#They still have to translate a few endings and the DLC at least tho

[risu5waffles]

Two fives for a TEN, mate?

Woof. Time. Fast. You know the drill. Seriously, tho', this is just getting foolish.

Gosh, but i just fell in love wiv the presentation on this one. The choice of colours is top notch, all the little creatures, the pulled, warped dimensions on things. i love that Keith put a puppet of himself in there, and it has appropriate piercings. Seriously, this was both my jam and my toast. There's a bit around the middle where something feels a little wonky wiv the platforming, but i don't know if that's a translation issue, or a skill one. Aside from that, there isn't going to be much here, challenge-wise, that will give most players pause. It's just a nice, cruisey trip through Keith's imagination, and i'm here for it.

Yoooo! This was such a nice bit of LBP1 kit to stumble across, let me tell you. i love the physics-based mechanisms we had from that era, even if they are prone to breaking in LBP3 (hell, let's be honest, they were prone to breaking back then, too, just a little less so). i love that the level references a "great points drought" a few years prior, and i wish i could remember the community at that time wiv enough granularity to know what they're talking about. My only real quibble here, is there isn't a really good chance to see the engine once it's running. They put a camera on it, but i think i backed out of it too quickly. i wish there'd been, like, a viewing platform? 'cause it's really neat. At least we get to see it powering up.

There are some nice ideas here, and i love the presentation, but it really is overlong, and the loop is just a bit too clever for its own good. Plus, it's variously broken in LBP3. That's, you know, a problem. The lighting takes a pretty nasty hit; none of the dark areas are supposed to be quite as dark as they are for us (i found someone else's play through, it's included in the video description). But the big issue is there's a whole set of platforms that are supposed to be emitted where we got stuck. Wivout them, you just can't make the jump to the sponge bit you need to progress. It's a real shame, too, because it's pretty close to the end of the level.

Eh, we talked about this before, and it still is what it is.

This one's pretty well done for one of the standard LBP2 archetypal styles. It does feel a touch slow moving and fiddly, but the "sunrise" bit at the end was nice, and i appreciated all of the semi-secrets in there. It's weird, but there's a sticker switch toward the end, that doesn't pull up a corresponding sticker? i played through a couple of times to see if it was an Ace level prize or something, but i got nothing. i wonder if it was something from a DLC i don't have. As much as i love sticker switches, and i do love sticker switches quite a bit, that was always one of their downsides. If players haven't got the sticker, well, they're kinda fucked. i know that was a way to make special secret areas for friends, which is, honestly, a pretty neat idea. Just hope no one deletes community photos ever.

Oh, oh dear Entropy, the charm just oozes from every pore of this level, and i love it. The Wobblebots are such a cute little take on the standard LBP-style patrolling enemy. Y'all know how i feel about those. But the presentation of space, and just the layout of the gameplay, it's all so very good. We tried playing another of Chicoleunis' levels on stream, but it looks to be broken in LBP3, and that's just such a gosh darn shame.

The environmental design is so nice in this one! The track is really solid, as well, tho' i can't say that it's the best fit. Was still really nice to listen to. Nothing too standout in the gameplay, but it keeps you moving well enough, and there's not anything here that should be a point of frustration, so that's nice. You know, i saw the Q in the creator's name, and got so excited that my brainmeats glossed over for a bit that their name actually starts wiv O. Where're all my Q creators at?! Seriously, i'm backlogged up to episode 204, and we still have yet to see a single creator whose name starts wiv Q. That seems statistically unlikely, and i hate it.

i wasn't 100% sold on the material choices in this one, and there are a few bits where you can get hung up behind thin layer bits and wind up getting killed, but this was still a pretty fun one in the end, and it felt like it was just about the perfect length for what it was trying to do. It's a good 'un.

Big and chonky, and a pretty fun go, although there are definitely a few points that could be polished. i don't know if this was a translation issue, or if the creator just didn't account for it, but there's a bit where you're riding up an elevator, and it looks like you should be able to jump to a (maybe?) secret area to the left. Except if you do that, it's real easy to get yourself killed. Which isn't the problem. The problem is the elevator never comes back down, and the last checkpoint is before it, so you basically softlock the level. It's deep enough into the level i can't imagine a lot of players going back in. i tried 4 or 5times for the archive, before i just had to throw my hands up and say "it's not worth it. i just don't have the time." It's a shame, 'cause there's a whole lot after that point players will miss if they just bounce. i guess... don't jump off that elevator? Also, i don't think i managed to catch the magic mouth, but that owl is kinda a douche. Just a real jerk.

