#but everything from the characters to the cutscenes to the festivals and animals you can tame and the farming system

[wiltking]

i think i have to officially say i like roots of pacha more than stardew valley

#and i fucking loved stardew #but everything from the characters to the cutscenes to the festivals and animals you can tame and the farming system #and the cave exploring! and the music! oh my god the music #devs did not have to go so hard in every aspect of this game but they did and its a real treat #the thing about your child having a blend of your and your spouse's features is probably what tipped me over the edge #but theres so much more beyond and before that that endeared me. personally. more than stardew #solid game. solid. #and i think its on sale for under 20 USD for a few more days on steam. fyi #im almost 100 hours in and still not finished with all you can do 😵‍💫💕

[skellyshitposting]

Mods that I like on Stardew Valley

The first things I will list off are Expansions, stuff that adds a lot of new things and areas. Everything I list will have their respective link, I am pretty sure you need to be on a pc/laptop to click them but I could be wrong.

Make sure to visit this post every once in a while in case I update it. There will be a re-editted/update date below to say when was the last time I was on this post.

EXPANSION MODS - These mods adds new area's, NPC's, items, events, foods, fish and many more things!

Re-edited and worked on: 5/8/2023

( WARNING PLEASE READ!

I do want to make a fair warning to not have too many expansions at once. It can and will make your loading time last a long time, can make the game very laggy and hard to play. Adding NPC's can affect stuff greatly due to how much work it takes to make an NPC. I am not telling you how to play the game, if you feel like adding all of these at once into your game then go ahead, but I am warning you now just so that you know why your game is lagging so much.

The next warning is to make sure you install all of the things that a mod needs! It will be on the requirements on the mod page. I am not to blame if you download said mods and not look at the requirements.

THANKS FOR READING! :) )

Stardew Valley Expanded - It's an amazing mod that adds 27 new NPC's, 50 locations, 260 new character cutscene events, 27 new fish, reimagined vanilla areas, two farm maps, new music, questlines, objects, crops, festivals and a lot of other things! I usually pair this with Ridgeside.

Ridgeside Village - This is a really great mod to pair with Stardew Valley Expanded! It adds 50 new NPC's, a new location, new items, new shops, new festivals, new music, new quests and a lot more stuff! To get to the village, from your farm go to the bus stop and then go behind the bus, there should be a set of stairs! Go up them and go up the lift and there's the new area! Just follow the upper path for a shorter way to Ridgeside, or take the long way along the bottom path.

East Scarp - Another amazing mod that brings a whole new town! It adds new NPC's, a new farm, new locations, new fish, new shops, special orders and lots of secrets! To get to the town, go into Pelican town and go to the Blacksmith house. Above it is a path, take it to the bridge and go across it. Just keep heading that way and you will load into East Scarp!

Downtown ZuZu City - Now, this mod is pretty cool! This adds the imfamous ZuZu city to the game! You remember how a lot of NPC's talk about ZuZu City but you can never go? Well, here you go! This expansion adds new NPC's, 7 NPC's to befriend and marry, new foods, new items, new weapons, moving cars that can and will kill you if you stand in front of them, a ZuZu Obelisk, a secret puzzle hidden in the ZuZu Sewers and many more things!

Stardew Aquarium - This adds an aquarium to the Valley! To get to it, you need to have access to the train. Make sure you download all the prerequisites that the mod asks for, because it's very important so you can get to the Aquarium! You can donate fish to the Aquarium if you don't feel like selling them or eating them, and watch them swim around! There is also a beach outside of the Aquarium and new shops!

QUALITY OF LIFE MODS

( Here are mods that I absolutely love to play with my game or mods that I may not use but you might like to use! )

NPC Map Locations - It does exactly as the title says! It shows the location of NPC's on the map and the optional Minimap. This mod is really good at tracking down those pesky NPC's that you want to shove gifts at.

Look Up Anything - By pressing F1 while in game, you can look up anything! Like a villagers bio, when a crop will be ready to harvest, how long a fence will last, why your farm animals are sad, and a lot more! ( Yes, I know that's exactly what the actual description says, leave me alone! 😂 )

Generic Mod Config Menu - This mod is very important! I would highly suggest you download this one with any other mods you have because it lets you configure said mods in the starting menu rather then going through the game files for it. You can also prep this with a shortcut key to access it while in the actual game itself.

Tractor - This adds a tractor to the game that you can purchase from Robin! It takes a bit to get the money and items in default, but if you go into the config, you can lessen the items and money costed to make it. This mod helps you water plants, cut down trees, break rocks, dig up dirt and much more!

Automate - I love this mod a lot. You put a chest near a machine and it will automatically use the items in it to create the desired item you want. Like say you put it near a keg, if you have fruit in it like Strawberries, it will make Strawberry Wine! It will beat the pesky task of going to all of your kegs and putting berries in them or collecting them when they are done.

UI Info Suite - This mod provides a lot of information about what's going on. Here is a list of what it can do from the mod page itself:

Display an icon that represents the current days luck

Display experience point gains

Display a dynamic experience bar that changes based on your current tool or location

Display more accurate heart levels

Display more information on item mouse overs, including items that are still needed for bundles

View calendar and quest billboard anywhere

Display icons over animals that need petting

Display crop type and days until harvest on mouseover

Display icon when animal has item yield (milk, wool)

Sprinkler, scarecrow, beehive and junimo hut ranges

Display npc locations on map

Skip the intro by pressing the Escape key

Display an icon for Queen of Sauce when she is airing a recipe you don't already know

Display an icon when Clint is upgrading one of your tools. Icon will tell you how long until the tool is finished and shows you which tool you are upgrading.

7. Skull Cavern Elevator - The title says it all! An elevator to the floors you travel to in the Skull Cavern!

8. Kitty Channels - It's a pretty simplistic mod that changes the TV channel people into cute kitty cats. What's not to love?

9. Better Beach Forage - You ever get tired that there isn't enough Beach Forage? This helps that need. It improves the spawn rate of the beach forage and even adds crabs to the beach!

10. Yet Another Harvest with Scythe Mod - This mod lets you harvest stuff with your scythe! You can still pluck them but using the scythe ( in my opinion ) is much faster. There is a incompatibility with this mod and the Tractor mod. So don't have these two mods together.

11. Move it - This mod lets you move things everywhere. Well, almost everywhere. There are limits. But you ever have your new farm and there is a tree stump in the way that you really want to move? This mod lets you do that. But I will say this, read the description of the mod to know its capabilities and its warnings.

12. Gift Taste Helper - This displays helpful tips that shows an NPC's favorite gifts when you hover over their icon on the calendar or social tab in your menu.

13. To Dew - With a press of the key, you can set notes for yourself at the corner of the screen. When you complete it, just click it and it gets crossed out. You can even make the notes yearly, monthly or daily. Please look at the description for more information that I may have accidentally left out.

14. Turn To Your Enemies - Whenever you attack, if there is a monster close to you, you will immediately turn to them. It's quite helpful for those that are still new to battle.

15. Fashion Sense - This mod gives you a pocket mirror you can use to customize yourself. I would 100% suggest looking into the description for more information. This mod is definitely worth a look at, especially if you love changing clothes or your hair in game.

16. Deluxe Grabber Redux - This removes the ability of you having to harvest crop, foraging, digging up artifacts and harvesting animals. Go into the config menu either in the game files or Generic Mod Config mod then adjust this to however you see fit!

17. Kitty Themed Scarecrows - This mod is very simple, it replaces the looks of normal scarecrows to that of kitty cats! They look like they are standing on perches. It's a lot more humane looking then some images that look like the stick is up its butt.

18. Starry Night Interface - This changes color to a lot of things in game. From the in-game dialogue boxes to the in game menu! Give it a look at!

19. Wear More Rings - You can wear more rings then two in game! You have five fingers on each hand, so why can't you wear rings on them all? Go into the config in either the mod file in the folders or in Generic Mod Config.

20. Autofill Pet Bowl - I don't consider this cheating really. I absolutely love this mod because sometimes I can be extremely forgetful, and that means I either forget to feed my farm animals or water my cat/dog. This eliminates having to water your pet, so you don't have to worry at 1:50am that you didn't feed your pet.

21. Tidy Crafting Menu with Optional Balancing - This sorts out the crafting menu in your in game menu, it makes it a lot more cleaner and it just makes more sense.

22. Fishing Info Overlays - Gives you an overlay at the corner of your screen when you take out your fishing rod to show you what fish you can get in that area.

23. PFM Automate - This is a very good mod to pair with Automate. It lets you connect some modded machines to chests to get the job done! But this doesn't work on every modded machine, so be aware.

24. Convenient Chests - This allows you to auto stack item to chests with a press of a key, so you don't have to open the chest to throw stuff in!

25. ChestEx - This mod lets you change the colors of your chests and name the chests! Of course, you can change the color of chests in the normal unmodded game, but this lets you change more then just a few colors.

MODS THAT MIGHT BE A LITTLE CHEATY

Friends Forever - This mod removes friendship decay. Very handy for someone who doesn't really like paying close attention to other villagers while balancing out everything else in the game.

No Fence Decay - This mod removes the fence decay feature from the game. No more replacing the fences!

Better Farm Cave Forage - This mod is here because in my opinion, this can give you a lot of options early game. Along with donations to the community center early on.

Chests Anywhere - This lets you access your chests anywhere you are. No more throwing chests down at the entrance to the mines to dump stuff and go back into the mine!

~ More to come soon! ~

#stardew #stardew mods #sdv

[theeeveetamer]

I just wanna talk about the new Story of Seasons/Harvest Moon game for a second because honestly like

A(nother) Wonderful Life (the OG for the GameCube) was always such a fascinating entry to me because it’s quite literally one of the most barebones and easiest entries in the entire series. Like, there’s only four festivals, only a handful of random events, probably the smallest farm of any entry, it’s super easy to build friendship and villagers don’t have that much dialogue… yet if you ask any fan of the series they’ll probably still rate it highly. And I’m the same! I absolutely love the game!

I really do think the game’s simplicity is what makes it stand out in the grand scheme of things. It’s just a chill lil game that doesn’t require much from you and you can kind of take it at your own pace. And it has less of the like… massive farming empire vibes? of other entries or a game like Stardew Valley. More like a little homestead.

I think the remake really captures that essence too, but with improvements. I wanna talk about what I think they improved on a bit, more under the cut cuz it’s gonna get long.

I haven’t timed it, but the days feel MUCH quicker in the remake. In the OG it felt like you could get absolutely everything done (farming, running around and gifting + collecting all the flowers and such) by about 2 pm. I thiiiiink that was to give you time to do the archaeology and fishing and whatnot, but IMO the days in the original still moved way too slowly (also didn’t the game time pause while fishing and stuff? It doesn’t anymore)

Tool upgrades! The tools now have copper, silver, and gold variants that can be bought from Van assuming certain criteria are met, which means you can easily upgrade your stuff without having to know obscure triggers (e.g. befriending Romana and coming to her room at a certain time to get the watering can that can water 9 squares at a time). This makes it actually worthwhile to use all of your farmland AND water it twice a day, since it’s no longer going to take you hours of button mashing just to water everything.

Obvious but all the glitches are fixed now too. So Van no longer comes every day of the week, selling a calf doesn’t permanently lock a barn slot (what killed my first playthrough), etc.

The bulletin board is a nice way to help players gain friendship/pass the time but in a slightly different way. Plus it will notify you of important items, like the alarm clock!

