#played this boss battle twice for no other reason than it being fucking amazing

[hzdtrees]

Hope against hope

[delfinodreams]

OKAY i said i would make a post about my thoughts on paper mario a while ago and im finally writing it out

ill put it under a break because its probably gonna be long-ish

update: yea this bitch is LONG

okay so overall i really really enjoyed it!! it was really solid for the first entry in the series and i could definitely see the inspiration that ttyd later took from it. one thing that i didnt know about was partners not having HP, which threw me for a little bit of a loop. partners as a whole in this game don't play as active of a role as i wouldve expected because they have so little lines but using them in battle is still very fun! another small thing but i also hadn't expected mario to be completely silent, but it later grew on me!

i'm also gonna list my experiences and opinions on each chapter so here we go!!

chapter 1 - pretty alright for an introductory chapter! i didnt find anything especially notable, apart from getting 2 partners in one chapter. navigating the koopa bros. fortress was fun, and i loved the battle at the end!! their theme is SUCH a banger i had to sit back and listen to it for a bit when the fight actually started ehe

chapter 2 - not quite a fan of this one imo? i liked the first part through the mountain, but the trek though dry dry desert kinda took it out of me. BUT the addition of my favourite partner made up for it! parakarry my beloved <3 also the cutscene where dry dry ruins rise up??? that shit was SPECTACULAR. i absolutely loved how it turned dark when it first came up, i wish it stayed like that for more than just until you entered the ruins. the boss itself wasn't too exciting for me, probably because there wasnt much of a story?? i dont know how to describe it. actually its like that for quite a few of these bosses, but its the first entry for this series, so i wont fault it too much.

chapter 3 - this might be my FAVOURITE chapter- the suspense buildup throughout the entire chapter was AMAZING holy moly!!! first through the forever forest when you have bootler ask for you, and then wandering the mansion itself. i TOTALLY thought that boos were gonna be actual enemies when i saw them floating around. sneaking around tubba blubba's castle was so so fun to do, and i legitimately panicked when you ran into him in the hall and also when he wakes up and chases you back to the windmill. i didnt actually think the heart itself was the boss, just a miniboss, so i freaked out when i left the windmill and was immediately thrown into a battle with tubba blubba. i cannot express just how much i enjoyed this chapter, seriously!!

chapter 4 - coming back to toad town with the music change threw me for a bit; i wasnt expecting action to pop up so soon! figuring out that you could actually go into the toybox was such a "wait, what??" moment for me, but like, in a positive way. it was really cool to navigate this chapter and the lantern ghost encounter genuinely creeped me out at first because it was COMPLETELY dark. the fight against general guy is also a BANGER i could listen to it all day

chapter 5 - man i LOVE the whale. just a big guy willing to take u across the ocean :^) i really appreciated how you weren't stranded on the island too, like how you were on keelhaul key in ttyd. the ravens are also funky little guys, love them too. again, the lava piranha didnt really have any substance to it BUT it was a nice fight nonetheless! when it popped up again i was shocked but i made it through!! also fuck kolorado he doesnt deserve his wife

chapter 6 - this one's formatting is really neat- one central area with lots of branching paths, which i hadnt seen in my past pm experiences! i loved the quest leading up to the big beanstalk, plus the environment was so pretty!! the little part with the sun tower popped out to me, i'm not sure why though. maybe it was the music, it was so different from the flower fields theme. at first i had actually expected to go up to the clouds earlier, maybe like midway through the chapter. i thought that would be the "dungeon" of this part, so i was a little bit let down when i realized that the fields were the majority. however, the bit of the clouds we do see is SO good i LOVE the atmosphere!! huff n puff was actually relatively easy, using parakarry and lakilester for their all-around attacks. the guitars were a nice touch for his theme as well!

chapter 7 - oh dude i LOVED this chapter. i didnt know what i was expecting when i first went into the pipe in the sewers, whether it would put me into a village immediately or if i would have to make it through some screens before. needless to say, i was relieved when it popped me out into shiver city. the whole place felt "warm" which was really nice!! i was comparing it to ttyd's chapter 7 and fahr outpost which i didn't really vibe with, so it was a nice change! the whole murder plot was also unexpected but i enjoyed the whole "whodunnit" mystery! omg as im typing this i realize just how many aspects of this chapter i love this is gonna be long,, the entire snowy atmosphere is just so PRETTY and starborn valley felt so solitary to the rest of the land, like its own little bubble. i also had no idea that ninjis were in this game so when i saw one at merlon's i was like HUH?? anyways the way up the mountain to the crystal palace kept me on my toes; i thought that was the dungeon at first! the small bit where you see madam merlar and she tells you the story of the palace really got to me i have no idea why. the music and mysticality of it all was just SO good. dont even get me started on the crystal palace itself HOLY MOLY. the whole reflection bit was SO SO clever and the moment you realize its NOt actually a mirror?? fucking magnificent. this has to be my favourite dungeon in the whole game because it has such a NEAT gimmick!! it also has my favourite mario enemies, duplighosts! FUCK the crystal king though. he stunlocked me with his freezing move because i could not get the hang of blocking it. my partners really carried me for that battle; thank god for quick change

chapter 8 - THIS CHAPTER DELIVERED. the buildup for the entire game leading to this point. OUTSTANDING. i had to sit back and admire star haven because its so pretty- did i mention i love the water graphics in this game?? it has a pixelly look but it works SO WELL. going to the ship to take you to bowser's castle really felt like a "this is it" moment. the entirety of bowser's castle was So Good, it kept me on my toes the entire time!! slowly advancing as the music got more intense REALLY pumped me up. tracks that start off with only a couple instruments and eventually add more as you progress is one way to make me go BONKERS. the one bit where you make your way outside on the bridge and the music dials down and then you re-enter on the other side to it SLAMMING you in the face- that was Great. and then the complete silence as you get outside peach's castle HOLY SHIT. and then you actually enter the palace and the music is SO EERIE and youre like OH SHIT THIS IS REALLY IT. seriously, the buildup for this entire castle is done SO magnificently. i hadn't expected to fight bowser twice, i guess it was the game's way of letting u level up One Last Time before u got to the big bad. that being said, i wasn't too worried on getting a game over since i was fucking stacked on items. but that's besides the point- the fight itself got my heart POUNDING. the effects for the star rod and the star's powers were really nice to see in action, and the little section with peach and twink was so cool! i was expecting a little interlude where you would get your stats maxed out because thats how its like in every pm game, but it was still moving :)) bowser's final battle theme fucking SLAPS. the guitar especially sounds AMAZING. you really see him as a threat here and its so badass. his healing move fucked me over multiple times- i probably ended up having to deal with double his base HP over the course of the fight.

after the fight was over and you got to see peach's castle float down with the soft music in the background, it really hit me that its done, its over. again, the effects in this game are so pretty and theyre utilized SO well for the n64. visiting toad town one last time with all the npcs was a really nice touch- for some reason i really loved being able to interact with vanna t. (chuck quizmo's toad assistant) she's ADORABLE and i will probably end up drawing her sometime :)) the credits were also something that i really enjoyed- i LOVE the ongoing theme of parades at the end. seeing everything and everyone in the game condensed into a short 8 minutes really got me, i cant remember but im pretty sure i was smiling the whole time! and a small sidenote- TOADS WITH GLOWING SPOTS ON THEIR HEAD HELLO?????? I WANNA DRAW THAT SO BAD.

the ending screen with peach and mario looking at the fireworks made me really soft and i teared up a little because i was finally finished. the addition of pop diva's solo in the track was also so touching, it was my favourite sidequest in the game so hearing it again brought up Emotions :')

one thing i wasnt sure of was if there was a post-game mode and my completionist heart was disappointed a little when i found out i couldn't advance from the end screen and was forced to reset. although not many games from this era had post-game content so i cant dock too many points for that.

the paper mario series has a fond place in my heart, and finally being able to play the game that started it all really was a special experience. it really cemented my love for the original formula and i could see many places where ttyd took inspiration from. this game really is fun, and i would highly recommend playing it yourself if you have the means!

[pink-rathian-official]

At the beginning of 2019, I mentioned I would keep track of every game I finished, and sum up my thoughts on all of them at the end of the year. And now I’m half regretting it because I’m gonna have to write out a short summary for each of these games. Oh well. You’ll be able to find all of them under the Read More, if you’re interested. Will be including an arbitrary score next to each game based on how much I enjoyed them.

Just some fun numbers before we jump in to the meat of the post- In 2019, I beat a total of 41 games. That’s an average of 3.41 games per month, which actually isn’t too bad of a rate!

Super Smash Bros. Ultimate (5/5) 100% complete! Beaten twice! Without doubt, the best Smash game yet. You didn’t need me to tell you this- if you’ve got a Switch, then you’ve probably got Smash.

Bayonetta (4/5) A classic character action game, and an immense source of nostalgia for me. Play this game or I’ll break your knees.

Bayonetta 2 (4/5) I actually went into this game with low expectations, I didn’t expect to enjoy it as much as the first game. Fortunately I was stupid and wrong and ended up loving it just as much as Bayo1.

Splatoon 2 (3/5) The story wasn’t particularly the most enjoyable thing ever, although I did sink a pretty decent amount of time into the multiplayer. Still not my go-to game if I’m looking for a quick match.

The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild (4/5) It was enjoyable, although kinda started dragging on towards the end. The side content started feeling very repetitive, especially the shrines- but it was still a genuinely great time.

DOOM (2016) (3/5) I raged a wee bit, gonna admit. Although it was fun, I had a lot of frustrations with the late game.

Cthon (3/5) Doom, but a Lovecraftian roguelike. I’d recommend picking it up on Steam, it’s only USD$4.99 regularly, and USD$1.69 during the Steam sale currently going on.

Fire Emblem: Awakening (4/5) I suck at strategy games because I’m a smoothbrain, but FE:A is totally one of the best 3DS games ever released. Lucina is my daughter and the story made me cry.

Hyrule Warriors: Definitive Edition (2/5) I already played the 3DS version, and went into the DE expecting it to be a bit more enjoyable- and while it was, I did find myself getting bored rather quickly.

The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind (5/5) The best TES game ever released according to many fans. While I do still prefer Skyrim more, I can see exactly why so many love it. Planning on returning to do the DLCs soon.

Night in the Woods (4/5) I hate story-centric games, but I liked NITW a lot. The exploration was nice, seeing the town change day-to-day was nice, and the ending was freaky in a good way

Warhammer: Vermintide 2 (4/5) An incredibly fun game, very similar to Left 4 Dead but fantasy themed and with rat monsters. Launched my obsession with the Skaven.

Fallout 3 (2/5) Yeah just play New Vegas instead mate.

Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag (3/5) If you separate it from the rest of the relatively mediocre AC series, Black Flag is pretty gud. I like being a pirate. I don’t like tailing missions. I really don’t like ship tailing missions.

Ib (3/5) I played this game a few times through during my obsession with RPGMaker horror games. Still holds up pretty strong, although it’s a wee bit short.

Amorous (3/5) 100% complete! Yeah it’s just a lewd furry dating sim. Does have a decent character maker that I use as a reference for my fursona now though!

Way of the Samurai 3 (4/5) I don’t know why this game slipped under everyone’s radar back on release. Just overall a very Nice samurai simulator, albeit with some combat that takes some getting used to.

Monster Hunter Generations Ultimate (5/5) The best MonHun released yet. World is great, but for some reason it just doesn’t hold me like GU does. Maybe I’m just a boomer.

Super Mario Odyssey (3/5) It’s definitely what you’d expect out of Mario. Not a bad game by any means, but I just didn’t really keep attached to it like most others seemed to.

Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney (4/5) I like being a lawyer, and I love the serotonin rush that I get when cornering a criminal on their logic.

Resident Evil 7 biohazard (4/5) The first RE game I’ve played to completion. I don’t regret it at all, because it was super good. Got some great DLC as well.

SoulCalibur VI (Libra of Soul + Soul Chronicle) (4/5) Loved the character creation, loved gitting gud- did not love some of the side missions in LoS because holy Hell a lot of them are bullshit.

Borderlands 2 (4/5) I hated the first Borderlands, and went into 2 expecting more of the same. Ended up leaving surprisingly satisfied. Great loot n’ shoot all around.

Deus Ex: Game of the Year Edition (4/5) It took me a few tries to really get into this one, but once I did I was totally hooked. The ending battle could’ve used a little more love, but it was still by all means a great game.

Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines (4/5) Despite being a clearly rushed game with a drop in quality towards the last few hours, VtmB is still one of the most solid action RPGs I’ve ever played. Still not exactly gonna excuse the last couple of boss battles though.

Danganronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc (5/5) This went from “tumblr meme game that I had no interest in” to “one of the best fucking games I have ever played, and it hurt me deeply.” I don’t think I’ve ever been so invested in a story before, and the trial system was very refreshing.

Danganronpa 2: Goodbye Despair (5/5) How did they make a story with twists even more mindblowing than the first game? While THH invested me into the series, GD solidified my newfound love for it.

Which (3/5) 100% complete! A very short experimental horror game by indie animator and developer Mike Inel. Not bad at all, and completely worth the free download.

Skullgirls: 2nd Encore (3/5) I never really got good at this game, although the story mode was still very enjoyable. Not particularly something I’m probably gonna be coming back to.

Hollow Knight (5/5) Absolutely spectacular Metroidvania that gives quite a unique challenge. Fell in love with this game so bad that I was constantly thinking about it at work. Please stop comparing it to Dark Souls, it’s such an amazing game on its own merit without needing that comparison.

Undertale (5/5) It’s Undertale, do you really need me to tell you how amazing it is?

Devil May Cry 3 (Dante story) (4/5) Extremely fun and challenging. If you haven’t played this game yet then you are wrong. Beating the first Vergil battle without being hit filled me with very unneeded confidence- the spectacular final battle against Vergil stripped that confidence away.

Ion Fury (3/5) Very challenging, but still super enjoyable. The heroine is a genuine badass, loved hearing her quips. The final boss was garbo though.

Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice (5/5) Sekiro absolutely deserved the GOTY award. Loved the combat, loved the challenge, loved everything about this beautiful game.

Dragon Quest XI S: Echoes of an Elusive Age Definitive Edition (5/5) DQXI singlehandedly changed my opinion on JRPGs. A story that’s equal parts awesome and tearjerking, combat that feels truly satisfying, and a quirky world that had me hooked for all 98+ hours.

Danganronpa Another Story: Ultra Despair Girls (4/5) While it absolutely was a good game, something about it didn’t really hold the charm that the other Danganronpa games had. The story was still superb, and the twist at the end was hooh.

Spyro the Dragon (3/5) 120% complete! The nostalgia factor drew me in, the level design kept me. Except for Tree Tops, fuck you Tree Tops.

WarioWare Gold (3/5) Packed with the best microgames from WarioWare’s history, but not enough content to keep me there past the main story mode.

Metal Gear Solid: Snake Eater 3D (3/5) MGS3 is one of my favorite games ever, but the 3DS port’s framerate issues really killed the fun for me.

Halo: Reach (4/5) The story mode was good, but the multiplayer was absolutely sublime. I raged, I cheered, I had the fun I missed out on growing up without an Xbox.

[star-shapedfruit]

A sort of KH3 review.. thing

Well dang that was a wild ride wasn’t it? It’s been about 2/3 weeks since I finished the game (took me 5 days which is record time for me considering it was a pretty big game) so I’ll try my best to condense my thoughts on it below

Please note this is my opinion so you may agree or disagree with me on some parts and that’s totally fine!

And it’s gonna be long

Alright let’s get the bad out of the way:

-The pacing

I’m not the first and I definitely won’t be the last to complain about the goddamn pacing. Kingdom Hearts in general is pretty bad when it comes to a well balanced pace and this was the same. Everything felt rushed and crammed towards the end with it feeling like ‘quick let’s wrap this up ASAP!’.

It was literally Disney world after world with bits of important story in between and then the actual plot of saving everyone kicked in and probably made up of about 3 hours of the whole game. It could have been better if we’d have rescued Aqua and Ven earlier then towards the end save Roxas, Xion and Terra (and Namine) but nah.

Even the ending itself felt rushed and half assed at times. We didn’t get to see Sora save Kairi it was just Keyblade Graveyard ending- everyone being happy at the beach- credits. That was... kinda dumb? Also when you’re wrapping up a 17 year old saga you don’t tend to end it like that. You know what I’m talking about.

-Characters

They gone did Kairi dirty again. AGAIN. How many times are we gonna do this? My poor girl got shafted right at the end just to fuel Sora’s anger and then didn’t explain how she got back to the islands anyway but who fucking cares y’know.

She was hyped up after being confirmed to be a guardian of light and in training with Lea and they did fuck all with it. It’s like you’re so excited to see Santa and you get up on his knee to ask what present you want this Christmas only for Santa to laugh and smack you in the face.

I could go on and on about Kairi but I’d probably be saying what everyone else has already said. I was expecting more character interactions ie the famous Roxas and Ven one we’ve been looking forward to for years but we got a funny glance and that’s it. Again, probably due to pacing but there was so much potential for some great new friendships to blossom and they just... didn’t.

-Worlds

Ok this is mainly Twilight Town being so teenie weenie. Come on, in KH2 we had TT, Hollow Bastion, TWTNW, Yen Sid’s Tower but for 3? Two sections of TT that’ll do. ??? Why??? It looked gorgeous and I couldn’t wait to explore the whole town but for some reason we were reduced to it being two rooms. Also missed out a good opportunity to have RG playable again but nah.

