#and I especially love developing lore via in character music…..this has so much lore to it……

[hana-bobo-finch]

i randomly had the idea that Lethia would probably write himself a theme song so I made this in like. 15 minutes, earlier (warning for ear strain because a little moth should not be allowed near a synth lmao)

[plasticflowering]

ULT GROUPS ASK GAME! 

I was tagged by @seohoshi - thank you so much nele 💕!

(tagging @kingleedo, @limemoon-oneus, @honeyseoho, @kimyovngjo, and anyone else who wants to do it. And no one needs to do it if they’d rather not, obviously!! This is a long one lmao) 

I have three ult groups - ONEUS, LOONA, and cignature, so why not? The weekend’s starting, it’s snowing outside, and I’m answering for all three!

1: who was your first bias?

oneus: hwanwoong loona: gowon cignature: jeewon

2: who is your bias now?

oneus: xion loona: gowon (loyal from first sight baybeeee) cignature: sunn

3: what was the first mv you watched by them?

oneus: twilight, i’m pretty sure, but i can’t remember exactly loona: love 4eva cignature: nun nu nan na

4: what’s your favorite mv?

oneus: ooooooof this is a hard question. i’d say ‘to be or not to be’ - i love all the dark, symbolic imagery, the incorporation of the dance shots, and just in general how cinematic it all was. except i hate the guns part and i wish it didn’t exist, it’s so upsetting every time, especially for an mv that came out in 2 0 2 0 :/ otherwise it’s gotta be ‘lit’ loona: yves ‘new’. in case anyone hasn’t figured this out, i’m a lore fiend. and ‘new’ has so much lore in it via symbolism and visual language, which i LOVE. cignature: ‘arisong’ is so colorful and pretty and over the top, plus it has that weird tangerine tree made of hands WHAT.

5: if you could only listen to one of their songs for the rest of your life, which would it be?

oneus: ‘blue sky’, i could not imagine life without ‘blue sky’ loona: ‘hi high’ cignature: probably ‘assa’

6: who would you want to see them collab with?

i’m gonna go off the rails here and throw out some ideas that aren’t even remotely within the realm of possibility oneus: steve lacy (i would love to hear one of his funky guitar licks on a oneus track) loona: phoebe bridgers cignature: not really a collab, but i would love to see them get a track produced by mark ronson. 

7: what (mv) concept do you want to see them do?

oneus: weird but very, very aesthetic, i’m thinking exo ‘ko ko bop’/shinee ‘married to the music’ sort of vibes, or even red velvet’s ice cream cone/dumb dumb eras. they were going there with ‘no diggity’, but i really want them to lean into weird aesthetic choices just to keep everyone on their toes. also keep giving me lore MY GOD. loona: this is weird to answer for loona because they’ve tried almost everything, so i think i’d like to see them do something like a trippy dreamscape with no connection to reality whatsoever. i’m talking mind-bending mc escher stuff. cignature: they should start developing their group characters soon, and i’d like to see them go with something (not to invoke rv again) perfect velvet-esque to do that. I think they’d really fit that vibe.

8: have you ever had a dream with any of the members in it?

okay one time i had a dream that there was a oneus concert at the mall but that’s it

9: if you could spend the day with one member, who would it be and what would you do?

oneus: youngjo and we’re going shopping boooooiiiiiiiii. i want to steal his look. also i’d just like to hang out and talk about art or something. loona: kim lip. during the fansign call i was in, she was just the coolest and i could have kept talking to her for a while longer. things felt chill and friendly. going to an amusement park with kimberly lippington. cignature: god they are all so sweet alskdjalkdj i’d want to hang out with yeah and practice dancing or just goof off. either way i would be in full Protecc mode with all of them because these are BABIES to me. except youngjo, i might fight him.

10: which member do you think you would get on with best?

oneus: probably xion because we’re both goblins. perhaps seoho because we both have to say weird stuff or we’ll die.

loona: probably hyunjin because we’re both goblins who make animal noises randomly and love bread.

cignature: probably yeah because we’re both goblins who do our best to make people around us laugh.

11: which member do you think you would argue with?

oneus: leedo, oh undoubtedly. it’s amusing to me how clearly i can imagine our personalities running counter to one another.

loona: choerry and i cannot possibly explain this other than to say she gives me little sister energy (love her)

cignature: none of them, i honestly think they all seem sweet as he*k

12: if you had to let one member scroll through your tumblr, who would it be?

the only answer for all three groups is youngjo because i figure he wouldn’t even register half of what was going on anyway but might occasionally be like “cool picture”

[occultcuriosity]

* getting  to  know  the  mun :

name :  Sam nickname :  Herb or Jerky usually but that’s typically because people only know my account name. I don’t have any ‘pet names’. faceclaim :  If I ever try to draw myself in a dumb silly style, that’ll probably be it. pronouns : He/Him height :  6′3 birthday : August 10 aesthetic :  Don’t know about a ‘personal aesthetic’, but I sure do love motifs and music aesthetic. Dark Sci-Fi is one of my favourite styles. last  song  you  listened  to : Project Zomboid - "34″ favorite  muse (s)  you’ve  written : To enjoy writing, it’s probably Klauvis when he’s gone full Science. As for muse I’m more attached to, it would be Sirus. My special arson boy.

* getting  to  know  the  account :

what  inspired  you  to  take  on  this  muse :  I started RPing when I was 11, playing Garry’s Mod HL2RP. I wasn’t very good at it, but we’re all a bit shit in our own special ways. I’ve been doing creative writing ever since, and I’m planning on taking up a specialization in script writing when I go to University next year for a Games Design course.

I have a few muses, so I’ll list what inspired me for each.

David @collectivecasualty: David was literally spawned from a random visual concept I had in my head a long time ago when starting a thread with someone. I was too nervous to devote myself to making a full RP blog and was still an awkward little shit, so I had this weird way of RPing with people via submissions and I’m glad they put up with me, or I probably wouldn’t be RPing properly nowadays. David was basically just a vague concept for a ghost, and I literally thought up the hivemind part midway through writing a reply. He’s basically evolved from there via muse interactions once I actually made a blog. He is the definition of winging it, because I had absolutely no plans for him.

Danny @goldheartedrobotics (yes he’s still there): Danny is basically my childhood muse. I came up with him well before David when I was about 14, and WAY too into FNAF. I’m aware he’s not incredibly original - he was much less so back when I first made him. But me meant too much to me for me to scrap him once I grew out of FNAF, so I decided to try and remake him. He’s still not a perfect character and has a lot of that FNAF fan OC left in him (especially his design), but he’s still my little boy and he’s made me happy in times when very little else did.

Klauvis: Klauvis comes from an old idea for a webcomic me and a friend had. It’s about an Underworld that’s basically one giant city which is a corporatocracy, and four corporations own everything. We still develop and talk about it to this day, but Klauvis is the epicentre of the whole thing. He was originally a fusion of David and one of my friend’s characters (hence the design similarities), but we got so attached to him as a separate character that we created Klauvis, and the universe developed from there. He’s technically co-owned, as is that whole universe, but my friend doesn’t use Tumblr anymore so I just RP him on here.

Sirus @antagonistic-arsonist: Sirus basically took over my brain about a year ago. I used to DM these very hodge-podge D&D games on Roll20, and I had no idea what I was doing but I loved creating all these characters and lore and stories. Sirus is a pretty central character in the main D&D universe I have, and I basically made him one day and got extremely attached. Now, he’s almost all I draw and the only character I really have consistent motivation for. I’m not complaining though, I love him.

what  are  your  favorite  aspects  of  your  current  muse :I For ‘current muse’, I’ll answer for two because there’s both Klauvis who I reblogged this to, and Sirus who I would more consider my ‘current muse’.

Klauvis: I love how silly he is. I love writing his unique blend of ‘illogically logical’ and all the dumb stuff he does, but also how there is that underlying actually emotional aspect to him that I’m so glad I got to actually express (thank you @littlexbluexflame). Even though I may not have all the motivation for it, I can’t lie that Klauvis is my favourite muse to write.

Sirus @antagonistic-arsonist: Plain and simple, I like writing asshole characters. I love writing snark. I love roasting people. Sirus is a canvas for me to project my edge, but there is (similarly to Klauvis) a whole underlying element to Sirus in his being possessed and having his personality effectively muffled and directed by the entity inside him. I know he’s VERY edgy, and I do try to play it off as fake edge where he’s just taking himself way too seriously, but I flat out think Sirus is just cool.

what’s  your  biggest  inspiration  when  it  comes  to  writing : Hard to say right now seeing as my inspiration has kinda fallen into a big hole, but one of my biggest inspirations and joys of RPing is seeing how other characters might react to certain things, and the stories that certain scenarios or reactions might create. Obviously it’s not all about getting reactions, I am genuinely here to create fun interactions with characters, but I gotta admit I’m a DM/Games Designer at heart, I thrive on seeing what people think of my stuff, and I get a lot more joy out of reading a reply than writing one.

favorite  types  of  threads : While I don’t typically go for the big emotional, dramatic threads, I certainly still enjoy them. Personally though, I feel I’m a lot simpler in that I love writing cool sitations or scenarios. Obviously the character depths compliment that and I have no problem with two characters simply talking it out, but if I was forced to choose, I would pick an action-y, exciting thread over a slow, emotional one.

biggest  struggle  in  regards  to  your  current  muse : Same as before, gonna split it in two for the definition of ‘current muse’.

Klauvis: While I love writing all his aggressive curiosity and silly science stuff, that’s in part why I sometimes struggle with him, or thinking of plot ideas for him. He’s very singularly minded a lot of the time, and while I can certainly think of a thousand different things he could be doing, sometimes it’s hard to work those in with other characters, and in the event a character is notably ‘unique’, it’s hard to honestly justify Klauvis not just attempting to kidnap and aggressively Do Science on them out of his overwhelming curiosity. He’s obsessed with his scientific pursuits to the point it’s hard to get him to do other stuff realistically.

Sirus @antagonistic-arsonist: Sirus is an asshole. It’s literally in his blog name. He is molded to be hostile to almost anyone and everyone, and while that might open up a lot of room for snarky remarks, witty comebacks and general dickery, it also makes getting him to interact with anyone a pain because he is designed to be unlikeable in many aspects. If someone was able to actually befriend Sirus, that would probably be my FAVOURITE thread ever because it would allow me to do all the cool stuff I love doing with Sirus without the weight of him having to be so hostile to everyone. I want someone to break the mold of hostility with him and actually become the closest thing to friends someone can with him, because I think it could make for a really interesting relationship.

tagged by: @littlexbluexflame​​

tagging: Y’all (jus do it)

[murasaki-murasame]

Thoughts on Sarazanmai Episode 6: “I Want To Connect, So I’m Not Giving Up”

All things considered, this episode was way more positive and hopeful than I expected, but it still hurt in it’s own way, and Ikuhara is still aiming to literally murder me with these post-ED scenes.

I was worried that Ikuhara wasn’t going to be able to pace out an 11-episode anime properly, but thus far it’s been fine, and this episode in particular gives me hope that the rest of the show will be just as good.

Also, I really think that anyone watching the show by this point needs to at least check out the ReoMabu prequel manga, if not also their twitter account, so you can get more context for their relationship, now that they’re becoming more prominent.

Anyway, thoughts under the cut.

It almost feels like a spoiler to include the episode title at the top of the post, since it’s one of the big emotional climaxes of the whole episode, but oh well. I still really love how this series is using it’s episode titles to hammer in specific emotions at the end of each episode.

This episode title also reflects how this is the episode where the patterns that have made up the show thus far have pretty much veered off-track. There were no musical numbers, no transformation scenes, no new Lucky Selfie Item, the kappa zombie of the week is determined to have love instead of desire, and for the first time ever, the episode title is actually a positive one that shows how Kazuki has grown as a person. I haven’t watched Penguindrum or Yuri Kuma Arashi yet, but I really like how Ikuhara intentionally deviates from the episodic patterns he sets up in order to create a sense of dissonance and change, and this is a great example of that. It really feels like this is the halfway mark that’s bridging the two halves of the show. I wouldn’t be surprised if the kappa zombie of the week stuff more or less stops after this, with how Reo and Mabu seem to be changing tactics, and the main trio are more aware of how the process works and how they’re erasing people from existence by defeating the kappa zombies.

