#I dream of mechanics that convoluted in my games

[justletmeon12]

Holy shit, that eye mechanic is not intuitive.

[rainbow-nijisaki]

How about 13 and 16 for the TWEWY ask game?

13. what would you like to see in the future of the series?

First and foremost, my wish is that the series continues to be beloved and thus kept relevant by its fanbase, even if we don't receive anything new. I'm not incredibly hopeful for new entries, but that's not entirely a bad thing (and considering NEO's 14-year gap, anything could happen, so I won't say the chance is zero!). That said, I feel generally the same way about any potential sequels as I did when the "new 7 days" was first announced - I don't really want a sequel for sequel's sake, but if the team has an idea they want realized, I'd love to see it. That's one of the reasons I so wanted NEO to happen - because I had a distinct feeling the original "new 7days" project had been cancelled, and I'd always wondered about that idea that never saw light.

As for more specific and self-indulgent answers, the things I'd want most if I had infinite money and could fund the team myself:

TWEWY Prequel: This was my number one want before NEO. The original game concluded nicely, so most of its loose ends lie in the past. Joshua's rise to Composerhood is a fascinating topic, along with Kariya's hints about a previous long game occurring in the past and his familiarity with taboo noise. There's just enough information there to suggest the team knew more about all this than what they ultimately chose to share, and it kills me a little that we'll likely never know what exactly they were thinking when they wrote that. In all honesty, I still want this game, but it faces some competition from -

The Shinjuku Story: This one I mostly want because I feel like most of the story has to exist already somewhere - it almost feels like a missing entry in the series. I think I'd like to see this as a "Neku's adventures with Coco as they investigate Shinjuku and uncover the story of what led to its destruction" game, but a split timeline would also be nice. My guess is you'd play as Tsugumi during the pre-inversion sections in that case. I really, really would like a twewy prequel, but between this and that, I feel this one is in more dire need of telling. Part of the reason NEO is so convoluted is because they're trying to allude to an entire game's worth of backstory that doesn't actually exist in any other format. (On a side note, in an alternate universe I'd have liked NEO to be split between Neku in Shinjuku w/ Coco and Tsugumi, and Rindo's group working with Beat in Shibuya. Minamimoto could be on either side depending on what role Coco has for him. It'd feel a bit more relevant to AND that way, and be able to tell the Shinjuku story without losing the Shubuya tie that the team deemed necessary.)

Should they determine they're never going to make any new entries in the series, I really want a data book. I'd love to see all the plot bits that never made it into writing (which I assume they won't share now on the off-chance they do use the IP again). Novelizations of the two aforementioned plotlines would also be very welcome as an alternative to full games.

This is less of an actual want and more of a pipe dream, but I think it'd be neat to see the original remade in the style of NEO. I don't think it's quite possible to replicate what made the original's gameplay special on systems that aren't the DS / 3DS, so that ship has sailed - so a re-invention of the battle system to work in a single-screen 3D space could be a lot of fun and very stylish. Would it be as good as the original? I don't know. But it sure would look cool.

Please, please let Sora make good on his promise to see Neku in Shibuya in KH4, I'll actually buy the game if you do SE. Even better if it's NEO Neku. And let Neku bring his friends so I can finally have a 3D NEO Joshua model to spin around and get a reference for that hairstyle facing right I'm begging you SE

16. any pet peeves – gameplay mechanics, story details, missed pun opportunities, etc?

The original game is absolutely perfect except in one regard.

Where are my threads macros???

I'm willing to forgive it for the original DS version but I really would have liked to have them added to Final. We have four pin sets, but for a game heavy on fashion (especially with the brand chart mechanic) we have to manually change threads piece-by-piece. And read through all the descriptions again and again looking for that one effect...again. I think I played with equipment sets a lot less than I would have otherwise because of this.

But fine, Final is an enhanced port so I'll forgive it too.

But then we get NEO, a brand new, modern RPG in the year 2021...

And we still. Do not. Have. Threads macros.

Ugh.

-

Another big one for me (but probably more personal) is the total loss of ground-Joshua in Solo and Final remix once you unlock levitation. I understand that, unfortunately, switching mid-combat wouldn't really work anymore, but I would have at least liked a toggle in a menu somewhere.

"But Yoshaiya," you say, "why do you need that? What insane person would actually use ground combat Joshua once you unlock the vastly superior god-powers-angel-beam-flinging-levitating-actually can kill things Joshua-"

I would. I do not need to elaborate.

-

I'm not going to get into story details pet peeves since surely you're tired of reading this by now and wondering when I'm finally going to shut up - I'll just quietly note that while I do love both games, I do have some story nitpicks regarding NEO. But that's not something I want to get into right now. I'd rather not discuss my misgivings without also going into what I like about it, and most likely, neither you nor I have time for that essay right now. (Also, before I say anything about what I like / don't like regarding NEO's writing, I'd definitely want to give it another replay.)

As a minor one though...I would have liked to see more familiar faces among NEO's minor cast. Shibuya's a big town and always changing, but it's almost sad how the old faces are just...gone, three years later. Off the top of my head, I remember Eiji Oji and Ken Doi, and K-1 Okada from J of the M...and that's it. I'm actually kind of hoping I overlooked someone at this point. This isn't actually a pet peeve, mind, just...a missed opportunity I'm a little bummed about.

[neoyi]

Never have I wanted to puke out an endless stream of rainbow faster than booting up Dream Drop Distance for the first time. What an odd, odd duck of a game.

Even for a Disney crossover, DDD is maddeningly whimsical, a description I would only somewhat attached to KH (dramatic, theatrical, complicated, flashy, etc. would be better words for the franchise), but is in full blast here. I swear I'm still coughing up glitter.

More under the "Keep Reading."

Like it's not just the weird gameplay with its "Parkour-Off-Any-Surface" Flowmotion. but the cutesy Dream Eaters you collect, the incredibly overflowing bright, neon colors that dominate everything from worlds Sora and Riku step in to the in-game menu. Mind you, beautiful colors - these are not obnoxious in anyway - that are just pure eye candy, it's just a lot to take in at first.

I actually own the original 3DS copy of this game (I am playing the Final Mix edition that was packaged with the PS4 Compilation release) and I need to check out something in my free time, because this game absolutely feels like it was made with a stylus in mind. I can't help but wonder if you're suppose to tap the walls or floors for Sora/Riku to perform Flowmotion. I can definitely tell that one balloon mini-game that you play with the Dream Eaters requires a stylus - the PS Touch Pad is not optimal in any way, shape, or form to handle that.

Oh my God, like the Dream Eaters. I was aware of these creatures, but I didn't know this was Kingdom Hearts: The Mon Game. I'm going to lose it trying to collect them all.

In any case, DDD is almost sickeningly cute tonally. Like when THIS music started playing while I was bonding with my Dream Eaters, I felt like all my teeth would fall out from the sugary nonsense they were shoving down my throat. Even the music has this sort of soft, dreamy quality that wants to drift you off into a peaceful sleep (the peppier music on the other hand feels like a kid going on a magical adventure.) It's not like Birth By Sleep's softness which is more elegant and ethereal, this one feels like a series of lullabies.

And I'm not saying this is a bad thing. I actually do not think this is so twee that it turns me off, probably because I'm still thrown off by the sheer whiplash between this and Birth By Sleep (or any previous KH games, really.) I wonder if its background setting - dreams - meant the developers wanted to create a tone that felt imaginative and childlike. Sora in Slumberland, so to speak.

It's so abrupt about it, too. The game opens up in media res with Sora and Riku battling Ursula, before a flashback informs the viewer that these two kids need to wake seven "sleeping worlds" in order to pass their Mark of Mastery, before suddenly cutting to a minigame where you "drop" into a new world (taking place in lieu of the Gummi Ship), and it's just so damn weird.

Cutscenes are also presented in fragments that are either mandatory or optional viewing for more context in your Mementos menu. Maybe the extra cutscenes had to be side choices because of the nature of its chef gameplay mechanic, where you only have a certain amount of time between Sora and Riku before the two of you switch once the other "drops." Like yeah, I could logically just go back to the other characters, but I guess for people who want to just stick with the "drop" mechanic meant a simpler-than-usual set of cutscenes so as not to confuse people? Maybe??? Because it's not like the Dream Worlds Joshua explained isn't any less convoluted than the average KH worldbuilding. So who the heck knows?

It's certainly experimental compared to past Kingdom Hearts games, and too early for me to say how I feel about it. I think I'm still trying to adjust.

Traverse Town certainly looks its best here though. Like there's more locations and they're all bursting with colors and aesthetic deco flavor. it looks fantastic.

And oh my GOD, I forgot this is the game where the TWENY gang arrived.

And it comes to little surprise the only one who seem to understand how the dream worlds function and what to do with it is our resident smug asshole, Joshua.

Their story seem to be ongoing, so I assume I'll be returning to Traverse Town and see how they're doing. I'm excited. I loved TWENY and can't wait to see what they do in the KHverse.

I hate to say this though, but their rendition of "CALLING" is... subpar. Like I don't like the way the vocals have this weird warbled effect and the rhythm doesn't feel as bouncy as the original.

I'm fascinated with Sora and Riku here. Their contrasting personalities have carried and defined their journeys since Game One, and now we've reached a point where they're both in the same page as equals. How they'll pass this test is going to be a remarkable demonstration of their key traits and capabilities.

Immediately Sora confidently declares he and Riku will pass with flying colors, but the latter is hesitant. Knowing how hard he fought to keep his darkness at bay, Riku doesn't take the test for granted and comes across as exceptionally humble.

I don't blame Sora for having a bit of an ego though; his heart is coming from a good place, and his endless optimistic and determination has worked tremendously for him in the past that, well, of course this whole test thing is going to be a shoe-in for him. Yen Sid warns him that the two are playing by a very different, vast set of rules and restrictions though. Both of them were self-taught and they showed talent from it (way beyond the average Keyblade wielder, I'm sure), but now they have mentors and an expectation that requires specification to meet. They cannot just do it their own way.

There are some weird foibles with Sora's character though. His chief personality - sunny and open to other people - is retained, but he's not as grounded as he was before. Now he just seems peppy 24/7 with an almost childish quality that even Game 1 Sora lacked (Game 1 Sora is a bit more hesitant and willing to question things, though he was just starting out back then.) I don't know if they're purposely pushing to fit the dream theme they got going, but he teeters close to a flanderized version of himself. Sora in the other games would sometimes be one crayon short of a full set, but will have his head in the game; DDD Sora sees a butterfly and chases after it.

Riku though, I noticed, has a slightly more adorable side to him when put in an awkward situation. Noticeably, he is flustered and unsure of what to do when Shiki playfully flirts with him. And I just about lost it, because Riku's entire quest in Game 1 was to save Kairi, the girl he liked. It's just so much of a Riku thing that the best way he can express his affection is to go out of his way to find Kairi's heart and never, ever tell her how he feels because he's suave and cool and has no way to forwardly tell girls he likes them because god he's still sixteen and young and stupid in that way.

Which is hilarious to think about compared to the immature Sora who may not be the brightest kid, but he's much more clear (in that chaste anime way) that he likes Kairi and visibly expresses it. Course, it does help that Kairi likes him, too.

It's just so cute. These kids are adorable. I wanna pinch all your cheeks.

Also I've been told the game will explain why they're in their younger models, because, like yeah, why are they?

I'm currently in the Hunchback of Notre Dame world and man, like, I have not been religious in nearly fifteen years and I still feel like it's blasphemous for Sora and Riku to Anime Parkour inside the Notre Dame. Like that is a real church. That is an actual goddamn church you can legit visit in real life! This is a lot, man.

Fucking Frollo with his Dream Eater behind him and he calls it his righteous judgment and I'm like, I can't take this. I cannot take someone like Frollo, the man who sang "Hellfire", seriously in the Kingdom Hearts world where he meets up with two anime boys and the sea of colorful animal monsters they drag with 'em.

Like jesus fuck, Quasimodo told Riku when the latter entered the Notre Dame that if he's looking for the archdeacon, he's not available. That's a real religious position. That is real, and he told Riku that, and I don't know what the fuck I'm suppose to do with this information.

[asseater3k]

Metal Gear Mania Day:7

Spoilers for MGS3 below the cut

I liked The bullet style from day 5 so were gonna use that this

THE SORROW this was a very cool boss fight. in my instance it was terribly mechanically complex or strictly speaking engaging but i was glued to my seat and the screen for the whole thing I wasn’t aware that there’d be a boss fight like this when i decided to try not to kill anyone, to be honest i just wanted to look cool in front of girls, but when i put two and two together that he shows you and makes you fight everyone he kills I kinda wished id killed some people It’s such a cool idea, I was a little peeved that the cobra unit ghosts showed up because I busted my ass to get all the KOs but they did also all explode after that so fair enough. I do love that even though he has a health bar its empty cause hes a ghost and the framing of this boss fight as snake almost dying is cool and helped by the fact that if you call anyone on codec they give you their game over lines

OCELOT this fucking guy every scene in this game makes you realize that the guy we see in MGS 1&2 was the “normal” well adjusted version of this guy who doesn’t go around sniffing random people and keeps his raging desire for Big Boss somewhat in check him being the final encounter was a nice relax from the actual final boss and I like the scene where they fight in the plane

THE BOSS (FIGHT) this one fuckin hurt, It’s a beautifully designed fight, A final duel in field of white flowers nothing but but stealth and CQC I made this harder on myself by using the sneaking suit cause I wanted that contrast against The Boss’ suit but man If you pay attention Snake gets a little better in each cutscene against the boss and that comes to ahead with you having to counter her moves in the fight finally surpassing your mentor add on the timer which i thought would actually come into play cause a timer didnt pop up on screen when the fight started even when The Boss started counting downs herself i was a bit 50/50 but I did actually run out of time so I learned my lesson. You have to play such a mix of patient and aggressive to get through this one

THE EVA ESCORT SECTION Ive heard a lot of flack directed at the Emma section in the last game and honestly i thought this part was worse it wasn’t anything horrible just a bit slow there was a section at the begg=inning where soldiers kept poring out and she wouldn’t go from an attack state to follow state fast enough in the down time between the soldiers showing up so we kept getting detected and entering alert I was mostly annoyed cause she kept shooting people and I thought the game would count it against me like with snake in MGS2 other than that it was just strategic snack acquisition and on to the heart break.