I get the feeling Disney we’re very pushy with this title? Like they had more input than usual and Square couldn’t really argue with them which would explain why the OG worlds were kinda dull? Idk I hope they learn to butt out a little and let Square do their thing. I’m not saying get rid of Disney god no. I just think there needs to be less Disney and more OG in the next title.

Alright the good stuff now!

- The graphics

Holy shit this game was BEAUTIFUL

Everything was gorgeous to look at and Unreal Engine made all the worlds look unique and specific to their Disney world. Like o can’t fault how this game looks it’s just that pretty

-Voice acting

Hayley, Hayley my man you did fantastic. I was getting worried that he’d sound off like in DDD but the man delivered. Everything was spot on and his emotions came across so much better? That scream? The crying?? The joy?? Beautiful. And Vanitas sounded so goddamn evil and Hayley sounded like he was having a blast voicing him 👌

Jesse did amazing as always with Roxas and Ven making them sound different. Just wish they coulda talked to each other xD I really liked Alyson’s Kairi too! I miss Hayden but for the most part Alyson pulled it off great along with Xion.

Like everyone sounded so much better I could go on and on. Can’t really fault much of the voice acting tbh. Xehanort grew on me but Nimoy will always be the better Nort

-Minigames/side quests

I absolutely SUCK at the cooking mini game but I still found it loads of fun. The only one I could do properly was the salt and pepper shaker one 😅 The 100 Acre Wood stuff was very samey samey but still cute and fun regardless.

I only did one flan mini game (the one in Toy Box) and that was awesome too! Hunting for ingredients and lucky emblems was tricky in parts but I loved the satisfaction when you finally find the damn thing! They were just a nice little touch and even though I only got 17 out of 90 I enjoyed looking for them.

Also that Tangled dancing game. My FAV IDK HOW MANY TIMES I’VE PLAYED THAT ITS JUST SO WHOLESOME AND GOOD

-Attraction Flow

LOVED this gimmick. What can I say I absolutely love Disneyland and being able to use the rides to fight in battle was a blast. I especially loved the mad tea cups (“Bring it in!”) and the pirate ship they were loads of fun :D shame I only got to use Thunder Mountain twice because it’s one of my favourite rides xD

-The gummi phone

Who doesn’t love this. Finally I can take selfies with Disney characters! It was so cute I’m glad they added it. I’m definitely gonna use it more on my next gameplay at inappropriate times during the final battles 🌚

-Final battles

Being able to fight alongside Riku, Mickey, Aqua, Ven, Kairi, Lea, Roxas and Xion was at the top of my wish list for 3 and it finally happened ;-; Ok we’re with Kairi and Lea for two minutes but I ENJOYED THOSE TWO MINUTES. Kairi actually does some decent damage too so she can fight. You did amazing sweetie. And how OP is Roxas? You can just sit back and let him do all the work while you and Xion chill out. Granted they weren’t difficult bosses but I don’t care I got to fight with my sons and daughters by my side <3

I’m nearly done now promise. Just wanna say my favourite worlds ❤️

Corona: Gorgeous and (mostly) tranquil. Rapunzel and Eugene make great partners and the hair swing thing was awesome to jump to different areas. Also the little quests with Rapunzel were adorable and made the world feel more alive.

Monstropolis: I think what made this world for me were the character interactions and the music. The world itself was just inside the factory but the way everyone played off each other and dealt with Vanitas at the end was amazing. And Sora doing his funny face again. You little treasure <3

Toy Box: YOU. ARE. A. TOYYYYYY. Everything was so gigantic and interactive and gsjsksksla it was just loads of fun! Loved Woody and Buzz as partners and the whole world was such a treat- nothing like we’ve ever had in a KH game before. Can we also talk about Woody absolutely wrecking Xehanort though? Iconic.

Well I think that’ll do me for now. Overall I’d give it an 8.5/10 with the major issues being plot pacing and lack of character development. Also the camera sometimes did this weird thing in attraction flow mode where it’d just zoom into a rock or a tree :/ I really enjoyed KH3 despite its flaws and what was done well was done really well

Maybe get some more new writers and let Square properly take the reins for the next one yeah? And let Kairi finally have her time to shine. You’ve set up a rescue mission after all, Square 👀

[flynn-science]

Ryan Reacts to Kingdom Hearts 3

Okay, so this is a mix of live reactions and post-world reactions. Lot of live reactions in the beginning and end, more sporadic in between. You can probably guess what I’m reacting to most of the time from the sequence of events.

Mmm dat orchestral Don’t Think Twice Needed a minute on the menu. Finally seeing it say KH3 was A Lot. HOLY FUCK WHAT A COOL INTRO The speed is the same as 0.2, with that sprint that kicks in. Will take some getting used to. The stained glass looks gorgeous though Nice touch of KH1 Sora’s jump animation changing to KH2 Sora’s Making choices again like the original. Vitality is probably health, Wisdom is probably magic, and Balance is, well, balanced. I’ll go balanced. (I’m on Proud, btw) Guardian, Warrior, Mystic. Same as the weapons in KH1. In that case, I’ll make the same choice I do there: Guardian. SORA HAS AN IDLE ANIMATION OH MY GOD BLOCK AND DODGE FROM THE START! Also this sky place is new for a Dive to the Heart (AND THOSE HOOOORNS, LISTEN TO THEM) The water looks great A four-hit combo instead of the usual three? Huh Scan from the start too Nice detail of Sora’s head angling towards the locked on target All this music sounds SO GOOD I’MMA NEED THIS SOUNDTRACK ONCE I’M DONE Ahhh that little soft version of Sora’s theme WHAT THE FUCK IS THIS KINGDOM HEARTS II.9 SHIT These Instagram-style posts on loading screens are adorable Oh damn, we get a LOT of abilities from the start. And this is on Proud! Dodge Roll, Air Slide, Aerial Dodge (formerly a Master Form ability), plus all the Flowmotion stuff Wow, THREE shortcut menus! 12 total! Wow, and a LOT more control over how allies use items. That can be very useful! Sweet, synthesis materials are back! Water is an interesting new spell. And being able to reorder the Magic menu is nice (though I only use shortcuts). Kinda glad the item art has stayed the same. Also hey, Wellspring is from BBS. And first AP Boost of course goes into Sora, as will they all. WOW USING THOSE IS WAY FASTER NOW Yooo that Underworld music with the Titans’ appearance Take a shot every time someone says “Sora, Donald, Goofy” Sora, Donald, Goofy counter: 1 HERCULES HAS JOINED THE PARTY “Team Effort: Always start battles with a team attack command.” Damn, what are those that this ability is FIFTY AP?! (Are team attacks that move we saw Sora and Goofy do in a trailer? The throw?) I like that tutorials are playable at any time Also I was worried Save Points might not return with that auto save message at the start ALSO THIS IS NIGHT OF FATE PLAYING IN THE COMBAT TUTORIAL Ooh, Panacea art is nice. (Panacea has only appeared as a command in games like BBS and re:coded, so it hasn’t had art before) *reads Ability Ring* Damn, if 10 AP is a SMALL boost, I can’t imagine how expensive abilities are gonna get (well, Herc does have that one 50 AP ability) Ultima Weapon returns, looks like Synthesis recipes are based more on collector’s goals than finding them. Looks like there’s 60 synthesis materials, sounds about right. Ooh, synthesis item rarities, types: soothing and pulsing are from BBS, writhing, betwixt, sinister are new. Looks like everything goes in Shards, Stones, and Gems. Ooh that’s a lot of Heartless. Hey when is Jiminy gonna show up? Gonna need to complete that Journal again. Oooh battle music has bits of the old Coliseum battle music. Sora, Donald, Goofy counter: 2 Environmental fire damage followed by Sora’s butt on fire limiting my actions. Neat. Okay, these have been live reactions so far, but I’m gonna stop doing that because it’s slowing my progress. “What the heck is Rage Form?” “OH. OH THAT’S A THING.” I keep seeing hidden Mickeys, I bet those are gonna be a thing with the camera once I get it. Also damn are they giving me a lot of ingredients for the cooking minigame I can’t play yet. So the biggest thing I’ve noticed about the new combat is that because they give you so many really powerful abilities (grand magic at higher levels, formchanges, attractions, team attacks) that are all basically free (are you hitting things with your keyblade or magic? Can you hit this specific enemy once? Can you wait for your teammate to give you a prompt?), the number of enemies in each fight seems to have SIGNIFICANTLY increased from previous entries. KH2’s level design this is NOT. Lots more nooks and crannies to search. Me approaching the gates of Olympus: “Is this Anor Londo?” Yay nostalgic Coliseum music! And oooh little environmental puzzles are back! Like from KH1! I forged Goofy a new shield! Aaaand playable Riku. I have no idea why they were so dodgy about the second playable character. This is only the third time Riku’s been playable. Anyway, gotta fight the Demon Tower again. Damn, Riku is WAY stronger than Sora right now. Wish I could have read his abilities (and moved shortcuts). Nice emulation of the death screen. Also hot damn, is that Repliku talking??? I guess Riku’s “other me” really could be Repliku. Awwwww yeah, Lea’s getting new clothes too! YEAH JIMINY! “Dream Heartbinder” So Heartbinders must be this game’s summon gems, and this one lets me use Dream Eaters. SORA’S THEME IS THE RINGTONE!!! Ienzo’s here, with a bit of OrgXIII music from CoM. HOLY SHIT THE GUMMI SHIP IS THE BEST IT’S EVER BEEN UPGRADEABLE KEYBLADES?! I guess that makes sense, considering they all have different formchanges. They want all of them to stay viable throughout the game. OH MY GOD, DEMON TIDE HAS SO MUCH HEALTH I guess the bosses have to with all these powerful attacks I have Does Hayner have a new voice? Olette sounds different too. Checked the wiki, all three have different actors. Pence sounds closest to his original though. So judging by the Dusks and Snipers, no more enemy-specific reaction commands. The Ducklings sell Gummi blocks now?? Huh. Whoa wait, the road out of Twilight Town’s Tram Common leads back to the world map? Can I NOT go to the clock tower in this game?? Man, Twilight Town felt really small. Hope the remaining worlds don’t, though they’ve certainly seemed significantly larger than the two I’ve been to so far. Also, totally called the Lucky Emblems, though I’m gonna keep calling them hidden Mickeys. I think Tou Story is my favorite world. Granted, I’ve only been to three, but still. The Gigas are super fun, Woody and Buzz look amazing, and I can’t stop whistling/humming along! AHHH CREEPY DOLL Lol, the Verum Nox poster even has a Square Enix logo. First death, the Gigas battle in the video game. GOD DAMN! WOODY dropping an amazing “The Reason You Suck” speech to Xehanort! “Unless you’re in the ~real~ Organization too? Good for you!” Damn, Sora! Also love hearing that music from Chain of Memories every so often Glad flowmotion’s jump isn’t as level-breaking as it was in DDD. Same goes for the attacks. Wow, so Rapunzel permanently leaves the party. Was wondering they’d just give her a different moveset like with Mulan/“Ping”. This is the first time a character permanently leaves your party. And of course, Marluxia. Who I didn’t think could or would return. And Vexen who rejoined willingly, which is, man. Not something I’d have done. Both Norted of course. And was Saïx missing his scar? Maybe he’s just Isa now. I could tell it was Unversed, and Flood specifically, in that first Monstropolis cutscene just from the sound of them spawning. That’s how I know I’ve put a lot of hours into this series. Monstropolis feels the most linear so far. Arendelle’s ice labyrinth is awesome, the level design gives me some light Dark Souls vibes. I like how there’s zero explanation for Sora, Donald, and Goofy being able to breathe underwater in The Caribbean. And by that I mean I would have liked even just one line to explain it. The ship combat isn’t as good as AC3’s and AC4’s, but it’s still pretty good for a one-world mechanic! The ship is a LOT more responsive than the AC ones. And damn, is this world open. Okay, San Fransokyo is gonna be a pain to search for chests and Mickeys. PRESS TRIANGLE TO SORA IS THE BEST REACTION COMMAND I HAVE EVER SEEN Jiminy telling people about summaries on the gummiphone is Square Enix saying “IF YOU DIDN’T PLAY THE GAMES, READ THE FUCKING SUMMARIES” Giant battle at the start of Keyblade Graveyard was cool, but hurt the frames, especially on the fake shadows. And just as I was getting hyped at the possibility of having Riku and Aqua as party members. Oh hey, just realized Riku’s keyblade has a Mickey keychain now too. “And so, as legend foretold, darkness prevailed and light expired...” “Your hearts will be torn from your bodies” “To move through time, you must leave your body behind.” THE FINAL WORLD?! Wait, Sora’s been here MULTIPLE times?? Okay, so the star talking about the person who’d miss them, whose heart has been taken by another’s? Strelitzia? Talking about Lauriam? Love and hate? Going back for fight after fight? Hm. Cloud or Sephiroth maybe? (Longshot, but it doesn’t sound like a khux character, or anyone else) Identical pair? There’s no twins in this series. Like walking alongside a mirror... maybe it’s not an literal identical nature? Same clothes, same food, maybe Xion?? “Nothing left to teach you”? Damn, that’s not much to go on. Maybe Eraqus’ and Xehanort’s master?? “Just friends... stepped back” Skuld maybe? “I’m gone... they’ve added another member” Could that be Xion? Wait, no, how could Xion be here, she’s still within Sora’s heart. Are these actual named characters we’ve met before? Or not? The one who was defeated and supposed to fade... Repliku?? But he’s with Riku now... Someone searching for their Papa??? Most of the characters in this series don’t have parents at all, so my only guess here is Pinocchio?? No way a Disney character ends up here though. I don’t think all of these are characters we know. Someone holding onto a sliver of memory, and a servant?? Yeah, these could all just have been ordinary people. Naminé?! What happened to Kairi??? Okay, so the darkness split them. KAIRI IS KEEPING SORA FROM FADING AWAY OH MY HEART “GO TO HER” SHE SAYS "That's not the official thank-you!" Lol Damn, this area is fuckin huge, why is it so huge?? A PORTAL?! A DDD PORTAL HERE?! Well this place is rad. I better see that weird Darkside at some point here OOOOOHHHHHHHHHHH OH IT ROTATES THAT'S FUCKIN SICK God damn, this game's got some of the best level design of the series! Is... is this OUR Chirithy? “He doesn’t remember the past”? Although I guess it could be Marluxia/Luxord/Demyx’s too. Or Ven’s. My bet is that it’s Ven’s. DID SORA JUST TIME JUMP BACK A FEW MINUTES??? Aaaand did nothing different. So now we’re world-hopping like we did back in End of the World. OH WHAT IS THIS DIVING INTO STATIONS TO PICK A WORLD?!?! YOOOOOOOO Just Kairi and Lea are left. Haven’t hit San Fransokyo or Twilight Town yet. Guess they must be in those two. Last one is San Fransokyo. Lea must be here. Kairi’s probably gonna be the last. “Traversing hearts to reach worlds” That must be what I’ve been doing here. Not jumping between worlds, jumping between HEARTS. Was Sora just considering telling her he loves her? He should have. Wait, am I back in time? This already happened... OH SHIT! THE LINGERING WILL IS HERE! EPHEMER! OHHHHHHH HO HO WOW! OHHHHHH FUCK! YOOOOOOOOOOOOOO! Congrats to all the lucky people who got their names in the game! PRESS TRIANGLE TO UNION X GIANT SHADOW MASTER XEHANORT IS TERRIFYING I like how Axel is holding his keyblade by the guard instead of the handle OH SHIT MASTER YEN SID! YOOOOOO! Okay KH3, I want to fight thirteen bosses now, you hear me? DAMN that Ancient Light finisher on Starlight’s Second Form is STRONG YOOOOOOO THREE BOSSES AT ONCE??? (I really hope this is as tough as they were before, but seeing as Xemnas was harder in 1 than in 2, doubt it) Went to help Mickey first, so I’m taking on Marluxia, Luxord, and Larxene Oh come ooooon, I barely got to fight them! Luxord’s out, 12 to go OH SHIT THE OTHER TWO Larxene’s done, 11 to go. With XI conveniently up next. Marluxia’s defeated once again. 10 left. Hey whatever happened with that comment of their ancient keyblade legacy...? Xigbar... might be gone? So maybe 9 left. Dark Repliku is defeated, and light Repliku gave himself up so the Replica could be used for Namine. That’s sweet. 8 left. YO actual time of day change! I like the door switches. Nice having little environmental things like this. Hm, Kairi and Lea one way, Aqua and Ven the other. Well that’s no contest, gotta go back up my girl Kairi! Mysterious new hooded figure??? Oh. Oh no. I think it’s Xion. D: Yeah. It’s her. *Xion stops Xemnas “YEYEYEYEYEYEYEYEYEYYE YEEEEEAAAAAAHHHHH” *Roxas shows up “OOOOOOOOOOOHHHHHHHHHHHH FUCK” THE WHOLE GANG’S HERE YOOOOOOOOOOO Shout outs to Ienzo, Ansem, Vexen, and Demyx for helping Roxas return! WHY THE FUCK IS KAIRI GETTING KIDNAPPED A-FUCKING-GAIN, NOMURA WHY WAS SHE EVEN TRAINING, FUCK Okay, so Kairi and Lea/Axel are out, BUT ROXAS AND XION ARE IN OH HOLY SHIT, SORA SQUAD FORM UP!!!! I HAD TO STOP AND LISTEN TO THE MUSIC FOR A MINUTE It’s all three of their themes! (Plus a bit of Another Side) THIS IS THE HYPEST SHIT Aww, Saix’s death mirrors Xion’s. AND THE SEA-SALT TRIO REUNITE! Saix is out, 7 left. Xion turned, 6 left. Vanitas fades again, 5 left. I know some people had hoped for a heel-face turn, but I knew it wasn’t likely. WHAT TERRA’S HEART WAS IN ANSEM’S GUARDIAN THIS WHOLE TIME. THAT THEORY WAS RIGHT! Terra-nort’s back to just Terra. 4 left. Just wanna say, I love that it’s Sora who gets to turn the tides of all these fights. Who’s dull and ordinary NOW, huh?? AND he’s still going! Oh boy, time for a triple Xehanort fight! UMMM NINE KEYS (but why are they No Name and not the X-blade?) OOOOOOOHHHHHHH THIS BLEND OF ANSEM, XEMNAS, AND YOUNG XEHANORT'S THEMES Guardando Nel Buio, Darkness of the Unknown, and Impeto l’Oscurito 1V3 ME, I'LL TAKE YOU ALL ON Young Xehanort returns to his time. 3 left. I like how we all agree to pause the fight whenever someone falls. Xemnas fades. 2 left. Ansem as well. Just 1 darkness left. WHAT THE FUCK, KAIRI NOOOOOOOOOOOO AH SHIT HE’S GOT THE X-BLADE AH SHIT HE’S GOT KINGDOM HEARTS Oh hey, everyone’s caught up. Donald: “You can’t do anything without us, Sora.” Me: “Donald, shut the FUCK UP.” Xion: “Kairi will be alright.” Me: “OH THANK GOD” Scala ad Caelum. Stairway to Heaven. It looks like a proto-Land of Departure. But the music is Case of the Foretellers from X Back Cover. Could this place and Land of Departure once have been Daybreak Town? Damn, Dark Kingdom Hearts is over the ENTIRE Keyblade Graveyard now Spooky twelve figures are spooky Why do they have the Organization’s weapons?! I love this return of Destati though They all had a shared HP bar? Scala ad Caelum’s world icon is kinda shaped like a heart Oh wow, full Inception Weird hearing Rage Awakened without the Lingering Will here “There is one sky, one destiny!” “DEEEESTAAAATI!” Ohhhhh shit Shout out to the heart in the floor design though And the figure in the middle has 7 points Classic Xehanort pose from the KH2 secret ending Aaaaand now he’s got ANOTHER Kingdom Hearts! GREAT WHOA HE FORCED ME INTO RAGE FORM DESTATI IN FULL FORCE WHAT A RAD FINISHING BLOW! The canon death screen, the heartbeat, Donald and Goofy calling from my controller! ONE BIG BLAST! So Xehanort sees himself as some sort of white knight? A templar to guide the masses with an iron fist? Yeah, no dice dude. Sora’s right, not your choice to make, and destiny is beyond your control. So Eraqus really WAS with Terra all this time. MARK HAMILL IS BACK!!! Xehanort just hands it over, huh? Wow, closure between Eraqus and his apprentices after all these years Eraqus and Xehanort mimic Sora and Riku from KH2, and pass on. Go get her, Sora. HIKARI ORCHESTRAL Ven met his Chirithy! Lea’s finally wearing his new outfit. Aw, Xion looks good too! And Isa’s here! Naminé is back too! And I bet the Namine/Riku shippers are happy! AWWW They’re all hanging out at Destiny Islands! Look at them all being friends!!! THERE THEY ARE! WHAT THE FUCK WAS THAT

