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mysmashplaythroughs · 2 years

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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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major-fukkup · 3 years

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Fandoms I'm In!

Hello! Today I'm going to be sharing a list of fandoms I'm in!

Before we get started, I feel like I should mention that I am not actually in the mainstream part of any of these, though for some I would like to be - I just don't really know where to start or how to get involved, especially since I work two jobs and don't have a lot of time for art or fic-writing, or anything else either for that matter.

Nevertheless, time to get on with the list!

These will be listed in no particular order, though my current obsessions will be in their own category at the top.

The last thing I will say before putting the list is, this is subject to updates at any time, so if you're curious to know what I'm into at any given time, check back frequently!

Current Obsessions!

(I'm leaving these on the next list because I don't feel like removing them fight me)

ATLA (Zukka lmao)

Other Fandoms and Media I Enjoy

MacGyver - Seriously, this has been my favorite show since I was a kid. My mom bought the box set and I could quote the whole episode guide and didn't have to consult it to know which disc to put in the DVD player when someone wanted to watch a specific episode.

Supernatural

The Witcher

Skyrim (inspired my main DnD PC, Ezian)

Destiny 2

Metal Gear Solid

The Loud House

The Land Before Time (THIS IS MY COMFORT SERIES)

Jurassic Park

Pirates of the Caribbean

Indiana Jones (guess I'll put it here since I do enjoy the movies even though I've surprisingly never done anything remotely fandom-related concerning it) (aside from making LEGO stop-motion videos with the sets I had)

Marvel (Avengers specifically) (Thor FTW even tho I haven't actually seen any of the Thor movies YET - I HAVE watched many clips from them)

Gargoyles (Disney show)

Mega Man (my very second fandom, chronologically! The first being Mario of course)

Sonic the Hedgehog

Detroit Become Human (the reason I first started wanting a PS4 back in 2018)

Horizon Zero Dawn (don't play it often enough to remember what's going on but Aloy is really cute and also very pretty)

Splatoon

Animal Crossing

Legend of Zelda (the fandom that spawned my biggest, most developed work that is now original and contains no copyrighted content)

Ghostbusters (the fandom that spawned my second-biggest, second-most-developed work that is now original and contains no copyrighted content)

The Last Of Us

Cyberpunk 2077 (looked forward to it ever since it was first announced, preordered it and picked it up as soon as GameStop called me to let me know they had my copy, and then played it all of one time for about 9 hours straight and apparently my roomies were trying to talk to me??) (Pretty sure I played it more than once TBH) (Spoiler alert, Jackie shouldn't have fucking died)

Fortnite (my brother got me back into it but I got him into it first) (yes this is why I put those passive-aggressive notes) (no I'm not one of those toxic players)

Uncharted (finished 1, started 2, and own 3 and 4 but haven't played them)

Just Cause 4 (haven't played the others)

Fallout 4 (and Shelter haha)

DOOM

Borderlands

Burnout Paradise (I just got it because DJ Atomika, but it turned out to be fun! I'm spoiled when it comes to street-racing games because Need For Speed World was my favorite and the servers shut down)

The Crew 2

4x4 Evolution 2 (funny how it's often the second game in a series that ends up being my favorite) (I have many, many happy memories associated with this game)

SSX (specifically 3) (more happy memories)

Naruto

Death Note

Demon Slayer

The Fairly OddParents

The Owl House

The Band Ghost

ATLA

#about me #feel free to ask me anything #pin #stuff I like

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mayohigan-orange · 4 years

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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

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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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sage-nebula · 4 years

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Years ago I might have rated Skyward Sword higher, but I replayed it recently and while I might rate it higher than you it's definitely not one of my favorites. Personally I wish they would have focused on more actually clever things with the motion (I will always remember spinning the spider around to expose it's weakness! I loved that!) and like most people wish they stopped at one Imprisoned fight. What did you feel were its weaknesses?

The gameplay. 100%. Skyward Sword is unplayable for me.

I love everything else about it. The music is gorgeous, the characters are wonderful, the art style is beautiful, and the story (aside from not calling Hylia a demigoddess like she should be) is fantastic. There is so much about it to love . . .

. . . if it was an anime, or a manga. But as a game? It fails horribly.

1.) The motion controls are NOT 1:1, even with Wii Motion Plus. And if Skyward Sword were designed like any other Zelda game, where you could hit monsters any way you pleased and they would take damage, that would be fine! But because Nintendo was so confident that they had 1:1 motion controls, they decided to make every monster—even ones as basic as Deku Babas—into puzzle monsters where you had to hit them a precise way at a precise time or your attack did no damage. And you know what? That’s bad game design even if you have absolutely perfect motion controls. Because let’s pretend, for the sake of argument, that the controls were 1:1 with the Wii Motion Plus, as advertised, and my problem was that my coordination was poor. In that case, the game is still unplayable, because it means that people without perfect coordination for whatever reason (maybe they just never developed those skills, maybe they’re disabled in some way) can’t play the game. For a series as wide-reaching as Zelda, it’s a problem if you’re cutting off a huge portion of players from being able to enjoy it. And on that note . . .

1.5.) The motion controls were MANDATORY. I understand that Nintendo has been in love with motion controls for a long time, and I accept that. But you should be able to turn them off. Like, they’ve put them into just about every big budget game they’ve released the past couple of decades. The Splatoon games have them, Breath of the Wild had them, and so on. But in each game, you can turn them off. Hell, even though Breath of the Wild does require them in a couple shrines, those shrines aren’t required to beat the game. To 100% it, sure, but not to beat it and get a full experience out of it regardless. So for Skyward Sword to require the motion controls to the point where you’re not even given the option to turn them off (which, again, makes sense given that they based even insignificant monsters around them) is terrible. It’s terrible for people who don’t like them, but it’s absolutely HORRIBLE for people who are disabled and thus can’t use the motion controls. Skyward Sword’s motion controls are a huge middle finger to disabled folk, and that sucks.

As a side note? I was much younger when I played Skyward Sword than I am now, and in much better health. But even back then, I could only play for a couple hours before I got winded because of all the damn sword swinging I had to do and whatnot. This is why I think it’d be unplayable to me now; I’m not healthy enough for a damn video game and that sounds like it should be an oxymoron, but it’s not.

