#the worst death was when in the dlc so far was when i got shot off a branch and fell and died exactly in front of the nxt bonfire

[sadlazzle]

also in case anyone was curious the me getting lost in every other area of this game has continued into the dlc

#i got so lost in ashes of ariendal #how was i meant to know i was supposed to cut the bridge ?? #had me wandering about all over the shop tryna find my way #but now that i hav found my way another issue arises .. getting down these big ass branches without getting sniped and having to start again #i was gonna make a comparison to the great hollow but there weren’t guys shooting massive arrows at me in there so #the worst death was when in the dlc so far was when i got shot off a branch and fell and died exactly in front of the nxt bonfire #i swear im good at dark souls u guys #plum plays dark souls 3

[lankieghost]

Lankie's Bloodborne Boss Ranking Bonanza! (Part 3/3)

This is the final part of my Bloodborne boss ranking! You can find Part 1 here and part 2 here.

Spoilers for Bloodborne ahead!

Sigh it's another beast fi - Wait a minute, this guy is a horse! That's cool! Already Ludwig differentiates himself form all other beasts by not being another big werewolf thing.

Narratively, Ludwig's fight is very good. Guy has been hyped up for the whole game, then when you finally find him he's just another mindless monster. But then phase 2 comes in and he pulls out the Moonlight Greatsword and fights you like a man! It's nice that there's this little moment of hope in such a bleak game. (fun fact: in phase 2 he no longer takes bonus damage from weapons that are good against beasts, very nice touch)

The fight is very tough, much like Logarius, he's got a move when he jumps straight up into the air to break your lock on, which I haaaaaaaate. Mercifully they give you an enemy that drops 5 blood vials every time you kill it right outside Ludwig's area. Kind of feel like that's an admission that the blood vial system is a little flawed.

Great first fight for the DLC though! Hope they're all this good!

Oh noooooooooo.

It's a bunch of lump heads with a collective health bar, occasionally they'll stop to summon a bunch of meteors at you. What a thrill.

It brings me great shame to admit that I did die to these guys. I got 90% of the way through the fight and then they all ganged up on at the last minute. How embarrassing. ANYONE WHO DIES TO THE LIVING FALURES IS A LIVING FAILURE.*

The arena is cool though. I'm glad I'm not the only one who finds sunflowers kinda creepy. Any flower that can grow taller than a human is a little unsettling.

*ᴵ'ᵐ ᵏᶦᵈᵈᶦⁿᵍ ᶦᵗ'ˢ ᵃ ᵛᶦᵈᵉᵒ ᵍᵃᵐᵉ ʷʰᵒ ᶜᵃʳᵉˢ.

Maria fucking rules.

I mean, what an incredible fight! She's challenging but not to the point of being frustrating. Then she's got the blood blades! And the fire! God, so awesome!

The intro cutscene is badass, she looks amazing with the outfit and the hat and the two-sided sword, the music is incredible. The whole package is just 10/10.

I don't really have anything else to say. It's the best fight in the game and one of the best fights in the entirety of all the Soulsborne games.

I hope the rest of the DLC bosses are this good!

FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCK

This guy really sucks! And it's entirely because of his 2nd phase where his whole body gets ripped in half and begins spilling lava everywhere.

When he gets to phase 2 to he just scrambles towards with like a 10 hit combo, and you get get behind him because he's constantly trailing fire behind him. It's very annoying!

But the worst thing by far is that he has a big slam attack that he'll charge up and then as soon as he's about to attack he will PIVOT AT LIGHT SPEED IN YOUR DIRECTION to take 80% of your health in one shot. Absolutely unforgivable.

He's also just a fiery Cleric Beast, which is lame. What a terrible boss, it belongs in the garbage. The First Vicar? more like first FUCKER.

Many people for a long time upheld that Orphan of Kos was THE hardest fight in all of the Soulsborne games.

And lemme tell you, that is an accurate description!

This is one million percent the hardest fight in the game. I must of easily burned 300+ blood vials fighting this weird old baby! Luckily, I knew this was going to be a very hard fight going in and I have plenty of experience fighting the current reigning champion of ultra hard From Software bosses, Malenia. So I was mentally prepared to get in the mud.

Narratively its a cool fight, We've been hearing a lot about Kos (some say Kosm!) so it's pretty sad to see that it's just dead on the beach. You sorta forget that when fighting the Orphan that's it's a literal new born baby that's been immediately thrust into combat with a scary man with a big ol' saw. Makes you feel pretty bad for the boy.

That is until he beats you to death with his placenta 50 times in a row.

First phase is very hard, OK's got a lot of attacks that are fast and link into combos that'll kill you dead but it's phase two where things get whacky. Ol' OK, get's very aggressive and starts throwing a lot of meatballs at you. Plus you gotta have your head on a swivel for the lightning bolts coming out of Kos.

I really do like the ultra hard fights in the Soulsborne games. Nothing matches the satisfaction of finally overcoming such a difficult challenge. I mean, it fucking sucks when you in the middle of it, dying to Orphan of Kos' first 3 attacks, riding the elevator down, dying again, realising you're running out of blood vials and going to grind up some more.

But once you win, oh man, what a great feeling.

I'm glad that the DLC ended with such a great fight. Now lets hop back into the base game for the last 2 fights!

Gee Gehrman it's pretty rude to ride in a wheelchair if you clearly don't need one. The man can jump 30 feet in the air and shoot blade beams for crying out loud!

Compared to OK, he's a walk in the park, took me 3 attempts to beat him. But it is a very cool fight, it feels very climactic and the arena is beautiful.

I kinda wish he was more present in the game so you could have a better connection to him in this fight, he just sorta hangs around the hunters dream near the beginning of the game and then shows up right at the end. Maybe if Gehrman was the one to level up your character, but then we wouldn't have the Doll. Everone loves the Doll.

Nice hat!

The MoooOOOOOoooon Presence!

This fight happens directly after Gehrman with no chance to heal so I guess technically it's more like a phase 2 of Gehrman's fight than it's own unique boss fight. I never died to MP so I don't know if you have to fight Gehrman again if you lose to the fight.

Moon Presence is a freaky looking thing! I do like that it doesn't have a proper name. It's just 'Moon Presence'. Despite looking mighty intimidating, MP is pretty easy, they don't have much HP and their attacks are pretty slow. It does have a special 'reduce you to 1 hp' energy attack thing, but I had enough Vials to just power through that.

After beating Moon Presence you turn into a little slug guy. Hurray! I think!

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

And that's all the Bloodborne bosses ranked! In conclusion: I really liked Bloodborne! I can totally see why so many people consider it their favourite game of all time.

Even though I had watched someone else play through the whole thing years a go, It didn't ruin my enjoyment of playing the game for myself. Maybe I'll go back and actually play the Dark Souls games next!

Drawing and animating all the Bloodborne bosses has been a fun time too! Boy howdy am I REALLY BAD at drawing digitigrade legs!

Part 1 / Part 2 / Part 3

#bloodborne #bloodborne spoilers #ranking #animation

[themattress]

KH3 ReMind - Pros & Cons

Pros, otherwise known as the fixes for KH3′s bullshit:

- CHRISTOPHER LLOYD AS MASTER XEHANORT. ‘Nuff said.

- Chirithy is still cute, and we find out how it got back to Ven.

- All of the new battles and tweaks to old battles are great.

- Namine actually gets some real screentime and is seen doing stuff.

- The outcome of Lingering Will vs. Terra-Xehanort gets shown.

- You can play as heroes other than Sora throughout the climax.

- Aside from failing to correct that scene with Terra-Xehanort (where everyone but Donald and Goofy acts like an idiot), Kairi is done justice throughout. Lea is shown to believe in her inner power which she displays by fighting Xemnas to a stand-still, her not doing anything while being kidnapped now makes sense because Xemnas used a Nil technique to drain all of her energy and she doesn’t have a time-traveling counterpart to restore it like Sora does, once Sora brings her back she kicks Master Xehanort’s ass and gets to be part of the group when they destroy him, she gets to have a romantic moment with Sora in the Final World and be aware of his upcoming fate so that she’s prepared for it, we see her actively take part in restoring Namine, and she actually has good facial animation that captures her character this time around!  If only Hayden Panettiere had returned to voice her, then it’d have been perfect.

- The messy Seasalt Trio reunion sequence has been heavily modified so that it’s more coherent as to what’s going on and, while I don’t particularly care for the Seasalt Trio, it does bring them greater closure than they had before so their fans should be happy with it.

- Explorable Scala Ad Caelum, and it’s as grand as I’d imagined it to be.

- Sora being legitimately smart in the solution he comes to at the climax.

- The battle with the Xehanort Replicas, but in particular the part where you play as King Mickey. The Kingdom Hearts franchise hadn’t pulled something that powerful since KH2, and it does wonders at redeeming Mickey’s reputation, which had taken a hit these past 3 years. 

- Via his merged replicas, we finally give Master Xehanort the death scene he deserves: engulfed in a mega blast of light from everyone’s Keyblades which causes him to shatter. It’s also the only time since the original game that repeating “My friends are my power!” works.

- Leon, Yuffie, Aerith and Cid return in “Limitcut Episode”.

- Data Analysis and Data Greeting; the former being a return of the Data Organization XIII type of battles players loved so much in KH2:FM (really, there’s even a datascape-based recreation of the Garden of Assembly and a remix of its musical theme), and the latter being an insanely fun and unique idea that lets you make your own KH adventures, which is far preferable to sticking with this series in the future. Thank you, Cid, you are a true tech genius!

- The final line of the true final scene (whichever version you get). I cannot stop laughing; it’s clear that the game developers have developed a sense of self-awareness and could not resist ending the Dark Seeger Saga with a line that most perfectly surmises the whole thing. 

