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draco-kasai · 3 years

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Hero Collaboration Program

Summery: High School Hero Collaboration Program! Helping Sophomore hero students connect with others around the world! Come join us for a two-week-long trip to one of our schools for an amazing once in a lifetime experience with students of Yuuei! Only a lucky 40 students will be selected for this program. They will be split into two groups of 20 and sent to different schools to have completely unique experiences!

A/N: AKA, A very ambitious fanfic I started because even though I have another fanfic in progress my brain decided to give me an idea and I just had to do it. These are all characters I adore and I even did lots of reasurch on them to hopefuly get them down right. I also too many backstories and threw them into a meat grinder to remold them in a way that would make them fit into this universe.

I love Class 1-A, but like they need to be taken down a peg or two, and I want to see them get their asses handed to them.

Ch. 1 part 1 of 3 Program sign-ups. -->

Chapter 1 Part 2

High School Hero Collaboration Program

Helping first year hero students connect with others around the world!

What is the HSHC Program?

Our program has had a partnership with Yuuei High School for 15 long years! Their first-year students would come to our schools to interact, learn and study with other sophomore students for two weeks! - For those who don’t know, first year high school students in Japan would be considered sophomores here in the states! - A select few students nationwide as well as worldwide are selected to participate. All services and activities are offered and provided at no cost to participants or their families. This program is geared to help young heroes become (1) more informed of the educational, social, and cultural aspects available, (2) learn how to work with others they are unfamiliar with, (3) gain a better understanding of hero agencies and laws around the world, (4) assist students in successfully gaining connections with other aspiring heroes around the world their own age.

Student Participants

A total of 40 lucky students are hand selected to take part in this 16 day long program. 28 slots are open for Nationwide applications. The remaining 12 slots are open for applicants across the world! Students are to go through a long application process and in person interview. Once admitted, students will be staying within the dorms that are provided. All plane tickets will be paid for by our program. This program will take place in two schools; Marina High School located in California and Chandler High School located in Arizona.

All partners who wish to apply together must submit a joint application and answer an extra essay question. Only accepting duo teams. Bigger teams are asked to either pair off and sign up as duos, or sign up individually. The whole purpose of this program is for young aspiring heroes to meet others and form connections.

Application

All applicants are required to turn in two essays (unless a team). There is no page or word limit, 12 size text, font New Times Roman, single space. Along with your essays, please send in two teacher recommendation letters. A checklist will be provided at the end of this packet. Make sure to use it to assist you in keeping organized. Everything can be either faxed to (951-262-3062), given to school office faculty to hand to us or through mailed to 1640 Riverside Drive, Hill Valley, California.

Applicants that make it past the first stage of the application process will be scheduled for an in-person interview. A letter will be sent out within two weeks after the interview confirming whether or not you have been accepted.

Essay 1.

When you become a hero, what do you hope to accomplish?

Essay 2.

What major event in your life has led you to where you are now and your decision to become a hero?

Essay question for hero teams.

How did you meet, and when did you decide to work together as a team?

Emerald eyes narrowed as they skimmed over the packet that had been handed to them. With one last look over, they turned to face the person who had given them the packet. Bright blue eyes stared back with a large smile plastered on their lips. “What is this, Grayson?”

“It’s the Hero Collaboration Program!” Richard Grayson – Part-time Gotham Police officer and Underground Hero: Nightwing - responded enthusiastically.

Green eyes rolled skyward at the older boy’s words, “I can see that. All my teachers at school had even taken the liberty to constantly remind us about it. What I mean is, why did you give this to me?”

“Awe common, Kiddo, I thought you were smart.” Jason Todd – Vigilante: Red Hood – joked as he ruffled the younger boy’s black hair. With an annoyed grunt, his hand was swatted away, “We want you to apply for the program.”

With a huff, the youngest fixed his hair, “And why would I do such a thing?”

The oldest boy grinned wider, “It’ll be fun!”

“No.” The youngest replied with a deadpan expression as he tossed the thin packet on the coffee table in front of him.

With a click of his tongue, Jason crossed his arms over his chest. Leaning back on the loveseat, he responded, “Just apply you brat, it’s not even that bad.”

“What’s ‘not that bad’?” Another voice asked as they walked into the living room, laptop in one hand, a cup of coffee in another.

“The Hero Collaboration Program.” Jason responded as he glanced over at the sleep-deprived man as he flopped down next to him.

“Oh! They started accepting applicants already?!” Timothy Drake – CEO of Wayne Enterprises and Underground Hero: Red Robin - sat up enthusiastically.

“Yeah, but Damian doesn’t want to apply!” Dick pouts

“I’m not going to apply to a program that does not benefit me in any way shape or form.” Damian rolled his eyes.

“Wha- but it teaches you so much! Your teachers must have told you about the benefits!” Tim frowned, taking a sip of his coffee.

“They did, but I don’t have any need for socializing.”

“Are you kidding me? You’ve been six years and your only friends are Jon and Maya, and honestly, I don’t think it counts. Maya is in her last year of high school and Jon is a year below you. You need friends your own age.” Jason responded, then waved his hand about, “Even if they're scattered across the continent.”

“I thought he made friends when he was sent to that boarding school in San Francisco for two years when he was eleven?” Dick raises an eyebrow.

"Oh, Titan middle school, right?" Tim hums, "I mean, they helped him become better, I guess?"

"Honestly, I feel like that was the work of the school itself, not them. Besides, Damian doesn't even text or call them like he does Maya and Jon." Jason huffs

“You've been snooping through my phone.” Damian glares as he pulls a knife from nowhere like magic.

"In that case, how will this help him if he isn't even close to people he went to school with for two years?" Tim thought out loud.

"Well, back then it was regular school and classes. Schools don't offer more hero electives till sophomore year in high school. The program does lots of team building and training. What better way to make friends than when your life's in their hands?"

"That's a good point," Tim nods in agreement.

“Didn’t you, like, date Raven while you were over there?” Dick teased, elbowing his brother

“No. I did NOT date Raven.”

“Wha- really? You seemed so close.” Dick blinks in surprise.

"Dude, she's dating Garfield."

"What?! Really?"

"How the hell do you know that?"

"Kori."

"Oh… right, I forgot she mentioned that."

"Dude, she's your wife. If she knows you block out her rants, she's going to kill you."

"... I don't… block out her rants."

“We’re straying off-topic.” Tim hums, hiding his smirk with his drink as Damian, who proceeded to slowly stand, shoots him a glare before a hand grabs the back of his color and pulled him back down.

“Oh! Right, the Hero Collaboration Program!” Dick grins

“I think Damian taking part in the program is a good idea.” Everyone's eyes flickered over to the entrance where Bruce Wayne – Owner of Wayne Enterprises and Underground Hero: Batman – stood with Alfred Pennyworth, besides him. “This program will benefit you and help you make friends with people your own age, maybe even teach you something new.”

“Your brothers all attended the program, master Damian.” Alfred gave the boy an encouraging smile as he handed out drinks for everyone in the room, “In a way you could consider it a tradition at this point.” The younger boy took his drink silently as he pondered the words the older man had given him.

“Oh yeah, I guess it kind of is tradition at this point, huh…” Tim hummed, finishing his coffee and graciously handing the empty cup to Alfred, who shoved a cup of water in his hands.

“I joined during… what? During their third year of existence?” Dick wondered out loud as he leaned back on the couch.

“That’s correct, master Dick.”

“Haa~ I was Bruce’s test dummy to make sure the program was actually useful.” Dick chuckled softly.

“Pft seriously? Thanks for your sacrifice.” Jason smirked, making Tim let out a soft laugh.

“I suppose.” Everyone fell silent to look at the youngest Wayne, “If it’s a tradition at this point, I suppose I have no other choice but to partake in it as well.”

“That’s the spirit, Lil D!” Jason grinned.

“You’ll have fun. You’ll learn a lot, too.” Tim smiled, taking the smallest of sip of his water. With a glare from Alfred, he took a bigger gulp.

“Yes! Oh, man! I can’t wait for you to tell us about it when you get back! Maybe we should tell him stories of our experience!?” Dick energetically exclaimed as he practically bounced in his seat.

Bruce gave the boys a soft appeasing smile as they all cheered, making Damian scrunch up his face at the loud sound. With a soft sigh, he walked across the room to his office. Along the way, he gave his youngest a soft hair ruffle, making him groan.

Damian Wayne. Age 16. Seat 11. Student Rank 1. Hero Name: Red Bird. Quirk: Quirkless

Martial arts, hand-to-hand, sword, expert detective, hacker, stealth.

___

“Alright, class, make sure to think about signing up for that program! It’s a very good opportunity! You’re dismissed for lunch!” Mr. Barkin, a big man with an obvious werewolf mutation, dismissed his class.

A slim girl with long bright brown hair walked next to a beautiful dark-skinned girl with wavy black locks. The ginger hummed as she stared down at the packet that had been handed to them near the end of class, “I don’t know, what do you think Monique?”

“I think it sounds like a lot of fun! Kim, girl, this is an O.I.A.L.T. E; Once In A Life Time Experience!” Monique paused and frowned.

“That was a long one.” Kim smirks at her friend.

“Ugh, I know. Never gonna use that one again.” The girl waved her hand in the air. Both girls stopped in front of a locker, “But It still stands! You should totally do it!”

“But what about you? And – and Ron?” Kim leans against the lockers, watching as her friend opens hers to put away her books.

“Psssh~ Pu-lease, I’ll be fine! I’ve got work at Club Banana and a bunch of homework to keep me company!” The brown eyed girl closed her locker, and they began their trip to Kim’s locker, “As for Ron, well-“

“K.P!!” Both girls turn to see a blond rushing over, “Did you hear about the exchange program!? Are you signing up? Please tell me you’re not leaving me! We’re supposed to be a team!!” He cried out as he hugged his friend.

The redhead huffed softly before prying her friend off her, “Ron, so not cool.”

“Yeah I – sorry K.P I just – I heard about the program and assumed you’d sign up and leave without me.” Ron sniffled dramatically. From his pocket, a small pink rodent climbed up to his shoulder and nodded in agreement, making small squeaking noises. “See! Rufus and I would miss you…”

Monique rolled her eyes with a smirked as she gently pushed the two forward to keep walking, “You know, the program is accepting team sign ups~”

“Wait really!?” Ron gasped as he brought the packet back up to read. “Oh my god, they are!”

Kim frowns, “I don’t know, then you’d really be alone, Monique.” They stop at her locker.

“Oh common Kim. It’s a once in a lifetime opportunity! You have to S. I; seize it! You’re not going to be a sophomore forever, girl.” Monique leaned on the lockers with her arms crossed over her chest.

“Yeah! It’s a good opportunity to learn about other school systems! Did you see who they're partnered with K. P? It’s Yuuei High school! Yuuei! They're, like, the best in Japan! At least that's what the rest of this thing says and what Yori told me when I did that whole” Ron waves his hand in a circle as he shrugs, “seven day long Japan exchange thing during First Semester.”

“You still have yet to tell us much about that.” Kim smirks as she opens her locker, “Japan is one of those places that have schools that specialize in training hero’s, right?”

“That’s right!” Everyone looked up to the projection of a boy their age sitting at a desk, “Hey girls! Hi Ron, Rufus, Whatcha guys talkin’ bout?”

“Hey Wade. We’re just talking about Some program that’s partnered with Yuuei.” Kim smiled at the screen as she put her things in the locker.

“Oh! The Hero Collaboration Program?” Wade’s smile widens.

Kim rolls her eyes half-heartedly at her friends' excitement. “Of course you’ve heard of it.”

“Yeah! Tell Kim that She’s GOT to GO!” Monique gave her friend a glare.

“Wade! Tell us about Yuuei High School!” Ron practically begged, shoving past Kim before standing behind her again. His best friend shot him an annoyed glare.

With a sigh, Kim finally nods, “Tell us about the school.”

Wade grins and begins quickly typing away on his laptop. A few images began appearing next to him, “As you know, Yuuei High School is known as a hero school. They’re known for ranking number 1 in hero schools across Japan. Their competitor, coming in second by just a bit, is Shiketsu High School. If you ask me though, Shiketsu is obviously better, I mean, look at those uniforms! So wicked! Look at those hats and blazers!”

“Right, about Yuuei.” Kim gently reprimands when she notices her friend is straying off-topic.

“Oh, right! So, from what I’m seeing so far, I think Yuuei has an unfair entrance exam.”

“They have Entrance Exams?” Monique asked with a raised brow.

Wade nods, “Yeah. In Japan, to get into high schools, students are required to take an entrance exam.”

“Right, so, why do you think it’s unfair?” Kim raised a brow

“Well, looking at their sports festival, Just about everyone in the hero program has a “flashy” quirk. When you compare it to other hero school’s and their graduating classes, their quirks are more balanced. Um, one sec” Wade’s eyes narrowed, his pointer finger stretches out like a wire, and he connects to his computer. A moment later, his eyes turn blue and data begins to quickly rush through.

“Is it just me or is he… taking longer than usual?” Ron raises an eyebrow after four minutes pass.

“Mm, another reason to be glad our school has an hour-long lunch…” Monique hums as she leans on a leg, a hand on her hip. They watched in silence as Wade frowned and bit his lower lip. After three more minutes, the boy smirks, disconnecting himself, making his eyes turn back to normal. “Got it.” he grins as he leans back in his seat.

“Uuuuh, got what?” Ron tilts his head in confusion.

“I hacked into their system. It was pretty tricky considering it was made by the smartest being in the world, but nothing compared to me and my quirk. They had a bunch of firewalls and backups too, I think it was a lot of fun to get through.” Wade smirks as he shows them different class schedules for different courses, “I redacted all the important information, but it seems like this school also separates all of their courses. Hero course students, General Education, business, and support. They all learn different things, never interacting unless necessary.”

“That’s… different.” Kim raises an eyebrow. “Um, should you really be hacking into the system of the ‘world's smartest being’ Wade?”

“Ah, don’t worry about it, Kim. Hack helps make sure I’m untraceable and if Nedzu did get an alert, which I worked my way around, and somehow traces a location it’ll just lead him to random computers in a random location of Japan.”

“Wow, The support course students don’t have any combat classes.” Ron frowned, obviously preferring to look at the schedules to listening to the conversation.

“Hold up - Why does General Education have a Quirk Positivity class? This is high school? Shouldn't they have that class in elementary school?” Monique crossed her arms over her chest. Face filled with confusion.

“Right? Not just that, but the school conducts a sports festival, that they compare to the Olympics every year, that puts all the courses against one another.” Wade closes and erases the schedules, replacing them with a video reel of fights and highlights.

“Wha - why even call it a sports festival!? All they're doing is fighting?” Ron frowns before grinning as he watches one of the students punch another, “Booya! Look at that right hook!”

“Oh snap! He flipped him like a pancake!” Monique grinned as they watched the highlight reels.

“Why would they do that? Isn’t that practically advertising your quirk to all the villains in the area?” Kim rose an eyebrow

“It says that it’s done to ‘promote their students to other heroes for field studies.’ The kids receive internship requests by heroes that want to take them on. It’s dumb though because, according to this, only fifteen students from both hero classes combined got internship requests! And one of them got 4,123 requests!”

“They're promoting their students like they're the newest fashion trend.” Monique frowns, looking away from the video.

“That’s… only fifteen kids? Seriously? What about the others? Do they just… not do anything? Why can’t they all just apply like we do? I - My brain can’t process...” Rufus squeaks in sympathy as he pats Ron’s cheek with his paw.

Monique frowns in thought, “Hey, wait a minute… you said that the sports festival includes all the students, right?”

“Yeah, Three day’s worth of sports festival, one for each grade.”

The girl scoffed, “They're using the other courses to make the hero course look better, aren’t they?”

“What do you mean, Monique?” Kim frowns

“Think about it, girl, you saw the schedules. The hero course is the only course with combat training.” Kim’s eyes widened in realization.

“Duuuude, not cool! If they all had at least the same level of experience, it would be a lot better.” Ron frowns as he crosses his arms.