Even though this is just the mid-season climax [and the point where the first of the two light novel volumes ends], it really feels like it could almost work as a full-on season finale, or at least a penultimate episode, with how it pretty much wraps up Kazuki’s entire character arc. But we still have five more episodes to go, and the post-ED scene in particular makes it clear that there’s still more to delve into. As I said above, I was worried that, based on what I’ve heard about Yuri Kuma Arashi, Ikuhara isn’t good at properly pacing out 1-cour anime, but this episode in particular makes it feel like if he was bad at it before, he’s certainly gotten a lot better at it. The pacing actually sorta reminds me of Planet With from last year, in how it feels like every single scene in this show is meaningful, and it feels like there’s more development than you get in most full series.

And on the note of Kazuki’s development, it didn’t go at all how I expected, but I’m really happy with how it went. I was honestly expecting Haruka to get turned into a kappa zombie and for the main trio to find out about the ‘erasure from existence’ thing after they defeated him, so I was surprised to see that he got saved, and I definitely wasn’t expecting it to also involve Kazuki finally accepting his brother’s love and saving him, after being given the choice to basically kill himself to erase all of his sins.

I think we can all agree that that whole sequence in this episode was ultimately a metaphor for him being suicidal and thinking that if he could die, or if he could have never been born in the first place, then everything would be better. There was just a vague plot mechanism in place to make him think that that might be genuinely true. Kazuki is a really complex and divisive character in a lot of ways, but moments like this really make it clear that he’s just a depressed teenager who feels unworthy of love. So it was nice to see Enta and Toi come through to save him before he could go through with killing himself [especially with how that whole bit incorporated Toi’s gun and Enta’s soccer skills].

The big climax of Kazuki’s arc, and his acceptance of Haruka’s love, ties in a lot with how we finally get some fairly blunt info about how society works in this series, and what exactly the loss of a Shirikodama means for a person. Like with how basically every Ikuhara anime is ultimately concerned with the idea of society being made of an in-group and an out-group, with being forced into the out-group being equivalent to death [but also to transcendence, sometimes], people in Sarazanmai are connected via their Shirikodama, and the linked desires that they represent, with those who cannot ‘connect desires’ being forced out of that circle of connection, and erased from existence. There’s a lot of in-universe lore and jargon going on there, but it basically boils down to ‘isolated outcasts get rejected and forgotten’. But on a more small-scale and personal level, this episode also explores the idea of smaller social circles, and the way that people can be rejected from them, and reject themselves from them. Kazuki feels that he was always on the outside of the circle after he found out that he was adopted into his family, and he’s been pushing Haruka away and refusing to connect with him directly for a variety of reasons. He’s been intentionally rejecting himself from that circle this whole time, and his big emotional realization in this episode is that Haruka genuinely loves him and just wants to have a normal relationship with him, and that he can allow himself to be loved and accepted into that circle. He can allow himself to be chosen. The fact that Haruka wants Kazuki to know that they’re a part of a circle together, from beginning to end, pretty much encapsulates all of that.

We also learn that part of why Haruka also has his own self-loathing issues going on is because he stole Kazuki’s mother’s scent pouch and rejected her out of fear that she’d steal Kazuki away from him. So he probably feels responsible for what ended up happening that day when Kazuki went to go see his mother at the train station.

I really hope we get to see the two of them interacting and talking things out soon. In a lot of ways their whole arc together has basically wrapped up, but it’ll still be nice to actually see their relationship improving.

I’m curious to see if Kazuki’s going to ever go back to his cross-dressing days now that the whole Sara thing has been exposed, and he’s finally allowed himself to love and be loved by Haruka as himself. I guess that’ll be what shows whether he only cross-dressed solely to try and connect with Haruka, or if he also had other reasons for it.

I have the wonder what’s gonna happen with the main trio now that Kazuki’s come to his big character development climax moment, and they all have a better understanding of how the kappa zombie thing works, and about the broader otter/kappa conflict. It’s also worth noting that, since they apparently defeated the sachet kappa zombie for good this time, they should have their fourth silver plate of hope, so they should just be one away from getting a full gold one. I’m really curious to see how that turns out, since I don’t think Kazuki is going to care about it at this point, since he’s managed to restore his relationship with Haruka without it. I think he’ll just let Toi or Enta use the gold plate for their own wish instead. And out of the two of them, with how things are going, it seems like Enta will probably end up letting Toi make the wish for himself.

It’s worth pointing out that even though Kazuki’s development more or less wrapped up here, there’s presumably more to do with Toi and Enta and their own personal conflicts. I think they’re each going to get one more focus episode before the anime wraps up. I don’t know entirely how their own stories will end, but Toi still needs to sort things out with him and his brother, and Enta clearly has to do SOMETHING about his repressed crush on Kazuki.

I would say that it feels like there’s actually not much more that even needs to happen with the main trio at this point since they’ve gotten so much focus and development already, but that’s where Reo and Mabu come in, since they’re clearly going to be way more prominent in the second half. The synopsis preview for episode 7 seems to imply that we’ll get more backstory for them, which will hopefully include the short chapter from the light novel that the anime’s apparently skipped over thus far. At the very least, this episode’s post-ED scene is enough to make it clear that there’s a lot to learn about them.

At first I was super thrown off by that whole scene, mostly because the art used for the backgrounds was so stylized that it looked like it took place on some fantasy planet, but after thinking about it, it makes sense, and I think it still slots into the same timeline as the manga and their twitter account. I think that their twitter account basically ended with the two of them getting drafted into the Otter Empire, and the post-ED scene in this episode shows them serving in the empire afterwards, and Mabu getting killed in the middle of them trying to finally capture Prince Keppi. It’s all very sudden, but it makes sense. And obviously we’ll learn more about it later.

It still looks like Mabu is being kept alive by a mechanical heart, which was probably provided by the Otter Empire in exchange for their continued service. But we still don’t know exactly how he got given that heart, and what his maintenance entails. It seems interesting that his situation resembles what Keppi said about the effects of having a Shirikodama removed, but Mabu still seems to be around, and Reo still remembers him and their history together, even if Mabu does seem to have lost his emotions. Maybe his mechanical heart is basically keeping him in a stasis where he’s not completely rejected from the circle like the defeated kappa zombies are. It might be worth noting that we’ve also only seen Reo interact with Mabu at all thus far, but that might just be a coincidence.

It looks like their goal, or at least Reo’s, has shifted over to capturing Keppi once and for all now that they’ve seen him in the security camera footage of the main trio saving Haruka. It definitely looks like his ultimate plan is probably to use Keppi to make a gold plate of hope that he can use to wish Mabu back to how he used to be. And honestly at this point I think he deserves it, lol. The main trio’s problems are all just real-life relationship issues that can be resolved through communication and honesty, but Reo doesn’t really have much of a choice if he wants to fix the issue of Mabu being a living corpse fueled by a magical mechanical heart.

I’m really curious to see how their methods change after this, now that they have a more concrete goal. I wonder if they’ll keep making new kappa zombies each episode, or if they’ll continue to play a more active role in things.

At the very least, I think that there’ll be a sequence later on where the two of them get their own Sarazanmai musical sequence and secret-leaking scene. It’d just make sense in a lot of ways if we find out that, similar to the main trio, they can transform into otters and do the whole Sarazanmai thing.

I’m also still curious to see if/when their connection to Sara comes up in the story, especially since it seems like the prequel manga is probably canon to the anime. I think it’d at least be weird if it doesn’t come up at all, since the fact that they raised Sara seems like a pretty big deal.

And on the note of her, and the prequel manga’s plot in general, this episode raises even more questions, even if it answers at least one. At the very least, it looks like the sleepwalking dude at the end of the manga was her manager, and the silhouetted figure with a crown was Prince Keppi. But even knowing that just raises it’s own questions. In particular, why didn’t Keppi mention Sara in his whole info-dump about the otter/kappa war? He basically acted like he was the only surviving member of his kingdom, but Sara [and her manager] are obviously still around. She’s even a popular TV idol, and even uses her kappa form as a mascot, so Keppi should at least be aware that she exists. So I wonder if he might be intentionally trying to hide his connection to her, for one reason or another. In particular, I wonder if maybe Keppi is trying to protect her from the Otter Empire by acting like he’s the only kappa left alive, so they won’t get suspicious of her. Though it’s hard not to think that his overall motives might be more sinister after his episode, so who knows.

I have a feeling that Sara might also have the power to produce dishes of hope like Keppi can, regardless of what he says about him being the only one able to do that. If she does, I could see that leading to an ending where she’s able to grant Reo’s wish, and they can basically go back to being a family together.

This episode kinda makes me even more confused about Sara in general, though. Now that we know more about the reality of the war going on, and the kappa being a nearly extinct kingdom, you’d think that she wouldn’t be quite so flippant about transforming into a kappa in public, or using her kappa form as a mascot on TV. Episode 5 also made her seem a lot more . . . spacey and off in her own world, in a way, than how she seemed at the end of the prequel manga. I wonder how she feels about all of this.

I was a bit worried that the show has been spending so much time on the main trio that it wouldn’t have enough time to really go into Reo and Mabu, and the whole otter/kappa conflict, and so on, but it looks like all of that is becoming a lot more important now, and this episode already spelled out a lot of info, so I think it should work out fine.

I really want to check out the light novels now, but I’ve already decided that I’ll wait until near the end of the year to buy both volumes together. I did import the ReoMabu manga yesterday, though, so that should get here next week. I have a feeling I’ll also end up importing the physical volumes of the new manga adaptation as well, lol.

All in all, this was a really fantastic episode. I’m really happy that Ikuhara hasn’t lost his touch, and that we’re still getting such great shows from him. Now I’m just crossing my fingers and hoping that the second half of the show can stick the landing.

[killscreencinema]

The Witcher 3:  The Wild Hunt (PS4)

There’s a necrophage, eatin’ up your neighborhood.

Who you gonna call?

The Witcher!

I’m so very sorry for that.  I didn’t know how else to start this review.

The Witcher 3:  The Wild Hunt, developed and published by CD Projekt Red, is the third in the series of games based on the fantasy novels of Andrzej Sapkowski.  The series follows Geralt of Rivia, a white-haired warrior who has been trained since childhood to hunt monsters by a guild known as the Witchers.  In this game, Geralt is searching for his young Witcher protege, Ciri, who has gone missing while on the run from a powerful supernatural force known as The Wild Hunt.  Geralt must traverse a war torn foreign land in his search, diplomatically navigating through local political upheavals, gang wars, as well as helping old friends and new along the way, while taking on monster hunting contracts in order to make ends meet.  

I’d heard nothing but good things about this game since its release in 2015, but was reluctant to play it as I had never played the first two Witcher games.  If you happen to have the same hang up, then let me relieve you with the news that, while knowledge of both the games and the books would certainly augment the experience (as characters reference previous events numerous times), the story is so well crafted, and the characters so well realized, you’ll catch on in no time.  If anything, the game will make you curious to further explore the lore of the series by reading the books or playing the previous games (personally, I’ve already added the books to my Amazon wishlist - I am in!). 

The Witcher 3 is very reminiscent of games like Dragon Age, especially in how your choices have consequences.  The choices you are given aren’t cut-and-dry, black-and-white simple choices either.  Sometimes you’ll do what seems like the right thing, only for it to have dreadful consequences later.  The story is so immersive, the characters so well written, that when a negative outcomes results from your decision making, it comes as an emotional gut punch.  For example, during one of the many compelling side quests, I was tasked to find a nobleman’s family, who had “disappeared”.  The more you investigate, though, the more you find out they didn’t simply disappear, they ran away after a drunken domestic argument with the nobleman got so violent it caused the wife to have a miscarriage.  By the time you track the family down, the wife has lost her mind after becoming enthralled by a trio of witches and the daughter, who absolutely hates her father by his point, has joined a cult.  Devastated by these turn of events, the nobleman takes his own life, which you only find out about after you return to his castle to find him hanging by a tree.  Mind you, this was just a SIDE QUEST, and yet the story had so much dramatic weight and complexity that when I reached its grim conclusion, I verbally exclaimed “Oh no” to nobody in particular.  