This one was really quite cool. Definitely tricky from a pure gameplay standpoint, but not too hard; at least not if you're just going for the goal. Some of those beetles were a real pain in the butt, and i just said nuts to that. Lighting and material choices were really solid as well. Definitely one i feel like i could recommend to folx.

----------------------------

So, that's the that. Coming up on 200 Archive entries, and that's all kinds of wild. When i started the series, i wasn't really sure daily entries was going to be where it was at, and yet, here we are.

Life is life. There are parts that could be better, but my brainmeats seem to have calmed down from "housefire" levels since our little bout of excitement last month. i dunno, maybe they're burned themselves out a bit, which, you know, is kind of fine by me? Not being able to feel the extremes means i get to be buffered from the lows, but it also means i don't really feel the highs either, and i do hate that.

Level building has slowed down a little. i'm trying to think of a list of small things that need doing, so i can focus on those and keep moving forward until i have it in me to tackle the last couple of real chonky bits. Gee, it's just like life in meatspace. Folx, i love y'all, and i gotta say, i'm getting a bit sick of metaphor.

Anyhoot, yeah. Y'all have a wonderful day, and keep yourselves safe! i'm rooting for you over here on this side of the world!

[cl1v9zfsfo1]

comedia divina

[nokikissa]

Whooooooooo did it, beat the story of borderlands 3 now. It took me 42 hours but I think I got still like some of those fight wave of enemies arena things I could do but I’ll look into that later, I did all the crew challenges and side mission outside of those type of things.

Story and character wise it was a bit of a mixed bag, there were a lot of things I like and couple things I really didn’t like, but all in all I had fun, the gameplay was excellent, and most likely I will play it again, to co-op with buddies or to try out different vault hunters.

Putting more in-depth thoughts about some story and character things under the cut, extreme major spoiler warning as I’ll be talking about like big plot moments and such.

I quite like most of the new characters they introduced in this, I’ve only played Fl4k and loved them, but from everything I’ve seen I feel like I’ll love the other new vault hunters as well. The Calypso twins were delightful villains, very entertaining but also like I couldn’t wait to get to kill them lmao. And then there’s like Ava, I loved her and her relationship with Maya that was good stuff. And Wainwright I quite liked as well, and I was very happy that Hammerlock finally has a boyfriend and is in a good relationship. And also Lorelei and Clay were both good too, tho I probably like Lorelei more of those haha.

How it handled some old characters tho.... That’s a bit mixed. Like I liked a lot of them: Lilith, Eliie, Tannis, Maya, Zer0, Sir Hammerlock.... Even Rhys! They got Rhys down surprisingly well in my opinion! Obviously he was bit more comedic and doofy but like it was still reminiscent of how Rhys acted in like comedic moments of tales, I could recognize where they got his personality from and so on, it was fine!

...Which makes it even more baffling that they fucked up Vaughn so completely that with Vaughn it feels like the writer maybe got a super vague description of the character at best which had been passed down through multiple people twisting it around like a game of broken telephone. I just don’t understand where they pulled some character traits for him at all.... During the game I tried my best to ignore his existence, which worked well for a long while until the game made you go back to pandora and made him story relevant again, god every time he spoke my reaction was like “please shut up...”

But. I knew that was coming. The Commander Lilith DLC and promotional pics and so on made it clear ahead of time that I would not like Borderlands 3 Vaughn. I had had time to go through the stages of grief and resign to being all well I’m gonna be one of those salty tales fans and keep on drawing content of like tales Vaughn and ignore the rest of the canon for him.

So anyway I was really liking the story during like the Promethea Atlas Vs. Maliwan Arc actually, Rhys and Zer0 and their interactions were fun, Katagawa was an enjoyable villain as well, I just hope the fandom don’t make him annoying to me... So yeah that arc was good and fun.... and then the Promethea Vault happened. I am still a bit on the fence about how I feel about Maya getting killed off. On one hand, I did not see that coming and it did get an emotional “Nooo D:” reaction out of me, which well I’ve seen games with similar character getting killed off scenes that are supposed to be a big deal but my reaction is just like “ok”, like Borderlands 2 with Roland for example. But like yeah I didn’t want her to die, and it feels like kind of a waste cos let’s face it in 2 she didn’t have that much personality since the game didn’t do voice lines for the vault hunters reacting to the story etc. So now she was finally getting to be her own character I feel like aaaand then she dies. :/

And then we moved on to the Eden 6 arc and initially I was excited all Oh get to meet Hammerlock’s Boyfriend! But soon my excitement soured............

