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metalgearkong · 4 years

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The Mandalorian - Season 1 - Review

12/30/19 **Spoilers

Created by Jon Favreau & Dave Filoney

It’s a miracle that someone finally come up with something in the Star Wars universe of which fans are unanimously happy with. The Mandalorian is easily the best live-action Star Wars content since Return of the Jedi, and is some of the best Star Wars in any medium since the original trilogy concluded. This is a reasonably low budget and smaller Star Wars tale that draws inspiration from old Samurai and Western films, the very thing that inspired George Lucas to create his vision in the first place. The Mandalorian is deliberately paced, and has a focus on character over having a big entangling bombastic story.

One of my favorite features is how grounded, dirty, and inelegant the show is within its own world. The Mandalorian himself, “Mando,” (Pedro Pascal) is far from a super human with flawless skills and incredible perfection. While he clearly has experience with blasters, gadgets, and hand-to-hand combat, virtually every action scene he’s in comes off as a real guy just doing the best he can. He almost always needs help from a side character, and survives by the skin of his teeth, with only a handful of standout moments when you see him in full control of his environment and enemies. It helped make the entire show feel relatible, realistic, and dramatic.

The Mandalorian takes place a few years after Return of the Jedi and the collapse of the Galactic Empire. Jedi are still a thing of misinformation and myth. The galaxy has become a wild west, and the Force isn’t even a concept most people know about. Although I do find it odd that Mandalorians wouldn’t have some knowledge of the Force or Jedi as the two factions have quite the history together over the past thousand years. It’s a nit pick but it gives the Jedi an heir of mystery and sorcery once again. It also contributes to the low key nature of this show where magic and spectacle are nearly non-existent. The Mandalorian doesn’t seem as concerned with bringing in huge masses of audiences, although it does draw in multiple demographics, more on that later. It’s a huge relief that something in Star Wars can feel so adult and be taken seriously, and it gives me a lot of hope for the future.

The Empire itself in The Mandalorian are resigned to an underground organization, with its only high profile leader seeming to be Grand Moff Gideon (possibly operating completely independently) played by Giancarlo Esposito. They still have their share of soldiers, vehicles, and weapons ordinance, but this is no longer a galaxy ruled or patrolled heavily by the “Imps.” One of my favorite things about this show is that we get a ton of stormtroopers and scout troopers as guys in dirty armor, which are unmodified from how they look in the original trilogy. I’ve been so sick of the fake CGI that brought clone troopers and battle droids to life in the movies and other shows. Some scenes give troopers a lot of humanity and personality as well. However the show perpetuates my issue with Star Wars as a whole where rank-and-file enemy troops prove to be little or no consequence as they can’t hit anything they shoot--and die themselves in one hit. I want stormtroopers one day to actually mean something and pose a threat to a protagonist.

The true star, however, happens to be the “Child,” the most brilliant creation of the show. Most of The Mandalorian is about a lone warrior shooting guns and fighting through dangerous situations, but the Child brings in entire audiences that may not have been interested in this very macho kind of show to begin with. The best part is, he’s a natural addition to the story and lore. The Child isn’t just an adorable shoe-in to give women and kids something to go “aaaw” at. The Child is an infant member of Yoda’s race, a race the creators intentionally never gave any detail on ever in Star Wars history. It sparks tons of intrigue as to where the race is from, how it develops, and its natural strong connection to the Force. It’s one of the greatest mysteries of the show and aside from the Child’s cute antics, it kept me hooked.

Mando himself is your typical stoic gunslinger type who makes his living on bounty hunting. While he doesn’t have much uniqueness at first, you slowly learn more about him and the Mandalorian clan he is part of. Pedro Pascal gives a great physical performance, as his face is hidden by the helmet he is sworn never to take off in front of another living thing. The Mandalorians themselves seem to be a creed of people who were once regarded as great warriors, but are now nearly extinct. It’s yet another mystery to the show that I crave to learn more and more about. The heart and soul of this show is truly the relationship between the Child and Mando, two people who couldn’t be more opposite, and I think the memes infecting the entire internet speak for themselves.

We run into a lot of great side characters as well, usually one stand out per episode. These sidekicks are usually played by famous comedians or actors, and it was a fun game of “who’s that” every week it came on. These people Mando comes across are usually former solders or people who fall into the Chaotic Neutral category of washed up past their prime. The best of these is IG-11, the same model as IG-88 briefly seen in Empire Strikes Back and several Legends material. We finally get to see this kind of droid in action and why it’s so great. IG-11 is brought to life by excellent CGI, and what I’m guessing is a lot of robotic work as well. He’s voiced by none other than Taika Waititi and he gives a hilarious and poignant personality to the hunter droid.

My other favorites include Carl Weathers as a bounty hunting guild leader, Nick Nolte as a lonely but helpful Ugnaught engineer, and Gina Carano as Cara Dune, a former Rebel shock trooper. Each of these characters are contrasted to Mando’s. He gets help one way or another from these people, and it helps flesh out his character seeing how he reacts to what they do and say. Mando goes through a great but subtle arch throughout the show, as we see him go from what appears to be a cold blooded killer, to someone who cares again about the people around him. Again, it’s nothing new or original, but it’s executed very well. The side characters aren’t just celebrities of the week either. Many of them come back in later episodes to help Mando and the Child, and I hope they continue to appear in future seasons.

Not only does The Mandalorian pay excellent homage to the original trilogy, but also combines elements from both the prequel and sequel trilogies as well. Small things like technology and droids (mostly background elements) help solidify the entire Star Wars canon in very subtle and realistic ways. It’s a great transitional time in the universe between the Empire and the First Order, and I can’t wait to see how this show continues to exist and influence the world its in. The only weakness I could say is that many of the episodes don’t go through a lot of change in terms of plot, and are more excuses for character introductions and character development. The show is so well executed, however, this isn’t a huge problem because nearly every minute has something to appreciate and enjoy. I love the mature tone and pace, and hope that never changes.

The Mandalorian may be a sign that Star Wars should transform itself to being small scaled. It seems like just about everything that can be done with the Jedi has been done, and I don’t know how you can throw more twists into Force using and blowing up giant super weapons. The Mandalorian was created with so much love and care, I want all Star Wars content to follow this same philosophy. Forget the big movies with huge lineages and chosen one prophecies, I want to take a fine toothed comb to the underbelly of the Star Wars universe. Keep it character focused, keep it low key. I can’t wait to see what future seasons of this show hold, and I pray that it maintains its quality and pace its established here.

8.5/10

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true-intha-blu · 5 years

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In regards to Kwami Buster

Soo...

I have opinions. Shocker. And this episode of Miraculous actually made me want to take about them on tumblr (risky) Disclaimer. I completely understand that Miraculous is made for far younger audience’s and that this is primarily a show for young girls. As such the writer will probably never be what I hope it is as a quarter of a century person. I also understand that Thomas Austruc and the writers constantly get crap from people about various of small nitpicks. I also don’t know the episode order so I do not know what should is being addressed later on or it is mainly spotted around randomly I really like this show and while it not what I expected for what it is. I enjoy. There are limits for what can be told within a 23-minute episode. I also know that regardless of what the Show’s Creator wants to make, things can get into the way in order to make it... ‘marketable’. Mainly. Producers. So I can understand why the concept art days are different So any complaints I have aren’t really in anger... but in contemplation. There is a bit of frustration. (Also if I see or hear of anyone using this to harass/blame/spread hate to any fan or the show’s creative team, I will tear you a new one. This is never supposed to be used against the writers or ANYONE WHO HAS A DIFFERENT OPINION THAN YOU. DO NOT BE A JERK ABOUT IT!) Season 3 has been pretty darn great. Has a lot potential and lore and all that good stuff. But while watching it, I get been noticing something lacking most episodes.

Something that I originally that made me interested in this show ALL the way back to the Concept Art days. The partnership. The Yin and Yang.

Remember when Chat sacrificed himself in Timerbreaker? Or in Stormy Weather how both heroes worked to protect each other? each having a shining moment? Remember in Gamer 2.0 Chat’s speech to ladybug about their trust and partnership? Well... doesn’t feel like much when we look at the episodes. I love Marinette/Ladybug. She is a wonderful figure for young girls and others to look up to and a good written female character. But recently that admiration is fading when... every episode she seems to overcome everything usually by herself or with her own ideas. And... I get it. The media is saturated with far too many male characters and I understand the desire to make a prominent female character... Yet... I keep getting that Ladybug solves so many of her problems... far too easily. Even her mistakes seem to pale. Only Lila has given her a problem and it is extremely one-sided and not... well... it just results in salt and that is not a good way to challenge our heroine. With the episode Kwami Buster, she did everything her self and got off with it no sweat. Same with Christmaster and more than a fair share of episodes of Ladybug hardly needing Chat’s actual help or protection or even a second opinion (as chat is always portrayed as wrong/dense) and I feel like he has been reduced to merely an object for the Ladybug Lucky Charm plans. It Dismissing Chat Noir or Adrien as a viable character with his own development isn't the way to highlight Marinette/Ladybug as a strong role model. The show is Tale of ladybug AND chat Noir. I am fine with Adrien getting less development time in comparison to Marinette but he hasn't had any really except MAYBE puppeteer 2.0. Gabriel and Nathalie of all people have had loads of development time in their short limited screen time. And I get superhero show needs good villains for a good compliment to a hero. But the supposed secondary protagonist? The only real thing I remember Chat doing that didn’t involve him being a pun or But I am noticing that Hawkmoth and Mayura have a lot better chemistry and teamwork than ladybug and chat noir. I don’t know if that is an intentional thing on the creators' part or it is merely the comedy role chat has been reduced to. Again to say, I do love Marinette... but I fear at the rate she is going, her solving everything will make her a... Goku. And by Goku I mean, that the characters/plot/slight obstacle that the show presents cannot even be overcome by anyone else and that Marinette/Ladybug is the only one to save the day. The only episodes she really doesn’t is the episodes featuring the other heroes... or at least their introductions. But even then Marinette is the one who asks them in the first place.

The fact that Fu and the miraculous box and all of that core lore of the story with Fu is only focused on Marinette shows an imbalance of character direction. You could argue that Chat has Hawkmoth as a father is part of that lore... but when was the last time that was actually a thing except for all the way back in season 2 with The Collector that has even been slightly addressed or experimented with? Marinette has done what Chat is supposed to do several times already. Using the power of destruction... and it saddened me or what cemented the imbalance for me was that one backscreen of the two Mouse Marinette's with both the ladybug and black cat miraculous and the two yin and yangs behind her. She has become her own balance, the fact she only needs to rely on herself to defeat a villain... just... kinda subsided Chat in one of his roles. I’m fine Ladybug getting shinning moments. But the fact that Chat has never really had one, never really was the cause for a brilliant idea or directly responsible for defeating the akuma (maybe there was one but for the life of me I cannot recall it despite recently re-watching the episodes). I don’t mind him taking a back row and being the support to ladybug but maybe a few episodes of where Chat is equal to Ladybug, like back in Stormy weather where each other were bailing their partner out in different situations would be nice. I wanted the Kwami Swap episode to be this, but instead, I had Adrien being Trademark Dense Boy and Marinette doing the work and her solving the problem while doing nearly everything Chat did perfectly. In essence... I am fine with Marinette succeeding. But I would like Chat to do so as well. I do not want a Kim Possible and Ron Stoppable dynamic. Not when Chat Noir is literally half of the show’s title. I want to seem them as partners, Ladybug Asking Chat what to do on certain situations and Chat being the support for Ladybug. Not just puns for Chat and Ladybug always knowing exactly what to do. Maybe this will be addressed later on, maybe the show writers will address this. Maybe I am being delusional and missing the whole point of the show. I honestly hope I am wrong with this. But from what I have seen, it is a regression of Adrien. A sheltered lad who has been emotionally abused by his father and people around him and is forced to wear a perfect mask every day while Chat Noir is his only way of freedom. In Stairtrain, I was happy to see a small development of him breaking the rules... but it is not much further than that. Note: I do not expect this show to be very angsty or dark or turbulent in the emotions and development. Something would be nice though. I would like Chat to be more rebellious against authority, including Ladybug when he thinks she is wrong (which sometimes she should be, it is good for characters to be wrong) And to extent Fu. Maybe I want Chat to start distrusting people and Adrien to grow more snappy and rueful at his situation. Maybe I want him to have a very deep talk to Ladybug as Chat about his lack of input on things, or a moment of her plans using him as one of the parts of her Luck Charm just doesn’t work out because it just doesn’t. I like both characters, but I do not like where only one character shines and the other gets regulated to mere standby unless needed. Already the fandom just regulates chat into dumb tropes and memes because that is all we see of him in the show. I like his playful side, but I know and have seen in the first season he is more than that. I hope Chat Blanc may address this. But I doubt it. Oh well, I’ll keep watching the show. I still like it. What do you guys think? I’m just seeing to much into the situation? Am I not being feminist enough to only want the girl to succeed and that the male deuteragonist should just be regulated for comedy and merely a character for several girls' affections? And once again, I do not hate any character in the show and this is not an Anti Miraculous team post either. I am merely throwing a few thoughts out (and a few frustrations) and this is in no way a ‘Meta’ post. If anyone has specific moments for or against this. Go ahead. I am interested to learn. Just keep it polite people And if you don’t like Miraculous and think I should drop the show... No.

#kwami buster #miraculous ladybug spoiler #ml spoiler #spoilers #ladybug #chat noir #miraculous ladybug #if you have an opinion #keep it polite

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dawnblxde · 5 years

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[Kingdom Hearts 3 Review]

Welp I’ve finally done it, finally played and finished KH3! - After intentionally delaying doing so with my day one copy after finding out for some silly reason - it lacked multiple world visits for development sake and had no Final Fantasy characters - so I decided to finish the games I was in the middle of then replay the entire KH franchise, except the ones you could watch. Gonna leave my thoughts below. Just in case there are those out there still trying to avoid legit spoilers!

