#video game macros

[racke7]

Me vs FF14

I've been raising the levels on my DPS-jobs (trying to get them all to fifty), and so I've been using the leveling-queue.

(Ifrit is still fucking bullshit and shouldn't fucking be there)

Had a WHM get completely lost in a dungeon, and had to talk them through how to get to us.

Saw another DPS with some kind of "go tank and pull everything"-chat macro, which... is kind of none of their fucking business as a DPS? The ones deciding on how fast and hard we should go are the tank and healer who are the ones making sure we don't fucking wipe. The fucking disrespect.

A tank actually used their Limit-Break during the final boss-fight. Against a boss that does basically fuck-all damage. Had to take a moment after that dungeon to stare at a wall, because what the fuck.

On a not-actually related note to that last one, I've now mapped the "target-priority"-button to a hotkey, so I can tell people to not bother with targeting the adds when they don't need to.

I've also created a few chat-macros of my own for things like "sound alert telling the tank to set tank-stance" and "basic rules a tank should know" which are as follow:

"Pull until your healer asks you to stop"

"Never stop using your AOE"

"Don't move around unless you have to"

The reasons for the first is that the tank sets the tempo of the dungeon, and some tanks are scared of wiping. Wipes happen. Inattention, greed, random chance.

Your job is to go as fast as you can, and to try and not-die when everything catches up to you, and the one who gets veto on how you do that? Is the healer. So pull as much as you can, and if you wipe or your healer complains? Slow down.

(Everyone else can shut their fucking mouths about it.)

The second one is there because I kept seeing tanks who lost the fucking aggro, despite having tank-stance active. And this is usually because they either don't use their AOE-skill (probably not helped by the novice-tutorial shit telling tanks to "stop using" AOE once a target is "captured" which is bullshit and bad math), or they're not standing in a place where they actually hit the enemies.

But if it's the latter, then they can usually be caught by the tank by just having the targeted sucker run into the tank's AOE-range. Which only works as long as the tank keeps using the AOE.

(The math in this case is: there aren't really a single-target skill that does more than 300~ dmg. Even the shit AOE-skills do 100. So up against three targets? AOE is just more DPS. And you should be up against groups of like... six or more.)

The third and final bit was added specifically for that one tank who thought he was a fucking bard and was running back and forth like an idiot.

There are a few different reasons for it though.

First is that if the tank stands in one place? Everyone else can move so that they don't get hit by things like non-telegraphed cleave-attacks.

Second is that if the tank doesn't move? Then neither does the enemies, so it's a lot easier for the DPS to do their positionals correctly (ie, "hit from behind" etc).

Third is that if reinforcement shows up? The non-tanks can just move to stand behind the tank, forcing the new arrivals to go through the tank first (at which point the tank's AOE would pick them up).

So. Those are my three "tank 101"-macros.

Since I'm suddenly on the subject. Added tank-lesson for anyone wanting to try it is that ranged mobs? They have to attack through line-of-sight. So running behind a corner before you stop will force ranged-mobs into AOE-range.

However, it'll also break your healer's line-of-sight though, so they won't be able to heal you until they can catch up. Be warned.

(An easier option is often to just run past their base-range until they mass, and then run back to them.)

Speaking of fun buttons, I also found out that the "confirm"-button actually lets you select nearby objects. So if you bind it to a convenient button and double-press, you don't have to worry about people blocking your mouse-clicks.

[13thpythagoras]

seeking video game beta testers - "Is progress just a myth? Can we abstain from total destruction?"

Developing a video game to be released on this blog under this name

This game contains a package of minigames that govern the overall game. Educational and mysterious, free form and non-dual.

13th Pythagoras's Abstainment & Advancement, is the game's working title

Graphic design styles to work with

Definitely in graphic designer co founder search mode

[doyoulikethis-videogame-song]

Song: The Arrival Artist: Camille Macros, Julien Ponsoda From: Seers Isle

Listen on Youtube:

[topurologist]

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[cmdr-avaliengineer]

Welp, looks like I need to get back into the material farming grindset - These builds won't finance themselves. Hate grinding HGE but it's the only way to get some of the mats I need.

[foone]

So a cool thing my granddad* Alan Turing figured out is Turing Equivalence:

Basically he designed a super simple hypothetical computer, and proved mathematically that it can do everything a more complicated computer can do, just maybe slower or faster.

This is normally brought up for the factoid that could run Doom on Xty Million Crabs, but it also applies to programming languages, not just computers.

See, it means that every programming language is equally "powerful", assuming it's Turing Complete (which is basically just "can do the things this minimal computer can do", which is basically every language except a couple simple theming languages and macro scripting systems), it's just easier or harder to do specific things in a given language. But they can still be done.

So this means the C/C++ your OS and browser was written in is just as powerful as everything else. The Java used for Minecraft and Android phones, the Javascript used for webpages, the C# used Unity, the BASIC used on 80s computers, and DickCode, the joke programming language I made as a university student which had only eight operators, but all eight were different ascii penises a la "8==D".

All equally powerful. You could write an OS, video game, or AI bot in any of these. It just might be a little slower or faster and easier or harder to do (especially DickCode, that one is very Hard).

Aren't computers neat?

*not my actual granddad but I am named Turing

[andersonsgf]

modern roommate!abby

this shall be so criminally self indulgent :)

18+ bit of smut. minors dni.

modern roommate!abby who wasn't keen on you at first. manny had just moved out and it felt as though she had practically grabbed you from the street to make sure she could make rent that month. but she did not like living with a stranger. for the first week she kicked you to the curb, giving you minimal responses when you tried to talk. She looked at you with a frown most of the time, blinking at you when you suggested a movie on your third night. "I'm going out tonight" was her response, mentally noting to make sure to text manny to hang out now.

modern roommate!abby who after getting over her initial distaste realised you weren't too bad after all. at first she protested that you put little trinkets of yours around the apartment. "i don't see why you have to make this place look like one of your fucking video game stores", she complained when some lego blockheadz appeared near the tv. but after a little while she came to find that she didn't mind it so much, and after getting over the fact that manny was gone she realised you were filling all the little gaps he had left in your own way.

besides, you had pointed out all of her trinkets that were dotted around. "those aren't trinkets!", she had protested, arguing that her mass amount of classic books and classical music CDs dotted around were fine collections, and not "kids toys". you had for sure worn her down, though. you won the battle claiming that you deserve to have your fine collections around the apartment too. even though abby was annoyed that her entire apartment felt different now, she wasn't a dick. you were paying equal rent, you should have equal trinkets.

