#this is so cute to me actually. i need elphelt to be in strive so bad just in general | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

fanz-y · 3 months

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So now that I've actually watched 10 anime I wanted to rank them from best to worst

1. MSG: the Witch from Mercury; I have not seen any other Gundam show but I don't think this one is leaving #1 spot ever, and Bandai were cowards and homophobic for not showing us either a kiss or the wedding even though they got married, also I'm so mad that I episode 11 during the hug they didn't even say "I love you". The robots became the least interesting part of the robot show (8th I watched)

2. Bocchi the Rock!; probably what I want most anime to be, can't wait for the movie('s), this, G-Witch and Your Name might as well both be #1, also I want a cute Bocchi plush but I can't find one that's affordable without a high delivery :< (7th I watched)

3. Your Name; A movie that I found on a trans subreddit about a year ago, I didn't think it'd be as good as it was or that it'd affect me as much as it did, but I was left in tears when the credits came on, the story went somewhere completely than I thought it would, 10/10. also tied for first place, it deserves to be watched in a movie theater so much (10th I watched)

4. Cowboy Bebop; twink and his bear friend go on space adventures oh and the twink has his own shadow the hedgehog (6th one I watched)

5. BNA: Brand New Animal; the one of 2 studio Trigger show I've seen but from what I've read and heard they have a pretty mid reputation, I really liked it tho, I watched it around the time I came out and it's a pretty good trans allegory (still feel a tad weird about the ending) (4th one I watched)

6. Neon Genesis Evangelion (and the 1st movie); (don't)Get in the robot Shinji, I had been interested in it a bunch, big robots and all that, but only just got to it. The self perpetuating loop of abuse and trauma that Shinji and everyone gets put through because Genduo can't get over the death of his wife is horrible and I can't think of a more despicable antagonist than him, the movie was so fucked up. I still struggle to get what Seele was supposed to represent. I loved every scene where the Eva's get shown as demons, those looked real cool (9th I watched) (watched it entirely cuz of Signalis)

7. Cyberpunk Edgerunners; watched this before I played the game, the abuse that David went through combined with the end that I miss interpreted put me a bit off and I missed the point, but I got it after a rewatch (3rd one I watched)

8. JoJo's Bizarre Adventure; now that I've grown as a person I can safely say that it deserved to drift from spot 1, part 4 is still my fave. And it's still really really good in spite of how low it is (1st I watched)

9. Guilty Gear Xrd & Strive story mode; I am both counting and lumping them together, I liked the oversized Smurf with a gun, also Elphelt bby girl, still would've preferred an actual game tho(5th one I watched)

100000000000. Future Diary; I've watch this in a trade to get someone else to watch JoJo's, they came out better off with that deal, I am also no longer friends with that person (not because of the show but it's funny to mention) (2nd I watched) I still think it's missing some zeros, just add however many you believe it needs

Honorable mentions:

- Signalis; I know it's not an anime but it's anime adjacent and it's the best story I've ever played through, I don't even like horror games or gore at all that much but I will 100% this game and get all the endings, I wish I could talk about it more but spoiling ANYTHING about it feels wrong and making posts where half the words are censored just so fans get it isn't gonna work

- Pokemon; I loved the XYZ and B&W runs but I haven't watched it all and only remember catching it on TV

-Scott Pilgrim takes off, I watched the first few episodes, I don't particularly care for it, but it looks pretty good

Dishonorable mentions:

- Attack on Titan; I've had a run in with the series back when season 1 came out, back when I thought gore was cool, now I have negative interest in the series, I literally couldn't care less and I'm only putting it here to be fair

Conclusion:

After the Witch from Mercury and Evangelion, I don't care for big robots as much as I used to.

