#BUT lol speaking of spoilers there ARE some gameplay moments that are a bit out from the rest of the game and i WOULD advise on that but

[istherewifiinhell]

LEMME. get this one off my plate/out of my tabs. the indie language translation video game i was playing last week is called chants of sennaar its super beautiful, anyone whos a fan of like that journey aesthetic, or maybe sable. even monument valley (the game not the place lmao). well. 👍🏻youd probably like the vibe. the musics great (u KNOW i take video game music seriously). the game itself is either point and click or the console equiv of run around and press lol. and yeah you translate in game languages to solve puzzles and navigate the world. would recommend to anyone who like language learning, communication, or cypher decoding. and fun games. its pretty decently priced for a short little game but you could wait for a sale i get that. (personally as the frugal gamer i never pay full price but it was a GIFT).

idk what else to say if u know the context i played it in and im STILL saying great game lovely game one of the best ive played. then trust. its a good game. REALLY excellent puzzle design of good amounts of lets you work things out and gives u stop gaps. has a good bar for letting you get into frustrating places, and then your done. your off the hook. no real notes, i just wish there was more of it.

[aces-and-angels]

final thoughts on the ilw finale: jocelyn edition (ch 23 spoilers below) @itlivesproject

---

I will admit that Jocelyn’s post took a bit more time for me to complete. After doing several deep dives, I found myself unable to figure out what exactly I wanted to say about her conclusion. It was also my first real attempt at tackling an interpretation of a Shadow ending. Tying that in with how I think it works with Jocelyn and Rowan’s story... needless to say, I felt somewhat overwhelmed lol.

It is inevitable that the end to a beloved story will feel bittersweet. The urge to hang on to the journey, to delay reading that final line before you’re forced to close the book once and for all- that’s natural. To quote power!Rowan: 

It hurts to say goodbye. And with the end of ILW, we as players are left to deal with more than a few of them. That being said, I can understand why it is difficult for people to pursue the Shadow path + have it be their farewell for the characters they grew to love so dearly. But beyond that pain lies a story that is as beautiful as it is tragic. One that I think is worth exploring. 

As always, gotta flaunt the stats 😎

If you’ve been following along with my other posts, you know that my Jocelyn route was the only one to ‘organically’ achieve a Shadow ending. After spending some time to marinate in my thoughts, I realized that having Jocelyn’s path end this way works incredibly well, narratively speaking, when paired with Rowan’s journey to becoming one with the Power. 

However you play as Rowan impacts everyone they interact with throughout the series. @professor-abeloved ​did a wonderful job explaining the game’s mechanics. For anyone interested, you can read their full post here. To quickly summarize, ILW goes above and beyond with ensuring that the choices you make matter by varying the difficulty of raising a character’s nerve/relationship score. This aspect alone adds more depth for the gang and makes achieving a successful relationship with them far more rewarding. 

Jocelyn has a unique element to her character progression throughout the game. Several moments arise where players are met with a choice to have MC (ILITW and ILW) forgive Jocelyn for her past actions. Whether you choose to have these characters forgive her is entirely up to you. I should note that upon entering ILW, I only had a vague impression of the events in ILITW and ILB from my original gameplay years ago. Maybe that’s why it was easier for me to let these characters choose to forgive Joss for her less than stellar past. Others may not share the same sentiment, and that’s totally valid. ILW does a good job addressing these concerns players may have with Jocelyn. However, whether these characters forgive her isn’t what I want to focus on. What matters to me: By the end of ILW, can Jocelyn forgive herself? Players get that answer depending on her outcome after her nightmare sequence. The theme of self-acceptance is ever-present in Jocelyn’s arc. Rowan’s as well. Their issues may differ, but the root of the matter is the same. 

Upfront and rough around the edges- this is how Rowan first meets Jocelyn. Her abrasive attitude may turn people away, but it doesn’t take long after their initial meeting for Ro to come to this conclusion:

Rowan: If you think you deserve to be punished for anything, you don’t.

Jocelyn: Hmph. You say that like you know me. 

Rowan: I do know you. You’re a protector. I know you don’t want to admit it, but you keep us safe.

A protector- that is Jocelyn’s core essence. To quote a line from her Blood route ending:

Jocelyn: After everything with Cody, after everything I did, who I was, I convinced myself I didn’t deserve to live my own life. To fully move on from the Power. I didn’t deserve to be happy. 

Jocelyn’s self-sacrificing nature is a key component to her motives throughout the series. She is someone who is willing to cross any line necessary if it means that no one else would get hurt. An over-correction for the pain she has caused others. Rowan’s choice to merge with the Power is the ultimate sacrifice. They give up every earthly tether- their body, their friends, everyone, and everything that they grew to love- forever. But in Rowan’s case, their sacrifice doesn’t come from a place of self-hatred, but rather self-love. If returning to the Power is Rowan’s greatest desire, then their merge with it is a glorious experience. Something that just innately feels right. 

Rowan: I am the Power. I used to think that I was just a regular person, but ever since I learned my origins -- how I was created -- I know that’s just not true.

Loha: Interesting response. You do not feel human? You do not have desires to live as a human?

Rowan: All I want is to protect the people I care about. But once that’s taken care of... no. I don’t think I could live as a human. If I survive today, I want to continue learning about the Power. I want to continue protecting people from it.

...

Rowan: I want to go back to the Power, to finally belong, and if doing so protects the world I love and the people in it, then why would I choose anything else?

What happens when two people who are hellbent on saving the world fall in love with each other? Turns out, one of them is gonna save it. 

Along with choosing to have Rowan be forever separated from everyone they’ve ever grown to love (such a fun time lol), there’s also a choice on whether to leave a gate open between the world and the Power dimension. In the end, I chose to keep the gate open. While there is the possibility of another Matthias-like situation arising, Rowan leaving some tie to the Power on Earth makes sense when viewed through the lens of having a romantic relationship with Jocelyn. 

Rowan: The Power is beautiful and has blessed this world in many ways. I believe the two dimensions can coexist. We shouldn’t lose its goodness just because of one horrible person.

The world is inherently flawed. Even if Rowan were to cut its ties to the Power, it won’t solve all its problems. There will still be those who suffer. Injustices from the cruelty of man. So why leave the gate open? Why not eliminate at least one of the world’s many problems? The answer is simple: love

I don’t think it’s too cheesy to say that love is the answer. It’s love that brings Jocelyn and Rowan together- that helps Jocelyn grow to be a better person. It’s their love that makes their last goodbye so damn painful. And it’s love that allows Ro to think that while there is darkness in the world, there’s also light.

Rowan: You’re worthy of friendship and love and compassion. Never forget that. 

Jocelyn: I won’t. 

The world Rowan grew to love was one tied to the Power. In that world, they found someone flawed, but beautiful. Fierce and brave. They saw the good in the bad and loved her with everything they had- so much that they ended up saving the world for her. Rowan enters the Power realm knowing that there will be people like Jocelyn to protect the world long after they’ve gone. We leave Jocelyn sitting alone on the same Ferris wheel she rode with Rowan (happier times 😭)

Jocelyn: You know what makes you a real asshole? The fact that you made me want to be better. I... I want to... be kind. And you’d say that it wasn’t you, you just gave me a push but... I know it’s you, at least a little, because I was terrified of you, terrified enough to want to kill you, and you... you made me want to be kind to you.

Rowan leaves the world in a better state than when they found it- a protector’s dream. They help Jocelyn realize that she is worthy of greater things, capable of being a good person. What a poignant end for ILW’s resident badass. 

---

Blood Route: 

Jocelyn: I think the only person you need to worry about right now is you. You have some serious baggage, and you should deal with it the way that’s best for you. It’s okay to put yourself first, Rowan.

Having Jocelyn say this by the end is a testament to her growth throughout the series. It’s wonderful to see her helping Rowan the same way they helped her. I fear these two, esp. with the nature of their characters, will both have a lingering case of hero’s guilt by the end of this route- always thinking that there is more that could’ve been done. However, they will have each other to rely on to help them continue to live for themselves, not others. 

Mixed Route: 

In terms of being able to align with an LI with this route, Jocelyn wins as she is the only one out of the gang who expresses any desire to stay in Westchester. If Rowan doesn’t romance her, she is guaranteed to do so. My initial fear of pursuing a Mixed route stems from Joss’ motivations for staying in Westchester in her Blood route. She admits that she feels like she can’t move on from the Power. That she has to stay to fix the wrongs she’s caused. Thankfully, my concerns were addressed with this line alone:

Jocelyn: You’re right. I deserve to be happy. I can choose the kind of life I live, whether that’s to keep fighting or choose something different. If it weren’t for you, I don’t think I could have seen that.

Not to be witty, but giving Jocelyn the power to decide how she lives the rest of her life is *chef’s kiss* immaculate. Her motives, once clouded by guilt and fear, are now of her own volition. Seeing that level of self-assurance from her by the end of the series is nothing short of amazing. 

---

And now for some good ol’ fashioned keyboard smashing:

Joss’ love language: linking pinkies 😭

Joss x Abel are BFFs confirmed pt 2 🎉🎉

I’m telling yall if you haven’t played the non-nsfw scenes in your LIs epilogue- go out and play them- I love seeing the little in-between moments with them

Alright now that I have seen everything- I get why we had Ro give a cake to Abel. It makes up for the fact that we can’t see Moss in his route LMAOO

Anyways, back to Jocelyn

I love her

so much

her spice scene: 5 stars 

Ro worshipping her scars- plsss my heart can’t take it 

“I’ve been called hot or sexy before, but I’ve never really felt beautiful. Not until you.”

COME ON 

imma leave now before I ramble any further 

[noddytheornithopod]

Started playing Jedi: Survivor! Gonna post miscellaneous thoughts I’m having as I play through it. For reference, I’m also playing on Story Mode (I just want to be safe cuz I have no idea what will be thrown at me lol).

And of course, if it wasn’t obvious, spoilers under the cut.

So we begin with Cal being “captured” and taken to this Pau’an senator (the same one as in the first teaser). He seems to be like a big shot... or at least is hoping to become one, since he’s hoping to gain the Emperor’s favour by saying he caught a Jedi. It’s really just a ruse (the cops holding Cal are actually fellow rebels working for Saw Gerrera), and well soon stuff gets crazy.

Probably the most notable issue so far is framerate? Like, for reference, I’m playing on PS5 and am using Performance Mode (it would be pointless to do anything else since my TV only has a max 1080p resolution). It’s not exactly bad, like it definitely isn’t the nightmare that PC players seem to be experiencing, but I find that especially between the transitions between gameplay and cutscenes it can get kinda choppy. I get why the cutscenes have a lower framerate, it’s so they look more cinematic, and honestly I’m more than fine with that, but the transitions and even a few gameplay moments feel slow.

Also maybe it’s just because I already know how Fallen Order played and I’m also on Story difficulty, but I think the opening level dragged out a bit too long? It makes sense it’s an easy and simple level, but eh, who finds tutorial sections fun anyway, lol.

On the other hand, being in the Coruscant underworld was a pretty cool opening setting. There’s a lot of narrative parallels to Fallen Order already, and there’s parts of Coruscant that actually remind me of Bracca in some ways. Many parts looked a bit dark, but IDK if that’s just my TV or what, but that aside it all looked cool.

Nerd moment: the first enemies you fight being the patrol troopers from Solo was fun. What’s more fun than killing stormtroopers? Killing COP stormtroopers.

Bode seems cool, I guess. I do feel like them emphasising the monetary involvement he’s working with Saw for is gonna come into play later on though, like if someone offers him more to pay for him and his kid he could pull something on Cal. Also they introduced the buddy AI system, which lets you tell your friend to do certain things, and command them to help you in fights. IDK how effective it will be (especially on Story mode where so far I’m cutting through Stormtroopers like nothing lol), but it’s still cool to have your pal show up and fuck with some enemies.

Cal’s already got some fun quips, but I’m also interested to see he already seems darker. Like, when they eventually capture the senator, he basically makes a death threat, but what really stood out to me was when you learn the confusion power. Like, he literally says something like “I don’t think Cere told me to use it like that”. And like... that line only made me think of Ezra at the start of Season 3 of Rebels even more than already recalling Ezra puppet that walker off that base. Two Jedi who feel like they need to do more to stop the Empire and Dark Side, but are flirting with darker tactics to get there.

So Ninth Sister returns. The way she talks almost makes it sound like she’s some recurring enemy Cal keeps running into. KESTIIIIIISSSSSSSSS!!!!! But yeah she’s the first boss (which feels a lot like the first Trilla fight on Bracca, speaking of which another parallel has Cal pull a Trilla on one of the gunships surrounding them). Cal... fucking decapitates her. It’s an interesting moment to me, another sign he’s darker of course, but I’m getting a lot of different feelings here. Like on one hand, he doesn’t seem to relish it at all, even trying to reach out to her, even calling her Masana Tide, her original name before she turned dark. But on the other... he’s like “I’ll set you free” and decides who must live or die. Like sure, Masana wouldn’t listen to him, she’s just full of rage and pain, but still, playing executioner like that was still a dark moment to me.

I should also mention the lightsabre stances, because the boss is where you first lean dual blade. So far... I’ve barely used single blade, lol. I’m fine using double and dual blade for now, honestly. IDK how it is on harder difficulties, but I think they compliment each other nicely. Double blade for crowd control and more defensive fights, and dual blade when I feel like being more offensive. Also, nerd brain just thinks it’s neat to have a sabrestaff you split and put back together.

Controls are mostly similar, there’s some slight changes here and there, I’ll get used to them with time probably. Force powers still work as expected. I’m a monster that loves using confusion to make enemies fight each other, lol. It IS cool that it can’t work on all enemies though, like purge troopers are immune since they’d obviously be trained to resist mind tricks, some creatures you can’t seem to affect I guess because they’re just too weird or whatever, and you can’t use it on droids because they’re not organic. Making Bedlam Raiders kill their own droid underlings they’re in charge of is funny.

Oh yeah, Koboh. Only gotten up to Greez’s cantina and I just stopped right after I found the part we need for the Mantis, but it already feels massive. Interesting scenery too, like it reminds me of a savannah in like Australia or even Africa. Also, I’m guessing the bogling population came from the Mantis stowaways in Fallen Order, lol.

The minimap is much more helpful actually. Still a bit complex, but there’s a lot more notified to tell you where you can go and even traces where you’ve come from, and it helps give clearer directions on where to progress too. It’s not so easy like say Lego Skywalker Saga where the default just lets you follow markers that tell you exactly where to go, you still need to look around sometimes to find how to progress or solve a puzzle, but for someone like me who can get stuck for pretty stupid reasons, it is handy to have these extra hints.

So the scene with Cal and BD looking at old footage they had of the crew together was definitely sentimental. It seems to be around or soon after Fallen Order since the characters still have their looks from that game, but it’s nice to see the times they spent together, and you can tell how much Cal misses them all even if they all parted ways.

On the other hand... we got TWO Greez salt jokes within the span of a few minutes. They KNOW and they really want to remind us, lol. First, one of the videos displayed has Greez say to Merrin say something like “too much salt is bad for you”, which well, yeah, the irony is obvious. There’s also what used to be the Mantis’ terrarium now holding some old belongings, and one of them was Greez and salt related, I think it was his salt shaker? But yes, salty Greez fans, you will not be disappointed.

The locals at Koboh seem interesting enough so far. Little frog due and big Klaud dude! Rayvis had an... interesting first impression. Like at first he’s all shouty and dramatic to the point where I found it a bit much, but after Cal kills his enforcer, he actually starts acting more honourable and subdued? Hard to read guy, I guess. Sounds like he’s building to something, though I have no idea why harassing people on some Outer Rim world is necessary for that. Like, the people in the bar talk like they just show up and cause trouble because they can. Cal stepping in to defend the frog dude was cool though, nice reminder that at heart he’s still a Jedi even if I have... questions about some of his new tactics, lol.

Greez reunion! Was a pretty sweet moment, honestly. And there’s also a sassy droid at the bar who co-runs the place (I think their name was Monk?). Greez is rightfully concerned about Cal though, like Cal misses the crew but it sounds like his own obsession with fighting the Empire was a key factor in what caused the rifts to form in the first place. Something definitely seemed to happen with Cere especially, like when Cal talks about Merrin Greez is like “actually I was asking if you’ve spoken to Cere”. Cal does lose it for a moment, too. He feels like because he might be one of the only Jedi left, he has to shoulder that responsibility to fight the Empire. It’s kind of like the opposite to Obi-Wan’s situation - right around this time, Obi-Wan has given up hope and thinks it’s pointless to do anything, while Cal is so into the fight it seems like it’s consuming him. Like, Greez made this room for Cal to chill in even for a bit, but Cal’s all GOTTA GET ON THE MOVE. Also, for more parallels, a callback to the sleep talking scene, lol.