“Exactly! Personally, I prefer the way our school system is set up. Anyone who wants to take hero classes can take them, and if you don’t finish the credits, you’re in the academy longer. Not to mention, anyone who wants field experience could just apply and do the internships.” Wade crossed his hands over his chest.

“Wade, you're taking support course electives.” Kim smiled softly, “but you have a point.”

“Of course I do! I’m doing field study with the space center! You and Ron go every other weekend to work with the hero agency, and when vacation comes along you’ll be allowed to do more than just patrol. I just… this is just... “Wade signs, “At least I know how to fight and defend myself if anything were to occur.”

“A little worked up there huh, Wade...” Ron gave him a sympathetic smile

“Sorry.” He smiles sheepishly, “Anyway, will you and Kim be applying guys? They accept duo teams.” Kim thinks about it for a moment before letting out a soft sigh and smile.

“You know what? What the heck, let’s do it, Ron.” Kim smiles, “I think it’ll be really cool to get in and talk to other people not from around here. Make some new friends, and possible future partners.”

“Boo-ya! We’re so getting in!” Ron held up a finger for Rufus to high five.

Kim and Monique smile at one another, thanking Wade, the redhead closes her locker, “We can celebrate with Bueno Nacho AFTER we get accepted. For now, let's go get lunch before the break ends.”

“You think they’d let Rufus in?”

“Ron, I don’t know if they’d let your pet in the program.” Monique smiled

“Gasp! Pet? Rufus is NOT a pet! He is our partner!” the little rodent nods in agreement as he squeaks in response.

“Maybe we could ask when we get past the interview process. We’ll have to see, don’t get your hopes up, though, Ron.” Kim smiles softly, patting the boy's shoulder.

Kim Possible. Age 16. Seat 2. Student Rank 2. Hero Name: Possible. Quirk: Quirkless.

Kung fu, acrobatics and gymnastics, cheerleading skills, martial arts, hand to hand

Ron Stoppable. Age 16. Seat 9. Student Rank 11. Hero Name: Koi. Quirk: Karmic Luck.

His good luck fixes his bad luck. His natural bad luck places him in bad situations, however thanks to his quirk they always turn in his favor. For example, He once tripped over a rock, which caused him to dodge bird poop coming at him.

Basic Hand to hand, Ninjutsu

____

A young teen with black hair sat in a chair in their room, the red sleeves of his sweater pulled up to his elbows as he tinkered with a few things. The door to the room slowly opened to show a scrawny man with his blond hair in a beanie. Seeing his younger friend working, he walked in and waved the others in. Walking in, everyone made themselves comfortable in the room. A buff, burly man, walked closer to the teen. With a good slap on the back, making the boy shout in surprise, he greeted him.

“Hey there, little man!” He grinned widely, crossing his arms over his chest. Brown eyes blinked in surprise as he spun around on his chair to face the four adults.

“Oh! Hey guys! What brings you four here?” The younger boy asked with a smile as he adjusts himself in his seat. The adults all glanced at each other for a moment. A girl with purple streaks in her hair held out a packet to him, a small smile on her lips.

“We wanted you to apply for the Hero Collaboration Program.” Honey Lemon began as the boy began to read it.

“You’re a really smart kid, Hiro. Graduated from high school early, taking hero and support classes at the same time at the institute.” Gogo smiles.

“You’ve made awesome support weapons and during battle training you’re, like, wicked smart.” Fred praises.

“Buuuut you’re also a kid. A kid that’s friends with a bunch of adults, we want you to make some friends your own age.” Wasabi grinned sheepishly, everyone nodded in agreement.

“Do… you guys not like being my friends?” Hiro frowns, looking back up at them, dejection clear on his face.

“No!” They all shouted at once.

“It’s not like that!”

“We love being your friend, little dude!”

“You’re an awesome dude!”

“We don’t hate you!”

“We’re not trying to make you feel like we hate you!” Wasabi sighed as he ran a hand down his face, “We just want you to make friends your own age.”

“Yeah, you graduated from high school pretty early on general studies, and are now taking both hero and support classes at the institute, but you never really got a chance to make friends your age.” Honey Lemon explained.

“We already called to ask if you’d be able to apply.” Gogo smiled.

“Yeah! They said that they understand the circumstances considering your quirk and will make an exception! Of course, they said that just because they’re letting you apply doesn’t mean you will be accepted! That’s all on you, my dude!” Fred grinned as he shot the young teen finger guns.

Hiro stared down at the packet in his hands for a moment. They're not wrong. Because of his quirk, he had practically breezed through school and graduated at 11. He’s never been interested in heroics or any of that stuff, but even if he wanted to, no hero school would have accepted him because of his young age. Finding boredom in just staying home, he began to tinker with things and began to build small robots for fun - and maybe to con a few people out of their money - but he’s never pursued anything specific.

He hadn’t even thought about going into support until his older brother had brought it up when he was thirteen. After lots of hard work, he had gotten into the biggest hero school in the Tokyo prefecture, Institute for Heroics and Technology. He thought about applying to UA in shizuoka but he decided that the school was too over rated and stayed in Tokyo. He had stuck to the technical side of things, at least till his brother was killed in an explosion. It had taken a lot of convincing, but he was able to get his friends to help him take down the villain that caused it. He and his friends had become vigilantes and once they had captured the culprit he was reluctant to stop. It wasn’t long till he found himself in the heroics courses as well.

Now that he’s reflecting on it, they're right. He doesn’t have any friends his own age. Taking a deep breath, he nods, “Alright, sure. I’ll apply.”

“Really!?” Honey Lemon practically squeals in excitement.

“Yeah, besides, it says that the kids at Yuuei are participating. They’ve been through a bunch of villain attacks already, It’ll be interesting to see how they compare to other heroes in training.” Hiro leaned back in his seat, a leg crossing to rest on the other.

“Oh… Oh, no, that’s his ‘I have plans’ smirk, guys.” Fred stage whispered to the others.

“Should I be feeling bad for the Yuuei kids or the exchange kids he’ll be with if he’s accepted?” Wasabi asked, making Hiro burst into a fit of laughter.

“... Both.” Honey Lemon squeaked.

“He’s going to have fun.” Gogo smirked.

Hiro Hamada. Age: 15. Seat 13. Student rank 3. Hero Name: Zero. Quirk: Prodigy

His brain functions at a faster rate than possible, making it easy for him to process and retain information, giving him genius level intelligence.

Hand to hand, Martial Arts, builds his own support items.

_____

“No way man.” A dark skinned boy groaned as he tossed his backpack on the ground and sat himself on his desk chair, the wheels sending him back a bit.

“What? Miles, dude common. This event is for sophomores ONLY. You’re never getting this opportunity, ever again!” Another male walked into the shared room and closed the door behind him.

“Ganke I just got the hang of swinging around, the school year is going to end in a few months meaning finals are coming up, I don’t need to stress myself out more with this program.” Miles huffed in response, riffling through his backpack he pulled out his textbooks.

Sitting himself at his own desk, the boy responded as he grabbed his own things, “That was three months ago dude. The school year doesn’t even end until June, we’re barely getting into November, and this program is supposed to be fun. Did you even read that packet? You’ve been stressing yourself too much by adding so much training on top of your school work.”

“...... I can’t rest Ganke, you know that. I have to hurry up and graduate, so I can take over what Peter had left for me.” Miles let out a tired sigh as he slumped back on his chair and stared at the ceiling. “I know what happened to him wasn’t my fault, I get that, but… I just… I could have done more, you know? Like, I know he took me in for field studies because we have similar quirks, but I’ve looked up to him for so long and to be acknowledged only for it to be torn away all of a sudden… We became so close… He wanted me to take over the mantle of Spider-man and I just… I can’t let him down…”

Ganke sat in silence for a moment, trying to gather his thoughts before speaking, “I get that you want to take over the mantle of your mentor, but common man. Take a breather. We’re teenagers and you're burning yourself out. Peter wouldn’t want you to burn yourself out like this. You need this break.”

Silence fell in the dorm room once again as both boys started their homework. It wasn’t long for Miles to find himself tapping his pencil against his desk. Ganke’s words floating about in his mind. With a weary sigh, Miles re-read the packet that he pulled out from where he had stuffed it in a text book. “Your right… I do need a break.”

Ganke grinned widely and kicked off to roll over to his friend, “That a boy!” he cheered, slapping his friend’s shoulder, “Now then, let's talk support items! I've had this idea on making little nubs for your gloves that can discharge electricity for like a week now! I bet you’d like it! The trip is supposed to be in Late February, right? We have so much time! We can test them after school! You can even put them to use on the field when you do actual combat during Christmas break’s field studies!” Miles snorted at his friend's enthusiasm.

Miles Morales. Age 15. Seat 9. Student Rank 4. Hero Name: Spider-man. Quirk: Dolophanes Conifera.

Has characteristics of a wrap around spider. He can camouflage with his surroundings and shoot spiderwebs from a small hole from his wrists. He can effortlessly cling and climb walls thanks to the settles on his hands and feet. Is most active during the night. If he bites anyone, a venom is injected to temporarily stun his victim.

Hand to hand, fast reflexes, flexible

____

A raven haired boy with bright blue eyes groaned in frustration as he slammed his face on the kitchen table. His older sister with red hair frowned with worry, “What’s wrong, Danny?”

“Mr. Lancer handed out some packet for heroes and, like it sounds like fun, but it doesn’t allow trio teams.” Danny responded as he rested his chin on the table.

“Hero? I thought Tucker is in for support, while Sam handles the business aspect when you guys started your own agency?” The older sibling frowned in confusion.

Danny sticks his lower lip out in a pout, “Well, yeah but…” He sits up right, “Sam and Tucker are encouraging me to sign up, and It’s cool and all, but… I just…” The boy paused, turning over the words in his head in an attempt to organize them. His sister waited patiently for him to speak again, “I’ve never felt so… lonely I guess. Like… Tucker and, surprisingly enough, Kyle are going to be handling the Support items and any other tech-savvy stuff. Sam has Wes for business stuff, even if they do argue a lot, but I… have nobody.” The boy buries his face in his hands, “It’s stupid, I know…”

“W - what about Valery? She wants to be a hero too, right? You two were pretty close…?” His sister tries to reassure.

“Yeah, but she hates my guts now, Jazz. Remember the whole incident I told you about with quirk training?”

His older sister frowns at this. Her blue eyes looked over to the packet her brother had set aside. Taking it, she read it over silently before smiling softly, “Well, I definitely agree with Sam and Tucker that you should apply.”

Danny looks up with a frown, “But I’d be all alone…”

“Danny, the whole point of the program is to meet young aspiring heroes your own age. I'm sure you’ll make a friend or two while you’re out there.” Handing her brother the packet, she watched as his eyes roamed over the words again.

“I… I guess you’re right.”

Jazz smiles reassuringly at her brother, “Of course I’m right. Now then, let me help you fill that thing out.”

Daniel James Fenton. Age 16. Seat 8. Student Rank 5. Hero Name: Phantom, Quirk: - REDACTED - Ghost.

After turning four, his quirk, cryokinesis, had manifested. When he was 11 he was involved in a lab accident that -REDACTED- mutated his quirk. He can now turn invisible at will, walk through solid objects, fly, minor telekinesis, ghost wail, cryokinesis. He has no need to breathe, can last a week without food.

Hand to hand, night vision, stealth, enhanced hearing.

Chapter 1 Part 2

#fanfiction #my hero academia au #this story is very ambitious #i really hope you guys like this #my friends and I really made laws #and a whole school system #damian wayne #kim possible #ron stoppable #hiro hamada #miles morales #Danny Phantom #crossover fanfiction

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narsh-poptarts · 3 years

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I came here to tell you that your art is amazing and AAAAA I love it so much!! Your Angry Sky honestly made my day

Also, I don’t know if you’re still doing the “ask me about Sky” thing but if you are...what are your thoughts on the silent realms? I don’t see enough Sky content related to them but to me they have so much angst potential??? And also are a proof that Sky didn’t have it easy at all during his adventure?? Idk I find them very interesting

aaaaaaa thank you so much!!!!! honestly every tag and every message yall send me just makes me so happy, i’m so glad y’all are enjoying it!!!! :DDDD

OH BOY THE SILENT REALMS!!!!!!!!!

YEAH you’re right!!! there’s not a lot of content there!! lucky for you, this is also another topic from Skyward Sword that I have thought extensively about, I have many many headcanons for what the Silent Realms are like.

okay first of all, the Silent Realms are a very unique kind of think in the LoZ series. The concept itself is repeated a couple times but the reasoning WHY is different. Usually link has to go through trials in multiple different games to prove himself and his courage or whatever in order to get the master sword or other such very important item. and then in Twilight Princess (it did come first but whatever) you have those light trial things? i don’t remember what they’re called but you collect the tears of the Light Spirits and they’re all trapped in bugs or whatever. So the basis for the trials or their main mechanic is not a new concept.

But! what is very interesting and unique is, like I said, the reasoning WHY Link has to go through these trials. in botw (this may be wrong, i haven’t played it), you have the trial of the sword, basically a big gauntlet to improve the sword and prove your worth, in addition to the “you must be this tall to ride” thing with your health. but that’s about the sword. in TP, the light trials are about restoring light to the land. they’re not even really trials, and iirc, there’s not,,, really trials for TP. i may be wrong.

anyways, what makes SS different is that it’s specifically about upgrading your spirit. the Hero’s Spirit. Link never has to prove himself to the sword because,, well, the damn thing is his companion. in the zelda timeline, he’s one of the first heroes ever so there’s not even a Hero’s Spirit to have because he hasn’t made it yet. same with the Master Sword.

so therefore, no other Link has had to create or upgrade their Hero’s Spirit. It’s simply not a thing they’ve had to do because Sky did it all those millennia ago. One and done, cool and awesome. He has a uniquely different and alienated experience because he set the foundation. Probably feels alienated from the others because he never had to prove himself to the sword, and then because of the prominent upgraded spirit, got them easily and recognizably cursed (thanks Demise).

SORRY i realize i just went on a related-but-not-your-question tangent, but now to the actual Silent Realms themselves :D

so, in terms of what I think Silent Realms are like.... first of all: terrifying!!!! If my own playthroughs of them are anything to go by, Link is terrified out of his mind!!!! no weapons, no items, no Fi, you’re completely on your own, you have a time limit, and you’re being LITERALLY HUNTED. and god, that music when the Guardians wake up is actually a heart attack, botw guardians have NOTHING on these bad boys.

From the inside perspective, I imagine the Silent Realms are just that: silent. not dead quiet, not still, silent. There are no sounds in the Silent Realm, not even a ringing in Link’s ear. and also these trials are a test of the Spirit. the body stays behind. This is a plane somewhere within the overworld, a layer formed from many. There’s no air there. They’re spirits, and entities, they don’t need it.

And having no air is a little disorienting at first, hell being a spirit is a little disorienting at first, but Link finds it a little cool, not feeling the need to breathe and not being able to feel air move in his lungs when he does.

And when Link is safe, whether by standing in that first safety circle or by virtue of collecting a tear, it doesn’t feel calm. Calm is exactly the wrong word because calm is flying out on the open air with your loftwing. Calm is sitting, for just a moment, on a stool to regain some health (and maybe take a nap). Calm is not whatever this is. This is like sneaking through the sleeping dragon’s nest, or feeling the chill of a graveyard, or walking down a dark alley at night. Every inch of link is telling him something is very very wrong and he is in danger. and, to be fair, he is.

Now for when the guardians are awake, it’s like a bomb of adrenaline and panic goes off. He doesn’t hear anything but he can feel them coming, feel their presence just behind him, ready to take him down, ready to make him fail and start over. He is a trespasser, taking pieces of an ancient spirit and make it his own, and he is hunted for sport. every inch of him, every screaming inch of him is crying desperately for him to move, run, flee, desperately grab at the next tear, we don’t have time, we’re going to die. screaming screaming over and over, a pounding in his brain like war drums, a sharp, painful insistence out of desperation to survive.