Cons, otherwise known as Nomura not knowing when to quit:

- The opening sequence of ReMind, which goes from a bullshit new scene with Xigbar and Luxord to that bullshit end scene of KH3 when Sora embarks on his quest to find Kairi via the Power of Waking to a bullshit flashback of Young Xehanort meeting the Master of Masters (huh!?) to a scene where old Master Xehanort is relaying this memory to Saix and Xigbar before the three of them make their plans, which require a lot of exposition. And I thought the first 20 minutes of The Rise of Skywalker went by too quickly while throwing too much at you!

- “Limitcut Episode” begins with Riku finally interacting with Terra, which should be good since it was such an obvious oversight KH3 made. Unfortunately, what they talk about simply amounts to more obnoxious character shilling for Creator’s Pet Riku, continuing to beat in the retcon that started since he met Terra that he always sought “strength to protect his friends”. 

- Well, the justice done to Kairi in “ReMind” sure didn’t last long, because once we get to “Limitcut Episode” we learn that she willingly placed herself in a coma for a year so that Ansem the Wise and co. can study her heart and see if it holds a key to bringing back Sora. She could’ve easily been the one to do all the active stuff that’s being done here at Radiant Garden, her own birthplace, but nope, it’s gotta be Riku because of fucking course it is. 

- Yozora. Just...everything about him and having to do with him. I guess it’s kind of cool that Dylan Sprouse is his English voice actor and he gets to show his range, but otherwise he’s just the worst. Final Fantasy Versus XIII didn’t happen, Nomura. Deal with it and move on!

- Willa Holland, Alyson Stoner, Quinton Flynn and David Gallagher are not even trying here. And yeah, that was true of Holland and Gallagher in the first place, but I got the impression that Stoner and Flynn were at least giving it a genuine shot even if it didn’t turn out that well. The only positive is that David Gallagher playing Riku giving exposition on what everyone has been up to since Sora’s disappearance in “Limitcut Episode” is so bad that it’s hilarious.

- As cool as all of the fixes for KH3′s ending are, they still chronologically transpire after the original ending, so that remains in place as having actually happened at some point. What’s more, the fixes are reliant on further convoluted time travel and the Power of Waking bullshit.

- The nature of the thing. The stuff KH2 was missing that KH2:FM absolutely needed to add in order to fix it amounted to just a higher difficulty mode, a few scenes, a boss battle, a new ability (actually, an old one), and a collection quest added to the worlds. Everything else on top of that was just icing. But the stuff KH3 was missing was on a much more fundamental level that it needed this much of an overhaul. KH2 was a satisfying conclusion to the original trilogy even before it got its Final Mix, whereas KH3 was not a satisfying conclusion to the whole fucking Xehanort Saga until this DLC release, and I’ll never be able to overlook that.

#Disney #Square Enix #Kingdom Hearts #Kingdom Hearts III #Opinion #Analysis

[sage-nebula]

So have you read Masuda's new statement about the National Dex because holy CRAP

Oh, I sure have. Those who haven’t read it can do so here, but here’s the TL;DR version:

“We’ve heard your complaints, but we don’t really care and aren’t going to do anything about it. You should buy the games anyway, though.”

Masuda didn’t say anything in that statement that we didn’t already know. Everyone already knew that any pokémon that weren’t in Sword / Shield could potentially return in other generations (potentially, because there’s no guarantee, especially for less popular / marketable ‘mon). We already knew that, but it doesn’t matter because every pokémon deserves to be in every generation, and there’s absolutely no logical reason for this decision that doesn’t have a solution (e.g. if the problem is they can’t program the games by November and they absolutely cannot push the games back*, then all they have to do is release the National Dex ‘mon as free DLC patches sometime in 2020). Of course, Masuda knows that, which is why he didn’t even attempt to explain this decision in more detail. That entire statement was the equivalent of the shrug emoji, except far less cute. It’s basically Masuda showing once more that even if he does decide to listen to feedback from players, he really and truly does not care about it and does what he thinks is best when making the games, rather than listening to what the people paying money for the games actually want. 

Well, that’s fine. If that’s what Masuda really wants to do, clearly we can’t stop him. This doesn’t mean that we should quit, of course; I feel bad for the social media manager in charge of the Pokémon twitter account, but I encourage everyone using the #BringBackNationalDex tag on that site to continue doing so (albeit civilly; no name calling, no harassment, no death threats---be the best, the very best, that you can be as you go about this), tagging the main account and Masuda’s account as you do so. So long as you’re civil, that’s absolutely nothing wrong with letting them know exactly how you feel, and the longer this is kept up, the more attention it will gain and therefore the more weight it will carry (particularly if it comes with screenshots of canceled pre-orders---seriously, those are genius, keep them coming).

But know that while such campaigns do sometimes bring success (the Community fandom got that show revived after it was canceled, the Tales Series fandom encouraged Namco-Bandai to give localization another change, the Mario fandom got Super Mario Maker 2 multiplayer fixed, and so on), they don’t always. So in case this one doesn’t pan out either, I strongly encourage no one to buy these games new. If you buy Sword / Shield new, Game Freak gets that money. And when Game Freak gets that money, the message they receive along with it is that they can do whatever they want and it’ll work out for them in the end anyway. Postings on Twitter can be ignored. Not meeting sales expectations for one of the most successful video games series of all time cannot. If we don’t get the National Dex back now, and if Sword / Shield sell well regardless, the National Dex is gone for good. This is just like Let’s Go all over again: Masuda told us that if those games sold well, then they would be the starting point for the next twenty years of the franchise. Well they did, and now they are, but if people finally wake up and decide to say no and not support the nonsense, maybe we can salvage something. And keep in mind, I’m not saying to not buy the games at all: I’m saying to not buy them new. If you can wait just a little bit (or get very lucky on release day---I’ve had it happen before and I’m hopeful it’ll happen again) and buy Sword or Shield used, Nintendo and Game Freak will not see a single cent of that money. Instead, it’ll go entirely to Gamestop or whatever other retailer you shop from. This way you get to play the game, and bad messages aren’t sent to Game Freak. It’s a win/win scenario.

So please: Unless Game Freak decides to respect those of us who have been here for years by giving us a basic feature in games that are more expensive than their predecessors when we ask for it, do not buy these games new. You can still buy them, you can still play them, but just buy them used so that Game Freak doesn’t get that cash reward. And before anyone tries to start in on a guilt trip, no, this will not hurt the lower tier employees at Game Freak. Nintendo’s executives tend to take responsibility when their sales numbers are bad, and Game Freak are putting the bulk of their staff behind their new IP, Town, regardless. And even if they weren’t, you are not responsible for what Game Freak does. Particularly considering I would wager that most everyone reading this post right now isn’t exactly financially cushy, you’re allowed to be critical of how you spend your money (and in fact, you’re encouraged to be critical!), and you are not responsible for the lives of Game Freak’s employees. You are not to be held accountable for what their supervisors or bosses decide. Don’t ever let someone try to guilt trip you and make you believe otherwise.

Game Freak, and especially Masuda Junichi, have been blatantly ignoring player feedback, stripping out features and gameplay elements, and pushing Pokémon to the backburner for too long, and the only reason we’ve been given so far is that this is to suit Masuda’s personal taste. I love Pokémon with all my heart. I’ve been a diehard fan of the games since 1998 and Pokémon was there for me through some of the worst times in my life. But that does not mean I have blind loyalty to Game Freak, and if there is one running theme in Pokémon, it’s that you should always band together and stand up when something is wrong. Even if it seems hopeless, you keep fighting. My favorites have pretty much all been confirmed for the Galar Dex, but this isn’t just about me. It’s about everyone. And I’m not giving Game Freak another cent until they make this right. I will pay Gamestop before I pay Game Freak, and that is not a threat---it’s a promise.

(*The main excuse I’ve seen for why they “can’t” delay the game is the PokéAni, but that is nonsense, because the PokéAni exists solely to advertise and sell the games. The PokéAni is dependent on the games, not the other way around. If the games needed to be delayed, all they would need to do is make a filler season or two for the PokéAni, which they have done in the past. Hell, it might not even be necessary to come up with a whole filler region this time, given that the Alola anime is so fluffy as it is that filler episodes wouldn’t even feel like filler episodes. So no, “the PokéAni needs the games to be released!” is not a good excuse. The PokéAni exists to sell the games. It is not the number one priority in this franchise, and it does not get to call the shots. End of discussion.)

#pokemon #pokemon sword and shield #bringbacknationaldex #bring back national dex #Anonymous

[shielddrake]

FFXV and KH3: The Challenge of Setup and Payoff

So, having recently finished Kingdom Hearts III and taking a few days to digest it, I have concluded something: the current writers on staff at SquareEnix have problems with setup and payoff in regards to storytelling.  This is something I think warrants discussing because it is one of the most common techniques in creative writing (including video games), but it appears to be what the developers of both Final Fantasy XV and Kingdom Hearts III seem to have the biggest problem accomplishing.

 This is not meant to be a review of either game. Plenty of other people are doing or have done that, and I feel I don’t really need to add to that discussion.  I also don’t mean to be preachy when I talk about setup and payoff in terms of writing.  This is merely my interpretation of what I experienced while playing these games.

 Finally, I don’t mean to say that using Chekov’s Gun is the end-all, be-all of story telling. Setup and payoff are not absolutely necessary to tell a good story, but as they seem to only try to use this technique about halfway, this seems to be the biggest, rather glaring flaw of both of these games, although in different ways.

 WARNING: Spoilers under the cut for both Final Fantasy XV and Kingdom Hearts III, more so for the latter because it just came out and the former has been out for a while.  You all have been warned.

