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phoenixglacier · 3 years

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Archon Quest Chapter I: Rewritten

(Part of my Genshin Impact Headcanons (things that blatantly go against canon but I’m pretending at true) series.)

Hi guys I really hated the Liyue Archon quest, but I don’t want to because Liyue really doesn’t deserve that. So I mixed it up a little to fix the main problems I had with it.

In this post:

Ningguang is the Geo Archon and Liyue’s Archon. She is “Morax”, with “Ningguang” as her modern name. Details such as Morax being of the original Seven and writing contracts with all adepti applies to Ningguang.

Zhongli is only an adeptus, not the archon, at any point. His original and official name is “Rex Lapis”, with “Zhongli” as the name that he’s using as a mortal.

Mainly, I wanted to remove Zhongli from the position of Liyue’s Archon entirely, because I his character is much more likeable that way (to me).

I’ll be marking parts that are the same as the original version with a *.

So, here’s how I would have the storyline play out in the game with my version of the Liyue Archon quest:

Traveller goes to Liyue Harbour as instructed by Venti*. They aren’t told that there’s any time limit, Morax simply governs the people directly rather than descending once a year. However, few ever get the honour of seeing Lord Morax (Ningguang), and her decrees are mainly spread by her direct underlings and the Qixing (Keqing and others).

When Traveller arrives, they set to work asking the ordinary citizens about Lord Morax and how to meet her. The citizens tell her the same spiel* about how the Qixing control Liyue. Here, the conversation/argument between the citizens is brought up about whether the Qixing should be given any credit compared to the Adepti. They eventually direct Traveller to Yujin Terrace*, because they can pray to the Adepti there.

At Yujing Terrace, there are people milling about, but they have not gathered for a specific event. They walk around and pray and act like normal NPCs.

Traveller makes wishes at the altars as per in-game and talks to some people which gives her insight on what the Liyue people tend to wish for. As she heads to the last altar, the cutscene triggers.

In the cutscene, we see the body of the Dragon Rex Lapis fall from the sky*, but the crowd isn’t originally crowded around the body, rather they move towards the body after they see it fall.

(For this part, basically Rex Lapis is declared dead*, and I’ve chosen to introduce Ganyu here arbitrarily) Ganyu appears suddenly from the sky, attracting the camera view and the attention. She jumps towards the body, and declares that this is the Mighty Adeptus Rex Lapis, and that he has been murdered. She declares that “Lady Ningguang will not forgive the culprit.”

The millelith begin securing the area accordingly, and Paimon panics*. We could have the sneaking quest again, but alternatively we could just skip straight to the next cutscene: while Traveller tries to escape, Childe grabs their hand and tells them “Come with me.”

(Childe had been in the area of Yujing Terrace earlier, but Traveller didn’t have the chance to talk to him yet because he was near the last altar, where the cutscene would trigger when they got close.)

Once they’ve escaped, the same conversation* happens where Childe tells them he’s a Fatui, Traveller prepares to fight him, Childe convinces them that they need his help, gives them the Sigil of Permission for Jueyan Karst, etc. Childe has to convince them that they’re a suspect a little more compared to the original, and amps up the blame on the Qixing*.

Traveller’s Jueyan Karst journey is the same*. However, the dialogue is a little different: the Adepti question why Ningguang sent a mortal to deliver the message to them, then they ask why she didn’t send a message at all. They are more enraged than ever over the death of Rex Lapis, whom they consider to be a friend and ally rather than the one they owe loyalty to.

After that’s done, Traveller returns and Childe introduces them to Zhongli*. It’s similar, but Zhongli explains that he has been instructed with the honour of carrying out the funeral for Rex Lapis, and as such will get to meet Lady Ningguang. If Traveller helps him out, he’ll bring them with him to meet her. Traveller agrees*. Childe is still funding*.

While the whole shopping fiasco with Zhongli could go exactly the same*, I think it’s more fun to merge Yanfei’s quest into it. Yanfei offers her services after Zhongli has trouble obtaining specific materials, and throughout the quest they can run into similar legal/scammy/bargaining scenarios. When Yanfei parts ways with us, she admits that she’s an adeptus but points out that the city needs legal advisors like her more than they need adepti*.

(Adding Yanfei’s quest here would be great because we would be introduced to Liyue’s culture of contracts early on, helping us understand Liyue better and hitting all the significant people anyway. It would also make a nice contrast with Zhongli’s cluelessness, and show the difference between adepti who are stuck in traditional ways vs adepti who were able to adapt.)

Zhongli brings Traveller to dinner, where they’re finally personally approached by Ganyu and invited to the Jade Chamber*. Zhongli says that it seems we don’t need his help after all since we’ve gotten the invitation by ourselves, but asks us to come to the funeral later anyway. Paimon assumes we won’t see Zhongli again until the funeral.

We meet Keqing on our way to the Jade Chamber*. She doesn’t ask us not to side with the Adepti exactly, but instead scold us a little for getting the Adepti involed at all. She says that “The Adepti live so far away from Liyue Harbour that they would never have known if you hadn’t told them.” Traveller also asks her how she knows that the adepti know, since we haven’t seen them since, and Keqing responds that Ningguang must trust the Qixing with this information, since they run Liyue with her.

In the Jade Chamber: (I can’t actually remember much of the dialogue from the original version...) but it should be similar-ish. The scene would probably be extra flashy to emphasise that she’s an Archon at first, then as she insists on being casual the filtering gets casual too. Ningguang tells her how much she trusts her, some of the history of Liyue (them coming together to protect Liyue during the war), and how the Adepti are angry with her about Rex Lapis’ death. She talks about the Fatui and how they’ve been trying to get a foothold here. She notes that she admires how Mondstadt has prevented them from having a hand in their running, but having a Harbringer in their city makes it difficult to push back against them. Ningguang asks Traveller what they think about Keqing, then sighs and says that she is very capable but very young. She mentions Yanfei, and explains that she is unique because she is half-adeptus and also very young. Traveller asks whether she thinks there’s no way for the rest of the Adepti to adapt to modern Liyue, and about Rex Lapis, and Ningguang skirts around those topics.

Traveller gets the information of the second Fatui base from Ningguang’s wall*. After that, actually going to the location is probably in Part 4.

When Part 4 starts, Traveller goes to the base, raids it, and finds the Sigils of Permission*. They are then caught by Childe. In the dialogue that follows, Paimon and Traveller accuse Childe of several things, including goading him that his plan of using Zhongli didn’t work. Childe laughs and reveals what we think is his whole plan: summon an Ancient God to attack all of Liyue Harbour. He says that leaving Traveller to babysit Zhongli was just to distract them, since he knew they would meddle with him otherwise. He also says that Morax, the Qixing and the Adepti are fighting each other now, and don’t have time to do anything except argue.

Traveller fights him*. The fight is pretty much the same, with him triggering his delusion and using Foul Legacy and being introduced as Tartaglia*. After he finishes fighting Traveller in Foul Legacy, he regrets it a little and says that he got carried away, but since Traveller is on the ground (conscious but) he begins the summoning for Osial.

(All of that can still take place in the Golden House with just an extra “Follow Childe” quest or by placing the Fatui base nearby and having Traveller follow a trail to there. I did think it would be cool if the base was in the Guyun Stone Forest instead, exactly where Osial was summoned. So after the summoning, Paimon yells at Traveller to teleport a distance away)

Cutscene where Traveller meets up with Ningguang, the Qixing, and the Adepti*. Paimon expresses surprise that they’re not fighting each other, they say that they’ve put aside their argument until Osial has been stopped, so on*. The fight and strategy would be almost identical, with Ningguang creating the platform and ballistas, and Traveller fighting the Fatui with the blessings of the Adepti.

This next cutscene is crucial. Instead of one of Osial’s attacks destroying the platform, one of the Fatui’s portals opens up behind Ningguang. Childe launches out from it and takes her Gnosis out of her body the same as with Venti. Ningguang’s concentration is broken and she nearly faints, which causes the whole platform to start breaking. Then Zhongli crashes in, catching Ningguang from her fall and immediately attempting to fight Childe. Childe is confused (“Zhongli-xiansheng..?”) and shocked, but Zhongli doesn’t try reasoning with him or saying anything at all, instead trying to fight him immediately. Childe is excited to engage in the fight, while Zhongli gets hurt immediately and is confused at why he’s so weak. However, the fight doesn’t last more than a few seconds, as Childe starts to run and Ningguang (weak and collapsing) tells Zhongli that they have to focus on protecting Liyue first, and the other Adepti go “This aura... Rex Lapis?”

They drop the Jade Chamber on Osial to defeat him*. Now comes the part where they explain everything that has been going on. The Adepti and the Qixing alike demand answers, the Adepti especially expressing that Zhongli has to be Rex Lapis. Ningguang explains most of it:

Some time back, Rex Lapis came to her saying that he wants to die. He’s tired from losing all of his old friends and working endlessly. “While I understand that it is the terms of my contract to serve you and Liyue, is there any way for this contract to end?”

(Zhongli notes that his experience with Yanfei showed him that contracts are much more complicated than they used to be)

Ningguang had agreed, because she thinks that Liyue is much safer than it was when she had signed those contracts with them, and if that was what Rex Lapis wished then so be it. However, she also thought it was too big of a decision to just not make use of.

The plan was that Rex Lapis would fake a very public death. After doing so (killing his original body) the rest of him would go into a human body where he will die at whatever human lifespan he made it to. This would allow Rex Lapis to live as a mortal under the name Zhongli for what to him was a very short amount of time. But because most of him was killed, he lost almost all of his power, reducing him to really just a mortal (still really strong, just weak in comparison to how he used to be as a Dragon and an Adeptus), which he unfortunately only realised the implications of when he couldn’t protect Ningguang from Childe.

The Adepti get angry and teary at Zhongli, saying that they really thought he was dead and scolding both of them for keeping it a secret. We get a few more emotional lines.

The plan was that Rex Lapis would fake a very public death. Ningguang would use this to stir up the people and sow distrust towards the Fatui, using it to drive them out. From her reports of Zhongli, she eventually guessed that Childe was planning to attack her at some point of the funeral shenanigans, which she was prepared for and planning to make use of. In short, she was hoping to get rid of the Fatui by using Rex Lapis’ death as a cover/excuse/catalyst.

But the Osial situation was beyond her expectations, and she wasn’t prepared for that. She doesn’t explain exactly what the Gnosis is to the people present, merely saying that it is important, and Keqing quips that Ningguang looks like hell right now. This launches into the Adepti vs Qixing conversation*.

The Adepti accuse Ningguang of not trusting them and trying to cut them out in favour of these mortals. The Qixing retort that the Adepti were only useful today because they needed to fight, even arguing that Cloud Retainer’s technology could only be put to use in the form of weaponry and nothing else. Madame Ping mediates the most*. Ningguang tells the Adepti that it wasn’t that she doesn’t trust them, but that she didn’t want them to have to get involved when they had already distanced themselves and were living peaceful lives in seclusion. She takes the Qixing’s side, but tries to explain to the Adepti why. The scene ends similarly to the original*. As they leave, the Adepti tell the Qixing and other humans to call them whenever Liyue needs their help.

That’s the end of the dramatic scene. At the funeral, things go pretty much the same*. Traveller hears people talking about the Fatui being the cause of everything* (Ningguang milked the Osial situation completely*). The Fatui are also blamed for Rex Lapis’ death. If the millelith still does make a speech, it would be that Lady Ningguang is cracking down on getting the Fatui out, which is met with positive reactions. Ningguang gives a speech at the funeral which honours Rex Lapis and reminds the people to work together for a new future of Liyue, but it would be less dramatic than the original.

When we talk to Zhongli, he explains some things: When he turned human, Ningguang gave him some money and a job and asked him to practice being human because she intended to give him an allowance to live on in the future. With the limited knowledge he had from never being a human before and the intense studying from a few books on funerals, Zhongli did his best. (He’d also accidentally fallen in love with a Fatui Harbringer oops). Traveller asks him what he’ll do now since he has some years left before his human body dies and he replies that he has absolutely no idea. After some thought, he mentions “I wonder whether Childe will forgive me...”

Traveller probably talks to Ganyu instead of Ningguang for the final ending (the part where they tell them about Inazuma*).

End.

Okay um so some notes about why I made Zhongli not-the-archon:

I was really frustrated that he seemed to not care about the mess he was making in Liyue at all. By making him a normal adeptus, it’s much more acceptable for him to walk away from all his duties because the responsibility doesn’t fall solely to him. Not only is Liyue not falling apart because their main Archon is still there, but he doesn’t bear the actual main responsibility at all.

Zhongli’s cluelessness when it comes to mora doesn’t make any sense if he was supposedly managing the whole country until last year. Plus, Liyue even trades with all other countries, so it’s not like he’s never had to be worried about losing money. By making this the first time he’s really experienced human society, his unbalanced knowledge and behaviour can seem more cute than incompetant. Even his rigidness towards his contracts and the details of the funeral can be explained because he’s probably also been living in seclusion like everyone else.

In the original story, Zhongli stood by while everyone else fought Osial, even though he still had his Gnosis, even though Liyue and all his Adepti’s lives were on the line. In this version, it was possible for Zhongli to interfere in the fight while still losing, because he was already a mortal. It makes him far more compelling because he actually tried to help.

The contract with Signora. We don’t know (yet) what the terms are, so for the the contract is just very annoying. It only serves to convince me that the Gnoses can’t actually be that important. Anyway, dramatic gnosis-stealing scene is what I prefer. At least we can have sympathy for the character - I can’t admire Zhongli for whatever smart decision he made because I don’t know what it is.

Overall, if you change Zhongli to a normal Adeptus, almost all of his existing dialogue reads much better without needing any changes, because the explanation is satisfactory.

Why make Ningguang Morax, then?

Ningguang is already introduced as if she is a god. People tell folktales of her, she displays complex high-level magic that we haven’t even seen Zhongli do (that platform and ballistas), she lives in a literal floating island in the sky that she built, etc. She’s also already running Liyue and doing well at it and has a strong sense of responsibility towards it. It makes sense for her to be the Archon.

Why not Keqing? First of all, Keqing’s elemental and physical abilities aren’t portrayed as particularly special (all of this is based on story bits, not the game mechanics). While she seems capable, the game doesn’t originally give her enough buildup and credit, and she’s portrayed as younger and more stubborn. But most importantly, Keqing is the key person on the Qixing side of the argument, so she needs to remain a Qixing.

Why add Yanfei’s quest in the middle:

The Liyue Archon quest went way too fast without getting us close to Liyue itself. Zhongli’s quest is meant to get us close to them, but he only brings us to people and spouts trivia. Yanfei’s quest embodies the “Contracts” aspect of Liyue so well and it would be really useful to go through that quest before we had to fight to defend Liyue.

If you compare Liyue to Mondstadt and Inazuma, you’ll see that you automatically get close to Mondstadt because it takes a long time to level in the early days of playing. Meanwhile, Inazuma requires you to complete Yoimiya’s quest (which shows the culture of “Eternity” in Inazuma) and Ayaka’s quest (which shows the people whp want to escape the “Eternity” in Inazuma, although Yoimiya’s quest is more important). Liyue doesn’t require any quests in between at all, yet players don’t neccessarily spend time there idly, so it’s hard to get to know Liyue.

Alternatively, Yanfei’s quest could just be a required quest between the parts instead of being integrated into the main Archon Quest itself.

Thanks for reading the Geo Archon Ningguang version of the Liyue Archon Quest.

#phoenixglacier’s words #phoenixglacier writes #genshin impact headcanons #genshin impact #Morax #Ningguang #Zhongli #Geo Archon Ningguang #...I think I’ll post an abridged version after this

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karla-the-elemental-dreamer · 3 years

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KH-OC Week - Catch Up: Day 3 - (3 AUG 2021)

@khoc-week

For this day, I will be covering 2 prompts: 'Loss' and 'Heartless/Nobody appearance'.

Firstly, for 'loss', I ended up having a dream, which seemed to play on the BBS scene where Eraqus was struck down (so relating to this theme; losing Eraqus; losing someone dear to you). Only in the dream, Xehanort didn't have his way, and the Land of Departure remained in existence. And then it seems like the situation was swapped, and Terra seemed to bring a 'you get what you give' experience to my end:

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Dream No. M79A - Master Eraqus' Second Chance (24 JUL 2021):

The dream started with me at the Land of Departure, outside, witnessing the cutscene after Terra (KH-BBS appearance) fighting Master Eraqus, for myself. In the same way, Terra went “What have I have done?”, as he then started crying. However, I quickly came and wrapped myself around Terra (now suddenly in KH3 appearance) from behind and closed my eyes, but it wasn’t just an ordinary hug. I seemed to be able to exercise the power to bring Eraqus back to life, that is, if I was able to say the right words (while in the void via Terra) to Eraqus to convince him to come back.

It wasn’t long before Riku (KH3 appearance) came up to me and gently said, “Terra’s grieving”, suggesting I leave Terra and go with him. For some reason, I seemed to trick Riku into thinking I was feeling slightly remorseful that I couldn’t help Terra; I kept to myself that I had already acted, and in a profound way. So for the time being, neither Terra or Riku knew what was about to unfold, and Terra continued to weep outside as Riku took me into the halls.

The dream then seemed to play from a third-person perspective for some time, as Terra walked in, but seemed surprised when he noticed Eraqus standing on the top level. Terra shouted “Master!” as he ran up to the second level to meet Eraqus. With Terra being literally gobsmacked that Eraqus was there, they went into a side area to talk. Terra asked Eraqus, “Was it Aqua?”, in which Eraqus responded with no. “Was it Ven?”, Eraqus said no again. But, realising that Terra couldn’t possibly guess anyone else…

Eraqus continued something like, “It’s someone who has a very special place in your heart. She told me to come back. In-fact I can show you what she said to me”. With Terra closing his eyes, the scene went to when I was in the black void, floating in-front of Master Eraqus as I said something like, “It wasn’t Terra’s fault, Eraqus, please forgive him. (forgotten in the middle), I hope I’ve done enough, and that you decide to come back”. As Terra opened his eyes, there was a quick sub-scene at the front of the halls, of Kairi and I standing side by side as Terra’s voice said, “There’s two princesses of light”.

The dream went back to the main scene, from my perspective again now. I was standing with Riku at the front of the halls as Terra walked out of the side area. I approached Terra, who had a look of awe on his face, as when I was right in-front of him, he wrapped me in a tight hug. The dream camera showed Riku first of all looking confused, but then the awareness of my situation seemed to hit him, and he sighed and gave a close-mouthed smile with the energy of ‘you cheeky dreamer’.

As Terra released me, my phone went off; Terra going to join where Aqua and Ventus were standing, while I went closer to Riku to answer my phone. It was my mum, and she seemed to be crying over the phone. She told me that I had to come home; that my grandma had died. I grew upset and started crying as I approached Riku and said, “we have to go home”, telling him what happened. With a look of sorrow, Riku gave a remorseful groan as he welcomed me into his arms.

After a lengthy hold, Riku released me and I thought we would now be going. But then for some reason, I didn’t know how Riku and I could get home. I looked over at Terra and said that Riku and I could use his help, in which he softly nodded and left Aqua and Ventus’ area. Terra realised what I wanted as he equipped his armour and opened some sort of portal in the room. Like in an earlier dream, Terra got me to sit in-front of him as he leaned over me, while Riku seemed to be hanging from the vehicle like he was holding onto some monkey-bars.

Landing in my house, I went to my mum who was in the front room, visibly very upset at what had happened, while Riku and Terra watched on from the side of the room. And I too ended up crying again at the inescapable feeling that my grandma was gone. After a few moments of me just standing there and sobbing, Terra slowly walked over to me and draped me in another long, tight hug, me now crying on his shoulder.

When he released me, that’s when the dream went to the next scene, but it felt like it was playing as a sub-scene. My grandma was standing in-front of the central heating unit, and was talking, seemingly how she was explaining how she was back. But it sounded weird as she was saying all these complex English sentences, and English isn’t her first language IRL. At first, I was wondering how she came back, but then an energy hit me, and I realised it was Terra. When he held me in the front room, he was returning the favour; he basically did the reciprocal of how I had brought back Master Eraqus for him. After a while of my grandma saying some weird stuff, the dream ended.

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Secondly, the 'Nobody/Heartless' prompt:

Firstly, my name as a nobody would be Xalkra; and I have my own Organisation XIII. As for appearances, I haven't really considered it much yet. Xalkra would obviously be wearing the black coat. Like Larxene, she has a bratty demeanour and can be quite devious. Xalkra is the leader of the Org, and has the title of 'The Mastermind'. I use my academic gifts and abilities for good things; she uses hers for ulterior motives.

And then in my AU, I have two side main characters, two teddies (a male and a female) called Selvian and Sierra. In adapting them to the KH AU, they are like my Donald (Selv.) and Goofy (Sier.), and we would form a KH trio in itself if the criteria required. I have an archived drawing (from my GIMP days) of the two bears as their nobody forms, Lexavnis and Serrixa. For height perspective, the bears would come up to my pelvic bones:

Today I know more about KH than I used to; and now I understand that the nobodies aren't necessarily fully evil. So if I had to revise their appearance today; I would. Lexavnis and Serrixa seem to have a heartless palette going on here.

With my previous fan-fic AU, Lexavnis and Serrixa would do Xalkra's bidding. In the story, Xalkra said that Selvian and Sierra had to race Lexavnis and Serrixa (our Org can could co-exist at the same time; so like Sora and Roxas), and the prize was the spare vessel that Selv. and Sier. had to try and win to revive/re-create Repliku, after we thought he was killed off in KH3.

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Bonus (still Heartless/Nobody) - Horace:

I do have other teddy bear OCs, but they don't feature as much as they are not the main two. They would also make up Xalkra's Org 13. There's one bear called Horace, who I have concepted to be an obese bear that doesn't know his limits, so much so that he even goes around and eats furniture (eg. why does your bed only have 3 legs?). He is quite 'dumb', he doesn't speak, just wanders around, 'rumbles' and eats things. Others have to keep him away from objects/structures, and vice-versa.

His nobody is called Raxeoch. Once again, he can't talk, he may appear 'dumb', BUT he is actually smart, otherwise how can he eat things to help Xalkra's motives? Unlike Horace, Raxeoch knows what to destroy. In the fan-fic I wrote, the start of the assault on Riku's Destiny Islands property was when Riku caught 'a teddy bear', trying to stuff a sun lounge chair into his gob. I never finished the fan-fic; I was eventually going to get Raxeoch to eat Riku's (or maybe somebody else's) keyblade.

Let me know if you ever want a drawing to be done of Horace (I currently don't have one).

Edit: Forgot to mention that teddies cannot wield keyblades.

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technomaestro · 3 years

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Top 5 Video Game Soundtracks

Ok. Let's try this *again*. I had a whole thing written up and I accidentally refreshed the page, so tumblr ate the entire thing, and I lost it.

