#Like I love every story in damn near every zelda game

[gensnix]

Welp I’ve completed totk and it’s been about a month so I’d like to give my silly little thoughts on it

I’ll put my thoughts in category's things I enjoyed, moments that made me lose my mind, and of course things I hate

spoilers below obvs

Enjoyed

The game plays so good! You can do just about anything you can think of. They definitely set a new bar for quality. oh those poor future game designers 

the title “legend of zelda” actually works this time lol

There’s sooo many little details in this game it makes me happy

they added more speech bubbles for npcs depending on what is happening 

I love the new characters! Makes Hyrule more alive

Yona is so kind and pretty she even fixed Link’s zora armor! 

Penn my writing partner that whole side adventure was fun and hilarious. 

Mattison! MY GODDAUGHTER I LOVE THAT ENTIRE FAMILY.  

Gomo helped me make my first $1000 so I’m legally obliged to kiss him on his head.

Tauro another history nerd. I like his dynamic with Paya!

I love the constructs all of them. The fact that they were made so long ago and yet still fulfill the roles they were made for make me sad. Plus the fact they actively miss the people who made them and wish for company adds to the sadness 

I liked how they upped the difficulty of the shrines I’ll admit I had to look some of them up and then eminently get humbled by some of them 

same with fixing some of the towers I’m embarrassed by the one that had weapons jamming the door 

Anything that happens in Tarrey town. 

Helping the hudson family prepare a great departure gift for their daughter? Beautiful

The dream house? Amazing 

The fact you can take a pic of Mattison and show it to Rhondson and Hudson to cheer them up? Literal tears in my eyes

THE FACT THAT KILTON IS THERE AND WANTS PEOPLE TO LIKE MONSTERS AND IT’S WORKING?? Priceless     

The lurelin village quest! Link saved an entire village and helped rebuild it and they give him the greatest rewards 

The fact that Link can join the yiga clan. Yea fuck that Link guy I can’t stand his short blond ass Glory to Master Kohga

As you can probably tell I really like the side quests 

I adored all the boss fights from slamming my face into ice to fighting against Shiver splatoon. 

Gohma it’s good to see you again. 

I really enjoyed the gibdo queen fight my only regret is not getting the sand boots before the fight 

speaking of gibdos I was kinda sad they weren’t redeads but then I remembered Oh yea the royal family made redeads not ganondorf

And of course the best fight(s) ever MASTER KOGHA! GLORY BE TO HIM! I knew that guy wasn’t dead and I don’t think he’s dead after that last fight either bros got cartoon logic on his side. The fights weren’t hard but I liked seeing Link get run over

The ganondorf fights were AMAZING when his health bar took over all the way to the side of the screen I burst out giggling.

THE DEPTHS 

I LOVE THE DEPTHS I HAVE EVERY LIGHTROOT DONE I LIVE THERE NOW SO SORRY HYRULE I CAN NOT SAVE YOU FOR I AM IN UNDERTALE AND COLLECTING CLOTHES OF PAST HEROS

The addition of caves and wells is nice 

The well in Kakariko even has blood on the walls down there <3 great call back. 

but no demon from hell trying to drag you under just a cutie patootie learning to cook for her family 

the fact that there's an underground gerudo cemetery right under the ruins of Arbiter's grounds a bit fucked up but it’s another great call back 

the fact we got something about zora ages and how gorons are born. 

Lose my mind

The fact that a good portion of the constructs names are fucking Steward I call some of them Stewies 

Purah pad... sounds like a hygiene product 

The lady that calls Link a freak then sees he’s attractive and gives him an egg

Actually I feel like there’s even more people that find Link attractive from botw 

the dick riding from the sign dude is crazy 

The fact when Zelda said “Link you must come find me” and I followed up with “Why don’t you try to find me”... shouldn’t have said that 

Misko WHO IS THIS PERSON WHY DID THEY HAVE ALL THIS STUFF

IT’S BECAUSE OF MISKO I CAN’T TELL WHAT’S CANON AND WHAT’S NOT WHY DID THEY MENTION THE FIERCE DEITY SO CASUAL AND HOW THEY KNOW I HAVE THE FULL SET OF SOMETHING TO GET ANOTHER REWARD

The fucking Cece side adventure 

The entirety of Goron City. I swear Regandorf has something against Gorons first he was feeding them to a dragon in oot NOW HE’S GIVING THEM CRACK ROCKS

AND HE GOT MY BOI YUNOBO MAJORA’S MASKED 

zora’s domain more like Delfino Plaza 

And now I’m in Splatoon!

BLOND! NO ABS! NOT A VAI!

Riju still needs her high chair for her throne!! 

the memories are ok but because you can get any of them whenever spoiled some shit. Like Sonia dying and Zelda turning into a dragon I didn’t even know there was a forth dragon until the final memory I just picked up the flowers and said “Welp i don’t know how to fix this”

the end of the bluepee quest for Kolton THAT left me speechless 

in fact WHAT IS WITH THIS GAME AND MAKING PEOPLE EAT GEMS

“Link I pray...” GIRL YOU NEED TO STOP PRAYING IT’S CLEAR THE GODS DO NOT LIKE YOU

Above every bargainer statue is a goddess statue and that is cool and has some lore implications 

Link suffering from the Tony hawk affect and how is zelda not How did they convince all of hyrule she’s the princess  

Jumping monsters with the avatars 

the sages mask making me think of majora’s mask 

Hate

I’ll be up front about it right now I have not a single care about this story’s main plot which is sad cause it had a great opening 

look as a gamer totk is great but as a lore enthusiast I’m going insane 

i like the timeline and I’m never expecting the games to perfectly line up I mean cmon most of the games take in-between hundreds to thousands of years there ain’t no way

but to me totk doesn’t like a retcon of the timeline. it feels like a retcon of botw 

 I’ve always held onto the theory that botw takes place in a world where the timelines finally become one. 

And I’m aware nintendo wanted to make it friendly to new players who didn’t play botw but... it’s a sequel 

Don’t give me the whole “Majora’s mask is a sequel to OOT and those two are def different games” Cause 1 those games are over 20 years old so it’s not a sin to want a zelda game with a sequel that actually feels like one ( I ain’t ever forgiving nintendo for cancelling the tp sequel) and 2 totk takes feeling like a different game to the extreme by literally getting rid of parts that happened in botw

it literally contradicts it's self all the damn time

if Link is always with Zelda why does know one recognize him he’s on the missing poster with her cause everyone knows the princess 

the disappearance of almost all sheika tech feels genially insulting 

the fact that they just sideline the sheika in general is fucking insulting 

the shrines?? the towers?? Cherry, Robbie’s most prized possession being reduced into something so small and now only has photos?!?! 

THE DIVINE BEASTS????MY SLATE?!?! THE FUCKING SHRINE OF RESERECTION 

And I know the running theory is that they went back underground or repurposed but do you know how much tech that is? to just take down somehow and then not see it any more the most you see is the guardians legs in the towers 

Only like 2 maybe 3 people commented on Link’s fucked up arm and in the end he doesn’t even keep it! Rauru literally said it was unsalvageable

and at the end Zelda is just... fine Like no scaring or anything just saved by two ghosts who I didn’t think could do that 

I hate the zonai I didn’t really think of them in botw cause I thought it’s just another tribed that helped 10,000 years ago and died out but noped they went from being a warrior tribe to god like beings who lived in the sky

they are the biggest inconsistencies and are just the ancient sheika with new coat of paint and for some reason there’s only two of them now 

Honestly to me they kinda sound like colonizers and the fact there are minning facilities everywhere in the depths doesn’t help

Also Rauru your plan to seal Ganondorf failed! Twice!

And ganondorf what was your plan exactly why did you do all this I’ve seen better villain backstories in Splatoon and Kirby. This whole story is just black and white

Don’t think I didn’t notice how you changed the labyrinths Nintendo those bars on the floor weren’t there before 

the fact Yunobo isn’t using daruk’s protection 

The thunder helm is missing?? One of the gerudo’s most important piece of culture. a vital part of botw story too. Like yea you can get a copy from the yiga but where’s the real thing

Rito village... what did they do to you 

No mention of Revali 

The weirdest personality changes

the fact that they just sidelined Teba. you know the forth person to help you with the divine beasts an absolute powerhouse in aoc. the guy to be described as crazy and rude but knows his worth. Revali’s biggest fan??

Nope give the job to Tulin the character it seems alot of people didn’t know existed in botw. “Over shadowed by his dad” kid was like 5 and all he did was watch Link and Teba train and suddenly he’s hot shit with a never before seen magic ability that he just has 

I liked rito village cause it’s two main character from their had to train to get to where they were

Like Tulin’s ok but it’s bad story telling you telling me all the new champs are now leaders of their respected societies but Teba is the only one to get sidelined (don’t give me the whole but in “age of calamity...” a noncanon game shouldn’t be used for a main story and if that would be the case the new champions fighting styles should be just like that game then) 

Also I can’t tell how many years have passed cause why is Molli (Harth’s kid) Still small I thought Tulin and her where around the same age 

Kass not being in the story obviously takes the game down to a 7/10 :(

And yea I’m aware that some people think he’ll be in a dlc later but that’s not an excuse for him not being in the base game.

Zora’s domain is exactly as I expected it to be but man Sidon you really are just here to be eye candy his ability sucks

god Sidon Teba you two used to be so blood thirsty in age of calamity what happened 

why the fuck is it called gloom it’s always been malice and why did it only effect weapons and not the bows and shields 

Speaking off where did the elemental weapons go? the different arrows? No one talks about them did Nintendo really get rid of them for the fused ability. they could have just added more power to them if you matched the elements right 

The sages are just diet champions and I can’t tell, especially with the direction it seems to be going, if they have the same names as the sages in oot/ww cause in the zora murals you can read they talk about the sage Ruto in both games and we all thought they were talking about oot ruto falling in love with a hylian 

I question this cause of the goat/llama/ whatever the fuck they are shares a sages name if that’s the case they really are just diet champions 

WOLF LINK AMIIBO DOESN’T WORK LIKE IN BOTW THEY PUT MY BOY THROUGH THE MEAT GRINDER THIS GAME SUCKS -3/10

I’d love to here what some of you guys think cause I may be deranged about the zelda series but my friends aren’t lmao 

But yea those are my thoughts it’s a shame that I game I’ve waited for years for isn’t to my fancy but I’ve been in the fandom game for a long time so I know exactly what to do!

Ignore it! 

I’ll make my own totk story and lore!

With blackjack and Koroks!

#and consistency... #I know what series this is but come on #a sequel shouldn't have such inconsistencies #Like I love every story in damn near every zelda game #Skyward sword myh beloved lore #but this one bad #if it was a stand alone and not marketed as a sequel to botw I think it would be fine but nope #I have no idea what to expect for a dlc but I hope it's good #I don't think i'll replay this game like I replayed botw a bunch #but i will play that dlc cause I like the games mechanics and I wanna see what it'll do to it's dumb lore #glory to master kohga #long post #my thoughts #snix talks #zelda #totk #tears of the kingdom #botw #breath of the wild #link #sidon #teba #riju #yunobo #tulin #rauru #this game really just is gameplay over story and it sucks cause i really liked botw story #and I really wanted to know more about 10000 years ago

[rawliverandgoronspice]

Okay, I just wanna say that Ganondorf in ToTK, despite not having Wind Waker’s pathos, is easily the best Ganondorf we’ve had (which is surprising considering some parts of the story). He’s terrifying whenever he shows his mug, he’s active and damn near omnipresent though Puppet Zelda and the Phantom Ganons/gloom spawns, and he’s easily the most unhinged take on the character we’ve ever seen. As for his motives, it’s as simple as turning hyrule into a chaotic hellish landscape where the only rule is that the strong thrive and the weak die, which isn’t really unique, but the landscape and monsters in the game kinda cements how bad that would be.

I get we were kinda expecting another Wind Waker situation, but what we got is great too because Ganondorf was great in Ocarina of Time and he too wasnt anything beyond pure near omnipresent evil.

I mean... I think it's as good as any a time to bring up a really important distinction to the way I critique stuff in general, which is that there's a part of interacting with art that is kind of is... true at a fundamental level? That fundamental level being the emotional response. Nobody can ever be more right or wrong for their emotional response, it's kind of non-debatable.

So I'm really glad TotK Ganondorf did it for you! I genuinely am. I actually loved some things about his incarnation; the musical motifs and the way they are integrated within the story (!!! so good), the concept of Fake Zelda, the actual final fight which I 100% agree is the best one we ever had (still love the TP one, but, the horseback part is a little eeeh and the swordfight could have been harder), his various designs, Gloom Hand and Phantom Ganon which are probably among my favorite parts of the game...

But yeah, I suppose I'm the kind of annoying player who needs a solid thematic framework to relax and accept the scenario proposed (the kind that is driven by mimicry and meaning, which is, I have to admit, especially hard and ungrateful to design for --and so is, often, completely ignored *sobs*). So I would have been completely fine with a Ganondorf without pathos, but one that did fit better within its own environment and countered the themes of the game and developed an ideological philosophy that you could solidly oppose, and not just treating him as an excuse to usher the gameplay forward (I mean, he did betray the gerudos which stranded him while you get to receive everyone's help, but he is not alone in practice! Every monster stands by his side! He may even have a more devoted and stronger support system than you depending on how you play the game). But that goes beyond Ganondorf: I had much trouble seeing past the self-referential and actually enjoy what Tears of the Kingdom had to offer in terms of emotional texture.

But yeah. Could not get behind the writing and a lot of choices in terms of... I don't know, the timing of his maniacal laughter, for example? I feel like a good maniacal laughter needs to be earned, and there's so many times where it just felt completely cheap to me? Even OoT Ganondorf, who had his share of cheap laughter moments, kind of had them work by the simple fact that they were here to directly mock us, the player, and our actions (if I remember well he only has two in the entire game: one after getting his way within the Sacred Realm, and one right before the final battle). We're not going over the extraordinary WW laughter, which is everything to me, but I also really enjoyed the kind-of-unhinged-but-sober take on TP Ganondorf, where he laughs only once and because he knows that he is close to losing probably. I think that was a great characterization, and I'm kind of sad they got rid of it to replace it with [insert maniacal laughter here] sort of approach that isn't specific to the character built over the years (except for the moment where he turns into a dragon, which was the one I liked the most --but it was greatly overused in my opinion).

So I really think his absence of specificy and the fact that his plans are pretty much nonsensical when you examine them for more than a minute, and the fact that he was all over the place and actually sparring with you and building direct grief with you in previous titles, where here I really wasn't sold on why I was supposed to invest myself in the situation besides a vague sense of duty and "that's what the game expects of me" really... didn't sell me the intimidation or the presence. There are a couple of iconic moments that I genuinely loved to see (the whole fist in the throat was GREAT, and perhaaaaps the "come at me" tho even THAT is self-referential grumble grumble sorry to be like this I'm genuinely sorry, the thought wouldn't even have crossed my mind if everything else about him wasn't a strange patchwork, but, it does pile up), but, I needed the framework to stand on its own to genuinely love him in this game.

But I'm really glad if he scratched the itch for you! Most people seem to agree too, which is great. I just... I mean, I am obviously invested in this not becoming the standard of quality. I think we could keep a lot of what worked here and add a scoop of better writing and thematic consistency, and I'd be on board way more already.

#asks #totk #totk critical #totk spoilers #when will my brain return from the imprisoning war... #ganondorf #oot #wind waker #ww #tp #thanks for the ask! #yeah I'm sorry I was never going to agree haha #but it's fine! I completely can see why people would just ride the epic ride and not be bothered by the rest #I'm just too annoying to interact with media (including the media I work on this has literally Caused Problems)

[kitchfit]

Year in Review: Games Pt 3

My penultimate list of games contains a rather random grabbag of obsessions I bounced between over the summer and into the fall. And for this list I do mean obsession. Most of these titles took over my brain for at least a week until I was able to stave it off with something else.

The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past Randomizer

I don't often think too much about the structure of traditional Zelda games when I look back on them. Recently, in an interview, Eiji Aonuma expressed a lack of interest to return to the traditional styled Zelda games, stating "Why do you want to go back to a type of game where you're more limited or more restricted in the types of things or ways you can play?" I understand that sentiment, but I believe the restrictive structure of older Zeldas actively curate the gameplay experience rather than hinder it. There's something to be said about how linearity in a game can be in service to a better story, but in Zelda, the linearity turns the entire map into something of a puzzlebox. There's a reason this franchise inspired Metroid.

These are the thoughts I had while figuring out exactly how Zelda randomizers worked and actually getting one to function properly. A Link to the Past, the game the solidified the Zelda formula. Compared to Zelda I, this game is considerably more linear, each mark of your progression hindered by a Key Item that progressively unlocks more of the world around you until you have free reign of the map. The OG makes this progression path relatively intuitive, but in a randomizer the path still exists, but its been altered. All of the keys are behind new locks, and the experience of finding those locks is almost like playing Alttp for the first time.

Familiar items from the beginning may be moved towards the end. I didn't even find the sword until around the halfway point, and had to get creative when dealing with bosses, but near the end, when I had everything, the game was identical to its original counterpart. In this way, the restrictive nature of the game made it more compelling than if I had free reign of the map from the get go. But I guess the Zelda team just isn't interested in that type of gameplay anymore.

Super Mario Odyssey

This is foreshadowing a much more psychotic stage of this review, which I'll save as the last update to this Year in Review project. The is my first time playing this! Can you believe! I'm apparently something of a "gamer," but one of the most beloved Mario games of modern times remained unplayed and alone... I had to rectify this. And damn, yea. This is the perfect advancement in 3D Mario since the time of Mario Galaxy. The controls are a perfect mix of freedom and control; I was never agitated with Mario's movement. The Moons allowing simple exploration and puzzle solving to be rewarded without booting the player out of the level. Finally, after all this time, Mario has reached the heights of the first Banjo Kazooie game.

This is a lot easier to qualify with hindsight, since well... You'll see! But during my time with the game, what I was most impressed with were the environments. You're exploring entire communities! New sections of the Mario world that we've never seen before that fit perfectly with everything we've seen before. Classic themes with a twist. The Sand Kingdom is a normal dessert level that has been frozen over with an icy curse. The Wooded Kingdom seems at first to be a standard grass theme, but is actually a defunct industrial zone upkept by robots who like to garden! Even New Donk City with its hyper realistic Business People, which seems a wild setting for a Mario game, hearkens back to the older games like Donkey Kong 94. For the first time in a long time, this game got me interested in the lore of the Mario universe, and that would have dire consequences...

Fire Emblem: Awakening

This is one of those franchises I have a lot of love for despite the fact almost every entry has something that makes me stretch my face into a comical frown, like Wile E. Coyote realizing he's been thoroughly duped by the funny bird that goes fast. The Fire Emblem games are already thoroughly difficult tactical rpgs, which are hard enough to invest yourself into without tearing your hair out. Awakening is the game that brought the franchise back from the brink of death, at least in the west, and part of that, I believe, was because of the reintroduction of a mechanic from FE4 I affectionately refer to as "the breeding mechanic."

By slamming your anime chess pieces against each other like action figures to make them kiss, they can get married and have a kid. That child can then be recruited into your army after some goofy time travel antics, and their stats, class options, and abilities are decided based on those of their parent units. This means breeding your units like livestock to create the best child units is the most effective way to play the game, which, I won't lie, is just simulated eugenics. This grossed me out as a teenager when I bought this game, and combined with how hard the game was for me at the time, I put the game down for an indefinite hiatus.

Returning to it after all these years, I am sad to say abusing the breeding mechanic is fun as all hell. Okay, maybe equating romance options in a video game to actual eugenics is a bit harsh. It's not like the game encourages playing like that, it really is just letting you ship your favorite characters together, which is present in every FE game these days. Pairing the units up based not only on chemistry but on available skills allowed me to have a nice time with a pretty fun cast and absolutely WRECK HOUSE through the chapters to the point that difficulty became something of a joke. There's also a story in this game. It's fine. Time travel is in it.

Fire Emblem: Binding Blade

This is lauded as one of the most difficult FE games to ever exist, but it isn't usually said with a happy face. Every map is a "seize map" meaning the primary objective is always to kill the boss and bring the Lord (in this case, Roy) to the place the boss was sitting. Roy stagnates at level 20 around the midpoint of the game, and will not promote until the second to last chapter, meaning he's basically useless in the latter half of the game but still required to use in every chapter. Reinforcements appear to a genuinely goofy degree, and will sometimes capsize your run without any warning. You cannot get the true ending of the game without keeping certain fragile ass characters alive (sometimes on the ENEMY TEAM) that unlock hidden chapters with even more bullshit difficulty. Full disclosure, I had to use a guide + a hack that removed fog to get through this game.

Despite ALL OF THIS, Binding Blade has been one of the most engaging and thought provoking Fire Emblem experiences I've ever had. The plot follows a World War esque scenario. On the relatively peaceful continent of Elibe, the country with the strongest military, Bern, has suddenly broke treaty and attempts to conquer all neighboring states. Roy, a 14 year old noble boy on a quest to deliver reinforcements, is suddenly thrust into the role of general after the commander of Lycia falls in battle against Bern troops. And THAT is why the game's difficulty feels so appropriate! It's an uphill climb from day one, Roy is in no way prepared for this, he's FOURTEEN. He should be playing Animal Crossing on his Nintendo 3DS, consarnit! There's also an interesting twist at the end that calls into question our celebration of history and responsibility of the past, which I might get into if I replay it. And I probably will! There's a very lovingly made hack that remakes all of Binding Blade in FE8 with qol features that made me excited to come back to it in the future.

Pikmin 4 pt 1

I'm still having a hard time believing this game exists. I feel like I'm taking it for granted. Just last year I remember cynically telling my friend this title would probably be in development hell for another half a decade at least. But it's here! And damn what a fantastic return. Similar to Pikmin 2, 4 foregoes time limits and resource management in favor of exploration and isolated challenges, without turning to the bullshit difficulty 2 would occasionally throw your way. There's just so much stuff in this game! Caves are back! Piklopedia is huge! Two new types of Pikmin! Like 6 enormous maps to explore!