Epilogue: XIGBAR HAS BEEN LUXU THIS WHOLE TIME?! WHAT WHAAAAAAAAAAAT?! You know while watching Back Cover I was like “Man, the Master of Masters really talks like Xigbar for some reason.” BOY DOES THAT MAKE SENSE NOW So what was it about Ava’s role with the Dandelions that led to her absence here? AND WHAT’S IN THE GODDAMN BOX Is it a Book of Prophecies? Something else entirely? In any case, I doubt Maleficent and Pete would be able to get it away from them all. Secret Ending, “Yozora”: Ooh, “Another Side, Another Story” vibes right off the bat. SORA! And... Riku? Well this is just Japan. Wait, the guy from Verum Rex? And a black coat, who’s probably Xigbar/Luxu or the Master of Masters? After watching, a friend informed me that Riku is in Verum Rex. And Sora’s dead. Cause he’s in TWEWY’s version of Shibuya, since that one building said “104.” But which one is the black coat in? It could be the Master of Masters dead, in Sora’s world. Or Xigbar/Luxu, still watching things.

I have no idea what comes next. But I am excited.

[minijenn]

Kingdom Hearts 3: Final Thoughts

Ok well not really final thoughts cause I’m sure I’ll be internally screaming over this game for the rest of time, but I figured I’d leave my thoughts about the game in a more... coherent manner than what my screaming during the liveblogging conveyed. And so, here we go with me basically talking about everything I liked, loved, and maybe wasn’t so ok with (cause the game wasn’t perfect lol) and yeah there will be spoilers aplenty so I’ll tuck it away under the cut cause I have a feelin this is gonna get long. So... here we go:

First I’ll start off wit the easy stuff, the presentation. By GOD is this game fucking beautiful to look out. All of the graphics are so crisp and clean and everything just BURSTS with color. Never before have the Disney worlds felt so alive in a KH game and now they’re JAMMED back with detail. I first noticed this while wandering around Galaxy Toys in the Toy Box and I gasped at just how many little minute details there were to be found, from price tags for toys, to sticky notes on bulletin boards, and so on. Every single place you visit in this game looks like its actually been lived in as opposed to just being another set piece. They were all so much fun to explore and I’ll go into detail about each Disney world at least later on. As for everything else, so much effort was put into just about EVERYTHING! From the ways environments are lit (Corona especially had some nice lighting effects, as did San Fransokyo), from enemy designs, to characters expressions oh god the expressions. KH games in the past tended to rely on stock expressions in some scenes because hey, its easy when ya don’t need to put your whole foot forward, I get it. But here? There are no stock facial expressions, everyone, everyone emotes in such vivid and realistic ways so that you can just see how characters are feeling/what they’re thinking just through their body language and expressions alone (Sora especially aslkdjasld I’ll go on about my son in a bit tho). In terms of other visual stuff, I LOVED how flashy this game could get in terms of attacks (Attraction Flow especially oh my god), some say it might have gone over the top, but to me, it just made me so excited to use everything I had in my arsenal just to see how things looked!

Next the music oh GOD the MUSIC. From the moment this game’s version of Dearly Beloved started playing I knew I was in for a DAMN pleasant listening experience. But what I loved even more was how this game went above and beyond with is score. Yeah ya have your basic level and battle background themes (my personal favs among those include Arendelle’s and Corona’s themes), but then most cutscenes are scored with individual little musical cues, almost like scenes right out of a movie instead of just the same theme playing on repeat in the background! That honestly added such a neat little touch to the game that I instantly noticed and loved IMMEDIATELY (this game also improved Sora’s theme SO much and used it a lot and I fucking LOVED that) and other returning songs were great too (Mysterious Tower’s theme is spectacular now, and even though they didn’t really change Hundred Acre Woods’ theme, they added more orchestration to it to make it sound even prettier!) And of course, don’t even get me started on Face My Fears and Don’t Think Twice, both of those are such AMAZING songs, probably my fav Utada songs out of the entire series (Don’t Think Twice especially lol) 

Next up, gameplay. So I kinda suck at KH games but honestly? I didn’t really have THAT hard of a time with this one. I played it in normal mode (cause I aint about to punish myself with proud mode alskdjalksdja) and I only started dying towards the end of the game and even then I didn’t die that much. But don’t get me wrong, the game isn’t stupidly easy either. The enemies will fuck you up if you’re not careful. I always made sure to reserve my magic to use cure like... fucking constantly because better safe than sorry! As for attacks, I favored using formchanges a lot because I always felt way more powerful with them (I beat the game using the BH6 keyblade imo that’s a good one) and Attraction Flow was also really useful and fun to use! Summons I... didn’t really use that much lol (same old story as other KH games) and team attacks I did use pretty much whenever they were offered to me (the ones with Disney companions were always a lot of fun!). Outside of battle, exploring in this game is SO much fun! Even aside from all the stuff to look at, there’s a lot to find! From ingredients (oh god the game wouldn’t fucking let me forget about ingredients), to hidden Mickeys (laskdjalskdjsad fuckin hell could never find any when the game outright told me there was one in front of me I’m stupid as hell), to the usual chests and whatnot, searching around was always a fun time (unless it was for fucking crabs, but we’ll get to that). Plus can I just say that I adore how smooth it is to control Sora in this game? Like seriously the boy actually runs at a decent pace for a change, his jump doesn’t feel like he’s wearing goddamn cement shoes, and the fucking tricks he can pull off with the whole running up walls and shit? fantastically fun to do. Special gameplay elements in the game were also usually always welcome, but I’ll get to those for each individual world when I go through em. 

But before I do that, I’ll briefly speak on all the extra stuff this game offers for you to do because by god is it packed with content. I didn’t really explore a ton of what it had to offer cause I wanted to beat the main story as quickly as I could, but what I did explore of it was a lot of fun! Cooking with Remy is adorable and even though I didn’t really use any of the dishes I cooked up I still had fun finding ingredients and doiing the little minigames for each dish. Hundred Acre Woods minigames were all kinda samey but tbh it was a fun game nonetheless. I only played one of the Classic Kingdom games but tbh next time I visit the game, I really do wanna try more of them, they’re super cute. The camera function was a delight askdjskd such a cute touch to add, taking selfies with Disney characters is my new favorite thing oh my god and... ugh guess I’ll talk about the Gummi ship here too... I never liked it in 1 or 2 but god they really fucked it up here imo. I know some might disagree with me on this, but by god this game could not get me to care about customizing my own ship. I pretty much kept with the basic ship the whole game, avoided every single enemy I could and mostly just bit the bullet so I could get to new worlds as quickly as possible. And most of the time I didn’t really mind it, UNTIL THE LAST GUMMI MISSION. The way the camera controls and the vertical and horizontal controls fuck each other up is so fucking stupid and trying to navigate that damn ship through tight and tiny corridors only for the camera to have a piss fit every time I so much as skiff by a wall made me so fucking mad why did they do this the rest of the game the missions are in wide open space plains so why force me into a bunch of tight corridors at the very last minute laskdjsldsd oh my god it was terrible 

ANYWAY moving on to much more fun stuff to talk about, how about them Disney worlds, huh? Might as well talk about my thoughts on each one of them, since they all offered such unique experiences that came together SO damn nicely: 

Olympus was, in my opinion, an excellent way to kick off the game. You get plenty of room to explore and see exactly what’s new in terms of gameplay and the game gives you chances to learn those moves and practice them in a nice, controlled environment. The world itself is lush and lovely and quite varied, with Thebes as an entire city environment to explore, the mountain to climb up and avoid Titans on (excellent first real bosses in the game btw I was so hype throughout that entire fight) and the beautiful environment of Olympus itself to slide and glide through). I was also pleasantly surprised in just how much the world set up for the rest of the game, kicking off Sora’s whole arc of having to get stronger throughout the game (more on that later), showing what Pete and Maleficent are up to (again more on that later), showing us that the Organization is still kickin and a threat, and basically getting us hype for everything else that’s to come! I’ll give Olympus an 8/10 I’d say if I had to score it lol

Next up in terms of full worlds to explore is the Toy Box and DAMN this world was impressive. They really did a GREAT job making you feel like a toy exploring a much larger world around you. Most of this level did take place at Galaxy Toys but I really don’t see that as a restriction since the place is MASSIVE and so much fun to navigate and pick out all those little details I mentioned above. Controlling the robots in this level as a BLAST in every way possible, and I do love all the little nods and references they make back to Toy Story itself in this world. Buzz and Woody were great to have along for the ride and I really appreciated how they were actually involved in the plot points of the world (like seriously, Woody fuckin telling Young Xehanort off will forever be one of my favorite KH moments oh my god). Imo this one was for sure one of my favorites, 9/10

After that, we have Corona and I was really excited about this world and I do think they did a great job with it. The environments are lush and absolutely beautiful (as is, again, the level’s music), and there are so many fun little moments in this level (having a splash fight with Rapunzel was PURE as was the entire dancing minigame imo adorable and so much fun). Its just... idk, for some reason i feel like I wasn’t as... engaged in this world as I was with some of the others? Its more or less just the story of Tangled imo, but Sora, Donald, and Goofy are just sorta... there. Hell, there are points where the trio just up and disappears from the Tangled plot and don’t even come into play until much later on which is sorta... why? I get that ya have a lot to convey in a short amount of time, but damn if Tangled wasn’t the perfect world for a KH game and it just felt like the story of it was... not as great as it should have been? Idk maybe I just wanted more bonding between the trio and the Tangled characters, and what we got was fine but I still wanted... more . So yeah, this one gets a 6/10 from me. 

Next up I went to Monstropolis and this one was also a pretty great time. Exploring the factory is a lot of fun and though it is kind of standard in terms of gameplay, everything else here is really great. The humor in this level is especially sublime and I love how the trinity trio plays off Mike, Sully, and Boo imo its pure as can be. And once again we have the Disney characters taking active engagement in the plot of the world (seriously Sully just yeeting Vanitas through several doors like he’s the lil piece of goth trash that he is is right up there with that scene of Woody and YX) So yeah not a ton to say about it, but I liked it a lot. 7/10. 

After Monstropolis, I went to Arendelle and by god this world was way more than I was expecting it to be. Seriously I LOVED how the plot of Frozen worked so naturally into this level, this was honestly much better than how Corona did it if you ask me. We actually got to see moments of connection between Sora and characters like Elsa and Anna and so on and it was great. Plus oh my god that Let It Go sequence was INCREDIBLE the animation on that was simply STUNNING! As for gameplay, I gotta say it was another fun one. The ice labyrinth was sorta meh, but exploring the mountain was a great time (and led to a lot of fun snark between the Trinity Trio imo) and the snowy environments here were just beautiful. Sledding down the mountain was a blast, and having Marshmallow to help out as a brief companion was unexpected but adorable. So yeah this was another one of my absolute favs. 9/10. 

After Arendelle though... things... fuckin tanked. The Caribbean was the goddamn worst part of this game for me, and not just because I haven’t seen the movies and therefore can’t really get a ton of enjoyment out of the characters and the story. Even beside that this world was just damn tedious. I thought the whole ship thing was gonna be fun at first, but then it just turned into an absolute shitshow, with enemy ships unfairly disappearing and reappearing and then completely blasting your ass (btw the ship is fuckin slow as hell so its hard to navigate (and yes I get that its a big pirate ship, but I don’t fucking care this was supposed to be fun so why isn’t it fun???) And don’t even get me started on that whole collecting white crabs bullshit imo that was just about pretty fucking pointless tbh so yeah suffice to say I didn’t have a fun time with this one. It had nice music tho I’ll give it that. And the swimming controls weren’t that bad so yeah. That’s about all the nice things I can say bout it. 3/10.

But GOD did the game ever make up for it when I got to San Fransokyo. I already really love Big Hero 6, so getting to explore the world of it was just GREAT.  The fight on the bridge was a great introduction and exploring the city was AMAZING. Everything felt so HUGE and there was SO much to see (so many buildings to run up!!!). Plus the boss battle against Evil Baymax or whatever was the SHIT in this level, seriously it was so much fun. And hey, it had a really solid original story to it too! I love how the game went out of its way to give each member of Big Hero 6 so much of their original personality from the movie, and it allowed them all a chance to interact with Sora, Donald, and Goofy to really make it seem like unique and engaging bonds were being formed. This world honestly had me so invested and I loved it so much, I’d say its probably my favorite of the entire game. 10/10.

And yeah so those are all the Disney worlds. Gonna not really talk about the last two worlds cause they’re more story heavy than gameplay heavy and speaking of which... guess its about that time. 

First of all, I gotta say that one of my favorite things about this game was its dialogue. Most of the VAs did a pretty damn solid job but the main characters especially so had a lot of emotion put into them. This game has so many fun little chatty moments, and the writing here is probably the most natural its ever been in a KH game. There’s so many fun little moments of sassy banter (between Sora, Donald, and Goofy in particular, seriously I could listen to those three yap at each other all goddamn day its excellent). SO much personality leaks through every character in just about every word they say and I really appreciate it and the effort put into it all! 

Now with that out of the way, the story oh god the story. So I should probably say that, for a preexisting KH fan like myself, this is the KH game that was actually the easiest to understand what’s going on in? Crazy, I know, but this game actually explains most of the off the wall things that happen in it in a way that anyone could readily understand, and personally I really think that benefits it. I think the plot only really derailed itself for me like... once (the whole explanation behind Repliku jfc what a mess). But there were still a few things that the game didn’t explain that I’ll again, talk about later. As for the story itself... 