I can’t move on from talking about the story without mentioning Geralt, who is one of the most likeable gravelly voiced protagonists this side of Solid Snake.  While Geralt very much embodies the loner hero archetype, he also has a sense of humor and a... er... a passion for life’s finer pleasures... that rounds out those loner edges and gives him enough humanity as to be somewhat relatable.  For example, there’s a sidequest in the game involving Geralt having to perform in a play that is positively delightful to watch as he woodenly delivers hackneyed lines about a Witcher’s duty.  As I alluded to above, Geralt has a... very active love life, depending on the choices you make in the game, and The Witcher series is famous for featuring pretty graphic sex scenes.  Whenever presented with the option of having sex in a game, I always ALWAYS go for it, because I’m an immature child, and boy do you pay for that mentality in this game.  I actually felt bad when Geralt’s promiscuity leads to destroying his relationships with both of his main love interests.  So pro-tip, if you want the game to end with Geralt still in good graces with both Triss and Yen, you had better just pick one and commit (pick Triss - she’s much more likable and she’s a redhead). 

While the story is certainly a highlight, the gameplay is no slouch either.  While the combat is your standard hack-n-slashery, you are deeply encouraged to prepare for each enemy encounter via using the appropriate oils for your swords, spells that particular enemies are weak against, and potions for augmentations.  If you don’t pay attention to these things, this game will kick your ass, especially during the monster contract missions, where each monster you face are basically boss level fights.  You create these various oils and potions by, you guessed it, crafting various ingredients you find along the way.  This can be tiresome at first, but the further along you get in the game, the more this stuff just happens to be in your inventory.   I rarely had to go out of my way to seek out rare ingredients to craft stuff, the tedium of which can often kill gameplay momentum dead. 

Before I finish up, I must talk about Gwent, the deckbuilding card game that you can play to complete certain side quests for money and experience.  As I am wont to do, I completely ignored Gwent for the majority of my playthrough as I have no patience to learn how to play a card game while playing a perfectly satisfactory action RPG.  At some point, on a boring night when I was fatigued after completing a lengthy side quest but not quite ready to go to bed, I finally gave Gwent a real shot as a lark.  I’ll be damned if it turned out to be a quite a fun little card game!  I became hooked, immediately prioritizing all of the Gwent side quests which had been on my “Active Quest” list for some time.  I won’t go over the rules of the game, as this review is long enough already, but suffice it to say it’s similar to games like Magic: The Gathering (I say “similar” but definitely not the same).  It’s regrettable that the game has certain Gwent related sidequests that you can’t beat if you take up an interest in it too late.  I enjoyed Gwent so much I even considered buying the Gwent game on PS4, but that looks like a micro-transaction extravaganza.

Anyway, The Witcher 3 graphics are breathtaking, as you can well imagine a game of this generation would have to be to keep up.  The music is an interesting mix of Celtic strings and chorus (if I knew enough about music, I’d elaborate, but that’s all I got!).  Overall, believe the hype - The Witcher 3 is as perfect a game as it gets, although I’d advise playing it on a more powerful system, such as PC, as the loading times on the PS4 (especially after you die and the game reloads) is absolutely frustrating.  Not a dealbreaker by any stretch, but it’s annoying and ever present.

[themagiciansreccenter]

Author Spotlight: @highkingfen

Every week we are going to be interviewing a writer from The Magicians fandom. If you would like to be interviewed or you want to nominate a writer, get in touch via our ask box.

First things first, tell us a little about yourself.

I am Cath, I’m 27 years old, I speak French and I live in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. I met my husband on Tumblr, I love cosplaying and doing edits in photoshop. My main blog is @booksandanxieties and, my other side blogs are @themagiciansweirdface and @fillorymedia. I also co-own @neitherlandslibrary.

How long have you been writing for?

Since I am 12, there’s some french harry potter fic written by me in the dark web of ff.net.

What inspired you to start writing for The Magicians?

I missed writing! And there was not a lot of fics when I join (Still remember there were only 15 pages on ao3)

Who is/are your favourite character(s) to write? What it is about them that makes them your favourite?

Arielle and Fen, which is odd I am aware ahha! I adore writing about them because first, we don’t get to see them a lot and I love to explore what they could be and their story and I love writing about what it is to live in Filory and all of its lore, they are both great protagonists to do so.

Do you have a preference for a particular season/point in time to write about?

Lately, I have been fixed on 3x05 (life in the day) because I wrote an entire fic named The Golden Tile that is about the first five years of Eliot and Quentin in Fillory’s past. I love rewriting whole season with canon divergences. What if’s are fun to write especially in this fandom, the timelines make it easy to do it!

Are you working on anything right now? Care to give us an idea about it?

As some may know, I am currently writing an Unofficial The Magicians dnd book! ( @unofficialmagiciansdnd ) It is about 65% done. I have still some of the mechanics to write and a lot of lists to create (Such as a list of spells or a list of magical creatures)

I also write on the side Book 2 of The Golden Tile named Under Pressure. I finished the first fic with a surprise plot twist that was canon divergent, with the second book I explore the consequence; what if Eliot and Quentin found the golden tile 5 years into their quest and comes back on Earth 5 years older with Arielle and Rupert.

How long is your “to do list”?

Not so long, I try to focus on what I write and I tend not to think of other things. But I do have a Twin!Au with Fen and Q that I want to write and Book 2 of my Fenfic where we see her point of view during season 2 and 3.

What is your favourite fic that you’ve written for The Magicians? Why?

That’s cruel to ask. I have two that I am rather proud but if I have to choose, I’d say The Girl from the World in The Wall (that I nicknamed my fenfic) which is the story of Fen before Eliot. We follow her from her 2 years old until she married the High King, learning his name on the altar.

I had started to write it after season 2, totally in love with Fen and mad that we didn’t know anything about her and mad at how the gang treated her. So I wondered what it was to be raised knowing you might marry a king. The word might is important since they didn’t know if Eliot would ever come. I wanted to explore how did she join the FU Fighter and why, despite her beliefs, she accepts her forced marriage. There was a lot to explore there so I started to untangle everything and ended up having to create lore for Fillory because we do not know much of what it is to be a farmer, knifemakers, peasant, in this land. I fell deeply in love with the lore and discovered in Fen a strong woman that decided to choose love and kindness, not out of naivety, but because it is the right thing to do.

When Season 3 aired, I’d finished writing the fic (it was a NaNoWriMo goal) and I was more than happy to discover that what I’d written actually fit what they wrote about her. I ADORE that we got to know her more and don’t get me started on her being an acting king.

P.s: Some of the lore in the Fenfic ended up leaking in The Golden Tile; I love tying my fics in one large universe.

Many writers have a fic that they are passionate about that doesn’t get the reception from the fandom that they hoped for. Do you have a fic you would like more people to read and appreciate?

My fenfic, hands down. I wish they would read The Girl from the world in the wall to see where most of the lore and my love of Fillory comes from. Fen is underestimated in the fandom (Though less since season 3) and deserve more recognition.

What is your writing process like? Do you have any traditions or superstitions that you like to stick to when you’re writing?

I listen to podcasts all the time so when I write, I need silence. Music distracts me. I always need the thesaurus synonym because I tend to use the same word over and over or know what a word means but finding it imprecise. Which makes writing without internet hard, but now that I know its a must, I try as much as I can, to write where wifi is. Also, I can’t write if someone is in the room. Even if they are doing their own stuff. I don’t know why. Even when I was writing essays for classes it was like that.

Do you write while the seasons are airing or do you prefer to wait for hiatus? How does the ongoing development of the canon influence and inspire your writing process?

I had nothing really going during season 3 and then episode 5 happen and I kinda exploded. Knowing it was a self-contained story (the life having already been lived by Q and Eliot) I started to write while it was airing. It is at the end of it that I decided that the ending of The Golden Tile could be interesting if it was canon divergent; I’m excited to see what Arielle and Rupert bring into the group and if it will lead toward the same choice. Only time will tell!

Otherwise, I usually write One Shot during airing season time, that way I don’t have to overthink things if what I write is not canon compliant anymore.

What has been the most challenging fic for you to write?

My Fenfic. Maybe that’s why it is the one I am the proudest of. To have to create a whole character and yet stick to the canon was exciting. As well as reading as much as I can about Fillory. There was not a lot about it online at the time, so it had been meticulous research (I had the map of FIllory open most of the time I was writing just to be sure of the place I was saying were compliant. ) Before I never did much research before writing a fic, now it is one of my favorite parts

Are there any themes or tropes that you particularly like to explore in your writing?

Canon divergence, as you can see! I love to see the butterfly effect and how one thing can change the whole story. My first longfic Shake it off was about Eliot forcing back Quentin on his med. And that changed a lot of things! Yay for timelines that can make us say its canon!

Are there any writers that inspire your work? Fanfiction or otherwise?

J.K Rowling will always be important for my writing because her universe made me want to write. I read a lot of YA so I can say the author influence my writing because, through reading, I discover what I like and what I don’t which makes me better in the end.

Fanfic-wise, I discovered a lot of great author in this fandom and I hate naming people because if I don’t name someone they might be sad or get discouraged, and I don’t want that. I adore that we got so many writers and that the subjects are so different. It’s not only one trope on one ship over and over. Sometimes I read a summary and I laughed cause I wonder how the author came up with the idea! It made me want to be better and write more elaborate and less easy trope fics.

What are you currently reading? Fanfiction or otherwise?

Depression had kicked my ass with reading. I went from reading 92 books last year to 4 this year. So yeah, I don’t read as much, but I try to get back in, now that I am feeling better.

I just finished reading There there be Gerblins, a graphic novel of the first arch of The Adventure Zone podcast. It’s really good and funny. In fact, this podcast is part of the inspiration of me writing the DND book.

The Dnd book writing means that I carry everywhere the 5th edition of Dungeon and Dragon with me. It is not a copycat of it, but there are mechanics that are the same or, sometimes, they help me just figure out how to structure the book itself. I love the weird look I get when I go to Starbuck with it.

I just bought a new book by J.K Rowling name Very Good lives and I am excited to read it when I’m going in my next trip; a plane without wifi is a good excuse to read.

Fanfic wise; I usually binge. I wait a month or two and then read everything I haven’t read. But one fic I read the moment there is a new chapter is The Mess We Made by Rays. I looooovelove love it. A must read

What is the most valuable piece of writing advice you’ve ever been given?

Write first, edit after. Otherwise, you’ll edit the same paragraph the rest of your life.

that or

If 50 shades of gray can be published, you can do it.

they are my two mottoes.

Cringe time:

Are there any words or phrases you worry about overusing in your work?

oh, I have a ton of them. I can’t think of one example but sometimes I get stuck on a word on a paragraph and I am using it for like ever. Hense the wonder of thesaurus synonym website.

What was the first fanfic that you wrote? Do you still have access to it?

A harry potter one, I probably can find it. I don’t want to. LOL

Rapid Fire Round:

Self-edit or Beta? Self-edit, trying the Beta for Under Pressure!

Comments or Kudos/Reblogs or Likes? COMMENTS FOR SURE I LIVE FOR THOSE. how many time did one comment make me continue to write! But honestly, anytime someone acknowledges they read my thing, I am happy and blown away. I forget sometimes, that people want to read my stuff.

Smut, Fluff or Angst? All of the above? Honestly? Depend on the mood!

Quick & Dirty or Slow Burn? Depend on the mood too! Usually slow burn but sometimes a good Quick & Dirty is always good

Favourite season? 3

Favourite episode? Six Stories about Magic

Favourite book(The Magicians books)? The first one

Three favourite words? Bunny, kindness, writing

Want to be interviewed for our author spotlight? Get in touch here.

[acsversace-news]

You finally need two hands to count all the current TV shows with Asian American protagonists. Fresh Off the Boat (ABC) and Master of None(Netflix) arrived with fanfare for breaking ground (though a third season of Aziz Ansari’s romantic comedy was uncertain even before the star’s current scandal), while Quantico (ABC) and Into the Badlands (AMC) keeping chugging along, and the comedy Brown Nation (Netflix) and children’s melodrama Andi Mack (Disney Channel) have yet to become blips on the mainstream pop cultural radar. So it’s a bit strange, and off-putting, that the latest series with an Asian lead—one of the most anticipated shows of the year, it so happens—isn’t being described as such. In fact, its network—once a standard-bearer for prestige TV’s lack of diversity—is highlighting the drama’s focus on queerness and homophobia—and by doing so largely erasing its main character’s racial identity, especially in the first half of his story.

