#I should mention Splatoon 3 is my first game but I do like going back sometimes ^^ | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

skyplayssplatoon3 · 2 years ago

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Oh boy Splat3 being fun I hope this doesn't come off like a rant I'm just being thorough bc that community question post I'm so sorry if this is A Lot

Splatoon 3 veers between 'insanely, super fun' and 'not even remotely' on a near daily basis.

For what feels like the first time in the series' history the matchmaking and connection issues have synchronized to both be so bad that it feels like you barely get to play, and if you do play then you'll rarely get a fair fight and either play against a comp thats not fair for one side (IE triple e-liter and an inkbrush in splatzones) or against opponents with skill level that's unreasonably higher or lower than your team's.

Even with a wired connection I rarely last more than 3-4 matches at best before losing connection in the lobby and having to find new teams, and its not rare to have to go through the queue multiple times because of disconnects while waiting. This has never happened in 1 or 2 to me, back then I'd get maybe one or two a month. Now I get dozens in a week, and nearly everyone I play with does too.

Winning isn't everything but I've had remarkably few matches that felt... like actual matches. Most of my wins have been crushing curbstomps of people that felt like they just got the game or never had a chance because it was a quartet of chargers or whatever.

The same happens for my losses w/ them usually feeling like I went against a team of pro tournament players or being put with 1-3 other splatlings or chargers whenever I play a non-shooter, to the point I've nearly given up on playing my mains that I enjoy and just picked up TTek because I would constantly be curbstomped bc of tri-splatling + 1 squiffer comps and stuff like that outside of X Battle if I don't play a jack of all trades shooter (which, annoyingly, has a system to avoid exactly this problem that works perfectly but was never added to the normal modes)

Between all that and a multitude of minor things (Hero mode being a drop in quality from Splat2's, Splatfests being a noticeable downgrade from Splat2's, Big Run... feeling awkward the way it was handled, a number of balancing issues from launch like crab dominance and tentamissile spam, etc) the game feels more frustrating than ever before in the series when it goes badly despite it feeling better than ever when it goes well thanks to nearly every other facet of actually playing the game being massively improved

I have tons of fun when it feels like it works, but I've honestly just drifted to playing Salmon Run near exclusively because Salmon Run is consistently enjoyable w/o most of the above issues and usually the worst that happens is Nintendo going on a streak of really not fun comps to use (or it being Spawning Grounds, which isn't balanced for Splat3's new aggressive salmonids at all)

Totally fine to be thorough! I've been reading everyone's responses and really learning a lot about what people want out of this game

I'm glad you mentioned the 'Not fun to win' aspect of matchmaking, because I don't see it mentioned a lot: It's not always losing that's the problem, because it's equally not as satisfying to end up stomping new players because you and your X friends run out to try new weapons and still have built-skills over the years...We want people around our level to practice against!

I'm genuinely surprised to hear someone say Hero Mode was a downgrade; there's been so much praises sung (and I genuinely had a good time myself). However, still a valid opinion!

It absolutely is fun when things go right! The connection works, the matchmaking actually balances (rarely but it does for me), and even some losses feel fine because it felt like a fair match that we just came up short

I still say hold out a while longer for all the new goodies we should get! Hopefully things will improve with time, but I can see everyone's frustration as things stand right now

#Asks #bapzap #Long Post #IT'S OKAY IM A BIT OF A RAMBLER MYSELF as people may be aware /dies #But I'm truly having a good time reading the thoughts from the community #Thank you to everyone contributing their thoughts even drastically different from each other or my own!

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devidoesnothing · 3 years ago

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Sonic Frontiers review

9/10. pretty much everything was phenomenal (music, story, gameplay) but they did fumble the final boss a bit (first part was easier than the rest of the bosses, second part was... well I'll just say a letdown).

soundtrack's probably the best one of the year, only song I didn't exactly care for was I'm Here (the main theme, funnily enough) but the boss themes are SO FUCKING GOOD HOLY SHIT THEY WENT SO NUTS ON THESE WHY WAS THIS SNUBBED AT THE GAME AWARDS

graphics are another thing I should mention, as shown in pre-release stuff there is a decent bit of pop-in but there was only one time I really minded it tbh. there were also a couple instances where the shadows freaked out, but again I didn't really mind.

controls are great, not 100% perfect but eh I doubt I've ever played a 3D game with perfect controls. Sonic feels great to control, though funnily enough maybe a bit slow. you can upgrade his speed at certain places, but it did feel a bit clunky to do.

combat's a crucial part of this game, and thankfully it works really well. there were a couple instances where I got ganged up on by some lesser enemies and they could attack me while I was attacking other enemies, which got a bit annoying, but it wasn't unbearable.

thankfully the combat was fun to execute, though some moves felt a bit odd to perform. probably just my inexperience with the character action genre tho. skill tree was cool but honestly I didn't really get why these were necessary inclusions. eh, probably just me.

just remembered, the performance. loading times could be a bit long, which did get annoying at some points (reloading my save, going in and out of cyber space, etc.) but at least with the cyber space there was the training stuff to do while you waited. nice time waster.

story's phenomenal, as should be expected from Ian Flynn (the main guy in charge of the Sonic comics since like 2006). Sage is an amazing character and I hope she comes back in a future game. really cool to see some more Sonic lore honestly, hope to see more of that

oh yeah THE BOSS FIGHTS dude the music combined with the gameplay and the spectacle of it all just became such an amazing experience every time, especially with the second boss. I'm not spoiling a thing here, these need to be experienced. (well, the main three at least).

so yeah all in all Sonic Frontiers isn't a perfect game by any means but it's just such an amazing experience that it's entirely worth playing for that alone. probably my favorite game of the year, though tbf I've only played Kirby and the Forgotten Land and Splatoon 3. buy this game. if you're hesitant, get it on sale. but you need to play this game. (at least on PC, no clue how it performs on consoles honestly).

#sonic #sonic the hedgehog #sonic frontiers #review #I don't know how tags work help me #game review

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mayohigan-orange · 4 years ago

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This is basically this thing but for those who don’t want to mess around with an image! Or if you wanna give some extra reasons for them.

So, it was stolen from @twinfoxtails and then altered by me, because I’m a lazy piece of shit! :D If you wanna do it, go ahead!

I should probably point out I’m very indecisive so the answers are subject to change from time to time.

Favourite game of all time: Sonic 3 and Knuckles. Sonic 3 was one of the first games I played, and Sonic 3 and Knuckles is just better in every way. Best Story: Persona 5 Royal Favourite Art Style: Sonic Battle or The World Ends With You “I’ll finish it some day”: Final Fantasy VI. It’s a great game, and I know what happens in it for the most part. I’ve just never really managed to beat it, I always got distracted. Big Personal Impact: Undertale. Not a big surprise, huh? Best Combat: Kingdom Hearts II Final Mix. Yes, I know the combat is easy, but I greatly prefer the combat here to KHI and III. And Final Mix adds some new moves, so even better. You like, but everyone hates: Fire Emblem Fates. Almost literally no-one likes it, but I enjoy it well enough and like some of the characters. *side-eyes Camilla, Rinkah and Orochi* You hate, everyone likes: This is a lot easier. I could say Minecraft, but honestly, I think I’m going to say FNAF. I do not like jumpscares, since they’re, honestly, a fairly cheap method of scaring someone. So a game based entirely around them? Yeah, no thanks. Underrated: Metroid Prime Federation Force. Yes, it wasn’t the Metroid Prime game everyone wanted, but it was actually a pretty good game. At the least, a lot more varied than Triforce Heroes. But people just tended to badmouth it since it wasn’t a proper Metroid Prime game. Overrated: Not a huge surprise considering the last one, but FF7. The original, in any case, the remake is a LOT better. Why do I like this?: I dunno. There were a few games like this, but I eventually fell out of them and... can’t really remember them any more. Plus I think it’s for the really weird games that most would say ‘cursed’ upon first sight and I don’t tend to go for those games. Game you always come back to: Splatoon 2, although that may well change, considering Splatoon 3 is on the horizon. Older than that... Soinc 3 and Knuckles. That atmosphere: Undertale. The sections in Waterfall and the True Lab are really tense, for different reasons. And of course, the creepiness that comes when you do a Genocide run. Bad Day Cure: I would LOVE to mention a soft fluffy game, but no, Streets of Rage 2, 3, 4 and Remake are generally where I go when I’ve had a bad day, to work off some stress. Favourite Protagonist: Persona 5 Royal. All I really need to say for that is “Punish me more.” After Work Relaxation: Used to be Animal Crossing New Horizons, but I’ve kinda burnt out on that for now. So I guess... I guess the closest thing I have is Cookie Run Kingdom. Biggest Letdown: Final Fantasy 7, again, the original. After hearing for DECADES people raving about how it’s the best game ever... it was a huge disappointment. Amazingly, I played the other ‘best game ever’ for the first time around the same time, Ocarina of Time... which is a way better game, and still holds up well today. But I digress. ‘Back in the day’ game: Well, when I first got depressed and basically dropped out of school, I watched a lot of House and played a lot of Mega Man Battle Network 2, so... I guess that would count? Other than that, I played a LOT of Pokemon Crystal. “Not the best, but having fun”: Super Mario 64. It’s another game that I played way after it came out, and it is a bit of a mess nowadays. Understandable, since it was basically the first properly 3D platformer. So it’s not the best, but I still have fun with it! Criminally Overlooked: I kinda feel like Metroid Prime Federation Force would go here too, since like I said, most people just passed over it without really giving it a chance. Triforce Heroes got more attention, when that game is a slog in single player, had issues with trolls in multiplayer, and was pretty repetitive when it came down to it. As well as some of the Drabland Challenges being outright OBNOXIOUS. But, I digress again. Depressing game: Zero Escape. Not any of the games specifically, just the Zero Escape series in general. It’s kind of like Homestuck, everyone will die. Multiple times. Favourite Active Franchise: Probably Fire Emblem. Indie Pick: I would normally say ‘Undertale’, but considering I’ve given that as an answer twice, let’s give some other games a chance to shine. ...I can’t pick between them, so Shovel Knight: Treasure Trove, and A Hat in Time. Both are great games, if a little on the short side. Not usually my thing: Team Fortress 2. I’m not a huge fan of FPS games, but Team Fortress 2, even now, still has a charm that many games (*coughOverwatchcough*) are missing.

#mun stuff #mun info

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radramblog · 4 years ago

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Ninty Direct Feb 2021 Thoughts

That was uh. Kind of disappointing, actually.

I suppose it was inevitable that we weren’t seeing Pokemon since they’re gonna do their own announcement. But like. Coulda done better here.

(oh no you’re now introduced to my awful awful handwriting, is this better or worse than my cursed interests? you decide)

Anyway I wrote down everything they announced so here we go

Pyra/Mythra in Smash: I don’t give a single shit about the Xenoblade series, but it’s one of like 2 IPs Nintendo has had in the last decade so sure whatever they can have second a character as a treat. I’m mostly just annoyed this wasn’t a third-party character.

Fall Guys Switch: This feels inevitable. It also feels about 5 months too late.

Outer Wilds Switch: I’ve heard some absolutely excellent things about this game, so fair enough. I’m not sure I’d buy it on the Switch, but I haven’t bought it at all yet, so.

Famicom Detective Club: This looks like a Ren’py game if it had an actual budget, but still used Ren’py for some reason. Prooobably not biting on this one chief.

Samurai Warriors 5: The only Warriors game I’ve played is the first hyrule warriors, and the only Nobunaga game I’ve played was Pokemon Conquest (it’s a trip), so. I don’t understand the obsession they have over there for this bloke, like imagine if Australia made like a tv series a year and a large handful of video games about Ned Kelly or something.

Legend of Mana: Shit I should go play Octopath Traveler huh

Monster Hunter Rise: Those monster designs looked pretty kickass, and those human designs made me crack up laughing. I’ve never played Monster Hunter, and I don’t think this is gonna change that.

Mario Golf: Hey look they confirmed Waluigi as playable ahead of time so people wouldn’t complain, good job guys. The multiplayer of this looked silly as hell, but I’m not spending 80 bucks on wii sports tennis for a multiplayer mode ill drag my mates to play all of once before we go back to playing Beetle Adventure Racing.

Tales from the Borderlands: Wait telltale is still around? Ok…? I haven’t played Borderlands and don’t really care for the Telltale style so nah

Capcom Arcade Stadium: They could have made a peripheral like the NES/SNES mini, but they didn’t, and it’s for the best. The fact that one of the games is free implies to me that the rest are going to be overcosted, though.

Stubbs the Zombie: What the fuck am I looking at. Apparently this is a remaster of an old Xbox game, but I’ve never heard of it. Weird as fuck, but sure.

No More Heroes III: No more Heroes is a franchise that I’ve never played, but always wanted to. It seems right up my alley aesthetic-wise, and the gameplay looks pretty solid too- probably gonna try one of the older ones first, though.

Neon White: Speaking of aesthetic. This looks anime as fuck and edgy in a good way, and the gameplay looks real fun. I actually really want to check this out, and no, it’s not just because of the skull masked goth gf on the cover. (Doesn’t hurt, though.)

DC Super Hero Girls Teen Power: Jesus, this looks like a bad tie-in game from the mid 2000s. Not like Battle for Bikini Bottom, more like a Jimmy Neutron. And while I really liked the Jimmy Neutron game as a kid (shame about the show), this doesn’t look like it’ll stand up to that…high bar. Listening to this trailer made me want to die a little bit inside.

Plants Vs Zombies: Battle for Neighbourville: I miss PopCap. Peggle 3, never.

Miitopia: This looks cute, and will probably lead to the same sort of 3am DMs that happened with Tomodachi Life. If it’s a full priced game, it probably won’t sell at all.

Animal Crossing New Horizons Mario items: uhhh sure. Don’t have that game, so.

Triangle Strategy: Aww fuck it’s a final fantasy tactics that looks like octopath and it might have an actually good story, shiiiiiiiiit. I’m gonna give the demo a try before I land on this, but I’m optimistic.

Star Wars Hunters: When was the last time we had an actually good Star Wars game? And don’t say Fallen Order. Yeah, didn’t think so.

KO City: Ah, the bottom of the barrel. Didn’t think it would take this long. At this point, the pseudo-cartoony style everything has because they’re trying to ape Fortnite is extremely grating on me. (I definitely thought this ad was for Fortnite stuff at first)

World’s End Club: OK this one has me actually hyped. I knew that Kodaka (director/writer of the Danganronpa series) and Uchikoshi (director/writer of the Zero Escape series) were working on a joint project, and we’re finally seeing the results. Both of them have multiple excellent games under their respective belts, and this new game looks like a fun spin on what I’m sure a lot of people were expecting from the pair. Literally both of them have made a game where (spoilers I guess, Keara stop reading here you haven’t played VLR yet) there’s a death game going on while the characters are unaware the world fucking ended, so to see the idea of the death game getting interrupted and the characters actually having to live in the dead world is really cool. I’m paying cloooose attention to this one.

Hades (Physical Release): Dang now if I buy hades I can choose to have some of my money go to EB games or JB hifi or something. Cooooooooooooool.