2.) Once again, the dungeons are too damn long. This was a complaint I had about Twilight Princess as well, but it bears repeating here. Whether it’s because of my ADHD or otherwise, I just can’t handle dungeons that take hours to complete. Breath of the Wild was, pardon the wordplay, a breath of fresh air in that sense. Finally, the dungeons were a reasonable length again. But in Skyward Sword they were not. They were insanely long and full of goddamn motion control puzzles, which made them feel like a chore x2 (because they would already be a chore due to the length, but the miserable motion controls made it even worse). Games should not feel like a chore to play, but Skyward Sword still did.

3.) Fucking EVERYTHING was a puzzle, though. So I’m going to elaborate on this a little more in a second, but basically Skyward Sword didn’t have an overworld. Skyward Sword had a hub area (the sky), and then several puzzle dungeons that led to even longer puzzle dungeons on the surface. The Faron, Eldin, and Lanayru areas were extremely small areas filled with puzzles that you had to complete just so you could get to a dungeon with more puzzles. There was nothing to explore in these areas, nothing to see, because you were too busy solving puzzles so that you could go solve more puzzles. And I hate that! I get that puzzles are a big part of Zelda, but you know what, exploration should be too. Exploration is what the series was literally founded on, even if the limitations of the NES meant there really wasn’t that much to find. So to have a game basically be nothing but dungeons, especially for a person like me who isn’t jazzed about dungeons in the first place, was a huge buzzkill.

4.) There really was NOTHING to explore. So, to elaborate on what I mentioned in the previous point: Aside from the surface area basically being nothing but dungeons (dungeons that you had to backtrack through five billion times), the sky was empty. It was just completely empty. There was nothing there. You had Skyloft, the Pumpkin island, the roulette island, Beedle’s ship . . . and that was it. Oh sure, there were other floating rocks here or there, but there was nothing on them. There was nothing to do. And considering this followed Wind Waker, where there was so much to discover in the ocean, so many different islands that had secrets and people and cabanas and minigames and whatnot, it was a massive disappointment. Nintendo showed us that they could give us huge areas to explore, they just deliberately chose not to for a 25th anniversary title. What this meant is that you had nothing to give you any breathing room between dungeons. Because again, the surface areas before the actual temples were basically little mini dungeons. So whereas in past Zelda games you’d have little sidequests and places to explore in-between dungeon crawling, in Skyward Sword you really didn’t have that. So not only could I not breathe because of all the physical exertion, but I also couldn’t breathe because the game gave you no time to rest. Goddess Din give me strength.

5.) The backtracking was INSANE. My god, another reason this game could have benefited from more areas was so that you wouldn’t have to keep exploring the same damn areas again, and again, and again, and again, AND AGAIN. The Imprisoned fight you mentioned was bad enough, because that wasn’t a fun fight and so to have to do it something like three separate times was miserable. But it was also miserable that there was literally nothing to this game below the clouds or above them, so they just had to keep inventing fetch quests to send you back to the same areas time and time again. Seriously Nintendo? At least Twilight Princess had more places for us to go, even if they looked boring. You couldn’t even give us that for the 25th anniversary title. Smh.

All in all, the gameplay experience of Skyward Sword is just absolutely miserable. From the forced motion controls to the fact that it’s nothing but dungeons pretending to be a map, I had to force myself to keep picking up the Wiimote because playing it felt like doing a chore akin to mowing the lawn. Which sucks, because as I said, I love the story and the characters to pieces. Fi’s farewell makes me cry every time I rewatch the scene on YouTube. But while story and characters do carry weight and are important to when it comes to Zelda games, ultimately, Zelda games are still games and therefore gameplay is paramount. If a game is not fun to play, then it has failed as a game. And unfortunately, Skyward Sword is one that failed as a game, perhaps because Nintendo invested so much time in the story and characters that they forgot they were supposed to be making a video game instead of an anime. It is what it is.

#people keep talking about a Skyward Sword remaster but nah #what it needs is a reMAKE #from the ground up #keep the story and characters the same #change EVERYTHING about the gameplay #change the whole surface #actually put shit in the sky to explore #otherwise it's a hard pass #because I'm not going to buy a game that's not fun to play #when I can just watch all the cutscenes on YT for none of the pain #Anonymous

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secretagentspydetectiveninja · 5 years

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hey so remember like last year when i was re-reading misadventures and fixing typos? (well, i say that, but it was just an excuse to re-read it and write some absolutely absurd commentary on it...) i found old notes in my phone from january with even more so guess i may as well post it because people seemed to find it funny at the time, it’s basically just The Misadventures of Aish Realizing Things though

[yeah so here’s the original notes i’m not even gonna change anything even though lots of Lore has happened in the show and we Know things now, you just get to see what january aish typed]

ok well let’s go then chapters 31-35 oh god

oh yeah the ML Blackout! I remember that

hm it’s occurring to me maaaaaybe I should post a bit of a warning on this chapter. like “yes this starts off stupid and cracky and fluffy but takes a complete 180 in the middle and you will end up sobbing.”

or maybe I should put that as a disclaimer on the whole fic cause it’s one hell of a ride

THE AROACE SCIENCE JOURNAL YESSSSSSS THAT COMES BACK LATER

yeah the reason why the early parts of this chapter are very lighthearted is honestly because the fic was getting a bit too bleak, I needed something cheerful, so paper planes and arm wrestles it was

wait... isn’t this just that scene from Anansi??? where like Nora challenges Nino to an arm wrestle but then he wins because Someone Else Nearby Did A Thing

also this is Peak characterization, damn Aish, you rly outdone yourself, congration

any time I drop the word “inkling” into a fic it is always 100% a splatoon reference

MAX WOW TONE DOWN THE GAY

heh... BI-ceps...

oh my godddd Max trying to play off his ogling as “ah yes I am scientifically studying Kim’s arm muscles ofc, it’s science I swear” is SO frickin funny I’m already losing it

Alix: “scientifically speaking I’m hot therefore you have to lose this arm wrestle” hshdhdghshskkjkdhshs