modern roommate!abby who after finally deeming that you weren't a threat to her little paradise at home drove you everywhere. your shiftwork at the local store was on her way to her work. it was the least she could do she felt, not trusting other people to keep you safe when walking around seattle on your own. she wouldn't tell anyone you were friends yet, still telling people that you were just her pesky roommate. still, she couldn't bear the thought of you shuffling through the torrential seattle rain to work, then walking back in the dark after. no, no. she was willing to be your chauffeur. she even gave you the aux. she would rub her forehead when she saw you put it on without her permission anymore, but she never made you turn it off.

modern roommate!abby who has a rigorous sleep schedule thanks to all of the rugby training she does cannot understand how one night you will be in bed asleep by 10, and the next she'll wake up for a glass of water and hear you shuffling around in your adjoining room at 2am. time and time again she would lecture you on not going to bed late due to your commitment to your playstation, but she soon realised it was no use. you were unfortunately a gremlin.

you consistently mocked her for going to bed at a "baby hour". it was always met with an eye roll and her telling you you would meet an early grave from sleep deprivation. come to think of it, she often told you that you'd die young. whether it be from lack of sleep, eating too much candy, not looking properly when confidently stepping out into the road, or just being oblivious to the world around you in general. "you gotta get healthier so i know my rent payments are still secure", she'd tell you whilst eating her perfectly counted macros meal after the two of you visited the gym together, watching you scoff your face with your version of a post-gym snack. a subway sandwich with four rainbow cookies.

modern roommate!abby was pleasantly surprised to find out that you were a gym rat too. she obviously had way more muscle, built like an ox, but you were doing pretty well for yourself too. different body types had different ways of showing muscle anyway. at first she couldn't really tell, you had moved in in the winter so wore baggy comfy layers to the gym. after a few months of joining in on her training sessions though, the seasons changing and the weather warming up, you started wearing your matching sets. abbys favourite was your dark blue ones, a cropped muscle shirt and shorts. not that she would ever ever admit to you that she had a favourite.

she would never admit that sometimes she corrected your form just to get a little closer. your form was never wrong, she'd taught you too well over the months. she was embarrassed, her eye contact when in the gym dropped completely, and she had never been one to shy away from that kind of crap. you were though, eye contact had always alluded you so you didn't notice the way abby could barely look at you, feeling terrible for ogling you in your new leggings when she helped you on the squat rack.

modern roommate!abby who when she got a text that you cracked your tooth on a skittle at work booked half her shift off and drove you to the dentist. she didn't even have to think about it, just told her boss she had a family emergency and had the 'holiday' booked within five minutes. she pulled up to the curbside with a screech, staring at you with an incredulous expression. "you're like four minutes from your work why did you start walking?", she had half yelled out the window.

"what? why are you out of work?", your hand was covering your cheek on the cracked tooth side of your face as if that would do anything. abby sighed, pushing the endearing thoughts towards you out of her head as she yelled at you to "get in the fucking car". she took you for a milkshake after it got fixed.

modern roommate!abby who got comfortable enough with you in her life to invite her friends around for an evening of drunk games again. manny made about ten jokes over the course of the night about how he was invited to his own apartment. you laughed at how he poked fun at how you ruined his old room. hearing your drunken giggles made abby smile a lot over the course of that night. you'd become a permanent fixture in her life, and as the drinks kept coming she kept sidling closer and closer to you on the couch, basically ignoring her friends as they cracked open a board game and ten more beers. you spent the night basically staring at her hands as they clutched onto the various beer bottles. they were just so fucking big, and attached to the biggest forearms you had ever seen.

at some point you got up to go make some toast, trying to preemptively cure the hangover you knew you were going to get. you had completely missed how abbys eyes narrowed into thin slits when one of her coworkers took interest in you and very clearly tried to chat you up in the kitchen. her hand almost crunched the beer bottle when she saw that womans hand on the small of your back. you had been clearly too drunk to notice much, but you did approach abby the next morning after finding a phone number slipped into your back pocket.

"you scored last night, huh?". abbys heart raced a million miles an hour as she looked at you. it shouldn't have mattered, she wasn't interested in dating, nevermind getting into it with a roommate. that was a terrible choice. but she couldn't deny the smirk she held back by sipping on some orange juice as you murmured about not being interested whilst throwing the paper in the bin.

modern roommate!abby didn't invite that particular coworker around again. you did question it when she was absent at the next hangout. "She's just busy, sweetheart", she was drunk enough to call you that as her hand covered your knee completely. she woke up humiliated at how many advances she had sent your way that night, but if you noticed then you didn't make it clear, entering the kitchen the same way you did every morning. your bright smile melted her heart.

after a while modern roommate!abby started cooking for you more. she wanted to make sure you were getting a good amount of protein and carbs with how much physical exercise you did each week. not as much as her of course, but still a hefty amount. it became a common occurrence for her to hand you some tupperware with your name on a post-it before she drove you to work. she never put a post-it on her own tupperware though, which you thought needed to be rectified. she was pleasantly surprised when she got to work, seeing "abby <3 :)" on her lunch. it did lead to her having to deny having a girlfriend at work though, her coworkers pestering her about it nonstop. it did get her thinking, however. you were sweet, maybe it wouldn't be the worst thing- no, no.

modern roommate!abby who decided to invite you to a rugby game for the first time. you knew she worked in an office for her main income, and obviously knew she was on a rugby team. what you didn't know was that she was in an actual major league team, the seattle seawolves. you also didn't know that she was such a star of the show that premiership teams were looking into scouting her for the next seasons. fucking hell. it now felt like living with a celebrity. you sat alone on the bench near the pitch, getting special treatment for being a special guest. a decent crowd showed and screamed loud when the seattle team had momentum. abby pushed harder than she ever had now that you were in the crowd. she pushed through tackles like the opponents were made of butter, easily reaching the end goal and slamming both herself and the ball onto the floor near the posts, making life easier for the kicker. you, meanwhile? drooling. straight up drooling. Her muscles rippled as she stormed across the pitch, her hamstrings and quads were sculpted and your eyes were pinned to them. suddenly you realised why people liked watching rugby.

it was a win, of course. she celebrated with her teammates on the pitch as the crowd slowly filtered out. it was incredible. abby won player of the match, scoring the most tries, letting her team win by a landslide. "well done!", you spoke louder to be heard over everyone as you reached her after hurrying across the pitch. abbys heart skipped and her ears rang as she saw you grin up at her before you went up on your tiptoes and wrapped your arms around her neck.

modern roommate!abby who after this had realised she was down bad. one hug should not have been on her mind for this long. and abby 'get the fuck away from me' anderson never normally craved another hug after someone held her. but no, she started even inviting you to match practices and being a tryhard just for the chance of you giving her another well done hug after. fuck, she was so screwed. she even found herself putting her hands on you when moving past you in the apartment, making sure to get your favourite snacks in if she saw you were out of them. she'd never done this when manny lived with her so she could not chalk it up to just feeling comfortable. she grumbled to herself when you arrived home from wandering around the city and she smiled too brightly during welcoming you home, huffing and puffing and making her sandwich too aggressively when you were back in your room.