The festivals are MUCH harder to miss now

I believe they added more little cutscenes (or at least possibly made them easier to trigger)

You can marry anyone! You can also pick your character’s pronouns so you can officially play a non-binary character. They do only let you pick between he/him, she/her, and they/them tho.

Adding onto that, they let you have a daughter finally, without any bullshit.

There’s kind of an inbuilt achievement system, which I think actually does wonders for helping give you direction while playing. Stuff like fish up so many types of fish, have so many animals born on your farm, etc. I don’t know if it’s possible to get all of them in a single playthrough but I am actually trying

The UI is MUCH clearer and more informative with stuff like showing you your exact stamina and energy levels

The cows no longer have to be bred to continue giving milk. I know some people probably won’t like this much since it added a bit of realism to the game, but I prefer it this way tbh. Because of the way breeding worked in the old game you basically always had a cow that wasn’t giving you milk, cutting into your profit margins

The goat. iykyk

Downgrades

They Bishiefied Cody (Gordy now) :( I wish the SoS games allowed their bachelor(ette)s to have more body diversity in general. Woulda married that man in a heartbeat with his OG design lemme tell you

The fucking territory mini game is still here. And you have to win ten games to earn a music record. Help.

#story of seasons #a wonderful life #SoS awl

[sumerun]

sumeru archon quest act 2 appreciation post

HEAVY HEAVY spoilers warning, wall of text

note: i know the game said it wasn’t a time loop but for simplicity’s sake we’re keeping that phrase

honestly, i’m still riding the high of the archon quest so i will be very biased in my opinions LMAO. however from reading some friend’s and randoms’ opinions, i think we can all agree to a certain extent that this is one of the best if not the best archon quest to date. it’s such a mindfuck, wonderfully executed and so much more engaging. this is what inazuma should have been instead of the rushed mess that we got. i knew that the writing was going to improve bc MHY is no stranger to well-written stories (honkai, dainsleif’s and inazuma npc’s quests) but i certainly did not expect such drastic improvement this patch lmao.

first i want to go back and look at previous nations and why i hated the format of the missions. (to be fair i know that story-heavy live services games usually get better over time and not perfect the first few years but just using these points for comparison ;)). mondstadt and liyue, imo, is just there to set a foundation and test the waters. how the story was delivered was very boring. it’s pretty much: you walk here, read dialogue that most skip anyways, fight for 3 seconds, watch characters do the same 3 talking animation, cue cutscene, conclusion. look, i may be able to play visual novels for hours, but when i play genshin i expect something much more engaging than that okay lol. story is supposed to excite you, keep you immersed and encourage you to keep coming back to it. but i really didn’t feel that with mondstadt and liyue. most of the excitement were boss fights and cutscenes. if you asked me what happened in-between, i wouldn’t really remember much LMAO. inazuma was slightly better but followed a very similar format. i think we were all hyped from raiden shogun reveal and new region that we just kinda accepted whatever we got. Inazuma’s quests were better near the end with yae miko’s and raiden’s quest for certain though. building up to sumeru, we had a LOOOT of unanswered questions and no one seems to know or want to talk. this frustrated me a lot bc the only time we get to learn more about our sibling/khaenri’ah was through dain and that motherfucker appears like TWICE in the duration of one nation KJASEK. so as we enter sumeru we have a LOT of anticipation for something MORE, whether that’s through better quests or getting actual answers about the other sibling/abyss. inazuma is not completely flawed and is amazing in its own way but it should tell you a lot that I was already kinda done with the region by 2.4 ish.

now to actually talk about why i think act 2 was so good. i love time-loop like tropes ok? like a lot. it’s a complex trope to write and the audience can very easily get lost and frustrated trying to follow it. however, if developed with care, it’s extremely rewarding for both the writer and us pea brains gacha addicts. it’s not perfect as i think MHY could’ve done better than a “collective dream” as the reason for samsara. the conclusion was a tiny bit jarring with nilou being the host bc she barely appeared. but everything else was incredible. i appreciate that they tried to make that trope work within genshin’s lore. if anyone has ever watched madoka magica, i think it’s a great example of why time-loop like tropes are so good. simply, it’s disturbing. (madoka spoilers skip to next bold text if needed) the creator of madoka confirmed that homura has ran through at least 100 timelines to attempt to save madoka. when i watched it, i personally didn’t even get the hint that homura was stuck in a time-loop lmao. (end of spoilers). i like that the time-loop in genshin was similar to this. we sensed that something wack was going on. our memories are erased and we keep repeating the festival until the duo consistently retain their memories. nahida confirmed that they went through at least 20 time loops before realization. that is so eerie to me. i would legit question everything i ever knew about time and reality lmao. paranoia would overwhelm you and you can’t help but think if you’re truly of out the “dream”. if the duo wasn’t protected by plot armor, they could’ve been trapped there for an eternity. autonomy over your own life lost bc of some petty scholars. it’s that feeling of helplessness and trapped with no way out is what makes this quest so terrifying.

so that’s reason #1: time loop tropes are cool and it was executed well majority of the quest. reason #2: better audience engagement. aw man 100 chefs kiss to the teams that worked on this together. i don’t want to ramble but to summarize the following things really helped me stay engaged in the story:

- camera work: I might be very wrong there were some shot that utilizes actual camera techniques such as dutch angles and dolly zoom. subtle maybe but it was there. these are great for giving the feeling of uneasiness. and it was a great way to lead the audience too - dunyarzad: she was fleshed out very well! i was attached to her early on and even shed some tears during the dancing cutscene lmao she feels much more alive bc she had a purpose and relationships (nilou, dehya) that we care about. teppei lacked a lot of that and while i adored his character, i can’t deny that dunyarzad was more complex and believable - deduction mechanic: for once the player actively participates in the story!!!! it was so cool piecing things together. it helps making you feel like you’re a part of the mystery. aaaaanddd it confirms that the traveler is an established protagonist that actually speaks and not a piece of cardboard voiced by paimon. - battle of wits: we always see paimon solving issues via brute force but i think this is the first time we really get to watch them use their intelligence and observational skills to get out of this sticky situation. it was so refreshing to do a quest that was more mystery oriented. i definitely need more quests like this bc the dynamics/bonds between the duo truly shines here! - small little things such as art of young dunyarzad speaking to nahida, and mini-cutscenes of the duo time-looping to show quest progression. it helped liven the quest for me!

- traveler: traveler feels so much more human here. like I LOVED that they were mourning dunyarzad and angry at themselves for being unable to protect her. paimon has always spoken for them and we don’t really get to see traveler express their own thoughts and emotions a lot. I feel much more attached to the traveler bc of this imo. I’ve always seen them as a blank slate (and they are for the player but I see them more as an OC)

CONCLUSION

whether or not they're listening to our feedback regarding story (certainly not for character design oop), this is very exciting. i love the direction that they are going in in terms of storytelling and execution. this specific act is more story than action so it's possible that this gives MHY more leeway to be creative. but i'm gonna send them a fat feedback to make sure they keep some of the elements i mentioned bc i refuse to go back to the 40 minutes of pure dialogue and talking animations. the sumeru plot line has potential to be one of the best AND very dark thematically but will mhy actually do it??? we’ll find out in 3.1 and 3.2!

#if u read this whole thing ily #i already want to replay it #i promise i'll start posting more edits again skjease #sen speaks #sumeru spoilers #genshin spoilers #3.0 spoilers

[discontinuedbloglol]

Bro, why do you like Balan Wonderworld? It's a really bad game. If you want good platformers, play Mario Odyssey, Banjo Kazooie, A Hat In Time, etc.

People ask me this a lot. Allow me to explain what about this little game I love so much.

The CGI Cutscenes

Visual Works did so well with these. They capture the essence of the Saturn era of Sega as well as the musical theatre aesthetics that they were going for so well, the animation is on point, and it is just overall really good to look at.

The Character Designs

Naoto Ohshima of Sonic, NiGHTS, and Blinx the Time Sweeper fame returns to design the characters for the game, and it really shows. All of the character designs in this game look amazing, and despite my wishes for the costumes to cover up Leo and Emma's faces, the overall character designs are amazing. Balan and Lance have some of the best designs in the game, and the inspiration from Nights and Reala is very quick to notice, but they overall are able to stand on their own, and look really good, and would really fit in alongside characters like Sonic, Billy Hatcher, and of course, Nights.

Show, Don't Tell Storytelling

I feel like many people are reacting to the game's story as they did to some of the earlier Sonic games - they want everything spelled out to them nice and simple, so when the story only offers pieces of the puzzle or context clues and wants the player to put together the full picture, they just default to "The 'story' is non-existent and nothing makes sense! The game's story is further explained in the book Balan Wonderworld: Maestro of Mystery, Theatre of Wonder, if you want the story to be spelled out for you. The game has it's story telling shown, not told, and that's honestly kinda impressive.

The Problem with Balan Criticism

Before I make this point, I have nothing against Matt McMuscles or the Wha Happun series. I actually enjoy his content. I just couldn't find anything else on Google Images. There are genuine criticisms being made of the game. However, I feel as if most people are just clowning on the game for clout. I feel like this quote from EmpLemon's video on the downward spiral of video games rings true here, "On YouTube, there's a market incentive to ridicule games as much as possible. Nobody ever makes a video about a game being decently adequate. But when a game misses the mark, All the biggest commentators come out and blast it... Sometimes, it feels like people these days are actively rooting for games to fail so they can participate in the festival of mockery. 20 years ago, when a game flopped, nobody cared that much."

Conclusion

I thought this game was fine, and fun at times. I kinda wish it had time to be even better. As Shiguru Miyamoto once said, "A rushed game is forever bad, but a delayed game is forever good."

#balan wonderworld #balan positivity #sonic the hedgehog #nights into dreams #90's sega #balan company

[shuruzy]

so,  *bass boosted* my super ambitious and hopeful RSAoD ideas/hopes/dreams/etc.

Under rm because I probably should’ve been putting these kinds of posts under a rm from the start.

1) This one is one that I’ve already talked a bit about, but I’d really like if this game could be... 3D!

Now I dunno how many people know this, but I’ve been really into RPGMaker since like 2013. Even tho I’ve never completed any actual games in there yet (tho I have a demo of a game. Also I’d like to complete at least one game in rpgmaker at some point in my life ghkng). It’ll be strange and most likely very difficult going from the same series of engines to something completely new that works with 3D like, say, Unity... but I wanna try to learn eventually!!

1.5) The fact that I’d love if this could be 3D also means that I’d have to learn how to make & animate my own 3D models at some point. Which means that I’d need to learn how to use Blender as well... and I really don’t know if I could do everything myself especially things like backgrounds & props and stuff... good lord --

2) On a less technical side, one thing I’d really like game-wise is  v..voice acting,,, 🥺

Now of course I’m not looking for “THIS IS A FULLY VOICE-ACTED GAME. WITNESS THIS RAW FULLY VOICED WHOLEASS CUTSCENE” vibes. I mean, this is mostly just for the create-able characters, first of all. You know how it is, choose from a list of voices (or no voice if you’d prefer) and let ur character be free. I’d think it’d be really cool to have voices for the character portraits! But see, I’ve never really... done anything involving hiring or looking for voice actors, so I know there’s a lot about the process I’ll need to learn. Not just from a financial aspect, but from a “I need to make sure these lines I write down are what I want and are good enough, and I need to make sure I accurately show how I want these lines to be conveyed. Also I need to make sure the set of voice lines I write down for one voice can be used by all 7 classes while making sense.” aspect as well.

