#but then also the gameplay itself just looks. really boring

[bonestrouslingbones]

this is my spam blog, my skeleton sex blog, but most importantly it is also my blog for when i sometimes need to be a little bit of a petty hater. this is all to say i watched a playthrough of one of those new trendy indie horror games that are hip with the kids lately and maybe i've just outgrown these types of stories or maybe simply have different tastes but still i can safely say that is the first time i have witnessed a developer focus so hard on yaoi bait that they forgot to make a good game

[wolfiestars]

weird urge to play through thieves in time again even tho i know it will just make me angry >:(

[toskarin]

Always slightly jarring seeing you post about anything 40k cause I always have the impression it's something you'd either be ambivalent of or passively dislike

my relationship with 40k is complicated! complicated enough to warrant a readmore

it's an aesthetically gorgeous setting of absolute misery and awe-inspiring violence to a ridiculous extreme. it's the aesthetics of the NWOBHM extrapolated and amped up as far as they can possibly be amped up, complete with little doodles of 60s era elric slathered in the margins

it creates so much beautiful artwork and so many interesting hypergranular interactions between individuals who have to exist in that kind of world, who have to continue on with their fundamental personhood pushing against an abjectly hopeless reality and no future worth living into

it's weaponised cathedrals in space that shovel corpses into their furnaces, five zeros added to every important number, a norse dialect of Future Latin existing entirely so that a linguistic technicality about the name "bjorn" can come into play like a macbeth prophecy, king arthur von gilgamesh is kept on life support so that everyone can pretend the empire isn't collapsing by worshipping his catatonic corpse like a nuclear power plant that produces divine will

it's a grotesque excess in all things! it's joke upon joke upon joke!

you can even root around a bit further and say "the little glimmer of hope that the imperium provides humanity is propaganda papered over the collapsing hopeless void of how bad things really are, and all of the cruelty is at once needless and pointless" if you want to get especially gothic about it

which I personally do! as someone who enjoys the fiction space allowed by nihilistic and terminal circumstances, it provides a lot of ink for that well

I quite like a good deal of 40k! I also can't stand it, and it's mostly not even because of how the fanbase acts about women, gay people, and the intersections of those categories that contains me (you've seen my blog theme. I'm a deep sea creature to that kind of stuff at this point)

even setting aside the starship troopers aspect of things, even setting aside the faults of the writing itself, 40k being the strut-skeleton of a wargame where you're encouraged to be (profoundly) financially invested in your faction by way of your army leads to some of the absolute most obnoxious powerscaling debates I've ever seen for any franchise ever

I'm trying to think of the best way to put this without coming off as overly mean-spirited, but if you look at the replies on any art of a character who is not a space marine killing a space marine, regardless of dramatic context, you'd be forgiven for assuming the artist personally threatened to cuck everyone in the thread

something that mechanically occurs in the wargame, which textually occurs in the written canon, will be litigated out until everyone gets to settle on the most boring possible answer and nobody dies who isn't expected to

and of course the franchise itself has a perverse incentive to play gently with those exact feelings! in the business of selling boutique plastic and faction rulebooks, there's a lot of money that goes up in flames if you make the primary buyers of your most sustainably reflavourable moulds widely popular miniatures feel like a lost game could be reflected in canon rather than just being some bad gameplay on their part

I can't really offer any particular synthesis of all this into a broader point. in the end, I can't stand the canon or fandom, and I'm also primarily endeared by the canon and fandom

or to put all that another way, I don't care about how the sausage is made, I'm not the one buying it, but I do enjoy the infrastructure that invites gratuitous textual accounts of sausage factory manglings and photos of their aftermath

I'm mostly just here for the yaoi and the dip pen art

[sunshades]

i always wished the animation in heathcliff's ego changed after c6.. i feel like bodysack has always been about his own self hatred and how he views himself as less than human, so when he's able to move past and grow from his trauma, this view of himself as less than human changes. i know that changing the art + animations would have been a hassle so i'm not that mad about it but it would have been neat

YEAHHHH. i mentioned it in a post before, but i do love the ambiguity of the bodysack and the feelings it connects to, that it's both about his warped sense of self and about the guilt over having consciously or subconsciously hurt the people he loves. in the end it all goes back to a feeling of displacement, of never being Right or Good Enough. it goes back to:

the base E.G.Os are a bit varied in what they represent because of well the sinners' stories being different, but since heathcliff's story has him facing his own self-hatred, it gives off a very different feeling from the others... snagharpoon for example is about ishmael's fight against ahab which goes back and forth between being righteous and being misguided, la sangre shows don quixote's dreamer side which becomes a positive after c7, land of illusion represents the flowing water that contrasts stagnation and even after the canto the negative implications feel so minimal you gotta squint to see them (boring. but i digress)- all very easy to translate to an uplifting interpretation with only a voiceline change!

on the other hand with bodysack... the voicelines are of course extremely expressive: the wrath and aggression at first, desperation and horror during the canto, then determination and resilience afterwards. but bodysack is different in that the "weapon" appears physically And as a metaphor in his canto, and therefore always carries a stronger meaning than many of the others. we're shown very thoroughly how the concept connects to heathcliff's life in various ways, all the anguish and shame tied to it... so that stays as relevant as the feelings of the voicelines, even when his focus should've shifted, so it leaves you a bit conflicted seeing it again. But. in a way. even if it ended up in a weird spot in the practical point of the long term visuals i am happy the narrative itself went that far, in text and implications and gameplay content.

i do think that as we go on with the cantos it won't be heathcliff alone- there's no way in hell looking at suddenly one day will ever remind u of anything but how horrible what happened to gregor was, no matter what voiceline update he ends up having, and forest for the flames is... well, just look at it. if they're supposed to reflect the sinner's emotions and subconscious i think by the end it'd be nice to have at least these three get an update reflecting the growth they'll have experienced in the story.

until then, it is still nice if we're taking those powers/manifestations as more of like. the things each sinner has taken in consideration about themselves, kind of. so for heathcliff rather than just Hes Moved On itd be, he remembers the way people treated him and how he thought of himself, and that it's something he doesn't want to stand for any longer... bodysack as acknowledging both the fucked up things that were done to him (the time at the heights) and that he did to others (the aimless violence in the syndicate years), and drawing power from it, with the awareness he's grown from it and now fights for a purpose.

particularly i feel like remembering that it relates to the time with the rabbits helps soften the imagery, as he starts it off with the Yeah killing remorselessly, but then it also signals a lot of positive things for him- the first time being in a place where he felt accepted, the first time he truly took control of his own life and like. thinking about how it was a syndicate with a culture centered on friendship and loyalty and that didn't really take advantage of people, and about how during that time he made friends and kept writing home out of consideration for catherine, then you can see it as an important moment for his personal growth and in his ability to express himself. so the same E.G.O can be a bit of a mixed bodybag [THE CROWD BOOS ME OUT OF THE POST]

[aotopmha]

Now that I'm back on FFXIV, I got unexpectedly strong feelings about the call for "innovation" of the game, which often just feels like people wanting another WoW clone.

I've been through this with another game before: back in 2012 or so my previous go-to MMO, Old-School Runescape introduced what they called "Evolution of Combat", making the combat of the game more similar to cooldown-based MMOs like World of Warcraft.

For a long time I wanted Runescape to have "more interactive" gameplay, but what we got was much less distinct and it snuffed out the game's long-standing identity, which had its own charm.