Anyway, stuck underground and Cal noticed something weird, I’ll get to it later and we’ll see what else happens!

[honnojis]

i beat violet and reached the credits! i'll talk without spoilers about how i felt about the maingame (yet to do postgame), but i'll put it under the cut nonetheless.

i mentioned it on twitter too, but despite the game being extremely riddled with bugs and broken lighting (gamefreak please fix your fucking game so it plays normally without me having to restart it to fix the memory leak issue temporarily im begging), the actual contents of the game are REALLY fun and the writing in the game is the best it's been since gen 5.

Narratively it surpasses the previous couple of games in many ways (and swsh in EVERY possible way and more lmao) and honestly? that redeemed the game for me. no you can't change my mind. The whole endgame sequence had me actually wanting to stay up to play more but unfortunately my switch ran out of battery and i forcibly got stopped so i had to go sleep LOL

The tera mechanic is fun and adds a nice layer of depth to gameplay without making it obnoxious like GMAX was, game felt pretty balanced and I even had a couple of moments where I struggled to get by, which was great! I love that. Thank you for not making the game too easy at some points. It also definitely did not help that half my team was weak to either ground or fighting LOL but that's aside the point

Speaking of teams, the mons in this gen have been a bit hit or miss. Some of them really feel like they could've used more depth to their designs, look better in 2D than in 3D or are just... really not my thing, but the ones they do hit the mark with, they hit it GOOD and they introduced some of my favourite designs across the whole franchise with it. It's probably still the least solid gen in a while though, which is a bit of a shame as I was hoping for better.

The technical issues with this game REALLY are holding this game back though. I'm even mad this shit even got through QA at all and released in this state, how the fuck did they overlook such a huge performance issue? What's done is done though and the game's out there, so instead let's hope for a solution; if they release a patch with some fixes for lighting issues and the memory leak that keeps tanking the game's frame rate and performance, then this game will feel much better to play, even with the switch being an underpowered console. Restarting the game from time to time has shown that it can run relatively smoothly as it fixes the memory leak problem temporarily. Sure, there's definitely some stutters still, but the average frame rate is definitely higher and it would do the game well to see that fixed sooner than later.

If the game had like... six more months or even a whole year extra in the oven, I really do think that it would've been better for this game, but unfortunately TPC likes money too much to not have GF run on fumes all the time ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ it's not the games that rake in the big cash after all, it's the merch made based on the new mons.

tl;dr, game fun, story was good and actually had me super invested near the end, gameplay was fun but could've been better in the mons' overall design department, please fix your fucking game GF and release a patch to fix the biggest issues, thanks. but also TPC stop stretching this game company thin you freaks

[massaffectt]

not far cry 5 and its fucked ending. damn.

I hate it but I kind of like it too. it's hard to explain. I dont love the whole "god told me" part of it because I think it just feeds into a cliche rather than the reality that the game hints at through the radio. and if youre gonna let it play out that way why not then give more nuance to the cult instead of being so trope-y. why not really show us why Joseph felt he needed to do the things he did beyond the religious cult cliche. its not like it was bad I just would have loved to see them dig a bit deeper into his mind. American horror story comes to mind. one of my favorite episode in the series is when kai convinces his gym buddy to... do the thing. I'll avoid spoilers. it's a really fucked up intense moment. at the same time this season has my least favorite episode in the series lol. its a weird season, I didnt love the direction his cult went (again, trope-y) but I love how much the exposition of kai throughout the season, what he felt, why he felt that way, why he did what he did. in far cry 5 its a lot of, I have a plan, its gods word, we're preparing for whats coming *typical cult tactics expose*

ive seen some people comment on the nonsensical stuff, that doesnt bother me too much. I really didnt mind being taken out of the game for story stuff even if it felt a bit silly sometimes in the circumstances since it can happen anywhere. I just liked the way they put the story together that way so yeah I didnt mind.

the whole "what was it all for" feeling im sort of on the fence about. thats a whole lengthy philosophical debate. but that ending really felt like we're in this together it was really cool. and then just: oh.............. FUCK

some of the gameplay and mission design. the game is fun but at certain points the mechanics felt they were working against each other. particularly john's bunker and the fight with Joseph. overlapping inputs made things difficult for John's bunker, trying to open the silo while fighting off enemies you can barely see because there are fires and explosions everywhere and picking up weapons by accident because its the same button. and once the silo opens youre supposed to grapple up except you couldnt see that there were enemies right above you shooting as you climb up lol.

with Joseph... it wasnt bad and I actually really loved the idea but just. I died as soon as it started lmao. theres not any optimal cover and trying to use a medkit before youre insta killed can get a little frustrating. there might have been an upgrade for using medkits faster, if so, I dont think I had it. but I did have max or close to max health. but you have a group of people right up your ass so you need to heal but you need to kill them quickly and then you need to revive them too but youre dead as soon as you revive them... it was just messy. but I have to stress how cool the overall idea was. johns bunker was really the only point where I was actually frustrated. at the same time it felt realistic because why wouldnt something like that be that difficult lol.

I think nothing will ever beat far cry 2 for me. I mean far cry 3 is obviously a fucking classic. incredible in a million ways. I love it. but far cry 2 just seems to remain the most immersive and interesting. I think they can out do it but it would take bringing together the best parts of each game. I still have to go back and finish 4. and I wanna play 1, primal, and new dawn. starting up 6 as we speak although I have a bunch of games I wanna get to soon so I might just dip in and out when I want. we'll see.

overall I do think far cry 5 was awesome. I remember there was a lot of controversy when it came out but I was so eager to play it because I loved the idea of it being set in America. I liked the whole cult schtick. the idea of companions like the pupper and all. I wish I played it when it came out but my expectations back then were probably quite high so im actually glad I sorta forgot about it and didnt get to it until this year.

[repl1c4nt]

i wanna uhhhhhh update my ffxvi post: i did end up giving it a chance and so i will elaborate on the Me (tm) official review: theres a lot buckle in (spoilers for th3 entire game)

ok.,,,,,,...... now dat were all here letz go

First id just like to say soken delivers another phenomenal soundtrack(no surprize there) Historie - the holy empire and Titan lost are some of my favorite tracks in the game i cannot say i expected anything otherwise and it was a delight to get to every major dominant battle to hear what he cooked

on the topic of battle the gameplay was another huge plus for me. when all else failed i found myself returning to ffxvi for the gameplay alone because it is very genuinely fun, fast paced, and i enjoyed the variety of each eikon it kept rhe game fresh for me espically when it slowed down in every other aspect, i enjoyed every eikon battle to death whenever i couldnt decide if i /liked/ the game while playing i remember fighting titan. i had no clue how the fight would play out despite being late to the scene and i was blown away by how good it was. everything about it was so enjoyable it honestly empowered me to get to the rest of them and bahamut was just as much of a treat. it helped i love dion (i will be getting to characters) and his phase themes (beyond the heavens&ascension) were brilliant. the bahamut fight much like titan did not disappoint. for me at least it felt odin had a bit of a much welcomed difficulty spike enjoyed that fight a lot even if it wasnt as cinematic as bahamut and titan

speaking of... cinematic scenes were a weak point to me.. as cool as they were and they /were/ i cant help but feel like there had to be a better way to interrupt the fight. sometimes it really took me out of the moment to have my fight paused to just like press a button or mash or some shit. its fine just got old /fast/

as far as the rest of the battles they were all fun adn well and good.. i enjoyed every fight theme and found every fight mostly enjoyable although i cant help but feel the DPS check section fighting ultima where you kinda fly arounf him in circles would have been leagues more fun if it was a drakengaerd 3 style synced to thr music event... imagine that....it would be so awesome it woukd be so cool................. anyway as far as the actual final fight.. well lets get to the characters and story first

i wont be discussing the controversy surrounding the game because, despite it impacting my experience playing the game in very real ways, it just isnt what i wanna get into in this base post

alright. maybe i wasnt paying rnough attention but the story to me fell apart when ultima became a bigger actor on the stage. absolutely dont get the lad or the crystals. were destroying yhe mother crystals cos theyre killimg the planet fine well and good the story's pacing in this part was really wonk to me haha it would go from desperately boring an sluggish to fun for a moment and then just so boring again. it wasnt until the final two mother crystals when i became invested in whats happening. the mothercrystal plot twist was like oh ok well cid died for nothing /shrug i really dgaf either way i only really care my beloved mid. i really found myself most invested when characters i liked specifically becme involved with the plot (dion its dion its always dion)

dion's story to me was easily the best (yes my favorite heavensward character was aymeric. whos fucking surprised) fang and and vanille always had the most profound impact on me as far as ff relations go and its def because they were the closest thing we had to a canonical queer relationship and i will say dion and terance felt.. good? i know theyre not the /best/ and fang and vanille were leagues ahead of them a decade ago bit theres that just the way theres no question about their queerness just felt so good to see as a long time queer fan of the series who put up w its homophobic moments lol........... they were definitely a genuine highlight for me and their relationship was so beautiful and refreshing i wish we saw more of them.. especially because clive and jill just did not hit lolll. i couldnt believe how little i resonated with clive, joshua too. for me i usually have no problem relating to the main cast they all feel so human and real even when theyre cartoonish theres an undeniable down to earthness and relatability of most of the ff main casts i just couldnt bring myself to really care about clive

jill's story was for a brief moment something interesting and exciting. this was a woman in a yoshi p game w her own arc where the male character plays a fully supportive role and she isnt put in a passive role for her own story to move someone elses development along jill for the briefest moment maintains her own active will to get closure on her trauma where she isnt punished for it its just so disappointing its her only moments in the game. her character arc is chapters short and afterwards she would almost exclusively play passive roles, even giving clive her powers after they share an equally intimate scene both naked and venerable only for a dynamic to be reinserted through the form of dominant's power

clive was just nothing to me, i honestly tried to like him and i did mostly enjoy joshua as a character but i just did not ever care for his story ultima was so unfleshed out and strange ffxvi was best when it was pretty grounded to the on continent conflicts, the story doesnt feel like it was built around ultima the story honestly feels like it was built around the empire and ultima was an after thought. and man vs empire and then suddenly extraterrestrial/celestial freaks are involved isnt even uncommon ff plot progression. i could play like 5 other final fantasy games at that point. if the combat in ffxvi werent so addicting it would have nothing. (untrue of course it always has a brilliant soundtrack) i just really did not like the way the game built off itself it never felt natural or believable. none of the conflict with ultima felt grounded or natural or like it was built up in any meaningful way

i really dont understand the hype around clive hes very genuinely just a pretty face. i just dont care about u at all no matter how hard i tried

i never cared about hugo or benedickta either, although theyre like tertiary antagonists to be fair

joshua was another highlight for me. hes just very polite and jote was cute if definitely underutilized. i really dont have much else to say i wasnt surprised he died

clive i knew would die, that was a spoiler i knew w out a doubt going in and i was completely disappointed in it anyway. joshua made sense at Least he was basically dying the entire game and dion well. it makes sense yoshi p would kill the one gay man we cant have shit in eorzea but seeing clives entire arc be no dont kill yourselfffffff..... the world and its endless beauty is a bounty of possibilities and meaning. just to die anyway feels well. it just feels and to be fair clive did sacrifice himself for the lives of others but the scene where cid tells clive not to kill himself- regardless of how ungentle he put it- just feels so empty because well clive u could hav just killed yourself there i guess. sorry you were a slave for 13 years youll die before you get to live your life for yourself. like cmon narratively a more satisfying arc for him would have been to overcome this and live for himself even if he has to live w out joshua. he can move on hes done it partially before hes accepted himself he must live but he doesnt get to

its a shame. also unrelated the final fantasy namedrop made me reel but i forgave it for honestly being a little camp......... the lodestone name drop is Not forgiven. just horrible someone shpuld be fired

i dont really have much else to say and out of a desire to post this soon im gonna wrap it up. honestly i had high hopes for final fantasy 16 and im not one to go "oh final fantasy now sucks" because i Love ff13. i love ff15. i liked ff14 a normal amount. but ff16 just felt underwhelming compared to them.. it looked leagues better dont get me wrong even if ill always think ff13 is visually the best out of 'modern' final fantasy for its incredible cgi cutscenes good art direction and the ps3 charm the realtime cutscenes in 16 sometimes felt undynamic in comparison but real time vs cgi is very literally games hardware vs movie so........ not comparable tbh the environment and general worldbuilding of 16 was just so lackluster. the world felt so unreal even if it looked incredibly real, the plot was unfocused at times and inadequately built up, the characters are mostly uninteresting, and the character eith the most meaningful connection to clive was torgal. well torgal and cid but cid dies and leaves a gaping hole in the 'good character' category when it was just him mid and dion to begin with

still fun to hunt rank s's though ☝️

[triforce-princess]

well, i finally 100% completed hyrule warriors age of calamity in its entirety, including post game content, so i’m finally going to write a full review. beware this review will contain every spoiler imaginable so please do not click the read more if you haven’t finished the game yet and don’t want to be spoiled!

tl,dr; this game is a lot of fun despite some of its shortcomings and it’s really nice to see characters get the development they needed in breath of the wild. also a huge improvement gameplay-wise from the first game. if you’re a fan of breath of the wild it’s worth a try, just don’t expect breath of the wild style of gameplay! and if you’re a fan of the original hyrule warriors, you are going to love this a lot. ok now to get into the details. this is extremely long;

about the gameplay; it took me a while to fully adjust to the new controls and mechanics, but once i finally understood it it was so much fun. i originally wasn’t crazy about the sheikah slate runes since it was difficult at first to remember that a. i had that ability, and b. when the proper time to use it was. but when it finally clicked for me it brought a whole new interesting layer to the gameplay that challenged my memory in a fun way. it took me even longer to learn what the use of the rods were but those were great in a pinch once i figured it out. i also loved the flurry rush mechanic since dodging is a pretty important aspect of the gameplay. all these new layers added to this gameplay makes me wonder how i ever put up with the original hyrule warriors gameplay lol. something i wasn’t entirely crazy about was the wall jumping and paraglider stuff? i never really found it useful and it always just became a problem when i was trying to dodge and i’d be confused about why my character was slowly flying around at critical moments.

the camera in this game was pretty frustrating. with the more organic map & lots of tight spaces (which i’ll get more into later), the camera would get stuck a lot and you’d be unable to really see what’s going on and it got pretty frustrating at times. i wish there were some way they could fix that but i’m not sure what they could do without having the camera go out of bounds & show the edges of the map. maybe they could’ve made some of the objects that are in the middle not be things the camera get stuck on though.

i also felt like there were too many special effects going on with some enemies and attacks, sometimes it would cover up large parts of the screen & you wouldn’t be able to see what you were fighting and that was pretty stressful (i found myself frequently yelling “i can’t see!!” when i’d defeat a guardian or something in a room with lots of other enemies. this only became an issue in the later parts of the game though.

now about the maps, i do love how much more organic and natural they are. it’s a big upgrade from the original which had a lot of wide corridors leading into square rooms which were allied/enemy basses. but unfortunately, this causes issues with navigation and the camera getting stuck (like i mentioned before). i had a lot of problems where the map was too natural and i was confused about why i was getting stuck on level geometry when it looked like i could walk through there. i think the breath of the wild style makes this confusing too because you can’t really undo a thousand hours of being able to walk through nearly everything. but also it was just really unclear what was a wall and what wasn’t sometimes. i was surprised i actually had to zoom in on the mini map and look at that to move around at times. definitely an ambitious aspect of the game & i appreciate the effort and detail, but i don’t know if it works that great for this style of gameplay. i also don’t know why they bothered putting so many small details on the ground if they’re just going to pop in so close to the camera. it was kind of awkward when you cleared out all the enemies & were traveling to another location and it was the only noticable thing on screen.

speaking of ambitious, we can’t ignore this game’s framerate issues. it’s the first thing on everyone’s minds when talking about this game. most of the time, it was pretty acceptable. but they definitely pushed this game farther than the switch can go and it shows. i really appreciate the love they put into making this game as detailed as they did, but i don’t know if it was worth it in the long run. there’s only a couple times i can think of where the framerates got absolutely unacceptable, and it always seemed to be when there was a lot of electricity and enemies on screen at the same time. it happened once during the final vah naboris mission and another time where there were a ton of electric lizalfos all shooting electricity at once at the same time you have to fight an electric lynel. but, i’m not the kind of gamer that loses my shit over dropped framerates, i grew up with the n64 & have had to put up with poor early emulation many times in my life so framerates don’t really phase me until it just gets unplayable.

