#what can i say i’m a true Gamer i’ve been playing lots of animal crossing recently

[becausebuckley]

buck’s animal crossing island is planned to perfection and he draws up flower breeding plans to make sure he has all the colours. he also just lets the first ten villagers he sees live on his island because he’d feel bad saying no to them. eddie likes building cliffs and bridges and wide paths to make his island accessible. he finds out you can run in the game after three months, and only because buck tells him. chim collects goodies maddie would like. he has a shrine to his villagers in his basement. hen isn’t interested in the game but has a house on karen’s (five-star, pinterest-worthy) island and logs on at night to water her wife’s flowers. her character wears a doctor’s coat. bobby doesn’t know how to turn a switch on.

[bestiesenpai]

youtuber Sukuna

I beg you to read the shitposts I made about this, they are delicious. You don’t have to of course but...if you loved me you would :) s/n = screen name, and I hope you chuckle at Sukunas screen name

Content warning: uhmhm lowkey incel shit(mean internet comments and whatnot)

part two --- part 3

Name: Sukuna. Age: 25. Height: 6 foot 5 inches. Occupation: toxic Youtuber, fitness trainer and hot guy.

Sukuna wasn’t exactly known for being kind. He wasn’t nice to others, rarely having anything good to say about anyone, and he’d made a successful Youtube career out of it. First starting as a fitness trainer at his gym, through encouragement from his clients and the notion of a quick cash grab, he started Youtube.

He didn’t care about it and that reflected in the quality of his videos and editing. He didn’t have consistent uploads, just filming and posting videos whenever he wanted, analytics be fucked. But somehow, that worked out for him, and he quickly found himself with over two million subscribers just frothing at the mouth for his next video.

And those subscribers were some of the worst people. Sukuna didn’t care about fostering a safe space online for others, not in the slightest. His comment sections were atrocious, both on his Youtube and his Instagram. It was full of toxic men one-upping each other constantly and dragging on each other for not being able to work out as much as Sukuna did.

Sukuna was a large part of why his fanbase were so toxic. He himself often made bad comments about others, whether fellow creators or people that happened to appear in the backgrounds of his videos, and on more than one occasion he’d been ‘cancelled’. None of that mattered though, all he cared about was shitting on other people and making money.

Sometimes he played video games and posted it, but not too often. Sukuna often stated he wasn’t so much of a fucking lonely loser that he’d play video games all the time, and so the gaming videos he did post were few and far between. He played angry shooter games and GTA, mindless button clicking he could get lost in for a few hours for a video.

Laying in bed one night after uploading his most recent video, one where he rages at 12 year olds on GTA online, Sukuna was just scrolling through his phone mindlessly. After he uploads video game content, like clockwork, he gets recommendations for gaming channels. He only watches a few of them, mostly leaving mean comments saying what losers they are, but one catches his eye.

He’s never been recommended this kind of video before. The thumbnail is light and bright with some pink aesthetic lights in the back. But the most enticing thing is the person in the middle, cute pink cat ear headphones on and a bright smile.

“Let’s see…” Sukuna mumbles to himself, mindlessly clicking the video. He hasn’t even read the title, he only clicked it because they were cute, and here he is nearly blinded by the bright setup they have.

“Hi everyone, it’s (Y/N) here and I’m really excited today! We’re going to be playing this new game I found!” Sukuna is immediately enraptured by the sound of your voice, watching how your face changes as you talk. His eyes drift off to the decor behind you, cute plushies and healthy plants, and some twinkling fairy lights. There’s books as well, and your chair is one of those ergonomic gamer chairs he has as well but in pink.

Sukuna watches the video dumbly, totally in the dark about whatever you’re doing, but loving it all the same. All he knows is that he likes the sound of your voice, and when you laugh and smile at a funny part in the game, it makes a light flush come to his cheeks.

It only takes one video for Sukuna to spiral into more of your content. He watches a video on your gaming setup, and he’s surprised that so much technology can come in pink. He watches a video on how you edit, a few of you cooking in your kitchen, and even a few vlog videos.

He quickly subscribes to your channel, and when you plug your social media, he immediately goes there. Pulling up your Instagram, he stares at your profile picture and almost audibly coos at you for being cute.

Your profile is just as cute as your videos are and Sukuna barely remembers to follow you before he’s going through your whole feed, liking every picture he sees. Sometimes he leaves comments, only one word though, ‘cute’. He’s never liked something so outright cute before, it wasn’t who he was and it definitely didn’t fit with his brand.

Falling asleep after following you on every platform, Sukuna wakes up thinking about you as well. And he also wakes up to hundreds of comments from all his accounts, bombarding him with questions and screenshots from last night.

‘SUKUNA WHY WOULD YOU LIKE THIS SHIT?!’

‘OMG Sukuna liked (Y/N)s posts!!’

‘Sukuna is so gross and toxic, you better stay away from (Y/N)!’

‘SUKUNA YOU GAY NOW’

‘EW why the fuck do you like this bitch?’

There were hundreds of comments that he waded through. Most were from his fans, expressing disgust at how many photos of yours he’d liked and wondering why he, Sukuna, most heterosexual alpha male on the planet, would like a pretty in pink Youtuber who had bubbly intros and whined when their animal crossing villagers wanted to move away.

Other comments were from your fans, some in awe that he would like you considering how much he said he hated overly cute things. Other fans expressed concern, worried what this might mean for their favorite Youtuber. Did Sukuna want to cause problems, potentially hurting you? He did have a reputation of bullying others, so this wasn’t far fetched.

Checking your Instagram, you didn’t make any comment about it. There wasn’t any update or anything, but on his end he was being tagged in endless Twitter threads with screenshots of him liking your posts and commenting under them.

“For fucks sake.” He grunted, clenching his phone in his hands. The amount of notifications he was getting were starting to upset him and he nearly threw his phone to get them to stop.

Ignoring his phone for the rest of the day, Sukuna went to the gym like he always did and trained with his clients. Some of them brought it up to him, asking him if he had a mind break last night and forgot what he was doing. Sending them harsh glares, Sukuna refused to talk about it.

“Oh my fucking god.” Sukuna nearly wailed when he got home, finally checking his phone. His name and yours had begun trending, and the hashtag #protect(Y/N) was also. Muttering angrily under his breath, Sukuna turned on Instagram live.

“Okay what the fuck!” He shouted, seeing the live become instantly flooded with people all screaming about you and him. “You’re all fucking annoying, you know that?” Glaring harshly at the camera, he read some of the comments that went by.

‘WHY’D YOU LIKE (Y/N)S POSTS FROM 2017’

‘Are you two secretly dating??’

‘COLLAB!’

“Who gives a shit why I liked their stuff, you’re a fucking weirdo for keeping track of me. And we aren’t secretly dating, dipshits.” Rolling his eyes, Sukuna scoffed as more comments came in begging for a collaboration. “And think about it you morons, why would we collab? Our shit is too fucking different, what would we even film about?”

Sukuna stayed on Instagram live for nearly an hour answering questions asking about you. Every time he had to answer that you weren’t secretly dating, he got a little more annoyed. Not at the comments themselves but at the fact that it was true; you didn’t even know he existed.

Ending the live in a huff, Sukuna didn’t feel any better than before, and it was made even worse by the fact that everything he said was being relayed to Twitter, and you were tagged in every tweet.

“These idiots!” Staring at his phone, Sukuna couldn’t believe what he was seeing. On your Instagram stories, you’d posted a q&a for your followers, and nearly all of the comments were about Sukuna.

“Hi everyone! No, me and Sukuna aren’t dating!” You said, laughing a little to ease how uncomfortable you were. “To be honest, I’ve never even heard of him before! As you know, my content is very...different from his, so our circles don’t exactly intersect. But I’m always happy to have new followers and potential friends!”

“Fuck me.” Sukuna groaned, cringing at how uncomfortable you looked having to address the sudden onslaught of questions. For once he wished he’d actually given a shit about his online presence, so that maybe one day your circles could intersect. He knew he scared you, he scared a lot of people, and this was just proof.

“Uh, Sukuna if you see this, hi it’s nice to meet you!” You said in the next slide, puffing out your cheeks and waving cutely at the camera. It made Sukuna blush, and he hated it. “Thank you for following me and liking my content! I was very surprised that you found me!”

“Of course I did, idiot, you’re fucking cute.” He muttered under his breath.

“I know a lot of people are asking for us to do a video together and I know our content is really different, so don’t feel pressured to respond or anything, but the offer is open! If you’d like, we can collab on something.”

“On what?” He asked like you were there.

“I cook sometimes, and I know you cook too! Maybe we can make a cooking video? You can teach me how to make healthy food or something!” Sukuna could tell a fake laugh when he heard one, and you definitely had one right now. “Anyways, thank you! Bye Sukuna!” But hearing you say his name cutely like that made him not care.

He nearly responded right away, accepting the collab offer now that you’d spoken about it, but he didn’t want to seem desperate. He watched through the rest of your Instagram stories, going back and replaying the parts where you talked about him over and over and his heart clenched every time when you said his name.

In the dead of night, Sukuna DM’s you after watching your latest video and leaving the simple comment ‘check your DM’s’.

“Fuck, what should I say?” He’s suddenly stumped as he looks at the keyboard. Typing and retyping a message, in the end all he can say is hi. He doesn’t expect a reply, ever, but when he gets a vibration on his phone two seconds later he jumps to read it.

(S/N): hi Sukuna! :)

(cursedgod): hey

Real fucking smart, repeating what he just said.

(S/N): is there something you wanted to talk to me about?

(S/N): I hope you haven’t been annoyed at all the notifications you’ve been getting!

(cursedgod): No it’s okay

(cursedgod): we can collab if you want

Good Sukuna, good. Play it cool, don’t let them know that your fingers are actually trembling because you’re nervous.

(S/N): do you want to?? I don’t want to pressure you! I know we’re pretty different haha

(cursedgod): yeah, let's do it. Cooking?

(S/N): sure!

Looking around his home, he was suddenly assaulted with the fact that he didn’t have any furniture. He barely had a proper bedroom, just a mattress on a bare frame and a dresser. His lounge room was the same with his computer setup in one corner and then nothing else. There was only a couch, a mounted TV and a fold out table and chairs for his dining room.

(cursedgod): I know a studio kitchen we can use, I’ll send you the address

Thank god he’d done promo work for a brand in a studio one day, otherwise he’d be fucked.

(S/N): awesome! I’m free next Saturday!

And just like that, it was a date. Well, a meeting. Sukuna knew it wasn’t a date, but his heart still thumped like it was one. Confirming the time, he ended the conversation with a curt goodbye and obsessed about it throughout the night.

When the day to meet you came, Sukuna nearly ran late trying to pick out his clothes. He’d never cared about looking good or presenting himself well in front of others, whatever version of him he turned up in was what they got. But for you, he wanted to try a little harder.

Waiting outside the studio space, Sukuna rubbed his hands together nervously. You’d messaged a day or two ago offering to put the video on your channel since it probably wouldn’t fit his aesthetic, so he didn’t have to bring his shitty camera equipment.

“S-sukuna?” Snapping his head up, Sukunas mouth fell open looking at your curious face a few feet away, an Uber driving off behind you. You were even cuter in person, just his fucking luck. How was he expected to act like a normal person when his recent obsession was here looking better than he could have imagined.

“Hi.” What comes out is a grunt, not the smooth word he’d hoped. He can see you eyeing him up, taking in all the thick and corded muscles of his body. It made his chest puff out a little, he worked hard for this physique and to have you so openly looking at him made him happy.

“It’s nice to meet you!” Sticking your hand out, you smiled politely at him.

“Same.” Shaking your hand with a firm grip, Sukuna could feel the difference in your palms. Yours was soft and nicely moisturized and he had callouses everywhere and a few cuts and scrapes.

Opening the door for you, Sukuna led you to the studio space he’d rented out. It was a clean and modern kitchen, not unlike his own, but it had appliances and looked actually lived in. Helping you set up a few camera angles, Sukuna felt a pang of nerves hit him in the stomach.

“Sukuna, can we take a picture together?” You asked before starting, and Sukunas brow furrowed deeply. Why would you want to take a picture with him? His expression must have scared you, because you quickly backtracked. “F-for promo for this video, on Instagram and stuff!”

“Sure.” God, did he feel bad or what. He shouldn’t have made that face at you, now you wouldn’t look him in the eye. Crouching down to get the right angle for you, Sukuna watched you pick a cute animal filter.

“Just do what I do.” Throwing up a peace sign, you cutely tilted your head from side to side and smiled. Sukuna tried to do the same but he looked awkward, and most of all he was blushing pretty bad.

You snapped a multitude of pictures, some at different angles and some with different filters, and in all of them Sukuna was blushing at least a little. He managed to smile more as it went on, even laughing at one of the filters.

“Thanks! I’m going to post these really quick and then we can get started!” Giving him a brief smile, you turned back to your phone and set about editing some of the pictures. Looking over your shoulder, Sukuna could see that he looked like a blushing high schooler meeting their idol for the first time and not a grown man.

Once the photos were posted and you tagged him in everything, it was time to start. Setting up your marks on the floor, you took a generous drink of water and cleared your throat.

“Are you ready for the intro? I’ll start it and introduce you, okay?” You’d actually prepared a script for yourself, and showed Sukuna as well.

“Okay.” Stepping in front of the camera, Sukuna bristled at feeling you so close to him. Your arm brushed his casually as you were fixing your shirt, and Sukuna was glad he’d worn his most expensive cologne for this.

“Hi everyone, welcome to today's video! As you know, I’m (Y/N), and today we have a special guest today!” Throwing your arms in the air, you motioned to Sukuna.

“Hi.” He nodded, barely cracking a smile. He could feel you looking at him like you wanted to say something, but he didn’t look.

“So, many people have been asking for us to do a collaboration and it’s finally here!” Clapping your hands lightly, you rocked on your heels and nudged his shoulder with yours. “Do you want to tell them what we’ll be doing today?”

“Uh-” The playful nudge you’d given him was enough to make Sukuna short circuit. “I-I-” He suddenly couldn’t remember how to speak. “Rice?”

“Let’s try that again.” You laughed. “Do you want to tell them what we’ll be doing today?” This time, you didn’t nudge him with your shoulder.

“We’re gonna…” the words were on the tip of his tongue, they wanted to come out and be spoken but he couldn’t do it.

“It’s okay, it’s okay!” Nodding reassuringly, you took a deep breath in and out, and Sukuna shakily copied. “One more try?” When he looked at you, Sukuna expected to see a hint of annoyance in your face, but there was none. You were just smiling softly at him, waiting for his answer.

“Yeah. I’ll uh, I’ll get it next time.” Stepping away from the camera, Sukuna took a drink of water and cleared his throat. Cracking the bones in his neck, he took a deep breath and came back. “Let’s do it.” No more fucking embarrassments.

“Do you want to tell them what we’ll be doing today?” You asked for the third time, slightly swaying your body side to side this time.

“We’re gonna make katsudon today.” Finally, the words he wanted to say came out.

“That’s right! As you can see, Sukuna is really fit!” You immediately hopped in, giving his arm a brief squeeze. “And he knows how to make a ton of healthy meals!”

“Mhmm.”

“So I asked if he could help teach me, and all of you at home, how to make it!” Smiling at the camera, you waited a few seconds before relaxing and turning it off. “Did you like that? We can refilm it if you want.”

“No, it’s okay.” Running a hand through his hair, he pointed to the bag of rice he’d brought. “Let’s get started on this shit.”

Taking fifteen minutes to film the two of you filling up the rice cooker, when it was over, you set about getting aesthetic shots of the other ingredients. Sukuna tried to seem casual off to the side on his phone, but he was really watching you.

Getting started on chopping the ingredients, Sukuna somehow managed to say the things he was supposed to without stuttering too badly. He was amazed that you could make the things he was doing sound so interesting, your narration as you held the camera and tried to do things yourself was impressive to the man that barely knew anything about cameras.

“Sukuna, I need help cutting the meat.” You whined, tapping the meat on the cutting board with a knife. “I don’t remember how you showed me.”

“Here.” Without thinking, Sukuan grabbed your hand with the knife in it and moved it for you. “You just have to move your wrist more, it’s not that hard.” Doing it a few times, when Sukuna felt your chest expand with air against his, that’s when he realized how close the two of you were. “S-sorry.” Immediately jumping back, he stared at the floor.

“Thanks!” Giving him a smile, you kept at it.

“I’ll fry the meat.” Stepping in as soon as you were done, Sukuna already had the hot oil ready. He was eager to cook and do something with his hands instead of - what he felt like - was awkwardly watching you off to the side.

“Okay!” Grabbing the camera, you focused on the pan. “You’re really good at this, Sukuna!”

“T-thanks.” Staring directly at the pan, Sukuna didn’t look away. Even with the hot oil popping up from the pan a few times and burning his fingers, he didn’t flinch at all.

“Ow!” But you did. Your hand had gotten too close, and when Sukuna flipped the meat, some of the oil had gotten on your hand.

“Shit.” Abandoning the pan, Sukuna was ready to drag you over to the sink for some cool water.

“I-it’s okay, it was only a little.” Shaking your stinging hand, you point to the food. “But I think the meat might burn.”

“Shit!”

Narrowly avoiding disaster with the meat, when it came time to cook the eggs, you made a joke about how you liked your eggs in the morning and Sukuna burnt them almost immediately. While not an overtly sexual comment, the implications of the words still affected him.

Somehow, he managed to make the dish come together and while his plated dish didn’t come out the best, yours looked at least halfway decent with overcooked meat and burnt eggs. The only things not messed up were the rice and vegetables, and even then Sukuna was surprised.

“We did it everyone, we made katsudon!” Holding up the bowls, you smiled big and nudged Sukunas shoulder again. “You saw we had a few mishaps along the way, but that’s okay, that’s what made it fun.”

“Yeah, it was fun.” Sukuna chuckled. Despite him being more nervous than he’d ever thought possible, he had fun cooking alongside you.

“Sukuna, will you try mine? I made it super pretty and everything.” Holding your dish up to him, Sukuna wasn’t expecting you to do that. Now he felt bad that his looked so ugly and like a teenaged boy made it; he almost said no.

Eating yours though, somehow it tasted better than he was expecting. It must have been how you prepared it, and the fact that you cared so much about the presentation. Eating it in silence, he let you eat in peace as well for a few minutes and compliment the food to the camera.

“Alright, that’s the end of the video!” Putting your bowl down, you turned to Sukuna. “I had so much fun today, thanks for filming this with me.” Now was his chance to make everything better. Putting his bowl down and bolstering himself with confidence, Sukuna threw his arm over your shoulder and pulled you close to him.

“Thank you (Y/N), I really did enjoy today. I hope we can film again soon!” He squeezed your shoulder and smiled really big at not only you but the camera as well. He knew he was blushing, he knew that even the tip of his nose was a nice rosy shade, but he didn’t care. If people teased him for it, then so be it. But he wanted you to know how he truly felt.

“R-really? You want to?” You asked, looking up at Sukuna from your place smooshed against his body.

“Really.”

“Aww, well you heard it here first everyone! Sukuna wants to shoot another video with me!” Clapping your hands a few times, you waved at the camera. “Okay, bye everyone!”

“Bye.” Sukuna waved too, waiting a few seconds before letting you go and turning off the camera.

“Sukuna, did you really mean it? You want to film another video with me?” You were in utter disbelief. All this time, he’d just seemed very standoffish, if not a little awkward around you. You were happy to film this video with him, he had way more followers than you and it would help boost both your channels, and to hear him say that just made it even better.

“Yeah, I was serious.” Sukuna spoke around stuffing his mouth with the food he still had left. He was more hungry than he thought, the nerves doing a good job of twisting his stomach during the video. Now that it’s over, he can finally relax.

“That makes me really happy.” Eating the rest of your food as well, you leant against the counter. “This is gonna sound kind of mean, but I was really scared to film with you today. I thought you were going to be really mean.”

“Shit, you did?” He grimaced, letting out a sigh. “Sorry I had you worried.” He could already imagine the comments you would get from his fans.

“It’s okay! You’re actually way nicer in person, I was surprised!”

“That’s good.”

“And you’re really buff, you have muscles in places I didn’t even know were possible!” You laughed bashfully at that comment, and avoided looking at him when he stared at you in shock. “I couldn’t help but notice…”

Were you checking him out? Had you been checking him out this whole time and he didn’t even realize? He had seen you eyeing him up when you first met, but were you looking at him like that at other times as well? Now he’d really have to watch your video to see if it was true.

“Thanks, it’s my job.” Could he have said that any lamer? “My job outside of all this, I mean. I’m a trainer at this fancy gym downtown.”

“Oh, I’ve seen some of your videos at your gym! I know which one you’re talking about.”

“You do? You’ve seen my videos?” If he wasn’t surprised before, he was now.

“Yeah, you know I had to do a little research beforehand.” You nodded, beginning to clean up the dishes around you. “And I know you’ve already watched almost all of my videos, so it only seemed fair.”

Did you have to bring that up? Now Sukuna was embarrassed again.

“Y-yeah, I did.” Clearing his throat, Sukuna helped gather the dishes. He took up washing them, another task he could do to get his mind off you. As you took down the camera equipment, he nearly broke several dishes and utensils from scrubbing too hard.

“I’ll call you an Uber.” He said when all was said and done and you were back at the front of the building.

“You don’t have to, it’s okay.”

“No, I want to.” Quickly calling you a ride, Sukuna fiddled with his phone a little more. “Uh, could I- could I-” His voice kept leaving him, and he had to cough a few times. “Can I get your number? I really liked your camera shit and I want to improve mine.” Okay, it wasn’t a total lie. He did like your setup and wanted to make his just as good, but he really wanted your number to potentially talk to you more about things outside of Youtube.

“Sure! Go ahead and type it in.” You were quick to give him your phone, a cute pink phone case on the back of it. Typing it in, he can’t help but notice the little devil emoji you add by his name. He wants to ask, but your ride is already pulling up.

“Bye!” Setting all your camera gear inside the car, you turn and wave goodbye.

“See ya.” Just as you’re about to close the car door, Sukuna gets a burst of confidence. “Text me when you get home, okay?”

“Okay!” And off you go. Sukuna watches the car drive off until he can’t see it anymore. He takes his time getting to his own place, eagerly awaiting your message with every step. But even when you do message him, all he can do is send a thumbs up back and nothing else.

It’s about two and a half days after that that you text him again, letting him know you’re done editing and that you’re going to post the video soon. It wasn’t a very long video to begin with, so the editing was simple enough. Sukuna replied with what appeared to be a lackluster ‘can’t wait’, but on the inside he was shaking. He’d already screenshot all the pictures the two of you took together and added them to a folder.

“Here we go.” As soon as the video went live, Sukuna watched it. He was mortified as soon as it started at the blush so evident on his cheeks, and how it stayed throughout the whole thing. He groaned at the part where he helped you cut up the meat, he almost wishes you’d cut it out. Every little detail that made him embarrassed was there, every little nuance of his actions you’d managed to capture and make it cute.

(Y/N): How do you like it??

