#the updated design is VERY fun. I love how much they're leaning into the new style

[boilercity]

Currently thinking about the differences between the various Anton talksprites. The new one is a whole different thing, but I didn't even realize they changed his hat and eyebrows between the other two until I actually put them side by side. Huh.

[sloaaaa]

SPLATOON 3 DIRECT my thoughts n stuff :]

ok so obviously spoilers kjdfhgkjd i have Many Thoughts so i am gonna put everything under a readmore!

i am so eXCITED to walk around splatsvilllee!!!!!!!!! it's so much bigger n feels more Lived In!!!

n i'm guessing the music playing in the first part of the video is what's gonna play in thee tutorial? w how the music builds up and everythingg and it's of the main songg n stuuff just like how it is in the first two games!

i Need this emote

the new ink refill sprite thingy is super neat!!! a lil on the fence abt how it loooks but! i like that it shows that u get ink faster when swimming in ink!!

tHE STAGESSSS ARE SO COOOOOOLL i especially lOVE that including hammerhead bridge gives us an explanation as to hOW exactly we're transported to and from splat1 and splat2 stages -w- also it's so cool to see it finished!!! i haven't played splat1 nearly as much as splat2 but i'm happy that that stage is coming back -w- aND FLOUDER HEIGHTS IN THE UPDATE TOO also i lOVE the detail of the NILS statue being in the bg but u can't see it in the eng ver of the direct bc of the name covering it but u can see it in the japanese direct dhkdjfgs

mahi-mahi is nice too!!!!! i really liked that stage in splat1 :D and it looks so much better skjhdfgd and i am also wondering abt tHIS badboy history museum lookin stage in the updates >:3c

hello i Love the new flat clipart look of the weapons in the ui???? shown a lot better heree, i really hope that they make weapon wallpapers in splatnet 3 >:] it would also be nice if they added other ways to get wallpapers other than lifetime inkage :c

honestly idk how i feel abt the splatanas but i'm happy for the more melee leaning players out there -w-

the tacticooler is so cool ;;; i love the lil jingle it plays when you deploy it n when you take a cann ;; also the bit showing it off has some new voice clips for the players!!! which is super cute -w-

i lOVE the design of the wave breaker ;; it's that lil ball string cheap toy thing i think, plus i think the concept is super cool tooo!!! very fun special -w-

the reef slider looks cool!! not my kind of special thoughh, it's like a cross between a baller and a curling bomb hskjdfg

I AM SO HAPPY THEY'RE BRINGING THE TENTA MISSILES BACKKK AHHAHHAHAHHAA!!!!!!!!!!!!

i actually really love the new weapon currency?? it's super clever n i love that you can get weapons early!! dualie squelchers my beloved skjhdfgd n by how the freshness stars look and work i don't think that the freshness goes down when you lose a bunch now like how they did in splat 2! :0 which is really nice -w- when checking the splat website for extra details it looks like there are different kinds of liscences too! :0 bc having splatoon 2 save data grants you 3 gold sheldon liscences so that should meann that the ones on the screen rn are silverr? maybe tin n then there's bronze n silver? idk???

the music that plays in sheldon's shop is really nice ;-;

the new shopkeepers are pretty neat too -w- i don't have very many thoughts abt them :c except for mr coco he sounds so silly i love him dskjhdfg

also mURCH????????????????????????????????????????????????

and you can change the primary ability now!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! which is pretty neat! i was wondering why the splatnet3 shop offered exclusive clothing now kjshdd i also really like that they did that! gives players a lil more incentive to use the app but still not make it essential to the game n stuff yknow -w-

the new freshest fits thing is really nice!! esp for people without amiibos dskjhdfg i'm glad they added that -w-

tHE NEW LOBBY UI IS SO COOL BUt also has me wondering a lil w how similar it looks to the oe ui. that coulped w the sea cucumber phones makes me hOPE that we get to see deep sea citizens around! or at least iso padre n cq maybe 🥺

they show which team is in the lead!!!!!!! i fucking love that ty it takes less brainpower now <33

and rainmaker has checkpoints now!!! which is super nice so now the rainmaker doesn't always spawn back in the middle and you don't have to do that jump off the map to bring it back thing anymore bc the checkpoints are closer to your base now so yEAH that's super nice!!!

it looks like the merged all the ranks together again :0

I'M SO HAPPY YOU CAN PRACTICE N DO STUFF OTHER THAN MIX MUSIC WHILE WAITING FOR BATTLES TO START

all the lobby updates are so nice and there's so much content i want to kiss nintendo on the mouth

it's really nice that they moved the new snack bar! now i don't have to leave lobbies n walk all the way back when my ticket runs out dkjfghs

i want to know what tHIS DOES ..collectibles? 🥺

tHEY'RE THE APARTMENTS THAT WE'VE ALL BEEN WANTING!!!!!!!!! THANK YOU NINTENDOOOO also the splatoon equivalent of furbys n long furbys kdjfhgkdj

eeEEEE PARUKOO!!!!!!!!!!! the shop music here is so cozyyyy ;;;;;; also oh my gOD i'm so happy that there's more shit to spend our coiNS ONNN AAUHGUGHUGAA n seeing that there are gatcha machines in this shop too maybe the lil gacha thingy in the lobby gives you other stuff to put in you locker too? maybe some tickets n stuff thrown in the mix?

