#2024 media thread | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

bunbunbillion · 5 months

Text

THE BUNBUNBILLION Q1 2024 MEDIA THREAD EXTRAVAGANZA

i've been recording everything i consume for the past few months to do a media thread at the end of every quarter. and now april is over... so its time to talk about stuff!! forever!!!!!!

01/13 - Homestuck (Re-Read)

I finished re-reading Homestuck for the... 4th? 5th time? I've lost count. It's a good way to start the year though. This time around I read it with my girlfriend, who you should give all of your money too (@yinkybaginky), and it was very fun to see someones reaction to it for the first time. She knew literally nothing about Homestuck, not even what a Vriska Serket was. A truly great experience, especially thanks in part to the Unofficial Homestuck Collection. I'll probably have more to see about Homestuck in depth on a later date, so I won't bog down this post with that. It's my favorite piece of media ever, and that's all there is really to say on the matter.

01/24-01/25 - The Trolls Movies

I've been surrounded by gay people who love Trolls for the past like 5 years so I finally decided to give them a watch on a whim with my girlfriend, after catching some of the first movie in a streamers server.

They were fun! I really don't think I have much to say on them. They're kids movies, sure, but they're also just very visually great and made me go "yeah you know what some of those old pop songs WERE pretty good". I think when it came to stories I liked the first one the most just because I liked the Bergen's a lot, I thought their whole world was very well designed and all that. Don't have the most care for Branch, and Poppy is OK as a protagonist, but otherwise I had more fun with the other characters. Creature design is absolutely excellent and is what stood out to me the most of anything, though. The animation in the 3rd movie is also top notch, I really do want to see the series continue. If they do, I like the third movies approach of finding a niche to make "the thing" for the whole movie, it's a fun way of doing stuff.

We thought this shot was really funny.

1/20 - Guillermo Del Toro's Pinocchio

I was gonna watch this when it came out awhiiile ago, but just put it off forever. I saw Jacob Geller had uploaded a new video about Pinocchio, which talked about the movie and was like. Man. I wanna watch that video. Guess I'll go watch this entire movie. So I hopped into VC with Netflix on and just watched it.

It was Fucking Good!!!!!!!!!!! Every good thing you've heard about the movie is absolutely true. Do yourself a favor and just watch it. That being said, I also don't have too much to say about it! It's been a few months and it hasn't totally stuck around in my head, but that just means I get to rewatch it sometime, and I can look forward to that. It mostly made me want to watch more stop motion movies.

If I were to highlight anything, its that I love to make the movie all about death. Pinocchio as a story seems to constantly get turned into this thing all about freedom and living and how great life is and all that, but this movie completely nailed that yea. Pinocchio works so much better as a movie about death. A puppet living on a blessing against the laws of nature being used as a vessel to explore acceptance of death. It's really great.

the demons are such baddies btw

01/29 - Earthbound USA

Not the game, but the documentary put together by Jazzy Benson through Fangamer. It was absolutely fantastic. Easily my favorite game documentary I've ever watched... Because it's not really about the game.

To put into words, because I imagine 90% of people reading (not including the people I watched it with) haven't seen it or even heard of it, Earthbound USA is a documentary about specifically starmen.net and Earthbounds western fanbase.

The doc highlights basically every aspect of Earthbound in the west. They talk to the people who translated the game, who made the marketing campaign, the fans who bought the game day one, the translator of the MOTHER 3 fan translation, they talk about Earthbound Zero, about the virtual console releases, the quest to get MOTHER 3 officially localized and every single defeat that came with it, I mean Shigesato Itoi is just here too. It's everything you could ask for all combined with home videos from the early 2000s, an outstanding soundtrack that gives me goosebumps from Robbie Benson, it's just... So good.

I bought the DVD for the movie and streamed that to my friends, which you can get here on Fangamer, whenever they plan on restocking it at least. Or, you can watch it on streaming services listed on their website! If your a MOTHER fan, I'd say this is like, essential viewing. It may as well be official with how good it is.

01/29 - A Brief Retrospective of The Simpsons' Golden Age

I finished this the same day. I recorded this mostly as a joke, but hey if your insane and have watched every single Simpsons episode like me and want whats basically a Simpsons Summary Podcast, I recommend this 11-hour video.

youtube

02/06 - MOTHER

A week later I couldn't get Earthbound USA out of my head, so I decided to finally sit down and go where no MOTHER fan has gone before. To the first game in the series.

