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ryuichirou · 4 years

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Do you (and your gf, tell her anon said hi) have any top Eren headcanons? Or is Levi the main focus for you two?

opinion on how Eren would be in sex?

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(I hope it’s ok if I reply to both of you here… sorry for the wait)

Levi isn’t the main focus, I just can’t shut up about him because he is my personal fave hahaha, but we love headcanoning stuff about all the characters, but especially the our main ships (eruriererizevi), so feel free to ask if you’re interested in anyone else! These are extremely fun to write.

What’s interesting about Eren is how he changes over the time… well, I don’t think he’s changed much to be honest, but we think he became more bold and mature. I’d say that he also became more open about what he likes, but I tbh I feel like Eren never really knew how to hide what he wants, it’s always written all over his face.

You can also check out my reply to the ask I received 3 month ago about why I like top!Eren so much, I talk about a lot of same stuff here too. And there are some manga caps, so it’s fun 👀

Ok, so here are some of our headcanons about Eren:

Eren is extremely physical. He loves to touch, to grab, to rub his face and to press his head against his lover’s shoulders, back, chest, etc. He became more touchy as he got older, now he grabs and hugs Levi whenever he feels like it. He just knows Levi would let him do that.

Eren doesn’t necessarily hate to be touched, but let’s just say that Levi is the only lover of his who is allowed to touch him wherever he wants. He’ll never say “don’t touch me here” to Levi, he adores him and he’s always hungry for him. He can smack Jean’s hand though, poor Jean.

Eren is very animalistic, very dog/wolf-like. Sometimes he’s straight-up feral. He growls a lot, he grabs very aggressively, he literally mounts his lover like a dog sometimes lol He also dry humps his lover through the clothes from time to time.

Oh and the most obvious thing: he bites A LOT. He’s EXTREMELY bite-y. His teeth are so strong it’s scary. Remember when he bit through his own meat 1023410 times in the manga? He does the same thing to Levi’s shoulders almost every time. He feels guilty afterwards, but as I mentioned in a previous post, Levi doesn’t mind, so this keeps happening.

Is it surprising to anyone that doggy is his preferred position?

Cowboy position with Eren is a little tricky. It’s impossible when he’s to horny, because he’ll end up still moving his hips, thrusting into his lover from below, and then he’ll just change position and take all the initiative anyways. Although sometimes he can just lay and watch his lover with a very bored and almost apathetic face. It’s either this or that, no in-between with him.

Same with blowjobs. He’d either watch his partner suck the d all bored and stuff, or just thrust into his face like if it’d kill him to stay still for a moment. He always goes straight to the throat in this case.

I should probably mention that he never looks bored with Levi (unless it’s needed for a very specific reason for a very particular AU…). Like I said, he adores him too much and respects him too much.

Eren doesn’t hate Jean or whoever else there is in an alternative ship with him. He still enjoys the process, he’s just a little mean lol idk how to explain this one, he’s a little bit condescending towards them, I think it’s based on the fact that Eren’s always bored and treats everyone like crap (it’s shown much better in Isayama’s High School AU) lol

Speaking of Jean, we have a headcanon that in the canonverse these two had some sexual experiments going on back when they were cadets fighting each other every day. This is one of the reasons Jean missed their bickering, Eren got a little distant overtime, and Jean kind of sort of misses that d and that rude attitude that comes with it.

Eren always ejaculates inside. He likes this feeling too much.

He’s very neglectful towards his own body, he doesn’t really think very well when he fucks, and a lot of times he ends up being absolutely exhausted.

He used to be very loud when he was younger. He was moaning, whimpering, mumbling, all this stuff. But now that he’s 19, there’s only heavy breathing and low growls. He doesn’t like to remember how he used to be, it makes him a little embarrassed.

He also used to cry after an orgasm almost every time. He was so overwhelmed and euphoric that by the end of the process he became a wet red crying mess that hides his face in Levi’s neck and bites him for distraction. Plus all the love he’s feeling for Levi becomes too much for him. He was shy about crying even back then but he couldn’t control it very well (Levi pretended he didn’t notice this stuff in order not to make Eren feel uncomfortable). This is the part Eren really doesn’t like to remember as well, this makes him even more embarrassed. Now that he’s 19 he very rarely feels that he’s getting teary eyes, but it still can happen.

I don’t want you to think that Eren in the past was a crying baby, he was still very thoughtful of whatever was going on, he thought about his admiration to Levi and how he should control himself and stuff, and he was still very initiative and... pervy, although the latter was happening by accident. It was just hard for him to think while having sex with Levi (who can blame him) and all his emotions were a mess, but still, the only thing that’s changed – Eren’s calmed down a bit.

Eren gets horny very easily. There were a lot of sudden boners when he was younger, a lot of them happened at very bad moments for him lol his teenage body was out of control. This doesn’t happen so often anymore, but Eren still can get a boner when you least expect him to. For example, sometimes he gets horny while watching a horror movie, even though he’s extremely bored…

If we’re talking canonverse, he definitely got a boner while he was in his titan a bunch of times. When he was crushing titans for the first time ever, when he was fighting Annie both in the forest and in Stohess, when he was fighting Reiner. He was emotionally distressed, but he felt some level of arousal in all of these situations, esp the first one.

When he was at his depressed emo stage, he was more gentle and less intense with Levi. Maybe it’s fair to say that he was asking for comfort with no words, because he couldn’t say anything about what was going through his head at that time, but he needed to run away from these thoughts just for a moment. He was also less bitey back then, but much more clingy.

Out of all the characters, his libido is the highest. He’s the most interested in sex and probably has it most often compared to others. Especially in the AUs, where he has nothing interesting to do a lot of times and gets bored all the time.

A lot of Eren’s boldness came from him seeing how Erwin and Levi interact with each other. He was a little bit scared of Levi at first, well, rather he was scared that he might disappoint him if he got too clingy. But seeing how patient Levi was to whatever Erwin did to him made Eren think, “Can I really do that to him too?” And then he did. And never got scolded. And everything was great.

He’s the only lover of Levi that helps him with the cleaning afterwards. At least a little bit. He’s a responsible young man.

When he wants to be left alone with his lover to do the thing, it’s super obvious. It’s obvious that he hates everyone who doesn’t leave them alone at the moment, he looks like he’s about to bite your face off if you don’t leave. When he’s pissed off and horny enough, he can just ignore the presence of a person and start touching Levi, waiting for a person to feel uncomfortable and leave. This usually happens to Zeke.

Oof, this is… a lot lol. I feel like we can talk about Eren for even longer than about Levi, and this is saying a lot. His energy is bizarre… And this is such a small portion of everything we’ve discussed about Eren.

Hope you find any of it interesting! Haha

Thanks for your question

#replies #eren yeager #eren jaeger #headcanons

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doktorpeace · 6 years

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Xenoblade Chronicles 2: An In Depth Review

I recently finished Xenoblade Chronicles 2 and I’ve got a lot of mixed thoughts on the game as a whole. I’m going to break these down in three ways and they’ll be of varying lengths. First I’ll discuss the Gameplay and its mechanics, then the game’s aesthetics, and then the game’s story and characters. I’ll give a general overview of each and then they will be broken down into Pros, Neutrals, and Cons. I’ve made it a point to try and avoid making references to direct spoilers, but there’s still a few in here, so bear that in mind. This is also by far the longest post I’ve ever made on tumblr, so buckle in. There’s sure to be a bit of overlap in each section, but I’ll try to stay focused. At the end of it all I’ll give overall closing thoughts. Alright, let’s start.

