#such a good combo of franchises too

[sunbedo]

Hey guys. gay rights

[dr-spectre]

So.... This game is 2 years old now huh?

Honestly... I don't think i have a TON to say about this game. It's just a great ass fucking video game that has given me a lot of fun and great memories!

This game came out during my final year of school, which is kinda funny considering that Splatoon 3 acts like a "finale" to a trilogy. It's interesting how those kinds of things work out eh? Splatoon 2 came out at the start of my secondary education, and Splatoon 3 came out at the tail end of my final year.

I remember thinking before the game came out, "why do we need a Splatoon 3? This is pointless, it's just more Splatoon 2." And then my mind was quickly changed once i got to play the Splatfest test fire and the actual game itself.....

I completed ROTM in such a short amount of time and i documented my reactions to my friends. Although i was spoiled in that Deep Cut had boss fights and Mr. Grizz was the final boss, ROTM still gave me a giant smile to my face all the way through. It was so fun, so charming and just a really good single player experience.

One of the things that i LOVE about Splatoon 3 is the vibe. I just love the location of Splatsville, i love the aesthetics, the lighting, the model improvements from Splatoon 2, the music, it's my favourite art style/aesthetic out of any of the Splatoon games by far. It just feels so polished, i don't know how to exactly describe it.

Also the fact that this game won best multiplayer game of 2022 over CALL OF DUTY! OVERWATCH 2 AND MULTIVERSUS MAKES ME SO GIDDY AND HAPPY!

PEOPLE GOT MAD ABOUT THIS AND THAT MAKES ME WANNA EVIL LAUGH! All of those fucking depressed and sad Call of Duty players who whine and complain about how "wahh modern gaming sucks!! There's no good games anymore wahhh!! It's all microtransactions wahhh!!" BITCH! SPLATOON 3 IS LITERALLY THE GAME YOU'VE BEEN ASKING FOR!! Yet you won't play it because it's on Nintendo huh? Yeah... You're a fucking PUSSY!! YOU'RE WEAK!! You're SCARED to be seen as less of a manly man!! You only wanna play games with oily dirty buff men.... Yet you call others who play games like Splatoon gay? Hmm..... Sounds like you're a wittle insecureeeeee!!!!

Have fun rotting in microtransaction hell you LOSERS!! GAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Anyways.... uh.... sorry....

I also fucking love Deep Cut too. I thought i wasn't gonna like these guys and i remember thinking when i first saw them "oh... okayyyy..."

But now? I love these bastards.

I love their dynamic and how they are bandits but they actually wanna help the people back in Splatsville. That is such a cool and unique take to have for Idol characters. The Squid Sisters are very cutesy and so are Off the Hook, but Deep Cut aren't. They are loud, messy, chaotic, in your face, rude, etc. They are about contrast and the character designers did a phenomenal job at conveying that theme via their backgrounds and looks.

Another thing that i love about Splatoon 3 is that it also acts as a celebration of things that have come before, Inkopolis Plaza and Square return as hubs, old colour combos from previous games act as loading screens, most of the music returns in the jukebox, it rewards long time fans for sticking around and for a long running franchise IT'S SUPER IMPORTANT to have that stuff!!!

Seeing the improvements in the model quality from Splatoon 1 to 3 genuinely makes me kinda emotional, it shows how far we've come in just a little under 10 years...

It really homes in on the point that... These characters, have grown up with us.... The Squid Sisters are about to reach their mid 20s, Pearl is nearly 30 fucking years old!!!

And the last thing i wanna bring up before i talk about the Grand Fest...

...Is Side Order.

This fucking DLC... My god... Being able to experience it by myself and just enjoy the stuff i was seeing, being able to SCREAM AND CRY AS MUCH I WANT WAS SO IMPORTANT TO ME DUDE!

When i got to the 10th floor in the tutorial and i saw Marina Agitando staring me down.... I did the loudest gasp a human could possibly do and my jaw was hung to the floor for a solid MINUTE!

Marina's first fucking dev diary made me cry and scream, THAT IS NOT A JOKE!!!! THESE CHARACTERS ARE THAT IMPORTANT TO ME!

And the final boss.... Made me cry, it broke me down, i was singing along to Ebb and Flow as best as i could, it felt like i was brought back to 2018, being in my room, listening to that song on repeat... I feel like a kid again....

I love this song... i love it so much... Like it's not the most hype finale song ever, but, the emotion behind it, the build up from Splatoon 2... The power this song has in it's meaning... It's some good shit man...

So yeah! I love Splatoon 3!!! It's my favourite game out of the series and anyone who is gonna jump into this game now is gonna have a LOT to chew on.

And... It's both sweet and sad that we're at the end. This is it... The moment we've been waiting for. The final Splatfest to end them all. The event 9 years in the making.

The Grand Festival...

I am extremely excited and so FUCKING NERVOUS for this Splatfest!!!! I know i am going to cry and be so overwhelmed with joy. Seeing the Squid Sisters and Off the Hook perform their old songs again after all of these years is gonna make me sob so loudly it's not even funny.

These characters genuinely mean the world to me and it's gonna be so fucking hard for me to watch their final major appearance and say goodbye. Cause after this, we don't know what's gonna happen. I know they will come back, they have to but... In what capacity? That's what I'm scared about...

So yeah, let's savior this moment when it eventually arrives, take all the time you need to be engulfed in the Grand Fest.

Thank you Splatoon 3, you have given me so much.... It's not time to say goodbye just yet but, i wanna watch you as you walk into the sunset with your head held high....

[alongtidesoflight]

so here's my honest thoughts on dragon age: the veilguard, after ~40 hours of playing. i finished the main quest after having finished all companion quests and major faction quests. just to clear up what content i saw, i played as an elven transmasc rook who is a member of the lords of fortune. he romanced lucanis (although after finishing the game i'm now leaning towards taash). i don't know what's happening in playthroughs that have a different race, gender identity, romance or faction going on.

full spoilers ahead, i mean it. don't read further if you want to avoid them. i don't want complaining about it in my asks.

oh and also, if you're worried because of a few negative reviews online i can comfort you by saying don't give a fuck about a certain big name youtuber who is very much tied to bethesda franchises giving this a negative review. i'll explain why.

i'm starting off with the things i liked

the game looks really pretty. i was worried it wouldn't feel like thedas anymore (with them trying to "focus on northern thedas only" i thought they'd make a clear cut in environmental design. they do and they don't. it's complicated. i'll elaborate on it when talking about the negative stuff). anyway it does. minrathous feels like kirkwall. treviso enchanted me like the winter palace did. the hossberg wetlands reminded me of the hinterlands and a couple other inquisition maps. arlathan looked like... arlathan. the crossroads were different, but familiar. overall i like the way it looks and feels. it's thedas, with a twist. it's a good one, and gives everything a solid but unique feel.

combat is top tier. if you're a hardcore dragon age player you WILL miss the tactical aspect of it for a bit, but i promise you, once you're used to the way the combat works, you will be lapping that shit up. and once you get to ability combos you'll mourn the control you used to have over your companions in battle a bit less

the MAIN quest and its story. i expected worse, way worse. and for a while the game even had me tricked (harr harr you'll get it in a second) it is Really That Much Worse. but holy shit was it good. i walked away satisfied ngl.

your choices have SOLID weight. there's consequences, good AND bad. i got minrathous blighted, ruled over by venatori, and the leader of the shadow dragons ultimately died because of my decisions. i made those at the beginning and throughout the game. he died at the end. DAVRIN died because i didn't expect what i was saying to have that much weight. i thought i was in the clear. he had hero status. well turns out, your choices can still get your companions killed even if you do everything right. i fucking love him. he shouldn't have made that sacrifice just because i told him to do everything it takes once.

the inquisitor, morrigan and dorian being there, surprisingly. there's also negatives to this though, see below.

speaking of companions dying and the inquisitor playing a bigger role: the final quest feels like me2's suicide mission. i was blown away by it and the fact that i got to see the results of all my efforts playing out in front of me.

bioware are NOT trying to redeem solas. they love him as a character yes, but i wasn't forced to see any good in him. he betrays you. he fucked my rook over twice. he fucked him over right back, for good this time (the veil wasn't torn down, i anchored it by binding him to it, he's doomed to uphold it). but solas really lives up to his name as the trickster elven god. rip to all the people who grew really attached to him over the years.

varric died. if you like him that's probably as hard reading it as it was watching it. varric died and the game lies about it until the very end. when the realisation hits, it hurts. but in the very best way.