THE ENDING AND THE BOSS while the ending of MGS2 melted my brain this one just made me sad its a much tighter and more personal narrative than the last game and I think thats a smart call if you do something like MGS2 again you’d have to escalate it which I think would be difficult to do so soon after and without getting too convoluted. Don’t get it wrong there’s still some crossing threads in this specifically with regards to EVA, The Boss , Ocelots allegiances EVA being a Chinese spy Ocelot being a triple agent reporting to krushev over gru and The US over even them and of course The Boss remaining loyal to the US despite Kowing the expanded mission out right required her death and disgrace. I dont have a ton i feel i can say about that without straight up beaming the game into your brain its just so fucking heart breaking man her talking about how the ceaseless churn of war turns soilders into these disposable pieces where their lives a relationships are ripped up by the whims of major leaders and bids for power money etc I have players a bit of peace walker at time of writing and the fact that snake didnt fucking get it and interpreted her dream not as a world with out conflict freeing them from the need to be this group beholdent and loyal to the whims of others over themselves or each other and can live in peace but instead as world simply not beholdent to any conflict while still perpetuating it while remaking loyal to themselves just guts me man

MOVING FOWARD i had a bit of trouble deciding to go onto peace walker or MGS4 I started peace walker but got so nervous that i made the wrong choice taht i actually asked a blog I follow who is way more knowledgeable about this kind of stuff than i am about how I should go (you should follow them by the way their @ is cerastes they make good posts and have very enjoyable streams sometimes) in short he told me that while that while I was not making a mistake as both of these games feed into eachother very well meaning it was ultimately a personal choice that personally he would play 4 first sating that its depiction of war as buisness would resonate with a peace walker play through. So I was going to do that then I waffled some more then I decided that MGS4 status as a conclusion to series at lest at the time would vibe better as the final gaem in the context of this deranged two marathon I’ve done. I’m mostly writing this bit so i dont come across as/ feel like an asshole for asking for advice and kind of disregarding it, and if you read this dreamer I really did appreciate the advice and would have played the order you recommended if I was playing this in a more casual way taking my time through them all etc, any way neurosis aside its on to peace walker yippee!!

[marlowe1-blog]

"A Miscellany of Characters That Will Not Appear" (The Stories of John Cheever)

Oh this is a weird one

Meta-fiction. Fiction about fiction. The kind of stories that are all about writing the story. These are actually very hard to pull off. Most of the time you see these glimpses of meta-fiction in the story where the writer suddenly breaks the fourth wall and starts addressing the audience.

But the very rare story is the story which is just the writer talking about writing. The only other story I can think of that is like this one is "Happy Endings" by Margaret Atwood where she outlines the plot of a story six times and it gets more convoluted and chaotic the farther she goes in it. The ending is just "in the end everyone dies but the story is really about the people" which is kind of a refutation of the whole thing.

This one is a series of jokes about the kinds of stories that Cheever either writes or reads. One of the entries is "anyone that Brando plays" while another entry talks about all these homosexuals in modern fiction (this was in 1960 so not sure how many homosexuals were showing up in the fiction. I mean we had the beats and Truman Capote but most of the gay fiction came in anonymous mail to keep the post office from confiscating it. Including Spring Fire by M.E. Kerr (or her lesbian pseudonym).)

The pretty girl at the Princeton-Dartmouth rugby game gets a paragraph that is practically a story in itself. Meanwhile other entries are not taking aim at characters so much as literary tropes like ruined America or sex scenes that might as well be auto mechanic guides.

Then there are points where he just contradicts himself. Maybe he's making a promise to himself. Like the entry for "all lushes" is an entire story in three paragraphs with the advertising guy (yep, there's that Mad Men reference) dreaming of work, losing a job and then going to Cleveland for a job interview only to come home with a blackened eye and no hat or tie. Cheever claims that all lushes are just not interesting.

The paperback copy of The Stories of John Cheever is 800 pages. I think if Cheever actually kept his promise not to write about lushes, we'd have a pamphlet.

The whole thing ends with an anecdote about Royden Blake, a fellow writer (who might be based on a real writer but I had to google) who had four periods of writing - bitter moral anecdotes, snobbishness, bad sex stories and then stories about rich people. He ended up trying to tell a story or the beginning of a story to Cheever (or the narrator) that ended with him dying and the three characters never got to do anything.

So we have Cheever talking to himself and throwing up most of the kind of story ideas written in notebooks or half finished. Since I'm working on a story that begin as a crappy micro-story where a guy tells his son about how they came to live in a cave and - PLOT TWIST - turns out to be a Nazi, I can see the appeal. Hell, I got a pair of stories that made up my early sales (so I got paid like $5 at most) called "The Literary Career of Nancy Sullivan" and "Obituary for a Children's Author" which were mostly excuses to write messed up ideas for stories. I'm still proud of the children's book idea "Your Brother Stepped on a Landmine".

[wedlascl]

Final fantasy 8 gamefaqs

FINAL FANTASY 8 GAMEFAQS PS4

FINAL FANTASY 8 GAMEFAQS PC

Srsly I've written a review about the same issue in Star Ocean 3 Remaster where it was the same problem and what does SE do? The same stupid thing again.

FINAL FANTASY 8 GAMEFAQS PS4

The worst problem in the PS4 version is that you don't have the option to turn down the volume of music etc. I have tested it around 20 minutes and have refunded it. Everything is so blurry that it hurts my eyes to play the game. Yes the character looks upgraded but all the rest is downgraded graphicaly. It is the worst Remaster I have ever played.

FINAL FANTASY 8 GAMEFAQS PC

It is I love Final Fantasy 8 and ofcourse I was silliy enough to pre-order this game for PC and PS4. I love Final Fantasy 8 and ofcourse I was silliy enough to pre-order this game for PC and PS4. Do I recommend it?: I would recommend it mostly to those who want to get deeper into the series. Pros: + Engaging plot + Serviceable characters + Interesting mechanics + Nice music + Vastly improved graphics from previous Final Fantasy games Cons: - Weak narrative - Characters lack depth - Junction System is poorly designed - Upgrading weapons is tedious - Outdated minor elements Narrative: 4/10 Gameplay: 2/10 Content: ?/10 Characters: 6/10 Music: 7/10 Graphics/Audio: ?/10 Final Rating: 6/10 - Decent - On one hand, Final Fantasy VIII is a decent, traditional Final Fantasy experience, but on the other hand, it's filled with flaws and it's one of my least favorite games in the series. Lastly, the game does have some outdated elements. Upgrading weapons by picking up random maganizes and grinding for materials is a slog. Overall, it's kinda boring, but it's unique and I can see why some people like it. The Junction System brings some interesting ideas on paper but the execution falls short. I haven't mentioned the biggest flaws of the game yet. As you've seen so far, Final Fantasy VIII is quite flawed, but the thing is. Also, the music is good and the visuals are significantly better than the visuals in older Final Fantasy games. The characters are likable and I liked some of them more than I expected, however, most of them lack depth. The combat system is similar to Final Fantasy IX's but a bit more responsive, nothing special. Final Fantasy VIII's story is convoluted and it gets quite nonsensical at times but it's intriguing for the most part even if the writing is inconsistent. Fortunately though, it got me hooked after a while and I stayed till the end. Fortunately though, it got me hooked after a while and I To be honest, I wasn't very interested in playing Final Fantasy VIII Remastered. To be honest, I wasn't very interested in playing Final Fantasy VIII Remastered. In my opinion FF VIII is a solid title, just not one I see myself playing as much as I have played VII or IX … Expand I understand it is important to the plot but it could have been done in a better way. Also hated it when the game changed its pace when I went to the dream world to, for some reason, follow the story of Laguna and company. They aren't bad but they have moments that will make you question their actions as well as their character. Squall was the emo guy who never shared his feelings, Quistis was the know-it-all teenage instructor, Zell was the annoying loud mouth, Selphie's character is that she has none, Rinoa is the ditzy daughter of a general, and Irvine is the wannabe sharp shooter that hits on every pretty lady he sees. The characters were never too interesting to me. I always wondered if they were aware how easily their game could be broken. You can break it so hard that you can get Squall's final and best weapon by the end of disc 1, as well as spells that won't be available til disc 3 without drawing them and you can junction said spells to give level 10 characters level 40-50 stats. Luckily Square gave the ability to break the game in literally the beginning hours of disc 1. Basic enemies scale to your level making grinding kind of pointless. Drawing magic is tedious and the idea that magic is more like an item bugged me. It isn't a bad game but it isn't great either. This one usually split the So after so many years of pleading from fans, Square finally released a remaster of their classic ps1 title. So after so many years of pleading from fans, Square finally released a remaster of their classic ps1 title.

[its-whitetomorrow]

Legend Arceus Story - More or Less the Usual Fail (Spoilers, but if you have expectations go ahead - you’ll just avoid harm in waiting for Nothing)

Now, don’t take me wrong - I enjoyed Arceus because - graphically - it is what Pokemon games should have been a long time ago and WHAT THEY OUGHT TO BE WITHOUT ANY EXCUSE NOW THAT THEY ARE ON SWITCH!!!

That being said, well, yes... graphically and with new mechanics it was captivating amazing adventure, something that I haven’t really felt with Pokemon franchise for a long while. It was nice. interacting with characters or even request NPCs and - most of all! - Pokemon in full 3D landscape with full-fledged cutscenes with nice AA was the dream come true, really nice. Even story bits had my utmost attention and made me engaged, further spiced up by mysterious space-time rift mechanics, reoccurring tidbits of lore that seemed important and characters’ moral dilemma regarding Pokemon as well as clan rivalries, even the appearance of the trio of bandits which seemed like a neat detail - that it’s mostly a lawless land etc. But you know what? Nothing. Giant Big Nothing. Nothing came out of it and what actually came out of it was weirdly awkward and convoluted, even rendering the entire set up of the game useless and pointless. 

So, here is what turned out to be a giant joke in the story department:

1. Kamado...

From the start of the game he talked a lot about lack of trust and how the player is a stranger in this land, that people don’t trust us, and he was so insistent on repeating it until the bitter end even though everyone in the village (and Hisui) was fond of us and our help. We were such friends with professor and even Cyllene, we gained everyone’s trust. Not only that, he was really shady at times (though at the time I wouldn’t really suspect him of anything) like with his constant talks of “Pokemon being dangerous,” such military apparition through and through which was a bit off for a Pokemon game, Cyrus-esque mention of strife and war that he doesn’t want while at the same time being clearly such a figure of authority for Diamond and Pearl clans even to the point of aggressive involvement in their affairs, sure he wanted to protect the village but then again it was actually their land and their affairs not his, he even said things like “oh well, you go do it, I keep neutrality because there might be war” (WTF!) which seemed like he is some kind of military/diplomatic strategist who is using you as a convenient method to get involved in something he has no right to get involved with, also his insistence on subduing the last noble that even Professor found strange and kind of... suspicious? Because it looked like it. Well, and then there is a fact it was called GALAXY team, so other than some far-fetched nod towards Cyrus I would expect it to make sense, like maybe something connected to their true purpose being there and connected to the lore of Arceus, creation of all universe etc... because seriously, it’s a strange name for normal settlers who research a new continent... to include the word “Galaxy” there lol. Just because. 

So all of the above. And THEN when the skies go red, suspiciously enough right after that quelling of the last noble (that his guardian believed was perhaps a gift, not a curse, and it aligned with the text lore about the hero who actually used Arceus-powered yellow nobles by his side, not de-powered ones), Kamado immediately pulls THAT sudden stunt off treating you as some kind of trash and banishes you, seemingly turning the entire village against you with only Cyllene and the Professor opposing him. It even creates this weird situation where only one of the clan leaders can get involved to help you because “there might be hostilities and war etc” which seems like the situation Kamado conveniently forced them into because maybe he would like to, idk... conquer them or something, be the hero that forces them into submission and peace lol, also in addition to all this political maneuver and talk of war he said a lot of things about dangerous Pokemon and their amazing strength that can be tamed... and what we were doing this entire time is like... supplying his corps with lots of new mons (like alpha ones!) and the Galaxy expedition actually invented pokeballs to tame them into submission. At this point I expected anything to happen, but it was still somewhere in the back of my mind that maybe it’s something else entirely. 

But THEN he quickly takes the entire military corp to the mountain passage (passage that one of his security guys guarded before that point in the story, mind you) and hopes to defeat or tame the legendary atop the temple. And THEN Beni all of a sudden talks something about being his loyal right hand man who shares the same dream as him, who wants to stop anyone who may oppose “Kamado’s plans,” who admits he is always doing kind of dirty/tough work Kamado can’t/won’t do himself and turns into A GODDAMN NINJA warrior who will “finally get rid of you.” With one of the DP music tracks remixed here in a way that at parts brings to mind dramatic reveal and encounter with an evil team member (also this reminded me of shadow triad here). So, at this point I had NO DOUBT this buildup I saw earlier actually served a purpose and we’re getting Kamado with some plans as a villain here, or at least one of the villains, maybe a dramatic one but you know, a villain... 

...and it turned out he was really just trying to protect the village with a totally random dumbass plan to stop the legendary at the temple, oh and that some pokemon burnt their village long ago (which is a WTF fact anyway, for a Pokemon game, seems like they’re trying to save their messed up writing by introducing yet another extreme fact just to make you feel sad for him or something) so he and Beni overreacted but you saved him from himself and it’s all ok now, he respects you and is sorry.. WTF, overreacted, Beni turned into a ninja, wanted to get rid of us and said something about some mysterious “Kamado’s plans” as if it was all part of those plans... and AFTER you actually beat Kamado in a fight he says something like “all Pokemon threats must be eliminated!”... Pokemon writing, you’re freaking dissociating right now! The worst thing is... it could have been a really good idea actually and the build-up was damn good towards it. Or maybe it WAS the idea but they changed their mind at the last minute?! Wtf, idk! If it has come to pass then Kamado would be the first original Pokemon villain in a while, not evil one like Ghetsis, not new world builder and destroyer like some others, not criminal mastermind like Giovanni... but something more common and grounded in society, still with sympathetic backstory about hurt caused by Pokemon, with motivation to protect his people from strife and yet... military veteran who has plans of subjugation maybe, that HE will MAKE the land save from both Pokemon and human events like unexpected Diamond/Pearl war... by subjugation, by power, by pokemon army etc. Something fresh, something surprising but actually hinted at, and something that makes sense after that sudden Beni reveal and battle... but NOOOOO. Instead they just directly contradicted all of it and said he was sorry, he just “overreacted”. FUCK THEM. He got the Rose treatment here, I guess. Or worse. And honestly, from this point onward the entire illusion about this game maybe being better, maybe being different, maybe being better-handled, like it knows what’s it doing, like it can be interesting but doesn’t fall into shallow, forced patterns... dissipates!

2. The ending, the “true” ending, the “secret” ending - what should have been in the MAIN story before any actual postgame! (and better too)

Well then, forget about Kamado weirdness for the time being, I did that and still played the game, I thought it was a red flag yeah, but maybe it was kind of a forced red herring and the story actually starts to make more sense going forward? Probably? So I play the game, it turns out we need to run from the temple because Dialga (who talks in someone’s head yikes, willingly gets caught by a human because it needs our help, like it’s actually real scared of the fight ahead! Wow!) is chased by frenzied GIANT Palkia influenced by strange dark power. But then nothing, Palkia is just... standing there and waiting for us until we get equipped in a powered-up pokeball that we almost immediately do, after some anti-climatic errands, and we’re back atop the temple anyway which made that entire break kind of needless. But still, the fight ahead is super cool... almost too cool, but that’s a great thing! But then... we calm Palkia down, the red strangely looking skies/barrier disappears and the credits roll... WHAAAT?! The end??? Thank you for playing??? You kidding me? What about the lore, answers, what about explanations? What about our character’s role in all of this? Where is the damn Arceus content in a game literally called Arceus? WHAT ABOUT VOLO BEING SUSPICIOUS? Where is the game story?

