#to make it the most spoiler free gameplay

[diathadevil]

Hello welcome to 2013

I’ve just finished my first playthrough of this game and now I’m having Aoba brainrot going on. Nothing but a swiss cheese in my head.

[froggibus]

The Three Times You Share A Bed - Leon S Kennedy

Pairing: Leon Kennedy x reader

Genre: fluff, some light angst thrown in towards the end?

Word Count: 2.7k

Summary: two times you sleep in leon's bed, and the one time he sleeps in yours

CW: roommate! Leon, kinda friends to lovers?, light angst, abandonment issues, paranoia, fear + insomnia, mentions of zombies, bedsharing, leon has intimacy issues (get therapy challenge)

OMG HAPPY RE4 RELEASE!!! I am SO excited to play once im done work this weekend! Leon looks so damn fine in the gameplay ive seen and i am going FERAL! pls no spoilers for anything new in the game! <3

RE4 remake spoiler free zone!! I have yet to play the remake so there are no spoilers in this!

————

The telltale clicking of a key in the door has you on your feet in seconds, abandoning the plush throw blanket on the couch. Before it even opens, you’re standing on the doormat. You feel a little silly, like a golden retriever waiting for its owner, but the shame is washed away when Leon steps through the door.

It’s been three weeks since you’ve last seen your roommate and best friend, and just as long since you last had company. He raises an eyebrow at the sight of you standing in front of him, the dark circles under his eyes becoming more prominent. 

“Aren’t you a sight for sore eyes.” He sighs and drops his backpack on the floor, locking the door behind him.

“How was it?”

You fight the urge to wrap your arms around his broad shoulders and inhale his scent, knowing that’s not what friends do. Still, the feeling is there and if he went in for it, you’d reciprocate in a heartbeat.

He opens the fridge and beams at the fully stocked drinks and snacks. He cracks open a can of cider and leans against the counter. “Long,” he admits, “way too long. And my nose is still burning from the smell of rotten flesh.” You crinkle your nose at the thought. Leon’s never been much of a talker and most of his work being classified didn’t help. Whenever something wasn’t top secret, though, you were sure to sit there and listen no matter how horrific the details were.

You settle in on the couch next to the agent, listening to him drone on about a zombie-like creature that had peeling flesh and fifty eyes. You could vividly picture it from his words alone, and the image of the creature sent a shiver up your spine.

Leon talks for hours, spilling every miniscule detail of every horror he encounters. You stay the whole time, nodding along. Leon laughs at the way you scrunch your face in disgust or close your eyes in fear. He hates how cute you are, but he can’t seem to stop telling you stories. After many hours and a few drinks between the two of you, he’s almost run out of stories to tell.

Leon pats your shoulder gently, collecting his cans from where he’d set them on the coffee table. “I need a shower,” he states. “I’ll see you tomorrow, y/n.”

“Go shower. You stink,” you joke and punch him in the ribs.

He feigns injury at your blow, pretending to suck in a breath like you’d really hurt him. He keeps up the facade the whole way to his bedroom, only leaving character when he shuts the door behind him.

It’s only when he’s disappeared that you realize how late it's gotten—and how dark. Even though your shared apartment is on the 19th floor, you can’t help but worry something is going to crawl through your window. You shake the thoughts away and get ready for bed, but every gust of wind and rustling of leaves makes you flinch.

You close your eyes and tug your comforter over your head, hoping that if there is something out there, it won’t know you’re there. You toss and turn for a while longer, staying dead quiet and pushing your fears away.

Finally, you can’t take it anymore. You take a deep breath, throw your comforter off of your shoulders, and sprint to Leon’s room. It’s like your brain is on autopilot—it knows exactly where to go to be safe.

You don’t knock on the door, instead quietly twisting the knob and slipping in through a crack in the door. Leon sits up as soon as your feet touch the wooden floor, eyes snapping towards your silhouette. He’s been a light sleeper ever since Racoon City, waking at the slightest of sounds.

He relaxes at the sight of you but only for a second. He glances at his digital clock, eyes widening at the time. “Y/n? What are you still doing up?”

“I-I couldn’t sleep…I feel like a flesh eating zombie is going to climb through my window and eat me.”

He chuckles. “That would be my fault.” He shuffles over in bed and pulls back the comforter. “You’re more than welcome to stay here for the night.”

You crawl into bed next to him, keeping as much distance between the two of you as possible. You can feel his body heat radiating through the blankets and smell his body wash on his skin. The feeling is new, yet so familiar it eases you instantly.

“Leon?”

He hums in response.

“Is it safer to sleep next to the window or the door? From like, a secret agent standpoint.”

“We’re on the 19th floor so window, but unless it's a hotel room, the door. You would more than likely hear it if they broke down the front door so you’d have more time to get out.”

You think for a second. “Can we switch places?”

“Honestly, y/n,” he laughs dryly, “the safest place to sleep right now is next to me.”

Your face warms at that and you nod, relaxing into his pillows. While you drift off to sleep, Leon watches over you. He knows nothing is going to come for you here, but he did promise to keep you safe, and he’ll keep that promise no matter what.

—

When you get home, you’re in a foul mood. You practically throw the groceries onto the counter before walking to your room and throwing yourself onto your bed. It’s been a long day. All of the stores were so busy you could hardly get through the aisles, and all of the people you encountered were rude.

Leon comes out of his room a few minutes later. Seeing the groceries abandoned on the counter, his first thought is to check on you. He doesn’t check on you, though. Not yet, anyway. He knows you’ll just be more upset if the frozen items melt and the milk sits out all night, so he sets out on putting them away.

After almost an hour of laying in your bed trying to recuperate after the day you’ve had, you’re snapped out of it by a text.

Leon: Come here, I have a surprise for you

You don’t feel like leaving your bed, but you force yourself out of it anyway. It’s not Leon you’re mad at. Leon is probably the only person in the world you don’t hate right now. You knock on his door softly, holding your arms behind your back.

“Come in!” He shouts.

You open the door, shuffling into his room and closing it behind you. Your jaw drops when you see a tray in the middle of his bed piled high with your favorite snacks, drinks and two wine glasses. Leon pats the spot next to him and you’re happy to oblige, relaxing onto the mattress.

“You didn’t have to do this, you know.”

He shrugs, pouring you a glass of wine. “It already seems like you had a bad day, I just wanted to do something to make it a little better for you.”

“Thank you.” He nods in acknowledgement, turning on his tv and handing you the remote. “You can choose the first movie. Just—maybe no zombies?”

You snort at that. Classic Leon, using his corny jokes to make light of even the worst of situations. You settle on an old favorite movie you love, handing the remote back to the blond and switching it for a wine glass.

Between your favorite movie, the delicious wine and your favorite snacks, your spirits are lifted in no time. One movie turns into two, and two turns into three. Soon enough, you’re dozing off in Leon’s bed.

He moves the tray of snacks and the glasses off of the bed to give you more room to sprawl out. Laying down next to you, he watches you sleep. A part of him wishes he could see this every night—the same sight he fantasizes about on even the hardest of missions.

He flicks off the lamp on his side table and settles in. “Good night, cutie,” he mumbles, knowing you’re far too deep in sleep to hear him.

—

You wake up in the middle of the night, moonlight streaming through the window and illuminating Leon’s bedroom. You’re still numb from sleep, your senses dulled just enough that it takes you a minute to realize that something is grabbing you. No, not grabbing—holding. 

You blink a few times. Leon is laying next to you, his chest pressed to your back, his arms around your waist. You can feel the slow beating of his heart and the heat coming off of his skin. He’s so close it overwhelms you, yet it’s all you’ve ever wanted.

You think about slipping away but you know what a light sleeper he is, and you don’t think you could handle it if he woke up and saw how close you were. You close your eyes and try to calm the beating in your heart so you can fall back asleep.

When you wake up again, Leon is gone. Your body feels cold where his once was. You sit up—is he showering? He can’t be, the bathroom door is open. You sit up, letting the blankets fall off of you. You swing your legs over the side of his bed, walking out to the kitchen, but he’s not there either.

Did he leave to go get something? 

You check your phone, expecting to see a text saying he ran out to go get more milk or something, but there’s nothing. You sigh, typing up a message and sending it to him.

Y/N: where’d you go?

You practically jump when your phone lets out a noise, but your heart sinks when you see what it is.

Message Not Delivered. Try Again?

You sigh. That can only mean one thing: he’s on another mission. Typical Leon, disappearing in the middle of the night to go god knows where for god knows how long. The frustration bubbles up in your chest and you feel like hitting something, but you don’t. It’s not worth it.

You try to keep your mind off of his sudden disappearance by throwing yourself into chores. You wash his bedding and make his bed, then wash your own. You sweep and mop the floors and vacuum the carpets. You dust the blinds.

It doesn’t help.

Your mind keeps wandering back to the fact that he left without saying goodbye. That he woke up at some ungodly hour, saw you laying in his arms, got up and left without another word. He didn’t even leave a note. He really cares that little. 

You shake your head and even though the pit in your stomach makes you feel like not eating, you make yourself a sandwich regardless. Seeing the untouched groceries in the fridge just adds to the feeling.

Even though you know he’s not going to get it, you pull out your phone and start typing.

Y/N: do you at least know when you’ll be back?

Message Not Delivered. Try Again?

The message makes you roll your eyes. Leon fucking Kennedy.

—

A week goes by, and then two, and you still hear nothing from your roommate. You send texts here and there, hoping for an answer, but none of them go through. Eventually, you start venting to him through there, too. Expressing how frustrated you are that he didn’t say goodbye, how annoying your feelings are, how sometimes you wish you didn’t know him so you didn’t have to go through this.

It’s a random Sunday night when you’re sitting on the couch, watching trash reality tv and eating snacks. It’s cold in the apartment, but you can’t be bothered to turn on the heat. Only when your arms puff up with goosebumps do you scour the room for a sweater, settling on a random one hanging on the back of a chair.

It’s Leon’s, an old one from the Police Academy. His smell floods your nose when you pull it over your head, and it's so bittersweet you don’t know if you should laugh or cry. You settle back on the couch, but a rustling at the window makes you freeze in your tracks.

It stops for a moment, and you can almost convince yourself you’ve imagined it or it’s a part of the show—until it happens again. You scramble for the remote, pausing it so you can hear better. The noise starts again, and you waste no time in hightailing it to your bedroom and slamming the door behind you.

You flop onto your bed, trying (and failing) to remind yourself that it’s just the wind. That you’re safe here. But it’s hard when it’s late and you’re tired and you’re alone and the only person you feel safe with just abandoned you.

You curl up into a ball, pulling Leon’s sweater over your mouth and inhaling the familiar scent. It’s enough to calm you down, if only for a few moments. If you close your eyes, you can almost trick yourself into thinking he’s there, and for now, that’s good enough.

—

Leon knows he fucked up when he gets back to the country and turns on his phone. Almost fifty messages from you, each one more sad than the last. He wants to slap himself—why couldn’t he just grow a pair and say goodbye? Why did he have to be so noncommittal?

He reads every message on the cab ride back to the apartment, and his heart breaks for you. He didn’t think about how you would drive yourself crazy over him or how worried you must have been. All he thought about was getting the call for the mission in the middle of the night and not wanting to wake you up.

But he didn’t abandon you. He thought about you every day and god—he wishes he could have talked to you. Hearing your voice and seeing your face was enough to make everything better. With the horrors he’s seen lately, all he wants is to be back in that bed with you for one more night.

He’s quiet coming into the apartment, hoping he doesn’t wake you up or scare you. And even though he knows you’re sleeping, he’s still disappointed you’re not waiting at the door for him.

He tosses his backpack into his room and strips off all of his holsters and velcro.  He’s quiet walking down the hallway to your room and even quieter opening the door. He relaxes at the sight of you curled up in a ball. 

You look so cute and so peaceful and—is that his sweater? The sight brings a smile to his face. He closes the door behind him with a soft click, climbing into the bed next to you.

You wake up when the bed dips down and arms wrap around you. You’re so tired you don’t even care who or what it is.

“If you’re gonna kill me, can you at least let me sleep first?” You mumble.

You fully awake as soon as you hear Leon’s laugh.

“You’re back?” You say, and you hate the way your voice cracks. 

You turn around to face him, tired ocean eyes meeting yours. He nods sleepily, “‘m sorry I didn’t say goodbye. It was stupid of me.”

“It’s okay,” and it really is okay. All the resentment you felt melted away at the sight of him. 

“C’mere,” he mumbles. 

You lay your head on his chest, wrapping your arms around him. You can hear his heart rate slow down at the contact. 

“I just—I just need you tonight.” Those are big words coming from the agent, and they leave you completely stunned. He must have seen or done something horrible while he was away for him to be this vulnerable, even with you.

“You can have me tonight.” You try to keep your voice even, “you can have me whenever you need me,”

He kisses the top of your head. “But I always need you.”

“Then I’m always yours.”

Neither of you speak after that, Leon falling into a light sleep. You stay up a while longer, watching the blond boy rest beneath you. He looks so fragile like this, you can’t imagine him fighting off monsters and handling weapons. You kiss his collarbone through his shirt and let yourself fall asleep with him. 

[thankskenpenders]

So I wrote a whole long thing about Amy's tarot cards, but what about, you know... the rest of the Sonic Frontiers DLC? The new alternate story route, the hours of new gameplay, all that?

Having now played it, I'm not sure Sonic has ever had this specific combination of good ideas that make the future of the series look bright, and execution that I fucking hate.

(Full spoilers ahead.)

The good

There's a lot to like here, conceptually.

First and foremost, Tails, Knuckles, and Amy are finally playable in a new mainline 3D Sonic game for the first time since 2006! Seventeen years! We've been begging for this for so very, very long. Nature is finally truly healing from the fallout of Sonic '06. Early on I hedged my bets and expected them to be locked to Cyber Space or something like that, assuming that there was no way they'd be fully playable in the Open Zone. But sure enough, while they're a bit limited compared to Sonic, they're still all full-blown characters with skill trees to unlock and lots of exploration to do.

We also got a more bombastic alternate final boss fight, after the first take on The End kind of underwhelmed. And it's obvious that Sonic Team has listened to our pleas to focus on the 3D platforming over the forced 2D sections, and to reduce the amount of automation in the level design. This update is chock full of Actual Platforming. Wow! I can only pray this means we never get an area as agonizing to explore as Chaos Island again.

Sure, there's still some jank - especially with Knuckles' movement, which is kinda rough. But if this is the stuff they're trying out so that they can refine it further for the next game, then I'm really excited.

On the other hand, good fucking lord is The Final Horizon tedious. And that tedium sapped most of the fun out of it for me.

The frustrating

The new scenario massively increases the difficulty over the base game, seemingly out of a desire to give the hardcore players who were posting speedrun videos and whatnot more of a challenge. It's the Super Mario Bros.: The Lost Levels of Sonic. This difficulty comes in many forms throughout your playtime, some worse than others, and continues to ramp up over time.

Rather than giving you a tutorial level, the new scenario dumps you directly into a remixed version of the final island and makes you do some fairly precise platforming with Amy, Knuckles, and Tails - new characters with new movesets that you won't have any experience with. You'll also need to find character-specific Koco that give you free levels, because Sonic's friends all start at level one and certain locked moves in their skill trees will be mandatory to progress. They don't even have Cyloop unlocked at the start. And because they're all low level, that means you'd better steer clear of the beefed-up bosses scattered around the map, which will absolutely annihilate Sonic's friends. (I honestly just avoided them and never bothered beating any of them, not even with my high-level Sonic. I have no idea if they're beatable with the others.)

None of this is explained to you particularly well. I spent my first few minutes with Amy wondering why the attack button did nothing, only to eventually think to check her skill tree and realize that I had to unlock her basic attack. If you don't bother to take the time to read through the skill trees, you'll very quickly find obstacles you have no way of getting past with no clues as to what exactly you're supposed to do.

Adding to this confusion is the fact that objective markers often tell you to go half a kilometer into the sky, and you'll have no idea how to get up there because all of the relevant platforms are out of your draw distance. Many objects seem to only pop in for me when I'm within about 60 meters of them, which isn't a long distance for a high-speed open world platformer like this. I was having this problem running the game with high graphics on PC, so I can only imagine how obnoxious it is on Switch. I'd frequently find myself poking around nearby clusters of platforming objects and praying that they'd lead me to a spring, rail, or cannon that would eventually point me in the direction of the floating objective marker.

There were always complaints about the art direction in Frontiers and the way it relies on floating rails and prefab platforms that are visually disconnected from the natural scenery of the islands, but it's even more dire here. The new platforming sections are dense and complex, but they seemingly didn't have the budget to change the topography of Ouranos Island at all, so it all takes the form of these prefabs. It very strongly gives the vibe of a Forge creation in Halo 3, back when there were no blank canvas maps and people just had to make "new maps" by jamming a bunch of shipping containers and barricades together in the sky above one of the default arenas.

I was still more or less having fun, though, despite the jank. It's a big creative swing, I told myself! They're trying stuff out! They're experimenting!

And then I hit the towers.

The towers are agonizing because they're SO close to being great. The logical part of my brain understands why some people love them, but god, I just fucking hate them. The platforming there IS cool! These layouts are cool! The individual challenges along the way are a bit tough, but totally doable. You know what's not cool? Making one mistake and slowly falling 800 meters all the way back down to the ground, forcing you to start over. Because none of these towers have checkpoints. For me, this one decision transforms what should have been a fun set of platforming challenges into a massive, unfun difficulty spike.

