#there's totally going to be a FIGHT phase after i finish the health bar being taken down by the soul laser isn't there...

[yamitheyin]

why is the telegraph for the claw attacks so short you literally hear the beep and have to immediately dash to get out of the way

anyways, update on this! at the 1 hour and 16 minutes mark i've died 24 times and managed to get to the second dive attack once.

i'm so sorry to the people without gunpowder doing this route

...

so i got to the final (i think) boss of the geno route. (i'm assuming its the final since clover is lv 19 and umm... the entire aesthetic of the battle that i've seen so far)

i'm going to keep a timer and death count while i make attempts to see long/how many deaths it takes before i defeat them.

[bellringermal]

Yo yo yo I read your Maria vs Gehrman post and now I'm imagining them in a duo situation and my HEART just flutters because CAN YOU IMAGINE?? Like bread and butter when out there fucking shit up. What would you envision their fight would be like if you had to fight both of them at the same time? Be as detailed as you want! XD

You would see the YOU DIED screen a lot, that’s for sure!

Okay okay, first things first: what you guys must understand is that these two have trained together for years but coming from different places and having being trained in different combat styles they would retain their distinctive signature when fighting.

Kinda like Ornstein & Smough... except they’re both crazy fast and the rhythm of the battle wouldn’t be determined by the different speed but the style of the attacks. Gehrman is mostly a crowd-control guy (hence why the recommended strategy would be to kill him first if you’re co-oping with friends :P) thanks to the long range of his weapon and the wide swipes while Maria’s strategy would be that of cornering the player, classic 1v1, in which case you’d be royally fucked because she’s a glass cannon made of incredibly THICK glass.

I wonder if it would be viable gameplay-wise to have them being able to heal each other (a limited amount of times) or maybe bring back the other from unconsciousness kinda like Lothric does for Lorian but with a sliced HP bar so it doesn’t become too frustrating for the player... even though I’m sure the people in this blog just want to see Gehrman and Maria mop the floor with whoever gets in their way so I should probably just make them overpowered as hell XD!

I like the idea that you could be able to tell that there’s a great synergy between these two as you fight them, the attacks are perfectly timed, they give each other space, take advantage of the blind spots and predict in which direction their enemy is going to dodge so they can keep the pressure constant. Maria is definitely the better duelist of the two, and most likely the one delivering the finishing blow at the expenses of our poor hunter while Gehrman would be the constant nuisance that prevents us from healing, assessing the situation or simply taking a breather from the mayhem going on on screen, always keeping the player on their toes.

I always headcanoned that Maria’s pyromancy abilities are something she actually possessed even before she was dragged into the nightmare (in fact, they’re quite an important part of my stories because I think it’s a super interesting topic to explore!) so she would totally use them as the fight proceeds.

While Gehrman���s ‘blue energy power up’ is something that is granted to him by Moon Presence and it’s exclusive to the Hunter’s Dream, which means he won’t be able to use it during this fight since I’m assuming that somehow our character would travel back in time to fight them in their prime uwu.

I guess Maria’s 2nd-3rd phases could trigger early in the fight if Gehrman is defeated first and the same will be true the other way around (but without moon mom’s power up). If the health of both bosses is lowered to a certain threshold but they’re both still standing, maybe a whole different stage of the fight could begin in which they would try to get you with team attacks :V. The ‘double viscera attack’ that sometimes happens in co-op, when two hunters initiate the animation on the same target at the same moment would be something scripted for them, maybe even with a time window in which one character would held the hunter in place so that their partner can perform the visceral or even classic action game combos in which, for example, Gehrman propels the hunter into the air with a rising slash and Maria slams them back onto the ground by literally stepping on them after a jump :P (yes, I’m here to make all your kinkiest dreams come true!)

The possibilities are endless :V

[readfelice-blog]

moominland chronicles elf . its not you, its me.

Double, double toil and trouble; Fire burn and caldron bubble. Fillet of a fenny snake, In the caldron boil and bake; Eye of newt and toe of frog, Wool of bat and tongue of dog, Adder's fork and blind-worm's sting, Lizard's leg and howlet's wing, For a charm of powerful trouble, Like a hell-broth boil and bubble. Double, double toil and trouble; Fire burn and caldron bubble. Cool it with a baboon's blood, Then the charm is firm and good.

It's late today, well i mean there is no set time, but im slow, on this gorgeous early autumnal sunday, i dozed till 15h, getting up intermittently to empty my washing machine, tug at my hair (vinegar makes it sticky? I'm trying to find the perfect all natural solution to shampoo because I’m no poo now : https://www.nopoomethod.com , in fact i’m practising a very loose version of alchemy in my house, trying to find drinks that energise but don't make me anxious, cleaning solutions for my body and for my house that bewitch the nostrils and incinerate grease / kalk. Essentially I’m just concocting weird stuff, hunched over materials collected around the city, boiling my hell broths in ikea pans, surrounded by recycled jars).....

Lets press on…...

Yes, my morning, my intro to the day, I was up so late because I was up last night so late, till 4am, painting and listening to sweet feminine soundwaves in my kitchen, getting it done in my way, step by step. Because now I’m working a 5 day week again, my days are 3 hours long, 5 at a push, 6 in the most extreme cases, so now I’m back to burrowing out time where i can find it, because now i have my teeth dug in to a big project, a big project that will be realized, for the first time since may May last year.

May last year:

I killed myself, artistically, me artistically is the majority of me.

My whole life has been sewn into my practise, my method, my way of understanding and redistributing everything that comes into my life, and May last year I moved out of the house I shared with my ex husband , moon, and into a shared flat, to embark on a restorative journey. Me and moon were not doing well in our little cramped caravan, we were at each other's throats incessantly, already broken up, him with a new partner, me in full swing of frantic madness, fuelled by bottomless bottles of booze.

Day in day out in my studio, I slowly turned my 450sq ft basement into a mermaids cave, drunk on 8% cider, night after night, sticking black bin liners to the walls with double sided tape, hanging spirals of bubblewave to the ceiling, spray painting floor tiles, screaming at the camera on my iphone half naked, making terrifying life size dolls and cry singing to myself, emphatically paranoid and fractured, writing letters to a man I’d never met who I thought could save me. It was my last great project, I created a film I can never show my parents and documented myself throwing my life away, in my wedding dress, shadowed by the virgin: a wreckage, a car crash, a lot of footage I haven’t been able to edit because I haven’t got the equipment to do so.

It's all stored on a clunky hard drive bundled up with the moon, he saved it for me, without him I would of lost it because my laptop, his laptop, broke in the middle of me editing it and since then its been untouched. I’m afraid the hours of video that follow me dancing around everything i’d ever owned up until that point, rigorously chucking it all in more black bin liners. When I can find a place to edit everything and the capacity in my mind, then I can piece it back together and show it to the world.