Basically, I’d have to make sure enough personalities/styles/ages/etc are conveyed! And that each voice has enough lines to convey any battle scenarios I’d need.

And while yes, I’d like for the important NPC’s (like Seruiin) to have voice clips, there’s absolutely no intention to have them fully voiced.

3) I know this one’s out of nowhere but I’d really like to fit in a “festival” sort of point in the game lmao. Like your team comes across a town that’s preparing for a festival for some reason, and they either attend it after being suggested to, or for business purposes (hey, maybe this festival can somehow draw out the Devaris that’s in this area. who knows?)

Anyway I also think it’d be really cool if each portrait got optional “festival” attire that you could swap out ghkg. I’m not sure which real life festival(s) will inspire the one in RSAoD, but I’ll need to make sure the end result is something that actually fits in RSAoD’s world of course.

4) This one’s just an aside, but when it comes to the music style of this game... I’m not too sure exactly what vibe I want lmao. I just know that I really fuckign love the vibes of [redacted bc I’m embawwassed]’s music in games like Sigma Harmonics, Legend of Legacy/Alliance Alive, and WoFF,,, those ost’s FUCK!!!! They SLAM!!!! Anyway if you’ve heard music from any of those games... I think you can see what type of music I’m thinking of lmao. That current “idea-point” for the music style might change as I get more into the project, but for now... maybe something like those games’ styles.

But also just like with voice-acting, I have zero experience in the composer/music hiring scene tho. I’m 99% sure that just walking up to someone and saying “ayo can you make music in this composer’s style” is not. In good taste. 

5) Well shit, I think the most ambitious part of this whole idea is the fact that I’d like to actually see it be completed one day ghknkgng. 

You see, I have an... unfortunate habit of getting an idea, latching onto it for a bit, and then dropping it eventually while wistfully thinking about the project/idea every once in a while. As if I can’t just go back to working on said project. It’s... really bad. Yeah. It’s also why I’ve never completed a full game in any rpgmaker engine despite being in the scene for about 7 years.

There’s a lot of factors that goes into what makes me drop/eternally hiatus a project, but it’s usually something like:

“this story isn’t good enough!! I’ll think of a better one!” 

“This story isn’t long enough for my characters to have much chance to shine!!” 

“I’m straight up just not interested anymore.”

“Scope creep fucked my crops and burned my wife.”

or the worst one: “This story has gotten too long and/or confusing for my brain. I am scared to try and piece anything together now. Instead, I’ll just think of the story in fragmented sections and wish that I was good enough to actually connect these fragments.”

...Like I said, pretty bad. So yeah, even though it’ll be some time before I get SERIOUS about RSAoD due to needing to learn all this shit I stated in the earlier points, I’ll... just have to see how this goes. Hopefully I can look back at this in like a decade and be like “Holy shit. I actually did it. Imagine if 2020 me could see me now. :)”

Oh well... I’ll just have to see how things go over the years. In the meantime I’d like to actually release a full-length game or two for RPGMaker lmao.

Also since the idea of  “a game where you create a cast of characters & venture the world just like my favoritest dungeon crawler etri-- or my favorite dungeon-crawler-rpg(?) 7th dra--” has been in my brain for YEARS, I doubt I’ll drop this particular idea or anything lmao. This is basically my dream project.  

#rsaod textpost #rsaod #long post

[hibiscustea9]

Welcome to Tumblr! Curious to know who your favorite Stardew character(s) is, and why? I'm not going to automatically assume it is Elliott and/or Sebastian, haha

- a fan of your SDV fic

Thank you for the warm welcome! Oh, this is a tough one, because there are so many great characters in Stardew Valley. I’m going to break them apart into marriage candidates versus non-marriage candidates, because I feel like those are two entirely separate categories. Also, just because someone isn’t on this list doesn’t mean I don’t like that character, it just means he or she isn’t one of my very favorites. (Also, these aren’t in any particular ranked order - I like all the ones I’m listing about equally)

Marriage candidates:

Sebastian. Sebastian was the very first character I married in Stardew on my first save file nearly five years ago. In many ways, he’s the character who’s closest to my RL husband, who also has depression and anxiety but who is a very loving person underneath the gruff exterior. I appreciate Sebastian’s slow evolution from being walled off away from everyone and everything (literally at the start of the game - it’s damn frustrating trying to get him up to two hearts so you can go in his room) to slowly opening up to you more and talking about his desires and wants and fears. After marriage, he has beautiful dialogue where he admits his mental health isn’t always the best, but not to doubt that he always loves you. So great.

Elliott. Yes, I’m going with the obvious two off the bat. I actually didn’t pay much attention to Elliott the first few games I played through. I got him through his heart events because I was being a completionist and wanted to see everyone’s heart events, but he was so out of the way on the beach most of the time that I didn’t pay him much heed. Then in my third game, I decided to try something new and started pursuing Elliott early on, and oh, man. He’s so great. He is hands down the best post-marriage spouse with how affectionate and loving and kind he is all the time (and he has some great moments of unexpected humor, like his line about the million iridium bars). I do understand where his loquaciousness can be a bit off-putting to some, but I find him to be an absolute joy, and one of the kindest characters in the game. (Also, the first Winter Star after we got married, Elliott was my secret gift-giver and he gave me a glow ring, which made my heart completely fall out of my chest and go splat on the ground.)

Emily. Come on, who doesn’t love Emily? She’s completely bonkers, but she has such a good heart. One of my favorite cutscenes of every character in Stardew is when Emily meets her friend the parrot and talks to him about how they’re both different and the ones around them don’t understand. Like Sebastian and Elliott, Emily is a bit of an outsider, even though she’s around people all the time. But she has such joy for life and for experiencing everything that I find her to be one of the most satisfying marriage candidates.

Maru. Maru’s awesome. She’s a great balance of being serious about her experiments and her robotics and yet such a dreamer about the future and what she might do. I feel like she gets overlooked way too much, even though she’s probably got the best head on her shoulders of any of the marriage candidates. In a town full of people who don’t know what they want, Maru’s got a clear, strong direction she wants to head in. That alone puts her in a category by herself, but she’s also such a good, kind-hearted person as we can see in the MARILDA scene. She’s got the best combination of her dad’s scientific mind and her mom’s work ethic and compassion.

Non-marriage candidates:

Robin. ConcernedApe knew what he was doing making Robin the first character the farmer meets in game. Not only does she always make efforts to reach out to the player and ensure he or she is part of the community (extending invitations to come visit, making sure everything’s going well on the farm), but she’s a loving, caring mom and wife, she looks out for the rest of the community, and she’s got a snarky side I really appreciate.

Gus. I adore Gus. I didn’t know quite what to make of him at first because he seemed to be almost a Gunther- or Marlon-level NPC who virtually never went out from his business, but then Linus’s first heart event happened and I realized how much Gus cares about other people and wants to take care of them. He’s always cooking massive amounts of food for everyone at all the festivals, ensures everyone has enough to eat, and is incredibly gentle and kind.

Linus. Speaking of Linus, who was my first-ever five-star friend, he is a total treasure. Like some of my other favorites, he’s definitely a little different, but there are a lot of layers to Linus. He’s clearly a very intelligent guy, well-read, empathetic, resourceful, and kind. He is wary of the farmer, but it’s explained that he has to be because of how he’s been treated in the past, and when he does open up to you, it’s clear how meaningful your friendship is to him. 

Marnie. The first time I played Stardew, I was incredibly annoyed by Marnie because I could never get her schedule straight and would always swing by the ranch only to realize she wasn’t there. But the more I got to know her and found out how much she cares about animals and other people, I really grew a new appreciation for her. As with Robin and Gus and Linus, Marnie is incredibly compassionate and doesn’t ask for much for herself. And also, I love her happy dance. The fact that we see it both when the community center re-opens and at the player’s wedding shows that she’s genuinely happy when good things happen to other people.

Thanks for the question and for reading “Fire Walk with Me”! I’m in the process of working on the last couple scenes in the next chapter now and it should be up tomorrow for New Year’s Day.

#ask ht9 #stardew valley

[blueeyedrat]

So while my brother and I have been waiting for his Animal Crossing preorder to arrive, I took the time to try out some Steam Game Festival demos that caught my eye for one reason or another.

It's a pretty interesting mix! Some more detailed comments under the cut:

Neon Noodles - A programming puzzle game a la Zachtronics. This one came to my attention a week or so ago and seemed right up my alley, so it was a pleasant surprise to see a demo. It took me a minute to get accustomed to the UI, but I like the concept and I think it's got a lot of potential.

Moncage - A 3D perspective puzzle. I recall seeing some early concepts for this one, but actually getting a chance to play it for myself has definitely sold me on the idea. It's extremely well-crafted, and really neat to figure out how all of the different components intersect and interact. Keeping an eye on this one for sure.

Garden Story - A sim game in the vein of Harvest Moon or Stardew Valley, but with more emphasis on combat and dungeon crawl. The demo itself wasn't quite as polished as some of the others I played (fiddling with the graphics settings threw a couple things out of whack, and I actually got wedged between an NPC and a wall during a cutscene and had to restart), but the game itself seemed pretty charming overall.

Evan's Remains - A narrative-heavy puzzle platformer. I'll admit, this one didn't hook me all that much. The puzzles felt pretty basic, and the writing didn't do much for me. The demo took me about 20 minutes to finish, and I'm pretty sure at least half of it was spent scrolling through dialogue. Still, the visuals look nice, and the puzzles could get more varied later on, so perhaps it could be worth looking into when it comes out.

Filament - A top-down puzzle game; the closest games I've played that came to mind with this one were Cosmic Express (the main puzzle concept being to navigate and wrap around a single line that can't overlap itself) and The Witness (taking the main concept and repeatedly iterating on it, with an overworld/narrative that mostly functions as an excuse to traverse from Puzzle A to Puzzle B), which is not bad company for a game to find itself in. The complexity ramped up pretty quickly, too, so I'm interested to see where this one goes.

Röki - An adventure game that I'd describe as "point and click, but not quite" (something like, say, Grim Fandango). Not a genre I have a lot of experience with, but the setting and visual style was enough to carry my interest. Might keep an eye on this one.

Backworlds - Another puzzle platformer. A pretty straightforward idea (two parallel layers, which you traverse by "painting" between them), but the art style's nice and the demo does a pretty good job of showing off the different ways the concept can be used. And while we're on the topic of paint-centric games...

Chicory: A Colorful Tale - An adventure game from some of the same folks who worked on Wandersong and Celeste, two of my favorite games of the past few years. I have a lot of faith in this one, and so far it's done nothing to sway me otherwise. This isn't even the first time I've played it (got an early demo as a Kickstarter reward), but I wanted to play through it again since it's just a delight.

Spiritfarer - Another chill sim, and another demo that I've already played but wanted to revisit. Like Chicory, this one's been on my radar from the day it was announced, and, well... I adore everything I've seen of this game so far. The art and animation, the characters, the music, it's all so lovely and inviting and it's absolutely going to break my goddamn heart. One of my most anticipated titles, without question.

-

And that's just the ones I actually got around to playing; nine game demos out of, what, a few dozen? Plenty to look forward to in the coming year.

