#there are several shots later in that cutscene that are more along the lines of 'wow that's new' eyecatching

[slumberinglabyrinth]

Found an old issue of Nintendo Power while excavating my bedroom. While it focused more on Sacred Stones since it was coming out sooner, it did have this page previewing Path of Radiance (it might the first time the west got to see it? not too sure).

Struck me as kinda odd that they didn't show off any identifiably non-human characters here despite both this page and the Sacred Stones pages placing some emphasis on each game being completely new worlds (probably to make them seem more accessible to newcomers). The FE8 section even goes out of its way to point out 'hey there's now a playable Manakete isn't that cool' so maybe they didn't want to shift attention too far away from fe8 since it was releasing first?

[until-the-brahmin-come-home]

Fallout: Snowblind

aka an idea for a little fallout game i had semirecently which is minimally developed but i'm sharing anyway

intro cutscene has a few establishing shots of wide open fields enveloped in a blizzard. cut to a team of sled dogs racing across the snow. on the sled is you! The Musher!

one of your dogs is abruptly shot, and your sled skids to a halt. three assailants rush you, hit you over the head, cut the shot dog loose, and flee on your sled with your dogs and possessions. you crawl over to your dying dog, cradle her, and then gently remove her collar once she has passed.

your lead dog wears a radio collar. you pull out a tracker, and the game begins. your goal is to find and recover your dogs, and maybe get revenge.

other notes:

beginning stage would have you chasing the signal through the blizzard, health slowly ticking down due to radiation and cold; before it gets too low you'll stumble across an abandoned cabin where you can take shelter

whole game takes place over a fairly short timespan. take too long, and when you finally find the radio collar it will have been cut off, your attackers long gone.

heavy survival focus – manage hunger, thirst, alertness, temperature, etc.

related, several equipment upgrades can be acquired over the course of the game - snowshoes, heavier jackets, maps of the area, and so on

the blizzard never lets up during the course of the game, meaning you need to carefully plan movement between locations, lest you succumb to the cold

no character customization; the Musher is covered head to toe in layers. you can, of course, interpret their appearance underneath however you like; they also aren't voiced

event timing matters, ex. if you don't meet a certain npc before halfway through the second day you'll find them frozen to death

takes place in alaska or canada. somewhere up north

the only npc i've though of would be a ghoul fur trapper, but i'm sure there's other folks here. there isn't a proper town, just people who happen to be in the area

your attackers were able to steal your dogs because one of them has animal friend

SPECIAL and skills would exist about as usual, you can choose traits at the start, and perks are more along the lines of ones you can pick up as quest rewards - ex the fur trapper can teach you how to skin animals, and so you can sell or craft with the pelts afterwards

combat would solely be a result of failing to deescalate situations with the handful of npcs, or else wandering aimlessly into the woods and getting attacked by wolves. weapons and ammo are appropriately limited. you start with a knife and a bow w/arrows.

limited enough npcs that your reputation would be tracked with each one individually; screw someone over early on and they won't help you later

all of your dogs are named

[semi-imaginary-place]

rewatching decadence part 2 because part 1 got too long

ep7: Getting to see the game Deca-Dence as a new player would with the opening cutscene, skipping the TOS, character creation and all was a good touch. Also the fact that Kaburagi could look like anything, but he wants to look like mid 40′s dad both times. I wonder who it was that decided Minato should vape. The conversation on the top of Deca-Dence is real interesting because its like only 20% of the actual conversation is spoken out loud and the other 80% left unsaid, so we have to guess what was left unsaid. Minato tells Kaburagi to not make things worse for himself, condoning his actions, but also vows to himself to help Kabu even though it is very dangerous for him. Kaburagi leaves after regretfully saying he doesn’t want to cause Minato more trouble, and yet his current and future actions are and will be doing just that. The obscuring fog in this scene adds to the sense of distance or disconnect between these two. Somewhere over the past 7 years they have fallen off the same page.

This episode again highlights how while for the Tankers this is life and death situation, for the cyborgs Deca-Dence is a game. We get a shot of some Gears lightheartedly discussing how fun the latest game event was, followed right after with what that event meant for the Tankers as we see a makeshift medbay in the streets filled with the dead and dying to really drive home the gap of compassion between the two groups. Minato is one of the few cyborgs we really see besides Kaburagi and the show uses him to show how cyborgs don’t think of humans as people. Humans to the cyborgs are just npcs in a game. Now anime and manga about videogames have been around a long time and were especially popular in the mid 2000s (mmorpgs especially) after which the genre dropped the “in a game” part but kept everything else which were today know as the isekai genre. Hot takes like “the videogame characters are actually people all along” aren’t new either, but Deca-Dence is one of the most successful in generating sympathy and compassion for the Other by flipping the script. Most of those series come from the perspective of the player and show the player coming to care about the npcs. This often isn’t done very well or comes off as patronizing, like the other characters act in service of making the mc look like a good guy instead of actually acting like fully realized people in their own right. (*cough* sao *cough*). In contrast to this, Deca-Dence initially starts from the perspective of Natsume who is human just like us the audience, and thus predisposing us to feeling with and feeling for her. So later when its revealed the humans of this world aren’t seen as people by the cyborgs or the the corporation that rules all their lives, it is granted greater weight in the context of all of us who have played videogames before and met npcs and maybe not cared all that much about them. Decadence places the viewer in the position of the npc, the Other.

Episode 7 is also the beginning of several letters exchanged between Kaburagi and Natsume. Its a presence that lingers long after the person has left and also acts as a contrast to the call/social networking apps of the cyborgs. In episode 5 we saw Kaburagi choose Natsume over following the orders of Solid Quake, but through to episode 7 he still believed in its system. Look even at episode 6 where he still believed that if he worked hard and played by the rules, the system would reward him and everything would be ok and compare that calm assurance in episode 6 to his mountain frustration in episode 7. He’s starting to see how thing are run in Deca-Dence makes life really hard and kind of terrible for the Tankers. This frustration at the system culminates at the end of the episode when he realizes the real human cost of perpetuating this system of oppression in how it hurts Natsume. I mean “Late stage capitalism made my adopted daughter Natsume cry, so I'm going to dismantle it.“ is a joke and pretty funny, but like, that’s what actually what happens. Both Kaburagi and Natsume further the theme of pushing the limits. Kaburagi realizes the limits of his society and why its time to break them down, while of Natsume’s side we see her struggle in the face of things much larger than her. Much like how the cyborgs are stuck in their lifestyles of working for Solid Quake, earning oxyone, and playing Deca-Dence, the Tankers are stuck in their role in society to leave their fates to the Gears and Deca-Dence. So Natsume asking everyone to take charge of their own lives and close that the hole is them stepping out of the comfort of what they’ve always done, which is leave it to someone else (deca-dence administration, gears, etc.). Natsume asks the Tankers to push their limits, the step outside of what they’ve always done and to believe in things they thought were impossible to do. We see Fei representing the belief a lot of Tankers that nothing needs to change, thus nothing should change and they will not act to bring change to their own lives. The Tankers live lives that are decided for them. The Deca-Dence administration controls their population, and the system eliminates any who would disrupt it. They don’t have a lot of control and are resigned to live like that, until Natsume comes along. This episode we see her do what she does the entire series, inspire people to be more. Natsume’s doing alright, she might not be where she wants to be but she’s taken steps in that direction. Where Nstsume is psychologically contrast Kaburagi who’s a bit of a mess realizing he can no longer live under the thumb of Solid Quake’s Deca-Dence system and is kind of floundering about. When kaburagi meets Natsume again... he is so awkward, I’m getting second hand embarressmen. and again the assault jokes have got to stop. The shot of the empty chair calls back to the first episode and another talk between Natsume and Kaburagi. I always love it when an anime plays the credits early.

ep8: again the importance of the individual over the group with kaburagi’s lines at the beginning on why he’s taking down the gadoll factory. I’m just thinking about how kaburagi is certain minato kept his avatar. and everyone just agreeing that minato has that vibe. I really love the avatar retrieval part of the first episode. Its a heist sequence. I love heists!. They also did a good job with pacing and tension in that part. Still can’t believe the creators put a sex toy in this show but at least this joke is actually funny. Oh Minato pulled strings to get Kaburagi out of the poor jail. I missed that part. but now the two of them are not only on different pages, but on different books. Minato doesn’t see the tankers as people and follows the Deca-Dence system on what is good and what is bad, so he can’t comprehend why Kaburagi is throwing away everything the Deca-Dence system values for something the system has deems less than worthless. While Kaburagi has formed a moral compass independent of this system, he sucks at communication and doesn’t explain anything to Minato. Interesting how Minato views bugs as bad but has made an exception for kaburagi and probably did some mental gymnastics to do so. It reminds of those homophobic family members that make an exception for their gay family member. Minato never wanted anything but to be by Kaburagi’s side so he prioritizes Kaburagi above pretty much everything else which is why while he defends the establishment, he also breaks rules for Kaburagi. Their little convo continues the same dialectic, Kaburagi’s been inspired by Natsume to push the limits of himself and society, to choose how he lives instead of letting the Deca-Dence system tell him. Kaburagi underwent character development when Minato wasn’t looking and he can’t recognize him anymore but desperately wants to. Kaburagi moving forwards without him and him realizing that he was never as much a priority to Kaburagi as Kaburagi was to him, means that Minato’s really hurting by the end of the scene, and he doesn’t take it out on Kaburagi, he just leaves. ...if it isn’t obvious by now, minato is my favorite character. gotta love the gay robot having a mid life crisis. (i mean his feeling aren;t necessarily romantic, but you know the joke I’m referencing). Turkey just wakes up and chooses evil every day huh. I predict someone on tumblr with a history of unhealthy relationships is horny for turkey.

ep9: why does the reactor look like a cyborg core? Again. WHYYY does Donatello have a gun??? idiots let him keep a working gun. I love the contrast of the actual pretty gritty situation of the prison riot being represented with super cartoony slapstick animations. This probably saves on frames as well as keep the series from getting too dark, because if you think about it the labor camp conditions are pretty horrifying but its disguised with cartoony designs and wacky characters. Kaburagi and Natsume are doing very important plot things, but the core of episode 9 are Sark and Turkey. Through them we see the same conversation that has been repeated through out the series of conforming to society and staying in line, that things won’t ever change so you should just duck your head and follow order, or the “I’m comfortable how things are” versus you should make your own choices with live life how to want to, to push your limits. Turkey sees the Deca-Dence system as absolute and eternal and thus tries to play by the system and help it continue by selling out everyone else. Sark is passive and doesn't really have an opinion of his own, just following whatever the others are doing whether its Kaburagi stealing his avatar or Turkey in betraying everyone. Sark unlike Turkey isn’t malicious, he wants the best for everyone but also isn’t quite willing to put himself at risk for others. After seeing everyone be destroyed as a consequence of following Turkey however, his new resolve and subsequent suicide bombing is the only reason the plan ends up succeeding. For total destruction of the gadoll factory two things were needed: flipping the kill switch on all the gadoll in the dome, and destroying the reactor powering the factory. We aren’t told how Jill and Kaburagi originally planned to destroy the reactor (like was he just suppose to wander around until they bumped into it?), but Sark’s explosion is what allowed Kaburagi and Natsume to get away from Hugin. Without Sark, Hugin would have totally caught them. So it was Sark taking charge of his own life and pushing his limits that saved them all. That said, if the explosion was powerful enough to reach all the way up the giant tube and destroy the reactor, why didn’t it break the tube and why didn’t it destroy everyone left in the prison? ah well it makes thematic sense so I’ll let this pass.

