept the whole show. A flawless victory, start to finish.”

Bob rolled this around in his mind. “That blackjack show? What, did he count cards or something?”

Percy shook his head. “Impossible. They have a machine shuffle after every hand. I had a look at the footage,” he explained. “It looks legitimate to me. It’ll have to go to air, now. Not a good look for The Twenty-One.”

“Yeah, well, that’s their problem.” Bob nearly turned around again before doing a double take. “Wait, are you saying you want that guy on my show? Seriously?”

“Why not? He’s certainly drumming up some hype.”

“Hah!” Bob Sparker barked out his sharp, high-pitched laugh. “Gambling and memorizing trivia answers is one thing, but that doesn’t mean he can make it in the electric chair. Gimme a call when he does something really amazing.”

Percy smiled. “Well,” he said slyly, “rumor has it that he’s supposed to be running Concrete Jungle right now. Maybe you should turn on the television and take a look.”

Bob stared at him for a moment suspiciously, then grabbed the remote and flicked on the TV that sat in the corner of his dressing room.

Concrete Jungle was a physical challenge show where athletes scaled an obstacle course. On the television, there was a slow pan up a twisted structure of metal and piping. On the starting platform, high up above the crowd, was the indistinct silhouette of a man.

“Our next contestant wishes not to be named,” whispered the show’s commentator. “He’s known by his fans as the ‘Game Show Killer.’”

The camera cut to a close-up; his body looked disappointingly average. Bob expected either the lithe, sinewy runner-type that usually excelled on Concrete Jungle or, his favorite, the hulking sides of beef who likely pushed people around at their day job. This man was neither. His eyes peered out from his dark executioner’s hood, and, wordlessly, he stepped forward to begin.

“So that’s your mystery man,” Margaret said. “Why’s he hiding his face?”

“Not even I know the answer to that one,” Percy confessed. “But maybe Bob here can be the one to find out. Now, look. He’s starting.”

The bell sounded. The man rocketed forward off of the starting area with a running leap. He tucked and rolled carefully as he hit the next platform, and then the next. He jumped up, grasping the rings that dangled from a bar, and swung his body through the air. The man’s movements were practiced, workmanlike, almost mechanical. Despite that, there was a piercing look in his eyes, a hunger that Bob recognized but couldn’t place. Who was this guy?

Suddenly, flames roared up from beneath him. Sweat began to bead on his arms and legs. His hand slipped--he swayed--he recovered--and Bob Sparker realized he’d been leaning forward, right on the edge of his seat.

The masked man shimmied up a rope, picked up a rubber hammer, and swung it hard at the bell. The sound roared out over the cheers of the audience as a rain of confetti fell from above.

“Well.” Bob leaned back and turned off the TV. “I see why you like him.”

“And you?”

“I don’t know. Something about him annoys me. The ‘Game Show Killer.’ Hmph.” Bob kicked up his feet and crossed one leg over the other. “Winning over and over...it goes right to your head. I think I’d be doing him a favor by taking him down a peg, don’t you think?”

“Doing him a favor?” Percy chuckled. “Now, now. You don't have to justify it to me. If you want him, he's yours.”

Margaret glanced between Bob Sparker and her father, the two of them laughing with each other. A chill crawled along her arms, followed by the prickle of anger. She turned and grabbed the doorknob, shutting the door with a slam.

She stood there outside the dressing room, rubbing at her face with her hands. Fine, she thought. Put him on. I hope he really does kill your show.

[bobgoesw00t]

Top 10 Video Games of All Time: bobgoesw00t Edition (Part 06)

bobgoesw00t here, back again with another update to my Top 10 Video Games of All Time! My Number 5 pick goes to none other than:

The now penultimate game in the Arkhamverse, Batman Arkham Knight.

