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themadauthorshatter · 3 years

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Toppat!Charles Part 5!!

GUESS WHO'S BACK WITH TOPPAT!CHARLES!?

Thank you all so much for your patience with this one, like I said, I've been going through a lot in my personal life, though things are getting better.

If you haven’t read the previous parts you can find them HERE:

Part 1:

Part 2:

Part 3:

Part 4:

ENOUGH ABOUT ME! TIME FOR THE RECAP:

Henry has taken the CCC's offer, despite opposition from Galeforce, Ellie, and even Daddy Dearest Terrence Suave.

Meanwhile, Right has polished up Charles and set him up in an actual room for a change of pace.

Not really a headcanon this time but a MASSIVE, MASSIVE trigger warning for torture, violence, and a trauma truck load of angst; we're focusing more on Charles this part since he was more of a cameo in Part 4.

Got that? GREAT!

LET'S BEGIN!

Like before we pick up where Part 4 left off, but with Charles in his new room across from Right, who has taken his position at a desk chair and is calmly talking to Charles. If this were a movie, we would only hear the music score before getting a close up of Right saying something to Charles, who reacts by raising his eyebrows and widening his eyes.

"What?"

Right sighs as he rubs the non-cybernetic half of his head. "Do I got to repeat everything to everyone?" He recomposes himself and meets Charles once more, the pilot shaking his head as he curls his knees into his chest and holds his hands on either side of his head.

"No. No, no, no, nononono. I can't do that. You can't make me."

"So you'd rather go back to rotting in your cell?" Right asks as he raises an eyebrow. "I'm offering you the chance to have some form of freedom and you're willing to throw it away for your stupid government?"

Charles keeps his head down, but clenches a fist. "They'll get me out of here. Just wait and see."

Right grabs Charles's ankles and throws them down before grabbing his jaw, forcing his to look up. Thhe two are inches away from each other and Charles's instincts are telling him to run since fighting hasn't exactly worked out for him.

"Look at where you are and what's been happening. Any time the government tried sending a destroyer, it didn't work. You were left alone in that cell with nothing but your shadow on the wall to talk to. You have a chance to get out and not have to deal with that anymore. You're seriously going to turn it down because you think the government's coming to rescue you? Taking my offer would get you out a lot quicker. "

Charles only glares into Right's human eye before doing a very ungentlemanly and dumb thing by spitting in his eye. (Unsanitary as well, I might add. Really, Charles, get with the program!)

Right backs away slightly, though it's more like an angry flinch because he recoils and then freezes.

Charles, however, keeps his glare as his wipes his mouth off with his sleeve. "Never."

Right is still for a moment before backhanding Charles with his cybernetic hand, not enough to seriously injure him, i.e. a broken jaw or knocking him unconscious, but it does leave him seeing stars and in a good state of, 'that hurt a lot more than it should.'

Right stands back, takes out a handkerchief, wipes his face off, and then pockets said handkerchief before folding his hands behind his back.

"You'll come to your senses. If you can wait, so can I."

With that, Right leaves the room just as Charles picks himself up, rubbing his cheek.

"See you tomorrow, Charles."

As the door closes behind Right, Charles's face and the room's temperature drop.

Cut to Right, who is leaving the hall and going to that room we saw in the Free Man ending, that cafeteria- like room with the big window overlooking Earth.

JUMP TO THE NEXT "MORNING"

Charles is sound asleep in his bed when a pair of toppats come in. One stays by the door and the other wakes up Charles.

The pilot, due to being out-strengthed and delirious from sleep, is pulled out of his room and can barely keep up with the toppats as they drag him to a different room.

In Charles's perspective, the world is dark and he keeps drifting in and out of sleep. He eventually opens his eyes to see he's back in the jungle, by the crashed helicopter. Right is nowhere to be seen, but Charles does see someone else, someone that he ACTUALLY happy to see. As in he smiles and tears up.

"Henry?"

Henry stands still as he stares at a growingly flustered Charles, who races toward him.

"Henry! Man, are you a sight for sore eyes! You have no idea what these guys've done. C'mon, let's go-"

Just as Charles is about to hug Henry, he holds a hand and stops Charles in his tracks.

"Hen... Henry?"

Henry's face turns from blank to angry or annoyed and he shakes his head, backing away.

Charles tries to follow him, but he can't. When he looks, he sees his feet are sunken into the ground and panics.

"Henry! Help! I-I think I stepped in quicksand!"

Henry only backs away further, now glaring at Charles.

"HENRY, PLEASE! SAY SOMETHING!"

Henry finally approaches him and leans close to his his face.

Before he can say anything, Charles's breath catches and he quickly finds he can no longer breathe.

Charles tries gasping and exhaling, but only blows bubbles out of his mouth.