Destiny 2 There's a reason D2 is one of my all time favorite games, and the music for it is one of those reasons. Destiny 2's sweeping orchestral soundtrack is full of songs that encapsulate that grand, epic nature of the world and conflict you find yourself in as the Guardian. From the mission tracks like 1AU/Forge Ahead , Valkyrie, and Guns Blazin which provide this cinematic backdrop as you fight for your victories, to the epic swelling of the raid bosses where the tension in their first phases is replaced with triumphant moments where the tide turns as seen in Riven of a Thousand Voices or Insurrection Prime (even the most hated boss in Destiny has a pretty baller theme with tons of brass in it as you get ready to put him in his grave one last time after fighting him multiple times throughout the raid). Locations such as the Dreaming City have tracks that manage to encapsulate the mystery and history behind each location. No matter my feelings and critiques on the gameplay or the story, the music in Destiny 2 is just an absolute gift of musical genius. Michael Salvatori (yes, that same Michael Salvatori from Halo) is one of my favorite composers for the work he's put into that series. Favorite track: Journey ft. Kronos Quartet. This is the song that plays after the deafening silence that comes from escaping the city during the initial Red War campaign, where you montage your way through an unforgiving wilderness, powerless, as the city fades into the distance behind you. You've been beaten, your home taken from you, but the music swells with hope as you follow a sign from the Traveler - and you know you'll return to reclaim your city. I highly recommend taking a peek at the mission, as you can't play it anymore, to see what I mean as to how the track absolutely enhances the experience.

Hades Supergiant games - the people behind Bastion and Transistor, two other games with amazing soundtracks - really did knock it out of the park with Hades. This game's soundtrack is a wonderful blend of classic acoustic instruments (Check it out - it's called a Bağlama) mixed with metal and electronica to create a theme that evokes not only the aesthetics of the region, but also give it a modern twist that meshes with the dark, haunting vibes of the underworld that you reside in. Each track flows so well from one into the next, mixing perfectly with each area or character you encounter. And the two musical characters you encounter - Orpheus and Eurydice - add in plenty of musical flair to the game themselves. The motifs present in the songs are called back frequently to make it a coherent, consistent soundtrack, and it remixes so incredibly well. Favorite Track: God of the Dead - the theme for the final boss of each run, this track is incredible. Not only does it reflect the theme of Zagreus in a different key, showing the link between Hades and his son, before delving into this heavy, frantic track that perfectly encapsulates having to fight

Payday 2 There are exactly two ways to play Payday 2. The first is stealth - you won't have much in the way of music as you silently slip by cops, cameras, and civilians to reach your score. The other is the way I play, where you suit up in the heaviest body armor you can get, grab two automatic shotguns, and go to town to some of the best soundtracks in the game. Payday 2 has a unique musical cue system with it's audio during loud heists, where it amps up the tracks in time with what the cops are doing. At first, before you've been detected, you have the Stealth track which is always low and very basic to not intrude. In low points, like when you first go loud and the first responders arrive on the scene, you're in a Control track. Then, as the police gear up, it switches to a higher temp Anticipation Track, and then when the police storm your position, the Assault track. So each "song" in Payday 2 is actually 4 songs in one, that the game blends seamlessly together in order to match the audio with the gameplay. It's an incredibly clever system that keeps you immersed in the tension of the heist even as Bain, your mastermind, calls out over comms with instructions. And it helps that almost all of the tracks are exceptional bangers in their own right, with amped up electronica with great percussion and bass lines alongside rebellious hard hitting metal and rock. But during those assault tracks, there's something satisfying about hearing the build, reloading your guns, then timing you leaving cover to unleash fury with the bass drop. There's a great playlist here with links to the different types of tracks if you want to take a peek yourself. Favorite Track: I Will Give You My All - one of the few tracks with built in vocals. This particular track feels like the exact kind of music I'd see in a movie, and with the build I run in game for Loud stuff at the moment which incentivizes me running face first at bulldozers and cloakers, giving it my all is *exactly* what I intend to do in that game.

Horizon Zero Dawn HZD's soundtrack is full of the same sort of sweeping orchestral stuff that made me love Destiny 2, with tracks that serve to accentuate the world around you. The only reason it's down here at 4 and not higher is because there's a somewhat lack of variety; as a singleplayer story game, most of the music you encounter tends to be in cutscenes, rather than during gameplay. That isn't a *bad* thing however, and over the hundreds, if not thousands of games I've played, reaching #4 on the list is no small feat. The actual orchestral bits pair so well with being able to cultivate this theme of a world full of grandeur, the kind of which you'd see in nature documentaries. The various tracks illicit this feeling of a long forgotten hope, which if you know anything about the plot, ties in perfectly. The music that *does* play outside of the incredible cutscenes add to the world's aesthetic so well, pairing the sort of instruments you'd find people playing in the civilizations you encounter with the environments you find them in. Even the battle music, when there is battle music, is a tense affair; the game incentivizes you to stalk your prey, as Aloy is not a frontline fighter: she's a hunter among predators, and the music matches that tone. Favorite Track: A tie between Aloy's Journey, which provides not only natural sounds mixed with the instruments of the Nora and the underpinning of techno that permeates the story (in addition to one of my favorite musical things where you have these grand sweeping vocals that aren't actually lyrics) and Your Hand of Sun And Jewels, which gives off this sort of air of walking through city streets in golden sunlight, where people dance just a block away and you can smell the fragrant spices of the local cuisine. It makes me yearn and if I listen to it on full blast I can forget that I'm stuck at home for a moment.

Pokemon Heart Gold & Soul Silver Pokemon OSTs hold a special place in my heart because as much as I loved games as a kid, getting started on things like Mappy for the NES (which, now that I write that, really shows how fuckin *old* I am), Pokemon was one of the first things that I basically turned into my personality as a child. Silver version especially was one of the ones that *truly* got me going, as in Blue version I always felt one step behind my brother but Silver was *my* game, my generation. I have extremely fond memories of that game, from the Lake of Rage to trying to beat a ghost gym with a Sentret and it taking four hours because normal types and ghost types are just... immune to each other. But when Soul Silver came out and remastered the soundtrack, it brought back this wave of nostalgia. The bit tunes I remember had been brought to life, in a way that was recognizably Pokemon. Hearing it again brought back the waves of wanting to journey and be a hero again that when the game came out, I was sorely missing. The music in the game is upbeat and chipper, befitting a near solarpunk world that I want to live in. Iconic tracks remain iconic but with a bit of cultural flair, showing that the Johto region hasn't lost touch with it's roots. While it isn't the almighty trumpeting of Gen 3, the nostalgic tracks that are already evocative of nostalgia brings a yearning back for a time when things were simpler and I could just play games. Also, the Rival theme is *rocking*. Favorite Track: Route 26 Theme. Route 26 is also known as Tohjo Falls, the place which connects Johto and Kanto together. And for me, this route represents having reached a triumph and the energy to explore what's next. It's a critique directly against the Hero's Journey's unfortunate end, that they can never go home - the hero here *can* go home, but they choose to set out again for new sights. It's full of the fact that when it plays, you're taking your steps into something new, something bold, and full of new challenges that await you. It is, by far, one of my favorite tracks and the orchestral version brings me to tears.

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olivemeister · 3 years

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OKAY NEO THOUGHTS NOW THAT I’VE BEATEN IT AND HAD TIME TO MARINATE. no spoilers for another day bc i haven’t finished it yet, but i did go “no, why shan’t i? i have the internet” and watched the secret endings on youtube so those and the secret reports will be discussed. yeah. so here’s some thoughts. i’m going to talk a lot about the more contentious things, i think. and again i haven’t finished another day so nothing to do with that, but of course major ending spoilers for the main scenario.

these are my opinions both as a writer and a media consumer, so there’s kinda two levels here. it is very freeform “as i think of it” structurally so my sincerest apologies if it’s all over the place. i am trying to keep specific topics confined rather than splattering the same plot point/whatever all through the post, but it’s not like i’m posting a peer-revied academic essay here. it’s also fucking enormous and i would say sorry but that would be a lie.

the majority of the game, i actually really enjoyed. the localization was excellent and i can’t praise it enough. i know people threw fits over the “horrible overstep” of... teenagers using slang. but did you know, in real life, teenagers use slang? even in japan, there’s slang? wild but true! the dialogue was great, and while i can’t say much re: the jp cast since i played in english, the newcomers for the english cast were spectacular. i actually think the newcomers were, in some cases, stronger than the returning cast. even in characters where i didn’t like the voice (nagi had to grow on me, i admit it), they were a fantastic match for the character’s personality.

the emotional beats re: character deaths, typically, landed the way i think the writers wanted; kanon’s death in week 3 had me devastated even though i could see it coming a mile away. i think that’s a testament to the best parts of the writing; as soon as i understood how the current game was being run, i knew it was fairly inevitable that every other team would eventually lose. odds would be that, barring something like someone changing teams or a team merger, the majority of the other teams would be completely wiped out. i knew far in advance that kanon would likely not make it to the end of the story, but it still fucked me up when it finally happened not just because i cared about kanon, but also because of how much the other characters cared about her. some character deaths affected me far less, of course. i think kanon was the epitome of “this hit exactly as hard as the writers wanted it to”, but i do feel they fell short with others. ayano’s lack of development really hurt my ability to be saddened by her death, especially when it was so clear that she set up her own possession as a trap for shoka. it undermined things for shoka in general, because while she was devastated to lose ayano, the game did a poor job at making their relationship tangible and meaningful. i felt worse (not necessarily sadder, just worse) about motoi’s death, and i didn’t like motoi. speaking of him...

the biggest issue i have with the game is a chronic square enix issue. kubo is the Man Pulling The Strings, whatever, this is fine. the problem is that he, minamimoto, motoi, and arguably susukichi are the only characters in the game with dark skin. they are all morally grey at best. i don’t think i need to elaborate on why this is an issue. we’re not going to pretend that racism and colorism don’t exist in japan. i’m just going to say that all of the dark-skinned characters are either totally evil, excessively violent, and/or morally dubious. this is my biggest qualm, but i don’t feel it needs more elaboration. yes, i know motoi turns it around in the end. yes, i know susukichi ultimately changes sides as well, and he’s ultimately portrayed as sympathetic. minamimoto is........ his own beast. but the fact remains that we don’t get a single major character who’s darker and unambiguously heroic.

second big issue is that while i understand the decision to keep shiki off camera until the very end for emotional impact, i feel like this was to the detriment of the story and to the detriment of said impact. she was mentioned, sure, and she was briefly seen from the shoulders down in a cutscene long before her introduction, but i feel that this was ultimately for the worse. her absence in the plot made her a borderline non-entity that can easily leave the audience going “why should i care about this?” on what’s supposed to be a huge emotional cathartic moment. yes, people should know this is a sequel and neku and shiki’s friendship was a crucial part of the original game, and much of the endgame of neo makes no sense if you’re unfamiliar with the original, but their interactions in the ending felt incredibly shallow. and i think this is because of how little shiki appears and how isolated she is from her other friends. eri is unseen and unmentioned. she doesn’t interact with rhyme. she hardly interacts with beat, using him as a translator at best. her other relationships are just... stagnant at best, ignored at worst, and despite having had just as vital of a role in the first game as beat did, she does nothing of import onscreen. her only narrative actions are “fix mr mew (mentioned but not seen)” and “be sad about neku”. so, functionally...

for some reason (we know why) the story decided that the only thing that was important to shiki was seeing neku. but by holding off on this reveal of her, we lost the impact that their meeting could have had. because the game refused to show her it didn’t show how much his absence was affecting her, which leaves their reunion feeling incredibly hollow. shiki was gone for upwards of 90% of the game. if not for the first game, this reunion would mean nothing; the narrative does a terrible job of reminding the audience that neku and shiki have a strong relationship and i don’t know if it’s that they expected the first game to have done the heavy lifting, or they thought that what neo gave us was good rather than “good enough”. imo this was an enormous failure and i wish we had gotten more for her both as part of the plot and as a character.

this was an issue present with rhyme as well imo, though to a lesser degree. i think they should have given up the ghost much sooner on confirming that the shadowed figure was rhyme; it was obvious by the time they showed us her silhouette, so i don’t know why the narrative held off on showing her. they didn’t have to introduce her to rindo (or give her the name splash screen) yet, but people who played the first game and are paying attention know it’s rhyme, so why bother hiding her? most of what rhyme accomplishes in this game is off-camera as well, but she has double the screen time that shiki gets.

the shiki thing is another symptom of a common squeenix problem these days, which is poorly-handled implied romantic interests. and i think that was also present with how the end of the game treated shoka. rindo and shoka as an implied romance in general did not bother me; more than a lot of squeenix protags, and perhaps primarily because of the excellent job the english cast did, i actually was unbothered by the suggestion of budding romantic feelings because it felt genuine. they actually felt like a pair of teenagers who were starting to be interested in each other, trying to play it cool and prioritize. this, and shoka’s characterization in general, is really helped by the reveal of swallow’s identity; it retroactively heightens her closeness to rindo specifically and offers enormous insight into her decision to help the team covertly. however, i think this budding implied romance was severely undermined by having other characters comment on it, especially because it felt so out of place timing-wise whenever someone commented. it was never warranted; there are times where they seem to be... not flirting, but not doing a good job of pretending there isn’t an interest. this is not when comments come. the comments come when they are having a totally normal interaction that does not suggest any non-platonic feelings whatsoever.

up until the final day, i had fairly ambivalent feelings about the idea of them as the designated hetero pairing. i felt it was a vast improvement from recent shoehorned romances in squeenix properties. the ending made things much more contentious to me, specifically how shoka is vanished by joshua. the audience should at least have the suspicion that he’s reviving her, but the circumstances surrounding it are the problem more than joshua being a deus ex machina. it’s not the first time joshua was a troll re: reviving someone, but the context of why shoka’s revival is necessary is, well... unnecessary.

they barely foreshadow the shinjuku rules re: reapers, and i will freely admit it’s not remotely ooc for shoka to hide something like that until she can’t any more. but they seem to be just a contrived excuse for shoka to be taken away... and from the framing of it, not from the player, but from rindo. which, i don’t know that i need elaborate on why i wasn’t fond of that. and i won’t lie - i know everybody beefed it in those cutscenes, including beat and neku. but when the dissonance noise grabbed shoka it gave me the exact same vibe as the demon tide grabbing kairi in kh3, and i don’t think i need to elaborate more on why that would put a bad taste in my mouth and make me fearful for shoka’s future treatment in the game. i was worried that the narrative was going to yank her away from rindo like a prize being snatched from him, and it did! while i do also think it’s ic for joshua to fuck around the way he did when reviving her, it also seems contrived and brings up a major question.

if shoka is still playing by shinjuku rules, why does shibuya’s composer have the ability to overturn her erasure? yes, i know, shinjuku is gone, but its composer is still active. surely joshua having the authority to do what he did indicates that on a cosmic bureaucracy level, shoka is a shibuya reaper. the secret reports offer a potential that joshua exploited a loophole by waiting until the second after the shinjuku rules resulted in shoka’s soul being dissolved in order to snatch it up, so perhaps the explanation is that her erasure meant she was technically no longer a shinjuku reaper and no longer beholden to its rules. but that doesn’t answer a different question that honestly bothers me more than the admittedly sorta insignificant question of whether or not joshua overstepped in reviving shoka.

shinjuku’s game has ended because shinjuku has ended; why are its rules still in play for former shinjuku reapers? i am aware that shiba is the conductor “legally” and he has made changes to shibuya’s game, but they’re careful to specify that the “ex-reapers are erased at the end of the game” rules are from shinjuku and do not apply to shibuya reapers. is she considered by the higher plane to be joshua’s underling and not hazuki’s? the secret reports confirm that the transfer of personnel from the destroyed shinjuku to shibuya was authorized by the acting conductor (uzuki) and this is standard procedure, everything was done properly. so “legally” the formerly-shinjuku reapers are shibuya reapers, right? hanekoma notes in particular that it’s a culture clash leading to the shinjuku reapers being designated as such and that they’re only nominally shinjuku reapers. why are a defunct game’s rules still active?

the biggest issue is that shoka’s threat of erasure was unnecessary from a narrative perspective, especially given how quickly it’s introduced and resolved. what was the point of putting this in the story if five minutes later the issue is just dealt with, no effort, minimal tension, by a (narratively speaking, don’t come after me joshua fans) minor character who doesn’t even appear until after the plot is resolved? i honestly wonder if it was just the writers deciding joshua needed to do something so that his appearance in the ending wasn’t just shallow fanservice for people who wanted to see the original gang. joshua’s lack of action is also presumably going to be contentious with fans; i’ve read the secret reports, and i don’t feel that they sufficiently justify why he doesn’t make any moves to protect his city despite being positioned both in his own dialogue and the secret reports as someone opposing shibuya’s purification. i will talk about this a little later re: kubo’s motivations though.

i also think it’s kind of stupid that joshua sets up “find her and you win” and then... rindo doesn’t do anything in that regard. he just bumps into her in the scramble. i know i already said i hate the idea of her being a prize to be won in a game but if they’re going to set it up, why make it pointless in that regard? it feels so unnecessary. joshua portrays shoka’s revival/return as something to be earned, and unlike the ending of twewy there’s no recognition that he was actually just fucking with them.

this is similar to my mixed feelings about kubo’s defeat. on one hand, i wanted to smash his face in personally, i have hated him the entire game. on the other hand, having him jesus beamed and rewritten out of existence without any warning or chance to resist was fucking hilarious and i actually laughed out loud. my speculation as to why he didn’t get a boss fight is that developers worried about people having trouble suspending disbelief over the party being able to defeat an angel. ultimately i think the only way this could have been done was to have it be a boss battle where your victory doesn’t matter, like the week 1 fight with susukichi, and have hazuki curbstomp kubo in the post-battle cutscenes. ultimately, i feel like this was a lesser of two evils; i don’t think the “you lose in the cutscene” approach would have necessarily been significantly better than what we got, i recognize that “the battle didn’t matter and you lose in the cutscene after” is a contentious game trope. and i would understand people struggling to accept the cast defeating a being from a higher plane without intervention from said higher plane. the only benefit would be the catharsis of getting to slap kubo around, which admittedly i kind of miss. having him as a secret boss was an option i guess but i think it would bring more questions than it was worth.

kubo’s motivation is also just bizarre; i understand that it’s given as him getting overzealous after carrying out his orders to purify shinjuku, but why? i feel like this could have easily been fixed/rationalized by “shinjuku’s surviving reapers fled to shibuya, leading kubo to consider shibuya to be an extension of shinjuku”, but that’s solely speculation. i do not know why kubo decided to also start an inversion in shibuya. they didn’t give me enough information. his conflict with joshua is inexplicable and almost entirely offscreen via the secret reports. i do not feel like i have a grasp on why the plot of the game even happened. hazuki’s involvement is iffy; i can’t say whether he initially approved of kubo’s overstep and changed his mind, or if he just took his time collecting his errant underling. the secret reports suggest the former, and hanekoma noting that the contentious nature of the previous game’s events gives a speculative explanation for why no action was taken if hazuki was actually making moves against shibuya rather than kubo being out of line. hazuki could damn well have been lying, there’s a precedent for composers being full of shit and telling bold-faced lies to protagonists, though in the previous game these lies were all eventually uncovered. this leaves me to believe that ultimately, hazuki’s statements regarding kubo acting outside of his given authority were mostly honest. but what i don’t understand is why joshua took such a hands-off approach.

yes, he says he figured the main cast had it under control and would have stepped in had things gotten worse, but this appearance and statement comes long after rindo fails and shibuya is destroyed in multiple timelines. why did he not step in in the first timeline? i can speculate, but the game and secret reports do not do a great job in explaining why the proxy vs. proxy game even happened in the first place. kubo is hazuki’s underling, which makes joshua higher in the pecking order than kubo. if hazuki was capable of exorcising kubo instantaneously, why didn’t joshua just flick him off the board like a flea before he even got started trying to cause an inversion in shibuya? in the epilogue of a new day joshua is seen in conversation with hanekoma, who’s taking shinjuku’s inversion seriously, which seems at odds with how easily his fellow composer ends the problem.

retroactively, i guess i could rationalize this as him realizing that either shinjuku’s composer must be responsible for said inversion or that potentially shinjuku’s composer has been compromised in some way. and i can rationalize him failing to immediately jesus beam kubo as well - it’s possible that, as kubo was initially acting under the orders of another composer (assuming hazuki is still technically “legally” one/at the bureaucratic level of one), joshua’s hands were somewhat tied re: what actions he could take without potential consequences. it could be that joshua would get in big trouble if he took disciplinary action against another composer’s underling, but 1. the legal transfer of personnel should mean kubo is joshua’s underling, not hazuki’s, see the shoka problem 2. hazuki’s status as a composer is questionable given that his territory is now purified and its game is defunct 3. given that kubo was acting outside of his original composer’s turf and outside of his initial orders (purify shinjuku) at this point i feel like that isn’t likely. it could be that he was trying to avoid a conflict with hazuki himself. it may be that he considered it hazuki’s responsibility to retrieve kubo, but that’s at odds with him choosing a proxy to combat kubo’s and his claims that he totally would have done something, really, he swears. they don’t give us much info at all as to why joshua entered a game with kubo in the first place. i have reason to believe that something’s fishy in the secret reports, and i would like to see the japanese text, which i’ll mention again in a few paragraphs.

i know the absence of shibuya’s composer is partially, and perhaps primarily, “there wouldn’t be a plot if joshua fixed it”. but it really feels like they just kinda tucked joshua in the corner and hoped fans wouldn’t be like “hey where is shibuya’s composer and why is no one mentioning them?” that part is probably for the same reason we don’t see shiki until the very ending, teasing the audience by holding off on revealing him until the last second, but it’s jarring to me that shiki is mentioned but neither neku, beat, nor any of the reapers (!) think “we should contact the composer”. even if just to say “we can’t contact the composer, he is unreachable”! i guess it’s to avoid people remembering how significant joshua is and thinking too hard about it, because joshua is simply too powerful of a character to be running around freely. the plot falls apart when you have a character who’s so strong and, in his own words, kind of omnipotent, who could trivialize the conflict in an instant if he took action.

i feel like they surely could have given a more explicit reason for him to not be involved in the story, even if it’s a reason like “he’s in trouble with the higher plane”. which could have easily been set up! hanekoma is clear in his reports that shibuya’s impurification is highly contentious in the higher plane; people are big mad about it, potentially people higher in the chain of command than a composer. this could have been easily utilized as an explanation for why joshua is hands-off; he’s on a shit list and needs to step carefully as a result. but it’s just not addressed. hanekoma is unreachable according to his reports, and he notes that people are trying to contact him for help. are we just to assume that people have looked for joshua to ask for help in the past but it was so long ago that it isn’t even worth mentioning now to the newcomers? according to other reports, the higher ups are pissed with joshua about his game with kitaniji and are turning a blind eye to what’s happening with kubo in shibuya as a result. but this doesn’t explain why the members of the shibuya UG never discuss the composer. hanekoma’s reports have him confused as to joshua’s lack of action as well; he knows the context of what’s going on in shibuya but doesn’t understand why joshua is staying silent.

that said! the fact that hazuki’s motive for the destruction of shinjuku is never stated does not bother me too much. he’s placed in a position very parallel to joshua in the first game, and he even says he felt like he was following in josh’s footsteps. when you add his seemingly-genuine inability to understand why people care about shibuya, i feel there’s enough evidence to... not dismiss, but nudge this aside as “He Too is a misanthropic bastard”; shinjuku’s destruction is a parallel to the intended destruction of shibuya in the first game. hazuki just carried on where joshua had a change of heart. the secret reports complicate this; it might be that someone fucked up in transcribing, but the reports i read online state that shibuya’s composer, i.e. joshua, was responsible for the destruction of shinjuku due to a game with kubo. this does not make sense given everything else, including hazuki’s own statements and later reports, so i’m setting that aside for the moment as either an uncaught mistake either in translation or transcription online (most likely) or hanekoma not knowing the actual truth until receiving the post-purification shinjuku reports. hanekoma also suggests that hazuki’s goal was also the purification of shibuya, but as he’s not shibuya’s composer this is certainly not his jurisdiction so i’m curious as to what exactly happened there.