Ninja Gaiden Collection: This just made me wonder why Ryu Hayabusa isn’t in Smash yet. Is it because there’s already a Ryu?

Age of Calamity DLC: I don’t think I mentioned this in my post yesterday, but I would have put money on DLC for this game coming out. I still haven’t played it, but the first Hyrule Warriors had so much fucking DLC so this was inevitable in my eyes.

Bravely Default 2: Uhhh its another JRPG man idk what you want me to say. Didn’t play the first one, apparently its good.

Ghosts n Goblins Resurrection: Kinda funny having this next to the free original in the Capcom Arcade Stadium. Capcom is reviving old franchises, I guess? Where’s Mega Man Battle Network, cowards?

SaGa Frontier: I’ve heard good things about the SaGa series, but this looks awful. Not like gameplay wise, the style for the models and shit in game just disinterests me.

Apex Legends: Is anyone still playing this game?

BOTW 2 (no news): I’m not mad, I’m just disappointed. Next Direct, I guess.

Skyward Sword HD: I’m not mad, I’m just disappointed.

Seriously though, I was expecting 3 of the best Zeldas ever made to get ports, and we got the one that I wasn’t interested in. Fuck you too, I guess.

Splatoon 3: I actually was super interested in this, seeing as the trailer looked like it was gonna be for some like… side game, 3D RPG or something, exploring the origins of the Splatoon world? But then it’s just Splatoon 3. And like, I know people really like that series, but it never appealed to me. The world is neat! But I’m not interested in the series as it is.

And that’s the tea.

ADDENDUM:

shit that’s this weekend? huh ok -New Hearthstone expansions revealed, kinda like WOTC does with magic every so often, just like “here’s the next couple sets btw”. Since they do nothing but plagiarise off each other and MTG is having a set based on another WOTC property this year (D&D), there’s going to be a Starcraft set. -Diablo 4 release date that will not be stuck to since COVID is still a thing -people are hoping for starcraft 3. Blizzard to announce Starcraft 2 Episode 1. -New WoW expansion announced, determined objectively to be “worst ever” before trailer is even finished

#ramble #video games

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coolgreatwebsite · 7 years ago

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Cool Games I Finished In 2018 (In No Real Order)

Man! Wow! 2018! 2018 was a wild year for me. I managed to deliver those elbow drops I talked about last year and ended up doing a lot of of things. I left my job and moved cross-country in the span of like 2 and a half weeks! I took a new job in the video game industry (play Ninjin and Override)! I took a trip to Vegas a week after that! I got in a relationship! I got out of a relationship! It’s been a ride. A ride that hasn’t left me a ton of time to play video games or write about video games, but I’m like 1000 times happier now so it’s probably a fair trade. No matter what though, I will always be here at the end of the year to make a bunch of terrible MSPaint banners and provide you with another one of these. Here’s a bunch of cool games I experienced for the first time in 2018.

Shin Megami Tensei: Nocturne (PlayStation 2, 2004)

Nocturne is a game that I haven’t been able to get out of my head since I beat it. It’s so damn cool. It starts with you witnessing a demonic apocalypse where only you, your two friends, your teacher, a reporter, and the man with the world’s wildest widow’s peak survive. These people are, with a couple of notable exceptions, the only real characters in the entire game. You barely see them, and when you do your meetings are usually pretty brief. Sure, you talk to and recruit a horde of demons to your side as party members, and you interact with a handful of demonic antagonists and various demonic NPCs, but for the most part the game is just you. You, alone, wandering the weird hellscape remnants of Tokyo. It’s one of the most solitary-feeling video games I’ve ever played, and it nails this atmosphere flawlessly. The music, the visuals, the writing, every element gels with every other element so smoothly to create a prevailing, almost overbearing feeling of loneliness. The combat and gameplay mechanics are what I understand this series to mostly be like (this being the only mainline SMT I’ve played), and are fun and engaging in a way that’s not too dissimilar from the Persona series. The only knock I have against Nocturne is that the dungeon design super sucks. I’m fine with endless corridors, my love of the PS2 Persona games can attest to that, but almost every dungeon in Nocturne has an annoying gimmick to it, and they all essentially boil down to different takes on a teleporter maze. I was kind of almost dreading navigating dungeons by the time I got to the last fourth of the game, but my intense love for literally everything else saw me through. For those of you who like JRPGs and haven’t played Nocturne, I’m sure you’ve heard this plenty of times, and I was like you once. I didn’t listen. But now I’m on the other side of the tunnel, so I get to say it. You should really, really play Nocturne. It’s good.

Splatoon 2 Octo Expansion (Nintendo Switch, 2018)

Octo Expansion is what Splatoon 2′s single player mode should have been from the start. Don’t get me wrong, the packed in single player campaign is fine, but it’s basically a level pack for Splatoon 1′s. Octo Expansion, on the other hand, is 100% fresh. Structurally it’s much more diverse, with the campaign taking place over 80 mostly-bite-sized missions with varying objectives. There’s a couple of stinkers in there, but overall the quality of the missions is much higher than what was in the original single player campaign. They can actually be pretty tough sometimes too! It was fun to see some actual challenge in a Splatoon campaign. Everything wrapped around the core gameplay of Octo Expansion is kind of phenomenal. The setting and visual design is super weird, the music is way more mellow than anything else that’s come out of the series and creates a great sense of atmosphere, and the writing is actually genuinely pretty great. There’s a lot of funny dialogue and good character moments. They made me like Pearl! The weird gremlin that eats mayo! She’s my friend now! The last half an hour or so of Octo Expansion is also straight up my favorite sequence from a game I played this year too. Don’t sleep on this thing just because it’s DLC. It’s legitimately great.

Monster Hunter: World (PlayStation 4, 2018)

At the outset I was incredibly skeptical of Monster Hunter: World. This wasn’t entirely fair to the game, as a lot of this feeling was based on its initial E3 reveal trailer kinda sorta matching up to some mostly not true pre-E3 leaks, namely that it would be much more action heavy to cater to Western audiences and tie into the then unannounced Monster Hunter movie (which, as an aside, looks like a trainwreck that I desperately want to see). You can probably pretty easily find some tweets and posts from me around that time saying that the game looks like trash because of some misinterpreted new game mechanic. I am here to say that I am a big wrong dumbass and Monster Hunter: World is very good. You might be surprised to hear this, but it’s Monster Hunter! With a bunch of good and well-executed gameplay refinements! And graphics that aren’t repurposed from a PS2 game! It’s a ton of fun and I put a lot of time into it, but it’s not without its flaws. The number of monsters and weapons is comparatively way lower than in previous games, mostly due to that whole not repurposing PS2 models thing. It’s still kind of clunky in a lot of the places Monster Hunter has been historically clunky in, but also in some pretty big new ways, mainly around playing multiplayer. Also the story, while it’s as bland as it’s ever been, is exponentially more intrusive thanks to the addition of voiced cutscenes (which need to be triggered before the game lets you bring other players into story missions, causing a lot of that clunk I mentioned earlier). It’s all nothing game-ruining, of course. The game wouldn’t be on the list if it was! Monster Hunter: World exceeded my expectations, and I’m super looking forward to playing the recently announced G Rank expansion when it comes out next year.

Contra: Hard Corps (Sega Genesis, 1994)

I wish I could go back in time and kick my own stupid ass for not playing this sooner. I’d written off Contra: Hard Corps for the longest time based solely on some bullshit I read on the internet at an age where I just took other peoples’ opinions and made them my own. This and Castlevania Bloodlines were the bad ones, the ones some weird b-team crapped out for the Genesis while the SNES got the good stuff like Contra 3: Alien Wars. Well, it turns out... they were right about Bloodlines. But MAN were they wrong about Hard Corps. Hard Corps is the best Contra game. It fucking rules. I would have gone on with my life never giving the game a glance if not for this excellent Giant Bomb feature happening, and a couple of episodes in I knew I had to play it for myself. Contra: Hard Corps is fucking nuts. It’s balls to the wall 100% of the time. There’s so many unique enemies and wild bosses and they’re all never not exploding. The game has four characters with unique weapons and multiple different level paths that have totally different levels, bosses, and story beats. Oh, and the soundtrack fucking rips. Sometimes it’s a little too much, and there are definitely some sequences and boss attacks that are total gotchas that you can’t survive without prior knowledge of how they work. I’d also be remiss not to give a special shoutout to level 4′s awful, tedious, unskippable-on-any-route boss. But god damn if the rest of Hard Corps doesn’t outshine these flaws. It’s the high water mark for insane non-stop 16-bit action.

Deltarune (PC, 2018)

Does this count? It’s a demo for a full game that won’t be out for a real long time... I suppose it does, it’s self-contained enough. Deltarune, the free demo for the sort of but also sort of not sequel to Undertale, is unsurprisingly good as hell. Less surprising for sure, as Undertale is a known quantity these days, but I’m still way into it. The story is interesting and full of charming characters, and the battle system has been overhauled to include things like multiple party members with different abilities while still keeping all the things that made Undertale’s battles novel. The music is, of course, fantastic, and the visuals look much nicer while adhering to the same general style as the previous game. It’s fairly short, and some character development feels a little rushed because of it, but again, it’s a small chunk of the beginning of a much larger game. I can’t imagine any of this stuff wouldn’t be expanded upon. It’s hard to judge this thing story-wise due to the nature of it being a demo. I thoroughly enjoyed what is there, though, and look forward to playing the rest of the game in 50 years or whatever.

Super Smash Bros. Ultimate (Nintendo Switch, 2018)

This game is so much. Even though the first thing I learned about this game was “everyone is here”, I still wasn’t ready for how much it is. Super Smash Bros. Ultimate is maybe too much. Of course, as previously stated, everyone (meaning every single previous playable Smash Bros. character) is here. Most of the previous stages are also present. This was all known. Where the game really, truly goes overboard though is in the single-player content. There’s the usual classic mode for every character, this time specifically structured around a theme for each character, but the vast majority of it is actually comprised of the all-new spirits system. Spirits are non-playable video game characters that you can collect and equip to your fighters for special abilities, sort of like a less terrible version of Smash Bros. Brawl’s stickers. You collect these spirits through spirit battles, which are fights themed around the character the spirit represents via extremely clever usage of already existing fighters and mechanics. These battles range from the obvious (Big the Cat’s battle tasks you with fighting a giant purple Incineroar), to the obscure (fight the main characters from Zangeki no Reginleiv as represented by Link and female Robin while you’re giant-sized), to the creative (Porygon’s spirit puts you in a fight against wireframe Little Mac and Akira from Virtua Fighter, normally an assist trophy), to the downright in-jokey (the spirit of Ness’s Father, displayed as the telephone spirte from Earthbound, makes you fight an invisible Solid Snake). There are like 1200 spirits. The vast majority of them have an associated battle. And you don’t just experience these battles through a menu, at least half of them are implemented into the 30 hour long adventure mode, World of Light, which has you fighting spirits, navigating dungeons, and facing bosses. It’s insane. They focused on spirits in lieu of collectible trophies this time around and they absolutely made the correct choice. The trophies in the last two Super Smash Bros. games were fine, but easier access to existing 3D models of most represented characters made them inherently less exciting than Melee’s tailor-made collection of high quality (considering the time period) renders, many of which would never receive a 3D model again. The spirits system manages to be exciting in the same way Melee's trophies were, fostering a genuine sense of anticipation to see what they cooked up next, but in the context of gameplay. They completely knocked it out of the park. Smash 4 made it on one of these lists long ago, and I essentially just said “it’s more Smash Bros. and that’s good”. Smash Ultimate is also more Smash Bros., but it’s SO much more Smash Bros. It’s so much more extremely good Smash Bros. The only things I can ding it for are some totally subjective stage preferences (where the hell is Poké Floats) and some slightly less than optimal music sorting decisions. Super Smash Bros. Ultimate is, ultimately, the ultimate Super Smash Bros.

These games were also cool, I just had less to say about them:

Bloodstained: Curse of the Moon (Nintendo Switch, 2018): Remember Castlevania 3? Inti Creates sure did! This prequel to the still unreleased Koji Igarashi Kickstarter project Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night is an unabashed love letter to Castlevania 3, and it’s pretty good. Mom Hid My Game! (Nintendo Switch, 2017): A charming little game in the style of those old escape the room Flash games. It even looks like one (in the literal sense, not the pejorative). It’s not tough or replayable really, but it is $5 and consistently absurd and surprising. Yakuza 6: The Song of Life (PlayStation 4, 2018): Yakuza 6 is kind of a weird juxtaposition. It’s the final chapter of Kazuma Kiryu’s story, but also the first game to use the Yakuza team’s new Dragon Engine. The story end of things is a good, solid sendoff for a bunch of characters I’m going to miss very dearly, but the gameplay feels very formative and limited in a way that sort of reminds me of Yakuza 1. I had a good time with it overall, but I hope they manage to dial it in like they did with the previous decade of Yakuza games and make something truly excellent again. Looking at you, Judge Eyes. Etrian Odyssey V: Beyond the Myth (Nintendo 3DS, 2017): Etrian Odyssey V is a return to basics for the series, ditching things like overworlds and sub-dungeons and just pitting your party against one big labyrinth. Honestly, gotta say, I miss the stuff they left behind! The core of Etrian Odyssey is still super strong so I had fun regardless, but the overall simplicity of the game and the changes to how classes work had me missing EOIV more often than not. Soundtrack’s great though, as expected. Sonic Mania Plus (Nintendo Switch, 2018): To be completely honest, most of the stuff they added to Sonic Mania in Plus really isn’t that fantastic. Mighty’s spike and projectile immunity is fun, but Ray’s flying is more interesting than effective. Encore mode is largely disappointing, with most of it feeling identical to the base game outside of its all-new (and too hard for their own good) special stages. HOWEVER, Sonic Mania Plus was an exceptional excuse to play through Sonic Mania another six or so times. Congratulations to Sonic Mania for being game of the year for two years in a row. WarioWare Gold (Nintendo 3DS, 2018): A good compilation game, executed much better than in the team’s previous Rhythm Heaven Megamix, but lacking in reasons to come back after you’ve played all the games. There’s the usual toy room stuff WarioWare has had since Touched!, but it’s bogged down by reliance on a currency system and the fact that sooooo many things you unlock are just parts that feed into a larger, not that interesting thing. The part where you play WarioWare is great though, and the new visuals make it all feel fresh even though it’s mostly older games. Mario Tennis Aces (Nintendo Switch, 2018): I had a brief, passionate love affair with Mario Tennis Aces. The core gameplay is rad as hell and more like a fighting game than a tennis game, with multiple different special shots and a focus on meter management. I played like 40+ hours of it between the full game and the demo and never even touched the single player (which makes it technically not count for this list, but, shut up). I got 2nd place at its very first tournament at CEO 2018. Then I... stopped playing. It had some weird balance issues, sure, but I think it was more a victim of circumstance rather than anything else. I moved basically right after CEO and just never went back to it. It’s still incredible though. I hope this game’s systems are the standard for Mario Tennis games going forward.