I enjoy some masocore platformers, but those are typically games with quick deaths and restarts like Celeste, Super Meat Boy, or VVVVVV. Hell, the Mario games tend to get way more difficult than the average Sonic game, and those are obviously all great. Quite frankly, unlike those games, Sonic Frontiers is nowhere near tight or polished enough to make this difficulty feel fair. Bits of jank that I could ignore in the base game due to its lower difficulty are now matters of life or death. Missing a jump because I boosted off an incline in a way the game didn't like for reasons I don't understand is not fun. Falling off a tower because the camera was pointing in the wrong direction while I was in midair and I couldn't see the next thing I was expected to homing attack is not fun.

And it's such a jarring spike when moving from the base game to the DLC that it feels like the game is suddenly quizzing me on skills it never bothered to instill in me. Maybe if you've spent the last year labbing out the movement tech in this game this is all a no brainer, but for the average returning player it's a kick in the dick.

I'm sure I could've beaten these towers normally if I gave them enough tries. They aren't the hardest thing in the world. But I very quickly decided I had better things to do with my life and turned on easy mode, which adds tons of extra springs and homing attack balloons to make all of the platforming piss easy. I wish there was a middle option between Only Up: Sonic Edition and this extreme hand holding, but when given the choice between the two I gladly picked baby mode. I just wanted to see the story.

(The new Cyber Space levels are also long, challenging, and devoid of checkpoints, not unlike the towers. But I only ever found the entrances to two of them. So I only did two. They're theoretically required, because they give you "Lookout Koco" that you need for... some reason? But in a rare act of mercy, Sonic Team put Cyloop treasure spots that give you free Lookout Koco all over the map.)

As I continued, so many little things started adding up to piss me off. Why do you only reveal like five tiny squares of the map at a time? I would've loved to find all the new 1-on-1 dialogue scenes, but not if I had to do dozens of hard mode versions of the stupid little puzzles and challenges to reveal the whole map. Why does every character need their own unique collectibles? What is this, Donkey Kong 64? Why can't I just grab this EXP for Amy when I find it as Tails? Why can I only manually swap characters by talking to an out-of-the-way NPC unlocked right before the final boss? Why is fast travel disabled? Why are the new vocal themes you hear when playing as Amy, Knuckles, and Tails so monotonous, with a single verse repeating over lo-fi beats ad nauseum? Why is the jukebox feature completely disabled throughout the DLC, even after rolling the credits? Why can't Tails homing attack? Why do I have to wrestle with the camera so much while also holding the jump button to fly as Knuckles and Tails? How many right thumbs do they think I have? Why is this animation for picking up animals in the Cyber Space levels so incredibly slow, and why can I still take damage while it's playing? Why does the stupid starfall event have to make it so hard to see what I'm doing when climbing these towers? Why does this shitty combat trial have a popup that makes it seem like I should be using the Cyloop when the actual strategy revolves around repeated parries? And on and on and on...

The story

What about the new story? Well, there sadly isn't much to chew on here. Most of the DLC has the cast running around and finding different macguffins for arbitrary reasons, as part of some sort of plan to divide up the work on the last island so that Sonic can go train with the spirits of the Ancients and harness the power of his cyber corruption. What the fuck is an Impact Form? I don't know, but Knuckles needs something to do, so go find one.

It's a thin excuse plot meant to make you do platforming challenges around Ouranos Island, with little room for Ian to add any real flavor of his own, even though he certainly tries. Having Sonic meet the spirits of the Ancients who controlled the Titans, who are revealed to directly parallel the personalities of him and his friends, is kinda neat, I guess? It's something. The optional conversations seem to have some fun bits, including both conversations between the supporting cast and additional lore. But again, I only found a few of those because of how tedious filling out the map was.

The writing is also let down by the voice acting - or I guess the voice direction, because I know this cast can do better. Roger's voice continues to be weirdly, distractingly deep as Sonic, which was clearly something that was requested of him just for this game. (For a recent example of him going back to his regular Sonic voice, see this LEGO trailer.) The performances of Sonic's friends are also WILDLY mismatched. This is most clear when they start feeling the effects of the cyber corruption. Knuckles seems to be barely affected at all, Tails sounds like he's moderately hurt and low on energy, and Amy starts completely overselling her pain out of nowhere. The extremely strained performance makes it sound like Cindy's literally being tortured in the fucking booth. I have no idea what's going on over there.

The final challenges

People have debated whether or not things like the towers and the new Cyber Space levels are fair challenges. What's not up for debate is the fact that Master King Koco's Trial is complete and utter bullshit, and I can't believe they shipped this.

Before you can fight the new final boss, the game forces you to do a boss rush of the first three Titans - INCLUDING the pre-Super Sonic climbing sections - with a hard limit of 400 rings. For all three lengthy, heavily scripted fights. Back to back. You can't even cheese it with the leveling system, because you're forced to do this at level 1. This all but forces you to look up speedrun strats for the Super Sonic fights so that you don't run out of rings and fail the trial.

And the real kicker? They changed the parry just for this trial! Originally, you could just hold down the bumpers endlessly and Sonic would ready himself to parry the next attack, whenever that may hit. Now it requires you to do a "Perfect Parry" with specific timing. And you HAVE to hit those parries if you wanna clear this trial and get to the new ending. Miss a few and you're probably fucked. You just have to reset. Time to go through all those fights, all those climbing sequences, all those QTEs, and all those unskippable mid-fight cutscenes all over again. This is by far the most egregious example of the DLC deciding to quiz you on new skills that the base game never required of you, and it's one of the most absurdly unfair things I have ever seen in a Sonic game.

Easy mode does make this trial easier by making the timing window for Perfect Parries much more generous, but that's all the help you get. It's still easy to lose time failing to parry Wyvern's hard-to-read animations, or to lose rings by getting hit on the climb sections, or for things to just fuck up because these fights were always kinda jank. I gave it a few shots. I looked up guide videos. I tried the Quick Cyloop and stomp combo strat that seems all but mandatory. But I quickly decided that, again, this wasn't a worthwhile use of my time. It just sucks. And I really, REALLY didn't want to overwrite all my fond memories of these Titan fights, some of my favorite setpiece moments in any Sonic game, with memories of this shit ass boss rush.

So I cheated! And if you're on PC, you should too.

With the worst hurdle out of the way, I turned cheats back off and moved on to the new final boss. It was pretty cool. It's much flashier than the original fight against The End, that's for sure. It's still kinda annoying, and it requires you to do very specific shit without properly telegraphing it, but it's nowhere near as bad as the preceding challenges. I was hoping for one last new metalcore song to go with the new fight, which we sadly didn't get, but at least the new version of I'm Here is good.

The ending is... mostly the same, with a couple altered scenes that don't really change anything in the long run. But overall the new finale was pretty good. I just wish it hadn't been such a slog to get there.

Closing thoughts

Sonic Frontiers: The Final Horizon wants to be three things:

A patch that adds a new alternate ending that was probably supposed to be in the base game in the first place.

An experimental take on making Tails, Knuckles, and Amy playable again, presumably testing things for the next game. And...

An official Kaizo Sonic Frontiers mod for the sickos.

The thing is, the people showing up for #1 and #2, the main things that Sega hyped up about the update, are not necessarily going to be down for #3. If they had announced some uber-hard new Cyber Space levels for the arcade mode or whatever, I'd be like, neat! And then not play them. I would never touch Master King Koco's Trial if it was an optional challenge. I would leave that for the sickos. But instead, they made the hardest content mandatory for anyone who wants to see the new Good Ending where the final boss gets an actual budget.

I'm mostly left in a state of shock that it shipped like this. I cannot believe they playtested this and decided this was the state The Final Horizon should be released in. That this should be the note Frontiers ends on. That this should be how we remember those Titan fights. That this should be the lingering taste in our mouths as we wait however many years for the next 3D game.

Armchair devs always love to say that things would be "easy to fix," but like... there really would be easy fixes for the insane difficulty and general tedium here! Add a few more tutorial popups explaining what the game expects of you with Sonic's friends. Give the Cyber Space stages and the towers a couple checkpoints. Give the combat trials more generous time limits, especially on the lower difficulties. Remove half of the map puzzles, and make the ones that remain uncover twice as many squares. Skip the startup animation for Knuckles' glide. Let me turn on the goddamn jukebox. Since so much of this update was designed around fan feedback, I can only pray that Sonic Team is still listening, and that they tweak at least a few of these things with a balance patch.

But still, after those many, many paragraphs of complaining... this still somehow makes the future of 3D Sonic seem pretty promising?

Sonic's friends are FINALLY playable again, and the focus is back to proper 3D platforming, rather than railroading players into awkward forced 2D sections in what's otherwise an open world. These are the things that they hopefully want to carry over to the next game. The difficulty? Well, that's just because it's the postgame DLC that's supposed to be the toughest challenge in the game. It's just an unreasonably cruel one of those - an example of how designing and balancing for a vocal minority of your fanbase can really hurt your game. But Sonic Team is onto something here, and I hope that they can learn the right lessons from this expansion and not throw the baby out with the bathwater.

[starmendotnet]

RETURN OF THE EARTHBOUND FUNKTASTIC GAMEPLAY SUMMER

Hello everyone! It is with GREAT ENTHUSIASM that we would like to announce the:

But first… what IS a Funktastic Gameplay Summer?

Us Starmen.Netters are bringing back a long-beloved sitewide tradition! The Earthbound Funktastic Gameplay Summer is an event that dates back to 2001, wherein the community collectively plays through EarthBound over the course of several “Gameplay Points” (GPPs). Everyone is encouraged to play along, and our team of stream hosts will be broadcasting their own gameplay on the StarmanClub Twitch channel. In addition, we will be celebrating MOTHER’s 35th and Earthbound’s 30th anniversary!

Maybe it’s been a minute since you’ve returned to the game. Maybe you’ve never played before! The idea is to get fans, new and old, engaging with Earthbound. With introduction out of the way, let’s move on to the deets:

THE SUBMISSIONS

An integral part of Starmen history is fan submissions, where the community creates fanart about the stream events, and just EB in general. As per usual, here are the categories:

Categories!

Writing: Stories, poems, theories… if you wrote it, it belongs here! Handart: Charcoal, paintings, sculptures… if you made it with your hands, it belongs here! Compart: Digital illustrations, 3D models, pixel art… if you made it with a computer, it belongs here! AudioViz: Music, videos, fangames… if it pertains to audio/visuals, it belongs here!

Prizes!

Winners will receive shiny badges on the forum to show off their mastery of Earthbound funk, as well as forum ranks and avatars!

Of course, opening up the floor to fanworks doesn’t come without its fair share of ground rules. Don’t worry though, it’s pretty simple stuff.

Rules!

Submissions must be related to Earthbound/the Funktastic Gameplay streams

If your submission contains content that would require a trigger warning (violence, sensitive subject matters, etc.) please put it in a spoiler box with a warning.

You may submit as many pieces to one category as you like, but only one can place

You may submit to as many categories as you like

Any submission must’ve been made for this event. No previous works!

THE STREAM SCHEDULE

Keep an eye out in our Event forum for the schedule drop, but livestreams won't be the only thing we've got going on!

THE ADDITIONAL EVENTS

If you can’t catch the streams, don’t worry! The streams are only a small part of our summer programming. In addition, there will be other events to keep the party goin’! These being:

Eagleland Scrapbook (July 15th – August 24th):

Get your cameras out and your bug spray on! This summer, we’re running a collaborative photo book! At the end of the event, your photos will be assembled into a digital booklet for your viewing pleasure. So, where to start? Well, we’re limiting subjects to four categories; birds, flora, fungi, and insects.

A couple notes; you’re more than free to submit multiple photos if you’d like, and there is no judgment on the quality of the photos. Just try your best to keep the camera as focused on the subject as possible. The event ends on August 24th, so get snapping! And most of all, have fun!

EB No Natsumatsuri (August 1st – August 24th):

Our highly calibrated MoonWatch Radar indicates that activity coming from the Annual Gift Man’s base is already approaching usual December levels, and climbing! That can only mean EB no Matsuri has come early, and that can only mean one thing: time to prepare a feast for the Gift Man’s arrival! The beloved Starmen.Net tradition returns, but in a brand new form! Instead of gift giving, we would like to encourage everyone to come up with or find a MOTHER-series themed recipe, make it, and share the recipe and pictures of your delicious dish with everyone! It’s a virtual potluck, and everyone’s invited. (Can’t think of what to make? Make Your Favorite Food, of course, whatever it is!)

And now for our final announcement at this time… prepare yourselves for something very special!

A NEW AND EXCITING OPPORTUNITY

This message is brought to you by PorcBanc™

The savvy investors over at PorcBanc™ have very graciously offered all Starmen.Net members EXCLUSIVE and PRIVILEGED access to a cutting edge, Earthbound-themed surprise to our Funktastic Gameplay Summer events! A special surprise will be released to the public on July 21st, 2024. Be sure to stay tuned for more details on all your favourite Starmen.Net media channels! Remember folks:

“With PorcBanc™, we guarantee profits HAM over fist!”

Guarantees or promises made by PorcBanc and its affiliated subsidiaries are intended for marketing purposes only and do not hold any legal value.

An event™ by PorcBanc™

[phxntomhives]

Twst theory: the events are all canon, they just fit in a weird timeline for each character

WARNING: Spoilers for Book 7

This is because the events are happening in the dreams created by Malleus' unique magic.

This is just for fun but it always bugged me how much canon the events are. They are not mentioned in the main storyline and the main storyline doesn't really mention them.

Yesterday night I couldn't sleep so I started to thinking about the cards and remembered the groovy animation: there are the thorns covering the card. And there is the black fog (also used when Silver and the others are being trapped in the blot) when the character speaks their line. Then the thorns retract, "freeing" the character and you have the groovy.

An example of a groovy here in case you forgot/don't remember (but litteraly any card is fine): https://youtu.be/vp68GOQnE6w

It would be interesting if this was an hint that the events are just the wishes/desires of someone that became true in the reality that Malleus created. Thanks to Idia we have seen that the dream can reset itself and in general everything goes as intended by Malleus' idea of Happy Ending. It could be that the events happen when the owner is waking up/realizing something is wrong so Malleus uses a panick button and make a nice event for them in order to distract them. Or the person dreaming is just feeling silly and wants to do something different and Malleus just goes "I got you". Plus, if I am not wrong, most, if not all, event are just overall nice, there isn't too much trauma in them (but it is true I am EXTREMELY behind in reading them, I am lazy).

"But the player/us can make decision" my brother in christ, Yuu does barely anything, we are cheerleaders at best. ESPECIALLY in the events. I understand why, on a gameplay level, it is not possible for us to make decision that actively effect the story, but we at most get a line that is slightly different as a reaction. If Malleus can recreate a whole fake universe in a dream I don't see why he can't add a fake version of us to the events, he HAS created a fake Ortho for Idia, Baul and Maleanor for Lilia. He just uses the memories and/or the hopes of the dreamer to create the situation. So maybe the Yuu in the events is just how Malleus and the dreamer sees Yuu. Remember, in this theory everything is working as he intended, even "us". Yuu (player) can't affect the story because Yuu (player) is not living it, it's Malleus' version of Yuu, how HE sees Yuu. Most likely also influences by the dreamer's view. Probably more the dreamer's view of Yuu that Malleus' honestly.

I also like the idea that Malleus just add Yuu since Yuu is basically his favourite human (after Silver/right with Silver) so I can see him going "Yuu brings happyness, let's add them to the dream, it makes sense, they will help make the dream happier."

The I started to wonder: but then why doesn't he add himself to every event? Doesn't he want to be more present in everyone's life? Be invited to stuff and spend time with them? What better opportunity than this, since he is adding himself already to the entrance ceremony? My polite guess is that he knew it would become too weird for the dreamer if he suddently appeared everywhere when he was barely seen until that moment, so he decided to cast himself aside for most events to be less suspicious. Idia realizes almost immediately something is wrong thanks to the insane gatcha luck so imagine if he suddenly found Malleus everywhere? "Why are you here, you aren't supposed to be here????" it would immediately raise suspicious from everyone.

This being said, the theory is likely wrong but I had way too much fun trying to guess who would be the owner of each dream-event. So I tried to think about it and here is my results, feel free to share if you think it different! (Under the cut because it would become kilometric)

Part 1 because it has become SO MUCH LONGER than expected

Happy Beans Day - Seize the Golden Harp!

SSR Azul, SR Jade + Jack, R Cater.

Dreamer - I feel like this is easy: Azul's team won and he is free from the pain of P.E. (felt). So I feel it's pretty safe to assume it's his dream. I do believe this challange could happens also in the main story since it's a yearly tradition, but it would be fun if Azul dreamed of it and maybe changed the outcome. In the happy dream, his team won while in reality he is still stuck with the lessons (I feel your pain Azul).

Why the others are present - I wouldn't be surprised if this is just how the teams were in the main story, and Azul just changed the finale. I don't remember if the first event had the Malleus VS Lilia fight but I like to think that is the real Malleus and he was just training a little to see how much he can affects the dreams and just have a nice sparring session.

Fairy Gala ~Festival of the Spring-Calling Fairies~

SSR Leona, SR Jamil + Kalim, R Ruggie

Dreamer - This was already harder, because no I don't think being the SSR automatically means you are the dreamer. It's too easy and with event with multiple SSR it would be more complicated (plus, this game would become boring quickly). So I reread it quickly and since "Leona and Kalim were tasked by Crowley to infiltrate the Fairy Gala" I believe Kalim would be a nice fit. He is there, dancing, spending time with Jamil and getting to know Leona and Ruggie better, which I don't think he would mind!

Why the others are present - he goes everywhere with Jamil and deeply cares about him, so I can see him trying to add Jamil to the dream in any way possible to enjoy more things together. I feel he could see Leona and Ruggie as a "do not separate" situation so, of course they would come together in the dream too. The reason for "why Leona?", it's because of the "Exotic" (tho I deeply disagree with the term ofc) theme. Vil and Divus are there because they can easily be considered the best for the costumes and training in any situation.

