#the og 3ds game was so fun literally

[ejbcya]

#nintendo direct #fantasy life #fantasy life the girl who steals time #holyy fuckkk i cannont believe we getting another fantasy life game #the og 3ds game was so fun literally #like i love level5 games like ni no kuni and was so sad when i heard they were shutting down western officies #and the only fantasy life we had left was the gacha mobile which i never got too far into #literally one of my all time favorite gaming franchise just from the single 3ds title

[generositygullet]

A letter to Akira Toriyama

Dear Akira Toriyama,

I first interacted with dragonball when I was in 6th grade or so, when I started playing dragon ball fusions for the 3ds since the trailer looked cool. Kind of a weird start right? But I was getting really into anime at the time, and wanted to check out one of the most popular ones. I had NO idea who the characters were, and had NO clue what the story was about. But for some reason against all the odds, as soon as I saw the title screen boot up with that soaring music I was hooked. The game was super fun, no doubt about it. But what REALLY kept me going when playing it, was the world of dragon ball itself.

Again I had no clue who any of these people were. But seeing these characters interact with each other, seeing these different setpieces made, seeing all of these powers and personalities, it was unlike anything I’d ever experienced before. It channeled the raw kid desire in me to see two buff dudes duking it out, and god I adored every bit of it.

I didn't dig any deeper than that initially, and like all my other hyperfixations it died down. But again in 7th grade I started playing fighterz, and I was hooked again. But this time I dug deeper in preparation for the release of the new GT dlc, and so the first dragon ball media I actually watched? Was GT. Which is hilarious in hindsight, but I still adored every second of it.

In 8th grade things were not going so well for me, I was losing friends due to being an asshole, and I had to change myself to be worthy of the people around me. I was pretty depressed, and everything seemed sad and hopeless (I know it's pretty dramatic for a literal like 13 year old but bear with me lmao). It's around that time when I decided to watch Dragon Ball Super. And again, I was hooked. I binged it so fast, all 130 something episodes. I could talk big about the characters and everything, but honestly it was just so plain cool. It made me feel excited and happy, it made me feel like everything was ok. And those positive feelings made that much of a difference in me.

From that point on I always was interested in Dragon Ball. my first and only hyperfixation to never really go away. I read the OG dragonball, and started REALLY noticing your artistic talent. From the way you drew Goku moving across the battlefield and the poses he struck. To the illustrations of the action and the punches thrown. It was all so dynamic and energetic. When I was reading it I was always engaged, excited to see the next panel. I wanted to channel the same energy in my own art somehow, to encapsulate the same excitement you instilled in me with your drawings.

I FINALLY got around to watching and reading Z a little later. And of course I loved it. I knew all the basic plot beats, and had a 3 in one Goku vs Vegeta volume collection that I would reread constantly. But seeing them play it is so different. I also started to admire your character design more and more. Trying to draw them in my free time, and getting a bit sad when I couldn't capture the same magic you could.

All of this, of course, was older material though. This was all before my time, I was never there to experience it when it initially happened. Not for super, not for the OG DB, and not for Z. I adored it all, but I always knew what was going to happen.

I remember the reaction on my face when the news of DBS Superhero dropped. I was so so SO excited. More than you could ever imagine. Something new, something I could see with my own eyes, and something about Piccolo and Gohan??? It was amazing. And seeing it in theaters a few years later? God I was on the edge of my seat the entire film. I even started reading the DBS manga, I think it's amazing so far.

When I heard that you were gone yesterday night, I was crushed.

I’m a junior now. And after a long time of thinking about it, being anxious, afraid, and scared of the future. I think I want to be an artist or filmmaker. I want to bring the same energy you did to the world. I'm still trying to figure out my artstyle, and how I want to draw. I’m not great at it, but no matter what, I want to keep going. Because I want to bring a character to life, like you brought Son Goku to life and so many others as well. I want to inspire so many others like you inspired me. With your messages, you brought me happiness. You told me that simplicity was ok with Son Goku. You told me that we need to fight for what we love with Son Gohan. You told me that we should aim to be better than our predecessors with Piccolo Junior. You told me that we shouldn't let our pride consume us with Vegeta. You’ve shown me and the entire world so so much. And I hope you were proud of it. I’m

I said the world of Dragon Ball earlier, but really, it was your world Akira Toriyama. And your world changed mine forever in the best way. Thank you, for letting me dream again.

#dragon ball #dragon ball z #dragon ball daima #dbz #dbz goku #dragon ball super #akira toriyama #dbs #dragon ball gt

[tenfluenza]

Art programs you have but don't use

Blender :( i wanted to learn it ever since I beefed my computer, but it turns out 3D sculpting isn't my thing

AutoCAD! i was so cracked at it in high school, and I'm kind of picking it up again so I can do a little graphic design with it. I'm planning to get recertified soon for fun (since it turns out my cert expired like... 4 years ago)

Revit. I also had a Revit phase but we don't talk about that (the misanthropic version of sims)

honorary mention for Medibang/FireAlpaca. i got csp and never looked back, but they were my og's

another honorary mention for krita. i tried to get into it but it never clicked. maybe i'll try it again if i ever have to get a new computer or something

10. Favorite piece of clothing to draw

this might be obvious but i am such a skirts and dresses person. bonus points if there's an apron or pleats. basically any loose, baggy clothing is such an enjoyable thing to draw. i also prefer clothing that bunches up around the elbows! (oddly specific ik but i love it)

my overall specific favorite thing to draw is a haori/fishing jacket because it's got a very simple construction (i looked up how they're made traditionally, and no joke, it's literally 4 rectangular panels sewn together in a row)

bonus small collage of some nice clothing i've drawn

12. Easiest part of body to draw

... i really don't want to be that guy but if i had to pick it's gotta be hands, but i also think my bar for decent hands is a lot lower than other people's, so it's ok, right? when i get to hands i feel like im actually drawing because they're so detail heavy (compared to the rest of the body) and i feel confident that it really "grounds" the pose so that's why i say they're the easiest.

but on the other hand (lol) my hands sketches are atrocious. after i get the gist of it down i can take the rest of it from there. something something... i can explain more in detail if anyone ever asks but this ask game response is getting long as is

but here have some sketch -> line demonstrations and a short collage of hands too since i really like drawing them <3

that and ummm skin folds? if you understand what i mean. i think they give a lot of personality/fluidity to bodies and i feel like i can find these folds pretty easily if i think about it a little. it's one of the first things i like to mark down when i do gestures, too

on the contrary, i think the hardest parts for me to draw are the face, hair, and the hip/crotch area

thanks for asking! @lotus-pear @silver-tounges-and-golden-lies @ixxy-artemala

#trivial talk #senpaifart #ask #ask game #reply #these questions were really fun

[sonicunleash]

like man cannot emphasize enough how much i do not care about sonic games getting remastered atp. Really all i would like is ports. I think ppl need to have better appreciation for old graphics (as long as said graphics aren't eyestaining/nauseating/etc) in general. I don't think every old game needs to be newly rendered in beautiful soft high-poly 3d and i think people would have a lot more fun if they saw the charm and value in low-poly graphics. Especially if its a product of its time... its cool to see how old games managed certain effects and mechanics and how they were pushing the boundaries of their software at the time. And people who make new games in lowpoly/old looking graphics as a love letter to those old games and that growth are also so awesome for it. literally the only thing i think could be benefited from a remaster is: new additional content to add to and better build on/appreciate the og game, better, more accessible gameplay if the gameplay was an issue... and thats.... it.

#and like gameplay was never an issue with generations and generations story sucks ass so theres nothing to build on there #the graphics are already pretty up to date considering everything #theres like. nothing there to remaster. why bother

[anxiousanteaterr]

Neat headcanon about the Novakids deciding their own brand! I love hearing others headcanons for starbound. Also i hadn't thought about it but that probably is Noble's actual brand isnt it... I thought it was a pair of fancy Novakid sunglasses over his actual brand.

ITS FUNNY YOU SAY THAT bc i did have an additional headcanon that there's (typically metal) plates Novakid can hook onto their brands and its purely decorational. LOTS to consider with the reasonings for this.

I also am sitting on headcanons that, since Novakid lore states that they're so scattered across the universe and thus probably don't keep in touch (or even know about other Novakid), there MUST be civilizations of them out there where the brands they came up with are placed on other parts of the body. Like halos, horns, rings, bracelets, maybe even just thin strips of metal elaborately placed all over their bodies like 3D tattoos. They can't ALL convinently be on their face.

If they do, that implies that either they are born with the innate knowledge of how to make the brands (which would explain how they rapidly accelerate into metal-working ages but then stall out), or they just Happen to Always Come Up with This. (This is ofc going under the assumption that they arent born with the brands, which I go by lmao).

Looking back at their og concepts, Novakid also have cores, which most likely are located in their heads since their protokid forms are (presumably) the core + the brand. And since the brands help them keep their forms, they're probably always located on or around the head for the sake of being close to their core. BUT, Again, in the game itself, you can play as a brandless Novakid, which could obvs just mean "oh this one just didnt develop one. u know how nature goes".

BUT, I think its infinitely more fun to have the brands be a signature form of: "we as a society and an evolving people have found a way to make life easier for us + extend our lifespan." It adds SO MUCH MORE of a flexible, social aspect to them.

Going back to Noble, I'm actually bouncing back and forth on whether or not I think his brand is natural or not. Like, I absolutely think he WOULD get a coverplate bc he's just THAT married to his job, but I also get that vibe that this is him inside and out. He radiates an energetic sense of a purer form of justice, and I feel like he has just been like that ever since he was a wee bab. And maybe just clung to the Peacekeepers bc it was the nearest thing he could find that matched what he was after.

He rebuilt the Peacekeepers from literal scraps because he understood and abided to the underlying message of keeping people safe and knowing that even the smallest efforts to beat back all the fear and evil in this vast universe is still something, and its always worth the fight. Could go either way, but I'm leaning more toward that's just his actual brand.

#starbound #starbound headcanons #asks #the fic im drabbling in covers this #could be a case of fanon obscuring canon #but i get huge vibes that noble is genuine in wanting to protect ppl #even if it may not be in a perfect way #also that being his legit brand is essential for the fic im writing lmao #plays a huge part in the scene where radon tries to kill him via ripping it off

[ububunes]

Finished replaying gravity rush and it's so fuuuun..... Waaaaa...... Wish I had a ps4 to play gravity rush 2 but. I'm broke and if I did buy a ps4 I really should buy a new PC first....

But yeah. It's so fun to be playing gravity rush and move around in real life and have that move the camera while you're floating.... Made me wanna replay Akiba's beat waaaa.... Should finish Odin sphere leifthrasir (...I'm just gonna call it Odin sphere L. Sorry gang.) Or literally any of the unfinished games I have. Maybe I should go back to Tokyo tattoo girls or get past the first dungeon in p4g (I keep getting busy and not being able to play it....) Maybe I should pull out Ye Old OG 3DS to play rf 1. Doesn't seem to work too well on my newer one for some reason. My copy of Monark is staring at me with malice and ill intent again .... Tempting me....