the amount of care they put into gender expression and trans identities this time around. (i'll add onto this with negative points as well too).

rook feels very much ingrained in the world of thedas. he doesn't ask questions that expose the player to lore through dialogue as if he's stepped foot into thedas for the first time. those conversations feel very solid and good. i hope other faction players got as much joy out of this as i did.

and the things i didn't like and boy there's a lot unfortunately

the music. let's just get that out of the way holy shit. it doesn't feel like it belongs in this universe. it gets so incredibly sci-fi-y at times you'd think it's taken straight from mass effect andromeda. there's not a single song unique to veilguard that i really enjoyed. it broke my immersion, real bad. hearing a busker play the tavern songs from inquisition on a lute right after i killed some venatori with wobbly bass songs playing in the background is just odd. weird tonal shift. don't like it. it's made for people who like flashy light-weight cinema.

tevinter nights is required reading. the podcasts are required listening exercises. the game is so fast paced, especially at the start, that there's no time to introduce you to characters and how much weight their names carry in-game. i would not have known who half these people are if i hadn't skimmed over tevinter nights. i'd care even less about them than i already did. there is no time to get properly attached to them. people will act as if you're talking to a legend personified and you'll be thinking man goddamn which chapter of tevinter night were they in again and what did they do???

there's a weird mismatch with the animations. you'll have beautifully fluid ones, like emmrich casting spells. and then you'll have rook's face animating in the most unnatural manner that's sorta reminiscent of mass effect andromeda's "my face is tired" addison, when their emotions SHOULD be landing with the player rn instead.

i'm not vibing with the art style. sometimes it works. most of the time it doesn't. at points i felt like i was watching tangled.

that also brings me to some of the dialogue. same issue. i am watching frozen. i am watching tangled. someone on the writer's team really likes the adorkable trope. bellara is its victim.

for all the talk about identity, bioware sure doesn't like theirs. the grey warden armor got a redesign again and it just makes them look like a generic army. i hate it lol

in general, i don't like the armor design. the wardrobe/appearances system is fine, but it's just not helping if all the armors are just... kinda bland or downight bad looking? and don't get me started on the lords of fortune armor. that is orientalism personified.

the world states should have been carried over, full stop. i know they said they didn't because they want to separate what happens in the north from what happens in the south, which... i could have lived with that. but the inquisitor sends you letters that keep you up to date on... the south of thedas. you learn that there's a blight again, that people are standing strong but it's difficult, denerim's fallen, the rulers are taking care of it, orlais is fighting and they're successful for a while, etc etc. what's good bioware. i thought we don't care about the south this time around. why are you feeding me so much boring generic information. if you're not gonna show any of it and just write letters, then carrying the world state over should not have been an issue. i have a game dev background. those few lines of code would not have broken your budget or pushed your engine's limits. fuck right off.

this gripe of mine carries over to all the cameos. as a lord of fortune you have to deal with isabela a lot. it's fun. i missed her. you get to go drinking with her and taash and bellara! also my hawke romanced her. she's not mentioned once. they had the opportunity to put a sentence or two about her in there with not a lot of effort, trust me.

when varric dies, all she has is a single line about it. for gold, for fortune, for varric. she only says it if you interact with her on your way to the final push. that's not mandatory.

morrigan is there. kieran isn't. the old god soul that mythal and then solas absorbed? who cares at this point, the gods are dead now and solas is locked away for eternity. i suppose? why is morrigan there. she feels unneeded. i wish they'd just left her down south, at least that way i wouldn't have had to witness her god awful redesign.

dorian at least feels as if he belongs in this story. the shadow dragons are a crucial part to protecting minrathous. he's also weirdly underutilised. isabela and morrigan had more lines than him in my playthrough.

on the topic of romance: bro that was underwhelming. no, genuinely. you know when romance picked up a bit? after the point of no return. i heard maybe two lines of companion banter about it before that. maybe i missed something which i honestly doubt, but romance did not play much of a role in lucanis's storyline. i saved his grandmother as he wished me to (and if you read tevinter nights you know she was rather abusive and their relationship not the healthiest) and told him to focus on his family. a reunified family my rook wasn't even introduced to as a partner at the end of all that.

really, do not buy this game if you're only in it for the romances. others might be better, lucanis's basically gave me nothing. except for an outing (the second coffee date i had with him, it was getting repetitive) all of it played out once i committed to the final quest. the sex scene was a fade to black. annoyingly right after davrin died. if you're looking for well paced and good spice, pick up something else. the sweet talk and the final goodbye were nice though.

for all the good the ever-presence of gender identity does, it is brought up in such a disruptive manner too. it doesn't even play out naturally if you CHOOSE the lines that are meant to be said. hearing the words trans and non-binary in this setting doesn't feel right, and i'm saying this as a trans guy. i think it could have been handled more gracefully. the amount of times my rook went "i'm a MAN" as if he's about to start drumming on his chest and roaring any second now got super nerve-grating. "i'm so glad you're into me... the me who is trans. remember?" just. tell me one trans person who'd talk like that to a person they've grown close with and are trying to romance. this game doesn't handle sexuality well, so all this hey my body might not look like the way you're expecting it to look talk amounts to nothing anyway. i feel about this the way i feel about krem: this is partial exposition to trans experiences... packaged up for cis consumption. the ONLY exception to that is interacting with taash. holy shit was all of that heartwarming and bro did it feel good and natural to talk to them about theirs and rook's gender.

rivain and nevarra are new locations added by veilguard. they're also incredibly underwhelming, small and constricted maps. rivain is a coastline with a few ruins. the hall of valor is a partial ruin nestled into a cave on a beach, with a fighting pit. isabela is there in her skimpy outfit commentating your pit fights. that's it. i'm sorry if you were looking for a bustling pirate cove or whatever. you're not gonna get it. the nevarran crypts btw are a long ass dungeon crawl. that's it.

speaking of maps. i thought people were being dramatic when they said you're gonna be fighting the same enemies on them again and again. i thought they were figure of speeching it. they're not. you WILL fight the same amount of enemies. in the same spot. every time you reload the map. best to stay on a map and clear out the enemies and do as much questing on that map as you can before leaving, because you WILL have to do it all over again once you return.

the three choices i made for my inquisitor didn't matter lol she didn't have to face solas and therefore couldn't stop him at any cost as she had sworn (maybe because my rook tricked solas into binding himself to the veil, there was also an option to fight him. would she have stepped in? who knows). blackwall wasn't mentioned. and either her using a small amount of her forces in the final fight was the reason the civilians of minrathous fared so well..... or it just didn't matter. ultimately i think she had very little impact on anything

[mahou-furbies]

It is time for

This time the event will be hosted by the green Cure Ocs, who got a little attention this year.

Mahou anime of the year:

(Wonderful Precure!, Heartcatch Precure!, Precure movies (All Stars F, Mahou Tsukai series movie), Märchen Mädchen, Sasaki & Peeps, MahoAko, MahoAku, MahoNare, Acro Trip, Magilumiere, Samurai Flamenco)

Manga:

(Cardcaptor Sakura Clear Card, Shugo Chara Dream Joker, Magical Girl Dandelion, Mermaid Melody Aqua, Champignon Witch, Pretty Guardian Stress, Who Said Blues had to be Cool)

Other:

(Magical Girl Raising Project Aces, W.i.t.c.h. reboot vol2, Mermaid Melody Encore)

While 2023 was an extremely Precure year this was the opposite and I only barely managed to finish one of the backlog seasons. I'm hoping to get back on track next year and finish the remaining two, and then we're off to new adventures when that opens up slots for a different kid show mahou franchise. It'll be exciting to see which one it ends up being, I guess Doremi has a chance since I already started the first season, but that was also on a whim so anything else can also happen.

We had quite a few contests this year, starting with the favourite Precure (won by Cure La Mer), and there was the Miss Meguca contest about their outfits, with select few major characters from MagiReco (won by Madoka). And that was followed by Miss Meguca contest for casual outfits (won by Konomi) and Halloween outfits (won by Darkness Mitama). And then there was the Christmas outfits, which is still ongoing because I didn't quite have a good moment to put up the final round... Sorry about that, it'll be way out of season once it concludes but that's how it sometimes goes.

I also planned a Magireco swimsuit contest for summer, but since the game shut down at that time I thought it would have been kind of mean since I predict the air around it to be kind of negative. But I'll probably do that next summer.

Magireco shutting down was a shame since even if I didn't play, it had been a good source for new mahou designs. Though new stuff had really slowed down so it wasn't exactly a surprise.