Ghost Marriage ~Proposal of Destiny~

SSR Ace, SR Riddle + Epel, R Rook

Dreamer - well, I think we can all agree it is definitely not Idia lol. As my biggest kin, I can promise you that if I were to dream of being kidnapped I would also be also the one saving myself and I would not want to have a squad of people to come to dig my grave deeper help me. We can also all agree that, most likely, all the slapped boys are definitely not the one dreaming. I don't think Ortho would dream can he dream? of his brother being kidnapped. Sam also doesn't feel quite right. I think it is pretty safe to assume again one of the guys that got the card is the one dreaming (yes I don't feel safe assuming that this is true for all events). But then who? Riddle is off the chart because the rulesTM were almost broken and he was desperate to fix it. I guess he would dream something more peaceful that either follows the rules or completely ignore them. Rook is also off the chart, he can see beauty in everything so he would not make Eliza reject everyone if anything I see him going more for an harem ending. Also he would not let Vil's face be ruined by a slap, I think. Ace or Epel that is the question. My heart is screaming Epel just because he can let go of his frustration by fighting, and he could finally hit Vil (Eliza did it, but it would be his dream soooo). Buut my mind reminds me that Ace has dropped that he had a girlfriend that left him. Seems like a pretty big lore to drop if Epel is the one dreaming. I can't find a reason for Epel to dream about Ace telling of his romantic past. Plus if I am not wrong he is the one that in the end plays the major role of making Eliza realize her feelings. So, for as much as I would like to say Epel, I think the dreamer is Ace.

Why the others are present - for chaos. And the Drama.

[satoshi-mochida]

God of War: Ragnarok free DLC ‘Valhalla’ announced

Gematsu Source

Publisher Sony Interactive Entertainment and developer Santa Monica Studio have announced God of War: Ragnarok free downloadable content “Valhalla.” It will launch on December 12.

Here is an overview of the downloadable content, via PlayStation Blog:

(Spoilers for God of War: Ragnarok below)

Journey to Valhalla

God of War Ragnarok: Valhalla will be an epilogue to the events of God of War Ragnarok that follows Kratos on a deeply personal and reflective journey. Set after the decisive battle against Odin and Atreus’ departure, Kratos has seen a path for himself that he never thought possible before. Brought to the mysterious shores of Valhalla accompanied only by Mimir, Kratos will enter its unknown depths to overcome trials within himself and face echoes of his past.

Combat Reimagined

The team here at Santa Monica Studio challenged ourselves to make something different from anything we have done before in God of War history. God of War Ragnarok: Valhalla celebrates the combat you know and love from God of War Ragnarok and blends it with fresh, experimental elements inspired by the roguelite genre. Each attempt in Valhalla will encourage you to master different aspects of Kratos’ arsenal as you face new combinations of enemies and some surprises along the way!

Fight, Learn, Grow

In Valhalla, defeat in combat is not the end of a warrior’s spirit. If Kratos falls, he will reawaken outside the doors ready for the next try. During each attempt, you will learn and adapt to the challenges Valhalla has to offer. The more you overcome, the more resources you’ll gain that can be put towards permanent upgrades that affect both Kratos and even Valhalla itself. Accumulating rewards and knowledge during your attempts will help you get ever closer to discovering the mysteries that await Kratos within.

Master Valhalla, Master Thyself

The shore of Valhalla humbles all those who wish to enter. Kratos must cast off his armor and equipment, and instead build towards both per-attempt and permanent rewards. Kratos will have access to all his weapons and fully-upgraded skill trees at all times, but must commit to a shield and path of Spartan Rage for each attempt. As you overcome the trials of Valhalla and explore its depths, you will make choices between temporary Glyphs for which Stats to upgrade, which Perks to select, which Runic Attacks to wield, and more. Each attempt can play out differently based on the rewards you choose, so keep your strategy in mind when making selections! Wise preparation, adaptability to the challenge at hand, and command of your abilities will be the keys to mastery.

Play in Style

Armor in Valhalla is for appearances only, so don’t hold back when customizing for style! Unlock different looks, then mix and match your favorites between attempts to get Kratos looking fighting fit for all your Photo Mode needs.

Choose your Challenge

God of War Ragnarok: Valhalla has five difficulty settings that have been specially crafted and tuned to the unique gameplay of the downloadable content. Each difficulty setting increases the rewards you’ll gain from battle, and you can swap freely among them between attempts (including to and from the highest difficulty setting, Show Me Mastery). As your skills grow, we encourage you to try out some of the higher difficulties to earn more rewards and test your mastery over Kratos’ arsenal! Between the five options, you will be able to select the level of challenge that is most fun for you. To help further customize your gameplay experience, the downloadable content will continue God of War Ragnarök’s standard for accessibility settings.

Play at Any Time

God of War Ragnarok: Valhalla is a separate experience from God of War Ragnarök, so you don’t need to worry about going in without certain upgrades, equipment, or story progress. If you think the DLC sounds fun, you can jump in at any time! However, if you are concerned about narrative or gameplay spoilers, we do recommend that you finish God of War Ragnarok first as God of War Ragnarok: Valhalla serves as an epilogue to the story of the base game.

A Gift to the Fans

If you own God of War Ragnarok, you will be able to download God of War Ragnarok: Valhalla for free on December 12 at PlayStation Store. On behalf of everyone at Santa Monica Studio, we want to wish everyone a happy holiday and extend our heartfelt gratefulness for the incredible support you’ve shown us over the past year. We truly are fans of our fans, and we hope you enjoy God of War Ragnarök: Valhalla when it comes out next week. We can’t wait for you to play and share your experience with us by using #GodOfWarRagnarokValhalla or #GoWRV on social.

God of War Ragnarok is available now for PlayStation 5 and PlayStation 4.

Watch the announcement trailer below.

Announce Trailer

[demifiendrsa]

God of War Ragnarök: Valhalla - Reveal Trailer

The free "Valhalla" DLC for God of War Ragnarök will launch on December 12, 2023.

Key visual

First details via PlayStation Blog

Journey to Valhalla

God of War Ragnarok: Valhalla will be an epilogue to the events of God of War Ragnarok that follows Kratos on a deeply personal and reflective journey.

Set after the decisive battle against Odin and Atreus’ departure, Kratos has seen a path for himself that he never thought possible before. Brought to the mysterious shores of Valhalla accompanied only by Mimir, Kratos will enter its unknown depths to overcome trials within himself and face echoes of his past.

Combat Reimagined

The team here at Santa Monica Studio challenged ourselves to make something different from anything we have done before in God of War history. God of War Ragnarok: Valhalla celebrates the combat you know and love from God of War Ragnarok and blends it with fresh, experimental elements inspired by the roguelite genre.

Each attempt in Valhalla will encourage you to master different aspects of Kratos’ arsenal as you face new combinations of enemies and some surprises along the way!

Fight, Learn, Grow

In Valhalla, defeat in combat is not the end of a warrior’s spirit. If Kratos falls, he will reawaken outside the doors ready for the next try. During each attempt, you will learn and adapt to the challenges Valhalla has to offer. The more you overcome, the more resources you’ll gain that can be put towards permanent upgrades that affect both Kratos and even Valhalla itself.

Accumulating rewards and knowledge during your attempts will help you get ever closer to discovering the mysteries that await Kratos within.

Master Valhalla, Master Thyself

The shore of Valhalla humbles all those who wish to enter. Kratos must cast off his armor and equipment, and instead build towards both per-attempt and permanent rewards.

Kratos will have access to all his weapons and fully-upgraded skill trees at all times, but must commit to a shield and path of Spartan Rage for each attempt. As you overcome the trials of Valhalla and explore its depths, you will make choices between temporary Glyphs for which Stats to upgrade, which Perks to select, which Runic Attacks to wield, and more. Each attempt can play out differently based on the rewards you choose, so keep your strategy in mind when making selections!

Wise preparation, adaptability to the challenge at hand, and command of your abilities will be the keys to mastery.

Play in Style

Armor in Valhalla is for appearances only, so don’t hold back when customizing for style! Unlock different looks, then mix and match your favorites between attempts to get Kratos looking fighting fit for all your Photo Mode needs.

Choose your Challenge

God of War Ragnarok: Valhalla has five difficulty settings that have been specially crafted and tuned to the unique gameplay of the downloadable content. Each difficulty setting increases the rewards you’ll gain from battle, and you can swap freely among them between attempts (including to and from the highest difficulty setting, Show Me Mastery).

As your skills grow, we encourage you to try out some of the higher difficulties to earn more rewards and test your mastery over Kratos’ arsenal!

Between the five options, you will be able to select the level of challenge that is most fun for you. To help further customize your gameplay experience, the downloadable content will continue God of War Ragnarök’s standard for accessibility settings.

Play at Any Time

God of War Ragnarok: Valhalla is a separate experience from God of War Ragnarök, so you don’t need to worry about going in without certain upgrades, equipment, or story progress. If you think the DLC sounds fun, you can jump in at any time!

However, if you are concerned about narrative or gameplay spoilers, we do recommend that you finish God of War Ragnarok first as God of War Ragnarok: Valhalla serves as an epilogue to the story of the base game.

A Gift to the Fans

If you own God of War Ragnarok, you will be able to download God of War Ragnarok: Valhalla for free on December 12 at PlayStation Store.

On behalf of everyone at Santa Monica Studio, we want to wish everyone a happy holiday and extend our heartfelt gratefulness for the incredible support you’ve shown us over the past year. We truly are fans of our fans, and we hope you enjoy God of War Ragnarök: Valhalla when it comes out next week. We can’t wait for you to play and share your experience with us by using #GodOfWarRagnarokValhalla or #GoWRV on social.

[who-do-i-know-this-man]

PURRGATORY Pt 1/3:

Just today, my submittion, elijah from purrgatory, was eliminated. Beaten by just 1% from 3.5k votes, Elh will be moving on. I shouldn't be terribly upset, as that means people have played purrgatory before and remembered it. What I hate is that nobody has ever talked about it. This was a life-changing game to me, 2nd favorite, and to see nobody singing its praises is disheartening. This post is in remembrance of purrgatory, elijah, and how it effected me.

PART ONE: purrgatory, A GAME BY NIV

music to set the mood

purrgatory is a free-to-play point & click visual novel, created by Niv. Following your death, you're sent to purrgatory, a place between Heaven and Hell, and you're able to pass time in an afterlife where nothing really matters. You can meet and talk to its seven inhabitants, kyungsoon, oliver, numa, sean, elijah, natalie & tori, listen to their stories and try to remember your own. Fur-ever's not so bad, right?

The game was originally created during the "I Can't Draw" game jam, by solo developer Niv. Niv has a tumblr, though is largely inactive. From Niv answering a question about inspiration, "The point-and-click style was definitely inspired by early Flash point-and-click games -- I have to point out Daymare Town in particular just because of how similar the art style is. The story and characters come from my love of slice-of-life character-based narratives like Night in the Woods and Undertale. I've also always had a fascination with mazes and wanted to make a game where people just sort of live and hang out in a maze." I'll be talking about the general story, characters, art, and music, while avoiding major spoilers as much as possible. Go ahead and play purrgatory before or after I'm done with this thing, all that matters is you played it. I played through both major endings while inspecting everything, and beat it after 6 hours.

from left to right- natalie, kyungsoon, elijah, charon, sean, oliver, tori, numa

The gameplay of purrgatory revolves around exploring the labyrinth of purrgatory, talking to its inhabitants, and uncovering what led both them and you here. Nearly everything is inspectable, so click everything you see, and you'll most likely be treated to something humorous. This game loves puns, as the title suggests, and you'll be the one making them whether you like it or not. Every character drawing is traced multiple times over, to create a nice wiggling effect. purrgatory is devoid of color, the residents colors the only ones you'll see.

purrgatory is giant, boasting 80 different screens, and you will have to go through each one at some point. It's easy to get lost here, but muscle memory will guide you. You will first meet charon, the River Styx receptionist. Your interaction is brief, but she'll hand you your form to fill, a one-way trip to purrgatory. After you enter your name and select custom pronouns, she'll mention you're the eighth, "over capacity." You'll be directed to enter the portal and have a chance to ask a question, from, "who am i?", "where am i?" and "who are you?" After this, your only choice is to enter the portal to purrgatory.

From here, you'll meet kyungsoon the hyena, a cat, and oliver the mouse in the library. As you explore past the starting area, you'll find numa the snail in the flower garden, sean the snake and elijah the pangolin in the writing corner, natalie the moth in the apartment, and tori the owl in the station. Each has their reason for being here, and it's up to you to help them. The personalities of these people are what make this game, as each is written realistically and sympathetically. numa is meek and has trouble controlling her emotions, sean died during his happiest days and considers most of his life wasted, and kyungsoon was slothful during her life and never exerted her efforts anywhere. These are all things they tell you as you help them with what little goals they create for themselves in purrgatory.

Despite the heavy subject matter, purrgatory is inserted with lots of funny scenes and dialogue from every character. kyungsoon will make sarcastic remarks at your expense while not showing any strong emotion, sean has a sense of humor entwined with lots of internet and ruanch, and numa has many intense scenes of frustration that got me many times. Speaking of the characters, purrgatory consists of a largely LGBT+ cast! From Niv, "Don’t worry about misinterpreting! Every story is a collaboration between creator and reader, after all, so I expect nothing less than people creating their own headcanons. That being said, in MY head, numa and kyungsoon are lesbians, sean is gay, oliver and tori are bi, natalie is aroace, and kyungsoon is of course trans..."

On music and art: purrgatory has a wonderful soundtrack and sound design! With the low-effort look of the world, the music pairs excellently to the areas and scenes, my favorites being "the warehouse" and "lights out." There are special tracks in there as well, like a rendition of "Fly Me to the Moon" done with meows and a song composed by sean (do not look this up, will spoil). Exploring purrgatory, you'll find the various characters in many activities, such as standing around, sleeping, and laying on the floor. Every character not-still conveys so much emotion, despite looking like this:

There are a few endings, but only two major ones, which I will call "ghost end" and "feline fine." ghost end is the worst ending. While you were in purrgatory, you did not get to know anyone there, and yet for some reason, you're spared. This is the first ending I got. feline fine is the good ending. You remembered your past and helped everyone, and through comradery, found color.

"purrgatory" is an amazing game, which I wholeheartedly recommend. It's free on Steam right now. Please play it. My favorite character was elijah :3

I applaud the dedication, and I very much hope that people are convinced to check the game out. I know I'm definitely going to read through this more thoroughly later and maybe check out the game.

[celestialpaperhaze]

I'm not sure if this is a consistent thing across RPGs, but I've noticed Paper Mario games have a bit of a pattern in terms of plot progression. I can't speak much on PM64 because I never played it in its entirety, but both TTYD and SPM seem to pick up on or around chapter 6.

SPM and TTYD SPOILERS BELOW!

Don't get me wrong, TTYD has a pretty solid plot progression throughout the entire game, for the most part (which some have said SPM is lacking). I think the earlier chapters of TTYD just end up splitting their attention between the overall plot and the designated chapter subplots more. Chapter 1 has Koops trying to find his dad alongside Mario searching for the first Crystal Star. Chapter 2 is as much about helping the Punies as it is about beating the X-Nauts. Chapter 3 places a lot of focus on solving the mystery of the Glitz Pit (which I do think is one of its core strengths; you're in a relatively small area which allows the plot to build itself in a more localized environment). Chapter 4 is about saving the people of Twilight Town from the pig curse, and it also has Vivian's sub-plot of freeing herself from her sisters. But Chapter 5 starts to change this trend a little bit because you literally have Lord Crump with you the entire time, and the big threat essentially returns.

So why is it that I think Chapter 6 is the turning point of The Thousand-Year Door? Something about it just feels FINAL. And indeed, chapter 6 is the last sort of whimsical chapter in the game before the plot focuses solely on the threat at hand. By the time you reach Poshley Sanctum, the majestic atmosphere of the hall with the real Crystal Star makes you feel like "wow this is really an important thing." That gravity is followed up by the post-chapter Peach interlude where Tec is caught betraying Grodus, which interrupts the narrative flow of "Peach helps Tec > Tec lets Peach send mail > Peach goes back to room." It makes the player realize the routine comforts of the game are being taken away, and it makes the threat feel more palpable. For most of Chapter 7, the stakes feel high solely because you're exploring the enemy's base, something you've only seen in bits and pieces through Peach's interludes. The way the momentum just carries itself from the end of Chapter 6 all the way through the end of the game is just brilliant!

Now with SPM, a lot of people have argued that the plot just doesn't get GOOD until chapter 5. And I can understand that, to be honest. Chapter 1 is very much a tutorial section to get you used to the gameplay, then the next few chapters kind of fall into a pattern. Around chapter 5, it starts to feel more like Paper Mario because the conflict between the Cragnons and the Floro Sapiens has more intrigue to it then some of the subplots in other chapters. But mostly, it's chapter 6 where things start to change because this is where Super's narrative flow gets interrupted. A little ways through the chapter, the world you're exploring is erased. Instead of "Explore world > bosses > get thing > end chapter" you have "Explore world > world is destroyed > look for thing > thing is not right > how to fix thing" and so on. This ups the stakes because not only are you being shaken from the comfort of the game's established routine, but you're also faced with the main threat of the game directly. You're seeing what The Void can do, and what it WILL do it you don't stop it.

I feel like SPM fails a little bit in one regard, which is the momentum. I'm totally biased because I don't really enjoy chapter 7, but I feel like chapter 7 is a bit of a pause in the momentum that chapter 6 created. You don't really see any of Bleck's minions, though you do get Luigi so I guess that's a plus. Whereas in TTYD, when the momentum picks up, it just keeps going. Regardless, I love both games.