EDIT: i’ve been informed by a helpful anon that this is not a mistranslation, the japanese secret reports do state that it was a game involving joshua that resulted in shinjuku’s inversion. with that in mind, i have figured out how to rationalize this and it solves a lot of problems: if it was a proxy game between joshua and kubo, then joshua must have been the opposition to shinjuku’s inversion. though you could argue that joshua is responsible for the end result, he didn’t destroy shinjuku; his proxy lost, probably because kubo’s had the support of shinjuku’s composer. kubo’s overconfidence in running rampant in shibuya is now explicable and he may have been trying to rub it in that joshua lost.

if hazuki was still backing kubo post-shinjuku, this could explain why hazuki felt he could make decisions about shibuya’s fate and wander around it; joshua had already overstepped onto his turf to meddle in purification, so he was returning the favor. at this point in time, i figure that joshua’s proxy was either tsugumi’s brother (shinjuku’s conductor) or coco (she’s noted to have inexplicable powers for a rank-and-file reaper, but joshua’s opposition to her killing of neku throws this into question), and if we truly had a scrapped “shinjuku’s final game” plot then joshua’s proxy could also have been neku. kubo’s proxy was presumably shiba. this actually answers a few questions that i couldn’t rationalize when i assumed joshua was uninvolved (why would shinjuku’s composer be running a game against kubo when they wanted the same thing?), so i’m gonna chalk it up as an absolute win.

i think hishima as a character was... sort of nothing. he was just there. yeah, it was kinda funny how he dressed shiba down, but i don’t know that the plot needed him. his role in the endgame could have easily been given to tsugumi without much fuss, and i feel tsugumi deserved a much bigger part in the narrative given how much she was hyped up by solo and final remix. she was so prominent and anticipated that the fans called her hype-chan for years before we had a name for her. this could also be folded into the problem with hiding shiki until the very end; it feels like we missed a whole sequence with both of these characters simply because the narrative refused to show us shiki. instead, we’re told that shiki showed up and fixed mr. mew, and somehow this freed tsugumi. i think the fact that they don’t even give a flashback of this crucial event after shiki’s proper introduction is just a questionable decision. the story tells us that tsugumi’s release from the plushie is of the utmost importance and shiba can’t be swayed without her, setting it up as a vital event, but it happens offscreen with no real interaction with the main cast. it also only happens after multiple failed loops, even though rindo’s interference is what prevents the meeting between coco and shiki to repair the plushie. i don’t understand this from a logistical standpoint; if coco isn’t pulled to escort rhyme, she must have met with shiki and released tsugumi in timely manner, but tsugumi does not appear until after you replay to get coco back to her original schedule. you could wave it off as “she didn’t get there fast enough”, but i can’t accept that as a reason given the circumstances; it’s not like she would have to look hard to find shiba. this one’s flawed writing; i know in a meta sense why she didn’t appear, it was to build tension etc etc, but in-universe it’s a plot hole.

coco being so absent from the plot is also somewhat conspicuous. i wonder what reception of her was like in japan and if that influenced her lack of presence in the story. i honestly don’t even know if she was received well by the english audience, all i know is that i did not like her at all in final remix. not from an “i don’t like the villain because they’re doing bad things” perspective, from an “i don’t find this character compelling and i think they’re annoying” perspective. also curious as to whether or not her speech patterns changed in the japanese dialogue since final remix; i found her far less jarring and obnoxious in neo and i think it’s enormously because she stopped talking verbally in internet shorthand. overall, coco’s retool was imo a change for the better, but she’s barely there for me to appreciate how much of an improvement she was. it feels like there’s an entire narrative we were set up for by a new day, yet it’s almost completely missing. the ending of a new day laid out this framework for neku and minamimoto to be forced allies in an unseen future game. i had mixed feelings about this conceptually, but the narrative setup was fairly transparent. not only does this not happen, coco’s motivation in a new day and what ultimately happened were so lacking to me.

i feel like something got lost and we were originally going to actually see and perhaps play the shinjuku game that ended in disaster instead of just getting a summation and brief flashbacks of the survivors fleeing. this kinda ties in with my complaints about how hyped tsugumi was by solo and final remix, and then she turned out to have a very small (albeit crucial, via her trailer ability) and mostly unseen role in neo’s story. retroactively we learn that rindo’s visions are from tsugumi, but this is something she does entirely off-screen. all of coco’s scheming was for nothing, because joshua was a deus ex machina and whisked neku away the second he died. this feels to me like cut content or rewrites; there’s a whole game’s worth of story that just happened off-camera and we got to hear a little bit about it. it wasn’t enough, imo. i think doing it as a midquel is still possible, but it’s a hard sell to create a video game with a downer ending and we know shinjuku’s fate is already set in stone... even though a new day ended on the tragic cliffhanger of neku’s death, it’s a little different since it’s coming as an optional postgame sequel hook after victory rather than the entire narrative you fought through ending in failure. i suppose it could be done with a Distant Epilogue now that we know shiba and most of his surviving reapers will return to rebuild shinjuku. ultimately i really think that if not for the concern about neku overshadowing the new cast, shinjuku’s purification could and should have been the prologue to neo. it would be a tough balancing act, but i do think it could have been done right and it would have done a lot for narrative tension with his absence if we had a prologue following him that ends in a cliffhanger re: shinjuku’s purification. neku’s role in the story was done decently i think re: how big said role was, but a lot of circumstances surrounding his absence, legendary status, and reappearance leave much to be desired.

frankly, i just don’t like how much they glossed over neku’s three year absence. we’re given a vague explanation of what he was doing, but it isn’t actually an explanation. definitely again feels like a plot rewrite situation; there’s this huge blank space of neku doing nothing because there used to be a story that we were going to play through and it got scrapped for whatever reason. overall i feel neku’s characterization was very odd and perhaps a little inconsistent in this game; he didn’t have much of a personality at all, which i struggle to reconcile with the original game. we don’t see how he reconciled with coco, it’s just dismissed entirely as “no we’re good now”. how are we good? why did you forgive her for playing murder games instead of just explaining shit? i know he forgave joshua for his gatekeep gaslight girlboss behavior in the first game, but we had context as to why he made that decision. also what the fuck was keeping him from coming back to shibuya, i don’t feel like that was sufficiently explained either? for someone who was so hyped up by the narrative, i was a little let down by how insignificant neku ended up being to the plot as a whole. and again, his personality seemed very watered down and neutral despite the seriousness of the situation. why was he so mellow? the circumstances of his return i did really like, because... well, we’ll talk about character relationships i guess.

i already summed up my feelings on rindo and shoka and i think i’ll leave them on the note of “unnecessary elements dampened my potential for overt enthusiasm, but overall i feel neutral-positive about the suggestion of romantic interest” which is a lot more than i can say about a lot of (semi-)official pairings. on a broader and more platonic scale? generally i have positive feelings about the new cast and their interactions; i feel like their development is more understated than neku’s in the first game, his character arc is very in your face and the neo cast is not nearly as overt, but you can see the difference in how the team interacts across the three weeks. rindo and fret’s established friendship, not to be dismissive of it, does exactly what it needs to. i mean this in a completely positive way. it’s an established friendship, they feel like friends, and they serve initially as anchors to one another in the beginning of the game as a “you’re the only person i know in this chaos” setup. this contrasts neku in the first game in an excellent way because of how it highlights their biggest character flaws, which i’ll talk about later; it’s important to rindo’s fatal flaw that he has someone to fall back and rely on in the beginning of the game in the same way that it’s crucial for neku’s development that he’s surrounded by strangers who he must learn to trust and rely on in order to survive. rindo and fret can lean on each other in the beginning of the game, and as people who have known each other for some time, are able to recognize and appreciate each others’ positive changes.

i do love the development of nagi’s friendship with fret, particularly how it’s sometimes but not always remarked on when she shelves her initial aloof attitude with him. i prefer when a narrative is more subtle on that kind of thing; pointing it out every once in a while is okay, but i don’t want it shoved down my throat via dialogue that characters are developing an emotional bond. we can see that nagi is slowly becoming more receptive to fret and less likely to dismiss or disparage him. it seems like their initial relationship is that of two people who have opposite struggles; nagi is notably closed off in the beginning, but fret immediately approaches her with an unearned and offputting level of familiarity. their slow and understated (more noticeable with nagi than fret) development towards accepting each other as friends is mutually beneficial to them even outside of the context of their personal relationship; nagi opens up a little with everyone, not just fret. placing two people with very different perspectives on how to interact with new people in close proximity helped both of them grow. i’m sure other people have different perspectives, but i do not feel like they were being teased as a pairing which i enormously appreciate, i am tired of “pair the spares” shit. (minor note: i also appreciate how while fret’s crush on kanon was very overt and strong, she was also fairly clear that she considered him a kid and his feelings were never going to be reciprocated because of that age gap. i know, the bar is low, but thank god.)

i love how, despite nagi now having been confirmed as older than beat, as soon as beat joins the narrative he takes this hard stance of “i’m the one who’s already been in this hellscape so it’s my responsibility to help the newbies”. he really embodies the big brother role so well in this game; he knows a little more about what’s going on, this isn’t his first rodeo even if it’s not exactly the same, so he considers himself to have an obligation to protect the others. he serves as sort of a physical and emotional rock for the team from the second he joins, becoming an excellent support for them both as a combatant and an older brother figure. he has experience in being both of these things, and i think beat’s writing is some of the best in the game.

despite his position as a former player who’s back in the UG, he meshes with the newbies perfectly. he doesn’t overshadow the rest of the team despite having more lived (ha) experience in the reaper’s game, he doesn’t feel like he’s on a different level from them or anything like that. he fits in while serving an important unique role that he can only fill because of his prior time in the UG. it’s completely understandable and reasonable why rindo remains the team leader despite beat’s presence. he’s had a three year gap since his last game and doesn’t even understand how he returned to the UG. he’s not a fish out of water, he knows the UG and the game. but he’s really truly gotta shake the dust off, and he’s trying to figure out what happened to him in the first place because he knows he shouldn’t be in the UG at all. he didn’t have a huge bump in intelligence since the first game, but it’s hard to dismiss him as a complete idiot. he has both large and small perceptive moments where another narrative might have chosen to keep him as the dumb muscle. in fact, his firm convictions serve an important role for the others - beat knows he didn’t die and can’t be convinced otherwise, and his confidence that he’s a living player is part of how rindo and gang realize they also aren’t dead. he’s clearly not simply a comic relief character. another story might have positioned him as more of a mentor figure, but he plays to his strengths and serves to ground the team instead. beat is honestly a highlight of this ensemble cast to me. i’m unsure as to how much of that is simply because he was one of my favorites from the first game, but i really truly love beat in this game.

shoka and neku’s late introductions to the team mean they have far less “we are now firmly allies and friends” interactions with the rest of the ensemble for unavoidable reasons. i will say that the excellent casting and localization for the english version, particularly shoka, has done a lot to mitigate that issue; yes, the plot doesn’t develop her relationships with the team as a whole as thoroughly as some of the others, but the combat interactions with her are so genuine that i found myself shocked when writing this because, well, those combat lines did so much legwork making her role in the party seem earned and cohesive. i had such a strong sense of her place in the team that just isn’t reflected in the cutscenes, and i find that very interesting but i’m unsure as to whether it’s good or bad; i think it’s incredible that the combat dialogue did such a good job fostering this air of “we are a unit” for these characters and it really is a testament to the skill of these actors, but i do wish it was more prevalent in the cutscenes itself. beat’s established relationship with neku and their relaxed nature with one another does a lot to ease neku’s entry into the group; he has an “in” with a firmly established member and a well-written dynamic with him that helps him out here.

as a nekubeat appreciator i feel very fed and i hope there’s an uptick in interest for the pairing following neo. i love how beat, who throughout the game is constantly forgetting who people from 3 years ago are (doesn’t recognize his former superior bc she’s wearing a suit now and can’t even remember her name), immediately recognizes coco despite her changing her entire aesthetic specifically because he’s so angry with her for killing neku. he’s ready to throw down the second he sees her, which gives this feeling of “he’s been waiting for this moment for 3 years”. because the narrative never addresses beat’s change in style, particularly that he wears his hair like neku now, i choose to believe it’s because the last time he saw neku was immediately after coco shot and killed him. it could be that this shit’s been haunting him ever since neku died. my city now, if you don’t talk about it in the game i make shit up. both their cutscene interactions and combat quotes do an excellent job of maintaining the sense that these two have been close friends for a long time and distance hasn’t changed that. they fall right back into old ways with one another immediately.

even outside of the context of me being a nekubeat shipper, their relationship and continued partnership (UG game context partnership) feels very genuine. neku and joshua call each other partner, but it rings hollow. i’m sure it’s partially the lack of screentime that makes it so they don’t feel like partners any more than neku and shiki do, but the game doesn’t even try to push closeness the way it does for shiki - more on that in a minute. beat is the only one of neku’s partners that seems to have retained the same strength in their bond with him despite the three years; shiki and joshua are super absent in the plot, which really undermines their relationships with neku. i’ve already talked about my problems with shiki’s lack of focus and how i feel it harms her relationship with neku, but as for neku’s relationship with joshua, i think neo has taken an interesting approach that i feel will have a mixed reception.

it actually feels like neku and joshua ended this game on worse terms than the first one even though joshua was a far more benevolent figure this time around. neku is very clear about wanting to return to the RG despite this meaning he will have no access to the UG (outside of potentially text-based communication since rhyme paved the way for RG residents to bust into the RNS and... however it was that shoka’s fanGO account worked, since she and rindo were fanGO friends long before his entry to the UG) and doesn’t show any hesitation or reluctance in stating this desire. he seems quite content with not having joshua be a part of his life, as opposed to the first game’s ending where he extends an open offer to joshua to join his friend group. i understand how this would (and will) let a lot of people down, but i actually think it’s for the best. i have no real opinion on neku’s capacity for forgiving joshua after the first game, good or bad, but i think putting distance between them in this game is the correct move.

i take this viewpoint especially given that after the first game, joshua did in fact choose this distance - neku invited him in, and he did not take the offer. it was his decision to not join neku’s group in the first game’s ending and he continued to remain separate from it in the three year gap; he may have masqueraded as a fellow player and peer in age, but joshua is not and has never been an actual peer to neku, shiki, and beat. his life experiences are so different from theirs that i would struggle to suspend disbelief that they have enough in common to maintain a close friendship. he intervened when neku was killed by coco and placed him in a safe area and gave moral support in the ending, and i think this is the most we should expect of a reforming (not reformed but in-progress) misanthrope like joshua. he’s an enigmatic figure sure and largely benevolent if inactive in this game, but he isn’t a good person and he clearly considers himself to be on a different level from neku and his peers. hanekoma notes that joshua’s somewhat reluctant to continue to remain separate from neku’s group, but i think the narrative places him both objectively and in his own mind as someone who is just... from a different world. joshua chose distance, he chose to cut contact, and this is the consequence of that decision. i think that’s a good lesson to teach; it may not be a given, but it’s natural that sometimes a friendship you ignore will fade. it doesn’t necessarily mean the time you spent didn’t matter, but you shouldn’t be shocked if a plant you don’t water wilts away.

i feel like that wasn’t the intended takeaway, that it was just questionable writing that i’m reading too deep into, but that’s how i feel about the situation.

i’m also incredibly grateful that hazuki was introduced as an age-appropriate option for joshua and i hope they’ll draw attention as a bastard boyfriends ship, both because i think it’s very funny and because i have opinions about shipping joshua with the teens. i know it’s contentious and i’m not going too deep into it, so what i’m going to say is this. the secret reports state in plain objective text that joshua downtuning his vibes aged him down and his true appearance is older. neither the narrative nor supplementary info state anything about how old josh was when he died or how long he’s been a reaper/the composer (reapers ageing is ??? as well, we don’t know if it’s not a thing or if it’s optional or what). however, it is firmly canon that he is older than 15. if that canon upsets you then that’s your problem to either work through or ignore indefinitely. suffice to say, joshua and hazuki do not have the schrodinger’s pedophile issue and i wholly support and strongly encourage that over the alternative for this reason and again because i find it funny and think they deserve each other. i hate to say hazuki is a healthy choice for joshua because i think both of them are just walking messes, but they are actual peers on the same tier of the higher plane pecking order and more importantly the disaster they could be as a couple has infinite potential.

on the girls side of things, i am still mad about eri’s absence not just because it’s a relationship shiki had that just got ignored. i know the story wants us to believe that neku and shiki have something but shiki and eri had more. i’m sorry writers you made a more compelling f/f ship by accident in the first game and i am not invested in the one you weakly suggested between neku and shiki here. if you made shiki have more of a role in neo maybe i’d feel differently, or maybe you would have screwed it up worse. we’ll never know. i think it’s a shame that they couldn’t make me care about neku and shiki as a pairing, but it is what it is.

i was briefly worried that the game would try to suggest something between kaie and rhyme because sometimes people lose their minds when a boy and girl stand next to each other, but i was quickly set at ease with that one. they felt like two people who are starting to straddle that line of acquaintance/friend in a believable way despite how little interaction between them we see, and i appreciate that. i was also briefly worried that fret would develop a crush on rhyme based on his initial reaction at being introduced to her, but again quickly dismissed. can you tell i’m a little gun shy about strangled “him boy her girl” romances in fiction these days? yeah. i’ve been let down too much recently by bad writing.

i think all of the party members could have benefited from more development with one another outside of combat lines - i would like to see more interaction between nagi and shoka, or neku and fret, etc - but that would come at the expense of the narrative’s pacing. i think it could have been done by tweaking certain details, but ultimately i can accept this as a sacrifice made in the interest of keeping the narrative from getting bloated.

i wanna talk briefly about the new main cast a little.

rindo’s ups and downs re: development are much more subtle than neku’s were, but with the secret reports in mind i feel his arc is actually pretty excellent. i think we could have done with a little less of fret pointing out rindo’s increased confidence and how he becomes more assertive, i think the audience is smart enough to notice that on their own. but i’m a huge fan of how the narrative quietly places rindo in this position of a leader who fears that responsibility, but nonetheless has to grow and accept it. hanekoma’s reports may spell it out in plain text postgame, but the narrative already told us in our own way that rindo’s development stalled when someone else entered the cast who could take over for him and this is demonstrative of a(n understandable) lack of maturity and failure to grow. neku’s fatal flaw was his rejection of others, and so he was forced by the narrative into a position where he had to learn to trust them; rindo’s is that he relies too much on them and the narrative forces him to stand on his own.

while i think this is a little muddled (he was right in some instances to not make hard solo decisions; thinking specifically of ayano, it was absolutely the right call to ease shoka into this inevitable loss rather than forcing her into the situation unilaterally) and i wish we saw more consequences of his initial waffling behavior, rindo’s indecisiveness is an actual flaw that i think a lot of people can relate to and i think it contrasts him wonderfully with neku without being heavy-handed. rindo working through it from “relying on others to make choices for him -> still valuing the input of others but not wholly dependent on them -> capable of making difficult calls without anyone else to support him” was subdued and while it had realistic hitches in the form of other characters who he could consider authority figures, it was steady and imo very good. he’s a teenager coming into his own, stepping out of this world where others in his life - motoi as an0ther, shoka as swallow, presumably his parents, teachers, etc - have made the big, scary decisions for him or guided him through them, and into a place where there aren’t these people to guide him. he’s surrounded by people who either don’t know anything more than he does, or don’t care about his best interests; he’s clashing and changing and it forces him to grasp and accept his own autonomy rather than falling back and relying on someone else to fix things when it’s too frightening or difficult.

we can talk cultural differences re: the level of autonomy and responsibility that’s right for teenagers but i’m not really interested in drawing hard lines there. this is a coming of age story; as he approaches maturity, rindo is learning how to be an adult. i think that’s a classic and important narrative concept and it’s done well here.

fret, interestingly, is imo a case where the subtlety didn’t work out. to me, there wasn’t a huge distinction between flippant “telling you what i think you want to hear” fret and “genuine” fret. his initial interactions with kanon don’t seem different from their last conversation; maybe he comes off as less initally honest in the jp version, or maybe this one was a writing fumble. maybe it’s just me, and other people don’t feel the same way! he seems to be a far more static character in a strange way; the narrative tells us that he’s developing via other characters’ dialogue, but it doesn’t seem to support that. to me it’s a failure of “show, don’t tell” - i don’t take a hard stance on “show, don’t tell” as some kind of holy rule of writing, there are plenty of situations in a narrative where telling is perfectly acceptable and i think rigid adherence to showing and not telling can result in a bloated narrative, but in this case i feel like that’s where the narrative failed. it failed to support fret’s development outside of other people telling him he’s changed. i like fret, but i feel like in this ensemble cast fret and nagi kinda serve more as nominal protagonists and are more strong supporting characters than true leads.

as for nagi, i love how, despite it being low-hanging fruit, not only are there no real digs at nagi for being a vocal fangirl of a visual novel dating sim, it actually ties perfectly into her character as someone who understands people. dating sims are about people and relationships. how people interact, the importance of conveying your feelings, the consequences of bad communication; that’s what nagi is obsessed with. and rather than this being a detriment and making her avoid others, it ends up priming her to have healthy friendships because her gaming taught her to value knowing other people. it takes her time to actually open up, but rather than the video games closing her off to others they actually set her up to be an excellent friend. elestra in general could have been a subject of enormous mockery, but instead it’s viewed in a very neutral way and is given the implication of universal appeal by fret picking it up in the epilogue. nagi’s not in the spotlight for most of the game, but the payoff of her monologue to fret about being human was immense and was one of the best bits of dialogue in the entire game to me. it’s not going to be as iconic as hanekoma’s “open up your world” and “enjoy the moment”, but i truly think it’s one of the only parts of neo’s dialogue that approaches its level.