He can’t hear them coming so every other sense goes into overdrive, and he can feel where they’re coming from. The screen in the game actually has pulsing rings at the edge of your screen to indicate that there’s a guardian off screen right over there (which is a very cool indication imo!) and their intensity indicates how close they are. it’s like this sense of dread goes into overdrive in a desperate attempt to keep him alive and he just knows by feeling it that “don’t go that way, you’ll die”

And dude, do you know what the official explanation is for when you fail? the wording they use is “your spirit will shatter”. Shatter!!! that’s gotta hurt!! what do you think it feels like to have your spirit shattered?? Luckily i think both for gameplay and the story itself, if you’re determined enough, you can retry as many times as you like.

but i imagine, for the sake of drama, getting your spirit shattered has Link shunted back into the real world, clutching at his chest in pain, heaving and crying as his spirit stitches itself back together piece by piece until he’s ready to try again. It’s not a pleasant experience.

and speaking of coming back, i imagine actually succeeding isn’t all that great either. the silent realms are silent. there’s no sound at all. coming back to the real world and suddenly getting hit with the sound of the wind and the birds and the ambiance and the sounds of your clothes and the sword and your heavy breathing and too much too much too much!! I imagine it’s very overwhelming. the silence is not a pleasant experience so Link is very glad to have sound again but it’s just too much at once.

you’re very correct anon, there is a lot of angst potential here. i’ve really wanted a Skyward Sword manga or something like that for so long because I really wanna know how the Silent Realms would be interpreted.

also i’ve kinda got a fic idea were basically Sky has to end up doing the Silent Realms again while on the LU adventure because something something Hero’s Spirit is messing up and he has to reupgrade it. and it’s bad and traumatic and the other boys have to watch as each instance (there’s four of them by god) just leaves Sky an utter mess and they don’t know how to help and he won’t tell them what’s wrong either or what exactly happens in the trials to get him to react so badly when he gets back. i don’t have anything written down but basically “Sky doesn’t know his own limits and won’t ask for help” the fic.

also oh boy this is long, sorry

#asks #anonymous #not art #long post #long #listen yall are asking me about my hyperfixations this is bound to happen okay #there's so much cool stuff to talk about for Skyward Sword and for Sky #very underrated game #the motion controls are one of the things that made people eh about it but honestly it's not that bad

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theorangestar · 3 years

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So Skyward Sword!

Overall, I really liked it! The world is so beautiful to look at. Each area is so colorful and bright (with the exception of the Lanayru Mining Facility, but that changes when you use the timeshift stones). I enjoyed all the characters, and I liked all the different tools needed to solve puzzles and obstacles. The story was beautiful. Link’s smile is the best thing in the world. Groose’s character development, Sweet Hylia! Zelda’s genuine care for Link and Impa, and even Groose by the end. I love how the Gorons are scholars in this game, that’s so refreshing. Kikwis and the little robots are soooo cute. I teared up saying goodbye to Fi. THE MUSIC!!!

There are a few things that bugged me though. There’s a lot of “Your princess is in another castle!” stuff going on chasing Zelda. It was mentally exhausting constantly going back and forth from each section of the map back to Skyloft, back to another section, back to Skyloft, etc etc. It does feel sometimes like the story keeps stopping and starting because you have to keep restocking potions or find a Goddess Chest or fulfill a side quest every time you go to Skyloft. Also, I kept getting dragged everywhere for all these little pieces to find. Find Zelda. Find the three sacred fires. Find all these missing song pieces. No, we won’t actually answer any questions directly, why would we do that? There was a point I completely forgot my goal of finding the location of the Triforce. Like, you’re so focused on finding the pieces you lose focus as to why you need them in the first place. Also, time travel is confusing. Is this a time loop? Did we actually change history? I’m still not sure. Please, no more time travel. It’s too complicated and no one is consistent with their rules.

AND OF COURSE, the same thing I’ve been complaining about since the beginning, the motion controls. I was partially right in my very first post, in that a lot of it is something you just get used to. Yes, you do frequently have to “Reset Gyro” to get them working right, but it’s not usually too much of a problem. Flying got way better the more I did it. The biggest problems I had were with the bow & arrow and Skyward Strike. I felt like the bow & arrow shifted when you needed it most (the gust bellows did this to me a lot too, but rarely was it a time sensitive issue). And I always need to reset before a Skyward Strike. This wasn’t a problem when finding Goddess Cubes or sacred symbols or whatever. But when you have to rely on it in a boss battle, this gets super frustrating super fast. Granted, there are only two boss battles you need the Skyward Strike for, but it’s so exhausting. You really work up a sweat with those battles. And that last battle with Demise is a Doozy because of that Skyward Strike (don’t get me started on the fatal blow thing, just don’t). It took me two days to beat him (that’s probably more of a sign of how bad I am at video games than anything else) but my arm was really in pain by the end, and even the next day my shoulder is still sore. I don’t know if anyone else had the problem or if I just suck, but it did make it hard to bask in the glory when I finally did beat him.

But would I play this game again? Absolutely! But next time, I think I’ll try using the normal controllers instead of the motion controls. Will it be easier? I don’t know, but it will at least be less painful.

Other things to note:

- I was right about Karane and Pipit, I was right! >:D I did look up online about the toilet ghost choice after I gave Cawlin’s letter to Karane, and I’m glad I didn’t. As funny as the toilet ghost falling in love with Cawlin is, I’d feel bad for cursing him with nightmares forever, even if I don’t like him.

- So apparently the remlits aren’t evil? I only found this out after I finished the game, because according to the internet, it’s finishing the Batreaux side quest that stops the evil influence, but since finishing that quest was the last thing I did before I went to get the Triforce, I didn’t see the remlits become good again.

- I gave Fledge his self-esteem!! Mission accomplished!!... And then he uses that self-esteem to scam me out of money with that pumpkin shot game with that dreaded bow & arrow, and then passive-aggressively criticize my marksmanship. Excuse you, I made you!!

- UNPOPULAR OPINION!!! I kind of ship Link with Peatrice. I think her crush on him is really cute, but he’s just a little dense to get it. (Also her dad is a little creepy to me. Just a little). Of course, Link and Zelda in this game are clearly meant to be, and they absolutely love each other, but Peatrice is still cute, and she never used me as a tool against a god of evil. So you know, she’s got that going for her.

- In the end credits, we do get to see snippets from Zelda’s part of the journey. No dialogue, but it was really nice to see. She looks so nervous and scared, but also determined, carrying her harp into the wilderness. But seriously, did Old Lady Impa not think to give her a weapon of some kind on her journey? The girl’s all alone and Ghirahim is after her, some means of defense would have been appreciated, I’m sure!

- Zelda’s loftwing just abandons her, by the way. We see it fall with her below the clouds, but it doesn’t come back until the after credit scene. Coward.

- Speaking of the loftwings, I was surprised at how under utilized they are. In the beginning, they talk about how loftwings are the other half of your soul, and how important your bond is with your loftwing, but after Zelda falls through the clouds, the loftwings are basically just glorified horses. They don’t hold any weight within the story. There’s lots of bird statues and engravings EVERYWHERE, so culturally they did hold importance even before the war, but they have no direct influence on the story except as transportation. Missed opportunity.

- The Lanayru Desert fascinates me. It’s never explained how the timeshift stones actually power things, but it’s such a cool game mechanic to hit a stone and suddenly you’re in the past. It also makes me wonder what happened between the war and Link and Zelda’s era. How long was it between these two places in time, because it would take a lot of time and some major events to change a grassland and a sea into a desert. And this means all those little robots are still there after all this time, it just makes me so sad! :’( I really want to know all that history of what was before the war and the time between the war and Link and Zelda. Also, the Lanayru dungeons have that same piano tinkle as when you chase Vah Rudania with Yunobo in BOTW, and that music. Stresses. Me. Out.

- So of all the different species and peoples of Hyrule, the only ones that survive through all 10,000+ years of the timeline are the Hylians, Sheikah (I’m not sure if they count as a separate species from hylians, or they’re just a different tribe), and the Gorons. The kikwis, the mogma, the robots, and the parellas never show up in any other game, so I guess they all just died out before the next Hero rises. That’s really sad!! (I don’t know if the parellas eventually evolve into zora, but the rest are still sad).

- The Imprisoned looked so much scarier in Link’s vision. But when he first emerges and he has no arms, he lost all that intimidation. Even when he grew arms and started flying, he wasn’t that scary. A pain in the butt to deal with all three times, but not scary. Then we just dropped a building on him Wizard of Oz style. Wow, Demise, you suck. If it wasn’t for Ghirahim’s stupid dance ritual, he really wouldn’t have been a threat.

So yeah, there are my thoughts!

#skyward sword spoilers #skyward sword #link #zelda #i had such a fun time and i'm sad it's over #but my shoulder is thankful

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midzelink · 4 years

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Well, this is certainly something that happened.

In response to a post I made stating the various reasons I don’t like the Twilight Princess manga (which was in and of itself a response to some replies I got on this other post), I got a barrage of replies from a user (who will go unnamed, they’ve already been blocked) in defense of the thing - which, ordinarily, wouldn’t be a big deal! People are allowed to have different opinions and I never once stated anyone who liked it should feel bad! I started writing up a reply to them in the middle of this barrage, but their replies just kept coming and got subsequently worse, yet it was all...so bizarre to the point that it would feel weird to not address that it happened. I’m putting all of this under a read more, because wow this is a wall of text, but also this is the kind of nonsense I want people to avoid having to read if it can be helped. At any rate, this is what they had to say:

I don’t know, this really honestly feels like reaching. It feels like criticism for the sake of criticism without actual narrative flaws being shown, but your anger seems to stem from “This interpretation is different from what I thought even though I admit all official art shows the charachter this way” and “Link HAD to be raised in ordon because of one quote from the enclosed instruction book”. Twilight Princess was literally made to be “the edgy zelda” in reponse to fan overreaction to wind waker. This is undeniable. All official art depicts link this way. He turned into a freaking wolf in the middle of the twilight craze! but no, he *can’t* be like that because of random expressions he makes when holding pets or items? First of all, even in the manga he isn’t an edgeboy all the time.

Secondly, it feels like you're merely glossing over all that was added in terms of charachterization! In the original game, I felt nothing for Ilia. She showed up, yelled at link for maybe getting epona slightly hurt, and then got kidnapped. Maybe a bit of tsundere stuff, but seriously, Midna is literally the best tsundere ever. You can't out midna-minda in her own damn game. XD In the manga, Ilia and Link actually have a warm and very close relationship, you can see them through all the slice of life in the first volume. I really grew to like her and truly felt sorry for her when bad things happened to her. She actually gets far, FAR more respect as a person and charachter in the manga than merely a trophy for link to get back. But no, you're far too focused on subtle expressions and insinuations because that is literally all anyone had to go on for the longest time. In reality, Link, as has been said many times, is an avatar as much as he is a charachter. You can't gloss over his official art depicitons any more than I can random expressions he makes when finding a heart piece.

Not to mention, you call the blog midzelink yet you make zero mention of the super obvious wlw-as-fuck zelda flashback in volume 5? It's a sad thing that Shad being straight is something I have seen people complain about, yet Zelda and Midna's relationship getting such a huge focus passes without a peep. It's a disturbing trend I see in my fellow Fujoshi. And on the subject of Shad, his relationship with Ilia is far more likely something included to give her a happy ending, rather than just seeing link off into the sunset to try to find midna and live forever alone in ordon. On that note as well, Link not being from Ordon fits PERFECTLY with the ending, Link being the only hylian, link being from there, all of this is SCREAMING that that is the place he never truly belonged, the manga simply takes it one step further and in this version says he was never from there any way, cementing that. It gives the concept that Link was using Ordon as a place to avoid being who he was extra weight. And Honestly, it makes him less of a jerk in the end for leaving ordon, as he never truly belonged.

And It's actually a narrative flaw in the original for Lanaryu to make mention of misusing the power of the master sword and then having nothing come of that warning later. If you're going to set chekov's gun down on the table, you better use it by the end of the play. It's simply capitalzing on something that the story actually set up, and playing into the tone of the story nintendo marketed it. But really, most of my annoyance dosen't come from the fact that you don't like the manga. People can dislike what they want. It's that all your grievances seem to come from stuff at the very beginning, and you liked it for so long, when they were there just as much as they are now. This kinda reeks of someone else slowly influencing you over time, rather than your own thoughts.

Phew.

Okay.

First of all, what the f**k, dude. Who leaves this kind of essay in the replies of someone else’s post?

Secondly,

(Note: a “fujoshi” is a woman who likes yaoi, usually used in a derogatory manner, but it seems to be self-proclaimed in this case. That is to say, this person proudly announced they fetishized MLM relationships, and then proceeded to tell me my opinion was Bad and Wrong because I didn’t praise Himekawa for a scene that ultimately wasn’t WLW at all, even though I and a lot of other people liked to interpret it that way. Do not give Himekawa credit for gay rep, ever.)

Again, I was going to reply to this person civilly...up until I read the Midzel/Fujoshi reply, which decimated me on impact. There’s a heckuva lot I could say in response to, well...everything else, but in the interest of making this post shorter, I’ll break it down into a bulleted list:

Link being raised in Ordon is not based on “one quote from the enclosed instruction book” - Ilia specifically states when she gets her memory back, “When we were young, you and I... You were always there... You were always beside me... Link.” (I already mentioned this in my original post, which they evidently neglected to read properly.) And this is to speak nothing of the familial bond between Link and all of the Ordonians that is fairly evident within the context of the game, i.e. Rusl trusting him to deliver a very important gift to the Royal Family, or all the children looking up to him as much as they do.

Saying “all official art depicts Link this way” in defense of his characterization in the manga being edgy (when his in-game persona is far-flung from that) is pretty shaky when you realize that the same can be said for Skyward Sword, which arguably has the most emotive and happy Link of any game. In all of SS Link’s official art, he is angry, mid-yell, or stone-faced. That’s how character art works. That’s how marketing works. They wanted to market TP especially as a darker game, yes, in response to the critiques of The Wind Waker, but this is literally a man who smiles softly every time he picks up a dog or a cat. You can pet the goats. You get excited about fishing. If TP Link should be “edgy” because of his official art and no other reason, then SS Link should be, too.

it’s your own damn fault you felt nothing for Ilia, Ilia owns, suck it

MIDNA IS NOT A TSUNDERE, HOLY SHIT. SHE’S NOT. I WILL NEVER CONCEDE THIS. She doesn’t mistreat Link because she likes him, she mistreats him because he is nothing to her when they first meet, and this is a stance that slowly changes as they get to know each other! She stops treating him like garbage when she stops seeing him as such, and her behavior throughout the game post-Zelda is a mixed bag of shame over how she treated him previously and a longing to make up for it. How anyone can construe that as tsundere I will never, ever understand.

the Midzel comment is so wack I really can’t believe I had to read that shit with my own two eyes

no, Link likely isn’t from Ordon (again, already addressed in my original post, but again, I guess this person can’t read), but he was certainly raised there, see: the first bullet point

Lanayru never once mentions ANYTHING about misusing the power of the Master Sword, so that entire point is completely invalid. I literally have no idea what they’re talking about here. Lanayru does have the famous line, “Those who do not know the danger of wielding power will, before long, be ruled by it,” but that’s in reference to the Fused Shadows, not the Master Sword. Which, you know, you would know if you actually knew the source material as well as you claim to, dude.

Lastly, yes, I did like the manga when I first read it, but as I already stated, that was because I blasted through all four (available at the time) volumes in one sitting, and it was immediately after my hyperfixation for this game resurfaced (about a week or so before I made this blog!). I was Starved For Content, and the manga was Content. Now I’m not Starved, and two more volumes have released since, and guess what! People’s opinions can change! And my opinion is that the manga isn’t for me, and this entire, extremely accusatory essay of yours in the replies of a post I made stating my own opinion was entirely uncalled for and rather intrusive. So, yeah. Blocked.

This has certainly been a trip.