So Aurelia’s evil now huh.... And like cartoonishly evil...... Man I hate what they did with Aurelia in this game, it really smashed my good mood coming from the promethea arc to this.... Like in pre-sequel sure she kept claiming herself to be evil and a bitch and so on, but yet when Jack did like actually horrible shit she did not agree with those, she felt bad about Felicity’s fate and didn’t agree with Jack killing the scientist, she even objected when Jack was killing off all claptraps! But nah here’s she’s evil, murdering people left and right and also fucked Troy Calypso cos idk she evil now  ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Like god............ I really didn’t expect Aurelia of all the characters whose portrayal I’d be having this much issues but here we are... I guess I’m more pissed about it atm cos as I said with Vaughn I knew what was coming, but with Aurelia I kinda feel Bait and switched by the promotional material cos in all of those that I saw they showed like both the Hammerlocks and Wainwright standing next to each other so you know I was expecting her to be an ally, like maybe she and Alistair had started to tolerate each other and so on but NOPE! Go kill this character you like! Thanks a lot gearbox...

That’s the major issues I had with characters I suppose, Tho it is a bit disappointed Maya and Zer0 were only vault hunters from 2 that showed up. Would’ve been fun to get more personality for more of them. I did find some echo logs involving Krieg at one point which were interesting, aaaand according to like the sort of background filler assets Axton does porn now lmao. Also hmm where were Athena and Janey? Fiona and Sasha? So many characters missing... I know they’ve said probably more characters show up in dlcs, but still. Story wise kinda funny tho, like did Lilith contact the vault hunters from 2 for help at all? Were all of them like “sry I’m busy ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ “??

Also one weird bit about the Eden 6 arc, it felt kiiinda out of place for borderlands that there were npcs being all “Oh man I sure love the Jakobs family they treat me well”, borderlands has sorta been all “the gun corporation suck” beforehand... I suppose the Promethea arc was bit too pro corporation in some way, but with that at least mostly the npc I saw were like “Rhys says he’s trying to do good with atlas... hm we shall see how that’ll pan out...” suspicion, but with the Jakob there were characters being all oh Jakobs is so great such good corporation :)

At the end side of the game you could get sooo much lore about like sirens which I loved, translating the eridian artifact things like clarified on like how sirens come to be and all which is great! According to that siren in her life can choose who specifically inherits her powers after she dies, or “release her powers into the unknown” which when described kinda gave me the impression that it’ll pass those onto some baby that’s born at some point, which yay clarification on the whole are sirens born as sirens or do they get their powers later: answer is both!

And it appears that Angel decided to pass her powers onto Tannis before she died? Which is interesting. And aw Maya chose Ava to inherit her powers.

That ending tho..... uhhh isn’t Elpis an inhabited place? How did that whole thing affect the people living on elpis lmao....?

And god that ending credits song, it is fitting but I just can’t take it seriously asfsfdggs...

i guess I’ll now move onto talking about the gameplay....

The gameplay was great. Same old Borderlands gameplay except with some improvements making it better, and that is exactly what I wanted from the game.

I especially love the way the guns are now and how much variety there is between the manufacturers, and even within them! Like previously I rarely liked to use shotguns in borderlands games, but in this one I fell in love specifically with the Maliwan Shockwave shotguns, and when one I had started to be too low leveled I desperately tried looking for new one everywhere lol.

And also Atlas gun’s smart bullet gimmick is so good especially now that I played on console, I know I joked about that before the game came out I’m sorry Rhys lol.

I really enjoyed the environments in the game, the planets looked cool and unique, and the maps were interesting. And god some of them are so huge! Which does cause some issue tho... They are weirdly stingy with ammo vending machines. In previous games they usually had ammo vending machines before like boss fight rooms, but in this one nope! Most of the time they only have those in like beginning of the map or like where fast travel points are? That’s annoying... And another issue is that the maps are big and sorta maze-like at times, so even though you have the mission marker in the mini map, I still needed to constantly open the map to see how to get to it, you can’t just go straight in the direction of the mission marker.

Gotta say, I was bit disappointed that we only visited Athenas to get Maya, I was hoping we’d return there cos the planet was very pretty but nope....

Fl4k’s gameplay was really fun, I got the skill that lets fl4ks pet heal you and man that skill is a lifesaver, there were some boss fights I survived purely because of Mr Chew keeping me alive by reviving me lol.

I did encounter few glitched that caused me to have to restart the game cos some mission objective got stuck somewhere and I couldn’t advance, that was a bit annoying. But it was only very few and like well into the game, compared to the hours I played it feels like a pretty good track record for playing a game right on it’s release haha.