We made it! Bottom of the list! It was a shorter trip this time, but I’m still proud of you for making it here all the same. Thank you for reading the words I typed about video games. I’m looking to get this web page back into gear in 2019, so you can probably expect part 2 of The Best Babies sometime in January. Hopefully I’ll actually play some video games too so I can bring back Breviews on the first of February. Until then!

#article #year wrapup

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cleverbroadwayurl · 7 years ago

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In My Blood (Jeremy Heere x Reader Pt 13)

Song: In My Blood by Shawn Mendes

Word Count: 3011

Need to Catch Up? PART 1 PART 2 PART 3 PART 4 PART 5 PART 6 PART 7 PART 8 PART 9 PART 10 PART 11 PART 12

Want More? PART 14 PART 15 PART 16 PART 17 PART 18 PART 19

A/N: OH MY GOD I DID IT I’M POSTING ON TIME!!!! Yay!!! Also I highkey think the song captures the aesthetic and feeling very well so don’t judge me sometimes I listen to the radio. I’m so excited to have people read this part, and I tried my best to stay factual. I think 2 weeks is a perfect time period for me, so I think I’ll stick with that for now! Special thanks to @catatonic-kuragin for helping me get this part on its feet because oh my god I was kinda struggling before. BUT IT’S HERE NOW!! HOORAY!

Trigger Warnings: Mentions of an abusive boyfriend, mentions of eating disorders, angry Jeremy, mentions of sexual assault IF I MISSED ANYTHING PLEASE LET ME KNOW ASAP

Taglist: @retrogarden @be-more-heidi-hansen @scarsonthecuffsofyourjeans @catatonic-kuragin @bluhimaweirdo

“I’ll see you later Jeremy,” you smiled before grabbing your stuff and walking out of the Heere household, his sweater still on your shoulders. Jeremy smiled to himself as he pulled out his phone to text Michael. A single text was sent before he began to clear the evidence that you’d even been there at all.

Jeremy wasn’t sure how he and Michael had ended up at Red Robin. The two sat near the door on one side of the small barrier that separated two rows of booths, and Jeremy really only noticed that he’d ended up sitting in this one booth after the waitress left to go and put in their food orders. He dismissed any reasoning his brain could come up with on how exactly ended up there.

It had been about two weeks since Jeremy had last heard from you. He and Michael had caught up since then, the slushie enthusiast now almost completely up to date on your situation. Jeremy’s finger traced the edge of his water glass, recalling exactly how that conversation went and the ones that followed about you. Because while the initial catching up was very long, other mentions after that were mere seconds, Michael just asking if Jeremy had heard from you at all. Lots of times, these conversations happened at the Mell residence, which really wasn’t planned at first.

It started with Michael talking to his best friend in this open while Mrs. and Mrs. Mell were out grocery shopping. They had sat at the kitchen table, Jeremy playing with the edge of the table as he told his best friend what he could without violating your trust. He explained to Michael what had happened at his house: you’d spent the night, made breakfast together, among other things. Just as Jeremy was getting into details about why you’d shown up at such short notice, the Mell mothers came home. They set down the paper bags on the counter and kissed Michael on his head before asking if the two boys could help them put the groceries away.

“Actually,” Michael had said, “we were just about to talk about something upstairs.” One of Michael’s moms gave him a small look of disapproving before his best friend could even start rattling off information so that they could talk alone. But Jeremy knew that Michael could not keep a secret from his moms. Jeremy had spoken instead.

“We were just talking about this person we know. We’re kinda brainstorming on the best ways to support them, and since it’s not really our situation to tell. I wouldn’t want to betray them or anything.”

The two moms shared a look before turning their focus back to the boys. “Maybe we can help,” one of them spoke up as the two teenagers began to get up and help. The four stood at the island, one by one turning away to finish the task at hand.

“They’re just kinda in a bad situation,” Jeremy had said, putting away the bread before walking back to the island.

The rest of the conversation was a blur, except for one particular moment. Jeremy could remember the look on one of Michael’s mom’s face, almost fear stricken as he had uttered “Consent is necessary, for them it’s treated like a luxury.” He could remember the rigidity in her actions, the sudden freeze; it was something he’d seen on you. And then she had spoken up.

“Jeremy, Michael, please let your friend know that they’re always welcome here. Our couch is always open. You just say the word or text either of us. We’re here to help.”

“That’s what I told Jeremy, Mom. I thought you’d be okay with it.”

“Absolutely, Micha. I’m happy to be a safe haven for people who need help.”

With that, the group had gone back to putting groceries away, but Jeremy couldn’t get that look out of his head. She knew. Michael’s mom knew about your situation, even if Jeremy didn’t even explicitly say it. So the boys now had small conversations about you with Michael’s moms. They asked about you in passing, not even knowing your name. While it was scary to tell them initially, Jeremy was relieved that he had more people on his side—on your side.

His eyes flicked up from the Red Robin table and back to his best friend, who was currently looking something up on his phone. Fuck, was he grateful for Michael and the rest of the Mells. Jeremy couldn’t even imagine what this situation would be like if he didn’t have friends supporting him and his every attempt at keeping you safe and happy.

“So,” the boy that sat across the table started, “I’m thinking we bring Mario Kart, Breath of the Wild, Splatoon, and of course the debut game to college with us. What do you think?”

“Yeah dude. Sounds good.”

They sat in silence for a little bit longer, Jeremy pushing the home button on his phone to check and see what notifications he got. A snapchat from Brooke, another from Chloe, and some kind of notification from Spotify, telling him that Michael had created a new playlist a few hours ago. He then observed the area around him, noticing the lack of people in the restaurant. Usually, the place was pretty packed on any given summer night, especially with some broke going to college students needing a place to go to give their friends a good send off into the world. He took a sip of his water, glancing around at the things going on around him, smiling slightly at the hostess talking, or maybe even flirting, with one of the other waiters.

“Anyways,” Michael continued after a second, and pulling Jeremy’s attention away. “We gotta do something with the entire SQUIP Squad before Jake leaves, since he’s going before the rest of us. I was thinking we should make a group chat about it.”

As soon as Michael said that, the girls all sent individual snapchats to both of the boys. Jeremy had to chuckle at his best friend’s idea. “That’s like 10 people, Michael. I don’t think that’s a good idea. It’s crazy enough with all of the snapchat streaks.”

“Yeah, but think of the memes.”

“Okay, you’ve got a point,” Jeremy laughed. Michael returned the gesture before he continued to talk about what he was thinking about doing for the Dillinger boy.

But the lanky boy couldn’t concentrate on his best friends or the plans he had. Jeremy liked his friends, he really did, and he did want them to have a good send off, but he couldn’t focus on that at the moment. Could anyone really blame him, though? How could he focus when you stood in the entry way, your boyfriend’s arm wrapped tightly around you, a glare appearing as you broke away to talk the hostess. You nodded before reunited with your asshole of a boyfriend.

He took note of everything as you stood, noticing the changes that had been made since the last time he’d seen you. You returned to something Jeremy had seen before, but this time more subtle. Your arms didn’t cross in front of you, but your shoulders did collapse as your face remained paler than usual. He noticed your eyes fixating on a certain spot on the wall as you inhaled sharply before exhaling slowly. Your eyes fluttered closed, trying to calm yourself down. Jeremy could practically feel you shaking against his skin, even though you stood many feet away. It was as if something had already happened; your boyfriend had already frightened you that night. His eyes lingered as you followed the hostess around the barrier, your boyfriend trailing behind, the same grimace remaining on his face. You two were placed at the end of the row of booths, as in, just out of earshot of Jeremy.

The protective boy tensed involuntarily. Fuck, this was bad. His breath sharpened, yeah, something had definitely happened before you two had even gotten to the restaurant itself. His fingers dug into his jeans. Then it stopped. If it was apparent that Jeremy was mad, that was it. Yours and his cover would be blown. Maybe it was for the best that he couldn’t hear the conversation you were about to have.

“Hi, I’m Jeremy and I have the biggest fucking crush on (Y/N) (Y/L/N),” Michael teased quietly, nudging his friend with his foot underneath the table.

“Shut up, dude! He could hear!” There was a new explosion of pink on Jeremy’s face. He pulled down his sweatshirt’s sleeve before resting his elbow of the table. The blushy boy looked down at the table and rested his cheek against his hand.

“Just teasing, Jer.” Michael noted, smirking at his best friend. “They can’t hear us anyways.”

“Yeah,” the other boy muttered as finger messed with the booth’s faux leather seats. The waitress returned and put the food in front of both boys, her demeanor working in opposition with Jeremy’s. She smiled a very practiced smile before saying ‘enjoy’ and practically bouncing away.

Jeremy couldn’t resist watching her glide over to your table. Okay, it was the same waitress, which means that you’d be here longer than the two teenage boys. But Jeremy didn’t know if he wanted to leave before you. He was practically your support system and Michael worked as backup. If something happened, or at the very least, if you took a small glance around as you left or walked to the bathroom, you’d see two vessels of support sitting and offering what they could give to you. Plus, if things got out of hand, the two could easily keep you safe and give you boyfriend hell, seeing as there was two of them and one of him.

The lanky boy hesitated eating, staring at his best friend.

“You good, Jer?” he asked, fry in hand.

“Yeah, I just—the fries might be too hot.”

“Liar,” Michael inquired. “You’re worried.”

“What? Well, I mean—”

“They’re in public, it’s fine,” he promised, waving the same fry around before eating it.

There was a silence that surrounded them, but it was broken by your own voice ringing out. Jeremy couldn’t make out what you were saying, but he could tell that it wasn’t your usual tone of voice. Oh no, this was you being overly nice, trying your hardest to be overly polite when the person around you didn’t deserve it. Michael stiffened just seconds later.

“You know what, Jer?”

“Yeah?”

“I think you’re right, the fries are very hot. Let’s take our time eating.” His face contorted into a miserable look that Jeremy hadn’t seen since the SQUIP incident. There was a beat of quiet before Michael lowered his voice. “If I left after hearing what I just heard (Y/N) say, my moms would kill me for not staying and making sure that they’re safe.”

Jeremy paled. What could you have said? It had to be something intense for his best friend to do a complete 180 about his decision. And in an instant, the lanky boy didn’t need to know what you’d said exactly. There was a look in Michael’s eyes that was more than words could ever explain. He could practically hear exactly what you’d said through Michael in this moment alone. And it was decided. The two would stay to make sure that you were at the very least safe while you were here.

Another second passed, and silence fell again. The two assumed that things were at the very least okay on the other side of the barrier. They began to eat again, quieter than before.

“Anyways, should we bring the bean bags for the dorm?” Michael asked quieter than before.

“Will they fit?” Jeremy asked his best friend before taking another sip of water.

“You’ve got a point.”

The waitress returned with a singular plate of food in her hand. A quick check of the two teenagers and she was off, walking directly to your table and putting it down in front of one of you. It must’ve been your boyfriend. Jeremy shuddered at that. He could remember in the diner when his eyes had glazed over the words “eating disorder”. Was it suddenly back and, fuck, was that what you were fighting about before? Jeremy hoped, no Jeremy begged that it wasn’t that; anything but that.

“I think I know what you’re thinking.” Michael noted before eating another fry. “But they said they’d already eaten with their family and just wanted ice cream when they ordered.”

“You actually heard that?”

“Yeah. You know, when they use their customer service voice, they get very loud.”

Damn it. Nothing had gotten better with you. Jeremy knew that, of course he did, but he secretly hoped that at the very least things had gotten even just slightly better. It had only been two weeks, but he knew that if you were reverting to your old habits, things could’ve only gotten worse. When he had been reading about abusive relationships, Jeremy learned that it was a cycle, not really a constant. He hoped that this was an upswing, but apparently that was just wishful thinking.

The waitress came back once more to clear plates before asking about desert. “I think we’re good,” Michael said as Jeremy almost kicked his best friend. She nodded before walking back to your table.

“What the fuck? We’re staying late, remember?”

“We are, but they’re leaving soon. We can just take forever to pay and give a really good tip.”

Jeremy was quiet for a second. “Okay,” he said finally.

“I gotta be honest, Jer.” The lanky boy met eyes with his best friend. “He has been talking about himself the entire time we’ve been eating.”

While he was glad that Michael was honest with him, the comment made Jeremy unsettled. Relationships are supposed to be equal, where each of you bring each other up, not completely snuff the other person. They were supposed to be happy. They were supposed to be better for you. They were supposed to be consensual, easy, and fun, with the dark parts only there some of the time. Jeremy wished he could just walk over there and drop kick your boyfriend into the Atlantic before sitting down across from you, smiling warmly before he would take you back to Michael’s place (he was sure Mrs. and Mrs. Mell would love to meet you) where you two would crash after hours of playing video games. But there was no way that Jeremy would be able to do that, and even attempting it could end worse than he could ever imagine.

By the time Jeremy had finished his train of thought, the two of you stood up and you boyfriend almost immediately made eye contact with Jeremy. The boy quickly looked away, the table all of the sudden becoming very interesting. Michael chose to make direct eye contact with your boyfriend, almost seeming to activate protective mode. From across the table, he could feel his best friend tense without even needing to look up. Jeremy was glad that his best friend was so wordlessly by his side, that he was fully capable of keeping a cool head but definitely giving off intimidating vibes. And he knew that if things did go south, Michael would absolutely help him get you to safety.

“Hey! I didn’t see you guys when we walked in!” your boyfriend spoke, his hand still placed firmly on your hip as discomfort pooled into you from that point of contact.

“Yeah! We didn’t see you either!” Michael smiled back, his mood seemingly bright, but Jeremy could sense that underneath that brightness, an almost violent demeanor slept soundly, just waiting to be awakened.

Your boyfriend spared a glance at a very nervous Jeremy before turning back to Michael. “Have you tried Doomfist yet in Overwatch?”

“Actually no! I don’t usually play the new updates as soon as they happen, I kinda just wait until they fix the glitches and make the statistics fair, you know?”

“I respect that, but you should definitely play as him while he’s OP. It’s so intense, you’re guaranteed to win.”

As the two kept talking, Jeremy snuck a glance at you. Your eyelids fluttered for a second before you locked eyes with the lanky boy. For a second, the curse was lifted as you looked into the window of happiness. You lit up, a small smile painting itself onto your face. Jeremy blushed and you mirrored, pink flowering throughout your face and neck. You looked away fast as a way to prevent your boyfriend from getting suspicious. The blush disappeared and you tangled yourself up with unhappiness once again. You nodded at something Jeremy didn’t quite hear from you boyfriend, but Michael spoke up. The sweet boy didn’t hear what his best friend said, as your eyes traced their way back to Jeremy himself. It wasn’t a full on look, as both of you knew that an action that was so pronounced would be dangerous. That didn’t mean that Jeremy didn’t catch the shining in your eyes as you gazed at him. His heart did cartwheels. Suppressing a smile, Jeremy cleared his throat. All attention was towards him for a millisecond and your eyes left his. The boy opened his mouth to ask what your plans were for the rest of the night, but your boyfriend spoke for him.

