#spoiler free mini review

[ramblingguy54]

You know how one should never trust the way certain trailers advertise an animated film?

Yeah, don't let the "silly" vibes from Transformers One fool you. This is hands down one of the most lovely surprises, animation wise, I've seen in 2024, overall. They make Optimus & Megatron's foundation of friendship feel genuinely organic, which is all the more heartbreaking seeing it go down the inevitable drain. That entire third act alone cements it not only as a great origin story for Autobots VS Decepticons, but becoming unquestionably my new favorite Transformers film, too.

GO SEE IT. DON'T LET THIS SHIT FLOP! WE NEED MORE STUFF LIKE IT!

[alice-the-demon]

IT'S HAPPY HOUR!! FINALLY!!!

I'm so happy it finally came out! Although I promised myself to not ruin the surprise for myself for when I finally buy the game for the Switch at the end I couldn't resist and watch the whole gameplay of AntonBlast 🥲

I won't spoil anything for you folks, but I'll let you know this: the game is amazing, the levels are creative, the score is fire, the animations are impeccable, we get some funny interactions between Anton and the other characters with a nice dub and, dulcis in fundo, the final boss battle is some of the best and most metal things that I've ever watched.

Like, seriously, my face was like this throughout that whole thing:

I really want to make some fanarts and yap about the game, but I'll wait at least a few weeks to give the ppl in the fandom the time to complete it and not ruin the surprise (like I did to myself lol). So please, don't spoil the game on socials, okay? Good. 👌🏻

[sleepynegress]

About Talk To Me...

I'm currently watching a bootleg and there's a certain kind of horror movie that just pisses me off rather than terrifying me... and it's the kind where people continue to do something terrible/stupid and then consequences happen. This is that kind of movie.

[hattedhedgehog]

My (spoiler-free) thoughts on Dragon Age: The Veilguard

The review embargo has lifted and I can officially say that I've played through Dragon Age: The Veilguard early! 

Here are my spoiler-free thoughts and personal opinions on the overall gameplay experience: 

Narrative:

Rook's dialogue and decisions impact SO MUCH of the game, and come into play later on. From companions remembering your beverage preferences, to whether someone you spared shows up later to help or harm you, it feels like the game is paying attention and that you matter.

The stakes are unbelievably high. The Evanuris are utterly terrifying villains, in ways that Corypheus wasn’t. You really feel the magnitude of their power on a personal level as well as a worldwide level.

Whatever your thoughts on him, Solas is FUN as a character. He’s fun to talk to, fun to talk strategy with, fun to rile up and verbally spar with and fun to grudgingly ally with. Now that he can drop his former act and appear to you as the Dread Wolf, and you get to see his memories, you and he team get to decide how to utilise his knowledge and how far your trust extends.

The setup and payoff of the story beats are absolutely superb. The emotional turmoil as a player of being ensnared by things that was foreshadowed earlier in the game is utterly exquisite. Every thread of the larger tapestry has been woven with so much love by the writing team, and every character’s arc tie into the larger story in interesting ways.

The characters feel like they have full lives outside of the player character. You frequently go exploring their home turf and can meet their friends and family. They interact with each other on their own and move about the Lighthouse to spend time together, leave notes for each other, and talk about each other even when the other isn’t there. The team feels like they all really care about each other as well as you. 

You can tell what your approval rating is with characters, but if you want to romance them you have to put some thought into it. Interactions and world events besides the heart on the dialogue wheel influence their attraction to you.

Gameplay:

The combat is very engaging, and I enjoyed how unique all the enemies were.

Abilities in the skill tree can be refunded so you can redirect to a different specialization, which is really handy if you’re indecisive and overwhelmed at first (like I get when choosing abilities).  Most companions can get healing abilities no matter what class, so you don’t have to worry about balancing your rogues/mages/warriors (most of the time).

Climbing, balancing on ledges, using ziplines and sliding down slopes made environments feel more immersive. Additionally I like how each companion has unique abilities that let them interact with the world (fixing mechanisms, breathing fire, summoning bridges from the Fade, etc), and learning their abilities alongside them helps you grow closer.

The wayfinder light makes everything feel streamlined, so it's way harder to get lost while exploring an area. I hardly had to look at the mini map at all, and usually I’m glued to it! This meant I could actually look around at the beautiful environments and appreciate how lively they were, even without NPCs.

The upgrade system is far less overwhelming than in Inquisition; there are a finite amount of weapons/armour/accessories to be found, which are designed for each specific character like in DA:O and DA:2. There's also no longer crafting from scratch. If you loot an item you already have, it automatically upgrades the single item rather than giving you duplicates.

You know that frustration of coming across higher-level armour that just isn’t as flattering as your current one? Not to worry, you can collect “appearances” which you can toggle on as the visual for the armour while still retaining the benefits of the original.

I cannot stress enough how simple and easy to use the inventory is. It's heavenly. 

Using the shops of specific cities increases your reputation within those cities, which is a good incentive to explore and use the shops. I usually hate in-world shopping but here it was simple, and thinking about it tactically worked pretty well.

Quests sometimes reach a point where you can't continue at your current place in the story, and must return to in later acts. When re-exploring familiar areas, everything feeling big enough to be fresh with each visit, and new loot and codex entires appear.

Edit: something I forgot to mention. In character creator, you get to make your Inquisitor after you make Rook. The build menus are all the same, so manage your energy accordingly for doing it all again immediately after for your Inky. I spent an hour and a half building my Rook and wanted to get right to playing, and had to re-wire my brain a bit to be patient and keep going with the CC. (Seeing my Inquisitor with new graphics was awesome though).

A couple little things I appreciated:

The control sounds are very pleasing. From the whoosh of opening the combat wheel to the clinking of upgrades to the subtle whir of holding the decision button, they're a nice touch.

If companions are interrupted in conversation by combat, they resume it afterwards with a "what were you saying before?".

Photo mode is so fun to play with, and you can adjust blur/brightness/lens/depth within the scene. You can also toggle on and off the visibility of your Rook, your party, NPCs and enemies!

Assan learns new interaction tricks at the Lighthouse as the game goes on.

Nitpicks:

Overall I had an incredibly positive experience. The gripes I had were tiny things like:

I genuinely like the new art style of the game as a whole. However, the blurriness of some of the features in contrast with some elements being very crisp was distracting.

When trying to sell valuables for faction points without using Sell All, it takes quite a long time to count up all the individual sales, and it isn't a live counter. So it's kind of annoying if you get +3 points for each item you sell, need 150 points to get the next tier of items, and over 10K worth of valuables that you want to sell to other factions. 

If you do lots of quests without returning to the Lighthouse often, occasionally companions at the Lighthouse will have dialogue pertaining to the quests you've just finished as if you haven't done them.

You can pet the dogs and cats in the cities, but Rook turns their back to the camera to do it and it blocks most of the action unless you rotate quickly.

Gender stuff:

I was incredibly moved that not only can Rook be trans/nonbinary in the character creator if you so choose, but they get options to feel differently about their identity and journey, and it impacts their dialogue and how they relate to other characters! To access this make sure to interact with Varric's Mirror in your room in the Lighthouse. There are many conversation options throughout the game to discuss your identity with other characters, or relate your change of self to other situations. Crucially, it comes up when entering a romance and you have to communicate with your partner about it, which I never even THOUGHT of including in a game because it seemed impossible to even allow trans main characters to begin with.

There are also multiple trans and nonbinary characters throughout Thedas. What I found the most realistic was that just like in life, it is a consistent presence in any character's life, and comes up in conversation more than once. I have never seen a game this forthcoming and open about the topic of transitioning, and it was so validating. 

Final thoughts:

I adore the other games in the franchise. Something about The Veilguard affected me in a way no other game has. I cried multiple times while playing this game, both from joy and sadness. What struck me most is that the people who worked on this game REALLY listened to feedback from previous games, and were very set on making a piece of art that meant something to people. Even during the last few years of me testing the game, things have been adjusted and changed in direct response to our reactions and suggestions. It's surreal and quite touching.