Gameplay:

Once fully realized to the player Xenoblade Chronicles 2 has a very enjoyable, flexible, and meaningfully expressive gameplay style, traits which are not often seen in combination with one another in JRPGs. The combat is fun, fluid, and has just a ton of customizability more or less from the moment you’re able to obtain blades. Racking up extremely large damage numbers is fun, trying out different gameplay styles is easy and satisfying, and the game maintains a good pace in terms of combat through the whole game. However, this isn’t without its drawbacks, the game has a few noteworthy bugs and mechanics that simply feel like afterthoughts. The game is also much much too slow in opening up to the player. The fact that I had a gameplay element introduced to me for the first time an hour before the final boss when it could have been present for almost a full third of the game is mind boggling as a decision. Overall, I consider the gameplay to be the strongest point of Xenoblade Chronicles 2 as in spite of its issues it’s a lot of fun, a real blast to play from start to finish in spite of its length. Pros: + Extremely customizable, any party member can be built to fit any role you need or want them to no matter how specific. + All of the game’s weapons are fun to use, with extremely satisfying hitsounds, animations, and gameplay differences. The fact they they control differently from character to character is also a great touch, allowing for further expression of each character’s strengths as some will naturally be a bit better or worse than others with certain weapons. + Expressiveness is a big part of this game’s combat, there’s no one correct way to play and the player is free to express themselves in a wide variety of battle strategies and styles, whether that be focusing on getting huge chain attacks, setting up combos that absolutely crush enemies but have tight timing, and exploiting weaknesses, there’s far more options as well and players are free to explore as many as they like. The game even encourages the player to try and cheese out enemies that give them trouble, with Blowdown and Knockback effects allowing players to knock enemies down from high places for huge damage or an outright kill. + Fun environments to explore with a reasonable amount of depth to them. The existence of field skills allows the game to make sure that most areas in the game give the player reason to come back to them for further exploration down the line. That said, the game’s environments are weaker than other Monolithsoft games having less depth and intrigue than either previous Chronicles game or Breath of the Wild, but they are enjoyable nonetheless. + With each Rare Blade having their own affinity chart to progress upon and unlock to make them stronger, the game has a good and consistent feeling of getting more powerful and progression even aside from the story. In my whole playthrough I only maxed out a couple Blades, but was always seeking out strengthening the ones I liked. + The player is free to use any combination of party members for the vast majority of the game, meaning if the player doesn’t like certain party members they are free to not use them anytime there are four or more party members available, which is most of the game. This includes the final boss fight, meaning players can play their way all the way to the end. + The game’s easier core mechanics mean that any combination of Blades, no matter how unfocused they may be thematically together, can clear any content the game throws at the player, meaning there’s never any pressure to simply play what’s best. Neutrals: [] While field skills allow the game to carefully piece content over time to the player to make sure they never get equipment too powerful or trip into enemies way beyond their depth (mostly), it also causes the game to lose a lot of the organic feeling of exploration both Xenoblade Chronicles and X had. Oftentimes I was excited that I had managed to find or get to a new area only for the game to effectively tell me to come back later which was always disappointing. This more rigid feeling was a negative for me, but could help players who are generally uncomfortable with open world/semi open world games’ lack of direction. [] While expressive and fun, the game’s core combat mechanics are deeply simplified from the previous two games. This makes the game as a whole much much easier. When paired with how quest experience works now it’s far too easy to get ahead of the game’s intended level. Regardless of even that the game’s strongest foe, a level 130 Boss, can be bested at level 75-80 out of a possible 99, which is a sad step down from the deep and complex postgame challenges the previous games offered players. Some players may find this easier gameplay preferable, while others might not.

[] The game opens up obscenely slow to the player. I am not exaggerating that in a 125 hour playthrough I had mechanics introduced to me at hour 100 and 124. Out of the game’s 10 chapters it takes almost half of the game to simply give the player access to the full set of basic mechanics, putting aside more niche or advanced ones. While this can help players often overwhelmed by deeper RPGs the rate is so slow that it could turn many players off, especially those who don’t like handholding. [] Almost every enemy in the game has about 20% too much health for their own good. It makes combat encounters near the middle of the game drag on much longer than they should, though early and late this isn’t an issue. Some players may not mind this but I often found it irritating. [] The load times are extremely fast across the board. While this can mean there’s a bit of pop in of the game finishing loading in textures for a bit after each load time between major locations I personally didn’t mind that. I consider the fast load times far more of a positive than the pop in is a bit of a negative, but I know some people might think differently.

Cons: - The existence of a Gachapon system in a singleplayer RPG is absolute inexcusable. 20/36 of the game’s playable Rare Blades, which form the core of the gameplay experience, are obtained randomly and there is no meaningful way to improve your ability to get them. In spite of the game’s claims that the Luck stat, Idea Stats (which are on a scale of 1-15), and Core Crystal rarity all affect the chances of getting Rare Blades, it never meaningfully mattered to me. There were at least a dozen times where I used a highest tier rarity Core Crystal, maxed out an idea stat for the type of Rare Blade I wanted, and had a good luck stat only to get a common blade with no point in being used. In my 125 hour run, in which I did a lot of the game’s optional content, I only obtained 18 of the 20 lottery based Rare Blades. While they came fairly easily for the first 10 or so, it slowed down severely after that, to the point where when only 3 are left I pulled well over 500 cores and only got one of the remaining Rare Blades I was missing. This is inexcusable and player unfriendly. The fact that there is no other way to obtain these Blades is obscene and frankly one of the worst parts of this game mechanically. - The above point, combined with the fact that the ability to reassign Blades to different party members is essentially limited to 3 for the average player means that if the player has consistently bad luck gettings Rare Blades that fit well on certain party members they may be stuck running strategies or layouts that they don’t find as fun or optimal. This is punishing the player for having bad luck, and is also pretty inexcusable. The Overdrive Protocol item should be rare, but not only 3 assured ones in a whole run rare. - The Salvaging, Cloud Sea Level, and Merc Mission mechanics are entirely unnecessary and only bog down the game. Salvaging is a way to make money quickly, but this game’s economy is so broken in favor of the player that there is no point in making use of salvaging except to obtain one Rare Blade which can only be gotten through it. Merc Missions meanwhile exist only to power up the blades Roc and Ursula, and is used by the Blade Wulfric to upgrade a field skill. They’re slow, require far too much menuing, and are not fun to do. All they are are busywork. Oftentimes the game will inject Merc Missions into the sidequests completely unnecessarily, which brings them to a grinding halt while you wait for an in game timer to countdown for anywhere between 5 and 30 minutes just to progress the sidequest you were on. This happens far too often and is entirely unnecessary and poorly designed. This is especially clear with the Rare Blade Ursula, whose entire progress is based on repeatedly performing 3 different merc missions literally dozens of times a piece, interrupting the player’s gameplay experience every 5-10 minutes ad infinitum if you wish to make her worth using. Given Urusla, Roc, and Wulfric are three of the game’s strongest blades it simply feels unfriendly for me to have to waste so much time on menuing busywork rather than exploration or combat to make them stronger. - For as tutorial heavy as the game is, there is no way to view tutorials after you’re shown them the one time which is frankly ridiculous because Xenoblade Chronicles 1 showed the player next to no tutorials but kept an entire booklet’s worth of them, including pictures, available from the menu at any time. - The lack of a bestiary is similarly weird and entirely a negative since Xenoblade Chronicles X had one, so it’s simply a step backwards to not have one this time. - The lack of an NPC affinity web means I as a player simply felt no need to talk to nearly any NPCs in this game. Most of their dialogue is pointless fluff anyway, since there was no mechanical incentive to relate the characters to others in the world like there was in the previous two games. Simply put there is no actual reason to talk to NPCs in this game, except ones that progress stories or sidequests, because the game doesn’t give you any reason to do so, nor does it meaningfully reward you with fun or interesting dialogue or lore. - The lack of a collectopedia, a staple of this series until now, negates the main reason for players to gather collectibles. Yes, they’re used elsewhere like in Pyra’s cooking or in refining Aux Cores, but those are largely extremely lenient and the player will likely never be without anyway. The existence of a collectopedia would go a long way to help this game’s collectibles actually feeling meaningful. - Rex is flat out broken compared to the other characters, I have not seen a main character in a game this poorly balanced since Robin in Fire Emblem: Awakening. Rex is not only objectively the best party member thanks to receiving an unnecessarily large number of special and unique traits, but by the end of the game using him is a crutch and I felt incentivized to not use him, not because I didn’t like him, but simply because he trivialized the gameplay experience. - Poppiswap is a very cute and fun idea in concept but horrifically executed to the point where there is simply no reason to ever use Tora over other party members, who do what he could do but better and with enormously less effort on the part of the player. - A few times I had Chain Attacks simply stop happening for no reason in the middle of choosing a move. This seemed to happen because a driver and blade got too far away from each other somehow, but the game should be able to account for and correct that. It’s a minor bug, but still extremely annoying when it came up. - I had the game straight up crash on me once. I’ve heard from other sources it happened to them more, but still keep that in mind and save fairly frequently. While this may seem like a lot more negatives than positives, I am entirely serious that the gameplay is overall much more good than bad and a lot of fun. The negatives are mostly just a lot of little things that are each worth noting rather than anything major individually, the Gachapon mechanic aside. Additionally, I praise the customizability of the game, but simply put the easier gameplay mechanics and customizability of each character feels more like compensating for the entirely luck based Gachapon mechanic than something meaningfully sought after. However, the end product is fun to play and for many that’s all that matters.