[everythingblreview]

Friendly lab- unlock ()- Review (and walkthrough)

Friendly lab was one of the bl games I was looking forward the most since announcement, not only because I like the art-style but also because it’s by Tennenouji and I love Tennenouji. It was first release for mobile and now finally for PC too, unlike the mobile version the PC version is R18+ I only played the PC version because I don’t like mobile games, so everything that’s mobile only content only, won’t be discussed here.

The first part of the review will be spoiler-free and will include a walkthrough (kinda) and general help, as well as an explanation of the game since it’s rather complex. The second part will be me pretty much explaining everything that happened in the ending and how I feel about it. So let’s start~

This is as R18+ as it gets

Story and gameplay.

The gameplay is very simple to explain, you are doing “friendly” experiences on the 2 subject Nishi (left) and Higashi (right). Both wake up together in an empty room and don’t have any memory who they are and how they got here, all they know they are stuck together in a room and someone (in this case you) are performing experiences on them. As you continue to play the two test subjects will remember more and more about their life. As you proceed you will find more and more keywords to their past. The goal here is to collect them all and unlock their memories in the span of 10 day. They are always in that room, the game’s text is only the dialogue of these two characters, there is no BMG since some of the experiments have music in them and there is also no voice acting (so you don’t hear them speak). Which sound maybe boring for some people, but I thought it was really interesting to play, partly because both characters are really well written and developed and you just enjoy spending time with them and learning about their past. The closer you get to the end of the 10 days the more intense the story gets and the more on edge you are, wondering what will happen next. The game goes from light-hearted and fun to dark and heavy in the span of the 10 days. Even if the experiences are considered “friendly” it doesn’t mean that their memories are too. There is some heavy stuff in the game which some may find disturbing and hard to swallow. So general warning here. I played all 10 day glued to my seat and ended it with pain in my heart, it hurts a lot but it was really good written.

Characters

For once I would like to mention that their names are translated in the English version, so Nishi is “West” and Higashi “East”, I’m not sure why they did it, sure that what their name means in Japanese, but I don’t see a reason to translate it. Since I played the Japanese version, I will use their Japanese names.

Nishi

Nishi always talks in polite Japanese, he looks kinda shady (according to the creator, which is true lol) but he is very kind, especially to Higashi. And from the very beginning it’s very obvious how deeply in love Nishi is with Higashi, he always comments how great Higashi is and how he loves to see Higashi make x face (basically every facial expression of Higashi) the more you play the more horny his comments get (lol). Despite being extremely horny for Higashi he has full control of himself and doesn’t do anything Higashi doesn’t want, he cherishes Higashi a lot and would always help him and even gives him his food, just to see him happy. He is very smart and loves to tell Higashi all kinds of random facts. Nishi is always smiling, and his sprite is always looking to the side so it looks like he is smiling at Higashi (hehe so cute). Normally I’m not into the polite type, but I love Nishi a lot, he is just so funny and cute and loves Higashi so much.

Higashi

Don’t get deceived by his cute face, he has a body builder body and would probably crush you in 0.2 seconds, but despite that Higashi is really cute, he has a somewhat childish attitude and loves aliens, he loves to play games and he draws if he feels like it (you can get him to draw pictures for you). Higashi doesn’t understand Nishi’s obvious flirting, he understands what Nishi is saying but he always thinks that since they are both boys it can’t be that Nishi is meaning it in such a way, but he enjoys being with Nishi and doing things with him. It's very obvious that he has some kind of trauma from his past and he often panics if he sees certain things, with Nishi always being there to comfort him. I love Higashi as much as Nishi, he is adorable and has a very cute happy smile, his past is very tragic and it hurt seeing him suffer so much, so I want him and Nishi just to be happy together.

Art & Music

As said before there is no music lol, but there is an opening which I really like.

The Cgs are drawn by queen Yura and are rather dark and lack colour, they have a very depressive vibe similar to some of the one in luckydog1+ bad egg, which I really really like. They fit the dark atmosphere of the game very well. There are some really cute CGs for Higashi and Nishi, but also a lot of disturbing CGs that are even hard to look at. Yura really did a fantastic job as always.

Short conclusion

Yes, the game is great, yes please play it and suffer with me. But if you can’t stand dark, heavy themes and see gore then I don’t recommend it, this is NOT a game for anyone who just wants to see some fluffy BL moments and cute romance, and also NOT a game for people who just want to see sex. There are, of course H-scenes in the game but, I can’t really say if watching them would make you happy. But if you’re fine with going through pain and suffer then I fully recommend it. 👍

Walkthrough and Gameplay explanation

(Short disclaimer, I don’t know how these things will be called in the English version, I just choose what I think fits best)

So, the main game is basically to find all the keywords in time before the 10 days are over. To unlock them you have to fill them out, like this

You have to do experiment to find hints for the keywords. You can find keywords in the experiences that don’t have this symbol:

You can select what experiments you want to do from these possibilities:

From left to right: Spying, Meal, Special things, Incidents, Amusement, water thingy (will be unlocked if you ask questions), question, pictures (bath and sleep) are not important The most important part are Spying - Amusement and the pictures tab You have to choose Spying basically every second time. While you can get hints in the experiments only the spying option will unlock the keywords.  You don’t have to do all that the game offers you on the day but around 80% of the Spying part since you can’t watch them on the next day like with the experiments.

Important is also for Higashi to draw you pictures to unlock certain ends.

Another things which is important to get some cute Cgs between Higashi and Nishi is the “intimacy %”

Fill it up to 100% before the day is over and you get some nice CGs (The day starts at 7:30 and ends at midnight when its bed time, at 6 p.m, it’s bath time until 6:30)

You also have the option to ask them question, this is more important for other ends than for the main endings. They sometimes will request things, if you fulfill their request in time, you can choice if you want some “happy gas” or “café au lait”. Give them several of one of these things and see what will happen. (You can only give them “happy gas” while they sleep, the café au lait is the “special things” tab at the very bottom)

There is also this water thing you have to fill to see “birth” fill it out if you have time and see what happens.

I recommend you to do reach one end no matter which, because the game will unlock a hint mode once you reach an end that can be used to get all ending in the game once you unlock hint mode for end 3 and finish it you can unlock hint mode for end 5, both helpful to complete the game.

Also another important thing: YOU CANT SAVE (meaning you have to restart from day 1 if you want to do different endings

General walkthrough (I stole it from the Japanese wiki lol)

Ending 1:  Follow hint mode for ending 3, don’t do 4-5 experiments that have keywords on the 10th day (I tried to get this end 2 times but failed, but apparently its an end that happens if you fail to collect all keyword in a specific way? But it’s not that important)

Ending 2: Follow the hint mode for ending 3 and choose to tell the true in the end.

Ending 3: Follow the hint mode for ending 3 and choose not to tell the true in the end. (you can get this end even without having to choose in the end)

Ending 4: finish end 3, follow hint mode for ending 3 and full the water thingy, the difference will happen after the ending 3.

Ending 5: Follow hint mode for ending 5 and do the the 5th black square experience.

Ending 6: Follow hint mode for ending 5 and do the the 5th black square experience but before you have to upload your game to version 1.5 or 1.6, you can do this by asking them question. (apparently the question with (↑) help with this but I not really sure because I also asked them just random question and it still worked. But you have to ask them a lot of question for it to work)

Ending 7: Follow hint mode for ending 3, use the “happy gas” 8 times (I don’t know if I recommend this end first or not, maybe it better to finish that in the beginning if you want to at least to enjoy the H-scenes? But you will be left with question, so keep that in mind)

Ending 8: Follow hint mode for ending 5, use the café au lait 8 times and give the 9th to Higashi, you also need to do the “a lump of ??? experiment.

Ending 9: Use the café au lait 8 times and give the 9th to Nishi, you also need to do the “a lump of ??? experiment, you need to finish ending 4

Ending 10: Follow hint mode for ending 5, do all the experiments with (★) in it, do as many experiments that raise the intimacy level as much as possible. (The one with the pink hand symbol)

Warning: If you want to play the game yourself don’t read the next part, the memory of the characters is the most important part of the game and the reason why its so interesting to play, I will talk about everything what happened in the game, only continue if you don’t plan on playing or really don’t care.

Ready?

Ok

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I will spoil it all, okay?

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Story

Before I played the game myself, I watched some videos of the mobile version online and really enjoyed it. It was fun to watch the characters react and although I heard form Japanese player that the game is sad, but I didn’t expect it to be, no not even bitter-sweet but a full on tragedy with no real happy end for neither of it’s characters.

Let me tell you in summary what things the memories of Higashi and Nishi will reveal. I don’t remember every single details since the memories are told in a not chronical order but I try.

In the game you mostly looking for Higashi’s memory because surprise Nishi remembers everything (explains why he has such an obvious crush in Higashi). The story basically start when Higashi was in elementary school his parents divorced and he chose to life with his mother, because Higashi really loves his mother a lot. In the first day of the experiments Higashi wants to escape so he can meet his mother again, but later we find out that his mother was actually murdered, of course Higashi wants to know why and who did it. But before the murder took place, his mother had a boyfriend after she separated from Higashi’s father, who was really controlling of her and abusing of Higashi (like with beating and all). Through the experiments we learn that Higashi was apparently tortured by various things like, burning his feet or giving him piss to drink. Baby Higashi had not a lot of friends in school and often was scared to go home. He even mentioned how a perfect day for him is a day when nothing bad happens. Because if his heavy trauma he has nightmares that he often draws pictures of (these are really scary to look at).   After Higashi remember that his murder was killed, he remembers how; she was poisoned by someone, someone who gave Higashi a present his mother eat and this was what had killed her. There is another important thing Higashi’s remembers that he had an important person who ones went to a summer firework festival. After Higashi came back from this summer festival his mother’s boyfriend got so mad and beat Higashi so extreme that this poor boy was in the hospital for 2 MONTHS ((T⌓T)), after release he was put in the children care center for one month but returned home later because he couldn’t leave his mother alone who was really bad at doing everything according to Higashi. His mother’s boyfriend was actually put in jail for that, which took place in the 6th year of elementary school, his mother was killed when he was in the 2nd year in middle school. All memories he had were only until the day his mother died, everything after was still in the dark.

So now to the important question, what about Nishi? What roles does he play? Well turns out Nishi and Higashi actually knew each other before, not only knew but they were actually best friend (༶ඬ༝ඬ༶) who played together all the time after Nishi moved to Higashi’s city. Nishi’s mother had a terrible accident that lead to her being heavy injured and even killed Nishi’s unborn sister, they moved to a bigger city to care for her, Nishi’ father is a man who works with Chinese medicine, I think? Nishi went to a different elementary school than Higashi but these two still spent a lot of time together. Nishi didn’t really go to middle school because he was always helping his father with work, who was home rarely. More important, Nishi was the one who Higashi went to the firework festival with (there is this really cute picture he draws of them as babies watching the fireworks (ಥ﹏ಥ)), and not only that but he actually lived a whole month with Nishi and his mother, after the abuse thing with his mother’s boyfriend.

On the 8th night (I think) before the go to sleep, Nishi tell Higashi he has something important to tell, and then he tell him how he was the one who actually killed his mother (Σ(°ロ°)) he used a toxic flower covered with chocolate which he knew his mother would eat because HE HAD GIVEN HER POISEN FOR THE PAST 3 YEARS (now that’s a twist… apparently she was sick in some way anyways so no one had noticed it before). Higashi flips and starts to strangle Nishi asking why he would do that but Nishi wants him first to remember everything, (Also, important to note that Higashi even though he is smaller, he is stronger than Nishi) so he stops and says that he doesn’t hate Nishi because he promised never to hate anyone ever again, he just feels very sad and wants to know why he did it. The following day Higashi remembers even more time he had spent with Nishi, but also remembers that Nishi’s mother actually died later which he really feels sad about because he really liked her a lot and wanted to meet her again. At night he once again starts to strangle Nishi wanting the reason for his mother’s death but stops because he gets some really weird flashbacks of Nishi.

On the last day you collect the last memories of Higashi and get more pictures from him (which play an important role actually). Higashi also remembers that he got a call right after he saw his mother die. Once the day is over Nishi and Higashi sit down to reveal the final missing puzzle. Everything from here was hard to swallow. It was Higashi’s mother’s birthday and Nishi gave Higashi the poisonous flower which he gave to his mother, which she ate and died. Shocked, Higashi gets a call from his Nishi with Nishi telling him that he was the one who killed her, Higashi is shocked and Nishi tells him to come over to his house so he can explain why. Hiagshi rushes over completely angry at him and attacks him, Nishi tell him that he want to listen to his last request but Higashi completely flips and starts to strangle Nishi until blood starts to drip from his eyes and mouth…………Higashi actually killed Nishi in that moment, he really died and Higashi remembers it now, the worst part is that Nishi knew it, he knew Higashi would kill him for it and he actually dug a hole in his garden so HIGASHI COULD BURY HIM(……I have no words). Nishsi actually left him a letter telling what to do once he killed him, but this is where it gets even worse, once Higashi realized he killed his best friend he completely loses it and begins to hit his head against something (don’t remember what exactly) until he CRUSHES HIS HEAD AND DIES. He literally committed suicide right there on spot, he died, Nishi died, they have been dead the whole time, that’s why Higashi couldn’t remember more because there was never a future to begin with. There were only 14 years old…. o(TヘTo) Hello darkness my old friend~

Nishi didn’t know that Higashi, too died on that day and is shocked to find it out. Once all of this is out you can choose if you want to tell Higashi the true or not

-If you don’t: Nishi will tell Higashi that he killed his mother because he wanted to free Higashi from her, because as long as she lived Higashi has to care for her and never can live the life he wanted. Then Nishi tells him since he now told Higashi everything, Higashi is free to kill him, but Higashi tells him that he won’t and that he still wants them to be best friends. The only question remains, if they died when they were 14, how are they alive, why do they look older now? (around 18, 19 ) Well, this question will probably never be answered, there is no full explanation who is behind this all, why are they alive, or are they even alive? It ends how it started with them in the room together.  (this is the end 3)

-If you do tell the true: Higashi will get a card and the only thing written on it is “Your mother abused you”, Yes Higashi’s mother was behind Higashi’s abuse, she did these horrible things to him not only her boyfriend, she burned his feet so he couldn’t go to school, she fed him rotten food and the piss. That’s the true reason Nishi killed her, because she abuse Higashi, but Higashi was so manipulated by her abuse that he still loved her. Once Higashi reads that he begins to remember, from the picture he drew what his mother did to him (that’s why they were important) but this is too much for him that he dies right in Nishi’s arm. Nishi follows right after. It seems Nishi knows that they can both died from that and the game hints that this experiment is constantly repeated, so they live and die in a circle. (ending 2)

Ending 2 & 3 are both like the true endings, yes this is all you get utter depression. I can’t with Nishi, he knew Higashi would kill him and yet he still couldn’t see him suffer from abuse, despite knowing the whole time he was dead he never was mad at Higashi ever he always looked at him with the most loving eyes, the love he had for Higashi was tragic, that ended in a tragedy for both of them. I can’t even be mad at Nishi or Higashi, I fully understand Nishi’s reasons and how can you be mad at Higashi for killing him when Nishi himself isn’t. Higashi was only a victim of abuse which led to all of this. If you finish the ending 3 you can read the letter Nishi wrote him before his death in the game start menu. In it it’s says how Nishi wants him to bury him in the garden and that he should go to the police after and how he saved money for Higashi so he can survive alone and there rest I will maybe know some day if I can stop crying while reading the letter………………….

Also you don’t get any H-scenes not even a kiss, this is just a full on depression game. Yet I’m still fine with it, it was a beautiful written tragedy, I just wanted them to be happy (╥﹏╥)

Ending 1: Like said I never did it because I couldn’t get it for some reason, but it’s a fail end where you fail to find all of Higashi memories and Higashi doesn’t remember killing Nishi or dying himself and Nishi doesn’t know he died (is what Japanese people told me).

Ending 4: Its basically ends with ending 3 and then you see Higashi and Nishi being reborn in some tank or some shit? Is it a hint that they were born in a labor and they only have memories from their previous life? I don’t know…You can only get this end once.

Ending 5: The black square will swallow Nishi and cut off his bottom part and he dies in Higashi’s arm. (very bloody end)

Ending 6: Same experiment as for ending 5, but this time they can pass through the square and leave the room only to end up in?? good question, it looks like outside but there is no other person also a piece of meat falls from heaven…okay?

Ending 7: The horny end lol. You have to give them the “happy gas” and Higashi gets high and horny and starts to make out with Nishi in the first night and they gradually make more nsfw things which ends with sex at the 8th time. This is the only way to get anything sexual between them, yes by drugging. The sex scene was WILD, Nishi tells Higashi that he needs to tell him thanks you for killing his mother or he won’t do xxx so he does while they go for it….eh ok. This feels even weirder if you know that they are both dead.

Ending 8: Higashi gets high from coffee and thinks he is eating his mother’s sandwich but he is actually eating Nishi’s hand….. Nishi is just fine with it (Okay Nishi you big simp)

Ending 9: Nishi gets high and remembers things he shouldn’t so the experiment is just stops?

Ending 10: Jeez, this one was the worst x.x If you raise their intimacy level really high, at night when they supposed to go to bed they let this giant man in the room ( I think it's Higashi’s mother’s ex?) and HE BEGINS TO HIT HIGASHI AND NISHI AND RAPES HIGASHI, Nishi and Higashi then try to kill him and somehow made it. It ends with Higashi crawling naked to Nishi who was laying on the floor completely covered in blood, saying that he only needs Nishi………………………………………………… WHY DO YOU GET THAT FOR RAISING THEIR AFFECTION TENNENOUJI WHYYY.