The jungle fades away into a very dim grey, almost falling. Henry falls away with it, much to Charles’s fear.

The pilot tries reaching for Henry and is pulled away, seeing as Henry swims further away from him.

Charles gasps for real this time as he is pulled out of a tub of water and focuses his gaze on Right, who is standing over him with his arms folded behind his back.

“Good morning. Sleep well?’”

Charles tries to push himself away the tub only to find his hands are either tied or handcuffed behind his back, I’m noting an ‘either’ here because while I can see Right using handcuffs or restraints like the ones we see in the Free Man ending, to save on resources and because Charles is already pretty weak, he’d probably just use a rope.

The toppats that woke him up and dragged him here both hold his shoulders, one holding the back of his collar.

Charles glares at Right and struggles against his bonds, but he stays quiet.

Right sniffs and nods at the two holding Charles. “Give ‘im a wash.”

The one holding his collar grips his hair, yanking it and making Charles follow his movement before dunking him back into the water.

Right watches as Charles struggles both above and below the water, mildly impressed that he’s still strong enough to the point that the two toppats are having a hard time holding him under. If this were a movie or a game cutscene, the camera would hold on Right’s face, resolute and expressionless, and all we would here would be the score and Charles struggling. Right blinks and an icon appears on his cybernetic eye, a solid circle with a ring around it.

A camera.

After a while, Charles’s movements slow and nearly stop completely, bubbles leaving his mouth and nose.

Right nods at the toppats pull him up.

If that first dunk didn’t wake up and alarm Charles, this certainly did.

Charles gives one of those loud gasps and coughs up water as he catches his breath.

Once his breathing goes at least to where he’s not huffing and puffing, he feels one of the toppats grip his hair again. He fights against him, but is ultimately pushed back into the water.

The partner repeats itself for a while.

Dunk his head in the water, wait for him to stop struggling, pull him out and wait for him to just about get his breathing normal, rinse and repeat.

After maybe a half an hour of this, Right notices Charles has started shivering after his last dunk and is having a hard time getting his breathing even.

“Enough. Get ‘ im to a medic.”

They do so, and Charles follows with barely any strength to keep up.

The next day isn't any better.

The toppats are ordered to sit Charles in a chair, his hands on the rests, his head in a restraint, and his eyes held open with something like reverse clamps; if you’ve seen or read A Clockwork Orange, you’ll know what I’m talking about.

Right takes a seat next to him, a medic on his other side to keep his eyes hydrated, and the two watch a simple movie.

Just a nice, sit down, home cinema night 😁😊

JUST KIDDING! NO THEY DON’T!

“You seem too confident your government’s gonna save you.” Right turns his head to the screen and folds one leg over the other. “Let me remind you what they’ve done to us.”

Charles follows his gaze as the film begins.

I’m guessing the Toppat Clan has been around for a while, based on how many paintings/pictures of the leaders we see in Completing the Mission, so there would be PLENTY of news footage of the government using any means necessary to arrest any toppats they can get their hands on.

The film Charles watches is nothing short of horrifying. I won’t go into detail, but just know that it’s pretty disturbing. Like, psychologically messed up.

Charles is forced to watch as members of the government, something HE WORKS FOR, arrest, torture, and execute Toppat Clan members in extremely violent ways.

Right is quiet as he watches because he’s seen this tape on more than one occasion; he also watches as a reminder as to why he joined the toppats to begin with.

Charles, however, isn’t exactly that. After watching a clip of seeing a government official gun down a group of new toppat recruits, he finally snaps.

“STOP IT!” Charles cries as he struggles in his chair and restraint, much to the annoyance of the medic. “PLEASE! MAKE IT STOP!”

Right’s attention is now on the pilot as he continues screaming and crying, watching quietly as he takes note of his work.

Charles screams as loudly as he can as the film keeps rolling, unable to look away as the government is practically used against him.

Right uses this pattern for a LONG while. One day, Charles is physically tortured and the next he is shown more footage of the government hunting down toppats.

This cycle is continued until, after maybe three months(it doesn’t seem like it’d be that long, BUT TRUST ME, IT CAN BE), when the toppats come for Charles, they find him standing, waiting for them.

This time is different, though.

Right is with them and approaches the empty eyed, silent Charles.

“Learned your lesson?”

Charles nods.

Right holds out his hand, a smirk on his face.

“Whaddaya say, kid? You want in?”

CUT TO HENRY

Our multilived friend is lying in bed, having a very fitful sleep. I keep jumping to what we would see if we were watching a movie, but trust me on this, I think you'll really like this one.

In this dream, Henry stands in the middle of four mirrors, a different "ending" of him in the side mirrors and the ine behind him. In front of him is himself, on his left is the Toppat King ending of himself(I'm just calling him Toppat Henry), on his right is the Toppat Recruit endimg of himslef(Recruit Henry), and behind him is his Revenged self.