Aesthetics:

It’s no secret that this game’s visual style has come under fire and frankly I think it deserves that. This game’s very generic, moe adjacent anime art style is simply ugly to look at, and in spite of claims that it helps the characters be ‘expressive’ it entirely loses out on allowing the characters a more subtle and human level of expression present in the previous games. The characters faces often warp, unintentionally comedically, between expressions in very ugly and machinelike ways for instance. Even without getting into the nitty gritty of specific character designs being better or worse than others, the clash of Tetsuya Nomura’s fairly detailed characters who are stylized with a mix of realism and a more ‘anime’ look alongside characters like Rex and Pyra who simply look like they walked out of an anime like Love Live or Lucky Star is jarring to say the least, and it never gets better. On the other hand the game’s dubbing has come under fire for being low quality and feeling rushed, and while it is certainly not the best dub I have heard, a good many of the voice actors do very good work, though they aren’t all stars. However, the game’s sound design is simply amazing, while I personally don’t prefer this game’s soundtrack to the previous to it has some absolute stars and its sound effects for character’s attacks and special effects are similarly very good. Pros: + The soundtrack is astoundingly good, really it’s an absolute banger through and through with only a few weak tracks in the mix. This is to be expected of Monolithsoft, but they really delivered on this. + Particle effects are extremely good and diverse. Every single blade brings not only a unique body but also a unique combat aesthetic, with some like Dagas and Azami in particular being memorable and great to see in action. +The game’s animations in terms of its gameplay are very good. Monster, Humans, and Blades alike are all very expressive with diverse and meaningful movements that often convey not just an attack, but what its properties will have as well. It’s very addicting to see some of the bigger attack animations go off because of just how crisp and well done they are. + The environments are very beautiful, each area is completely unique from one another and they’re all pretty memorable, the only one I’d throw under the bus personally is Gormott for being a bit too generic grass world-y, but even it’s still very pretty. Really, all of this game’s environments and maps are very well realized visually. + Because of the clean particle effects and animations combat is conveyed very smoothly to the player, very little can catch you off guard and attack’s hitboxes are well sycned with their animations almost entirely across the board. Neutrals:

[] I would in fact say this game has more good and memorable character designs than bad ones, all things considered, it’s just that the bad ones are so unrepentantly bad that they massively overshadow what good ones there are. Designs like Mòrag, Zeke, Vandham, Roc, Brighid, Pandoria, and more are extremely memorable and fun designs but the fact that they share a stage with designs like Rex, Pyra, Zenobia, and Dahlia is an absolute shame. All memes and controversy aside there is simply no excusing character designs like Dahlia, not because this is a Nintendo game, but because she is visually repulsive to anyone with an iota of taste developed outside of the sphere of bad anime and fetish hentai. [] The camera in this game is very good and has a wide variety of options for players to make use of, however, it can still mess up and focus on the wrong thing during cinematic attacks or have simple clipping errors. This is minor and never bugged me, in fact it lead to some hilarious moments for me, but I know this could bother some people.

Cons: - Its aesthetics are unfocused. The visual design, sound design, and even its UI are oftentimes clashing and ugly. Comparing a game like this to one like Wind Waker like I have seen some do is frankly laughable. The reason Wind Waker has aged so immaculately is because of how focused and well realized its one single aesthetic is! This game cannot compare by any stretch of the imagination. - The english dub is held back by Rex, Pyra, and Malos being extremely weak, uninteresting, and poorly acted. In spite of being the main characters and the main villain we’re never given a good performance by any of them. They’re all boring and are by far some of the worst parts of the game’s dub. Other characters like Patroka stick out as well for never giving off the tone or emotion the situation calls for. Further, the dub is almost constantly out of sync with the character’s lips where this is not a problem with the previous games. It is clear this part of the game’s localization was rushed. However, all in all, many other dub voice actors are extremely good, but the fact that they are not the main characters means they are simply overshadowed by the poor performance of a few critical characters. Were Rex, Pyra, and Malos minor side characters this would not be a noteworthy negative, but it is definitely worth bringing up given they are who the plot revolves around for its entirety. - In terms of the game’s cutscenes, of which there are an overabundance, the character’s facial expressions often laughably jump from one expression to another when attempting to convey emotion. They also often move in a way I would more expect out of a PS2 era game, very stiffly and without any real weight. This is most noticeable when characters shift their head from one side to another or hang their head down in sadness, it’s robotic and unbelievable. Any alleged advantage this art style could have given in expressiveness and conveyance of emotion is entirely lost as many of the character’s featureless, blobby faces snap around in machinelike ways, making them come across more like automatons than actual people. This isn’t nearly as bad or prevalent with adult characters like Mòrag and Zeke, or anyone designed by Tetsuya Nomura, but it still crops up from time to time with them. However it’s nigh ever present with children or characters in the art style of Masatsugu Saito. Simply put, because of the poor animation and expresion the characters have this game lacks pathos in many cases. - It bears special mention that Rex’s voice actor is laughably bad at yelling or shouting. His attempts are screams made me laugh in moments that were meant to be serious and do not improve at all throughout the game. For how many screams he had to do you’d think he’d eventually get one out that was not worth making fun of but he just never hits the mark. - The game’s native sound balance is absolutely horrible. While the game does graciously allow for the player to customize it they shouldn’t be required to just to hear characters speak during cutscenes. - Including a combat narrator was a mistake and only detracts from one’s ability to become immersed in the game’s world and even its gameplay. Having a disembodied voice shout ‘Cool’ and ‘Blade Combo Level 3’ at you constantly is an extremely out of nowhere inclusion. Again, thankfully, the player is allowed to turn this feature off entirely but the fact of the matter is this Arcade Era feature has no place in a single player RPG in the year 2017. Simply put this game’s got a fairly large number of aesthetic issues, many more than I would expect out of any AAA game but especially out of Nintendo and Monolithsoft, though a lot of them simply come down to a lack of polish. Were this game delayed by 6 months to a year none of these besides the game’s primary art direction in regards to a few character designs would exist I bet. However, it’s clear this game was rushed to make it out within the Switch’s first year and it suffers for it. Compared to the polish of other major AAA games released this year, especially the absolutely immaculate Persona 5 which is the big JRPG this game needs to measure up to, this game is poorly realized aesthetically in basically every way except for its sound design which is a shame. Frankly, I expect better of Monolithsoft and this is unprecedented from them. When I can get more genuine emotion and investment and a better conveyance of real world expressions and movement out of the Wii era models in Xenoblade Chronicles than I can out of this game that’s a problem. I really, truly believe with another 6 months to a year of polish all around this game could have really had some great presentation but unfortunately right now that potential is held just out of reach.