i love the splashtags and the emotes so mUCh ough i love how much customization we're gettinnggGG even in grizzco!! u can change your uniform which i think i super awesome! (that wasn't shown in the direct but rather it was said in the splat website linked earlier skjhdfg) and it's great that they're adding another way to get tickets oughh

idk abt y'all but i LOVE the table turf battle!!! it's a lil cheesy but it's nice that there's this local thing to do in splatsville!! i kinda want a deck irl skdjfhgd and being able to play against locals!! it makes everyone feel so much more! alive!! and not just npcs glued to their store!!! also the card art is sO CUTE IDC IF Y'ALL THINK IT'S OFF BRAND OR WHATEVER I AM PLAYIGN THAT GAME AS SOON AS I GET THE DEMO (if u can even play it dskjhdg)

also hello i lOVE this lil alley there the card stuff is held

onto salmon run!! i lOVE the new boss salmonids! it's really nice how they kinda help players practice n learn abt ranked modes n specials!! this is true for the original boss salmonids too! the fry stick for tower controlll n the dolphin for splatzoness, the bigshot for the new wave breaker special and! idk abt the slammin lid but that name is super clever hdfkjghd i love the new music!!! :D

also you can use the big shot's thingy to shoot golden eggs???? i love you??

tHIS XTRA WAVE THING SCARED ME SO BAD ;;;;;;;;;;;; but also that's so cool?? i wonder what happens when you get to defeat it >:3c

ok i reached the image limit lemme make a new post

[lazzledazzler]

Lazzle's Rune Factory 5 Review

Alright so here are my thoughts and experiences with RF5! This is a big boy so buckle in earthmates...

Obviously this review will contain spoilers, read at your own risk.

Initial thoughts upon playing...

Great opening! I enjoyed the jazz music~ I did feel like it leaned a bit more towards the male player though. It definitely feels like a rune factory game. It's familiar, and controls are easy to get accustomed to for the most part. The mold is there and rf5 doesn't stray too far from its predecessors which is comforting for veterans. That being said, I'm not going to pull any punches and will critique this game harshly. Keep in mind as updates for the game are released not all things discussed in this review will be as relevant overtime!

Let's hear some thoughts on...

The story/plot. The plot is enjoyable overall. I'm not crazy about the whole Seed organization thing but it was a neat idea. They address the Sechs Territory and it is confirmed that the game takes place some decades after RF4. But by the end of it, I didn't feel like I really accomplished anything because it felt like I barely did anything really. Also they left a lot of stuff unanswered. I'm not even sure I understood the message they were sending, if they were trying to send a message at all. The main story is too short, and it doesn't involve enough of the townsfolk. You're basically doing everything yourself in secret the whole time and the townsfolk barely know what's actually going on. Out of the love interests, Lucas plays the largest part in the story, followed by Priscilla and Scarlett. The story feels targeted at male audiences--at least that's how I felt. You, the player, have a larger role in the game, much like in RF3 and I was glad to see this. As of right now there are only two arcs. Praying for DLC 3rd arc...!

Protagonists. The latest protagonists to join the crew of Earthmates are...decent. Their designs are nothing special unfortunately, though I appreciate Alice's more than Ares's. Appearance-wise they lack personality and creativity. Personality wise I am pleasantly surprised with how sociable they are. They're not exactly quick witted and sassy like Lest/Frey were in rf4, or as endearing as Micah in rf3, but they have a certain realness to them that makes their reactions to things believable. I'm certain Xseed will see to making them a bit more sarcastic in their localizing efforts, so let's all look forward to that. Overall though, while I appreciate their mannerisms, they don't really measure up to all the previous amnesiacs we've grown to love over the decades.

Characters. Overall I enjoy all the characters introduced in Rune Factory 5! I feel like there is someone for everyone in this game on some level. The voice acting was pretty good for every character. The designs are very much Rune factory. Like OG runefa, compared to rf4 ( 4 kind of strayed from their usual style) which I like. Characters still have their own signature quirks that you find endearing. Although I would have liked to see more variety? Like we've had mermaids, univir, half monsters, vampires, etc in previous titles but rf5 only gives us the usual (half) elf, dwarf, and then a succubus (physically she doesn't have unique features aside from the ears and heart eyes), and some were-people. I was hoping for something more unique to really give that classic runefa vibe.