We also had a little Halloween event with my mahou OCs, and looking for video game food items for it was a lot of fun.

Then it's time for the awards!

Best henshin design goes to the main character's Snow White transformation from Märchen Mädchen! Truly an S-tier design that has a lot of good elements but still isn't overdesigned. Let's point out the asymmetry, pale colour palette and white hair, slight gradient, winged shoes and flower colour accents. The miniskirt + long train makes foor a great combo too, it's still recognisable as a magical girl but also looks super cool.

Honourable mention to Berry Blossom from Acro Trip for the simple but super cute strawberry outfit.

Best team design goes to Heartcatch Precure! They're simple and recognisable and also include the season's flower theme.

I also want to give a shoutout to Wonderful Precure because for the first time in like a decade the Cure outfits have a recognisable visual theme going on.

Best powerup design goes to Wonderful Precure Diamond Ribbon style! I like that they're more uniform (probably too uniform since only the skirt part is different but whatever) and I'm a big fan of the way the skirt colours make a gradient.

Also not a powerup but I don't think it's something that needs its own category, but a special mention to the evil clones from the W.i.t.c.h. reboot, I'm always ready for slightly altered designs of the main characters.

Best civilian design goes to Tsubomi, specifically because of her glasses! I just can't get over what a great design element they are, and she even wore them far more often than I expected. I thought she'd completely swap them for contact lenses for marketability but no, they regularly showed up through the season!

Best school uniform goes to Mahonare! It's cute and looks refreshingly different from usual and thus fitting for a magical school. Plus look at the cute little hat! And girls can opt for poofy shorts too!

Honourable mention for the warm brown palette of the Wonderful Precure uniform, plus also giving the shorts option for girls.

Best hair goes to Yuki's civilian hair from Wonderful Precure! For being simple and elegant. I also like her Cure hair except for the "sideburns" whose length feels a bit awkward.

A honourable mention to the little stars in Byakuya's hair in MahoAku.

Best magical item goes to Byakuya's staff from MahoAku! It's simple and doesn't look like a plastic toy.

Hibana's staff (also from MahoAku) isn't bad either.

Best henshin scene goes to Byakuya from MahoAku! It's well animated and and the glowing stars are beautiful.

A shout out to Heartcatch for giving Tsubomi and Erika unique animation for their dual transformation instead of just splicing scenes from their individual henshins together.

Best fan creation goes to Mermaid Melody Encore! It has the benefit for being an extremely favourable comparison to the canon sequel, but it has a lot going for it outside that too, with an interesting premise, likable characters and appealing art.

Best relationship goes to... do I have to give this to SatoIro? I'm not a shipper and I couldn't care less about Iroha, but the confession and date episodes were really good.

Alternatively, Luna and Lis from from Champignon Witch have a really interesting tragic and complicated relationship.

Best mascot goes to Daifuku from Wonderful Precure! Has a quiet but powerful presence, indomitable, doesn't have a shrill voice, never does anything annoying, has an appealing colour scheme and perpetually looks kind of grumpy. This is peak mascot performance.

And since she photobombed the picture, let's also say that Niko has a really funny personality. And I guess a shout out to Wonderful Precure in general for doing something different with the mascots this year.

Best supporting character goes to Shade from Magical Girl Dandelion! I regret to tell I like his tumblr sexyman design and he has a super interesting and fresh dynamic with the main girl.

Best visual goes to the MahoAku title cards! There's somehow a lovely retro vibe to them.

In the general visual category I considered both Mahonare and Mahoaku. Mahonare has a more unique look, but since anime is supposed to be moving pictures I do have to dock some points due to the fact that the animation is clearly struggling. Meanwhile Mahoaku's lovely pastel style is less distinct but also looks consistently good even in moving form.

Best audio goes to All for One Forever from Precure movie F. This song slaps and makes the fight scene it accompanies incredibly epic.

"Conflict between light and darkness" from the Heartcatch OST is also a beautiful piece of music and "Fight for the future" gets you pumped up for a big fight.

The Innovation award is given to a magical girl work that I think does something fresh for the genre. This year it goes to Magical Girl Dandelion for its extremely fresh premise that still doesn't feel too tropey.

The Golden Mana award is the prize given to one thing I didn’t like.

This year it goes to the entirety of Mermaid Melody Aqua. I know I already awarded it to Lucia's design specifically a few years ago and in general I'm trying to avoid repeats, but frankly it would be disingenious to act like Aqua didn't deserve it this year since it turned out to be one of my least favourite manga ever. There's the awful heroine and irritating or irrelevant side cast, the awkward art, the weird fanservice, the lacking storytelling… the list goes on.

Dishonourable mention to the stupid side cast of Mahoaku.

Best character goes to Cure Blossom! The rare shy main Cure, great character arc, lovely design (the glasses!) and in general super sympathetic and likeable. I hope she won't remain the only of her kind among the franchise!

Best work goes to Champignon Witch! Much deliberation went on among the one-person council of Mahou Furbies if it should be eligible for any of the awards since it's clearly not a magical girl series, but then again neither is Petite Princess Yucie and I rewarded it last year. So let it be known that from now on anything I deem mahou enough to warrant a review post on this blog is also qualified for awards.

But anyway, Champignon Witch has a lovely fairytale setting, unique story, likable characters, magical art, melancholic mood and S-tier outfits. I'm really looking forward to the anime next year!

If you think only actual magical girl works should qualify, then you can think that Magical Girl Dandelion is the winner; so far there aren't a lot of chapters out of it yet so even on that grounds it might be a bit too early for it, but for what there is to judge I've liked everything about it. Heartcatch Precure is also a good contender, but it does have the typical kid show tropes holding it back so it's harder for a Precure season to win when there's actual competition aimed at an older audience.

Plans for 2025:

I also intend to get back to MagiPro, finally reading Aces was really fun but then I hit the Episodes filler books and the progress halted.

The new Madoka Exedra game is also coming out, though I'm not particularly excited. I have no intention of playing it (gacha eww), and also since it's 3D I'm under the impression that adding new characters requires more effort, which would probably mean less new or obscure characters and more focus on the old favourites.

Art-wise I want to create the missing green Cures for the three newest seasons at least, and also finally do something more with the DPPC. Though that's what I say every year...

[junkdrawernoggin]

So as a BG3 fan who has not played any Dragon Age and has a week off, is Dragon Age Veilguard a good buy?

I’ve heard really good things about the franchise, but I’m pretty terrible at combat. I’ll have to do some more searching to see if there’s a really easy mode. I’m wanting to improve, but I just haven’t found any good entry level games. Like Elden Ring looks really cool but I think even on the easy mode I’d be very frustrated with myself. I prefer the RPG side of things. I love combat in BG3, but I love it because it’s turn based, so there’s not as much pressure to be perfect or make combos quickly.

Is it maybe better to start with a different Dragon Age? I’ve heard the most about Inquisition. The other option is I may finally bite the bullet and give Skyrim a try, but I admit that I’m not a huge fan of the look of that game. I’m spoiled too much with modern 4k games I suppose lol.

[basil-does-arttt]

Devil May Cry 2. The pimple-faced teenager of the series, widely regarded as the worst game in the franchise.

While yes i agree with this viewpoint to some degree, and i think all the jokes about it being the worst one are funny... i honestly dont think the game is THAT bad. In fact, i think people give it too much shit.

Ill start out by saying this: no, the game isnt amazing. Its under-developed, rushed, and in no way is it up to the same standard as the other 4 games. Im not saying its this perfect game, but its not as horrible as some make it out to be.

Ive played through the game on the original PS2 version and the remastered version, and although im yet to complete Lucia's campaign, i can confidently say the game is mediocre at worst really.

First the gameplay: Boring? Yes. Definitely. Do you like standing in one place and shooting everything for 15 minutes untill it drops dead? This is the game for you. But you dont have to do that, it just happens to be the easiest option because the controls are so jank. I spent (some) time myself learning the combos, turns out it depends on the way you angle the joystick, and once you get the hang of it, its not that difficult to S rank combat encounters at all. Its annoying, but not impossible, and the combos can honestly look pretty cool imo.

The movement is also another thing, the dodge animation takes way too long to perform but i do like the forward dash. Its a nice alternative to using stinger as a makeshift movement dash, i wish they kept it for furture versions of Dante. (Yes i know theres the trickster dash, but he doesn't do a flip)

I also really love the flying mechanic with aerial heart, and the different kinds of core thingies you could combine as a whole. A unique feature that kinda got combined into other things in Dante's design.