There were good and bad elements to this game.. Plenty of my experience that I enjoyed, but I believe more so that I didn’t - which made me want to pull out my hair. But I like my head shaved, so that wouldn’t work lol I liked the graphics, beautiful but I knew a PS3 could handle them as the quality of Woody in this game was the same as him in Toy Story 3 (2010 Video Game). Enjoyed the gameplay, though it felt like a flawed, floaty and broken version of Kingdom Heart’s 2 near perfect improvement of Kingdom Heart’s gameplay. A problem was the fact that in the first two main games, even when I was level 50-60′s - I always felt like I could DIE. It was always a fear during major combat moments. I had to concentrate so much just to be successful. Even if I tried to be a higher level then recommending through grinding. I never felt like that in KH3, every moment was such a cake walk. Even the final battle. Did they even try. Regardless, I had a good time with the gameplay and the visuals. But I wasn’t as drawn in as previous games. It did the game no favors and was a massive flaw, it lacking Final Fantasy characters. We should of been able to explore Radiant Garden or had other worlds relevant to FF characters. They were really important to Sora’s development as a Keyblade wielder. Cloud and Squall for sure. Sora wouldn’t be who he is if he hadn’t encountered and spoke to them. They’d of been useful in multiple sequences. We deserved the next part to Cloud’s issues with Sephiroth. That wasn’t resolved. See how Squall/Leon and the others reacted and dealt with what was going on at Radiant Garden. They’re capable of other world travel, seeing how they’d react to some of the new worlds would of been great as well. Nomura confirmed the only Noctis he’d put in KH was his Noctis. Versus XIII Noctis. And interest in doing so. Yet he wasn’t in the game, when as an Anti-Hero of both light and darkness would of been interesting. Seeing he’d take neither side. Also has important factors in common with Rapunzel and Elsa. Seeing them relating over this would of been nice. The lack off FF adds to factors that make KH3 be disappointing experience - along with an enjoyable one. One of the things that still makes KH2 the best. Was how awesome it was to watch the Final Fantasy characters and Disney characters team up in the battle of 1000 Heartless. One of the best aspects about the franchise is the concept of it being a FF x Disney - a Final Fantasy and Disney collaboration. Multiple visits were really needed. Some of the worlds were quite enjoyable and not frustrating. But they all have different percentages of feeling rushed and not fleshed out enough due to one visit. And some annoyingly treated Sora like he didn’t matter. Just acted like making you watch rushed unfinished version’s of the original Disney movies. Sora’s just there like. Oh look, it’s Sora over there! Hi Sora! You don’t matter here! Shouldn’t be like that. The Disney characters should be well blended into the Kingdom Hearts plot and Sora in the plot of the Disney world. The story made me feel emotional, I enjoyed all the Kingdom Hearts parts, even if I felt some of them were rushed or not written well. Tears did leave my eyes. I liked how Aqua didn’t actually give into Darkness, it was Ansem’s fault. I liked the reunion, final battle sequences and all the stuff leading up to it. My favorite parts to praise are the deaths of all Org 13 members, each made me feel emotional and I wanted to see those character’s again reborn. Not so much young Xeraxnort. But Ansem and Xemnas? Oh the feels there, they were strong. I clapped. I felt there could be more with Larxene in the game in general, including her end. Luxord’s! Clap, really want him to come back and play cards with Sora. Riku Replica’s was great too. Both Riku Replica’s. Marluxa’s.. Vanitas’s was disappointing. However, these great moments aren’t enough for me to forgive those disrespected by this game. The one’s from the worlds you could visit. I’ll get to the unforgivable bits last. Toy Story’s new story and world were great. I loved exploring that world and playing through it. The development was great. Only flaw was what they did with Buzz, he’s stronger character then they take him for. He wouldn’t lose himself to the Darkness. Otherwise, everything was great. Pretty sure it’s my favorite. Hercules’s world was the level of quality I expected! It was decent, I miss the goddamn tournament's, Phil’s voice - but I did love the exploration of his city and meeting his father! Shame no boss fight with Hades's, they’re great and fun! Twilight Town sucked! I liked seeing the gang again, Uncle Scrooge and little chef. But that doesn’t make up for the fact that more then half of Twilight Town is cut and it doesn’t look like the same place! I liked exploring the entire world, not just a portion of it. Monsters Inc’s sequel to the first film with that world experience was great! I had a blast! I always wanted to see Sully’s reunion with Boo! It wasn’t perfect, but I had a good time! Pirates of Caribbean felt like it changed things from it’s canon, but it was an emotional blast! Jack Sparrow scenes and Will scenes, it was just great! The Big Hero 6 world! Oh it was great! It was emotional to lost Baymax in the film, to get him back was great! Kinda sucked to not see the big brother come back, but they’re saving that version of events for the sequel. Two Baymax’s. The only thing I didn’t like was how the whole cast was shrunk. Best example being Honey should of been taller then Jack Sparrow’s model, but she wasn’t. These worlds could of really done with multiple visits. Even more so the three left, that were wronged and disrespected. Don’t try to praise/defend what was done to them, they deserved better. Winne the Pooh deserved better. I liked not having to collect Torn Pages, but even if you didn’t have to. In the previous games, The Winnie the Pooh worlds lasted about an hour or so doing all the activities, helping out all Pooh Bear’s friends - stuff like that. Then you have KH3′s version, which is less then 20 minutes, doing the same activity three times. That was awful. Pooh’s universe deserved better. We deserved better. This is a massive flaw. Can’t forgive this. I love Pooh Bear. Now, as someone who love’s Rapunzel, not fond of how they treated her world either. It was basically the movie with bits cut out and skipped. She hardly interacted with Kingdom Hearts lore, Sora hardly stuck around her. It was just like. Now and then, Sora’s there. Why were they so scared of showing Rapunzel kissing Flynn? There were so many moments Sora should of got to interact with? Where were the two bad guy twins? Rapunzel just generally deserved better in this game. Last but not least, Frozen. Probably the worst world in the game. Because you spend most of it just falling off mountains. They hardly let Sora interact with Elsa or Anna. Or left them get involved in Kingdom Hearts lore. Sora would of been able to relate well to Elsa if they let it happen. You can’t explore the palace, Han’s has no lines and you’re forced to listen to Let It Go again with Sora basically just there. Like hi Sora! All I liked was Snow guard getting more of a role. Don’t even get to explore the city. Just the snowy place. No real development, it’s like - what was the point? There really was none. Why did we go there? Why was Larxene there? Elsa and Anna deserved better then this. Also while not all Disney worlds could of returned in KH3, due to their stories being settled. A lot definitely could! Also, Kairi deserved better then pretty much being a plot device, hardly getting development at all just to go poof. And the idea that Sora’s sacrifice to get her back doesn’t lead to the priority of everyone to find and/or bring him back somehow instead of chilling. Just made the whole ending sequence an OOC moment for me.

Verdict!

Kingdom Hearts 3 is a decent game and fun experience, but it’s also a flawed mess. Like handling in a English report that gets a low C and just barely hits the passing grade. It is not the worst in the franchise, but Kingdom Hearts 2 easily beats it and so does Kingdom Hearts, the original one. Funner to play then Dream Drop Distance, Chain Of Memories, Recoded and the Roxas focused game! But the rest defeat it! I have no interest in a new game plus, roleplay wise I intend to amend the flaws. The Disney worlds that were wronged will get justice. Add back Final Fantasy and the missing Disney worlds. Make it what it should of been! I had a good time, I really did. But once was enough. After finishing, it now shocks me that an amount of people I can count on just one of my hands tried to either tell me KH3 was good enough or superior to all the other games, even KH2. My assumption now is, they hadn’t recently played the other games before playing 3, were lost in Nostagla or something else was going on. Just how.. How could this possibly beat the two other main titles? The only thing superior is the more then three team mates tbh. xD

7/10

I really feel like I’m being generous here, but if I went lower then I’d think I was being too harsh. It’s not FFXV and Bound by Flame 5/10 quality, but it’s certainly not The Walking Dead (by Tellale) and The Last of Us 9/10 quality. So this will have to do. Nomura, I strongly advise you to look back at Kingdom Hearts 2 and what made it so great, before you work on your next main title.

#ooc #jesus it took me ages to write this

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sigmalied · 5 years

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Sig’s Anthem Review

Verdict

BioWare’s Anthem is a genuinely fun and engaging experience that sabotages itself with myriad design, balance, and technical oversights and issues. It is a delicious cake that has been prematurely removed from the developmental oven - full of potential but unfit for general consumption in this wobbly state. Anthem is not a messianic addition to the limited pantheon of looter shooters because it has somehow failed to learn from the well-publicized mistakes of its predecessors.

Am I having fun playing Anthem? Absolutely. Does it deserve the industry’s lukewarm scores? Absolutely. But this is something of a special case. The live service model giveth and taketh away; we receive flexibility in exchange for certainty. Is Anthem going to be the same game six months from now? Its core DNA will always be the same, but we’ve already begun to see swift improvements that bode well for the future.

Will my opinion matter to you? It depends. When I first got into looter shooters I was shocked at how much the genre clicked with me. They are a wonderful playground for theory crafters, min/maxers, and mathletes like myself who find incomparable joy in optimizing builds both conventional and experimental by pushing the limits of obtainable resources ad infinitum. The end game grind is long and at times challenging as you make the jump to Grandmaster 1+ difficulty in search of top-tier loot to perfect your build. This is what looter shooters are all about.

If you don’t like the sound of that, you’ll probably drop Anthem right after finishing its campaign. But if you do like the sound of that, you might find yourself playing this game for years.

TL;DR: This game is serious fun, but is also in need of some serious Game & UI Design 101.

I wrote a lot more about individual aspects of the game beneath the read more, if you’re interested. I’ve decided not to give the game a score, I’m just here to discuss it after playing through the campaign and spending a few days grinding elder game activities. There are no spoilers here.

Gameplay

The Javelins are delightful. I’ve played all four of them extensively and despite identifying as a Colossus main I cannot definitively attach myself to one class of Javelin because they’re all so uniquely fun to play and master. Best of all, they’re miraculously balanced. I’ve been able to hold my own with every Javelin in Grandmaster 1+. Of course, some Javelins are harder to get the hang of than others. Storms don’t face the steep learning curve Interceptors do, but placed in the hands of someone who knows what they’re doing, both are equally as destructive on the battlefield.

I love the combo system. It is viscerally satisfying to trigger a combo, hearing that sound effect ring, and seeing your enemy’s health bar melt. Gunplay finally gets fun and interesting when you start obtaining Masterworks, and from there, it’s like playing a whole new game.

Mission objectives are fairly bland and repetitive, but the gameplay is so fun I don’t even mind. Collect this, find that, go here, whatever. I get to fly around and blow up enemies while doing it, and that’s what matters. Objectives could be better, certainly. Interesting objectives are vital in game design because they disguise the core repetitive gameplay loop as something fresh, but the loop on its own stays fresh long enough to break even, I feel.

The best part is build flexibility. Want to be a sniper build cutting boss health bars in half with one shot? I’ve seen it. Want to be a near-immortal Colossus wrecking ball who heals every time you mow down an enemy? You can. There are so many possibilities here. Every day I come across a new crazy idea someone’s come up with. This is an excellent game for build crafters.

But... why in the world are there so few cosmetic choices? A single armor set for each Javelin outside the Vanity store? A core component of looter shooters has always been endgame fashion, and on this front, BioWare barely delivers and only evades the worst criticism by providing quality Javelin customization in the way of coloring, materials, and keeping power level and aesthetics divorced. We’re being drip-fed through the Vanity store, and while I like the Vanity store’s model, there should have been more things permanently available for purchase through the Forge. Everyone looks the same out there! Where’s the variety?

Story, Characters, World

Anyone expecting a looter shooter like Anthem to feature a Mass Effect or Dragon Age -sized epic is out of their mind, but that doesn’t mean we have to judge the storytelling in a vacuum. This is BioWare after all. Even a campaign that flows more like a short story - as is the case with Anthem - should aspire to the quality of previous games from the studio. Unfortunately, it does not, but it comes close by merit of narrative ambience: the characters, the world’s lore, and their execution.

(For a long time I’ve had a theory that world building is what made the original Mass Effect great, not its critical storyline, which was basically a Star Trek movie at best. Fans fell in love because there were interesting people to talk to, complicated politics to grasp, and moral decisions to make along the way.)

While the main storyline of Anthem is lackluster and makes one roll their eyes at certain moments or bad lines, the world is immediately intriguing. Within Fort Tarsis, sophisticated technology is readily available while society simultaneously feels antiquated, echoing a temporal purgatory consistent with the Anthem’s ability to alter space-time. Outside the fort, massive pieces of ancient machinery are embedded within dense jungles in a way that suggests the mechanical predates nature itself. The theme of sound is everywhere. Silencing relics, cyphers hearing the Anthem, delivering echoes to giant subwoofers… It’s a fun world, it really is.

As for the characters… they might be some of the best from BioWare. They feel like real people. Rarely are they caricatures of one defining trait, but people with complex motives and emotions. Some conversations were boring, but the vast majority of the time I found myself racing off to talk to NPCs as soon as I saw yellow speech bubbles on the map after a mission. And don’t even get me started on the performances. They are golden.

The biggest issue with the story is that it’s not well integrated with missions. At times it feels like you’re playing two separate games: Fort Tarsis Walking/Talking Simulator and Anthem Looter Shooter. And the sole threads keeping these halves stitched together during missions - radio chatter - takes a back seat if you’re playing with randoms who rush ahead and cause dialogue to skip, or with friends who won’t shut the hell up so you can listen or read subtitles without distraction. I found it ironic that I soloed most of the critical story missions in a game that heavily encourages team play.

Technical Aspects: UI & Design

This is where Anthem has some major problems. God, this category alone is probably what gained the ire of most reviewers. The UI is terrible and confusing. There are extra menu tabs where they aren’t needed. The placement of Settings is for some inane reason not located under the Options button (PS4). Excuse me? It’s so difficult to navigate and find what you’re looking for. It’s ridiculously unintuitive.

Weapon inscriptions (stat bonuses) are vague and I’ve even seen double negatives once or twice. They come off as though no one bothered to proofread or edit anything for clarity. Just a bad job here all around. And to make matters worse, there is no character stat sheet to help us demystify any of the bizarre stat descriptions. We are currently using goddamn spreadsheets like animals. Just awful.

The list goes on. No waypoints in Freeplay. Countless crashes, rubber banding, audio cutouts, player characters being invisible in vital cutscenes, tethering warnings completely obscuring the flight overheat meter… Fucking yikes. Wading through this swamp of bugs and poor design has been grueling to say the least.

And now for the loot issues. Dead inscriptions on gear; and by dead I mean dead, as in “this pistol does +25% shotgun damage” dead (this has been recently patched but I still cannot believe this sort of thing made it to release). The entire concept of the Luck stat (chance to drop higher quality loot) resulting in Luck builds who drop like flies in combat and become a burden for the rest of the team. Diminishing returns in Grandmaster 2 and 3; it takes so long to clear missions on these difficulties without significant loot improvement, making GM2 and GM3 pointless when you could be grinding GM1 missions twice as fast.

At level 30, any loot quality below Epic is literal trash. Delete Commons, Uncommons, and most Rares as soon as you get them because they’re virtually useless. I have hundreds of Common and Uncommon embers and nothing to do with them. Why can’t we convert 5 embers into 1 of the next higher tier? Other looters have already done things like this to make progression omnipresent. You don’t have to reinvent the wheel here, BioWare. It’s already been done for you.

When you get a good roll on loot, the satisfaction is immense. But when you don’t, and you won’t 95% of the time, you’ll feel like you’ve wasted hours with nothing to show for it. We shouldn’t be spending so much time hunting for useful things, we should be trying to perfect what’s already useful.

It’s just baffling to think that Anthem had the luxury of watching the messy release of several other looter shooters during Anthem’s development, yet proceed to make the same mistakes, and some even worse.

Nothing needs to be said about visuals. They are stunning, even from my perspective on a base PS4.

Sound design is the only other redeeming subcategory here. Sound design is amazing, like the OST. Traditional instrumentals meet alien synth seamlessly. Sarah Schachner is a seriously talented composer.

I’m just relieved to see the development team hauling ass to make adjustments. They’ve really been on top of it - the speed and transparency of fixes has been top-notch. They’re even working on free DLC already! A new region, more performances from the actors... I’m excited and hopeful for the future.

#siganthem

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wxldchxld · 5 years

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🔥 🔥 🔥

Unpopular Opinions as Told by Mary

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Ummmm Daenerys’ dragons look really fuckin stupid. Yeah. Sorry. This one isn’t going to be super in depth or really even justified by any arguments. I respect the Game of Thrones developers for going for it, and like the execution of it graphics wise is actually really impressive given its a TV show and all, but the model is so bad. Did GRRM make it? I really fucking hope not. From a distance when I see them in shots I’m like “yo cool” and then I see their faces and they look so stupid to me and it just ruins it. I’m really picky about dragons so this probably doesn’t come as a surprise.

Also side rant, why is it so popular to give dragons a weird bottom jaw where it like, protrudes. They did it with Smaug and to a lesser extent they do it with Dany’s dragons. What the fuck is that modeled after? It’s not a snake. It’s not crocodilians. The only thing I can think is maybe some species of monitor lizards? And I’m only granting that bc I really don’t know due to the fact that there are a lot of monitor lizard species. Including this dope one that I’ve modeled dragons after on my dragon blog.

I guess what drives me nuts is like I feel like there’s no originality in the design. I haven’t read Dany’s parts in the books but from what I have been told at least the coloration is more intense. There are so many species of reptiles, real and extinct, that they could have pulled from to make something that looked really cool…but they didn’t.

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The words “alpha wolf” need to die in a fire. And I’m not trying to come at some of the people I know follow me that use that term. It’s just become this really huge thing that infects so much of lore that has to do with modern day werewolves (such as in The Originals) and even bleeds over into things like the Game of Thrones/A Song of Ice and Fire fandom and just about anywhere you see wolves you eventually hear the term alpha.

The term in and of itself is annoying because it’s not a thing that exists. Wolves don’t live in a pack where they just automatically submit to the strongest wolf, nor do they live in social structures that cause them to battle with one another to see who is on top. Wolves live in family groups usually run by the breeding pair and the offspring of the last few years. The only reason we ever really thought that “alpha wolf” was a thing was because a couple of researchers massively popularized its usage after studying primarily (in fact I think it was exclusively) captive wolf packs where individuals were brought in from various places in the world and forced to live together. And while I’m not saying that all studies should be thrown out if they’re done on captive bred wolves, I think it’s poor practice to say “this is how all wolves are” when you haven’t taken into consideration what natural family groups do.

So it’s annoying, because it’s not a thing, but it’s also—-really boring to me. We miss the fact that these incredible animals have evolved to have things like a sense of fairness and the ability to cooperate, but the thing that we focus on is that “this is the alpha and its very important to them.” Family is important to them. I’d love to see more media that involved wolves that represented not only how their family groups actually work, but also didn’t make that such a central point for their plots.