"why are there so many finger marks in your bread?", you startled her. your chuckle reverberated around her heart, making it beat faster. she gave some pathetic excuse about literally hand planting her sandwich as she tripped coming back from the fridge. you believed it, shrugging her off as you sat down next to her and unwrapped another subway.

modern roommate!abby who made it all worse when acting deeply uncomfortable when you talked about dating apps. "i mean, i thought when i moved to the city that the choices in women would be better but its still 'katy and brent looking for their third', or 'just looking for some fun on my exchange!'. ugh does no woman in seattle just want a nice relationship or something?". abby looked up from her beer, looking a little frazzled that the topic of dating was now here. she painfully swallowed a hunk of pizza whilst absentmindedly agreeing with you. "what's your relationship take? do you have much luck here?".

she sighed, fucksake. "i don't really have one", she brushed you off, watching as you frowned at her. it's not like she could admit that her relationship take right now was you. "how can you not have one?".

"i mean one day it might be nice to settle down but like you said the dating pool is shit".

"yeah it is pretty shit. i dunno, i kinda like knowing the person first, might just delete hinge it's so ass", you grumbled and she watched you toss the application into the trash, her chest felt relieved. without the dating apps she didn't have to worry about you finding an actual person on there, now she could take her time in being a wimp around the apartment again.

modern roommate!abby who had managed to make it even more worse when you scampered through the apartment in just a shirt and your underwear after a shower, yelling in panic about how you left your pyjama bottoms by accident. even you in all of your beautiful obliviousness noticed the way she stared at your ass as soon as you were in view of the living room. you clearly gulped and scampered away even faster as you felt your face and ears flush. abby had to go and get a drink of water before shaking her head. you were her roommate, it was too complicated. but now that she had seen you in some simple black cotton underwear -to abby, the simple stuff was hotter- she knew she was fucked. not in the fun way.

before she knew it her car keys were in her hand and she was heading to mannys apartment. he enthusiastically invited her in and she immediately shared her woes about how she had fallen so hard for her new roommate. "dude, you can't do apartment-cest".

"don't call it that, that's gross", she shoved his shoulder and got a soda out of his fridge. "i didn't think i had a type before her but she's just so sweet y'know? like everything she says is like she's throwing rainbows at me even if she's complaining about how her avocado socks got soggy on a walk or some shit".

"dip your pen in the apartment ink, then", manny sat down on his couch whilst trying to subtly shove someones bra under a cushion.

"i could have maybe continued silently pining after her like a fucking loser but she caught me staring at her ass and fuck it was a good one". abby anderson basically whined when thinking about how she saw you at the apartment, her stomach doing that thing.

modern roommate!abby who hid at mannys apartment until 10pm when you had your shower at 5. she wanted the ground to open up and swallow her whole when you looked up at her as soon as she opened the door. you had been waiting for her with a tub of ben and jerrys, and you were wearing her rugby teams shirt as a pyjama shirt. fuck. her voice was strained when greeting you, biting the bullet and placing herself on the sofa too. "you were gone a while", you noted. all she could do was nod, her mouth going dry now she knew she'd seen the entirety of your legs. she had decided they were her new weakness. "sorry if i made you uncomfortable".

"the opposite, actually", she replied after a moment. and neither of you knew where to go from there. in every aspect of her life abby was headstrong, intimidating, said what she wanted. but when it came to women? useless. fucking useless.

the memo was received though. but you? also fucking useless. "okay i think we're both knowing where this is going", your voice was careful. terrified. you watched abby nod and shift to be facing more towards you. "maybe we can test to see if its awkward?", you looked up at her.

modern roommate!abby whose hand tentatively placed itself just above your waist as you both leaned in, awkwardly. your noses bumped, and she smiled with a huff before your lips chased hers. it was safe to say that it was a successful test. she worked her lips against yours and wondered why she hadn't been doing this the whole time. you tasted sweet, like orange juice, and her brain went static when you panted slightly as her hand moved up and down the side of your ribcage. sensitive.

modern roommate!abby who loved you hard as soon as you got past the awkward first week of not knowing how to be roommates and also go on dates. she took you out for some amazing burgers the day after your kiss and then got confused on what to do after. you both had the same home. some people may have retreated away to their rooms after, but not her. she straight up followed you into yours after your fifth date on week two, grinning as you laughed when she settled herself onto your bed. she just couldn't be apart from you, it seemed. not that you minded, especially not when you settled curled up against her chest as her hands rubbed your back. these days you could talk the nights away now that the useless pining was over. and you always found that one of abbys hands always found their way down your back and onto your ass, without fail, resting her hand there before falling asleep. think it's safe to say she's an ass girl.

modern roommate!abby who so lived up to that when she meekly asked if she could go from behind during your first time. even though she liked to be 'on top', she really was so shy during it. she made sure you had lots of pillows to be comfortable, she brushed your hair out of your face to make sure it wouldn't annoy you during it. the groan she let out when staring at your lower half, one hand cupping and squeezing it as the other worked the outside of your centre was enough to have you gushing. she worshipped you completely as she started off with one finger, aware that her hands were bigger than average. the small little whines were just not enough though, so she slipped another in, pumping them in and out softly as she gently rocked her body back and forth in time with her wrist, keeping her rhythm steady.

modern roommate!abby who over and over again murmured reassurances when she heard your soft whimpers. "you're okay, you're okay. so fucking hot", she'd slur out in a whisper, punctuating the end of her sentence with another squeeze to your ass before working you harder when she felt you near the finish line. she couldn't get over how good you felt, how warm, groaning when your back arched as she finally got you to the end, feeling ever so slightly proud of herself, and wondering why she hadn't bent you over sooner.

modern roommate!abby who proudly called you her girlfriend now when she brought you to rugby practice, pressing her lips to the top of your head before running off with a wink to go and batter some people. your eyes once again fixated on her thighs, definitely your favourite part of your girlfriend if you were quite frank. even though practice was her favourite time of week, the highlight of it really were those 'well done' hugs. only these days? she got a little kiss with them too.