The Assassination of Gianni Versace: American Crime Story isn’t about the titular victim but his killer: Andrew Cunanan, a San Diego native born to a Filipino father and an Italian American mother. Writer Tom Rob Smith adapted journalist Maureen Orth’s nonfiction account Vulgar Favors, structuring the episodes in reverse chronological order so we work backward from Versace’s murder. In a recent interview, Smith said of his source material that it “reads very much like an outsider commenting on a world of which they’re not part, and sometimes that can make you seem quite removed from it.” I agree with his assessment; Orth’s book includes lengthy and salacious discussions of Versace’s HIV status and the popularity of meth among gay communities. But Smith’s description could also be turned on The Assassination of Gianni Versace, which is a white writer’s dramatization of another white writer’s interpretation. American Crime Story’s first season, The People v. O.J. Simpson, tackled issues of both race and gender skillfully; there’s no reason why we should accept any less from its second.

The show’s Andrew, played by Darren Criss, does mention his father’s plantation in the Philippines early on. But between his pathological lying and that country’s colonial past, his race isn’t confirmed till about midway through the nine-hour season. A few character details here and there suggest Andrew’s racial self-hatred and the prevalence of anti-Asian racism within the gay community, but the relative sparseness of these implications is all the more noteworthy in contrast with the richly developed portrait of the decade’s homophobia.

Credit where it’s due, even if the bar for praise here is laughably low because Hollywood’s institutional aversion toward Asian stories and characters remains so entrenched: In casting Glee’s Criss (who played Blaine Anderson), Ryan Murphy hired a half-Filipino (if white-passing) actor to play the half-Filipino role of Andrew Cunanan. Criss is excellent, and in later episodes, the Philippines-born Broadway performer Jon Jon Briones is electrifying as Andrew’s father, the sociopathic Modesto, who teaches his favorite child all the wrong lessons about the American dream.

If The Assassination of Gianni Versace feels urgent as it revisits the stifling homophobia of the ’90s, it’s far less successful in reimagining Cunanan from a racialized point of view, at least in the first eight episodes. (The season finale was not provided to critics in advance.) It’s certainly not as if those racial and ethnic depictions of Cunanan don’t exist. In his analysis of the divergent foci of the mainstream American and Filipino American media narratives about Cunanan, scholar Allan Punzalan Isaac notes that the former wagged its tongue about his “deviant” sexuality (Tom Brokaw infamously referred to the killer as a “homicidal homosexual”), while consumers of the latter looked on with a mixture of “pleasure and horror.” The horror is understandable enough. The pleasure, perhaps, is easier to grasp when you’re part of a group whose presence and history are constantly made invisible by the larger American culture. “Perhaps [the Filipino American fascination with Cunanan] stemmed from a longing to be reflected in the small screen in this American media sensation,” Isaac wrote several years after Cunanan’s death. Filipinos preferred participation, he conjectures, in “any American drama, even for the wrong reasons.”

Nearly all of the eight Filipino American scholars, activists, and advocates I talked to for this story say that Cunanan has fallen out of popular Filipino American lore, just as he’s been forgotten by American pop culture until now. Professor Christine Bacareza Balance told me in an email interview that when she polled 40 or so students in a recent Filipino American Studies course, only one or two knew who Cunanan was. But among gay Filipino Americans, he remains something of a cult figure and for a few Filipino American writers, a literary muse. Isaac begins his seminal book about Filipino American identity, American Tropics, with a meditation on Cunanan’s incarnation of many of the concepts central to his subject: the possibility of “assimilation gone wrong,” the fear of rejection and the eagerness to belong, the embodiment of Filipino/American “mestizo” beauty standards, the corresponding ethnic ambiguity. (Isaac quotes a New York Times article describing Cunanan’s face as “so nondescript that it appears vaguely familiar to just about everyone.”) Paul Ocampo, a co-chair of the Lacuna Giving Circle, a philanthropic group that fosters leadership in LGBTQ Asian American communities, offers a more cynical interpretation: “There’s an aspect of the glitter and glitz of Hollywood to this story that attracts many in the Filipino American community more than the macabre.”

It’s important to remember that Cunanan murdered five people, apparently in cold blood. His victims deserve to be mourned. But in the absence of other well-known personages (or the inconspicuousness of many successful celebrities’—e.g., Bruno Mars’— Filipino-ness,), it’s perhaps inevitable that some Filipino Americans see or project certain facets of themselves in one of the very few Filipino Americans to appear on TV and on page 1, especially during that era. Ben de Guzman, a policy advocate in D.C., saw Cunanan on the news and thought, There but for the grace of God go I. “As a young, gay Filipino American man who was around his age when he was in the news,” de Guzman recalls via email, “I was forced to look at how the same forces of homophobia and racism that informed my life must have affected him too.”

The former party boy and escort remains a symbol of queer defiance for some in the gay Filipino American community. “Here was a gay Filipino man who seemed unapologetic and daring in his acceptance of his sexuality,” says Ocampo. “In this, he seemed to exude a self-possession that many people struggle with.” Balance says that the image of Cunanan as a “queer Asian/Filipino American on the warpath” “truly goes against many dominant representations within ‘mainstream’ U.S. media.” Isaac contrasts Cunanan’s narrative with the gay/bi film Call Me by Your Name, which he observes is “set outside the U.S., outside the AIDS scare, outside any class conflict—all part of the Cunanan spectacle.” Isaac seems to anticipate a reckoning as Cunanan’s story unfurls on the series: “How is this story of intergenerational sex, wealth, casual prostitution, and reckless living in the gay demimonde of the ’90s to be received in this age of domesticated gay marriage?”

And if Cunanan’s messy and unpredictable life story seems ripe for fictional inspiration, The Assassination of Gianni Versace certainly didn’t get there first. A decade after Cunanan’s death, novelist and playwright Jessica Hagedorn (a canonical Filipino American writer), along with songwriter Mark Bennett, launched in the killer’s hometown a workshop production of their musical Most Wanted, a thinly fictionalized version of Cunanan’s story that explores media sensationalism and marginalized individuals’ desperation to belong. Smaller-scale works like Regie Cabico’s poem “Love Letter From Andrew Cunanan,” Gina Apostol’s short story “Cunanan’s Wake,” and Jason Luz’s erotic short story “Scherzo for Cunanan” likewise attempt to humanize a murderer who, while deplorable for his actions and indisputably extreme in personality, almost certainly had some desires and experiences common to many Filipino Americans. None of these works add up to a complete portrait, or could. But created from Filipino American perspectives, they explore the aspects of Cunanan’s life that white America still isn’t fully grappling with.

[alexanderwrites]

Thoughts Roundup - Twin Peaks: The Return, Part 13

“What Story is That, Charlie?”

Last week, when we were given an episode that was slow, withholding with its information, and for many, very frustrating, I wasn’t worried. I wasn’t worried, because I knew it was just a strange, brief detour and that we should focus on the journey rather than the destination. I also didn’t worry because I thought the next episode would be better, and thankfully I was right. I’m no Angelo Badalamenti, so I won’t toot my own horn too much but I think now, hours after watching it, I’m realising that I was very right, because this isn’t just a better episode, but is one of the all time best Twin Peaks episodes. It keeps that steady pace, but there’s an alchemy of all the ingredients that’ve made this season so great, which tonight forms a cohesive, exciting and deeply involving hour of television. 

. It’s party time for the Mitchum brothers, and party time for the soundtrack producers who give us one of the wildest and weirdest cuts yet. I don’t know how to describe it other than it being a demented casino style nonsense song, and I might be wrong, but the percussion pattern sounds a lot like a sped up version of the drumming in The Bookhouse Boys, a track from the Season 1 soundtrack. It’s nice seeing Coop enjoying himself, and it’s funny how happy he has made the Mitchum brothers, Janey-E, and his boss. The fact that he can still manage this despite being a silent, largely unresponsive man who walks into glass doors, speaks to the innate happiness that Cooper has always brought people, only this time it’s accidental. People want him around, and I think it’d be quite a bittersweet ending if he does wake up and leave for Twin Peaks. Yes, it’d be satisfying for us, but Janey-E wouldn’t have her husband anymore, Sonny Jim wouldn’t have a dad, and The Mitchum Brothers wouldn’t have anyone to buy pie for. Before it becomes the Everybody Loves Dougie show, Anthony steps in to put an end to him, but even he can’t bring himself to poison Dougie to death! So Dougie-Coop has his sharp black suit, a black coffee and a piece of cherry pie. Whereas we once would’ve said “THIS will be what wakes him up!”, we’ve stopped expecting it and instead learned to enjoy the pleasure he takes in scoffing the stuff down. While it can feel melancholy when signifiers from his past edge him towards who he used to be, some of these episodes hint at the idea that maybe he’s happy where he is. We want him to get back to his old self, but do we want that for him or for us? He’s had the food and drink that he loves, he’s walking around amazed by everything, and even uncovered a considerable crime. Everything about him is there, really. And I’m beginning to feel like that’s enough for me. Then the Fusco Brothers attain a crucial piece of the puzzle that’d help get Cooper back home, decide to throw it out, and I laugh “FOR FUCK’S SAKE”. Dougie’s prints reveal that he was an FBI Agent and broke out of a maximum security prison, and away this is tossed because of its unlikeliness. It’s funny, really. Because it is unlikely, it is absurd, and that such an important fact has been discovered and thrown out immediately by the police is hilariously frustrating. I loved this moment, Eric Edelstein’s weird and distinctive laugh commenting on how ridiculous this all is.

. I love how adoringly Janey E looks at Cooper when she opens the car door for him. They’ve come a long way since she was angrily cramming him into the car, and it’s nice to see her not suffering the financial burden that the original Dougie left her in. Naomi Watts is really effective when painting Janey E as someone rediscovering feelings for her husband, and it’s actually kind of touching. And Sonny Jim’s Gym is so fucking bizarre. Why does it play music-box versions of Tchaikovsky? Why does it have a prison-style search light? Why anything? I love it.  

Continuing in the lovey-dovey, not-so-bad-after-all vein of things, this season has had a lot of characters turn out to be not quite as awful as you expect them to be. The Mitchum Brothers showed a kind of generosity, Ben Horne is an altruist, and Anthony has a breakdown in front of his boss and Dougie, claiming he wants to be a better man. I mean, you can’t call him a good person just because he didn’t MURDER COOPER, but it’s nice to get a variety of technically bad people who, when it boils down to it, don’t really want to be that bad. It’s not such a bad world after all, hey?

. Actually yes it because fucking Doppelcoop is on the warpath again, and this time he’s getting what he wants via arm wrestling, just like Sylvester Stallone in Over the Top. And just like Sly claims himself to be in Over The Top, Doppelcoop is a machine, and the amount of control he displays in this scene is really quite frightening. “It hurts when you had my arm like this. Let’s go back to starting position. It’s really much more comfortable”, he says, arm-wrestling a boss of a bunch of bastards so that he can get to bad old Ray. He demonstrates that he has the entire arm-wrestle under his control, and can position his arm wherever he wants without exerting force. He can win, and kill, without trying. This is who Doppelcooper is, and why he is such a formidable force. He rarely exerts power, but when he does it is effortless and unstoppable. He will get what he wants, and every piece of his journey has been carefully manipulated and decided by him, and that’s what this scene shows. The gang watching on heavily resemble the spirits above the convenience store in FWWM, and I think this is a purposeful visual metaphor, a way to tie them visually to the evil that lurks upstairs. When Doppelcoop wins, he gets Ray and the scene that follows is an immensely satisfying one. 

The ring that we’ve seen numerous times gets a visual explanation, sort of. Ray wears it when he is killed by Doppelcoop. It then disappears to the black lodge, where his soul shows up shortly after. It seems to say quite clearly that wear the ring when you die, and you end up on that famous zig zag floor, with fucking Mike. What a bummer he’d be to spend eternity with. Before Ray snuffs it, he talks about Phillip Jeffries, who sent Ray to kill Doppelcoop because he has something he wants, which is Bob, who is in hot demand this season. I’m glad to hear Jeffries mentioned again, and part of me still holds out hope that David Bowie filmed a super duper secret cameo before he passed away, but i’m not counting on it. Maybe the closest we’ll get to seeing him is that mysterious blinking box all those episodes ago. But, Ray claims that he was last seen at a place called The Dutchman’s, and this is all Doppelcoop needs to hear. Ray’s death feels big, not necessarily because he was an important character, but because they discuss Jeffries, the ring and Major Briggs, which all ties into the mythology of the show, a mythology which was also discussed last week with Albert. Now listen, i’m easily pleased when it comes to the Twin Peaks lore - say the words ‘lodge’, ‘blue book’ or even ‘Owl’ to me and i’ll begin jittering in excitement. I may even sick up. But this is more important and integral to the storyline that simply chucking out bits of lore, and that makes it so much fucking cooler. Doppelcoop is working towards it, the Bookhouse Boys are heading towards it and the FBI are heading towards it. The idea of them converging is too fucking exciting to process. So. Ray is dead (Nobody Loved Raymond), and Doppelcoop is on his way to either Twin Peaks via the coordinates that Ray gave him, or The Dutchman’s, wherever the hell that is. 