^literally the kind of nonsense every single teen I know spouts irl

including me when I was a teen, I just said things

(I still just say things)

you can’t bring up the sports bra thing goddammit, I agree it’s cheating because it has the power to one-hit kill anyone in the vicinity

I love how Max thinks his crush on Kim is “under control” while like. visibly swooning over him

OH MY GOD THE PILLOWS SHHDJDHDHDHSKHS

OKAY SO LIKE I was supposed to put the thing about Kim snogging a pillow in chapter 20 but I forgot or something and then I just had to get it in somehow, oh it kills me dead just thinking about it, I’m dying, I’m dead

and the fact that he admits to it as well, holy moly

KIM

K I M

THAT’S GAY

OH WOW

this is the moment when Alix’s Kimax shipper heart was suddenly feeling validated like “omg wait Kim DOES like Max??? like for real??????”

awwwww Kim, Max doesn’t have those kind of superpowers, you just have a crush on him that’s all <3

THE SKATEBOARDING SNEK!!!!!!!!!!!!

“What the heck is that?” “My snake.” DYINGGGG

Kim trying to figure out if the snake is sitting or standing is a whole mood

ohhhhhhhh my gosh poor Alix trying so damn hard to subtly ask Kim if he likes Max and Kim’s just. so DUMB he doesn’t even get it no matter how obvious she is

she’s even trying to pull out those stupid amatonormative “so is he MORE than a friend???” questions just to get this idiot to figure it out because she knows allo-romos are Like That and he still doesn’t get it,,

[future aish says: the word is alloro, past aish. it’s alloro]

AND SO NOW SHE ASSUMES THEY’RE NOT INTO EACH OTHER BECAUSE SHE THINKS EVEN KIM CAN’T BE THAT STUPID

YOU UNDERESTIMATE HIS STUPIDITY

oh no... oh NO.... the letter.... here we go....

btw yes Gabriel had Kim’s grandad assassinated, it was indeed his doing

...isn’t this lowkey the plot of The Lion King?

or Long Live The Queen

hmmm let’s just say in the sequel poor Kim really will have to deal with the stresses of ruling a country >:D

NO MY POOR SON HAVING A BREAKDOWN, I WANT TO HUG HIM

(also can I just say like... this chapter is actually well-written for the most part? I’m actually kinda impressed)

unfortunately I know the feeling of wanting, needing to return home, but it fills you with dread... *hugs Kim forever*

Kim crying all over Max both hurts me and sort of heals me because Max is so sweet and comforting about it ohhh my heeeaaart

AWWWWWWWWWWWWWW

THIS IS LOWKEY A LOVE CONFESSION I SWEAR, IT’S SO CUTE

chapter 32 being called “Un chat noir” is kinda dumb af but also it just so happened that I accidentally had the chapter called “Coccinelle” be chapter 64, aka exactly double of 32, so that was kinda neat

Plagggggg!!!!!!!!!!

and Wayhem lol, I think I’ve already mentioned how originally this noble was just some random irrelevant unnamed OC until I decided way later it’s gay stalker fanboy

oh yeah that’s how the nobility recognize the royalty, I forgot lol

(also nobles from countries with widespread newspress or tv will recognize them from news reports and stuff I guess)

the fact that Plagg just hates Wayhem is funny to me for some reason

MISADVENTURES

HOLY SHIT I ACTUALLY THREW IN THE ACTUAL WORD

except it was in reference to Adrien... let’s just say that The Misadventures of Imperial Prince Adrien may or may not make an appearance in the sequel >:D

...the Adrienette is literally just in this fic so that people would read it, ngl

hhhhhhhhhhhh okay it’s true Alix is an aro idiot who doesn’t know anything about romance but for once she’s RIGHT, Kim IS in love with Max, but she assumes she’s wrong hshgshdjhdnsnsh

oh my god noooo timeline twin go away and stop giving me nightmares

I still love how they hate each other, that’s some top-notch self-hatred right there and I need to get on their level

[future aish note: no past self!! be nice to yourself!! you are a cool bean!! own it!!]

YOU FOOL... EVERY CLASSMATE WOULD TAKE A SWORD TO THE HAND FOR ALIX, WHY WOULDN’T THEY

ỳïķèš,,,

honestly I probably should stop being lazy and actually go back to like idk chapter 8 and put in an actual monopoly game (it had to have been before the oracle sessions in ch10 at least)

fun fact!! I have indeed very nearly had a fist fight over the last dark blue card in a monopoly game!! also I blatantly cheated, and the main opponent locked someone else (an 8 year old btw) in a cupboard... it was Wild(TM)

me and my irl friend actually came up with the butterfly thing when we were at the cinema once, she made up this random angry gardener OC who stepped on a butterfly after being fired or something lol

I mentioned Rose liking unicorns!!!! before Captain Hardrock!!!!!!!

shdhdhkshs Alix is such a moody emo brat in this fic I adore it

“The only real difference between you and me is one dead butterfly.” goddammit that’s the creepiest fucking thing, I’m genuinely shaking

technically it’s a butterfly’s fault for ALL the timelines which means that we’re all one butterfly away from death at any moment

cheerful stuff

no, no, you’re not trying to block it out on purpose... I’M trying to block it out on purpose bc I’m highkey shamelessly projecting

god I wish my timeline twin would manifest in the astral plane and punch me in the arm too

“Count yourself lucky you’re not a pillow, idiot.” in-context this is contender for Most Cursed Line I Have Ever Written In My Life

and yes Alix was about to straight-up swear

Mylène rollerskating is extremely blessed and good

pfffffffff Max you coward, I stand on swivel chairs all the time

*me, chanting at the spider in my room* KIMAX! KIMAX! KIMAX!

