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wendibird · 4 years ago

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SPN 15X18 Observations

Let me preface this by saying, I apologize ahead of time if I and/or my notes seem a bit cynical. I’ve had a rough week. (I think everyone has.) But for whatever it’s worth, here are my notes, observations and meandering thoughts on tonight’s episode.

Oh, one more thing though. For episodes 19 and 20 (and anything really to do with them) in addition to my usual tags for the episodes and season, I’ll be tagging them with #dontspoilthefinalhunt for any who wish to avoid spoilers for them.

Pre-Episode thoughts:

So, I’ve heard enough rumors already to know that mooooost likely Cas is going to die this episode. And let me be clear, he’s my second favorite character in this show after Sam. But I have trouble feeling strong emotions for something when I go in knowing that I should. But I’m going to try to go into this one with an open mind.

Also, in the past I liked Billy as a character because though she still had some biases, she still seemed mostly neutral, like OG Death had been. And from previews it looks like maybe they’re turning her into an outright villain like they’ve done with God? Yey.

- Where’s Chuck? Did he just bampf off?

- So he’s gonna blow up in the Empty?

- Yep.

- So now Dean cares about him? (Jack)

- Poor Jack. He doesn’t get what’s going on.

- Yey! Jack is back!

- “You’ve snapped me out of worse.” When?

- They’ve prayed to Michael? Yey for not overlooking options! (Not being sarcastic.)

- Charlie!!!! And yey she has a girlfriend! (Are they gonna kill her?)

- Aaaaaaand there she goes.

Commercial thoughts:

So, I get the whole narrative idea of taking a character that everyone assumed was kinda on your side and revealing that they were always working towards their own interests. I get it. And it can be effective. I still don’t like it with Billy.

I’m glad Dean said what he did to Sam. Even if Sam says (and probably thinks) that he doesn’t need to hear the apology, sometimes it needs to be said anyway. And I think saying it all helped Dean a bit too. He needed to know that Sam understood.

I’m glad Jack’s back though!

- Oh Jack. You’re worth more than your death.

- I’m glad Cas is saying this, but sadly, I think the “we” only applies to him and Sam.

- So Jack is powerless when he came back? Did the bomb thing burn out it all out?

*is confused*

- Yey! Eileen! (Please don’t have her just vanish….)

- I’ma cry….

- Oh no……

- “If I let myself go there I’ll lose my mind. I can’t go there right now.”

- Oh Sam. Always trying to push down his feelings because there’s other shit going on.

- Hug!!!!!!!

- Sam’s gonna drive Eileen’s car. Just shoot me now….

Commercial thoughts:

So yeah… Wonder what Billy’s plan is here with this random picking-off of people but not like, all at once. She COULD do it all at once, she has the personel. (The Empty didn’t kill all her reapers.)

I think she’s setting her own kind of trap or something.

Also, I take it Chuck just vanished? They didn’t say anything about it but that seems to be the impression given.

Still pisses me off though that after bringing Eileen back and only half-assing her role they just had her vanish. (At least Rowena’s in charge of hell, so if she wound up down there again, she SHOULD get a better shake than she did the first time.)

- Donna!!!!

- Eileen’s Car…… *cries*

- Sam’s got so much emotional stuff going on this episode. He’s got this grief for Eileen in the background and he’s worried about Jack and trying to help him, and trying to save all these people.

- OUch……. Double ouch. (Were in references to the expressions on Sam’s face when Donna first comforted him about Eileen and then Charlie made her comment about not wanting anyone else to go through what she did.)

- (Yes, I’m worried about Dean and Cas too.)

- Sam’s still their “Chief”.

- That's weird….. Why does his touch kill plants? (Not people at least.)

- Yeah, she (Billy) was waiting.

- Oh dear…..

- So what IS causing this?

- NO! NOT DONNA!

- WTF?!

Commercial thoughts:

So Chuck is doing this? I mean, it makes sense. He’s gotten petty enough. But now what?

Also poor Sam. I mean, he tries so hard to save people. And time after time it just doesn’t work out. It could be seen as part of “Chuck’s Plan” because of how he wants his big story to go. So now I guess he’s just being more direct about it. Sam isn’t allowed to do well unless it’s been authorized by the Narrative. (AKA, him.) When he tries, he just gets shown the error of trying. (But he’s beaten down if he doesn’t try too. Like S8.)

Also still don’t like how Billy’s character has changed.

- She thinks she’s Freddy Kruger?

- Heart attack? His first “death” was supposed to be his heart. (In “Faith”) Wonder if that’s intentional here?

- Oh god… please don’t tell me they’re going to….

Commercial thoughts:

Okay. I don’t ship Destiel. At all. I’m not an anti though, cause I’m firmly a ship-and-let-ship kind of person.

But that scene while very heartfelt just didn’t do anything for me because it felt more than a bit like revisionistic history. However, I will say, congrats to the Destiel fandom. They killed Cas, but that scene was definitely for you all.

They’re killing off so many people though it’s like… this is one of my problems when I’m going into a situation where I’m “supposed” to feel a certain way. It makes me awkward. (Like the Episode “Lebanon”.)

- Gah, poor Sam.

- WTF?! Is Chuck taking everyone in the world?

- FUCK?! THAT’S WHERE THEY’RE LEAVING IT OFF?!?!?!?

Okay, so my hope is now, since they’ve gone THIS far with what Chuck is doing, that unless the ultimate resolution of the story is going to be “everything goes away forever” they’re going to have to leave some way to bring people back.

I’ll be honest, I had trouble connecting emotionally with this episode. But that may not be the episode’s fault. I’ve been working some long hours lately and I just today found out that someone I work with has tested positive for Covid. (I just got tested today.) Plus with all the election stuff still going on, there’s a lot of real-world things on my mind.

Also, as I said, knowing that these are the final episodes, it’s pretty much a given that things are going to ramp up. (And the people involved with the show have been telegraphing the hell out of Cas’ death, so it wasn’t unexpected. And I get it. Some people really do need that time to prepare emotionally and adjust their expectations.) But I still feel like a lot of the things they’re asking/expecting us to care about, they haven’t put the actual effort into the storytelling to make that happen. I love the absolute shit out of Eileen, but for most of this season she’s been written as little more than an accessory to Sam. And just so he can have some “feels” about someone. And then she gets vanished without so much as a last glimpse of her? (And this episode was filmed before everything closed down due to Covid.)

I mean, his reaction STILL tore me up, because Jared is that damn good at conveying those emotions. But once again, like LAST time they killed her off, it was amongst so much other shit that there’s barely time for him to even feel it. In fact, he even said that he couldn’t because of what else was going on. And by the end of the episode pretty much everyone else in the world is Thanos-snapped too?

And I get it, this episode is clearly not about her. It’s about the whole situation. It just still feels like a disservice to the character.

And speaking of disservices to characters…

So, about what Cas said in his speech/confession to Dean. The revisionistic retelling of history has been strong this season, but that was especially bad. We know from past episodes that Cas has ALWAYS had “a crack in his chassis” and always had sympathy and love for humanity. We know that he cares about a lot of people, and has put a lot of effort into becoming a better being. (Just a few episodes ago he talked about how he truly found his purpose when he became a father. And he also had talked about finding his true family.) But no. Apparently all of that character development was just because of Dean. What bothers me isn’t that he told Dean “I love you.” What bothers me is that it truly feels like Cas’ entire character was reduced to one half of a ship.

Okay, and what also bothers me is that Sam was literally an afterthought in all of that. When for most of these years, Sam has been the one who’s been the most supportive and understanding of Cas. Sam is the one who lately has had the closer connection with him. But naw. He ain’t important, except as an extension of Dean.

And I get they were trying to throw some fanservice to that corner of the fandom, especially since Cas was slated to die 3 episodes before the end. But they could have done it better. I’ve read fanfic that handled Destiel in a more believable way. (I was reading for the Saileen content as they’re often put in as a sister-ship and it can be hard to find fic of them without it.) And technically this wasn’t even requited. Dean looked more shocked than anything, though I admit that's up to interpretation. But someone in one of the discord servers I'm in posted a picture of that part of the script for this episode and it outright said in the directorial notes that Cas said what he did knowing that Dean didn't/couldn't return his affection the same way. So, there is that.

There were other aspects of the episode I also had thoughts on, like, wtf is up with Jack not having his usual powers but wilting plantlife? Some extension of the bomb-thing? Is he radioactive now to anything with “Celestial energy”? But wouldn’t that have made him give Cas problems too? Or is this supposed to be indicating something else? Amara did that too before she started turning lighter, back in Season 11. Is he somehow turning into the Darkness? Or did he come back from the Empty partially possessed by Lucifer? Gah. I don’t even know. I’m just throwing ideas at a dart board now. *LOL*

And at this point, wtf CAN they even do against Chuck? I really don’t know. I’m hoping the next episodes are better, but I know 19 was written by Buckleming and they don’t have the best track record. True, a few of their episodes I’ve actually enjoyed. But sometimes they fall short on writing the Brothers Winchester.

Anyway, I think I’ve probably rambled enough for now.

#spn 15x18 spoilers #spn season 15 spoilers #episode review #my thoughts #some salt #sam winchester #dean winchester #castiel #jack kline #eileen leahy #donna hanscum #au bobby singer #au charlie bradbury #billy/death #meg!empty #character death

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kob131 · 4 years ago

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Help For Getting Into The Fate Franchise

So I saw a video ripping on people talking about getting into the Fate franchise. So I guess I wanted to throw in my opinion.

Let’s Be Real

There is no neat way of getting into the Fate franchise. Partially because it was built on top of a backstory that was written second (Fate/Zero), partially because Fate itself is a part of a wider group of works written by Kinko Natsu. Because of this, it’s really intimidating at the face of it. However it’s actually easier to get into than it seems.

Long but fruitful

Play the visual novel. It’s a 60-100 hour affair but it’s the original work with nothing else really complicating things. Even the few other Nasuverse concepts in there get explained and you’ll be given the best basis to understand things. It doesn’t have an OFFICAL English translation...but that’s never stopped people. I think Mirror Moon’s Realta Nue translation is the best. You don’t get the sex scenes but from what I’ve heard, they weren’t that good in the first place.

... Yeah about that-

Fate/Stay Night is in fact originally an eroge or visual novel with sex scenes. The franchise mostly moves away from that but it explains some...oddities. And yes, that means the doujins are using canonical info to justify the copious amounts of sex.

Short but flawed

Watch UFOTABLE’s Fate/Zero / Unlimited Blade Works anime adaptations. Which ever first really. They demand less of a commitment and you can even watch it and do something small on the side. Issue is, these two kind of overlap on each other. Fate/Zero spoils the Heaven’s Feel movies but UBW spoils Fate/Zero. You’re kind of fucked no matter what you do so you just kind of tank the spoilers if the Visual Novel just isn’t feasible.