In play writing and screenwriting, it is said that if there is a gun hanging on the wall in the first act, then it better go off by the third. If it doesn’t, it shouldn’t be hanging on the wall.  This is well-known as Chekhov’s Gun, basically saying that if something is mentioned, it better be mentioned because it furthers the plot in some way.  This technique has been discussed by far more educated people than me, so if you want to know more about this, you can do your own research.  For the purposes of this discussion, let’s just say that if something is brought up, it needs to payoff in the end somehow, or else it’s not important enough to mention.

 Let’s look at a few Final Fantasy moments that do setup and payoff well, and there are quite a few. The Hymn of the Fayth in FFX is mentioned, and sung, several times over the game, and it is revealed that when Sin/Jecht listens to it, he calms down.  It ends up being a key part of making Sin docile enough to be attacked, infiltrated, and then destroyed from the inside, thus ending its thousand-year destruction of Spira.  Final Fantasy VIII has the mention of Squall’s ring named Griever, which later ends up being the Guardian Force summoned by Ultimecia in the final boss battle of the game.  (The significance of this is left up to the player.)  And, very famously, there is Final Fantasy VII’s Aerith and her white materia, which she claims does nothing but is actually what saves the world from Meteor by casting Holy magic at the end of the game.  There are many others, but those are a few examples.

 That being said, both FFXV and KH3 suffer from issues of setup and payoff, but in sort of opposite ways.  Let’s start with FFXV.

 First, this is not to say that FFXV completely fails at setting ideas up and then paying them off in the end.  The entire situation with the Ring of the Lucii is set up and pays off by the game’s end, and the story of Shiva and Ifrit’s love story sets up the end of the battle with Ifrit when Shiva is summoned to finish him off (at least, the set up is there better in the Royal Edition).  Episode Ignis also has the alternative ending where Ravus ends up coming to terms with his sister’s death and gives Noctis his father’s sword willingly, rather than dying and Noct finding it after the fact.  The setup of Ravus having issues with Noctis finally has a proper payoff when he accepts that Noctis is the Chosen King and supports him, and Ravus finally gets the character development he so desperately needed and was cheated out on in the original version of the game.  This concept of setup and payoff is not completely lost on SquareEnix.

 There are times, however, when the setup is there but the payoff is little to nothing.  The Royal Arms are brought up by Cor roughly at the start of the game, but then they become nothing really more than a tidbit of information at best and an optional sidequest at worst.  During my first playthrough, I actually forgot all about them between meeting Titan and obtaining the Katana of the Warrior.  I was like, “Oh, right.  Those things.”  They are brought up again at the end of the game where the Kings of Lucis all kill Noctis to purge the Starscourge and defeat Ardyn, so I guess that’s some payoff, but it seems so minor compared to the other plot points that I find this debatable.

 I also have big problems with the use of Luna.  Her character is absolutely fine, don’t get me wrong there, but there is an almost complete lack of use of her character as she relates to Noctis.  If they are supposed to be close, possibly in love or at least in like, then the flashback sequences from their childhood don’t really do it justice.  They show interactions that don’t advance their relationship at all.  As such, when the “payoff” of Luna’s death and Noctis’ despair from it happens, it doesn’t really mean anything to the player.  We’re sad for Noctis, but not necessarily sad that Luna had died.  There was no setup for her relationship with him, so her loss isn’t all that poignant.  This could have been fixed if the journal the two share could have been read by the player, even with just small snippets of their written conversations with each other, but this wasn’t an option.

 Next, I want to talk about the DLC.  Ignoring the fact that I’m one of those people who think the events of Episodes Gladiolus, Ignis and Prompto should have been included the game proper from the start, the absence of them also hurts the setup and payoff techniques of the story.  The setup is in the DLC, but the payoff exists in the original game.  So, in a way, we’re getting the payoff before the setup even happens, chronologically speaking.

 For starters, let’s look at Episode Ignis.  This episode is arguably the best of the three DLC, so it is no surprise that it has the strongest story.  There is actually an example of really good setup and payoff within the episode itself, and it starts where Ignis and Ravus are hiding while they wait for the Niflheim soldiers to leave the area.  Ravus mentions that he tried to use the Ring of the Lucii for himself and lost his left arm in the process.  So, anyone who isn’t of Lucis Caelum blood pays a price for using the ring.  Okay, plot point established.  With this knowledge, when we see Ignis put on the ring, we know that there will be some kind of price he has to pay to use it, and this is confirmed when he loses his eyesight.  And there’s the payoff.

 The problem is that Episode Ignis wasn’t released until December 13, 2017, just over a year after FFXV was originally released.  So, we already knew about Ignis’ blindness and saw the consequences of it, but we just didn’t see the event that caused it. Heck, we didn’t even really know the reason why he became blind, just that it happened during the events in Altissia. So, when Gladio goes off on Noct about how “Ignis took one for you too,” instead of thinking that Gladio has a point and Noct needs to step up, we just think that Gladio’s being a jerk.  Ignis could have been shot by a Niflheim soldier or fell off a building and his eyes were injured for all we know.  The context of how Ignis lost his sight is lost on not only the player but Noctis as well, so the payoff feels empty.  We see the consequences of him being blind in that he can’t fight as effectively and can’t cook for the team, but again this is all after the fact.  The payoff is there, but it seems like it came out of nowhere because there was no setup for it.  Seems like they set of Chekhov’s Gun without ever showing us it was there to begin with.

 And then there’s Prompto…

 Oh Prompto.  I feel he really got the short end of the stick when it came to his background. His story is actually a really good one and could have been a really turning point for his friendship with Noctis, but it is so rushed at the end of the game that it feels a little forced.  The slower pace of Episode Prompto fixes this, but just like with Episode Ignis, the payoff that happened in the main game had already been seen by the players.  

 The whole conflict for Prompto during his DLC is that he worries his origins will mean that Noctis and the others will no longer want to be friends with him, and as a child that grew up very much alone (where the heck are his parents?!), friendship is vital to this poor kid.  The sequence where Prompto dreams he is an MT that is being pursued by Noct adds so much suspense and is an excellent visual to the anxiety he is feeling…or it would be if we didn’t already know that Noct accepts him with practically no convincing at all.  We already know that their friendship survives this revelation, so there is really no suspense for the players as they watch Prompto go through the motions of coming to terms with his origins.

 All of this could have been avoided if the darn DLC had been included in the main game in the first pla—No! Not getting on that soapbox!  I could go on about how much that bugs me, but that’s not what I’m talking about here.

 Now, if FFXV suffers from lots of payoff with very little setup, then KH3 has a lot of setup but very little payoff.

 For those of you who have read this far and didn’t see the spoiler warning at the top, this is your final notice:  There are major spoilers for the events of the recently released Kingdom Hearts III.  Turn back while you still can if you don’t want to be spoiled!

 With that out of the way…

 There are a lot of cutscenes in KH3, and I mean a lot.  It’s one of the controversial points I’ve read in a lot of reviews, but the presence of a lot of cutscenes doesn’t bother me too much when the game is trying to tie up loose ends and explain things in what is perceived as the final installment in a series.  Metal Gear Solid 4 had the same problem, but again, they were trying to tie up loose ends. The fact that the series has continued from there and thus only added more loose ends is also a topic for another day.  My point is that several long cutscenes are not necessarily a bad thing if they are used well.

 The problem with KH3 is that many of them are not used well. There are numerous cutscenes with Ansem the Wise, Ienzo, Dilan and the others that don’t really seem to have any point to the plot.  Sure, Ienzo talks about trying to find a way to help bring Roxas back, but they never end up doing that anyway.  They bring back Namine, certainly, but what were they trying to accomplish with all their talk about atoning?  I get what they want to atone for, but what are they doing to actually do that?  It’s a bunch of talk that doesn’t really go anywhere.

 Along the same lines is the scene with Even and Demyx. They talk about atoning and being benched and betraying the Organization, but the only thing that comes of it is Demyx brings Ansem and a vessel for Namine to Ienzo.  And then the conversation between Even and Demyx is never mentioned again.  What was the point?  Is Namine being brought back supposed to be the payoff?  But then we never interact with her at all.  She’s only seen during the ending cutscenes and has no dialogue with anyone.  Not very satisfying at all.  Where did her heart for the replica even come from anyway?  Her heart was in Kairi, who by that point is dead...sort of.  I actually think she was sent to the heavenly place Sora went when he had to gather up pieces of himself, but I have nothing to support that theory.

 Speaking of Kairi, her scenes with Axel during their keyblade training are great.  They are cute and provide good setup for both Axel’s vague memories of Xion and their abilities in wielding keyblades…which end up being pointless since Kairi ends up kidnapped (again) and Xemnas destroys Axel’s very cool fire keyblade, although it does come back later, so there is really no reason for Xemnas to taunt Axel about not being a guardian of light anymore.

 I’m not going to talk about how Kairi being kidnapped robs her of the agency she should have gained during her training (again, plenty of people have already talked about that), but it does make the scenes regarding her training seem like a cop out.  What was the point of showing all that if she was just going to be a kidnapped damsel again?  She doesn’t really do anything with the keyblade that we see, so it doesn’t add much to see that she was even training to begin with.

 Axel has the same problem since he loses his keyblade. He was training to use it, but then Xemnas destroys it at the first possible opportunity.  There was no scene where he saves the day with it or manages to defeat Isa or something along those lines with it, so watching those scenes again feels empty.  The setup was there, but there was no payoff.  What use is it to show the player that these two characters are training hard with keyblades if they end up not ever really using them?  The gun was shown, but not shot.

 Conversely, and very briefly, it was good that there was setup of the Riku Replica earlier on in the game so it didn’t seem like he completely came out of nowhere when he came to help Riku against the Organization’s Riku (man, there are a lot of Rikus here).