You texted him after twenty minutes, eager to hear his thoughts.

(Sukuna): it’s good, good editing and stuff

(Y/N): yay! I’m going to read comments in a few hours, you should too! I bet people will be really shocked!

(Sukuna): yeah no doubt

Oh, he was definitely going to read the comments. Whereas you were going to wait for a fair few to come in before commenting, Sukuna frequently refreshed the page and read the new ones as they came in. You were right, a lot of people were surprised, but he also saw a lot of his fans as well.

‘Ew Sukuna really cooked for that bitch? They can’t do it themselves?’

‘Yeah, why do they have to rely on him? Useless as fuck lol’

‘Sukuna only did this to get laid, (Y/N) looks like an easy fuck’

All of those comments, and many more, made his blood boil. Usually, he wouldn’t care at all about the comments, letting them fester in his comment section and spiral out of control. But for you, it was different.

‘Fuck off and die you pieces of shit. Leave (Y/N) alone or say it to my fucking face’

Sukuna sent that message, along with a variety of other threats, to all the people that insulted you. He didn’t care that this wasn’t his channel and that you would deal with it in whatever way you wanted to. He needed to defend you against the unwanted audience he’d brought you.

Luckily, after seeing Sukunas messages, all of his fans backed off. They knew how serious he was about his threats and there were many rumors that he actually did go and beat people up who said things he didn’t like. No one wanted to be on the receiving end of his torment.

With Sukunas name attached to the video and his heavy presence in the comment section, the video easily went viral. It was easily the most viewed video on your channel, getting on the trending pages of several different platforms.

(Sukuna): hey

It’s nearly a week after the first video that Sukuna messages you, and the hype is still going strong, and your follower count grows greatly from it.

(Y/N): hi! What’s up?

(Sukuna): do you want to film a video for my channel now? We can play a game, I have a few

(Y/N): sure that sounds fun!

Oh how wrong you were. The game Sukuna chose was a scary game, a shooter game with scary zombies and a lot of possible jumpscares. He doesn’t tell you either, so on the night of filming - he insisted on it being nighttime to get the full scary effect - you were caught off guard.

“I don’t know about this.” You whined once you saw the title. The two of you were video calling alongside playing the game together, and Sukuna’s eyes flicked to your figure on the screen.

“It’ll be okay, I’ll carry you, don’t worry.” He had started filming as soon as he’d set up the game, and you were filming yourself as well for him.

“You promise it won’t be too scary?”

“If it’s too scary just close your eyes and I’ll protect you.” Smiling softly at you, he started up the game. The beginning was fine, just a quick introduction to the game, but as soon as things started to get moving, you were scared.

“Sukuna a zombie is eating me!” You screamed, frantically pushing buttons in an attempt to get it off.

“It’s okay!” He quickly got rid of it, and made sure to stay close to your character as the story progressed.

“(Y/N) stay by me, there’s about to be a whole lot of them.”

“Close your eyes there’s about to be a jump scare here.”

“Don’t worry about getting that item, I’ll grab it for you!”

Sukuna nearly forgot he was being filmed, saying sweet things to you to help encourage you and make sure you weren’t overwhelmed. There were many parts where you screamed in fright and Sukuna was there to coo at you and tell you it was okay. He made sure that your character never died, making sure to keep you close until the end of the game.

“Sukuna, that was so hard!” Squishing your cheeks in your hands, you looked at him through your phone.

“It was fun though, wasn’t it? I had fun with you.” Completely abandoning the game, he stared down at his phone with a soft smile on his face.

“Yeah, when there weren’t so many zombies.” You stuck your tongue out at him, and it made him laugh. Leaning his head into his hand, Sukuna grinned when you yawned.

“Aw, are you tired? Better go to sleep soon.” His voice dropped to a lower volume, like you were right next to him.

“I will.” You yawned again and it made Sukuna yawn as well.

“Get off the phone and go to bed, you’re making me tired too.”

“Fine.” Whining out the word, you waved sleepily. “Goodnight Sukuna, I’ll send you the video files in the morning, okay?”

“Night.” Waving back, Sukuna waited until you hung up to turn his stuff off as well.

In the morning, Sukuna was ready to edit. What usually took him a week to edit out of laziness, he took only a day to edit this video with you together. Rewatching the footage, he nearly gagged at seeing how soft his face got when he looked at you, and most of those parts were left in because he couldn’t stand to watch them and fix them.

(Sukuna): videos up

The next day, he messaged you. Once again Sukuna patrolled the comments, swiftly deleting any that said even a hint of a bad thing about you. There was less this time, what with Sukuna adding a warning at the beginning of the video threatening anyone that talked down at you.

This video, like the first, went viral. But for a much different reason. Since Sukuna was emotionally unable to deal with how sappy he was and edit those parts out, everyone got to see how soft he was for you. If the comments weren’t mean, they were screaming about how you and Sukuna must be dating now, because why else would he look at you and talk to you like that?

And much to Sukuna’s dismay, there were also fancam edits of you two together. Any clippable moment of him being sweet on you in the videos you’d made together along with the photos you’d posted on Instagram were edited together and posted on Twitter. You both were tagged in every single one, making sure Sukuna saw all the videos of you and him together. He saved all of them too, delighting in the way you looked with him with all those pretty filters.

By the end of the day, people were trying to put a ship name together for the two of you and he’s seen you repost a few fancams with cute messages of thanks as well. Seeing you receptive to the fans screaming about the two of you made him happy, even if he was still too nervous to text you about anything outside of Youtube.

As more comments came in, people on Twitter were begging him to do a vlog with you. You had quite a few on your channel, going to cafes or filming what your day or week was like. Sukuna had watched them all and was jealous of every single person that appeared alongside you.

(Y/N): hey I’m doing a live on Instagram if you want to join me! I know people really like us together lol it’ll be great for views

(Sukuna): sure

Did you want him to join now? He’d just gotten out of the shower and thrown on a pair of sweats, he wasn’t exactly decent. But he didn’t want to waste time getting ready only for you to end the live.

“Hi Sukuna!” You smiled and waved when he appeared on the screen.

“Hey.” He waved back, not caring about the angle he was holding the camera in. He saw hearts begin to fill up the screen and comments started to fly by, almost all in caps about the fact he was shirtless talking to you.

“Guys, don’t be weird! Who cares that Sukuna is shirtless?” You tried to stop them, but it was clear you were flustered as well. You weren’t looking at him, peeking at him through the screen a few times.

“God you’re all thirsty as fuck.” Sukuna finally looked at himself on the screen. He was shirtless and in bed, hair slightly damp and tousled on his pillow. Reading a few comments, he shot up. “Of course I’m wearing pants, you nasty fuck!” Storming out of bed, he stood in front of the only mirror in his house that wasn’t in the bathroom and turned the camera around. “See, look!”

“Oh.” Gasping softly, you were glad Sukuna didn’t notice you screenshot the live. Clad in only gray sweatpants, Sukuna’s freshly cleaned skin gleamed in the light of his bedroom and every single muscle and edge of his body was on display.

“There, told you I wasn’t fucking naked.” Rolling his eyes, he flopped back down on the bed. None of the comments had gotten any better, all of them talking about how hot he was and how you were so lucky to know him in real life.

“L-let's talk about something else.” You stammered, not showing your face on camera for a few minutes. Sukuna laughed at the comments teasing you for being embarrassed, agreeing with some of them under his breath.

“So, what the fuck are you all doing here?” Sukuna posed the question at the chat, but at you as well.

“Well before you came everyone was talking about you...and you know how everyone has been begging for us to vlog?” You started off slowly, peeking an eye at his face.

“Yeah?”

“I wanted to call you to ask how you felt about that?” How he felt? Why did you want to know?

“You couldn’t have texted me that?” That wasn’t necessarily what he wanted to say, but it made you chuckle, so it was okay.

“No! I wanted to ask so everyone could know!”

“I don’t mind it.” If you wanted to vlog with him, he would do it in a heartbeat.

“So…” Worrying your lip, you looked off camera for a few seconds before looking directly at Sukuna. “Would you like to be in a vlog with me, at a cafe? It’s outside the city, kind of far, but we can rent a car or-”

“Yes.” Sukuna interrupted, nodding his head quickly. “I’ll come. We don’t have to rent a car, I’ll drive.”

“Really?” The comments were just as shocked as you were. Sukuna never filmed anywhere but his home and the gym, this would be a monumental occasion.

“Did you want me to say no?”

“No!” You screamed immediately, nearly dropping your phone. “I just- I wasn’t expecting you to say yes!”

“Well I did.” Sukuna bit his lip, running a hand through his hair and flexing his arm. “So I guess it’s a date, huh?” His normal asshole confidence was back now that you were appearing through a screen and not right next to him. A surprised sound came from the back of your throat, and you nearly dropped the phone again.

“Y-yeah! A date!” It felt good to have you flustered for once and not Sukuna. Laughing heartily at you, Sukuna smirked at the comments.

“Was that all you wanted to ask me or was there something more?”

“No, that was it!”

“Alright.” Licking his lip and letting his tongue hang out of his mouth a little, Sukuna watched you bite your lip as well. “Well I’m gonna go, I got stuff to do, but I’ll text you later (Y/N).” Dropping his voice as he said goodbye, Sukuna left the livestream.

“Holy fuck.” As soon as his phone was off, Sukuna let out a breath he’d been holding in. His heart was pounding hard despite how confident he was in his actions. Flirting was nothing new to him, but with you it felt different and like he’d never done it before in his life.

He watched the rest of your livestream while he finished getting ready for bed, laughing at the comments still teasing you about getting flustered with him. The notifications for Twitter were going off as well, and he knew for sure that there were new fancams for him to check out later.

(Y/N): Sukuna!! You’re so embarrassing!

Texting him after your stream, your cheeks were still burning at the memory.

(Sukuna): hey, you said it would be good for views and it was

(Y/N): I know…

(Y/N): did you really mean it, about coming with me?

(Sukuna): of course. If I didn’t want to I would have said no

(Y/N): that’s good lol!

There was a lull in conversation, and Sukuna nearly fell asleep waiting for you to either text him again or for him to figure out what to say next.

(Y/N): so, a date huh? Are you going to bring me flowers?

Now he was awake. He didn’t expect you to bring that up again, and his eyes flew open. Sukuna’s fingers hovered over the keyboard, mind going blank on what to say.

(Y/N): lol just kidding! I know you only said that for the stream! I’ll text you later about the details, I’m about to knock out

(Y/N): goodnight :)

Well shit. Now he definitely wanted it to be a date.

[mha-adore]

hey! ty sm for doing the matchup exchange with me, i look forward to writing your match! i’m rita and i go by she/her pronouns. i have a preference for men & i’m 16. my quirk would be similar to shinso & inumaki from jjk,, i can control ppl and animals just by saying a command,,, an indicator for when i’m using my quirk would be my eyes changing color & a side effect to using my quirk would be getting light headed.

i’m a libra sun, aquarius moon, & leo rising. a slytherin & intj-t. i’m v polite and reserved when you first meet me. i’m pretty introverted and i have anxiety. it takes me while to open up since it takes me a while to trust ppl. i do tend to get annoyed and angry by others easily,, i’m a bit of a hot head. i’m pretty chill and like joking around once i open up,, i can also be kinda dumb. i’m a bit of a loner and i don’t have many friends. i’m actually a bit of an emotional person but only when it comes to shows, movies, books, etc,, i tend to keep my emotions bottled up. i’m self conscious and self critical. i care a lot about having perfect grades and getting into a good university but i’m so lazy (lots of breaks & procrastination) at the same time,, i end up getting everything done on time though. i’m impatient when it comes to my own things so i like doing things my way bc i feel more comfortable that way. i also like keeping things neat. i’ve also been told i have a resting sad face & that i’m intimidating. i wear a lot of black and i’d describe my style as dark academia mixed with 70s-90s fashion. when i’m at home i just wear comfortable clothing like pajama pants and a t-shirt.

my likes/hobbies/interests are baking, playing the sims, writing, and playing board games with ppl i’m close to. i also like relaxing in bed and spending time with people i’m close to and having fun. i’m interested in psychology, true crime, & history. i don’t like arrogant & closed minded people. i look for a partner who is loyal, kind, & open-minded. my love languages are gifts and quality time (both ways).

i hope this isn’t too much,, ty again! <3

Hey friend, it's my pleasure! Thanks sm for offering 💖

Can I just say super quick that your quirk is really cool? You could command an army of bears, raccoons or fire ants. I would be terrified. Also I'm an Aquarius moon and INTJ too, air moons gotta stay together. I totally got a Libra vibe off you when you first messaged me and you're super sweet 🎀 also I totally get you on the anxiety part, I have anxiety too. I know how terrifying it can be to reach out to new people so please know I'm proud of you for taking the chance to reach out to me 😊 and it's never too much; the more detail the better!

I match you with Shoto!

Say hi to the walking AC and heater unit. A couple reasons I picked him is because you mentioned having anxiety and being hot headed. With his father being, well, himself and his mother being the anxious person she is, Shoto understands both sides of the coin very well and knows how to deal with both parts. He can balance being calm and stern at the same time and he has the patience of a saint. He would give you the time and space you need to grow comfortable around new people and surroundings, as well he would be able to keep you grounded when your temper gets the best of you. He mellows you out. My personal headcanon is that he's a Capricorn sun, Scorpio moon, Virgo rising, Ravenclaw and INFP.

He returns your jokes with dry humor. He can keep a dead serious face while making the stupidest jokes too. He could look you dead in the eye, face straight, and rip a monster fart and not giggle just to see your reaction. Honestly the image of him holding eye contact while aggressively farting is funny in my head. I know I have the humor of a 9 year old.

He isn't bothered by you not having many friends. He's a private person and doesn't want a lot of people up in his business. He prefers few close friends over many distant friends. He knows you aren't stupid and pays no attention to anything you say that may sound dumb. He's heard so much dumb shit he learned to filter it from his brain.

He understands that you're closed off on your emotions. He really can't blame you, he's quite the same. If you get a little teary eyed over a book or movie he'll let you talk it out and cry if you'd like, but he won't push you to be uncomfortably open to him. He values your happiness over his own and doesn't mind you keeping your feelings to yourself. He respects your privacy. Regardless of what you may feel conscious or critical of about yourself he's there to remind you that you're perfect. You're healthy, you're strong and you're doing the best you can. No one could ask any more from you. He's lived a majority of his life feeling outcasted and ignored because of his scar and wouldn't wish the same on anyone, so if there's any part of you that you feel bad about he's always reminding you that you have no imperfections, everything about you makes you one of a kind. You're irreplicable.

He isn't worried about you procrastinating on studying or homework. As long as you get it done and do well enough he isn't concerned. If you ever have difficulty with a subject he's happy to help you study and learn. If you want he can ask Momo to join for a study party if you want the extra help or company. He just wants to see you succeed and get into the college of your cotton candy dreams. Oh and don't worry about your tuition, he has it covered. Don't even mention it to him it'll already be paid off, including books and living arrangements. He only wants you to pay him back by doing your best in school and showing him you can handle the hard work.

He always has a suggestion on ways you can do things but he knows you prefer to do them by yourself, so he'll neber bombard you with his ideas. If you ask for his input he has plenty to give but otherwise he gives you the room to make your own moves. He's a neat freak himself and is always happy to help you keep your room clean and well put together. He has good room decor ideas too if you want to spruce up your room.

He really doesn't see you as intimidating. He sees a confident, independent and strong young woman who can hold her own. He occasionally wonders if you're really sad or if that's just your expression and he'll occasionally ask. He's only making sure you're okay. If you're sad he's on it with a cute or funny movie, some snacks, a shoulder to cry on and a whole night's worth of stuff to talk about.

He likes your sense of fashion, he enjoys darker and warmer colors. He lives for the 80s aesthetic and loves to see you mix the two so effortlessly. He can, wants to and will give you his t shirts to wear at home. He'll also loan you hoodies and sweaters. He won't outright buy you a hoodie, he'll buy one for himself and let you get away with stealing it from him.

He's so soft for home made cookies and would love for you to make him some. Home made dinners are also great. He would love to help you bake and would enjoy baking dates. He'll also watch shows like Hell's Kitchen with you. He isn't exactly a huge gamer but he likes simulation games and RPGs like Sims, Animal Crossing, Pokemon, Harvest Moon etc. He'll binge these games with you all day and night. Your Sims have to get married to each other it's the law. He enjoys reading what you write - what you don't mind sharing of course. He won't go peeking in your personal writing, he knows it isn't his place. Concerning what you do share he'll read it with great interest and share his thoughts and any ideas he has. He would really enjoy writing something with you, like a short story or a comic. He loves how you convey your writing and would be honored to take part in it. His favorite board game is Candy Land, a close second being Monopoly, followed by Scrabble. He pulls out a big ass dictionary during Scrabble just to prove to people that he knows his vocabulary. He loves you dearly but all bets are off during Monopoly, it's a dog eat dog world and he isn't bailing you out of jail. He will, however, offer you real money in turn for properties in the game. No that isn't cheating the rules say nothing about it. He has no problem with a lazy day in bed though and wouldn't mind just dozing or watching shows together. Any time spent with you is time spent well. You two could watch paint dry together and he would have a blast. He'll buy the paint.

With his personal involvment in hero work he has lots of info on true crime cases and can share stories and books with you. He has everything from small robberies to Ted Bundy and beyond. If you have a question about a true crime case he has an answer. As for psychology I imagine he would study it himself, perhaps as a secondary career or freelance hobby. He'll examine characters from books and movies with you and run his own behavioral analysis unit from his bedroom. The FBI doesn't hold a candle to him. He can, will and already has tracked down your enemies and he has their addresses. With his father being the new number one hero he essentially has the force of the law in his hands and if need be, he will use it. He won't do anything unjust unless your safety is in jeopardy but he won't hesitate to bring someone down. As for history he has plenty of books ranging from founding of countries to wars, to major technological advancements to the invention of toilet paper. He knows some very niche history facts. If you need to impress a teacher with knowledge on history he has you covered. He'll make the teacher quit their job in shame.

Shoto is absolutely loyal to the end, open minded and kind to a fault. He understands how it's like to be ignored, misunderstood and bullied and he won't treat anyone else that way. Regardless of his opinion on someone he still gives them respect and kindness. He doesn't care how rude or petty someone acts, they're still a human and deserve to be treated as such.

He goes out of his way to buy you special gifts, he values personal meaning over monetary value. Between a basic cheap necklace and an expensive bracelet of your favorite gemstone and color, you bet he's going for the bracelet. The cost isn't important to him, he just wants to see your face light up when you open the gift. As for gifts from you he doesn't care about how much you spent, he just wants something from the heart. You could give him an origami swan that cost you nothing to make and he would treasure it like a rare antique. As for quality time, he always enjoys a good movie, board game, cuddle session or just a nap. Like I mentioned before, any time spent together is time spent well.

I hope you enjoyed this friend!! 🥀 I'll be sending my part your way soon, thanks again for the offer! I had a lot of fun with this one 😘

[medea10]

My Review of Kaguya-sama: Love is War - Season Two

Season One Review Here.

Here we go again! Those crazy kids, will they ever confess their feelings for each other?

HISTORY: Love is war! The first one to admit love is seen as weak and is thus deemed the loser in this fight. That reigns true in the minds of student body president Miyuki Shirogane and student body vice president Kaguya Shinomiya. Both of them are mad for one another, they just won’t admit it. So, Miyuki and Kaguya play mind games with one another to see if they can make the other crumble. In a war with many wins and losses, who will be the first one to admit their feelings for the other?

SEASON TWO: While the mind games are still happening, it seems like they’re going towards a cuter case (at least when it comes to Kaguya). Yes, she still covers her tracks so she comes out looking cool as a cucumber, but inside she’s a mess. We start the season off with Kaguya wanting to celebrate Miyuki’s birthday. It’s just that Miyuki is stubborn about celebrating his own birthday or even receiving gifts (due to his upbringing). And then we add a few more road-blocks to this story with the addition of new members of the student body.

Then we end this memorable era of the student council as new members are set to take place with an election. Despite the sad atmosphere with remembering all the fun stuff that occurred last season, everyone will be coming back to their old positions for the upcoming school year. I mean, this was the third episode! It would be a real cock-tease if everyone left their positions this early in the season.

NEW CHARACTER: Let’s enter the Student Council Election arc! With the disbanding of the previous student council, it’s time for the students to choose their next president, vice president, etc. Miyuki was skeptical about continuing his reign as president, but he’s going to run for a second term. While Miyuki is still popular, a first-year student is ready to take him down. In comes Miko Iino! She’s seen as a sticler for the rules. Even when she’s in the student council, she doesn’t waste time scolding every member (except Chika) about minor imperfections. Here’s what you might recognize her from.

*Miko is played by Miyu Tomita (known for Crim on Interspecies Reviewers)

LICENSING: This anime is licensed by Aniplex of America (just like season one) and is EXCLUSIVELY streamed only on FUNimation. I wouldn’t be so pissy about this if sites like Crunchyroll and Hulu hadn’t already streamed the first season from the start, but FUNimation and Sony want to keep the series all to themselves. The company’s a monster!

THE DUB: Holy crap, the unthinkable has happened and FUNimation has scrounged up an English dub to this series. But only for this season! What the shit is going on? Is it like when Crunchyroll and FUNimation shared the anime Free! for a while? Why is it only this season that’s being dubbed? Well anyways, if you’ve read my thoughts on season one, you’ll know that I had “strong” feelings towards this getting a dub. Meaning, the narrator had to be voiced by R. Bruce Elliott! Well…they did voice the narrator with someone from Space Dandy. I just didn’t expect it to be voiced by Space Dandy himself! In short, Ian Sinclair is voicing the narrator and I am okay with this. He’s no R. Bruce Elliott, but Ian Sinclair is friggin’ awesome. I actually think the dub is really good from what I’ve heard so far. There’s only a few episodes available at this date and time, but make your own decisions here. Here’s what you might recognize these folks from.

ENGLISH CAST: *Kaguya is played by Alexis Tipton (known for Honey on Space Dandy, Lala on To Love Ru, Iris on Fire Force, Mizuki on Baka and Test, Aoba on Keijo!!!!!!!!, Hana on Prison School, and Saya on Blood-C)

*Miyuki is played by Aaron Dismuke (known for Al on FMA, Hiro on Fruits Basket, Kakeru on Fruits Basket 2019, Van on Escaflowne [redub], Marx on Black Clover, and You on Deadman Wonderland)

*Chika is played by Jad Saxton (known for Charla on Fairy Tail, Hana on Fruits Basket 2019, Koneko on High School DxD, Dorothy on Black Clover, Tamaki on Fire Force, Megumi on Food Wars, and Chika on Love Live Sunshine)

*Ishigami is played by Austin Tindle (known for Accelerator on Index/Railgun, Kaneki on Tokyo Ghoul, Karma on Assassination Classroom, Marco on Attack on Titan, Natsuo on Domestic Girlfriend, and Sunakawa on My Love Story)

SHIPPING PART II: Ooh boy, we’ve got some extra cute moments between Kaguya and Miyuki this season. From Kaguya giving a slice of cake to Miyuki for his birthday to the star-gazing moment where Miyuki grabs Kaguya and things get a little too close for comfort, this season was getting a little hot and heavy! Although, we didn’t get another moment with sick Kaguya this season! And it becomes increasingly clear to both characters that it’s getting harder and harder to put up that façade in front of one another. In the case of Kaguya, she ends up going to the emergency room only to learn that her “heart condition” is just the love for the president.