I do have a few reservations on it. Instead of following the previously established continuity, Pikmin 4 reboots the series, repeating Pikmin 1's plot with the caveat that Olimar never made it off of PNF-404, and it's your job to save him. Along with sixty other tiny alien people that are apparently also prone to crash land in dangerous areas like Olimar before them. It's hilarious, really, the only reason your (custom made) character is in charge is because they're the only one who made it through the atmosphere without shitting themselves.

The caves overall have stronger themes than Pikmin 2 ever managed, and are extremely well designed in their layouts, and the plot and characters are super charming as well. Louie is back and bastardly as ever. He is such an asshole in this title, I love him so much. This is marked as part 1, not only because I'm excited to jump back into the extensive postgame content, but also because of the amount of detail put into the Piklopedia that I want to read EVERYTHING, but due to circumstances I wasn't able to at the time. I know these lists may come off as unemployed behavior, but astonishingly I do have a job that holds back my GAMING POWER just a little bit.

Castlevania: Harmony of Dissonance

I took a slight gaming break after Pikmin 4, but it wasn't long before the gaming urge enveloped me like a holy fire. I considered replaying Zero Mission, but if I start one Metroid game I will play through all of them into Dread, which I didn't want to start. And then I remembered there are like 10 Metroids that I've never played, and they have vampires in them! I guess, rather than a Metroid, you could call them a Vania. I've only really played Castlevania 1 and 3 on the NES before, but it's a series I hold pretty close to my heart, and this game works as a good introduction to the series, if you'd like.

The plot follows Juste Belmont, the fruity grandson of Simon who follows his boyfriend into Dracula's Castle to find their girlfriend. Juste has the typical whip finesse of a Belmont, but his direct lineage to Sypha Belnades from Dracula's Curse gives him skills in elemental magic that he slowly unlocks throughout the game. The element Juste is equipped with pairs with his secondary weapon that each unleash a different spell type, which are super fun to experiment with. Dracula's Castle is also split between to dimensions, like the Light and Dark world from alttp, and while it's always fun to explore old areas with new differences, I don't think it adds too much to the aesthetics. Both versions of the castle are nearly identical in terms of artstyle, with the "B Castle" taking on a slightly darker palette.

Juste also collects random shit he finds in the castle to decorate an empty room he found, which is tied to the true ending for some reason. I have a friend who picks up random trash off the streets and brings it back to his house as "trinkets" that he shows off to people when he has visitors, which I found myself reminded of when Juste picks up what must have been Alucard's childhood teddybear to hoard back in little nest.

Digimon Survive

This is a fascinating game. If you have any love for digimon as a series, or if you love visual novel horror games, this is a fantastic deal. From what I remember it faced some backlash when it was revealed it wasn't just a digimon tactical rpg, and even more criticism when players found out how involved the visual novel aspect was. For me, this game perfectly marries the two genres. Your choices in the visual novel structure and treatment of your units during these sections decide not only how your digimon evolve and grow, but which units Survive to the end of the game. There are also four branching paths the story can take that genuinely feel influenced by the choices you made, even though they mostly come down to a rather straightforward morality system.

The plot is similar to season one of the Digimon anime, but with a more mature feel. Eight kids at summer camp are whisked away to the digital world, where the laws of physics are altered, a vague facsimile of human culture can be found, and tons of wacky creatures show up to either aide or harm our protagonists. Except in this version some of them may actually die. I made it through the game with losing only two characters, but they're absence was felt all the way to the end of the game. You don't have to know anything about digimon to appreciate this, but it is a fun new way to enjoy these classic creatures, or be terrified of them, in a certain Bunny's case...

Final Fantasy VII

I don't mod a lot of games. I do look for fan games and improvement patches for older games, but I got a hankering to seek out some stuff a bit more high tech. On Nexus it turned out there were a lot of cool HD graphic mods for an rpg I hadn't picked up in eight years: FF7, baby! I originally got a quarter of the way through this game on steam and put it down for a bit, and then never picked it back up. I remembered being annoyed and confused at the plot and the setting, but going back to it now (with clearer visuals, lol) I enjoyed the hell out of this complicated mess of a story! Honestly, it's not as convoluted as people made it out to be, but maybe my brain has been fundamentally altered by Kingdom Hearts. There's a central mystery present around the six hour mark surrounding a memory Cloud has that doesn't make any sense, and the truth behind that memory slowly unveils itself in a fascinating way.

I was surprised how much I liked Cloud as a character. He never really impressed me in Smash or KH, but in his original game he's this goofy, anxious dork who tries too hard to be cool in front of pretty girls. I can relate to that. AND he has motion sickness. I can relate to that even more.

There are a lot of playable characters in this game, but only 3 of them are allowed in your party, who naturally will level up a lot faster than the benched boys. This is good for replayability, I guess, but if I go back to it anytime soon, I'll have a hard time not picking Barret, Aerith and Tifa as Cloud's best buddies. The other characters are cool (Yuffie is still more of a KH character to me), but I got so damn attached to those three. I also went to the effort of Chocobo breeding for the busted endgame materia, which was a surprisingly fun sidequest, despite its esoteric nature. I did this totally legitimately too! EVERYONE CONGRATULATE ME FOR BEING SO COOL!

Final Fantasy IX

I think this is the easiest Final Fantasy game to recommend to someone. All of the FF games I've played have this compelling found family aspect present, but it's executed in the best way in this one. The characters seem to have this genuine affection for each other that gets more and more real as the game progress and they develop as people. It's also hilarious in a very Shakespearean way. The main character, Zidane, was raised by theater kids, so the goofy, dramatic irony stage gags are very appropriate. All the characters were super compelling with great designs as well, and I had a hard time deciding which three would be in the final party. I settled on Vivi, Freya, and Dagger, but I used Quina and Steiner quite a bit.

The story pulled out tears from me towards the end. This is a tale about grief, identity, and the acceptance of death, and it handles those themes with depth and grace. Zidane and Vivi are unsure of who they are, where they come from. While Zidane looks normal enough, by FF9 standards, Vivi is forced to confront the fact he is probably not human almost immediately upon encountering his puppet brethren, and his reflective journey on accepting this and the fact he does not have long to live is the strongest emotional through-line of the game. But what moved me to tears was (SPOILERS FOR THE REST OF THIS PARAGRAPH) Zidane's drive to reach Kuja before his unavoidable fate. To reach out to his brother and risk life and limb just so he could offer this man comfort in his last moments, to have the last emotion he felt be the tenderness he never got to feel during his long life. Idk it got to me.

(SPOILERS OVER) The Chocobo mission in this game is a lot more fun and intuitive than it was in 7. Instead of breeding, you play a hot and cold mini game that's frustrating as hell at first, but gradually gets faster and more fun. The games lore makes a lot of references to earlier titles, though I really only recognized the call backs to 7 and 4. This inspired me to make a Libre office spreadsheet of all Final Fantasy games lore, plot and recurring elements in an obsessive and ultimately futile attempt to tie the first nine games together in a neat timeline. I'm filling it out as I go through them, so I may never actually release my findings, but it's still been a fun project, similar to these Year in Reviews!

Final Fantasy

This is the GBA version. After 9, I wanted to go through all the FF games I hadn't played, starting of course with 1. According to Legend, the team that worked on this were about to go out of business went all out on one Final product to make or break the company, thus "Final" Fantasy. I think it may also be named so for the amount of cliche fantasy tropes played out through the story. There are elves who's prince has been put under a sleeping curse, dwarves that love to mine and forge, mermaids imprisoned by a sea monster, there's even a floating dead civilization inspired by Castle in the Sky complete with still functional robots. All of this makes for a pretty fun setting, and seeing where most of the recurring aspects of the FF series originated was delightful! A few of them even threw me for a loop; Bahamut lives underground and gives you a class upgrade, I didn't even expect him to be here!

The combat is simple. The gba version reduced the amount of random encounters, and the world design is relatively intuitive (except for the airship, which is hiding underneath a super esoteric sidequest the game barely tells you about), so the challenge was mostly limited to the boss encounters, who can be cheesed with elemental magic from a decent mage. I played with a Black Mage, a Monk, a Fighter, and a Red Mage, so my healing options were pretty limiting. I didn't realize until near the end of the game that monks are strongest without weapons, so at the last moment my little Monkey boy was FUCKING SHIT UP while he had been dragging his feet for most of the game. The final boss fucked me up in return, however, and I almost grinded (ground doesn't sound right) levels for the first time in this game before discovering the Titan Gloves.

The final boss is (spoilies) the first boss from the opening of the game, who has been transported 1,000 years into the past to manipulate the conflict of the game, including his own initial defeat. This means defeating him for the 2nd time breaks this loop, stops him from creating conflict in the first place and retcons the entire events of the game, allowing your actions to fall into obscure legend in the cultural consciousness. This provides a nice explanation for the main cast's lack of identity. This story is being told second hand as a legend. These people are only remembered for their actions in a myth and thus their true names have never been known...

Final Fantasy II: Dawn of Souls

Before playing this game I had it beaten into my head from video essayists and game journalists that this is the worst Final Fantasy with dogshit mechanics. Maybe that's true, I haven't played all of them yet. These mechanics were cool as hell to me, though. Your stats are decided by usage instead of building up through leveling up, meaning your magic stat is trained by using more magic, attack is trained by attacking, etc. In the og NES game, this also applied to HP, which was trained by getting hit, but that was changed to a more steady leveling curve in the GBA version, and thank God for that. There are also several weapon types like swords, axes, and spears you can train your party members with, though you're forced to specialize early on, lest you be under-leveled later in the game. I think this system is incredibly ahead of its time, inelegant as it may be, as it lets you customize your characters' stat builds in a way that's now standard for modern rpgs.

The story kind of rakes you across the coals. It follows a group of children who have joined a rebellion against an empire dead set on taking over the world. Almost every victory is met with an equal degree of tragedy. You might defeat the enemy commander only to be too late to prevent a city being wiped from the face of the earth, you might find one of the game's macguffins from a tough dungeon only for a party member to be brutally killed off at the last moment. Even defeating the emperor comes with a slap in the face, as his death only leads to a portal to ACTUAL HELL where the emperor has seized control of the afterlife. It makes the ending very satisfying in my eyes, though there are some story developments (like Leon) that feel pretty undercooked. There's also a bonus story featuring all the dead characters exploring hell! Cool! I didn't play this, since it drops everyone back at level one, but I may return to it as a separate game someday. I just gotta know what happened to all the dead guys! They died??? Oh shit!!

Fatum Betula

I discovered this game watching Any Austin talk about games you can get on the Switch for $2, and can you believe my luck? It was only $1 on sale packaged with Paratropics! After playing it, I think this game is worth more than $2, though it is pretty short. The opening of the game is unsettling. Through hints in the menu, you learn to stare out into an abyss until a face with too many teeth tells you to fill a vial with liquid to feed to a birch tree.

And that's all you need to do! Find several different liquids hidden in the beautifully rendered polygonal environments and give to the birch to change the fate of the world. I only figured this out through a lot of trial and error. There are several endings depending on which liquid you choose, around 9 in total if I remember right, including poison, blood, liquid bone. Some of them are received as rewards for exploration and experimentation, while the true ending is done through a series of bizarre tasks that I honestly had to use a guide for.

The endings have a good range of philosophical to comedic, my favorite one being liquid bone, which transforms everyone in the world into funny dancing skeletons. There are so many characters in this world that delight and intrigue, and the writing blows my mind at a few points. It's a game you want to dig into and dissect its many angles, while still hitting you with occasional dialogue that makes you laugh pretty hard.

AND DONE! This list is a bit longer than usual, since I wanted everything on the final Games list to be homogenized. Dang I played a lot of viddy games this year. Next time I will be covering Shows. I was going to do a comics list but I haven't finished enough comics this year to merit one, maybe at the end as a bonus!

#game #review #gaming #video games #zelda #a link to the past #randomizer #super mario odyssey #fire emblem #awakening #binding blade #pikmin 4 #castlevania #harmony of dissonance #digimon survive #final fantasy vii #final fantasy 7 #final fantasy ix #final fantasy 9 #final fantasy #final fantasy ii #final fantasy 2 #long post #my post #fatum betula #any austin #rom hacks

[drsteggy]

13, 20, 29, 96 for the massive list of asks ^^

@unmaskedcardinal I swear I did not forget this, I just got bogged with Work Conference.

Anyway, thanks for the ask, here goes

13 talk about a writing experience that has pleasantly surprised you

When I was writing my long fic, I was posting it simultaneously on AO3 and FFN. Commenting is called reviewing on FFN and some people take that role Very Seriously and are not kind. On top of it, a lot of them do so anonymously or have account settings that don’t let you respond to “reviews” directly. So I was getting beat up and was not confident in my story. I wasn’t getting a lot of response on AO3 at this point.

I joined a Zelda writing server and posted a link to that fic and a member proceeded to mainline the entire thing to that point and comment on every chapter. I’d posted the link and gone to bed and I damn near had heart failure seeing like a dozen emails from AO3 in the morning.

This person loved my story and in fact I stole a good idea from them so they also made it better. This person recommended my story to the rest of the server and a bunch of them read it and it ended up being a really good thing that I was sure was ending in flames on my end.

20 what is your favorite trope to write

I’m not sure I have a trope I write a lot (though I sure see common themes. Can I explore imposter syndrome again? I’m sure I will) but I do like thinking about Refusal of the Call.

29 give us a spoiler for one of your stories

I wasn’t sure if this was for something already out there or a WIP, so I did both:

Finished:

The hero dies about a quarter of the way in. Sort of.

WIP:

Link and Revali make plans to jointly open an ice cream stand.

96 romantic/social side plots: interesting or irritating?

Interesting! The pandemic taught me I’m not nearly as introverted as I believe and I enjoy observing drama I’m not actually part of. It’s why I read Game of Thrones as long as I did, all the aside bullshit, delicious.

#unmaskedcardinal #writer asks #ask games #answered asks

[tirsynni]

Literal Legend of Zelda Showerthoughts

I had a previous conversation with @a-perplexing-puzzle about Princess Zelda in BotW. This isn’t a bash of Zelda or any of the other characters. I like that she had her flaws and struggles. What I hate is how those flaws are dismissed and, ironically, I think those flaws are fantastic for keeping the Cycle of Hatred repeatedly mentioned in the Zelda games going.

Conversation had to do with this: Zelda is absolutely oblivious to the power difference between her and Link. She acts, quite honestly, like a dick to him. She’s a teenager with extreme pressure on her shoulders, and it seems like he succeeded in his most important role -- accessing his role as Hero -- while she continues to fail in hers: accessing her role as the Princess with the Goddess Blood.

It’s canon. She’s a dick to him. It’s also canon that when he proves himself to her (keep in mind, he was doing nothing wrong, and he still had to prove himself to her) she turned around and began her friendship with him.

Therein lies the actual problem. Not the being a dick part. Her friendship, and her actions and beliefs there is why she is probably going to keep the Cycle of Hatred going.

Very simply, she views them as friends. She views them as equals. She recognizes they’re both struggling with very similar issues and also recognizes that they can help each other with those issues.

Unfortunately, she is in a position of power over him, and she never recognizes this. She is and King Rhoam is. Link and Zelda aren’t and probably will never be equals. When he’s ordered to follow her, he has to obey. She gets mad and thinks he’s doing it to piss her off. Nope! It’s literally his job. That’s what he needs to do. She freely yells at him and acts horrific to him and I don’t think she ever realizes that he can’t respond. He can’t retaliate. He can’t defend himself. She’s the second most powerful person in the entire kingdom. He has to take it. Worse. He feels not only that he has to take it, but he has to be mute in order to not embarrass her or make things worse for those around him. I think if she realized this, she would have backed off, but she never did.

Then she turns around. He proved himself to her. She’s not yelling at him anymore. They’re friends! Except the power differential remains, and she continues to show no recognition of this. She is free to speak, to complain, to do all sorts of things. He’s not. That scene where she shoves the frog at him (and this one @a-perplexing-puzzle pointed out)...  What is he supposed to do? If she orders him to lick it, even joking... he actually has to. She is so happy and enthusiastic and in her element here and... he’s not. He remains very much in a subservient role, and she doesn’t recognize this. She talks mournfully about their roles and their fates while he trains in the rain.

It would be different if Zelda recognized this power difference. She could change her behavior, verbally give him greater permissions, etc., but she doesn’t. Zelda can at least talk somewhat back to the king. Link has to literally kneel. He actually has less power in this game as a Knight than literally any other game. Hell, he has the least amount of personal power of all the Champions until he awakens in the Shrine of Resurrection.

So how does this connect to the Cycle of Hatred? The Cycle relies on the major players to continue it. It relies on them continuing their roles -- Princess of Destiny, King of Evil, Hylia’s Hero -- without making an effort to change. Ironically, it seems like Ganondorf is the main person to recognize there is a cycle, they’re all a part of it, and unless something changes, it’s just going to keep going. Unfortunately, from what the game shows, Zelda is not going to be a party to its change. Hell, she’s more likely to continue, quite obliviously, the bloody and nasty history of the Hylian Royal Family. 

Ignoring Ganondorf being the actual antagonist of the games, if you look in the game lore, presented in-game, the ones with the bloodiest history is... the Royal Family! They’ve repeatedly almost driven the Sheikah to extinction. They created a significant power imbalance in the land. The Royal Family, canonically, do not deal well with those who threaten their power. They punish, drive out, and kill to the point of near-genocide. The Shadow Temple wasn’t created by Ganondorf and his ilk. 

Ironically, you see a type of parallel regarding BotW!Zelda&Link with OoT!Hylian King and the other rulers: the King is referred to as “Brother,” but it’s clear that he has all of the power in their relationship, with not even the Zora King being his equal. The Civil War prior to Ocarina of Time ended with the Hylian King the clear victor and the Gerudo at the absolute bottom of the pile. Following Ganondorf’s failed execution, the Gerudo -- who are never indicated to be an actual party to Ganondorf’s crimes, they just happen to be his race -- are driven from the land when they’re already basically exiled to a fortress in the desert, reliant on thievery.

So you have the latest heir to the throne: BotW’s Princess Zelda. She’s oblivious to the power she wields, bullying Link without realizing the extent she’s doing it. Nothing she does it out of malice. She’s a teenager with far too much power, the daughter of a king who is also ruthless with his power, and now she’s going to be the queen. She’s going to rebuild her kingdom with this obliviousness painting every crack in her castle.

This is hinted when the game ends. It’s strongly implied that she believed Link to take up his role as Knight again when he wasn’t really free until he no longer had the title and basically ran around freeing and helping everyone. She has the power to put that collar back on him, and she obliviously and cheerfully does it, all with the good intentions of building up the kingdom again.

Princess Zelda doesn’t wield her power as ruthlessly as her father did, but she does so just as thoroughly, just obliviously. There is actively no one there to call her on her bullshit anymore. There is nothing to check her power. She’ll be awesome and loving and there is a damned good chance that her entire Goddess lineage has the potential to be what Galadriel would have been if she accepted the One Ring from Frodo. Princess Zelda is a fantastic example (in BotW and OoT) of “The road to hell is paved with good intentions.”

"My country lay within a vast desert. When the sun rose into the sky, a burning wind punished my lands, searing the world. And when the moon climbed into the dark of night, a frigid gale pierced our homes. No matter when it came, the wind carried the same thing... Death. But the winds that blew across the green fields of Hyrule brought something other than suffering and ruin. I coveted that wind, I suppose."

"Do not think that this ends here... the history of light and shadow will be written in blood!"

"Shadow Temple... Here is gathered Hyrule's bloody history of greed and hatred..."

The Hylian Royal Family is declared to be the Good Guys, but the narrative within the games paints an entirely different story.

#legend of zelda #meta #showerthoughts #i wrote this instead of making dinner #botw #for botw especially i don't ship z*link #because of that power differential #if it is addressed then it's workable #but i generally don't see it addressed #again no bashing #i like her

[ethien]

Link x reader smut where they just can't wait and do the do in the forest?

Three years later, I finished it! xD

To be honest, I am not very satisfied with the end. I really want it to be more smut but well…the foreplay is more smut. But before the request will never be done, I pushed myself a bit. I hope you like the result. 

Back to the roots

Words: 2.908

There was a tension between you two since you woke up and continued your travel back to your shared-home. You accompanied your boyfriend to a little task he got from princess Zelda. You had to travel to the gerudo, the zora, the rito and the goron to deliver her message and discuss further information. At the beginning, he was against it – It could be a dangerous travel and he couldn’t stand it to see you harmed. But after an argument and a little training, he was okay with it. It was your first long travel as a couple and he had to admit, it was nice to have you around. You aid his wounds, cooked some meals or helped him finding the right words. It wasn’t that he was silent – he wasn’t very good with words and people’s feelings – you were much better than him and he was thankful for it. And well, he enjoyed the fact you two had to stay close even in the night. He felt proud to be your shield. And you were happy to see more places and old friends from Link. He often told you stories about and you were curious. You had the feeling this travel helped you grow closer to him.

Now the task was finish and both of you on the journey back. It was only some hours left before you could threw yourself in the sheets. But since this morning, there was something odd. You feel a tension between you and him. You could feel his glare over your whole body. But every time you faced him, he only looked shy away. It didn’t change the fact you could feel his glare over you. You know it wasn’t a bad tension or that he was angry with you. You knew what it could be.

Since you two travelled around, there was mostly no time for intimate moments. You often shared a bed in a stable without the opportunity to do it – the beds stand open in the room. In gerudo village, there was an opportunity – but if someone outside would hear Links moaning, you two would be banned from the village forever.

In rito village, you had hammocks for your own. It was impossible to do it without flying out of it.