[purekoor]

Macros forgot it was a leap year... Help support my work

[phanfictioncatalogue]

Terrible Influence Tour (6) Masterlist

part one, part two, part three, part four, part five

A Perfect Macro (ao3) - scaryfangirl2001

Summary: When Phil doesn't answer his texts, Dan searches for him and finds a work of art

Anyone Else (But You) (ao3) - phansong

Summary: Dan and Phil are on the final leg of their Terrible Influence Tour when suddenly Phil starts feeling sick. In a world where you can only get pregnant if you find your soulmate of the opposite sex, Dan and Phil never expected to be dealing with the challenges.

Craving Sunshine (ao3) - euphor7a

Summary: “Can’t fuck a baby into you like this, angel,” Daniela brings her hand back to tap twice at the fist still clenching her hair. “Let go.”

I Love Him (ao3) - yikesola

Summary: There’s a lot to love about tour, but free time in a city on the opposite end of the world is very high on the list.

A fic about art galleries and love at first sight.

idgaf (because it saved me) (ao3) - gaydreaming

Summary: When Dan sits down at his piano, he doesn't expect to put so much emotional vulnerability onto the page. But TATINOF had a song. Introverts had a song. Terrible Influences needs a song. And, more importantly, Dan and Phil need to figure out how exactly they plan to take back what the internet took from them.

if you really loved the first one, you wouldn't have fallen for the second, and other bullshit sentences about love (ao3) - m_katiep

Summary: Bringing back the gaming channel didn't magically fix all the problems in their relationship, but maybe a whole ass tour will. Right? Please? Phil is still madly in love, but Dan is struggling.

it's us against the world, together we'll survive (ao3) - evilfrog1

Summary: As Dan and Phil wrap their final show of the Terrible Influence Tour, Phil struggles with the bittersweet reality of endings. Comfort and quiet reassurance follow, because some things don’t end — not really.

Kiss A Ginger Day (ao3) - miku78

Summary: Dan can remember birthdays, jokes from 15 years ago, even the colors of Phil's convoluted, adorable eyes. Does he really think Phil's a natural ginger?

knot problem (ao3) - PhanTDM

Summary: When Dan said "Daddy's got a little knot problem? " onstage, he was making a joke. Except it kinda wasn't a joke- the knot part, not the daddy part. or the problem part.

(long live) that look on your face (ao3) - jonsaremembers

Summary: They're too old and tired for a proper afterparty, but Phil finds a way to make the London shows special anyway.

Lost & Found (ao3) - skygremlin

Summary: "But, what I’m saying is how do you remember a moment when something goes missing? Because then you would know where the thing went!"

"Because you were the last person that had it, ergo you lost it."

Phil loses a house key.

No fun in podcasts (ao3) - harrysbabyboo

Summary: Dan and Phil are almost at the end of the terrible influence tour and as much as he loves it, the pressure is rising for Dan. One guest appearance on a podcast is too much for him and Phil helps him relax.

Not the Jealous One (ao3) - imademon

Summary: After Brighton Terrible Influence show, Dan as Sister Daniel flirts with PJ and makes Phil a little jealous.

paint the town blue (ao3) - miku78

Summary: Feeling burnt out from tour planning, Dan and Phil make an impromptu trip to Brighton.

rattlesnake (ao3) - ZackStriker (PyroStormIsBae)

Summary: to the mirror dan says, "i am sorry you got stuck with me," to the birds he says, "do you ever feel like your body is not your body?" to phil he says, "could you maybe sit a little further away from me during this video?"

phil looks at him with equal amounts despair and love. 'this feels right,' dan thinks, 'this is what love should be for me: painful. it’s what i deserve.'

or: a fic juxtaposing 2012's grief with 2024's joy.

Scent (ao3) - dipnpip

Summary: Dan buys a new cologne and Phil is a big fan!

Soft (ao3) - dipnpip

Summary: On a rare day-off together touring Europe, Dan becomes increasingly flustered by Phil's soft skin while out sightseeing.

The moments we shared drunk (ao3) - dead_little_lamb19

Summary: Dan is the horny clumsy drunk and Phil is the silly giggly drunk.

We did it: Onto a new era (ao3) - DAJPhanTrash

Summary: I saw people saying Phil was close to crying at the end of the final terribe influence tour show so I wanted to write a fanfic it.

No spoilers for the actual show

The end of terribe influence tour. Dan comforts a crying Phil.

You wanna kiss me so bad it makes you look stupid (ao3) - dead_little_lamb19

Summary: Dan is just fucking tired after the tour and stressed about their new plans for life. It results in a little fight between him and Phil on a Friday evening. But Phil always gets his way.

[nofollowgame]

🔶 the amv contest! in No Follow 「game」 :: File #000012

ANIME WEBRING AMV Contest ~ Live Video! Finalists!!! ANIME | SONG Fullmetadata Alchemist | The Ghost of UI Yu☆Gi☆Overflow! | Candy POP3 Macros | Break the ISO Death Notepad++ | Spice Upload Your Life

[weirdmarioenemies]

Name: Bee Fly (again)

Debut: Super Mario Land 2: Six Golden Coins

Bee Fly here is one of the cutest little patooties in the Mario series, probably! Look at it! So many aspects that, if applied to a vertebrate, would feel overdone and not very notable. But on a bug, it is just so darling, especially since it gets to keep its proboscis! It would be such a sad day, if Bee Fly were to not have a proboscis.

Bee Fly is not only a cutie patootie, but also a sweetie badeedie, because it does not attack at ALL. It is scared of Mario, and flies away when he approaches! It is possible to kill it with a fireball, but why would you do that? Surely you must have a good reason to want to kill this harmless fly. Is it because you plan to eat it? Are you a predator who saw through its mimicry? Are you an insectivorous bird? Wow! That must be the reason. It's the only possibility that makes any sense. I'm very impressed with you for learning how to operate human technology!

Of course, Bee Fly wouldn't hurt anyone because it has no reason to. Adult bee flies are harmless, passive flower feeders! It wouldn't hurt a fly... anymore. Bee flies are typically parasitoids, feeding on other insects as larvae! Maybe these ones are even on their way to drop off their eggs into the nests of Mario Land 2's charming ant population... as modern WarioWare would attest, That's Life!

Bee Fly has the distinct honor of appearing in both Super Mario Lands 2 AND 3, an extremely rare example of a creature encountered by both Mario and Wario independently! At least, it SEEMS so, but an official guide lists this one as the "companion" of the previous game's. Maybe they're different individuals of the same species? If you don't scare it away too quickly in this game, you could give it more screentime than Mario gets here. Awesome! It also gets new art for this game, which I don't like as much, on account of the Sonic character-like muzzle. But I can't act like it's BAD. It's still a silly creature! I just like my bugs to look more like bugs. You can and should make cartoon bugs with simple designs that don't lose the buggy features, and the original art proves this!