"You should've taken that offer," Toppat Haenry chides.

"Charles would've been safe, if you did," Recruit Henry adds with a shrug.

Henry hears his Revenged self cough behind him and hears his augmentations whirring. "We wouldn't be friends, if that happend."

"And that bothers you?" Toppat Henry laughs.

"Think about it," Recruit Henry says very smugly. "Since when have you needed friends?"

"Escaping the wall-"

"You got out alone before," Toppat Henry says with a tap to his hat.

Henry jumps when he hears glass shattering and turns to see his Revenged self has punched his mirror and cracked it.

"King, recruit, theif, it doesn't matter," he gurgles as blood oozes out if his mouth. "A toppat never keeps his word."

Revenged Henry hits hus mirror again and causes it to shatter, forcing our Henry to jump back and crash into his own mirror-

Henry wakes up and looks around his room, shaken and stirred. He checks his arm and back before sighing and hugging his knees to his chest.

"I hate when that happens."

Man, that was a psychedelic ending!

BUT THAT’S A WRAP ON TOPPAT!CHARLES PART 5!!!!

This took a very, very, very, very, very, very, VEEEEERY long time, but here it is!

Thank you all so much for your patience and following this series. I am having such a blast writing this, you have no idea.

Thank you all for reading! Stay safe out there! And HAPPY THANKSGIVING!!!!!!🦃🦃🦃

#henry stickmin #toppat!charles #torture tw #drowning tw #psychological torture tw #right hand man #toppat henry #toppat recruits #toppat king #revenged #blood tw

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sailor-cresselia · 5 years

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The Great Ex-Aid Rewatch: Eps 07-08

...so I guess I’m liveblogging my notes now. This is a thing that’s happening.

Eh. It’ll let me keep easier access to them if I do this, so I might as well.

You wanna know something that’s driving me up a wall with regards to the early OP? Kiriya is entirely in white. Like, Emu is in his red pants and yellow shirt under his coat, and at least Hiiro and Taiga get to have their darker pants and shirts underneath their coats, but Kiriya is in just white. It’s super disconcerting.

...actually, Taiga’s ‘action’ shot of him twirling his gashat looks like it could have come from his episode zero special, since he’s clearly wearing dark purple scrubs under the white coat, and it’s in that same alley that they had him doing the simulation in. Huh.

But Kiriya. White leather jacket. White, normal length pants. Super disconcerting.

–––

I love how sometimes, like here on the beach against the two collabos bugsters and ‘the black ex-aid’, you can tell that those transformation cutscenes are actually happening!

Like, sometimes after a Brave level up sequence, you’ll see him stepping down and putting his arms down from his door-opening pose. And here we have Ex-Aid dropping down from mid-air, now wearing the Gekitotsu Robots armor. It’s a nice touch.

–

…okay, so. It’s not just an issue with Google Translate that keeps turning ‘bugster’ into ‘bug star’ when materials for Ex-Aid get auto-translated. Toei does it themselves. The English sub-heading on the report Kiriya reads to Jungo says ‘Grade confidential report of the bug star virus infection by Ministry of Health’. I’d thought it might be G.Translate having issues like it does with names, but apparently not. (How many ways can the auto-translate try to write gashat? Who knows? It’s about as many different ways as it can try to write Emu’s name.)

Speaking of this scene… Kiriya used to wear normal clothes!

Well, he used to wear non-floral buttonups, anyway. And intact pants, though they were still rolled up to a capri length, the same way his tattered jeans are. The shoes are the same, and he’s wearing a regular labcoat – and properly, he’s using the sleeves and everything!

–

So. Parad. As anyone who has seen my writing knows, I hecking LOVE Parad and all the potential he brings to the table.

In Episode 3, he showed up to tell Graphite to chill, and dared Taiga to collect all the gashats. He and Graphite teleported out – right after Graphite told Parad that he’s weird – and Emu showed up chasing the patient of the day.

Episode 7. The Lazer vs. Genm Black Ex-Aid fight. Kiriya launches a finisher, a veritable storm of arrows. KUROTO AIN’T DOING SO HOT. He’s getting hit by a lot of energy arrows, right up until Parad NYOOMS in behind the smokescreen of fire.

Like, literally zooms into frame – not even a teleport, there’s a motion blur that’s in the shape of his silhouette there.

He holds up ONE HAND and blocks the remainder of the arrows.

And he smirks. Didn’t seem to even really be bothered by the fire and energy hitting against the general area – because it wasn’t hitting him. It was all being blocked just before it made it to him.

He bought Kuroto enough time to get out of there before the smoke cleared, and Kuroto was already detransforming when Parad stepped in.