Many people will say that Arkham City is the better game but I disagree. The main complaint people had was how the game FORCED you to use the Tankmobile/Arkhamobile 2.0 for the majority of the game which is some of the biggest load of bullshit I've ever heard. Not only was the Arkhamobile the one thing fans kept asking Rocksteady to put into the game, but with the exception of the main story bits where it's required to use the thing, some of the Riddler collectables and some of the side missions...YOU DON'T HAVE TO USE THE TANKMOBILE!!!!!!!Hell, I actually think it's more fun to fly around the city (let's be honest, Batman doesn't really glide around Gotham, he FUCKING FLIES! Even more so if you fully upgrade the Grapple Boost, which LAUNCHES HIM LIKE NO OTHER!!!!!) due to how it can be just as fast as the Tankmobile at times and it really lets you get a good look at how GORGEOUS the game is. As for the Tankmobile itself (yes, I will be continuing to be calling the Batmobile in the game the "Tankmobile" cause it turns into a fucking tank xD), I really don't have any issue with it as the fights with the various drones are spaced apart quite nicely in the main story and the side missions that include them can be tackled at any point and in any order, so if you get bored of them or just want to get them out of the way, do whatever suits you best.

On to the gameplay! Rocksteady FUCKING NAILED THIS IS ABSOLUTELY TO 240% (reference the max completion percentage with the Season of Infamy DLC installed *wink wink*). They took everything from Arkham City and Origins (which for the love of god IS FUCKING CANON SO EVERYONE WHO SAYS IT ISN'T NEEDS TO STFU), left what didn't need to be changed, addressed the issues fans had, and included some stupidly broken abilities that don't break the game completely like the Shock Gauntlets (another ability people didn't like cause it "broke combat" when YOU DIDN'T NEED TO USE THEM OUTSIDE OF A SINGLE BOSS FIGHT!!!!!!! I mean good god people). One of the most useful of those being "Special Combo Batclaw" which totally bypasses the Militia Brute's armor which requires two "Special Combo Takedown" uses when they're at full health. This lets you take them out of the fight much quicker if you need to and the Blade Dodge Takedown is also broken if you use it against Blade Brutes, not to mention it gets rid of 50% of the armor on Militia Brutes. In other words (if there's a Militia Blade Brute/Weapon Specialist), get the combo gauge up with normal goons, Blade Dodge Takedown and hit em with the Special Combo Takedown and BAM, annoying pain in the ass is out of the equation. I also LOVE the updates to Predator Encounter. Being able to use the Disruptor to sabotage various items and follow that up with the Voice Synthesizer never gets old, and HOLY HELL pulling off your first Fear Multi Takedown when it's upgraded to 5 TARGETS is SUPER SATISFYING!!!!!

Gonna lastly talk about the story and characters. I forget who voiced Scarecrow in Arkham Asylum and I'm too lazy to look it up, but they made the right call in having John Nobel voice the character in Arkham Knight. He was AWESOME in Sleepy Hollow on FOX (if you haven't seen that show, go watch it as it's REALLY cool) and while I haven't gotten far enough in Transformers Prime to hear his take on Unicron, I have a feeling he was awesome in the role. His voice just has this "evil" quality to it that makes him the perfect choice to play a character like the Scarecrow. The rest of the returning cast was perfection as usual and I did NOT expect Mark Hamill to come back and voice The Joker after he died at the end of Arkham City (sorry for spoilers if you still haven't played it even though it's been over TEN YEARS SINCE IT CAME OUT) so that was an awesome moment the first time I ran through the game and the majority of the lines that made me laugh out loud came from the parts where Joker was trolling Bruce. I should also talk about the caped crusader and say this is one of the reasons why Arkham Knight beat Arkham City for this spot on my list is because it ended up being Kevin Conroy's favorite performance he did of the character and I have to agree with him on that (here's a link to him saying this: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/FRr_rp43ZLY). EVERY time Batman talks in the game, he has this edge to it and shows him struggling to keep his humanity in check as Joker constantly trolls him and slowly tries to take over him from within and the bit at the very end of the story is probably my favorite instances of the iconic line from Batman The Animated Series: https://youtube.com/clip/UgkxeXgftx1qqOH6alMwT37aKU2ncsCxfjKD?feature=shares

I'm beyond ecstatic that Kevin was able to come back one last time to voice the World's Greatest Detective for Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League before he passed/pull his own Knightfall Protocol and Rocksteady better give him the BIGGEST send off they can give Batman for his final performance.