shoka is a character that i think is better on the replay, and i say this as someone who was very fond of shoka the first time around. i thought she had a lot of personality in her mannerisms alone, and i firmly appreciate how she wasn’t a one-note tsundere character. she had some of those minor elements, but subdued and with a reasonable context - she’s hot and cold with rindo and his team because she’s supposed to be working this rigged game to erase them, but she’s already rindo’s friend in a different context and is struggling to reconcile these two parts of her life. knowing her motivation as swallow gives so much retroactive depth to her actions; she was circumventing the game itself not just because she was exhausted by it or unease with shiba like some of the other turncoat reapers, but because rindo was her friend from before the story even began.

i will say that i didn’t actually fully call swallow being shoka simply because at first i had the impression that it would be rhyme (before rhyme’s role in the story became clearer), and admittedly by the time the climax hit the mystery of who swallow was had kind of dropped out of my mind completely, but i think it does a lot to develop shoka. whether this development being retroactive is strictly good or bad as an issue is subjective; neo is a game that has a built-in chapter select, so replaying the game and rewatching the cutscenes with the full narrative context is incredibly easy. however, for a lot of players, if you’re replaying the game it’s with a specific goal of getting something you missed earlier in-game, so you’re rushing through those cutscenes trying to get to that completionist bit. i think a line could have been walked re: giving more of a hint that shoka was swallow before the very end without fully giving it away, but i definitely think the rewatch value is more subjective and based on how you specifically play the game. if you’re here looking to watch all the cutscenes again now that you know everything, shoka being swallow is a huge treat regarding changing the context of her behavior - if you’re fast-forwarding trying to find a pig, it’s totally wasted.

i would have liked to see more of shoka’s backstory and interaction with the other shinjuku reapers for sure, and i wonder if this is another thing along the lines of “we were supposed to see more of shinjuku’s final game than we did”; if we’d gotten more of shinjuku, we certainly would have seen more of its reapers. i talked briefly about how i feel like ayano’s death didn’t hit the way i think it was intended to, but if the game had let us see more of her as a shinjuku reaper i feel like the entire plot would have benefited. it would have benefited shiba as well honestly; they tried to have him as a repentant “now i shall fix what i destroyed” character at the very end, but i don’t feel like they did a good enough job portraying that he had changed and he was brainwashed so it fell flat. if we’d seen more of shiba as the compassionate leader who deserved the loyalty of his reapers that they say he was, the contrast would have done a lot to help define the tragedy of his backstory. overall i think this is another “we lost a chunk of the plot in rewrites or something” issue, which i admit is not based in anything like interviews. it’s just my speculation because it feels like something that was supposed to be here got left behind - i can’t say if i’m right, or why it happened if so. it just feels to me like the shinjuku reapers besides shoka went fairly undeveloped not because of writing/lack of screentime alone but because we lost big pieces of shinjuku content entirely. it’s insane that we only learn in the secret reports how tsugumi became trapped in the mr. mew plush to begin with; to me, this screams “we had to cut something”, and the more i think about it the more convinced i am that we were originally meant to see more of shinjuku’s inversion. hell, the secret reports just flippantly inform us that tsugumi’s brother was shinjuku’s conductor and he’s why she survived - but he goes unnamed and unseen, mentioned only in a piece of postgame content that many players may never unlock.

shinjuku’s final game is just left as this incredible story that was never told, with a cast who we barely see. again, it doesn’t bother me that they never explained to us why hazuki purified shinjuku. but i do wish we could have connected with its reapers to see how they reacted to its impending fate; who was on kubo’s side, who was trying to protect shinjuku? who knew what was happening, and who was just swept up in the chaos? how did the purification affect them emotionally after their escape to shibuya? just from the secret reports we see that tsugumi’s brother is this tragic hero of another story, the conductor opposing the executor and fighting to save his city before ultimately sacrificing himself to keep his sister alive. this is enough content that it could have easily been a standalone, but it wasn’t. i think that’s a damn shame. i’m sure there are people who are already chomping at the bit to write about shinjuku’s tragic final game and it’ll make a stunning fanfic in the right hands, but this is a big gap for fanfiction authors to be filling in.

this was mostly a narrative thoughts dump, but i wanna say just a couple of things about the combat: overall i liked it! i was significantly overleveled for the vast majority of the game partially because i was having fun with the combat, i feel gameplay was very intrinsically motivating. because of how the food system worked, being overleveled didn’t mean too much since it only affects HP, but i also was eating constantly so i was in fact just OP for much of the game. so i suppose, take my gameplay commentary with a grain of salt because i was busted quickly. if i hadn’t been such a powerhouse from early on, i expect my gameplay experience would have been much different.

my biggest complaint: there were some significant issues in enemy design related to battles being timed and the timer having consequences. some enemies were a reasonable/intuitive pain, say, elephants being bullet sponges and chameleons having an invisibility mechanic. these things made them challenging, but in a sensible way. like, of course a big honkin’ elephant has a ton of HP. i think that chameleons in particular could have been tweaked; you have to be very close to them when they’re invisible in order to lock on, and i think this could distance could have been extended a bit to minimize frustration. likewise, it felt like party members that get grabbed by a t.rex were trapped for ages; i feel this could have been tweaked as well. i know a lot of people had issues with wolves for this same reason, but their comparative frailty and my pin choices meant that i quickly overcame wolves and they became a minor nuisance at best until endgame introduced a beefier wolf. even then, i found t.rex noise to be much more of an issue because of their sturdier nature and higher damage output. these are minor gripes; i didn’t like seeing these enemies, but i didn’t hate seeing them. no, here’s what i hate: rhinos and pufferfish.

to me, these are the most annoying enemies in the entire game outside of maybe a handful of bosses. i feel they were poorly thought out in general. the tendency for rhinos to put themselves against the arena walls and the delay on pufferfish exploding after their HP hits zero do not mesh well with that battle timer. i find myself very frustrated by these enemies because it feels like i’m being punished not for a lack of skill or bad decisions choosing weak pins, but simply bad luck. very few pins can circumvent the rhino’s front guard and the hitbox for their guard feels enormous, so i can’t imagine i’m the only player having difficulty herding them out of corners to actually damage them or get beat drops. there’s a postgame dive with a big noise rhino, and it was my worst experience with the entire game because it just kept backing into a corner. i quit that dive multiple times because of how much time i wasted with the rhino; i changed my pins like crazy trying to take advantage of elemental weaknesses or use pins that could circumvent the guard. but it wasn’t about what pins i was using, it was just bad luck with hitboxes. when i finally got the gold rank on that dive it wasn’t that i did anything significantly different, the rhino just didn’t park its ass in the corner that time.

as far as i know, and i hope i’m missing something that someone can enlighten me on, there is no way to prevent pufferfish from inflating and exploding outside of a killer remix. i have not discovered any way to make them explode faster. the amount of time it takes for them to blow up seems to vary not by species but by individual, i’m not sure if it’s being triggered by proximity to a party member or what but i know sometimes one of those little shits will inflate and chase me across the entire arena before finally exploding. in a chain battle, that wasted time adds up. the pufferfish issue could have been severely mitigated, if not entirely fixed, if the gap between HP hitting zero and explosion was just the time it took for them to inflate. that would have basically eliminated my needless frustration with them. but instead i just... don’t know how to make them pop faster.

in normal combat, your post-battle score is primarily just bragging rights/making yourself feel good to have gotten a good grade. but when it comes to dives, where the timer directly decides how many of the finite friendship points you get, the appearance of a rhino or pufferfish specifically is something i approached with dread and disappointment. i already mentioned the postgame dive giant rhino specifically being a nightmare, but this was a reoccurring element for me through the entire game with just normal rhinos. i know rhinos are a returning enemy and kept their front-guard schtick, but the shift to a 3D environment has made them a much more (imo needlessly) difficult opponent.

regarding the pin system itself, i was enormously disappointed to learn how the multi-pin input worked. it turns out that you can only have multiple pins using a single input no matter how many multi-pin wields you unlock; gone were my dreams of having 2 Y-input pins and two ZL input pins (i played on switch). the inability to multi-pin wield uber pins regardless of how many uber slots you have filled is also a huge bummer. i feel like in the postgame i should be able to be an absolute god of destruction, but this didn’t pan out.

this seems to be a switch issue, but autosave was the MVP of the game because i had a few cutscenes crash or freeze (the one with kubo’s reveal seems to be a common source of a crash on the switch version as it fails to load the 3D cutscene); this was annoying and needs fixing, but it was slightly mitigated by autosave kicking in immediately after boss battles. i was crushed thinking i was gonna have to go through the shiba fight again after kubo crashed my game, so the relief i felt upon loading up again and going right into the cutscene was immense. don’t get me wrong: cutscene freezes and particularly crashes are a big problem that a game like this shouldn’t have launched with, but at the very least i didn’t lose my progress on that crash. related, i appreciate the ability to speed through cutscenes you’ve already seen, but i do wish we had the option to skip them entirely because that would have saved me from the freezes that i had to manually close the game and lose progress for.

a more minor complaint that i admittedly am unsure as to how to fix (maybe utilizing the d-pad instead of having it be camera/target select alongside the right stick?) is that i do not seem to have much control over which character my camera centers on in combat. typically selecting the pin that’s equipped to them will focus the camera to them, but every once in a while i’ll be locked to someone whose pin is rebooting while my other party members are actively attacking on the complete opposite end of the arena. i have no idea why this happens. if i’m missing something please let me know. the static nature of the overworld camera took some adjusting to, at first i was offput but i got used to it quickly. if camera was fixed position in combat it would have been a nightmare, but it being fixed in the overworld isn’t the same beast.

this has gotten obscenely long, so props and condolences to everyone who has made it this far. i wanna end on a high note because i want to reiterate something: i have so many criticisms here and that’s actually praise. i enjoyed so much of this game that i’m critical of where it fell short specifically because it’s such a strong contrast to how much i felt it did right. the main story was pretty strong in general, though some character interactions were lacking. the plot itself i didn’t talk a lot about because i thought it was good. there wasn’t much to say, they did a good job! the dissonance noise being created from deleted timelines was great, i loved that. i don’t feel like predictability makes a narrative bad, so it’s not like i was upset when it turned out replay was (gasp) part of a dastardly scheme. for me, foreshadowing is an excellent thing even if sometimes i wish it was handled a little differently.

i vastly prefer this game’s vague sequel hook with minamimoto over how final remix ended a new day; that sequel hook i hated and it had me so worried about neo. thankfully a lot of my fears didn’t come true, and i am very happy overall with the game we got. if another game is greenlit, i would hope it progresses with a mostly new cast; as long as we stay in shibuya some supporting characters can and should be staples imo, like kariya and uzuki, and i hope to see more of what’s being set up with minamimoto even if not necessarily with him as a protagonist. but overall i think twewy’s worldbuilding lends itself much more to a rotating cast if it develops into a full franchise; that’s just the nature of the UG, and i would like to see further installments taking advantage of that and allowing characters to have a complete arc and then retire from the narrative naturally.

i’ve got some pigs to erase and some bosses to slap the pins out of, which i’m sure will take me some time. another day certainly has a secret boss and/or time trial boss rush, so i’ll take a look at that sucker soon as well. i’m looking forward to continuing my playthrough, and i expect to sink quite a few more hours into this game. i really truly enjoyed neo despite my qualms, and i’m leaving the main storyline behind for postgame stuff with almost entirely positive feelings and a hopeful stance on the potential future of the series. i know this was a long-ass post, which is why it’s beneath a readmore, but to anyone who cared enough about my thoughts to keep reading the whole thing... thanks for the time you spent, hope you got something positive out of it!

#neo twewy #neo twewy spoilers #this turned into a behemoth. im so sorry #I CHECKED AND IT'S OVER 11K WORDS #I'M SO FUCKING SORRY

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nautilusopus · 4 years

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Why do you hate the remake? The ending?

AMONG MANY MANY MANY MANY MANY MANY OTHER THINGS

AHEM:

the ending

the way everyone’s character is botched

this goes triple for poor cloud and tifa because they literally aren’t allowed to have either meaningful character interactions or character development because they CAN’T because this is the first five hours of the game stretched into 40 hours so we can’t get into nibelheim yet because we have to “save” it

the fact that this is the first five hours stretched into 40 hours and thus is largely padding

the handling of sector 7, where we go from watching actual people we care about die to seeing literally zero people die at all and also we evacuated the slums so it’s cool

especially egregious considering the game made us do so many stupid sidequests in the (way too clean and sunny) slums to get attached to these npcs only to kill literally zero of them

they still kill barret though so they don’t have to have him fight jenova with everyone else because he’s not a REAL character, let’s get him out of the serious moments. except they can’t kill barret so he’s back immediately due to time bullshit, great

on a related note, the complete and utter lack of any real stakes

the way aeris has fucking future knowledge

the way the vii universe, due to the addition of Fate, now has the judas problem. if the planet can literally fucking control fate why didn’t it just keep jenova from landing? why didn’t it keep shinra from becoming a thing? the only answer is that jenova and shinra are intended to do the things they do and thus are actually under the planet’s control and are not accountable for their actions

the fact that this is sephiroth’s motivation now or something, instead of the actual personality he used to have where he acted as a foil to cloud with his inability to accept unpleasant truths about himself and instead creating a grand narrative for himself where he has not been victimised by unfair and unglamorous circumstances and responded to this by making bad choices

the fact that fate is now a concept in this game at all and how completely and utterly fucking insulting that is and how much of a disservice it is to everything the original stood for on a fundamental level. a game that was literally about how there is no inherent meaning in some grand scheme, and that on a cosmic scale we are insignificant and the planet doesn’t give two shits if we live or die, so therefore we must create our own meaning, small and irrelevant to vast forces like the inevitability of pain and death as they are, and that the meaning we create with other small and insignificant human beings is nonetheless something with value, and that in fact it is harmful to try and pretend there is some vast cosmic significance to your actions and that there doesn’t have to be because your life having value to you is enough, especially in the face of something as absurd as the inevitability of death and pain, now has fucking fate in it. actually, cloud DOES matter on a vast cosmic scale! everyone’s deaths do! and in fact those deaths are unnatural and you’re going to prevent them! hooray!

this is yet another narrative, following in the footsteps of harry potter and the new star wars trilogy, that pretends to be about a nobody going on to defy odds anyway only to turn around and say actually lol no they were special the whole time.

cloud’s handling in general even outside of that. aforementioned lack of development aside, he’s simultaneously way too chilly and way too casual with everyone, with the most meaningful interactions he gets to have being shallow fucking flirting with tifa and him walking around making put upon faces with aeris

the fandom thirst over literal sex traffickers

the fact that this was marketed as a remake when it is AT BEST a series reboot that relies on you having played the og to understand what the fuck is going on half the time

* the utter lack of reading comprehension among the fans that still somehow think they’re going to get other “iconic og moments” remade. did you fuckers miss the ending somehow? about how we’re doing none of that actually? about how they’re going to Defy Fate? you aren’t getting those moments. period. the entire fucking game and ending is literally about that. about how we’re going to Prevent All The Bad Things

the fact that the above was done because they clearly started out trying to actually remake the gam, realised they bit off more than they could chew, and then went LOL NO PROMISES at the last minute with some kingdom hearts bullshit that would let them wiggle out of any long term plot commitments at any time (and also shoehorn zack in because of fucking course he’s here too)

pacing pacing pacing. aside from the atrocious padding problems, you’ve also got sephiroth showing up and mugging the camera every three minutes, because he has to, because this is the first five hours of the game so they need to cram him in there anyway regardless of what it does to the story or no one will buy their stupid game. also they drop the “cloud was never in soldier lol” WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY too fucking early, jesus christ. good to know any kind of subtlety is just out the fucking window entirely now

what they did to poor sephiroth, easily the worst handled character in this whole mess. sephiroth sweetie i’m so sorry holy shit

whatever the fuck they were doing with cait sith

taking a big old fucking dump on any themes and meaning the original had in general which i won’t get into too much because it would take forever but you can read more about that here

how they handled shinra and avalanche, or rather how they didn’t handle it and made everything as black and white as possible

jessie’s thirst is extremely annoying and i’m over it

the fact that the fanbase keeps trying to simultaneously go “no it’s only the first chapter of course there’s no explanations” in response to pacing criticisms while also trying to go “no no they had to make it feel like a full game” in response to massive fucking story changes that only served to bloat the pacing

because they can’t bring up nibelheim yet, in this forty hour game (but still have time to go Zack Is Alive Now Also There Is Fate) tifa has no motivation or personality or connection to cloud and barret to speak of. also where the fuck is her anger, holy shit. she regrets joining avalanche? she isn’t

the fact that the fanbase is not only fine with all these changes, changes which again are being made directly in the name of profit to the detriment of good storytelling, but also are even pushing this as the “intended, fleshed out” version of the story they always wanted to tell but couldn’t

bad soundtrack, fight me

midgar and especially the slums look boring

the turks are good now uwu

no Trail of Blood sequence. again, pacing issues. this was meant to be your introduction to sephiroth to set the tone and establish how dangerous he was and how he was the REAL bad guy, but because we’ve seen him every three seconds at this point the whole sequence got cut and it was one of the best sequences there was

the fact that the interviews repeatedly indicate to me that they don’t seem to understand that not every goddamn irrelevant detail needs an explanation (a problem they seem to have carried over from crisis core so that’s great) but that they don’t seem to care about things that DO need explanations and that zero genuine thought was put into the worldbuilding

the way barret’s treated as a joke by the narrative when he’s literally fucking correct

the obsession with Realism (TM) to the point where it creates more tone problems than it solves at times (cloud can fucking fly in cutscenes but can’t hop over a two foot fence)

LET CLOUD BE A DOOFUS YOU COWARDS

about the only character that made it out with their personality intact was aeris and even she’s gone and had her motivations scuttled so it doesn’t matter, yaaaaaaaaay

i can’t fucking believe the remake has made me AVOID fics with jessie biggs and wedge in them. before it was a marker of quality. look what you’ve done.

cloud has an apartment now instead of living with avalanche in the basement. this is also done in the name of Realism but also kind of sucks away the charm imo and makes it that much harder to buy any of these assholes as found family

the timeline of all of this no longer taking place over like three weeks is once again a result of pacing issues. i’m sure this won’t bite us in the ass at all.

god remember when we thought roche was gonna be the worst addition? simpler times

also roche

and yeah the whole ass ending, complete with homage to the ending of ffvii period with the weird doctor who brain tunnel that makes no fucking sense to be here and is only gonna confuse people who don’t know this is supposed to be a callback, and even if it was why is it here, you can’t just fucking copy/paste Famous Moments with none of the emotional beats or writing to back them up or lead into them, context MATTERS did you fuckers learn nothing from the travesty of hollow writing that was ffxv and especially prompto?

the fact that people are looking at this fucking travesty and just assuming the og is like this too and not bothering to play it either because they loved the remake (for some reason???) or because they hated it and now wouldn’t play the og if their life depended on it, which breaks my heart most of all. “the original is still there!!!” is a meaningless overture if people refuse to engage critically with it on any level at all, which as we’ve outlined is absolutely what is happening. this is what people meant when we said the remake would erase the og, and on multiple levels, whether it’s people assuming the og was always meant to be like this, or seeing no reason to play it, or once again failing to recognise what the remake very loudly screams in your face it’s doing and assuming that of course we’re getting a vii remake with all those moments we care about, this is what has been happening.

i can’t even fucking imagine what the northern crater scene is gonna look like now, IF we get one at all. and that’s a big fucking if

i know i’ve missed a lot of them but i hope this helps

#asks #man fuck the remake #Anonymous

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moodysnowflake · 4 years

Text

Hello there!

Warning guys, nasty SPOILERS ahead, both of FFVII (+ Remake) and FFVII Crisis Core.

The severity of spoilers is arguable, it depends on the level of involvement you have or you got in the series, so please be aware that what you're stepping onto might be a wildflower lawn as much as a war minefield.

I saw, read and heard a lot of people complaining about Cloud's dancing scene/minigame, grumbling about how:

1. Stupid it was;

2. Degrading it has been;

3. Zack would have been disappointed.

Let's take it in strides, shall we?

1. Stupid? I'd rather say silly, more than stupid. Stupid means doing something that you've no idea how/why you're doing. FFVII never made that a mystery: there was a goofy vibe in the original too, and that was on purpose. You couldn't handle the story otherwise, it would just have been a mess of violence, death, tears and blood. Light moods are needed for you to recuperate, recharge batteries and balance. Otherwise, we all would've ended up like Sephiroth.

Character perspective wise, Cloud might not have understood from the beginning (as much as I love him to the bottom of my essence, he's not the sharpest knife in the drawer - that's also why Sephiroth can do what the fluff he wants) what the hell Aerith roped him into, but when he gets the idea he accepts it (in his very Cloud way) and faces it with one of the most determined look he has ever sported. He's willing to let himself be dragged on and about the stage by Andrea, because he knows this is for Tifa, so it doesn't matter if he has to shake is ass in front of a bunch of strangers. He never really cared about his reputation since Crisis Core; he doesn't care about what people think, he's doing it for the woman he loves (shut your trap, he loves her as much as she loves him, he just needs time to untangle himself from his nightmares - and someone smacking him on the head really hard).

Secondly, player perspective wise, is it really such a stupid section? How many did manage to get a perfect score on the very first try? Camera speed, moves and angles pulled some interesting stunts, didn't they? Tricking your depth perception, together with the lights going bananas. Even if they weren't; everything has been coordinated and perfectly synced with the music. If you'd refrained for two seconds from blabbering insults you would have noticed that you could've actually used lights as another cue to help you sync, with the music and Cloud's movements. It's called peripheral vision, you need to expand your focus as much as you can and split it both on the background and the forefront. That gives your brain the capacity to better throw information at you so you can react faster, 'cause you're actively trying to remain perceptive of your surroundings too. Just like in battles.

If that shooting dynamic would have been present during battle, nobody would have survived, not even a doomrat.

2. Talking about degrading. Did Cloud strip naked? Did he have to put on a honeybee outfit? As much as he was very uncomfortable, Andrea (a.k.a. the game) pushed him only up to the limit that still felt secure enough and over which it could have been really perceived as abusive. Andrea could have done that and Cloud would still have obliged (because Tifa) but his objective was not humiliating him. He wanted to play with the dangerous SOLDIER, over which he, paradoxically, even for a tiny bit, had the power and control. Still, he didn't overdo nor overuse it (that is some good representation of a BDSM Dom, btw).