Even though we don’t get any kind of love confession this season, we do get some choice moments like Kaguya becoming friends with Miyuki on LINE, Kaguya’s run-in with Miyuki’s father, and of course that awkward position in a locked room between the two star-crossed lovers. You know what I’m talking about, the misunderstanding position. Literally every high school anime has this happen at one point!

MUSIC: So…no cute ending theme like Chika’s from last season? Crabapples!

Aside from that, the first time I heard DADDY, DADDY DO, I was a little skeptical on the visuals they chose to match the music. Thankfully, that only lasted for two episodes at the most and the rest of the time I’m dancing around to this catchy theme.

And while I’m on the subject of music, has anyone else noticed the amount of 80s music references that was shown throughout the season? Maybe I’m just stuck on that episode where Kaguya is trying to vogue like Madonna.

FUNNIEST MOMENT: Underwear and man-whores! So much misunderstanding it was too much for me to contain my laughs.

ENDING: The last couple of episodes revolve around the school sport’s festival. Surprisingly, we get a fair amount of time dedicated to long-time holdout Ishigami. He ended up doing something quite surprising by joining the cheer squad and was willing to participate by dressing in drag for a skit. I find Ishigami made a cute girl. Then, we get some cute Miyuki x Kaguya shenanigans when Miyuki’s father visits the sports festival.

So the episode before the second season finale, we get a full episode dedicated to Ishigami. In episodes prior to this one, we were getting a taste of what’s up with our favorite gamer. There was talk of Ishigami being a violent psychopath in middle school with the way the faceless rumormill has been talking. Apparently when Ishigami was in middle school, he would frequently talk to this girl in his class. But then this girl gets a boyfriend! That wouldn’t bug Ishigami until he overheard that boyfriend cheating on this girl. It does get worse with what this scumbag tries to do. And that’s when Ishigami beat the crap out of him!

Unfortunately for Ishigami, his class and the girl walked in when he was pummeling the shit out of this dude. And so the truth gets warped! Especially when dude starts lying by saying Ishigami did this because he was jealous of their relationship. Because of the altercation, Ishigami was suspended from school for a time, had to see a councilor, and was forced to write a letter of apology to the jerk he beat up. That last one, he was unable to do so. If you were in his shoes, you wouldn’t write an apology letter either, you’d write a note that simply says...

“Go to hell, Dumbass”!

Amazingly, those are the exact words Miyuki told Ishigami to say to that jerk. Miyuki was the first person to open up to Ishigami after this incident. Despite the harsh time Ishigami had in middle school, after starting high school he learned who his real friends are, both from the student council and the cheer squad. I really should state that I was happy to see Ishigami get an episode revolved around him. He was introduced only half-way into season one and felt like he didn’t make that big of an impact with me. Ishigami this season stood out a lot more and I was very satisfied with the results.

Now in the final episode, Kaguya lost something dear to her. Her phone! Let me explain. She was given a flip-phone when she was 5 years old to only be used for emergencies. Kaguya really didn’t use her camera until she was in the student council and these photos are pretty special to her. So imagine her shock and horror when it falls off the school building and being told that she can’t retrieve her photos. Just as well, she had an obsolete flip-phone. Even me, with my retro media collection, I don’t own one of those! But now that Kaguya has joined the rest of society with a brand-new smart phone, she was able to join LINE and all of her friends shared with her the photos they took during those special moments Kaguya thought were going to be lost to her forever.

In the final segment, it wasn’t really anything romantic-driven. It was just another game brought on by Chika. Basically they all took turns blowing up a balloon until it pops. Or, an anime version to the Spongebob Squarepants episode, “Wet Painters” where Patrick blows a giant paint bubble. And leave it to Chika to inadvertently blow up the balloon by doing something you wouldn’t expect. It blew up, blew everyone and the school away while DADDY DADDY DO plays in the background.

We end with Kaguya and Miyuki standing up together and the narrator assuring us that the war of love is not over.

I love this series, I truly do. I just feel like the way these stories were set up, I feel as though the first season should have ended with the 3rd episode of the second season. Don’t get me wrong, I do like the ending to the first season with the firework episode. It’s just that this particular episode gave us the end of the student council, Kaguya actually called Miyuki by his first name, and with Miyuki announcing his candidcy for president again, it opens up for more to look forward to with season two. But that’s just my thought on the matter. I’m sure this was the setup in the manga, but in the 12 episode dynamic with the anime feels weird. And same can be said about having the Ishigami episode right before the season finale. I’m glad this story was told, I just wish it was placed better in the 12 episode anime season setup.

Despite my tiny gripes there, I enjoyed this season very much. There’s definitely been a lot of development between Miyuki and Kaguya this season with some overused tropes and surprising moments no one expected. I can honestly say I didn’t expect Miyuki to take Kaguya by the shoulders as he talks about stars and constellations. Although, I did expect Miyuki to freak the fuck out sometime afterward because he thought he acted like a dork. But we get the main duo get a little closer with certain moments like the star-gazing episode, Miyuki’s birthday, and Miyuki adding Kaguya to LINE. So it once again leaves us on the hopes of a season three. Unfortunately at this date and time, no word on that happening! So maybe I should go on and read one of the 15+ volumes of the manga.

If you would like to watch the second season of Kaguya-sama it seems like the only one that has it available is FUNimation, with the English dub airing once a week. But if you would like to watch the first season, Crunchyroll and Hulu have it available for streaming.

[theropoda]

3, 4, 6-8, 11, 13-17, 19-22, 26-30 uwu

WOO LAD THAT’S A LOT THANK U!!! this got long and i wrote an essay or two LOL so im putting it under a readmore!

3: Best game you’ve ever played? WEEEELLLL.......let me preface this with two things: one, i am a FAKE GAMER as in my laptop is not at all made for gaming, it’s piss poor, so a big chunk of games i’m interested in is because i watched a playthrough of them lol. i have a 3ds but only 3 games on it (animal crossing new leaf, tomodachi life, nintedogs & cats). second, i’m very bad at choosing favorites of things.....BUUUUT .....i choooooose, in no particular order, OFF, pigeonetics, elder scrolls oblivion, pathologic classic HD!! i’m more than likely forgetting a few though, so sorry about that

4: Worst game you’ve ever played? as i said above, cannot choose favorites, neither can i choose whatever the opposite of favorites is but...uhh, does lif even count as a game? like lif, the stupid little furry flash game i remember playing on some shady website. it was surprisingly very active with a BUNCH of people there but i kept dying like every 5 seconds....AWFUL

6: A game that’s changed you the most? WELL define Changed.....ummm aha first thing that comes to mind is OFF. it’s one of those things where you never knew you wanted something so fucking bad until you saw it--and it’s like that for me. i NEVER knew i loved that odd, surreal, colorful, “looks playful and simple in some parts but incredibly violent and unnerving in other parts” aesthetic til i played it. like aesthetically i love that game to BITS and something about it just stuck with me til the end of time.

later in life (meaning, past year or so) it changed me because it taught me a lesson about storytelling and creative endeavors. a very useful lesson. which is: things don’t really need to have a meaning. stories, art, music, writing, whatnot, while it CAN be deep and meaningful, while you CAN use it as a way to communicate with the world about all kinds of heartfelt things, it can also be...nothing, really.

once i, as usual, got ridiculously overwhelmingly sad about small things. specifically seeing other people around me come up with all kinds of deep and meaningful characters and stories, sometimes putting them into webcomics or writings of theirs, and they were all so well-thought out and detailed and what i envied most was people put a lot of themselves and their experiences into them, venting and coping through them, whilst also making these larger-than-life grandiose complex stories and worlds and so on and so forth.

it made me look at my own ideas and get mad/frustrated at how shallow they were. but then i remembered OFF and i felt better because Fun Fact, mortis ghost has a now-abandoned dA account and if you go through the comment section on his profile, he answers a lot of fan questions and he mentions several times that the game didn’t really have a “meaning”, it didn’t really have a “deeper story” or moral or anything, really. i’m paraphrasing this but i vividly remember him saying “i wanted to make a game, so i did”.

that made me feel a lot better because it made me realise that sometimes art--especially stories, in my case-- doesn’t NEED to be DEEP or have MEANING...sometimes it can just BE!!!! sometimes it really can just be all about AESTHETICS like who GIVES a shit if there’s a hidden meaning if you take the first letter of all of your characters’ names and put them backwards, sometimes all that matters is if they just VIBE with you y’know....

yume nikki is similar in this regard bc that game doesn’t have any story other than “collect egg” and yet it’s so impactful. that game doesn’t have a story or meaning it just IS........ :) GOD THATS SO LONG IM SORRY ABOUT THAT but yeah. funny violent ghostbusting baseball man is a game that changed me :)

7: A game you’ll never forget? OFF AGAIN LOL,,, it’s just so memorable because of how unique it is. visuals, soundtrack, story, everything is so memorable. unforgettable. oh god you can tell how much i love this damn game can’t you

8: Best soundtrack? yakuza 0, OFF, there is a picture (another game by mortis ghost, again composed by alias conrad coldwood who also composed OFF), pigeonetics (the entire soundtrack of which is here), jojo’s bizarre adventure all star battle and eyes of heaven, silent hill 2 & 3, undertale....probably forgetting more but all of these...earcandy

11: Hardest game you’ve played? i am a shitty gamer so this is Most games i’ve played lol!! but uhh..well you see. hardest game i remember playing as of recent is pathologic classic hd in which it’s...not only hard to understand what any character is saying at any given time lol but also, i don’t think it’s HARD it’s just...you need to focus. you REALLY need to fucking focus and pay attention in this game. so i wouldn’t say its HARD, but i’m only putting this here bc it’s in recent memory.

i say recent memory because the true answer is susceptible to “yeah, but now you’re older, it must not be so hard.” as in if i played it now i think i’d have a way easier time. but when i was around....10-12 years old i had several ps3 video game adaptations of animated movies and i had SUCH a fucking hard time with them. g-force, bolt and up in particular were fucking HARD. like genuinely, the hardest time i had EVER had in my live playing video games is tied to these three fucking games. g-force and bolt ESPECIALLY. one particular level in bolt took both me AND my sister around a year to fucking finish.

again, i was baby, so i bet i’d have a much easier time with them now that i’m 17. but for now, in my experience, bolt and g-force for the ps3 were harder than pathologic classic. i think icepick lodge should take a few notes for them for pathologic 2.

13: A game you were the most excited for when it wasn’t released yet? STREETS OF KAMUROCHO...i spent the entire day of its release anticipating its launch lol

14: A game you think would be cool if it had voice acting? hmm..most games i like and know about do have voice acting so i dunno....i guess it would’ve been kind of cool if morrowind had like, full proper voice acting. but i can understand why it only voice acted things like greetings and battle insults because GOD that game is SO...complicated...and as a result, the conversations are so lengthy and text-full. playing morrowind is really like a goddamn book! if it was voice acted i’m sure all that information would have to be shortened bc i know no one is going to fucking voice act two whole paragraphs

15: Which two games do you think would make an awesome crossover? pigeonetics and yakuza in which instead of being about the criminal underworld it’s about shady and unethical pigeon clubs, breeding, racing, etc etc...a lot of illegal shit does happen in the world of pigeons especially when it comes to racing; prized racers have been kidnapped and held for ransom before. and then there’s Avian Cucking: The Sport, where people breed the sexiest pigeons (horseman thief pouters), release them outside to seduce other people’s sexy pigeons, and bring them back and keep ‘em, drama ensues. will kiryu ever escape his past as a professional pigeon-napper, and find solace in his new life as a pigeon hobbyist? find out now by playing YACOOZA......

JOKES ASIDES i don’t know i really don’t....umm, pigeonetics and animal crossing somehow?? :O... like, instead of managing your own town it’s managing your own loft!...orrrr, the jojo games (all star battle & eyes of heaven) with yakuza, because i think they’re somewhat similar because they’re both haha Wacky Silly AND serious over the top fighty-fighting.....or maybe a crossover with OFF and discover my body, which, despite being an incredibly short and obscure indie game i still love to bits for what it’s worth. WAIT ANIMAL CROSSING AND MINECRAFT THAT WOULD FUCK SO HARD OH MY GOD

16: Character you’ve hated most? From what game? i can’t think of any character i like, HATE...with a burning passion.. there are a few i dislike or have a complicated relationship with though.. i’m not interested in the series anymore but ouma from drv3...i’ll admit that he is a bit fun sometimes, especially in the very early beginning he’s a likeable brat but as the game progresses he becomes more irritating than anything and i have an issue with him in regards to writing, despite the fact that i have never been awake in any english class ever lol. it’s too long to put in this already long post but i’ll keep it at that. if you like him, well, good for you for finding joy in something i couldn’t! but he just doesn’t do it for me.

AH I JUST REMEMBERED....MINE......FROM YAKUZA 3....maybe i’d change my mind if i watched a playthrough of y3 again, because i think you always absorb something better on your second watch (tho i honestly Dont have the energy to do that all over again, the yakuza games are too fucking long), but i really hate his writing. spoilers for y3 but, i think mine’s writing, alongside other things in the game, were super messy...and a big part of why i hate him is that not only is he one of those “could’ve had great potential but fell flat” sorta guys but also his love for daigo is seen as some fans as good gay rep and i?????/.............um....WELL let’s just say that, i think people nowadays will see any gay character ever in any circumstance and say it’s good gay rep just based off the fact that A Gay Character exists....he was Not, good gay rep imo....he was not, let alone, Good. .........

17: What game do you never tell people you play? can’t think of any games i wouldn’t tell people i play.. idk exactly what this question’s asking. does it mean what game you don’t tell ppl you play bc you’re embarrassed about it...? i’m not very embarrassed by any of them. the only thing that comes close, i guess, is uhh lioden and wolvden. i’ve only interacted with those communities a LITTLE TINY WEE BIT, yet of what i’ve seen it’s a goddamn dumpster fire and i’d never want to be associated with them lol

19: Which game do you think deserves a revival? i’m well aware it’ll never happen and that it’s more a wet dream than anything but...PT/silent hills..... on a more realistic/”could happen” note, PIGEONETICS!!!! SERIOUSLY, it’s an amazing game about amazing animals and it teaches genetics in a very simplified and efficient way!! genetics is SO hard for me to understand, i fucking hated studying it but this game really helped me understand how it works AND its super engaging and interesting!! HOWEVER, of all the pigeon genes we know of, only a handful were seen in pigeonetics and i’d LOVE a sequel that employs new game mechanics AND new genes!! i wanna learn about bronze and stencil genes! i wanna learn about phenotypes like grizzled and pied!!! genes like sooty and dirty!!! @ UNIVERSITY OF UTAH GENETICS DEPARTMENT PLEASE IM BEGIGNG YOU

20: What was the first video game you ever played? earliest memories of Gaming involves me at my aunt’s house playing two games: super mario brothers and some kind of trapeze game. i don’t remember anything else though

21: How old were you when you first played a video game? i can’t remember but i must’ve been REAL tiny.... 6-9 years, maybe??

22: If you could immerse yourself in any game for one day, which game would it be? What would you do? immerse myself meaning go into their world...? huh....on one hand i’d like to go in the world of yakuza 0 to play in the arcades and do whore related activities but i’d also love to go into the world of animal crossing (and i’m pretty sure i’d be some sort of generic dromaeosaurid in that game!!) and shop, chat with villagers, do chores for them, go fishing, bug hunting, eat delicious fucking food like the apples mangos peaches cherries etc etc.....OH AND FOSSIL HUNTING THAT’S THE BEST PART!! though it would definetly be a little weird, to be a little dinosaur and finding a fossil of a...little dinosaur....i guess the non-sentient species went extinct and the dinosaur i am is some kind of, descendant of a sapient non-avian dinosaur that survived the k-pg extinction event...oh but who cares all i want is a cool little ambulocetus fossil or something. and some cherry pie :)

26: Handheld or console? my old ps3 just went kaput one day years ago so i haven’t used it in years so i can’t compare well... but i’d say handheld, because it lets me like DO stuff more...would love to get a console one day, a ps4 maybe but i’m kinda worried it’ll make me stay in one room all day wasting away my time when there’s other stuff i can do, y’know? but something handheld like my 3ds, on the other hand...i can do stuff with it. i can take it to my room and play it between breaks i take as i clean the room and fold my clothes, i can watch something on the tv and play the game during ad breaks, i can take it outside too if it has charge to last me a while! so....handheld i guess

27: Has there ever been a moment that has made you cry? yakuza 0 and undertale in particular have ALMOST made me fucking bawl with many of its moments....yakuza 0 especially, after that Fucking Ending i had trouble sleeping because oh my fucking god. video game people SAD!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

28: Which character’s clothes do you wish you owned the most?

29:  Which is more important, gameplay or story? HMMM....well, if i were to play a game with a shitty story but really good and fun gameplay i’d probably continue playing it for the gameplay. but if i played a game with shitty gameplay but an interesting story, there is a chance i’d play it more for the sake of the story but also i might just quite and see the rest of the story on youtube or something. i’m more likely to go through a boring story for fun gameplay than go through boring gameplay for an interesting story, so i guess gameplay is more important to me....that is, WHEN i actually own and play a game as opposed to when i just watch someone play a game because i don’t own the game but wanna know abt the story lol

30: A game that hasn’t been localized in your country that you think should be localized? i have no idea how video game localization really works....but i assume localizing a game in india would mean something like, removing content according to cultural norm and also somehow translating it into the 22 official languages..? or just two or three language if it’s tied to a particular state, which seems way more doable. i honestly have no idea? i’ve never interacted w the indian gaming community that much to be honest, all i know of it is of the video games i’ve seen sold in some game stores and a few whispers about like solid snake or whoever from my school’s cafeteria....the most popular games here, to my knowledge, are those very streamable games like fortnite and PUBG and your call of duties and whatnot. those generic shooters. and even then, that honestly isn’t the “indian” gaming community bc this country is so FUCKHUGE, it’s just tamil nadu. one state.

soooo, according to what little i know of gaming interests in where i live, i don’t think any of the games i like should be localized here bc i don’t really think there’s an audience for it as far as i can tell :( maybe animal crossing? it’s a fun little games for all ages and i think it has a chance of becoming popular here, so maybe that is worth a shot! but i can’t think of any other game that i like that really has an audience here (other than Me lol)

[futuresmashmemes]

In complete curiosity, can you tell me what your favorite Smash reveal trailer of all time was?

Like, actually, real shit, stuff that’s already happened in this timeline?

Nothing will ever top Smash 4’s reveal for me. I was really into Brawl as a kid, and after Brawl came out a lot of people spread the idea online that it would be the last smash game (hilarious in hindsight, I know). Me, being the dumb kid I was, took that at face value. I also wasn’t really into following leaks at the time. I was also 12, almost 13 when 4 was revealed, keep in mind. I just sort of accepted that smash was done.

I vividly remember when I first saw that reveal trailer. We were in the middle of bumfuck nowhere for my sister’s soccer game. I was sweaty, hungry, and my phone was running out of battery. I managed to convince my mom to let me stay in the car for the rest of the game, where I promptly began charging my phone and went onto YouTube to pull up some music to listen to (knowing me at the time, it probably would’ve been an Evanescence song). And there, at the top of my recommended feed, was that trailer.

It almost didn’t feel real. I was so convinced that Smash was over, I almost thought that the video would’ve been a fake. Some shitty mod or whatever. But I clicked on it anyways, because, y’know, Smash Bros! Boy am I glad I did. Instantly, I was enthralled by the idea of Smash on the go. I didn’t have a 3DS at the time, but I played on my DS like I was getting paid for every second the screen was on. Having a portable smash game was a dream come true! And when they got to the Wii U part of the trailer, I was drawn in by the visual upgrade compared to Brawl. I was a dumb kid who didn’t know anything about graphics watching this trailer in 480p on a shitty Windows phone, and even I could tell how much of a graphics upgrade it was compared to Brawl. I didn’t have a Wii U at the time either, but I was still excited.

The new characters announced were just the icing on the cake. I love Animal Crossing, but I never expected an Animal Crossing rep in smash because I read that Sakurai had previously said that Animal Crossing characters were unsuited for battle. So when that trailer opened up on a shot of the Villager opening the now iconic envelope, my hype levels instantly shot through the roof of the car. Really, I should consider myself lucky that I was watching this trailer in the middle of an empty parking lot in the middle of nowhere and not, say, on the bus ride home from school, because after that point, I was visibly freaking out throughout. I would’ve been perfectly satisfied with just Villager, but then the trailer continued. The videos online right now show these two as separate videos, but I definitely remember watching them as one big trailer.

NEW CHALLENGER APPROACHING!

Oh boy, who could it be? The gang looked up at a cliff to see a boy with distinct spiky hair.

“No. There’s no way it could be him. There’s just no way! I read online that he couldn’t get in, so it’s not him.”

Blip!

“OH MY GOD IT IS HIM HOLY SHIT IT’S MEGA MAN FUCKING MEGA MAN HOLY S H I T!”

It didn’t feel real. It felt like a dream. But I was loving every second of it. And even better, the next video in my recommended feed was the trailer for Wii Fit Trainer. What? Why? Who asked for this? I was dumbfounded, but all for it.

I think that those three characters made for the perfect holy trinity of character reveals. The anticipated first party/character Sakurai previously said no to, the third party, and the character that nobody saw coming. Smash 4’s initial reveal had it all. I probably rewatched that trailer for the rest of the soccer game. I texted all my friends about it, and they were all nearly as excited as I was. I would’ve told my mom and sister all about it when they got back in the car, but I wasn’t supposed to be using data at the time, so if they knew that I had used it to watch a silly reveal trailer over and over again, mom probably would’ve had a heart attack (this was before unlimited data was more standard). But you better believe that I exploded on about it as soon as I figured it was safe to.

Even after all these years (and all of the timelines I’ve looked into), no Smash trailer...no, more like no trailer period has ever gotten close to capturing the pure excitement that I felt when I first saw the Smash 4 trailer, and I doubt that there ever will be one. I’m a jaded adult now, and everything is more exciting through the rose-tinted glass of adolescence. The “Everyone is Here!” trailer for Ultimate came close, though. Smash 4’s development was also something of a turning point for me when I became more active in following the development of new games online. I think it was for a lot of people, I think that a lot of that can be attributed to Brawl’s success (and the Wii as a whole) at capturing a wider demographic of gamers compared to Melee and 64. Smash 4 feels almost laughable to go back and play now, but I can’t deny the impact it had on me.

As far as other individual reveal trailers go, here are my favorites:

Little Mac and Palutena-both for the same reason: THAT ART STYLE. Their trailers also convinced me to play their respective games. Uprising was one of my first 3DS games and Punch Out is the last game I remember renting from Blockbuster.