#game demos #spiritfarer #chicory a colorful tale #moncage #röki #garden story #neon noodles #filament #backworlds #evan's remains #bryan writes about games

[boybandsim]

leafeana replied to your post: 

WAIT i was just scrolling through your blog cause im hungry for content and saw this again and realized you asked what version i was playing? which i dont remember answering whoops

im playing it on pc! which is great bc then i get to mess around with mods (like the one that gives cindy some real clothing lol) but its also got its downsides since my computer is definitely not a gaming computer, which means graphics take a serious hit and lagging isnt uncommon

im...not sure if its royal edition?? I think windows edition has all the features of royal edition, although im not completely sure. I think luna has a cutscene in Insomnia thats only in royal edition, so once im there ill be able to tell. technically im in Insomnia now but ive time traveled back and it might be a while before i push on to the finale. after dealing with Altissia --> the start of Insomnia linearly i wanted some time to chill with the bros and pretend

everything is fine for a while. it has been a WILD ride for sure and yeah I haven't even started up any of the dlc yet! theres so much content!! ive been practicing playing as the other bros during medium-hard combat which has kept it feeling really fresh too. also its hilarious just blasting bad guys with a bazooka while the other people are in there swinging around swords and knives. and i haven't done any of the crossover quests yet, which seem big and exciting!

ill be forever sad that i missed the assassins festival but theres definitely plenty to do that I'm excited for. and im getting really into the fishing!! charmed is definitely the right word like..its not perfect at all but this game is so genuinely endearing with its characters personalites and development and its themes and music as well and it really does some things SO well.

god okay this is a lot of words. sorry for rambling and for the late reply! no one i know plays this game or has much interest in it so youre getting all my bottled up enthusiasm

PLEASE DO NOT EVER APOLOGISE FOR RAMBLING SEND ME AS MUCH AS I LOVE WORDS AND THOUGHTS AND TALKING ABOUT FFXV DUDE <3333 also literally no worries about late replies or replying at all im forever shit at them myself i get it bro nw nw nw

hell yeah pc is royal edition with a bunch of other shit and the dlcs (bar ardyn) incorporated, dont worry, also i would die for that one cindy in a decent outfit mod i know the exact one youre on about LOL (also i can recommend you some other mods if u like!!)

if i can share some knowledge with you right quick cuz i had the same problem and wouldve died to have someone tell me i went from barely 20fps on a good day to being able to run multiple programs with ffxv in the background; specialk is a very quick install and majorly helped with multithreading; otherwise for the in game options are using low resolution texture pack (assets option); shadows look near visually identical on the lowest option compared to the highest; all nvidia effects can be turned off with no significant graphic change; turning off anti aliasing entirely genuinely makes the game look better for me; i can post my full settings if itll help you and ive also read through a few tutorials for modding around lag so i can try and help you with that, i do get pretty major lag spikes though and frequently find it near impossible to stream/record, but i manage to nail that 60fps on average if im solely running ffxv with a few cut corners like those

also dont blame you with altissia, ngl i boiled through the story rollercoaster right quick after exploring most of the open world before even touching altissia and ended up ignoring all postgame content for starting a new save immediately and replaying just to get that hangout time in the open world that wasnt just go-back-in-time-through-magic-dog. but i feel you so hard dude i just want more of them chilling. literally i have 300 hours in this game already and i know half of those have been using the car listening to tunes LMFAO

yeah the crossover quests are funnn the one with terra wars is sweet and the ffxiv one is SO funny its literally hysterical i was roaring with laughter a couple times!!! and good on you practising i didnt touch any of the extended combat until my third save and yeah honestly if you want to do the postgame menaces those skillsll come in useful, its funny because the maingame bosses arent that hard but the postgame is mental. but yeah i love blowing shit up with proms bazooka it fucking rules nerds can keep their swords

ALSO SAME... i wanna play the promptis date so bad!! i wanna play episode duscae so bad!!! wanna play the platinum demo with baby noctis so bad!! knowing theyll never be ported kills meeeeee. sad & upset but as you say theres so much to do and the dlc honestly offer so much im still finding shit i havent done and ive spent a year playing already

honestly so much of this game for me is literally just booting it to go hang with the guys its really relaxing lmfaooo... hiking around with these goofy dudes. sometimes i just wanna chill with the anime boys. YEAH literally its sweet and charming and then fucking heartbreaking and even though the writing is hammy as hell im honestly so willing to forgive it. not only for the clear amount of care and love that went into specifically building the guys relationship (which anyone knows is the best and most realised part of the game) but the details and amount of lore you can uncover if you take a step and interpret a little. maybe thats too generous a statement for what was an executive nightmare and critically underdeveloped but i grew up on ffxiii and knowing the versus 13 lore and that ffxv was part of that extended canon im satisfied with it being another side to that story and running with that. i think supplemented with its additional content years after release ffxv isnt a complete experience but enough of one to leave an impact or at least it did majorly for me! ive been obsessed.

OMG sorry im nerding too its all good lol just genuinely i love this game and its hard to find people talking about it these days but i really had such a good time and still am continuing to and i love it fuck it ball hard

real shit though it has the best fishing minigame of all time hands down nothing has come close fuck the haters

#readmore for dashboards

[marching-bells]

This is Wada’s interview for the release of Animal Parade in the February 2009 issue of Famitsu magazine’s Heartwarming Bokujou Monogatari Fanbook (vol.2). 

I’ve provided an English translation (from myself) under the cut.

集大成的にもう一度Wiiで作ろうと思ったことがきっかけ Why I thought of creating another Wii title

To start off, please explain the design and creation process of Animal Parade. Wada: The reason I decided to create Animal Parade was that I had discussed making another Bokujou Monogatari title using the Wii. Recently I have viewed the series from a remote staff position; so this time I returned as a producer,  wanting to involve myself closely with the work for the first time in quite a while. 

Were there any difficulties while developing [Animal Parade]?

Wada: There was a struggle when it came to reducing the game's load times. There is always going to be a load time, but Animal Parade's was made shorter and comfier after we rebuilt the system's mechanics from scratch.

Tell us about the kind of themes included in Animal Parade.

Wada: The original theme was to create a game that included elements from the DS titles while capturing an atmosphere similar to that of "A Wonderful Life"(※①). At first, Animal Parade was going to be named "The Town of Wind and Water" to convey the feeling we wanted. The other theme was that we wanted to create a game that included elements from "Tree of Tranquility" while making a title that was easy to play for those who have little experience with Bokujou Monogatari. Of course, we tried many new things with Tree of Tranquility; such as being able to keep ostriches, and being able to pet and care for (wild) animals. In Animal Parade, we wanted to bolster these features by making them cuter and adding variety to them, putting emphasis on making the game fun.

Cuteness is surely important, but even the way animals move is cute!

Wada: That's right. While making the game, the movement of the animals created by the staff healed* me just by looking at them. At the time, I had only been thinking about dogs. However, the world is not only made of dog lovers; there are cat lovers, too. So then...I decided to continue from there and put consideration into the idea of other [animals] too. Certainly, isn't it funny when you think of animals like a snake or a frog? The thought continued like that. There are people who like various kinds of animals, so we wanted to create something rich in variety that satisfies those people. Additionally, we thought it would be more fun to have a lot of tricks to learn, and prepared leveled performances with variations up to MAX level(※②). 

Even in the Circus, which has its first series debut [in Animal Parade],  the animals take an active role. How was this developed?

Wada: The circus was created not only from the idea of being something cute and soothing to the viewer, but also from the design point of adding an element to animals that make them more interactive and fun. To properly convey the full diversity of animals, we didn't just include small animals (such as pets), but also large animals from Africa like the giraffe and elephant. The theme of the circus in Animal Parade is, "it is a place where those who come to see it will be healed". Just looking at the circus tent from above and cheering "Good work!" makes one lonely. So, I decided I wanted to have fun alongside the animals' performance.

A lot of the same characters that appear in Tree of Tranquility also appear in Animal Parade.

Wada: The reason we reused the same cast of characters was because there were a lot of requests for those characters to return from users who liked them. I hope they are happy that these characters have come back, and I have worked with those requests in mind; however, the characters have been rebuilt from the ground up. The characters and designs are all the same, but events and dialogue related to the characters are starting from scratch. Furthermore, there were requests for new characters to be added, so I wanted to include those for [Animal Parade]. I will do my best to listen the voices of the users and work hard so that you will all be happy!

Now that new characters have appeared, everything seems to be getting more entertaining; Was there anything that concerned you, though?

Wada: When I decided that the original Tree of Tranquility cast should return, I wanted to make sure that the game expanded on these characters while retaining features of their past selves. [The idea] was not to distort the original designs just because new characters had been introduced to the work. For this reason, the new characters we introduced were non-human, such as the Harvest King and Harvest Goddess.

What's the concept for each character?

Wada: Harvest King's concept is "strong and handsome".  According to the character designer, he is a character designed with their preferences on "full throttle" (laughs). At first I was a little anxious, but when the design was completed, there was enough original works reproduced from the design that he became the first or second favorite character to come from Animal Parade. By the way, my personal favorite is the "Witch". Since the Witch in “Island of Happiness” was based on the character designer's preferences, this time the Witch is based on my own tastes. Basically, my type is "Tsundere" (※④), so this Witch also fits that trope! The core essence of "Tsundere" is a bit boring [to me], so I made the character design more aligned with a "cold, but gentle" feeling. Also, since each character is designed with a gender opposite in mind, the Harvest King is a marriage candidate along with the Harvest Goddess. Because of this, we couldn't introduce the Witch without having the necessary male equivalent. That’s how the Wizard was created in this circumstance. Since the Witch looks sweet, the Wizard was designed to look "cool". It's intriguing when there's gaps in content, so the character was created with a cool personality in mind, but also with a slow-paced, natural feeling. Fin(※⑤), who stays alongside the protagonist, appears in a number of important cutscenes and has a position as a helpful character. With Fin at their side, beginners will find it easy to play this game. Also, Fin is an apprentice Harvest Sprite; it would be nice if [Fin] and the player were able to get along in the world.

The number of different festivals included in Animal Parade has also increased considerably.

Wada: In the newest titles, the amount of events you can view to interact with residents (such as love events between marriage candidates) is quite substantial. In Animal Parade, we wanted to enrich these events with new experiences, enhancing the events and festivals that everyone enjoys! [The work] contains a lot of new mini-game styled festivals. Each season holds different kinds of festivals, so please view them all.

With the amount of events involving residents also increasing, it seems you can fully enjoy the peaceful life and atmosphere there.

Wada: Correct. Not only are there rival events, but there are also rival marriages,  regular events involving residents, and even events that can be enjoyed after marriage. As an example: when you get married, your game doesn't end, and you can enjoy your spouse working on the farm with you or talking a walk with you. At most, the number of events is usually around 500 or so, but for Animal Parade there are 2000-3000 in total when you include the event variations.

It does seem like it will be hard to view them all (laughs). But, it looks satisfying; like each day will be fun.

Wada: We tried to create scenes from various world-wide perspectives, so it would be good if you interacted with the (game) world on a daily basis. Like past Bokujou Monogatari titles, we incorporated a lot of things into the environment like festivals(※⑥). Unfortunately, the things that we couldn't fit into festivals are now put into sub-events. I want everyone to be surprised; there are various new twists that this work brings forth, so please check it out.

You'll want to explore around the area with the new camera - it's packed with fun!

Wada: Anyway, I wanted have a look around the continent. I had the idea that you could a lot of interesting things using the camera! It was due to that idea that the self-timer was created. For example, you can create an interesting photo if you take a picture while running in the shot. With that feeling, we expanded more on the [camera's] features.

Please give a message to your fans who haven't played Animal Parade yet.