#not going to tag this because i'm not Like That but hoo man #the midzel comment is still destroying me #'how dare you not fetishize their relationship? homophobe 😒'#drama tag #again: you're allowed to like the manga!#but trying to argue i'm wrong for not liking it is super shitty!#i might delete this post later but I REALLY needed to get this outta my system #i don't like starting shit which is why i just blocked them #but oh man...#text #myposts*

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gascon-en-exil · 4 years

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Ranking Zelda Water Dungeons

@thehylianbatman asked for this, and I’ve been sitting on this idea for something like two years now so I figured it’s a good a time as any to pull it out. Water dungeons in The Legend of Zelda have collectively garnered a bad reputation, with some of them among gaming’s most standout representatives of all the annoyances that come with Down the Drain levels. Because I like to be contrary watery environmental aesthetics are typically among my favorites however I have a particular fondness for many of these dungeons, and so I’m giving them a bit of time in the limelight (while also acknowledging that some of them nonetheless really are terrible, even if they’re pretty). Also note that I have not replayed any of these games to make this list, so I’ll be going entirely from memory. While that’s hardly the most accurate way to do something like this, it’ll be helpful in gauging which dungeons leave the most lasting impressions.

First off, a list of dungeons I will be excluding from this ranking because they don’t meet my personal requirements for what constitutes a water dungeon.

Any mini-dungeon, ex. Pirate’s Fortress from Majora’s Mask or the water-based shrines in Breath of the Wild

Dungeons where the name and/or location is suggestive of a watery theme but the experience itself fails to deliver, ex. the Palace on the Sea from The Adventure of Link, Catfish’s Maw from Link’s Awakening, the Ocean Temple from Spirit Tracks

Dancing Dragon Dungeon from Oracle of Seasons, because a waterfall entrance and some short swimming segments do not a water dungeon make.

The Tower of the Gods from Wind Waker, because only the first floor is even partially water-based and it’s just the tide going in and out which is both uninteresting and rather frustrating to play around. I thought about including it, but it would be very low if I had.

Skyview Temple from Skyward Sword, as its swimming segments are also brief and come more in the odd return visit for a midgame fetch quest than for the initial run through.

Now for the ones that made the cut:

#13. Water Temple (Triforce Heroes)

This one just barely made the list, and my decision to include it in the end is mostly on account of the novelty factor. Of the three stage select-style Zelda games, Triforce Heroes is the only one with any notable water levels and even dedicates a full world to the theme. It’s too bad that I can only really count the last level in that world as a dungeon, because this Water Temple is just a knockoff of the Swamp Palace from A Link Between Worlds adjusted for three Links. There are tektites and octoroks and you play around with water levels and this game’s iteration of the hookshot before fighting a version of the OG water dungeon boss Arrghus. Much of TH feels like a quirky theme park version of a Zelda game, and unfortunately this particular example does little to elevate the concept and as a result feels uninspired. The rest of the Riverside world fares better, especially in its use of the new water rod item, but its last level is a dungeon only because it has to be.

#12. Jabu-Jabu’s Belly (Oracle of Ages)

If I had to choose one dungeon as an example of what people tend to hate about this group on the whole, it would be this one. Less infamous though it may be coming from a handheld title rather than one of the 3D games, this version of a dungeon inside a giant fish suffers precisely because it is not 3D, or more specifically not Ocarina of Time. It combines aspects of both of OoT’s water dungeons and fails at each of them because of the limitations of the game’s format; the unpleasant environs of being inside a digestive tract don’t come across well on the Game Boy Color, and raising and lowering the water level is harder to visualize in only two dimensions. Combine this with bland visuals that make it easy to get lost, a dungeon item that’s only a length upgrade of an item you already have (also like OoT’s Water Temple), a droning musical track, and the less fluid swimming controls that come with OoA’s mermaid suit “upgrade,” and there’s not much saving this one. The boss is sort of fun I suppose, but it’s a bioelectric aquatic monster...hmm, now where have I seen that before....

#11. Swamp Palace (A Link Between Worlds)

I did want this one higher, but it’s so short. That’s true of all but two of the Lorule dungeons really, with them being streamlined and in many cases more thematically pronounced rehashes of the Dark World dungeons from A Link to the Past, but because the original Swamp Palace is already solid (see below) this one just doesn’t have much to do. It adds some raft puzzles and marginally more complex changes to the water level, but that’s about it. The boss is also almost identical, which isn’t saying much because “monster with a single eye that is also its weak point” describes most of the bosses on this list, but here it’s just Arrghus again. I will say that I was grateful for how short this dungeon is in my single run of this game’s Hero Mode, because it holds the valuable defense-boosting Blue Mail. Imagine the developer trolling that would have been leaving it where it had been in LttP: in this game’s equivalent of the Ice Palace.

#10. Lakebed Temple (Twilight Princess)

As the first 3D entry on this list I suspect this may be a bit surprising, but I have to say I’ve never liked Lakebed much. A big part of that is how there’s relatively little water inside the dungeon despite it being on, you know, a lake bed. It’s a shame too, because Twilight Princess has the second-best underwater controls of the 3D games and even underwater bombs. Have fun using them in maybe three rooms. It’s also an uninspired experience beyond that, with drab visuals - despite its reputation for being gritty and brown TP can do good visuals, just not here - a music track that’s more atmospheric cave music than identifiable melody, a structure that resembles what would come from welding the two tower climbs of Ocarina of Time’s Fire Temple to the central structure of its Water Temple, and a tedious backtracking segment in the middle if you want to get all the chests (and all the stamps in the HD remake) which of course I do because 100% completion. Redirecting multiple currents and using them to flood the central room is admittedly neat, but I can’t give Lakebed too much credit for what the clawshot does to distinguish itself from the standard hookshot when much of the difference here comes down to hanging from slowly rotating platforms. Whee. Morpheel is also a joke, initially a riff on OoT’s Morpha that looks genuinely impressive when its leviathan main body emerges for the second phase...and then dies in a minute while posing next to no threat to the player as it swims around aimlessly. The frog mini-boss leaves more of an impression for striking an odd balance between goofy and gross...but why is a giant frog at the (partially dry) bottom of a lake? Gah.

#9. Angler’s Tunnel (Link’s Awakening)

Easily nabs the award for best glow-up in a remake, and indeed this ranking owes itself mostly to the Switch version. The original deserves some praise for being the second water dungeon in the series while not copying too much from the first, and it’s the only one on this list where Link can’t swim at all until he acquires the dungeon item meaning for the first half he’s got to avoid water like it’s lava. Still, the remake massively ups the aquatic ambiance between the cool blue lighting and environmental pieces and the remixed music (with bits of the original Game Boy chip tune left in, as with most of the soundtrack). It also buffs the boss so it dies in thirty seconds instead of five - go marginally threatening Angler Fish! Less than half of the dungeons in Link’s Awakening have traditional themes, instead preferring such odd motifs as bottles and keys and amateur demolition, but Angler’s Tunnel is one of the few that does so I’m happy to see that the development team for the Switch version really leaned into that distinction.

#8. Divine Beast Vah Ruta (Breath of the Wild)

I struggled considerably with ranking this one, and even now I’m still not satisfied. On the one hand this ought to be easy; everyone knows that the Divine Beasts are a low point of Breath of the Wild, small and monotonous with few enemies and similar boss fights and puzzles that are only slightly beefed-up versions of those found in shrines. On the other though BotW more than any previous game blurs the definition of a dungeon with its multitudinous shrines, lengthy (or not) quests leading up to the entrance of each Divine Beast, and Hyrule Castle providing an open-world dungeon experience like no other. In this regard Ruta is easily the best of the Beasts, as the sequence of events leading up to it involve a mostly linear narrative and geographical progression (helped by Ruta drenching the area in constant rain and preventing Link from climbing over everything like usual) that organically follows from the story progression near the start of the game and concludes with a thrilling mini-game in which Link rides Sidon smashing ice blocks and shooting targets mid-air after being launched from the top of a waterfall - and also forever blessing the internet with more gay shark cocks than it could have ever needed or wanted. Ruta’s interior has a few points in its favor as well; the obligatory dungeon movement mechanism only shifts the aim of the water spraying from the elephant’s trunk which is less disorienting than the equivalent mechanics in the other Beasts, and Link has a rune (Cryonis) naturally attuned to water/ice puzzles which somewhat makes up for BotW’s bizarre lack of underwater swimming. So yeah, lots of pros and cons and Link the DP’ing fish fucker bottom, so I’ll have to settle for sticking this one just below the middle.

#7. Jabu-Jabu’s Belly (Ocarina of Time)

It seems strange how everyone accepted it at the time, but Ocarina of Time’s initial trio of dungeons keep the training wheels firmly on. All of them are fairly short and straightforward, none of them have locked doors, and the first two are as aesthetically generic for their respective themes as it gets. Then comes Jabu-Jabu, which is still short and key-less..except you’re inside a giant fish so here that makes sense and we’re all better off not thinking about how the barred “doors” work. As I alluded to in the entry for the inferior Oracle knockoff, this dungeon sells it on the nastiness: Link’s footsteps make squelching sounds, the walls appear to pulse (and have live cows in them serving as switches in the Master Quest revamp...again, don’t ask), glowing white growths serve as slingshot targets, there are mysterious tentacles everywhere and not the sexy kind, and the boss is a swollen mass of viscera that explodes in a shower of green goo when it dies. Extremely gross all around, but then you are inside a giant fish. Funny too that Jabu-Jabu throws a hitch in the usual dungeon pattern in the form of an escort quest of all things, but thankfully Link has to carry Ruto around instead of waiting for her to follow with dodgy AI. I also have to give credit for this dungeon making extensive use of the boomerang you find in its depths, easily one of the most fun items in OoT that goes criminally underutilized since only young Link can use it and it comes right at the end of his portion of the quest.

#6. Mermaid’s Cave (Oracle of Ages)

Oracle of Ages makes up for its counterpart’s lack of water dungeons with two of its own, and Mermaid’s Cave is by far the better of the two. It stands out as the only dungeon in either Oracle title to make use of its game’s defining gimmick, which in this case means that there are past and present versions that have to be explored separately. Ocarina of Time had earlier featured a dungeon with a similar concept in its Spirit Temple, but as with time travel in OoA more generally Mermaid’s Cave takes it a step farther with major structural and environmental differences between the two versions. The water source at the base of Rolling Ridge dries up over the course of four centuries, leaving the dungeon partially flooded in the past but mostly dry and ruined in the present, and doing some things in the past Mermaid’s Cave will affect the dungeon in the present as well. Unfortunately the novelty is somewhat undone by the dungeon item, the clunky mermaid suit that I’ve previously complained about. It leads to the game’s first fully underwater segments and plays a major role in the boss fight which alternatively engages you above and below the surface, but the letdown that is this dungeon’s namesake keeps me from placing this one any higher. Well, that and the fact that you have to do two Goron trading sequences to get inside, because of course you need a key for each era. OoA loves little annoyances like that.

#5. Swamp Palace (A Link to the Past)

While you’d be hard-pressed to call it the most iconic anymore, this is without a doubt the ur-water dungeon of the series - and I don’t only mean that it’s the first one. It’s got raising and lowering the water level, swimming against currents, redirecting channels, electric enemies, the hookshot as a dungeon item, randomly unintuitive nonsense (flooding a canal in the Light World does the same in the equivalent Dark World building because...?), and a squishy boss with a giant eye. As I did when I was ranking the games I had to bump this dungeon up a few spots specifically for how important it was in inspiring future dungeons, but nevertheless I believe the Swamp Palace holds up on its own even today. It’s notable that, in the game that arguably has more dungeons than any other in the series depending on how you count them, this is one of only a handful to even have a clearly identifiable theme - and that so much of what’s on display here has been iterated upon in so many future titles. That’s some classic Zelda stuff right there...and funnily enough this isn’t among the most annoying of the Dark World dungeons. Safe to say that a certain later title was the one to acquire a bad reputation for this dungeon type...ahem.

#4. Water Temple (Ocarina of Time)

Here it is now, possibly the most frequently maligned dungeon in the entire series. For the N64 version I absolutely understand it: the layout is unituitive and forces a lot of backtracking if you don’t know exactly where you’re going (especially with that block in the central tower...you know the one), most of the rooms look similar so it’s harder to memorize the locations of each, needing to open a slow-loading menu to take the iron boots on and off repeatedly is exceptionally tedious, movement and combat options are awkward and restricted underwater making enemies more annoying than they should be, Dark Link can be a nightmare of a mini-boss if you don’t know the flaws in his AI, the dungeon item is merely an extended hookshot, Morpha can kill you very quickly if you don’t know the even bigger flaw in its arena design...it’s one big mess, and little wonder it’s about the only dungeon to actually be easier in the Master Quest. All that said however the 3DS remake fixed around half of these issues including the iron boots and some of the navigation woes, and it’s a much smoother experience overall in that version. This Water Temple still doesn’t crack the top three for me though, in large part because I view it largely as bringing the ideas of the original Swamp Palace into three dimensions rather than creating something truly unique and memorable - or memorable for the right reasons anyway. There’s also the curious aesthetic choices in this dungeon that I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone discuss before. Between the music, the pagoda in the middle, the serpentine dragon statues everywhere, and Dark Link’s room there’s a distinctive East Asian flavor to the temple that I don’t quite know what to make of. It’s nowhere near as pronounced in any of OoT’s other dungeons or major set pieces, so it all feels quite random.

#3. Temple of Droplets (The Minish Cap)

Heavy bias factor here, because ice is another favorite gaming aesthetic of mine and this is somehow the only Zelda dungeon to combine it with water (Phantom Hourglass’s Ice Temple doesn’t count for the same reason that neither DS game appears on this list: Link can’t swim in those games, so how could there be water dungeons?). That aside however the Temple of Droplets is just delightfully creative, as is typical for this game’s dungeons. It starts with predictable ice block puzzles that lead to a fake-out with the boss key, but then it opens up to a diverse blend of lily pad “boating,” diving, melting ice with sunlight, burning ice and webs and lighting dark rooms with the lantern, and still more ice block puzzles. It’s so many different elements mashed together and enhanced even further by The Minish Cap’s unique shrinking gimmick, because this is one of the two dungeons to be fully Minish-sized. The mini-boss is an electrified Chuchu, and the boss an ordinary Octorok with a weird floral growth and separate water and ice phases that make defeating it much more of an ordeal than such a basic enemy normally has any right to be. I believe I mentioned in my game ranking that TMC is one of the more underrated titles, a creative sleeper hit that still manages to pack in tons of references to earlier, better-known 3D games. That’s certainly true of this dungeon, which throws in a quick little puzzle reference to earlier 2D games’ habit of designing their dungeon maps in particular shapes. The similarly-shaped Bottle Grotto wishes it was this good.

#2. Great Bay Temple (Majora’s Mask)

Notwithstanding that it’s in my favorite game in the series, Great Bay Temple took a while to grow on me. At first I was skeptical that an anachronistic waterworks was the right fit for a dungeon in the grim and apocalyptic Majora’s Mask - I’m always leery about fantasy media injecting random bits of other genres such as this dip into (sort of) steampunk. It didn’t take long however for me to fall in love with the place, with its rapidly-paced dynamism and brightly-colored plumbing a stark contrast to the slow and plodding Water Temple of the previous game. It perfectly accentuates Zora Link’s speedy swimming, and while the ice arrows slow the second half down a touch I’m just grateful that at least they have a point in this game unlike in Ocarina of Time. The enemies are hit or miss, although I say that less about Gyorg and more about Wart, the mini-boss that thoroughly demonstrates why Arrghus is an exercise in tedium in 3D (which is even less forgivable in a game where you’re always on the clock). Still, that doesn’t detract from how fun it can be exploring while redirecting water currents and getting all of the colored pipes flowing, and this isn’t even too frustrating with the water pushing you through the areas you need to be in sequentially. What does detract from all this somewhat is the 3DS remake; Zora Link’s infamous swimming nerf isn’t so bad in the dungeon’s narrow corridors and I can live with the more restricted ice arrows (creating icebergs in random places isn’t my idea of fun, so I don’t feel like anything was lost), but the changes to the Gyorg fight make it longer and more RNG-dependent than it should be. It’s not the only boss in the remake to become worse apparently out a desire by the developers to waste more of your limited time with them *glares at Twinmold*, but Gyorg hits worse in my minimal cycles runs on account of where Great Bay Temple falls in my scheduling.