*cough* Anyway thanks for reading me suffer if you made it to the part, I’m gonna go be depressed and pray that the next BL game doesn’t rip my heart out like this did  (￣ ￣|||)

[ar3s-r4t-qu33n]

Some Nebulous Slaughter Family (Game) Headcanons of Mine:

SLIGHT spoilers for Museum Mode, especially the ending

Drayton is actually a good cook. I know in the second film it's canonical, but until we get Choptop, I'm saying that he's REALLY good, I'm talking fully seasoned, he does a variety of different techniques to cook or do certain things, he can make pastry, he can make bread, he can do it all as long as there's meat involved

Nancy, on the other hand, would boil an arm and serve it, bright white gross flesh with no seasoning and a few boiled vegetables and call it a balanced meal (my friend @soggymari and I actually had this discussion whilst playing one time so I kinda owe this one to her-)

Hence why the whole family tries their best to convince her to let Drayton do the cooking-

Thanksgiving at the Slaughter House would be ELITE, probably the only time of year that the family get along (they basically perpetually live in stress, so a typically stressful occasion for most American families (I assume, from across the ocean) is actually quite chill for them so long as everyone stays out of the kitchen unless called for and let's Drayton cook), Nancy makes a dessert and it's actually quite good, the cousins all come over and they like, have an extension for the dining table so they can all fit somehow, they probably don't have to hunt anyone down or have any interruptions because everyone else is with their families, idk, I imagine it's actually kinda cosy

I've said this before on TikTok and it was a clip in my lil edit I posted recently sort of inexplicably, but I personally think that the Luggage Room upstairs in the Family House used to be Sissy's bedroom. One of my lil issues with the Family House is that Drayton, Nubbins and Grandpa have a bedroom each, but Bubba and Sissy don't. Bubba obviously sleeps in the basement now, but I imagine that the study was once his room, and Drayton converted it once Bubba started staying downstairs. As for Sissy, I think she had the Luggage Room, and the reason it's in such bad shape is because either Drayton, Johnny, Nubbins, Bubba or perhaps all of them at different points fucking tore it to shreds when she ran away, angry and betrayed from her leaving them. I have more reasons for thinking this, going from "it's one of the only rooms in the house with a poison station, duh" to "the shadowy birds outside the room symbolise Sissy's desire to be free, but she'll always have to live in shadows or away from normal people because she's a Slaughter; she will always be alienated from them" so... I can talk more about that some other time-

I've seen a lot of people saying that you can see the Family House from Nancy's, and like, MAYBE?? But if you look at the house next door from her front garden, and then go down to outside Johnny's Shack... They're basically in the same spot, and that house next door is DEFINITELY not the Family House

However, I also think that the Valve Exit on Family House (i know that Museum Mode doesn't have the valve exit, so canonically speaking, it's likely just a fence there) leads directly to the Car Battery exit on Nancy's House, and Johnny walks through the woods up the hill to come see the others

I have made three separate family trees for this family of how I personally think they might be related. I know part of the point is that we don't know and will never know HOW they're a family, only that they ARE a family, blood relation be damned, if you're family, you're family. But these are MY Headcanons, I get to decide how these people are related-

The reason Nubbins' room is so big is because he used to share it with his twin brother before he went to Vietnam, hence the spare mattress in there in Museum Mode (it might also be in there in the regular gameplay, I can't remember rn and I'm not booting up a private match to check rn)

Sissy gives Bubba her old makeup

Johnny is actually very thoughtful; he brings back little souvenirs from his trips with Uncle Hands (like the Phlugerville sticker he gave Bubba for his chainsaw) and used to bring a little something back for everyone, even Drayton. He's stopped doing that as of late.

Harold was Nancy's first and most beloved husband. She only killed him because she felt like he was the reason she couldn't have a baby, and wanted that more than anything in the world, and though she has kept all three of them in the Man Cave and is fond of all three, Harold is her favourite because she actually loved him and married him when she was young, and was meant to have a long life with him and their children.

Hands' hammer introduces a new brand to the world of the game, Pearls, and I like to think it's a reference to Pearl by Ti West because I'm delusional ♥️

The second Johnny and especially Grandpa declared Maria "safe" from being dinner, Bubba became as fiercely protective of her as he is the rest of his family. I think he was really sweet to her and took care of her in the basement, and if he saw the Victims trying to help her escape, he would fucking saw them down as brutally as if he saw someone trying to hurt his family (as seen in Museum Mode's ending)

I have way more than this but I could literally talk about the Slaughter Family for hours 😅 I fucking love them so much, man, they're so interesting and all of their dynamics are so deep and qodkkekwoeb I love them smmmmmmmm

[narwhalandchill]

anyway tho like. overall (SPOILER FREE!!) natlan first impressions over last week in no particular order for me bc i felt like it sooooo

Firstly: the environments are absolutely insane like. i love the vibrancy they brought into it and the striking distinct sceneries between the three main regions (tho lowkey any water region post-fontaine is... unfortunate for basically feeling like its lacking a layer w/o diving) that rly make them feel unique!! like i havent explored an insane amount but a decent bit nonetheless and i think as much as i Liked fontaine the aboveground environments there just werent that unique which like. kinda couldnt be helped given the geographic inspirations like it was good and v beautiful in its own way but more like. mondstadt premium french steampunk edition if that makes sense. whereas natlan is already striking such a distinct image for itself and thats just great

also loving all the kinds of living creatures going about everywhere like not even accounting for the saurians genshins rly come so far from the early days of barely any non-monster creature anywhere (mondstadt cavalry but no horses moment) and i love all the creatures sm 💕💕 Especially all the surprise chests theyve incorporated into tiny interactions with the animals like it just feels v fresh and immersive. theyve rly nailed the feeling of making the natural environment feel lived in its so nice

the music is also just. knocking it out of the park like ive had to pause on multiple occasions just to listen bc holy shit its good 😭😭😭 and this is also sth i think compares to fontaine bc. i mean as much as of a cringe moment the whole "wow YPC left and now fontaine music is mid its over" tantrum was (ESPECIALLY once remuria dropped like 💀💀💀 that was just gloating . A whole music based region and culture????? ya we get it) buuut. now w natlan. i do have to admit that fontaine does suffer from some of its environmental soundtracks not being as distinctly memorable as previous nations and now natlan as well . obviously fontaine has its shiver-worthy standouts but its interesting that most of those for me are bc of their use in the AQ and that association . whereas natlans been jumpscaring me left and right on the first listen lmao . anyway to be clear the point is not me hating on fontaine music for lacking impact (but never polish or quality) in some tracks just that hoyomix in natlan is delivering some insanely good stuff rn jsjskskskakdkdk

next. SAURIANS. hoyo. Hoyo . WHY DO WE HAVE TO KILL THEM????????!??? HELLO????@?

ITS SO AWFUL I FEEL LIKE A MONSTER 😭😭😭😭😭 like the small ones?????? The whelps WHIMPERING?????? id rather you punched me in the face this is horrible 😭😭 like you rly saw all the complaints about killing the cute sea creatures in fontaine being too cruel and we dont want that and went bet 💀💀💀 why do i have to wear the skin of a baby saurians mom to murder the kids its so. This is terrible why would you do thisss. id rather merk 7848 seals in Fontaine than hurt a single saurian its so badd

But uhhhhh yeah saurians are great, i rly rly love their goofy animations and how much personality each kind exudes theyre just . Lovable shaped and all i just wish they didnt. Make them THE abundant overworld enemy we need for mats 💀💀💀

In all seriousness tho gameplay wise i really like how the saurians kinda bridge the gap between the older 1.x-2.x exploration where it was really mostly just you with your characters not that many exploration mechanics to boost mobility and traversal at all and then the 3.x era and afterwards where there are all forms of assistance from things like the dendro anchors and chenyu vale mechanics and everything bc. as much as the mobility boosts are nice they kinda had the risk of taking you Out of the exploration so it just turns into a zoom around with gadgets mini game ya know???? But i think w the saurians its a lot more balanced bc. youre still playing As a specific character with their own movement and controls not just getting warped from 1 location to another as a hydro bubble and thats rly rly nice. tho i have to say the koholasaur controls are kinda ass compared to the other 2 lmao . like ig its just post fontaine problems where we Already Got flawless underwater movement so its just. not the saurian alone but the water environments themselves just being ehhh without that added... depth (haha) there??

anyway unfortunately tho on a more negative note wrt the characters im still very uhhhh. mixed on the very modern design direction taken for the playable units and the overall lack of cohesion between a lot of them like. yes natlan is its own thing with different tribes and it should stand out but something about it just takes it a bit too far for suspension of disbelief . the three 5.0 characters i think look overall good and work well enough, but then theres designs like chasca and mavuika where its just . Ehhhh.

like chasca in particular (and im sorry in advance for never letting you unsee this either) i havent been able to stop thinking about a comment i saw about how like. her makeup is WAY too detailed and intense for genshins facial models and makes her face look really weird and just kind of like a bratz doll? compared to the rest of the cast like its really this borderline "yassified" parody of a heavy makeup look that just. Doesnt look natural nor fit in with the rest of genshins characters roster and she just looks off its . Weird. like obviously ik theres a lot of v intense hate going on for her design to the point where its actively hurtful to those who like her and idt thats good at all but this is kinda why her model has such issues for me. and the mess of an outfit doesnt help with the uncanny face stuff either lmao

mavuika is more of an outfit problem honestly like. her hair is good the eyes are amazing the color scheme is great & love the sun motifs and her hair accessory but i just. a biker????? Huh? and not even a particularly good looking biker design its literally just a plain bodysuit design without the usual detailing and dangly things to make it look better from the back that theyve usually done w bodysuit type charas (think shenhe) its just this. uncomfortable looking sausage casing of a disaster garment and that zipper is just.... not it 💀💀💀 like. it doesnt look completely awful if i dont actively think about it so its like whatever but i wish she was given sth a bit different. also ffs i hope she doesnt get ACTUAL motorbike animations like the memes are funny yeah but. thats too much for me sorry thats hsr and zzz stuff . like its just. The overt modernity in natlan isnt doing it for me very much 😔😔

But oh well i hope ill warm up to the cast over time. beyond mby chasca its not like i hate-hate the look of anyone to the point where its off putting its just a Bit of a mixed feeling for now. kinich and citlali are easily my favorites from the revealed designs tho and i do actually like xilonen as well (& kachina is baby) . n like to be fair maybe its just not my style this time around - fontaine was Really catering to me personally with the designs there bc i love ruffles and lolita style inspirations and more historical fashion references and uniform-like elements for garments so a lot of designs were just hook line and sinker for me personally lmao . but ig that does make it very fucking predictable that my favorite design in natlans cast so far is Easily capitano even tho he kinda doesnt count bc i just fucking love goth historical military uniform aesthetics so much its embarrassing 😭😭😭 dont ask me how many times ive rewatched The cutscene just to watch the way his garments shift around as he moves at the beginning its...........

iiii dont think im gonna comment on the WQs yet? since its bit of a spoilery territory and im far from done w all of them but ive really liked the ones ive done so far!!! And hmm what else

OH THE REPUTATIONS. So first RIP weekly bounties and requests past max reputation for 150k weekly free mora that was such an unnecessary change hoyo what the fuck.

BUT. i have to say. Absolutely LOVE how the reputations are now distributed among the tribes and how much more lived in the entire nation feels compared to p much. ANY previous one by having multiple settlements and communities that all get their own quests and narratives like. yes its a natlan thing bc it has the 6 tribes but i RLY wish theyll keep some version of this system for snezhnaya too bc like. Especially with the story quest incorporation into the tribal chronicles chain its just??? Such an organic way to tie a playable character INTO their environment and community in a way thats been a major failing in a lot of older SQs before like its just. genius

anyway point being. just Imagine playable tonia happening except theres also some sort of morepesok reputation questline and system like??? Actually featuring the village and its people AND childes entire family fr fr in their own storyline in a voiced capacity?? Please itd be so good 😭😭😭😭

but yeah i love the tribal chronicles approach so much its like the perfect marriage between world quests and story quests and reputation like chef kiss truly. and also new bounty and request QoL is great.

Also no spoilers but man doing the first parts of the scions of the canopy quest.... yeah i was in fucking tears . If you know you know.

aaaand i think thats it for now ??? Overall been having a great time, not pulling for anyone in 5.0 on my main, maybe kinich on my alt but cant guarantee him there . i think ill get xilonen and then mavuika for sure bc obvious archon (unless shes an on fielder HSJSKSOEKDIEI) but the big lookout is still chioris rerun lmao. xilonen and her at the same time would be ideal thanks xx

hope its been fun for yall too o777

[sukimas]

A Spoiler-Free Guide for Fire Emblem: Genealogy of the Holy War

With a short introduction, mechanics, and notable sticky situations.

(A PDF version of this guide is available upon request.)

Fire Emblem: Genealogy of the Holy War is a SRPG (Simulation RPG) for the Super Famicom, released in 1996. You have likely arrived at this guide either because someone has recommended it to you or because, far in the future after I have written this, a remake of it has released and you want to go back and play the original to see what has changed and what hasn't. Either way, you were likely inspired to play it from its strong story- rumored or experienced- and aren't too clear on what the mechanics of it are. Maybe you've played a number of Fire Emblem games, but are nervous about this one due to its reputation as an odd duck. Maybe you've never touched a SRPG before, and have a very excited Jugdral fan of a friend shepherding you into playing it. Either way, this guide is for you.

This guide will attempt to avoid spoiling any story events, but for those who mind gameplay spoilers, it is organized in ascending order of how obscure each gameplay feature is to stumble upon- the last two sections (Sticky Situations and Secret Events) in particular are not usually encountered by an unspoiled first-time player. Nevertheless, I highly recommend at least reading up to the fourth to last section, "Recruitments"; it contains no identifying character information besides time of encounter and class, and you will likely reach no end of frustration attempting some of them without foreknowledge (or some very good guesses). NOTE: List of Conversations (Section 8b) does contain spoilers for recruitable characters. Peruse that section with caution if you do read past the Recruitments section.

This guide is meant for use with the Project Naga patch, though some characters will be referred to by their more modern names; these will be indicated with a slash mark between the two. (E.g. Edain/Aideen.)

Table of Contents: Section 1. The Small Differences of Genealogy of the Holy War Section 2. Main Objectives Section 3. Finances and Resource Management Section 4. Skills Section 5. Side Objectives Section 6. Genealogy Section 7. Recruitments Section 8. Conversations Section 9. Sticky Situations Section 10. Secret Events

Section 1. The Small Differences of Genealogy of the Holy War

Genealogy of the Holy War is similar to most other Fire Emblem games in the broad strokes of its mechanics. It has general gameplay of fighting enemy units with your army on a grid-based map, chance-based unit growth, most of your usual classes and weapons, et cetera. However, it has a number of differences, large and small, with later (and earlier) Fire Emblem games, some of which may make gameplay more difficult if unknown. The small differences are catalogued here.

1a. Movement

There are two principal differences to movement in Genealogy compared to in other Fire Emblem games. Firstly, all mounted units may move with their remaining movement after performing any action except conversation or seizing of a castle. Secondly, though terrain in this game that decreases movement exists as usual, there is also some terrain that increases movement; when walking on roads, all units may move 1.4x as many spaces as usual, rounded down. So, for example, a paladin (9 mov) on roads may move 12.6 spaces, but this is rounded down to 12. As a trade-off for this, roads, like some rare terrain seen in other Fire Emblem games, lower the avoid of any unit standing on them by 10% (represented by the small shield icon in the terrain window):

1b. Follow-up Attacks

While units in most Fire Emblem games can attack an enemy unit twice if they are faster by a certain amount, units in Genealogy require a skill to do so. This skill is called Pursuit (or Follow-Up, depending on your translation.) There are ways to attack more than once without Pursuit, but they are either more rare or not guaranteed. Pursuit allows for a follow-up attack if a unit's attack speed is greater than that of their opponent by 1 or more points.

1c. Critical Hits and Effective Damage

Much like follow-up attacks, units in Genealogy cannot naturally perform critical hits. There are four ways to perform a critical hit on most enemies in Genealogy: Being next to an immediate family member or lover (flat 20% critical hit rate bonus to anyone, including those who cannot naturally crit); having the Critical skill (skill% chance); or using a weapon that has been used to kill at least 50 enemies (skill% chance, plus 1% for each enemy killed above 50, up to 50% bonus at 100 kills); or having the Wrath skill (guaranteed critical hit as long as you are at 50%+1 HP or lower).

Critical hits in Genealogy follow the damage formula of doubling a unit's attack power before subtracting enemy defensive stats, rather than the more common tripling of a unit's damage output after enemy defense is subtracted. They are generally much more useful in the hands of units with lower Attack than normal.

Effective damage in Genealogy (bows vs. fliers, etc.) is simply calculated as an automatic critical hit on the target unit (if the attacking unit hits, of course.)

There is no critical avoid (dodge) stat in Genealogy.

Also, the minimum damage for any attack which lands is 1.

1d. Weapon Weight

All weapons in Genealogy have a weight stat. This stat is subtracted from the attack speed of the unit wielding the weapon. There is no way to counteract this speed penalty, and attack speed may be decreased below zero when utilizing particularly heavy weapons. This can lead to a negative Avoid stat.

1e. Weapon Repair

Weapons in Genealogy are infinitely reparable at any castle on the map. The price of repair is equal to the weapon's price, divided by the number of uses the weapon has when new, times the number of uses to be repaired.

For example, repairing a 38 use Silver Sword to full durability costs 5000 (sale price) / 50 (maximum uses) * 12 (uses missing) = 1200 gold.

Each weapon in the game that the player can receive is unique.

1f. Weapon Triangle

The weapon triangle in Genealogy of the Holy War is generally similar to in other Fire Emblem games. However, it is notably stronger; units gain Hit/Avo ±20 for advantage/disadvantage. Additionally, there is a magic "triangle", which functions similarly.