“We should get going, huh, babe? It was good seeing you guys!” he said while smiling at Michael and Jeremy noticed that it was only directed at Michael. Your boyfriend’s stare lingered on him and Jeremy could feel himself getting angrier and angrier. His fists clenched as your boyfriend’s jaw did the same. Your boyfriend turned around and gripped your hip tighter before leaving out the door, a guarded smile on his face. Jeez, your boyfriend practically hung off of you, no wonder you’d been isolated so badly.

It was in that moment that Jeremy decided that getting angry and giving your boyfriend an ass kicking shouldn’t be on the agenda, but your well being should be. He whipped out his phone and quickly found your contact. Smiling to himself as Michael watched, a single text was sent to you:

Jeremy: Hope you have a great night! Let me know if you need anything 😊

#jeremy heere x reader #jeremy heere imagine #bmc x reader #bmc imagine #be more chill imagine #be more chill x reader

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mysmashplaythroughs · 3 years ago

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What’s the rush?

I always start these things with ‘it’s been a while’ but in this case actually if you follow my blog you might have noticed I’ve done a fair few more posts than normal (which I guess arguably is something like two a year at this point so anything would be more than usual) Well, the main reason is I decided recently I wanted to do a couple of posts and I looked at who I had up next to do. I realised looking at my list I was getting close to the end of the Melee roster and a lot of them weren’t characters I was going to do a full game for. Due to this I tried to make it a goal to get the Melee characters finished by the end of the year. That didn’t work out as you could probably tell (no I’ve not secretly got Roy and Mr. Game & Watch ready to be posted tomorrow) but I am pleased I’ve gotten so many more posts done than normal. I hope if anyone does actively follow this blog (I understand if not given how often I neglect it) that it’ll be a nice surprise perhaps. With that said hopefully these aren’t too ‘rushed’, although that implies previous ones had heavy quality control or something.

For my actual list’s progress, well things haven’t been going too hot. Last time I mentioned playing through FF5 and Tales of Symphonia. Well, I got very into FF5 and finished it, however I was finding it hard to get the motivation to carry on with Tales of Symphonia. This isn’t a knock against that game, it’s just simply sometimes I have a block when playing certain games, the same thing happened with Dragon Quest 6 where I lost motivation and took a big break. When I came back to that however I really got into it and I actually found it a really enjoyable game overall. Tales of Symphonia has another aspect to it now however, the announcement of a port to the Switch. Honestly, with that announcement I decided it would probably be best to wait on the game until I can get it on Switch, especially as I can take screenshots with it then. Due to this I’ve skipped ahead to the next game on my list, or at least I intended to, however the other big issue with my progress with my list is that simply too many fairly big games have come out that I’ve wanted to play that have caused a delay to me getting to the next game. First was Live A Live, then Lego Star Wars the Skywalker Saga, then Xenoblade Chronicles 3, then Splatoon 3 and now Pokemon. Usually before now I’ve somewhat justified these things because often they have some aspect from my list, especially when spirits were still being added. This time however a lot of these games don’t really provide something specifically new that I could find to justify them having a place on the list, with only Splatoon 3 doing so (how I won’t say as it’s a spoiler for the endgame of single player.) There is one thing I’ve done which will help me progress with my list however, my PC is not capable of really running a fair few of the games I have on my list and can only access through Steam, so for the first time since, probably the Sega Megadrive I bought myself a non-Nintendo console and now own a Steam Deck. I haven’t admittedly played any of the games yet (I’m currently trying to sort out what I need to play it on my TV) however I have installed the majority of the games I planned to play, so for example Tekken 7 and Final Fantasy 7 Remake.

Finally then, the last point I guess I should go over, although I don’t want to in detail, 2022 has been a really miserable year for me. I will say it’s not due to anything really ‘serious’ (well, I did lose my job but I have got a new job now at any rate, still didn’t make it less of a big deal completely changing what I’d just gotten used to) and it’s personal as opposed to world events (granted one of those world events resulted in me ending up having to self isolate on the first two weeks of my main holiday off work for the year so that was definitely not fun, granted I was pretty much asymptomatic.) it’s more been a lot of different things that have caused me issues that have built up over the year. This in part has led me to not make much progress with my list etc and there was one thing I don’t want to detail that actively caused issues, although I’ve gotten very lucky and been able to salvage most of it at least. I’m also a big worrier and there’s been various things I’ve felt are hanging over me a fair bit this year, one of which that really doesn’t help is what’s coming up for the 3DS and Wii U eShops next year which has resulted in me scrambling to make sure I get everything I want/need before that happens. A lot of the general discourse around games this year has been a somewhat miserable pit I feel even more than normal (then again, it could be that I’ve not been actively avoiding such discourse like I have previous years, I’m starting to think perhaps I should think a bit more about that for my own mental health in 2023.) so yeah, that on top of other things hasn’t left me feeling my best this year.

With all that negativity out of the way, here’s hoping for a good 2023, there’s already stuff on the horizon I’m excited for like the Mario Movie (really couldn’t care less about the Chris Pratt stuff at this point, I wouldn’t have chosen him but I think people are going overboard about what’s at worst to me a bland performance, not that that’s therefore ‘acceptable’ but I’m just saying there’s people they could have gone with who’d have actually made me hate the movie rather than just not think he sounds particularly good) and of course Zelda Tears of the Kingdom (although, I really really hope we see some actual information beyond another cryptic shot again personally, granted I’d imagine lots of people think we shouldn’t but we know less about this game now than we knew about Breath of the Wild in the period where all they’d shown off was the Great Plateau. I’ve got no knowledge on the subject but it doesn’t seem that good for marketing to me.) For my Smash Playthroughs I’ve got a nice mix of games I’m looking forward to getting to in 2023. Personally I think there’s a very real possibility I could finish every game on my list (besides unobtainable ones) up to the games that I chose to represent various Spirits and Trophies which would be a huge milestone. With that said, there’s a couple of pretty big games in there so it really depends how much time I dedicate to the list next year as well as what else might come out etc. With that said, if you read this nonsense then I’ll finish by saying I hope 2022 went ok for you and here’s hoping to a good 2023!

#off-topic #My Smash Playthrough #My Smash Playthroughs

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paragon-yoshi · 7 years ago

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Improvement-Ideas for Splatoon 2 (Opinion Alert!!!)

This game is amazing, just like the first. And it definitely deserves all the praise and love it gets. However, I still believe this game has plenty of problems, that could be improved on. Because as fun as it can be, it can just as well be frustrating and morale crushing... Depending on what people you end up playing with and against... So first up, here is my list of problems I have with the game.

Problems with Regular Mode (Turf War)

Since Turf Wars is described as a casual mode, that anyone can pick up and play, it should also be the easiest to get into. And in a way it is, with an objective that is very easy to grasp. Just paint as much as you can and you win... But unfortunately, it's not as simple as that...

- Turf Wars IMO is the hardest mode of them all! That may sound surprising, but in my experience, I had by far the hardest time with Turf Wars. While I had a much easier and fairer time with Ranked. Why is that? Well the biggest reason is that Ranked Modes focus on one of two areas on the map (Clam Blitz kinda being an exception, with clams being scattered everywhere). But Turf Wars in universal: The entire map is the objective, rather than a few select parts of it. You have to stay vigilant at all times, since the opposition can be literally anywhere. With Ranked you can make a pretty good guess where the opposition is headed. But not in Turf Wars... Secondly, the tides can turn at the last minute, even if your team was ahead the entire time. (And most of the time, that's exactly what happens, at least in my experience) And thirdly, kills are effective. Perhaps even too effective. Giving players with superior skills an undeniable edge over beginners and other not quite as skilled players... And that's why a lot of people go for kills and try to completely lock the other team down. Which is incredibly infuriating when you're at the receiving end of it. And the maps don't really offer much in terms of sneaking around. Which sucks... So if you're up against godlike players and they completely lock you down, you might as well throw the game... It's not fun, believe me... - Matchmaking is random What Nintendo (and a whole lot of other people) sees as a good thing, ends up being a dealbreaker for me and many other people... And it's easily my biggest gripe with this mode. What players you're matched with and against, is all just a roll of the dice. Aka completely luck-based. And as such, winning or even your team just doing well enough, become mostly luck-based as well. And if you're having real bad luck (like yours truly), you lose most of the time and question your life choices... Either because the matchmaking decided to match you with teammates that are far less skilled than you or you are straight thrown into arctic water, by matching you against players that are so far above your skill level, that you stand no chance against... Sometimes even the two combined... It's really aggravating, when the dice roll results are so unbalanced. - Turf Wars is a little too winning-oriented I still remember the days of early Splatoon 1, where you simply had to get as many Turf Points as possible, to do well. Losing didn't matter, since winning only net you 300 extra points back then. The bulk of the points (and thus your money and EXP) came from your Turf Score. And I believe this is how Turf Wars worked best and it truly was a casual mode, where losing really didn't matter all that much. Unfortunately, with the update that added the New Level Up System post level 20 and now with the adoption of the same system in Splatoon 2, that is a thing of the past. You only need to reach 500 Turf Points to get the most points possible from the Turf Score. And you get the most EXP points for winning. And I believe that is why Turf Wars became so frustrating to play. After that update, you could see nothing but E-Liters in Splatoon 1 Turf Wars. And since E-liters were completely broken in that game, Turf Wars became impossible to play and enjoy, if you used any other weapon than that. And even in Splatoon 2, people became really aggressive and focus mostly on kills and base invading. Since that wins the game. And I am pretty sure, if Nintendo wouldn't have changed the Level Up System like that and stuck with the original all the way, people wouldn't be so tryhard in that mode.

Problems with Splatfest

- Toxicity I made a whole Tumblr-Post about it once. Link: https://paragon-yoshi.tumblr.com/post/175961272304/toxicity-in-splatfest-revised But to summarize: I believe Marina and Pearl act way too toxic during Splatfests (at least in the localization, since in the original japanese version they apparently don't act nearly as obnoxious). And it mirrors the toxicity coming from the players, as far as I have seen. Not to mention it makes the Splatfest a much more serious deal, than it needs to be... - Same problems as normal Turf Wars All the same problems from normal Turf Wars can be found here. You may think matchmaking would be the only exception, with the "Splatfest Power" system. Though even with it, it seemed just as random, which is a shame... Because the concept of Splatfest Power definitely goes into the right direction.

Problems with Salmon Run

- Not available at all times.< Okay, this is something nearly everyone complains about. So enough said here... - Being unable to use your normal clothes I HATE the working attire that Salmon Run forces on you. It's UGLY! I'd much rather use my preferred clothes from normal PvP.

Other Problems

- The game doesn't let you play with more or less than 8 players in a match Looking at other online shooters, pretty much all of them let you play with different amounts of players, rather than forcing a set number on you. (Let alone being able to enter and exit mid-game) I get that Nintendo wants to be original and likes to do things their own way. But in this case, I really wish they would've done it the same way other online shooters did. I believe we wouldn't be stuck in "Waiting Room Hell" nearly as much, if the game was more flexible with the number of people that can play at a time... - Abilities being locked to Clothes Clothes should be cosmetics first, period! And I don't believe it was a good idea to lock Abilities behind clothes. And it very often creates a dilemma to me. Since the clothes I really like, often have abilities I have no use for. While clothes with good abilities for me, often look ugly AF. So yeah, enough said here...

How Splatoon 2 could be improved

Let's tackle the small fry first...

Improving Cosmetics and Abilities

- Separate Clothing and Abilities I'd make Clothing completely cosmetic, while Abilities have their own slot-system. It could work the very same way as they work now, just without the clothes. And instead of buying clothes for abilities, you would buy... Let's say, Badges or something like that.

- Add more Clothing categories Like this: - Head (Hats, Caps, Headbands, Bandanas...) - Face (Glasses, Masks, Facepaint...) - Body (Shirts, Coats, Sweaters, Jackets...) - Wrists (Bracelets, Watches, Sweatbands...) - Hands (Gloves) - Legs (Pants, Dresses, Skirts...) - Feet (Shoes, Boots, Sandals...) - Accessories (Necklaces, Rings, Vests, Wigs...) Obviously that would mean, for example, Gloves are seperate from Body Gear now. As well as allowing you to wear Hats and Glasses at the same time. - Adding new customization options for your Inkling/Octoling Adding the following options would really perfect the character creation in my eyes: - Face (not just the eyes) - Voice - Height - Body Type (Skinny, Fat, Muscular, etc.) So people would be able to re-create their Inksona's much more accurately in-game... :3

Improving Salmon Run

- Unlockables: Normal PvP Clothes for Salmon Run and Salmon Run Work Clothes for PvP Unlock the Work Clothes as equippable cosmetics for other modes. And at the same time, from the moment you unlock them, you will always play Salmon Run with the clothes you have equipped. If you want your Work Clothes back, simply equip them to play the old-fashioned way. Both unlock after you reach a certain Rank in Salmon Run! - Make Salmon Run playable online, even when main shifts are closed. The logic behind this is: When Grizzco is closed, Inklings and Octolings can still work on their own and sell the Eggs they collect. This'd be a great way to make Salmon Run playable at all times, even when Grizzco is not available. However, it'd play a little differently... - You'd be able to freely pick your weapon. And it wouldn't change in-between waves. - Difficulty is still dependant on your rank. But it won't change. If you win, it won't increase. If you lose, it won't go down. - Players vote for stages and the game then randomly picks the stage from the voted options (Like Mario Kart 8 online picks tracks) - You only get cash at the end. Nothing else! - Since Mr. Grizz isn't around when you work on your own, there'll be no one to order you around or give you advice! So basicly, when Grizzco is open (which right now is the only time you can play Salmon run) it'd play as usual. But when Grizzco is closed, the above mentioned changes are in effect, until they open again.