I’m not going to go into uses of the term outside of fiction or address the A/B/O fanfiction. My point is that I personally as a reader find it overused and boring. I understand that since its fiction, there will be inaccuracies in order to fit your narrative. Hell, I have some with Beck and the animals that pop up on this blog. My problem isn’t the inaccuracy alone, it’s the inaccuracy being used to beat a long dead horse (and occasionally as a method of god modding but—I won’t go further into that either).

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And since I’m just going all in on the GoT shit tonight (sorry guys) Also this is going to make an already very long post massive, and I’m sorry.

… Yara Greyjoy is actually a good character and her book counterpart isn’t nicer nor is she just “better” for some vague undefined reason. She’s not a perfect character, she’s not a necessarily nice person, but Yara Greyjoy is arguably one of the better characters on the show IMO and I wish that she would have gotten way more screen time than she really did.

The worst part of this weird like #notmyAsha argument (and I’ve seen that tag used before it was hilarious) is that people complain that she’s not nice to Theon and that because she either doesn’t have or cannot convey compassion and empathy regarding his trauma, that it’s somehow a valid plot point for her to be tortured so they can bond over mutual trauma. This is gross and I hate it.

Full disclosure Theon Greyjoy is one of my favorite characters in show and book canon, but he is kind of a garbage human being and I love him in spite and often because of that. Now onto our feature presentation:

Yara Greyjoy doesn’t owe her brother shit. Not even a little. She has zero reason to do anything other than perceive him as unstable and a threat to the position she hopes to claim. Don’t complain to me about how mean Yara is to Theon while simultaneously ignoring the fact that he only stopped treating her like garbage once he’d been horribly traumatized. He was TEN when he was taken from the Iron Islands, and she was older than him and he—didn’t recognize her. So yeah she manipulates him, but he could have very easily put a stop to it if he remembered her or if he just wasn’t such a horny prick in general. He tries to demean her in front of their father, insults her, and shouts at her. Not saying she didn’t deserve it, but you can’t exactly paint him as the saint in the situation either.

I could go on with a million reasons Yara is actually a lot nicer to Theon in the show than the books, and why she’s not obligated to do anything for him at all, but I’d be here for hours.

What bothers me is the conclusion that because Yara has been mean to him that she somehow deserves to be punished by being tortured or that she needs to be tortured in order to ever like understand her brother. Both of those things are like the craziest logic in the world to me.

First off: no. Yara tried to save Theon. It’s not Yara’s fault he got in that situation, it’s his own, and she tried to rescue him. Then she allowed him back into her home at a critical time, and rather than being ashamed of him for being “weak” she brings him with her to political meetings and presents him as what is essentially her version of a “hand.”

Second: y’all that’s not how mental health works. Theon’s not ok, and if they write him as ok they’re bad writers. You don’t get over trauma that fast. Especially not because of like one conversation you had with your sister while she made out with a topless hooker in a brothel, and a fight on the beech where you got kneed in the balls you don’t have. Theon is still traumatized and he deserves a plot where his sister learns to see that, acknowledge it, and try to understand him. You don’t throw two traumatized people together and just say “well they have both been horrifically abused… they understand one another.” and then things get better. If anything those people are more likely to be self destructive and dangerous because neither of them are in a good place mentally to make sound and rational decisions.

So yeah, the point I was trying to make but got really distracted from because I’m very salty about all the Yara hate I see is that she’s actually a good character in comparison to the others in the show and it’s not ok to wish she would be tortured just for the sake of making Theon ok bc a) that won’t work and b) for the millions time: it’s gross.

#ooc #agentharrisonofshield

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tumblunni · 5 years

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Okay I know that kingdom hearts has a bad reputation for sticking crucial plot information on obscure spinoff games but HOLY SHIT I just finally watched a lets play of the fuckin digimon tcg game and found out it ACTUALLY HAS A GODDAMN CONCLUSION TO ANALOGMAN FROM DIGIMON WORLD 1

like 90% of the damn game has no plot whatsoever let alone indicating its a digimon world sequel! and then suddenly in the last battle without being foreshadowed whatsoever analogman returns and gets possibly the best boss battle ever IN A GODDAMN TCG GAME

holy shit his whole fight is framed as ‘this is literally the same guy from digimon world 1, hacking another game’, the interface wigs out and a bunch of fake command windows pop up with rapidly scrolling code of the game supposedly falling apart. And then his boss battle flips the entire gameplay system on its head by giving him fourth wall breaking special moves that pull overpowered effects by “hacking the engine”, with cool animations to fit. Fuckin badasssss!!

and it also fuckin FINALLY EXPLAINS THE DAMN PLOT LIKE GEEZ

digimon world’s conclusion was so rushed, you never even meet the villain until the final battle and it ends all weird with just “something” going wrong that causes him to get sucked into a portal or something while screaming dramatically in weirdly high resolution terror faces??? the tcg game confirms that this was him attempting to flee back to the human world after you defeated him, but one of the stray attacks from the battle damaged his machine and it caused him to essentially commit accidental suicide when he turned it on.

and HOLY SHIT MY FUCKIN OBSCURE HEADCANON IS TRUE????

the game had some sequel bait hints that maybe analogman is somehow still around and that the portal explosion just turned him into “corrupted data” so he can never return to the human world. and i always thought it would be super ironic if he actually got turned into a digimon aka the thing he hates more than anything

WELL OKAY I GUESS CRITICAL LORE IN A TCG GAME IS OKAY WHEN ITS A BIG YES BUNNI U THEORY BE CORRECT

he appears in this game as a malomyotismon who does a damn good vexen face during the fight, lol. And he’s all “gahh that stupid kid ruined my plans but this accursed body at least improved my hacking abilities!” Tho its implied that his corrupted state is more like a bodyless cloud of data that can possess/copy different digimon, which would be REALLY FUCKIN CRITICAL to explaining the goddamn plot of Digimon World Next Order!

Seriously wtf is up with this series? Digimon World 2 is not the sequel to Digimon World 1, all the numbered games are entirely separate individual stories with wildly different genres from pet sim to roguelike strategy. The real sequel is fucking DIGIMON THE CARD GAME THE GAME and then Digimon World Next Order a bazillion years later for the ps4. In which i am STILL REALLY SALTY that they have a FUCKIN RAD remix of analogman’s boss theme yet he doesn’t appear in the game. The added context of this damn tcg game confirms once and for all that the Ambiguous As Fuck Ending actually WAS him appearing in the game, this unexplained “oh wait the villain was good all along and he was just possessed by an evil virus” was supposed to be corrupted-digi-analogman and seriously WHY DONT THEY JUST FUCKIN EXPLAIN IT!!! this tcg game wasnt even released in europe!! and even american fans probably had no clue it was linked to this entirely separate subseries! You have to friggin piece it together with context clues like the battle music and the fact analogman’s signature mon was machinedramon. I mean vjesus christ Next Order is a litera; sequel with the grown up version of Digimon World’s protagonist as a badass home ec teacher who still defends the digital world in his free time yet you couldnt spare ONE LINE OF DIALOGUE mentioning the name of the villain?? and summarizing the fuckin tcg game everyone missed??? AND CONFIRMING THAT THE VILLAIN IS INDEED MAKING A REAPPEARANCE POSSESSING THIS GUY??? oh god everything makes SENSE, thank you terrible card game adaptation. ehh but i do still love Next Order for making Hiro/Mameo’s canon partner Mamemon, he’s even more badass as this big tough bishie version of himself with a tiny adorable pal that can shoot rocket fists through space and time. (its funny tho cos the DW1 intro movie showed metalmamemon and metalgreymon and the american boxart flipped a coin and decided metalgreymon must have been the one the protagonist was using in that scene. Whoops!)

anyway even with the added context that IT WAS INDEED GODDAMN ANALOGMAN, the final boss fight in Next Order was as terrible as the rest of the plot. So I’m glad trash gramps got a suitably badass boss fight after all, even if it was a CARD GAME VERSION! lets all celebrate the awesomeness of this obscure fuckin spinoff game’s obscure fuckin intercontinuity cameo with the boss fight music that other game wasted

youtube

seriously fuckin hell the biggest challenge in that final boss was that i was so distracted by SHEER OFFENDEDNESS at the cool music not matching it that it was hard to keep focused

its not just a great boss theme for a terrible boss, its a really fuckin EMOTIONAL song for anyone whose childhood was fuckin defined by the first game!!!

and look you had a PERFECT FUCKIN EXCUSE for a REALLY GOOD boss battle against MY MAN GRUMPY GRANDPA OF THE COOL DAMN NAME. Seriously guys analogman was THE FIRST digimon villain! digimon world came out before the anime, digimon world was the BETA FOR THE ANIME! this was the first place they had the ideas for file island, so much of the areas in the game are awkwardly mistranslated versions of stuff that would later appear in the anime in a different form. before this digimon had never been anything more than a fuckin 2-bit graphics tamagotchi and this was (after the manga) only the second goddamn time these monsters had an actual full colour character design! all of those charmingly janky 90s gross out show styled tcg illustrations? that was concept art that this game was working from! fuckin hell this game thought up the idea for metalgreymon’s changed design that ended up becoming the iconic partner of tai in the anime. (you can also see beta tai in the manga with a beta veemon as a partner instead! o_O)

SO LIKE...

JUST....

I HAVE FEELINGS ABOUT ANALOGMAN OKAY!!! he’s a badly written guy with only like five sentences across all the videogames but fuckin hell he was such an Iconique part of the development of this series that they named him fucking ANALOGMAN

like dude you could have SO EASILY made me scream at my tv in a more positive way by bringing him out as the surprise villain and showing us wtf his deisgn is even supposed to look like cos god all we have is a blurry faceless early ps1 model buried under the glow filters of Mt Infinity’s funky background effects.

AND FUCKING

IF IT IS CANON

THAT MY FUCKIN

STUPID THEORY

IS CANON

slap a fuckin O on this man and LITERALLY LET ME BEAT HIM UP

like dont even give him a team or anything, just let me fight THE MAN HIMSELF

you canonically fuckin said he’s a digital ghost now and basically the same as a digimon

let me beat the shit out of a regular businessman in a suit and tie while he pulls his badass ‘i’m hacking the game i’m in’ bullshit from the GODDAMN TCG GAME THAT WAS MORE CLIMACTIC THAN YOUR SHITTY CASH GRAB FAKE SEQUEL

man god i didnt expect a fuckin TCG GAME to revive my righteous fury from back when i first played that piece of shit. i hate it cos Next order is so pretty and its gameplay is so good and i really loved my twin digis but there were SO MANY bugs and cut corners and missing content and really bad writing and GOD it made me so sad that the dub team really really tried, they tried so hard that they got fuckin renamon’s original voice actress back even though the renamon in this game has nothing to do with the anime one. THE DUB WAS REALLY GOOD BUT IT COULDNT SALVAGE THAT SCRIPT!! THE MUSIC WAS REALLY GOOD AND THE ART WAS REALLY GOOD AND THE DIGIMON THEMSELVES WERE MY BEST DAMN FRIENDS FOR THAT MONTH OF MY LIFE BUT THE GODDAMN FUCKIN SCRIPT!!! the postgame was MORE FUN because FINALLY everything opened up like the sandbox of the first game and you could just fuckin hug u digis without being distracted by constant cutscenes butchering your childhood nostalgia

man i wanted to write a fic/draw a comic about my headcanons on how to fix it but i never managed to do it cos holy shit it was basically “throw everything out and make a different game geez” I COULD RAMBLE FOR HOURS ABOUT THE ENTIRELY DIFFERENT SEQUEL THIS SHOULD HAVE BEEN!! and a fuckin!! tcg game!! was closer to that sequel!!!

and fuckin MY THEORY WAS RIGHT AND MY BETTER GAME IDEA ACTUALLY WOULD WORK IN CANON

fuck it im gonna do draw myself decking business gramps in the face

oh! and the female protagonist design! thats another rare good part of that thing! i loved the pixellization effect on her ponytal, way better than the male equivelant having a very ordinary costume design just with a pixel corner taken out of his jacket. also why did the plot never actually make a thing out of that? like you’d think that ‘unlike every other digimon tamer i’ve got this scar of my digitization’ would be a plot point. like they didnt give everyone else a cool pixel squares mark! they could have at least used it as an excuse why the protagonist is the Only Chosen One who can do all this plot shit. or if it was me i would have made it early foreshadowing for the Return Of Business Gramps, like you were partially infected by the Oooo Mysterious Unexplained Digi Virus (seriously why did they not just have ONE SENTENCE explaining its the fuckin original villain returning????) during the prologue and i dunno somehow that gives you powers to break analogman’s control on the digimon he possesses. or maybe the pixel thing is like a tracking device he put on you? or just give that cool design trait to the protagonist of digimon cyber sleuth instead, whose entire plot is that theyre a digimon human hybrid with literaly the power to pixellize themself into computers.

ALSO!!! actually do something!!! with mameo!!!

they really fuckin hyped up in all the prelease materials that the digimon world 1 protagonist was gonna be in this game and he’s all grown up now. and then he does NOTHING in the plot except babble exposition and stand around your home base. and has one line about how he’s a badass teacher now and his partner is mamemon but hey we made a bullshit excuse for why his digimon is sealed away and he never gets to fight :<

give me an actual cool teamup of new protag girl and her cool teacher dude beating the shit out of business trash with their bare fists and also their digimon’s bare fists while THE BEST DAMN MUSIC GOES UNWASTED

...fuck i sure do Feel Intensely about nostalgic games lol. i wonder if i’ll be so rambley when i play kh3? maybe itd be a really shitty lp, aaagh...

#no gramps shall go unappreciated in the bunni house

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husbaano · 5 years

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Final Fantasy XV: Pocket Edition HD Review: A Bite-Sized Disappointment

Final Fantasy XV is a staple for modern day Square Enix that has one of the most bizarre development cycles and releases in gaming. When it originally launched for consoles in 2016 it had been 10 years since its conceptual reveal trailer, underwent both a system change as well as a director change, and a 3 month release delay. After such a long developmental cycle the game receive mediocre reviews including from myself who was extremely confused to how the game was considered “finished” in the first place with laughably unexplained cut scenes, bad animations, a simple combat system with no depth and just overall lack of polish; all of that development time and the game just ended up being bizarre and incomplete. Square Enix even stated that this was intentional in order to promote a “games as a service” model in order to keep providing for the consumers. Final Fantasy XV has continued to grow as its own brand since its release nearly 3 years ago with a full length feature film, an anime series, two mobile games, DLC and free updates to further “polish” the game. Square Enix is continuing to expand the reach of this multimedia powerhouse with the release of Final Fantasy XV: Pocket Edition for the Nintendo Switch, PS4 and Xbox One; an HD port of a “demake” originally made for mobile platforms. This demake somehow manages to capture the spirit of the original while adding some minor adjustments to make the originally once bumpy road trip a little smoother.

Final Fantasy: Pocket Edition HD retains the exact main plot from the original console release, even going as far as using the same audio and cutscenes; just chibi-fied. Set in a fantastical modern land, or a “fantasy based on reality”, Prince Noctis of the kingdom Lucis, must travel with his three companions to be wed to Lady Lunafreya of Tenebrae to complete a peace treaty. Thing don’t go exactly as planned as the peace treaty is very soon breached by the enemy nation, Niflheim, and the four boys must go on a journey to save the people of Lucis. In the original release I was baffled by how little of the story there was in the main game; a good chunk of it was found in supplemental material, specifically the anime series and the movie, like how the four boys became friends and how the peace treaty was breached in the first place; all of which are kind of crucial to the plot. To put it frankly the original story was a mess, important battles and events occur off screen, characters aren’t introduced or have purpose but the player is expected to care about them, time-skips happen often, almost no time is spent on the rival empire Niflheim and a lot of the characters associated with it go nowhere. It's just a weird occurrence when a randomly introduced man named Jared gets three main story quests devoted to him when the main antagonists get no screen time, some characters even only appear for one in the entire game. The main four characters, Noctis, Ignis, Prompto and Gladio, and their “roadtrip” are meant to be the heart and soul of the adventure; and they really are. Their interactions are charming, amusing and downright funny I love the brotherly bond the four share throughout the journey and during gameplay; its just annoying to realize that there is no in-game explanation as to how the four became friends in the first place! The story was, and is still, definitely a mess but the game developers tried to alleviate some of these issues through updates and DLC; although not perfect, the game is in way better shape than it was when it originally released.