All I can definitively say is watch the Heaven’s Feel movies last because they seem structured as one big finale. And even then you can still justify watching Fate/Zero last.

Okay, what now?

Watch/read/play whatever. Unless it’s a direct continuation of a previous Fate property (like Fate/Extella is a sequel to Fate/EXTRA)- Most Fate properties require at most what I listed above.

Fate/Hollow Atraxia is the psuedo sequel to FSN and deals with certain elements that don’t get explored much in other works (Like the character Avenger).

Fate/EXTRA plays off your expectations from Fate/Stay Night and the games can be kind of enjoyable (from what I hear).

Fate/Apocrypha is an alternate universe that focuses on large scale fights and has fan favorites like Karna or Astolfo.

Fate/Strange Fake is basically porn for Fate fans.

Fate/Prototype is an interesting look into....well...the prototype for FSN

Fate/Requiem...you’ll have to tell me about because I can’t find too much info on it.

Fate/Grand Order is like a giant expensive porn store for Fate fans (...by that I mean it introduces, expands upon and deals with a fuckton of important characters to the Nasuverse but is a gacha game which is a format that varies from person to person).

Just choose one after your intro, you can’t really go wrong.

Okay...but why do so many of these characters look alike?

*Sigh* Two words: Takashi Takeuchi.

He’s the character designer from FSN who really likes to draw the Saber Class servant from that game. Because of that (along with Saber being incredibly profitable)- some characters get her likeness.

I’ll run through them with you quick. (spoilers)

Saber- Wears a blue ballgown dress. Is King Arthur name Arturia(Artoria/Altria) If the name ‘Saber’ is brought up by a fan, it likely refers to her.

Saber Alter - Pale, corrupted version of Saber. Treated as a different character that is based off her. Not a villain.

Arturia Lancer - Grown up version of Saber. Another alternate version that uses King Arthur’s spear. For more info on her, see Fate/Grand Order and it’s Camelot SIngularity.

Arturia Lancer Alter - Same deal as the previous Alter. Is based on the myth of King Arthur being a member of the wild hunt. Sadly mostly used for boob jokes.

Red Saber - wears a red version of Arturia’s dress. Is Emperor Nero. Basically made that way because Fate/EXTRA is fanservice in more ways than one. Possibly an ancestor to Arturia.

Saber of Red - Different character. Usually seen in a red and grey suit of armor, has messier hair. Is Mordred from Arthurian myth. Takes after the versions that portray him as a villain (...kind of). Is an artificial clone of her father. Long story short- Merlin created the first futa and Morgan Le Fay did what she does best.

Mysterious Heroine X/Mysterious Heroine XX- Joke characters making fun of the number of Saberfaces (characters that look like Arturia). Alternate version of Arturia.

Okita Souji/Sakura Saber- Another Joke character at the Saberface deal. Looking like Arturia never seems to be mentioned. Used more for jokes around how sick her real life counterpart was.

Proto-Saber- Arthur Pendragon. Is effectively the OG Arturia, was suppose to be a thing before the original duo’s genders got switched. Least likely to cause confusion.

There, NOW you should be ready....for the basics. EVerything else is up to you.

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tanstar · 5 years ago

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Rambling about RE2R and RE3R’s cut content part 1

Part 1: RE2R

So the original re2 is my favourite RE title. It introduced me to the series (I watched my dad play it) and it was the debut of my favourite RE character, Claire Redfield. So I was overjoyed when I learned it was getting remade. Now all I really wanted from this remake was a melding of the original scenarios to create the true canon storyline of re2 and some fun interactions between our characters and I thought that would be a given... So you can imagine my disappointment at what we got. I also love the original re3 and was looking forward to RE3R for similar reasons though I also wanted to see how they’d update Nemesis. Now I’m not saying either are bad games at all, I think both are worth experiencing and purchasing. I just want to air my grievances with both remakes and their cut content but I will also share what I did enjoy.

Also want to say that I know these games are more like reimaginings or retellings but even from that perspective there’s still issues.

Spoilers ahead.

Just a quick list of RE2R’s cut content:

No proper B scenarios that offer a cohesive narrative. A severe lack of notes/files/diaries for lore and worldbuiling. No zapping system. No bowgun. No explosive rounds for the grenade launcher. Robert Kendo’s death isn’t shown. Leon and Claire’s interactions are severely trimmed down. Marvins transformation cutscene isn’t shown. Two playable segments as Ada and Sherry (Sherry’s second playable segment maybe has the darkest scene in the game, as she collapses after falling down the trash disposal chute her mutated father lurches towards her, stands above her and we cut to black and shortly after this we learn from Annette that William is trying to find Sherry to implant his embryos in her). Multiple unique boss fights depending on scenario. Irons’s death is far more gruesome in both scenarios in og 2. Ben has far less screentime. No super lickers. No giant moth and it’s larvae. No spiders. No crows. Barely any music. No classic iconic lines (“You lose, big guy” etc). Plant 43 has lost it’s iconic yonic design in favour of looking like a rainforest or something. The ivy’s are now human plant hybrids instead of mutated plants. No super ivys. The alligator is now a RE6 style chase sequence instead of a boss fight. No factory. No marshalling yard. Birkin’s transformation by injecting himself with the g virus and the cause of the T virus outbreak are far more clear in the original. No street section for the opening of the B scenario and no cutscene or explanation for the helicopter crash. Leon no longer saves an infected Sherry from the sick room and brings her to the train. The train no longer self destructs and Sherry no longer saves the day by stopping the train.

That’s a lot of cuts right? Now of course not all of these cuts were bad decisions. While I like the crows for atmospheric purposes, i can understand their removal. Same with Kendo’s death and Marvin turning into a zombie, they wanted a different approach with these characters and I can accept that. Even the zapping system’s exclusion I can understand because although it was a cool little gameplay element that added to the cohesion of the overlapping story, it’s really not that neccessary. And the exclusion of iconic lines is understandable as I believe narrative should always take precedence over fanservice.

I’m fine with content being cut as long as it’s in favour of the story or is replaced with something else. RE2R did neither of those things. RE3R gets a ton of shit for it’s cut content but RE2R not only did it first but also cut waaaaay more content than RE3R.

RE2R fucked up it's story bad. Og re2 has the strongest narrative of the ps1 trilogy imo with two separate scenarios per character that integrated into two strong narratives. The game throws you straight into the deep end as you navigate the city streets filled with zombies, you watch Kendo be eaten alive as the zombies break into his shop and finally you reach the RPD. And that’s only the A scenario, the B scenario has you witness the cause of the helicopter crash as you make it to the east side of the RPD. From the beginning the og re2 puts in the effort to tell the whole story of whatever scenario you choose. Like the remake there are certain story beats only one character will face, Claire is the only one to meet Irons and Sherry, Leon meets Ada and Ben( he does meet Sherry in the B scenario but we’ll get there). Also in the original due to Leon giving Claire a radio both characters are able to keep in contact and therefore keep each other up to date on their progress.

So let’s talk a bout the marshalling yard and factory. The marshalling yard is one of my favourite locations in the original. Its atmospheric music, its industrial design and the iconic shot of the train on the turntable with the moon in the background. It’s so foreboding and it leads to an iconic fight with Birkin as you descend to the lab, while protecting either Ada or Sherry (and depending on which scenario you are playing his form will be different). The factory is a small but crucial area to the worldbuilding of og 2 (It’s a cover were Umbrella employees access the underground lab) whereas RE2R has... a sinkhole in the middle of the city. And it’s important in keeping a cohesive overlapping narrative as the reason our protagonists don’t encounter each other in the lab is because the B scenario character has access to the factory. It also contains two iconic scenes for the B scenarios for each character (it should be noted that in the og 2 Mr X is exclusive to the B scenarios). Claire saves Sherry from Mr X, taunts him and then tricks him into falling over the railing into a vat of what looks like molten iron, it’s so badass and it cemented Claire as my favourite character. In Leon’s scenario B Ada arrives to fend off Mr X and protect Leon, she succeeds and Mr X falls over the railing but in the process he nearly kills her, this leads to the kiss between Leon and Ada. No manipulation, just genuine affection for each other. In either B scenario the self destruct sequence is set off by MrX instead of it being exclusively Leons fault like in RE2R. And the factory is important as it gives access to the elevator for the B scenario character to escape to the train. The A and B scenario characters have different methods of escape that make more sense in the original and that comes down to the factory’s inclusion.

So now let’s talk about cut character interactions. In the original Marvin relays to the player the events of re1, I’m fine with this omission as it’s not super important to the overall narrative of re2. Claire and Leon can either reunite in the STARS office or the hallway behind the spade door (Leon also encounters Sherry here but she runs away). Regardless Claire finds out her brother isn’t in the city by reading his diary, Leon gives her a radio so they can stay in contact (which they do, throughout the entire game) and they split up, with Leon looking for an escape route and Claire looking for survivors. Claire’s encounter with chief Irons is very different. The mayor’s daughter’s dead body is sprawled over Irons’s desk as he talks about dealing with the undead and then brings up his hobby of... Taxidermy. It’s just very unsettling and what makes it worse is that earlier before you could access the room, you very clearly hear a woman scream. Once you head into the adjacent room Claire encounters Sherry and radios Leon to tell him. Sherry warns Claire of a monster that is chasing her and runs off again. When Claire returns to Irons’s office he is gone and so is the body of the mayor’s daughter. In Leon’s scenario he meets Ada in the parking lot and she tells him she is looking for her boyfriend John. Now for players who had played re1 this was a neat little reference that tied both games together. With Ada’s assistance Leon gains access to the Cells and meets Ben. Ben willingly locked himself in his cell for safety and won’t leave until Leon finds a way out unfortunately Ben is attacked and either implanted with a G embryo or fatally slashed by Birkin, however he was able to hand over his investigative notes on chief Irons’s corruption and involvement with Umbrella. Likewise when Claire encounters a now crazed irons in his torture chamber, he explains the G virus, Umbrella’s involvement and that Sherry is the daughter of the man responsible for the outbreak. Irons is then either killed from being cut in half by Birkin or from the G embryo. There’s just a lot more build up, subtlety and payoff in the original game that just feels rushed in RE2R and I don’t know why.

Sherry and Claire’s relationship is portrayed pretty well in RE2R. Although their time spent together is severely cut short, like seriously they only know each other for a whole two minutes before Irons drags Sherry off to the orphanage. The original has Claire and Sherry interact way more, with Sherry travelling by your side through parts of the sewers and the entirety of the marshalling yard. Still a good portrayal overall though.