Story, Writing, and Characters: I will say flatly and simply that this game’s story is by far the worst that Monolithsoft has ever produced. It’s boring, uninspired, hard to be invested in, poorly sequenced, and stars some of the absolute most plain jane characters I’ve ever seen in a major title. Extremely little is resolved in a meaningful way, the game is rife with cheap, C-List Shonen Anime tropes we’ve all seen a hundred times before, it’s cliched with no attempts at spicing itself up, simply put it’s bad and the only way to enjoy it is to not think about it or to somehow have not seen any of its tired tropes before. Even Xenoblade Chronicles X, for all of its story based shortcomings, presents a far better conflict and main protagonist than 2 could ever hope. That said, the writing is not all bad. Most of the game’s Heart to Hearts are lovely, they’re fun and great at developing the party members dynamics and them all as a cohesive unit. It’s a nice return to form more like Xenoblade Chronicles’ Heart to Hearts and a big improvement over Xenoblade X’s fairly barebones ones. The sidequests are mostly fairly mediocre however, which is sad given that’s something both previous games absolutely excelled at. I’ve mentioned Rex, Pyra, and Malos a few times in this review already, but it bears reiterating that they are all simply awful, uninspired, and boring characters and they are three of the biggest detriments this game has. Had this game starred Nia, Mòrag, or Zeke with Jin as its sole antagonist it would have been far better for it. More or less this game’s entire playable party aside from Rex and Pyra are strong, likeable characters, though all of the antagonists aside from Jin are transparent and laughable in their attempts to be taken seriously. With no depth at all and no development from any of them, how could anyone really care about this conflict? It’s truly a travesty because the world of Alrest is interesting and each of its Titans have enough intrigue and history and personality that I would have loved to have discovered more about them, however that’s not the case.

Pros: + Morag, Brighid, Nia, Dromarch, Poppi, Zeke, and Pandoria are consistently enjoyable characters which is good since you’ll see them all a lot. They are good enough to be worth pushing through this game’s otherwise generally horrible writing to see more of, because at least these characters are fun and interesting in the moment, and seeing them interact with one another in optional content is one of the best things this game has to offer outside of its core gameplay. + Heart to Hearts regain their depth from the first game and are almost all very fun and enjoyable. + Chapter 4 breaks away from the rest of the plot’s undeserved, overly self-serious, dreariness to present a more comical minor conflict that’s actually fun to follow and based reasonably in a conflict one can get invested in. Neutrals: [] Most of Chapter 3 is also quite good and revolves around Vandham, one of the best characters in the game, however the ending of the chapter is perhaps the single worst part of this entire game and I don’t say that lightly. The ending sequence of chapter 3 is a grand display of everything wrong with this game all in one extremely hard to get through sequence. [] The fact that some of the game’s writing issues could be solved with simple sequence changes shows there’s a bit more life to this plot than what one might think, but that’s not the product we received. [] Though perhaps not intentionally, Jin is an antagonist who is compelling because he is actually in the right of it compared to the main party for most of the game. However, his story arc is left completely unresolved and with almost all questions about him unanswered making one’s investment in him largely pointless. [] Many characters like Addam and Lora exist as set dressing for this world and are integral to the game’s story in some ways, but are ultimately fairly pointless as they are dropped without ceremony partway through the game with no resolution to their inclusion whatsoever. I wouldn’t even call this entirely a negative because at least the parts of the plot focusing on them in the past are far more gripping than anything happening in the present even though they are given to the player in fragments. [] Every single Rare Blade is given both a sidequest and a heart to heart dedicated to just them. While great in concept, the result is many of them just being weak or uninteresting. Most of the heart to hearts are good, but the vast majority of their side quests drag on too long, are poorly acted, and just don’t give a good look at the character in question anyway. It’s a very mixed bag.