It was really really good. Like, man, I don't know why I slept on it so long just because it was an NES RPG. Ok, I mean, I know why I did, it's because it's a NES RPG, but still.

This game really highlights everything that went into its two sequels to make them so good, and has so many little unique novelties about it that make it just so so memorable. The music, the writing, the places you go, it's just... So, so good. I still think the best way to get into MOTHER is to start with Earthbound, just due to how approachable it is, but if you like it and/or MOTHER 3, do not sleep on MOTHER/Earthbound Beginnings. It's just so good.

Probably use an emulator with rewind or save-states though.

i'll be fine with not hearing magicants music anymore though

02/17 - Yakuza Kiwami 2

I started this game probably years ago, and never got that far. Yakuza 0 is definitely one of my favorite games ever, and I was kind of mixed on Yakuza Kiwami, but I was enjoying the start of Kiwami 2 for sure.

How did I feel by the end?

I mean it's not BAD, per say, it's just... Not very good, either. The gameplay never really felt like it evolved much, the writing really felt like it never picked up and just kept ADDING stuff, but at least the side quests were probably the absolute best the series has given me so far. That definitely saved it for me, but man the story. It just wasn't very good.

I had a lot more thoughts after playing it, but I think think in the end it just comes down to;

Ryuji did not get nearly enough time to shine to be an impactful villian

The bastard cop was a character I was given no reason to care for, and the focus put on him did not feel earned in any way

Kiryu really did not feel that involved with everything going on

Sayama did not get nearly enough agency in this story

As for the twists, I didn't like how many there were at first, but I think by the end there were just so many twists I was like. Yeah nvm this is so fucking stupid it owns. So good on them for that!

I don't think I'll ever replay the main story for this game, but I will absolutely come back to those side quests, they're so good I don't want to spoil a single one. I am also really enjoying Yakuza 3 so far, so that's a we might just be back regardless.

the selfie feature is really funny. you really feel like your some 40 year old dad.

02/22 - Pokemon Scarlet and Violet: The Hidden Treasures of Area Zero - Epilogue

I have a lot of thoughts on Pokemon Scarlet & Violet. I am a HUGE Pokemon freak, like omega huge freak levels of such. I will claw and bite tooth and nail defending Sword and Shield any fucking day of the week. I think Scarlet and Violet are like, painfully mid games in such a disheartening way. I still enjoyed a lot of it, but man it's so held back by... everything, really.

And the DLC fixed I'd say about none of it. In fact, I'd go as far to say the 2 DLC stories only highlight and strengthen every single problem scarvi has as a game and it disheartens me, so, so so much. Unlike the Sword and Shield epilogues, which expanded upon the best parts of the game and experimented with brand new formats as prep for the next generation, scarvi kinda just does. Nothing. It's more Scarlet and Violet, slime grease and all.

Kitakami is... Ok, I guess? It's an exceptionally uninteresting region with absolutely no landmarks that stand out in my mind. The story in it is pretty subpar, it's a really annoying kind of "player has no control over a misunderstanding" narrative in a really obnoxious way and by god I'll say it I never really get a reason to care about Kieran. He's not bad by any means, I mean he's just a kid, but really I don't feel like I'd ever call him a friend. The story with the Loyal Three and Ogrepon is really cute though, I do love that they completely flipped the story of Momotaro on its head in such a fun and unique way.

Blueberry Academy I was looking forward to much more, thinking that while Kitakami was really rushed and pretty bad, it must mean more resources were just put towards the second DLC. I was pretty wrong, it was basically just as under baked... But also still better, regardless. They introduce a lot of characters you won't really remember with this DLC, and it feels weird because it feels like there SHOULD be more to these characters, but it's all confined to a pretty short campaign.

The story is pretty ok, and I like what they did with Kieran here, but the second you beat him in the champion fight the story like, immediately halts the breaks and everything stops mattering. I really thought Drayton might've been set up as an interesting antagonist, someone subtly bullying Kieran and egging on how he is, but in the end he's just a well meaning friend who's just eccentric. All the other trainers basically disappear as well, and Kieran reverts back to how he was before all this for the most part. Then the story with Terapagos has to happen, and you get the return to Area Zero, except with your new friends you've barely built bonds with and Briar instead.