Kim literally making every excuse to not put Max down is amazing honestly

Kim and Max’s origins story is sooooooooooo cute wtf

THIS IS SO BLESSED OH MY HEART

HE’S JUST STANDING THERE CUDDLING HIM I’M

DECEASED

I,,,, swear to god,,,,,,,

so like. I know it’s now canon in the show that Kim really is as oblivious to his feelings as I wrote him in this. but MY GOD. IT’S FRIGGIN PAINFUL

KIM YOU ARE IN LOVE WITH MAX, FULL HOMO, THAT’S WHY YOU’RE FEELING LIKE THIS, IT’S NOT THAT COMPLICATED DAMMIT

oh yeah I wrote the kimax bits rly early and my old url was @queenkubdel haha

aight now a no-kimax chapter, but at least it’s a goodun

there’s that catradora-esque weather girls frenemyship again

Kim having a full-on breakdown when he finds out Alix’s hair isn’t really pink is actually really blessed, no lemme explain

so this universe has magic, right?? so he thinks to himself that the reason his friend has pink hair is because she must be some sort of anime protagonist or Really Important and Cool or something, and it never even occurred to him to doubt her

in other words he’s betrayed because he WANTED HIS FRIEND TO BE A COOL SHONEN HERO

which is both hilarious AND very sweet

...oh wait I’ve scrolled down and it turns out I literally explained all that in the fic itself hhdgjdvzjdjhs

and yeah honestly I can’t blame poor Kim for taking it so badly, he’s still reeling from his grandfather’s assassination so it’s natural his emotions are not exactly Regulated atm

actually when are his emotions ever regulated

1703-1899 hm... might change that since the fic takes place in 1957-1960 so even though it’s a commissioned history of the empire it was before Gabriel was even born so like why would he even care lmao

“Great Western Ocean” so pretentious, just say the Atlantic omg

I’ve been playing way too much civ because the first thing that came to mind was that everyone’s denounced Agreste due to the high warmongering penalties of the industrial/modern eras

Chloé and Kim is one hell of a brotp okay I still firmly believe that

also Chloé still loves her rococo fashion, she’s just toned it down enough that she can fit through doors and it’s not quite as “in your face” towards commoners

listen I know in the show Kim still liked Chloé for a while after Dark Cupid but in this he got over her quicker because his crush on her wasn’t as deep in the first place

Kim literally tells Chloé he gave the brooch to Max and yet STILL doesn’t realize he likes him!!! KIM!!!!!!!!!!

Chlodemption arc yesssssssss

also she’s a lesbeean

(ye Pollen will be in the sequel don’t you worry)

god I’m so proud of her <3

it feels believable too, so I’m proud of myself!! (I’m trying to be nice to myself before next chapter where I will no doubt roast myself so badly I’ll never recover)

outdated laws about marriage... jeez was that cursed foreshadowing or what

YES IT’S IVAN, I LOVE THIS BOY, HE’S SO GRUMPY AND ANGRY ALL THE TIME AND HE HATES KIM

...actually wait this is sibling culture

I literally speak like this to my brother and he’s my best friend so in conclusion Ivan thinks of Kim as an annoying brother

Jalil why are you a historian. just go be a psychologist and stop your sister accidentally hecking up the country

omg the Antarctica thing, I’m just imagining Jalil in the freezing cold with a massive coat on and getting chased by penguins

I love how the timeline twin’s plan was “escape school, force Adrien to get a venomous pet, then abandon him immediately in the middle of nowhere” and later on it turns out she skipped step two and just ditched him lmaoooooo

being so ace that your brain goes straight to “death and murder” before anything else is the biggest mood, I speak from experience

Jalil knows... he had that conversation with Kim in chapter 20... he Knows

“a bit unsupportive” um that is an extreme understatement good grief he was more savage than ME

RISE OF THE KIMAX SHIPPERS

oh don’t worry the venom death still haunts me too

chapter I Hate You... “A rather rotten winter party” well it should have been named A RATHER ROTTEN CHAPTER DO YOU KNOW HOW IMPOSSIBLE THIS ONE WAS TO WRITE OMG I HATE WRITING MYSELF INTO CORNERS

you see I had to have a motive for the timeline twin to explain things properly so that I could put in a really really dumb pun later but that meant I had to unfortunately suffer many allergic reactions again

[future aish note: forgot to mention, i also needed a motive for kim to stop eating chocolate forever, so i had to Curse this chapter as a sacrifice in order to save his life later on]

alright, alright, here we go, I’ll stop procrastinating and just get this over with

oh yeah it’s chapters like these that the fic’s rated T lol

the Adrikim friendship is indeed important... for later... like, plot-relevant levels of important... life-saving levels...

“some event” is the Peace Ball actually and I can’t wait because that chapter’s actually a good one

KIM BRAGGING ABOUT KISSING ADRIEN LAST YEAR IS SO FUCKING FUNNY OH MY GOD I’M LOSING MY MIND???

like last year he was LITERALLY LIKE “oh boo hoo I cannot tell anyone about this because Adrien is Ã Bøyê” and now he’s just like “yeah I kissed a hot boy and what about it???”

to be fair he is on an extreme sugar rush from all the chocolate he ate, which will... be a plot point in just a moment...

PILLOW GIRLFRIEND

I’m the amused nobles, they are me

oh my god Kim we get it you want to kiss someone (Max) and you don’t want to outright say it

holy shit do any of these kids ever think before they speak??? not to sound like the timeline twin or anything but alix... you could have avoided this if you’d bothered to use your one (1) brain cell

[future aish note: bold of me to assume that alix has a brain cell]

Kim wants to now fight his PARALLEL SELF oh my god, get on my level Kim, I want to fight my actual self like right now so there

stfu all of you, this is poisoning my liver

Max is the biggest mood and at least mildly sensible thank god, but he really shouldn’t have left those two alone for even a second

I AGREE PLATONIC LOVE IS UNDERRATED

the chair... the fucking c h a i r... I’m already lying down but I need to lie down harder just to process the absurdity of this

(I think I was gonna have Alix fall off the chair just because that’s hilarious but I forgot)

look I can’t take heartrate seriously but if you ever write it then you are legally required to put in kissing contests or you’re doing it wrong

fudgin Adrienette kiss offscreen and irrelevant

DJWIFI!!! AND ACTUAL PROPER DJWIFI!!!! I was sick of seeing it treated as some kind of pair-the-spares beta couple so I flipped the script and had them literally call out that trope while treating Adrienette as irrelevant instead, which is also why the sequel will be extremely djwifi-centric