Improving PvP Modes

- Make Ranked Mode available from the start Aka, no longer having to unlock Ranked by reaching level 10. You can jump straight into competitive, if you want. This actually goes hand in hand with the more drastic changes I suggest, further down. - Ability to play with more or less than 8 players AT THE VERY LEAST FOR REGULAR MATCHES! Like I said, being able to play with different amounts of players would greatly cut the time we spend waiting for a lobby to fill up. It works well for all other online games of this kind. So why shouldn't it in Splatoon as well? And the ability to enter a match mid-battle, could easily fix uneven teams in a match. Plus, if teams are uneven, I'd like to have some "handicap effect" in place, giving the outnumbered team a boost in some way, until it's even again. The greater the difference in numbers between teams, the higher the boost. - Allow players to create "Custom Lobbies" with their own rules Essentially this would revise the current "Private Battle", give it more options to customize your game, as well as the choice to either make it public or friends only. Obviously you could join any open lobby from a list of available lobbies, if you want to join a custom game, rather than create one. The host of the lobby would set the rules. Like choosing maps and Game Mode. In this regard it'd work exactly like Private Battle does now. But it'd offer far more options for the host to customize their game: - Time Limit (so you can play Turf Wars for longer or less than 3 minutes of you want. Same with Ranked and their 5 minutes) - Maximum Number of Players - Respawn Time - Ink Capacity - Damage/Life - Abilities On/Off - Items On/Off etc. This would allow for some much needed diversity, allowing you to play the familiar modes in very different ways... Lastly, I'd still allow EXP and Money to be obtained from this (at least if it's a public lobby). One possible concern some of you might have, is that if the Time Limit is ridiculously high (like 30 minutes for example), you'd have to sit through the whole thing. Well no, you wouldn't. Since other online games of this nature allow you to enter and exit mid-game. So that very same option would allow you to leave at any time. Of course, the downside is that you won't receive any EXP or Money, if you don't play the match until the end. And now we're getting to the changes for Regular Mode (and Splatfests) As far as I can see, there are two ways to improve it. One very simple way and one drastic way, that changes Regular Mode in some significant ways... The simple way is: - Make "Splatfest Power" a feature for normal Turf Wars This would be the easiest way to fix the issue of unbalanced match-up's in Turf Wars. Since, if it works as intended, there'd at least be some sort of balance between players and their skills. It wouldn't be perfect, but IMO it's better than nothing. But like I said, there is another, more drastic way to go about it. And I am sure some people will lose their mind and want to see me on a chopping block for coming up with these ideas. (If there's anything I learned, it's that people don't like big changes. Especially if it's a game changer!) I'll be blunt: I believe Splatoon would be better, and appeal to much more people, if it were half Party-Game and half Competitive Game! The key to this lies in the "Regular/Ranked Split" Make "Regular" the "Party Side" of Splatoon, for casual players who want to have good old fun. While "Ranked" would be the fully "Competitive Side" of Splatoon, where you need to have superior skills to come out on top. While the, above mentioned, "Custom Lobby" feature would allow players to customize their games, and give their matches the best of both worlds maybe. Or turn their games into something different... If you wonder why I would do it like this... Well, have a look at this informative reddit post, that talks about Party Games and Competitive Games. Link: https://www.reddit.com/r/smashbros/comments/281eja/why_smash_is_a_party_game_and_what_the_melee/ It's about Smash Bros (and quite a lengthy read), but a lot of the points there should apply to any game! And you might understand why I'd vouch for the following changes... - Add items to Regular! Let me stress this one more time: REGULAR MODE ONLY! ITEMS WOULD NOT BE IN ANY RANKED MODES!!! This system isn't even new, since the Battle Dojo from the first game, actually had items! Items from Single Player and Octo Expansion (adjusted for Multiplayer) would appear here. And they would appear all over the stage. It'd have items such as "Battle Armor", along with the ability to stack armors for more durability... "Ink Tanks" that refill your ink, as well as temporarily increase your Ink Capacity... "Canned Subs" to swap out your Sub Weapons, until you get splatted... "Canned Specials" giving you instant access to the depicted Special Weapon... The "Full Power Up" from the first game's Battle Dojo, increasing all of your stats for a short time... On top of that, I could imagine some specials from the previous game returning in item-form. And maybe some original items. Such as temporary upgrades like "Spread Shot", "Rebound Shots" or "Homing Shots". Items would mostly appear randomly. But when a team is at a disadvantage or player imbalances are detected, items would spawn more closely to the players/teams at a disadvantage. Again, I stress: ONLY REGULAR MODES WOULD HAVE ITEMS! Ranked on the other hand wouldn't have them. So if you loathe items and random chance in games, just play Ranked and be happy. Or make your own "Custom Lobby" and turn them off! And since I mentioned the Battle Dojo from the first game so many times... - Revise Battle Dojo from the first game and make it a new Regular mode I really believe "Balloon Battle" from the first game would make a really good new Regular mode. Just like it was in the first game, the objective would be to pop as many balloons as possible and rack up points. You lose points if you get splatted and whoever has the most points, wins! But of course, there'd be some changes: - Obviously, it'd be a team mode now. So now the points of every team member are added up for the Team Score. And the team with the higher Team Score wins. If there's a draw, there'd be overtime, until one team takes the lead. - Add balloons with multiple colors that are worth more points The normal balloons would earn you 1 point for every one you pop. However, this game would also have balloons with multiple colors, which are worth more points. Of course, the more points a balloon is worth, the less often it appears. - Balloons would spawn more frequently and in multiple areas all over the map If you are one of the few people, who ever got to play the Battle Dojo in the first game, I think you might remember how it works. There is an area marked on the map and balloons will spawn there after some time. But in this mode, the balloons would spawn much faster, instead of having to wait for like 10 to 20 seconds for them to spawn. Also, balloons would also now appear in multiple areas all over the map, instead of just one area. And also in different intervals. So it'd be much more chaotic now. Turf Wars is all alone in the Regular mode. It's time to add a new Regular mode for once, instead of giving all the new modes to Ranked only. Of course, since it would be a new Regular mode, it'd also have items. - Splatfest Ranking and Scoring The way you'd rank up and thus earn Sea Snails, I'd do a little differently. Again, I think it is too winning-oriented. Instead, while winning is one way to earn points for your title, I'd add more things that can earn you points. Like helping out a teammate, splatting enemies that fire at your teammate, assisting in a splat, Booyahing together in the first 10 seconds of a match. These things would net you more points towards your title. So ultimately it's not so much about winning during Splatfest, as it is about sticking together and working as a team. Performing teamwork actions would actually reward you more, than just winning the match. And it'd perfectly work with the team-mentality of Splatfest. An "Alternate Way" to handle this would be to ditch the Splatfest leveling altogether and instead collect "Splatfest Tokens". You earn Splatfest Tokens after every match, depending on how much turf you inked, whether or not your team won and by performing various teamwork actions during the game, like the aforementioned examples. Again, you would get the most rewards out of working well as a team and not for winning. You could spend Splatfest Tokens at a vending machine for Sea Snails, Ability Chunks, unique gear or Food/Drink Tickets (which you could freely pick even). You know funfair's in real life, where you can win tokens and exchange them for various rewards? Yep, that was my main inspiration for this alternate idea for Splatfests. And it's very fitting in my eyes. ;) And that's it! That's all the ideas I have that could really make Splatoon 2 better. Or maybe even a possible sequel. If you want a polite discussion, I'm all for it. But I won't be talking with people that obviously want to troll, completely trash me for my ideas or performing any inconsiderate, disrespectful or hostile action against me. That's all. See you.

#Splatoon #splatoon 2 #ideas #improvements #concepts #turf wars #battle dojo #balloon battle #party game #competitive game #regular #ranked

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theinvisiblespoon · 7 years ago

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WHAT HAPPENED?!!1!?

If you’d like to see the full event: https://discord.gg/XwWVKWb Everything is open, but you can only talk in the voice and general chat.

Over the weekend (starting about Friday) I made a discord server. This was my first one. I had only made my (first) account a couple of days previous– but I had an idea.

The server was called “Everything is Fine”. If you’ve been following me for a while, you know this is a phrase you should be highly suspicious of.

While I was setting up, I introduced two new characters: Adam Nesling and Ector Elm. I chose their last names for a very specific reason.

Then, the big day came!!! You all were invited. About 20 people came. (AHHHH????) Every guest was given a nickname. The people who participated are as follows:

The Traveler @splatoon-jim wasn’t there, but she helped me figure out how to Discord and for that many thanks

The Photographer: @pain-in-my-aesthetic (Edit: I’M SORRY I HAD YOU HERE I DON’T KNOW WHAT HAPPENED)

The Librarian The Singer The Stupid Siren @mltcp

The Veteran @ironwoman359

The Enchanter @flower-non

The Musician @littleteenblog

The Warrior @readeatfightlove13

The Adventurer @the-editor-is-bored

The Detective @princessbelix

The Exorcist @the-real-bubblegum-bitch

The Insane @sam-moss

The Healer @nikkyshows

The Magician @the-asexual-reaper

The Hunter @virgil-loves-princey

The Poet @poem-jim

The Soldier @forgottenbehindtheinternet

and of course…

The Helpless @theinvisiblespoon

The Host played by @theinvisiblespoon (but technically a separate entity.)

For almost the entire time, everyone playing was in voice chat. I’ll try to relay what I remember. I’ll also star (*) my favorite moments.

*Warrior, Spy, and Host are the first ones in the chat. Spy does not appreciate the Host’s bullshit.

Multiple people start to join, and everyone is conversing and bitching about the Host.

People notice that the Host is in the Beware role and the Helpless is in the Safe…¿ role. They also begin to piece together the available information. Everyone discusses code.

FINE is an acronym for F-ellow I-tzel N-esling E-lm.

*People suspect the Observer.

People are confused by their given nicknames.

Cool people that I never expected to join actually jOIN and I’m trying not to freak out because I’m playing a part.

*What I really loved about this whole thing is that it brought a bunch of people together in hating a common enemy. Everyone had a good time, and everyone was closer because of it.

*Veteran, Musician, Spy, Enchanter, Warrior, and Librarian all appreciate me ahhhhhh

The Host says that this will be a game of wits more then strength.

People vote Veteran to be group leader so nobody chokes to death. Everyone appreciated Veteran for that.

A theory arises that the Host is the Host, a character that Mark plays.

Veteran knows from experience that the Host is a dic not gracious.

People notice that the Host has full control of the environment, and are very anxious.

Voice chat begins.

*The Librarian becomes the Singer (per your requests)

The Helpless speaks!!!! “I have not been me for a long time”

The Singer sings!!! (It was beautiful)

Viz’s Tumblr heading and description changes. (It is still there.)

People notice this list from a day or so before.

*/zoom kitchen

*Anytime the Host types, everybody is like “oH GOD EVERYONE RUN”

Singer gives the Host the idea of Morse code.

…—…

The Helpless communicates for a bit through the Host (and Morse code), but the Host discovers them.

Binary: “Shut up, Detective.” (I may be paraphrasing)

At some point, the Singer becomes the Stupid Siren.

I sing Birds, and soon… We begin.

*The Spy comes back for a bit, and people are suspicious, but let it go.

The Photographer becomes a mod.

Someone: I’ll stab you with a spoon. The Host: only if the spoon is invisible. (This got multiple middle fingers)

Entrance hall: (voice chat is basically WTF VIZ)

Dining room: The Host is a creep. Nobody likes it. The Host is casually impatient.

The Host mentions that you are being led straight to your deaths.

I should mention that people have “roles” in this game. Guests (blue) Not Safe (red) Beware (orange) and Safe…¿ (black). Prior to this, the Host was orange, the Helpless was black, and everyone playing was blue.

*The Veteran speaks out of turn, and her name goes red. (Lots of screaming and panicking in the voice chat)

The Host mentions that you should move as one, or die.

The Host is impatient af

Kitchen: Everyone ransacks the kitchen.

Aleah goes back to the dining room to glare at the Host.

*Everyone in the kitchen begins to choke. (There is so much screaming and panicking lol)

Dining room: Everyone hates the Host with a burning passion.

The Host asks everyone to be quiet, but nobody is. Suddenly, no one is able to type in the chat. (So much fear in the voice chat, everyone.)

The Host is a sassy motherfucker.

Servant 1: There is a riddle! Stupid Siren is a smarty pants and checks if there are laundry machines. Number four has the key.

Servant 2: There were other people here before?!?! gasps in Spanish

*Magician tries to cheat the system, and begins to choke. She stops after she drops the Bobby pin, but half the people ran into the next room so eVERONE IS CHOKING AGAIN (the voice chat was, again, just_ screaming_.)

Storage room: People try to go into the secret trapdoor but tHEN THEY WILL BE STUCK THERE SO I DISTRACT THEM WITH THE HOST

The Host: “The only way to get out of the Not Safe role is to kill someone else.”

Theater: The Host is watching an old movie and is also a cocky asshole

*Magician wants to know if the Host can die. The Host mutes everyone (screaming) except Magician so she has the opportunity. Magician doesn’t take it, though. (Which is nice for me, cause I would probably die. Of course, it knew that.)

Enchanter becomes red. The Host can do what it wants.

Magician is annoying and begins to choke.

The Healer takes the Magician’s pain on to herself.

Hallway 2: The Host is not happy Healer did that. Healer turns red.

Everyone begins fighting amongst themselves, which the Host finds interesting.

Music: A piano tune riddle that coincidentally happens to be the bass line for the opening of WKM. (This wasn’t intentional I swear)

Library: The out of place books are an anagram for “PICK AND CHOOSE”. The meaning of this was not resolved.

*(“There is an open tab on the catalog computer.” “Is it pornhub?”)

Hallway 1: The Host “This will be interesting.” _It eyes Aleah. _Aleah is not too friendly with the upcoming characters.

The unlocked doors are bedroom F and bedroom I. (Fine is an acronym.)

*Everyone in voice chat is like “holy shit are we going to see 0229 and Itzel?!?!”

Bedroom F: 0229 attacks them. They also are in the corner.

0229 doesn’t have a sister. The Host lies.

There is a broken mirror in the bathroom. No one is choking when people are in multiple rooms. The Host is mysteriously absent.

Bedroom I: 0229 and Dr. Itzel are happy to see each other. They hug and cry. Then, they vanish.

Zedekiel I and II neutralized.

Aleah really wants to kill/maim Itzel and 0229.

Everyone is confused. The tumblr heading: “_The first were torn apart.” _

A mirror is broken in the bathroom.

Hallway 3: People are cautious. As they should be.

Bedroom N: Adam is unconscious. He wakes up and immediately aims a gun at everyone.

Everyone’s like “jESUS CHRIST Adam calm tf down”

Metatron neutralized.

Adam leaves and some people take weapons. You should’ve used those.

People figure out they don’t choke when they are in multiple rooms. _The Host lies _is mentioned for that fact.

A mirror is broken in the bathroom.

Hallway 3: People waltz into that hallway.

*Bedroom E: Ector Elm is immediately everyone’s favorite.

He has a lisp.

*Veteran’s burning hand trick does not work on him.

*Ector: “Love ya! The Librarian The Singer The Stupid Siren (everyone bursts out laughing)

They realize this entire game was a test.

On a single page– The Host Lies.

********The door slams shut and locks all of them in. The Spy stands outside the door. (Actual terrified screaming at this point– you guys almost took out my ears)

*Oh yeah, I should probably mention that the Spy was also played by me. If you didn’t figure it out already.

****The Spy’s role changes from Guest to Beware.

I (as the Spy) told everyone repeatedly in the beginning that I was a spy, you idiots.

The door stays closed for days. The group finally leaves the building, and when they do, they wake up in their beds, gasping and panting for air. It wasn’t a dream however. But they are all alive. And isn’t that what really matters?

At this point, I received many middle fingers.

*All of their names turn red. (lots of OH GOD NONONO)

Stupid Siren: “I’m not a rat.” Veteran: “We are to them.” Good point.

Photographer suggests “The Ruined Manor Gang” and everyone agrees.

*PEOPLE GOT INSPIRED BY MY TORTURE FEST WOWOWOW

Thank you so much for being a part of this! Watch your backs, gang…there’s a target on them now.