I also feel the need to address the BIG elephant in the room when it comes to this game that is the Arkham Knight himself. For those of you who still don't know this by now, STOP READING AND GO TO THE NEXT PARAGRAPH SO YOU DON'T GET SPOILED!!!!! We all know that prior to Arkham Knight coming out, Rocksteady insisted that the titular villain was a 100% completely new and original character...only for that to actually be a load of bullshit with the big reveal that the second Robin, Jason Todd was under that helmet the entire time. Now, while I'm not the biggest comic book reader, even I knew who Jason Todd was prior to playing the game and knew that he died, only to come back as the Red Hood years later. When I first booted up Arkham Knight, I had access to the Red Hood mission as I pre-ordered the game from GameStop and I started the story thinking the Arkham Knight COULDN'T be Jason cause why would they give him a DLC mission as Red Hood if he's the Arkham Knight. So starting the game and for the longest time, I had ZERO idea who was under that fancy helmet. I DID however have some suspects, those being Ra's al Ghul (seeing as his body vanishes if you go back to where the corpse was if you visit that spot in Arkham City after Joker dies), Joker (if I had a thousand dollars for every time a comic book character has DIED only to come back down the line and be like SURPRISE BITCHES I'M NOT DEAD!!! ...I'd be rather wealthy) or Damian Wayne (it wasn't outside the realm of possibility). HOWEVER, once I got to the bit when Harley Quinn takes over the Movie Studios...it started to become pretty obvious that Jason was the Arkham Knight. I still wasn't 100% sure but the final nail in he coffin was when Jason is in the big ass drill thingy at the end of the game and says something along the lines of, "I kept some things to myself...BRUCE." I knew it was Jason right away. So yes, Rocksteady did indeed lie to us about who the Arkham Knight was, but they did a DAMN GOOD JOB keeping that information under wraps for the majority of the story. Even after Joker tells Bruce about what he did to Jason when he had him in the Asylum, there was still the possibility that it could have been Ra's under the mask as the Season of Infamy DLC hadn't been released yet, so his status at the time was unknown. I HAVE to give props to Troy Baker for not only doing Jason, but also BOTH sides of Two-Face and totally nailing it.

In the end, weather you like the overuse of the Tankmobile (even though most people kept BEGGING FOR IT) or the lie about Jason not being the Arkham Knight, you have to admit Rocksteady pulled out all the stops for the then final entry in the Arkhamverse and they did a damn good job wrapping things up while keeping enough open for the possible sequel we're now getting. Batman Arkham Knight gets a x5 Fear Multi Takedown out of 5. 5/5

Honorable Mentions this time go to:

Spider-Man/Pider-Man/Marvel's Spider-Man: Insomniac gave Spider-Man the Arkham treatment in 2018 and FUCKING NAILED IT!!! Golden Story, flawless combat, awesome soundtrack and spot on casting of the characters means this is one game that has me looking forward to it's sequel. PS4 Peter Parker will ALWAYS be better than the Tom Holland deep fake we got with the PS5 version of the game and FUCK INSOMNIAC FOR CHANGING IT!!!

Batman Arkham City: Can't have Arkham Knight without talking about the game set right before it and how it further perfected the combat from Arkham Asylum and had one explosive story

[thevindicativevordan]

Why I Like Superman

This is a post I’ve been going over and over in my head, trying to suss out my feelings. The simple fact is I love Superman, and I have for as long as I can remember. I wore Superman pajamas as a kid. I watched cartoons like Superman: The Animated Series, Justice League, Legion of Superheroes, and was hyped as hell when he showed up on The Batman cartoon. I drew variations of the S-shield all over the sides of my school notebooks, and I tied a towel around my neck and pretended I could fly.