And as a result, the game lost a huge chunk of its playerbase just to essentially chase a trend.

And so much of that desire for "innovation" actually feels like people wanting another generic copy of that game they percieve to be "better", for whatever reason.

And I hope FFXIV's team is really measured and careful about this kind of feedback — I trust them to because they usually are, but above all I really want FFXIV to be FFXIV.

I don't want them go give up on story (a core element of the game's identity in my eyes) because people have prejudices towards the voice actors or more validly, they have issues with the story from a critical standpoint.

I want them to look at the issues people have within the game's own ecosystems and address them from there.

For a few common criticisms I've seen:

- What can you do to make the levelling journey more substantive from a gameplay perspective, where story is broken up by just about the right amount of gameplay?

- What are the elements of the story that can be improved? How can they shift what they are doing to improve the pacing of the narrative and make sure every leg of the story keeps you engaged?

- What can they do to make job design more distinct between playstyles within the game's own systems?

This kind of scorched-earth feedback feels extremely defeatist and boring. We had a few missteps, so let's just give up on this entire decade plus long history!

I think when people say they want "innovation" in this context, they're actually just upset there isn't more content.

And that can be fixed without demolishing the unique identity of the game, too.

I also think a subset of players kind of discovered that they actually don't really like FFXIV "as a game" and their solution is to just scrap it for a game they do like, when in truth not everything should be for everyone and it is entirely possible this game isn't for them no matter what it does while staying true to itself and that's okay.

I also think getting tired of a game you've played for 10 or 8 or even 5 years is natural. I think few games, no matter how much they innovate with their updates, could keep you engaged forever. Sometimes it's time to move on.

I suspect I might get tired of this game in a couple of years, that's just how consuming media works.

And even now, as I'm slowly working through everything I want to within the game, I think I might eventually just sub every main patch or even every couple of patches (or more).

[windsoflimbo]

Final thoughts on In Stars and Time, spoilers ahead.

I didn't like it. Frustrating and tedious both in game play and story. I've already talked at length about the game now, but there's one thing that I wanted to touch on because it's the thing I feel the most confident about, the gameplay.

ISAT needed puzzles and less walking around the mazelike structure of The House. I've heard numerous times it's tedious on purpose and that the dogshit combat is supposed to frustrate you, and I have to disagree. I think the combat is bad because ID5 didn't want to figure out something more interesting to do in between fetching keys.

Let's say instead of key-key-star crest-key-boss it was key/star crest-puzzle room-key-boss. Cut out half of the backtracking and have the puzzle room loop back to the beginning of the floor al a Change Shrine room. I have something to work towards and a neat little cerebral challenge. Solutions to the rooms can be in the room itself or found in a prior floor requiring a loop, or maybe the optional rooms have this for those inclined to hunt for secrets.

In these puzzle rooms, the characters could all chime in on the solution if you're stuck, or assist in some way physically or magically. Pushing blocks, balancing objects, reaching something far away etc, and they all require teamwork and input from everybody. Escape rooms are famously used as team building exercises, you get a good look at everyone's thought process in these rooms, you see how people react to being right or wrong, etc.

Puzzles are also helpful in keeping your mind sharp, helping you retain memories, and improving your cognitive ability, maybe Siffrin is obsessed with puzzles because they don't like to forget things and this is a coping mechanism.

And now you may be thinking 'well Harley how does this cut down on time spent in the game?' The answer is, of course, Siffrin cheats on later loops, brute forces solutions, or puts his party members in danger. Sliding block puzzle turns into 'Isa, carry this over' or 'Odile, use magic to float it over' and putting extra strain on them, and tiring them out for the boss fight and start to distrust Siffrin's judgement. Balancing the thing could be 'Isa, break this thing' or 'Mirabelle, let me see your sword for a sec' you get the picture.

Siffrin begins skipping puzzles and losing track of things, he gets irritable and blames it on his party for not following their lead, disconnecting the player and Siffrin by having them take control, and his party reacts by questioning why he knows these solutions already, maybe wondering if he's in cahoots with the King, the mind boggles at the potential.

Jrpgs have tedious gameplay only because you're more or less expected to grind, but if the party is already a high level and their best skills comes from outside of combat, why bother putting so much emphasis on it. There's nothing to do in The House between fetching keys besides kill ghosts, and having these little excursions to break up the monotony would have elevated the game in my honest onion.

I really really really really wanted to like ISAT, I grew up playing weirdo rpgmaker games like LISA and OFF, and watching people play the spookier ones because I was too afraid to, and games like Space Funeral and Ib showed me you can do some really neat stuff with the medium of video games and with an engine like rpgmaker. But it's just. Kinds boring.

[crimsonultra]

It's real. It's happening.

So. Springtrap in Dead by Daylight. After years of hype, speculation, backlash, and one incident that raised hell, he's finally coming to the game, and became playable in the Dead by Daylight Public Test Branch.

And you know what? I have...

Some Thoughts.

The Party Begins Now.

Let's start with the star of the show, Springtrap.

I'm genuinely surprised at how fun he is.

The anniversary reveal stream really didn't sell me on him, especially once I heard the words "fire axe" mentioned. Though, it didn't help that I could barely hear anything anyway, and only ended up hearing every other sentence. I thought he was gonna be pretty boring once I got into the game/heard about how he worked from my friends. And then I had my first round against him.

And I realized "Oh shit, this is awesome."

The fireaxe isn't just a reskinned hatchet, it embeds itself into you and you have to take it out in order to heal yourself. And if he catches up, he won't just stab you-- he'll grab the axe and instantly pick you up, with a lovely little roar. When that axe first hit, it genuinely made me freak out and I absolutely loved it. But what happens if you suck ass overshot it a little bit? Well, then it embeds into the ground and leaves you liable to any sort of effects the add-ons give the axe. Haste, hindrance, oblivious, you can even make it expand over time at the cost of losing it's effect by half. He can also call it back to himself and is so much more heavy than any other projectile in the game as far as I can tell. I'm shocked they made this burnt stick work so well.

But that's not all...

There's also these doors! Oh boy So, these doors were clearly related to his power, they look out of place even in those screenshots and have a camera on top of them. And they do what you expect, they allow you to watch him on the cameras and reveal his aura to the rest of team. They run on a universal battery. Alright, makes sense. And you can also walk through them. Oh, okay, so they serve as a way to go across the map with a cute little cutscene every time you use them. Then Springtrap appears from one of the doors as you go in. Uh oh Yeah, both sides can use the doors, and if you use them at the same time as Springtrap does, you get jumpscared and taken back out to be hooked. I love this. Such a clever way to translate the office/camera gameplay to a game like DbD, and the craziest thing?

It's fun on both sides.

So after I died horribly against Springtrap, I decided to be Springtrap. (After like a 20-30 minute queue. Surprise, everyone wants to be possibly the most requested license in DbD history.)

And even though I got one kill, I loved every second of it.

Chasing people around the map, throwing axes into their shoulders, and catching people on cameras and the office, I'm still shocked by how fun it was.

But now, onto the next part of Springtrap.

The walking iron maiden himself.

I'm Going To Enjoy This.

Similar to the gameplay, when we got our first look at Springtrap's model, I wasn't impressed. The renders didn't endear him to me like the artwork did, it made him look a lot more bland than he looks in-game. I think the lack of torso detail and the lighting in them mainly makes him look too clean. In-game, where the lighting is able to do it's work, he looks fantastic and pretty much exactly how he looked in FNaF3.