#1. Ancient Cistern (Skyward Sword)

I didn’t want this to be #1 - it’s just not fair. The Ancient Cistern is more or less the only entry on this list that escapes the water dungeon stigma, and in fact gets consistently ranked as the best dungeon in all of Skyward Sword. Everyone loves this place, and it’s easy to see why. The aesthetics are gorgeous, it’s decently challenging but not labyrinthine, the whip is fun to use, Koloktos is awesome and unique and mildly disturbing, and the whole thing is wrapped in an explicit allusion to a Buddhist fable that comes across in the environmental details and in the dungeon structure alike. I wouldn’t call this a perfect experience, but my objections feel like nitpicks. The underwater swimming controls in SS suck...but you’re not underwater much, and there’s a much more infamous section for that later in the game. The dungeon is only half water-themed, with the basement being more of a shadow dungeon and (unlike with the Temple of Droplets) little being done to blend the two...but that plays into the fable reference and at a key point the feeling of ascending a thread from death/hell into enlightenment. The Buddhist trappings are extremely overt particularly with the shape of the boss key and the giant statue that is the dungeon’s central structure...but if the presence of that in the Zelda universe isn’t immersion-breaking to the developers for whom Buddhism is a present cultural reality then it would be petty of me to consider it more than a curiosity. None of that was enough for me to place Great Bay Temple over it, especially in light of the mild downgrade that dungeon got in its remake. Here’s to hoping that when/if SS ever gets a port or updated rerelease that the Cistern will be as good or even better than it is now. They can take the motion controls off swimming, for starters....

#The Legend of Zelda

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galacta-phantasma · 3 years

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As much as I love Breath of the Wild the story... just falls apart.

Because everything except beating Ganon is optional for beating the game, none of the characters feel important. Hell, even the Master Sword, the blade of evil's bane, the sword that seals the darkness, is optional. The sword that is NEEDED to stop Ganon in literally every other game, isn't required to beat the final boss. You could use a random stick you found in the woods and still kill him.

But now, back to the characters.

Most of the 'main' characters that are significant to the plot are long dead. There's nothing you could have even attempted to do to save them. All of their personalities are found in memories from 100 years ago.

So that doesn't really bode well for all of the ones who are alive and help you on your way to smack down with Calamity Ganon.

You spend an hour or two with them and then... they're irrelevant. If you come back to the towns later their dialogue doesn't change. Aside from Sidon, you don't bond with them in the time you spend together to free that town's respective Divine Beast. Teba is just some random Rito who wanted to take down Vah Medoh and you spend the least amount of time with him. It would have been nice if throughout your journey their dialogue changed depending on the weather or of a new Divine Beast was freed or if you were injured or if you were low on a certain item and they could have given you some. It would have made them feel more alive and like they genuinely cared about what you were doing to save the day beyond the Divine Beast knocking at their doors.

Hell, even the Champions could have had a bit of different dialogue! If you had already freed another Champion before that they could have not explained how to access the control panel and commented on the progress to freeing them all once you beat the Blight of that dungeon.

Now, compare this to Majora's Mask. By the end, you have a deep enough bond with all the people you helped (or the ones you couldn't) to WANT to give them a happy ending. You WANT them to have a new day. Or with Skyward Sword and Ocarina of Time, Fi and Navi may have been a tad annoying, but you felt sad when they had to leave. Or being hurt by Midna breaking the mirror in Twilight Princess. You, and by extension Link, had a connection to the characters around you that drove you to complete the story and save them.

Breath of the Wild and its 'everything except killing the bad guy is optional' style doesn't have that. There isn't the want to stop Ganon not only because he's royally fucking everything up, but because you want the people you met along the way to have a happy future. There isn't the bond of people who suffered alongside the hero, helping them even when the going got tough, to cement your role as the savior.

Anyway tldr I'm salty that BOTW had a paper thin story holding it together that was mostly optional

#jet mumbles #breath of the wild

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voidiots · 4 years

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(Tarot: Celtic Cross) A pale Xaela wearing a pale face scarf wanders up, cards stashed at her side, her hands raised to sign; it appears this Xaela did not talk. “Hello, Una’to. We have not met before, but...well...” A soft laugh followed by a bow. “I’m Shieda, pointed to your path by the thespian and the shadowdancer. To you, I extend a question, for my path is unclear: what should I do next, for too many storms have crashed to simply just be bad luck. And in return, I offer my own cards.”

It takes a long moment for Una’to to parse what Shieda is conveying to him, he’s never been particularly apt at reading sign. Never mind using it himself when his way of words is that of circles spoken aloud. A curious hum leaves him as he ponders how many people Frey has told about him in some capacity. “Seems I’ve a reputation should you have heard of me from both parties in some capacity. And what luck to find me when I’m due to leave this city soon. Perhaps less luck and other factors. I’ll gladly read your cards in exchange for a reading from you and yours”. With that he unwraps his deck from it’s cloth, places the cloth before him, and starts to shuffle. Hiding some measure of minor discomfort with Shieda, something instinctual or subconsciously learned making him wary of her. No matter though.

Some moments later, that feel like they stretch on for an eternity, Una’to lays the ten cards out, their faces all skyward, and pours over them briefly. The eye under his hair flicking about as he reads. “First, the main issue that is at hand that plays into all the other cards. Rather than ill luck it seems that there are issues stemming from manipulation, moodiness, and trickery. While emotions in others are understood by this character they are being used to cause strife or the control upon them is slipping away allowing for conflicts that throw you off course to arise, even if unknown to you. The waters in the rulers cup are dark, and their depth unknown. An ocean of emotions as a microcosm,” he starts, tapping the vertically aligned card of the cross in the center of the spread, buried under another laying horizontally.

He then moves to tap the card resting over the heart. “This is the challenge you are facing specifically that don’t allow for a resolution at present. Until this is resolved you will not see the heart of the issue as being passed. In this place is fulfillment, harmony, and completion. The perfect end of a cycle that marks a great change in the direction of your roads. Life changing in it’s path. The inner and outer realms will need to attain harmony, bringing you understanding. Something must be completed here, that is joyous and celebrated. Perhaps in a simpler reading the emotions that are being used to sew discontent would be to blame, as holding on to them would slow your progress to this resolution. Emotions are fickle and hard to control though. Either way, something is meant to be brought to it’s happy end, and it very well may lie within you”. The words leave him in a near sigh with a wistful smile.

With care, he moves to the card below the center cross, and closest to him, tapping it’s face. “Your unconscious. How you feel about the that which causes you so much issue. The hidden emotions. Perhaps the ones hidden in that cup that allow for conflict to breed. In this place is a card with the meanings of action, adventure, and fearlessness. The archetype here is one of action that manifests an idea in passionate pursuit of a vision you carry. This focus makes you single minded and thus brash and impulsive, overall unrealistic. There is a need here to stop for a moment, reign the passion in and think clearly on what may arise from your actions and is actually doable”.

Without waiting he taps the next card, up to his left diagonally. “The past then comes in to play. What you are carrying with you from it that have created the current turbulent situation you are in at present. There is victory, success, and public reward from your past that seems to impact the present. A passionate battle that was tough, but met with a well deserved celebration of your victory. It brought you recognition. Which can of course cause issues. Others may know of you by this deed and thus it attracts trouble to you, making your emotions overflow with dark waters and stealing balance from you. On the other hand perhaps you expect the current situations to be much more like those of the past that you overcame. You overcame hard times before, and now should be no different, but maybe it’s not and their is frustration in not meeting your expectations set by the past and it’s accolades,” he says with a small shrug. He only has intuition to go off of with Shieda after all. No clues to tie the messy threads of fate together in a neat story.

He moves once more tapping the top most card of the circle. “This is your conscious, a partner to the heart of the issue with the card drawn here. This place is how you see the situation. Your convictions and thoughts on it bleeding over into what your beliefs in this reading. In this place is compassion, calm, and comfort. There is a nurturing nature that grows from compassion, allowing you to understand the emotions of others. Perhaps it’s that understanding that allows the problem to continue should you also be prone to moments of cruelty and manipulation as our first card implies. Though this card says that you are usually prone to generosity and kindness. It may not always be wanted by the receiving party however. Otherwise these are the things you expect from this reading rather than how you see the situation. I can’t say as you have far more pieces than I and I am but a hapless messenger of the roads”. A wistful smile graces his features for just a moment before shifting back to his normal sly and curious mask.

Tapping the last card of the circle he hums out curiously. “In stark contrast the future shoots down the conscious. These are the influences to come that will change how you see the situation, and developing concerns you are having. This card, like what you must overcome is of a road changing importance. Another way marker at a fork or perilous bend. Judgement is lacking here. Self-awareness no where to be found, rising doubt, and self-loathing found. Upon self reflection you may find you don’t see the whole of the picture, or the issues at present that seem more than bad luck stemming from those dark waters in the cup rising. In their reflection, you, but something you dislike. But not reality as the waters are warped, making you far too harsh on yourself. Remember your worth, who you really are, and perhaps you can avoid this future as things stand. Given your conscious at present, I think it safe to say something rather unpleasant is on the way to make you think this but remember, the reflection in the dark waters lie like pretty silver tongues akin to knives that cut you,” he says cryptically, if not dramatically, that smile still plastered on his features.

“We are now down to the more personal final four of this reading”. He taps the closest card to him that makes up the row on the side. “This is you, to put it simply. How you are approaching the heart of the problem. How your beliefs and fears are impacting the outcome approaching from the horizon. Your methods are complex, and seem to be founded in the belief of being perceptive and clear minded. Wit as sharp as a sword. However, this approach can be more cold-hearted than it is compassionate. Despite your unconcious being passionate and head strong it seems you think yourself organized and analytical. Think hard on this I think, as there constant messages in the greater reading that conflict with one another regarding you. Look inside for the conflicts of self”. The reading is starting to feel easier, more like performing as a mouth piece for the roads than anything else. He mentally shrugs it off as being out of practice with larger readings.

“Next is the environment you have to operate within as you navigate this problem,” he starts, moving up the row with his revealed eye. “You need to work around emotional baggage, either that which is your own or from others, I can’t say. In these bags are unresolved issues and resisting transition or changes that are truly necessary for things to be resolved. The bags are in the way of moving forward from something truly damaging, what or who these bags are I know not. There is no kindness in the place you are leaving, the past environment perhaps or the issue you are trying to move from, but you are finding it difficult to part ways with them yet. A tough situation indeed, there’s work to be done to reach your exit so you don’t drown,” he hums out with a small pout, finally breaking that smile. His face goes neutral as he moves to the second to last card.

“Your hopes and fears. What you expect to come from your situation. In some cases the hopes or fears you have most regarding this reading. Work life imbalance and smothering are represented here. The former creates friction between what work demands of you and the needs you have outside of it. Rather than work in a literal sense, I think it may mean the work you may need to put in for a resolution that’s agreeable to you. So much so that this work is never met in a way that completes it as you have to also focus on your needs outside the problem. Neither receive the attention they need in turn. Thus the card implores you to look and re-balance things so you do not drown”. He stretches slightly then. The reading is almost over but he can feel his muscles starting to lock up from pouring over the cards so intently, picking out every meaning he can see to throw to Shieda.

Finally, he picks up the last card, showing it to her. A single skull cup full and overflowing with flowers. “The outcome. Where this road ends after all pieces of this map I have given you come into play. The card here is one of new love, not of a person strictly speaking of course. Overflowing feelings, as has been the focus of this reading in many aspects, and the rise of creativity. It is a new beginning should you escape that which drags you down, those bags blocking your way and the emotions that do you no good give birth to new ones. Emotional fulfillment comes with this new perspective born of love and creativity. There is joy to be found in sharing these emotions, and receiving them in return”.

With that he collapses the spread on itself, returning all the cards back into his deck with an unreadable smile. “There’s quite a lot that was said, but I feel like the thread of your map tied off rather nicely with a complete story to follow. The map is of course yours to do with as you please now, so you may change the story to come however you see fit. Rather apt there was so much water when you called what has passed storms. Humor me if you will, did that help you at all?”

Thank you for the ask @woaowcat! I generally avoided describing all the cards since I knew this would end up much longer if I did, but I got a picture of the spread if you would like me to send it your way!

#woaowcat #thank you so much for the wait #once I'm not a space cadet I'll make a tag for these two interacting #my brain is mush

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rolanslide · 5 years

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Hate to love you

(*insert ‘ah shit, here we go again’ meme here. okay here’s part 2 of this, sorta. Overall same setup as the last one, just from a different perspective.)

(thanks for all the nice feedback on the first part, by the way!)

(and again thank you to my sister @vee-tdc for being my beta-reader)

(Quick content warning here for later on mentions/implications of suicidal thoughts and intentions. Be careful my friends.)

Aziraphale was always acutely aware of his deep feelings towards his friendly companion. His demonic companion. He tried to pay him no mind at first- he really did. Tried to be a good angelic soldier. When he was first approached by the serpent, he tried to avoid eye contact- avoid too much casual friendly interaction*.

(*although he wouldn’t ignore the demon altogether. That would be rude.)

And then the demon asked about his missing flaming sword.

He stammered nervously when he first asked, before sheepishly admitting that he gave it away. He expected the demon- then known as Crawly- to belittle him for making such a dumb decision*, but instead, he reassured him. Told him that he, in fact, couldn’t make a wrong decision, and despite himself, Aziraphale found himself smiling at and thanking the demon*.

(*or, at the least, congratulate him for doing the wrong thing.)

(*could you really blame him, though? When the only feedback he ever seemed to get was “oh, that’s nice” and “we don’t want your input, Aziraphale”, having something else, something kinder, for once felt… good.)

‘So much for avoiding friendly interaction’ the angel told himself.

He told himself that that’d be it between him and the demon, but he couldn’t be more wrong. The demon kept actively seeking him out, but not to stir up trouble, just for some casual conversation. And, oddly enough, Aziraphale didn’t mind the demons company.

And that’s where it started.

He knew, from the beginning, that he wasn’t supposed to enjoy the company of this demon, or any demon for that matter! They were the enemy, he was the enemy. Aziraphale wasn’t supposed to feel anything but disdain and superiority over the creature, but he just… didn’t.

He still found himself saying “Crowley, nice to see you! How are things?” every time he happened to catch sight of the demon. He was… happy to see him.

That was a problem.

Speaking with and interacting with someone who is meant to be your mortal enemy is one thing, making friends with them is a different thing entirely.

Yes, Crawly- Crowley was the one who started it, the one who waltzed up to him* that day in Eden. He was the one who initiated it, so it wasn’t the angels fault, right?

(*slithered up to him, to be more accurate)

Well, even if that were the case, the angel was at fault for even acknowledging the demons comment of “well, that went down like a lead balloon”. He should’ve just looked on blankly, refusing eye-contact, refusing to interact, until the demon slithered back to where it belonged.

That’s what should’ve happened.

But, well, it’s not like he could take all of that back. You can’t just delete 6,000 years of friendship.

Although, that didn’t mean that Aziraphale wanted to erase all of his memories with Crowley. As much as he really loathed to admit it, he enjoyed the company of Crowley immensely, and he has for as long as he can remember, really. He has known the serpent since the beginning of time*, so he shouldn’t be blamed for getting slightly attached, at least that’s how he reasoned it to himself.

(*well, Earthly time, that is)

Crowley was just an acquaintance. A very, very, very, very close acquaintance… right?

Okay, yeah, the two had gone far beyond acquaintanceship quite some time ago, but that's besides the point. The two kept each other company over the years, humans were too fragile, their lives too short for two immortal beings to make a true, emotional, meaningful connection with*, so it would only make sense that the only two immortal, supernatural entities on Earth would make some sort of connection.

(*not that the two never made friends with humans, it happened, albeit infrequently. Aziraphale particularly had made a connection with a certain writer in the late 1800’s who- well- let’s just say his name rhymes with Noster Mild.)

That’s all it was though, a connection, a friendship, one that was bound to end in tragedy, once either heaven and hell found out or another war started, the two pitted against each other for the first time in centuries- whichever came first, really. That was all it was really- nothing more to it. Surely.