..maybe I should just watch anime instead

#irl shit(?) #gravity rush #game taaaalks

[faroreswinds]

More Totk thoughts below

Found two other memories so far. Memory number 9 first, then memory number 5.

Memory number 9 is when Sonia is murdered by Ganondorf. Honestly, these two naive young women thought they could attempt to handle something alone? Wtf were they thinking? Zelda also somehow now has some control over her time powers. 

Learning that Puppet Ganon is disguised as Zelda really ruins the rest of the game. The present time tries to “trick” the player into thinking Zelda might have gone evil. Of course, unless you are like 5, no would buy this BS. But if you get this memory before doing the “main” story, you are really gimping yourself out of a cohesive narrative. 

Number 5 is Rauru’s sister, Minaru, info-dumping about how Secret Stones amplify power, how she can separate her own body from her spirit, and that people can become dragons if you swallow the secret stones.

Again, this is pretty easy to figure out because the “Light” dragon has golden hair and the Master Sword. But even if you didn’t catch that, this basically tells you that Zelda became a dragon. They are really bad at telling stories. 

I went and did the Goron temple. Thematically, it was actually super cool. The build up isn’t as special as the Rito one, but first you fight Yunobo, who is possessed. This is super easy but still kinda fun storywise. Then, surprise! Another boss fight! Very bold to put part of the dungeon boss BEFORE the dungeon but it worked. Another easy boss. Like the Rito boss, this one is more spectacle more than anything.

And I gotta say, the Gorons that are possessed by the gloom rocks were really unsettling. When I approached Goron City, two possessed Gorons just suddenly got up and approached me. I actually kinda freaked for a moment. That was more unsettling than the entire Depths ever was. 

Thankfully they weren’t aggressive, but they had text boxes over their heads that said “Hey, come here”. And every ounce of my body said “No thanks, I chose life”. 

Another cool, thematic dungeon, and a huge step up from the Rito Dungeon. It actually made me think about the layout like dungeons of old, and had a cool mine cart system. I also liked how it is in the ruins of an ancient Goron City. 

One thing I also enjoy about these dungeons is that they exist organically in the world, unlike BotW, which were separate maps that required a loading screen and were mechanical monstrosities. It’s kinda a shame you can’t just do them when you find them, like the OG LoZ, but nonetheless these are closer to what I want from future Zelda games.

That all said, the dungeon was still subpar. Too easy to skip the labyrinth of mine cart rails. Just climb and Ascend everywhere. You are given just given the map right away, so you are never lost for a moment. Lame. 

The boss was a Gohma variant, and also stupid easy. To be honest, the best boss in the game so far is an overworld boss called Flux Construct III. I can gush about that boss for hours, but I won’t in this post. These story bosses are for literal babies. 

Also, Yunobo is just as annoying as Tulin. Please, I beg of you, shut up and let me fight. I also hate how you need to be near the Sages to activate their powers. And the A button is shared with other uses so sometimes when you go to pick something up you accidently just activate a Sage. Terrible button design. 

And for some reason, the Sage tells you the exact same story of the Imprisoning War. Almost word for word, with the same cutscene. Wtf? Why repeat what we already know? Is there no dynamic story telling? 

I’m also annoyed that these past sages have no face or name. They are literal nobodies. 

I did find Vah Rudania’s helmet armor piece, and if you put it on the Yunobo spirit will also the Sage helmet too. It’s a cool touch that I appreciate. 

It also kinda confirms my theory that the Sheikah tech was inspired by the Zonai tech. 

Again, Link has just no reaction to anything around him. Worse 3D Link of all time.

So... oops, I accidently found the start of the Sage of Spirit’s temple by diving into the storm cloud over Faron. I didn’t know that it would trigger a story thing. Urg... I might have ruined the flow of the story even more. 

“Link.... Zelda’s chosen protector.... Link.... Zelda’s chosen protector.... Link.... Zelda’s” Holy crap, please stop talking, I am BEGGING you. 

I’m going to not do this temple right away. I’ll save it for later. 

#totk-spoilers

[lookforthefuture49]

Ok time for a fnaf SB rant (not a bad one!!!)

Very EXTREMELY spoilery, plz be careful. I don't know how to make a cut for spoilers so just know the following is obviously filled to the BRIM with spoilers.

So.

Security breach!!!

I hear a lot of people complaining about it, and I too complain about the bugs and the story, but honestly? No matter what I see or think I literally cannot help but adore Security Breach. Like, it's so much HAPPIER than any of the older games. I know it's still pretty dark, yeah, but unlike literally every other game, most of its endings are pretty happy, even the canon one, and I appreciate that. It doesn't HAVE to be so bleak I assumed before the game even came out that Gregory was gonna die- he doesn't die in a single one of the known endings. I wa surprised but also very happy. And also, for once, the pizza plex seems mostly innocent. If it weren't for the the fact Vanny and Mr. Afton were there messing everything up, the place would be perfectly fine to continue on as it is. Literally except for the iffy management it's a fine establishment and honestly I'd go if I could it's that cool.

I do think the writing is iffy at times, especially towards the ending, but I'm really glad that the animatronics actually get like... character. Maybe except Monty, he doesn't really get anything surprisingly, but like, Roxanne is over here entirely obsessed with herself and destroyed when suddenly she can't see herself anymore. Chica can't help but eat and eat and eat even though she's not supposed to. Freddy genuinely cares about his friends and just feels very real. It's amazing. Gregory also definitely had a different character than I expected, but he's still fun and I really like his and Freddy's dynamic. Its great.

The game looks freaking amazing, finally the 3d modeling is a style I like. I never really liked Cawthon's modeling style, something about it feels weird. Maybe the texture of the characters, or just it not being good in general. Its good for most of the animatronics, but I don't like close up over used models. I think the ones that look smooth, such as many found in the Desolate Hope and the Toys in fnaf 2, are good, but models like those from Chipper and Sons and many fuzzy/textured animatronics just look off. I think Steelwool does an amazing modeling job and I absolutely love it. Cawthon does a pretty good job for most models but some just looks so weird in proportion and texture I don't like it hah.

I've rambled a lot, I'm sorry I'm continuing.

I think the canon ending and the events leading up to it are my least favorite of all the endings and how to get them. It's just so.. underwhelming. I guess thought if Mr. Afton was gonna be in the game he was gonna be a prominent figure, and would actually pose a threat. But no, he's pitiful, he's disgusting. He was so powerful in Pzzeria Simulator and games before it (and also Help Wanted) that I can't help but be confused. Honestly, I think I'm glad he had an easy defeat. I'm just tired of him coming back (not tired of Michael though please steelwool just one more game with Michael in it is all I ask PLEASE) and he's so old and gross anyway its like of course he was obliterated in like 5 seconds. His boss battle was not one of a powerful being trying to take back control again, but just this old dead dude who's probably tired of immortality already because he got the worst form of it. He literally does nothing except try to take over Glamrock Freddy, and even that fails miserably likely because of a form of the power of friendship hidden in there. It is not beyond this game to use the power of friendship trope, I can tell, they just forgot to make Freddy mention it haha. Anywhom, I think the big amalgamate thing was also stupid, because I can't tell if it's Molten Freddy or a new thing. It has the og Funtime Freddy head, has classic Chica and Bonnie, none of the Pizza Sim animatronics except the puppet, but even that's a stretch because Lefty isn't there. I'm confused on that and honestly I think if something was going to make William stay in that fire it should have been Charlie or Michael. I would say Henry but I don't think he could attach to anything. Charlie is always possessing something (the Puppet) and Michael had who knows how much remnant in him. Anyway, the amalgamate felt very thrown in, but honestly so did William, so idk.

Oh yeah I forgot to mention it but I think William's new design is literally the worst. Legit I like Scraptrap better than whatever that THING is. Why would Vanny even take his corpse and shove it into another rabbit??? Cmon! Make a new body! A NEW one!!!!! Why make him super weak and terrible like cmon you can make him anything and you didn't make him like some fancy streamlined animatronic??

I think the only cool thing about the canon ending is that you go down underground and it's the Pizzeria Sim location. So awesome.

Anyway yeah this was a ramble.

Also bring back Michael

#fnaf spoilers #e

[love-bokumono-fics]

in your opinion, which harvest moon or sos games are worth playing and which are not? Are the older titles worth it?

So I have to confess, I have played relatively few HM/SoS games to completion. "Completion" meaning: over a year in-game played, got married, had a kid, and/or completed whatever story there is to be done. I am also of the mind that if something makes me happy, regardless of how old, or objectively "bad" it might be considered, it's worth playing. It makes me happy, it's time well spent.

So if you're looking for an actual critical, and well thought out review of the games, I am not the blog to ask. There are lots of other people out there who have given more thought to the matter than I have.

For the record, the games I have played are: Back to Nature, HM 3 GBC, (More) Friends of Mineral Town, Island of Happiness, Save the Homeland, SoS1, Trio of Towns, SoS Friends of Mineral Town, and I'm working my way through Pioneers of Olive Town.

I've played a little bit of Tale of Two Towns, and A New Beginning, but I didn't get very far in either of those before getting distracted with other things. I enjoyed them while I was playing, but also neither of them captured my attention enough to stay invested long term. Make of that what you will.

I never played any of the titles that were released on Game Cube or Wii, and I basically didn't play anything between 2007 and 2014. Which some people will say is when the best games came out, and I missed out on the best titles, but I never played them so I can't offer an opinion on them. And I haven't played any of the Harvest Moon titles since the split.

So of the ~25 games that we have under the Hm/SoS umbrella, I've played 10, and 4 of them are technically the same game remade on different consoles so let's say 6. Several of the games I played as a literal child, and when I upgraded to the next technology generation, I lost my ability to play them. Others I picked up again as an adult and thoroughly enjoyed my time playing.

As for the "worth" of the game, it really depends on what you, personally, want from your game. I've already given you my definition of "worth". I realize it is not Everyone's definition of "worth". Nonny, I suspect, that since you're asking me in the first place, "it makes me happy" isn't the only reason you want/need to invest time and effort into playing a game. I cannot tell you which games you think will be "worth it."

I think each game has it's own value. It offers something that other's don't. Different characters, different farming mechanics, different stories, and I think each one, in its own way has some value to impart on the players.

My long-time favorite game has been the Mineral Town games, ever since we got BTN in 2000 I fell in love with the premise, the characters, the setting. I bought the gameboy versions when they hit stores, and they are the games I most consistently return to when I want something comfortable.

Compared to recent games though, the Mineral Town ones are Really Basic. And while I love the games for their nostalgia, I know some people will be bored to tears by them of they go from playing the more recent games to that. Even when FoMT hit the switch last sumer I had a bit of whiplash going "oh, there's so little on the calendar, and I only have how many different crops to grow? nothing grows in winter? okay." because I had just come off from playing Trio of Towns.

If you want to be busy and have 100 goals to meet, stick to the newer games. If you just wanna chill and do whatever, try some of the older games if you can.