Final Fantasy XV: Pocket Edition HD contains most of the major hiccups of the original release since its story is almost 1:1 with the original just with a new coat of paint, but it still manages to improve in some areas. One thing that stood out to me the moment I started it was the added “context” found before cut scenes; text blurbs occasionally appear to inform new players about the lore and the general story which helps comprehension immensely and is something that should have been in the original release to begin with. Another way Pocket Edition HD improves upon the story is by providing NPC dialogue strictly regarding the plot; this helps with world building and keeps the player invested in the story. One of the most common complaints about the original release was the lack of urgency since the plot seemed very “linear” but the game itself was open world so a lot of that plot tension was lost. Since Pocket Edition HD is a linear experience, the plot isn’t lost upon the player and is almost always the focus.

The entire game has been compressed into a cute, chibi art style that is very similar to the 2007 FFIV Remake for the Nintendo DS and 2013’s Bravely Default for the Nintendo 3DS. The art-style is distinct and translates the character designs well but the animations leave a lot to be desired. It feels as though they cheapened out on animations during cut scenes rather than it being part of the “demake” experience. The voice clips are all ripped from the console edition so some dramatic scenes come off as goofy rather than emotional. Pop-in is common and the game chugs while in docked-mode; in handheld mode the game runs at a smooth 60 fps most of the time. The menus are nothing special either; they feel pretty empty, boring and bare bones. It's not horrible for a mobile title, but for a $30 Nintendo Switch game this is bit disappointing.

Pocket Edition HD takes the console version and streamlines it to become a linear adventure rather than an open-world one. The world of Eos in the original release was vast but empty; it was just big for the sake of being big with nothing to do. Pocket Edition’s linearity is actually a benefit since the game seems a lot more focused, the plot is more cohesive and it feels more like a game rather than a walking simulator. The combat system has been overhauled but not for the best. As someone with 90 hours in the original release, I learnt the “depth” of the combat system but it wasn’t entirely enticing; it eventually watered down into mashing warps and holding buttons to block every attack in the game. It wasn’t deep or engaging,it kinda was just there. Now PE: HD takes this already watered down combat and dilutes it down even more. Each party member fights on their own while the player can only control Noctis. A single button is held to automatically attack the enemy you’re targeting, while occasional prompts appear that give you the option to perform a special attack with one of your teammates. Noctis can warp-strike to any enemy on the field at the cost of MP, and occasional QTEs can give you a brief window in which an incoming attack can be dodged or parried. The combat system is very bare-bones and fun at first, but it begins to drag once you realize it doesn’t get any more intricate. It’s stale and just plain easy; there is almost no challenge whatsoever. You can pause the game at any time to consume many readily available Potions to restore HP and the enemies go down fast.

In a similar fashion, the progression system is a watered down version of the console version. XP is awarded to party members after each battle and is applied at the end of each story mission. Leveling up party members allows for upgraded stats and AP to be gained. These Ability Points can be used on the bare-bones skill-tree to obtain new skills for the party; the skill-tree is just kinda basic and boring especially taking into consideration that enemies die easily to basic attacks as is.

Final Fantasy XV is Square-Enix’s new cash-cow and as such is being distributed to every platform imaginable. Square’s newest venture with the XV brand, Final Fantasy XV: Pocket Edition HD is a bizarre one and tough sell. This mobile app “demake” up-scaled for HD on the Nintendo Switch is a strange concept that lands in the story department for the most-part but lacks greatly in regards to game-play. It's a very strange release that serves little purpose considering the original release is a bit cheaper than this mobile title ported to the Nintendo Switch. It gets the job done if you want to experience XV without access to any other console but the price-point is just too high to justify the purchase.

#final fantasy #final fantasy xv #xv #review #game review #pocket edition #switch #noctis

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eddygould · 6 years

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Effingo (Nanopunk game idea)

Effingo is a fictional action-adventure game in 3rd person and an open world. Representing a pure nanopunk with its problems, the game reveals such topics as the concept of life, the role of technology, the preservation of culture and information, the further existence of civilization, and the relationship of people in critical situations. Honestly, Death Stranding has inspired me to create this concept.

The Lore:

It all started in 2028. Thanks to the sudden boom of nanorobots (called nanites) in medicine, the largest corporations had seen the potential in this technology and decided to invest in it their own funds. Subsequently, nanites were used in construction and military operations, and Nanovative, the main developer and supplier of nanites, became a true monopolist in its field. After some terrorist acts with a destruction of monuments, the company launched the Effingo programme that implied the preservation of masterpieces of culture and art, based on their copies made by nanites. The program had to work through a software analysis of shapes, interiors, and materials of architectural creations, which data were loaded into nanites. Nanovative announced the creation of a "Museum", an artificial archipelago in the Pacific Ocean that included continuous tours. The nanites themselves were able to maintain the monuments in a perfect condition, restore them in case of damage, and with the embedded program would save copies even after the destruction of the originals. At the same time, the percentage of income from excursions would depart to countries whose monuments have already been "saved", and thus all the parties would remain in the black. This caused, in the main, a positive reaction in the society, but the forecasters, namely the union of scientists who founded the International Archive of Mankind (IAM), declared the inexpediency of this idea. In their opinion, behind this were purely economic motives, and the "plan for the preservation of culture" did not make any sense, because with the same success it could be possible to convert those computer models into virtual reality, where they would have existed forever. Effingo was called the "world-wide tourist trap", but this provoked a flurry of criticism in the media, and many scientists dubbed IAM "the unfortunate echo of an escapist generation", complaining that nanites are the future of mankind. In 2030, the first colony was founded on Mars. Despite all the suggestions of Nanovative to use their product for faster construction of the base, NASA refused it, giving priority to modular homes. By 2033, the contract for architectural copying with Nanovative was signed by most countries, including Egypt, Great Britain, Japan, and the EU. The first sight was the Great Sphinx of Giza. Nevertheless, there were rumors that the corporation illegally buys "models" from non-interested countries and tests them at their landfills. At one such test in Colorado, nanites deviated from the program for the first time, creating a perfect sphere with a diameter of 10 meters. The scientists tried to understand the reason, but could not find anything out. After about a year the nanites ceased to respond to any commands and began to create their own structures, going beyond a site. The company destroyed a significant part of them, but after a while found out that the nanites learned to copy themselves. This incident was hushed up until 2032, when the nanites began to "devour" the town of Sugar City, Colorado. The information was leaked to the media, and the nanites were recognized as a national threat. Anticipating a global catastrophe, the IAM moved its base from Norway to Antarctica, including the Alexandria project, the largest repository of all the information accumulated by mankind and encoded in DNA. Nanites all around the globe had also "challenged" humanity, starting simultaneously and continuously evolving. The real chaos began, during which the population of continents hurriedly moved to the islands. The Japanese researchers invented special repeaters capable of "deactivating" nanites, but nanorobots adapted to it as well. After a while, the movement of nanites changed from a chaotic one to understandable aspiration to the south. At the dawn of a global threat, the UN began to cooperate with NATO and the armies of individual countries in order to control the territories that were subjected to the "attack" of nanites. As they were evolving, nanorobots were acquiring new features, going from copying inorganic materials and self-copying to manipulation with gases and liquids. Mastering the new levels of matter changing, quadrillion of nanites headed to Antarctica, and by 2046 occupied some part of it. As the scientists expected, nanites somehow learned about the IAM, and therefore they tried to get there. The organization could not get help from the UN for a long time, and only an Australian private company NovaSec illegally provided a material support, and even delivered the Osprey O rocket for the emergency launch of the IAM to space, which got stuck in the ice during transportation. Meanwhile, the colony on Mars was growing: NASA carefully considered the possible problem of the disappearance of mankind and concentrated on adapting the life outside Earth. 2046. At the south pole, there was a catastrophe on the Noah Base. Between the researchers, a conflict arose on the basis of the hypothetical seizure of the area by nanites, during which the scientist Michael Jepsen organized a riot and attempted to kill all the personnel. A team of five people was sent from Hooverville Station to find out the reason and resolve the conflict. The detachment did not return surprisingly, therefore, because of the shortage of people, it was customary to gather researchers from adjacent IAM branches. Among them were Paul Vernon (a rescuer), Kate Crosser (a doctor), Vince Rego (a meteorologist), Thomas Callahan (an engineer who earlier worked on nanorobots), and Greg Wing (a NovaSec employee, and a programmer). A station warden Lenny Crimons, who asked for help, became the team's "brain".

The game begins with the arrival of a new personnel at the Hooverville Station that serves as a hub and main base in the game. The player takes control of Paul Vernon who has become the unofficial leader of the crew, which is not approved by some team members. After acquaintance, the player is free to either study the world, or follow the story missions. At the same time you can take up to two team-mates with you (in the main quests the whole team participates). The main mission is simple: to find Osprey O, deliver it to the station, and then get to the South Pole, and save the Alexandria project. At the same time, the player will have to study other stations and zones occupied by nanites, as well as to simply survive, following the level of cold and air condition. The game has not so much action because the main enemies here are nanorobots. Paul can either use special weapons to "repel" them or completely avoid nanites.

The game world covers the real territory of the northern part of the Transantarctic Mountains (that are located in the south of the game map) and parts of the Polar Plateau. Approximately in the center of the map there is the Noah Base (the coordinates are 87°12'12.0"S 120°08'04.9"E), in the southwest is the Hooverville station (87°12'12.0"S 120°08'04.9"E). The Osprey O rocket which got stuck in the ice is located in the north-west, almost in the corner of the map. In the center, in the north and west, there are several large zones occupied by nanites. Usually in these places the player can find artificial mountains and lakes, as well as "man-made" structures like Moai from the Easter Island, a half-buried statue of freedom, the Great Sphinx of Giza with an ideal sphere instead of a head, and many other "works" of nanites. Closer to the center, the climate becomes milder, there is no snow at all (or rather, the snow is "buried" under the layer of artificial earth), and some kind of weird trees is also presented. Artificial lakes and swamps of slime are inhabited by long worms and smaller organisms; in the air webbed beings-balloons that resemble jellyfish and emit light slowly fly, and the lifeless surface is full of coral-like outgrowths of flesh. In the atmosphere, the content of external gases is high, somewhere even methane predominates. In the very center there is the Noah Base with the Alexandria project.

In-game Story:

When the team gets to Osprey O, they detect an artificial glacier in the middle of the plain. Getting inside, the characters observe that their goal is in some kind of frozen slime, and all the NovaSec workers who delivered the goods were killed and turned into growths of flesh. After the successful rescue of the rocket, opinions about the further operation are divided. If earlier the characters simply expressed theories based on their point of view, since that moment everyone starts to follow them. Kate and Lenny believe that they must save Alexandria and all of humanity, Vince is convinced of his nihilism, and Thomas wonders what will happen if they help nanites to realize the goal of capturing the base. Only Greg does not have his own opinion, and therefore everyone will try to recruit him. Paul (the player) first adheres to the same views as Kate and Lenny, but he can take any point of view. The ending depends on to whom Paul will join. The player has to control the degree of tension in the team and try to convince as many mates as possible. In the course of studying the terrain, researchers are convinced that nanites absorb any information and thus evolve. Judging by the attempts to create life, they can already transform DNA, and if they get to Alexandria, they will "absorb" it and take possession of all the knowledge of mankind. Thomas suggests that their real goal is to become a meta-organism, a God who can change reality on all quantum levels at once. In the final mission, the characters penetrate the Noah base, around which the nanites form a dome of slime. Checking the records in the base computers, they find out that the last team that was supposed to come to the rescue, had a traitor who decided to destroy the project and has erased two backups of Alexandria. The team spent about a month there, but the nanites that penetrated the base killed all the researchers. Delivering the rocket and getting to the central computer of Alexandria, every character tries to take control in their own hands.

Endings:

1) Salvation (Paul, Kate, Lenny ± Greg): Paul with his adherents, contrary to warnings and threats from the others, moves the Alexandria vat with the encoded information, a decoder and a laptop to the rocket and launches it to Mars. In the process, the player kills the so-called "radicals", namely Thomas, Vince ± Greg (unless he was recruited by Paul). However, Greg and Lenny can also die by the recklessness of the player. Alexandria is sent to the Martian colony, and nanites without any sources of information will need much more time to further development. Despite the positive context of the ending, only the knowledge of humanity, and not humanity itself, has been saved. Nanorobots will seek to get to Mars, and the fate of the species depends on other people. Nevertheless, the survived members of the crew successfully escape the base and return to the Hooverville Station.

2) Salvation+ (Paul, Kate, Lenny ± Greg): if during the map study the team stumbled upon an old American Missouri Station and found there a nuclear warhead (which is strictly contrary to the Antarctic Treaty System), they can take it and use the missile in the final mission. In this case, all the characters will perish, but some of the nanites will be destroyed. Otherwise, this ending does not differ from an ordinary salvation.

3) Birth (Paul, Thomas ± Greg): the Thomas' idea has been realized. All the objectionable members of the team were killed, and the vat with Alexandria was opened. The nanites successfully absorb information and move to a new stage of development, becoming a God. The characters observe the formation of a single organism that grows into a huge and mighty tree and changes gravity on the base, absorbing all the survivors. The nanites achieve their goal, and a new era in the history of the universe begin.

4) Nihilism (Paul, Vince ± Greg): the nihilists erase the Alexandria project, and all the survivors, including Paul and Vince, commit suicide. Some nanites are destroyed, and therefore, no longer have a goal.

5) Nihilism+ (Paul, Vince ± Greg): if a nuclear warhead is discovered at the Missouri Station, nihilists can apply it in the last mission, destroying not only themselves but the base and a part of the nanites.

6) Virus (Paul, Kate, Lenny ± Greg): a secret ending that can only be opened after the player finds a DNA encoder and a sample of the virus on the Phaeton Station. The player needs to recruit Greg in order to modify the virus (otherwise the ending would not be available). As the crew loads the virus in the vat, it corrupts the data of Alexandria. However, when it is absorbed by nanites, it will launch a mutation process that will kill all nanorobots. Sacrificing the millenia of work and thought, the characters save the world from an invincible threat and give another chance to mankind.

#fictional games #game ideas #nanopunk

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pixelgrotto · 6 years

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The horrific Resident Evil playthrough, part nine

If there’s one word that can be used to describe Resident Evil: Revelations, it’s “solid.” This is kinda funny, since most of the game takes place on a body of water - or more specifically, a ship floating in the middle of the ocean. This is a good setting for a horror game that, interestingly enough, was used in Ubisoft’s Resident Evil 4 clone Cold Fear and the negatively reviewed Game Boy Color spin-off Resident Evil Gaiden, which I’ll get to eventually.

But going back to my main point, RE: Revelations is a very fine playable experience. It features the over-the-shoulder viewpoint and gunplay that’s been the series norm since RE4, but has a confined, ominous setting more reminiscent of the earlier Resident Evils. Just like the Lost in Nightmares DLC of Resident Evil 5, which saw Jill Valentine and Chris Redfield infiltrating a spooky European manor that bore more than a passing resemblance to the original Spencer Mansion, it seems that Revelations was engineered to combine new school Resident Evil with old school Resident Evil, creating a combo to please all the series veterans who complained that the sunshine of RE5 had made things decidedly un-scary, while still not alienating newer fans.

There’s a lot of decent stuff in this combo, starting with the front and center return of Jill Valentine. While Resident Evil was a franchise that always did a great job of female representation in its earlier entries, as the games have gotten more bang shoot ‘em up, the main protagonists have increasingly become dudes while the ladies have been delegated to support roles. This falls into the trope of “action games star guys to empower male players while survival horror games star women to make male players want to protect the protagonist,” so it’s nice to see Revelations buck this trend. Jill does spend the entirety of the game in a skintight wetsuit that’s contributed to a lot of cringy fanart, but to Revelations’ credit, she is never sexualized throughout the entire campaign. The two other main females in the cast - Jessica Sherawat, a BSAA member who’s kind of a skank and rocks a ridiculous costume that’s missing an entire leg, and Rachel Foley, a "secret agent” who looks like a Twitch titty streamer - don’t fare nearly so well, but at least Jill is done right.

Jessica and Rachel aren’t the only new characters introduced into series lore - Revelations has a whole ton of fresh faces, and since the game is divided up into 12 hour-long chapters, it seems like the devs were also inspired to make everyone seem reminiscent of someone in a television show. You’ve got the BSAA boss who seems based on every CSI boss ever, two funky dudes named Keith (finally, a playable black guy) and Quint who buck the trend of these games only starring highly attractive models, a whole bunch of bioweapon-stealing terrorists, a bad guy with a goatee who looks like he wandered in from the Metal Gear Solid party down the hall, and the best newbie of all - Parker Luciani, an Italian BSAA member who looks like Russell Crowe and fills in the same kind of “dad” role that Barry Burton occupied in Resident Evil 1.