One of my favorite Xbox games to play was the Superman Returns tie-in game (remember those?), because it was the only game I could play that let me fly around, shooting off heat vision and freezing people with arctic breath. I still remember the opening that had you destroy asteroids, and being absolutely wowed as a kid by the big finale which had you slam into the largest asteroid at supersonic speed to destroy it. Took me forever to beat the Warworld arena level though because I didn’t know how to block.

Because there were no local comic shops near my home for me to go buy issues at (not that I even knew what a local comic shop was at the time), I kept up with his, and the rest of my favorite DC heroes adventures, via reading the DC wiki. I spent so much of my time waiting for my mom to get off the computer so I could go online and catch up that my parents installed parental blocks because they were worried about what I was doing.

In short he’s been a constant favorite of mine throughout childhood, through my teenage years, and straight on into adulthood. I never developed the dislike or distaste for him that some people did, and he never dropped out of the top spot for me like he did for others. There were times when he shared the top spot for me with Batman and Spider-Man, until One More Day wrecked my relationship with Spidey and I grew bored of the endless cycles of Batman being a dick to the Batfamily and then learning he needs them. But even throughout his lowest points (and God have there been so many of those in the last decade), he’s remained the top guy for me.

But why? I think it’s in part because of the type of genre he embodies. He is of course The Superhero, and he lives in the genre he founded, but he also lives in a type of optimistic science fiction genre that’s downright extinct nowadays. As a kid I was a massive science fiction fan, and my dad was friends with a guy who was also hugely into science fiction. This guy had a basement full of science fiction books written from the Golden Age of Science Fiction, up until the cyberpunk era kicked off in the 1980s. He was happy to hand novels off to me, and his private library beat the hell out of our public one. I devoured stories of fearless heroes in space exploring new worlds, first contact with alien races, mindbending new technologies that seemed like magic, about transcending our mortal flesh and becoming part of a universal, transcendental whole, stories that didn’t just talk about technology but about the human condition. Stories that while sometimes bleak, painted a positive picture of the human ability to overcome our inherent flaws and be a powerful force for good. And ultimately Superman speaks from the same source.

It’s not just about the powers, although those who completely dismiss their appeal are making a mistake I believe. It’s about humanity, about our ability to transcend our base natures, reflected in this Strange Visitor from Another Planet, who embodies our virtues and our vices, who is torn between the fear of doing too much and the fear of doing too little. Who hides his true self behind a pair of glasses because he craves the fellowship of humanity more than any amount of glory or riches. His no-kill rule a firm affirmation of the value of life, all life everywhere no matter it’s form. His greatest love, Lois Lane, is his co-worker and greatest rival as a reporter, who has everyone’s number in her phone, be they crime lord or living saint. His greatest friend, Jimmy Olsen, is the guy everyone else ignores or bosses around, but is a rich kid weirdo who gets up to all sorts of bizarre adventures that keep the Daily Planet afloat. His childhood friends are superheroes from the future, his home City of Metropolis is 10 years ahead of everyone else in terms of technology, his dog can shatter concrete via barking at it, his home den is a ice crystal castle situated at the North Pole, like Santa’s Workshop. In short his life is one where even the mundane corners hide fantastical attributes. By living among us, he helps to elevate us, to make our daily grind interesting by seeing through the lens of his life. As others have said, we walk our dogs around the block, he walks his around the solar system.