(…oh man, the attack was still ongoing at that point… If Parad hadn’t interfered, Kiriya might have accidentally killed the guy he was trying to expose a few years early.)

So. With that said…

Parad clearly has shielding abilities, and as far as I know, none of the other bugsters have that.

Graphite has his fire attacks, and Lovelica has his. Er. Mind control. (Because of course the otome game has mind control.) But Poppy gets free transformation between her bugster and human guises, and the other two seem to need a bugvisor to either stabilize or access their ‘monster’ forms, despite being the other two complete bugsters.

Parad, who is technically ‘incomplete’, never came directly after the Riders until he had his Gashat Gear Dual.

What could he have done if he had an offensive skill?!

And doesn’t it just make sense that, without a fully realized game of his own, Parad gets most of his makeup from Emu? Because whether you place him as originally being the bugster from Mighty Action C or from Emu’s original idea for Mighty Brothers… neither of those games were finished. They were a demo or hadn’t moved past the concept stage, respectively. He doesn’t have a defined source material to draw powers from.

So, the bugster that would eventually be known as Parad, whether we say he was really there like he claims, or if he’s just… using Emu’s memories as if they were his own, still gets most of his identity from an eight-year-old.

One who, not long after being infected, was hit by a car.

It makes sense that his imaginary friend would have the ability to stop that, doesn’t it?

Emu and Parad do share the drowning imagery, after all. We see it more with Parad, but… down the road, when Emu is describing how scared he was after being hit? They use that same drowning shot, but with eight-year-old Emu. After it was used for Parad.

–

Back on track to episode 7, there’s also how, at this point, Parad has just jointly ruined Kiriya’s credibility and protected Kuroto’s identity as The Dark Ex-Aid. Kiriya, Hiiro, and Emu have all seen him in the vicinity of/being not-Genm, and Taiga saw him with Graphite in episode 3.

So, after he teleports away here, all four of our main riders have seen him in association with the bugsters, and have seen him teleport. AKA, they all know he’s a bugster.

They just have no idea who he is yet.

–––

Episode 8

So, the first half or so of the episode is pretty much standard fare – patient, bugster, Taiga being a dick, etc.

When Emu asks if Taiga’s holding the patient hostage in order to get his and Hiiro’s gashats? Taiga doesn’t answer.

Because he’s not holding him hostage. Taiga fully intends to destroy the bugster whether or not they show up – but he’d prefer to get the gashats first. Two birds, one stone. This is a simpler way to get them all at once.

–

You know, I’m still not sure if Zero Day, when numerous people were lost, is the same day as when Saki died. What Hiiro says implies it was, but we never really get a good description of when it happened. It’s clearly around the same time, since in Episode Zero, Kuroto said that they would ‘stop propagating the virus for now,’ after it was already a forgone conclusion that Taiga wouldn’t be able to save Saki. But does that mean that there were numerous other people who died that same night? I’ve never been able to tell.

(At least ep 4 finally showed me the confirmation of when Kiriya blackmailed his way into getting a Driver – three years before the show, and thus two years after Zero Day. Jungo died on Zero day in an ‘accident,’ so Kiriya had been living with that guilt, and with knowing about the bugster virus, for two years before he first confronted Kuroto. Interesting.)

–

Parad: (To Kuroto) Okay, so, I know you designed the protogashats and all, and they’re super powerful, which is awesome. But why the hell are you still using that thing? You’re gonna kill yourself.

…Hm. When Parad starts off, saying how the protogashats are powerful, he’s looking at his game, and smiling. When he mentions that Kuroto’s using one, he starts to set his game aside. When he says that it’ll destroy him… he turns and looks directly at Kuroto. With an incredibly judgemental look.

Learn from Taiga and Kuroto’s examples, kids. Don’t use protogashats.

(For the record, Excite’s translation of the line is “you’ll end up destroying yourself”, and RTA’s is “it will ruin your body.” Those are… slightly different implications, guys.)

… Kuroto why is your phone ORANGE.

–

Taiga: Oh, good, you two showed up after all.

Emu: I’m just here to save the patient.

Hiiro: I’m here to kick your ass, Hanaya.

Taiga: The one to get all the gashats… will be me.

–

…hold on.

Hold on a minute.

Taiga wanted to be the only Kamen Rider so that nobody else would have to suffer the way he did. But there was – theoretically, anyway – only the one protogashat when he was first active. They only ‘recently’ were able to get ten – and Taiga’s been out of the loop for five years. We were told about the ‘collect all ten’ aspect by Poppy, who’s been allied with the MoH and ‘good’ Kuroto.

Taiga… was dared. By Parad, who was with Graphite.

Would Taiga be using this same method if it weren’t for Parad? Would he be trying to take all the gashats by force if it hadn’t been told to him by the guy who was with his arch-enemy?

