#buttons are so gimmicky to me

[rayveneyed]

bakugou katsuki proclaims, quite often, that he doesn’t have a romantic bone in his body. he snarls it — cheeks flushed an angry red — when you teasingly ask him for homemade chocolates, or to change your name in his phone to something cheesy. you’ve had him down as pumpkin from the moment you started dating, after all, and he’s long grown used to hearing baby and sweetheart and darling in place of his given name, even though he swears he hates it. you often tug at his wrist and point to bouquets of red roses, whining why don’t you ever get me those? just annoying enough to have him pulling your head under his elbow and roughly ruffling your hair, cursing the way he’s spoiled you.

kirishima got mina a heartbeat bracelet, you say pointedly, tucked under his arm on the couch and peering up at him with those eyes — those eyes that say you’re looking to push his buttons a little. (internally, he scoffs — as if he didn’t know. as if he wasn’t the one that gave shitty hair the idea in the first place. it’s just — it’s different, isn’t it, when he’s getting it for himself? for you?) shouldn’t we get something like that, baby ?

he grunts something unintelligible — something about how they’re gimmicky, how they probably don’t work, how it’d distract him when he’s kicking ass, how it’d probably melt with the use of a single howitzer impact, blah blah blah. you shrug. it’s not that big of a deal, anyway. you mostly brought it up to pull his leg a little — you know he’s not one for grand gestures like that, preferring his acts of service above all else — but for all the fight he’d put up, two heartbeat bracelets arrive at your apartment not even a week later. amazon prime expedited shipping, no less. 

he ignores you when you bring it up — lets you fasten it onto his wrist with little fanfare, the tips of his ears turning red, muttering something about he’d probably never use it, anyway, and he only got it so that you’d shut up about it all — never say i don’t do shit for you, woman!

but when he’s halfway across the world, tangled up in schemes larger than you have the capacity to think about — when you’re watching the news with teary eyes and bated breath, hands clutched to your chest, it always comes without fail: a small buzz on your wrist, gentle and thudding and rhythmic. ba-bump, ba-bump, ba-bump.

[marsmarvel02]

So, I played Princess Peach: Showtime! last night, and I have some thoughts.

Warning: Spoilers for the entirety of Floor 1 under the cut.

Opening

Wow, the music is good.

I love Grape's design! So... unique!

Grape's name, however, is ... ehh. It could be worse, but I'd still prefer something a bit more intimidating.

Why does Stella have to make crying baby noises when she's upset? It makes it hard to take her seriously and it's honestly just really grating to listen to.

Stella's design, while not the worst thing in the world, just seems a bit... off to me. I can't place it, but something about her just looks... weird.

Why is light magic named "Sparkle"? It just sounds a bit... goofy.

Swordfighter-1

Wow, the loading times for levels are... a bit much.

Why does the "level loading" music have to have that long, low horn that sounds almost exactly like the noise older Nintendo games make when they crash? The first time I heard it, I freaked because I thought there was something wrong with my copy of the game.

Why did they make B the action button and A the jump button? In every other game I've played, B is jump! That button switch has actually made me die a few times in a later level, and generally made me bad at parts that require jumping with quick reflexes.

Wow, this game IS easy.

The pre-transformation sections of levels where you just run around swinging your ribbon at stuff are honestly kinda boring.

Oh man, Swordfighter Peach looks AWESOME!

Again, the game is still really easy, but blasting your way through hordes of Sour Bunch members makes you feel INCREDIBLY powerful.

And I love the acrobatic and flashy dodges too.

Why does the very imposing knight with the hammer go down in one hit? Seriously, all you need to do is jump over his shockwave once and oop, down he goes.

The end boss is CRAZY! Who'd've thought that a Mario (spinoff) game would have you fight a giant killer plant that ISN'T a piranha plant! Also, wow, this random spinoff gets original bosses and Mario Wonder doesn't.

Jokes aside, though, I love the thorny flower bud boss. Does it have a name?

Ninja-1

Normally stealth levels in games are the ones that everybody hates, but honestly this one is GREAT!

Again, the game is still pretty easy, but stealth-attacking enemies and taking them out in one hit also feels POWERFUL.

I love how the guards can't tell where Peach is when she has a freakin' SPOTLIGHT shining on her. Or when she's pressed up against a wall and her GIANT YELLOW PONYTAIL is sticking up above her camo paper.

Why does being spotted make Peach turn into a log and then teleport to just before whatever stealth section you failed? I mean, I get sending you back to try again, but what's with the log? Is it a reference to some ninja trope I'm not familiar with?

Oh man, the chase sequence is SUPERB. Especially the wallrunning bits, and

When the enemy drops one of the scrolls, and Peach somehow uses it to summon a giant wave to ride. It makes no sense, but it's FRICKIN AWESOME.

Honestly, I'd really like it if the wave chase had ended with the enemy dropping a second scroll, and Peach using it to summon another crazy setpiece. (Hey, I just realized, that wave is a "dramatic setpiece" both in-universe and in the video game sense.)

Patissiere-1

Once again, the section before the transformation is... rather slow.

Honestly, I was expecting this to be the "annoying gimmicky minigame level", but I'm pleasantly surprised. It's a gimmicky minigame level, sure, but not an annoying one.