Cons: - This is the case across the game’s map designs as well as its story elements, but all too often it simply does things to try and harken back to Xenoblade Chronicles 1. So many times I found myself thinking ‘Oh, just like in Xenoblade Chronicles’ while seeing things happen throughout this game. Rather than forge its own unique path and identity it merely takes beats from its predecessor, often sloppily and without realizing what made those things work in the first place. The result is a lot of flaccid attempts to seem cool or memorable that simply fall flat. - The game only takes time one or two times to develop Pyra and Rex one on one, together as a pair of partners and friends and elsewise relies on the player believing they have some unique, special, and immediately intimate relationship based simply on her being a Aegis and him being her Driver, something not present for any other Blade/Driver pairing nor for the other Aegis/Driver pairing in the game, rather than anything actually present in the game. The end result is them having no real chemistry for the entirety of the game, and then the player being expected to believe they’re in love at the very end out of nowhere in spite of them being little more than strangers in terms of how much they know about each other, even after this journey. Genuinely the player gets better chemistry and dynamics out of Nia and Zeke and Brighid and Tora, as well as several other sets of characters who are not the main focus of the plot. Each of these sets of characters have easily definable and fun dynamics between them, where Pyra and Rex are simply The Protagonist and The Nice Girl Who You Have To Protect. Even amongst the game’s heart to hearts, of which there are a great multitude and I performed several dozen, Rex and Pyra only get a single one that focuses primarily on them. Pyra has a stronger, more identifiable dynamic with Nia and Mòrag than she does with Rex and that’s pitiful. For comparison you frankly get a stronger dynamic between Shulk and Reyn or Elma and Lin in Xenoblade Chronicles and X within just a few hours than Pyra and Rex have all game, in spite of being the equivalent of those pairs. - In almost every single boss fight the game will interrupt the player’s progress to assault them with an unnecessary, overly long cutscene to explain why they’re actually losing this fight and every single one of them falls flat because of the horrible weakness of the villains and the corny, over the top shonen anime acting and set pieces. Once the phrase ‘My power allows me to move at the speed of light’ is genuinely and unironically used completely out of nowhere as an excuse for the player to lose even though you have at this point beaten this enemy before and if that isn’t by itself a display of bad writing I don’t know what is. Seriously, I cannot stress enough how much these story cutscenes during boss battles watch like shitty, bottom of the barrel anime rather than an actual video game. - The game’s attempts at humor almost universally are miss rather than hit, with three noteworthy exceptions being the Zeke Boss Fight segments in Uraya, Mor Ardain, and Leftheria. These moments were genuinely charming and got me to laugh, and really stuck out amongst the games otherwise poor attempts at comedy. The jokes almost all amount to ‘Haha, Anime am I right?’ with no substance and poor execution. Moments meant to be funny are often instead cringeworthy and make you want to turn the game off. - The game often kills off characters in a weak attempt at drama, attempting to add pathos to the story, however it only once gives you a reason to actually care about the character being killed. In that case, though, the character’s death is utterly pointless, and could easily have been avoided by the main protagonist simply using a power they had about 20 seconds sooner or a secondary protagonist using a power they had access to all the time, and simply didn’t use until two thirds of the way through. Every other death of a character falls entirely flat because the game simply offers no reason to care about the character who died, or because the character’s death is too sudden, or because the character's death resolves or advances nothing, or even because the character is plainly unlikable, and is often an excuse to avoid finishing character’s plotlines. This is best summarized in the fact that two characters exist in a single cutscene and bossfight and die by the end of it, though they are presented as significant for their brief existence. - In tandem with the previous point the game skips over a lot of very easy opportunities for meaningful character development in favor of nothing at all or conversations that ultimately aren’t significant. Two big examples that stick out to me are skipping Fan La Norne’s funeral and the Nightmare Sequences everyone experienced at the end besides Rex’s. - The story relies extremely heavily on the idea that withholding information from the player is a good way to generate interest and intrigue and the end result is a conflict that one cannot be invested in simply because they do not know anything that actually matters. Pyra, in spite of being introduced within the first hour of the game, has nothing of significance about her revealed to the player until the beginning of chapter 4, which will be between 25 and 40 hours later for a typical player. This means players have no actual ability to be invested in Pyra besides that she is who the player is playing as which is absolutely unacceptable. - Xenoblade Chronicles 2 is far too transparent for its own good in the broad strokes, with every single major plot event being easily predictable from hours in advance. In spite of it going out of its way to tell the player next to nothing at any given time, the plot is still easily predictable. It is horrible at hiding information from the player meaningfully. Anybody who you think will be a villain will be. Anyone who you think will be a party member is one. Anything you expect to happen absolutely will, unless it’s the actually interesting stuff. While this may seem antithetical to the idea that it leaves the player knowing nothing important for most of its plot, it is merely a testament to how uninspired the story is that the plot can be guessed so easily in spite of trying to keep the player in the dark as much as possible. - The game sets up a myriad of plot elements that simply go nowhere or are never brought up again, like the Urayan/Ardanian politics and conflict. Even some extremely important questions such as ‘Why did Pyra still have a body rather than just being a core crystal’, ‘Who is Addam’ and other, opting instead to handwave off many things that actually could use explanation with ‘That’s just how it is’. One of the most glaring is the existence of the Artifices, which the player is simply expected to accept are things that exist when they have no reason to whatsoever until literally the last hour of the game. While the game has an extraordinarily long exposition dump right before the final boss to explain the world of Alrest in truth it does next to nothing to explain the finer details of how anything in the setting works, leaving the player to simply have to accept that’s just how it is. Truly a far cry from Xenoblade Chronicles 1 which gave the player the ability to intimately understand the history, characters, quirks, relations between races and individuals, politics, and more of its setting. - The game’s final two chapters rely entirely on the player having played Xenoblade Chronicles 1 to get any significant connection to the story at this point, which is out of nowhere given the rest of the game has no such connection. This alienates player who have not experienced the first game entirely, and leaves veteran players wishing these connections were meaningful. This is because the game’s connections to Xenoblade Chronicles 1 are entirely lip service and serve no point other than to reference Xenoblade Chronicles 1. Nothing about any of these plot elements are intrinsically related to that game, and could easily be substituted for original content to help the game’s consistency. - This is a nitpick but the game extremely often uses very particular phrasing to refer to things. “This is my True Primal Power.” is an example that sticks out to me even now, yet none of these phrases actually are meaningful, nor are they ever used again. They are attempts to baselessly sound cool in a very juvenile way and are pointless, cluttering the plot with buzzwords that are truly meaningless. I genuinely and truly cannot stress enough at how bad this game’s plot is. It’s easily one of the worst plots in any game I’ve actually completed before and that deeply and truly saddens me to say. I wish I had more good to say about this game’s plot, I really do, but there’s just not really anything good to say. Some of the characters really and truly are worth it though. I adore Mòrag and Zeke and their existences are really all that let me push through this game. At the end of all of this, I guess all I really have to say is that even though I had fun with Xenoblade Chronicles 2 and Zeke and Mòrag and a few others are among my favorite characters in the franchise now, it has left me profoundly disappointed in a way no other game before has. Xenoblade Chronicles 1 is my absolute all time favorite video game, and although this game was not nearly as bad as I was worried it might be it still was far worse than I had hoped it would have been. Having beaten the game and feeling the way I do now I feel that giving it a numerical score feels too cheap. If really pressed for one I might give this game like a 2 or 3 at best on a 10 point scale but that is far too simplified compared to how I feel. Nonetheless, I do have hope that the DLC campaign slated for fall 2018 is good. I think this game still has a spark of life and potential in it, and maybe that DLC campaign can deliver and make all of this worthwhile, but until then I cannot in my right mind recommend Xenoblade Chronicles 2 to anyone. To be a bit rude, the new anime art style this game has taken is deeply indicative of its quality. If you like shitty anime games like Senran Kagura, Disgaea, or Nitro+ Blasterz maybe this game will have something for you, but if you’re actually discerning in the quality of media you consume do not bother. Anyone calling this game a masterpiece is fooling themselves and committing a deep disservice to games actually deserving that title.

#Xenoblade Adventures 2 #I'm only tagging this for my personal documentation but it'll end up in the game's tag anyway since that's how tumblr works #I had far too many thoughts about this game and really I only did this to get them out of my brain so I can move on

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dramaclover · 4 years

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Ending and Thoughts: Forensic Heroes 4

TVB’s grand production drama. Where it has a high budget with a stellar cast, also filmed overseas and use of popular actors & actresses in cameo case roles. Unfortunately TVB decided to air it early in February which is far from the “golden time” to air series. I’m not that surprised with the situation. But I’m sure the biggest reason is cause half of the cast aren’t people TVB wants to promote anymore. Selena Li - Contract ended and signed with an American talent agency. Raymond Wong - Contract ended signed with Louis Koo’s company. Alice Chan- Decided to take a break on filming to focus more on personal life. Rebecca Zhu- Got backlashed from voicing out how uncomfortable she is around Tony Hung. Second reason would be the producer Miu Si Chun has retired and this will be her last series. But airing it so early actually backfired for them as this was aired during the covid- 19 situation where basically everyone stayed home. Because of this thousands of people tuned into this drama. It got super high ratings and has the highest average watchers for a drama that TVB has not seen in years!! So their plan to air it early backfired so badly for them.

Honestly, this drama wasn’t that good. The cases were either boring or predictable. The only case that kept me on my feet was the mother- long lost son case. Other than that the cases were bad. Which sucked cause these cases had so much potential to do better but the writing sucked! I can’t explain how disappointed I am that the cases were so easy for us to guess who did it. And some guest stars were wasted on this drama. Yumiko Cheng, Sharon Chan, Nina Paw and Patrick Tse are some examples of useless characters that didn’t need to be there. Also the character development was so poorly done that I’m just stuck here wondering if the cutting of Jacqueline Wong effected the drama so much that it ended up being choppy!