Now, as for his animations and voice? Perfect. There are some issues with the animations, but those mainly are stuff like survivors flipping around when picked up or the camera messing up when grabbed, nothing really on his side. And his voice? Oh, I'm so glad they got PJ Heywood back for this. It's a different take on Afton compared to his previous iterations, but it fits Springtrap really well. What should've been his demise became his saviour, and he's LOVING it. I also love the reuse/re-contextualization of lines, dare I say one of my favorite details about him. And his mori? My god. So, it starts off pretty simple at first, he grabs you by the head and stabs you through the chest, bringing you off the ground. After you're up, he walks forward and says a line, and then he appears.

An endoskeleton that's been modified to have a ton of sawblades on it, turns towards them both, and Afton throws you onto it. It blends the survivor up from behind, sending bone, brain matter, and some blood onto Afton's face, before dropping them and letting all the blood rush out onto the ground. Then he gives a jumpscare right before it ends.

Now, I won't say this is what I expected from the Springtrap Mori. I expected a really simple "Jumpscare -> Stab -> Whatever his power is" because that's what I thought they'd do. So when that happened, I was so excited because of how out there it was. I know some people, including a few friends, think it's a bit too strange or that it doesn't make much sense, but I feel it works pretty damn well. Shoutout to Blendo, he makes things so much better.

The Darkest Pit Of Hell Is Open For Business!

Last, but not least, the map that comes with Springtrap. Freddy Fazbear's Pizza.

I won't lie, I was hoping it'd be just the smallest bit bigger. I like walking through it, seeing all the details from the posters to the little plushies Foxy and other random toys that appear throughout the establishment, but it does feel just a little lacking. Even a single hallway to an office that's been broken open to the outside would've worked. The use of the movie aesthetics isn't bad either, the sign is just a tad distracting. Also, they gave Freddy a red bowtie on said posters and I can't tell if it's an honest mistake or something done to show how little the company cares about something as simple as the mascot's bowtie. I got a friend who thinks it's a beta reference so ???

But moving on from that, it's a good map. I'm okay with the idea to use the same aesthetic as Greenville Square, the fleshy mass that breaks through the building is cool and adds to the idea that the place itself is just fucked up, and it's already one of my favorite maps anyway. There's some fun easter eggs, the heads in the backroom follow you, a bloody endo pops out a vent, ovens turn the heat up when you walk past, and Freddy and the Gang try to preform before short circuiting. Strangely enough, there's no real hint of Foxy anywhere besides the crowd poster and his plush. I'm hoping Foxy does make an appearance somewhere in this chapter, even if it's something as simple as him replacing the Blendo in the backroom. Still hoping for a Foxy-Blight skin tho.

You Belong Here.

There's a ton more stuff I probably could've said, and much more stuff that I probably will. The skins, the add-ons, the builds, what Springtrap means for DbD's Future, and how he compares to other anniversary killers such as Ghost Face, Vecna, Singularity, hell even Huntress! But that's for another day. Soon, the PTB will be over, and Springtrap will be locked away. And just quickly, he'll be back. And we have just the place for him.

also i like phantom fear, it's a really funny perk and i like the idea of forcing people not to look at the giant green bunny

[kozykricket]

okay , ive taken some time to process n think about ZA more, and.

well okay i said i fuckin love that battle system and yes. i do. its great to see something fun and dynamic. i can only hope it doesnt feel clunky.. hope it feels snappy to use, like. the ui and stuff but yeah, i think its taking a good step. its like.. okay. its disappointing that its just lumiose city? but i think the story might be really interesting if its "you, your friend, and this old guy... try and solve mysteries and help people out around the city!"

like. thats the kinda fun having energy of persona 3 or 4 tbh. a group of people figurin shit out !! i hope its more than just us and our rival

also AZ being able to kinda, live peacefully after his miserable life, is very nice.

the site mentions that he runs an Old Hotel called the Z Hotel, and like. oh yeah, its def got some old looks to it. his style AND the style inside the building is REALLY nice and old-fashioned. theres even... a conspiracy board in one room? really hope we get to do some mystery solving as like, this games version of research tasks / quests!!

heard someone speculate AZ might end up like, sacrificing himself for something as a pivotal plotpoint and... tbh i do feel like theres gonna be some pretty significant aspect of the plot that they're hiding from us. somethings going on with zygarde - the website says its Taken an Interest in Us. probably because we're helping out with the urban development? i mean, it doesn't SEEM like the city is overreaching in terms of taking over pokemon territory... but i do think that'll def be a theme. the concern of urbanization

and in regards to the pokemon not having the like, scales or fur textures, it isnt that inherently that i disliked, but that they watered down / desaturated pokemon a lot in SV. some pokemon got hit SO hard in a bad way, like beartic or lunala. the character customization looks like itll be there, because there IS a boutique! in one of the images!! and i mean cmon its KALOS looks like the characters have the best of both worlds between the human designs of SwSh and SV. I'd say they're all fantastic

...its just, the city itself that seems potentially boring. i dont know how they'll be able to pull it off... or have ANY sense of discovery, really. maybe they wont! maybe itll hinge more on solving issues around the city and using that kickass battle system overall its uh. im not hyped because we havent seen that much of what there is to offer, especially in regards to zygarde. or much of the gameplay. i am curious about how much battling there'll be. probably a good bit, i'd imagine i wish we got to see new pokemon... like. anything new. but hey we got to see dapper AZ so its a win but im gonna leave the bad part for last:

what the hell is this? gamefreak? pokemon company? who do i blame for this. why. rock_stockphoto.png lookin ass... i they made the pokemon less realistic and then tried to go for "nintendo hire this man" esque grass?? why? what. theres so much clashing style. that patrat does NOT belong on THAT grass. why is this one of the first images on the site?? i... they should not be going for photorealism in any pokemon game wtf.. or if you do it, then at least commit to it and give the pokemon their scales and fur back! and actually do it good! instead of whatever this is

[dystopianam]

A small list of drama gameplay mods [Higher Death %, Deadly Diseases, Functional Weapons & Social Classes]

This is not a master post, also because I don't think I have enough mods to be able to make one properly, but more of a small list where I recommend some mods that could be useful if you are the kind of person who loves to put some juicy drama into your game ✨

Explanations and download links under the cut 👇🏻

I'll be fast but as concise as I can. (It's a lie)

DEATH MODS

When you think of a mod to create a bit of drama in the game, you immediately think of ACR. Yes, ACR is now a must have for everyone... but can drama only revolve around love affairs and surprises pregnacies? Oh no!

One of the main elements that Maxis has focused on to create drama is the killing of many sims. Many have died mysteriously, others have clearly been "murdered" by others, but we all know that the only way to kill a sim is to be directly responsible for their death.

It's very hard and rare for a sim to die randomly these days. I remember years ago killing a sim was really easy, but with the latest patches it seems like it's gotten a lot harder.

And one thing that's always bugged me is...there's no way to actually have a serial killer sim.

