#the game just ends on you dying and you get a whole cutscene on it

[aceofspadegrass]

Stupid game idea (Just in general).

Game where you are the horse trying to get to your rider. Sounds easy, yes. Well you're a horse in an open world game and in your rider's perspective they call you and you come galloping from the general place you were left last.

Well as the game progresses your rider is somehow farther and farther away from your starting position and you have to get your horse ass all the way to them as fast as possible.

The ending? Easy, you are Yoshi'd into an abyss because your rider decided to abuse a jump mechanic and you respawn anyways.

Hopefully.

Your rider is an asshole.

On the good news you get to choose your horse skin.

[butchvamp]

i finished the game last night, here are my unpolished thoughts about the final act and what i liked & didn't like. this is very long and probably incoherent lol

what i liked:

the whole final battle was awesome, i loved the combat, and i really enjoyed the huge cutscenes of everyone fighting together. i had been really disappointed earlier about the lack of a battle scene at weisshaupt a la ostagar in origins, and this definitely made up for it

i liked the suicide mission and actually getting to assign people their roles in the battle

i LOVED Solas's betrayal, that whole section in the fade prison with the statues was one of the strongest scenes in the game, i think the entire relationship between Rook and Solas is really well developed. as the player, we know Solas is manipulating them, but i think they did a good job making it so it's still believable for Rook to fall for his tricks, especially with the Blood of Arlathan quest before this. (also it's very obvious Solas is Weekes' favorite, wish they would have just stuck to him and not all that other dogshit...lol)

i liked the idea of Varric's role here, but not the execution. i'll come back to this lmao

the giant dread wolf and archdemon fight was cool as fuck. no notes. that's just classic rule of cool, baby

also i had Davrin in my party while fighting alongside Solas and i really enjoyed his banter with him and how hard he laid into Solas's ass. it was very satisfying. yippee go Davrin!

okay. now. what i didn't like (sorry not going to bother with bullet points, it's going to be longer down here lol):

while i liked the suicide mission structure, i hated how the game all but told you who to assign where. there were no stakes at all, there was no way to get it wrong unless you did so intentionally.

this also brings me to. The Choice. between Davrin and Harding. i understand the need for a "fallen hero" here, it ties into the entire theme of regret with Solas as we see in the fade prison, it was necessary for Rook to be the person "at fault" (aka directly make the choice that ends with someone getting killed) but this choice was dogshit. it also was really fucking stupid to see Harding climb up and stand atop a giant stone pillar, and then NOT use her stone magic!!! i don't hate the idea of someone dying here, but this was just a series of failed choices over and over again. we should not have pitted returning fan fave Harding against the single Black companion (who comes in late and barely even gets his own story outside of his damn pet)-- it should have been Harding (narratively satisfying, she's been here since the beginning and dies for the fight) or Lucanis (he is literally the guy taking the shot), we also shouldn't have tied all the dwarf lore revelations to a character that can just fucking die at the end, and we shouldn't have had her stand on a giant stone pillar when she has STONE MAGIC!! i knew this choice was coming but her death still caught me off guard cus i was fully expecting her to collapse that stone pillar on her, not use her stupid puny bow 😭

i think this choice is also weakened by the fact that it's THEE only choice. it's obviously an echo of the earlier Treviso and Minrathous choice, which also didn't really seem to affect much outside of potentially losing the corresponding factions (and i think Lucanis's romance gets locked out?) i saved Treviso, so i got the Treviso questline later, and i assume that you get a Minrathous specific questline with the Shadow Dragons if you save the other instead (haven't seen myself tho so i'm not sure, just guessing). but it's very easy to recover the Shadow Dragon's reputation, and the final battle takes place in Minrathous no matter what. the only way for companions to die or the battle to fail is to just straight up ignore quests. you can't lose a faction's support at all unless you intentionally try to do so. i don't even think you can lose companions at all unless you intentionally ignore their quests and place them in the wrong spot. though the game still holds your hand through the battle and basically Tells You who to put where so they survive.

and to be fair. this is true for the suicide mission in mass effect 2, but the thing is, there is so much more dialogue and variations with how you can play your character and interact with the companions and the world than there is in veilguard, it makes it feel like you do have more control over your character and the narrative, even if it's just the illusion of choice.

and then with Solas, it doesn't matter, he always ends up trapped/linked to the Fade, it just changes how he feels. (they also do this with the First Warden. i was excited for a potential variation between punching/not punching, but all it changes is his attitude when you find him later in Davrin's quest) okay.... well. is he going to return again after that post credit scene? and are they really going to write 3 (or 4, with lavellan i guess) different branching personality variations?

i think the powers that be just wanted to get rid of him in a way that would still leave the dragon age setting ultimately unaltered and open for more games in the future. especially given the secret post credits scene. which i also have an issue with. we're going to go from "it was all the Evanuris fault" to Actually, it was this secret third thing and everything we did was for nothing! AGAIN! if they want to make more dragon age games, they can just... start a new story. do they know that. (the fact they're implying Loghain was influenced by some outside force to do what he did at ostagar actually has me livid lol. leave origins alone!!!!)

anyways. now the fade prison. i have two issues, my main one being Varric. i actually started to suspect early on something was up with him, because he just sits in that damn infirmary the entire game, no interactions, barely any dialogue. i think Varric was horribly underutilized in this game, and it results in all of the emotional beats around him falling flat for me. of course, it's emotional for ME, the player, because Varric is a fan fave returning character and one of my own personal favorites. as far as i've seen in game, though... Rook has no relationship with him at all. i think this game would have been vastly improved with short playable origins that showed the two meeting and developing a relationship, and also he really really needed to have more scenes and dialogue in general. he's barely in the second half of the game, literally just sitting all by himself in that damn room, and even when he is in the cutscenes he has one single line that everyone obviously just ignores. it sucked. very disappointing finale for a really beloved character... it could have been so good if it was good....

because i DO love the idea of Solas using him to manipulate Rook (and i really like Varric and Solas's relationship & the way they contrast against each other), and also the idea of how being tricked in that way would actually affect Rook-- what's real, what's not, can they even trust what they're seeing at all anymore? especially when Solas "glitches" between Varric and Lucanis (idk if it's always him or your LI? would be cool if it's your LI, that's what i assumed) after slaying Ghilan'nain-- this could have tied in with the final romance scene. but of course the game doesn't get into any of that at all.

and now issue 2. how the fuck did Solas do that LOL. how did he switch places, how did he get out, how did it take Rook in his place when it was designed for elven gods? where are the other elven gods (did i just miss this explanation? did the other two just kill them in there)? 🤷 when did this place suddenly turn into a prison of regrets? was that Solas's presence influencing it, or did he do that intentionally for Rook? dont know! who cares. moving on...

i romanced Lucanis, and i was really disappointed with his romance. the final scene was sweet, but.... i think particularly with Lucanis you can tell so much of his story and arc ended up on the cutting room floor, it feels disjointed and as if we're missing pieces, and you can feel it in his romance, too. i also really didnt understand the "keep flirting (not a lock in) or end it now" choices that didnt feel like they did anything at all. why was i given like 3 different times to break up with him when we weren't even dating yet lmao. the romance was a bummer, of course i love the setting and the story but i go into these games expecting strong romance along with it and i was really banking on that being the highlight in this mess of a game but. alas

this also segues me back into the whole "trapped in the Fade prison" section. why was there no reunion with both your LI and everyone else? apparently Rook was in there for WEEKS!!! they hardly communicate this and Rook just reappears and jumps straight back into leading the team, no tears or questions asked about how they found them, how they got out, what everyone was thinking while they were gone... we also get a deus ex machina knife, how convenient that they did all that while i was gone and no explanation is given as to how it could possibly fool Solas, just trust us bro! 💆 i feel like trying to craft our own copy of the knife should have been something actively happening in the background throughout the entire game, and it gets finished while Rook is in the Fade. but this truly came out of nowhere lol

again i think it's obvious things were cut and rewritten and maybe this was the result of a frantic scramble to come up with something that would work, and i'll be generous and blame it on that, i guess...