So we have to talk about Ada and Leon. In the original she is at first portrayed as aloof but eventually from her time spent with Leon, she shows her more vulnerable and genuinely caring side. She is a spy and secretly after the g virus but she also genuinely cares for Leon’s safety, almost dying in the B scenario as she protects him from Mr X. RE2R almost get’s this right. She is initially abrasive but warms up to Leon’s sincerity and kindness. The problem is she is far too manipulative. Their first kiss in og 2 only happens the B scenario and is 100% sincere, Ada might be dying from her wounds so it might be the only chance they get. The remake on the other hand comes across as really skeevy and manipulative. In og 2 when Ada confronts Leon on the bridge he doesn’t believe for a second that she’ll hurt him and he’s right, after she falls off the side of the bridge you can inspect her pistol and find out that it wasn’t even loaded! Also I find Leon to be just a bit too naive in RE2R, he acted like a police officer in the original but in the remake he feels more like a boyscout. I can see what they were going for with his arc for RE2R but is just misses the mark for me personally. Not to say he’s awful or anything, he’s still very likable just a bit of a let down in terms of how he’s used in the story. Namely that he really doesn’t get much to do. He saves Ada, sets off the self destruct sequence, kills Mr X with Ada’s help and gets forced to fight G3 by Annette. The most useful thing he does is willingly fight Birkin on the train in the 2nd run to protect Claire and Sherry. In the og 2 B scenario per Claire’s request via radio, Leon carries an infected Sherry to the train, activates the power and opens the gates, fights the super Tyrant and kills it with Ada’s help and then activates the train to finally escape the underground lab. Then he fights G5 Birkin, when they find out the train is going to self destruct he directs Sherry on how to stop the train and our trio are able to escape. The game then ends on Leon’s iconic line “ It’s up to us to take out umbrella.”

And that ending... Oh boy did it not land for me. It’s almost comical how chipper it is considering what’s to come for these characters. Our trio promises to stick together except canonically Claire heads off on her own like five minutes later because Leon knows if she gets taken in by the government it will hinder her quest to find her brother, so he tells her to leave while he looks after Sherry. So Claire leaves and we get the events for Code Veronica. And as for Leon and Sherry, we know from Darkside Chronicles that Leon was blackmailed into working for the government through threats of experimentation on Sherry. He agrees to work for them to protect her but guess what they still turn her into a test subject anyway! And re6 confirms that the experiments where more than Sherry could bare, as she herself tells Jake. Also the fact that Leon and Claire’s friendship never got any developement in RE2R really works against this ending imo.

So what did RE2R get right? Well it has enjoyable puzzles and the solution changes depending on what run you’re playing! While I do miss the soundtrack and think it could have been remixed to fit the tone of the game, the ambient sounds used are spooky and effective. The gore effects are phenomenal. Marvin's expanded role is great, he’s an actual character this time around and it’s sad that we can’t save him. Sherry is adorable and her voice actress does a great job, she’s just incredibly sweet and likable. While Claire can come across a little Moira-ish sometimes, she’s great for the most part. She still get’s to be incredibly caring towards Sherry while also being a total badass who willingly faces down G3. The G3 fight is great and the remixed boss theme is beautiful. William Birkin's transformations are great (though I do wish dog birkin was more like the original), just the detail of his mutated bones and tissue is amazing and grotesque. Speaking of Birkin, the scene where he uses the last of his willpower to kill Mr X and protect Sherry before being overtaken by the g virus completely is so fantastic and perfectly directed. Backtacking/exploration is enjoyable (except the fucking sewers). It has variety of unlockable costumes which is my favourite kind of unlockable. S+ is a fun challenge. The fourth survivor and Tofu modes are really challenging yet fun and have great music, like seriously Hunk’s theme “Looming dread” is fantastic and probably my favourite song in the game. It’s always a joy to see Hunk and he is portrayed perfectly. It’s still an enjoyable game and a good starting point for newcomers, I’d just recommend they play or at least watch a playthroough or the cutscenes of the original to get the full story. Also if you want a fun reimagined, abridged retelling of og re2 then you should look up Darkside Chronicles. The premise is what would happen if Leon and Claire never got separated.

This got waaay longer than I expected so in part 2 I’ll discuss my problems with RE3R and its cut content as well as what I liked.

#resident evil #resident evil 2 remake #resident evil 3 remake #resident evil 2 #rant

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sazorak · 5 years ago

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Every Game I Played in 2019, Ranked

2019 sure was a year that happened where I happened to play some video games. Here’s the ones I played enough to form opinions, in a rough ranked order of preference.

It’s kind of weird that I’ve done this for five years now, but hey. I like to talk about things that I like / dislike. Hopefully you’ll empathize with my complaints, and give ones I enjoyed a try.

As a bonus, I also tweeted about the anime I watched and enjoyed this year.

2015 | 2016 | 2017 | 2018

Orm & Cheep: Narrow Squeaks – 1985 – ZX Spectrum – ★

How far would you go for a joke? For the sake of a joke, I spent an hour beating an incomprehensible, shitty ZX Spectrum Game about Orm & Cheep, an 80s British children show I only know about from a Trash Night video making fun of it.

Orm & Cheep: Birthday Party – 1985 – ZX Spectrum – ★

… and also this one, though Birthday Party is marginally better than Narrow Squeaks. Marginally. Extremely marginally. Congratulations to Orm & Cheap: Birthday Party.

16. River City Girls – 2019 – Switch – ★★★

The style of River City Girls is great. I like a lot of what it’s doing in terms of look and sound. It’s just that… well, River City Ransom’s gameplay was interesting something-like 30 years ago. Gameplay wise, this game hasn’t evolved that much from OG RC Ransom. The combat certainly feels better, but as far as it controls… I can’t tell if it’s not taking advantage of modern controllers and just sticking too close to the original’s control scheme, or if side-scrolling beat-em-ups are themselves just so staid and dated these days that there’s not much to be done. I just wasn’t having much fun, and the RC Ransom progression of new techniques and stat boosting didn’t exactly make me want to keep going.

It’s a real shame because in terms of pure aesthetics and concept, the game is amazing. I just don’t actually enjoy playing it. Oh well!

15. Baba is You – 2019 – Switch – ★★★

The core gameplay concept of Baba is You is fantastic. The way you manipulate nouns and verbs to construct phrases that operate as equations in a physical environment is super interesting. The early goings of the game were quite fun.

The problem I have with this game is that when you hit a wall in it, that wall can sometimes be impenetrable. I found that Baba is You is at times too subtle with its attempt to “teach” you tricks or onboard you into approaches to puzzles; it’s possible to come to solutions without taking away the lesson the designer intended, which can make later puzzles basically impossible.

The difficulty curve feels all over the place; I was extremely high on this game early on, but after getting completely blocked moving forward for hours on end, with the only real recourse being to either look stuff up or stare at past puzzles to try to figure out what apparently crucial lesson I missed despite coming to my own solutions, I ultimately decided to just do something else.

14. Cadence of Hyrule – 2019 – Switch – ★★★

Zelda has great music. Crypt of the Necrodancer has pretty good rhythm-game action. Combine them, and you get… well, it turns out you get a pretty OK procedurally generated Zelda-game with Necrodancer mechanics, I suppose. The appeal is easy to understand, though I’m personally not sure I care much for the final product.

I enjoyed the original Necrodancer well enough as a simple run-based, short-ish rhythm dungeon crawler. The brevity of each given “run” (stemming in part from my own inadequate skill, I suppose) worked well with the style of gameplay, in that it never really became much of a chore.

Meanwhile, I enjoy Zelda as an extended puzzle adventure game where there’s an innate unthinking flow to the actions. I’m not typically thinking much about the moment-to-moment about the actual mechanics of the action; the brain’s desires flow directly to the motion on the screen, as it were.

Combining the two results in a Necrodancer experience that’s way too long, and a Zelda experience that is way harder to control. Add the fact that the procedurally generated world isn’t that interesting and I’m just rather lukewarm on this. Meh!

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13. Super Robot Wars T – 2019 – PS4 – ★★★

It’s fantastic that Super Robot Wars is finally getting proper, high-quality localizations again. It felt like a dream to finally be able to play this franchise again after being forced to stop after the DS era. Playing through the rather roughly translated, and somewhat monotonous SRW OG: Moon Dwellers was good because the OG games tended to have the highest production values and narrative quality (missing out on 2nd OG may have also helped). SRW V was my first foray into the more recent non-OG games, and so shined as something rather fresh to me.

Two years on, and two Super Robot Wars releases later, it’s plain to see that Super Robot Wars’ current annual release cadence is not great. It results in incredibly repetitive, monotonous games that rely heavily on asset reuse— both between games, and even within the same game. Part of the problem is that the derivativeness doesn’t feel additive. It’s not like SRW T is SRW V + SRW X + New Stuff; it’s more that SRW T is a reskinned SRW V, with some heavy series-asset reuse to boot. I think it’d be a bit more tolerable if it felt like these games were building on each other, but every single one feels exactly as slight and mechanically weak.

Super Robot Wars’ combat have not been particularly good from a tactical sense for a long time now. The original OG games were probably the last time the combat was particularly interesting for me, as it presented an actual challenge and difficulty curve. Nowadays, they are entirely fanservice cakewalks, even on the hardest modes. Hell, they’ve apparently decided that increasing the difficulty of the game means you don’t get to chase the special challenge goals, which actually can paradoxically make portions of the hard-mode actually easier than the normal. Bizarre!

I guess the idea is “well, folks are playing this to see the bits, so if it’s hard they won’t!” Which… I disagree? If the gameplay is deeply unsatisfying, why wouldn’t I just watch the damn series? Crossover shenanigans don’t mean much whey you don’t do much with it. Fanservice talking heads ain’t enough!

The addition of Cowboy Bebop and the return of GaoGaiGar and Gunbuster should have had me onboard. The series list for this game is fantastic. But what they do with it is so flat that about 30 chapters in, I just… stopped. It wasn’t worth it. I’d plainly seen all that it had to offer. Easy, slow, and repetitive gameplay isn’t appealing to me, even if I do get to see Spike Spiegel doing sky donuts to take out a Zaku.

Additionally: stop putting Nadesico in these games. The units are boring, the plot is boring. Stop devoting so much time to it! It sucks!!

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12. Ape Out – 2019 – Switch – ★★★★

Ape Out is a game where you’re a big ol’ gorilla murdering guys with guns while dope ass percussive jazz drums play to the action. It’s cool, it’s short, it could honestly probably do with being somewhat shorter, but whatever. I enjoyed it.

BattleTech – 2018 – Steam – ★★★★

Despite being famously a “mecha guy”, BattleTech has never really been my thing. While I’m not opposed to mecha-as-tank-analog, it’s not my primary focus in the genre; I like my robots to be fast, really. I like mecha getting into melee and fucking shit up. Mecha for me is a power fantasy. That’s not really BattleTech / MechWarrior’s thing. That all being said, I quite enjoyed my time with BattleTech, the PC-game rendition of the tabletop thing. It’s a neat turn-based tactical robot combat RPG with an interesting overarching campaign structure… to a point.