Wada: Now more than ever, the work has been completed in such a way that it will satisfy everyone's taste! It's a game that is very close to the original ideal that I wanted when I intended to create the Bokujou Monogatari series. I tried playing all of my previous works up to this point, and it was interesting to have been touched by each one. With that said, please rest assured that it's a game you can play even if you have little experience with the series.

『わくアニ』を基盤にして 『牧場物語』の最終形を目指す Aiming for the final form of Bokujou Monogatari based on Animal Parade

I want to ask about Bokujou Monogatari as a whole. What kind of work are you going to create in the future?

Wada: The entire concept of Bokujou Monogatari is being able to do many things in a heartwarming world, making it the ultimate garden toybox that can be enjoyed by each and every person. In real life, I want to create works that make you realize things must be obtained through hard work and don't come easily. I feel that Animal Parade's direction represents the final form of Bokujou Monogatari. If we can improve the form and atmosphere of this work, it will become even better than before.

What kinds of things do you want to improve?

Wada: I don't want there to be any load times, and I'd like to remove the restrictions on the number of animals that you can keep and raise on your farm. I want to keep at least 100 animals (laughs). After that, I want to improve the characters. As it is now, we are making a system that actually feels like you are communicating with the characters in the game. Also, for the animals - rather than making them realistic, a caricature is simple and easy to understand. I want to be able to do many things with them as well. Furthermore, I'd like to be able to expand the types of cooking recipes available. Right now you can only cook using a recipe, otherwise experimenting with the ingredients will cause the dish to fail. Overall, the goal is to grow and allow players to try many new and different things.

Please leave a message for series fans!

Wada: The theme of the series is roughly divided into "ranching" and "rural countryside life", but the core essence is being "the ultimate toybox".  Rather than experiencing things you're already able to do in real life, it's a place where you feel your dreams can come true. If you open the lid, you'll find there are happy things packed inside, but there are sad things as well. Moreover, I think that each of those things are experiences you can only get from these games, and all become important memories. Please experience the realism that you can only feel while playing Bokujou Monogatari for yourself.

Keywords:

(※①) “A Wonderful Life”......Software released for the Gamecube in 2003. The titles “Another Wonderful Life” and “A Wonderful Life: Special Edition” were also released in 2004. 

(※②) Level MAX......The level of pet acts goes up to 4. Each level has a different act, and the animal will perform in a cute manner. The motion animation team went to a zoo to study the movement of animals to use as a basis for the movement of the tricks! Furthermore, rather than animate literal movements of the animals, we tried to make them cuter. The [animals’] movement and appearance is a lot cuter than the original designs in Tree of Tranquility. By popular demand (?), the silkworm (which provides silk cocoons) also had its cuteness improved!

(※③) The Circus......It comes to Harmonica Town every month (season) on the 22nd. Many various animals will perform feats of amazing talent!

(※④)Tsundere.....They are people who appear to have a cold attitude at first, but will warm up to you when you get closer to them.

(※⑤)Fin......He's a Harvest Sprite created by the Harvest Goddess that's always by the protagonist's side. Since he's just an fledgling sprite, he has no ability to ring the Bells.

(※⑥)Festivals......Festivals are hosted by the residents of the town, and there are many different festivals each season. In previous Bokujou Monogatari titles, there were festival events like chicken fighting and tomato-throwing fights.  In Animal Parade, you're not only able to watch and enjoy the festivals, but you can also interact with residents more closely.

(*Throughout the article, Wada uses forms of “ 癒す “ or “to be healed”. There was no real direct translation for this. It’s a subculture thing in Japan. I hope you can understand what he was trying to convey.) 

#animal parade #animal parade official material #yasuhiro wada #harvest moon #bokujou monogatari

[marshmallowgoop]

Goop Plays Kill la Kill the Game: IF (Ryuko Episodes 1-4)

I don’t think I have anything really constructive to say.

Episode 1

Well, okay, that’s not true.

My biggest complaint about these episodes—and especially this first one—is that the repeated cutscenes are kind of a drag. I feel like there are definitely ways to make the same events from a different perspective more engaging than this. Much of Ryuko’s episode 1 is literally just the same exact content from Satsuki’s story with absolutely no differences at all.

But that said, I did quite enjoy what was different.

Of course. It’s me.

To avoid going straight to the obvious examples, I still love these stylish opening sequences. The black silhouettes against the red is such a great aesthetic.

And, uh. I definitely inwardly squealed about what Senketsu says in this introduction....

Senketsu: Then... due to fate, or perhaps coincidence... Ryuko acquires Kamui Senketsu. She returns to the academy, but this time, she has an ally...

Yes she does have an ally (sob).

Lol at “or perhaps coincidence,” though. Suuuuure, Senketsu. Sure.

And yeah, I know. It didn’t take me long to get to the obvious examples. What can I say. I love them.

Seriously, fair warning, but practically everything I’m gonna write about this episode—and the following three—is mostly just gushing about these kids. Repeating the cutscenes sure felt tedious, but seeing more dialogue shared between Ryuko and Senketsu made the experience worth it. 

Yes, I am so desperate that any interaction between them is pretty much A++++ for me.

I do have to say that their first conversation is... pretty curious, though. (And I’m not sure how I feel about Senketsu moving all weird when he’s talking, which... didn’t really happen in the anime.)

Ryuko: What’s wrong, Senketsu?

Senketsu: Doesn’t something feel... off?

Ryuko: Nah, I feel great. Better than usual, actually.

Senketsu: Odd. To me, it feels as though time has been... compressed. What’s even more strange is that after all those battles, you’re not even winded.

Ryuko: For a bunch calling themselves the Elite Four, I guess they’re not as big a deal after all.

Senketsu: No. It’s not so much that they’re weak. Perhaps you’re just too strong.

Ryuko: Let’s talk about it later, Senketsu. It’s time to deal with the boss bitch.

First off, it comes up later throughout these episodes, but those with Life Fibers in them seem to sense that something is iffy about time. And that’s actually my second major complaint about these episodes. Everything happens so quickly that nothing really has an impact, and this issue is far more obvious in Ryuko’s story than Satsuki’s because Ryuko arguably has a lot more dramatic events happening all at once: losing to Satsuki, discovering who killed her father and getting Senketsu torn up as a result, beating Nui in battle so badly that she’s convinced she put Nui down for good (which, again, uh), and then repairing Senketsu and agreeing to help Satsuki... I mean, in the anime, stuff like this took more than several episodes to happen, and here, everything goes down in like a half hour.

While I can appreciate that there is seemingly going to be some sort of justification for this breakneck speed—and if I could hazard a guess, I’d say it probably has something to do with Ragyo’s comment about how the world in the game is “distorted”—it’s still kinda sad that so much content is rushed through.

But that said, I wonder why Ryuko doesn’t appear to be affected. She’s also a Life Fiber being, but perhaps her Fibers haven’t been “activated” yet? But then, why is she so powerful?

Lots of “hmms” here.

And for more “hmms,” is Ragyo referring to Senketsu here? Or Ryuko? Or both?

Ragyo: Well, well... It seems when one allows their instincts to guide them, they are led to some amusing surprises. I thought the Primordial Life Fiber was reacting to Junketsu. But that couldn’t be further from the truth.

I wonder if Ragyo realizes that Ryuko is her daughter at this point, but I’m gonna say probably not.

Still, curious stuff.

But to get back to Ryuko and Senketsu, I gotta say that it’s pretty amusing that Satsuki’s side of the story didn’t include any awkward pauses as Ryuko talks to Senketsu, lol. I am glad that they are talking and Satsuki just didn’t hear it, though. One of my first complaints was that there wasn’t enough Senketsu action back when Satsuki’s episode 1 footage dropped.

And, oh, Senketsu, you are ever so perceptive. Still sad we don’t get to see Senketsu/Satsuki bonding in the game....

Senketsu: She could have easily ripped me to shreds if she wanted to. So, why didn’t she finish me off when she had the chance?

And last note on this episode, but as much as I love Ryuko and Senketsu, I still want like ten hours of all the characters just talking. Interactions like this crack me the heck up.

Uzu: That Matoi chick’s a tough cookie, all right. But she’s nothing compared to Lady Satsuki.

Nonon: Well, DUH! We don’t need a monkey to tell us that.

Episode 2

Episode 2 is where Ryuko’s story really starts to pick up.

Especially to me. Because a lot of it is just Ryuko and Senketsu talking. Lol.

I don’t really have anything constructive or insightful to say about much of what they talk about, but I definitely have reactions.

Like...

Senketsu: Junketsu is a Kamui just like me. We’re not all that different from one another.

Please don’t say that, Sen. You are very different from Junketsu.

And I love how Ryuko just keeps asking Senketsu what to do in this episode. You really see how much she trusts him as her partner. It is so sweet.

Ryuko: Senketsu. Got any ideas on how to beat her?

Ryuko: Then what should I do?

Well, at least until Ryuko totally ignores his last suggestion there, pfft. Maybe don’t ask if you don’t wanna listen to his answer, Ryuko.

Senketsu: Don’t trust her!

Ryuko: Shut up, Senketsu.

On the subject of Nui, though, the advertising stating that Ryuko “asks Nui to train her” is totally misleading. It’s more like, “Nui taunts Ryuko, and Ryuko is Ryuko, so she doesn’t back down.” Which makes a lot more sense.

I kinda have to have a chuckle at Ryuko’s super blase attitude, though.

Ryuko: Okay, Nui. What do I gotta do to get strong enough to beat Satsuki?

Nui: All you have to do is give up your humanity. There is a chance you’ll die, though. Wanna try it?

Ryuko: Sure. Bring it on.

Senketsu: Ryuko! No!

“Yeah, whatever, I’ll give up my humanity to beat Satsuki.” Oh, Ryuko.

Also, Kill la Kill is basically people going “Ryuko no!” and Ryuko going “Ryuko yes!” and I loved this bit.

Really, there’s just a lot of stuff I loved this episode. Like how Mako is totally not paying attention to any of this...

Or how Nui pulls this giant radio phone thingie from her dress and Ryuko is just like whatever about it omg...

I mean, as much as I would have liked a lot more from this game, this stuff is so charming and lovely that I don’t feel bamboozled or ripped off. After all these years, this is the kinda content I’ve been dying for.

But for a more “insightful” comment, we again get the sense here that there’s something messed up about the timeline. Just like Senketsu, Nui makes note of how strange it is that things are going as quickly as they are.

Episode 3

And aren’t they going quickly! Ryuko and co show up at the Cultural Sports and Grand Festival, and Satsuki has already chopped her mom’s head off. Most of this episode is the same as what happens in Satsuki’s story (but with more Senketsu talking, which I love, of course), so I don’t especially have all that much to say, but I will say that this part got my heart.

Ryuko: Sen... ketsu...!

My kids. I was kinda upset that I didn’t hear Ryuko shout for Senketsu in Satsuki’s story, so needless to say, I was glad to see that she does call for him after all. Even if they haven’t had anywhere near the bonding that they had in the similar point of the anime, she still loves him so much.

Episode 4

I pretty much just have gushing about this episode. Like...

Ryuko: Wait! Senketsu! Where is he?!

Ryuko ain’t got time for hugs! She needs to know her boy is okay!! 

She’s so desperate to find him...

Ryuko: Senketsu?! Senketsu! Where are you?!

And so happy when she sees him again...

Ryuko: You’re alive! Thank God!

And then Mako goes on and talks about how tightly Ryuko was clinging to him...