So I’ve talked before about how Deca-Dence’s ending could be improved to build on some of the themes established in the first couple episodes. The problem is that this show isn’t pushing a narrative of collaboration and the power of collective bargaining, its pushing an individualist narrative about how each and every person can reach out and better themself. Now I don’t think these two themes are mutually exclusive, but it would take a very delicate touch as well as an attentive and thoughtful audience to successfully weave these two theme together into a nuanced whole. And if a rewrite were to happen with the minimal amount of changes, I think ep 10 is a good divergence point. The final little arc is about the rogue gadoll outside of the Deca-Dence system and the threat of total annihilation by solid quake, and while big kaiju fights look cool, they don’t quite deal with dismantling systems of oppression at the hands of your corporate overlords. So, I would have preferred something like the cyborgs and Tankers coming together to seize the means of production, destroy Solid Quake, and take its assets for themselves. The ideal rewrite situation though would for this all to be 24 episodes and the big gadoll to be the episode 12 climax while taking down Solid Quake happen in ep 23-24. And since we’re doing a rewrite, Natsume kinda drops off as the main character after episode 5 and I’d like to see her back at the forefront of the show.

ep10: If this show had leaned more into the futility of Natsume seeking to improve herself within a system that rendered it meaningless, it would have ended up much darker, but I also think it would have been richer. Ah poor Natsume, she’s at a low point since the context of what she has been doing has wildly changed, afterall, what’s the point of improving yourself if nothing else ever changes and what you do doesn’t matter. The letter writing continues and it is good. So I’m not going to question how the exit tunnel is still intact, but watching into robot kaburagi angrily drive a car and swear is really funny. I’ve been wondering for a while, the humans literally live in a fuel tank, how is there enough light to grow plants in there? Like as part of the post-apocalyptic aesthetic, a lot of Tankers have little house plants which in addition to being inside the fuel tank, are also inside their houses. oh yeah for any who didn’t get it. The reason as a child Natsume went into cardiac arrest and her chip was read as dead wasn’t because of the severity of her injuries, Deca-Dence’s system had deemed her too dangerous to live and flipped her kill switch.

ep11: on a thematic level I might be meh, but the writing and execution are what really pull the ending through. Everything is nicely set up from the mutated gadoll the victim of animal abuse several episodes earlier to fighting hugin in the factory being how hugin finds out about natsume. I think about Jill’s lines here, that no matter how hard you try to keep things from changing, you’re just fighting the inevitable. Also Natsume took Kaburagi’s switching bodies really well like seeing someone you care about die in front of you but then surprise they just got another body would give most people such whiplash. “our bodies are under the system’s control, but our core’s are independent of it” I’m still thinking about this. It makes sense given how the first generation of cyborgs where humans with mechanical implants, but cyborg’s cores are still such a mystery. The things you can’t control are a part of life too. In Deca-Dence bugs are uncertainties that the master control system doesn’t know what to do with. More than just individualism good, here we get a little more nuance to Deca-Dence (the show)’s theme. Jill was one of the creators of the Deca-Dence game (giant mech, control system, and all), and they tried to create perfect system where everything was under its control and order could be maintained forever, and this inevitably failed (the show tells us). Trying to perfectly order everything is to attempt the impossible, disorder will always creep in and those little individual differences should be celebrated. and is to the backdrop of an old Deca-Denca(robot) part that is rusting away, plants and animals overtaking it much like how the Deca-Dence’s currently enforced status quo of the game will fall away in the face of those it deems bugs. wait did we ever figure out what the bug was that jill left in deca-dence? mmmm I’m still thinking about Minato logging out because the system told him to but unwilling to let things end this way so physically going back down to earth in his real body. Facing the possibility of truly losing Kaburagi forever is what pushes Minato to question following the Deca-Dence master control system. He totally became a bug for Kaburagi. I doubt Kaburagi had any idea how much Minato wanted to hear the words “let’s fight together to the end”, but offered the thing he truly desires, Minato probably would have done anything. mmm he’s got it bad. there’s also that linking Kaburagi and Deca-Dence’s core takes two people and yet, Kaburagi didn’t bring anyone with him. Which is terrible planning, but allowed for this really great scene. that he knew Minato would come after him. And then the last thing me sees in Minato. Minato truly is ride or die. literally. He could have gone back to the spaceship so that he’d survive no matter what, but he choose to stay. If the plan succeeds then he will see it through with/right beside/literally inside of Kaburagi, and if it fails and Kaburagi is annihilated when Solid Quake wipes the dome, Minato will also be annihilated along side Kaburagi.

ep12: so kaburagi just straight up demands admin privileges and the governing sys is like “sure”. Yeah pretty sure the governing system convo was a season 2 hook to show the big wigs. The independent all governing system tells Kaburagi that all this, him and bugs are a part of the system’s learning process, to which Kaburagi responds that all that doesn’t matter since he’s going to do what he wants independent/regardless of the governing system. the context in which you do things doesn’t matter. Also I never pointed it out since its like the 4th wall of scifi, everyone is just trained to suspend their disbelief, but oxyone is total bullshit. A non toxic liquid energy dense fuel that can be concentrated into orbit range lasers. The tankers all helping Natsume push the spare part is a feel good moment seeing everyone working together. Its an unnecessarily scene for the purpose of including the tankers in the action, since the part wasn’t ever really needed and the writers didn’t have to have it severed by the laser to begin with. the Natsume montage overlayed with the music is very good. wait. i just realized, limiter release can be reversed. Afterall, Kaburagi released his limiters with his first avatar, and if he had still been fully connected to it when hugin killed that avatar, cyborg Kaburagi should have died too but he didn’t and just immediately logged in on a different account. Kabu-Dence releasing his limits here and literally giving all of himself to destroy omega is fulfilling both for his character arc and on an emotional level. This entire show has been about pushing one’s limits and making your own choices, and it culminates here’s in Kaburagi literally releasing his limiter, thus putting him in mortal danger, and then giving every last ounce of himself to the path he has decided. The destruction of the mech fortress Deca-Dence is also symbolic of the end of the game of the Deca-Dence mmorpg as we know it. wait wait did Kaburagi hold on just long enough to hear Natsume thank him. aaaaahhh and then the ed song plays!! and then the play the new mmo intro scene. Still real weird that they’re using a cyborg brain as a ball.

[annakie]

An Annotated Mass Effect Playthrough, Part Six

Wherein we get out into space and explore a bit, and complete our crew.

And post a lot of gifs, because screenshots were lost.

List of Posts: 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9

So I use the NVidia Control Panel app to take screenshots and videos.  Since it’s already running and it takes good shots it seems dumb to not use it.

I ended up being super busy this week and didn’t play much, just got through like, talking to Kaidan after the big speech on the bridge more or less for the entire week, and through Therum.  I updated my drivers a day or two ago.  And then I didn’t notice that for whatever reason, yesterday when I went to play for a few hours, NVidia decided to record videos just fine, but not take screenshots.  I probably actually mashed the button several hundred times.... but all I got were videos.

Most of it wasn’t a great loss, it was a lot of talking to the crew, and a few planetary missions which... so I’m going to have to go back and redo some of it later for screenshots.

But I thought... hey, for posting on tumblr, I’ll just make it a shorter update and make a few gifs and most this a mostly-gif post!  That’ll be fun!

...and then I spent several hours making almost 80 gifs, including a lot of what I also had screenshots for but thought making gifs would be more fun.  

I mean I was watching the last few eps of the newest season of Great British Bake Off on Netflix, and a few other shows this morning so it wasn’t just gif time... but yeah I made a lot.  So I might split this into two posts now because... that’s a lot of gifs. This post will still have a lot of screenshots, too.  So here we go!

There are so many things to love about this moment.  It’s such a great like, re-launch of the game... Bioware telling us “Okay, now you know the plot, you know all the major players, you know a lot about our world (galaxy) and how it works and who lives here, now, it’s time for you to go out on your own.”

First, it starts with being able to vent a little to Joker, which is a nice touch.  Shepard might feel guilty about taking the ship over from Anderson, but Joker also assures us here, a great preview of the way he’s tasked with helping Shepard keep it together in ME3.

I love seeing Shepard’s words affect the crew.  The swelling music, the same as the “you’re a Spectre now!!” music just underscores the journey, and what’s to come.

I used to always miss this scene by not picking the right speech option, and would be mad Kaidan was left out of this montage.  My fault!

This moment is so beautiful and epic.

...and here we go.

ALOT, btw, makes the galaxy map so pretty.  Sharper and clearer and more colorful.  

We all usually just head to Liara’s Dig Site first, right?  Unless you’re doing one of those “Pick up Liara last just to see what happens” playthroughs?  I did that once. It felt weird.  And sad, when you tell her “oops I killed your mom and I’m not sorry.”  Seems like she shouldn’t have gotten over that so quickly, but well, that’s game design.  The entire plot just doesn’t feel the same and more flimsy without Liara around from the start.

I usually do Therum --> Feros --> Noveria --> Virmire.

Well okay, first a stop at Edolus, since, you know, it’s on the way.

What a LOVELY day, nothing could possibly go wrong on this barren world. I feel like they gave us a pretty easy-to-get-around-on world to start out with.

I honestly love driving around in the mako 90% of the time?  Once you’re used to the controls, it’s not that hard to get most places you want to go.  Though I admit the Nomad in Andromeda is a big upgrade.  I kinda miss it in ME2 and ME3, though I only do what driving is necessary in Overlord and skip Firewalker like, half the time.

First, let’s check out the map...

I’m pretty sure I didn’t realize you could mark your destination on the map and it’d put a handy arrow on your radar until I started playing on PC.  Before then I was checking the map every 5 seconds making SURE I was going the right way.  *facepalm*  

Generally my scanning strategy on the planet is... just go to the things on the map, but do go to ALL the things on the map.  If I see something along the way, stop and get it.  I don’t go way out of my way to look for unmarked stuff.  Usually the UNC missions can be completed doing that + complete planet / asteroid scanning.

Oh hey here’s a guy, let’s just grab what we can off him...

UGH.  MINIGAMES.

Like I get that the minigame is a stand in for “looking for clues, are you successful in finding anything useful?” or whatever but it’s still just the worst.  A minigame is fun occasionally, making it as a gate to something like looting a body is stupid.  I guess I have to forgo actually putting points into things that keep Kaidan alive at the early levels so he can help me... loot bodies.  Cool.  Great.

Since I’m cheating in credits, all weapons and armor get medigelled almost immediately so that I don’t have to do the minigame later on when they get harder, like, ever.

The ME2 minigames at least make a little more sense than this moving puzzler thing.  That’s at least an attempt to look like some kind of code hacking or rewiring/reprogramming.  This thing is just... silly.

ME2 has a disable minigames mod... so there will be no talk of minigames from here on out.  They don’t exist after the easy minigames early on in ME1.

So I ... somehow managed to not get video or screenshots of you know the ICONIC THRESHER MAW attack on Edolus?  So please enjoy this gif I made of it back in 2013 instead.

It’s such a great fakeout and moment.  Like “Oh man how easy my goal is like right in front of me!  That’s great, so easy!” then OH HELL NO, FUCK YOU, GIANT WORM!!

These gifs are from another planet later on, but they’ll do.

My normal MO with Maws is to get out of the way, far enough that they can’t appear too close to or especially under me, but close enough that they do still show up, then stay stationary and jump over the goo while shooting at it.

YOU’RE FACING THE OTHER WAY HOW DID YOU SPIT AT ME?!

This is fine.  EVERYTHING IS FINE. We’re just A LITTLE ON FIRE.  Our shields are at full...

Oh hell, Kaidan slap some medigel on it, please.