The first issue I had is pacing. While the game is turn-based, the combat and movement plays out in real-time. And given how lumbering these robots are, this means that a single mission can take aaaages. Think 45 minutes to an hour for a single mission. It took me about 20-30 hours to get to the campaign’s halfway point, which is when the game really started to sour on me.

The second issue is one of variance. Let me run you through the fundamental loop of the game. You are a mercenary captain that has a ship of mechs and mech pilots, and you fly around from planet to planet taking on jobs. You need money to pay for your ship to keep going, as well as to pay your pilots. It’s expensive to outfit your mechs, and severe damage to them can both REALLY eat into your budget and also take weeks in-game to repair. Missions are rated based on difficulty, and you are expected generally to field a greater “tonnage” of mechs in excess to that difficulty. This all plays out pretty well.

The game starts with you possessing mostly lighter mechs, and as you progress, you’re presented more and more missions in the campaign that require increasingly beefier mechs with more armor and more guns. Whereas in the tabletop game there’s presumably a kind of “point” system by which players are given a limited amount of tonnage that they can field on any given mission (for purposes of balance), there’s no such limit in the game; as such, you’re encouraged to field the four-ish beefiest robots you have, as they’re the most likely to kill everything fast while coming out with the least damage.

How do you get these beefy mechs? Well, you don’t buy them; instead, you’re aiming to kill opposing pilots and leave their robots as much intact as possible so that you can salvage or steal them. It’s kind of amusing; your entire gameplan after a point becomes “how the fuck do I shake this robot around a bunch such that its pilot dies???” It makes sense in practice, but if you think about it for even a second it comes across rather silly. Given you need good mechs to progress, you don’t have much other choice other than just running tonnnsss of missions and hoping you eventually get enough mech fragments to reconstruct some of your own. But beefy-ness isn’t the whole story, as some of the robots you can get just plain suck, regardless of their tonnage. You’re basically rolling dice again and again hoping a robot worthy of stealing shows up so you can kill its friends, and try to kill its pilot as gently as possible. You go through this cycle four times, across the four different weight-classes, until you’ve got what you need in terms of a team of class-appropriate mechs.

The fundamental lack of variety in what you field combines with every single mission really being “how do I kneecap everyone” instead of the given mission objective to make the game quite samey. Mission types don’t vary much, and the environments don’t constrain you all that much, either; the only ones that are particularly interesting are moons and Mars-like planets where your mechs’ ability to regulate their heat become much more constrained, which can necessitate loadout changes.

I enjoyed the story enough for what it was, but honestly? After 30 hours, I was pretty much good. I had a good time with BattleTech, but I’d had my fill.

Mortal Kombat X – 2015 – Steam – ★★★★

In my ongoing adventure of playing the Mortal Kombat games for their goofy plot / story modes and nothing else, I played Mortal Kombat X. I’m not sure there’s much to talk about these other than “Hey I enjoy their dumb ongoing narrative; I wonder where they’ll go from here!”

11. Mortal Kombat XI – 2019 – Steam – ★★★★

Ditto. The plot for these games are getting sillier and sillier, and the ending of XI may be the most ridiculous yet. In a good way.

10. Devil May Cry V – 2019 – Steam – ★★★★

Character action games are heavily predicated on the question of “How do we spice the game up over time so that it stays interesting… without overwhelming the player?” Devil May Cry V’s answer is “well, we’ll slowly give them more characters with their own expanding skill sets, that’ll be neat!”

It is neat, but I’m not sure it was actually a good idea. The three protagonists all have extremely different move sets, meaning that the forced switches between them on a chapter-to-chapter basis results in you never really mastering any one of them. Each character has a ton of depth, but… take, for example, Nero, the “main” protagonist. He has a sub-mechanic involved with revving his motorcycle sword to boost damage. I never actually figured out how to get to work. Never really had to, because he had so many other mechanics that were also effective, and I never had much time with him alone to dial in the weird motorcycle thing.

DMCV also does probably my least favorite gameplay gimmick of “introduce new mechanics in a boss battle!” Like great, you gave me a whole new move set here, and are now going to rate me on my performance when you’ve never given me a chance to learn these skills? Oh wait, you’re giving me new mechanics in the final boss battle!?! Fuck off. That sucks!

Also, I think I’m an outlier, but I actually preferred playing as V, the control-three-characters-at-once-while-reading-a-book guy. Just felt like I dialed his move set in easier. Weird.

9. Untitled Goose Game – 2019 – Switch – ★★★★

I’m not going to pretend that this is a deep game, or an enduring game, or even necessarily a great game. But I had a lot of fun with it, I have a lot of good memories thinking about it, and I am glad that so many people out there are now wrestling with the fact that birds can be both terrible and also good. Untitled Goose Game carries a powerful message about avian kind. You would do well to learn from it.

8. Super Mario Maker 2 – 2019 – Switch – ★★★★

Mario Maker 2 is such an incremental upgrade to Mario Maker that it hardly feels like it earns that “2”. That being said: Mario Maker 1 is pretty darn good so it’s not like that’s all that bad. The additional mechanics and story mode are good, granted, but like… I had been wanting more than just Mario Maker 1.5.

As is, it was pretty easy to get bored with Mario Maker pretty quickly, given it was mostly a game I’d already played quite a bit before. The addition of the campaign held my interest for a fair amount of time, but I’m not exactly coming back to this all that often. Hopefully the content updates they seem to be rolling into it keep up.

7. Kind Worlds: Lo-Fi Beats to Write To – 2019 – Steam – ★★★★

This is less a video game and more a sort of vague pen-pal application masquerading as a game, but man… the existence of this thing is neat. It’s just a program where folks write letters about their problems, and people send them stuff back. That’s it. It’s kind of a sweet thing to just exist.

I’m not a person with what would one term especially Heavy Problems, but just going through other folks letters and giving them an encouraging word is itself nice.

6. The Outer Worlds – 2019 – Epic Game Store – ★★★★

Having been deeply disappointed with the quality of Fallout 4, I was very happy to see Obsidian come back to do their own Fallout-a-like. The Outer Worlds isn’t perfect; I wish it had a bit more of a bite, the gunplay was… fine, the environment design was kind of dull, and the gameplay loop did not outlast the length of the game itself. But I had a fun enough time with it.

That said, I think the dearth of me having much to say here sort of speaks to how… rather unambitious the writing and design ended up being. There’s not a ton to say about it. It’s more responsive than a Fallout 4, to be sure, but even that caps out at a point. It doesn’t necessarily offer much in the way of RPG-style different “paths” to develop your character in terms of who they are or how they behave, beyond the sort-of four-way axis of “grouch to nice” and “corporatist to socialist.” The skill tree ends up being pretty flat, and you can basically become a master of everything by the end.

Shruggo.

5. Pokémon Sword – 2019 – Switch – ★★★★

Pokémon Sword/Shield is a bizarre thing— its design is constantly fighting against itself. There are tons of ease-of-use improvements– but it somehow has some of the worst online in the series. It gives you dozens of complex, half-explained systems— but also feels the need to hold your hand lest you get lost in its incredibly linear, dull story. It adds challenging Pokémon raid battles that you largely need to team up with other players to beat— but also has one of the most trivial progressions in the series. It has a huge and varied open “Wild Area” where you can catch hundreds of Pokémon before ever facing the first gym— but that wild area largely exists as a world unto its own separate from the traditional Pokémon “routes”. It doesn’t want to have a plot up until the very end when it decides that gee, I guess we have to, even if it makes no sense.

Let’s go into these in more detail.

Sword/Shield introduces a ton of gameplay improvements. Auto-saving, while problematic in places, is super useful. The ability to move Pokémon directly from the box to your party is great, and removes a lot of process headaches. Single hand controls are a godsend for both improved accessibility and general ease of use. Items are way easier to get, Pokemon are easier to raise, and this is probably the easiest game in the entire series to breed and raise “high tier” Pokemon for online battling.

On the other hand: despite your friend list being loaded into the game, you are forced to use a bizarre password system and request system that is super confusing and prone to issues. You cannot directly trade or battle or play with friends except through this, which occasionally results in headaches anytime someone uses the same four-digit password as you and your bud. The Max Raid battle system is super poorly explained in-game in terms of how you find and join others raids— I only divined it by a tweet someone made. They did away with the “GTS” trading system they had used for the past decade that allowed global Pokemon bartering, presumably in favor of encouraging more natural trades— but didn’t give any way to actually communicate with people in game what you want to trade for. It encourages more in-person interaction, but that’s once again playing into Game Freak’s obsession with the Japanese mode of gaming.

Sword/Shield perhaps has the most sheer amount of systems in any one of these games. It’s not necessarily all good, but in terms of “wow, you’re not babying us huh” it is at least interesting. There’s Pokemon that evolve based on absurd, never-explained conditions like “number of crits in a single battle”, “pass underneath this specific rock when they’re at low health”, “spin baby spin.” The wild area has tons of mechanical stuff that they let you explore without forcing your hand much, and they let you explore it freely without really railroading you. There’s a separate wild-area specific currency system based on raids / dens that you just stumble upon unprompted, really.

On the other hand, the core story progression of the game though… is perhaps the most infuriatingly patronizing thing I’ve experienced. Cutscenes happen every 15 seconds, often-times forcing your movement, and are almost of zero consequence beyond someone going HEY YOU SHOULD GO THAT WAY. The game is completely unwilling to let you get lost when going through the story. It’s constant, it’s unrelenting, it’s maddening. It literally made me mad.

Pokémon Raid battles are super interesting. The battles themselves aren’t necessarily hard, but the kinds of things they present— in terms of providing access to unique Pokémon, rare items, and the fact that they’re not as “rinse-and-repeat” as normal battles— gives the system and game increased longevity. It’s a pretty deep system, with meaningful rewards. A five-star battle is time consuming and you run the risk of failing, but if you pull it off you can get items like TRs, EXP candies, even bottle caps (super useful items that let you increase the baseline stat “DNA” of your Pokémon), and the captured Pokémon can have unique moves you’d normally have to breed and possess extremely high baseline stats. You can even get hidden secret abilities! Nice!

On the other hand: the core game progression is so piss easy and straight forward. The game’s leveling curve is all out of whack, in part because their introduction of a forced “always on” EXP share. In older games, you’d only get EXP from actively battling and beating a Pokemon in a fight, or having participated in a fight. Now, your whole team gets EXP just from being around, and you also get EXP from catching Pokemon, making curry, and all sorts of other small activities. All of this is fine or even good in the abstract as it makes raising stuff easier, but the game isn’t well balanced around it. Encounters don’t scale, which can result in you steamrolling the game if you engage with any of the game’s other systems prior to beating the game. I had to compensate by stretching my normal party of six into a party of 10, constantly swapping members out to keep the average level across the party down. Additionally, the only non-PVP reason to train and breed pokes, the Battle Tower, is so trivially easy this time that… why bother??