Yes, he doesn’t want anyone else to be a Rider. But nobody else seems to care about the collect ‘em all aspect they’ve been told about – Kiriya went for Giri Giri Chambara because he needed LEGS, but it was also about 50% incidental. Hiiro is dead set on being the only rider because he doesn’t think anyone else is qualified. Not to say he’s wrong, since he is the only one of the four who’s supposed to be here, but he’s also being an ass about it. Emu would just very much prefer that nobody die, thanks.

Would Taiga be so concerned with getting all of the gashats to keep the others out if he hadn’t spoken to Parad?

–

Hiiro has a lot less… skill as a Rider than the other four, doesn’t he? If a tactic he’s trying doesn’t work, he doesn’t try something else – he just keeps trying the same one again. I know that’s probably a surgeon habit – do it the same each time, to minimize the chance of error. But these ‘operations’ are anything but standard. Each and every other one of the Riders is able to improvise. Hiiro picks up on it a little more, by the time we hit the 20’s, but never to the extent of the others.

Here in ep 8, he tries using a boosted attack with the Doremifa Beat turntable – scratching it once or twice, and trying to use the sword beam. Over and over. Taiga dodges each and every attack. Everyone else varies their techniques, even just a little. Taiga’s always made good use of the multiple modes of his assorted firearms. Genm has his assorted OP weaponry – currently, Shakariki Sports and the Bugvisor’s chainsaw mode. Once Kiriya gained actual limbs, he’s damned good with the scythe mode and the bow and arrow mode of the Gashacon Sparrow. And Emu. Well, Emu is Emu, and has made good use of the Gashacon Breaker’s sword and hammer modes since day one, as well as the energy items and general genre savvy with regards to who they’re fighting.

I think it’s a little telling that during fights where nobody is being particularly targeted, Hiiro is often the first to go down. Kiriya spent episode 6 unconscious in the hospital because Kuroto singled him out for a beat down in episode 5, and that’s the only reason he was the first out of the ep 5 fight. Then it was Hiiro, and then Taiga.

Either Hiiro withdraws first out of safety concerns, as in episode 3, or he goes down first, as seen here in episode 8 against Taiga.

–

And then here comes the curveball. Once Taiga’s beaten Emu and Hiiro, we get a mirror conversation both there, and with Kiriya and Kuroto on what it means to use a Gamer Driver.

Taiga throws Hiiro for a loop, one that’s not helped by Emu having exactly zero idea what he’s talking about.

Kuroto throws Kiriya a nice little distraction, to keep the heat off of himself.

–

Learn from Taiga and Kuroto’s examples, kids. Don’t use protogashats. And DEFINITELY don’t use them like Graphite!

#kamen rider ex aid #sailorcressy says #mmm yes delicious speculation

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gamingtipsandtrickshacks · 5 years

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The new bloom of Q-Games • Eurogamer.net

Every spring, when the cherry blossoms are in full bloom, people in Japan gather to celebrate in an ages-old tradition known as hanami. It's a celebration of nature's beauty, and a chance for friends and family to get together in the first blushes of spring. This year, Q-Games has assembled alongside its Kyoto compatriots on the banks of the Kamo River, laying a blue tarpaulin down beneath the tree that boasts the most impressive blooms for miles (a spot that a junior member of the team was sent down to secure some hours before the event started) before piling into a supply of beer, wine and other assorted booze.

Galak-Z creators 17-Bit are in attendance, as are Vitei, the studio headed up by former Nintendo EAD man Giles Goddard. And watching over it all is Goddard's one-time colleague back in the days of Star Fox and Argonaut Software, Dylan Cuthbert, cutting a fatherly figure as he slices into an improbably large leg of ibrico ham. The party goes into the night, the drinking until sometime the following morning. A couple of days later, I catch up with Cuthbert at his Kyoto office - a neat, warm little studio that looks out over the neat, tidy little streets of the city - at what feels like a fitting time. After a couple of years of relative quiet, it feels like Q-Games is about to break into bloom once again.

The studio's last high-profile release, The Tomorrow Children, was perhaps the developer's most ambitious project to date. It was certainly its hardest to parse; a strange, nebulous and arrestingly beautiful waking dream of a game, it struggled to define itself upon launch in 2016 and ended up being shuttered just over 12 months later.

Under Cuthbert, Q-Games has produced a fine run of talent that's gone on to its own efforts - Dakko Dakko's one, while last year's splendid Wonder Boy revival was overseen by alumni Omar Cornut.