Weaving these TV drama-esque characters together is a plot that trades zombies for mutated human/sea creature hybrids, which is an excellent combination since the sea is home to pure terror. The story twists and turns in a mostly understandable way until chapter 11 or so, when it suddenly devolves into deus ex machina cliches and faces the same problems as a lot of Japanese games that are trying to be too witty for their own good. (See: the vast majority of Final Fantasy titles.) It’s not a bad tale, and it plays things straight in the same way that Resident Evil 5 did, but is somewhat less memorable in the long run since it lacks a proper baddie like Wesker to really stick out in your mind.

And that’s probably the only issue I have with Revelations. There’s nothing really wrong with the game, but that means that it’s also oddly forgettable in some ways, and definitely feels like the side story Nintendo 3DS gaiden that it was originally developed as when compared with its recent predecessors. It lacks the super engaging pacing that Resident Evil 4 had, for instance - while RE4 was the sort of game that made me want to stay up late playing just one more hour, I was okay to take a break and go to bed after each bite-sized bit of Revelations. And while Revelations provides a decidedly more focused single-player experience than Resident Evil 5, the strange racial miscalculations of that title and the Hollywood-influenced (but genuine, I believe) portrayal of Africa just make RE5 more interesting, in my opinion. This isn’t to say that Revelations is dull - it’s just that it’s sandwiched in between other series entries that I simply find myself having more to say about. Sometimes when you’re the third child who does his thing well enough, yet is overshadowed by the perfect big brother (RE4) and an annoying at times, compelling at others second sibling (RE5), this sort of phenomenon can happen.

But lest we end on a meh note, I will give credit where credit is due - the many new faces that Revelations brings to the increasingly complex world of Resident Evil are mostly welcome ones, and the game does a solid (there’s that word again) job of bringing back the terror that used to infuse the series in an era when the scares were slowly being forgotten. Though, part of me wonders if I would have enjoyed Revelations even more if it had brought back fixed camera angles, too... Hmm, nine games deep into this series playthrough and it appears that I can finally choose a side in the great debate over which style of Resident Evil I kind of prefer. Make mine fixed camera angles! All screenshots taken by me. For more, check out this Twitter thread showing my step-by-step progress through the game.

#pixel grotto #video games #now playing #resident evil #biohazard #resident evil revelations #jill valentine #chris redfield #capcom

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wazafam · 3 years

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May the fourth (be with you) is the annual celebration for Star Wars fans to get involved with the franchise from a galaxy far far away. While Lucasfilm and Disney are capitalizing on the event with a number of big releases and other activities for audiences to get involved with, there's a range of alternative ways to spend the day.

RELATED: The 10 Best Star Wars Original Trilogy Battles, Ranked

Of course, this year may be a little different for fans, who are looking to celebrate May the fourth from home, but there are still a number of activities and experiences to get involved in that are designed for the whole family to enjoy. From watching throwback classics to trying out intergalactic cuisine and constructing iconic ships, there's a little something for everything to take part in!

10 Make Star Wars Themed Food/Drinks

The food in Star Wars is pretty weird. The beverages are perhaps even stranger - it's never clear which tastes better: blue or green milk? Regardless of how disgusting some of the dishes might be, there's plenty of delicious recipes out on the internet to try making at home!

Of course, fans could look to the Galaxy's Edge menus at the Walt Disney Parks for inspiration. Alternatively, there's a great number of Star Wars themed recipes on the official website! At the end of the day, it would be perfect to settle down with a Republic mocktail in front of the TV.

9 Check Out The Vintage Collection On Disney+

Disney+ recently expanded the Star Wars content available on the streaming service, revisiting some of the forgotten shows from Lucasfilm's past. Many of these hits are certainly underrated, although noticeable by its absence is the cult classic Droids.

Fans of The Star Wars Holiday Special will also be a little disappointed, but the platform does include throwback titles such as The Story Of The Faithful Wookie, Caravan Of Courage, Ewoks, Ewoks: The Battle For Endor, and the original, fan-favorite Clone Wars. Many of these will likely be completely new to younger fans.

8 Find A Legends Comic On Comixology

It's sometimes quite difficult for fans to know where to start when jumping into Star Wars comics for the first time. Disney brought in a complete overhaul when they purchased the property from Lucasfilm and as such there's now both Legends and Canon content.

RELATED: Star Wars - 10 Major Villains From The Clone Wars & Rebels Ranked, From Lamest To Coolest

While the Canon comics are certainly worth checking out, on Comixology Unlimited there's a wide range of Legends comics which could provide for some great reading on May the fourth. What's more, many of these narratives are standalone, meaning they can be experienced throughout the day as a mini-story for fans to enjoy.

7 Revisit The Old Republic

The Knights Of The Old Republic video game franchise still sits atop the pyramid of console titles for Star Wars fans. While there's a great variety of other games to explore, the KOTOR series brought in a new era of storytelling and a fresh take on the brand itself.

The Old Republic online RPG was overlooked a little when it was first released and has been largely ignored ever since. Yet, with constant content updates, storyline developments, and a great amount of Star Wars lore woven into the gameplay, this is a free game that everyone should try out once more!

6 Explore Star Wars On YouTube

YouTube has really become a great home for Star Wars fans. There's of course the official YouTube channel to explore, which boasts exclusive series, trailers and other fun video content for fans to really get engrossed in. There's a number of independent channels as well though.

Star Wars Explained and Star Wars Theory are really the go-to places for information regarding both the Canon and Legends Expanded Universe. Youtini is a perfect location for reviews of all the upcoming books. Mr Sunday Movies has the aptly named Caravan Of Garbage series featuring some retro Star Wars titles and Star Wars HQ has garnered a loyal fan base after years of quality videos.

5 Listen To Audible's Original Dramas

Audible has a huge range of Star Wars titles on offer just waiting for fans to listen to. They bring in some of the best voice actors around to really bring these narratives to life, with some of the cast members of the animated shows returning to lend their vocal talents.

RELATED: 10 Controversial Star Wars Retcons That Fans Choose To Ignore

May the fourth calls for a special kind of audio story though. Audible has worked on a number of original audio dramas with Lucasfilm, which are all equally fantastic. One that is certainly worth checking out is Doctor Aphra's own audio drama exclusive.

4 Construct A LEGO Set

LEGO has been a great representative for the galaxy far far away for many years. There's a variety of LEGO sets which fans really have to get their hands on, although the prices involved with these models can sometimes be a bit of a sticking point.

Regardless there's definitely a range of products that both adults and kids can enjoy together. What's more, the line is constantly updated with products relating to The Bad Batch definitely relevant for this year's massive set of celebrations.

3 Cosplay For The Day

The cosplay community found a home online and social media apps like TikTok have only managed to spread the joy of the hobby. Cosplayers haven't had many events to go to this year, thanks in large part to the global situation. However, May the fourth is a great excuse to dig out those fantastic costumes.

Cosplaying can be quite the event by itself, as many Cosplayers will also design their own costumes. There's plenty of sources on the internet to inspire potential hobbyists into getting started. Plus, it's good practice ready for the re-opening of Comic-Con or Star Wars Celebration!

2 Experience Galaxy's Edge Online

Galaxy's Edge might seem like a far-off dream for many. The closure of the Walt Disney Parks globally has delayed the potential for fans to actually visit this all-encompassing experience in person. The internet is a brilliant resource during these times, though.

YouTube in particular is the perfect platform to really get into the details of Batuu, before being able to visit in person. Ride walkthroughs, lightsaber workshops, and of course those restaurant menus and recipes are all available to enjoy from the comfort of Earth, rather than traveling to the Outer Rim!

1 Watch The Bad Batch Premiere On Disney+

The big release for Lucasfilm this year is the debut of The Bad Batch animated show on Disney+. Of course, there's a number of narrative arcs from both The Clone Wars and Rebels for audiences to revisit before they jump into the latest offering from the studio.

Fans will be already familiar with the characters from the Bad Batch squad of clones, but with the series set just after the fall of the Republic there's no telling what chaos the team might be facing. It's a dark era of Star Wars history, although the almost feature length first episode will surely feature some other friendly and familiar faces.

NEXT: Star Wars: 10 Horror Stories From The Expanded Universe

May The 4th Be With You: 10 Best Ways To Celebrate Star Wars Day from https://ift.tt/3u62ks9

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davidmann95 · 6 years

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What's your Marvel Starter Pack?

My Marvel knowledge isn’t nearly as extensive as what I have for DC, so this’ll be scaled back to 12 books from the 15 I had there (nevermind Superman and Batman’s own personal lists). Additionally, since Marvel’s even more about Right Now than DC, nothing here is earlier than the turn of the century; a lot of my older recommended reading is by my dad’s suggestion since he had plenty of firsthand experience with the Silver and Bronze ages. Also worth noting that my Marvel tastes don’t exactly fall in line with the general sensibilities of Tumblr or fandom at large - I’m not a big X-Men guy, for instance - so your results may vary. But anyway, again, if you’re following me but new to actually collecting comics and wondering what to look into to gauge your interests, I’ve got plenty for you.

1. Daredevil by Mark Waid

What it’s about: Blinded as a child pushing an old man out of the path of an oncoming truck transporting radioactive waste, Matt Murdock grew up to become a lawyer, encouraged by his pugilist father Battlin’ Jack Murdock not to rely on his fists as he had throughout life. But when Jack was murdered for refusing to throw a fight, Matt was forced to rely on the talents he had developed in secret under his sensei Stick - the same isotopes that took away his sight boosted his remaining four to superhuman levels, as well as granting him a 360° awareness of his surroundings he termed his ‘radar sense’ - to find justice for his father and those like him, becoming the vigilante Daredevil. Now, after a crimefighting career marked by agony, loss, and an increasingly deteriorating psyche, his identity has been unofficially exposed by the tabloid press…but attempting to turn around both his life and his mental health, Matt’s chosen to try and re-embrace the good in both his daytime career and in the thrill of his adventures as the Man Without Fear.

Why you should read it: Aside from being in my opinion the most influential superhero comic of the decade, Mark Waid’s tenure on Daredevil is the complete package of superhero comics. Energizing, gorgeous, accessible, character-driven, innovative, and bold, it’s a platonic ideal of Good Superhero Comics, and most especially Good Marvel Superhero Comics, and as such there’s little better place to start.

Further recommendations if you liked it: Shockingly, few modern Marvel titles seem to operate on a similar frequency to this run, even among those that clearly wouldn’t have existed without it; of those I don’t mention in one capacity or another below, the only modern books that leap out to me as being of a similar breed are Roger Langridge and Chris Samnee’s (the latter ending up the primary artist on Waid’s Daredevil) tragically cut short Thor: The Mighty Avenger, Dan Slott and Mike Allred’s Silver Surfer, and Al Ewing’s Contest of Champions. Given the classic mood it evokes, you might also be interested in some of Marvel’s older stuff in general - as probably most conveniently packaged in the Essential volumes - as well as the more recent Marvel Adventures line of all-ages titles. For hornhead himself, most of his classic work tends to operate in a pitch-black noir mood that much of Waid’s run is meant to contrast; if you want to delve into it, go to Frank Miller’s run (primarily Born Again), then Brian Bendis’s followed by Ed Brubaker’s and, following Waid, Chip Zdarsky’s (the Charles Soule run in the middle seems largely forgettable).

2. Marvels

What: Following the career of photojournalist Phil Sheldon - beginning in World War II with the rise of the likes of the Human Torch, Namor, and Captain America, and forward into the reemergence of superheroes with the Fantastic Four - Marvels shows what the battles that define a world look like to the helpless spectators, from the controversy surrounding mysterious vigilantes such as Spider-Man, the fear of the “mutant menace” represented by the X-Men, and the terror when the planet is first truly threatened at the hands of Galactus.

Why: As well as being one of Marvel’s best and most defining works period - this is Kurt Busiek and Alex Ross’s coming out party as two of the most significant names in the genre, and it articulates Marvel’s avowed “it’s the world outside your window!” philosophy better than perhaps any other title - Marvel is ruled by history and continuity in a way DC isn’t. The latter may have reboots to contend with, but Marvel has a much more upfront and consistently significant timeline of what happened when and what’s important, and if you’re going to have to immerse yourself in that ridiculous lore, there’s no more fulfilling way of getting an injection of pure backstory than this.

Recommendations: There’s a follow-up by Busiek, Roger Stern and Jay Anacleto titled Marvels: Eye of the Camera; I haven’t read it yet myself, but given the pedigree involved I can’t imagine it’s anything less than entirely solid. For other Major Marvel Events, the defining one of the 21st century is Mark Millar and Steve McNiven’s Civil War, which set a tone that still reverberates through the line; also worth checking out the recent Marvel Legacy oneshot, which seems to be laying the groundwork for things to come. Speaking of setting a tone, while it’s not directly ‘relevant’ continuity-wise, Millar also worked with Bryan Hitch on Ultimates 1 & 2, which proved to be the aesthetic model for the current wave of Marvel movies and added plenty of ideas that have been extensively mined since. History of the Marvel Universe by Mark Waid and Javier Rodriguez fits its title and is absolutely worth a library checkout, but is mainly a rote checklist elevated by all-timer artwork.

3. Kieron Gillen and Jamie McKelvie’s Young Avengers

What: The heroes of the group once known as the ‘Young Avengers’ have gone their separate ways, each trying to figure things out on the cusp of adulthood. But when Wiccan’s attempt at helping his boyfriend goes horribly wrong - mixed in with a pint-sized god of mischief’s machinations, an interdimensional bruiser’s attempts at routing him, and non-Hawkguy Hawkeye’s extraterrestrial hookup - the gang’s forced back together again and on the run before old age literally swallows them whole.

Why: Here’s the bummer truth, daddy-o: I am not, in the common parlance, down with the hep cats, at least as far as gateway young-readers Marvel books go. I flipped through Runaways and wasn’t compelled to pick it up; I kept on with Ms. Marvel for a couple years but always on the edge of falling out of my monthly pile. Unless it’s truly next-level spectacular or heart-pouring-out sincere, gimme superfolks routing fiendish plots and going on trippy adventures any day over a bunch of sad kids in tights figuring out adolescence all over again: Spidey already did it first and better, and when emotionally-down-to-Earth superhero comics do get me fired up it’s usually set a little later on in life (even when I was the target audience for this sort of thing). But fire it through Gillen/McKelvie laser neon sexytime pop, and suddenly you’re in business. Slick, smart, raw, and wild, this was the best comic of 2013, and’ll certainly go down as one of the best superhero titles of this decade, Marvel as the Cool Kids of superherodom dialed up to 11.

Recommendations: Nothing else quite like this out there - the closest in feeling is Grant Morrison and J.G. Jones’ excellent original Marvel Boy miniseries, though that’s more about becoming a 20-something out in the world in the sense of wanting to burn it all down to the ground - but as I said, Runaways and Ms. Marvel do generally appeal to the same audience (and to be clear, I did like the latter just fine), as do the original Young Avengers run and Avengers Academy. Personally, I checked out and liked Avengers Arena, where all the fun teen heroes got forced into Hunger Gamsing each other on a murder island run by Arcade, followed up by them breaking bad in Avengers Undercover - please note that I’m like one of the three people on Earth who liked this book as opposed to ravenously despising it, which probably has in part do to with my lack of prior attachment to the characters involved. Also, important to note that this book is in the middle of a thematic Loki trilogy, preceded by Gillen’s Journey Into Mystery (which I haven’t read but don’t for a second doubt the quality of), and completed by Al Ewing and Lee Garbett’s truly magnificent Loki: Agent of Asgard; also worth noting that these books, and really modern Loki as a whole, are deeply rooted in Robert Rodi and Esad Ribic’s Thor & Loki: Blood Brothers. And for perfect entry books, I don’t think there’s much of anything better out there, especially for young readers, than Ryan North and Erica Henderson’s The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl, one of Marvel’s most consistently high-quality ongoings of the last several years.

4. Hawkeye: My Life As A Weapon

What: Clint Barton, aka Hawkeye, aka Hawkguy, is the Avenger who’s Just A Dude. No super-steroids and vita-rays, no magic hammer or Pym particles, a distinct lack of multi-billion dollar armor or immortality serum. Dude has a bow and arrow, and while he is very, very good with that bow and arrow, he still gets his ass kicked a frankly disproportionate amount relative to his teammates. Between meeting a dog, buying a car, and hanging out with friends - even if each incident goes significantly more wrong that they would for anyone other than Clint Barton, with non-Hawkguy Hawkeye Kate Bishop typically along for the ride - this is what he gets up to when he’s not helping save the world.

