#to sell me on the feel of playing 2D

[coldgoldlazarus]

It's kinda funny how scattershot my approach to the 2D games has been lol.

AM2R: Beat, 100%

Zero Mission: Beat but haven't/won't complete percentage

Metroid: Completed percentage but haven't beat

Dread: Working on it

What a skip lol

I want to play Super and Fusion and the other two versions of Metroid II properly, I've watched enough playthroughs to have a good feel for them but it's no replacement for actually experiencing them myself. But I do think I want Return Of Samus to be the last one, (until future releases anyway) but not in a "putting off the worst until all other options are exhausted" way, more a "saving the best for last" way. I already know I'll love it for the story and how that's conveyed, but I want it to be special.

[morkitten]

I'm sorry Dimps

(art by virtanderson)

I just replayed Sonic Rush Adventure…. it's fun!! The last time I played it was back when it first released... Why didn't I ever revisit this game before? I remembered being a bit disappointed with Rush on a revisit (still a good game but there's just a lot of deathpits and the bosses get mean) and I remembered Rush Adventure being similar but with a lot of grinding that tired me out back then. But now replaying it, it's got really cool bosses (some of the best and most interesting of the whole series!), the stages are a bit easy but fun, the (several!) seafaring vehicles are cool, and it really doesn't have as much grinding or mindless sea charting as I thought it had. Plus it has this relentless blue skies sea adventure energy to it that's just so much fun. I love going back to my little island after every level, I love seeing it upgrade and become more populated and more full of fun stuff.

It's clear Sonic Rush Adventure was Dimps' biggest Sonic project and it's a shame they never got to make another original Sonic title after this, bc they were seriously getting better at every iteration… I'm sorry I was on the Dimps hate bandwagon because I was so hurt by Sonic 4. I didn't have the context that the game was supposed to be a phone game by a smaller team that then got hastily re-branded and given more budget. I was just so sick of everyone eating up the aggressive SoA advertising and I got nothing when I was proven right.

But I also wasn't comfortable with the narrative that emerged a bit after Sonic 4's release that Dimps was the source of all evil, despite agreeing with the level design criticisms, it's obvious even back in the Advance games they love the games & characters, and the shortcomings of their games come from an impulse to try to make them harder and longer. But honestly, it's a problem I sympathize with! It's difficult to figure out how to add difficulty to a Sonic game because these games aren't really supposed to be hard, and it's difficult to add longevity in some other way because designing Sonic levels and creating all the assets for them is relatively a lot of effort compared to other 2D platformers. Sonic levels need to look flashy and elaborate but also they go by really fast AND they have a bunch of alternate paths, so they also need to be really big. And it's not like Dimps were given amazing budgets anyway. So Dimps would often come to this conclusion of "let's add more and more stuff that will kill you outright as the game goes further in" to add that needed friction, and it gets especially bad and mean on the Advance games with stuff that you can't see coming up. This ramp-up of one-hit kill hazards as the game goes on is still there on the Rush games, but Rush Adventure especially gets more and more comfortable with the idea that Sonic levels should be on the breezier side, possibly because all of the extra content put them at ease that it wasn't going to be a game that would be easily beaten in a couple of hours.

Despite being Dimps' best and most full-featured Sonic game to date, Sonic Rush Adventure really didn't sell well. It came out in 2007 so maybe it was a victim of Sonic 2006's infamy. Maybe the title made people confused as to what it was (Sonic Rush? I already have that game!), who knows. It really does feel like they were gearing up for a third original Rush game, I feel like they wanted Marine to be a character that would develop. this is part of why people find her annoying - she's a kid who isn't yet a hero, her character is that she fucks up and is ahead of herself. she learns a bit but isn't there yet. there's an obvious follow-up to this that didn't happen. It's retroactively cruel how the ending to Rush Adventure makes you feel for Marine saying goodbye to Sonic and Tails and wanting to see them again, and then it never came to be! I'm just left with a sniffling Marine and the knowledge that it never happened!!

And I know that "Sonic Colors DS is a third Rush game made by Dimps!". It is but it isn't. Maybe if Rush Adventure did well, SEGA would have given Dimps a bigger (or at least similar budget to Rush Adventure) and let them do an original game rather than a tie-in. But Rush Adventure's low sales apparently meant Dimps was relegated to Tie-In Hell, instead of being given more reigns to do what they want. I'm sorry Dimps! I'm sorry I didn't defend you, I'm sorry I was part of the hate bandwagon against you because I had my feelings hurt! I really, truly appreciate what you've done for Sonic, even if some of your decisions on these games were very frustrating (have you tried getting all the Chaos Emeralds in the Advance games? have you tried unlocking Amy in Advance 2?), there was a ton of labor of love in your games regardless. Thank you ;__;7

[immaturityofthomasastruc]

I can see the inconsistency of Felix character is because he actually a character for there "Fans demand" :

Sooo you prefer 2D-Catnoir/Felix rather than our angel Adrien ? Here Felix ! He official debut in "Felix" ! He is Adrien cousin and a big jerk ! Hate him just like how I hate him too !

Wh- What ? You like him ? Fuck ! So you feel he is more competent that our pure evulz bitch teenagers ? Fine ! Here's Felix who manage to trick Gabriel in "Gabriel Agreste" ! Now He is as dangerous as Gabe

Oh Fuck ! You still like him and feel he is more "relevant" than our angel Adrien and my sweetie Marinette ? Here's I present YOU Felix join Miracuclass as "Dog Hero" and then sell all the Miraclouses to Gabe ! He is Evil ! EVil ! EVIIIIL !

What ? You asking me why he want Peacock Miraculous so much ?! Here I present you Felix as Argos ! He wiped humanity out-of-spite and try to create the Utopia for his own freedom ! He is misanthrope !

What A second ? Why... You... STILL.... EXPECTED... CHLOE... TO BE REDEEMED.... why she already... has many traits... to be put in "Complete Monster" territory ? Why YOU keep want her to be redeem like Zuzu and Pacifica just because having shitty parents ? FINE ! Here's Felix to be our Zuzu ! He is tragic little peacock... has tragic backstory.... shitty dad... and a handsome teenager.... pretty much like Zuzu right ? Now shut up and Go simp on him and Feligami already !

Proper redemption arc ? Who hell need redemption arc as long as he is "tragic and handsome" ? Don't worry... we will make Kagami as "senti" out-of-nowhere aside she wear different ring as excuse and a "horny possessive girl" who still can't move on from Adrien and make her Simp felix because he smell and looks like Adrien RIIIIIIIIIIIGHHT LOL

Honestly, it is pretty hilarious that Felix was meant to be seen as the actual character who went through a serious redemption arc compared to Chloe, when the writers pretty much speedran through every major part of it in time for the finale.

Like, say what you will about Chloe and whether or not you think she deserved to be redeemed, but at least the arc leading to her betrayal was spread across three seasons. Felix's redemption arc only lasted three episodes.

Because of the poor pacing, this is the character journey Felix goes through during the latter half of Season 5.

Emotion: "I'm going to wipe out all of humanity and create a better world! Wait, you think I'm insane for erasing your friends and family from existance while essentially committing mass genocide? WHAT HAVE I DONE?!"

Pretension: "Even though I've spent almost no time with you, I think I'm falling in love with you because you may be a Sentimonster person with strict parents like me. Of course, I don't love you enough to break my new moral code against using Sentimonsters or even answering for my betrayal of Ladybug."