when we finally get to the final confrontation with Solas, i was very excited, because again i feel like Rook and Solas's relationship is the best in the game, Solas's writing is consistent and strong, i knew this scene had to be good.... and i guess it was? but it felt so unsatisfying. i chose to fight him (my Rook would do anything to get him to shut up) and i was hoping for. an actual fight. you can do it with Mythal earlier in the game, and we already saw his giant wolf form, i was so excited. and then. no<3

okay! sure. we beat him with the power of friendship (not surprised and not even making fun of it here, it makes sense narratively, i knew some version of this was coming after the whole comparing Rook versus Solas bit in the Fade) but come onnnnn i wanted to fight the giant wolf.... sigh. i did check out the other endings as well, and it's clear the redemption ending is the "true" ending and also the best written one imo.

overall. this was a bad dragon age game. i had a lot of fun playing it though, so it's not a bad game game. the gameplay loop never got boring, i never got tired exploring or doubling back, i loved the maps, i loved the combat, and i did love the companions. but the writing is atrocious and racist. this is a horrible dragon age game. i don't know where i fall on recommending this. again, i've had a lot of fun playing and dissecting it, but i dont know that i could recommend this to dragon age fans. this would have been way more successful as a completely different fantasy game. the changes to the lore, disregarding the majority of the games that came before it, the horrible depictions of returning characters (the inquisitor and isabela were the worst offenders for me) the setting and characters feeling watered down and incomplete, the complete lack of the classic "grey morality" shtick (even if it's not always been implemented well)... idk man. bummer! it's obvious there was a cohesive vision at one point, i do think this game is a casualty of the current state of the gaming industry (i was honestly surprised it was functional on launch. not shade at bioware just in general that is rare to see now) we know EA thrashed bioware throughout development, and bioware made a lot of really bad choices, too (the racism is absolutely their doing, they made that choice back in inquisition). but we can see, particularly in the artbook, that there were good ideas & an intention to actually tie everything together and give this story the finale it deserved... but it all got lost along the way in a very ugly, chaotic development. and the game really suffers for it.

[crayonsquadlilac]

I had to scribble out his ending dialogue. I just couldn't lose this image i had in my head, of this poor charachter who tried his best still (for lack of a better word) dying, and not screaming or crying when it's happening but instead saying this and then gently apologizing, like it's his fault, and that's the last he ever says. I think this scene's gonna stick with me for a while.

I'm actually so sick about him like god like "I've wasted my whole life hiding, I think I should try saying hello." God. Me when the character is kind and well meaning and funny and silly and yet tragic by nature. Me when the character never gets the good ending they deserved (in a well written way.). What the Hell. God

Super Ultra Rambling under the readmore if you're curious about my elaborate Thoughts;

Ik is my favorite charachter because he is very silly and my best friend ever in the world but also because of the Tragedies. He's a person used to fear, a people pleaser, who let mr. Sob manipulate him and turn his hotel into something he never wanted, simply pretending it was still the same, who spends the whole game trying so hard to keep you in high spirits and unworried even when he himself is terrified. Someone who cares too much and tries so hard and probably never even gave nearly as much to himself as he did to others. Even at the end, as he describes to you all the horrors that unfolded on earth, he makes jokes and quips and keeps up his goofy manner of speaking despite the information clearly disturbing him.

When he tells you the story of his death, he never once mentions anything about how sad it is, and if you respond with "I'm sorry," he says like basically "oh it's fine," before hesitating with a concerned look on his face. His death may be something he avoids thinking about a lot.

And describing him, i can't help but relate to him, understand him, perhaps that's why I am so Insane about him right now.

I think this game is about, no matter what happens, at the end of it all it will still be the end. It may even end sooner than you'd expect. The human race before dying out solved all their problems and created a perfect world, Ik tried hard to do good and make people happy, Mr. Sob gained his own twisted control over many souls of the afterlife, you the player just kept going onward as much you could, but they all came to the same unceremonious end. I suppose it all matters on your perspective- do you focus on the ending, or how you got there?

When Ik tells you about his death, he describes how he saw the stars, and the view of his town from all the way high up, how he stopped and looked for a long time. But he couldn't stay forever, he had to keep moving. I think that's the part that mattered most. Even in so terrible a situation, he got something beautiful out of it. And like i guess part of the game is, "we can't stop what's coming, there's no use hiding, so we may as well face it with a smile and a greeting." Or maybe more like "the time will pass anyways" type of thing. If that makes sense.

I've seen some people interpret the Morning as everyone is brought to a final resting place peacefully. And of course, it's wide open for everyone to interpret it however, but for me personally I thiiiink Ik was probably right about it being the end of time. The thing seemed a little bit too obliterating-you-type-deal in the final cutscene. All the humans are dead and it's time for their afterlife to go too now. Maybe it's to make room for something that'll replace us, or to start over from scratch with everything, but for all the human souls, it's the end.

Maybe the sole survivor of all existence is Shrimp, in the afterlife, always running from the Morning, wandering for eternity. Which i say to be silly but also that would be really sad actually. He'd be alone... he'd get hungry and there'd be no one there to feed him lounge chairs and tables and glass vases..... poor shrimp..........

I don't know if it would have been better or worse if you could just find his abandoned collar on the ground somewhere before that last lantern. Probably worse actually. Yeah no I'm glad that's not a thing. I'm sorry for saying that.

But anyway, what a damn good game. I'm sad it didn't get more attention when it came out, it feels like such a passion project. I feel bad for only finding out it exists recently. I'll try my best with telling all my friends to play it too though. Cause like oh man. Good god. It made me laugh, it made me scared, and now it's made me cry, drawing and typing this post. It's a thinker. I love existential wonder in media, but this one is more like, existential indifference or something. but it doesn't feel cynical at all, i don't know. I like it a lot. Putting it right up there with my favorites.

also actually nevermind fuck all that noise good ending where the morning never comes and they just wander the woods forever together yippee wahoo!! who needs themes and messages and meanings !!!! when The Characters could be happy !!!!!!!

jtjfjfjdhdjskfskdkdsfdhdhsfjcjdhfhshsfhd everything is fine i am Fine definitely not Crying More why would you think that

[bowletta]

my thoughts on brothership!

(major spoilers edition!)

Please beat the game before reading

(click here for No spoilers version)

The first thing i need to address:

YOU.

the moment i saw him. It was all over. The collar, the dress, the spiked cloak...

- My God. I love reclusa. I love his little noises, his silly faces. I love it. We havent seen a twist final boss since pit (...ok techically bis too but. To a lesser degree). I love the angst between him and cozette. I wish he showed his true power more..? As cool as he is hes kind of underwhelming, especially compared to the lore tidbits we get on him. Too bad we will never see him again lol 💔

- the final boss fight itself was really underwhelming tbh. All this build up and I had him knocked out in like 10 turns without dying once. It doesnt help the music (while i like it!) doesnt stand up to the likes of the grand finale or even paper jam's final boss theme.

- I cannot believe there wasnt a single fawful cameo in the entire game. Like the fact cackletta fans ate So good yet there wasnt so much as a whisper of by far the most popular m&l character was.. baffling.

- reefs. As small as they were, i really liked the character choices. Zeekeeper and peasley were strange but incredibly based picks. Everyone got a little somethimg to eat, no matter what your favorite game is : )

what I dont understand about reefs is.. are they from mario and luigis world? Or were they natively in concordia prior? How do they know about peasley and the shroobs? Who made them? How? Why? The implications are all over the place.

-cozette. You poor thing. I love her. This kind of applies to the whole game but I wish they didnt just tell us the plot. Her reveal wouldve felt so much more significant if the great conductor didnt just spill the beans right before.

I forgot to mention it before but as much as I like snoutlet... he holds the players hand too much. Please. Let me figure out the puzzle myself. Let me connect the plot myself without you dumbing it down for my pea sized brain. Pleas.