Similar to Drayton, I thought Briar might've been getting set up to be a bit fucked up. She's pretty obsessed with Area Zero and proving that Heath was right, and that feels like obvious easy set up for a villain right? Obsession is kind of the text book villain motive, especially in a series like Pokemon. But, no, like Drayton, Briar is actually exactly as she seems, and there's nothing underneath.

Unfortunetly, Area Zero itself was also not as interesting on revisit. I imagine it was the far lower budget, but it ends up mostly just being a very basic crystal-cave environment, without that really fascinating hollow-earth vibe Area Zero has in the base game. You're also mostly just traveling alone going on fetch quests to beat mini-boss Pokemon to open up gates, so that feeling of traveling an unknown place with friends is also completely lost. In the end, Terapagos isn't much of a character at all, like Ogrepon (or Miraidon/Koraidon) are, and is just kinda There. I'm sure the anime is doing a lot more with them, given they're a main character, but man they are NOTHING in this game and it's really disappointing with how incredibly hyped up they are.

In the end though, the thing I really came out loving with the second DLC was something I didn't actually know about until after finishing the epilogue, which was the brief interaction with the Professor in Kitakami once you have Terapagos. I won't spoil it, I'd recommend going to the crystal lake in Kitakami with Terapagos in your party to see it, but it was a moment where I was really like... Damn. This story really could've been something special.

NOW WITH ALL THAT OUT OF THE WAY, it was the Epilogue that I beat this year, which acts both as a bonus to the DLC, and a Mythical Pokemon event similar to ones from the DS games. And, I gotta say.

It's easily the best thing in the entire DLC, bar none.

Despite just being a revisit to Kitakami, the Epilogue is not only better written then both of the DLC chapters, but actually shows that promise for future games like the SWSH DLC did years ago. I had a smile on my face basically the entire time.

First off, hanging out with the three friends again after they basically disappear once you beat the game is so incredibly refreshing. Just having them over to your house is the first time in a Pokemon game I've actually felt that like... Oh, I'm a kid hanging out with my friends, kind of feeling. That original inspiration the Pokemon series had was just completely captured with that, and I love it, and it continues through the entire DLC. On top of that, the DLC does a lot of very small things with its cutscenes that I felt were really missing from the main game that actually completely caught me off guard. Seamless transition between overworld cutscenes, cinematic cutscenes, and battles mainly. It feels like Pokemon games have always struggled with taking you out of the story for loading screens or transitions or letting the player wander off or something. It's hard to immerse, but with this DLC just through the most simple methods they really catch you off guard with the cutscene framing and battle starts in a way I absolutely adore, especially since your with your friends who can actually Talk for you too. Helps that all of the writing is just really funny too, I had such a good time.

Overall, I think this is where I want the Pokemon series to go. The segment of Area Zero where you travel with all your friends already stood out to a lot of people, but didn't have the most writing to back it up. Similarly, this DLC has all of the writing, but it can feel like you aren't actually traveling with your friends, as they don't follow you. I think having a Pokemon game where you travel directly with other people in a bit of a party is the way to go with expanding on Pokemon as a series, and this DLC combined with base scarvi really proves How it can work. It makes me so excited to see where we can go from here, and I can only hope they learned from all these mistakes.

wow i had a fucking lot to say about scarlet and violet dlc and i didnt even mention this thing. whatever.

02/26 - Splatoon 3: Side Order

Funny story, I actually beat Splatoon 3 on a friends copy, but on my own switch, so when this DLC came out I ended up buying an entire new copy of Splatoon 3, with DLC, and an already completed save file. So was the DLC worth 80 bucks? I mean, no, not at all, but it was extremely good!!

It came out while I was out of town with my girlfriend, so we had a lot of fun playing it together, and I think it's just overall a genius idea for a Splatoon mode. It makes me like, viscerally crave an even bigger Splatoon roguelike, but I'm also like an extreme roguelike freak. The story was super cute (my big "I <3 PEARLINA" shirt notwithstanding) and basically everything it introduces is great. I haven't actually beaten the Agent 8 locker yet, because I'm Bad At Splatoon </3, but I everything else was just so good.

im actually extremely biased, btw

02/27 - Ponyo (Rewatch)

I rewatched Ponyo with my girlfriend while I was over for the first time since I was a wee little amoeba. It was so fucking cute!!!! I really do love Ghibli movies a lot. I don't think there's a lot I can say about Ponyo, per say, at least not as much as other Ghibli movies I love like Spirited Away (my fave movie evarr), but I think this movie combined with like. Finding Nemo, Animal Jam, and going to the Houston Aquarium combined are probably why I love marine biology so much now.