Since May last year, I have totally uprooted my life, moved out of London, had a very strange, sometimes beautiful, sometimes harrowing time with my family in Devon, rolled through Turin, Cork, Helsinki, chasing the man I’ve never met, blocking the man I’ve never met at the behest of my friend in Cork, defending and understanding my art more deeply in Helsinki, and finding Tove Jansson. Her bronze bust on the door of the studio she used to hold, her gorgeous expanding black and white prints in the mumin cafe that towered in the sky under artificial light, her room in the museum of Modern Art, her soul in the botanical gardens amongst the families having lunch together.

It's been a glorious invigorating illuminating intrepid journey (I’ve been writing a hip hop song recently, can you tell?) but its not been anything monumental in terms of creation and since May last year is the longest time I have gone without a major project in my life, for possibly my entire adult life, bar being at uni, where conversely I was more orientated towards squat parties than art making.

So here I sit now, with a great big juicy exciting idea inflated in a giant balloon, ready to be released into the atmosphere, the only snag is that it needs to be manifested into real material, which means a lot of work, and so, I find myself back in a place I’d forgotten about.

That's the very good thing about having such a long break, is now I can totally observe what happens to me when I’m in this phase: it’s quite extreme from a fledgling perspective.

Not fueled by booze this time, but instead concocting things to give me a buzz that I can buy in the supermarket (don’t drink to much valerian, it gives you a bad tummy, im not drowsy or euphoric I just feel sick from the after affects and rancid smell) and developing my cleaning routine to be the most streamlined and creative that it can be, to give my art sustenance.

But if I could I would lock myself away from the world in a cabin far up on a mountain and painfully draw out everything in a more concentrated form, the cleaning is fine for now but it's hard to concentrate when I have to go to peoples houses and deal with their kalk as well, it might be one of the factors in why the whole thing is so stressful, but I have the suspicion that it will always be stressful, even if I ever get the luxury to entirely dedicate my day to working on my art.

The big thing I’m noticing is incessant, almost intolerable paranoia, that someone will steal my idea and present it to the world before I’m done. I notice it now and then I turn and look at my past and see its infected traces throughout my history, it's a big driving force in getting the work finished and I’m starting to see that I cannot share or talk about what I’m doing when I’m in the midst of it, but all i want to do is share and talk about it, hence why that cabin would be a better place than a city I’m not fully established in.

I know it’s unreasonable, untrusting, maybe even unkind of me, to believe that someone would steal something like this from me. I know that sharing ideas is healthy and loving and makes the world go round, but this paranoia is totally immovable and so I just accept it and try to satiate it, hoping by feeding it homemade remedies that it won’t make my life worse.

But these big idea’s, they come upon me, I don’t choose them, all the strands of my life and experimentation ferment slowly and then one day I wake up and I know what I have to do, then as I start to do it it grows and morphs, develops, things come and go from my wall, until I have reduced and finelined the parameters of a project, that's where I am now, all the mental groundwork is laid, its just the creation that's left, I’m now half way through the musical aspect of it but not halfway through the visual and I need to amp up, because it must be done by November the second, so I can take it to Turin with me, so I can deposit it at the gates of hell, so I can complete a cycle, so I can be free to make blue music and who knows what, maybe try something formless, kind and organic - that's not for me to know yet though.

Once it rears its great dense head, I am in its power, I am in the throng of obeying my art and that's a lonely place to be. It's lonely being an artist, some of us are collaborative and collective and have communities, but I’m not among those right now, this project, lets just call it by its name for here in : восем acht ocho : is not something I can share and make with others, it is a process of me picking up the pieces of my life, of giving praise to the moon, who has saved me and supported me so many times. I must give praise to him finally so I can move on and give praise to myself.

So I sit in my house and dutifully work back and forth between paint and ableton, singing and faux performing in my hallway in between, performing to my very tolerant invisible neighbours that must think I’m some kind of banshee from a deep buried part of the world. I sit in my house alone, I reject all the invitations extended to me, I retract from the life I am building to some extent and just hope the friends I have been finding will be understanding, though it's hard to explain to someone that I can’t come because of something I am choosing to do myself. It's not work related in terms of my bread and butter, Its not health related, I’m not resting, I guess a lot of people won’t understand which is perhaps why I feel compelled to try and somehow explain myself in this blog today.

I must make this work, it is not a choice, I am in my house alone because this idea has bound me up and demands my care and attention, because for the first time in over a year I can make work again and make it with diligence, create something on a large scale. It means that Berlin is working, this is the change I was looking for, because I feel like I have a future again, whilst the 100’s of drawings, paintings, books, trinkets from my life decay in some junk yard close to London, I have the space to bring new art into the world. It’s really a glorious turning point in my life so far.

I am still terrified that it will all collapse in on me at any time, but there are ways of fighting this paranoia, careful planning, creative problem solving, and probably just not talking about the details of what I am doing anymore until it is finished.

Phew, nothing enlightening this week, more of an attempt to bridge the gap between myself and the life that flows around me. I’m now off to edit my most current track on ableton then do some line work and probably make up some mixes of citric acid / bicarbonate of soda cleaner for the week ahead.

We just have to do what we must, and be grateful when we know what it is we must do.

[vonsvarietyblog]

Retropective: Monster Hunter

Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned. Or in heat. May the Lord have mercy upon thy soul

So, you played all those newfangled Souls games but you crave for something a bit more... different? You’ll probably feel confident enough to take on this odd yet incredibly popular Japanese game which sadly, suffered the same fate in terms of how well-known it is in the West. It has all the bells and whistles that makes the combat just as nuanced and perplexed as a Souls game would. But then, when you just try to get that woolly mammoth thing’s delicious meat and all to barbaque on a spit you brought along in a snowy place, you’ll suddenly get greeted by a huge dragon-like creature that would crawl really quick right to you after dropping straight down. A roar that could send an avalanche rolling down, snapping its jaws, sharp teeth and all. You’re just armed with a toothpick. And wear paper for armor. It’s 5 feet right in front of you. 

Welcome to Monster Hunter.

The recent developments of the game, having an open beta of Monster Hunter: World this week (which unfortunately, only PS4, PS+ users are allowed to take part in) for a stress-test of their servers, had me hyped since the game was first unveiled in E3 this year. It is a fantastic, long-awaited take for the game itself. Finally there are changes that makes sense in the game that long-time players would be more relieved than be disgusted by, honestly. At least in my opinion. But I do find it a bit awkward that these kinds of changes that I would had fantasized of when I was just a new player back in ‘08. It’s uncanny!