The weapon triangle is Swords>Axes>Lances>Swords

The anima magic triangle is Fire>Wind>Thunder>Fire

The interaction of light and dark magic with other varieties is Light=Dark>Fire/Wind/Thunder

1g. Experience Gain and Class Change

Units gain experience based on their level in relation to the enemy's. The lower their level is in comparison to the enemy's, the greater their experience gain. Class changes don't affect level; you will gain equal experience as a level 1 Knight Lord and a level 1 Troubadour.

Class changes can be performed once a unit reaches level 20, if they are not already a promoted class. They can be performed using the Class Change option at one's home castle. There is no reason not to promote as soon as possible; all classes have a flat level cap of 30.

The stat caps for each class are each class' stat bases plus 15, excepting HP which caps at 80. There is data out there on the base stats; however, I won't go into it here.

1h. Weapon Level

If you've played Engage, you'll be familiar with this, but if not: weapon level is inherent to the class a unit occupies, and can only be changed by class change or personal modifiers (more on the latter in the Genealogy section.) So, if your paladin has B swords, he will never have A swords, even if other paladins you encounter might have the latter.

1j. Enemy Reinforcements

Reinforcements generally do not spawn on the map as in other Fire Emblem games; they will almost always appear from the mouth of a castle. If you defeat all of an enemy commander's allied units and said commander is capable of movement, they will return to the castle they came from, enter it, and 1-2 turns later exit it with a squad of new units statistically identical to their previous squad.

1k. Saving

At the start of each turn, before you have moved any units, you can save in the map menu (i.e. the menu that appears when you press A on the map.) It's highly recommended to keep at least two saves; one save every turn, and one save after you capture a new castle. You can set the game to save automatically each turn in the Options menu by scrolling down to Autosave and selecting a slot (1 to 4).

Section 2. Main Objectives

2a. Seizing Castles

Chapter progression is made by seizing enemy castles after defeating the boss standing on them. Theoretically, castles may be captured in any order that you like; in practice, in most cases the way ahead to the next castle will be blocked until you capture the previous castle.

When you seize a castle, a short cutscene will play and the enemy units whose allegiance lies with that castle will disappear (allegiance can be checked in the second page of the unit menu; this same page contains skills and weapon level). At the start of the next enemy phase, the "[Name] castle seized" map events will trigger; formerly neutral castles may turn red, enemy and ally units may spawn, and terrain may be changed (for example, a bridge may be lowered or raised, a path may appear through difficult terrain, a gate may be opened, etc.) Keep an eye on castles you have not yet seized due to this.

Allied (green) and neutral (yellow) castles cannot be seized, and may lack some amenities of allied castles upon entrance.

2b. Losing Castles

Any enemy unit who reaches the entrance of a castle (that is not their own) will capture it. Allied and neutral castles will become enemy castles when this happens, and can be recaptured by your own units; however, player castles will be pillaged and will no longer be able to be recaptured.

If the player's home castle (the castle where you start the chapter) is captured by the enemy, it's game over, and you'll have to restart from your last save.

Section 3. Finances and Resource Management

3a. Unit-Specific Gold Pools and Trading

Unlike in every other Fire Emblem game to date, units in Genealogy have their own specific gold pools. They cannot trade gold with other units, unless those units are their lovers; if so, they can use the Give Gold command to give their lover all of their money.

Units also cannot trade with each other. In order to exchange items, they will have to sell them off at the Pawn Shop in the castle menu, where another unit may rebuy them for twice the sale price. Therefore, it's best to think carefully about who should defeat enemy units when a droppable item is in play. The money cap in the wallet is 50,000 gold; if you're reaching that cap, consider spending it on something so you don't waste any new money you earn.

3b. Thieves

Thieves are an exception to the above gold rules. Though they still can't receive gold from just anyone, they can attack enemy units to steal all the gold in their wallet. Additionally, they can give gold to any unit in the army.

3d. The Arena

Each chapter, beginning with Chapter 1, has an arena. This arena consists of seven opponents per chapter whom, upon defeat, will give the unit who defeated them experience and 1000-4000 gold (beginning with the weakest and increasing by 500 until the strongest is reached.) All units can enter the arena as many times as they like until they've reaped all the rewards- each and every unit in your army may face and defeat the seven opponents, rather than just one. If your unit's HP hits zero in the arena, they won't die, but their HP will be reduced to 1. However, winning a match in the arena restores a unit to full HP.

It's recommended to challenge the arena each chapter with all the units you intend to use, but you don't have to in order to complete the game. So, if you start getting tired of it, you can skip it... but it might be best not to.

Section 4. Skills

4a. What are Skills?

Skills are abilities that a unit can activate- generally in-combat, though sometimes they have out-of-combat effects. Various skills have various chances of activation (some are guaranteed, some rely on specific stat thresholds), so be aware.

4b. Skill Types

There are two different skill types- "Class Skills", those granted based on a unit's class, and "Personal Skills", those a unit has innately. All skills can mechanically either be class or personal skills- though most skills are only personal. Class skills, however, apply to every unit that is a member of the class- including faceless enemies. So watch out, and check out the skills present on the unit menu to make sure you do not meet a dire error.

4c. Skill List

(Note: Attack Speed is here abbreviated as Aspd.)

Pursuit/Follow-Up: Allows a unit to strike again after an enemy counterattack (or twice in a row if the unit themselves is counterattacking). Trigger: Unit's Aspd > enemy unit Aspd.

Critical: Allows a unit to perform a critical hit in combat, doubling their attack before enemy defense. Trigger: Skl%.

Adept: Allows a unit to attack twice in a row. Trigger: (Aspd + 20)%.

Accost: Triggers another round of combat upon the completion of the prior round. Trigger: [Unit Aspd - enemy Aspd + (unit HP/2)]%.

Pavise: Negates all incoming damage for 1 hit. Trigger: (Unit Level)%.

Steal: Takes all of an enemy's gold upon hit and adds it to the unit's personal wallet. Always activates.

Vantage: Unit attacks first when enemy unit initiates combat (treats it as if unit initiates combat). Trigger: Unit HP ≤ (50% of unit's Max HP + 1). When conditions are met, always activates.

Wrath: Unit always performs a critical hit (if unit hits). Trigger: Unit HP ≤ (50% of unit's Max HP + 1). When conditions are met, always activates.

Astra: Unit performs 5 attacks in a row. Trigger: Skl%.

Luna: Unit negates enemy defense for 1 strike. Trigger: Skl%.

Sol: Unit recovers HP equal to damage dealt. Trigger: Skl%.

(Note: Only one of Astra/Luna/Sol may activate at once. Additionally, they are only usable by infantry sword units.)

Nihil: Prevents the activation of Astra, Luna, Sol and critical hits against this unit. Always activates.

Bargain: Shop prices for this unit are reduced by 50%.

Charm: Hit and Avoid +10 to allied units within 3 spaces.

Dance: Grants another action to all adjacent allies.

Miracle: When unit HP is ≤10, increases unit's Avo by [(11- Unit HP)*10] points.

Paragon: Double's unit's gained experience.

Renewal: At start of turn, unit recovers 5-10 HP (random).

Section 5. Side Objectives

5a. Villages

Visiting a village gives a unit 5000 Gold and may also grant an item. Bandits will attack villages; a village will be destroyed when a bandit attacks it for 10 turns, and every turn that a bandit attacks it will subtract 500 Gold from the total that a unit will gain from visiting it.

5b. Combatant NPCs

NPCs ("green units") that have normal classes will grant items when spoken to by certain units of yours. Their status screen will tell you who they should talk to.

5c. Civilian Rescue

NPCs who do not have normal classes (i.e. their class is Civilian) will grant 100 EXP when interacted with.

Section 6. Genealogy

6a. What's All This About Children?

Like Gaul, Genealogy of the Holy War is divided into two parts... Er, it seems I've misread my notes. Gaul is divided into three. Nevertheless, Genealogy takes place over a long period of time- 24 years, in fact. As the characters you recruit at the beginning of the game are in the prime of their lives, it's only natural that, over such a long period, some of them will marry and have children. However, the latter half of the game takes place over two decades later than the beginning- the characters that you've recruited back then, such as Edain, may be in their forties by that point. By no means can characters in their early middle ages not fight in the early middle ages, but this IS an anime- the timeskip calls for a new cast of teenagers, the children of your early units all grown up.

6b. Can Love Bloom on the Battlefield?

Units can only have children if they become lovers. Some units will be- or become- lovers automatically, such as Quan and Ethlyn. In this case, their children will always be theirs. Some units do not- take, for example, Edain. She will not automatically take a lover, and you'll have to get her to fall in love with another (male) unit in order to have children. (Evidently, Jugdral has not yet invented magic that allows for cloning or IVF. Sad.) Even if she doesn't fall in love, however, you'll still have the same number of teenagers fighting for you later in the game- two of them will simply not be the child of any of your own units, and will be "substitute" characters with their own backstories. However, the children of early-game units will have some gameplay advantages, which I'll explain in a bit. Either way, each potential mother has two associated children, one of which will take after her to a greater extent and the other of which will take after her lover to a greater extent. No male unit has any associated children without falling in love.

As for how units fall in love, it's quite simple. Units have a certain number of "love points" with each other- all of them start with a certain number of points shared with each other unit. Once a unit reaches 500 love points with another unit, they become lovers, and can have conversations, gameplay interactions, and children. Units gain +5 love points per turn from standing next to each other, as long as they are the only two units standing next to each other; there is a bug that can cause units to gain love points meant for other units if they stand next to another unit who is standing next to that unit's prospective lover. There is a more detailed explanation, but it would involve some spoilers, so I'll leave it at that for now. Units also gain a certain number of love points by being on the same map together; this can be as low as 1 and as high as 10 per turn for a given pair. Finally, units gain love points by having conversations with each other- conversations between unrelated men and women often come with love points attached.

Perhaps this explanation has been tiresome, and I haven't convinced you you shouldn't just toss up your hands and go for the substitutes. Well, there are many gameplay benefits to kids, starting with the following...

6c. Holy Blood

It's hard to miss, considering how constantly it's talked about. Some of your units are descendants of the Twelve Crusaders, who destroyed the darkness about a hundred and twenty years ago. This has numerous story implications. However, it also has gameplay ones!

If you open up a unit's Holy Blood menu (press A on the unit menu) you'll see a circle showing all twelve of the Crusaders' weapons and their names. Some of these will have green dots next to them; when a green dot is next to a Crusader's weapon, that means that the unit has Minor holy blood of that crusader; when the green dot is glowing (there's a yellow light surrounding it) that means that the unit has Major holy blood of that crusader.

Minor holy blood boosts a unit's rank in the associated weapon by 1 letter grade. For example, Troubadours naturally have a B rank in swords, but because Ethlyn has minor Baldr blood, she starts with an A rank. Meanwhile, Major holy blood boosts a unit's rank in the associated weapon to the maximum, and allows them to use the associated holy weapon if they can get their hands on it. For example, because Sigurd has major Baldr blood, he can use any sword in the game (excepting other holy weapons), including Tyrfing. This isn't just a nice bonus- most holy weapons give a total of +30 to a character's stats, spread out across a varying number. Some give more or less, or have other special effects (for example, Mystletainn grants the Critical skill), but they are universally extraordinarily powerful. A unit with holy blood can turn the tide of battle on their own, in both gameplay and story.

Holy blood also increases a unit's growths. Depending on which holy blood they bear, various stat growths are boosted; a list is shown below. Note that minor blood cuts these boosts in half.

Baldr: Associated with swords. HP+20%, Str+10%, Skl+10%, Lck+10%. Od: Associated with swords. HP+20%, Skl+30%.

Dáinn: Associated with lances. HP+20%, Spd+30%.

Ullr: Associated with bows. HP+20%, Lck+30%.

Bragi: Associated with staves. HP+10%, Mag+10%, Lck+10%, Res+20%.

Thrud: Associated with thunder magic. HP+20%, Skl+30%.

Fjalar: Associated with fire magic. HP+20%, Mag+30%.

Hoðr: Associated with swords. HP+20%, Str+30%.

Njörun: Associated with lances. HP+20%, Str+10%, Spd+10%, Def+10%.

Nál: Associated with axes. HP+20%, Def+30%.

Naga: Associated with light magic. HP+10%, Mag+20%, Res+20%.

Forseti: Associated with wind magic. HP+20%, Spd+30%.

Children will inherit their parents' holy blood, but only partially; both children will inherit minor holy blood, if it is held, but only the child which most resembles the parent will inherit major holy blood. The other child will again receive minor holy blood, unless both parents share a holy blood type, in which case they will both bear major holy blood. This is the case even if both parents' holy blood is minor.

6d. Weapon and Skill Inheritance

Units will inherit the weapons and items of the parent they most resemble, but only if they can use them in their base class. The exception to this is Holy Weapons, which will be inherited even if the child unit can never use them.

Both parents' personal skills pass on to both of their children. However, their class skills do not. Check carefully to see that the skills you want to pass on actually belong to the unit innately!

6e. Growth Rate Inheritance

Child units' growth rates are equal to 100% of those of the parent they resemble most + 50% of those of the parent they resemble less. Therefore, all child units will be equally or more competent in battle than their resembling parent.

Section 7. Recruitments

7a. From Enemy to Friend

Units in Genealogy of the Holy War won't always be on your side from the start. Oftentimes, they'll start out as green allied units, or even enemy units. While talking to enemies to recruit them is common in Fire Emblem games, Genealogy has some more esoteric methods on its hands. Therefore, a list of (non-automatic) recruitment methods and chapters (without mentioning unit names) is below.

7b. Spoiler-Free Recruitment List

Chapter 1.

-Speak to the swordfighter with your lord after seizing Genoa.

Chapter 2.

-Complete all seven Arena matches with any unit.

-Speak to the princess with your lord.

-Speak to the free knight with anyone holding more than 10,000 Gold.

-Speak to the pegasus with the bard.

Chapter 6.

-Speak to either the axe fighter or the axe knight with the lady swordfighter.

Chapter 7.

-Enter Dahna castle with the cavalier who worries for it.

-Speak to the mage girl with the other mage.

Chapter 8.

-Speak to the archer with the thief.

-Speak to the sage with your lord.

Chapter 9.

-Seize Luthecia while the general still lives.

-Talk to the general with the cleric from Luthecia.

-Talk to the wyvern knight with the prince.

-Talk to the wyvern knight with your lord.

Epilogue.

-Speak to them with your lord after seizing Velthomer.

Section 8. Conversations

8a. Communication is Key

Though supports weren't introduced into the Fire Emblem series until Binding Blade, that by no means that units did not talk about their past and present with each other prior to it. Units in Genealogy of the Holy War can talk to each other on the map for lore, love, stats, and items. The "Unit" section of the map menu contains a list of all units who can speak to each other on page 4 ("Personal Data"). It's highly recommended that you utilize this; though all units will have who they can talk to listed on the second page of their unit screen, it's easy to miss conversations without this.

Conversations have several triggers, but the most common one is the seizure of a castle. A list of all conversations between allied units, triggers, and results (things obtained from said conversation) is below. Initiator of the conversation is listed first, who they speak to is listed afterwards, trigger conditions third, and rewards fourth.

8b. List of Conversations, Conditions, and Results

Note that all events that can cause love point gain will not occur if either participant in the conversation already has a lover.