#summary #masterpost #masterlist #everything is f.i.n.e.#Not Safe #the host oc #the helpless #viz #0229 #dr. vin itzel #adam nesling #ector elm #ruined manor gang

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secretary-shizue · 8 years ago

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Salmon Run Tips from an Amateur

So I’m not an expert by ANY means, that’s for sure, but I thought I’d share some tips from an amateur that also include how not to get on peoples’ nerves. Please keep in mind that again, i’m no expert and it’s just based on my own experience and observations. If you have suggestions for more I can always add a part to it. If you disagree, let me know why so I can understand the benefit of not doing the thing and what should be done instead ^^

1. Your goal is golden eggs.

It might seem obvious, but your main goal is getting the golden eggs you harvest from bosses into the basket. Don’t hold onto your eggs for too long by getting distracted by other things - get them to the basket ASAP, if not immediately. I’ve seen my team go down so many times because people are just not transporting golden eggs, or worse my teammates have the eggs to meet the quota on their person they just haven’t transported them to the basket. This should be a top priority, along with one other thing....

2. Your Team Is Important

If I had a nickel for every time my team lost because someone tried to be a lone hero instead of saving us three, I’d have enough to buy another copy of Splatoon 2. I mean, you could be the dude who literally ran by the three of us and jumped off the edge of the boat and into the water, essentially committing virtual suicide, but how about you...don’t. Aside from getting the golden eggs to the basket, making sure you have a full team at all times is super important. You should be saving your teammates as soon as you can, and I say as soon as you can because I’ve even been guilty of trying to save someone and dying in the process. Get them as soon as it’s safe.

On that note, if you’ve been taken out try not to run around all over the place. If you’re close to teammates, just use ‘help’ to get their attention. It’s super annoying when you’re trying to help someone and they won’t. stop. moving. Not to mention it’s harder to save them if they keep moving and you can’t get a clear shot.

A good tip is that if you have a couple of people in the same area who are down, throw a bomb. You’ll be able to help them and defend yourself. If you’re down and see a bomb, make a b-line for it before it explodes and it’ll bring you back.

3. Pay attention to boss types and your weapon

It may seem obvious, but you need to pay attention to the type of boss in relation to the weapon you’re wielding. For example, if you have the charger/sniper weapon, your team is counting on you to go after Steelheads. If you see a Steelhead and you aren’t that person, back them up so they can take out that boss.

From what I’ve experienced, shooters and dualies are good for quick, short ranged bosses. They’re pretty good for most of them except for Steelheads (unless you can get the high ground) and Flyfish. They’re especially good in griller and glowfly stages.

Blasters can take out enemies in less shots, but you have to make sure your aim is on. They’re really good for Steel Eels and even Steelheads. If you need to get rid of the little guys fast, it’s good too since it can usually get them in one go.

Splatlings let you take out a lot of little guys in one go, and cover turf to keep yourself and your teammates safe. It’s also good for keeping Scrappers at bay, and if you time it right you can easily take out a Drizzler.

Rollers, Brushes and Sloshers cover a lot of turf in a short time. You’ll be more in charge of keeping your work space safe of opposing ink than actual bosses. They can be pretty good at getting rid of pop up bosses like Maws and Drizzler, though.

I haven’t seen a Brella in Salmon Run yet, but my guess would be that it would be good for providing safe paths to the basket using the umbrella, and its shot usually has some good range.

4. Prioritize bosses

Far too many times has my team been obliterated because 2 flyfish, 3 stingers and a steelhead are all on the map at the same time. Take out the most annoying bosses first and leave the easier ones until later. Bosses like Scrappers and Maws are usually okay to wait. Flyfish, Stingers and Steelheads should ALWAYS get priority. I would say Flyfish should always get taken out first since they take a lot of effort if you don’t have your whole team on board to hurl bombs. Stingers are easy to take out, but a pain if you leave them, so get to them fast and take them out to avoid trouble. Steelheads also take time if the charger is off playing around, so take them out as soon as they come up too.

5. Teamwork is Key

Back to your team, it’s important to work together. Don’t try to be a lone ranger here, you’ll need to work together in order to get things done. Listen when your teammate uses ‘this way’ or ‘help.’ Gang up on bosses to take them out quick. Keep the basket area clean for your teammates to get there fast. This mode is not just about you. You’ll fail if you can’t work together.

And for the love of squid, always use ‘this way’ in fog.

6. Ink out escape routes.

Before a round starts, don’t just ink for the sake of it. Ink out multiple paths to the egg basket, and multiple escape routes. Inking walls in Salmon Run is extremely useful because they can’t climb walls (except for Maws). You want as many paths possible to get to and from the egg basket, as well as ways to escape.

7. Stayin’ Alive.

Staying alive is the name of the game. if you’ve met the quota and don’t have much time left on the clock, just focus on staying alive. Sometimes the map is overrun with enemies and there’s not a lot you can do on your own. Evaluate the situation and see if it’s safe to rescue your team. If you’re going to die saving them, just run and stay alive while running the clock. If you have the eggs and you know you can’t save your team, just stay alive. This is the only time when you need to prioritize yourself over your team, because in the end if helps you all if you can survive the wave.

8. Some odds and ends

It’s a polite thing to do to leave one golden egg for the person who took out the boss, especially if they did it solo. Nothing makes me not want to help my team more than taking out a boss by myself and having the other three team members swoop in and take the eggs before I can have one.

During a mothership stage, have one person stick by the basket. If they’re saying ‘this way’, listen and go. I often try to get people over there and our eggs get stolen because no one is listening.

If the tide is at its lowest, your basket is going to be at the shoreline, so head right over once the water goes down. Use ‘this way’ to make sure your team is all on board.

During Cohock invasion stages, you need to have at least two team members on the shore collecting the eggs, otherwise all the bosses you take out are useless.

WATCH WHO THE GRILLER IS ON. If the griller is on me, I can’t take it out. I need to rely on my team to do it. Far too often have I had the griller on me and my team is no where to be found. How do you know who it’s on? There will be a red laser line toward the person it’s following. It’s akin to the glowflies. Steel Eels work similarly, but with some keen maneuvering you can still get it.

Speaking of glowflies, the same applies to them. Watch who it’s on and back them up! They’ll have to ink up eventually, so make sure you have their back when they run out.

If you haven’t noticed already, the point here is team work. If you don’t work as a team and help each other out, you’ll fail.

#splatoon 2 #splat2n #splatoon #salmon run

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thievinimp · 8 years ago

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This question’s been sitting in my askbox for WEEKS now, apologies for taking so long to respond to this!

To preface this post it’s important to note: I’m not a professional, and don’t have professional experience. All thoughts are based on personal opinion, preference, and prior experience designing characters for personal projects!

Click the jump for a big post with me rambling about character designs I do and don’t like, and why I do/don’t like them!

So several months ago I went on a tirade about character designs in all these big multiplayer games coming out. You know the ones! Overwatch, Battleborn, Battlerite, Gigantic, Splatoon, etc. etc., there’s a thousand of these released every few months it feels like. At any rate, one of the big draws for all of these titles are the characters you control in them obviously. Partially thanks to the success of MOBAs like League of Legends and DOTA 2 we’ve seen more and more focus on games with these characters referred to as “heroes” and “champions”. While this should be really exciting for a lot of those who are interested in the character design aspect of titles such as these (like me!), I feel as though a lot of them miss the mark for one reason or another.

There’s several important aspects to designing a character, I believe the most important are all tied to their shape/silhouette. Ornate details and color are important, but in terms of character design hierarchy, a good shape will trump all other details. A silhouette is what you’re gonna see first always, you might acknowledge decorations or color choice first, but your brain is focused on the outline they’ve got. This is where my problem lies with a lot of these games (which stems from my love of diverse shapes and sizes in these rosters.). Most of these games feature characters with proportions that don’t stray too far from reality as to not scare people away with stuff that’s too unfamiliar, or in some cases “too cartoony”.

For example, let’s take a look at some Overwatch’s characters for a moment.

Here we’ve got a small sampling of characters from 2016′s GAME OF THE YEARRRRR: Overwatch. Notice something with these 5? They’re a bunch of people in fancy costumes, coupled with some stock personalities. This isn’t a diss at the art itself (courtesy of Blizzard artist Arnold Tsang), the art itself is great. These characters are the result of focus testing to reach as broad of an audience as possible. They are played as safely as possible as to not offend with their depictions of race, and are shaped in ways that are very safe to people who don’t typically play video games too much, let alone first person shooters. I think this is boring. They didn’t play around with the different characters shapes to identify them better, instead we’ve got a few very similar body types dressed and animated differently (the in-game animations are actually really good, and I don’t want to discredit Blizzards work on a lot of the character animations).

Now, that’s not to say Overwatch is riddled with designs I perceive as boring, I think there’s a couple strong, unique designs in the game that actually look good, one of which stands above the rest. Look at this big asshole:

This is Roadhog. This is a character with a clear, concise concept and idea that’s executed as perfectly as they could within the constraints they have with the characters. He has an immediately recognizable shape, he’s decorated appropriately, every aspect of him visually conveys what he is and who he is. He’s big, he’s bad, and he’s ugly (in the best possible way). They really went all out with this particular design, and it saddens me a lot of the other characters feel under-cooked compared to him thanks to how safe they played it with most of the cast. SHOUTOUTS TO Reinhardt, Reaper, Torbjorn and Zenyatta for doing their best to break the mold as well.

With Overwatch out of the way let me gush for a minute about Gigantic.

This is a game that gets it, the people at Motiga have created a colorful, diverse cast of characters in terms of shape and size and they’re each immediately recognizable from just their silhouettes. They’ve gone with more stylized and unconventional shapes not typically seen in MOBAs (LoL, DOTA, etc) or games like Overwatch, Paladins or Battleborn. Let’s get a sample of Gigantic’s characters.

Look at this! Look at how much they’ve stylized the proportions, how unafraid they are to make characters with these shapes. The little round man, the hulking armored juggernaut, the top-heavy bull, the short and squat witch, and the elegant and mysterious masked warrior: all with completely unique bodies. Not only are they shapes unique, the colors used throughout either support aspects of the character, or are used masterfully to break up the color in ways ideal for 3D character animations. The animations in-game are incredible as well, every single character oozes personality through just their movements and designs!

Unfortunately, characters like these don’t appeal to everyone. They aren’t as immediately appealing as the Overwatch cast due to their unorthodox shapes and stylized bodies. Some will deem them “too cartoony”, others will insist the characters are “ugly” because they aren’t familiar with characters stylized like this.

Overwatch and Gigantic are going for two completely different looks overall, and especially with their characters. But there’s one comparison I want to make that demonstrates the philosophies behind both, but more importantly shows why Gigantic’s direction is so strong.

These are Zarya, and Zandora, respectively

Zarya is the absolute weakest design in Overwatch. She’s an awkward mashup of shapes that convey absolutely nothing. She’s got big arms and a short haircut to clue players in on how powerful she is. She totes around a big gun too, ain’t that somethin’?

Zandora is what Zarya’s design should have been in several ways. Her power isn’t overstated with a bevy of cheap visual cues slapped onto something that’s just “large”. Her power is communicated through the strong shapes that make up Zandora: the top heavy armor, the overall wider build, big in-your-face hair, and a sword that was crafted to compliment her. What might be most notable is her star-shaped silhouette. It’s handled so tastefully and executed perfectly. I want to say that her design is by Devon Cady-Lee, who also did these illustrations below that show how good that idea looks on paper as well:

Gigantic is paragon of quality among a sea of games full of safe, boring marketable designs made to attract the largest possible crowds. It pains me knowing this game won’t reach the same success Overwatch will partly because of how visually distinct this title is.

While I clearly have a bias towards Gigantic, I will admit Overwatch as a whole is mostly competent. The character designs serve their purposes, even if I happen to think they’re boring.

What about those other games? Here’s a game that I’ve enjoyed playing recently: Battlerite.

Battlerite is a top-down arena brawler. One might call it a MOBA, but it’s a team deathmatch game sort of. Your goal is to defeat the enemy team in a first to 3, 2v2/3v3 match. You moved with WASD and you’ve got keys for abilities, vaguely similar to games like LoL or DOTA 2 in a way.

Battlerites case is very much “we want the MOBA crowd”. This sounds like a really lazy descriptor that lacks any value, but hear me out: Battlerite is the spiritual success to a game just like it called Bloodline Champions that came out a few years ago. Here’s a sampling of characters from Bloodline Champions:

Bloodline Champions is a game with a unique, clear visual identity. Whether or not you like it, it’s clearly something wholly unique in terms of color and how they’ve decorated their characters. Weird shapes (top left, top right) as well as familiar ones with distinct ornate details (bottom two). They all adhere to colors that the games overall aesthetics thrive from, it’s very gritty and twisted.

SO WHAT DO YOU MEAN “WE WANT THE MOBA CROWD”??? JERK

This is what I mean. The first character showed off that wasn’t a direct adaptation of a bloodline champions character was Pearl. Here’s Pearl:

Pearl is the epitome of the differences between Bloodline Champions and Battlerite’s character designs. Half-baked ornate details because without them, the characters would end up more generic than they already are. Battlerite’s cast is comprised of archetypal MOBA character stand-ins. They’re boring, and hollow uninspired renditions of characters that had a lot more style in a previous life. Here’s some really boring Battlerite characters:

BLAH. They’ve got the Overwatch “problem” but even worse. These guys really just look like cosplayers doing characters that don’t exist. Staff man. Sickle man. Gun woman. These designs convey nothing beyond what you see. I don’t mind cool characters for the sake of cool characters, I’m the last person to complain about it, but Battlerite really tests that for me. The in-game camera doesn’t do these designs or models any favors too, unfortunately. There’s a single very standout design among the roster.

This is Pestilus.

He’s shaped strange. He’s round, he’s got really stubby limbs, and he’s got these big bug legs on his back. Pestilus is cool! Lookit’ his gnarly teeth, wowie. Unfortunately the in-game model doesn’t do him justice:

He’s paler, his teeth are simplified and lack the character his chompers had in the above illustration. I still like this one, he’s in a league of his own compared to most of the rest of the cast. HONORABLE MENTIONS GO TO RUH KAAN AND ASHKA:

I’ve said that the worst thing a character design can be is mediocre. Not good enough, not bad enough. Battlerite rides slightly above that line. There’s a few interesting characters here and there. Some have unique silhouettes (Ashka, Ruh Kaan, Pestilus and Rook) and most server their purpose. They’re boring, but they’re not aggressively boring/mediocre. That line of design goes to a little game called. . .

Paladins: Wizards of the Coast or whatever the fuck the subtitle is

Chinese bootleg overwatch. A game that was trying to be a bit unique before a lot of changes were made to match a similar, “hero”-based shooter game where you push payloads and capture points. This is a game with aggressively boring characters. The characters are in this game because if you had none, you wouldn’t have anything to play as. They’re crude facsimiles of better looking, more thought-out characters and designs. Here’s a sampling of these lot of losers.