So uh yeah. In summary again: Extremely fun gameplay, mixed bag story and characters. Had fun, will play again.

[applegelstore]

So we (=my sister plays, I watch her and do other stuff besides) have finally marathoned through Tales of Berseria (only the post-game sidequests left). So here’s excerpts of my final verdict (mostly in contrast to Zesty because sorry but I can’t help it. Plus, it’s the prequel for Maotelus’ sake). Cut for massive length and very heavy spoilers, obviously! No reviews, though, just incoherent ramblings. Many, many incoherent ramblings.

-The plot is indeed kinda more exciting than Zestiria. Which isn’t particularly hard. I mean there are many reasons why I love Zestiria, but the plot (and the villains) sure aren’t one of them. The plot was kinda just… there and didn’t do any harm, but honestly I could just have watched a 200 episode show of plotless party banter and would have enjoyed it just the same. The plot in neither game makes particularly much sense, tho.

-I have a billion questions and somehow most of them concern Zaveid’s gun in both games. Like, how does it actually work? It separates fusings, but it’s the basis for the invention of the armatus? Apparently it also boosts magic? Idk. And where does it come from? Let me guess, there was that super advanced sci-fi-civilization that lived on the planet like 20 000 years ago and is now forgotten *insert dramatic music here*

-How on earth did Velvet get out of that volcano…? But as long as Morgrim is safe, I’m good.

-On that note, Velvet literally screaming WAKE UUUUUUUUUUUUUP!!!!!!!!! at the volcano made me kinda happy

-whenever she has facepalm/I’m so done/I’m surrounded by idiots moments, I feel her very much

-Despite the headscratchers, I’m totally digging the Berseria/Zestiria worldbuilding, like hell

-Sue me but I still like the Zestiria characters lightyears better than the Berseria characters. Mostly because they’re funnier, more relatable, and also because I honestly don’t like the Darker and Edgier trope. But also because the costume designs are goddamn awful, Magilou is an obnoxious pest, and it takes Eleanor far too many hours of game play to get that other people than abbey members have human rights (I ended up liking her in the end but honestly getting there was a pain). BTW yes, Velvet, Phi and Eleanor probs have more dramatic changes in personality over the course of the game than the Zesty squad combined, but can anybody explain to me what kind of character development Eizen, Rokurou and Magilou display? …Thought so. Also, no, dramatic 180° turn character development is NOT a prerequisite for good character writing in my opinion, thank you very much. I also think that mental breakdowns aren’t a prerequisite, just in case you were wondering. I’m honestly not a big fan of the Heroic B.S.O.D. trope, although there might be some exceptions where I thought it was well done. I still prefer to do without.

-At least I can tolerate Magilou and Eleanor now that the former got a backstory and the latter finally learned how not to be a dick

-Phi’s constant complaints that he doesn’t want to be treated like a child (I’ve got bad news for you sweetie, you’re TEN) do horrible things to my headcanon that he simply stays physically 10 for eternity, but don’t think I’d give up too soon

-however, I guess we can establish that he plays splatter games with a burning passion

-I am very glad that the monster doggies and the monster bird are safe and sound in the epilogue

-WHERE IS FIRE MUM

-How on earth do people defend the opinion that Berseria was less of a button smasher game than Zestiria?? Because honestly in Zestiria I never managed to win battles by doing nothing but frantically smashing X/Square/Triangle/Circle without any plan or order.

-THE BATTLE CAMERA IS SO MUCH BETTER THO I can control it freely! Oh bless the new camera. I want that so hard in Zestiria. It would help a bunch.

-the equipment upgrade and drop system is also a billion times more effective in the sense that you don’t have to carefully plan your fusings (guess who’s always too lazy to do that) and fruitlessly try to farm the drops for that for hours (guess who’s too lazy for that as well, and also helplessly underlevelled because she’s so lazy and ends up with bosses one or two hitting an armatus even on normal mode *coughs*). Bless.

-I mean the new equipment system in Berseria is basically Final Fantasy IX but for lazy noobs. There’s ups and downs to that, I guess?