While getting above the minimum required to advance in the cake-decorating and cookie minigames wasn't too hard, I can see that I'll have my work cut out for me when I come back to get all the Sparkle Gems.

This isn't too bad, but it's annoying how in the cookie minigame there isn't any visual indicator that you're about to overmix something.

Cowgirl-1

One word: AWESOME!

Again, the ease at which you can lasso enemies and throw them around makes you feel powerful.

Oh, and that barrel-throwing fight sequence manages to simultaneously be both awesome and hilarious. I don't know why, it's just funny in the best way.

Crazy Thought: Cowgirl Peach tests her barrel-lassoing skills against Donkey Kong.

That horse chase sequence is pretty fun, but it's also where I died a few times because I lassoed when I meant to jump.

And, to top it all off, the boss fight against the leader of the robbers is epic. My only disappointment is that, when he's charging around the arena after you, you can't matador him into those piles of gem boxes landing the first hit revealed. I understand why you can't, but I still wish you could.

Floor 1/First Main Boss

It appears that Peach understands as much as I do that, while forcing open the door that's obviously full of dark magic might be a bad idea, it's also the only way to progress the game.

I'm not sure what to think about the fact that you need Sparkle Gems to open the Spooky Floating Door. I mean, the cost was low enough that it wasn't a problem for me, but I could see it frustrating someone who isn't very good at the game (especially since doors on later floors will probably use the same mechanic), and speedrunners are probably going to HATE it.

Why is the evil version of Sparkle named "Darkle"? It just sounds stupid.

WE'RE FIGHTING A GIANT DISCO CHICKEN!

Oh man, Disco Wing is awesome. Especially the part where THE GRAVITY FRIGGIN' FLIPS UPSIDE DOWN!

It's funny how the only time Disco Wing does that giant rolling attack is when the arena has been changed in a way that makes it possible for Peach to dodge it. Disco Wing, you could've won easily if you'd just done that attack a few times at the start of the fight!

Crazy Thought: Disco Wing meets Hole Punch from Paper Mario: The Origami King.

NINTENDO, I WANNA REFIGHT THE DISCO CHICKEN! LET ME REFIGHT THE DISCO CHICKEN!

So, after fighting Disco Wing I finally checked out the dress shop, and THERE'S A DISCO DRESS! That is DEFINITELY what I'm wearing for the rest of the game (or at least until beating the next floor boss unlocks another crazy dress pattern.)

Disco Wing's boss theme wasn't very disco-y for some rea- WAIT, I JUST CHECKED THE OFFICLIAL SOUNDTRACK AND ALL THE MAIN BOSSES HAVE THE SAME THEME?! Nintendo, WHY??! Now I won't be able to hear Juno Songs make covers for each individual boss!

In conclusion, Showtime! is definitely a straight A of a game so far. If it keeps on being as good as it was, I might even consider pushing its grade up to an A+.

[shuttershocky]

As an avid (?) Dota player, what's your opinion on other games in the genre such as HoTs, LoL, HoN etc?

I'm an avid Dota fan, but only a casual player as evidenced by my playtime

Anyway to answer your question, I've tried quite a few in my time!

Heroes of Newerth - This was Dota 2 before Dota 2. Had many old heroes from Dota but with a ridiculously fast turn rate and overall game speed. I didn't get to play it much, but a ton of the current pros in Dota 2 came from the HoN scene. I'm still hoping Icefrog ports some HoN heroes over (though some abilities like Puppet Master's Crazy Puppet have already made their way into Dota through skills like Winter's Curse) now that HoN is, you know, dead.

League of Legends - I had a lot of fun with it as a more action based take on the genre, but i disliked the general streamlining of strategy. Replacing trees and high ground for vision breaking with tall grass that just makes you invis while inside didn't really sit right with me, as well as how tame skills and items were compared to Dota (an ultimate stun in League is about the length of a regular stun in Dota, as League does not have an equivalent to BKB. Something like Flash moved you only a tiny hop compared to Blink Dagger's screen wide teleport, because of how busted introducing Dota-style mobility would be in League of Legends). Loved certain members of the cast though. My faves were Leona, Orianna, Lux, and Ezreal. The last time I played, they had just newly introduced Yasuo (I think this was in 2013?) so I'm sure a lot has changed since then.

Heroes of the Storm - It was a party game. I don't know how else to describe it. Way too gimmicky and casual for my taste, though I thought its talent tree was really cool (and Icefrog did as well apparently, patch 7.00 brought HotS talent tree into Dota). They also had some ridiculously cool ideas for character skillsets, Abathur was completely insane, and the Lost Vikings were a very unique take on one hero who is many (such as Meepo).

Smite - I played Smite in the beta and didn't play it anymore after it actually released. the 3D angle felt novel, but I really didn't see the point of switching to a 3rd person action control scheme vs isometric point and click when the map was just as flat with no verticality whatsoever. You can't make a classic MOBA map and then make someone run around it in 3D, without verticality it feels very boring and stale. I'm sure they improved it post launch though. It was also really fun to have main menu animations in the beta where the gods of various pantheons would be palling around. If I remember correctly, the Play button was a Norse deity (i forgot who) giving Ra a bearhug and ruffling his head while they smile at the player. So cute.