Even though we don’t know who Cerberus is yet, FUCK YOU CERBERUS. I always bring the VS to any Cerberus mission because THEY WERE RIGHT NOT TO JOIN YOU IN CERBERUS.  Let’s keep a FUCK YOU CERBERUS count going to remember all the horrible shit we SAW Cerberus do in ME1 to remind ourselves why Ashley or Kaidan is the only SANE ONE for going “No, sorry, I’m not joining you in Cerberus.”

Deep breath

OK, let’s go get Liara.

Wrex comes with us to Therum.

Dear Lord, Therum is gorgeous.

This is real nice just a pleasant day on this thresher maw-less planet and great scenery, we’ll find that asari scientist in no ti--- WHAT THE HELL IS THAT?

Have I mentioned how everything is fine lately?

Well it’s time for how I deal with most of the geth while in the Mako...

Armatures are worth five points each!

Rocket troopers are only two points, but I got a lot of them!

Stopping and fighting in the Mako takes way too long.  Push on through all the way til we’re stopped.

Hm, this is the one I should push, right?

*crickets*

Fine.

Just... real pretty.

I love this part of Therum right here.  A really great, scary fight that feels so dangerous, but winnable.  Great level design, too.

Then this happens.

Does everyone’s hair do that in this cutscene, or just mine, or this hairstyle?

Also, ME3 has a mod now that lets chracters use their correct weapons in cutscenes, my eternal devotion to the modder who could do that in ME1.  None of these characters use assault rifles in-game!!

I’m fairly certain I have played and replayed this fight more than any other in ME1.  AKA RUN FOR COVER OH SHIT AVOID THE BOMBS AND LASERS FLYING AT YOU AT ONCE PLEASE DON’T DIE COMPANIONS PLEASE KILL SOMETHING I CAN’T DO THIS ON MY OWN AHHHHH!!! 

This time around, I died my first time, actually did really well the second time, and decided to go back and record the fight for gifs and... won, barely.  The gifs would not be good.  Wrex and Kaidan didn’t last long. 

Anyway, It’s a great cutscene, but hoo boy I wish it were skippable.

Okay but what were these ruins *for*.  Also, real lucky that they had the boss fight way up here instead of down where Liara was.

Speaking of Liara...

Hello Doctor T’soni!

I have a lot of questions like... how long have you been in that bubble?  How are you sustaining it that long?  How long has it been since you’ve eaten?  If I didn’t come get you until after Virmire, would you have been holding that bubble up for the weeks in between then and now?  

Ah well, you’re here now, and I suppose I’m going to owe you my life later so... welcome to the team.

You gotta admit that’s one badass entrance, though uh, if the forcefield is still up, where did he come from?  Doesn’t matter.  Wrex, let’s kill us one of your brethren (sorry.)

I’ll just *assume* that Liara is too tired from holding up her stasis bubble she was in to actually be USEFUL.

I love the chaos of running the fuck out of there.

Texture popping is still an issue even with a decent computer and texture packs, but at least it’s quick now.

Also I really feel the loss of this conference room in the future games.  The awkward oval table never quite feels the same.  But also, uh, this is a lot of room taken up in this small ship for eight chairs and a holoprojector.  You gotta think there’s more uses for this space than just that.

But yeah, I love these check-ins, it’s a chance for everyone to get together and really hash out what’s going on, as well as reinforcing the plot to the players in a more natural way.  Having Liara this early will let us understand the Protheans better at an earlier stage, even if it turns out she’s wrong about some stuff (though at the time this was written, she was right for all everyone knew.)

Wrex and Garrus don’t talk much here, probably because you can make it through the game without one of them.  I did a “didn’t recruit Garrus” playthrough in ME2 once.  They change like one or two lines then Garrus goes back to talking about Old Times.  So like you CAN, but you really shouldn’t not recruit Garrus, because Bioware didn’t do a great job changing anything aside from your initial greeting during the Omega Archangel mission.

Not recruiting Wrex, though.  Wow that’ll have consequences later on.

OK!  So the gang’s all here, and this post is already very long.  Next time: Let’s go talk to everyone for awhile, and do a few more sidequests because we can’t go back to the Citadel til our persuasion is high enough to grind Mikhailovich’s arguments into the dust!

[lunarmoonflowyr]

Because I’m bored I’m going to write down a bunch of my passive thoughts on a new game I started playing and because once I start making streaming/youtube content related to viddy game I might make a video on this

Vambrace: Cold Soul Initial Impressions

Vambrace: Cold Soul is a game by Devespresso Games, an independent game developer based out of Seoul, South Korea who’s other notable titles seem to be a series of horror adventure games titled “The Coma”. 

Vambrace however, is a game far more akin to something like Darkest Dungeon in visual style and gameplay design however the Steam store page description has it claiming to be inspired by “the gothic fantasy of Castlevania, the deep lore of a series like The Elder Scrolls, the replayability of roguelites like FTL: Faster Than Light, and the sweeping, character-driven epics of our favorite JRPGs.”

This is going to be a small writeup of my initial impressions after 2 hours of the game. 

THE STORY SO FAR

We are a woman named Evelia Lyric, although she just goes by Lyric most of the time so that’s what I’ll be referring to her as throughout the rest of this writeup. Lyric immediately begins showing tell-tale signs of “JRPG Protagonist Syndrome”, as she:

1. Survives being passed out in a freezing arctic-like environment while wearing what could maybe be called clothing for a slightly harsh winter in New England, and comes out of it with barely any complications to speak of

2. Has an (allegedly) famous father who leaves her a Mysterious Book That No One Can Read, and the titular Vambrace, which is now apparently fused to her arm, that lets her pass through what the game refers to as the “Frostfell”, a massive magical ice barrier surrounding the city of “Icenaire” that apparently kills anyone who touches it. Apparently she can also one-shot evil ghosts with it, but only in the narrative. She did it in a cutscene once, and so far that hasn’t translated to gameplay.

3. Has so-far-unmentioned heterochromia

4. Gets a high-ranking soldier to trust her almost immediately when only one brief conversation ago he had a suspicion that she was a spy for “The Green Flame”, apparently some rival faction that’s very, very Not Good. 

Getting confused by all the random names yet? Trust me, it doesn’t really get much better. This game’s story shows a lot of the very painful signs of an over-written, over-developed fantasy world that someone very obviously put a lot of time and love into, but didn’t really know where to stop.

Names, places, and concepts are thrown at you non-stop with a new one being introduced almost every dialogue sequence if you spend time talking to the locals of Icenaire once you convince the guard captain to let you go wandering the streets. You can also find random lore pages strewn around the place that add even more lore on top of everything else. 

It all gets to be so dense and confusing you almost completely lose track of what the actual, present-day story is. The game has no trouble throwing random scraps of lore at you, full of names that mean nothing, but when it comes to actually explaining what the hell is going on right now, it falls a bit short. Here’s my understanding so far. 

Lyric’s father has either died or mysteriously disappeared, I can’t remember which, and she’s been left a letter, a book, and the titular Vambrace. The book is referred to in the game mechanics as “The Codex” and is referred to by NPCs as a “book that nobody can read”, because apparently foreign languages don’t exist in this world, yet so far I’ve counted 6 or 7 distinct fantasy races that apparently all speak the exact same language all the time. 

The vambrace has fused itself to Lyrics arm, and her fathers letter tells her to go to Icenaire (I have no fucking clue what that name is supposed to mean by the way, and it sounds really fucking awkward to say so it has to mean -something-. The “ice” part is pretty self-explanatory if a little on the nose, the entire game takes place in what appears to be an apocalypse along the lines of if you took the events of “Frozen” and turned it up to 11, but the only insight I could get on the “naire” part is that it’s from the Irish Gaelic word “náire” which means something along the lines of “ashamed” or “to have shame”. So this city is basically named “ice-ashamed”, which I have no clue what that’s supposed to mean, and it’s bothering me enough that I’ve gone on an entire run-on paragraph to rant about it because it sounds stupid to say and exactly like a city name I would’ve come up with for my crappy fantasy stories that I wrote when I was fourteen.)

Where was I again?

Right, okay, so Lyrics father instructs her to go to Icenaire (blech) and find some dude named “Zaquard Ventrue”. That name also means nothing, except as far as I can tell, “Zaquard” is the pseudonym of one of the people at Devespresso, and the first thing that comes to mind for Ventrue is Vampire: The Masquerade, and I’m not sure it really means anything there either. 

The naming system in this game seems really off, it has no consistency and a lot of it is really self-indulgent, because you find out that this Zaquard fellow (in the game) is the big head honcho of what apparently is some kind of resistance movement of the oppressive organization called “The Green Flame”. 

So Lyric goes through the “Frostfell” (the magical ice barrier thing around the city that allegedly is the cause of this whole Frozenpocalypse deal) by using the power of the mysterious Vambrace, and...passes out because of it, only to be found by a scavenging party in a tutorial section where the game teaches you how to play it using said scavenging party. 

More on that later. 

Lyrics unconscious body is dragged back to the city, she somehow hasn’t contracted hypothermia, and the next scene we’re given is an interrogation from some guy who’s last name is Esquire. 

I don’t think the writers of this game knew what the word “Esquire” meant, because despite traditionally appearing after a person’s name, it is not a surname, it is a title. So the strange and unconventional naming choices continue. 

Anyway, Captain Generic Man, Esq., interrogates Lyric for all of five minutes before believing her at face value that she has a magical super-gauntlet that lets her pass through this extremely lethal magical barrier, when he has all the reason in the world to believe that she’s some kind of spy sent by the people his resistance faction is supposedly fighting against. 

And instead of keeping her under close watch until she’s at least somewhat established some trust that she’s not a mole or a spy or an assassin, he just...lets her roam free, around the city. Completely by herself. With no supervision, whatsoever. 

As you can probably tell, I already have several problems with this games pacing and general overall writing quality, and we’re not even past the prologue section yet. 

Oh, yeah, and Captain Generic gives Lyric some free money for her troubles, because the player needs to know how the market system works and how to buy healing items, and we can’t be assed to have them come across money in a non-contrived manner. 

And the currency is really weirdly specific? Its this stuff called “Hellion”, which in real-person-language is a word for a malicious troublemaker or nuisance. But in the same setting where a city is named “Ice Shame”, “Hellion” is apparently some kind of magical incense that the fox people burn to appease their gods. 

Oh yeah there’s a race of fox people in this game. They run the markets. They’re less full on furries and more like regular humanoids, but with fox ears, a tail, and pointy teeth, so like that weird halfway “haha guys look I’m totally not a furry” deal thats basically just “catgirls but with a different animal”. 

Anyway. 

You’re given a fat stack of cash and told to go buy yourself some food from the market, because we need to give you a tutorial on how to buy shit. 

So you go to the market and are taught by a smooth-talking fox-man-person-thing how to buy things at a market, after which you are immediately spotted by the only guard in the city with an ounce of sense who instantly goes “Hey holy shit isn’t that the person that literally nobody recognizes in this city that’s been cut off from the outside world for presumably several years at this point and the only other known faction that has the resources to keep a human alive is one we’re actively at war with?” and throws your ass right back in jail. 

By the way, the things you can choose to buy at the market are all pretty typical JRPG items that heal stat debuffs, or are basically different flavors of health potion that restore different amounts of health, and for any seasoned JRPG veteran it’s pretty easy to guess what items do what and how they function (sort of) but there’s plenty of unique-to-this-game stat conditions and the way the health mechanic works is kinda wonky, and the game asks you to buy your healing items before it even explains to you how the hell that part of the game actually works. 

I’ll go more in-depth to the gameplay once I finish this story synopsis but I just felt like pointing out that at this point you’ve been walked through some of the basic mechanics of the game and some of the combat, but the part of the game that deals with debuffs and HP and how you deal with those things hasn’t been explained yet. 

This game is very weird. 