One of the things i REALLY Loved about it was the character arc Sora had in this game. Riding off of DDD, the game really does set him up as the defeated underdog at the start of it and he feels bad about that and as a result you feel bad and wanna help this sad lil twink bb son get stronger!!! He just wants to help people but he can’t because he doesn’t have the power of waking but the great thing is he forces himself past that handicap and helps them anyway just by being himself and that’s beautiful. I already loved my precious sunshine son already, but this game made me absolutely adore him like seriously, he’s skyrocketed to one of my favorite characters in any fictional medium as a result of this game. He’s such a silly dork who is clearly having fun in all these Disney worlds as he’s off makin new friends, but its clear there’s a certain... anxiety lingering behind all of that. The kid as a lot of pressure on his shoulders and eventually it breaks him and that fucking scene broke me. But in the end, he still fuckin rises above it and kicks ass and then he fuckin disappears but that’s another point to bring up later on cause oh my god but basically the gist is, Sora is my absolute precious son boyo and I would gladly die for him oh my god

Donald and Goofy are also a TON of fun to watch in this game. I may crack jokes about Donald bitching at Sora a lot but you can tell he does it out of a true place of caring. Tbh there were a few Trinity Trio moments in this game that honest to god choked me up a bit, especially near the end. Mickey is sorta downplayed in this game, which is sorta whatever, but I did appreciate Riku in this game a lot (the brief spots where i got a chance to play as him were great). Kairi was... under fucking utilized again and I can’t deny that’s disappointing, and honestly same goes for Axel, though he DID have his moments, especially towards the end. And imo It was a delight to get all the other returning KH kids. Reuniting Aqua, Terra, and Ventus was beautiful, as was the reunion between Roxas, Xion, and Axel. Kinda wish we had gotten more Namine, but I’m glad she got her happy ending all the same. I also appreciate the Twilight Trio in this game, that one scene were they annoy the shit out of Ansem was the best. As for the baddies, same old same old though the game did sorta make them more interesting here and there. Xehanort’s “redemption” is sorta whatever to me, I kinda didn’t really care about what happened to him as much as I did my kids all coming together and being happy together and for the most part that’s what i got so I can’t say I didn’t walk away (mostly) happy as a result. I really fuckin do think the game could have done more with a handful of its bad guys, like they could have maybe implied more about the whole Xigbar=Luxu thing, and imo god did poor Vanitas get the short end of the stick I was expecting so much more on that front and I was sorely disappointed. But for the most part, I liked how this really was a huge KH reunion of heroes and villains alike. In that sense, it felt like one big tribute to the series’ entire history and for that, I love it. 

So I guess that means the only thing I can talk about now is the ending. Oh god that ending. Fuckin thing kept me up all night long last night and had me stressed as fuck this morning while I was at work but honestly? I think I’m over it now. Yeah it is certainly a cliffhanger (especially now that we have that secret movie which raises so many more questions but at the very least it does establish that Sora isn’t dead so I can appreciate that). And hey, it implies that more Kingdom Hearts games are to come, so I can’t really be mad about that since I’m pretty much absolute KH trash at this point. But yeah, that ending got me shook and tbh I think that’s what it was supposed to to, be incredibly bittersweet and all and imo it completely succeeded in that regard. 

Anyway before I go, just a few more points of disappointment I suppose that I haven’t touched on. Pete and Maleficent might as well not have even fucking been in the game for as few times as they appeared imo and the game also sorta just dropped the whole thing with Demyx and Vexen in a similar manner, as well as the whole thing about Larxene, Marluxia, Luxord, and Demyx “unlocking their inner keyblade heritage” or whatever imo game fuckin had too much KHX baiting if you ask me (that one scene where you use a bunch of KHX keyblades to murder a fuckton of heartless was really cool tho). Tbh I feel like the game had several moments of intrigue that it kinda more or less dropped the ball on, like for instance three examples in particular include that bit in Corona where Marluxia straight up knocks Sora the hell out and yeah that’s all he does, imo why even fucking bother with that when the kid just wakes up like nothing’s happened to seconds later? (to get the Trinity Trio out of the plot of Tangled, that’s what jfc), similar thing in Arendelle during the scene where Elsa freezes Anna’s heart, Sora for some reason gasps in pain and clenches his own heart at that exact same moment and the game never fucking bothers to explain why and that’s frustrating. Same thing goes for why Sora disappeared from the cover of Pooh’s book (lol guess that was fuckin foreshadowing the ending) the game offers a non explaination for it that is just... really not that conclusive so why even bother making a big deal out of it in the first place if you’re just gonna drop it? Plus there were a lot of other... smaller moments that I thought the game was gonna do so much more with but didn’t; the moment when Ven and Roxas see each other for the first time and realize they look basically the same but at no point do we actually see them exchange dialogue; Terra and Riku actually having a fucking conversation imo; same thing with any real interaction between Xion and Kairi; or how about the game not actually fucking explaining how the organization brought Xion back at all like wasn’t she a part of Sora how the hell did you do that game you have to EXPLAIN 

Sigh... but anyway, even despite those frustrations, i still absolutely adored my time with KH3. Yeah like I said it wasn’t perfect, but by god was it worth the wait. The game was pure, sheer, fun and its story got me so damn emotional that I actually CRIED at several points of it even though KH has never made me legit cry before. And really? If this stupid as hell game can make this brittle old heart do that, then you know its a good one. 

TLDR: Kingdom Hearts 3 is hella good, it made me cry like a little bitch, kinda fuckin dropped the ball on some points but whatever, and kept me up all goddamn night in existential dread over my precious son’s ambiguous fate. Imo fuckin 10/10 right there I love it and can’t wait to pick it up and play it again

[karmaticinstitution]

Sleep to Rise Again

BakuDeku Positivity Week 2018 || Rise

WC: 2242 | Chapters : 1/2

Bakudeku sleeping habits over the years.

  Bakugou at age five rioted at the prospect of naps, at having a bedtime, at being forced to rest. He was a force of nature, nearly impossible to put to bed. There was too much thrill to being awake, too much excitement for him to stuff it down in favor of something as pathetic as rest. Sleep was for the weak. Heroes didn’t have time for sleep.

  Or that’s how it seemed when Bakugou was five years old.

  “Katsuki. It’s. Time. For. Bed.” Mitsuki scolded through gritted teeth, trying to drag her runt of a son away from the latest battle in Musutafu being covered on the news. It was far too late for him to be sat on the floor, eyes glued to the television screen to absorb every detail and commit it to memory.

  “Deku’s going to know all about it without me then,” he yells back with far more aggression than the average five year old should be able to contain in such a small body.

  “You have school tomorrow,” she fires back, still trying to pull him away from the spot he’s still trying to keep himself into, keeping his center of gravity low and clinging to whatever he can.

  “Exactly! How can we talk about it tomorrow if I don’t know what happens!” Resistance is nearly futile with Katsuki as she finally lets go, unceremoniously dropping him back onto the floor.

  “Izuku probably hasn’t seen it either. He’s probably already in bed, unlike you, brat.” she tries to reason with him. If his best friend can’t be used as motivation, she doesn’t know what will work at this point. It’s the same battle every single day.

  She huffs, dissatisfied with this losing battle, “You can finish this one and then bed. Don’t complain about being tired tomorrow.”

  He hardly even acknowledges her, riveted on the screen once more as he sees explosions in the background, fascinated by the heroes on display. Stifling a yawn, he tries to form a miniature explosion to match the ones on the screen, amazed with his new quirk development.

  “How many times do I have to tell you: no quirks in the house, Katsuki.” Mitsuki opens one eye from where she sits waiting on the couch behind him, falling asleep. He barely pays her any mind, not unusually, until he himself dozes off on the carpet, television still playing recaps of the fight from earlier that day.

  She tuts as she picks him up easily now that he’s dead to the world, unable to stay awake any longer, and tucks him into bed. Sleep is when he defies every opinion anyone forms of Bakugou in the daytime: quiet, sweet, and peaceful. She smiles knowing this is definitely not going to be the case.

  And it definitely isn’t when he wakes up ready to wreak havoc on the world, stomping through their apartment and crankily yelling first thing in the morning while he brushes his teeth. At least she gets a few hours where her son isn’t a complete brat.

When Bakugou is fifteen, he loves to sleep. He adores it, worships the bed he sleeps on and is grateful for any second of slumber he can get.

  Days at Yuuei are exhausting with the way he puts his all into powering his quirk, competing with his classmates, trying to be better on his way to becoming the number one hero of his generation.

  He just got his hero costume, exact to its measurements, composed exactly as he’d requested with what are effectively grenades on his hands. It’s about a week in and he’s still adjusting, as most of his peers are, except for those who’re already near perfection (Todoroki) or aren’t impacted by their costume (Jirou). He heads to the locker rooms, grimy and drenched in sweat. It soaks through his tank top, leaving it to cling to his form.

  Unlocking the door to his unit, he eyes himself in the mirror, seeing the darkening bags beneath his eyes. Kirishima’s shoulders drop at his own form, “Man, that could have gone so much better.”

  He doesn’t even bother looking to know Kaminari is also upset by their loss as a team, but also woozy after short-circuiting, left drooling and running on automatic until he can recharge with some food, a battery, and a nap.

  “Oh, man. Do you think they can get this fixed before next time,” Midoriya bemoans from his seat on the bench. Bakugou remembers the wreck of his costume, he’s most of the reason it’s torn off his body and Midoriya is half naked with only the bare minimum hanging off his core.

  Bakugou slides off his grenades, locking them up for safekeeping, watching Todoroki come up behind Midoriya. He slides a hand over his bare back, “I don’t think this can be fixed at all.”

  Iida chimes in, “Have you considered a different material entirely? Perhaps something that…,” a glance at the ruins of the green fabric, “doesn’t end up gone after every battle.”

  Midoriya sighs, face rubbing the grime on his face. Bakugou spares a moment as he tugs off his arm sleeves, glazing over Midoriya’s figure, noting the freckles spackling his shoulders, the scars branding his body, the definition of his muscle.

  He slams his locker door shut to snap himself out of his reverie, “I’m going to bed. None of you fucks bother me tonight.”

  His friends are all too quick to nod, knowing how seriously Bakugou takes his sleep. The last time someone tried to interrupt, calling Bakugou down for a game in the lounge, Kirishima got a fist to the face and barely managed to harden his skin in time. Nobody is willing to make the same mistake twice.

   At age sixteen, he values his sleep, but he resents it, the way it leaves him more tired than when he went to bed, the way it lets his mind wander and reinvent his capture, grasping at any rest free of nightmares.

  “Bakugou Katsuki, more villainous than a hero,” Dabi taunts him from the nearest bar stool.

  He fights it, thrashing against his seat, hands restrained and mouth enclosed in a metal barrier. He’s treated like a feral animal, chained up and quieted against his every will. It’s just a dream and he can tell by the way his hands clip through the cuffs like a video game glitch. It doesn’t stop the echoing in his head, sounding all too real.

  “If you try anything, you’ll just blow up your own hands. And then you’re what?”

  “Unloved?” Twice chimes in from his lean against the opposite wall. “No, no. Pathetic,” he changes his mind.

  Himiko bends towards him, finger to her chin and licks her lips, “A bloody,” he can hear her salivating in surround sound, “bloody,” she squeals, “ mess .”

  He can feel tears pricking his eyes. It’s true , his mind doesn’t ease him any.

  “He’s an asshole. Nothing more than a success of his quirk. What, when he doesn’t have it?”

Shigaraki doesn’t move, but directs some of his hands towards Bakugou, hovering the loose limbs over his wrists. He taps his dried fingers on the skin, leaving Bakugou’s skin crawling with an itch nobody could scratch. He thrashes under the touch to no avail.

  “Maybe we can find out if he doesn’t want to join us. I could just...,” He presses four fingers into his skin at once. His muscles are tense, taught under the tension in his veins and the skin goes white from the pressure of Shigaraki’s touch, digging into the tissue.

  He can see the last finger approaching his skin, almost in slow motion and he screams. The metal wrapped around his face digs into his cheeks and springs tears to his eyes. His face red in anger, in frustration at this weakness. Why isn’t Deku here yet? Is his last thought as he continues to scream, muffled under the muzzle until he’s not there anymore.

  And he’s thrashing against his sheets, sweating and panting. His screams die out, only a hollow noise coming through his open mouth as his eyes take in his surroundings. When he finally regains his breath, he’s sprawled out, sheets pushed off to the side. He shudders, chest heaving as he looks at the time, a bright white 3:06 displayed on his phone.

He groans, wishing for some undisturbed sleep for once, but it doesn’t seem to be coming any time soon.

   At eighteen, Bakugou misses the bare minimum of sleep he used to get because it’s even less now. Being a hero is everything expected, but it’s also more the way he leaves early in the morning and trudges in, barely willing to cook and eat dinner, before sleeping in the middle of the night. Even then, he’s on call and frequently at that.

  He slides into his apartment, sparse with belongings and minimalistic in design. It has a few photos hung on the walls and they shake when he slams the door shut behind him in exhaustion. He sees a few in the corner of his eye as he walks to his room. He doesn’t need to look to know exactly what they look like.

  Midoriya and him playing with an All Might action figure in their youth. His parents and him after his eighth birthday. It was just them, not that he’d had many friends at the time which was entirely his fault. He’s acknowledged that after some time. It’s a large time gap between that photo and the next— a series of him and Midoriya. His eighteenth birthday party, more of a get-together with the people he finally considers something of friends. Midoriya’s eighteenth birthday party, much more populated, with an entire crowd of attendees, but all of the photos from that night have Midoriya’s eyes glued to Bakugou. The pair of them hanging over each other after graduation, celebratory thrill embedded in their expressions.

  He trudges into his bedroom, shucking off extra layers of clothes to get more comfortable. He wraps himself in the fluffy blankets layered on his bed and plugging his phone in on the bedside table. He gets comfortable, still unused to the new apartment, settling into the mattress. The second his breathing evens out and his joints are relieved of the tension from the day he hears his phone chime.

  He groans, reaching over to slam his hand across the screen and put an end to the buzzing.

  “Meeting at 7, Ground Zero. No need for costumes,” his boss curtly informs.

  He counts it a win that he doesn’t have to get ready in the morning, grunting in response and cutting off the call. He sighs, rolling over to try and fall asleep for the second time.

   When Bakugou is twenty years old, he gets as much sleep as he can, taking in mornings he gets off, finally being acknowledged with some benefits as a hero and getting less of the shitty shift times. At twenty years old, Bakugou is also as deep in the throes of love as he can get. He’s also in love with an absolute fool who, for whatever reason, is also head over heels for him.

  Bakugou used to think mornings were warm and glowy like a hallmark film or like when he’d have breakfast in the Midoriya household on Sunday mornings after a sleepover when he was little. He also used to think mornings were meant for getting up and tackling the day with vigor.

  At twenty years old, he finds out that mornings, before the sun rises, are blue and grey, bleary and bright. He also finds out that as much as he loves to sleep and hates to cut it short, he much prefers to see Midoriya curled up on his side of their bed in their apartment.

  He gets to see Midoriya, soft and comfortable, always touching Bakugou in some way. In the summer heat, it’s sometimes just a finger wrapped around his own. Too hot to be touching and too much sweat ready to pour between them both even with as little as they wear and as few blankets as possible. In the winter, they’re tangled together, in any way they can. Legs entwined, pressing every inch of skin together.

  Sometimes Midoriya is already wrapped in his arms, snuggled against his chest and Bakugou will wake up, squeezing him closer, relishing in this time he gets for himself, for just the two of them together. Sometimes he traces patterns against his soft skin, dragging them across worn scars and counting the freckles that form constellations on his body. But that’s nothing compared to the way the way Midoriya fills his world, making galaxies look small, his eyes brighter than the sun, and making him believe in soulmates.

  Other times, he gets a limb, outstretched towards him, but keeping space between them. And from there he stays put, watching the rise and fall of Midoriya’s chest as he continues to sleep. The mornings after a rough day at work, Bakugou is greeted with a trail of drool on Midoriya’s lips accompanied by a small snore. These days, he can’t help but snort and wonder how he got so lucky, even when Midoriya will try to kiss him with his stale, drooly breath.

  At twenty, Bakugou still worships sleep, but he’s so in love and mornings with Midoriya quickly outweigh an extra few minutes of sleep.

[elinor-sutton]

Fuck MAGA: Then & Now

I started this blog right after the 2016 election.

I was angry, and it was an outlet that I needed, but after a few posts, I did not consider my rage a priority worth my time.

I was told that it might be unhealthy to indulge an anger so deep that it began to form, for me, an existential foundation of being—almost always in hair-trigger battle mode, rhetoric and righteous anger at the ever-fucking READY.

BUT I have a life that needs attention and only occasionally merits ferocity, so I gave up blogging.

And now? All this time later, I am still in a near-constant state of slow burn, and it’s been way too long without an eruption.

In the year-and-a-half since I let the blog slide, the Perpetrator-in-Chief has lived down to the worst of my expectations, and he shows no signs of improvement. It’s a narcissist thing. He CANNOT improve because he cannot recognize ANY of his infinite faults. Here’s one: GROWN-UPS don’t play Keep Away or Made You Look or the fucking Dozens with psychotic nuclear-arsenal-wielding tyrants. [It should go without saying that, if at all possible, nuclear arsenals should not be handed to psychotic tyrants in the first place, but MAGA, or whatever, right? If you live, maybe you learn. FINGERS CROSSED!]

But really, are we STILL living in a world where the safety of [at least] half the planet comes down to a man-child measuring contest?

Dear President Prick-for-Brains,

If you have to start a motherfucking WAR over it, it’s NEVER going to measure UP!

Sincerely,

Elinor S. and—oh yes, the ENTIRE FUCKING WORLD SO JUST STFU ALREADY!