By the gorons, it was impossible of the heat. You two had to wear special armors – also during the night.

As the savior of the zora doman, Link got a very special room for you two and you two were nearly at the point to change from the foreplay to the serious business. But there was Sidon and his not really perfect time that interrupts you. You remembered his awkward face when he bursted in your room to see you two nearly naked in the bed ready for the thing.

He apologized more often than you could count it – but it ruined everything. Link tried to get hard again but you guessed with the thought sidon could burst again in the room, you would also having problems getting a boner.

So you had a feeling of sexual tension between you. When you bath, you could see how he hides to peek. You could see in the water the pure lust and excitement in his eyes and how slow he observed every part of your naked body. You couldn’t deny that you also feel the same way when he went to bath. How his muscle tensed by the first touch of the water, his posture and his booty. You had to hide your urge to slap it.

Now you were walking on the road up to Hateno where your home was. You could see what happen there: He would threw your things in the next corner, took you in his arms and bring you in bridal style to the bed. Just to put down your and his cloths in seconds to melt into one piece.

Link was a passionate lover – He knew what he wants but also have in mind what you like. He also liked it to experience something new.

An idea formed in your mind with it – It was only a walk of maybe 2 hours until you arrived home. You could try to provoke him. There was already the sexual tension between you. You guessed he only need a point where he couldn’t endure it anymore and let out his animalic side.

The weather was with you when you felt the first raindrops. You immediately went under a tree. You were not in the mood in getting sick. Link either. So there you stand together under a tree, waiting for it to stop. He sat himself on the ground and lean against the tree. You sat next to him and laid your head against his shoulder.

“Hope the rain ends soon” he said and looked through the forest you were in.

“I hope, too. Wet cloths feel so…weird”

He saw skeptical to you.

“I don’t think so. I see you often in a wet instead of a dry state.”

“That is something else, you pervert”

You slapped playfully his shoulder. “Even in a normal conversation you have to be a horny teenager”

“Hey” Link said a bit offended. “I am not horny…or a teenager”

You only watched him blankly in the face.

“You often do pervert jokes in our talks, you sometimes laugh while playing with my boobs and you just peek today when I bath. Sounds like it”

Link got extremely flustered by your statement. You could only chuckle.

“It’s so cute when you’re embarrassed. And I know the background. You never had the time and now you want…to play”

He only pouted. It was really cute for you.

You watched to the sky where the rain continued falling down. The idea in your mind was now clear.

You took out your package and searched for something in it. You could feel his glare on you. He was a bit disappointed when you only took out a banana.

“I am bit hungry” you said and sat yourself back to him. You smirked to yourself. Link would definitively regret it only to think this is a banana.

In a more slowly way, you pelled off the banana. You felt how you had his attention.

Your little play could start.

“That is really a huge banana.” He swallowed hard by your statement. “I am not sure if it could fit me whole”

You could hear his sharp breath. You catched him.

Slowly and sensual, you bite at the top of the banana. But it looked like you gave the top of it a long kiss.

You chewed the first little piece. Now you opened your mouth wide and tried to consume a bigger piece.

While you eat the banana, Link could not concentrate straight. It was a bit true what you said some minutes ago. He was sometimes a bit horny and today was really horrible for him. He admired your perfect body while you bath and it made him half hard. Unfortunately, there wasn’t any opportunity to relieve him. Despite the fact the last time you two had sex was weeks ago. He knew your home was in the near. But it was painful for him to walk with a half hard erecting and you direct before him. Now you eat this banana like you would suck his dick.  He was proud he could endure it all the day. However, since you two sit next to each other and with your teasing, he could feel how he slowly lost his self-control. All he wants was to slam you on the ground and makes love to you. That you scream his name while he thrusted in and out you. That your eyes were full of lust while he kissed every inch of you. Link really wanted to wait until you arrived home. The now tight feeling in his pants said something else.

I have to stay strong, he thought.

In the corner of your eye, you could see how much pain he endures while watching you. It was quite amusing to you how he tried to stay calm in his face when everyone could clearly see his bulge. It must be really painful for him. You really loved it to tease him – but you had mercy and finished the banana. You saw directly in his face what got him a bit flustered.

“Are you okay? You seemed a bit red in the face. I hope you don’t catch a cold” you asked and took on a serious face. Link should be used to your ability to play with him. However, you got him every time with it.

“I am…okay…” Link blurred out and looked shy away.

“Let me feel your forehead” you just said and before he could protest, you saw yourself in his lap and put your forehead on his.

You could see how red he got. You could feel how uncomfortable he sat – he wanted to hide his boner. You wanted to end this game.

So you stretched out your ass and poked his problem. The reaction was immediately available: Link softly let out a moan out of his mouth. You had to admit it was one of the sweetest you ever heard.

You sat back next to him – You looked directly at his bulge and chuckled a bit. You could feel how embarrassed your boyfriend was.

“Oh Link” you started and gave him a sweet smile. “Why don’t you say you have a second banana for me?”

His face and ears went in a deep red. He really was embarrassed but still full of lust. He only seemed a bit shy.

“Let me help you peeling it”

Your finger softly poked the tip of his bulge. He sharply breathed in by your touch. He was really needy.

He started to focus on your touching because you started drawing little circles on his bulge. However, you had other things in mind and started distracting him with softly nibbling on his ear.

A groan escaped his lips and he was confused where he should focus.

You used this and open his trousers. In seconds, he laid in his shorts and his tunic before you, his bulge seemed now bigger than before. You had to admit his cock seemed painfully hard.

“Is it a bit tight in your pants?” you whispered in his ear, Link only nod. “Should I put down the last layer?”

You could not hide to breathe softly in his ear.

“Yes….please…help me….” He stuttered a bit. You heard how he wanted to hide a loud moan with it.

You did him the favor and put down his pants. His cock immediately jumped out of it. Your intention was right – he was damn right hard before you.

Your finger danced again over the tip of his cock and his soft and quiet moans were music in your ears. Link was so cute when he was a blushing mess in your hands. It was also funny that he allowed the teasing – you know quite well he was strong enough to take action in his hands. But you guessed it was some kind of a kink of him not having the lead and being a little bit of a sub.

You started slowly bumping your hand up and down and soon, you found a good rhythm. He moved a bit his hips to your rhythm. He really enjoyed this little handjob more than you expected.

“You’re really a bit needy, you dork” you chuckled and gave him a quick kiss. He couldn’t hide a little moan in it. He only smiled sweetly to you after you parted.  

Now you speed up your pace and you could hear how he got a bit louder. It played you in the hands you were in a forest while it rained. Otherwise travelers who passed the forest would hear him clearly.

No one would expect the silent knight to be the vocal one in bed. However, at the beginning of your relationship and at the beginning being intimate, Link was really shy making sounds. You could see he hold himself back. But you encouraged him – he had the right to feel good. For this one, he let everything out – and this made you happy.

“[Y/N]…” he said in a low voice. “I….don’t want to cum alone…and…” He looked you directly in the eyes. “I want to cum inside you”

His beg was so cute to you, so you started unzipping your trousers. But you couldn’t resist of teasing him, so you put slowly your trousers and pants down. And you feel how directly his gaze followed you.

“Can you fucking please hurry?” he whined a bit in an aggressive voice. “I know you love teasing…but for fucking hylia, I’ve almost waited two months to feel your walls again my dick and I cannot wait any more minute with watching how you put down your pants”

Before you could say something, he got a strong grip on your waist and turned you around, so he was over you. He pressed you a bit against the tree while his hungry look went over your body to your now naked arousal.

In seconds, his lips crushed on yours again – now more hungry and full of lust. His lips went down your neck while his fingers found his way to your vagina. He softly draw circles on it what let you sweetly moan. You could feel his smirk while he placed little kisses on your neck. Sometimes, you could feel how he bites you to leave marks. Despite the fact everyone knew you were his girlfriend – Link had to mark his property.

At first, the pain disturbed you a bit but with the time and make-outs you two had, it got into a feeling of pleasure. You felt important to have his mark on your skin. So you did the same to him from time to time.

But for now, you couldn’t reach his neck. Link had you pinned down to the ground. He already forgot you two were in a forest. He pressed his erection against your thighs – His way of teasing you.

“You’re mean” you wanted to say – However, it came more in a moan out of your mouth as you expected.

“You started, so I continue. But don’t worry. I cannot hide anymore the urge to feel you”

And with this, he got himself in a more comfortable position. Automatically, you spread your legs for him. It made his way inside you easier, Link had to admit.

In seconds what seemed like centuries to you, he pushed his dick inside your wet walls. It felt like a thunder hit you and a wave of excitement, pleasure and lust went over you. You placed a hand against his cheek while he looked into your eyes.

“I love you” you said in a low voice. His eyes softened by those words and a sweet smile went over his face. He answered you by a deep, long kiss. Sometimes you could not believe to meet him and starting to date him.

He started with a slow pace to find a good rhythm for both of you. In your opinion, he could be a bit faster at the start. You guessed he also did it for teasing despite the fact he would never admit it. But you knew he wanted you to beg for more.

Even with the slow pace, it had effect on you. Automatically, you put your legs around his waist. You could feel how he started to support them with his hands. His touch felt warm on your skin.

You couldn’t hide a loud moan while he pounds in and outside you.

“You can be…..faster…..you know” you tried to say clearly. It was hard to concentrate on a simple sentence while feeling pleasured.

Link only smirked by it. You pinched one of his nibbles as a little punishment. It was a success, he let out a groan.

“I….can….also…play…unfair…you know?” you laughed and moaned at the same time.

“And now…keep…going. I am….close”

He did what you requested and he took more activity in your little play.

Despite the fact he liked to tease you back – You could see in his eyes he was close, too.  

He gripped onto your hips and pound harder into you. You gripped the grass on the ground by the hard contact and the sexual feeling which went over you. Your vision blurred a bit when you feel your climax was there. Immediately all your nerves relaxed and the sexual tension were away. Link came at the same when you feel his hot seed between your thighs.

You two maybe laid there for some minutes, no one said something. You could feel his now limp between your legs. And you know realized how wet the grass was. Even under the tree, a safe place for rain, there could be rain.

“I guess….we…really need it” you cleared out and heard a chuckle from him. “I guess…you’re right.”

It was still raining.

“I guess if we arrive home…how about a second round? If you don’t mind the rain, we could try out how it is in the…bath?”

You never saw him faster dressed up and prepared to run. In seconds, he lift you up bridal style and running though the rain.

Guessed he was in the mood for experience.

#tloz #loz #request #writing #smut #link #linkxreader #reader insert #link x reader #reader is female #forest fun #foreplay writing #trying my best writing smut #the legend of zelda #TheLegendofZelda #legend of zelda #legendofzelda #gerudo #zora #goron #rito #botw #breath of the wild #breathofthewild #botw link #botwlink #established relationship #ethien

[danni-dollarsign]

A Critical Look at “Pokemon: Sword and Shield” From a Casual’s Perspective...

A/N: Hey! if you’re reading this, then thank you! I don’t know why, but I thought to myself, “Hey, wouldn’t it be cool to write a pointless essay about a Pokemon game?” And then I realized today was the 1YR anniversary of SWSH, so I figured I might as well just do it! So even though I’m late and probably nobody will really care to read all this nonsense, I wrote it! If you’re interested in all the analyses of PKMN SWSH, but aren’t too invested in the technical mumbo-jumbo used by the more hardcore fans, then maybe you’ll enjoy this. 

Also, it’s worth mentioning that I’m literally just some rando on the internet saying my opinion. None of this should really be taken SUPER seriously - it’s mainly designed to provoke thought rather than try to argue any specific idea. So if I say something that you don’t agree with, you got two options: 1) Draft a constructive comment or DM to me and we can discuss calmly like adults, 2) shake your idea and ignore this. There’s really no need to get heated up over a video game essay, of all things, so let’s not do that lol. 

But other than that, yeah! If you’re interested in more stuff like this from me (in-depth analyses of Pokemon games from the perspective of a low-key casual), lemme know! I’d love to chat with anyone about this awesome series.

So, without any further ado, let’s get into the essay (warning: it’s like ~8k words).

Introduction...

Welcome to the wonderful world of Pokemon! Love it or hate it, Pokemon has had a huge impact on popular culture in countless countries in a number of different ways, sparking memes, dreams, and happiness everywhere! It holds a very special place in my heart - Pokemon was a game that I got to share with my two older siblings, was one of the first fandoms I got into, and was a big reason as to why I grew to love creative writing so much after writing a couple fanfictions for the games. I’ve been playing Pokemon ever since my brother gave me a copy of Pokemon: Ruby and have been a devoted fan ever since. While I may not be super into the strategy and damn near mathematical aspects of gameplay, I’d like to consider myself a relatively knowledgeable fan with enough extra knowledge to give a look at one of these games from a casual, yet analytical view. So what game other than the newest title, Pokemon: Sword and Shield, with its release anniversary being today? In this casual online essay, I hope to describe all my thoughts of Sword and Shield (which I’ll shorten down to just “SWSH”) from the perspective of the everyday Pokemon fan.

General Gameplay...

Many top-title games of Nintendo are best known for their simplicity: in Super Mario Bros, you’re a mustachioed red guy jumping on monsters to try and save some random princess (who may or may not be in this castle); in The Legend of Zelda, you’re a green elf-looking guy slashing wildly at monsters with a sword given to you by some old guy in hopes of defeating some ultimate bad guy; and in Pokemon, you’re a child wandering around the region catching monsters who also accidentally saves the world before becoming the very best (like no-one ever was). And while the games themselves have grown from that initial stylistic simplicity, some have lost that creative in-depthness in favor of being playable for children. This is probably the biggest issue with the newer Pokemon games as of late.

Regardless, let’s look into the playability of SWSH.

It’s played like your regular Pokemon game; you’re a kid who journeys to become the Champion of Pokemon Battling with your friend, catching monsters known as “Pokemon” with pocket-sized balls dubbed “Pokeballs.” But I’m sure you’re all aware of that information, and are instead asking “Well, what’s the deeper plot?” Yeah, no, that’s it. You’re a kid catching Pokemon to become champion - oh, and you also accidentally save the world from a power-hungry businessman - but that’s neither here nor there.

Plot aside, the game is a bit barebones. It’s pretty linear gameplay (literally linear - the map of the Galar region is almost exactly a straight-line waltz from Postwick to Wyndon, which is a bit weird after dealing with the giant, sprawling maps of earlier generations) where you travel from place to place, beating gyms and catching ‘mons, before getting into a couple scuffles and becoming champion. For an RPG-styled game, it comes off as much too simplistic for older fans (I’d even reason that it’s too simplistic for younger players, as well). While I will say, I don’t exactly miss the days of hopelessly wandering around a pixel city, trying desperately to figure out how to move on to the next town because the answer to the puzzle is hidden in this giant area that my little peanut-brain couldn’t figure out at the time. But it is a bit demeaning to get “Hey, do you know where to go?” and  “Hey, follow me so you don’t get lost!” and “Oh, yeah, want another tutorial on how to easily catch Pokemon for the fourth time in a row?” every two seconds in a city where there’s only two places to check out.

But we can’t really discuss the gameplay of Pokemon without discussing the highlights of the region. Ever since the transition from 2D to 3D, Pokemon games have begun a trend of gimmicks - which I like to call “battle enhancers” - that they use to add uniqueness to their games. X&Y had Mega Evolution, Sun and Moon (and USUM) had Z-Moves, and now we have Dynamax! As we all know, battle enhancers are the strategy by which the player uses some extraterrestrial/magic stone to physically enhance one pokemon at a time for a certain period of time - in the case of Dynamax, the pokemon either grows in size or changes in form, gaining the ability to use special type-based attacks for a duration of three turns.

Honestly, I think it’s a pretty fun mechanic! Dynamax combines the good components of both Z-Moves and Mega Evolution - new forms, awesome moves, and a ticking clock. It adds a bit more strategy to the battle enhancer, where the player actually has to plan out who and when to Dynamax (though it’s really not that hard - most everyone will save it for their ace or the pokemon with the type advantage at the very end of the battle, because that’s what you do). But it’s fun and creative, making the battle a bit more exciting when you see your beloved ace become gargantuan on a field while the audience chants in excitement. Initially, I was skeptical of the battle enhancer, but once I threw myself into the game and really got into it, I felt it was fun and cool for the region. My feelings were further improved when I learned that Dynamax was inspired by the idea that the Nintendo Switch had the potential to be played on the TV as well as in a hand-held mode. The idea of turning pokemon “big” on a “big-screen” is really just so cute to me, really. Overall, it’s a fitting concept that is paired well to the game when everything is considered.

But when you look beyond the Dynamx experience to find more content in the game… there’s really not much else. Many people (including me) were ecstatic to hear about the free-roam areas in SWSH - the Wild Areas. Here, you can do all the fun grinding stuff that makes Pokemon games a bit more challenging and fun - hatching eggs, shiny-hunting, running around in circles, Dynamax dens, etc. But when looking at other Pokemon games, that’s really it. Let’s examine Pokemon: Sun and Moon, for example. This game really shines not just for its refreshing setting and compelling plot-line, but also for it’s amount of cute and quirky mini-games to be enjoyed for a good while outside of the main story. Pyukumuku Chucking, Mantine Surfing, the Alolan Photo Club, Ultra Warp Ride Travel - a good handful of mini-games that appeal to different kinds of people! All of these mini-games aren’t just tossed in there, either - they have a fitting place in the culture of the world and add to it, rather than just reiterating it. But when you look for mini-games in SWSH, you won’t really find anything aside from just battling. Sure, there’s the Battle Tower, as well, but I’ll personally say that I’ve never been a fan of the concept of post-game NPC battle buildings. For a hardcore player, they might be fun, but as a casual who can’t devote the time to really dig into understanding how IVs and competitive breeding works, they’re really no fun. Not to mention that nothing is really being added or developed with these battle buildings; they don’t add to lore, they don’t add to the culture of the region, you don’t even really gain anything from it - they’re pretty much just places to battle the occasional familiar face and that’s it. While I’m sure plenty of people adore these facilities in the games, I’ve never been too partial to them (I’d even prefer those god-forsaken casinos over another goddamn battle frontier).

But my biggest problem lies with the release of the DLC. While I’m not against the idea of DLC in general, both The Isle of Armour and The Crown Tundra left a bitter taste in my mouth when I started thinking about the issue of playability in SWSH.

I have always been more invested in the storyline of Pokemon games rather than the battling aspects. Usually I’ve always just gotten through the main story, then wandered around to find extra post-game content or mini-games, and then moved on to other games. And that’s not necessarily a bad thing - I just figure that the games have served their purpose for me upon completion, so rather than bore myself wandering around and doing things that don’t interest me, I go find another game that has more story-based content. That being said, I finished SWSH in less time than any other Pokemon game (I’d say somewhere around twenty hours, complete with me running around in circles like an idiot before rushing through content intermittently); as a result, I was no longer actively playing the game by the time the DLC was announced.

I’ll be honest and say that when I learned about all that was being offered in both sets of DLC, I felt a bit betrayed. I’m well-aware that Nintendo is a corporate business, and therefore will always prioritize financial gain over their fans’ lasting enjoyment of their titles - that’s just a fact of life. But I couldn’t help but feel like I paid a bunch of money for the bundled titles, only to play a game that hardly could be considered worthwhile or satisfying without added headcanons or fan-works, and then get told that extra content is available that may or may not add satisfaction to the experience that’s already long since ended for me. It was just a bit disappointing - and I’m not talking about the whole “Dexit” deal (I actually was on-board with the idea of having no real National Dex - I felt it added realism to the games and would force players to get to know the new Pokemon instead of just choosing the same team they always have since Gen 1 or whatever). My gripe is that I paid for a whole game, wasn’t satisfied with the result, only to hear later that the content that I might have been missing is available to pay for? That’s incredibly annoying. Not to mention that I was further disappointed after learning about the contents of the DLC, but we’ll get into that later.

Overall, the playability of SWSH is very basic, but can be enjoyable if you suspend belief and just enjoy it for what it is. When it comes to storyline, it’s not much of a game, and doesn’t sport much post-game content besides battling.

Immersion and Ambience...

Many of my friends can attest that I tend to like silly, fantastical concepts because I personally love to throw myself into the universe being offered to me. Pokemon is really no different - the games have always sported a very immersive experience for me thanks to the combination of interesting regions and evocative music (especially the music).

I think that most every Pokemon fan has a specific region, city, and music theme that sparks a plethora of nostalgic emotions to the point of near tears. For me, that’s always been Pokemon: Platinum, the Twinleaf Town theme - just staring into the rippling reflection of the pond by the player’s home, listening to that beautiful synth clarinet playing that nostalgic melody - it makes my heart beat with so much fervent passion that I hardly have the words to describe it! And I think that sense of nostalgia - regardless of whether or not those memories are old or new - has always been a strong-suit for Pokemon games. They always have the ability to inspire such deep emotions in me and other alike in a variety of ways, further adding to the ability to immerse us into the game’s world. And whether your favorite area is as simple as Twinleaf Town in the Sinnoh region, or as agonizing as Rock Tunnel in Kanto, it’s the spirit of certain cities/towns/routes that further add to the immersion of the world in question. But how well does SWSH hold those values? Spoiler Alert: Not very well.

SWSH, in the end, is still a Pokemon game - so the setting is very vibrant and colorful and everything that can hold my attention for long periods of time. But the problem arises when one begins to progress through the game and continuously forgets what’s where and where’s what. A lot of the map is painfully basic (again, due to the literal linear nature of the Galar region) and the cities themselves kind of lack their own real originality. There was an attempt at unique cities that’s become iconic of the Pokemon franchise, but it doesn’t really stick. I think most people would agree with me that the only real memorable areas in the main game were Slumbering Weald, Ballonlea, and Spikemuth, and each of these areas have their own set of problems that also make them a bit difficult to fully enjoy. At their core, most all Galarian cities have the same basic set-up: basic green plants (if plants are in that area at all), the same brick roads that lead either to the gym or to a route leading in/out of city to another city, and a giant gym/key building in the center of it all. And that’s really about it. No real interesting buildings except for gyms and Rose Tower (and I guess technically the hotels), no extraneous locations that aren’t directly related to the plot or to gimmicks - it’s very bare-bones and really can take you out of the experience.