. Tim Roth and Jennifer Jason Leigh are still driving around and i’m guessing, will hook back up with Doppelcoop soon. Their scenes are usually very short, but they’re both such great actors that i’m fine to just hear them shoot the shit for a couple of minutes. 

. Back in Twin Peaks, Becky is still having domestic issues, and Shelly is still being a warm and kind Mum, telling Becky to get to the Double R and have some pie. It’s strange seeing her serving there all these years on, and strange seeing Bobby at the counter, especially because all the camera angles that used to capture the diner are absent, and we’re seeing the place in a completely different visual manner. It feels much more like a legitimate restaurant now, and this is developed with Norma discussing business options with who seems to be her boyfriend. So, no. She didn’t end up with Big Ed, and like Bobby watching Shelly and wondering what might’ve been, Ed watches Norma from a booth further down. He can see her clearly, but she’s a world away. There’s a deep melancholy in seeing Big Ed alone, things clearly not having worked out with either Norma or Nadine. The past, when things looked hopeful, feel like a million years ago, and everything has changed since then. Except for him. Bobby has grown up and become someone his father would’ve been proud of, Norma is franchising, Nadine has perfected the silent drapes. But Big Ed is still pining across the shiny tables for Norma like it’s 1990. 

And Norma is trying to keep things as they are, too. She’s encouraged to change the name of the restaurant, but she wants to keep it as it is, the way people know it. It’s an argument that summarises the attitude of The Return: do you give in and listen to what you’re being told people want, or do you follow your gut and make choices you are passionate about, in the way that you decide? Thank god Lynch and Frost didn’t listen to anyone. Norma knows what the Double R means to the people of the town, and she knows how much people need it, as a source of comfort and of solace. And she can franchise, and have restaurants popping up that try to be the real deal, but there’s really only one Double R, and there’s only one Twin Peaks. And in these scenes, that feeling of solace and comfort feels close yet a million miles away: unmistakably warm, but shot through with that heartrending, small town melancholy. There’s nothing quite like it.

(A little thing I noticed about Bobby - he says he found his dad’s old stuff “today” - but they found his stuff several episode ago, and since then Bobby has been seen at night. So is this Double R scene not chronological, and is actually set a few days back?)

. The reason that the comfort of the Double R feels somehow distant, unattainable and kind of false is because of scenes like Audrey’s in this episode. We can’t sit in the diner and pretend everything is okay in the town, when we know a storm is brewing outside. The argument has moved on between her and Charlie, from being about what has happened to how Audrey feels. And how she feels is heartbreaking. Like she’s not herself and that she doesn’t know who she is, and Charlie’s reaction? Scorn. Condescension. Treating her like the teenager she was when we last saw her. The scene has moved away from feeling frustrating and into nightmarish territory, the wood panelling of the walls making the room feel like a cabin in purgatory, or a real life black lodge. And Charlie’s words become more vague, and more frightening. He speaks of ‘ending her story’, and the discomfort of this scene really brings into the question the dynamics between the two, who he really is, and where they really are. The scene develops an emotional core to the storyline, and we begin to desperately want Audrey to get out from between these two worlds that she’s stuck in, and to leave that horrible room. Like Big Ed, like Cooper and like so many others, she is trying to return, but is stuck. 

. How they’ve managed to make the Palmer living room look more frightening than it did before is beyond me. Sarah drinks and smokes in the sickly darkness, watching a 15 second loop of an ancient boxing match which repeats ad nauseum, like the electric bear that spoke the words “Hello Johnny, how are you today?” endlessly a few episodes back. It feels nightmarish, and you want it to end. But it is stuck. Are we sensing the theme in play here again? The room feels angry and oppressive, and it’s reasonable to expect something evil and awful to materialise in it at any moment. But the horror is not Bob, or the ceiling fan, but the situation of Sarah: a woman who has lost everything, and whose life is full of dread and solitude. 

. Nadine and Dr Jacoby’s interaction is lovely, and feels like a genuine moment between two old friends who haven’t seen each other for many years. Except one has an eyepatch and a silent drape running shop and the other sells golden shit shovels via his angry livestreams. The point is, it feels real, and Wendy Robie still beautifully imbues Nadine with that almost schoolgirlish nervousness and innocence. She is pure in her exuberance towards Jacoby and her drapes, and she seems star struck by her former doctor. I’m so fond of Nadine, and there is a moment that hints at a sadness or darkness in her past, when Jacoby remembers seeing her on her hands and knees in a supermarket trying to pick up a potato. “There was a storm that night”, he says, and she looks afraid, and sad. What happened to her? What happened to all these people in this town? What has time done to them, and why do they all have to live with such pain? 

. And before we know it, we’re back at the Roadhouse, and this week we have probably the most divisive (read: unpopular) performer yet. Yes, it’s James Forehead Hurley, singing Just You and I. I can’t pretend to feel how i’m supposed to feel as a Twin Peaks fan and hate on this, because truly, I loved this moment. I loved it more than any roadhouse scene yet, and I have a big soft spot for James. The poor bastard had a rough time of it, and yes, he was a moody mope, but I feel for him. I was moved by seeing him received so well by the audience, and seeing him perform that song (which I will now have in my head for the next fortnight) made him look young and happy again, and I found it massively touching. It was a bittersweet moment of nostalgic melancholy, elevated by the image of Big Ed back at the Gas Farm, eating his Double R soup all alone. 

There Ed sits, thinking about how things were, and how they are now. Or maybe it’s us that’s thinking about it. Because we can listen to old songs, and sit in the Double R eating cherry pie, but we know evil forces are on their way to town, and already exist there. There is a goodness too, in the log lady, the bookhouse boys, in Ed, Norma, and Nadine. But they’ve been through too much to have that innocence, and the questions that The Return brings us is how can we ever go back to the way things were? And how much power do we have to prevent the bad things from happening again? I’ve been thinking of the song Ohm by Yo La Tengo, where they sing:

“Sometimes the bad days maintain their grip Sometimes the good days fade...

But nothing ever stays the same Nothing's explained”

That feeling, that we might never get back the good days, and that it doesn’t always happen for a clear reason, is prevalent in tonight’s episode, which explores how the characters that populate the show feel. It might not be explained exactly what has happened, but as well as starting to piece together the mystery, Part 13 interrogates the deepest emotional wells of the show, and it results in a moving and beautiful episode that deftly blends darkly satisfying plot progression and emotional complexity (I know it’s weird to call an episode where someone is punched in the face to death “beautiful”, but i’m sticking with it). 

“I’m not sure who I am, but I’m not me”

[saintcheryl]

McElstuck Classpects (So Far)

I don’t have all of them because I’m simply not familiar with some of the players. Also just went over possible players, not all of em have to be there. Anyways, here’s what I got.

Grifin

Bard of Light: He needs the codpiece it’s the only way. His story-weaving prevalent in many different pieces of content could fit with the vibes of a traditional fantasy bard, but fuck it, I’ll admit it, the outfit is just really funny. He needs it. He needs the goof. Now for the light part: look, a bard “invites destruction through aspect/allows for destruction of aspect.” Light is about fortune and knowledge. I think that fits pretty damn well, most prevalent in TAZ but honestly? I get that vibe from him in a lot of things. He has the knowledge of games (especially Bethesda) that allows (invites) him to destroy them even more thoroughly.

Travis

Knight of Hope: He is an optimistic, friendly boy whom I love, and I trust. Did you see his mentorship with the Teens? He is supportive and believes in them and a knight takes advantage and fights with their aspect. A valiant, noble agent of hope, of belief. A good man. He does a hit sometimes, yes, but he apologizes. That’s just the knight-y tendencies coming through a little more. And everyone learns from the experience. Don’t do a hit! (Addendum: All HS knights “hide their innermost selves.” Travis may be hiding his true strength, his true power, his capacity for destruction since he does not want to hurt anyone.)

Justin

Heir of Blood: Blood’s all about camaraderie, and in this case with his bros it’s very literal. There isn’t much solid lore behind heirs, but they seem to be surrounded by their aspect in some way, speculated to “protect themselves with,” “become,” or “receive” the aspect. In Justin’s case, his relationship to his brothers is an essential part of his life, not just because of blood relation but also because of their bonds of friendship. As the oldest bro, it makes sense for him to embody such values.

Clint

Rogue of Life: He literally, in a way, gave the boys life. Life also pertains to his role in TAZ, or at least the role he’s SUPPOSED to have, and the safety he contributed to his town through Peace on the Playground. I was struggling with the class and settled on Rogue, but that’s still up for debate. And I’m not saying he’s going to kill anyone (that’d be more thief-y), but there was that story of him POSSIBLY killing that guy in college and selling (redistributing) all his stuff, or whatever. He also “distributes” country music via radio, which I’m sure some people see as life.

Nick

Seer of Space: Originally I felt strongly about him being a Breath player, but after going over descriptions again, Space is undeniably fitting of his role in Car Boys; they’re concerned with “the size of things and their velocity, and their existence in relation to physics” which is basically Car Boys? Dimension, creation. The whole deal with frogs, and Nick DOES greatly enjoy Kero Blaster, starring a frog. Seers “use knowledge to coordinate their team,” which I feel he does since he’s established that the workings of playing beamNG.Drive are VERY finicky and require a depth of experience. He coordinates the show quite well, and certainly uses all the little intricacies to his advantage. TTS is based around him identifying mods, which are quite obvious at times, but still humors seer tendencies. In a fairly literal sense.

Porter

Mage of Time: Okay, I’ll admit, I originally landed on time because of the thought process that went this boy->music/DJ->Dave Strider. But that’s okay, because it works, especially with Nick as space. The boy’s aesthetic caters more to space or maybe void, but works with time because of the theme of reality-bending and alternate universes. Time players are shown to have interests in death and destruction in some way, which this boy has DEFINITELY got with his prominent obsession with worlds ending in unique ways. Especially game worlds, and a huge part of time players is….the responsibility of destroying a game world. A mage possibly “gives up their aspect to gain knowledge of it,” which also just kinda Feels Right for a buncha reasons. Plus, mages are regarded as the counterparts to seers, so there’s even more connection between him and his bro.

Russ

Page of Mind: I’m mostly going off of his LAC-persona, but that makes it all the more fun. Mind is concerned with decisions and their consequences, which Russ has some...interesting history with. A page’s untapped potential ties into his development in decision-making over time. Given, a lot of his decisions were based off of Doug (and the plot of LAC definitely has to play a part in this AU with the whole patron troll thing because uhhh how could it not it’s too good) but that could just be the push he needed to become his true self.

Tara

Witch of Void: Remember Basketball Ignoring Simulator? She turned their game into a game about nothing, about doing nothing, a void, and despite the efforts of the boys and it being THEIR podcast they couldn’t stop it. They couldn’t. She was simply too powerful. Witches “manipulate” or “unlock,” which is certainly what she did here. She was one of the last members of Rev3 before it died out (became a void?) but she was there til the end, both trying to keep it from its void-y fate (“manipulate”) while also finally deciding when to let go (“unlock”). And I’m not sure how to tie in her appearance on PoolGames, Inc. in which she sat in a hot tub drinking various types of alcohol, but it feels like it fits with the classpect, in some way. Witches may break the rules of their aspect, and while I’m not sure exactly how, I do feel like she’s breaking some void rules and choosing what parts of the aspect she wants (also a witch thing). Maybe my inability to pinpoint these reasons is part of why she’s a void player. Who knows.

