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RIP to Akira Toriyama, 鳥山 明

Shocked to hear of Akira Toriyama's passing today, definitely not something I would have seen coming. I've always been a huge fan of his art work, as a fan of Chrono Trigger and Dragon Quest, and of course Dragon Ball and Dr Slump, and I'm looking forward to the upcoming Sand Land game, hopefully it delivers a memorable experience.

The world lost an iconic artist who has been behind some incredibly influential projects. Toriyama-san was an absolute legend in every way. Rest in peace.

ご冥福をお祈りします

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this is the first in a series of posts where i will attempt to popularize the definition of a new rpg subcategory: the irpg (immersive role playing game)

while i will inevitably post a series of very long posts defining the staples of this subgenre, how it evolved over the years, and why it's important to make this term take off as a category so developers making these style of games can all get put into a common, less broad, category for fans of the style to find

some games of this subgenre:

The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind (the first of this kind)

Cyberpunk 2077 (the peak of the genre so far)

Kingdom Come: Deliverance (a fine game for a small team in a genre of this scope)

Starfield (why the genre needs plenty of new blood to keep it alive

while i wont go into more detail here, i will when i have more time to type up a really long post. this one will just be to hopefully drum up interest in the topic

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Something about "Executive Producer Todd Howard" being front and center in the Indian Jones trailer was oddly funny

I am kind of hyped for what could be the first good Indian Jones game, something that should have been unfathomably easy to do.

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There's honestly nothing that makes me laugh as much as the bizarre names that minor league (NA) sports teams have. Here are a few choice excerpts from minor league and junior league hockey:

ECHL:

Worcester Railers (so oddly sexual)

Florida Everblades (ah the pun)

Savannah Ghost Pirates (too many living pirate teams)

Wheeling Nailers (I hope they regularly play the Railers)

LNAH (Quebec)

Saint-Georges Cool FM 103.5

WHL (Canada)

Brandon Wheat Kings

I don't know who's naming these teams, but I wish the major league teams had as many silly names.

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One thing I've noticed in playing some games with the soulslike tag is how unlike Dark Souls they are. So many of them seem to believe that the selling point of Dark Souls is the combat mechanics, which ends up reducing these games to simple action/hack and slash titles with a stamina bar, and a dodge/block/parry mechanic. With only these elements, The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, is a soulslike, yet that isn't the simple defining factor.

What sets Dark Souls, and other FromSoftware games apart from the copycats (aside from the more refined formula), is the leveling system. The loss of EXP on death unless you reclaim before dying again, EXP being currency for shops. These are the elements that make a game get the tag of soulslike. But no soulslike ever accurately accounts for why that loss adds to the difficulty. Dark Souls has heavy RPG elements, with regards to stats and metagaming for certain builds. Most soulslikes omit this aspect of the game. Opting for a preset character with a limited pool of ability upgrades. They account for the EXP mechanic by just making each upgrade, or any item in the shop, prohibitively expensive.

Story wise, most soulslikes also miss the mark. These games feel like they're made by the people who skip the dialogue and cutscenes, then complain the story was too esoteric. Usually soulslikes lack any story at all, and as a result, never inform players of key gameplay mechanics, because they can claim it's "environmental storytelling". I recently played Mortal Shell, where the start of the game gives you zero information about why anything is happening. There is no indication of where to go from the start. Dark Souls practically holds your hand in it's starting area compared to most soulslikes.

Difficulty wise, many soulslikes end up severely unbalanced because they don't have difficulty and level scaling over a 50+ hour play time, so they usually just set the difficulty from the beginning, meaning these games end up with absolutely punishing early games, but pitifully easy endgames. There's no comfortable difficulty level of having a fair challenge, because nothing scales.

I also fail to understand why the design philosophy for soulslikes is to cram the Dark Souls experience into as small a package as possible, and subscribing to the design philosophy of Dark Souls II: Scholar of the First Sin, which is to say, "fuck it, put enemies everywhere. Then maybe they won't notice how short the area really is." The lack of an estus equivalent (or the lack of any information that makes it easy to miss said estus equivalent) is also baffling, since without fail, all of these games have items reminiscent of life gems. Another thing in Dark Souls II that fans hated.

There are also a lot of cheap difficulty tricks. Mortal Shell put a bear trap in front of the heal/level up NPC once, and it was not there when I died and returned. Mortal Shell also has an ability you can unlock that occasionally causes a poison cloud on a riposte. It seems to only poison the player, and with the longest poison cool down in the game it seems. Why? Why do so many of these games feel the need to have the artificial difficulty that Dark Souls was accused of having.

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It feels like something trying to subtly evoke Grateful Dead imagery

Sirena LaBurn - Cadmium Sunset, 2022

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Anyone else ever go and just watch obscure movies that turn out to have huge names in the cast? I've found so many strange indie films with insane casts from the mid-90s to the early 2000s. For example, the film Manic (2001) featuring Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Zooey Deschanel and, more importantly, Don Cheadle. It feels so weird seeing all of them in a movie that cost $400,000 to make, and only made like, $70,000 at the box office.

Anyway, feel free to share any similar movies (include where I can find them) and I'll watch them and tell you what I think. Potentially ruthless insults.

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Marcus Mumford once came through the venue I work at on his most recent tour. It was the first stop on the tour, which was nice since it included a rehearsal day, so I got to go home after load in, and not come back until the next night for the show and load out. Ideal for a big show like that.

Anyways, this is all background for the true story. Previously a friend had told me a story all about this time he and some friends were at a music festival, and they insisted on referring to seeing Mumford & Sons as seeing "the Mumf in person." This of course gave me the brain worms, so after the show, when Mumford's driver came to pick him up, I was out by their semi trucks, and I had to radio when the car came. So the car arrived and I got on the radio and said "the car for the Mum- for Mr. Mumford is here."

While it would have been embarrassing if I said that, I spent the entire time hoping I could meet Marcus Mumford so I could ask him how his sons were dealing with him abandoning them. I sadly did not get such an opportunity.

Photo: An amp named Dad