And then Crowley had handed him a slip of paper in a park, in the year 1862.

The two had fought before- countless times in fact. It made sense- they were an angel and a demon, after all. They were bound to clash, and they often did.

This, however? This was different. This was worse.

He looked his friend up and down, looking for a sign, something he had missed-. He wanted to look Crowley in the eyes, but they were covered by his sunglasses, concealing his emotions like they always did. With his eyes covered, he often felt- often looked- so numb, so emotionless, so… tired. He was looking out at the pond, watching the ducks and floating plants in the water. Aziraphale suddenly felt himself overcome with an emotion he couldn’t exactly pinpoint- anger? Concern? No, it was stronger then concern, but he still couldn’t find the exact right word, or words, for it.

“-Out of the question!” Aziraphale had exclaimed.

“Why not?” The demon had replied, casually, as if he had simply asked his neighbor for a cup of sugar and was turned down. He had still refused to make eye contact with the angel- damn it, why couldn’t he just look at him for once!?

Aziraphale struggled for words for a few seconds- trying to figure out the right words to say- to help-

“It would destroy you…”

The demon didn’t even flinch at the angels words. Despite himself, the angel felt his chest tighten. He angrily shoved the slip of paper back into the demon's hand.

“I’m not bringing you a suicide pill, Crowley!”

“That’s- not what I want it for, just insurance!”

He shoved the paper back in Aziraphale’s face for emphasis, as if the angel was too stupid to understand… as if he didn’t think this is something he would get worked up over-

...Had he really given off the impression that he didn’t care? That he wouldn’t bat an eye if the demon were to… to-

“...I’m not an idiot, Crowley.”

Aziraphale paused. He waited for Crowley to respond. Waited for the ‘I know you’re not’ or the ‘You know that’s not what I mean’.*

(*even though, in reality, Aziraphale doesn’t know that he doesn’t mean it in that way)

It never came, though.

“Do you know what trouble I’d be in if-” he looked skyward, oh please don’t let them hear this…

“...If they knew I’d been- fraternizing?”

He wasn’t exagerating really- if heaven had found out that one of their angels had spent thousands upon thousands of years befriending a demon-

Well, needless to say him and Crowley wouldn’t be on opposite sides anymore*.

(*Under that context, Aziraphale wasn’t sure if that was a good or bad thing anymore.) “It’s completely out of the question!”

The demon slowly turned his head to face him- expression unwavering.

“Fraternizing?!”

“Well- whatever you wish to call it…” he quickly retorted. In reality, he couldn’t find another word to describe them- what they’ve been doing- that didn’t leave a bad taste in his mouth. It was the word that reminded him of his misdeeds the least. It simply hurt less when he described it that way.

The angel paused again. He felt like he was going to break soon. It had begun to feel like someone had flayed his heart open. He couldn’t stay- not with him. Not now.

“I do not think- there is any point- in discussing it further-”

“I have lots of other people to fraternize with, angel.” the demon had an acid behind his voice that Aziraphale hadn't heard out of him in years. He would’ve flinched had he not already expected it.

“Oh, of course you do-”

“I don’t need you!”

The words weren’t spoken at a particularly high volume, but they felt like a shout in Aziraphale’s ears.

“Well- and the feeling is mutual! Obviously!”

He angrily threw the slip of paper into the water, trying to ignore how his eyes suddenly started to burn with presumably unshed tears.

A few years had passed. The demon hadn’t tried to reconnect with Aziraphale yet, nor had Aziraphale tried to make contact with him either.

Again, this wasn’t a first for the pair. Sometimes the two just go a few years* without seeing each other. They had their own lives, after all. They had their own duties.

(*or decades, really)

However, once the arrangement came about, the two had come to bump into each other more and more*. It had been awhile- a few decades really- since the two had had one of those periods of lonesomeness.

(*which was sort of ironic, considering that the arrangement was all about staying out of the way and not interfering if not necessary)

Under the context of their recent fight, that lonely period felt a lot lonelier than it used to.

He knew he had to move on from it. It was just another plain old scuffle, he told himself, nothing drastic- nothing overly worrying.

Except it was. It was drastic- it was worrying. Because Crowley- his friend who’s known for thousands of years- was asking him to fetch him a tool for the demon to end himself with, like it was the simplest thing-

Why hadn’t Aziraphale not noticed something was wrong sooner? How long has Crowley felt this way? Why did Crowley think he’d be willing to help him?

The more the angel overthought it, Crowley's absence seemed less like him avoiding him and more so like-

…

He decided to go and see if his friend was doing alright.

“...Crowley?”

Aziraphale stood at the door of Crowley's flat in London. He had knocked a few times over the past 5 minutes or so, and in that time the angel heard no movement, no commotion on the other side of the door. He rubbed circles in the palm of his hand with his opposite thumb in an attempt to calm his nerves. It wasn’t really working.

“...Crowley, I know you’re there.”

He could feel the presence of his friend nearby. He knew that Crowley was somewhere in his flat, or at least nearby. One of the perks of being a divine creature.

“Crowley…”

But if that was the case, why wasn’t he responding?

“Crowley, I know you’re- upset… But if you- if you could just- give a sign that you’re there, please?”

He’s not there.

“...Can you hear me, dear?”

He should. But he isn’t here. Why isn’t he here? He should be here…

“You- don’t have to open the door, but can you- can you just say something?”

Please tell me he didn’t...

“...Please?”

Aziraphale wiped his face with his sleeve. Wait, when did he start crying? Was he always leaning his whole weight against Crowley's front door like this?

...Why was he so upset?

Crowley was a demon, he wasn’t deserving of an overly emotional angels tears. Stop crying. Stop it.

Crowley was a demon. But he was a demon who cared and loved, and he felt safe, and he felt like home and he was too good to be a demon-

Crowley was his friend, demon or no. He cared about him- even when his brain seemed to want to convince him otherwise.

And now, he had lost him. Lost his friendship, his connection with the demon. The one he had been in denial about for so many centuries.

He knew he had gone too far. Aziraphale would, on occasion, poke fun at Crowley, give him a little bit of a hard time for being what he was- a treacherous foul demon*. He didn’t always mean what he said- but he had never considered how much the words could’ve hurt his friend.

(*Obviously, Crowley wasn’t really truly evil and never had been, but he was still a demon.)

Maybe that’s why Crowley had asked for his ‘assistance’, Aziraphale had truly given off the impression that he didn’t care for him, that he wouldn’t care if he lived or died.

Turns out, through trying to be a good angel, he ended up being a horrible friend.

Aziraphale stood up from the door, wiping holy opalescent tears from his cheeks. He turned towards the door again, hoping that Crowley was able to hear him.

“I’m sorry, my dearest.”

Aziraphale didn’t realize how wrong he’d been until the world was already 2 years deep in a cataclysmic war, 79 years after their fight, and 76 years after the angel had had a breakdown outside the demons door.

The angel had found himself in Crowley’s car, clutching in his hands a bag full of books of prophecy the demon had prevented from getting blown to pieces. He was rubbing the handle of the bag in between his forefinger and thumb nervously as he stared downwards, avoiding eye contact with his friend*.

(*Aziraphale wasn’t quite sure if he could call Crowley his friend anymore, after everything that happened, but considering the demon was willing to walk into a church for him and save his books… it seemed as if he was less angry then the angel had thought he would be.)

He looked over to Crowley with as much subtlety as he could. The demon was driving fairly calmly* with one of his elbows propped up on the edge of the window. Despite the fact that he just had a bomb dropped on his head, he looked quite relaxed. Aziraphale felt his heart thrum violently in his chest.

(*although he was certainly going over the speed limit. Aziraphale didn’t have the energy or willingness to call him out though, not now at least.)

“Everything alright?” Crowley said, seeing Aziraphales flushed, nervous face, presumably.

Aziraphale cringed internally as he felt himself flinch. He never realized how much he missed hearing Crowley’s voice, seeing his face...

“Tip-top,” the angel replied, opting to stare out the window instead of his friends face.

“...Alright, if you insist.”

Aziraphale began to wring his hands in a nervous fashion, hoping that Crowley didn’t notice that he was doing so. The demon surely knew what Aziraphale was like when he was nervous, or otherwise distressed. He spared a glance at him again, pursing his lips.

“Crowley?”

“Hm?”

“Are we…” he paused, considering his words carefully this time, “are you still angry with me?”

“Angel,” he said in a slightly annoyed tone, “I walked into a bloody church and risked getting my corporation blown to damned pieces to keep you from getting your brains blown out by some incompetent spies. What do you think?”

Aziraphale gulped. “Right, sorry.” he whispered brokenly.

Crowley sighed deeply. “Gah, sorry, didn’t mean to be so- persnickety I guess. Just a little bit… I dunno...”

“You have every right to be.” Aziraphale said, staring groundward, “What I said all those years ago was…”

He felt his throat and chest tightening, and he had to refrain from tugging on his collar to loosen his bowtie.

“-It wasn’t very polite.”

“Eh, don’t worry about it. Not a big deal.”

‘I guess ‘not a big deal’ to you means going off and disappearing for nearly 8 decades.’ Aziraphale had wanted to say, but quickly thought better of it.

“...Surprised you haven’t called me out properly yet, my dear. Called me stupid like you usually do when I get myself into these things.”

“Heh?”

“For- y’know- getting duped by those horrible people.”

“They’re spies, it’s what they do.” he said, not unkindly, “And since when have I called you stupid?”

“Plenty of times!”

“No, I’ve called you an idiot, because you are, but not stupid. They have different… gah, what’s the word?* Doesn’t matter, what matters is you’re not fucking stupid.”

(*The word Crowley was thinking of was connotations, as he would come to realize about 2 hours later.)

Aziraphale felt his face heat up. “Oh.”

Frankly, it was the closest he would probably get to a compliment from the demon, but he would take what he could get.

“Don’t you start-” the demon teased, and Aziraphale could tell he was trying to refrain from grinning, “you know what I mean.”

“I suppose I do.”

The two were silent for a few more moments as Crowley pulled up to the bookshop.

“You- remembered where it was? After all this time? How’d you even know I hadn’t have moved locations?”

Crowley scoffed, “Angel, I know you. I know you’re not really fond of change. And I know how attached you are to this bloody shop.”

“Huh-” Aziraphale replied, once again finding himself blushing slightly. Ignoring the fluttering in his stomach, he opened the door and made a move to leave, before hesitating.

“Erm-” he started, “may I invite you inside for a drink or two? At least until the Blitz passes?”

“...Are you tempting me, Angel?”

“Uh- no of course not- I-”

“Joke. It was a joke. I’d love a drink right now- or three- or six.”

Aziraphale found himself huffing out a laugh at that. Nearly 80 years and his friend hadn’t changed a bit.

Despite everything, Aziraphale felt a small amount of panic rise up in his chest to combat the butterflies. He didn’t think he’d ever see the demon again, if he was being honest with himself, and if he did he would’ve never imagined Crowley being anything but hostile and cold towards the angel. To have things be so close to how they always had been was… shocking.

It was almost like he was back in Eden, being inquired about a missing sword.

He knew he should’ve been happy, or relieved, something positive, but he still couldn’t help but feel panicked. He expected there to be fallout, he expected yelling and profuse apologies, and when they never came, it felt like an emotional whiplash. He wasn’t ready for things to go back to normal, but Crowley acted as if he had spoken to the angel days ago.

He was going too fast.

He grinned pleasantly at himself in an attempt to calm himself down as the two moved from the car to the front doors of the bookshop.

“So-” the angel said, “is everything hotsy-totsy between us now?”

“Hotsy-Totsy?”

“Yes. You know- right-o, jolly good.”

“...I guess so.” he said, slightly confused, although Aziraphale could see the ghost of a smile on his lips.

Aziraphale felt the butterflies in his stomach once again, but for once, he didn’t feel a need to push them away as he welcomed his lifelong friend into his home.

#suicidal thoughts tw #well kinda #good omens #rowrites #good omens tv spoilers #go fanfic #good omens angst

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game-boy-pocket · 5 years

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Breath of the wild currently sits as my favorite 3D Zelda, in order for the sequel to be my new favorite, the bare minimum it has to do is have a little more variety in Baddies, and make Ganondorf chew the scenery anytime he's on screen.

But here are the other things I would like to make it a 10/10 game for me, I don't expect all of this to happen but it would really be nice if any of them did.

- please give us the master cycle zero again, this time in the base game, with upgrades you can unlock. Mounted weapons, built-in glider, more fuel efficiency, and maybe the ability to customize the paint job with gathered materials like you could your clothes.

- more Mobility options. I hear they cut the hookshot out of botw because it remove the Obstacle of climbing. That's all well and good but I feel it would be reasonable to make it a mid-game reward. Would also be nice to have a new glider, one that we can do a nose dive to gain speed and pull up to slow down but gain altitude, sort of like Batman's cape in the Arkham games.

- more than one tile set for shrines and dungeons. I'm not sure what approach they're taking with this game, whether it be the same as breath of the wild, or something a little more traditional you Zelda, if the world is as big as it was in breath of the wild, I would imagine shrines are still going to be part of the game. Shrines would be a lot more interesting though if they didn't all look the same. I think it's unreasonable to expect every Shrine to have a unique theme, but if there was just a pool of several themes that could be used for the shrines it would make them a lot more exciting to explore.

- more background info on the yiga clan. Something tells me that we still don't fully understand their motives in allying themselves with Ganon.

- bosses that don't all look the same. Pretty self-explanatory. And more Overworld bosses while we're at it. I'd like aquamentus to come flying down from the sky, or dodongo to burrow up from the ground.

- caves. Good Lord if there was one thing missing from the exploration of the last game it was the lack of tunnels, Caverns, hidden grottos, Etc. Nearly every 3D Zelda before it was littered with this stuff.

- if they absolutely must we use the same Overworld from breath of the Wild, I want some significant changes. More settlements, repaired structures, and random events would be nice instead of encountering the same things in fixed positions. Overworld bosses, yiga Clan posing as Travellers, Travelers under attack, wandering shop keeps, they all only ever appeared in the same locations. And it would be nice to encounter something surprising once in a while. Besides skeletons anyway.

Now these are all things that I feel are reasonable to expect, I won't be to let down if I don't get them. I don't really expect them either, most of the buzz has always been about whether or not a Zelda would be playable, so I'm not sure if the developers know what fans want in the gameplay Department. I could personally take it or leave it if she was, I'd only be interested if she had significantly different abilities from link. I've always wanted to play a more Magic based character in Zelda.

Anyway here's my pipe dreams.

- completely new Overworld outside of Hyrule, where nothing is in ruin and all structures are standing, save for maybe a few patches of old lands

- crafting. Something I've been pretty indifferent to until very recently, I actually like the durability system, but I feel it would be much better if you could create and repair weapons and other items with your gathered materials

- a second continent to explore. This one is definitely asking a bit much, and it's pretty dumb, but every time I explore a huge game world that has an ocean on the border I'm always keeping my fingers crossed that there will be a ship that I can board to sail to a second continent. It doesn't even need to be as big as the first, it just has to have a few points of interest on it but make it worth the trip. There's several islands you cannot visit in breath of the wild that you see on the horizon. I would settle for even a visit to those.

- an Evergreen post game. When you defeat the final boss, and complete all the shrines, and get your tunic of the wild, the only thing left in the game to do is grab all the korok seeds, which isn't very fun, especially once you're down to that last hundred. I want there to be a reason to keep playing after the credits roll.

- a legitimate flying machine would be pretty nice. Could make for a cool hundred percent completion reward.

-Portable music player, with a bunch of great remixes of past Zelda game music. It's a pretty silly idea, I know, but I'll be honest exploring to breath of the wild music put me to sleep sometimes. But if the Overworld music was more robust and had Say the original theme song playing the whole time, it could probably get on my nerves, so I think a playlist of Zelda's Greatest Hits would be a better compromise. Plus I can turn it off if I don't like it.

Any of those things would make the game a dream come true for me. However, as optimistic as I am about this game, I do have concerns. And this is what might break my enthusiasm.