Why: Gonna show my heresy again: I’m not actually over the moon about Fraction/Aja’s Hawkeye past the first arc. But that first arc? Man oh man oh man, are they about as good as Marvel gets. This is absolute next-level storytelling on every front, with Aja and Pulido pulling out all the stops and Fraction - who by all accounts thinks more about the process of how comics work than anyone else in the field - just pouring heart and style all over the thing. It’s as tight and energetic as comics get, and the perfect introduction to Marvel’s street-level corner.

Recommendations: Aside from the rest of this run, there’s the recent Hawkeye (starring the non-Hawkguy Hawkeye Kate Bishop) by Kelly Thompson and Leonardo Romero, and there’s a generous helping of Hawkguy in Ales Kot and Michael Walsh’s Secret Avengers, a book as tight and out-of-the-box and oddly joyous in its own way as this. If you’re looking for other Marvel material that gets this explicitly experimental and afield of the house style, go for Jim Steranko’s much-loved work with Nick Fury. And for the other, considerably grimmer side of the street, aside from the Daredevil stuff I mentioned above, check out anything and everything you can get your hands on from Garth Ennis’s work with the Punisher, along with Greg Rucka’s and Jason Aaron’s.

5. Moon Knight: From The Dead

EDIT: This list was written prior to allegations made against Warren Ellis. It’s your money, but while I’d still recommend checking the book out of the library - the quality of the work isn’t going to change now that it’s out there in the universe - if you’re looking to pad your bookshelf I might recommend skipping to some of the books suggested below in its place.

What: Marc Spector was a mercenary until the day he died, betrayed in the desert before an Egyptian temple by his comrades…and then he kept going. No one knows for sure whether the truth is what his doctors have to say - that sharing his head with the likes of Steven Grant and Jake Lockley is a manifestation of DID, and he’s a profoundly sick man - or his own interpretation - that his fragile human personality buckled and shattered before the immensity when dying by its temple, he bowed his head at death’s door to the moon god Khonshu and let it seize his soul. Whatever the truth, he now knows his purpose: to defend travelers by night from whatever horrors would cross their path.

Why: There’s no story as such to be told here; Ellis and Shalvey simply show six adventures over six issues that establish Moon Knight and the scope of what he’s capable of when handled properly, ranging from straightforward detective work to psychedelic journeys through a rotting dream to a jaw-dropping issue-long fight scene. Marvel has a proud history of material skewing slightly to the left of the rest of their output, tonally and conceptually, and this is your ideal gateway to Weird Marvel.

Recommendations: For the further adventures of Moon Knight, by recommendation would be Max Bemis and Jacen Burrows’ current volume, which is following up on the seeds Ellis and Shalvey laid down quite satisfactorily, with a few twists of their own on top. Ellis himself used Moon Knight before this in his run on Secret Avengers with a number of different artists, which was very much a precursor to his work above in its high-concept done-in-one style; also check out his book Nextwave with Stuart Immonen, which is as out there as it gets for Marvel and also the best comic ever. Delving into Marvel’s spooky side, if this did anything at all for you absolutely get all of Al Ewing and Joe Bennett’s massively and rightfully acclaimed The Immortal Hulk (and if you’re looking for more something more traditional with the Green Goliath, Mark Waid’s The Indestructible Hulk is a hoot). If you really want to go to ground zero of Weird Marvel, you’re in the market for Steve Gerber’s work, primarily Defenders and his own creation Howard the Duck (who had another very entertaining via Chip Zdarsky and Joe Quinones recently worth checking out). Another notably out-there character worth checking out is She-Hulk, particularly in Dan Slott’s run and Charles Soule/Javier Pulido’s. Two more figures existing on Marvel’s weirder end are Doctor Strange - whose ‘classic’ work would as I understand it be Steve Englehart and Frank Brunner’s run, and who’s worth checking out more recently in Brian K. Vaughan and Marcos Martin’s miniseries The Oath, Jason Aaron and Chris Bachalo’s run, and Donny Cates and Gabriel Hernandez Walta’s - and the Inhumans - while contemporary attempts to push them have been a failure, there have been excellent individual successes in Ellis, Gerardo Zaffino, and Roland Boschi’s Karnak, Al Ewing and company’s Royals, and Saladin Ahmed and Christian Ward’s Black Bolt. And I’d be remiss in the extreme not to bring up Gabriel Walta and Tom King’s Vision, which I don’t want to give anything away of, but has a serious claim to being the best thing Marvel’s ever published.

6. Ultimate Spider-Man by Bendis & Bagley

What: When bitten by a genetically mutated spider Peter Parker thought he could use his newfound powers to make a quick buck, and come on, you already know this.

Why: This is the foundational modern Spider-Man. The first arc’s aged a little wonky in bits as Bendis was trying to make late-90s/early-00s Teen Slang work, but by and large, Brian Bendis and Mark Bagley’s original 111-issue tenure on Ultimate Spider-Man reimagining his early years was pound-for-pound one of Marvel’s all-time most engaging, exciting, dramatic, and authentic long-term runs. This is the template for every movie (especially Homecoming) and TV show he’s had in the last decade, a sizable part of what got me into comics in the first place, and one of the company’s most reliable perennials. You want to get onboard with maybe the most popular superhero in the world, you do it here.

Recommendations: With the remainder of the list I’m getting into more character/concept-specific reccs, and for other great Spider-Man, your best bet truly is the classic early material by Stan Lee, Steve Ditko, and John Romita as collected in the Essential volumes, which has aged unbelievably well compared to its contemporaries; Bendis’s post-Bagley material just doesn’t hold up, even with the introduction of fan-favorite Miles Morales. For other ‘classics’, your best bests are Spider-Man: Blue, and by my understanding the runs of Roger Stern and J.M. DeMatteis, particularly the latters’ Kraven’s Last Hunt. For the modern stuff, Chip Zdarksy’s current Peter Parker: The Spectacular Spider-Man is just getting better and better, I’ve heard very good things about Spider-Man Loves Mary Jane, I personally enjoyed Mark Millar and (at his peak) JMS’s runs, and while most agree Dan Slott’s soon-concluding decade-long tenure on the character has outstayed its welcome, he’s also turned in some stone-cold classics like No One Dies and Spider-Man/Human Torch, as well as other entertaining work such as the original Renew Your Vows and Superior Spider-Man. Most recently, Chip Zdarsky’s work with the character in The Spectacular Spider-Man and the high-concept out-of-continuity miniseries Spider-Man: Life Story are some of Mr. Parker’s all-time best, while Tom Taylor’s Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man is a charming relatively small-scale superhero adventure book, and Saladin Ahmed and Javier Garron’s Miles Morales: Spider-Man is easily the best possible introduction to that guy.

7. Thor: God of Thunder Vol. 1

What: Though Thor, the god of thunder and mighty Avenger, has faced limitless threats to even divine life and limb over his many millennia, only one figure has ever truly frightened him. Now, as he discovers a serial killer of deities is loose in the cosmos, he must turn to his past and future alike in order to survive the coming of the God-Butcher.

Why: The pick on this list most directly relevant to those coming in from the movies right now, I’m afraid that while a bit of this was plucked for Ragnarok, this isn’t remotely on the same wavelength. This is black metal death opera screamed through the megaphone of wild space-spanning superheroics, and not only is it the best Thor comic, it’s the perfect introduction to Marvel’s cosmic side.

Recommendations: Along with the Loki books I namechecked above, the defining run on Thor (though the rest of his continuing work there is also very much worth checking out) is Walter Simonson, which laid down a lot of the fundamentals of the character as he exists today; along with that and the rest of Aaron’s run, my understanding is that Lee/Kirby’s original run holds up very well. For more satisfying fight comics, I’d also suggest World War Hulk, and I hear Marvel’s early Conan comics were standouts. On the cosmic end, I know the Guardians of the Galaxy are where it’s at these days; they sprang to life in their current incarnation in the much-loved Annihilation, and while I haven’t been reading their current Gerry Duggan/Aaron Kuder run, it’s well-liked and probably a good place to drop on, as would be the recent Chip Zdarsky/Kris Anka Starlord, and I’d personally recommend Al Ewing and Adam Gorhan’s Rocket. Beyond them, Jonathan Hickman’s comics are where it’s really at, from his Fantastic Four to S.H.I.E.L.D. to Ultimates to Avengers/New Avengers to the big finale to his overarching story in Secret Wars; it’s a complicated reading order to figure out, but oh-so-worth it.

8. Iron Man: Extremis

What: Faced with the horrors of his amoral past and the questions of a future coming quicker than he can manage, Tony Stark faces his most dangerous enemy yet when experimental post-human body modification tech is let loose into the world and lands in the hands of a white supremacist terrorist cell.

Why: More than anything other than Robert Downey Jr. smirking and quipping, this story is the definitive model for the modern Iron Man, taking a C-lister most notable for dealing with alcoholism decades earlier and hanging out on the B-list team in the Avengers (at least until 2012), and redefining his personality, aesthetic, and role in the 21st century as a man who might be smart enough to save the world if he can ever pull together enough to somehow save himself from his own compromises and weaknesses. The road to this guy becoming a household name is paved here.

Recommendations: Prior to this, his biggest stories were Demon in a Bottle, showing his first reckoning with his alcohol abuse, and Denny O’Neil’s 40-issue run introducing Obadiah Stane and showing Stark’s darkest hour as he sinks completely into his illness. Post-Ellis, the big run is Matt Fraction and Salvador Larroca, which seizes both on the ideas here and the momentum granted by his Hollywood debut to cement his status as an A-lister; after that check out Kieron Gillen’s, which is not only a fun big-idea series in its own right but paves the way for Al Ewing’s spinoff Fatal Frontier, easily one of Iron Man’s best and most overlooked titles. Finally, while it was derided in its own time (that it was a spinoff of an event that turned him evil but the comic never especially explained the circumstances didn’t help), Superior Iron Man is also worth a look as a horrifying contrast to the rest of these.

9. Captain America: Man Out Of Time

What: A sickly young man who volunteered to participate in an experimental super-soldier program to serve his country in World War II, Steve Rogers became Captain America and protected the world from the Nazis with unimaginable courage and distinction, until the day he died disarming a drone plane rigged to blow aimed at America’s shores. He was honored throughout history…until the day he was found alive by the Avengers, frozen in the Atlantic and ready to emerge into the lights of the 21st century when needed most. Most people know that story. This is the story of what happened next.

Why: The search for the definitive statement on Captain America is one that’s driven his character for decades: after all, handling him doesn’t just mean talking about one man’s character, but the character of a nation. Successes are typically qualified, but one of the more successful creators in the pool is Mark Waid, who’s up to his fourth time at bat with Steve right now on the main book. His own most notable effort however is here, showing Rogers’ earliest days post-iceberg as he adjusts to living in what is to him the far-flung future, seeing the ways the nation has both surpassed his wildest dreams and fallen short of his humblest expectations, leaving him in the end to make the choice of whether this is truly the world he wants to defend.

Recommendations: As I mentioned, Waid’s had a few times up at bat with Captain America, and while he initial 90s stints might not be ideal for new readers for a number of reasons, his current run with frequent partner Chris Samnee is a solid crowdpleaser and a perfect place to jump onboard. Prior to that, worth checking out are Jim Steranko’s bizarre and transformative 3-issue run, Steve Englehart’s legendary Secret Empire (not the recent contentious Marvel event comic, to be clear), Ed Brubaker’s turn of the character towards grounded espionage, and his co-creator Jack Kirby’s bombastic, passionate 1970s tenure on the Captain. Currently, Ta-Nehisi Coates’ run is quite solid. Regarding related characters, for the Winter Soldier I’d suggest Ales Kot and Marco Rudy’s unconventional cosmic thriller Bucky Barnes: Winter Soldier; Black Widow had her own recent and excellent Mark Waid/Chris Samnee run, and I’d also recommend the one-shot Avengers Assemble 14AU by Al Ewing and Butch Guice, and issue #20 from Warren Ellis’s previously mentioned time on Secret Avengers; for Black Panther, his definitive runs are under Don McGregor and Christopher Priest, and I’d also note Jason Aaron and Jefte Palo’s Secret Invasion arc as showing T’Challa at his best.

10. Fantastic Four By Waid & Wieringo

What: Bathed in cosmic radiation on an ill-fated journey to the stars, Reed Richards, Sue and Johnny Storm, and Ben Grimm were transformed, and became the Fantastic Four, first family of an age of heroes! Now, years into their careers and with Reed and Sue’s young children in tow, they continue to explore new frontiers, whether battling a sentient equation gone mad, contending with an extradimensional roach infestation, or perhaps most perilous of all, Johnny trying to deal with getting a real job.

Why: Plenty consider the Fantastic Four one of Marvel’s most difficult groups to get right, but Waid and Wieringo nail the formula here as well as anyone ever has, just the right mix of high adventure and family dynamics to draw just about anyone in; this is as crowdpleasing as comics get and the perfect introduction to the best superhero team out there.

Recommendations: The FF’s another group where it’s worth going back to their earliest days of Lee and Kirby; while much of the writing’s aged awkwardly at best, they’re the absolute foundational comics of the entire universe and lay down concepts that are still getting use today throughout that universe. Past that initial run, John Byrne and Walter Simonson’s are among the best by reputation, as well as Jonathan Hickman’s as I discussed before (Mark Millar and Bryan Hitch’s is worth tracking down as well, especially since concepts there end up feeding directly into Hickman). For more outside-the-box material, Joe Casey and Chris Weston’s First Family is worth a look, as is Grant Morrison and Jae Lee’s 1234. And for the all-time best showing of bashful Benjamin J. Grimm, the ever-lovin’ blue-eyed Thing, find Marvel Two-In-One Annual #7 to see him defend the entire planet in a boxing match at Madison Square Garden. And while the team’s sadly off the table at the moment, Thing and the Torch are returning in Chip Zdarsky and Jim Cheung’s new volume of Marvel Two-In-One as they set out to find their missing family.

11. Mighty Avengers by Al Ewing

What: When Thanos takes to the skies as Earth’s Mightiest Heroes are off-planet, it’s a day unlike any other, as those left standing are forced to band together as the Mighty Avengers. And as the danger passes, the team remains, looking to truly work alongside those they protect rather than above them to make things better, even as forces conspire in the background to enslave them all.

Why: This title is something of a limitus test, in that it’s one where you’ll have to deal with it being constantly, infuriatingly forced to deal with crossover nonsense. It’s one of the big prices to pay for engaging with a larger universe, but the trade-off is that this is where Al Ewing gets set loose on the Marvel universe, drawing on every weird corner to pull together a run of genuine moral intent, note-perfect character work, and all-out adventure. This may be the ‘secondary’ team, but it’s as perfect as the Avengers have ever gotten.

Recommendations: The title itself is relaunched as Captain America and the Mighty Avengers, and as that ends but Ewing continues his time at Marvel, the characters and concepts end up divided among a number of titles: Contest of Champions, where a number of heroes are plucked from the timestream to duel for the power and amusement of the Grandmaster, New Avengers (later turned U.S.Avengers), where former X-Man Sunspot assembles a new team to act as a James Bond-ified international strike force, and Ultimates (later turned Ultimates2), where some of Earth’s most powerful and brilliant heroes band together to proactively defend against unimaginable cosmic threats; also try his mini-event Ultron Forever with Alan Davis sometime. Based on your response to numerous aspects of those titles, there’s a good chance you might be in the market for David Walker’s Luke Cage titles, Matt Fraction’s Defenders, and Jim Starlin’s cosmic 70s books such as Captain Marvel and Warlock (and make sure to read Nextwave at some point, Ewing actually follows up on that gonzo delight in some surprising ways here). For the ‘main’ team, aside from Hickman’s previously mentioned run - which while spectacular is pretty far afield of the usual tone - some suggestions might be Kurt Busiek and George Perez’s much-loved run, Roger Stern’s Under Siege, I have to imagine given the pedigree of the creators Earth’s Mightiest Heroes by Joe Casey and Scott Kolins, Brian Bendis’s extended ownership of the Avengers books, and The Kree-Skrull War.

12. Wolverine & The X-Men by Jason Aaron

What: Dwindled down to a few in a world that hates and fears them as much as ever, mutantkind has been split in two, with by-the-books Cyclops taking a hardline approach against oppression and feeling that the youth in the X-Men’s charge must be made ready to fight, while Wolverine has grown tired of throwing children into battle and has left to find a new way. Founding the Jean Gray School For Higher Learning, Logan’s found himself in the most unexpected role of all as a professor, fighting just has hard to keep the unimaginable high-tech academy and the hormonal super-powered student body in check as to fend off the supervillains inevitably sent their way.