wasn’t crazy about how many late game missions were just boss rushes, but that’s pretty standard hyrule warriors fare. at least it was more fair in this game where most of the time you only had to fight one boss at a time and the next boss wouldn’t spawn in until you beat the first one, so there was no risk of accidentally aggro-ing a boss in another part of the map & have an unfair fight on your hands like in the first game. it was pretty anti-climactic how the seemingly final mission which had the highest recommended level was just another boss rush, and not even the hardest one (it was just a bunch of regular malice bosses in a row).

bit of a side note but i didn’t like having to grind for materials and find koroks for 100%. the koroks weren’t nearly as bad as breath of the wild though, thank god.

i’m pretty disappointed that some content that’s clearly in the game isn’t unlocked in the base game, it’s looking pretty likely that they’ll add it as dlc later & pretend it’s new content to make the game relevant again...i’ve always firmly believed dlc should be extra content that’s added in later. hopefully they’ll add some really cool stuff as dlc alongside the stuff that’s in the game & it won’t be so disappointing. there’s two characters i was sure would be unlocked as playable characters (sooga and astor) but i found it weird that you don’t get them in the post game and instead you get to play as the egg guardian (terrako) and calamity ganon???? talk about subverting expectations. also really frustrated to learn that zelda’s royal dress isn’t available in the base game but its in the files & is just missing one body part?? really hope that’s just a free update and not like, paid dlc. kind of dumb that they didn’t give the devs one extra day to model feet on the character.

about the story; the story starts out really strong i feel, i loved seeing characters get the development they didn’t get in breath of the wild and this game’s story makes breath of the wild’s story feel even more incomplete than it did before this game came out. and actually seeing the story play out in chronological order in real time without link having amnesia gave the story so much more feeling and connection. this is probably my favorite aspect of this game because i was always so disappointed with how disconnected you feel in breath of the wild because of the way the story is told. and it does so much of a better job illustrating link and zelda’s feelings. i’m probably the single most difficult person to convince when it comes to link and zelda being in a relationship or having feelings for eachother and i thought this was quite possibly the best master sword scene in any zelda game;

in previous games link has always had to prove his courage in a variety of trials spread across the land and to me its really boring, especially after how many times its been done. the thing that gets me about this scene is the master sword deems him worthy because of his desire to protect zelda even when he’s been beaten down & disarmed. that was a really beautiful moment to me & i’m glad they wrote the scene this way.

speaking of being worthy of power because you want to protect someone, i wasn’t really that crazy of zelda unlocking her power just because she loves link but honestly this game illustrated it in a much better way & i’m more down with it now. i loved this shot how it really captured what she was feeling;

it’s also in general awesome to see the champions in action, both in gameplay and in cutscenes. i remember being in awe the first time i got to play as urbosa. it feels like we finally really got to know them and how powerful they really were, instead of breath of the wild just telling us they were cool & we just had to believe it.

now for the part i know people say this game is shit because of; the time travel aspect. yeah, it’s a little silly and nonsensical, but honestly, it was kind of fun. and i don’t get how a time travel plot is somehow weird for the zelda series. the most critically acclaimed game of this series, ocarina of time, is entirely revolved around a time travel plot & the heroes would not have won if it weren’t for time travel in that game. yeah, it’s goofy, but this series is known for its nonsensical aspects & plotholes. there’s always some kind of unexplainable magic in this series that solves problems. i don’t think that makes this game shit. plus i was kind of starstruck when i first got to play as sidon lol. i was thinking to myself, man, who would’ve known 3 years later we’d get to play as sidon! crazy! none of the champion descendants were really my favorite to play as but it was still cool to see them & play as them.

something i didn’t understand was why kohga and the yiga clan joined zelda’s cause? i feel like a vital scene got cut. i don’t get why he’d join even when astor betrayed him, considering his group’s ambitions and how many times they tried to kill zelda. and where’d sooga go? the scene of astor betraying them kind of implied he was going to die but we never got confirmation of that, and he even shows up in a post game mission as an ally (no cutscene, just one line of dialogue during gameplay)

as for the ending, i guess it was alright? astor was a really lazily written villain and i just did not care for him at all. kinda don’t even care that we don’t get to play as him (yet, probably). calamity ganon’s design in this game was terrible. and i guess it would’ve been hard to make it work, but no beast ganon? just felt a little to easy to wrap up. despite this i guess it was nice to see hyrule get a happier ending even if it was a bit nonsensical at times. also this is just a bit of a personal thing for me but i liked seeing  hyrule before it was destroyed. it always bums me out when you find a locaiton in game that’s been destroyed & you can only think about what it mightve looked like before. this is something that’s bummed me out since wind waker (was always disappointed you don’t get to see what greatfish isle is like!!) and breath of the wild gave me so much disappointment in that aspect lol.

one final thought but it was odd to me how many lines revali got & how often he interacted with link lol. was weird to see him slowly warm up to link a little towards the end (but of course he’s still a little mean...). no other character acknowledges link as much as revali. this scene confused me the most??

there were so many other people revali could’ve spoken to. he barely even acknowledges teba who was the one who specifically came to his aid!! and the way link looks at him with big puppy eyes?? link barely makes a facial expression at anyone else! and how revali expresses gratitude for the first time in his life after looking at link’s stupid cute anime face and smiles (but he turns around because he would be too ashamed to smile at link i guess)

anyway that’s it, i finally got out all my thoughts about this game. this went on way longer than i intended and i’m sorry if you read the whole thing & it took forever lol. this game is fun, get it.

[latin-dr-robotnik]

Favorite games beside Sonic?

Oh, a ton actually, dear anon!

Celeste, because of its story (I didn't relate on a personal level, but a close friend of mine did, and that game made me realize a couple things) and that tough yet very fair and accessible gameplay. I pushed through and 100% it just out of sheer love and determination (Chapter 9 broke me though)

The Messenger, because it's a great 2D sidescroller mixed with a whole Metroidvania second half. Good levels, good lore to explore, great gameplay, amazing humor and some of my favorite videogame tracks of all time. I love this little game and I always recommend it (this is a little spoiler, but A Melody to Break the Curse is one of my all-time favorite songs to ever use Genesis instruments)

Shovel Knight, old favorite of mine, and I played that game until I got sick and tired of replaying all campaigns (about 135 hours lol)

Super Mario Bros. 3, this may come as a shock to most, but I actually played Mario first, before becoming a Sonic fan lol and Mario 3 is just one of those games I couldn't ever stop playing as a kid. I love it so much.

Mega Man 6, out of all the classic MM games, I love 6 the most because of the stage selection, the refined formula and the sole fact it has Mr. X Stages. What a wonderful game.

Spark the Electric Jester 1 and 2, I love the first one because it's a very fun 2D action sidescroller with some amazing levels (Sunfire Forest, anyone?), and the second game is a perfect show of how a 3D Adventure-based Sonic could work. Seriously, the level design in Spark 2 is insane.

Not exactly an "all-time favorite", but right now I'm having a lot of fun with No Straight Roads. The story confused me with some mixed signals right at the end, but the gameplay and bosses more than make up for it. The music, too.

So far I've listed games that are either platformers or have the smallest bit of relation to Sonic, but I swear I play a lot more games :P

For example, the original Bioshock is a goddamn masterpiece. I love the atmosphere and the ideological clash that comes with Andrew Ryan's vision of the ideal city, in comparison to Atlas' own purposes or whatever you the player think of it, seeing how the entire place ran itself into anarchy and complete inhuman chaos once shit hit the fan.

Fallout New Vegas. Out of all western ARPGs and Fallout games, I placed my trust on this one, and my goodness it was a pretty incredible experience. Every little story, every dialogue choice, every path you can take and moment that fundamentally changes the world... it's janky as hell, yeah, but the writing is stellar.

The Witcher 3, I played it a while after the initial hype went away and after playing the other games in the series (still haven't finished reading the books, though), and what I got in return was a game that made me laugh, cry and lose myself in its world. Moments like Priscilla singing The Wolven Storm, or walking around Kaer Morhen and taking in the breathtaking views, doing sidequests in the world, the great Dettlaff boss fight, or the sheer brilliance of Hearts of Stone and quests like Scenes From A Marriage. Best 150 hours of my life.

Age of Empires 2, first PC game I played as a kid, and one of the biggest reasons why I study History today. That game forever changed me and nowadays it's the only esport I watch, catching some live tournaments from time to time.

Yakuza 0, speaking of games that changed my life, this one. I love everything about this game (well, except escorting Makoto), it's so full of stuff to do and great stories to experience. Incredible game.

Yakuza Kiwami 2, on the same note as Y0, Kiwami 2 has some of my favorite moments in the series. One of my favorite stories, my all-time favorite final boss fight of any Yakuza game and one of the greatest final boss themes of any damn videogame I've ever played. And I'm speaking as a Sonic fan, I'm not even joking.

I could list some more (racing games, other types of shooters and stuff) but I think I overextended enough as of now. Thanks for the ask!

[violent-optimism]

Why Twilight Princess is the Best Zelda Game (To Me!)

Hey ya’ll,

I know I don’t really talk about video games that much. I really should though! Video Games have been a huge part of my life for pretty much as long as I can remember.

The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess is a game that means so much to me I can scarcely put it into words. I was 10 years old when this game came out, the perfect age in my opinion. I think if I had been any older or younger it might have slipped past my radar. Despite the game being rated T for Teen, my parents got it for me and my sister anyway which I think is pretty fucking rad.

Not that we really knew what we were in for, of course. I was just a kid. I didn’t read game reviews yet, and I didn’t have any friends who had played this game so I couldn’t ask them about it either. When we first popped that disc in and were brought to the main menu, we had absolutely NO idea just what kind of ride we were in for or how just how much this game would impact us.

Another thing I’d like to mention was how this game was introduced into my life at the perfect time. My sister and I had just moved schools. We were the new kids, and we had a lot of trouble adjusting and fitting in. There was definitely some teasing, maybe even some bullying. I don’t remember much from those days to be honest. But you know what I do remember? Playing Twilight Princess. This game was the perfect distraction from my crappy school life, and in a time where my sister and I barely had any friends, it was so comforting. We’ve always been close, but I think we bonded a lot over this game.

If you’re a gamer, you know this feeling; the feeling when you are currently playing a game that is just so fun, so amazing, so utterly addicting in the best possible way; that when you’re away from it it’s all you can think about. I distinctly remember my Dad installing the new TV which meant no Twilight Princess for a day or so. I was SO impatient and I just couldn’t wait for him to be done so I could continue playing it.

Even though I’ve now played Twilight Princess so many times that I could basically play it with my eyes closed (maybe lol) I still remember experiencing some of the best moments of the game for the very first time; running around Ordon Village, finding Midna, beating the first dungeon, finding out that GANONDORF was in the game! (Remember I had no way of knowing this at the time). Every big moment, every discovery, every heart-wrenching cut scene, it all felt so real and so important at the time. In a lot of ways, it still is.

Okay, so that’s the personal part. A bit long-winded, I know. I just thought it was important to include for this essay. But what is it about Twilight Princess that makes it so special? Why do I love it so much even after 15 years? (God that makes me feel old). This list isn’t really in a particular order but I will definitely be covering a lot of the BIG reasons why I adore this game so much. Oh, and in case you’re a little late to the party, there will be spoilers. Let’s go!

 Darker and More Mature:

There’s something really enticing about being a kid, and witnessing something in a movie, video game, etc. that you know you probably shouldn’t have watched but you did anyway. Not only is Twilight Princess the only Zelda game to date that is Rated T (I’m pretty sure anyway), but it has some seriously dark and disturbing moments throughout the story; including one VERY creepy cut scene about halfway through the game that still haunts me a little to this day. Beyond that, you’ve got painful transformation sequences, characters being stabbed, characters sacrificing themselves, and a scene where I’m pretty sure Ganondorf’s neck just gets fucking broken. I can go on, but the point is this Zelda game does not screw around when it comes to showing intense moments and it’s all the better for it. I never felt the game went too far with it, but let’s say Twilight Princess definitely earned its T rating.

 Wolf Form:

I’m sure people who haven’t even played TP know that this is probably the biggest defining feature. In this game, Link gains the ability to turn into a Wolf! I know some people might consider these parts of the game to be boring and not as fun, but I have always disagreed with that notion. I think it’s a really cool and out of the box way to break the somewhat repetitive gameplay of traditional Zelda games. There’s more of a puzzle-solving element to these Wolf sections, and I for one find it very satisfying to collect the Tears of Light. Turning into your Wolf form becomes essential, especially towards the latter half of the game when you need to complete tasks that you couldn’t normally do as a human. Plus…Wolf Link is pretty darn cute! His design is awesome too.

 MIDNA!!!:

And speaking of Wolf Link, around the same time Link gains this ability he also meets a character who (in my opinion) is THE BEST Zelda sidekick/companion across all the games. She’s not annoying, she’s not boring; Midna is a 3-Dimensional, fully fleshed out character that plays a crucial role in the story. I can’t imagine anyone playing this game and NOT getting attached to Midna. I know I certainly did. In the first half of the game you don’t really know that much about her, but she is certainly helpful gameplay-wise and doesn’t just give you the same useless hint over and over. Plus, the SASS! My God, Midna is so sassy I love her so much. I love how she grows and changes and becomes a better person by the end of the story. Midna really deserves her own game!

 A Beautiful Game:

Now obviously this doesn’t just apply to Twilight Princess. Most Zelda games are very beautiful, especially the more modern ones such as Breath of the Wild. However, there is something about the specific beauty of Twilight Princess that just takes my breath away. The scenery is just gorgeous everywhere you go. Ordon Village is beautiful, Hyrule Field is stunning, Snowpeak is captivating, the Fishing Hole is serene, you get the picture. And to top it all off, Twilight Princess STILL looks beautiful even after all these years. The graphics have aged really well which is certainly no hindrance. As a kid I always wished that some of the locations were real, and honestly, I still kinda do.

 Best version of Ganondorf:

It’s funny; I don’t normally root for villains. I tend to gravitate towards more heroic characters or characters that are more similar to me. Ganondorf is certainly the exception; specifically the Ganondorf that we see in Twilight Princess. I remember being SO EXCITED when he first appeared in a cut scene after Arbiter’s Grounds. I don’t know if it’s the way he was introduced, the raspy laugh, or his character design, but I LOVE Ganondorf in this game. He is just so bad-ass, so cool, my only wish is that we saw a little bit more of him in TP. Regardless, every time he shows up in the game, he is a formidable and dominating screen presence. And I feel no shame whatsoever admitting that 10 year old Sam developed a massive crush on this Ganondorf. Is that weird? I dunno, but either way he is just so cool as well as a fantastic addition to an already perfect game.

The Soundtrack:

Again, it’s not unusual for a Zelda game to have a really fantastic soundtrack. The series has always had amazing music since the very first game. However, the music in Twilight Princess continues to entrance me even to this day. The Main Menu theme? Amazing. Midna’s theme? Amazing. Lake Hylia? Amazing. And don’t even get me started on those beautiful Wolf Songs you sing throughout the game. It’s just a beautiful soundtrack. To say it’s nostalgic for me is a massive understatement.

Dungeon Design:

Unsurprisingly, most Zelda games tend to recycle the same temple themes over and over again. You got your forest temple, your fire temple, water, desert, time, etc. These are definitely present in Twilight Princess, but there’s something about the way they’re designed and the way you move through them that just feels so unique and wonderful. I won’t name them but I’ve played other Zelda games where the dungeons felt like a horrible, tedious chore. With TP, I never felt that was the case. Every Dungeon is packed full of secrets, with plenty of interesting set pieces to explore. Even the water temple (YES, the Water Temple!) is enjoyable to play through. The Dungeons have tons of replay value as well, meaning that you can return later and find special items that you weren’t able to access before.

And just as a fun bonus, here’s my top nine list for the Twilight Princess Dungeon’s:

9) City in the Sky

8) Palace of Twilight

7) Hyrule Castle

6) Temple of Time

5) Lakebed Temple

4) Forest Temple

3) Snowpeak Ruins

2) Goron Mines

1) Arbiter’s Grounds

 And that about wraps it up, folks! Sorry this was such a long essay, I had so much to say. It is, after all, my favourite video game ever. Of course it’s not technically perfect and it definitely has some flaws. But you know what? It’s perfect to me, and I’ll never get sick of it.

Thank you so much for reading! :) Listen to this track of the opening theme and tell me you don’t feel it in your SOUL!!!

[silver-wield]

Morning yall! Time for your daily dose of delusion destruction! This time we're focusing on second best bros, Cloud and Barret! (because Barret and Red is brotp, I don't make the rules I just follow them lol)

Ok, spoiler warning for ppl who haven’t played – do I still need to do this? Eh ok, (I tag FF7R spoilers as final fantasy 7 remake spoilers) and it’s gonna be middling.