 Then again, there was supposed to be some reason that Marluxia, Larxene, Luxord and Demyx were brought back?  Some “important purpose”?  The “ancient keyblade legacy”?  Which is…what?  It’s not explained and it’s never mentioned again.  And what about all the scenes with Maleficent and Pete searching for the box? The game kept cutting back to them but never went anywhere with them.  What was the point?  Wouldn’t it have built more suspense if we hadn’t seen what they were doing? Otherwise it added nothing to the plot other than the fact that the black box was missing, which the player already knows…or at least most of us do, who know about the Master and Masters and all that.  Hey, look, there are a bunch of guns hanging on the wall, but they remain unfired!

 But...And it’s a big but…There is one way that Kingdom Hearts III really does setup and payoff well, and that’s when you look at the story of the game as a whole.

 Near the end of the game, Young Xehanort warns Sora that using the power of waking too much will cause him to “condemn your heart to that same abyss,” meaning that Sora will fall into darkness, something that almost came to pass at the end of Dream Drop Distance.  Mickey also warns him that he might not come home from his journey to find Kairi.  The final cutscene (not the secret ending) of the game shows Sora disappearing from Destiny Islands while everyone else is partying and having fun.  It is presumed that he died after finding Kairi again, though personally I’m not sure if death is really what happened or if it was more of falling into darkness.  I think that’s left up to the interpretation of the player.

 Whatever the case, Sora is separated from the group, having given himself up to darkness in one form or another to bring Kairi back. Believe it or not, this is actually foreshadowed during the events of the various Disney worlds Sora visits over the course of the game.  What is the common theme seen through each of the Disney worlds?  The loss of a loved one.  

 The Toy Story world has all the toys worried about whether they’ll ever see Andy again.  The Caribbean shows Will and Elizabeth separated, just like at the end of the movie that world is based on.  The Kingdom of Corona shows Rapunzel being willing to sacrifice her freedom for Eugene’s life, and Eugene ends up giving his own life to cut Rapunzel’s hair to defeat Mother Gothel.  Arendelle…do I need to explain?  Elsa is terrified of hurting Anna, which she unintentionally ends up doing.  The 100 Acre Wood has Pooh worried that Sora will go away, leading to Sora worrying that their bond has grown weaker. Monstropolis has less to do with the loss of a loved one and is more about Sully and Mike needing to protect Boo, whom they care about very much.  And San Fransokyo has Hiro dealing with needing to destroy the first version of Baymax, his good friend.  Only Olympus doesn’t fit this pattern in terms of its plot, but that’s probably because that was already done in Kingdom Hearts II…but Sora and Hercules do have a conversation about Herc wanting to save Meg with all his heart.  Sort of parallels Sora’s desire to rescue Kairi, doesn’t it?

 And what ends up happening?  Sora does exactly the same.  He ends up sacrificing himself to bring Kairi back from…wherever it is she is. It’s Kairi that ends up losing her loved one in the end.  That’s the ultimate payoff for the pretty strong setup that was building throughout the game.

 SquareEnix has the ability to tell really good stories in their games.  The aspects of the storytelling process they get right, they really get right.  The problem is that they are inconsistent.  There are many ways to tell a story, and as I mentioned in the beginning, you don’t have to use the technique of Chekov’s Gun to do so and do it well.  But when only half of a creative writing technique is used, it can take away from the story rather than add to it.

#kingdom hearts 3 #kingdom hearts 3 spoilers #kh3 #kh3 spoilers #final fantasy xv #final fantasy xv spoilers #setup and payoff #creative writing #myinterpretation

[bluethornefics]

Goretober Drabble - Barbed Wire

In which Reboot Vergil learns a little bit more about what a fate worse than death entails. Set during the Downfall DLC.

I am very sleepy, but I thought doing a little Goretober stuff would make for some fun practice. Warnings in this one for moderate blood, gore, and some eye trauma. But not to ReVergil. He’s doing about as well as he can in this.

I may have taken some liberties with headcanons and things, but shhhh, it’s fine.

~2k words

I’d always heard about people falling into Hell. Just falling. No one ever made mention of all the pushing that happened to cause that. The next time I saw Dante, I would give him a taste of what it was like to have Rebellion shoved through his chest.

First I had to find a way out of wherever the hell I’d wound up this time. Hell needed fewer glowing warp doors and more signs and maps. Following the path of the doors hadn’t necessarily led me astray up to that point, but I never felt certain I would land where I needed to be.

Every new door I stepped from brought me to a plane that was nothing like the last, yet they were all twisted in much the same way. Hell was all fragments suspended in air and nauseating colors. The worst were the planes where distant screams and pleas filled the air.

But this was Hell, after all. I was only surprised I didn’t see more suffering.

I didn’t see much of anyone.

Just Dante.

I had seen Kat, but she was gone now.

I wasn’t sure if seeing myself counted.

The demons certainly didn’t count. I was getting damn tired of running into them. I couldn’t go ten feet without a swarm of the bastards appearing, and every swing of my sword against them felt like a hook had snagged into my wound and pulled along the length of my arm.

I was so tired of pain.

Through yet another door - I’d lost track of my path ages back - a new breed of demon greeted me along with a distant chorus of wails. I supposed it was different anyway. It wore a different mask than I’d seen before and carried chains, but it was weak and died screaming like those it must have tormented. Demons were all so pathetic.

I saw no reason to seek out any of the distant voices. I had my own pain to manage, and it was their own damn faults if they’d been trapped. They deserved their fates. But I would not be so weak. Dante would fall by my hand. He would suffer and bleed just as I had. Let him beg, even. I would have loved to hear it, the whimpering, the realization that he had nothing left. God, I would savor that.

“A smile like that isn’t a good sign. You mustn’t let this place get to you, Vergil.”

My steps froze, my spine rigid. Yamato was in-hand before I had even registered the meaning of the words, spoken in such a rasp that no tone touched them. 

If the thing hadn’t spoken, I wouldn’t have glanced twice at it, wouldn’t have acknowledged that it had any sort of human form. With all the barbed wire strung up around it and in it, it looked more like a hunk of fleshy meat held there. Wire laced through its throat, hands, legs, cheeks, and was even buried into a mushy, glistening mess that should have been an eye. The thing must have been there for some time because skin had grown over some of the barbs. The slight movement of its breathing had torn open wounds along its chest where the wire threaded through stark ribs. So much old, dried blood covered it that the new blood looked like nothing but a fresh coat of paint.

Perhaps I should have called it a he, but it was a demon. That much was obvious from the crooked horns that stemmed from black hair matted with blood. It had a tail as well. Pale and reptilian, it was longer than I was tall. Iron spikes pinned it to the ground, the only part of the demon not suspended by the wire.

“You know my name,” I said, my eyes narrowed. Even with the demon clearly immobile, I raised Yamato between us. This made it laugh, though the sound was strangled like a dying engine.

“Of course I know your name. I gave it to you.”

As though he’d lunged at me, I fell a step back. “Lies,” I hissed because it was all I could think. He was some trick, some illusion. I pressed Yamato’s tip up under his chin, but he smiled enough that the barbs sliced him a more wicked grin.

“Are you going to torture me or kill me? I can assure you I’ve been through worse than anything you could do, Son.”

“Don’t you dare call me that! My father was damned to the deepest pit of Hell. There’s no reaching him. Don’t think you can fool me-”

“You’ve fallen far.” His smile faded, sorrow filling his eye. “You still have some life in your blood. You can still escape if you keep fighting. I don’t know what fate befell you, but it seems you’ve suffered greatly. I-”

“It was your fault!” The anger hit me like a bullet train. If this bastard wanted to pretend to be my father, then so be it. The fool must have thought I still had some love for that demon. No, my father was worse than Kat, worse than Dante. Burying Yamato in his shoulder, I felt the satisfying crackle of his bones shattering under the blade. He didn’t flinch, didn’t make a sound. That just made my anger burn brighter, so I dragged Yamato down along his arm, snapping the hold of wire wound around it. The barbs tore through him as they unraveled. “You separated us,” I continued. “It’s your fault. If we’d been together, he would have understood. He would have listened to me.” But it didn’t matter anymore. He’d picked his side. He was nothing to me now - just like this demon pretending to be my father - just another demon to slaughter.

“Then something happened between you and Dante,” he said. “I see. You’re right. I shouldn’t have separated you. I thought you would both be safer that way, but it seems not.”

“Dante will be safe in death soon enough,” I spat.

His eye narrowed in on me, and for a moment, the simple gesture made me feel as though I were the one strung up and sliced open for him to see. “Hm, one of them has its claws in you. I will accept your rage. Kill me or torture me as you wish, but do it under your own influences, not some bastard Hollow’s.”

Before I could bite that this was my will, that I’d lain awake night after night in the orphanage despising him even when I didn’t remember anything about him, his ruined arm shot out and wrenched Yamato from my grasp. Such a quick, effortless action, he could have slit my throat before I even realized the blade was out of my hand.

Instead, he slashed the wires suspending him and dropped to his knees. His feet were far too weak to catch him. “What a pain,” he sighed as I took slow, retreating steps. My eyes flashed over him in search of the best method to retrieve Yamato. He was already a mess. If I just knocked him down-

“Here, you can have this back.” He held the grip out to me. “It won’t do me much good from here. Give me a moment. This might be a little messy.”

I couldn’t think of what else to do, so I took Yamato back and watched as he gripped the wire piercing his cheek. With a sharp tug, he ripped a long string of it free of where it had trailed down into his throat. It was coated a pure red, and wet hunks of something clung to the barbs. I couldn’t look beyond that, but the sounds were enough to churn my stomach.