- technikki and adaphne. I know the game heavily implies adaphnikki is endgame i just dont know how I feel about it... adaphne is just so mean to her for no reason. Even if they get along by the end, technikki shouldnt just lie down like a dog for her! She was so mean to her! And never even apologized! Idk im glad theres like 5 different ladies we can ship technikki with but this one is pushed so hard ingame..

- kind of a minor plothole but chilliam and burnadettes wedding. I thought it was really interesting how they portrayed the two as deeply in love, even if their own people refuse to accept it, but then the next cutscene later theyre all fine with it? Ok lol

Theres probably more I cant think of atm i just really wanted to talk about reclusa ❤️

[blazinginsquids]

Could it be possible that both Rachel and Max are responsible for the storm?

I’ve only recently gotten into life is strange so forgive me if this is already an established theory/concept, but what if it’s true that both Rachel and Max are responsible for the storm?

Now, I’m already aware that there’s individual theories that Rachel, or Max caused the storm. Both those theories have reasonable evidence behind them.

The most obvious is that Max caused the storm. The game starts with Max taking a photo of a butterfly, and ends with a hurricane, which is an obvious allusion to the concept of the butterfly effect, the idea that something as small as the flap of a butterfly’s wings can eventually evolve into a tornado.

Chloe’s mention of chaos theory as well as Max directly stating she caused the storm are also clear indicators meant to establish that as the audience, we’re supposed to view Max as the deciding factor as to whether the storm occurs or not. On top of this, Max doesn’t realize that rewinding time caused the storm until after it’s too late. If it wasn’t meant to happen, wouldn’t whatever higher power that granted her the powers also warn her in time?

As a Rachel Amber fan, I immediately became enamored by the theory that she caused it. Part of it is the secondary theory that Rachel has powers relating to nature/the elements, backed by the forest fire she caused, the candle flames at the Amber house intensifying as she gets angry, fire representing Rachel herself, as well as Chloe making a comment that the storm could be Rachel’s revenge for getting murdered.

Unfortunately, as much as I like the idea, I don’t believe that theory. I believe it was confirmed Rachel doesn’t have powers, and if anything, I’d say if she does, they relate to fire and not water (storm). I think the fire symbolism related more to Rachel’s personality rather than powers.

But even so, this doesn’t mean Rachel couldn’t have caused the storm. And it doesn’t mean Max did it alone, either.

Now, I have seen plenty of people say they think that Chloe was just a pawn to Rachel. While I understand the sentiment, I don’t believe it for a second. Maybe I’ll get into it separately if I feel like it, but I do truly feel as if Rachel cared about Chloe (This is important to keep in mind).

Part of the basis of the Rachel’s revenge theory is that she wanted to leave Arcadia Bay. She hated being there, and it was important to her that she escaped. Dying and being buried and effectively trapped in Arcadia Bay angered her spirit.

I think this is true. As confirmed by developers, the doe that acts as a guide for Max throughout the game is confirmed to be Rachel’s spirit. We know she’s helping Max. Chloe even says she thinks Rachel wanted them to find her body.

At the end of the game, you have to choose to sacrifice Chloe or Arcadia Bay. No matter what ending you choose, either Chloe dies, or Arcadia Bay as a whole is destroyed.

I think Rachel gave Max her powers. I think the way in which Max used them was destined, given that Max has a vision of the storm before she discovers her powers.

Rachel’s spirit was angry with Arcadia Bay, and I think, even in death, she wanted Chloe to leave it. So somehow, from the other side, she gave Max her powers, and led her in the right direction to cause the storm, leading to the infamous Bae or Bay decision.

If you choose Bae over bay, Arcadia Bay gets destroyed, forcing Chloe and Max to leave. If you choose Bay over bae, Chloe is murdered by Nathan Prescott, leading to an incredibly depressing ending cutscene of Chloe’s funeral.

I think it’s possible that Rachel intentionally gave Max her powers, and forced her hand in a decision that would either force her and Chloe to leave Arcadia Bay, or kill off Chloe, somebody Max had grown incredibly close with, possibly as a “punishment” for choosing the “wrong” choice.

This is something I’ve been thinking of for a while (1 day) and just wanted to share. I know this is completely out of pocket compared to what I usually post, but I’ve been getting really into life is strange and I think I might start posting about it frequently just because it means a lot to me. + I’m running out of fan content to consume, so I might as well add in some myself to fill up the void

[powdermelonkeg]

stares at you with the biggest possible eyes can u talk about crypt of the necrodancer more pls. theres no wiki am Storved of info

There's a wiki!!! It's fandom but it's here!

Okay but for real:

This is Cadence. At the time of the game, she's about 16. The story begins with her dying from a fall, her heart being stolen by the Necrodancer, which forces her to move to the beat of the Crypt just like all the monsters.

The story is revealed after the completion of each zone, so I'll tell you what I've got so far below the cut.

Cadence's Story

Her mom, Melody, died of an illness. At Melody's funeral, Cadence heard her father, Dorian, telling her uncle, Eli, that he had to go find the "gold and loot."

Dorian disappeared, abandoning his daughter to his brother's care. He's been gone for two years. Cadence decides to go after him, dies, gets her heart stolen, etc.

The boss of Zone 4, the final Zone, is named Dead Ringer. He's a guy with a bell on his head. When Cadence beats him, the bell breaks, and it turns out it's Dorian, semi-undead and cursed. You then team up against the Necrodancer (who has Dorian's heart too) and take the Golden Lute from him.

The Necrodancer's whole deal is that he was a bard named Octavian, who got ahold of the Golden Lute and became the Necrodancer, and all the monsters in the crypt dance to the tune of said lute. Cadence and Dorian are literally his captive audience—if you die in his fight, he says "Try again! Try again, my pets. I find this most amusing."

Melody's Story

So, they kill the Necrodancer, and get the lute, and bring it home. They use it to revive Melody. She has to keep playing the lute, or she dies.

Then you play Zones 1 through 4 again as her. The only weapon she can use is the lute, which deals damage whenever she moves next to something.

She's going into the crypt to revive the Necrodancer for answers on how to destroy the lute once and for all. Apparently the plague that killed her hit her town once before, and her house was near-mobbed by people looking for the lute, which her mother Aria had at the time.

Aria disappeared with the lute. Melody resented her for it.

So Melody revives the Necrodancer, who refuses to talk, so she kills him again. She then finds her revived mother with a knife in her chest. She and Aria had the same plan, to destroy the lute, and to revive the Necrodancer to get answers on how to do it—that's why the Necrodancer is alive and able to take Dorian when he does. Although in Aria's case, the Necrodancer won, and killed her.

Aria knows how to destroy the lute. She takes it and starts working her way OUT of the crypt. You start in Zone 4 and end in Zone 1.

That's as far as I've gotten. Aria is hard. She can only use the default weapon, and she dies if she's hit or if she misses the beat. I've beaten 4-1 a couple of times, but I have yet to beat 4-2 (there's always three levels and a boss). So I don't know the rest of Aria's story.

BUT I have a video for you that has all the cutscenes, so here you go!

[fleshengine]

Porkbelly review I guess

Welp! I finished Star Fetchers: Escape from Porkbelly! In my opinion it's a solid 8/10, just like the base game. It's absolute gold, but there are some technical issues and the pacing feels... weird. Spoilers after the break tho. The original game (free) took me about 45 minutes to beat, and I played through it again to see the updated physics and stuff when I get Porkbelly. I've since sunk a total of 8.2 hours into the game total, so at $8 I'd say the DLC is definitely worth it.

Go play Star Fetchers, and give LK $8 for the DLC.

I did mean it about spoilers btw.

My issue with pacing are mostly difficulty curve related. The game is fine up until QT (the first boss) which is a hard boss that doesn't obey the rules that the previous fights have layed out. QT has a second phase that I had no idea how to pass for a while. She whips out two uzis and just starts spraying you and I kept dying. I think the attacks could be better telegraphed, or do less damage, either way the fight is really hard. After QT the fights are back to normal until the second boss, Matryoshka. Her attack is throwing fucking bombs at you, and I have no idea how to effectively dodge them. Her special boss thing is playing tennis with you with you guessed it, a bigger bomb. I found both of the bosses frustrating because they both just seemed to be DPS checks and in a game with this bad of hit registration, that's annoying.