Oh and I'm watching some more soon-ish gimme recommendations

#guilty gear #signalis #neon genesis evangelion #your name #jojos bizarre adventure #the witch from mercury #cyberpunk 2077 #cowboy bebop #bocchi the rock!#bna: brand new animal

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hastings727 · 2 months

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Fighting Games are a Bit Funny for Me

I had fighting games as a kid (smash brothers, soul calibur, tekken, cabinets at random arcades) but I never knew there was more than just mashing. The most I played was melee and soul calibur 2 on my gamecube and even then, I never bothered to look at the movelist (hell I probably didn't even know there was one) and I just played Link and the single player stuff. It was fun! Fast forward to 2013 and my dumb early 20s self having experienced competitive racing in Forza 4 and then the absolute brainrot that is league of legends. But the moment that Cloud 9 signed a smash player is when I smelled colors for the first time, because I realized that cute smash game I played as a kid had a fucking competitive scene for literally decades? So that blew my mind and *LETS JUST GO PAST ALL THE SMASH COMPETITIVE STUFF* Suffice to say I played smash 4 and a bit of melee for a time in my region. Then I watch EVO 2014 finals until 3am, find my local scene for traditional fighting games, and find the brainrot that is Skullgirls as my first fighting game. I will always love SG but the way it plays completely fucked me up for trying to play other fighting games because of how the game works. Fast forward AGAIN past all that wonderful nonsense of finding some of the best friends of my entire life and learning fighting games with them and Guilty Gear XRD drops and I eventually play it and find Faust, my first true fighting game love.

I had fighting game mains before but Faust was the true feeling of love. I loved his goofiness, the items, the random wild moments, the absolute INSANITY of it all. But then, my hubris. I am a sore loser, a sore winner, a sore everything. I took these games too seriously and all of my local friends have been playing fighting games since they were kids, and here my dumb ass is trying to beat them with less than half the experience. It was humiliating for me, and only for me because no one actually insulted or made fun of me, I basically ruined my own mental health.

Fast Forward again because in 2017 the twins were born and I basically had to stop alot of my life for a while. I play sparingly and mostly watch stuff because thats all you have time for as a parent to infants. Alot of games get rollback, I try Plus R and like it until the competitive tryhard brainrot ruins me because another friend who has more experience in these games beats me and I basically give up for a while. Strive drops, I cry about faust being different and play Anji. I play the game on and off for the next 3 years and mostly do other shit.

These days I'm actually very clear minded as I have largely ripped the competitive brainrot out of my head and play these games 110% for improvement and exploring my own ability to get good. I no longer care about the W, only in so much as it signifies that I've improved slightly. That clearheadedness has extended to other game genres I play like FPS' and MOBAs, but grinding competitive ladders is largely dead to me because I just, dont care about winning anymore. Strive is the closest to me in terms of "i grind ranked". But the only reason I do so is because the character levels up faster in the ranked towers than in the Park lol. And I like number go up. I also just, really enjoy strive. For all the work they put in to condense movelists, the characters all largely still do the same thing. I can say certain ones still feel like they need a bit of something (Testament feels like they need one of their old specials back, or some sorta trap mechanic to add to their fireballs and arbiter signs) But largely the game is successful in still allowing characters to do new things while still feeling like their old mechanics. IF you actually took the time to read my shit, wow thank you. You can find me on Strive as Revima and that is also my discord tag. I play Anji and Elphelt and I'm learning more characters for funzies. I also play a bit of SF6, 3rd strike, Vsav, and I'm learning jojos HTFT. I like improving now. I'm so happy I do because I dont want to go back to the brain rot.

#fighting games #guilty gear #street fighter #vsav #vampire savior #jojos heritage for the future #FGC #fighting game community #Strive

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talietikasero · 3 years

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I went in aware of the (possible) retcons and shit but I watched the whole thing anyway. It’s some ungodly hour way past when I should’ve slept and here’s what I thought. I’m trying to be fair here when I give GG Strive’s story a 6.8/10

Visuals: This game is beautiful. 12/10

Voice cast: I enjoyed the dub. Not as much of a corny anime dub like Sign was, but the returning cast improved from that game -- or at least I thought so. 8.75/10

Soundtrack: One word: Incredible. The duo of Naoki and Aisha on vocals for all character themes -- ok they're only a duet on Ramlethal's [Necessary Discrepancy] but you know what I meant -- was a perfect choice. My favorite themes from when I played the second open beta back in mid-May were Giovanna's [Trigger] and Potemkin's [Armor-Clad Faith], but Leo's [Hellfire] really grew on me the most. 15/10