Monster Hunter is a game that first came out in 2003 when Capcom was not crap trying to make full use of the PS2′s internet connectivity option for online multiplayer. So they came out with 3 games: a racing game, a Resident Evil/Biohazard: Outbreak and... this. Of the lot, Monster Hunter actually managed to came out top, even against friggin’ RE which is not exactly a bad game though with somewhat questionable implementation. The thing is, the team that wanted to make this game put a lot of effort into it. It wasn’t generic or half-assed like the other two, it actually had a more unique gameplay mechanic in comparison. The music produced for the game is gorgeous, the worldbuilding around the game surprisingly meaty even if most of it isn’t really fleshed out in-game, they have adorable cat-men made, and basically the whole pull for the game is that you constantly beat the hell out of the dragons and dinos you find and wear their skin as hats. Awesome. The game later managed to be honored with a remixed version endorsed by Capcom that added the G-rank, more monsters in the roster, more weapons, more maps, some new improvements, just about everything! And you get to pay for it full price after buying the first game. Typical Capcom business as usual.

But the series never truly shined until it comes to the handhelds. Sure, it had a console release soon after with Dos but the real reason why this game is developed because the game emphasizes multiplayer a lot more than you think, having the Gathering Hall readily available for online play. Unfortunately, consoles don’t really solve the age-old problem of Japanese salarymen lacking time and money to own and play consoles at home, their very target audience. So, let’s say getting the game to run on the PSP is not only technically impressive, but it does make a hell lot of sense. You could go for a quick curbstomp with some random strangers or friends travelling along the train ride to and fro, the rush hour is always a frantic but sometimes frustratingly dull daily routine. Or, get to your friends’ house to play MonHun together instead of theirs to play. Either way, a 4-man hunting party taking down a fiery dragon is always a magical experience, not quite like how you’d have seen before outside of a drab MMO. Strategy and skill (and a big stick) is what you need to kill a monster but teamwork makes the job all the more enriching than taking one down alone. Even the later Portable versions of the game pretty much made the game mandatory for multiplayer, even in singleplayer with the introduction of Felyne Comrades (later known as Palicos), adorable little cat-men decoys/light support hunters that you have them tag along in hunts. 

You just can’t say no when it says it wants to go with you!

Of course, all the big fancy fights and nice weapons and armours you’d get along progressing the game later would ultimately boils down to slow, hard, meticulous, gratuitously grindy work. A very Japanese thing sometimes. Besides, you’re not a Monster Hunter just because you happen to have a chest full of weapons and armour that popped out of nowhere right? You have to understand firstly that your character here took this as a career. Your character definitely signed up for this. Most of the time, your character will start off as the village Exterminator- I mean, Monster Hunter, where he/she accepts quests from the local village chief to do jobs and bounties posted by just about anybody in the game. A newlywed? Chef? A friggin’ Princess? The Chief? Yes, anybody! Sometimes you don’t even need to go through the details why, just take it for that sweet, sweet zenny reward. And maybe you’d be able to make that hat you always wanted along the way. Or if you’re down with the fluffy bits of the game, you could get to know who your clients are with the descriptions detailing the job you’ll be taking. Some desperate for reprisals, some makes sense, some petty, some irresponsible, some are dubious. Some even came from kids who just wanted you to gather some plants in the woods. Yes, you don’t always get to kill monsters in this game, filling out that hunter-gatherer criteria of your job. 

In that matter, gathering (and eventually hoarding) stuff in the game would be your bread and butter in the experience. To get plants and mushrooms totally for medical stuff is one of the earliest thing you have to do in the game. Preparations before taking on the big ones are key to surviving your fight, just as crafting, farming and cooking would. In this early phase of the game, the really slow burn, grindy part of the game would center around you familiarizing with the game before eventually getting to finish the main story in the game in less than 10 hours in-game when you come back a veteran. Hoarding enough of your stuff in the wild would eventually lead to you actually make cool stuff with it too! Mainly the fancy hats.

Capcom might have called this a hack-n’-slash but you never get to play this like you did with Dante in Devil May Cry (another Capcom release). When in that game, you’d be more aggressive and pulling your attacks, lightning-fast and never get tired from it, Monster Hunter is much less so about that. Even the fastest weapon you can play in the game stresses in a way that you must position yourself in a good spot before pulling off some fancy moves. Wrestling with how the game’s control scheme shits on the more simplistic, button-mashing style of gameplay in most hack-n’-slash games could be half the pleasure, especially if you happen to master them as well. But the game still relies on you methodically placing your attacks, learning attack patterns of your enemies, knowing when to run, set up traps, manage stamina and health, noticing telltale signs of it about to pull off moves or ready for capture. All the while not knowing when you’ll know when the monster would drop with the lack of a health bar. It does sound complicated on paper but in practice, well, even less so. All those things would happen in the heat of the moment and it’s up to you to manage them. No amount of preparation could save you of you can’t utilize them properly here. The weapon animations are, however, mostly uncancellable and sometimes you got to drop the hammer in the right place in the right time if you want to do some serious damage. That includes finding openings for the monsters and targeting their soft, squishy parts for that extra DAMAGE. The game would really punish you for doing haphazard attacks but sometimes it’s not really your fault as much as the game itself.

What do I do to deserve your hitboxes?

It may sound like a feeble excuse of not being good at the game fighting it but there is a reason why the Plesioth, the big fish monster thingy, is universally reviled as a monster to fight. Simply because hipchecks are incrdibly annoying when mixed with the large hitbox sizes in the earlier iterations. Capcom managed to fix this AND not having it back in later games, thankfully. So all is well.

Outside of combat, you’ll notice how explorable the maps can be when you step foot in the hunting grounds. Most of the time, they felt like natural locations, sometimes asymmetrical but never quite felt like it intended to direct the players to a certain location like some level designs would. More like, how much you could explore the whole place to sate your ever-growing curiousity. Hiddn paths, shortcuts and potentially exploitable  spaces you’d find along the way while looking for your prey. It’s also the little things about the whole environment that you’d notice. It’s incredibly diverse, never feeling samey or generic as most fantasy-themed game would when involving dinos and dragons to kill. Sometimes you’d enjoy the little details surrounding the map, like a giant shell of an elder dragon on top of a mountain or  how nature had reclaimed an age-old ruin in the middle of a jungle, large swathes of desert sands or lava that actually behaved differently depending on the time you are in there, day or night. Or simply something more aesthetically pleasing like a mountain you see right in front of the first area of the map or islands with waterfalls come crashing down from a height as far as the eyes can see. Those maybe just blocky polygons and textures at the time but they never fail to capture my sense of wonder and the fact it reminds me that I couldn’t explore at those parts of the game. If you want to know how immersive the game world can be, look no further.