The Return to Porkbelly section was fun. The pseudo on-rails bit was fun at first, but once you get to the room with a bunch of Rhinestone Cowboys it starts to wear thin. Because the bosses are essentially DPS checks, I made a build with huge DPS and nothing else. As such all of the cowboys were either dealt with in one punch or I sat there for 40 seconds crying and shitting and trying to land a hit. Which I couldn't. Because the hit-reg in this game is atrocious. There's nothing to indicate when you can or cannot hit someone in this game, the cursor turns red sometimes but for some enemies that's a fakeout and you take damage, and for others it's so brief by the time you react and swing you miss anyway. Anyway yeah the cowboys seemed too hard and piss easy at the same time and that's a really interesting line to walk. The Nevada and Zambezi being the addict and jesus from that one meme was funny, and I think I grabbed a screenshot. Wait lemme find it.

I was laughing my ass off at this.

Nevada's character arc (?) is neat btw, the entire game up until near the end I was like "she's the worst I hate her but I love her she's so great." But then we get to fight her and I just feel bad afterward.

Anyway, after she heals Zambezi, we get to the final showdown with Texas and man... I have no idea what is supposed to happen in that fight. My damage was so high I was able to shred through him, and I think I bugged out his phases or something because my computer froze and then there was a cutscene of us getting to the roof. The roof fight was neat, but I spent the whole time wondering if I had a secret invisible healthbar that was about to his zero. Anyway I won on my first try.

I was only able to beat QT the first time when I was high off my ass, and I was only able to beat Matryoshka and Texas while sick. What's wrong with this game that being impaired improves my performance?

Anyway game is good, I wish the hit registration made sense and I wish it was balanced better but you know what? It's a tiny team and the game is fun. It only made me scar myself a little out of frustration.

Anyway here's a bunch of screencaps I took of the game. Someone get me a Nevada hurt/comfort fanfic STAT

[blackjackkent]

Continuing to explore the riverfront at the northwest corner of Rivington... surely this lovely area removed from the main bustle of the city will provide some peace and quiet and allow Rakha to step away from the influence of her terrible Father boiling in her blood--

Nope.

(A/N: For some reason the game also just started playing the musical theme from the nautiloid in this area? I can't really think why, it's not really a subtle nod to anything that happens in this corner of things that I can think of.)

I think things have abruptly gotten a LOT more challenging for Rakha from a mental perspective in the last few days. The Bhaalspawn reveal in and of itself was traumatizing, but the days following are almost more so in their way. Things that would previously have elicited nothing more than low-level growling interest from the beast in her head now trigger full-on flashbacks, crystal clear fragments of memories of her own lifetime of murder.

She's gotten a lot quieter in the last day or so, even more so than usual, more withdrawn into herself, eyes more hooded over. She drifts restlessly from Wyll's side to Jaheira's but snaps when anyone tries to ask her how she's doing. And everyone is so frazzled by this that they manage to biff every perception check and wander through a string of traps lining the beach, hidden within clouds of choking steam.

So no one's in a very good mood, and none of them can parse out an immediately obvious reason for why either the traps or the dead bodies are strewn in their path, which doesn't improve the atmosphere at all.

A little ways further along the path, though, one of those bodies is still alive:

"Somebody there? Friend or foe...?" a terribly weak voice hisses from the bend in the road. "Guildsman or... stone bastard?" A pause. "Doesn't matter much anymore." There's the sound of a terrible, wet, hacking cough, and then, lower: "Kelemvor... Myrkul... Jergal... if any of you bastards are listening... just get this over with..."

Something seizes in Rakha's chest. Yes. Give him what he wants. End it. A knife through his throat. Finish it by your hand before his breath leaves him.

She turns away sharply. "Go," she mutters to Wyll. "You talk to him. I-- can't--"

Wyll gives her a concerned look, then glances at the others. Jaheira nods, taking a subtle step forward to block Rakha's view of the dying man.

So it's Wyll, instead, who goes to talk to the man, sees the extent of his injuries, registers an insignia he doesn't recognize on the armor.

"Ugh... my legs... can't feel 'em... Tell the others... let the boss know..."

"What happened here?"

"Guild... wanted the cargo..."

Narrator: You hear the blood gurgle in his struggling lungs - his last ounce of strength is spent.

(A/N: And then we stepped out of the cutscene and his body did an unintentionally hilarious ragdoll as it died, which was a bit immersion-breaking. XD )

I feel like Wyll probably knows, in general terms, who the Guild are, and Jaheira certainly does. Minthara, Lae'zel, and Rakha, however, are all baffled by this whole exchange. And even Wyll and Jaheira don't have any idea who the Guild could be scrapping with that would have this high a bodycount while war bears down on the Gate from outside.

Always more questions...

[rallamajoop]

The RE4 Remake and Luis Serra Navarro

I have a gazillion thoughts about the new RE4 remake, and a dozen different aspects I kind of want to talk about. But you’ve got to start somewhere, so let’s talk Luis.

I doubt it’d be controversial to call Luis “easily the most interesting new character introduced in this game.” We’ve got complex and questionable motivations, a bunch of plot-relevant backstory, and a bonus-serve of extra random details about his childhood – much of which is very easy to miss, and rewards you for paying attention. By the end of this game, I’m pretty sure I know more about Luis than I do about Leon, and I still have questions. He’s not just one of my favourite parts of this new game, he’s a perfectly little microcosm of all the ways the remake has reworked awkward aspects of the original – mostly for the better, but not without creating new problems in the process.

But to get into all that, let’s start back with the original Luis from 2004.

So, for context, I haven’t actually played the original RE4. Since getting into the franchise, I’ve been consuming past canon instalments mostly by the lazy strategy of watching cutscene compilations on youtube. I am fully aware of the important place RE4 has in gaming history, the way it defined 3rd-person-shooter over-the-shoulder-gaming (or, to use my preferred term, lookit-the-booty-shooty). I have watched Jacob Geller wax rhapsodic about multiple different versions of this game.

But for all that people remember about the original RE4, the plot rarely seems to be more than a footnote. And for my own money, all I can tell you is that either this is just not a gaming experience well-served being experienced through the youtube-only medium (hardly the stuff of serious critique), or me and the original RE4 just aren’t clicking somewhere. I’m all for campy horror (see everything I’ve ever written about the Hammer films just to begin with), but RE4’s sense of humour largely leaves me cold. And Luis is – again – a pretty good demonstration of the kind of record-scratch moments that made it so hard to get into.

You can find a compilation of all Luis' cutscenes here, for reference. Like the remake, Leon first finds Luis tied up and gagged in a village house – apparently the only un-infected person in the vicinity. His first act on being un-gagged is to ask for a cigarette – a decent little character-moment. Luis claims to be a former cop from Madrid, who quit because he felt his work went unappreciated. Given Luis’ general demeanour, it wouldn’t be surprising to learn he was actually let go for taking bribes or something, but that’s more of a vibe. When Leon admits he was a cop back in Raccoon City, Luis claims he ‘might have seen a sample of the virus in a lab at the department’, and… hang on, Madrid PD has T-Virus samples lying around? The hell? Where’s this going?

But we don’t find out, because the conversation is interrupted, and Luis makes a break for it.

As in the remake, Luis’ next scene is to show up for the cabin siege scene, where he backs up Leon with a handgun. Cool, that tracks with the whole ‘former cop’ backstory.

Luis gets two further appearances, though the first mostly consists of him running up to say “I’ve got something for you guys! What… oh, shit, I must have dropped it,” and going away again, and it’s exactly as awkward as it sounds. But he does at least establish that the ‘something’ is a plagas-suppressant, as he knows Leon and Ashley are infected, and wants to help.

His final scene has him return with the suppressant, only to be stabbed in the back and killed by Saddler. As he lies dying, he admits he was really a researcher working for the Los Illuminados all along, only lately turned traitor – and we’ve officially hit our record-scratch moment.