A few of the bosses, if they had been fleshed out and maybe balanced a bit better, could've been just amazing too. Furiataurus for example. One boss i feel was done well though was The Despair Embodied, and although you can just stand around and shoot it to death like everything else, you do actually have to put effort in to not get hit and die. (Trismalga is also kinda in that boat too, a well(ish) done fight you actually have to put effort into, but i personally didn't like it.)

Next, level design: You have to admit they did some cool things with the level design. *some*. The whole "grungy city" vibe is something i found very interesting, and the trippy purple iteration of lower town was, while infuriating to navigate thanks to the camera and graphics (esp on the ps2 version), was actually quite neat. I also really liked the clock tower in Lucia's campaign.

And also, the music. Can i just say, i think dmc 2's soundtrack is my favorite one out of all 5 games. The ambient background tracks are almost dreamy, especially Lucia's ones, the boss themes honestly go hard and the piano track that's repeated throughout the whole soundtrack just sounds good. If you take anything away from this post, its that you should listen to the soundtrack. (I reccomend the tracks "Unholy Relics", "Cry for the Moon", and "Shoot the Works")

The character designs are another thing i think they did well in this game. In my humble opinion, Dante's dmc 2 style is the best looking one in the whole series. Lucia also looks quite cool, her devil trigger form especially.

The characters themselves, Dante especially, need work, but might i remind you the developers were rushed when making this game. They didn't have enough time to do everything they wanted to do, 6 months before the game was supposed to release they didn't even have it in working condition. It was only thanks to Itsuno stepping in as the director that we got this game in the first place, and all he could do was salvage what the team had already created and get it in a releasable state before launch.

If only they had a bit more time (and maybe resources), dmc 2 couldve been quite the cool game. Though, on that note, if it werent for dmc 2's catastrophic faliure and Itsuno's prompt pestering for a sequel so the franchise didn't die outright, we wouldn't have gotten dmc 3. Though i think Capcom would've made a 3rd game regardless of the scenario.

All in all, i dont think dmc 2 is that horrible of a game. If you have the remaster collection, or even the original PS2 version, at least try it. Give it a go, play through the first few missions and kill one or two of the bosses.

Don't take it seriously, just have fun and enjoy the game in all its janky half-finished glory. If you look at dmc 2 that way, i think you'll enjoy it a whole lot more.

Or dont. Yknow, its your choice.

[stiltsthegm]

GOTY 2024 #8 - BLUE REFLECTION: Second Light

BLUE REFLECTION: Second Light is a game that came out in 2021. At least A Highland Song came out in December of 2023, so it almost counts as a 2024 game. However, you will increasingly discover in my GOTY list that I do not care about release dates. I only truly care about when I played the game.

BR:SL is a sequel to the first Blue Reflection game made by Gust, a game studio with a really fascinating if often shaky track record. Although the Atelier series is by far their most popular and successful franchise, my introduction to Gust was via Ar Tonelico: Melody of Elemia, a game that blended a pretty standard RPG plotline with VN dating sim elements and a pretty cool and unique combat system. The writing was...okay at best, and often far too heterosexual for its own good, but it was a style of RPG I had never seen before, so I appreciated Gust's moxie even if I felt the end result was kinda mid.

BR:SL reminded me a lot of Ar Tonelico as I was playing through it. The story is certainly better than Ar Tonelico's, but still nothing I'd classify as "great". It's way too grindy and a bit long in the tooth (I still haven't actually finished the game, but I got very close). It is, however, an audacious game in all the ways I adore.

It throws you into an ATB-esque combat system where combo chains matter, you can interrupt enemies (and vice versa), and every action you take causes you to move back into the turn order by a different amount. It trusts you to learn on your own when to go for the big but slow hit, when to delay acting at all so you can guard just when a boss unleashes a powerful attack, and when to push for just one more chain attack to stagger an enemy. And then once you've gotten comfortable with that, it reveals that there's ANOTHER combat system layered inside the first one, where a party-member can go one-on-one with an enemy to really do some damage.

It introduces a crafting system where you can make new items (beds, vending machines, martial arts training dummies, takoyaki stands, etc.) with all the other magical girls trapped alongside you in a weird, liminal dimension that consists solely of a high school building and it's immediate grounds. You can then take each of the girls on dates to these points of interest you've crafted out of bits of abstract material dropped by emotion demons.

And by god does it have yuri. The player character--Ao--is an absolutely relentless yuri warrior, taking every opportunity possible to flirt with the other girls. Once Ao's affection with a girl is high enough, they'll hold hands when they wander around the school. The whole game was a parade of new things that made me smile and/or shout "really?!?!" at my screen.

It's just delightful.

I'm so glad it exists.

[mindingmybidness12]

Fatality [Wednesday x GN! Reader]

Summary: Violence is forever and so is the ass whooping Wednesday dishes out. She asserts her dominance (Ayo?)

Warnings: Vague-ish Descriptions of Violence

************************************************************************

If you didn't know any better you would've thought you'd owed Wednesday money the way she was beating your ass, because MY GOD.

There was zero wasted movement. Every action she took was for the sole purpose of causing maximum pain and suffering. She gave no mercy. No quarter. Absolutely no remorse. You'd foolishly thought that because you were dating that it would spare you from her wrath. You were obviously wrong. You started to let your concern show.

"Woah... trying a little hard there sweetheart... your not mad are you?"

"Mad? No. Disappointed that you're not putting up a better fight? Yes."

That's the best you would get out of her at the moment. You'd have to be satisfied with that bland, emotionless answer because she was more caught up with beating the literal dog shit out of you. She continued to give you the fucking business and you couldn't do a damn thing about it. Every time you tried to get up and fight back, you were met with further assault and battery. It got to the point where she was just picking up random items she found lying around and proceeded to beat you over the head with them.

"Damn Wednesday, give me a break."

"No."

"You have to let me get up."

"No."

"Can I breathe?"

"No."

"You have me trapped in a corner! That's not fair."

"Fight back then. Waste my time and I waste you."

Before you could even answer back with anything Wednesday decided to wrap things up by giving you a seven piece combo that literal brought you to your knees. You could see that all but a little life had escaped your beaten, broken body. She was gonna do it. She was gonna kill you.

"FINISH HIM!!"

The roaring command came from the monitor and Wednesday wasted no time doing just that. She proceeded to kill you in the most brutal and gory fashion. Such was typical of the Mortal Kombat franchise.

"FATALITY!!"

"That is such bullshit. I literally just taught you the controls like three hours ago. I've been playing this game for years and you still absolutely blew my ass apart. No vaseline. Like good god sister why were you trying to snuff out the light of your life? You're supposed to love me not rip my damn spine out!"

Wednesday paid absolutely no mind to your whining. She just continued to smile (as small as it was) and bask in the bloody satisfaction this extremely violent game left her in. She usually abhorred technology as a whole and viewed it as a massive waste of time. But you managed to talk her into playing a game of all things... and she had to admit it to herself. She found it very enjoyable. It had sated her innate blood lust just a tad bit. She would never in a million years think that she would find herself in this situation. Trapped in a lone dorm room with the one who held her heart captive without a care in the world and being goaded into playing video games with them all afternoon.

Wednesday looked towards your pouting face and felt exasperation and fondness tickle her in equal amounts. She reached over and wrapped her cold hand around your throat before you could utter another word and gave it a firm squeeze.

"You talk too much." You a let out a startled croak and a fierce blush had set your cheeks on fire. This sight woke a deep dark desire in Wednesday... a familiar desire only you could bring out. You gulped against the palm of Wednesday's hand and your blush deepened when she smirked and squeezed you a tad bit firmer. "Enid could come in any sec-!"

Wednesday had, in one swift movement, swallowed up your pitiful attempts of struggle in a deep hungry kiss that set off fireworks in your brain. Wednesday had won the game and was now claiming her prize....

You.

************************************************************************

A/N: Short little one shot! Hope you enjoy!

[mmoxie]

Cheeseburger Cost Too Much: Take 2

AN: Americans explaining economic hardship: "Imagine a hamburger."

Summary: Employee wages can double and the price of a meal can be halved and the company still turns a profit. But you already knew that. This is about going insane with a calculator.

A double cheeseburger meal* costs between $9.00 and $13.00 depending on which restaurant you're at. *That's two patties, any toppings you want, medium fries and drink.

That's an absurd amount of money.