Perhaps this is what their newest game wants to convey to us. The maps of the previous games are beautiful but barely interactable. You could only hop onto ledges, swim and gather at select sites at that point. But nothing further from that. The new game, Monster Hunter: World would explore more on this, allowing players to actually do something cool about it. Breakable obstacles, environmental destruction for opening new paths or traps, places you could actually hide in, animals you can find there to travel to new areas or inflict status effects, the amount of the detail they put in this is crazy, limited only to your imagination. All in one, massively seamless map. One might fear these could lead to a wasted effort since sometimes it’s not a big focus during fights, especially when you’re timed during your job to take down one big monster before it’s up. The emphasis on exploration could potentially be ignored in the favour of a more direct action-oriented play. Players more accustomed to focusing their efforts onto fighting monsters for more than 4 games may not even try something new for that but it remains to be seen. What appears to be a novelty may evolve into something bigger when you have all the time you need to explore on the map, opening up more possibilities to what you can do in the game-world later in the full-game.

[canmom]

👑💖 liveblog pt. 15

(pt. 1-2) (pt. 3) (pt. 4) (pt. 5) (pt. 6) (pt. 7) (pt. 8) (pt. 9) (pt. 10) (pt. 11) (pt. 12) (pt. 13) (pt. 14)

The dragon’s pretty hard actually. Does a lot of DPS, hard to predict/avoid its attacks, has the longest health bar of anything in the game. I was definitely reminded of Dark Souls in some ways, if only because that’s my only other major action-RPG lol. Dragon!Maleficent was not as terrifyingly hard as the last videogame dragon I fought, Darkeater Midir in the Dark Souls 3 DLC, but it was an intense fight and it took me about five tries to beat it.

Anyway once Drageficent dies, she completely catches on green fire (bright green is of course the colour of dark) and burns away. Metal.

That guy turns up again!

Shock as the villain of this game isn’t from a disney movie!

Riku leaves through another dark portal. But there’s still the portal we entered by, and the wall behind the save point disappears in true Dark Souls fashion.

Now this is a final boss room. Pipe organ stargate here we go!

Riku - or rather the entity possessing Riku, conveniently absolving him of moral responsibility - says Kairi is the final princess, and she needs her heart to produce the Keyhole. Which has to come from Sora.

Going to guess what Sora doesn’t see yet: through the magic of obligatory heterosexuality and also that thing Sora said about his heart being connected to the hearts of others, Kairi has given him her heart.

Yeah.

What a twist!

Ansem’s a Final Fantasy guy, I recall Squall saying. Interesting that he could be the villain here.

Ansem/Riku swats Donald Duck aside like a small duck.

Ansem, you don’t think you’re overdoing it... just a bit?

This is a game about boys hitting each other with large keys.

Anyway, I have to fight Ansem without my party. There’s very dramatic organ music. Somehow I think this is the final boss.

This game has a very annoying habit of putting checkpoints right before long cutscenes. Fortunately having an emulator lets you use savestates to bypass that.

The third phase of this fight is really hard actually. In the second phase, every so often he goes into a more powerful state. In the third phase, this becomes his default state, and he does an AoE on the whole arena every so often. It took several tries to learn...

...but I did it! I got good at hitting him during the powerful state/third phase, and figured out I could totally avoid the AoE by standing still in a corner and then be ready for his attacks after.

So he disappears. Is Riku dead? Aww he and Sora were going to kiss and stuff.

Donald and Goofy seem to have recovered, and the party observes the Keyhole is not finished, so Sora can’t close it. They conclude they have to wake up Kairi, so they’ll need to free her heart, and Sora gets a terrible idea...

He does The Face right before this, but I wasn’t quick enough to capture it!

Anyway this causes the ancom keyblade to turn into metroids, which are presumably in fact hearts, because all the princesses and finally Kairi get reactivated.

Unfortunately Sora turns into a particle effect just as Kairi wakes up. Does that mean in the next game we’ll be Kairi trying to rescue Sora? That would be cool.

This guy - presumably Ansem’s true form - shows up!

Unfortunately for him, disposing of Kairi finally crosses a line for the host body. Riku buys time for Donald, Goofi and Kairi to escape.

And then... here’s twist I did not see coming.

I’m a Heartless now! Moreover I’m the weakest kind of Heartless! Turns out stabbing yourself in the heart with a magic key has consequences. :O

Can’t wait to be murdered by my allies. Were we the real monsters all along? #makesuthink

As a Heartless, I can lope along, and I can jump. I can’t press buttons, activate lifts, or the like. Somehow I have to get down this tower.

[youngavengersfeels]

Survival of the Fittest

Pairing: Stucky

Chapter: 1/?

Summary: Drowning in student and credit card debut and unable to find a real job, Bucky has to find alternative ways to earn some money. Getting offered a spot on 'The Challenge', a survival competition show with a grand prize of $250k seems like an amazing opportunity expect for the fact that the show is a couples competition and Bucky is perpetually single. Good thing Steve's always willing to help Bucky out.

Read on AO3

Bucky was stressed as fuck. Even though he was working two part time jobs he was seriously in danger of not being able to pay the bills. His dad said he wasn't working hard enough, because surely if he was really working as much as he claimed he was, he would be making enough money to pay the bills. Bucky kind of thought working 60 hours a week should be considered working hard enough but apparently his employers didn't agree. His mom said he was just bad a budgeting and offered to look over his finances to see what he could cut out. Maybe it was all of the avocado toast he was eating she had suggest forwarding him a facebook news article.

Steve wasn't really any better off; in a lot of ways he was worse off. After being laid off from a long line of part time jobs because he got sick so often Steve decided to just give up and do freelance work while he tried to find a full time job. There was no denying Steve was talented, but so were so many other people. When Steve did make money it was good money but there could be long dry spells in between work. His only saving grace was the fact that he was under 26 and able to stay on his mother’s health insurance. With Steve’s long list of pre-existing conditions they were all worried about what he was going to do when he got kicked off her plan.

So yeah they were kind of screwed. Bucky’s parents had grumbled about him living with Steve instead of finding a wife but Bucky didn't have time to date let alone try to find a life partner. Also there was no way in hell he would be able to afford even the shitty apartment he shared with Steve by himself and sure as heck didn't want to live at home, not that his parents wanted him there anyway. So yeah, he would really appreciate it if his family stopped making snide comments about his lifestyle.

Only once in a blue moon did Bucky ever get to sleep in. He wasn’t a morning person by choice but working customer service jobs sure taught him how to fake it. So when his phone woke him up on his one day off in the last month Bucky was about ready to murder the caller. He answered the damn thing with a barely understandable hello.