Moreover... I mean... Did you really look at him? Those were not exactly noobs moves, he nailed that too (but that's something I'll talk about next).

About the dresses: are you seriously complaining about them? I admit that the black/white one is not exactly the best (but it's your fault for ditching all Wall Market's quest... you had it coming), and I prefer the blue corset one over the lilac/black silk.

Point is: you have to sneak a guy who's built like a fucking BRICK WALL into Corneo's audition. How in the ever-loving hell are you supposed to do it? The only things playing in Cloud's favor are his facial features and his height: he's the smoothest skin I've ever seen, light jaws and is compact enough not to stand out too much among average-height girls, but that's it. He has shoulders and muscles for days. You have to cover him as much as you can, and how would you do that, if not with a broad gown, puff-sleeves, and a corset? If you're wondering about the chocker/high neck+thick necklace: it covers the Adam's apple, genius... And all the frilly, shiny laces of the lilac dress and the extensions are needed to divert the attention from his neck, clavicles and forearms, otherwise, you'll notice the buff.

That's why he had to look like a Victorian maiden.

Putting him in a catsuit, with latex or leather stretching over every inch of skin, or a sundress, with arms and legs on display... That would have been a bad idea.

Andrea is talking about not being afraid, and that's an awesome message: if you feel comfortable and beautiful, why not doing it? If you're happy, do it. It's not your problem if other people are insecure about themselves and try to pick on you because they're afraid and, most of all, jealous of your confidence, identity, and fortitude. They're just disrespectful and sad, and you should avoid them like the plague.

And again, Cloud doesn't seem that much fazed about it. I think he's more annoyed than anything; having to move in that huge-ass skirt, squeezed in a corset which is not letting you breathe and turn around would make everyone who's not used to it lose their shit. Women or men, regardless, it's a pain either way, especially if you're a fighter and need to move freely. Also, if you notice, the heels he's put in are not that much higher than his combat boots... Sure, they're thinner, but that's why he's not wobbling like a newborn calf. Did you see him swaying through the streets? That was some awesome heel-walking.

What ended me was how he was moving after he woke up. Have you seen how completely ungraceful he is, and at the same time fluidly stands to check on Aerith and doesn't trip over his own feet? In a dress like that, being that agile is shamefully amazing. Then, he swings like he's in the SOLDIER uniform, spine blocked because of the corset, moving his center of gravity too much because of too broad steps, awkwardly bobbing, switching too much weight from feet to feet, getting his stance rigid. That's precious. And hilarious af.

He has to held still as much as he can to try and convey the feeling of being scared, but we know he's just trying really hard not to wreak havoc in the audition room and slaughter everyone.

(Despise lighting, which being warm oriented would have mingled with the blue of his irises and shift them to green, I still believe that in that scene his eyes were going mako. In some millisecond-split moments, they seem to really flash out. That's hella relatable: you're using all your self-control not to cut open the scumbag who's lusting and sniffing and drooling and being awful to your friends. Plus, you're being groped and talked down too? The only thing you can do is look, and boy does he Glare™

(Cloud is not afraid/disgusted of other men touching him, but people seem to forget it. He just doesn't want Corneo to touch him. He doesn't move when Andrea touches his lips nor react when he swings him around in the dress, he doesn't move when Biggs pats him on the head on the pillar (I bet he would give everything to have Zack do that again, just one more time...dammit [I know what happens in the final cutscene of the Remake, but the post below this one explains why I think this]), he doesn't pull away when he grabs his hands, and not only he grabs it back, but grasps with the other one too. [Captain Levi vibes, anyone?])

He didn't have control over his eyes and I firmly think he didn't even intend to; he let them glow on purpose, just because that was the only thing he could unleash and nobody would have noticed.)

Cloud dancing is not stupid, nor offensive. Cloud is a loyal, caring friend, who doesn't have prejudices and is comfortable (as much as he can be) with his sexuality and identity that he's not questioning it nor getting scared (and violent) at the situation.

Do I have to dance and dress like a woman to help my girl? If it's the best way, so be it. She needs my help, I'm not gonna let her down. Gonna be a pain in the ass to fight, but I'll manage. I'm not that insecure of myself that a dress is going to make me have an existential crisis.

If you're a man or a male, and your friend/lover/person you cherish would ever be in a life-threatening situation (and this is, 'cause if they were on their own, they would have died), and the only option would be for you to dance and put on a dress to save them, but you refuse because you have to dance and it's a dress... Just a fucking dress... Well... You're not that decent of a friend, nor human being...

3. So. About Zack. If you think he would've been disappointed/disgusted... Are we talking about the same character? 'Cause I think we're not.

Zack Fair, SOLDIER 1st class (previously 2nd), 6 foot and a ladder, black hair, blue eyes, scar on his left jaw. Droll af?

Just because he's a legend, a powerful, passionate and strong-willed person, doesn't mean he couldn't be a quirky dumbass.

The first line said to him in Crisis Core is "Get serious" by Angeal... Angeal who described him to his mother as a PUPPY.

The same guy who jostled his mentor, a fucking SOLDIER 1st class, in front of their boss, when he knew he recommended him.

The same guy who tried to get Aerith on a date after 5 minutes.

The one who grabs a parasol to fight troopers without breaking a sweat.

The one who faked defeat by sixth-grade-Yuffie in Wutai.

The one who dances with the Cactua he summons?

When Angeal discusses the plan and tells him to charge the front gate of Wutai on the first game mission, he's jumping like an over-excited dog.

And, most importantly, the only living being who actually managed to:

- Make Sephiroth care (after Hollander with implanted Jenova cells escapes, he tells Zack Genesis’ copies had been seen in the slums... And with that frigging Knowing™ look, and a smirk, he tells him "Permission to return... Granted", Seph's gentlemanly way to say 'I know you have a girlfriend down there, you should go check on her':

Then Sephiroth says goodbye first

And fucking smiles (Zack wasn’t able to see it ‘cause he was already walking away)

- Yell at him over the phone and live;

- Pull a GENUINE laugh out of him. When they're trying to locate Angeal and Genesis, Sephiroth calls him. The conversation goes as:

S:"You and I are gonna find them [Gen & Angie] before they [Shinra] do, and..."

Z:'And WHAT?!?!' *angry bark, to which Sephirot pulls the phone away*

S:"...Fail to eliminate them"

Z:'For real?!'

S:"[AMUSED HUFF] Yes, for real" *playful mocking of Zack's words*

Okay, that was a huff, BUT STILL... Not even Sephiroth (when he was still a human being...because yes, he was, and a pretty decent one too) was immune to his Puppy Dog Energy. Look. At. That. Smile.

So this is what I think.

The only thing Zack would be disappointed about would've been Cloud not dancing enough.

Heck, he would've jumped on the stage as soon as given the signal and dragged Cloud along, yelling in his face to be heard over the music "This is gonna be great! Let's show them what a SOLDIER can do! We're gonna put all these cute bees to shame!" ᕕ(ᐛ)ᕗ

Then again... If Zack would've been there...if we think about it, a part of Zack was there.

During his childhood and infantry training, I seriously doubt Cloud had any occasion to dance or learn how to do it.

Plus, he couldn't have done it during his 4-years mako-comatose state.

This doesn't leave that many options.

It is very likely that, like his fighting ability, his dancing moves were coming from Zack's memories too.

In a way, we can say that Zack, in the end, was there on stage with him.

Gosh, I'm gonna cry so much... ಥ_ಥ

#ffvii remake #ffvii theories #cloud strife #honeybee inn #cloud dancer #zack fair #me gongaga #ffvii crisis core #ffvii compilation

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danwhobrowses · 4 years

Text

Ghost of Tsushima: Thoughts, Ideas and Hopes for DLC and Sequels

So I recently Platinum’d Ghost of Tsushima, I finished the story last week after 30 entries of livestreams which saw a whopping viewership of at most 2 people including one asshole that decided to spoil the end of Act II before I got there because I was playing stealthy and the way I wanted to play. But then wrapped up the Achievements on my own time. After a bit of stewing I’m ready to talk gush about it, including what I liked, a small bit of stuff I disliked and stuff I would suggest for future DLC and Sequel(s)

Spoilers for the Game, unlike that Commenter on my Stream I will not Spoil you on this, it is truly something you should experience for yourself

Because Good Lord, What A Game. Easily my Game of the Year, which compared to all the big hitter titles released is amazing, I mean Crash Bandicoot could still blow me away and Cyberpunk, Watch Dogs, Godfall, AC Valhalla and Miles Morales in waiting but probably not in this way. It is a magnificent game, one made with fantastic care and beauty, but before I go all out, let’s get the negatives out of the way 出る杭は打たれる。: A Flawed Masterpiece Ghost of Tsushima is brilliant but not without its faults. Most of these faults are admittedly minuscule and fixable, but until they are fixed they remain flaws. The biggest disappointment for me with the game was the lack of Japanese lip syncing. I loved the Japanese track, it also highly appealed to me to hear One Piece’s Roronoa Zoro voice Jin, but you have to kinda avoid looking at the mouths because it doesn’t match up, the models still speak in English and it’s a heavy shame that can kill some immersion. I guess they didn’t have the finances for it, because they could’ve done the lip syncs at the same time as they did the English ones if they had the Japanese track too. Combat for the most part was great, aiming could be wonky at times and Jin’s attacks didn’t carry on to a 1 foot ledge, but my main gripe with combat was the Camera getting in the way. It was adjustable most times, but other times it was not. Doing standoffs in the tall grass was night impossible at the later stages without the knees giving us a tell, one standoff I had was completely obstructed by a tree - I’m not making it up, a tree was literally all I saw for the Standoff. You lose so much health for failing a standoff too, bit harmful in later levels. The remaining issues are probably more personal, I didn’t quite like some of the sword kit designs - the ones with fluffy sleeves and I didn’t really like the armor dye you get for 100%ing the achievements, some weapons seemed to lose their luster in later parts of the game (particularly the half bow and Explosive Arrow, the former was only good for killing the angry doggos and the latter only killed Mongols if near another explosive to stack), that one Masako quest mission where you have to follow and pick off Straw Hats one by one without being seen, but will fail if you pull a triple assassination before the outpost where Masako’s lesbian lover was leading them all to so there’s more Straw Hats to blow my cover! (it wasn’t difficult it just annoyed me that it failed me for killing them all early) and the completionist in me hates that there are empty slots in the arrow and blowgun sections, but they can be worked in what I’ll talk about a bit later down the line, alongside some minor loose threads. Also you killed my horse man!

Your horse will accompany you on your entire journey - Ghost of Tsushima UI Message

Don’t you dare lie to me like that again Sucker Punch! Just because you’re named that doesn’t mean you can live up to it, we already lost one horse at the beach! Had to spend the final act with Not-Sora and Kaze with a hole in my heart never to be filled. But with that dealt with, let’s talk about some things I loved about the game

花は桜木人は武士 : Living into a Legend With these games it is very easy to fall into the Elder Scrolls prototype of an array fun side quests and exploration and a so-so main story. Ghost of Tsushima though decided to have both the array of side quests and exploration and a great, complex and partly tragic story. There were many times I wanted to get back to the main story but held off because I wanted to be prepared. Long distances didn’t feel too bad to travel when the roads were uncharted either thanks to radiant battles, new settlements, vanity gear and side missions to ease you on the way. Additionally, the characters are for the most part fantastic, I cared for the safety of most of my allies and Jin himself, I wanted the Khan dead in a cerebral villain (albeit one whose final battle fell into cowardice) and I was open to the complexities of Ishikawa and Tomoe. I did feel that Shimura was being a tad ungrateful but I think it was intended for us to be frustrated to the edicts of the Samurai code - my frustration led me so much to deep dive to prove myself justified since the code was subjective and many agreed to aspects of ‘win no matter what’ and ‘do what protects the people the most’. Along with the main quest was paired with the character journeys of our allies as well as the Mythic tales which granted some extra strength and challenges to overcome in order to expand Jin’s arsenal. I particularly liked the observation and killing of leaders to learn new stances, as well as the widely acclaimed Stand-Off and the duels. The Arkhamverse fan in me did appreciate the focused hearing for stealth and that assassination speed could be upgraded. The idea of collecting vanity gear, armour dyes and equipment that are remains of the conflict showed that SP had completely immersed their plot into the world of Tsushima, with a great amount of exploration and nuances nodding to Japanese folklore And Tsushima is certainly stunning, it’s amazing that the PS4 can hold this much when we know how the PS5 is meant to be with ray tracing. The landscapes are beauteous which makes exploration and travel much more fulfilling, as well as the photo mode and the scenic builds to some of the major battles. What’s also wonderful is the calligraphy cutscenes for Mythic Tales and the loading screens, some wonderful artistry. Artistry which is added to by the brilliant uses of Haiku spots, Bamboo Strikes, Lighthouses, Shrines, Altars which you bow to, Fox dens where you can pet the Foxxos and even the Hot Springs for some ‘Man-Butt Action’, each positions that fit to Japanese media in soaking in a moment without killing any pace, especially added to the fact that each one contributes to a purpose. I will admit, I chose wrong at the end, I was thinking more of Shimura (said ungrateful uncle)’s honour rather than what Jin would what, feeling that Shimura would’ve done it himself had Jin not. But seeing the spare ending made me wish I chose that one and it’s something I’ll touch on later. But both endings are fitting and tragic for Jin’s journey from Samurai to the Ghost, being inspired by his allies and his connection to Yuna, there has been conflict throughout regarding the line of protection, honour and vengeance explored through other people’s tales that blend together perfectly with the main plot. It is pretty political as well with the argument presented by Jin and Shimura’s conflict. Samurai while still romanticised were still shown to be bound to the blind loyalty towards the Shogun and Jito, you did not defy because it inspired others to think freely. Jin became a champion of a people by defending the people rather than listening to the jito - represented by the shogunate - and their stringent ideas that the Samurai who failed on the beach would be able to out-muster the force and brutality of the Mongol invasion regardless of the collateral and yet still call that honour. In the current climate in 2020, that hits a chord a little closer than expected. And the main story certainly has their stellar moments, the ups and downs really hit you - like killing my freaking horse! I had to lose Yuriko, Taka and Sora in a single playthrough. Losing Taka was inevitable, but still heartbreaking because of how much we struggled to save him and how much we want to still be Yuna’s friend, but then the highs just blow you away from the opening act, Ghost Stance, raiding Castle Kaneda and Shimura and the final raid at Port Izumi. Also did I mention that you can pet the Foxxos? Because that’s very important, also NPCs walk at your pace most of the time, which is a fantastic addition. I could probably go deeper but there’s other stuff I want to cover, but understand that the world and the story is wonderful and if you’re a fan of Assassin’s Creed, Arkhamverse and just Japanese culture in general this should tick your boxes. And hopefully there’s more to come.

石の上にも三年 : Strait to DLC The sad thing that happens when a good game is over is the void. Even if its days, having nothing left of the game to play is still a shame, and I know that Legends DLC is announced, but multiplayer involving fighting Oni as mythic legends isn’t my pace, I’m still not done with Jin and I feel like there are things we could still do. There are still 3 conflicts Jin’s story never resolved that could still be resolved now, each as multi-layered quests. The first is this ‘Ghost Army’ mentioned by the wagon guy in Omi, we are not leading this so who is? We may not be able to stop them but we could reduce the amount of people thinking we’re leading them to fight. The second is Daizo, if you don’t know that name it’s because the guy is never seen in the game, you only read about him in the Records of ‘Conversations with the Khan’. This Japanese Monk clearly has a thing for the late Khotun and he feels that the Ghost is being a dishonorable monster, this Khan lover is still at large and a confidant of Khotun, we could link with Norio in a quest to ensure he doesn’t rally or try to spread his appreciation of the Khan to others to try and complete Khotun’s work. The final conflict is one that eats me up: How did the Mongols Know About the Poison? Yuriko died showing me how to make the poisons, made more potent from her own herbal poisons which were crushed down, if she didn’t tell and I didn’t tell, who told? Because the Mongols drank the evidence and we could make a story of an Omi village traitor or even someone from Shimura’s camp leaking the info to the Khan to try and preserve ‘honour’. On top of these loose ends I’d very much like to see our allies again, even if they’re just at their home doing their own thing, as well as some other minor side characters like the Tadayori descendant Kaede, Flame Swordsman Bettomaru (who would’ve both been mighty useful with this Mongol affair beyond their sole missions) and the Yarikawa Archer Daikoku, I also would like to see confirmation on Jin and Yuna - there is clearly something there but that could be just me. What is also just me would be the suggestion of a shrine that can let you redo the Shimura decision, it’s not a too ‘out-there’ thing to do either considering we fought a Tengu. The shrine could be for Omoikane, Kami of wisdom and intelligence or Ame-no-Koyane, the ‘First in Charge of Divine Affairs’ which’d subject the player to a gauntlet of bosses past; Ryuzo, Kotun and Shimura, if the player goes against their initial decision, they will trade their ghost armour dye for the other and get a Charm of Pondering, if they stick to their guns they get both ghost armour dyes and a Charm of Strengthened Stance. In similar vein we could have a master Mythic Tale that stacks the duels of those tales into one for another special attack, weapon or armour. It’s also possible that we could add more duels, some remnants trying to avenge Khotun or even some Samurai sent by the Shogun in promise of becoming Jito. Likewise we can use this to complete the weapons set; for the Half Bow, take the Mongols’ poison arrows (which can be a reward for finding who leaked the poison to them) which can just eat at lesser enemies’ health and take a chunk of stronger enemies’ health before resolving out of it, as well as a sticky arrow that could slow enemies or weaken their armour, or a perfume arrow that can mess with the falcons and angry doggo’s senses. For the Long Bow we could have...okay I’m drawing a blank here but I’m not meant to do all the work XD For the Blowgun at least you could have a Blinding Dart to aid in stealth and a Panic Dart to increase chances of Terrify. We could even have a few more upgrades to our ghost weapons and stance combats, even increase the amount of kills Ghost Stance can yield. In addition to more Fox Dens, Shrines, maybe new resources to bolster upgrades, Sword Kits, Haikus, Banners, Flute Songs, dyes and so on. But I know what you’re thinking, we can’t put that all in Tsushima? We’ve covered the entire island and it’s unlikely that SP would make a fictitious island. And to that I say, I have that covered. In the Tsushima Strait between the island and the mainland there is Iki Island, part of the same prefecture and equally ravaged by the Mongols during the invasion, it’s also the base of pirates which can offer a stop point for a Tomoe reunion or simply travel via Umugi Cove. A small bit of expansion wouldn’t hurt, as long as Iki isn’t planned for something else that is.

能ある鷹は爪を隠す : Hopes for a Sequel Now part of me would be content if this was a one and done, the game shines perfectly on its own. But I would not turn one down. Though many would feel that Jin’s journey is done (I even heard a suggestion of Tomoe, I could see that but not right now, maybe for a third) but not me, there’s still a few glaring issues at hand. For one, the Shogun now wants you dead, new clans are moving in on you and there will probably be a new Jito regardless of the ending choice because of Shimura’s failure, Adachi will also need to look at another clan taking its land. There’s also the vacuum left behind by the clans’ subsidiaries; Nagao particularly but also Adachi’s rival clan Kikuchi, there’s easily possibilities to use canon Sō, Abiru, Shōni and Imagawa, there’s also room for Kikuchi Takefusa, who survived both Mongol invasions . A sequel could offer some clan territorial tensions in that regard as the people of Tsushima side with the Ghost over the mainland. That conflict is one we have touched on in the end of the first, Jin has fought for his country’s safety so how will he act when his country wants him dead? The first was a story of sacrifice perhaps the next can be a story of maintaining his legend, inspiring the mainland Samurai and even redeeming himself in the eyes of the non-Tsushima natives. It’s also worth remembering that Komoda was the beginning of the invasion, and there was a second invasion 6 years later where Tsushima was attacked once more, the death of non-canon Khotun could spark other higher ups of Kublai’s ranks to avenge or clean up for Khotun, Kublai also had counsel from different nations to understand his enemy so we could have an even more vicious and cerebral enemy be made, or even a group of enemies led by advisors like Liu Kan or Yao Shu, maybe even Marco Polo if we move the time after the first invasion. In terms of gameplay we could also see Jin expand from Tsushima to Iki and maybe some more naval warfare, growing in his equipment (like Caltrops, Kusari-Fundo and Suntetsu) and maybe even his weapon, an Ono, Jitte or a Naginata to rotate with his not-yet-made Katana to combat with Samurai or the army of a Mongol threat, maybe even use the Bo-Hiya for ranged fire archery learned from the Hwacha. And like the Mass Effect games (or Dragon Ball Xenoverse if you wanna pick a franchise that didn’t end in a bitter aftertaste) you could have the option to transfer over some data from the PS4 save to the next one, which’d inevitably be on PS5 at the least - also don’t be surprised if this gets a PS5 remaster too, especially if it does win Game of the Year. What I suggested for DLC could be used here too, if there is a sequel with Jin I really, really hope that SP don’t opt for the route of killing Jin (or Yuna) off for effect, I was nervous about the current game ending with Hara Kiri and I’d rather not have that or a downer of a death for the legendary Ghost (I am a happy endings guy after all). An alternative route to go (other than following Tomoe to the mainland to rip off the Ghost) is to work backwards, call it ‘Ghosts of Tsushima’ working towards a story of a more ancient time, where a thief could become a samurai clan. A clan Sakai or Shimura origin would sell in that way too and avoid the idea that we have to start again from zero but still have the more ‘dishonorable’ stealth tactics.

義は険しい山よりも重く、死は大鳥の羽よりも��い : Conclusion In the end, this game was worth the wait, worth the delays and worth the price tag. I feel like this will be one of the games I’ll fondly remember when thinking of the PS4, which has truly had a stellar library of awesome games like Spider-Man, God of War, the Crash, Ratchet & Clank and Spyro Remasters, DMCV, Jedi: Fallen Order and more. This truly ticked the boxes for the anime nerd within me and the history buff, even the Haikus spurred the poet in me a little too. If anyone hasn’t played this game, they should, and I hope that Sucker Punch realises that people like me want to see more. If it stands alone so be it, but I’m not ready to leave Jin or Tsushima just yet. いってらっしゃい

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zachsgamejournal · 3 years

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PLAYING: Resident Evil 7

I know I'm about 3 years late to the party, but I was hesitant to trust that Capcom could get back in touch with their Survival Horror roots.

My very regrettable mistake...

So: Resident Evil for PS1/Saturn was great!

Cinematic Storytelling: The game could be completed in under 2 hours (if you knew what you were doing). So that means you're not spending days to get through a feature-film level story (unlike SOME games). It makes the plot and characters a more crucial part of the experience.

Puzzles: Sure, the puzzles are little wacky: like clicking buttons under pictures in chronological order or you get attacked by well-trained zombie birds. But it made the game more than moving from point-a-to-b. It's about exploring and understanding your environment. Speaking of which...