It costs on average $3.00 for all the ingredients if they're just bought at the grocery store and not in bulk, y'know like restaurants do.

Of course, restaurants have to make a profit and pay their employees. They also have to pay to ship their ingredients and pay for utilities. Some restaurants don't even own the building they run out of, and instead lease it for cheaper.

Let's do some experiments based on this under the cut:

Suppose you have a typical 2000sqft burger franchise. Your lease, shipping, and utilities come out to $3500 a month. You have six employees- four of them make $15/hr and work 20 hours a week, two of them make $17/hr and work 40 hours a week. You're open 7 days a week, and are closed on Christmas.

Let's pay those employees first and foremost: $1200 for the part-timers, $1360 for the full-timers.

So as soon as you open the doors in the morning, you need to be able to pay out $6060/mo.

==========

You are a very simple burger franchise, with a single menu item- the Double Cheeseburger Combo. Comes with lettuce, onion, pickle, tomato, ketchup, mustard, and mayo, atop two 1/8lb all-beef patties with two slices of American cheese. This is served with a side of fries and a 16oz fountain beverage. Like the combo, you get one. It's Coke.

You make the best burger in town, and average 100 customers a day.

Your combo costs $10.99. So you make $1,099/day.

Now let's factor in the cost of ingredients. At $3.00/combo, you're actually making $7.99/combo, or $799/day.

In a month, you make $23,790 from sales after the cost of ingredients. You pay your bills, and you have $17,730 left over. This is what corporate keeps.

Let's say business is steady for a year. Your franchise makes $212,760 for corporate.

You are one of 21,000 franchises worldwide. They all do exactly as good as you. Your corporation has amassed $4,467,960,000. For brevity's sake, we'll just say $4.47Bn.

You've made this amount after accounting for wages, utilities, shipping, and leasing. Let's say you get a Superbowl ad, and run a healthy ad campaign to promote your combo all year. I'll be generous and say that the regular ad campaign is the same price as the Superbowl ad- so you're out $14 million dollars. Taking you down to $4.45Bn.

You pay your CEO 24 million dollars as a bonus. You have $4.3Bn.

What's left here is called EBITDA- Earnings Before Interest, Taxes, Depreciation, and Amortization.

Let's pay your taxes. It's about 23% of your income. $1,012,000,000. $1.01Bn- you have $3.44Bn left.

Throw all that in the bank. With a 7% interest rate, you'll have made an extra $241 million or so.

Leave it alone for five years, that's a cool billion you made doing nothing.

==========

I'm not gonna talk about stocks, shares, or "worth." This is about a sandwich and what it should cost. Suppose instead that it's $7.99. Let's see what happens to the company when I make it so!

You now make $499/day, $13,972/mo. Subtract your operating costs-you now earn $7,912/mo.

Every month. Every franchise. What has the company made after a year?

$1,993,824,000 - $1.99Bn.

Superbowl ad. Regular ad campaign. CEO bonus. Taxes. All at the same rate.

14 million dollars, 24 million dollars, and... 457.7 million dollars.

So what do we keep? $1,532,300,000. Or 1.53Bn.

So the company is still a billion dollar company. Just not a four billion dollar company. This is why I won't talk about stocks, shareholders, stuff like that- it's just scorekeeping. It's just making the number go up so that the fans at home can make a number go up for themselves- and it's all at the expense of the working poor.

You put 1.53Bn in the bank for 5 years at 7% interest, you're making 107 million additional dollars, by doing nothing.

After 10 years, that's a cool billion without any effort on your part.

==========

Let's see what we can do with just the interest.

107 million, split across 21,000 franchises, that's $509.50 you can pay out every year, to every franchise.

Doesn't sound like a lot, but two things- one, this is just interest, and two, you'd be surprised what a little pocket change can do for a restaurant. You can replace a heating element in a fryer. You can get the floors waxed. You can buy your staff concert tickets. If someone gets sick, you can help them out! On interest.

You haven't gone a penny under the 1.53Bn you put in the bank.

Suppose you did. Suppose you raised the minimum wage at all franchises to 20 dollars, with managers making 24 dollars.

$1600/mo for part-timers now, and $3840/mo for full-timers. You still have a staff of six and your shipping, utility, and lease haven't changed. Your new monthly total is $8940/mo.

And fuck it, a combo is $5.99 now. Ready for round 3?

$299/day -> $8970/mo.

Your franchise now makes 30 dollars a month for the company.

That's $630,000 a year when you multiply it across all franchises worldwide.

You can't pay your CEO a 24 million dollar bonus. You can't buy 14 million dollars worth of advertising. You make $44,100 a year in interest. You pay $144,900 in taxes.

You're a 486 thousand dollar company. You pay your CEO a 10,000 dollar bonus. You make it back fourfold in a year.

You can no longer give every store $509.50 extra a year. Heck, on the interest you're making, you can barely scratch $25 per store in terms of money you can give away every year. But that was always just bonus money. Playing with your interest.

You're half the size of McDonalds, feeding people all over the planet, reaching further than Burger King, and your company is valued at 413,000 times less than they are.

And you're still half a million dollars in profit that you don't have to spend on anything but paying your CEO- who makes $30 an hour, salaried to 45 hours a week. $64,800/yr for the special boy.

You've still got $420,000 in the bank, which, in a world where a combo meal costs $5.99, is the perfect amount.

This is as good as it gets in 2024. A time traveler from 1995 would laugh at us:

[doctormage]

ok I have my veilguard thoughts. I put both things I liked and didn’t like here. it’s not a complete list and I reserve the right to add more as I think of them. godspeed

narrative thoughts

shouldn’t have been surprised but was genuinely floored by how racist they were about the qunari. my god.

like I think it might be worse than inquisition. they literally distorted their voices and hid all their faces. deeply insane

also very disappointed that the culture with the most potentially interesting approach to gender (the qun) was just pigeonholed into being like all the others’. esp bc the trans companion was literally qunari. what happened to roles in the qun being their genders, like….

and on the note of racism/orientalism, what the actual fuck did they dress Isabela in. why are all the lords of fortune armors like that. gun to my head I could not have predicted this

almost no reference to the long standing conflict and prejudice bw tevinter and the qunari. and almost no reference (outside codex entries) to Actual Fucking Slavery in tevinter. all very bizarre

I think a lot of shit got ignored because they were trying to make the game as marketable as possible to players new to the franchise. which I logically understand but hate in practice, bc how are you gonna decide this game is “character driven” and then make almost every character from the previous games, including our choices as the player characters, irrelevant

I mention this in the immersion section but it’s relevant here too. all the stuff that got left behind or unmentioned made the world feel small to me. the world building and lore are, imo, important and load-bearing components of this franchise. I’m still thinking on how they could’ve done it differently, or what missing pieces were most crucial, but for now I’ll leave it at that

appreciated that characters’ feelings of anger and injustice (like Harding about the titans or Neve if you didn’t save Minrathous) and/or weirdness and guilt (like Bellara and Davrin about the evanuris) were respected and discussed. I won’t say everything was perfectly handled but it’s miles away from the shit we’ve seen in previous games

I’d been afraid they were gonna completely rehabilitate solas as a mostly good guy and I’m glad he was still shitty in a lot of ways LMAO

I’m still mulling over his ~penance~ of holding up the veil w his life force or whatever but I do appreciate that they weren’t just like “ok the evanuris are gone and the veil can stay up and everything’s fine now” about it

wait brain blast this goes PERFECTLY W MY SOLAS/ATLAS PARALLELS (1, 2) ACTUALLY HELLO!!! HELLO

gameplay thoughts

wasn’t in love w the combat system but I didn’t dislike it as much as I thought I would. I felt very limited by the amount of abilities I could have usable at a time though

enjoyed that both play styles for a mage (staff vs orb+knife) had viable ranged and melee components. also the orb and knife combo was just cool in general