The wild area system is brilliant. A big criticism I’ve had with this series in the past is that the kinds of Pokemon any given player is bound to encounter and capture tend to be pretty similar. The limited amount of Pokemon that tend to be put on a traditional Pokemon route, and the limited means you have to encounter them (“hey I walk through the grass, we’ll see what pops up”) doesn’t trend towards players ending up with very different party compositions, just because there’s not a ton of options at any given point. The wild area completely tosses that out the window. As an open space, the types of things someone encounters will vary wildly— and it’s further varied by player-specific weather conditions that dynamically change the encounter tables. It completely opens up the kinds of Pokemon one can encounter early on, presenting hundreds of appropriately leveled options for players. It’s brilliant. The intermixing of both grass-only, overworld-visible, and raid-specific Pokemon also increases the range of encounters. It’s the accomplishment of the core Pokemon concept of “explore and find everything.” Finally.

On the other hand: the wild area is actually kind of boring to explore, visually speaking. It’s basically the Ocarina of Time field with sporadic patches of grass. There’s little actually diversity or mechanics to its exploration, especially when compared to the fact that… the game still has normal routes. They still behave as they always have, except that by the total remove of “Hidden Machine” mobility moves, the ability to explore geographically has been severely hampered. There’s no “gee, I can’t get there yet, guess I’ll have to come back later” except for a single mobility mechanic (the ability to go over the water, introduced very late in the game). It makes revisiting past areas mostly a box-checking exercise, and in general feels like an odd juxtaposition. They either should went all-in on the wild area or better merged the concepts together, because as is it feels… weird. Especially because the wild area could have done with being bigger and more diverse looking.

The game spends most of its time having no story at all, which is kind of boring. Juxtaposed with the railroading stuff where there’s still constant cutscenes with their mostly mediocre characters who don’t do all that much, it almost comes across as padding than anything. There are good characters (Piers and Marnie are the best, the gym leaders in general are good) but man do they try too hard to put Leon over.

But then at the end they introduce the story super quickly and it’s very dumb in a way that made me laugh out loud so congrats I guess.

All in all, I rather liked Sword/Shield. It’s no Sun/Moon— which innovated in tons of places and had an extremely charming story, cast, and progression— but the places that it innovates, and the ease-of-use improvements that they’ve put in the game, are great improvements to the baseline formula. While it’s caused a ton of drama online, the Pokédex and Pokémon Bank stuff are not huge impacts on my personal enjoyment of the game. It kind of stinks a bit, but the overall package is still quite good and fun.

The Legend of the Zelda: Breath of the Wild, Master Mode – 2017 – Switch – ★★★★★

Breath of the Wild was my favorite game the year it was released. The harder Master Mode is something that had interested me as something to check out for a replay, but I decided to wait until the shadow of my previous playthrough loomed somewhat less. Breath of the Wild is, after all, both a monumental game and also a monumentally large game. Going back to it for Master Mode would mean (by way of my own obsessive brain) 100%ing it all over again, which is extremely time consuming, even if I don’t go after the all the Koroks.

There was also this sort of reticence in my behind to confront the creeping suspicion I’ve had in my mind that some of the DLC additions have made the core game worse. Which, I would say… is probably somewhat the case. Certain DLC gear items extremely imbalance standard play and really fuck with the exploration of the game (specifically, Majora’s Mask basically making you not have to fight multiple enemy types). Still, I knew I could ignore those, and just focus down on the core experience of Master Mode: harder enemies, regenerating enemy health, and the introduction of floating platforms.

Turns out, BOTW is still fucking amazing, and while the additions Master Mode make aren’t essential, they do make for a fun second run of a fantastic game. The harder enemies make the early parts of that game WAY HARDER (making you really have to get good at using your bombs and stealth), and while that difficulty ramp doesn’t keep up throughout (which, honestly, the platforms are somewhat to blame as they make getting certain bits of higher-level loot earlier easier), it’s still just a great game to go back to.

Breath of the Wild remains my all-time favorite game. Hyped for BOTW2.

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4. Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice – 2019 – Steam – ★★★★★

Sekiro is in a sense the purest expression of the Souls formula. Stripped away of the jolly co-op, the PVP, the stats, the equipment, and most customization to speak of, Sekiro asks the simple question: can you do this? Can you learn all the systems in this quite challenging game, and engage with it on its own terms?

In its mechanical simplicity, I found Sekiro to be my favorite game of that lineage, as it has allowed them to really polish the gameplay by its singular focus. It just feels amazing to stealth around and backstab dudes, parry everything, and triumph in nail-biting sword duels. While you do gain new skills and equipment (in the form of the ninja tools), they are just supplementing the fundamental systems of the game, rather than acting as diverging ones. So really, most of your time is spent not learning wholly new methods of combat, but instead improving your mastery of the core one.

And the feel of mastering that combat is incredible. By the end you feel unstoppable; normal enemies that would have been challenges early on are nothing. Even a lot of the bosses become trivial as-time goes on, bar the few ‘mastery test’ bosses interleaved throughout the progression. This isn’t some “hey I got more EXP and now over-level for everything!” thing, either; this is me, the human holding the controller getting skilled enough to become a Sekiro master. It’s an amazing feeling.

I beat every single boss in the game, including the hidden ones, and enjoyed the hell out of it.

3. Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night – 2019 – Steam – ★★★★★

I’m very much on the record as being a huge IGAvania partisan. I fuckin’ love the core loop of that permutation of the Metroidvania formula. Koji Igarashi no longer being able to make Castlevanias hurt me. A lot. Over a decade of time spanned between the last IGAvania game, Order of Ecclesia, and the release of Bloodstained. I was a bit worried.

Thank god Bloodstained is really, really, really good.

Bloodstained is extremely “one of those.” You move about a 2D interconnected world, collect items and abilities until you find the stuff that let you move forward in a new area. It’s kind of an eclectic hybrid of IGA’s past titles. The castle design feels very Aria of Sorrow. The shard mechanics feel close to Aria/Dawn of Sorrow’s soul system. The weapons feel very Symphony of the Night meets Portrait of Ruin. The overall mechanics of movement feel most akin to Order of Ecclesia. All in all: a good mix.

The game is massive. There’s so many weird one-off mechanics (something I appreciate), bizarre callbacks, goofs. There’s an in-depth alchemy system (mostly used for cooking, which is funny). The shard system is a bit boring in places— some shards are extremely simple and forgettable mechanically— but the shard leveling system is kind of hilarious in how broken it can become. The familiar system from SOTN is back and has been essentially perfected by making it a dedicated slot so you can just hang with a fairy or sword pal.

I wish the game had more enemy diversity, and the story left something to be desired. Many shards just aren’t very interesting. But the game is just so dang fun. The core gameplay loop is just so compelling, and the game just feels so dang good. I’m glad they took all the time to polish the gameplay feel because hooooooooooo boy.

Looking forward to those DLC characters for some additional playthroughs.

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2. Outer Wilds – 2019 – Epic Game Store – ★★★★★

“Space exploration”, “cosmology”, “archeology”, and “sociology.” While these are certainly not the only fields that dominate much of my attention, they are some big ones. The Outer Wilds is a space exploration game where you explore the structure of a strange but exquisitely constructed solar system, and dig through the remains of a mysterious vanished alien species. Also, you’re stuck in a Majora’s Mask-like apocalyptic time loop ��cuz the sun keeps exploding. Should probably find out why that’s happening.

I went into this game completely blind, entirely based on the way Austin Walker was raving about it on twitter. Austin’s interests in heady space shit is pretty similar to my own, and turns out? Worked out quite well for me. I blindly explored this solar system for about twenty hours over the course of a couple weeks, and came away from the experience misty eyed at the ending. Outer Wilds is fantastic.

It’s a surprisingly touching and cozy for a game that mostly about you going off into space on your own, all alone. And that’s because you’re not, really. Outer Wilds is less about the science of exploration and archeology and the meaning of it, why it matters even in the darkest moments. Why do we explore? Why does science matter, divorced from the parasite of industry and markets? What value does it give to us, to future generations?

The game is built on the notion that even as we individually wander, explore, and discover, we’re all together collectively building on something that may outlive us, even outlive our species, the pursuit of a collective knowledge that transcends personal enrichment and individual accomplishments.

You are but one a few alien explorers, each on their own adventure. As you adventure, you catch their signals as you cruise across space. The things you learn and do are further built on the relics and messages left behind by the Nomai, the species that came before. This sense of a personal and emotional connection in the act of discovery is the heart of this game. We’re not standing on the shoulders of giants; we’re holding hands with those before us and those after us to build a bridge to a future that we may not live to see.

It’s a positive message of hope in the face of oblivion.

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1. Fire Emblem: Three Houses – 2019 – Switch – ★★★★★

I’ve been really on-and-off on Fire Emblem over the years. I first got in on the franchise with Awakening, which I rather liked for its anime-ass sensibilities— though not without criticism. I found the combat kind of obnoxious in its tendency to get muddied down in the Oops You Done Fucked Up, Time To Reset junk. It was too anime-ass in some places, not the least of which being its incredibly one-note characters who had little bearing on ongoing events so as to support the permadeath system without too much wasted effort on the developers’ part. Fates, the follow-up on Awakening, only amped up these criticisms, becoming convoluted, stupid, and kind of obnoxious to play.

I had hopes that Three Houses would be an improvement. Initial impressions made it seem way more serious, way more grounded, with a lot of improved systems. Turns out: it was better than I could have dared of expected or hoped. Three Houses isn’t improvement, or even innovation; it’s a revolution.

Three Houses is great. It’s long, it’s got so many different systems going on that I hardly know where to begin with describing it, but… it’s great. It’s the platonic ideal of what I’d like out of a Fire Emblem. Things feel like they matter. The setting feels weighty, the plot is actually good, and the characters are absolutely marvelous.

No, it’s not perfect— its handling of representation could DEFINITELY be better. Some of the narrative is hokey as hell in places. Certain routes seem to have gotten more attention than others. The class-based specialization systems could do with more depth such that so many characters don’t end up mostly identically specialized to each other.

But… I found the combat extremely enjoyable. The charge-based rewind mechanic removed the feel-bad gotchas of unanticipated troop appearances and bad rolls etc. The characters are fun, and they’re kept relevant all the whole way through via creative framing of events. The ability to roam an actual physical space via the monastery made the world feel more alive, and made everything feel more real.

The writing was actually interesting and nuanced, exploring things like faith, race, social classes, feudal politics, and romance. While the three routes are largely similar, it’s interesting just how different the underlying messages of each of them ends up being. I appreciate that in this game where you otherwise spend most of your time hanging around with nobles in a church ends just short of you rolling out the guillotines by the end.

This is a tactical RPG in 2019 that I have put something like 150+ hours into, having beaten only two of the four routes. I was, and still am, deeply invested in everything that is. I’ll probably go back to the other two routes when the final DLC is out next year.