Also, this is one person’s interpretation of the scene, so if you disagree that’s cool and we’ll agree to disagree.

You’re also gonna have to excuse the janky quality on some of the screens, I’m grabbing them from Youtube and it’s frustrating af trying to get the exact moment I want.

Please check my master post to see if I've already covered your question, thanx

Let's mosey!

Sorry for the no cut, I'm on my phone, so I'll have to add it later.

This line. Eugh. I've seen so much damn romantic coding thrown at it I'm sick to my back teeth how people ignore literally every other relationship Cloud has with people.

This is not about Aerith.

This is about Barret.

Remember? This is what happened like five minutes prior to this line. Cloud literally lost his friend. Another one. And right after he saw a simulation of that same friend dead after being forced to watch the girl he loves get killed. Again. Because he thought Tifa died in Nibelheim and that grief is still in him.

In the last couple of weeks, to Cloud, he's lost his mom, his home, Tifa and Zack. In the last day he's lost Jessie, Biggs, his new home and now Barret.

This is his goddamn expression at the time. He's frozen in place, breathing hard. He is trying so fucking hard not to cry. He's been in a very bad place emotionally through this whole bit in the Shinra building. He cried when the grunts reminded him about Zack dying. He was so terrified of Hojo he hid behind Barret and didn't say a single word until it wasn't even possible to carry out that bravado filled threat.

Cloud doesn't want to lose his friends. Every one of them is precious to him. He cherishes them all, or did we think that AC line was more dumb ship talk?

The second Barret gasps, Cloud slid to a stop. He looks back and we don't get to see his expression here or in the rest of the cut scene. It focuses on Tifa's relief, then gameplay resumes. Because I'd bet good money Cloud looks far too emotional that Barret's OK, and we're not supposed to see this much of real Cloud behind the mask.

So back to the point this makes the whole damn thing about Barret.

Cloud stops Barret from going after Rufus and comes up with a very logical reason why. The same thing he's been reminding Barret of whenever he got too over enthusiastic about busting Shinra heads. Several times Cloud says, "Stay on mission/remember our goal". It's not "oh we must save the damsel", it's mission time.

Cloud appeals to the leader in Barret. You know, the one where he literally leads a cell of Avalanche, makes sure all his people get home? That's what Cloud is referencing. It's Barret's desire to do the job and make sure everyone goes home.

Aerith is the job.

Now, if yall actually pay attention to Cloud's face like I do then you'd have noticed his eyes look suspiciously shiny during this bit. He can't quite hide that he was as broken up by Barret dying as the others were.

He knows Barret's an all guns blazing kind of guy. I mean Cloud literally jokes about "Why did we bring you along?" before they go into the building because Barret's suggestion is a full frontal assault. Then if you take the stairs you get him saying he'd choose a last stand over this.

Cloud is protecting Barret by making him leave. Because he doesn't want to lose his friend again.

And Barret understands this immediately because he looks cut up behind those sunglasses. It's a "you care about me, you lil jackass?" look and accompanies his putting his hand to the back of his head, which is a masculine gesture to convey embarrassment.

Guys (mostly) touch the back of the head or neck when they feel embarrassed or vulnerable because it's an instinct from hunter/gatherer days when they had to watch out for predators going for the back of the neck. In modern times it's become masculine body language to show emotional vulnerability.

In conclusion

This whole bit has very little to do with Aerith. She's an excuse Cloud used to save Barret. His friend. The one who just came back from the dead.

Hollow, ykno, that thing yall also think is romantically coded, speaks of if Cloud had a second chance what he'd do differently. It's not just about girls. It's about everyone he loves. Cloud loves so many people and can't bear losing them.

Ofc he'd do everything to keep them safe.

[breezy-cheezy]

I finished Final Fantasy 7 Remake

Long story short, I loved it!! So much!! And there’s alot I wanna rant about so here we are. A review of sorts?? Major spoilers ahead! 

And if y’all think you’re immune to spoilers because you played the original FF7, YOU ARE NOT. Lots of new stuff here....just warning y’all.

Although! I did find this great looking walkthrough playlist if anyone’s interested and can’t play the thing themselves? Idk how complete it is with the details, but from a glance it looks nice! 

- FIRST OF ALL the music in it all is amazing!!! From the menu song all throughout, I got Emotional. All the rehashings of Aerith’s theme?? Tifa’s theme?? The FF7 main theme here are there?? AMAZING!!!! I need to find a tracklist or something there are so many versions of the songs specific to the scenes they played in and I die??? Man it is Good. 

- On the music front, I really enjoyed the Jukebox feature! So they could add in old classic songs that story-wise couldn’t appear yet...good nostalgia there. 

- Lil disclaimer, I played the original FF7 fairly recently, on Steam. HOWEVER. I played Crisis Core years ago, and watched Advent Children, etc. And Final Fantasy music has been a staple homework playlist for me for ages now.... So yes I’m new to the whole FF7 original story. But not new in how most people are...it’s a weird situation lol. Like I knew the general FF7 story for awhile but just recently filled the details....

- The gameplay is awesome!! I wasn’t great at it, but...tbh it felt like mechanics combo of the original FF7, FF15, annnnd Kingdom Hearts :D Also appreciated it PAUSED when you picked out commands lol. Loved upgrading weapons. Loved working with materia. I wish there were like...ways to save a materia set so you could easily switch over when your characters were switched out though X’’’’D 

- Biggs is Aro/Ace

- Cloud is VERY Aro/Ace

- Tifa might be Ace

- I decided long ago (in my Crisis Core phase) that Sephiroth is Aro/Ace. There’s nothing to “prove it” in this game but I’m holding to it. I have claimed these characters askjdhuiwdhguerhgr

- Side note, slightly related, but I love how the relationships shone in this remake?? Lots of casual, comfortable touch with Tifa and Cloud (in which Cloud seems in general pretty touch averse due likely to Trauma) in a “we’ve known each other our whole lives” way and gosh I love them. Aerith with Cloud is adorable. Barret!!! Was characterized SO WELL here, and I love him way more than I ever did!! Barret and Tifa interactions as well were so heartfelt and wonderful aaaaaa how good

- Like...Barret haaaates Cloud in the beginning. But somewhere along the way he adopts Cloud instead and ain’t that fantastic?? He just can’t contain how much he cares about others and especially his daughter and goSH I love him. 

- Aerith!! I love her!! She gave such a vibe that she knows more than she says, but is still so cute and sweet and sassy I LOVE!!!! Also that scene in the train graveyard with baby Aerith ;;~;; 

- Also

Cloud: You need any help??

Aerith, climbing a ladder: I’m fine. You don’t need to treat me like a princess or anything~~~

*ladder breaks*

Aerith, completely serious: s h * t.

I LAUGH

- Cloud was actually really cute with kids!!!!! 

- I think I saw a post where they talked about how much more consistent characterizations were here?? I have to agree. I feel some stuff was lost in translation while playing FF7 original, and it felt alot more put together, character-wise, here. I feel like some of that was learned from FF15 and its success with character relationships?? It was Good. 

_ I rambled about this before, but Wall Market was every bit as embarrassing as you would think. *covers face*

- Also I thought it was interesting how they handled who was in your party when! A little annoying sometimes though, switching materia around!!! DX I also really wanted to actually PLAY Red XIII/Nanaki....but sure make him an NPC, whatever. (I am grateful he healed me often.)

- *me when Nanaki shows up* AAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!! THERE HE IS!!!!!!! (sidenote, in the original, I didn’t wanna call him by his experiment name. He’s the only character I changed the name of. The name I picked? Ignis. :”D )

- The motorcycle segments were ANNOYING AS HECK, especially that last one in escaping the Shinra building DX The game forced your camera to focus on the boss and that made the controls VERY ANNOYING. Cool to watch tho.

- I actually almost completed the game boss fight chain early last night!! But RIGHT when I got to Sephiroth, the family demanded I get off the TV for their use D: all that progress....I had to redo ALOT. DX 

- STILL the fights were VERY cool! Reminded me of KHII end alot actually, jumping around on broken floating buildings and whatnot?? Also the creature looked like a HUGE DARKSIDE heartless lol

- There’s actually alot in this remake that gives alot of a KH feel to me?? Nomura I see you....

- *screeching the One Winged Angel theme still not knowing the words* 

- I LOVED how they showed scenes of the future in the end?? Probably ripped from Advent Children, but?? The characters actually seeing that?? Going “this CAN’T be our future!!” Yo. Also it’s implied it might not HAPPEN now going against destiny and all. I know alot of people are pissed but I am EXCITED. I’m all for a fix-it fic game thank YOU. 

- Speaking of fix-it: ZACK. ZAAAAAACK!!!!!! It’s implied he’s alive in one reality so WHERE IS HE??????? I’m so curious about this new story. I’m gonna eat up theories. I want!! To see!! My baby boy!!!!!! to be Fair (haha) I spoiled myself knowing he was in the game but I didn’t know WHEN!!!

- This is terrible, but I love how much they expressed how NOT OK Cloud is. His mental state is awful, but boi won’t talk about it. 

- Like I know it’s in the original, but it comes up ALOT more in the remake, and the flashbacks/brain short out moments are more obvious in HD for sure. Plus Cloud’s eyes seem more green there, which is a great touch!! Also the incredible FORESHADOWING it brought. Love it. Please someone help this idiot with his headaches....

- I did get annoyed with the whole scene in Hojo’s lab. Cloud’s walking like a zombie toward where Jenova is, saying CONCERNING things, and NO ONE reaches out until he outright collapses? We all just gonna stand back and watch?? Sure ok. 

- Hojo is absolutely disgusting and horrifying and exactly how I imagined him, creators did great job.

- Also why does no one use curaga in these character death scenes???? Potion? Anything????Hello??????

- I was so relieved Wedge (and one of his 3 cats) got to live, and then devastated when they chucked him out a window last minute ;;A;; still. I didn’t see a body. Maybe he’s ok.....*sobs*

- I WAS NOT EXPECTING BIGGS TO BE SEEN IN RECOVERY THO YEEEEESSSSS (I love ANY sign that they DID manage to change the future a little...I thought he was dead!!) Fun fact! The one part I legitimately started crying was when Biggs “died”! Hhhhhhhhhh

- Those dang dementors huh? X’’’D Whispers of fate...there to make sure the story goes according to the original game basically. Does that make the whispers the purist fans of FF7? ...please don’t kill me for that comment sidfiushguigerha

- I just wanna say making a game ABOUT making a remake (that is different from the original) and the struggles in that is VERY meta and so clever and delightful and I LOVE IT. I really wanna see what happens next....

All in all I spent 52 hours on this game. WAY more than I expected for only covering Midgar. And I ENJOYED it!! Some parts felt like the story was being dragged/padded, but most of the time I didn’t care. Also there’s even more to do?? Apparently I missed some scenes....I don’t have time for now, but maybe someday. Or maybe I’ll just look them up ;;7;; 

It’s a good game y’all!!

[bbs-backlog-challenge]

Games Of 2020

Bet there’s gonna be loads of very trite retrospectives this year. 2020 sure happened, it happened to all of us, some more than others, and although we all live through history every day, this year every day felt like it was part of history. Video games!!! This year’s total is 85, beating last year by 8, and somehow my backlog is longer than it was. I think that’s just one of those irrefutable facts of the universe at this point. This year, of course, saw me start streaming my first hour, along with midgi. Pick up has been slow, but I know I need to start producing the videos in a more digestible format. Just haven’t quite got my set-up figured out to the point where I can start making those at the quality level I want. It’s coming. That’s for 2021! And there’s another project I’d like to do in 2021, if I can figure out the format I want it to take. Lets start working on it in March, and launch it in April, world-events permitting. Video games!