Greninja-As laughable as this sounds now, getting a new Pok��mon rep was really hype for me back then. I was beginning to get into competitive, so seeing the ninja frog that had taken over the competitive scene at the time get into smash was cool, even if I was Team Fennekin. Confirmation that at least Charizard had survived the cut was also really cool.

Robin and Lucina-I didn’t know anything about Fire Emblem at the time, but Robin looked cool and I was digging the 3D anime artstyle from Awakening that the trailer was rendered in. Another trailer that convinced me to buy the game that they were from, and good god now I’m an insufferable Fire Emblem fan good lord I was so innocent back then. “Girl Marth” jokes were rampant amongst my friends. Also, CAPTAIN FALCON!!!

Lucas-Funny story, my sister absolutely despises video games with a burning, visceral passion now, but back when we played Brawl together, her mains were Lucas and Snake. You can imagine the pain and agony she felt when Smash 4 initially came out. Lucas’ DLC came out around my birthday, so her gift to me that year was a $10 eShop card. She just told me: “you know what to spend it on.”

Cloud-“Hey guys, you know what would’ve been awesome? In Brawl, if, like, they put in Cloud from Final Fantasy 7?”

Corrin-At this point I was a big Fire Emblem fan riding hot on the hype train for Fates, so I was very excited for Corrin. The dragon-inspired moveset also seemed really cool. Funny how times have changed, and when Byleth was added in I was very lukewarm compared to when my reaction to Corrin.

Inkling-Similar story to the Smash 4 reveal trailer, I was absolutely not expecting a Smash announcement that day and I saw the video was in my YouTube recommended feed while I was at my internship of all places. Unfortunately, none of the other people there were gamers (let alone Smash fans), so they couldn’t share in my hype.

Everyone is Here/Ridley-I can’t properly give this one the justice it deserves in a short amount of words and this post is already getting really long, so I’ll save this one for a later day if you guys are interested. To keep it short, let’s just say that I was very much a part of the Ridley gang and I was very happy to see him in.

Belmonts and K. Rool-I got up at 7 in the morning to watch that trailer and loved every second of it. Keep in mind that I am not a morning person by any stretch of the imagination. The only thing that sort of spoiled it for me was that the Smash teams themselves leaked it the night before by releasing a track titled Bloody Tears/Monster Dance

Ken and Incineroar-Nothing against these two, but at the time I was crushed when I realized the Grinch leak was fake. Now I can look back on it and laugh at Little Mac getting yeeted through the billboard and Villager’s stance at the end of the trailer.

Sans Mii Costume-Pretty sure I’ve already mentioned this, but when I first saw that trailer I legit fell out of my chair laughing. I’m not even an Undertale fan, but seeing funny skeleton man on my screen just broke me. The fact that Toby went to Sakurai’s house and beat him in Smash made it even better.

Banjo-I’ve never actually played a Banjo Kazooie game before, but I’ve seen enough videos about them over the years that I almost feel like I have. They’re ingrained in my childhood due to that in a weird way. Plus, it felt so good to have a victory over the Steve fans. I felt the weight of that Jiggy that bounced on the floor.

And that’s about it! If you guys want to hear my thoughts on the Everyone is Here trailer, please let me know and I’ll do another post like this.

...Upon rereading this post for spelling errors, I realized that you probably were more asking about my favorite reveal trailers throughout multiple timelines. Oops. Let me know if that’s what you wanted and I’ll answer with my thoughts on my favorite future reveal trailers.

[playunderground]

Introducing OVERSOUL: An Interview with Derrick Saladino

Last month, I had the pleasure of sitting down with Derrick Saladino to talk about his brand, OVERSOUL. When he pitched OVERSOUL to me in his initial email, he described it as “a lifestyle brand created from identity crisis,” and that “counterculture/subcultures like anime, gamer, emo-punk, euro-techno, and underground hiphop/b-boy culture heavily influence the brand’s creative direction.” I stared hard at the first two influences, and then stared not-as-hard at the rest of the influences, wondering how these various subcultures could overlap.

My brain being comprised of worms and dirt, I assumed that the anime and gamer influences meant that the designs were going to look like Bart Drinking Lean or Sasuke Wearing Supreme. (In other words, a caricature of anime-inspired Instagram ad streetwear.) This assumption changed quickly after taking a look at OVERSOUL’s site. Their first collection, ISEKAI, is comprised of three pieces. The logo tee and hoodie both look great, but the third piece was what really caught my attention: it’s a button-down tee adorned with daggers. At a glance, it looks nothing like anime- or gaming-inspired clothing. This was the point at which I snapped out of my irony-poisoned haze; the world of memeified, ironic-but-not-quite-ironic hentai tees and Goku Smoking Weed edits had calcified my expectations of what forms of inspiration a brand could and couldn’t pull.

It makes sense in the context of the rest of his influences and the ethos that he operates under – to get ahead of myself for a second, Derrick had this to say of his interest in various countercultures:

"When people express their passions or life to a certain degree, it just pulls me in. It’s like, ‘Okay, I don’t know what the fuck it is, but show me. Let me indulge.’ That’s really how I get into things."

In talking to Derrick, on and off the record, I saw a talented designer who was unapologetic about what he was interested in and passionate about. He’s also a huge geek that runs a bi-weekly Smash tournament at a local nightclub.

(This interview has been edited for length and clarity.)

"Okay, wait, first and foremost, my name is Derrick Saladino and I am a fucking gamer. Before being a designer or anything, I am a fucking gamer. "

Daniel: What is OVERSOUL? 

Derrick: OVERSOUL is about identity crisis. It’s my experience dealing with that personally. Growing up, I never really fit in to particular popular groups. Every time I would attempt to make new friends, I would stumble upon the randomest shit: anime culture, gamer culture, I’d end up becoming friends with a lot of emo-punk kids, techno. Nothing that I fell into was mainstream, popular culture. It was a lot to do with being lonely and trying to make friends. With OVERSOUL, thinking about all that kind of shit, dealing with identity crisis – obviously there’s a lot of people who’ve been through that – I want to create a new identity or community of people who share similar values and, you know, take pride in it? 

I mean, even the name, OVERSOUL, I ripped the word from this really old anime that I used to watch growing up, Shaman King.

Shaman King? What the hell, like 4Kids shit?

Yeah. That wasn’t the first anime that I ever watched, but it was something that I was really into. From being like 12 to even later in my high school, I just loved it. The concept was so cool – taking a soul and imbuing it in an object to make it powerful. It just looked fuckin’ sick. When people wear my clothes, I want them to feel empowered. That’s how I want people to see it. Soul being clothing, putting it on yourself, there you go.

Spirit Integration is, I don’t think the tagline to the brand, but it’s also part of it. Spirit Integration is mind, body, and spirit, and for anyone into the spiritual side of life, that’s what makes us. Our thoughts and mind and DNA – that makes us who we are.

When I read the description on your site, I noted that you referred to OVERSOUL as not just a startup streetwear thing or a brand, but a conceptual design experience. What does this encompass, and why did you pick this specific wording?

None of the stuff I make or have made in the past is very conventional. It’s been pretty avant-garde, I would say. I’ll have an idea, and regardless of whatever trend is going on right now, I just fucking do it. When I make clothes, I’m not making clothes for the public, really. My mentality is more like, “You know what would be sick in a game? If the costume looked like this.” That’s why I say it’s a conceptual design experience.

Has being involved in the industry and working behind the scenes affected how you understand your own brand after launching? What about how you understand customers and other brands, now that you know what the design process is like?

First-off, let me just back up and go over a history of what I did before OVERSOUL. In high school, I made clothing because I hated what everyone else was wearing. This was 2011-2013. During that time, that’s when I had a brand and brands like Obey, Diamond Supply, and The Hundreds – literally peak Tumblr hypebeast, Zumiez, starter pack shit – were around. I looked around at everyone else and was like, “I can’t click that, it’s not resonating with me.”  I had two other brands after that, and then came OVERSOUL. So I have this history of kind of knowing the market, even being a consumer, and evolving as a businessman and designer. I don’t think anything has changed. I think I’ve always stayed true to doing my own shit, rather than trying to compete with everybody else. Don’t get me wrong, I’ll notice what other designers are doing and some things I’ll take note of or inspo from but I hardly think about other people, to be honest. I respect everyone’s hustle, I just can’t be doing the same shit.

Give me your top 3 video game fits.

Top 3, oh my god. Snake from Metal Gear Solid V – very techwear, utility as fuck. My previous brand before this was techwear, and I had to stop it because techwear is so hard to sell. 

I’m really into draping fashion. Cloud, Final Fantasy VII, it was the movie Advent Children – you play Smash, right? There’s two costumes in there: the black, and like this, not really skirt, but it covers up somewhat? All-black, huge sash going on, it reminded me of Yohji Yamamoto.

Something that I’m going to make in the future is inspired by Naoto from Blazblue. His outfit, I looked at it and I was like, “Yo, this could be fucking, like Chrome Hearts, like what the fuck? I’m just gonna abuse this character design, it looks amazing.” I think that fashion right now, what really gets people’s attention on social media, is just some crazy shit, I don’t mean dumb shit, but like, just has to be very bold, and I think that’s what Naoto’s character design is. His pants have this huge cross on them. I think that’s one of the most crazy things I’ve seen in awhile.

Let’s talk about Anime-den! It’s this thing that we started roughly 5 months ago. One of my best friends here, he actually works at Fortune [Sound Club, a nightclub in Chinatown], and he’s a music producer. We really bonded over clothes, anime and gaming, and we had this idea – I think we were just high as fuck one day – and I’m like, “Yo, you know what would be fucking dope? If we brought weeb shit into the club.” I think he was just joking around, but he was like, “That would be really fun to set up, we can do it.” 

[Weeb being short for weaboo, a pejorative term referring to those obsessed with Japanese culture to the point of fetishization and idolization. It’s been ‘reclaimed’ by some fans of anime, used ironically as a form of self-deprecation.]

So, the next day happens, we’re talking, and he asks me, “Do you actually wanna do it?”, taking it seriously. I’m astonished. I was fucking joking, you know? We were just some high guys. He pitches the idea to Fortune and they approve it. At this point, we’re like, “Okay, we gotta actually invest all our effort into this,” because we’re actually gonna do something that I personally haven’t seen anybody do before – bringing a game into a club, anime into the club.

It’s really cool. Just yesterday, the commentator from Vancouver Street Battle came to Anime-den. Pride? He commentated for Battle of BC 3 and Pinnacle. He has ties with Animebae, too. [Animebae is a local anime-inspired startup streetwear brand.] Who would’ve thought that this guy would come through? And he brought his friends. He was telling us that what we’re doing is sick, and hearing this from a guy of that calibre in the gaming or Smash community, it really shook us. We’re actually bringing in people who play the game seriously here. 

How has setting it in a club made it different from other tournaments that you’ve been to? How does the dynamic change?

It’s a little different because when it comes to actual competitive events, people have a different mentality when they enter. They’re there to win and they practice hard for it. As for Anime-den, it’s the total opposite. It’s very casual, we’re all just drinking, blazing, whatever. It’s just the environment where, you know, dim light in a club, there’s music going on in the back –I guess to some gamers it can seem distracting? But I think people, they don’t care. They just play. They’re just there to have fun. Totally different dynamic from an actual event. 

I think that the purpose of Anime-den is to bring people together. That’s literally what Anime-den is for.

Yeah, I just noted here that I think it’s consistent with your brand, in that you’re translating the intangibility of these digital spaces like anime and gaming that people bond over, and you’re putting it into a physical space and letting people actually further develop what these subcultures would look like in person. Like, when you think of anime or gaming in real life you think of Anime Expo or cosplaying or some shit – and that’s fine, people have fun with that [Editor’s note – I think it’s fun!] – but it’s not the only mode of expression. With events like this, I think it’s cool that you’re saying, “If you’re a gamer, there’s another avenue for you. You don’t have to dress up or anything…”

I mean, walking in today and meeting you, you wouldn’t have gotten the idea that I was super into anime or gaming. I just look like a regular dude, right? And my clothing gets inspired by it, but I don’t really look like I’m cut from the legit anime cloth. Choosing these lifestyles and putting it into this real aspect, I think it can appeal to everybody. People tend to judge a lot of things, but once you step into the Anime-den room, whatever perspective you have about anime to begin with, I’m pretty sure that changes. Man, the crowd, they look all the same as you do too. We’re all normal people, we just like cool shit.

I think we should talk about ISEKAI.

OVERSOUL’s first small collection was ISEKAI. Translated to English, it would be ‘a better world,’ and I named it that based off of the anime genre, isekai. When you watch these sort of things, it’s usually someone going to another world. For my first collection, I wanted to welcome people to my world. That’s why I chose ISEKAI. One of the big graphics for the brand was the blade shirt. [On the site, it’s name is the Beginners Dagger Shirt.] My reference for that was playing MMORPGs. Typically, the first weapon you get [in MMORPGs] is a short sword or dagger. I wanted to be like, “This is the start of my brand.” This is your starter item. It’s funny, when I tell people this – they’re always like, “I never thought…”

[laughs] It’s really cool!

That’s why I went with ISEKAI. This is what my world is. One of OVERSOUL’s long-term goals is actually establishing ‘my world,’ if that makes sense? There’s only a handful of designers who have, like, captured a signature silhouette. For example, Rick Owens. When you see [a Rick Owens piece], you know it’s Rick Owens. If Zara did the same shit as Rick Owens, you would look at it and be like, “That’s Rick Owens.” You wouldn't call it Zara. That’s what I’m trying to establish for myself, to create that silhouette for myself eventually in the future.

What’s up next for OVERSOUL? 

Hmm, how should I put this... should I leak something? I’m going to drop an accessories part sometime soon. That’s in the design process right now, but I’m looking forward to doing my next big collection.

There’s this one song that I found in the past during my peak weeb days: Plastic Love by Mariya Takeuchi. A couple of months ago, they released the first official music video for it, after like 35 years, which is fucking insane – they should have done that a long time ago. I totally forgot about the song until I saw the music video. It’s something that I could relate to before and can relate to now, and I definitely want to build my next collection based on Plastic Love.

I think Plastic Love works really well because I’m surrounded by that scene in Vancouver – I work in Yaletown, and that’s the Yaletown lifestyle. It’s very lustful, but you don’t care. It’s all fake shit, really. That’s what Yaletown culture sorta is. I wouldn’t say that I’m like that, but I think that I could definitely expand on the topic through my brand. It’s not necessarily identity crisis, but the genre and artist kind of make it a subculture.

There’s also a few collabs on the way. One with a music group, another with a tattoo artist. What I really wanna do with the tattoo artist – he does anime tattoos – is ero art. Like, erotica. I think it’s a slept-on art style. It’s not generally for the public, per se, so I think that it would be something worth making. Super ecchi, maybe line art. I want it very exaggerated, even bondage-type shit. 

There’s a lot of things where people are like, “Oh, that’s too much!” But you know what, it could be sick! This is why I do things solely for myself. As long as I get a reaction from somebody, I’m happy with that. Wanting a response, not even approval, just being acknowledged, that this shit exists, it motivates me to keep doing what I do. 

I thought about doing graphic design shit; anime erotica art goes really well with techno. That kind of scene, the way that European style posters are, if you take the art and fuse them together, it works really well. I’m like, “How come no one has done this yet?” 

So you’re treating it more like art and not just a part of anime culture?

I view anime as its own respective art, and with art, there’s no rules, so I can just take this and this, and bang. At the end of the day, everybody wants to see new and cool things. People are always going to have their own subjective opinions, but as long as you have their attention, you’ve already won the battle. That’s the mentality that I carry, that everyone has their own opinions. 

Last question: what are your top 5 video games?

You know, I was trying to prepare for this interview – I didn’t even think this would come up.

[laughs] Come on, man.

I’m gonna put Super Smash Bros. Melee on there – I’ve been playing it for so long, it’s literally been bonded with my DNA. 

I don’t wanna say Ocarina of Time, because I think that it’s everyone’s favourite, but I mean, it’s still up there. It’s an all-time masterpiece, but I enjoyed Majora’s Mask a lot more. The concept of the world being blown up by the moon, in-game time, the moon crashes in like 3 days, and you keep going back in time, skipping whatever, I think it was so much fun, so yeah. 

I really like Fire Emblem: Three Houses. It’s very recent, but I have so many hours on it already, and I can’t stop. I haven’t felt this way about a game in a long time. It’s so replayable. Once you finish Ocarina of Time, you probably don’t touch it for a while. When you play FE, you’re like, okay, let’s do the next one. There’s three houses! Even after doing all three, it’s like, “Oh, I’m gonna try again, but I’m gonna make this character like this.”

I grew up playing a lot of Roller Coaster Tycoon, unfortunately, but it’s fun. It’s not a typical gamer thing, but I love it. 

I might put Final Fantasy VII on there, too – when Aerith died, I real-life teared up, like, “Dude, no way, you’re really gonna kill her off like that? You gotta save her!”… and then she dies. I’m pretty sure after that happened, I didn’t touch the game for a week. I was actually emotionally harmed. I’m really into RPGs – being able to emotionally attach yourself to characters, I think it’s a beautiful thing. 

Any last things you wanna say?

I want my brand comparable to Chrome Hearts, MISBHV or Rude [Vogue]; when they have their own aesthetic and that’s what they do, that’s what I want to build as well. The idea that I take a lot of inspiration from gaming, it really shows.

Maybe I’m hungover, so I can’t really find the words right now, but for anyone trying to do fashion, music, whatever, as saturated as the community seems at the moment, you just have to get your foot in the door and start. Yeah, there’s competition, but to be honest, with all the people here who have brands, I’m friends with all of the people who make them, and I have no judgement about if their clothes are wack or not. Some things I don’t agree with, but everyone’s on the same hustle.

OVERSOUL’s ISEKAI collection is available now online at oversoul.online. 

[aleenya]

first date / / hinanami prompt 01

@hinanami-week

First date prompt! <3 I love these babies from my childhood skghj. This is a bit of a long rambling mess but I hope someone finds enjoyment in it!