Why: The X-Men aren’t exactly my forte, with a wobbly batting average at best over the years as the books devote at least as much effort to trying to juggle the continuity and soap opera demands as the actual sci-fi premise. There have been successes though, and few so geared towards new reader engagement as Wolverine & The X-Men, where Aaron strips the franchise down to the base essentials of a team living in a school for super-kids. It’s poppy, it’s weird, it’s touching, and it’s accessible. It’s the X-Men at its best.

Recommendations: The most direct predecessor to this run (aside from its actual lead-in miniseries X-Men: Schism, which is actually worth checking out) is Grant Morrison’s New X-Men, which takes the sci-fi aspects of the concept to the very limit in what I’m inclined to consider the best X-Men run, though it’s proven controversial over the years among longtime fans. The base of the team as it exists today is in Chris Clarmemont’s work, which I’m not wild about myself but has a few hits such as God Loves, Man Kills; if you’re looking for a modern update on the formula developed there, Astonishing X-Men by Joss Whedon and John Cassaday is probably your ticket (and the follow-up run by Warren Ellis is a great weird paramilitary sci-fi book for a bit). Jonathan Hickman’s relaunch is a radicaly and brilliant departure paving a new way forward; it’s perhaps best experienced after a bit of ‘traditional’ X-Men to understand the scale of the contrast, but check that out as soon as possible. For classic material, I understand the Roy Thomas/Neal Adams run was an early success, and Jeff Parker’s X-Men: First Class is by all accounts a charming look at the team’s earliest days. Jason Aaron’s work elsewhere on the X-Men proper was limited to the first 6 issues of the short-lived Amazing X-Men, but he had a very extended and successful tenure on Wolverine which would be my go-to recommendation for him; past that, Death of Wolverine actually satisfies, and All-New Wolverine starring his successor Laura Kinney was the best X-Men book on the stands for some time (writer Tom Taylor is also had a short-lived ‘proper’ X-book in X-Men: Red). As for the group’s many spin-offs, I’d suggest Rick Remender’s X-Force, Peter Milligan and Mike Allred’s X-Factor/X-Statix, and Joe Kelly and Ed McGuiness’s Spider-Man/Deadpool, which should serve as a decent introduction to the latter dude’s own oddball territory in the franchise along with the truly mad and utterly delightful You Are Deadpool.

#Marvel #Opinion

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baradorable · 3 years

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My opinions on the current anime season. I’ll go over come popular shows and try to warm you up to some hidden gems.

Attack on Titan (Season 4)

I ended up liking this show a lot more than I thought I would. I ended up binging the first three seasons in like a week. Now I’m impatiently waiting for more episodes.

I will say that I’m kind of mixed on this one, though. Like I know they want to flesh out the country of Marley, make the war less one-sided and establish how villainous Eren is later, or whatever. I preferred it when the characters were fighting the enigmatic, monstrous force of titans. The political drama was like the least interesting parts of season 3. (That, and Eren being kidnapped for the millionth time.) Regardless, I’m still liking what we have so far, and there’s only one thing that makes me hesitate.

Gabi Braun. Fucking Gabi Braun. She’s so fucking obnoxious. She’s like Eren, except without the character traits that made him interesting. We have less reason to care about her, and her story is mostly just a retread of Eren’s. And I’d tolerate that if she wasn’t such an obnoxious cunt all the damn time. “But euuhughhg Gabi is a kid and she’s brainwashed! She’s actually really well-written!” Yeah, but she’s still an annoying little shit and less sympathetic than the other Marleyans we’re focusing on. She shouldn’t be the main focus character.

“Did you see it happen?” BITCH. There’s being brainwashed and there’s being a fucking moron. And don’t give me that “Well, in real life, brainwa-” Yeah, I don’t care. She’s not real. The only thing real about her is the headache she gives me.

So she’s this unlikable kid who came in and killed a fan-favorite character. I loved Sasha. Everyone did. But I’ll live. (Unlike her.) But she just HAD to be killed by fucking Garbage Braun of all people. Honestly, if Falco killed Sasha, I’d get over it. He’s a way better character than Gabi. I could go on and on about how he works better on a fundamental level, but none of you are even reading this post in the first place. So whatever.

8/10

Beastars (Season 2)

It’s good. I don’t like it as much as season 1, but I’m enjoying it a lot. It’s not a show I actively wait for, but it’s always pleasant to see.

7.5/10

Cells at Work!! Code Black

I never saw the original Cells at Work, but this show makes me not want to. Because I don’t think it would be as good as Code Black.

For those who haven’t seen it, Cells at Work is basically about humanized cells working in a body. You follow a red blood cell as they deliver oxygen, and you encounter all sorts of issues and quirks you see in a body. From sicknesses, to infections, to even cancer, you actually learn a lot. It’s genuine edutainment.

Black is set in a body that’s incredibly unhealthy. The characters are scrambling to survive and keep a failing body going. There’s this growing sense of dread each episode as the body grows worse and worse. You get frustrated because these characters don’t deserve the Hell they go through, and you just want to shout at the human to eat healthy, quit smoking and shape up. Because you care about the cells and want them to have a better work environment.

It’s really fun and makes me feel guilty for my unhealthy habits.

7.5/10. Maybe 8/10 if these last few episodes keep up the momentum.

Dr. Stone

I really liked season 1, and I’m liking this season so far as well. I prefer the set-up and use of tech in season 1, season 2 is kind of moving too fast with tech while the story is a little slow. But despite all that, this show is still great and is on track to becoming a classic. If it weren’t for Attack on Titan, it would be Anime of the Season for me.

8/10

Jobless Reincarnation:

A 40-year-old NEET gets isekai’d into the body of a baby. You watch this child with an adult mind grow up and learn about this magical fantasy world. It’s pretty good, I like it. It has good humor, nice characters, interesting lore, and a fun magic system.

If you ever watched Isekai Cheat Magician? (Of course you didn’t. No one did.) This is what Isekai Cheat Magician wishes it could be.

I give this show a 7/10. It loses points because it made me think of Isekai Cheat Magician just now.

Ex-Arm

No words. Except four words: Go watch this show.

Oh boy. This show is. This show is a doozy. If I had to explain, I would say it’s like... shit. Because it is shit. But it’s very entertaining shit.

The story and characters are cool, but unimportant. You just can’t get into them because the animation is the highlight of the story. It just blows every other aspect of the show out of the water.

What kind of animation are we talking about? If I had to describe it, it would be the visual equivalent of that girl on Tik Tok who made a video series where she plays a Jewish girl during the Holocaust. It’s like a present you would give your eyes, if you hated them and wanted them to die.

Some characters are 2D, but the rest are 3D. And not even good 3D, because this shit is worse than those bootleg mobile games with stolen assets that don’t fit together. They had to censor kisses because they couldn’t animate lips moving, and pushing their faces together would just make their models clip. One of the characters has a wide-eyed smile all the time, no matter the situation, because there’s like no animation for her expressions. This show makes the 3D Pokemon games look like fine art.

Another thing I’d like to mention is the opening song, if only because I can’t tell if it’s good or terrible. I genuinely can’t tell if I like it ironically, or unironically. Either way, it’s perfect for this show.

So yeah, I love this show. It’s such a fucking mess in the best way. It always brings a smile to my face. I just wish the story was bad, so I can have another level of awfulness to enjoy. This show never fails to make me smile. Anime of the fucking decade right here.

HELLO, HELLO/10

Kemono Jihen

It’s kind of like Inuyasha, except without the humans, Naraku has big boobs, the Shikon Jewel/life stones aren’t that important yet, Bakugo from My Hero Academia is on the cast, everyone is a 12-year-old with bad fashion sense, and it’s a lot more generic in premise and execution.

So, nothing like Inuyasha. Honestly it’s more like My Hero Academia in terms of vibes. I still enjoy it though. My favorite character is probably the little fox girl because I like her design. But I also like the little fox boy because I’m not entirely sure what game he’s playing, but I’m into it.

6.7/10

Redo of Healer

It’s basically just rape hentai with a budget. Honestly, I appreciate the boldness of the show, if anything. (Aside from the fact that they don’t show any dick or vag. How cowardly.) The sex scenes are decent and frequent, so no complaints there. I’m not really into rape (been there, getting raped isn’t fun), but a true hentai connoisseur can still appreciate it.

Plot-wise, it’s neat. Making the main character a revenge-seeking rapist fighting even worse rapists is an interesting take. And there’s a lot of fun creativity in how he uses his powers, though I wish they explained them more. Like I get how he’s doing everything, but breaking it down would make them feel more intriguing. He’s also a broken self-insert power fantasy, but it’s nice seeing one that’s smart, evil and methodical.

In execution, it’s a pretty generic story with generic settings and plots. The lead’s carrying the whole thing, though I can’t help but like the villains for being so over-the-top evil. If nothing else, the audacity and sex scenes make this show worth watching. Pretty entertaining.

Re: The harem. Setsuna is too young and innocent for my tastes, but I like her. The white-haired girl is cool, she’s my favorite even though she hasn’t really done anything yet. Freia’s meh, but I like the idea of her being a major cunt despite the memory wipe.

I give this one five rapes out of ten. And if you like this show, I recommend reading that one Megg, Mogg & Owl comic where the characters become obsessed with rape-based puns.

Re:Zero (Season 2, second half)

I love this show. The first season was pretty good. The second half of season 2 was also pretty good, and the plot was shaping up to be great. But now we’re in the second half of season 2, and it’s meh. Which is really disappointing for such a great show.

Like, I get what they’re trying to do: they’re shaping up alliances, digging into the characters’ pasts, moving everyone forward, yadda yadda. But this arc is so slow now. It feels like we’ve seen nothing but flashbacks, characters standing around and talking, flashbacks, more talking, flashbacks. There’s so little action to break things up. The mystery and exploration from earlier episodes is gone, since we pretty much understand the important things. We’re just left waiting for the things they’ve been building up to, to finally happen.

“AEUUGHG You’re Just an action anime fanboyyy, this is serious plot and excellent story!!” It’s endless exposition, flashbacks that go on way too long, and characters standing around and repeating the same points over and over. Compare how the story was delivered in the previous season.

6/10

The Promised Neverland (Season 2)

Boy, did this show go off the rails in only a few episodes. What the fuck is even going on in this show anymore?

I ranted about this show on Twitter, but it pisses me off. Season 1 was a well-crafted, suspenseful show about these kids using their brains to unravel the mysteries around them, plan a daring escape from their captors and try to survive in a world of monsters. It was easily one of the best anime of 2019.

Season 2 skips about 80 chapters and off-screens tons of development. Like Norman fucking shows up in season 2, all fine and dandy with his own personal army of freaks. Also he lead his own escape, learned a ton of info AND found a way to auto-kill all their enemies, and we didn’t even get a flashback of any of this. Now Emma’s bitching about saving demons, even though they’re all assholes who probably wouldn’t change their ways even if they could. But she’s an iDeAlIsSTTT!!!!! But she was an idealist last season and had to learn how to compromise when faced with the reality of the situation? And the whole William Minerva plot, which was a major driving force in the last season, was handwaved away and unceremoniously dropped?

So yeah, I dropped it after episode 4 or 5. It’s not even fun to hate-watch I’d give it a 3/10 on its own, but it gets a -2/10 for ruining a great legacy.

Sk8

Free!, except they’re skating instead of swimming. It’s a well-animated show with an interesting premise: undergound gay skateboarding. The battles are fun, the characters (while cliche) are appealing, and it’s fun. And yeah.

But I dropped this one because Langa is boring as a lead. Canadians, they don’t deserve representation. He’s a fine character besides that, but he’s gotten way too much screentime over the other protag, Reki. Reki was just pushed aside and the show quickly became about Langa. Which is sad, because I feel like this show would have benefitted from making them both stars. Especially since the characters’ friendship is a key selling point.

Ended up dropping this show. I read through later comments that they’re making a plot point about Reki falling behind, but even the fans are having their doubts that he’ll have a satisfactory story. And even if they make him a real protag again, the show’s been so imbalanced that I don’t think it’ll matter. Especially since we only have like 4 episodes left.

6/10

Yashahime

The sequel to Inuyasha, staring Sesshomaru and Rin’s twins, and Inuyasha and Kagome’s daughter. Except 2/3rds of the main cast are dull, and most of the stories are blatant retreads of Inuyasha plots, starring retreads of Inuyasha characters.

Think I’m kidding? The first episode was about Mistress Three-Eyes (Mistress Centipede but with three eyes instead of two) coming to eat the character’s magic sacred jewels. Rainbow fucking pearls, what the hell is this shit plot. Fuck you.

“Euhrghhghgh but they’re just paying homage to the old show!” Nah, they’re fucking ripping it off every step of the way.

The most frustrating thing about this show is how Moroha, Inuyasha and Kagome’s daughter, is such a great character. She has great dynamics with other characters because she’s so lively. She has the best traits of her parents, while still being unique on her own. Then you have Sesshomaru’s kids, who are just Kagome 2 and Tsundere. The latter has more depth than that, but she’s not that great anyway.

Guess who’s the focal point of the series? The fucking Kagome knock-off, followed by the tsundere. Moroha is a minor character who is often forgotten by the plot, or reduced to a joke. The already-boring plots are exacerbated by them ignoring best girl to focus on

And I’m not alone on this, too. Read all the anime forums, pirating websites, and pretty much anywhere talking about this show. Moroha is the most popular character, far and away. People like her way more than the twins.

4/10

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undeadimpulsereviews · 7 years

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Dead by Daylight

Kill or be killed, it’s a dog eat dog world, fight or flight, etc. Forget all of these sayings, for in this world none of them matter. You either escape the clutches of death for one more fleeting moment, or you die by the hands of a psycho killer. There is no refugee, no safe haven, no home to go back to. This is your life now.

Dead by Daylight, a four versus one multiplayer survival horror game from developer -, pits you and your friends against a blood thirty killer looking for sacrifices. Though it’s not a fight to the death, but rather a dark game of hide and seek. Dead by Daylight was released -, but the game has been around for some time now. It was in early access for quite some time, but now it’s out in full. I first heard of the game thanks to streamers during it’s early stages; however, I never played the game myself until it was fully released much later. After playing the game I can say that it’s definitely a fun game, but not without it’s problems.

Now I put some thought into this, and my current way of reviewing games doesn’t really work for games like this. Dead by Daylight is a purely multiplayer only game; so there is a big lack in story and character development. That’s not to say it’s not there, but other than character lore and back stories, there isn’t much. So I’ll be switching things up from here on out for certain titles. We’ll start with the visuals and soundtrack of the game, and look into the gameplay and performance of the game. How does it play online? How’s the community? I will briefly speak on characters and how they play in the gameplay segment, but nothing overly in depth. This new format will be the overarching format for future multiplayer oriented games from here on out, with some minor differences depending on what the game has to offer. Also I won’t be going back to re-review games following this format; my opinion still stands on those, give or take, and I still meant everything I said. With that said; how does the game perform? It was interesting back when it was in early access, but not perfect, and the problems start at it’s visuals.

Dead by Daylight looks great, for what it’s trying to sell; dark, depressing, and above all frightening. The atmosphere presented in the game is one that really gets your blood pumping in a thriller sense. Each killer has a map that is made for them, and each map feels like their own special hell. One of my favorites, in how it looks, is Lery’s memorial institute; this map belongs to a killer known as the doctor. The design of the stage is built to look like a distorted hospital; the ceiling is missing, operating tables are through about the stage, and the best part being the center. In the center of the stage there are operating tables and chairs aligned around the center ring; the center looks like a furnace, where you can hear the screams of the doctors victims.

The other maps of the game are a little more open than Lery’s, making the level a lot harder than others.

Aside from level design, we also have the characters. The survivors are pretty standard; each one is an original character to the game, save for a couple new additions from DLC. Though what really shines is the killers; Dead by Daylight has a plethora of original killers, each with their own skills and back stories. The trapper, the wraith, the hillbilly; these are the base three among a steadily growing roster. One of my favorites to play is the hag, but in terms of design we’ll go back to the doctor.

The doctor was released in the Spark of Madness free update for the game, and at that point was the games sixth killer. Just like all the killers before him, he looks like an experiment gone wrong. The big eyes and grin being forced open by metal, or the decaying flesh that also serves to conduct electricity. Not to mention the way the doctor acts in game as well. When he shocks you all you hear is a distorted laugh escape his mouth. It’s such a scary killer, that leaves a lasting impression.