Yep—still SUPER-PISSED!

If you’re looking at the world—and the supposed leader of those parts of it which are purportedly “free”—and you’re not losing your damn mind, you must have some sort of pre-established lunacy. [I’m not speaking of mental health problems. Mental health and mental healthcare are legitimate issues ignored by the thoughts-and-prayers crowd unless they need a scapegoat/catchphrase for the walking, shooting consequences of MAGA-indoctrination.] I’m thinking of the WHITE-NATIONALIST-NAZI-RACIST-MISOGYNISTIC-PATRIOTISM-BEFORE-PEOPLE-BUT-REALLY-ME-FIRST-AND-FUCK-EVERYONE-ELSE psychosis that passes for conservative politics since 45 first got his ridiculous feelings hurt by a black man and a “nasty woman” who were—and ARE—undeniably his betters. Or maybe since Mitch McConnell crawled out of his deep, dark shell and STOLE A SUPREME COURT SEAT while we sat on our hands and muttered, “Can he do that?”

Evidently, he can! AND with ZERO consequences—not for him or any other limp-dick Sentry of the Status Quo tip-toeing his way across the Glass Ceiling, stroking his Keys to the Kingdom, or hiding under his Protector of the Patriarchy parasol because HE KNOWS—they ALL know—that “Zero Consequences” comes with a big, fat, fucking YET, and she is a BOSS BITCH—woke and coming ready with a to-do list several centuries in the making. Her list says, “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free.” It says Black Lives Matter, Me Too, My Body/My Choice, LOVEisLOVE, NoH8, and NO MORE. She’s got Science-based, Evidence-based, Fact-based TRUTH with ZERO Alternatives because TIME is fucking UP!

And that means White Male Privilege [WMP—pronounced “wimp,” right?] is coming to an end. I can’t pinpoint the starting line, but scared-shitless white men with money and/or guns have been running THE REST OF US down since well before this “great” nation was founded, and there are far too many of “the rest of us” who buy into their bullshit—53% of white women [pronounced “silly twits”]?! If you don’t fall into any category that benefits from WMP, and you voted/plan to vote for more of this nonsense, your patriotic duty, as of this moment, is to wake up every morning and punch yourself in the fucking face until something like SENSE prevails. Side effects MAY include REASON and a newfound appreciation for ACTUAL FACTS as opposed to the alternative variety, but if that fails, it is my heartfelt hope that when you make your way to the voting booth—to do what is, of course, your civic duty—you may just do us all a favor, and GET LOST!

[On a friendlier note, if you benefit from WMP and DID NOT vote in favor of our present national tragedy, congratulations on your conscience! Please take your place in the crowd, and resist the urge to act like you know everything. Instead, memorize this mantra and repeat to yourself as often as necessary to convert words to action: I’VE HAD MY TURN TO TALK. NOW IS MY TIME TO LISTEN.]

I am still angry, and I will remain so as long as “Making America Great” looks like:

1. Children murdered at school with unregulated guns or ripped away from immigrant parents who thought they could find safety in this “great” country,

2. Law enforcement abusing and KILLING men and women of color without consequence,

3. Tax cuts designed to further line the pockets of the few at the expense of the many and promote the “trickle-down” bullshit we’ve been forced to swallow, off and on, since the fucking 80s—when it didn’t work the first time.

4. Ordinary Americans struggling, or going without, while working full time for LESS THAN A LIVING WAGE,

5. Ignoring veterans who are homeless, wait months for promised healthcare, and/or commit suicide at more than twice the rate of civilians,

6. Women facing unconstitutional restrictions on access to reproductive healthcare and a choice that is STILL A LEGAL RIGHT,

7. LGBTQ+ people living with discrimination from bathrooms to bakeries and everywhere in-between—including public schools and the workplace,

8. People with disabilities at risk of losing the protection of the ADA, and disabled children at risk of losing their right to a “free and appropriate public education” under IDEA,

9. Underserved children, or those who suffer illegal discrimination in schools, losing protection from the Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights,

10. Environmental protections rolled back to protect corporate profits,

11. The sex offender/demagogue/imbecilic slab of semi-sentient slime—AND the soulless mob of Republican/MAGA-minions fighting to stroke his [gross] ego—that we have given ourselves in place of legitimate leadership,

12. And the untold number of HUMAN BEINGS suffering from the tragic FOLLY of a deluded minority of voters.

For as long as this country is attacked by toxic overgrown toddlers who play at governing, and in their incompetence, damage its environment, menace its people, abuse the fundamentals of democracy and the republic, and terrorize those who protest, I will NURSE this rage and STOKE its fire.

This is MY COUNTRY. I love it, and I recognize that TRUE LOVE does not ignore fault. This country has NEVER achieved “greatness” for all of its people. It is fortunate for “the rest of us” that patriotism does not demand blind loyalty. It does not hinge love of country on absolutes, and it does not forever marry us to White Male Privilege and what has been done in its name. We pledge allegiance to an IDEAL, and then we work the phones, yell ourselves hoarse, march until our feet bleed, and fucking VOTE to mold OUR COUNTRY into what it should be.

We DO NOT forget the progress we have made. We remember every step forward even as we recognize that the ignorant, forgotten [whatever], and privileged—with their long-overdue last gasp—forced us to take two steps back. We didn’t NEED to go backward. Nobody needs this bullshit—EVER. But we can use this. We can take a look, MARK what we missed and LEARN where and HOW we can do better. We can do what needs to be done to make sure this doesn’t happen again.

Step One: EMBRACE the anger. We can be appalled at all the FUCKING BULLSHIT the MAGA-goons have wrought and amazed that WE STILL HAVE FUCKS TO GIVE. We can revel in the madness that living in this time brings us—because progressives know how to USE rage. We know how to mine it. We have a long history of crafting change from righteous anger, and [always] moving on—an inch or a mile at a time—pushing a reluctant nation to keep its promise of “LIBERTY and JUSTICE for ALL.”

Numbers, time, and momentum are on OUR SIDE. We need to get MAD, and we need to do it TOGETHER—FOR FUCK’S OBVIOUS SAKE—and then we need to run these backward motherfuckers down with an ever-loving TIDAL WAVE OF PROGRESS that will put two steps back so far beyond the last red mile marker that even Donald Trump and Mitch McConnell will regain consciousness in the gender-neutral bathroom of an inclusive, well-funded public school with no fear of shooters, fully aware that Black Lives Matter, wearing a pussyhat, shouting TIME’S UP, and feeling grateful for the motherfucking PRIVILEGE!

So yeah, I’ve been paying attention, and I’m still angry, and it’s long past time to start talking about it again.

Stay tuned.

[wowheadquarters]

Top 10 favorite Characters

For @thedeerfish. This list was slightly problematic. While I know exactly what characters are among my favorites, I never had the need to sort them into any kind of order. That is, until now. Oh, by the way, there is only one Top N list waiting in the queue, so if you like seeing these, you might go and suggest some. As long as it is Warcraft related, it’s good to go. Before you start reading this list, let’s play a game: Write down 10 characters you think I like. For each character on your list that appears here, you have a point. What’s your score? What's your most failed guess?

10. Griftah - He is a simple cheating shopkeeper selling useless things, sending clueless heroes to Zul’Aman. He has good lines. Ever since I’ve met him at the Shattrath Lower City, I wondered each new expansion locations “I wonder what Griftah is doing.” Given I play mainly Rogues, I was really happy about him being in WoD and later in the Underbelly. Let’s face it, where else would Griftah supposed to be than Underbelly? He isn’t much of a deep character with plenty of revealed lore, but he is one of those characters you just remember. Plus, with him the lack of lore and known personality traits doesn’t feel as bad writing but more as part of... What Griftah is keeping from us.

9. Har’koa - Cat mom. She is beautiful, she is a goddess, she is a mother. I have a lot of feelings about the adventures in Zul’Drak, especially about helping Har’koa. Plus it’s one of the few female characters I don’t feel Blizzard fucked up despite giving them some space. While it might be because she is there for like, 3 levels or so and then never seen again, I personally am of the opinion it’s because she was constantly in a form of a gigantic snow leopard and therefore couldn’t be stuffed in the practical female armor™ . Another thing is that Har’koa was never weak, even when she was trapped, and never stopped being kind and a goddess. I would really appreciate seeing Har’koa again. I would also appreciate an update on what is going on in the whole Northrend.

8. Maladaar - I haven’t got much reasoning here actually, I just happen to like him. On outland he was one of my favorite dungeon bosses and I was really sad about his whole story, despite I am not usually much into the “meant well but it went bad” backstories. Having Maladaar back on WoD was great and mainly the reason why I began to really like him. I mean, not only he is the Speaker for the Dead (which is, hands down, an awesome and a bit depressive title to hold) but he is also an active warrior, not just inactive priest who is defensive at best. He actually seeks justice. Maladaar deserved more space.

7. Chronormu - No such a list is, I think, complete without a dragon. There are plenty of dragons to choose from in WoW, so you can pick one to your taste. I like Chromie, the enthusiastic “let’s try again but better” dragon who decided not to be a boring elf but a Gnome (maybe she has a think for science?). She isn’t everywhere but she is everywhen, which is even better. She is cheerful even at the darkest hour without being an invasive optimist. Also Chronormu might and might not be trans. The -ormu suffix is, aside from Chromie, used only for bronze dragon males, while we always see Chromie as a woman. (How do you recognize a gender in a dragon when they are in a dragon form? You hardly do, they are reptiles, they don’t really have their gender visible.) Also I have a bet going on that when Nozdormu becomes Murozond, Chromie is going to become the next Aspect (or well... leader, since Aspects are no longer a thing).

6. Garrosh - First thing to remember: He fucked up everything he touched. Twice. He was given many opportunities for rising to greatness and also for redemption and he pushed every single one aside. He is a bad person. He isn’t a problematic fave, he is a total disaster and I absolutely disagree with what all he did. I don’t like for what he did, but because he is a damn interesting character (and mind you, it took me rather long to learn). And to me he is also to an extent very relatable, because I too used to view everyone around me as an enemy and tried to live up to my very awesome parent held in high regards by others who expected me to be exactly the same. So he made into the top 10 because he is a very interesting character, but I don’t really favor him as much as the others, because he is a bad person. I am still very salty about his death. I could have written it better.

5. Nozdormu - The only reason I don’t like Nozdormu more is because we don’t see much of him. He watches over time, travels through it as well. And he also looks damn fine. Like... damn damn fine. There is a picture of him in Troll appearance and that looks even better, but well, if he wants to be an elf... He is wise, he knows how and when and why he is going to die and he also knows he can’t do anything about it. Which is very heart-breaking, especially for him who just wants to protect Azeroth and time. He is in fact the most responsible person there is. A true Lawful Neutral. We all know what happens when he tries to change the history to be a better one (see Culling of Stratholme dungeon). Nozdormu is damn interesting and damn damn beautiful and I want to take him home and care after him so nothing bad would happen to him. He could do me the favour and be there more often in the game, me being the Champion Hero Adventurer and all, he could make some time for me.  

4. Ortell - The first time you meet this dude, he is almost naked sitting in a cave in Silithus and he translates the encrypted Twilight texts for you, because he realized those fuckers are no good, so he abandoned them. Hermit Ortell was quite a nice character and I liked visiting him in his cave, always brought him some papers to translate and read, because he then sent me a mail saying how nice it was I remembered him. Like, one of the few persons who actually liked to see me. And the boom baby, he is now Elementalist Ortell at Mount Hyjal, helping to infiltrate the cult he once used to call home. He also got some very ominously sounding lines. I loved hearing he is well and still on his bullshit. BfA is going to be about the Old Gods, I personally am of the opinion that Ortell should appear again - let’s just throw him at N’zoth, that tentacle fucker is just gonna run for momma in fear of Ortell. In our house goes a meme: “Little (out)house, little (out)house, who is inside?” - “Elementalist Ortell!”

3. Oculeth - A prime example that first impression matters. His first instinct to seeing a suspicious armed stranger is to put him in a deadlock bubble. In that very moment as the bubble was rising my main slowly to the ceiling, I thought “I know him for only ten seconds, but if anything happens to him, then I’d kill everyone on this server and then myself.” Oculeth is a walking disaster, this close to just losing it, but he is still brilliant and not giving up, he is a gigantic nerd and just loves things that move around thorough telemancy. Let me show to him the Wester and Eastern Earthshrine, please! Let me make my mess of elf happy!

2. Kel’thuzad - The sassy intelligent founder of Scourge (more or less) who isn’t paid enough to deal with all of this bullshit. Having read the Road To Damnation, I now know he didn’t actually want the power but the knowledge. Knowledge seeker. I can relate. But he isn’t actually a tragic character (by canon interpretation at least) which is somehow really... amazing. Life and death both threw stuffs at him and he just kept all of them for later use. And we knoe he has a cat he loves, and when worried then floats around like a distressed nurse in a field hospital . Now when Bolvar is in charge of the Scourge, Kel’thuzad is, technically speaking, a good guy. Or a neutral guy at least. He serves the Lich King (he doesn’t have much of a choice) and that’s all there is. Plus I always had a thing for necromancy and liches and this dude has been among my favorites since Warcraft III (when I couldn’t even read, not to mention understand English) and like hell am I going to change that now just because he is seen as a problematic character. Of course he is a problematic character, all characters have flaws of some kind. If they didn’t they’d be all the same and boring.

1. Vol’jin - DAMMIT BLIZZARD I DON’T CARE YOU ARE BRINGING HIM BACK IN THE BATTLE FOR AZEROTH! YOU HAD LITERALLY NO REASON TO KILL HIM IN THE FIRST PLACE AND NOT GIVING HIM MORE THAN 5 MINUTES OF SCREENTIME AND JUST ONE BOOK IS INEXCUSABLE! Okay, now I have calmed down a little. He is a strong character, both physically and mentally. He lost his son, his homeland, his homeland v. 2, his best friend, his homeland v. 3, the he had to kill the said best friend, then he had to leave Orgrimmar and his race was treated poorly in the Horde he helped to form... And nothing of that broke him. Just like Garrosh, for him everyone around was an enemy. But he didn’t kill them outright, he negotiated, he calculated, and he waited. Instead of enemies he sought opportunities, he was flexible. Yeah fine, until MoP he wasn’t all that accepting to people but he was proved wrong and he admitted it and that is something even real people have problems to do. Vol’jin is truly an inspiring character who was never afraid to call out anyone on their bullshit while keeping to both law and moral. His greatest weakness was his own damned intellect when he had the tendency to make things more complicated then they actually were. He was never my Warchief (I personally think that Cairne or Saurfang should have been the Warchief, later Baine), but he is someone whose orders I would do without questioning, knowing that all the questions I would have asked him, he asked them himself too, twice.

Honorable mention: Taedal - I have this sort of feeling I am obligated to list him here, since I am his creation mother. When you think about it, Taedal si actually just an OC I made for a punchline of a list and wanted to keep him as a running joke. He developed into a full character since then and you all have just sort of... accepted him and no longer question his presence, not even you guys who are new here (maybe you have read the FAQ but I don’t believe it, nobody reads the FAQ). When you think about it, his character, as it has developed, shouts Mary Sue (or the male version Gary Stu) miles around. He is described as pretty and everyone seems to get along with him aside from two or three characters who are just porely biased and Taedal keeps proving them wrong. He is intelligent and handsome enough to get laid, but he doesn’t do it often. And he has a special ability (to break the 4th wall). He is a rebelling demon, for Light’s sake! And somehow... Somehow nobody really minds. Maybe it’s because I present him as sort of a semi-official character, and when we get down to it there are canon characters with less believable backstory. Somehow this character seems natural in Taedal’s case instead of bad writing. I have plenty of other WoW OCs whom I love more than Taedal, but they aren’t on this blog so most of them doesn’t know them, so no reason to put them here. Plus, I really like the world I have built around Taedal. That demon wanted his own datadisc, so he has it. With the help of me and some other volunteering people who don’t mind contributing to the BaDW wiki. (This motherfucker is greedy as hell tho, and wants a second expansion now. Slow down, lizard man, I am not finished with the first one yet!)