I'm sure the Bug Fans reading this have noticed something wrong, here. Something wrong from the beginning. This is called a bee fly, but flies only have one pair of wings, while this has four! What's the big idea? I'll tell you my theory...

My theory is... they forgot! I think it's as simple as that. Its original Japanese names reinforce that it is meant to be a fly, and the rest of it looks fly-like enough. But I do have a DIFFERENT theory, one that I love very much!

Bee Fly's design does not make me think of bee flies, but it DOES make me think of a certain other of my compact little fuzzy dipteran friends. It makes me think of a drain fly! So I made it gray and removed one pair of wings to look even more like one. This is not based JUST on superficial design aspects, though! "Bee Fly" is found mostly in the Macro Zone, inside the massive house. The stage with the most "Bee Flies" is one where Mario travels through what appears to be the house's plumbing system, where three of them appear at the end! Suspiciously drain fly-like behavior, in a place where bee flies would make, quite frankly, no sense at all.

So until any further confirmation (which we will not get), I am going to be content with my headcanon that this creature is a drain fly, and that this is drain fly representation, which I have literally NEVER seen in media before! Actually, forget headcanon. I'm going to treat this as canon! Super Mario Land 2 has won the award for most respect shown toward drain flies in a video game! Wahoo!

[xenosagaepisodeone]

you obviously have no idea what radical feminism is. please stop embarrassing yourself....

Girl I know you are proselytizing about the agony of womanhood on your blog because your dank loser boyfriend ignored you for video games again and instead of emancipating yourself and leaving his dumb ass you are still holding out on the hope that he's gonna shape up and treat you like an itty bitty little princess because your brain is comprised of femcel sanrio image macros and fussy upper middle class learned helplessness wadded into a wet barely sapient slop. all resulting from preening yourself to a mental self-image derived purely from patriarchal imagination. GET UP. GET A JOB. STOP SHAVING and GO EAT SOME PROTEIN AND MAKE SURE YOU GET SOME B12!!!!!!!!

[piratesexmachine420]

Playing around with data packs again has me wondering how many other clumsy programming languages you could use to make a video game. Could you write a full-featured text adventure with just Vim macros? Could you build a precision platformer with MS Paint and AutoHotKey? There's a lot of state being exposed to these systems, even if they struggle to manipulate it precisely!

[pickles4nickles]

So I’ve been watching playthroughs of Yakuza games for a while now, but when I saw that the newest game takes place in Hawai’i, the place where I was born, raised, and have lived in for nearly 30 years now, I knew that this was something I had to have first-hand experience with and not let some guy tell me how to feel about it, to put it bluntly.

I went on a month and a half long journey to finish this game, so I sat around for a bit like

Jesus Christ I should write a review on it.

So if you’d like to read about 5k words on what I thought about The Video Game™, here you go.

Overall, Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth is a really really good game. However, as Hawai’i local it was kind of hard for me to turn my brain off to some of the cultural inaccuracies and as someone who tends to play smaller indie games, I clocked in about 110 hours on this and I burned out a little towards the end.

GAMEPLAY

Let’s get into Gameplay first because I think I have the most positive thoughts about it. If you haven’t heard my thoughts about Pokemon lately, it mostly boils down to “It’s the only RPG I’ve really been playing in recent years and the gameplay has been very watered down and I yearn for a decent PvE experience.” This game definitely scratched that itch in more ways than one.

Infinite Wealth’s turn-based combat system revolves around positioning. Some moves have an AoE of either a straight line or a circle. Positioning a character next to an ally will proc a combo move with them and positioning them near items will proc an item attack where you can beat a guy to death with a traffic cone or something.

The job system is robust. Every character starts off with a default class- Ichiban’s is Hero, an all-rounder that can pretty much do anything; characters like Nanba and Eric (I know the game calls him Tomi or Tomizawa, but I’m not the game and “Fuckin’ Eric” sounds way better than “Fuckin’ Tomi”) are magic-oriented, so they’re basically wizards by default. You can change their class to other jobs (Desperado is my favorite because it’s basically gun mage), which unlocks new skills as you level them up. You can also change jobs as much as you want and skills carry over between them, so there’s a bit of moveset mixing and matching that makes my brain feel good.

Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio, (the Yakuza devs, which we’re just gonna abbreviate to RGG from here on out) have always been REALLY good at asset reuse (again, I cast a dirty look to Game Freak). They’ll make a whole-ass map of a region and reuse that same map for several games down the line. Not only do you spend a significant time in Ijincho again and not only do you go to Kamurocho for little bit… AGAIN, but there are two… what I can only call “macro” games that have the best asset reuse I’ve seen in, like, maybe anything ever.

DONDOKO ISLAND

Like A Dragon: Infinite Wealth comes with a whole-ass Animal Crossing clone that’s also kind of The Sims called Dondoko Island. In this, you rehab an island that’s being used as a dump for some trash pirates (no, seriously, they’re actually pirates, yar har and everything) back into a five star resort. There’s a whole-ass crafting system where you go around the island, harvesting resources, to build furniture and facilities, which include whole-ass buildings which have appeared in past Yakuza games. The crafting system is GREATLY improved over Animal Crossing: New Horizon in that you can skip the goddamn animation and craft multiple of the same items at once. You don’t even have to have all the materials in your inventory, it’ll take it from your storage. Placing items in the world is also in an overhead view and the only grievance I have with the system is that placing paths is really weird and you can only place a limited number of them. But overall, Nintendo, was it really that hard to put into the video game. Why did you make AC:NH disrespect my time in that way?

Once the island has been cleaned up enough, you can start inviting guests over, which all have their own set of preferences for the vibe of your island (rustic, pop, sleazy, etc), their lodging quality, and how much of the island’s flora and fauna (and minerals, I guess??) you’ve discovered.

I really really liked Dondoko Island because who am I to say no to a management mini/macro game with decoration elements. I mostly really appreciate that it doesn’t waste your time. I wanna say I finished it in like less than 20 hours… which is not short for a game within a game (actually, that’s insane for a game within a game), but for a game of this genre, it’s pretty short.

There’s also an entire separate mini-island that further helps you with efficiently running your island by passively collecting resources over time and just being a general stockpile of bugs and fish to catch. But I can’t talk about this part without talking about…

SUJIMON

A returning character voiced by Keith Silverstein in the English dub – yes, that Keith Silverstein, who voices Masayoshi Shido of Persona 5 and Zhongli of The Genshin Impact™ is a professor who documents the behavior of weird and often hostile middle aged men, called Sujimon. When Ichiban goes to Hawai’i, he asks him to also document the native Sujimon there as there’s a prominent Sujimon scene there. Mans wasn’t kidding as there is an underground, more or less ilicit Sujimon fight club called The Sujimon League with its own Elite Four called The Discrete Four.