So what was all that stuff about being a cop? Luis has good reason to lie about being a researcher, but ‘unemployed former cop’ is a heckuva cover story for a scientist, and what was that about Madrid PD having T-Virus samples? Luis-the-researcher might well have seen the virus somewhere, but why bring it up at all?

More than anything, these feel like leftover artifacts of a character who’s been substantially reworked somewhere in development, just without actually rewriting the start of the script to match. Luis’ story, like so much of this game, feels badly in need of a second draft.

Luis goes on to get something of an afterlife in collectable documents, and another scene in Ada’s DLC campaign. He’s still trying to get a plaga sample to her in this version, and he’s still responsible for the lab that cures Leon and Ashley of their infections. Ada's commentary on his character is interesting, and documents suggest he had a grandfather who used to hunt in the region, but he doesn’t get much more backstory.

Regardless, nearly 20 years later, Luis has finally got his second draft, and there’s a lot here that’s improved. (Have a new cutscene compilation link for reference.)

To begin with, any talk about being a cop is gone (an easy win). We find out he’s a researcher much earlier too – Leon is a lot less trusting of Luis this time, and calls in for a background check. He’s informed Luis used to work for Umbrella, and reacts as you’d expect. The cabin siege scene still goes off in similar fashion (though this time, Luis doesn’t feel it necessary to comment on Ashley’s tits the moment he meets her – another definite improvement).

This time though, Ashley starts coughing up blood immediately after they escape, and Luis’ offer to help remove the parasites happens right after the cabin siege, rather than being left for some awkward whoops-I-dropped-it moment later. The new scene actually finishes with the very same exchange (“Why are you helping us?”/ “It just makes me feel better”) – but this version, similarly, feels so much better. A+ revision work so far.

The remake also spells out Luis’ deal with Ada sooner too – her first proper scene in this version is her first contact with Luis. Again, Luis’ story ends in the castle with a stab in the back, and the stolen sample he was carrying being reclaimed by one of the villains (Krauser, this time, since Saddler apparently likes to delegate more in this version). But in between, things get a little odd.

Having already offered to help them, Luis contacts Leon by radio a couple of times during the castle chapters – firstly to say he’s waiting for Leon and Ashley in the courtyard. But Luis isn’t in the courtyard. His next message claims that he ran into trouble, and he’s had to retreat to the ballroom. But he’s not in the ballroom either. No further calls happen, nor does Leon react to his absence in either location.

Leon finally runs into him, apparently by chance, after being thrown down a hole and wandering for some time through tunnels deep under the castle. How did Luis end up down there too? No idea.

I’m glad he does though, because the following chapter you spend with Luis as your cabin-siege-style partner is a very good time. Though Leon is still distrustful and Luis still evasive, they exchange some great banter and generally make a good team. We encounter Luis’ love for Don Quixote, he admits he was working for Los Illuminados… and then Krauser stabs him, and Leon lights one last cigarette for him before he dies. It’s touching and very well done (not to mention dense with slashy subtext, if you want to take it that way).

Exploring Luis’ lab during the game’s final chapter adds some nice details too – equipment pilfered from Umbrella, an old photo with his colleagues, and naturally, text documents everywhere. But it’s his email logs with “A.W.” (Ada, obviously) that will most reward anyone paying attention – particularly the line you still remember the code phrase?

In this version, ‘got a smoke?’ is still almost the first thing Luis says to Leon. But you might notice it’s also the first thing he says to Ada. And this time, we’ve got a whole new explanation as to why.

Admittedly, the execution is still a bit lacking. Luis calls Ada by her first name just a few lines after using his ‘code phrase’, and seems to know her well enough not to need a code phrase, so what's going on here? If Luis knew Ada herself was going to meet him, why try his code phrase out on Leon? Alternately, if he suspected Ada might have sent someone like Leon instead of coming in person, how did he know it was her when they met? Maybe we could still have used another draft. But it’s a otherwise a fun little easter egg to recontextualise something from the original in a creative way.

Much more has been added to Luis’ backstory hidden in documents from the village. You can find photos of 'a boy with his grandfather', an old diary left behind by said grandfather – and if you’re paying really close attention, a label on another copy of that photo naming the pair ‘Navarro’ – Luis’ last name. You might also notice that the boy in the story has Luis’ fixation on Don Quixote (another character trait added by the remake).

But young Luis’ story ends in tragedy, the conclusion picked up elsewhere in the village elder’s records: the grandfather is bitten by a wolf, begins experiencing what seem to be known symptoms, and tells the village elder "you know what to do." The old man is killed, and his cabin and everything in it burned to the ground so the infection can’t spread.

Now, the idea the village has been quietly dealing with plaga-infected wolves for generations despite the fact that the plaga were supposedly sealed under the castle until recently has problems of its own, but that’s a bit beyond scope. The more relevant problem is the idea that Luis comes from the same village where all the action takes place – why? What does this add to the story? With Luis’ new Umbrella-Europe-backstory, making the village his birthplace seems like little more than meaningless coincidence, thrown in without anyone thinking it through.

But there is one intriguing possibility buried in the subtext of Luis’ story, and it’s an angle I’d love to see explored.

The village records end with the scene of a young Luis watching in silence as his childhood home burns to the ground, his only family still inside, then walking away, never to be seen again. Now, suppose that’s the very moment that inspired him to go into medical research, driven to understand infectious agents like the one that took his grandfather’s life, that the people he grew up with only knew to treat with medieval superstition. Suppose that’s what made him seek out shady employers like Umbrella, the only outfits with the interest and funding to delve into that area. The drive to find cures, to find proof that what happened to his grandfather didn’t have to be treated like a ritual witch-burning could’ve fuelled a lot of denial in Luis about where the funding was coming from. And after Umbrella’s collapse, you can only imagine how he might jump at the chance to work on the same parasites that had infected that wolf from so long ago.

If that was the intent, though (and damn do I want it to be), I honestly think it’s a little too buried in layers of subtext to carry. I can only hope maybe we’ll be seeing more of Luis in DLC to come – in Ada’s Separate Ways, if not his own – that might expand on those parts of his history a little more explicitly. Or at least cover what he was actually up to all that time he keeps messaging Leon from different parts of the castle (did he genuinely run into trouble? Was Ada pushing him to keep Leon moving for her own purposes? How did he wind up down in the mines?)

The notion of Luis as a village native still has its problems though. The house you find him in seems to be the same one he grew up in – it’s a cabin by the lake, his grandfather’s diary and photo is there, etc. Only those old village records spell out very clearly that that cabin burned to the ground as part of a major character moment. Which is it, game? You can’t have it both ways.

Even if we ignore that awkward ‘burned to the ground’ detail, are we to take it the ganados caught Luis in his old house and left him tied him up in his own cellar? Wouldn’t they move a prisoner like him? Speaking of which, was that one guy banging on the floor supposed to be hammering the hatch shut? Why? Was Luis being left down there to die? Don’t they still need to question him about that sample he stole? This stuff does not stand up to scrutiny.

And the idea of Luis as a native still doesn’t completely work for me, because shouldn’t there have been some clue in the way he talks about the place? Chief Mendez is a man Luis knew from his childhood – when Luis sees him coming in a cutscene, his reaction betrays no more familiarity than ‘not this guy’. In that cabin siege scene, surely there must be faces in that crowd he’s firing on that he recognises. And fuck, how do you come back to the place you grew up, find its residents reduced to zombie slaves, and think, “sure, I could work for these people…”?

I do realise expecting this level of humanity out of characters in a Resident Evil game might be a little much, but this stuff throws me. It builds the impression the Luis who grew up in the village is a character that exists only in text files, largely independent from the cutscene-Luis of the rest of the game. When you expect your audience to notice minor details like a surname on a photo in order to put together a main character’s backstory, you’re demanding they pay close attention. And once you’ve demanded that much investment, it’s worth keeping track of whether the cabin by the lake was supposed to be burned down or not, why Luis should be able to call Ada by name but treat Mendez like a stranger, and other such confusing detail. And Luis’ story is still positively logical and consistent compared to that of Chief Mendez himself, or anything much else in the game’s lore.