Yes, you can lock a sim in a room with no doors, have him go into the pool and remove the ladder, or have them cook, cancel the action and hope everything catches on fire (including them) but...Isn't boring that you always have to be the one to cause these deaths? That nothing ever happens unexpectedly or that your sim can never actually be the real cause of another sim death? It's nice to play with fantasy... but if we have mods, why limit yourself? I could link you many mods that increase the chance of dying in the various ways that the game allows, but I want to link only the most realistic ones that I personally use (for example, I will avoid mods that increase the chance of dying crushed by a satellite or Murphy's bed.)

User-indirect deaths

More Dangerous Fires - As the name itself explains, this mod increases the danger of fires by spreading the flames much faster.

Fatal diseases - Theoretically, there should be a small percentage for sims for die from diseases if that is not treated properly. Some premade ancestor sims have died of disease, but have you ever seen one of your sims die of It? This mod allows your sims to get sick in very dangerous ways. Sims can die from uncured illnesses or IN SOME CASES from the choking bug. This mod has several variants, some of them should have the bug fixed, others still have it. Mine unfortunately has it, but if you have a fixed variant please let me know! (I recommend using this mod together with this mod. Increasing the risk of fatal disease puts ALL your sims at risk, so it's best to cure the ones you want to keep alive.)

Death by childbirth (Honestly I've never used it because I've seen that those who use it have a very high percentage of seeing all their sims die for childbirth, but if you want extra drama...)

Mod to kill sims...with your own sims

Functional guns (Self explanatory)

Functional sword 1 (Yes, you can kill sims with a sword!)

Functional sword(s) 2 (As above but with a better animation and you can choose the type of sword!)

Poison making station (Yes, you can poison sims!)

(Feel free to recommend other mods if you know of any!) BUT not occult ones (I want to make a separate list for those)

SOCIAL CLASSES MODS

Another thing that has always bothered me about The Sims 2 is that there is no real social class system and/or a fame system.

There are social classes in AL, but what's the point if they're just NPC sims that spawn in apartments? And they have nothing different from other sims except the way they greet?

Yes, the reputation system is also nice...it works well, but it's not what I'm looking for.

Morally it is very nice that at least in The Sims 2 there is no distinction between rich and poor, maxis itself has often struggled to represent the two social classes. For a poor sim it was always easier, you just had to throw him in the poorest house that exists and give him little money (even if I often noticed that poor sims have more money than a rich sim, but let's pretend we didn't see it, eh Maxis?) but for rich sims...mhh, Maxis has never managed to represent them properly. Yeah, jacket and tie, a slightly bigger house and slightly more money than a normal sim, but it's not enough.

Something is missing. Something that makes me see the difference between "the plebs and the nobility."

It's always bothered me that even families that aren't just rich, but noble and royal, interact with other sims as if nothing is wrong.

If you, as a normal person, were to meet a royal, I don't think at all that you would be indifferent and would address this person as if he were your next door neighbor.

Let's leave aside the Goths and Landgraabs who are simply rich (even if the Landgraabs have noble roots) but the Capp? The Monty? The Summerdream? They are MORE than rich.

I always had this impression of them that these sims were "unreachable" by common sims. That everything and scandal about them had to be on everyone's lips. That if you meet one of them at work or at school you do not remain indifferent.

Normal adult sims would like to befriend wealthy noble adults, attracted by their status and wealth.

Normal teenagers sims would look at the noble/royal teenagers in some sense surprised, literally make them the "cool kids" and fangirl over them.

"Look!! It's [noble sim name] you know that he is from a noble family??"

*LE GASP IN SIMLISH*

Unfortunately I haven't found any mods that allow this type of reaction, but I have found some that could simulate it.

The first mod that comes to my mind is simslice's fanzone cone. I've never used it because I think it's very uncomfortable due to how it's set up, but it's perfect if you want other sims to cheer on your sim as if they were celebrities. How it works: The fanzone cone is an object, literally a cone, that you place on a lot and by clicking on it you select which sim you want to be the celebrity. Sims that spawn in that lot will start cheering your sim. (The inconvenience of this mod is that you have to put a cone on any lot your sim is in, because without the cone your sim reverts to a normal sim.)

The second and third mod that I want to recommend are the ones I use and recommend the most. They are a bit "medieval themed", but if a person is noble/royal by family, they doesn't stop being so just because we are in 2024, right?)

These mods might seem a bit "old fashioned" to you, but I personally think they give the right importance to these social classes.

For both mods you need to download the trait system mod, but you don't have to use all the traits if you don't want, just the trait_MAIN is enough since the mods I'm about to link don't work without it.

While you can already simulate something using the "proper, snob and diva" traits with the trait system, I think these mods are more specific:

• Medieval Traits 1, 2, 3 & 4 (Royal, Noble, Knight, Servant etch)

Mods that work with medieval traits:

Royals & Nobles don't cook and clean (With this mod, sims with this social rank do not cook or clean. Let the servants do that!)

Social status based greet (Sims will greet other sims based on their social rank, for example, they will always bow to a noble or royal.)

Unfortunately that's all I could find. I couldn't find anything that would identify a sim as someone important like celebrities are in Get Famous in The Sims 4, where you can't even talk to them unless you're famous enough or you manage to get them to like you.

If you know of any other mods, whether related to death or social classes, please let me know and I'll add them to the list!

[dr-spectre]

I have some thoughts...

I saw the second trailer for GTA 6 and holy hell I get why this game has taken so long to show it's face. It looks like Red Dead Redemption 2's graphics tech but cranked up a notch. I'm really impressed with the lighting and visual effects especially. The smoke, fog, waves on the water, fire, explosions, its REALLY advanced looking tech. This is how you do hyper realistic graphics without it looking boring or ugly.

The character models look stellar too and incredibly detailed. The way the skin interacts with light, the hair, very cool shit, me likey. The amount of different body types and general diversity in the people is so lovely to see as well as it reflects our world but also it will add variety to Vice City as well. The glistening on Jason's body in the sun...

hey. Not, not in that way!!! hey! HEY!!!

ANYWAYS!!! Uh, really annoyed that we STILL don't have proper gameplay and its just cinematics. Like sure it's all in game footage and actual cutscenes from the game itself, but no proper gameplay yet and it sucks man. That really really sucks.

Im interested to see how the story is going to play out. The setup seems pretty standard and there seems to be some hints at certain mysteries as to why a score went south and there could be a potental rat or a setup, but I think the love between Lucia and Jason is what is gonna be the real soul of the story. And as we all know from previous Rockstar games... the protagonists don't get the most happiest endings... well, most of them don't, some of them turn out fine. We'll probably get a choice between either killing Lucia or Jason or letting them both live.

I just hope that GTA 6 is packed full of random shit to do in the world. Let me go bowling, hit the gym to get more buff, order some food at a fast food place and slowly get fatter if i eat too much, play golf, tennis, drink with friends, darts, races everywhere, TONS of clothes stores and customisation, just pack the world with a gigantic amount of fun little stuff to do to make Vice City feel ALIVE!!!

One last thing, well two last things, I wanna be a little... crass for a second...

All imma say is... the strip clubs are gonna go crazy. THAT'S ALL IM GONNA SAY!!! ALRIGHT?! I WONT ADD ANYTHING ELSE TO THAT STATEMENT! I SAW THE SCREENSHOT ON THE WEBSITE AND LIKE.. DAMN BRO. FUCK... IM SO COOKED.

Ok last thing, uh, Lucia is fucking hot. Like the shots of her in that golden skirt or whatever made me audibly go "DAMN." Did you fucking see the way it JIGGLED when she was walking?!?! THE PHYSICS?! LIKE... DAMN GIRL.