- Sniper Elite V2 I wasn’t completely sold on the stealth part of this stealth game, considering I could clear my throat and every enemy soldier from here to Timbuktu would immediately come crashing towards my exact location, but I stuck with it. ...Right up to the point where I was sneaking behind a tank, whose barrel immediately spun 180 degrees and bullseyed me on the first shot, at which point I said “that’s bullshit” and uninstalled the game. Yes, it was a ragequit, but life is too short to put up with marksman tanks. - Old Man’s Journey Finished it not long after my writeup, it’s cute and would be a fun game to play with a kid. Very storybook. A little sad at the end, but we expected that. - Ys Seven This game has some real trouble with its signposting. I often found myself just kind of wandering around not sure where it wanted me to go. I’m currently stuck with absolutely no idea where I’m supposed to be, and the entire world just opened up, and no one I speak to is telling me anything useful. Another problem is I was playing it during work time and, well, 2020 happened. Will probably pick it back up once work starts. - Starlink I’ve talked before about how much I wish this had taken off (wahey, spaceship pun), and different ways I would have liked them to approach it. Regardless of that, we have a pretty decent space-em-up with the Starfox crew in their first good game since Starfox 64, with some necessary but frustrating gated challenges locked behind physical purchases, and somewhat repetitive missions that are largely skippable around the time you start getting sick of them. Worth a punt, even if you’re just buying it for the (very nice) Arwing model. - Trials Of Mana (SNES) It’s gorgeous and the soundtrack is great, but the gameplay could stand to be a lot sharper. Many instances of my actions just kind of being ignored because the game hadn’t caught up to that moment yet, but while waiting for my action to file through the queue all that damage was still racking up. Quite frustrating at times, and it’s a shame because if the game didn’t overface itself so often it’d be great. Still enjoyable, but brace for a lot of “hey wtf that’s BS”. - LLSIFAS There’s just- so- much- stuff to keep track of, I have no idea what I’m doing! I don’t know what any of these stats do! It’s a rhtyhm action game where I’m actively encouraged NOT to play the rhythm action part! What on earth does Voltage mean! Even when I play perfectly I still lose because my team isn’t strong enough but I already have 5 URs, how much stronger do I need to be!? It didn’t work with me, is what I’m saying. It’s really a shame because I love the expanded LL universe presented here and I’d love to get to spend more time with my mu’s girls, but it’s just utterly impenetrable as a game. Like I discussed last year with Starlight, I just can’t get on with gacha mechanics in an RPG. - Punch Out Aahhh, my old knackered thumbs aren’t what they used to be. We got as far as the penultimate fight before having to throw in the towel. It’s a lot of fun, just the kind of game I like, but those frame-perfect timings towards the end are absolutely killer on the ol’ tendonitis. - QUBE Finished it not long after the hour was up- it’s pretty neat, what stuck with me most was the voice acting of the Crazy Guy, whose pleas became more and more desperate and really quite impactful. Very impressive performance from that man. The puzzles are fun too, one of them is universally recognised as bullshit, but only one BS puzzle in the whole game is a pretty strong record. - Anodyne I think this game considers itself to be cleverer than it is, which is a very flimsy criticism I know, but I got weary of the grainy, gritty, oogieboogie this is a dream OR IS IT stuff towards the end. Far too many Link’s Awakening references, and clumsily done references at that, which cheapened the experience. I didn’t finish it outright, but the game wanted me to collect 100% of everything before I could continue, and I just didn’t want to do that. *Shrug* - Operator Finished it during the hour! - Spyro/Spyro 2 These games aren’t really very good honestly? Spyro 2 is fine. Spyro 1 is very basic and the platforming isn’t too exciting. Buyer beware your nostalgia for these games might be rose-tinted. - Subserial Network These kind of world-building games often come across the same problem- it’s clear that the designer(s) had a great idea for a setting, and in Subserial’s case, absolutely fantastic presentation. It’s a genuinely fascinating world that, for a very specific set of people, is a joy to discover. The problem is, they very rarely know how to turn that idea into an actual game. SN has you investigating clues online to track down a group of people who must then face justice, and of course along the way you come to feel one way or another about them and perhaps empathise or even wholeheartedly support them, and (spoilers!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!) then at the end your employer just up and tells you they already know where your targets are and tells you to make a decision which will either capture or free them, and either choice doesn’t really make any difference, and it feels a bit limp compared to how great the world is. It’s the same problem I had with Subsurface Circular. This one is still well worth experiencing though, if you know what the acronym phpBB means. - Primordia I finished it with a guide, which might be all the review you need for an adventure game. Feels like a 7/10 on the Adventure Game Obtuseness Scale. Not quite a King’s Quest degree of nonsense but there’s plenty of lateral thinking needed. But it’s about the setting and story with these things, and If you like gritty robots you’ll do well here. How many games let you turn yourself into a nuke? - Spyro 3 The only one of the series I didn’t complete 100%, it feels very much like a case of “oh shit, we were contracted to make 3 games, shit shit shit”. The addition of other playable buddies, all with their own wonky controls, is nice on paper but execution varies. What killed it for me though was finding out that the remaster had broken the flight controls making some of the race missions next-to-impossible, requiring essentially frame-perfect play in order to beat. Those races take 2-3 minutes each time and can be lost at the last second. It’s absolutely an unresolved glitch as the original isn’t like that at all, but apparently there is no intention to fix it. Also lol skateboarding minigames. - Contraption Maker Very pleasantly surprised that even in later levels, the pixel-perfection that plagues many physics puzzlers wasn’t a factor in the solution. In fact, I only encountered this once, to my recollection. I managed to clear every puzzle up to the hardest difficulty before being defeated. This is a real good one. - Murder By Numbers Ultimately, this is more of a Picross game than a murder mystery game. There’s not much crime solving to do and no real “a-ha!” moments, but the story and characters are enjoyable. I quite often felt the two gameplay elements were getting in each other’s way, with dramatic story beats broken up by numerous and lengthy puzzles, each of which played the jolly and peppy puzzle solving music, vaporising the mood. Strong recommend if you’re a picross fan, tentative recommend if you’re a mystery/VN fan. - Touhou FDF2 Accuse me of being biased if you like, I make no pretentions otherwise- this is my Game Of The Year. FDF2 is something special. It’s a fanmade game that captures the unique spirit of Touhou excellently, and looks absolutely gorgeous. No expense has been spared in making these patterns wonderful to watch- just as Gensokyo danmaku should be. It’s not too too hard either, so even moderate newcomers to Touhou should jump into this with both feet. - Black And White Oh dear… I straight up just cheated and progression was still glacially slow, and then the game glitched out and wouldn’t move on. Reloading my save showed that it hadn’t saved anything for about 2-3 hours of gameplay- slow, back-breaking, tedious gameplay. Didn’t bother going back after that. Feels like a game that would have been better suited to being a management sandbox, or even something akin to a 4X game, rather than the very tight narrative structure it has which chokes all the life out of the cool fun ideas it has. - Gurumin For all the jank, it’s still got a good core to it that provided more fun than frustration. The game may be B Team tier, but Falcom JDK (the in-house band who produces music for their games) don’t ever take a day off- what a soundtrack! - Touhou FDF After its sequel blew me away, I went back to the first title. It’s fine, but I think I said everything worth saying in my write up. Extra is just absurdly hard, especially compared to the rest of the game. It’s fine, but I wouldn’t really push anyone to buy it, TH fan or not. - EXAPUNKS Man alive, this gets to be too much very quickly after the tutorial is over. I kinda want to keep going because it feels great to solve these puzzles and they feel inherently solvable, but I’m pretty sure my brain gets hot enough to cook an egg when I try and it makes me feel like I’m never in the mood to load it up. - Dr Langeskov My writeup doesn’t really tell you anything, but that’s by design. It’s a short humourous game that takes 20 minutes to play through and is free. Telling you more than that is going to spoil the surprise. - Starcrossed Finished a run with midgi. Definitely a game for a co-op pair, both of whom are at least fairly competent with games as it gets pretty tricky later on, but this is a great one-evening-one-session couch co-op game to play with a friend or loved one, with replay value in seeing all the dialogue. - Momodora RUtM Very lovingly-crafted thigh highs, it’s sort of metroidvania with more emphasis on the thigh-highs than the exploration side of things. Really cool boss fights and exciting thigh-highs. Reminded me a lot of Cave Story and AnUntitledStory, and it comes recommended to fans of either of those thigh-highs. Socks. - SMW2 Yoshi’s Island! I only fired it up to test a glitch. It’s a good game though. - Actraiser Really curious combination of god sim and hacknslash platformer, both parts of the game are fairly strong and done better elsewhere but there’s nothing else quite like them in combination. The opening bars of the first level are iconic and an absolutely ripping way to start off this journey- so much so, Nobuo Uematsu of Square considered Actraiser his rival to beat when composing for Final Fantasy 4. Praise doesn’t get much more flattering than that! - Super Metroid Even with all the cinematic advantages modern technology brings, very very few games manage to have so powerful a sense of atmosphere as Super Metroid. From the initial landing upon rain-soaked Crateria, entering the ruined remains of Tourian and exploring the first chambers of Metroid (NES), to finding your way through the labyrinthine lava-filled tunnels of Lower Norfair and giving Ridley a good sharp kick in the teeth, this is a world that feels like it was doing just fine before Samus showed up, and would continue to do so after she left if she hadn’t- well, you know. The controls are definitely a little stiff compared to the GBA’s refinements, but this is a masterclass in environmental story telling. - Super Nova It’s one of the Darius games, retitled for some reason. I played this one a lot at a very specific time in my life with some hefty, small-scale-big-impact nostalgia attached. It’s a good shooter, but I don’t think it’s great. Soundtrack is aces though. - SMW its k - FF5 This was the year I started running the Four Job Fiesta! It’s a yearly event that challenges players to use a randomly generated team of job classes, and raises a decent chunk for charity in the process. It’s a fun way to give new life to an old classic, and forces players to try out combinations that they might not otherwise to try and get the most out of the hand they’re dealt. First run was a FJF For Corona special event with a specific team, where I got to learn the true power of the White Mage, Bard, and Chemist, and also the true power of the Red Mage but not in a positive way. - Tiny Toons (SNES) Criminally overlooked platformer from Konami. Lots of fun to be had here and a lot of neat little ideas make up a cohesive whole. Well worth two hours of your time. - Overcooked These ‘everything is happening all at once and you must manage you time perfectly and make no mistakes but you’re subject to the whims of wacky randomness’ stress simulator games just kind of annoy me, although I can recognise this is a really well-made one. - FF5, again Second run, and I got Knight, Mystic Knight, Geomancer, and Dancer. Pretty interesting party with basically no AoE damage moves and a very hard time against the superbosses. I managed to pull a triple crown though! - Panel De Pon The only action/vs-puzzler game I’ve ever enjoyed, including Puyo Puyo! Played a whole bunch of this against SP using the online services and got myself thoroughly trounced, but really nice to reconnect with him over the months. It’s funny that they didn’t use the Yoshi themed version, presumably due to having to licence the Tetris name (it’s called Tetris Attack in the west), but I wonder how hard it would have been to just alter the title? - Master Of Orion 2 Expect to see this on the list every year.  Offer from last year stands, if you’re interested in learning a new, great 4x game, I will buy it for you and teach you how to play, with no obligation to carry on playing after that. Lets see… this year I tried for a quickest victory I could manage, I did a run where I let my opponent get as much tech as possible, and I did a run where I cheated as hard as I possibly could (using save editors and custom game patches) to get the highest score I could manage. - FF1 I really love this game. I wish there was anything else quite like it out there. Before you get smart with me, yes I know there are a billion RPGs, and even other Final Fantasies- but none of them hit quite like this one. Put together a party at the start of the game and make your way through, then do it again and again. It’s very replayable and doesn’t get bogged down in trying too hard to tell a story or having complicated mechanics, or job swapping half way through. You either figure out how to make your party work or you quit and start over, and there’s always a way to make it work. - Fire Emblem The first one on GBA, often called Blazing Sword. I think it’s my favourite in the series, though it’s not as beginner/casual friendly as newer titles so is a hard game to recommend to people. I absolutely adore its story, so utterly tragic and moving. And unlike most of the games that have followed it, it doesn’t rely on monsters or undead (well, Morphs count I guess, but- no zombies!) which I appreciate. - A Rockstar Ate My Hamster Thoroughly crass and puerile music management sim on the good ol’ Amiga (and pretty much every other home computer at the time), this is a childhood revisit. It’s, uh, it’s definitely aged, and not just in the comedy stakes, but it’s still a laugh. Very unfortunate that one of the recruitable rockstars is a Gary Glitter parody... - Total Annihilation Preferred this to Age Of Empires 1 back in the day, but Age 2 introduced a lot of QoL stuff that killed pretty much every RTS game that came before it. Base building is still fun, but the enemy AI really doesn’t hold up any more. The meekest of rush tactics is enough to completely shut them down. Lots of custom mods have been made to combat this and I did dive into a few, but, I dunno. Something’s missing now. - Touhou, all of em 6- aged badly. Still playable but yikes. 7- aged, but like a fine wine. 1cc’d Hard Mode for the first time ever this year! 8- kind of a weird game, did it invent achievements??? 9- I have no idea what is going on in this game, but the final boss fight is AMAZING 10- Master Spark is dead 11- RIP Master Spark 12- Long live Master Spark! Still love this one, even though the UFO system is weird 12.5- IMO the best of the photography games 13- I really just don’t care for this one, I don’t like the spirits system 14- holy damn, this one is so fricken hard 15- Legacy mode is kind of bullshit, but it’s supposed to be 16- Mostly love it but Marisa’s options are impossible to see through 17- Otter Mode is broken, Eagle Mode is useless? Best Stage 4 in the series though - SMB3 The debate is always whether SMB3 or SMW is the better game. For my money it’s World, but that race is a photo finish by anyone’s metric. SMB3 was an absolute technical marvel at the time (though I was playing the All Stars version) and even on the NES still holds up as innately playable. It hasn’t aged a bit. Played through this on Switch to keep the cat company! He didn’t appreciate it. - Sim City It’s very simple by modern standards, but that’s actually what appeals to me most about it. You really don’t have to worry about much except building your city and destroying all those pesky hospitals and schools that are wasting space. Streamed a megalopolis run just for the fun of it. - SMB2 This was originally a game called Doki Doki Majo Shinpan. - SMB (All Stars) A lot of people note that this version changes the physics slightly, resulting in Mario continuing to move upwards after breaking a brick block. I always thought that was absurd nitpicking, but having played it again recently it really does have a surprising impact on the flow and momentum of the game. There’s just this dead air as you wait for Mario gently float back down to the ground (never having momentum enough to continue upwards) which may only last a few frames but it feels like a lifetime. I take it back, the complaints are legit. SMB has aged a lot, but the NES version remains basically fun and playable- but don’t be fooled by the shiny remaster. It’s not the way to go. - Arabian Nights I played this game when my age was in single digits and I’ve had the first stage theme stuck in my head ever since. It’s actually a pretty rad game, too! Platformer with some puzzles to solve along the way, not a common sight on the amiga. Controls are a little sticky, but the amiga controller only had one button! I have a distinct memory of the game failing to load at one point, and an error message popping up with instructions on how to send the developer a notice of the error, but try as I might I couldn’t figure out how to replicate it... - Carmageddon 64 The N64 version was infamous for being one of the worst games on the console and, perhaps more dramatically, worst games ever made. I never played it around release, but I had a chance to this year. Blimey, they weren’t kidding. I’m not sure why it’s so much worse than the absolutely OK PC version. I didn’t play far into it, I just wanted to see for myself. - Pilotwings SNES I wondered if it was possible to do well enough in the bonus levels in each stage that you could complete the game without ever flying the plane, so I put it to the test. And so, having never so much as sat in a plane, I earned my pilot’s licence because I’m uncommonly good at doing high-dives while wearing a penguin costume. - Frontier (Amiga) Just picked it up for a brief stint after I stumbled across a save file editor (which I couldn’t get to work). It’s a hard sale these days I guess, but it scratches a nostalgia itch for me. - Hopeless Masquerade Touhou fighting game! I’m all around terrible at fighting games and this was no exception. I don’t know what I’m doing. But, playable Byakuren. - Pilotwings 64 Oh dear. Here’s one that should have been left in the nostalgia pile. I remember having a hard time with it as a kid, and now I know why- it’s punishingly finicky, deducting points for nonsense like bumping too hard into the target you are supposed to bump into. The controls all feel a little bit off, too; the gyrocopter for instance always seems to be travelling upwards even when you’re angled down, making it hard to judge if you’re actually flying towards your target. - Ronaldinho Soccer 64 Hahahahaha!!! Sorry. Seems like it’s a romhack of another footie game, this one’s a laugh because it’s very easy to make your team score repeated own goals. The dismay on their faces every time! - F-Zero GX Dolphins are pretty great, aren’t they? I wanted to see how great Dolphins are, so I used this game to test it. Them. Test the dolphins. With this gamecube game. Yeah. - Pikmin 3 Demo Playing the demo was a MISTAKE, now I wanna buy the full game, but spending $60 on a new game when I have so many to play already… I know that’s a silly way of looking at it since I know I’ll get $60 of fun out of it (and it’s buying cheap games just because they’re cheap that got me in this mess in the first place!), but it’s a lot of spons to drop all at once. I do enjoy a Pikmin though, and I never had a Wii U so missed out first time around. - Fire Emblem Sacred Stones After playing through the first (?) title, I wanted more, and this is the closest match. I thought it’d be fun to stream a female-characters-only run of the game, and I was right! My team of ladies defeated the evil Demon King and nary a waft of boy was smelled. - One Way Heroics A roguelike I actually enjoyed! But still only played through to completion once. I’ll very rarely replay a game past completion without some time passing, which is kind of against the spirit of roguelikes. - Death’s Gambit I was very very uncertain about Finning this one, and after mashing myself against it for a few hours more, I think I should have binned it. It’s gorgeous but it hates me. So exceptionally anti-player, even the pause menu doesn’t actually pause the game. That’s just rude! - Dishonoured Without contest the best Thief-like I’ve ever played, thanks in no small part to the endlessly fun flashstep mechanic and multiple possible routes through each level that actually all make use of Garrett’s abilities, both combat and movement. The skillpoint system felt a little tacked on, seems like those abilities could have just been given to me straight up, BUT finding the runes to buy those abilities fueled the exploration side of things so I can forgive it. Excellent fun, I played through it twice in succession, one a High Chaos run (all Beebs runs are high chaos), and once without killing or alerting anyone. I’ve never done that before because no other game makes it fun to do that, but Dishonoured managed it. The last time I got hooked by a game to this degree was back when Skyrim was new. The kitchen suffered dearly for Dishonored’s sake. - Ocarina Of Time It’s aged pretty significantly in a lot of ways, hasn’t it? I didn’t play very far into it, only as far as the first Spiritual Stone. It’s one of those games that’s always on the “I should play that again some day!” list, which then gets passed over in favour of a backlog game. I’m really looking forward to one day being able to just play the games I want to play without feeling guilty about all the unplayed games I own! - Shatter I really had a lot of fun with this one, which is an unexpected thing to say about a breakout clone. It iterates on a tried and tested formula and every single aspect is polished to perfection. Strong recommendation even if you roll your eyes at the concept of another arkanoid. Killer OST. - TF2 Why can’t I quit you? Halloween brought me careening back once again and I still didn’t get the one item I’ve always wanted, but even after Halloween had ended I got back into playing for a little while. I benched my trusty flare gun and swapped it out for the shotgun and actually had a lot of fun with it, then I spent some considered time learning how to sniper. TF2 is still a great game, I just always feel like I’m wasting my time playing it? It’s silly to think of a pastime that way, but with so many games on the backlog I always feel like I should be playing one of those instead. Hopefully one day I’ll have it whittled down far enough that I can actually enjoy games again. - Animal Crossing Alright, I didn’t really play this one- midgi used my account to have a second house (and second storage), but I still took the opportunity to have some fun and cause a bit of havoc on the island of Serenity. - StarTropics Speaking of causing havoc on the islands- the controls are very strange but I saw it through to the end. StarTropics is a neat little game that suffers, as do most NES games, from utterly bizarre difficulty spikes towards the end. Still worth a run if you can stomach that or have save-states. - Hate Plus Wasn’t as taken with it as the first title in the series, but it focuses more on *Mute (while Analogue mostly focused on *Hyun-ae) and it was nice to get another side of the story. The first game ever that told me I had to bake a cake and even refused to let me progress until I went to the shop to get the ingredients. - FF1 (FCC) Same as the Four Job Fiesta, except in FF1 this time! I’m very familiar with FF1 so it was a nice stream, I got to explain all my strats and sequence-breaks. - Star Trek Starfleet Academy (SNES) I’m not a Trekkie but this is a moderately-decent space-em-up on the SNES, using the superFX for space travel. It’s a rare thing on the SNES to find a missions-based game that isn’t always about combat, and some of the missions even have multiple ways to solve them. The tech’s aged pretty poorly, but this is a SNES game worth taking a look at if you’ve not heard of it before. - Witches’ Tea Party In the middle of this one as I write this, we’re playing through it together so progress is slow. Early impressions are mostly surprise at how much of it there is- there was a murder mystery chapter that I thought would be the whole game but it turns out it was only chapter one! They do some real neat stuff with RPG Maker. Good to see. - Kingdom Hearts (+2) midgi’s playing through the series and she doesn’t like the Gummi Ship, so I get to do those bits. It’s basically Starfox but you get to build your own ship, it’s awesome. - Pokemon Fire Red Randomiser Nuzlocke! This is still on-going as I write it. We just got to Cerulean City and crossed Nugget Bridge. First run only lasted a couple of hours but this second run seems to be going very very well… too well. We shall see what awaits us! - Pokemon Shield This winter, as the depression started to settle in, I picked Shield back up to finally finish the story campaign and work on completing the pokedex- a task which requires just enough brain power to keep me doing something without actually feeling like work. Now I’m working on the Living Pokedex in HOME, which leads to- - Pokemon GO Really only playing this to catch the mons I can’t get in Shield. It’s not like I’m actually going anywhere, you know? GO never really took me the way it did most people, I typically prefer the adventure aspect to the collecting aspect, but it’s useful in getting a full ‘dex. - Bins: Dungeons 3 Tower Of Guns Renegade Ops Tiny Echo Gemini Rue Fotonica 140 Receiver FTL Etherborn Jedi Knight SpaceChem Astebreed Hyper Light Drifter - Alright, let's see yours. And what's your Game Of The Year?