There is still more content in the game, yes. However, the giant space-time rift atop the mountain disappeared and most of the characters remain oblivious of the important events going onward, no commentary, no involvement, no interest whatsoever! They seemingly don’t even care anymore that our character comes from BEYOND THE RIFT that disappeared and that, maybe, they would like to get home! In fact, the goal behind doing what we do is left mostly to shallow “maybe it’ll help” “legends are sure interesting to explore” or “destiny” and it almost looks like our player character is left alone in Volo’s company to deal with it, whatever that is, but nobody really cares. Or, perhaps, due to the lack of clearly expressed motivation and goal behind gathering the Plates of Arceus, our player character doesn’t even want to go home, they’re just doing it for fun and for the sake of it, just like Volo, because it’s interesting. Who even knows anymore.

But make no mistake, even though the story continues and Volo is actively involved here with lots of dialogues, for all purposes regarding gameplay mechanics this is being treated like some garbage post-game throwaway... nobody has anything interesting to say or explain, nobody is involved just Volo, we don’t find out anything about lore and history of Hisui other than Cogita spitting out more random “legend” nonsense she memorized but that doesn’t really give us any solid facts... and the hunt for the plates is a giant, classic, SHALLOW “go and catch those legendary Pokemon as post-game hunt without any sort of meaningful interaction or cutscene event” written all over it! It’s so disappointing here that almost unbelievable. Also, why those Pokemon, some random and in the wild, even have those Arceus plates to begin with... this is not explained at all. Them lying around in some chests deep in some high-level Pokemon-infested caves and ruins would probably make more sense but then again... this game doesn’t really have such interesting dungeons to explore, so whatever, but back to Volo... 

He reveals that Giratina rebelled against Arceus for some reason and wants to defy it and defeat it for which it was banished to the Distortion World... which is such a big WOOOW, it’s also called an “unwanted child” of Arceus, seems like Giratina is the villain here WOW. Such a nice spin on the lore here. Volo does his sudden villainous “MUHAHAHAHA” and then talks about his past and his desire to create the better world, to meet Giratina and Arceus, to understand Arceus and its power... and suggests the player should go to the temple (yet again~!) because maybe something will happen there that he wants to happen because he is the villain obviously. Guess what. The player just nods and agrees. WHAAAAAAT?! So we just agreed to the laughing villain’s plans... Ok... but let’s go, I want answers anyway... and I get some of them but they’re still shallow. So Volo was actually aligned with Giratina in an attempt to meet Arceus, he fed it power that Giratina used to open the giant time-space rift (and the smaller ones apparently?) and Giratina’s power was also the cause of Dialga/Palkia rampage which curiously enough, at least with Palkia, allowed it to gain its “Origin” form that mimics Arceus, as if in defiance... but it’s NEVER explained what the heck did Volo even do to meet Giratina in the first place not to mention how was he able to “feed” its powers... this game doesn’t give a fuck about ANY interesting answer that needs answering. To make matters worse Volo's real clothes appear to be of very ancient make and he also mentions that he used to WORSHIP Arceus... which could be a long time ago maybe? Also, later on he says “no matter how many years it takes, even if a century or longer” which may refer to him being immortal then? Who knows. Nothing is clear, nothing is well-explained... despite Volo actually being, somehow, interesting novel take on a poke villain (but the well-handled Kamado-villain would have been better though and less stereotypically muhahaha one!!!). Either way, as cool and surprising as Volo is (with his face and hair reminding me of Jasper from DQ11 XD) after Giratina loses the fight and just runs away in fear - no distortion world stage here, no special boss fight against Giratina’s dark powers despite such awesome build-up as a villain (which is super lame, by the way) - Volo just... can’t stand it and leaves but he still intends to achieve his goal someday. No further explanations, only MORE questions. Honestly fuck the writers of Game Freak at this point, they should all be replaced if they’re still the same people who wrote for previous games, maybe it’s all their fault. The “true ending” my ass. Should have been part of normal plot in normal story, not post game.

Don’t make me even started on the “secret ending” - which is like, the main part of the entire narrative because it has to do with Arceus and was the game’s main selling point - which is locked behind the stupid pokedex grind that requires you to catch all Pokemon. Which wouldn’t even be as annoying as it was - after all, seek out all Pokemon was the first directive the Arc Phone gave us at the beginning of the game - if it wasn’t for a fact that it has NO PURPOSE whatsoever (so Arceus requiring that is just lame excuse to force us into grind) and traversing the game world, with no new areas open to us (like maybe the islands around Sinnoh) feels more shallow, especially after so many story disappointments and zero answers provided to such lingering questions, including THE VERY REASON WHY OUR PLAYER CHARACTER IS EVEN THERE AS TIME TRAVELLER FROM THE FUTURE! And after all that grind is complete... you get to fight Arceus in a cosmic badass fight that briefly turns Pokemon encounter into some kind of Kingdom Hearts battle stage, which is such a nice take on Arceus, it’s perfect... and Arceus gives you his clone as a reward (so you can have it as usable pokemon but you don’t actually have REAL Arceus, which is good, and should be an approach extended to most legendaries actually :). But here is the catch, Arceus doesn’t actually say much and doesn’t EXPLAIN anything, not even why it brought you here in the first place... and not even providing any way of going back home... so you can’t find out anything, all that grind was pointless and unrewarding. Not even secret ending makes sense. FUCK YOU POKEMON. You have those amazing characters, ideas and plot points, all that lore, with beautifully looking Switch graphics, but you still do utter shit and absolute nothing with it, tricking me into trusting your story only to get burned and my entire experience turning into a cesspool of disappointment, into asking myself about the purpose behind all that hard work my character did. Fuck it. My dream of open world Pokemon game in 3d was destroyed by it and ruined in the end, with my feelings left shallow. You managed to destroy even that, I guess - despite the game being kind of OK and nice as far as gameplay goes... you managed to destroy the experience anyway.

3. The lore is random nonsense apparently, no interesting locations either.

At first it looks like the lore actually matters in this one. Like, there is more into it than meets the eye, the game made it its purpose to include character dialogues that make you question the lore and ancient stories, with the entire Pearl/Diamond clans premise and their arrival to this suspiciously abandoned land look like something important for the story about Arceus. With our player character potentially referred to as the “lost one” and “the one with the mission” in ancient texts. With “Almighty Sinnoh” thing being super confusing and perhaps intended to matter in a larger history uncovered within the plot because otherwise what would even be the purpose of it being so needlessly convoluted. Not to mention the verses lore actually mentions there were “ancient Sinnoh people” living in Hisui long before the civilization went extinct and before it became Hisui... so maybe it was actually called Sinnoh back in the past? Or something that makes sense? Also, Sinjoh name is thrown into it... just because but nothing explains anything, everything seems convoluted and contradicting! The ancient hero gathered ten Pokemon struck by lightning and faced a foe most likely Giratina... so then it would appear their light power was needed to face Giratina... but we were just returning that power back into the rift because it was bad... but it actually came from Acreus then... but Giratina caused time rifts... but lightning was more like something that would come from Arceus... and it begun after Arceus brought us to this time... but Arceus never gave us any mission and who knows why it did it, maybe just for fucks... and the person who wrote the verses is seemingly immortal... it may be Volo but then again doesn’t really sound like Volo at all and says something strange about lost loved one and bond with Giratina... or something on world’s end, so maybe Giratina... and Volo never said he was immortal anyway... maybe he is not immortal because why would it even took so long for him to start this plan of his... but then his clothes were peculiar... also, the verses mention something about the land (Hisui?) that will belong only to Pokemon in the end... I mean, it’s all disappointingly disjointed mess! Even more so than usual in Pokemon games.

Also, there are no nice locations to make things and later side quests more interesting. Just random, copy-paste ruins and columns that appear on the landscape. Despite all the talk about “ruins being fascinating and history being cool” - nothing to learn here, nothing to uncover, not even a real underground dungeons or buried ruins of lost “Sinnoh people” to explore... NOTHING. Even the old DP game, being what it was, had more inspiring places of old to explore. Here it’s just... so lacking. Also, that ghost-girl quest with wisps is a joke. Talk about saving the world from darkness and all that annoying wisps to gather... only to hear some random dialogue with the girl probably being the ghost Pokemon... and the giant keystone and whatever was done with it never explained. But what matters is THAT Pokemon is in Pokedex now. FUCK YOU.

4. Poor Ingo.

So why was he even here? Was part of main story, looked like he will matter to the story, also time-traveller like us... he remembers some stuff, says his inspiring piece about Pokemon trainer battles and there he remains, in the arena... idle, without any sort of meaningful interaction, just NPC to conduct battles for us. You’re joking?! I guess he isn’t going back home, just like us. What makes matters even worse is the idea conveyed here, by Ingo and our player’s needless involvement as it turns out... that Pokemon were “tamed” and real idea of bond between Pokemon and their trainer (fighting as one etc.) was largely influenced by two weird time-travelers from the future who showed the entire world how to do it properly because otherwise, maybe, people would just exterminate Pokemon or kind of enslaved them, I mean... Pokemon used to burn some villages apparently and those alpha Pokemon are no joke. LMAOF. Good story Pokemon. No explanation and decent story here = you automatically shoot yourself in the foot without even knowing.   

5. Bandits were fun but...

No contribution to the story either, and even though they’re being literal BANDITS and robbers and kidnappers, like some proto-idea for Pokemon criminals... in the final story encounter they’re treated like... deep down they just wanted to help but didn’t know how... yeah, no bullshit. They’re portrayed as criminals and willing outlaws here! Not some shy heroes! And they haven’t changed in post-game either, planning their next heists as usual... 

ALSO...

It’s important to note there are other issues that absolutely make this game underserving of any significant praise. While playable product and something I could actually enjoy a bit - which cannot be said about latest entries - there are things that make this game seem... poor, compared with other similar products. For example...

- Still no sound system for NPCs (small bits of voiced lines, laughs, sounds of surprise or anger when interacting with them) and those old, lame GBA noises and screeches for Pokemon as their sounds (rather than something more like from the anime).

- Despite good beginnings, with focus on Pokemon exploration in more detail and cool story, most of those requests boils down to the tired “show me this Pokemon but figure out which one” routine, which pales in comparison to the rich questlines from Yokai Watch or even the likes of Ni no kuni which manage to be just a bit more interesting and engaging and... well, actually telling a story

- Pokemon models are still... limited. Which makes them awkward sometimes, now that they’re in 3D open-world style game. Like, why is the Tornadus’ cloud NOT animated as a separate cloud that he is flying on OR distinct part of his body that’s also an animated cloudy thingy but... remains actual part of his body model, so one single model and no cool animation for the cloudy part of the body which makes it look raw and artificial. That’s soooo 2007 or something. Like, PS1-PS2 level, LOL. Seriously. The models are good-looking, sure, but they are still like they used to be, so I guess all those boss dances on YouTube where people took models from pre-Switch games and put them into 3d environment is basically... exactly what Arceus mons are, still the same modelling philosophy

- Things like shards in time-rifts... were so damn pointless, so much hassle collecting them because they seemed significant enough only to randomly find out I can craft from them... to earn a bit more money... that I didn’t find out until after I beat the game. The entire rift mechanic seemed a bit like a giant grind after a while, too. Nothing cool really done with it. Or imagine if it at least spawned random NPC encounters or something. Like, you see Lysandre interaction all of a sudden or other Pokemon characters, all part of some giant space-time anomaly, so it would actually make those a bit more interesting and provide an opportunity to battle some more trainers too in late-game

- Also, while Agile and Strong were interesting (coupled with actual boss fights action-styled), the battles are actually the exact same mechanics as always. I thought something would be different but wasn’t, in addition was hard to determine how speed even works now and why some pokemon do a couple of moves in a row sometimes. Also, everyone is super effective on everyone with all those move types available to everyone (with alpha mons and training lady), though it seemed to be a thing with other trainer’s normal mons too so hmm - no idea if it was already like it in previous games or it’s just Arceus thing.

OH AND THE LAST THING - why do I remember level 120 mons roaming landscape or something from leaked images or perhaps trailers even? Did they just... rushed this game or something? Was it supposed to be 2x longer or something? Hmmmmmm

They are giant freaking bastards if they even dare to release DLCs for this like they did with Galar.

[titusmoody]

It’s the end of the first quarter of 2021. Here’s a brief review of the things I watched/played/read.

Games

Donut County- pretty charming, very easy, fairly satisfying to play. I’d recommend Untitled Goose Game over this, though.

Heaven’s Vault- If you only have room in your life for one space archaeology game, play Outer Wilds instead. However, you get to translate alien writings yourself (in a simplified game way) in this one, so I’d recommend both. 

Donkey Kong Country 3 103%- so many fun level mechanics in this one. The difficulty of finding and completing everything in the game was spot-on for me.

Donkey Kong Country 2 102%- Each level mechanic in this one is explored and used in far more interesting ways than DKC3, though I honestly had more fun with 3 this time around. This one is the “dark, edgy” one aesthetically which is extremely dumb. Also, there was a lot of guesswork involved in finding some of the hidden stuff, which I didn’t enjoy.

The Room 4- I like escape room games. This one was good. It continued 3′s trend of trying to shake up the format a little, which is fine (better here than in 3, I think) but I wouldn’t have minded if all 4 stayed exactly the same, just with new puzzles.

Spider-Man: Miles Morales- Everything about it was competent. Not only was each gameplay activity fine-tuned to feel good, but the structure of the game also kept kept you experiencing a good variety of each activity. PS5 graphics are good, too. Nothing about it really got me excited to play it, it was just a good after work unwinding thing.

Cyberpunk 2077- Exactly the opposite of Spider-Man in terms of quality consistency. There are aspects of this game that are amazing, horrible, and every step in between. However, I’ve thought about it quite a bit and will probably continue to think about it for both good and bad reasons.

Yooka-Laylee and the Impossible Lair- Donkey Kong Country has better level design and controls. Well, the best levels of this were every bit as good as the best DKC levels, and maybe I’m just so familiar with DKC levels that I zone out a little during the boring bits, but had to pay attention to every moment of this game. Still, I didn’t have as much of an overall good time as the DKC games I played earlier.

Hue- Good 2D puzzle-platformer. I’m no longer surprised by these, but I still appreciate them, much in the same way as I like playing escape room games. I was under the impression for a few years that because I understood the potential of puzzle platformers, it meant I wouldn’t want to play any more of them, but that’s simply not true. I had a good time with Hue.

Shows

Gravity Falls- It’s fine. Pretty entertaining. I wish there were more low-stakes kinds of episodes, just to get more familiar with different sides of the characters. It would have made the characters and setting feel more rounded.

Cowboy Bepop- I didn’t get the hype for this show when I first watched it at 21, and now I can say that it’s simply not my kind of show. I have much more appreciation for it now than I did the first time, but it doesn’t hit me emotionally the same way that it seems to hit so many people. 