Battleborn - Every day I have to contend with the knowledge that Overwatch lived and Battleborn died. I liked Battleborn. i will never get to play Marquis or Phoebe again because the servers are deactivated. Fuck.

Super Monday Night Combat - Yes it was flawed. Yes making your level act as a multiplier of your stats (meaning being just 1 level above the enemy gave you an insane advantage) was really bad for game pacing and made games stompy. Yes every character having a grab attack meant that every character in the game had a channeled stun. I don't care. It had Captain Spark, a weird Rocketeer- Shark Boy fusion, and the most fun blink in the history of PVP games. This dude could teleport through walls and floors, letting knowledgeable players potentially get the drop on people from ANYWHERE (if they dont teleport to their deaths anyway) and that 360 degrees of possible angles was so fun I still daydream about getting to play Spark again. I can't. They deactivated the servers. I loved this game so dearly I wrote up character guides and posted on the forums every day. SMNC is where i got the name of this blog; my username used to be Camerashy, then it became Shuttershy, then people playing against me in SMNC thought this was a my little pony reference, so Shuttershocky it was.

Gigantic - They killed the perfect video game. I was there since Alpha testing. I have a shirt from the developers. Gigantic had some of the best character art in the history of video games. Playing it felt amazing, like someone finally figured out how to do a 3D MOBA, and it was to flip the whole concept on its head. Rather than defend a base, you had a massive kaiju on your team that kicked ass, and your objective was taking down the enemy kaiju while yours literally tore the battlefield apart. God. It was everything. I loved it so much. It had so much life left to live, but nobody played it, another victim of being a cartoon 3D team game that dared to be around when Overwatch arrived. Players who came in during beta or release never even got to play my favorite character of the Alpha test: Roland, because they took Roland away for some reworking and promised he'd come back, only for Gigantic to die before Roland ever returned. Tyto. Tripp. Mozi. Especially Beckett and Imani. I miss all of you every day. This was as close a PVP game could get to perfection in my eyes and it's gone. I will forever grieve what could have been

[aritany]

i know i know i know this is a cliche, but i just wanted to tell you that if someone is slagging off your writing, they're jealous and taking it out on you. i mean there's a reason why so many people have been drawn to your writing — it's because you're a talented writer, and the stories you tell feel so authentic and lively. i don't even know what the gimmick could be? like take i wish you wouldn't, it's a pretty intimate road trip story. the appeal IS the substance. like they were so clearly grasping at straws to make them feel better about themselves

thanks anon, this is very sweet!

fortunately, the actual content of this person’s remarks don’t really bother me. i’ve been through enough in the last few years that someone being that cruel is water off my back.

what actually gets under my skin is somebody taking screenshots from a place that has historically been safe and warm to post elsewhere and point and laugh and make fun. i just expected much better from a person i’ve been friendly with for so many years.

(it is, of course, lovely to hear such kind words. i don’t consider myself a gimmicky writer, and i’d say i’m almost always aiming for substance over concept—like you said, i wish you wouldn’t is actually going to be a challenge to market because it’s not hooky at face value. plus, i’ve made enough people cry by now that i’m not too worried about being only froth and nothing more, but it is a really good button to push, i’ll admit. i appreciate the encouragement!)

[bluejaysandblackbats]

You're Just Like Quicksand

Fandom: DC Comics, Batfam, Batman Beyond

Summary: Jason Todd is ready to go into semi-retirement after fifteen years working with troubled youth, but one case in particular forces him to confront the sins of his youth and painful memories from his past.

Chapters: 4/?

Characters: Jason Todd, Terry McGinnis, Warren McGinnis, Mary McGinnis, Matt McGinnis, Bruce Wayne, Original Character(s)

Relationship(s): TBA

Additional Tags: Protective Jason Todd, Good Sibling Jason Todd, Retired Jason Todd, Multiple POV, Hurt/Comfort, Parent-Child Relationships, Canon Divergent AU, Angst, Mourning Jason Todd

Chapter Four: No Man's Land (Terry McGinnis' POV)

I sat across from Jason, working on my history paper, struggling to write the page on how that applied to Gotham today. Jason sat behind his computer, transferring files using the scanner. “You look like you’re stuck on something. What’s up?” Jason asked without looking up.

“You were a kid during No Man’s Land, right?” I asked.

“I was in a coma, so I wouldn’t be much help there,” Jason answered. “I have a brother who was alive during that time… When’s the paper due?”

“Rough draft’s due Thursday,” I replied.

Jason checked his watch and pressed three buttons on his office phone. “Hello?” a man’s voice answered.

“Bernie? Bern, tell Tim to come to the phone. One of my kids has a few questions for a homework assignment. Let him know he doesn’t have to speak to me if he doesn’t feel like it. This is for the kid,” Jason stated. He pushed his hair back, shutting his eyes as he breathed through his nose.

“I’ll get him… Wait a second, okay?” the man whispered.

“Who’s Bernie?” I asked.

“He’s my brother-in-law… He’s a good guy. Phenomenal cook. My kids love him-. Loved… They loved him,” Jason mumbled.

“Jason, what’s this about?” a stern voice questioned.

Jason looked at me. “I’ve got a student here who needs to interview a person from Gotham who was alive during No Man’s Land,” Jason explained, “I was in a coma, but I figured you might remember something about that time.”