I like the companion-specific abilities instead of just class-specific, makes them feel more important as a person than just a function

wish I could actually switch to the other companions tho. wouldn’t really do anything but still wish I could lol

that said I do like the very specific ability branches for the companions too bc it makes my life easier lmao

as mentioned previously, I miss armor crafting terribly 🤧 feel like pure shite just want her back xx. anyway. I wore the exact same armor literally the entire game and just kept upgrading it

didn’t love the da2 style “you can’t put your companions in just ANY armor” thing but didn’t hate it either. I appreciate the dedication to the vibe

the hero of the veilguard armors everyone got were really cool (tho I didn’t love bellara’s. sorry my love xoxo) and I’m interested to see what they look like if you pick other choices for their personal quests

unsurprisingly I wish there’d been more stuff to loot and collect out in the world but that’s just who I am. Picks Every Single Elfroot In The Hinterlands Gang rise up

moving around was kind of annoying but I think again that’s just personal preference. plus I’m a fog of war enjoyer (satisfying to clear a whole map of it yk) so do with that what you will

the way the maps were set up isn’t badly but it did kind of discourage me from exploring the way I did in dai, sort of how exploring felt like a huge bitch to me in da2. so it would’ve been nice to have more incentive to explore other than like, a rarity upgrade for a weapon I never use from a chest that took me 15 minutes to get to lol

already said this but I’ll say it again: bring back 4 person parties I miss my friends

really enjoyed how the banter was place based and REALLY really enjoyed how they would be like “what was I saying?” and repeat it if banter was interrupted by combat or something

no fancy party quest or level!!! v disappointing. we had so many options. we even had 2 parties in the game and they were both lame :(

very much wish they’d made it clear that completing certain main quests will lock you out of others. I only missed one companion side quest bc of this but it haunts me

honestly. extremely unpopular opinion but I never minded all the dumb little fetch quests in DAI lmao. I love you quarries I love you logging stands I love you astrariums. I don’t love you ocularums but that’s bc you’re made of tranquil skulls. fucked up

immersion thoughts

way, WAY fucking better at taking your character’s background into account regarding dialog (both in conversations and in cutscenes) thank god

it felt…..small? I wasn’t expecting it to be set up like inquisition with a bunch of big open maps per area, but it felt a little stretched thin. might just be me though

this also sort of ties in w the stuff in the narrative thoughts, about how a lot of historical conflicts and issues (including SLAVERY!!!) were barely touched on at all. the intranational problems add depth to these places as much as the international ones

(btw isn’t the “black divine” supposed to be kind of a conspiracy theory??? is it not meant to be heretical and shit?? that tevinter has their own secret divine and they don’t respect the authority of the southern chantry??? this was not addressed at ALL?????)

some of the areas felt very removed from like, the rest of the country they were in, if that makes sense. eg, the rivain map was weirdly isolated to me and I’m like. where do people live. lmao

the gender stuff is. weirdly handled. as excited as I was to have the opportunity to play as a nb rook and to have a canon nb companion, it was extremely immersion breaking to hear them all say “non binary.” there are a trillion ways to go about this without making it feel like a weird anachronistic DEI seminar

could not fucking tell you how long the events of the game take. ik this isn’t a huge deal to everyone but it is to ME lol

most decisions felt like it made sense that rook was the one making them. or at the very least, it made sense in context and wasn’t just like “hey Cole, you should be more human/spirit.” for example I liked how the way you talked Harding down is what solidifies her narrative one way or the other; we’re not straight up telling her what to do

loved the companions’ book club and notes and conversations. legitimately so endeared by it all. I wish what conflict there was had felt more serious so that the resolution felt earned, but all in all I really enjoyed their dynamics

the golden/black city being arlathan is just. not fucking discussed after we discover that!!! like we all just decide not to completely disprove andrastianism and then go on our merry fuckin way I guess!!!

other thoughts

Solas doesn’t like raisins 🫶

I fucked hard with the solas and felassan memories, and the various notes from felassan you could find

I was never a huge fan of the “ancient elves were spirits that took physical form” theory (though not for any particular reason) so it makes me sad to know my tweenage solas musings are decidedly debunked 😔

mythal fragment stuff was weird. wasn’t a fan

what happened to solas’s elf army. lmao

also what happened to the foci/orbs. aren’t those titan hearts or something. didn’t we discover this in trespasser

where is solas going once he binds himself to the veil??? the same place he put the evanuris? couldn’t he just…..make it different lmao like he created it. I get being all martyr-y and masochistic abt it to atone for his mistakes or whatever but if he’s bringing lavellan can’t he make it suck less?? 😭

feels like we got a LOT of old questions answered (yay!!!) and not a lot of new questions to think about (sad)

THE MUSIC WAS LACKING IM SORRY. I AM STUNNED THAT HANS AND LORNE DID ME LIKE THIS BUT YOU KNOW WHO WOULDNT HAVE DONE ME LIKE THAT IS MR TREVOR FUCKING MORRIS

major choices

dalish veil jumper elf mage rook

romanced bellara 🩵

saved treviso, which hardened neve and blighted minrathous

lucanis spared illario (just to see what would happen tbh. the answer is basically nothing)

gave the griffons to the dalish

softened(?) harding? idk I picked the “remember who you are” dialog that got her the child of the stone relationship title thing

taash embraced rivaini culture

emmrich revived manfred

bellara saved the archive

made a deal w the threads

davrin ultimate sacrifice :( I didn’t know :(

neve kidnapped by elgar’nan :(

redeemed and saved solas. happily ever after w my lavellan as god intended. sorry

idr where I put everyone to help w factions while fighting elgar’nan but everyone survived the final battle (except davrin obv who died before. RIP my absolute king im so so fucking sorry)

[fabuloustrash05]

Reasons why you should vote for Mona Lisa (Mona vs Karai poll)

Poll Here

1 She's a badass who has fought in wars despite being young

2. She's the literal lieutenant for the ENTIRE Salamandrian air force

3. She has never hit on or flirted with her own brother

4. Her commander highly looks up to her and has never consider replacing her for someone newer (unlike Karai who was easily replaced by Tiger Claw as Shredder's second in command as soon as he showed up)

5. She's strong as hell, able to lift the Turtles up effortlessly

6. She's voiced by Zelda Williams (daughter of the late Robin Williams, she also voices Cassandra from rottmnt and Kuriva from lok)

7. Her relationship with Raph is adorable and is the only good and healthy canon ship in the entire show. Better than Leo and Karai, that's for damn sure.

8. Tall Queen (being 6 feet tall exactly) and having herself a short king <3

9. She's beautiful, with her dark blue skin, sliver spots, golden eyes and teal/light blue armor. Amazing combo and use of colors

10. Her personality. Strong willed and honorable, always putting her friends and loved one first, but also stubborn and can often react without thinking. She can be rational and mature but if you insult her or her people, she'll snap.

11. My girl was willing to give up her life to protect Raph and save his family.

12. She owns up to her mistakes. Knowing her people and her planet was at stake, she still too the risk in order to do what was right.

13. She learns her lesson when she does something wrong (unlike Karai who has to learn the same lesson 5 times in one season and still does not change)

14. She's loyal and dedicated to those she loves and cares about

15. She can surprisingly be funny (the pushup scene always gets me XD )

16. Her main weapon is literally a light saber like from Star Wars, how cool is that?!

17. According to the producers, her character is based on the women from the Alien franchise.

18. She's straight forward and honest with her romantic feelings for Raph instead of torturing us with "will they won't they"

19. She takes no bullshit from people like Sub Prime and Bishop.

20. She's never afraid to speak her mind or better yet, throw hands.

In conclusion...

VOTE FOR MONA LISA

[paintedbutton]

Okay, serious first opinion on Veilguard, let's go.

I've played about 10 hours of it so far, and while it's pretty fun and engaging, I'm not completely sold yet.

The combat, to me, is a major weak point. Sure, it's fun, sort of, but it doesn't feel like Dragon Age to me. It's missing a LOT of elements from the previous games. In a way, combat feels a lot like the exaggerated beginning in DA2 - everything's flashy, my rogue seems to be teleporting all over the place, you get it. For me, the build-up's missing. I couldn't even tell who was and wasn't a mage for a bit there because everyone seems to be glowing all the time. I'm missing the strategic aspects of combat a lot. Not just the ability to pause and position your party, but also the ability to actually think about what you're doing. I feel very railroaded a lot of the time what with the ui very insistently telling you that THIS IS A COMBO, THIS ENEMY IS WEAK TO THAT, etc. The classes don't seem to matter anymore. I've yet to get a warrior into my team, and the game doesn't seem to care too much about it at all. It's still fun ... I think ... but it feels a tad too much to me. Too button-mashy.

I like the lighthouse as a base of operations, and I like how everyone finds their little home to hole up in there. It's interesting, and I'm looking forward to exploring it more.

Story-wise, I'm a little on the fence so far. It could be good, I think, but I'm a little irritated that Solas/we just unleashed two ancient elven gods on the world and everyone just shrugs and rolls with it. Some parts of the dialogue feel very wooden and expository, but I guess that's to be expected when you have a decade between games and need to give everyone the same base of knowledge. On the other hand, some stuff is hardly explained at all (the Veil Jumpers, what's even happened with the veil after Inquisition, etc). Some things (Harding getting magic) feel a little rushed. But I'll be interested to see how it goes. And I do like that Varric's little storytime sequences have made a return.