Seinfeld- It’s Seinfeld. There was precisely one episode that I had never seen before, plus confirmation that I didn’t dream the episode that’s told in backwards chunks like Memento and is set in India.

Paranoia Agent- While it was disappointing that this ended up being a more simple morality tale than every Satoshi Kon movie I’ve seen, I still enjoyed watching this a lot.

Aggretsuko- I liked the mundane, every-day storylines like a modern, more empathetic Seinfeld. Unfortunately as the show went on, there were more and more wacky situations that no one actually gets into. I might watch the upcoming season if I hear that it’s less ridiculous.

Over the Garden Wall- This was really cool and I’m glad it exists. It’s ten episodes long, which is perfect for it. I thought it was at its weakest during the more lighthearted or humorous moments--precisely the opposite of Gravity Falls. The word “classy” comes to mind to describe this show. 

Beastars- Really good when it isn’t falling into anime plot and dialog cliches. A lot of this first season is dedicated to introducing characters and the setting, which I thought was very well done. I’m curious to see what Season 2 is like.

Movies

Scott Pilgrim vs the World- It’s a fun movie to watch. It definitely makes many of the characters’ flaws seem like more fun than it probably should, but I’m more bothered by the criticism I hear that boils down to “it’s a bad movie because the characters are bad people” which I suspect is an impression you only get if you lack both empathy and media comprehension.

Big- Kinda bad. It has iconic moments that are only possible with its weird premise, but it’s just not a premise that supports an entire good movie. 

Phantom of the Opera- Way better and way worse than I remember. Has the precise right amount of horses.

Knives Out- Not really a movie I needed to watch a second time, but it sure is good.

District 9- I didn’t remember most of this movie and unfortunately I zoned out for most of this rewatch, so I still feel like I don’t know what it’s about.

From up on Poppy Hill- Not one of the top tier Ghibli movies, but still really good in a down-to-earth way that I like from Ghibli. 

Enter the Dragon- I knew to expect everything to be turned up to 11, which is good because it really is a lot. I liked it, though.

Shutter Island- I have never actually liked this kind of twist-reliant movie. I thought I would for many years, but I was always disappointed. At least now I am aware that it’s not what I’m into.

Soul- The premise is much too convoluted, but it does have an excellent moment near the end.

Onward- I liked this one a lot. Why don’t more people talk about this one? It’s definitely better than Coco, which itself was really good.

A Silent Voice- The kind of movie that reminds me that sometimes Japanese storytelling is more to my taste than Hollywood style, in that scenes can be more emotionally ambiguous. 

Tangled- Good in exactly the same way as Frozen and Moana. I can’t really complain, but this isn’t the same situation as puzzle platformers or escape rooms. In this case, I do get a little sick of being completely unsurprised. This movie was made first, so it’s only by chance that this is the one that I saw last.

Monsters University- A good movie, but it really doesn’t have to be about the same characters as Monsters Inc. 

Monty Python and the Holy Grail- Still funny

The Departed- Good if you want an enjoyable crime thriller to watch, bad if you want a Scorcese movie.

Titanic- Getting very drunk and watching this with Brittany might be the best time I had in the past three months. Maybe I won’t think too hard about why a movie about the overdue, violent death of a social order resonates with me right now.

Prince of Egypt- Impressive and grand, but I didn’t really care about the characters or story.

Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan- A good but not great (by TNG standards) concept for an episode that was made extremely enjoyable by the added budget and longer runtime of a movie.

Star Trek III: The Search for Spock- Not as good, but still watchable.

Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home- The kind of ridiculous concept you’d only make when you’ve already had three successful movies and are confident that you’ll be able to make at least another couple. The gang go back to the 1980s (present day to the original audience) and save the whales. It’s apparently exactly the right movie to watch if this is the third consecutive Star Trek movie you’re watching.

Mamma Mia- A lot of fun, but has weird problems that seem like they would’ve been easy to solve at the script level. Maybe if the conflicts had been introduced early on instead of dragging the whole pace of the movie down for much of the last 20 minutes, I would’ve enjoyed the whole thing.

Books

The Well of Ascension- The second book of a trilogy. Very competent. Introduces a whole lot of minor conflicts that really keep the momentum going and give the characters short-term goals that contribute to the overall plot and their arcs. 

The Hero of Ages- The final book in the same trilogy. Equally competent. I wish there had been more long-term payoffs, which is the trade-off you make by stuffing the books full of those short-term conflicts. Spoilers ahead, but not ones that I think ruin the experience of reading. It’s very odd that of three of the central characters, one dies, one becomes a god and then dies, and one becomes God. 

Check Please- About as pleasant as it gets. Full of the type of minor character that sitcoms end up running into the ground because they’re too one-note (Creed from The Office, for instance) but in a series with a pre-planned length, there’s no chance for it to get stale. Plus, I really liked both of the lead characters.

Milkman- Good book about “The Troubles” in Ireland. Very odd collection of characters, but the narrator had an extremely enjoyable voice to read. 

And Then There Were None- Classic mystery story for a reason. Feels more like a Hitchcock movie than Sherlock Holmes. I read it in one day both because the prose was easy and I wanted to know what happened next. Not much substance to it, unfortunately.

Homegoing- Extremely ambitous book where each chapter is narrated by the descendant of a previous chapter, alternating between two branches of the same family. I liked it quite a bit, though because I only finished it yesterday I don’t have much reflection done yet so my opinion has yet to solidify.

[themattress]

Danganronpa Chapter Ranking

Ranking all 18 chapters across the three games. 

First, I will rank each corresponding chapters over one another.

Chapter 1:

1. Welcome to Dangan Island + Destination Despair (DR2)

DR2 is the technical best of the series and it definitely has the strongest opening. While I actually prefer DR1′s prologue, DR2 definitely ups the stakes when it comes to the actual introductory murder mystery, creating a spooky nighttime locked room situation right off the bat and keeping you guessing as to how the murder went down. The high point, of course, is the revelation of Nagito’s true nature, which let you know that this is a guy to watch out for.

2. Welcome to Despair + To Survive (DR1)

Like I said, the prologue to DR1 is my favorite one - just the opening scene alone perfectly sets the tone for all that’s to follow, I also really enjoy getting to explore the school and interacting with the adorable Sayaka Maizono. The problem with this chapter is when Sayaka gets killed. Not only is the investigation a very standard one, but the mystery is too easily solved - Sayaka even wrote her killer’s freaking name down and most players will figure that out well before any of the characters do! I know this is the first case and all, but come on!

3. Ultimate Revival + My Class Trial, Our Class Trial (DRV3)

If DR1′s first chapter problem was being too easy to solve, this one’s problem is that it’s impossible to solve because the game withholds the key evidence for the sake of a twist - evidence that exposes the female protagonist you are playing as, Kaede, as the culprit! It’s a shame - despite some issues here and there (goddamn Monokubs...), I was liking the atmosphere this chapter was setting up with its ticking clock factor, the Ultimate Academy was well designed and kept distinct from Hope’s Peak, and Kaede was a wonderful, lovable protagonist the likes of which we hadn’t seen before in this series. But that one ending twist which results in her getting taken from us in favor of some dude ruins the whole chapter.

Chapter 2:

1. Boy’s Life of Despair (DR1)

Only DR1 manages to have its second chapter be an improvement over the first: with not only expansions on all of the characters and even the school itself, but a mystery that isn’t so easily solved because a certain rich douchebag deliberately tampered with the crime scene in order to make the case more challenging. The only mark I have against this one is the weird gender politics at play, and even then it’s not insulting or anything: Mondo’s toxic masculinity is even highlighted as his fatal flaw. And of course, this chapter gave us Genocide Jack. WIN.

2. Sea and Punishment, Sin and Coconuts (DR2)

While a step down from the preceding chapter, it’s not by much: this is still a quality chapter with quality character and plot development and a quality murder mystery. My biggest gripes are that it becomes obvious who the culprit is early into the trial and how they committed the murder but it takes a long time for the characters to decide on those things. If that wasn’t enough, the revelation of the killer’s motives is ridiculous, with two shocking swerves on top of each other, one of them a lie and the other one the truth. The actual scene leading to the execution, however, more than makes up for that with how emotional it is, with one of Derek Stephen Prince’s best performances in his career as Fuyuhiko reveals his inner vulnerability.

3. A Thin Line Divides Heaven and Hell (DRV3)

This second chapter is a HUGE step down from the first one. Shuichi is immediately a far blander, less compelling protagonist than Kaede was, there are too many detours before the murder happens, the mystery is way too convoluted and the culprit’s motivation is an even bigger shocking swerve than DR2′s, and the execution just goes full Saw to the point of being almost too uncomfortable to watch. In the end, it doesn’t even feel like this case mattered, it was all a drawn-out way of revealing the underwhelming “twist” to Maki’s true identity which only ended up working against her character. The best part of this chapter would have to be the body discovery, which is one of the most shocking and effective in the whole series.

Chapter 3:

1. A Next Generation Legend! Stand Tall, Galactic Hero! (DR1)

Third Case Syndrome hits DR1 the least out of all the games, as despite the problem of the class trial’s pay-off not matching the intensity of the build-up, it still doesn’t cheat the player in any way. The mystery is still well designed and on paper the crime is brilliant, and even the way it falls apart in execution makes logical sense given what has been established about Celestia and Hifumi throughout the game. There’s even fun to be had in the trial given Celestia’s legendary breakdown, plus her execution being among the series’ funniest.

2. Trapped by the Ocean Scent (DR2)

I like some things about this chapter, particularly early on: Fuyuhiko’s character development, Ibuki’s concert, Nekomaru’s sacrifice, Nagito continuing to be his delightfully twisted self, and Monokuma’s hilarious “Wizard of Monomi” movie. The build-up to the body discovery with that supposed suicide video is also legitimately scary. But it all falls apart in the class trial to a comical degree, with the revelation of the culprit having so much wrong with it I hardly know where to begin. Everything about Despair Disease in general feels like filler and a way to ax off three characters that Kodaka had no idea what to do with. It’s just a glaringly bad chapter.

3. Transfer Student From Beyond the Grave (DRV3)

This is where Third Case Syndrome hits its nadir: once again some legitimately good and scary build-up (including the requisite second murder happening halfway through the investigation when you’re not expecting it to) is destroyed by a farcical class trial that is riddled with plot holes, convoluted mechanics, and random extreme character turns that makes it clear that Kodaka was just doing all this to kill off characters he felt had reached their limits rather than staying consistent with what came before. Special mention must go to Korekiyo’s motives. While Celestia and Mikan’s motives aren’t sympathetic either, there are sympathetic reasons behind them. But with Kiyo, the reasoning behind his serial killing is...incest. Literal brother-sister incest. We had a potentially interesting, creepy character in Kiyo, but he was utterly squandered and turned into one big incest/see-saw meme. Such a waste!

Chapter 4:

1. Do Ultimate Robots Dream of Clockwork? (DR2)

One of the most challenging yet also one of the most unique and rewarding chapters in the whole series. The Strawberry / Grape funhouse is the stuff of nightmares, and the game doesn’t pull any punches in how horrific the situation inside it is, with the characters slowly starving to death and with the only way out being to either kill someone or brave a creepy life-threatening escape room. Then once the murder happens you get to play as Nagito during the investigation, getting further insight into his fucked-up mind before he pulls a morbidly hilarious 180 on his attitude and becomes a total condescending jerkwad rather than a creepy self-denigrating suck-up. And the investigation and trial amounting to figuring out how the funhouse is structured and how that structure was utilized in the murder is intellectually stimulating in the best way. Add to that one of the most emotional culprit revelations and executions and you have one of the greatest chapters ever put in a mystery-solving game.

2. All*Star*Apologies (DR1)

DR2′s fourth chapter is better, but DR1′s comes extremely close. Not only is it a locked room mystery where just about everyone except the protagonist and deuteragonist are a feasible suspect which leads to the most fun, challenging and satisfying class trial in the game, but it also ends up being the story’s emotional high point. The reveal of who actually killed Sakura and why, the reasoning behind why an innocent party tried to take the blame for it, and the long-overdue uniting of the Killing Game’s participants (even Byakuya!) against their true enemy, Monokuma...it’s powerful stuff that lingers in your memory long after it’s finished.

3. Live and Let the Languid World Live (DRV3)

Now don’t get me wrong: this chapter was the best one in DRV3 since the first chapter, but I feel like it’s trying too hard to recapture the glory of the previous games’ fourth chapters and mostly failing. The virtual world and trying to figure out how it works is a blatant copy of the funhouse from DR2, except that we barely spend time in the virtual world compared to the funhouse and whereas figuring out the structure of the funhouse actually took a lot of thinking, the secret of the virtual world is painfully easy to deduce and leads to another instance of the player being several steps ahead of the characters. Kokichi as a Nagito-esque antagonist just doesn’t work and it’s frustrating to watch him play all the other characters like fiddles when it’s so transparently obvious what he is doing. Lastly, while the deaths of Sakura, Alter-Ego Chihiro, Nekomaru and Gundham were sad, there was still a note of triumph and hope in them as well. There’s none of that in the deaths of Miu, Gonta and his Alter-Ego. These deaths are just sad, depressing wastes, even moreso in retrospect after Chapter 6.

Chapter 5:

1. Smile at Hope in the Name of Despair (DR2)

Nagito was right: DR2′s Chapter 4 was merely “the opening act” for THE best chapter in both the game and the entire series. Seeing Nagito finally go full-on batshit insane and carve out a path of destruction that leads to his own death is enthralling, as is figuring out the hows and the whys of his death, peeling back the layers of his madness and malice until you arrive at the horrifying truth, all culminating in one of the most heart-wrenching moments in the series when Chiaki finally reveals the truth about herself and offers herself up as a sacrifice to stop Nagito’s heinous scheme from coming to fruition. I get teary-eyed just thinking about it! The bizarre triangular dynamic between Hajime, Chiaki and Nagito really made this game’s story as good as it is despite uneven writing early on, and this chapter is the culmination of it.

2. Voyage Without Passion or Purpose (DRV3)

When it comes to the game’s overarching story, I don’t really care much for the events that transpire in this chapter. But when taken as a stand-alone, it’s excellent. Someone has been killed and someone is responsible for it, but for the first time in the series you aren’t just unsure about the culprit, but the victim as well! To make matters worse, the culprit shows up to the class trial inside a mech suit that has a voice changer, and he keeps changing his voice between Kaito and Kokichi’s to further muddle which one of them is actually dead. And to top it all off, not even Monokuma knows the solution to this mystery and you actually have to work together with him in order to solve it! Gotta hand it to Kodaka: this move was inspired. If only I actually gave a damn about Kaito, Kokichi and Maki, this case would hit much harder.