The Environment: The Mansion (and it's other areas) was a character unto itself. It had secrets and a past. And since the game wasn't designed as a series of sequential levels, you really get to know the environment.

Zombies: Zombies were not the mainstream success they are now. Hell, Vampires were just barely getting attention through Interview the Vampire. I became obsessed with zombies and bought all 3 major films in existence.

Such a different time...

Anyway, the point, RE1 was great, RE2 was better, RE: Code Veronica was pretty good, and RE4 is stupid.

Well...not stupid, but it completely changed Resident Evil, and not for the better. While folks loved RE4, it really was the start of a new franchise, which RE5 and RE6 followed. And that's fine--except they sacrificed what Resident Evil was to make way for this new product.

Succinct, mystery-driven storytelling was replaced with nonsensical twist and turns that did little to grow the overall world or its characters. They just stretched contrived cliffhangers across overlong campaigns of mass murder.

Puzzles, as best i can remember, were sacrificed for challenge rooms filled with enemies while the player looked for the exit switch.

The environment, as great as the graphics were, simply became battle zones meant to offer shallow context to the bloodbath gameplay. RE4 did have a strong aesthetic, but you don't get to know each room and hall like you do in the classics. Nothing but well-dressed strangers to high-five as you pass by.

And what happened to the Zombies. I mean, they still had zombies--but they weren't zombies. Whatever. Resident Evil has always had a diverse set of monsters. They didn't have to sacrifice zombies...

All this to say, Resident Evil 7 is awesome!

The opening was a little cheesy with poorly synced dialog and a helicopter shot of Louisiana swampland I'm sure they stole from True Detective stock footage.

But once I took over the character, I was hooked. The game looks great on my phone and TV via Stadia. I enjoyed walking through the woods and house, looking at every little detail the artists meticulously placed.

I've seen most of a playthrough on Youtube (though I was distracted). So I kind of knew what to expect. It's way more intense when you play. Having dialog and cutscenes playout without leaving the first person camera is great at making you feel "there". So all that goes down and I end up in the house for dinner.

Watching this bit on YouTube, I was a little turned off by the obvious Chainsaw Massacre connections: but original RE was heavily influenced by horror films, why not this? (I also have a better understanding of this family cause I know some things.)

Once I gained control, roaming around the kitchen/dining/living room area was great. I was seeing hints to future puzzles, scavenging for supplies, and finding notes giving clues to events that were happening. Very Resident Evil.

I struggled a bit trying to get away from Jack. Since they gave me a hiding spot, I assumed stealth was gonna be a major component. Nope. Not really. Eventually I get to the save room (A SAVE ROOM!!) and then on to the garage fight.

I wasted all my ammo when I probably just needed to grab the car keys. Lesson learned. Jack trying to run me over was kind of crazy, and maybe a little laughable since I was just swiping at him with a pocket knife for five minutes.

After that, more of the house opens up. It's insanely huge and illogically designed. While it creates some great hallways, and helps the designers break the home up into controllable sections: there's no house build like this: wtf...

Going into the basement reminded me of RE2. The molded, I think, are people the family has kidnapped and infected with something. Some change and some don't. Know they've turned into very lethal zombie-esque creatures. Since they're infected people stumbling about, I'm gonna say they've rekindled the zombie. Kinda.

To fight these guys, I've resorted to my pocket knife. Saves ammo. I basically dance around them like I did guards in Thief, wacking where I can. Eventually I chop off their hands, often without taking damage. But the crab guy in the incinerator required a shotgun blast.

One of the fights, he cut off my leg and I was crawling around. I thought it was a scripted scene (I mean, I lost my arm already). Nope. You're supposed to pick it up and reattach it. Ah-well.

Jack wandering around the new area was frustrating. It seemed I could never lose him, so wasted a lot of health and ammo stunning him. His boss fight was pretty rough. I nearly gave up. It took some time getting used to the chainsaw. Right as I was about to switch to easy, I had a near perfect run and defeated him. My wife laughed at the way I was squirming on the couch trying to get a hit in without being cut in half!

Made it to the old house with the bugs. This went way faster. It reminded me of the guard house from RE1, which also had giant wasps. Without Jack or molded zombies, it was actually really easy to explore the house and solve its secrets. Once the old lady showed up, I thought I could lure her away from the exit room. She didn't buy it, so I just ran past her.

When it came to her boss fight, it reminded me a lot of Laughing Octopus in Metal Gear Solid. Which that boss was practically a horror movie in of itself. I thought the flame thrower was gonna be the way to go, but a guide suggested focusing on her belly. And I kept running out of fuel, then being harassed by flies. So I opted for the shotgun and had a successful run.

About a year and a half ago, I played through the original RE as Chris. I remember there was a point about a third of the way through that I had about seven rounds of pistol ammo, and a single green herb--yet several zombies stood in my way. I wasn't sure I was going to make it. But then, I unlocked the shotgun and the game became a breeze. Suddenly I had too much ammo, and too many healing items!

That has kind of happened here. I'm doing well on healing items (though I've used up my shotgun). Still, I feel confident sprinting around and doing quick searches of spaces. I don't even fight the molded much anymore.

Getting into Zoe's trailer was interesting, but you can interact with her bra. I thought that was kind of pervy. I'm guessing Zoe is a part of the family? I imagine she's some how the source.

I think it's great they keep putting the grandma in different places without explanation. The way she looks at you sometimes is creepy...

I'm not a huge fan of the VHS flashbacks. Often, they have you play areas you've either already played or will play. While it's inspired some game ideas of my own, it just feels like a cheap gimmick to get more playtime.

Anyway, this really does feel like a reboot of Resident Evil. It's capturing the strong environmental storytelling of the originals, and making it more about the horror, less about the action. I'm actually getting into the plot and mystery. I look forward to getting my answers.

#Zach's Game Journal #PLAYING #Resident Evil 7 #Stadia

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official-michael-afton · 4 years

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Made a tier list of FNaF media!!! Not counting the activity book or the security survival log because those don’t really add anything, they’re just neat activities or summaries of game info

I explained the choices under the cut, equal parts personal bias and objective opinion, so if you think differently then hey, good on ya!

Going down to up XD

The Silver Eyes Graphic Novel: Do I even need to explain this one? Rushed art with countless mistakes, horrid coloring, samey designs, the important scenes come off as bland and even goofy instead of impactful. It’s clear Pinky wasn’t used to drawing humans, the colorist had no idea what they were doing, and no one on the team made a graphic novel before. It’s laughable how bad this was XD

The Fourth Closet: Does anyone really know what happened at the end? I... really don’t like what they did with Charlie in this one. I don’t like how William was able to get out of his Springtrap- it was SUPPOSED to trap him, and yet he just... is out of it... I think the whole thing with Baby being like this hot clown girl instead of what she is in Sister Location is very... ... it exists... Tbh I respect the bold direction it took, but I honestly felt it was too much of a stretch and just didn’t work.

FNaF AR, Special Delivery: Not bad! The character models and voice acting is where the game shines most. Other than that, there isn’t really much substantial to the game other than some lore with Vanny/Ness and Luis. The gameplay can get frustrating sometimes(I cant collect remnant, read my mail, or even work on my own animatronics without DING DONG SOMEONES HERE every 5 seconds), and all you do is spin in a circle until you get glitchy, look away if they get glitchy, or zap them when they run at you. Some people probably love this game and good on them for that, but I find myself not touching it for weeks at a time.

Freddy In Space 2: GREAT game for charity, great art, great music! ... That’s all it has going for it, though. It was clear that this was a quickly made game designed to be beaten in one sitting, and it did exactly what it needed to do! Other than being amazing how it was for charity, the game doesn’t have that much going for it(except introducing Lolzhax aka BEST ROBO), so overall not bad but also did almost nothing outside of being for the Charity Livestream XD

Fazbear Frights, Into The Pit: Again, not bad! A nice collection of short stories, almost like goofy campfire horror you’d tell to kids... like goosebumps! I felt each story was REALLY lacking in some areas, but I liked the general idea they were going for. That being said, they’re moreso neat scary stories with the name FNaF attached than anything else(except maybe the first of the three). It hints that they have an overarching plot that will be covered in future books, but as of right now, I feel no one’s missing out by not reading them.

FNaF 3: A satisfying end to the original trilogy story! Purple Guy gets justice, everything gets tied together with a neat bow, and the first arc in the series comes to an end. Also Springtrap, aka my favorite. This game is riddled with neat 8-bit minigames and bits of lore, but the gameplay itself is where I find it not as good as the S A and B tiers. The new setup with the system reboots are def really interesting, but other than that, each night is just... the same thing but harder. Most other games introduce different characters on different difficulties per night, but since Springtrap is the only deadly one, it’s just... him more aggressive each night and systems failing more often. Makes the gameplay pretty repetitive and frustrating after Night 3 or so.

FNaF 4: The beginning of what I like to call the Afton saga(4, SL, FFPS, UCN)! This is when the lore began to get REALLY good... and also really confusing. Props for it taking such a bold direction by taking place in a child’s bedroom instead of in an office with cameras, its a neat change of pace! That being said, the gameplay can get frustrating and there’s a high learning curve for needing to listen to each sound the anmatronics make. Also lore wise... there really isn’t much! Just mainly focuses on what happened to this poor kid. Also the box still being a loose end... yeah.

The Twisted Ones: I enjoyed this one! It had a very interesting direction that kinda kept me guessing on what was going on, and this is when Scott really started nailing in the foreshadowing for the reveal in TFC. The Twisted animatronics are SO cool, and the introduction of those little alteration chips provided new context to games like 4 and SL! That being said, I don’t remember it being... that memorable? I also didn’t like how Charlie’s and John’s relationship was... so awkward... It was neat, but honestly nothing to really go crazy over, in my opinion.

The Silver Eyes: Honestly, I adored this book when I read it back in 2016, before Sister Location happened. At the time I wasn’t trying to connect it to any lore, so it was really great just to see a sort of retelling of the FNaF story. A lot of people complained about how long it was... I might agree if I reread it but tbh it never bothered me before. It was delightfully creepy, yet had a simple plot and wasn’t NEARLY as out there as TTO and TFC. Especially TFC. I felt this book didnt need 2 sequels and would’ve been just fine on its own, but whatcha gonna do. Carlton is forever my fav, and it’s the first time we really learn about Henry AND it was the first time we got a name for our Purple Guy: William Afton!

Sister Location: I like this one for just how bold of a game it was. I’m also including SL’s Custom Night wrapped into this package. Jam packed with lore, our first (main) game with VOICE ACTING, and honestly the humor has no right being as good as it is. I love how this not only expanded on the crying child from 4′s story, but also gives us so much Elizabeth and Michael content. The gameplay has a lot of unbalanced features and feels a little too over the place at times, but I appreciate where it was going with it!

FNaF World: ... This one is pure personal bias. A lot of people don’t like it. I adore it. Honestly I love the cute overworld, I love beating up enemies as my favorite animatronics, I love the horror, nihilism, and lore shoved into this game alongside SO MUCH humor. Update 2 was nothing short of an absolute delight and... wait, no!!! FNaF World had our first voice acting!!! So many endings and nods to other games Scott’s made, a cool scene with Desk Man/Henry and Baby, just... muah. Good content. Also Scott 57 <3

Ultimate Custom Night: Name a better way to end the Afton Saga, I’ll wait. It’s so obvious how much time, thought, and care went into this one. I love how the game rewards you with funny cutscenes the higher scores you get, and I just! So much voice acting! I love how each preset- no, each character has their own moves so every time you do a certain mode, you need to learn to manage them all and get a good strategy. I like how it’s way more strategy and skill than the RNG that many previous games had. Also, Scott!!! You managed to put this into the LORE by making it William’s hell, MUAH, couldnt have done it better!!!

FNaF 2: This one might have bias for being the peak of the fandom, but it was one of the greatest times to be in that fandom. Freaking out over the trailers, theories galore, prequel vs sequel, and just... so good. 1 didn’t have much plot, 2 DID. 2 had more mechanics and strategy to it than 1, and gave us over twice as many characters! We finally got a “face” to our killer, Mr. Purple Man, and how could I ever complain about more Phone Guy~? This one also introduced the 8-bit minigames, which became a HUGE staple for the series! Perfect expansion of the first!

Freddy Fazbear’s Pizzeria Simulator: The PERFECT blend of old and new gameplay. The salvage scenes are intense, the nights had a great balancing mechanic of juggling doing tasks while also avoiding animatronics, multiple endings, and a neat tycoon segment to give the player a breather... but with LORE!!! Midnight Motorist is easily one of the best tracks in the series. Also has a GREAT canonical ending, when(with paired with UCN), ties the plots of 1-6 SO nicely with a neat bow.

FNaF 1: Okay. From a personal and gameplay standpoint, I was going to put this much lower. Like B or C. That being said... this has to go in S. Yes, it has the least lore and arguably the worst gameplay(too much RNG for 4/20 mode), but this was the game. I can’t even exaggerate when I say just how much FNaF changed not only the gaming community, but especially the horror and indie communities. So many names got big from this: Markiplier, Dawko, Game Theory, The Living Tombstone, DA Games, SCOTT HIMSELF, just to name a few!!! And to think, this was originally going to be Scott’s last game! FNaF changed gaming HISTORY, and I think that alone makes this title deserving of S.

FNaF VR, Help Wanted: Okay, personal bias time, but I truly think VR deserves this S. Seeing Glitchtrap for the first time incited a panic in me that I hadn’t felt since FNaF 1 and 2. You get FNaF 1-4 in one, all in VR, WONDERFUL character models that you can WATCH MOVE!!! SO many minigames and fun challenges to play, so many neat knickknacks to collect, the Halloween update is FANTASTIC. The introduction of some great characters, such as: Glitchtrap, Vanny, Tape Girl, Dreadbear, Grim Foxy, etc!!! There’s also just- something so nice about being able to see every office and the pizzeria in 3D spaces where you can look around! Just from a gameplay and environment standpoint, this was an AMAZING addition and deserves the S.

... Thanks for listening to me ramble XD If you disagree... then good for you! I won’t fight anyone on this, I’m aware that this is a lot of personal bias. But if you made it this far... thanks for hearing me ramble!!!!

#fnaf #infodump #fnaf tier list #five nights at freddy's

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sage-nebula · 4 years

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Game Review — Best Friend Forever

Ever since playing (and enjoying) Mystic Messenger, I’ve had a casual interest in dating sims, and particularly those that allow for queer relationships. And as someone who has had and loved dogs my entire life, I have a marked interest in dog raising and training. So of course, a game that is at once a queer dating sim and a dog raising sim should be right up my alley. What could possibly go wrong with this?

Overall Score: 3/10

A lot. A lot can go wrong with this. I can’t remember a game that has disappointed me this badly in recent memory, one that feels almost like a betrayal because it sounded like it was tailor made for me and I’d been looking forward to it since the initial announcement, only to be met with what honestly feels like an incomplete mess. If given more time, it’s possible this game could have been good. As it stands now, it is absolutely not. More details under the cut, and as always, view it on my blog for better looking formatting.

The Pros:

Obviously, first and foremost, that it’s a queer dating sim. You don’t have to be in a queer relationship if you play, of course, but the option is absolutely there with every single one of the romance options being available to you regardless of gender (similar to Stardew Valley in that regard, though Stardew Valley isn’t a dating sim, but rather just has a romance element). There is other queer representation as well, with at least one of the romantic options being a trans guy (who is actually the one I dated, though I can’t remember his name off-hand), and another two characters being bi considering they once dated each other and will date you regardless of your pronouns. You can choose gender-neutral pronouns, and as far as other representation goes, at least one of the characters is blind as well. So representation-wise, this game does well, and I will give it credit for that.

The art is very cute. The dogs are cute, the characters stand out from one another and have clear differences, the colors are nice and everything is drawn very well. Since the entire concept of the game is cute (move to an idyllic dog loving town and fall in love while raising a dog!) it stands to reason that the art would be as well.

The Neutrals:

The dialogue is okay. At times it felt like they were trying to hard to make the characters sound like Today’s Youth, which would absolutely age the game in just a couple years if the game had any lasting power at all (which I highly doubt it does). There were times when I enjoyed it, but other times where I cringed a little.

The music is also okay. Nothing memorable, but it fit the setting well enough.

The dog events during play did a decent job of making the dog feel involved, but at times were a bit distracting and not always intuitive (for instance, having to hold A to pet rather than pressing it repeatedly like I thought at first, which can lead to your dog being depressed).

The Cons:

There is so little character customization there might as well not be any at all. You can pick between three designs which cannot have their features changed at all. Three. You can’t even do simple things like change hair color, skin tone, or clothing options. This is a $20+ game and it has less customization than a free picrew. I could understand if your character had to be very involved, action-wise, but they’re not! They just stand off to the left side constantly and have very small changes in facial expression. The severe lack of customization was extremely disappointing.

But you know what’s even more disappointing? Having a game where a key component is raising a dog and then only having FOUR DOGS to choose between. FOUR. Three very specific breeds, and then a “mutt” (come on, you can’t even call it a mixed-breed?). Dogs are a huge part of this game; if we can’t customize because the idea is to adopt a dog, why can’t we at least have a bigger selection to choose from? The reason in-game is that you get to the adoption shelter late, but that’s a narrative excuse created to cover for a lack of development. It doesn’t excuse it, and it was disappointing.

Despite each dog having quirky little story cards you can read when you’re adopting, as far as I can tell the dog’s stated personality has absolutely no bearing on what the experience raising them is like. For instance, I adopted the mixed-breed, who I believe was said to have been abandoned and therefore very mistrustful of humans. But I had no trouble raising the Trust stat at all; I had the dog trusting me completely in less than a day. If you’re going to bother adding things in like “this dog was abandoned” and “this dog was rescued from an abused home,” then you should at least put in the effort to make that affect the dog’s stats so that, again, players can experience something a bit different depending on the choice they make.

Speaking of the choice they make, at the beginning of the game your character signs up for a dating app and they have to answer all these questions about themselves. Near as I can tell, these questions also have no bearing on anything whatsoever because you meet and can date any of the love interests you choose. So while it’s a cutesy idea, it’s ultimately a complete waste of time that could have instead been put into developing other aspects of the game.

Back to the dog aspect: part of the “story” (if it can be called that) is that the shelter requires every adopter to go through mandatory dog training and check-ins before they let you keep the dog. (Which . . . is not at all true to life, but whatever.) As a result, during the week you train your dog in various activities to raise their stats. Multiple issues with this:

You don’t actually train your dog. Like there aren’t minigames or anything. Instead, you select which activity you’d like to do each day, and then the week automatically runs through them and you get little blurbs on how the dog did (which always say the same thing for every activity) and which stats were raised. That’s it. You don’t actually get to do these things with the dog at all.

Near as I can tell, there is no way to get a good score on the check-ins. Even though I would raise my dog’s stats by several levels every time, I got bronze medals in every category at every check-in and a ribbon for “barely trying” even though I WAS trying, and even did all the extra activities each week as well. I looked online and others had this same problem, so it seems to me that the entire dog training aspect is rigged, and you fail no matter what you do, which again, really isn’t good game design. (That said, you get to keep the dog regardless, so it really is just an entirely pointless and time wasting aspect of the game.)

There really isn’t a story. Or well, there kind of is, but it’s a very bare bones one. Here’s the story: Your character used to work for a mega corporation but decided to quit because said corporation was Evil. You move to this dog town because you like dogs and you’re an aspiring photographer. During your time there you adopt a dog, get a love interest, hold a photography exhibit after doing one (1) sort-of job, and that’s it. There are a few events that trigger depending on which love interest route you’re going for, but there are never stakes at any point (because you’re never actually in danger of losing your dog, and even when your camera is stolen the lady who hired you for the exhibit just gives you a free replacement right away immediately), and I would argue there’s not a climax, either. It’s pretty much boring from start to finish, but that said . . .

Start to finish is a grand total of two hours! For a game that was $20+!! As I’ve expressed in other reviews, my basic rule of thumb is that I should get one hour of gameplay for every dollar spent. I am somewhat flexible on this—I can give leeway depending on the game and how much I enjoyed it—but charging twenty dollars and up for a game that lasts only two hours is an absolute rip-off in my eyes. To be fair, I didn’t play any of the other romantic routes to see those cutscenes, but the overall story would be the exact same no matter which you chose (unlike in Mystic Messenger, where it changes pretty significantly depending on which route you choose), so I honestly don’t see a point to it. It doesn’t feel worth it to me, at all.

Speaking of the different routes, while the characters have unique designs and seem interesting enough on their own, I don’t think their stories have any real depth. For instance, with the one I played (and again, can’t remember his name, sorry—though I do remember that his dog is an Italian greyhound named Marshmallow), he has a small story about how his family kicked him out when he came out as trans, he traveled around, met his roommates and formed a found family with them. One roommate, who is also this guy’s ex-boyfriend, is moving away soon and is annoyed that the love interest character is spending so much time with the cute neighbor (they live in the same apartment building), as well as the fact that the love interest is allowing his parents to contact him bit by bit. Now, this could be interesting . . . but it’s never resolved. Ever. They fight and that’s the last we see of the roommate, or hear about the situation at all. I haven’t played the other routes, but given the length of the game I assume it would be the same way; they would talk about past conflict but that’s it, you don’t get any real resolution or get to see how that story plays out. It contributes to the game feeling very unfinished, like there were ideas here but the developers lost steam halfway through and decided to just end it.

And speaking of not caring about finishing or polishing things, this game is absolutely riddled with typos. Now, I don’t want to be too mean, and I know this isn’t a AAA game. But if you’re going to release a game on the Nintendo eShop, and if you’re going to charge over $20 for it, then I feel like you should at least do the bare minimum of quality control and check for spelling and grammar. But that wasn’t done, to an extent that was noticeable. Additionally, there wasn’t quality control done to make sure that dialogue fit the route you were on. After the camera is stolen, the love interest I chose is there to comfort the main character and tell them he’ll help out. Then the next day he’s like, “I heard what happened, that sucks” as if he . . . wasn’t there. That dialogue was clearly meant for if he wasn’t the love interest, but it still played on the route where he was. This is something quality control should have caught, but since this game appears to not have any quality control whatsoever, it wasn’t.

I probably should have mentioned this above, but I just remembered—during the character creation process, there doesn’t seem to be an option to go back if you change your mind about which avatar you want, what you named your character, etc. Or at least, if there was, I couldn’t find it even by pressing the standard buttons such as B or Y. Instead, I had to restart the game about three times. Again, a simple design feature that should have been included, but wasn’t for some odd reason.