Anyway, during the attempt to throw your ass back in jail, some shit is going down in the room that has the elevator to the surface (yeah apparently this city is like, underground. They don’t actually explain why, or how, or if it was like that before the Frozenpocalypse or if the Frozenpocalypse buried it, and if it was buried, how the hell did it get excavated so cleanly like this and why are all the buildings intact? Whatever, apparently the game doesn’t consider this important, which is weird considering all the random lore tidbits it does deem important, so we’re moving on now.)

OH hold on let me backtrack a bit. While you’re being let out of your jail cell because Captain Generic just felt like it apparently, you walk up to this other jail cell with a goth chick inside it and you’re told she’s an Extremely Powerful Bad Guy, Do Not Fuck With Her. 

So, as you arrive at the elevator to the surface, guess who just made an escape and caused a spooky ghost person to invade the city and injure two people! That’s right, Spooky Not-So-Jailed-Anymore Goth Chick! Who’s name is Isabel Salazar, and it’s really saying something that that’s the most normal name we’ve encountered so far in this god forsaken game. 

So you’re now face-to-face with a spooky ghost. You think you’re about to get into a combat section, you’ve been taught how to do combat, but nope! Lyric just waltzes up to the fucker and smacks him in the face with her Vambrace hand and it...melts...him? Just, with absolutely zero fanfare? 

Uh. Sure. Alright. Weird, do we get some kind of special attack that hurts ghosts? Guess we’ll find out. 

So the guard who was trying to arrest you, a redhead with pointy ears who’s very obviously an elf but hasn’t directly been called an elf in-game yet so I’m not sure if we’re using that word but fuck it she’s an elf, who’s name is Celest. That’s all, I don’t remember if she’s given a last name. 

Celest is reprimanded by Captain Generic, Esq. for trying to re-arrest the possible spy who was let go with literally no actual forethought put into it, and she’s understandably miffed, and Captain Generic tells you to come meet him in the war room because “someone is very interested in meeting you.” 

This leads nicely into the scene where our protagonist meets the leader of this massive underground (literally) resistance movement, who, upon hearing our surname and being told we’re the daughter of Some Random Guy, immediately trusts us to go after Isabel and lead an expedition all on our lonesome with a party of random soldiers we get to pick from a “help wanted” board instead of, I dunno, maybe sending some actual soldiers with us. 

This leader is the previously mentioned Zaquard Vampire Clan Man, who looks exactly how you’d expect a self-insert resistance leader to look, a young white-haired anime boy looking dude who’s bangs cover his eyes and we can’t see them. And he has earrings. 

Farquaad here apparently knew about our dad, and our dad was apparently the lead researcher about Archons (?) and the Vambrace is an Archonian (???) artifact (also they spell it “artefact” in the game and I hate it, they also say “magick” and it makes me want to find whoever was in charge of writing this and punch them) so that’s why he trusts us now, apparently. 

We are then tasked with a mission to go retrieve Evil Goth Chick, who apparently is going to go tell these Green Flame fellows the location of our massive underground city secret base, which is somehow super duper secret despite being huge. 

Keep in mind that this entire game’s setting is allegedly one massive city, it’s not like Eragon where the big inside-the-mountain Dwarf city was kept secret from Galbatorix, because that at least had the justification of being halfway across the entire fucking continent from the Empire as well as being on the other side of a massive fucking desert. 

This is all apparently one huge city! And the “secret underground base” is kinda big itself! It doesn’t make sense that its some big secret!

Ugh, whatever, if I keep harping on about every bit of the narrative that doesn’t make any fucking sense when you think about it for more than ten seconds I’m going to give myself a stroke so now that I’ve caught you up to where I am in the story, let’s move onto the gameplay. 

THE GAMEPLAY

If you’re at all familiar with Darkest Dungeon (a much better game) the gameplay is most similar in style to that. You have a party of 4 adventurers, you walk through room after room of a connected “dungeon” except in this case its neighborhood streets and buildings, find treasure, manage the balance of treasure in your inventory vs healing and utility items, and you have combat. 

Let’s talk about the combat first, because its the part I like most about this game and the reason I’m probably going to keep playing it. 

Vambrace takes a similar approach to Darkest Dungeon in that each character has a certain number of skills at their disposal, being limited in use by where the character is standing in the party order and what position slots in the opposing party they can target. 

When you get into combat, the party orders will look like this, with your party on the left and the opposing party on the right. 

4-3-2-1-1-2-3-4

The skills are divided into three range categories.

- Short or melee range skills can only be used in position 1 and 2 and can only target positions 1 and 2 on the opposing side unless those two positions are empty, in which case they can target 3 and 4. 

- Medium range skills can be used from any position, but can only target positions 1 and 2. 

- Long range skills can be used from any position and can target any position. 

Some skills also take flourish points to use, and characters build up flourish points throughout encounters by using their basic skill. 

Different characters have different classes, which determine different skills they’re able to use. 

This is a basically solid combat system, as proven by Darkest Dungeon, however Vambrace falls short of DD in two ways:

The first is Darkest Dungeon’s position system, and its supplementary corpse system, work slightly differently. Position order is the same, however, there can be no empty spaces breaking the line. If the line would be broken, units that are furthest back move forward to close the line. 

So say you encounter 4 enemies, so positions 1-2-3-4 are all fully occupied. If you kill the enemy in position 2, the enemies in positions 3 and 4 will move forward to fill in the blank space, so now only positions 1-2-3 are occupied. 

This is mitigated in Darkest Dungeon by the corpse system, when you kill an enemy it leaves a corpse behind, which fills up the space and prevents the backline from moving forward. However there are several skills in DD that remove corpses as part of the effect. 

This opens up different paths to take in terms of strategy. In both Vambrace and Darkest Dungeon, the 3 and 4 positions are usually filled by the more deadly foes, the enemies that take those positions usually cause debuffs to your party or have a higher damage output. 

However, in Darkest Dungeon, you can either run a strong backline of your own and try to eliminate the opposing backline quickly, or you can run a strong frontline and a more supportive backline to try and take out the frontline, and then wipe out the corpses, pushing the backline units to the front and making all their skills basically useless, since most enemies that stick to the back in DD have maybe one attack that they can use in position 1 or 2, and it’s usually not a very good attack. 

There are also attacks in DD that you can use to force the enemy to shuffle positions, bringing the backline to the front and crippling them without even touching the tanky frontline. 

However, in Vambrace, positions are static on the enemy side. When you kill enemies in front, the backline enemies stay in the backline. This leads to a much more limited strategy, where you pretty much only want to focus the backline first, and the frontline afterwards. 

There’s also the matter of turn order. Characters with a higher Awareness stat (more on stats in a second) get a bonus on their initiative and can go higher in the turn order, beyond that I’m not actually sure what factors are involved in determining this. However, the turn order itself is transparently displayed in the bottom center of the screen during combat, telling you very clearly which position on which side gets the next move, which helps out a lot with planning out your encounters.

Once you get the hang of it though, Vambrace’s combat is still enjoyable, and I’d say the aesthetic and environment around it makes it different enough from Darkest Dungeon that I can enjoy playing both for different reasons. Vambrace far more embraces certain JRPG aspects, for instance. 

Speaking of which, lets talk stats. 

Before I do though I want to talk about one of my biggest gripes with the game so far, and that’s the fact that its interface is terrible. This game doesn’t have a menu for keybinds, it doesn’t let you re-bind things, and its control scheme is a little awkward to say the least. 

It also hides a lot of information to be only accessible in the tutorial pages, which you can access at any time in the pause menu, but it makes things tedious because this game has a lot of smaller things to keep track of.

Each character has 5 stats. Combat, Sleight, Merchantry, Awareness, and Overwatch, and each one has a different impact on the game. 

Combat is fairly self explanatory, it determines how good your character is at fighting. 

Sleight determines how good the character is at scavenging, and it affects the quality of loot you find in containers.

Merchantry affects buying and selling, the higher the merchantry, the cheaper stuff is to buy and the more people pay for your junk. 

Awareness determines how well you can avoid traps

And Overwatch determines how good your character is at managing the party during camping.

Your stats can also affect the outcomes of certain random events that can trigger throughout the dungeons, although I’ve only encountered a handful of them so far.

Speaking of camping, one of the most under-explained mechanics in this game is the camping mechanic, and my first and only death so far has been because of a failure to properly explain said mechanic, causing me to fuck it up 3 times before I did it right, and because camping is actually extremely vital to success in this game, it caused me to die and fail the mission. 

Any healing items in your inventory cannot be used on the fly, they are only usable during a camping session. You can initiate a camping session upon finding a suitable spot for one, which you can either randomly find in the generated rooms of a “dungeon”, or in between the “dungeons” on a mission in shelters where you get sort of a mini-camp session. 

A full camping session involves you selecting the character with the highest Overwatch skill to manage said session. You need to do three specific things to maximize your sessions effectiveness, and these things are not properly tutorialized and are easy to misunderstand or miss out altogether. When the camping session starts, the character you’ve chosen to manage the whole thing starts out by standing in front of the campfire, with an “interact” icon hovering above it. 

Do not interact with the campfire. It will end the camping session immediately and you cannot redo it, you will have to find a new campsite. 

Instead, you need to find the interact icon for sleep and the icon for music. The first one will restore the HP of your whole party equal to your session leader’s Overwatch skill provided it goes without incident, and the second one will restore the Vigor of your whole party equal to the session leader’s Overwatch skill. 

Oh. Right, Vigor. 

Vambrace has 2 health bars essentially. There’s your Hit Points (HP), and then there’s Vigor. HP works how you think it does, you take damage in combat or from poison or traps and if you hit 0 you die. 

Vigor is basically a worse version of the Stress mechanic from Darkest Dungeon, but instead of ticking up as your characters get more and more stressed out, their Vigor essentially goes down as you walk through the various dungeon rooms, and certain debuffs and traps can reduce it as well. 

Once you’ve done both a sleep and a music session, you then need to open up your inventory and use the appropriate healing items to cover up whatever those two things didn’t get. If one character was particularly badly hurt and needs extra patching up after a nap, do it with healing items now. You cannot use healing items outside of a camping session, so do it now. 

You can also only use status healing items here too, and status ailments don’t go away with a nap. 

Only once you have done those three things should you interact with the campfire again, ending the camping session and continuing on with the dungeon. 

The Other Stuff

The other reason besides the gameplay being interesting enough that I plan on continuing to play this game is that the art direction and the sound design are actually very, very well done, with a feeeeew small exceptions. 

Let’s start with the art direction. 

Visually, the game looks fantastic. It’s as if you took the visual style of Darkest Dungeon but made it more anime-esque and less horrifying, more pleasant to look at. It’s really pretty and well stylized, and is a style that will hold up visually even when graphical advancements outpace it. 

The character designs are also all fairly unique, if a little over-designed sometimes. You can pick out all the named characters on sight alone, they’re all visually distinct from each other and are easily recognizable. 

The sound design is also, for the most part, really really good. The ambient noise is a good quality, the audio is well balanced and none of it really grates on my ears, and some of it is actually pretty nice to listen to.

The music in the game so far is also good, and while I haven’t come across any tracks that made me want to just sit there and listen to it on loop for a few minutes, I also haven’t found any tracks that made me go “oh god oh god make it stop”

The only part of the audio I have a problem with is...the voice acting. It’s only shown up in a few very small cutscene bits so far, mostly the initial opening scene, but I can’t really put my finger on what’s wrong with it. The only character who’s spoken so far is Lyric, and I really am finding it hard to say exactly why her voice-acted dialogue bothers me, but it really grated on my ears and I was glad when the cutscene ended. 