Simone

Knight of Heart: Heart encompasses soul, motivations, emotions, and possibly attraction. Let’s focus on the last two. Two of Simone’s videos focus on her asking strangers on the street about a) which Joy-con is Sexier, and b) which Pokemon they would date. (Kinda horny things that are also definitely a theme with her.) Very, very focused on emotion and attraction. She brings motivation into it, too, by asking why. A knight “exploits their aspect as a weapon,” and honestly? She really drilled into those people. I wouldn’t say attacking, but it’s got that Vibe, and honestly a lot of these are based on Vibe. She’s also just a funny and honest/open girl in ways that strike me as a heart player. She is, of course, quite jumpy and scared of spooky games, and is quite controlled by her uhhh Feelings during them and voices such. But, she is shown to enjoy them nonetheless, the kind of courage one might associate with a knight. She could grow into it even more; room for character development. Knights also conceal their true selves; she’s suggested that despite her fear of horror games, she absolutely loses it in the moment when playing it. Gets buckwild. Maybe that’s it.

Rileigh

Maid of Heart: I haven’t listened to Still Buffering, but from what I know, she is a Teen and a sweet, sweet girl. Maids may be connected to sylphs, drawing a connection between her and her older sister; they’re also speculated as “made of,” “provider of,” or “protects with” aspect. Heart is the soul or essence of being, and her podcast is all about Being a Teen, something that everyone struggles, struggled, or WILL struggle with at some point in time, and is arguably essential to not only one phase of life but the entirety of one’s life itself. The time in which they learn who they are and find their essence, their soul. The definition of the word “maid” is either a server or an heiress; the former could be a metaphor for how Teens are often controlled by emotions in some way, and the latter could connect to her younger-sisterhood. Thanks, Teen.

Sydnee

Sylph of Breath: She’s a doctor. It’s a given. Making her life just seemed too obvious, and we already got that one heal-y thing going, but breath is also kind of important to living? I haven’t heard her podcasts, so a lot of this is just based on the Vibe I get. Please help.

I still need help figuring out Dwight, Rachel, and Teresa, plus more depth with Sydnee, since as I said, I’m not as familiar with them and their content and don’t have enough to go off of (like I did with some others here that idk as well).

I’ll update this as it happens!

[entergamingxp]

Sakura Wars Review (PS4) — The Dream is Back

April 29, 2020 10:00 AM EST

While it has been a long wait, Sakura Wars is a satisfying blend of everything that the franchise has done well for a new generation on PS4.

Claiming that Sakura Wars (aka Sakura Taisen) is a huge franchise is an understatement. The steampunk, East meets West stylized series featuring courageous women who act as a theater revue by day and fight demons at night left a huge mark on Japanese pop culture and on anyone who encountered it. When Sega and Red Entertainment released the first Sakura Taisen game on Sega Saturn in 1996, it made history with its peculiar aforementioned mix of genres and atmospheres. Most notably, it mixed various dating simulator, tactical RPG, and adventure elements (what we commonly call visual novels in English) together. By far, it wasn’t the first game that strove to create mixes like these. Red Entertainment themselves weren’t at their first attempt, as Sakura Taisen followed in the footsteps of games such as the Galaxy Fräulein Yuna series.

Sakura Taisen, however, is the first franchise of its kind that managed to reach such mainstream stardom, at least in Japan. This is in part thanks to a very unorthodox idea back then that the franchise pulled off. The seiyuu, Japanese voice actresses and actors, of Sakura Taisen would all regularly hold “Kayou Shows”–musicals similar to the ones that players experienced in-game–that greatly contributed to establish the franchise’ cult status. Putting the seiyuu themselves in the spotlight through stage events, streams and radio shows is usual nowadays, but it was a very novel idea back then, as Sakura Taisen‘s original author Oji Hiroi recently pointed out. Today, many game and anime franchises all do their own stage play musicals in the same vein.

While the Sakura Taisen series reached a conclusion with Sakura Taisen 4 in 2002, followed by a standalone Sakura Taisen V in 2005 (the sole episode that officially left Japan), the series never truly stopped. Indeed, the mainline game part stayed dormant, but anime, manga adaptations and spinoffs, mobile games, apparitions in crossovers such as Project X Zone, and real life events such as art expositions kept it rolling around over the years. And last but not least, the Kayou Shows continued for all these years. Fan demand for a new game never relented, and Sakura Taisen is such a big piece of Sega’s (and gaming) history that culturally and business-wise, a game comeback was only a matter of time. When, and how, were the main questions. And the answer is this brand new PlayStation 4 game, titled Shin Sakura Taisen/New Sakura Wars in Japan, and simply rebranded as Sakura Wars overseas.

Sakura Wars brings back the franchise that everyone loved in a magnificent way, all while making it accessible to neophytes.

Sakura Wars, the PS4 game, is the first main game of the series in 15 years. Officially announced in March 2018 and revealed in March 2019, Sakura Wars is Sega’s attempt to fully relaunch the franchise worldwide, hence why a localization in multiple languages was announced from the get-go. The game is accompanied with its own novel, manga, and a multitude of new crossover collaborations and goods. Seeing the game is already available in Japan since December 2019, an anime sequel also started this April. A stage play was planned as well, but was sadly canceled due to COVID-19.

To be honest, as I relentlessly covered Sakura Wars news via the monthly streams that Sega organized for the game, part of myself was scared. I asked a lot of different questions to myself: “What if the game sucks? What if they only show the good parts on stream? What if I end up hating it?” I’ve rarely been this scared of being disappointed when it comes to my hobbies. It would have been incredibly painful to see the series fail its comeback and fall into oblivion. As I grabbed the game in Japanese, part of my doubts were dispelled after spending some time on it. I even attempted live translating part of the game to show my enthusiasm and spread awareness. Now with this English version, I’ve spent a considerable amount of time with the game, and I can finally affirm this now, with conviction: Sakura Wars brings back the franchise that everyone loved in a magnificent way, all while making it accessible to neophytes.

“Sakura Wars is an ADV, a pure and thorough Adventure game akin to what we call visual novels, and should be approached as such.”

Sakura Wars works both as a sequel and as a reboot. The game’s intro explains how the cast from the previous games all disappeared after a decisive battle against the demons, and introduces instead a brand new cast of main characters. Players are put in the role of Seijuro Kamiyama, a young, talented ex-marine ship captain, who’s now assigned as the captain of the Flower Division. The Flower Division is the core battle and theater unit of the Imperial Combat Revue, protecting Tokyo from demons. All big cities in the current world of Sakura Wars similarly have their own Combat Revues, and they are about to participate in a big tournament to hone their skills. However, the Imperial Combat Revue is facing both a financial and identity crisis, and it’ll be up to Kamiyama to give the Flower Division members the trust they need to overcome their issues and win the tournament, all while fighting off a new demon threat.

You might be wondering why I’ve yet to touch upon the gameplay aspect of Sakura Wars in this review, but you’ve actually been experiencing it already if you’ve read this far. Just like its predecessors, Sakura Wars is an ADV, a pure and thorough Adventure game akin to what we call visual novels, and should be approached as such. You’ll be spending the vast majority of your time in the game reading the dialogue and events unfolding as you control Kamiyama and interact with the characters.

The game reintroduces the series’ LISP system, which are short-timed dialogue choices selected with the directional stick. This aims to make the players realistically think about their words and strengthen immersion. Most of the time, players will have a clear choice between either acting in a positive and gentle way (Top Choice), in a harsh and stern way (Left Choice), or being some kind of creep or clown (Right Choice). Beyond these obvious dialogue choices, you’ll have to do your best to figure out the characters’ feelings, as always picking cliche anime lines about friendship and love won’t work. Kamiyama himself isn’t a self-insert; he has his own personality, and will choose his own words in certain crucial moments, where you’ll instead be urged to pick the intensity of said words.

“All of the concepts and mechanics unique to the Sakura Taisen series have been tirelessly thought over by the development team. They have all been improved and adapted to 3D.”

The true difference in Sakura Wars compared to its predecessors isn’t the change from a tactical RPG system to action RPG elements for its battles; I’ll get to that later. It’s the fact that the game has switched to full 3D. This is a revolution for the series, and Sega made the best out of it. The past games let you roam around the Imperial Theater, which is the Imperial Combat Revue’s base of operations, via a 2D map where characters were represented in Super-Deformed, SD style. When you triggered dialogue with other characters, the games switched to a visual novel-like style, with the characters illustrated with 2D artworks and occasional anime cutscenes. It had (and still has) its charm.

On the opposite side, Sakura Wars lets you explore its environments in full 3D. This choice wasn’t simply fueled by a desire to make the series more appealing to a new generation of players. All of the concepts and mechanics unique to the Sakura Taisen series have been tirelessly thought over by the development team. They have all been improved and adapted to 3D. Exploring the Imperial Theater and the city has never felt so rewarding and immersive. While each area barring the Imperial Theater is quite small, they are packed with small details, fun NPCs, and points of interests. Kamiyama’s own thoughts and observations when inspecting elements will evolve together with the story. Sakura Wars is full of intricate world-building, most notably thanks to the contribution of military specialist and world setting advisor genius Takaaki Suzuki. Simply heading to your next main objective pointed out on the Teletron, Kamiyama’s steam-technology powered smartphone, will probably only make you experience half of the game. You’ll end up missing a myriad of optional events, which aren’t necessarily pointed out on the map, Bromides to collect (photographic portraits of the characters), minigames, and lore.

The most striking aspect introduced thanks to 3D is how Sakura Wars handles its dialogue and events. Nearly all the dialogue is presented through in-engine cutscenes, and each one is stunning. Except during their pre-rendered cutscenes, I dare you to find any other typically Japanese game with as much camerawork, screenplay, and especially lively characters during dialogue. Be it Yakuza, Persona, the Tales series, Ni no Kuni, or any offerings from smaller independent studios like Falcom or Nippon Ichi Software, the characters will most certainly simply be standing there when chatting. Most of the time in several of those games, you will be cycling through minimal, prepared in-advance movements and expressions.

Meanwhile, Sakura Wars feels as if specific movement patterns and facial expressions were tailor-made for every single dialogue in the game. They’re always on-point with the discussion and emotions conveyed by the characters. This is so disconcerting compared to what Japanese games usually offer that I’m convinced some players will dislike how the characters in Sakura Wars are constantly in movement. In-universe it makes perfect sense, as the members of the Combat Revues are all used to performing arts and expressing themselves with their bodies.

“Only 60% to 70% of Sakura Wars‘ dialogue is voiced, and it’s the biggest disappointment that I have with the game. It’s especially jarring to see such incredible vivid dialogue scenes being left unvoiced.”

As for the ever-changing expressions of the characters, you might have heard how multiple artists have worked on Sakura Wars. The original character design of the main cast was handled by Bleach‘s Kubo Tite. Other original character designers handled side characters in the game, and we have K-On‘s Yukiko Horiguchi, Sword Art Online‘s Bunbun, Strike Witches‘ Fumikane Shimada, Pokemon‘s Ken Sugimori, Haruhi Suzumiya‘s Noizi Ito, and Persona‘s Shigenori Soejima. However, it’s important to note that similarly with an anime’s production, another single character designer redrew all the designs so that they’re easy to animate and more uniform. That task was handled by Masashi Kudo, who did a terrific job. In fact, Masashi Kudo in the past did the exact same job with Kubo Tite’s designs on the Bleach anime. As such, there’s absolutely no sense of disunity when it comes to the characters’ designs, despite the various artists.

Sadly, overall, I’d say only 60% to 70% of Sakura Wars‘ dialogue is voiced, and it’s the biggest disappointment that I have with the game. It’s especially jarring to see such incredible vivid dialogue scenes being left unvoiced. Sega’s auditioning for the game, which included singing–seeing as each character has their own theme song–brought us an all-star and talented cast of seiyuu. It’s a huge shame they didn’t get to fully demonstrate their skills. Pre-rendered anime cutscenes are back too, and are in 3D as well. These were handled by famous 3D anime studio Sanzigen. Ironically, the sole lackluster visual aspect of Sakura Wars lies in some of its 2D illustrations used to depict certain scenes in the game, with some of them being of varying quality. Going out of your way to interact with the characters and experience as much of the dialogue as possible, the core gameplay will have a direct influence on the minor gameplay elements, the battles.

“Rather than the battles, what makes Sakura Wars so good is definitely its cast. It’s a purely character-driven experience.”