I think, if you have the time/ability to go back and play the old games, and you want to do it, then by all means, go for it!

A lot of them are only available to play on technology that a lot of people don't have floating around their homes anymore. If they didn't get a next gen port to an easily accessible console, so unless you still have a functioning PS2 or GBA, you're not going to have the chance to play them. Yeah, emulators are out there and they work, but in my experience they're also annoying and buggy, and not an ideal way to play the games. If you have the consoles, but not the games, getting your hands on copies can be very expensive.

You are already prone to play the old games. You're gonna play them regardless of my opinions on them. You're gonna shell out the cash or set up the emulator, or dust off the Wii and pray it still works, and i hope you enjoy your time playing!

These games have been coming out over 20+ years at this point, and while many of them are just remakes/reskins/girl versions, that's still so much time covered in video game technology. And comparing the earliest games to the most recent ones is more of an exercise in frustration and futility. You're never going to find the right answer.

(I also don't know what your personal gauge for 'old' is, Nonny. Because Old for me are games that are 20 years old. Old for you might be games that are 5 years old, which was like... last week from my perspective, so...)

All this to say, I guess I'll give a brief opinion on the games I have played, and y'all can make your decisions as you please from there.

Back to Nature/Mineral Town Games: My OG game. Always holds a dear spot in my heart for nostalgia. Love the town, love the characters, love the music, can do no wrong, a very enjoyable, if basic, farming game. Easy to play for a bit, set down for a while, and pick up and play again without feeling like you've forgotten you were in the middle of something important.

HM GBC 3: Pretty sure I was 10 last time I played it, so grain of salt. I found it more boring than the MT games, the town and maps were smaller, none of the characters had portraits, I didn't really get all of the details to make the farm work. I'm sure if I went back now as an adult I would have a better time, but I have no desire to emulate it. If you want to emulate it, go for it, but be warned that if you play as a girl, the game ends after you get married. Doesn't do that if you play as a boy so...

Save the Homeland: I kept going back to replay this game for years. I thought the premise was fun, and I always wanted to try and get all of the endings, but never did. I would buy it again in a heartbeat if it got remastered. Different from other games tho, in that you only get one year to play and get an ending, and once you do, the game restarts you at Spring 1 and nobody knows who you are again. You get to keep your animals and house upgrades, but there's no dating and marriage.

Island of Happiness: I love the setting and the characters, but god FUCK that weather system. Can't get shit to grow unless you obsessively track if it rains and how sunny it is and it completely ruined the game for me. I tried playing it again a couple years back and couldn't be bothered to keep tracking stuff. I never once unlocked all of the crops or livestock on any of my playthroughs. Did manage to play long enough to get married once.

SoS1: The game that convinced me to go back to buying new stuff after IoH kind of put me off new HM games for the better part of a decade (I had FoMT to replay it was fine). Liked it well enough, thought some of the characters were a bit bland, but still enjoyable enough to get married and have a kid. Unlocking all the vendors is a bitch though, and I still haven't gotten them all. A fine game, but if you're only going to play One 3DS game, I wouldn't suggest this one.

Trio of Towns: This one ties with FoMT as my favorite game! I love everything about it. The Characters, the setting and premise, the music, the depth of events. There's so much to do, there's never a boring day, but that can also feel overwhelming if you're the kind if person who tries to do everything at once. Not as easy to pick up and put down as some of the more basic games, but it's very replayable in my book and I keep coming back to it.

Pioneers of Olive Town: It's a middling game for me. Like SoS1, it's fine, but unlike SoS1, there's very little to do in the game. I completed the "main story" in less than a year without putting in much effort to complete things in a timely manner. The characters and the game had So Much Potential, particularly after 3oT, and all of it fell flat in my expectations. Plus some of the technical issues we all experienced at launch. Now, I'm still playing it, I don't hate the game, and the updates have made things better. But with the story done and all of the characters feeling a bit Flat, I'm biding my time between DLC updates to see if I want to marry any of the special candidates instead of the base game characters. I'll probably keep playing long enough to get married and probably unlock everything on the farm, but beyond that I'm not super invested.

My final verdict is, if you have a 3DS, get Trio of Towns, if you only have a Switch, get Friends of Mineral Town. If you want to put forth the time and effort into acquiring the old games, or emulating them, by all means go for it.

#this is probably not a satisfactory answer but I am not the person to ask to make objective declaration on what is the best/worst #especially when there are over 20 games to pick from and 20+ years to look through! #nothing made in the 90s is ever going to be on the same fair playing field as stuff made in the 10s #comparing them is like comparing apples to oranges. both round tree fruits but beyond that they differ so much #replies #anonymous #this got so long. idk how to have concise opinions #i must over explain everything so people don't misinterpret me

[0poole]

Bloons

Honestly the entire Bloons series has been some of my favorite flash/other-than-flash games out there, and I feel like it’s worth bringing it up since I just crossed the 365 day threshold for BTD6. Maybe in the past, but nowadays I definitely don’t feel like I ever play a game daily for a year straight. Chances are it was a little desperate when I first started playing, but as of now literally every single day I open the game up and play the daily challenge just for the sake of it. Plus, since the chest technically resets every 9 hours or so instead of 24, I could’ve cheesed it a bit, but I didn’t. That’s a pure 365 days of playing the game.

And even apart from that, the entire Bloons series has been in my mind since the first one and my middle/elementary school Coolmath Games days. Even though the puzzle, pure form of Bloons wasn’t as much in my interest, the staying power of the Tower Defense version is crazy. Flash Tower Defense games are plenty, and yet the one with the stupid monkeys throwing darts at balloons was the best.

I went back semi-recently and played a round of each BTD, and I gotta say, it was fun seeing where everything came from. 1 is absolute garbage, forcing you to just spam Super Monkeys if you want to get anywhere, but a good starting point obviously. I honestly know nothing about the people creating these games, but obviously it wasn’t made by a AAA crew, so you can’t expect everything to be put in place in the first iteration. 2 and 3 feel much better, but obviously not much after being so used to the modern stuff, and 4 and 5 are the ones that really shine the most, apart from 6 obviously.

I definitely was one of the types of people who initially reacted poorly to the artstyle change of 5 and 6, but I’ve definitely turned over. I don’t know if the whole BTD community rioted at that point, but I at least was like “ew, they’re cute now” when I first saw it. Thankfully I turned over, and realized the current designs are the absolute best out of the entire franchise. Also, I love their cuteness, as I love cuteness in general, so basically just call it character growth. Even though 2D art always is more interesting for games than 3D in general, the entire art direction of 6 is genuinely really good, being so bright and cartoony (at least before the fifth stages of upgrades) really fits the cartoony idea of monkeys popping bloons. 5, and the entire franchise before it, really is proof enough how horrible a pure top-down perspective is. On the title screen, you can see what the monkeys are supposed to look like, but in-game they literally look like weird blobby scorpions. Even though in the back of my mind I knew what they were supposed to look like, the pure top-down perspective completely ruined the image. Not to mention the OG designs for the monkeys was really weird and bad anyway. Even if you wanted a goofy fat kind of monkey, there are a million better ways to achieve that than how it used to be. Again, of course, they weren’t exactly AAA game-level quality, so you can’t expect such perfect character design.

But, oh my god. One of the things about this game that must’ve kept me through 6 was the character designs. If you know anything about me, it’s that I love a good character design, and 6 is full of them. It’s so interesting to see how they extrapolate the main concepts of each tower into their three different paths. The generic Superman-based monkey can turn into a Batman-based monkey, a Terminator-based monkey, and a fucking ancient god of the sun. The seemingly chill Druid can smite people with the power of Zeus, become the much more expected forest-based type, but also turn into this completely out-there being of pure wrath. I could go on and on about that, but needless to say for so many of them look and are designed so great. I think the tower with the coolest level 5s of the game is the Ninja. It’s hard to explain, but they all just look really cool while also not deviating too much from the cartoony-cute art style. I think my all-time favorite level 5 is the top path of the Wizard, mostly just because he looks really cool, but also because the parts of the path before it show him aging and growing out his beard. I also have to say the 2-0-3/4 Wizard also looks exactly my style, with the dark purply-ness and gold rims. Also, if you haven’t noticed, the Magic monkeys are my favorite type, and not just because their signature color is purple. That’s part of it though. Magic is also just cool in general. My main RPG-class of choice is almost always a mage/wizard.

Also, the heroes are also really fun. As someone who often creates species of aliens/monsters, I always feel like I want to create a dedicated character out of them no matter what, so I feel like the heroes are basically just that. And, of course they have good designs too, and of course as you can probably guess my favorite is Adora, basically being the same thing as the 5-0-0 Wizard with the Sun God aesthetic. Since she has her own stage and a special interaction with the True Sun God/Vengeful Monkey, I think she’s a pretty big deal anyway. I will say that I highly slept on Gwen, but then for Easter they gave her the Harlegwen skin and I fell in love. It’s insanely good stuff. Apart from looks, it does feel nice to have some sort of interchangeable tower that you basically just place and forget about, aside from using their powers. Plus, it makes a really easy type of thing to periodically add to the game to keep things fresh, even with the skins in general. It definitely is much better than the stuff they had in 5, where you had to use Monkey Money to buy each one, and you could only use them once per stage. Obviously 6 has the extra powers to help you out, but they feel much more optional and cheaper than the heroes of 5. Since I barely buy anything with Monkey Money to begin with, and since I’ve obviously had 365 chest openings, and AND since I barely use them to begin with, I’m completely stocked up. I only ever use the farmer and sometimes the tech bot if I get lazy. I did use the portable lake I got from my 365th chest opening after I got it, just for the sake of celebration. That’s literally how my mind goes.

6 does have the slight tinge of a mobile game artstyle, but in this case it’s really just better. I’m not into mobile games, and especially not the generic artstyle they have, but it is really pleasing to look at anyway. It did chase me off before I converted, though. That, and the fact you had to buy it now. Like a true gamer, I was put off by the fact that something that was once expected to be free now has to be paid for. But, then, I realized that the entire franchise has provided much more than 10$ worth of entertainment to me throughout time, so it was extremely fair to pay that. It is still kinda weird how 5 has to be paid for for mobile, when it is just free online, though. However, unlike a true gamer I think the microtransactions of the game are extremely fair. Considering they just give you things that you don’t need, and can get for free otherwise, I think it’s completely fine to have them. It sounds bad on the surface to have to pay for the game and have there still be microtransactions in it, but since they’re completely optional there’s no good reason to hate it. I think people assume that means that you have to pay for the game, and pay extra for different major parts of the game, and that sours their opinion on everything. Gamers are a strange, irrationally angry breed. I do hate using my phone for pretty much anything, though, so once I bought 6 on Steam I haven’t played it on my phone since. It’s just so much better in every single way...

I bought the game around the time of one of my family’s semi-annual trips to England because I thought it’d help when we were traveling between wi-fi spots, and it really did wonders for me then. Probably looked like some asshole teen to strangers who don’t know I barely ever use my phone for anything, since I was playing it so much. My sister even saw me playing it and bought it for herself, although I don’t know how much she’s played since then. 

