#The Easy Repetitive System Review

[study-core-101]

The Leitner System (also known as Flashcards)

Studyblr favourite study method! But, how do we actually use it?

Steps

Create flashcards: on the front of a card, write a question or cue. On the back, write the answer or corresponding information. Make enough cards to cover every topic you need to study for.

Sort the flashcards into boxes: easy/medium/hard or other label that works for you.

Review your flashcards: Grab the first box. Read the side with the question. If you answer correctly, continue with the next. If you answer incorrectly, move the card to the back.

Gradually increasd diffuculty: once you feel confident with the cards of the first box, move to the second. Continue until you reviewed every box.

Repeat: repeat the process; focus on the questions you have more trouble with and review less the easier one (but never none!)

Remember to rest between repetition! Not only you need rest, but this method works because of Spaced Repetition, meaning the more often you encounter the information, the less often you need to refresh your memory.

Pros

Effective, practicing over a four-month period for just 30 minutes a day “you can expect to learn and retain 3600 flashcards with 90 to 95 percent accuracy”.

You can gamefy it! I personally think this is why it's so popular, you can treat it like you are playing so studying becomes less tedius

Cons

Needs a lot of time. You need to start early. You cant expect to make it work if you start the night before. Specially if you have a lot of flashcards. Going through all of them over and over can take hours for only a few repetitions. If you dont have a lot of time before the test, another study method would work better.

Subjects we recommend this method for

Any subject that has a theorical part and specially Biology & related. Not the best method for History in my opinion, but many may disagree.

[the-blue-wraith]

My review for Dragon Age: The Veilguard (SPOILERS BELOW)

These are my personal opinions and not personal attacks to anyone who loves the game.

Pros:

Combat is invigorating.

Exploration is just fine, not too overwhelming.

Side quests are not lengthy.

CC was great and had lots of sliders and lots of good hair too.

Harding, Bellara, Lucanis, and Emmrich’s voice acting are in point.

NPCs are more active in terms of animation, unlike in previous games.

The codex you found in areas is short and easy to read.

Dragon fights are more challenging.

Banters outside the Lighthouse are compelling.

Emmrich and Harding's quest are impactful.

No major glitches, only encountered a few minor glitches.

Cons:

Writing is just basic. Humorous/aggressive dialogues are not totally funny/aggressive. Companions/Rook are too polite.

Dialogue after the fall of Weisshaupt feels off, they don't need to say directly to players that companions need to resolve their problems before fighting the Gods.

Interaction inside the Lighthouse feels like an interaction inside the workplace. I wish I was kidding.

Some dialogues are repetitive (ex. “The elven gods have broken free from their prison” “Dragons don’t have kings, they have queens”).

Factions lack introduction. We didn’t get to know each faction in depth.

Story and companions lacks conflict/disparity.

Choices from the last 3 games didn’t matter, and became a wasted chance to explore in Veilguard.

Can’t talk to NPC like in DA:I.

What's the point of having gifting scenes where all they could say is "thank you"?

Some voice actings are a bit off, lacks emotions (American Female Rook/Neve)

Enemy designs are repetitive.

Ability wheel is lacking, it should’ve let us get 5 abilities to use in battle.

Qunari designs are not good.

Overall music is too ordinary.

Romances are lacking and have no growth

I really enjoyed the combat it reminds me of Mass Effect. The best part here are the dragon fights because this was one of the things that I anticipated years ago, and I'm quite satisfied! I like the flow and conflict at the end of Act 2 up to Act 3. That scene with Varric in the Fade still hits hard to me. 😭 I know it was sad, but in that phase I was motivated to finish the game. I just wish the flow of Acts 1-2 were intense like Act 3. Like I said, it lacks conflict.

After finishing the game, I ended up liking Emmrich and Harding. I didn't give a shit about Harding back in DA:I but now I like her even more 😆. Emmrich's quest was the most impactful to me, I chose to revive Manfred, and after that, I saw how much he loves him, that scene was heartwarming. Kudos to their voice actors 🙌🏻

I resonate with Bellara's quest, but I wish it could've been more dramatic. Like after what happened to her brother, her companions should've given her a hug and comfort. But I still like her quest; kudos to her voice actress too.

What bothered me was that Varric and Solas both got sidelined. I wanted Solas to have more screentime! I wanted to see him more as a villain. I don't know why Bioware decided to kill Varric, to me, it felt like they just used him in the game to attract fans. If you ask me, that's disrespectful to Varric's writer, who got laid off.

The romance here sucks. I was disappointed in how they handled Lucanis' romance. I didn't feel the buildup of my Rook's relationship with him. I felt like he was interacting with me as a friend 😭. Veilguard has the weakest romance system in Bioware games.

Overall, I would rate this game 6/10. I think the game is decent, but not for everyone. This game is for casual players who want to experience different RPGs, but for DA fans? It really depends. As a longtime fan, I would say I'm half-satisfied with Veilguard. I just wish the writing/dialogue could've been better and not repetitive. I wish we had an option to become evil and upset companions if we make bad choices, but sadly the game lacks conflict and disparity. Veilguard didn't keep up with the current RPGs, despite its lack of RPG elements.

Will I replay this game? Yeah, someday maybe.

Do I think the game is that bad? Nope, but it's lacking. The game is not for everyone.

Do I think the game deserved the hate it got? Yes and no. Yes, because the writing/dialogue in this game is basic and some times felt off. And no, because I still think the game is fun.

Do I want DA5 to happen in the future? Sure, why not.

Despite all my criticisms of this game, I still love Dragon Age. This series saved me in high school. If my younger self were here and witnessed Veilguard, I know she'd be happy because she waited so long for this game.

[willowtron]

KCD1 steam review that went over the character limit

I was originally going to wait until I'd played KCD2 until I made a final decision, but after having replayed much of this on Hardcore and with absolute confirmation that there'll be no transfer of save profiles, I don't really see a point in waiting.

KCD1 was, largely, a proof of concept; and it shows. Even years after release there are some quests that are IMMENSELY buggy, to the point where portions of the game become unplayable if you make some (very easy to make) "mistakes" in the way you approach certain quests - if you don't want to cross-reference with the wiki to make sure you don't routinely lose hours of progress, then read no further.

Aside from the truly game-breaking bugs, KCD1 is also rife with just… jank. it is a game that is utterly lacking in cze- sorry, polish. Animations, both body and facial, can look goofy and amateurish; movement oftentimes feels clunky, especially on horseback and while crouching; many of the ways you interact with the world (brewing potions, picking up items, talking with other characters) have needlessly long single-animations, that Might make you feel more immersed, but usually just feel repetitive and out-of-place. Need to both boil water, and turn a sandglass? Unfortunately Henry is utterly incapable of using his peripheral vision and must look directly at everything he's doing at all times, so that's not possible.

Your body in-game rarely feels like an extension of your own limbs and capabilities; anything taller than an inch must be jumped over, and unless the obstacle is tall enough for the same "mantle" animation to play, you'll do a full-height squat jump every single time you need to traverse a small rock or plank. If you're crouching and walking, expect to get stuck on every single little thing, even the ones that are invisible. Some trees and shrubs can be walked through, others not, it's not always clear which is which - bad news if you're on horseback! Now you've fallen off and hit your head, idiot. These little examples of feeling like a human piloting a character, rather than feeling immersed as a human within the world, are the main things that really break KCD's spell; the game is Gorgeous, and when you just… stand there, and admire it, you really do start to feel pulled in. But then some random wayfarer, eyes glazed over, walks really slowly into your horse and yells at you about it, and the illusion is broken again.

It's not all bad (though we're not done with that yet); the game is beautiful visually, as mentioned, and also well-optimised - for a game that was pushing the limits of technical possibility on release, it still does a good job seven years later. The sound design and soundtrack are wonderful, and there are select songs I will go out of my way to listen to just in my day-to-day, which is always a good sign to me. The UI can feel a little awkward at times, the scroll bar just a little too small to make use of, but ultimately looks good and is easy to navigate; the only negative of it being that the animation to go from "menus" to "game", and vice versa, is really quite long - and the game doesn't pause During this animation, which can lead to some shenanigans while riding your horse and checking the map.

The thing that truly wowed me with this game, and that had me so invested in seeing the original vision fully-realised in the sequel, was the sheer number of mechanics this game has: there is a stealth system; there is a lockpicking minigame; there is proper archery with drag and drop-off on arrows; there is a developed combat system; towns and traders will be altered depending on crime rate, items sold, opinion of the player, etc; there is a developed alchemy system (my personal favourite); training your dog can give you more options (though I think Mutt is really poorly implemented); there are hunting spots that go hand-in-hand with the archery; the list goes on. The game is doing A LOT, even when you're not really interacting with NPCs. But these mechanics are often surface-level; which is to be expected of a proof-of-concept, but it's worth noting regardless. Yeah, the game does technically Have these systems, but many of them are… lacking. The more complicated it is, the less you'll be able to appreciate it; simple things like lockpicking and alchemy feel really good most of the time, but as soon as NPC interactions are added (villagers, guards, Mutt, game animals) the mechanics start to fall flat.

To give a couple of examples; hunting, and the "evolving towns". Red Dead Redemption 2 really gave us the prime example for how to bake Hunting into a videogame; when you go out for meat or skins or fun in RDR2, you choose an area with the desired animal, and have all sorts of options. Even when you're not using your tracking sense, you can still hear the specific calls of different animals, you can still set up bait, you can physically see the tracks in the world. Compared to RDR2, KCD's hunting mechanic feels like a 6 year old's best effort; animals spawn in a specific location (usually only while the camera isn't facing them), and then they just… wander away, usually in a group, in a straight line. "Hunting spots" in the game aren't where animals Gather, they're where animals Spawn, and if you miss them spawning? Well, wander away, and walk back again to prompt them to spawn again. It feels… like a game. Immersion breaking. These aren't animals in the world that you're choosing to hunt, they exist purely TO BE hunted, and the game treats them as such.

And then the evolving towns. This was actually advertised pretty heavily in the game's marketing, that if you steal from towns and villages then the number of guards will increase, you'll be searched more often, villagers will be more suspicious; and all of this is exacerbated still by a poor reputation. This is really cool in concept; imagine a wealthy shop-owner awakening to find his most valuable merchandise has been taken in the night! Of course there'd be an effort to find the thief. Or a guard stumbles upon a corpse in a back-alley, the torchlight revealing a pool of blood and a sack of meat where once a person existed - of course they would double the guard! But in practice the system is over-simplified; guards will never search NPCs or be suspicious of anyone that isn't the player, and nobody but the player will ever commit crimes except for a random "pickpocket" event that, again, is just there for the player. You'll never see increased security or suspicion if Cumans or Banditry is prevalent in an area, and there are several farmsteads or villages that are raided throughout the game, but you'd never know by the way people react. So what ends up happening is this: if you commit no crimes, no guard will ever stop you for a random search, nor comment on you being suspicious. If you do commit crimes, even if nobody sees you, you will be searched frequently. This isn't intended to punish players for choosing a more rogueish Henry, I think, but it does have the same end result.

Finally, the elephants in the room; writing/story, and combat.

The game's story is… not uncompelling, but it does lose wind about halfway through. In general it does a good job of recognising that the player will be well-equipped and skilled before the game's conclusion, so it shifts from "rags to riches" to more "investigation and exploration", and that shift is subtle enough that I don't imagine a player being put off by it. You still get to fight bandits and Cumans, you still get to be Henry, so it works. However, I did find I just… didn't really care so much about the actual contents of what I was doing. There's a certain point where. following a large-scale battle, you defeat a major antagonist and sort of complete the "rags to riches" arc. You are at this point a skilled swordsman, known and respected by the nobles of the region, and presumed to have the financial means to basically do as you please; but you won't move on to the next antagonist you actually care about within the scope of this game. These next two sort-of-major antagonists are also the only gay characters in the story, and they're essentially portrayed as just shit-eating backstabbers and weasels, so... make of that what you will.

Actually, while I'm here and not on Steam, can we talk about women, queerness, and people of colour within the context of the game? I'm not someone who believes every game needs to explore themes of marginalisation, but you're telling me every single person you encounter is the exact same pasty white? That gay people only exist as ratty villains? I'm pretty sure the game goes out of its way to fail the Bechdel test, where even the "casual chatter" that townsfolk will have is almost always centered around either the player's actions or their husbands/brothers. Women in particular are portrayed almost exclusively within context to the men in their lives, which while accurate to the sexism that existed in the period, does leave the game feeling sort of... Male power fantasy? There's not really a single instance of a woman who is confident, independent, and level-headed, who does not also rely upon being saved by a man at some point in the story. The game addresses this slightly with the "A Woman's Lot" DLC, but man even Theresa and Johanka essentially just... they have their moments of independence, but largely facilitated by you, as Henry, giving them that ability. Anyway.

The latter half of the game's story is, far more than anything so far, obviously a set-up for the sequel; you can tell at this point that either this game is like... five times larger than you thought it would be, or that you're not seeing the conclusion to the story any time soon. The former is not the case.

Which brings us to the really big issue; the combat system.

KCD has, throughout its existence, walked a fine-line in regard to the actual controls; the game was designed to be both controller and mouse+keyboard accessible, and was released for both PC and console accordingly. This makes some things feels better or worse on different systems; stealth and horsemanship feel better on controller, where you can more easily control finer movement and speed, but feel bad on mkb because you can't do that; archery and the lockpicking minigame feel better on PC, on the other hand, because the mouse offers even greater fine motor control against the drag and sway the mechanics have.

Melee combat on a controller is always going to be a difficult thing to get right in a game that is styled as immersive and complex; there are a few examples of games that have tried in the multiplayer genre, like For Honour and Mordhau, and the classic souls-like examples for single-player games - but these games usually have to make sacrifices along the way (Elden Ring isn't exactly "complex" during a sword fight), or have combat as their main focal point with by far the largest amount of dev time invested into that mechanic.

KCD attempts to simplify this; combat with a sword can be split into 4 basic actions, with a little extra depth given to each one. You can slash, you can thrust, you can block, and you can dodge.

When slashing, you move your mouse or joystick in one of five directions to control the direction you slash from (up, right, left, down-right, and down-left - like the axes of a five-pointed star). The thrust is basically just a sixth option on the star. As you improve your skills, you can learn combos (which are only unlocked via level-up perks), that will allow you to chain together strikes into a Powerful Move (a little animation plays and you basically get one extra free hit in). These combos can range from three specific consecutive strikes (up, right, down-left) to five; the more strikes, the stronger it is.

Blocking, meanwhile, can be broken up into three "tiers", and can be done with or without a shield; you can block all incoming attacks by just holding Q, but you will not interrupt any enemy attacks and you'll still take some damage. The higher your shield or weapon's defense stat the less damage you'll take, but it's basically never zero, and not interrupting your opponents attacks will allow them to perform combos on you with ease. If you want a better block, you need to perform a "perfect block"; this is essentially just blocking early on in the attack. There'll be a cool little slow-motion effect, and you'll have the ability to perform a riposte, which can only be blocked by another perfect block from your opponent. And finally there's the Master Strike, which trivialises all combat.

The Master Strike is essentially the Perfect Parry from other games; you press Q at just the right time, and an animation plays where you both block the enemy attack, and hit them with your own at the same time. It's very easy to perform, and there's no way to block or avoid it once the animation starts. This can also be performed on you, at any time, if you choose to attack with a slash, thrust, or riposte. This has two major consequences;

Performing long chains of attacks for a powerful combo becomes essentially impossible against an opponent who can perform either a Perfect Block or a Master Strike, and those combos are a waste against enemies who can't (they'll be weak little peasants who you can just bully anyway). Landing one good hit isn't enough to knock your opponent "off balance", nor drain their stamina enough to prevent them from blocking, so you have to just be really lucky basically; if a Master Strike is performed by your opponent at any time during your combo, it is likely you'll take more damage than they will have.

Attacking at all becomes kind of... pointless? You can just stand there and press Q at the right time, not touching the rest of your setup at all, and you're literally unbeatable. Compare that against the risk of having it done to you, and the combat becomes a game of pressing one singular button over and over.

There are other gripes, too; the stamina mechanic, which is used both to prevent the player from wildly swinging and also to mitigate damage from incoming attacks, oftentimes feels clunky when facing opponents. Master Strikes and Perfect Blocks are really cheap, stamina-wise, so defending is always better than attacking in regard to your stamina economy against an opponent with any skill at all; even if you've hit them with three or four solid attacks in a row, that they weren't able to block regularly, they can still turn it around and injure you by performing a Master Strike.

We also need to talk about the FOV, camera controls, and combat against multiple opponents; your Field of View, as the game is designed for both PC and Console, is very limited. You basically don't have peripheral vision. Enemies will abuse this by just sort of... awkwardly jogging through your player model when fighting multiple of them, and then attack from your sides or from behind; behind, fair enough, but in real life the attacks from the side would actually be visible to you and you would be able to react to them. Not here.

You may have also noted a while ago, that if you need to move your mouse/joystick to control which direction you slash from, then how are you meant to move the camera? Well, you don't. During combat the game will lock your cursor onto an opponent, and that lock can only be broken by sprinting - the game does technically have an "unlock camera" button during combat, but it's not a toggle, so it just immediately locks back on again. Against multiple opponents you have to use the scroll wheel to individually cycle through each opponent until you're locked onto the right one; try blocking attacks from specific enemies when you have to go through that. To really drive home how frustrating this can be as well, the game doesn't really do verticality in attacks. You're always just swinging directly ahead of you, with no regard for elevation - even relative to your opponent.

The player camera also moves in uncontrolled ways when you get hit; the harder you get hit, the more your camera gets thrown about. Realistic perhaps, but with the limited field of view and lock-on camera, you spend most of the time in combat utterly powerless to control how you look around. In my opinion, this is the thing that makes the game the least accessible; you genuinely have to be pretty resistant to motion sickness for this to not feel awful every time. Combine this with a "fade-to-monochrome" effect when your stamina is low, as well as low-res blood effects when your head is bleeding, and the visual experience in combat is just abysmal (and exacerbated by the, yet again, limited field of view if your helmet has a visor).

On the other side of this, however, opponents will awkwardly teleport around in order to block your attacks; if you land a hit and see your opponent flail to one side, leaving their other side entirely exposed, this doesn't actually mean that side is undefended. They'll just... teleport back into place in order to block your next attack as well. Against opponents who are actually out of stamina but still blocking this weird little side-to-side teleportation can occur over, and over, and over again. This for me is actually the main dealbreaker for the combat not feeling immersive or realistic; the game strays away from the animations and visuals actually mattering in these moments, instead opting for a more casual experience - but it only applies to your opponents. And don't forget! The especially skilled ones will perform a Master Strike and now you're taking damage, actually. Idiot.

The final nail in the coffin, putting aside how attacks work out of combat and the awkward clinch mechanics, is how the game reacts when you try to run. One of the game's tips during the loading screens is to "run away, live to fight another day"; but! Would you have guessed it! Enemies have a sort of... gravitational pull. Even if you manage to break the camera lock, and have enough stamina to start sprinting away, enemies can perform weird little animations that just suck you back in; like being grabbed and pulled around, but while their hands are full. No amount of strength can prevent this from happening, and certain animations will also hurt you in the process - if you want to slash at me while I run that's fair enough, but it feels bad when my character, clad in full-plate, then just... turns around and looks at the enemy, camera lock kicking in again. Against multiple opponents they might drag you about for several seconds at a time, being pulled by one counting as you moving out of range for another, so the animation triggers again; and all of this contributes significantly to the feeling that you have no control over your camera or your movement, as the camera is thrown all over the place during these animations.

To top this off, you can't surrender to most opponents; Cumans and Bandits alike only want you dead, you can't just... offer your valuables for safe passage. The only people you can surrender to are guards, and they only attack if you commit crimes and are wanted, so 90% of the time your choices in combat are:

Fight, usually in a 1v3 or 1v4

Run (can't, they'll suck you back in)

So really, until you have good gear and levels, your only option to avoid boring or frustrating combat is to just... avoid it. If you have a horse you can try mounted combat (which is basically just doing a weak little sword swish), but your first horse spooks so easily that you'll get thrown off if you're anyway near an enemy (which is usually instant death). And did I mention the game does surprise ambushes at random points along the road? Good luck avoiding combat, bucko :)

Oh, and you need an expensive consumable item to save.

[saintsaensreads]

Fluent Forever: How to Learn Any Language Fast and Never Forget It, Gabriel Wyner (2014)

The ultimate rapid language-learning guide! For those who’ve despaired of ever learning a foreign language, here, finally, is a book that will make the words stick. At thirty years old, Gabriel Wyner speaks six languages fluently.  He didn’t learn them in school -- who does? -- rather, he learned them in the past few years, working on his own and practicing on the subway, using simple techniques and free online resources. In Fluent Forever Wyner reveals what he’s discovered.  The greatest challenge to learning a foreign language is the challenge of memory; there are just too many words and too many rules. For every new word we learn, we seem to forget two old ones, and as a result, fluency can seem out of reach. Fluent Forever tackles this challenge head-on. With empathy for the language-challenged and abundant humor, Wyner deconstructs the learning process, revealing how to build a foreign language in your mind from the ground up. This is brain hacking at its most exciting, taking what we know about neuroscience and linguistics and using it to create the most efficient and enjoyable way to learn a foreign language in the spare minutes of your day.

Review

This book shows concretely how someone can learn vocabulary and basic structures in a new language using the system of flash cards. It gives knowledge of how a brain works and how it retains information, shares many interesting ideas and tips in an easy and light way, and explains in details how to build a deck of flash cards in order to learn new words and new sounds.

As someone who already masters more or less a few languages, I found this approach dizzying and tried applying it to a language I had no grasp on. What was perhaps the trickiest part, surprisingly, and took me a lot of time, was understanding how to build the flashcards so that they worked for me in the new version of the software used (a free open source one, dedicated to flash cards building, Anki). But once I managed Anki, and created the first cards, it worked a wonder to learn words I had no background for, to my great surprise! It even worked amazingly to help me learn pronunciation and to become used to the sounds of a language I didn't speak and had never heard before.

For learning new words, this technique works wonders. For more complex structures, I'd not be so certain.

For myself, after a while, it became really tiresome to build the flashcards, even more so the ones where I was supposed to enter fully-formed sentences in the language I was learning. The hours I spent doing that were many (maybe too many considering the learning progression ? I don't know yet). Another difficulty that showed up was with the amount of words that will pile up at first. But all in all, the work is there and the results can be surprising. For learning vocabulary.

It is clearly not enough as an approach to master a language and I am weary of the ideas that are promoted in the publisher's blurb. The author is in fact very much aware that it's a system that has its limitations, and he warns his readers of that quite well too.

This is again a great way to learn vocabulary and to get to work on specific structures of a language (such as word order, or how to use some prepositions etc) because it's all about repetitive learning. However, I feel like it hits its limit when it comes to mastering actual grammar, or let's say more complex forms. I'll however use the method to keep on learning more complex vocabulary in the languages I'm working on (such as synonyms, unusual verbs etc).

Is it an all-encompassing key to learning languages? nope, sorry there are no shortcuts for that (no matter what a book blurb claims!). You need time and consistent work (no "rapid language-learning guide" bullshit will be the thing ever). But is it a useful system for starting learning a language, or to grow your vocabulary ? I would wager it is !

[custardpuddingprincess]

Study tips and popular techniques

Kekekekke i hope this helps, and remember studying takes time, it usually won’t make your grades improve drastically over time! btw i highlighted what worked best for me and what i think you really should try?!

To do lists: will help you remember and know what you need to do. Highlight important stuff, like tests and homework or assignments.

Time tables/schedulers: will help you remember when your homework is due, or when your test/quiz is on. if you can, mark at least a month (or two) or a week before a test to remember studying it!

Homework as soon as you get it: just try. i’ve been trying this, and it gave me lots more time to rest with a peaceful mind and study time. like do the homework due the fastest, then continue on with the homework you can slowly do. i swear on this!!!

Study environments: these will literally make or break your focus. For some people, working in a cafe, library or school environment works the best, while others prefer studying at home. Some prefer pastels or dark colours in their rooms, or a certain temperature or time to study at. This is really important.

Notetaking: y’all, if you guys are gonna make notes- make it neat and easy to understand. you don’t wanna rush through your notes 15min before an exam and get even more stressed! mind maps help as well. try using abbreviations or arrows or small timetables to take less time spelling the entire thing out

Feynman Technique: pretend you’re a teacher and explain it to yourself in the most simple way possible

Pomodoro technique: study for a certain time (usually done in 25-30min each sesh), and take a small break/rest (usually 5min) per session. after about 4 sessions, take a longer break of about 15 to 30min.

Leitner system: make your flash cards with questions and their answers. sort them into boxes/sections of what you know well/understand and what you got wrong/confused/don’t understand. revise the 2nd box (wrong box) more often! but i prefer doing this on normal notebook paper but yeah!

Mind maps: make a mind map, which can help you understand how one topic can link to another topic and help fill out the blanks. I personally like making mind maps on grid or plain paper!!!

Spaced repetition: review topics (especially those you struggle with) at spaced intervals of time. eg, topic a (which i struggle with) today, tomorrow and everyday, but topic b (which i’m good at) review maybe every other day!

Solve questions: don’t you dare say ‘i can just read my notes’! well, i wanna to! but solving questions and old exam worksheets can help predict what sort of questions or topics typically come out. i think this is most helpful with subjects like science, math and history, compared to languages.

Try revising when you have free time: this can just be reading through your notes or questions & the answers to it maybe while your on the bus/car/subway or when you’re maybe baking or cooking something and you have some spare time!

This is just what has helped me, i hope this helps!… (*´꒳`*)

BTW HAVE BREAKS AND STAY HYDRATED AND SLEEP WELL- :3

[h0neytalk]

Mango v. LingQ v. Anki

I’ve been using the above apps for a while now and I couldn’t find a ton of somewhat easy to understand comparisons/explanations of how to use these various cult favorites. I figured I would make one if anyone is wondering where to start or making a departure from Duolingo.

Standard langblr disclaimer: I am ultimately just a person on the internet, I’m not an expert in language learning or a world renowned polyglot. I’m not even an expert in any of these apps/programs. These are all just thoughts and opinions I have about the value of each app to myself as an average consumer trying to learn a language and intended to help other people decide where to spend their time.

Anki

Anki is an open source spaced repetition flashcard program. It has an incredibly loyal fan base of med students and people who just want to learn things. This is also the one I have the least experience with so I recommend diving into forums and other blogs who go in depth on all the ways you can use this program. The web version is completely free and there is an official paid mobile app. There are also unofficial paid apps, this is the source of great drama and discourse and I’m not touching that here. Spaced repetition essentially means that the program will present you with cards at intervals designed to maximize your retention. When you flip over a card, you have four options that boil down to: fail, hard, good, easy. This is how the program determines what to show you and when.

Key Features:

The main draw is obviously the spaced repetition system. It’s much easier and more effective than sorting manually.

Because it’s open source, there is a way to customize the settings and cards to do basically whatever you want. There are also tons of premade decks to import and either use as-is or use as a base.

The online web version is completely free.

You can add really any media type to the cards. You can add sound clips of pronunciations, images, even drawings and diagrams.

Having the four options is particularly useful for the nuances of learning a language. For example, for general vocabulary decks I’ll assign one “point” to general meaning, tense/part of speech, and pronunciation. Getting the general meaning but not the other two means I select “hard” when I flip the card.

Best uses:

Vocab or learning a new alphabet. Specifically for drilling any of those “slippery” words. I don’t know if this happens to anyone else, but there are some vocab words that just refuse to stick with me. I’ve found the Anki SRS does help pin them down.

Potential downsides:

While there are decks to import, there could always be errors that you won’t catch just seeing single vocab words with no context.

The available customization is labor intensive.

The UI for the official app and web version isn’t super slick and intuitive.

Even the best flashcards are ultimately just flashcards and have limits to their usefulness.

Mango

Mango is similar to Babbel or other programs that focus on speaking (and doing so quickly). I much prefer Mango to Babbel or any other similar app and find that it does what it says it will. Languages are split into units. Each unit has chapters and each chapter has lessons. A lesson will start with an optional pre quiz and a brief recording of a conversation that you will be able to follow by the end of the lesson. Each lesson concludes with a listening and reading quiz. It also utilizes spaced repetition and gives you daily flashcards to review.

You learn based on phrases rather than individual words. A long sentence will be presented in its entirety. The lesson will then go through each word individually before combining them into phrases and, finally, the full sentence from the start. Then you will learn vocabulary needed for variations. The activities are fairly standard for a language app: speaking, listening, multiple choice. You can also turn off the interactive feature and have the lesson run as a “speak and repeat” style podcast. It tracks the hours you’ve spent learning a language and there is an activity log, but no in depth stats.

Key features:

It is focused on speaking immediately.

Has a ton of languages and several dialects for those languages.

Focuses on phrases and patterns that are most useful if traveling or having brief, friendly interactions.

Presents information in a digestible way and isn’t overwhelming.

Includes culture and grammar notes.

$12.99 a month but most public libraries and schools give you free access. You can also set up a household account for multiple people and split the cost with friends/family.

The first lesson of any language is free, and some rare and indigenous languages are completely free to access.

Audio is native speakers. When you record yourself, your vocal wave pattern appears that you can compare with the native speaker.

Best uses:

If you are traveling soon and want to navigate basic, friendly interactions, this will get you there quick. Within 1-3 months easily, depending on the language and how often you practice.

I also recommend this as a starting place when you are totally new to a language or to learning a language in general. The structure is excellent for getting a feel for things.

This is also great if you studied a language previously and need to refresh your memory or get back into it.

Potential downsides:

The “record yourself” feature is fairly buggy and often freezes up. It can also be annoying to try and match the timing of the native speaker, but you don’t have to record audio to progress past those lesson points so it isn’t too much of an inconvenience.

It isn’t meant for total fluency. As stated, the lessons (at least that I have done) are focused on speaking while traveling and making small talk. Some of the early lessons teach you to say “sorry, I don’t speak [x]”. Which is very useful if going abroad soon, but less so if you would rather just be able to speak that language.

The regimented nature can make it feel slow/too easy if you are also using other methods.

The review flashcards only have a binary “yes/no” option which feels annoying for longer phrases or after using Anki-style cards.

With any course like this, you aren’t going to have much choice in the vocab you learn or prioritizing topics.

LingQ

I am honestly surprised I don’t see more about this. I think they have been making a bunch of updates recently so maybe the version I’m using is miles above previous ones, but it is shockingly powerful. It’s also the hardest to explain (which may be why I don’t see much written about it and why this is going to be a long section.) LingQ (pronounced “link”) operates on a hybrid comprehensible/massive input model. While Anki prioritizes memorization and Mango priorities speaking, LingQ focuses on comprehension and listening. LingQ is comprised of courses which are made up of lessons. There are pre-built courses made by LingQ but the real goal is to make your own (more on that later).

Each lesson within a course has an audio recording and a written transcript. Words you haven’t seen before are highlighted blue (when you start, that’s every word). You click the word to see the definition and assign it one of 5 statuses: ignore, new, recognized, familiar, learned, or known. “Ignore” is used for things like names or borrowed words, they won’t be counted in your stats. “Known” is for words you knew before seeing them. You likely won’t have any of these if you’re starting a new language with no prior experience. Levels 1-3 highlight the word yellow and it becomes a LingQ. You can create a LingQq using as many words as you want. You can manually change the status of a word when you see it. You can also do various review activities similar to Mango, and if you get a word right twice in a row it will automatically bump up a level. You can always adjust it back down if needed. LingQ is very focused on the value of listening to a language. You can add lessons to playlists and listen to them like a podcast.

My personal favorite part of LingQ is the ability to import lessons. Especially YouTube videos. The site has a browser extension that will import any content in your target language into a lesson as an embedded item. You can then read/listen to/watch that content right in the app and get “credit” for it. LingQ’s statistics are some of the coolest/most motivating I’ve seen. You get coins for completing tasks but those are really just to see a number get bigger. It also tracks the words you’ve read, how many words you know, the hours listened, and speaking/writing if you utilize their tutor marketplace or writing forum.

The free trial is very limited but it’s enough to poke around and get a feel for things before signing up, not necessarily to learn anything substantial. The monthly membership is $12.95 and there’s a $199 lifetime option as well. I definitely recommend spending some time playing around at the free level and then upping to monthly if you like it.

Key features:

The ability to import lessons. It will also create a simplified version of shorter content. This is an AI generated summary of whatever you’ve imported. I use this for videos where natural speaking cadence can make it hard to parse things sometimes. It’s easier/more productive if I know generally what’s going on.

The creation of LingQs. I just think it’s a really cool and useful way to approach comprehensible input. You can visually see the yellow fading as you understand more and more of a lesson.

You can export LingQs to Anki (theoretically). I’ve never done this myself and I’ve seen some forum posts saying it doesn’t work super well all the time but it is a built in feature.

In-depth stats tracking and the ability to consume all the content easily in app. The stats would be annoying if it wasn’t literally easier to watch a video via LingQ than on YouTube.

Community features. There are community challenges (like Duolingo) but also a forum to submit writing that will be corrected by native speakers and a marketplace of tutors to easily sign up for speaking lessons. The forum is free and volunteer based, but scrolling through I didn’t see anyone who didn’t have at least one reply. The tutors are paid at an hourly rate and you can also pay by the word to have them correct written work.

Super flexible. There really isn’t any one right way to use this app so you can structure it however you like and set your own goals/metrics.

Playlists and focus on listening. It really does help to constantly be immersed in what a language sounds like, and being able to read and listen to the same thing has been so nice.

Actually decently helpful emails and not just spam.

Best for:

Hardcore language learners. The app/site provides some guidance on how to get started and the basic idea, but you’ll need to play around with it and spend some time reading forum posts or the emails they send to find what works for you.

Getting to higher levels of fluency after maxing out other apps/self study methods.

People looking to spend a lot of time on language learning because they enjoy it. This isn’t snarky, but there’s a difference between wanting or needing to learn Spanish to communicate at work or on vacation and just really enjoying learning languages. This is an app for language nerds.

Potential downsides:

Very overwhelming. They technically say you can jump right in with 0 knowledge of a language and be good to go, but I think it would be hard to make a lot of progress unless you’ve learned other languages before. If you’re looking to learn a new language for the first time, I recommend starting with Mango to get your bearings.

Doesn’t teach new alphabets. This isn’t a huge issue for Mango since it’s speaking focused, but I wouldn’t jump into Arabic or Russian on LingQ without spending some time learning the alphabet with other methods.

User generated definitions. This is a double edged sword. The definitions being linked to sites like Globse can lead to wrong definitions, but because you’re seeing things in context it’s easier to catch. And looking into what a phrase means is a great way to learn if you are really into languages.

The import feature isn’t 100% perfect when it comes to videos. It will only create a transcript when the video has captions enabled or a transcript provided, otherwise it just shows up as an audio file. It will also sometimes randomly just not be able to import a video which can be annoying, but in the grand scheme of things these are very minor annoyances.

Time commitment. The method doesn’t require a ton of actively sitting down and reviewing vocab or reading new words, but it does assume that you’ll swap out listening to music or podcasts while going about your day with listening to content in your target language. This is all well and good unless you really enjoy listening to specific content while doing tasks or need help not getting distracted. It’s going to be a lot of incomprehensible noise for a while before you can parse it. This might not be a downside as much as something to keep in mind when considering how effective it’s going to be for you.

Not as active of a community. Maybe it’s just for my particular languages, but there definitely aren’t a ton of people actively doing things like challenges. This really doesn’t matter much to me but it could be a bummer if you’re looking for that.

tl;dr just tell me how to learn things

If you need to learn a new alphabet, start with that. Otherwise, Mango to get your bearings, Anki to add to your vocab as you get bored with Mango, and LingQ to realistically get “fluent”. Then start writing and speaking either using tutors or people you know or local language groups.

[rationalisms]

sorry to whack a wasp's nest, and i am prefacing all of this by saying that i enjoyed the game and think there are a lot of good aspects to it, but!

i am genuinely so sick of the way people talk about baldur's gate 3

i don't think it should have won game of the year

it's so, so irritating to see people claim over and over that bg3 is somehow groundbreaking for the genre or some sort of trailblazing star in a charred wasteland that has seen no good release since dragon age: origins. and like, it's not just idiots in the steam reviews and on reddit who are talking like this (though they are fucking everywhere on both. one of the highest rated posts on the bg3 sub for months was some dude literally going "i've never played a ttrpg or crpg and i believe bg3 is a game changer" fucking lol). it's also like. professional video game journalists and reviewers. a lot of them!

and like. dragon age: origins is really not a particularly good game compared to many of its contemporaries and i seriously do not understand the chokehold it has on people but that aside, since it was released we've had so many incredible and amazing crpgs that featured outstanding writing, game design, art direction, music, voice acting, etc. the pillars of eternity duology, underrail, the wasteland series, tyranny, atom, the shadowrun trilogy, the pathfinder duology, even the fucking games larian made before this, the divinity: original sin duology are all doing what bg3 did, and often better than bg3 does it. and that's not even getting into the many, many games that came out before either that still hold up as masterpieces that leave both bg3 and da:o in the dust like planescape: torment or fallout 1 and 2!

in fact, it's really easy to compare larian's previous game, divinity: original sin 2, to baldur's gate 3 because they are incredibly similar in many ways down to the inciting incident being almost a 1 to 1 copy (you wake up captured on a ship and realize you've been shackled in a way thay suppresses your powers and harms you and the first act is dedicated to finding others who this has happened to and getting rid of it). except that dos2 handles a lot of the things bg3 also contains a lot better, like e.g. companion story progression. (it's absolutely baffling to have story progression tied to rests especially when the game goes out of its way to instill fake urgency in the player that can very easily lead to them avoiding rests and makes especially many early game moments permanently missable if you don't happen to rest enough times at the right time. my karlach romance got bricked in my first playthrough for this reason. also compounding this is the fact that even on tactician the game is so easy that you can go ages without needing to rest organically.)

dos2 also unquestionably has the better combat experience because the system was designed specifically for the game and around the games capabilities and limitations, whereas bg3 had to contend with trying to make d&d 5e work in a video game format when that's patently not what it was designed for. the amount of changes larian had to make to the ruleset to make 5e work for a video game should have been a sign that using 5e was probably just not a good choice. (and ftr i felt the same about the game solasta which also uses 5e.) and even with the rule changes and the way larian went out of its way to buff the extremely underwhelming and underperforming 5e martials, character building and progression is still nowhere near as versatile and exciting as it was in dos2 or other crpgs and you still have a lot of empty level ups or repetitive gameplay because you can only put so many rhine stones on a turd.

let me be clear: i don't think bg3 is a bad game. again, i liked it! i think it has some instances of really good writing (mainly in companion narratives and side stories imo, the main story is underwhelming as whole). the voice acting performances are fantastic. larian tried their best to make non-linear problem solving possible in a lot of places which is neat (but also makes the lack of them in other places really obvious and more annoying than it otherwise would have been tbh lol.)

i just hate the way that bg3 is treated like some sort of gold standard when it stands on the shoulders of predecessors who are just as good, if not better, but who get ignored because they don't have fully mocapped and voice acted character models or a 3D camera. there seems to be this complete reticence from so many people to play games that still utilize things like an isometric pov, despite the fact that the games which do so are designed around this. e.g. pillars of eternity and the shadowrun games are some of the most beautiful, artistically impressive rpgs i have ever played and make full use of the isometric perspective in its fullest to create absolutely stunning environmental design which wouldn't have been possible with a rotating camera. just because a technology is older doesn't mean it is worse! people absolutely should get out of their comfort zone more because they are missing out on so many gems otherwise.

also re: bg3 winning game of the year specifically: look, here's why this gets me so tilted. on release? vast swathes of the game were legitimately unplayable. act 1 was mostly alright because it had 5 years to cook in early release with constant community feedback and bug reporting. this was absolutely not true for act 2 and 3. act 3 in particular was legitimately just not working for me (and multiple of my friends). i have a soupy gaming PC that can play other contemporary games on ultra settings just fine, and yet i got as few as 2 FPS and frankly ludicrous amount of stuttering and lag on even the lowest settings while my poor CPU sounded like she was preparing for space flight. it's clear that they just did not optimize later acts at all. they did eventually fix the memory leak issue somewhat in later patches, but the performance in act 3 is still markedly much worse than the rest of the game. (also why the fuck is it like 200GB good fucking g-d learn to compress your shit larian!) and that's not even getting into how many quests were bugged and as a result not able to be completed.

in summary: i paid 60 bucks for something that released in an unfinished state that put my hardware at risk. i spent a lot of money on a game i was unable to complete in the state that i bought it in and that took several months to get to an actually playable state for many people. that is not fucking acceptable.

i am willing to cut larian a lot more slack than i would say, e.g. bethesda, on releasing buggy and poorly optimized games. which is why i was willing to patiently wait for a performance patch to replay it. i am not, however, willing to accept handing something that was patently not finished and did not give customers the product they paid for an award for game of the year.

that's a symptom of an industry that has gotten too fucking comfortable releasing unfinished games and putting the onus of bug detection and quality testing on its paying userbase. that's not my job! i paid for this because i expect a product that has already successfully underwent this process! but apparently games these days don't need to bother with that anymore because it doesn't matter if it's playable on release or not, they can still get a coveted industry award for it anyway.

tl;dr: bg3 is literally fine but i am begging everyone on my hands and knees to broaden their horizons and also the things we deem to be acceptable from gaming companies nowadays are shocking. ok. i'm done. sorry.

[snowy-equinox]

Snowy's Book Reviews - 'Cat Magick: Harness the Powers of Felines through History, Behaviors, and Familiars'

Rieka Moonsong, published 2023

I’ve always been drawn to animal-centered magic books, though they are often disappointingly formulaic. I’ve read at least 3 different books on “cat magic”, a type of magic that centers your craft around cats: Cat fur and whiskers are used in spells, deities associated with cats are your main entities, and much of the aesthetic is taken from cats directly. These points are often the breadth of these books, with the same correspondences, the same deities, the same chapters. 

I was pleasantly surprised to find that Moonsong deviates from the usual formula. She does not include a list of deities to worship based on a loose association with cats, and her writing is refreshing compared to other cat magic books I have read. Cat magic books often feel like they’re about your connection to your pet cat, instead of the idea of working with cat spirits and energy in a broader sense. Moonsong does a brilliant job of showing you the larger world of cat-based spirituality. 

I believe this might be due to a subtle, but important difference in perspective. Most ‘cat magic’ book authors believe that the cat itself is the familiar, but Moonsong believes that the familiar is a spirit that resides in your cat. By separating the pet from the familiar, she opens the possibility of spiritwork that isn’t focused on your pet specifically. For example, most authors plan their workings for when their cat is physically with them, but with Moonsong’s paradigm the familiar spirit can be present even when your cat is not. 

Of course, your pet cat is still a part of your practice and Moonsong does not neglect this. She talks about the importance of having cats in the home, and how to connect with your pet on a spiritual level. Unfortunately, this is where the book starts to fall apart for me. 

Moonsong makes bold claims about the extent of a cat’s protection. Before this section, she comes off as grounded and realistic. Here, however, she loses that quality nearly entirely. 

“While it may not be a frequent concern, the presence of a cat in the home can protect the residents from any hexes or curses that might be placed upon them. They can also stop psychic attacks meant to cause harm to their humans. The cat’s powerful auric field will absorb any negative energies that are being sent and transmute them.”

She writes as though simply owning a cat makes you invincible to spiritual attacks. Plenty of people who own cats have been successfully cursed, hexed, or haunted. I’m surprised that she has never met a cat owner who’s had to cleanse their space or banish entities. Moonsong also adds that this constant protection takes a lot out of cats, and is the reason they sleep all the time. I guess she forgot that feral cats and big cats sleep all the time too, despite not having a person to protect? Are they constantly under spiritual attack themselves? Who’s waging war on the Pallas’s cats in Asia? 

She links a lot of cat behavior to their protective properties. Throughout the book, it becomes a throughline; it’s the reason they sleep all the time, it’s the reason they stay near you, it’s the reason they sleep next to you at night. It can get overbearing, with this constant repetition shifting cats from being a loved pet to a living tool. I think Moonsong genuinely loves cats (and her own), but it can be very easy for people to come away from this book reducing cats to a warding system. 

“Pay close attention to how cats are behaving, especially in a home or personal space. When a cat is seemingly staring intently at nothing, this typically means that there is an energy or entity present there.” 

Usually, it means you have mice. Cats are ambush hunters, and will often sit and wait where they hear rodents in cabinets or behind walls so they can pounce when the rodent comes into view. Moonsong, despite writing an entire book on the nature of cats, does not mention this. She immediately jumps to this behavior being a sign of spirits in your home. 

She doubles down on this in a later paragraph about portals. Moonsong believes that portals (gateways to other realms or dimensions) can open randomly within your home and that “If you ever notice your feline friend returning to the same location in the home repeatedly to just sit, usually looking at a wall or the ceiling, this could mean that there is a portal there.” Again, it likely means you have rodents that return to the same spot, perhaps because of a nest or food cache in that particular location.  

Her paragraph on portals is interesting even when divorced from cat magic. Moonsong says portals can be opened accidentally, but gives no further explanation on what can open portals (besides spirit boards like Ouija, which is a common misconception). Normally, I would call this fear-mongering, however Moonsong seems pretty blase about portals, at least as long as you have a cat. She says that all you need to do to close a portal is ask your cat to help you as you burn an herb near the portal. 

Moonsong is a Wiccan High Priestess, and it shows. The Goddess is mentioned a lot in her writing. It becomes more apparent in her chapter on big cats; despite the chapter’s refreshingly unique subject, each species is assigned either Divine Masculine or Divine Feminine energies. It doesn’t make sense to ascribe Masculine/Feminine to animals, which can be either sex. As an example, the lion is associated with Divine Masculine energies. Given that lions are the only cats with an obvious sex difference, and it’s the only cat she assigns Masculinity to, her Masc/Fem assignments start to feel more psychological than spiritual. Moonsong makes no mention of lionesses in this chapter or the next one where she gives a ritual to summon a lion spirit. If you want to work with lionesses specifically, you’re out of luck; if a lioness appeared to you and now you aren’t sure if she carries Divine Masculine or Divine Feminine energies, Moonsong won’t tell you.

Another section to note comes near the end of the book. The author discusses Native American beliefs around cats, and how to work with power animals. Rieka Moonsong identifies as an Andean shaman, and while I cannot vouch for the validity of this claim, I did not enjoy her use of the term ‘shaman’, as it is specific to Siberian tribes and is not an accurate title for any of the groups she discussed. ‘Power animals’ is a Native American concept that, as far as I know, is closed to non-indigenous peoples. By reducing all of these cultures’ traditions to “shamanism”, Moonsong has allowed herself to take part in their practices since she is also a shaman. She is stepping over boundaries and advising her readers to do the same. 

She finishes the book out with your usual “beginner witchcraft book” correspondences–basic lists of herbs, crystals, candle colors, moon phases, etc. She doesn’t tie any of them to cat magic, seemingly adding them for the sake of this being a witchcraft book. Moonsong does include some mentions of chakras in certain candle color associations, and she does include a chakra ritual in the book. 

In the end, I have mixed feelings. Her perspective is original and I love that this book deviates from the usual topics of other ‘cat magic’ books, but unfortunately the author’s perspective is not one I can get behind. Her chapter on Native American lore and practices also left a bad taste in my mouth, and I think anyone who would like to check out her work should keep those views in mind.

[carpetedkitch]

Labyrinth of Touhou Tri (Demo) Review/Propaganda Post

So I literally just finished the demo for Labyrinth of Touhou Tri, and I have a looooooot of thoughts I would like to share to those who care about JRPGs and Touhou. This will be coming from the pov of someone who fucking loves touhou and played the previous game to near completion (not counting the postgame cuz that sucked penis), so take my opinions as gospel (or don't. in fact probably don't)

I'll do this in a bulleted list sorta cuz I really don't wanna organize my thoughts any more than this, the game's not even out anyway

However, before anything else, lemme just say:

PLAY THE DEMO RIGHT NOW RAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

There will be no real actual spoilers dw:

STORY

Let me preface some of this with the fact that the previous Labyrinth of Touhou game did NOT have a real story; it was an excuse to put touhou characters in the same place, with a weird tree of life ass megadungeon, and tenshi being a dumbass "main" antagonist.

This game's story is leaps and bounds ahead of the last one, in that there is a main story that successfully contextualizes the bringing together of these characters, as well as connecting it to other games in the series.

The game's story HEAVILY interconnects 3 pieces of media: Touhou Legacy of a Lunatic Kingdom, Urban Legend in Limbo, and the Hifuu Club stories, so if you like those key characters, you're in for a... treat? Your discretion.

I will say, I really enjoy how they characterize each of the different characters in this game, I think they have a good handle on a majority of the included cast, with some key standouts, and... not really exceptions, just casualties.

That being said, The writing DRAGS. A LOT. There is a FUCKTON of repeating dialogue (this makes sense in story but still kinda sucks to read through trying to get to the new stuff), and the characters resummarize the plot SO MANY TIMES it gets REALLY annoying FAR too quickly.

THAT being said, if you can put up with zero text scrolling and said repeating or repetitive dialogue, the story is worth paying attention to.

VISUALS

This is just a few minor things to do with gameplay that weren't in the gameplay itself

Comparing the visuals between games, this is definitely a step up in a few departments, and a side-step in others

Some of the character designs stayed roughly the same between games, which is usually fine. The ones who got changed and the ones that got added all look really nice, and don't stray too far from mainline designs, but I don't wanna name specifics cuz spoilers and all that.

HOLY SHIT THERE'S SO MUCH VISUAL CLUTTER IN THE UI HOLY SHIIIIIIIIIIIT

To elaborate, there is a lot of things moving on the screen whenever anything happens, be it attacks, screen transitions, etc., which isn't a bad thing? but it's easy to gloss stuff over in your head because of it.

For example, when an enemy uses an attack, there is a pop up that tells you everything about the move (element, damage, targets, etc.). It is SO EASY to mash past this dialogue and leaving you wondering why you got nuked.

GAMEPLAY

The base gameplay has not changed between games, which is a party turn-based rpg, with 8 backliners that you can swap between, and a speed-based turn system.

The biggest change comes from the implementation of a skill tree system, where you gain SP (that hasn't changed) as you level and can put points into the abilities and passives you want to specialize in. So, with the explanation out of the way:

I FUCKING LOVE THIS SKILL TREE SYSTEM SO FUCKING MUCH GRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH

almost every character, to prevent homogenization, has their own gimmick, which usually takes the form of "stacks of x", which are either consumed or stacked for buffs or skills, depending on what the character wants to be doing. This creates a REALLY engaging gameplay loop, ON TOP of an ALREADY engaging teambuilding from a wide swath of very different characters.

There is SO much love and care put into their toolkits, and I well and truly cannot suck this dev off any harder than I already am.

The systems put in place to power up characters have been given SO MUCH quality of life that was not there before, including a treasure shop (rotating random shop), cloning items, and the Break system, which makes it so much easier and more fun to progress through dungeons with a purpose in mind, be it grinding, progressing, or finding chests. Genuinely the gameplay loop is as good as it's ever been in a game of it's type.

GAMEPLAY BUT AGAIN (The stuff I take some modicum of issue with)

The main draw of the combat in this game is that YOU KNOW EVERYTHING the boss is going to do, and YOU KNOW EVERYTHING your moves can do. What that means, aside from lots of reading, is that the game becomes a puzzle the game is taunting you to solve, which personally I live for.

In practice, there are more than a few things the game just DOESN'T tell you about the mechanics of bosses, or makes more inaccessible.

Just as characters have mechanics and stacks that don't do anything themselves but dovetail into other moves, so do bosses. This is really fucking cool, but also really fucking frustrating when trying to do the mental trigonometry you need to beat a boss or even taking your turns.

There is a difficulty system in place for this game that you can fuck around with. I am telling this right now because THE DEMO, AND THE GAME BY EXTENSION, ARE HARD AS SHIT. AT BASE. The intended difficulty is considered by many people to be "bullshit", end quote.

As someone who lives for a heaping helping of difficulty in my rpgs, I struggled on almost every boss in the demo. However, it was a very satisfying struggle, especially when I beat it, which some games can't even manage. After a lot of trial and error, you do start to get a feel for general damage numbers, as well as what characters are good at doing what even putting aside their whole kits worth of reading. Genuinely, I enjoyed the vast majority of the gameplay.

SOME ADVICE

Read each and every tooltip of the sub-equipment and break items. Every single one is an easter egg, and you might find some you recognize that you wouldn't have even dreamt of, as I have .

Scrutinize every single skill in the game, and every single buff you get. Buffs are literally impossible to beat the game without.

Don't automatically shelve characters you don't care for, since especially early on, you need to use every tool at your disposal.

Grinding isn't technically necessary, but you will need to because some characters have lower growth rates to make up for higher stats or usability. Also it's fun!

The demo is 8-15 hours depending on how much you care about difficulty and completion, which is LOOOOOOOOOOOONG for what it is, so enjoyyyyyyyyyyyyyy

Yeah that's it, sorry for rambling lol but I legitimately cannot wait for the full game this summer, I am so fucking excited EEEEEEEEE

[carlhofelina]

Artificial Intelligence is more than just a buzzword—it's a powerful force shaping the way we work, live, and connect. As businesses and professionals navigate the rapidly changing digital landscape, AI integration has become not only an advantage but a necessity. From automating repetitive tasks to streamlining communication, AI is transforming the workplace—and now is the time to plug in.

What Is AI Integration?

AI integration refers to the process of embedding intelligent technology into your current systems and workflows. Instead of replacing human effort, it enhances capabilities by analysing data, learning patterns, and optimising operations in real-time. For professionals and organisations alike, this means better decisions, faster execution, and improved customer experiences.

Why Embrace AI Today?

Here’s how AI integration is making a difference across industries:

Improved Efficiency

With AI handling time-consuming tasks like email filtering, data analysis, and scheduling, teams can focus on what truly matters—innovation and human connection.

Smarter Decisions

 AI can process huge amounts of information quickly, offering insights that help businesses make better, data-backed choices.

Digital Strength

Today’s digital-first world demands a solid online presence. AI tools play a major role in Digital Presence Management, from optimising search visibility to curating consistent social media content.

Personal Branding 

Professionals and entrepreneurs are increasingly using AI-powered personal branding tools to craft compelling bios, automate content creation, and engage with audiences more effectively.

B2B Strategy

In a competitive market, B2B branding strategy supported by AI helps teams personalise outreach, understand client behaviour, and build stronger relationships.

Getting Started With AI Integration

Adopting AI doesn’t require a tech overhaul. Start with tools you may already be using:

Leverage Smart Features: Google Workspace, Microsoft 365, and Canva now include AI suggestions, writing assistants, and design tools.

Automate with Purpose: Platforms like Zapier or Make.com allow easy automation between your favourite apps and services.

Explore Industry Tools: If you’re in marketing, explore ChatGPT or Jasper for content. If you’re in customer service, check out AI-enabled platforms like Intercom or Drift.

Best Practices for a Smooth Transition

Educate Your Team: Offer basic training so everyone feels confident using AI tools.

Start with a Small Project: Test out AI on a single workflow, such as automating social media or customer queries.

Maintain Human Oversight: Always review AI outputs for accuracy and relevance.

Key Takeaways

AI integration is no longer optional—it's essential. Whether you're looking to improve productivity, enhance brand visibility, or gain a competitive edge, integrating AI is a smart step forward.

Visit Best Virtual Specialist to discover how our expert virtual professionals can help you integrate AI tools, elevate your digital presence, and transform your workflow. 

[tanuki-02]

Progress Report

For 09.16.23 to 07.08.24

I plan on doing these progress reports weekly. Perhaps with the occasional post in between if I feel like I have some huge improvement within that day.

But for this first progrep, I'll try to detail as much as possible my learning from the day I started until now as I write this post.

For a little more info, I'm a 2nd year university student who is already fluent in 2 languages. I'd say my strong point is memorization which is incredibly helpful.

‎

— GOAL

Initially, I wanted to learn Japanese because of manga. Yes, I know fanlations exist and I can go buy physical English copies. However, English versions are waaaay more expensive and a lot of the manga I read have very slow fanlations or they've stopped translating it completely.

This brings me to my next point; I wanted to learn how to READ Japanese first and foremost. I hardly cared about other skills (but now I do understand their importance to the holistic learning of it all).

‎

— September '23 to November '23

I went into this language learning journey blindly. I had no idea where to start. But all I knew was that: 1.) Du*lingo is not your best option, 2.) DON'T use romaji to learn, 3.) Start kanji as early as you can. Looking back on it, I feel like these 3 points are important and I still do believe them now.

So, I went ahead and learned hiragana and katakana in less than 2 days. It was quite easy (although, katakana still does make my head spin sometimes).

After that, I went ahead and started with vocabs and kanji. Basically, I searched up vocab & kanji lists for the N5 level. After I found some good practice/list PDFs, I printed them out and used them as my main study material.

What I would do is to memorize them on my own accord (reading over and over again then, checking if I remember—rinse and repeat). I would say this worked out well for the first couple of months. The N5 lists had around 800 vocabs and 60 kanji which were pretty easy to memorize. I had this down in about a month. The following N4 lists had around an additional 800 vocab and 120 kanji. This one took me 2 months, but I'd say the mastery isn't as great as the N5.

With that in mind and the additional 4000 vocabs and 300 kanji that N3 offered, I started to doubt my method. It was then that I really began to search the web of an efficient way to learn this language.

It was then I discovered TheMoeWay and Anki.

‎

— December '23 to June '24

Plenty of people recommended TheMoeWay, so I had to check it out. It has a guide for the first 30 days of learning, but I ignored that because I was way past 30 days at this point. I read everything else and learned about spaced repetition systems (SRS); that's basically what Anki is.

It recommends to start with the N5 Tango Deck first and I did that. I began on December 6, 2023 and finished it on March 28, 2023. To consider it finished, all cards should be matured.

‎

‎

This deck was VERY easy for me at this point because the prior months of inefficient reviewing that I did. If I'm not mistaken, I did about 100 cards per day which explains why I was so fast.

I had to move on to N4 Tango Deck once I ran out of "New" cards in the first deck. So, at some point, I was doing both decks simultaneously. I began this one on January 17, 2024 and finished it on June 15, 2024.

‎

‎

Admittedly, this deck was a lot tougher than the last one for me at the time. I had to lower the daily card count to 50 (which is still a lot). But I can say after finishing both tango decks—vocabulary, kanji retention, and grammar—all improve drastically. These two decks are super duper helpful in the beginning and I would totally recommend them.

After accomplishing both decks, TheMoeWay says for you to create a mining deck of your own. So, as I was about to go through the N4 Tango Deck, I was deliberating whether or not I'd go through with what is recommended or go for something else.

I think making a mining deck would boost your skill by a huge margin, but I opted for the Core 2k/6k Japanese Vocabulary Deck which I learned from Livakivi on YouTube.

‎

— Current; July '24

I decided to take on the Core 2k/6k while I was doing the N4 Tango (This also explains why I did fewer cards 'cuz I was trying to balance both). I started this one on January 14, 2024 and I'm still getting through it little by little. By that I mean I'm not even halfway done haha.

This is what my progress looks like so far:

‎

‎

I'm doing 20 new cards per day while it's still summer break from university. Although, I'll definitely have to lower it once the semester starts. Maybe I'll go back to 10 or something.

Anyway, I found that by doing this, my retention for words and how they are spelled in hiragana have improved so much. Sometimes I can easily read random sentences on Japanese websites or books. Moreover, after doing this for some time, I found that my reading got a lot better (duh, you know more words). I can easily pass the N5 and N4 tests on the official JLPT website. The N3 tests... not so much just yet.

This brings me to my next point: I am lacking in grammar and reading comprehension. To remedy this, I've tried immersing a bit through reading news on NHK or random stories on Tadoku Graded Readers (honestly, boring, but I have to). I tried reading manga, but I'd skip so many speech bubbles that it made no sense anyway.

At the moment, I'm doing an Anki deck related to grammar, another one based on Tae Kim's guide, and a third one for listening comprehension (because my listening skills are also doodoo).

‎

TL;DR

I'd say I'm around the higher N4 level or maybe a very low N3. For my level, I'd say I'm pretty good at reading... everything else not so much. I barely do output so writing and speaking are non-existent skills for me and listening is something I only started now.

[cadaverviper]

Tokyo Xtreme Racer Review (Sega Dreamcast)

I really really love repetitive games. Games where you do the same thing over and over and over again with often subtle progression. Alot of older games have this and it was a great way to pad out game time. Have a nice consistent and fun common loop and just extend that for the entire playtime. That is exactly what it's like to play Tokyo Xtreme Racer.

In this game there are a few modes. Single races and practice runs but we won't focus on any of those because most people who know this game and love it never really touch those. We're gonna talk about the quest mode, the real meat and potatoes of the experience and where you will get all of your run time. You start out the mode with a limited amount of money and then you get to choose a car. You can only purchase the first few options for now and you will get more money later. The care designs are very cool always a pleasure to have nice designs in a racing game. Pick a color, name it and then hit the road.

You have a few maps to choose from only. The object of quest mode is hitting the road along a stretch of highway with a few turns here in there. Other drivers on the road of coarse to move around and be on obstacle. The first thing you will notice in this game is the IMMACULATE VIBES. Ugh I mean it's just amazing. The old Dreamcast graphics feel so good for this nighttime romp through the Tokyo nightlife. Addition of playing this on a crt makes it that much better it feels absolutely great. The music is nice too, nothing crazy but you can always put your own on in the backround and fit the vibe the way you want it to. So on to the gameplay proper with that out of the way. As you drive you will come across other drivers with a red arrow above there car. That signals to you that that driver is a available for a race. Flicker your headlights at them and it will start a race. Win races by staying ahead of the other racer for the most amount of time. Your races will be determined by a health bar for both of you that slowly wanes down depending on who is in front of the other.

The difficulty is kind of all over the place but in a way that is half the fun of it to me. One moment you'll be absolutely killing the competion and the next you'll be getting your face stomped. I'm sure there's factors that determine whether or not the racer your about to face is a hard or easy one but I'm not exactly sure yet what those factors are and frankly don't much care. The game is already plenty of fun for me the way it is. But how do you beat those harder drivers you ask? That's when the upgrade system comes in. After winning or losing races you will be rewarded money respectively and at anytime you can exit to the main menu to spend this money. You can spend money on different cars, engines, suspension, wheels and generally everything about the car that you could want. The loop is constantly going back to the maps, winning and losing races and then going back and spending the money for parts. That's the general game loop and even though it's very simple and not too complex that's honestly what I love most about it.

The car controls pretty nice but not too smooth. You get used to it very quickly but it is the only caution you would need to know before starting the game proper. This game is very repetitive but it is that ease of repetition that keeps me coming back time and time a game. One of my favorites on the dreamcast because it's a nice chill game to play after a long day to just chill, listen to a podcast, and not have to use my brain too hard. At such a cheap price it is a NO BRAINER that this is a must have for any Dreamcast Collection.

Score: Cool ass rocker dude in a Bugatti named Big Dipper/10

[frost-eyed-autumn]

{--Yeah, sorry Chat, its Gush About My Hyperfixation Hours because like... Holy Hell.

Genuinely, I cannot recommend Cairn enough. All we have right now is a free demo to play because the full game is still in the works and all we know is it'll be released some time this year. But I've already sunk 15 hours into replaying it and the more you replay it the more you can tell this is an honest to god labor of love that most people could only even DREAM about.

It seems like such a simple game premise and if you just play it once and then drop off of it it doesn't seem like a whole lot. But it actually is! There's so much to this game just in the demo that it's actually insane to me.

There's a definite learning curve to getting good at this game. It's very skill and repetition based, but you wouldn't think so at first glance! There's so much going on in the code where it doesn't just matter whether you're able to physically grab that one ledge. The game factors in everything down to your full body posture on whether you're going to make it up that cliff or not and unless you actually know programming, ya'll have no idea just how big of a deal that actually is!

The tiniest nuance in how your character is standing or gripping at any given moment can be what makes or breaks whether you manage to stick to that cliff or not and fall. I played a good ten hours with "auto-select limbs" on so it wasn't real obvious to me at first, but once I started properly messing around with manual limb selection it becomes super obvious just how important every little placement actually is (yeah the game kind of tries to tell you this but there's a difference between being told and actually experiencing it, especially when you try doing the Advanced Training climbing walls in the tutorial area).

Like if you have a grip on a bunch of handholds but twist yourself up into a pretzel to grab them, you're gonna fucking fall. Whereas you can be gripping a totally smooth wall with no holds but as long as you get your full-body posture right you can shimmy your way right up between two cliff faces, once you get the trick down.

The game doesn't really hold your hand either or give you any pointers on where to go or how once you leave the tutorial area like a lot of games where they give clear markers and indicators of "Go Here, Do This". It gives you the basics and then you're on your own basically to experiment and figure out what works best. But once you start learning how to do the harder maneuvers by just trying different things, it is so fucking satisfying.

Cairn is like if Mindful Thinking was incarnated into a game. When you're first learning its super easy to miss when you're panicking about losing your grip mid-climb but when you really take it slow and steady and place your holds just right, you basically can't fail. I've played a LOT of climbing games, puzzle games, platforming games, but nothing comes even close to my experience with Cairn so far where you and how you approach thinking about the problem is the ultimate skill check, not arbitrary "skill" systems or special items that are there to shallowly replicate being "more skilled than before". When you succeed, its so much more personally satisfying than anything else I've ever played.

And to top that all off, its pretty. The game aesthetic gives me huge Okami vibes, I'm ngl. Everything has a very "painted" look to it that's just very *chef's kiss*.

If you like video games at all, seriously, give Cairn a shot. Give it a few shots actually because the huge amounts of work that went into the deep systems for this game's functionality is massive! And you're not going to get it on a first run. There's a reason its not even out yet and it already has over 5,000 "Overwhelmingly Positive" reviews and people who have already sunk like 100 hours into playing it.--}

[eloiacs]

What is DeepSeek OpenAI? A Simple Guide to Understanding This Powerful Tool

Technology is constantly evolving, and one of the most exciting advancements is artificial intelligence (AI). You’ve probably heard of AI tools like ChatGPT, Google’s Bard, or Microsoft’s Copilot. But have you heard of DeepSeek OpenAI? If not, don’t worry! In this blog, we’ll break down what DeepSeek OpenAI is, how it works, and why it’s such a big deal in the world of digital marketing and beyond. Let’s dive in!

What is DeepSeek OpenAI?

The advanced AI platform DeepSeek OpenAI provides businesses and marketers together with individual’s tools to automate operations while enabling better decision-making and improved content generation efficiency. The platform functions as a highly intelligent assistant which analyzes data while generating ideas and creating content and forecasting trends within seconds.

The system's name "DeepSeek" was inspired by its deep information exploration capabilities to generate significant insights. DeepSeek operates through OpenAI's robust technology platform that also powers tools such as ChatGPT. DeepSeek delivers optimized performance for particular circumstances within digital marketing analytics and customer relationship management applications.

Why is DeepSeek OpenAI Important for Digital Marketing?

Digital marketing is all about connecting with your audience in the right way, at the right time. But with so much competition online, it can be challenging to stand out. That’s where DeepSeek OpenAI comes in. Here are some ways it can transform your marketing efforts:

1. Content Creation Made Easy

Your audience engagement depends heavily on producing high-quality content although this process demands significant time investment. Through DeepSeek OpenAI users can instantly create blog posts together with social media captions and email newsletters and ad copy. You gain professional writing support from a team member at no additional expense.

2. Data Analysis and Insights

Marketing is all about data. DeepSeek analyzes website traffic combined with social media performance and customer behavior to generate valuable insights. With its analytics capabilities the system shows you which items customers prefer the most and which promotional strategies generate the highest customer purchases.

3. Personalization at Scale

The demand for personalized customer experiences exists though implementing such solutions manually proves difficult. DeepSeek enables you to produce customized email marketing initiatives together with tailored product recommendation systems and conversational bots that deliver unique messages to every user.

4. Predictive Analytics

DeepSeek's predictive analytics system enables companies to anticipate their business future through forecasting customer behavior and sales performance and industry trends. DeepSeek uses predictive analytics to forecast trends alongside customer behavior and sales performance. The predictive capabilities of DeepSeek enable your business to anticipate market trends thus enabling proactive decision-making.

5. Automation of Repetitive Tasks

DeepSeek helps automate time-consuming repetitive tasks that include social media scheduling and customer inquiry response. DeepSeek automation allows you to allocate your time toward strategic planning and creative thinking.

Real-Life Examples of DeepSeek OpenAI in Action

Let’s look at some real-world scenarios where DeepSeek OpenAI can make a difference:

E-commerce Store: DeepSeek enables online stores to examine customer reviews which reveals frequent customer grievances. Their analysis helps them enhance their products while developing specific marketing initiatives.

Social Media Manager: Social media managers use DeepSeek to create compelling captions and hashtags for their social media posts while the platform helps them determine successful content types. The tool helps users understand which types of content deliver the best results so they can modify their approach.

Small Business Owner: The website blog posts written through DeepSeek help the small business owner save significant amounts of time. Through this platform they generate customized email marketing initiatives which enhance customer retention.

Marketing Agency: DeepSeek enables marketing agencies to generate thorough reports by analyzing data from numerous clients through its system. The agency uses the data analysis to produce superior outcomes which enable them to excel in their competitive field.

Challenges and Limitations

While DeepSeek OpenAI is incredibly powerful, it’s not perfect. Here are a few challenges to keep in mind:

Dependence on Data: The quality of DeepSeek’s output depends on the quality of the data you provide. Garbage in, garbage out!

Lack of Human Touch: DeepSeek's content creation capability exists alongside its inability to replicate human emotional touchpoints in writing.

Learning Curve: Using any new tool requires users to overcome an initial learning process. Learning to utilize DeepSeek efficiently requires a period of complete understanding.

Cost: DeepSeek advanced AI tools present high costs for users with specific requirements.

How to Get Started with DeepSeek OpenAI

Ready to give DeepSeek OpenAI a try? Here’s how to get started:

Sign Up: Create an account at the DeepSeek website to begin. Platforms typically allow new users to experience free trial or demonstration features as a basis for learning their tools.

Define Your Goals: What objectives do you want to accomplish through DeepSeek? Clear objectives about content creation data analysis and customer engagement will help you maximize your use of the tool.

Explore Features: Spend a few moments to investigate all features and capabilities of DeepSeek. Perform multiple tasks to determine which ones provide your optimal results.

Integrate with Your Workflow: DeepSeek enables integration with multiple tools including CRM systems and email marketing platforms and social media scheduling tools.

Monitor and Adjust: When using DeepSeek monitor the results to enable necessary adjustments. The more time you spend using its capabilities the better you will become at accessing its full potential.

The Future of DeepSeek OpenAI

DeepSeek OpenAI holds an exciting path into the future. AI technology's future development will bring us progressively enhanced capabilities and features. Future versions of DeepSeek OpenAI could develop capabilities to generate video content while designing graphics and autonomously managing complete marketing campaigns.

Final Thoughts

DeepSeek OpenAI functions as more than a tool because it represents a transformative solution for digital marketing alongside other fields. The system allows businesses to achieve better results through automated processes while creating valuable insights and expanded creative possibilities. DeepSeek serves marketers at every experience level to help them reach their objectives at accelerated speeds while boosting operational efficiency.  Visit Eloiacs to find more about AI Solutions.

[athomewithladylux]

How I use AI as an admin assistant to improve my job performance:

First of all, stop being scared of AI. It's like being scared of cars. They're here to stay, there are some dangers, but it's super useful so you should figure out how to make them work for you. Second, make sure you're not sharing personal or company secrets. AI is great but if you're not paying the providing company for the tool with cash then you are paying with your data. If you're not sure if the AI service your company uses is secure, ask IT. If your company isn't using AI ask them why, what the policy on AI use is, and stick to that policy.

Now, here's how I use AI to improve my work performance:

Make a Personal Assistant: I use enterprise ChatGPT's custom GPT feature to make all kinds of things. An email writing chat (where I can put in details and get it to write the email and match my tone and style), a reference library for a major project (so I always have the information and source at my fingertips in a meeting), one for the company's brand voice and style so anything I send to marketing is easy for them to work with, and gets picked up faster. I treat these GPTs like an intern who tries really hard but may not always get things right. I always review and get the GPT to site its sources so I can confirm things. It saves hours of repetitive work every week.

Analyze complex data: I deal with multiple multi-page documents and Word's "compare" feature is frankly terrible. I can drop two similar documents into my AI and get it to tell me what's different and where the differences are. Again, a huge timesaver.

Prepare for meetings and career progression support: Before any meeting I upload any materials from the organizers and anything relevant from my unit, and then get it to tell me, given the audience, what sort of questions might be asked in the meeting and what are the answers. I also ask it to align my questions and planned actions to the strategic plan. 

Plan my career development: I told my AI where I wanted to go in the next five years and got it to analyze my resume and current role. I asked it to show me where I needed skills, and provide examples of where I could get those skills. Then I asked it to cost out the classes and give me a timeline. Now I'm studying for a certificate I didn't know about before to get to an accreditation I really want.

How to do it all (prompt engineering):

Do the groundwork by giving your AI context, details, information, and very specific requests. I loaded a bunch of emails into my email-writing GPT and also told it my career ambitions. It's tweaked my tone just a little. I sound like me, but a bit more professional. Likewise if you're making a reference library. It can't tell you what it doesn't know, but it will try, so be sure to tell it not to infer based on data, but to tell you when it doesn't have information.

Security risks to consider:

Secure access: You absolutely must protect sensitive information and follow whatever AI policy is in place where you work. If there isn't one, spearhead the team working on it. It's a perfect leadership opportunity.

Data protection: Be very careful when sharing sensitive data with AI systems, and know your security. Also check your results! Again, think of AI as an eager but kind of hapless intern and double check their work.

Recognize AI threats: Stay aware of potential AI-driven cyberattacks, such as deepfake videos or social engineering attempts. There have been some huge ones lately!

By getting a handle on AI and being aware of the risks you can improve your work quality, offload the boring stuff, and advance your career. So get started. But be careful.

[jessjustplay]

Lunar: Silver Star Harmony Review

November 12, 2024

1 = Meh, 2 = Okay, 3 = Good, 4 = Really Good, 5 = Amazing

Story 2/5

The story was okay, nothing extraordinary or complex. It was simple, which can always be a good thing. But something was still missing for me. If I were to summarize it, the story is about a boy named Alex who wants to follow in the footsteps of his hero, Dyne, and become a Dragonmaster. His friends join him as they meet new party members along the way. They uncover secrets from the past as they fight against the evil force that threatens the safety of their home, Lunar, and humanity's free will. Something like that.

Characters 5/5

The characters in Lunar: Silver Star Harmony are perfect. They are an adorable bunch with a variety of personalities that somehow work perfectly together. I really enjoyed getting to know everyone, and I loved that there was a character named Jessica in the game. It was cool to see my name, Jess, in a JRPG! And she was pretty awesome, definitely a crybaby beneath her tough exterior which is always an intriguing character concept. Mia was also very sweet and I liked nice the party was to her. Luna was lovely, too. And the boys were definitely under their control, which was just funny to me!

Narrative 3/5

I think it was fine. I don't think the narrative was terrible, but I don't think there was anything necessarily mind-blowing about it either. The only way the story moved on was through dialogue, not so much visually seeing anything that was happening. It was very dependent on conversations with others, so maybe that was not grabbing me emotionally as other games have. The conversations themselves were often very entertaining. Jessica and Kyle were always hilarious, and Nall was so good at poking fun at others and making me laugh.

Gameplay/Controls 4/5

No issues here, it was easy to move around. Buttons were easy, nothing complicated at all. The only thing I struggled with were in the battles, whenever I wanted to choose a party member for something (healing spells or items), it was hard to tell who I was selecting most of the time.

Battle System 4/5

This game has visible on-screen enemies which were hard to avoid. If you get near them, they begin chasing you! That actually gave me some anxiety sometimes lol. There was an AI option where the computer decides what the character does for that round. This is a turn-based JRPG and you have to choose an action for each character group turn. It was cool to choose everyone's actions in one go. I also liked that Nall hangs around in the battles and he heals/revives your characters - sometimes in the battle but always at the end.

Customization/Leveling Up 5/5

There wasn't much customization in this game. Equipment was standard and you couldn't synthesize or "make" new stuff. Each character had their set of spells & skills that they learned as they leveled up, which was straightforward with an EXP system. No complaints here!

Art (Music & Graphics) 5/5

The pixel art of the game is really beautiful. I loved how bright and detailed everything was. Each room that I entered had so many little details and it was funny hearing Nall's commentary if I was snooping somewhere I shouldn't.

Music plays, literally, a big part in this game with a heavy focus on singing. Luna in particular is a gifted singer with healing abilities. So cute. But even Alex's ocarina song was sweet! If I remember correctly, a lot of tunes in the dungeons and cities are repeated but it didn't bother me.

Enjoyment 3/5

I mentioned in my Finished post that this game started off strong, and it really did. I was beyond excited to play this game when I first started it. But the more dungeons I entered, the more repetitive the process seemed and I did start to get a bit... un-charmed. There was also a situation near the end of the game, where I spent an insane amount of time trying to do something that turned out to be impossible. That was like the nail in the coffin, as they say. It was hard for me to bounce back fully and enjoy the ending.

Final Score 31/40

Overall, I did like the game. It's very cute and I look forward to playing the remastered collection. I am, honestly, surprised I didn't love it, but I am glad I was finally able to experience this charming (and very anime) JRPG!