3. 100 Mile Dash; Pain of a Junk Food Junkie (DR1)

This time, the opposite holds true: I like these events as part of the over-arching story, especially everything that happens from the execution (the scariest one in the whole game, IMO) and onward. But when taken on its own, this chapter is a mess. Not only is the mystery and trial literally contrived by Monokuma in order to set a trap for one character, but it tips its hand too early by showing the discovery of the victim’s dead body well before it’s time for that scene to happen, and the constant flashing back to Kyoko telling Makoto about the existence of Mukuro Ikusaba is somewhere between comical and infuriating. I think the worst part is that there’s no permanent consequences for anyone: nobody actually dies in this chapter! Not the supposed victim Mukuro, not Monokuma, not Kyoko and not Makoto. It even turns out that Alter-Ego Chihiro managed to kind of survive its execution in the previous chapter! WTF? We’ve spent a whole game getting used to the finality of death, but now death is cheap!

Chapter 6:

1. Ultimate Despair + Goodbye Despair High School (DR1)

I think that DR2′s final chapter is arguably better, more epic and more conclusive than DR1′s, but I still can’t help but prefer DR1′s, similar to how I prefer Phoenix Wright’s “Turnabout Goodbyes” to Trial & Tribulations’ “Bridge to the Turnabout”. Everything about the overarching story and its mystery comes together perfectly here, Junko Enoshima never had the same villainous impact that she does here, and the conclusion where Makoto saves the day by becoming the Ultimate Hope, Junko puts herself through every execution in the game, and the surviving students open the door to an uncertain yet still hopeful future is just iconic.

2. This is the End, Goodbye Academy of Despair + The Day Before the Future (DR2)

Like I said, this one might be superior on a technical level, as it pulls out even bigger plot twists, features even deeper emotions and a greater sense of closure and catharsis, has a grander sense of scope, and Junko being given an even more final defeat since she’s a villain that if you want to defeat you can’t just kill physically but spiritually as well. Chiaki’s role here especially gets me choked up, and Hajime’s narration in the epilogue is the perfect note to end the story on....both the story of DR2 and the conjoined story of DR0, DR1 and DR2.  

3. Goodbye Danganronpa + Everyone’s Killing Game, Closing Ceremony (DRV3)

This is an ending that’s better watched than it is played. Watching it, it’s comedy gold in how absurd it is. But actually playing through it is a chore, and having to do such a chore for the sake of an ending that is intentionally designed to piss you off is no fun at all. While I’d say the game’s third chapter is technically worst, this one is definitely my least favorite, especially when you take that god-awful, pointless epilogue into account. Kodaka, if you want to end Danganronpa, then go all the way and end it on your terms; don’t pussy out with that crap!

And now, my final ranking of all the chapters is as follows:

1. Smile at Hope in the Name of Despair (DR2) 2. Do Ultimate Robots Dream of Clockwork (DR2) 3. All*Star* Apologies (DR1) 4. Boy's Life of Despair (DR1) 5. Welcome to Dangan Island + Destination Despair (DR2) 6. Welcome to Despair + To Survive (DR1) 7. Ultimate Despair + Goodbye Despair (DR1) 8. This is the End, Goodbye Academy of Despair + The Day Before the Future (DR2) 9. Sea and Punishment, Sin and Coconuts (DR2) 10. Voyage Without Passion or Purpose (DRV3) 11. A Next Generation Legend! Stand Tall, Galactic Hero! (DR1) 12. Live and Let the Languid World Live (DRV3) 13. Ultimate Revival + My Class Trial, Our Class Trial (DRV3) 14. Trapped by the Ocean Scent (DR2) 15. 100 Mile Dash; Pain of a Junk Food Junkie (DR1) 16. A Thin Line Divides Heaven and Hell (DRV3) 17. The Transfer Student From Beyond the Grave (DRV3) 18. Goodbye Danganronpa + Everyone's Killing Game, Closing Ceremony (DRV3)

1-9 are the “strong chapters”, while 10-18 are the “weak chapters”.

[nadziejastar]

Imo Kingdom Hearts could have been a lot different if Disney was never involved or if it was it's entire own francise with no crossover with FF or Disney, imo that would have been great. Since KH1, the Disney-worlds had barely to no connection or revelance to the main-plot anymore, Sora just travels to the worlds because he can, in KH1 there was more at stake in those worlds too, now they just feel like filler, as much as SE has tried up untill KH3.

Well, “Quadratum” means “Square”. It’s possible that Nomura wants to move away from Disney worlds and focus more on Square worlds. Although I like the Disney worlds, and think they help give the series a unique identity, I can understand that Disney is a is large, powerful, greedy corporation. And Nomura’s relationship with them has changed over time.

It’s telling that instead of coming up with a new plot that gives us a good reason to travel to the Disney worlds again (the real ones, not data worlds, memory worlds, dream worlds, etc.) he’s sending Sora and Riku off to a new alternate dimension based on Versus XIII—a Square property. It may indicate that he’s tired of Disney worlds and they will be getting less focus from now on.

KH1

As the series has gone on, the implementation of the Disney worlds has become worse and worse as Nomura has struggled to come up with reasons to travel to them. I think you’re right that KH1 did the best with incorporating the worlds into the plot. Sora was trying to seal all the Keyholes, giving him a good reason to be in each one. He was looking for Riku and Kairi, which was a more personal goal. And then you had the seven princesses and the villain alliance. And each world contributed to the overall theme of the story.

KH CoM

Pinocchio: Gee, Riku, don’t you have a Jiminy like I do? He’s my conscience. He’s taught me all kinds of important stuff. Maybe you just need somebody to show you what’s right and wrong.

Jiminy: Sure. You can’t shoulder all your problems alone, ya know. You must have somebody–a friend you can talk to?

In CoM, the Disney worlds were pure filler. Only existed for gameplay. On Sora’s side, the story within them was almost the exact same as it was in KH1. Even on Riku’s side, the Disney worlds were pointless. For instance, the whole Monstro level in KH3D could have happened in Re:CoM, since it’s basically reliving Riku’s memories from KH1, but having him make a different choice that time.

KH2

Iago: I wanna be a good friend, like Genie, but I can't do anything to help you. What kind of a friend is that?

Sora: Oh, no---it's not like that, Iago. Friends don't have to "do" stuff. As long as you have fun hanging out together, that's all that matters.

In KH2, the worlds are a mix of new and old. But they’re not really important to the plot. Sora’s just looking for Riku and the King, they’re not there, you participate in the movie’s plot, then move onto the next one. All the actual story happens in Twilight Town, Hollow Bastion, or TWTNW. Each world usually has a theme and a moral lesson, but it doesn’t always relate to Sora that much, so they feel filler-ish. In the second half, the organization appears in the worlds, which makes them a little more relevant to the story. But not much. They were still fun levels, though.

358/2 Days

Roxas had a good reason to go to the worlds, to collect hearts for the organization. I don’t mind if the Disney worlds aren’t directly plot-related, as long as there’s character development in them. I like that they took certain worlds from KH2 that felt like filler and expanded on the main theme of them, contributing to character development, particularly for Axel. For instance, in KH2′s Agrabah, the moral lesson was: best friends don’t have to be “useful”. This idea doesn’t have much to do with Sora, though, so it felt kinda pointless to his quest.

If you didn’t need me, then I no longer held meaning. However, reality is different. It wasn’t about whether I was needed or not. If I could just connect to others’ hearts, that would be enough.

But it was implied that this idea was very relevant to Axel’s memories of his past and his best friend. 

“Because they copied my powers, the Keyblade’s power, and then they didn’t need me anymore— is that it?” Roxas spat. 

He couldn’t bring himself to confirm it. 

“I guess you felt the same way, huh, Axel?” 

At those words, something wrenched in his chest, and he could hardly breathe. No, not me. I wasn’t thinking like that. I would never. “That’s not true. You—you’re my best friend.” The words spilled out of him.

The story of Days was all about how Roxas and Xion help Axel remember his past and what it felt like to have a best friend (an idea that connects to CoM). And the Disney worlds at least contributed to that idea in a meaningful way.

“Set in a circus and playing off the story of Pinocchio, a puppet with a heart, and the Nobodies who possess no heart, we planned for a sad episode with Roxas and Xion looking for hope for themselves”.

I would have preferred Prankster’s Paradise as a world, though, instead of, say, Halloween Town. It sounds like Roxas and Xion would have developed more in that world and it would have been more relevant to the story. Plus, it would have been new. But I think Days did a decent enough job with the Disney worlds. At least Roxas learned something new when he went to them, spurring on interesting discussions with Axel about friendship, love, the heart, etc.

KHBBS

Bagheera: It was bound to happen. Mowgli is where he belongs now.

Three new characters. In each world, the character learned something new and developed slightly. The worlds were mostly new, too. I don’t have a problem with BBS’s Disney worlds. I do wish they would have kept the Jungle Book worlds in, though.

“Riku… Do you think Nobodies have a home? Somewhere we belong?” Naminé wondered.

Having a home, somewhere to belong, was one of the main themes of the Xehanort Saga.

Master Xehanort: Darkness that you channeled.

Terra: No, I succumbed to it. Just like when I stole Princess Aurora’s heart of light. I can never return home now. I’m a failure.

Terra felt like a failure, and that he could never return home. And Aqua was tasked with bringing Ven home. This world could have been really good in BBS.

Coded

Mickey: Yen Sid… I think we’re finally close to figuring out where Ven’s heart is.

Here’s where things start going off the rails. In Coded, Disney worlds are yet again retreads of KH1, only this time they’re data instead of memories. The whole purpose of the plot was to explain why Mickey sent Sora, Riku, and Kairi that letter at the end of KH2. But you didn’t really need a whole game of travelling through virtual Disney worlds for that, especially involving convoluted ideas like data Namine implanting bug blocks in the journal or Jiminy’s Journal embodying itself as Riku (WTF?). You could have just added a scene into KH2FM+ like the above one from the manga. When Mickey saw the photo of Roxas, he recognized him as Ventus. Then he tells Master Yen Sid about it later, leading to Coded’s ending and him writing the letter. 

KHUX

Ephemer: The worlds we visit—the worlds of fairy tales—are nothing more than holograms. You know, projections. The light we collect there is actually this world’s light. To put it simply: There are lots of worlds, right? And they’re all connected by land. But it’s impossible to go around all of them. That’s why there’s a mechanism that projects those worlds here and allows us to collect Lux from faraway lands. I’m gathering information, trying to figure out how the whole thing works. My hunch is that the Book of Prophecies held by the Foretellers is what’s creating these holograms.

The Disney worlds were extremely boring to play through. More than any other KH game, they have scenes that are just copy/pasted straight from the movies. Your main character, since they are mute, has little involvement. They do not grow, change, or develop, after any of these worlds. They have nothing interesting to say and they can barely interact with anyone (Chirithy does it for you). 

And all, except for Wreck-It-Ralph, are just retreads of plots that we already experienced in other games. The worlds are digital holograms of the future generated from the Book of Prophecies. It’s all a VERY convoluted excuse to have you play through the same old plots from the Disney worlds. AGAIN. Only with a FAR less interesting main character. Since this was supposed to be just a F2P gacha with little story, it could have been excused. But since KHUX has become so important to the main story, it is inexcusable how poor of a game it is.

KH3D

Sora: I get it now. After this, Pinocchio and Jiminy’s world gets dragged into darkness, and they end up cast into the sea between worlds, along with Monstro. And then…they end up in Traverse Town, and the belly of the whale. That’s when we meet for real. It’s like Master Yen Sid said–I’m in the dream Pinocchio’s world is dreaming. And that world will never be right again until it wakes from sleep.

I don’t have any real issue with a game focusing on the mark of mastery exam, where Sora and Riku travel through Disney worlds. Riku develops along the way in a satisfying way. It’s the first time you actually go to new worlds as him. The test was for Sora and Riku to acquire the power of waking, so they had to go to dream worlds. Fantasia was perfect for this idea.

But the concept of Sleeping Worlds is convoluted and confusing. They’re dream versions of the worlds? Who is dreaming them? The Dandelions? They’re stuck in a time loop of the past? But visiting the Sleeping Worlds doesn’t rewrite the present. So, are they connected to the datascape? Again, it’s so convoluted, because there really is no reason that Sora and Riku would have to go on another adventure in the REAL world. Again, I would have preferred Prankster’s Paradise in Days. Pinocchio would be a human, it’d be set in the present timeline so no awkward dialogue, and Honest John and Gideon would be involved, giving it more of a plot.

KH3

The game’s worlds could have been okay if Sora wasn’t just wandering about aimlessly. And if they had developed the power of waking better. The power of waking is essentially the power to wake a sleeping heart by connecting with it. It’s the power of love, basically. Most of the Disney worlds are about love. And also, a member of the organization appears in each one.

Dark Road

In BBS, it’s revealed that Xehanort wants to open KH to create a new world. But in KH3, he wants to reset the world. How is this different?

Nomura: The most essential part is that he thinks the current world is a failure, and wants to remake it.

I’m interested to know why Xehanort came to think that way (that the world should be remade).

Nomura: Initially, I wanted to dive deeper into the naive, untainted Xehanort who we see playing chess in the next installment (before KH3 was made), but if I did that, the dark seeker arc wouldn’t have ended (lol), so I decided to shelve it for now.

Wonderland is the only Disney world that has had a plot so far. But this was still the most interesting usage of Wonderland in the series, IMO.

Envy (Latin, invidia): Invi Gluttony (Latin, gula): Gula Lust (Latin, luxuria): Luxu. Anger, or Wrath (Latin, ira): Ira Greed, or Avarice (Latin, avaritia): Ava Sloth, or Laziness (Latin, acedia): Aced

The Foretellers are named after the seven deadly sins.

Nomura: As I was writing the scenario for Kingdom Hearts Back Cover, I was careful so as to make each character look neither like a hero nor a villain, however in the end it seems that only Ava was received as a good girl (laughs). At any rate, if you think of the story progression as a gun, where Ava is the only one with the capacity to pull that gun’s trigger, I’m not so sure about how devoid of sin she really is…

I think there were a lot of parallels between the age of fairytales and the Book of Genesis.

Pride (Latin: superbia) is considered, on almost every list, the original and most serious of the seven deadly sins. Out of the seven, it is the most angelical, or demonic. It is also thought to be the source of the other capital sins.

The MoM is probably really Darkness, the original sin, Superbia. And Xehanort has his Keyblade, becoming his successor. Pride was his deadly sin. He could never admit that he lost to Eraqus at chess because of his pride. In the Bible, the source of sin was the tree of knowledge of good and evil in the Garden of Eden. After acquiring knowledge of good and evil, he developed a god complex. Pride is the ultimate sin, where all the other sins originate from.

I need only play the role of a fool desirous of the Keyblade’s power.

Luxu is lust and Braig lusted for Xehanort’s power (as Luxu probably did with the MoM). The story in Dark Road is actually interesting. Xehanort is a FAR more interesting protagonist that the Avatar in Union X. As a wielder in training, he actually has a good reason to travel the worlds, and develops as a character along the way. I think Dark Road deserved to be its own real KH game, released on the Vita or 3DS a long time ago. It’s a shame it’s only a mobile game.

Anger is manifested in the individual who spurns love and opts instead for fury. It is also known as Wrath.