But it would be a mistake to assume that Superman doesn’t tackle the darker sides of life too. Even the most optimistic sci-fi novels that I read as a kid had dystopic elements in them, intended or not. His home planet of Krypton was our technological superior, yet ignored the warnings of it’s chief scientist, and died a victim of it’s own greed and arrogance with Kal-El as the Last Son. His birth parents died in the fires of self-perpetuated genocide, his adopted parents the Kents often fall to mundane heart diseases or accidents, which even his power can not save them from. His greatest enemy Lex Luthor, is the one person who can understand his loneliness, his need for the public’s approval and acceptance, and yet the shared enmity between the two has ruined any chance of them forming a friendship that could have been. The shining City of Metropolis venerates Luthor as well as Clark, reflecting the greed, selfishness, and callousness of it’s other favorite child. Suicide Slum stands as a testament to the limits of how much Superman can improve life. The Phantom Zone is a spinechilling example of the inhumane treatment of prisoners. His foes ran the gauntlet from greedy businessmen out for money at any cost, to victims who have suffered at humanity’s hands and seek revenge, to sociopaths who treat other peoples pain and lives as a source of amusement, to murderers who care not from where the blood flows, only that it does, to tyrants who seek to crush all resistance underneath their heel, to gods who wish the elimination of free will itself. Each of them force Superman to confront the fallibility of human nature and wrestle with whether or not his faith in both them and himself is justified.

In a sentence? I love Superman because he’s a character you can do almost anything with, from comedic hijinks, to serious dramas, to distributing horror stories, to exciting adventure stories. He reminds me of the best type of science fiction stories, ones that explore people and existence from all sorts of angles, that never lose sight of the emotional human core at the heart of all the high concept existential concepts. He’s made me laugh, cry, think, get motivated, get angry, and sometimes just get writing. He brings the big ideas and the human emotions that keep me reading comics throughout all the Big 2′s bullshit. He still believes in the human capacity for good, in spite of our flaws, in spite of how few of us seem to believe in that capacity ourselves, and he shows us that it’s still there by touching our hearts through his stories. That’s why I like Superman, and why he’s my favorite superhero.

[twh-news]

‘Loki’ Season One Finale Introduces A Key Character From Upcoming ‘Ant-Man & The Wasp: Quantumania’ – Recap

Warning: The following recap of the season one finale of Loki, “For All Time. Always” contains spoilers.

Instead of burning down the theatrical slate to feed the beast of streaming, one hopes that Disney bosses’ wake up to the fact that it’s series like Loki which are the pumping aorta of an OTT service.

The cliffhanger for Loki just keeps us hungering for more, and rather than keep us guessing, Marvel promptly revealed during the end-credits last night that there is indeed a season 2. It’s the serials which keep streamers alive, not the movies. Those who spent $60M WW on Black Widow aren’t going to buy it again. But it’s a nail-biting series like Loki which creates ‘must-see’ and therefore frosh sign-ups on Disney+.

In addition, as part of the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s new plan to connect their Disney+ series with their movies, it’s obvious Loki will be bridging to the feature Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania, as Jonathan Majors’ villain was finally introduced. Deadline first broke the news that Majors would play Kang the Conquerer in Ant-Man 3. While he didn’t go by that title, he was referred to as “He Who Remains” throughout the entire episode, as first indicated by Miss Minutes who welcomes Loki and Sylvie to the Citadel at the End of Time, He Who Remains’ domicile. However, it’s the variant of He Who Remains that becomes Kang.

Majors in his parts in White Boy Rick and Atticus Freeman in HBO’s Lovecraft Country deftly carries gravitas, but here as He Who Remains/Kang, he gets to stretch in a comical way, with his facets of performance evoking Frank Morgan’s as the Wizard of Oz. Marvel paid off here on what many fanboys were guessing: that it was He Who Remains who was at the end of time. For those studying Easter Eggs in Loki, there was a statue in the TVA piazza of Kang which toward the end of the finale’s episode, we see Loki look up to; the whole moment being a Usual Suspects-ending-like homage. Marvel isn’t always up to paying off: Many thought Mephisto was the big-bad-baddie at the end of WandaVision, and for a minute there was some guessing that was the case in Loki when we see the stained glass window of the devil in ancient France in Ep. 1, however, director Kate Herron told us very early on that the extra-dimensional demon wasn’t in the cards for the MCU series.