DAMN.

I remember mother fuckers complaining about how GTA 6 was gonna have a woman as a playable character. But now look at you... you are pathetically predictable... seeing a hot woman and you suddenly turn heads... i see you... seeing women as objects huh... well i didn't mind that we were gonna get a woman as a playable character from the START!!! Considering that the first GTA game ever had a female protagonist!!!!

Anyhow, CALL ME SHADOW THE HEDGEHOG BECAUSE I JUST LOVE LATI- ***gets brutally shot down via firing squad***

[queenlua]

what would you recommend as a first Fire Emblem game to play? do i just pick up the latest one, or does an older one capture the True Fire Emblem Experience(tm) better? sorta like Super Metroid still being my absolute favorite of that series…

iiiiiinteresting question, huh! it probably depends somewhat on what you think you'll like / care about the most in a Fire Emblem game?

my personal first FE game was Sacred Stones & i think that's still a really good place to start. the spritework is *gorgeous*; i personally think it's the visual peak of the series. it's got the core "old-school" FE gameplay but with lots of nice quality-of-life improvements (as compared to e.g. something like FE4 or FE7), and the story is my second-favorite in the series after the Tellius games—just a good core emotional core with really well-drawn characters and support conversations.

the drawback is that it's on GBA, so if you don't have one of those lying around (or some other handheld to play it on), you're stuck playing it on an emulator on a computer, which i think hampers the enjoyment somewhat—like, i played a lot of that game in "in-between" moments, while on the bus, etc, and it was really excellent for that. also: it's on the easier side! which i didn't mind; i find the FE game loop enjoyable both when i'm just cruising through baddies AND when i'm having to tightly & rigorously strategize every move. but i know a couple people who stopped playing because they found it too easy & got bored

i do think the Gamecube/Wii FEs (Path of Radiance and Radiant Dawn, aka the Tellius games) hold up really well. obviously i am a little insane about them *stares at fanfiction output* and thus clearly biased, but the character writing is shockingly good & rich (sometimes despite itself, lol), and the gameplay's real fun! reasonably challenging while not making you want to throw your controller across the room (unless you opt into lunatic you mad lad!). i do think they're a little ugly though lol. rip. also, if you like PoR enough to play RD, you'll find RD... uneven. it's uneven in ways that mostly delight me, but like, yeah it's suffering a little from "we're telling like four different storylines with a HUGE cast & jerking you around between them a bit" so it interrupts the usual "smooth progression of your carefully-curated army" gameflow for something more like "wow, hope you're looking forward to saying BYE FELICIA to all your old dudes & putting down a random rebellion in Crimea for exactly five chapters & then doing something else entirely."

those games are my personal faves though and. i will always tell people to start with them. in principle. but you should decide if you trust me lol

a WHOLE lot lot of people got started with Awakening, and the core gameplay in that one is VERY fun. about halfway through, if you're sufficiently clever at assigning abilities, the game becomes a little too easy to "break," but it's an enjoyable ride the whole time. it also introduced a LOT of the quality-of-life improvements people now take for granted in modern FEs (you can choose to disable permadeath; UX is much nicer; etc). so if dealing with some old-school cruft is unpalatable to you, you'll definitely want Awakening or newer.

unfortunately the writing in Awakening is, uh, not great, lol. there's two generations of characters you're playing as, and the first generation is just... not very interesting! very one-note and tropey! storyline is nonsense! the second-generation characters are a little more fun but overall i found the main plot's incoherence + the plethora of dull characters meant that i found the story very forgettable.

i think the writing in Conquest/Birthright is similarly weak but i do have to say, if you want to powergame and optimize stats and get REALLY SWEATY GAMEPLAY NERD about it, Conquest can't be beat. best map design in the series, extremely challenging, etc

and then there's the massive fandom juggernaut known as Three Houses lol. of the "modern" FEs, this game contains the most Stuff I Like About Fire Emblem. the storyline's a lil jankier than e.g. the Tellius storyline, but still has plenty of fun stuff to chew on, and even if you don't some of the 3-4 storylines offered, there's a pretty strong chance you'll resonate with at least one of them. and the gameplay is *fun*, lots of QoL improvements, reasonably snappy...

...but it does have a somewhat bloated, "AAA-gamification" feel. visiting the monastery between EVERY SINGLE FUCKING CHAPTER to do "home base"-y stuff gets old fast. and also, the gameplay starts to drag some as you go along... a campaign takes like 40-50hrs iirc, and near the end, i usually find myself going like "jfc i don't WANT to do these three skirmish battles before i go onto the next one... but i need to because it's the Objectively Optimal Thing To Do... why is this game making playing it so annoying," lol. also, the writing, while reasonably solid... could've been reduced by like 50% and probably been *stronger*? most "old-school" FE games only had 3-5 support conversations per unit, and that was generally enough to give a good sense of the character without Overwhelming With Pointless Chatter. but so many characters in Three Houses have *so much more* text than that and it just starts feeling like.. a chore... to go through... especially when in practice i won't even like all those conversations... so yeah idk

tl;dr if you have slightly old-school sensibilities, get Sacred Stones; if you want a "modern" feel, get Awakening or Three Houses; if you want to make Lua Internetperson happy, personally, you should grab Path of Radiance :P

[raleighrador]

Jedi: Survivor thoughts

Finally got around to playing this, haven't quite 100% it but not far off.

Good:

Gameplay is amazing across basically all dimension. Movement is incredibly satisfying and empowering, I thought the puzzles were all (with one exception) satisfying and a good balance of working out what you need to do vs mechanically challenging/rewarding, combat is very rewarding. The stances all feel different, there is a real learning/reward curve if you pick 2 and practice them, each is clearly better or worse in context so it feels like being thoughtful is rewarded

The world and exploration is great fun - the environments are big enough to create some sense of freedom but not oppressively expansive, there is a very thoughtful layout of shortcuts so second or third explorations aren't a punishing grind but actually fun

World building/environmental story telling/set design - the "physical" space you occupy is very rich, dense with details that do a good job of unpacking the story (less the main story and more just cool stuff that happened. This is partly things the "echoes" and talking to or overhearing NPCs talk to each other, but also just walking around and watching animals and the like, where there is an old building and what the building look like etc.). It is also, as a rule, very pretty

Bad:

Performance is shocking. I have never experienced this before - I play on console on whatever the standard settings are. The closest I have come is long loading times but honestly who cares. This game crashed multiple times, frame rate consistently suffered, VERY long loading times (sometimes perpetual and I would have to restart my console), and absolutely infuriating bugs at the very worst times (think of a narrative quick time event but suddenly the buttons don't work so you are just trapped)

Story is boring and dumb. It didn't land for me at all. The biggest issue is that all of the conflict is entirely contrived with no in universe reason for it to exist. The conflicts between Cal and the 2 antagonists exist for no reason other than the structural requirements of the story the writers are trying to tell. Dagan Gera wakes up and immediately bleeds his crystal and attacks you. Why? Why would Cal attack him? Why are they fighting? What do they have to fight over? They have the exact same goal of finding Tanalorr and almost the exact same information. I get that "if only they talked" is a criticism that can be applied to many stories but it feels particularly apt here because there is no existing relationship, there is no existing tension or preconceptions. The only thing they know about each other is DG is a Jedi who was in stasis and Cal freed him. Equally, the conflict with Bode is literally stupid and they almost sort of acknowledge it but what actually sustains the conflict is Bode is totally irrational. I think both are meant to be underpinned by "dark side is space crack" but that just doesn't land for me, and doesn't account for the fact that the only time dark side = incapable of being basically logical is when it helps get the lightsabers out. I get it, we need baddies to fight, but at least give me some kind of reason to fight them. It is also undermined by the fact that towards the end of the game Cal is also using the dark side. If the intention is that the conflict with Bode is driven by BOTH Cal and Bode being on space crack, I can forgive it (but think it is poorly delivered). It just doesn't seem that is what the writers are delivering.