There was a reason Chiaki failed at dating sims. Beyond the obvious fact of how she was a girl of very little romantic experience, there was also the dilemma of just how frustratingly confusing people could be. Yes, even the weird 2D ones. Whilst the fast pace of arcade fighting games or the tricky logic riddles of puzzle games had her barely breaking out in a sweat, there was something profoundly next-level about taking someone's future - their happily ever after, so to speak - into her own hands and bringing about the optimal result. It was a responsibility she couldn't be trusted with. Kind of like how she couldn't be responsible for her own breakfast in the morning. Or for a healthy sleeping schedule. Oops. So, it was rather ironic that she'd somehow ended up with a boyfriend, even with her notoriously bad track record at breaking hearts and peeping on girls in the bathroom. (Hey, anime always did it, how was she supposed to know that was an automatic hit to the relationship flag she was trying to trigger?) With how constantly she failed at first dates in video games, the dreaded real-life first date of her own seemed like a loss just waiting to happen. Which was why, the week before it was due to occur, she'd holed herself up in her room with nothing but her trusty DS and PSP, five dating sims of various length and quality, and a copy of Animal Crossing - for when she inevitably needed a break, of course. The plan was this: she'd pour hours, hours, into clocking all five dating sims at nothing less than a 100% completion rate. No guides because that was cheating, and it wasn't like there was some walkthrough for her own date that she could keep checking throughout, though that would be ideal. Even if slightly under-handed. Oh well. She was snuggled up in the thick fluff of her weighted blanket; a bag of crumpled chips and five soda cans perched precariously on a pillow; she was ready for anything the next grueling week might throw at her. With the determination that only a true Ultimate Gamer could possess, Chiaki puffed out her cheeks in defiance of fate and set about her quest. Day one was easy enough. She'd managed to get around six hours into her first play-through with minimal errors. It was only once she'd chosen a girl to "seduce" (these games really were weird) that problems started to arise. Multiple choice questions of the proper conversational avenue to travel down never failed to muddle up her brain. Three choices were hard enough - how was she going to cope on her own date when there would be an endless array to choose from? The very thought sent anxiety swirling into the pit of her stomach. Maybe this was a good time to take that Animal Crossing break. The Animal Crossing break lasted two days. Day four was when Chiaki got serious again - and also when a pesky knock on the door interrupted her intense train of thought. "Come in," she called without taking her eyes off the screen. Yellow light pooled in from the hallway and cut through the stale darkness of her room. If Chiaki had been a vampire like the one she was trying to chat up in her visual novel then maybe she would've hissed and retreated further into her blanket cove. Which she did. Maybe she really was a vampire. That would explain the anemia. "Ugh. It reeks." A familiarly squeaky voice shattered the comfortable silence Chiaki had worked so hard on establishing. Saionji strode in pinching the bridge of her nose with Sonia and Akane at her tail. "Congrats, you've officially become a basement dweller." Chiaki peeked out from her cave of blankets, drawn like a moth to flame by the wafting scent of fresh food. "Oh. Hey guys. Long time no see." "We brought food," Sonia said with a lift of her arm to reveal the picnic basket dangling there. "We figured you might appreciate something of more ... sustenance." Akane then switched on the light, which summoned stars to glitter and dance within Chiaki's vision. All three girls let out audible gasps. "Chips? Seriously?" Akane again. Chiaki had burrowed deeper into her blanket fort in order to grant her throbbing eyes some small amount of reprieve. "Chiaki, you seriously can't have been living on cola and a bag of potato chips for the past four days!" Suddenly, the blanket was whipped out from over her head. Hiyoko plucked the console out of her hands before a very sleep-deprived Chiaki had a chance to react. "My Vampire Girlfriend? Okay, I was joking before, but you really have become a virgin basement dweller." Chiaki pointedly decided to ignore the mischievous young girl and directed her attention onto the basket that Sonia placed in front of her. Opening it up, she was greeted by a bento box ripe with fresh sushi, fluffy rice and spring rolls. "Courtesy of Hanamura," said Akane, "but don't worry, I can guarantee it's not spiked this time." Saionji huffed and dropped the DS. Chiaki was tired, but not tired enough to fail at catching her baby mid-air. "What's that look for?" "Don't act like you don't know!" They were a pleasant, albeit distracting, surprise. And so, for the rest of the day, Chiaki found herself unwillingly placed on a side quest. Sonia, Akane and Hiyoko had taken it upon themselves to clean her room up, with the latter grumbling and complaining but ultimately putting in the most work out of everyone. Sonia ended up at Chiaki's side, badgering her with questions about what game she was playing and, when Chiaki answered, why. "A practice run," said Chiaki simply, barely reacting as an empty cola can bounced off her head. "Sorry," Akane called sheepishly, "that was meant for the rubbish bin." "A practice run ...? Oh!" Sonia's face lit up. "Don't tell me! Do you have a date?" "Maybe. Tomorrow." Saying it out loud, the passage of time sunk into Chiaki with a force she hadn't expected. In a rare show of defeat, she allowed the DS to slip from her hands and topple to the floor. "But it's no use. I haven't learned anything. What am I even supposed to do?" Sonia picked up her DS, glanced at the screen, then dropped it in a striking flash of surprise. "I'm guessing not that," she said. Hiyoko peeked over her shoulder. "Aw man, even pixelated you can tell it's small." "Give me that!" Akane snatched up the console and showed the screen to Chiaki. "Seriously, this is like the worst guide you could have for this. It's not gonna teach you anything because it's not real." "That's not true," Chiaki quietly countered, "just because games aren't real doesn't mean they can't teach stuff." "Maybe, yeah, but not this type of game. You want advice? Then here's the best I can offer. Just be yourself!" "Myself?" Chiaki tilted her head. "But ... what if he doesn't like myself?" "Oh for the love of - he wouldn't be going on a date with you if he didn't, numbnuts!" Hiyoko gently thumped her fist down on Chiaki's unruly mop of hair. "That's true," Sonia said, "besides, who wouldn't like you for who you are? We certainly do!" When the trio had finally left with good luck wishes and pleas that she at least eat half the bento tonight, Chiaki found herself alone in a spotless room with a less-than spotless mind. They'd given her a lot to think about, more than the dating sim had in three days in fact. Just be myself. She didn't sleep that night. Chiaki kept powering through her dating sim, the four others still lying in a dejected heap at her side. Even if she wasn't taking strict lessons from it anymore, the idea of giving up and never completing it felt like a cardinal sin. She'd come this far; what was another twenty hours of gameplay in the grand scheme of things? On the dawn of the fifth day, there was another knock on her door. When they didn't come in upon her calling out that it was alright to, Chiaki was forced to untangle herself from her nest and answer it. Even though it was to be expected, the very image of Hajime standing in her doorway sent a jolt to her heart. "Ah, sorry." He threw up his hands in an apology, perhaps thinking he'd woken her up from a nap. Chiaki wasn't one to lose her cool. This definitely stood true now, but still, she couldn't help flushing slightly. She'd been so engrossed in her game that she'd nearly forgotten all about what she'd spent all week preparing for in the first place. "You don't have to apologize," she murmured, turning her back on him and retreating into the familiar darkness, "come in. You're very welcome." Hajime seemed a tad nervous as he slowly slipped his way inside. "What's wrong? Have you never been in a girl's room before?" It was supposed to be a joke, but it provoked a flustered reaction from Hajime and a stream of fumbled failed sentences. "Kidding." Chiaki flopped back into her blanket nest and patted at the crumpled spot at her side. Glancing side to side, Hajime made his way to where she'd made herself comfortable and collapsed in turn. "I've been worried about you," he began as he pulled at the cuff of his shirt. "You haven't replied to any of my texts. You've been eating, right?" "Sorry." He'd sent texts? Chiaki hadn't looked at her phone since the start of the week. "I've been really busy practicing." "Practicing? For what?" "For today." She showed Hajime her screen. He recoiled. "Oh ... I didn't realize you were into those kinds of games, Chiaki." "I'm not," she replied, shoulders slumping and a sigh floating off her lips, "can you keep a secret, Hajime?" With how serious she said it, Hajime's expression turned grave. "Sure, I guess?" Chiaki threw him the most serious look she could muster, complete with her cheeks puffed out in a pout and eyebrows furrowed tightly into creases. Her hands unconsciously squeezed at the console she still held. "Dating sims are my kryptonite." "Oh ... Dating sims are your - wait, what?" "I'm really bad at them," Chiaki said. She was unable to keep a tinge of sadness from her voice. "Not that I usually mind. But ever since last week, when you said you wanted us to go out somewhere, I thought that I should be prepared. It's no use though. I guess, on the bright side, I did make it to the H scene." She flashed her screen again, to which Hajime, with a sheepish smile, pushed it back down. "How about we don't take advice from porn games, yeah? They're not exactly the real deal." "Huh. Akane said the same thing." "She did?" "She said I should just be myself. But I don't know if myself is all that much fun to be around." "Why wouldn't it be?" Hajime scooted closer. "If I wanted a 2D girl, I'd just play ..." He picked up one of her strewn dating sims at random and pulled a face at the title, "Sexy Magic Witch School - seriously, Chiaki, where do you get these?" "I have my sources." "I'm not sure if I want to know what those are ..." Chiaki had to admit, with how natural their conversation was flowing, she could get used to this. She hadn't even hit her pause button yet. Unable to keep the smile from her face, Chiaki turned back to her DS and asked, "so what would you like to do?" "As in?" "You know. Dating. That kind of stuff. We're supposed to go out, yeah?" "We're not supposed to do anything," Hajime replied. "Really, I'm ... as good at these types of things as you are. But we don't have to go anywhere if you don't want, or do anything that you don't want. That's not what dates are about." "They aren't?" Why did everything have to be so complicated? Her dating sims had explicitly said otherwise, yet Hajime was saying they didn't have to do anything. Before she could formulate a proper response, Hajime changed the topic unexpectedly and asked, "have you slept?" Oh. Sleep. "I've had one or two naps," she mused, thinking back on her five days of intensive training. She'd been so caught up and involved in what she was playing that she'd barely allowed herself the luxury of sleep. She was definitely starting to feel it now. Chiaki rubbed at her sore eyes and swallowed a yawn. Hajime's flustered expression gave way to amusement. He sighed, but Chiaki didn't miss the smile on his lips. "Seriously, what am I going to do with you?" "Hopefully not this." She flashed her DS screen again and Hajime spluttered in embarrassment. "I like you, Hajime, but you haven't triggered that relationship flag yet." "You know that's not what I meant!" She laughed. Hajime climbed to his feet and extended his hand; she took it, stumbling upwards on wobbly knees and feeling the ache in her legs that could only accumulate from five days of non-stop sitting with only the occasional bathroom break. "But is it really okay?" she asked as he guided her to the bed and tossed her blanket back over her body. "I know you were really looking forward to this all week." "Who's to say this isn't our first date now?" said Hajime. "Ah, but, if you'd rather I go ..." She grasped his hand and tugged him down onto the bed. Hajime let out a less than manly squeal and fell down on top of her, which Chiaki recalled was a very common trope in My Vampire Girlfriend that signaled she was on the right romantic route. So she'd done something right after all! This was definitely a romance flag trigger. Chiaki could almost see the achievement popping up on Steam. "Path unlocked," Chiaki said cryptically, with a teasing smile. Hajime scrambled off, face red, and Chiaki twisted around onto her side. "You can sleep next to me, if you'd like," she said. "I can't think of a better way to have a date." Though visibly embarrassed and tense, he did lie down to face her. Chiaki grabbed his hand and intertwined her fingers with his own. "Jeez," he said, "why am I not surprised that napping is your idea of a perfect first date?" "It's not yours?" she quizzed, voice thick with the encroaching haze of unconsciousness. "I'm not opposed," he hummed. "Good." Pause. Save progress. And take a screenshot - just for good measure. At least, that's what Chiaki would have done if this were a dating sim event with a cute CG. But it wasn't. And that was for the best. Chiaki had decided that in this case, nothing could beat the real thing.

[numberonerandomblogger]

The Gamecube review

So, it has been 18 years since the Gamecube was released and now, with my newfound free time, I can finally review what I’ve experienced from its gaming library. First, I’d like to say that this review is only my opinion, although it might be a bit controversial since I have my own issues with it. Second, I’ll divide the games in some categories for this review.

Platformers

Gamecube had an abundance of platformers, with most of them being in 3D. It’s a bit like the N64 era, but with even less 2.5 D platformers (aside from Megaman, Viewtiful Joe, or Alien Hominid). I ended up liking most 2.5 D platformers on the console and Donkey Kong:Jungle Beat remains an amazing game, despite being very easy. Due to this oversaturation, most of them tried very hard to stand out by mixing up gameplay mechanics with something “cool” (guns, cars, etc.) to appeal to kids and I ended up not liking those too much, such as Ty, Shadow The Hedgehog, Vexx, etc. Meanwhile, the other games that stayed true to themselves became classics always considered by fans, such as Billy Hatcher & The Giant Egg, Pac-Man World 2, Super Mario Sunshine even though I don’t like that game at all, etc. While I wasn’t really a fan of the direction platformers were taking during that era, which heavily affected their quality, there are still a few diamonds in the rough.

Adventure/Role-Playing Games

The Gamecube had plenty of adventure games and, despite open-world games becoming more and more of a thing, the Gamecube had very few open-world games. Only The Incredible Hulk:Total Destruction, True Crime, or even GUN were open-world on the consoles. So, more traditional adventure games were put on the console. I really loved The Legend Of Zelda: The Wind Waker for what it was, despite a few problems it had. Starfox Adventures was also decent, but far from great. The Legend Of Zelda:Twilight Princess tried too hard to please its “hardcore gamerz” fanbase and to look cool, so I still found the experience slightly dissapointing. At least some gameplay mechanics. The Resident Evil games were also the only source of adventure-horror games on the console aside from Eternal Darkness, which I think is a really great horror game with lots of interesting ideas. Role-Playing games on the console were also fairly scarce, especially compared to the Playstation 2. They were fine, though. Paper Mario:The Thousand-Year Door was pretty good, although a bit overrated due to some characters’ halted development and some gameplay mechanics I am not a fan of. The Baten Kaitos games look like they could have been on PS2 in terms of quality, and are really good games. I thought the Pokémon games on the Gamecube (XD, Colosseum) were really nothing special both in terms of story and gameplay compared to other RPGs despite trying to appeal to an older audience. Tales Of Symphonia was great and could compete with PS2 RPGs. So yeah, I liked the Aventure games/RPGs of the Gamecube, but most weren’t that extraordinary.

Shooters

As far as shooters go, there is a big variety of them. Even including a few 2D shoot-em-ups, although only Ikaruga is really fondly remembered. The vast amount of First-Person Shooters on the console wasn’t really that surprising and rarely did any of them try to stand out. Two titles that stood out to me were Metroid Prime 1 and 2. Rather than just focusing on killing the bad guys, there was a vast amount of effort put into exploration and, while the sight of a 3D Metroid game doesn’t instantly make me happy, that’s something I can honestly get behind. I’m glad Retro Studios took their time to create a deeper universe for Metroid. They were a few other shooters, such as Metal Arms:Glitch in the System, but I don’t think that many of them stood out on the Gamecube aside from Killer 7 and P.N. 03, but that game isn’t the best due to its unusual controls. Star Fox: Assault might not have been the best game in the series, but it was still somewhat alright to play and kept the arcade-like spirit of the franchise. Oh, and there’s also Geist, a Nintendo-made First-Person Shooter. Too bad it had a great idea that was better executed elsewhere.

Fighting games

Unlike the N64, the Gamecube got quite a few good fighting games. Sure, most of them are licensed games, but most of them were really fun. Even better is that Mortal Kombat appeared on the console in 2004. Super Smash Bros. Melee might be rushed, but it still works really well. Custom Robo can also be considered a fighting game, but it has an interesting story mode that’s somewhat darker compared to the happy-go-lucky Nintendo 64 games and can feel like an RPG due to its structure. The 90’s atmosphere is what sold me to this game. As for the licensed titles, anime games based on Naruto or Zatch Bell were fine, but they also weren’t the best fighting games in existence due to a copious amount of problems. This era saw the birth of a bunch of Power Stone clones for some reason (One Piece:Grand Battle, The Grim Adventures of Billy & Mandy, etc.), which was a good thing, in my opinion. The only bad thing about it is that Capcom still won’t make Power Stone 3 despite their formula being so successful other companies ripped them off.

Other

Despite the Gamecube not having a realistic car simulator, it had a good amount of realistic-looking racing games. Too bad I honestly do not care about any of them. F-Zero GX is a fun but somewhat frustrating futuristic racing game. Just be prepared for the mind-crushing difficulty and you’ll have a good time. Mario Kart:Double Dash!! Has some great ideas that kept me hooked for a while, but I’d rather play Mario Kart 8. Kirby Air Ride is probably my favorite racing game on the system: it uses a single button and the joystick to deliver a rather unique experience. I would definitely recommend it. Animal Crossing, on the other hand, is either something you love or just don’t care. I personally think the Animal Crossing novelty wears off after a few weeks, but I still somewhat “like” it. My favorite game on the console has to be Chibi-Robo: a cleaning/simulation/platforming game where you control a small robot that has to clean the Sanderson’s house. It’s weird, charming, and has a unique story that surprisingly ends up being very dark. Luigi’s Mansion was also somewhat dark, yet ended up really being charming and interesting thanks to its nice atmosphere and neat gameplay. As for rhythm games, we only got a few of them, including Dance Dance Revolution:Mario Mix, which only has some neat remixes. Nothing else about it is really worth the price. Speaking of Mario spin-offs, I really didn’t like some of the ones on the Gamecube. Super Mario Strikers has a single unlockable team, Mario Superstar baseball’s mechanics rarely work and the AI might take advantage of that during the single-player mode, Mario Power Tennis’s gimmicks didn’t entertain me enough to prefer the game over the N64 one, Mario Party 4’s mushroom mechanics were somewhat predictable, and Mario Party 7’s mic-enhanced minigames and overall board designs just bored me. That was the time when I stopped caring about Mario spin-offs.

Overall, I liked the Gamecube’s gaming library, although I didn’t like many aspects of it and had a much better time with the PS2 or even the Dreamcast. I think the Gamecube MIGHT be a bit overrated due to a good amount mainstream gamers growing up with it using their pink nostalgia glasses in order to complain that THEIR era was better than the current era, just like a good amount of previous Nintendo fans complaining on forums about how THEIR era was better back in 2001-2006. It’s an eternal cycle.

[donut-secret-one]

Games: Of The Year

Hey, it’s me, your gamer friend “Parasite” Eve, here to talk about video games. I watched and played a few of those this year, so here’s some words about some of them, as a tumblr post, because I don’t know where else you can put a long writing thing.

GAMES ENJOYED BY WATCHING

Drakengard 3 and Ending E of Drakengard

I watched these in preparation for NieR: Automata, and it turns out I could have basically just read a summary and it would’ve been fine. I still think it’s impressive that I like the look of Drakengard 3 even though it seems like the gameplay sucks and I hate most of the characters.

Resident Evil 7: Biohazard 7: Resident Evil

I think it’s neat that each “level” of this game is like a different horror genre. Scary house with a murder man, different scary house fulla bugs, a Saw thing, a scary little girl, a Resident Evil game... it’s a cool way to make the different parts of the game seem like, different, parts of the game.

NieR (Gestalt)

This seems like a really good video game, although the playthrough I watched cut out a lot from the extra routes, so maybe those parts are boring, who knows. The big plot twists are rad and the characters are good and it’s a videogame that made me cry.

Yakuza 0

I love Majima. Remember when all those people were looking at the statue guy and he was doing his dance and they were ignoring him? Remember when he had his band play battle music? Remember when, at the end, he can’t say anything to Makoto and he just walks away and you get sad at video games again? yeah...

Kiryu’s very good too. I can’t think of as much stuff to say about him. sorry.

Yo! Noid II: Enter the Void (https://dustinbragg.itch.io/yo-noid-was-ahead-of-its-time)

I probably could have played this but I had already seen a stream of the whole thing so I didn’t. The music and the look are rad. I think I want a whole game that plays how this game looks like it does, probably.

Tekken 7

There’s a part in the story mode where everyone sees Kazuya turn into the devil and shoot a big laser beam, and then a few days later everyone forgets it happened because something else happens.

GAMES ENJOYED BY PLAYING

Fire Emblem: Heroes

I started out liking this kind of a lot but not so much anymore, and I think I pretty much just want some aspects of this to be in a “real” FE game. It lets me only use the characters I like without missing out on anything, I get to be a silent protagonist instead of a boring generic loser, and they added a vague, abstracted version of the support system that lets you be a whole lot gayer. I think in my game Camilla is married to both me and Lucina. But yeah, it turns out I just want all that in a game that’s not a Mobile Game-ass Mobile Game.

Maybe I should learn more about game dev and make that game myself.

Animal Crossing Pocket Camp doesn’t get its own section cause I basically have the same stuff to say about it. Just let me have a small house and let me make public spaces in a proper AC game. Actually I think they let you do that in Happy Home Designer. Maybe I should just play that.

Zelda: Breath of the Wild

Needs more cooking in it. Also, one time I saw a guardian shoot its laser at the ruins of an old wooden shack I was hiding behind, and it just stayed standing, and that seemed kinda weird.

For reasons this game is good, read anybody else’s GOTY list.

Team Kirby Clash Deluxe

I don’t have screenshots for all of these, okay?

So this game has free-to-play mechanics that force you to choose between “paying money” and “grinding, but only getting a certain amount of fights per day”. Apart from that though, It’s fun to try and speedrun Kirby bosses with that good kirby music.

NieR: Automata

I only finished Route A, oops.

Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow randomiser (https://github.com/abyssonym/aos_rando)

I played this about as much as any other game on this list & remembering it now makes me wanna play it more. I became good at skips in this game, and had a gun fight with Julius.

Splatoon 2

The game was pretty good I guess, but the music was even better than Splat1n. Everything by Marina and Pearl, the final boss songs, and the weird Salmon Run themes rule. I’m also real into the art of the fictional bands they make for this. Hey, nintendo, when are you makin a full rhythm game in the Splatooniverse?

Miitopia

This is a weird Mii RPG they put on 3DS. The gameplay is pretty, because it’s mostly just like, generating weird events and encounters based on the miis you’re using and the personalities you’ve assigned them? It’s pretty neat for a single playthrough but that’s about it. I kinda wanna see more games that do this kinda gimmick though. They probably exist and I’ve never heard of them.

Also I got to wear cute outfits and the relationship has that same vagueness that makes it seem gay as I talked about for FE:Heroes.

Sonic Mania

Sonic Mania is so good, it even has the bad parts of 2D Sonic. You still get crushed by dumb platforms and some of the bosses are awful. The middle section of Metal Sonic is garbage until you find out how you’re “supposed” to do it. Also why can’t Tails fight the true final boss.

After you get used to all that though, it’s a good video game. you can even go fast.

Metroid: Samus Returns

Hey, they (officially) made a new Metroid game, and it’s good. It sticks a little too closely to the original Metroid 2 in certain ways that kinda make the exploration part not as good, but they do a lotta cool combat stuff. The fights are tough but they give you checkpoints right before them so I’m fine with it at least, and even though the new final boss was a big obvious fanservicey thing, I was still way into it.

Dragonball Xenoverse 2 for Nintendo Switch

This game’s fine I guess.

Anyway I watched a bunch of Dragon Ball this year, mostly DBZ Kai. I’m just at the start of the Future Trunks arc of Super. Hey, did everyone know, Dragon Ball fuckin rules??

Super Mario Odyssey

i like when the mario does a jump.

Sonic Forces

Honestly, it’s just a sorta-worse-than-normal 3D Sonic, and that makes it a pretty fun video game. Sure, the 2D sections are bad, I wish the 3D ones played a little more like Generations, and I wish the plot was a little more entertaining, but, I got to dress up my cat and fist bump sonic and the song called “fist bump” played. It’s cool. I’d prefer the good version of this to the perfected version of Sonic Mania. probably.

Dragon Ball Fusions

Okay but -this- Dragon Ball game was actually really good. It’s a 3DS RPG where you collect Dragon Ball characters like pokemon, including like a hundred OCs made for this game that I sometimes like better than the real characters, and you fuse them together. The battles system, though, is one of the best parts. I haven’t seen much else like it. The basic idea is like a Chrono- Trigger-style thing where the attacks have an area of effect based on the position of the character using it and the target, but on top of that, attacks do knockback, and you can knock enemies into allies to do a combo attack, knock them into other enemies to bounce them off each other, or knock them out of bounds to delay them a few turns... and they can do that stuff to you as well? And so every fight is also kind of a pool game?? And it rules???

On top of that, there’s stuff around which direction you’re attacking in vs. which direction the target is blocking, using your ki blast moves to counter other people’s ki blast moves so you’re pushing back Frieza’s death ball with a galick gun, and using super moves to recruit enemy fighters... there’s all this stuff going on in the fights, and despite being a turn-based sort of tactical RPG, the fights still kinda feel like DBZ fights? I’m writing a lot about this one I think mostly because it’s the one I’ve been playing recently but also nobody talked about it whenever it came out. It’s a good RPG -and- you get to do Dragon Ball stuff. You can fuse Yamcha with Vegeta. You can fight Great Ape Broly. For some reason they replaced all the swords with sticks but people still talk about Hell and Frieza’s still all about killing children. That’s a weird one but I wanted to write a third thing that was in the game and that was the first thing I thought of.

Anyway yeah... my top games are probably Dragon Ball Fusions, Breath of the Wild, and, I dunno, Samus Returns? Sure, let’s go with that.

ANIME OF THE YEAR

Kemono Friends. I didn’t watch a lot of other anime this year... but I didn’t need to.

2018 STUFF

There’s a new Kirby game so that’ll probably be at least in my top 5 I guess. Dragon Ball Fighterz looks good but I don’t own anything that’ll be able to play it. what the hell else is coming out in 2018

“THE END OF THIS POST” OF THE YEAR

In conclusion, the games were pretty good. I think we should keep making them.

Have a nice next year!

-Eve “Good at Video Games”. No second name.

<3

[worldsandcenturiesfunposting]

Late to the party: Should Video Game Journalists be good at video games?

You might have seen that cuphead video where some video game journalist spent over a minute trying to get past the tutorial and then proceeded to get railed over and over in the first level. The video is a little less than 27 minutes long and he doesn’t get through the first level in those 27 minutes. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=848Y1Uu5Htk Take note that the original title was Cuphead Demo at Gamescom: It Isn’t Easy

What you probably didn’t see was the description in the video. No one reads those but I think there’s a lot to pick apart and ramble about at 4:30 in the morning because I’m a lonely sack of shit with nothing better to do

But here’s the man himself writing to his defense: https://venturebeat.com/2017/09/08/the-deanbeat-our-cuphead-runneth-over/

My game crime: I was so bad at playing I was deemed unfit to be a game journalist. My Cuphead gameplay video from Gamescom blew up, inspired rage, and spurred discussions about the death of game journalism across Reddit, YouTube, and Twitter.

Don’t flatter yourself that much. People were talking about how game journalism was dead well before your video. Hell, you even mention GamerGate later in your article. 

It was a failure to communicate.

In the description of the video, they mention that the guy playing the game isn’t good at platformers in general and the video was uploaded as a joke. I don’t know how true that last part is, but assuming it is, they’ve apparently put in 0 effort to make that clear. No tongue in cheek title like “Let’s Fail at Cuphead!” or giving context in the description. Only after shit hit the fan did they edit the description explaining why the guy sucked so bad. 

I only wish my two books on the Xbox business generated as much attention as the Cuphead story. It is a humbling experience.

It would help if you books were available to buy at the store. I’ve been in plenty of book stores and haven’t found anything about Xbox business practices. There are ones partially written by Anita Sarkeesian though so I guess that’s close enough.