[adhdvane]

i have so much angel halo fodder to farm but its magna fes so now is the best time to do it anyways i’m gunna try and 5* eahta today/tomorrow/at least before 25th is a reasonable goal. i need to max 11 more silver relics so 11 lazuline vessels for that + it takes 745990 exp (approximately ~25 lazuline vessels) to go from lv 1 to 150 (but I might be able to do it in less with journey drop boosts when using them since it seems to say that journey drop boosts and such only have no effect on the exp gain when putting weapons into the reserve and not the act of using the vessel on a item and vessels are also special considering unlike other exp upgrader items they can have a chance of grand success and its double jour drops right now so might as well) then other than that all i need are 6 more silver centrums, 4 of which i can get from just hosting the raid twice today (if i somehow get blessed i can get all six if i can get them to drop from the share chest both times) (otherwise getting 8 more heavenly horns from just joining raids to get 10 to trade for the other 2 centrums will be easy) (i have the two peacemaker stars for the two hosts) (i then proceeded to ramble too long so the rest is under the cut. ii keep writing shit out tat’s too long and then just deleting everything and never posing my rambling anymore but like fuck it at this point im keeping this)

and that’s it, i already did the awakening step on all 10 katanas yesterday which was the most painful step bc need 500 white dragon scales will always be the worst step in my opinions, which is why i spent yesterday getting to like 438 yesterday using the campaign exclusive quest (bc the drop rate for scales on that quest is surprisingly amazing considering the low ap cost even after you’ve done it 30 times) (but i ended up quitting 438 and then proceeded to buy the remaining 62 with cerulean stone bc i have a bunch still and tbh the only thing worth spending cerulean stones on are white dragon scales or shit like translucent silk, broken teacup, coverging rays, etc bc the drop rate for those is stupid, and i guess technically i’m going to need those 50 jumbo best bones when i get to the 5* part of death, but i still have more than enough stones if i wanted to buy all 50 of those drops and i’ll defiantly be getting even more after the roulette starts so i’m not even concerned, bc yeah i got the sunlight stone now for death but i’m still pretty damn far from deal w/death, though maybe not as far as i think if i just remember to host my go and primarch raids for a couple days, wow yeah actually im stupidly closer than i thought bc im only 12 celus fragments from all 30 i need, the only annoying issue in the last step is going to be taking the time to farm the 10 primeval horns bc sometimes they don’t drop when you join proto hl, i know its guaranteed from share i’m just always weary about hosting that raid since it is 18-man elixir limited and i can’t solo it, and have had a time in the past were i was only joined by people leaching and it sucks when only you and like 1 other person contribute. so i always feel better join one bc i can make a decent contribution (and even like sort of mvp race or usually more vice mvp race for like 2nd or 3rd) (okay one time i joined a proto baha hl raid that was between like 70~60% bc it was on earth and 8 ppl already, and upon joining discovered like most of them had jumped ship, and the log was dead and was like well fuck, but started raiding anyways, and trying to send back up requests anyways, ended up getting some momentum, painfully got it always through to 50% dark by my self (kind of annoyed i took my light grid with my spheric harp bc i thought it was going to be an instance were it would get to 50% super fast so the off element wouldn’t matter and not that everyone but host had retreated) and then like around ~45% another person finally joined and me and this one other person destroyed the rest of the boss in like a minute, that was one of like 4 or 5 times i’ve mvp’d proto baha hl upon joining. tbh i kinda wish i knew what the host was doing, like if they were sitting there watching, was afk, or had like left the raid page to do other things. like if they were just hoping someone would come in and beat it for them, or had sorta given up but didnt want to fully end the raid just incase, look okay i just felt fucking good thinking i helped out a lower rank player get through a hl raid that they were abandoned on by several other players who appeared to have either not being strong enough, or joined saw the damage and jumped ship bc it looked like it was going to fail. though if i remember correctly the time limit was pretty far gone so that’s probably also why no one was joining, i was just a dumb fuck who didn’t look at the time before i joined, then realized, and then just fucking felt bad and was like well fuck it lets see how far i can go by myself bc clearly everyone else is dead and i don’t have anything to lose and im not stoping anyone else from potentially saving this bc there’s still like 7 slots open that anyone can join at any time...) anyways the last thing i wanted to say was i remember i was like a little peeved when they announced everyone who finished chapter 4.5 in the demon slayer collab would get kengo for free bc FARMING FOR KENGO AROUND THE TIME IT CAME OUT HURT BC I HADN’T BEEN HL FOR VERY LONG SO IT TOOK A LOT OF EFFORT, esp like bc extra II class suck worse than row iv bc you have to make the ccw element change for every goddamn class. but i was glad they compensated us with materials and i was mostly just glad for the extra silver centrums and steel brick (even tho i just realized i have fucking 50 steel bricks where the fuck did those come from like i don’t remember having so many), but i remember thinking to myself like oh wow thank 40 samurai distinctions, thats so useful, wow, what am i going to do make another murakumo and unsigned kaneshige?? i think im good. guess those will sit there forever... and then a couple days ago when i started thinking about finishing eahta up since i literally finished farming the demon slayer event the day after the second half was unlocked (when u can just auto extreme+ with ur fire team u don’t have to do shit, i got all the items i wanted and after than even played to get the 200 battle trophy for the heck of it. i only wanted the tickets, ring, dama crystals, steel, summon unlock mats just ‘cause those spellbooks, skill jewels, the fire urns bc i know they’re farmable but they’re annoying and i am low on fire urns, and then i was like i guess the summon since it’s a 1 copy only thing and can’t be reduced even though i’ll literally never use it bc i have gabriel and gabriel has a sub aura, i guess maybe it could be potentially useful for prometheus solo’ing because of the 1 turn debuff resistance, but the times i did solo prometheus i never had problems running out of veils or clears and tbh garnet carbuncle has a shorter cooldown and again i’ve got lily and gabriel already (and 5* lucifer now) so like i’d much rather have my four summon slots for that be gabe, moon ssr, luci, garnet carbuncle. (heck i don’t even take extra damage cuts for the wilnas trial vane, lily, gabriel, and 5* feower’s gravity and delaying the everloving shit out of wilnas is enough for me, though i’ve never done the raid so maybe it would be helpful there.) anyways then i just spend the rest of the event drops on half elixers, and back to what i was saying i was thinking about finishing eahta and looking at all the mats i need and then remember oh yeah i need 30 class distinctions don’t i? which ones do i need for eahta??? oH THAT’S RIGHT. SAMURAI DISTINCTIONS. so that fuckin worked out perfect (not that i don’t have the pendents to just buy them anyways). anyways im going to shut up now and probably never re-read any of this ramble i wrote ever again bc adhd brain be like no read only write

[miuplays]

Miu’s Games of the Decade

Hello all! Wishing you a Happy New Year wherever you are in the world! It’s already January 1st where I am, but I’m sure people are still counting down in other parts of the world. But anywho! I wanted to end the year with a celebration of some of my favorite games released this decade. The 2010’s have been an incredible year for video games, I think. With strides made in graphics, scale, and storytelling, I think this has been easily one of the most innovative eras on all fronts. I hope you enjoy this list of a few of my favorites, and hopefully some of your favorites are here as well! If not, make a list of your own and share it with me! I’d love to see some of your opinions.

But without further ado, on to the countdown…

2010 – FALLOUT: NEW VEGAS

This game, for me, set the standard for what every RPG game should be. From its worldbuilding, to character interactions and on-the-nose commentary, to the way it expands the Fallout universe both mechanically and through storytelling. Of all the Fallout games, this is the one that left the biggest impact on me, and it’s the one I still reflect on to this day.

Honorable Mentions – Bayonetta, Red Dead Redemption, Mass Effect 2, Bioshock 2

2011 – DRAGON AGE II

So I looooove Dragon Age. It’s, in my opinion, one of the best RPG franchises ever made, and this game in particular is easily my favorite in the series. The writing is at its best, and every character is so loveable that I found myself playing it multiple times just so I could romance everybody. Despite some structural issues in the overall story, I still consider it to be one of the most memorable in the franchise, and I don’t regret a single hour put into this campaign.

Honorable Mentions – Deus Ex: Human Revolution, Dark Souls, Portal 2, The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim

2012 – DISHONORED

As RPG-heavy as this list is, I do wanna give some love to immersive sims. Another favorite genre of mine, and Dishonored is by and large one of the best. I found myself entangled in a number of sticky situations that I had to sleuth and stealth my way out of one too many times. Yet they somehow managed to make that the best part of the game. Player freedom and creativity are practically the foundation of this game, and it’s something that made this game not only an enjoyable and unique experience the first time around, but its replay value is through the roof. I do think that later installments in the series, as well as other immersive sim games like Prey, definitely improved upon this one in a lot of areas. But regardless, I still really enjoyed Dishonored, and I’m holding out hope for the future of the series.

Honorable Mentions – Sleeping Dogs, Mass Effect 3, Borderlands 2, The Walking Dead

2013 – THE LAST OF US

I’m sure you’re all surprised, but yes. The Last of Us is my GOTY for 2013, and possibly my favorite game of all time. Before playing this, I’ve never had a game put me in such a state of emotional duress for an extended period of time. Not even MGS3’s ending did what this game did to me. And even as I’m typing this, I realize that the technical aspects of this game—the graphics, mechanics, level design, etc.—aren’t what makes it stand out in my opinion. My favorite part of this game has to be the journey. The connection between Ellie and Joel (two characters so brilliantly portrayed by Ashley Johnson and Troy Baker). My love for these characters and my desire to see them succeed despite all of the hardships and challenging decisions they were faced with. That’s why I love this game. It is, for me, the most incredible storytelling experience I’ve ever had.

Honorable Mentions – Grand Theft Auto V, Tomb Raider, The Wolf Among Us, Injustice: Gods Among Us

2014 – BAYONETTA 2

The Queen has made it onto this list, and I have nothing but praise for the greatest hack n’ slash game ever made. Character design? Stellar. Combat system? Robust, intricate, and absolutely flaw-fucking-free. Improves upon its predecessor in every way imaginable and still remains as stylish and fun as ever? 100%.

If you haven’t played this game yet, please stop reading this and go play this game. It is… phenomenal.

Honorable Mentions – Dragon Age: Inquisition, Dark Souls II, Alien: Isolation, Tales from the Borderlands

2015 – THE WITCHER 3: WILD HUNT

What can I say about this game that hasn’t already been said, like, 9 million times…?

It’s legendary. Simply put. A flawless and unforgettable RPG experience that simply cannot be replicated. Also, I would die for Yennefer. And Ciri of Cintra is the love of my life.

Honorable Mentions – Bloodborne, Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain, Life is Strange, Mortal Kombat X

2016 – HYPER LIGHT DRIFTER

The only indie game on this list, but its spot is well deserved. What has always set video games apart from other storytelling mediums is interactivity. Despite this, I feel like most games still rely on heavy dialogue and cinematic cutscenes in order to spin its narrative. Which is why I’m so appreciative of games like this, where art and exploration are key to understanding the world and the happenings around you. Hyper Light Drifter is a gorgeous game, with challenging combat and beautiful, stylish music and design that will have you feeling both nostalgic and mesmerized. Even in its quieter moments the game remains so rich and thoughtful, and even now it’s hard to decipher my feelings afterwards. A mixture of melancholy, delight, and solace. It’s a journey I thoroughly enjoyed taking.

Honorable Mentions – DOOM, Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End, Titanfall 2, Deus Ex: Mankind Divided

2017 – HORIZON: ZERO DAWN

This year was a solid year for games, which made this decision insanely difficult… but after a lot of deliberating, I decided to go with my gut. Aloy stole my heart the moment she came on the screen. She’s an incredible leading lady who’s strong, determined, complicated, and layered in ways that both intrigued me and that I could relate to. But beyond just my crush on the game’s protagonist, the scope of this game is just… fantastic. The way they mixed post-apocalyptic tribalism with futuristic technology, the physics of every monster you encounter being so dynamic that every battle feels viscerally intense, even just the combat mechanics and how much effort was put into designing Aloy’s bow and her diversity of combat options, I’m just so!!!! In LOVE with this game!!!!!!!

Honorable Mentions –Tekken 7, Uncharted: The Lost Legacy, The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, Butterfly Soup

2018 – GOD OF WAR

Yet another game that I’ve showered in so much praise that I don’t think there’s anything left for me to say about it anymore. This game is flawless for a number of reasons. Its meticulously crafted combat system, amazing graphics, beautiful character and game design, gorgeous score, and seamless transitions from action to story that make it feel like a film taken in one single camera shot are all key selling points. But what sold me on this game, and makes it my top pick for this year, was its compelling narrative. The story is one that’s very personal to me. I felt for them and their loss at the very start of the game. I resonated with Atreus and his struggles to connect with his father. And I understood Kratos’ inner battle with coming to terms with who he is and the things he’s done, and trying to be the father his son deserves. I related to these things, as they resembled all to closely the relationship I had with my own mom. God of War moved me in more ways than one, and I’m very thankful that this game exists. I felt like it was my own story being told on that screen as well.

Also… the boss fights are just so fucking fun.

Honorable Mentions – Spider-Man (PS4), Red Dead Redemption 2, Gris, Super Smash Bros. Ultimate

2019 – RESIDENT EVIL 2: REMAKE

This may be a more controversial pick considering the amount of quality games that came out this year, and I know most of my viewers were probably expecting Control or The Outer Worlds to be here considering how much I hyped those games up. But in my defense, Resident Evil 2 was already one of my all-time favorite games, and this remake nothing short of a masterpiece. To me, it’s what every horror game should be. The atmosphere is dark yet engrossing. Every aspect of design, from sounds to levels to enemies, make this one of the scariest horror games I’ve ever played, all without relying on jumpscares, or grotesque imagery (although there’s plenty of that as well, it’s not what makes the experience so horrifying imo). It’s one of the most beautifully crafted survival horrors, while manages to improve upon the original while still remaining faithful to it. I consider it a masterclass in how to approach any remake. Capcom truly earned back my trust with this one.

Honorable Mentions – Control, Katana ZERO, The Outer Worlds, Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice

And so concludes the list! I hope you enjoyed reading, despite how lengthy it got. I wanted to get out as much praise as I could because every game listed here deserves it. I’m in love with every single one, including so many more that weren’t mentioned. It was truly an amazing decade for gamers and game developers alike, and I’m nothing but optimistic for the future.

See you all next year.

– ミウ。

[thebaalpit-blog]

I like P5 a lot (Spoilers)

So I finished P5 and now that i’ve come out of playing it twice, both in separate languages, I have a lot of wild opinions to go about so here we go. It should go without seeing I’m gonna talk about the game freely, but here’s a warning in case.

I would have to say I like the story of the game a lot, but I’m accounting for the first, fourth, and everything after the fifth arc. Kamoshida is an incredibly strong antagonist who does a million things for setting up the game very well, Sae and Futaba are great ways of showing that Changes of Hearts can happen to people on their own so long as they’re willing to make the change, and Goro and Shido are great personal antagonists for the group and Joker respectively. I like the final storyline a lot too with Yaldabaoth, but it’s very cheesy social commentary in a lot of ways and Yaldy himself isn’t a compelling antagonist so much as the idea that the strict social order that controlled Japan so strongly gave birth to his existence. I’m a big fan of stories that have weird realms or things going on because of the desires of a person being so strong they manifest out of the blue due to human sin and it’s part of the reason why P3 and P4 disappoint me on that front, because they’re largely god plots with very little of that, while P5 is a god plot but it is a god plot created by humans and their sin. While Yaldy himself isn’t particularly impressive, the desire that the Citizens of Tokyo had towards not wanting any part of society to break even a little bit being so strong it creates a god to ensure that never comes about, is and it’s wonderful when Joker summons Satanael to blow his fucking brains out.

I am a big fan of things generally considered to be evil or negative are framed as heroic or things people use to grow. So I appreciate that Joker and Arsene while both very menacing and demonic looking are the heroes of the story and his persona. Arsene especially has such an amazing design that I love looking at him and honestly want to get some sort of figure of him if one gets made. Joker is a fantastic way to make a quiet protagonist that also has a lot of character to him. Between his own backstory, the grudge with Shido, Goro being his foil, and his generally menacing demeanor combined with very theatric and over the top motions he makes, he has a ton of personality in him. The game in general does, but I was not expecting to love the Protagonist more than most of the main cast. His ultimate persona being Satanael is also fucking cool, because not only is the entire moment just an amazing thing and the scope of the whole fight is absolutely beautiful, but Satanael in gnosticism is the dude who is supposed to keep Yaldabaoth in check. So it’s awesome they played to the Trickster theme, the “Blacks are whites” mentality P5 has towards the protagonists, and the lore of the mythological figures themselves. It’s such a cool moment and the music that plays during the summoning is a great arrangement on the boss them that played prior. I can talk forever about Joker and his persona, but I need to talk about other stuff.

The main cast is great. I love Ryuji, he’s easily the best bro character of the games excepting maybe Eikichi. You get to see him grow from a bitter teenager with a huge chip on his shoulder, to a young man with a strong sense of self respect and justice. He gets into silly situations and can be stupid, but he’s a genuinely cool dude and I love him. Ann’s alright and she enhances Ryuji a bit too since they’re both old friends, but they can mess around with one another and it feels organic. I don’t think highly of her tbh, but she’s alright for the most part. Makoto is awesome, being Joker’s contemporary in the group. She’s smart, she has a good head on her shoulders, she kicks ass, and has an amazing outfit. It’s really cool that when they thought of a girl they would try to push as the romantic interest for Joker they made her as much of a character in the group as him. Yusuke’s hilarious, but also is one of the more emotional parts of the team. His interactions with Futaba are great and shows how his weird perspective connects with others. Futaba herself is a ton of fun with her goofy ass personality and smart ass comments. Haru I don’t care for much, but she’s got cool animations so I warmed up a bit to her over time.

The antagonists are all kind of a mixed bag, but the great ones are great. I won’t talk about Yaldy because I already mentioned his deal before. Kamoshida’s an immaculate piece of shit. I cannot tell you how happy I am that he is never once hidden in that aspect. If they had tried to hide his shitty attitude when adults or whatever were around it would cheapen the whole thing, but nope he’s just as shitty to you regardless of whose presence he’s in. It helps that he has such a connection to the school that he effects literally everyone there even the people who don’t associate with him. The underlying character depth also of him being a gold medalist who probably got fucked up by the societal and personal pressure of having to keep being the best giving him a warped perspective on others owing him for this is also great. He’s just got a ton of fucking great things about himself and a super easily punchable face. 