His every breath gargled, the wire scraped along his bone, and each segment came free with a wet squelch. I thought I was beyond finding much of anything sickening, but the air was a bit too warm.

“Maybe you should sit a moment. You’re looking quite pale. Well, paler than usual anyway.” He had a voice again, a haggard but warm tone that burned my mind with recollections of strange bedtime stories and too-soft scoldings. “Sorry about all that. I do wish you could have seen me on a day when they were feeling a little less creative.”

“They?” I echoed, my voice a whisper.

“Oh yes, my torturers. You killed the latest batch, actually. I do appreciate that.”

When I managed to drag my eyes back toward him, I found him testing the spikes in his tail. His wounds were already mending on their own. The winged brand on his back glowed without any sword in its center. He kept his left eye closed, though.

“Are you really him?” I asked. “Sparda?”

“The one and only,” he said through gritted teeth as he yanked the first spike free. “Well, actually, it’s not an uncommon name, really.” He wrenched another spike free. “Ah, my poor tail. They’re lucky they died by your hand. I would have given them much slower deaths.”

I felt like I’d taken a blow to the head. “You were supposed to be impossible to reach. Mundus trapped you beyond help.”

“My boy, you are in much deeper than you seem to realize.” After tearing each spike free with little more than a wince, he stood and faced me. His brow furrowed at the sight of my chest. Every logical part of my mind screamed at me to run or fight as he pressed his filthy hand over my heart, but I could not bring myself to move. “I always knew that nephilim could not live a life free of suffering, but it still pains me to know you’ve been through so much. I wish I could have given you a better life.”

He spoke of my pain as though it was far worse than the years of unfathomable torture he’d experienced. A laugh bubbled from my throat. “Father, you had wire down your throat. I practically cut your arm in half. How could this be anything to you?”

“Because it is you.” His eye rose to meet mine. It was blue as the hottest burning flame and just as scorching. “I have never mattered. My body, my life, they are worthless, but you are my son. You are all that I am worth and all that I have left. You are all that matters to me.” His hand pressed firmer to my chest, but no pain came. Only the warmth of his palm. “And your heart breaks so easily.”

“Dante did this,” I whispered.

“Then Dante shall mend it.” Pain filled his smile. “You two were always fighting. How many times did I have to call a truce?”

“Father, you don’t understand-”

“I understand that I’ve got some Hollows to rip in half. Ugh, I can smell them all over you.” His nose wrinkled. “I fucking hate those things. Apologies for the language.”

“Hollows?”

His tail swam up to coil around my arm, gentle as his touch had been, but I could tell it was a leash to keep me from wandering as he started off toward the glow of the next door. “Yes, there’s much to do, my boy. I’d rather like to find some new clothes too. And a shower! I don’t think I’ve ever missed anything as much as bathing. But first, those Hollows. Do not worry. I will take care of them for you.”

I should have been annoyed at him treating me like a child again. I should have wrenched myself away and told him off. Trusting someone again was foolish. It could only end in more suffering, and yet, walking at his side was such a relief that even the ache in my chest eased.

Even if it was all a lie, at least for now I didn’t have to sink deeper into Hell alone.

#dmc: devil may cry #teeny tiny terrible fics #this is a very weird drabble but it's mostly just for description practice and fun so sue me

[the-wintry-mizzenmast]

My thoughts on Mass Effect: Andromeda

My overall impression is that I enjoyed playing the game because the combat system is really smooth, and easily the best out of the Mass Effect games so far. So, yeah. A+ combat experience, lots of fun, cross-class capability and flexibility. The maps are generally very similar to Dragon Age: Inquisition with the forward stations (camps), obvious quest markers, and ability to set waypoints, only a way more massive scale as like the sprawl of Los Angeles, it is impossible to get around on foot, so you have to use your car, the Nomad. The Nomad is a vast improvement over the previous Mako, both in its capability and it’s near-indestructible handling ability. Apparently they got in some devs from the Need for Speed series to consult, and it shows. In a good way.

Despite all the griping of other reviewers, I do not feel that it’s a waste of time. It was fun, I enjoyed it. I could have enjoyed it a lot more, as there were a LOT of things that bugged me that detracted slightly from the experience. It is not the best Mass Effect game, and it is not the best BioWare game, but also probably not the worst. I don’t regret paying for it, and I think it has a lot of promise that might be fulfilled in either the DLCs or a sequel, though I feel slightly cheated because BioWare said it was supposed to be a standalone game and it’s very clearly not. 

Now more detail into the Andromeda world, spoilers ahoy for ME:A and Dragon Age: Inquisition which I’m comparing it to.

ANNOYING THINGS

I’m going to start off with the things that annoyed me, the things that I felt could be done better. They are mostly narrative related. There are a lot of other pieces out there on the internet on why they failed so hard at animation (this tumblr post is a great place to start), so I won’t get into the details.

There’s nothing new about the Andromeda galaxy. Some of that is fine, because I never really felt that Mass Effect was all that groundbreaking in terms of science fiction world building, but the original trilogy was a really good execution of already existing science fiction tropes, like battling an ancient cosmic evil, biological life vs. artificial intelligence, etc. But it is kind of disappointing when you go to a new galaxy and you still find that the aliens are humanoid bipeds with an emotional range that’s the same as humans. Like, the Angara are supposed to exceptionally emotional…but you hardly ever see anything that is NOT a human-like acceptable emotional expression. Sure, when Jaal is pissed he gets really pissed, but there is never a moment that’s, “Wow, we have different ways of emoting, and what you just did would have been totally inappropriate in our culture” or something like that. Languages are easily decoded, and the Angara even have binary gender that correlate directly with our gender binaries. Worst of all, Jaal is straight, and that blows my mind. Like, he has a preference? Really? Despite humans being literally so alien they’re from another galaxy, Jaal prefers Sara over Scott Ryder? By the time you’re going xeno it’s so far away from what is probably your standard sexuality that I have no idea what rational basis his preference would be based on, but it enrages me that Jaal is apparently straight. I’ll get back to the subject of romances a little later, but… I’ve seen more originality in Star Trek: The Next Generation, and that aired in the late 80’s to mid-90’s. The Kett are essentially biological Borg, and they’re given such a laughable “bad guy” design that I just…*throws up hands* Some of the reasons the Angara are so similar are because you want to emotionally identify with them, and there is some base level of humanness that you need in order to romance Jaal for it not to feel weird. Like, I get that it’s less skeevy-feeling to fuck something that looks like Jaal instead of an octopus or sentient slime. Okeydokes, but I feel like that more could’ve gone into making Andromeda truly creative and they really just didn’t.

Your crewmates are boring. They are just so dull. It’s not that they’re bad people, in fact you get the impression that most of them have their shit together. But they’re all…good people, and that makes them tearfully boring. They have stupid little quirks that it feels like somebody filled out a character generation sheet in a tabletop, but they’re not even as fleshed out as somebody playing a one-shot would make their characters out to be. Everyone is fundamentally a good person, and lacking the darkness or the ongoing tribulations and trials that made your crew in DA:I so interesting. I’ll go through them one by one:

CORA is a snoozefest. I find her insufferable. At first she’s kind of stand-offish because she was supposed to be the Pathfinder, which I would imagine romancing her as BroRyder really weird because of her close relationship with your father. Then she reveals herself to be some sort of Asari-aboo, in the worst sort of weeaboo fashion. She refers to herself as an Asari Commando, and worships one of the Asari Commandos on the Asari Ark, and she just comes off as one of the creepiest weeaboos ever. Couple that with her “I need people to tell me what to do” character arc, and I just…tried to avoid her as much as possible. Do the loyalty missions even do anything? I might just skip hers and see if that kills her in my new playthrough. SO BORING.

VETRA is kind of sweet, and I like her relationship with her sister Sid. She has a rough background that makes her not a Turian citizen, but it’s kind of hard to feel especially bad for her because hey, she’s got her new start in a new galaxy and all that is behind her. Great! …there’s no darkness, no moral greyness about her. Sure, I’m sure she’s involved in all sorts of shady requisitions dealings, but she doesn’t even have the interesting quirks or usefulness that is Josephine in DA:I. I relegate her to the sweet, and I like her, but not romance material.

PEEBEE is annoying as hell. She’s like the manic pixie scientist girl who just won’t shut up, and her absolute commitment phobia is just…BLEGH. She’s like that flaky friend that depends on you for everything, and once you need help she’s all “NEW PHONE WHO DIS.” I feel like she’s supposed to be the fun Asari character who’s the opposite of Liara, and that managed to include her being a million times more insufferable and annoying. She also has that “I’m not like other Asari” that bugs in the same way that people go, “I’m not like other Asians” or “I’m not like other girls” that smacks of internalized misogyny or racism and…yeah. I had a one night stand with her with my first playthrough as an Asian Sara Ryder, and that was enough, thanks. :/

LIAM is a sweet nerd. His loyalty mission was fun. I have no idea why he doesn’t like Vetra. He’s fun to have around, but he mostly seems to have his shit together. He’s a good dude, he’s got my back. …and he does nothing interesting or fun or has anything interesting in his backstory whatsoever. So he’s really into nerd stuff and takes on the duty of first contact and culture sharing with Jaal and the Angara and he fucks that one up a little…okay, anything else? Nope. Snoozefest.

JAAL is supposedly all about emotional stuff, but so often he clearly just suppresses his emotions? He’s got like…a normal sensitive guy range of human emotions and the game is trying to tell me he’s amazingly emotional and I’m all like, “No, that’s just a healthy level of human emotions, yo.” He’s probably your second most interesting romance option, but he’s still in the running for the “pretty bland” title which is not saying much. He’s got a little more to chew through in terms of the Kett/Angara revelation, and the fact that he’s seen war and a lot of death, but yeah. …good friend, great skills as squadmate. Not interesting. Also not sure why straight. SOMEBODY AT BIOWARE JUST MAKE HIM BI ALREADY.