These characters are nothing. Their silhouettes are bland. You’re either big, small or medium with no rhyme or reason. You have a gimmick. Your colors don’t serve much purpose beyond “we needs color-keys to recolor for skins”. Very rarely are they in service of the shapes in question, or to break up monotony in big stretches of solid color. The knight on the left is dull as dull can be. Sure, knights are done to death but good lord they’ve really found a way to try and make him exciting but failed miserably thanks to:

A silhouette that is nothing beyond “TALL MAN”

Colors that are gray all over, his armor is supposed to be metallic but the textures and shading do it no favors. The yellow in there doesn’t do enough in breaking it up because they’re only along the trim of each armor piece.

His shield doesn’t compliment him, it’s an obligation. He has a lance, he needs a shield, and not one that works in conjunction with anything solid.

There’s a single design in Paladins that I don’t think is the absolute most mediocre thing in the industry: Bomb King.

He’s big and loud both visually and personality wise. He’s got a standout silhouette, and colors used mostly tastefully to break up his main blue coat. Bomb King doesn’t look like he belongs in this game, and is strangely. . . Toyetic. I kind of like Bomb King.

Paladins is mediocre. Paladins is very unimaginative and dull, the most recent characters are some of the most unmemorable I’ve seen in recent times, when it comes to these games. While Paladins is mediocre, at the very least it isn’t. . .

COMPLETE, IRREDEEMABLE SHIT.

ENTER: BATTLEBORN-

Battleborn is a game that isn’t aggressively boring, it’s aggressively ugly. It’s annoying. It’s messy, it’s loud, it’s busy. Battleborn is garbage. This game is rife with characters that convey nothing, silhouettes that are awkward and make no sense who are modeled in one of the most unappealing looking games of the past 5 years. This one is so bad I really don’t want to post a sample of characters because I hate looking at 99% of the roster, but I have to. . . I have to. . . Here’s a sampling of Battleborns characters. . . eugh. . .

Do you like any of these designs? Legitimately curious. Unnappealing shapes, ugly facial features, completely mangled details that are hard to make out, poorly balanced silhouettes. . . There’s so much wrong with all of these designs. Some of the ones in the game wildly stylize proportions, mostly very poorly, some are very restrained and more realistic, some are complete abominations like the monster in the upper left: Attikus.

It’s worth singling out Attikus because his concept art has something very interesting behind it: He didn’t look like complete fucking shit, his shapes were solid and his silhouette would’ve worked perfectly, but they seemingly went out of their way to get the ugliest possible outcome they could achieve. See below, Attikus thumbnails:

These are all so much more sound than the final product. Why didn’t they go with any of these four beyond “We gotta make it uglier to fit in with everything else!”. While still asymmetrical, the shapes here tell you he’s powerful and ready to rip and tear through every living thing in his path to victory. That final Attikus looks like it tried to go with something weirdly proportioned like some of the Gigantic characters, but with a fresh coat of grime.

At no point has this stream-of-conscious post has been about nitty gritty things like facial features but Thorn looks vile:

There are no honorable mentions for Battleborn. The very best of the bunch is still very boring and half baked. They’re plain, and that’s really it. They don’t assault your eyeballs with how putrid and gaudy they are, which, by default, makes them the best.

One thing worth nothing is that there are piece of concept art here and there that actually look great, but are put through Battleborns poor “World of Warcraft” + “Disney Infinity” + GREASE filter don’t look nearly as good. The one I like most is this rendition of one of the first DLC characters, Pendles. Here’s the piece in question:

Very lovingly rendered. I don’t want to talk about Battleborn any more. I’m sick of looking at it.

Anyways, there’s some insight on what I think does and doesn’t work in the form of this weird stream-of-consciousness, giant post. Feel free to ask more and I’ll weigh in on it as poorly as I did here! I’d love to hear what everyone has to say about these games and their character designs, and what you like most about the, as well as what you like least about them!

#not art #character design #overwatch #battleborn #gigantic #gogigantic #Paladins #Battlerite

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sage-nebula · 8 years ago

Photo

I’ve been taking a lot of screenshots as I’ve played through Splatoon 2, but I’ve neglected to upload them because it’s difficult to stop playing long enough to do so (whoops). However, I’m going to do so now in order to get caught up, and hopefully be better about posting screencaps of cool things in the future.

So, first, as per usual, the game starts off with a broadcast. In Splatoon, the Squid Sisters were the ones who always handled the broadcasts. But now, in the sequel---and I have little doubt this has a lot to do with the story mode, as well as just wanting to introduce new characters (and it wouldn’t surprise me if Marina being Octarian played into it), the broadcasts are handled by a pop duo known as Off the Hook, starring Pearl and Marina.

Anyway, the introductory broadcast to the game introduces the single-player campaign, of course, and I love how Pearl references the fact that the Octarians stealing the Great Zapfish is the exact same plot from the first game’s single-player campaign. However . . .

. . . there is a twist this time around, since Callie is “missing” as well. Hmmm . . .

Pearl gets over it pretty quickly, though, lmao. (And really, the fact that Pearl doesn’t care about the Great Zapfish is, I feel, another clue that Inkopolis doesn’t necessarily need it, at least not more than the Octarians might . . .)

Once the broadcast ends, the game decides to show you all the different features of Inkopolis Square, just in case you’re not bright enough to explore the place yourself. In so doing, it introduces the new Salmon Run part of the game . . .

I love how they keep hammering home that this is sketchy and shady and not that great, hahaha. That said, I get the feeling that the Salmonids, like the Octarians, are more victims than villains, despite how they’re being painted. I especially feel that way in this case, since we’re stealing their eggs for some sketchy dude’s profit. :/ Man . . .

Rude af. I can’t believe I have to already have a job and work experience to get a job to get work experience in Splatoon 2 as well. Art imitates life.

When you have more experience you can work, though, and like I said, I really love how they keep hammering home that this is not a good job, you are making a poor life choice.

Inklings can’t swim, though. Tf are you trying to say to me?

Anyway, after I did Salmon Run a couple of times, I went and played some (more) multiplayer, and . . .

I tried, OK. I did my best. I have no regrets. (Especially since I scored more points than anyone on the winning team, because remember: The winning team gets an extra 1000 points. The highest score anyone on the winning team had before the bonus was 729. I was better than that. Sadly, with two teammates disconnecting partway trhough the match, there was not a whole lot I could do . . .)

tfw you win a match by .3%.

And once again, I was the highest scoring person on my team, even if the highest scorer on the losing team had a slightly better score than I did. (Only slightly, though.) I’m still not as consistently good as I was in the first game, but I’m getting there. Once I have better gear / better weapons, I’m sure I’ll be back on top form, especially once I get used to all the new maps. (Though they better add Kelp Dome in an update at some point or so help me . . .)

Anyway, it soon became time for some story mode / single-player campaign playthrough, and once I realized I could unlock Hero Dualies this way, that’s all I’ve been doing. That said . . .

THERE SHE IS---THE BEST GIRL, THE SUPERIOR SQUID SISTER, MY LOVELY MARIE. ♥

When you go to talk to her, Marie explains about how she wants to go get the Great Zapfish back from the Octarians after they stole it, but that she can’t leave her post because that would mean leaving it defenseless, and so she needs someone else to go get it back and thinks you’d be perfect for the job. She also drops not-subtle hints about Callie, but those, I think, were supposed to be under her breath or in her inner thoughts. Regardless, she recruits you as Agent 4 (Callie was Agent 1, Marie is Agent 2, and you were Agent 3 in the first game) and sends you to go fight the Octarians. You may remember that I mentioned in an earlier post about how Marie is particularly savage toward the Octarians, and, well---

I was not kidding.

This really leads me to believe that Marie thinks that the Octarians kidnapped Callie as well as the Great Zapfish. Of course, I now think that Callie took the Great Zapfish when she defected to the Octarians, but Marie doesn’t seem to know / realize that’s what happened.

Rude af. I am Agent 3! (I can’t believe it’s already been two years since the first game came out, though, omfg.)

I can’t believe Marie betrayed me like this. (I looked it up and apparently the pineapple pizza debate was a Splatfest topic in the EU for the first game, and Marie was anti-pineapple, and they won . . . but I still feel so betrayed she’d take that stance in the first place. How could you Marie? I know you’ve betrayed me other times, with other Splatfest topics (the Red Version vs. Blue Version debate comes to mind---Callie was right there, too, and you know it), but still!

The win screen for whenever you clear a level is really cute, though.

. . . as is the screen when you clear it for the second time and rescue a Zapfish plushie instead, hahaha.

I can’t believe they dragged Spyke like this. (This is from the book you fill in as you find the pages in the levels. They’re similar to the sea scrolls from the first game, but are more current. ... Pun not intended.)

SHE’S INVESTED IN ME. ♥ Ily, Marie, even if you don’t know what good pizza is.

mfw:

YES, YES IT WAS. (I’m sorry, no offense to Off the Hook, but their catchphrase is just so stupid . . .)

Anyway, at the end of every section you have a boss battle, and there are wireless transmissions at the end of each boss battle. And at the end of the second boss battle . . .

HMMM, I WONDER . . .

I have the same reaction whenever Sheldon starts talking, tbh.

This was the second time I was forced to use a godforsaken charger in one of the maps, and I just

UNFORTUNATELY, despite it being a “request”, you don’t have the option to say no. You have to play through the level with the assigned weapon at least once. I already complained about this enough yesterday, so I won’t do it again, but god, I hate it so much, particularly since it means I have to play through most levels twice since you have to clear every level with your desired Hero weapon in order to unlock it for multiplayer, and I want the Hero Dualies. Ugh.

♥

Hahaha, I didn’t grab a screenshot of it, but in an earlier level after making a particularly risky jump, she asks if I consider myself to be “the reckless type”, and that she sure does consider me to be the reckless type. I mean, I am, I won’t deny it.

I love her.

mfw:

It was for a boss fight, too. I FELT SO #BLESSED. Oh, and here was the boss:

And then I destroyed him and his sweet new coat. Sorry, bro. :/ (Oh, and if you’re wondering, he was a boss from the first game, hence why he was “back”.)

But since this was a boss, that means that we had a post-battle wireless transmission, so . . .

She loves Callie so much. ;__; And I say this, because look at the word choice: “Even more than the Great Zapfish, I want to find my cousin Callie.” Marie is sending Agent Four after the Great Zapfish because she views it as a duty. This is a necessity, it’s something (and anyone she can recruit to help) must due because Inkopolis (supposedly) needs it. But she wants to find Callie, and she wants to find Callie even more than the Great Zapfish. Callie means that much to her. Callie is her best friend. Biologically, Callie might be her cousin, but in her heart, Callie is her sister. And something tells me she’s going to be in for a lot of emotional pain when she learns the truth . . . poor, poor Marie. ;__;

Anyway, she goes on to explain about how she’s Agent 2 and Callie was Agent 1, and---

OH, so THAT’S the excuse for why your inkling from the first game is just mysteriously out of the picture, haha. Though that begs the question . . . what is your inkling from the first game doing with Cap’n Cuttlefish? Why is your inkling from the first game with Cap’n Cuttlefish? Things aren’t safe with him! He’s not wise! He gets captured because he’s distracted by crabby cakes! Like, bruh! Have some sense!!

Anyway, then the transmission was interrupted again---

HMMM, I WONDER WHO IT COULD POSSIBLY BE . . . :/

I mean, I guess there’s still a chance that Callie hasn’t defected. Maybe she’s telling Marie to leave because she’s worried Marie will get hurt, or maybe she was kidnapped and is now brainwashed. Her eyes are red in that icon, after all (but so are the Octolings’, so that could just be because of some fancy goggles). Either way, that’s very obviously Callie, and if she’s helping the Octarians decorate their bases, something tells me she isn’t here unwillingly. Right now, I’m sticking by the theory that she is the one who stole the Great Zapfish (and all the other Zapfish) for the benefit of the Octarians, and that she has defected willingly because she has come to see that they aren’t all evil and that peace should be made between the two races. (Though why she isn’t working to actually make that peace doesn’t make sense. You’d think she’d come forward and talk to Marie (and Cap’n Cuttlefish) about it, rather than letting Marie think she had been kidnapped and is in serious danger, but . . . well. The plot has to happen some way, I guess.)

Anyway, I’ll post more as I can get to it. Stay tuned, and as always . . . stay fresh. ;D

#scrawlers has an inkling about turf wars #splatoon 2 spoilers

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ari-zonia · 8 years ago

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Momocon Recap and Thoughts

I’m sticking this in a read-more cause it’s gonna get lengthy.

So, I should mention this was my first ever Momocon, so there was that! First of all, I finally got to meet some friends that I've had for a pretty good while now. Like, I had stayed in a hotel room with my friends Dharc, Trevor, MattTetska, and a friend of his. I also hung around Nixcan and her crew for a good portion of the con, which was awesome because I tend to wander aimlessly anyway :P

Other than that I got to meet TRG + Masae, and by Meyneth that was the highlight of the con. On Thursday, Nixxie and I had been just sitting at a table when, I think it was HP mentioned Jon was walking up. So, I got to formally introduce myself to him, which was astounding, especially since I managed to remain so damn calm. Literally, I had walked up to him and just casually shook his hand and said hi. Of course, Jon said hi back. The next thing I said was that I was Ari Zonia, I kid you not he jumped in surprise and went "Oh shit!", which got a good laugh out of me. Like, it was genuine surprise (I knew he was kind of excited to learn I was going to the con in the first place but this took the cake).

If you saw the TRG Q&A panel you probably saw Emile's reaction to who I was as well (me being the cute little idiot asking what the strangest fanart was that the guys have ever seen of themselves), Jon only pointed it out because he had met me earlier in the day (before that started I also snagged a picture with RabbidLuigi who was just confused for a second since we were both waiting for a TRG panel to start and random small girl is like "can I have a picture?"). But after that was when I finally got to just talk with Emile himself, mostly about games and such but he also asked my about Bran which was nice. Also got him and Masae to sign my copy of Xenoblade.