Luis is genuinely one of my favourite parts of the remake – he’s complicated, interesting, and fun. But trying to make sense of him could be a more rewarding experience. Many things are improved from the original, but for my money, they could still have stood to go for a third draft.

[scummrevisited]

tumblr wouldn't let me answer this directly so screencap it is hey anon this answer got way too long so i'll put everything under the cut. how could you tell i have an autism diagnosis, contains major spoilers for tales of monkey island. i already talked abt the events often on my blog but jic DHFG

monkey island? well the first 4 games are just. decent stuff happening, funny protagonist guybrush threepwood just does his silly adventures, not much angst happening there really, some dialogue and events can be interesting to analyze in serious contexts but theyre not really meant to be taken serious, for those 4 games i'll group em together as a 4. not that much going on but theres a few tense moments, but again, not meant to be taken super seriously, i will note in the third game elaine gets turned into a golden statue which logically worries him a lot but once again. not meant to be taken as super tragic angst, another note is at the ending of monkey island 2 where guybrush gets repeatedly stabbed and otherwise hurt via a voodoo doll, the animations accompanied with it look quite painful so i'll give MI2 a 4 for overall and 8 for the ending puzzle

tales of monkey island however? ysee. the first chapter already starts out strong with the fact that. guybrush's left hand is infected by a weird possessive pox he caused. so theres some guilt in there even though hes very stubborn abt the fact he didn't truly cause it, even though he did. but this doesn't go in very deep so i wouldn't take it as real angst yet. his hand is now possessed and sometimes acts on its own and its more geared towards humor, but occasionally has more distressing moments. and it seems like this was gonna be a bit of a bigger plot point? but his hand gets cut off at the start of chapter 2 and its not rlly touched on again HDCFVG

chapters 2 and 3 are decent. there's some moments that touch more on guybrush's character compared to the previous 4 games but i wouldn't say a heavily lot happens, i will say though theres moments where guybrush's worry for elaine being infected by the pox is touched on.

chapter 4.. lord, its basically a whole court room thing a la ace attorney. and its touched on all what guybrush caused. but its more cartoonish and illogical which is kind of what the whole thing is about. those charges are in fact stupid. however in the later parts of the chapter it gets more touched on the actual nasty things he did especially once elaine gets in the courtroom. like yep guybrush youre stupid as hell and causing a lot of problems for everyone. this does get into the realm of angst at times which is true, but not the juice of the series yet, as the chapter goes on however, one of the main cast characters thats been with you since the second third and fourth chapters, morgan leflay, straight up dies. and you find her corpse within one of the rooms and its eeringly silent, only ambience no music, it is in fact a rather touching moment and guybrush himself is rather very distressed about it. this is where the real angst begins and a tonal shift has happened. and really lets you set in that yes, characters do in fact die in a non humor way here. and yes, guybrush gets to realize that no one lives forever

ysee the tonal shift is already felt well throughout, you get to the last puzzle of chapter 4 and all goes well its ending with a classic catch up story cutscene, lechuck whos been turned into a human shows up, fun talks until… lechuck just stabs guybrush straight through the heart. where guybrush says his last words to elaine and he dies. like not even a gotcha fake death hes just actually dead. the chapter ends there.

chapter 5 revolves around guybrush being in the afterlife, he awakens as a ghost in the afterlife, with holding something in his pocket known as the last shred of life. ysee you carry something with you in the afterlife you were truly clutching onto when dying, which differs from every character in the afterlife. you make your way through the afterlife where you meet morgan! which really sets in the fact they both truly Died. and also dabbles more in their relationship! talks of death and how guybrush can still enter the mortal realm bc of his last shred of life, which morgan can't. it does get dabbled with there.

ysee you finally meet elaine again! but youre a ghost! and lechuck is there! and lechuck manages to persuade elaine into becoming his demon bride basically turning her evil. and she straight uses the rootbeer concoction to straight up "kill" ghost guybrush sending him back to the afterlife, which is actually a reference to the first game! where guybrush manages to do the exact same thing to a different ghost. so thats a role reversal for sure. the animation of guybrush being zapped with it looks rather painful too. then you manage to find your own corpse again. which you have to repossess. and you manage that and thus walk around as an undead zombie of some kind. you're finally able to confront lechuck again and he uhh. straight up grabs guybrush by the neck and lifts him up and gets real threatening and uh. punches him. aggressively. straight up beats him up like i'm legit not exaggerating he fucking beats him up.

ysee this is the last puzzle of tales chapter 5. it plays off of the last puzzle formula in the previous games, where your always taken around locations in a timed manner out of ur control. ysee what tales did with this formula is that the way guybrush gets sent to a different location is that he gets fucking punched or kicked there and guybrush sounds like hes in PAIN. theres even a voiceline literally saying hes bleeding. he's absolutely miserable and can barely make his usual funny comments anymore, and still tries to make funny quips but is interrupted by pain or by getting punched. at some point he's literally keelhauled. eventually when you finish the puzzle you sacrifice the last shred of life and youre.. at first suggested to be stuck forever in the afterlife. you sacrificed your last shred of life thus have no way to be in the mortal realm again. and its fucking eerie, much like when you find morgans corpse, the last section of the game finds you at the crossroads unable to go to any other room, no music playing, and pure ambience. it was fucking jarring. eventually you just use the ring on the crossroads and guybrush gets a happy end by being fully back to life as a living humen being but uhh. yeah he went through it. he fucking did dude.

so tales of monkey island? the first 4 chapters i'd say about a 6 bc yeah its silly but the stakes are a bit higher, chapter 4's ending + most of chapter 5 is definitely an 8. and the final puzzle a fucking 10 bc jesus christ man

i haven't played return to monkey island yet so i cannot judge that one just yet, and i'd prefer no spoilers, i'm planning to play return after i finish escape.

i was gonna write about nelson tethers too but i ran out of energy a bit so, anon expect a reblog of this post abt nelson too soon bc man he's fucking going through it as well

[rawliverandgoronspice]

I absolutely love your analysis of the gerudo and Ganondorf because they put into words what bothers me about how TOTK portrays Ganondorf. That being they remove his agency as a character in favor of having some great evil against the good guys.

[Major story spoilers ahead for the end of the game]

At the end of the game, when you’ve defeated Ganondorf, he swallows the secret stone and becomes a dragon, like Zelda, fully knowing the consequences of what happens when that happens. And it’s just kinda left me with a bitter taste in my mouth? In the context of the story it makes sense, he’s portrayed as a egomaniac who just wants to destroy Hyrule. But compared to other versions of him, this one just feels more openly biased against him and the gerudo, with no reason or justification other than “he’s evil, hate him.” As far as I can tell… They never really show us that he’s done anything horrible or deserving of being feared before the show of fealty cutscene, other than not submit to Hyrule, attack them once, and generally have bad vibes. It feels forced how much they want us to hate him and the people who follow him. I’m not saying character in video games always have to be nuanced or complex but comparing like, Wind Waker Ganondorf next to TOTK Ganondorf…. 🙃 Waste of an excellent design imo.

Heyyy sorry for being a billion years late with this ask!! I was busy finishing the game!!! among other things!!! Thank you so much for your kind words, I'm super happy it resonated with you in that way!

I mean, the whole draconification plot beat doesn't really work for me. Like yeah, sure it's sad that Zelda is now a giant dragon and it's cool to have her soaring above your head while you have no idea where she actually is (a situation that isn't nearly tapped into enough in the narrative imo, like it gets obvious way too fast if you happen upon the wrong memory, etc), and I actually think the whole sequence of you removing the Master Sword from her head was the best scene in the entire game in terms of mood and emotions --even THOUGH it would have been so much better with a stronger story and stronger stakes-- BUT. How does that build up thematically?