Pride is excessive belief in one’s own abilities, that interferes with the individual’s recognition of the grace of God. It has been called the sin from which all others arise. Pride is also known as Vanity.

Envy is the desire for others’ traits, status, abilities, or situation.

Gluttony is an inordinate desire to consume more than that which one requires.

Lust is an inordinate craving for the pleasures of the body.

Greed is the desire for material wealth or gain, ignoring the realm of the spiritual. It is also called Avarice or Covetousness.

Sloth is the avoidance of physical or spiritual work.

The story of Dark Road will likely be Xehanort encountering the seven deadly sins as manifested in Disney villains and coming to the conclusion that the world is too corrupt and needs to be reset. That is actually a decent enough plot and good justification for travelling through the Disney worlds. It’d be cool if they added new worlds. Maybe like Pocahontas, and Governor Radcliffe could be Greed, etc.

[yurimother]

LGBTQ Light Novel Review - Last and First Idol

Warning: This work contains graphic descriptions of violence that are discussed in the review.

Before I began reading Last and First Idol, I had absolutely no idea what it was about or what sort of a story I would find within. I knew it had to be in some way yuri because J-Novel club sent it to me to review saying as much, but beyond that, I had no idea. I can definitively say that going into Last and First Idol blind was absolutely the wrong idea. While searching for cute and fun yuri stories, I naively wandered into graphic accounts of cannibalism, grotesque creatures, and a reckless abandon for human life. It seems almost impossible that the astonishing creations within the light novel all began with a Love Live fanfiction story. However, as jarring as my experience was, I thoroughly enjoyed my time with the work. Last and First Idol is a collection of three hard science fiction yuri short stories by Gengen Kusano.

There are a few common elements present throughout each story. As previously stated, they are hard science fiction work, with particular attention and details placed in scientific logic and accuracy. Each story intersects the lofty science concepts presented with an aspect of anime/otaku culture, idols, gacha mobiles games, and seiyuu (in that order). Finally, each of the short stories features a protagonist that physically evolves and becomes stronger by killing and consuming, though not necessarily eating their own kind.

The title story, Last and First Idol, begins innocently enough, with Mika Furutsuki dreaming of becoming an idol. She practices regularly, joins an idol group in high school, and hires her dearest friend Maori Niizono as a producer. However, things take a dark turn when, during a downturn in her idol career, Mika kills herself. The Earth is struck with massive solar flares, rendering it almost uninhabitable and riddling the survivors with cancers. Niizono brutally murders scores of survivors to harvests their body parts and transforms her body into a powerful being. She then resurrects Mika, turning the idol into a horrific monster. The rest of the story follows Mika as she continually evolves and changes by assimilating her victims’ organs and bodies into her own to become the ultimate idol.

More than any other, this story is graphic and depraved. Several passages made me feel nauseated as Kusano holds little back in his descriptions of the atrocities Mika and Niizono commit. However, while undoubtedly disturbing, science and transformations Mika undergoes are fascinating and wonderfully described in detail. Kusano’s attention to detail benefits the work here, as readers will be engrossed in discovering how Mika adapts to overcome her next challenge.

The second story, Evolution Girls follows Youko Sasajima. She is a young woman addicted to the gacha mobile game, “Evo Gals.” Youko’s addiction quickly leads to her death. However, she awakens, reincarnated as a single-celled organism. In the world she finds herself in, “girls” pull gacha to acquire organelles and level up. Soon she evolves beyond microscopic life into prehistoric aquatic creatures and onwards, all by drawing gachas. To pull these gachas, Mika needs “points,” which she obtains by eating other girls. It is a fascinating and spectacular reimagining of life’s evolution, all from the perspective of a young woman.

Youko teams up some a few other girls to help create a feared hunter pack, however, they are never the apex. There is a constant sense of fear and apprehension as the reader is aware that the girls risk encountering a creature stronger than them and getting slaughtered at any moment. Youko grows incredibly attached to one of the women, Vayu, and vows to protect her. Her love for the girl acts as her driving motivation throughout the latter half of the story.

One of the most exciting aspects of Evolution Girls is its ending, which catapults the stories scope and scientific fantasy. There are discussions of parallel dimensions, the nature of souls, and a dastardly plot older than the universe. Many aspects of this ending echo Puella Magi Madoka Magica, a connection I was happy to discover Kusano himself acknowledged. There is a rewriting of the universe and its fundamental laws, a character living through multiple timelines, and it is all because of the way energy function in this universe. It is wonderfully vast and imaginative, but frustratingly convoluted; I had to read the final few pages of the story a half dozen times to comprehend it.

The final story in the light novel is Dark Seiyuu. In a futuristic society, seiyuu is no longer a term used to describe voice actors but a different race of humans. These seiyuu have laryngeal sacs, an organ which allows them to control aether, a medium of light and sound. By manipulating aether, the seiyuu can fire lasters, create sounds, manipulate gravity, and fly spaceships.

The story follows Akane, a seiyuu who, to grow her power, murders other seiyuu and transplants their laryngeal sacs onto herself. Since birth, she has heard strange whispers, a mysterious voice. One day while out on a date with her partner Sachii, Akane is attacked by the Dark Seiyuu, who encourages Akane to listen to the voices. Soon Akane and Sachii engage in desperate pursuit, chasing the Dark Seiyuu across the galaxy, hijacking ships, battling bounty hunters, and escaping the law on the way.

Dark Seiyuu is easily my favorite story in the light novel. Some scenes and descriptions in the story are breathtaking, like a beautiful and terrifying sequence when the Earth loses all gravity. It also features a clear goal which the characters are driving towards at all time. Unfortunately, the ending is more than a little disappointing. Just as the plot ends, the story opens up to what seems like a greater adventure. This conclusion feels like an epic introduction to a much longer work. However, it ends just as the call to action is answered. Dark Seiyuu is begging for a sequel that will likely never be.

While Dark Seiyuu carefully balance its plot and science Evolution Girls and Last and First Idol are far less successful. There are multiple sections in these stories where long descriptions of the mechanics and functions of various scientific processes feel out of place and ruin the stories’ otherwise fantastic pacing. Thankfully, these descriptions are incredibly well written and researched, but you will enjoy the story far more for science than the plot. However, the greatest failure of the stories is in addressing the complex philosophical questions they touch upon, such as survival and cannibalism. It is such a missed opportunity, especially because it is clear from that Kusano is capable of incorporating philosophy wonderfully.

The sacrifices to story in the name of science are nothing when compared to the characters. Most of them are cruel, taking glee in their murderous escapades. Furthermore, they have very little development. If you asked me to describe the personality of any characters in Last and First Idol, I would not be able to. The one exception is Youko from Evolution Girls. Her motivation is far more believable and understandable than Mika’s wish to become the ultimate idol in Last and First Idol and helps sell her occasionally questionable actions effectively. Youko is easily the most likable character in any of the stories. While she does kill, it is necessary for survival, and she does not take the same glee in it that characters in other stories do.

Each of the stories in Last and First Idol contains yuri elements (obviously, otherwise I would have no business reviewing it). In the titular story, these elements are present in Niizono’s dedication to Mika, but outside of the implication, no bond between the two is ever clearly stated. In Evolution Girls, the yuri elements are more explicit, with Youko being in love with Vayu. Additionally, two of the side characters being implied to be interested in each other. Finally, there is Dark Seiyuu, which features two women in a relationship. Regrettably, their relationship, at least on Akane’s side, is more for publicity than any actual romantic or physical attraction. However, there are moments when Akane displays genuine affection and care for Sachii, but these moments are inconsistent. On one page, Akane can be comforting her and on the next annoyed by the girl.

Last and First Idol is a haunting and brilliant work of science fiction. It masterfully integrates otaku culture with high and hard sci-fi concepts, and its fast-paced stories will keep readers on the edge of their seats. However, its storylines and characters suffer at the expense of the stories’ scientific aspects. Still, if you are looking for an extensive and profound science fiction work that pulls no punches, be sure to give Last and First Idol a read.

Ratings: Story – 8 Characters – 2 Art – N/A LGBTQ – 4 Lewd – 0 Final – 7

You can purchase ‘Last and First Idol’ digitally now: https://amzn.to/2MPc4oB

Review copy provided by J-Novel Club

[kyndaris]

What Dreams are Made Of

As many of you know, the Yakuza series is a game franchise that is often regarded for being a serious crime drama. The first game focused on a diabolical plot to undermine the Tojo Clan when $10 billion yen went missing from their coffers. Yakuza 2 was focused on a brewing altercation between the East and the West, with a Korean mafia thrown into the mix. Often, the games would explore concepts of kinship, honour and second chances as players got to experience the underbelly of Japan. Yakuza 5 follows in this tradition by maintaining an over the top plot filled with drama and intrigue. But, for many, this game was often seen as the one with the weakest narrative. Instead of being focused solely on the criminals, it introduced two new playable characters: Haruka Sawamura, as she strives to become an idol, and Tatsuo Shinada, a washed-up baseball player that writes for an erotic magazine in the heart of Nagoya.

Just like in Yakuza 4, the story of Yakuza 5 is split into different arcs, culminating in the finale where the threads are tied together in a neat bow. While I questioned the disparate stories for each of the characters, I could not help but acknowledge how clever the writers were in maintaining a singular theme across all five of the parts.

Dreams.

Whether that meant Kiryu giving up managing Morning Glory so that his kids could live out their hidden desires to Saejima hoping to one day be free of the prison and take his rightful place as a leading officer for the Tojo Clan, this theme is carried throughout. By the end of Haruka/ Akiyama’s and Shinada’s arc, I felt I had been beaten over the head by how many times they mentioned how dreams are passed on from person to person. Even Haruka’s song in Japan Dome pounded this message with as much subtlety as a sledgehammer.

What irritated me, though, in regards to the story were the twists and misunderstandings that could have been easily solved with BETTER COMMUNICATION. Why some characters never reveal their motives will remain a mystery for me, but I suppose there needs to be a contrived situation where the player can go into an epic battle. Like the battle with Shinada and Baba at the end of the game. Was any of that really necessary? Baba had already chosen NOT to shoot Haruka. 

The fight between Majima and Saejima also came out of the blue. And Katsuya, for having a crane on your back, why did you feel it necessary for everyone to duke it out just to draw out the ‘real mastermind’? 

I also disliked how Aizawa crept out of the shadows and inserted himself into the final battle. His sudden reveal as the son of the main antagonist was truly uninspired. I would have preferred if Morinaga had played more of a role in the Finale instead of being name dropped by the Florist as now residing in the basement of the Tokyo Police Department.

By the way, what was with the convoluted method of trying to keep Saejima in prison and then springing him out? None of that made much sense. Also, why did the guard allow two inmates out to rescue a third escaped convict? The less that is said about this plot thread the better, I say. Although I did find it amusing when Saejima was forced to tussle with a bear. It made no sense, true, but now we can add Bear Wrangler to his list of skills.

Still, despite my gripes with the story, I thoroughly enjoyed the time I spent in Yakuza 5. Perhaps it was that more time had gone into developing this entry. The UI and textures were crisper. It clearly felt more of an upgrade from Yakuza 3 than Yakuza 4 did. The controls also saw a bit of improvement, though initially it felt as if my unarmed attacks weren’t hitting as hard as I had hoped. 

What was also admirable was the amount of time and energy spent in the side stories. Some of these were excellent diversions. Driving a taxi, lawfully, proved to be actually fun. Although people dashing out onto the road at the very last minute do deserve to be hit. Why would you run out? Are you idiots?

I also liked hunting on the mountain with Saejima. The shooting mechanics were not the best, but it was nice to see something a little different from punching thugs. In fact, there was actually quite a nice ‘look after the environment’ message in both Yakuza 4 and Yakuza 5 that I found somewhat amusing for a game that was all about hard-boiled criminals.

Then there was Haruka’s idol mini-game. Her story arc was probably the most confusing because none of the previous games had hinted at her interest in becoming an idol. Yakuza 2 even had a substory where she dismissed the idea. Of course, by game’s end, Haruka decided that after debuting, she would destroy her career as soon as it began by revealing that she was raised by a yakuza. This, probably, was probably the most contrived of the story lines that were in the game. 

Shinada’s side story, though, passed by quickly. It also felt like it focused very much on a minigame that I never touched much of in the previous games: baseball. Now, I’m no slouch when it comes to batting - having been on a softball team during high school, but oft times I found the timing in video games a bit harder to perfect. In any case, though, Shinada’s side story made hitting the ball a lot easier than in previous games. The controls did take some getting used to. By the end of it, however, I was smashing home runs left, right and centre.

Despite a confusing plot, I was enamoured by all the additional activities Yakuza 5 offered. I spent many hours trying to get Haruka to the top of the idol business and racing along highways. Some might see such things as distractions but I’ve always been of the view that taxi missions or hunting in the mountains actually add more to the game and characters. I can’t say if Yakuza 5 is my favourite game from the franchise, but I know that a lot of people poured their hearts and souls into it, and I’ll carry that dream forward.

[blackasteriia]

🔥 story structure bih

Feed the Fires of my Salt

I jumped into Kingdom Hearts right after KH3 came out. I had the privilege of watching the series’ cutscenes from beginning-to-end, starting with the KHUX back cover and ending in KH3. This is a very confusing way to enter Kingdom Hearts. The start of the story is in KHUX and the beginning is in KH1. It’s KH1 that introduces the core mechanics, themes, and principles of the story. Yet, the story starts in KHuX, which is a mobile game. The KHuX itself is a baffling mess with too many twists for me to even bother tracking it. For the purpose of this essay I’ll focus on Sora’s story, he’s the protagonist after all. 

Kingdom Hearts 1 begins medias res, ‘into the middle of things.’ It doesn’t know that. It thinks it’s a straightforward story and probably the best told one in all of Kingdom Hearts. Sora and his friends live a normal life. He has a call to action when his island falls into darkness and he losses his friends. To find his friends he must travel through several worlds. On the course of this journey he learns of Kingdom Hearts. He then meets Ansem, the antagonist who believes that all people and things belong to the darkness. Sora takes all that he has learned to confront Ansem. Ansem is defeated and Sora’s journey comes to a close. It’s a simple story but it is effective, charming, and fun. 

Then, Sora loses all his memories in a random castle through an event that he does not remember, he wakes-up after sleeping a full year, and we go into Kingdom Hearts 2. 

Kingdom Hearts 2, is another hero’s journey. Sora seeks guidance from the wise Yen Sid, a mentor archetype we most often find in stories of this type. Yen Sid informs Sora that he must defeat Organization 13, an insidious group seeking to obtain Kingdom Hearts. This bunch isn’t as straightforward as Ansem was. They’re manipulative, and also, very human, with their own quirks and personalities, some even befriending Sora. The series delves into a more mature grey than the pure black and white of KH1. Sora learns that light and dark aren’t clear-cut concepts, but to accept the complexity of himself, and others. Sora defeats Xemnas and returns to Destiny Island with his friends, concluding his journey. 