SAKURAI, PUT EDELGARD IN SMASH

#GAME OF THE YEAR #2019 #GOTY #nonfiction #thinkpiece #fire emblem: three houses #outer wilds #bloodstained #sekiro #pokemon sword/shield

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astoryofalove · 5 years ago

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(screencap for the name use)

This is a long answer incoming.

The Leo in me says “no”, lol. But To be as objective as possible, I can understand why that would worry some cleriths. But let me remind everyone that there are two heroines in FFVI, and only one of them is the focus of a “love story” (i.e., Celes). So even if there are two heroines, it doesn’t mean both are equal or will be Cloud’s canon love interest. I made a thread on twitter (read here) about why Aerith’s heroine status is not the same as T*fa’s and basically, what I said there was that Aerith’s storyline is an integral part to the overall story, she is literally the focus of everything, from Jenova to Cloud. Compared to T*fa, who has a minor importance in *one* scene, and that’s being generous.

After giving up her life for the planet, it’s Aerith that saves the planet all by herself from the grave. No secondary/minor character does that. That is a story arc reserved for one kind of character... and that is the Hero or heroine role.

That's why Aerith is THE eternal heroine (Square’s words, not mine).

That said, if you look at what’s been going on with all the marketing lately, it’s been Aerith after Aerith, after Aerith as the main focus from Square Enix. The Famitsu issue where Nomura said that very statement looks like this:

Page 8-9

10-11

12-13

14-15

16-17

18-19

(end)

T*fa’s screencap is there, sure. But it’s a random fit. She comes off like one of the battle bodies, no different than any of the times Cloud and Barret showed up alongside each other.

Only Aerith and Cloud have renders, only Cloud and Aerith are used in the interview section. Looking at these scans, you do not get the vibes that there are two heroines. It almost feels like Nomura *had* to say that to appease the T fans. At the most, T*fa comes off as secondary, the one reserved for the “nakama” section.

Then you look at the rest of the marketing (which I will begin tracking on its own timeline very soon). Just as an example:

“two heroines”, my butt. I’m not at all worried about Aerith being replaced as the heroine. T might get more screentime/fanservice stuff, but it’s not comparable to Aerith’s worth in the story.

NOW, as for the possible “CT shift” in the later parts. Right now, we could have 2 more parts where Aerith is still alive (3 in total). That’s literally years and years of Aerith/Clerith hype to look forward to. That’s a long enough time for Aerith and Clerith’s fanbase to grow, and it’s long enough for fans to realize that Aerith is the heroine so Square won’t even bother pushing the “two heroines” thing anymore. I mean, just like in 1997... nobody is gonna be thinking about anything other than Aerith’s final moments. Square knows this, they’re banking on it. So I’m not worried.

But let’s just say worst-case scenario happens and T*fa gets more focus, too. That really wouldn’t bother me at all. For starters, Aerith came first, T*fa would still be the secondary character. Secondly, there’s really not much of anything that T*fa does even in the later parts that puts her on the same “heroine” level as Aerith. Unless the devs are changing and adding a lot more content, just off the top of my head, T*fa’s “important” scenes after Aerith dies in the OG are:

Northern Crater where she’s seen lying to Cloud (I think this is more negative for T*fa’s heroine role, to be honest.)

The Junon execution mission with Barret and Co.

Then she leaves the groups side when they find Cloud in Mideel, leaving all the fun parts of the game to the other characters.

Then she’s literally doing nothing while in Cloud’s mind, she’s more of an observer in this part in order to atone for her own mistakes.

I could argue (and well at that) that T*fa’s only significant parts in the story are more important for her own self-growth rather than any significance to Cloud or the overall story. It’s about T*fa’s redemption as a character and for her actions towards Cloud. That’s why T*fa’s character even says in the original game that she didn’t do anything, it was Cloud who fixed himself. She just got to witness it. This is why I don’t think it’s fair for anyone to say this is T*fa’s “heroine” moment in the game (compared to Aerith’s sacrifice).

Then, after Cloud regains himself, T*fa quickly falls back to being no different than the other minor characters. And right after T*fa resumes her minor role, the game reminds players of Aerith’s significance in the story with the Cosmo Canyon and City of the Ancients scenes. And it’s Cloud of all people to remind the players just how important Aerith is.

Then, of course, we have the Highwind scene (which is variable and vague at best), I’m not sure this could be used as “heroine” proof, though. Romance, maybe, but not heroine status at all. Especially since the very next day, Aerith is back as the focus in not just the fight against Sephiroth, but in Cloud’s mind, as well; saying how he must unfreeze Aerith’s smile from Sephiroth’s grips if they’re to save the world and how he wants to find Aerith in the Promised Land. The devs used Cloud to remind the players that Aerith is the key to defeating Sephiroth as well as still a significant person to Cloud’ story.

At the end of the day, T*fa’s overall plot does not affect the core of the story at all, whether or not T*fa did what little she did do, Sephiroth was still going to successfully summon Meteor. Again, only Aerith could stop Sephiroth. No matter what T*fa did, whether in the Lifestream or under the Highwind, Aerith resume focus soon after, especially in Cloud’s heart.

This will be much harder for fans to ignore or miss when it’s all in HD graphics and fully voiced.

So I expect to see T*fa get her time to shine, she just won't shine as bright as Aerith. ♥

#sorry for any typos its getting late #asks: ltd #asks: ff7r #asks: ff7r ltd #asks: aerith

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i-see-london-i-see-klance · 6 years ago

Text

Voltron Season 8 - Overall Thoughts and Reactions

Okay so let’s break this down a bit. Into the good, the bad, and the eh???

The Good:

I love that this season took the time to give us some character moments. Moments when it was just people talking about their feelings or just spending time being people. At points it was clunky, but even then I appreciated that they took the time to actually let us see the characters, not just the plot.

The Allurance romance was also really organic to me. It wasn’t in your face, but it wasn’t brushed off once they’d hooked up either. The show gave them moments together, but didn’t make it a major focus. I also loved that, yeah, they loved each other, but it wasn’t one of those true love, destined to be together romances. They loved each other like normal people did. And so when Allura...became one with the big bang(?), Lance was sad, yes. But he wasn’t emotionally destroyed. He was able to move on, which is totally realistic for a relationship that new. Just, slow clap for the writers on that one

Honerva. God, Honerva. She was just amazing. I don’t think the series did a very good job as setting her up as the ultimate Big Bad; she was kind of on the sidelines and in the shadows too much for it to feel completely organic that she kind of took over at the end, but GOD the season worked her up beautifully...well, up until they castrated her character right at the end, but I’m choosing to focus on the good. She was ruthless, she was powerful, she was badass. And her motivation was so refreshing. She was evil, but her drive was love of her family, and my god I loved that. She was amazing this entire season. I ADORED what they did with her.

The character cameos were incredible. I don’t remember that many new characters, if any, getting added, which makes sense because there’s no point in introducing us to new people and expecting us to care about them at this point. The cameos were mostly well used, and I loved how many old characters they managed to cram back in. Most shows make their characters a one off and the fact that Voltron doesn’t was something I loved about this show in general, not just this season. It was sweet to see so many familiar faces.

While I was NOT a fan of the last 2-3 episodes, the last 5-10 min of the final ep actually managed to be really touching and sweet, and I thought it was well done. Allura’s sacrifice kind of came out of nowhere, but at the same time it made sense. She’d been showing off all these fancy quintescence powers since the first season, when it became clear that it was going to require fancy quintescence powers to save the day it’s perfectly logical that she’s the one to do it. And having her have to sacrifice herself to save everything feels more realistic after the extent of the damage that was done rather than have her and Honerva just fix everything and then carry on like nothing happened. It makes her seem less overpowered, even though SHE AND HONERVA ARE TOTALLY GODDESSES YO. And then I’ve always been a sucker for those “where are they now” type endings where we can get a brief bit of final closure when the show doesn’t really have time to spend on the aftermath. And the end results seemed very fitting and in-character for the team, unlike some “where are they now” segments I could mention (*coughDIGIMONcough*)

The Bad:

Ugh so many things

The writing felt all over the place this season, and a lot of details were handwaved or really badly explained. I don’t need an in-depth explanation for everything that’s happening, but too many times the answer the show gave for things happening was “Whoa that’s weird but hey moving on!” and it felt really lazy to me. Worse is there were a few times where they actually acknowledged the gaping plot holes and then never explained them (i.e. Earth’s defenses, Voltron and the Atlas fusing) which just draws more attention to the poor writing. I wouldn’t mind it so much if there had been a precedent for this kind of thing throughout the show, but the only example I can think of where some random superpower shows up out of the blue without explanation was when the Atlas turned into a giant mecha the first time, and it pissed me off just as much then. I get that this is the final season. I get that the stakes have to be raised because this is the climax of the entire show. But if you’ve upped the danger so high that the only way you can make the heroes believably triumph is by giving them random new powers, you have done a really shitty job of writing your climax.

Bringing back the original paladins. Don’t get me wrong, I love the characters, and any extra screen time for Alfor and OG!Zarkon brings me so much joy. But the entire segment felt really unnecessary and out of nowhere. These characters had already gotten their arcs, we already had closure when it came to them. Sure, it was sad. They all kind of died. But there was no need to bring them back. They were really dead and gone. Not to mention having them interact with the new paladins just made it more obvious that they were supposed to mirror the original team, where Lance piloted Blue, Keith Red, and Shiro Black. Blaytz and Allura had pretty much nothing to do with each other, they weren’t foils to each other’s characters, and their interaction was just kind of weird. And while Alfor chatting up Lance was kind of cute in the “meet the parents” kind of way, once again the personalities don’t match. It was awkward and out of place and overall those episodes felt really meaningless and forgettable

A lot of Allura’s actions this season kind of bugged me as well. She did something risky and stupid, starting doing questionable things, and then in the end she essentially faced no actual consequences for these actions. I mean, sure, in the end she kind of DIED, but that wasn’t related to her mistakes so I don’t think that counts.

The meh:

The fanservice. I’m kind of torn on this one because while it’s nice that the show took the time to add in little extras to please the fans who have been with this show all along, a lot of it was really blatantly fanservice. Lance’s altean markings come to mind as an example. They just appear, they never get explained or acknowledged or have any reason to exist or impact on the story. He’s just got altean markings now. And the only reason I can conceive why they added that in was for the fanservice.