Dungeons/Battles. I'm pretty split on this one. On the one hand, the dungeons have more depth due to the 3D aspects. They've included more contraptions that are very fun to see even if they aren't executed that well. So I'm grateful for that. On the other hand, the dungeons are insanely short imo. It doesn't take long at all to get to the boss. The puzzles are also pretty subpar and few compared to RF4. Fighting monsters is similar to the other games. You can lock on now but I only use it when I'm trying to use my Seed Circle. The lock on feature is actually counter-intuitive and makes it harder to dodge. Weapon mechanics have shifted a bit. There’s a feature that makes you invincible to damage if you time the R button dash correctly. Axes and Hammers are significantly slower than in older games? Like. I thought I was in slow motion it was so slow. Lances are also harder to use as well? I'm questioning my sanity here. I don't know if it's a bug or intentional either.

Farming. Not much has changed from previous games mechanics wise. They added new types of special crops which is neat. The camera view changes to overhead when you go near your fields though, and it can make you dizzy/uncomfortable. It actually makes it a bit difficult to see at times so I wish there was a way to adjust the angle. If you are tilling corn or dried weeds to improve the soil, you need to place them separately if you don't want to use the entire stack. Otherwise, it will till the entire stack on the land if you place them all down at once. The flower shop is unlocked late in the story. Weird thing to do considering you need flowers to make medicine. Not to mention the fact that you wont have access to the fertilizer that increases defense against typhoons? During typhoon season? Thinking emoji...

The town. I have to say Rigbarth's design is poor compared to Sharance, Selphia, etc. It's too big and it takes too long to get around. Everything is too spaced out and there aren't enough warp points to make it easier on players. I don't want to walk an entire mile up a hill to talk to one person and then walk all the way down to the beach to speak to another. It doesn’t really feel like a ‘town’.

OST/BGM. Music was good, though nothing really stood out to me where I'd go "damn this slaps" or something. I think they might've had some old soundtracks from rf2 or something because it felt really nostalgic at times.

We need an exterminator. (Bugs Bugs Bugs)

Marvelous, I don't know how to tell you this buuut...your customers are NOT your testers. When you release a game, you need to make sure it's not littered with glitches because customers don't enjoy dealing with them and will drop the game!

Here are some of the types of glitches I encountered:

Crashing. Game would randomly crash or freeze and close at any moment. Sooooo frustrating! Sometimes you get lucky with the autosave feature, but the autosave only activates every morning at 6am in your room and then when you warp to a dungeon level/floor. So when you're in the middle of your daily tasks in town and it crashes, you have to start all over. Marveloussss no one enjoys losing their progress in a game I promise you that much.

Lag. The dialogue bar is seriously slow, especially after loading your file. Crafting/Cooking screen lags. When you press the Y button to skip through dialogue it lags like hell. Pretty much after every time you load the game will lag, the audio will lag if you're in a battle, everything is just. so. slow.

Repeating dialogue. So if you close your game entirely (or if it crashes) naturally you'll reload your file to continue where you left off. There's a bug that will cause all NPCs to repeat the last dialogue that occurred from whatever plot related thing you did last. So for example, if the last thing you did in the story was unlock Ludmilla, everyone in town will naturally have some dialogue about her. But even after seeing all this dialogue and even saving, if the game is closed and reloaded you'll have to read all that dialogue again from townsfolk. It got really annoying after a while.

Monster taming. One time I tamed a monster but once I named it and hit 'ok' the monster never showed up in my barns? Just. gone. Okaaaay then...? Additionally, I expanded one of my monster barns but all of the monsters I tamed wouldn't appear in the added room. You get 4 monsters for each room but the monsters I tamed would show up in the original room. Meaning I had like 7 monsters in one room! I tried to bring them into the newly added room but they would just warp back to the other room. Sad.

Pond Glitch. I fished in the pond located in Sasayaki Forest and left the fish I caught but didn't want laying around the water's edge. If you leave fish around the pond's edge and go to sleep, the next morning you will be teleported to the pond and trigger the fairy dialogue as if you had thrown all of the fish into the pond??? So the dialogue of her telling you she wants 'X item, not this!' will trigger over and over for all of the fish you left at the water's edge. RIP.

Party member Bug. I had Martin in my party and I made him leave. Then when I went into my monster barns to get a monster pal to join me instead it showed me Martin's portrait???? Also I've encountered a bug where I can no longer ask anyone to join my party for some unknown reason. The R &L button prompt was just gone when I reloaded.

Errors. When cooking or crafting, the dialogue box shows up sometimes...

Typos. Random average typo here and there. Not a real biggie but there is one instance where the heroine will use the japanese male pronoun "boku" instead of "watashi" which really convinced me that this game was completely intended for men lol.

Let's talk about Pros

The good stuff. The stuff that makes you all warm and fuzzy inside.

Plot Advancing. Now I'm gonna put this as a pro because I'm certain the average player will enjoy this even though I do not. There are now markers on the map to show you where to go to advance the plot. This is all well and dandy, but it also made the story less appealing for me because you don't need to go around town and speak to residents for clues or assistance to advance anything in the story.

3D Graphics The 3D models are all amazing. The interior designs of the houses/buildings are also incredibly detailed and realistic.

Collecting items. Now there's a feature that will allow you to collect items into your inventory just by walking over them. This is pretty neat and welcome for the most part. Once the item is sparkling, you can walk over it and it'll go into your rucksack automatically. This also makes lumbering and mining go much faster. Yay!