DRACK is the most fun of all your squadmates, because he’s this ancient Krogan but he has so much left to give. He is full of humor and fun and Krogan loyalty, and HELL YES DRACK is great. I wanted more Drack in this game. I am still disappointed that they don’t let you romance Krogan or Salarian. :/ Bummer.

SUVI is also a snoozefest. So she’s a religious lesbian scientist who keeps wanting to eat things in Andromeda. There is literally nothing else about her to write home about.

GIL bothers the hell out of me. He is the only gay male romance option on your ship, and that is not cool. He’s not a squadmate, and frankly, his story arc which is his best friend, Jill, pressuring him to have a baby with her smacks of the heteronormative narrative of homosexuals being problematic because they are stealing away reproductive opportunities. That is so regressive, that it bothers me. I’m not sure if they were trying to go the “gay parenting, yay!” route, but with Sara Ryder, it just smacks of gay conversion therapy because he does end up going to his female best friend to have a baby with her. EW. WHAT THE FUCK. I am told this narrative doesn’t go away if you are romancing him as Scott Ryder, so…DOUBLE EW. WHAT THE FUCK.

Again, these are all fundmentally good people. That means there’s nothing interesting about them as characters in a Mass Effect world. It’s not like in the DA world where you have this great representation of troubled and morally grey characters (e.g. Zevran, Anders, Fenris, Cassandra, Dorian, Iron Bull, Solas), so everybody is just boring. The only exception to this is…

REYES VIDAL and thank fucking god because he single-handedly (single-voicedly, perhaps, as he’s voiced by Nicholas Boulton, who is known to us DA fans as Garrett Hawke) saved the Andromeda experience for me. He is actually interesting because he is this morally grey character trying to make the best out of a shitty starting experience in the Andromeda galaxy, and he is put into situation where he makes hard and oftentimes not squeaky-clean decisions. AND I LOVE HIM. He’s very clearly from Antiva, and the Zevran Arainai school of charm, flirtation, and bisexuality, but DAMN am I not pissed at BioWare that because he’s a supporting character and therefore never joins your crew or becomes your squadmate, your interactions with him boil down to about 20 minutes of some 90-hours of gameplay. And he cuts off your other romance pathways as well (as I discovered the hard way), so I felt kind of ripped off that I am apparently exclusive with some mafia kingpin that I’m in a long-distance relationship with. No sex scene, just a couple of make-outs and a kabe-don.

…WHAT.

If I don’t get more Reyes Vidal in a DLC I’m going to flip a table.

More dangling threads than a Project Runway disaster. There was real potential with a lot of the background plot that was going on, but NOTHING is resolved by the end of the game except for the most urgent “where we gonna live?” plotline.

Things that are dangling and aren’t even sewn up before hitting the runway are: - Ellen Ryder is still in cryo? - Who is the Benefactor and who murdered Jien Garson? What is up with the shady shit behind the Initiative anyway? - Who created the Scouge? - Are the Remnant still around? Why did they just abandon Meridian? - The Kett are still at large in the galaxy… - What caused the course deviations in intergalactic space about 300 years ago? - What’s happened to the other arks?

NOTHING IS RESOLVED. I thought I was getting a standalone game, and it’s actually a bait and switch. There are more questions raised than answered, which bodes well for a sequel, but I’m not sure if I want Bioware Montreal to be the people making this game.

Hardly any of your choices matter. I feel more rail-roaded in this game than I have in a modern BioWare game, DA2 included. At least in DA2, while Hawke had absolutely no agency in the events surrounding them, at least your choices decided who you fought against in the final battle, and there was also the very real and very common possibility of losing one of your friends. If you didn’t play your cards right, Isabela could’ve left, you could’ve given Fenris back to Danarius, you could have killed Anders, your surviving sibling could’ve died in the Deep Roads, you could have killed Merrill, you could’ve lost the allegiance of Aveline…literally the only person who can’t leave you is Varric, so it feels like a real accomplishment when you do go through the game with everyone intact. The same is somewhat true for ME2 as well, as the final mission you can potentially lose squadmates if you don’t assign them the correct tasks and have their loyalty missions. Even in DA:I you can make choices about certain characters in their arcs that change them and their interactions with other characters, as with the Cole human/spirit decision, and the choice of whether or not to work with the Qunari and whether to keep Cullen on the lyrium which both have the potential to come bite you in the ass in the Trespasser DLC. DA:I overall had more meaningful choices that affected your experience, as in the choice of mages vs. Templars, but also the end world state of your game, as in who you picked to be Divine, and the fate of the Inquisition and so on.

You are almost never asked to make a hard choice in Andromeda. There’s no equivalent of whether or not to kill Anders, of picking between Kaidan and Ashley. The closest to the former is whether to pick to side with the krogan or save the krogan over the Salarian Pathfinder, and that doesn’t seem to change the ME:A experience much. You are never asked to pick between a squadmate, and the only meaningful close choice there is the choice between Reyes Vidal and Sloane Kelly (which, let’s be honest, is a real no-brainer because Reyes in the only interesting romancable character in the entire game and Sloane Kelly is a thug through and through. It’s like, pick between this gang leader and this smooth mafia boss; yeah, this is pretty clear). Everything else is…minimal. And that’s really, really sad. I’m expecting, throughout the game, to have to make that hard call between say, whether to leave the Warden or Hawke behind in the Fade (in my first playthrough, it was a real rough one because that was a choice between Warden Alistair [who was coupled with my DA:O warden, Lyna] and Marian Hawke [who was coupled with Anders]), and while that was awful and painful, it was also GREAT. There is no equivalent in Andromeda and that makes me really sad. The stakes are just lower overall, which narratively makes for a way more boring game.

The gay options suck. This is less sucky if you are a lesbian, but if you are a gay bloke, you’re kind of out of luck. As I stated above, Gil undergoes conversion therapy to have a biological child with a woman, and your only other option is the amazing and charming space ZevranReyes Vidal whose single downside is treatment as a SECOND-CLASS ROMANCE. If you want to get the Matchmaker achievement where you romance 3 characters across 3 different playthroughs, it is currently NOT POSSIBLE to do that with male characters without having to do something hetero. That’s so not appropriate.

Aside from awkward facial expressions, the fact that there’s one face for all the Asari, and relatively shallow interactions with other NPCs, those are my major ME:A complaints.

GREAT AND AWESOME THINGS

The Nomad drives so well. I hated the Mako from the first game, and I love, love, love the Nomad now. Driving across Voeld makes me feel like Dominic Toretto in that custom Dodge Charger running from a nuclear submarine in Fast & Furious 8 good.

Reyes Vidal. I don’t need to say more here than Garrett Hawke and Zevran Arainai had a lovechild and his name is Reyes Vidal.

Combat experience is smooth as silk. Which makes the new game + more awesome because diversifying skills and quick profile switching is FUCK AWESOME. It’s kind of a pain to set up, but once you’ve got going, you’re going good.

That trope where everybody you’ve encountered in the game comes and helps you at the end of the game. That brief moment during endgame in front of the vault on Meridian where the krogan you’ve saved and Reyes Vidal and the whole damn cavalry come to assist. YESSSSSSS I love that trope so much and it hit all my happy buttons.

Jump jets. I am never going to be able to go back to a game where I can’t jump.

Movie night was cute. It was adorable.

Low grav asteroid/planet was amazing and fun. I’m really surprised it look this long to execute that. I wish it were bigger? It was smashing fun to drive around on.

Asians in space. I’m finally glad to see some goddamn Asians in space, knowing how many damn Asians exist in this world, I am so glad to finally see myself represented? One of the Asian default Sara Ryders is also super cute and we played as her and it was SO FUCKING NICE TO FINALLY SEE SOME ASIANS IN SPACE THANK YOU.

#mass effect: andromeda #Just me with my thoughts #I need more Reyes vidal

[singloom]

2016 Anime/Animation Challenge ~ October

My Little Pony Season 6

Pastel coloured pony time! I think October is the Month of Pony, given I finished Season 6, watched The Legend of Everfree and rewatched the other Equestria Girls films. It's just that kind of month. Season 6 of My Little Pony follows the reformed Starlight Glimmer learning lessons of friendship from, who else, the Princess of Friendship, Twilight Sparkle and her awesome posse of friends. From a season opener about a royal Crystalling to her very first best friend and an unexpected return, Season 6 is Starlight Hour as she struggles to learn the importance of friendship and worries about being judged for her past mistakes. Very relatable. Except the whole enslaving/almost ending the world/kinda messing with time shenanigans.

Then again, we're not perfect. #lifelessonsiguess

Other episodes include Spike returning to the Land of Dragons to compete for the title of "Dragon Lord" (Gauntlet of Fire,) a Pony retelling of A Christmas Carol (A Hearth's Warming Tail,) a griffon seeking her cutie mark (The Fault in Our Cutie Marks,) Rainbow Dash butting heads with a Daring Do fan at a con (Stranger Than Fanfiction,) a fantasy role-playing session courtesy of Spike, Big Mac and Discord of all folks (Dungeons & Discords,) and Starlight Glimmer taking on evil with the most unexpected band of allies (To Where and Back.)

It only serves to make me wonder what Season 7 will have in store. Yay.

My Little Pony: Equestria Girls: The Legend of Everfree

Another Humanised Pony story, The Legend of Everfree takes our heroines camping in the woods on a school trip where Twilight Sparkle struggles with the aftermath of the previous film, trying to hide her darkness, while new found magical powers find theirselves to the Mane Six just in time to take on another magical threat.