Representation: "I'm finally going to do something to help Ladybug because her arch-enemy is getting in the way with my week-old relationship, and that moral code against Sentimonsters? I don't want to use Sentimonsters to fight, but using Sentimonsters to put on a play to convey information I could easily tell Ladybug myself, since my new girlfriend conviently learned her identity over ten episodes ago? Perfectly okay. And since I have a personal stake by wanting to protect both my cousin and girlfriend, surely, this means I'll get to play a big part in the season finale instead of just letting Ladybug do all the work, right?"

Conformation and Re-Creation:

[animehouse-moe]

Shangri-La Frontier Episode 1: What Do You Play Games For?

What happens when a gamer who only plays shitty games decides to pick up a so called god-tier game? Shangri-La Frontier is the answer to that and provides an insane opening episode for the concept. I'm just so excited to get 2 whole cours of this, and I really want to explain why.

Also, SiM's vocalist (MAH) on the OP with FZMZ? And Chico on the ending song? This series was made for me man.

First of all, C2C is an incredibly underrated studio considering the quality of the projects that they enjoy. This is one such project. Right from the start the quality is insane. 2D camera movement, detailed animation and character acting, the whole nine yards. Just look at this walking cycle! There's no 3D and their shoulders move!

It's just crazy to see the detail they put into these pieces early on. Walking cycles are super neglected due to how "plain" they are, but there's just something incredible about seeing that effort put into it with stuff like these examples.

And then there's this (sort of misleading) litmus test. Does your anime have really good art for a random cut? Odds are the production's doing really well. And, well, there's this really good looking beetle shown early on in the episode.

Anyways, to Shangri-La Frontier the game. The direction understands the assignment right away. This is a video game, we need to know it's a video game. So they show us it's a video game. First person perspective is our very first cut shown in the welcome screen and once we enter the world, setting the tone perfectly for what's to come.

But of course, a video game has more to it then just first person perspective, and of course C2C grasp that as well. Slow motion (which you'll see later), and more importantly camera movement are important in establishing that feel. The slow draw towards an endless expanse of world, the bird's eye view of a landmark or feature as the camera slowly rotates. It gets it, and it's able to create a living, breathing trailer for Shangri-La during the episode because of that.

And then, there's the fact that it's a video game. There's talks of skills and abilities and levels and whatnot, but I think most understand that that's a "staple" and that C2C/Shangri-La handle it quite well.

Let's talk about the good stuff, let's talk about action. C2C nails it. They put incredible effort into video game-styled choreography, and it pays off in spades. The slow motion, the harsh camera angles to accentuate the fight, the camera rotation, the way that attacks linger in the air. It's incredible stuff that's augmented by insane animation and visual effects. Seriously, pay attention to the fight and you'll see that they did an impact frame for a crit. Not in the traditional sense, but that the impact frame was the crit. This sort of stuff just makes me so excited because of how well it's handled.

And then there's the worldbuilding. The OP comes into play as well of course, but the details are super great. The enemies Sunraku faces in the starting forest are (mostly) beginner enemies. A goblin with a stone axe and some sort of large pig seem to be the "typical", but there's more to it than that. The Vorpal bunny is a "rare" enemy which makes sense, but the pig enemy only appears as Sunraku ventures closer to the second town rather than the first.

There's considerable detail and effort placed in the creation and appearances of these creatures in the world. The Vorpal Bunny featuring a better crafted weapon than the others that most likely came from somewhere else. Don't forget - we saw a rabbit in the opening.

It's just insanely cool stuff. The world is already shown to be more broad and deep than "it's a big video game world!". There's all sorts of little pieces like this peppered about, and it's just so damn good. Even the concept of Sunraku's "Wanderer" dropping him in a forest rather than the starter town. The detail to really sell this game as god-tier is so damn good.

But it's important to not forget, the god-tier part of the game is only one part of the puzzle. Sunraku here is famous for playing garbage games.

And it's a great way to offset the story and provide a fun angle, I'm serious. It allows them to add fun commentary and responses in regards to frustration from playing bad games, and at the same time provide a novel and excitable approach to a genuinely good game. The best of both worlds that sets the perfect stage for how they want to explore this story.

So, understandably so, I'm very excited about two cours of this and everybody else should be too. C2C is showing us they've got the potential to make the absolute most of Shangri-La Frontier and it's fun and surprisingly unique concept. Can't wait to see what they bring with the next episode!

[maryaustria]

top 5 metroid suits?

I had more to say about this than I thought lol

5. Varia Suit (Prime)

This one is her most iconic version of the varia suit and her most iconic suit in general. There is a lot to love. The way Retro studios managed to translate her suit into 3d. How it seems practical while not being too realistic and still looking very scifi. It is both simple, but also full of small details to enjoy. The weird knee pads (spikes?) and the huge shoulder pads. I think the only thing i could say that is bad would be the colors. They are fine, but they blend a bit too much with each other. It's not a huge deal breaker but it's something. It works with making her stand out a lot from everything else. Thats doesn't come into play often in prime since it's a fps, but it comes up more often in 2d or other m.

Since I brought it up, the varia suit from other m isnt that much worse than this one. It is pretty simplified, but it works, especially for that game.

4. Dark suit

I love how imposing this one is. Especially in this artwork. The suit is a perfect fusion between the Chozo and the Luminoth technology and makes it look like Samus put on the clothing of one of the Luminoth.

Despite being called the Dark suit it manages to not come across as evil however. Initnimdating, yes, but never really evil. The phazon suit from prime 1 looks more evil. To me, if you isolate it from the Luminoth connection, it looks more like a suit they would use to perform heavy duties. A real workers suit. Combined with the gravity booster later on it also has something of a diving suit.

3. Gravity Suit (Dread)

The dread variants of the main suits all show how much her suit manages to evolve since we last saw it in fusion. It makes the suit seem much more organic than anyone ever thought it would be, as it literally starts to grow back. It's not like Samus went to a mechanic and asked them to repair her suit. You can tell the suit isn't completely back either, since you still have parts that look like muscle tissue covering the suit as if there was exposed flesh from a still healing wound.

That was just about the main suits in dread in general, but what about the actualy gravity suit? Well for starters I have to confess that I never really like the gravity suit design much. It was still cool, and purple is my fav color, but I feel like they never made it look as good as they could in the past games. The colors were either too off balanced so that either the purple or the middle of the suit were either too saturated or too dull.

With dreads version that's an issue. It's the perfect purple. It's not too bright so it distracts from the main body and It's not too dark for it to not be noticable. It's not a simple color change like in past games. Samus seems bigger, more bulky in her suit now, making her seem more of a threat now, which is a nice progression for the player, where they can see themselves and how far they have come. I also love the little detail of the green lines starting to run along the main body, really seeling the feeling of the suit evolving with the change.

2. Fusion Suit

I did use a picture of the metroid prime version, but this includes all versions.

This one I love because of how big of a contrast it is to Samus's usual suits. While not always as bulky as the prime suit for example, they are still always big suits. Even when they try to be more sleek in their design, they still manage to look more robust than this one.

The fusion suit is Samus's suit stripped of all it's protective plating, revealing the soft flesh of it's inner workings. It's our first look at how the suit might work. It sells the idea that samus is really bonded with the suit, the whole covering looking more like organic muscle than actual machine. It makes her seem more vulnerable than before, while not making her seem incapable of doing something. With the heavy armoring gone she seems more agile, faster than before. What she lost in defense she makes up for it speed and freedom of movement. If it weren't for the helmet parts on the top, you would have a hard time telling apart the suit from the actual body.

Side note: I'm still so upset that it didn't return in the remastered version. There's no legal way to get it in prime one now.

1. Metroid Suit

Honestly I don't see this one being topped at any point. The way it suprised me when it showed up in dread was such a great suprise.

Well what's so great about it? To start with it, the design is-

I mean it looks like-

ough thats so...

yessss.....