“super swanky bae” please stop misusing commoner slang I’m begging you

THERE’S THE PLOT POINT I WAS TALKING ABOUT

Theo was right here, he witnessed with his own eyes how much chocolate Kim ate, so he knows for a fact that if you give Kim chocolate he will scarf it down without a second thought... so hypothetically if one sent him poisoned chocolates... dyou see where I’m going with this...

oh and Theo still has like every job btw

Alya!!!! no!!!!! hire him again!!!!!!!! then he won’t send the chocolates!!!!!!!!!! aaaahhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!!!

there goes me hinting how alyadrininette is the ultimate ot4 again

...do I really wanna scroll down and keep going? no I don’t but I guess I gotta, and relive every one of my most embarrassing school sleepovers in the process

full offence to everyone bothering to read this but kissing sounds gross, actually

(for the record it was probably like... 10 seconds or something idk it was Not Long At All)

“probably not more than 5 minutes” omg I just said it was 10 seconds??? hmmm m okay like 20 seconds maaaybe, Kim just has no sense of time perception

neither do I based on my microwaving skills

SHIT THIS IS LITERALLY A SCHOOL SLEEPOVER

INNOCENT DUMBASS AROACE ASKING “what does that mean? what’s this? what’s that? it’s okay you can tell me :-)”

omg I forgot the snake was there ahshdhdkshfs I’m the snake, probably wants to launch itself out of the window so big mood

most of the fic so far had Alix being really aro so I was like damn... gotta make her really ace too

(if I ever bother writing the Kimdine AU then you actually get an aro character who isn’t ace, because we need more of them, but I won’t say who) (okay fine it’s Luka)

I tend not to be too British in my writing so as not to give the Americans heart attacks whenever they see someone referring to their mother as “mum” etc, but like... sometimes you just gotta throw in the word “snogging”

(I’m typing this out on my phone rn and it has exactly 69% battery, I hate this and also hate that I felt the need to mention that)

THE HOCKEY THING MAY OR MAY NOT HAVE BEEN BASED OFF A REAL LIFE THING. *SWEATS NERVOUSLY*

honestly I was soooooo tempted to actually write The Talk bit, it would have been the funniest thing ever, but I was also 99% sure I would have to change the rating to M (despite it not even remotely being smut lol, just a regular biology lesson) and there was no way I was doing that, pretty sure I pushed the T rating at some points as it is

[future aish: god i am still so tempted to write it. man, i’m tempted. it would be the funniest thing. but no... i have sworn not to write anything above a T rating so guess i won’t.]

YEAH THE THROWING UP THING TOO WAS DEFINITELY NOT BASED ON REAL LIFE OR ANYTHING *MORE NERVOUS SWEATING*

(it genuinely wasn’t a flowerpot though. it’s my life’s goal to throw up in a flowerpot and I still haven’t achieved it.)

all of this is an Ace Mood(TM)

also I love how elaborately I’ve worded this, like yeah idiot royal teenagers are too royal and posh to ever bother just saying the word “sex” like a normal person

to any 17 year old aces: you aren’t too young to know, I told myself that aggressively when I was 17 but now I’m 22 and I’m still just as ace as I always was sooooo yeah

I also hope I can wake up tomorrow and forget I read this trash

well tbh... it’s not total trash... it highkey reminds me of my school days, like, maybe that was subconscious or something... god who even knows

jeez if timeline twin slapped me in the face I’d just keel over and die from sheer terror, other than that that’s HILARIOUS

timeline twin: “YOU HAVE ONE (1) BRAIN CELL NOW P L E A S E CONSIDER USING IT”

fuckeninf hell listen,,, so when I was writing this chapter I didn’t know I was aro... I mean, I was kinda questioning it?? but all I knew was I was ace, and that me not knowing that as a teenager almost totally screwed me over because like

to be normal or to feel normal there’s things you do or say that you don’t want, and things you know would happen or whether you want something or not you’ll take it because you think you’re expected to, because otherwise you’ll have to confront yourself with the fact that something is wrong with you and you don’t know what or why or how to fix it

and being aro on top of that is misunderstanding how to navigate close friendships because of this fundamental fear that if you want to be close with someone then friendship can’t suffice, that how much you care about them doesn’t matter

and things I did or almost did, or had the chance to do and only stopped because (awfully enough) crippling anxiety which ironically saved me (let’s just say the dude turned out to be a creep)... yeah basically this is all a callback to that aroace teenager feel where you can’t help not being true to yourself because you don’t want to, because you don’t know what’s wrong or right, only what’s “normal” and the ache of knowing that you’re not, no matter how much you try

and I didn’t know I was aro while writing this but in hindsight it’s easy to see how that played into it too, and writing this definitely played a part in me realizing I’m aro and was somehow trying to work through some very pent-up feelings about friendship and closeness with people, as well as pent-up feelings about being ace and how that tied into everything too

...in short, do not phuck the pharaoh or you will get HOUSE ARRESTED and DIE

(jk jk she’ll just be awkward around you forever lol, and then SHE’LL get house arrested and die, because you’re not commoners so your actions actually have consequences you dumb idiots)

this entire thing is just a whole mood and lowkey my teenage years holy fuck holy fuck I hate that I’m only just realizing how bloody hard I was projecting

I literally read a post the other day about how unrequited love is only ever usually explored from the perspective of the person who’s in love, whereas aros are usually on the receiving end of it and it’s a tragedy in its own right that you might do things that wind up driving you apart because you can’t bring yourself to love them back but you can’t tell them because of the fear that it’ll push them away... and I gotta say, I totally nailed it 💪

...you know what I’ve changed my mind, chapter 34 is good actually, and now I need to make a time machine and go and hug my 17 year old self for living this, and then hug my 20 year old self for writing this, I’m sorry I was mean to this chapter it’s very relatable and I shouldn’t keep beating myself up over it

thinking makes me miserable too!! that’s why it’s optimistic nihilism only lads

impulse control, hmmm... someone who’s good for him, hmmmmmm... it’s almost like someone like that is right there and exists and is already in love with him 😏

so apparently timeline twin’s idea of “fixing her life” is burning all her bridges and then hecking off to the Kazakh wilderness for over a year

did Alix just... ask the snake if it’s aroace too???