Charm Ting (Fred Cheng) is considered a main character but he seemed more like a kelefe. Which is hilarious cause in the first Forensic Heroes he had a bigger role there than here. He’s literally in the background where he would say 1 or 2 lines and then disappears. He was there just to be a love interest to Ko Ching (Rebecca Zhu) which was pointless cause her role is super small as well. We don’t even know when they even started dating. They were barely seen together. Charm has admitted to having a crush on Ko Ching but that’s it. Ko Ching never seemed interested in him until the end where they’re magically dating. The writer focused way too much on adding nonsensical characters when they should be focusing on the main ones! Monique Hau (Yumiko Cheng) isn’t needed at all. I thought maybe half way through she would die or she kills someone but no she was just there to date Ko On (Raymong Wong) and then dumps him when her first love comes back. Like why? Why bother inviting Yumiko for such a stupid role? Instead of Ko On wasting his time for this stand in girlfriend they should’ve focused more on her budding relationship with Chris Tsui (Roxanne Tong). Cause when he got together with her in the end it made no sense whatsoever. I actually thought I missed an episode because of how random it was. The last we saw is Chris tracking Ko Ons biological sister. They were friends at that time and remained that way until the end where somehow Chris fell for Ko On despite never showing that and vice versa. Like I’m not even sure which relationship was more out of the blue? Charm/ Ko Ching or Ko On/Chris? The only relationship that’s worth getting invested in is between Man Ka Hei (Selena Li) and Stan Sze (Gabriel Harrison). Seriously they were the only couple that actually slowly built up towards being something more and they had crazy good chemistry together which you can’t see from any of the other couples at all! Which brings me to Queen Sui (Alice Chan) and King Kwok (Shaun Tam). Boy their chemistry was the worst!! You feel absolutely nothing for them. It was like watching two blocks of wood dating. And the best part? These two who had the worst chemistry ends up the one getting married! Wooooooow. I feel like the problem though lies on the actress Alice. She’s a good actress, she’s amazing when it comes to villain roles but when it comes to love relationships she fails at it. It might have to do with how her real life relationship didn’t work out. She mentioned that she was in a loveless relationship with her husband. But they were both were too scared to leave each other and cause of that they prolonged a relationship that never got better. So I’m convinced it’s due to this,that it’s harder for her to portray these romance scenes.

The uneven screentime between the leads got me thinking of how detrimental the refilming of Jacqueline was. Chris ends up getting involved with the forensic cast in the first place cause she rented a room from King Sir. In that apartment she also shares it with Charm. I’m like 99% sure they cut out those “roommate” scenes, which you’d think “eh it’s filler scenes, it doesn’t matter”. But it’s cause they cut those, Fred ends up getting heavily downgraded! Also if they were just gonna have Chris basically not interact with the forensic team, they shouldn’t have bothered to have her move into their apartment then. Cause it didn’t advance the plot and was just a waste of time. Chris was a heavy character in the beginning but then disappeared drastically until near the end. The storyline started off amazingly good too! Chris was the reason why Ko On’s sister Ko Seen (Kelly Cheung) ended up getting kidnapped. It’s cause of this she becomes a journalist to find Ko On and Ko Seen. She was extremely remorseful and worked hard to find Ko Seen. Which is why I was pissed when after she was found, Chris never met her. They never interacted. A scene where Chris apologizes to her face to face would’ve been super nice. I can’t help but also believe that chances are it was in the script but they couldn’t have Roxanne film it with Kelly probably due to scheduling conflicts.

The ending case should be the best one. The one where it’ll keep us on our toes. It didn’t and was also a downer. Sharon Chan who guest stars as Lam Ka Mei was also a waste of a role. Though Sharon did amazing playing a split personality character, it never went into depth how it happened. Generally, this disorder happens if the character herself experiences a high trauma where they go into hiding and another “stronger” person comes out. This case was also the first time where Ka Mei “killed”. I’m assuming this disorder happened due to her older sisters death? The problem lies on how her sister died 7-8 years ago, yet this is the first time her other side came out and also the first time she killed. According to Ka Mei herself, this was the first time she felt something was wrong with her. After all these years her disorder comes out now? Okay. Anyways she gets locked up in a mental hospital cause she did kill someone even if she’s just a copy cat killer.

The real criminal ended up being Michael Ma (Jonathon Cheung) who happens to be Ko Seens adoptive brother. Basically he went on a killing rampage to kill those that hurt her sister. This was such a boring revelation. I thought they were gonna throw in a twist where Ko Seen was the actual killer and Michael took the blame for her. Ko Seen uses Ko Ons guilt to her advantage and tricks him into believing she’s innocent. Ko Seen would’ve made an amazing villain. She could’ve held all the resentment towards everyone from what happened to her. In the end she did get kidnapped cause her brother let go of her, she got sold off to random people before finally getting “rescued” and being placed in an orphanage. What should’ve happened in the end would be Ko Seen faking her amnesia towards her brother and sister and killing those that mistreat her. In the end she plots to kill Chris as she’s the one that lured her away to get kidnapped. As she kills Chris, Ko On shows up to save her (which would’ve helped with the relationship development) and for Ko On to finally see that Ko Seen is a bad person. That would’ve been more of a stellar ending to the case. Now I know that at the very last scene it shows 4 dead clowns & flashes to Ko Seen. Which alludes to Ko Seen being evil and killing clowns. But honestly that’s not enough. And I’m pretty sure they only added that in cause of the good ratings so they wanted it to end in sort of a cliffhanger. The conclusion was very messy. Even though Ko Ching, Chris, Ka Hei, Queen were all trying on dresses for Queens wedding they didn’t show them all together. Instead they only showed them paired off together. Chris with Ko On. Queen with King. Ka Hei with Stan and Ko Ching with Charm. I’m guessing they couldn’t get the whole cast together for them to film them altogether. Which I didn’t like. Chris is never with all of them at the same time. I guess with the refilming of the scenes it caused the drama to have inconsistencies and it hurt the drama if you ask me. At least Roxanne was an amazing replacement for Jacqueline. Her acting good and she looked very pretty. And her emotional scenes were nice which is something Jacqueline has trouble with. The drama is nice to watch to pass the time with I guess... but that’s it don’t expect to be surprised. And hey Ka Hei and Stan were a lovely couple! So they got one couple right at least.

#tvb #tvb drama #forensic heroes iv

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infotainmentplus-blog · 6 years