During all the chaos that followed leaving that panel I also handed off all the pictures I made specifically for this. I had tried giving Jon his and Lucah's earlier, but his bag was such a mess he was worried messing them up (poor guy). But after giving Masae hers, and the one for her mom (I swear she was about to cry because 1, she liked them that much, and 2, because I made one for her MOTHER), as well as Tim getting his, and Emile's too, I finally walked up to Jon and offered the pictures again. I tried not to laugh though when his first reaction was to worriedly glance at his bag again, but I had a plan. I literally gave Jon the clipboard I had kept the pictures in (it flips open to store papers in), I didn't need it since I bought it specifically FOR Momocon (I have another exactly like it here at home). But, being the nice guy he is, he didn't want to take it from me. He asked, like, five times if I was ABSOLUTELY sure I was willing to part with it, and he kept trying to hand it back. Eventually I convinced him to keep it and we double checked I didn’t stick anything else in there so he didn’t take them on accident. And then, with what I think is the softest smile I have ever seen on Jon’s face, he thanked me for that. I managed to have a little laugh with him though as I also asked if he wanted the ribbon I had around it, his response was “Well, I’ve GOT to accessorize.”, which was funny for him to say as he took it, but he had another “oh shit” reaction when I mentioned the clipboard was broken (bought it like that). I also got to hug Emile during this time, and by Meyneth he is soft. Friday and Saturday were also pretty neat since I did a lot of wandering around, playing games in the game area (finally tried Taiko Drum Master which is AWESOME, but I’m still learning the timing), but I had also gotten to be part of a couple Persona cosplay Photoshoots! (There was a lot of P5, but I was Yosuke and Naoto, more on the latter soon). Other than that, Trevor and I also had run into Masae and Emile on Friday and Emile and I just proceeded to nerd out (mostly about Xenoblade of course), but I also told Emile that I was kind of upset I couldn’t Streetpass with him because my damn Streepass doesn’t work, and the guy looked actually upset about that. That, and he was really confused (like, gears turning in head confused) when I said I didn’t use to like RPGs and actually didn’t CARE about Xenoblade before he played it. Now, to that Naoto cosplay thing. I’m sure if any of you saw the Thrown Controllers livestream (BTW, Thrown Controllers is AWESOME to be at live) , you heard Emile talking to someone off camera about being Minato (or, as he said the “Protagonist from Persona 3″). Now, the entire context of that, before that Emile was saying something about Jon’s shirt. Well, let it be known that I just cheekily said to Emile “Hey Emile! Did you know with your blue shirt, and Masae’s yellow Tim’s hair turned green?”, because I’m just a dork like that. Now, what prompted the P3 comment was, like I said, I was dressed as Naoto Shirogane (specifically DAN but that’s besides the point), and when he asked that I just went, as I stood up, “I am Naoto Shirogane! Detective Prince! At your service.” as I did a bow, and just sat back down. I had also met MomAnela during this time, both before and after the panel and it was fun to chat with her a little bit. She was surprised we knew Dennis (she plays against him a lot in Splatoon). Then again, I had posted the picture I took with her before Thrown Controllers and then she motioned to get my attention (we were sitting right behind her really) and said “I didn’t know that was you!”, which was awesome to hear. After that was the TRG signing, which in of itself was fun because I got TRG + Masae to sign my 3DS, and Jon signed my copy of the 6th Scott Pilgrim book (I got into the series ‘cause of him). During that I had wanted a picture with Emile, and I swear this next part was totally awesome. Since I was Naoto, I had a little toy gun with me, and I just stared Emile dead in the eyes, drug out the gun as smoothly as I had done all day and said “I want a picture.” Now, Emile, being the punster he is said “I thought you were going to say “I want to take a shot”.“ and he just had this cocky grin on his face. Of course that just made the picture funnier because I circled next to him and said “You are under arrest for your crimes against humanity in the form of wordplay.” But, truly it was just awesome to meet them. While I waited for Trevor to get his stuff signed I also talked with Masae for a bit, and she’s just so sweet. Like, I had mentioned to her it was my first Momocon and that I’ve been having so much fun, and she nearly made me cry when she asked “First of many?” with this look that I could only say is, like “Please say yes!”, and I couldn’t give a straight answer because I obviously didn’t know. But, based on how this year went, I may be able to go again. Hopefully. Anyway, Trevor and I chatted with her for a little bit, which was neat because we got to talking about art, and she was really surprised to hear I’ve never had any lessons and that I’m self taught. Only attributing my constant drawing of her and the guys is the reason I’ve gotten to where I am. Now, Sunday was probably the coolest because I spent basically the entire day with Nixxie and her crew, but also did stuff I hadn’t planned on doing. First of all, I got a picture signed by the voice actress for Pearl (who is my favorite Gem, fight me), and also get a couple other small things to take home (I bought a lot of cool stuff, like pins, a little card for my gender identity, a sealed copy of World Ends With You, a Squid pillow, and a deck of cards). What was awesome though was that I was waiting for Nixxie to get something signed by Lucio’s voice actor and I went to sat down when, guess who, Masae and Emile started walking by. I tried not to lose my composure too much and struck up a conversation with them (after Masae complimented my Female Ness cosplay, and Emile complimented my shoes, the poor oblivious man). To which I then basically was there for the next hour to hour and a half or so just talking with them. Again, mostly me with Emile discussing stuff like Xenocross and some other stuff like DanganRonpa (still surprised he likes DR and Byakuya, not saying that’s bad just surprising). He also asked how I pronounce my name since “Ari” is a real name ‘n’ all, and was surprised when I said it’s a masculine name (He then saw the thing on my lanyard saying “agender” and then something finally clicked in his head)

Also, I should mention that somehow all the guys (and Masae) had come to this really funny conclusion that I’m MUCH taller than I am. Like, around 5′10 or something because they thought I was Bran’s height, and even then they thought he was TALLER. Like, Jon was laughing when we tried to get that picture of him resting his arms on my head saying “I don’t want to crush her!” Other than that there was also me, Trev, and Dharc recording a board of Mario Party 3, and I swear that game is meant to induce rage. Like, Dharc was having horrible luck in general and I basically turned into Jon in terms of pure anger (and I try not to get mad at games). Overall, Momocon was the BEST con I’ve been to, got to meet some awesome people, get some awesome reactions from TRG, and I really hope I get to go back!

#momocon #momocon 2017 #therunawayguys #Chuggaaconroy #ProtonJon #masaeanela #nintendocaprisun

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plufim · 8 years ago

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E3 2017 predictions

E3 predictions

In general these come from my thoughts, but also include ideas I’ve heard floated around the web which I completely agree with. Avoiding the already announced/leaked stuff, since that’s not fun!

I’ve sort predictions for all main presentations into 3 different categories based on likelihood (“Lock it in, Reggie” (very confident), “50/50” and “swinging for the fences” (super unlikely but I gotta go all in)). Also, because I’m Connell, this skews Nintendo, but I do have thoughts on everyone! And almost entirely positive ones!

These are in order of the presentation times, hence Nintendo being last. Oh, and a shadow drop is an unannounced game or feature being available for download immediately.

General Predictions/Trends:

- One final push for remastered collections.

- The PC gaming show will be a shit-show again.

- After “Seven Nation Army” did so well for the Battlefield 1 trailer, at LEAST 3 other trailers will use a contemporary song for a game set in another time.

EA:

Lock it in, Reggie:

- Need for Speed will have a Cops vs Racers mode. Because it is always the best thing. Shutting down fools for daring to turn MY roads into a race track is always the best.

- FIFA presentation will not mention the Switch version at all. Info will only be turned up at the show floor, with 2-3 units available. There will be a very simple token minigame so they can justify it as being “built for switch”, but it is 99% the PS3/360 version.

50/50:

- Mass Effect 1-3 Remastered collection, for PS4 and Xbox one. Designed to win back trust from gamers who were burned hard by Andromeda, which really damaged the brand. This leads to my further prediction (not for this though) that ME5 then connects both stories together, where the Andromeda crew find a device that allows them to send a message with information back in time to Shephards brain and bam, you’re playing with the character’s people liked again.

- Sim City. It’s been long enough since the last Sim City, which was disastrous. Time for EA to show they learned from their mistakes and can take on city: skylines

Singing for the fences:

- Mass Effect Trilogy also for the Switch. Despite the only support being a terrible FIFA game thus far, the actual sales of the system will be seen as an opportunity… to sell old games again with very little extra work. Perhaps some token amiibo functionality in the character creator.

Microsoft:

Obviously, this will be all about Scorpio. Every game will make a point to include something about how the Scorpio version is enhanced. Also apologies, don’t really have much

Lock it in, Reggie:

- Forza 5.

- Scorpio will have VR featured heavily

50/50:

- Scorpio’s final name will be: Xbox Scorpio. Microsoft is done with numbers.

50/50:

- It will be revealed that Scorpio, unlike PS4Pro, will have games exclusive to it.

Swinging for the fences:

- Crackdown demo shadow drop

- Exclusive John Wick videogame for scorpio

- BATTLETOADS

Bethesda:

Lock it in, Reggie:

- Wolfenstein Titan(?) official reveal.

- Prey DLC chapters.

50/50:

- Switch Skyrim has Zelda content in it. Because why else would someone pay $60 US for this game for a third time?

- Elder Scrolls VI revealed. Will feature at least 2 of the regions. Possibly Elsweyr and Valenwood

Swinging for the fences:

- Elder Scrolls finally bring back the Dwemer, either by reviving them or setting it in the distant past.

Ubisoft:

So… most of this conference is already leaked, but still…. Uh… hm. Well here’s a few somethings.

Lock it in, Reggie:

- Rabbids/Mario will have a CG teaser. Gameplay saved for Nintendo.

50/50:

- On stage reveal for Farcry will include not only making fun of the people who got so angry that the villians are a white Christian cult, but there will be an embarrassing on-stage play where people pretend to be storming the stage to protest the treatment of horrible people.

Swinging for the fences:

- A switch exclusive Assassin’s Creed side-story, much like they did for Vita around Assassin’s Creed 3.

- Rabbids/Mario features a cover of “All Star”, covered by Rabbids themselves, because this game will be drowning in memes. And I will hate this while secretly loving this.

Sony:

Lock it in, Reggie:

- Sony saves IO interactive, Hitman 2 will be PS4 exclusive. Microsoft SHOULD do this, but… this feels more like a Sony move.

- MASSIVE Spiderman blowout, including a lot of show floor stuff. Playable demo. No tie in to the movie, but instead a new story with Goblin and the sinister 6 as the villians. And there’ll be some shitty day 1 pre-order crap, probably involving a Black Cat side story. F4 will cameo, but play no major roles – however Insomniac will be building a shared games universe. Yes, even with the Squaresoft stuff.

- Bloodborne 2. It will happen.

50/50:

- A real, honest to god Kingdom Hearts 3 trailer, with worlds revealed, including Moana and Frozen.

- Shenmue 1+2 Remastered announced. With Shenmue 3 delayed (and that having been inevitable for some time), this would be a smart move to capitalise on the clear demand for more Ryo.

- Another Last of Us Part 2 teaser, but no gameplay yet.

- English Dragon Quest XI release date, mid 2018.

- Red Dead 2 trailer, first with actual gameplay. I also think this will reveal that Zelda-like free climbing is being implemented.

Swinging for the fences:

- The vita returns as a phone. The switch has shown portable games are still viable, vita has some life in Asian territories, and Sony want to keep the remote play train going. Destined to still fail? Probably! But let’s not let reality kill HYPE.

- Last of Us Part 2 prelude chapter available now, for free. One hour of set up, basically a demo. But that’s what they do to get the kids excited.

- Spyro Trilogy remastered. Activision gotta do something with the guy.

- Red Dead 2 trailer showcases a train heist. I LOVE train heists.

Nintendo:

In general, there won’t be much or any 3DS. They’re getting a lot of that out of the way this week already.

Lock it in, Reggie:

- Xenoblade 2 is not delayed, December 2018. Playable on show floor.

- Mario Odyssey for October 2017. Massive show floor presence.

- Mario Kart DLC, same format as for WiiU – 2 packs of tracks, but this time it’s 8 racing and 2 battle tracks, as well as 3 characters and karts each. A shadow drop of the ability to buy the

- Zelda DLC part 1 shadow drop. Teaser for the rest of the DLC.

- Picross Switch, available now. Not Picross 3D though, they’ll hold off on that.

- Rabbids/Mario gameplay demo

- Dragon Quest XI for Switch officially announced

- Everyone on stage will wear goofy hats because of Mario Odyssey, because hats is a big thing in that game. Hats will grant abilities.

- Splatoon 2 test fire round 2 will be announced to begin the next weekend, with significant tweaks.

- New ARMs content announced, with new ARMs avaialable immediately and

50/50:

- Massive update to switch UI, shadow dropped. Includes multiple UI styles, with Badge arcade built in for further customisation, folders, linking to old Nintendo friends lists, musical themes. Further themes will be on eshop going forward, like 3DS. And finally, this also includes the new online system, hence the new details revealed about it last week.

- Animal Crossing Switch. Early 2018, with much improved social features. Massive amiibo functionality, much like New Leaf now has. It’ll have a new hook, not sure what though. My guess is some Sim City style mayoral stuff like setting up and supplying utilities.

- Warioware Switch, holiday 2017. It’s been a while for the Rhythm Heaven/Warioware team. I NEED THIS ONE NINTENDO.

- Smash Brothers 4 Switch, Q2 2018, rereleased with the best levels from the WiiU and 3DS levels, plus an expanded single player mode. It’s just too crowded for this game yet, but they don’t need to hold off for too long, because it’ll be an evergreen. There will be a teaser though, starring Inklings, Ice Climbers and Spring Man.

- Mario Maker Switch for Q1 2018. It can’t release this year, it needs space away from Mario Odyssey. The game will include a new “switch” block which when hit in game alternates the game style. There will also be playable Mario, Luigi, Peach and Toad for each game type, each with different styles, and a different switch block or pipe that changes your character mid-level.

- Skyward Sword HD for switch, with optional non-motion controls for boring people. Q2 2018.

- Partnership with Activision to make an Amiibo action game. You might think this is a swing for the fence, but: Toys for Bob is out of a gig right now. And this would sell better than any recent Skylanders game. Activision would release special versions of select characters, so they can get their cut from the toy sales.

- Donkey Kong Country Returns 3, Q1 2018, by Monster Games. They’ve been quiet for a while, they ported Returns to 3DS, they assisted Retro on Tropical Freeze, this is what they’ve been working towards.

- Dead Cells announced for Switch.

- Layton Collection announced… for phone. Lady Layton western release date.

- Retro’s game. And it’s NOT Metroid, but a sci-fi Western RPG.

- This is a long shot, but T2 is relatively impressed by the switch, so: GTA5 for Switch. With a chunk of the DLC included.

- Switch Sports, holiday 2017. The return of the king. All the games as released for WiiU, plus a few from Wii Sports resort (airplane), with additional modes for each sport. I do have a “swinging for the fence” on this though…

Swinging for the fences:

- …Wuhu World. Remember Pilotwings 64? Where Little USA was a huge island with different activities, sights to see, and so on? Well, take Wuhu Island, scoot up the detail and resolution, include the small surrounding golf islands, and add a few other themed islands the same size as Wuhu (snow island, city island, etc). It’s a free game where you get the islands and one activity per island, and can walk/drive around each island. Dotted around each is various locations that count as home bases for various sports/vehicles from Wii Sports, Pilotwings and some new items. Each of these is paid, and comes with various different modes and missions. This could be further expanded over time, and allows Nintendo to make money from series that could no longer be sold alone.

- Mario Kart DLC includes mission mode, which is available day 1 with missions on existing courses and expands with the DLC.

- New 2D Metroid by a small team from within Retro. There is a 3D game teased to be in the works also, but not from Retro.

- Splatoon 2 Octoling content and Amiibo, including Octoling mascots. I need this, Nintendo.

- EXCITE. TRUCK. 2.

- Nintendo Pinball. Remember Pokemon Pinball? And Metroid Prime Pinball? That but across multiple Nintendo series.

- Sonic and Mario All Stars Racing Transformed. Sumo has to have been making something aside from Snake Pass, and Sonic Racing 2 sold extremely well on the switch.

- Assault Android Cactus Deluxe for Switch. I believe in you Tim! Even if you aren’t even attempting this!

#oh my god can i sleep now

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