-Meirchio is so goddamn pretty, I didn’t even realise that in ToZX. Guess I was distracted by how bad the trainwreck is. Anyway I love everything about this town

-Aball and its surroundings incl. Taliesin also deserve awards

-the dungeons and field areas weren’t anymore interesting than Zestiria, tho

-btw Aball=Avalon? Magical apple island and stuff? Just asking because honestly some of the Arthurian references are pretty obscurely named (it took me quite a while to get the Lastonbell=Glastonbury reference, too, trollolol. Anyone else reminded of Good old Ah! My Goddess translation sins? I mean, come on… Verdandi to Belldandy? Apparently, correctly transcribing Roman letters into Japanese script is even more difficult than Ancient Avarost)

-Morgrim, let me love you, please take all my blessings, you are purrfectly pleasantly plump and I want to cuddle you and give you kisses

-why exactly was Shigure one of the bad guys?? It still escaped me after we cut him in half, sacrificed his soul to some ancient deity, and killed his deceased, reincarnated, dragonised mum

-speaking of which, is it really clever to use the souls of your mortal enemies to revive gods that you want to be on your side!?

-anyway, screw you, Melchior, in particular

-Bienfu is a strong contender for most annoying mascot ever and I still wanted to throw him into the ocean hours into the game. I swear if I have to hear him yell BIIIIIIIIIIIIIEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEN just once more in my life I’m gonna punch the screen.

-I’m with Jude on the pengyons. I mean I guess killing and eating them is preferable to killing them but not eating them, but still. Everyone speaks about representation, where’s my representation? Is there a single JRPG in which at least one of the playable characters is a vegetarian?

-I was surprised how much I enjoyed the Jude and Milla cameo, cracktastic as it was. Milla was actually my favourite in Xillia, although I had and still have severe problems with her character. But here I only saw of her what I love about her, and it made me happy. You go, Milla

-The skit writing with the constant “all males are perverts”, “all women are deceitful whores” and “men and women are fundamentally different and will never understand each other or be friends unless they’re incestuous siblings” is goddamn awful, period.

-apparently if your vessel becomes malevolent even the tiniest bit (no need to go full tainted), that physically hurts your malak/seraph. I’m glad that doesn’t happen in Zesty.

-Zaveid. Buddy. I feel sorry for you. But it also kinda shocks me how fast you get over your girlfriend’s death. I also have bad news: Eizen’s little sister will still look like a 12-year-old in a 1000 years from now. I actually hope you’re NOT into that.

-btw Zaveid and Eizen jump from mortal enemies to true name basis pretty fast holy shit

-I wouldn’t have minded more Aifread’s Pirates shenigans and nobody is surprised

-I want the cracktastic enemy book back

-I want my elemental powers back. Fuck this don’t ya try to talk down my beloved Magical Dragqueen mode IT’S THE POWER OF LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOVE y’ignorants

-dear malak NPCs, thank you for establishing that the abbey version armatus is a sucky beta version which will be replaced with the awesome real thing in a couple of centuries, and will eventually symbolise harmony between humans and malakhim. Bonus points for carrying along the motherfucking Galahad ruins bow to drive home the point

-I’m a little too amused by the fact that the ending credit cards are a “everyone’s happy, nobody ever died, and everybody’s friends with each other” AU

-uhm, guys? Did they give Artorius’ sword to Sorey’s gay pride armatus in the anime? I didn’t like it even back then but now I hate it even more, pls no

-I want Sorey back I want Sorey back I want Sorey back I want Sorey back I want Sorey back I want Sorey back I want Sorey back I want Sorey back I want Sorey back I want Sorey back I want Sorey back I want Sorey back I want Sorey back I want Sorey back I want Sorey back I want Sorey back I want Sorey back I want Sorey back I want Sorey back I want Sorey back I want Sorey back I want Sorey back I want

-I know there will never be a Zestiria sequel because it didn’t sell well enough for that, but just in case: the only premise I’ll accept is “Phi, Sorey and Mikleo free Velvet from her prison and finally tear Innominat apart for good”. I don’t know how that would work without killing Velvet and Phi, but hey, I’m sure we’re gonna find a solution because it’s as JRPG and all we need is the POWER OF LOVE *dundundundun*

Everyone is happy. Also what is this “reborn Malakhim aren’t the same people they died as anymore” crap, don’t give me this heartbreak material you assholes

-is it wrong if I wanna play Zestiria after finishing Berseria? Actually, we would have gotten there far sooner if I hadn’t insisted taking breaks so I could play a few hours of Zestiria in between. Whoops.

-my sister was worried that Phi would miss his auntie Velvet very much and suggested Sorey and Mikleo should adopt him once the sweet baby slumber party is over. At this point I’m wondering whether I should give her fanfic recs to brighten her days, or whether that will cause her to forever ban me from her Playstation and refuse to cook for me ever again

-after watching the Zesty DLC, she also told me: “I don’t know what was the point of it, but Rose and Alisha were very cute.” She’s on the path to righteousness.