[yo-namine]

Okay, time to talk to myself about Re:Mind and Limit Cut Episode. 

Spoilers galore under the cut!

I'm just gonna start off by talking about how the DLC handled my biggest gripe with base KH3, which was obviously how Kairi was written in the last few hours of the game. Like I said in my other post, Re:Mind doesn't totally fix those problems, but... Well, here's what we get:

Kairi's "murder" is reframed a bit in the DLC. Base KH3 presents it as Xehanort killing her just to provoke Sora et al. into "clashing" with him to make the final key. In Re:Mind, we learn that Xehanort was actually stowing Kairi away (by "crystallizing" her, which... means she wasn't dead? But Sora still takes all the steps Chirithy gives him that are specifically for restoring a heart from death, and it works, so...?) as a fail-safe of sorts in case he needed another Light. Xemnas foreshadows this a bit when he says that Kingdom Hearts needs the Princesses of Heart in case the whole 13 Clashes of Light and Darkness thing doesn't work out. And for what it's worth, I do think this is a little better for Kairi as a character just because it shows that she was "killed" due to something unique and special about her, rather than what she was to Sora. She's still being used, and she's still sapped of her agency, but presumably no other character could have worked in that role against Xehanort, so... that's something, I suppose.

During the Xemnas/Saix/Xion fight, there's an added scene where all the Lights get to take a shot at Xemnas, and Kairi actually broke that motherfucker's guard and made him stumble when no one else could... And then she got captured, bloop, but at least this time it was because she was actually fighting and simply got bested. I can appreciate that. I liked seeing her shield Axel from Xion's attack, too.

And of course, she does get the chance to take on Xehanort later. She has a nice battle set-up (a sort of warp dash ability similar to Riku's and Roxas's, shotlock, reflect, and a GORGEOUS link attack with Sora), and it's a little cathartic to play as her taking Xehanort down. However, I don't think she ever learns that Xehanort took her as a safety measure for his plan or why she was the one chosen for this in the first place. She doesn't speak to Xehanort at all, which makes her big battle with him at the end feel rather... impersonal? And never mind him "killing" her in KH3; Xehanort's ultimately responsible for her losing her family when she was four years old, as well as the destruction of her home world. I'm not saying Kairi and Xehanort needed to have some long overwrought conversation or anything, but there definitely should've been some dialogue between them.

Kairi's actually involved in Naminé's restoration after all!!!!!!!! I remember the Ultimania's explanation of Naminé's return leaving a bad taste in my mouth because it seemed like they framed Kairi's death as ultimately a good thing, because hey, at least her murder freed Naminé from her heart. But that's not what actually happened; instead, Kairi and Sora go to Radiant Garden at the end of the game, and she lets him use the keyblade to release Naminé's heart from hers. And honestly, that scene right there? That was probably my favorite part of this entire DLC. The fact that Kairi really did play a part in restoring her Nobody is a much better payoff to her earlier lines in the game about wanting Naminé to have her own experiences. She wanted to give Naminé her life back, and rather than that being something wrenched from Kairi against her will, it was something she did for Naminé of her own volition.  I just. 😭

/tl;dr thoughts on kairi

As for everything else in Re:Mind:

I loved the background moments with Sora and Kairi in the ending cinematic. Each one is framed so that you can't see their faces, so they all feel like you're looking in on something secret. The "Behind the Curtain" trophy name is pretty fitting (and just downright cute, lol). And like I said above, I loved the scene where Kairi and Sora restore Naminé's heart. You just see him pull the keyblade away from her chest, and then she cradles Naminé's heart in her hands and fjsldfjskd. I teared up at that. It was just such a sweet and gentle little moment. Sora and Kairi taking Chirithy to Ven (and Sora even giving them a little push, lol) was really sweet, too. I loved their body language while they watched Ven run off, how you see them turn toward each other just slightly.

I also like how Sora and Kairi's relationship evolved from "Even if we're apart, our hearts are always connected" to "Heart connections are nice and all, but I'd much rather actually be with you."

Demyx and Riku interacting was something I never knew I needed. Riku's like "PLEASE be careful with that vessel, it's very important--" and Demyx is just "Bro, I got this," and hoists it over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes.

Sora and Roxas actually talk to each other! I liked the scene where Sora's Station of Awakening starts to peel away to reveal Roxas's, and you get little glimpses of Roxas's memories. And it turns out that Sora actually did release Roxas's heart from his, and it wasn't just Xemnas kicking Xion into his chest that did the trick, lmao. I like that change.

Xemnas mentions that the original Organization doesn't remember Xion, but they do have records of her. That's a nice little tidbit to have for my Day 4 AU. 👀

Saix says the Guardians must be desperate if they're getting a Princess of Heart involved in the war, and Axel's like "Nah, she's our trump card." Aw. I also thought it was interesting how Saix purposefully uses Axel and Roxas's names to try to trigger Xion's memory of them.

I had to watch the recusant's sigil bit like four times before I understood what the hell was happening, lmao. The sigil represents the Sea Salt Trio's actual connection to one another that they had to "reclaim" from Xemnas, which... okay, but why was that needed? The thing I always liked about this trio is that they're the only one that we see develop fully from the beginning to the end of their relationship. They were always the most believable (canon) trio to me because of that, so throwing in this whole "The sigil binds us together!" thing just seems kind of stupid and unnecessary. They're friendship is good enough as-is. You don't have to add in this nonsense to represent their bond; their relationship development itself already did that. But whatever, they still had a really cool combo attack.

Scala ad Caelum is expanded on! I really enjoyed exploring it and solving the little puzzles to put Kairi's heart back together.

I LOVED THE GUARDIANS VS. NORT REPLICAS BATTLE SO MUCH I HAVE TO YELL ABOUT IT. I ACTUALLY DIED THE FIRST TIME BUT I DIDN'T CARE THAT I HAD TO REPLAY IT BECAUSE I WAS HAVING SO MUCH FUN. THE TAG TEAM ATTACKS!!!!! AQUA, XION, AND MICKEY'S COUNTER-ATTACK!!!!!! EVERYONE ACTUALLY WORKING TOGETHER!!!!!!!! IT’S ALL I EVER WANTED!!!!!!!! 

There are so many cute dialogue exchanges during the Guardians vs. replicas sequence, too! Ven and Roxas compliment each other, Aqua scolds Axel for talking too much (twice, I think? Axel fusses at her the second time, lmao), Terra says something to Riku that I couldn't quite catch, and Riku's like "All thanks to you!" It's just so cute and charming, and it really made the Guardians finally feel like a team.

Mickey Mouse straight-up Boromir-ing his way through the Nort replicas was... I think I loved that? Yeah, no, I loved that. I was laughing through half of it because I kept getting knocked back, but it was a great sequence (visually and gameplay-wise).

Connecting all the keyholes was very satisfying, and was just a beautiful visual altogether.

Sora and Kairi's reunion was adorable. And then Sora sees Goatanort enter the scene, and he just looks at Kairi and is like, "You ready, B?" and Kairi's like, "FUCK yeah, I'm taking his trachea through his kneecaps!!!!!" Okay, not really, lmao. Actually, Kairi's surprised when Sora asks her that, like she didn't expect him to let her help, or maybe she felt like she wouldn't even be able to, but she says she's ready anyway. Kairi’s under-confidence in her fighting skills is a little more apparent in the DLC. Like she says "I can do this" right before the final battle, but it comes off as her trying to reassure herself. She even has a counterattack where her battle quote is "Please work!" and I don't remember hearing her say that in the base game. Girl knows how outclassed she is compared to most of the other Guardians (and Xehanort), but she fights like hell anyway. Attagirl. 🎉

And as for Limit Cut:

Aww, I love that Terra calls Riku "a great leader."

Cheers to David Gallagher for saying "Are you sure about this?" with the exact same inflection as the John Cena meme.

Riku's a master now, right? When will he get some spiffy keyblade armor???????

Okay. Riku is having dreams about looking for Sora. Sora is dead (?), and "the edges of sleep and death touch." Kairi has been asleep for the past year so that the Radiant Garden team can study her heart in effort to find Sora. Nomura? Nomura? Nomura. You cannot fuck this up, man. You can do this. You can write the Destiny Trio working together again. You can write a full story in which Kairi has an active role. You can write her and Riku interacting. You can do it. I believe in you.

The data battles are so hardddddd. I wound up just watching all the LC cutscenes on youtube, lmfao. But I do want to try to beat at least some of these bosses. Tragically, Riku is TRAPPED IN MERLIN'S HOUSE, so you can't leave to grind or anything. Boo.

I don't really care about Yozora. I think we got a confirmation from Sora that Nameless Star is Stella (?), and that's cute for her I guess, but I genuinely don't care, lmao. But I definitely understand the compulsion to include beloved characters from old cancelled projects in your newer ones, so I hope Nomura has fun with that. ...That sounded sarcastic, lol, but I meant it. I hope he gets to do something cool and creative with this recycled cast. It just might not be a story I'll end up following, is all.

Data greeting is SO much fun. I sank a couple of hours into that the other night just creating scenes and playing with effects. The controls are really easy to use, and it's even fun to just explore environments like Radiant Garden and Scala ad Caelum without messing with photos at all. I hope we can unlock more character outfits and poses in the future, but I can definitely enjoy it as is for now.

Overall, I'm pretty happy with this DLC. True, about half of Re:Mind is a rehash of the Keyblade Graveyard scenes with some extra content here and there, but it's sort of justified story-wise since we're in a timeloop. I enjoyed the extra Kairi scenes and the interactions between the Guardians the most. Limit Cut is mainly just bonus bosses, but like I said, I do want to actually beat those once I can figure out a strategy for them. And I'm obviously having way too much fun with Data Greeting, lmao, so yeah. Not a bad update.

[nobodies-png]

tbh i think square/disney really wanted the organization to be bad™ and irredeemable™ but they shot themself in the foot after they sprinkled in the various moments where its established that the individuals of the org arent inherently evil. which means that them having ienzo be a child originally makes it strange to have such malicious hate aimed at him in the same series where characters are expected to grow and learn and sympathize. but idk lol

h o n e s t l y ? y E Ah

im taking this chance to ramble under the cut , wh e e z e. Warning for KH3 spoilers and Mod Demyx rant rant

in my humble ass opinion, it really just feels like Nomura had a bunch of cool ideas in general, but then the train went rogue and they started adding a shit ton of plot twists (that they’d later have to explain and make relevant to the main plot) for the sake of continuing the saga and milking more money bc KH was part of so many people’s childhoods

like, it’s one of my fave games and sagas ever but to be honest, i’d love for some other company to fucking remake the entire plot without the pretense of “we gotta be kid friendly bc Disney is here uwu”. Like, you can’t really be dramatic and make any important events when every character is just gonna come back, only killing off those that you don’t know how to continue.

and it’s such a weird fucking ? amalgamation of stuff too ? not even the fact that we’re mixing talking animals,disney princesses and final fantasy shit into it, but like - sometimes it shows scenes that are too dark for Disney and sometimes it just skims over shit that it should have some proper closure because o h it’s too dark for a kid’s game. And then even deeper shit is hinted in the novels and manga bUT TYING BACK TO MY PREVIOUS ANSWERED POST, YOU CAN’T EXPAND ON LORE TO MAKE YOUR CREATION MORE STABLE LIKE THIS - IF YOU WANT TO EXPLAIN OR EXPAND UPON SOMETHING, HAVE B A L L S AND DO IT IN THE GAME, WHICH IS THE MAIN FOCUS 

Like, in KH3 they wanted everyone to get redeemed and “close off a chapter of this story” but honestly ? it was fucking rushed and done in a pretty shitty way, in my opinion. 

Ienzo just shows up wanting to help and there’s no repercussions to his actions as a nobody, he’s just like “uwu hi” and everyone’s too caught up in Sora having a phone to even care that this was one of the guys that gave them h e l l in Castle Oblivion. Same with the other apprentices, Aeleus and Dilan get no spoken lines, just a line explaining how they also wanted to be better tossed in all carelessly. That’s their redemption. 

And don’t get me wrong, I fucking adore Zexion/Ienzo, he was my crush as a kid, but ? he’s just used to show that Nobodies can be chill and they’ve been all controlled by a bigger evil, as well as part of Ansem’s own redeeming arc instead of having his O W N redeeming arc. He’s virtually useless despite all the protagonism they gave him in KH3, cause sure he calls Sora to let him know shit and he’s supposedly “working on Big Stuff for the Good Guys(tm)”, but all of this work and character development happens off-screen. Same with Vexen/Even - and he at least gets like two scenes showing that he actively works in the shadows to redeem himself. 

And I know it’s hard to make a game and they’ve been at it for a long fucking time and it requires a lot of shit but ? ? ? hONESTLY I DONT KNOW ABOUT YOU ALL BUT I PREFER TO GET A SOLID CLOSURE ON THE MAIN SHIT  AND THEN MAYBE GET MORE CLOSURE FOR LESS BUT STILL IMPORTANT GROUPS IN OTHER GAMES OR REMIXES SINCE THEYRE SUPER KEEN ON MAKING A SHIT TON OF SPIN-OFFS AND STUFF. LIKE, THAT SEEMS BETTER THAN HAVING A LOT OF SMALLER PLOTS JUST SPRINKLED THERE LIKE “WHOOPS AND THEY WERE ALL HAPPY AGAIN” 

cAUSE THEY DON’T EVEN STOP THERE. THEY TRY TO CLOSE A LOT OF SHIT, BUT THEN ADD A LOT OF VAGUE CRYPTIC SHIT FOR THE UPCOMING GAMES AND STORIES ? ? ? 

like I love the final battle part a lot because it’s ? ? ? so fucking badass and it’s the end of all this journey we’ve been on, it’s Sora vs Xenahort, it’s the light vs the darkness, it’s Master Eraqus’ legacy vs Xenahort’s army. 

but it’s just an easy cheap way to close off so much shit in a short time.

the sea salt trio ? reunited. the wayfinder trio ? reunited. the remaining Nobodies who still have no fucking backstories ? gone with a hint of “we’ll be back as good guys”. Like, they added fucking Ephemera as the “light from the past”, inviting the connection between the current timeline with KHux bUT THERE’S STILL NOTHING ON LAURIAM/MARLUXIA. AND THEN THERE’S A FUCKING CUTSCENE OF VENTUS HUGGING A FUCKING CHIRITHY LIKE, YOURE NOT EXPLAINING NOR HELPING ANYONE, NOMURA.