Each story chapter in Sakura Wars follows a typical mecha anime pattern, with the characters heading to sortie near the chapter’s conclusion, setting up a fight scene for the climax. Characters in the Sakura Taisen franchise fight demons using Combat Armors, which are mecha powered by steam and magical spirit energy, mixing steampunk and fantasy elements. This is where a stern warning is due: you definitely shouldn’t expect to be playing a traditional JRPG. Sakura Wars and its predecessors do not feature numbers to grind, equipment to maintain and skills to learn. The only variable which makes your characters stronger, or weaker, are their Trust Levels, the only way to influence Trust Levels are through your dialogue choices. There’s no real changes to the battle system throughout the whole game, except for Team Attacks that you’ll unlock as you increase Trust.

The battle stages aren’t that big and are globally pretty easy. If you do get a game over, you’ll always be able to restart with extra help. While there are many different types of enemies, none of them will stay etched in your memory. The only exception are the bosses, all introduced with huge on-screen Kanji, following Sakura Taisen tradition, and something you might be acquainted with through Skies of Arcadia and Valkyria Chronicles.

As an important note, the battle system of the original Japanese release of the game had no lock-on system and instead used an automatic homing function, which made it hard to hit flying enemies, most notably. This isn’t a problem anymore as a patch has long been released, adding a lock-on system, a better radar, limited button remapping, being able to save anytime, and last but not least, a dialogue log with voice playback. These improvements will be included in the Western version, so make sure to download the day one patch. However, the patch was only made available to reviewers a little bit before embargo, so some reviews might mistakenly point out these faults, even though they are now patched.

In any case, you’ll only be fighting for around 20 minutes for about every 3 hours of gameplay, and despite being so simple, the battles are still fun and do their job well. The battles, like the rest of the game, are also filled by cool dialogue and incredible cutscenes, including dialogue choices. The music by the legendary Kohei Tanaka (One Piece, Gravity Rush, among others) is always on-point as well, and it’s the combination of these factors that makes these climaxes so awesome. But ultimately, the battle system of Sakura Wars in itself is marginal. Rather than changing from a tactical RPG to action RPG, the battle system might as well have switched to Sega’s match-three puzzle game Columns, and it wouldn’t have changed a thing.

Rather than the battles, what makes Sakura Wars so good is definitely its cast. It’s a purely character-driven experience. Japanese games tend to traditionally include a stereotypical cast, which gradually shows its uniqueness as you play. Sakura Taisen is and always was the culmination of this concept. The protagonists fight to protect the world and follow huge cliches based on their country of origin. The villains simply wish to see humans suffer for no reason. Everything is cheesy, but it works terribly well. The original script, written by 428 Shibuya Scramble‘s director Jiro Ishii, doesn’t stray from these traditions of the Sakura Taisen series, and that isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Each chapter mostly focuses on a single main character, but all the others will play a role too. This is especially true for the second half of the game, when all the characters have already gone through a good chunk of development. Each character’s individuality slowly unveils itself through the multitude of dialogue events, and you just can’t help but fall in love with the characters.

Ultimately, while we might call it a dating sim, Sakura Wars is quite different from most. Of course, in the same vein as its stereotypical characters and plot, Sakura Wars is also filled with cliche anime situations. Kamiyama often finds himself in “lucky pervert” incidents depending of your choices. I’d add Sakura Taisen is one of the few franchises that manages to make sexual fan service moments and “romantic comedy” misunderstandings like these actually comedic and funny. Still, you shouldn’t expect anything steamy to happen, as even the unlockable optional flirting scenes are very tame. Indeed, your true goal in Sakura Wars isn’t to whoo girls, it’s to make the team members feel at home and have a place where to belong. I believe this is why the nomenclature of the series always used “Trust Levels” instead of “Affection” or “Love” levels.

Moreover, while we control Kamiyama, the true protagonist of this new Sakura Wars is Sakura Amamiya, the most devoted member of the Flower Division, who aims to restore the Imperial Combat Revue to its former glory. While the game includes a dive into each main character’ psychology and worries, everything revolves around Sakura Amamiya. She’s the sole character on the game’s case artwork, the first character you see in the opening anime sequence, and she’s the one getting a typical mecha anime midseason upgrade. It’s not a baseless choice as to why the ongoing manga version and sequel anime both put the spotlight on her.

Sakura Wars might even be too much centered around Sakura Amamiya at times. Most side characters, and those who belong to the other Combat Revues fought during the tournament, barely interact for most of the game with the main cast besides Kamiyama and Sakura Amamiya. Moreover, while the tournament battles are centered around 3 vs 3 team battles, only two members of each Combat Revue we face off against are introduced. Their third combatant is always a nameless, faceless character we’re never introduced to.

Nonetheless, in Sakura Wars the girls are always the true stars of the stage. This approach is one of the many reasons why the franchise as a whole is so inspiring and attractive to anyone, despite being a dating simulator for hetero male anime otaku. Furthermore, Sakura Amamiya idolizes Sakura Shinguji, one of the main characters of the past games in the series, which brings us to the final important point; how meta this Sakura Wars is.

“Overall I’ve rarely seen a game manage to deliver a commentary on itself, all while handling fan service perfectly, brimming with love and respect for its own legacy.”

The first part of Sakura Wars‘ story features an obsolete Imperial Combat Revue shunned by all and on the verge of shutting down. It’s almost as if the game is reflecting the image of the franchise itself in the eyes of younger folks who didn’t live through it. Then, you’d be amazed at the numbers of NPCs who trashtalk the new characters while singing the praise of the old ones. Sega is fully aware of grumpy fans who claimed on social media that instead of a new cast, they’d rather have the ex-main characters back even if they were into their senior years. Players can regularly learn about the previous cast via the Imperial Theater’s archives, with Kamiyama sharing words of admiration. And then you have Itsuki, an embodiment of the good fan, with whom you can fangirl with while chatting about both the old and new characters.

As a newcomer or as an oldtimer, your overall opinion of the game and its characters will grow positively as you play, exactly mirroring how the Imperial Combat Revue slowly regain its fame through the main story, making for a unique experience. Overall I’ve rarely seen a game manage to deliver a commentary on itself, all while handling fan service perfectly, brimming with love and respect for its own legacy. I clearly remember the excitement I’d feel when I was a kid looping the Sakura Taisen games’ anime opening sequences while dreaming of playing the series. Experiencing Sakura Wars on PS4 feels exactly like that. The dream is back.

Before concluding, I’d also throw in a word regarding the English localization of Sakura Wars. As I mentioned earlier on, I’ve partly played the Japanese version, and I must say that the English translation is amazing. Despite the Japanese heavy setting, It doesn’t go with the simple choice of keeping Japanese terms and honorifics, and yet still retains what makes the series’ atmosphere so unique, and conveys everything that needs to be conveyed. Every ten lines I was in awe and reminded of how much I suck as a translator.

In conclusion, while Sakura Wars never feels like it cuts corners, you can clearly tell, with the lack of full-voice acting or the nameless third combatants thing, that Sega didn’t fully believe in themselves. Sega is incredibly eager to make the series reach glory again, and brought to the development team all-star artists, writers and seiyuu, but at the same time was reluctant and wary. They believed in this comeback but lacked conviction to put more resources on the table, which is slightly disappointing. A more ambitious and polished sequel would definitely have the potential to become one of the most iconic Japanese games in years, similarly to Persona 5. With full voice acting this time, even denser content, more interactions between the main and side casts, and an attempt to make the battle parts into something more than narrative climaxes, you’d have the formula for a masterpiece. Sales would follow suit, boosting the franchise’s popularity worldwide, and we could even see the past games finally get official localization.

Unless you religiously scorn the act known as reading, there is absolutely no reason to avoid grabbing Sakura Wars on PS4. If you’ve read the integrity of this review, you need to hurry up and grab the game right the hell now. It’ll make you discover a fresh universe full of surprise. If you’re a complete stranger to this culture, it will surely be the game that makes you realize what’s so good about Japanese games, anime and manga. In an era where the most exported Japanese cultural products are battle stories inspired by Dragon Ball, playing Sakura Wars can be a gateway that will definitely broaden your horizons.

April 29, 2020 10:00 AM EST

from EnterGamingXP https://entergamingxp.com/2020/04/sakura-wars-review-ps4-the-dream-is-back/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=sakura-wars-review-ps4-the-dream-is-back

[markgottliebliteraryagent]

Video Game Artists/Graphic Novelists Arey & Fy

Alejandra Green and Fanny Rodriguez are casually known as "Arey and Fy." They are the authors of the popular webtoon-turned-forthcoming graphic novel Fantastic Tales of Nothing, in which a vast continent with ages of lore, traditions and conflict plays host to the adventures of an unlucky boy as he travels from the Mourning Prayers to the Courts of Power and probably gets in more trouble that he can handle. Katherine Tegen Books/HarperCollins will be publishing. Alejandra "Arey" Green is a concept artist and animator from northwest Mexico. Arye likes to think of herself as patience in the flesh, a lover of the sea and surfer of whales (although she'll deny that). Fanny "Fy" Rodriguez is a user interface designer and illustrator from northeast Mexico. She never sleeps, is a mountain enthusiast, and has weird taste in music (she won’t deny that).

What initially attracted you both to the comic book arts medium of storytelling? Do you also feel that the fantasy genre affords a vast canvas for storytelling?

AG: Working on a comic format for storytelling pretty much conveyed what we both enjoyed doing- both graphic and written ideas.

I thought about working on a short film of sorts as a personal project around that time. However, animation is both resource and time consuming for only one person to work on. Funny enough, I had never been attracted to comic books up until now! The idea of trying out a new medium for me to explore was too exciting to ignore. This is honestly a new world for me and I cannot be more grateful to Fanny for dragging me in.

Either be fantasy, science fiction or any other genre; I believe any subject can be explored into an endless road of possibilities for storytelling as long as the characters, their actions and growth appeal to the audience.

FR: I’ve never gave much thought about it until now, I have notebooks from 7th grade where I did some comic panels and a friend did the next and so on. I guess I’ve always been attracted to the idea of telling stories through pictures more than only words, you not only tell the story you give the reader the idea of what you imagine creating it.

Definitely, fantasy and other fiction genres are only limited by the creator (and sometimes, the page limit marked by the editor).

Having worked with animation studios, what has been each of your favorite projects to work on and why?

FR: We didn’t work in big animation studios, but for my part I’ve been more involved on web design and development until I met Ale. We met in a video game outsource studio, where we worked on concept art and design for mobile, PC and console video games. You can even find our names in some credits (as an outsourcing studio, sometimes there’s only the mention of it and not the artists) like Heroes of Dragon Age, Plants vs. Zombies, Agents of Mayhem, Darksiders 3 and Prey 2. More than a project, my favorite part was when I got to be the leader of the 2D art team, working with a lot of amazing and talented artists and learning from them and the process of creating assets for video games.

AG: What a dream it would have been! Although I don’t think I would’ve had the opportunity to work on Tales of Nothing if I ever worked for those companies. (Or even meet Fanny)

I did however, worked with a small animation team for a feature film project in which I had the pleasure to meet amazing artists and friends within the industry. Visual development has always been my favorite part when working on the animation field, which I learned a lot from.

During my time there, we had the opportunity to work on a short film for a national contest (we made it to the finals!) and I have to admit, working on the credits illustrations/design was my favorite part!

“...you can’t rely on the platforms alone to get your work known.”

Your forthcoming graphic novel, Fantastic Tales of Nothing, began as a popular webcomic. Do you now regard publishing online via webtoon sites such as Tapas and Line Webtoon to be a springboard for discovery and success? Are there any limitations to staying within the webcomic ecosystem where one is published only digitally?

AG: Tapas did made it easier for us by promoting Tales of Nothing through their app and webpage’s Spotlight sections. However, when using such tools one should be careful and keep in mind their terms and conditions, and how your work can be affected by it.

Most webcomic authors I know use such platforms as a segway to self-publishing through funding campaigns, once the project has reached a popular audience on its own, especially when starting a new project.

FR: Both platforms are great ways to publish if you can’t create your own website, and make your work accessible to their the public that it’s always looking for something new to read. However, you can’t rely on the platforms alone to get your work known. As Ale said with Tapas Spotlight with Fantastic, we were lucky on that.

I don’t think there are limitations, if you want to continue publishing your comic online for free there are paths you can take to support you, like Patreon, Kofi, Kickstarters for publishing, Gumroad, etc. More than a limitation, you gotta know it’s big work what you going to do, constantly and that’s something some new artists and readers don’t grasp sometimes.