I think what doesn't work for the Zelda side of this plot point (I'll get to Ganon next) is that... she doesn't make that choice. It's not like she's being tempted by an easy way out and decides to sacrifice herself for the sake of Hyrule or Link or whoever: she has no choice in the matter. Her powers activate (?? somehow? once and never again also, talk about dropped plot threads), she finds herself in the past, is the passive witness to a bunch of shit that only tangientially relates to her --it's like she's visiting estranged family in a foreign country and watch their drama awkwardly before being dragged into it against her will even though she was just trying to renew her passport and get back home (if there had been any callback to her relationship with her father it would have landed better, but it's just completely ignored so vOv). Then her relatives all die or corrupt or something, and she still can't get back home. What is she meant to do besides draconify? Grow old and die in the past? What would that accomplish?? Her adventures in the past are just basically about solving a shrine puzzle with a particularly weird solution --but the game treats it like a huge sacrifice when it's basically her only way out, and she lost absolutely nothing making that sacrifice (and then she... cries about the weird family drama? sure. Honestly I think it would have worked better if the tears were Rauru's, it's his bullshit everyone is dealing with right? He's the one who feels broken and aggrieved by the whole thing.)

So, if we ignore the draconification precedent builds up to zero thing thematically beyond cheap drama that reveals nothing about neither the characters nor the world, I think Ganondorf's case is a little more compelling because he does make a choice here: dying as he tries to achieve his weird lofty goals (and fail), or postpone his victory eternally by sacrificing his objectives but reject death and defeat --while also barring himself from victory. In a better crafted story, this could be utterly excellent and it feels very Ganondorf to me. BUT, my beef with that plot beat isn't that he chooses the second option, making him kinda active for the first time in the entire game (and makes an appropriate hideous smile: *loved* this second one, the first one didn't land for me but this one really captures the ecstatic insanity and transcendance and desperate madness of the act --I have nothing against Ganondorf offputting smiles and cackles when they feel earned, and the Sonia one just... doesn't to me, it just feels like weird rigging and mesh deformation choices getting out of control).

My problem is that his existence as a dragon contradicts everything we knew about dragons before --both for him and for Zelda. I thought the big issue with draconification was that you'd lose yourself to the act entirely, and would become this sort of organic landmark of infinite power and eternal life but without will to act on your precedent goals and understanding of yourself. But the second the big man becomes an evil dragon, suddenly Zelda zips in to the rescue (apparently remembering who you are? understanding she's meant to fight Ganondorf? I mean, this kind of works emotionally as a climactic ending and the power of love or whatever, again it would have worked better in a better story), and Ganondorf is still very much into destroying the world as well as you and Zelda.

Also, he's very definitively mortal (and he has the stone on his head again? And so if you destroy it you destroy his immortality? why???)

So... What I dislike here is the suggestion that he was somehow so evil and rotten and bad that all of these rare moments of interesting worldbuilding and ambivalence gets completely swallowed in the bossfight logic, making his choice (and Zelda's) completely meaningless in retrospect.

also: let Zelda remain a dragon you cowards, that way Hyrule gets any sort of chance to escape and reimagine its horrying eternal monarchy instead of re-establishing it even harder than before!!!

[oakdll]

I really wish Persona 5 would let you play through Palace destruction sequences. I was always a little disappointed with how infiltration went on the day after sending the calling card. It's pretty much always just "teleport to the safe room before the boss and then fight them" but you don't get much more than that. Obviously the bosses are great and should be the centerpiece of the infiltration day, but it always felt like it was too short and like it was missing something.

I think having an extra part of the palace that you can only traverse on the day of infiltration would make it feel a lot more special. In Futaba's palace theres a short section before the boss fight that you can only get to after sending the calling card, which is nice, but it's a bit too short and bland to be memorable.

My favorite idea for this would be to let you play through Palace destruction sequences. In the actual game they always switch to a cutscene where all the characters are running out of the palace, but imagine if you had to run yourself as all the surroundings were destroyed. At the start of Kamoshida's palace, they made a point of showing an area that leads to a shortcut from the treasure room to the entrance, but then they just let you teleport to the final safe room instead of using it. What if they added those paths to every palace and you had to run out as quickly as possible to get through them?

It would basically turn P5 into a platformer for a minute or so. I'm not saying it should be dififcult, basically just a hold forward thing and you'll be fine, but it would create such a cool setpiece. It would probably make Ryuji's moment at the end of Shido's palace even more intense. Having to run to the bottom of the ship only to find no lifeboat, and having Ryuji offer to run and get one for the whole team and end up nearly dying in the process would be super cool.

It would make the ending of Futaba's palace a lot cooler too, they have a whole anime cutscene where the main cast jump into Morgana's ass, which could be removed (thank god) and you would have to run out of a crumbling pyramid. Genuinely that would be so cool.

[code-pain]

Ciel's theories

Because I can, in here mainly are about protagonist, and it's gonna be long, literally... kinda messy because I only copy paste all I can find, I'm going to fix some part later when I'm free with ss and all info.

Protagonist past

We know very little about them, all we know is that they are part of the Queenslayer operation, the question is why does Cruz seems like she really trusts them in vestige and intro (tutorial) dialogue.

There's a theory about the two characters being cousin, but in anime style like this most character that being related will be design to have similarities, either their hair type/color, eyes color, or even nearly look the same in some parts, while Cruz and protagonist (default/canon) seems like doesn't have any similarities.

And then we have Karen in protagonist vestige, they might be already a friend or some kind from Gregorio Silva dialogue he seems already close with protagonist or trusted them, even talking about having a drink after the mission done.

Silva being Cruz father and already know about protagonist so here I can assume that protagonist and Cruz already know each other before the great collapse, which mean protagonist automatic also know Louis, based on how close the relationship between Louis and Cruz.

Cruz seems like she trusted them, the possibility is that they might be a classmate in the past, based on Louis dialogue he seems to feel familiar around protagonist (not because I'm a simp I just talk to him a lot and I nearly memorize all dialogue he have).

Until now I'm going to stick with Protagonist-Cruz-Louis are a close friend in the past (before great collapse)

Protagonist relic and vestige

Where and how actually protagonist got the relic? It's never actually mentioned everywhere canonically how they got it, the popular theory being them just drained queen's blood and got the relic.

But with Aurora dialogue I don't believe in that theory, she mentioned that there's a procedure that have to be done to get the relics, resulting it's impossible if protagonist just got the relic from draining queen's blood ("it's because they the MC, they're special~" idc it doesn't match with what aurora says, and protagonist literally just going to frenzy at the time right after protagonist drained queen's blood)

Protagonist fall into the ravine in government area, while when we start the game you notice that protagonist wake up near red mist, and I assuming that gov are in the middle of redmist, so how can protagonist revive far away from where they died (while the last mistle they touch are in gov)? They didn't die by the mercy kill.

Protagonist might wake up a few days later after the mercy kill, from the unused cutscenes it shows how protagonist might be die and wake up in the tent (protag vestige) by getting stab on the chest and damaging their heart. Then they wake up two days later after that, in here we know that protagonist being stronger than average revenant (Karen dialogue)

In here I think protagonist wake up later on a few days later, and trying to find the others, then they ended up getting selected to be a successor of blood because of their compatibility. They might trying to go somewhere maybe check on Aurora/Karen but ended up died in the middle of the area leaving their vestige behind.

↑ alt ver, they might ended up get into a part of Mido experiment in some way, Mido might tested the blood relic (Mido have the relic and put it in protagonist) and protagonist ended up losing their whole memories by the test, later on they try to run away and ended up dying then wake up near the redmist (prologue place)

[vellichorom]

I don’t know if someone has asks this before, but what is your favorite ending from The Stanley Parable?

nobody's actually asked me that before, so thank YOU for being the first!

i think there's something to like in EVERY ending, so this was. hard. HOWEVER, my's indisputable, all-time-favorite, you-can-quote-this-in-my-biography TSP ending is... 🥁

The Countdown Ending.