The more people looked at my poor gameplay, which I myself labeled shameful, the angrier they got. I played the tutorial so ineptly — failing to read the onscreen instructions to jump and dash simultaneously — and then went on, failing to conquer a single level. I said it was hard, and the fans saw my gameplay and decided I was a poor judge of difficulty. By a ratio of more than 12-to-1, the ratings on the YouTube video are negative. It wasn’t just the troglodytes of the internet who hated it. Most people hated it.

You failed an incredibly simple puzzle, one that literal children can figure out, and you want to throw out insults like “troglodytes” at people saying you were shit because they either didn’t see or don’t buy the “lol it’s just a prank bro” deflection.

Another game journalist (and some say “shitlord”

Including you or someone from your website in the description of the video itself:  A shitlord on Twitter also linked to this video and claimed these are the same people doing reviews. 

The guy they’re talking about is Ian Miles Cheong. Once a turbo feminist switched sides to a more pro-gamer stance during the whole GamerGate thing. Outside of that, I don’t know much about him and I don’t give enough of a shit about him to find out. 

He clipped it to the 2.5 minutes of the most damning inept gameplay, and he posted it to his followers. He used me to condemn all game journalists

The guy is literally a video game journalist though so it wouldn’t be a condemnation of all video game journalist. Just pointing out that you (and presumably others) are awful at video games despite being paid to write about them. Which is true. Like if this was a video of some 4 year old failing the tutorial, there wouldn’t be this ire. 

Raising the smoldering issues around Gamergate and its focus on game journalism ethics. His post was political propaganda for the disenfranchised gamers, the sort who went from Gamergate to the alt-right and elected Donald Trump as president.

At least you admit GamerGate was about ethics. The fact you then went on to then claim that its proponents went on to support the alt-right and got Trump elected is fucking horse shit for a few reasons. 

1. GamerGate was comprised of various people of various different political backgrounds. Yes, some members were what we’d now call the alt-right, but a lot of its members were also incredibly left leaning. A few political compass tests were taken over the course of GamerGate and it seems a huge portion of its membership were what’s described as left libertarians. 

2. Of all the reasons Trump was elected, gamers aren’t one of them. The shit system that is the electoral college. Mass propaganda efforts from Russia. A bunch of idiots who’d literally vote Republican even if Hitler rose from the dead and was the nominee simply because they’ll always vote Republican no matter what....but not a bunch of gamers upset over poor practices in video game journalism and attempts at shaming and censoring from SJWs. 

Get fucking real, Dean. You’re out of your element. 

Before he got to it, my video had maybe 10,000 views. Afterward, the Gamergaters, or hardline reactionaries — or whatever we would like to call them 

How about people who know how to play video games. I wonder if there’s a name for that. 

Crying conservative boogyman doesn’t help your own personal cause and it certainly doesn’t help your political side either. 

— believed this narrative fit into their views about game journalists just fine

That’s because even before this clip, there was a general negative opinion of video game journalists and here you are proving that it’s pretty well founded. Not only are a lot of them unethical, but some of them fucking suck at their jobs objectively. 

I despise how this was triggered by a viral post that represented the worst of fake news

Fake news is a Trump term. ALT RIGHTIST! ALT RIGHTIST! DEAN TAKAHASHI SUPPORTS DONALD TRUMP! 

Hmmmm, maybe that’s a stupid line of reasoning. Tell you what. I won’t use it if you don’t either? Deal? 

So he continues on whining about haters, giving his own life story, and he actually has the balls to say this: But during all of the time I have written about games, none of my bosses cared about exactly how good I was at playing. They required basic knowledge and competence, but not skill on an esports level.

He whines frequently about how mean people are for saying he shouldn’t be a games journalist if he sucks so bad at video games....and then goes on to say that the thing his bosses cared about was the very thing that people were pointing out he utterly lacks. 

Not a skill on an e-sports level? Nigga, you were playing a tutorial! Stop acting like people are demanding the world of you and realize that people require you have basic knowledge and competence. 

So blatantly dishonest. 

Guess what? Unskillful gaming is authentic.

That’s literally the excuse DSP uses to justify being bad at video games and leaving in all of the footage of him bumbling around not knowing that he’s doing. 

Here’s where my nonapology starts. Gamers need to stop being mean to those who aren’t skillful. They don’t need to put others down to elevate their own subculture. Games have gone viral. They’re more popular than ever, reaching 2 billion people around the world. They have become a $108 billion industry. It’s silly to look down on games.

No one’s looking down on games and no one’s looking down on people for no other reason than their lack of skill. For a lot of people if they’re having trouble, people will be more than willing to provide advice and pointers. Just ask any question about how to do something in a game on a game related subreddit and people will be perfectly fine to tell you how things are done without insulting you.

The fact that you’ve spent so much time playing and reviewing games, and it’s literally your job, is where it starts to cross the line. Games are 2 billion people and 100 billion dollar strong industry as you’ve said so clearly the ire thrown at games journalists who suck ass at their job isn’t a problem within the industry. 

That industry will grow bigger, and gamers will get better games, if we embrace the new gamers. 

You. Are. Not. A. New. Gamer. 

Stop acting like you’re defending other people getting shit when it isn’t other people who are a problem. This deflection is as apparent as it is pathetic. No one’s going after Minecraftkid2003 because he couldn’t figure out redstone when he first came across it. They’re pointing out that Dean  Takahashi, a video game journalist with 18 years worth of experience and has himself boasted he was playing video games since Pong isn’t able to figure out a simple problem solving exercise any faster than a goddamn pigeon. 

We don’t need to dumb games down. 

And then he says 

We can have adjustable difficulty, so that the unskilled and skilled alike can play. We can make tutorials even easier than the one that I failed at so miserably.

Alright, dumbass. I’m sure everyone reading this has seen the video I linked. Here’s what the tutorial required. It required you to jump on a box....and then jump in the air...and then use a dash move to get over a pillar that’s too high to jump over from the ground. 

There’s no losing conditions. Time is infinite. There’s no enemies. There’s no bottomless platforms of thing chasing you...it’s literally the easiest part of the game second to moving around map itself. How the fuck can it get easier? Does it need to outright say “Alright Dean, now comes the doozy. You need to press this button and then this button afterwords to solve the exact same problem. Here’s an animation of what it should look like. Can you follow it, Dean? I’ll play the animation over and over on the top of the screen so you can see what you’re supposed to do. If you do it, you get a gold star and Anita will give you the good boy award!”

No, I’m not blaming the developer for my own shortcomings. I respect the designers, even if I didn’t truly understand at first the games they’ve made. I would just like to make sure that they make their games for people who are new, or noobs, as well as hardcore fans.

Cuphead is specifically designed to be a challenging platformer for gamers who like more challenge. Designing it to be easier, especially a tutorial that has no losing condition, is counterproductive to what the devs want to achieve. It’s like asking Stephen King to tone down the horror in his books so that non-horror fans can enjoy them too without being too scared. 

If you want an easy platformer designed with everyone in mind, there’s plenty of great games that will fill that roll. Not every game needs to be made for everyone.

As Nolan Bushnell, cofounder of Atari, said, games should be easy to learn and hard to master. (Yes, I know Cuphead’s tutorial isn’t that hard to learn).

Then what’s the fucking issue, ding dong? 

No, I’m not celebrating mediocrity

You literally just did when you whined that Cuphead wasn’t designed for noobs in mind. Here’s one big thing though: You were’t even mediocre at it. Garfield is mediocre. You were just awful. 

like the Antonio Salieri character in Amadeus. I’m arguing that all gamers, casual or hardcore, deserve recognition.

They do, but not in cuphead. And all gamers aren’t paid to write their opinions on video games. 

We are not all going to be esports stars who rake in millions of dollars. 

You’ve been at this for 18 years and got money for it. You got to play a demo that a lot of people much more skilled and much more deserving would have liked to play and you did poorly at it because you couldn’t figure out how to do 2 step logic. 

But we’re going to be the masses of unskilled players who make the game companies, including the makers of Cuphead, as rich as they can possibly be.

If there’s one happy ending, it’s that Cuphead did do well on the market showing that contrary to what Dean believes, it isn’t a good idea for all games to be dumbed down to the point where even video game journalists are able to play. 

The rest is more sob story and personal history. 

---

So what are my final thoughts? Well first of all, if you can’t solve a simple 2 step logic puzzle in part of a game with literally no losing conditions, you really are stupid. Pro or noob, there’s some point where you have to wonder how dumb the person with the controller is. There’s plenty of cases like the previously DarkSydePhil and also this blast from the past from IJustine: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RkYxfjJ72k4 Like seriously: use your eyes and brain homie!

But what about being just generally bad at games or just not knowing how to play well? It doesn’t matter. Contrary to what Dean thinks, tons of people aren’t going to be major assholes to you just because you picked up a game for the first time, don’t know the ropes, but decide to record yourself playing and slowly learning them. Plenty of let’s players do blind runs where they go into a game with no prior knowledge of it and yeah, they make mistakes but people are generally cool about it. 

However, there’s a point where making these silly mistakes over and over becomes...something of an issue. I’ve been driving for several years. If I legitimately couldn’t figure out which pedal is the break and which is the gas after all this time, it would be fair grounds to call me a dumbass or wonder if there’s something seriously wrong with my brain. As people do something more and more, it’s expected that they’re better at it than someone completely new. When someone does that thing for a job, it’s expected that they’re better at it than the average joe. 

And that’s the big thing here that Dean never addresses: it’s his job. He writes more about the tech than he does actual gameplay, yes, but he still boasts in his own article that he’s been in the industry for 18 years and have been playing games since Pong. 

It’s not even the rest of the video that was the issue but instead those 2.5 minutes (which he complained about Miles Ian Cheong trimming the video down to as a highlight) where he’s unable to solve that simple two step logic puzzle in a tutorial level. I drove cars for years because I have to get from point A to point B and it’s beyond walking distance and it would already be stupid if I couldn’t figure out the absolute basics of it. If I reviewed cars for a living and drove cars for longer than most car drivers have been alive for and I couldn’t figure out the basics of starting it, that would be beyond pathetic. I don’t think there’s a word in the English language that would be able to describe that amount of disconnect between the experience I should have and the amount I display. 

He constantly hides behind the idea that we’re not all professional e-sport people and gamers come at all skill levels...but he’s not at all skill levels. He’s literally a professional. Playing and reviewing games is literally his profession just like writing code or cooking meals is a profession.

You know how on Kitchen Nightmares Gordon Ramsey gets so pissed off at people who don’t know the basics of cooking and how to handle a kitchen even though it’s their job and they should have learned that in training? It’s like that. We’re basically Gordon Ramsey here watching some guy call himself a chef and his output is microwave heated frozen mac and cheese that’s somehow still raw and yet also on fire. And he wonders why people are yelling at him over the internet. 

Should video game journalists be good at video games? Yes! Just like food critics should understand how to cook a meal or reviewers of literature should know how to read! I don’t even know why video game journalists are trying to make this a contestable point. If you suck at your job, either get better....or don’t have you job! Get another one! 

I’m aware that this whole thing is a bit of old hat and I’m rambling on more and more than this guy deserves, but it is indicative of a larger problem within the industry. Just like the Zoe Quinn thing or the doritos pope thing was indicative of issues in the larger industry. Video game journalism has an effect and if some of them aren’t able to beat a simple tutorial level and then without any hint of irony, whine that video games should be easier when people call him out on it....it’s just baffling. 

It’s now 5:45 and I still have nothing better to do lol so I guess I guess it’s time for a few final words

I don’t think this event will lead to GamerGate 2. Hell, one article defending this guy had the title that GamerGate 1 never really ended. I don’t know how true it is but it seems over three years later since it started, the issues and arguments that were the foundation of GamerGate are still a bit relevant. But now there’s a new one: Some video game journalists are not only unethical....but they’re also utterly incapable! 

Anyways, join me next time as I’m even more late to the party and write my epic response Martin Luther’s 95 Thesis followed by a point by point breakdown of Oag the Caveman’s declaration of “Fire bad!”

[lydiahopemoore]

Initial research

To understand my target market and what user’s I'll be focussing on I wanted to first search around Reddit. Reddit is a popular social sharing website that collects current news, stories, pics, memes and videos through specific communities (subreddits) that the user decides on what they want to see. Every post and comment that is made, people get to upvote or downvote it so the best content rises to the top. Every user creates an obscure username to make Reddit an anonymous platform. Therefore I wanted to use Reddit to find subreddits and posts that relate to my topic to get a general understanding of how people feel. I have collected a bunch of comments from posts which I will not mention their username nor I will use this information for presentations or the final video. ^ = upvotes. This is an effective way to know how many people agree/relate to a comment.

Female gamers! How do you handle sexual harassment?

“I don't reveal my gender when I'm playing online games and I only tend to play with a group of known friends.” 101 ^

“I mostly don't let people know I'm female until I know they aren't assholes.” 38 ^

“Two ways.

mute, report then block.

I don't play with the general public. Only with people I know and with people they know.” 17 ^

“I don't play with the general public. Only with people I know and with people they know.” 29 ^

“Honestly, in my personal experience so take it with a grain of salt, its not so much a gendered thing as it is an asshole thing.” 51 ^

“I don’t play games where I interact with people I don’t know anymore. Before that I’d usually ignore it and remind myself that my existence will never be as pathetic as theirs is in that moment.” 9 ^

“My voice is super girly so I cant hide the fact that I'm a girl. I normally record the audio or mute the offender. It happens a lot on Counter Strike and Rainbow Six” 14 ^

“The female gaming population there is pretty high, and the number of idiots is relatively low. Mostly I just tell people to fuck off if there’s an issue beyond specific skill and block/report them. 7 ^

That being said, my guild leader for one game mode is a massive misogynist and I just call him out constantly.” 7 ^

 “Mostly by not playing online games anymore” 4 ^

“mute/block them , i dont need to argue with sad lonely losers” 5 ^

“Iv never come across anything like it at all. In any game I’ve played” 8 ^

Gamers of Reddit, How do you feel about women who play video games and is the gaming community in all games really that toxic against female gamers?

“Female gamer here. It can be pretty toxic, but most times it's just amusing. As long as you know how to handle yourself in various situations it's fine.” 11 ^

 “I don't care who plays games. What pisses me off is how oblivious people are to leaving an OPEN MIC on with a tv going and your family shouting in the background.” 9 ^

 “I've been gaming for years but with games like Overwatch, PUBG, and Fortnite now including public voice chat, I've become shy and somewhat intimidated by the voice chat feature because I know as soon as I use it with a team, I'll either get mocked because I sound like a 12 year old kid or because I'm a girl. Though when I have used it, my team just assumes I'm a kid.” 6 ^

 “You know what? The opinion of "gamers" on women playing games doesn't fucking matter. Not to mention the fact that you have juxtaposed "gamers" and women, suggesting women cannot be gamers. Women play games. Women are gamers. Get the hell over it.” 4 ^

 “Not toxic at all, for me. Most people don't seem to care that I'm female, and it's never really affected my gaming experience. That being said, I hear a lot from other female gamers and it seems to be an issue for some.” 4 ^

 “The community is just as toxic to females as it is to males.” 3 ^

 “I don't think the gaming community is toxic toward female players. Not as a whole. There are lots if individuals who are toxic, though.” 2 ^

Female Gamers, what do you hate the most when people find out your gender in a game?

“No a female gamer but I hate how as soon as a female speaks in-game it turns into sexist trash talk that goes way over the top or pandering, both make me cringe hard. I feel bad for squeakers too cause not all of them are toxic or even bad at the game but they get hammered so hard.” 9 ^

 “When people randomly add me because I was pretty good or got a little aggressive on coms and they find it sexy. I do really enjoy getting free stuff in certain games though.” 9 ^

GirlGamers let’s talk about sexual harassment and abuse and what we can do to help improve our community. 

“It’s really hard to go into a game and even TALK, let alone mention I am a woman. I sound like an 11 year old boy so it masks it a bit, but when I mention i am a woman, damn. The language changes completely.” 143 ^

“I think one of the worst things about the gaming community is how guys refuse to acknowledge the sexism, and when they do it’s normally in a negative context. Or when a woman brings up sexism they’re told that they should just toughen up or ignore it. It’s not that simple, and a lot of the people who say that have never had to face people doubting their every move because of something they can’t control.” 102 ^

“I think we need to make more friendly spaces for women with an emphasis on lgbt women and women of color. There needs to be all women gaming conferences, classes, and discussion groups (much like this one).” 51 ^

“I think we would need to bring awareness to the issue with a viral movement. If we picked a day to stop hiding from voice chats and post any and all harassing situations that day with some trendy viral hashtag maybe it would get media attention and further shed light on the issue.”  23 ^

Why are there more male gamers than female gamers? Is this statistic even true?

“A: Oh! This is what I studied! I can finally contribute!

Q: Why are there more male gamers than female gamers? Is this statistic even true?

A: It's actually not true! The split between men and women in gaming is almost a perfect 50/50. If you include mobile gaming (which I do, but that's an entirely different debate) then women actually make up the majority of gamers!

Q: So what things in our societies push more men and fewer women to pick up video games?

A: There are a lot of compounding factors that come into play here. For starters, when video games were first becoming a thing, it was a primarily male interest. Only a small percentage of gamers in the 70s and 80s were women. As such, it was mostly marketed towards boys and men. When more people started taking an interest in gaming, many men felt that their hobby was being encroached upon by an "other". In this case, that other was women. So on top of being marketed mostly for men, the community itself was (and still very much is) incredibly hostile towards women. That's another factor that pushed women away.

When we look at the situation today, it still seems like more men are playing than women. This isn't because that's actually the case; it's because the anti-women toxicity present in the community never faded (and in some cases it's merely festered and grown more vile). As such, women that play video games are much less likely than men to make it known that they're active gamers.

So, to answer your second question, male gamers are the main societal factor that pushed more men and fewer women to publicize their gaming habits. In this regard, the gaming community is very similar to the tabletop gaming community and the comic book community.

Q: Are the numbers significantly different in various cultures across the world, where their society may be different?

A: Surprisingly, it's a similar situation pretty much everywhere: women play games, men treat them like garbage for doing so, and then women keep quiet about their gaming habits and rarely participate in official tournaments.

Overall, it's not that women are less likely to play games, it's that the community is so toxic towards women that very few are willing to out themselves, so to speak, as women while playing.

The entire history of women in gaming (both as gamers and as developers) is an incredibly interesting topic that's worth reading up on, but it can mostly be boiled down to "holy shit, calling the gaming community a hive of misogyny is probably a huge understatement.".”121 ^

I need to vent about female gamers in the gaming community for a second.

“I am a female gamer. No. I am a gamer who happens to be a female. I play everything from Animal Crossing, to Skyrim to LIMBO to CoD. I love gaming and it relieves stress and helps me relax. Gaming is a large part of my identity and I am not ashamed of it. Studies have shown that 48-52% of gamers are women, which is HALF. So why do we get so much shit for it? Women gamers, especially in communities like League of Legends and Magic the Gathering are shit upon. The view towards female gamers is ridiculous, and I am so sick of it. Women gamers are constantly underrepresented in both the games we play and when we are we are hyper sexualized. Even as a female gamer I am often sexualized. When people see a female gamer they accuse them of being illegitimate, and only doing it for attention. Even me, a female gamer, when I see a female gamer I think that "oh she doesn't look like a gamer" or "oh she isn't a real gamer, she's doing it for attention" and this is stupid. Why do I think this when I am a female gamer? Because I have been taught my whole life that games are for men, and if I am a woman I am doing it not because I enjoy it but because I am doing it for a man.” 69 ^

“I find myself often guilty of being quick to judge other people as a "gamer." I try not to label people, but it gets so shoved down our throats all the time that it just happens. For me, I'm half afraid its because I get called out as "not a gamer" or some other such nonesense and so in my defense I start to judge other people harshly. It takes a conscious effort to change the initial thought.” 3 ^ 

“I don't know if it's because the only "social" genre I play is mmos, but the majority of other female gamers I encounter fall into two categories; shy or attention-seeking.“ 2 ^

[sormikhell]

Why do I dislike Tales of Zestiria the X?

Recently I’ve been asked one question numerous times: “Why do you think the anime is shit? You only hate it because it doesn’t focus on SorMik, right?”

Now guys, I think it’s vital for me to answer this. Because let’s face it, we will never see face to face if we don’t discuss the matter. And look, here I am, typing this out because I feel this is important. So if you’re curious and want to understand why a lot of us dislike the anime then please bear with me because this will be long (6 pages in Word, 6!)

To make this a little bit easier for me, I’ll assume that you haven’t played the game or watched its walkthrough yet and that you like the anime. But of course if you did either of them it’s good, bc at least you’ll know what I am talking about.

And so, I shall do a character analysis in this post, comparing the game and anime selves to each other while I name some other issues as well. I won’t list all the inconsistency and plot holes the anime has for I’d be here even after my death.

I’m going to try to make you guys understand that while the SorMik fandom is not happy, there are more pressing issues with the anime than that.

For the sake of completeness, I’m going to refer to sever other people here and if you want to get the whole picture, I advise you to check them out yourself too.

What I’ll try to do here is answer this from my point of view, bringing up my emotions about certain facts and details while trying to justify my opinions about this matter. This post isn’t about trying to change your viewpoint and admitting something you might not agree with, it’s about trying to make everyone understand why most of the fandom is quite cross with the anime.

But for you to really understand my point I think I’ll start with how I even get into this fandom. If you don’t want to read that, skip to the first horizontal line.

Around in mid-September last year I saw on my multifandom dashboard a meta about Epilogue 2. I can’t really recall what it was about, all I remember is that there was a picture of Epileo the very minute he realises he’s been reunited with Sorey (you know, when he looks up, expression all soft, eyes twinkling with delight and smiling like he has never seen the sun?). I kind of stared at the picture for a solid 5 minutes (I’m a sucker for light haired characters, sorry) before I decided that it’s crucial for me to know this beauty and love him (yepp, I’m that typical “Came for Mikleo and stayed for SorMik” person). So, I searched for the source and found the video of Epilogue 2. I didn’t understand a single thing but the look of utter love in Mikleo’s eyes made me really care for him and for his whole story too (looks like the first thing I did in this fandom was to spoiler myself. Not that I regret it or anything XD).

So I dived head first into the fandom and eventually I came across the anime. Mind you, at that time I only know of the existence of the game, I didn’t even watch the walkthrough or anything.

After seeing the 0th episode I was a little bit surprised and lost. Because I didn’t understand a anything about that episode XD I was basically like “I thought this was about two boys? Who the fuck is that girl? What the hell was that little funny mascot thing? Why couldn’t she see that? What the hell have just happened? …. At least the animation was awesome.”

As someone who didn’t know a single thing about the Zestiria universe it was quite confusing. So I decided to drop this but it kept bothering me that I didn’t even see Mikleo and after a week or so I was like “well, let’s watch the next episode. If that isn’t better, then I’ll really drop this”.

And lo and behold, I saw the first episode and with the explanations and all the 0th episode clicked into place. I caught up with the anime when the 7th episode came out. I quickly became too interested in this and searched for the community on Tumblr, making my new page there.  