YESSSSSSSS

To be a bit more serious, it is a pretty solid the design. The suit once again makes itself look less like an actual suit, and more like a living organism. This time however, instead of showing of the bond between Samus and her suit or to reveal the soft insides, it makes the suit look more like an actual creature. None of the parts her look like they belong on some high end piece of technology. Even the arm cannon and visor somehow manage to look like they are made of skin and bones.

The way the story builds up to it also adds so much to why I like it so much. The way it gets teased during the last emmi fight for example, or how you get some foreshadowing at the very start of the game. It's a nice conclusion to the fact that she had the metroid dna injected into her, making it the second time this safed her life and the third time the baby saved her.

I could probably talk a bit more, but I think that was enough for now.

suit v coll i lik :]

[no-sabo]

Alexander's Top 10 Games of 2023

#10: Street Fighter 6

Street Fighter 6 is landing on my list de panzazo because I didn't play enough of Baldur's Gate to include it. Act 1 gang, rise up!

It's tough trying to find the same hype that I had playing Street Fighter IV on the Xbox 360. I don't think I ever put as much hours trying to get good at a fighting game since and I don't think I ever will. This isn't to say that I don't think 6 is as good. My main thing is that I don't think I'll ever be in that kind of place in my life, or have the same friends with the same free time. Getting older is so wack. Street Fighter 6 is cool as hell, though.

#9: Venba

I think for immigrants Venba's themes are well worn ground. Food is perhaps the most powerful anchor to one's culture. Venba is beautiful, touching, and deeply relatable to me as a first born child of immigrant parents.

Make sure you eat something before jumping into this one. I'm pretty sure I ordered Indian food the day after.

#8: A Space for the Unbound

I don't think there's a game on my list with such a stark difference with the level of enjoyment I had between the narrative and the actual play. At times A Space for the Unbound can be extremely tedious.

A lot of the play involves solving puzzles, usually with a pen and paper at hand. That stuff can be nice, however the brief but constant loading in between areas really strained my patience. There's also empty calories in the form of fetch quests that trip up the pacing.

In the end, once credits rolled, those complaints melted away. It's a gripping fantasy story about community, bullying, domestic abuse, anxiety, and depression wrapped in gorgeous, detailed pixel art. And there's an achievement for petting all the cats.

#7: Hi-Fi Rush

Hi-Fi Rush feels like the remake to a long lost Sega game that they developed for the Xbox during their messy Dreamcast console exit. It's tough for me to describe why it's on here. I think I just genuinely miss this tier of game existing. Like, this game had fucking music from Zwan in it. Zwan.

I don't know, man. It's a vibe. It's really well animated, the characters are bright and goofy, and the rhythm infused third person action combat smacks.

I think this was the first game I completed on my Steam Deck in 2023. Actually, I think it's the first game I beaten front to back on it period?

#6: Super Mario Bros. Wonder

I know it's in to trash the New Super Mario Bros. games but I genuinely never had any strong positive feelings for that first DS game and it only lead to further my resentment for that series. They just made so damn many of them.

Mario Wonder, with its Wile E. the Coyote ass animations is so damn refreshing. I think this is probably the best implementation of the self governed difficulty levels, too. A kid can breeze through a lot of these levels, but being a completionist can get brutal in a satisfying kind of way. It's just so nice to be excited for a 2D Mario game again.

#5: Mediterranea Inferno

Part visual novel, part art-house movie, Mediterranea Inferno takes you on vacation with three Italian twinks trying to move past their Covid-19 lock-down trauma. It's funny at times, but quickly veers into some deeply uncomfortable situations. Also, it can get spooky.

It's an important game, but please heed the content warnings.

#4: Eternights

There's something alluring to me about the Persona Social Link system and any time a game decides to mess with that kind of thing I'm game to give it a shot. Eternights' main sell was "dating action game", so, there it is.

The gist here is there's an apocalypse and your player character gets his arm cut off and replaced with a magical one that can transform into, I think, anything? It's a sword for 98% of the game that you use to kill monsters. It's in third person and for the most part it's an OK action game. You get a skill tree and all that and your buds help you fight, though I think the combat truly shines in the back quarter of the game.

The game's whole thing is that you've got a time limit for when a dungeon has to be completed and you can either choose to progress through it or spend time with your friends, who are mostly female.

Now, to my surprise there is a male character that joins your crew late in game who can serve as a love interest and I was curious to see how that would play out given the homophobia present in the games with which it was inspired by.

The same sex story is, I feel, the most interesting route. It flips the corny harem trope on its head and you get what I believe is the most touching and fulfilling end given that character's relationship to the plot. It's respectful in a way the rest of the game wouldn't suggest it.

At some point in the story your characters are falling from up high and to save everyone the player character turns his arm into a bra parachute because in a quick panic he remembers seeing them on one of the girls in your group. It's childish as hell to be sure, but there's a lot of heart here and I can't wait to see what this one man studio does next.

And I'd like to request for more RPGs to be sub-20 hours like this one. It does wonders for pacing.

#3: Jusant

I kinda' just melted into Jusant. This game is gorgeous and the danger free climbing was so meditative during some really dark and ongoing political unrest. It feels selfish to even say this but it felt good to get home and get lost in something that provided very little consequence.

Fuck Joe Biden and free Palestine.

#2: Bomb Rush Cyberfunk

Sega can keep Jet Set Radio. Team Reptile understood the assignment.

Look, there's a lot you can do to modernize Jet Set and I'm sure Sega's got their top engineers on it but fuck all that. This shit with its simplified graphics runs at 90 FPS on my Steam Deck. It's got all the vibes down and it manages to improve on the mobility and graffiti systems.

Like Hi-Fi Rush I just miss this tier of game but, like, x10 for this specific series. It improves on the concepts of the games that inspired it. I was eating here.

#1: The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom

I don't think I have the capacity to express what Breathe of the Wild meant to me when I first played that game back in 2017. It's gotta' be my favorite game of all time. At least, it was? Still is? It's a toss up. Both Tears of the Kingdom and Breath of the Wild have surprisingly different philosophies and it sort of depends on how I'm feeling. All this to say that Tears of the Kingdom is a genuine master piece.

I'm sitting here trying to think of where to even begin. Is it the physics driven world that doesn't seem to break no matter what nonsense you throw at it? Do I talk about the fact that this is the most touching Zelda story to date? How about how the Colgera boss fight theme smacks? Why does this game look so good off like 2011 hardware?

Tears of the Kingdom embodies play. It begs you to be curious and creative. A sanbox with a capital S. My favorite game of 2023 and favorite game period?

Best Games of 2022 in 2023

2023 was stacked, but I had to make room for some stuff that I missed the previous year. If I do this list again the 2023 in 2024 section is gonna' be a damn mess.

Melatonin

I played Melatonin in December of 2023 and it came out December of 2022. i'm so sad it took me a whole year to check it out.

It's got cozy little Rhythm Heaven-like micro games that take place within an insomniac's melatonin infused dreams. It's dripping in pastels and good vibes.

Each level, or "night", has 4 or 5 stages that you navigate kind of like a Mario overworld. You'll walk to, say, the "Work" stage where it runs you through a brief tutorial. There you get a feel for the song and the beats you need to match with button presses. Once you get through that it begins your real run. Rinse, wash, repeat.

I like it a lot. The visuals are super pleasant and it's really satisfying when you nail those perfectly timed button presses to the beat of the music. I only just started it but felt compelled to throw it on here.

He Fucked the Girl Out of Me

This one's tough to talk about. I feel like I don't need to be taking up oxygen in this conversation.

He Fucked the Girl Out of Me is a short Game Boy game about sex work and trauma. This game isn't enjoyable, but it is profound and important.