I mean it definitely is, but...

UGH SNAKES DON’T BLINK, I’M STILL SO ANGRY ABOUT THIS

chapter 35, thank god, the title “Finally!” is very apt

(because I can finally change the music from Death Valley to something else lol)

oh poor Max, his heart goes on a real rollercoaster these few chapters doesn’t it? it’s okay buddy, in like 10 chapters you’ll get your man...

NO BUT SHE H A S FIGURED IT OUT!!! SORT OF!!!

I just misread “despite” as “despacito”, I’m going to bed and continuing this tomorrow dammit

alright I am now funky refreshed and ready to roll, let’s get this kimax party started

Max is angsting internally like “no one’s realized I like Kim :( well except Juleka but she’s a lesbian so she doesn’t count” ashgdjsghskk that mlm/wlw solidarity is holding out I see

YES ALIX YOU DO NEED TO TALK TO NATH MORE, THAT’S YOUR FREAKING BEST BUD IN THE SHOW MAY I REMIND YOU

this is all so Irony it’s murdering me dead

okay yeah I’m gonna be really honest and salty here for a second, this bit where Max is annoyed that Alix takes Nath more seriously as a contender than him was me being a bit salty over the fact that like... kimnath/tomato ketchup is a great rarepair but got so weirdly popular amongst people who didn’t seem to care about Max as a character at all despite how close he is with Kim in canon, and as a Max Stan it made me sad because he’s already not very appreciated in fandom

[future aish note: HE IS NOW BABEY!]

THERE IT IS

I WANT TO HUG MAX TOO, BLESS HIM

I also want to hug Alix because godddds I’ve been in that situation where if you were allowed to just TELL the idiots that they like each other then all their problems would be solved but noooo, you’re sworn to secrecy... *sigh*

“I’ll make sure that doesn’t change, ever...” me: *thinks about the sequel and cackles evilly while cracking my knuckles* well,,

A R O M A N T I C

listen it was VERY IMPORTANT to me that I actually put in all these actual words in the fic and made them relevant, like gay, lesbian, bisexual, etc (I think the only one I didn’t was trans, oops?? gotta remember that for the sequel, at least Nino IS trans in this even though I never said the word)

[future aish note: i feel like i didn’t say pan either, or nonbinary... more stuff for the sequel folks! i can’t put in everything but i may as well try!]

bc you see all these tv shows where a character is bi but they say they “don’t like labels” or a character with no love interest get suddenly paired up with someone random at the end... like NO I wanted to do the OPPOSITE of that bc people’s identities are IMPORTANT so I wanted to MAKE IT RELEVANT 💪

and even though I didn’t yet know here that I was aro and highkey projecting, there’s already a fair few fics dealing with asexuality but not aromanticism?? so I rly wanted to make the aro side of things important

almost relieved??? Max, you buffoon, she IS relieved, extremely

Malix friendship is good and severely underrated and I still haven’t forgiven myself for not putting more of it in this

“He was never eating chocolate again” HO-HO-HOLY SHIT THAT’S SOME FORESHADOWING RIGHT THERE

Rose is a distinguished bi who doesn’t realize Kim is a disaster bi

Kim oh my god you can’t just out Adrien “just about functional bi” Agreste like that

I love that Rose calls Kim a casanova even though he’s very much not... how many people are even into him over the course of the fic? Max, Adrien, it’s implied Marinette used to be, Lila is ambiguous, same with the lacrosse guy later, oh yeah Ondine highkey lmao along with 90% of the teenage population of Saharan Africa, Kim himself in about 2 chapters time...

Rose giving Kim the gay talk is so blessed omg I need more interaction between these two

“If you swung one way you were gay, if you swung the other way you were straight, more than one way made you bisexual, if you didn’t swing any way at all then you were probably just Alix...” I will literally NEVER be able to outdo this line, this is Peak

hmm I don’t think at any point in the fic Max says to Kim that he’s exclusively into boys... I guess he said it offscreen then lol, point is He’s Gay

OMG KIM, YOU FINALLY REALIZED WHAT THE NOSEBLEED SCENE MEANT, GOD BLESS YOU

this is like in Syren when he realizes the mermaid is Ondine and that she was trying to tell him she likes him... except this is the gay version of that

yeah Rose I really do need to get more sleep, that one was directed at me and I know it was

Kim being all like “fellas is it gay if you take off your shirt and a guy swoons at you 🤔🤔🤔”

no, no... Max is definitely a complete trainwreck at romance, just slightly less than you

god freaking dammit not the sports bra again,,, I s2g later in the fic all Ondine would have had to do is to show up in a sports bra and Kim would immediately go full ot3 mode no questions asked,,,,,,,, (I mean he does see her in a swimsuit but that’s not the same??? sports bras are in a different league okay shush)

psssssst!!! you should read heartbroken!!!! it’s a kimax fic and it’s so good!!!!! this was a lowkey shoutout!!!!!!!!

genuinely tho, even if Kim hadn’t liked Max too here, he’s being so sweet about it?? he’s worried about his poor friend’s emotional state and wishes he could have done better to help!! gahhhh their friendship/relationship is just So Blessèd

hsndhkdhdkshdh I only noticed it after finishing the fic and occasionally skimming back through, but so much of the time whenever Alix shows up Kim’s all like *ungrateful* “oh not you again” like WOW that’s one way to greet your friend?? mood tho

[future aish note: i did the exact opposite in No Romo, funnily enough! kim’s not in it much but whenever he sees alix he’s like “friend!!! friend!!!!!” and she’s just like -_- “oh it’s that guy again”]

he’s not even paying attention to her omg she’s trying to save the timeline here you idiot

POOR ALIX how frustrating,,, and also I’ve literally been there,,, the woes of being a wing-girl indeed

and now Kim wants to fight himself, why am I not surprised

aND YES HERE’S WHERE IT HITS HIM, THE EXACT FUCKING MOMENT

WHERE HE’S SUDDENLY LIKE “OH WAIT MAX’S LOVE FOR ME ISN’T UNREQUITED??? I LIKE HIM TOO HOLY SHIT????”

aaaaaaand he immediately asks the aro for love advice, why is he like this omg

gosh this is sooooo sweeeeeet

I did not let up, did I? just went ahead and made this as cheesy and cutesy and over the top as I could because It’s What Kimax Deserves

(there wasn’t rly much Kimax content yet in the fandom at this point so I had total free reign and went all-out with it)

sfjsgskdhs and there goes Alix getting her wing-efforts sidelined again

“I’m never asking out someone on a whim again. Or, uh, confessing that I like someone on a whim either.” so uh... you know how I said I’m considering making the sequel Kimaxdine? well if I do then uh. hm. this might change. because reasons.