In Dream Drop Distance, Sora and Riku undergo training by Yen Sid to become keyblade masters, which is very important. Sora must unlock the power of waking by *shuffles notes* freeing seven sleeping keyholes, in the realm of sleep. Okay, yeah, anyway he does that. Then this Xehanort guy --who the hell is this guy? He was in Birth by Sleep. Wait, what?-- kidnaps him and tries to possess him so he can fill out the ranks of Organization 13-- Didn’t we kill all of them in the last game? No, they came back. Then why bother killing them off?-- But he’s saved by Axel --who died in the last game-- and Riku. Anyway, this is apparently grounds for failure and Sora does not become a keyblade master. 

In Kingdom Hearts 3, Sora embarks on an adventure to unlock the power of waking by traveling through the worlds and training to become stronger. Didn’t he already beat like, three series antagonists by now why does he need to grow stronger??? Sora is confronted by the members of the Real Organization 13, who taunt him as he travels. Sora gathers the Seven Guardians of Lights and defeats Xehanort and the Real Organization 13. He returns to Destiny Island with his friends and concludes his story by vanishing into a burst of light.

And that, from beginning to end, is Sora’s journey through the Kingdom Hearts series. I skipped a lot of details. I didn’t include side games. I told it as Sora experienced it. Here’s a few things I noticed:

1). There’s a lot of start and stops. The series has three endings. The end of Kingdom Hearts 1, Kingdom Hearts 2, and Kingdom Hearts 3, are all satisfying stop-points for the series. This makes sense, as Nomura, for the most part, intended them to be endings. Of course, he leaves some running threads to intrigue and hint at another game. It means that Sora has his powers reset twice and he begins another hero journey three times. The goals never change: train, grow stronger, beat-up bad guy, go home. Sora never grows past the dumb kid that picked-up a giant key in KH1 and started swinging, or any growth he does develop is reset. 

2). The side games are useless. I can tell Sora’s story without Birth by Sleep. I can do it without 358/2 Days, Chain of Memories, Re:Coded, and I bet I could kick-out Dream Drop Distance too. Xehanort is the sole character that you need. He is by far the worst antagonist. He shows-up without fanfare and is defeated with little trouble. Ansem and Xemnas both had something to contrast to Sora, some sort’ve dynamic, a personal stake. Xehanort is just a jerk and he needs to be beaten-up.

3). Xehanort is a terrible antagonist. An antagonist is the character that opposes the protagonist. It is the antagonist who the protagonist must overcome in order to complete their journey. Ansem and Sora jostle over the very nature of humans, idealism vs cynicism. Xemnas forced Sora to recognize the complexity of the human condition. Xehanort-- bullies Sora until Sora kicks his ass. Never mind untangling how unbelievably complicated the relationship between Xehanort, Ansem, and Xemnas are. You’d believe that Xehanort would be some culmination of Sora’s journey-- but I’d argue that it’d complete the Sea Salt Trio’s story more to defeat Xehanort, than it does for Sora to do it. 

4). Final Fantasy and Disney are window dressing. This game series is supposed to be a crossover between Disney and Final Fantasy. If you read my synopsis, you would not know this. Maleficent in KH1 is the sole character I feel I could’ve added. None of the Final Fantasy characters are on the list or come close to deserving mention. Why do we have the fiftieth Xehanort clone, and not Sephiroth, or anyone else, as a main antagonist? When I watched this series for the first time I did not watch a single Disney World, and I lost nothing for it. About 60-70% of this entire game series is useless, poorly written filler. This becomes worse as it drags on too. There’s some neat character study in KH1 but by KH3, it’s all crap. Instead of using the Disney World’s for character exploration and building plot, they’re usually charmless retellings of the original movie. 

5). There are so many useless characters. We don’t need Roxas. Get rid of Xion. Namine, who? Xehanort just needs to go. You can remove Kairi after KH1. Maybe we keep the BBS-trio because we have to have someone fill-out the Guardians of Light in KH3, but I think Terra is expendable. All of the Union Cross cast, gone. After KH2, all of the Organization members are wasted screen time. These characters do not contribute to the main plot and they have no satisfactory, useful, or good character arcs. They’re just here, repeating what we already heard. Axel finished his story in KH2, why is he still here? The entirety of Chain of Memories, 358/2 Days and Re:coded can be removed, and you would lose absolutely nothing. If I was Nomura’s editor, I’d be making judicious use of a red pen on his scripts. Characters that die don’t stay dead, characters that finish their arcs just hang around taking-up space, and characters that shouldn’t be added, are added. Cut, cut, cut, cut, cut, trim this down to like, 2-3 games, tops, and you’d have a powerful story. Not a long overwritten piece of absurdity that’s wheezing like a pneumonic horse on its last legs. 

6). Dream Drop Distance and Kingdom Hearts 3 are the worst. Sora sets out to complete one task: become a keyblade master, and, he fails. He doesn’t even finish his secondary task, master the power of waking. Kingdom Hearts 3 has no tension, it’s so cut-and-dry, you need about... an hour of the game to know what happened in it. Sora defeated Xehanort, the all important villain, introduced in DDD. It then ends on a stupid cliff hanger. Also, goes to show that Re:Mind was stupid and didn’t help anything or anyone. KH3 had one job, complete all the character arcs introduced in the series in a satisfying way, and it failed on every single account. 

How this series tells story is terrible. It’s done through long-winded exposition that is boring and confusing. Somehow, after watching hours of cutscenes and reading all of the additional side material, I still do not know what Kingdom Hearts is supposed to be. Sometimes, it’s the ‘heart of worlds,’ other times it’s a ‘source of wisdom,’ or it’s a ‘source of power,’ or it can just grant Xemnas’ wish like a star, and it looks like Scala Ad Caelum inside, or its the door to the Realm of Darkness. How can it be the name sake of the series and be so poorly defined? The Metal Gear series is just as convoluted as Kingdom Hearts is, but at least I know what a metal gear is. 

Nomura can structure a plot. He understands the basics of hero’s journey. Every single game is based on that structure, individually. When tied together, however, they make this weird mass  of starts and stops, retcons, wasted time, and poor story telling. I like Sora and I like his story. I would not be here if that was not the case. It’s the same way with Xion. I really like Xion and her story, but she shouldn’t be here. That, or it needs to be written in a way that it matters. This plot stuff isn’t just about the events. It’s about the characters.  What happens to them. What do they do. How do they behave. How do they change? Plot happens when characters act. What a bad plot indicates is bad character motivation and action. These characters don’t matter because Nomura didn’t give them backstories, nuanced motivations, real flaws, or meaningful action. So he crams as most information into the dialogue and pretends that counts as a plot. 

 And it’s not like plot is  complicated, shit happens, that’s it. To add in some RP salt? It bothers me when muns says they’re ‘bad at plotting.’ What do you mean you’re bad at plot? Plot happens when our two muses meet and shit happens. Your muse has encountered a wild Xion, what do you do? > Run > Attack > Talk to > Feed. I’m not writing a passive brick here, ya’ll. I want shit to happen. And when I’m slogging through 13 hours of Kingdom Hearts 2 I want shit to happen, and not watch Sora faff about in a Disney world for forty minutes. Why is that so much to ask for?

[vael]

2019 Annual Review

Each year, I look back at the previous year’s annual review and note that things didn’t go as planned. For some reason I am always surprised, but this time it’s a little painful, too. From 2018′s Annual Review:

“2019 outlook? Sunny! I hope it will be my best year yet.“

Oh, Vael. You built your house, you moved to the promised land. But your year did not go as planned. You are not even close to the zen you craved.

It has been a wild year. This will run long. All I can do is stick to the format and hope my memory and average writing skill will do the year justice. So, as usual, we start with the positive.

What went well this year?

We like our house. We do. The builder was no good, resulting in some warped walls and a lot of headache getting them to finish everything properly, but the layout is very suitable for us. My office is exactly what I needed, our TV room has just the right space for us. We finally have a respectable kitchen. Since I’m living and working in the house 24 hours a day, it’s important to have a comfortable space.

Game development. For the past five years, I’ve put in some serious work. A lot of it was within my game engine, GAM3, and tinydark’s gaming network, The Orbium. While I put in a lot of work, not much came in the way of actual games produced. I finally rallied in 2018 and put out Bean Grower. It was designed to be a supplemental game, not a main driver, so it will not bring in sustainable income. I went on to think that I should open GAM3 up to other developers, license the engine out and collect a share of what they make.

I resolved to refactor GAM3: a word which means to rewrite and modernize many parts of it so that it’s easier to work in, and for it to present better. I would come to realize this desire to share GAM3 was due to a lack of confidence in myself to produce something great, and financially sustainable. Around the time I was realizing that multiplayer was the answer, I discovered Marosia.

Then we moved, I took on contract work, and things generally slowed for me for a few months, eking out what development I could. I played Marosia throughout and in August, it died. I wrote a teardown for it. The stars had aligned: though I had a lot of prelim work to be done, I would make a successor to Marosia. I managed to hype a few people in the community with a demo of GAM3 and I spent the next few months coding a chat prototype and generally organizing myself, and finally mid-November began the refactoring. It would end there, but just this morning (seriously) we learned Marosia was coming back. I had a momentary freakout but it’s ultimately a good thing for my own game.

I haven’t been more excited for a project in a long time. I never thought I’d be so excited to create a standard fantasy world, but it’s a ton of fun, with intricacies I never considered. The game’s design lends itself to a sustainable monetization model: I’m thinking $3/mo for quality-of-life upgrades, with a discount for buying in bulk. I would have paid double for Marosia, so I think this is fair. (6 months of die2nite is currently priced at $69, 6 months of Hattrick is $90!) And most important of all, I can do it ethically, with a game that truly means something to people.

Web development. I’ve learned quite a bit this year! I am so grateful for svelte. I liked but never loved React.js. It always felt ponderous to me. I have no doubt The Orbium’s refactoring would have taken me half the time it did if I were learning svelte vs. React, simply because React is so much more convoluted than svelte, and all in the name of uglier syntax. Svelte seamlessly integrates style and functionality into UI components, which means that if I’m working with a button that clicks to open a modal, everything I need for that button is in that one file.

Due to my contract work (with Harley Davidson, I can reveal) I also got some experience with Symfony and other modern development practices in PHP. PHP doesn’t really excite me these days, loathing having to produce views with it, but it is at least comfy.

My job. “Yeah, yeah.” I got a raise, most of which was contributed to getting Eve and my son onto my badass healthcare plan. We’re developing like it’s 2012, which is frustrating and makes even simple tasks take forever, but I can’t complain about the pay nor the stability of the company and my position there. I also work mostly remotely.

What didn’t go so well?

2019 was dominated by the bad. Eve’s not putting out an Annual Review, but our pain is shared.

The move. 11 months after the contract was signed, our builder was finally ready to let us move in. The house was not finished, just livable. So we rushed out of Rhode Island. We packed my car with everything we could fit, even removing the spare tire, but we got almost all of it. Me, Eve, our son, and our two cats.

At around 7:30 PM, we were driving on a dark highway when we were struck by a muffler that had fallen out from the truck in front of us. It destroyed the front-end, spilling radiator fluid onto the road. I had no idea what was going on, but it so happened that a mechanic had broken down right near us and was able to help. The engine barely carried us to the nearest motel, and I was in shock. I carried all our stuff to our second-floor room, it was even lightly raining. And I was defeated. Eve reports she had never seen me so bad. I had no idea how long we’d be in this ghetto-ass motel, what it would cost us during this time of great financial need, and mostly: I was just miserable. We could have died. If it had hit one of our tires, we could have spun out at 70+ MPH. All I wanted to do was get to our house the next day, and here we were.

I won’t detail the rest here, but I do want to thank my friends for their support and appreciate the good fortune that we got through this time.

We got to the house at 11PM on a Sunday; I still appreciate our builder taking the time to show us around so late. And... it was not at all what we were expecting. We had no driveway, and it had rained. We were tracking in some mud but that didn’t even matter because the entire house had to be cleaned. There was dirt all over the floors, they’d forgotten I didn’t want a chandelier over the dining room table, and the feeling was that we’d gone through Hell (and austure financial practices) to get here and this was it. So much wasn’t done. We knew that, but we didn’t think we’d be sweeping and wetting the floor with paper towel just to have a place to put our stuff. Shoutout to my friend Cody for setting us up with a supply drop.

We spent a lot of time buying furniture, aided by our rental SUV, all the while worrying about our newly purchased things sitting around the house without our protection as workers came in and out. I had to go back to Virginia to pick up the car and through exhaustion, caffeine, stupidity, and anxiety, managed to go 88 MPH and get myself a ticket: a misdemeanor, even. I spent the entire day picking up that damn car (5 hours up and down) and returned home in the worse state I’d ever felt. I was emotionally, mentally, and physically depleted.

But there was no stopping for me: I took on contract work and I had to get it done just to stay afloat. And then we got a fucking dog.

The dog. At some point in 2018 we determined that our son could use a companion and that a dog really completes the family. Leading up to the move, we put a down payment on a rough collie: the “Lassie” breed. They usually run around $800 and we got her for $500. I was a fan of the breed and Eve had done research that proves it’s a great breed. (it is) Even after the accident, we thought we should pay the rest for her and bring some joy into our life.

We named her Esme, and getting a dog was definitely one of the worst macro decisions I’ve made for the family yet. I couldn’t last more than a month with her. It was my decision to get rid of her, which made my wife and son sad but we were getting so little out of the experience. The cats beat her up, she was afraid of everything, and all she wanted to do was run around but we kept her cooped up in the house because we had no fence. I hated that there was still a dog smell, and I hated that it farted during Game of Thrones. It was over when we went grocery shopping and came back to a poop-filled crate, which the circumstances of the night dictated I must clean.

Young Living. Eve was supposed to sell essential oils for some side money. We knew it wasn’t going to be big money, unless she got lucky or turned out to be a natural-born saleswoman, but it was something to do and we believe in the products. I really trust in Young Living and I personally have seen the benefits of their oils and products.

So she went to the YL convention in Utah to learn to sell and, hey, have some fun. She returned feeling even less confident: they’d changed some numbers, and the truth that we always knew was that the market’s highly saturated. There are memes trivializing the effects of oils and there’s no denying the company’s an MLM. A lot of the big earners made their sales early on. Coinciding with the bad feels of Autumn, we decided to put the oil dream aside and focus on mental and physical health.

Eve mental/physical health. The muffler changed a lot for us. It morphed what should have been a very happy time in our lives into a very stressful one. Eve felt fatigued and broken down, and I wasn’t much better off. One day before her planned back-to-action, pick ourselves up and get ready to enjoy Summer, she sprained and tore a ligament in her ankle while coming down the stairs. We hoped it was just a sprain and did everything we could to avoid going to the doctor, but a week later she hadn’t gotten better and so began the PT and bullshit regimen. Our plans of hiking the blue ridge mountains were crushed.