In a hard contrast, I’ll give the example of Generation 1’s region set up - every city has its own personality that also matches the feel of the region as a whole. Every city is based on colors, and each city is themed after that, respectively (i.e. Vermillion City, the city of sunsets themed around the color orange, is home to the Pokemon Fan Club and the kick-ass electric-type gym that initiates feelings of excitement; Lavender Town, the noble town themed around the color purple, is home to the Pokemon Tower and spooky spirits that inspire feelings of somberness and reticence). Obviously, this isn’t very realistic, but the trick isn’t to replicate reality - it is to inspire reality. The Kanto region is incredibly creative, and therefore is easy to immerse oneself into the world because it’s become a world we are actively interested in. We know that it could never truly be real or plausible, but that hardly matters when we are so enthralled with the colors and set-up and feeling of the towns. We don’t really get much of that in Galar. It probably isn’t such a great idea for your final city - being Wyndon - to feel blank and lifeless when compared to minor cities in the region. And even when we find cities that hold that uniqueness we desire like in Spikemuth or Ballonlea, there’s really no other reason to be there longer than just beating the gym. It’s sad, really. Spikemuth is such a interesting, creative-looking town home to such cool characters, and yet there literally is only one path to get in and out of the town - the town isn’t even given small houses to investigate like literally every other city in the region. It’s a waste of potential! The fact that I can’t investigate such a promising setting that inspires me really takes me out of the world, reminding me that this is just a video game in which you move from Point A to Point B. It’s no longer a fantasy world for me to explore, but instead a line at the DMV to get my Drivers’ License. The only real good thing about this is that fanfiction writers get so much free-reign when it comes to writing about the city - the only thing we really learn about the city is that it’s underfunded and gloomy and that’s literally it. I would have really liked to see more inspired cities around the region where things outside of the main plot can be done, but hopefully this is just a problem we’ll see in this region.

Probably the most important aspect of immersion (in my opinion) is the music. With the potential to make or break a game for me, I hold a lot of expectations on the music found in video games (I’ve been classically trained in music since elementary school, and have always had a fondness for video game music). Pokemon music has always been some of the most inspiring pieces of art in my life - whether it be the kickass battle suite of Champion Cynthia, or the somber piano melody of Emma’s Theme, the music of Pokemon has always been the first thing I notice and analyze whenever playing the latest title. That all being said, I have quite a few notes to make in regards to the soundtrack of SWSH.

I’ll start with the pros, first. Generally, every main title has had its own feel when it comes to the soundtrack - DPP was jazzy and smooth, Sun and Moon was based on popular Hawaiian music meshed together with classic Pokemon synths, RSE was all about the horn section (trombones and french horns all the way!). SWSH, at the end of the day, isn’t much different. The region is inspired by the UK, so it’s no surprise to discover that the soundtrack was inspired by popular British Rock. As a result, a lot of themes went really hard, keeping a hint of individuality even when some battle themes hosted similar instruments. The biggest appeal of the soundtrack, I believe, was found in the little moments, namely the cheers of the gym battle themes. I think it’s safe to say that most people get super hyped when they hear those rhythmical chants coming to life whenever in the final leg of the battle, right when you begin to Dynamax. That’s amazingly exciting, never failing to suck me into that exact moment to gather the power of God and anime to defeat my opponent. While I wasn’t totally rocking out to every single song that came on, I was pretty satisfied with the music of SWSH, overall. It’s not too bad, and hosts a few bops that I still seek out to get my blood pumping.

But, as to be expected, there are plenty of cons when it comes to the soundtrack of SWSH. I could go over this for hours and hours, detailing complex definitions of music theory and basic song comprehension, but I’ll just make this nice and simple: it was really bland.

Note that I said “bland” and not “bad” - the music is fine in my opinion, I just wasn’t feeling the same feelings as I had in previous Pokemon titles. It all felt like Pokemon music, but not much else. It was like remembering hints of a memory long-lost, but you don’t really care about to dig deep into your mind for context. Towns had music, routes had music, pokemon and characters had battle themes, yada yada yada, nothing really to write home about. If I had to pick a song that honestly, truly invoked emotions beyond “Oh it’s battle time, now”, it would have to be the Battle Tower Theme, and that’s most likely because it was written by someone else entirely (Toby Fox, also known as the creator of Undertale and composer of super hard-hitting jams). And the worst part is that I never would have even been able to hear the Battle Tower theme because I hate battle buildings (which is more of a personal problem, I know, but still). Honestly, I would have preferred hearing that theme as compared to Champion Leon’s battle theme - I feel like his champion theme was very bland and lifeless, simply holding all the required elements of a Pokemon battle theme just because that’s what has to happen. It’s uninspired, faceless, and corporate, only to be completely foiled by the unique blast of energy found in the Battle Theme, which just screams “Prove that you’re the best!” over and over to me (also known as a big theme in the Pokemon games, especially in SWSH).

That’s not to say that every other theme in the game was terrible. I much enjoyed Marnie and Piers’ battle themes, but for a different reason. As we know, Piers and Marnie host a more “punk rock” style when compared to literally everyone else in-game, a trademark of Spikemuth citizens. With their occasionally cold and prickly (no pun intended) personalities, their themes go a bit harder into rock-land as compared to characters like Hop or Bede. There’s no conflict of style there - it’s “punk” with “rock”, loads of guitars and bass with a hint of synths to keep that Pokemon flare, and fits a bit better in the setting of the world. Mild conflict arises when we start looking at characters who aren’t rockstars or idols - let’s look at Bede’s theme, for example. While it really isn’t a bad theme (it’s actually, dare I say, a bop), I wouldn’t exactly say that the resulting pieces fit neatly together like they do for the Spikemuth duo. Bede’s theme requires a lot of synths to accentuate his more flamboyant and immature personality, but also holds ties with the rock guitars while also trying so desperately hard to sound like a Pokemon song. Now, I don’t think “Pop Synth Rock” is anything bad, per se; I just feel like the added rock elements didn’t do much to add to the musical representation of our cliche jerk-face “rival”. It feels like the rock elements were an after-thought rather than a planned layer of musicality. I could really say the same thing about Hop’s theme, but then I would have to re-listen to Hop’s theme because I always forget what it sounds like even after listening to it a second before.

A big problem is that not many of these themes hold lastingly memorable motifs/melodies, which is a personal pet-peeve of mine in games where the music is highly esteemed. In pretty much every battle theme (except the generic pokemon encounter theme, which is the same melody in every Pokemon game, only with variations added to fit the music theme of the region) is just an on-going strip of notes that sound nice when playing the game, but if you tried to pick out the specific melody-line of that character, it’s a bit of work to really find anything. Let’s look at a more concrete example: Lusamine’s battle theme from Pokemon: Sun and Moon is up on my list of most memorable battle themes, and will do well without the extra influence of young me’s nostalgia seeping in like it would with earlier generations’ battle themes. Lusamine, as we know, was the elite antagonist of the game, being the leader of this esteemed Pokemon protection group who later is revealed to be using Pokemon for her own demented goals of perfection. Almost immediately, the player hears the signature accents of the harpsichord playing the prime motif before the piece digs into a full orchestration. It doesn’t sacrifice anything for the sake of “sounding like a Pokemon song”, nor does it sacrifice anything for the sake of keeping with the musical inspiration. Instead, it focuses on being exactly what it needs to be - a musical representation of Lusamine, hosting orchestra-based instruments (piano, violas and cellos, horns, violins, light pad synths, etc…). Most anyone can pick out a handful of memorable motifs from her theme (the main horns melody line, the harpsichord melody line, the mid-section cello and piano melody line, etc…), and those remain in our unconscious. So, it’s no surprise that when she becomes the “Mother Beast” later on, when the player hears hints of those signature melody lines becoming distorted in the madness of the new battle theme, it invokes a particular emotion that fits elegantly with the subject matter of the plot right then. In short, it’s musical storytelling done right. In SWSH, we don’t have that extra omph of emotionally-nostalgic motifs; instead, we just get songs that play in the background of this video game, and that’s really it. If you don’t like the song, good news - you’ll probably only hear it once or twice, depending on who the NPC is. If you do, then you’re out of luck for the very same reasons. This game lacks a very basic hint of soul to its soundtrack, which is really such a jarring idea especially when you realize that they paired up with a composer who arguably has mastered the idea of musical motifs (Fox).

This really isn’t just SWSH’s problem, either. I also went through a similar heartbreak in S&M during the final stretch of the main game; after battling Lusamine and saving the region from the threat of Ultra Beasts (more or less, anyway), we the player go to challenge the champion, who is revealed to be Profession Kukui since there really is no true champion for the newly-made league. It’s hard to go from an exciting, powerful battle theme like Lusamine’s to some generic, cardboard-cut-out version of a champion battle theme for Kukui. It’s hard to invoke any sort of emotional appeal when there’s no real inspiration to be felt in the music; with no emotional connection, there is no emotion. It’s, once again, just music that plays in the background of a video game. A similar experience happens in SWSH with the player’s match against Champion Leon; though we have the potential to gain an emotional connection to a Leon Theme motif, we don’t get that. Instead, we just get music that is programmed to be exciting for our championship match that will undoubtedly change our lives forever. Bland, boring, anti-climatic - all for the sake of coloring in the lines. This has been an on-going problem in Pokemon games for years in which the Championship Battle Theme is less interesting than the Evil Team Battle Theme, which probably isn’t a good idea. It’s annoying when your villain has a better theme than the literal strongest trainer in the region - it ruins the chances of likability for the region’s “good guys” and overall is anti-climatic when it is finally time to become champion.

Overall, the ability to immerse someone like me in a game is very important when it comes to retaining players. While SWSH isn’t the worst Pokemon game when it comes to immersion (considering the fact that I actually beat the main game, which I can’t say for other main Pokemon titles…), Game Freak certainly could stand to learn from the game’s shortcomings.

Creature and Character Design...

The monster design is arguably one of the most controversial topics when it comes to any Pokemon game. Some people only care about the designs of Gen 1, others accept everything but Gen 5, and a select few could rant for hours on the stupidity of literally every Pokemon design in the franchise. Regardless, the design of the Pokemon native to the Galar region is an important topic of discussion when analysing the potential for enjoyment of the game. After all, I’m an artist who loves drawing all my favorite characters as well as my favorite Pokemon, so understanding the designs of these beloved figures is vital to understanding the game in general. For sanity’s sake, I’ll only be discussing new Pokemon introduced in this region, and will be ignoring all previous pokemon that aren’t regional variants.

Overall, the designs of the latest Pokemon are satisfactory. Because of my tendency to always suspend belief in fantasy works, I’ve very rarely had much to hate about Pokemon designs (not even in Gen 5, though I don’t particularly like any of them aside from the game cover legendaries). SWSH didn’t really bring much to the table when it comes to brand-new Pokemon, but the ones introduced are fitting and interesting: the Dragapult line, all three starters (even if I did laugh for literal hours at the discovery of Cinderace’s typing), Wooloo and Dubwool, Yamper and Boltund - just to name my top favorites. And I was totally invested in the designs of the game cover legendaries, Zamazenta and Zacian, since they held cultural relations with the region’s inspiration and therefore had actual meaning within the game besides just being cool mythical creatures. Nothing really outright bothered me with the designs or pokemon choices in this game; as I mentioned earlier, I was okay with the idea of no National Dex for this region, and that all the pokemon allowed in this game matched with the region well-enough.

But, of course, it’s not without faults. I found there to be a substantial lack of original legendaries in this game - we only have three real legendaries to catch in the main-game, four if you consider the DLC. We had a similar problem in Pokemon: Sun and Moon, but it was later amended with the introduction of Ultra Beasts (which can technically be regarded as legendary Pokemon, albeit from another dimension and not technically Pokemon). In SWSH, we are only given the option of catching more than two legendaries if we buy the DLC - this is remarkably disappointing for those who are interested in seeing new, unique Pokemon designs. I know many fans are constantly frustrated with Game Freak’s tendency to overuse Gen 1 Pokemon, but the fact that nobody is bothered by the running trend of being able to easily catch a bunch of previous games’ legendaries is beyond me. It’s essentially the same thing, overly relying on the fanbase’s sentimental nostalgia rather than moving forward to create new creature designs. I know for a fact that so many people would have been excited to catch Pokemon with cultural significance (maybe like elf Pokemon that resemble that of Seelie/Unseelie fairies, or more Pokemon that resemble chess pieces, or maybe more Pokemon that follow a theme of medieval artifacts - there are many possibilities), so the fact that they skimped out in favor of making people pay for nostalgia is ridiculous to me. This was a majority of the reason why I rejected buy any of the DLC content - why would I pay for Pokemon I’ve technically caught before? I mean, I guess it can be more for the kids who have never encountered the older legendaries, but then again, wouldn’t it be more beneficial for your game to have Pokemon that actually represent the new region? Instead of just stealing other games’ legendaries for the sake of saying that you have them, they could have just worked a little harder to design maybe three or six more cool legendary designs and centered those guys around the two DLC locations instead of just having Calyrex for The Crown Tundra. At the end of the day, it’s really just a cash-grab; the only reason I could ever see myself understandably buying the DLC for SWSH would be because I wanted to interact more with my favorite NPCs, but then again, I can just look at screenshots on Twitter and feel just as satisfied.

But not all is lost in terms of designs. Now let’s get into my favorite design portion of this segment and discuss the NPCs.

First, we’ll dig into the rivals. Personally, I really enjoyed the rivals of this game; while Pokemon is definitely running on a formula, I still was able to find enough about the three rival characters to genuinely enjoy their presence whenever they came on screen. I suppose we can expect to keep seeing this new Pokemon Trainer Rival Formula: Kind of Annoying but Too Sweet to Hate BFF Rival (Hop), 2 Edgy 5 U Rival (Bede), and Some Pedo’s Waifu Material Rival (Marnie).

Hop is arguably one of my favorite Pokemon rivals of all time (right up there with Gladion from S&M). He’s one of the only Pokemon characters to get a realistic character development over the course of the game’s playable story, which really humanizes him and makes up for his occasionally annoying personality. Over the course of the game, Hop goes from silently residing in his brother’s shadow to learning to stand on his own without needed any outside validation; much to my surprise, it’s not some half-hearted transition. Hop doubts himself during the challenge, as evidenced not just by his dialogue but in the way he actively changes his team to try and be more competitive like everybody else. I remember feeling so heartbroken in realization that Hop stopped using his beloved Wooloo, which is rightfully paired up with the excitable boy. The idea that Hop uses Wooloo, a normal-type cute Pokemon that generally wouldn’t be used in a competitive team, really adds more dimension to his character; when he learns to enjoy himself instead of letting his doubts overtake him, he returns to using Dubwool and his favorite team, demonstrating how he would prefer to have fun as himself than be someone he isn’t. I found that to be a really wholesome theme to his character, one that we haven’t really seen in a Pokemon game yet - it was a pleasant surprise! Hop is sweet and kind, always wanting to motivate the player even when he’s in his own internal turmoil. With all that added with his adorable babyface and goofy/awkward preteen disposition, he really makes for a likeable rival character.

The next rival to be introduced is none other than our classic Mean Boy rival, Bede. He’s a character the fanbase is a bit more accustomed to due to previous titles’ rivals (i.e. Green/Blue/Gary Oak from in R&G/B, Silver from SGC, technically also Gladion from S&M…), so are quite a few expectations placed on his character as a result. Also true to the typical Pokemon Jerk Rival, he has a complicated homelife (he comes from an orphanage, as we later learn) and has a similarly complicated parent-child relationship to the leading antagonist of the game (in this case, Chairman Rose). Bede constantly assumes himself to be better than he is and isn’t afraid to be a total prick about it, choosing to bully Hop upon winning battles against him to boost his own inflated ego (though there’s hints pointing to Bede actually having rather low self-esteem). All things considered, I liked Bede as a character about as much as one can like a mean rival archetype, but I was more than pleased to discover his transition to a more likably mean-spirited character when he later returns to the game to challenge the player after being disqualified from the challenge. While we’ve had a likeable mean rival before (namely Gladion), Bede is something of his own entity with how he actually has an attempt at character development that leads him to a mini-redemption near the end of the game. He’s really the first mean rival to have a transition from total jerk to slightly-peeved tsundere, which was probably a good idea on Game Freak’s part so that we wouldn’t be left with a character we downright hated after the way Bede quite literally destroys Hop’s confidence. It’s nowhere near as impressive as Hop’s character development (which isn’t super impressive to begin with, but let’s ignore that fact for a bit), but it’s still interesting to see in a monster-catching game about being the best you can be.

And then, of course, we get to the cute-girl rival, Marnie, also known as the place where I get a bit mad again. I’d like to say that I absolutely love Marnie; she has an adorable design and interesting personality that captures my attention whenever she has screen time. But she serves one purpose in this game, and one purpose alone - being the main cute girl rival of the game. Marnie has the potential to be a similarly interesting rival (cute design that meshes “punk” with “cute”, has a wholesome and fun dynamic with her gym leader older brother, uses a Pokemon that isn’t considered to be a “competitive” choice as her ace, has a cool/cute personality…), and yet we probably only talk to her about five times over the course of the main game. Little is done with her character - in fact, the only real thing she does in the game other than becoming the next dark-type gym leader is that she helps the player sneak into Spikemuth after the gates have been shut by the remarkably-harmless Team Yell. I don’t think I’m alone in saying that I would have loved to have seen more done with her character. With the boy rivals being more fleshed out than her, it leaves a sour taste in my mouth because the female rival is the one left with a blank personality (and I’m not just saying that because she hardly smiles - that’s really one of the only things we get about her that gives her an actual personality). My frustrations are further exacerbated because this has always been an issue in Pokemon games, in which the girl rivals are so barebones for seemingly the only purpose of serving as some neckbeard’s waifu that they can input a personality they desire despite the fact that she’s canonically a minor. Why put in the time to give dimension to Hop and Bede, but not Marnie? And we know for a fact that Game Freak has to recognize the lack of personality given to Marnie, especially since they had previously come out with Lillie’s wonderfully sweet character arch in S&M and USUM. Personally, I feel that it was because they didn’t feel like having a more punkish girl character who also had traditionally feminine-coded interests (she’s known to have been distracted during the gym challenge by the boutiques) and ultimately decided to just not give her any further personality other than that, perhaps fearing that it would dissuade the gross creeper fanbase from latching onto her. But that’s really just speculation, so don’t take any of my nonsense too seriously. Really, I’d just rather we had a girl rival with more personality to match the other two rivals so it wasn’t so annoyingly unbalanced.

Moving on from the rivals, we get into the designs of the League Staff of the game. In most other Pokemon games, I’d never really been too interested in the gym leaders; they had always been more of minor bosses, just faces that you saw for a couple of seconds before pummeling their ‘mons and moving to the next city. But in this game in particular, there was a sudden transition from simple puzzle master to a full-on celebrity figure. I really enjoyed this! It was so nice to actually have some information on the gym leaders other than what type they sported; suddenly, they have personalities and interests - they become real to the player. Not to mention that there really is a gym leader for everyone to enjoy, thanks to their unique personalities and styles.

I’ll be a bit honest and say that some of their clothing designs are remarkably stupid for even an anime-based RPG game (I mean, I know we joke about Leon’s terrible sense of fashion in the fanbase, but can we just pause and ponder what Piers’ wears? I mean, a leather jacket with spandex? Metal boots and a work-out tank??? What is he wearing?!), but it isn’t exactly distracting. In Western cultures in particular, we can see a trend towards the glamourization of the “athleisure” style, or athletic wear designed more for everyday use rather than just working out. It was kind of fitting to see this be the primary style for the gym leaders, who can basically be described as hierarchical sports stars. Weird? Sure. But in the context of the world, it all fits together, and once again adds to the immersion aspect of the game.

Looking at our main antagonists, they are designed quite well. Chairman Rose is designed to be quite easy and fun to hate (at least for me) - he’s an important-looking businessman who’s very impressed with himself, paired up with a beautiful yet terrifying subordinate woman who does most all the hardwork for him (...actually, they kind of remind me of an antagonistic Cl. Mustang and Lt. Hawkeye from Fullmetal Alchemist…). They also had noteworthy battle themes that popped a bit more than other battle themes in the game.

While they hardly count as antagonists, I’d like to also make a brief mention of Team Yell. They’re more annoying than anything, which is a trend that I’m not too sure how I feel about yet. It was definitely more likable coming from Team Skull, that’s for sure. I would have liked Team Yell doing a bit more damage, having them be a bit more unruly and controversial before evening them out with the whole emotional appeal of them cheering on for Marnie in hopes of saving their ruined town. But they weren’t too terrible in my opinion.

I could talk for hours on the champion of the region, too, Champion Leon. He’s a really fun and charming character overall, less of the supremely wise and powerful champion that we’ve seen in older gens and instead being a more quirky but worthwhile opponent on the path towards the crown. But I definitely preferred him more as a character than as a champion; even though his team changes depending on your starter, it’s not too challenging of a fight if you know what you’re doing, especially when you immediately know what his ace pokemon is (something we don’t really learn in other gens about the champions). While I’m sure the idea of a powerful but transparent champion can be done, Leon doesn’t really stand up as a powerful trainer when compared to other champions in the franchise. But he’s definitely still a fun, interesting character concept that I am grateful for in this particular game.

When it comes to the designs of the primary NPCs and Pokemon, SWSH continues to talk that line just above mediocrity. Not too bad, not all that great, but definitely not something to be forgotten. I’d reason that the primary strength of this generation lies within the characters that are introduced.

Uniqueness vs. Status as a Pokemon Game...