The miraculous L pocket. Now you can customize the categories that appear in your L pocket by going to the rucksack tab in the menu. This is a super neat feature that makes things easier on players who want to manage their items in a format that suits them.

Weapon/Tool Toggling. You can now toggle between your equipped weapon and tool by pressing the left or right buttons on the trackpad.

Collecting lumber/material stone. Oh lord this is probably the most welcome improvement moving forward from the previous game. You can now put all of the lumber and material stone from your inventory into its storage at once. This also applies to fodder for tamed monsters. Well done Hakama.

Autosave. This feature is a welcome addition to the series. The game will save your data every morning and every time you enter a dungeon. Autosave has really saved my ass a few times when I made a huge error in judgement so I'm incredibly grateful for this feature. And it doesn't save over your actual save file--there's a separate autosave file at the very top. So if you messed up something but already saved on your main file, you can still salvage your mistake by reloading the autosave! I just wish it activated a bit more often sometimes.

Warping. Now we can warp to each level in a dungeon as well as certain places on the map in town. It's pretty convenient for the most part.

Increased party members. Now you can have up to 3 members in your party! Hooray! Party members act more intelligently than in older games. Scarlett can use the Seed circle to assist you in fights. I think she also tosses healing potions at you occasionally. So far, no one has tossed a dish at me if I haven't eaten like Kiel and Clorica did in rf4. But I have been hit by a failed dish (from reinhardt?) and a healing potion (from scarlett). Scarlett, Priscilla, and Reinhardt are the most helpful when dungeon crawling in my experience. Some of them however, (looking at you Doug) don't shut the hell up with their one line of dialogue they have and repeat it constantly.

Seed Circle. This neat feature allows you to capture monsters. By charging it and releasing you can capture monsters for the bounty system or add them to your party temporarily. If you throw it without charging it, you can stun monsters in place momentarily or grab things from far away. When stunning monsters, it can also give you the monster's drop item occasionally. Unfortunately it uses a lot of RP so it can be difficult at times.

Combo attacks. This is a neat feature that I appreciate and use often for boss fights. They do some serious damage so it's good to save them for the bosses. The actual cutscenes aren't that impressive, and feel kind of subpar when you get down to it but I think it's a start in the right direction.

Farm Dragons. I'm listing this as a pro although I really just see it as a new feature. Farm dragons have fields on their backs that you can place monster barns on and farm on. Giving them certain crystals will give your fields boosts in certain criteria, like length of growth, soil quality, you get it. I personally don't use the crystals because I couldn't give a shit lmao I have men and women to woo here. But if you're into this kinda thing then it's a pro.

Storage. When opening your storage box, fridge, etc. you can actually hit the R & L buttons to switch between ALL of your other storages. Looooove thissss. Great addition. So much faster to put items away in their respective places.

Crafting/Forging. Now we can also use the R & L buttons to alternate between the different weapon types/accessory/gear types instead of having to exit the menu and going back in each time you want to make something different.

Cooking. More recipes have been added. Yay!

Days are longer now. More time to get shit doneeeee ayyyy

Fishing. They've added many more fish to the game! Now the player will shout something when you get a bite, making it easier for you to hit B at the right moment. Nice. Also if you fail or press B too early, the fish doesn't vanish most of the time. Also nice. There is now a feature to fish with another person's assistance. Once a day you can investigate the sign near the fishing station and someone might offer to lend you a hand. Press the B button at the right moments on the slider and you can get a rare fish that can't be caught normally.

Monsters. New types of monsters! Love the designs. Even the monsters that are the same but just have different skins are really neat. They look great in the 3D format too. You can even ride with up to two people on certain monsters! Some bosses had awesome designs while others...were bad.

New Types of Furniture. The carpenter store has a wide arrange of furniture you can buy for your home. It also has wallpapers and stuff which is really neat. Though unfortunately you can't even sit on some of the furniture so that's a shame.

Events. Now there is a system where events are triggered by approaching an icon on the map. This is probably an improvement to RF4's randomized system, though personally I found it annoying because it meant that I had to see the events before I could just enter a building normally. Sometimes I just wanted to get shit done and not have to read through walls of text for someone's love event when I just want to buy something.

Voiced Lines. The protagonist seems to have more voiced lines, as do other characters. Good!

Let's talk about Cons

Not including glitches. Oh boy. So many cons. Where do I start?