Again, please heed the content warnings.

I Was a Teenage Exocolonist

If this game had come out in 2023 it would be my number 2.

You begin life on a colony as a 10 year old. You, your parents, and the other colonists escape an Earth on the brink of collapse and crash land on a barely habitable planet. From there you live your life through to adulthood, making choices along the way that affect you, your friends, and the overall colony.

There's a card system that carries a lot of your decision making as a sort of stand in for something like a skill check or a random dice roll. You obtain cards through specific actions and relationships. It's not the greatest mechanic but it's serviceable and feeds well into the gameplay loop.

The game ends when your character turns 20 where your story concludes in one of many different outcomes, but that's not where it stops. The game has a time loop mechanic. You're meant to roll back in on a NG+ and see a lot of the different ways the game could end where you're meant to "fix" mistakes you made in your first playthrough. It works really well and is a core part of the experience.

I binged this game for a whole weekend. I could not put my Steam Deck down. I Was a Teenage Exocolonist is Young Adult fiction at its peak and in a year full of platitudes, "one of my all time favorites" feels like it has very little meaning, but man this one of my all time favorites.

[amaiguri]

When you're a Writer and a Vtuber...

If you like storytelling, Vtubing, or both, this one's for you 🥰

You'd think there'd be more overlap of "People who want to be fantasy characters and hide their face" and "Writers" but there really aren't. I know like me and @moonfeatherblue and that's it for the writing/worldbuilding and Vtuber overlap lololol. I think there should be more of us!

So, let me convince you to become a storytelling/worldbuilding/writing Vtuber like me...

In addition to just loving all the cool things you can do with Live2D as a software (if like art and you don't just stare at rigging showcases on YouTube, you should. It's so cool!), I also love storytelling in a social media space. Like, how do you tell a story over time? How much information should you reveal and when? What colors, images, and sounds evoke the feelings you want? And what feelings will keep people coming back for more? Basically, Vtubers have made me fall in love with marketing because the best marketing is just storytelling with some sort of call-to-action at the end.

Am I GOOD at marketing? No, lol, but maybe YOU would be! KEEP READING to find out XD

On the flipside, so so many Vtubers are like "I'm the embodiment of sin and also a gamer and a singer" or "I'm a cottagecore whale who is also the collector of lost souls and I play video games" and it's like... clearly Vtuber audiences LIKE the fantasy aspects of this. Why is the Vtuber default just gaming? Why is there not waaaaay more whimsy and storytelling? (This isn't to say Gaming Bad TM. I'm literally a game dev. I NEED streamers to play my games. I love them.) There's just so much opportunity for cool storytelling with Vtubers!

If you wanna get into being a fictional character/having a kayfabe-like wrestling persona for your writing, you should 100% get into Vtubing. You don't even need to stream to be a Vtuber -- and honestly I'm not even sure you need to post videos necessarily lol -- GIFs and pictures could probably get you pretty far on the right platforms. You could start out using a PNG --there are so many good, free PNGtuber softwares and you could use Picrew images (with the right permissions!) for your PNGtuber to start. Or if you can draw, you can just DO THAT.

Or if you have like $50 USD, Raindrop Atelier has a FULLY rigged Vtuber "Picrew" with chibi models that are so high quality and cute! Or if you have like $300 USD, you could get one of the Picrew-like Vtubers from Charat Genesis. (Yes, that's a lot BUT most Vtuber models — 2D and 3D alike — run you from $2000 to $8000 sooooo $300 is a steal in comparison.)

And then, over time, you could post and reveal facts about yourself and tidbits of your lore! And you could give writing advice or talking about your worldbuilding in-character! I've had this idea to make a fantasy creature mockumentary for actually years now and I'm just trying to find a good scope for it...

On the downside, as with all "storytelling in real time", it can a little discouraging at the start when you don't have a big audience. And this specific niche is especially underdeveloped so it's definitely hard to find a foothold. BUT I find that, because it's all play -- it's all FANTASY -- I have a lot more energy for this kind of marketing than I would if I were promoting myself as "just a writer, trying to sell my writing." Getting people to like me is exhausting. Getting people to like my writing is part of the writing process!

Cuz like, aside from just "inhabiting a fictional character" and "reducing your face presence online while still giving your personal brand a face", being a Vtuber is also a fun way to tie into your work.

Like, my Vtuber model is Arlasaire and she's the protagonist of my (probably) upcoming RPG, Untitled Yssaia Game, (Not the final name, real name pending lol). She talks about cooking and music and geography over on my YouTube channel and it's all infused with cool fantasy music and sound effects. She speaks in and teaches you about conlangs in the world. And she goes on fantasy dates or fantasy vacations! So now, I'm getting people attached to this character and her world BEFORE I even get into her actual story. And all her merchandising and stuff is really just game merchandising and so on and so forth... and that's just good branding! Hopefully some day, this translates into more people playing the game and seeing more of my work!

But obviously, I'm very new to marketing or else this blog post would convince more writers to become Vtubers and more Vtubers to write lol.

Anyway, here's some Arlasaire art (art: LexiKoumori on IG, rig: Kanijam) AS WELL AS some of her earlier model sketches before I asked for her hair to be silkier and less feathery! And lastly, a short unedited video of me being cringe so you KNOW you could do better :DDDD

[legacydevice]

Do you know what old pc I should get for retro gaming?

Thanks for the question! Keep in mind that this is written from the assumption that you have no/very basic knowledge of older computers, so I apologize if this comes off a bit patronizing! Even if you know quite a bit, other people reading may not and I want to make sure people are knowledgeable before making a purchase!

If you dont care about hardware, and your current pc can handle it, I'd recommend setting up a VM with the operating system of your choice (windows xp would probably have the most flexibility). Look up a tutorial on how to set up a VM with VirtualBox, and you can easily find .iso files of your operating system of choice online. (Obviously be careful of what you download). This is also convenient because if you dont own physical copies of your games it's pretty easy to get the files from the internet archive and transfer them to the VM! If you need any more help with this, feel free to send me an ask and I can help you out!

If you're a hardware lover like me though, I definitely understand wanting to have the experience of the real thing! Please keep in mind im not totally educated about specs and technical stuff, so take my opinion with a grain of salt and look for others input as well (followers please add on / correct me)!

A lot of it depends on the kind of games you want to run, if you're fine with only 2d games you should be fine with most computers that have an appropriate cpu/ram for the year it was made! However, running 3d games will definitely need a good gpu. There are plenty of people on ebay who sell custom built computers geared towards retro gaming, I'd recommend looking into listings of those even if you do not want to buy on eBay just to get an idea of what you would like!

I personally use Facebook marketplace to look for old computers that I want to buy. A lot of times you can get pretty good deals on there! While not a gaming oriented computer, I got my micron millennia, including the crt monitor, keyboard, mouse, and speakers all for $80! It also runs pretty much any games I want to play on there, but I haven't tried any beefier 3d games yet so I'm not sure how it will do with those. You can also check local thrift stores around you as well, I've been able to find a Dell optiplex for $40 once before. I would recommend local shops rather than goodwills since most goodwills usually sell their good stuff online for auction, but it doesn't hurt to check if you're feeling lucky!

Keep in mind that buying locally very much depends on if you can drive/have access to a car, so I totally understand if this isn't an option for you. I also have only ever lived in the US so your buying options will probably be different if you are in another country. If you know of any local retro tech enthusiast groups, they could probably help you out specific to your location! Again, Facebook is a good resource to find local groups.

The other option is buying from eBay. It will be more expensive because of shipping but you can at least get something more geared to your specifics and it's more convenient if you do not have access to transportation. Searching up something like "custom retro gaming pc" or "vintage gaming pc" should help you out!