The season’s treatment of Coran really irked me too. It was really inconsistent with how it treated his relationship with Allura, sometimes making it very clear that he’s her closest remaining thing to family, and other times ignoring that connection completely. I THINK what they may have unintentionally implied based on when and who was showing the emotions was that Coran cares a lot more about Allura (acting as her guardian when Lance asks her out, weeping in the flashback when Alfor asks Coran to stay by her side) than Allura cares about him (telling Lance on their date that she has no family left at all), which, yeesh. As if I didn’t already have problems with Allura’s writing this season

The lions were a mixed bag this season. I can’t say they had personalities anymore, and I suppose they haven’t for a long, long time but at least they had a few moments here and there where they were acknowledged to be their own characters, rather than just machines. It just wasn’t enough. Remember when Red was actually finicky and temperamental? Remember when the Black Lion actually seemed to care about her paladin? Remember when Blue had sass? The show clearly doesn’t

Overall, did I think this was a good season? Yeah, I’d say it was decent. Not the best by far, but also definitely not the worst. And considering the path the show has taken over the last few seasons, I think we got an ending that was as satisfying as we could expect. It didn’t blow me out of the water, it didn’t change the world, but it met my (admittedly low) expectations. It’s over and I walked away being okay with how it ended, rather than disappointed or frustrated. I’m sure I’m one of many people who will say that the show definitely started out way stronger than it finished, and that it never quite lived up to the potential of the first few seasons, but at least I can say I saw it through, and I did enjoy at least seeing how it ended. But I’m also really glad it’s over, because I think it was starting to wear itself out, and that’s why the quality slipped. It got too big and epic, and it needed to end before it turned into Supernatural, where there’s always got to be a bigger threat. I don’t know if I think the good of the final season outweighed the bad or vice versa; while I think there were more little things and moments that made me happy this season, the problems I had with it were pretty huge. And they REALLY ticked me off. But it’s probably close enough that I can say they balance each other out.

I guess I’ll just say that while I’m kind of sad it’s over, and I wasn’t entirely thrilled with how the series progressed, I’m still happy I watched it and I got to be a part of this fandom and phenomena. Someday I might watch the whole series again, for nostalgia’s sake.

But I also might just stick to the beginning, when all we had was a small team of misfits, and a universe of possibilities :)

#voltron season 8 #Voltron #voltron s8 #Voltron Reactions #Voltron Season 8 reactions #Voltron Spoilers #Spoilers #My stuff #text post

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internetremix · 6 years ago

Note

This is for everyone what is your favorite anime mine is Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood which was my first anime.

Phill: Boku no pico. Look it up.

Kristen: Pfffft you monster

Atwas: I don't watch a lot of anime cause I can consume more through reading rather than watching... I really enjoyed One Punch Man and Little Witch Academia though. I think those are the only two I've actually watched in recent memory (mostly because they weren't huge time investments...) I've been meaning to watch Mob Psycho 100 but I haven't gotten to it yet.

Jojo: Either soul eater, or assassination classroom. (I also love FMA)

Kristen: I love One Punch Man. I've heard Mob Psycho 100 is good but like, The Stars Are Never in Position.

I have two favorite animus of all time, Madoka and the Monogatari series. Both are Shaft animu so ART. Madoka's writing is just so well done and it has THEMES and I love the characters and listen I love Homura and Madoka so much I have like the fancy figurines like a huge nerd I JUST THINK THEY'RE SO COOL and also the gay and shut up.

I talk a lot about the Monogatari series because it really means a lot to me. It's some of the most thoughtful media I've ever watched, some of the best character studies I've ever seen. The writing and visual presentation are so good and there's a lot of themes about mental health and personal growth and i could write a book and multiple scholarly essays about my thoughts and feelings on Monogatari. I based MG's design off of one of the characters cause I just love her so much and the character is very much a wish fulfillment thing for me.Monogatari also features some of the worst fanservice bits I've ever seen. Just abysmal. This is the anime with the infamous Toothbrushing Scene and I fucking hate it. Like. It's frustrating because in some ways I can see how these fanservice scenes have bits of character to them? And most of the series is from the perspective of a teenage boy and so much of the show is essentially about different perspectives and how people see the world. But those scenes aren't about the justification and you know it, the camera tells me regardless of how platonic the characters may be (or sexually charged depending on the characters), this is meant to be tittilating for me the viewer, and if it isn't then don't you worry there's another girl in the harem for you, you fucking creep. And I just despise that.

So yeah Monogatari has both the greatest Animu writing and is A R T but also has the worst goddamn fanservice and thus I cannot recommend it to anyone who has a problem with the latter. Which is incredibly frustrating. Anyway thanks for coming to my TED talk.

Also side not Soul Eater is SO GOOD mmmm that style. Also Maka is just... the fucking best. She's so cool.

Juno: Lupin III

Alex: Gregory Horror Show and Aggretsuko

Split: Fma:b Cant get enough of that sweet ass alchemy

Juno: dog girl joke

Split: Juno its science its fine

Juno: Something something unbreakable bond between girl and dog something something

Split: Absolutely, super unbreakable now. Practically inseperable.

Kristen: Oh no. Outrage. How could you.

Split: For science.

Alex: I love how Dog Girl is slowly becoming like Loss in that only the barest components are necessary to get the reference

Juno: me: nina alexander

everyone: D

me: doge.... gril

everyone: D

Phill: I'm a big fan of most mainstream anime (one punch man, mob psycho 100, monster girls, naruto, dragonball (og, z, gt, super), etc) . Especially one piece. I've been a fan of one piece since 2005. Every new episode/chapter/movie I watch the instant I am able.

As for not so mainstream;Golden boy, golden time, full metal panic, working!!, ouran high school host club, bacono, I'd be here for every trying to remember the rest tbh

Oh! And a myriad of hentai.

Tex: My first anime was Death Note, but my favourite is Gurren LagannCan't get enough of that stupid anime mecha bs. Oh shit i keep forgetting to mention psycho-pass but i fuckin love that anime too. The 2nd series was just ok. But the FIRST. HOO BOY.

Scott: Favorite anime is Death Parade. I typically enjoy more comical and lighthearted shows, but this one is one of the very few exceptions. It tells a really fascinating story with themes of life and death, the concept of morality, and human emotions. I highly recommend it.

In total contrast, my second favorite would be Assassination Classroom.

Tex: ass class

Toonwolf: oh god anime is one of those things where I get really weird and even if I like the thing I'll watch like 2-3 episodes and then never continue it. Ass Class is absolutely one of those and I loved what I saw and just never continued and would probably be one of my favs. As for anime I've actually committed time to, Gurren Lagann is definitely top tier A+ love it and I'll always have a special place in my heart for One Piece. When I wanna feel depressed, my fav is Wolf's Rain

Uprising: I second death parade also cells at work. wait also the castlevania anime on netflix ive bene marathoning that

Phill: Good

#ask the ir crew #whole crew #anime #drmetalwarrior

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aotopmha · 6 years ago

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I saw the Broly movie in a specific way (as it is I have no other ways to see it anyway - low or high quality) and have been stewing on it a little. I'm probably going to write a much more elaborate post once the highest quality version is out. I'll also try my best to not give many spoilers here and keep it vague, but I will address the big spoiler everyone knows - Gogeta.

So, here's the stuff I really liked:

-Goku's character. He cares about getting a good fight going into it all and as always, is naive in not entirely good ways, but you also see him be very empathic and sweet and care about protecting the Earth. The usual, technically, but above all, I appreciate the balance here. I was never bothered by DBS exgaggerating Goku's traits at points to the point where I hated his character (some of those points are actually very interesting to me), but it did bug me a few times. Here, the balance is pretty much perfect to me. Aside from that, he does have a pretty interesting character moment at the end of the movie (not the obvious one, but rather something the moment implies) - it's something that will only be obvious if you think about Goku's initial story in OG DB, perhaps even something that could entirely be nothing or unintentional, but a bit of character writing I think that potentially creates a parallel between Goku and Broly that I regardless found interesting. I even thought they would make it one of the central points of the story, but it's there in a much more subdued way, to the point where it could potentially be unintentional, but I chose to think it's not.

-They fixed Broly and actually made me feel for him. He has a pretty clearly defined personality, and above all, motivations that make sense and are very human. He's still pretty basic, in that he is reserved and barely speaks, but that's part of what is also unique about him to me. Much of his personality comes from his expressions and manner of behaviour, rather than a very complex perspective on the world or elaborate dialog. The complexity he has also comes more from the circumstances and the interaction/relationships with other characters around him, rather than a straight-up clearly defined character arc. However, out of any new characters introduced in Super, I think he is the best example of a character that could have an arc that could go in several different directions. Out of most of Super's new cast I feel like he has the most room to do something with. Rather than being just a story that is finished by the end of the movie, this movie feels more like a beginning for Broly.

-Paragus. Paragus is an interesting villain because he's 100% a villain, but you can still get where he comes from - and he actually even has an arc that leads to his villainy.

-Chirai is really fun and very likeably justice-driven and proactive. She's the "heart" within the movie along with Goku and I love her for being so empathic. Lemo is the crusty old man sort of counterpart to her, empathic, but more passive about it.

- Freeza is entertaining humor-wise, but also still very hateable as a villain. I like his further development into a more effective villain. He's kinder to his subordinates, ready to retreat when things look bad, rather than just doing everything to get a victory right away - undoubtedly evil and self-serving still, but much more calm and collected about reaching his goal. It wouldn't surprise me if being so lax with him would later lead to very bad things.

-The more diverse portrayal of the Saiyans. They're not just a cold-blooded warrior race, but we also see regular workers like Gine or Beets and the social stratification of the whole society plays a big role in why the story takes place at all. Basically, we get a much more nuanced look at the Saiyans.

-Piccolo's brief role. I really liked his moment with Goku and his moment with both, Goku and Vegeta later on was a blast.

-Animation and music were mostly spot on. Great, great stuff. I thought there was some odd music placement in one scene, but beyond that, I think even some of the sillier-seeming music choices fit. There were a couple of CG moments, but they didn't distract me all that much and outside that I thought the movie looked pretty excellent throughout. This is in fact probably the best Dragon Ball has ever looked and the other big reason I can't wait for the high quality version of the movie.

I had parts of the movie I wasn't as big on as others, but I didn't straight-up dislike anything in it.

-The fights took too long. Particularly the Gogeta fight felt too long. It was a pretty-looking battle, but that was just it. The fights with Vegeta and Broly and Goku and Broly, plus their double-team at least had character stuff going. The Gogeta fight is pretty much 100% fanservice stuff outside of the finale, which did a very cool perspective thing with both participants of the fight. But, again, at the very least, it was REALLY pretty-looking fanservice stuff.

-Related to that, while it fits the more focused nature of the story, it's really odd that nobody else but Piccolo seems to notice the battle. In fact, I think Broly could've been restrained by Gohan and the other fighters just as well as Freeza.

-Gogeta is pretty much the weakest link to me in terms of plotting, though. Again, imo, nothing that ruins the whole thing because I think the outcome would be same no matter which way - getting the Potara (Goku could have just gotten them from Shin by quickly teleporting there, the movie does not address this, it just says they don't have the Potara or Senzu) would've just prevented maybe some of Freeza's beating. I think a Fusion or something of that level was actually needed considering Broly's green-haired form clearly kept up with Gogeta and he went into it after being pushed by Gogeta, so I can believe Goku and Vegeta individually would've been beaten if they pushed him.