Around the 11th or 12th episode the fandom community on Tumblr convinced me to watch a walkthrough even play the game sometime, though I didn’t consider myself as a gamer girl but I was quite curious you know?

When the final episode of the first season came out I was somewhere around Tintagel Ruins in my YouTube walkthrough and we all know that that was the episode things started to go sour in the fandom.

On Christmas I got the game and by the time my new semester started in February I’ve finished the game, only the post-game dungeon, Hexen Isle was left.

Of course, after you’ve invested more than 80 hours (that was my first playthrough, I was slow I know) in a game you became quite familiar with the universe, its laws and the characters.

So after all this work to beat the game the anime’s second season got me really angry. And if I still have your attention, then please bear with me for a little while, because now I’m really answering the question.

The anime up until the first season’s final was quite decent and good. We got little alternations like when Sorey purifies human malevolence he has to live through it and all, and that made his job even more dangerous and exciting. I loved the concept personally as it’s not a thing in the game (although, game!Sorey’s job is at least 10000x harder than Anime!Sorey’s but oh well…).

The problems started with the final and here’s why (I can’t stress this enough, this is my opinion and my experience) while comparing the game and the anime:

In the game, the war in Glaveind Basin in a really important event. This is the first time you meet with Heldalf and he magnificently kicks your ass. He kicks your ass so bad Sorey temporarily loses his ability to perceive seraphim. He realises after this that he cannot win against Heldalf and that he needs to get stronger. (Mikleo is so shaken by the whole thing that in a skit Edna even teases him because he apparently cried when Sorey couldn’t see him.)

But in the anime Sorey wins. Which is kind of the breakpoint in the game. The sole reason of the second part of the game was because of Sorey’s first lost in battle. Those who love the game obviously weren’t fine with it.

Not to mention that there was a scene when Sorey nearly killed and succumbed to malevolence just because of Alisha. Which is kind of ridiculous. Let me explain why:

There is a quest in the game where you still have Alisha in the party as your squire and you have to fight with a …plant. After the fight, it becomes obvious to everyone that Alisha being Sorey’s squire is quite dangerous as Sorey is going blind on his right eye. Why, you ask? Because Alisha doesn’t have the necessary amount of resonance to perceive seraphim and Sorey’s power had to compensate that somehow. Hence why he went blind.

So when Sorey didn’t realise in time that the plant is still alive and was rapidly coming so Mikleo and Alisha jumped in front of him to save him (I’ll talk more about this later on…). Someone even said that both Alisha and Mikleo could have easily died. Sorey’s reaction was more of concern than absolute rage. Hell he didn’t become tainted even when he and Mikleo had to kill Gramps. And we all know Gramps is far more important to the two boys than Alisha. Alisha may be a good friend, but she’s not their family.

So all in all, Sorey becoming tainted under Mikleo’s watchful eyes is unexplainable. This skit here explains everything I think, starts at 24:00.

Oh and about Sorey’s dream becoming true in the anime… the seraphim was sitting in one corner, the humans in the other. No one talked to the other. That’s what you call your dream becoming a reality, Sorey? They were literally there because they had to. That’s not coexistence!

Now that we have mentioned Mikleo… he’s deuteragonist. In other words, the secondary main character. Why? Because Mikleo is always there. Mikleo is Sorey’s moral support, his pillar, his everything. Mikleo protects him as much as Sorey protects Mikleo. They know each other inside-out so knowing this, Mikleo being the deuteragonist won’t come as a surprise.

Mikleo is a special case, we all agree on that. He’s a little cold and sarcastic in the game but always happy and ready to argue about ruins with Sorey. Rose even mentions that Mikleo can only be really worried by Sorey, meaning he may act like he is angry about Edna’s teasing or Lailah’s terrible puns, but in the end, he only gets really worked up if Sorey is in danger. He never leaves his side in the game excluding their break-up scene when Sorey shouts at him and Mikleo feels like a liability to Sorey (he doesn’t even leave his side when Sorey is asleep for 3 days after he became the Shepherd. He stays in his room quietly reading, not even talking to Lailah about crucial things).

You can easily say that to Mikleo, Sorey is the top priority. He’d gladly die for him, sacrifice for him everything. Hell, even wait who knows how many centuries just to be with Sorey again. And as those who played the game or watched the walkthrough know, Mikleo takes upon himself to continue their shared dream while Sorey sleeps away the centuries purifying Maotelous. (Sorey’s One and Only, huh..)

So, when in the anime Mikleo is basically shoved back into the closet and treated like an object by Sorey to only be relied on is quite frustrating (why is that they had to intentionally or unintentionally include this Berseria element in the anime? Sorey would never ever treat anyone, especially not Mikleo, like an object).  

Soymilkheaven had a really good answer for Mikleo’s character problem, so go check it out if you want!

Now onto Rose… Rose the Pure Assassin. The person who teaches Sorey that there’s nothing wrong with killing if it saves the person. Game!Rose is confident, a true and very loyal friend who won’t hesitate to take Sorey’s burdens of the Shepherd and kill someone even if Sorey won’t agree with her. She protects Sorey in her own way while makes sure that Sorey won’t just see killing in a bad light. After all, not everybody can be saved.

And yeah, Rose may be a little bit childish in the game, but she lightens up the conversations and she’s funny.

Anime!Rose on the other hand… she is like a shell. She’s not confident, she doubts herself and her job (even though both Roses have similar backgrounds so I can’t wrap my head around why this Rose had to turn out the way she turned out…).

Plus as women-books-coffee said perfectly her lack of confidence results in Sorey not having that kind of character development.

Game!Rose helped Sorey understand the upside of killing so if Anime!Rose doubts her game counterpart’s very creed then how the hell is Anime!Sorey supposed to learn this life hack lesson? How will this Sorey understand that there’s no way that no one will die?

Answer: Quite simply, he won’t. Because why the hell should the protagonist struggle through hardships when he can just be ignorant and skip through the most of it?

That would be baaaaaaaad… now wouldn’t it? But that’s exactly what ufotable did.

Dezel, you’re the next!  Our beloved blind wind seraph. Yupp you read it right.

Blind.

Quite a surprise, isn’t it? Ufotable may or may not have left out this … quite crucial detail about him. Which is fucking ridiculous if you think about it. How can you forget that somebody is fucking blind, Ufotable?! (You guys remember in the anime when Dezel is on the top of a wagon in the fog and he says: “I can’t see shit”. Well, of course you can’t see shit Dezel. You’re fucking blind)

Oh, and the reason he’s blind? Symonne.

Yeah, that purple girl who somehow become a dragon in the anime (don’t let me get started on her too… but in short, for Symonne Heldalf was everything in the game. That’s why I’ll never accept that she became a dragon because she didn’t agree with Heldalf).

Whom he by the way died to bring back. And you could all say “But Sormikhell, Dezel isn’t blind in the anime! Then of course he’d want to help her!”

Well yeah, I see your point. But let’s not forget that Dezel is there because of Rose.

You see, Dezel and Rose are supposed to be a parallel example of Sorey and Mikleo as Dezel watched over Rose for quite some years. He died for her in the game, so he can save her. So it didn’t make any sense to me that he would just randomly die. For nothing, basically. Dezel in the anime doesn’t know Symonne, then why should he die for her? (And let’s not forget the fact that Anime!Sorey knew very well what Anime!Dezel was about to do. Which means we can say that Anime!Sorey let one of his comrades die. Game!Sorey tried frantically to find another solution but Game!Dezel was already dying by that time, so he asked Sorey to grant his final wish. Sorey would have never allowed this any other way. Another blow for Sorey’s character.)

Next one is… Edna! A delicate flower and a surprisingly thorny one. In the game, Edna is like a snarky older sister, looking out for everyone in her own sadistic way. She likes making fun of Meebo and is hellbent about learning how to cook decently. She wants to save Eizen, sure, but she doesn’t let it plague her mind 24/7. She is a lovely character with funny attachment to Normins. She lives her own life, she is really intelligent and has an excessive knowledge about any kind of plant or mineral.

And if you’re still reading this, then you already know what I’ll say next.

Anime!Edna can only sigh and be depressed. I can count in my two hands how many times I’ve seen her smile or laugh in the anime. She’s always like “Oh, Eizen… “even if she doesn’t voice these thoughts. You can practically feel her sadness through the screen. Which I understand as I have a brother too but every damn time she appears on screen (which isn’t that much) she either doesn’t care about what is happening or just moping around. A great loss in my opinion as I was really looking forward to her snarky comments being thrown left and right.

Our next character is… Lailah! The mother hen, the fire mum with terrible puns, you name it. She’s like a mother and an older sister at the same time. She’s diligent, a great friend and cares about everyone a lot. She has a very vivid personality, likes to randomly talk about something else and annoy everyone to hell with her horrible puns. Even though she can’t tell everything about what she knows to the party, she guides them carefully to the right answer. She wouldn’t “spoil” things to us in the game which made us more and more curious about her past.

Also she is there to make sure that everyone is safe, healthy and knows the consequences of certain… things.

In the anime, I started to mourn even Lailah when it turned out that she didn’t tell Sorey and effectively us, the audience that if the Shepherd dies so does his squires (which is a thing that does not exist in the game, FYI).

I think that was a pretty vital information, Lailah.

Her guidance failed spectacularly in the anime.

Oh, and about ruining Pendrago. What happened to not meddling with humans’ petty affairs and ruining entire cities without a care. No can tell me her giant fire ball didn’t make half of the wall disappear into nothing. But oh well, not that the people will complain or anything…

And the last seraph for today is… Zaveid! A real womanizer, the one friend who can turn any conservation into something dirty. Our absolute class clown who likes walking around half naked, sneaking around hot springs so he can get a peek of the women. A really great guy who has a tragic past and despite all of that smiles and makes pervert jokes all the time, but can give you some seriously good and mature advices when you need it the most. After all he’s not the type of guy to view everything as a win or lose situation.

At least they didn’t change him that much in the anime… although maybe they could have made him a little bit more carefree but given the circumstances he was introduced in the anime… but then again, Zaveid still cracked some jokes when you were about to face with Heldalf at the end of the game.

And finally, as for Alisha, I’m just going to say this: She didn’t need that armatization. At all. She proved in the game again and again and again that she is more than capable of handling things on her own while standing proud and tall next to Sorey, if theyhave to. Alisha is the last in the line and that’s exactly why she chose to be a knight. She is a strong, independent woman who can fight her own battles. Her dream was to make Hyland and Rolance live peacefully next to each other. Which of course had little to do with Sorey and his dream and duty. That’s why she was never meant to be the heroine.  

Anime!Alisha on the other hand… when I heard that her father is the king in the anime, I kid you not went back to my game and double checked whether that’s true or not because I was pretty sure that she was not the next in line. She was important enough in the game even though she was just the last… then why do this? Clearly this wasn’t necessary.

Ufotable must have really wanted to give Alisha more significance in Sorey’s story so bad somewhere along the line they forgot that this was supposed to be about Sorey and not about Alisha.  

TL;DR: Every character was robbed of their personality, Sorey’s dream holds no significance, who cares about seraphim?, let’s change anything and everything until we cannot say that this is about Zestiria, but let’s give Alisha more screen time because apparently she is our main protagonist.

And if you read the whole thing, then you’re a fucking champion! And if I maybe, maybe made you at least understand our point then I consider my job done.

And cookies for you if you got my references :*

[press-a-repeatedly]

Zul’s Top 9 Games of 2018

By Zul Edwards

Heyyy it’s me. I’m back! What a year! 2018 has come and gone and many awesome games have been played by everyone here at PAR. The votes were tallied, the results are in, and I am included in that bunch. However, some of the games I played and loved this year were no-shows on our list. Some AMAZING games that I think deserve a little love on our corner on the internet.  So, I thought, if you out there reading this were interested, (spoiler alert, nobody is) here is my OWN personal top nine games of 2018.

So, let’s get this thing started with my number 9!... oh yeah, I only played 9 games in 2018. heh.

9) No Man’s Sky – So I was one of those gamers who was excited for NMS when it was first announced a few years back. Thought the idea of exploring a quintillion planet was awesome. Then the game came out, I heard it sucked, and I ignored it. Enter a couple years later when it was on sale, had a ton of updates and new features: true online with friends, customizable characters, base building, and a brand-new story. However, it wasn’t enough to keep me hooked. Don’t get me wrong, I liked exploring the various galaxies and doing various side quests, engaging in dogfights with pirates and mining for space gold, but overall it just still felt so empty, so repetitious, and so… blah. I guess I still prefer quality over quantity, even if the quantity is in the quintillions.  

8) The Alliance Alive – The first on the list of “Games only Zul played this year”. The Alliance Alive is a 3DS game from the creators of the classic “Legend of Legacy”, literally a game I borrowed from Justin, played for all of 30 minutes, then promptly returned to Justin never to be spoken of again. So, to my surprise when he told me the same studio was making another game, The Alliance Alive, but it was helmed by one of the writers of the Suikoden franchise, I was cautiously optimistic. Much to my (pleasant) surprise, the game was good! A blend of classic JRPG turned based battles with flairs of modernization: skills learned through fighting, increased stats based on the location of fighters in battles, and a darker story not usually found in those classic SNES/PS1 RPGs this seems to emulate.  While the main characters fall into some pretty cliché tropes, the side characters really shine. From giant axe-wielding lizard men that remind me of my own D&D character, to a demon-dog-man butler, to a mad child genius scientist who rides a duck robot, this game has a lot of flavor. I really should go back and finish.

7) Chasm – While it’s no secret that I love Castlevania games, I think it’s fair to say I’m not really a giant fan of Metroidvania games. I prefer the simpler side-scrolling action of Castlevania, constantly moving forward towards a goal of smacking Drac in the face with a metal whip, to the backtracking and map completing chore of most Metroidvania games. With that said, something about the less intense and simpler format of Chasm kept me hooked till the end. I didn’t mind backtracking and completing the map in Chasm because it wasn’t as vast or complicated as other games in the genre. It was colorful, had great music, stellar pixel art and a fun yet challenging battle system and platforming. Overall it was a blast to play, but it just got overshadowed in a year filled with superior games.

6) God of War – “WHAT THE FUCK?” I hear you slam on your keyboards as I place the unrivaled GOTY in a paltry 6th place. Don’t get me wrong, this game is good. In fact, it’s VERY good. However, for whatever reason, I guess this game didn’t hook me like it did for everyone else. I only have a passing familiarity with the GoW series. Even though I’m a diehard SonyBoy, I only ever played GoW 1 and never beat it. Kratos and Atreus are some of the best written and best-acted characters to come out of a video game in this year or any year. Hell, if we had a “best new character” category again this year, I would struggle to not put Atreus in the top 3. The music is amazing, the writing is fantastic, the scope, cinematography and the constant one camera perspective were all stellar achievements in the medium of gaming, not to mention I’m pretty much obsessed with all things Norse… BUT. I dunno. Little things kept taking me out of it. Atreus’s sudden, jarring mood swings. The poor pacing in certain parts. The sudden introduction of major characters and/or story elements, that felt kind of brushed over and/or rushed. The lackluster side content, the padding and the empty worlds. The game is good. But it never felt great to me. Most games that I love, I think about when I’m not playing them, then I rush home from work to play them because I want to complete them, either for the story or because the gameplay is addicting, but this game felt more like a chore sometimes. I didn’t even buy it, I just borrowed it from Butch earlier in the year when it came out. I’m sorry Cory. I tried but I just didn’t love this game.

5) Moonlighter – Now here’s a game I absolutely adored. Flew under my radar and was recommended by Nick. By day you’re a humble shopkeeper, selling various wares and curios. By night, (by… MOONLIGHT) you explore dungeons ala Link to the Past style in a top-down view, into randomly generated maps. Each area has different items to collect & new materials to find, which you bring back to the shop to sell, which with the money you earn, can craft new weapons, which will get you further into dungeons, which will mean you find more items to sell which means you make more gold to spend on armor and weapons, which means you can get better materials to keep delving deeper, WHICH MEANS… ahem. Ah yes. That classic feedback loop. It sucked me in. It’s simple but effective in keeping me engaged. Coupled with a great art style, fluid beautiful pixel graphics and a surprisingly good amount of story for this type of game, Moonlighter took a nice chunk of my time early in the year.

4) Ni No Kuni II: Revenant Kingdom – Another entry in “Games only Zul played this year”, NNK2 was a surprise hit for me. I never played NNK1 and heard rather negative things about it from Nick over the years. I bought NNK2 on a whim months after it came out because it was on sale and I was craving a good JRPG, and it did not disappoint. I loved pretty much everything about this game. The music, the story, the beautiful not quite Ghibli, but practically Ghibli art style, the characters, the mechanics, the town building, the combat… it was everything I was looking for. There were certainly parts in the middle that lagged a bit, and the general “go to town > solve town’s problem > make an alliance with the town” could be considered cliché or predictable, but every town felt unique and its inhabitants all felt genuine. Recruiting citizens into your kingdom and assigning them all a role in your castle was a time sink I didn’t realize I would be so into, but I think I spent more hours on that than anything else in the game. And it also gets marks for being the other child in a video game besides Atreus, King Evan, that I didn’t want to strangle, and in fact by the time the credits rolled, he’d probably be #2 or 3 in Best Character of the Year for me.

3) Dragon Quest XI: Echoes of an Elusive Age – Now as far as JRPGS go, Dragon Quest is the ultimate grand-daddy, even more so than Final Fantasy, but it was a series I never really got into. I played some previous games in the series and found passing enjoyment in a couple titles but never enough to ever want to complete a game or seek out other entries in the series. That all kind of changed when I played DQ 11. DQ has never really strayed too far from its classic turn-based JRPG roots. “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” would be their mantra I assume, and I love it. In a time when the turn-based system is all but gone from genre giant Final Fantasy, DQ has instead chosen to stick with it, and fully master the dying style. It was hands down the best JRPG I’ve played all year, and probably one of the best I’ve played in several years. It has everything: a great story, compelling characters, awesome music, amazing art style, engaging combat, fun side quests, a challenging yet fair difficulty curve, and it’s actually, really funny on top of all that. While the length might scare people away, (I clocked in right around 120 hours after getting the platinum trophy for 100% completion of the game) it’s some of the best time I spent gaming in a long time. It’s a classic in a modern era. It’s weird, if you said to teenage Zul “one of your favorite JRPGs ever will be Dragon Quest 11, and one of your least favorite JRPGs will be Final Fantasy 15”, he would never have believed you… but here we are.

2) Monster Hunter World – Ah yes. The one oddball in my gaming repertoire. I think we all have one of these, right? That one game/series that for whatever reason, sits outside your normal gaming habits, yet you love it, nonetheless. Maybe you love Halo and FPS games, but you also really like Animal Crossing for some reason. Or maybe you’re a diehard Dark Souls series fan but just can’t get enough of Cooking Mama as well. Variety is the spice of life they say, and while I’m primarily a “character & story first, RPGs, video games are art” kind of dude, something about smashing Monsters in the face with a giant hammer has kept me hooked on the Monster Hunter series for nearly 10 years. I love the challenging but fair battles, the deep customization, the various weapons and armors for both male and female hunters, the varied and unique monsters that all have their own ecology, musical themes, and battle styles you must learn and adapt to if you want to survive. It’s also linking up with friends (or even strangers online) and tackling a beast as a team. For all these reasons and so much more, this series sunk its claws in me from the very first time I played it, and it hasn’t let go. Monster Hunter World is the next-gen, beautifully realized game I’ve wanted for years; and it took the story, art, gameplay, and fun I’ve come to expect from this series to another level.

1) Red Dead Redemption II – I honestly don’t know how to write about this game. I can say all the other things I’ve said up until now about how great the music is (it’s amazing), how varied and alive the characters feel (they’re amazing), how stunningly awe-inspiring the scenery is or how fluid and lifelike the character animations are (they’re amazing), how the story and personal journey of Arthur Morgan literally brought me to tears more than once (he’s #1 in Best Characters btw. And they’re amazing), how rich every side quest is, how fun the mini-games are, how great the dialogue is, or any of the other truly breath-taking aspects of the game, but I don’t think I could do them justice. Hell, I don’t even know how to put them into words myself inside my own head. To me, this is one of those games that surpasses all of that. Yea, it has flaws, every game does, everyTHING does, but to me, it’s perfect, warts and all.  I can’t give it much higher praise than that, and it is absolutely the best game I played in years. When a game can give me an extensional crisis during some of its final moments, I think it’s safe to say that It’ll stick with me and has undoubtedly set a very high bar for all future games. The team at Rockstar outdid themselves and have my thanks for bringing this game into the world.

PHEW. Well, that’s it. Top 9 games of 2018 according to Zully Boy. Another great year in gaming for me personally and here’s to another great year in 2019! Lots to look forward to, and hopefully some hidden gems that’ll surprise me along the way. Happy Gaming everyone!

[anglosurfmops]

My E3 Wishlist / Hype Post

I don’t always show it on this tumblr, but I am an avid gamer and Nintendo addict. Here’s a post / text splurge about what I want to see at E3.

NINTENDO STUFF

I love my Nintendo Switch. It’s an incredible piece of hardware and I’ve already got a dozen games on it. While 3DS will likely have some presence (especially in the Treehouse streams), I want the vast majority of E3 to concentrate on this new platform

Stuff we know about and will see (again) Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild DLC details - at the very least, we’ll get some brief footage and a date. I’m half-expecting them to say “you can download it RIGHT THE HECK NOW!” because that’s a great way to get people excited for an amazing game again.

Super Mario Odyssey - pretty much the only title that can challenge BotW for game of the year in my eyes. The first trailer was mind-blowing, seeing long-form gameplay footage is going to be even more of that.

Fire Emblem Warriors - Hyrule Warriors was a surprisingly fun game to play. Will a follow-up with a far-less-nostalgic IP be as good? We’ll find out.

Xenoblade 2 - the rumour mill is saying this game has been pushed back into the beginning of 2018 and that would not surprise me at all. What would surprise me is not seeing gameplay footage of this game.

Pokemon follow-up stuff - the recent Direct announcing Pokken Switch and Ultra Sun/Moon seemed custom-made to remove the need for Pokemon things in the E3 Direct, but we’ll still definitely have Treehouse segments for all things Pokemon, and the new 3DS sequels will be the cornerstone of any dedicated 3DS segment / montage in the Direct itself.

Mario Rabbids game - yeah, I’m as shocked this is actually real as you probably are. I don’t anticipate a big focus in Nintendo’s stream, since Ubisoft will have presumably already covered this themselves earlier. Also, Rayman cameo please?

Sonic Forces / Mania - Sega doesn’t have a major place to make announcements at most E3s, so if they were going to do a reveal of something special, they’d probably join up with Nintendo. I’d put money on some Nintendo-specific items for the Sonic Forces character creator (Mario hat, etc).