For Goro and Shido, they’re both great. Goro is a fantastic foil to Joker, also being a user of the Wild Card and a pawn of Shido’s due to wanting to be recognized by his dad. His being sent from home to home as an unwanted child has fucked him up so much he desires to see the destruction of the same society that allowed this to happen. At the same time though Goro only has two Persona, Loki and Robin Hood. The underlying implication of course being Goro has only ever had himself and never actually made connections with others so he has two Persona compared to Joker’s several. Shido on the other hand is a good antagonist for how militant he is and how business like he is when handling others. He doesn’t actually recognize the people he steps over in his path to success. He barely recognizes Goro looking like his mother and doesn’t even know Joker is the same child he got locked off into Shibuya. It shows his megalomania off very well that he ultimately created his own enemy and him killing literally everyone tying back to him characterizes perfectly how militant and cold he truly is. 

As for the rest of them. Sae is a good antagonist for her purposes, but she’s not as strong as the other three. Madarame has moments where they characterize him later, but them insisting on his murdering of Yusuke’s mom and his moustache twirling villainy combined with that makes him a very confusing and lame character. Kaneshiro has a minute of characterization, but is a fucking joke villain. Okumura is boring and has a nice moment of depth with the space station kit, but unfortunately he’s being a nothing character every other minute in the worst storyline of the game so rip.

The music in the game is really fantastic. Beneath the Mask and Rivers in the Desert are hands down two of the best tracks in Shoji Meguro’s history of music. Blooming Villain is my favorite non-final boss track in Persona. Layer Cake is CATCHY AS FUCK. Price and When My Mother Was Around are amazing dungeon tracks with Whims of Fate being even better than those two. There’s a lot of other great tracks as well, but I cannot list every single one.

The gameplay mechanics overall improved for the better in a lot of ways and Confidants are really cool too. I do have to say though some of the non-party member ones fall into a really lame pattern of “Character is griefed by other outside character in some way, go to mementos and get rid of them.” But the storylines more than often make up for them. Hifumi, Munehisa, Sadayo, and Toranosuke are some of the more memorable ones. 

If I have complaints though it’s that Mementos is fucking lame. Some of the dungeons are really boring or have lame gimmicks or are LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOONNNNNNNNNNNNG (Kaneshiro and Okumura’s palaces most notably). The story feels like it’s going nowhere for a while. Bosses are boring for the most part with really lame ass mid battle gimmicks, the Sphinx is an absolutely garbage boss fight too. The best bosses are probably Shido and Shadow Okumura, the former because of it not being a lame gimmick driven fight and the latter because you can find fun ways to negate entire legions of the robots. Shadow Madarame and Kamoshida are okay too, but they’re not remarkable or particularly interesting either. The designs on a lot of them are pretty lame too. Also Morgana needs to shut the fuck up about telling me to go to sleep. I love the little bastard, but jesus christ.

But yeah, those are my thoughts on P5. It’s a really cool game that I love a lot that honestly has a decent number of faults, but I don’t care about them which is surprising because I haven’t felt that strongly about a game since like... Metal Gear Rising. Not that those two have a lot of crossover sans the incredibly buff final boss politician with lyrical music in the back.

[theoutsanityshoppe]

Hnnngg KH3.

Note: This is my using Tumblr as a place to scream into the void my thoughts. I’m not looking for responses - or for anyone to try and change my mind, so please don’t bother. I’ve been playing these games since I was 8 years old when they first came out. 

Since I’m gonna be talking about the entire game, I’m gonna slap this on:

So all morning I’ve been highly annoyed and frustrated but unsure why until I let my thoughts just go on their own and I realized I’m just super huffy and upset about KH3 as I finished the game yesterday.

I’m writing this more entirely to get my thoughts/feelings down and maybe move the fuck on from them and not at all to influence peoples opinions on the game. 

But pretty much from the second I entered the Kingdom of Corona I was complaining throughout the entire game. That kingdom in particular pissed me off the most what with it beING THE GODDAMN MOVIE SCENE BUT FUCKING SCENE LINE BY FUCKING LINE and bored me almost to literal tears. I was infinitely more excited [and enjoyed it more!] to play Arendelle than I was Corona, and I can’t stand Frozen but love Tangled as films. 

I know Nomura has never been the best at linear, or hell for that matter, simple story lines but I felt that KH 3 was a mockery of what it could have been. It feels like it, and at the same time us, the fans, were shoved into the corner while other projects were worked on instead and only just finished because “well shit it’s been so long we gotta get something out there”.

The story line was the single shortest and most disappointing out of all of the games - and I have played every goddamn one of them [tho not very far into DreamDrop, the fact that you could drop mid-boss battle infuriated me to no end and I gave up on that game entirely after I had a single hit to go on a fourth attempt on Riku’s boss at Notre Dame]. They focused way too hard on the visual aspects of the game - the scenery, the characters [except, apparently, their hair as Rapunzel's hair made me cringe every goddamn time she showed up] the battle affects, the magic... all the most stunningly beautiful things I have ever seen. The vastly open worlds were amazing too - omaigod it was crazy just exploring every nook and cranny.

But the worlds were utterly pointless. There was no princess to save. No keyhole to lock. No Maleficent to stop. No Pete to beat up. No real REASON for the Heartless to even BE at the worlds and even less for Sora to be there! The only one that made any sense for why baddies were there was just Monstropolis cuz Vanita’s was there, thus, so were the Unversed. [Which was fun except it had already been spoiled that he was gonna show up there so good on your advertising team Square Enix /sarcasm.]. It was just Sora running around seemingly forgetting constantly that there is a HUGE ASS WAR coming literally around the corner. But naw, let’s just have him run around being a pirate during the middle of an incredibly jumpy PoC#3 film recreation. You really demanding we know these films forwards and backwards to enjoy the game??? Fuck that. [Also, I see they tried hard, but the faces on literally everyone in PoC scared the crap out of me. They showed too much teeth and despite trying to show enough human emotion still felt robotic and creepy. Sora, Donald and Goofy were freaking adorable tho.]

The only worlds I thoroughly enjoyed were Toy Box [cuz, gasp! It didn’t just follow the fucking movie line by line!! It was actually new and original but felt like it could be a Toy Story...story!!!] and San Fransokyo cuz I’ve never seen Big Hero Six. I purposefully didn’t watch it because I didn’t want to be bored to tears watching the fucking movie but with Sora, Donald and Goofy thrown in cuz why not. [Side note: Replica Riku and the Cubes showing up was awesome.]

On the topic of worlds: WHERE. THE. FUCK. WAS. RADIANT. GARDEN.

Why in the actual hell was it just a “””””””””””background””’”’’’”””” world???????????? Why was the completed version of Hallow Bastion - a world that has been in just about every goddamn game in some form or fashion minus DreamDrop NOT IN THE “FINAL” GAME [yes I know this is not the end of the series I’m talking about the final for this damn saga]. IT;S A FUCKING IMPORTANT WORLD and all we get is backdrops of it while other characters are there??????? THEY EVEN BROUGHT ANSEM THE GODDAMN WISE BACK AND STILL WE DIDN’T GO THERE. OR EVEN MEET THE BASTARD AGAIN.

There was no purpose for almost all of the old Organization characters to even be in this game, other to be puppets for Xehanort and just pointless background characters.

“But Bri! Vexen helped give Roxas and Namine bodies!” SO. WHAT.

Roxas goddamn did it basically on his own. Despite it being A HUGE plot point that no one has any damn idea how to do this, even Vexen being a bit out of it, Roxas just fucking appears out of the blue having basically put himself together at this point cuz - reminder! SORA NEVER FUCKING WENT TO RADIANT GARDEN AND VEXEN NEVER SAW HIM ONCE. So how the SHIT did Roxas’s heart get inside a vessel???? Even if it was the vessel that they just left on the goddamn floor of the labyrinth and not the one at Radiant Garden THAT MAKES NO SENSE.

Nor their overly drawn out death scenes and the weird ass Grim Reaper heartless. Or that weird “Final World” other than a very obvious way to throw Cirithy int here at the last freaking second. Or that we had to watch the same scene twice only for some new bastard to show up [Lingering Will, and I will admit I was cheering that whole fight cuz hell yes go Terra but still why didn’t he show up in the first place?????? Why did Sora resetting the whole fucking world apparently trigger him coming?????]

AKGJAKJFHGADFG Like I said before I’m only writing this out to air my own frustrations on the game - if you love this game, fantastic, I’m very happy for you -it has plenty of good aspects to it too. I am not trying to change anyone’s opinions on the game.

BUT AUGH. I FEEL SO HORRIBLY CHEATED. I won’t even go into my rant about Kairi - there’s enough text posts out there about how horribly they wrote her. How pathetic.

Xion being there made 0 sense too. I’m happy AF she, Roxas, and Axel got their happy ending but annoyed as hell as to WHEN they got it - but frankly just about everything in the actual story happened during the last goddamn second. 

I get wanting to set up intruge for later games - but this was a) a main title game and b) supposed to be the end of Xehanort’s Saga/Sora’s. WHY. WASN’T. MORE. ANSWERED??????? In my opinion: aboslutely nothing from Union Cross should have been in this. Not a damn thing. That should all be in the past and NO ONE from the current games should be from the keyblade war *coughfuckingVentusLariumandElrenacough*. I’m excited and want to know about that war and everything from the past but I’m sick of them trying so hard to connect it to the current characters - just place is in the goddamn past! Or STOP AGING CHARACTERS - how the fuck is Xehanort and Eraqus so damn old but Ventus, Larxene, Marluxia and Xigbar are apparently 100+ years old but all look like they’re between 16-30 [minus Xig who looks like 50 cuz of the streaks in his hair]. Also that surprise that Xig is Luxu????? Exciting at first cuz I adore him as a character and am happy to see him continue to be a main player but WHAT?????? THE?????? FUCK???????? 0 sense. Makes 0. Goddamn. Sense.

And how ARE the foretellers still alive???? WHY the hell are they still alive??? And why didn’t they fight each other at the end - we watched them try and murder each other in the damn back video!

Again: yeah, ok this is all being set up for a later game to come out in the future. SO DO THAT IN A WAY THAT DOESN’T MAKE THIS ONE FEEL LIKE A THROW AWAY MIDDLE GAME!!! That’s what KH3 feels like - like Chain of Memories or Coded. It took me 35+ hours to get through all of the worlds [and find all of the treasure/lucky emblems] before it ACTUALLY started getting into the real plot of the story aka the real reason I was playing the goddamn game. In the end I finished the game at 43 hours. So. Less than 10 hours of this entire game was dedicated to the fucking plot and the rest was to reenacting Disney film scene by scene line by goddamn line with absolutely no purpose or meaning to anything. 

KH2 is infamous for confusing players cuz no one knew who Roxas was at the beginning but was a fucking masterpiece - it had so much thrown in and yea, a lot of questions left over, but we actually had enough to be satisfied. We had new characters and new villains and enough interactions between them all to get a great feeling about what’s going on. KH3 simply threw together last second answers with next to no explanation other than “that’s just how it is” in order to just move on and that PISSES ME OFF TO NO END. 

KH3 also just felt like a movie - there were so many cutscenes!!! AND DURING BATTLES. SERIOUSLY???? DURING THE FINAL FIGHTS BETWEEN ALL 13 DARKNESSES?????????? 

Also something that I hated and refuse to acknowledge because to me it feels 100% like a Rowling/Snape scenario: Fucking Isa/Saix.

Not once in any game do we get the feeling that Saix is redeemable. Not. fucking. once. [not including BBS in which he was an innocent]. I’m perfectly happy with villains getting them - I love that! BuT WHERE WAS IT???? He was a cruel and sadistic bastard in all the other games he’s in - especially KH2! [and a jerk in 358!] WHERE DID THIS NEW FRIENDSHIP WITH LEA/AXEL COME FROM???????? Give us the goddamn redemption - don’t just have him show up after NEARLY MURDERING THEM AGAIN and be all “and now they are friends. weee” that is bullshit. He deserves NOTHING right now.

Frankly the whole way all of the Organization members who haven’t been given backstories died annoyed me. Larxene’s goddamn secret [why fucking mention it if it’s not gonna be in the damn game???] Luxords weird ass trump card that was useless and we never even saw what it was. Marluxia suddenly “getting memories back” - bitch what memories??? And how almost happily they all went????? What????? Now they’re totally cool with Sora murdering them????

Also Demyx...just Demyx. I love him but he was pointless in this. He did 1 thing. And they didn’t even need him for that. Vexen switching sides also made little sense as again: he had only ever been set up as a villain before. Ok- they SORTA set up a redemption arc for him and Ansem but then promptly dropped it and we never saw either of them again. SAME WITH TWILIGHT TOWN. We went through all that trouble to get the virtual world set up and then???? Never???? Mentioned???? Again???? We didn’t even get to GO to it which is what I was 30000% expecting to happen.

You know what else: where the heck were Leon and the gang. They’ve been a vital part of many KH games - including both main titles. Why weren’t they in this. In fact were ANY Final Fantasy characters even in this??????? Siefer and his change were apparently locked in the sandlot that was completely un-accessible from anywhere in Twilight Town. Cloud didn’t show up and since the Collesium was gone [I was ok with that tho] neither did Sephiroth as a mini boss].

AND

NO

HALLOWEENTOWN

EITHER

Another world that has been in almost every game and is A MASSIVE fan favorite! You were able to come up with a story line for the second game, you could have easily figured one out for this one - hell you didn’t even need Oogie you could have had fucking Vanitas as the baddie here instead of at Monstropolis. 

This entire game felt like a cop-out to just get the story over and done with to move on to other stuff and that infuriates me. I’ve put too many hours and too much of my life into this series to get such a shitty ending to this particular part of the story. Yeah I get that no matter what it would end confusing - Nomura is king at that. I get it: this game is a perfect example as to why you need to know what your ending is to a story before you dive head first in. I don’t think [if I remember correctly] anyone thought the game would go past the first one so there was no reason to add more to it which is fine. Then it went crazy in traditional Nomura fashion lol. Which is fine! But at least have SOME kind of understandable plot!!! I’m still confused as to what exactly was going on - especially since so many characters kept changing their reasoning [YEAH IM LOOKING AT YOU XEHANORT. Not sure I liked his ending either. Yay he’s gone - but really? A happy ending with his best friend WHO HE MURDERED?]

Still don’t know what the hell Kingdom Hearts really is. Or why Sora and co didn’t just use it to try and fix the worlds. Also I feel like it must be hella annoyed at everyone like the Dragon from DBZA lololol like “WHY DO YOU PEOPLE KEEP CREATING ME JUST TO HAVE SOME SNOT NOSED 15 YEAR OLD SLAM THE DOOR IN MY FACE AGAIN???” kinda thing hahahahaha

I think I need to start a second post cuz this one’s getting weird.

[aurimeanswind]

Your Emotions in Gaming—Sunday Chats (9-3-17)

Hey! Welcome back to a fun Sunday Chats where I get so ask the audience a question! It was really fun to do this again, and even though this one is a bit more of a lengthy-response time for tweets, I think the turnout was still amazing.

There are a couple of things I want to get out of the way before I get into this first-sunday-of-the-month tradition.

FIRST

Irrational Passions Podcast is switching it’s recording date back to Friday. Yes, it’s a big deal, we have been recording on Saturdays for a little over two years now, but we are going back to our original day of the week that was FRIDAY. It’ll be effective starting at the end of this month! Yay!

SECOND

Irrational Passions is launching a new, seasonal, YouTube Podcast! It doesn’t have a name yet, but the first episode should be recording a week (ish) from today! It’ll be all about Destiny 2! It’ll be our equivalent to Fireteam Chats, and will incorporate a bunch of awesome podcasters from different podcast networks! I am super excited to have a type of show like this, which is more focused on Destiny, for Destiny fans, by a bunch of would-be industry Destiny fans. 

It’ll be a bi-weekly show with a rotating cast with a few permanent seats, and be only on YouTube (for now). Currently it will definitely be on YouTube.com/IrrationalPassions, with maybe incorporating other YouTube channels into it as well.

Stay tuned for more details!

Okay, with all that housekeeping done, let’s get into the big editorial of the month.

Games Give You Feelings. Full Stop.

My question today, which I asked my lovely twitter followers and the readers of Sunday Chats, was this:

I like to refer to myself as the “total emotional sap”, which is just the slightly more nice way of saying I’m a bit of a crybaby/emotional wreck when it comes to media, especially video games. I get highly invested in my games, and my stories especially. I’m always perplexed, what with the seemingly constant criticism of video games’ storytelling devices, that people seem to never stop hating on gaming stories. 

The recent argument about gaming stories and why they’re more irrelevant than we might think still boggles my mind, and it’s a subject I come back to all the time.

Today I asked you all about the game stories that affected you the most. The ones that touched you in a way that evoked some kind of emotional reaction out of you, whether that be good or bad. 

Much like last month, I am gonna post everyone’s answers here, and discuss what folks have sent in. If you’d like to be a part of Sunday Chats like this, just look for my tweets on Sunday Afternoons (Eastern Daylight Time) with the hashtag “#SundayChats” in it. Responding to that tweet with an appropriate answer will pretty much guarantee you a spot on the roster, so with that said...

Let’s get started.

I think Uncharted is a big one, especially Uncharted 4. There is a series of scenes between Nate and Elena that occur very late in the game that just solidify so many things foreshadowed in the very opening of the game. The scenes toward the beginning of Nate and Elena at home, playing Crash Bandicoot, hanging out, sharing dinner, and kind of spacing on each other all have such a natural and organic feel because of 1, the talent of the actors, but 2, the amount of lore and chemistry built up between the two of them.

The scenes where Nate and Elena have that tension of something they really need to overcome together are like, horrifically painful in a way that is hard to describe. It’s such a satisfying end to character growth for Nate, someone we’ve seen struggle with understanding his own faults in the past.

Uncharted 4 holds itself in such high regard to me specifically because of that last third that features a heavy emphasis on Nate and Elena.

I mean, hey, Duke Nukem Forever probably game some people emotions. Like, I don’t think the story had some sweeping impact on the industry as a whole, but there is maybe  sense of... Catharsis, when that game finally came out, came to fruition, and ended up being just a bad game. I feel like above most games that have gone through a miserable development hell in the past few years, Duke Nukem Forever was the game that set the precedent that none of these games could ever be good.

I think Final Fantasy XV and Owl Boy are just recent examples that that isn’t always true.

I think frustration is totally a valid emotion to feel from a game. Only I think in this context it’s different. I think being frustrated at a game and being frustrated by a game are two different feelings.

I think of something like Far Cry Blood Dragon’s tutorial screens, which incessantly pop up to make the bit-joke that “tutorial screens are annoying” is a sense where the game is trying to frustrate you on purpose, and that is evoked through humor.

Being mad at Skyrim’s controls and the opening section of it is less some kind of culmination of a story beat, but really a reflection of your relationship with the game. Which is completely valid, I know that game is absolutely not your cup of tea.

Firewatch is really special. I think there are a lot of great feelings that Firewatch brings out of the player that really encompass the emotional journey it illustrates through dialogue. From the story that kind of makes up the suspense part of everything, to the actual relationship with Delilah herself, there are feelings of love, affection, fear, and sorrow that come from it.

The gut punch of the story hits twice too, and it’s something I still think about in games. For as flawed as some of the delivery in Firewatch is, I think it does an excellent job of making a setting, and making you feel in that same setting. God what a banger and worth a play Firewatch still is.

Infamous is definitely a tricky one. It is a very much younger brother game, and I think it does hit some notes there. I think the reason I never bought in too much is because Delsin and his brother just never seemed like they had strong chemistry? Buying into that brothers concept though is a huge part of the battle though. Look at something like Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons, which is all about buying the connection between the two brothers. It’s used and then executed on effectively, and when you can connect with that, you can get those feelings out. Second Son just didn’t quite get there with me.

Gone Home and another game on this list are definitely in my top five as far as really connecting and affecting me emotionally.

Growing up with a gay sibling and slowly piecing together where they were and empathizing with why they wouldn’t want to tell me sets Gone Home up to just hit some relatable notes for me that few games ever get the opportunity to make. 

While I love a good love story, Gone Home delivers it in such a video game-y way without feeling forced or disingenuous. It nails what it wants to be, and by doing something first so well, it actually makes it incredibly difficult to follow itself up, something I think is clear with Tacoma, and all the other “walking sim” likes that have followed.

Night in the Woods is absolutely on my list to see through before the end of the year. From everything I’ve heard about its subject matter to the way it’s written like the embodiment of some kind of modern, online dialogue, I am absolutely in. Much like Oxenfree was for me last year, this seems like the kind of teen-y thing that could easily slip through the cracks and get lost in the crowd, but I really want to take the time to play it.

I mean, I know you love dropping those declarative statements, but consider me not so bold, Kevin. 

Metal Gear Solid 3 is legendary. I think when I replayed the series a few years ago, and really got to re-experiences the Boss’ death, and for the first time, really understand what she was going through and how that might destroy Big Boss from the inside out, the impact of that ending and its implications still sit with me today.

The Boss’ ideology being based on seeing the entire world from space and seeing it truly as something whole, and one, and deserving of peace, is such a powerful image. It’s the kind of philosophy that makes you feel small, and understand that that’s okay if we all just work together. That imagery being literally the catalyst for the entire events of the Metal Gear Solid franchise is beautiful, and is at it’s core why I think Kojima loved making those games. His image and love for the franchise is as unified as seeing us all together, truly.

The Last of Us is a game that will straight fuck you up. There are maybe four or five just absolutely integral scenes in that game, and all of them are the one on one scenes between Joel and Ellie. The big ones. There are multiple moments in that one story where Joel and Ellie, as a relationship, leaves you breathless.

I think of all the problems with video game storytelling, subtlety is the biggest one. Being subtle in a game is difficult because while things do heavily come down to actors and performances, there is an aspect of technology and uncanny valley to deal with too.

Luckily, Naughty Dog has consistently prove you don’t need to worry about that with them. The final moments in The Last of Us between Joel and Ellie will leave you in bed awake for years to come.

I am totally with you. Mass Effect 3, much like this most recent season of Game of Thrones, is about the payoffs. The trilogy very much sets up the tensions between these major conflicts and events. The Geth and the Quarians, and their war for the home planet. The Genophage and the Salarians delivering it, and how that has created a rift int he galaxy ever since. Those are plot points and arcs that exist, feel like they existed, changed, evolved, and then ending in wonderfully dramatic fashion.

And the Citadel DLC is another absolutely fantastic call out. It was so powerful for my cohost and biggest Mass Effect Fan Brian Nabeshin Jackson that he forced both myself and our other cohost Tony Horvath to buy and play it, and it was absolutely worth it. There is an “earned-ness” to the ME3 Citadel DLC, for it’s just incredible “one last ride” feel to it. It really is the “we’re all about to die so let’s just cut back and be together” story. And it works, because of the notes Mass Effect leaned so heavily into ending on.

Mass Effect is definitely the kind of trilogy that leaves you with an impact, if not only because of taking your character through three games.

Logan Wilkinson reviewed this for our site this year and it’s another with Night in the Woods that I am desperate to see through sometime before the end of the year. It’s an excellent idea and it’s portrayed in a super interesting way.

Rime is one that seemed to go really hard under the radar. This is the first big indicative thing I”ve heard in its favor. I know it reviewed well, but it’s just something that I feel there isn’t a lot of awareness of.

Judging from the vibes you describe here and the ones given off by the trailer, I’m not surprised Steven.

We touched on it above a the top, but yes. The growth is the big aspect of Uncharted that makes the fourth feel like the end of an era. Of a saga. Of course the Lost Legacy is out now (still need to play it) and there is room for more smaller games like that in that universe, but Uncharted 4 is the end of a big story.

The small sections where you get to guide the conversations ever so slightly really do pay off because you feel like you got to make the choice to talk about just one thing, and you can just pick what you want to know the most. It’s something uncanny in the series before, and odd for this kind of “action blockbuster” game. It just works though, setting a tone like this is the last story Drake gets to tell, and you get to make it the kind of story you want it to be.

Journey is the other big game for me personally. Few games have just wrecked me from the inside out. While I’ve only played the game twice ever in my life, I still distinctly remember the tears the game gave me both times in its final moments of just pure bliss and freedom. It’s an incredible story told through visuals and cooperation about the journey of life and death, and it’s visual metaphors are just outstanding.

Few games have made me emotional in the way Journey has, and it absolutely helps to have Austin Wintory’s score on its side. Journey is a full sensory experience, and one I’d even confidently call the Fantasia of video games.

Thank you everyone again so much for participating. These are all incredible and interesting and, even more fascinating, modern examples, that all stand out as real cool ways games can have an affect on you.

The Checklist

Just one this week. And it’s for my boy Roger Pokorny. 

IGN Stories https://t.co/kYGdR5dQCx

Roger is making video essays for IGN in a totally new initiative for them, and he is incredible. He delivers fantastic writing and editing together in a sublime series called The Rogformer show on his YouTube channel, and it’s genuinely incredible to see a big outlet like IGN take him under their wing and allow him to bring that format to their site.

Words don’t do justice how proud of Roger I am. This is a long time coming, and no doubt the first success in a string of them, but it’s absolutely worth reiterating how impressed I am with Roger and his growth. He’s a great friend, and a hard worker, and you should absolutely watch his content. It’s worth it.

THat’s my whole bit. I would have written in some more margins, but I am just simply exhausted. It’s off to sleep land for me, but I hope this alternative version of Sunday Chats is still doing you all well. I know the first iteration got a great response, so here’s hoping for round two!

Anyway, that’s all I got.

Cheers.

Goodnight

keep it real.

[canaryatlaw]

Okay, well today was better than yesterday, and I was in a significantly better mood for most of the day, although I'm back to being slightly irked now with no real logical reason (you know, other than the obvious). But yeah. Woke up, ate breakfast (fucking cocoa pebbles not nearly as good as cocoa krispies) and caught the bus to work. Tbh I don't remember that much of what I did for the morning because I kind of ended up napping for a full hour....more on that later, though. I think I was mostly just sourcing stuff and building the timeline for the TPR prep. See, the issue with the sleep thing is like, I can't just push through it. I can't control my eyes closing. And I also can't fucking type. Like it takes me twice as long to type something because every other letter is wrong. I did 30 minutes then tried to get back to work but it wasn't happening so I did another 30 and I can get away with this because I'm an intern and for the most part nobody cares what I do. I took a lunch too because fuck it, I don't care. The interesting assignment of the day came in the afternoon from my boss, she wanted me to watch a VSI (I know I defined that yesterday but I'll be nice and do it again, it's victim sensitive interview) because her computer wasn't sound equipped or whatever and mine was because of the prison calls, lol, so she wanted me to transcribe it verbatim for her. The thing was only 13 minutes long, but obviously took me substantially longer to get through because I can't type on a PC in real time conversation, lol, so I ended up pausing after each line to type it, then generally play it back to make sure I got it right. I ended up with like 13 pages of transcribed notes, so like one per minute of the video. A couple things here. One, I'd never actually watched one of these before, so I didn't really have a context for it. Two, I had no idea what the circumstances were going into this interview- if the girl had made an outcry or what had happened (I'm avoiding giving details for obvious reasons when discussing child sex abuse) but I finished it with the impression that there had been an incident. Then my boss comes back and explains she had read the detective's notes and he said there wasn't gonna be charges and it didn't seem like there was anything there, which of course was not at all what I got from it. Apparently going into it wasn't based on an outcry but a weird hotline call that the little girl had been saying sexually explicit things in school but they unfounded the report as just nothing. So I of course relayed all of this to my supervisor, and she said she'd have to watch it now haha but had my notes as well. So that took me about to the end of my day. I had a 6:30 PT appointment because it was the only one available, and after last week's fiasco I knew there was no way I would make it on time if I took the bus, so I ubered, figuring I should have just enough time to get home, change, and go right back out. Uber was in a price surge so I ended up paying like, double the normal rate (ugh) for it but whatever. I liked the driver a lot, he said I was actually his first customer because this was his first day driving for uber haha so I was like okay, hopefully this will go well! But we started talking and I went into the cases and the reforms that have been populating the news (the more recent child death case that supposedly prompted the DCFS director into reforms that I was ranting about the other day had been pretty widely reported so he brought that one up) and I told him about my case and the ridiculous can't make this shit up facts of it all. And of course we talked the random stuff. We took the street my street is off all the way up because it's pretty much a straight shot, like the bus I take to work and back, except that one goes a few blocks over then shoots down. It had a fair amount of traffic, but I had tried to allocate enough time to make sure it was okay and I arrived at my apartment just at 6:10 which was perfect, I ran in and got changed and did a few other things then came back out at 6:20 to walk over for my 6:30 appointment. While I'm almost there, I get a call from a Long Island number, so I'm like okay, I answer it and it's my psychiatrist that I've been playing phone tag with for two weeks now. Of all the shitty timing!! But I knew because of my mental state lately I did have to have this conversation now, so I ended up standing outside the therapy place on the phone for 15 minutes while motioning to them that I'd been in as soon as possible. It was a good conversation though, I'm glad we had it, and it was definitely necessary. Apparently the deal with the phone tag was the secretary or whoever would take down my message that I needed him to call back, but somehow in there my name got substituted for my mom's, so he ended up calling her repeatedly and trying to figure out what was going on before someone realized OH, it's the daughter who's in Chicago and not Long Island, lol. So that made me feel significantly better than my messages weren't being deliberately ignored. So I told him my exams were over and my anxiety was through the roof, with the Xanax not helping. Then he asked about my sleep, and suddenly the light bulb in my head clicked on and I went OHHHHHHHHHH, YOUR MID MORNING NAPS HAVE BEEN BECAUSE YOUVE BEEN INCREASING YOUR XANAX DOSAGE YOU FUCKING MORON and suddenly that made a lot more sense. He asked some questions about describing the mind racing thing and asked if it was like hyper, and of course I knew where he was going with that so I said it definitely wasn't manic (because it's not) but more just anxiety based. So we ended up swapping out one of my regular meds for what I believe is the generic version of Zoloft, and he said to do whatever with the Xanax since they weren't helping anyway, so I'm gonna cut down on them a lot lol cuz I can't live like this. I do think I was on Zoloft at one point in high school and it wasn't terribly helpful, just one in a long line of antidepressants tried that resulted in a "meh" result, but the circumstances here are fairly different now that I'm on several meds and I have the Wellbutrin to actually treat depression, the Zoloft can potentially help the anxiety, which was definitely not really present in high school or even when I started with my psychiatrist back in 2012 (thanks, law school). I mean, it had started before law school, but that's what's really exacerbated it of course. Hey, it got my brother an OCD diagnosis after 22 years of only ever having super small tics like re-walking out of a room every so often. So hopefully those meds will get things figured out and it'll be better. So I finally got off the phone at 6:40 and of course was now very frustrated because I hate being late, but we just jumped into it instead of doing warm ups so it was fine. I keep getting asked if I'm feeling an improvement in pain, but the answer continues to be about the same, and in fact after PT it almost definitely hurts. It was actually bugging me at work today too, which isn't typical. But we had a good session anyway. Afterwards I walked across the street to Walgreens just because I wanted to grab a type of melatonin I know works for me to use as a control test for the Xanax- to make sure that's the thing that's throwing it off, not being unsure if it's the melatonin. Come home, get some dinner together and start Arrow. I wasn't totally thrilled with the episode given the plot was pretty weak, but it was of course strengthened greatly by the presence of Katie Cassidy and Katrina Law (though I would've liked more than 30 seconds of Katrina). Can I just talk about Katie Cassidy's acting skills though? I'm amazed as to how she's adopted completely different personas to the point where you can tell "who" she's supposed to be just by looking at her- that Laurel, Black Siren, and particularly black siren pretending to be Laurel, but not resembling either in any significant way but an entirely new image. I'm just like damn girl, that's intense. So things are set up for the final battle now, which has to happen on Lian-Yu because everything fucking happens on Lian-Yu, and I'll admit it does seem like it'll be a pretty epic showdown given everyone they've brought in on both sides. Back to that non-existent plot though- like really Oliver? Really??? That had to be the worst plan in existence of plans. You just handed him over and what, expected him to just let everyone go and go skip off into the sunset? Like dude, come on. That was really fucking dumb. So then it's just Oliver and fucking Malcolm, who has somehow managed to stay alive for another season, much to my annoyance. The moment with Nyssa coming in was pretty epic though, but I really hope they told her that besides her sister they were also facing off with E2 Laurel because those two got pretty damn close in season 3 and that could definitely throw her for a loop. Also, why the fuck had they not told Quentin at this point??? Like that was really dumb because you left him super vulnerable to exactly what happened. So yeah, I suppose I'm looking forward to the season finale, mostly for my two homegirls, but hopefully the rest of it will be good too. A tweet on my timeline reminded me that designated survivor was about to come on just as I finished Arrow, so I turned that on to watch live since I knew it was the season finale. Can I just say damn, I love this show so much??! It's so freaking well done in an era of totally overdone dramas, and of course this had the potential to do some incredibly shark jumping being that they blew up the entire government as the premise of the start of the plot. They've handled it really well. I think most of the episode was good and full of action, though I was sad to see Jason is actually dead (I mean, I think we knew he was, it just wasn't formally confirmed). I loved the scene between Kirkman and the reporter, because you can just tell how much respect the reporter gets from him because of how he handled the meeting, and I'm just left thinking whoever handpicked Kirkman as the designated survivor obviously massively underestimated his ability to be an incredible leader of our country. Damn what I would do for him to be our real president right now.....sigh. The speech was great and super satisfying, but I'm also watching the clock because I KNOW they have to leave some sort of cliffhanger disaster to predicate season 2 on, and of course that happened with them basically being like "we're fucked, they're fucked, everyone's fucked" which sounds like a fairly good premise to me. After this I watched Brooklyn 99 which was of course fucking hilarious. After that I got ready for bed, but for some stupid reason when I'm you know on autopilot for my routine I took the morning pills left in my "Tuesday" box instead of the evening pills in the "Wednesday" box (because I refill every Tuesday night) and took the wrong meds, then said well fuck, but my best bet is probably taking the meds I should've taken right now (none that should really interfere with the first) and just skip my morning dosage. And then tomorrow afternoon I can pick up my prescription for my new med so my body is just gonna be a psychopharmacological mess for the next 24 hours but hopefully it won't have any really bad side effects (it really shouldn't) (I'm also very impressed that psychopharmacological is an actual word and I didn't have to just make it up like I normally do when I want to use a form of a word that doesn't exist). Andddd it's past 1 am. I get to arrive at 9:30 tomorrow since we're going straight to a visit, so that'll be nice, assuming I don't fall asleep on the bus again like I did last time 😑. Anyway. Goodnight my little loves. Hope you had the loveliest of hump days.