I don’t know why I made nothing Alix ever says make sense but I’m glad I did because she’s so freaking funny

I swear I talk about Max’s eyes being “magnified in his glasses” multiple times in this fic, either that or I’m having serious deja vu

Kim’s so cute dammit!!! now that he knows he likes Max he’s just swooning over every little thing and it’s!!!! adorable!!!!!

(I wonder if this is how it was with Kimdine in the show? it does seem like Kim already liked her but just hadn’t noticed...)

huehuehuehue Kim later on you do indeed recklessly propose to Max on the spot... in like 18 chapters or so

also the fact that Kim thinks things through better when he’s around Max is just the total sweetest and also what Alix was basically trying to aim for

I love Kim showing off that he can pack all his stuff in half an hour like buddy, the porters can literally help you with that, you’re royalty remember

omg I’d forgotten I left a note here later for binge-readers!! being all like “drink water and eat food and go to sleep uwu”

lmao guess I’ll take my own advice then and leave it there for now

[future aish note: same, goodnight]

#smalluns proceed with caution. it's T rated remember #it's not dodgy though. just evil and cursed #anyway i'm going to sleep now for like 12 hours #random stuff #misadventures #if you're on the mobile app and the keep reading glitches and you have to scroll then i'm sorry #this is under a cut on desktop i promise

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icequeen-shiva · 5 years

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alright, you know what

about two weeks ago maybe by now, i made a post about how i’ve recently hit 200 followers and i’d like to do a q&a again, and even with a reblog from someone more ~*popular*~ than me, and multiple reblogs once a day for a few days by myself, i didn’t get a single fucking question. not one. earlier today i posted two pictures of myself where i felt pretty (i’ve since deleted them) and nobody i actually know of liked it and i got asked by a stranger who doesn’t even follow me if i had any nsfw pictures. i don’t get asks anymore, i don’t get shit. and that tells me that, you may be following me, but you aren’t connecting with me. and i feel that. i get on tumblr and i don’t feel like i’m friends with fucking anybody. and i did that. i know i did that. 9/10 times i let my fear of rejection and embarrassing myself overcome my desire to talk to people, so i don’t do it, or i let it fizzle out and we go our own ways and we don’t become friends. 1/10 times i actually function as a human being and make a connection or at least something that sticks a little.

so here, below the cut, is a comprehensive (loosely) list of things that i like, in no particular order at all, besides tickling, because apparently both sides of this need a little help connecting on any front.

scooby-doo

beetlejuice

the addams family

the sims

the mcu

classic disney animations; my favorites are dumbo, the great mouse detective, the rescuers, sleeping beauty, and oliver and company (it’s old enough that i consider it in the classic category)

~modern disney animations too; my favorites are treasure fucking planet, coco, and... i’m a sap, beauty and the beast. rise of the guardians too even though it isn’t disney.

musicals; i can’t pick a favorite just fucking ask me, but i don’t know a lot of newer ones honestly

empire records

the greatest showman still

cats (i mean the animals but i also like the show even though it is Weird As Hell)

my cat in particular

alice in wonderland

stranger things

space jam

tsum tsums

elvira, mistress of the dark

dice

kiki’s delivery service and specifically jiji things

winnie the pooh i don’t even fucking care i LOVE HIM AND ALL OF HIS FRIENDS

silly hats

playdoh

interesting earrings

exploring libraries or big bookstores

true crime mysteries; my favorite youtuber for this is georgia marie, bless her. i also watch bella fiori and kendall rae

fictional mysteries too

i have a kind of fascination with jack the ripper and with the lizzie borden case

shipwrecks! i don’t know why but shipwrecks fascinate me! why did they go down? all the stories that went with them!

i once read a novel that was told as a series of letters, or journal entries, by people on the titanic, including the iceberg and it was THE absolute saddest book i have ever read in my life. like, obviously i knew what was coming, but i got attached to the characters, the letters made them alive and it was just like... NO. NO I DON’T WANT THEM TO DIE. I KNOW THEY’RE GOING TO BUT THEY CAN’T. and it was awful. i had to put it down and cry.

cryptozoology

the bermuda triangle theories (i’m not saying i believe sOmEtHiNg’S gOiNg On but i think some of the theories are interesting)

ghosts

the nancy drew computer games

monopoly

i still play a lot of my snes games; my go-to time killer and head-clearer honestly is kirby’s avalanche. i also play a lot of super mario rpg legend of the seven stars, super mario world, kirby’s dreamland 3, and donkey kong 2 and 3

final fantasy x in which i’m guaranteed to call almost (i can’t stress that enough) every character at some point “my child”

hyrule warriors, i know it’s not a tRuE zelda game but it’s fucking fun

same with fire emblem warriors

red dead redemption

kingdom hearts

the uncharted series

splatoon but i don’t have it wahhhhh

mind you i am not very Good at videogames, i just like to play them anyway

game grumps

ninja sex party

jacksepticeye

markiplier

monty python

crocheting

tea

harry potter

classic rock. pretty big on queen lately. i like tom petty and the heartbreakers. i like joan jett and the blackhearts.

i just... like rock. across the board. i like the offspring. i like some rage against the machine songs. acdc on the radio makes me happy. def leppard on the radio makes me happy. beartooth, starset, powerman 5000, as long as it’s got a good beat and good stuff going on behind the vocals then i’m gonna be happy. i’m way more into the guitars and the bass and everything going on instrumentally than i am vocally, honestly. the whole big guitar solo to van halen’s “you really got me” and then that bassline that comes in, that bassline is sexy. it’s so simple but i LIKE it.

anyway music as a whole gets me right in the heart and can lift me up when i am at my literal worst point

it’s hard for me to name a favorite or specific bands that i like because there’s so many and i’m not really picky about it.

pop vinyls

good ol’ vines

buffalo wings

mac and cheese

grilled cheese

dr. pepper

i drink a l o t of dr. pepper

pretending i know how to do makeup well

history; i watch a lot of expedition unknown and mysteries at the museum, and sometimes i’ll watch a free documentary on youtube if it catches my attention. last weekend i explained the donner party to my boyfriend. just.. on a whim. because i’d just watched a thing on it and he said he didn’t really know what it was. i’m that person.