Also, if this is your first time buying an old computer, or you do not have any experience with technology repair, you may want to buy from someone who has that experience and has already refurbished the computer for you. Blown capacitors and shitty power supplies are no joke, they can be very dangerous! If you absolutely need a computer that is advertised as not working/not tested, take it to someone who knows what they're doing before plugging it in. Again, I apologize if this comes off as patronizing but I want to make sure everyone is safe and no one has any bad experiences that may turn away people from this hobby!

Another recommendation I'd give is to get something you like! I know this might be a bit obvious, but I really like windows 98 because of nostalgia reasons, and my roommate would often ask me why I didn't get a pc with windows XP. Personally all the games I want to play run fine on 98, and i'm willing to use a VM for games that need XP. Get something that makes you happy if it is within your budget and convenient for you!

I apologize if this is a bit rambly! I'm waiting for an oil change and im bored lol. Other people feel free to add on and im willing to answer more questions if needed :)

[canmom]

brief comints on some comics

need to find energy to write some more Comics Comints but here are some very brief ones on some comics I read of late...

I read a bunch of Shintaro Kago stuff (The Princess of the Neverending Castle, Dementia 21). truly one of the best to ever do it, and I really need to do some kinda deep dive into what makes his stuff kick so much ass. but Kago's stuff has this absolutely ingenious playfulness to it - obvs it's got the 'fucked up body stuff' ero-guro aspect as a central pillar in which Shintaro Kago is uniquely inventive, but it's also constantly playing around with form in a way that like, you see the ideas getting developed from page to page from 'oh here's a fucked up thing' to the basis of an incredibly abstruse storyline that somehow feels fully coherent in its internal logic, even as the entire panel structure disintegrates into castle noodles.

he's also just both plain very funny and an absolute drawing monster. the two Neverending Castle books (Princess and Twelve Sisters - narratively disconnected but playing off the same ideas) are a special treat, gorgeous huge printings that really let you see all the crazy intricate little details, and the high concept is incredibly productive. Dementia 21 is bit more directly like... not so much commentary so much as using existing social tensions (in this case, caring for old people) as a jumping off point for darkly funny vignettes. also the interview at the back is great for Kago just completely no-selling most of the interviewer's attempts to pry.

started in on Oyasumi Punpun by Inio Asano. and guys. the expressions in this manga! honestly, the level of storytelling confidence is off the charts. I think I'm starting to get some idea of what it's doing and what the recurring interests are, but also damn, there is so much going on here. the manner of stylisation is really fascinating - it's like a great example of a sort of effect you can achieve if you understand realism forwards and backwards and then push it.

the eponymous punpun is heavily minimised in his own story - which is part of the premise, that he is so powerless and so completely failed by the adults who are too caught up in their own shit that he might as well be a cartoon bird. we have recurring invocations of the futility of human connection, it's doing a lot of stuff with religion-as-imaginary-friend and mixing sort of deliberately crude 2D graphical elements or really abstract compositions with the hyper detailed style. it's somehow like... moment to moment it looks super melodramatic but it's sort of processed through this dissociative haze which means the actual story ends up quite low-key.

I can see why people rate this one so highly, can't wait to get my hands on more.

I read some of the Sláine series - the Celtic barbarian character written by Pat Mills. in this case I had the Sláine the King arc, and some of the earlier comics, so I got a taste for the druid airships and stuff. Glenn Fabry's art is astonishing, it's as solid as an Otomo drawing but it doesn't feel sterile, it's got this incredibly expressive aspect, like it does so much to sell our sword-and-sorcery protagonist Sláine as a guy.

I'm someone who tends to read a lot more manga than Western comics in general, which is both a different approach to line and tone and also you tend to have the same artist drawing the whole series - in contrast, with 2000AD comic like this it's really striking seeing both how much value can be achieved with pure monotone, no greys, and also getting to see multiple artists tackle the same character in roughly the same idiom to highly varying results. there are approximately ten billion of these, but I haven't yet been able to track down the Horned God arc which is the one that was recced to me. hopefully soon.

comics are great

[roomwithavoid]

i didn’t like it. i didn’t like world of goo 2 and i want to fucking cry about it. i AM crying about it.

world of goo is literally my ALL TIME comfort game. it was my favorite game as a kid. i played it hundreds of times. i have it on my childhood wii and on mobile and on steam i’ve bought it so many times because i love it so much. coming home from school in kindergarten and seeing my brother playing it on the tv, how it was revealed to me my family now had a wii, kickstarting my love of video games. it literally might be one of my earliest memories. one of my first special interests. hell, i had a world of goo themed birthday party in kindergarten! my mom made cupcakes that looked like goo balls with marshmallows for eyes and a cake with donut holes connected with sticks to look like a stack of goo. i played this game before i could read. hell, playing this game is part of what TAUGHT me how to read. i still remember accidentally deleting my save file because i didn’t know how to read the words “erase save data” and crying for days, learning for the first time in my life how to accept loss and try again. and i did. i played it over and over. i played it on my ipad in the car while waiting to pick up my brother from school in the 4th grade. i remember streaming myself playing it for what must’ve been the hundredth time to my highschool friends because i wanted to share something that was so important to me. it never, and i mean NEVER felt like it lost any magic just because i had gotten older.

i was ELATED when world of goo 2 was announced. i couldn’t believe my eyes. it was like the thing child me wished on stars for finally came true, despite me now being 20. and i played it in the span of a couple days, and you know what? i didn’t like it.

sure there were good things, the graphical upgrade was nice to look at, and the remasters/remixes(?) of the old songs were lovely to listen to. but i honestly don’t know if i have that much more to say positively.

the levels were almost entirely these sort of “remixes” of the old levels, usually with some sort of added difficulty. the new goo mechanics didn’t feel fun or inspired, and shifted from the bridge-building aspect to a “look what happens when you shoot liquid in different directions” simulator. the few new mechanics that actually feel fun are criminally underutilized. but none of those issues, issues i probably could’ve overlooked if the puzzles were a smidge more interesting, hold a candle to the section that singlehandedly soured the entire game for me.

like in the original world of goo, chapter 4 takes us into the future, introducing a chapter-long gimmick that completely changes the way the game is played. however, unlike the internet gimmick in the original world of goo, which kept the core mechanics with a new coat of pain and introduced enticing new goo species to play with, world of goo 2’s chapter 4 introduces a split path with 3 different gimmicks that ALL ware out their welcome the second they’re introduced.

chapter 4 almost assaults you with the impression that the developers would rather be making literally any other game than world of goo 2. enjoying the physics based puzzle game? well how would you like to play 2d golf? what about a point and click noir visual novel? no? alright, not to worry, we still have sections that involve goo, but fret not, because we’ve introduced an exhausting gimmick revolving around how coordinated you are with moving your mouse in a perfect circle! oh, your hands are a little shaky? too bad! this level is unbeatable if you move even a millimeter incorrectly! the best (WORST) part of the chapter? it’s themed around the tired cliche of “game company sells out and makes a hundred of their game until they’re unrecognizable garbage” because playing a bunch of intentionally garbage games that masquerade as a game you love when they have nothing in common except maybe one character is always SOOOO much fun, right?

any fucking good graces i had with the sloppy puzzles of the first three chapters were shattered into pieces because of chapter four. there is legitimately nothing cute or funny about baiting your audience, who mind you has waited SIXTEEN YEARS for a sequel, into spending an entire chapter making some shitty noir game that you KNOW is shitty.

not to mention, the strong anti-capitalist metaphor from the first game translates to a muddy “i dunno maybe people have too many babies?” in this game. wog1’s message was so well done and clear and straightforward but wog2? wog2 is all over the damn place. hell if i know what they were even trying to say with half of it. i understood the first game’s message as a kid better than i understood this one as an adult! the only coherent bit of it was the “we have to figure out how to build tracks faster than the train is going” thing which was immediately retconned i guess by the train going in circles????

what a fucking disappointment.