In the previous game, Sujimon was just your bestiary (literally called the Sujidex), but now it’s a whole-ass game, which I can mostly only describe as simplified Yokai Watch, but a glorified card game. Just so we’re not here for forever talking about middle-aged men cockfights… because I can talk about the mechanics and inner workings of middle-aged men cockfights for a hot minute, Sujimon League basically operates on a 3v3, with an additional bench of 3, rock-paper-scissors kind of system. You’ll need strong Sujimon to get through this macro game and you’ll recruit new guys through four ways- through random fights on the map, through literal Pokemon GO raids, through a gacha system, and through combining Sujimon of the same type into stronger Sujimon (don’t think too hard about that one). I had a LOT of fun with this and, again, it scratched an itch I’ve had for a while. Almost all of the Sujimon are just guys you’ll fight in-game, so, again, an excellent use of asset reuse.

Sujimon smoothly integrates into Dondoko Island in a way that makes Palworld look even more balls-less than it already is. You know that little island I was talking about a few paragraphs back? That’s Dondoko Farm. You can put your Sujimon to work on it! As you’re running around on Dondoko Island, letting it consume your life, your Sujimon will grow crops, scrounge around for resources, and earn some cash for you. The island also has some resources to help with Sujimon League by leveling them up with a small investment of some dondoko bucks and your time, but also a Pokemon-Amie type mini-mini game that helps strengthen the friendship of your current Sujimon team.

Yes.

This game lets you pet-

The sweaty, weirdo middle-aged men.

Don’t think about it too hard.

Especially don’t think about it too hard when you have a Sujimon on your team that uses Xander Mobus’ voice clips.

Anyway, there’s also another minigame called Sicko Snap, which is basically Pokemon Snap with Sujimon. It’s a good one, too.

STORY

I guess… the best way I’d explain my feelings on Infinite Wealth’s story is

Objectively, this is an okay story. Like, it’s par for the course for a Yakuza game. I have a lot of personal grievances with this plot which I’ll fully unsheathe my blade for in the next section, but for now I’ll just say… this game is basically Hawaii Five-O crammed into a Yakuza game and that was an emotional rollercoaster ride that I’m not sure I enjoyed.

Like a Dragon’s main theme is “Even if you hit rock bottom, it’s never too late to get back up again” and that’s something I hold near and dear to my heart.

They have used this theme to my benefit and to my dismay as this also apparently means it’s never too late for ~*Romance*~ which, sure, yeah, okay, true, but did it have to be Ichiban and Saeko?

I’m trying to give the game the benefit of the doubt because… to me, it’s mostly one-sided (as in, like, Saeko’s willing to give him a chance, but isn’t as crazy for Ichiban as he is for her) and, like, dude is allowed to have a crush. But from what I have seen… because I never got around to finishing her Drink Link (I was gonna but I’m like really burned out on the game), they kinda strap C4 to the Bechdel Test and raze a village to the ground with it when it comes to Saeko’s character arc because most of her dialogue and interactions are about The Incident with Ichiban, which sucks because she had more character than just a romance interest for the protagonist in the previous game. If you’re also REALLY not into this plot point like I am, the story DOES NOT let you forget that this indeed happened as it seems to be a plot thread that might continue into the next game as well.

Needless to say, I don’t ship it, and I don’t get to block tags and just walk away from this one.

The game also kinda keeps nudging at, “Hehe, Chitose’s pretty cute too, right?” to which I say

Yes I understand she’s of legal age but she’s only like 21 AT MOST and Ichiban’s like 40-something you stop with that.

It doesn’t feel like Ichiban really had a character arc in this… unless you count “proposing on the first date” to “saying I love you on a redo and then being weird about it again” as character growth. He went to Hawai’i, had some shenanigans, found mom, got backstabbed again, fought the cult (which I’ll be really salty about in the next section), went back home to help Eiji’s character arc. This isn’t a bad thing, it’s just… Ichiban went on another adventure. And it was ok. I think maybe the game was sizing him up to, again, take Kiryu’s place and be The Hero, but… we already did that already? And I’m not even sure if the game was able to complete that message by the end of the game.

Kiryu probably got the most character development out of this game and talking this over with my friend Andrew, he brought up that it kinda wasn’t fair that this is supposed to be Ichiban’s game, but he had to share half of it with Kiryu. And I agree. His sections were also really hard to get into if you haven’t been a longtime fan. Again, I have a decent amount of Yakuza knowledge, but with Kiryu’s memories, a LOT of it went over my head.  It seems like RGG’s been trying to retire him as a protagonist for like three games now and MAYBE this time they’ll actually do it after this victory lap they’ve given him. But he did learn that “my friends are my power” and “never ever give up, you still have time to do better.” And you know what, that’s rad.

As far as the villains go, just, I dunno, they’re fine? Ebina and Eiji are very “okay bitch, stay mad, then,” and it’s. Fine? My only complaint is that Ebina’s arc felt like it was under-seasoned before they put it in the oven to cook and they could’ve peppered it on a little earlier in the game or something. Bryce’s entire deal I may have taken a little too personally, but that’s for later. Dwight was literally just Danny Trejo doing a villain role and I have absolutely no qualms with it. He was fun to watch.

The supporting cast was fun as always. Eric I hated at first, but he grew on me in the same way that, like, I’d bully a friend. Chitose I also kinda hated at first, was very sus of, but then she had a character arc that was pretty good. The Yokohama gang didn’t really have character arcs to them, but they were still fun to hang out with nonetheless. We got to learn a little bit more about Seonhee and she’s really fun. Both her and Zhao, who is my favorite for several reasons, are really really fun characters as they are both crime bosses (former, in Zhao’s case) who are BIG FUCKING WEIRDOS and I love them for it.

Joongi Han becomes a party member WAY too late in my opinion that, in a way, he’s technically an optional party member, or at least like getting a Dratini right before the Pokemon League in Gold/Silver/Crystal. He had some fun character moments, but felt kinda like an afterthought.

But also, ain’t no way he got his Hawai’i clothes at Hilo Hattie. There’s no way.

To wrap up my thoughts on the main story, I’d just like to say: the plot point that they sailed to Japan on a little tugboat in a handful of hours as opposed to WEEKS is peak Hawaii Five-O vibes and it infuriates me, but everyone kept telling me “it’s okay, the coast guard picked them up, like, halfway” and I will sit down and not start a fistfight over it. And just. That was the vibe of the game for me. Just… alternating between a J-Drama and Hawaii Five-O.