Prologue:

Azelle->Sigurd, Azelle recruited Lex->Sigurd, Lex recruited Ethlyn->Sigurd, Ethlyn recruited Quan->Sigurd, Quan recruited

Chapter 1:

Quan->Finn, from start of chapter, Finn gains +1 Str/Skl/Def Sigurd->Edain/Aideen, Edain recruited Midir->Edain, Edain recruited and Azelle has not spoken to her, +100 love points Azelle->Edain, Edain recruited and Midir has not spoken to her, +100 love points Edain->Ethlyn, Edain recruited, Ethlyn gains Return staff Quan->Ayra, Ayra recruited Dew->Edain, Genoa seized, 50 love points + Edain gains Warp staff

Chapter 2:

Deirdre->Ethlyn, from start of chapter, Ethlyn gains Light Brand Dew->Raquesis/Lachesis, Lachesis recruited, +50 love points and Lachesis gains Thief Sword Quan->Finn, Heirhein seized, Finn gains Brave Lance Sigurd->Lewyn, Lewyn recruited Beowulf->Lachesis, Anphony/Infini seized, +100 love points and Lachesis gains Str+2, Skl+2, Def+1 Alec->Sylvia/Silvia, Infini seized, +100 love points Silvia->Sigurd, Silvia recruited Fury/Erin/Erinys->Sigurd, Erinys recruited

Chapter 3:

Lex->Ayra, from start of chapter and Chulainn has not spoken to Ayra, +100 love points and Ayra gains Brave Sword Holyn/Chulainn->Ayra, from start of chapter and Lex has not spoken to Ayra, +100 love points and Ayra gains Brave Sword Ethlyn→Quan, Sylvale seized, Quan gains Gae Bolg Sigurd -> Brigid, Brigid recruited Edain→Brigid, Brigid recruited, Brigid gains Yewfelle Midir-> Brigid, Brigid recruited, +100 love points Claud->Sigurd, Claud recruited

Chapter 4:

Taillte/Tailtiu->Azelle, if the two are not lovers, +100 love points and Azelle gains HP+5 Sigurd->Claud, from start of chapter Edain->Midir, if the two are lovers, Midir gains Brave Bow Edain->Jamke, if the two are lovers, Jamke gains Brave Bow Edain->Azelle, if the two are lovers, Edain gains Rescue staff Silvia->Claud, Thove/Tófa seized, +100 love points Lewyn->Sigurd, Silesse seized Erinys->Lewyn, Silesse seized, +290 love points

Chapter 5:

Edain->Brigid, from start of chapter Claud->Edain, if the two are lovers, Edain gains Rescue staff Sigurd->Ayra, Lubeck seized Lex->Azelle, Lubeck seized Dew->Jamke, Lubeck seized Tailtiu->Azelle/Claud/Lex, if the two are lovers and Phinora seized Erinys->Lewyn/Arden/(Noish/Naoise), if the two are lovers and Phinora seized Silvia->Claud/Lewyn/Alec, if the two are lovers and Phinora seized Lachesis->Beowolf/Naoise/Dew, if the two are lovers and Phinora seized Ayra->Lex/Chulainn/Arden, if the two are lovers and Phinora seized Brigid->Alec/Jamke/Midir, if the two are lovers and Phinora seized

Chapter 6:

(Scathach/Ulster)/(Roddlevan/Dalvin)->Larcei/(Radney/Creidne), from start of chapter, Larcei/Creidne gains Lck+1 Lester/(Dimna/Deimne)->Lana/(Mana/Muirne), Lester/Deimne recruited, Lana/Muirne gains Lck+1 Oifey->Seliph, Oifey recruited Lana/Muirne->Julia, Julia recruited, Julia gains Mend staff Fee/(Femina/Hermina)->Seliph, Fee/Hermina recruited Arthur/Amid->Seliph, Arthur/Amid recruited Julia->Seliph, Isaach conquered, Julia gains Nosferatu tome (recommended) Julia->Seliph, Sophara conquered, Julia gains Aura tome Seliph->Lana/Muirne, Sophara conquered, +100 love points

Chapter 7:

Shannan->Patty/Daisy, from start of chapter, +100 love points and Shannan gains Balmung Oifey->(Dermott/Diarmuid)/Tristan, from start of chapter, Diarmuid/Tristan gains +1 Str/Skl/Def Seliph->Shannan, from start of chapter, Seliph gains +1 Skl Larcei/Creidne->Shannan, from start of chapter, +100 love points and Larcei/Creidne gains +2 Skl Patty/Daisy->Seliph, Yied/Aed is seized, +100 love points and Seliph gains Brave Sword Leif->Seliph, from start of chapter Diarmuid/Tristan->Nanna/Jeanne, from start of chapter, Nanna/Jeanne gains +1 Lck Ares->Seliph, Ares recruited Lene/Laylea->Seliph, Lene/Laylea recruited (Tine/Tinni)/Linda→Seliph, Tine/Linda recruited Finn→Nanna, if he is her father, Nanna gains +5 Spd Finn-> Lana, if he is her father, Lana gains +5 Mag Finn-> Larcei, if he is her father, Larcei gains +5 Skl

Chapter 8:

Julia->Seliph, at start of map, Seliph gains Lck+1 Arthur/Amid->Fee/Hermina, from start of map, +100 love points and Fee/Hermina gains +3 HP Finn->Leif, from start of map, Leif gains Str +3 Faval/Febail->Seliph, Febail recruited Seliph->Tine/Linda, Connacht seized, +100 love points and Tine/Linda gains +3 HP Nanna->Ares, Connacht seized, Nanna gains +2 Str/Def Ced->Seliph, Ced recruited with Lewyn as his father, Ced gains +3 Lck Fee/Hermina->Ced/Hawk, Ced/Hawk recruited, Fee/Hermina gains +1 Lck

Chapter 9:

Febail/Asaello->Patty/Daisy, from start of map, Patty/Daisy gains +1 Lck Patty/Daisy->(Coirpre/Cairpre)/(Sharlow/Charlot), Coirpre/Charlot recruited, +100 love points and Coirpre/Charlot gains +3 HP Seliph->Hannibal, Hannibal recruited Lene/Laylea->Coirpre/Charlot, Hannibal recruited, Coirpre/Charlot gains +1 Lck Julia->Seliph, Grutia seized, Seliph gains +3 Res Finn/Hannibal->Altena, Grutia seized, Altena gains +3 HP

Chapter 10:

Lester/Deimne->Patty/Daisy, from start of map, +100 love points and Patty/Daisy gains +3 HP Nanna/Jeanne->Leif, from start of map, +100 love points and Nanna/Jeanne gains +3 HP Shannan->Seliph, from start of map, Shannan gains +3 HP Febail/Asaello->Lana/Muirne, from start of map, +100 love points and Lana/Muirne gains +3 HP Oifey->Seliph, Chronos seized, Oifey gains +3 HP Leif->Altena, from start of map, Altena gains +1 Lck Seliph->Fee, Rados seized and Lewyn is her father, Fee gains Str +5 Seliph->Lene, Rados seized and Lewyn is her father, Lene gains Def +5 Seliph->Tine, Rados seized and Lewyn is her father, Tine gains Mag +5 Coirpre/Charlot->Altena, Miletos seized, Altena gains +5 Res

Epilogue:

Arthur/Amid->Tine/Linda, from start of map if neither has a lover, Tine/Linda gains Lck+1 Tine/Linda->Seliph/Ced/Hawk/Leif, if the two are lovers, Seliph/Ced/Hawk/Leif gains Mag+3 Patty/Daisy->Seliph/Shannan/Lester, if the two are lovers, Seliph/Shannan/Lester gains +3 HP/Spd Daisy->Deimne, if the two are lovers, Deimne gains +5 HP Jeanne->Leif, if Edda is seized and the two are lovers, Leif gains +5 HP Muirne->Asaello, if Edda is seized and the two are lovers, Asaello gains +5 HP Nanna/Jeanne->Seliph, if Edda is seized and the two are lovers, Seliph gains +3 HP Nanna->Ares/Leif, if Edda is seized and the two are lovers, Ares/Leif gains +3 Def Lana/Muirne->Seliph/Scathach/Dalvin, if Dozel is seized and the two are lovers, Seliph/Scathach/Dalvin gains +3 Res Lana->Febail, if Dozel is seized and the two are lovers, Febail gains +3 Res Larcei/Creidne->Seliph/Iuchar/Iucharba/Shannan, if Dozel is seized and the two are lovers, Seliph/Iuchar/Iucharba/Shannan gains +3 Str Fee->Oifey, if Friege is seized and the two are lovers, Oifey gains +3 Skl Fee/Hermina->Seliph/Arthur/Amid, if Friege is seized and the two are lovers, Seliph/Arthur/Amid gains +3 Skl

Section 9. Sticky Situations

9a. Large, Progressive Maps

Portions of the maps in Genealogy open up as you progress through them and seize castles. While this does lead to some impressive storytelling, it can also lead to you being caught in an unfortunate situation because you're halfway across the map for where some new event is happening. I call this a "sticky situation", and have provided hints for dealing with them below.

9b. Hints for Sticky Situations

Chapter 1. Leave a unit to guard your home castle. The young man won't attack the woman he saved, but his fellows will.

Chapter 2. The northeast passage will open when your lord is in the least convenient location for it. Consider preparing for the worst beforehand, and sending a particularly moralizing young artist home ahead of time.

Chapter 3. Be prepared for sneak attacks from the west and the north, again when you're in the most inconvenient location for them. Think of the feelings of your recently-recruited units about the ones closest to them- maybe communication is the answer.

Chapter 4. If you like money, don't abandon the northeast entirely when duty calls elsewhere. Just don't leave your best units there. It's only provincial. Thieves can pick any lock, even when it's that of a drawbridge. If one were to be raised, they could lower it in no time.

Chapter 5. Units will automatically equip plot-relevant weapons. Even if they're broken.

Chapter 6. Better movement options don't necessarily result in a better outcome. Weigh all the pros and cons first.

Chapter 7. Your unlucky number is one greater than the number of Crusaders. Get a move on! Pegasi are broadly applicable to understaffing situations.

Chapter 8. Just because someone doesn't have Pursuit doesn't mean they won't attack you twice. Use more reliable methods. Thieves work in exactly the same way when they're your enemies.

Chapter 9. Never trust convenient roads that you didn't ride in on. Keep your guard up at home.

Chapter 10. If you're not willing to abuse critical hits and avoid stacking in the face of insurmountable odds, you'll have to either make sacrifices or count tiles very precisely. Consider sending winged beasts as close as you can to the cliffs east of your homeland before arriving there yourself.

Epilogue. Keep the one who inherited a blessing they knew not of until recently close to home. If you give a sage a magic ring and the right tools to use it wisely, you might be able to minimize your distress from enemies who mirror their abilities in the final stages of the war. Beware movement ranges.

Section 10. Secret Events

10a. What Is A Secret Event?

Secret events are events that the game does not outright inform you will occur if you perform certain actions. Some of these events are meant to be easy to infer (the Not-So-Secret-Events) and some a player would only figure out by looking them up in the manual (the Truly Secret Events). The Not-So-Secret Events are highly recommended for all players to prioritize due to their notable gameplay impact, and are difficult to miss if you read every conversation. The Truly Secret Events are fun, but if you wish to stay as unspoiled as possible, consider skipping them.

10b. Not-So-Secret Events

Chapter 4: After seizing Silesse, have its heir enter it. They will receive an important item.

Epilogue: After seizing Velthomer, have the most recently recruited character enter it. They will receive an important item.

10c. Truly Secret Events

Chapter 1:

A. Have Lex wait on the marked spot with an Iron Axe equipped. A conversation will occur, and he will receive a Brave Axe.

Chapter 2:

A. Have Arden wait on the marked spot. If he does not have a lover, a conversation will occur, and he will receive the Pursuit Ring.

B. After capturing Heirhein, have a male character wait next to the neutral soldier just north of Evans castle for a conversation to occur.

Chapter 3:

A. Have Dew wait directly in front of Bragi Tower and he will receive the Wind Sword.

Chapter 4:

A. Prior to seizing Tófa/Thove, if neither Silvia, Lewyn, or Erinys have a lover, a conversation will occur if Silvia waits next to Erinys. Silvia will gain a large number of love points with Lewyn, while Erinys will gain a smaller number.

B. Have Silvia visit the second-most right-hand village on the map. An event will occur, and Silvia will receive the Safeguard/Defense Sword.

Chapter 5:

A. Have Arden wait on the marked spot. If he has a lover, he will gain 5 points of Skill.

Chapter 6:

A. Have Seliph visit the village directly northwest of Isaach castle, and a different conversation will occur than usual.

B. Before conquering Ganeishire, Lester, Deimne/Dimna, Diarmuid/Dermott/Delmud, or Tristan can speak to the neutral soldiers of Sophara or Isaach castle.

C. If Deimne enters Isaach castle, a conversation will occur, and his Strength will increase by 5 points.

D. If Johan/Iuchar or Johalva/Iucharba waits next to Radney/Creidne for 10 turns, a conversation will occur, and Creidne's Strength and Luck will increase by 2 and 3 points, respectively.

Chapter 7:

A. If Laylea visits one of the villages south of Leonster, a conversation will occur, and she will receive the Barrier Blade.

B. After the boss of Ulster castle has been defeated, if Daisy waits next to Shanan, a conversation will occur, and Daisy's Skill and Speed will increase by 3 points.

C. After Melgen has been seized, if Tristan and Roddlevan/Dalvin are both below level 10, having them wait next to each other will cause a conversation to occur and both of them to gain Strength +2 and Def +1; Tristan will gain Speed +1, while Dalvin will gain Defense +1.

Chapter 8:

A. If Fee waits on the marked location before the character guarding Munster castle is recruited, a conversation will occur.

B. If Linda waits on the left-hand marked spot, a conversation will occur, and she will gain Resistance +3. If Amid waits on the right-hand marked spot, a conversation will occur, and he will gain Resistance +3.

C. If Asaello visits the village northwest of Connacht, a conversation will occur and his Strength will increase by 3.

D. After Connacht has been seized, if neither Seliph nor Muirne/Mana have a lover, and if all characters recruited from chapter 6 onwards have survived so far, have Seliph wait next to Muirne. A conversation will occur, and Muirne will gain Luck +5.

Chapter 9:

A. If Hawk enters Luthecia, a conversation will occur, and he will gain +3 Magic and Resistance.

B. After Grutia is conquered, have Charlot/Sharlow wait next to Hannibal. A conversation will occur, and he will receive the Berserk staff.

C. If Femina/Hermina or Janne/Jeanne visits one of the northwest villages, a conversation will occur and she will gain +3 Defense.

Chapter 10:

A. If Seliph defeats the boss of the final castle and before seizing it waits next to the water on the beach below, something will happen.

[theygotlost]

in case anyone wants a more detailed recommendation than "pentiment is really good and you should play it", here's my spoiler free testimony:

I always hate to compliment something by comparing it to something else cause its like saying "getting a lot of [other thing i like] vibes from this" but i just wanna say. disco elysium was so good that it superceded my disinterest in playing text-heavy rpgs or even most video games at all, and I consider that no small feat. pentiment is the second game to accomplish this. that in itself should be a testament to its quality. the comparison of the two games does seem inevitable; if you like one, you're sure to like the other. there are a lot of similar elements to their gameplay and story.

aside from that though, pentiment is a fantastic game in its own right. it is, among other things, an exploration of grief and trauma. in how it manifests itself and evolves as time passes, how it ripples out to affect everything around you for generations to come, and in how it will follow you for your entire life; how it will follow you into heaven. if my posting is anything to go by, there are some gut-wrenching moments in this game. it's also a game that you really need to play for yourself because the choices your character makes can make a huge difference. so please please check it out

[pink-strawberry-kissess]

my separate ways analysis  (spoilers for gameplay, story/plot, characters, aeon)

for my re4r post, click here (it was written without the knowledge of SW so my opinions there may not be the same as here.

gameplay

as many of us anticipated, the separate ways campaign ended up having a lot of the "cut content" from the main campaign

similarly to the original SW, the campaign is a lot shorter than the main one however it does have a few added scenes and similar style of gameplay where Ada runs faster or is faster than Leon and you're also able to travel throughout the map faster with the help of her hookshot

because of the changes between the main campaign and SW, the laser scene, which was given to Ada- which always made more sense stylistically and for her story as well

overall her chapters did seem a bit short, but I think it's this is due to the capacity of the game in general because you're going through the same locations as Leon but you're able to go through it faster so it only makes sense that you go through the areas faster

I do think that there should've been additional time spent in each location but I'm not exactly sure how they could've implemented this (but also with the new locations as a lot of ada's missions were easier than leon's)

ADA'S SOUNDTRACK FUCKING SLAPS SO FUCKING HARD

also WHY WERE ADA'S DEATH SCENES SO MUCH MORE INTENSE THAN LEON'S

ada's campaign is objectively way more fun than leon's

story/plot

what one the main changes from the original campaign and the remake one is the addition of Ada's infection

it made sense to me when we were first presented it in the trailer, however I feel like there was a lot of missed opportunities with her infection

because she ends up just throwing up the plaga after she defeats the "mother" one, all tension essentially is gone afterwards. Because this is so early in the campaign it feels like her infection doesn't really matter, and I guess it doesn't really matter in the grand scheme of things, as we know that she's going to get out of it at some point- but because it happened so early it just feels like there's no tension with this further along in the game

one of my main complaints is that in the main campaign, because we are viewing the mission through Leon's eyes, I think we were free to speculate that he is hallucinating at points during the game.

(this was a way to have potentially added the choking scene if he were hallucinating the entire thing and we wouldn't have seen it from his POV but we would have seen it from ada's.)

And because separate ways was always meant to be a mirror, an alternate side of the game- it would only make sense to have additional scenes that we wouldn't have seen in separate ways

I feel as though even though we did get additional scenes that are from Ada's perspective- they weren't really enough to supplement the amount of scenes that actually cut from in the original separate ways

especially because a lot of the main changes such as ada saving Leon from krauser which was changed to luis saving leon, instead

I still hold the opinion that a lot of scenes that were originally ada's in the original game and were given to luis- and I see a lot of arguments that "this isn't the case" but I find it funny that most of the arguments that I hear from people saying that luis didn't take Ada scenes- are funnily enough from luis stan's

(so i find this opinion to be fairly biased. there were absolutely scenes in original re4 and SW that are strictly ada's that were just given to luis instead. you can not argue away from this, this is just objectively true)

Circling back to Ada's infection, because it was gotten rid of so early on in the game. It removes any sort of tension for any sort of follow up with Ashley and Leon's infection.

many people, myself included along with several of the actors for re4r, have pointed out that in the main campaign when Ashley is miraculously able to lift Leon up onto the chair and cure his plagas- that it is not questioned and it is simply accepted as truth-

one of the potential pivotal changes could've actually have been because of ada's new infection in the remake, she would have to get her plagas removed as well at some point. but because her plagas was different and she was able to get rid of hers earlier it removes this potential scenario to happen

many fans were speculating that because of her infection, she would have to meet up with Ashley and Leon afterwards, and help Ashley to actually put Leon onto the chair so that they could both rid their infections at the same time, and this would've also actually potentially added a aeon scene as well (which would've fit into the narrative without feeling forced) which would really help with the story as well and keep in the infection for longer as well as providing more tension for her health as well

Because the SW remake was changed in some aspects but kept the same in other aspects in ways, (as in it didn't really seem like they were pivotal to the story) it felt as though we were missing more scenes that kept us on our toes. A lot of the things that were changed were rectified fairly quickly and because of this, a lot of the scenes that followed the original beat by beat, felt too predictable and felt like the same

I was left wanting more because all of the changes that were made were fixed too quickly or they weren't really that pivotal and everything that could've changed things weren't added

that being said, i do love the contact lense update as the glasses were a bit much for today's standards, and i could suspend my belief enough for a high tech contact lense in 2004 lol

characters

Ada

although I think a lot of the "criticism" for ada's changes in the remake are in bad faith, I feel like a lot of the changes makes sense with the potential route that they want to go with ada

i've always held the opinion that remake ada was meant to show a fatal flaw and then to have her have her redemption arc as soon as possible. ada was never meant to be evil, she was never meant to be a villain, however people were unable to disconnect her with this idea.

because of the remake highlighting so many aspects of her having a heart and "changing," it really goes to show how much effort they've put into characterizing her.

we have to remember that up until 2011 even, all we really had were these hyper sexualized flirty iterations of ada where she is really just as femme fatale with little regard for the people around her, but people who have seen and played re6 and have actually spent more time with her character has seen her grow.

arguably re6, has always been her redemption arc, but because this happens so late in the series, it's hard as an audience (particularly people who don't pay attention) to really see her be this multi-faceted character.

sure, we have original SW where she essentially spends the entire campaign saving leon's ass, but it lacked a lot of her characterization beyond her desire to keep leon safe and a few quips here and there about the villagers and her interactions with wesker and krauser.

and because i don't want to talk about her voice too too much, i do LOVE ada's voice in SW. it's clear that a few of her lines were fixed in a sense, the audio changes are small but there, but a lot of her lines are adorable and really add to her being more than just a femme fatale.

the colder aspect of her makes sense with her narrative opening, that she had made peace with what she was doing. but that she still questions everything

additionally i do think that her infection was a way to make the audience sympathize with her and make her seem weaker and more human as she's particularly overpowered in og SW imo

Leon

we had very few additional scenes with leon and i was hoping for more but wasn't expecting it, it just would've been nice

the two ish scenes we got with his face were nice lol

Wesker

the changes with wesker being near or on the island were fairly interesting, it makes us question why he was there or if he was just so concerned about it ada's "incompetence" on her mission. the banter between her and wesker about leon was interesting and furthers the ideas that they had much more history that we know of.