For the sake of stats, I have 235 hours played of it on Steam alone, and in game I’m level 115. My most complete map is Monkey Meadow with all medals except CHIMPS, which I put the effort in because it’s the default map, and definitely not because it’s an easy/good map because it’s just kinda bad compared to so many other ones. My Dart monkey has a total of 4 million XP, and the only towers that haven’t crossed a million are the Ice, Heli, Alchemist, Druid, and Spike factory monkeys/tower. I think the farthest I’ve actually gotten round-wise is 200 once or twice, but I don’t remember if I’ve actually beaten that level and continued on or lost there. I think I might’ve gotten past it once, but just sort of lost interest in micro-managing my powers and let myself lose. I probably got there once after that and lost on it. As someone who didn’t look up the optimal strategies for things until very recently, I think that’s pretty good. It definitely feels like the kind of game where if you know the best strategies, you can literally just replicate that over and over and win really easily, but that just sounds kinda boring. Since I pretty much only do daily challenges nowadays, it forces me to use a limited amount of towers, so I either go much farther because it forces me to build up less towers more, or it makes sure I can’t even pass round 90 because it just was made to get you to round 40 and that’s it. When I have the full range of towers to use, I feel like I try to get the instant satisfaction of getting a new tower to increase DPS instead of making the few towers I have/need reach their full potential, which seems to be the better option. I also don’t really sell anything when I don’t have a limited number of monkeys to place, which I think is also a good strategy if you can eliminate the major money loss in it, since it can give you a massive boost in cash to get you the better upgrades quicker. I may or may not try to learn the strategies to wipe the rest of the game clean eventually, but right now I’m fine with just doing the dailies.

But yeah, that’s like the whole thing with Bloons Tower Defense and me. Something something reject modernity, embrace monke, or whatever the kids these days are saying.

I will say that if I didn’t have so many OCs to work with and could just pump out animated shorts on the reg, I’d love to do some sort of Bloons shorts. They’d all lean into the ridiculousness of it all. Like, the first one could do the 2001 thing with the monkeys learning to use sticks, and as the main one is bashing the ground with one or whatever and throws it up, an ancient, leathery patchwork bloon flies overhead and accidentally bumps the stick such that it lands back on the main monkey’s head, knocking him out. Cue the monkeys around him to go berserk and start throwing other sticks at the ancient bloon, and once they pop it using a sharp stick, they realize what they must do. Cue a long montage of the different stages of war and invention using the monkeys finding better ways to fend off the bloons, with the whole idea being that the monkeys are getting irrationally angry at the bloons, who are just sort of around and not actually sentient, even though they assume they’re malicious because of their history and upbringing. Absolutely no political message in there whatsoever. Just comedy.

Other short ideas could include, for the start of the modern time story, it could be the backstory of some sort of chiseled veteran main character, which would involve a bloon floating into his town, and from the people’s panic someone knocks over a lamp post that sets his town ablaze, only for him and his people to blame the carnage on the bloon, causing his classic edgy character motives for fighting against the bloons. Another, much more golden idea, would be an interrogation scene, where a bunch of monkeys capture a bunch of bloons for interrogation purposes. They’d obviously do the whole “Silent treatment, eh? Well, we have ways of making you talk...” thing, except the “way to make them talk” is to strap them to a wall with one dart guy on one side to systematically pop them to try and extract info. But, of course, it would look and play out exactly like the classic Bloons puzzle game. That’d be the fun part. If not that, then it could be like the classic carnival game that likely inspired the idea of using darts to pop balloons. I really just think this weird world of monkeys and bloons is perfect for some good comedic content. Watching the monkeys severely overreact to the bloons sounds extremely fun, and I’d love to see someone do something with it some day.

#bloons tower defense #btd #6 #poole #rant #rambling #opinions #bloons #ninja kiwi #nk #flash

[scripting-life]

FFVII: returning to my first love

 *peeks out of the corner of my lurking spot*

Hello? Anybody out there? It’s only been, oh you know, four-ish years since the last time I’ve posted anything here. I apologize in advance for anybody who’s still following me from my Castle days. If you couldn’t tell from my extended absence, I’ve mostly moved on. Castle and Beckett were fantastic characters that let me to play with some deep-dive analyses, and Castle will always hold a special place in my heart as my comfort show and my first real and extended experience with online fandom. I’ll always be grateful to the community I’ve had the joy of interacting with (or, the community with which I’ve had the joy of interacting, as Castle would correct me my dangling preposition).

I honestly didn’t think I would ever have reason to come back to Tumblr after Castle ended. But the FF7 Remake has returned me to my very first love--when I was young and innocent and before I knew anything about OTPs or ship wars. I’ve been back lurking for several months now and seeing all the fanart/fanfics and fun theories and analyses has reignited my enthusiasm for the FF7 franchise. It’s also fun coming back to this franchise with a more mature understanding of the themes/concepts that completely flew over my head as a young preteen.

(This ended up being super long, so the rest is below the cut to spare everyone the pain of scrolling. Apparently, my rambling tendencies have not changed at all. lol.)

When FF7R was officially announced (five freaking years ago!), I was filled with apprehension. FF7 was my first taste of a “grown-up” game. I was 11 and played my brother’s copy of the OG on PC in 1-2 hours spurts on the weekends when I visited his apartment. It took me months, if not years, to finish the game (I ended up stealing his copy to play on our computer at home...lol), and I was so blown away by it. I remember the exact moment I finished it and how I was literally shaking as I watched the ending FMV.

Later, when I found out my brother had a copy of FF8 (my poor brother was so accommodating to his annoying little sister...haha), I was so excited to play, in large part because I thought it would continue the story of FF7. Young, naive me didn’t understand the numbering conventions of Final Fantasy titles. I was madly theorizing and breaking my brain trying to find connections between the two games’ plots and had literally played through more than half the game before I finally realized the storyline of FF8 had absolutely nothing to do with FF7. I was sorely disappointed, and I think that has somewhat tainted my appreciation of future titles. Not to say I haven’t enjoyed the subsequent FF titles, but I think a little part of me is always comparing them to that first experience of wonder and awe that I had with FF7.

I discovered fanfiction in my teens and starting writing FF7/Cloti fics in college. Aside from interacting with a few fic writers at the time, I was not involved in any online communities, so I kept myself pretty free of any ship war drama and the like. When I did research for my fics, I’d sometimes see shipping sites and theories where I didn’t always understand the logic of how certain conclusions were reached, but frankly, I didn’t much care and didn’t realize that Clerith vs. Cloti was such a touchy subject. I was peripherally aware that some sort great LTD war was waging, of course, but it didn’t really touch me. I stayed in my Cloti shipping/fic-writing lane and was probably a lot happier for it. And, to be honest, based on FFN’s listings for FF7, I felt like I always saw a bunch of Sephiroth/Cloud fics and thought that was just as popular as the more conventional ships.

Graduating college and entering “real life” pretty much ended my FF7 fanfic-writing journey. In the intervening years between college and the release of FF7R, I haven’t gone back to the OG too much. I’ve played almost all the Final Fantasy games since then, and I always enjoy getting my FF7 crew fix when I play the non-canon mobile games or the Kingdom Hearts franchise. But FF7 was a happy part of my teenage years, and I was content to think on it with sweet nostalgia.

Remakes, in recent experience (*cough cough* Disney, why?), have been hit or miss, with a lot of misses. It’s hard to strike a good balance between catering to nostalgia and delivering a fresh product, never mind the change in social mores through the decades. I was so afraid FF7R would screw up my memories, especially since I wasn’t the biggest fan of Advent Children. The graphics were great and the action scenes were fun, but the story felt like a let-down. Cloud, in particular, felt so different (and yes, moody) from where we left him after the OG. I understand now that a lot of his character motivation was better explained in the On The Way to a Smile novels, but back then, I just felt like AC came out of nowhere. 

Btw, because I see this question a lot on other blogs when I’m lurking, I’ve ALWAYS thought that it was very clear in AC--even without reading anything else--that the reason for Cloud’s depression was due to guilt and not because he was pining for Aerith. The only reason I didn’t like his characterization in AC was because it felt like it came out of nowhere since AC is set 2 years after OG and by the end of the OG, he seemed to be in a pretty decent place mentally and emotionally. That being said, I can absolutely understand why some traumas resurface years after the originating incident and how times of peace might actually be worse because he is no longer solely focused on saving the world, but I was just surprised and a little bummed that this was the direction the devs chose to take AC at the time. Now that I’m older, I do better appreciate the complexities of Cloud’s mental state and the fact that they depicted a hero with lingering mental health issues is actually pretty awesome. I’m drawn to characters that have flaws--sometimes serious ones--but try their best anyway. Hence, why why Tifa Lockhart and Kate Beckett are some of my all-time favorites.

Anyhow, that didn’t stop me from pre-ordering FF7R, of course. I avoided reading any reviews as I didn’t want my first impressions to be swayed, and boy, was I happy that I went in mostly blind. That sense of awe really almost felt like playing the OG for the first time again, but somehow more. The combat system is incredibly fun and the world-building is nothing short of incredible. The variety and abundance of NPCs gives the game so much flavor and the locations have been rendered so well. As I’m going through areas like the Sector 7 train station and Wall Market and Aerith’s house, I can almost superimpose the layout from the OG in my head, but now it’s in 3D and so rich and full. It’s obvious that a lot of attention was paid to details, and I love all the head-nods and homages to the OG.

And oh, the characters!

This is the Cloud I’ve been wanting to see in glorious HD and the Cloud I remember from the original game: all awkward, dorky trying to be cool, socially inept, mentally unstable, abrasive-at-times, reluctant to act depending on who’s asking, wannabe hard-ass who’s actually a big softie inside Cloud. I remember reading an article a few years back about how the devs basically redid Cloud for the Remake because they wanted him to go back to his dorky roots--which ends up making him closest to his personality in the OG than his appearances in other franchises--and I was SOOOO incredibly happy to hear that. I was so sick of the way Cloud was constantly depicted as this cool, broody McBrood in his cameos when he was a pretty big dork in the OG. (Anybody remember him doing squats in the Highwind when Tifa says it’ll be lonely with just the two of them and Cloud responds that he’ll make enough noise to make up for it? Like I said: cute, but a dork.)

I WAS surprised by how comfortable and sweet and touchy (so very very touchy) the devs made him with Tifa from the beginning. That initial scene of Cloud being such a smooth operator giving Tifa the flower had my jaw-dropping and every single flirty interaction after that (and there are many) had my Cloti heart overflowing in shock and bliss. Throughout most of my years as a Cloti shipper, even though I believed Cloti was supported by canon and pretty clearly together, I was also under the impression--mistakenly or not--that Cloti was the minority ship. So for Square Enix to make it so blatantly obvious that Cloud is really into Tifa at such an early stage has been an unexpected gift.