[k1spiegel]

hi. here is that list of games i've enjoyed this year that i talked abt making, now under a read more for your viewing pleasure. not in any order besides the order i remember them

links will be to steam store pages if applicable, if not general home pages, though some of these will be available on multiple consoles

Inkbound - an isometric turn-based roguelike game in mid-beta where you play as a Needless, a blank, "generic" character with no supposed imagination or will, accompanied by a Kwill, a ball of light that helps you along. i'll be honest and say i haven't paid much attention to the story but i don't think i have to when the gameplay is so good. i love roguelikes and turn-based combat both, and the amount of customization you can get from random items and abilities during runs makes the game difficult but not soul-crushing. eventually you Will figure out how to make urself almost unkillable. no premium store or pay currency, just unlocking and in-game currency.

Cassette Beasts - a 3D environment-2D sprite creature capture game with a nostalgia theme (made in Godot!). i played(/replayed) a lot of creature captures this year, with cassette beasts probably being the earliest and one of the most memorable. there are some parts of the game i'm iffy on (the music, some of the companion quests compared to others), but the creature design and element mechanics in the fight make up for it by leaps and bounds. i've got a lotta favorite beasts in this one. suggested esp if you like 2v2 fights.

Palia - if you've hung around the "cozy games" scene at all, You Know This One. palia is a casual mmo currently in open beta that focuses mainly around farming, questing, and integrating yourself into a new community (though that's not All you can do.) by "casual" and "cozy" i mean that there's no real rush to do anything, your crops won't grow without you there and there's no friendship(/romantic) relationship deterioration. play as you want when you want. also it's free lol

Dragon Quest Monsters: The Dark Prince (no link available; currently only on switch) - i have never played a dragon quest game before. i think this was the funniest way i could've gotten into it. a creature capture-creature combiner game in the dragon quest monsters series where you play as a young Psaro, The Dark Prince, The Manslayer, the future King of Monsters, and go through different echelons of nadiria(/the area where monsters rule) beating ass and taking names. i probably don't have to sell this to DQ fans so much but the monster designs are fun, the story is funny to me whether on purpose or not, and i like either using the auto battle for quick levelling Or giving commands directly to my beasts. good stuff.

Lies of P - do you remember a few years back when everyone saw the pinocchio soulslike and went No Fucking Way and then forgot about it? lies of p is the pinocchio soulslike (though it's much more obviously a bloodborne-like, or to be even more specific, a code:vein-like). i love it. the setting and characters is kind of insane when you think about how it's All based on pinocchio, but it takes itself seriously enough to where you just go with it and enjoy your time with P and the npcs. the gameplay is fast and fun, with a pretty extreme amount of customization (swappable and upgradeable robot arm, usual soulslike Put Points Into Skills stuff, weapons with switchable parts that can be upgraded or change their scaling, etc.) i'm just having a really great time with it and want other people to too.

Risk of Rain Returns - an incredibly polished remake of the original Risk of Rain, a 2d side-scrolling roguelike where you play as a survivor on an alien planet full of things that want to kill you. i have almost 200 hours on the original ror and the remake has earned At Minimum 200 hours more - not only do the original characters and stages feel refreshed, but there's now new areas to visit, new survivors to unlock, and fun challenges to beat to try and get new items or abilities. plus chris christodoulou's soundtrack is, as always, The Best. if you didn't play the original RoR, i'd really recommend giving this a shot instead.

SPECIAL MENTIONS (no links. im lazy.)

Guilty Gear: Strive - tim managed to get me into fighting games this year and ggst was probably the best introduction i could've gotten. classic weird as fuck characters and story + an insane soundtrack.

Lethal Company - you've seen someone playing this, somewhere or somehow. funniest game to play if you and your friends are wussies. now has arachnophobia mode (<- is an arachnophobe, so i like it.)

Fortnite - sorry

[morkitten]

what's your favorite thing about klonoa? ^^

the character or the games??? you know what, i'll answer both: and i can't list just a single thing about both so i'm just going to list all the things i most love about them THE CHARACTER:

- Extremely cute character design, I love the big ears, I love the pac-man hat, and i love how they work together, the shapes just aren't as appealing otherwise (which is why I'm a bit lukewarm on the Klonoa 2 design - but put his hat forward like it should be and then it's instantly a good design again). Besides that I like his goofy and cute expressions and fangy teeth. I also love the yellow sclera, I used to be much more protective of it and upset that they changed that, but the white sclera works too - I like how in Moonlight Museum it blends with the white muzzle so it gives Klonoa that really cute old Mickey Mouse cartoon sort of look to his face where you can't tell where the eyes or white fur begin or end.

- Cute noises. Klonoa's voice actress is great and his gibberish is really cute. the double jump "WA-HOO!" just doesn't work with another delivery or with a less cute voice. I like the new lines that Klonoa 2 gives him for consecutive double-jumps which makes them feel even more satisfying to perform. THE GAMES:

- Each kingdom in Door to Phantomile feels like a totally different culture from each other, and the 2.5D helps sell this feeling that all these levels are sprawling lively places that you're going all over and throughout instead of feeling like you're stuck in a tiny stretch of land in one lane on a much larger and richer environment, like how other 2.5D games tend to feel like. The levels are designed pretty cleverly to not give you that impression, like you're never going "come ON just go AROUND this guy" or "why can't I go over there?" I love how barely anything in the levels' environments are "just" in the background in DtP. Every polygon is precious and is used efficiently. You see that windmill in the distance? You can climb it later in the level. That's right, Klonoa is Skyrim. The best Klonoa levels feel like an entire journey happening in a capital P Place. - The music in Klonoa 1 and 2 are both out of this world amazing. there are songs in both games that sometimes moves me to tears. That era of Namco was them at the top of their game when it comes to music. - BOUKEN!! I love games that feel like an adventure. Door to Phantomile especially feels like an adventure that keeps escalating and going bigger in scope. I love Rocket Knight Adventures for the same reason. Klonoa has great voice-acted cutscenes full of character (and characters!!) to help with this too. Klonoa 2 has a nice story too by the end, but it misses on this BOUKEN aspect, for most of it, it ends up feeling like you're a little chore boy running a somewhat repetitive errand. - These games are really simple and approachable!! Hideo Yoshizawa came up with the idea for it trying to craft a 3D game that had the straightforwardness and ease of pick-up-and-play of a 2D game, and that intent shines through very clearly. So for anyone reading this who hasn't touched them, please give them a try!! At least the first one, it emulates really nicely on Duckstation! Klonoa 2 I recommend the Phantasy Reverie version, but with the first game you *gotta* play the original and not the remakes. And you gotta play them in order!

[gerudospiriit]

/* As someone who has felt massive hype aversion to 3D Zelda titles no thanks to a certain defunct magazine, I need someone to sell me on Ocarina of Time. The only Zelda games I've played are some of the 2D ones and the Switch duology. */

[I have to say, as someone with hype aversion myself, I'm surprised you played BotW/TotK (I imagine that's what you mean by Switch duology). Those games were ACTUALLY overhyped because they were severely lacking imo compared to a lot of both 2D and 3D titles. But additionally, if you do have hype aversion, I feel like I'm not going to be able to convince you to play a game by...well, hyping it up myself. Plus it is nearing thirty years old, so just tell that hype aversion to get over itself if it started back in the 90s.