I don’t really have much to say about the substories except that they’re either almost Oscar-worthy material or they’re a snoozefest that I just tabbed through. I can really only think of three substories off the top of my head that were EXCELLENT, though - Nancy and Olivia, the artificial snow quest (THIS ONE IS EMOTIONAL WHIPLASH), and the traveling aquarium one. The rest I mostly just tabbed through because they were just……. Eh. But I think I’m okay with that since we have Sujimon and Dondoko to make up for it.

THE CULTURAL GRIEVANCES

So as I type this section out, I run my hands over my face to remind myself and say

This is a game that takes place in Hawai’i from a Japanese perspective, written primarily for a Japanese audience and I assume that certain things may come from a place of ignorance, but not maliciousness.

Hey Tumblr.

I want you to read that first bolded sentence again.

Because I know how you guys are with reading comprehension.

But that being said, as a Hawai’i-born Chinese person, there’s quite a lot about the Hawai’i cultural aspects of this game that I have problems with. If you wanna see me roast this game, you can stick around, but if not… Here is your chance to bail.

I’ve tried my best to write this in a way where I look at the thing that pissed me off and ask myself,  “Am I taking this too seriously or do I actually have a problem with it?” and write more or less objectively, but some of it might still come off as overly caustic. Just. I tried.

And after a deep breath,

Ho brah,

We go.

WHAT IS HAWAIIAN CULTURE, ANYWAY?

To start off, I’m not sure if RGG knows the difference between being a Hawai’i local and actually being of Hawaiian blood…? The game mentions at the very beginning that Akane is half-Japanese… and half-Hawaiian, which makes Ichiban one-fourth Hawaiian, which makes ME kinda… squint. Like, we’d need to know more about Akane’s backstory, but if you know anything about indigenous cultures, finding someone who’s half native is HARD nowadays. Akane also looks pretty light skinned for someone who’s allegedly half-Japanese, half-Hawaiian but that’s just my tiny nitpick?

I’m also… not sure what kinda research RGG did on Hawaiian last names because some of the ones I see on random enemies are kinda… 

Who is that

What is that

I have never seen anyone named that in my entire life

Sure, my worldview is a little shut in, but, no, what IS that?

Mililani is not a last name, that’s a neighborhood, why’s she Lani Mililani?

WHAT IS THAT?

The pidgin in the game is also there, but… small kine hit or miss. For those of you who don’t know, pidgin is Hawai’i’s creole, which came from a bunch of cultures who don’t speak the same language eventually falling into a kitbashed language system that works for everyone. Looking at the VA listing in the credits, they did hire some local people (they have Hawaiian names) and some of the VO performances work really well like Obispo in the restaurant side story and the cab driver dialogue that ONLY comes up in the Japanese audio version of the game for some reason. Others… are… hm (I don’t know what’s going on with Jeff the taco truck guy). I feel like the voice director got the intonation on the line reads down pretty well, but on the localization side, the syntax and grammar are a little off. Pidgin tends to come off as “broken english,” but it’s technically not since it’s its own language system with its own rules. So you have a lot of line reads that are in the right inflection, but the way it’s written is wrong for pidgin dialogue.

And it just doesn’t sound 100% right to me.

There’s also some… small pronunciation nitpicks that I have. Ukulele is pronounced the white way - it’s not Yooka-Laylee like the Chameleon and Bat, it’s ook-oo-leh-leh like Tapu Lele, the Pokemon. Some characters pronounce Hawai’i as huh-why and not ha-wuh-ee, which is more right (it’s SUPPOSED to be ha-vai-ee but I’m not native Hawaiian and this is kind of an axolotl situation so, y’know).

But shout-outs to the “Whatchu lookin’ at?” line guy.

Because that one is just, no notes, perfect.

NOTHING CAN BE NORMAL, I GUESS

Something that rubbed me the wrong way in this game is the mystification of a culture that’s foreign to you, that is, taking a culture that’s not yours and describing or representing it in such a way that it sounds so deviant and hard to comprehend compared to the one you’re used to. Think of that one tweet where someone describes hamburgers like a white person would describe asian fruit.

There's the lei substory where the girl needs to make a lei with blue plumerias (which does not exist by the way) because there’s an urban legend that if you give a blue plumeria lei to someone, it’s a way of confessing your true love. Lei are just… things you give as, like, a “congrats!” kind of a thing. Or if you wanna be touristy about it, a “welcome!” kind of gift. There’s nothing mystical about it, most grocery stores stock a few that you can just pick up, grab and go style. 

The entire game mechanic of “shaka to make friends” was so?? Like maybe after 8 hours into the Hawai’i map, I was like, okay, I’ll just… fine. I’ll accept it. But my god did I not appreciate it when Kson came up to me and was like “what’s a motherfucker gotta do around here to make some friends” and told me how FRIENDLY the Hawaiian people were and how you can just throw a shaka to make friends; while me, probably the saltiest, introverted Hawai’i local that throws stink-eye at tourists who can’t watch where they’re going, playing the video game on that day was like, “We don’t fucking do that, hello??” I don’t even know why we shaka?? Most people you ask that question will just be like “idk it’s the local thing, they do it at the end of the 5pm news on KHON2.”

There’s a substory in this game with a character named Nathan, but we were all calling him racist Alpharad because he kinda looks like him (ALPHARAD HIMSELF IS NOT RACIST OR IN THIS GAME I WANNA CLARIFY THAT) and he’s basically, like… a weeb. He’s recording what seems like a PBS special on Japanese tourists in Hawai’i, but he’s kind of a shitter about it. He makes Ichiban choose between local foods and cold-ass rice and becomes upset when he chooses kalua pork over the rice since it wasn’t The Japanese Option. It escalates to making Ichiban play darts with shuriken and when he loses, he tells him to “live up to his dishonor,” slides him a knife and board, and asks him if he wants to take a finger or hara-kiri. To which Ichiban goes “dude, I get you like Japanese culture, but you can’t treat people this way”

To which I look back at the game like

You clearly understand how this feels, so why are you doing this to Hawaiian culture?

Again, I understand that a lot of this game was written with maybe just ignorance, and not malice, and this isn’t really a call-out post to RGG or anything, but BOY…

Okay.

Now we get to my biggest gripe with this game.

PALEKANA CAN SUCK MY NUTS

I’m kinda disappointed in their choice to use a Hawaiian cult as a plot point. It’s not quite a native savages kind of a vibe, but… In the year of our lord 2024, I thought we would know better than to portray an indigenous religion as a bloodthirsty cult? I also don’t like how they’re conflating the Hawaiian religion with what’s more like a Christian/Catholic cult in this.