Dialogue. Probably the most notable con in the entire game. The dialogue is drastically minimal in comparison to previous games, especially rf4. There is probably a quarter of the amount of dialogue compared to rf4's insane amount of content if not less. Townsfolk repeat themselves. Often. Too often. Am I playing Harvest Moon? Originally I thought it was because the dialogue is randomized, but I think it's actually because more dialogue is unlocked as you raise townspeople's FP. Despite this, there's no linear build up where you start off as acquaintances and eventually become very close like in rf4 because of how sporadic the LP/FP is. Townsfolk don't even talk to each other. One of the greatest perks about runefa is the conversations townsfolk can have with one another. Residents randomly gathering in small groups to talk about anything. Previously you could add someone to your party and sometimes a dialogue will occur if you speak to the right person at the right time with that person in your party. This is nonexistent now. The only time they do this in rf5 is during the festivals. But, it will only trigger if you have unlocked all the characters in each marriageable lineup and they can't be in your party. The residents will talk about one another but that's pretty much it outside of town events. They got rid of all the minor dialogue that occurs too. Trying to sleep in someone's bed while they're right there? They wont comment. Inspecting objects in stores while the shopkeeper is present? Wont say anything. Take a character with you to a dungeon/boss fight? Their lips are sealed. Where's my sense of community? :(

FP/LP This ties into the dialogue issue. The rate at which LP/FP increases is sporadic as hell. You can go from 1FP/LP to 4FP/LP just by giving a gift sometimes. I wouldn't even speak to people and their affinity increased by like triple for no reason. Then it increases by like 2% for the longest time. Argh!!!

Graphics. I don't consider myself very picky when it comes to graphics. I don't really mind that the foliage and scenery are at the level of a ps2 game at best. I tried playing on my television initially, but the lag and camera operability was too much so I fully switched (haha puns) to handheld. One thing that sucked is that I literally cannot tell the difference between medicinal herbs, antidote grasses, and green grasses without the captions because the graphics are so indistinguishable. So when you're trying to pick up multiples of those items by holding the A button, you're just randomly walking over anything green in the hopes that you'll get the right ones...

Lack of Sound Effects. Something I noticed is they got rid of the sound effects that will play when you complete a puzzle or add someone to your party. When you try to brush a monster there's no sound for the '♪' they make when you successfully brush them. So it was hard for me to tell if I had actually brushed them or not. I was a bit saddened by the lack of cute sounds.

Too much free range. From the very beginning of the game, you're allowed to go pretty much wherever you want when leaving town. It was too easy to stumble into high enemy level territory without knowing, so when I was like level 5 so I got KO'd immediately.

Artwork. The portraits seem to be lower in quality somehow. Runefa has always had shitty portrait art imo but this time it's even worse. Many character's eyes looked fucked up. Though the 3D models are insanely good for mostly every character except Terry. Terry's 3D model looks Terryfying and I prefer his portrait.

Festivals. They've added some new festivals. Some I enjoy. Some not so much. They changed the format of the eating contest. It's horrible. Good luck with that one.

L pocket + R button? They got rid of the feature that lets you skip to the other end of your items when opening the L pocket by pressing R button. I really liked that feature because it made it faster to reach my items so I was bummed that they got rid of it.

Gotta go fast. Now when you speak to someone, it doesn't 'stop time' as you might say it did in previous games. So people are still moving about as you speak to someone, making it harder to catch up to people! Annoying!!!

Catch and release? Not in my farming simulator! Say goodbye to being able to toss a fish you caught back into the water. In fact, say goodbye to tossing anything you don't want anymore into the water. Now you just have an army of fish flopping on the ground around you. And with the auto pick up feature, they're probably going to end up in your inventory anyways once you try to move. There are still certain ponds with fairies that you can toss stuff into, but you'll have to deal with the fairy harping at you for giving her something she doesn't want.

Shop Hours. Oh god. The shop owners don't even open their stores at the correct hours? It says open at 9am. If you speak to them they won't open their store until like 9:07??? But Priscilla and Lucy will show up to work their part-time jobs at around 8:30am and you can buy stuff through them before 9am. So the actual shop owners (for the bread shop and general store) are pointless usually. Additionally, if the store is empty (but open) you can no longer add a shopkeeper into your party and then enter their store with them to buy things from them. Why. Just why. When you want to buy something that only a specific person sells (Only Hina sells fish, only Heinz sells misc items) you have to wait for them to finally decide to work in their own store. Wonderful.

Monster Item drops. Maybe I'm crazy but the monster drops are seriously a lot harder to get than in previous games. Especially boss drops. It's almost impossible to get the rare drops now. I don't even want to try anymore. And as far as I know, the only place to buy monster items is through Heinz, but his items are actually misc. items, not specifically monster drops. So you'll be lucky to check his store (whenever tf he decides to actually work) for any monster items you might want instead of farming for the drops. Sighs.

Difficulty. This game is too easy. There is little to no challenge whatsoever. I had to increase the difficulty setting to hard mode and it was still too easy. I beat it at level 139, never once did I need to grind or level. In fact, your character levels up way too quickly for the pace of the story. I had zero trouble with any of the bosses and even the final boss was a breeze. Quite sad. Though because I am not new to the franchise, it's likely that newcomers would have some trouble in the later parts of the story.

Fishing cons. Idk how you fck up fishing but they sure did. You have to stand further back now because the pole is so long that you'll miss the fish you're aiming for. In fact, it's seriously hard to aim period. You'll end up recasting more often than not. Fish come in the various sizes but they don't seem to have the darker or faded characteristics that can indicate whether it's a rare fish or not. The graphics make it hard to tell. The pros that i've already mentioned are welcomed but it doesn't negate the fact that I do not enjoy fishing like I did in previous games.