If you want to play it, go play it. I highly suggest it of course for many reasons but I feel like enumerating them will just turn you off more, so I'm not going to do that. Just know that the hype was earned, and the reason people still talk about it being a great game to this day is because it stands the test of time in both storytelling and gameplay.

So yeah. That's all you're going to get from me. I know what it's like to have hype aversion, and if you really want me to go into detail and it won't deter you, I will, but I really don't see how me hyping it up for you will do you any good. xD]

[icearts]

I know I mostly post Sonic stuff but oh my God I need more people to pay attention to Prince of Persia: The Lost crown.

The entertainment industry as a whole is on the verge of collapse and games like this are gonna be thriving. A Non-Triple A title that is gorgeous and plays very well Have I mentioned the game is beautiful???

Screenshots + long rant below cut (spoiler free)

I saw people complaining that this game wasn't worth the 50 dollar price because it was 2D. Huh?? Y'all know Mario Wonder was 70 dollars for virtually the same game play, right? No shade to Mario Wonder it's great but you can't use 2D isn't worth 50 as a talking point when Mario Wonder made headlines and few people complained about it being way too much.

Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown is developed by an indie company (Ubisoft), and the composer of the game is Gareth Coker who did the music for Ori, and Ark Survival Evolved. It's not on Steam yet because Ubisoft wants to sell more copies before going to Steam which has a high fee on developers who use it as a platform.

There are some things I don't like. One namely being the game-crashing glitch I ran into. There's a side quest you take from a pirate guy and it freezes the game and I had to go on Reddit to figure out how to fix. Hopefully that gets patches soon. Another thing I don't line much is the voice acting. Sargon's lines especially feel a little flat to me, especially for how well his emotions are animated. The voice lines just don't fit. But those are my only two big things. I love the platforming, the completely customizable difficulty, the game is also huge as well. I'm 10 hours in and only about 40% done. I also have a huge bias for metroidvania style games. Having free reign of a huge map filled to the brim with lore is just very nice and fun.

The best thing though? Colors. Colors. Colors. The blue and red dynamics are amazing. Even combat dynamics are colored (such as yellow vs red vs white attacks and how they impact your parry)

[cryiling]

in honor of totk NOT winning goty 🫡 here is my notes app from when totk first came out and I wrote all my thoughts abt the game down

-

today totk got released!! and I played for 8 hours straight 😭 I'm not suuper far in the game yet, I sort of just started the rito quest with tulin, but here are some things I love and dislike about the game so far:

first of all I love the archaic outfit 😊 however I'm very sad that it only does 1 protection because I wanted to wear it all the time AJDBAJDB

I love everything about the zonai, like the way they look, the music associated with them, the way they talk at the end of a shrine, the way you can tell something is of zonai make just by looking at it, like that's how you know a concept design is well done ✋ I'm so fascinated by how rauru looks, he's just so amazing

I do hate how extremely similar aspects of the great sky island are to the great plateau, though. "room of awakening" bro r u serious rn 😭 the way rauru follows you around like the king good bye. I just feel like this could have been done a little more uniquely so that it didn't feel like the great plateau with a texture pack slapped over it

there's also some things that I felt botw just did so much better than totk. like the way rauru's ghost would disappear felt very cheap and uneventful, like why does he just fade to 0 opacity and nothing else happens ?? at least with the king his ghost faded with the little blue flames and sparkles, it made it seem more interesting

I hate the inventory layout I'm sawryy 😭 the botw inventory looks very sleek and easy to comprehend, but the way the totk inventory is designed just feels very cheap and elementary to me. not the scrolling on one page instead of having multiple pages, that's not my issue. just the color design and how so much more information is crowded into each tiny box when you are selling things, it just confuses the player with too much info

uhh what else. oh! I also hate the animation for when you get the abilities at the beginning, and when you get those lights of blessing or whatever (honestly I hate that name too, why is it so long I literally can't remember it 😭). like why do the orbs with the abilities and blessings look so 2d and unfinished? they look like they were slapped on top as a fanmade effect rather than actually being a part of the game, and every time I see it, I feel removed from being immersed in the games because it's distracting

but I totally love the way the zonai statues are at the end of the shrines!!! the way they talk is SO 🙏🙏 like I'm totally obsessed with it. also!! this is very specific, but I love the music that plays during shrine battles, like why does that song go so hard fr

omg something else I love is the pony points system it's so cute 😭✋ and honestly it's a great incentive for me to use the stables, I don't think I used them that much in botw so I definitely appreciate this new addition

AND MY HORSES ARE HERE TOO IM SO HAPPY 🥺🥺

however I am devastated that we can't pet dogs ☹️ like was no one at nintendo listening to us when we were all asking abt it hello ??

this is more of a personal preference rather than a game quality thing but I AM SO HAPPY THERE'S PIRATES IN THIS GAME AAAAAAA i can't wait to go to lurelin village I rlly hope they let me join the pirates 🙏 (hi it's me from the future here, girl wtf why are the pirates literally just MONSTERS ON BOATS 🙁 give me real fucking pirates you cowards)

omg yeah I was obsessed with the frozen rito village ost, it had the core elements of the ost from botw but with that lonely haunted vibe and I was gonna cry omg it really set the mood and I loved listening to it 😭

ohh yeah something I didn't enjoy was how it felt like I was being overloaded with so much plot-heavy info, especially once I started the rito village quest. like yeah I get maybe playing for 8 hours in one day is probably gonna fry my brain and attention span but it just felt like they were telling me to do all these things and I just felt so overwhelmed that I literally had to put the game away and stop playing for the night 😭 I think if things were spaced out more for what they tell you then the plot might have been more digestible

oh yeah this is minor but I don't like how when you go to a new place it says "discovery!" and also when you cook a new food it says "new!" like it felt very commercial and broke the immersion in the game for me, there was literally no reason for it to be in the game? (upon playing the game further I've decided I don't mind the "discovery" notif. but I still don't like when it says "new!" on a food I cooked sorryyy)

OMG WAIT SOMETHING I LOVED was how link cycles through humming different things when he cooks!!! it's so cute and I love him for it 😭

also I loved the function of when you open a chest and get a weapon but your inventory is full, instead of having to close the chest drop a weapon and reopen the chest, they added the feature where your inventory pops up and you can drop a weapon while still in the chest so you don't have to switch back and forth. it was so relieving for me ✋

umm I definitely feel like there was more I wanted to say, I just forgot 😭 but let me just say, despite me having a lot of negatives on here, I still really enjoyed this game, and honestly aside from the things I mentioned I disliked, I love pretty much everything else about the game!! there's so much to love and appreciate, I really can't list it all or else I'd just be listing literally every aspect about this game ajdhskfj. so yeah. while I'm disappointed that I found parts of totk to be lesser than what I had hoped, I am still overall ecstatic about this game and I'm so excited to see what else I'll discover in this game!!!! (hey it's me as of writing this post, I definitely wrote this last paragraph to avoid getting bullied for not liking a lot of things LOLL)

hey I'm back (not as of writing this post, like a couple months after initially starting totk), listen ok I hate these stupid sage powers like 💀 they're literally not useful at all, I think tulin's is the only one I use regularly, and even then I'd rather have revali's gale bc at least it goes up ??