After Loki and Sylvie get past Miss Minutes, who in Satanic fashion is trying to offer them all the riches of the world to get them back on the timeline (‘Loki, the Infinity Gauntlet is yours’, ‘You kill Thanos’, ‘How about the throne on Asgard?’), Thor’s adopted brother blasts “We write our own destiny now!”.

“Good Luck with that,” answers Miss Minutes.

The duo try to kill He Who Remains, but he just keeps disappearing due to his TempPad.  He Who Remains tells them he “knows all and has seen it all.” The entire journey that Loki and Sylvie took between Lementis and the Void, “I paved the road, you just walked down it” He Who Remains tells them. He gets them to settle down in front of his desk and tells them about how he, and the whole timeline-TVA thing came to be. A variant of He Who Remains live on Earth in the 31st century, a scientist who learned that the universe was stacked on similar universes. Other variants of him were learning the same theory simultaneously. His variants made contact and there was a peace, and they shared technology. However, “not every version of me, was so pure of heart” and war erupted between the multiverses. Each variant trying to preserve their universe and annihilate the others. “This was almost the end of everyone and everything,” says He Who Remains. The first He Who Remains variant encountered Alioth who was able to harness his power and weaponize him and “I ended the Multiversal War!”.

After He Who Remains isolated “our timeline”, he created the TVA in order to create ages of cosmic harmony.

“You came to kill the devil right?” says He Who Remains, “Well, I keep you safe. If you think I’m evil, just wait till you meet my variants.”

“The TVA, it works,” he adds.

Sylvie believes He Who Remains is lying. He offers them two options: Kill him and there will be a Multiversal War, or Loki and Sylvie can run He Who Remains’ timeline, and make the TVA innocent. The duo aren’t amused with the latter offer. Sylvie is irate at how He Who Remains has made a game out of time and played with people’s lives, especially hers.

He Who Remains then feels a rumble: “We just crossed a threshold”. There are some elements of the timeline he can’t control; he confesses to the two that he lied, that he really doesn’t know how everything in life will turn out. If He Who Remains is killed, he warns that another version of him will just reincarnate and plop himself in the throne at the end of time. All of this culminates in a sword fight between Loki and Sylvie: the former believes He Who Remains that a mess is evident in his death. “That’s the gambit: remove the dictator and what feels the void,” Loki argues. After they kiss, Sylvie pushes Loki through a time portal door back to the TVA.  She then stabs Kang, and soon enough notices a multitude of diverges in the cosmic timeline outside his castle window.

Much, much earlier in the episode, Mobius confronts Ravonna regarding her abuse of authority at the TVA.  She doesn’t know about He Who Remains, who runs the TVA.  She’s collecting files from Miss Minutes in order to go on her own journey of discovery about the org. A flashback reveals that she used to be a high school teacher, and was somehow declared a variant, encountering B-15. Mobius is about to prune Ravonna. They fight, but she winds up getting the pruning weapon in her hand. A time portal door opens and she tells Mobius, almost sarcastically, that she’s going to search for free will.

After Sylvie kills He Who Remains, Mobius and Hunter B-15 notice another explosion in the timeline on the TVA monitors. Loki finds them and exclaims that they can’t stop the huge divergence in time. “It’s done, Mobius. We made a terrible mistake. We freed the timeline. We found him. Beyond the storm. A Citadel at the End of Time. He’s terrifying. He planned everything. He’s seen everything. He knows everything.”

“But someone is coming: Countless different versions of a very dangerous person,” warns Loki.

And to all of this, what is Mobius’ response?

“Who are you? What’s your name?” says Owen Wilson’s character not recognizing the trickster.

Hunter B-15 then orders troops to capture Loki.

Ant-Man and the Wasp Quantumania, directed by Peyton Reed, hits theaters on Feb. 17, 2023. The question is: Will we see season 2 of Loki before then?