But she recovered, and I shit you not, the very day before she planned to return to action, it was Father’s Day. She was making me my special breakfast and was using a hand-blender to blend pumpkin french toast mix when she went to clean some gunk out of the blender with her finger. It was a split-second decision to help make breakfast faster. Her finger twitched, caught the irresponsibly sensitive power button and tore her finger up. Immediately took her to Urgent Care and then the Emergency Room. $3,000 and some luck later, she kept her finger, but has permanently lost some feeling in it.

That was a bad time for us. I was overworked, she was miserable, and yet she still managed to get to Utah to learn how to sell. To salvage our year. In Autumn, all the anxiety, stress, and the damage from her upbringing finally culminated and she broke. 

Her physical health tanked in tandem with her mental. She suffered frequent menstrual issues and her EDS (a joint disorder) flaring up. It is hard to detail all the pain and frustration, and it really is beyond the scope of what needs to be said. My wife is depressed, prone to feeling overwhelmed, and I’m happy to say that we are getting her professional help soon.

What’s remarkable is that I can’t recall a period of time that she didn’t try her best to recover. Every month, most weeks, she would constantly express that the next day or month was her time. She’s done it for this month and 2020 as well. And I don’t think she’s lazy or unmotivated. She is just defeated and I am a poor comforter. Honestly, I am just shit at helping people if the solution isn’t “well just force yourself to do the thing.” That’s how I get through my problems and it doesn’t work for everyone, not even always myself. Still she is strong. I think writing this out has helped me remember that.

Relationship with my son. I had hoped my increased efficiency and happiness would improve our relationship. I planned for more structure: things like “once we’re upstairs for bedtime rituals, no going back down.” Each night I make a point to spend a minimum of 30 focused minutes with him. But I have only succeeded in making our relationship worse. I don’t think he needs professional help, but there is something within him, from when he was three years old, that just prevents him from being a hard worker. Respect is important to me and I don’t respect him. He is a frustrated child, often not understanding the world, often forgetting things he was supposed to do. I’m not doing a good job of helping.

I think I could have done better, but there were simply too many fronts to fight.

Mental performance. I haven’t gotten any better from last year. I am still not as sharp as 2017-Vael. It is a matter of stress and lifestyle.

What did I learn?

How to be a homeowner! Generally how to manage a home. I got my tools, all cute with my little leaf blower.

SLOWWWW DOWWWWN. The outside of the house needs some work. We need to extend our driveway, clear an acre, and put up a fence. I could take a loan out to do this and be fine, but I could also just slow down. Take a deep breath. Enjoy what we have for the Summer. It sucks I won’t be able to use that acre for farming, but I think I have a good place to plant a single apple tree this year. And hey, less mowing.

A shit ton of web development.

Probably became more cynical. But I think The Good Place has helped remind me to be a good person.

To just accept Eve needs help. And that I really suck at helping her.

Future Outlook

All that bad stuff that happened? Pfft. Shitty year. 2020′s here, it’s a brand new decade. I’ve got a cool game I want to make, we’re gonna get Eve some help, and...

Get pregnant! Yeah! Right now we definitely aren’t ready for kids. We need to use our new health insurance to make a bunch of appointments, recover  financially, mentally, physically. But we very badly want more children. I feel it all the time. I have begun to suspect that genetics do matter, and I wonder if Abel’s laziness mirrors his biological father’s laziness. My dad loved to work and I do too. It might be possible to pass these traits on.

Better office. I need to get some furniture and improve my work environment.

Vacation! We desperately need a vacation. We’re going to Disney this year, either May or June.

Zen Vael. I will attempt to be “the person I want to be” as detailed last year. My soft goal for this is March 15th, as I set last year. I will undoubtedly fail that date. There is no way I’m wrangling my sleep and attitude in the next two months, but surely by the end of the year?

Thanks for reading.

Vael

[back-katalogue]

Kingdom Hearts HD II.8 Final Chapter Prologue

"But Kat, this isn’t on your backlog list!” Yeah, well, I didn’t include my console games because I wanted to make it easier on myself, except then I ended up playing my console backlog anyway. I’ll adjust accordingly.

First, for those of you that have been sleeping under a rock since the turn of the millennium: Kingdom Hearts is a bizarre crossover between Disney and Square Enix, with an action RPG hack-and-slash style gameplay, which has become infamous for its increasingly convoluted narrative, bizarre naming conventions, having loads and loads of characters, lengthy diatribes on what it means to have a heart or to have memory or to be a person, and taking fourteen entire years between its second and third numbered titles.  

Kingdom Hearts HD II.8 Final Chapter Prologue is the last of the compilation collections released for the PlayStation 4, containing a HD remaster of Kingdom Hearts 3D: Dream Drop Distance (originally released for Nintendo 3DS in 2012), Kingdom Hearts 0.2 Birth by Sleep -A fragmentary passage-, which is a follow-up to Kingdom Hearts Birth by Sleep and a tech demo for the then-upcoming Kingdom Hearts III, and Kingdom Hearts χ Back Cover, a feature-length film companion that details the background events of Kingdom Hearts χ, a now defunct-PC browser game that lives on as the mobile Kingdom Hearts Union χ. If you’re still with me after all of that then congratulations! 

I bought KHHDII.8FCP in 2018 and... didn’t play it until now, because life and Kingdom Hearts III got in the way. C’est la vie!

Dream Drop Distance is the first actual sequel to Kingdom Hearts II, which came out in 2005. Arguably, I think Kingdom Hearts Re:coded sits between II and 3D in terms of chronology, but in that one you revisit a bunch of KH1-era worlds in a datascape, and it serves mostly to inform Sora and co. that half of the characters in the above image exist and need rescuing. In Dream Drop Distance, you play as both Sora and Riku, as the two embark on their Mark of Mystery exam and travel to numerous sleeping worlds, including a Traverse Town populated by The World Ends With You characters, the Fantasia-inspired Symphony of Sorcery, and, perhaps most baffling of all, a Hunchback of Notre Dame world. Yes, that’s right! Judge Claude Frollo, one of Disney’s most complex and child unfriendly villains, is in this charming game! You’re also accompanied by Dream Eaters, who are both your allies (Spirits) and the game’s enemies (Nightmares), who you can create and train and raise to unlock abilities, commands, and act as your partners in combat.��

I’ve played 3D before and I still think it’s charming, although it’s a lot more fun to play on a console with a controller than it is on your handheld device. There aren’t as many changes between the original and the HD remaster, unlike the games in the 1.5 and 2.5 collections, so there isn’t much to comment on. I still feel like you need a guide to get a full understanding of Dream Eater mechanics, particularly with regards to recipes and dispositions, but I felt like I understood them better this time around. I will say that they had to change some of the mini games, and while they vastly improved the Candy Goggles, they made Water Barrel a little more frustrating, but it’s understandable due to the loss of the touch screen. 

A fragmentary passage is an entirely new experience for me, and chronicles Aqua’s time in the Realm of Darkness, following the end of Birth by Sleep. It’s very clearly a tech demo for KH3, given that it utilises the same engine and controls, but I love Aqua and I love to play as Aqua, so I wasn’t too mad about that. Your reward for completing objectives in this game is accessories, so you can stick cat ears or Minnie Mouse ears and a pair of wings on Aqua. I imagine it’s a little demeaning, given that she’s suffering from self-loathing and doubt throughout this game, but it’s amusing as a player. 

Fin or Bin: Well... I have finished 3D, although I’d like to get a few more achievements, tackle the secret boss, and craft the missing Dream Eaters that I need. I also need to finish A fragmentary passage, but I think I’m going to come back to that with a proper walkthrough. 

[burnouts3s3]

Kingdom Hearts 3, a review

(Disclaimer: The following is a non-profit unprofessional blog post written by an unprofessional blog poster. All purported facts and statement are little more than the subjective, biased opinion of said blog poster. In other words, don’t take anything I say too seriously. Just the facts 'Cause you're in a Hurry! Publisher: Square Enix Developer: Square Enix Business Division 3 Manufacturer’s Suggested Retail Price (MSRP): 59.99 USD How much I paid: 59.99 USD Rated: E10+ for Alcohol Reference and Fantasy Violence How long I played: 24 Hours which includes watching the (skippable) cutscenes to complete the game on Beginner Mode, the easiest game mode. Microtransactions: None! Dual Audio: No. Only The English Dub is available. What I played on: A Regular PS4, not a PS4 Pro Performance Issues: Say what you will about Tetsuya Nomura’s writing, the graphics are as beautiful as the current generation can muster. Some pixilation of hair tip details. Choppy framerate animation of heartless during mass army scenes. Featured Worlds: Olympus (Hercules), Toy Box (Toy Story), The Kingdom of Corona (Tangled), Monstropolis (Monster’s Inc.), Arendelle (Frozen), The Caribbean (Pirates of the Caribbean), San Fransokyo (Big Hero 6) My Personal Biases: I’ve played Kingdom Hearts 1 and 2 to death but haven’t managed to beat the spin-off titles (358/2 Days, Birth By Sleep, Dream Drop Distance) and mainly kept up with the series by watching the various cutscenes on Youtube. My Verdict: Kingdom Hearts 3 feels like a bookend, at least for certain characters. So while it closes off certain plot points for the spin-off characters, others are sure to get another decades worth of peripheral media thanks to Tetsuya Nomura’s convoluted and at times nonsensical storytelling. It’s also a great deal shorter than the previous games if you cut out the cutscenes. My fondness of watching Ratatouille’s Remy control Sora through a cooking mini-game notwithstanding, I wish there was more content here. Wait for a sale or the inevitable ‘Final Mix’.   Kingdom Hearts 3, a review  

The Kingdom Hearts franchise has managed to create numerous best-selling games across multiple platforms while weaving a tale that manages to incorporate characters from the Walt Disney Corporation and Square Enix into a narrative that deals with the enternal struggle of light and darkness. It also manages to have the most convoluted, overwritted and confusing storytelling to the point where George R.R. Martin would call overly complex. With the multiple mechanics, retcons, side stories, side characters and mixes and remixes, one would require an encyclopedia knowledge to keep everything straight. Tetsuya Nomura has managed the impossible of taking Disney characters and making spout paragraphs upon paragraphs of confusing exposition referencing other games that are almost necessary to gain any sort of emotional investment out of. I consider that an accomplishment considering this is a game where your two most frequent sidekicks are Donald Duck and Goofy. So after all the spin-offs, the side games, and the peripheral media with a decade in the making, this is “Kingdom Hearts 3”. So for those of you who haven’t kept up with the series, aka, normal human beings, Sora underwent a Trial but failed said Trial because he has not unlocked the power of Waking (Because this is Kingdom Hearts and in Kingdom Hearts, there’s always a convoluted reason why Sora is reset to Level 1). So Sora, Donald and Goofy have to visit various worlds so Sora can level up and also learn the power of Waking. Meanwhile, Riku and King Mickey are trying to find Aqua so she can find Ventus and Terra. Meanwhile, Kairi and Lea aka Axel are training under Master Yen Sid to become Keyblade masters. Meanwhile, Organization XIII are planning to unlock Kingdom Hearts yet again.

If the following paragraph confused you, be prepared to get even more confused as various Organization XIII members appear, give vague and confusing exposition before disappearing. Tetsuya Nomura, when he isn’t giving his characters leather outfits with an overabundance of zippers, has managed to write entire scenes revolving around plot mechanics, metaphors come to life, time travel and retcons. I’m not one to judge but at the point where Mickey Mouse is expositing backstories, character motivations and plot mechanics to the audience, I began to wonder if the targeted audience was still children. Gameplay wise, the game hasn’t changed much from Kingdom Hearts 2. For the most part, you’ll still be defeating Heartless using the Keyblade and physical attacks. As you level up or defeat story bosses, you’ll unlock abilities you can equip with Ability Points (or AP). Just as well, meters such as Health Bars or Magic will also increase. Using Magic for spells such as Fire or Thunder will use up a portion of Magic Points (MP) while using Cure to heal yourself will use up all your MP. When all MP is used, a pink bar will be depleted over time before MP is restored. They even keep some gameplay elements from spin-off games. Pressing Square near a pole will make Sora spin and attack. Using the Focus bar, Sora and aim and shoot, unleashing multiple ranged attacks. Crafting is the same as usual for the Gummi ship and synthesizing items with the addition of finding ingredients for a delightful cooking mini-game with Ratatouille’s Remy. You can create food which Sora can consume for temporary Stat increases. Returning are character limit breaks and unison attacks with the Triangle button. Pressing Triangle will unleash a team attack that does extra damage. New to the game are the ‘attraction attacks’. Hitting an enemy with a green marker allows Sora to summon attraction rides (such as Splash Mountain or a Carousel) and does area attacks. I didn’t really like these elements because it felt like blatant advertising and often not very useful. Remember all those cool context commands from Kingdom Hearts 2, like reflecting Xigbar’s shards, lassoing Demyx’s clones or Jumping on Xaldin? Those are gone and all the commands are just party based. The only unique ones are locked with guest characters such as Rapunzel lassoing the trio and spinning them around. At the same time, I really felt that the Disney portion of the game, aka, visiting the various worlds, was really lacking. The choice of worlds this time around didn’t really entertain me. Using movies that were already in 3D CGI felt really redundant to me, though credit to where credit is due in that the worlds of Monsters Inc., Big Hero 6 and Toy Story at least take place after their movies have finished. But Arendelle and Corona take place ‘during’ the movies so I’m just sitting watching scenes wholy lifted from the movies themselves. Here, they just recreate whole scenes from Frozen and Tangled but with the in-game engine. And however you feel about those various movies (FYI, I like Frozen but I felt that Tangled was a missed opportunity), it just seems like a waste of resources. Like, watching Kingdom Hearts recreate Aladdin, The Little Mermaid, The Nightmare before Christmas, The Lion King, The Pirates of the Caribbean and Mulan felt ‘iconic’ because it was translating a work not found in CGI to CGI and it was a cool sight. Just recreating scenes from Frozen and Tangled aren’t as cool to me because those various movies were already similar to the animation styles found in the game. Just the same, I found the boss battles lacking this time around. Before you were fighting against villains in Disney’s past. You got to fight Captain Hook with Peter Pan. You got to fight Ursula with Ariel. You got to fight Scar with Simba. Here, you’re just fighting random Heartless only bigger. I was expecting to fight Hans with Elsa but… didn’t. I was expecting to confront Gothel with Rapunzel but… didn’t. The only boss fight with a Disney Villain was Davy Jones and I really liked it. Still when the final chapters roll around, I did feel a tear in my eye seeing various characters reunited and seeing various villains finally bite the dust. CAVEAT: Ugh. This is one of the most frustrating reviews I’ve done. Fact is, for a AAA title, Kingdom Hearts 3 does a lot of things better than a lot of games. There’s no tacked on DLC, there’s no constant online mode and there’s still a plethora of content that justifies 60 dollars. But, I just don’t like how much shorter the game is and how even revisiting the 7 worlds, the one I genuinely like was the Caribbean one (and I don’t even like Pirates of the Caribbean). Verdict: Fans: Full Price. Everyone else: Wait for a Sale, Rental or the inevitable ‘Final Mix’.