"I wouldn't say it's been turbulent," says Cuthbert of the last few years. "It's certainly been busy. Making The Tomorrow Children involved quite a big team. We made that, and at the end it was a small team maintaining it - so it was fine from our point of view. In general, I don't think Sony was ready to do a free-to-play game. It wasn't our idea to do a free-to-play game - around halfway through development, they said we want to make it free-to-play, and I said, well, do you know what that takes? It takes a lot of marketing, data, research, analysis - and, for me, I felt that they didn't really do that. It always felt they hadn't quite got the grasp of that, and I think Sony is much more efficient at making a game and selling it. It's not a big shock - their whole engine isn't geared for that."

Indeed, Sony's track record with its own free-to-play titles hasn't been great - take KillStrain, another effort that released with little fanfare and was just as quietly closed down a year after its own release. For Q-Games, the end of The Tomorrow Children saw a five year chapter at the studio come to a close, and it now sees the developer returning to what it does best.

"We went back to the way we worked before," says Cuthbert. "The Tomorrow Children was a fairly big team, and it was actually kind of fun - the game itself was very experimental, it had all kinds of sections that were fun to work on with the weird systems in place. As a game creator it was so much fun being able to work in that sandbox set-up. After that we just went back to multiple smaller teams and experiments - which was exactly what we were doing before."

That new, old approach is manifesting itself in PixelJunk Monsters 2, a follow-up to perhaps Q-Games' most beloved title, and the best received of the PixelJunk series. The sequel will have been in development some 18 months by the time it comes out next month - a fairly typical schedule for previous entries in the PixelJunk series, but a mere fraction of the amount of time it took for The Tomorrow Children to see the light of day.

Dylan is, quite rightly, proud of the table that's the centrepiece of the studio's rest space. It's a fine piece of wood.

Why choose now, then, to return to PixelJunk Monsters? "Because it's the 10th anniversary, really," says Cuthbert. "And because everyone asked for it. Last year when we started the project, we thought let's see if we can do it in 3D, and see how it looks. And our first tests, we nailed the look really nicely - it looks like PixelJunk Monsters, and because we found that look it kind of spurred us on."

It feels like a good time, too, to return to the PixelJunk Monsters' formula. Releasing in the midst of the heady year for video games that was 2008, it came at a time when downloadable, digital-only games still felt like something of a novelty on console. It came, too, when the tower defence craze was truly heating up.

"It was kind of just before it," says Cuthbert of a concept that began by attempting a modern remake of Sabre Wulf, Ultimate Play the Game's ZX Spectrum adventure that first released back in 1984. "When we came out there was only one or two other tower defence games. The main difference, for us, was that when we first saw the tower defence genre, we looked at it and thought it'd be great to have on console on HDMI at 1080p - and tower defence as it stood was very simple, mouse-controlled and very PC-oriented. And we thought if we're going to do a game based on these dynamics, we want to make it more Nintendo-like."

With the sequel, that Nintendo-like feel has only deepened. You're still controlling Tikiman, and still partaking in a characterful spin on the tower defence genre, but it feels so much more alive; the visuals, with their tilt-shift focus effect and an emphasis on textures that feel like wood and clay, give it all a hand-crafted look that's all the more gorgeous when you zoom in for a closer look at the field in play (a view that, unfortunately, it's hard to play effectively from, but good lord is it great for screenshots). On the Switch's portable screen on which PixelJunk Monster 2 is demoed, it simply pops.

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There's something warmly nostalgic, too, in playing a game whose genre feels like untapped territory these past few years. "Yeah, it's like you're getting a nice modern remake of the genre," says Cuthbert. "It's ten years on, so it should feel nostalgic really. I've played a few of the popular tower defence games, and they don't seem to have evolved at all.

"There's a lot of content in there - it's what they call triple-I." Triple-I? I admit, that's a new one on me. "Yeah, it's like triple-A overall quality, but not the same level of content as triple-A," Cuthbert explains. "Indie, but that level of quality. And I think Monsters 2 has that - it looks like a really nice polished Nintendo-quality game, and it plays really solidly. But it doesn't have loads of story cutscenes and all the other trimmings triple-A products have."

PixelJunk Monsters 2 is coming to PC, Steam and Switch towards the end of next month - courtesy of publisher Spike Chunsoft this time around - and beyond that there's plenty more on the horizon for Q-Games. Eden Obscura, a mobile game, is being dated soon, while Monsters Duo - a mobile take on the PixelJunk Monsters formula - is also being worked on. There are other, more secretive projects, and now that the team that worked on PixelJunk Monsters 2 is free it'll soon be put to another game.

"In the theme of Monsters 2 what we'll primarily do is try to keep that triple-I feel to our games," says Cuthbert. We don't want to go on the retro bandwagon too much - in general, one of our skillsets is that we do have experience in 3D, making the games look really nice, and I think we can keep finding new ideas. They won't be long projects - a maximum of two years, and we're doing multiple ones at the same time. In the next few years, you'll see some really nice boutique quality games from us."