Also, they’re just really hot together. (Clotiscrew tunnel--be still my heart!)

As for Tifa...oh, what wonderful character development we’ve already gotten for Tifa. Tifa has always been one of my all-time favorite characters ever since reading her character blurb in the OG game manual. Initially, as a child, it was because I saw so much of myself in her. She was outwardly bright and optimistic, but tended to hide all of her stronger feelings inside. She fought with her fists, and for someone who was a tomboy growing up who liked playing contact sports with the boys, I connected with her in a way that I had never been able to connect with other female protagonists who were primarily back-row specialists. (I also aspired to grow to her listed height of 5′4″, which alas, did not happen...lol).

I love how the Remake delves into more of Tifa’s moral conflict between the destruction that she causes as part of Avalanche and needing to do something to stop Shinra, and yes, even seeking revenge. They touched on this in the OG lightly, but the Remake really hammers it home. She’s perhaps the most conflicted character in terms of motivation in Part 1. That scene with the Shinra manager on the train is actually one of my favorite scenes of her because it highlights that tension. The elevator scene, if you opted for it instead of the stairs (or if you did one, saved, and reloaded to do the other one, like me), is also underrated in terms of how much it reveals about Tifa’s inner struggle.

On this point, I also appreciate that the Remake has the characters reflecting on the damage they’ve both indirectly and directly inflicted--the Avalanche team all do this to a certain degree. In particular, Jessie’s constant inability to figure out what she’d done wrong with the bomb to cause such a massive explosion and her remaining feelings of guilt during her death scene (”they were my victims” ouch!) were heart-breaking.

Aerith’s depiction was another pleasant surprise. I’ll be honest; I didn’t much like her in the OG. She was too pushy and willfully oblivious to the point of being mean at times. In the Remake, much of her sometimes too in-your-face playfulness was kept--perhaps still a little too much--but I appreciate the nuance that they gave her. The train graveyard scene tells the player that she didn’t have friends growing up, and I think that partially contributes to her lack of social tact at times. The other factor that gives her personality more nuance is the hint of special knowledge that affects how she interacts with the rest of the group. It gives her additional hidden motivation and adds to her mystery for new players while simultaneously pulling at the heartstrings for old players who get the impression that Aerith is somehow aware--to a certain, unknown extent--of her own fate. 

I also appreciate that Aerith is more grounded as a real person than as some sort of revered being. I do blame AC for some of that. When you have the power to cure a fatal disease from the afterlife and send the dead back to life, it gets into some godlike territory. Maybe it’s a fair depiction of her powers as a Cetra, but I just get the feeling that Aerith herself wouldn’t really appreciate being made into this goddess-like figure. Remember that her character blurb in the original game manual implied that she was more interested in earthly things (i.e. the love triangle) than in exploring her own powers. I personally think that Aerith used the “love triangle” in the OG as a form of escapism from the weight of her burdens rather than genuine interest, and I just think she’d want to be thought of as a person rather than as a god. One of my favorite scenes for Aerith is when she and Cloud are traversing the rooftops and she slips on the ladder, letting out a simple, “Shit.” It humanizes her in a way that combats some of the ways she’s sort of been deified in the last 23 years. Also, Aerith wielding a folding chair like it’s WWE never fails to make me laugh. Overall, she just comes off as a more reasonably flawed and--as a result, to me--a more likeable character in the Remake, and I do very much like her now.

Barret is pretty much the exact larger than life character I imagined in my head, only somehow even better, and I really love how expressive and emotional his eyes and facial expressions are. His scenes with Marlene are truly the cutest thing ever. Red XIII is a big, furry ball of sass, and I need so much more of him in the coming parts (Cosmo Canyon still wrecks me to this day). The interactions between the Wedge, Biggs, and Jessie are incredible, and they really feel like people who’ve been friends and basically each other’s family for years. The Turks and Rufus are pretty much as cool as I imagined them in the OG.

There’s still so much more I haven’t even started touching on about the Remake, and I think that’s why I’m finally posting this now. I just can’t contain my love for this game any more, and I really really need a place to express myself. I don’t know if anybody is still reading, but I appreciate having the opportunity to finally gush about this game and franchise that I’ve loved so much for pretty much two-thirds of my life.

#ff7r #final fantasy 7: remake #cloti #cloud x tifa #cloud strife #tifa lockhart #final fantasy vii #final fantasy 7 #ff7 #aerith gainsborough #jessie rasberry #barret wallace #red xiii #for the love of the game #personal experience #not sure i'm ready to wade back into fandom life #but i really needed to gush #oh man i forgot to mention the cats #how could i forget the cats?!?!?

[mikumutual]

answers aa themed questions nobody asked because i’m cool and sexy

also i havent played the 5th or 6th games so

YOUR FAVOURITE…? 1. Favourite Ace Attorney game? honestly? phoenix wright ace attorney! everything’s fresh, there aren’t many weak characters, and the plot is remarkable (especially the fifth case). the whole trilogy is really good as one unit though 2. Favourite case? 1-4, 1-5, 2-4, and 3-5 are tied lol, i can’t make a decision to save my life. 2-1 is really really funny tho 3. Favourite defendant? as a defendant, lana skye. as a person, edgeworth 4. Favourite prosecutor? as a prosecutor, franziska von karma. as a person, edgeworth 5. Favourite ship? wrightworth obviously... ive probably put more thought into them over the last 3 years than any other ship 6. Favourite victim? probably mia fey or gregory edgeworth... but for non-relevant victims, neil marshall :( 7. Favourite murderer? shelly de killer, i LOVE that guy. but dee vasquez was very cool as well 8. Favourite assistant? maya fey!!!!!!!!!! but i like kay faraday a lot too (im so sorry ema) 9. Favourite witness? adrian andrews... or maybe iris? i mean i didn’t like iris but god what a person 10. Favourite quote? “It doesn't matter how many underhanded tricks a person uses... The truth will always find a way to make itself known. The only thing we can do is to fight with the knowledge we hold and everything we have. Erasing the paradoxes one by one... It's never easy... We claw and scratch for every inch. But we will always eventually reach that one single truth. This I promise you.” - Miles Edgeworth i made this one of my senior quotes :]

YOUR LEAST FAVOURITE…? 11. Least favourite Ace Attorney game? uh fucking apollo justice. literally what the hell was that 12. Least favourite case? turnabout visitor wasn’t very strong? i guess it’s fine as an intro, but it’s also wonky with the timeline of aai 13. Least favourite defendant? max galactica. he’s better in the anime though 14. Least favourite prosecutor? manfred von karma, obviously. i like every other prosecutor (who i know of) though, even winston payne is pretty funny in hindsight 15. Least favourite ship? “miles edgeworth/female oc”. there are a lot of bad ships though, mostly involving phoenix & his assistants. dont do that please 16. Least favourite victim? zak gramarye for kickstarting that shitty, shitty game 17. Least favourite murderer? again mvk... but also fucking frank sahwit LMAO 18. Least favourite assistant? i guess trucy 19. Least favourite witness? fuck everyone from turnabout big top unless it was the anime episode 20. Least favourite memory of Ace Attorney? repeatedly trying and failing to download the emulator for aai2 hbjsjhdb i eventually got it but someone had to send me the download fully pre-patched and i felt kinda useless DO YOU PREFER…? 21. Phoenix Wright or Apollo Justice? phoenix wright. fuck that “GOTCHA!” mechanic jesus christ 22. Maya Fey or Trucy Wright? maya fey. nothing personal against trucy but i just dont like aj hbjsdjhsdb also maya is really sweet and fun and she has the best sprites. she seems like she’d be a good friend, it’s too bad that she doesn’t have the time for them as a spirit medium and all :( if maya ema and kay got to hang out together itd be wild 23. Investigations or trials? trials are easier in my opinion because investigations have several things you could be doing without such a linear style, so if you miss something, you won’t really know until you wander around forever 24. College Phoenix or Hobo Phoenix? college feenie!!!!! he’s like trilogy feenie but more emotional and less witty. i like to pretend that hobo phoenix doesnt exist 25. Klavier Gavin or Kristoph Gavin? who would say kristoph 26. Ace Attorney or Ace Attorney Investigations? ace attorney but only because phoenix is in it lmao. im actually rewatching a playthrough of aai now, and playing aai2 at the same time, so while it is on the mind, i feel like the cases characters and mechanics - while loved - don’t hold up to the OGs 27. Apollo’s perceive, Phoenix’s magatama, or Athena’s Mood Matrix? i actually kinda like the mood matrix more than anything because it has a really good UI and the magatama is kinda grating. but FUCK the gotcha mechanic it is SO FUCKING STUPID and IMPOSSIBLE TO USE.  where is logic chess 28. Ace Attorney trilogy or Apollo Justice and Dual Destinies? you already know my answer to this one 29. 3D models or sprites? i do like the 3d models a lot but i like the original sprites more! imo original pixel sprites > 3D models > HD sprites. mostly bc the hd sprites are garbage (see here, here, and here) 30. Ema Skye as she is in Rise from the Ashes or Ema Skye as she is in Apollo Justice? rfta !!!!!! shes actually really nice as an assistant, esp considering the fact that we actually see her interact with her sister, which is something maya didn’t have very often. also her random appearance in aai was well appreciated by me

MISCELLANEOUS 31. Did you like what they did to Phoenix in Apollo Justice?

NO I AM SO FUCKING MAD WHY WOULD THEY DO THAT TO HIM ISN’T HE A LAWYER WHY COULD HE NOT JUST DEFEND HIMSELF FROM THE FACT THAT HE “FORGED EVIDENCE” IT WASN’T EVEN HIS IN THE FIRST PLACE SOMEBODY ELSE FORGED IT AND HE DIDN’T KNOW THAT, MANFRED VON KARMA GOT AWAY WITH A FUCKLOAD OF NONSENSE AND SO DOES EVERY OTHER LAWYER SO WHY IS IT THAT PHOENIX CAN SURVIVE EATING A POISONED GLASS NECKLACE AND GETTING HIT OVER THE HEAD WITH A FIRE EXTINGUISHER AND FALLING FROM A BURNING BRIDGE INTO A RUSHING RAVINE AND BEING HIT BY A CAR BUT HE CAN’T FUCKING DEFEND HIMSELF LIKE HE DOES IN EVERY OTHER CASE BECAUSE THAT’S THE POINT OF THE GAME AND ALSO HIS ENTIRE CHARACTER

32. Your opinion on Dai Gyakuten Saiban? haven’t played it! it looks pretty cool though

33. Do you think Dai Gyakuten Saiban and/or Miles Edgeworth Investigations 2 will get localised to the West? doubt it, since the creators have said that it won’t be. but the fan translations are pretty good, so i think it’s okay

34. Do you think Miles Edgeworth should get another Investigation-game or do you think another character deserves a spin-off? i mean he already has two, so i guess he doesn’t need another? like i love edgeworth but he’s not as fun without phoenix around. ngl i would play a franziska game. or a maya game, or any spinoff revolving around a side character. hell i’d play hotti game if it meant it took place in the trilogy era

35. Opinion on the soundtrack of the Ace Attorney-franchise? REALLY good. really really good. i love how each game of the trilogy has different composers but each track has the same theme and feel!!!