I guess also "story" but the game suffers with a lot of the same meta difficulties of the Disney stuff both being obsessed with tying everything to the OT and the fact that we know it can't really impact that. It seems especially odd because the game so clearly creates space for itself to not have to deal with that... and then insists on doing so anyway. Cal on Koboh helping the settlers, discovering High Republic Jedi stuff, and a secret home free from the Empire is the best bit of the game and stands on its own. It also made the galaxy seem bigger (which Disney struggles with). A planet where the Empire is an (evil) but peripheral players, local bad guys in the Bedlam Raiders, cool GenDai mercenary leader etc. That is more than enough. Instead we get the relatively shoehorned interactions with Cere and Cordova - why couldn't the archeologist on Koboh who has made her career studying the High Republic Jedi temples be the one to fix the compass? The answer is because we need to have Darth Vader appear somewhere and murder someone after you get to beat him up a little. Maybe others enjoy that but I personally find it very frustrating - I don't think Cere is a badass for going toe to toe with Vader, I just think Luke is less special. I could probably be less of a sourpuss about the whole thing but that is my honest reaction. The medium of a video game is also one of the worst ways to tell that story - I beat the shit of Vader and dodge all his attacks until he's lost enough health, including persistent animation of me landing lightsaber strikes that damage his armour and cape and his breathing goes all heavy etc... then there is a cut scene where he kills me? It creates a dissonant and unsatisfying experience, not an empowering one (side bar: if you are going to make me "fight" Vader, I thought Fallen Order handled this close to perfectly. The other mechanic I could see working is make the fight explicitly about surviving long enough. Make Vader impossible to hit - like give me animations of him blocking every saber strike, his block meter depletes, but before he gets staggered he Force pushes you. Make 90% of his attacks unblockable, and the 10% should have the absolute smallest parry windows. Have a clock in the corner, or some environmental time cue, where successfully "beating" the fight isn't depleting his health bar, it is just in surviving long enough).

I have written more words on bad than good but genuinely I really enjoyed this game and think it is well worth playing.

The issue, like with a lot of Disney stuff, is you need to focus on just experiencing it and not think about it, because as soon as you do, it's dumbness overcomes it prettiness.

[hotcocoabombb]

So, I just finished Astro Bot.

I'm gonna get this out of the way immediately: this game is a fucking masterpiece in my eyes. A genuinely flawless game. If you don't wanna read this whole long ass yapfest I wanna just say this upfront. If you own a PS5 and don't own this game, you are doing yourself a disservice. With that out of the way, allow me to glaze the fuck out of this game.

Before I start with the game itself I wanna talk about Production Value because holy shit it is off the fucking charts here. Every inch of this game is fucking gorgeous. Water is so good Mario WiiU would be brought to tears. Particles and physics objects are everywhere, to the point where it feels like Team Asobi was just showing off with what the PS5 was capable of. I have no issues calling it the best looking PS5 game. Sure, God of War or The Last of Us Part 1 may look better technically but Astro Bot's artstyle combined with a locked 60fps that I didn't notice dip once despite the amount of stuff on screen at once pushes it over the edge for me. On top of that, the music is incredible. Every level has a new tune that you'll sometimes just sit down and listen to for a moment before starting a level. Slo-Mo Casino, Crash Site, and Sky Garden are highlights for me but the whole soundtrack is incredibly good.

But that doesn't really mean much if the game kinda sucks, so I am glad to report that Astro Bot might be the best controlling 3D platformer I have ever played. Everything just feels like it has the just right amount of fine tuning. Astro's jump is just right between floaty and weighty, and his hover helps mitigate platforming mistakes without being essentially a get out of jail free card. His attack is basic but you can also damage enemies by hovering, and the game switches it up often enough for it to not feel repetitive. The levels compliment the control perfectly. While Astro Bot is generally a pretty easy game, I don't think that's a bad thing because of how comfortable it feels to play. Everything just feels good. Every time you mess up a jump, it feels like your fault instead of the game's. This rings true even in the face button challenges (which is what im calling them for lack of a better term lol). These little challenges, themed around the Sony face buttons, can be a lot more challenging than the regular game, but they remain fair. Even the final challenge of the game to get the last bot is a fair challenge. The game never resorts to cheap deaths which makes it way more fun than some other "difficult" games. The boss fights are also really good. The wait times between attacks always remained interesting to me because the pace of everything just felt snappy. They never last more than a few minutes and by the time you're done with them they don't overstay their welcome. They're always a nice change of pace from the main game. Also, going for completion never felt like a slog. I got all 301 bots (missing 4 because my playroom file got deleted on accident :/), all puzzle pieces, and all achievements and I was never bored. Just goes to show how incredible the gameplay is.

The story is nothing super complex but I like it for what it is. Basically an Alien just decided to be a jerk and stole the pieces from the PS5 and scattered all the bots and it's up to Astro to fix everything up. Not the most inspired story ever but that's not really an issue imo. The main alien is constantly bullying the CPU of the PS5 and it's honestly really funny to watch the scenes. For a game without any dialogue they really put their all into the story and I personally think they did an amazing job with the story.

Overall, like I said at the beginning of this, Astro Bot is a masterpiece. Everything this game sets out to do, it not only succeeds, but excel's at. This game doesn't have a single bad level or dull moment. I am not kidding when I say I don't even have any dumb nitpicks to muster up. Astro Bot is a perfect game in my eyes and Team Asobi should be goddamn proud of themselves for releasing a game this fucking good.

Astro Bot gets a 10/10 from me. Please go buy and play this game. It's wonderful.

[oakdll]

i finished persona 4 golden !!!

MAJOR SPOILERS FOR PERSONA 4 GOLDEN AHEAD

It’s lowkey insane that they made the final villain a gas station employee, but it was super cool. I really love the story, almost as much as P5R, although the gameplay was definitely worse for me.

Obviously there are differences because of the release dates, but there were a lot of quality of life issues and inconsistencies. The last 5 dungeons or so felt comically easy, none of them took me more than 2 hours, especially with Marie and Izanami’s dungeons which took me less than an hour each, even with exploring every floor to the max.

The lack of Safe Rooms really hurts the level design here. You basically have to do every palace in one session (at least I did because I don’t like Goho-M’s). Being able to have save points before different sections in each P5 Palace was a stroke of genius, and returning to P4 where every floor is basically identical is just boring. I like how each floor is randomly generated, but it also really takes away from the individuality of each dungeon. Pretty much every dungeon has the same random layout, the only differences are the visuals and occasional conditions like with Adachi not allowing you to fight shadows in one of his floors. Compared to P5, the lack of puzzles and insight into the characters really hurts. In P5, the design of each palace gave you insight into its rulers psyche. In P4, you really only get the occasional confrontation with the character and some dialogue at the start of each floor.