Mining/Lumbering Cons. You can no longer strike three times consecutively when mining/lumbering. This sucks lol. Even when you upgrade your axe or hammer, powering up the tool does nothing for getting wood and material stone--it only expands the area of your strike. So it takes longer to get wood/stone from stumps and rocks now since you have to strike the full 9 times but it's not too bad. It's also harder to aim now as well so that's also unfortunate.

Seasonal Fields? Kiss them goodbye! That's right, there are no seasonal fields in rf5 because devs are insane! You instead have the farm dragons that seem to look seasonal based on the fact that they are designed after elements like earth, water, and fire. But no, these dragons are simply extra fields for you to use. Here's a spoiler: you're not going to use those fields. You're just not. They're kinda useless unless you're obsessed with farming. Now you have to grow your crops out of season like the sad farmer that you are.

Farming cons. Seeds no longer tell you how long it takes to grow the crop. Why. As of June 29th, they fixed this with an update. But I still had to play the whole game without it so fuck you marvelous. The joystick is really sensitive? So when you're trying to use a fertilizer or something on your field you're likely to place it on the wrong 4x4 tile, wasting your fertilizer. So it’s best to hold down the R button when farming. Also the crops look uglie as hell.

Sleeping and warping cutscenes. Just like in rf4 there's a cutscene when you go to sleep that can be skipped easily by pressing A. In rf5, there's a cutscene to sleep and a cutscene when waking up. It takes a bit more than a second to skip these scenes so it gets annoying after a while. Warping is this new feature that replaces our beloved escape spell. Overall I appreciate the feature but I hate it for two reasons. One: there's an annoying ass cutscene for it each time you use it that could be much shorter. And Two: townsfolk now use warp even when inside the town. In previous games, someone exiting your party in town would just manually run to wherever they need to be. So you could easily chase after them if you need to talk to them or give them something. Now, party members use warp regardless of where you are at the time. So say you have someone at 7 hearts and you want to try confessing to them. You would have them join your party, save your game, and then have them leave your party and immediately speak to them and confess before they can run off. If it doesn't work you reload until it does. In RF5 this wouldn't work anymore because they will warp. Now you would have to save, run around town trying to find this person and hope they accept the confession. Otherwise you'll have to play hide and seek again because reloading your file will randomize the resident's locations (if they are not working in a shop)!!!! I often just waited until a festival day because then they will be at the plaza for most of the day and it has a warp point there.

Crafting/Forging/Cooking. They've removed the feature where you can press Y on the ingredients in the menu to add more of that particular item. I miss this feature :'(

Lacks incentive. There is no trophy room from my knowledge. The final dungeon that is meant to be like the sharance maze/rune prana isn't that hard to beat for skilled players and is only 20 floors. After you beat the main story and this dungeon there's not much else to do really.

Request Board. Unlike in rf4, you need to make sure you have accepted requests before you complete them or else it will not count. Previously, you could complete all sorts of tasks and Eliza would still recognize your work even if you accept their request after the fact. ie, shipping goods, harvesting crops, etc. So make sure you don't harvest your special crops before accepting the request it's for!

Return of the "Loli" Dragons... Yeah you read that right. We got more dragons in children's(???) bodies with skimpy clothes. I don't know anymore????¿¿¿

Can't marry the Milfs or Dilfs. Tragic.

Still no homo. Grow up Marvelous.

Reverse Proposal? Reverse Uno card-- Laid low by the patriarchy. You now have to buy the double bed and craft an engagement ring to propose to your man if you're playing as Alice. Marvelous this isn't what we meant when we said we wanted equal rightsssssss This can be seen as a pro if you're a softhearted babey who doesn't like rejecting bachelors' proposals because you feel bad :'( But this is a con for me because I don't want to spend money and materials on a double bed dammit!!!

Misc. Still can't stack dishes or fish. There's no green elemental fairy???All the other elemental ones are there except the green one? why??? Still can't tame the giant Wooly. Some bosses that have insanely awesome designs cannot be tamed and makes me wanna eat glass.

Let's talk about Love~

Relationships. We want them. And half of us only play these games for them. I've only played as the female heroine so far but I'll be updating this review as soon as I finish with the bachelorettes as the male hero.

Confessions

As usual, we must raise the love points of our beloved to 7 hearts before we can attempt to date them. However unlike in rf4, if you fail at a confession once, you will need to raise the LP up an entire level before you can try again with any chance of success. It's imperative you save before attempting a confession now.

Love Events

Each love interest has two love events that must be seen before you can date them. They're reminiscent of older game's style but I felt they could have been a biiiit more interactive or so? Or involved the town a bit more for some of them.

Dating

Once you get your honey to be your bf/gf, you get to choose the nicknames as usual. Then you can go on dates. The first three (non-festival) dates are actually events. You need to see all three events to get married.