- a really intrusive gimmick. I think this game is all but guaranteed to have a new gimmick, given that the trailer seems to imply this glowing arm thing attaches itself to link. Gimmicks can be bad as well as good, so we'll wait and see what happens with this.

- a linear game. I don't think this is going to happen, but my heart would be completely broken if they went back to the old style of railroading you into a very specific order of events.

- the villain is just a growling monster. I'm excited to see Ganondorf again, but I have a horrible feeling he might just stay a groaning corpse throughout the entire game. The Zelda team give me the impression that they are not very interested in the character of Gannon. Not in the way that some fans are. This will be the first cannon appearance of Ganondorf since 2006, my heart can't take it if he ends up being treated an obstacle or a natural disaster again, instead of an actual character in the game.

- Exposition out the butt. I became so incredibly disenchanted with Zelda when Skyward Sword came out. That game had just so much talking in it. I wasn't very fond of the story, but even putting the story aside, there were so many characters to lead you around by the nose. It wasn't just fi. It was everyone in the game. The kikwi, the mogma, forgettable fish things, the gorons, everyone had to bring the game to a screeching halt to tell Link what should it be immediately obvious. Or to warn him that there are bokoblins ahead that we already knew about. Again, I'm not sure this will come to pass, specifically since breath of the wild came about because people complained about this kind of thing in Skyward Sword. And thank goodness for it, albw and botw together renewed my love for Zelda after it was starting to fade.

Anyway, that's what I want out of the next Zelda. Sorry for the wall of text, just wanted to get this out of my system, cuz I don't have anybody to geek out about Zelda with.

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fleursetrebellion · 6 years

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Why Breath of the Wild Doesn’t Have A Companion Character

Among Legend of Zelda games there’s a rift between two types of games in the series: those with companion characters and those without. And I think there’s an interesting topic to discuss in why some have them, and why some choose not to have them. To really get to the heart of this though, it’s important to recognize what the design of Zelda was originally made to do, and how that changed over time.

In the original Legend of Zelda, the game was explicitly made to be a game about freely exploring a mysterious world and uncovering surprising things around every corner. In some sense, the original design was intended to be the purest possible form and experience of an adventure. That adventurousness goes into every part of the game’s design. You’re never guided, you make your own path. You’re never pushed, you do only what you want to. And the game never stops keeping its secrets, you must uncover them yourself. There’s never a point at which the world is no longer mysterious. They even included a feature where the second time you play through the game, it shuffles around the map so that it maintains its secrets and you can give it a second try. But a big factor here is that players were explicitly meant to choose what they want to do next, not to be told. The game directs you, but only with hints and very subtle suggestions.

In this sense, having a companion with you simply doesn’t solve any problems. The companion character could be neat at best, but even still they would be an unnecessary element which keeps you from getting to the best part of the game: discovery. At worst they might even spoil secrets that you wanted to find yourself, or push you towards things that you didn’t want to do.

When it came time for the next proper sequel, A Link to the Past, some things had changed. The game started directing players more. Some secrets were given away, though most still needed to be uncovered. But the biggest change was that parts of the game started to push you through its critical path, always nudging you towards the next dungeon. There were lots of reasons for this, I believe biggest of all was that aLttP introduced a huge increase in scale, which made it harder for players to self-direct in such a big world. But to accomplish this they introduced the first step towards a companion character.

See, the game opens with the sequence of Zelda contacting you with her telepathy, and she directs you into the castle where you save her. But after that point Zelda no longer was poised to direct you through your journey. Enter Sahasrahla. This guy was an old man, like the ones who gave you cryptic hints in the first game. Except this time he outright guides you towards dungeons and tells you where the next objective is. His function was pretty limited, so he didn’t chime in much but he did was occasionally contact you through telepathy. Pretty hands-off, but it’s already a step towards a Companion Character. So to put it simply, they introduced Sahasrahla because they needed to tell you what you can do in the world. Otherwise you might not even know that there’s a dungeon to go find.

Anyway, the next main Zelda game after aLttP was Ocarina of Time, and that’s where we got the most iconic companion character of all. The reason for introducing a companion was complicated. It was an N64 game, and every designer at Nintendo was so excited to try out 3d game mechanics. But the shift towards 3d introduced all kinds of technical issues. Spaces became harder to navigate, game worlds became more costly to create, and most of all cameras became very hard to program. Ocarina of Time famously solved this camera issue with Z-Targeting. But it wouldn’t be Nintendo if they left that as “good enough”.

Maybe you’ve noticed but Nintendo has this habit, almost an obsession, of tying up loose strings. Anything done in one part of a game’s design must connect back to all other parts of the design, including the narrative design. They couldn’t just let you Z-target, they had to tie that into the game’s narrative design as well. So they came up with one narrative-friendly solution for all of the technical problems of the 3d world all at once: Navi.

How does Navi solve camera controls? Navi is Z-targeting! How does Navi make 3d spaces easier to navigate? Navi can chime in with hints and direct you towards doors! And how does she solve the problem that 3d game worlds are costly to create? Well, if the world is smaller, Navi can stick with the player and always let them know where the next objective is, driving players along the main path so they never stray too far and discover just how little is actually in this 3d world. (At least compared to aLttP.) And it worked amazingly! Ocarina of Time quickly became the classic we all know and love. Some other neat tricks that Navi has is that she can help make story moments more interesting by speaking for Link when he has to remain silent, which lent to the new more cinematic tone of the game. She could even give a sense of larger scale to the world with bits of lore, though let’s face it they weren’t really all that great most of the time.

And then moving into Majora’s Mask we saw something... weird. Majora’s Mask was developed in a hurry, and they didn’t completely have time to rework any ideas from scratch. So when the game abandoned the cinematic style of OoT, favoring a much more classic open-exploration style of play, they still didn’t really have the time to come up with a new Navi. So, even though Majora’s Mask is much more similar to aLttP in structure than OoT, Navi stayed. Or rather, her concept stayed under a different name.

But the N64 is done. The GameCube is announced and the new tech is amazing. The best console specs in that generation, as it would turn out. That meant fewer limits on the world size, the tech for 3d cameras had time to mature, and Nintendo learned how to communicate space in 3d. So we saw the first even return-to-form for a Zelda game. Mostly it was a return to the style of aLttP, but we even saw one interesting feature return from the original Legend of Zelda. That is, in Wind Waker, the world was organized as a grid of spaces.

It was kind of a brilliant piece of design. In the first Legend of Zelda you could never see beyond the edge of the screen, each time the screen scrolled over was a new chance to surprise. But even still, they were able to make sure you could still navigate the world without getting too lost by making the world... kind of small. I mean, no doubt it was full of interesting content, but there weren’t actually that many screens in the original Zelda’s world. And that made it easier for players to recognize landmarks, remember all of the things they wanted to come back to, and remember paths through the world. And in Wind Waker they found a way to replicate that sense of exploring a limited set of spaces on a grid. Except this time the grid was a massive ocean, and each screen was the size of an entire island. You never got confused exploring the ocean because there are only a few really important islands to go to. And you never got confused exploring an island because you can see the whole thing at once!

And that isn’t the only return to form. Wind Waker favored open exploration over the linear epic storylines of OoT. It cut down on Z-targeting and allowed for more free navigation and puzzle-solving even if there were enemies around. And, back to the topic at hand, it didn’t have a companion character. At least, it sort of didn’t. The King of Red Lions acted as this sort of Sahasrahla-like character (complete with telepathy). He would direct you to certain island (annoyingly locking you into an island once at the beginning) but he could never tell you how to explore each island. He was pretty hands-off. And there were certainly more cinematic moments in the game which featured companion characters, like Makar, Medli, and Zelda at the end. But it was never anything on the scale of OoT.

With Twilight Princess there isn’t much to talk about besides the fact that, for reasons that I can’t really explain, Nintendo chose to return to Ocarina of Time’s style of play. Not that this was a bad thing, OoT and TP are both classics, but it seems strange that they would return to OoT’s style having made almost no improvements at all. The companion and the strict guided-ness of TP got slightly more overbearing than OoT, but it wasn’t so much as to ruin the experience. And the story and characters were good enough to make us be okay with it. (Seriously, who doesn’t love Midna?)

And then... Skyward Sword. There’s a lot to unpack here.

First, the game wanted to use motion controls, you can’t fault it for that. I think most of us wanted to try out a motion control Zelda, even though it kind of seemed like nobody could do the sword thing properly. And in classic Nintendo style they started tying up loose strings. The motion controls become a character. Thus Fi joins the roster!

Second, Skyward Sword was made by a new director for the series mainline games. Maybe it was that Hidemaro Fujibayashi wanted to continue following in line with the Ocarina of Time style of play, or maybe it was that Nintendo wasn’t confident letting him go Wild on his first game (hah hah). But he pushed towards this more directed structure. More directed even than Twilight Princess was.

And with these two things together, Fi came out as... Well, she was the motion controls (a feature that wasn’t well-received) and she also heavily directed the player more than any other Zelda game (also not well-received). And the result was that she become a frustrating, hand-holding, symbol of whatever feature the player personally didn’t like in the game. I mean personally I like Fi. I think she’s cute, and her final scene made me cry. And I mean, (unpopular opinion) the motion controls were kinda fun. But there’s no doubt that she’s overwhelmingly hated.

And then we come to Breath of the Wild, the truest Return To Form in the series. The design is almost exactly, point for point, the same as the design of the first Zelda game. Except this time, we’re fully leveraging the power of 3d graphics. You can see distant objectives, which helps you self-direct. The world is broken up into recognizable regions, so no worry about getting lost. And the concept that you only have to do what you want to do is turned up to 11. The only things that the game forces you to do are learn how to play, and beat the final boss. Every path you take is a path you choose.

So given all of that background... of course there’s no companion character in BotW. Why would it need one?

#Legend of Zelda #Game Design #Navi #Fi #Midna #King of Red Lions #Sahasrahla #Tatl and Tael

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t-wanderer · 6 years

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Rant About White Wolf

Okay I promised this ages ago, and I was setting up shelves last night and now I’m in the mood, so here it is, why I stopped giving White Wolf my money. For starters I want to say that I take RPGs very seriously, which is not to say I’m pretentious or exclusionist or fun-hating. I mean I spend a lot of money supporting my favorite games. Here’s my game shelf from a few years ago...

Here’s the collection now....

So, let me paint a picture here. I started playing Dungeons and Dragons in the 80s, but something happened in the 90s that changed how I run and play games. All of a sudden nobody wanted to play anything but Vampire. A pick up game at the comic shop, friends, cousins, it was impossible to run anything else. My choices were to run V:TM or not play. So I ran vampire, then mage, and honestly I’m glad I did. Vampire introduced me to the narrativist style of roleplaying. I met my wife LARPing. Mage remains one of my favorite games of all time. So I bought the books, then 2nd edition hit and I bought them again. Then 2nd ed revised. Sound familiar? Shadowrun, changed hands over and over again, new edition, re-buy all the books. 3rd edition, 3.5, 4th, now 5th, this is something that would happen consistantly for the next two decades. Companies trying to sell the same game, again. Now, this is not necessarily a bad thing. A new edition can fix problems, expand the world, or even be a completely different game. Breath of the Wild was not Nintendo trying to resell Skyward Sword. But Skyrim on the Switch is the same Skyrim I already bought twice, you know? Okay, so early Noughties, my whole social circle are White Wolf fans, and the Wold of Darkness ends. The event meets mixed responses, at least in my groups, but whatever, it’s fun and we get to talk about all the big secrets revealed. Nobody actually runs a Gehenna game, or whatever, and as far as our games went, the world just continued. It’s weird that each book gives a couple versions of the cannon, but whatever, the whole thing is optional, right? So Mark Rein-Hagan leaves and there are all sorts of nasty rumors floating around, and Vampire the Requiem comes out and there’s push back because it's different, but I think, different is good, there’s value in different. So I buy them, and well, the quality has been dropping with white wolf’s game books for a while. By that I mean, the amount of actual game content has been dropping. White wolf books are already 30-40% short fiction and artwork at this point, so combing through them for things I can use in a game is getting harder. World of Darkness: Mafia was almost entirely real world history and almost no game content at all, which is like, there are other books on the mafia i can read if I’m doing research, right? But anyway, Requiem comes out and it’s a little weird, but not terrible. But they’re being cagey, teasing out details of their new world. It makes it a little hard to run a game, because we know almost nothing about the antagonists at this point. It’d be like if every book mentioned the Sabbat, but never explained who they were. Finally, the last straw. After teasing and build up and hints scattered through their books, they release the VII book. I’m like, okay, finally give me the rest of the setting so I can try to run this. The very first page of the book is this:

And that’s it. I go ballistic. I’ll be honest, I felt disgusted and offended and I’ll explain why. I was like, How dare you tell me that I’m the storyteller and I get to decide what the mystery is. I *KNOW* I’m the storyteller and I can decide whatever I want is true. What I don’t have to do is pay you, $30-$60 a book, to tell me to “make it up.” I can “make it up” for free. It was cowardly, like they were afraid to risk coming out and you know, writing the antagonist for the fantasy setting they were selling us, like maybe we wouldn’t like it as much. But the way it was presented? One of the things the fandom loved was piercing together clues and hints, catching the references hidden or scattered across the games. (great example, read the entry for Rasputin in Clanbook: Malkavian, Setite, Bruja, Tribebook: Shadowlord, Traditionbook: Cult of Ecstasy, and finally in Guildbook: Puppeteer. Can you name any other RPG company to take such a little detail and spin it into myth like that? ) People also liked using the games together, the systems were compatable, and a big diverse world of darkness felt cooler. But the min/max warnings started showing up, first as sidebars, then caveats in the introductions, and finally a page-long rant in Blood Treachery vilifying anyone who wanted to run a revenant mage. (a far cry from “it’s your game,” eh? Not that I’d allow one, but still.) And this New World of Darkness was deliberately segregated, different game lines might as well have existed in different worlds. So there was another way to see this, that White Wolf was saying, Fuck you for enjoying our game wrong. We’ll force you to play it right. You like cross overs? We’ll make them impossible. You like secrets? Fine, we won’t even tell you who the main antagonist is for the story we’re selling. I was furious. And I never bought another book from them. I still run their games, I’m running an oWOD dark ages game right now, and Mage remains on my top three games of all time. (Psychosis and Amber, if you’re curious about the other two.) But when you’re selling a game book, you’re selling content. I’m paying for the ideas you have that I wouldn’t have thought of, for the characters only you can write, the mechanics only you can invent. The idea that this is a “toolbox” is insulting. Look at GURPS, that’s a toolbox. If I buy the GURPS cyberware book it doesn’t tell me “I get to decide how cyberware works,” it gives me comprehensive, exhaustive rules for every conceivable kind of cyberware, AND it doesn’t try to sell itself to me as the “official cyber campaign setting.” Why is VII a toolbox, and not, say, the Toreador? Oh wait, I can just make stuff up for them too, right? Why am I paying them anything at all? I can just invent my own setting and never buy a game book again, right? Okay, this rant is getting long. The point I’m making is somehow, I feel White Wolf lost track of what made them good, of what made us love their work so much. Maybe it was the loss of the old blood, maybe once the decay set in, no one could stop it. (There used to be a periodic “mass-exodus” of disgruntled white wolf interns who would leave angry, start their own company and then immediately go under and vanish. I have a small collection of games like this, Immortal: The Invisible War and Everlasting to name a few. Fun ideas, terribly written and produced, almost unplayable in execution.) Anyway, that’s how I feel. It’s an opinion, based off of my personal experiences, so your milage may vary. @secretsofthemasquerade (As promised)

#FinallyGotAroundToThis #WhiteWolf #RPGs #Ranting #OldManInternetShakesCaneAtTheYouths

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loregoddess · 6 years

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All the zeldas. Just. All. Of them

I….Michi I was going to apologize for not getting to this until today, but considering how many Zelda games there are I no longer regret not doing this last night.

Under the cut, bc do you know how many games there are including spinoffs? Too many to not be under a cut.