I think it was a mixture of the quality of the audio, it didn’t sound professionally recorded although I’ll grant it that it wasn’t “Skyrim mod voice acted by the modder” level of terrible, but it still left a lot to be desired. The other part that got to me was just the style with which the actress was talking, however I can’t really pinpoint if it was just the stilted dialogue she was stuck with, if the direction was bad, or if she just didn’t really have much of an idea what she was doing. 

She had a very monotonous voice throughout, and while she wasn’t speaking flatly or like she was bored, it was moreso that kind of voice people give characters like Sasuke in fandubs, where they’re overly mopey and Serious™ which kinda takes the oomph out of lines that should have had the more somber tone. 

Overall Thoughts and Opinions

Keep in mind this is all based on the first 2 hours of gameplay, and that I’ll probably post a more detailed version of this (or make a video) once I’m either a lot further into the game or I beat it. 

I don’t hate the game. I think the writing is completely overdone and obnoxious, and has way, way too much lore and way too many things going on without focusing on the more narrow plotline, and I have a huge problem with the very very inconsistent naming scheme, but aside from those two specific criticisms, I’ve definitely seen worse writing. 

And it’s not like the characters aren’t endearing in that “this character 1000% slots into a very specific JRPG trope but I’m here for it” sort of way. I did enjoy what I got to see of Lyric and the other named characters, even though they were completely stereotypical and Lyric comes off as a bit of a Mary Sue. 

So far the writing is very flawed, but in a tolerable way. I’d much more rather play a game written with love and care and have the flaws come from human error rather than a game that was written by committee to be as bland and appealing to as wide an audience as possible without offending anyone. 

The gameplay definitely isn’t as deep as it could be, but the out-of-combat mechanics actually do require a lot of forethought and planning once you actually understand them. 

That’s probably my biggest criticism of the game outside of the writing, the game has a pretty decent tutorial that tries to explain everything, but the UI design and how the game presents its information outside of the tutorial works against that and forces you to memorize things and constantly refer back to the tutorial pages. 

There’s a lot of quality-of-life things that are missing that shouldn’t be. The ability to rebind keys, the ability to even check a simple menu solely dedicated to the keybinds instead of sifting back through the tutorials trying to figure out what fucking key you need to press for things is. 

There’s no hover-over information, on anything. The mouse does literally nothing, you could control the whole game with the keyboard. This is especially problematic when dealing with stat buffs and debuffs, because while you can open up your character stat menu in combat to check exactly what their debuffs do, you can’t open up an enemy stat page and are completely reliant on having memorized what icon corresponds to what debuff and what that debuff actually does. 

But if you can look past the cripplingly bad UI and inability to rebind keys, along with the weird writing, the game is actually fairly charming and does have a lot to offer, so I’d definitely recommend checking it out! I bought it on sale for about $16 USD, and if the game keeps up the current quality for a decent chunk of playtime, I’d say it’s worth it around that price. Probably not at full price though. 

[teamoliv-archive]

Cutscene: Reinforcements

Taking place on the southern outskirts of Anima.

Wherever she was, it had definitely seen better days. Was it just her or did Mistral have more abandoned and ruined towns than advertised. Violet had never been to Anima before so she didn’t really know one way or the other. Then again, given that Mistral is known for having lots of large Grimm and bandits, that didn’t surprise her. She even read about a start-up kingdom being destroyed by a single massive one though the name escaped her.

These places never had a lot of huntsmen. That couldn’t have helped.

Whatever it was that happened here charred the place. There wasn’t a single log or stone that wasn’t blackened to some capacity. That was more than likely bandits who lit a fire under the city so the Grimm would go after the chaos and the flames rather than them.

Then she heard the snapping sounds. They came from a lot of different directions. Grimm were still here. She didn’t have a lot of business fighting them. She was the only one here, wasn’t she? Violet slid her back foot into a fighting stance and winced at the jolt of pain in her stomach. She had miraculously been found out in that desert and got her wound treated, but it wasn’t fully healed yet. That would take time and better medical care than a dusty outpost could provide.

She saw the beowulves appear in one of the biggest packs she’s ever seen. Individually they weren’t a problem and even small groups were only a minor threat to a trained huntress, but she wasn’t at 100% and counted their number at far too many.

She pulled out her pistols and flared out the whip halves. She needed to keep as many of them as far away as possible. She didn’t need to guess whether or not they saw her.

They charged; so did she.

She twirled into her first strike, creating a ring of spinning metal and cable around her. Several took the blows but looked more inconvenienced than seriously injured. Dodging incoming blows wasn’t impossible, but the jolts of pain in her midsection made it harder than usual. She felt a force slam into her back, sending her right to the ground. She only had enough time to roll out of the way of a second strike, fire at a third Grimm to drop it, and try to get back into position and play keep away again.

This went on for what felt like an hour though it was certainly a lot less. She didn’t have the aura to keep herself defended and light off her semblance. No one would see it below the treeline anyway.

Not below the tree line!

She wasn’t sure if she could even do this, but she had to try. Putting all her energy into dodging the mass of claws, fangs, and terror before leaping over the swing of a particularly large one and vaulting herself upward. She aimed a shot upward and the barrel glowed with light.

Come on...

Instead of her flash ringing out right in front of her, the combination of trying to force it forward and the gunfire shot it into the sky. A extremely loud flashbang cracked into the sky. She prayed someone would see it. She wasn’t going to be able to do that again.

She landed clumsily, but thankfully wasn't harmed. She was still in the middle of a pack of angry Grimm, though.

The wind picked up out of nowhere. The gusts felt almost razor sharp. Even the Grimm were howling in pain.

Then the footsteps and the gunfire came.

Atlas troops!? There were only a few of them but that was very clearly Atlas equipment. She couldn’t count them but there were less than a dozen- and was one of them flying!?

“You okay, kid!?” The flying soldier shouted down from above. He swooped through another group of the Grimm, sending them flying- some without all of their limbs. It looked like the air itself was slicing through them. The mechanical wings on his back collapse as he skids onto the ground next to her. He makes a waving motion and the small squad he was apparently commanding started taking out the flanks. There were still a lot left.

Then he took his wings off. They folded outward like a case that could be snapped shut. He pointed the opening toward the funneling crowd of Grimm and it started to radiate energy.

“You’re going to want to stand back!” He shouts, bracing what was now a rather hefty particle cannon. 

The blast was an enormous stream of light purple light that left a large streak of dirt where ground and structures used to be. Violet had to shut her eyes tightly being so close to it. The guy using that thing was probably lucky he was wearing those goggles. After that, what was left of the pack had begun dispersing. Once things started clearing up the other soldiers began rushing about the scene, apparently looking for any hidden survivors. she wondered if they planned where their commander was going to shoot to prevent any possible casualties. No major buildings were in the way of the blast after all.

“Who else is out here?” He turns to her. “Where’s your family? Are there any other survivors? Are you a huntress on the scene?”

Violet takes a moment to right herself. She stood up straighter and tried to see what she could about this guy. She managed to recognize a rank insignia and a patch on the armor’s shoulder she wouldn’t have recognized if she didn’t see the wings. “I’m fine, Lieutenant.” She says, “There’s no one else here. I was an Atlas cadet actually. As far as I know, this place was abandoned. I was just in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

“The hell’s an Atlas cadet doing all the way out here?” Morado muttered to himself but didn’t bother to disguise his volume. It wasn’t a problem if the kid heard him. “So you’re alright? Do you need medical attention? We have a medic with us.”

“I probably should get checked up.” She agreed, “What are you guys doing out here, anyway? Is the military trying to protect the other schools or something?”

“No reason not to explain it since you’ll hear it later anyway- We’re AWOL. The General demanded all Atlas forces pull back to the kingdom. Not even Mantle’s got its protection right now. We decided to compare the last ‘great idea’ the brass had to what happened and Beacon and refused orders. People out here need us,” He looks over at Violet as living proof of his point, “Obviously. Huntsmen have been disappearing, too. When one kingdom falls to terrorists, that’s a disaster. When a second one is suspiciously undermanned, there’s something else happening and I don’t think they want to admit it.”

Dad would have been proud of these guys. She prayed they weren’t a rarity in the army. She was lead to a place to sit where a medical trooper pulled out a first aid kid. Standard Atlas army suite, but it was still good. She lifted up her shirt to reveal the bandaged wound on her stomach. The winged commander looked away, shifting his focus to watching the search. After a few more moments she finally spoke up. “You’re with the Dustwing Project.”

The soldier buckled in a mild surprise and/or panic. “How do you know about that!?” He asks with more worry than anger in his voice.

“My uncle is a Major, sir.” She explains. The medical officer had undone the bandages and was inspecting the wound. She overheard the muttering of it healing well, but slowly, something about fresh bandages and mild painkillers, and wanting to meet whoever did this. There was also a question about her other scar she ignored. “By the way, I’m looking for someone, do you know if you’ve seen them? Blonde and green-eyed like me. He’d be in his early 30s, about five-ten, and has two weapons with him. A blade and a sickle. He’s-”

The soldier apparently heard enough. There was a sense of recognition on his face. “What’s your name, kid?”

“Goodfellow, Sir. Violet Goodfellow. I’m... looking for my brother.”

“Robin Goodfellow!?” Apparently they knew each other. “I graduated Atlas with that asshole!” He stopped before he said anything else. “Uh... no offense. We didn’t get along.”

Violet was more irritated by the fact that she wasn’t offended by this at all. Then again, Robin did try to kill her. Best leave that part out for now. “So... have you seen him?”

“Sorry, but we’ve been too busy playing damage control with all the missing huntsmen. I get you want to find your brother. It’s the principle of the matter, right? Still, you’re safer with us. We can’t slow down but we can keep an eye out while we’re trying to help out.”

Violet stands up now that the bandages are resecure and smooths out her shirt again. The medic gives a cue and the soldier turns around again. She manages to look him right in the... er... reflective visor. “Alright.” She had to admit this was probably going to be easier travelling with them- or at least safer. “Just be warned, I’m looking for a few people, actually. I’ve... uncovered something, something dangerous. I don’t have the full info anymore but I can give you a summary. I might know where your missing huntsmen have gone.”

The soldier smirks. “Fair enough. Give us a summary on the way out of here. I’ll introduce you to the squad soon; I’m Lieutenant Morado Amun. That over there is Medical Officer Ash Dickinson. You’ll hear a few of the guys call him ‘Doctor Dick’ so... ignore that.”

Violet chuckles. “Atlas Academy, remember? I’ve heard worse from the drill instructors.”

A soldier rushes toward them with his scroll. “Sir! S.O.S. from a nearby village. They say there’s armed bandits surrounding the area!”

“Fair enough. Anyway, welcome to the Dustwings, Cadet Goodfellow. I’d give you an introduction but we’d better get moving!”

[imjustthemechanic]

The French Mistake

Part 1/? - A Visitor Part 2/? - The Kulturhistorisk Museum Heist Part 3/? - Cutscene Part 4/? - The Marvel Cinematic Universe Part 5/? - Breathless Part 6/? - Escape at Last Part 7/? - Fox in Socks Part 8/? - Things Go Wrong Part 9/? - Downey and Out Part 10/? - Road Trip Part 11/? - Temptation Part 12/? - An Awful Reunion Part 13/? - Unreality Intrudes Part 14/? - A Call for Help Part 15/? - Loki’s Guests Part 16/? - Stan Lee Cameo Part 17/? - Reassessment Part 18/? - Midnight Invasion Part 19/? - Elevator Fight Part 20/? - Courage Part 21/? - Unwelcome Back Part 22/? - Darkest Hour Part 23/? - They Are Here Part 24/? - The Jet Propulsion Laboratory Part 25/? - Word of God Part 26/? - Avengers Assembled Part 27/? - The Houston Underground Part 28/? - Houston has a Problem Part 29/? - Onward and Upward Part 30/? - The Chi’Tauri Queen Part 31/? - Through the Wormhole Part 32/? - Prisoners Part 33/? - Arm’s Length Part 34/? - A Moment’s Respite Part 35/? - Ravagers to the Rescue Part 36/? - What Happened to Hiddleston

Honestly I have no idea what I’m doing anymore.  This fic has gotten totally out of control.

When the crystal captain said he was coming to get them, he apparently meant that literally.  Moments later, with he communication channel still open, there was a tremendous explosion.  Thor found the screen that showed the mother ship behind and below them, and enlarged it.  Something that must have been the Ravager ship had just burst out of the mothership’s back like an alien larva, and its guns cut a swath through the floating Leviathans.  Steve had to make a sudden turn to avoid being next.

“Ah, there you are!” said the crystal being.  He was sitting in his chair as if relaxed – it was Miss Alpha and the crocodile creature whose hands were on the controls.  “Get close to us.  We’ll tow you out if we can just avoid their tractor beams this time.  Miss Alpha’s promised me an algorithm for that.”

“Okay,” Steve swallowed.  He brought the Leviathan around and followed the Ravager ship.  It got closer and closer, revealing itself as a brushed gold vessel, shorter and fatter than the Leviathan.  When it came within a hundred yards, a series of harpoons shot out and locked onto the Leviathan’s spine, rattling the whole structure.  Alarms blared, and Thor looked for a way to silence them but couldn’t find any.  The Ravagers reeled them in, and Steve gently took his hands off the controls.

“Whoops, here comes a beam,” said the crystal captain.  The Ravager ship swerved to the side, yanking the Leviathan behind it.  “You got those jump coordinates, Vark?  Will they fit in the bubble?”

The crocodile grunted.

All around them, the little tow ships were gathering.  These may not have had weapons or may not have had any powerful enough to take on a Leviathan, because they did not fire, only flew circles around them, trying to force them back towards the mother ship.  Steve hit a couple, and they bounced off.  The Leviathans that had been re-crewed were swimming in to join them, though, and those almost certainly had weapons.  Huge turrets on the mother ship were rotating, taking aim.  As Steve had feared, once they’d moved, they were immediate targets.

“Hang on to your asses!” said the crystal being cheerfully.

That was the only warning they got before space turned inside out.  One moment, the Chi’Tauri ships were all around them, and then the stars stretched and snapped back into different places.  The screens fizzled and flickered, and Steve felt as if gravity came back, pulled him in several directions in quick succession, and then vanished again.  After a very long, stomach-churning few seconds, the displays came back to life and they were once again able to see what was outside.

There was a bit of debris floating around them, perhaps from tow ships that had strayed inside what, for want of a better term, Steve was going to have to think of as the ‘warp bubble’, but otherwise they were clear of the threat.  The Ravager ship was hanging above them with the harpoon lines connecting them to its belly – it reminded Steve of a photograph he’d once seen in a magazine, of a hawk carrying a fish as big as it was.  Below them was a planet with one hemisphere in shadow – or at least, it looked that way at first.  As they drew closer Steve realized it was only, at best, two thirds of a planet.  Almost half of it had been sheared away along a straight line by some unknown cataclysm.  Yet impossibly, the remaining part seemed to still have an atmosphere, and Steve could see city lights.

“Where are we?” he asked.

“Haven,” said the crystal captain.  “Don’t go too near the edges, they’ve got it propped up with a time dilation field but it’s still doing its damnedest to collapse back into a sphere.”

When Steve looked closer, he could see that the edges of the crack around the planet were glowing and molten.  It still had oceans, too… he wondered what kept those in.

“Hang tight,” said the crystal captain.  “I’m calling a friend of mine and he’ll find us somewhere to land.”

Hemsworth evidently felt that something was expected of him.  “You have earned the gratitude of Thor,” he said gravely.  “We will sing of your deed in Asgard.”

“As long as my paycheque is equally epic,” the crystal captain said.

Their escape from the mother ship had been of necessity quick, but the process of landing on Haven was much slower, and the crystal captain was apparently not interested in keeping them informed of his progress.  He got his ship into orbit, then shut down the communications link so he could call his friend on the ground.  With the Leviathan still tethered, all the refugees on board could do was sit and twiddle their thumbs.

For that reason, Steve, Thor, and Hemsworth headed back down the tunnels to check on the others, who turned out to be hiding in the tubes that led down to the small vehicles.  Hemsworth rapped on the edge of one.

“You can come out now!” he said.

One by one, they reappeared – Johansson and Evans hiding in one tube, and Natasha and Hiddleston in another.  Hemsworth went to a third and pulled out Loki, who groaned at being handled.  He appeared to be recovering, although he was still very pale.  His eyes flickered open, and Thor drifted over to give his shoulder a squeeze.

“Brother,” he said.  “Do you feel better?”

Loki mumbled something in a foreign language.

“Excellent,” said Thor, and moved on to Hiddleston, who didn’t look very well, either.  “And how are…” Thor began, then did a double-take and reached to touch Hiddleston’s shirt.  For the first time, Steve realized there was a brown stain on it, and also on his green scarf.  Was that blood?  Hiddleston was fully conscious but still looked sicker than Loki, despite inhabiting a far more durable body.  What had happened to him?

“Was that always there?” Steve asked, as Thor touched the bloodstain.

“Probably,” said Hiddleston hoarsely.

“It was,” Johansson said.  “I saw it when we were back on the big ship.”

“Where did it come from?” asked Thor.

“My mouth, I think,” Hiddleston said.  “While they were questioning me.”

The word questioning made everybody stiffen.  They could all tell that was a euphemism, and knew exactly what must have really happened.

“Questioning you?” asked Hemsworth, moving closer.  Steve suddenly realized that Chris Hemsworth and Tom Hiddleston were probably good friends… or at least had a solid co-worker relationship.  Neither of them had ever tried to kill the other.  The complicated and violent history between Thor and Loki was, to them, nothing but a fiction.

Hiddleston squinted at Hemsworth.  “Which one are you?” he asked.

“I’m Chris,” Hemsworth replied.

Hiddleston looked from him to Thor and back again.  “They didn’t question you?”

Steve, Thor, and Nat glanced around at the other actors, at Evans and Hemsworth and Johansson.  They were shaking their heads.

“Shit,” said Evans.  “Tom, what did they do to you?”

Hiddleston reached for the wall to steady himself, but his arm wasn’t quite long enough.  Instead, Hemsworth put his arm’s around his friend’s middle and braced both of them so they could stay upright in the lack of gravity and face the others.  Steve observed that this was something he’d never expected to see – Thor in full armor, cradling Loki against himself.  It wasn’t the weirdest thing that had happened this week but it was close.

“I figured they must think I was Loki,” Hemsworth said.  He coughed a little and cleared his throat before going on.  “I thought I was dreaming, or that it was something like… what’s that movie again?  The one with the aliens who like Star Trek?”

“Galaxy Quest,” said Evans and Johansson at the same time.

“That one,” said Hiddleston with a slight nod.  “But they showed me to Thanos, and somehow just by looking he could tell I wasn’t right, I wasn’t the real one.  He was angry, and the aliens were terrified of him.”  He sounded as if this puzzled him, and Steve had to admit, the idea of terrified Chi’Tauri was an odd one.  “He told them not to come back without the real Loki.  So they figured I must know, and they put me in some kind of…” Hiddleston twitched as a shudder ran through his body just from thinking about it.

Johansson grabbed Hiddleston’s hand.  “We’re right here, Tom,” she said.  “You’re okay.”

He took a deep breath.  “I don’t even know what it was.  Like something the Spanish Inquisition would have used except it never actually touched me.  I just shouted over and over that I wasn’t Loki and I didn’t know where he was.  I tried to make myself wake up, but I couldn’t.  Pretty sure I threw up a couple of times.”  He touched his stained shirt.  “They let me out for a while and then I could think, and I told them that if I was where Loki had been, then he must be either in the Rockie’s filming or else at that convention in Calgary.”

“Right where they first showed up,” said Nat.  “Of course.”

“I wonder how they found the right universe,” said Steve.

“It matters not,” Thor decided.  “Only that they did.”

They hadn’t felt a need to torture and interrogate the others, because none of them knew anything useful.  Thanos only wanted Loki, or at least he had at the beginning.  “Did they say anything about the tesseract?” asked Steve.

Johansson was horrified.  “The man is suffering!” she told Steve.  “Don’t go throwing more questions at him!  They already did that!”

“We need it.”  Natasha put her hand on her double’s arm.  “If we’re going to get you guys back to your world, we need the wormhole to work, and it needs the tesseract.”

Steve shook his head, though.  Scarlett was right – he’d been premature.  “We can let him rest a little while,” he said.  “We’ll have to wait until Loki comes to, at least, so he can switch our bodies back like he promised.”  Steve still wasn’t sure he trusted Loki to do that, even after Loki had saved his life twice.  “Otherwise we’ll have to find our way to Earth and have Wanda do it, but we’ve gotta get you guys back to your Earth eventually.”

Johansson sighed.  “Right.  I wonder if they’ll let me quit.  The Marvel universe is a nice place to visit but I definitely don’t want to live here.”

“If it helps, we feel the same about your world,” said Natasha.

“I like the big where you have multiple options available for body-switching,” said Hemsworth.

“It’s always good to have a Plan B,” Steve agreed.

“Says the guy who doesn’t even have a Plan A most of the time,” Nat observed.

“I did see the tesseract,” said Hiddleston.

The banter had been on the verge of starting to make everyone feel a little better – Hiddleston’s statement deflated that at once.  All eyes turned to him.

“You did?” asked Steve, leaning closer.

“Yeah,” said Hiddleston.  “When they…” he cut himself off, and gave a high-pitched giggle that descended in a few seconds of coughing before he could finally explain what was funny.  “They abducted us!  We were abducted by aliens!”

“Oh, good,” groaned Evans.  “He’s never going to stop talking about that.”

“You saw the tesseract,” Steve prompted.

Hiddleston coughed a couple more times, and nodded.  “When they separated us.  They took the others… I guess to that prison room… but they took me and the tesseract to the big female’s room so they could show us to some kind of hologram of Thanos.  He said they would have to use it to get the real Loki, so the big one said she would keep it safe for him personally.”

“Was that on the same ship as us?” asked Steve.

“I don’t know,” said Hiddleston.  “I don’t remember leaving it.”

That meant the tesseract was probably still in the big queen’s chamber on the mother ship.  Hat was where they would have to go, then, to retrieve it… unless they just gave it to Thanos in the mean time.  Hopefully the Chi’Tauri would interpret his instructions not to come back without Loki as meaning they couldn’t deliver the tesseract either.  But they were going to have to go back, into the lion’s mouth so to speak, to get it out.  Hopefully Steve could at least do it in his own body this time.

A sound reverberating through the Leviathan’s structure got everybody’s attention – a clunk followed by a bang of something striking the outer hull.  Steve pushed himself back up towards the cockpit, and the front view showed him that the Ravager ship was pulling its harpoons back in.

“Oh, good, there you are,” said the crystal captain.  “I got us permission to dock.  Follow me.”

[foolsiwillshowthemall]

Finished my Pokemon Sun run!  My Champion Team was:

Cinder the Incineroar, Male, Level 63 My starter, of course.  Less used towards the end of my run, but still useful when I need dark or fire type attacks.  I admit I wasn’t fond of the character design of the final evolution, the change from cute kitty to a big cat-themed wrestler dude is kind of jarring.  Petting him in Pokemon Refresh just feels wierd.  On the other hand, his Z-move Malicious Moonsault is hilarious, even if I didn't use it much it always brought a smile to my face when I did.

Mind Spike the Alolan Raichu, Male, Level 62 This little guy was one I had picked out as a must-have for my team even before I started playing.  I'm not normally a fan of Raichu, and even less of Pikachu, but the overall look and the strong type combination was one I wanted on my team.  I do tend to pick Psychic and Electric types as my favorites, so of course I'm going to grab the first and only Psychic/Electric Pokemon in the game.  I looked up where Pichu spawns, ground for encounters in the right patch of grass till I caught one, then went through the required steps - max happiness, finding the right Evolution Stone - to get my Raichu.  He's got some really strong attacks, especially if I use a Nasty Plot first to boost them.  Sadly, he's a bit frail for the later stages of the game, not really strong enough to take a few good hits while powering himself up.  I had to Revive him repeatedly going through the Elite Four.

Bouncee the Tsareena, Female, Level 69 This thing is a monster.  I'm usually not one to focus much attention on grass-types, but she's one of the strongest Pokemon I've ever used.  Got her through an in-game trade from a NPC, and even when not in her final evolution stage she solo'd the entire water trial.  I actually had to stop using her for a while in the mid-game as she leveled up to the point where she stopped obeying my orders.  Got control of her back for the end-game, and it really helped. There's not much of the usual fancy plant moves here, no sleep or drain moves, just Trop Kick and Magical Leaf one-shotting anything susceptible to grass moves.

Molasses the Mudsdale, Female, Level 64 This giant muddy horse is a freaking tank.  Huge pile of hit points with great defenses.  Some really strong moves too, Earthquake that can hit every enemy in a multi-Pokemon battle, steel and fighting moves too, and with the Z-move All-Out Pummeling it can one-shot a freaking Snorlax.  Most reliable and durable Pokemon on my team, she was my go-to when I was fighting something that I didn't know how to beat, or when I needed someone to wall the opponent while I threw healing potions at the rest of the team for a few turns.

Matriarch the Salazzle, Female, level 44. A late addition to my team.  I was lucky enough to catch a female Salandit early on, but threw her in the box and didn't use her for much of the game.  Late in the game I decided I needed a dedicated Poisoner, so I puller her out and set about leveling her up.  Didn't have the patience to get her to the level of everyone else, but even 20 levels below the rest of the team she's strong enough to last a few turns, poison the opponent and then let me swap out for someone stronger, granting me that extra advantage from severe poison effects.  If I had actually leveled her up all the way, she's be one of the strongest on my team.

Nebby the Solgaleo, level 60 On my team mostly for plot reasons.  I promised Lilly I'd bring it along on my quest to become the champion.  I didn't use it much, mostly pulling it out as an emergency mon in tough fights.  It does have legendary stats, of course, but atually using it in a fight felt a little bit like cheating.  It also didn't bring much unique in terms of type coverage, since I have Steel and Psychic moves elsewhere in the team.

Honorable mentions - Pokemon I didn't have on my final team, but that I did spend some time with during the game:

Sundog the Midday-form Lycanroc, Female, Level 57 My poor little puppy.  I caught him early on, gave him treats and pets, leveled him up to his Lycanroc form, and then mostly forgot he was on my team.  It's not that Lycanroc is a bad Pokemon, but I just found too few situations where his specific moveset would contribute.  Eventually decided to swap him out for someone more useful.

Pointy Bird the Toucannon, Male, Level 58 One of the first pokemon I caught, this thing was incredibly strong for most of the game.  Amazing flying-type attacks.  Unfortunately, it signature move Beak Blast is one of those moves that requires it to charge for a turn, giving the enemy a free hit, and it just doesn't have the bulk too take many hits.

Magnificent the Kommo-o, Female, Level 46 Caught very late in the game, one of the last areas where you can catch Pokemon before the Victory Road equivalent in this game.  I dropped everything to level her up and get her to her final evolution.  Then, just before heading to the Final Four, I took a hard look at my team composition and realized that a Dragon-type just wasn't adding anything to my team in terms of type coverage.  Wondeful Pokemon, just didn't have a place on my team for her.

Overall, I really enjoyed this.  Pokemon Sun was the first non-free main line Pokemon game I'd played legitimately.  I had previouly played games from the first three Pokemon generations on emulators, and I still play Pokemon Go occasionally but that hardly counts.  The jump from the early 8-bit 2D sprite games to the fully 3D graphics of the latest generation is huge, of course, but it's the same basic gameplay underneath.

I really liked all the little things they did to improve quality of life and just make things more convienent for the player.  Getting rid of move slaves with the Ride Pokemon feature, the ability to send captured pokemon either to my party or the computer as I wish, making all items available in all marts with the better items being globally unlocked as you level up, instead of having the better items available only in the later shops.  Lots of little things.  The only thing I really have to complain about are the excessive number of tutorials and cutscenes, especially at the start of the game.  Kind of makes me wish there was an option where I could tell it "I've already played a Pokemon game, no need to show me all this, thanks", but the story cutscenes were ok.

Still lots left to do - there's a ton of post-game content to do, lots of side quests still waiting and Zygarde cores to hunt down.  I don't think I'll bother getting into the online battling scene however - that's a level of committment and time investment I just don't have these days.

[press-a-repeatedly]

Why Mario Tennis Aces Isn’t Fun

By Alaina Tomasello | @LaneyLynnT

Another July 1st, the day I was born, has flown by in a blink. It feels like just yesterday I was blowing out the candles for my 21st birthday and celebrating my entrance into adulthood. Three years later, 24 doesn't mark any type of particularly special celebration, but this birthday was truly gratifying. I’m reminded of how thankful I am for my friends and family.

This time, I received a lot of video games I’ve been anxious to play for some time now from my parents, my brother Louis (frequent guest on the pod) and Chris (co-host to the pod). Among this collection of goodies was Mario Tennis Aces, a title I was hopeful would be another great addition to my beautiful and beloved Nintendo Switch.

The Nintendo Switch is truly the best gift we’ve received from Nintendo yet

This might come as a surprise to you, but I am actually a big fan of tennis RPGs, a feature promised in the new Mario Tennis Aces. To be completely honest, I’m really just a fan of an incredibly underrated but fantastic game called Everybody’s Tennis Portable. For those who don’t know, the Everybody’s franchise has been around since the late 1990’s, but was once known as Hot Shots. They are mostly known for their fun and cartoony style but precise gameplay mechanics featured in their line of mini golf games.

For whatever whacky reason, the Everybody’s franchise created a tennis game in 2006 that diverged from their existing line of golf titles, and in 2010, they once again released a tennis game that went by the title Hot Shots Tennis: Get a Grip (this title would later be changed to Everybody’s Tennis Portable). In this game, Camelot Software experimented with incorporating a linear storyline, where the player’s mission was to recruit players from all around the world into their Tennis Club. It’s an RPG-lite for sure, but the gameplay was incredibly enjoyable. You could explore an open world, complete tasks, acquire costumes for your character, upgrade your racket, gain experience, and of course, play and win lots of tennis matches. In every new area, you were tasked with defeating a new boss who (with increasing difficulty) taught you different mechanics of the game of tennis. And once you finally defeated that boss you could add them to your club, now having them at your full disposal. And with the addition of all the special items, you can modify your characters’ stats to reach unlimited potential.

It might be a little dated now, but Everybody’s Tennis was ahead of its time

I preface this article with this information about Everybody’ Tennis because it really highlights my disappointment with Mario Tennis Aces and it’s missed potential. So much so to the point that I even hesitate to advise people to pick up this title from Nintendo at all. Especially if you were looking forward to any of the in-depth gameplay I described in my experience with Everybody’s Tennis above.

Here’s the truth. I really, truly, honestly went into Mario Tennis Aces with very little expectations. Despite all the cool features we got in Mario Odyssey which would be contrary to this belief (costume changes, collectibles, a complex story, open world elements) I just never imagined Mario Tennis would deliver the same amount of depth. I expected another RPG-lite story with the overworld map, lined with a bunch of different tennis matches Mario would need to traverse through along the way.

But it’s clear once you dive into adventure mode that a lot of corners were cut and a lot of ideas were sacrificed or left unfinished. What’s worse, Mario Tennis Aces is tedious, filled with way more tennis mini-games and “challenges” than actual tennis matches. It commits the ultimate crime that any game can make: Mario Tennis Aces is just not fun.

I know I need to be a little more specific, so I’m going to go into some more detail. In Mario Tennis Aces, you play as Mario, who (assisted by toad) is off on a quest to find Luigi after Wario and Waluigi steal an ancient, cursed tennis racket. In story mode, you can only play as Mario, going up in levels and increasing your stats as you beat each dot on the overworld map. As far as I (and other reviewers) can tell, your experience affects very little in the way you play, rendering this mechanic kind of worthless. In contrast, Everybody’s Tennis shared these ideas, but they made a lot more sense because you can play with different characters. Each character had their individual stats and their traits were stronger and weaker in different areas. You see, a character might be really speedy, but have a weak swing, and in Everybody’s Tennis playing more matches might increase that character’s strength stat in time. You could also give them a racket that helped increase their strength stat, improving their abilities. Instead, Mario is a well-rounded character with no real flaws or hang-ups. He’s not particularly good or particularly bad to play with, but nothing you do will make him great either.

Photo proof that Mario has his own line of sneakers, making sweet coins off his brand

Then, more egregiously, there are very few tennis matches in adventure mode to even compete in. I can almost put the stat thing aside if I was having a lot of fun winning and playing tennis matches, but they are surprisingly and disappointedly rare. Instead, each time I progress I’m smacked in the face with these pointless, lonely mini-games where I’m forced to hit things with my ball and racket. In one game I’m hitting back fireballs from piranha plants, in the next, I’m hitting the ball on some trampolines. Sure, Everybody’s Tennis had tasks to complete too, but they usually involved a lot of fun tennis matches along the way. Even with fetch quests thrown in, there was always the option to stop and battle a passerby with a tennis match. What I’m saying is tennis is a competitive, two-player sport, and if I have to hit one more anatomic object with my ball and racket I’m going to scream.

In Mario Tennis Aces adventure mode there’s no ranking system, and nothing gained from getting a perfect game either. When you win you move on, and when you lose you just. Don’t. Occasionally you’ll be presented with the opportunity to win yourself a racket and that’s about it. No fun clothes or collectibles here. When you’re done playing a game, you’re not even rewarded with a cutscene.

Then, the tennis games themselves are very easy. With the exception (at least in my experience) of sometimes unreliable controls, the computer characters aren’t hard to beat at all. Once, in a game, I just kept serving the ball to one corner of the court and then hitting it back to the opposite corner to score. The computer character never adjusted for my actions, and I played the shortest tennis match in history. I’m not even going to begin to get into the differences between this and Everybody’s Tennis, which constantly presented the player with difficult-to- beat, challenging opponents.

As my mother used to say: I’m not upset, just disappointed

And here’s the thing: I want to say that adventure mode doesn't matter. That Tournament mode and Multiplayer mode alone is worth your purchase. And for some avid tennis fans, it very well might be. But avoiding talking about Mario Tennis Aces’ adventure mode is like avoiding staring at a giant pimple on the face of a game that yes, is plainly underdeveloped. These other modes are still missing elements to make them worth your money as it is- and Nintendo’s “stand out feature” is sorely lacking on multiple fronts. I haven’t even explored how easy it is to beat Tournament mode in a single afternoon, and how local co-op has no modes of playing outside of a standard doubles match. Online multiplayer is okay, but characters like Bowser Jr. are overpowered.

After a game like Mario Odyssey, Mario Tennis Aces really stands out as a title that completely missed the mark. With a little bit more time and less cutting corners, I believe some of Nintendo’s ideas here could have been great. But honestly, it’s hard to justify the sheer amount of mistakes made when the team put together Ace’s adventure mode. And considering games like Everybody’s Tennis and even Mario Tennis for Gameboy (also partially made by Camelot I just learned) were made several years’ prior, creating the RPG-lite elements should’ve been a no-brainer. Instead, we are stuck with a lackluster experience that forces the player to stick it out in hopes of getting their money’s worth.

[imjustthemechanic]

The French Mistake

Part 1/? - A Visitor Part 2/? - The Kulturhistorisk Museum Heist Part 3/? - Cutscene Part 4/? - The Marvel Cinematic Universe Part 5/? - Breathless Part 6/? - Escape at Last Part 7/? - Fox in Socks Part 8/? - Things Go Wrong Part 9/? - Downey and Out Part 10/? - Road Trip Part 11/? - Temptation Part 12/? - An Awful Reunion Part 13/? - Unreality Intrudes

Our heroes discover they aren’t the only interdimensional travelers at this comics convention.

The group of would-be photographers looked so hopeful that Steve would have had a hard time saying no to them.  Natasha, however, wasn’t even looking at them anymore.  Something else was happening across the hall.  The four people in Chi’Tauri armor were heading for the door of Palomino Room D, and unlike the other fans they seemed in no mood to stand in line.  There were unhappy cries of ‘hey, don’t budge!’ and ‘wait your turn!’ as they made their way to the front.

They were awfully tall people.  Steve hadn’t really seen them among a crowd yet, but… they were huge.  Were those really just costumes?  How could they be real Chi’Tauri, though?  The Avengers had chased them away and despite all Stark’s doomsaying there was no sign of them returning – and surely, like the superheroes, the Chi’Tauri ought to be just fiction in this universe.  Creatures played by actors in costumes…

Dodger was still growling.

“Watch where you’re going!” snapped a pigtailed girl in red polka-dots and a domino mask.  She grabbed a Chi’Tauri by the arm, and the alien responded by picking her up by the neck and flinging her down the hallway to land on top of half a dozen other people, who’d been coming to see what was going on.  Individuals began to move away, frightened, as the four aliens – a commander and three soldiers – barged into Palomino Room D.

This was a bad situation.  Steve couldn’t ignore that, and yet… he looked at Natasha, then at Thor, and found them both thinking what he was thinking.  These were immensely strong creatures from another planet, carrying technology that even Stark had trouble figuring out, while Steve and his companions were unarmed and – for the first time – only human.

The lineup broke up in confusion.  People ran, or pulled out their phones to begin filming.  Somebody had to do something, and the only ones here who knew what they were really up against were Steve, Natasha, and Thor.

Steve charged in and jumped on the back of the first alien he came to, wrapping his arms around its neck to try to choke it.  Dodger ran after him, and wove around the creature’s ankles, barking and nipping.  The Chi’Tauri reached back and grabbed his shirt, and dragged him over its shoulder to throw him on the ground.  Steve’s reflexes were abnormally slow, but he managed to catch himself with his arms, and wound his legs around one of the alien’s, pulling its foot out from under it.  Dodger bit it in the other ankle, and it fell.

Steve scooped Dodger up and pushed him off to the side, then went on to the next alien.  The first one was already getting up.  He had to get one of their weapons, he decided.  There was nothing else here that could slow them down.

Inside the room, Loki was posing in front of a white curtain with a group of women who were all dressed in versions of his costume, varying from one that was quite accurate, to one meant to look like an evening gown, to one that was little more than a dark green bikini.  He was beaming, relaxed and enjoying himself, as they draped themselves all over him.  Before the photographer could press the shutter button, however, the Chi’Tauri banged their way inside.  Loki looked up, and Steve saw the colour drain from his face.

The Chi’Tauri commander lowered a stafflike weapon, aiming its end at where Loki was standing.

Steve ran up and grabbed the staff, pushing it off-target, and the shot of purple energy left a burning hole in the ceiling.  The women in the costumes stared up at it for a moment, then grabbed their things, and the whole room descended into chaos as people hid under chairs or behind the curtain, or tried to make their way along the walls towards the single open door.

The Chi’Tauri commander focused its beady, silvery-yellow eyes on Steve.  Steve lifted himself up and wrapped his legs around the staff weapon, trying to force the alien to drop it, but it was easily able to lift his weight.  It started shaking the staff.  Steve kicked at its fingers, and accidentally hit the firing button.  Another bolt of energy went through the wall behind the photography set.

The Palomino Room was actually one large ballroom that could be divided into eight units for smaller events.  The ‘wall’ at the back of Room D was only a thin, padded partition.  The weapons fire hit at one of the seams where the panels of it could fold for storage, and blasted it apart.  One panel fell into the room beyond, the other hung from the ceiling by one corner before coming down on top of the photographic equipment, knocking over the tripod and several of the lights.  The carpet caught fire where a light bulb broke, but the new gap offered a new avenue of escape, and people who’d formerly been trapped got up and ran for it.

“Romanov!” Steve yelled, still clinging to the staff with all four limbs.  “Where are you?”

“Here!” she shouted, and ran up to spray something in one of the soldier’s faces.  She had found a fire extinguisher, and was using the cold carbon dioxide as a weapon.  Stark and others had determined from the corpses left after the Battle of New York that the Chi’Tauri breathed oxygen.  This one staggered back, choking, and Natasha hit it in the chest with the canister as hard as she could, trying to destroy its biomechanics.

It didn’t work.  Although it didn’t like the spray, there was no evidence that the alien even felt the blow.  Nat had to dash out of the way to avoid being grabbed, and then dodge more of the energy pulses as the Chi’Tauri fired at her with its gun-like weapon.  More wall panels were blown out, and folding chairs turned into half-melted wreckage.  People were screaming.  The ceiling sprinklers went off.

The Chi’Tauri commander wrenched Steve’s legs off its staff with one hand, in a motion that felt like it all but broke his ankle, and then threw him across the room.  He crashed into a rack of metal chairs that had been sitting by the wall and fell to the ground in front of it.  A moment later, several of the chairs fell on top of him.  Steve tried to get up, but his body simply wouldn’t obey him.  All he could do was lie there seeing stars and feeling the bruises forming on his ribs and shoulders.

This was being normal, he reminded himself.  In the parlance of the twenty-first century, it sucked.

“Vermin!” shouted a commanding voice.

Steve managed to push himself up as far as his elbows to look.  In the broken partition, with people still climbing out of it to flee, was Thor.  He was still dressed in shorts and a t-shirt, but was now also holding a rather impressive two-handed battleaxe he must have gotten from one of the weapons vendors.

The Chi’Tauri turned to fire at him.  He bellowed and charged forward, swinging the axe.  The commander raised its staff like a Japanese bo to catch the blow.

The axe broke.  The head fell at Thor’s feat, leaving him standing there blinking at the handle.

Dodger was nosing fallen chairs away from Steve now, licking at his face and whimpering as if to ask if he were okay.  He struggled up to his hands and knees as the dog barked encouragement.

“I’m coming.  I’m coming, buddy,” Steve panted.

Natasha, with blood on her lower lip and in her hair, grabbed his arm and helped him up.  “This is no good,” she said.  “We can’t fight them like this.”

“Oh, you noticed?” Steve grouched, but he staggered to his feet and let Nat help him towards the broken wall.  It opened onto Room B, where Steve had just been with the cast of Agent Carter – they weren’t there now, thank goodness, and most of the people who had been had cleared out as well.  Steve, Natasha, and Thor climbed through the gap, and Thor began trying to prop up the fallen panel to make a barricade.  Steve limped over to join him, and the strength of both together was just barely enough.

“I have great respect for mortals!” Thor grunted.  “It must take great courage to go about your life knowing you may be crushed at any moment!”

“Most of us try not to think about that!” Steve replied.  His bruised ribs felt like they caught fire as they maneuvered the panel into place.  It brought back all-too-clear memories of half a dozen back-alley beatings, when he’d said something he shouldn’t have said but couldn’t quite stop himself, and somebody bigger than him had taken offense.  Who would have ever thought he’d be doing that again?

No sooner did they have the barrier in place when one of the Chi’Tauri soldiers put another energy bolt in it.  Steve and Thor hit the floor as it went flying, on fire, over their heads.

The only thing to do now was run.

Natasha and Thor fled – Steve did his best to follow them.  His ankle hurt and his bruised ribs made deep breathing difficult.  He hadn’t been in this kind of pain in years, but he gritted his teeth and forced himself to go a little harder, run a little faster.  It was like being back in boot camp.  He’d survived that, he could survive this.

They couldn’t go into the main convention hall, not when there were thousands of people in there who could get hurt.  Instead, they went to the right, down a long hallway that led who knew where.  Other people fleeing the building dived out of their way or pushed out the many doors into the parking lot, while shots from the Chi’Tauri weapons shattered windows and put holes in the walls.

Steve was mentally taking back a number of the things he’d ever said about Tony Stark.  Right now he would have loved a suit of armor.

He also wondered where Loki had gone.  Had he fled with the rest of the people, or had he been injured or killed?  How would they get back to their own universe without him?

How could the Chi’Tauri be here in the flesh?  Steve, Natasha, Loki, and Thor were all inhabiting the bodies of their alternates, which had been inconvenient from the start and was only getting worse.  The Chi’Tauri ought to be stuntmen in rubber suits, or code in a computer… was it the fact that they had no alternates that had allowed them to come here in person?  Or maybe they had another way to travel between dimensions.  Howard had always said that if you asked him to do the impossible he could give you three different options.

The doors at the end of the hall were locked.  Thor kicked one as hard as he could and it burst open, and the three of them passed into a little carpeted foyer, and from there into a much larger room.  This was a casino, full of poker tables and slot machines, but since it was only early afternoon there were very few people using them.  Those who were looked up in surprise as Steve, Thor, and Natasha came in, then jumped to their feet as the Chi’Tauri followed.

Steve’s eyes darted around the room, looking for something he could use as a weapon, and lighted on the firefighting equipment.  Natasha had used an extinguisher earlier, with some small success.  He went to the wall and smashed the panel granting access to the fire hoses.  Like breaking the patio door at Scarlett Johansson’s house, this made an alarm go off, but Steve was far less worried about it this time.

“Here!”  He tossed the end of the hose to Thor.  Natasha began unspooling the rest, while Steve threw all his strength into turning on the spigot.  Dodger barked at them as if urging them to hurry.

The Chi’Tauri lined up their weapons and took aim.  One shot a bank of slot machines, apparently just for fun.  It exploded in a shower of sparks.

The hose came on, and Thor aimed it at the aliens.  The spray of water was enough to make them stagger back, one of them blasting a hole in the ceiling with a stray shot from its weapon.  This started another fire, and the casino’s sprinkler system also came on.

Steve would never have expected that Chi’Tauri would be afraid of water, but at that moment he couldn’t come up with any other explanation for what happened next.  After the initial blast from the hose knocked them down, the aliens picked themselves up and hurried out of the casino, ducking to get their enormous bodies through the doors.  Steve turned off the spigot, and the three displaced superheroes followed them.

Behind the casino were two vehicles Steve recognized as aerial scooters, like the ones used in New York.  Parked between a replica of the Mystery Machine from Scooby-Doo and a Volkswagen painted to look like a giant Pikachu, nobody had taken much notice of them.  The Chi’Tauri climbed on, and flew away into the sky.

On the other side of the building, fire trucks pulled up.  The parking lot was full of people who’d fled the convention center, milling around and talking and taking video.  A few were crying.  Nobody seemed to have any idea what had happened.

“Let’s get out of here,” Nat said.

That sounded like a good idea to Steve.  He had a horrible feeling that if they stuck around, they’d get arrested again.  “Yeah,” he said.

“Where will we go?” asked Thor.

“Don’t care,” Nat replied.  “Anywhere.”