I saw a lot of criticisms between the scene where ada passes out and wesker saves her and brings her to the bedroom. And the discourse seems to be somehow shaming ada for "flirting" with wesker despite the fact that I never interpreted as genuine flirting.

It's clear at this point in her campaign wesker has commented several times on ada's incompetent and insubordinate nature and that because she is in a position of being "dismissed " or "taken off the case" or just plainly, "gotten rid of," she resorts to "flirting" as a way to keep herself in a position of power. she knows that wesker finds her unuseful at this time, and sees no real issue with doing this as a means to keep herself safe in sense.

she doesn't fear him, but she is wary of him. but she'll still go against his demands several times.

i thought it was interesting that we could've seen potential repercussions for her ada's. wesker being told about the explosions not all going off and the ability to take down her helicopter, but he decides to let her go anyways.

the "think that gun's gonna be enough?" "interesting..." MADE ME PURRRR HELP

Because we finally have more lines with wesker, I feel like I can appropriately gauge my opinion on his voice now. I thought that I was on the opposite side of things where I held an unpopular opinion of liking wesker's new voice... but it appears a lot of people actually enjoys his new voice far more than the original. i have already stated before that i've never been a fan of the comical voices from before, and obviously due to the controversy with wesker's original VA, it makes sense that he was recast. and it would've felt a bit gross for the new VA to emulate the same kind of voice IMO

Krauser

because of the changes in the remake, it made sense that ada and krauser barely interact, (mostly due to the removal of ada saving leon scene and was changed to luis) so it didn't make sense for ada and krauser to talk. i don't think that i hate this change (the removal of them talking) but it does make this relationship odd because it removes a lot of tension between the two and also makes it so that krauser's vendetta against leon a bit odd

it felt more interconnected in the OG, whereas in the remake it really did feel like multiple stories happening at the same time where they don't connect

Luis

since seeing more of SW and more of Luis (unfortunately) I've started to hold the opinion and I believe that I actually had this prior to SW, I feel the luis' redemption arc and backstory is severely lacking any actualization.

And I think this may actually be because of the additional scenes of luis, that it has been detrimental for his overall story

the more I was forced to see more luis the more I felt like his moral standing and his desire to help Leon and Ashley and Ada, it felt like it was lacking any motivation. His desire to "do the good thing," because it "makes him feel better," has never been enough, and WILL never be enough (for me and some audiences who like to gauge WHY characters do things)

we get the verbal confirmation on why luis is doing these things, but it doesn't align with his actual desire to do the good thing in the end. his redemption arc (to me) seems pointless, and i guess that adds to the pointlessness of his character arc and his unfulfilled desired to really right the wrongs he had already done.

his dying act could serve as his last chance to really do the right thing, but it feels undeserved.

(regarding his connection to nemesis and re3r) sure his bloodshed is "secondhand," but it doesn't excuse what he had already done. i just felt as thought even though we got this expansion of his character and it helped the story of re4r and SW-

his characterization was used a plot device RATHER THAN ACTUAL GOOD STORYTELLING. every time we need something- it's luis. every time there's a problem, it's luis. every time there has to be something ELSE happening, it's luis

he was a plot device MORE than an actual character (and i don't think to praise him for his characterization in this way is THAT GREAT OF A THING TO DO)

AND THAT'S FINE. we were never meant to see more of him in the long term. luis was always meant to die and in the remake, he was at least fleshed out more

but i still feel like it was at the detriment to ada's expansion. a lot of her story was "given to luis" and a lot of her scenes were ALSO given to luis, and you CAN NOT OBJECTIVELY deny this as fact. the fact that these scenes were ORIGINALLY ADA'S in the og and then were luis' in the remake, is an UNDENIABLE FACT THAT THEY GAVE THOSE SCENES TO HIM.

we got more luis, we should've NEVER HAD MORE. this is STILL ada's story. and so much additional luis for the sake of plot felt like a disservice to Ada AND Luis.

THAT ALL BEING SAID I STILL LIKE LUIS. I THINK HIS ADDITION WAS GOOD, I JUST WISH THAT ADA HAD MORE. I THINK THEM ARE COOL AS FRIENDS. still see luis as the gay friend sjkbfsjkf

Ashley

i thought it was weird that ashley had weird npc behaviour for the ashley ada interaction

also ashley had weird 90s yaoi hands and i couldn't unsee it

enemies

WHY WERE THE ENEMIES SO MUCH FUCKING SCARIER WITH ADA

aeon

a lot of people were complaining that the aeon moments weren't as pivotal in this campaign, and while I do agree to some extent, I don't think that they were necessarily required for this remake

this may seem contradictory because of what i had said prior (luis taking ada's scenes) but because of the route that they went, i feel as though the scene where (potentially) ada saves leon from krauser couldn't have been written any other way. because of how they wrote luis to be with leon nearly constantly, it would've been difficult to change this scene.

because ada is much more in the shadows in this remake, we still have some scenes, like the boat and reunion scene. but the eagerness of ada saving leon was seen more as an afterthought than a outright desire like in og

i don't think these are wrong decisions per say but they do allow us to see a progression of ada obviously still caring for leon afterwards as the plot gives us these scenes of convenience. (like ada ringing the bell because she was supposed to meet luis there as opposed to her directly going to the bell to ring it. she still does it, noticing that leon is struggling. which i think is enough tbh)

the changes of the original boat scene having additional dialogue helped to change things, particularly in conjunction with ada's monologue that she did change, just maybe not in the overt ways that leon had expected.

i still feel as though although we lacked a few aeon scenes, it made sense with what we had.

allegedly nick apostolides opted out of saying the "she's like a part of me i can't let go," because he felt as though this line belonged to the previous VA, but i can not confirm this as fact.

i never expected nick to say this line as it didn't appear to fit narratively, however the the "true ending" of SW really showed more wesker than more of aeon which was disappointing but not surprising.

the fact that re4r had an ending with ada, and sw had an ending with just wesker felt blegh.

one of the biggest complaints i kept getting was that re4r retconned aeon. which is just kind of a weird thing because why would capcom retcon a relationship in the second date? we have to remember that re4 has always been their second meeting. they still have damnation, re6 and potentially even more aeon that we haven't see like off screen re5.

one of the biggest things that they criticized was that leon and ada, "fell in love immediately," and they wanted to rectify that with a more realistic interpretation of the ship. this makes sense to me, and although it's a lot more angst filled, we still have to remember this is early as fuck in their relationship.

additionally, i still think that when ada gives leon the rocket launcher at the end, he has a sudden realization that ada had been helping him all along, that she was the one that gave him the one in raccoon city. that the keychain for the jetski was always her making sure that he could get out as well. because TO BE FAIR. he HAD LITTLE WAYS OF ESCAPE. he lost track of hunnigan and his potential route off the island. realistically, leon was FUCKED and he had no way off the island. even if ada didn't give him the key, he was STILL KINDA FUCKED because of the bombs because of wesker.

once the things fall into place, he realizes things along the boat ride, and i think that's also for us as an audience to speculate. older audiences knows that leon and ada see each other again. i want them to see each other again to bridge the gaps.

things to note

SW being made by the same team that did re3r is a bit funny since re3r was a pretty big disappointment to a lot of fans

similarly a lot of people were mad at the $10 price tag for SW despite the fact that this is a additional campaign and was longer than re3r and funner.

OG SW was always free, which is why a lot of people were mad, but like- get fucked dude. if you want to be mad at that, you also have to be mad at the microtransactions in the main campaign then.

SW was still well done, i just have a few things that i thought were lacking.

wesker absolutely had ada's DNA (from the bed scene, i think he also injected her with an inhibitor (of sorts like luis had) but also took something from her, and i think it would tie nicely into a re6r if he and simmons had contact prior to re5.

we still never got to see what was in bob bear kennedy (is that the name? lol)

gameplay 9/10

story/plot 7/10

characters 7/10

aeon 7/10

overall 30/40

i might have additional things to say but that's all i got for now lol

thanks for reading my garbage

and again

“take it however you like it.”

[suzuran777]

Review + Guide: Friendly lab - unlock(); (Tennenouji)

I was going to wait for the English translation of the PC version, but got a bit impatient and decided to play the Japanese version instead...! So here's my spoiler-free review in which I explain the gameplay mechanics and what the game's about. I also wrote a guide, as the Japanese one I found was a bit confusing sometimes.

In this game, you play the role of a researcher who's conducting a gentle experiment on two test subjects. The goal of the experiment is to measure what kind of impact the interference of the researcher has on the test subjects. The experiment must however be conducted safely, without harming the test subjects. A small locked room, two test subjects who suffer from memory loss. It's your goal to present a variety of items to them and to observe their reaction.

If you're here for the guide I recommend scrolling down a little bit! I'll start with a short summary of what the game is about and how to play it. This game was originally released as a mobile game in 2022 and I played a little bit of it, but I didn't reach any endings, so this was my first time completing the game. The gameplay of both versions is almost identical, but this time there are no in-game purchases and ads, which is nice! As the game's description mentions, you have to conduct experiments on the test subjects, Nishi and Higashi, and observe how they react to them. Both of them don't remember how they got there and also don't remember much of their past lives, so it's up to you to slowly make them remember. This game is unvoiced and there's also no background music, so it immediately makes the player feel a bit uneasy. The only sound you hear is the sound of the clock ticking.

Gameplay and story As the researcher, you can use 10 different sub-menus to interact with Nishi and Higashi: Voyeurism (1), Meal (2), Special Item (3), Accident (4), Entertainment (5), a safe which becomes the Cultivation Room later (6), Question cards (7), Paper and Pen (8), Bathing (9) and Sleep (10). At first the game does seem a bit confusing because you have to figure out which items trigger a reaction and it's a bit slow at first, but I did have fun slowly learning more about the characters! The goal is to gather as many keywords as possible, but you only have a limited numbers of actions each day, so use them wisely. For those reading this after the English version is released, I hope my translations aren't too different, but I think it should still be understandable!

Both characters have completely different personalities. They don't remember their real names so they use the Japanese words for East and West (Nishi and Higashi). Nishi knows a lot about many topics, such as plants, medicine, animals and likes sharing fun facts about items shown to him. Higashi on the other hand, seems to be struggling with a lot of things, slowly remembering his dark past when certain items are presented to him. Throughout the story, Nishi helps him to slowly regain memories of his past, which sometimes get rather dark.

Almost the entire plot of the game takes place in a single room, so the characters and their stories are the most important part of this game. Through their interactions, you slowly learn what happened to them, allowing you to theorize how they could have possibly ended up in a situation like this. Because of this, the gameplay sometimes feels a bit slow, but I recommend taking your time so you can slowly learn more about the characters. The game auto-saves the current experiment so you can close the game whenever you want. It takes a while to replay the game a few times too to unlock every ending, but I had a lot of fun testing each option to see what would happen next. The only downside is that you can't really save, so if the experiment fails it's over and you have to restart.

Spoiler-free guide The first playthrough never gives you an ending so the choices don't matter, but I recommend using the cultivation room which unlocks within the first days. By presenting question cards to the characters, you will receive cultivation water which you can use in this special menu. Make sure to complete the experiment, as it carries over to your next playthrough. After the first round, start a new game and follow the "route 3 hint" card, it will show a little lamp symbol next to the options you should pick. You can skip experiments you've done before by double clicking it, it's faster than pressing the skip button. A few more tips to get the endings:

Don't use all your daily turns immediately, as some options only show up throughout the day and some are only available for a limited amount of time, so you might miss them.

Make sure to carefully look at the experiments in order to not miss any of the recommended choices, as some of these are also only available on certain days (you need to scroll down sometimes to see them). You can still get the endings if you miss some of them though, no need to restart if one or two of them expired.

The bathing scene choices usually don't matter, so just pick the character you want. You have to replay the game at least 10 times to get all the endings, so you'll have plenty of time to pick each option.

The choices which display this pink handshake symbol next to them increases the affinity between both characters, which is necessary to unlock some CGs.

Ending 3 and 2: Follow the "ending 3" hints. At the end of the game you're presented with a choice, pick the option to not tell the truth for ending 3. Afterwards start a new game, follow the "ending 3" hints again and pick the other option for ending 2. In my case the skip button somehow skipped the entire choice, so if you replay to get ending 2, be careful to not use this too much near the end of the final day. Ending 4: Automatically unlocks at the same time as ending 3 if you've completed the cultivation room in your first playthrough. Ending 1: Follow the "ending 3" hints but purposely avoid all the experiments that give you any clues on day 10. I just did all the recommended experiments on other days (except maybe 1 or 2 of them) and on the final day, I only used the voyeurism option and picked experiments the game didn't recommend (the ones without the lightbulb icon).

Ending 7: Follow the "ending 3" hints once more and give the characters the "happiness gas" item 8 times, with this item you unlock some of the 18+ content in the game. You can obtain this item by just showing the characters the question cards every day, they'll hint that they want to do something (eating, entertainment etc.) and one of the sub-menu buttons will light up, hinting that you should pick one of these options next. The buttons either turn green, yellow or red and shows a timer how much time you have left to select an option to obtain the item. On the right side of the screen you can see how many of the items you have (the gas mask and the cup of coffee icons).

After unlocking ending 3, you can also follow the "ending 5" hint card which you'll have to use for the next endings. Ending 5: Follow the "ending 5" hints (which unlocks after finishing ending 3) but avoid question cards as much as possible. Pick the experiment which looks something like this "■□■■" in the "Accident" menu every time (there's multiple parts and it seems to show up randomly throughout the day sometimes). I'm not sure how they will translate this, so below you can see what it looks like.

Ending 6: Exactly the same as the previous ending but this time, make sure to use all of your question cards every day, the game ends after playing the final "■□■■" event. Ending 8 and 9: Follow the "ending 5" hints again, but make sure to use happiness café au lait 8 times (you unlock this the same way as the happiness gas mentioned above). Also make sure to play the "lump of ???" event, which is an experiment that sometimes shows up in "Special items" during the first days. Avoid the final "■□■■" event because that might trigger ending 5 or 6 instead. You can't always use the café au lait immediately, but just check the special menu item every now and then to see if it's there. After using this item 8 times, you can choose to give it to Nishi (East) which unlocks ending 10, or Higashi (West) which unlocks ending 9.

Ending 10: Unlocks after you've cleared many experiments in the game marked with ★. I accidentally got this ending when I was aiming for another ending while following the "ending 3 card" hints, so if you don't want this end, it's better to ignore those options!

Final impressions The gameplay of this game is something totally different from what I'm used to, but I had fun! It takes a while to complete so I recommend just taking it slowly. The mobile version is a bit different and has a lot more options, offering an in-game shop and some kind of gacha system. I personally enjoyed the PC version more because even though it was sometimes funny to unlock different items for the characters, it was difficult to take the story seriously when they were wearing wigs and all kinds of funny outfits lol, though that is optional too. There's no background music or voices in this game, so I can't really comment on that, but I thought the art was really nice. It was a bit different than Yura's usual art, but I think it really suits the game's setting, kind of gloomy and dark.

I will not spoil the plot of the game but I think it was good! The game gives you all these little hints and slowly but surely, you learn their backstories and what happened to them to end up in such a place. It's called ''friendly'' lab and while the experiments themselves don't directly harm them, I will say that some of the endings are anything but "friendly". I did grow quite fond of the characters after interacting with them for so many days so after playing all the endings, I miss them already... I might go back to the mobile version after all because there's quite some things that aren't in the PC version, for example instead of the usual 11 days, this version has 20+ days now (the app still updates every now and then) and introduces new experiments, and at some point even a new research subject. The romance between Nishi and Higashi also seems to develop a bit more in this version, so I wonder if they'll release an updated version of the PC version at some point, or a second game? I am satisfied with the content of the PC version alone though!

Anyway, I recommend playing the game without reading spoilers, because the whole point of the game is that you're slowly learning more about these characters, and giving any kind of hint ruins the purpose of the game (though at some point you can also ask the characters if they know Giancarlo, a reference to Luckydog1... which was quite funny).

Here's a bonus screenshot of the app version of the game playing a Candy Crush ad, which made me laugh because it does not suit the atmosphere of the game at all, though you can get free points for the in-game gacha if you watch the ads.