They hired voice actors, but the only real voice acting is the very annoying (and somewhat cringy) radio broadcast at the very beginning of the game. Voice actors can be expensive, so I can understand not having the whole game be voiced . . . but why hire them at all, in that case? Not all games need voice acting. This game doesn’t, but it’s odd to open the game as if you’re going to have everything be voiced when it ends up very clearly not. Not a huge deal, but on top of everything else, it bugged me.

Honestly, there’s probably more that irritated me, but it’s been a week and some change since I played, so this is all I remember right now. Suffice it to say that this game, which should have been right up my alley as a gender non-conforming queer woman who loves dogs, is one of the biggest disappointments I’ve experienced in gaming in a while. There were some good ideas here, but the execution was absolutely abysmal and I don’t recommend this game to anyone, especially not for the current price. There are much better games out there. Go play those instead.

#2020 game reviews #could not be more disappointed by and angry about this game if i tried #typically i don't read reviews before playing games bc i want to form my own opinions & i don't always agree with reviews anyway #but in this case i really wish i'd checked out the reviews #bc this game was TERRIBLE & a waste of money #which really really sucks bc i love dogs & also queer romance so much but #it is what it unfortunately is :/

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nadziejastar · 4 years

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I find reading headcanons fun and a lot of people interested in Lea and Isa who want to stay canon compatible go with the idea of "they were technically apprentices, but they were still used as test subjects." It just goes to show how important those implications were to their story, anyone invested is looking for a way to retcon them back in.

Yeah, I get why people wanna stick close to canon. I like to stay as close to canon as possible too, unless I feel like canon just absolutely dropped the ball, which is relatively rare. But that’s what I feel KH3 did with Lea and Isa. There were just FAR too many implications that they were test subjects to be hand-waved away so easily. I can totally understand why people are looking for a way to retcon those implications back in. They fit soooo perfectly and they were MUCH juicier than the canon backstory, which is really very boring.

Unbeknownst to me, my six apprentices then began collecting a large number of subjects on which to perform dangerous experiments into the “darkness of the heart.”

I wouldn’t even know HOW to write Axel as a former apprentice, without being a former test subject, too. Because it just doesn’t fit him. You have to ignore everything interesting about him and change his whole character. When I first played KH2, I was always interested in the experiments on the darkness of the heart and especially what the organization members were like as humans. We only got to know a little about that. We learned that members I-VI were apprentices of Ansem the Wise, which I thought was very intriguing. I started to speculate about what the other members’ backstories might be.

Are they the people who lost their hearts, or incarnations of darkness? Or something entirely beyond my imagination? All my knowledge has provided no answer. One thing I am sure of is that they are entirely devoid of emotion. Perhaps further study will unlock the mysteries of the heart. Fortunately, there is no shortage of test samples. They are multiplying underground even as I write this report. They still need a name. Those who lack hearts… I will call them the Heartless.

I am not even exaggerating, after reading the KH2 Ansem Reports, my first thought was that Axel was most likely a former test subject, due to the way he slaughtered Zexion and Vexen so mercilessly. He had a side to him that was rather…twisted. And I thought that was so fascinating. No way in hell do I believe he acted like that because he was trying to find some girl. No. He had a HUGE grudge against the organization which was very personal.

The only other organization member I thought might have been a former test subject was Saïx. Number VII. The first one to join after the apprentices.

And the reasons for that were obvious. He was freakish, like a science experiment. He was a werewolf/vampire type character with a large scar on his face. I have talked with people online about Axel’s apprentice backstory who said that they “saw it coming”. It was foreshadowed in advance. And I’m like, “Did we play the same games?” If anyone says that they thought Axel and Saïx made more sense as apprentices than test subjects, I simply do not believe them. I think they are either lying or they are such a fanboy/fangirl that they cannot bring themselves to question canon.

THIS is what always stood out to me about Axel in Days. He said very little about himself. It seems like most of the fandom latched onto Axel as this happy-go-lucky big brother figure who “adopts” Roxas and Xion and that was the extent of his character. Personally, I was always far more interested in Axel’s past. That’s what really made him an interesting character. Without that, he’s a bit flat, honestly.

When I played Days, it seemed to confirm my suspicions that Axel had a dark past.

The way the camera zoomed in on him when he mentioned his past said SO much. It was so subtle, but so dramatic. They obviously were hinting at something.

And it even involved Saïx, too. They really were BOTH test subjects. How fascinating, I thought.

Then I played BBS, and it showed them sneaking into the freaking castle! I was so excited! OBVIOUSLY these kids were experimented on. They were in the right place at the right time. It explains why they became organization members. It explains why Saïx is so…freakish even though when he was a kid he was so cute and normal. I mean, come on!!!! How could anyone not see what they were hinting at here? I was SO SO excited for TEN years to see their backstory.

When I played KH3, I was dumbfounded. Absolutely dumbfounded. Turns out Lea and Isa were connected to the experiments on the darkness of the heart (duh). But they weren’t the test subjects. It was Skuld. Ya know, that random NPC from KHUX? That’s right. Skuld.

…

Skuld!? Are you freaking kidding me!? All the spotlight is gonna be on her as the lab rat!? After all the subtle hints that Lea and Isa were experimented on? I felt like I had been led on and betrayed by the series. I was so sad and angry. KH has a lot of, well, bullshit in it. Like Ansem the Wise turning Kingdom Hearts into data and releasing everyone’s hearts. And it has a lot of retcons. It’s a series where “willing suspension of disbelief” is important. But what they did to Lea and Isa’s past? That crossed the line for me. That was unacceptable. And my willing suspension of disbelief was shattered. I simply cannot retroactively view Lea and Isa as apprentices. It just doesn’t fit with what we saw of them. It’s the worst, most ill-fitting backstory I have ever seen.

Lea’s whole character revolved around his mysterious past. And in the end, his whole past was summarized in a two minute cutscene where we were TOLD (not even shown) it. And his past isn’t even about him or his relationship with Isa or their shared pain. It’s all about setting up a plot for a character who, IMO, is supposed to be dead.

Yes, that’s right. Dead. IMO, Skuld and Ephemer and everybody else from the age of fairytales were supposed to be dead. The final world is like limbo where people with lingering regrets cannot move on to the afterlife. Sora wound up there, probably because the spirits drew him there. But he wasn’t dead. He could come back with the power of waking because his body was still alive. Demon Tide doesn’t kill your body.

But yeah, as far as I’m concerned, everyone else from the age of fairy tales is DEAD. KHUX wasn’t supposed to monopolize KH3′s plot the way it did. It wasn’t supposed to be that important. IMO, The main role of KHUX was to provide history to the Keyblade War and MX’s Keyblade. You would have the scene where the Keyblades come to life and take out the Demon Tide. It’s a nice little cameo to people who played KHUX, but nothing essential. Then, the hearts of the dead are finally at peace and they can pass on. The end. Their role is done. They weren’t supposed to come back! It’s stupid! Leave characters like a Ephemer and Skuld in the past where they belong!

Xaldin: It’s an order. Why do you hesitate? You, who has been ruthless towards those who’ve turned their backs on the Organization?

If you take away Axel’s past a former test subject and give it to Skuld, you change the very nature of his character. Look how KH3 downplayed Axel’s dark and ruthless side by making it seem like Saïx was the only one willing to get his hands dirty. Axel was apparently some perfect angel who was just innocently trying to find info on Subject X the whole time. Not, ya know, ruthlessly executing people. No! No, no no!

Don’t pretend like Axel was not a fucked up killer. He was almost as twisted as Saïx was. Not quite. But almost. Of course, I guess I understand why they downplayed this side of him. It really doesn’t make much sense for Axel to spend a decade ruthlessly killing people just to find a complete stranger who may or may not even be alive, does it? It would make a lot more sense if he was doing it because he was experimented on and his best friend was being held hostage by the organization.

But Axel being a fucked up killer was the very foundation of his excellent character arc. Why did he change and join the good side? It wasn’t because he became friends with Roxas or Xion. It’s because he became disgusted with himself. He was disgusted with himself after he killed Vexen and Sora was horrified at how much pleasure he got from it.

He was disgusted with himself when he saw Xion’s face for the first time and saw that she looked just like Namine. He was willing to slaughter Namine without a second thought in Castle Oblivion. But here was a girl who looked just like her, innocently asking to be his friend.

“You didn’t have to use force…”

Axel sighed theatrically and circled his shoulders. “Didn’t I?”

Still gripping Axel’s collar, Roxas shook his head with the emphatic refusal of a little kid. “No, you didn’t…” But he sounded uncertain as he said it, and his voice shrank even more. “We’re supposed to be best friends.”

Axel brushed Roxas’s hands from his collar. “This isn’t about friendship.”

Roxas raised his head. The glare in his blue eyes was sharp as a knife.

Axel had never seen that from him before. His chest twinged, just a bit. He let out another sigh. “Listen, if that’s all, I gotta go.”

Roxas wilted again, and something in his expression weakened Axel’s resolve slightly.

I just did what I thought was the best thing at the time. For Roxas, for Xion, for the Organization—and for Isa. But most of all for me.

He turned away from Roxas and made himself walk away.

He was disgusted with himself when he attacked Xion and brought her back to be destroyed. Why was Axel so upset with Saïx at the end of Days? Because he threw his morality away for him! Axel was willing to do anything for him. He was willing to kill innocent kids like Namine and Xion all for his sake. And at the end of the story Axel realized that Saïx didn’t even really love him anymore. Axel was more than happy to kill anyone if he thought Isa still loved him and appreciated the sacrifices he made for him.

He had been using the Organization for his own ends from the start. The only thing that had changed in the meantime was who it was all for. Maybe Saïx would call that a betrayal. But his world had changed.

But Axel realized that Saïx just used him as a murder tool to take out anyone who got in his way. He wasn’t even worried about him when he was at Castle Oblivion nor did he thank him when he returned. He took advantage of Axel’s devotion to him. That’s why Axel changed. It wasn’t like a My Little Pony episode where the power of Roxas and Xion’s magical friendship changed Axel. It was Axel’s own conscience. And yet, Axel still couldn’t bring himself to leave with Roxas at the end of Days. Even after Roxas left him the “Winner” stick. Because he was still attached to Saïx.

Axel: Look at what it’s come to. I’ve been given these icky orders to destroy you—if you refuse to come back with me.

Roxas: We’re…best friends, right?

Axel: Sure…but I’m not getting turned into a Dusk for…Wait a sec! You remember now!?

Roxas: Y…eah.

And Axel being a human test subject also seemed like the most reasonable backstory for him due to the way he seemed so…maladjusted. I was only 16 when I first played KH2. I was the same age as Roxas. And even then, the way Axel related to Roxas made me think that he had a really fucked up childhood. At first, Axel was willing to destroy Roxas, too. His “best friend”. In the original KH2, he seemed like he was just following orders because he was afraid of being turned into a Dusk. Which is still pretty screwed up.

“Say something. Have you even thought that maybe I can’t erase Roxas?” Axel said, in a playful tone, and Saix finally looked up. “It’ll be all right. Cause I’m tough.” Axel puffed out his chest.

“How stupid,” said Saix, and for a moment he smiled. “Let’s hurry up and prepare. Time is limited. The hero will wake up soon, too. I’ll send you in right in front of Roxas.”

“Okay.” Axel stood in front of the sending device. Saix rested his finger on the button. “I’m off the~n!” Waving to Saix, Axel’s figure disappeared.

But in the “Axel 7 Days” novel, you see that IMMEDIATELY before confronting Roxas about destroying him, Axel was looking at the white envelope and then flirted with Saïx. I hate the way the Axel/Roxas relationship was so misunderstood by the fandom. Why did Axel decide not to kill Roxas? IMO, it wasn’t because they were “best friends”.

It was because, once again, Axel was like “WTF am I doing? I’m trying to kill this innocent kid all so I can salvage my relationship with Saïx. I am a selfish piece of shit.” Why did Axel say that Roxas would have a next life, but not him? Because Axel knew what he was capable of and was prepared to do to him. Roxas was innocent. Axel was not. He had a lot of blood on his hands. He was not like Roxas. Roxas’s innocence is why Axel was so attached to him in the first place. But it was exactly why Roxas could never truly understand him. There will always be a part of Axel that he keeps hidden from Roxas.

On the sofa opposite him, Naminé spoke up instead. “Sora and Riku are best friends.”

Axel’s eyes crinkled as he remembered his own best friend—the only friend he’d ever had, in fact.

“If your best friend goes away, you’re sad, and if you get to be with them, you’re happy,” Naminé added. “Isn’t that how it is, Axel?”

“…That’s about the size of it.” Axel nodded and sat down on the remaining empty sofa, staring at the sea-salt ice cream he held.

“So you are capable of sincerity,” said Riku.

Axel only shrugged at the jab and finished his ice cream pop.

Even after he left the organization, Axel was still twisted. He was going to kill Kairi. And notice how it zoomed in on his tear mark. A bit of a hint about the true meaning of the upside down tears. IMO, the tears meant that Axel was willing to do absolutely anything to make his wish come true. And that was to be with his best friend forever. Saïx betrayed him and broke his heart. Axel decided to channel all of that grief and despair into his relationship with Roxas. He was now willing to kill innocent kids for his new best friend in order to forget about the old one. He was still selfish.

He only started to doubt himself when Kairi empathized with him.

And then he felt like shit and was disgusted with himself again. That was the last straw. Axel really doesn’t work as a character without a horrific backstory or being a killer. He just doesn’t. Being a twisted killer was fundamental to his story. And being a test subject was really the only things that could have made Saïx more sympathetic and redeemable.

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ranger-report · 4 years

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Thoughts On: HERETIC II (1998)

Just over one year after the release of Hexen II, Raven Software published the final game in their dark fantasy series. Set apart from the Serpent Rider Trilogy of Heretic./Hexen/Hexen II, Heretic II told the tale of Corvus Corax, the elven hero of the first Heretic, and his journey to return home after years of wandering the Outer Worlds. See, defeating one of the Serpent Riders resulted in his being thrown far far away from his origin world of Parthoris, and left to his own devices, he had a bit of a time attempting to make his way back. Marking the first time in the series that id Software had no involvement in the release of the game save for providing the modified id tech 2 engine (AKA the Quake 2 engine), this release was published by Activision under their purview. Moving in the direction of a third-person adventure with first-person shooter mechanics, Raven made it clear that they were going to take inspiration from wherever they could, including a popular little title called Tomb Raider. While garnering favorable reviews, Heretic II would ultimately be lost in the holiday shuffle of PC gaming as it had the unfortunate circumstance to be released one week after a particularly groundbreaking first-person shooter from Valve Software. You may have heard of it: Half-Life. As a result of the unfortunate coincidence and the lackluster response from fans due to the series changes, Heretic II was a commercial flop. But, with all that said, how does Heretic II stack in the lineup of the series it brings to a conclusion? And why has there been no further entries in the series since?

To begin with, the decision to make Heretic II a third person adventure was controversial amongst fans of the series. Yes, the style was popular and gaining traction, and Raven was nothing if not innovators, so the decision to a degree made sense. Why not take their dark fantasy world and put it through the wringer, especially since the main plot of the first three games was now over? Going into this title, I knew I was in for an adjustment period, but I had no idea it would be as shocking as it was. Slow, unintuitive camera movement coupled with clunky, lackluster controls make the game much more of a chore to play than the original games. Gone is the fast-paced combat, replaced with deliberately paced enemy encounters. Picking up heavily on the Tomb Raider inspiration, Corvus can leap, flip, roll, and somersault his way around the maps. Points for inspiration. But man’s -- er, elf’s -- reach exceeds his grasp, and while this sounds well and good on paper, molasses-like reaction times feel more like directing Corvus through waist-high water instead of the nimble acrobatics the game shoots for. Animations, graphics, sound design, everything on a technical level is top notch stuff. Corvus himself has a modeled backbone to allow for more fluid animations, shown off in his running, fighting, and even idle cycles. It’s impressive stuff that the gameplay just can’t seem to live up to on an engaging level. Heretic II feels like an attempt to return to the form of the first Heretic, but through the lens of a team who’s never played the first one. Rather than using different types of mana for ammunition, green mana is reserved for offensive spells, blue mana for defensive spells, and most weapons have unique ammunition types. Gone, too, is the inventory system of carrying items and objects for future use; instead, Corvus automatically uses any health or magic pickups he comes across, something which is bolstered by shrines which either completely refill mana, health, or armor points. When it comes to story, one must wonder which direction the intent was headed. Perhaps the original vision of Hecatomb was to come full circle with Corvus and face the final Serpent Rider after being outcast from the realms. The scattershot nature of the plot here doesn’t seem to suggest it, however.

As Corvus progresses, he returns to his home of Parthoris to discover a strange disease has taken over the land, changing the elves into diseased, violent versions of themselves. After being attacked, Corvus himself is infected, initiating his quest to discover a cure, and stop the mad magus Morcalavin. On an interesting note, it turns out that Morcalavin has collected the Seven Tomes of Power to aid him in magic use, but one of the Tomes is a fake and is the cause of the infection -- Corvus has been carrying the seventh Tome with him since Heretic. A bit of revisionist history considering that Tomes of Power have been consumable items since Heretic, and there were many more than seven. Noting this change to lore, Corvus simply needs to replace the fake Tome with the true one, and that should reverse Morcalavin’s corrupted power. Another noteworthy change is that the hub system of the previous games is also gone, replaced with a similar map progression to Heretic. Some maps are linear exercises in traveling from start to finish, others require moving about the many layers of the map to collect and bring together keys and objects. This is one of the largest departures from the previous games -- this story is far more intimate, more structured, more character-driven with cutscenes, dialogue, worldbuilding not seen in prior entries. Before, we were simply nameless warriors moving through dark fantasy worlds, kicking ass, taking names, killing gods and monsters alike. Here, we get to know one of said warriors by name and history. Yes, before now, Corvus was never actually named in his first appearance. He was simply “The Heretic” which was FAR more badass, although Corvus Corax is up there on the list of great fantasy names with ease. But, rather than a ride, this game wants to tell a story, watering down the experience. Whether Raven can tell a good story in other games is besides the point; here, the slipshod nature of the shoestring story attempting to provide a bit more theatricality feels tacked on, an oddity. Sure, perhaps the evolutionary nature of progression is where Raven felt the need to provide an actual factual story with their action game, also again from the inspiration of Tomb Raider slipping in, but it doesn’t hit the mark, nor age well in particular. Here we can see the beginnings of action games moving forward out of simple exercises in running and shooting, but telling stories with cinematic flair. Half-Life did the same, but with striking results, and far less awkward dialogue. And then, furthering the frustratingly bland story is the abrupt ending, in which the villain is cleansed of his corruption and ascends to godhood the way he intended, but leaving behind his power to Corvus in order to protect the world. So the bad guy....wins? But has become a good guy?

So, the question must be asked: what happened? Where Hexen II showed little of the changes that Raven were forced to make when new owner Activision mandated that they split the Heretic and Hexen series into separate entities, this game bears the unfortunate weight of that departure. As previously mentioned, the planned third game in the Serpent Rider Trilogy, Hecatomb, was divided into two games post-mandate, the ideas of which also went in two separate directions. John Romero has made frequent commentary in the past about the separation of the games as products vs a proper trilogy. He’d been involved with Hecatomb until his departure from id Software, which was also around the time that Raven was purchased by Activision. The publishing giant, he notes, split up the Raven team who had worked on the Heretic/Hexen games, further increasing the divide of the products. According to one of his accounts, one team worked on all three Serpent Rider games before the split, at which point that team was divided amongst the three in-house developing teams that already existed. While Brian Raffel, the mind behind the game series, was present and active on Heretic II, not everyone who’d put their passion into the rest of the series was there for the creation of this game. This shows in the final product.

With that in mind, it seems a little unfair to judge this game as harshly as I am. Perhaps we should be examining it, looking at the interesting bit of gaming history it represents. It marks a point in time where Raven, having experienced fair success on their own through working with technology giant id Software and other publishers, has become a corporate-owned entity. This is, in fact, the first game by Raven to be published exclusively by Activision. Eventually, Raven Software would be conscripted by Activision into the Holy Trinity of Call of Duty developers, rotating in and out making new COD games so they can come out yearly. What legacy, then, does this particular game leave? There is a mark here, a brand, a scar, a sign of things to come. Mandates from above demanding two franchises instead of one, an ironic analogy of the division of Raven from id Software -- Heretic II may have been published and distributed exclusively by Activision, but id Software published the previous games, and held publishing rights to those games. Meanwhile, the transfer of copyright went to Activision, putting future games into a pickle. Activision no doubt has little interest in creating new games in a series when they can’t make money from previous entries. Furthering problems is that Heretic II does not exist in digital format, probably again due to Activision unable to profit from sales of the prior games; a casual copyright search for Heretic II in the public record comes up with zero results, effectively placing the game as abandonware. With Raven owned by Activision, and id owned by Bethesda (formerly Zenimax), establishing cooperation between the two giants may seem difficult to impossible at this point.

What a shame for the final entry in what began as such a promising series to end limping across the finish line. In my research I found quite a few people who were glowing with nostalgic praise for Heretic II, and why not? In the opening level of Silverspring, we’re greeted with a run down town disparaged by the rampant virus. Flies zip back and forth and Corvus slaps his neck to be rid of them; children cry in the distance, dripping water echoing reminds of the empty nature of this place. All the environments in the game are rife with audio and visual treats that literally drip with atmosphere and character. There is a strange amount of life here, in a living world that feels interesting and worth exploring. But the controls and story fall flat, alongside the abysmal decision to make the game a third person adventure instead of the first person shooters of the previous entries. Whether or not we’ll ever see a proper new entry into the Heretic/Hexen world is, unfortunately, something that remains to be seen. Spiritual successors, such as AMID EVIL and the upcoming Graven reap the fields which were sown of Hexen’s seeds. Activision and Bethesda may never see eye to eye on the subject of reviving Heretic or Hexen or maybe even the fabled Hecatomb, but one thing is clear: regardless of the corporate greed which aborted the lifespan of this wonderful series, the first three games of this series live on as passionate exercises in dark fantasy, examples of how to push the FPS genre forward while remaining firmly grounded in what makes it work. Heretic II is the Crystal Skull of this series -- many will find themselves better off forgetting it ever happened. Activision certainly has. And again, how ironic is it, that the very mandate which they laid down in order to spawn new sequels and twin franchises led to the death of them.

#heretic ii #raven software #id software #activision #bethesda #heretic #hexen #thoughts on #ruby ranger #ck burch #ranger report #classic gaming #long post #pc gaming #quake #quake ii engine

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skycendre-blog · 5 years

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I often hear from DA fans that they love Anders, but “they feel too conflicted” over the Chantry exploding

And they can’t condone the act, even when they recognize that Anders “had a good reason”. Arguments are generally “I agree with the purpose but not with the action”, “blowing up a palace is too extreme”, “by doing that, Anders turned into Meredith”, “he’s as bad as the Templars”.