[questersrest]

apologies for the just talking about junk lately but my brain’s on infodump o’clock. i really want to talk about dq9 grottoes and alchemiracles. so here’s a wall of text that’s been in the back of my brain for around 9 years.

i always thought this stuff was insane and i’m dying for a remake so i can get into this again.

so.

quest #015 collapsus’ call

at the summit of the heights of loneliness, you will find a man, christopher collapsus, who climbed all the way to the top but collapsed just short of zere rocks. you need to bring him a special medicine. as a reward he will give you your first treasure map: granite tunnel of woe lv. 1.

a treasure map will depict a red X drawn on part of a map, this will be one of several locations on the overworld but it’ll be fairly zoomed in so it might take some thinking to figure out where it is. when you stand in that location, a prompt to press A will appear and when you do, a cave entrance will appear. these caves are called grottoes. inside you’ll find several floors with monsters and chests and then a boss floor.

when you beat the boss they will drop another map. it’ll be random but influenced by 3 factors:

a) the level of the map just beaten.

b) the hero’s max level. the hero’s level is stored separate for each vocation so if you’ve hit level 99 as a minstrel but are currently a level 30 warrior, your max level is 99.

c) the hero’s max revocation. when the hero reaches level 99 as a vocation they can revocate, resetting that level to 1 and gaining a little +1 next to the level. my max revocations was a +3 on gladiator.

there are like over 32,000 maps with over 200 quality variations if i remember right, the exact total is over 8 million possibilities with these varying features:

a) it’s location on the world map.

b) it’s environment theme: ruins 40%, cave 30%, fire 10%, ice 10%, or water 10%

c) the number of floors before the boss floor: 2-16

d) the layout of each floor including the placement of any chests. if you’ve ever played a mystery dungeon game you know what to expect with randomly generated dungeons.

e) the starting monster rank of the grotto. monsters appear from a pool, there are 12 ranks and each environment has its own pool of monsters for each rank. the monster rank can only start at up to rank 9 but it increases every 4 floors so to find rank 12 monsters, you’ll need a grotto that starts on 9 and has at least 13 floors. many monsters in the higher ranks are exclusive to grottoes so if you want to complete your bestiary... well i never in 700+ hours found a water grotto with rank 12 monsters. monster rank on each floor also determines what ranks of chest can appear there. there are 10 ranks of chest. each weapon used for making the 5 star weapons has a 1% chance to be in a rank 10 chest. there’s one for each of the 12 weapon types. but even on a monster rank 12 floor it’s not guaranteed to have rank 10 chests. (chests by the way refresh when grotto is closed and reopened).

f) it’s boss, of which there are 12 possible. each boss is more difficult than the previous and so it is related to the map’s level, so dw, a level 1 map can’t have the final grotto boss, you won’t be ready for that.

there is some lore to the bosses. the goddess celestria, daughter of zenus (who was slain by corvus at the beginning of the story), said her father must still be alive in some capacity or the world would cease to be. every grotto boss has some dialogue before the battle commences. fowleye specifically explains that zenus shattered into 10 pieces which took form as the first 10 grotto bosses. the 11th is the demon that the supreme sage sealed in a book with himself long ago, the supreme sage, still in the book, is a character who gives you the quests related to the sage vocation. the 12th is greygnarl who was slain by barbarus in the story but at the end his shadow was shown hinting at his return. in his dialogue he talks about himself, barbarus, and styrmling who remains somewhat of a mystery. greygnarl actually drops an yggdrasil leaf instead of another map.

each boss has 3 items they can drop. a 100% drop: another treasure map. a (i actually can’t remember, i think it’s 5 or 10)% drop chance: a certain pretty good piece of gear. a 2% drop chance for a piece of armour used for 5 star armour. most armour categories can be split into multiple sub-categories e.g. handwear that focuses on defence or deftness so there’s one for each sub-category: 1 shield, 2 headwear, 2 handwear, 3 bodywear, 1 legwear, 2 footwear. each boss has a specific one e.g. the first grotto boss, equinox, has a 2% chance to drop the vesta gauntlets: defence handwear. greygnarl is an exception to the rules, i don’t remember all the specifics and can’t find details at this time but i do remember is his 100% drop is an yggdrasil leaf and one of his drops is a certain legacy boss map, i’ll get to that in a bit.