What I do very much like is that Rook is rooted in the world, and that not only their choices but what they say seems to matter. Kudos to that. Although, at least in my few hours of gameplay, some aspects do seem to be missing. I made my "practice" Rook and elf and a Crow, so I thought - city elf, obviously. When she uttered the words "our gods" without blinking an eye, I was a little miffed for a moment. Maybe there's opportunities later to flesh out Rook's backstory through dialogue or something, but so far they get a background and that's about it.

The art direction is hit and miss for me. The game is beautiful, the costumization seemingly endless, and none of the enemies are rooted in any sort of previous art design, which makes me kinda sad. I know we knew this from the trailers, but I just don't understand Bioware's insistence on redeveloping the wheel with every single game. I joked about the darkspawn, but seriously. The lack of consistency annoys the fuck out of me (as do the darkspawn in general tbh. They made something interesting, lore-wise, in DAO and built interesting aspects on top of it in DA2. I'm not sure I like the "we're throwing that all overboard because elven gods are cooler" is a direction i necessarily like). I couldn't tell what anything at all was supposed to be, compared to the earlier games. Except for nugs and halla maybe.

In conclusion: I'm having fun, but I'm unsure. It may be a Fallout 4 situation for me. Fun game, but not the franchise I've come to know and love.

[ojamayellow]

People are claiming that kids groaned at the Earthspark trailer (therefore "kids don't want ES") during the 40th Anni Transformers Event but imo even if that's true I still doubt it? Kids go NUTS over different variations of their fave things. see: Live Action Transformers, or like multimedia franchises like Marvel or Sonic!

But even so, people saying "not even kids enjoy Earthspark" is wrong unless you personally surveyed every child. There were young teens (or pre teens?) at my local 40th Anni Screening who lost it at the Earthspark sneak peek.

Not always, but people who tend to dislike Earthspark dislike it because it's "#woke", or they're a genwunners/tfp-fanatic. I haven't seen TFP, but the way people obsess over it as if it's the only good Transformers show makes me want to avoid it until the very end.

And sure Earthspark has flaws, but that doesn't make it a failure in writing. Everything that exists has a flaw. Your favourite cartoon, Transformers or not, has flaws. G1, Beast Wars, TFA are all highly regarded cartoons that have incredible flaws and issues that frustrate me. But they're not overall terrible shows, unless you solely focus on the flaws.

IMO, Earthspark being a Paramount/Nick show severely affected it. Nick only cares about SpongeBob now. And the "10 episodes in batches every few months" affects the show. A weekly show would've been so much better! One of our free tv channels here only has a batch of S1 Earthspark, but they screen those on a regular basis, much preferable!

And god I DO wanna blame Hasbro, and I sorta do. But toys are bought always. Yeah the quality could be better but that's a sad reality of production these days. I don't know how well the distribution was in other places, but I live in a small city in Australia. We only have some of the smaller toys and Megatron + Twitch + Bee combo. I've never ever seen Nightshade. Can someone please send me a Nightshade? (Yet again we still got loads of Cyberverse Starscreams here... Maybe I'm just in a weird spot).

Actually yeah I'll blame Hasbro too cos they rehashed older toys when we wanted some screen accurate Seekers, but the whole Paramount thing was stupid. Anyway if Earthspark /is/ cancelled after Season 2, I'll be extremely upset. I love this show dearly. There's heart (spark?) in it. And what's worse is that if it is cancelled, the haters will be like "HA! I TOLD YOU SO. WE DONT NEED KIDDIE WOKE MEDIA, WE NEED SKYBOUND QUALITY CARTOONS OR TFP AGAIN" like shut up? Transformers is initially for kids to sell toys? Shut up?

[softchassis]

Re-breaking the Tumblr Ice with a "25 Games To Know Me" post!

Reasons why each game is important to me are under the cut.

Sonic The Hedgehog 2 -- I love Sonic in general. I think across the entire history of the franchise I can only really point to two games I dislike, or three if I'm feeling particularly uncharitable. But Sonic 2 was the first game I ever saw at a store and said "I want that one". As for how I feel about Sonic 2 itself, it's actually not my favorite Sonic game or even my favorite classic Sonic game--those distinctions go to Sonic Unleashed and Sonic CD--but without Sonic 2, I may never have given the blue hog a chance.

Spark The Electric Jester 3 -- The most recent game on this list certainly but it deserves to be there. It's so confident and unashamed of what it is. It *knows* it's a Sonic fan game underneath its yellow blorbo skin, but it never winks at the audience about it. You just get to do some really incredible, high speed 3D platforming and mix in some DMC-lite combos in there too. It's good, it's fun, it's sincere, it's beautiful. All the Spark games are.

Cave Story -- Before Cave Story I only had a vague idea of the concept of "single person makes game all by themself". I'd certainly played plenty before, from the Shareware era on DOS and Windows 95, but Cave Story made it feel approachable. Plus, on its own, it's just a great little game.

La Mulana -- Cave Story and La Mulana share the same space in my brain. It may be a little weird to say this, but I typically don't enjoy 2D Metroidvanias. The only ones I've beaten are Super Metroid and most recently Nine Sols. But something about La Mulana just tickles me. It feels like the entire map is one big Rubik's Cube I'm beating my head against, which is more satisfying to me than "I found the thing that lets me do the thing I couldn't do earlier."

DOOM (2016) -- I love the entire Doom franchise but DOOM 2016 is my favorite standalone experience. Otherwise I have played untold hours of classic Doom mods, my favorites being Reelism, Demonsteele, and Doom Infinite.

Sekiro -- A really great experience all around. I enjoy Dark Souls and appreciate its storytelling, but most everything in Dark Souls feels too distant for me to appreciate, whereas in Sekiro, the history both is recent and ongoing, and the Shinto and Buddhist mythology informs the story in real time. And It's just so fun to actually play. You never forget your first Lady Butterfly.

Dynamite Headdy -- Most everyone loves Treasure but to me no game is more Treasure than this one.

Moon: Remix RPG Adventure -- One of the earliest plays on the RPG genre. A typical RPG hero is going around slaying monsters to level up, but that person isn't you. Instead, you go around reuniting the souls of slain monsters to revive them, and learn a lot about the heartfelt and unique world they once inhabited. A really beautiful and important game.

Worms Armageddon -- Still the best 1999

Avernum: Escape From The Pit -- A remake of Spiderweb Software's first game in the "Exile" series. Avernum tells a great fantasy story about an underground cave society, where undesirables are exiled by the empire who scorns them. Instead of laying down and dying in the caves, its new residents name it Avernum and create their own society... and they don't intend to take their punishment laying down. A really fun and atmospheric CRPG with great, Vonnegut-esque writing and a lot of heart.

Legacy Of Kain: Soul Reaver -- I played this one pretty recently and was shocked at how forward thinking it was for 1999. I played the entire Legacy of Kain series back to back, but Soul Reaver stuck out to me as the best one. If you can't tell by some of the other games on this list, I adore games that feel lonely and isolating but still have a distinct goal and stakes. Soul Reaver is incredible and finally contextualized just why I saw Raziel all over Playstation magazines as a kid--it's because he's fucking cool!

Marathon Infinity -- play the entire marathon series right now stop reading this

Lemmings -- Huh. What's that doing here

Pikmin -- The first Pikmin is the best one in my opinion. I love the time limit, I love the simplicity of the scope compared to the rest of the series, it's a fun game to just pop in once in a while and just blitz through. I also just love microworld settings. And the creature design! And the puzzle design! Ohh Pikmin there's nothing like you.

Klonoa: The Door To Phantomile -- I have a lot of fond memories of this one, but specifically of playing the demo over and over on a Playstation Magazine demo disc with my sister. I wouldn't actually play the full game until much later, on an emulator. I did later rent Klonoa 2 and finish it before that though. Klonoa is good.

Rayman -- I love this game. I love how fucking mean it is while looking so bright and poppy and silly. I first played it when I was like 8 years old and it was a really humbling, eye-opening experience. But jokes aside it's just a really good game. But yeah, it's hard. If you've never played it before and don't want to tear your hair out, you should play Rayman Redemption, a fan remake of it that makes it a bit more approachable. If you ask me though, you should try the original first.