It could be argued that there is no in-game validation for hundreds of people dying. That only a bunch of Chantry-folk exploded with the building - we’re talking about 20 to 30 casualties here - and that the bomb was limited to the building and collateral damage wasn’t excessive.

It could also be argued that Anders had no choice. He tried for six years to peacefully petition for mage rights, he wrote his manifesto, he smuggled fugitives out of the Gallows and sheltered them in the clinic. He healed the poor and the sick in Darktown. After six years, the whole province was under Templar dictatorship, and Meredith had already requested Annulment directly to Orlais. It’s not like Anders could have done anything else.

But let’s get real, and admit that it's understandable that the "grand" gesture of blowing up a building leaves people “conflicted”, prompting them to shook their heads in disbelief, and blame Anders of being “the real bad guy”. Why? But because that’s exactly how the game is trying to sell it.

There's some narrative there. Just look at how that building explodes. Two big columns of light converging, ominous music. The camera zooming on the terrified people inside, helpless as the world around them becomes a burning blast of white/red destructive magic.

It’s horrifying to watch, especially because it takes after a very dark chapter of real world history, and the first-run players witness it wide eyed, shocked as they couldn’t fathom such a sheer amount of destruction falling onto the city they learned to love through three Acts of Dragon Age 2. But let’s also consider the fact that for those three Acts, what the player does is pretty much kill people. There are a few missions where the foes are only monsters - such as those on Sundermount and the Bone Pit - but for the most part, Hawke and their merry band of misfits spend their time together slaughtering men and women, old and young, named or unnamed.

Some could say that these people “attacked first”, but that’s surely not always the case: in a lot of instances it’s people minding their own business, and Hawke barging in to put an end to it, for a reason or another. In some others, the player decides that a person/group of people can’t simply walk away, therefore they kill them or prompt a companion to do it.

During the first time skip, the player can also decide to have Hawke work as a mercenary, and they do so for an entire year. A mercenary by definition - as also seen with the first mission - kills people for money.

Moreover, there are a lot of routes the player can take that allow pretty bad stuff to happen.

Some examples: If Hawke sides with the Templars, they get to butcher a group of mages and their families, as they were about to flee Kirkwall. If the player allows Ser Karras’ group to get to the Starkhaven apostates in Act 1, some mages get murdered and Karras rapes Alain. The player can also have Feynriel turn into an Abomination if so they wish, which prompts Arianni to kill herself, and leads to a ton of awful things happening in Kirkwall. Not to mention that if you say the wrong thing to the Dalish hunters after Marethari’s death, you end up wiping out the Sabrae clan in its entirety. And that you can literally sell a person into slavery - not a random person, one of your companions.

Hawke definitely kills a lot of people during the game. Innocents or not, involved or not, for one reason or another, petty or serious, for money and glory or for a good cause. Varric makes a rough count at some point in Act 2, and by then it's already around 250 deaths, speaking only of those Varric witnessed firsthand.

All of this gets a free morality pass from the game.

Sure, sometimes other NPCs judge you for your actions, but there’s no single occasion where the game presents Hawke’s choices as unforgivable, ominous or inhuman. There’s no single occasion where the game shows a cutscene of “helpless innocents” dying at Hawke’s hand, which stays forever burned into the player’s mind.

Then Anders blows up the Chantry.

He blows up the symbol of centuries’ worth of abuse and oppression, which has the whole Kirkwall province under Templar dictatorship, which never once in game has done anything remotely useful for the poor and the sick of Darktown. Which spawned and empowered people like Petrice, which allowed Templars like Ser Alrik to rise in the ranks, which orchestrated the murder of the Viscount’s heir and provoked the Qunari enough to have them almost destroy Kirkwall.

Anders blows up the Chantry, Elthina dies alongside a bunch of chantry-folk, and the game gives you THAT scene. That terrible, horrifying scene which screams “WRONG”, yelling that it doesn’t matter what mages have suffered and are still suffering, it doesn’t matter that they’re all about to die because Meredith already called Annulment, nothing matters anymore: this is just unacceptable.

Forget about everything else Anders did in those six years. Forget about the clinic, the manifesto, the friendship or love he shares with Hawke. Anders is unforgivable now, the game itself is telling you he’s a monster. That he went too far. “He put a bomb into a building full of innocent people”. In a world such as Thedas, “innocent people” dying for a reason or another is a daily occurrence. Mages dying on a whim of their Templar captors is a daily occurrence. Mages ripped away from their families as children, locked up, abused, raped, beaten, lobotomized.

And they’re innocent too. All the victims of Chantry brutality are innocent to some degree, but all of this too is completely wiped out by that short cutscene.

The Chantry explodes, Elthina and her subordinates die, and people blame Anders for rebelling instead of blaming the Chantry for everything else. Even if Anders tried peacefully for six years. Even if he was one single man against that colossal institution of oppression and abuse of every race and culture, which brainwashed almost an entire continent into mindlessly following their “divine law”. The game yells that “killing innocent people” is wrong.

I yell that no Chantry-folk in Kirkwall was innocent.

Even if I put the bloody, murderous history of the Chantry aside, if one allows law enforcements to rape and kill, one is not innocent. Elthina and her cronies were the most complicit of them all.

It’s 2019. Stop blaming the victims of abuse, and stop buying into BioWare’s narrative of “innocent people dying”, purposely intended to villainize and shame the one person who dared to stand up against systemic oppression, giving a voice to all the mages whose cries were snuffed out.

It is lore-established that countless innocent people died because of the Chantry - in the seventeen Rights of Annulment pulled in Thedosian history, in the Exalted Marches, in the systemic erasure of Dalish and Chasind culture. That innocent people die every day of starvation in the alienages and in the city slums, and in the Circles when Templars decide to kill or lobotomize them.

Innocent people don’t live in a luxurious palace in the most opulent part of the city, so coated in gold that it could buy the whole Free Marches.

Innocent people don’t have an army of brainwashed zealots to enforce their laws, kept on a leash by drug addiction.

Innocent people don’t preach and empower centuries of abuse perpetrated upon others, whose only fault is being born different.

Anders&Justice did the only right thing possible, and their actions should be a fandom-wide appreciated symbol of pride and freedom.

#mage rights #Anders #Justice #mage freedom #the chantry sucks #Stop blaming the victims of abuse #Innocent people rhetoric doesn't work in a medieval-based world #The Chantry IS NOT INNOCENT #Anders did nothing wrong #Mage Pride

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phoenix-downer · 5 years

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The Keyblade Graveyard Part 1: Japanese and English Comparison

This is the fifth in a series of translation and analysis posts I’ve done about KH3. I’ll be talking about KH3 in the context of Westerns, briefly touch on a possible connection to jidaigeki, go into detail on camera angles and camera shots, and, of course, discuss translation and the social aspects of language.

I’ve broken up this analysis into multiple parts because it was getting so long. This part will cover Aqua and Ven’s interactions with Terranort, the next will cover when he attacks Lea and Kairi, and so on and so forth up through when the Demon Tide sweeps Sora away.

Here’s a general key for the kind of analysis I like to do:

JP: Official Japanese Dialogue

EN: Official English Dialogue

TR: My Translation (usually more literal and thus more stilted than the official English version. I’m not using natural-sounding English in order to stick as close to the Japanese versions of the lines as possible for the purpose of analysis)

Notes: things I found interesting, grammatical points, extra thoughts, etc.

One last note: media doesn’t exist in a vacuum. Every work of art must be viewed through the cultural lens of the people who made it. Kingdom Hearts, for all its ties to Disney, is still very much a Japanese game, so it should be analyzed in light of that.

With that in mind, let’s continue.

Terra’s introduction is like a cowboy in a Western with the dramatic smoke:

The cinematography of this whole scene strikes me as inspired by Westerns and/or Samurai cinema (chanbara, a subcategory of jidaigeki, or period films). The two genres of film have had a large influence on each other (Akira Kurosawa’s classic Seven Samurai was remade as The Magnificent Seven in the US, for example, and Akira Kurosawa was a fan of the American director John Ford), so this speculation might not be that far off.

This screenshot from the trailer for Seven Samurai, for example, shows a similar “dramatic smoke/dust” moment, which makes me think that this may be a trope in Samurai cinema as well:

The setting of the Keyblade Graveyard itself calls to mind the setting of a lot of Westerns, with its smoke and dust and craggy hills and desert. The conflict even takes place in a graveyard, much like the final standoff in The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly, one of the most famous Westerns of all time (technically a Spaghetti Western, or a Western made in Italy - in this case directed by Italian director Sergio Leone):

Anyway, continuing on. Terra is here, but he’s looking at the ground and not making eye contact with anyone:

Ven is the first to notice him, and he calls his name...

JP テラ！

EN Terra!

TR Terra!

...before taking off after to him, which stresses Aqua out (and rightfully so - can you blame her for being on edge about everyone’s safety here, especially Ven’s?):

JP ヴェン！

EN Ven!

TR Ven!

We get this wide shot of Ven running to Terra while he just sort of stands there:

There are a number of shots like this in the scene that really emphasize the scale of the conflict by showing how small the human players are compared to the setting.

This ties in well to the theme that the characters cannot change their fate - they’re just playthings of it. The Keyblade Graveyard will still be there long after they’re dead, much like how it is still here after all the people who fought in the Keyblade War died. And while Sora does later change fate, he has to face the consequences. Death claims its prize in the end.

Ven latches onto Terra’s wrist, and the camera focuses on their hands:

And then we get this over the shoulder shot that is also at a bit of a high angle to emphasize Ven’s vulnerability:

JP テラやっと会えた！

EN Terra! We found you!

TR Terra! We could meet at last!

Notes: The Japanese phrasing is a little different than the English version, but the same general meaning gets across. Ven is excited to see Terra again. His use of yatto implies it’s been a while, and he uses the potential form for meet, hence why I translated this as “could meet” despite how awkward it sounds in English.

We get this reverse over the shoulder shot from a lower angle to emphasize Terra’s greater size and strength compared to Ven:

Now, Aqua has Seen Things™ in the Realm of Darkness, and she is quick to ask if this is really the Terra they know and love. No doubt she has in mind the time they met in the Realm of Darkness and Xehanort took control of him:

JP テラ　本当にテラなの？

EN Terra, please say you’re in there.

TR Terra, is that really you? (Literally: Is [that] really Terra?)

Notes: Japanese tends to use names more than English does, whereas English favors the use of pronouns, hence why Aqua repeats Terra’s name twice in her question in the Japanese version.

She uses the ~nano construction to check for confirmation - she wants to believe this is Terra, but she has her doubts.

We get this extreme close up shot of Terra’s eyes to emphasize that while yes, they are blue, they seem a little empty and soulless:

Something I noticed about Kingdom Hearts 3 is that there are a lot of extreme close up shots like this, especially of the characters’ eyes.

Well, as I was doing some research for this analysis, it turns out this type of shot is also sometimes called an Italian shot, named for... you guessed it, Sergio Leone, who popularized it in his Spaghetti Western films.

Here’s an example of this type of shot from The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly:

The emphasis of this type of shot is on the character’s emotions, and it serves to heighten the dramatic tension of the scene. Multiple times throughout the Keyblade Graveyard, we’ll get extreme close up shots like this that have just such an effect.

On a side note, I never noticed this many extreme close up shots in a Kingdom Hearts game before. I wonder if they hired new cutscene director(s) to work on the game who left their unique mark on it, or if the graphics capabilities of UE4 allowed them to experiment around with the cinematography more than they could in the past.

Continuing on, we see Aqua’s reaction to Terra’s soulless gaze:

She immediately moves to put herself between Ven and Terra, selfless to the end:

Ven sounds downright annoyed in the Japanese version and confused/questioning in the English version, but Aqua doesn’t care, she’s keeping him safe. Note how tense Sora is in the background:

JP 何だよアクア！

EN What gives, Aqua?

TR What(’s going on), Aqua?

Notes: Ven uses the emphatic particle yo in the Japanese version to show his annoyance with Aqua here - they’re finally all together again and yet she��s pushing him away from Terra? What gives?

The camera changes to this wide shot, once again emphasizing the epic scale of this very human conflict:

JP あなたの中にテラはいない

EN I know that you’re not him.

TR Terra isn’t inside of you.

Notes: Aqua knows the problem. Terra, or perhaps more specifically, Terra’s heart, is not inside of the body before them now. Aqua sounds angry and frustrated in her delivery in the Japanese version. She’s sick of this happening, sick of Terra still being lost to them.

Ven gasps in this next shot to indicate his surprise:

And Aqua sounds very angry/upset in the Japanese version as she commands Xehanort to release Terra. The camera angle is low again to show how Terra is towering over them, to hint at the power imbalance that we will soon see play out:

JP テラの体を返しなさい！

EN Now, let our friend go!

TR Return Terra’s body (to him)!

Notes: When Aqua was addressing Terra earlier, she used casual/intimate grammar forms. Japanese has an entire system of conjugation based on social dynamics - there are polite and casual forms of verbs, there are honorifics, humble expressions, rude expressions... all to express the relationship between the speaker and the addressee.

Aqua switches to a more polite form here. This could be because she wants to indicate social distance from Xehanort. It certainly isn’t used to be polite. This isn’t her friend; this is the man who ruined her friends’ lives as well as her own. She commands him to return Terra’s body using the honorific form nasai in a way that sounds like she’s scolding him. It’s possible she also chooses to use this particular command form as a mark of feminine speech, instead of using one of the coarser/more direct command forms at her disposal.

The camera tilts up, still at that low angle to emphasize Terra’s relative size and height advantage, and he (well, more like the heart inside of him) smirks:

We see his hair change color in a close up shot:

And then Ven’s horrified reaction. After all, he never knew what happened to Terra (as far as I can remember). The shot here really emphasizes his emotions by centering him in the frame head-on:

Fate of the Unknown has begun to play, very fitting for this scene, as Terra’s fate smacks Ven in the face (and the audience as well, for that matter). Note how everyone is ready for a fight, even if their Keyblades aren’t out yet. Knees bent, arms outstretched, or, in Goofy’s case, balled into fists:

Then we get this close up shot of Terranort’s face. His hair is fully silver and his eyes are yellow, and Mickey proclaims what has become of Terra:

JP これで１３人目ー

EN He is their thirteenth.

TR Here is (the) thirteenthー

Notes: Basically saying the same thing in both languages, just worded sligthly differently to sound more natural in English.

Dark smoke wafts off of Terranort as he finally speaks, and it’s not with Terra’s voice:

JP おまえたちはここで敗北する

EN Today is the day you all lose.

TR Here you all (will) lose.

Notes: Terranort uses the derogatory second person plural pronoun omaetachi to refer to them here. He also uses a casual form of the verb suru, indicating familiarity or, in this case, contempt. The word for “lose,” haiboku, can also mean “be defeated.”

Aqua sounds downright angry here in the Japanese version as she responds, and Ven just looks sad. The camera angle is a little off-kilter here (note how Aqua and Ven seem the same height even though they are not, and the characters in the background form a diagonal line): to indicate how “off” this whole situation is (I think this would be an example of a Dutch angle, but in case it’s not, I’ll call this kind of angle a tilted angle throughout this analysis):

JP 何を！

EN What?!

TR What!

Notes: I noticed the dialogue uses a lot of exclamation marks throughout this scene, both in the English version and the Japanese version. Emotions are running high, and all those exclamation marks really serve to show that.

Here we get a shot of Ven’s feet and Aqua’s legs...

...which is reminiscent of images and posters of famous show-downs in movies, like this one for the 1952 Western High Noon:

We even see this same sort of shot earlier in this scene, this time with Sora’s legs and Xehanort as the approaching opponent:

Once again, the framing of the shots calls to mind Westerns.

Moving on to the dialogue:

JP １３の闇にたどりつくこともなく　この場で心は肉体を離れ我が身を散らす

EN Before you even face the thirteen, every last one of you will be torn heart from body.

TR Without even reaching the thirteen darknesses, at this place (your) hearts will be separated from (your) bodies (and) I (will) scatter them (literally the bodies).

Notes: Terranort uses a different pronoun than Terra does. He uses ware, which Xehanort sometimes uses (and also sounds kind of old-fashioned), instead of the masculine pronoun ore, which is Terra’s pronoun of choice.

In the Japanese version, two different words are used for “body” here as well, nikutai in the first instance and mi in the second instance, perhaps for poetic effect and/or to avoid redundancy.

Next, he summons his weapon, which is accompanied by more darkness, and delivers this line:

JP だが安心しろ

EN But fear not.

TR But be at peace.

Notes: “Fear not” sounds a little archaic in English, as in modern English we would say “don’t be scared” or “don’t be afraid.” Over time main verbs lost the ability to move in front of negatives in English, and we insert “do” instead, which attaches to “not” to form “don’t,” while leaving the main verb in its spot.

Terranort’s use of an older construction in English like this is very effective at making him sound pompous. In modern English saying “fear not” brings up religious connotations, as a lot of well-known quotes from the Bible are based on older translations (hello, King James version) and thus older forms of the language. Terranort sounds like he’s playing at God, here, in other words. It also makes him sound older, which is fitting for an old man who stole the body of a young one.

In the Japanese version, he uses the command form of the verb suru, shiro, to command them to be at peace. This is a very direct way to command someone to do something, kind of coarse and not at all polite.

The camera cuts to this close up shot of his face:

JP χブレードはここで完成する

EN The χ-blade will still be forged.

TR The χ-blade will be completed here.

Notes: Basically saying the same thing in both languages. I like how the English version went with “forged,” though. Fitting for the whole “creating a weapon” thing.

We see, not Aqua and Ven’s reaction to Terranort’s proclamation, but everyone else’s, Sora’s in particular. He is centered in the frame here:

And then we get a closer shot of him to better showcase his reaction. His voice sounds lower here to indicate his determination:

JP おまえたちに負けることはない

EN We’re not gonna lose to you.

TR We’ll never lose to you.

Notes: Sora uses the derogatory second person plural pronoun here, omaetachi. He’s referring to their enemies as a whole as a whole, not just Terranort. Unfortunately this nuance is somewhat lost in English because we use “you” for both singular and plural second person, though regional varieties have popped up, such as y’all, you lot, you guys, youse guys, yinz, etc. to refer to plural “you.”

(For anyone wondering, yes, English did used to make this distinction in the past, much like many modern European languages still do. It was a sad day the English language lost its second person plural pronoun for various reasons that I won’t get into here, but those regional varieties I mentioned have popped up for a reason - it is really useful to be able to make that distinction between singular and plural!)

Sora uses the ~kotowanai construction here to indicate that they’ll never lose to Xehanort and his cronies. He’s absolutely sure of it. And the English version captures his casual style of speech with “gonna.”

The shot ends with him glaring at Terranort:

And the camera cuts to Terranort, making what I will call “the Xehanort look” from here on out:

We can see the Xehanort look exemplified by Xehanort himself here:

An eyebrow raised, head tilting forward, eyes looking up - a Kubrick stare to indicate he’s a little deranged.

An example of the Kubrick Stare for reference, from the film A Clockwork Orange. The Kubrick Stare was popularized by the director Stanley Kubrick for it showing up in a lot of his films:

That is a dramatic contrast from the types of faces Terra makes:

Using Xehanort’s expressions with Terra’s body makes it very clear Terra is not the one in control here, as to my knowledge Terra never makes the Xehanort look. It’s also very unsettling to see Terra acting like Xehanort. It just feels wrong, and that really comes through in how Terranort moves and reacts.

One moment, he’s there...

...and the next, he’s gone, indicated by a whooshing noise:

He can move lightning-fast, a fact the slow motion here in the next part obscures a little for dramatic effect. This has also lead to the impression that Aqua and Ven just stood there and did nothing. That’s not entirely true. It’s more like they didn’t have time to do much of anything.

Aqua does, in fact, react to his disappearance; you can hear her make a surprised noise here:

And then he suddenly reappears between her and Ven, indicated by another whooshing noise. Note Terranort’s posture, how he is bending his knee to gather as much momentum to hit Ven with as possible. The scene also goes into slow motion for dramatic effect:

And the camera cuts to him swinging his blade and speeds up a little:

Again, Aqua barely has time to register that Terranort has moved because he’s moving so quickly. Ven is in shock because he would never imagine Terra hurting him. They didn’t have much time to launch any sort of a defense, and while I think Aqua expected Terranort to attack her, perhaps, neither she nor Ven expected Terranort to attack Ven.

Because Ven is like their younger brother, or even their son. In the Japanese version of BBS he downright said he was supposed to bring his parents to Disney Town when he gave Terra and Aqua the passes, not just grownups like the English version went with. And while Aqua and Terranort have fought before, Terra has never laid a hand on Ven. Not as Terra, not as Terranort. Ven trusts him to keep him safe, to protect him. So for Terranort to attack him, well...

It’s kind of like watching a father attack his own son as his wife watches on in horror at what’s unfolding.

The scene goes back into slow-mo as Terranort’s Keyblade connects with Ven, and Ven is folded over from the impact, Terranort hit him so hard. He makes a choked sound of pain, too, like he’s had the wind knocked out of him and can hardly breathe. Note how Aqua isn’t looking in their direction yet because she hasn’t had time to look yet:

We cut to a closer shot of Ven that puts the focus on him as he reacts, and you can see the pain written all over his face:

The scene is still in slow motion as he hurtles backwards:

And then the camera cuts to Aqua to show her reaction. She slowly turns her head (still in slow-mo, remember?), and the look of shock and horror on her face is heartbreaking to see:

The camera speeds up to normal speeds as it shows Ven being flung backwards, as if this is from Terranort’s POV:

Note how Ven’s eyes are still open, he still seems to be conscious:

And then the camera cuts to a different perspective behind the characters, as if the camera is on the ground. Note how once again the ground is at an angle instead of forming a straight line in this shot to indicate how wrong this whole situation is. We can also see Ven landing on his back with his legs in the air...

...which provides enough momentum for him to tumble backwards:

His body settles on the ground in a cloud of dust, and he no longer seems to be conscious. Note his limp head:

My guess is that landing on his back like that/hitting his head is what made him lose consciousness, as he was conscious before when he was still in the air. Terranort wasn’t necessarily trying to kill him (though I’d argue hitting your head like that would probably be enough to kill you in real life if not in video games), he was just trying to incapacitate him so it would make it easier to take his heart out of his body later on.

Riku provides credence to this theory later on when he tells Sora that the hearts of their friends are still in their bodies. If Ven had died here, that probably wouldn’t be the case.

The camera cuts to Terranort, and he has a downright smug expression on his face over what he just did. The Xehanort look is back in full force:

And it makes for quite the contrast with Aqua’s look of shock and disbelief as she gasps:

We get a shot from her POV, showing Ven crumpled on the ground:

And then a close up shot of her reaction to what has happened to Ven that showcases her emotions, her feelings. This moment is framed in terms of her pain and loss and shock, showing that we as the audience are supposed to empathize with her: