#SO MUCH BETTER THAN CYBERPUNKS FIRST RELEASE

[oso-nan]

cyberpunk is so much better now thank GODDDD…i love my v!.!.!!.!.!.!.!

[theresattrpgforthat]

How To Find Cool Games: On Itch.io!

As I drift into a reduced posting schedule, I figured I’d give everyone a peek behind the screen for how I cultivate ttrpgs for recommendations! Some of these tips might even help you find your next favourite game.

This is a long read so let's put most of this beast under a read-more. Keep in mind that many of these strategies work best when you're checking itch.io a little bit every week, and when you're engaging with the platform as more than just a store page. There's a lot of features that you can choose to engage with if you want to find the game for you!

browsing physical game recent releases. This helps me see what’s new and happening, and it helps with a number of things. First of all, I get to see new games pretty much every time I browse recent releases. Secondly, I get a good sense of what’s currently popular in the design space. Thanks to my weekly browsing, I recognize Cy_Borg, Shadowdark and Mausritter as games whose content shows up rather regularly - if you see a lot of products attached to one game at once, that’s a good sign that there’s a related game jam going on (in this case, Shadowdark), or that a game is really resonating with its player base.

sorting games into collections. I personally organize by genre, system, player configuration and (in Games That Intrigue Me) games that I’m personally really hyped about. This works for me because of the nature of my work, but a few collections sorted according to level of interest or game style might work better for you.

Depending on the need, I might have a collection that works specifically for the request - Neon Lights & Cyber Nights is perfect for cyberpunk games, but I might also reference this folder for combat, inventory mechanics, resistance themes, or interesting tech rules. LUMEN is great for folks who want fast-paced games, folks who are looking for certain kinds of video games, or folks who want to feel powerful. If you follow other people on Itch, you'll probably also be able to see their collections, which is a great place to browse.

searching game tags. I don’t typically use the regular search feature, although recently the website did update the toggles to restrict your results to physical games, video games, etc. Instead what I usually do is type what I’m looking for into the url: so in this case, [deck-building]. I might use a couple different wordings, such as [deck-builder] and [deckbuilding] (no spaces). You’re not going to find everything that includes the thing you’re looking for, but you’ll definitely find places to start.

Game Jams! I find these either by looking at the “Jams” tab (although you'll have to wade through video games here) or by noticing that a number of games being published recently have the “for the _” jam in the description. Alternatively, I might be reading the page for a game and see the little “Submission” badge in interaction buttons. There’s game jams for specific systems, game jams for various themes, game jams with special restrictions, and game jams that are titled things like “finish your damn game jam.”

Bundles. I typically buy big-ass bundles and then sort through the games in my downtime. These games are sorted into collections for future reference, and if a game really pops out - into the Intrigue Me folder it goes! And the best part is that I already own it, so if I want to learn more, I can just download it and start reading.

following game designers that I like. This way I’ll get notifications if they release a new game, update an old game, rate someone else’s game, or sort games into their own collections. I also get to see what other folks in the space are excited about - on the day I was browsing, Plasmodics by Will Jobst was really hot.

If you follow me on Itch, you’ll get a notification every time I add a game to one of my non-private folders! Also - you can interact with designers on Itch by liking their updates, and even commenting on their posts, which is a great way to get involved in the design community - and also just make a designer’s day!

[giveamadeuschohisownmovie]

I’ve been thinking a lot recently about how the Jak and Daxter series was able to survive having a sequel that was drastically different from the first game. For most series, I think they wouldn’t be able to survive having a sequel that went against the prior installment, especially if the execution was bad. Yet Jak II didn’t sink the franchise. In fact, I’ve noticed that the 2nd Jak game has received better reception in the years since it was released.

As a kid, even though it took some getting used to since I loved the 1st game, I wasn’t put off by Jak II being this cyberpunk GTA title. But I never understood why.

After revisiting the game (I watched a playthrough on YouTube), I think I have a working theory:

1) Jak and Daxter only had 1 game out at the time.

So, the expectations for how the characters would be portrayed wasn’t that strict. Think of it like this; Nintendo wouldn’t get away with turning Link into an unhinged, smartass killer who openly flirts with Zelda. Neither would Sega with Sonic, that’s why Shadow exists. Link and Sonic are too well-known and established that people have expectations on how they should be portrayed, thus not a ton of room for experimentation/deviation. Naughty Dog had some leeway since Jak and Daxter weren’t really household names.

2) Turning Jak into an unhinged, bloodthirsty killer who openly flirts with Keira and has serious anger issues wasn’t that drastic.

This one’s pretty self-explanatory. You start off as innocent Jak, then he got pumped full of Dark Eco. Also, he was tortured for several years, so it’s not hard to see why his character turned out the way he did.

3) The game still feels like the 1st Jak and Daxter, even with the change in tone.

It controls the same. It looks the same (as in the artwork still feels like it was made by the same team). You’re still doing puzzles. And, aside from Jak, the other Jak 1 characters are pretty much the same. I think it’s Daxter and his obnoxiousness that really makes Jak II feel like it’s not a completely different franchise. Without Daxter, I think players would notice the dissonance from the 1st to the 2nd game a lot more.

4) Continuing from point 3, the new gameplay elements only build on from the 1st game rather than take away.

Sure, you get guns, a hoverboard, vehicles, and Dark Jak. However, everything else is still the same. If you remember the controls from the 1st game, you shouldn’t have any problem jumping into the 2nd game, which I feel helps in easing veteran players in with the new tone and setting.

5) Even with the change in tone and setting, the game doesn’t really deviate too far from how Jak was in Jak 1.

Even though Jak is unhinged, angry, and hellbent on revenge in Jak II, he’s still an overall good dude who goes around helping people. Jak still feels like Jak, albeit traumatized and angrier for valid reasons. It helps that Jak was sort of a blank slate in the first game. Because he was a blank slate, there was more room for Naughty Dog to develop his character in Jak II.

Jak is also a bit of a meathead dudebro in Jak II, which isn’t really how he was portrayed in Jak 1. But Jak being a dudebro isn’t that crazy when you consider his best friend is Daxter. And the open flirting isn’t that crazy since Jak already had a crush on Keira.

6) Jak II commits to its dark and edgy tone without going too dark or too cartoonish. It feels like a genuine attempt to take the first game and just “edge” it up.

What my point says. Jak II feels like a genuine continuation of the first game, but darker and edgier. But the game doesn’t go too edgy to the point that it takes you out of the story. It’s not like Jak is going around dropping f-bombs and chopping people’s heads off. It’s a solid balance, that’s what I’m trying to get at.

[temporalhiccup]

Heeeeeeeeeeey everybody, it's my birthday!

It's a big one too, I turn 40 today! ❤️

I thought I'd put some of the "Essential Rae Games" on sale to celebrate!

This is a highly personal write up of these games that reflect my time so far in game design, so I apologize if they don't accurately represent what the game is, whoops.

Become One is my first foray into the itchio ttrpg scene, the first time I put out a game on the internet! This was for the sad mecha game jam, and started out as a four page game.

Honestly, this game holds up extremely well, and every time I come back and play it, I'm surprised at how this game plays way beyond my actual design level of the time.

But, to this day, I have yet to make another mech game (as much as I love the genre) or make a game that works so well as a one shot (I have tried and failed over the years haha)

It's funny that this first public game of mine contains so many themes that show up in almost all of my games. Emotions, memory, my absolute distaste for hit points in ttrpgs...

Our Haunt was my first attempt at making a Belonging Outside Belonging game and since then I have made...uh...a lot of BoB games, hah! BoB remains one of my favorite systems to design in, and the poetic constraints have made me a much better designer. I still think there's so much to explore within the BoB space! Coming back to Our Haunt two years later for the final release, and redesigning it to reflect all that I've learned, was really fun!

This is also my first game to actually get published and printed, after making TTRPGs for four years(!!!). I don't have direct access to things like Kickstarter or similar crowdfunding platforms (I'm a Filipino in the Philippines, global south woes, etc), so being able to finally see one of my games in physical book form was...wow. I can't describe it. Absolutely surreal.

Also I kinda wonder how much of Our Haunt's success is because I made a playbook that's basically being a cat. I wrote it for my partner, who is...basically a cat. (He absolutely loves it)

We Forest Three is one of the few solo games I've designed, and it was certainly the most difficult to write. It's essentially a choose your own adventure ttrpg, and I keep wondering if I've become a strong enough designer to come back and try making another game that follows a similar structure. Hah!

I think this game shows my obsession with the conflict between extremes: forest and city, supernatural beings and humans, family and the individual, love and horror.

This is also the game that notoriously everyone else has had better luck than me! Whenever I play this game, I die a horrible death 90% of the time. (I usually roll the worst stats, augh) Good thing I wrote those (many, many) deaths to be really fun I guess!

BALIKBAYAN is undoubtedly the game that caught everyone's attention. Many amazing opportunities have come my way because BALIKBAYAN made such an impression! I really really should get around to uploading the current version of the game, but even this version on itch is a great. I'm proud of smashing together a distinctly 90s anime cyberpunk vibe with Filipino myth and folktales, while also pushing back against Shadowrun's idea that magic and tech are two opposing forces. Instead, magic and machinery are the same thing in BALIKBAYAN.

I'm also really glad that this game has connected to so many Filipinos in other countries, and resonated with them so deeply. It reminds me that even though I'm still perceived a foreigner in my own country (because I'm bi-racial), I can still connect to others like me through games.

One more thing I'll say is that I think BALIKBAYAN has unfortunately given people the impression that I'm very cool, only for them to meet me and realize I'm a dork. Sorry friends, I just write cool games, I'm actually dreadfully uncool.

Spectrum of Horror is a really fun experimental story game, that works well solo and with other people. I try to incorporate using the tarot in a way that's closer to how a tarot deck actually works.

I think this is (one of many) examples of why I would design straight into layout: Spectrum of Horror is technically eight micro games, and each one takes up a single spread. (Of course, a better designer than me could just figure it out with word count or whatever, but there you go)

Also here's a secret: all of the redacted words are still readable. You just have to select and copy the text from the PDF and paste it somewhere else to see what I wrote, heh.

Brinkwood: Despair (still under its original title on my itch page, whoops) means so much to me, because it's my first FAN GAME. I loved someone else's TTRPG just that much that I had to write a prequel for it.

(I LOVE BRINKWOOD SO MUCH THAT I EVEN WROTE ANOTHER GAME FOR IT, but I'll talk about Brinkwood: Refuge another time!)

I think all of my games are games that are in response to other games, really. But Despair has such a special place in my heart because 1) I just LOVE Brinkwood that much 2) I really cherish the playtest memories I have from when I ran games on the Brinkwood discord server 3) Erik has been really generous with inviting other designers to create things in the space of his game.

Despair is almost finished (thanks to @ostrichmonkey-games helping me out on it) and I can't wait for folks to see the finished version!

Shitty Adventurers is here because, like Cozy Town, I think it's one of the few that are so unlike the rest of my games.

I'm not a very funny person. I'm like, your typical serious Capricorn. The best I can manage, only in front of a few people, is dark humor. I'm really shocked I managed to make this game, to be honest. (Tho humor is incredibly subjective, I have no idea if this game is actually really funny)

I think because this game is so outside of my "brand", and comedy TTRPGs aren't in high demand (afaik!), this game tends to get overlooked. Still, I've heard some wonderful stories from folks who've played the game!

Memory Hunter is a prequel to BALIKBAYAN, and it's also another tentative foray into OSR inspired games. I say tentative, but I'm also really proud of the writing and design here! I released Memory Hunter this year recently and it didn't seem to make too much of an impression, but I hope that if I keep working on game expansions that'll change!

There are many reasons I haven't felt comfortable or confident enough to create more games in the OSR space, but over the past year it's become more inviting! I'm really grateful that Tony Vacinda of Plus One EXP immediately offered to publish it (and Tony in general has been one of the most positive forces in the indie ttrpg space, for sure!)

I'm really looking forward to creating more things for Memory Hunter!

[silentoathprincess]

i love dmmd but i have seen you reblog about other nitro chiral games, how would you rate them? like which game do you like the most and so on, I've only played dmmd and i love it but seeing your posts makes me want to play those too!! love your blog

thank you anon thats so nice!!! ill try to keep this shortish bc otherwise i WILL infodump forever. and ill try not to spoil anything

dmmd is definitely my favorite! it is kind of an outlier compared to the other n+c games tho. it has a lot more comedic moments and the bright cyberpunk aesthetic is pretty different than the usual nitty gritty nitro chiral vibes. if you havent played reconnect you totally should! it adds so much to the characters (msg me if you cant find a copy online) and im forever trying to get my hands on the mizuki recode route lmao

togainu no chi and slow damage are about even for me. slow damage is the most recent one and might have the best story that n+c has ever written. its the only one without any supernatural elements but i think it makes up for it with compelling plot. its VERY dark but i think that makes getting to the end and figuring out all the mystery of the game v exciting. i DO wish the routes felt more...equal? like theres very clearly a true route and its very clearly the best of the bunch lmao. also give me an ikuina route pls hes sooo unwell <3

tnc is the first n+c game and its showing its age a little (i kinda love the early 2000s emo vibes tho). i think the premise for it is really intriguing! theres some killer world building and really fantastic bad ends (if you're into that sort of thing). the character personalities dont quite hit the same levels of intrigue as dmmd for me but theres not a single one i dislike. theres an extra character in the re-release tnc true blood too but ive never been able to get a copy

i'll be so honest, i did not like sweet pool at ALL when i first played it. theres some fantastic fanart out there thats actually swayed me back around to liking it more but like. i didnt know what i was getting into and i definitely should have read a summary first. i thought the thing about youji shitting meat was a running joke. i was not prepared for it to be like baby meat fetuses and cult omegaverse stuff. i like omegaverse but i wish i had been more prepared. its a low tier game for me tbh

i havent finished lamento yet! it took me years to get it working lmaooo im still in the common route. right now i'd probably put it between tnc/slow damage and sweet pool. its definitely better than sweet pool but its not hitting tnc/slow damage levels for me yet. i like the catboys tho catboys catboys catboys

per usual with n+c games id recommend checking out a warnings guide first just to be safe but let me know if you play any of them or which ones you like! i hope this helped!

[arlathen]

personally i'm trying not to be a hater and definitely not trying to dunk on others opinions of the game so far, but I'm just having a really hard time looking forward to anything bioware is putting out rpg wise because it already feels so hollow of what the other dragon age games did in terms of story/characters/companions as well as the personalization of the story our characters are in. I wish I was better with words because it's not that I'm not excited, I just love these games and the world of dragon age so much and im tired of that not being reflected by those actually making the game, it's like they just ignore giant parts of it. I'm not sure if nostalgia for the first three games is just keeping me from being excited about veilguard, but idk I just wanted to get my thoughts out sorry for the word block

aw that's okay! everyone is entitled to feel a certain way. my relationship with dragon age is a little different than a lot of peoples' because i played them all at once right in a row -- so it all feels like a natural evolution. origins mechanics evolve into 2's mechanics evolve into inquisition's mechanics. and personally, i DO feel like veilguard's mechanics look like an evolution of inquisition's mechanics.

so. way back in my day (2012-2014) i was a somewhat popular gifmaker in the sherlock fandom and i *joined* that fandom right after the second season aired. the sherlock fandom was in its heyday during the gap between the second and third season and were notorious for being wacky and zany and writing a lot of in-depth meta about how the cliffhanger from the end of season 2 would be resolved. and when it was resolved, it sucked. they did it way worse than fans had imagined.

so i also have that instinct. all these very smart fans of the game have spent ten years imagining how they're going to resolve this. i've imagined hours of what my perfect resolution would look like. veilguard is inherently going to be less tailored to my tastes than what i imagined, and so i might perceive it as worse than what i was promised and feel let down. i have a strong opinion that this is what happened to cyberpunk 2077 on release -- it was so hyped for so long that everyone imagined their perfect game, and when it wasn't exactly what they imagined, that made it worse in comparison.

but then there are parts of it that are cooler than i imagined, too. even from just what we've seen.

the two games bioware has put out since inquisition are mass effect andromeda and anthem. and both of these games are, imo, special cases for different reasons. andromeda was primarily made by bioware montreal, not bioware edmonton -- different, inexperienced team. and anthem was.... i mean, it was anthem -- bioware is good at story driven single player action rpgs. anthem was a destiny clone. from what i've heard (i did not play it) the mechanics of it were fun-ish (like, flying the actual mech suits) and i've seen that the game looked beautiful. it was just tedious and repetitive and was designed to fuel microtransactions.

so the key failings in the games that have come since -- multiplayer game not in their wheelhouse and not being built by the main bioware team -- are both being averted in veilguard. it's an entirely offline experience made by the devs we know. many of the most hated parts of inquisition, in fact, they have said they cut out (big empty open worlds where you need to collect 100 silverite). i've said before and i'll say again that it really, really feels like bioware have looked at the criticism they have received and tried to course correct as best they could.

and that does inspire confidence and optimism in me, personally. it isn't going to be exactly like how you're imagining -- for good or for bad. i'm tempering my expectations in line with that, myself. i know that no matter what we're going to meet new cool companions and get to kiss 'em (this is important to me). we're gonna get a whole bunch of new lore (this is also important to me). and we're gonna put an end to my egg boyfriend's misery one way or another (this is most important to me).

[zydrateacademy]

First Impressions - Starfield

I have a friend who once told me that Starfield is a game of compromises, but I can't deny that an open world Bethesda game still scratches an itch that does not get satisfied very often. The likes of Cyberpunk 2077 (which is already three years old, ho' hell...) and Baldur's Gate 3 come along to scratch my back but I still always hold hope for the next Bethesda game. So while I enjoy the game for what it is, this review might have a lot more bad to say than good, because the good is just 'good' and there's just a lot more to say about the bad.

The good here still works. Running around in a new world, picking everyone's pockets (oh yes, the "stealth archer" archetype is just as valid here if a bit twitchy), fiddling with gear and the like. It doesn't quite scratch the same tech/tactical shooter that I eventually turned FO4 into with mods but I think it has the potential when the modding tools are released soon.

Now that is always an ongoing debate. Modders should not be tasked to 'fix' a developer's game, and the baseline game has to be good and enjoyable enough to attract said modders to eventually spend years of their life toiling. As of this writing, Skyrim has 500 new mods published -this week-, and that's not even bothering to look up what's been updated as well. All that said, it still most certainly helps.

The general gameplay loop still works, generally just looting and shooting and slowly upgrading my gear as the enemies acquire better stuff while I level up. I enjoy some of the spaceflight but it's more thin than I expected. Spaceflight is not a "pick a direction and go" but more when you fast travel to planets there may or may not be some kind of encounter, between fighting mercenaries or having your cargo scanned for contraband. Once you're done with the encounter, it's done, and there's no reason to continue flying around.

I still really enjoy spaceflight and I truly wish there was more of it. But so far in ~20 hours it has mostly amounted to "kill three ships, now land on the planet towards your objective".

There's a contraband feature I'm a bit mixed on. Every now and then, notably when you're exploring "abandoned" structures on planets (so far, always occupied by pirates), you'll find some very high-priced illegal item packs you can take to the Trade Authority to hock. Unfortunately this is basically just a special item with extra steps. There's only one or two viable places to go to, to avoid the authorities scanning your ship and I've found a backpack full of high-priced guns can yield more cash than the specialized contraband which has an expected huge markdown when I go to sell them anyway. It's a fun idea but not implemented as well as it could be.

Very quickly, I am hit with this strange double-triple-unlock perk system. Things like upgrading your weapons and gear are behind a tiered wall so you might have to dump points in a line you're hardly interested in (I don't really care that my scanner gets 10 more meters, I'm running towards the thing I'm scanning anyway) just to be able to get the capability of upgrading your own stuff. After that you need to 'research' your ability to craft these things. At a certain point I might just cheat in 100 units of various materials just to skip the research part.

It's basically Fallout4's system but worse, with extra hoops to jump through. At least in FO4 your perks were just locked behind the attribute level and nothing else. But in order to fly the 'best' ships you will need a bunch of perks in the tech tree, for a game you really don't spend that much flying in.

I think the game has a scaling problem. While you can't fly planet to planet manually hoping to run into random encounters (ala~ random spawns on the roads of Skyrim that are different on every playthrough), it also has trouble with on foot traversal itself. People complained about planetfall on the first Mass Effect as just amounting to a square foot space to run around and explore in but I think Starfield would have benefited from that system here. So far in my experience I have simply done the Mass Effect thing and explored the three or four points of interest on a planet and left it at that. You can choose a point and land anywhere on planets and maybe establish an outpost but there's very long expanses of nothing and running between PoI's made me wish for some kind of hoverbike. Or a Mako.

Minor nitpick: Beth games really need to give their merchants more money. Scrolling through some reviews there's one that formatted very simplistically. Perfect? No. Overhyped? Sure. Fun? Yes. A lot of that I agree with. I won't deny Bethesda has some real work to do here (with a major patch coming in a couple of days) but I'm still enjoying the experience.

So here's a thumbs up if you're anything like me and are just suffering from the general dry spell of open world RPGs. It'll do for now.

[ishaslife]

Dragon Age: Dreadwolf or Dragon Age: Dreadful?

Everything in this post is an opinion and a rant.

I'm going to get straight to the point. I don't think it's a surprise that BioWare's promotion and marketing for Dreadwolf has been horrible. First of all, the title itself is a massive spoiler for people who are probably just getting into the series, and secondly; the drip-feeding of "content" for the new game is just plain infuriating. The in-game cinematic released on Dragon Age Day last year is an example. It gave no extra information whatsoever and was basically just a rundown of things we already know from Inquisition. I don't have any issues with the game releasing late, I just wish they'd stop talking about it until they have a proper trailer or release date in mind.

There have been big comparisons made with Baldur's Gate 3 and Dragon Age and I can understand why. Probably because Bioware has worked on Baldur's Gate before but most likely because both of those games have been highly anticipated for some time and resemble each other in many ways. They both have a party and romance system which allows people to get to know the characters better and makes the plot much more interesting. I'm hoping that the new DA game will continue this like its predecessors but that's all I can do, hope. One can only hope when it comes to Dragon Age whereas Larian Studios (the studio that's making Baldur's Gate 3) has had the game available for early access since October of 2020 and constantly takes critique and suggestions on the game and how to go forth with it. Its steady development and polishing (at least steadier compared to DA) have led to its release being finally being announced which is in August this year along with a trailer to boot. Dragon Age: Dreadwolf on the other has been in development for nearly 7 years or more and we have close to no content on it other than some side stories, a behind-the-scenes reel that is 2 years old now, a spin-off Netflix show which was decent at best. And its teasers are now 4 years and 2 years old respectively. Most of this recent "content" doesn't even have anything to do with Solas or the plot of the game. And while I love The Missing comics that have just come out, they are not being marketed as well as they should be.

Trust me, I don't want to have doubts but BioWare isn't making things easy. With so many people leaving the studio and the date being pushed further and further, it's quite hard to stay positive. I absolutely love this world, Dragon Age: Origins and the entire series is my favourite and most likely always will be but I'm starting to lose faith in the developers. I don't want the final game to be ruined and what they don't realise is that their constant drip-feeding is only racking more pressure for their game to be a great success as people except a great deal when the game finally comes out given how we have gotten close to nothing on its story, characters etc. They're making the same mistake that CDPR did for Cyberpunk 2077, hyping up the game with nothing for a while only for it to be a massive disappointment when it came out.

I just hope that Dragon Age: Dreadwolf, whenever it comes out, is truly THE game that everyone has been waiting for, in terms of something that BioWare has always been known for; story. DA games have always had great stories and I hope for nothing else with Dreadwolf. Even if the gameplay sucks and the game doesn't look that good, at this point all I care about is the story. Please BioWare, by the maker, don't fuck up your characters and your own reputation.

Dragon Age: Dreadwolf is truly a game that can either make or break BioWare.

[ladyeglantine]

2023 Year in Review/Writing and Hobby Goals 2024

Another end of a year, beginning of another. My greatest achievement this year was buying a duplex! Other than a pipe leak that the house greeted me with my first few weeks in, this place is perfect for me. Though future renovations have to wait til I save more up again, I'm more than content with this home and this space I can truly call mine.

Physical/mental health wise, it's been up and down. While changing jobs last year has overall been for the better for managing my anxiety, the last few months of the year triggered anxiety spikes again (things building and building on top of each other, both internally-caused and job-caused; still so easy for me to just push it down and not deal with the negative feelings in a healthy, accepting way). I finally thought I'd gotten my sleep back in a better, regular pattern during the summer, but then it slid back again in the fall. My migraines continue to pop up, my stomach has become more sensitive, and my weight more of a concern especially on my back and knees, all of which is frustrating to deal with, but at least nothing major or any medical emergencies this year (though this was the year Covid finally got me, whee!). I'm hoping with some health/diet changes I'm making, and exercises that I'll be doing, that that will help.

Writing wise, I posted 14,662 words, with between 8,000 - 10,000 words on unposted works, so just about at my 25,000 word goal. Most of which is for the game that came out of my left field for me and grabbed me by my fandom feels, Baldur's Gate 3. Writing for my two playthrough OCs, Tav (my high Elf Bard) and Sienna (Drow resisting Durge) and Gale of Waterdeep, has been such a joy and comfort (especially during my anxiety spikes), that I haven't felt since Ellana and Blackwall and Shepard and Garrus. I felt the ease and creative drive to write again because of BG3 and the Gale romance and I couldn't be more grateful for it. In total, I posted four ficlets for Tav/Gale, two Ellana/Blackwall ficlets (1, 2), and one Jane/Garrus ficlet (1). While I did work a bit more on re-outlining and planning my original fiction, the next year will likely be the year of Baldur's Gate 3 and My Time at Sandrock fics.

I met my reading goal of 20 new books at exactly 20 (technically I read 21 but it was one I'd read before, Inkheart). Favorites included the The Radium Girls (Kate Moore), The Inheritance of Orquídea Divina (Zoraida Córdova), She Who Became the Sun (Shelley Parker-Chan), A Forgery of Roses (Jessica Olson), and River of the Gods (Candice Millard). And of course, we have more T. Kingfisher with Illuminations and Paladin's Grace.

I did complete a few games from my 2023 list, A Plague Tale - Requiem (loved) and Borderlands - The PreSequel as well as continuous My Time at Sandrock and Disney Dreamlight Valley play. While I did play many a remastered version of games I hadn't yet played such as BTPS, the Metro series, and Uncharted - The Lost Legacy, it was also the year of surprises. Baldur's Gate 3 I vaguely knew about before its full release, but has now become my newest gaming obsession. Indie games such as Pentiment, Escape Academy, Beacon Pines, Dorf Romantik, Jenny LeClue, Wayhaven Chronicles Book III, and Stray Gods were also ones I very much enjoyed. And of course, how can I forgot the relaxing power of PowerWash Simulator (though there's a very good chance the town of Muckingham will be reclaimed by nature at some point :P). And that's nothing to say of the games I have in progress that have engaged me, namely Cyberpunk 2077 and I Was a Teenage Exocolonist.

Now on to my primary writing and hobby goals for 2024!

2024 Primary Writing Goals:

25,000 words

Tav (Bard High Elf)/Gale and Sienna (Drow resisting Durge)/Gale ficlets (Baldur's Gate 3)

Builder/Owen (My Time at Sandrock) ficlets

A Surprise Visit (post My Time in Portia main quest; Builder/Aadit)

Inheritance (original fiction planned trilogy)

2024 Primary Hobby Goals:

Books:

Read at least 20 new books, with focus on fantasy and non-fiction

Play the following games:

Continue playing and finishing Cyberpunk 2077 and Phantom Liberty

Continue playing and finishing I Was A Teenage Exocolonist

Horizon Zero Dawn and Horizon Forbidden West, Ghost of Tsushima, and Life is Strange - True Colors (this will finally be the year for these!)

Syberia series (1-3, The World Before)

Continue playing/re-playing My Time at Sandrock, Disney Dreamlight Valley, Dysmantle, and Baldur's Gate 3

Other hobbies:

Nature photography

Puzzles and puzzle books

Music and video editing 

Music (flute, guitar, and piano)

Besides joy in the little things, I'm planning to find towns or places I can go to in a day drive's distance throughout the year. And to continue practicing kindness towards myself as well as others <3

[outeremissary]

9 People You'd Like to Get to Know Better

Tagged by @turbulentpumpkin43. Thanks for thinking of me! I know I haven't been around much (for reasons we don't need to get into), but truly nothing summons me faster than the email notification about a tag game where I know I'm going to have to say something horribly embarrassing about myself.

Three Ships: I mean, if we're counting stuff with OCs then obviously anyone following my knows Balthazar and Tristian (and the wonderful polycule with Vio) is my number one. Aside from that, the latest volume of Witch Hat has fully converted me into an Agott/Coco true believer. I actually did like the Coco/Tarteh vibe but Agott's special brand of slowly changing rival just has me by the throat. Aside from that? Ummm. Elliot and Leo from Pandora Hearts? Does that count? I did my full reread of Pandora Hearts while afk in September and those two have had me since like 2012 or 2013 or whenever they were introduced in the English release. But now that I'm older and more mature I can better appreciate what the messy later arcs had to give, and that's the beauty of a relationship between equals corrupted by a growing imbalance no one has the strength to acknowledge and devotion so deep it tears both of their lives apart. That's awesome. 11/10, everyone read Pandora Hearts and I'm not even joking

First Ever Ship: Gamers, back in early 2012 when I was in middle school and could only see images on the computer at school because searching for anything visual online was mega bad for rural internet, a friend of mine used a science classroom computer to discover you could find non-canon images of The Legend of Zelda if you searched terms like "Link blue" and scrolled down a couple rows. I distinctly remember this as the first ever time I really understood the concept of "fan art," and more importantly as my entry into fandom as we all began to realize many of these came from the same site: a place called "DeviantArt." Some of these contained such salacious and unthinkable things as two boys holding hands and blushing, and also both of those boys were Link. I was so captivated by these mysterious images that I followed them to their Four Swords Adventures manga RP fandom source, where I am not proud to say the first "ship" I adopted as such was Vio (Violet Link for people who spent their time doing better things at thirteen) and Shadow (Shadow Link, of course). That's right, everyone! It was edgy Link selfcest yaoi between a traitor and an angsty villain all the way down!!! And you know what? When I write that I don't think my taste has changed. Except the selfcest. Mostly.

The other, more respectable first ship I remember not long after that was Ulquihime. What can I say, there's just something about the Stockholm syndrome of it all.

Last Song: No title - REOL. Narrowly missed this being edgy early Vocaloid. I've been revisiting old favorites recently.

Last Movie: I'm pretty sure it was Surf's Up. For whatever reason my friend decided we should rewatch it when I visited him a few weeks ago. Holds up better than it should, but I've rewatched it twice in little over a year and truly that is my Surf's Up limit. That trip was also when my friend forced me to watch Barbie and the D&D movie. Look at me catching up on relevant pop culture only for fucking Surf's Up to be what made this list.

Currently Reading: I'm pretty sure this came up last time, but because I haven't gotten started on a better book since then I'm unfortunately still periodically chipping at The Thousand Deaths of Ardor Benn. This book fucking sucks. Don't read it. If we could manga and stories that are actually good I recently did a Witch Hat Atelier reread after getting volume 11!!! That volume is. So painfully personal.

Currently Watching: Cyberpunk: Edgerunners and Jujutsu Kaisen season 2. JJK is with my friend for weekly hangout, but Edgerunners is a solo endeavor because it was bumming him out way too much. Good show though. Also JJK was way more of a bummer than expected in ways that caught me off guard??? I'm not getting over what happened to that girl, I really got fucking got by that scene. Jesus

Currently Consuming: Nothing. Just finished dinner, where I had a chicken sandwich and fries. I need groceries. It's dire.

Currently Craving: doing something creative, but that would require moving the giant zine pile on my chair........ this is how I'm procrastinating

I'm sorry, but I'm actually not tagging anyone on this tonight! I haven't been on enough lately to know who has or hasn't done it, and frankly I'm not ready to be back on Tumblr enough to map that out. If you're seeing this and want to do it, please go ahead and do it. Tag me like I tagged you, we are collaborators in this and I want to see what you say.

[quaddmgd]

Happy Birthday, Crystal

So today (August 25th) marks one year since I started playing Cyberpunk 2077 and created Crystal. A year is a really long time for me to still play the same singleplayer game with no subsequent playthroughs. Things like that don't happen often, and Crystal means a world to me, so why not ramble for a bit about my memories, feelings towards the game and other stuff. Keep in mind, it's nothing more than a journal entry. Unless you know me a bit better than a typical mutual, you won't find anything of value here.

[VERY LONG POST AHEAD]

Long time ago...

I was really hyped about the game before its release in December 2020, my s/o even more than me. There were some signs that it's going to turn out disappointing, but we were keeping our hopes up. Alas, came the release date, the game hit headlines due to it's poor technical state and some broken promises. We were very upset, especially since all we had to play it on was Xbox One and low-spec by today's standards PCs. First updates showed that CDPR has much more to fix than we expected, so our hype has slowly died down.

Since then, I played through Cruelty Squad, Red Dead Redemption 2, multiple Yakuza, Devil May Cry and Resident Evil games, and I couldn't care less about the game at the start of 2022.

Why I got the game?

I only purchased Cyberpunk 2077 in May-June 2022, along with Kao The Kangaroo (2022) which, to be honest, was the main attraction for me. Both games were physical Xbox releases and I only was hyped to play Cyberpunk thanks my to lil bro, who has finished the game twice, and showed me this trailer with a beautiful cover of Never Fade Away - a song very in-line with my music taste.

Speaking as a seasoned video editor, the trailer was masterfully realized, with multiple great cuts showing off the diverse cast and some of the action. Editing, music and the scenes they chose made the entire trailer feel more like a tribute video - obviously this was made with love.

Now, I played The Witcher 3, and I knew that this game will require time and dedication from me - something I couldn't afford at the time. And despite hearing about the next gen patch (update 1.5) bringing the game to a state it should've been released in, I remained skeptical about it being good. No offense, but people (especially on Twitter) tend to overreact and talk about stuff they know nothing about. Even with recent title releases, folks just assume the latest patch made them better and fixed important issues. But then you sit with the game and a proper frame rate analysis is enough to prove such reports to be false.

My life in corpo

Before we get to August 2022, I want to provide some more context regarding the state I was in. I was working a piss-poor corpo job, which was gradually eating away my soul for longer than I'd like to admit. It wasn't fulfilling and it was (and probably still is) full of ungrateful pricks, that were coming up with issues to justify their payrolls, only to send QA on us to not detect any issues mentioned. To keep it brief, it was a very hostile work environment, that was treating people like garbage. But hey, at least they were smiling, right?

Come summer 2022, I was feeling like a shell of a human being, and I'm happy that fate decided that it's time for me get out and take care of myself. I'm not sure where would I be right now if I didn't.

So, my time at the job was coming to an end and I couldn't give less of a fuck about looking for another one. I needed some well-deserved vacation. I was supposed to work until August 31st and during these last few days I was trying to take it really easy.

Still the work was going as usual, so despite of having only few days left, my mental and physical state was as shitty as before. After each remaining day I was a walking corpse, drinking coffee at 10pm to squeeze these additional two hours from a day and try to enjoy some of my hobbies before going to sleep and repeating the cycle.

Starting the playthrough

My job is the reason why my memory is hazy on how I decided that it's time to start Cyberpunk 2077, but it's possible that it was my s/o that encouraged me to do it. She surely wanted to see the character creator with her own eyes, and was always interested in me creating OCs - something I wasn't doing often back then.

So, on August 25th 2022, I started playing Cyberpunk 2077, knowing nothing about the lore, with a sole intention of creating my character and seeing what happens. It was already late and my entire evening was sponsored by coffee, but whatever.

Crystal/Valerie/V

I'm not really sure how long it took me to create Crystal, but I spent an ungodly amount of time on perfecting her looks. I wanted her to look badass and beautiful, maybe end up being a cooler version of me. While I don't think I based her off my looks, my partner noticed that we have similar jawlines and hairstyles (well, I'm a natural blonde, which later I consciously reflected on her while creating her flashback version).

Needless to say, I instantly fell in love with her. And I know I wouldn't create a female character I wouldn't wanna date :>, but I really mean it. She was, and still is, simply perfect.

Her name was Crystal since the moment I was adding finishing touches (like makeup and tattoos), but I wasn't planning on giving her a standalone story. She was supposed to be V, with her name later revealed to be Valerie - a name I really like the sound of, and it fits her nicely. Still, in my mind her name was Crystal - and I have no idea why... she just looks like Crystal.

So here I was with my nomad V, ready to play through the prologue and possibly the rest of the game.

Playing through the game

My first evening of playing ended on me visiting Wakako (I don't even remember the reason you are supposed to go there tbh but if you played, you know these are still introductory quests) and photographing the hell out of C. My lesbian ass couldn't even be bothered to change FOV (and back then I couldn't really see the issue with default FOV screenshots - it took me months to adjust my eyes tbh) but she looked so badass. The photo mode, for industry standards, isn't that bad too, so I was really hyped to play the game, meet more people and shoot pics. While I already loved her friendship with Jackie and the way CDPR handled introduction to some of the cast, I wasn't sold on the story yet.

some of pics made on the first night :>

Then on the next day I went through The Heist and Love Like Fire, and learned that my actions as Johnny led to 2023 Night City Holocaust. Everyone who played through these quests know how full of events and emotions they are. It was 3/4am on Friday (technically Saturday) night, mind you, and I still was living mostly off coffee. That's a lot to take in for a tired mind and in some way it might have helped me immerse in Crystal's position even more. After waking up as her, with Jackie dead, and a parasite in my head that actively wants me to join him, I was just as clueless as to what the fuck happened. All I knew was that she/we need to survive. I can't let her/us die.

Let me tell you, waking up in her apartment, to the original version of Never Fade Away on the radio, was one of the most powerful moments in the game. To me, it has become a theme song for the rest of the playthrough. Leaving the apartment after getting some irl sleep was just as powerful.

the first time C left her apartment after Jackie's death and Johnny's flashback

The playthrough was going alright and I was hooked. I don't think there are many things worth talking about here. One thing worth mentioning is that I was starting to feel a strong connection with Crystal - something I've never felt to such an extent in any game. Maybe it's my background in corpo, which was only coming to an end. Or maybe I subconsciously designed her to help me with some of identity issues I had back then. I will never know for sure, but either way, she has helped me. She was exactly who I wanted her to be, who she wanted herself to be and was constantly brave and punk about it. I was feeling a growing mix of immersion and adoration as I progressed through the game.

And progress through the game I did! I finished plenty of gigs/ncpd jobs and all available side quests before starting the last mission chain (or so I thought - in the end I totally missed the vending machine one and the entirety of Kerry's questline lmao). During this time I was put out of misery of working my job, each day feeling more alive than the last, playing more and more hours of Cyberpunk 2077, shooting many pictures, enjoying my time in Night City and being Crystal.

yeah it might be using default fov but it's still one of my favorite shots

Last Tapeworm, Chipping In and dying

To me, Cyberpunk 2077 was at its best when it was focusing on the relationship between V and Johnny. Last part of Tapeworm was a very powerful moment. There's no way I'll ever forget the conversation she had with Johnny in that apartment. Going from a foe that actively eating your life away, to possibly the only person that's ready to sacrifice their life to save yours, Johnny and his redemption arc are some of the biggest highlights of the game.

The conversation was of course followed by a side quest sequence started with Chipping In, with another memorable scene at Johnny's grave. Seeing how far we've come together, how many people we met, how often we were agreeing with each other - it was like talking to a friend who was right by your side for every important event in your life. And to think that only few days ago I was watching him trying to smash her head against the window...

side quests really were the best part of the story

It's hard to say which moment was more impactful, but for me it all clicked just after the Tapeworm cutscene. If I remember it right, I spent a few minutes more in this apartment block, staring away at the sunset, listening to waves breaking Pacifica's silence. Not even sure if I'll manage to save Crystal, I wasn't ready to finish it anytime soon. I still had a lot to do and it took me an additional day to finish everything and start Nocturne OP55N1, but I was looking at the game differently than before.

It might sound dramatic, but I mean it. For the remaining duration of the game, each time I didn't hear any music, it was just silence of a big city dying from heatstroke and sandstorms, echoing conversations with people I met during my journey, and uncertainty, if I'll even make it out alive in the end. Unfortunately, I can't convey it any better, but it has to do with the atmosphere of this city and CDPR's natural talent for creating gray characters, which Cyberpunk 2077 is full of, and last but not least, my connection to Crystal.

Nocturne OP55N1

So the time has come for me to start the last mission sequence and I knew that it might go bad. The moment I was warned that it's a point of no return, I backed out and went for a walk around the city. Don't know if it was scripted, but the weather was overcast and NC was covered in fog. In my experience it's such a rare occurrence, that either I was "lucky" or it was planned. I visited Judy (VCrystal's sweetheart) for the last time, disappointed by the lack of new dialogues to start, and went back to Megabuilding H10 to see a cute heart made out of consumables by her. I went to sleep in my own bed, probably for the last time.

During my last journey to Embers, Major Crimes by Health started playing on the radio, and I got emotional. Not often games make me cry, but I really didn't want Crystal to die, or my journey to end. It really felt like I was saying goodbye to everyone and not going back.

just look at the weather - shot outside of Embers, before starting Nocturne Op55N1

In the end I managed to go through the Embers section just fine, but very stressed. Then, after suffering through heartbreaking moments at Viktor's Clinic, I got to the rooftop.

Now, I'm not really sure how much time I spent there. Seems like an eternity, looking back on it. No choice felt right (and in the end, none was perfect), but I had to choose something. Unable to decide, I did something I really hate doing - I looked up endings to see which one will let me live happily with Judy... or survive at the very least.

While I didn't know it yet, I chose the happiest ending of the bunch. All I knew is that Crystal will be able to leave Night City with Judy - I didn't know that it'll be impossible to remove the chip in Mikoshi and that there's hope of achieving it in Arizona. Yes, I chose The Star ending.

I still was on the edge of my sit and really scared for C, but deep down, I knew that I probably won't get another chance to mess it up.

The ending was bittersweet and I got an instant hangover. I needed some time to come to terms with it, and make peace with me not getting the happy ending. In the end I managed to create a brief scenario where that guy Panam knows somehow manages to remove the chip, and Crystal and Judy got to live happily ever after.

I beat the game on September 4th.

Feelings Feelings Feelings

See, there's a reason I'm talking about the ending and my feelings about it in such detail. I really fell in love with Crystal. After all, it's the first time I got so immersed into a character and I can't put my finger on why exactly.

Maybe it's because it's the prettiest character I have ever created, maybe I just saw parallels in our stories or feelings, maybe I subconsciously made up all the connections in my head. Meh, it's probably a bit of everything, on top of a really good story, even if most of it is hidden in side content.

The thing is, I was in the right place, at the right time and, like I said, it all just clicked.

Back then, I was tired, angry, feeling exploited and robbed of soul. She was there to help me stop thinking about it, get revenge in a way, even if on a fictional corporation, however dumb it might sound. And the more I was thinking about her, dressing her up in cool clothing (bra + edgerunner combo ftw), the more I strived to be like her. I learned to love myself a bit more, I started dressing up for myself again, putting some makeup on just to stare at the mirror and enjoy the end result, maybe even shoot some selfies. It's almost like, on top of everything I already said, I was trying to express myself through her, which has in return influenced me. I hope that makes sense.

Crystal Hartley

Now, it took me some time to create her own story and separate her from V. And I wouldn't probably do it if it wasn't for my s/o. She was already working on her OCs story, and after many tries she finally talked me into writing my girl. The last modification date of the document with the initial version of the story is February 25th - exactly 6 months after starting the game. Since then, I made some changes and the end result can be seen here. It helped me further resonate with her and she didn't have a deadly chip inside anymore, at the cost of her not getting to know Johnny. She remained a warrior, a true badass who's not scared of anything.

Honestly she was and still is inspiring me. Being it her as V or real Crystal I wrote a few months back, she suffered hardships, she had her all-time low moment not that long ago, but she recovered and she always stands brave against all odds - knowing that in the end everything will turn out just fine.

For now, C has got some closure. She's living in Night City, she has a loving and beautiful girlfriend she's thinking about all the time, they're still doing gigs and getting in trouble together <3 While she still recovers from what happened in her nomad family, she has Elegy, Misty, Claire and Saul to help her deal with it. She's in a good place right now.

Other girls

Some time ago I made EV, a girl that was originally a Cyberpunk version of my Evie from Red Dead Online, albeit I made her personality a polar opposite to Evie's. I don't have a lot about her, really - she's beautiful, photogenic, conveys vibes the best out of all of my OCs. She's probably going to end up as my canon V. She and Johnny are a match made in heaven... or hell. Actually if I put them together in the same body Night City might end up in flames.

Then there's Thalia. A girl I initially only mentioned as a friendly gang member in Crystal's mega lore post. She wasn't hanging around with Crystal's group of friends, but they got really close after getting to know each other during a party. Officially, she sacrificed herself to save Crystal and the rest when they got overrun by enemies. She did survive, with help of [REDACTED] and is looking for Crystal in Night City to reunite with her and [REDACTED]. Hopefully they meet soon! It'll probably bring some unpleasant memories back, but in the end Crystal will reunite with Thalia and, with Elegy, they'll make a dream team.

Some stats!

Why not wrap it up with some interesting data!

Since I started Cyberpunk 2077:

I got all the achievements and I intend on doing the same for Phantom Liberty

according to Xbox I played the game for 268 hours* **

I made 3405 captures, taking up a whopping 36 GB of space*

421 of these captures were made during my initial playthrough

* - at the time of writing ** - including time I was afk

Conclusion

So... I just wanted to post some thoughts about Cyberpunk 2077 and, especially, Crystal. Going from a game I wasn't even that stoked to play, to an ongoing hyperfixation, that has helped me through tough times and still influences me to this very day! I even made some internet friends!

When I was working on a standalone story for Crystal, I decided that her birthday is the day I first played the game - 25th August... today.

Happy birthday, Crystal <3

[xb-squaredx]

The Avengers Game: The Surefire Hit That Misfired

With the stronghold that the Marvel Cinematic Universe had on pop culture for the past decade, it was all the more puzzling that they didn’t capitalize on that in the realm of video games. Superhero video games have been a thing since the medium began, but for the longest time Marvel’s gaming efforts were few and far between, outside of the rare Spider-Man title. But in 2017 a collaboration between Square Enix and Marvel was announced, with a variety of game products teased, among them being a project centered on Earth’s Mightiest Heroes. On paper, this seemed like a complete slam dunk. A prolific AAA game developer, a hot IP that hadn’t had a lot of game action in a while, and it would be landing right when the MCU hype was at its peak with the back-to-back hits of Infinity War and Endgame. But that wasn’t what happened. Something went wrong, and the surefire hit….misfired. Just before the game’s delisting at the end of September 2023, I ended up purchasing the game on a deep discount, curious at what all the fuss was about. So let’s talk about how this game ended up the way it did.

A FALSE START

Marvel’s Avengers launched in September of 2020, and to say the launch was rough would be an understatement. Broken matchmaking, a litany of bugs and performance issues, and a deeply unsatisfied fanbase. While it’s clear the pandemic had played a huge part in the game’s lackluster release state, the fact it was allowed to release like this at all was worrying. Only a month later player numbers on PC had dropped significantly and the game seemingly was in its death throes. In March of 2021 the next-gen console versions of the game released, and with it a multitude of fixes and additional content. It was clear this was an attempted re-launch of the game, but you know what they say about first impressions…

Now, to give the developers some credit, there were legitimate attempts to improve the game and add more worthwhile content. They didn’t just cut and run and leave players holding the bag. Effort was put in to making the game better and trying to right the ship, though the damage had already been done with the game’s reputation. Even as someone who got the game far after every patch and fix went out, I still encountered a ton of issues and on my last-gen PS4 console the overall experience was still rough. It feels like a game that really should have been next-gen only, but was pushed out to the last-gen systems to get as much profit as possible, in a manner similar to the ill-fated launch of Cyberpunk 2077. The sad truth here is that regardless of patches and additions to the game, no matter how many bugs they fixed and feedback they implemented, there were problems with the very core of the game, and in order to properly address these issues…they would have been better off making a new game from scratch.

THE GEAR SCORE MAKES THE HERO

One of the most hotly debated aspects of Marvel’s Avengers was its status as a live-service game. At a time when the “games as a service” bubble was about to burst, fans had largely grown intolerant of more games coming out competing for their time and money, and if you are going to market yourself as a “forever game” with tons of ways to spend money and get players to log in every day, you have to make it worth it for them and…well, I think the game’s overall reception and failure speaks for itself.

So much of Marvel’s Avengers is grinding for grinding’s sake. Everything takes longer to unlock and build up than it should, clearly designed in such a way to squeeze money out of the playerbase. After a certain point, the goal is no longer to make a satisfying game for players and instead to make it into an infinite revenue machine. At the game’s launch you had TONS of cosmetics that could only be gotten through a tedious grind of in-game currency….or you just pay up with real money. At one point the developers even tried to market an experience boosting item for players, before it was removed due to protest. Keep in mind this was a full-price game. Just a few years prior we had Marvel’s Spider-Man as a solid single-player game that had NO microtransactions at all, and a TON of costumes you could unlock by…playing the game. How novel! Speaking of Spider-Man, let’s not forget that one of the most popular superheroes of all time was made into a PlayStation exclusive for no other reason than greed. Now, I’ve played the game long after the final update just unlocked all cosmetics for players to enjoy for free, and what few things I have to unlock from in-game vendors shows me that this grind must have been awful to live through, and it must be even worse if you HAD paid for stuff without knowing that one day it would be made free with the flip of a switch.

On top of all of this, there was also artificial bloat inserted into the game’s progression systems with the focus on loot and raising your player’s Power Level. Over the last few years I’ve seen a lot of games worship at the altar of “gear score” and I hate it every time. They completely miss the forest for the trees regarding what makes loot and loadouts work in other games. Often times your own abilities as a player are downplayed in favor of forcing you to micromanage your gear, and it unfortunately infects the Avengers experience. Despite the fact that you’re playing as Earth’s Mightiest Heroes, you don’t feel all that powerful unless you have the right arbitrary number attached to the endless loot you sift through during missions. Hulk Smash….but only if you put on the wrist guards that give him plus 5% damage when it’s raining outside. Remember how in Spiderman: Homecoming Peter has to grapple with being a hero despite Tony taking away his fancy suit with all those gadgets? Or how this game’s own campaign is constantly touting the platitude that “Good isn’t a thing you are, it’s a thing you do?” Yeah well actually the gear makes the hero, so get to grinding if you want to actually embody these characters!

You constantly have to deal with gear you get from enemy drops, finding them in strong boxes, or completing missions. While you do on occasion find some gear with some tangible effects that you can tuck away for a specific mission, the bulk of gear is garbage and exists almost purely just to sell off to get a pittance of currency in exchange, or later on to feed existing gear and make it stronger. But with each mission you’ll get better and better gear, constantly having to replace what you already had, so don’t get attached. So many of the modifiers and stat bonuses to gear are so minor they don’t even feel noticeable, and what’s more, it’s all there to keep up the illusion of progression.

There’s no actual progression from the gear system; the game automatically scales to whatever your Power Level is when selecting most missions. There are SOME missions that have a higher Power Level by default that you can’t take on until you’re at that level, but they didn’t feel noticeably more challenging than other missions. Now, I never hit the Power Level cap with any character, and I’ve seen evidence that some missions are hidden from view unless your Power Level is high enough, so I can’t quite speak for the pure endgame content, but the bulk of the game showcases just how horrible the gear system is as a progression system. It’s worth noting that there’s also individual levels for each character, which actually works FAR better as a real progression system. Each level up gets you a skill point that can be put towards multiple skill tress that further expand each character’s moveset and allows for experimentation to suit different playstyles and strategies. Gear systems CAN be down well, but it doesn’t work in this game, and I can say with confidence the entire experience would have been better without its inclusion. Getting off of my soapbox then, we should probably discuss the actual contents of the game itself, starting with what many touted as the best part of the whole game….the single-player campaign.

AN INHUMAN CAMPAIGN

A fair bit of the pre-release coverage of this game was focused around the story. Well before we saw any gameplay or even know what type of game Marvel’s Avengers was going to be, they were hyping up the voice cast as if it was a movie. Despite all of that focus, the single-player campaign didn’t exactly live up to my expectations for more than a few reasons, despite a decent start.

The premise is an interesting one for starters. The Avengers are blamed for a tragic accident and forcefully disbanded but years later a superhero fangirl, Kamala Khan, sets out on a journey to help clear their names and get the gang back together. Kamala is one of a few newer Marvel characters that has gotten a fair amount of buzz, similar to the likes of Miles Morales, and it’s undoubtedly great to see her take on a major role in a game like this. The early bits of the game put you in her shoes as she struggles to come to grips with her new found super powers, and the dynamic she has with the Avengers is endearing. That said, over time it started to feel like the story was being stretched thinner and thinner, and more problems started to emerge that sadly weren’t solved by the ending.

For starters, Kamala takes up the bulk of screen time. I don’t mind her being the main focus of the narrative, but for a game named after the Avengers…the team itself actually doesn’t do as much as you’d think. While we get to Hulk and Iron Man early enough, and Black Widow has a decent behind-the-scenes impact on the plot, I really feel like the narrative didn’t know what to do for Thor or Captain America. By the time the whole team is back together the game is about over, and any fun banter or moments they could have had together was mostly relegated to how they all feel about Kamala. There are times when the game’s narrative almost feels like it was written like Kamala’s fan fiction, where she is the center of everything and the other Avengers seem far too trusting and supportive of her right away, not to mention she faces little to no consequences for her actions at times. I want to stress I DO like Kamala and I think Sandra Saad does a good job portraying her, but the game gets awfully close to being a game about Ms. Marvel, featuring the Avengers, and that’s not exactly how the game was advertised.

Outside of that, I take issue with the game’s focus on the Inhumans, or rather, the lack of focus. In the comics, Inhumans are descendants of humans experimented on by the alien race known as the Kree. When exposed to “Terrigen Mist” they develop superhuman abilities, and there’s also a lot of political stuff with a royal family of Inhumans that live on the moon. In this game however, the alien aspects of Inhumans are severely downplayed, and the event that ends up releasing the Terrigen Mist and creating Inhumans here is more or less implied to be completely manmade, with no mentions of the royal family either. While it’s possible the game would have delved into the Inhuman’s alien origins later on (as certain missions do tease the Kree quite a bit in the postgame), all we’re left with in the base game is…effectively bootleg X-Men. There’s this guy, Theo, who can teleport people here and there, and he’s also bright blue…and he kind of just comes across as a less-cool Nightcrawler in every way. When you meet the Inhuman resistance later in the game, they end up being led by…Ant-Man? Because I guess they couldn’t think of or use any other prominent Inhuman character aside from Kamala. For the last few years, as Marvel began really pushing the Inhumans in the comics, TV shows and now games, it was largely as a response to not having the X-Men film rights and not wanting to promote them once the MCU took off. Many fans likewise dislike the Inhumans and view them as poor replacements for the X-Men .While I think both could have their place in the Marvel world and the premise does have potential, this particular game doesn’t really do ANYTHING of note with them.

Then there’s the lack of notable villains. While on the one hand I appreciate that the developers weren’t just reusing villains already seen in the MCU like Loki, Ultron or Thanos, their use of A.I.M. and M.O.D.O.K. leaves a lot to be desired. I’m sorry, but M.O.D.O.K. isn’t a strong enough villain to carry the rest of the game, and while there are a FEW other notable Marvel villains in here, I find they’re not used well. Taskmaster is a tutorial boss fight, and Abomination is fought early on…and then that’s about it in the base game. With both of them copy and pasted into post-game missions with a vague “oh, they’re just clones” justification. It wouldn’t be until the other story expansions that we’d get a few more villains like Maestro, an evil version of the Hulk from the future, or Ulysses Klaue, a notable Black Panther villain, but at that point it felt like too little too late. And that’s not to mention that most of the basic enemies in the game are just robots with no real personality or designs that really pop, or else fighting waves and waves of “guy with gun.” What a notable roster we’re working with here.

For all of the potential that the early hours of the campaign showcased, the cracks started to form quickly and my opinion of the story only went down with time. We started with nice cinematics and character banter, some intrigue with how it was all going to come together…but steadily it became apparent that most of the Avengers were being sidelined, the villains were weak, and the emphasis on hand-crafted single-player levels and setpieces would dwindle with time, revealing the game’s true colors.

AVENGERS: AGE OF REPETITON

For as negative as I’ve been so far, I do want to stress that I DID enjoy the moment-to-moment playing of the game and it’s clear a lot of time and effort was put into making a fun action game with Marvel characters. Now, there IS a certain level of balance here to make sure everyone is equally viable, which leads to some characters not quite living up to the power fantasy. Black Widow can take on enemies just as effectively as Hulk can, while Thor and Iron Man’s flight is slow to keep them from leaving everyone in the dust. Despite that, every character has enough tools to make them pop. Hulk can grab minor enemies and use them as weapons. Kamala’s stretchy attacks let her be a menace from any range. Smacking enemies with Thor’s hammer, or flinging Captain America’s shield at multiple opponents never got old. Even the non-powered characters like both of the Hawkeyes or Black Widow were plenty fun to use, armed with a lot of tools to take on enemies and get around the giant levels. From the intricate takedown animations for each character (Thor having a penchant for wrestling, while Kate Bishop uses teleporting to take out enemies in style) to the heavy amount of customization with everyone’s skill trees, there was a lot to like about the combat…but that can’t save a game that is so dull and repetitive elsewhere.

After the first few hours of the campaign I was suddenly forced to start selecting missions on the War Table and saw the game for what it truly was; the same handful of maps, enemies and objectives repeated over and over and over again. Compared to the curated single-player levels, the main missions, designed around multiplayer, are filled with massive maps that honestly felt way too big for their own good. You have to wander about as you look for small enemy outposts dotted here and there, fighting a pretty pathetic roster of enemies along the way. Not only are most enemies rather uninspired robots, but so many of them are just annoying to fight. Snipers that teleport away from you the instant you get close, endless turrets and drones that are always picking at you from far away, and more “elite” enemies that have tons of health to chew through in lieu of being more challenging to fight most of the time. Bosses are especially bad about this; most are huge damage sponges and play similarly to each other, completely shrugging off any attacks you land and taking forever to take out. I understand they’re balanced around four players but even so they would take so long to defeat and required barely any real engagement. Just dodge the big telegraphed attacks, sneak a few hits in and run, then rinse and repeat for several minutes.

Outside of just fighting enemies, your main mission objectives rarely change up in a meaningful way and just a few hours in I had seen most of what the game had to offer with objectives. Save some Inhuman hostages by opening up their cages, or defend some allies from waves of enemies. Maybe you need to use JARVIS to hack into A.I.M.’s database, so defend those computers from enemy hackers! There is on occasion some “puzzles” that would require a BIT of coordination, hitting switches or stepping on pressure plates to open doors for more loot but ultimately that was about as advanced as it got. Most level design would vary from gigantic open environments to linear corridors that are repeated so often I knew them like the back of my hand after just a handful of missions. Now, again, maybe that endgame stuff does change things up, but I’d rather not wade through so much of the same content over and over to see for myself.

And that’s the real shame here…for all the potential I see in this game, it gets exhausting quickly. It takes so long to actually flesh out your character movesets and try everyone out, but by that point you’ll have done the same handful of missions to the point of getting sick of them. Even with the expansions there just isn’t enough meat here to justify the grind. Sad as it is to say, it was painfully clear just why this game failed after just a few hours of playing.

AN UNENVIABLE LEGACY

The domino effect of Marvel’s Avengers’ failure is arguably just as interesting as the game itself. The poor showing for the game cost Square Enix a LOT of money, and was likely a factor in their decision to sell off their Western developers, including the developers of this game, Crystal Dynamics. The year after this game’s launch, Eidos Montreal’s Guardians of the Galaxy game ended up getting the cold shoulder from fans…despite the fact that it was exactly what many fans had wanted; a solid single-player experience with a great story that had a lot of love for the source material. But fans saw a Marvel game with Square Enix publishing it and assumed it would follow in Avengers’ footsteps. Elsewhere, the frosty reception to DC’s live-service superhero efforts with Gotham Knights and the yet-to-be-released Suicide Squad game can be at least partially attributed to this game’s poor performance. While Gotham Knight’s full release was devoid of microtransactions, the grindy nature of player progression and multiple in-game currencies to juggle points to it possibly being removed later in development. Meanwhile, the instant the word “gear score” was uttered at the gameplay reveal for Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League the game was attacked by fans and the game has suffered multiple delays and as of now, it’s not clear what state that game will release in. All due to one poorly-received game!

(One screenshot was all it took for people to turn on this game)

It’s clear that the live service bubble has burst; you can only get so many people to sign up for so many “forever games” before something gives. While your mega hits like Fortnite might continue on, it’s clear by now that you can’t quite compete with that and I wouldn’t be shocked if major game releases start to pivot away from this model. It’s also been argued that the superhero bubble might have burst in mainstream pop culture. Several superhero films over the last few years have not done particularly well with fans OR at the box office. From MCU misses like the third Ant-Man movie, or the latest Thor release, to DC’s extremely costly failure with The Flash, it’s possible that superhero games might also be on the way out. That being said, Marvel does still have SEVERAL other games in the pipeline, such as the next game from Insomniac, Spider-Man 2, so it’s possible this game’s failure wasn’t enough to scare them off.

It’s sad to see how poorly this game performed in the end, even if it’s easy to see why things went this way. In another world, this game could have been a smash hit, creating a platform filled with fun things to do and multiple Marvel heroes added over a very long life. I can only imagine how they might have made certain characters work if they had only gotten the chance. Had the game launched in a better state, or hadn’t gone the live-service route, things might have been very different, but regardless the damage has been done. With Square selling off Crystal Dynamics and Eidos to Embracer, and mass layoffs hitting multiple Embracer entities, Crystal Dynamics included, there’s no hope of a second chance with this title. I can only hope the best for the people involved that they can use their talents on a better game down the line

With Marvel’s Avengers officially delisted from all major storefronts and the future of the game’s online services somewhat uncertain, I thought it important to talk about this game before it is lost to the annals of history. For all the problems I had with the game, I was happy to at least play it before it was too late. I can see that this was far from a cheap cash-in title, and a lot of talented people gave their all on a game that just didn’t work out for a multitude of reasons. I can only hope that someday we can get a more successful spin on Earth’s Mightiest Heroes, and game developers can look at this game as a cautionary tale for how to somehow ruin what should have been a guaranteed success.

Excelsior!

-B

[deadletterpoets]

What are your favourite 5 video games?

First off thank you so much for the question, as far as I can tell I don't think I've ever actually shared my fav video games on here.

This is in no particular order and will only include games I have beaten (so no Baldur's Gate 3 lol and I'll admit to cheating a bit by doing franchise for most instead of just choosing one lol):

The Last of Us Franchise - I absolutely love these games. I am someone that actually thinks Part 2 is better than part 1, not completely Part 1 story was tighter and more concise, but in terms of gameplay I thought Part 2 was so much better. I haven't played the Part 1 remake so idk how much of the gameplay was improved. But I consider Joel and especially Ellie some of the best characters in video games. And Abby gets too much hate. Joel can go around and kill a ton of people, but when one of those ppl comes after Joel suddenly it's a problem? Consequences.

Kingdom Hearts franchise - The first Kingdom Hearts is the video game that turned me into a true gamer I like to say. I played all the games when they came out and I always love them even as the story continually gets so complicated I gotta use youtube vids to tell me exactly what is going on haha

Mass Effect Original trilogy - If I had to choose an all time fav game it would probably be the original trilogy. This was my first Bioware game and the first game that I truly felt I was making real choices in the narrative and it blew my mind. And IMO Mass Effect 2 is truly one of the greatest games of all time. Won't go too much into my opinion on ME3, but in terms of the journey throughout 3 it was a SciFi war game and that was fun to play. This franchise reinvented itself with each game and that was cool. I really hope Bioware is able to make another one.

Horizon Franchise - Zero Dawn and Forbidden West are not underrated or undiscovered gems cause they are definitely well known games that have sold well and been received well. But the way they are talked about in gaming circles is so weird that they often feel like underappreciated games for sure. Aloy is one of the best protags in video games and the open world does what so many ppl want from open world games. Especially Forbidden West with a world that feels alive, side quest that are more than just fetch quest (though of course those still exist too) and awesome DLC story set after the main story. But the game gets getting released near bigger more popular games so it doesn't get the attention it deserves, and then too much of the attention these days is still just on "Aloy isn't a model with a perfect face." Idiots.

Assassin's Creed Odyssey - Okay now this one is probably controversial in AC fandom, but while I don't think this is the best AC game (that's still ACII imo) this is the game that I had the most fun playing and Kassandra is best girl. This is the game that got me back into the AC franchise after I stopped buying after I beat ACII. The world was so huge but I found so much to do and had to much fun and other than Cyberpunk 2077 I think this is the game I've put the most time playing cause I just love the world and characters so much. Also the combat in this to me was incredible. I absolutely loved the skills and despite what ppl say you absolutely can be a full assassin in this, it's just not with a hidden blade. At least I was able to take out full forts without being detected plenty of times once I had the right skills to do so.

Honorable mentions (Won't go into detail with these, but they deserve to be known as well):

Cyberpunk 2077

Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice

Dead Island 2

Far Cry 6

The Outer Worlds

The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt

God of War franchise (PS4/PS5 games)

Kena: Bridge of Spirits

A Plague Tale: Innocence

FF7 Remake

Tomb Raider Franchise (Reboot)

And that's about it. Thank you!

[kieuecaprie]

Kieue Caprie's List of Games Finished in 2023: Entry 11

#31: Pajama Sam: There's No Need to Hide When It's Dark Outside

What Platform? - Steam

Finished When? - 6/8/23

I had this game installed for the longest time but never got around to playing any of them. So I decided to play through it after having seen Limes (That's Limealicious) play through Spy Fox. It was pretty fun although I felt like I was going in circles a few times. It was still fun, though.

#32: Quake II (Remaster)

What Platform? PC, Steam

Finished When? 11/8/23

#32-A: Quake II - Call of the Machine

What Platform? PC, Steam

Finished When? 15/8/23

So, I never actually played Quake II in full until they released the remake. I always thought it was not very good simply because there was something missing. Turns out that the missing thing was the music which the Steam version lacked for some godawful reason.

So when the remake came out, I decided to give it a whirl, I did need a reason to try out my gyro-enabled controllers more tbh. It was fun, although it felt very difficult in a lot of places, it got so hard in fact that it got to the point where I had to bind quick-save and quick-load to my controller's function buttons to save my sanity.

Nightdive did a great job on the remaster, although they did kinda mess up on a few points such as the Railgun dealing less damage in SP and the shockwaves produced by certain enemies being next-to-impossible to counterplay. But other than that, it was a very solid remaster.

The new campaign was also really nice too, it had this kind of feel to it where you lose all your items upon completion so you can feel free to use the items whenever instead of saving them up for the final boss and unloading on them like I did in the vanilla campaign. Without spoiling it too much, I was not expecting certain inclusions in there. You'll understand what I mean when you get to those points if you decide to give it a look.

#33: Cruelty Squad

What Platform? PC, Steam

Finished When? 16/8/23

Not the first time I finished Cruelty Squad, probably not the last, but I felt like I wanted to play Cruelty Squad again because all my progress was gone, just like the apes. Armed with a gyro-enabled controller, I managed to make my way all the way through the depressing cyberpunk dystopian hellscape to the end, stonks and all.

Does it still hold up? Yeah, I'd think so, its got that feel to it that's hard to describe tbh.

#34: Quake III Arena

What Platform? PC, Steam

Finished When? 19/8/23

Xaero turned himself into a statue. Funniest shit I've ever seen.

Quake III Arena was one of those games that just doesn't like my PC, forcing me to play a sourceport instead. It was kind of fun playing through the campaign, although it felt barebones compared to Unreal Tournament's. However, it does have one leg up on UT... it's still on Steam. (i'm still in pain from Epic removing Unreal and Unreal Tournament games from all online storefronts...)

#35: Bomb Rush Cyberfunk

What Platform? PC, Steam

Finished When? 24/8/23

Where do I start with this game? Well, it's a great game with great vibes and a bumping soundtrack, what can I say? The movement is fluid, the boostpack is very helpful for platforming (...sometimes...), the characters are great, the art-style is amazing, and the story was about enough to hook me through it.

However, I have ONE big issue with the game: The combat. It's not entirely explained by the tutorial and it felt very floaty, inefficient, and the boss battles don't really give you a lot of feedback either, on top of them being complete bullshit sometimes (stunlocks anyone?). It's probably the weakest aspect of the game for me and it kind of drags everything down with it. Had the combat been more fleshed out or something and the bosses made more than just "find opening, hit three times, can't do anything else in the meantime", it would've been much better.

That said, I enjoyed my time with the game and I wanted to get it done before Armored Core 6 decides to throw everything into the backlog. Maybe now that I'm done, I can probably go back and fiddle with it from time to time, maybe try the custom graffiti modding dealie.

Also that one song where the singer yells ASS ASS ASS ASS in auto-tune is gonna haunt me for the rest of my ASS ASS ASS ASS life.

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[kunosoura]

What are your favorites pieces of science-fiction? And are there any you'd recommend? I'm currently playing the Mass Effect trilogy and plan to read novels like Children of Time and Last and First Men, so I'm on something of a science-fiction kick at the moment.

Science fiction isn’t so much my wheelhouse but there are some I’ve really enjoyed!

The Imperial Radch trilogy is relatively light reading, and I really like how it approaches AI and gender wrt imperialism, even if the character work tends to follow the path of least resistance.

Ursula K Le Guin is a mandatory mention; The Left Hand of Darkness and The Dispossessed are titans of science fiction even if I personally prefer her later works where she got more experimental with prose. The Word for World is Forest is a short story from this period of her work that’s one of my favorites of hers.

Ghost in the Shell is an iconic piece of cyberpunk dripping in mood and atmosphere, and is insanely influential. Highly recommended!

Speaking of influential pieces of cyberpunk, both Blade Runner movies are really good (but look for one of the cuts of the original that cuts out Deckard’s internal monologue which was added to the theatrical cut seemingly to ruin every bit of atmosphere and tension)

For a final movie recommendation, Starship Troopers is a very well executed satire of the fascist tendencies of science fiction stories.

This Is How You Lose The Time War is a weird, fun time travel novel about the rivalry and correspondence between two agents of bitterly opposed timeline-manipulating transhumanist singularities. It was written by two authors in a back and fourth epistolary style. It’s a lot of fun.

The Martian is really fun as a sort of crunchy near future scifi macguyver survival story. I liked the movie with Matt Damon as well.

As for video games, ones that I enjoy specifically as scifi stories and not as like video games with lasers:

SOMA is one of the most haunting games I’ve played, not because of the spooky scary monsters (which are whatever) but because of how ruthlessly it presents its themes around consciousness and ontology.

Alien: Isolation is the move if you want a game that’s just straight up spooky scary monsters.

Deus Ex and System Shock, if you can stomach a bit of old gameplay, are phenomenal explorations of scifi themes.

If you just want a dumb scifi sandbox to play around in, No Man’s Sky is way better now than when it first released.

How have you been enjoying Mass Effect?

[crowingoverthis]

pkmn scarlet/violet rant!

Now that i finished the main story, got almost all the pkmn (took me 60 hours, cause i just walk around to complete the dex ahsgfdasd) and i just have some postgame left. Here is my huge imhotake on it xD

7/10 Gameplay 4/10 Graphic/Performance 10/10 Pokemon 9/10 Music 11/10 Characters/story

41/50 Thats a pretty high score!

7/10 Gameplay Well its open world pokemon everyone wanted! You can go anywhere and do what you want. And now some ppl complain about not having directions haha When you literary can open the map and see exclamation marks on where to go so ??? Anyway, my problem was the repetitiveness off, everything? As much as liked just roaming and catching pkmn its still the same thing. To be fair most games are like that, based around 1-2 gameplay loops. I just wish these gameplay loops were a bit more interesting. But this is pkmn at its core. But my complaint is - why is the level no scaling? its not that hard to do gamefreak, I dont want to fight an early game trainer/gym i missed that still is lvl 10 after i beat 4 gyms. And some locations are pretty but too empty, just a lot of slapped on flat textures.

5/10 Graphic/Performance Everyone already saw the glitchs and some had multiple crashes. (i didnt experience any of that, just huge fps drops when it rained. Some ppl say the digital version is better and has less issues) Aside from that, you can finish and play the game from start to finish np! So i wont dwell on that any more. All in all, its the same situation as with Cyberpunk! Well almost cause CD Projektred over promised and under delivered massively at release date. Gamefreak pretty much did everything they promised! Just failed with the polish, bugs and graphics (when the grass is just a photoshop brush... its yeah, a bit very rushed (look at BOTW grass). The pkmn themself look great! Not like having some texture on pkmn is that important, but oh well. The character animations and animations OUTSIDE of battle or close to you are not bad. Inside of battle its the same as SWSH but you can rotate the camera, that sometimes cant even show stuff properly if you are on a hill or cave. Almost forgot! the huge down side of this game as well are the loading screens and the slowness of some things (that's especially noticeable in school).

10/10 Pokemon Like i always say - the one (well and music) things Gamefreak never fails is with designs and creating more pkmn! Of course there are mons i don't like (grasswaterstarterevos) but they are true to what they represent and i can respect that. Every pkmn is loved by someone and that's what makes the diversity of creatures so amazing.

9/10 Music Not much to say than that's its great! (Just a minus point from me personalty cause i don't like techno music and some tracks were like that >:C ) The transition between tracks is nice too.

11/10 Characters/Story I can say in general (NO spoilers)... this game has one of the best pkmn stories. Yes at the same level as gen 5 > 7 (which were the best imho so far.) It just like moulds together so well? Just the repetitiveness i talk about brings it down a bit. The characters have great designs and are (mostly, Nemonaplz) well written and its fun to learn about them! I'm glad GF took more time on story (wish they had even more time).

(mild spoilers) - Best character is the director hands down out of discussion. Not even joking xD. The school idea is very cute and i think its pretty good for newer players and kids who want to play and actually learn about pkmn! cause you do learn stuff in this school that is more then grass beats water, well its the first lesson so you do learn that too but after that i promise it gets better! History class is the coolest! (although i do wish we could learn about the region and cool stuff by y know talking to ppl a bit more...) As a person who was bullied in school, i like TEAM STAR’s story, but i wish they would tell the stories differently than the exact same 5 battles. Bonus! 6/10 locations. Decided to put locations here too cause why not. The main town is great! just some wonky spots that are empty, The other towns on the other hand, have a great look on the outside but when you go in, there's not much there. You can’t go inside of ANY buildings (just the sandwich +gyms). The "wilderness" is pretty much flat textures with pkmn randomly spawning on them. Just things GF needed to have more time to work on.

Conclusion-  Imma change the score too 39/50 cause the location bonus and that is a kinda important point too! SO If you can ignore some minor glitches and dont care about fps drops: Its a good game! Plus if you liked Arceus and just want to play a pkmn game its actually probably the best there is now on the switch! But the bad performance and now that even Nintendo is offering refunds, just shows that rushing unfinished games is not worth! and I hope they FINALLY gonna learn something from that.