02/29 - Death Note

The anime, to be specific, for the first time. Yeah, I can see why this became such a big thing with fujoshis. I get it, I understand now. I'm sorry L, I didn't know your game.

Death Note is overall both an anime of its time, and an absolute classic you should be watching. It's engaging, it's dramatic, it's funny, and there's so many points where your just like "damn are they gonna bone" about the two characters the authors 100% had no intention to be seen in that way.

It's only real problems come from the authors also having no fucking clue what to do with women in the story, and making pretty annoyingly shallow characters that get sidelined really hard. The final arc is also a bit head scratching, but it makes for good drama, so I can't really complain, even if I remember a lot less of it. Great show, great ending. Where's my Misa & Rem yuri manga series.

he really is just fucking jeff the killer huh

02/29 - Promare

Watched this with my girlfriend on a whim, cus we wanted to watch a movie together. I've been a very lowkey TRIGGER studios fan since I was a kid, watching Kill la Kill when I was way too young to be watching shows that crazy boobed, but it did definitely contribute to my transgender-ness, so you can't fault it there (you can fault it for a lot of other things though). No matter what though, when TRIGGER just randomly came out with a full feature length movie released in theaters, I was pretty interested. Which is why I didn't watch it for years.

After watching it though? Yea, that was really fun. It's not much in the way of story, very basic Minority Allegory story I think, but it's all to make way for extremely crazy action scenes and homages to all their favorite mecha anime, which like, yea props they did a great job. Character design is extremely fun, environments are super colorful, animation is what you'd expect from TRIGGER (good), and there's a lot of man tits this time around. I recommend it!

03/04 - 2001: A Space Odyssey

I'll be so fucking honest I watched this on my phone on a plane ride and I don't fucking know anything that happened. I think it was good?? I think it made sense??? I really wanted to fall asleep but I really wanted to watch the movie. It felt like it was simultaneously 4 hours long and 30 minutes. I think I should probably watch it again. I don't know why I chose to watch it on a plane. But hey, I did!

watching this shit while half awake on a dark plane felt like i was in another fucking dimension. what the hell happened

03/08 - Fortnite Chapter 5: Season 1

Hey Fortnite, I play that game! Sometimes.

I've been pretty consistently "playing" Fortnite since Chapter 2: Season 5, and I do really like the game. I love the gameplay, I love all the stupid crossovers, I loved the story, it was just a really fun time!

Well, up until like half way through Chapter 3 at least. The problem with Fortnite is that, no matter what, in the end of the day, it's still owned by Epic Games, and that means at some point, shits gonna get sloppy. I won't go over my whole history with how I feel Fortnites been on a decline since Chapter 3, but I can at least say i was pretty fucking checked out most of Chapter 4. I really didn't like it.

So, coming back on for Chapter 5? Oh shit this game is actually fun I forgot. Played a shit ton that season, actually finished the main battle pass for once, had so much fun with all the new things they added, it really feels like Fortnites back.

Oh... and there's that LEGO mode... and that rockband mode... and there's racing I guess... I didn't really touch them much but they're neat... They were pushing those modes pretty hard, I hope this isn't a sign of something to come... I'm sure they'll keep up the momentum for the next season right? Battle Royale is totally back, right?

i ended up staying up till like the last day grinding in creative to get this emote. im so glad i can make perfect cell do the bird is the word dance now.

03/12 - King of Crusher

I beat this game over on my twitch, you can catch me live playing obscure games every so often each month!! Check it out and give me money! I said mostly everything I wanted to say about it on stream, but this game was just a really fascinating little art project that was both really frustrating and really funny to play. I really wanna find more little gems like this to play, it's so ODD but fun.

03/15 - Animal Crossing (Movie)

Watched this movie as apart of a movie night with my groupchat and it was adorables so cutes! I don't think there's really anything I COULD say about this movie, but it does really make me wish Nintendo was more willing to make more stuff like it. Just a really well animated fun anime movie that's not trying to be this big thing.

the ending caught me completely off fucking guard though

03/17 - Unpacking

Similar to Animal Crossing, I don't really have a lot to say about this game besides so cutes! The story told through the environment was super adorable and I really do think back to this game a lot in a very emotional way.