“I do… How’re you doing? Kenny came home from school last week and asked about you,” Tim whispered.

“Did he get my gift?” Jason questioned.

“He did. I think he’d rather see his uncle… And despite our problems, I see no need in you avoiding Ken. He adores you-.”

“You’re on speaker, and I-. You know why I stay away… Tell him I love him, and I’m proud of him,” Jason interrupted, “No more small talk, okay? The kid’s paper is due on Thursday… And I’m sure it’ll take time for him to take notes today.”

Tim cleared his throat. “Okay… Fine. Hi, I’m Tim, Jason’s younger brother,” Tim introduced himself.

“I’m Terry. I guess you could say I’m a client of Jason’s… Are you busy?” I asked.

“Not particularly busy… Jason called the right person. I was in Gotham when it started, and my dad pulled me out to keep me safe,” Tim explained.

“Let me see your history book for a second,” Jason whispered. I passed him my tablet, and he read the pages to himself. “This is Tim. He’s right here.” Jason showed me a billboard of one of the missing kids in Gotham.

“That’s your brother?” Terry asked.

“Jason, don’t tell him that-.”

“Yeah, the search for him was like a nationwide incident-.”

“Okay, Terry, you had questions about that specific time, right?” Tim asked.

Jason gestured for me to answer him. “Tim doesn’t bite. He’s harmless,” Jason joked. I grinned.

“Tim, how old were you at the time?” I questioned.

“I was fifteen,” Tim answered.

Jason typed something into his personal phone. “Can you describe life in Gotham before, during, and after?” Terry asked.

Tim described Gotham as a crime-ridden city with a system of order kept neat by vigilante justice and police work before No Man’s Land (NML). During NML, the only system was that of criminal persuasion. The government abandoned the people, who were forced to fend for themselves against the different factions of super-powered and gimmicky criminals in their respective areas. Tim snuck into Gotham after it’d been shut off and got stuck there. When he returned home to Gotham after everything opened up, Tim’s dad enrolled him in boarding school. “A lot of us didn’t adjust well to being back in Gotham, and tons of kids, including myself, didn’t finish high school,” Tim replied.

“What did you do?” I asked.

Jason stood up, leaving me in his office alone. “Family business… But Gotham saw the problem in the school system and made it easier for kids to go to school and get their GEDs, go to college, and do whatever they had to to get on their feet,” Tim replied.

“Thanks for the help,” I smiled, “I-. Is Jason by himself a lot?”

“Jason, isolates… It’s what he does. He’s-.”

“Dad, is that JT?” a voice in the background questioned.

“I’m talking to one of his protégés,” Tim answered.

“Tell the kid to tell JT that ice cream’s on the house,” the voice replied.

“Okay, Kenny… I will. Now, make sure your father doesn’t cause a three-alarm fire making pizza again,” Tim warned him.

“Can do… Pop! You don’t need to put gasoline in a wood burner!” the voice yelled.

“That’s my son… Um, how old are you?” Tim asked.

“Fourteen,” I answered.

“He wouldn’t have called me had it not been for you… Jason must really like you. I haven’t heard from him in years. So, it was nice to hear his voice today. He almost sounded happy,” Tim whispered. His voice was soft. “I’ve gotta go. It’s dinnertime, but I want you to know it was a pleasure speaking to you, and I hope you get an ‘A’ on your history paper.”

“Thanks, Tim… And I’ll pass along your son’s message. Bye,” I replied.

“Bye, Terry.”

Jason returned with pizza and a large to-go container of fries. “Your dad texted me. He’ll be home late, so you’re having dinner with me. I hope you don’t mind pizza, breadsticks, and french fries. I didn’t plan on eating dinner tonight,” Jason stated without thinking. “Did I-? I meant-. I planned on having a drink, a piece of cake, and going to bed. Did Tim give you all the info you needed for your paper?” He seemed frazzled.

I nodded. “Someone wanted me to give you a message. I think it was your nephew,” I mumbled. Jason shook his head.

“No… It’s okay. Don’t tell me,” Jason whispered. I wrung my hands. “I’m not upset with either of you. It makes things easier when I don’t hear from the kids. That includes Ken… He’s my favorite, so that makes it even harder.”

“Oh… I almost forgot to say I watched your cage match against Michael ‘The Meat Grinder’ Gallucci. I had to watch it like ten times. How’d you do that so fast?” I asked. I had to change the subject. And well… He owed me a story.

Jason ate a fistful of fries and pushed the to-go plate my way. “Mm… That was my first match, but it wasn’t where the move originated. My oldest son was the first one to do the Thunderclap. He was eight, and we were play-fighting on the living room floor when he put his hands together, swung back, slapped me on one side of my face, swung, and hit me on the other cheek. I was so stunned-. I think he was too. He didn’t mean to hit me. I think he forgot it was only a game,” Jason replied. I don’t think he was convinced. He knit his brows together, a pained expression painted by the wrinkles in his brow and the tightness of his lips. I wondered what bubbled beneath the surface of his mind. Jason was interesting. Sad… But interesting. “You gave me a look.”

“I-. Jason, can I be honest with you?” I questioned.

“I’d like that,” Jason replied, “Don’t pull punches. I can take it.”