“Hello, I’m calling for James Barnes?” A voice Bucky didn't recognize asked. He only ever put his real name on job applications, which dear god let it be the Stark job, he would kill to work at Stark Industries. Bucky sat up because if this was a potential job interview he didn't want to be laying in bed.

“This is James,” Bucky said starting to pace. What was it about being on the phone that made you start pacing?

“This is is Phil Coulson with the Challenge. Your sister Rebecca submitted an audition tape for you and your partner. We would love to have you on the show.” Phil said.

“Wait what?” Bucky said dumbly because he had no idea what was going on. The Challenge was a reality tv show competition for couples. Bucky wasn't even dating so why would his sister submit him for that particular show out of all the competition shows.

“As I'm sure you know we've never had a same sex couple on the show before so this will be groundbreaking. We think you and Steve would be perfect,” Phil said completely bowling over Bucky’s confusion.

“Oh no, I don't think…” Bucky sputtered because there had to be some misunderstanding. Becca had to be playing some stupid joke on him.

“We’ll send you plane tickets and all the necessary paperwork. We start filming in three weeks, I look forward to meeting you and Steve in person we really this will be an amazing opportunity to get some diversity on the show.” Phil said hanging up before Bucky could say anything else.

Bucky just stood there phone still up to his eye for a second wondering if it had been a prank. If it was a prank call the person making it was very good since they didn't even give Bucky time to react. His phone vibrating letting him know he had an email jolted Bucky out of his stupor. He looked and sure enough it was from Phil Coulson of The Challenge sending him over a contract to sign as well has a basic itinerary of the six week filming schedule. Bucky tried to read the contract but he was no good at lawyer speak so it was as useless to him as the Apple terms and conditions.

Knowing that this was the real deal and not just some elaborate prank, Bucky quickly called his meddling sister. He was totally going to chew her out because why the fuck did she think sending in an audition tape to the Challenge was a good idea. Also when did she even find the time to make a tape, she had a full time job and two kids, didn’t she have better uses of her time?

“Becca what the hell? You submitted an audition tape for me and Steve to The Challenge? We aren't even a couple. Why would you do that?” Bucky yelled into the phone as soon as Becca answered.

“So I take it you made it in, congrats. You are always stressed about money and the winners get $250,000 so all you have to do is win. If you really don't want to do it just don't sign the contract, but have you even talked to Steve about it yet?” Becca asked totally unphased by Bucky’s anger. When they were little it was so easy to rile her up, but since she became a mom apparently nothing phased her anymore. Bucky wished he had that kind of self control, or better yet Steve. Maybe that would keep him out of the fights he always got mixed up in.

“Why couldn't you have signed me up for American Ninja Warrior or America’s Next Top Model? What made you think signing us up for a COUPLES competition show was a good idea?” Bucky said changing tactics because she did make an excellent point. He had been working his ass off since he graduated high school first to finish college and now trying to find a full time job and so far all that got him was a shitty apartment with his best friend.  How sad was his life that he had a better chance of winning a competition show then landing a full time job?

“Wow, you're really hung up on the couples thing,” Becca said with a laugh that irritated Bucky to no end. “Bucky, most of our extended family is convinced you are dating Steve, he'll even out parents are half sure you are and are lying about it, you get in that show and act like you normally do with Steve and the world will believe it,” Becca cackled. Bucky had force himself not to think about any of what she just said because that was going to lead him down a road he really didn't want to be on. “But seriously Bucky, this could be a good opportunity for you and Steve, at least talk to him before you delete the email,” Becca said in a much more serious tone.

“Fine, but he's probably going to punch or something for even suggesting it,” Bucky said half heartedly before allowing Becca to shift the conversation to talking about her son’s first t-ball game which Bucky had been forced to miss because of work.

Bucky couldn’t focus for the rest of the day, he kept thinking about what it would be like if they actually agreed to be on the show. Part of him thought it would be super cool and fun, because they would get to go to an exotic place and do some really fun things. The other part of him was terrified of being humiliated on national television. He was a pretty secure guy but he didn’t really want the whole country to see he at his worst.

His biggest problem with being on the show was the who couples aspect. The idea of fake dating Steve wasn’t really bad in itself because they had done that before to bail each other out of unformatable situations in bars all the time. But this was the first time a gay couple would appear on the show and it would be a lie. That made Bucky feel kind of shitty for potentially taking the opportunity from an actual couple.

The idea of potentially winning $250k was also very tempting. Even after taxes that was a lot of money that would really help them out. If nothing else they could pay off their student debt and credit card debt and just start over with a clean slate. It was kind of sad that he was fantasizing about winning a competition show just to pay off his debt.

Becca was right though, he needed to actually talk to Steve about it. He really didn’t know how Steve would react. On the one hand Steve didn’t know how to say no to a challenger and on the other he would probably be just as hesitant as Bucky to take the opportunity away from an actual gay couple. If the show was going to start trying to include more representation of gay couple it would probably be better if their first gay couple was actually in a romantic relationship.

Steve had been out all day meeting with a big client but still came home and immediately pulled out another project he was working. Bucky always tried to get Steve to relax and take some time for himself, but whenever Steve could find work he tended to go overboard with it because he was so worried about finding that next client. Bucky worried that Steve was going to overwork himself and make himself self sick, but Steve just said it was like the pot calling the kettle black since Bucky was over working himself too.

They were both chilling in the living room, just existing together in the same space. It was nice but Bucky was also trying to figure out a way to bring up Phil’s call. He wanted it seem natural but there was really a natural way to suggest they pretend to be a couple on national television to try and win $250k.  

“I’m going to put on a show for background noise,” Bucky said pulling up netflix. Steve just made an affirmative grunt because he really didn’t care.

Bucky pulled up The Challenge on Netflix because that would set the mood for the conversation. He watched the show for a little while slightly horrified by the actual challenges. None of the physical stuff looked too bad, but there was no way in hell he would make it through any of the challenges where they had to eat something for shock value. Bucky wasn't really a picky eater but still even he had his limits.

“So Steve, have you ever wanted to be on the show?” Bucky asked. Steve looked from his work and squinted at the tv, he probably hadn’t even noticed what show Bucky put on he was that engrossed in his work

“I mean that would require me to be able to date someone long enough to even want to do the show but I guess it would be fun,” Steve said not even looking up from his work.

“Would you really want to do all that stuff on national television?” Bucky pressed.

“Why are you asking?” Steve said studying Bucky.

“Phil Coulson called and offered us a spot on the show,” Bucky said.

“Wait are you serious? What do you mean us, we aren't a couple? Did they change the rules?” Steve asked finally putting aside his work. That’s how Bucky knew he had Steve’s full attention.

“Becca submitted an audition tape for us as a couple. Apparently the crew believed it because Coulson called and offered us a spot, sent over a contract and everything.