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thewalkhome-blog · 7 years

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Rogue One: A Star Wars Story - What’s Old Is New - Review written by Daniel Boyd on 19/12/16

So our yearly Star Wars movie has arrived and after a complicated production it has released to rave reviews, with some outlets going as far as to compare it in quality to Empire Strikes Back, (which is widely considered to be the superior Star Wars film,) and it has even garnered a fair amount of Oscar buzz. This, along with the fact it’s a Star Wars movie meant that my expectations for this were pretty high going in and after seeing the movie there are parts of the flick that I loved and parts that I didn’t. When I wrote my Force Awakens review last year, I wrote both a spoiler free and a spoiler filled version of the review, but this year I have less time on my hands, so from this point on this will be a spoiler filled review, but the movie has been out for almost a week at the time of writing this, so if you haven’t seen the movie yet and are reading my review, well that is your own fault.

This movie for the most part impressed me. I loved how well it tied into A New Hope and how it actually fixed that movie’s biggest plothole by explaining that the weak point in the Death Star was installed on purpose by Galen Erso while designing the battle station under the Empire’s thumb, so that the Rebels would have a chance to destroy it. I loved how the movie had the balls to kills off the entire crew of the Rogue One team at the end of the movie and that corridor scene at the end with Vader was possibly the best scene I’ve seen in the cinema this year, it’s definitely up there with the airport scene in Civil War. Those are the stand out positives of the movie for me, however there were also a few flaws throughout the film.

First of all, that Grand Mof Tarkin CGI recreation of Peter Cushing was awful, the whole thing looked like a character from the Star Wars animated series. When he is first introduced it is through a glass reflection on a window he is looking out of and in that part of the scene it was fairly convincing, however he then turns around and the camera moves to a medium close up shot and all of a sudden it feels like watching a video game cutscene. Guy Henry was the actor who did the motion capture for Tarkin and that actor actually looks relatively similar to Peter Cushing, so why they didn’t just apply some makeup to Guy Henry and dye his hair gray to resemble Cushing more and recast the Tarkin role is a mystery to me, it would have also been a lot cheaper than the method that they went with. Either that or he should have only been seen in the reflection of the glass, since that was the only time that the CGI effect actually looked convincing. However, I did think that the CGI recreation of 1970’s Carrie Fischer at the end of the movie was very convincing and if it wasn’t for the movement in her mouth, I wouldn’t have known that was a CGI character. Another flaw I had with the movie was the how rushed and choppy the first act was, the characters were all introduced quickly and vaguely, then it took them ages to actually form up as a team. I get that introducing a whole cast of brand new characters in a short space of time isn’t easy, but Tarantino pulls it off in Hateful 8 and Inglorious Bastards and it works a lot better than it works here.

In a lot of ways Rogue One is a contrast to Force Awakens. In Force Awakens, the plot was essentially the same as A New Hope and was a fairly by the book, traditional Star Wars story, but the characters were what made that movie, if Poe Dameron, Rey, Finn, Kylo Ren, Han and Chewie weren’t as well written, that movie would have been mediocre at best. In Rogue One, the characters are pretty shallow and underdeveloped and they are introduced quickly and by the end of the movie none of them have really had a proper character arc. However that is not what this movie is about, this film is about a team of people coming together in order to complete a task to set up the events of the original trilogy and in that sense this movie does what it sets out to do. An example of this is the robot character K2SO, who I thought was going to start off with no humanity, then over the course of the movie realize the value of human life and then sacrifice himself for the greater good at the movie’s climax, but it turns out that the only real reason that he is helping the Rebels, is because he has been programmed to do so. This I feel sums up the level of character development present in the movie and demonstrates that it is not necessary in the film as that isn’t the movie’s purpose. What Force Awakens lacked in an original plot, it made up for in character development and what Rogue One lacks in character development, it makes up for in plot and setup, so both movies have their strengths and their flaws. Bearing in mind that I have only seen Rogue One once so far, I currently prefer Force Awakens to Rogue One, but then I prefer Return of the Jedi to Empire, so maybe that’s just me.

The writing moves the story along at a brisk pace, but it is effective in that you are constantly kept aware of where we are and what is happening at least from the end of the first act onwards. The performances are also suitable to the characters in each role, but I wouldn’t say anyone was incredible, my personal favourite was Cassian, the Alliance’s trigger finger who had shades of Han Solo thrown in as well. While watching Diego Luna’s performance, I actually thought he would be a good pick to play Nathan Drake in the Uncharted movie. The lighting in the film is well used and the CGI is spectacular for the most part other than weird waxwork Peter Cushing. The space battles are breathtaking and the action on the ground is also exciting.