“He hit you, but he didn’t forget you were playing… He got carried away, didn’t he? He had a history of getting carried away-.”

“He did, but he was my little boy, and I loved him. Something in him was just-. Terry, there are things you’ll never understand in life until you experience them for yourself. I hope you never have to experience that, though,” Jason interrupted, “But you’re right. I covered over the truth. That was a great observation. I don’t mind being caught in a lie, so you can call me out as much as you like. No hard feelings.”

The truth. So, I felt compelled to give him the same heartfelt honesty. “Your son was lucky… I-. My dad loves me, but sometimes I can tell he doesn’t understand me. Sometimes I feel like a stranger to him,” I mumbled, “Maybe there’s something wrong with me.”

“I don’t think so… I don’t think parents and children are meant to understand each other… I think we’re meant to love each other despite the mystery. It’s easier to understand a complete stranger than to comprehend how a human you brought into existence, whose little face you washed and watched grow-. You wonder why they’re so different,” Jason whispered. His voice was soft and broken. It made me miss my dad. “Warren loves you more than most dads ever love their sons. I don’t know… It might be a psychological thing. Most dads hate their sons, but he adores you.”

“That’s nice to hear,” I replied.

“It’s the truth,” Jason stated. We both reached for a slice of pizza at the same time. “You remind me of myself, Terry… When I was young, I could’ve been anyone or anything. Don’t become one thing, Terry. You owe yourself more than that… Because once you trap yourself in one thing, it’s all you ever get. There’s no escaping it.”

“Did you get trapped in one thing?” I asked.

“Yeah, and I’ve spent my whole life trying to escape the ramifications of one misstep I made when I was fifteen,” Jason replied. And that stuck with me.

[transformationofmatter]

ok i got my mom to send me some of my photo stuff that i havent used in ages to hopefully get back into film and maybe do some home developing if everything goes well…. and im in the process of trying to sell and replace some of it. so i shot a roll of film with this 1990 eos 10S camera (havent brought it to get developed yet…) and i like it a lot but it does have some really gimmicky 90s features

first of all theres no hardwired remote shutter release. like you know with a 3.5mm jack or whatever. instead theres an ir remote (which i dont currently have but theyre thankfully available and cheap) which might be fine except that the sensor is nestled in between the hand grip and the lens under that red plastic. so like it has a 16 foot range but you have to be standing IN FRONT OF THE CAMERA and pointing the remote directly at it to take advantage of that which seems silly.

also it has… a barcode reader. apparently for consumer cameras at this time canon had books of barcodes that you could buy which provided different camera settings that could be automatically loaded by scanning the barcode??? to be honest that feels significantly more annoying than just using the controls on the camera even if you werent familiar with them. like its not a dslr this thing has 8 buttons and 2 dials TOTAL not counting the shutter and the vast majority of things you can do with it only involve like three of those buttons

[artheresy]

Part Two (Stellaron Hunters)

Like the last one with the Astral Express, I am listing my opinions on aspects of the HSR designs, including things I kinda dislike or at least would change about certain playable designs in HSR to help myself with planning some of my own designs/redesigns for future art!

And I am so excited to get onto three of my favorite designs in this game!! The Stellaron Hunters are my babies and I originally was going to include them in the AE part 1 post, but sadly exceeded some kind of limit on the post while rambling about both of the groups designs, so they get their own post! And y'know what if that gives me more room to talk about them, I am not upset!

Ofc, Disclaimer: I am not a professional character designer, I'm not saying any of my ideas for them are objectively better or improvements even, nor am I bashing any of these designs. This is just my opinion and I like most if not all of the playable designs at the moment! I just have a few thoughts regarding them.

The List part 2:

Silver Wolf: I really like her design, I think honestly the Stellaron Hunters (at least for the trio, still forming my thoughts on Sam's) are easily some of the best designed characters in HSR so far. I do think out of those three designs though, Silver Wolf might be the weakest? Not that it's bad ofc, as I just said I think they're some of the best designs, but alongside Kafka and Blade, it feels like there's more that could be done with her design. They went ham on having so many like "Haha look she's a gamer!" details on her outfit that it ends up a bit eye rolling when you keep seeing all the details. The buttons hanging from her belt, the controller garter, the pattern on the fabric hanging from her hip for no reason, the power button logos on her her belt in multiple places and the strap that hold her knife, and that's not even all of them. It's just a bit much. Yes, she's a gamer, we get that. It doesn't need to be sprinkled throughout her design this much, at least not in this way. Because the way they did it, admittedly looks a bit gimmicky since it's only visual details rather than anything more is the best way I can describe it. I would maybe give her a few more items in place of all of these little things. Give her a visible earpiece, or some other kind of hands off communication device. Give her more devices if you're gonna have her adorned with all these straps, make them useful. Though I have two (maybe three?) other bigger ideas that could either work for changing her up physically, either separately or somehow together in a design. I'm stuck between the idea of giving her comfier clothes, both to reflect her more laid back personality and also to fit more so with what she does, or giving her more of a tech wear influence in her design, especially considering PunkLorde is meant to be a cyberpunk themed place. I feel like there's a better way to reflect that influence in her design. Also I dunno about you, but when I think cyberpunk I think of Neons a bit. I’m not saying turn her whole color palette that, but I think in a few of the patterns or in little details adding tiny touches of neon would look cool and help make her pop out a bit. (Sorry this ended up rambling, when I actually draw my thoughts for her, it will come through cleaner and clearer. Overall, I really like her design still even if there's a lot of details I would preferably change.)

Kafka: Kafka is one of my favorite designs, I adore her, I adore the spider, the web, and even the butterfly motifs present in her design. Her color scheme has a sense of allure to it if that makes sense, well balanced throughout her from head to toe. If I were to change something, it would be to make her design more show-y, a little more over the top. As it stands, Himeko has a more ostentatious design than her. Which feels off to me. "Oh but she's going on missions, taking people out, and collecting Stellarons. Her practical design makes sense." Very true, but also these missions aren't merely just missions. They are performances, displays of acting according to Elio's scripts in order to obtain the results he needs for the future. Kafka, of the rest of the Stellaron Hunters we've seen so far, seems to be the one that best fits into the role of Elio's dramatic villain/anti-hero. I mean just compare her presence in the Luofu quest to like Blade also in the Luofu quests, or Sam in the Penacony ones. There is a difference in dramatics and performance. She beckons the audience's (and law enforcement's) eyes towards her, as she strings them along with her schemes and plans. She is made to be the one in the lime light, delivering monologues and putting on the best show for everybody. When we look at the few missions of the Stellaron Hunters we’ve seen so far, Kafka does fit the bill as the star of his show, his leading actor in the role of the antagonist. As such, I think Kafka could benefit from making her outfit a bit more dramatic, leaning into the role she plays even further. Especially when thinking about how playing up that dramatized version of herself would work with the facade she's hinted at putting up. I do adore it the way it is, I just think more could be done with it. Lean a bit harder in, and by nature of making her more over the top, that could lead to the potential for a more interesting silhouette depending on how it's handled. Maybe even some more elements to influence like making it more over the top could be inspired from the Kafka Stigmata in HI3rd

Blade: I can’t lie to y’all. I think his design is close to perfection. I think it’s so well done (even though the silhouette could use some work? Depending?), it’s absolutely packed with symbolism. However, aside from just some silhouette adjustments, something I would change is the emphasis of how injured he is. The injuries he feels every single day of his life, that can’t heal because of Jingliu essentially overriding the default state his body is trying to restore. It’s a big thing in his lore, so much so that it’s been mentioned multiple times including in a main companion quest and literally up front show to us face to face. That cg of him with the sword in his chest feels like somebody stuck a sword in mine every time I see it, I swear. But design wise, I feel like this point about him and his history doesn’t shine through as well, and it feels like the gravity of that time isn’t properly portrayed in his design. Like let me emphasize, Bailu’s words might suggest that the default state for some of his injuries is literally open and bleeding so... And you might think “Oh that’s funny, when he’s literally covered in bandages like his arm and chest.” Well, I’ll one up you by clarifying if you look up his jacket as he runs, you’ll see his model has bandages ALL the way down his torso!! But the thing is, this is covered by his jacket. We only see his hand bandaged and a little peek at his chest, but his face? Completely fine. The rest of his body? Perfectly covered not showing anything. If I could change his design just a bit, first off, I’m making his coat more tattered and broken. Yes he gets his coat replaced at times, but that doesn’t mean we need to always see it in pristine condition. He’s a fighter, making his coat have tears in it, leave the edges worn down, more fabric than just his red ribbons to be frayed at the ends. In those tears of his clothes, either show bandages (left up to you whether to be seen as fresh injuries covered waiting to heal or more wrapped remnants of Jingliu’s slashes) or scars on every single bit of skin that manages to peek out from that coat. And for some flavor, add some scars to his face however big or small. There’s no way I can believe Jingliu killed him hundreds of times and didn’t at least once go for a head shot. I bet that woman knows the extent of his healing like the back of her hand, I bet she could answer my question about how exactly Blade’s body would heal if his limbs were severed. If he has some part of himself not covered, it should have evidence that he was harmed there! Never let us forget that part of his lore! NEVER!!

(I promise I’m totally not insane about him, what ever could lead you to that conclusion?)

I want to say, I will eventually update this once we have more Sam lore, perhaps I’ll include Sam with the Penacony characters post to make it easier or I’ll just redo the Stellaron Hunters post and revise and revisit my ideas for these three! As it stands, I want to wait until we have more Sam lore and more things cleared up about them before I jump into talking about the armor design or things I know from leaks until it’s been confirmed or disproven so I can give better my thoughts about the design in relation to the character!! Please stay tuned, I can’t decide if I should go for Overworld Belobog first because I have more clear ideas (including a rant about one specific character) or if it’s best to go to Herta Space Station first in order to just go in order essentially. Who knows ! Well! I hole you enjoyed this, I adore the Stellaron Hunters and any time I am able to talk about them I am very happy :D

[voistly]

Favorite object in your room? Where is it and why in that spot? How long have you had it? Was it a gift or did you get it yourself?

my purse shaped like a radio. i wear it with every outfit because it makes me happy to get compliments on it every time i go out. i would like to get more cute gimmicky purses & expand my wardrobe. i just keep it on my desk because its easy to access there and i get to look at it everyday. my mother got it for me as a gift a few years ago (i want to say around 2020?)

i also have a halloween candy bag shaped like a cat and you can turn a light on to make its eyes glow. i've used it as a purse before, but i want to add a zipper or a button to the top because right now its not very usable. i keep getting worried the contents will fall out... i have another one shaped like a film camera but its much smaller so i can't put many things inside of it. i keep it by my desk instead of in my room because i keep the parts for some of my vocaloid figurines in it.