As for the games soundtrack, it’s very limited. Dead by Daylight relies more on the lack of sounds to convey it’s atmosphere, then utilizing music. When a killer gets close, your survivor will start to feel their overbearing presence and a loud heartbeat will drain out almost every sound around you.The only times in the game you might actually hear music is in the menu before a match, and when you’re being chased by the killer. Though when I looked a little deeper into this I found that the soundtrack has just above thirty different tracks on it.

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A lot of these tracks are small; so they’ll most likely loop, or meld together with other tracks. I believe this is what gives the illusion of fewer tracks in the game. Though with what the game uses, it builds upon the atmosphere really well and gives this sense of dread as you’re being hunted. Now how does the game play? The game may look beautiful, but does it feels smooth to hunt or be hunted?

Dead By Daylight didn’t have a smooth upbringing; it was popular, but due to it being in early access, it had it’s problems. Now with the game fully released a lot of these bugs have been fixed, but not fully. For example, when a survivor is grabbed by the killer, sometimes the animation of being picked up won’t match with the models. This is a small graphical bug; it doesn’t really hurt gameplay, but I thought I should still bring these up. Since leaving early access, the game is definitely cleaner in terms of the glitches and bugs previously present. Though now the problems aren’t in the performance side of things, but the gameplay and the games community.

Dead by Daylight is a four versus one survival horror game; one team of four survivors must attempt to escape from the one psycho killer. Survivors must repair generators to power doors along the border of the map. Once five generators are fully repaired, the two door can then be opened. If the killer has killed all but one, or everyone but the one has escaped, a hatch will appear somewhere on the map. Escape by any means, but do it quietly.

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As for the killer, they must hunt down the four survivors before they have a chance to power the generators. One by one, the killer must hurt the other four; then place them on hooks around the map to sacrifice to the entity. The killers score depends on how many survivors are killed; it’s considered a win if at least two are sacrificed.

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Now the game is pretty simple for both sides; each has their ups and downs. For example, survivors are presented in a third person camera; while the killer sees in first person. This is a little disorienting, and makes killer games a little more challenging. Also, starting out both sides may feel under powered, survivors especially; though give the game some time and you’ll put up a fight.

Now basically speaking the game plays really well for what it’s selling; however, due to things like the ranking system or the lack of penalties towards poor players, the game takes a hit. When you start the game you are rank twenty. The system works where, depending on your performance, you’ll “fall” in rank. What I mean is that rank one is actually the highest rank in the game, and shows you’ve been putting the work in. This is fine on paper, but it’s easier to decrease in rank than rise. So there isn’t really anything keeping beginner players from playing with seasoned vets. The developers have said they’ll re-work the ranking system, but that will take some time.

One other problem, in my mind, comes from the newest killers. Recently Dead by Daylight has added some familiar face. Michael Myers, Freddy Krueger, Leatherface; three big name killers from popular franchises have joined the ranks. They play in an interesting manner, and I don’t doubt it’s fun to play them (Don’t currently own them myself); however, I find them extremely overpowered when looking at the original killers. Now Freddy isn’t out on console as of writing this, but the other two have been big among the audience. My biggest problem with them comes from how they can completely removes things that give survivors a fighting chance. Michael can remove his fear radius, meaning he could be right on your back and yet you’ll never hear that heartbeat. Plus, when he does this for long enough, he will go into a state that allows him to instantly down any survivor. Then you have Leatherface; he’s overly fast and can easily catch the survivor. Plus he has his chainsaw, which can down someone instantly. I wouldn’t have a problem with this if it was easy to avoid like the hillbilly; however, Leatherface can just charge the chainsaw and then get a speed boost throughout. Not to mention their perks are among some of the most broken perks in the game; many people play these two so they can get these perks on every killer. I hardly ever have fun when playing against one of these two; it’s not impossible to win, but still feels weighted heavily in their favor. Though this is more of a nitpick from my opinion, the real problems are universal to all killers.

The biggest problem comes from the lack of in game penalties towards players; you may wonder what I mean by this exactly. A good majority of this thought process comes from the idea of camping. A lot of killers will camp survivors that have been hooked; they’ll sit watching them from only a couple feet away, stand directly in front of them, or sit there hitting the survivor repeatedly. Killers gain nothing from hitting hooked survivors, and by sitting in front of them it makes it harder for them to be saved. In an old build of the game when the killer sat in front of the hook, the game wouldn’t allow the survivor to be unhooked. The developer changed this, making it possible to unhooked from different angles instead of straight on; however, this doesn’t stop camping. Even if you unhook someone, they’ll most likely just be hit down and re-hooked, or the killer will just grab the second survivor and hook them. The only saving grace is a perk named borrowed time; yet if the killer follows you, which they will, you’ll just be back on the hook. This makes the game extremely aggravating; there is no fun in this, when I play the game I’d like an equal chance of escaping just like everyone. Yet this becomes really hard when you have players like this. I can understand, with how the game is, that finding someway to remedy this is hard; however, this is one of the big things that kills how I view the game. This also brings me to my next point; like many online oriented games, the community is highly toxic.

Dead by Daylight is home to many, and among them are some fairly terrible people. The campers make up a good amount of these players, but there are a variety of people. Many of the toxic players you’ll meet will more than likely play killer, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t toxic survivors as well. Dead by Daylight is a team game in the end; unlike other survival game, you need to help each other if you wish to escape, and escape fast no less. Though you’ll get survivors that just wander the perimeter, or will purposefully lead the killer in your direction to save their skin for a few seconds. You may also run into those that will blame you for their death; you may not be able to save them for many reasons, but they just have to get their two cents in. Though as I said before, the most toxic players tend to be the killers. A decent amount of killers play in a very unsportsmanlike fashion. They try to find every chance to gloat, hence the reason they’ll hit hooked survivors. One example I can give in my experience comes from leatherface players; they’ll knock you down, in whatever fashion, and instead of pick you up and hook you, they’ll have you sit there and rev their chainsaw over your body as a means to gloat. This happened a lot for me; it was never warranted, and usually I was the first to get downed. So my team was still roaming and working, meaning the killer was just wasting time and effort to be an asshole. Though why stop their; no matter what you play, you’ll always find the players that have to get the last word. You could be an amazing killer, never camp and play to the best of your ability. Yet there will be times when player just can’t take the fact that they died. They use that Call of Duty logic and call you a hacker, or say you’re trash because they couldn’t take the fact of dying. Many people will rage quit; I have quit out of games, though mainly due to campers. When you quit the killer still gets points, but not as much as they could have. The community makes this game one of the most terrible experiences; it’s a fun game, but not without it’s share of terrible people.

Overall I give Dead by Daylight a 7.5 out of 10. My reasoning behind this doesn’t stem from the idea of the community. It may be a big problem, but the developer didn’t create the community, they created the game. Now I wish they would find a way to stop camping, and take these things more seriously, but that’s not up to me. My biggest reason for only a 7.5 and not an 8 is because of two things. The poor ranking system is a small part of it; sure they’re going to re-work it, but this has been a problem for a while now. The biggest reason is because the game feels extremely limited. The game adds flair through new killers, but in a basic sense it’s the same game as it was in early access. There is no diversity among objectives; just repair generators, and escape; this starts to get a little repetitive for me. I don’t like to overly compare games, but think in the sense of Friday the 13th. In that game you can repair one of two cars, repair a boat, kill Jason, call the police, or just wait out the time. There are many ways for the survivors to win, while Dead by Daylight only has the one. It’s essentially the same idea as a game like Overwatch having only one game mode; you may like team deathmatch, but playing only team deathmatch will start to get boring. This idea mixed with the community has caused me to take long breaks from the game; I have fun at first, but leave either angry or somewhat bored.

Next review is on the manga Ajin; once that’s done I’ll try to get things back in order for November. Thanks again for sticking with me and reading my reviews. Until next time.

#dead by daylight #gaming #video game #steam #playstation #playstation 4 #ps4 #sony #microsoft #Microsoft Windows #video games #survival #survival horror #unreal engine #xbox #xbox one #behaviour interactive

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storm-driver · 7 years

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Kingdom Hearts: Why are the Remixes Good?

I see people bashing the Kingdom Hearts development team for “buying time” and “making a quick buck” with re-releasing the Kingdom Hearts games on the PlayStation 3 (and later the PlayStation 4). “They only did it because they needed to sate your hunger with mildly new stuff in each collection, only trying to buy time for Nomura’s ignorance to the final installment.”

JUST STOP. THAT’S NOT AT ALL ACCURATE.

The ORIGINAL Kingdom Hearts, made for the PlayStation 2 way back in 2002 (I was literally a babe when that game came out, can you believe that) is probably the most cherished game in the series, but... also the most annoying to play. Platforming was a little jumpy then and the way the combat rolled out was sorta messy. Nevertheless, the game proved to be fun and full of good story.

The original developers lost the assets to the game and took the collective decision to remake it from the ground-up. This let them fix a LOT of issues the game had with it’s camera work and select cutscenes, including the installation of new bosses, weapons, abilities, and an easier-to-use reaction command system, or as people call it in KH2, “PRESS TRIANGLE TO WIN.”

In addition to fixing the mechanical issues, the in-game models were updated to their HD versions, Yoko Shimomura re-composed the soundtrack for the game, and many cutscenes and textures were upgraded to match the stunning HD of the PS3.

This was only the beginning. Since 358/2 Days came out originally on the Nintendo DS, cutscenes were limited in this game. The story was told through, dare I say, poor quality in-game dialogue with hardly any voice acting to back it. This did make the characters in the game feel a little less like themselves. The HD Remaster of 358 really helps to bring back that tie. It completely scrapped the combat system used in Days, but did well to keep up it’s heart-wrenching story. While there is no gameplay, it was a touching movie that I still shed a few tears over.

Albeit, nothing much changed in Chain of Memories aside from the final boss having a remastered soundtrack, it was nice to see the cutscenes in HD. And if you’re like me, that sweet 60 fps on the PS4.

“Storm, this isn’t selling me. It still sounds like a cash-grab. ”

UNDERSTANDABLE! I honestly thought the same thing a long time ago! Allow me to inform you more on the next addition: Kingdom Hearts 2.5!

Kingdom Hearts II is, arguably, the best game in the franchise via gameplay. The combat system is much less punishing if you get hammered, and very cinematic. You thought Ars Arcanum was a cool way to finish off an enemy? Try having the scripted event be throwing the enemy INTO THE AIR and SMACKING IT IN THE CHEST SEVERAL TIMES, then having it LAND ON THE FLOOR BEHIND YOU AS YOU STRIKE A POSE.

Vertigo Toss is the coolest shit ever and I don’t know how to top it.

How do you make it better in the Remix? Anyone knows, compared to Kingdom Hearts I, this “much better” installment was very lacking in secret bosses and bonus content to do after completing the game. So that’s exactly what the developers added: extra areas to explore, more bosses to fight, new abilities to abuse, cool content to have fun with, AND A HELLISH SECRET BOSS THAT TIES INTO THE LORE.

The game also added in new cutscenes to help explain what’s going on within the Organization, as well as Roxas’ motivation behind fighting Sora, and Sora’s resolve to thank Naminé for what she’d done for him. On top of very beautiful HD graphics and a new soundtrack, the game was enjoyable for the viewer and a challenge for the player.

Birth by Sleep didn’t receive much change aside from the new graphics and a few remastered soundtracks. However, the Mirage Arena was modified for single-player use, new bosses were added, and a new Secret Episode was included in the game after finishing the Final Episode. This Secret Episode would tie into the later release of Kingdom Hearts 0.2 on the PS4.

It’s well-known to hardly affect the plot, but some of my theories say otherwise. Coded was a fun, side-game that delved into the data world of Jiminy’s Journal. While not a whole lot happened there, it was a fun game that did hint towards new releases for the future. The Remastered movie pulled a 358 and completely scrapped the gameplay part of the game. It became a 3-hour movie, mostly for viewing pleasure and not exactly designed to move the plot of the franchise. But there were a few-tear jerking cutscenes in there. It was well-worth the remake.

“Okay, but I’m not seeing the point. This still feels like a time-staller for KH3.”

Patience, my reader. We’re on our latest Remix: Kingdom Hearts 2.8 Final Chapter Prologue

yeah, i know, it’s a ridiculous name, but this is Kingdom Hearts, we all thought Goofy was dead for 2 minutes

Dream Drop Distance is infamous for being a mind-fuck to the viewer. While it has it’s flashy gameplay and interesting mechanics, the game is best known for it’s sudden exceleration in the plot with the introduction of time travel.

Yes, because things weren’t confusing enough. Plot aside, the gameplay didn’t change all that much. A few new Dream Eaters were added into the game, but aside from revamping the touch-screen commands, nothing really changed.

Here’s the real reason everyone bought 2.8: Kingdom Hearts 0.2 Birth by Sleep - A Fragmentary Passage

HAH, YOU THOUGHT THAT LAST NAME WAS RIDICULOUS.

Kingdom Hearts 0.2 was a completely new experience in the franchise. It had only been touched on in the Secret Episode of Birth by Sleep and this short game was only a fraction of what was initially planned. I look at this game to be a demo for Kingdom Hearts III, as it uses the finalized graphics, mechanics, and game engine that is to be used in the final installment, as well as having a final cutscene that connects to the beginning of KH3, as confirmed by developers.

The game should only take the average player about 2 to 3 hours to finish this game. It is VERY short, but very amusing. Featuring absolutely stunning graphics, beautifully orchestrated music, fun gameplay, and an immersive world, I find people replaying this small demo all the time. Not only for it’s fun gameplay, but also the character development and story.

Kingdom Hearts Unchained X Back Cover is an HD recreation of the cutscenes in the mobile game, Kingdom Hearts Unchained X. It’s best understood by watching and/or playing the mobile platform, as the story may not make sense without its guiding game. The remaster touches on the 5 Union Leaders and how they intend to fight the impending darkness, as well as introducing the 6th Apprentice and what his role just might be.

“I can see why that LAST one wasn’t a cash-grab, but it definitely felt like a stall... Storm, where are you going with this?”

I admit, I do believe somewhere in my heart that the Remixes were a way to keep us busy while Kingdom Hearts III was being developed. But in no way or form do I think they were meant to just earn money. Granted, they certainly did, but I doubt that was the goal that the team was going for.

Kingdom Hearts has received MANY new fans since the initial release of Kingdom Hearts on the PS2. And what with how spread out every game is onto different consoles, it’s hard to actually play them all. Tetsuya Nomura, game director and developer, stated in an interview himself that the main reason the Remixes were made was to allow Kingdom Hearts fans new and old to visit and revisit the series without having to dig up old consoles.

Kingdom Hearts 1.5+2.5 released onto the PS4, along with Kingdom Hearts 2.8 and the soon-coming Kingdom Hearts III places each and every game onto the PlayStation 4. Albeit pricey even now, every single game is accessible on a single console. Unchained X, or Union Cross, is still a phone game, but I do think they intend to recreate the story cutscenes and release them onto the PS4 in a potential DLC package.

“So... they made it easier for the fans?”

Not just easier, but they made this series mean even MORE to the fans. The recreation of 358/2 Days and Coded as movies, and the addition of new story content and gameplay material would not have been added if it wasn’t for the fans to enjoy. I don’t think I could love Roxas as much as I do if I didn’t get to see that HD Remaster of Days.

And with the release of Back Cover, it’s proof that they intend to bring Union Cross to the console players in some form or another. I can’t play Union Cross simply because I have a phone that doesn’t allow it to work properly. So being able to watch the “important” cutscenes in stunning HD feels like a privilege that I’m entirely thankful for.

And most important to me was the release of Kingdom Hearts 0.2, a practical demo for Kingdom Hearts III. It was a proof-check for the developers, so they could make sure that we knew their development was coming along just fine, so they could make sure that we LIKED what they were making and to see how they could perfect it for the grand title they’ve been working on for over 7 years. It was a reassurance that Kingdom Hearts III was on it’s way and that we would ENJOY it.

The Remixes were meant to tide us over, yes, but they were meant to make us fall in love with this game even MORE. So it would be beloved by our hearts and enjoyed by new ones. The Remixes, in all honesty, just made the Kingdom Hearts series better. I can say that as a fact.

#LONG RANT BUT IT'S A FUN ONE #Kingdom Hearts #kh #com #358/2 days #kh2 #bbs #recoded #ddd #kh0.2 #kh ux #kh back cover #my post

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