In regards to the uniqueness - how well this game stands on its own as an individual concept rather than just another Pokemon game - I’m a bit divided. On one hand, I’m a bit saddened by the watering down of content and constant reliance on concepts from older games. But I can also see that SWSH introduced a lot of interesting ideas that have inspired so many fans for this generation. And while yes, this gen didn’t have much to offer in terms of new Pokemon, new scenarios, or new lore, I do think that it does hold its own when compared to the other games in the main series. New characters are introduced to the player, all of which having good (and bad) traits that allow for lots of fan-created content with their essence; a new look into a brand-new battle enhancer that requires a different strategy than those of previous battle enhancers; a new culture found within the Galar region that can inspire many more thoughts and theories on the Pokemon world as a whole in a number of ways. We cannot pretend that SWSH isn’t an influential game just because it wasn’t ground-breaking; even with my extreme distaste for the Black and White games, I still admit that they led to important decisions and ideas that led to the creation of games I did enjoy. So, as its own entity, I think that Pokemon: Sword and Shield really has a lot of offer and would probably be an amazing game for a younger player who’s just getting into the Pokemon universe.

But I think that a lot of us long-time fans can agree that this game doesn’t quite match up with the others in terms of giving those real “Pokemon game” feelings. The problem with big-titles like this is that the company tends to lose sight of what really makes a franchise so influential isn’t the stuff found at face-value. It’s not the creatures or NPCs or game mechanics or design or any of that garbage - it’s the feelings we get when all of those things reach that perfect harmony. It’s the rumble in my chest whenever I listen to that famous intro-sequence of my old Pokemon: Ruby game; it’s the fire in my eyes when I went back to challenge Pokemon Trainer Red for the tenth time that night back in my old Pokemon: Heart Gold game; it’s the tears I cried when I watched the only interesting character, N, leave my playable character after his emotional spiel following the defeat of Ghetsis in my long-since abandoned copy of Pokemon: White. At the end of the day, Pokemon is more of an emotion I get rather than a game I play, and I think this is an idea that few people can recognize for themselves. And while I’m aware that I literally just spent several thousand words bagging and praising this game for all those face-value aspects, I also know that when you add that extra little bit of care to your work, go a little further with a character you know someone will adore, or try something new with that new battle theme, there comes a sensation that goes beyond that of love for a silly fantasy game. I’d like to think it’s something akin to inspiration.

Conclusion...

In conclusion, Pokemon: Sword and Shield is far from perfect. With a number of faults and disappointments, I can understand why a lot of fans were less than interested in giving this game the time of day. But I also want to say that this game deserves to be understood and appreciate for what it is, for what it’s done. Who knows what sort of new ideas this game has inspired? Whether it be in the name Pokemon game or someone else’s passion project, I am confident in the potential that this game has to bring someone’s dreams to fruition. It already has inspired so much amazing fan-content from the community; after so many years of being away from the fandom, SWSH was the game that drove me right back, giving me the drive to once again indulge in my middle-school days of sketching out my latest comfort character or writing out a million headcanons in a way-too plot-heavy story. Many fan-creators in this community feel the same as me, I’m sure, so it would be untrue of me to say that this game was anything less than what it was: a fun, simple game that prides itself in its characters and potential rather than complex combat mechanics or some corkboard-plot nightmare. It’s a game meant to be enjoyed, so we must remember to find our enjoyment wherever it can be found. For me, Pokemon can’t really do much wrong, but also is held up to a level of expectations that I can’t quite understand even for myself. This, at the end of the day, is a video game from my all-time favorite franchise; so long as I can find enjoyment there in it, then it’s worth it. In a world filled with nihilism and cynicism, it’s nice to visit a land where you’re wise to try and be the very best like no-one ever was, to be the next best Pokemon Master.

#pokemon #Pokemon Sword and shield #pokemon swsh #swsh #sword and shield #game review #game #analysis #review #post mortem #(does this count as post mortem???) #casual gamer #essay #video game #food for thought

[shadowofadalekmightdeactivate]

Sanders Sides Ghostbusters AU

Why? Why not. I should be writing a 1,500 word short story right now but fuCK IT (A side note: unless stated otherwise, everyone is gay. This is obvious why am I even saying this)

Peter Venkman: Roman - The fuck is a gender, he loves everybody. If they have a pretty face he’s game - This has gotten him into trouble time and time again and made him bounce around from job to job until he FINALLY settled down to be a scientist, and even THAT didn’t last more than 2 years - ADHD riddled fucker - Still as snarky as ever but also still dramatic - First time getting slimed? Almost had a meltdown. HE WAS HAVING A BAD ENOUGH DAY ALREADY DAMMIT - That lasted 2.5 seconds until Patton (Ray) said he thought it was cool - Starved for attention but snarks at everyone regardless - Acts like a Prinxiety fusion at times (”love me but fuck off“ is the mentality that comes to mind)

Egon Spengler: Logan - Picture a Logince fusion that’s mostly controlled/led by Logan - The science behind ghosts has been his hyperfixation for y e a r s - He’s also been wanting to be a scientist for years so being a Ghostbuster is like a dream job to him - Used to be an English college professor until Patton roped him into hunting a ghost with him. He’s still not sure how he even met him (though it’s not impossible that Patton just walked up to him and said “Hi I’m Patton do you want to hunt a ghost with me?”) - “Might have Autism. Might not have a soul. We aren’t sure yet“ -quote from Roman - The brains behind the whole thing. He made the siren, the alarm, the proton packs, everything - Remy (Janine) has feelings for him and he Does Not Appreciate It - Did indeed try to drill a hole in his skull. He wanted to make essentially an early version of Bluetooth. Got as far as putting the drill to his head and finding out the thing’s battery had died. Roman was not amused when he asked him for more - This is going to just turn into Egon headcanons if I don’t stop

Ray Stanz: Patton - Has Autism, is lOUD AS FUCK - Has been kicked out of several libraries for this - Eye contact is a no-no. He won’t freak but he will get very nervous - He introduced Logan to Roman, was dismayed when they didn’t get along at first - Basically a little kid with a laser-shooting gun - Main cause of most of the damage at ghost busts - Roman looks up to him a LOT, even though he’s older (but he’d never say that out loud) - Is allergic to everything with fur - Feels pretty bad whenever they have to bust a ghost with a tragic past - Had been begging Logan to let them have some kind of mascot. Logan finally relented and built a kind of cage in the front office for Slimer - (Remy doesn’t appreciate having that thing watching him every day with it’s beady little eyes) - Loves getting covered with whatever crap ghosts may spew at them-slim, ectoplasm, anything. It doesn’t feel sticky to him, more soft like water-hence why he thought it was “so cool” when Roman got slimed. Besides the physical contact thing - Fiercely protective of Virgil (Winston). Heaven help whatever soul that’s dumb enough to taunt that man in his presence because Patton will grab them-with his hands or his proton gun’s stream-and throw them against the most solid thing he can aim for (which has included teammates. Logan was not impressed)

Winston Zeddemore: Virgil - Wanted to be a necromancer when he was a kid, now just wants a job - Trigger-happy when nervous/frightened, causes the second-most amount of damage during busts - Stupidly tried hiding his anxiety from the others at first, writing off any moments of panic as “just paranoia”, “just got startled”, etc. It takes a particularly nasty ghost putting him out of commission via panic attack that he finally opens up to them - Initially wrote off his anxiety out of worry they’d either A. not hire him/fire him or B. treat him like he was made of glass. B almost happened until Logan took his side when Patton was barring him from coming on a bust - Patton and Logan argued viciously over who was in charge of teaching him how to work the proton packs and guns. Virgil was confused as to why they both can’t do it until Roman told him they’re pretty much arguing over who adopts him - (Patton won that battle on the grounds that Logan gets to teach their next employee. Sadly for Logan no one else has taken up the job) - He fucking HATES getting covered in ghost gunk - Some captured ghosts have learned to fear him, he’s pretty scary when he learns their patterns - (I was going to make him a ghost that gets attached to Patton, but...Nah. Four Sides, four Ghostbusters)

Janine Melnitz: Remy - Only took the job because of Logan, likes to call him “Resident Eye Candy” - Logan can not stand him. At all. Remy’s really up front with how he feels about Logan and he finds it over-bearing - He’d wear a skirt if the boys don’t stop him. Hell he’d wear a crop top if they don’t stop him. (They always do. Buggar.) - If he doesn’t have a coffee at any time in the morning he’s a real bastard to whoever gets within 2 feet of him - Roman thinks this is hilarious and will sometimes withhold his coffee order to hear him cuss out people on the phone. He finds it less hilarious when someone tries to sue them for verbal abuse - Patton thought he was blind at first because he always wears sunglasses (”LOGAN WE CAN’T HIRE A BLIND MAN TO TAKE CALLS”)

Dana Barett: Deceit - Trans ftm - “Deceit” is more of a nickname for him, but he’s so used to it that he’s considering making it his legal name - Told off Logan when they first met because he misgendered him four times (the first time was an accident, the second time was a slip up, the last two started seeming intentional) - Legal name is still Dana, he hasn’t have the money or the time to change it yet-which is infuriating - Has heterochromia (left eye brown, right eye green) and vitiligo - Roman thinks he’s drop dead beautiful, Deceit thinks he’s just annoying. Despite this he happily goes on a few flings with him and enjoys the pampering - They don’t officially “get together”, but Roman stops skipping work to take “clients” out on dates, so the other ‘busters are happy - Roman absolutely will tell anyone who listens to him long enough how gorgeous Dee is. Virgil has told Dee about this. Snake man is equal parts flattered and frustrated - Speaking of snakes, he gets two after the Gozer incident: Zuul (female Ball Python) and Vinz (male Corn Snake) - Why he named them after demon dogs is beyond him but he couldn’t think of better names for them

Louis Tully: Remus - Take everything you remember about Louis and throw it out the window. Now go out that window, pick up the remains and stich them back together into a vaguely Louis-like character with bits of rat and garbage left in. That’s Remus. Still awkward beyond help, still a well-meaning hopelessly-in-love fool, but an absolute chaotic MESS that can’t hold down a job for longer than a month - Roman wants to disown him so very badly but there’s no relative left alive that wants to go near that man with a ten-foot pole and SOMEONE has to take care of him - Deceit thinks he’s charming, if a bit...Weird. - Like Deceit, Remus gets two pets after the Gozer incident: Zelda (female Fancy Rat, name is a play on Zuul) and Vince (male Pitbull Terrier, name is a play on Vinz) - He wanted two Pitbulls at first but then saw Zelda in an ad and suddenly decided he HAD to have a rat - The kind of guy that’s a horrible person but really damn good at his job so his co-workers have to put up with him (until the boss fires him for doing something insane like hanging out a window to freak out the people on the streets below) - He actually did the above incident. Twice. He was fired quickly and all window-washing companies were warned about him - Virgil met him a total of one time and said he wanted whatever Remus was high on - Remus, surprisingly, never takes drugs. He finds them icky-not the GOOD icky, like blood and mucus and all that fun stuff. The BAD icky, like forced mood-changes and forgotten events - You can bet your ass he sleeps around like nobody’s business - (I was going to make him Walter Peck but figured it’d be funnier if he was Louis. Be glad he made it in at all)

#Ghostbusters AU #Sanders Sides #TS Remus #sympathetic deceit #redhead writes #roceit #should I write this? #Officially? #cursing

[bbs-backlog-challenge]

BB’s Games Of 2019

2019 as a year felt like it lasted two years, and a lot happened in my personal life. Got a new job, learned to drive, got my first car, moved out of the in-laws’ basement into our first real apartment, started my first long-term game of DnD (which in itself has involved a new relationship and an emotional breakdown)- and between it all I somehow managed to play 77 games. Backlog’s down to 35 titles, lads- at this rate, I’ll be down to zero by July 2020. (Not gonna happen.) In 2020, I’d like to explore the SNES catalogue a little more, but before that happens we have to review everything 2019 brought me, in a somewhat chronological order.

- Near A Tomato Carry-over from last year’s post since I was in the middle of playing it at the time. I definitely never quite got a handle on the combat and I think some of the themes went over my head, but I still had fun here, and the 9S hacking minigame never got old. It was a gift from an old friend who I miss. Was nice to reconnect. - SSBU With my new main Zelda, I cleared all of WoL and got every spirit on the Spirit Board. I never really used her before but she’s cute now! Really liked the attention to detail in the spirit encounters. Unfortunately, Cloud is still in the game. - Mega Mans 1 2 and 3 I actually spoke about my experiences with the Mega Men in my BBLC post for Mega Man Eggs, so you should read that right now. - Metroid Samus Returns It’s Good. Like, a solid Good. Never Great, never Bad, just Good. It’s nice to see one of the least accessible games in the series get a remaster, but it feels very disposable, if that makes sense. Like they just needed a Metroid to keep people busy while they reboot Prime 4 development. AM2R is vastly superior, go play that. One point of amusement- the game tells its story without narration, and also seems to pre-suppose you know Metroid lore. I was entertained by the thought of a newcomer to the series being completely mystified by the sudden space-dragon that comes out of nowhere to wreck you at the end of the game. - Khimera: Destroy All Monster Girls You can click here to download it, ‘cos it’s free, which is almost criminal. This is one of the higher tier games I’ve played this year. A little bit Mega Man, a bit Metroid, with hints of Touhou and Undertale, it’s pretty tough at times but never to ‘precision platformer’ levels. It’s a lot of fun and the dev deserves your support. - Steve And Ollie RPG Oh, I made this one. Making something else next year? Question mark? - Prof Layton 3 Feels like these are getting weaker as they go along. The story has always been absolute boohockey, but the puzzles feel like they’re degrading in quality too. With over 200 in each game, that’s not super surprising, and I’m glad they didn’t bulk it out with a load of the awful block-slider puzzles. Still, it’s Layton, if you liked any of the other games you’ll like this cos it’s the exact same thing. - Fault Milestone Two Yo, there ain’t a damned thing I can say about Fault, so go play the first one and then play this and you’ll understand. - Full Throttle I never bothered to finish it. The obtuse old Sierra puzzlers were hard enough to deal with back in the day, and just feel kind of inexcusable now. I don’t have the patience for it. - eXceed 3rd Slick and fun bullet hell with a nigh-incomprehensible story and great music. Touhou fans will like it. Music by SSH who is relatively well known in doujin circles. - ASAMU Finished it before writing my BBLC post! - Eternal Senia Everything I said in my post rings true- do your best to look past the wonky translation, because there’s a heartfelt story underneath it. Very accessible gameplay, by design. - Inivisble Inc You have never before been, nor will you ever again be, so aware of having left a door open. I fully expected to hate Invisible, but I got hooked pretty hard. Quite tempted to do another run of it once the backlog is clear. - Pyre GOTY. Supergiant’s best game so far, and that’s not an easy thing to say for this Bastion veteran. I sobbed by the end. I’m not being dramatic- literally sobbed. Please play it. Music and writing and, just, heart, are all top tier. All the Nightwings are the best, but Hedwyn is the best best. - Ellipsis Finished it before writing my BBLC post! - Just Cause 2 I found myself getting bored very quickly. The main missions are all identical (really, they are) and the side missions are very uninspired. Blitzing around in a jet or grappling around a mission target is a lot of fun but it feels very shallow. There’s a lot to do but not really any reason to do any of it. I dunno, it’s a kind of hollow experience, that I nonetheless had fun with. - LiEat It went over my head a little, but that’s more on me I think. These horror-esque, eccentric japanese RPG Maker games usually do. But, it’s neat, and short. If this sort of thing usually sticks on you, I think this is a good title. - Shantae Pirates Curse These games always felt non-essential to me; I’m not sure why they never stuck. They never really go below or above Good. Entirely enjoyable but I don’t feel like I’d have really missed anything if I hadn’t played them. It is, however, absolutely worth investing in for the utterly superb sprite work. That doesn’t sell a game by itself, I know, but Shantae is a pixel art masterclass. - FF5 I’d more or less finished it by the time I wrote my BBLC post, so I don’t have much to add. It’s a refreshingly goofy entry in a series known for taking itself too seriously, even compared to its predecessor. Look forward to my entry for this game in my Games Of 2020 post, having played the Four Job Fiesta! - Touhou 17 It’s mid-tier in the touhou hierarchy, IMO. Didn’t set my soul alight but I did enjoy it. Playing as Wolf Marisa makes the final boss too chaotic to really enjoy, but playing through again with Reimu made it more fun. I beat Extra on my third run through, which gave me false confidence that after 10 years I might actually be good at these games- to then be quickly humbled by attempting Th11’s Extra. Final Boss’ theme song has one of the greatest lead-ins of all time, especially given you start the fight by running away from her! Also really loved the Stage 4 theme as you barrel head-first into Hell (the real one this time), and the haunting, calm-before-the-storm serenity of Stage 5, overlooking the City Of Beasts. - HackNet + Labyrinths GOTY. (Yes, I know I already said Pyre was GOTY; it’s my post, I can have two GOTYs. Make your own damned post!) It’s hard to say what I loved about these games without spoiling too much- just know that they play very much like investigation games, and figuring out the puzzles feels great. Labyrinths technically takes place during the events of Hacknet, with a somewhat more Black Hat approach to things- despite this, play all of Hacknet first, and then play Labyrinths. The expansion introduces a lot of new stuff and much trickier challenges, such that going back to the base game afterwards to finish that would leave it a little hollow- a disservice to how great the ending is. - Mega Man X I said everything I wanted to say in my BBLC post, and anything I didn’t cover was better said by Egoraptor. - Octodad Finished it before my BBLC post! - Chroma Squad The final mission is disappointingly poor, but everything up to that point was pretty good. Huge variance and creativity in the bosses. However, the most fun I got from it was when I realised the game allowed me to customise my team name, transformation name, and other such terminology. Dave, Dayve, Davy, Davina, and Dehve shouting “It’s time to Chromatise, Chroma Squad!” very quickly became “It’s time to shit, you bunch of fucks!” and it was funny every single time. (Personal favourite bit of dialogue- “I tried to shit! It worked!”) - Pyrite Heart Finished it before my BBLC post! - Starfox 2 Finished it before my BBLC post! - Burly Men At Sea Finished it before my BBLC post! - Disc Room Finished it before my BBLC post! - Kokurase Finished it before my BBLC post! Should have broken these ones up a bit! - Metroid Rogue Dawn Very, very impressive romhack let down by a distinctly un-fun final section. They managed to fix so many of OG Metroid’s problems, I’m surprised the gauntlet of terribleness that is Tourian escaped with only a cosmetic change. Nonetheless, it’s free, and the other 95% of the game is superb, even from a purely technical standpoint. - Wuppo I dunno what happened here! I was full of praise for Wuppo when I played it, but somehow I just couldn’t stick with it and just never felt like playing it. It’s a very aimless game, and I wonder if that might be why? It’s a shame, I feel disappointed in myself for not seeing it through, but ultimately I play games to have fun and I just wasn’t quite there with Wuppo. - Super Mario Odyssey I loved it, obviously. I wrote my BBLC post towards the end of my time with Odyssey so most of that stands- I do want to add that the controls always felt a little loose, like I wasn’t quite as in-control as I was in Galaxy. Also Mario prioritises walljumping over ledge-grabbing and it’s super-hard to unlearn that instinct after 20 years. Finally- Long Journey’s End is just bullshit. - Secret Of Mana Dropped it pretty soon after Finning it. There’s some logic to the way the game works, some kind of hidden turn-order system, that I could not at all figure out. My AI companions (useless, btw) would hit an enemy which meant I couldn’t, except sometimes the hit would still register but only actually go through 3 seconds later, without any way to tell which way it was going to go. It takes like 7 months for your character to get back up after taking a hit. It’s just, wonky, and I couldn’t solve the puzzle of how to make the game do what I wanted to do. - Pokemon Shield Still working my way through it. It’s- yeah, it’s pokemon. Get a similar vibe to Sun/Moon with it that it’s kind of unfinished- lots of small (and some not so small) parts of the game just feel like there were bigger plans that couldn’t be realised in time. I’m still enjoying it! They did a great job of making the gym battles, and the whole process of 8-badges-then-champion, feel like a spectacle. I think only the anime has managed it to this degree before. - Earthbound Man, I really, really want to like this game, but the battle system is terrible. I need to play through the game again buffing my party up with cheats or something, because it’s so unbalanced and cheap. Everything else about the game is wonderful, but I got so frustrated with the fights! - Mario Kart 8 Didn’t play any of the single player this time, it was midgi’s christmas present so I just joined a couple of multiplayer games. Absolutely baffled that the game features F-Zero style anti-gravity courses, has Mute City and Big Blue, and even has the Blue Falcon as a selectable vehicle, but they haven’t put Captain Falcon in it. Like he’s ever going to get another game of his own? Let him have this! - Carmageddon 2 It’s pretty clunky by now, being 20 years old, but still plays well enough. The physics are super loose so you slide around like your tires have been buttered. It was more fun when they were zombies instead of just normal people. Missions are brutally hard and should be skipped with cheats. - Neopets After 15 years of playing, I finally got a Ghostkersword. The site as a whole has gone through a lot, and certainly its heyday is long gone, but there’s no other game quite like it. I’m playing the Food Club every day, still. - SIF New phone can’t run the actual gameplay section well enough, so I just log in occasionally to grab free scouts. Here’s another one whose golden years are behind it, sadly, but I certainly still have a lot of affection for SIF. - FF1 Mobile version, which fixes a lot of the bugs with the NES original. This year I completed a solo run with 1 Red Mage, a 4-black belts run, a low-level run, and a 4 White Mages run (which ended up being a lower-level run than the low-level run). I’m fairly comfortable in calling myself an expert in FF1, now. There’s still not really any other games like it- build a party as balanced or imbalanced as you like, and see how they fare. I’d like to build my own game in a similar style, one day. - Re: Live Gacha games and RPG just don’t mix! Both gacha and events do not gel with core RPG mechanics of your character(s) developing in strength as the game goes. It seems impossible to balance the game well- do you cater to the whales who spend and spend until they have the strongest teams possible, meaning the free players or the terminally unlucky can’t stand a chance, or do you cater to those players and give them no reason to spend for the more powerful characters? It’s a shame, because the anime was baffling but in that enjoyable way where you just kind of go with whatever it throws at you, and exploring that in a non-freemium game with a solid beginning middle and end would be really interesting. - Tiny Thief Mobile game that’s not available any more, I think my BBLC post covered it well enough. - F-Zero One of the criticisms most commonly levied against F-Zero is that it wont hold your attention for long. While that’s true, it’s not like you have to make a purchasing decision about it any more- it comes bundled in with the other games you’re buying, so the only investment is time. Ignoring that, it’s still fun to burn around the tracks, and the sense of speed hasn’t ever diminished. The music, too, is underappreciated, with Port Town being my personal fave. - F-Zero GX I can’t believe Nintendo hasn’t done anything with this ridiculous universe for 15 years now. The cutscenes are so hilariously overwrought, and the cast of characters is huge! It could so seamlessly intersect with the Starfox universe, too. There were rumours of a Starfox Racing title some time ago, and I really hope that’s the case. It’d work so well (by which I mean, a particularly enjoyable kind of awful). Anyway, the game still plays great, Story Mode is WAY too hard, Dr Stewart’s theme is a Tune. - Stratosphere This game is from 1998! Build a flying fortress, deck it out with fortifications and weapons and power supplies, then use it to destroy other fortresses. I only ever played the demo as a kid, never got the full game. Took some cajoling to get it to work on modern hardware, but eventually I got in and it wasn’t worth it at all. Wow, that performance, apparently it was designed to run at a terrible frame rate and it wasn’t just a result of my 1998 PC not being up to the task! A shame, but I guess it put one of my ghosts to rest. - DKC 2 The best of the three SNES games, despite the inclusion (and protagonism) of Diddy Kong. Lots to love here, but the OST is top notch. - DKC 3 Not as good as 2, but IMO better than 1. There was a much heavier emphasis on gimmick levels in 3, not all of which hit their target, but does provide a great deal of variety. Consensus is that 2 is better, but if someone claimed 3 was the best DKC, I’d let them get away with it. - King Arthur’s World (SNES) Speaking of putting ghosts to rest… We somehow always managed to get this game whenever we got a SNES, and kid!Beebs most certainly didn’t have the patience for it. Adult!Beebs barely does, either. It’s a very ambitious attempt at some sort of RTS/Puzzle hybrid, somewhat comparable to Lemmings? King Arthur must make his way from his starting position to the throne elsewhere in the map to claim it as his own, using the myriad abilities of his soldiers to get him there in one piece. I decided this year that I was finally going to play through the whole damn thing, start to finish, for the first time ever. With copious use of save states and rewinds, I was finally able to slay this demon. For as fiddly and frustrating as it is, I would still say people should check it out if they have the tools to do so- there’s not really anything else like it, on SNES or otherwise; you’re guaranteed a unique experience, if nothing else. - Oscar (SNES) Terrible. - Spanky’s Quest (SNES) With a name like that, how could I refuse? It’s a weird little puzzler, aping (wahey!) Bubble Bobble and Parasol Stars a little. You’re a monkey who can blow bubbles that stun enemies, but if you bounce the bubble on your head it gets progressively larger and can be burst to send a barrage of similarly-sized sports balls at your opponents to knock them out. You know, just like real life. - Addam’s Family (SNES) This easily-dismissible movie tie-in is actually a very competent platformer with some very, very light metroidvania exploration involved. Gomez has to go through Addams Mansion and rescue the members of his family who have been kidnapped by… something. There’s hidden secrets everywhere and the family can be rescued in any order you like. Genuine recommendation. - Panel DePon/Tetris Attack The only vs puzzler I enjoy (yep. Not even puyo puyo. I know.) I played the HECK out of this in my teenage years, and got crazy good at it. Tendonitis says I’m not allowed to do that any more, but once I shook the rust off I was still pretty strong! It was released as Panel DePon in Japan and was fairy themed, but for the western release they replaced all the fairies with Yoshi characters and renamed it Tetris Attack despite having nothing to do with Tetris at all. Up to you which you prefer- language isn't too much of a barrier here. Soundtrack is killer. - Subsurface Circular Finished it before my BBLC post. Still not decided if I liked the way it ended. - Master Of Orion 2 C’mon. After playing three other pretenders to MoO2’s throne, I had to give the real deal a couple of spins too. It’s Civ 5 in space. Customisable race builds. A whole galaxy to bring peace to, by whichever means you prefer. Would love for someone else to get into it. - Touhou 8 Last minute entry I just played yesterday ‘cos I wanted some Touhou and I haven’t played this entry in a long while. A Solo Marisa Normal Final B run, if you’re interested. Kaguya beast-mode tearing apart the Spell Of Imperishable Night at the end of the game is still an awesome moment, but it’s a shame you can miss the last couple of spells if you take some unlucky hits. - And here’s the list of Bins, which are all covered in their BBLC post: No Time To Explain MoO Skyborn Jumpjet Rex StH 4 Ballistick Munch’s Oddysee Outland Project CARS RiME Magicka Waking Mars Urban Chaos Divinity: Dragon Commander Strike Suit Zero Hell Yeah! Lambda Wars Beta Stranger’s Wrath MoO 3 XCOM Lots more Fins than Bins this year! Good to see!