[rakumel]

More rambling about Xenoverse 2, and how it kinda sucks trying to play a Strike build.

I'll admit up front that most of the "problem" is my lack of skill. I'm middle aged and this is the first fighting (kind of) game I've owned in my life. The way fighting games are supposed to work, as I understand it, is you spend a lot of time memorizing move combos and getting your rhythm down pat. So when you see your opponent start an attack, you recognize what's coming and know, right down to your muscle memory, how to counter it.

This is not a problem if you're, say, 15 and you have lightning fast reflexes, along with plenty of time to practice. My reflexes are not lightning fast anymore. More like, I dunno, dying flashlight fast. A flashlight you haven't used in years, so you don't know exactly how old the battery is, but it kinda flickers to life after a few seconds if you slap it a couple times. More like that speed.

The reason I even bring that up is because this past week, I had a little more free time than usual thanks to the bitterly cold and icy weather closing things down. And for a couple of those nights I felt like pulling XV2 out again and showing Ame a little attention. The whole reason I'd made her in the first place was because I wanted to try a different style of gameplay. I'd already found a nice comfort zone with Aloe and Yokan, who are great at letting their cpu-controlled partners keep opponents busy while they hang back, charge up ki, and zap those opponents from a relatively safe distance. Repeat as necessary.

A Ki build in this game works really well for me, especially at the higher level quests, because many opponents either teleport around a lot or move constantly out of reach. Not a big deal if your attacks are also long range. But with a Strike build, your character has to be close enough to actually hit the opponent to do damage, and that's not always easy when they're zipping around the screen too fast for your aging eyes to follow. It feels like I spend most of the time just chasing opponents around, and while you can press two buttons simultaneously to automatically go after a locked-on opponent it 1) just knocks them away again and 2) doesn't always trigger correctly because my thumb's not big enough to press the buttons exactly at the same time (even though they're right next to each other!! auugh!!), and it usually takes a couple tries for me to actually execute the move.

So it's not usually fun for me to play as her. But I like Ame the character, and I want to make it better. So I've tried some combinations of Strike moves, trying to find some with a bit of distance that don't require a whole lot of accuracy, seeing if any of the moves unique to Majin help at all (some do, some don't), putting a Ki move in her set just so she has something long-range. Probably the only things I haven't tried are gimmicky, like poisoning.

I've also tried to find a Super Soul to equip that would help her out some, maybe with faster move speed or just a little bonus damage for Strike skills if certain conditions are met. But that's been surprisingly hard. Maybe I'm being stupid, maybe I've overlooked something obvious, but I swear most of the Super Souls in this game favor Ki builds, and I've unlocked most of the ones possible (aside from DLC and rewards from online events, and I'd rather not pay extra money OR interact with people who are actually good at and/or very serious about this game if I can help it).

Out of curiosity, I did a quickie Google search just now on which Super Souls were best for Strike builds, and it seems to point to ones I don't recognize, which ain't promising. But I'm not ready to give up on Ame just yet - I guess I'm just going to have to get creative.

But that'll have to wait for another weekend. The roads outside are thawing as I'm typing this up, so I'll probably have to go right back to work as usual starting tomorrow. Plus I've got another thing I want to play for a bit...and maybe share...

[fluffyprincereviews]

10 Games Releasing 2023 That I'm Most Excited About

2022 was a wonderful year for games for me. I've played a lot of games in my backlog, as well as new releases as they came out. It can be tough keeping up with all the games that are releasing, but there are quite a few that I have my eye out for this year. Some big, some small, and some in-between! While I won't be talking about all of these extensively on this blog (mayhaps in smaller posts though, who knows?), at the very I want to gush about these in the turn of the new year.

Like a Dragon: Ishin (PS4, PS5, Steam, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S) February 21st 2023

To think that it's only been a few years now since I've first jumped on the Yakuza bandwagon. While there's still a few of the games that I need to finish, I'm excited to take on this spin-off game. Will I absolutely die because I insist on button mashing? Yes. Will I lose my mind the minute I see Majima? Also yes. I’d love to finish out the rest of my backlog with Yakuza before February comes around, but I know that’s but a lofty dream. 

Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom (Switch) May 12th, 2023

If there is one thing that I have always enjoyed when it comes to Legend of Zelda, it's the lore and styling of the series. Link knows how to make an impact, even in his simple tunic. While I never finished Breath of the Wild due to my attention span being really bad at the time that this game released, there is a hope inside of me that I'll see this game through to the end. That and, I'm also hoping that they improved on the open world aspect to tie in more story.

Master Detective Archives: Rain Code (Switch) 2023

When it comes to adventure games, my absolute favorite genre are mysteries. I love being able to solve the big question behind what's happening. So while I should know better than to put all of my eggs into one basket, my hopes are very high that this game will scratch my ever constant mystery adventure game itch. Given that the people behind Dangan Ronpa are behind this game, it should at the very least be an interesting experience.