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Sony Xperia XA2 Ultra Review: It’s about time For more than five years, Sony’s smartphone lineup has more or less remained the same. Compared to other competing smartphones, the company’s offerings always trailed behind in design, overall hardware features, and other popular smartphone trends like near bezel-less displays, dual cameras, and QHD resolution screens. They were good phones, but they were unexciting and almost always priced too high for what they offered compared to the competition. Factors like the fingerprint sensor being unavailable in the U.S. and a lack of carrier support made them even more unappealing. Now it looks like Sony is finally starting to make some significant changes. Is it too little too late? We won’t be able to fully answer that question until Sony’s flagship Xperia XZ2 hits the market, but its new mid-range smartphone might give us a glimpse into Sony’s future. This is the Sony Xperia XA2 Ultra review. Design Sony’s previous design grew stale rather fast but the XA2 Ultra is Sony’s first smartphone in a long time to make some drastic changes. Despite its decidedly mid-range specs, it looks and feels every bit like a high-end smartphone. The distinct boxy and rectangular Sony shape mostly remains intact; from a distance, you may not notice anything different. Once you take a closer look though, the changes Sony made to modernize the design become clear. With a thick and heavy all-metal body, the XA2 Ultra is sturdy. It feels like an absolute tank. The build quality is top notch, with nice design flourishes like chamfered edges, a slightly curved back, and rounded sides for improved ergonomics. Despite all that, the XA2 Ultra isn’t the most comfortable phone to hold and use. The smooth metal finish provides very little grip. The Ultra name means this phone is big, which may not appeal to everyone. The Ultra name means this phone is big, which may not appeal to everyone. There are so many big Android phones out there nowadays that physical size is rarely a topic of conversation anymore, especially with manufacturers shrinking down bezels and switching to 18:9 displays to make big phones smaller. The XA2 Ultra follows some of these trends. Its side bezels are practically non-existent and the top and bottom bezels are slightly smaller, though the phone is still incredibly wide, tall, and thick. It takes me back to the days of the Nexus 6. It’s an uncomfortable one-handed device and its sharp corners jab you in the palm, only adding to the discomfort. Display It's not the most impressive-sounding display but it certainly won't disappoint. The smaller bezels might make you think the XA2 Ultra has an 18:9 display, but that isn’t the case. Instead, the XA2 Ultra sticks with a more traditional 16:9 display, which is partly why the phone is still so wide despite its thinner side bezels. The screen is a 6-inch IPS LCD with a 1,920 x 1,080 resolution, covered in 2.5D glass for a slight curve along the edges which blends in nicely with the rest of the phone’s subtly rounded aesthetic. It’s not the most impressive-sounding display but it certainly won’t disappoint. At six inches there’s plenty of screen real estate to comfortably browse the web and enjoy content such YouTube videos, movies, or games. Read more: What is the 18:9 aspect ratio all about? The 1080p resolution spread over a 6-inch display doesn’t result in the highest pixel density, but the screen is still plenty sharp and easy to read. The display has vibrant color, excellent contrast, great viewing angles, and gets bright enough to see in direct sunlight. Like many other Sony smartphones, The XA2 Ultra offers the ability to easily adjust the screen’s white balance, color gamut, and contrast within the software if the default out of the box settings don’t quite suit your taste. Performance The XA2 Ultra is powered by fairly run-of-the-mill midrange specs. It packs a Qualcomm Snapdragon 630 processor and 4GB of RAM. In my week of use, the XA2 Ultra performed admirably. Swiping through home screens, launching applications, and playing games was a responsive and fluid experience and 4GB of RAM was plenty of memory for smooth multitasking. The XA2 Ultra will not produce mind-blowing benchmark numbers, but in real-world use, it should be more than enough to satisfy most users. Where the Snapdragon 630 processor truly shines is its battery life because it’s one of Qualcomm’s more battery-efficient processors. Sony also bumped up the battery capacity in the XA2 Ultra to 3,580mAh, a significant increase over the previous generation. The XA2 Ultra consistently lasted me two days on a single charge, with screen-on time easily reaching the six-hour mark. Fast charging is available via Quick Charge 3.0 and Sony’s stamina mode can help prolong battery life when you can’t get to a charger. The XA2 Ultra also comes with other useful battery features like Battery Care and Qnovo Adaptive Charging, which helps keep your battery healthier and extends its lifespan. Hardware The XA2 Ultra is available in two storage options with 32 or 64GB variants. If you want more space there’s a microSD card slot for up to 256GB of additional storage. Bluetooth 5 is onboard with support for higher-quality audio with AptX HD. You’ll probably also be happy to know the XA2 Ultra keeps its headphone jack — something which won’t be in Sony’s upcoming XZ2 flagship. You'll probably also be happy to know the XA2 Ultra keeps its headphone jack. Flanking the USB Type-C port on the bottom is a single speaker, which, much like most single-firing speakers, isn’t much to write home about. It gets fairly loud, with no noticeable signs of distortion, but the placement makes it easy to muffle and it fires audio sideways when holding the phone in landscape. It's unfortunate Sony took this long to make it happen but as the saying goes — better late than never. The biggest hardware change Sony made this year is the relocation of the fingerprint sensor. What used to be embedded in the side mounted power key has been moved to the back, right below the camera. It’s spacious, easy to reach with an index finger, and reasonably fast at unlocking. It also finally works for U.S. users. It’s unfortunate Sony took this long to make it happen but as the saying goes, “better late than never.” Camera One of the biggest highlights of the XA2 Ultra are its cameras — at least according to Sony. The XA2 Ultra comes with two front-facing cameras, which we haven’t seen since the LG V10. The main sensor is a 16MP camera with optical image stabilization for improved low light shooting and less chance of a blurry selfie should you have a shaky hand. The secondary sensor is a wide-angle 8MP shooter with a 120-degree field of view to make group selfies easier or simply fit more of the background into the frame. Next to the primary front-facing shooter is a flash Sony calls a slow-sync flash. Normally when you take a selfie in a dark environment and use a flash, your face will be properly illuminated but the background remains dark. The slow-sync flash is designed to alleviate this problem by evenly lighting the subject and the background so you can see more detail. In everyday practice, it works but it isn’t as impressive as it seems. Photos appear more natural and more of the background is easily visible but it introduces more noise into the shot. Image quality in general from the front-facing camera is not as good as I would have expected from a 16MP camera with OIS. Sony’s image processing will give your selfies a very soft look, which is great for hiding blemishes and fine detail but it feels a little aggressive. A skin softening feature is enabled by default, but turning this off doesn’t seem to make a noticeable difference. The rear camera is a 23MP Exmor RS sensor with f/2.0 aperture and max ISO performance of 12,800. This is impressively high for a smartphone camera (although a far cry from the Huawei P20) and will create brighter images in low light, though unfortunately ISO levels beyond 3,200 can’t be dialed in manually. Regardless, you’ll likely never want to shoot at higher ISO levels due to the heavy increase in noise, which already visibly creeps in when the camera approaches even 1,000 ISO. Image quality deteriorates quickly in dark or night time situations with soft details, overblown highlights, and washed-out colors, giving the images a very muddy appearance. Unsurprisingly, the camera fairs better in bright or well-lit environments. Color reproduction is natural and properly saturated, and images are sharp. The camera’s biggest downfall is its poor dynamic range. Shadows are heavily crushed in almost every situation, resulting in less detail. HDR helps tremendously with that, but I’m still not a fan of how Sony buries HDR in the manual mode camera settings. It’s cumbersome to access and unintuitive, meaning many users will never enjoy its benefits. Software The software experience on the XA2 Ultra is very standard Sony. It’s based on Android 8.0 Oreo with Xperia customizations. If you’ve used any recent Sony smartphone, you’ll instantly feel right at home. Sony’s customizations are unobtrusive and they keep the experience very close to stock, which I’ve always enjoyed. Sony's customizations are unobtrusive and they keep the experience very close to stock. The XA2 Ultra comes with typical Sony features be found in many of the company’s other devices, like Playstation integration and the Xperia theme engine for customizing the wallpaper, icons, and general UI. A list of recommended apps can be accessed by swiping down on the home screen or through the app drawer, though I’ve never found this to be particularly useful. Specific to the XA2 Ultra is the addition of one-handed features, which can make operating the phone with one hand easier. Using these features you can shrink the UI into a smaller resizable window and shift other elements such as the dialer and pattern lock to either the left or right side of the display. Gallery Specifications Sony Xperia XA2 Ultra Display 6" Full HD 1080p Processor Qualcomm Snapdragon 630 RAM 4 GB Storage 32 GB 64 GB Expandable up to 256 GB via microSD Camera Rear: 23 MP Exmor RS with f/2.3 aperture, hybrid AP, and 5x zoom Front: 16 MP sensor with OIS and 8 MP with 120 wide-angle lens Battery 3,580 mAh battery, Quick Charge 3.0, Battery Care, Qnovo Adaptive Charging Software Android 8.0 Oreo Miscellaneous Bluetooth 5.0, NFC, USB Type-C, 3.5 mm headphone jack Pricing & Final Thoughts The Sony Xperia XA2 Ultra is available as an unlocked device for GSM networks and is priced at $450 in the U.S.. For a mid-range phone, the XA2 Ultra has a lot to offer, with its long overdue design refresh, dual front-facing cameras, fantastic battery life, and a fingerprint sensor that now works in the U.S.. But it’s not priced as competitively as it should be — typical of most Sony phones. The XA2 Ultra would be more attractive — possibly even a no-brainer purchase — if it were priced at under $400. $450 puts this very close to “budget flagship” devices like the OnePlus 5T and Honor View10. Both are only $50 more and arguably offer better bang for your buck, especially on the performance side. Still, the XA2 Ultra is another solid offering from Sony and a great step forward in the right direction. Unfortunately, like many Sony devices, its price may hold it back from success. , via Android Authority http://bit.ly/2E7jJpz

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bryanclaesch · 7 years

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An Open Fan Letter to RWBY: Why Weiss is My Favorite Character

So, assuming you guys haven't been living under a rock, surely you must know that RoosterTeeth released a character short for Volume 5 today and it featured everyone's favorite little snowflake--and I don't mean those bozos who are still butt hurt over Trump winning the election. I mean Weiss Schnee from RWBY.