Mileage will vary, but my playthrough was 70 hours on very low difficulty and I haven't done every side quest yet. I could easily have spent more than 100 hours in the game if I wasn't pressed for time.

I hope you enjoy this game as much as I have. See you in Thedas.

[gale-gentlepenguin]

Gale reviews: Sonic 3

Sonic's 3rd movie has Finally hit theaters.

(Thanks @knightsweeties for the sick art. She really deserves more love and people commissioning her)

Now in most with reviews I try to spit fire everything I saw with the Film and simply state my feelings at the end

But I will review this based on a more analytical standpoint.

The Plot

The Characters

The Choreography

The Message

The Music

The references/Fanservice

Final Thoughts

Now everything Below is Spoilers. So if you dont want to be spoiled. Go watch the movie, then come back.

I would also love to hear everyone elses thoughts on the movie. So feel free to reblog with your thoughts or links to your own posts about the movie.

The Plot

In a top secret GUN facility, lies Shadow. An alien creature discovered in a meteor and has been put in stasis for 50 years. After a mysterious hacker causes havoc. Shadow is awakened and easily escapes.

Meanwhile, Sonic and his friends are enjoying a peaceful family day which is revealed to be sonics Bearth Day (the day he arrived on earth/ birthday)

Sonic and Tom/Donut lord have a talk as Sonic remembers his time before meeting them. Sonic had experienced pain, but didnt let it change him.

GUN reaches out to Sonic, Tails and Knuckles to inform them of a new threat that is in Tokyo. The team head there and find themselves face to face with Shadow, a Hedgehog alien that looks similar to sonic. After getting their butts kick and shadow escapes. Sonic and team learn a bit more about Shadow's origin.

(This is an altered backstory that is different than his video game counterpart)

Shadow was Discovered in a Meteor that crashed on earth. With no memory of his past or where he came from. GUN took him to a research facility where they discovered his incredible powers. In the research facility (on earth) they ran tests and one day tragedy struck, leaving many people injured and dead. Shadow was put in stasis, too dangerous to be kept around, yet too valuable to destroy.

After Commander Walters Explained this, they were attacked by egg drones, and Walters unfortunately dies. But not before giving sonic one of the cards to GUN's ultimate weapon.

Team Sonic find out the drones werent sent by Eggman, but by someone else. Sonic and team investigate and not sure if its an enemy within gun, they decide to only trust eachother and flee from the Chao garden (its a whole thing, its adorable and funny until its tragic)

Team Sonic find out Eggman didnt do this and reluctantly team up to find out who did. Only to discover it was Eggman's Grandpa! Dr.Gerald Robotnik. The head researcher at the facility that watched over shadow.

Gerald was locked up after the events at the research facility, where for 50 years he was imprisoned and in exchange for helping design GUN's greatest weapon, he was freed. And now he has a plan to get that weapon and use it for himself! He recruits his lost grandson, Shadow and the Robotniks take the first key and they leave team sonic to die in a mini black hole!

Also during this, We learn how Shadow and Maria met and basically became best friends. Shadow worried he would be seen as a monster, but Maria told him that she knows its whats on the inside that counts and showed him the stars.

We also see the altered end, The young commander walters tried to stop the GUN soldiers from attacking, but the result was that a canister of energy went unstable and exploded... resulting in the death of Maria... and Shadow's outburst after the Tragedy.

Team sonic escapes the black hole and knows where they are headed. Now joining Tom and Maddie, they decided to head to London to invade a GUN base to get the other key before Team Eggman gets there. They plan the heist and manage to get in and so do the eggmen. (Cue dance sequence)

After a battle between the eggmen, GUN and Team Sonic. Tom manages to trick the Gun comander to give him the key, and because of his altered appearance, gets attacked and nearly killed by Shadow.

The Eggmen and Shadow escape, leaving Team Sonic in a rather dire state. Sonic is angry and wants payback. He gets the master emerald and transforms into Super sonic.

Gerald, Ivo and Shadow are now on Gerald's weapon. The Eclipse Cannon. (which looks like a mix of the space colony arc and the Death Egg) And it is revealed that Gerald plans on DESTROYING the planet. And Dr.Robotnik isnt exactly keen on that causing a fight between the Doctors.

Super sonic arrives and attacks Shadow... who also manages to transform after getting exposed to the Chaos Emeralds. Resulting in a super showdown! A fight that takes them all over the world and ends with Sonic punching shadow to the MOON!

The end of the fight leads to Sonic winning and about to finish it, until he remembers Tom's advice. Sonic and Shadow have their heart to heart. And Shadow Realizes he has been dwelling on his pain for so long that he forgot about the good.

Sonic and Shadow go super again and go to stop the eclipse cannon, just as the Doctors are fighting.

Tails and Knuckles arrive just in time to save Doctor Eggman, and Eggman sends his Grandpa to a well deserved end.

The team manage to stop the laser and Team Sonic barely make it out alive. Shadow and Eggman sacrifice themselves to get the Eclipse cannon away from earth before it goes nuclear and destroys the world from the feedback.

Sonic and friends return home, day saved and have one final race.

and the movie goes to credits.

Followed by two end credit scenes which I will discuss later in the post

---

Overall, its a GREAT plot. There was no scene I felt lingered too long. The movie origin simplifies Shadow's backstory but still has the emotional impact. It also allows Shadow to be a mirror to Sonic in a way that is BETTER than in the games. The plot worked and it added so much depth to the movie universe.

Sonic and Shadow's parallels along with Sonic growing to trust his team more. It was great, I would even say it was perfect.

10/10

______________________________________________________________

The Characters

Sonic: Ben Schwartz's portrayal of Sonic in this was the best of the 3. I think he nailed this version of Sonic and I felt the comedy and the seriousness in it. Also all of the references made by Sonic felt natural, it was well done. 9/10

Tails: Colleen O'Shaughnessey, the current voice of Tails in Modern Sonic didnt disappoint. I do wish he got more lines but I do think his presence felt more here than in his introduction. Tails really showed off his intellect and cute naive nature. He bantered with Sonic and Knuckles flawlessly. Colleen deserves props for her voice work, and fun fact. She is the voice of Emilie agreste in Miraculous Ladybug. anyway. 8/10

Knuckles: Idris Elba is my favorite Voice for Knuckles. His Lines in this movie were PERFECT. (The detective pikachu bit was hilarious) he had some of the funniest lines and also delivered some heartfelt speeches. Idris has PERFECTED knuckles. 10/10

Ivo Robotnik/Eggman and Gerald Robotnik: Jim Carrey is the runaway star of the film. His performance of the Robotniks was incredible. Never did I feel someone have so much on screen chemistry with Himself. They had the funniest sequence in the movie. They both are crazy yet distinct. They also had a great fourth wall break moment. The Banter is perfect.

The emotional highs of Eggman and Gerald being so different yet so enchanting. The moment we saw how Gerald was blinded by his grief over Maria that he doesnt even care about eggman. He is still down with destroying everything.

While Eggman realizing that he does have one person that cares. its such a touching end.

10/10

Shadow: Keanu Reeves is as sonic put it in the first movie (A National Treasure). Keanu nails the character perfectly. His subdued and stand off tone comes out perfectly from shadow.. the deadpan delivery of his lines are so in character. And when he needs to get emotional, Keanu hits it perfect. Shadow feels fleshed out, he feels real. And the love of Latinas is CANON! I love how Shadow's actions feel understandable. Shadow even shows how he is fine accepting his end at the hands of Sonic because all he knows is pain... It isnt until Sonic reminds him of the good, that he can move to try and save the world. 10/10

The other Humans: Tom and Maddie are stand out stars. They are in the movie the right amount and have good banter, while also delivery the good emotional message. Commander Walters is a good guy and I like how the movie made him try to save shadow and Maria, seeing them both as innocent. Agent Stone is still peak, Lee's work as Eggman's henchman is perfect as always. 8/10

Alyla Browne's performance of Maria was great, she gave the audience just enough to show why Shadow losing her was so devastating. And she had some fun quirks yet deeply cared for Shadow. It was cute, funny and deserves to be talked about. 9/10

(Edit: I am adding this because APPARENTLY this is a thing. There is no mention of Maria's disease. I think the main reason it goes unmentioned is because Shadow wasnt Created by Gerald in this, he was found. So the Cure part of Shadow's existence isnt there. I dont find this diminishing towards Maria's end. I think it goes in a way where Maria is the only one that sees shadow as a person rather than just a tool, and that allows for us to understand the loss. Maybe it was too much for a movie plot and was simply cut for time. Either way I dont see it as a positive or negative change)

The rest of the actors were serviceable and i give them a 7/10

Overall 9/10 in total

______________________________________________________________

The Choreography

The action scenes in this movie were AMAZING,

From Shadow's first fight with Team Sonic. The moterbike scene with the akira slide was (Chef's kiss)

the Heist scene and surprise Dance sequence was INSPIRED. (I was cracking up)

The battle on the gravity floor was suspenseful and i loved it.

The Super Sonic and Super Shadow fight that was so hype I felt like a giddy 7 year old!

THE Punch to the moon! It was immense.

AND WHEN LIVE AND LEARNED PLAYED WHEN THEY WERE TRYING TO FIGHT THE DROIDS!

10/10 no notes. It was perfect

__________________________________________________________

The Message

The movie's main message was about not letting your past pain change who you are, and that no matter what, there is always a choice. And what it means is, dont let the pain of the past consume you. Tragedy hurts but we can move forward. Sonic and Shadow are shown throughout the movie, Sonic being the one that moved past his pain while shadow was consumed by it.

Sonic briefly gets consumed by his rage over what happened to Tom and almost loses himself when fighting Shadow. But it was in the moment, remembering the kindness of Tom, that he remembered who he was, and to not let the pain change him. And with that, shadow got to see from Sonic that there was another way. He had been in stasis... only thinking of that pain and loss that he failed to remember the good. But now he could and he could make a choice. Shadow and Sonic both made choices for the better.

The parallels were gorgeous and I think it fits the movie perfectly.

The secondary message is about trust, and that is shown through Sonic remembering that Tails and Knuckles are his teammates and friends and that he can count on them. He is never alone.

10/10 Its been a long time since I felt a movie has Nailed its message. Not since Puss in Boots: Last wish

----------------------------------------------------------------------------

The Music

It had a Remaster of Live and Learn. Its a f***ing 10/10

It also had a lot of clever uses for songs and references. But thats just a bonus. Seriously. I can not tell you how stoked I was when I heard it.

______________________________________________________________

The references/Fanservice

From Fourthwall breaks to Sonic adventure battle 2 to Shadow the Hedgehog references.

This movie is a treasure trove of fun blink it and you miss it references. The Chao garden, DETECTIVE PIKACHU! AND MORE!

It had a GREEN LANTURN MOVIE REFERENCE! And it killed me.

But if I had to tell you that the super sonic and Super shadow scenes were PEAK fanservice.

Yet some how, when I thought I could not be serviced anymore. The end credit scenes.

The second one confirming Shadow survived.

and the first one, Revealing Metal Sonic, but not just Metal Sonic. An ARMY of Metal sonics.

But just when it couldnt get more hype AMY ROSE APPEARS AND SHE LOOKS AMAZING

I felt like I was OVERDOSING ON PURE FANDOM HYPE AND BLISS

I wanted a cigarette after that, and I Dont even smoke.

12/10

______-_____________________________________________________

Final Thoughts

This movie... it was perfect for Sonic fans. I think even those that arent sonic fans could enjoy the film (probably more of a 7 or 8 for them). But the immense hype, the joy I felt in that theater as a sonic fan And to the people watching in the theater with me. It was legit.

I believe this film is the best movie I have seen all year. And that even tops Deadpool and Wolverine.

this movie.

It is a 10/10 as a Sonic enjoyer.

Would watch again, and again, and AGAIN

TL:DR: WATCH THIS MOVIE! DO IT

[aboutzatanna]

Review: Zatanna: Bring Down The House #1-5

Overall, I would give this story a 3/10.

**SPOILERS AHEAD**

The main strength of the mini series is the incredible art by Javier Rodriguez. Under DC's 'Black Label' imprint, writers are free to reinterpret characters without the burdens of continuity and explore different takes on familiar character. The primary story of this mini however, as written by Mariko Tamaki , left a lot to be desired.

In this universe, a childhood incident involving her accidentally killing another kid with magic lead to Zatanna suppressing her power. Also in this universe, Zatara is not a good father, but a cold neglectful one who also seemingly perishes whilst trying to have Zatanna do real magic.

In this universe, Zatanna lives with her rabbits in a shabby condo, does magic shows for free (which raises questions on how she makes a living) and refuses to utter the word magic. Everything changes however, when Zatanna gets caught up in a war between the casters and the demons. Oh and there is also a talking bunny rabbit. Also, John Constantine is also in the series because of course he is.

The story starts off with an interesting premise but it never builds up on it. Okay, so Zatanna accidentally kills a kid with her magic. What about the other kids present there? Do they know what happened? If so why didn't they tell everyone? What about the kids parents? We see one panel with 'Missing' posters with that kids photos. Did Zatanna ever clear it up with their kids parents?

Then there is Zatara, unlike other versions, this Zatara is cold, distant and neglectful of Zatanna. He teaches her the magic that got the boy killed and nearly gets himself killed while trying to take Zatanna's powers for himself. It begs the question; since regular Zatanna became a stage magician because it was family business and because she loved her Dad, why would she pursue it in this universe if their relationship was not good? What does she get out of it? What makes it worthwhile for her? It also makes you wonder how other characters in this universe (aside from the Casters) perceived Zatara. Did they seem him as a hero without knowing of his dark side? Or did they find him off? We see a brief photo of Zatara's Golden Age nemesis, Tigress which makes you wonder what their relationship might have been like.

There is also the character of Miss Perkins who wants to hire Zatanna to perform at the Millenium Hotel Group. It leads you to wonder why, since this Zatanna has not been shown to be a particularly impressive stage magician. There is also a mention of the Justice League coming to knock on her door, which also makes you wonder, why? Because this Zatanna isn't one known for her feats of heroics. As far as she knew she only cast two spells in her life and they both went haywire, she didn't even known she was casting spells in her sleep until the rabbit told her and they were pretty benign ones. The League appears at the end again to offer her membership but you're left scratching your head again because the big showdown with her Dad happened in her head. So what exactly drew the League to this version of Zatanna?

John Constantine's presence in the story feels unnecessary as well. He didn't provide any exposition that couldn't have been provided by the Rabbit. Feels like he was there because every modern writer these days seems to think every Zatanna story has to have Constantine in it. If the story needed some fanservice then Zee could have hooked up with anyone. About the only positive I could give the scene is that when offered the choice of laying low and going into a fight with little to no control of her powers, Zatanna chooses to instead face her father head on. I like that part but I don't think John needed to be in the story for that to happen.

With the exception of that moment where she decides to confront her father and the actual confrontation itself, Zatanna spends the whole story getting knocked about like a leaf in the wind. A strucutre like that isn't a problem but the story never fills out the details or give us any deeper insight to her character.

Stuff happens because the writer things these beats need to happen in a Zatanna story and not because they make sense according to the plot. Zatanna finds out that her ex was sent to kill her, the same ex who left her one night with a birthday present and never called, the same ex that whisked her away to Paris to save her from a genocide and he only told her because he blurted it out incidentally and she decided to pry it out of him.

This Zatanna grew up afraid and guilty of using magic because it backfired and killed a child her own age as well as her own Dad. She spends her days bouncing from foster home to foster home and becomes a stage magician because......?????. None of it is made clear within the context of a story, she is a stage magician because the character is classically a stage magician. Why she even becomes one in this universe given the baggage she carries is a mystery.

Also, what about her mom? The series gives us the Palace of Casters, the Stranger and the Celestial as the place where Zatara hails from and became their greatest magician. I'm not opposed to giving Zatara a different backstory in an out of continuity title but Sindella already comes from a magical land and is sorcerer herself. Can't help but wonder if the story would have worked better if it had been about Sindella trying to guide her daughter and help her overcome her grief and make peace with her past.

Overall, the mini follows a formula that's become all too trite in recent years: there is a war on magic/magic is dying/some powerful being is devouring magic --> Zatanna's power is not working/not enough or she doesn't get whats happening --> Constantine appears to show how much more smarter and competent he is than Zatanna or any other magical --> they sleep together but it turns out he was lying to her or keeping secrets from her --> Zatanna is mad (usually) but eventually gets her mojo back and confronts the threat and beats it easily.

Rinse and repeat since the Nu 52 reboot in 2011. When Dini wrote the Zatanna ongoing in 2010, the main problem was not having villains that could match up to her power. Now the problem is writers not wanting her to be good at or competent character at all.

Coming back to full circle, the main highlight of the mini is the art by Javier Rodriguez; the sequence where Zatanna is running and a shadow is chasing her was eerie and well done. The dream like sequences of her speaking to her Dad were very well composed with some great colour choices. The action sequences from the theater to the Caster's palace to the one in Zatanna's mind felt appropriately cinematic. You can feel that something big was happening. The artwork was lush and the panel layouts were very creative. In my opinion, the best sequence was the climax with Zatanna confronting her Dad. The final panel with her blowing his dusty remains away was >chefs kiss< .

But ultimately the story itself needed to be better fleshed out.

This mini didn't quite meet my expectations. Lets hope the next one by Jamal Cambell is better.

[yumeka-sxf]

1-year anniversary post and future projects

My blog turned 1-year old today! 😃 (I also have a new blog banner and profile pic for the occasion!) I was lowkey hoping I'd hit the 1,000 follower milestone before then, but I got close - about 890 followers as of now! I'm very humbled that so many people enjoy my SxF content ❤️ Thank you all so much for your Likes, Reblogs, and kind messages~ Even though I wish I had joined the SxF fandom sooner, better late than never! The series has been around for about four years now, which is still a relatively short time for a popular shonen manga. So I'm hoping there will be plenty more SxF content to indulge in for years to come!

As you've probably seen, I've been reblogging my Twiyor analysis posts as a build-up to my continuation of that project for season 2 of the anime. And I'm happy to report that my planned start date for new analysis posts will be Tuesday, December 12th! On that day I'll post the new installment, Part 19, with a new post each Tuesday after until I finish covering the season 2 episodes. I know it seems like I'm dragging it out, but it takes a long time for me to not only write each post, but to revise and proofread them as well...the more chances I get to proofread my posts over time, the better they turn out. I also want to make sure I don't get too far ahead of the current episodes (since I still want to make the posts manga-spoiler free as much as possible). Since season 2 is only going to be 12 episodes, there won't be as many posts as last time, but the topics are just as compelling! I've been so excited to finally delve into analyzing the cruise arc 😄

I should also mention that late December/early January are going to be very busy times for the fandom: there's the movie release, the game release, the season finale, another art book that I'll want to scan, and the light novel being released in English! Of course I'll be making posts covering all of this, as well as my usual merch and chapter/episode review posts. I'm also planning to do some kind of post mini-series for the game where I write about my experiences with it in a daily journal kind of format. We'll see...there's going to be so much to cover at the end of the year, I hope I won't get overwhelmed 😅

Anyway, thank you all again for a wonderful year of SxF goodness~ Here's to many more years of joy from our beloved fake family!

[runawaycarouselhorse]

[Power-Noia mini-review, spoilers]

Power-Noia is one of the episodes I never saw air on Cartoon Network here and watching it now, I can see why. It was probably deemed too scary, like another Him-centric episode (All Chalked Up) I never caught on TV. It's always cool and creepy to see how Him exploits fears and psychologically terrorizes the girls.

Very stylish animation and cool art in this one!

Blossom's nightmare about failing preschool and "Ms. Keane" and the "class" robotically droning about how a report card is the single most important factor when judging a person's worth was so bleak...

The eay you could hear Him under Ms. Keane's voice was so accurately demonic and so CREEPY. When Him's influence was waning and Blossom was seeing through it, Him's illusions/glamour started to weaken and fail and she could see more of Him and Him's voice became clearer than Ms. Keane's. VERY well-done.

Awww, poor Buttercup's arachnophobic! She got so scared, she stopped being able to fly. ;_; It's funny that goading, not comforting, gets Buttercup to fight and face her fears, she's so competitive, fff. I like that Blossom had a strategy for them to get around and defeaf most of the spiders, even while unable to fly!

We know Bubbles fears the dark, but maaan, it's always corrupting things she loves, like stuffed animals, with Him... that creepy nightmare with those creepy plushies telling Bubbles they'll tear out her stuffing and replace her eyes with glass ones that stare with a vapid expression, CREEPY... gruesome implied imagery.

Bubbles breaking free out of love for her sister was so, so cute.

Bubbles saving Blossom! ♡

I wondered if they were trying to stretch it out by Blossom not being able to explain it's Him's doing, but it's likely because Him controls the dream so much and controls them more when they're afraid... he's a demon after all, hence the stronger, more sinister appearance here. When she did try to finally explain a little, Him violently interrupted.

I can guess why this one didn't air on our Cartoon Network. ^^;,,

Awesome fight scenes aside, some cute details: Blossom turns and clings to Buttercup while having a nightmare. Buttercup... is not very sympathetic or comforting, fff, but the detail is cute.

[pukei-pukei]

Spoiler-Free Wilds Review

I've played through the bulk of Wilds content available at launch and figured I'd share my thoughts on it here. My platform is Steam/PC. TLDR at the bottom!

Gameplay

The fights are great - which is good, considering that's the main point of the game! I can't recall a time I got really frustrated or bored during a hunt; hitboxes were good, movesets were fun (and often visually incredible), and the difficulty felt pretty reasonable. I didn't cart once in Low Rank and I cart rarely in High Rank, but I've been around the block with these games and I know what I'm doing. I can imagine Rey Dau and Arkveld are wiping the floor with new hunters.

I've only used Insect Glaive so far and I quite like this iteration of it. The wound breaking focus attack gets you all three Kinsect essences, which chains very well into the new flashy Super Spin attack that costs all Kinsect essences. I gotta say it feels bizarre to use charge attacks on IG, but I do love the Super Spin. (That's not what it's actually called but it's what I'm calling it.)

The Seikret is very cute and very convenient. Almost too convenient. I've been making an effort to learn the layout of the locales, but you can absolutely just have AutoBird take you everywhere and practically not interact with the environment at all. You gotta change the control scheme to manual though, trying to go anywhere with the default control type feels like trying to tame a wild horse. Horrible.

The Palico is also very good in this entry. Almost too good. From the start of the game they basically have every gadget from World equipped simultaneously, and upgrading to have things like Vigorwasp Revive or a damn mini airship is as easy as hunting one monster or catching a bug. They can even clear status ailments now!

The multiplayer mechanics are, uh... something. Once you're in a quest together it's the same as usual, though wound management can be a hassle sometimes. I need them and my teammates also need them and there's not that many to go around.

However, actually getting in the same session with friends is way more of a hassle than it needs to be. There's like three or four different ways to join each other and none of them are intuitive. Link party? Lobby? Environment link? Huh??? I miss the sessions from World, especially the fact you could just set it so your Steam friends can easily join but no one else can. The ability to add friends in the game is really nice, though, and I love the Online Singleplayer option. Finally! A PAUSE BUTTON!

Environments

The environments are one of the main selling points of the game and they definitely don't fall short. The locales are massive and spectacular with very unique takes on the classic Monster Hunter biomes. (The final locale is even more unique, but that's big spoiler territory.)

The seasons look incredible, but they don't seem to have much of an actual impact on hunts, honestly. They do absolutely have gameplay impacts, but not quite as much as I'd hoped. Mostly tweaks to the kinds of monsters and gathering nodes. Not sure what I'd change about them, though; maybe altering the map a bit for certain seasons, like having certain paths blocked off or opened up depending on the season.

I will say it's bizarre that they kept the tracks system from World, but just show you where every monster is on the map anyway. This entry is supposed to focus on hunting immersion, there's tracks implemented, but they kept the omniscient map from Rise? Huh?? I miss having to actually track stuff instead of the bird just Knowing.

Also you can catch critters but not put them anywhere. Why??

Story

Surprisingly for a MH game, the story is actually decent this time around. Nothing to write home about, this still isn't a story-centric game, but a few moments did hit me hard and I liked a lot of the characters. Its integration into the gameplay was a bit annoying at times with a lot of scripted sequences, but overall I enjoyed it.

The implications are wild(heh) for the series lore as a whole, though; the final boss is one of my new favorite monsters purely because of how monumental it is! If you know, you know. Even if you're not familiar with The Lore the cutscene before the fight is sick as hell. (I'm suspecting we got a Rise situation here where the real HR final boss is coming in a Title Update, though...)

I would die for Nata. He is my son

Technical

Everyone's probably heard of the beta origami monsters by now, and I'm very disappointed to say they remain in the full game. Granted, it's not on every hunt and then it's only for a minute or two before the models load in, but that's just one of a lot of pretty grievous graphical and performance issues.

It's not unplayable (for me) by any means, but there's stupidly long loading times. Even once I'm in a locale, everything (monsters, terrain, NPCs, etc.) often looks like a blurry polygonal mess while everything actually loads in. It can take like thirty seconds to load the map or a conversation with an NPC.

My computer (which is, admittedly, a laptop) is pretty good, I can consistently get 60fps on World with close to max graphics, but this is all happening with Wilds on low settings! Hopefully most of this will get fixed with later patches.

EDIT: I managed to cram the game onto my laptop's SSD and that seems to have fixed a lot of the graphics issues. Haven't played a ton with it on this drive yet but I'm optimistic.

TLDR

Must-play for any series fan, but has way more than its fair share of jank for the price. The story is decent, fights are awesome, and the difficulty is reasonable and fun for LR/HR. Designs for monsters and environments are incredible - when they load properly.

Definitely recommend, but if you're not set on playing it ASAP it's reasonable if you want to wait for performance patches and/or a sale.

[nebulaad]

it's over I did it avowed review under the cut with the caveat that I need to immediately replay it now that I'm out of the weeds because I'm the kind of gamer one could call schtewpid and I need to have the whole thing stretched out in front of me before I can really grasp it.

overall I think it's a good game, pretty expensive although another caveat is that I got the game for free so I can't do a value assessment of it. it's an EXCELLENT pillars of eternity game if you're absolutely ass backwards new to the series, everything is very bite sized, streamlined, and there aren't really major spoilers to the other two games except for that which is like, basic conceptual premise (ie the Dyrwood underwent the Hollowborn Crisis, Ukaizo has recently been rediscovered, Eothas exist...ed?). I think if you liked Avowed it's really worth it to go back and play Pillars 1 and 2, but don't fill up the tags with how much you want it to not be a top down iso. Nobody asked.

plot and companion spoilers (critical) under a cut, everything has a header and a tldr at the bottom

Plot

So okay, I thought the main story needed more cohesion between the colonial storyline and the Sapadal storyline. They frequently felt like two entirely different things and I found myself having to choose between my motivations frequently in dialogue, which made it all the easier to say "fuck Aedyr", something that I suffered absolutely no consequences for and literally the emperor never came back or mattered at all. I pulled a mini-coup and he didn't even send me a letter about it.

Colonialism is something the series hasn't shied away from—the conflict between Rautai and the Deadfire that Kai frequently mentions is the entire plot of Pillars 2—but it felt more shallow this time around. Some of it was the natural pruning of mechanics between a text-based game and a 3D game, which I don't resent them for because everything seemed thoughtfully chosen by people who live on this planet and play games for fun. Maybe it's just because I have experience juggling companions who were at each others throats because of political alignments that it all felt too easy for me to immediately and without reservation act with hostility towards Aedyr—make no mistake, it would have also been annoying to have to play "guy who doesn't know what colonialism is" for the first half of the game, but I felt myself leaning on my motivation to end the dreamscourge to avoid either clicking my heels and singing the national anthem or just for no discernable reason immediately turning on my countrymen in favour of a wildly hostile island that had never asked for my help. it wasn't even really framed as a choice they were asking me to make, but rather a question I had to continuously answer.

I wanted for...consequences. Lewwwwwwdwyn wasn't a consequence because while I'm sure it varies a little across character decisions, I'm sure in most scenarios she's still the final boss fight, you know? And even if she isn't, I never felt a real menace from her...? We talked a lot. Everyone told me she was evil. She did evil things entirely out of my control and without any input from me. Like she didn't feel like a force I could prevent so much as just continuously run into. The emperor NEVER came back I sent his colony back in a casket and didn't even get a letter about it. The ambassador is my friend no matter what I do or say and is on my side about lewwwdyn so like...what of it.

I felt stronger consequences in how the leaders of the living lands dealt with me, but in the end that never really came to anything either. I let the archmage cast her spell and was told unequivocally to get the hell out of thirdborn...but I wasn't BANNED from being there and in the end she wasn't HARDER to convince about whether or not to unite with everyone else.

tl;dr, you arrive as an envoy for a colonialist power and that never, ever matters except in the most superficial way possible, a confusing misstep for a series that's already done the random outsider now involved in the mass colonialist project they stumbled into plotline and did it well.

Companions

this is maybe the thing that made the least sense to me from a design perspective. the only way I can justify it is like...immersion, to feel like you're not doing the main party pick up for the first part of the game, but it gave me an anxiety the entire time that I was going to get less time with certain companions because you don't have all four until you actually start and get like, 1/7th of the way through the third out of six areas (the last two being like, final zones where the regular story has abated). their recruitment being so far apart made me definitely feel extremely weird about the rate at which I was "bonding" with them, and it's worth noting that the last two companions' (both of the women) have their personal quests resolved almost entirely offscreen or in conversation, whereas the two recruited earliest have unique areas. despite being recruited at cosmically the same time, Kai still manages to have a more cohesive thread than Marius.

they're also all very sweet. very kind. very friendly. very supportive of each other. don't get me wrong, it's better written than other games I've criticized for the same thing, but I'm officially opening a prayer circle to make studios stop fucking doing this. I don't want to be in a safe space support group for all of my companions. especially towards the end they start making a point to ask after my wellbeing and it's like...I know you can do better than this. I don't want a sharing circle. I am a person who exists in this world with circles of supportive and helpful friends, some of whom do therapy for realisies, attending or professionally. they're not ON 24/7. I need studios to stop making me feel therapized it sucks so bad every time. I don't need a feelings circle, I am under psychic siege by god and also their enemy, shitty god.

Kai

He's the Eder of this game: he's there to be your friend, even as shit gets weirder and weirder, and it's pretty unclear why he's still here except that he just likes you. he says it outright at some point: he likes you like he liked someone who meant a lot to him in his past, something he didn't expect to experience again, and so he's with you. the game doesn't waste time making this true: very early your ass dies and Kai is experiencing some sort of grief over your death for some reason, despite the scant couple of days and inarguable colonial interference you represent. none of that matters to kai. he's your friend.

Kai's quest is threaded through the acts the best, but he kind of disappears in the back half until it's time to piss him off really bad. I felt a jolt of unexpected thrill shoot through me—in order to achieve my stated goals, I had to directly and purposefully endanger kai's settlement, and he was fucking furious! this thread aged well as we got to solace and he clearly took a contradictory opinion about the sanctity of life as soon as he wasn't directly emotionally involved! it was hypocritical! he was lashing out!

until we got to camp, and then he was fine again. because he's your friend.

Kai's quest is the best written and most sensible: he's a vagrant, a wanderer, he avoids emotional bonds, and he torments himself over the death of a man he loved and abandoned. in the end, he stops carrying its dead weight forward and is able to move on with happy memories instead of horrible burdens. I just wish it had more impact on his character.

Marius

Marius baffles me perhaps the most out of any of the companions. He's a gruff wilderness survival expert who we hire to do some urban tracking. He continues travelling with us out of gruff fondness and because we'll clearly die without him, and for most of the second zone he's just not there. I had him in the party the entire time and he had nothing to do with anything. he had no opinions outside of how things were bad and boring and Giatta's situation was fucked up.

and then we get to the fourth zone and Marius has a full mental breakdown. he's physically anxious, he's nauseous, he's terrified. where was all this? before? we learn eventually that Marius is severely repressed, something that never came across in dialogue and always read as purposeful secret-keeping. He repressed his own memories of a traumatic CULT HE WAS IN AS A CHILD, something that like...has no impact on anything, is not seeded into earlier acts, and barely exists outside of the quest-specific area in the tusks that it lives in let along outside of the tusks at all.

it's all just so sudden. there were opportunities to thread this needle sooner—giatta's parents upset him, but their gruesome and unusual fate doesn't seem to fluster him more than it does anyone else, even though that might have easily been a moment for him to briefly reconnect with his trauma in a way that startles and upsets him (enough to talk about, anyway, to lay some groundwork). he talks a lot about disliking solace keep, but solace keep hardly has anything to do with his problems.

Marius wasn't built well, and having companions constantly babying him in Galawain's teeth got very old very quickly because very suddenly the guy who was leaving pointed hints in other companions belongings in camp rather than just directly confront them was suddenly part of a even breathing safe circle with everyone. it was a switch that was flicked, rather than something with build up and payoff. I'm also mean and standoffish, and when people talk to me like that it makes me feel like I should start swinging. this isn't true of everyone, certainly, but it was a pivot that didn't feel earned and a plot twist that swiped my legs out from underneath me for literally no reason because it had nothing to do with anything and stopped mattering as soon as it was resolved.

Giatta

Poor Giatta, I don't really know what they were trying to do with her. The quests are built so that you finish the entire zone where she lives and works before recruiting her. Her entire personal quest is a series of camp chats you have where you have to decide for her if she continues to do animancy (unsure why this is a question, outside of it being the thing that killed her parents, sort of) or not (always with the assumption that by not doing so she is committing some major and grave betrayal of her parents' legacy, for some reason). In the last zone before the actual endgame, you find out what actually went wrong with her parents. She very sensibly points out that knowing what went wrong does not materially change the situation as all factors are out of her control and were out of the control of everyone involved, and while it's a bad situation, it's not one that had a solution that someone overlooked. I kept her around a lot in the back half, if only because she was the only one being nice about Sapadal.

Yatzli

I didn't not like Yatzli, but I definitely didn't like her. In theory I liked her, and in practice she was a randy auntie stereotype who spoke in a lot of easily identifiable memes, references, and low hanging innuendo (like that). She's the only companion whose personal ability isn't able to be replicated by the player by any means, and so she had to come along for most of the ride because if she didn't then I lost access to areas and chests. She did the most coddling out of the group (my personal beef that the coddlers are definitely her and Giatta, while the menfolk are also very open and supportive they do get opportunities to be emotionally repressed and standoffish while the women are always open and communicative), and her personal quest was a series of low stakes options for what she does after dealing with Sapadal and the political situation in the Living Lands. In the zone before last, you're suddenly reminded that one time she told you about a reoccuring dream she has that has never come up since, and it turns out her soul is awakened and maybe she could also be the last keeper of the knowledge and culture of a dead civilization.

notably, she kept asking me what she should do, and I kept saying I wanted her to choose, and she kept insisting that I tell her what to do because she "wanted my opinion". this, more than anyone else, laid bare that she was asking because she wasn't keeping track of any other variables. none of my choices mattered to her and why would they, because we recruit her in the back half so she hasn't really been present for most of my decisions to date. she was asking because she needed an endgame choice, and I chose and she liked my decision okay but not a lot. this is something giatta does too, but hers are a little better hidden: or, Giatta's choices really are a matter of opinion where I don't have to say "I think you should give up animancy" (I don't care if she does or she doesn't) but I CAN repeatedly tell her that her parents aren't malevolent ghosts hovering over her shoulder ready to strike if she takes a day off.

Yatzli, however, is directly asking me what she should do when she's done here, and won't take "I don't care" for an answer (and initially it was less of an "I don't care" and more of a "I want you to choose for yourself" but after the third time it was a very firm "I don't care").

tldr; let's all pray together for the downfall of companions who holds hands and talk through their problems and communicate openly and clearly. only then can we reclaim the assholes of games past. besides that, everyone is fine and likeable but paced weirdly and clearly waiting to be told what to do with themselves, emotionally speaking.

[nixynebula]

"Reunite"

Art based off a scene from a lovely fanfiction called "Lost Time". My rendition of Kaden's outfit was inspired by Gashu-Monsata's reference sheet.

Mini spoiler-free review below to see if you'd be interested in reading!

The story is as much about Kaden as it is about Ratchet and Clank. It starts off during when Tachyon attacked, and fast forwards twenty years later where he's in the new dimension with the rest of the Lombaxes.

The way the author portrayed Kaden's suffering after surviving "The Exodus" and with a reason that actually makes sense as to why he didn't go back for Ratchet in the original dimension was very believable. I really related to Kaden in this story for personal reasons.

The only thing I'd have liked to see is to have had spent a bit more time with Ratchet and Clank before they went to the Lombax dimension and to have fleshed out their prologue a little more.

Overall good pacing with a solid, cohesive story. I highly recommend it!

Read the story here: Lost Time: Redux - Chapter 1 - ACleverName8 - Ratchet & Clank [Archive of Our Own]

[allthishumanityforfree]

Spoiler Free Gladiator II Mini-Review

-Better than I suspected from someone who does not like these big historical films

-Paul was good, especially the accent, but he was a bit miscast. He needed quieter, subtle roles. This was a waste of his skills, although he physically was great.

-It's Denzel's film. Give him a supporting actor nom, he deserved the money and praise.

-Joe's acting has impressed me this year, Fred was also good

-Pedro was my VIP, he looked so so good.

-CGI was terrible, like distractingly TV show bad

-I hated the ending and it really dampened the whole film for me.

[sage-lights]

IDK if you'll remember me but I sent in an ask a month (????) ago about getting closure on Sword AF + saying Amanda was Sapphic™️, but I just saw Smosh vs. Aliens AND IT'S SO GOOD. I find this format of a miniseries with a rotating cast of characters to sound more sustainable from Sword AF.

I'm also really happy w the lineup- Angela and Courtney as cousins?? Amanda as a greasy arsonist? Chanse as literally the most tragic little girl in the whole universe? IM SO SOLD ON IT! GEORGE IS SUCH AN ENGAGING STORYTELLER AS WELL. not that damien wasn't, but you can tell GM-ing is george's forte while damien's has always been characterization as opposed to driving a story (again, not to say that damien wasn't good at driving stories i just prefer when silly guy do deep voice).

I must admit though, I lean towards wanting Courtney and or Amanda as permanent Dread cast and having two or three other cast members rotating as characters. Almost entirely because the only thing I've seen of Smosh vs Zombies so far is fanart and clips of their homoerotic codependent-coded friendship and Courtney is also fucking hysterical in vs. Aliens!!!! I also feel like Amanda has so much fun w roleplay, and I have fun seeing her do it!

I am loving Dread so far and will be spending my weekday binging Smosh vs Zombies, I hope they keep it up but if they can't, I prefer that it has that sense of finality that BAF Legacy had so, if we never get it again, each narrative feels properly and satisfyingly wrapped up.

That was my unsolicited review of Dread. 100/10 would recommend (also George Primavera sounds like a sitcom name and I really fuck w that.)

hello friend!! very happy you came back and left your thoughts!

i agree, dread seems way more sustainable compared to sword af. hopefully this format will mean we get more ttrpg mini series throughout the rest of the year and into next year. i enjoy george as a dm, but i think it would also be fun to have some new guest dms too (selfishly, i really wanna see brennan dm the smosh cast).

i’m very very excited for next episode, especially because *SPOILER!!!* mackenzie died…chanse and his clumsy hands. i hope you enjoy smosh vs zombies too! feel free to come back and lmk your thoughts on that too!

[light-wolf]

I want to start doing mini-reviews for games I finish, hopefully to help motivate me to go through my immense backlog. Might also expand it to other media later but for now I'm focused on just videogames. Please keep in mind this will be entirely subjective based on my personal enjoyment with each game and it's not meant to be a "professional" review at all.

So here's the first one!

Title: Murder by Numbers

Platform: Nintendo Switch (also on PC)

Genres: Visual novel, puzzle

Publisher: The Irregular Corporation

Developer: Mediatonic

Release year: 2020

Murder by Numbers is a visual novel set in '90s Los Angeles. You follow Honor Mizrahi, a TV actress who co-starred in a successful detective show before suddenly getting fired for no apparent reason. While struggling to deal with this turn of events, Honor finds herself in the middle of a series of murder mysteries, and partnered up with the amnesiac robot SCOUT, she'll attempt to solve each case as she goes from playing a detective to being a real one.

If you've ever played an Ace Attorney game, the structure of Murder by Numbers will be very familiar to you (except for the lack of courtroom action). You investigate crime scenes, interrogate witnesses, collect evidence and present that evidence to characters to unlock more conversation options and advance the story.

What makes Murder by Numbers unique is that each piece of evidence takes the form of a nonogram puzzle that you need to solve. As a huge fan of nonograms who has wasted hundreds and hundreds of hours of his life in Picross games, this was one of the main reasons I wanted to play this game in the first place. And I have to say that, while it's a strange mix, it somehow works pretty well, at least for me. The puzzles are a bit on the easy side compared to something like the Picross S series on the Switch, but that's understandable since not all visual novel fans are hardcore Picross veterans like I am, lol. I do wish it had some of the QoL features of the Picross S games though, like the ability to count numbers by holding a button, or mass-erasing all marks, but it's not a big deal.

Of course, a visual novel is only as good as its story and cast, so let's vaguely talk about that (no spoilers). The two main characters, Honor and SCOUT, are both great. Each of them has their own struggles and character growth, and I became quite attached to them by the end. The supporting cast is more hit and miss, with some of them being very flat and/or annoying, but there are some very funny characters as well. While none of the cases gets as crazy as something from Ace Attorney (the comparison is inevitable), they're still interesting, with some nice plot twists, and there's an overarching plot across all four cases that also gets quite intense toward the end. The focus on Hollywood means there's a bunch of pop culture references that didn't really do anything for me, but they can just be ignored with no problem.

One thing that I liked about Murder by Numbers is that it touches on some unexpected themes like sexism, divorce, abuse, identity and free will. There's also a big focus on queer characters, with an entire case centered around a gay bar and drag queens. I wouldn't say it's anything groundbreaking, and it felt a bit preachy at times, but overall it was nice to see.

There's one aspect of the game that's very small but I was really bothered by it, and it's that the puzzle music often felt very out of place. The themes themselves aren't bad, but some of them are way too cheerful and often completely kill the mood. Sure, they're fine in the more lighthearted moments, but imagine you're in the middle of a dramatic scene, finding a dead body or something, and then the happiest music possible starts as you get to solve a nonogram puzzle. This doesn't always happen, with a few puzzles at key moments keeping the same music from the previous scene, but that just made me wish that the whole game was like that, or at least had more fitting puzzle music for the more somber and dramatic moments.

My other issue was that the game was quite buggy at times. The game often got locked when trying to access the map screen too quickly and I had to reset it, which usually didn't take too long thanks to autosave but it was annoying that it happened so many times. There was one time though where I went somewhere that I wasn't supposed to go (and the game didn't stop me) and then it wouldn't let me go to the correct area to progress the story, and the damn thing autosaved there so I was completely locked and had to restart the entire case and do all the puzzles again, which was very frustrating.

Despite those issues, I really enjoyed Murder by Numbers. It's basically a hybrid of Ace Attorney and Picross, two things that I love, so it's like it was made for me. The visual novel side isn't as good as Ace Attorney, and the nonogram side isn't as good as Picross, but the game is more than the sum of its parts and the overall package is quite nice and worth playing, especially considering that I got it for like US$5. Honestly it was quite a steal at that price, and I definitely recommend it if you're a fan of visual novels and/or nonogram puzzles.

[electronickingdomfox]

"Crisis on Centaurus" review

Novel from 1986, by Brad Ferguson. This one has a very "80's American action movie" feel. From the terrorist attack on a country incidentally called "New America", to the incursion into the Pentagon (I mean, the "Centaurus Defense Center"), up to the obligatory car chase (only that they're flying cars). There are also plenty of references to American brands, that supposedly would have survived into the 23rd century. Though the constant mention of money seems a bit weird (I thought money was a thing from the past in Star Trek? Might be wrong, though). Also, the terrorists are racists that want to see their country free of alien influences (and it's made abundantly clear that for them, "alien influences" include also any non-white human). It's a fast-paced novel, and keeps the reader's attention at all times, though I don't think there's much more to it than that.

The cover would suggest that Joanna McCoy plays a big role in the story. In reality, she appears very, very little, the same as her father. The other characters, however, get a fair amount of exposure, including Uhura (who gets the con for a large part of the story), Scotty (who's given an even more Scottish engineer partner), Chekov (with his own mini-romance subplot) and Sulu. As it's usual with many of these novels, Kirk seemed to me a bit off. At times, he's more Bruce Willis than Kirk here. And I have difficulty imagining him as a land-owner who's been investing in the Centaurian countryside all these years (if the movies had shown anything at this point, it's that Kirk's heart was never on land). Anyway, I don't know why getting Kirk right is so hard, while Spock and McCoy are usually fine; it might be due to the subtleties of Kirk's character. Another noteworthy thing, is that this novel often presents the thoughts of the characters, to a greater degree than other books.

Spoilers under the cut:

The first chapter already sets things into motion at a breakneck pace. A suspicious guy is waiting in the New Athens spaceport (a city of New America, in the planet Centaurus). When two policemen recognize him as a certain Holtzman, he gets arrested, and in a panic, he activates a minuscule piece of antimatter inside the box... A microsecond later, New Athens doesn't exist anymore, being replaced by a giant, smoldering crater.