#gaming #video games

[popwasabi]

Remembering My Hero, Robin Williams, Five Years Later

Not terribly long ago I used to deride others for feeling sad in the wake of a famous celebrity’s death.

My argument would go something like in the grand scheme of things their deaths “didn’t matter” when compared to various other atrocities and terrible, tragic things going on in the world. I even wrote an entire opinion piece poo-pooing the general populace for being sad in the wake of Whitney Houston’s death waaay back in 2012 for my University paper back in the day all largely because since I didn’t feel anything no one else should essentially.

Then Robin Williams died.

Well, more accurately Robin Williams committed suicide then everything changed for me.

To this day, I can’t recall a single death that has affected or beat me down more than this famous, larger than life comedian’s all too early passing and it still eats me up every time I think about it even five years later. You see, Robin was something of a hero of mine, an uber talented and charismatic funny man who seemed to perform his comedy with the kinetic energy of a hurricane and his humor often brightened my darkest moments growing up.

For him to die the way he did was beyond devastating for me.

Every 90s kid grew up on his various memorable performances. Whether it was “Aladdin” as the Genie, Peter Pan in “Hook” or masquerading as a nannie to win his family back in “Mrs. Doubtfire” we all had one performance that made us all fans early on.

(For some reason I always remember “Flubber” first though haha)

I didn’t start to truly appreciate him though until high school when I discovered his comic stand-up routines from his earlier years. 

Despite not growing up in 70s or 80s his humor was nonetheless electric, unlike any previous comic I had seen up until that point and his impressions of Ronald Reagan, Henry Kissinger and Richard Nixon are still among my favorites. Live at the Met is an all-time favorite comic stand-up performance and much later Live on Broadway still has one of the greatest closing jokes ever:

(”Harder than Chinese Algebra” is definitely a line I’ve used in my college years)

What I loved most about his performances was that he could be boisterous and sincere at the same time. Being both genuine and vulgar simultaneously and in the best way. Weave bizarre character references into personal tales of his own life. Tell a multitude of hilarious stories and references at 100 miles a minute like a comedic roller-coaster ride that lasted the duration of his performances and you never wanted to get off it. It’s true when Time Magazine referred to his comedy as something all comedians loved and respected but could never in a million years duplicate. Robin was a one of a kind talent, the penultimate original, and fans loved him for it.

Robin did his performances with such natural gusto and spontaneous hilarity that it might shock you to know he always wrote virtually every line of his stand-ups before his performances. To bring that humor to life with such infectious joy takes real talent and no one can ever deny Robin was one of the best if not the best at it.

The remarkable thing is on top of his stand-up the dude was an all-time great actor on top of that displaying ranges from as absurd as “Death to Smoochie”  and “World’s Greatest Dad” to as sensitive and thought provoking as “Good Will Hunting” and “Dead Poet’s Society.” Robin wasn’t afraid to show a darker side either in famous roles such as “Insomnia” and “One Hour Photo.” His range was simply amazing.

(Personally my favorite^)

Like many high-schoolers, I was angsty teenager prone to hormonal anger and twitches, depressed I couldn’t score girls and that I wasn’t popular but at the end of the day I always had Robin to cheer me up. 

As I became more and more a fan I’d read more into his life learning I actually had quite a few things in common with the famous funny man from a love of all things sci-fi including even anime and Warhammer to a deep appreciation of video games as he famously named his daughter Zelda after the titular Nintendo princess of the same name.

He was not just a comedian to me; he was one of us. America’s favorite funny, semi-secretly nerdy uncle and I loved him for it.

(The sweetest Nintendo commercial ever. #uglycrying)

I would carry my love of this magnificent comedian into college where I would routinely re-listen to his greatest hits when I was at my lowest of lows and boy did I have plenty of them during this period of my life and many of them revolved around suicide.

For reasons that are too personal to expand on, I had a friend who I was close with early in college who had some deep mental health and abandonment issues. She would constantly fear the worst out of others’ intentions and whether I would stick around with her to help her through it all in life. This put a heavy drain on myself and eventually it broke me enough to just attempt to cut her out of my life.

So, she threatened to kill herself when that happened.

If you’ve never tried talking someone down out of suicide before it is by far the scariest thing I have ever had to do and I wouldn’t wish it on anyone. To try to reason with someone who is convinced that their life is meaningless that no one cares about them that they are better off dead than alive is unlike any terror I’ve ever experienced. What scared me the most was what I would do with myself if I failed to talk her down. Could I live with myself if I couldn’t do enough to save this person? Is the blood on my hands too since it was my actions that drove her to this point?

Well, long story short, I did succeed in talking her down but it left a tremendous mark on my soul that I don’t think I’ll ever forget (it also would not be the last time this would happen). I did eventually move on from this person (for both our sakes) but the depression it left within in me still stings.

There are limits to emotional dependency that we should all understand and in my need to fix everything for those I cared about I started not to care about myself and it damn near killed me. You should always try to feel empathy and help those who are need but you can’t forget about yourself in this regard because it will destroy you too. Painfully and slowly.

That semester I listened to probably more Robin Williams than I ever had in the past. His humor keeping me from being an unfeeling zombie and my mind from breaking from the stress of that year (there were other events that compounded what was going on.) Robin kept me going, kept me laughing in a period I didn’t have a lot to feel joyful about and I’ll always be grateful to him for that.

Then a few years later, as well know now, on August 11, 2014 Robin took his own life.

Like most everyone else I was shocked, distraught, and in total disbelief. How could a man who had seemingly endless joy and lived by all measures a far more successful life than most people ever would feel the need to kill himself? 

It was tragic beyond comprehension.

The aftermath of course was an outpouring of love and support to the Williams family particularly his children but there was also the detractors as well. People who denounced him as some sort of coward for taking his own life, Christian zealots who believed he was rotting in hell for his sin and all matter of bad takes regarding him being too privileged to be depressed. It was infuriating and broke my heart all at once. Here was a man who more than most probably deserved a happy ending, dead by his own hands and now subjected to dumb moronic statements by people who probably will never understand what depression does to someone.

You’d would only need to a modest amount of research to understand where Robin’s depression could come from though. Despite growing up in an affluent household his father and mother were rarely there with him, raised practically by the maids in his household and by himself most of his childhood. He had survivor’s guilt for being in the same room John Belushi died in many decades prior (which would become a wake-up call for his own drug addictions). Also, he was great friends with the late Christopher Reeves who went to school with him Julliard and that shouldn’t require too much explaining there.

(Personal pain never stopped Robin from lampooning himself of course)

But the real death knell probably came at the end when months prior Robin’s suicide he was diagnosed with Lewy Body Dementia Association and early stages of Parkinson’s disease. Now anyone being diagnosed with these conditions would be devastating by itself but if you frame it in the mind of Robin Williams, a man who’s comedy and charm relies almost entirely on spontaneous-ness, extreme attention to detail and constant joy this is like losing the very thing that made you who are, what people love you for; your core identity. 

Robin was no longer going to be Robin.

I’m not asking people to like suicide or accept every instance of it but people should try to understand why and not judge others for it. Sometimes the demons are just too strong and we can’t fault others especially a mind as crippled as Robin’s was at the end.

If there’s one positive that came out of Robin’s suicide, it’s that the conversation on depression and mental health has notably shifted since that time. In the years since, it’s more acceptable now to feel sad no matter what your background is; you didn’t need to be a coal miner with black lung or a soldier with PSTD to be acceptably depressed anymore (and no, before any of you start I’m not judging those people). Athletes and celebrities alike such as Demar Derozan, Ryan Reynolds, Serena Williams, and Chris Evans have all come out about their own personal struggles with their inner demons. It’s now okay more than ever to feel inadequate even if on paper you have ever reason not to feel that way.

Though society hasn’t become completely understanding of mental health issues yet society is still a lot more open about it than it was before at least. It’s not a silver lining, don’t make that mistake with what I’m saying, but it’s comforting in a strange way knowing that even in death Robin can inspire positivity.

It’s a shame and tragic that Robin didn’t get age gracefully into his twilight years and given the current state of the country and the world as a whole we could definitely use that trademark wit to lampoon our reality right now but I’m glad that Robin helped keep me going in my most formative years.

(I mean seriously though, could you imagine Robin getting a crack at this motherfucker today on stage?)

It’s not hyperbole to call Robin Williams one of the greatest entertainers of all-time and though his time in this world was cut short by his own hand he has still left an indelible mark on myself, his fans and the rest of the world. Depression and mental health is a fact of life, generally speaking all of us will struggle with it at some point but if we can get help early and not be afraid to ask for it or even cry for it then maybe the world won’t feel so dark for us all.

So please, let’s all remember to take care of ourselves whether that’s seeking friends or professional guidance. There is strength in sadness, power in grief and love when you are lonely. You owe it to yourself to seek help and trust me, there’ll be arms open to bring you in.

Because you matter.

Thanks, Captain.

#Robin Williams #Robin Williams stand-up #Robin Williams comedy #comedy #comedian #dead poets society #Death to smoochie #Good Morning Vietnam #Live on Broadway #Live at the Met #Throbbing Python of Love #world's greatest dad #Flubber #Hook #Aladdin #Genie #Aladdin Genie #o captain my captain #Oscars #Academy Awards #Poerty #love #eulogy #Zelda Williams #legend of kora #Legend of Zelda #Nintendo #Weapons of Self Destruction #Tribute #Legacy

[endwalkr]

this is an ask based thingy but im really in the mood to infodump so im just gonna answer them all under the cut !

Favorite video game?

starting off with the absolute hardest question huh? i can’t possibly name ONE favorite game of mine because i adore my favorites for many different reasons. my overall favorite video game is ffxv or botw. ffxv because it has brought me so much joy for such a long time, and because i have such a connection with the characters. botw because i was actually in the fandom when it first got announced in 2016 so i got to be there when the hype was at an all time high– and finally being able to play the game after waiting for so long was an unforgettable experience. i have more favorite games but ill talk more about them in the ‘’special place in ur heart’’ question.

First console you owned?

my first console wasn’t a console. my friend and i used to play on her nintendo dsi all the time and at one point tiny little me reeeally wanted one of my own so i saved up and got one in [redacted] when i was 7. my first actual console was a wii though, we got that around the same time.

A game that holds a special place in your heart?

ffxv and botw mean the absolute world to me, but super mario galaxy and skyward sword are very important to me too. skyward sword is the game that got me into zelda which got me into anime which got me into final fantasy etc etc etc.  super mario galaxy was the first non-mini game collection and more adventure story-ish game i played. i was so proud when i beat it for the first time and mario was my first ever ‘’fandom’’ :’) 

Favorite video game character?

bro. i cant pick just one so i’ll choose one per game : prompto, ryuji and link. they were all my comfort characters at some point and i projected like crazy onto them. this doesnt mean that i wouldnt absolutely die for noct or zelda. 

Least favorite video game character?

i dont think theres anyone i distinctly dislike? i always talk about hating ardyn but that’s because he’s just a salty bitch. as a character i think he’s a great villain and i rly love him. i honestly always end up liking everyone somehow, maybe there is someone i just forgot about but i cant remember at all. 

Favorite genre?

adventure games, or action rpgs. 

Video game character you’ve had a crush on?

every character ever, but i distinctly remember the moment i fell in love with prompto sjghfkshd i was watching a playthrough of xv in december 2016 because i didnt have a ps4, and the guy got to the scene in galdin quay where the bros learn insomnia fell. i had watched about 6 hours of the game by that time and wasn’t particularly interested in the characters but not uninterested enough to drop it. i hadnt even gotten a good look at the characters faces yet, so when the camera zoomed in on prompto when he said ‘’might not be save for us here!’’ i noticed he had freckles. oh god. oh fuck. oh my god hes fucking cute. oh my god better watch 30 hours of this game now

First video game you remember playing?

wayyy before i got my own gaming systems, my then-best friend had a gamecube in her attic. i was around 5 or 6 at the time. whenever i was over at her house and we didnt know what to do, she’d sometimes propose to play ‘’mario kart’’. important is that we are dutch, and i was a literal child. i thought mario KART meant it was a fucking card game, so i always declined whenever she asked. on one fateful day, i finally gave in and was pleasantly surprised it was in fact not a card game, but a viddy game. so we played mario kart double dash. (…i had never played a video game in my life besides browser flash games and was Very Very bad)

Age you started gaming?

so i played my first video game that i didnt own when i was about 5 or 6. then i got my first supply of games at age 7/8, but i dont really consider that time to be when i started ‘’gaming’’. i’d say that was when i started mario galaxy, so i’ve been playing video games for real (ie. story adventure games with boss battles) for about 6 years now.

Hardest video game you’ve played?

this is gonna sound stupid, but the witcher 3. there’s like 7 difficulties and i played on the EASIEST and still had a hard time, i just couldnt get used to the combat. i had the same problem with assassin’s creed syndicate, but after about 10 hours i actually knew what i was doing, and ive played the witcher longer than that and still am clueless. this is kind of an unpopular opinion but i dont particularly like that game

Video game you’ve spent the most time on?

i guess i am what you’d call a casual gamer; i really like video games but during a normal school week i only game for like 2-6 hours. most of the time i dont play for like 2 weeks if im busy. gaming has kind of taken over my life not because i play so much but because i get so emotionally invested lol i’m currently on summer break and even now im not playing a lot because of exhaustion and executive dysfunction. this derailed slightly but the game i’ve played the most despite my casual gamer status is …. … …. ffxv. surprise, right? the runner up is botw, but xv wins by a landslide. 630+ hours. botw is 350. my main save in ffxv is almost 200 hours i think. damn. i really managed to keep myself entertained with that game… (………i was thinking recently, since the loading screens in xv are so long, how much of this total amount was spent watching screens. i imagine it’s several hours, especially if you fast travel a lot.)

Most embarrassing gaming moment?

many moments in my gaming experience are embarrassing, but a more recent one: i was in xv’s postgame, beating some dungeons on my new save file. i had just finished daurell caverns and hadn’t saved in about 2 hours. (uh oh) i was driving around in the regalia type d and got to the big cliff near lestallum, and remembered someone made a gif of jumping in there so i wanted to try it too. i imagined the game would just put me back on the road, like it does when you crash into something. except it didnt. i got a game over. where was my last save? 2 hours back all the way in hammerhead. yippee.

Scariest video game you’ve played?

i never play horror games, cuz for me games are supposed to be relaxing experiences. no hate towards horror games of course, they just stress me out. the only time ive played horror is when friday the 13th was for free on ps+, and my friends really wanted to play it. (theyre kinda addicted to it now. huh) they had already gotten over the initial fear of having jason chase you, but i was still terrified. i can play the game without getting scared now tho. the horror sound effects just rly freaked me out at first jhsdkghsd

Most memorable gaming moment?

playing breath of the wild for the first time, or beating it for the first time. both experiences were filled to the brim with excitement and nostalgia. seeing botw as a blank slate, a world for you to explore, having no idea where you’re going… that was pretty incredible. now i know every nook and cranny of the map, so i wish i could play it for the first time again. i was so incredibly immersed. beating it was insane. i cried for 30 minutes and the end wasnt even sad, i was just so amazed at the fact that i was really here, playing breath of the wild, it was really real. the fucking main theme in the background (which i cannot for the life of me listen to without crying) didnt help with my emotions sgkdjh

Video game character you wish you could meet in real life?

…………..its prompto again. maybe 2017 me …. was .. kind of a kinnie

PC, Xbox, Playstation, or Nintendo?

i dont care about console wars at all, but i think hardware-wise, pc is the best, because if you have a good pc you can basically do anything. i however do not, so i just play on consoles. ive never particularly liked xbox, so i only play ps4 and nintendo. not the switch though. its kinda petty, but my best friend and i really dont like the switch djghks

Gaming company you’re most loyal to?

none. i used to call myself a nintendo nerd (oh my god…. i m. gonna die) in like 2015 but since the switch came out and since i got a ps4 they kinda lost me. i still like their game series of course, but as a company i don’t care for them. the only reason i see square enix as one of ‘’my’’ gaming companies is because ffxv took up like 70% of my gaming experience, but besides final fantasy i don’t really love them too much either.

If you could only play one video game for the rest of your life, which would you choose?

atm i’m really into ffxiv because theres just so much to do, but that’s just a new, possibly temporary interest. if i had to choose, i’d say botw. maybe i’d say ffxv, but i feel like running around doing nothing in that game isnt very fun, because the world is sorta empty after completing every quest and getting to level 120. in botw, just fucking around on your horse is still really relaxing and nice. 

Do you use strategy guides?

yup. in certain games i try to avoid them but i usually end up stuck or in need of advice. i couldn’t have gotten so many p5 trophies if not for the internet lol

How often do you use cheats?

never, simply because the games i play often do not have cheats. unless im playing the sims and are in need of a motherlode, i dont use them.

Competitive or single player?

single player. im bad at video games and like to do stuff at my own pace. online multiplayer can be fun every now and then in games like mario kart 8 or splatoon, and i also like teamwork stuff like ffxiv or comrades. but ultimately, i prefer playing on my own.

Video game character you want to/have cosplayed?

have never cosplayed, dont have plans to either, but it would be fun to cosplay link. omg. i just remembered i have that fucking chocomoogle shirt… sorry link im gonna slap on some sasuke hair, black jeans and ugly sneakers 

Ever go to a video game convention?

i have not, i have however gone to three (3) video game concerts which is basically the same thing. 

Hardest boss fight you’ve been in?

the hardest bosses for me are usually the ones with a gimmick. you have to use a certain item or tactic to beat them or something. other hard fights for me are when you fight someone with a similar skill set. (in ffxv, this happens twice, once with the iggy-noct sparring match and once against ardyn. somehow, the final boss was easier than getting the prince to eat vegetables.) i don’t know an actual example of THE hardest boss fight ive been in though. at the time, the first bowser battle in mario galaxy was the hardest thing in the universe and i got stuck for like a month. currently, i’m having trouble with the riku-ansem fight in kh1. 

Video game you wish you could burn from your memory?

the zelda cdi games? no, i dont really know. i dont hate a game so much that i’d want to forget about it altogether, but i dont exactly love ocarina of time that much. it hasnt aged well and playing it on the gamecube for the first time in 2015 wasnt a good idea. im sure it was revolutionary at the time, but i cant handle the outdated controls gsdgksjs 

Favorite gaming series?

see, i love ffxv itself more than the entirety of the zelda series, but i dont love ff as a SERIES more than the zelda games. so if were talking series, zelda for sure. i fucking love those games and they mean a lot to me. 

Do you skip tutorials, or find them useful?

i often skip them because i cant pay attention, but then find that i need them anyway. so i usually do skim through them. 

Best online gaming experience?

one really good one happened a few days ago in ffxiv, some guy and i exchanged emotes for like 30 minutes and it ended with us becoming friends on psn :’) ppl dont usually emote back at me in that game so this was really wholesome and nice gjshksdj 

Worst online gaming experience?

i dont really have a worst? theyre more annoying. think try harders in gta online killing you 15 times in a row because they want to show you how good they are or something. magically, online gaming hasnt been too hard on me (mainly because i dont game online that much)

Why do you game?

it brings me joy. it’s a fun way of relaxing, while being stimulated at the same time. games have meant a great deal to me the past 6 years and i wouldnt want to lose them for the world.

#uh. i really just spent and hour and a half writing this down but ya #i love ya video games #personal #long post #like. really long

[inspirited-goddess]

✧ Fun Fact Friday: Video Game-Based Inspiration ✧

Heyo! After a month I am back with a little fun fact pertaining to my series and how some of my characters and concepts came to be! Hope y’all stick around to discover a little bit more about the onset of some parts of my series! xx

Here we go!

1 ) Maywing Perdonlin, otherwise known as “the Celestial Princess” was inspired by the Snowquill Headdress in The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. Last year when my brother got it, he was playing and earned the Snowquill Headdress in the Rito Village and...and I immediately fell in love with its design.

The concept of only one side of the headdress having a wing made me nut and inspired the “wing” part of her name, and I added the “May” to make it unique, and because it ended up being the month she was born. This headpiece also influenced Maywing’s design; she was born with two baby angel wings behind both of her ears, much like how Link wears his above.

2 ) Toad Harbor from Mario Kart 8/Deluxe on Flower Cup was the basis for the creation of the city of Pyrrsea in Enchancia. I loved the idea of trolleys as one of the main sources of transportation, boats docked on the waters, and Italy-style homes/apartments/city where damn near everyone owned a sailboat, and after racing on that level several times, I finally sat down to do something with the influx of inspiration.

Look how beautiful it is!

3 ) At the end of 2016/early 2017, my dad was playing Darksiders: Warmastered Edition for PS4 and I was watching him and he was on a part of the game where he faced off against creatures on a small arena in a room. I didn’t care about the foes he was facing, but just staring at the arena floor on the video game gave me a VISION for the premise of one of my short stories, Brothers of War. It allowed me to picture a scene where Bruce Willham fights against his brother, Ace Willham, who has turned on the kingdom after crossing through Nightmare’s Pass. They happen to be fighting on an arena inspired by the one in that game and...lemme just say after I fully conceptualized the whole short story, I wrote it and finished within three months because it was such a prominent thought in my head.

I don’t think this is the EXACT arena like the one that gave me all the inspo, but this is the general idea.

And that’s a wrap! I was raised off of video games and have been playing them since about 5 years old; they’ve become one of the focal points of my inspiration, aside from anime and other books. These were the three main additions to my series that were totally inspired by video games that I could remember at the top of my head, but every day I’m met with new inspiration and ideas that add a new element to my series and writing. Things like this are what make me super grateful to be who I am, as cliche as it sounds.

If you read this far, thank you for reading and I hope you learned something more about me/my writing! That’s all for today’s fun fact, folks! see you next time! xx

#writeblr #writers on tumblr #fun fact friday #fun fact #about my writing #mario kart 8 #mario kart 8 switch #legend of zelda #legend of zelda: breath of the wild #botw #darksiders #video games #inspiration #worldbuilding #darkness and light

[randomchick29]

50 Facts About Me (THANK YOU FOR 50 FOLLOWS!)

So... as promised in this post, I’m doing 50 facts about me because 50?! people followed me and my crazy masa obsessed cat mom ass. Thanks for enjoying my messed up commentary/rambles! Great, now I’m starting to sound like a youtuber that just wants money lmao sorry. Enough mushy stuff, and onto ze list!

Possible trigger warning: I’ll try to keep this as positive as I can, but there may be some things that can trigger some people (including but not limited to mental health, abuse/bullying, eating disorders etc.) If you are not comfortable with those topics, don’t read this.

1. My real name is Robin (middle name starts with Y and my last name starts with G)

2. I live in AZ

3. I LOVE FOOD. Part of the reason why I love masa and luka tbh... But seriously, food is great.

4. My fav foods are crab, ham, and burgers. See why I can’t become vegetarian 😂

5. I HATE onions with a passion.

6. My fav animals are owls, cats, hedgehogs, snakes, and whale sharks.

7. I have two dogs and used to have a cat (extremely long story short: My cat is in the “care” of an abusive psycho that isn’t allowed near me so I can’t see her ever again :/ but my sisters can) I still love Lucky (my cat) to death. She’s a sweet kitty (most of the time) and I miss her so much ❤️

8. My dogs are named Tucker and Bella. They’re both miniature schnauzers and they’re crazy. Tucker is a sweetheart, but he DOESNT. STOP. BARKING. He has a bit of a jealousy issue. When Bella gets attention, he starts barking and/or pushes her away from the human 😂 He hates when his people hug. He will jump on them and bark and growl. He also has stuffed animals that he LOVES. He uses them as pillows and carries them around. Bella is a lazy piggy ass. All she does is sleep and eat (like me haha). Half the time she’s too lazy to get up and go outside, and only responds when there’s food (once again, just like me 😅) They absolutely love each other though. Tucker licks her and grooms her and Bella follows him around and it’s just the cutest thing.

9. My lucky number is 9 because my birthday is 9/29 and my adoption day is 9/9 (see what I did there hehe get it? fact 9 is about my lucky number 9? no? okay...)

10. I’m adopted from an orphanage in (Eastern?) China

11. I have 2 sisters. They’re both in college but everyone who sees us on the street thinks I’m the oldest because I’m taller and curvier. One is 21 (but everyone thinks she’s like 16) and the other is 19 (people think she’s like 10 😂) No, none of us are blood related.

12. I’m 5’ nothing...

13. I’ve always been heavy for my height and age. I was and still am judged because of how much I eat and weigh. Because of this, I had an eating disorder in 4th grade and have always hated myself and envied my sisters for their tiny asian bodies.

14. I used to do tennis, dance, and swimming. I haven’t done any sports since then.

15. I can play 3 instruments, and tried many others. I played piano for 10 years, violin for 2, and French horn for 6 months.

16. I am EXTREMELY double jointed in my fingers

17. I have a fused tooth

18. My fingers bend back at the first knuckle way farther than most people’s

19. My hair is REALLY long and grows really fast. It goes to around my hip/tailbone area as of now.

20. My shoe size is a 7

21. My fav colors are red and green

22. My first fictional crush was Link. I was 8 at the time. We’re still going strong 7 years later.

23. Only a few months ago did someone top (wink wonk) Link: MASAAAA

24. My first otome was Shall We Date? Love Tangle after I saw an ad for it on trivia crack. My first route was Ryan. My fav is Nolan.

25. I still love MM, but I don’t have the time OR space on my phone to play (SORRY ZENNY)

26. I got in huge trouble when I was 10 coz I made a bunch of accounts that my mom didn’t approve of. I made an email, twitter, pottermore, quizilla (I miss that site smh), etc. And I did it MULTIPLE times. After she took the computer from me, she found out my DS had internet too. I didn’t have my DS for a long time. She would give it back after a while, and ID GO ONTO THE INTERNET AND YOUTUBE EVERY. DAMN. TIME. I got my DS back on Christmas in 7th grade coz I got games for it and she trusted me enough (and I had a phone by then so yay trust...?)

27. ...the twitter accounts still exist... I’ve looked back at them and I wanna kms holy crap it was bad. Lesson: 10 year olds shouldn’t be on twitter.

28. I love Harry Potter and The Inheritance Cycle (Eragon series). My fav HP book is Order of the Phoenix, and my fav IC book is Eldest.

29. My fav Zelda is a tie between Skyward Sword and Wind Waker

30. My fav Pokémon are Garchomp, Shaymin, and Breloom

31. We used to have so many games and systems. We had like 100-200 games, 2 gamecubes, 3 GBA’s, 4 DS’, 2 wii’s, and prob more 😂 We got only $150 from gamestop.

32. My fav youtubers are Chuggaaconroy, Rachel & Jun, and Glam & Gore.

33. I learned about sex through fanfiction (specifically, The Lemon of Zelda (pretty sure it’s been deleted tho coz I can’t find it))😂 I never got The Talk.

34. I may have looked at yaoi at school before...

35. I’m pansexual

36. Biggest turnoffs are arrogance, possessiveness, and bad hygiene.

37. Biggest turn ons are good chesticles and sense of humor.

38. I’ve had ONE bf and I dumped him after a day coz he wouldn’t stop calling me and I was scared of my mom. The thing is, we both liked each other for a LONG time and to my friend I was like “Yo ask who he likes” coz he was acting all sus and SHE TOLD HIM I TOLD HER TO ASK HIM and he’s like YA I LIKE ROBIN and I’m like WTF IS WRONG W YOU to my friend. Then he told me in class and it was really cute and I accepted. Then broke up w him OVER TEXT not even 24 hours later 😂 Dumb 7th grade ass

39. I’ve always been bullied because of how awkward and weird and annoying I am

40. My fav anime is Ouran

41. The only thing keeping me alive in freshman year (this past school year) was otome. Specifically Masa. My mind: What would Masa do without his kitten? Who would he chase through Azuchi? Who would be the pretty pillow/futon when he’s drunk? Damn, I love this man agh

42. I can reach my back much better than most people. I don’t need a back scratcher because I can reach my whole back.

43. I’m obsessed with makeup and nails, and used to love music, reading, and art.

44. My real baes are Huang Jing Xiang (fellow Chinese SPOTTED!) and Kato Kazuki

45. I sweat A LOT. I have to have a STRONG fan coz ac isn’t enough to keep me from sweating too much. And I live in AZ, so it’s even worse...

46. I still sleep with my baby blanket. I put it over my pillow coz it’s so soft (and I don’t have any other blankets)

47. My fav movie is Heathers (WELL FUCK ME GENTLY WITH A CHAINSAW)

48. I have HORRIBLE eyesight but I don’t like wearing my glasses coz the arms give me a headache and I don’t like them period

49. I love bad puns too much (I would make one here, but I don’t wanna be PUNished) 😂

50. I’ve gotten caught drawing... and writing... some NSFW things at bad times...

AAAAND DAS IT! Sorry it was more negative than I thought it would be, but I’m a really boring person with a boring life filled with drama and... That makes no sense does it. A boring life doesn’t have drama... I’m dumb. Should’ve stopped at DASSIT. Ok, I’m actually stopping lmao baiii 😊

#robin rambles #thanks for 50 followers #50 facts about me #trigger warning #ikesen #ikerev #date masamune #ray blackwell

[coolgreatwebsite]

Cool Games I Finished In 2017 (In No Real Order)

Civilization The year is nearing its end, so that means it’s once again time for one of these. 2017 has been rough for pretty much everyone, but even divorced from the state of the world this was unquestionably the worst year of my life. 2017 was a goddamn nightmare where nearly everything went wrong for me in the most major way possible. Consequently I didn’t get to do as much writing as I would have liked, and I ended up playing fewer games with almost all of them being 2017 releases. But! The video games were very fun!! So it all cancels out!!! Everything’s okay!!!! Here’s a bunch of cool games I experienced for the first time in 2017.

Dandy Dungeon: Legend of Brave Yamada (iOS, 2017)

Dandy Dungeon is weird as hell, which makes sense given that it was made by a lot of people who originally worked on games like Chulip and Freshly-Picked Tingle’s Rosy Rupeeland. It’s a free-to-play phone game that’s sort of a cross between a puzzle game and a dungeon crawler. Guide your semi-nude hero Yamada to the exit of the 5x5 dungeon grid in a single line, trying to touch every tile along the way, gathering treasure and beating up enemies to level up. Solving the floors and making the perfect line is satisfying, the story and enemies are all very strange, and there's a ton of content. The free-to-play monetization isn’t too obtrusive either, you can either buy straight up convenience features like unlimited energy and a mid-dungeon item storage system or buy rice balls that can be used as gacha entries or continues if you die in a dungeon and don’t want to give up your treasure. I felt 100% okay with giving the weirdos who made this game money. The same people put out another game this year, Million Onion Hotel, and I barely put any time into it because I just kept playing Dandy Dungeon. I’m very much looking forward to really playing that whenever the hell I finally burn out on this.

Yakuza 0 (PlayStation 4, 2017)

Yakuza 0 is a hell of a game, and a hell of an introduction to the Yakuza series for anyone who hasn’t played it. Set in 1988, the game follows series mainstays Kiryu and Majima as they deal with the events that made them who they are in the games to follow. While I ended up still liking Yakuza 5 more if only for the sheer scope and variety of it, Yakuza 0 is very easily the second best game in the series. It has one of the most straightforward, coherent and engaging narratives out of all of them, it pulls off its setting so well that it made me sort of nostalgic for an era I wasn’t even alive for, and the localization/writing is unquestionably the best the series has had. Almost every single sidequest is funny or memorable in some way and I just can’t say that about the rest of the games. It’s not flawless. The combat unsurprisingly pulls very heavily from Yakuza 5 but with multiple fighting styles for Kiryu and Majima taking the place of multiple characters, and I mostly found myself just sticking with one style for each of them. Beast and Breaker were just too good. The story, while mostly good as previously stated, does have its stumbling points. Some characters and events definitely aren’t given enough breathing room, mostly on the Majima side of things, and weirdly enough the game holds back on having Kiryu and Majima interact for the most part. Overall though, Yakuza 0 is a fantastic encapsulation of why I love this series so damn much and the absolute best jumping on point a newcomer could ask for. Plus Space Harrier is in it! Every game is better when you can also play Space Harrier.

NieR: Automata (PlayStation 4, 2017)

I feel like every year I do one of these lists there’s a game where I start off by saying “This game is good, but”. NieR: Automata is this year’s game. NieR: Automata is a good game, but I did not have the fervent, visceral reaction to it that most other people seem to have had, and my feelings are muddied even further by the lingering feeling that I SHOULD have. I love the first NieR. It’s one of my favorite games of all time. I love PlatinumGames. They’re one of my favorite developers of all time. Yet I came away from Automata somewhat... I don’t know if it’s disappointed. I guess “left wanting” might be a more accurate description? Again, don’t get me wrong here, this is a good game. There’s a lot to like in NieR: Automata. It’s a wild ride, but for me that’s... kind of it? The game shuttles you from crazy setpiece to crazy setpiece, but the second I stopped to think about anything that happened in any sort of detail it all just got real murky. I didn’t feel connected to any of the characters, outside two exceptions, and one of those is a character from the first game that I already loved. NieR: Automata’s storytelling is much more reliant and focused on its themes and imagery than anything that really actually happens during the course of the story, and I’ve never been a huge fan of narratives like that. I need a strong connection to characters and events and places, and whereas the first NieR had that by the truckload, Automata super doesn’t. There’s also the part where a lot of what Automata does, I feel the original game did better. Automata’s music is good, but NieR’s is better. The multiple playthrough system feels like it’s just tacked on because the first game did it, where in the original it was absolutely vital to that game’s story. Same goes for the choice you make in the final ending. The most I can say as far as improvements go is that the combat, while about as mindless, certainly looks better and overall the sidequests are less tedious and grindy. It’s been a very weird experience seeing the huge, widespread positive reaction to this game essentially mirror my feelings on the first game while I’m just sort of left to grumble about how the first game did all that better under my breath. Not that I’m not glad it got a positive reception! It’s great that this game has been such a success and that so many people have finally had their Yoko Taro Moment™. Like I’ve gone out of my way to state multiple times: the game is still good. There’s some wild shit to see in NieR: Automata, and while it didn’t leave a positive lasting impression on me, I very much had a good time with it in the moment.

The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild (Nintendo Switch, 2017)

I thought I was done with open world games. I had pretty much decided I was two years ago. I was so tired of the checklists, the boring traversal, the endless swaths of fucking nothing between mission A and mission B, the heaps of useless collectible garbage littering the ground trying to trick you into thinking you’re doing something. I was perfectly content with never playing an open world game again, and when Nintendo started promoting the new Zelda with that familiar Bethesda-esque “go any direction, climb any mountain” rhetoric and showed you climbing towers to reveal the map, I for all intents and purposes checked the fuck out. I didn’t care that it was Zelda, I didn’t care that it was Nintendo, I was just fucking done with all of that... I thought. The more time went on, the more impressions got out, and the more impressions got out, the more of my individual sticking points seemed to have been addressed. Yeah, you climb towers, but all that does is fill in the topography of the map. You don’t get flooded with a million activity and collectible icons, it’s up to you to scope out what looks interesting. And most importantly, while the landmass is large, there’s always something around the corner. I decided to get Breath of the Wild along with my Switch and I’m so glad I did. If I hadn’t been whittled down by pre-release chatter I would have missed out on one of the best games I’ve ever played. It’s like Nintendo explicitly set out to fix every problem I had with open world games. The way the systems in the world interact with each other, how much of a joy it is to explore and traverse the terrain, and the fact that there really IS always something to find make for a breathtaking game. If you go in any direction, you’ll trip over dozens of neat things to do and see. If you climb any mountain, there’s a good chance there will be something waiting for you at the top (and along the way), from a simple Korok seed puzzle to a full-blown shrine dungeon. The game gives you no truly firm direction once you leave the tutorial area, so it really is up to you to explore and find what you want. You can even run straight for the final boss if you want! The traditional Zelda-style puzzles are all super smart and satisfying to solve. I even liked the Divine Beast dungeons and boss fights, which I feel like I’m in the minority about. I finally took on Ganon after about 100 hours of playing the game and I hadn’t been so sad that a game was over since I beat Persona 3. Breath of the Wild is just an incredible, once in a lifetime game. I can’t wait to do it all again next year when I do another playthrough with all the DLC.

Persona 5 (PlayStation 4, 2017)

Persona 3 will likely always be nearest and dearest to my heart, but Persona 5 is objectively the best Persona game. They’ve polished the Persona formula to such a perfect mirror sheen in this one and I’ve never seen a game so consistently and effortlessly ooze such a concentrated amount of liquid capital-“S” Style before. The plot doesn’t intimately revolve around the cast to the degree Persona 4′s does, but they’ve made another charming band of anime teens nonetheless. They’ve either restored or re-worked nearly every mechanical aspect that was dropped between Persona 3 and 4. The soundtrack is incredible, there’s actually a decent amount of non-party S-Links again, the end of the game sticks the landing in a way Persona 4 very much does not... I could keep going. Persona 5 just plain rules. It’s the only game in the series where (even though I haven’t yet) I’ve actually wanted to jump in and do a New Game+ run.

Wonder Boy: The Dragon’s Trap (Nintendo Switch, 2017)

As I may have mentioned in a certain other article from this year, I have had very little love for Wonder Boy over the years. That changed a bit when I decided to try out Monster World IV a few years ago, and I think I’m officially a Wonder Boy Liker after playing The Dragon’s Trap. A remake of Wonder Boy 3 for the Master System, Dragon’s Trap is essentially just an extremely pretty coat of paint on a very early Metroidvania sort of game, but it’s remarkable how well the core gameplay holds up. You start as a human and very early on you’re transformed into a dragon, and you explore the world until you reach a boss which, upon being defeated, transforms you into a mouse. Your mouse form has the ability to enter narrow spaces and stick to certain walls, which allows you to reach new areas, bosses and transformations. Defeated enemies drop coins that you can use to purchase new weapons and armor from shops hidden across the world. It’s fairly simple, but I think that’s the reason it’s still so enjoyable today. The controls are tight and responsive and it doesn’t really date itself in too many ways. They went to great lengths to recreate the original game, down to being able to swap between the remade and classic graphics and music with a button press. Old passwords from the original game even work in the remake. The new art and music are beautiful and the game is the perfect length to not overstay its welcome. You can tell the people who made this really love the original game, and they absolutely did right by it.

Resident Evil 7: Biohazard (PlayStation 4, 2017)

I never in a million years expected to like Resident Evil 7 as much as I did. I played the demo back when it came out and thought it was okay, and I mainly got the full game so I could play something on my PSVR. It’s kind of crazy how, after so many years of Resident Evil stumbling, Capcom managed to just get everything back on track just like that. They made Resident Evil tense and scary again. The VR is insanely effective but even playing through on a regular ol’ TV, which I did multiple times after my initial VR playthrough, they manage to capture a really good, persistent sense of dread. For most of the game, anyway. The last third definitely slips a bit too far back into action game territory, and while it’s still enjoyable it’s definitely weaker than what came before. I beat this for the first time right before the next game on the list came out, and even while super deep into that I couldn’t stop thinking about Resident Evil 7. I really need to go back and play all the DLC.

Super Mario Odyssey (Nintendo Switch, 2017)

2017 was Nintendo’s year. They released my favorite console in a good long while with the Switch, launched it with one of the greatest games of all time, and closed out the year with another incredible game in Super Mario Odyssey. Mario Odyssey has finally dethroned Mario 64 as my favorite 3D exploration Mario game. It’s like Breath of the Wild in that there’s something to find in every nook and cranny, but condensed down into multiple, more tightly designed areas. It’s an absolute joy to play. I 100%ed the game and not once in the 50-ish hours that took did I get tired of controlling Mario. The movement options all flow together so naturally and complement the spaces you explore so well. Landing a long jump > hat throw > dive > hat bounce > dive combo across a huge gap was the most satisfying thing in the world to pull off even as I grabbed the very last power moon. The variety of the worlds and challenges and things to capture kept me in a constant state of excitement about what was coming up next, and the game is consistently charming in both weird new ways and a couple of very effective nostalgic ones. My only real complaints are that I think it’s maybe the easiest Mario game ever made, and I wish more of the platforming challenges were baked into the worlds proper instead of cordoned off into their own little challenge rooms, but basically everything else about the game manages to make those minor somehow. Mario Odyssey is distilled happiness in video game form, and the world needs more of that.

Sonic Mania (PlayStation 4, 2017)

Ohhhh myyyyy Goddddddddddddd Sonic Mania. I cannot fucking believe how awesome Sonic Mania is. I love the Genesis Sonic games so fucking much and while I like Sonic Adventure 1 despite itself, there hasn’t been a good Sonic game since Sonic 3 & Knuckles. The Genesis games always were and will always be great fucking video games, despite what internet fuckboys say because Sonic’s an easy target to dunk on. I’ll take Sonic 3 & Knuckles over Super Mario World any day of the fucking week. Fight me. I’ll cut you. With Sonic Mania, there is FINALLY, fucking TWENTY-THREE GODDAMN YEARS LATER, a legitimately great Sonic The Hedgehog game again, and I’m stunned. I was INSANELY skeptical about this game from the minute it was announced until basically the moment I played it. Yeah, they brought in people from the hacking and fan-game community to work on this one instead of letting Sonic Team touch it, but I’m close enough to those communities to know that that on its own is NOT enough to guarantee the game would be good. Yeah, Taxman and Stealth made an extremely good replica of the Sonic 1-3&K engine, but they absolutely did not have the design chops to tackle anything but ports successfully. That new version of Hidden Palace they added into the iOS port of Sonic 2 was a complete trash fire. Thankfully they linked up with PagodaWest Games, a company made up of a lot of the non-insane elements behind the old Sonic 2 HD project, who as it turns out very much did have the design chops. Together they made something incredible. It obviously controls perfectly given the engine, but the levels are so fun and well-crafted. The classic levels manage to mix in so many different elements from other levels that didn’t quite make it in the game on top of there being weird twists on those on TOP of all the completely new elements, and the brand new levels are lavish with all sorts of super fun new gimmicks and details. The game looks fucking gorgeous, going for a sort of “what if they had made a 2D Sonic for the Saturn” look that it pulls off great, even going so far as to render the special stages in low-poly 3D. The music is P-H-E-N-O-M-E-N-A-L, sounding like a lost ‘90s Japanese arrange CD but without all the bad aspects that usually come with those. There’s so many dumb, great little details for hardcore classic Sonic and Sega fans littered throughout the game. They managed to fucking combine Oil Ocean and Sandopolis, my least favorite zone from Sonic 2 and one of the worst zones in the entire SERIES, and have me come away from it not hating it. It’s masterful. It’s beautiful. It’s right up there with Sonic 3 & Knuckles for best in the series. Nothing this year made me so genuinely, personally delighted. Sonic Mania was made just for me and I love it and I want another one with all original levels as soon as possible. Please let these people make video games for me forever.

Xenoblade Chronicles 2 (Nintendo Switch, 2017)

The original Xenoblade is one of my favorite RPGs of the last generation. Then they released Xenoblade Chronicles X for the Wii U and broke my goddamn heart. They tossed out nearly everything I loved about the first game in favor of haphazardly dumping as many disjointed game mechanics as they could on top of bland open world exploration and needlessly grindy progression. It was such a hard swerve that by the time they had gotten around to announcing a proper Xenoblade 2 for the Switch I had basically abandoned all hope of it being a game I’d like. But for some reason, I still decided to give Monolithsoft one last shot. And I’m glad I did! While not quite as cohesive and instantly-endearing as the original, they definitely righted the ship. There’s a bunch of weird mechanics, but in the good Xenoblade 1 way where they mete them all out at an appropriate pace and explain them and they all fit together. The cast of characters is likable, the music is great, the gameplay is engaging all the way through. They managed to pull it off, and I’m back on board for a potential Xenoblade 3.

These games were also cool, I just had less words to say about them: Splatoon 2 (Nintendo Switch, 2017): Splatoon is great. Splatoon 2 is more of that. The new weapons are fun, the new maps are cool, Salmon Run is the most fun I’ve ever had with a horde mode. I played it for like 100 hours already. Not too much else to say! Play Splatoon 2! Hitman (PlayStation 4, 2016): Hitman is an amazing sandbox. Whether I was following along with the authored ways to kill my targets, doing things my own way or trying to get out of a situation that went completely south, Hitman constantly surprised me with the variety of things I could do and options I could take advantage of. And there’s so damn much content to do it all in.   DDRMAX, DDRMAX2 & Dance Dance Revolution Extreme (PlayStation 2, 2002, 2003 & 2004): This doesn’t really teeeechnically fit on this list but I would be remiss not to bring up my rekindled love affair with DDR this year. My very good friend who I am very appreciative towards at all times Geoff generously gifted me an old Cobalt Flux dance pad back in like June and I have been playing DDR again ever since and it’s still great. I can clear some songs on heavy now. Thanks Geoff. Glittermitten Grove (Steam, 2016): A very normal game about fairies, and not about shaving. Tekken 7 (PlayStation 4, 2017): Tekken 7 is the first Tekken game I’ve cared about in like a decade. I couldn’t really tell you exactly why, to be honest, but the fact of the matter is that Tekken 7 is very fun to play and I highly recommend it. Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus (PlayStation 4, 2017): I think the gameplay of this is worse than the first game, but everything else is stronger. Hopefully they fix it up and make a game that’s great all around next time. Gundam Versus (PlayStation 4, 2017): Gundam Versus is basically a team based Virtual On. I had a lot of fun with an old version of the game at various events I went to throughout the year and I had a lot of fun with this one even though I didn’t play it nearly as much as I wanted to. Clowning on people with Guntank in 1v1 is probably the hardest I laughed all year.

And that’s it! That’s 2017! It’s done! Good riddance! Thank you all again for bothering to read my video game words. If you need me, I’ll be training to deliver many extremely savage elbow drops to 2018 until it gives me what I want.

#article #year wrapup

[the-last-alicorn]

My Top Eleven Favorite NES Games

11) Kung Fu

The beat em up genre is not one that has ever exactly engaged me, with the exception of Turtles in Time and this awesome little title. Kung Fu is short, sweet and to the point, with an awesome martial arts movie aestetic that's all the more awesome when you consider that Kung Fu is an adaptation of the Jackie Chan film, Kung Fu Master. The fact that Kung Fu is so short might seem like a drawback for some people, but as someone who has ADHD, spending an hour in any given game is an exhausting prospect. In that time, I could beat this game a five times over while listening to an audiobook and enjoy every minute of.

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10) Solomon's Key

If all this had in it's favor was genius puzzles and a feindishly clever block mechanic, that would be enough. But the fact that the game also has one of my favorite NES protagonists, Dana the Wizard, gives it that all important edge.

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9) Life Force

There really isn't a lot to say about this one. It's a Gradius spinoff with even cooler visuals and vertical levels. The Vic Viper has never looked so awesome.

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8) Kabuki Quantum Fighter

The aestetic. That's all I should have to say. This game's aesthetic Fucking Rules. End of story no question asked. But this game isn't just a pretty face with a headbanging Kabuki superhero: It's action platforming is among the best of the system, and the hair swinging turns an already good game into one hell of a ride.

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7) Solomon's Key 2: Fire n' Ice

Better and deeper puzzles, yes, but there is one reason why I love this game so much more than the first: Those beautiful, beautiful cutscenes.

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6) Super Mario Brothers 3

You're shocked, I can tell. There is nothing that I can say about this game that hasn't been said by a thousand other people already, but imma try anyway! The controls, and the ever important jumping, are spectacular, the graphics are damn near perfect, and level design, as always, is awesome. Objectively one of, if not the best platformer on the NES. But this is a favorites list, not a best ever list. And for one reason or another, the following games just speak to me more than this game. And for what it's worth? This game is not perfect. Something something no save feature.

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5) Dragon Warrior

Relaxing music, soothing gameplay, awesome aestetics and monster art, and an extremely easy game to get into and pick up. By far the most pleasant and mellow RPG I've ever played.

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4) Final Fantasy

Final Fantasy is a deeply unbalanced game, with a ridiculously tedious grind to it. But I have never and will never care about that, because Final Fantasy is a joy to play from beginning to end, and the scale of it's story is deceptively wide in it's scale, the music is awesome, the sprites are beautiful and creepy, and whenever I see the Fighter, Red Mage, White Mage and Black Mage, I feel like I can take on an army of time traveling chaos gods.m

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3) Megaman 2 + 3

I went back and forth on which one of these games I liked more, and eventually I decided on both, for one simple reason: 3 is the cooler, overall more fully realized game, but 2 has an EASY MODE!! YAY!! It's a Megaman game I can actually finish!

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2) Castlevania 3: Dracula's Curse

This one took me by surprise. I knew it was going to be a.good game, but I never knew how much I was going to love it. It has one of my favorite soundtracks in any 8 bit game, the game play is addicting as it is deceptively simple, the aestetic is one part Universal Monsters and one part Scooby Doo. This is one of the few games I'm able to pick up and play at any time. I love this game so much that I did indeed have a fangirl freak out when it was adapted into a truly awesome anime.

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1) The Legend of Zelda

What really needs to be said about this game? Iconic music, a mysterious world that never felt bigger, dungeons that challenged your skills and tested your patience. One of the best adventure games in the third generation of consoles, the first game in the aclaimed Zelda franchise, and my favorite game on the Nintendo Entertainment System.

[minijenn]

MiniJen’s Fic Recs!

So I said I was gonna do it and here it is! One big huge list of fics I love the hell outta for ya’ll to read. These are mostly GF fics, but there are a few SU fics and maybe like several LoZ fics near the end, maybe a few others from other fandoms but still, I can promise they’re all pretty good! And nah I’m not reccing any UF based fics on here, cause if you want to check those out, you can do so here. And with that outta the way, let’s get started, in no particular order and with very little rhyme or reason under the cut! (fyi all the titles are links to make your life easier, even if they dont show up as links on my blog, but you can still click on em and it’ll take you where you wanna go)

All the World’s a Toybox by Straightjacketd Fandom: Gravity Falls Status: Incomplete Ok so I fucking LOVE the hell outta this one because its angsty as fuck and dark. Like fucking dark, like if ya’ll think UF has gotten dark ahahah UF is like child’s play compared to how far this one goes. But that’s honestly one of the things I love about it. I feel like there aren’t enough GF fics out there about what might have happened to our beloved characters had Bill won during Weirdmageddon, but this one puts all ten of the zodiac characters through utter hell and back but the good news is there are spots of hope here and there as the story goes along, so totally go check it out if you wanna cry a fucking LOT because I certainly have with this one!

Monster Falls by Queen Flara Fandom: Gravity Falls Status: Incomplete A pretty cute take on Monster Falls. We get to see how all the various characters deal with their new monster forms and there’s a bit of angst but a lot of fluff too so I like it and I’d check it out if you just want some cute Monster Falls stuff. 

Ain’t No Cure for The Cervitaur Blues by Krista Perry (also on Ao3) Fandom: Gravity Falls Status: Incomplete? I think? So I recently reread this one over Thanksgiving break and I remembered how much I ADORED this one! Its chock full of one of the things ya’ll know I’m infamous for in UF: Dipper angst! Which is honestly a kinda common theme through several of these fics but whatever, its all good, don’t worry about it. But yeah this one’s a beautifully written angst storm with really high stakes, great tension, and immense amounts of awesome creativity packed into things! Plus its kinda Monster Fallsish, which is always a good time, so for reals, check this one out cause its one of the ones I recommend the most on this entire list, no lies. 

Time Trapped by Polachew Fandom: Gravity Falls Status: Incomplete So if you’re like me and love some Timestuck AU angst, this one has got plenty of that! The ways Young!Stan and Mabel and Young!Ford and Dipper play off each other in this are so great and there really are a lot of sweet moments in here. I’d be lying if I said it wasn’t something of an inspiration for a future chapter of UF I wanna do with a Timestuck premise... But yeah go check this one out its pretty great!

Silent Knight by Split Infinitive Fandom: Legend of Zelda Status: Incomplete This was honestly one of the first really good Breath of the Wild fics I managed to find after the game first came out and its honestly so good. It fulfills my inner Zelink shipper so much imo I died because of how cute those two dorks are but this one also has a pretty damn intriguing plot, one that I am totally down for reading more of whenever the author decides to update it. So go check it out if that’s your thing!

We Had a Deal by freakyanimegirl Fandom: Gravity Falls Status: Incomplete This may be one of my favorite fucking fanfics of all time because of mere premise alone. Also feels, this one gives me INTENSE feels every time I read it because of how absolutely, soul crushingly angsty it is. But yeah its a super neat idea in here, one that I won’t dare spoil to any of you. Suffice to say its copious amounts of Mystery Twins angst and Bill being a complete and utter asshole, so what else is new imo like I said its great yet so simple and idk I just really, really like this one so go read it! 

Deerperfalls by Deerper Fandom: Gravity Falls Status: Complete (for a fucking change) Oh damn another Monster Falls fic with a fuck ton of Dipper angst in it what else is new that seems to be my fanfic taste for some reason imo but yeah this one’s a good one. Really sad and angsty but really good. Like Augh I remember the first time I read this over the course of a sick day from school and I was so fucking engrossed in it that I forgot to actually fucking try to get better so ahaha you know its good if that be happening. Check it out and enjoy the angstssssss

Nothing a Little Sleep Can’t Fix by AkitaFallow Fandom: Gravity Falls Status: Oneshot Heyyyyy its one of those angsty post Sock Opera oneshots that kinda might have inspired the angst aftermath of Sock Opera in UF! Ya’ll can’t blame me for that you gotta blame damn good fics like this. But for as angsty as this is, it also has is lovely moments of fluff, which are much appreciated so yeah, check it out!

A Different Way by Seasoned Writing Fandom: Steven Universe Status: Incomplete Bout time I rec an SU fic. And while this one doesn’t have a lot of chapters, it does have a pretty interesting AU concept, so *shrugs* idk I like it, not a whole lot else to say about it though.

Tourmaline by Phantomrose96 Fandom: Steven Universe Status: Complete Goooooodddddd this one is just a fucking ANGST storm but its a damn good angst storm, one that really, REALLY makes you hurt for Steven and pre-redemption arc Peridot. Like I legit cried over this one because DAMN its something else. Go check it out like WOW

Ancient Roots by RandomButLoved Fandom: Legend of Zelda Status: Complete Gooooosh this one is absolutely GORGEOUS and it hurt me so much but I love it so much too! Such an incredibly crafted, heartwrecnhing AU of Skyward Sword, one that made me rethink pretty much the entire game! Its rare that roleswaps between Link and Zelda work so perfectly, but this one is as close to perfection as anyone has ever gotten before and I simply adore it. 

Dreamscarring by AnneriaWings Fandom: Gravity Falls Status: Oneshot Another angsty post-Sock Opera oneshot, and again, probably one of the ones that unconsciously influenced UF Sock Opera. Still, really angst, pretty brutal, but ultimately sweet and comforting and that’s what I like in my post-Sock Opera angst storms if Do It For Them was any indication of that. 

Heartbreaker by Queenie Z Fandom: Legend of Zelda Staus: Twoshot Yeeeee boi love me some HW angst involving Zelink and onesided Cialink. And this one’s honestly so beautiful, balancing the angst out with fluffy adorable romance and I simply love it. 

Finally by Kibasgirltsumi Fandom: Legend of Zelda Status: Complete This is honestly one of my faovirte fanfics of all time like for reals its so damn beautiful and so damn painful and so damn perfect and it strikes me in all the right places and my ship is so damn strong in it and so much happens and its just AUGH oh god I could go on forever with it its so fucking good

Tainted Tale by Flying.Penguin.97 Fandom: Legend of Zelda Status: Complete I’m a sucker for dark rouge protagonists fics, and I’m also a lover of Link angst so this one fucking did it for it. Also it has copious amounts of Ghirahim being a fucking fabulous asshole, so that’s fun and everything. This a good read. 

Convictions and Captivity by realfakedoors Fandom: Steven Universe Status: Incomplete AUGHGHGHG FUCK I haven’t even finished fully reading this one yet but DAMN SON IF IT AINT SOME OF THE MOST ANGSTY STEVEN UNIVERSE SHIT I”VE EVER READ again in an example of a fic that puts UF to shame with how damn dark it is this one goes fucking HARD and it HURTS ME but I love it and I really need to finish it because AUGH FUCK 

Ask the Right Questions by AceFace98 Fandom: Gravity Falls Status: Incomplete So the idea behind this one is a lot of fun and tbh this has quite a good bit of fluff and humor in it and hey I’m always for Mystery Twins bonding so yeah this one is neat check it out

Three Days by LynnLarsh Fandom: Gravity Falls Status: Oneshot And in an example of something from canon that will also turn incredibly angsty in UF when we get to Weirdmageddon, we get, what else, more Dipper angst! But yeah this one is sad like damn this poor kid wandered around a fucking desolate apocalyptic wasteland completely alone for three days and everyone seems to forget about that but this fic doesn’t and it HURTS and I like it a lot for that

Come Together by Winter_S_Jameson Fandom: Gravity Falls Status: Incomplete I love zodiac centric fics so this one I really enjoy a lot, in large part because it focuses on Ford realizing “oh shit maybe working with others can actually save the day how have I never thought about that before”. Its not super far along yet, but we get some Pines fam angst in there which is always good angst if ya ask me I’m down for that and I like it so ye ye ye ye

Anyway, I’ve Been There by Caleb Nova Fandom: Gravity Falls Status: Complete (but still updates occasionally) Strange how Dipifica is one of my primary OTPs but I’ve recced so far fics centered on those two in this list, huh? Well no more because this one has one of the best developments of the ship I’ve seen thus far. Its kinda slow burn and lowkey but in a really nice way and everyone feels so great and in character and Dipper and Pacifica are adorable together and ahhhh its so cute imo

A Conspiracy of Minerals by CompletelyDifferent Fandom: Gravity Falls/Steven Universe Status: Complete Waahhhhhha? A GF/SU fic writer reccing a GF/SU fic??? Tis madness! But yeah I read this way back before I even started writing UF anf loved it. Its mostly just a bunch of cute little oneshots but I do enjoy the few that are there. They’re pretty cute if ya ask me and the character interactions are sweet enough.

Let Me Clarify by carpenoctem22 Fandom: Gravity Falls Status: Oneshot Bunch more Dipifica cuteness, only this time a little aged up. Not a whole lot to say about it except for that its completely adorable. 

Twin Telepathy by blueechofreak Fandom: Gravity Falls Status: Oneshot What can I say but more post Sock Opera angst, only this time with a bit more Mystery Twins fluff added in so ya got that good old hurt/comfort in there, which always makes for a good time. 

Host by Neelh Fandom: Gravity Falls Status: Oneshot Some pretty artsy Pines family angst all around in this one, so yeah, good stuff. Pretty short, but still good. 

Lull by carpenoctem22 Fandom: Gravity Falls Status: oneshot Hey look, instead of Sock Opera angst we got post the Last Mabelcorn angst! As if that makes any difference imo its still angst no matter how much you cut it and that’s why I like it. 

Swear by carpetnoctem22 Fandom: Gravity Falls Status: oneshot Another take on those three days Dipper was wandering around during Weirdmageddon and also pretty fucking heartwrenchingly angsy so you know I like if if its that lol

Enough by Inkblot9 Fandom: Gravity Falls Status: oneshot A really sweet little bunch of fluff focusing on one of my favorite bonds in the entire show, that between Dipper and Ford, which is sadly not utilized enough in GF fics but here its done so adorably and sweet and such good family fluff and I love it

And yeah that’s about it for now. These were all the best ones I could find in all my lists. I’ll be sure to add onto this whenever I find new good fics. But yeah hopefully ya’ll got hooked up with some good fics here! I’ve been meaning to do this for a while, so I’m glad I finally got it carved out. Enjoy!

#fanfictions #fic recs #gravity falls #(mostly fuckin gravity falls imo im weak) #steven universe #legend of zelda #jen rambles #master lists