That being said, I wish it was a tad longer for how expensive it was, as great as the art was lol

If you can find it on sale though, go play it!!

i was playing with my girlfriend and we ended up interpreting the main character as really hating her boyfriend. my fucking Pig of a husband wont let me put my posters on the wall. my Pigly husband. i need to Kill my Meat Pig of a Husband.

03/17 - Pizza Tower (The Noise Update)

In complete tonal contrast to Unpacking, I beat the Noise Update in Pizza Tower right after. It was, like Pizza Tower, really good, but not without its flaws.

In the time since I've played Pizza Tower, I've reflected a lot on what I love about the game and what I honestly don't care much for. I've been playing demos since the very first public one, and I've loved watching it evolve, but if there's one bit of context I've gotten that shapes how I look at the game, it's that the games creator has a really big issue with having a lot of ideas for stuff, and not really thinking about how they fit in together.

Pizza Tower is like, a REALLY good game, don't get me wrong. The movement is borderline perfect, the level design is consistently fun and flows well, the graphics are unmatched in how expressive they are, the music is some of my fave from the entire medium, but if there's one thing really holding back Pizza Tower it's that lack of focus, and I think you can boil that down to the core game design of levels.

Pizza Tower is easy to compare to Wario Land, given that's its primary inspiration, but I think it's much more akin to Sonic, which is also a major inspiration for it. The problem is, it definitely tries to apply Wario Lands brand of "wario can be anything" to sonics "levels can be anything". Sonic levels are all about super quick flashy levels you can blast through, each one having a gimmick unique to the level that you learn, master, and then use throughout the multiple zones. On the other end, Wario Land presents you with these large winding interior-like levels that you slowly (or somewhat quickly in the case of entries like WL4), navigate and solve puzzles throughout for treasure, with your main solution typically landing on how Wario himself can be controlled using various gimmicks unique to him. Your presented a gimmick, and then you remember that gimmick for the future so you can use it to solve a future puzzle. In many ways, these two games can almost feel like the opposite kind of game, only linked by being sidescrolling platformers where you can bust through walls. Pizza Tower, despite that, tries to be both, and in many ways succeeds, but cant avoid the problems that inherently comes with trying to be these two very polar ends.

Basically, I just feel theres a lot of really forgettable levels and an overall problem with gimmicks getting absolutely no chance to be explored so you can never really be rewarded in basic play for mastering a gimmick, other then replaying a level multiple times. I think less gimmicks but more places to use the same ones would be really great.

Talking about the Noise update specifically, it was just a fun retake on the main game, and made for a fun replay after not playing Pizza Tower for about a year since release. I find it really fascinating how even after changing how the entire game controls, the levels still work with minimal changes. I'm looking forward to see if they decide to change it any more in the future, and I hope whatever comes after Pizza Tower can be a much more focused experience.

03/17 - Hiveswap Act 1 (Replay)

See; Homestuck Reread. Been here a billion times, here to show my girl this time. I'll probably scream about this one later. <3

03/20 - Rescue Shot

See; King of Crusher. Another stream game! This one I liked even more, though I Really wish I had a lightgun (or could fix the mouse controls on my emulator). Incredibly adorable game with insanely good music, check out the VOD if your interested!

03/25 - Super Mario Bros. (1993)

I feel like in recent time, people have been hyping up this movie as like, secretly a really good film that people only hate because it's not a Mario movie. I'll be real, after watching it for the first time, I don't see it at all, I think this is just an incredibly funny bad movie.

Beyond not being Mario, which really doesn't matter at all, it kind of just felt like a fever dream of a script. Things kept HAPPENING there wasn't a single second to break I felt like I was in a nightmare hell dimension being blasted with insane plot beats and I couldn't keep track of anything. Without the Mario branding this would be like 10x LESS comprehensible, but good lord.

Maybe this is like, an arthouse film, and I need to watch it 12 more times and be high at least half those times, but idk I think it might actually be bad guys. Big Bertha a baddie though.

03/29 - The Croods

Another movie night with friends, we got the PRIVILEGE of watching The Croods. I saw it once when I was a kid, but I didn't really remember anything about it other then there was a character named Grug.