I'm reminded of Nimona, Boxers & Saints and Anya's Ghost when I look at your graphic novel Fantastic Tales of Nothing. Are there any comics or graphic novelists that have influenced your work, or are there any comic creators you both just read for pleasure?

FR: I’m more a video games than a comics/graphic novel person. I grew up (and still are) playing video games like The Legend of Zelda, Final Fantasy and more, they became a big influence for me to start drawing and writing. Art-wise I look up to a lot of artists, maybe all artists is a better statement. When we started Fantastic Tales of Nothing I took a lot of influence from Mary Blair, Eyvind Earle and Vincent Van Gogh for painting the backgrounds. On writers, maybe I can say Espido Freire and Douglas Adams.

I read for pleasure, a lot of things! Started a compilation of short stories by Ursula K. Leguin, a couple of friends gifted me Howl’s Moving Castle by Diana Wynne Jones and The Prince and the Dressmaker by Jen Wang that I already binge read past week. I’m also following/reading some comics like Saga by Brian K. Vaughan & Fiona Staples, Coda by Simon Spurrier & Matías Vergara, and Isola by Brenden Fletcher & Karl Kerschl.

AG: I’m fairly new to this whole graphic novel/comic world, so my collection isn't as big as Fanny’s. My all-time favorite author has been a manga artist, Hiromu Arakawa on Fullmetal Alchemist and Silver Spoon. Last year I had the pleasure to meet both authors Ale Gamez and Axur Eneas through their latest novel Mas Alla de las Ciudades. I also bought Nimona after you, Mark, mentioned it to us, lovely stories worth checking out!

“...it was so amazing seeing all the work we have done finally take form.”

It's hard enough writing a story...does telling a story with illustrations add more work and present its own set of challenges, or do you each find it to be liberating?

FR: Yes definitely! Trying to communicate the actions and moods we are thinking about certain scenes it’s a big challenge but it’s great at the same time. I’ve learned so much because of it and still am. When we finished the rough version of the whole book to send to our editor, I contained my tears; it was so amazing seeing all the work we have done finally take form.

What do you find that working in a collaboration offers that working as an individual storyteller cannot offer?

FR: There are so many things. First, you’re not alone; you’ve got another person’s point of view that helps you see things that you wouldn’t have noticed if you were working by yourself. When you have troubles, or are stuck trying to illustrate/write something, the other can help out by guiding or giving advice. Working with Ale, it’s the absolute best, and I’m not saying it only because she’s my best friend, both of us are very different in the way we solve problems, paint and think. I’m very emotional and impulsive; she’s more centered and practical. I like to think we complement each other and that makes our work easier for both of us.

How did you find your current literary agent and go on to get published with the Katherine Tegen Books imprint of HarperCollins? How exhilarating did it feel to learn that you'd be getting published?

FR: Okay, this one is a funny story: we thought you were spam, Mark! When I got the notification and saw the big box of text I was about to delete it, but then noticed it wasn’t like the usual spam we got. I shared the comment with Ale, both of us being very skeptical about it. So, before answering you we did a little digging about you and Trident Media Group. It took us a moment to think about it, but at the end we said, “Why not?” We weren’t expecting such a quick reply, either.

When we finished our first call with you, we were blank, in a good way. Imagine when you called us, I think it was a month later, telling us Katherine Tegen was publishing us; we were blank again! Looking at each other in disbelief with a dumb smile on our faces, quite nervous of overreacting with you on the line. After we finished the call with you, both of us began to laugh. I think we didn’t do anything else other than smile and worry for a bit, then smile again. Nothing was done that day (no pun intended).

If you could each be any character in any fantasy or comic book world, which character would you be and why?​

FR: I can’t decide. Not because I would like to be on many worlds, mostly because I kind of like it here. But if I have to choose something, maybe I’ll be the Doctor, just to be able to travel through space in time. Explore the universe, meet historical figures and just experience ancient times for a little bit. Oh, how I would love to see what a dinosaur really looked and sounded like.

AG: Most of Arakawa’s female characters have a strength to strive for, I’d definitely choose Riza Hawkeye and her will to give all her best to achieve her goals in supporting the people she cares for.

“The right literary agent can help you take strides of progress when seeking publishing opportunities...”

Do you have any advice for unpublished graphic novelists hoping to get their work published?

FR: Don’t hold yourself back because you don’t know this or don’t know that. You will only learn to improve if you do the thing, instead of having it as an idea wandering in your head. And share your work! Yes, there’ll be mistakes and critiques, learn from them instead of letting them get you down. How else will someone know you got this great story on your hands?

AG: Just do it! Keeping your work out there will open up possibilities for your growth as an artist and as an author. The right literary agent can help you take strides of progress when seeking publishing opportunities—don’t give up, be patient and keep on working ideas that can get you where you aim for.

What can we expect next from the world of Fantastic Tales of Nothing?

FR: Well, if everything goes alright, maybe more stories of the past and beginning of the world, also more adventures! Maybe outside Nathan and friends.

For now, in Fantastic Tales of Nothing, you got to pay attention to the little things; there’s a lot behind the world our characters known as "Nothing," about the people living there to their historical figures. That magic is simple but makes a lot of mess, that’s for sure. And definitely bad jokes, I hope to get better in time with my puns for the second book.

[nazih-fares]

Announced at the 2005 edition of E3 as an exclusive for the PlayStation 3, Team Ninja’s Nioh have come a long way before reaching the Bluray players of our shiny PlayStation 3. Originally created by its mother company Tecmo Koei, Nioh was supposed to be a “simple” JRPG, with very classical elements, telling William’s adventures, an Englishmen based on a real historical figure (William Adams), who had come to Japan and learned the local martial arts way to become  the first ever Western Samurai. Sadly,as if it’s tradition with 1Japanese games, things when wrong and the project was transferred to the hands of another studio called Omega Force, known for turning everything into a Muso genre (Warriors, Orochi, Samurai and Dynasty series). After a few years of development, Nioh, unable to satisfy the demands of Tecmo Koei, changed for the ultimate time development team and started from scratch with the makers of Ninja Gaiden (and Dead or Alive): Team Ninja.

It was up for this studio to completely transform Nioh, and heavily influenced by Hidetaka Miyazaki, create a similar style experience, closer to a Japanese universe and lore. Were Tecmo Koei and Sony Interactive Entertainment (for the West mainly) right to put his baby in the expert hands of this Action game studio? Or was the obsession to create another Dark Souls too much to lose its core values? Let’s see in this review.

The first thing you’ll notice by booting the game and discovering its artistic direction, is the feeling of Nioh passing through several studios before landing in the hands of Tomonobu Itagaki (Dead or Alive and Ninja Gaiden’s creator), with remnants of work done by Omega Force especially on all historical aspect of the game. Nioh takes place in feudal Japan invaded by demons, yet doesn’t seem to prevent the local warlords to still wage war against each othters. These generals are the same historical figures that can be found in all the best Muso games in the world, character design included (visually speaking, very close to a Warriors Orochi). So forget the bootylicious bimbos of other Team Ninja productions, but Nioh’s character design are great nevertheless without being raunchy, whether it’s the main hero, but also for the heroines, monsters and bosses.

It’s in this Japanese era that William fights against forces of evil, stalling their march on their world domination, but also to save his loved one held prisoner. If this starting pitch is much more concrete than the riddles of Dark Souls, while being supported by cinematics at the beginning and end of each chapter, Nioh’s narration is as much a conundrum as a From Software game can get. The mission briefing is often a single page to read, with no real indication of your goals, and although easy to follow, the tribulations of William in the different regions of Japan are very conventional, with this duo of demons and civil war. In any case, the overall mood of game is greatly pictured, with a true feel of Japanese folklore, whether in the interpretations of Onis (the traditional name for Japanese evil spirits) or in the settings and surroundings. The soundtrack also demonstrates talent, both in terms of music and sound effects, composed by Yugo Kanno, mostly know for his work on Rain but also a hell lot of Anime composition such as JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure, Psycho-Pass and more. For those of you preferring original voice acting, you’ll be glad to know that Japanese voices are in the game, on top English dubbing, and numerous other languages in terms of subtitles and localized menu.

Now let’s jump in the heart of what matters in a game like Nioh: the gameplay. While Tecmo Koei as a whole had influenced the artistic direction, we will obviously find a lot of features from Dark Souls, but embellished with a whole lot of elements unequivocally belonging to Team Ninja original work. So let’s start by mentioning what Nioh really took as an inspiration from Dark Souls, to answer directly to the questions that most of you From Software fans want to know.

The first basic mechanics that can be found in this Dark Souls-like is the way how experience works, managed via camp fires. If the player dies, it loses all of its hard-earned experience (called amrita), which will remain there at the very place of your death, and finds itself in front of the last altar you visited. Your task then is to recover your precious belonging without dying, otherwise you will disappear forever in a limbo of ragequit and the frustration of having done all this for nothing. Because yes, the other basic principle of Dark Souls is that the game is one hell of challenge for players, and while not impossible, it pushed me at some point of almost rage quitting. Hell the slightest mob can send you to an instant death, the moment they feel a glimpse of confidence, an honest error, or have fallen into a trap, but that’s another story.

The fighting mechanics against various bosses, both in terms of size and design, relate as well to Dark Souls, and here it will often be necessary to go through a series of trials and errors to find the beast’s weaknesses, whether it’s in his evasion speed, the elementary damage or use of a particular item. On this front, the sensations in combat are closer to a Bloodborne than to a Dark Souls: the dodge is much more practical than a parry, as the latter consume more of your stamina (or ki) gauge, which can be bad when an enemy is countering you. The game is nevertheless more accessible than a Dark Souls for amateurs, since it offers a real tutorial where we learn more about the many subtleties of the gameplay.

True to any Team Ninja games, the fighting mechanics feel great (if not better than Dark Souls or even Bloodborne). The most striking aspect being the postures that one can adopt with its weapon, comparable to a “stance” in a fighting game: Medium is your standard mode, high stance to strike harder but become more open to attacks, and low stance to be more focused on defense but will do less damage. Another big subtlety, that reminds me of a bunch of Naruto games is the ability to recharge your ki faster by pressing R1 precisely when you’re done doing a combo, as your body start absorbing blue orbs around the arena. All these numerous and very demanding fights are already more exhilarating with the mechanics, and Nioh even inherited a feature straight out of Ninja Gaiden which are bloody dismemberment. Finally the last added feature is the living weapons, a sort of elemental powered attack where you are immune to damage and weapons deals extra damage, on top of being able to trigger your spirit guardian’s special attack.

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Level design wise, don’t expect the Metroid-ish world of Dark Souls, but arenas divided into different stages, which are more linear, yet still offering many shortcuts to unlock near shrines. It starts from a view of the map of Japan, where you choose your mission, main or secondary one, and teleport straight to the action… A big difference from the massive linked levels of Yarnam. Nevertheless there’s a lot of exploration to do in Nioh, but the overall level design are not as complex as I would’ve liked it to be from JRPG, even if really great to look at. Plus the game is a visual marvel, whether you play it on a regular PS4 or PS4 PRO (with 4K HDR resolution), locked at a constant framerate of 60fps with no slowdown in the time of my reviewing, just rare slow loading of enemy animations from a range.

On the front of gear and loot management, Nioh also stands out very strongly from its influence, as it’s closer to a Diablo than anything else, with insane amount of drops on a constant basis. Gear plays a big part as well as heavy load can harm your attack speed and will require William to spend more Ki to attack or do any sort of action.

When it comes to multiplayer, there’s only a coop mode for the moment, with a PVP planned later on as downloadable add-on. In any case, I briefly managed to play a quick multiplayer session, where you basically join yokai realm missions with other Williams that are harder and more rewarding. The other function is called Random Encounter where you make yourself available to anyone who is calling for help at a shrine. Add to this a really long game lifespan, thanks to its multiple challenge levels and replayability based on missions, you’ll have a lot to do, especially if you’re aiming for a Platinum trophy (crazy you).

Nioh was reviewed using a PlayStation 4 digital code of the game provided by PlayStation Middle East. We don’t discuss review scores with publishers or developers prior to the review being published

  Nioh is the kind of action-JRPG that we like, and even if heavily influenced by Dark Souls, has its own charm and original mechanics. A must have! Announced at the 2005 edition of E3 as an exclusive for the PlayStation 3, Team Ninja's Nioh have come a long way before reaching the Bluray players of our shiny PlayStation 3.