Meanwhile, the Enterprise is having problems of its own. The computers have been completely fucked up, and nobody knows why: there's no air circulation, no temperature regulation, no artificial gravity, nothing... The scene of everybody floating around, while Sulu's scalding shower water floats through the corridors as a giant ball, is actually pretty funny. Scotty and his new partner, MacPherson, manage to reestablish some sense of order, but the ship is seriously crippled. Repairs will have to wait, though, since Starfleet orders the Enterprise to assist in the Centaurus crisis. There's been at least a million deaths in the explosion; possibly among them several relatives of the crew, including McCoy's daughter: Joanna. However, the tachyon cloud released by the antimatter explosion has made all subspace communications impossible, so Centaurus is isolated. For his part, Spock investigates the computer malfunction, and finds out a mysterious hole that has pierced several computer banks at exactly the same point; however, he can't make heads or tails of it.

Upon approaching Centaurus, they discover that other relief ships in orbit have been reduced to debris. And a transmission through conventional radio (the only radio that can penetrate the tachyon cloud) warns the Enterprise not to approach. Sure enough, the ship is attacked by a nuclear missile from Centaurus. It seems the Defense Center has gone crazy after the explosion, and now launches missiles at any approaching ship, friend or foe. Fortunately, the Defense computers consider the Enterprise anihillated after the first strike, so they don't continue the attack. Kirk leaves in a shuttle with Sulu, to meet with the new government at the temporary capital of McIverton. While Spock leaves with Chekov in another shuttle, to investigate the Defense Center and deactivate the missile system.

There's a brief interlude, that presents some suspicious guys (led by this Barclay dude) hiding at a safe house. It's obvious they're related to the terrorist attack, and Barclay instructs some of his goons to meet with a certain person, and force him to cooperate.

In McIverton, Kirk meets with the new president, the Minister of Defense, and the Minister of Internal Security (Nathaniel Burke). The president explains that the terrorist attack was done by a racist political group, led by the scientist Holtzman, to get more power for his group.

At the Defense Center, Spock is unable to reprogram the computer to differentiate between friendly and hostile ships. So he's like "well, let's blow up this bazillion missiles in the sun and problem solved!" (and yeah, this is totally in-character for Spock; the guy is that crazy sometimes). Thus, Spock expands the defense area of the computer to include Alpha Centauri, the computer interprets the sun as a hostile element, and launches all the remaining missiles at it. Poof! After solving this problem, Spock takes the shuttle to the northern area of New Athens, where there have been some survivors. A makeshift hospital has been established in a park, and there they find Joanna working as a nurse, safe and sound. There's a moving reunion between her and McCoy, who stays behind to help the injured. While Spock's shuttle makes trips to the Enterprise to bring medical supplies.

At McIverton, Kirk is visited at his hotel by the lawyer Samuel Cogley (from the episode Court Martial). Cogley explains that he was approached by Barclay to defend them at a Federation trial, and not on Centaurus (which has a death penalty for terrorism). And Kirk, despite not having the slightest sympathy for the criminals, considers that the matter belongs in a Federation court and vows to fulfill his duty. However, that same morning, Sulu appears drugged in bed, and the hotel surrounded by Burke's men. The Minister isn't going to let the terrorists off the hook, since he lost his family in the explosion. Kirk, Sulu and Cogley make a frantic escape in a flying car (well, not so frantic for Sulu, who's still sleeping like a log). They retrieve Barclay and his men, and take refuge in Kirk's cabin in Garrovick Valley (a beautiful, secluded forest area that Kirk bought a long time ago).

In the final part, Kirk and his companions barricade themselves inside the cabin, surrounded by Burke's troops. Until the Enterprise, having received a faint distress signal from the cabin, comes to the rescue... by entering the godamn atmosphere!! (didn't I say earlier that Spock's totally nuts?). Cogley decides to just bring the terrorists to the Federation, but not represent them, when it's made obvious that they were also involved in Holtzman's attack. The rest of the antimatter bombs, that the terrorists kept as leverage, are also identified and deactivated. While New Athens is slowly reconstructed, by the joint effort of the locals and new relief ships from all over the Federation.

As for the strange holes in the Enterprise computer banks... Spock ends up concluding that they were caused by a minuscule black hole, which existed just for a fraction of second, and the Enterprise traversed at warp speed. Does it mean that, at any time, at any place, a mini-black hole could appear out of nowhere and just pierce you like that!? That's the stuff of nightmares, really...

Spirk Meter: 5/10*. Kirk wants to show Spock his "special, secret place" (no! not THAT!, I mean his valley at Centaurus). Kirk considers that Spock would appreciate its aesthetic beauty, and invites him to stay there with him as long as he wants. Spock is also a bit hurt because Kirk didn't tell him about the valley earlier. Actually, the rating could be a bit higher, considering that the cabin is said to have just a twin bed, and a massage bed for two. Apart from this, Kirk notices things about Spock that nobody else seems to see (like Spock swallowing nervously sometimes). The two of them interact very little in the novel, though, since they take separate paths.

Some Spones too. When Spock meets Joanna, he finds her strikingly similar to McCoy and... magnificient. He thinks of her as a "softer McCoy, pretty without glamour", which says a little about how he sees the doctor himself. Also, when McCoy is in emotional turmoil upon learning that Joanna is alive, after so many days of uncertainty, Spock says to himself: "I know that feeling well, Doctor. Draw strength from me, if you need it." (only that McCoy has no telepathy so... how is he going to hear that!?).

And then there's the McKirk. A flashback chapter presents a young Ensign Kirk recovering from a wound at a starbase hospital. There he first meets this kind Dr. McCoy, who helps him through the painful months of recovery. After Kirk is healed, McCoy invites him to stay with him at Centaurus, where his daughter lives with some relatives. And McCoy brings Jim to these beautiful woods and wilderness areas, just the two of them and Joanna, and well... you know. It's even more evident, because McCoy is relieved upon seeing that Joanna approves of Jim (seems like the little girl was troublesome with most of her daddy's dates). Too bad for poor McCoy, that Kirk ends up inviting a pretty nurse (and then Spock) to his cabin, and not him...

*A 10 in this scale is the most obvious spirk moments in TOS. Think of the back massage, "You make me believe in miracles", or "Amok Time" for example.

[dennydraws]

I finished Unicorn Overlord! \o/

Kinda did it last weekend but I needed a moment to digest how amazing that game was! I ate well and I talked my friends' ears off about it xD; and I still need to talk about it! What an unexpected gem! Maybe because I went into it without any expectations and stayed away from any fandom interactions, or because the gameplay hit some sweet spot of being free roam type to not feel overbearing but the war battles being tactical enough to give me a challenge which I could adjust accordingly.

I did all the content post final fight and I have mad respect for games who do this kind of thing - you finished the game? Here are some goodies, have fun! Does it make sense? Nah but who cares! I only wish we had some kinda DLC post game cause I want to juggle the new beans and have fun with them too!!

I don't want to write a whole review here so I'll keep it super brief and spoiler free (as far as I know everyone knows the recruitables' names?)

Favorite Region: Drakenhold Favorite Male Character: Auch Favorite Female Character: Melisandre Favorite Class: Aramis Swordfighter (A lack of skill.) Favorite Story Spot: Bastoria Favorite Boss: Elgor Favorite Ship: The one who led me to the secluded shore Favorite Valor Skill: WILD RUSH II! Favorite Rapport: Gammel and Mandarin's 3rd rapport

It's hard to pick favorites, cause there were so many and I don't think there was a single character I didn't like.

While the story was simple, I really enjoyed how they handled the mind control magic. I loved the Zenoira backstory and all around, I think I really vibed with the simplicity of the plot. It was very very charming. My weakness being sibling dynamics I nearly bit my switch because of Travis and Berengaria's rapports and their story moments. And no surprise to any, I'm big softy who loves redeemable villains but I didn't expect to like Gammel and Mandarin as much as I did.

Did I mention how much I loved the digging mini game? This thing was way too addicting.

Did I mention I've been blasting the OST all week?

Did I mention I shake fist a the sky that I couldn't obtain the artbook? Anyone out there willing to sell theirs? qq asking for a friend. I'm the friend.

This game fed me well... so well...