Now, let’s talk about the characters that weren’t part of the Rogue One team. Forest Whittaker and Mads Mikkelson are two of my favourite actors working in Hollywood today and they are both in this movie, but I feel that both could have been used more. When they are onscreen, they are brilliant, it’s just a pity they make up such a small part of the movie. Whittaker appears only to be killed off minutes later and Mikkelson is only in two major scenes outside of a brief hologram appearance and then also gets killed off unceremoniously. The reason that a lot of people will go and see this movie however, will be to see Darth Vader. He isn’t in the movie much, but when he is it is fantastic. All of this reminds me a lot of Edwards’ last movie Godzilla, where Bryan Cranston and the monster were clearly the best parts of that movie, but for some reason were hardly in the thing. It’s as if Edwards has this idea in his head that less is always more and if he doesn’t show what people want to see in the movie for more than a few minutes at a time, then he is being original and artistic. While I understand this way of thinking from an auteur perspective, it’s fucking Star Wars and Godzilla mate, just give the people what they want. It is far less of an issue here however, since the rest of the cast in Rogue One are far more compelling than the rest of the cast in Godzilla.

Anyway, back to Vader. We first see Vader when Krennic goes to see him in his Imperial Castle in Mustafar, the same location that he was relieved of his limbs and burnt alive in a pool of lava. The way he is introduced is awesome, when Krennic arrives one of Vader’s cloaked minions enters a large room containing an ominous bacta tank, which we see Vader floating in without his suit on. This is the most vulnerable we have ever seen Vader since we saw him getting his suit fitted for the first time in Revenge Of The Sith. The tank empties and we see Vader’s stumps where his arms and legs once were and we see the burnt skin that covers his torso. Then we cut to him in full costume, complete with the classic James Earl Jones voice and force choking Krennic. He then disappears again for most of the movie, until the second to last scene where he is at his most powerful and this could genuinely be my favourite Vader scene of all time, perhaps even beating the infamous, ‘I am your father,’ scene from Empire. Vader in this scene is pure raw anger and power and the way the scene is shot and lit is fucking perfect, the audio and the editing fantastic also. The scene opens with a dark corridor with Rebels scrambling to get the hard drive containing the Death Star plans to the other end of the corridor and onto the ship that Leia is on, so that she can go on to get the plans into R2 in order to kick off A New Hope’s events. At first you wonder why the Rebels are in such a panic then you hear the terrifying breathing from Vader’s suit, but he still isn’t shown. Then the first and only lightsaber in the movie is sparked and it illuminates Vader in all of his terrifying glory before he starts tearing through the Rebels like a monster in a horror movie. This minute long scene is one of the best I’ve seen this year and it alone made the ticket price worth it for me.

Overall, Rogue One was essentially what I thought it would be based on the trailers. I don’t personally understand the overblown critical fanfare that the movie is receiving, but I’m glad that Star Wars fans like it. There are many parts of the movie that could be considered polarizing, such as the lack of Vader scenes, the dodgy Tarkin CGI, the fact that the entire Rogue One squad is killed off at the end of the movie, the absence of an opening crawl and Forest Whittaker’s raspy voice, which admittedly takes a bit of getting used to. Some of these elements I loved and some I hated, but for the most part this is an enjoyable addition to the Star Wars saga, I love how well it ties into and sets up the events of the films following this one and it was an added bonus that they actually resolved some of the original trilogy’s flaws. As I said earlier, I still prefer The Force Awakens to this, but I can see how an argument could be made for this one being a better movie. 8.2/10.

#star wars #rogue one #movie #movie review #the walk home

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gamingtipsandtrickshacks · 6 years

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The new bloom of Q-Games • Eurogamer.net

Under Cuthbert, Q-Games has produced a fine run of talent that's gone on to its own efforts - Dakko Dakko's one, while last year's splendid Wonder Boy revival was overseen by alumni Omar Cornut.

Dylan is, quite rightly, proud of the table that's the centrepiece of the studio's rest space. It's a fine piece of wood.

youtube

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gamingtipsandtrickshacks · 6 years

Text

The new bloom of Q-Games • Eurogamer.net

Under Cuthbert, Q-Games has produced a fine run of talent that's gone on to its own efforts - Dakko Dakko's one, while last year's splendid Wonder Boy revival was overseen by alumni Omar Cornut.

Dylan is, quite rightly, proud of the table that's the centrepiece of the studio's rest space. It's a fine piece of wood.

youtube

0 notes

gamingtipsandtrickshacks · 6 years

Text

The new bloom of Q-Games • Eurogamer.net

Under Cuthbert, Q-Games has produced a fine run of talent that's gone on to its own efforts - Dakko Dakko's one, while last year's splendid Wonder Boy revival was overseen by alumni Omar Cornut.

Dylan is, quite rightly, proud of the table that's the centrepiece of the studio's rest space. It's a fine piece of wood.

youtube

0 notes