36. Do you like where the franchise is heading or did you prefer the atmosphere in the original trilogy? seriously absolutely completely prefer the trilogy. i’m sorry but the rush of youth and trust is way, way more enjoyable than whatever “i’m 35 and therefore middle aged” nonsense is happening in the 2020s

37. Capcom suddenly announces that Phoenix will no longer appear in the Ace Attorney franchise! Your reaction? He’s been replaced by Penny Nichols. Fuck you.

38. Capcom suddenly announces that the Ace Attorney franchise has ended for good! Your reaction? it was me i ended it

39. Would you like there to be another Ace Attorney/Professor Layton crossover game? i didnt play it but i really like the idea!!!!!! aa crossover games are really funny to me, i mean have you seen edgeworth in project x zone 2, lmao

40. Would you like an Ace Attorney anime? we have one now! honestly i don’t think it did a very good job of representing the cases, but it did do a good character remix of turnabout big top so that they’re not creepy anymore. they also did a really good job with the anime-specific cases, like the one on the train! it feels a lot better paced when it’s intended for that medium rather than just adapted.  also the childhood episodes made me cry

41. Opinion on anime cutscenes in Ace Attorney? like in 5 and 6? mm, the art style is kinda weird, and i don’t really like the voices, but i guess not everything can be pachinko and prozd

42. Would you want to play an Ace Attorney game where you take on the prosecutor’s role? YEAH ACTUALLY!!!!!! it might be kinda weird being on the right side of the screen though lmao

43. Do you like having DLC in Ace Attorney-games? uhhh i hate having to buy extra things, but i’ll admit that they are pretty funny

44. Opinion on Lamiroir’s storyline? i only played aj so if shes in other games idk but i thought she was fine

45. One thing you think the Ace Attorney games can improve on? stop having creepy characters please. also jesus christ if phoenix and edgeworth arent wearing rings in aa7 i will become the ceo of capcom myself

46. Capcom suddenly announces an Ace Attorney movie! Would you like it to be based on an already existing case or would you like an all new storyline? i mean the musical did a pretty good job of adapting existing cases, so it might as well be new. it would be kinda hard to balance the games’ timeline & character development without being repetitive or an au

47. Capcom suddenly announces an Ace Attorney movie! Would you prefer it being live-action, 3D animated or 2D animated? stylized 2D animation, probably? i would want it to feel more like into the spiderverse than an anime, though. in my dream ace attorney movie, they’d just need a high art budget, several plausible deniability wrightworth scenes, and prozd to voice edgeworth

48. If there could be an Ace Attorney crossover with whatever franchise you’d like, which one would you choose? (Does not need to be a video-game franchise) your turn to die is probably closest in characterization, although its premise is more “locked in a room” than the open-world investigation of aa

49. Opinion on recurring witnesses? (Wendy Oldbag, Lotta Hart, Larry Butz, etc.) honestly, i like them a lot! i don’t know why people hate them so much - i mean, i know lotta lied, and wendy is a horrible old flirt, and larry just kinda sucks all around. but they’re also pretty funny to have around! larry is a constant comic relief who reminds you how much better nick & edgey are in comparison, lotta is likeable as a general character (like in 2-4, although yeah, not remarkable), and wendy oldbag is really funny. she’s so fucking funny. none of you appreciate wendy oldbag’s quirks and you are SLEEPING ON IT!!!!!!!!!!!!

50. Do you think Dual Destinies deserved its M-rating? no idea, holy shit, it got an m-rating? i mean every game before it has had blood violence and very mild swearing, and since DD probably doesnt have anything too sexually risqué, i doubt it deserves a rating any harsher than the rest of the series

okay thanks thats all

#this was fun hbjsdsdj #yea i love the trilogy #also my theme makes all everything lowercase for some reason? so this is probably easier to read on mobile #ace attorney

[some-spooky-stuff]

I completed all of A Nightmare on Elm Street (finally)

First things first i love the practical effects in all of these movies. Probably the most charming part if this whole series, even when it gets super silly and dumb.

I took quick notes while watching each movie so some sentences are just little notes with no context.

A Nightmare on Elm Street: it was okay. Very dark. A little uneventful with odd pacing. Freddy wasn’t that active just kind of there. I liked that no one was “hollywood” pretty. Nancy is likeable. Also that scene with Johnny Depp getting sucked into the bed is still the worst. Holds up well. (watch)

A nightmare on Elm Street 2, Freddys Revenge: awesome opening scene. Interesting idea but not something i look for in a Nightmare movie. No real humor or wit. Its okay. Kind of forgettable. (eh, watch if you want to..)

ANoES 3, Dream Warriors: oh shit Nancy is back!!! The hype is real. I didnt expect to feel this excited when Freddy and Nancy recognized each other. This movie is infinitely more interesting than 2. I just dont like the blatant underage shit happening. But... What else should i expect from Freddy :/ cheesy acting and cheesy scenes aside, so far its my fav. (PLEASE WATCH)

ANoES 4, The Dream Master: oh continuation!! Return of the dream warriors. Sweet. And boy do we love character tropes holy shit... What a decade. ....dog piss brings him back from the dead. Also a really cool shot of him as he gets out of the grave. Finally some jokes. The ending was bizarre and watching all the souls escaping Freddys body was the worse thing ive ever seen. (watch if you want)

ANoES 5, The Dream Child: returning character, continuation is always nice. Also its fun seeing Englund without the makeup on. The character is kind of stupid but whatever if it makes the story progress..... This one was goofy and pretty dumb. Man these movies are old..(Eh)

Freddy's Dead, The Final Nightmare: theres 3D in this movie which is neat. Explains why it came with 3D glasses.. The plots of these movies just get more and more odd.. Also the quotes in the beginning felt silly with "welcome to prime time bitch" was on screen. Classic, but dumb. But Freddy is just having fun now so.. Good for him. Freddy with the chalkboard was one of the most entertaining scenes so far. Though at this point its all fun and games because why tf not. This whole movie was an episode of looney toons but i liked Freddy in it. Hes fun to watch when hes having from. (you know what? watch.)

Wes Craven's New Nightmare: whhaaattt also Nancy is back but its not Nancy its the actress who plays Nancy this one is meta. Took a hard turn into spooks though. Really good but weird for a nightmare film. Very different.Really cool though, I genuinely LOVED this one. Also, Freddy’s design was kickass. (PLEASE WATCH)

ANoES (2010): this was my generation on freddy. Im fond of it. I miss the practical effects but i still enjoy this movie even though its hated by the fandom. I liked the atmosphere and colors. I definitely understand why its hated. But i did not grow up with OG Freddy so i didnt have those attachments. I do understand the reasons for the realistic burn makeup but that really limits the ability to emote which is a big part of who OG Freddy was: he made some of the best faces. The realistic burns took that charm away. He didnt get silly until the final 10 minutes. Literally. Kind of a depressing movie, lacked the silly antics of all OF Freddy movies. Still had some good moments. Opening scene was tight. (watch if you want to. not comparable to original movies.)

Freddy VS Jason: you already know i love this stupid movie. Its all really cheesy and bad and has weird music video filming and fake boobs everywhere but watching the two fight each other is so much fun I forgive every stupid thing in this movie just because we get a fight at the very end where Freddy kicks Jason in the dick and hurts his own leg doing it. (you know you wanna watch)

#A nightmare of elm street #freddy vs jason #anoes #new nightmare

[ungarmax]

All the vidya game asks tho. All Of Them

1. Favorite game from the last 5years?

Idon’t even know what came out within the last five years.  I thinkI’m gonna have to go with Stardew Valley?  It’s my game on Steam withthe second most hours logged, but the one that has the most hourslogged came out 6 years ago.  I haven’t played it in a while, but Ido really like it.

2.Most nostalgic game?

Hmm. That’s probably a tie between Link’s Awakening and Final Fantasy IV. Link’s Awakening was the first non computer video game I ever owned,and FF4 was my first RPG.  That said, there’s a special place in myheart for the old SNES version of Wing Commander, the game Icommandeered at my cousins’ house every weekend.

3.Game that deserves a sequel?

Thething is, the best games in the world are the ones that don’t needsequels because they’re very well self-contained, or they’re alreadya part of a series.  I’m tempted to say Chrono Trigger, becauseChrono Cross doesn’t count as a sequelso much as a spiritual successor.  But I also want my children torest.

4.Game that deserves a remaster?

Inever trust these…sometimes they are done well, like the remastersof FF4 and Chrono Trigger for DS, those were both excellent.  But Ilook into the future and think about how the FF7 remaster is going totake out all the dumb 90s cool guy lingo, and then I don’t like it somuch.

UnlessI’m wrong about what a remaster is?  Because I just remembered thatwhen they rereleased FFX with better graphics, that was called aremaster.

Eitherway, I just suddenly decided I need a new version of Quidditch WorldCup because that was the fucking best game ever made.

5.Favorite game series?

Ihaven’t kept up to date with a lot of game series, thanks to lack offunds for the past few years, and most of the series I enjoy, Igenerally really like a couple of the games from it and eitherdislike or haven’t played the rest.  Contenders are Final Fantasy,Metal Gear Solid, AceAttorney, and Legend ofZelda.  But I’m way behind on all fourof them, and Final Fantasy has been…disappointinglately, to say the least.

Oh! Dragon Age has been pretty dang good thus far!

6.Favorite genre?

Ireally love RPGs, but lately I’ve been playing nothing but this citybuilder/RTS game and a couple of rogue-likes.  I also love MMORPGs,but I haven’t had the money to pay for a WoW subscription in manyyears, and, uh, I only own up to Cataclysm, lol.  Oh, and good ol’point and clicks hold a special place in my heart too.

7.Least favorite genre?

Firstperson shooters and platformers.  I also usually dislike rogue-likes because I liketo min-max and the point of rogue-likes is that you literally cannotdo that.

8.Favorite song from a game?

ThePrice of Freedom, from Crisis Core.

9.Favorite character from a game?

FarisSherwiz from FF5.

10.Favorite ship from a game?

WOWwhat a question.  I think I’m gonna have to go with Zack Fair/CloudStrife, since it’s something I’ve shipped consistently for 15 years.

11.Favorite voice actor from a game?

Ilike a whole lot of them, but I’m particularly fond of ChristopherRandolph’s voice.  It’s to my extreme sadness that he’s not done muchother than Voice Of Otacon, but that’s okay.  Apparently, he’s beendoing more since MGS, so that’s cool, but I’ve still barely heard ofanything he’s been in.

12.Favorite cutscene?

Thefirst thing that came to mind was The Sending in FFX.  Anothercontenders is Zack and Cloud escaping the lab in OG FF7 (as long asyou turn off the game right after the truck scene).  Those are thetwo I always keep save files right before that.  Though I will saythat the scene in MGS before you fight the Boss in the flower field,or really, the entire ending cinematic of that game, is fuckingamazing too.