“Why would she do that? It isn't a very funny joke,” Steve said confused.

“She pointed out that the winning couple for $250k which would be awesome but It doesn't really matter that show is always filmed in some remote location I doubt you'd be able to handle the whole six week season,” Bucky said as if it was a checkmate.

“What do you mean I wouldn't be able to handle it,” Steve said eyes narrowing in a clear warning for Bucky To watch himself.

“I'm just saying they leave you out in the wilderness and make you survive on the land. With all you health issues it would be hard is all I'm saying,” Bucky said. Steve pursued his lips and Bucky knew he made a fatal mistake. He knew better than to every even imply that Steve couldn’t do something because of his health. That was a sure fire way to make sure he did whatever stupid thing Bucky didn’t want him to do.

“Fuck you Bucky. I can survive just as well as you could. We are going to sign that contract and we are going to win that stupid tv show,” Steve said finality in his voice. Steve tended to have the last word in these kinds of matters and all Bucky could do was follow him and make sure the idiot didn’t get himself killed.

“You know we would have to pretend to be a couple right?” Bucky said as a last ditch effort even though he knew they would be signing that contract.

“Because dating me would be so horrible,” Steve spat. Bucky's wanted to smack him because now Steve was being obtuse on purpose. That wasn't what he and meant and Steve knew it.

“Now you're just being self deprecating to be self deprecating. I'm just saying if we do this the whole world is going to think we're dating, is that something you can live with?” Bucky asked.

“I know you extended family already thinks we're in a secret relationship so might as well give them a show. Besides if we won that money would really help a lot,” Steve said with a shrug.

“Alright, I guess we're going to be on The Challenge,” Bucky said in resignation.

[oblivianclassic]

Game Ramble: Furi

Furi, by The Game Bakers. Available on PC and PS4.

Come to think of it, I haven’t actually finished all that many video game stories in my lifetime. It wasn’t until I began to deliberately set out to finish games that I realized this. Half-Life 2: Episode 2 sat fallow for months before I finally picked it up to see why everyone wanted Valve to make Half-Life 3 so badly (other than the fact that the Half-Life games are still a high standard of single-player shooter design). Mass Effect 1 and 2 were a pair of rare titles that I played straight through because Shepard/Garrus is my perfectly-calibrated OTP, but I still haven’t gotten around to importing my save into Mass Effect 3. I’ve played through the opening bit of Dragon Age: Origins twice now as two different characters, and stopped shortly after. My Planescape: Torment playthrough is forever stuck at the bit where I think I’m supposed to join one of Sigil’s factions. I got caught up in some massive conversation trees instead. I almost finished all 4 of Warcraft 3’s Reign of Chaos campaigns, but I lost my saves shortly before the last stand against Archimonde. I still feel bad about not seeing Dishonored through to the end. Dark Souls… I might actually return and finish that one day. Playing a Souls game is like riding a bicycle--more muscle memory and mental approach than remembering the plot--and I’m not ready to go Hollow just yet.

There’s just something about playing a game with a linear story that makes me loath to actually finish. Maybe it’s a fear of endings, of seeing something finished and put away, or maybe it’s my tendency to get distracted by new and shiny things promising innovative game mechanics.

So please understand that when I’m saying that Furi defeated me, there’s actually a lot of precedence.

That all said, Furi has defeated me. This isn’t to say that I don’t like Furi, or that I don’t appreciate its challenge. Far from it. But when it comes to Furi’s mix of bullet hell and character-action hack-n-slash, I seem to have run into a wall, figuratively speaking.

Furi is an indie attempt to make an action-y character action hack ‘n slash game - the kind that normally gets made by a Japanese studio and features a lot of physics-defying, animation-cancelling and enemy-juggling action. Furi is a little different, in that it’s made by a French studio called The Game Bakers, and it doesn’t have the bits you’d find in your average Devil May Cry where you fight groups of weaker enemies. Furi is a boss rush game, which is to say that the entire experience consists of a string of big single-enemy set piece boss fights, with bits in between where you walk slowly through some pretty environments while a man wearing a purple rabbit helmet exposits angrily at you.

All you know in the beginning is that you’re some kind of prisoner, fated to be repeatedly brought to the edge of death. You’re then released by the aforementioned purple rabbit-head man, given a sword and a gun, and told that the jailer is the key. Kill him, and you’ll be free. Of course, in a plot twist nobody saw coming, things aren’t quite that simple. You’ve only escaped your initial jail cell, one section of a whole sky-bound prison. There’s a gauntlet of floating islands to traverse, each housing their own jailer, each with their own reason for wanting to keep you locked up. Or perhaps they’re fellow inmates? The story of this game turns out to be fairly straightforward despite a few twists and turns crossed with the rabbit-man’s best attempts at keeping things vague. That said, I will give the game credit for taking risks with one late-game boss and committing to a theme. That as well as taking a page from Spec Ops: The Line and giving the player a not-entirely-obvious choice in a situation where most video games wouldn’t risk it. The story obviously wants to be great, but only manages to be pretty good.

The visuals are much like the story in this respect. The character design work of this game was done by Takashi Okazaki, the man who gave us Afro Samurai (the manga, not the video game), and the game bears a strange but distinctive sci-fi look as a result. Everyone has long, lanky limbs and our main character bears a stream of wavy white locks that drift like seaweed in a gentle current. He also doesn’t seem to wear shoes, which bothered me for a while, though I’m really not sure why. Unfortunately, low-res texture work and model clipping issues don’t do the concept art justice. Judging by the shaders, Furi is attempting to take on a smooth and stylized aesthetic similar to that of something like El Shaddai: Ascension of the Metatron. Unfortunately, I’m guessing that the limited budget and small team are to blame for the stiff animation work. I understand just how time-consuming animating a game of this type can be, but that doesn’t change the fact that the striking, memorable, and distinct visuals could do with a lot of polish. Then again, considering the size of the dev team, this category could probably be given a pass. Perhaps it was in all in service of the framerate, which stays at a smooth 60 no matter what; an essential part of any fast-paced action title. If so, it was a worthwhile tradeoff. I’ll take a smooth framerate over shinier graphics in a game like this.

Fortunately, both the soundtrack and the gameplay are exceptional. The soundtrack probably deserves its own article and easily stands on its own as something worth buying. Right now. I mean it. Composed by Carpenter Brut, Danger, The Toxic Avenger, Lorn, Scattle, Waveshaper and Kn1ght, it’s a thumping tribute to retro electronica and the perfect accompaniment to energy-ball-dodging, pew pew pew-ing, and laser-sword-swooshing. Whatever atmosphere was lost when I saw an awkward animation was more than made up for by whatever music happened to be playing at the time. My favorite tracks are probably “A Picture in Motion” by Waveshaper, and “What We Fight For”, by Carpenter Brut.