( closely followed by the elevator / confusion / apartment ( w/ the bucket ) / any games ending / the vent ending / the sequel/new content ending + pretty much any ending regarding the sequel )

& let me tell you why!

this ending HITS in EVERY way.

this ending is such an immediate SWERVE from what a newer player might expect from the game, especially since THIS ending stems from one of the first you can get just by playing as you're told to. in fact, though dependent on how one chooses to play, this could be your introduction to the underlying plot of what's ACTUALLY going on here, & it's very much- at least to me, the best way TO introduce it all.

you do the menial thing of deviating from the path at the last minute, devastatingly deciding on stanley's behalf that he wants to take control of everything, & you get RIPPED TO SHREDS for it, the world unravelling at your feet, you are punished & laughed at for panicking; you are CHASTISED for trying to act on your own accord, first treated like a sin ( because of the implications of stanley activating the facility ) & then having it rubbed in your face that you don't even HAVE control & your choices seemingly don't matter.

& the best part? new players wouldn't know this, but the seasoned ones would: the narrator is JUST as helpless as you are beyond being able to direct the game. it's chilling to figure that, look back, & simply realize.

speak of the devil; this introduces a WHOLE new light to your trusty narrator, him going out of his way to teach you a lesson, executing your character, explicitly, DELIBERATELY making you sit there for every painstaking second of this ending - rather than nullifying it to a cutscene, for his own enjoyment in milking your horror, at that.

i don't think we talk about that enough. & i don't think we realize how shocking that must be to someone just getting into this game blind.

i remember LOSING MY MIND seeing this ending for the first time, & to this DAY i'm still chilled each time i watch it, especially the more i think about the ever-expanding list of implications.

BEYOND said list of implications, as well as the plot itself, the environment & visual setup GETS me; running around a darkening facility, desperately trying to find anything to reverse the clock while everything starts shutting & breaking down around you. you are alone, nobody's coming to help you & you are assured of this fact SO many times over. everything is a reminder that you have a limited time left to play. oh my god i'm dying thinking about it

not to mention, you've got red lights of doom swirling around the room, harmonizing with the music- WHICH HEY, I COULD TOUT THIS AS MY FAVORITE ENDING BASED ON THE MUSIC ALONE. the ' countdown ' track is DAMNING, a haunting melody that feels like you're waltzing with fate itself, glimmers of hope in the belting choir, only to fail & die by it's unforgiving, cold hands. you are aweing at the scene as the helpless player, & the music will highlight that MERCILESSLY. it's so good. that's one of my favorite tracks in a game ever.

...........& yeah the narrator's growl here is something but i feel like this ending gets hyped up TOO much just for that / the narrator being seen as wildly attractive for trying to kill you. YES, he is, we know, that's not the point though, i'm gayer for the music

I COULD GO. on & on, but I'm going to stop myself here, because I think you get the idea.

& i think the funniest thing here is, i love the countdown ending for being such a massive nail in the coffin of the narrative here, but the rest of my favorite endings are much more silly, dare i say domestic, even. my range. is immense. feel free to ask about those too if you like!

BUT YEAHHH i really like the countdown ending. 10 cookies out of 9!

[mystra--ryl]

3 of the most insane BG3 combats I've been in that felt like the most D&D ass shit:

The first was the fight with Balthazar in Dame Aylin's prison, Balthazar was dead but his undead minions were still completely kicking our asses, three of my party members were dead and Astarion was the only one left but he managed to take out a huge chunk of them at once with a single well-placed bottle of alchemist fire and then finish off the rest

The second one was in the fireworks shop that was a front for the Banites who were making bombs to blow up refugee children. This time two of our party members were dead and Astarion and Karlach were left. Astarion fired a smokepowder arrow which killed Karlach but also took out all of the remaining bad guys except for the one guy from the front desk on the ground floor, who, in probably the smartest display of enemy AI I've seen in this game, instead of wasting multiple turns running up four flights of stairs like I expected him to, had Misty Stepped up to the roof of an adjacent building and was firing at us through the open windows, so him and Astarion ended up in this insane fucking rooftop chase Misty Stepping from building to building, this dude kept hurling Fireballs at him but Astarion's dex was so fucking high that he just kept Uncanny Dodging and taking no damage so eventually he won out

In the third one I had just discovered the hole you can jump down with Feather Fall and land in the Underdark, but I immediately triggered the fight with the minotaurs and we were all level 3 and had just finished fighting the Phase Spider Matriarch so we had absolutely no spell slots left so I just had everyone turn and run, Shadowheart, Lae'zel and Gale all made it back to camp but my guy couldn't get far enough away. I realized he still had a round of feather fall left so I had him jump down to a different level but then that ALSO triggered the bulette encounter at the SAME TIME and ALSO the minotaurs could jump down after me and then while my guy was fucking laying there dying the minotaurs and the bulette started fighting EACH OTHER

And if that wasn't bad enough I was just short of 200 gold for a resurrection, so I had Gale go to Arron to sell some shit but I didn't have anything to sell that would get me enough so I had to bite the bulette and go back and do it with a scroll, BUT since Gale was at the emerald grove the last time he went back to camp he was STILL THERE when I hit "leave camp" and I hadn't activated any waypoints in the Underdark yet so I had him teleport back to the Whispering Depths, but then realized he didn't have any spell slots left or any way of casting Feather Fall again, but then I realized if you hover over the pit with Misty Step it doesn't say [Death💀] or any indicator that you would take damage, forgetting that the range of Misty Step is only 30 feet so even if it took you down the first 30 feet safely you would still fall the rest of the way and die, so Gale fell the rest of the way and died

Once Lae'zel and Shadowheart had found each other scattered across the Underdark as they were and Revivified me we went for Gale and since it was his first full death in this run it triggered his whole death cutscene, and I had Laezel stuff his corpse into her pockets and very quickly drop him off in camp so we wouldn't trigger any more combat while going through the whole rigmarole with the pouch and the flute and the mephit but then fucking Scratch ran THROUGH HIS NECROTIC AURA AND DIED so at that point I had to reload

[ocean--toast]

Please talk to me about Lies of P!!! What's it about? 🥰

Bestie I'm about to become the most unskippable cutscene/wikipedia page ever thank you so much for asking

Lies of P is a dark retelling of the Pinocchio fairy tale in a fairly bloodborne-esque type soulslike RPG. That's the quick and dirty version of things but in terms of like actual themes there's so much in the main story and your player character that's the Pinocchio character alone cuz like. You get to start the game off as just a puppet that just navigates through the world and kills things that you get told to until you learn to be human through collectible records and of course, lying.

And the actual plot itself has some really great things to say about loss, and grief and freedom and identity and humanity because the game acts like you are the only human-esque puppet in the world, only come to find out through several npcs both in the world and in the hotel that's your base of sorts that any puppet can awaken an ego and experience the broad range of humanity that you can. There's two character deaths that I'm gonna spoil after the cut so if you wanna read it you can but I highly HIGHLY recommend actually playing the game because it's incredibly forgiving for a soulslike and is the first soulslike ive played so I think it's pretty good for beginners (and ik you like persona, if you like Sumire or Aigis, P's arc will make you wanna chew drywall)

but with loss there's the main arc of finding out that P is made to look like or be Geppetto's dead son, Carlo, so to me there's this whole arc with legacy and identity where P would not exist without Carlo, but at the end when you can either give up your heart to bring Carlo back from the dead or keep it you kind of have to consider whether you think that means P, who doesnt have Carlo's memories deserves to be a person in his own right and it's so good. How do you possibly live up to someone that you don't know anything about? How can you justify dying on their behalf?

And there's another death in the main story that's sort of parallel to the grief that Geppetto feels about his dead son, being a lady called Antonia, and she's so sweet. Pretty close to the end game she dies and gives you a letter and one of my FAVORITE records in the game. In the letter she tells P that she doesnt care if he is or isn't Carlo, but that she was proud of the person he was regardless and after reading that and playing the record I genuinely started crying it was such a Moment

There's a million other little side quests and bosses that I could ramble about forever tho I could genuinely unstructuredly talk about this game until the sun goes out there's just so much that I still havent covered