Palekana is portrayed as “cultists who worship a goddess who lives in a mystical land, forbidden only to her chosen and maybe one day we’ll be worthy of her blessings.” Hawaiian religion is… not… like that at all? They did get the part about “giving back to the community” correct as a part of Hawaiian culture is mālama ‘aina, meaning, you need to care for the land you live on, which is… reasonable? I guess the other basic idea of Hawaiian religion is that certain places, things, and times that are important, and you shouldn’t touch it unless you wanna fuck around and find out. But the game just kinda wildly overboils this.

Like, I don’t claim to be an expert, I’ve only scraped the basics from what I learned in school (a year’s worth of Hawaiiana lessons in middle school, a semester’s worth in college; went to a private Catholic school, took two world religion classes in college), but Palekana has a very Catholic European religion kind vibe instead of a Hawaiian one. And I really, really don’t like that the game conflates the two. The Palekana cultists wear hoods, which is a distinctly European thing (it’s too hot for hoods here!). The beaded necklaces also seem more like rosaries, which, again, very Catholic. The idea that a god-figure will save you is also a VERY Catholic idea. I’m also assuming the goddess Nele that they use in the game is an expy for Pele, which… okay, like, you can do that with locations. Ala Moana Shopping Center represented as Anaconda Mall in the game hurts me a lot, but… to change up the name of the most prominent deity in Hawaiian religion is like

Dude, I’m not Hawaiian, but I know better than to shit on Pele?

Maybe I’m taking this a little too seriously, but it comes off as a little(??) disrespectful.

To give them the benefit of the doubt, maybe RGG wrote this plot point in this way to be like, well, they’re the villains, so we’ll write them so hyperbolically evil and wrong so people won’t mistake that for the actual culture? But my gut reaction is that they’re only writing from what they’ve seen in the movies and they wanted to make a story like that.

This was my least favorite part of the plot because not only does the cult aspect feel like it’s in bad taste, but it’s SO MUCH of the story and you REALLY can’t get away from it.

Alright. So now that I’ve aired that out of my system, I’m finally capping off this section with the part of the game that hit the closest to me and that is

CHINESE IN HAWAI’I

Listen. Again.

This is a story about Hawai’i, written by a Japanese team, for a Japanese audience.

Yakuza is a series that often talks about the racial conflict between the Japanese, Chinese, and Koreans. And I don’t expect them to portray any of these groups in anything more than a neutral light in this game about Gang Crime.

But ohhhhh my gooooood did they get the Chinatown section so wroooooooong.

Right off the bat, the big glaring problem I have with this game is. All the guys speak Mandarin. I think they might just be reusing voice clips from Yakuza 7, which, sure, fine, I understand that video games are hard to make and expensive.

In Hawai’i, like, real-world Hawai’i, not the bizzaro Hawai’i this game takes place in, we’re definitely starting to see more Mandarin-speaking immigrants show up, but most of the town speaks Cantonese.

Most of the people here a generation or two above me come from Guangdong or Hong Kong, which are Cantonese-speaking areas. It’s an entirely different dialect that’s really only been represented in small bits in media I’m familiar with, like in Jackie Chan Adventures (the uncle’s chant is basically “no more ghosts, get out of here” in Cantonese) and Digimon Tamers (“Moumentai” is “it’s okay/don’t worry about it” in Cantonese), and it seems really hard to get VAs that speak it, so I’m not… really that mad about it.

BUT. Then there’s Wong Tou.

Wong is the Cantonese pronunciation of 黄 , Huang or Hwang in Mandarin.

So like… clearly they knew?? But?? Decided not to go all in on it??

(And then Daniel Dae Kim is his face model and I just??? Bro’s Korean, hello?????)

And then there’s the name of Wong Tou’s gang. The Ganzhe.

Which is a stupid name.

The Chinese dictionary gives me 甘蔗 which translates to sugarcane, which. I get it. The plantation times. The Chinese and the Japanese and the Filipinos and the Portuguese and whatever all used to work on the cane plantations.

…But you’re out here calling your BIG KNIFE GANG “Sugarcane??”

My guy, you could start a reggae band with that name instead.

SPEAKING OF REGGAE-

No one knows how to pronounce Ganzhe properly besides Eric’s VA apparently? All the other VAs pronounce the gan closer to “van” when it’s supposed to be more like a “gone.”

Yes. That’s right.

Ganzhe is pronounced more like ganja.

You know.

The Marajuanas™

I’m a Hawai’i-born Chinese, first-generation local on my mom’s side and third-gen local on my dad’s. I grew up in Chinatown, so this was a section of the game that was near and dear to my heart. So I THINK and HOPE you’d understand my frustration to see that work needed to be done on the representation of my culture in this game. It was definitely a little fun to see my hometown modeled in this game- they got Maunakea Marketplace and Keikaulike Mall down pretty accurately and some of the motifs on the buildings made me do a double take because they were so familiar to me. BUT, man, this cultural aspect of the game needed A LOT of work.

SO TO FINALLY CLOSE THIS OUT

Japanese people love Hawai'i a lot.

I think Japanese people love Hawai'i more than Hawai'i locals do.

But as for portraying it accurately, I understand that no one can do it as well as a local islander can. Did I personally think they did the best they could?

………………ehh

Like, if you turn your brain off, it's fine??

If you turn your brain off and not let Palekana get to you, this game is fine.

It can be a little campy.

It can be a little Hollywood.

It can be a little Disneyland.

And despite my four pages of bitching about it, at the end of the day. It is fine.

So with that, I’ve hit like ten full pages on this Google Doc. Despite half of this review being me complaining about what they got wrong about Hawai’i culture in this game, I liked it a lot! When the game didn't have me strapped down for an episode of a J-drama or Hawaii Five-O, I liked running around town, fighting guys, making other guys fight other guys, and managing a resort island. If anything, this game actually motivated me a little to make more local-themed stuff, because as I notice people getting older, there’s less and less people to correctly preserve highly specific culture stuff like this. So a lot of that responsibility falls on me, y’know?

Thank you for making it to the end of this review! I know it was a lot. I don’t know what happened. I do recommend this game, but I ask that you do NOT finish the game with the takeaway that you have learned everything there is to know about Hawai’i.

I’ll fight you with a lawn chair (in Minecraft, for the FBI agent reading this) if you do that.

Other than that, I think you’ll have a lot of fun but also take your time because this game is, like, a 100 hour commitment. Not Persona 5 Royal long, but a commitment nonetheless.

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Xbox Mad Catz Wired Video Game Controller MACRO Orange Clear