That is, if you don't consider Ultra Instinct. Ultra Instinct probably could've also done the job, but they dance around that by having Goku do the smart thing and retreat before it could happen that he is pushed too far and have him opt for the Fusion instead. If that didn't work out, Ultra Instinct probably would've done the job, too. You could replace any of them because with any option Broly would probably be pushed into his green-haired form and defeated. Gogeta has just never been used before, so it's a more unique option.

-The Minus stuff went past pretty quickly and I actually think the rewrite is very much better than the initial Minus story, but it's still kind of bland. Bardock's story fits in what the Saiyans' life is like much better, but Gine is still boring and I still basically felt nothing for this part. In this case though, the purpose for it was just setup, which is another reason why I'm more alright with it.

I think the series has had much worse writing moments than these and it makes me happy this is the most I have to complain about. It's all mostly quality of life stuff to me and doesn't break the story or it's ideas.

Above all, I appreciate that this movie took something soulless like Broly's character and gave it soul - portions of it are clearly there to just please the fans, but the whole thing is tied together by pretty strong and heartfelt character writing and themes.

I want to definitely recommend it. If you can, support it. I want DB to continue have such heartfelt stories and look so good. This is a very good direction for the series, even if I'm bummed about the older side cast not getting to do much.

I have much more elaborate thoughts on basically all the characters and, again, 100% can't wait for the HD version. I also can't wait to dig in the themes. It has a very simple, but human core.

Right now, is it my fave DB movie? Not sure. I think it's up there.

Right now, out of those I've seen, I think only BoG tops it, though. We'll see how I'll feel on rewatches.

#aotopmha talks

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daisylikesmedia · 2 years ago

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Series 2 Episode 3: School Reunion

🚨UH OH BANGER ALERT 🚨

Wowowowowowowow good episode lets talk about it.

SO first of all omg the childlike wonder I get watching this episode back is just amazing. I remember sitting watching this episode as a kid and like, it was so cool to see a Doctor Who episode in a SCHOOL and he's a TEACHER like aa it was the dream. The Doctor as a teacher is something that fits my favourite incarnations super well, and aa yep I love it here.

Sarah Jane Smith!! Is back!! Another part that makes me super nostalgic (as a big sja watcher as a kid). And my god her character work in this episode is awesome. Talking about dealing with being left behind by the Doctor, the enemies into friendship with Rose that develops over the episode. aaaaa I love it, especially as she decides to move on and "start her own life" at the end of the episode like YES Sarah slayyy.

Mickey also gets some great character moments FINALLY. The tin dog metaphor with K9 is such a nice bit of writing, and it makes him develop and want to travel with the group after realising that's the role he's in right now.

The villains are a little lacklustre, but for the runtime and the amount of character beats in this episode I can forgive it. The leader does a v good job with the brooding though, very sort of machiavellian in his attempts to sway the Doctor to his side. Unfortunately though the biggest potential of this new species gets a bit squandered. The Krillitane take physical components of the species they conquer. I think these would probably be the best OG villain to yoink from the RTD days because they could end up being ANYTHING. Like a horror-y episode where you think you're safe because they can't do x thing and then THEY DO THE THING c'mon sign me up that would be awesome.

And finally, this is the first episode where 10 starts to really show off his doctor. The first three episodes were a doctor lite and then two stories that didn't challenge him at all. But this episode, ooo he gets to brood and be all dark and moody when he needs to and I LOVE IT. We get to see how this incarnation feels about the time war, we get a callback to The Christmas Invasion with only one warning, and he nearly gets turned to the villains side. Only being saved by Sarah Jane almost mirroring the famous Genesis of the Daleks scene where the 4th Doctor had the choice to end the Dalek's lives. Just, so much good stuff in this episode. I mean even his ambiguity towards Sarah Jane regarding why he didn't come back and then the explanation about living too long and watching your human friends wither and die as he has to live on. HE'S SO LONELY AND IT MAKES FOR SUCH GOOD DR WHO.

TL:DR/Overview: Wow omg on my last viewing I thought this episode was more just nostalgia bait/fanservice than anything else. But heck I disagree so much now. Bringing back old characters to make the Doctor have to face up to his past is top tier. Giving p much every main character a bit character beat in one 40 minute slot is top tier. This episode is just top tier. And now I'm stuck because I don't know whether this is S tier or goated. I think I'm gonna be strict and say S tier, purely based on the fact I think more could've been done with the Krillitane bar just bat people. But yea, this episode is so so so good.

#daisy reviews media #doctor who #10th doctor

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worldofcloti · 7 years ago

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Long meta of Anon regarding Cloud, Tifa and Aerith [LTD]

Re-arranged it in order since this since the anon asks have the first one in the bottom of my inbox. Also separated the paragraphs. I have an answer under the cut as well.

Anonymous said to worldofcloti: May I say something since we’re somewhat on the topic of ltd and fandoms? Prefacing this saying I’m definitely a Cloti fan and only a CT fan but I don’t deny Klerith (I think that’s how we’re referring to them here), at least not my version of them. In fact, I think they’re a necessary stop on the road of CLOTI’s relationship and helps bring them closer. Now this probably sounds cruel but please hear me out. I see Aerith as someone who has a very positive effect on every person she encounters(1)

This included Cloud, and Tifa, and the whole gang. In the beginning of the game Cloud is in a horrible mental state, we know that, he’s battling his demons. And Tifa can’t help him because she’s battling her own demons and she has an introverted personality. I think that’s where it’s necessary for Aerith to come in and help them. Both. She brings lightness to them. Helps guide them towards the light, fun, positivity, which they couldn’t do by themselves. And while it’s ultimately Tifa who (2) heals his mind, and could only be Tifa because of their past, imo Aerith pushed them towards this AND I also headcanon that she also gave them a push in the lifestream. Her character and actions also had an effect on Tifa helping her realize her feelings and to become more active in pursuing what she wants. I also think both of them loved Aerith albeit differently, but I don’t think that Cloud was IN love with her. It just did not happen in the game that I played.

I know everyone has their (3) playthrough and this was mine, there were no straight romantic Klerith scenes in my game but I think they had positive feelings towards each other. I think she will always be in his heart but not as this one true love. Cause even if she were alive I still don’t see how after regaining his self the boy from Nibelheim who did so much for Tifa for years, and Tifa who had feelings for him for years and then did so much for him would not end up together. But this is my interpretation. And I have (4) no problem with others having another. My only problem is with the version where a 21yo Cloud must live the rest of his life alone waiting for death to reunite with the girl he supposedly loved, I have aversion to this strictly as a Cloud fan cause I find this incredibly cruel and selfish of fans, wanting for Aerith to be allowed to move on from Zack, but not giving same courtesy to Cloud. Tiduna and Noctluna are often mentioned as examples to strengthen this theory but I strongly disagree. (5)

Yuna and Tidus only had each other as romantic partners. And while Yuna did wait 2 years she was too busy during that time to think of romance, and X-2 shows that she was ready to move on, one of the endings even has her moving on, and as much of a Tiduna fan as I am, if Tidus never came back I would never wish for a 19yo girl to wait for him forever. Noctluna, well, is one of the weakest FF romances tbh, not a good thing to be compared to, but even here we have both of them dying almost at (6) the same time. Yes, there’s 10 year time skip but he hasn’t lived that, he lived very little time without her. And both these examples have one huge factor not considered for some reason: TIFA.

None of these pairs had a third person for whom protagonist had canonical reciprocated feelings for for years (whether he still has those or not are maybe up to interpretation but still important point) so the comparison falls moot for me. Not to mention if we parallel Tidus and Luna with Aerith for (7) their death, we can also parallel them with Tifa, e.g. for childhood feelings lasting for years. I might also mention my problem with compilation and AC. While for me it solidifies Cloti 100%, I still don’t like how it does it. I’m against the fact that Aerith of all people was used as a character whose memory brings depression to Cloud, to Tifa, children they’re raising. I think it’s a disservice to her and a cheap trick by SE in an attempt to bring her back and fan service her/Klerith fans.(8)

Especially since in OG her smile was used as a motivation in before battle speech (where, btw, Tifa was the one who showed bigger understanding of her character). So I don’t see how or why use AC as a romantic evidence when Aerith is used for such negative effect on Cloud. This came out huge omg I’m so sorry. But anyway I wanted to talk about how I don’t fully deny Klerith even as a Cloti fan, but how my view of it differs from their fans, & I’m fine with everything except that one scenario. (9)

You brought up a lot of points and thanks for sharing them to us. At first, I’d like to say that I am limited to what I can say since this blog is strictly pro-Cloti and not about debunking Klerith evidence. Although, I unapologetic-ally rant about bad treatment of characters in the fandom.

> I agree a lot on positive feelings. Aerith may have had a troubled childhood but she has become a well-adjusted adult, contrary to Tifa and Cloud with serious trauma and haven’t recovered from them [in Cloud’s case, it’s a full false persona]. Aerith is someone that added fun to the party, and she is the one excited to get out of Midgar and have an adventure. On the LTD side, I think Tifa would have waited for a longer time to make a move on Cloud without Aerith around, she definitely was a competition to Tifa.

> Aerith helping Cloud and Tifa in the Lifestream is in the short story Maiden Who Travels the Planet. I think it’s canon, although a secondary source rather than a main entry.

> I agree that Tifa is the end game love interest, although I would say she doesn’t have an explicitly romantic scene either. On Aerith, as much as Cloud grieved for her, I don’t think they became intimate.

> Parallels are generally a weak proof and more of just cuteness. I am limited to the rebuttal I can say in this blog but I hate if characters are misrepresented. Yuna moved on as early as FFX, especially with her speech about rebuilding Spira, having new homes, but never forgetting those who were lost. Just because she grieves for Tidus in FFX-2 it doesn’t mean she has no intention of loving again. I would also say that any couple compared to Noktluna is being insulted, because it is one of the worst written romances I have seen in a video game. While I dislike interpreting the story based on guidebook quotes, Square Enix is has actually been explicit in some parallels with FF romances in the Cloti side as well: http://danseru-kun.tumblr.com/post/40338671251/cloud-and-tifas-feelings-for-each-other. You can search other “fanservice” tagged posts in this blog.

> I like your thoughts on what Aerith represents and AC being about grieving for her, but personally I see it as a natural emotional process. Cloud was not only upset because of Aerith, but also because of Zack and Denzel. Cloud is a mentally weak person and suffering some serious trauma and guilt for his past failures. Despite hitting a low point, I love how Cloud found strength in AC through the help of his friends, both the living and the departed. It ended on a very positive note for all characters involved. This is why I hate interpretations of AC as romance.

You might like my meta on Aerith here: http://danseru-kun.tumblr.com/post/141774984234/aeriths-journey-to-the-promised-land

#ltd #cloti #klerith #cloud strife #tifa lockhart #meta

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