The concept of the Mane Six and Sunset gaining powers is very interesting and it's fun to see how they are utilised (though never let Pinkie Pie near anything fragile, please.) Twilight's struggles with darkness are similar to Sunset in Rainbow Rocks and their friendship is a strong part of the film.

My only qwuibbles were around the less appealing opening song (compared to the other films,) another love interest character introduced for Twilight Sparkle though Timber Spruce isn't completely unlikeable, and Filthy Rich suddenly becoming a villain for simplicity sake in this feature. Other than that, it was an enjoyable piece to the Equestria Girls series, especially with the post credits stinger.

Orenchi No Furo Jiyo

Short anime about a young man that takes care of a mermaid in his bathtub. No, really. The everyday comedy of Tatsumi looking after Wakasa is an endearing way to pass the time, especially when other hybrid humans start popping in to say hello, like Takasu the octopus man and Mikuni the humanoid jellyfish.

It's a softer, light hearted anime than the darker sexual comedy of Monster Musume, so if you want something about cute monster human characters and the poor boy trying to keep things in check (without the extreme fanservice and dark comedy,) Orenchi No Furo Jiyo might be your cup of chamomile tea.

Brotherhood: FFXV

Let's get one thing straight, I love Final Fantasy XV, but I will be the first to admit the story structure of the video game could have been better. You shouldn't need to consult seperate media to get the full story, especially when said things really should have been in the game to flesh it out and paying for DLC that should have been ingame in the first place is a practice that needs to go. With that out the way, Brotherhood: Final Fantasy XV is the story we really needed to get some much needed context on our beloved Chocobros and their connection to Noctis. Each Chocobro gets an episode about his past, including the very important monster attack that Noctis survived when he was a child that barely got mentioned in the game. If you ever wanted to get some backstory on your bros, this is the place to go. In fact, I insist. It really does help. Trust me.

Persona 5 The Animation ~ The Day Breakers ~

Lemme break it to you, the Persona franchise is awesomesauce. With stories about personal darkness and demons, symbolic creatures of the mind that would make Freud blush, and character development that is a much needed breath of fresh air, Persona is a series of personal recommendation for those wanting something a little different.

Persona 5 The Animation ~ The Day Breakers ~ is an OVA of sorts that adapts one of the potential side missions in the video game, fleshing out the backstory of the target, Kazuya. It would be an interesting opening gate for folks unfamiliar with P5 to get into the ideas of the game in smaller chunks. We get a glimpse at the Phantom Thieves of Hearts and how they target those with corrupt, impure hearts, giving you an idea of what the story is like in game on a smaller scale. Give it a try.

Rewatch

Big part of my childhood for introducing me to the concept of death at an early age,

The Animals of Farthing Wood

finally found its way to a DVD release in 2016. This gave many viewers, like myself, a chance to re-experience the perils and dangers of a group of animals fleeing their endangered home to promises of a better life at White Deer Park. As you can imagine, there are plenty of deaths and struggles for this varied band of creatures great and small, from newts and moles to badgers and foxes. Even now, I still remember scenes depicting the harsh reality of the food chain and being a creature of the wild.

The Butcher Bird. The motorway. The fox hunt. The farm.

What is a new experience, with The Animals of Farthing Wood, that perhaps wasn't as apparent as a younger viewer, is how dicky the different animals are to each other. Worst offenders are Adder, Owl and Weasel. Before, you knew they teased and took parting shots. As a 30 year old watcher, it comes across as bullying, especially in what is a stressful situation of survival. As a child, Weasel was one of my favourites, now she's definitely outstayed her welcome (laughing at mourning animals is not appreciated and THAT LAUGH.) I still love the likes of Kestrel, Mole, Badger and even Owl (despite her recurring theme of trash talking the other animals, it wouldn't be the same without her.)

Another Crowning Moment is the Music. The Theme song alone is the stuff of nostalgia overload by the senses, but even the background music (the same piece of music with different instruments depending on which animal is on screen.) I can perfectly envision that entire opening in my mind with the music alone, which tells you how powerful it is.

The Third Season, featuring a pack of rats that want to take over White Deer Park, was perhaps not the strongest part of the series, given very popular characters are Put On the Bus, never mentioned again and replaced with not as appealing ones. Nevertheless, it was still enjoyable, even if the first two seasons were the strongest.

Perhaps not as child friendly as it advertised (THAT BUTCHER BIRD,) The Animals of Farthing Wood is still the stuff of animation legend and worth the watch. If you want Watership Down with a mixture of different animals, this is the one to watch.

Following the new Legend of Everfree film, I decided to turn to Equestria Girls, Rainbow Rocks and Friendship Games. These are My Little Pony movies that feature the mane six as humans attending high school and defending the human world from magical threats. The surprising thing is, despite how cliched the high school setting is, they are quite enjoyable. For me, a big part of the enjoyment is Sunset Shimmer, a unicorn that escapes to the human world after stealing Twilight Sparkle's crown in the first movie, Equestria Girls. She is both a compelling antagonist that grows into so much more in the following movies.

As far as plots go, they are quite straightforward. Equestria Girls, like I mentioned before, introduces us to the human world when Twilight Sparkle chases Celestia's former student, Sunset Shimmer, into this strange, new world in pursuit of her crown (trying HARD not to make a Game Grumps joke, here.) We also meet the human versions of not only the other members of the Mane Six (Fluttershy, so cute,) but background ponies in a different form now. The fun is trying to find them as they make their way about Canterlot High.

Rainbow Rocks, one of my personal favourites, is the ultimate Battle of the Bands showdown as the Mane Six take on the standout villains of the piece, the Dazzlings. Everything is a musical spectical with the Dazzlings being the stars of the show. We also get the start of Sunset Shimmer's character development, which is also a reason I enjoy the EG films.

Friendship Games is the clash between two High Schools in a tournament of intellectual and athletic prowess... and the introduction of another Twilight Sparkle? School rivalry, peer pressure and, of course, Friendship is the order of the day with more great musical numbers and a showdown that wouldn't be out of place in a Magical Girl Show.

To MLP fans that are somewhat cycnical to these humanised forms of their beloved ponies, I'd say give the films a try. What have you got to lose? You might enjoy them more than you think. Rainbow Rocks and Friendship Games are the stronger entries.

#2016 anime challenge #anime #animation

[villainousascent-blog]

Fallout 4, Perspective, and a Better Way to Play

Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls. It's 2 years down the line, here's my advice on coming to Fallout 4 from previous titles.

Don't go into Fallout 4 expecting New Vegas, Fallout 3, or either of interplay's Fallout Titles. Go into expecting an engineering game. A plumbing game. An electrician game.

And now to talk about the Pitt DLC for Fallout 3*. I know that's confusing, but just. No. Stop. Don't go. Instead, sit and listen. Here. Let me explain. You see, I had a revelation.

After playing Fallout 4, I went back to Fallout 3, to test my mechanical knowledge of it, by never healing my bleeding, broken body, and never dying. A permadeath run. I wasn't allowed to fast travel, and if I died, that was that and the run ended. Mods, on the other hand were allowed, but they had to be appropriate to the run. I had an improvised weapons mod(because it fit the run, and fallout 3's atmosphere of lonesome, solitary desperation), an alternate repair mod the weapon mod kits mod, a smokable cigarettes mod, backpack mod, basic primary needs mod, killable children mod, a binoculars mod, and the classic fallout weapons mod. I also, by necessity had the CALIBR mod, Rh Ironsights, and CRAFT. The cigarettes mod was changed slightly to get rid of the charisma bonus. That was it.

If you want the rules, here they are. Healing the body with stimpaks, or healing crippled limbs, is forbidden. That doesn't however, mean that the body isn't allowed to heal itself. I'm just not allowed to intervene in that process. Same with radiation and addiction. I can, however, take preventative action. As well if say, the game deems it necessary to heal me in some way or another, who am I to say no. As well, using a mod,

I'll have to manage hunger, thirst, and exhaustion. If I can't manage any of those properly, I'm fucked, and the run ends.

A revelation came to me when I was playing through the Pitt DLC. For those of you that don't know, the bulk of that particular DLC takes place in Pittsburgh, New York, famous for its industry. That industry is steel production and processing, hence, Pittsburgh Steelers. The Pitt takes place primarily in a massive, monolithic foundry in the heart of New York industry. And now for more explanation. Spoilers, from here on out.

You begin by answering a distress call from a man named Wernher. When you finally meet him, his request is fairly straight forward, actually quite nice. Help him save his people. Things are rarely that simple, though. You see, his people are slaves, and in order to get in, you must disguise yourself as one. As a side note, to meet with him, you need to go far to the north, into scorpion and deathclaw territory. In order to fit the part, I met Wernher wearing the wasteland settler outfit, (mostly for the agility bonus, which helps with stealth), Three-Dog's Headwrap(Sorry threedog, but I needed the extra charisma and luck. Plus, I enjoy GNR's other, less well known host.) and a pair of biker goggles. I like to travel extremely light when doing stealth builds, which I was, and if I get shot on a build like that, death is certain. No need for armor. As well, I was equipped with a shoddy pipe rifle. Got to look the part, right? In my inventory, a backpack, a silenced mauser, some mines, a dart gun, a shishkebab, food, water, and a massive amount of drugs and alcohol. For the shishkebab, I wound up murdering a caravan. For the dart gun, Tenpenny Tower had to go. As for the drugs, combat drugs, morphine, rad x, psycho, mentats, etc. are allowed under the rules.

After a brief skirmish with the other denizens of the Pitt, which I, being the coward that I am, stayed out of, Wernher greets me. After a brief scolding, introductions are made, and he tells me about the Pitt. In his own words "I come from a place far to the northwest. It's called the Pitt. It's... Well... Lets's be honest... The place is a nightmare... Radiation, mutation, disease. But the worst of it: My people, some of the only survivors, are slaves." He's got one shot at helping his people, at making a difference, and he needs your help to do it. A pretty convincing plee for help, if I do say so myself. So, I agree to help. After all, with that argument, how can I say no?