Ecco: The Tides of Time -- I also played this one when I was really young and it was also a humbling, eye-opening experience. I just liked dolphins, I wasn't expecting to have rented the hardest game in the entire fucking store. Having revisited the Ecco series many times since then, though, I think Tides of Time is the best one. It's just gorgeous and both versions of the soundtrack are amazing. I prefer the CD one though, except for Moray Abyss and Tubes of Medusa.

Splatterhouse -- Kids love horror and kids love forbidden things, so when I saw a Splatterhouse ROM on a romsite as a kid and was immediately told I wasn't allowed to download it, of course I fucking did when no one was looking. And my brain was altered forever

Earthbound -- I very briefly had a stepbrother who had a SNES and Earthbound and I wasn't able to play it myself (no open save slots) so I just watched, but I was fascinated by it. I would eventually play it myself later on good ol ZSNES. I have nice warm memories of watching the snow on the ZSNES menu while it snowed gently outside, in between bouts of playing Earthbound and Yoshi's Island.

Yakuza -- Okay the PS2 boxart is here as a stand in, I love the entire Yakuza series dearly. I did own Yakuza and Yakuza 2 when they were new, but lost them when our PS2 and all of its games got stolen.

Sonic Robo Blast 2 -- Another Sonic game? But this one's special. I've been playing SRB2 for over half of my life at this point. I've played countless mods for it and have watched it grow from a basic little Doom platformer into a great platform for expression. It's also just fun.

Bomberman 64 -- The 3D bomb-stacking and bouncing stuff in this game is so cool and is the exact kind of finicky, almost-accidental-seeming mechanical depth I love in video games. I can't believe they only made one of these.

Psychonauts -- Kind of a stand-in for Double Fine and LucasArts in general, but definitely the best game still out of both companies. I love 3D platformers and I love what this game does. There's still not much out there like it.

Rayman 2 -- Another Rayman game? Well yeah, I can't say I love 3D platformers and just not put the best 3D platformer ever made on this list. Not an exaggeration!

Final Fantasy XIV -- I get to play as a hot lion woman now. Have you seen her? Well, now you have

[mahou-furbies]

Thoughts about the Cure design from Wonderful Pretty Cure?

Overall: alright designs, none of them are instant winners or get me interested in the character based on looks above, but there have been more meh season reveals as well. With the striped ribbons they do look more unified than any of the seasons that have come out while I've been following the franchise so that's a point in their favour at least.

Wonderful:

A really standard pink Cure design both with colours and shapes. I always like a two-tone hair (and would certainly like it less if her hair was just pink) but we've had the pink+blonde combo several times already, how about something new with the hair colour? Doggy ear hairstyle is fun at least and the crown is probably the best design element. And striped socks, or tights I guess, are always nice.

Friendy:

Unique hair colour for a purple Cure is very welcome and her hairstyle is cute. I also like how the four Cures are split into two pairs design-wise, so even if the whole team still doesn't look quite as unified as I'd like, at least the pairs have a more of a theme going on with each other. I also like how they swap brooch ribbons.

But about Friendy, the Sherlock vibe is nice but I'm skeptical if anything will come out of it. Overall I find this is a solid design even if no individual element stands out particularly.

Nyammy:

Lillian:

My favourite of these, mostly thanks to the Stocking like hair. And finally it's a white haired Cure! A white palette with blue accents gives her a peaceful look. I'm also very much a cat person so she gets points from that too. And I said that no design makes me that interested in the characters, but I think I'll have to take that back because Nyammy's dazed expression does make me curious, it'd be really funny if she ends up being like lol I don't care about everything.

Probably the weakest one of the bunch for me. Theme colour discourse aside, this is kind of too monochrome for my taste and I really don't like how the pink stripe looks with the teal. Hairstyle isn't my favourite either and I think she'd look nicer if she had a separate skirt or shorts under the hem. But the hem shape is good and I like how it looks with the ribbon.

[teapartypenguin]

Luna's deck sucks, here's how to fix it

So I've got a lot to say about Ruka/Luna and her role in the story, mostly how I think it could have been better. But I'll start with the first way that the writers fail Luna: her deck.

If you play the TCG, you may already know that Luna is one of the few main cast duelists that never got an archetype associated with her. By this point in the franchise, every character has their own archetype or two associated with them, yet Luna doesn't use any archetype specific cards (unless you count Kuribon). She has a loose fairy forest type theme that is a mix of plants, fairies, and beasts. This isn't too out of the ordinary for characters, Akiza also had no real archetype during the series (just a lot of plant/rose themed cards), but she and most others in that state got some sort of archetype retroactively made around their deck (in Akiza's case, the Rose Dragons). Luna has not received any support.

Luna's ace monster is Ancient Fairy Dragon, who in the series, she had a strong connection to. And despite being the weakest attack wise of the Signer dragons, AFD's effect gave her the strongest counter against the Earthbound Gods in the first arc (which is why she had to get written out for most of it). In fact, this effect would be so strong that AFD would get banned irl for several years until the card got an errata. And possibly because of this, AFD is still the ONLY Signer dragon to never get an upgraded form.

Now let's talk about Luna's duel against Professor Frank. This is Luna's first showing as a duelist especially after being hyped up as a former dueling prodigy. Even with the very loose deck, there is a bit of a strategy there. Luna use Ancient Forest to attempt to lock her opponent out of attacking, then uses life point gain and loss effects to slowly burn her opponent. Eventually the duel ends in a draw with Luna using Oberon's Prank in combo with Kuribon's LP gain effect. And that is the end of the ONLY solo duel Luna gets in the series.

Looking back on this duel after having finally played Yugioh, I had the sudden realization that Oberon's Prank was an anime only card with an awful effect made just so Luna could force a draw. Oberon's Prank is a trap card that makes it so that any LP gain effects used on your opponent are negated, and both players take damage equal to the LP that would have been gained. The closest equivalent to Oberon's Prank irl is Bad Reaction to Simochi, which only inflicts damage to the opponent. Simochi was also used by Luna in the World Championship games and is probably the intended way to use Kuribon's LP gain effect. So the only reason I can think for why they would write the duel in this way would be because they really wanted Luna to tie/lose. In a narrative sense, I get wanting to show that Luna is kind and would rather force a draw than let her opponent get eaten by a dragon. But also, she wasn't going to win the duel at that point, let her run Simochi and get a win. Or make it look like there was a choice in the matter.

(IMO, if the dragon wants to eat the creepy psychologist, soup's on.)

So if I were to fix Luna's deck, the first thing is giving her a Naturia/Vernusylph deck.

Naturia is a Synchro and Fusion focused deck that is composed of Earth attribute monsters with the goal of controlling the opponent's movements. A couple of the Naturia cards would have already been made by the time of 5Ds. Naturia works for Luna for a couple reasons; the control style is a good contrast to Leo's combo focused deck, they're a bunch of cute critters that fit the fairy forest theme Luna was going for, and the archetype's story itself is also related to the Naturia protecting their home forest (as Luna does for the card spirit world).

Their boss monster is also named Leo and I just think that's funny.

Maybe the writers did consider Naturia and decided against it for whatever reasons (didn't want another majority plant player after Akiza, knew Luna would be too much of a menace with Naturia Beast, wanted to save the cards for the Duel Terminal arcade game, etc.).

Supporting the deck further would be the Vernusylph archetype, which are a small archetype of Earth fairy monsters that offer support to other Earth monsters. They're a relatively new archetype so some effects may be a little strong for 5Ds era (especially Vera). But they fit into Naturia well and would have really solidified the fairy forest theme. Also them being Earth support in general means that they can support Powertool Dragon and many of Leo's Morphtronics in tag duels (also a couple of Team 5Ds use Earth monsters so it would make Luna fit well into a lot of tag duels). And despite being a Light attribute, AFD fits into the deck.

And another monster I think would fit would be Circle of the Fairies (also a relatively new card). This one throws off the Earth attribute focus a bit, but offers support for plants and insect types. Also more burn and LP gain effects for Luna. And it and the other Circular monsters keep up the fae theme being based around fairy circles.

That's my opinion on what Luna should play. It's not too late for Luna to get an associated archetype, there's a couple of characters who get different archetypes in later games, like Tea playing Witchcrafter in Duel Links and Blair getting Lightsworn in Tag Force. Or Ishizu who's deck retrains created one of the most powerful decks in history. AFD is also long overdue for an upgrade/support after being off the banlist for a couple years now. And so Konami should make Luna's deck absolutely broken as an apology.