treasure map names are clues as to the details of the map before explored but usually don’t guarantee anything (except a few environments, if it says “waterway” it’s definitely water).

there are a few other weird factors for the probability for monsters appearing on floors resulting in the ruby path of doom map that got extremely popular to share in japan and got referenced in dq11s because of the one floor with nothing but metal king slimes. i myself found a grotto which had a floor with absolutely no monsters whatsoever, it did however have 2 chests on that floor, at least one of which was rank 10.

now say you get one of these special pieces of gear, how do you make the 5 star gear?

agates of evolution are items than can only be made through alchemy and are only used for alchemy. the ingredients are 2x ethereal stone, 2x sainted soma, 1x chronocrystal. ethereal stones and sainted somas can be obtained through a few means but the easiest is through further alchemy with the ingedients being available through monster drops and sparkles found in the world. chronocrystals can only be bought, there is an npc in a cave that can only be reached in the postgame the only thing he sells are chronocrystals for 50,000 gold each, the most expensive item in the game.

there are a few special treasure maps, legacy boss maps, that lead to a grotto that is only a boss floor, a boss from a previous game. we have: dragonlord, malroth, baramos, zoma, estark, psaro, nimzo, murdaw, mortamor, nokturnus, orgodemir, dhoulmagus, and rhapthorne. the first you’ll likely come across is baramos’ map lv. 1 as a quest reward. the one greygnarl drops is dragonlord’s. when you defeat a legacy boss, they will return and ask to gain experience too, if you agree the map will level up. as a legacy boss levels up, the drops will increase in chance or change entirely. be careful as some maps you can only get once unless shared from another player, you could lock yourself out from some items. the key things they drop are armour to dress up as heroes from the previous games and maps of other legacy bosses. some legacy bosses are only available from the dlc quests or dropped by other legacy bosses that are only available from the dlc quests and since the online service was discontinued in 2014 they are now almost unavailable (if you’re genuinely interested bc you missed out, shoot me an ask and i can explain that one).

then there’s the orbs. every legacy boss can drop one of six coulored orbs. as their rarest drop, this won’t change, the chance can just be increased with their level, the only exception is nokturnus who changes which orb he drops with his level. it’s the same 6 orbs that appeared as a plot device in dq3, alongside a 7th in dq8, and would go on to appear in dq11. all six orbs are thankfully available among the legacy bosses available without online services.

each of the special items can be alchemised with an agate of evolution and a certain orb to make an improved version that looks identical. e.g. 1x stardust sword + 1x agate of evolution + 1x silver orb makes a nebula sword. getting the ingredients is both expensive and time consuming BUT it goes further. 1x nebula sword + 3x agate of evolution + 3x silver orb will make a further improved and identical but still only 4 star supernova sword. most of the time. see when you try to make this further improved item, krak pot will alert you he feels an alchemiracle coming on. he will state a chance as i think 10%, 20%, or 30% which i think can be influenced but i’m afraid i don’t know the details. you are then forced to save the game with the result determined so you can’t reset and try again. if it should succeed, you will make a 5 star item, the best item of that kind in the game, a stronger palette swap of the other items. e.g. the hypernova sword.

should it fail and you want to try again, you can alchemise the failed alchemiracle item e.g. the supernova sword with a rest stone to return it to the first item e.g. the stardust sword. reset stones can be bought from the mini medal collector of dq9 once you can reached the final reward.

so here’s the procedure.

1. grind grottoes and their bosses for this stupid rare gear. 2% drop rate has nothing on shiny pokemon, sure, except you do have to go through the entire grotto again every time.

2. grind legacy bosses for orbs.

3. grind materials for agates including money for chronocrystals.

4. pray to the rng gods once more for an alchemiracle.

5. cry because you spent 100 hours on this and it didn’t work.

6. give in to cheating via rng abuse, the hoimi table’s out there still.

have fun