13.Favorite boss?

GOD,WHAT A QUESTION.  Does this mean, favorite boss battle?  Or favoritecharacter who is also a boss fight?

Myfavorite kind of boss is a difficult one that you need some sort ofstrategy to beat, so that you feel vindicated for winning.  However,that said, this can border on annoying too, because, if it’s amandatory battle that you can get stuck on, that’s frustrating.  So Iguess optional bosses are the best?  I’m thinking like Ruby andEmerald in FF7, and Sephiroth in Kingdom Hearts.  I also tend toreally like Zelda bosses because you can’t just hit ‘em, you gottafigure out how to use your brand new toy to do it.  (Exceptthe water bosses for some reason?  They all suck.)

Myfavorite character that you fight as a boss battle…probably Golbezor Kain Highwind from FF4.  Which do I like better?  I don’t know. There’s also the Boss from MGS3, of course.  AndMiles Edgeworth?  He’s a boss, right? There are probably more that I can’t think of right now.

14.First console?

Thefirst console I ever played was an NES, but the first one I everowned was a SNES.

15.Current console or consoles?

NES,SNES, N64, GameCube, Wii, PSX, PS2, and PS3.  I also have a GameBoyColor, a DS, and a 3DS by technicality.

16.Console you want?

I’dlove a PS4, but it’s not like I can afford any games for it anyway.

17.Place from a game that you’d like to visit?

Thisis a really intriguing question, since games like Final Fantasy havesuch interesting and beautiful locations.  There are so manybeautiful places just within the few FF games I’ve actually playedthat this is a really hard choice.  The problem is that all theseplaces generally have monsters in them.

MaybeCleyra or the Farplane or the City of the Ancients?

18.Place from a game that you’d like to live in?

Doyou think Cosmo Canyon has WiFi?

19.Ridiculous crossover that would never happen but would be super fun?

FF4/TAZcrossover where apparently Lucretia is FuSoYa because they’re both incharge of fake moons.

20.Book that would make a good game?

I’mso tired right now I can’t think of a single book I’ve ever read inmy entire life.  Like, the book I am reading right now is based on avideo game, so, I mean,

21.Show/Movie that would make a good game?

MacGyver! (Thank you, @perniciouslizard.)  Like, it should be a point and click game,probably based on the old show because it had less boring fightscenes, and you can do QTEs for those even though I hate QTEs.  Aslong as the game isn’t entire QTEs (I’m looking at you, Heavy Rain),it should be okay.

22.Games you want to play?

Thereare a Lot.  Off the top of my head, I’d really love to finish DragonAge: Inquisition, and just to play, Persona 5, Breathof the Wild, allthe Ace Attorney games I haven’t played yet (there are at least 2,maybe more?), all the Pokemon games I haven’t played yet (whichis…most), Oxygen Not Included, all the Mass Effect games andFallout games, Night in theWoods, aaaand probably lots of others.  I’m tired.

23.Have you gotten 100% completion in a game?

Yep. I have 100%ed FF4, I think, and also Link’s Awakening.  Maybeothers, but those are the two I was proudest of.  Actually, I don’tknow if FF4 counts?  I got all the items (except possibly theincredibly rare thing with a ridiculous drop rate, but I don’tremember?  I got all the extra summons for Rydia, though, which was aThing), but I didn’t level everyone up to 99.  I’m working on a 100%FF7 run right now, but that’s gonna be a pain because I don’t knowhow to play the Fort Condor minigame.  I usually just let them get tothe top and beat them up, but you can’t get all the items if you dothat.

24.Have you cried over a game?

Thismorning I cried because my cat scratched me while I was clipping hisclaws.  I cry playing basically every video game, whether or not it’ssad.  My top three crying games, though, in no particular orderbecause they’re all Really Fucking Sad, are FFX, Crisis Core, andMGS3.

25.What power-up or ability would you want IRL?

*thumbto bandana* Infinite ammo.

#boudiscanon #replies

[crystalnet]

Sonic Forces is Good

Sonic doesn't really slot into any of the semi-nebulous interests that this blog has previously covered but I just had to make an exception because I have thoughts on the blue blur's new game, especially in light of everyone going crazy for Mario Odyssey and the fact almost all professional reviewers as well as various critics on youtube have been basically taking a wrecking-ball to this game. Sonic fans themselves are left mostly enjoying the game (if the subreddit is any indication) and kind of sheepishly acknowledging the pretty low metacritic scores with a bit of a shrug--a pose any true Sonic fan has gotten used to taking in the past decade. I want to talk just very briefly about the problem with Sonic in 2017 and anytime past the year 1998 really and why perception of his non-side-scrolling games seem critically flawed and misguided...

First of all, 3D Sonic has basically always been a mess. Now I should mention before getting deep into this, Forces is my first Sonic game since Sonic Heroes and Sonic Advance 2, the former of which wasn't even as fun as the flawed SA2 and the latter of which should be considered Sonic 5 (or 6 if you count Sonic CD) for all I care, in that it is an excellent expansion of OG Sonic style (shit like grinding on rails, updated Sprites and even Amy as a playable character were great additions). Those two games though are indicative of the whole series: the 3D ones are always problematic while the 2D ones don't seem particularly hard to make well. 

I think there is a big range of how fans and critics view the series, but it seems as if the 3D games are either held to the standard of Adventure 1 and 2, which were always pretty flawed games, or else held to some non-existent and unattainable standard. But we should be clear: Sonic never had his Super Mario 64. Adventure 1 comes close, and that game does a lot very well, but it introduces a lot of things which would plague the 3D games forever. I'm mostly talking about the fact A1 and A2 are want to have all these additional playable characters besides Sonic and yet, Sonic (or Shadow) levels are always clearly where the best level design and most fun is to be had. 

Why force characters like Big the Cat or E-102 Gamma down our throat, when almost all the Sonic levels are amazing compared to levels where you shoot at things or hunt for emeralds. Like extra characters are kind of intrinsically fun when your a kid, but it always felt a bit like padding to me to play the Tails/Eggman and Knuckles/Rogue levels in SA2. So the gold standard for the 3D games becomes about 1/3rd of the content in the first two games?

What I'm trying to say is that Sonic Team never knew exactly what they were trying to achieve with these games it seems. It's like they continued the tradition of Sonic 2 and 3 with Tails and then Knuckles being added by eventually just adding a shit ton of characters to every game, effectively diluting the experience. I'm not even a big fan of Mario 64, but clearly that game is critically lauded, whereas the Blue Blur just couldn't seem to make that same transition. Heroes is literally all about adding characters, along with bright, colorful presentation which barely masked the weakened level-design. Then beyond the critical face-plant that is Sonic ‘06, Sonic Team's goals with these games seem even more unclear than ever and the warm embrace of 90s Sonic seems further away then ever before during the past decade or so.

You have a couple of weird "story book"-style spin offs on the Wii like the Black Knight and Secret Rings which really push the boundaries of what a Sonic game can be (seemingly to mostly bad reviews), Sonic Unleashed, which is literally split between somewhat traditional 3D gameplay and the kind of totally different style of gameplay a la non-Sonic levels in the Adventure titles (werehog Sonic...) and then a few games that seem to be headed in a more stable direction: Sonic, Sonic Colors, Sonic Generations and to a slightly lesser degree, Sonic Lost World . 

Like I said,  I haven't played any of these since Heroes, but I've been reading up and looking at all of Somecallmejohnny's videos on youtube to get a sense of how people feel about these, and these last 3 seem to be on the up-and-up in terms of critical reaction from both critics and fans. But Generations was in 2011 and since then it's been mostly an onslaught of Sonic Boom games and I'll do us all a favor and gloss over those completely. While Lost World tweaks things a bit with a run-button, Colors and Generations built on the more traditional half of Unleashed and heavily featured the boost mechanic which lends itself to a new kind of level design which is considerably different than that of Adventure 1 and 2.

I guess the long-winded point that I'm trying to make is that Sonic Team has basically been having an identity crisis since 1998. Not a single one of these stands as a true precedent for the series in that the best of their lot--Generations-- is still one of those meta, self-aware entries since it combines modern and classic sonic, quite literally. I do really wanna play those last 3 I mentioned because they seem like they are on the right path, but I'm sure for every fan, there is still a disappointed nay-sayer. 

This leads me to my final point though, and that is that Forces, for me personally, is a pretty damn good idea of what 3D Sonic is. I think people were putting a lot of pressure on it since it's been a while since a true 3D entry that wasn't a Boom spin-off, but also because of Manias success. Mania from earlier this year was really great, but it's great in a mostly regressive way.  Yes, the four new levels are fantastic and Christian Whitehead did a awesome job of capturing the "magic" of the first 3 games while refining things like the controls and amount of sprite-frames and adding some cool extras as well as those dope Chaos emerald bonus zones, but the success it had is based off of design-principles from nearly 25 years ago. 

I can't complain at all, because it's a really fun game and a great way to revisit classic vibes and levels, but I hope it's the beginning of a sea-change for Sonic Team's approach and not just a blip. Mania 2 for instance could revisit/remix the underrated Advance trilogy, or Sega could grow some balls and let Whitehead and other fan-developers like him step up to the plate and either design a full fresh side-scrolling entry OR something like oh I don't know Sonic Adventure 3?

Either way, the game generated a lot of hype which Sega capitalized on by dropping Forces a few months later. And me and like half of hard-core fans are pretty happy with the game and that's about it. Same old story since SA2: new 3D game comes out, gets mediocre reviews, half the fans are on-board while the other seem even more disappointed than professional critics. Everyone seems to have a clear idea of what Sega should be doing with their 3D games, but no one can really agree. 

Well I for one think Forces is on the right track. It's not perfect, but it's not really trying to be the next big game (they make that clear every single time they release a 3D title that isn't SA3). It's only 40 USD which I think denotes that it's to played in-tandem with Mania, so you got your classic Sonic on one hand, and your new-fangled and always-problematic-to-somebody 3D Sonic on the other. Also it's worth noting that I play this on the Switch. I think the Switch magically makes any game better for being played on it, and yeah I can't really imagine playing this on PS4. The option of portability makes any game better IMO, and Switch just adds this x-factor to any game right now, I can't totally explain it (will write another post all about it).

The game hold ups though, and beyond the novel trifling that is the character-designer/OC, the level-design is better in my opinion than most are letting on. I'm not sure yet if anything comes close to my personal gold-standard for 3D Sonic levels (Radical Highway and City Escape) but the sense of speed is often phenomenal, but I don't think there is any more of those moments where you are forfeiting control than there has always been since even the Genesis games, which is something I've seen some critics complain about. I admit I was slightly taken back by the locked camera, and often-times narrow corridor-esque levels, but once I got the hang of it, I realized that this is a more faithful translation of classic Sonic into 3D than the more free-roaming styled levels of Adventure games. 