Game itself: Arcade mode was a fun challenge because I’m an idiot who did all 15 but I got really tired of fighting Nago over and over again. I’m not that great so I’m not worrying about getting the “Messiah Will Not Come” trophy where you fight him but he’s got an infinite blood gauge. Survival gives a good chunk of the lifebar back without making it too easy -- and the “mysterious challenger” at stage 10 being a shadowy Sol with neon red was an okay way to signal a checkpoint. 9/10 I’m not doing online any time soon because I don’t have a wired connection but I hear it’s ass and the tower placement is a complete lie.

Anywho, now on to the real post:

For a finale, the story was... slightly below average. But I’ll be honest here, I kinda had high expectations because of the hype from the past two (?) years, five if you count the total time between Rev2 and Strive's release dates.

The last time I was this critical of a sequel’s story was the gap between Borderlands 2 and 3, which was seven years. I'm going off on a tangent here but I'll sum it up so if you're not familiar with Borderlands you'll have an idea of what I'm taking about. In Borderlands: the Pre-Sequel, the Watcher (Eridian? that saved Athena from execution after telling Lilith and company of her adventures on Elpis with Nisha, Wilhelm, Timothy, Aurelia, and Claptrap) warned "Now's not the time for bickering, Vault Hunters. War is coming, and you will need all the Vault Hunters you can get". BL3 rolls around and there was no big war. Instead, we got a poorly delivered dumpster fire of a main campaign that spanned five planets and the main villains were some bratty livestreamer Sirens that run a planet wide cult. Seriously? The cast was poorly handled there too but I'll stop here.

In the case of comparison to another fighting game’s story, the game that comes to mind is Tekken 7 because if they aren’t a Mishima or Kazama or someone else in that fucked up family that’s plot relevant, they were given a shitty one-fight episode. Sure Nina and Claudio were in the main story mode but that's the thing: they were just there. The returning (dlc) series veterans, such as Anna, Lei, Marduk, and all the way to Zafina plus the newcomers Leroy, Lidia, Fahkumram, and Kunimitsu II weren't given much aside from a brief story snippet. Dare I say it but SFV did their new seasons newcomers and returning fighters justice as they all got episodes of their own. You read that right. Street Fighter V was better to its cast than Tekken 7 and Guilty Gear -Strive-.

Unlike the Xrd games, watching the story does not get you any money. The only difference I saw right after was that the Strive correlation chart updated. For what it’s worth, they could’ve done something like DBFZ’s story clearance unlocking a new character, or do an alternate costume where the outfit Frederick wears in the ending (and upon further inspection is the very same one he wore in the flashback) is useable in fights (it’d be hilarious but a good detail added in if you were to select that option but the name plate doesn’t display “Sol” lmao). If Ky has a palette that puts him in an open button white shirt, jeans, and what look like work boots, then let me play in the ending's lab coat, tanktop, and jeans dammit.

I kept track of how many of the playable cast showed up and played some part. Everyone except Ramlethal, May, and Faust appeared in the story -- these three were reduced to credit image cameos >:( Ram’s seen with Elphelt and Sin, while Ky and Dizzy are in the background. May’s with her crew, and Faust is in the desert somewhere or some shit with Chronus.

But even if they did show up, nobody else except like five people did jack shit. Giovanna, bless her heart, was absent for a long period then showed up to fight Nagoriyuki (who eventually sided with the good guys) but got her ass beat after he faked surrender. Potemkin helped but spent most of his time cruising at high speed trying to get to the White House. Ky and Jack-O didn’t arrive until the end either. Axl -- or should I say Will -- finally got to see Megumi again at the cost of I-No’s defeat. The dude got his girlfriend back at the loss of someone he considered a friend but the delivery felt forced as it was confirmed as she was dying -- wasn't part of her character that she has no recollection of a past? Her suddenly remembering a past boyfriend and being able to describe his appearance didn't really make much sense.