I now realize that the reason I remember this character is because this movie literally lied and he's the main character. It really tries to set up that the conventionally attractive main teenage girl is the protagonist but no this movie is 100% about Grug and it's so fucking Particular. Why pretend it's not about him when he becomes our sole point of view for half the film? Why pretend its about the teenage girl when she basically doesn't have any dialogue for the last 25% of the movie? What is this movie trying to say, politically? This movies a thinker. I think its a bigger thinker then 2001, honestly.

04/12 - Police Story

The first Jackie Chan movie I've ever seen and damn what a fucking good one to start with. Insanely entertaining, incredibly funny, and just a really great film! I don't think I have much else to say about it other then gush about each and every scene and how well made it is, but it really makes me wish we could get movies like this more. Just a practical effect wonderland where the main guy is just having fun with people on set. It's great.

hes kind of a babygirl

04/13 - Con Air

Actually the first time I've seen this movie, surprisingly, given my attachment to the media that has essentially co-opted this film. It wasn't good, like at all, but it was very very entertaining with friends. I didn't expect it to get so much into like, weird racism stuff?? Characters just keep appearing and getting named it's so fucking weird. What was the deal with Steve Buscemi's character, I feel like scenes were cut or something. Nick Cage was incredibly funny as the lead. It's the thing you watch with friends on 4/13, what else can I say.

why did he do this

04/19 - The Princess Bride

Honestly, I thought this one was a rewatch when we put it on in the GC, but I think I just remembered watching clips of it or seeing half of it on TV as a kid, so I'll just consider this a first time watch. It's really good! Just a fun simple movie full of extremely witty jokes. It's kind of like watching a Simpsons episode for the first time and getting to a part where they say something and you go "oh i've heard this quoted like a fucking million times, i get it now". If you haven't seen this movie, whattarya doin, go watch it!

i feel like were it not for andre being basically irreplaceable we would have a netflix reboot about these three right now. maybe that does exist already.

04/21 - PokeRogue

Half this thread is Pokemon and as I already said, I'm a roguelike freak. This game is like crack for me. That being said it's just alright. I think I'll be willing to judge it more once it's more finished and not just Pokemon in the most barebones form imaginable, coding wise. It's the basis for an extremely addicting game, and I plan on sinking even more hours into it soon. Extra points for using PMD music as well <3

im only just now finding out the rival is gendered. hey cunts let me play as a girl and get the girl rival or you hate me ok?

04/22 - The Mask (2023)

Now you may be wondering, The Mask? The movie from ten TRILLION years ago staring the homunculi known only as Jim Carrey? You'd be a fool to assume this. I am talking instead about Connor O' Malley's current best work, THAT The Mask.

There's not much I want to say about it, because I just think it's good, but if there's one thing I can say it's that Joker (2019) should be fucking embarrassed in how hard it was stood up by this short film.

Content warning for pretty heavy themes and a lot of crass jokes.

youtube

04/23 - Sonic the Hedgehog (2020) & Sonic the Hedgehog 2 (2022) (Rewatch)

In preparation for the Knuckles show (which I still haven't finished), I decided it'd be nice to rewatch these two films for the first time. I haven't seen the first one since I watched it for the first time before Sonic 2, and I haven't seen Sonic 2 since I saw it at an early screening. What do I think of them now in retrospect?

Yeah, not very good films. Very fun! But damn, yea wow, I think with enough time to look back on them, there's a lot I really don't care for in them, and I'm not just talking about the human scenes.

I've been having a lot of conversations about adaptations lately, so I'll mostly summarize my thoughts here. In making an adaptation, your one mission in my eyes is maintaining what made the original loved. Not good, because that's not really a quantifiable thing. Not faithfully, because I feel you can make a good adaptation without being faithful. All you need to truly keep is the Reason people came to that piece of media originally, in my eyes. Whether that means going as hard as you can with something like The Last of Us, which essentially 1 to 1 recreates an entire video game, or be much more out there like with One Piece (Netflix), which essentially tells the same story but with wildly different circumstance and aesthetic.

The Sonic movies, in my eyes, simply don't capture that. In the first movie alone, Sonic and Eggman are essentially our only ties to the games, which is fine as long as they can nail them right, right? And, as many before me have really pointed out, no they don't really at all. Sonic isn't really like Sonic at all, he's a much younger, innocent, and hyperactive "version" of the character, and I say version in quotations because I don't really feel like with those adjectives removed he'd be all that similar to Sonic still. This is basically a new character, and that's fine, but I'd be hard pressed to say it captures what brought people to Sonic. Similarly, Eggman is very much not really similar to any iteration to Eggman at all (except maybe AoSTH?) A lot of people love Jim Carrey Eggman, and I totally get why, but man he really has never clicked with me. I think I like canon Eggman too much to let go, it's over for me.