People seem to get mad when there's too much precise platforming in Sonic (Marble Ruins..) just as some assail it for feeling like an auto-scroller at other times. It's like fans approach the series with the same confused priorities that Sonic Team themselves have sometimes displayed. I like the generally arcade-y feel of the levels though and re-visiting them for the purposes of refining my runs/time is enticing in the way it was back in the Sonic/Shadow levels in SA2.

Sonic is a weird, platypus of a genre unto himself: Neither pure platforming, racing or trick-based sports game a la Tony Hawk/SSX, he is all of these things and none of them at the same time. And I think these levels capture that excellently. What he isn't are slow and awkward Emerald-hunting levels or shoot-em-ups, but Sonic Teams seems to always shoot for more diversity in game-play than just Sonic levels would allow for, and that's where the Avatar levels come in, retaining the style and speed of the Sonic levels, while also expanding it slightly with Ratchet and Clank-style gun-play that seems to stand-in for awkward shit like the Eggman/Tails levels in SA2. And yeah this does mix it up nicely. 

Something else I've been seeing is that it's too easy and the levels are too short, and I just hope people are playing this on Hard mode (the requisite for hard mode is simply if you have played Sonic before according to the game itself). Other criticisms I've seen simply don't resonate, like people complaining about the controls of the Sonic levels, which just did not stand-out to me as being something I noticed. I like the variety of 2D and 3D, and think it strikes a good balance. 

So yeah, I basically just wanted to write this big ass post to explain why I think it's good and why other people should STFU, basically. Sonic isn't Mario, and never had been. His games are not explicitly all-ages, timeless crowd-pleasers. His games have always been faux-edgy, psuedo-platforming/racing hybrids that click hard with some and leave others cold. They are also explicitly for kids in a way that Mario games aren't, and it's a kind of complicated point but I think professional critics should take into account this shit was never designed for a 30 year-old to enjoy. That's literally why Mania exists. A 10 year old now-a-days might enjoy Mania, but a lot of that game nearly amounts to being a joke that someone born after 1999 couldn't really get. 

So, basically I'm all for trying new things, perfecting a formula that never quite existed and honing in on the good parts of some of the first Sonic games, and I think that's what Forces does. Also the story is sick. Some Sonic fans actually get caught up on the story which is insane to me because its like following the plot of a Tom and Jerry cartoon, but this shit hit some fan-service high-points for me (great cast of characters that mostly glazes newer shit and honors OG Adventure 1 and 2 shit, a slightly "darker" tone, Classic Sonic seeming chill af compared to real Sonic, and cameos from old-school bad guys, for instance). So that shouldn't be a factor in your review if your over the age of 9, is what I'm saying, but I actually dig it despite that. 

Yes, it could be improved upon, but I think it’s an excellent starting point for the developers to build on, so hey why not add Whitehead to this team, as well as few of the level-designers from the other Boost games (Colors, Generations, Lost World), refine the controls and level design a bit and BAM, you got yourself a worthy candidate for the true, long-awaited Sonic Adventure 3 that all true fans have been waiting for forever (even though the Adventure games weren't perfect to begin with so this is a wish that contradicts my other points but still). What I think I'm saying, is if this is what they can do in a $40 title with a relatively small dev-team from what I've read, then what can they do when they go all in? Or are they too scared? Well these reviews might scare them off from even trying again and that's what I'm worried about, but Sega needs to grow some balls, and go all-in for the next release and lay-off the Pachinko-onslaught, or at least funnel some of that Pachinko-gold into developing the next game. Like I said, Sonic isn't Mario, and he doesn't need to be, or need to have games like the big cross-generational 3D Mario games that come out every 5-8 years or so. But you know he could if he wanted to, and I think Forces shows a pretty good way forward. Until then, try opening your heart to the Blue Blur if it's been a while-- who knows, you might just be surprised. Smell ya later, dreamerz~

#sonic #sonic forces #forces #sonic mania #mania #sonic the hedgehog #haters #critics #legacy #games #sonic adventure 3 #sonic adventure #adventure

[scithemodestmermaid]

okay so i’m taking notes on microsoft’s conference

watching it here

so i have that aperture science core plushie i made next to me for this, because i was doing some restitching on her, just wanted to set the stage anyway

prepare montage pictures

outer worlds, right off the bat!  are we still mad at outer worlds?  idk and idc.

october 25th release date for outer worlds...except for steam, but let’s not mention that part....

outer worlds still looks dope, don’t get me wrong.

i don’t know what is going on with bleeding edge, but i’m terrified.  also intrigued.

THE ONE PERSON WHO “WHOO’D” FOR ORI, HIGH-FIVE TO YOU

were there actual boss fights in the first ori?  i don’t remember, it’s been a real long time since i played it.  i just remembered it being like a disney.

someone in the live chat just said, “it’s fallout 5!”

....wait, is this minecraft 2?

a minecraft dungeon crawler?!

minecraft dungeons looks fun, but i’m only just now getting back into og minecraft and i prefer its pacing and the ability for housebuilding so i think i’m sticking with that.

phil spencer is getting todd howard levels of cheering right now.

just noticed he’s wearing a psychonauts shirt.  HMMMMMMM

oh its the droid boi

jedi fallen order right now, they got one of those big four legged mechs and its covered in vines and you get to pilot it apparently and that right there hypes me up.

DOOOOOOOOOPE STAR WARS

ooh a scaries?

a dog in a scaries, that does not bode well it better not die.

ITS A BLAIR WITCH GAME

CYBERPUUUUUUUUUUUNK 2077, BOYOS

don’t stick your gun in your buttcrack, kids, that could end terribly

NO NOT JACKIE.  i liked him in the 48 minute thing.  

whoa the other guy was a backstabber, who’d a thunk it

bawss friggin fightin

KEANU REEVES????

HOLY CRAP IT REALLY IS KEANU REEVES

hello i may or may not have a crush on keanu reeves, but that’s basically everybody

i already was gonna get this game but if he’s in it, then absolutely must buy.

he’s even wearing a cyberpunk 2077 shirt, <3

seriously, he’s a cyberpunk king, friggin neo is in this game.

he is having so much fun right now.

YOU R BREATHTAKING

APRIL 16th, 2020, BOYOS

wow no cheers for an official release date, screw you guys too.

is this animal crossing?

is this animal crossing with permadeath?

spiritfarer is animal crossing with permadeath, pass it on

BATTLETOADS MUSIC

a new battletoads game, and it is NOT 3d?  props.

legend of wright has a cool art style, but idk seems a bit too artsy for me, and thats saying something

okay the camera needs to stop pulling away from the screen cuz when it does that i cant see crap

wait theres a pathologic 2?

everyone in live chat is making this joke so i will too...the name’s bond, sarah bond.

people are also begging for keanu to come back.

xbox game pass for pc is available today, so that’s nice.

okay so you mentioned master chief collection, when exactly is it coming out?  not gonna say, okay then.

ten bucks a month, not bad.

xbox game pass ultimate puts them all together at no additional cost, so thats cool.

if you start today, it’s one dollar, extremely impressive.

wait so this is actually a game?  i thought they were just bsing it and showing real world footage for something.

the only flight simulator i will play is the one at the local historical museum, sorry.

everyone in the live chat is too distracted by that song that was playing during the montage, the one that was like “are you game game game, are you game game game,” except it was easy to mishear “game” as “gay” so they’re taking that and running.

this is exactly what i imagined colorado to be like.

is this fallout colorado?

oh its wasteland 3.  so i was pretty close.

matt booty?  HMMMMMMM

no one is listening to mr. booty, they’re just cheering his name.

well double fine productions has finally sold out.  well, i mean they sold out a while back, but now its literal.

they’re gonna show psychonauts???

tim schafer is one of those rare humans that has never changed physically, he looks the same as he did ten years ago.

they are indeed showing psychonauts 2, did any of yall get your backing rewards yet?

why are they pushing loboto so much?  did the fans really care about him so much back in 2005?

MORE STAR WARS?

ITS STAR WARS LEGO YAAAS

over 9000?

thats literally all i know about dragonball, is that theres a guy and his power level is over 9000.

is frieza mewtwo?

what am i lookin at here, is this top-down alan wake?

12 minutes is top-down alan wake, pass it on

deer with light up antlers

i have a feeling way to the woods is symbolism

who is this girl and why is everyone cheering?

gears of war, ah yes, the game so controversial that conservatives stopped harassing halo.  that’s all i know about the franchise.

all of this is french to me, i have no idea what any of this is.

what in the heck is going onnnnnn?????

wait is that dave fennoy?

wrestling superstars to play the new game mode?  que?

the terminator is just casually in gears of war.  okay.

car game.  great.

oh wait no, i was bamboozled, its a controller commercial.  for their new controller that looks a heck of a lot like the steam controller.  HMMMMMMM

people are still begging for keanu to come back.

never played the first dying light, but that sequel looks spiffy

oh, HERE is the car game.  complete with a random car just chillin on stage.

WAIT ITS LEGO AND THEYRE PLAYING EVERYTHING IS AWESOME, YOU NOW HAVE MY ATTENTION

and the random car just chillin on stage is made of lego, so i’ll take it back thats astounding.

.....but i just wanna kick that lego car’s door and watch it fall apart, i’m chaotic evil apparently.

funko pop, oh i can tune out then.

state of decay 2, i will not trust these devs after the moonrise fiasco so piss off with this game.

sega?

what is this, where is sonic?

phantasy star online 2, k

who tf is smilegate?

what tf is crossfire x?

(i took a break here but i don’t think i missed anything that i would’ve cared about)

oh borderlands, woooow.  another anticipated title brought low with epic games anti-hype. 

but it had claptrap and leg gun in the same scene so that makes it good.

look claptrap is the only part of borderlands that i like so lets move on.

miyazaki and rr martin???

let me give you a hand.  i’m not even apologizing for that joke.

some in the chat pointed out there’s not been gameplay so far in this conference, and thats interesting.

anyway elden rings or whatever.

is this it?  no halo or banjo?  

oh new gaming console, optimized for gaming....didn’t they just release a new xbox?

developers taking about we totally get gamers, we are going to get rid of loading screen because no one is patient.

i know i sound bitter but do understand, i am totally interested right now with the specs and the construction and all that, tis related to my major so yeah.

scarlett?  what a weird name for a console, but i genuinely hope that’s not just a placeholder i want a console with a human name.

next console is project jeff.

people in live chat are already confirming skyrim for the scarlett.

xbox is 18 years old?

also HALO NOW.  and its releasing with the scarlett.

plot twist: this is the master chief without his suit, just a dumpy white guy.

he aged ten years in five minutes, are we sure this isnt death stranding?

CHIEF

guys i found a master chief, he was sitting outside my window and he looked sad, like no one had fed him or anything in a long time, can i keep him?

yo i am hyped okay, i was big on halo when i was an obnoxious teen, my friends used to do halo 2 parties and i’d try to keep up.

and i guess that’s the end of the conference.  good selection of games, interested in that project scarlett, and all in all okay with it all.

still no banjo.  :-/

#sci's e3 experience