Surprises that seem likely Animal Crossing Switch - it’s been four years since the last proper Animal Crossing game and, at this point in Nintendo’s history, it’s pretty much their third pillar franchise after Mario and Zelda. Or maybe I just think that because it’s my favourite series in all of gaming. Nintendo put a heck of a lot of effort into their terrible Mario Party spin-off on Wii U, which makes me think a lot of the modelling and early design work for a proper Wii U sequel was already done before it got moved to Switch. Also, there’s a mobile app coming in early 2018, and tying that into a proper Switch entry makes sense to me. (I already use a phone app to track my New Leaf progress)

A proper Metroid sequel - there will be much gnashing of teeth if this game isn’t at least confirmed to be in development. If Nintendo value their hardcore crowd’s feelings at least a little bit, they should show something.

Super Smash Bros for Switch - just a straight-up Deluxe version of the Wii U edition, like with Mario Kart 8. Add the Inklings, Ice Climbers, all the DLC and a handful of other new things. Print money.

Virtual Console confirmations - maybe not in the main video, but Reggie is going to give some kind of firm answer on the lack or appearance of a VC service for Switch. 

Surprises that will probably never happen An exclusive Platinum Games announcement - Maybe it’s Bayonetta 3, maybe it’s Wonderful 102, maybe it’s something totally different. But Nintendo had a great relationship with Platinum last generation, and I want to see what they can do with the Switch.

F-Zero Switch - the Switch already has a great selection of fast anti-grav racing games, including Mario Kart 200c mode, but nothing beats the original.

GameCube games on the VC - do I think that we’ll see some more GameCube era remasters on Switch at some point? Probably, yes. Will we get a wide selection of GameCube games available to download on a regular basis? Probably not.

EVERYBODY ELSE

I play a fair amount of PC games and I do own a PS4, even though I barely play the latter any more. Still, I’m definitely keeping an eye out for the following:

More classic PlayStation - Ratchet and Clank was okay, the recent Wipeout collection is great and the Crash Trilogy is my most anticipated PS4 release right now. If they announce remakes (or proper sequels) to Spyro or the original PS1 Ape Escape, I might die of a nostalgia overload.

Steven Universe: Save The Light - this game looks incredible. Please announce it for Switch!

Star Wars Battlefront II - the PS2 originals were the basis of my entire relationship with my younger brother (okay, not true - but we drove our mum crazy with its cries of “losing command posts”). I outright hated the beta for the reboot and never bought it. I’m hoping for full local multiplayer, stronger single-player content and just an all-around more fun game.

Spider-Man - the PS2 version of Spider-Man 2 is still among my favourite games of all time. Insomniac have the skills to make this a great game.

God of War - I’ll admit, the God of War games were something of a guilty pleasure at the end of my teens. This looks to be going a more grounded route, which may pay off or might totally ruin the indulgence factor. We’ll find out!

State of Decay 2 - the first State of Decay, though buggy as hell on my PC, was a really fun and unique zombie action-survival game. A full new-generation upgrade could make this a genre-leader.

Cuphead - JUST RELEASE THE DAMN GAME ALREADY.

There’s probably a bunch of games I’m forgetting, but these are the titles weighing heaviest on my mind as E3 is about to begin. What games are you looking forward to?

[thegeeklee]

The Best Upcoming Games of 2017

2016 was a great year for games, and 2017 is shaping up to be a good year as well (and there might even be some surprise releases we haven’t event heard of yet). Here’s my 20 of the games I’m most looking forward to in 2017, potentially in chronological order. And yes… they’re mostly adventure games…

Quarter 1 2017

Night In The Woods – 22nd February 2017 (PC)

I was lucky enough to visit to check out an indie game exhibition at the EMP Museum in Seattle a couple of years ago. I played a demo of Night In The Woods there, not even realising that it hadn’t come out yet (nor that it wouldn’t come out for another 2 years from then). You wouldn’t have known because it was looking as slick then as it is now. It’s 2D sidescrolling adventure game focused on narrative. A cat known as Mae returns home from College to her home town of Possum Springs and thus begins the journey of life. It’s got a bizzare, slightly hipster vibe and morbid humour to it. It’s quite unique. If you want to get a taste of it, you can  try out for free two prologue demos (Longest Night and Lost Constellation) here: https://finji.itch.io/

Paradigm - Early 2017 (PC, MAC)

While we’ve seen a lot of point n click remasters of classic Lucasfilm games, and a heap of Telltale’s evolution of the genre, we’ve not had many games that have truly evoked the spirit of those classic 90’s adventure games. Enter Paradigm.

Paradigm is a surreal point-and-click adventure game set in the strange and post apocalyptic world of Krusz; a land inspired by a mix of Eastern Europe and the 70’s and 80’s. You play as the unattractive yet over-confident mutated Paradigm; who must prevail through inconvenient trials to overcome the insecure yet tyrannical sloth antagonist, Olof!

Paradigm has been developed by Jacob Janerka, whom I don’t personally know (though have had a couple of chats with), but is based in the same city as me, Perth, Western Australia. The detail of the art is awesome. The game was originally supposed to be released in January 2017, but got delayed. Going by what’s left to complete the game, I think there’s a good chance of a quarter 1 release for this game. I’m just surprised this game hasn’t been picked up by Double Fine Presents or Devolver for distribution. You can try out a free demo here: http://www.paradigmadventure.com/

 Thimbleweed Park - Early 2017 (PC, MAC, XB1, iOS, Android)

If Paradigm takes us back to the style of classic 90’s point n click adventures, Thimbleweed Park authentically takes us back to the 80’s. And whom better to take us there than the legendary Ron Gilbert, one of the Lucasfilm originals, responsible for iconic games such as Maniac Mansion and Monkey Island.

A body has been found in the river, bloated and pixelated from the decay of a death come too soon. Agents Ray and Reyes arrive and are immediately suspicious of each other’s intentions. A cursed clown, a disinherited game designer, and the ghost of pillow salesmen join the story and add their own complications. Play and switch between all five characters as you explore the vast, strange, and manipulative world of Thimbleweed Park while unravelling a dark and humorous neo-noir mystery.

Thimbleweed Park perfectly evokes the style of Maniac Mansion, but with update amazing looking pixel graphics, with some really nice lighting effects that really give it a feel of a cross between the X-Files and Twin Peaks. While still no confirmed date, I think it’s pretty safe to say this will come out first quarter. The biggest challenge for me is deciding whether to play it on PC or iOS.

 South Park: The Fractured But Whole - Early 2017 (PC, PS4, XB1)

South Park is a TV show I’ve watch since the first season came out, but it’s only been in more recent years that I’ve realised it’s true brilliance as the show has got more political over the years (while never picking a side, instead making fun of all sides). What puzzled me was why the South Park: The Stick of Truth game flew under the radar for me. I don’t think I even got it on release day. It may have been not until it was like half price that I grabbed it. What a mistake that was, because it was a perfect recreation of the show. It was literally like you were controlling the cartoon. All the humour and characters were there and it also done well with parodying the RPG genre.

While Stick of Truth had Cartman and the gang dressing up as fantasy characters, The Fractured But Whole has the kids of South Park switch it up by dressing up as Superheros instead. This will be a day one purchase for me this time round. Trey and Matt return, being heavily involved in the production of the game. It’s looking as slick as the last game, while aiming to improving the depth of the combat. It was originally supposed to come out early December 2016, it’s now aiming for “Early 2017”, so expect this in quarter 1, possibly early March 2017.

 Mass Effect Andromeda - 21st March 2017 (PC, PS4, XB1)

Mass Effect is one of my favourite game series of all time. As such, Mass Effect Andromeda should be my most anticipated game of 2017. Yet I’m cautious to get too excited about it. Perhaps it’s because some of the key team members behind the original triology are no longer involved in the production of the game. Perhaps it’s the fact the new characters aren’t looking the greatest, and will struggle to meet the lofty heights set by the original cast. Will choice actually really matter this time round?

Still it’s still gonna be a Mass Effect game, and even if turns out to not live up to the original trilogy’s standards, it will still be a decent game. It may also improve on the previous games in some areas. I’d be happy if Mass Effect had no combat at all, so Andromeda’s focus on semi open world exploration should hopefully take away some of it’s combat focus.

Mass Effect Andromeda is set 600 years after the original trilogy, seeing human kind searching for new planets to setup shop in a new galaxy. We will be the aliens. We will be the invaders. It should make for some interesting galactic politics. Despite my concerns this is a day 1 purchase for me, and no doubt will consume me as explore every section of it’s galaxy within the main game and likely DLC (though no season pass has been announced). If they do this right, it’s an early contender for game of the year for me.

 Tokyo 42 – Early 2017 (PC)

Tokyo 42 is described as  the lovechild of Syndicate and GTA 1. Set in a future Tokyo, the game will see you become an assassin and uncover a dark conspiracy that will affect everyone. With open-world single player and competitive multiplayer, you will buy and use a host of weapons and tools to approach the many challenges of this beautiful little world.

This is a game that is pretty much selling me purely on art style. The Japanese influenced isometric graphics sucker me in. Unfortunately it would likely end up on my pile of shame of games I haven’t gotten around to playing much like the spiritual successor to Syndicate, Satellite Reign. As such it’s def on my radar for this year, but probably not a day 1 purchase.

 Quarter 2 2017

Little Nightmares - 28th April 2017 (PC, PS4, XB1)

Little Nightmares is the only game from here on that has a confirmed release date. Looking like something straight out of Tim Burton’s mind, it also reminds me of this stop animation movie about Tom Thumb that came out in the 90s.

This game is set to be like a dark version of Little Big Planet, or a brighter version of Limbo. Hopefully it plays as well as it looks. It’s got triple A game style, with an indie game price (only $20USD), so this is going to be one I’ll certainly give the benefit of the doubt and try out close to launch if Mass Effect or some other game isn’t still consuming my life.

 Tacoma - Q2 2017 (PC, MAC, XB1)

Tacoma is the long awaited second game from the developers of Gone Home, a game that really changed my gaming life. Along with Dear Esther, essentially birthed the genre of FPX  (First Person Explorers), or the more derogatory term of Walking Simulators. What these games did was strip away the combat elements of First Person Shooters like Bioshock and just create a game focus on world and narrative building. To some sections of the gaming community, gameplay to them means shooting things, so to these types of gamers, Gone Home wasn’t even a game. But to more mature gamers, this was exactly the sort of game they’ve been waiting and really inspired me to want to get into indie game development.

Gone Home was set in ordinary American home. Tacoma takes things in an opposite direction to an abandoned space station. This should be one of my most anticipated titles. A FPX set in space from Fullbright? Sign me up! But I am a bit cautious and I’ll tell you why. Because most FPX games are developed by small indie studios, the way they get away with it is by not physically seeing characters in the game. Unfortunately Tacoma takes the path of having avatars play back memory like sequences not too dissimilar to Everybody’s Gone To The Rapture. I hope this pays off, but I am a bit sceptical about it. Still just out of respect for the brilliance of Gone Home, this is definitely a day one purchase for me.

 Sometimes Always Monsters - TBC 2017 (PC)

How can a game made in RPG Maker be possibly my most anticipated game of 2017? Because it was possibly my most anticipated game of 2016! Let me tell you why. I watched a review of the original game Always Sometimes Monsters. The reviewers seemed to be deeply affected by the game. I couldn’t see how this low res, generic looking JRPG style game could be any good. Yet when I saw it for cheap enough, I decided to give it a spin. I’m so glad I did, as it’s one of my favourite games of all time, and find myself regularly discussing it with others.

The reason being is choice. Many may have been disappointed to find their choices in the Mass Effect trilogy has little effect on the ending of the series. What Always Sometimes Monsters didn’t have in the graphics department, it certainly made up in having possibly the best choice/consequence mechanics I’ve ever played in a game. Think of Grand Theft Auto if it was presented as a pixel art American version of a JRPG with no combat. Instead you are constantly presented life choices in the game where by there rarely ever is a right answer, and all choices can lead to perceived negative outcomes. It’s just like real life!

Sometimes Always Monsters continues this journey. In fact if you’ve played the original game you can use your save file and continue on with the same character in the sequel with all your choices you made affecting the future game. It’s got an improved art style this time round that I’m really digging. It was supposed to come out in 2016, but didn’t quite make it. There’s no solid release date, so I’m chucking this in the quarter 2 section. If you don’t believe me how great this game is (and it won’t be for everyone), pick up the original game and try out it. It’s regularly on sale for a couple of dollars. If you dig it, you’ll want to play it through anyways so you can continue the story on in the second game.

 Knights and Bikes – Q2 2017 (PC, MAC, PS4)

Kinghts and Bikes is a co-op adventure about childhood, inspired by The Goonies, Secret of Mana & Earthbound, from developers on Tearaway, LittleBigPlanet, Ratchet & Clank. If it’s hipster style doesn’t grate me, the innocent nature of this game could very well be infectious, much like a non-dark version of Stranger Things. Secret of Mana is one of my favourite games of all time, and Little Big Planet was always an undeniable polished game series, so there is great potential here. I’m interested in the fact it has co-op (much like Secret of Mana), so hopefully I can convince someone to jump on the couch and play this through with me.

It was recently picked up to be published by Double Fine Presents, which is perfect, considering it’s similarities to Broken Age and Costume Quest. It doesn’t have a set release date but I’m estimate a late quarter 2 arrival.

 Cuphead - TBC 2017 (PC, XB1)

Cuphead has been popping up and grabbing people’s attention every now and the past few reason, and for good reason. It’s art style is authentic interpretation of classic early animation (think Disney’ Steam Boat Willy) style. The way this game is looks and moves is astounding.

My only concern is this bullet-hell game supposedly has a brutally hard difficulty level. That does not bode well for people who suck at games, but it’s certainly not gonna stop me trying. It’s painstakingly hand drawn, which gives good reason why it’s been delayed so much. With a whole 11 months more to release it within, it will surely come out this year finally. I’m predicting a release before July.

 Quarter 3 2017

Full Throttle Remastered – TBC 2017 (PC, PS4, VITA)

I’ve spoken about Paradigm and Thimbleweed Park which both pay tribute to different eras of Lucasfilm point n click adventures. Well here’s a remaster of a classic Lucasfilm game that I’m looking forward to finally playing. Full Throttle by Tim Schafer is being remastered by his studio Double Fine much like Day of The Tentacle and Grim Fandango. I haven’t played Full Throttle before, but I always remember it’s distinct cartoon style back in 90’s gaming magazines. This finally be my chance to play it. You can play it in it’s classic pixel style, or the new remastered the graphics. The remastered graphics just looked like a smoothed out widescreen version of the original, much like the Day of Tentacle remaster, so I think I’ll play this in the remastered mode. There’s no set date other than 2017, so I’m estimating an early quarter 3 release date at this stage.

Wonder Boy 3 - TBC 2017 (PC, Consoles)

The classic Sega Master System sidescrolling adventure game, Wonder Boy 2 and 3, are some of my favourite games of all time. I like them so much, I’m tempted to make a game myself in the style of it. Well recently two indie devs bet me two it and announced two Wonder Boy inspired games, both likely to release in 2017. Wonder Boy 3 will be re-skin/re-master of the original Wonder Boy 3. I never owned Wonder Boy 3 as a kid. A friend had, but I only every got the occasional go of it. I now own it as part of my retro game collection, but perhaps this remaster will be the way I play it through from start to finish. I think I prefer the original art style, as this remaster has a very “flash” art style to it, that I’m rarely too keen on, but I will certainly give it a go, based purely on my devotion to Wonder Boy.

 Monster Boy and the Cursed Kingdom - TBC 2017 (PC, PS4, XB1, Switch)

The other Wonder Boy inspired game is not a remaster, but more so a spiritual successor. After a few different incarnations, Monster Boy and the Cursed Kingdom does come across as a modern version of Wonder Boy. It unfortunately has a similar “flash” style of art work to it much like the Wonder Boy remaster, but perhaps there’s no other way to approach it without a total pixel art throw back. Whether this can live up the legend of Wonder Boy games, or if it will turn out to be a cheap copy is remained to be seen (Mighty No.9 reportedly didn’t no do well recapturing the magic of Mega Man). Alas, much like the Wonder Boy 3 remaster, I will be grabbing it anyways.

 Memories of a Broken Dimension – TBC 2017 (PC)

You dredge the satellite transmission. Awash in static, harsh structures emerge. Trace a guide line through crushing atmosphere; phantom signals lead to encoded relics. Exhumed from a frozen void, fragmented ruins assemble. But when the stream thaws, no system can handle this overflow...

That’s the description of Memories of a Broken Dimension. If you haven’t guessed already it’s going to be a very dark, abstract experimental game. It’s visually right up my alley, feeling like a music video to my favourite music. I haven’t played it yet but there’s a free early prototype available at https://xra.itch.io/memory-of-a-broken-dimension . I’m not sure what to expect with this game, but perhaps it will turn out to be one the surprise life changing games of 2017. We shall see…

 Overland – TBC 2017 (PC, MAC)

Overland is a squad-based survival strategy game with procedurally generated levels set in post-apocalyptic North America. Every random level is full of close calls and hard choices. Manage allies, fuel supplies, medkits and weapons by making the right choices on the procedural roadmaps.

The art style for this game has certainly grabbed me, and the premise sounds interesting. It could have a lot of replayability to it. My issue is I really want to play this on a touch screen like a phone or tablet. Alas only PC has been announced as a platform. Much like Tokyo 42, I’m not sure I’d actually play it on PC, so I may sit it out for a while an hope for a mobile port in the future. If you are keen for it now though, you can purchase an early access version of the game at http://overland-game.com/

 Quarter 4 2017

Red Dead Redemption 2 - Q3/Q4 2017 (PS4, XB1)

Quarter 4 is usually the time of the year the big Triple A titles fight out for the Christmas dollar, and I expect this year to be no different. Red Dead Redemption 2 was announced last year, with not much information to go by. It’s hard to know if John Marston will feature in it. One thing that is hinted at though is that likely after the success of GTA Online, there will be a strong multiplayer component to the game. Red Dead Redemption was undoubtedly Rockstar at it usual impeccable level.

I didn’t get into it so much due to be not being into Western/Period piece settings. However I can not deny the quality of this world building and have no doubt that RDR2 will end up on many gamer’s game of the year lists. Essentially, if Rockstar makes something, I’m gonna get it. It’s that simple. No firm release date yet, but I’m going to assume a November launch.

 Uncharted The Lost Legacy - TBC 2017 (PS4)

Speaking of the other giants of world building, if Rockstar are the kings of open world games, then Naughty Dog are certainly the kings of Action Adventure games. Uncharted 4 was a great game that made my top ten of 2016. What likely started out as a DLC for Uncharted 4, The Lost Legacy has evolved into a full stand alone game featuring Chloe and Nadine from the Uncharted series as the protagonists. The announcement trailer had a much darker feel to it than the usual Uncharted series, while still being identifiable as part of that world. We’re not talking The Last of Us dark, but whether the whole game has this darker tone or not for the whole, or if it was just this particular scene, we shall wait and see.

One of my criticisms of Uncharted games is it often felt like it dragged on an extra 5-10 hours longer than it should have, often filling it up and stopping progress with waves of generic military goons. The Lost Legacy is meant to be somewhat in between the length of The Last of Us Left Behind DLC (approx. 3 hours) and the full Uncharted 4 game (approx. 17 hours). This should see The Lost Legacy clock in around 10 hours which could be the perfect length, which certainly makes me look forward to diving into this game. When that will be, I dunno, but I’m guessing in the second half of the year sometime.

Cyberpunk 2077 – TBC (PC, PS4, XB1)

While I do own The Witcher 3 (it came free with my graphics card), I’ve never played a Witcher game. Not because I don’t think it would be a good game, but when I’m prioritising my game playing time, I have to pick games in settings I’m interested in. I’m not really interested in fantasy settings (hence only 3 hours in Skyrim on my belt compared to my 120 hours in Fallout 4). My favourite settings are based in the future, whether it be set in a dystopian nuclear wasteland (Fallout 4), a shiny galactic universe (Mass Effect) or dirty grimey cyberpunk world (Shadowrun). Cyberpunk you say? Yes the neon drenched, acid rain, neo noir blade runner esque worlds are my favourite worlds of all regardless of the medium.

The Witcher 3 is so acclaimed by critics and fans alike, I constantly feel like I’m missing out. When CD Projekt Red announced it was making a Cyberpunk 2077, I realised I will finally get the chance to experience their quality game making.  While I have had no association with the original Cyberpunk 2077 license, if the Witcher is really is “that good”, then applying that team to a cyberpunk game could very well end up in my favourite games of all time list.

Still we know very little about the game, other than it will have a multiplayer component (which is exciting). The game was first announced 4 years ago, with a concept art trailer released in January 2013 show and telling very little. We’ve literally heard or seen nothing since. The developer has said it wasn’t going to talk about it any more until after Witcher 3 was done. The Witcher 3 and all of it’s DLC is now doubt, so expect a big announcement at E3 later this year. Hopefully it will be a Fallout 4 style announcement that tells us it’s coming out in November, but there is very much the chance we won’t see it until 2018. At the very least we should at least know and see more of the game this year.

 Squadron 42 (Star Citizen) – TBC 2042 (PC)

I am a veteran backer of Star Citizen from early 2013. I religiously followed the development of this game for the first year or two. It wasn’t until I saw them miss the original release date of November 2014, and just about every other single deadline they’ve set since, that I’ve noticed the cracks. I now have little faith in the game ever being completed despite the over $142 million in crowd funding (more than most Triple A titles). I’ve resigned myself to the fact my money has probably been thrown in a buggy tech demo equivalent of a fire. While Star Citizen is to be a MMO, it has a single player campaign called Squadron 42. Oh how I wish they had just made Squadron 42 first with a limited scope, and then later built a MMO based on that. We could have very well had a game by now, over 5 years since Chris Roberts original prototype. Instead we have 2 games with a never ending scope creep which will never be reigned due to the cult like obsessive white knight fans that destroy any discussion of constructive criticism of the game to defend how many 1000s of dollars they’ve spent on concept images of spaceships (which kinda defeats the point of crowd funding a game).

Unfortunately despite all of it’s money, nearly 6x the amount the developer CIG said it needed to “fully fund” the development of the game, the lack of progress see the very likely scenario that they will run out of money before the game is complete, with likely lawsuits to follow. Still I hope CIG prove me wrong, because I do want to play this game one day, but when that day will be, and whether when that day comes, if the game even ends up being any good are another matter altogether. Squadron 42 does feature a big cast such as Mark Hamil and Gillian Anderson, but what little they’ve shown of it (we haven’t see anything from it for about 6 months), it’s not been very impressive, in particular a military speech scene was quite cheesy. The list of problems with Star Citizen could fill a whole blog post of it’s own. Squadron 42 has missed many release deadlines, so if at least the first chapter of it doesn’t release this year, even the most blindly devoted fans of this game will surely have to see the end is nigh. Let’s hope CIG get their act together, and pay back the people who put so much faith in them.

 Some Surprise Indie or Triple A title

Finally, there will surely be a surprise game we don’t even know about yet that will blow people away. Whether it will be a surprise last minute launch announcement like Fallout 4 (maybe Half Life 3?) or the next break away indie hit like Stardew Valley. There’s a lot of games to look forward to this year, but perhaps our favourite games will be ones yet to be expecting.

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