There were also WAY too many chances to mess up your ending. There isn’t anything really wrong with having a lot of endings, but having so many points where you can accidentally get a bad ending because you picked an option that wasn’t obviously wrong was ridiculous. I had heard there were a lot of chances to get a bad ending if you aren’t careful, so I used a spoiler free guide. Having to pick like 7 of the right answers in a row to get a good ending is insane.

If I wasn’t spoiled on Adachi before playing, I never would have guessed it. That is good for the story, but having to deduce it yourself is a bit too much to ask of the player. I think P5 did good with prompting you to save your game before game changing events happen. A mix of that and confirming with the player when they are going off-course from the true ending makes the game relatively simple to play through with no guide. with P4, you basically have to look up a guide for the true ending. Having to say “no” when prompted to leave Inaba to get the true ending is insane, if I didn’t know beforehand I would have messed up my entire playthrough. It makes no sense unless you know the story beforehand, especially when no other Persona game asks you to do something like that.

The game is also shockingly bigoted, which goes entirely against the themes of the Persona series and the game itself. Ironically, in a game about pursuing the truth, the made Naoto deny his truth of being trans. They wrote such good queer characters and then came to entirely the wrong conclusion and ruined it all. I still think if you can look past the homophobia and transphobia, the game has phenomenal writing, but it gets really uncomfortable at times.

The nostalgic feeling Inaba gives off and the PS2 graphics really help the vibe of this game. It feels so much warmer than P5, and I am ALWAYS a sucker for a murder mystery. The fog is such a good visual element to the game, and I have a strange obsession with electrical poles, so having those be a frequent set piece is awesome.

The characters are so wonderful, I really wish I had more time to max out all of the social links here, but I think I would have had to skip out on helping Nanako with her homework and I would never do that to her. Nanako and Kanji are both some of my all time favorite Persona characters, they are both so sweet and I would do anything for them. Marie is also one of my favorites, I have no idea why anybody could hate her. Yukiko is amazing, Chie is a lot of fun, and Yosuke is hilarious. Teddie is a freak but I love him but I HATE his blue eyes, Rise is super nice, and Naoto is so cool. The Investigation Team is debatably better than the Phantom Thieves as a main cast, but they are so close for me. The main characters are all just great.

As for social links, I think P5 still has it beat here. The social link cast in P4 is still good, but there aren’t any benefits like in P5 and some of the characters here I REALLY don’t like. Sayoko is an outright pedophile. With Kawakami at least if you don’t choose to romance her in-game she isn’t as much of a creep, while Sayoko actively sexually harasses a high schooler. I also did not like Eri, I didn’t get to spend much time with her but she really could have treated her kid better. I know she’s struggling but she would lash out leave her kid at daycare because he was having more fun there than at home. Naoki was cool, I barely got to spend any time with him but from what I did see he was nice and seeing the grieving process of one of Adachi’s victims was super interesting. For the club social links, I chose Kou and Ayane. Kou was great, one of my favorites but I ended up prioritizing party members and couldn’t max him out. Ayane was nice, I like her arc but her voice acting really ruined a lot of the social link for me. Ai was also nice, but I couldn’t spend too much time with her and I didn’t like her romance subplot. I actually liked Shu a surprising amount, he was one of the few I maxed out because I had extra time in the evenings and I really liked how his arc ended. Hisano was one I really missed out on, I only got to rank 3 with her and from what I saw she was one of the most interesting in the game. Dojima is one of the best social links in all of Persona. He is very similar to Sojiro, but he’s a lot darker. There’s a lot more drama with him than with Sojiro, both of them are amazing, and Dojima’s relationship with Nanako is so sweet. Nanako as well might be my favorite Persona character. She is the sweetest thing ever, and I would do anything for her. Marie’s social link was also great, but I really didn’t like Margaret’s. I don’t like any Persona social link that requires you to go on quests. I didn’t like the Strength confidant in P5, and I don’t like Margaret or the Fox in P4. The fox is better by default because he’s a fox, but neither are super interesting to me.

The music is phenomenal because it’s a Persona game, but the P4 OST might be my single favorite Persona soundtrack. Pursuing My True Self, Signs of Love, Heartbeat Heartbreak, Heaven, Alone, Your Affection, Like a Dream Come True, Youthful Lunch, Reach Out to the Truth, Time to Make History, and Omen are some of my favorites. The only Persona game soundtrack to compare with P4 is P5, Whims of Fate, Beneath the Mask, Alleycat, Our Light, When Mother Was There, Price, and Butterfly Kiss are also up there. P4 is more nostalgic for me, so I think it might take the edge for me.

The story of P4 is also much more complex and interesting than P5. If it weren’t for Maruki’s palace being so good, I would say that P4 definitively has the better story. Adachi being the antagonist was such a phenomenal twist, and I loved him so much up to that point that it hurt even more. His social link is a phenomenal addition, I can’t imagine the game without it. Having so many endings is partially a result of flawed game design, but also the depth in the story. It really feels like an investigation team solving a mystery. Pushing further and further towards the truth throughout every suspect, from Kubo to Namatame to Adachi, and even Izanami if that counts, the game really accomplishes its goal. I haven’t done the accomplice ending, but I might do another playthrough to get it after I finish P3R.

P4G is a really great game, I think it’s a bit more flawed than P5R, but it’s still phenomenal and it’s not like P5 has no flaws either. P4 really excels with the story and I think the primary issues with it are just a byproduct of being over 10 years old at this point.

[crascet]

Honest Thoughts: The 2024 Video Game Awards and Announcements

So, a couple of nights ago, me and a discord server I'm in did a group watch for the VGAs this year. Normally, we wouldn't care that much about the awards but would just watch them for the announcements for new games anyways. The award show itself was pretty decent anyways with some fun parts here and there. Statler and Waldorf were the best part of the show hands down, as they always were in the Muppets Show. The presentations for Best Narrative from Sam Lake was also pretty good as well as the presentation for Best Adaptation from Jesse Pinkman and Lucina (I will not specify that further). Now for the awards themselves, there are some pretty good winners, especially from Metaphor and Astro Bot with the ladder winning Best Game. Glad to see those two games win awards here and I could check them both out next year. I didn't like how Best Fighting Game was relegated to the First Act as I would love to see that on the main show with a presentation instead of a quick mention. Back to presentations, the one with the two TLOU actresses was the worst part of the show to me tbh, they were just boring.

Now for the announcements themselves and WOW they were something! First, there was the announcement of a new Ninja Gaiden game with Ninja Gaiden: Ragebound that seem to have both the old and new versions of Ryu Hayabusa. I'm already excited for this as a fan of ninjas and with hearing the difficulty of the first NG game and the first 3D game, which is a game I should check out some time.

There was then the announcement of Clive Rosfield from FF XVI being the last DLC character for Tekken 8's Season 1 DLC which is really cool to see as it follows Noctis being in T7 as DLC. I know most people wanted Tifa to be in Tekken (including myself), but hey, Clive looks great and the DLC stage looks great!

To a new project announced, there is genDESIGN's unannounced project, being made from the same creator of Ico, Shadow of the Colossus, and The Last Guardian. I absolutely love SotC and I did enjoy myself with the demo of TLG found with the SotC remaster. The game itself seems to follow in the footsteps of SotC with a climbing mechanic, but there could be some cases of Ico within it. Not much is known seen in the teaser other than the gameplay and how it has a giant robot to be an important part of the game. Can't wait to see more about this project.

And then there's Intergalactic and I'm... conflicted. On one hand, Naughty Dog are FINALLY working on a new, original IP that's NOT a remaster, PC port, or both of The Last of Us Parts I and II, so thank god for that. On the other hand, Neil Druckmann is directing this game too. Now, if you like TLOU I and II, that's fine. I understand why people like those games, or at least the first game. It has a mass appeal to everyone with its narrative in both games. It's just that ND just focuses on ONLY those two games and nothing else, just shoving down our throats on how great it is, and I'm worried it'll be the same thing with Intergalactic for the next 5 years. But who knows, maybe it'll turn out great, idk.

Now for the five announcements that stole the show from two companies.

First, there is Sega with the one-two punch of Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio's two new projects: a new installment in the Virtua Fighter franchise and Project Century. Seeing VF come back after years of new versions of VF5 is awesome, with the only two characters being confirmed for the game being Akira Yuki and Stella who is either the daughter of Jacky or Sarah Bryant, or (and this is sort of a fan theory) a clone of Sarah created by J6 given that she looks similar to her, especially that it seems that VF6 as I could call it could take place years after VF5 and Judgement 6 could return. As for other characters coming back, I expect Pai, Kage Maru, and Jacky to be here. Lau I'm guessing is definitely dead as this point with his move set going to either Pai or to Lei Fei, but time will tell. Then there's Project Century, which seems to be a Lost Judgement-esque game taking place in 1915 Japan and it does look really interesting to play. I can check out the demo if there's going to be one of Century. These two look really great and I'm definitely interested in both, especially with RGG's track record with Yakuza/Like A Dragon, which is another franchise I'm itching to play next year.

On the same topic of Sega, there's the announcement of a new Sonic racing game with Sonic Racing: CrossWorlds. Given from the little time it was shown with the only character being shown being Shadow, it seems to be more in track of Sega All Stars racing, which sounds really cool to me seeing a comeback from the racing series, I just hope it'll be better than Team Sonic Racing. Sonic does seem to be on a revival with the releases of Sonic Frontiers, Sonic X Shadow Generations, and Sonic 3 coming out next week, huh? Glad to see it.

And now for Capcom starting with the return of two dormant franchises.

To start, there's the announcement of Onimusha: Way of the Sword. It's awesome to see Onimusha get a new game in a nearly 20-year absence with the release of Onimusha: Dawn of Dreams back in 2006 and with the remaster of the first game back in 2019. It'll release in 2026, but it looks great from the gameplay footage so can't wait to kill more demons!

And then there's the Okami sequel being directed from the original director, Hideki Kamiya returning to Capcom and reforming CLOVER studios which is the best announcement from the VGA's this year. I have never played Okami before, but I now have both the PC and Switch ports of Okami HD, and I do plan on playing them during the winter break. I just hope that the sequel won't ignore Okamiden as I really love the puppy so much. And with the reformation of CLOVER, there's a good chance Viewtiful Joe 3 could happen in the future, but I do wonder about Kamiya's Ultraman-esque project he was working on years ago when he was still working in Platinum. Other than some worrying thoughts of me hoping the Okami sequel won't be that controversial in its development like with Bayo 3.

A pretty good and fun VGA this year with some well-deserved winners and great announcements to look forward to.

[anthuan0]

SPOILERS FOR ALL GAMES

The Quintet Trilogy

I played Soul Blazer and Illusion of Gaia recently, and I just got around to Terranigma. I wanted to give my quick thoughts on each game cause they've been on my mind heavy as of late.

Soul Blazer

The beginning of this journey that took me too long to finish because I kept getting distracted. To start with It's super simple, but I love that the most almost about it. The gameplay loop of going into a dungeon slowly saving souls, unlocking a shortcut to the main area{which sidenote gave me the save feeling of finding a shortcut in a soulsborne game}, getting something you need to progress or simply talking the souls you have saved and then continuing with level despite not being the most unique structure for a game was so satisfyingly executed that it was addicting. Speaking on those the fact that you had to save everything's souls including animals and plants not just people gave me more of a feeling of saving the world than most other RPGs. I also love that said worlds atmosphere is so melancholy I wouldn't call it said but there's an air of sadness that I appreciate. Also the soundtrack is genuinely amazing better than even Terranigma's don't @ me.

Extra: Favorite song from said banging soundtrack

Illusion of Gaia

For me this one is probably the most polarizing. I remember when I first played it, I wasn't really impressed it didn't really impact me. But looking back, the game has a lot more I enjoyed than I realized. Out of the trilogy it definitely had the best dungeon design. Having to traverse the different environments by swapping between you're different forms to solves puzzles was definitely the highlight for me gameplay wise . The story, which at first I didn't really care for, had a lot of somber moments that looking back I really enjoyed. The highlights were definitely Will and Kara growing closer while floating out at sea. The Incan ship, seeing this remnant of a civilization unknowingly living out their last days, was truly tragic. I also have grown fond of the overarching story with the meteor and the remaking of earth. At first I thought it was kind of boring, and even if it never really grasped me I grew an appreciation for how over the top it was. Pure RPG goodness. However the rest of the cast for me was forgettable. Overall not my favorite in the series but who knows maybe if I replay it down the line I'll learn to love it.

Terranigma

Here it is. The final game in the trilogy. You can tell that this is really the culmination of years of refinement of World building and Story telling for Quintet. However lets talk about the aspect I would say wasn't the strongest the level design. Don't get me wrong the combat was honestly super fun. Way faster paced than Illusion of Gaia's mostly due to Terranigma's dash attack and jump dash attack being feeling so fluid in the moment to moment to gameplay. Goes to show how much a simple change can impact a system. However the level design was a huge downgrade in my opinion compared to illusion of Gaia. Less of an emphasis on traversal and puzzles led to the dungeons feeling same-y in my opinion. However I don't think these issues significantly hurt the experience especially since the combat itself is still extremely fun.

My favorite thing to look at in games, movies, books, shit sometimes even music is worldbuilding. And I'm happy say that Terranigma's world is incredible. It brought back the premise of resurrecting the world from Soul Blazer, which were missing from Illusion of Gaia, and expands on it. Once you resurrect the world in the game you're asked to help develop them. Even if the way you help the world grow is a little tedious just taking different items to different places most of the time seeing the cities advance technologically, culturally, and economically while also hearing the villagers thoughts on the world changing was so gratifying. Plus I liked how the villagers had differing opinions on the changing world super interesting they didn't all have positive things to say and it made the world feel that much wore real.

Now the story. A lot happens in this game and I can't explain it all and I'm still a little confused on some parts, but what I can say is that it made me care. Ark the main character was so fleshed out its incredible him going through this whole journey while at times questioning what his real purpose is, only to find out that the life he has known was just a fabrication the main villain for his plan was genuinely heartbreaking. I liked the rest of the cast a lot too I found them to be a lot more likable than the cast of Gaia. I think this has to them being better developed overall even if they aren't traveling with you like in Gaia the key scenes they had were just stronger overall.

Also the music is incredible I still prefer Soul Blazer's but I see why people consider this to be one of the best SNES OSTs

Favorite song:

In conclusion all three of these games have something to offer be it unique music, incredible level design, or a beautiful story and world, I see why people hold these games so dear.