Chipp and Anji were in that comical highway chase scene, but then Anji's just wherever while Chipp's in the Pentagon control room. I get that someone had to stay behind and watch from the other side -- this role landing with Leo as he, Millia, and Zato were overseeing commentating on events from the castle’s war room like Brock and Misty during Ash's battles in the OG season of the Pokemon anime, while Daryl was at the G4 conference and Ky was on his way to the fight -- but the pacing and usage of the cast in this story was a mess. Yeah sure it has most of the GG cast in this installment's playable roster present but it didn't feel like a GG story -- really it felt like the live action Resident Evil movies where the source material's characters are sprinkled in, acting more as a "here ya go they're here don't expect much!" type thing.

Honestly, a step down from Rev because at least everyone in that arc were somewhat present with maybe one or two exceptions? Hell, even though they were added as dlc or in Rev2, Dizzy, Haehyun, Baiken, and Answer were in the main story. Being hopeful here when I say that I hope we see more of Goldlewis or get to play as him because his design is badass and so is his coffin flail weapon. On the side of fairness though, I have a feeling this isn’t exactly what Ishiwatari intended (this is unlikely but it's probably Katano's directing? Whatever in any case)? The general reaction I saw from others who’ve watched the story was that the subplots were half baked and the plot as a whole was pretty rushed. Happy Chaos / the Original as the main villain was Calypso Twins from Borderlands 3 level cringe and every time HC appeared on screen I wanted to mute it. There is the bonus story coming later this year, along with the dlc slots, so ehh? The interactions between Colin and Frederick were one of my personal favorite points even if this did turn into “Neon Genesis White House Down”.

“Brown bears don’t give birth to pandas.“

I’m sure like the others who actually paid attention to the story from the end of Xrd to Strive, my main question was this:

After the Justice / Jack-O fusion -- recall the “newly revived” Aria had purely red hair and Jack-O’s halo disappeared. During the mid-credits of Revelator, former friends turned sworn enemies turned frenemies Asuka and Frederick pretty much have one last declaration of war against each other, with Sin, I-No, and Raven as their witnesses -- Asuka even said “take good care of Aria”. Naturally from all of that, she’s not Jack-O anymore, right? Wrong. According to the game, what's inside of Jack-O is only a fragment / shard of Aria mixed in with Jack-O's projected personality (I think). How did they go from "let's do the fusion and guaranteed she'll return" to "yeah nah she ain't comin' back bro"

Xrd Revelator: "Pull this off successfully and Aria will fully revive as a human."

Strive: "Nah bruh. We lied. It just turned Jack-O human and what's inside her is only an unstable shard of Aria -- not the whole thing."

Back to the “final battle”, they don’t fight, rather Asuka removed the Flame of Corruption from Frederick's body (and somehow he got a haircut too). So really what was the fight in Rev2′s [After Story - A] for? Did he get nearly the life beaten out of him from Ky fighting dirty and left that crater in the park for nothing? Seems that way. Asuka lives on the moon and he's got a radio show now because (*bong rip*) that makes sense.

I’ll admit it’s a little cute that the feelings are mutual between Jack-O and Frederick -- he sees her as herself and not just a genetic copy but they expect us to think in the three weeks they've known each other that "oh shit I'm in love with this person" is believable -- and they live in the woods near a presumably 200+ year old space shuttle complete with the launchpad but come on now. That's some Russo Brothers level writing right there -- y'all remember Avengers: Endgame and how when he went across space and time to return the Infinity Stones, Steve Rogers threw everything away just so he could go back to his original era? The now depowered-so-he's-human-again Frederick Bulsara (the ex-gear and world's savior x times over formerly known as Sol Badguy) living in isolation away from his newfound family and friends gives off the same vibe. Especially after that one and only flashback where it's Aria's birthday and he was going to propose but the ring wasn't ready in time so he had that "error" to show instead.

#guilty gear strive #gg strive #don't mind me i'm just being really nitpicky #this isn't the first time i've been down about a sequel's story #and it won't be the last #hell even if it's dated because two seasons worth of cast have been released since then sfv's story was more enjoyable! imagine that #i was writing a fic that i set before strive but now i'm gonna go back and add in some stuff #mostly that flashback because it was cute yet sad

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