Marriage Event

The final event you need to clear before you can marry your sweetie. In my honest opinion, so far for the boys, these events were rather disappointing. They lacked the drama and angst that sort of 'test' the love between the two when compared to rf4. Also this is a huge con for me personally and a minor spoiler but there are no special cutscenes at the end of the marriage event like in rf4. Instead, the cutscene takes place during your actual wedding. I was saddened by this because it took away the depth from the marriage events and the actual character? As it is just a cut and paste type of thing instead of an original cutscene for each person. They lack individualism this way. Also it kinda felt like a way for devs to avoid gay relationships and cut corners :^/....sus.

First comes love, then comes marriage, then comes...

Children!!!!!! This is actually one of the coolest additions in the game. Just like in rf3, you can have up to 3 children again! Your first child will resemble you, and you will have the option to choose its gender as well as its personality. There are 6 different children, (3 boys and 3 girls), all with different hairstyles, mannerisms, and seiyuus. Your answers will determine which child you get. A year after your first child is born, you will get the option to have a second child. You'll end up with twins, both resembling your partner. You won't get to choose the genders (it will be a boy and girl) but you will get to choose the personalities once more. The children all have canon names too and each kid is incredibly cute. And of course, you're still able to take your kid with you in your party~ ...Though you can only take one kid with you at a time.

So is RF5 good?

Yeah it's a fun game! My theory is that Marvelous forced the devs to release the game earlier than they were ready for, and that's why it's so lacking. But that doesn't mean it's not worth playing! I'd rate it 3.5/5 stars hehe. Not nearly as good as RF4 (full stop 5/5), or RF3 (4/5) but enjoyable nonetheless. I wouldn't recommend it as a first game to play from the series for newcomers though, I feel it's best for vets who can overlook all the cons thanks to loyalty and nostalgia. By the time it’s released in the West, the bugs should all be dealt with too.

So! Definitely buy this game! We want the series to continue and we want RF6 to be better than this--and hopefully Marvelous will make sure of that next time. If you're not a picky person I think you'll enjoy rf5 a lot. If you're like me and have high standards then, well, still pick it up and let it run its course. Then dust off rf4sp and cleanse your gaming palette >;^)

[doctor-ciel]

"What is OneShot and why should I play it?"

Ah, what a wonderful question. OneShot is an indie RPG with a 97% rating on Steam and a 98% from Google users. Its developer is Little Cat Feet and its composer is Casey Gu. It's a really cute metafictional game with interesting gameplay and endearing characters! Its description on Steam says, "OneShot is a surreal top down Puzzle/Adventure game with unique gameplay capabilities. You are to guide a child through a mysterious world on a mission to restore its long-dead sun. The world knows you exist."

"Metafictional, you say? Does that mean it's like Undertale or Doki Doki Literature Club?"

Oneshot was actually made before either of them! It was first released in 2014, while Undertale came out in 2015 and DDLC in 2017. It also had a Solstice update in 2016, but I'll talk about that later.

In terms how similar it is to them, I'd say Oneshot is by far more like Undertale than DDLC. The only way it's similar to DDLC at all is that it directly breaks the fourth wall, rather than "leaning" on it like Undertale does. But aside from that, the two games aren't alike at all. First of all, it's not a horror game. In fact, as far as I recall, there is little to no horror elements in the whole game. That's not to say it's saccharine, of course, in fact it's far from it. Speaking of which.......

"I'm really not in the mood to cry. Should I play this game?"

Absolutely not. Chalk that up to another way this game is similar to Undertale(note that I'm only comparing it to Undertale and DDLC because they're the most popular indie meta games -- I could talk about Oneshot's similarities to OFF, for example, but that's a post for another day). Anyways, Oneshot is a VERY emotional game. Without going into too spoiler-y territory, it gets you to care about the characters and the world a LOT, and then puts you in very stressful situations regarding them.

"What was the "Solstice update" you were talking about earlier?"

For the longest time, Oneshot had about half or less the content it has now, had lower quality sprites, and also if you closed the game you couldn't play it again(which, I mean there were reasons behind that, but it's nice that they removed that bit). The whole game was made in one month, but it was free to download.

Then, one day in 2016, an update came out, called the "Solstice Update." I am CERTAINLY not going to tell you what the update was about or the details of how it impacted the game, but for now all you need to know is that it doubled the content, added more to the story, and showed us characters that were only hinted at in the original iteration of the game.

"I'm starting to like the idea of this game, but I'm still on the fence. What are some things about the game that you like that will seal the deal for me?"

Oh boy, I'm glad you asked! As I said before, the characters are endearing, and they also have good character design. The world building is amazing, and focuses on a few specific things that really make the game unique(for example, clovers, libraries, robots, luminescent rocks called "phosphor", rams, the sun, etc.). It also takes place in a post-apocalyptic world, but not neccesarily our world, and (and this is important) it also isn't one of those gritty hellscape worlds where life sucks. The art and soundtrack are also amazing, in fact I'm listening to the soundtrack as I type this. The plot is fantastic, well-paced, and has moments of tension while also having lots of cute and fun-filled moments. The gameplay is unique, but I won't spoil how. And if none of this is working for you, then the main character is a cat child named Niko who loves pancakes, and if that alone isn't the cutest fucking thing, then I don't know what to tell you, you heartless person.