I've been watching other ppl play and I realize that actually yunobo and riju can kinda be useful when fighting large groups, like if you just activate yunobi's ability you don't really need to aim him, and he'll hit a bunch of monsters. same with riju, just activate her and shoot somewhere random and it'll do damage. but other than that, like sidon and mineru are useless 😭 also I get rlly annoyed when I'm trying to pick things up and tulin gets in the way like GIRL GO AWAY ugh it would just be so much better if the abilities were activated like the champions instead idk

ok I'm obsessed with the way rauru's ear twitches LOLL THAT'S SO RANDOM but in the memories it's just so satisfying to see

hm idk how to explain this but there's some aspects of this game that feel very aoc to me and it annoys me. like, the defend kara kara bazaar + gerudo village quests, and that one thing in hateno with the stupid pumpkins, idk but it totally threw me off guard with having to fight with npcs, like it felt very jarring to have in the middle of totk. i never liked aoc or any hyrule warriors games so that's probably why I don't like this very much, but yeah I just didn't enjoy it very much

god I can't describe how much I hate everything abt mineru I'm sorry I just hate her bc like,, bro I hate to say it but I never connected with her character at all. every part of her in the storyline felt forced, and her connection to zelda and the sages never felt authentic. also I hate the eng voice acting like why does she talk like that 😭

her talking about draconification felt sooo forced. she said "there are stories of eating the stone to turn into an immortal dragon" like that could be a solution, then when rauru asked if they could do that, she was like "however 🤓☝️ you'll lose your sense of self and it's forbidden. I thought this would give us an answer but maybe not 😞" like BITCH IF YOU KNEW IT WAS FORBIDDEN WHY WOULD YOU SAY ANYTHING 😭😭 the way she said it, it sounded like she was reading a book and learning this information as they went, which would make sense why she brought it up but turns out it won't work. BUT SHE KNEW THE FULL THING ALREADY WHY DID SHE SAY IT LIKE THAT???? god it annoyed me so much, it was such a bad foreshadowing plot point

and honestly her entire quest confused me, bc the whole first part has a very thunder/lightning theme so I thought her power would be related to that but it wasn't at all? like how come we didn't do anything spirit related meanwhile all the other sages had areas that related to their powers, ugh it felt so dumb. lightning is already heavily associated with riju + the gerudo, so it felt weird that they themed the whole first half of mineru's quest around it too.

I hate her stupid construct. IT'S SO LAME 😭 has anyone actually enjoyed fighting with it. has it actually benefitted anyone. like be so fr rn. I hated it so much that I built a freaking airbike and just flew to the final temple without fighting any of the stuff along the way bc I refuse to be forced to do things I don't like 🫶

and then at the end of the game when her spirit leaves her construct and she dies or whatever, I was just like 😐 they tried to make it emotional but literally mineru is my worst enemy and I was cheering and applauding atp. like I could care less. her character felt, idk how to describe it, like.. cringy and self-inserty? something about it felt very off to me and so I was just never able to like her. it felt like nintendo was trying to force me to like her and I was Not about to let that happen

hang on I have other things to complain about... oh yeah the STABLE TROTTER CONDUCTOR LIKE BRO 😭😭😭 why does he sound like mario, like I actually want to punch him in the face. the rest of the band is fine tho, I like their music 🤞

hm something I'm annoyed about is how much harder it is to find the dragons now. in botw their flight pattern was more predictable, but here like istg I can never find them when I need them 😭 it's just vv inconvenient

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ok I'm back back. I think that about covered all my thoughts BUT one more thing. the map is so fucking cluttered. something that was done so well with botw was the openness of everything, it really fit the vibes and it immersed you in the expanse of the game. but the totk map was WAYY too busy 😭😭 not only with the purah pad map (which btw I still think sheikah slate is a better name) but just in general when you're walking around hyrule. there is Too Much going on and I don't like it

LAST THING although tbh this could be a whole separate rant. the way the purah pad is compatible with zonai technology makes no fucking sense???? like there is NO logical explanation for how it can mark waypoints at zonai shrines

in botw it made sense, because the shrines were sheikah-made and so was the slate, so ofc the sheikah would have built them to be compatible and programmable with one another. but the zonai shrines??? first of all they're just rocks on sand. no sort of technology the purah pad can latch onto. second, you activate the shrine with the ZONAI ARM, not the purah pad. literally no connection is made. this is such a small thing to fixate on but every time I think about it I am filled with inexplicable rage

I have a whole OTHER rant on why the sheikah tech disappearing makes literally No Sense but. this post is long enough as it is. if u want I can make a separate post but I think this is good enough for now 🤗

[todayimgonnaplay]

Today I'm Gonna Play: Love and Deepspace

I came across this video a couple months ago of a really high poly guy and thought it was CGI made by someone talented. Turns out it was an upcoming otome game for mobile?! I replaced my phone recently so this was a good time to look forward to trying something with high-end graphics for this platform.

My experience with Otome games isn't much. I've played those dating sims that a few friends were very into back in school on DeviantArt, notably by Zeiva and Pacthesis. This was my entry to the Visual Novel (VN) genre, but I didn't understand the appeal of of liking 2D guys. Fast forward and I've also played a couple otome VNs on mobile and dabbled slightly on PC and even though I find a few interesting love interests based on appearance and personality, I STILL didn't get the appeal, until I finally played Mystic Messenger two years ago and got my heart shattered and was rejected by my love interest lol. This idea of having a social messaging format with calls for a mobile game is one of the most creative things I've seen for both the VN genre as a whole as well as the mobile platform. I don't know if any other VNs have done something like this before.

What Love and Deepspace does, is basically take that same format and iterate upon it with its worldbuilding. But it doesn't stop there. The real selling points of this game is that it uses very high quality 3D models akin to Final Fantasy CGs and also have real-time action combat. This seemed like a combo I never thought would exist, but I'm sure as hell glad to see it. Apart from chatting and calls using your own created avatar, it includes other features such as micro blogs which are Twitter-esque, so you can like and comment on the other characters' posts, and sometimes make your own. There are interaction features with the love interest, by being able to touch him, ask him things, and even things like listening to heartbeats or blowing on him using your mic?? It's another level of immersiveness! Minigames also exist which add to the story, such as claw machines (which are actually not to rigged compared to real life), playing cards, taking photos, and mini stories or audio that you can obtain from gacha.

The gacha aspect is not related to obtaining your love interest like in other gachas, but rather it's unlocking additional content about them, such as the mini stories. These stories tend to look like casual hangouts or even romantic dates. I'm not sure if there are any intimate scenes or not so far.

The story is not bad, I'm intruiged by the lore and the overall world as I like futuristic settings. There's a lot of info dump in documents and such that you typically see in gachas or RPGs, but this is one of the few times where I actually read through them. And surprisingly, the protagonist (you) is actually a lot more competent than expected!

The only issue I have is that the way the story is presented makes the characters look like they don't know each other yet and are distant, which is fine. But the romance parts you unlock through gacha or other features of the game seem more affectionate so it feels quite disjointed. It makes me feel confused on how I can piece these moments together.

Another nitpick although minor is that the daily stamina that you can obtain through login times don't seem to sync up in local time, so I'm assuming it's based on China's time zone instead. I've mostly been on this game during the evenings which make me miss both of them. It's a bit of a weird decision for international players.

I've also seen comments online about the lack of a male character or other gender options. I also agree that this would be nice to have. But I also acknowledge that this game is primarily aimed towards women (therefore an otome game), and since it's a Chinese game, I'm not sure if they would allow any type of BL in it. This could cause a bit of disinterest for international players. The only option I can see is to provide a larger variety of options for the current female avatar (which is also a complaint even amongst women playing the game), which could also have the avatar look a little more masculine presenting, etc. This could be a slight workaround towards any censorship laws while also allowing for more diversity. Plus technically speaking, the advantage of shorter hair or buzz cuts etc. would also mean less complex hair rigging (like with long hair) so it may be easier to animate and handle.

Overall, this game has huge potential that could transform romance/otome games for mobile like Mystic Messenger if all goes well. This will be another mobile game I'll keep playing!