The Legend of Zelda

I watched my brother and mom play it bc we have it on this special edition disk that had like, four LoZ games on it, and it’s certainly a game of its time which means it’s super-hard if you don’t know what you’re doing, and still hard even if you do, so I probably won’t try it anytime soon.

The Adventure of Link

This was also one of the games on the aforementioned special edition disk, which I watched my brother and mom attempt far enough to know you couldn’t pay me to try and beat the game. My understanding is this is fundamentally one of the most–if not THE most–difficult games in the entire franchise. A product of it’s time, entirely unique in it’s RPG-style mechanics which didn’t work out for the gameplay that well, I’ve only read one story of someone beating the game it’s that hard.

Despite not wanting to play either of the very first two games, I really love the implied story components of each, esp. in terms of the ever-inconsistent and changing lore. So, for story and maps, these games are neat.

A Link to the Past

The very first LoZ game I ever played, so it has a special place in my heart. Also the first game to introduce the “zelda formula” that made the series so successful, so I gotta applaud it for that too.

Link’s Awakening / Link’s Awakening DX

I roughly know the story components and this is…one hell of a weird story, but like, I love the design for the Wind Fish, and Marin came from this game so I kinda want to try playing it for myself eventually.

Ocarina of Time

The first time I played this was well after I played Wind Waker, so this game doesn’t have the nostalgia factor for me that it has for most fans. When I first played it I got tired of Navi bugging me to save Zelda, even though I was in the middle of having fun with side quests, so I stopped and never beat it. When I went back years later to try and beat it I got stuck in Ganon’s Tower and refused to look up a guide, and have thus, still never beat it. Eventually I should look up a playthough of the ending just so I know exactly what happens, bc even though this isn’t one of my fave games, it’s so important for timeline theory and lore that I kinda need to know shit about the game. Not actually sure how I got through the Water Temple twice.

Majora’s Mask

Listen. I like side quests. They’re fun. But generally speaking they’re optional and not needed to complete the main storyline. When I found out that the only way to have a relatively easy time getting into this game’s “water temple” was by completing a ton of other side quests, it kinda broke my will to complete the game. Also I don’t do well on timers, so I dunno if I’ll ever beat this game. I mean I still might try bc there’s a lot of interesting story points in the game, but like, I really, really, really hate being put on a time limit and having to restart the three-day cycle constantly. Love the dark themes though, those are fun.

Oracle of Seasons & Ages

(I lumped these two games together bc there’s a way to link the stories, but they are technically two different games.) I seem to remember a friend of my mom’s lending one of these games to me and my brother a long time ago but I couldn’t get past the first dungeon bc I was young and sucked at boss fights. I might buy and try to play these games at some point though bc the stories are really interesting and the games are cheapish on Nintendo’s eshop.

Four Swords

It, uh…it exists. Dunno much about it but I hate the map bc it fucks up all of my land- and cartography-based theory-crafting.

Wind Waker

So I can’t remember if I, personally, have ever beaten the game, but I did make it to the end before going off to do side quests, and also my brother beat it which I watched, so I know the entire story. Overall a good game, my only major complaint is Tetra turning white after she “becomes Princess Zelda” and also the fact that she goes from kickass pirate to passive damsel in distress. My favorite Ganondorf, for both design and story. Also the graphics aged surprisingly well? Oh, and I loved the Rito, and the exploration aspect was one of the best executed of any LoZ game (the best in my opinion, before BotW came along). Gameplay and mechanics were one of the strongest of any LoZ game I’ve played as well.

Four Swords Adventures

This is one of the really underrated LoZ games, but honestly the gameplay is? Really solid and fun. Also the graphics were really good, esp. considering 2D style games weren’t being made as often when it came out. This is one of like, two or three LoZ games that I’ve beaten more than once–in fact I think I’ve beaten this game more than any other LoZ game, and it’s probably my first or second most-replayed-and-beaten game of any game I’ve played. It’s kinda like, a comfort game for me. Also the manga for this game was excellent.

Minish Cap

Another really underrated game with solid gameplay and graphics. Like, this game is really good, and I also really loved the story.

Twilight Princess

This is my personal favorite LoZ game of the entire series, I really, really love this game. It’s also the only LoZ that I know I’ve beaten 100%, like all the side quests, all the heart containers, items, poe souls, everything. One of the few LoZ games that I’ve replayed and beaten multiple times. It was also the first LoZ game that I completed bc I used to have a bad habit of never beating LoZ games for some reason. Also the home of my two top fave LoZ characters, Midna and Shad. I just…I really love this game.

Phantom Hourglass

I hate putting “terrible” down for any game, but listen. The mechanics were a nightmare, everything about trying to move around and fight was so frustrating. The only reason I stuck with the game as long as I did was Linebeck–but when I learned the last dungeon was also the dungeon I’d been forced to go through again and again and again, I just…couldn’t do it and I’ve never picked up the game since. I should look up the ending for this as well, bc the story was good, it’s just…the gameplay…no.

Spirit Tracks

I hated playing Phantom Hourglass, so I never even bought this one. The aesthetics are cute, like I really like the trains and stuff, and it’s neat that Zelda travels with you. But the colonialist undertones are…yikes.

Skyward Sword

I really enjoyed playing this game, despite the fact that there was too much hand-holding and Fi’s assistance was more annoying than helpful most of the time. But the story and the visuals, and the music–I really enjoyed those aspects of the game. I’ve also replayed and beaten this game a couple of times, despite the flaws, just bc I was really endeared to the characters and story.

A Link Between Worlds

This was another really fun game, and I really liked all of the characters and the cute graphics. Not much to say on this bc it was honestly just, really fun and good. It was a really fun way to revive the Hyrule of A Link to the Past.

Tri Force Heroes

My friend bought this as a graduation present for me, but it’s more fun to play together with two other people, so I haven’t been able to play it much past the first couple of areas, but what I did play was quirky and fun.

Breath of the Wild

I really enjoyed playing the game, and generally speaking it’s one of the most solid games in terms of gameplay and mechanics. And the exploration is excellent, like it was so much fun to explore the gigantic world of Hyrule. But. There needed to be more story, more lore, and more music. Like what we got was great, but it was extremely lacking, even compared to games with glaring plot holes in the story, like there was just so little to work with. And there was too much “here’s these mysterious ruins that we will tell you nothing about and there’s no way to learn anything about them. ever.” moments while I was exploring. And just, I wanted more story really, more than anything.

Literally all the CGi games and games produced between 1993-1997

Enough said.

I’m also lumping all the Tingle spinoff games together bc this is getting really long

Tingle is a discomfort character for me, like not a major discomfort character, just a minor one, but enough that I’ve never willingly looked into these games, despite any good things I’ve heard about them.

Game & Watch Zelda

I didn’t even know this existed.

Link’s Crossbow Training

I know that this takes place in the Twilight Princess Hyrule, but that’s about it.

My Nintendo Picross: The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess

Listen, I had no idea this existed either, but? It’s based off my fave game so? If I get the chance to play it, then I sure as hell will give it a whirl.

Hyrule Warriors (including Legends and the Definitive Edition)

I never got the original game bc it was for the Wii U, but I have Legends and my brother bought the Definitive Edition, the latter of which I’m currently playing. It’s honestly just a plain fun game, with solid gameplay. I like being able to feel powerful and badass, and literally half the playable characters are women which is nearly unheard of in fighting-based games. And like? I can play as TWO different versions of Midna? AND Impa is so gorgeous and really well-written, like damn, I love her so much. Linkle is actually really fun to play and really cool, and I like the fact that she isn’t just “Link but a girl” like she really stands on her own as a unique character. It’s also pretty interesting to be able to play as several villains. My only complaint is Cia, but not bc she’s a poorly written character or fanservice central, but like…LoZ in particular has a really, really bad habit of coding the evil and corrupted final big bad guy as dark-skinned and like…having an evil dark-skinned villainess who’s also fanservicy especially with Lana being Cia’s “light and goodness” it’s just…yikes. I don’t think I need to spell that out further. My understanding is that Cia gets a redemption arc of some sort eventually, but I’m not far enough in the story mode to confirm this. I sure as hell hope it’s true bc she deserves better than to just be an evil, albeit okay-written, fanservice villain.

And that’s all of them, this literally took me all day. I now know of several games I had no idea existed, yet I have no idea what to do with this info.

#this took forever but here we are #lookerdewitt #I still don't have an ask tag #ask meme

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dynamite-derek · 6 years

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My personal top-10 games of 2017

With 2017 slowly fading, it feels like my favorite games of the year are locked firmly in place. 2017 was a strong year and while it was hard compiling a list of my favorite games, I also feel pretty good about my list. That said, there are some games that I didn’t get around to playing that I feel had a good chance of making my list if I had gotten around to them. They are: Nioh, Resident Evil VII, Trails in the Sky 3 and Golf Story. After I finish Xenoblade Chronicles 2, I think I wanna tackle RE VII. Alas. Only so much time in the day. So, let’s get started.

10-) Splatoon 2 - Not the most original sequel ever made, but I had a lot of fun with it. Splatoon 2 carries a lot of what made the first one so great over to the Switch. There are some new features - including new weapons and a wave-based mode where a squad of human players takes on AI called Salmon Run - but it’s mostly more of the same. Given that this is only the second Splatoon I can look past that. I had a lot of fun with it and am happy that people who couldn’t experience the original on the Wii U can fool around with it now.

9-) Tekken 7 - I have a lot of love for the Tekken series. I remember renting and playing Tekken 3 for hours. I once wrote a way-too-long column about how Tekken 5 was like a love letter to fans. 7 was just a really solid new addition to the franchise. The character customization was super deep and allowed for very unique feeling takes on familiar fighters. It also has both Akuma and Geese, which is the closest we’ll ever get to a Capcom vs. SNK 3 it feels like.

8-) Sonic Mania - I don’t buy into the belief that there has never been a good 3D Sonic game and I certainly don’t buy into there never being ANY good Sonic games. That said, I will definitely say that the series has had far more spotty entries than good ones. When I first beat it, I think I suggested that it was better than Sonic 3 and Knuckles. That’s insane. A Sonic game in 2017 is at least on par with 3+K, a game many consider to be the best Sonic game ever. And it’s made by fans! If I had to describe my experience with Sonic Mania in one word it’d be: joy. Shame Sonic Forces also came out this year, robbing me of all my blue blur joy.

7-) The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild - It feels insane to me that Zelda is only ranked at 7, but that’s how strong 2017 was to me personally. Breath of the Wild brought an entirely fresh feeling to the very stale Zelda franchise. Honestly, I hated Skyward Sword. I didn’t have a whole lot of hype for Zelda. If it wasn’t a launch game with the Switch, I might have waited to give it a go. ...Obviously the hype around it would have brought me in eventually. And it was totally different. It brought a world that was fun to explore with mechanics that were fun to tinker and experiment with. For weeks, people would post videos of them doing weird things with the various objects in the game. It’ll be interesting to see what a new Zelda game does. Will it be another big open world? Is this the new face of Zelda?

6-) Cuphead - Aesthetically one of my favorite looking games ever made. It legitimately looks like a 1920′s era cartoon in motion. The visuals only aid in how great the game plays. It not only has a retro aesthetic, but in the gameplay department it also brings with it a retro-feeling difficulty. You have to memorize boss patterns, look for visual cues and have a quick trigger finger in order to survive. With the difficulty also comes the sheer joy of beating boss that is just dominating the hell out of you. I feel like I struggled for over an hour on this clown boss. I almost feel like I got lucky even beating him. His stupid charlie horses always popped up at inappropriate times. But when I managed to win, it felt like I really accomplished something. My only complaint about it is that I wish there were no run-and-gun levels. I just wanted to not play them and get back to the boss battles. They felt like an after-thought.

5-) Danganronpa V3: Killing Harmony - I did not see this game hitting me as hard as it did. I enjoyed the first two Danganronpas and even endured the anime, which served as a conclusion to the storyline that played out in the first two. DRV3 plays much like the first two games, but where it shines is the story. A big twist occurs in the first chapter and the hits just keep coming after that.Then chapter 6 hits and brings with it one of the best plot twists and endings I have ever seen in a video game. I’m not going to spoil the ending in case a person who wants to play DRV3 stumbles across this list somehow, but the last couple hours of the game hits the player hard and makes you think about narrative and story telling in general in a really interesting way. One of my favorite bits towards the end involves real life things about the game, like the logo. It’s just well thought out and compelling. Even if you’ve never played a Danganronpa, play this game. It also introduced my favorite character of the year Kokichi Ouma.

4-) Nier Automata - A sequel to Nier making my personal top-10 list probably isn’t that shocking. What is shocking is that Nier Automata has garnered praise from all over the gaming world and has become something of a surprise hit for Square Enix. There’s a good reason for this. Automata’s visual style, amazing music and depressing story telling help create a compelling world for the player. The story, as everybody is probably aware, is the real star of the show. It makes you ponder about life and humanity in ways rarely touched on in video games. One of the endings to the game, E, is one of the most effective ever. It really speaks to the player. I’m sure I’m not alone in sitting at the decision you need to make and really pondering it. The gameplay is also solid, but honestly a little weak for a Platinum game. Nier Automata feels like a miracle of a game and I’m thrilled that it has taken off as much as it has.

3-) Super Mario Odyssey - This game was just a pure delight. For years, it felt like they just weren’t making Mario games I was terribly interested in. I would never say Mario 3D World was a bad video game, but it just wasn’t what I wanted out of a Mario. It felt like a 2D Mario game in everything but the 3D gameplay. Mario Odyssey brings back the big worlds filled with objects to find seen in 64, Sunshine and Galaxy. The worlds were all really interesting too. I think everybody was excited to see New Donk City (Metro Kingdom), but to actually run around a realistic looking world as Mario really just feels surreal. It’s just great. It’s interesting to think about how Nintendo’s two biggest franchises took two different but equally successful approaches. Zelda completely flipped the script and tried to do something different. Mario refined what made some older Mario games great. Mario felt like a really polished Mario game, and honestly most years that will put it up there as one of the best games of the year.

2-) Yakuza 0 - I had always wanted to try to get into the Yakuza series before this year. The story just seemed too daunting to get into. There’s a lot of it, after all. I decided to give Yakuza 0 a shot because of its nature as the first chronologically in the series. I also saw hilarious screenshots, which helped to further my decision. I was hooked. Yakuza 0 not only tells an amazing story, but it gives you a world with a ton of things to do. There are amazing mini games - I found myself hooked to the Maid Cafe in particular - and a ton of sub stories to experience. You get to meet characters like NOT MICHAEL JACKSON, you can play Outrun, you can become a real estate mogul. Honestly, Yakuza 0 does a better job of creating what feels like a living, breathing city than even a Grand Theft Auto. Also, I just love Goro Majima. This game was so good that I played through Yakuza 1(Kiwami)-5 just to see what would happen to Kiryu and Majima. That’s not an insignificant chunk of playing time. But the world and story weaved by Yakuza 0 was so strong that I knew I wanted to be along for the ride. Play these games.

1-) Persona 5 - I had to think long and hard about whether Yakuza would top Persona. In the end, I honestly feel both games are among my favorite games ever made. Persona 5 seems like a title that was made specifically for me. It is amazingly slick, has some of the best music I’ve ever heard in a video game (Specifically Rivers in the Desert), and features a cast of characters that I really deeply cared about. I wanted to see more of their lives and I was actually sad when Persona 5 ended because I knew it’d be a while before I saw Makoto Niijima or Yusuke Kitagawa again. There are things I’d like to see Persona 6 work on - it’d be great to see your confidants interact with more people for instance - but Persona 5 was a gripping experience and really spoke to me at times. And honestly, sometimes it’s fun to turn your brain off and just grind against demons in a dungeon. It was a close race, but I knew Persona 5 would be my favorite game of the year before the year started. It’s nice to be right for a change.

That’s all for now. I know this is tl;dr, but I wanted to write out my favorite games somewhere.

#Game of the year #video games #opinion #Splatoon 2 #Tekken 7 #Sonic Mania #Breath of the Wild #Cuphead #Danganronpa V3 #Nier Automata #Super Mario Odyssey #Yakuza 0 #Persona 5 #games

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