First things, first, I need a disguise, and I need to do it without a fight. Money, than. I pay for the slaves, and free them. Aren't I a goody two-shoes? After taking the presumably rank smelling outfit from a man who expired from unknown causes, I went to meet up with Wernher at the tunnel.

The north of the map, is beautiful, and desolate, and gray. The Pitt, on the otherhand, is hot and smoky, overbearingly bright, the entire area dyed a brilliant orange from the flames and molten steel of the foundry. A strikingly beautiful shift in tone and atmosphere. After a brief conversation with Wernher, Lydia learn's what I already knew. She'll be stripped of all gear except a slave outfit, and a single 5 shot snubnosed .32 revolver. One of the worst firearms in the game. So, I begin to make my way across the bridge that serves to both defend the Pitt and prevent escape. It funnels witless morons both ways, and the entire thing is a time bomb, filled wuith land mines chemical waste barrels. At the foot of the bridge, I make a quick change of gear, swapping into the dead man's garb. Have to fit the part, remember?

I, or rather, Lydia makes her way, at a slow, barely perceptible crawl in order to not trigger any of the mines. As a result, she arrives, mostly safe and sound, and intact, if having gained a few more rads. I'm then greeted by Mex, who immediately "recognizes" me as a slave. The disguise worked.

I'm then dragged in, and meet with Midea(Get used to greek figures with slightly misspelled names. That will come up again.) And then the Pitt begins in earnest.

You see, Wernher. Was. Not. Kidding. Mutation and disease run rampant. Both master and slave alike, are affected. The people of the Pitt are covered in horrific and disgusting lesions, sorer, bruises and the like. Life in the Pitt, whether master or slave, is brutal, savage and unforgiving. Death is a guarantee. Both the air and water are vectors for the horrific diseases, mutations, and radiation that are a fact of life in the Pitt. Lydia, Desperate for a weapon, or salvation, went off to a man named Marco. He had a welcoming gift, the Auto Axe. The Auto Axe is a wonderfully, ridiculously powerful melee weapon, based off a masonry saw. No really, it is. It's as violent as chainsaw, without the risk of fleshy goop gunking up the works. She then goes to meet Everett and in the process, steals his cigarettes and pre-war money, and enters the Steel Yard, with one, singular purpose. Survive. From here on out, things are going to be incredibly stressful and difficult.

Something I briefly touched upon earlier was the verticality of the Pitt. The Steel Yard itself is massive, but a lot of this done through height rather than area. A single slip up, or tripping and falling, spells almost certain doom. If the injury doesn't kill you, the mutants and the radiation will. And if that doesn't manage to kill you, you're own body will. With a primary needs mod, the Pitt is even more brutal.

In the Steel Yard itself, there is this sort of massive, central tower that constantly belches radiation and smoke. It's a hell of a view, and tactically significant if you manage to fight your way up there.

Into the Steel Yard, and off to arm myself, and collect the ingots which would buy my salvation. The first 10, relatively easy. That gets you the Laborer's outfit, which grants an additional point of agility, strength, and endurance, each. The next 20, harder, but not impossible. The reward: the filtration helmet. A massively useful, rad resistance helmet. Essentially a gas mask. 10 more, and were up to 30. the reward here, not nearly as useful. At 40, the metal master armor. Eh. 50, the Metal blaster, an immensely powerful scatterlaser. 60, bombshell armor. Meh. 70, Leather rebel armor, charisma bonus. Meh. 80. The Mauler, one of two unique Auto Axes. 10 more and were at the most useful weapon in the Pitt. The Perferator. There, we stop. There are 10 more, and the reward is unique power armor, but I'm not interested right now. Along the way, I pick up an assault rifle, combat shotgun, hunting rifle, unique .32 pistol, and the Gamma Shield armor, all well very carefully dodging trogs. Trogs, for those of you that don't know, are the soft squishy, and incredibly lethal and dangerously strong mutants of the Pitt. Humans, affected by the disease and radiation, driven mad and turned into mindless beasts that crawl on all fours. Welcome to the Pitt, Slave. With a bit of damage, but not much, because of Med-X(morphine), I make way, after more than few questionable victories in the Steel Yard, to Midea again. Now, she says, it's time to fight in the hole, and earn both my freedom, and a chance to meet with leader of this horrific cesspool of disease, agony, torture, and slavery. A chance to meet with Ashur. A chance to steal the cure. The cure being the entire reason I'm here. How can I say no? A small note on Everett, by the way. He's my favorite character in the entire franchise, and he's funny and well written to boot. Kudos to Bethesda, by the way, for making one of, in my opinion, the most memorable characters in the series. Not a lot to say, but quite possibly the best written slave master I've seen. He's totally corrupt, and genuinely warm, which makes for a wonderful and eclectic, eccentric personality.

So, I volunteer to fight. A chance to earn a shot for my radiation is immensely valuable, at this point, due to advanced radiation poisoning, soon to be a level worse. You see, the Hole, is a radioactive pit, in which slaves fight for their freedom. The fighting is a brutally fast and completely savage affair, which ends in a matter of seconds, not minutes. It's a no holds barred death match. In the first fight, you're pitted against three other hopefuls. Speak to Faydra, the arena master, and enter. I chose to enter drugged up(Psycho, Buffout, MedX, Mentats, Cigarettes, Alcohol etc) beyond belief in the Laborer's Gear with it's damage resistance of 4 and Filtration mask, armed with the Perferator, the unique assault rifle that's been sawed down and given a scope and suppressor, from Everett, and the man opener, the utterly insane and unique Auto Axe from the massive warehouse in the Steel Yard. The first fight is lightning fast. All three hopefuls gunned down in a matter of seconds from a shrouded position in a corner near the entrance. I exited, and was gifted with most useful thing in the entire run. A radiation scrub. You have no idea how incredibly useful that is in a challenge run like this. Immediately back into the hole, switching to the Metal Blaster. Not my strong suit, but each projectile does a decent amount of damage, and there are 9 projectiles in total. Next up, the Bear Brothers. Dead in seconds. Lightning fast, but not fast enough, and utterly brutal. Last up, Gruber. Quick 5 shots. Dead. Took damage. Freedom. My reward? My equipment returned, and my freedom. After these fights I no longer have the luxury of getting into combat here. Need my health for other more pressing engagements, particularly when fighting tribals. I'm better equipped than I went in, but in worse condition. Survival is my priority. Time To meet with Ashur.

And here's where we start to get into Fallout 4.

So, into Ashur's home, to meet with him and his wife. Ashur is an ex-Brotherhood paladin, from when the Brotherhood of Steel came to the Pitt to solve it's issues, and salvage its technologies. Still in the Laborer's Outfit, but now with a headwrap and biker goggles, an odd combination to be sure. Led up to his home, Lydia proceeds to enter. After the brutality and the violence she's just been through, this is a nice change of pace. Walking up, we overhear a conversation between one of the masters of the Pitt, and THE Master of the Pitt. During this conversation, it's revealed that he doesn't like to call them slaves. He prefers workers. It gives the slaves hope. He wants to cure radiation. An interesting proposition, but how would one do that? The answer? His own child, who has a natural and transferable immunity. I sided with Ashur, because he wasn't willing to risk the health of his daughter in order to create a cure, and I wanted to survive. I also nicked his cigarettes.

Now, how and why would the Pitt give a different perspective on how to play and view Fallout 4. Well, let's let Ashur tell us. In his own words:

Lydia: "What do you mean about the city's future?"

Ashur: "Now that Marie's back, we have a chance at curing the disease that's been ravaging The Pitt since the bombs. Without it killing our kids, we can grow like a real city. No more bringing in slaves. No more forced labor. Things can get better. It's taken me a lot of work rebuild this city. With your help, it's finally going to have a chance."

Lydia: "So, what do I do now?"

Ashur: "That's up to you. We'll keep working on the cure and keep the city running. You're free to come and go as you like. Of course you can help out at the mill by collecting metal from the Steelyard. It'd help lighten the load on the workers. And if you want to work on Sandra's good side, you can always bring her toys for Marie. It's a little thing, but it would make a difference."

Lydia: "Do you ever miss the Brotherhood of Steel?"

Ashur: "Not in the slightest. During the scourge, we looted the Pitt and left the rest of it to rot. I was just a dumb convert who got stuck here afterwards. See, beneath it all, the Brotherhood's just lazy. It's easier to loot a dying city than work to bring it back to life, so that's what they did. They're so obsessed with the technology of the past, they don't care what needs to be done for today and tomorrow. It takes real, hard work to rebuild and run a city. But there isn't a machine to do it for them, so the Brotherhood ain't interested. Good riddance."

That last answer. Fallout 4 is Fallout from Ashur's perspective. It is a love letter to all those who help to keep society running. Engineers and plumbers. Electricians and architects. Doctors and mechanics. Chefs and farmers. Soldiers and search parties. If you go into Fallout 4, expecting it to play from the Brotherhood's perspective, expecting to loot and move on, you're going to have a bad time. However, if you go into it from Ashur's perspective, willing to put in the hard work, the time and effort to revive a dying civilization, you'll have an incredible, and rewarding experience, bursting with jaw droppingly beautiful vistas and incredible works of art.

This has been Villainous, signing off.

* Note that damage isn't perfectly talked about, because I'm actually not sure what my weapon skills were because somewhere in there, there's a level up missing, and the saves between the beginning of the steelyard and the end of the hole have been lost.

#fallout 4 #Fallout 3 #fallout #The Pitt #gaming