Personally, I was very happy to hear about this. I mean, I wasn't jumping up and down with excitement, but I was excited. Not just because I am a fan of RWBY, but especially because Weiss is my favorite character in RWBY. I mean, sure, Ruby is the cutest and has the best post-timeskip costume, Yang is the hottest, even with the robit arm, and the battle for who has the coolest weapon is a tie between Ruby and Qrow, but my favorite character is still Weiss. Why? Well, because I identify with her.

To some that probably sounds a little weird--I mean, a dude identifying with a female character, but Weiss being my favorite character has nothing to do with her gender. I mean, it doesn't hurt as I am oddly drawn and more sympathetic to female characters, either because I've never had a meaningful relationship or it's just my natural male aptitude, but... A-Anyway, I'm losing the plot. Why is Weiss my favorite character? Well, let's break it down.

1. She comes off as stand-offish, arrogant, and spoiled.

When we were first introduced to Weiss, she was the stereotypical spoiled rich girl--in other words, a total Bitchface McGee. But as we learned more about Weiss, one of the things we learned is that because she's from such a high class family, she is almost a sort of princess or nobility. As a result, she was raised to be reserved, refined, mannerly, and always conduct herself with the highest degree of dignity.

Now, I'm not rich. In fact, I was raised in the middle class, and the lower middle class at that. As time has gone on, things have gotten better, but I've never been well off. But, I totally get that Weiss' default personality is to act refined. My parents weren't high class either, but I was raised with an expectation to do well in school, to be mannerly and respectful in public, and to act like a civilized member of society. Now, this manifested in a stand-offish, almost arrogant personality because I am, like my parents, an Introvert, but that's how Introverts act in public. So, when I see Weiss interacting with her friends, teachers, and others, that's more or less the way I act.

2. She looks up to her sister.

When we were introduced to Winter in Volume 3, suddenly all the blocks fell into place about why Weiss was Weiss--she adores her older sister. Weiss looks up to Winter and tries to emulate her, constantly seeking her approval. And sometimes, Weiss fails and Winter punishes her.

Now, I've never been struck by either of my older siblings, and at times, we've been the worst of enemies, but there was a time when I too sought the approval of my brother and sister. The thing about my brother and sister is that they are two years apart while I am nine and seven years behind them. It was just the two of them for a long time, and in that time, they shared a lot of experiences together and grew together in ways I can't possibly imagine. But one of the ways in which they did was that they both have similar senses of humor and I've always found them hilarious. They are seriously two of the funniest people I know. But when they're cracking jokes and they're on a roll, and I try to add my own bit in there... crickets. That's not every time, but it is often enough that I'm sure everyone has noticed. So, I get Weiss trying to be like her big sister.

3. She tries to be serious, reserved, and respectable, but her best friend is a loon.

No one in the whole world except for maybe Weiss herself will deny that Ruby and Weiss are BFF's. Hell, they're super besties-better-than-the-resties. But they are an odd couple. Weiss is ambitious and driven to succeed almost at any cost, while Ruby is just fine with being herself and spending time with her friends. But Weiss is better at dealing with people and social situations in general whereas Ruby's no good at it. In some ways, Ruby is a huge goofball and kind of awkward.

But in those social interactions, despite Weiss' impressive breeding, people tend to overlook her for the more charming, honest, and friendly Ruby. I have a friend named John, and while he is not awkward in the slightest, he's not above being a bit of a goof. He acts weird and gets laughs. He acts weird and people are charmed. He act weird and the girls smile at him. I do my thing with being refined and respectable, and I'm overlooked. Just like Weiss, I think myself amazing and worthy of recognition, but people tend to prefer our goofy friends over us.

4. Weiss' ambition to be the best and resulting humiliation after losing out to someone who seemingly barely tries or doesn't "deserve" it.

Speaking of thinking you deserve recognition...

When Weiss went off on Ruby in Volume 1 because she thought Ruby was too immature to be team leader, I completely understood where Weiss was coming from. We've both put in the time and hard work to be accomplished as we are, and although we don't show it outwardly, both Weiss and I are super competitive with our eyes on the prize. And although our humiliation may not be public, it can be absolutely crushing to fail and lose to someone who seemingly doesn't "deserve" it or was only victorious because of sheer dumb luck.

It's tough to be ambitious in a world where natural skill and ability can surpass ambition and hard work like they don't matter.

5. She's pursuing a vocation that her parents don't support.

Volume 2 is almost certainly my favorite volume of RWBY for two reasons: Dance, Dance Infiltration and Search and Destroy. DDI is awesome because it finally gives a release to the epic blue ballsing that is ship Arkos, and Mountain Glenn is awesome because it has character development. Character! Development! See, I'm a writer, and I love character development. Hell, I bop my baloney to that shit. But the best thing about character development is finding out why characters do what they do. And finding out that Weiss saw being a huntress as her "duty," rather than springing for a cushy job in Atlas was pretty cool.

But then when we found out in Volume 3 that Weiss wasn't supported in her endeavor to be a huntress by her father, well, it really hits home for me. As I've mentioned in an earlier blog post, my parents don't support me in my dreams to be a writer. They think it too difficult and too luck based to be a good life choice. But, writing isn't just simply a job to me--it's my purpose, my calling, my vocation, it is the reason why I exist. I am because I write, and I write because I am. So really, Weiss and I are in the same boat there, and while we're disappointed that our parents can't be there for us, we won't let that stop us. Hell, our parents' disappointment is one of the driving forces behind why we do what we do... because we have to prove them wrong!

6. Weiss has the best and most adaptable weapon and semblance.

Weiss isn't the best huntress or strongest or even the coolest, but Myrtenaster and the Schnee Glyphs are easily the most adaptable and best weapon and semblance in all of RWBY. I mean, think about it: the Myrtenaster has a spinning revolver full of different types of dust that can be used to charge the blade and be used to attack or defend. In one moment, Weiss is using a firebrand and setting forests on fire, the next she's blocking an enemy's chainsword or encasing herself and her team in a protective ice cocoon.

Then, there are her glyphs. They can be used as shields, platforms, control momentum, defy gravity, do time dilations, and of course, summon those she has struck down in battle to fight by her side. And, she can combine her semblance with the Myrtenaster and just break the system. Weiss can be a front line soldier, she can play defense, or she can support the other members in her team from making Ruby fly or run up Beacon's CCT to allowing Blake to move at speeds so fast she can slice and dice missiles. Tell me: what can't Weiss do? Maybe she can't absorb the energy of her enemy's attack and deal it out twice as hard back, but when you've got glyphs and a multi-action dust rapier, you don't need Yang's semblance.

Well, those are all the reasons why Weiss is my favorite character. If you guys haven't seen the RWBY Volume 5 Weiss Character Short, you can see it here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bZAS_rzgCE0

And if you want to see the video critique I did of it, here's the link to that:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J-_UM0FZMX4&feature=youtu.be

Keep writing, my friends.

Read the original post here: https://blaeschportfolio.blogspot.com/2017/07/an-open-fan-letter-to-rwby-why-weiss-is.html

#RWBY #RWBY Chibi #Weiss Schnee #Winter Schee #Winter Schnee #Kara Eberle #Monty Oum #Miles Luna #Kerry Shawcross

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