Furi is built around a core set of abilities. The player can dodge, string together up to four strikes with his sword, and make rapid-fire shots with his energy pistol. Each of these moves can be charged up for greater effectiveness. The dodge will go further, and the charged strike and shot can interrupt certain enemy attacks. The player also has a parry move that if timed properly will block melee attacks, reflect projectiles, and open up opportunities to unleash a counter strike on their opponent. It seems like a simple enough system at first glance, but there is a lot to master once the player has a basic grasp of the controls. Parry timing is critical, not only because your health is healed a small amount with every successful parry, but a perfectly timed parry will stun your opponent and allow you to carve off a chunk of their health. Timing charged strikes to interrupt certain boss attacks and knowing when to charge a dodge become important too, though not absolutely essential. The controls are snappy, precise, and perfectly tuned for the sort of exacting and demanding game that Furi is.

With mastery of the controls, I’d imagine that this game will become appealing to speedrunners. Absolute mastery of all the various attack timings and patterns isn’t required to beat the game. Rather, cutting down a boss’s health bar becomes much faster once you figure out a few tricks, and I’m sure there are a lot of people who will make it their mission to go through each boss as quickly as possible.

There are nine bosses total, plus one optional “secret” boss, each with their own theme, arena, gimmick, and twist to the formula. I’ve heard that Furi plays a bit like a last-gen cult-classic game called NieR, and this is true to a certain extent. Like in NieR, each fight is a blend of character-action/hack ‘n slash and bullet-hell gameplay. Each boss fight goes through several phases, indicated by blips below their health bar. Each phase of the fight requires the player to work through two health bars. Two sections to the fight, essentially. Generally speaking, in the first half of a phase the boss will engage the player with a mix of bullet hell projectile patterns and melee attacks, while in the second half of the phase the player is locked into a small area around the boss and the fight becomes melee-focussed. That said, each boss after the second one will start mixing things up, each one with a twist to the formula. The third, for example, has no melee section to the first phase of his fight, instead putting up a series of rotating shields that the player must shoot through, but saying much more will definitely ruin a fair amount of the experience for you.

The difficulty curve from boss to boss is, unfortunately, rather uneven. The third fight seems to be a common difficulty spike for many. He’s not exactly tough, but seems designed to test the player’s patience to a breaking point, while the fifth fight is a breeze after the quick reflexes and more precise positioning required by the fourth boss. While I never made it quite so far on the default difficulty level, the ninth fight is apparently quite easy after the extremely tough seventh and eighth bosses (though I’d argue that in this case it’s necessary for thematic reasons).

Fortunately, the game is actually quite forgiving in terms of allowing the player to learn while keeping up the pace of each individual fight. The player themselves has three lives, and losing a life only resets whichever phase of the battle they’ve currently reached. Successfully finishing a phase will restore a lost life and replenish the player’s health. The player must lose all three lives before being forced to start the fight from the beginning. The game may be demanding, but it has a fair amount of tolerance for mistakes.

Unfortunately, my own tolerance for the game was worn down by just how demanding later fights were. Taxing melee combat, that I can handle. I’m even okay with the occasional bullet hell game, though I can’t say I particularly appreciate the genre. Furi’s blend of both, on the other hand, seems to be geared to break me down into incoherent rage. Switching between the two modes of action on the fly simply proved too taxing for me. It might be argued that I had ruined the experience for myself by getting fed up at one point and switching the game to “Promenade” difficulty so I could essentially skip ahead and finish the story, thus removing a lot of my motivation for continuing the game. That may be true, but I do feel that by that point I’d already seen most of what the game had to offer, mechanically speaking. I’ve got a good look at what Furi does, and, frankly, I’ve got a lot of video games on my plate here.

This isn’t to say that Furi is bad, far from it. It’s an admirable effort, something that’s striving for greatness and bumping right up against the hard limitations of a small team and budget, especially for the kind of game it’s trying to be. To achieve Devil May Cry 3 levels of polish, you need much bigger teams of animators and software engineers, but the core of Furi, the fast and challenging combat mechanics, is rock solid. For those who want a precise and demanding series of fights, where a neat art style and kickass soundtrack are bonuses, Furi is definitely a game for you. Though lacking in terms of visual fidelity, Furi has tough boss fights where good reflexes and patience will win the day. No filler, just your character and your opponent. The experience wore thin for me about two thirds of the way through, though, for more or less the same reason. Furi knows what it wants to do and does it very well, but the things it does ended up driving me up the wall.

I will say this, though: playing the deceptively hardcore Hyper Light Drifter after bashing my head against Furi feels so much easier. Situational awareness? Dash timing? Juggling ranged and melee combat? I’ve got it covered.

Tune in next time when I drift on blades of the hypest light.

-Taihus “Enough talk, let’s fight!” @raincoastgamer

[powerlighton-blog]

I Finally Achieved That! Treasure Hunter, Superstar, & Ultimate Hero (Final Fantasy XIII)

I’m actually going to put an introductory paragraph in here this time. These last three trophies were hell to get. More specifically, Treasure Hunter was what made finishing up so unbearable. Superstar was actually really easy, and Ultimate Hero is the platinum, but that Treasure Hunter nonsense was terrible. I’ll get deeper in to that in a bit. I know normally I don’t do multiple trophies/achievements in one post. I usually save and quit my game, post, then go back to playing. That only changes if I have two rewards pop up at the same time, OR if I’m so close to one that the thought of restarting and retrying to get it fills me with dread and worry. This was actually neither of those. I got these three at the same time because I am so sick and tired of playing Final Fantasy XIII. I wanted to finish it and just be done. So I did. Luckily, the one trophy that I was dreading this whole time was completed ahead of schedule, and I was able to be a little more relaxed for the last one. Enough of the long-winded explanation; here it is.

Treasure Hunter

Trophy Description: Held every weapon and accessory.

Trophy Requirements: As it states in the description, you have to acquire every weapon and accessory in the game. That is a total of 221 items with 102 of those being weapons, and the remaining 119 obviously being accessories.

How I Did It: I did this with a lot of time, patience, pain, and frustration. Here’s the thing: this takes a lot of Gil. Regardless of whether you actually buy anything or just use components you found through your journey, at some point you will have to utilize the store. It gets expensive. There are some great aides on this trophy, though. One of my favorites is the checklist which you can find here: http://xiii.redcrown.net/13/achieve/treasure. If you need a guide to walk you through the best method of getting all of these items you need to check out www.playstationtrophies.org. Both of these were tremendous helps for me. There are a few additional issues that you may run in to. 

The most popular/preferred Gil/Dark Matter/Trapezohedron farming method involves Shaolong Gui and Long Gui. However, when I attempted this method I was promptly destroyed, despite using multiple guides to help me along. I had maxed out my Crystarium, and I was still unable to make any kind of dent in those enemies. There is a secondary method for the Trapezohedron catalysts which I very much prefer. Keep in mind, however, that it requires you to dismantle one of your ultimate weapons. To remedy the issues I had with the above problem, I farmed Gil another way which allowed my to purchase the Dark Matter catalysts I needed. The best place to farm for Gil aside from the Long Gui method is to fight the Sacrifice Cie’th in Orphan’s Cradle. At the start of the area there is a circular platform with a save point. Looking at the save point you should be able to see a group of four Sacrifices on the left and three on the right. Word of advice: if you are going to farm Gil here DO NOT finish the game. Do the Gil Farming before you fight Orphan. Otherwise you won’t be able to respawn these Cie’th without leaving the area or loading your save. Moving on. When I had six weapons/accessories left I sold everything I didn’t need. Anything that had already been upgraded to its farther necessary iteration was sold. I kept one weapon for each person; either their current weapon if they had their ultimate already or the one weapon I planned to use for their ultimate weapon if they did not get it yet. Unfortunately that wasn’t enough to get me everything I needed so I had to go to another location to farm Gil. I chose Taejin’s Tower. On the fourth floor you will find Cie’th Stone mission twenty-four. The mark is right next to the statue and after you beat it the first time it will reward you with a Moonblossom seed every time. These sell for 6,000 Gil. The mark and his two cronies aren’t much of a threat even with no accessories equipped. You’ll lose some health, but you still won’t need a medic. Those are the two spots I used. Again, if you decide you want to farm the Sacrifice Cie’th do so before you face Orphan. It will make it so much easier and you probably won’t need that secondary location. I should have started with this, but do not sell or dismantle anything. Even if you know for a fact you have everything linked to that item, don’t do it. I kept a list of everything I had on my phone, then decided I didn’t need it one day, and I ended up regretting it, because I couldn’t remember what I had acquired and upgraded and what I missed. It’s easy to forget. Don’t be like me. Be smart. 

When you finish getting every accessory and weapon there is one thing left to do. You have to travel to Oerba and speak with the little robot Bhakti. If you have truly collected everything it will tell you that you truly are a Pulsian Pioneer and that, apparently, you’re quite the Treasure Hunter, too. Boom, pop, trophy.

Superstar

Trophy Description: Earned a 5-star rating in the battle to determine the world’s fate.

Trophy Requirements: You have to defeat Orphan’s FINAL form with a 5-star rating on the results screen. What you do against Barthandelus and Orphan’s first form is irrelevant.

How I Did It: This was nerve-racking, but it shouldn’t have been. I completed the previous two fights like normal. Fang, Lightning, and Hope battling it out, change some paradigms, stagger giant boss, kill. It actually went really quickly. I was able to get five stars on both Barty and Orphan-1. For Orphan-2 I immediately selected “Retry”. I traded Hope out and put Vanille in his place, then I made Vanille the leader. I only set up a few paradigms: Sab/Med/Syn, Sab x3, Rav/Rav/Com, and Rav x3. Keep in mind Orphan-2 cannot be damaged unless he is staggered. I’ll keep this short. If you want to debuff him at the start, fine. Otherwise start with Rav/Rav/Com for two full turns to raise and steady the stagger bar. Switch to Rav x3 and stagger him quickly. Immediately change to a paradigm where Vanille is a Saboteur (she should also be your leader). She should have her Malboro Wand equipped at least. Spam Vanille’s Death attack. If you aren’t able to kill him before his stagger is up, retry. Having a maxed out Crystarium and mid-level weapons and accessories my target time was 2:15. Right after I staggered him he put a status debuff on Vanille so she couldn’t attack in any way. I was able to get it off and kill him with my first Death cast in 1:17 giving me the 5-star requirement. FYI, the Gold Watch you get from Cie’th Stone mission sixty-four is a really good item to have equipped for this. Just saying.

Ultimate Hero

Trophy Description: Acquired all trophies.

Trophy Requirements: Earn all thirty-five other trophies on this playlist.

My Thoughts: Since this is a platinum trophy and its acquisition is predicated on getting all of the other trophies I’m going to do something different with these types of trophies. I’m going to give some brief thoughts on the game as a whole.

Good: There is a lot to like about Final Fantasy XIII. The trophies were challenging in a lot of different ways which I really liked most of the time. The story here, though convoluted (which is a requirement in just about every Final Fantasy game), is told exceptionally well. I connected with it and some of the characters emotionally. While I didn’t like all the characters, I did like their dynamic. All but one of the voice actors did a great job in my opinion, and I was able to relate to all of them in some way. A couple of them got a little annoying, but you can’t win them all. The big story on the good side, though, is how it looks. I originally played this in 2010 when it came out in the states. Seven years later I am still in awe at the graphical capability of the PS3 system. The first time I saw a cutscene of Pulse or the more detailed areas of Cocoon I was blown away. That has happened twice now. It is no small feat, that is for sure.

Everything I just said is very true, however, I will never play this game again. Here’s why. The battle system is so broken in my opinion that it almost makes it impossible to finish the game. You get to use one person, and anyone else in the party is pretty much set to random. It’s like they took the system from Final Fantasy XII and instead of allowing you to set up rules and guidelines they took the complexity away. That would be great, except now everything that happens in battle that you don’t personally do is luck of the draw. If the leader’s health hits zero then it’s game over. There is no reviving or healing them. You HAVE to retry the whole battle. If that doesn’t phase you, just make sure you are the medic when necessary. The other problem with the battle system is there are areas where you will have no issues whatsoever. You will 5-star your way through everyone or really close to it, but then you will get to the area boss and get utterly destroyed and demolished. Sometimes it’s because you don’t have the right paradigms, but the more likely cause is that enemy’s stats were vaulted over everything else in that area AND in the next area to boot. I was fortunate enough to be able to finish the story this time, but the battle system almost made me quit a second time. Unfortunately and unsurprisingly, the battle system is around for the entire game. You might learn to live with it like I did, or you might just throw it in the trash and never try again. On some minor notes, Vanille’s accent got on my nerves as did Hope’s attitude and moodiness (although I do understand where it was coming from). Vanille’s voice sounded like it changed every time she talked. 

That’s all I have this time. I am finally finished with Final Fantasy XIII and I am not looking back. It is put away on the shelf and will stay there for eternity! I’m not sure what’s next, but I think I’m going to take a brief videogame vacation. We’ll have to see. Until next time, friends. Good Luck!