OH I SHOULD HAVE MENTIONED THIS BACK AROUND TRUE CRIME BUT I READ A BOOK ABOUT H.H. HOLMES AND HIS MURDER CASTLE AND THE CHICAGO WORLD’S FAIR. it was by erik larson, i believe. larsen? i could google this. devil in the white city. there’s been talks to make it a movie. it’s a good read though i will admit i skipped a lot of the fair parts because i was there for the murder.

i also read a book about the lusitania by the same author and i was like ohhh my goooood what. it got a little boring sometimes, i had to push myself to keep going, but i would read dead wake again.

csi: miami reruns are the greatest thing don’t @ me

dark purple and black aesthetics

just like... witchy aesthetics. those colors and black cats

if you haven’t noticed by any selfies i’ve posted, i do have my lip pierced and i love finding new lip jewelry. i have a new opal stud in and i love its look

leather jackets

combat boots; i have a galaxy print pair and a pair with classic marvel comics stuff printed on the inside and you can fold down the sides to show it. they’re my faves.

owls

drunk history

the first 5 seasons of supernatural and i still have a soft spot for the winchesters and castiel

i’m slowly making my way through watching the librarians

i’m also making my way slowly through watching the magicians

(american) football

nature walks

going to the zoo

going to the aquarium

like really take me to either of the above and i will lose my shit

road trips

savannah, georgia

the smokey mountains

last august i drove by myself from ohio to boone, north carolina for a friend’s wedding and that wedding was smack on a mountain top and it was the coolest thing i think i’ve ever done

roller coasters BUT NOT EXTREME ONES baby steps ok

log rides tho, i don’t know why, i always love the water rides

ren faires!

cosplay, even though i’m not exactly active in it myself (but i want to be; one of my offline friends is an actually-getting-kind-of-internet-famous mei from overwatch cosplayer)

cards against humanity

foosball

pool but i suck at it

speaking of pools i love swimming ... but i suck at it, i just like boppin’ along in a pool

cookouts

summer

there is nothing like being out in the middle of nowhere in summer when the evening starts to fall and the sky is dark, dark blue and there’s a sea of shimmering lightning bugs out over a field. it’s beautiful. it’s peaceful.

there’s nothing like sitting outside on a calm spring night and listening to the spring peepers (they’re frogs) either.

if you couldn’t tell, i live in the middle of nowhere. i have to find enjoyment in the little things.

campfires

dancing around said campfire, you cannot have a campfire without good music. this is when a lot of my classic rock education came to pass.

elephants

my favorite books are the abhorsen trilogy by garth nix, tied with the serpent’s shadow by mercedes lackey

i am trying to get into comic books by way of the youtube channel comicstorian. they break comic books down for you and read them aloud with the images, altered slightly to avoid copyright strikes (and that’s all made very clear, it’s not done sketchily), and it’s been really easy for someone like me who doesn’t just have a comics store close (and i would otherwise continue on as i have been, forgetting to ever look for them on the internet). i listened to injustice 1 and 2, and they covered the game. i’m actively following scooby apocalypse, and there was some teen titans stuff i went all the way through up until now. i don’t think it’s finished yet from what i remember.

i love museums

candles

i actually kind of collect tea sets

i also have a collection of sand art bottles AND IF I’M EVER AT A FESTIVAL OR A FAIR WHERE THERE IS A SAND ART STAND YOU CAN BET I AM GOING TO MAKE ONE

yugioh duels; i’m definitely just a novice and it’s just a fun pastime my friends got me into when they found their giant binders of cards again

i’m not actually that big on pokemon, i don’t know a lot of them but it’s still fun and i know some. but i did love pokemon go when my friends still played it (don’t really have time anymore, and it kept crashing way too badly on one of their phones anymore anytime they tried to join a raid and it just wasn’t fun as a group then)

i don’t have any but i like the ~look of crystals and would like to have some, not for my own aesthetic but i just... like having pretty things!

listening to the rain

how the air smells (at least where i live) after a long rain and everything is just cleansed

depression has stopped me from writing for a long time but, in my heart, writing has always been something that has touched me ever since i knew how to do it and could put my stories down on paper instead of having to just talk about them... so i’m going to include that here

root beer floats

hotdogs

hard dip ice cream (if you don’t know what hard dip means... as my boyfriend didn’t... it means ice cream that you have to use a scoop with, not soft serve)

soft serve’s good too tho don’t get me wrong

strawberry milkshakes

this isn’t even stuff that anyone would need to know on this site to befriend me at this point, nobody’s gonna message me like HEY I READ YOU LIKE STRAWBERRY MILKSHAKES ME FUCKING TOO

you’re cool if you do that lmao

so bad they’re good creature features from the 50s and 60s

the old godzilla movies

i like the moon more than the stars, but i like them too

flower crowns

bouncy balls

original skittles

this has gone on way too long, nobody is reading this, your mom’s a hoe, goodnight

no she’s not, i’m sorry, if you got this far then i hope your mom is a nice person

#about me #THERE'S A LONGASS LIST OF THINGS I LIKE IN HERE SO IF YOU WANT TO BE MY FRIEND THEN THERE'S A PLACE TO START #OK THEN

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coolgreatwebsite · 6 years

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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 · 6 years

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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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paragon-yoshi · 6 years

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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

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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 · 7 years

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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 · 7 years

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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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