But I'm sure anyone who's been around Sonic long enough has heard a trillion complaints about the first movie. In rewatching the second movie, I found that it moved way faster then I remembered, and just had way less.. character? Tails is so incredibly shoehorned in, which is a common complaint, but it really felt like at times Sonic was too?

In Sonic games, Sonic isn't exactly a character we put ourselves in the shoes of. Sonic is like this cool older brother we're just along with for the ride. If anything we insert ourselves (as kids) in Tails' shoes. Sonic doesn't really have an internal monologue, nor does he really tend to need a big shonen arc to overcome in his games. He's very much this vessel to explore other characters, to see how people respond to his brash and cocky personality. In that way, Sonic works really well, but can struggle really hard when he's placed all alone. He needs people to not only bounce off of, but to do the emotional side of the story in his stead. With the Sonic movies, we get this very very diffrent form of Sonic being put into this scenarios the canon Sonic wouldn't typiclaly find himself in, and see how he acts. It can work for original stories, because it's basically an original character, but that's the struggle with Sonic 2, and I worry Sonic 3 as well. They aren't fully original stories. Sonic 2 is a loose adaptation of Sonic 3 in most ways, with Knuckles being the true second character, and Tails being mostly to the side. Knuckles acts basically perfectly, like yea that's Knuckles, no notes there outside of maybe not taking his heritage seriously enough, but that's him. So how do you write this movie sonic into this adaptation with a Knuckles whos playing it basically straight like the games? Well... I mean, you kind of just... You, don't, really? Sonic is really just There sometimes, to say quips and to move the story forward. With exception to the scene where he's having a feeling jam with Knux, which I like, Sonic is very much Just There, and it feels really odd. In the games, this works because of his aforementioned status as this guy your along with for the ride, a dude whos too cool to even be the protagonist, but Sonic Movie Sonic IS the protagonist. He's meek and still learning and is far from the asshole we know in the games and comics, but implanted into a games storyline, he just doesn't have much he can do. He can't be that too cool guy that let's his friends do the talking, because he's already been set up as this superhero esque main guy who needs to learn a lesson by the end of the film, or overcome some kind of arc. It's just all odd in retrospect, and I really wonder how they're gonna tackle it in Sonic 3, especially without all the characters that make Sonic Adventure 2s gears go.

i also couldnt stop staring at his teeth in the movie. i really dont like the teeth idk why im just now noticing them.

04/25 - Pseudoregalia

Knocked this game off my backlog and I'm really happy I did! Beat the game with all the time trials done and I really do love it. I want to call it the perfect length, but really I think it was just a bit too short and I hope we can get more content in the future, I'm definitely itching for more levels and maybe even more time trials.

I can't think of much else to say about the game. I don't think I picked up on the story much at all, I'll probably have to ask my girlfriend about it sometime, but it's not exactly a big part of the game. The music was absolutely fantastic, and I adore all of the costumes for the main character. I like her design, for many obvious reasons.

For further criticism besides length though, combat feels pretty useless. There's really no point in the game where I ever feel like I have to or even SHOULD fight, and the final boss ends up losing a lot of impact because of it. Enemies just become a hazard in navigating the world in a way that isn't particularly fun. Similarly, there were a few upgrades that had maybe one use ever and I don't even know why they're there. I think this game could benefit a lot from playing even harder into it's all too obvious inspirations and just getting a bunch of RPG mechanics and more RPG inspired elements in here. Give me Symphony of the Bunny-Cat-Goatgirl, full on.

I also watched madagascar 2 with friends, but i don't even feel like counting it. watch this fucked up compressed video instead.

THAT'S IT FOR Q1 2024!! I'm really trying to look at a lot this year, and I hope to have EVEN MORE TO TALK ABOUT in 4 months! maybe ill do it even earlier because damn this was a fucking lot to write. If you read this far thank you, I'll be sending you a giant mettalic muscular butler sir in the mail as thanks.

#bunny post #2024 media thread #Youtube

12 notes · View notes