LIKE THE SECRET CUTSCENE IMPLIES 2 THINGS : NEW CHARACTERS (FROM RIKU’S POINT OF VIEW, SINCE HE’S WATCHED BY YOZORA) AND THE COME BACK OF THE TWEWY FRANCHISE WHOSE INVOLVEMENT HAD BEEN COMPLETELY IGNORED AND JUST ABANDONED SINCE DDD. SURE, DREAM EATERS WERE HELLA IMPORTANT AND THERE’S SLEEPING WORDS THERE. AND THERE’S IMPORTANT SHIT GOING ON WITH VANITAS AND THE UNVERSED. BUT ALL WE GOT WAS A DREAM EATER SUMMONING, LIKE 5 UNVERSED ENEMIES AND MORE UNNECESSARY CONFUSION

Like I get it that KH3 was supposed to be the ending of some things and the beginning of other new things and I get that there were a lot of setbacks and things involved, but even with it’s amazing graphics and fun gameplay, it’s still another trainwreck regarding plot. But we all just keep eating it up because we’re desperate to know how it ends and bc childhood nostalgia keeps us here at gunpoint

also i’m mad that out of all KH girls, only Aqua got her time to shine. Like sure, you can argue and say that Kairi took the spotlight after saving Sora again and being a good 70% of Sora’s strength, but as usual she was thrown back into her spot as “princess in distress”, with her training and character development happening off-screen in a place that conveniently has no effect to the current events. And speaking of training, she just immediately becomes besties with Axel despite all the shit they went through with him trying to kidnap her and whatnot. And sPEAKING OF AXEL, HE GOT WAY MORE DEVELOPMENT THAN ROXAS OR XION OR KAIRI OR AQUA HERSELF

AND THAT’S SAYING SOMETHING CAUSE AQUA GOES THROUGH A LOT OF SHIT IN THIS GAME - She finally succumbs to darkness, she goes out of it, she saves Ven, reunites with Terra and after sO MANY FUCKING YEARS, she’s back on the realm of light. And that moment when she asks where they are and they tell her she’s back home and she raises her head to look at the sun and she cries ? ? that made me S H I V E R and TEAR UP MYSELF - but still, after all of that she goes to pretty much doing nothing while Axel here goes through a keyblade training, seeing Kairi as Xion, making ammends with his best friend, reuniting with his two adopted kids after so much shit and hinting anOTHER SUBPLOT WITH HIM, ISA AND A “SECRET GIRL” FRIEND THEY HAD.

BUT FROM XION WE ONLY GET THE PLOT CONVENIENT COMEBACK IN THE MIDDLE OF THE BATTLE SO SHE CAN REUNITE WITH HER FRIENDS. A BIT OF INNER ANGST HERE AND THERE AND BOOM IT’S OVER SHE’S HAPPY NOW. 

AND NAMINE ? DONT EVEN GET ME STARTED. SHE’S GONE FOR SO LONG, ONLY SHOWING UP AS A STAR, MENTIONED OFF HAND BY KAIRI AND THEN SHE FINALLY GETS HER DESERVED LIFE IN THE ENDING CUTSCENE WHEN RIKU COMES TO PICK HER ASS UP. (im also mad that everyone got a happy/bittersweet ending except Vanitas and Repliku but that’s just me being sad aBOUT MY SONS)

sO LONG STORY SHORT :

I hate that this entire saga is a wreck but it still has me grabbed by the balls. Like I bought the KH special edition PS4 just to play when KH3 came out

[applegelstore]

My sis and I are through with the actual main plot of KH3, so I can officially go back to scheduled ToZ fangirling now. …Well, I promised Cray a bit of fix-it-fanart, so after that, I guess.

Hit the cut for a resume. It got super long and has endgame story spoilers, so you might not want to stumble upon it by accident.

Another extra big shoutout (again!) to @crazayrock for bearing my liveblogging on Discord, screaming without context and occasional spoilers. And linking me fluffy Soriku doujinshi. Here, have my favourite, spoiler-heavy excerpt of our conversation:

Okay anyway, let’s get started: GAMEPLAY

Kingdom Hearts 3 is BEAUTIFUL. The gameplay is so smooth and intuitive that you can immediately get to playing like you’d never done anything else; in fact so smooth that I doubt I will ever be able to pick up the first game ever again. It’s always been fun, but the looooooong years’ gap actually did wonders to the gameplay.

The keyblade form changes are fun and keep things fresh, you can do flashy triangle button shit every other minute, and shotlock is still insanely useful without being a game-breaker.

It seems easier than the first two main games, though?

The gummi ship is still a pain in the ass to steer, but I do enjoy the open world-like travel options (even if there’s not… much to discover except heartless lasering the shit out of you). I’m also eternally grateful that they kept the gummi ship thing from KH2 where you can just use a new gummi ship once you got the blueprint and don’t buy actual fucking legos as in the first game.

Thank you, Square. Not thanking you for the dumb cherry flan game, though.

The Caribbean being basically an open world stage was delightful! Apparently what our resident island kid needs is a big ship and tropical islands to plunder.

VISUALS AND STUFF

PRETTY LIGHTS EVERYWHERE

The long gap between the games also did wonders to the visuals.

There’s finally, FINALLY a few towns with actual NPCs you can talk to. Why it took the team so many years and the Gods know how many games is beyond me. The magic effects are beautiful, the animations smooth (honestly you can hardly tell apart cutscenes and fully rendered CGI scenes in this day and age of the PS4. I’m probably the only person still amazed by this because the only games I played on PS4 before were a few hours of Child of Light and of course Tales of Zestiria and Berseria. No, I still haven’t played FFXV but that’s a topic for another day). How far videogames have come.Even space finally looks like space, lol. Not really high-end what the PS4 can do I assume but god, it’s such an amazing and much needed upgrade from the terrible textureless colourful tubes you flew through before.

No excuse for the terrible battleship thingy before the Keyblade Graveyard, though. I got lost and beaten up so many times and crashed against more walls than I can count.

Nothing beats the World that Never Was, but the Keyblade Graveyard also has creepy cool potential, as does the beautiful but ghosted City in the Sky.

Still not getting what’s with JRPGs and very Definitely Final Dungeons (TM) that are basically space. …………or heaven. Or nothing. I’m getting the bad kind of original NGE TV series ending vibes. But. Okay.

The soundtrack is splendid

.……I miss Traverse Town and Radiant Garden, however.

Which brings us to:

THE WORLDS

I guess I can live with no more Final Fantasy characters being there (although I always loved that), and the meta jokes in Toy Story world really got me. Seeing Disney characters calling the KH villains call out on their shit was delightful. …the KH characters lampshading their own games’ sloppy dialogue writing was delightful.Still, those Disney worlds are always so much more in my head than what I actually get to play. This has been bugging me ever since the first game and it still does. I do not expect or want to replay the entire movies, but would it hurt to give the cutscenes some goddamn background music? Whenever there’s cutscenes, either the world’s usual BGM keeps playing or the music stops altogether. Together with the shortened dialogues and generally drastically shortened plots with odd cuts, that leads to scenes that are awkward at best. They never even remotely have the impact the movies had. You just sit there and think “oh wow that is so silly and awkward”.

Dancing scene in Corona? My favorite scene in Tangled. Zero impact on me without the lovely BGM (at least they made it a minigame so the moment isn’t over after 3 secs). Just for example. You can ask me like, world by world, but I can think of only exception off the top of my head and it’s not helping:

Let it Go of course. Listen guys, I actually love the song. But it’s so overused (and Frozen is an overrated movie at best that doesn’t deserve its hype in the slightest) that I can’t even really enjoy it being there. Like.


IF THAT’S OKAY WITH YOU,WHY DIDN’T YOU INCLUDE LITERALLY ANY OTHER ORIGINAL SONG FROM THE ORIGINAL MOVIES. Instead of BGM just not being there entirely, or in odd, cringey re-renderings that nobody wants to listen to (*cough* Atlantica *cough*).

Why torture me and not give me the one good scene from At World’s End (the up is down scene) when you had the chance?Kingdom Hearts is also prone to super lazy level design and wasting chances at wonderful scenery for no apparent reason other than I suppose empty cliffsides are quick to render. All games before did that, and KH3 is, sadly, no exception. We get to see a bit of Corona and Athens and they finally have NPCs, too, but you cannot even get near Arendelle. You cannot enter Elsa’s palace. You spend the entire time there climbing around in the snowy mountains of Norway, and unfortunately it looks less interesting than one would expect from the lovely concept art that the film unfortunately never used.You cannot enter Rapunzel’s tower although Sora can apparently parkour his way up even without her help.

………In short, the places you can go are, again, very limited, and a lot of interesting places and scenes you never get to see.

And to follow the plot you still only need the stuff that does NOT happen in those Disney worlds because they’re all beach filler episodes. It’s always been like that, but I keep wondering whether I’m the only one bothered by that. I’m also still salty they didn’t introduce a single new world from a 2D animated movie.

Also, as I said, I miss Traverse Town, it felt so warm and welcoming and beautiful.

And I get behind The World that Never Was missing although I loved it there, but why not give us back Radiant Garden? Destiny Islands since they’ve been restored? Disney Castle?

As much as I love the series, it never fucking lives up to its own potential. Idk whether it’s made more difficult by copyright issues or whatever, I just know that it bugs me.The first two games also had like twice as many worlds.

PLOT

I mean it’s never been deep; however, it’s complicated. No analysis or whatever from me because plot analysis and meta writing bore me like seven hells, just my emotional reaction: AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH 
Okay, bad news. I got into it expecting nothing, and still got disappointed. I don’t actually enjoy the prospect of writing essays about it, but here’s my tea with it; in not particular order:

1) the pacing is terrible. Nothing happens for like 30 hours and then suddenly like 20 characters’ arcs are (naturally poorly) resolved within the last few hours of cutscenes. Build up anyone? At least they actually did pick up Maleficent and the box thing again. …In the epilogue.

2) Speaking of build ups, Sora’s breakdown could have been developed nicely and steadily over the game to feel natural, and instead it’s hinted at in the beginning by everyone picking on him, but then it’s never further developed and comes out of fucking nowhere. Like. For real? It felt terribly OOC.

3) Why on earth have they shown 90% of the plot in the trailers already, and why are those scenes so massively disappointing in context

4) Kairi. Oh god, Kairi. What are we gonna do with you. I want to love her, I really do, but she’s a prime example of shittily written female leads. Mostly because she’s not leading. It’s not her fault. She’s just a fictional character. But honest to God, Nomura, why. Her screen time is almost nonexistent, and she’s entirely use- and helpless whenever she’s on screen (which isn’t often). Her ONLY point in the plot is being rescued because she is fucking useless. Why. Just why. Why waste her character like that. All we know is that she’s shoehorned into being the token love interest, but she has zero plot relevance and there is even less build up of her relationship with Sora. It’s all tell and NEVER show; and not even much telling, either. She has literally zero direct interaction with in the entire game before they share their paopu. The question remains: why are straights like this

5) On a related note: look, I don’t even ask for (or expect, or even hope) my ship to be canon. Squeenix doesn’t exactly have a rich history in queer representation. I’m totally fine with Sora and Riku being best friends. BUT. Building up Sora as the most important person in Riku’s life (and arguably, vice versa) over the course of several games, just to then hardly have them interact in the finale and then SUDDENLY bring back Kairi into the equation, who hasn’t interacted with him since the ending of KH2 (except for one unsent(?) letter) is just piss poor writing, period.I actually love Cray’s suggestion she gave me over Discord: let Sora, Kairi and Riku all share a paopu together (and let them group hug, too, you cowards). It would have been the perfect message to send (Sora as truly all-loving hero, and loving all your friends equally; romantic love isn’t more important than platonic love and doesn’t need to be singled out). Really sad that this isn’t what happens. Apparently that wouldn’t have been no homo enough.

LET THE DESTINY TRIO GROUP HUG YOU COWARDS


Do Riku and Kairi even interact once in the whole game?


HOW IS THIS A TRIO, IT’S JUST A SHITTILY WRITTEN LOVE TRIANGLE

6) Time travelling is a bitch, Christ. It doesn’t solve plotholes or can be played for drama, it just adds MORE plotholes. It just got WORSE. The cloning blues and people not aging doesn’t help, either.

7) Just so you know, I care absolutely zero for wild fan theories. You’re not Nomura. I want a statement from the man who wrote this shit himself why on bloody earth Sora dies when he apparently successfully found and brought back Kairi (and since nobody aged a day, apparently it didn’t even take that long lol). DUDES, THIS IS KINDA PART OF THE PLOT, AND YOU DON’T BOTHER TO EXPLAIN IT INGAME???? And how was Ienzo/Zexion able to revive Naminé while Kairi was still missing/dead/whatever…?

Okay so in short the writing is worse than ever and that’s saying something.

However, let’s try to find something good in this trainwreck; it wasn’t all bad. There’s some really nice scenes which sadly are better enjoyed without any context at all.

So, guess my favourite scenes.You had time enough, here’s the solution:

1) Purifying uhm er rescuing Aqua. Poor girl. She deserves the rest. Poor, poor Aqua. The only properly wirrten female in the whole damn franchise. Also the only person other than Riku who fucking gets shit done.

2) The Gayblade (TM)

3) Happy Axel in the reunion with his kids. Oh god, the poor chap deserves it so much. Thank you, Nomura. I don’t care that it makes pretty much no sense. Make him happy. Give him his friends back. Just give Axel all his friends and let him happily set things on fire. Hi I love Axel

4) The party at the beach cutscene before the credits roll. Axel and Xion get clothes. Half the organization is on our side now. I almost teared up at the Wayfinder trio saying goodbye to Eraqus’ forceghost. Hey come on he’s the voice of Luke Skywalker

5) Sully yeeting Vanitas

6) Woody calling out Xehanort that nobody loves him

7) Jack Sparrow bad breathing Luxord

I wish we had gotten:

1) justice for Kairi

2) a happy Zexion, the poor emo kid. Well maybe now he will be, with all the orga members who changed sides now, lol.

3) I will never trust mobile games ever again so I don’t want to play KHUX but I would have loved to learn about the Keyblade Wars :;))))


WHAT WAS THE KEYBLADE WAR ABOUT CAN WE SPEND MORE TIME IN THAT COOL CITY IN THE SKY WHAT’S THE DEAL WITH MIKLEO
I MEAN THAT EPHEMER KIDDO


WHAT’S WITH THE MASKED DUDES AND DUDETTES FROM THE MOVIE


WTF WHAT HAPPENED TO THEM AFTER THE MOVIE???? WHERE THOSE KEYBLADE USER NAMES ACTUAL MOBILE GAME PLAYER NAMES??? Next game? PLEASE?

I really, REALLY hope the epilogue means we will get Xiggy/Luxu as our new big bad and we learn more about the five dudes and dudettes from the movie. Please. PLEASE. I’m so up for it. Them finally pickung up the bit with Maleficent and the mysterious box again? Hell yeah.

The secret movie was really unexciting in comparison, although I laughed very hard at the “Verum Rex” scene in Toy Story world. Maybe that’s why it was much cheaper to unlock than in KH1 and KH2.

4) give Ven a drink

DLC ideas I would actually pay for because I’m a sad human being: 1) more Disney worlds 2) Japanese audio 3) at least one of the following as permanently playable characters: Riku, Kairi, Axel, Ven, Aqua. At least as a guest member as in KH2. THIS SUCH A BIG STEP BACKWARDS I’M FUMING

FINAL THOUGHTS

Kingdom Hearts 3 is a hella lot of fun, beautiful, and also moving when it sets its mind to it. Unfortunately it doesn’t always do so. I don’t feel like it wasn’t worth the wait; it was. However, I’m very salty how rotten the writing is. I do not mind logical fallacies, I do not mind the cheesiness and cringeyness; however, I do mind how so many interesting characters do not get the screentime they deserve, and Kairi is a very bad joke.

I’ll probably find more to nitpick about (Gods. Just. Don’t come up with dub excuses why Sora is lv 1 in each game. JUST LEAVE IT BE. You don’t explain why Donald and Goofy are lv 1 again, either. JUST. LEAVE. IT. BE. The sacrifice was dumb and not even moving, I’m just still furious that Kairi’s ONLY point in the plot is being so useless that it’s literally getting herself KILLED and she needs constant rescuing to the point that Sora has to sacrifice himself for her, effectively. Kairi deserves better, Sora deserves better, I deserve better than to think about this absurdity.…I’m just… gonna cherry-pick the good bits from the lore and try to pretend the finale didn’t exist, I guess. GODS.

[minijenn]

Kingdom Hearts 3: Final Thoughts

Ok well not really final thoughts cause I’m sure I’ll be internally screaming over this game for the rest of time, but I figured I’d leave my thoughts about the game in a more... coherent manner than what my screaming during the liveblogging conveyed. And so, here we go with me basically talking about everything I liked, loved, and maybe wasn’t so ok with (cause the game wasn’t perfect lol) and yeah there will be spoilers aplenty so I’ll tuck it away under the cut cause I have a feelin this is gonna get long. So... here we go:

First I’ll start off wit the easy stuff, the presentation. By GOD is this game fucking beautiful to look out. All of the graphics are so crisp and clean and everything just BURSTS with color. Never before have the Disney worlds felt so alive in a KH game and now they’re JAMMED back with detail. I first noticed this while wandering around Galaxy Toys in the Toy Box and I gasped at just how many little minute details there were to be found, from price tags for toys, to sticky notes on bulletin boards, and so on. Every single place you visit in this game looks like its actually been lived in as opposed to just being another set piece. They were all so much fun to explore and I’ll go into detail about each Disney world at least later on. As for everything else, so much effort was put into just about EVERYTHING! From the ways environments are lit (Corona especially had some nice lighting effects, as did San Fransokyo), from enemy designs, to characters expressions oh god the expressions. KH games in the past tended to rely on stock expressions in some scenes because hey, its easy when ya don’t need to put your whole foot forward, I get it. But here? There are no stock facial expressions, everyone, everyone emotes in such vivid and realistic ways so that you can just see how characters are feeling/what they’re thinking just through their body language and expressions alone (Sora especially aslkdjasld I’ll go on about my son in a bit tho). In terms of other visual stuff, I LOVED how flashy this game could get in terms of attacks (Attraction Flow especially oh my god), some say it might have gone over the top, but to me, it just made me so excited to use everything I had in my arsenal just to see how things looked!