"Should I really get into it?"

I mean, I just wrote a paragraph talking about all the things I love about it, so this may be just a bit biased, but....... yes. Yes you should. The fandom may be small and relatively inactive, but we could always use more members, and I also don't think anyone should miss out on an opportunity to play a game as amazing as this.

“Alright, you’ve convinced me. How do I get into this?”

If you want to play the game yourself, you can buy it on Steam for $9.99, or buy the soundtrack bundle for $18.87. If you can't or don't want to buy it, this is a good playthrough of it that includes the Solstice content(if you watch these, I'd look up how to get to the Solstice content after you watch the all endings video, otherwise you might be very confused). Here is the official OneShot trailer.

"I have watched the trailer and played the game and holy shit you were right, this game is amazing! But the fandom is so small and inactive! What should I do?"

As Ghandi says, be the change you wish to see in the world! We can't do much to make other people join the fandom, but we can produce content ourselves! Make fanart, fanfic, and edits, no matter how "skilled" you might consider yourself to be! In fact, if you are a new or unskilled artist, fandoms like these are the perfect place to master your art! I can assure you that every work is appreciated by the underfed fans, and there's not a whole lot of pressure to make masterpieces here! We're all just appreciating this game together. If you're looking for some good OneShot blogs, I'd recommend @daylightsavings, @daily-niko, @here-at-the-eleventh-hour, @oneshotfanbase, @asktheoneshotcast, and @incorrect-oneshot-quotes-blog

[nono-bunny]

The Heartful Communes are such a weird change imo, they seem considerably less practical and easy to use (while holding something in one hand, a close up shot literally has Nagisa have to use the hand that's meant to be occupied to open it). They also don't look great? The Card Communes had a sort of charm to them, the Heartful ones mostly just look shiny and plastic-y. It's obviously a merch thing, but they fr skip over how and why the change happened way too quickly. Like, Mipple and Mepple basically completely changed bodies and it's barely addressed? It's strange!

The new designs for the girls are ok, honestly- they're barely different and I feel like maybe they should've been? I don't hate them, honestly they're just kind of okay, which is pretty much what I thought of the original ones haha. They're cute, but nothing extraordinary- they mostly become really cool together though, which is a great success at the desired effect.

Marble Screw Max though? Yeah, I genuinely HATE that one. Everything else was mostly strange or confusing, but this one feels actively worse. It literally doesn't even look like a screw anymore- that was the whole point of that attack! It looks much more like a monochrome Rainbow Storm, right down to the awkward "putting the hands forward, taking them back, then bringing them back forward again" thing I already hated. Also, and this genuinely really bothered me- it's mostly just... White with some black flavoring, and it all just looks and feels so much worse! It's especially weird because I know that this season is gonna focus much more on Nagisa than on Honoka (which is. Fine, I don't dislike Nagisa, I just... Like Honoka better and feel like she already deserved a bit more focus in the first season, especially given that she tended to have the more interesting episodes), so having their joint attack lean way more into Honoka visually feels truly strange. Like, is she for some reason more powerful now...? Was it an attempt to give a little love to Honoka since Nagisa gets so much more focus? Or did they just think it looked cooler like that? It doesn't, it 100% looked and felt better when the colors were balanced, so. The whole thing truly baffled me, ngl.

Anyway even though I only took a couple hours worth of break between the two seasons, I was still definitely happy to see Porun again, and given that he seems to generally not be very well liked... I'm hoping I'll also like this season which a lot of other people seem not to? But tbf, the second half of the first one was indeed kinda rough (I enjoyed all of it, but it definitely lacked a sense of progression and rising tension) so I think it's probably all gonna come down to if I like Hikari or not- I feel like I will, but who knows? I thought I wasn't gonna like Porun and he immediately caught my heart, I thought the Three Seeds would have LITERALLY ANYTHING going for them, so like. Evidently my first impression was off before haha! On the surface this definitely looks like a fun season though, so here's hoping!

Anyway I'm really enjoying reading your posts after I watch each episode- I feel a bit bad because I kinda forget to interact most of the time tbh, and I also don't wanna spam you with likes but! I'm really enjoying this blog and hearing the thoughts of someone more familiar with the franchise than me, it's really interesting and it adds some extra fun after the episodes are over! I saw on your update blog that you're kinda stuck with a movie review rn which is why daily updates haven't happened in a while, and I'm definitely not looking forward to when I get ahead of you- which, unless I take a big hiatus or something, is honestly very likely given my pace, oof. Anyway, good job on these, they make for a really fun accompaniment even for first time viewers!

Precure Day 050

Episode: Futari wa Precure Max Heart 01 - “Yep, We’re Still Precure! The Legend Continues Forever!” Date watched: 5 June 2018 Original air date: 6 February 2005 Screenshots: https://imgur.com/a/JevHFWz

New year, new us

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