Mako: You were holding onto Senketsu’s scarf super tight.

Agh. My heart.

Just. Them.

Senketsu: Calm down. You can’t fight her in your current state.

Ryuko: Don’t worry. I’m calm. I’m not gonna go nuts again like last time. Promise.

They are so cute.

And funny.

Senketsu: You just said you’d stay calm and here you are not being calm again!

Pfft.

Anyway, my main criticism for the episode, as noted in my first write-up of the game, is that Ryuko apparently is convinced that she killed Nui (which, honestly, isn’t that clear here?) The fact that she doesn’t seem bothered or affected at all—and the fact that Senketsu doesn’t, either!—totally irks me.

But ey, that Shiro repairs Senketsu is great. I was hoping for Shiro and Senketsu bonding in the game because I think Shiro and Senketsu have similar relationships to Satsuki and Ryuko, respectively, and, you know, I almost kinda got it! I’ll take what I can get!

Buuut I’m a little confused. Didn’t Ragyo take part of Senketsu??? Or did I miss something??

Still, this game is just the most charming. Some of these interactions, I swear.

Like...

Ryuko: What do you think, Senketsu?

Senketsu: I find it too fantastic to believe.

Senketsu, you are talking clothes, and you find something too fantastic to believe? Okay, mate.

And I guess this is the justification for not putting Shiro on the roster (sob)...

Shiro: Please. I don’t “do” combat.

And ow...

Ryuko: Man. Satsuki’s family’s messed up.

And Mako is me, lol.

Mako: Yay, it’s Senketsu!

The story of this game is far from perfect, but jeez. I’m so charmed.

#kill la kill #kill la kill the game #klk spoilers #klk: if spoilers #goop plays klk: if #ramblings #shut up goop #loll this is just gushing tbh

[characteroulette]

Hey PQ was pretty good!

so I’m having trouble getting into PQ2 because of several factors, so I thought I’d write a half-think piece, half-essay on why I think the first PQ gets more flak than it deserves. So here’s that.

------

I genuinely don't understand why, when talking about Persona Q, people are always saying things along the lines of, "The gameplay was good, but the characters were trite and the story wasn't that great." Like, as a fan of the Persona series, I genuinely don't understand that assessment.

Not saying PQ is flawless, oh no. There are PLENTY of things in PQ that I have an axe to grind with (the small door scene with the P4 gang, for one), but the overall story? The characters? They're both fine. Good, even, dare I say. And here's my argument as to why:

The returning Persona series characters (from 3 and 4) in PQ do a good job of representing their games and their own personalities, even if a little more light-hearted than their source material,

AND

The story is genuinely in-line with the rest of the Persona/SMT series, even if it ultimately doesn't matter due to time shenanigans (and I'm okay with that).

These are my two points. Just those two. Because these are the two most contested parts of PQ, as far as I can hear, since we all agree that the gameplay is the real breadwinner here hahaha

Anyway.

First, let's talk about the returning characters, since they seem to be the ones who matter most. The P4 cast are generally less griped about (save Chie and Teddie) and I believe this is largely due to the brighter, more hopeful tone of P4 as a whole. (Aaand, in my opinion, they're done a MUCH BIGGER disservice in the Arena games, but no one ever talks about that so let's not bother with those right now.)

P4 was a game about making friends, the hijinx that come from that, and finding the truth about a string of murders and confronting the worst parts of yourself in a harsher world in the process! And it executes this with the appropriate amount of balance between serious moments and comedic relief. The theme colour for the whole game is bright yellow/gold, a happier and more friendly colour which helps remind you that this game is all in good fun.

(Side note here: I honestly think that P5 really failed in this respect, despite my liking its tone slightly more. I just personally like darker-themed games, but P5 was a little too dark and oppressive right out the gate, with hardly a friendly face, which helps make your gradually growing group of friends much more appreciated but also a harder atmosphere for jokes to really land well. Most of the 'funny' sequences felt very undeserved and really dragged because uh guys we literally just fought a rapist, an abusive father figure, and some other fucked-up shit. Can we please acknowledge that a bit more instead of pretending it never happened by laughing at the expense of Ann's autonomy of her body? Especially when she was a target of said rapist??) But that's its own discussion for later.

Really, the fact that most of the P4 gang get out of this with little criticism shows how accepted their caricatures have become. I guess? At least, except for Teddie and Chie.

Teddie being a wannabe Casanova must've been a huge hit with the Japanese audience, because it's just the hill he's going to die on for the writers. There was more to Teddie than his hitting on the girls in P4, believe it or not! (And there's a whole thing about it being brought on by him mimicking the type of behaviour he saw Yukiko's shadow exhibiting, which has a lot of really interesting undertones, but it makes him more swappable with Junpei, so whatever, I guess.) Meanwhile, Chie's not as meat-crazy, either, but I guess it's a better trait for them to roll with than her (cut in the translation) glossed-over sexism.

Both work fine, however, and aren't really too annoying enough to be that egregious. (Though they both go right up to the line sometimes. Teddie more so, but none of the girls playing along really helps show how gross his actions are. Most of the time.)

No, the real complaints I see directed at the characters being 'too cartoonish' are usually reserved for the P3 gang.

P3 is, really, such a bizarre game to go back to now when compared to its two successors. It's dark and hopeless, like P5, but formulaic and mystery, like P4. It's actually a natural progression when looking at its two/three older siblings (both P2s are bleak. As. Hell!), but, at least to me, it's the odd duck of the bunch, being the first to implement this winning formula of being caught in a time limit of a school year and managing spending time exploring this other world. It adds Social Links and social stats with this new time limit and this idea that the Persona and Shadows you fight don't just happen out on the streets in 'normal' circumstances for everyone to see. It pretty much went from an RPG to a management game with RPG elements.

And its emotional, impactful story, like P5, had a lot of tonal whiplash due to the attempts at comedy!

I feel like a lot of people forget this about P3 (and maybe I think more about it because I haven't actually beaten the whole game yet myself), but the story is actually a goddamn mess of tonal confusion. You got kids shooting themselves in the heads and a Social Link dealing with a classmate's crush on his teacher. You got wacky foreign exchange student and kids taking experimental drugs to suppress their Persona and slowly poisoning themselves to death as a side effect. The protagonist is an orphan who lost his parents in a huge, plot-relevant accident... But he's able to date every single girl at the same time and be the most wish fulfillment charming guy if the player so desires.

P3 being messy isn't a bad thing. P4, P5, and even P2 and PQ are all a little messy in their own rights, too. But because P3 was a lot of fans' first in the series, and PQ is just a spin-off, it gets way more flak for this than I feel it deserves.

(I mean, hey. Both P3 and P4 have those classic anime scenes of the boys walking in on the girls while at a hot springs. All PQ's got is an awkward group date scene and the implication that Yosuke and Kanji kissed each other while getting knocked out.) (They all. Have. Problems.)

And I know a lot of this comes down to personal preference. I'm not saying you're wrong for liking P3 or P4 more than PQ. I'm just saying I feel like PQ is often wrongly accused of being worse and less well-written when, really, they're all pretty much on par with each other. (And someone on the team really doesn't understand how to handle large casts of characters sharing the same space...)

But, personally, from everything I've seen from P3, I don't like the way most of the characters get presented to me in the source material. Junpei is way more insufferable in P3 than in PQ and Yukari is way more uninteresting in P3 than in PQ. Really, PQ helped me appreciate these characters more than P3 itself did. And, yes, they're more funny when they're trying to be, too. Because PQ is set up better for comedy than the 'remember you are mortal' tone of P3.

(Which makes dramatic moments hit all the harder when they happen) HEY check that segue! It's time to talk about the story and the two original characters of the game!

So, second point: people say the story isn't very good. To which I wanna ask... "Did you stop playing before defeating the fourth Boss?" Because it really sounds like, to me, everyone who says that didn't actually finish the game and reach all that juicy character development that happens for both sides around the fourth dungeon, where all the issues they've been building up (like Yukari's issue with Mitsuru for the P3 side and Kanji and Ken's awkwardness in the P4 side) start getting resolved in a satisfying way. And it comes with a reveal for the two characters we've been getting to know, Zen and Rei, as well.

(And, from here on in, there be spoilers. You've been warned.)

The two new characters to this game are Zen and Rei, who were in this place before the P3 or P4 gangs were called to the scene. Zen is quiet and a bit unsettlingly dense, but devoted to Rei, who is bubbly and full of life, but terrified of the dungeons you have to traverse. The two have been in this place for (what's implied to be) a very long time and enlist the help of the P3 and P4 teams in order to find a way out through defeating the bosses of each Labyrinth/dungeon. Simple enough, as it also helps the P3 and P4 team's goal of getting out. With each new dungeon, it feels more and more like something about Zen and Rei aren't quite right, but the length of the dungeon and all the team chats help you put it out of your mind each time. Rei can even get kinda annoying with her loudness and big appetite if you don't find her cute (which: how dare you. But yeah, I get it).

And then, at the end of a fiery festival fourth dungeon, you find yourself in a dark tomb at the bottom level. The boss awaiting you is Rei's shadow (a nice callback to the way P4 works) whom she still doesn't accept after you defeat it.

All the locks are gone and the P3 and P4 teams can return to their worlds if they wanted. Except Rei gets kidnapped after Zen reveals that Rei has been dead all along and it was him who trapped them here. It was he who created this place and even he who called both teams here.

And this was a plot twist that I friggin' loved.

It definitely had more impact on me because Zen and Rei easily became my favourites out of the whole cast, to the point of having them on my team for the whole game, but to find out such a fucked up twist is wild! (Seriously! Go watch the cutscene and tell me it isn't super fucked up!) You can say the P3 and P4 twists were shocking (or P5s I guess), but for my money, this is the best reversal of expectations I'd ever seen in a Persona game. In any game, really!

Zen was, in effect, the villain the whole time. His true identity as Chronos, God of time, makes sense with displacing the teams from their own times and the time here being erased once you reach the end. His own power that he sealed away growing impatient and taking matters into its own hands by drawing the teams to this haven displaced from time also makes perfect sense! And the entire climb through the last dungeon is his redemption arc and it makes for a super emotionally investing final dungeon all the way. (Which is great, because I hate every single one of the enemies that appear in this god-forsaken place.) (Even P4 and P5 can't really boast that, I felt very little investment through Izanami's dungeon and Baldabaoth's distortion.)

Of course, if you found Zen and Rei to be annoying and pointless, I can see how this would fall flat for you. The fact that they hinged such an emotional climax on these new characters, characters that don't even matter outside of this game!, was such a risky move. Especially when you consider this is just a fanservice game made basically under the promise of seeing the P3 team interact with the P4 team. But, for me, it really paid off.

And whatever complaints you had with the P3 or P4 characters, I feel like the resolutions to those character moments I mentioned earlier get explored even further during the climb through the final dungeon. From the P3 gang coming together to finally communicate with one another to the P4 gang reconfirming their bonds with one another, it's a really investing and emotional journey. I do wish the writing had been this tight and impactful through more of the game, but I believe it's worth it in the end.

Perhaps this moment comes too late in the game, though. I can definitely see others giving up before reaching this point due to the repetitive nature of the dungeons and the tidbits of character development that are meant to build up to this moment that can be too sparsely placed. (But, really, it's the same from P3 to P5, Social Links don't really add much variety when they can be just as repetitive and boring, just saying. Especially when you get caught in waiting to rank up hell, ugh.) For me, however, this really sealed the deal on this game being an incredible experience that I adored from start to finish. 7/10. Final score.

....

....

(7 outta 10?? Not perfect??) Well, it's not perfect. Japan's blatant homophobia and sexism really ruins a lot of scenes for me. I'm super salty especially about how the fake marriage scenes are handled so differently from the girl choices to the boy choices. (But you just argued in its favour for 2000 words!) Listen. ALL the Persona games wouldn't receive perfect scores for me for this aspect alone. There are a lot of other factors as well, but they vary from title to title and PQ in particular is guilty of spending too much time focusing on Teddie and Junpei being girl-crazy. And Marie is in this game more than she really should be. UGH.

But I digress.

In conclusion, this game's story and characters are better than most give it credit for. Hopefully, my argument helped you see why I believe this and why I think claiming that both aspects are just 'bad' is lazy.

#PQ #Persona Q #persona q shadow of the labyrinth #spoilers #P3 #Persona 3 #P4 #Persona 4 #P5 #Persona 5 #P2 #Persona 2 #P3 is a darling and I'm actually not that into it #I have the most mixed feelings about P5 #Zen and Rei #Teddie being a shadow that gained an ego is VASTLY UNDERUSED #shadows are neat and I'm into the concepts they invoke #sorry this is kinda rambly #KFC reviews stuff #I just really liked PQ okay

[kingdomblade]

I ended up playing KH3 for far, far too long yesterday and got through three Disney worlds + Twilight Town, thought I’d post some thoughts while they’re still fresh! Mostly broad strokes but spoilers under the cut.

For better or worse the game really hasn’t been too hard considering I’m playing on hard. The only time I’ve come close to dying was an early boss before I had cure, and that was because I forgot to equip more potions. Doesn’t bother me though, I’m glad it’s not as punishing as early critical mode BBS was.

The most exciting thing for me in this game was seeing the original traveling trio finally reunited. Sora, Donald and Goofy’s relationships in this game really highlight everything I love about them. They’re constantly riffing on each other, frequently worry about each other, while a main scene is going on Sora and Donald are messing around in the background. I love how open they’ve been about how much their friendship means to them, it’s been 14 years since they last ventured together and they feel closer than ever. I’ve and smiled so much while just watching them do their thing.

I’ve also taken an absurd amount of pictures with them.

Absolutely love how lively everything feels, the dialogue is snappier, there’s citizens in all the towns talking to each other, the animations aren’t limited by PS2 engine graphics. The cutscenes seem to generally have music tailored specifically to the scenes now, which is great. Im excited for the OST down the road.

Hercules

The fact that Olympus has been in every KH game and that this map is still bigger than all of the others combined is baffling, even when you consider Olympus is generally the smallest world anyway.

Herc thinks that the best way to save a child from a fire is to throw a gigantic statue at her.

The whole point of coming here is that Sora has lost all his powers and yet he inexplicably has the power to summon any ride at Disneyland at will. “We have to protect the world order!“ Donald says as I summon Buzz Lightyear Astro Blasters in front of Hercules.

I didn’t think we’d get to spend so much time in the land of the Gods, pretty cool!

I’ve been really looking forward to finally fighting all four of the titans, fighting three at once was really unexpected!

Sora, Donald and Goofy are finally heroes!!

Twilight Town

Everyone acts like it was just yesterday that Sora was in Twilight Town but it was apparently long enough for Scrooge McDuck to entirely renovate part of the town and build a new restaurant so what’s the truth, Pence??

Hayner, Pence and Olette are the kind of kids that get told “Replicas of you were friends with this one kid, can you help us look for him?” and they’re just like yeah sure, that sounds fun. What good kids.

Why are all three of them wearing plaid too though. What did Yen Sid tell them?

Toy Story

The most unrealistic thing about the entire game so far is that Andy plays Final Fantasy.

Andy must live in New York or something because this toy store is absurdly huge! There’s also not a Buzz Lightyear section so I guess his franchise was in between seasons.

Buzz and Woody’s roles felt a little reversed? I’d expect Woody would be the one that would want to wait home for Andy and Buzz be the one that would want to go looking for answers and would trust Sora and the others more. But the story was overseen by people at Pixar so... what do I know, I guess?

The Org.13′s plan for this world is kind of a huge stretch.

Buzz: “What if I become controlled too?“ Woody: “That would never happen.” Narrator voice: And then it happened.

Repltilus Maximus!!!!!

They missed a prime opportunity to end the Toy Box world with “You’ve got a friend in us“ because everyone was caught up in talking about hearts instead...

Tangled

So far I feel like this one would be the most incomprehensible if you went into the world not knowing anything about Tangled, they omitted a lot and the movie characters suddenly know things that were omitted with no warning. They didn’t even explain Rapunzel’s hair until the tail end of the world! But it’s not exactly a mark against the world since who doesn’t know anything about Tangled, really.

I do like how they handled this world though, instead of following the movie exactly we got to see a lot of small moments with Rapunzel marveling at the outside. Her friendship was Sora was great, liked that he related to her wanting to see the outside world.

Love how Rapunzel spends absolute ages both agonizing and rejoicing over her choice to go outside while Sora and the others watch on before realizing "Wait, there are strangers here”.

I don’t know how much I actually trust SDG’s decision to let Rapunzel fight but honestly, going from a complete hermit to being willing and able to fight monsters in the span of a few hours? Good on you Rapunzel.

I’m pretty sure it was in this world that someone referred to the trio as ‘Sora, Goofy and Donald‘ in that order and it shook me to the core.

Marluxia waited until Mother Gothel was literally dead and disintegrated before deciding ‘Maybe leaving Rapunzel with her is actually a bad idea, better get rid of her‘  sure was uh. Hm.

Visually this is the world that impressed me the most so far, I can’t believe how close some of the shots look to the movie, especially near the end!

Flynn’s death was legitimately as sad as it was in the movie but I grinned like an idiot when Goofy comforted a choked up Sora because that was heckin adorable.

Also heckin adorable was Sora dancing at the festival. He was having so much fun that I enjoyed it myself even though I was awful at the minigame.

And it looks like Rapunzel permanently leaves your party after the end of the story. Kind of a bummer as I like having various party members in the Lucky Emblem shots and I think I only got a couple, if any.

#KH3 spoilers #KHIII spoilers #Kingdom Contemplations

[tinypigeonlord]

Don’t mind me, just have had a lot of thoughts on the new Pokemon game so imma write them down. There’s been a lot of posts and videos on what people wanna see or don’t wanna see in the new game too and I wanna give my own two cents to no one in particular.

So first of all graphics. I hear a lot of shit on that. Personally I don’t really have all that many expectations? Like yeah it’s gonna be a Switch game, the quality could possibly be better than we’ve seen. But also did people look over that ‘game footage not final’? Things may still improve and be further optimized. More than that, I love the artstyle atleast? Everything looks so colorful and vibrant and alive and goooood ;w; It sure got my attention. I can’t wait to see all the new areas on my big tv <3

Pokemon popping up and roaming vs random encounters: On one hand I love how lively everything looks with pokemon showing up in the overworld, on the other hand I love the random encounters? I personally liked hunting down specific pokemon, not knowing what I would encounter. I feel like this is also more fun when you’re doing a Nuzlocke; You can’t ‘cheat’ and select a pokemon from those that are currently roaming with random encounters. Aside from that, people mentioned that the roaming aspect made areas look more vacant instead because a lot of open space is needed for bigger pokemon roaming. And finally, it makes the surprise way more fun if a shiny shows up in a random encounter, instead of roaming between the rest of the ‘mon?

Pokemon following you/walking with you: PLS PLS PLS bring this back and expand on it, for all pokemon. Also the option to select which partymember you want to walk with. That was one thing that bummed me out in HeartGold/SoulSilver. If I wanted to walk with my fave, I also needed to have it in the front of the party and throw it out in battle, even in areas where it was at a disadvantage due to type or level. And sometimes I had a pokemon in front for the sake of progression but I didnt necessarily want to walk with it, but there was no option to turn walking off in HG/SS. I believe they did add these options in Let’s Go Pikachu/Eevee, but I havent played these games so I don’t know for sure what the options are. I kinda also want to have the option to pick whether I will walk with a ride pokemon or actually ride it? Like, it was hella cool that you could ride arcanine, persian, haunter or snorlax, etc. But what if I wanted it to just follow me? :/ What I also want back is the national dex once you completed the main story. Let most of the pokemon which first appear be gen 8, and after you beat the main game, pokemon from other generations show up more and you can catch new pokemon that were previously unavailable. I hated how in SuMo, I couldnt see a pokemon’s national dex number, and couldnt get any data on it if it wasnt native to Alola. 

Also this is gonna sound surprising coming from a shiny hunter, but I want the shiny charm to be a reward for filling the entire national dex again (minus mythicals/events), and make the shiny rate 1/8192 again instead of 1/4091. As much as I love my shinies, I kinda feel like they’re becoming a really common thing and way too easy to obtain? I do like there being methods to find shinies easier, such as Masuda breeding, chain-fishing, SOS-chaining, etc, but make it atleast a little bit harder than it currently is, to make all that effort worth it.

Compatibility with pokebank/the 3DS titles!! I want to transfer all my precious bbies I caught over the years to come join me in the next adventure. That would make it even more awesome if walking pokemon also returns; I can walk with my faves then, not just the pokemon available in Sword/Shield. Also Cloud compatibility. I know Nintendo is afraid of people abusing Cloud to edit save files and I can see them not adding cloud for Pokemon to prevent peeps from somehow cloning or editing pokemons, but on the other hand... Right now, I have ALL my rare, valuable pokemon stored on a Ultra Sun cartridge. Every super rare shiny legendary I spent MONTHS on to encounter, every event pokemon from events that will never happen again, and every pokemon that has nostalgic value to me. If that game cartridge breaks, they’re all gone. If Cloud storage would be a thing for pokemon, I’d have a lot less anxiety about gathering all my babies on a single game with the risk of losing ALL OF THEM. Besides, I pay for online service and cloud, and thusfar havent been able to use the feature for my games :/

And definitely compatibility with pro controller. I really do not like the feel of the joycons, nor the pokeball plus, especially not after playing for a few hours, so I’m really hoping we’ll be able to use the pro controller. Considering we seem to be getting the old battle system back instead of Let’s Go’s, I don’t see why they shouldn’t add pro controller compatibility. Besides, I spent a lot of money on this thing, lemme use it >:v

Customization. The new trainers look absolutely adorable, but being able to make your trainer fit your style more is still great and makes things more personal. On one hand I’d love even more options for customization than in SuMo, on the other hand I fear I will never even get anywhere cause I’ll be spending hours mixing and matching outfits :’D I am not at all fashionable irl, but my characters in games have to look tip top. Most importantly, I want gender-neutral stuff!! As in, the option to wear clothes or hairstyles regardless of the gender you picked at the beginning. Give me a girl and the female pronouns, but the option to get the haircut that the boys get and that flannel he wears. For example.

Minigames! Not everyone is a fan of them, but personally I love things like Contests, PokeAthlon, the Underground, Missions in the Festival Plaza, etc. Especially multiplayer stuff. Give me other stuff to do besides battling. And on that note give me fun multiplayer features; besides trading and battling! The feature where you can call for another trainer in Let’s Go seemed fun to me. Being able to connect with other players and joining them in your game to do stuff together. Like how you can invite people to your town in Animal Crossing, go to the island and take on island challenges from Tortimer.

Story-wise, it would be great to have a big long story, also post-game, which doesn’t end too soon, but with the option to skip cutscenes if you so please, and more importantly, have the freedom to also explore. In Sun/Moon, you were constantly forced to go to a very specific location, everything else was blocked, and you had a cutscene every new area. Like, it was all very linear. I love the older games in that regard, where there is a story, but you figure out yourself how to progress without NPCs constantly telling you where to go and what to do. I always have this issue where after I’m done with the story, I’m kind of... lost on what to do next, so personally I love a long story to keep me busy. Give me a serious threat for the antagonists. Team Skull was lovely and I enjoyed their antics, but I want to feel like I’m saving the Galar region or even bigger, rather than just stomping on some bullies, PETA (Plasma) or fashion disasters (Flare). Also gimme an asshole rival. Lately we’ve had a bunch of precious bbies who must be protected, now bring back a rival who deserves an asswhooping and had it coming. :v As for the new gyms with gym masters instead of leaders, I have no opinion yet. I like the good ol’ themed gyms, I liked the trials. The arena thing looks pretty neat thusfar, but there’s not enough info yet for me to have much of an opinion now. I heard a rumor that this game will also have missions you can do to earn rewards & brownie points, and that would be really cool. I always really love missions in RPGs. I’m just hoping that there will be like, a combination of one-time missions AND daily missions so you don’t run out of things to do eventually after completing a whole list.

I’m also hoping that any potential mythical pokemon will come in the form of missions. The whole serial codes giveaways suck. Just entering a code for some random delivery man to appear in the pokemon center, just casually handing you a super rare mythical pokemon like it’s nothing is just bs. Give me new story, sidequests or missions DLC for a mythical pokemon instead. Like Celebi in Crystal + HG/SS, Mew in Emerald, Shaymin and Darkrai in Platinum, and then expand the missions even more. Pokemon Ranger actually did this really well; you had to go on a mission involving the pokemon before you got it.

Finally, maybe a difficulty setting. People always complain that the games are too easy and that you have to use self-imposed rules such as Nuzlockes to make it remotely challenging. Maybe add a normal or easy mode for young kids just getting into the games, including tutorials such as the trainer school so they can get used to how everything works. Make a harder setting for veterans who like the games to have some challenge but are still in it for the story, and a Very Hard/Ultimate mode for competitive players who know every in and out of the game and are looking for a challenge where you really have to balance your team out and know what you’re doing to progress, and for people who can’t care less about the story elements of the games.

#shutup pigeon lord #Pokemon blarghings

[cosmiciaria]

My Hero One’s Justice review!

So, given that now I'm in that age in which I'm Obsessed™ with My Hero Academia, it was just a matter of time that I would wrap my hands around this game. When it comes to fighting games, I'm (shocker) on the weeabuu side of the spectrum: back in the day my faves were DBZ Budokai Tenkaichi 3 and Naruto Shippuden Ultimate Ninja 5. Of Mortal Kombat and all that, I only know I suck. Give me anime boys screaming their attack names with all their might (no pun intended).

I was quite hyped about this one although I knew the story mode would only cover up until the Kamino incident (the first half of the third season), so I wouldn't find anything new, but as I said, anything related to BNHA will have my undivided attention now (I'm looking at you, movie. I can't seem to find it anywhere and my country is not bringing it!).

Unfortunately, things weren't as good as I was expecting. Yes, I am indeed in that BNHA mood right now, but I'm not blind.

In terms of the story, you have two paths: the hero, and the villains, which unlocks after you complete the first campaign. Although you must guess what happens here: they are the same battles, only from a different perspective now. So it's just the recycled story again. Alright, I can deal with that, it's a fighting game after all about a story I already know, I don't mind the repetition. But… the game only covers from the serial hero killer arc to the Kamino incident, almost more than a half season of the anime. And that's it. To tell you I completed the hero path in one evening (yes, I know I had nothing else to do – but yet, this is a short game) should tell you that you won't get much else from the plot.

Story mode is short. Period.

So, what else does this bring? Well, you have mission mode – which, you guessed it, are more battles. I don't mind at all again, it adds further challenge. You have local match as well: you can fight the AI or a second player. Good. When I saw the coaster with all the characters, I noticed something.

They're just a few!

Like really, you scan just the surface and see it plainly.

So little room to choose! What if I wanted to see how you made gameplay for Toru Hakagure? That would've been something! I believe they couldn't add every character and I understand if they had limitations. But back in the day, games like the ones I've mentioned (DBZ, Naruto) had the whole, and I mean WHOLE cast of characters. I'm talking about mangas/animes with hundreds of chapters and well over a hundred of characters, each with transformations or different versions. And still, those games had more to offer: the DBZ made you go through all the sagas, from Dragon Ball to fricking GT and the movies. And they even went on to create what if scenarios. And Naruto had semi-open world with RPG elements and side quests besides fighting. And those were fricking ps2 games!

Also, except for All For One, all the characters are already unlocked. Give me a motivation, please, don't serve them to me on a silver plate like that, allow me to unlock them as the story mode progresses. I would've much liked that.

And wth is Kyoka doing here??? I mean ¿¿?? I think Mina has more presence than her, Kyoka only gets decent screentime when the cultural festival arrives and the plot of the game is ages away from it. They must've needed to put another female character and found her more suitable or her gameplay more eye-candy?? That's the only explanation I find, really. 

Alright, yes, maybe I'm asking too much? After all, you have online mode as well. But as I like to stick with my babies, the story mode is always where I put my focus on. And this game didn't deliver. Cutscenes were lazy, with just a few portraits for each character (yes, DBZ didn't have cutscenes either but it had a thousand more canon battles and way too many characters for me to remember, each one with unique moves), but I wouldn't have minded something like the Naruto Ultimate Ninja games. With an actual map you can move around and important battles taking place. I remember the Ultimate Ninja 4 allowed you to collect "memories" and there was another mode besides story, in which you could play the battles from the original Naruto, when the kids were younger – more gameplay and something to look for! Maybe they could've done something similar or maybe emulate the battles in the sports festival in that mission mode?

There is a slight motivation to keep on fighting, I guess: characters can level up in mission mode, and you can also unlock different colors for the outfits and different accessories. I guess if I had played this on my ps4 I would've gone for the trophies as well, which encourages the player further. But as I grabbed the pc copy, sadly though it sounds, I'm going to leave the game where I left it.

This isn't so you don't buy the game: I don't know the company that developed it, but I do know Bandai Namco, and by no means do I wish to hinder their sales, because I love what they do. Also, it's been a while since I play a fighting game like this, so maybe they're all now like this one? I'm just saying that I don't recommend you to buy it at full price. And that you won't find anything new if you're up to date with the anime (not even the manga).

They could've done great things with this one: they could've gone as far as the beginning of the story, they could've created the weakened All Might's form, they could've put every character from the anime, they could've even go further and give us an advance from the manga – just imagine playing with Mirio Togata! Or Sir Nighteye! I'm already crying. 

Alright, it’s not so terrible - I enjoyed what I could. It was more myself pushing all these things rather than rejoicing on what I actually had, which is a pretty fun game. Gameplay is unique for each character: you have a normal attack, and two quirk specials. Then you have like a “limit break” attack, one normal and one more powerful, for which you need to wait for a bar to charge and execute them. You also have the option of summoning a companion to land an attack while you’re having trouble or paralyzed. Some characters have a good range of attacks (Todoroki), others have useful long-range attacks (Deku), others need to be close to present a decent fight (Kacchan), so it’s all up to you and the characters you feel more comfortable playing with. I personally enjoyed setting everything on fire with good boi Todoroki, much to my love for Kacchan’s disgrace. 

But that’s it. I’m a bit disappointed, that’s all. I guess this is all they could do, and I don't blame them for it. But it's a mediocre game for such a big franchise, and it does not live up to its heroes.

 I think this is the first review I post about a game I didn't like much. I normally don't play games I don't like, or if I don't like them, I just don't finish them and then the review is never written. But this was a missed opportunity, and I'm sad for it. I hope BNHA one day receives a videogame adaptation worth of its name.

#boku no hero academia #bnha #my hero academia #my hero one's justice #my hero ones justice #mha #izuku midoriya #katsuki bakugou #all might #all for one #videogame #videogame review #review #anime videogame #boku no hero #deku #deku midoriya

[retronator]

Iconoclasts. By Joakim ‘Konjak’ Sandberg (or for you lovely tumblr folks @konjakonjak​). 7 years in development. Art like no other. Or maybe like Legend of Princess, Konjak’s shorter masterpiece from a decade ago, which shares the purple-green, saturated art style. I could also call it Owlboy 2, for everything from an epic development cycle and platforming genre, to lovely characters and really best-of-the-best pixel art technique.

The game entered the Independent Games Festival already back in 2011 (when FEZ eventually won the main prize at the 2012 award ceremony). While it didn’t get nominated, it’s interesting to see how much the game already looked exactly like it does today.

But game development is incredibly demanding and it takes an enormous amount of work and dedication to come from start to finish. Even more so—and crazy impressive—when all is done by one person. Just like Stardew Valley’s Eric Barone, Joakim is also responsible for every single piece of his game, be it art, code, sounds, or music. While he was quick at developing his previous projects, Iconoclasts turned out to be a different beast, as he explained at the end of 2013:

What happened with The Iconoclasts is I decided on a complex narrative, a world with characters that all need explaining. People with voiced emotions and motivations. I also chose to present these things with moving characters, not simple portraits, because I hold that the expressions of the characters on-screen give more life and personality to them. These things all create rules for my design. There will be text cutscenes, due to the complexity of the intended narrative, and it will be cutscenes with scripted characters, needing emotive animations, and to move to places and do things. It also limits the possibilities in a world. I need to code all this, I need to test all this, I need to re-read all this countless times. I create assets entirely meant for cutscenes. What I’ve realised is this: it’s most of my development time. 

While the core game mechanics are all there in the 2011 build, it took 6 more years to bring the intriguing, thoughtful story alive and polished to the highest level that it is at today. 

If perfection is what you’re looking for, perfection you will find, at the very least when it comes to art. Knowing that Joakim can spend 45 minutes polishing a single frame of a cutscene, it almost hurts to see all the cinematic sequences, realizing how much work has gone into them.

It makes me wonder, at 640px anti-aliased, why not save the trouble and just do digital painting? But it wouldn’t be the same, and it wouldn’t be perfection. When you’re that many years into development, you might as well finish it right. It’s beyond admirable and I bet beyond exhausting:

I’m very tired. Some days wondering if I made a good choice to give so much of my life to one game. But Iconoclasts is here tomorrow, and I am happy with how my strange mixture of action, puzzle and story ended up, and I still enjoy playing it. I hope you enjoy it too. 

And with that, tomorrow became today, and 7 years of effort became a life work. Far from the last one for Konjak, but as of now, his defining masterpiece.

You’re used to me not really doing reviews as there are plenty of others that do that. Iconoclasts got 9.5/10 on Destructoid and 90/100 from GamesBeat so there really is no doubt what to do today if platformers are your thing. Check out the less cinematic trailer to get a better feel for core gameplay, if you want to be double sure.

I know I will cherish the game for its astounding art, right next to Owlboy, Frogatto, and FEZ as the greatest modern colorful platformers (sorry, The Mummy). It's out now and will set you back $20 on Steam or GOG (Windows, Mac, and Linux are all there) or you can get it for your PS4/Vita as well.

#Feature #Joakim Sandberg #Konjak #Pixel Art #Gaming #GIF #Platformer #Released