Next the music oh GOD the MUSIC. From the moment this game’s version of Dearly Beloved started playing I knew I was in for a DAMN pleasant listening experience. But what I loved even more was how this game went above and beyond with is score. Yeah ya have your basic level and battle background themes (my personal favs among those include Arendelle’s and Corona’s themes), but then most cutscenes are scored with individual little musical cues, almost like scenes right out of a movie instead of just the same theme playing on repeat in the background! That honestly added such a neat little touch to the game that I instantly noticed and loved IMMEDIATELY (this game also improved Sora’s theme SO much and used it a lot and I fucking LOVED that) and other returning songs were great too (Mysterious Tower’s theme is spectacular now, and even though they didn’t really change Hundred Acre Woods’ theme, they added more orchestration to it to make it sound even prettier!) And of course, don’t even get me started on Face My Fears and Don’t Think Twice, both of those are such AMAZING songs, probably my fav Utada songs out of the entire series (Don’t Think Twice especially lol) 

Next up, gameplay. So I kinda suck at KH games but honestly? I didn’t really have THAT hard of a time with this one. I played it in normal mode (cause I aint about to punish myself with proud mode alskdjalksdja) and I only started dying towards the end of the game and even then I didn’t die that much. But don’t get me wrong, the game isn’t stupidly easy either. The enemies will fuck you up if you’re not careful. I always made sure to reserve my magic to use cure like... fucking constantly because better safe than sorry! As for attacks, I favored using formchanges a lot because I always felt way more powerful with them (I beat the game using the BH6 keyblade imo that’s a good one) and Attraction Flow was also really useful and fun to use! Summons I... didn’t really use that much lol (same old story as other KH games) and team attacks I did use pretty much whenever they were offered to me (the ones with Disney companions were always a lot of fun!). Outside of battle, exploring in this game is SO much fun! Even aside from all the stuff to look at, there’s a lot to find! From ingredients (oh god the game wouldn’t fucking let me forget about ingredients), to hidden Mickeys (laskdjalskdjsad fuckin hell could never find any when the game outright told me there was one in front of me I’m stupid as hell), to the usual chests and whatnot, searching around was always a fun time (unless it was for fucking crabs, but we’ll get to that). Plus can I just say that I adore how smooth it is to control Sora in this game? Like seriously the boy actually runs at a decent pace for a change, his jump doesn’t feel like he’s wearing goddamn cement shoes, and the fucking tricks he can pull off with the whole running up walls and shit? fantastically fun to do. Special gameplay elements in the game were also usually always welcome, but I’ll get to those for each individual world when I go through em. 

But before I do that, I’ll briefly speak on all the extra stuff this game offers for you to do because by god is it packed with content. I didn’t really explore a ton of what it had to offer cause I wanted to beat the main story as quickly as I could, but what I did explore of it was a lot of fun! Cooking with Remy is adorable and even though I didn’t really use any of the dishes I cooked up I still had fun finding ingredients and doiing the little minigames for each dish. Hundred Acre Woods minigames were all kinda samey but tbh it was a fun game nonetheless. I only played one of the Classic Kingdom games but tbh next time I visit the game, I really do wanna try more of them, they’re super cute. The camera function was a delight askdjskd such a cute touch to add, taking selfies with Disney characters is my new favorite thing oh my god and... ugh guess I’ll talk about the Gummi ship here too... I never liked it in 1 or 2 but god they really fucked it up here imo. I know some might disagree with me on this, but by god this game could not get me to care about customizing my own ship. I pretty much kept with the basic ship the whole game, avoided every single enemy I could and mostly just bit the bullet so I could get to new worlds as quickly as possible. And most of the time I didn’t really mind it, UNTIL THE LAST GUMMI MISSION. The way the camera controls and the vertical and horizontal controls fuck each other up is so fucking stupid and trying to navigate that damn ship through tight and tiny corridors only for the camera to have a piss fit every time I so much as skiff by a wall made me so fucking mad why did they do this the rest of the game the missions are in wide open space plains so why force me into a bunch of tight corridors at the very last minute laskdjsldsd oh my god it was terrible 

ANYWAY moving on to much more fun stuff to talk about, how about them Disney worlds, huh? Might as well talk about my thoughts on each one of them, since they all offered such unique experiences that came together SO damn nicely: 

Olympus was, in my opinion, an excellent way to kick off the game. You get plenty of room to explore and see exactly what’s new in terms of gameplay and the game gives you chances to learn those moves and practice them in a nice, controlled environment. The world itself is lush and lovely and quite varied, with Thebes as an entire city environment to explore, the mountain to climb up and avoid Titans on (excellent first real bosses in the game btw I was so hype throughout that entire fight) and the beautiful environment of Olympus itself to slide and glide through). I was also pleasantly surprised in just how much the world set up for the rest of the game, kicking off Sora’s whole arc of having to get stronger throughout the game (more on that later), showing what Pete and Maleficent are up to (again more on that later), showing us that the Organization is still kickin and a threat, and basically getting us hype for everything else that’s to come! I’ll give Olympus an 8/10 I’d say if I had to score it lol

Next up in terms of full worlds to explore is the Toy Box and DAMN this world was impressive. They really did a GREAT job making you feel like a toy exploring a much larger world around you. Most of this level did take place at Galaxy Toys but I really don’t see that as a restriction since the place is MASSIVE and so much fun to navigate and pick out all those little details I mentioned above. Controlling the robots in this level as a BLAST in every way possible, and I do love all the little nods and references they make back to Toy Story itself in this world. Buzz and Woody were great to have along for the ride and I really appreciated how they were actually involved in the plot points of the world (like seriously, Woody fuckin telling Young Xehanort off will forever be one of my favorite KH moments oh my god). Imo this one was for sure one of my favorites, 9/10

After that, we have Corona and I was really excited about this world and I do think they did a great job with it. The environments are lush and absolutely beautiful (as is, again, the level’s music), and there are so many fun little moments in this level (having a splash fight with Rapunzel was PURE as was the entire dancing minigame imo adorable and so much fun). Its just... idk, for some reason i feel like I wasn’t as... engaged in this world as I was with some of the others? Its more or less just the story of Tangled imo, but Sora, Donald, and Goofy are just sorta... there. Hell, there are points where the trio just up and disappears from the Tangled plot and don’t even come into play until much later on which is sorta... why? I get that ya have a lot to convey in a short amount of time, but damn if Tangled wasn’t the perfect world for a KH game and it just felt like the story of it was... not as great as it should have been? Idk maybe I just wanted more bonding between the trio and the Tangled characters, and what we got was fine but I still wanted... more . So yeah, this one gets a 6/10 from me. 

Next up I went to Monstropolis and this one was also a pretty great time. Exploring the factory is a lot of fun and though it is kind of standard in terms of gameplay, everything else here is really great. The humor in this level is especially sublime and I love how the trinity trio plays off Mike, Sully, and Boo imo its pure as can be. And once again we have the Disney characters taking active engagement in the plot of the world (seriously Sully just yeeting Vanitas through several doors like he’s the lil piece of goth trash that he is is right up there with that scene of Woody and YX) So yeah not a ton to say about it, but I liked it a lot. 7/10. 

After Monstropolis, I went to Arendelle and by god this world was way more than I was expecting it to be. Seriously I LOVED how the plot of Frozen worked so naturally into this level, this was honestly much better than how Corona did it if you ask me. We actually got to see moments of connection between Sora and characters like Elsa and Anna and so on and it was great. Plus oh my god that Let It Go sequence was INCREDIBLE the animation on that was simply STUNNING! As for gameplay, I gotta say it was another fun one. The ice labyrinth was sorta meh, but exploring the mountain was a great time (and led to a lot of fun snark between the Trinity Trio imo) and the snowy environments here were just beautiful. Sledding down the mountain was a blast, and having Marshmallow to help out as a brief companion was unexpected but adorable. So yeah this was another one of my absolute favs. 9/10. 

After Arendelle though... things... fuckin tanked. The Caribbean was the goddamn worst part of this game for me, and not just because I haven’t seen the movies and therefore can’t really get a ton of enjoyment out of the characters and the story. Even beside that this world was just damn tedious. I thought the whole ship thing was gonna be fun at first, but then it just turned into an absolute shitshow, with enemy ships unfairly disappearing and reappearing and then completely blasting your ass (btw the ship is fuckin slow as hell so its hard to navigate (and yes I get that its a big pirate ship, but I don’t fucking care this was supposed to be fun so why isn’t it fun???) And don’t even get me started on that whole collecting white crabs bullshit imo that was just about pretty fucking pointless tbh so yeah suffice to say I didn’t have a fun time with this one. It had nice music tho I’ll give it that. And the swimming controls weren’t that bad so yeah. That’s about all the nice things I can say bout it. 3/10.

But GOD did the game ever make up for it when I got to San Fransokyo. I already really love Big Hero 6, so getting to explore the world of it was just GREAT.  The fight on the bridge was a great introduction and exploring the city was AMAZING. Everything felt so HUGE and there was SO much to see (so many buildings to run up!!!). Plus the boss battle against Evil Baymax or whatever was the SHIT in this level, seriously it was so much fun. And hey, it had a really solid original story to it too! I love how the game went out of its way to give each member of Big Hero 6 so much of their original personality from the movie, and it allowed them all a chance to interact with Sora, Donald, and Goofy to really make it seem like unique and engaging bonds were being formed. This world honestly had me so invested and I loved it so much, I’d say its probably my favorite of the entire game. 10/10.

And yeah so those are all the Disney worlds. Gonna not really talk about the last two worlds cause they’re more story heavy than gameplay heavy and speaking of which... guess its about that time. 

First of all, I gotta say that one of my favorite things about this game was its dialogue. Most of the VAs did a pretty damn solid job but the main characters especially so had a lot of emotion put into them. This game has so many fun little chatty moments, and the writing here is probably the most natural its ever been in a KH game. There’s so many fun little moments of sassy banter (between Sora, Donald, and Goofy in particular, seriously I could listen to those three yap at each other all goddamn day its excellent). SO much personality leaks through every character in just about every word they say and I really appreciate it and the effort put into it all! 

Now with that out of the way, the story oh god the story. So I should probably say that, for a preexisting KH fan like myself, this is the KH game that was actually the easiest to understand what’s going on in? Crazy, I know, but this game actually explains most of the off the wall things that happen in it in a way that anyone could readily understand, and personally I really think that benefits it. I think the plot only really derailed itself for me like... once (the whole explanation behind Repliku jfc what a mess). But there were still a few things that the game didn’t explain that I’ll again, talk about later. As for the story itself... 

One of the things i REALLY Loved about it was the character arc Sora had in this game. Riding off of DDD, the game really does set him up as the defeated underdog at the start of it and he feels bad about that and as a result you feel bad and wanna help this sad lil twink bb son get stronger!!! He just wants to help people but he can’t because he doesn’t have the power of waking but the great thing is he forces himself past that handicap and helps them anyway just by being himself and that’s beautiful. I already loved my precious sunshine son already, but this game made me absolutely adore him like seriously, he’s skyrocketed to one of my favorite characters in any fictional medium as a result of this game. He’s such a silly dork who is clearly having fun in all these Disney worlds as he’s off makin new friends, but its clear there’s a certain... anxiety lingering behind all of that. The kid as a lot of pressure on his shoulders and eventually it breaks him and that fucking scene broke me. But in the end, he still fuckin rises above it and kicks ass and then he fuckin disappears but that’s another point to bring up later on cause oh my god but basically the gist is, Sora is my absolute precious son boyo and I would gladly die for him oh my god

Donald and Goofy are also a TON of fun to watch in this game. I may crack jokes about Donald bitching at Sora a lot but you can tell he does it out of a true place of caring. Tbh there were a few Trinity Trio moments in this game that honest to god choked me up a bit, especially near the end. Mickey is sorta downplayed in this game, which is sorta whatever, but I did appreciate Riku in this game a lot (the brief spots where i got a chance to play as him were great). Kairi was... under fucking utilized again and I can’t deny that’s disappointing, and honestly same goes for Axel, though he DID have his moments, especially towards the end. And imo It was a delight to get all the other returning KH kids. Reuniting Aqua, Terra, and Ventus was beautiful, as was the reunion between Roxas, Xion, and Axel. Kinda wish we had gotten more Namine, but I’m glad she got her happy ending all the same. I also appreciate the Twilight Trio in this game, that one scene were they annoy the shit out of Ansem was the best. As for the baddies, same old same old though the game did sorta make them more interesting here and there. Xehanort’s “redemption” is sorta whatever to me, I kinda didn’t really care about what happened to him as much as I did my kids all coming together and being happy together and for the most part that’s what i got so I can’t say I didn’t walk away (mostly) happy as a result. I really fuckin do think the game could have done more with a handful of its bad guys, like they could have maybe implied more about the whole Xigbar=Luxu thing, and imo god did poor Vanitas get the short end of the stick I was expecting so much more on that front and I was sorely disappointed. But for the most part, I liked how this really was a huge KH reunion of heroes and villains alike. In that sense, it felt like one big tribute to the series’ entire history and for that, I love it. 

So I guess that means the only thing I can talk about now is the ending. Oh god that ending. Fuckin thing kept me up all night long last night and had me stressed as fuck this morning while I was at work but honestly? I think I’m over it now. Yeah it is certainly a cliffhanger (especially now that we have that secret movie which raises so many more questions but at the very least it does establish that Sora isn’t dead so I can appreciate that). And hey, it implies that more Kingdom Hearts games are to come, so I can’t really be mad about that since I’m pretty much absolute KH trash at this point. But yeah, that ending got me shook and tbh I think that’s what it was supposed to to, be incredibly bittersweet and all and imo it completely succeeded in that regard. 

Anyway before I go, just a few more points of disappointment I suppose that I haven’t touched on. Pete and Maleficent might as well not have even fucking been in the game for as few times as they appeared imo and the game also sorta just dropped the whole thing with Demyx and Vexen in a similar manner, as well as the whole thing about Larxene, Marluxia, Luxord, and Demyx “unlocking their inner keyblade heritage” or whatever imo game fuckin had too much KHX baiting if you ask me (that one scene where you use a bunch of KHX keyblades to murder a fuckton of heartless was really cool tho). Tbh I feel like the game had several moments of intrigue that it kinda more or less dropped the ball on, like for instance three examples in particular include that bit in Corona where Marluxia straight up knocks Sora the hell out and yeah that’s all he does, imo why even fucking bother with that when the kid just wakes up like nothing’s happened to seconds later? (to get the Trinity Trio out of the plot of Tangled, that’s what jfc), similar thing in Arendelle during the scene where Elsa freezes Anna’s heart, Sora for some reason gasps in pain and clenches his own heart at that exact same moment and the game never fucking bothers to explain why and that’s frustrating. Same thing goes for why Sora disappeared from the cover of Pooh’s book (lol guess that was fuckin foreshadowing the ending) the game offers a non explaination for it that is just... really not that conclusive so why even bother making a big deal out of it in the first place if you’re just gonna drop it? Plus there were a lot of other... smaller moments that I thought the game was gonna do so much more with but didn’t; the moment when Ven and Roxas see each other for the first time and realize they look basically the same but at no point do we actually see them exchange dialogue; Terra and Riku actually having a fucking conversation imo; same thing with any real interaction between Xion and Kairi; or how about the game not actually fucking explaining how the organization brought Xion back at all like wasn’t she a part of Sora how the hell did you do that game you have to EXPLAIN 

Sigh... but anyway, even despite those frustrations, i still absolutely adored my time with KH3. Yeah like I said it wasn’t perfect, but by god was it worth the wait. The game was pure, sheer, fun and its story got me so damn emotional that I actually CRIED at several points of it even though KH has never made me legit cry before. And really? If this stupid as hell game can make this brittle old heart do that, then you know its a good one. 

TLDR: Kingdom Hearts 3 is hella good, it made me cry like a little bitch, kinda fuckin dropped the ball on some points but whatever, and kept me up all goddamn night in existential dread over my precious son’s ambiguous fate. Imo fuckin 10/10 right there I love it and can’t wait to pick it up and play it again