Fire Emblem Engage (Switch) January 20th, 2023

Like a lot of the Fire Emblem fandom, when the first official trailer for Engage came out, I was not sold on the designs at all. It just felt too...gimmicky. But after the deluge of new character designs that have come out, along with just allowing time to settle in, I realize that I am generally excited to see what Fire Emblem has in store for us. Of course, it is still a mild excitement, given the disappointment that was the gameplay/map designs for Three Houses. Say what you will, while the story was very good, the tactics gameplay left quite a bit to be desired.

Mega Man Battle Network Legacy Collection (Switch, PS4, Steam) April 14th, 2023

I have a soft spot for Gameboy RPGs. Growing up on Yu-Gi-Oh games, I just really love the styling of isometric views. While I don't have any nostalgia for Mega Man at all, I do want go play as many older RPGs that I can, especially those from the GBA era that I wasn't able to play in my youth. And perhaps, if I end up enjoying these games, it can show that fans want more from Capcom in terms of Mega Man RPGs.

Final Fantasy XVI (PS5) June 22nd, 2023

I'm not what you would call a Final Fantasy fan. That's not to say that I hate the series or anything, but more that I've just...never completed a Final Fantasy game. The furthest I've gotten was with Final Fantasy XIV and I haven't played Endwalker yet (and probably won't, just because I'm burnt out on MMOs for the foreseeable future). But something about XVI is drawing my eye and I find myself very intrigued. Perhaps its the gruff main character, or the fact that his charge is unexpectedly murdered, meaning that some intense angst is bound to occur. Who knows?

A Space for the Unbound (PS4, PS5, Switch, Steam, Xbox One) January 19th, 2023

I remember playing this little indie demo about a year ago and loving the atmosphere behind it. The pixel art was gorgeous and I followed one of the developers of this title as they were posting about the game on Twitter. To see it finally be released has me very excited, especially so soon too.

Suikoden I and II HD Remaster: Gate Rune and Dunan Unification Wars (PS4, Xbox One, Switch, Steam) 2023

I'm very late to the classic RPG train, due to the fact that I never had the opportunity to play these games growing up. And I'm sure I'm not the only one who had thought this, but over the past...decade or so, Konami just left a bad taste in my mouth. From my perspective, it was the fact that they had so many IPs that they underutilized and those that they did milk (Yu-Gi-Oh) felt like low effort cash grabs. So seeing them actually putting an effort to developing and publishing games over the last few years has been a bit surprising. But hey, if it results in them opening their vault of old games and bringing them to more audiences, I'm all for it.

Have a Nice Death (Switch, Steam) March 22nd, 2023

Roguelikes are a genre that I never imagined myself exploring until I played Hades. Now, I'm on the search for any other roguelikes that can scratch that satisfying itch of slashing through enemies, failing horribly, and getting back up and trying again (with some leniency since I'm bad at games). I'm not quite sure what to expect when coming into this game as I like to know as little as possible about new games I'm interested in (outside of the basics to make sure I'm actually interested in it).

Mineko's Night Market (Switch, Steam) 2023

This is another indie title that I've had my eye on since it was first revealed in a Nintendo Indie Direct a couple years ago or so. Since then, it's been remaining low key, trickling out information every once in a blue moon. But now, it seems as though we are at the end of the tunnel, with a potential release date coming this year.

Those are just some of the games that I’m excited to play this year. But what games have your interest peaked? 

[circle-bircle]

bircle I'm almost disappointed by how much I didn't hate FF2. Like from all the complaining in the fandom I was expecting a lot worse when it's just satisfyingly mid for the times. FF3 was worse just cause it was so boring to me.

i think the nes versions of both games are arguably worse than every other release of both games, and while i've never played the 3d version of ff3 i've played the nes version and the pr and both were just... fine, i guess. maybe i'm not a fan of the job system in 3 but i think it's stupidly hard and the fact you can't even save in the final dungeon is so dumb.

at least in ff2 you have things to cheese the game... ff3 is a lot harder to cheese and with the fact parts of the game practically beg you to use a specific job for their gimmicky boss fights it's a lot more frustrating. in ff2 (especially origins onwards) you can just make your guys. for a game made in '89 it is mid, sure, but still saga-esque games have a following and ff2 was the basis of that.

and even plot-wise i think ff2 is just better but honestly i can't say too much because i was mostly pressing the a button through ff3. there was desch... and xande... and those other guys working with xande, i think. and like 4 modes of stupid transportation.

[c7thetumbler]

Quick Game Reviews: February 2024

Ayo, let's keep this train rollin!

Shorter month and I didn't have the sudden influx of games from the winter sale, so not a whole lot, but a few worth talking about I think. Also I did get lazy with the banner

Image from the promotional screen shots on the steam page

Quake II: Expansions and 64 (Steam)

I did them all!

At the time of the last Blog post I had only played through the base game and a little bit of Call of the Machine. I won't spend too long on it, but about halfway through Call of the Machine I was very much over it. It's definitely possible that by focusing so hard on doing all of the Quake II content I burnt myself out on it, and that these weren't meant to be played so close together. It's also possible that having an entire lifetime of experience with games and going back to this one kind of ages its gameplay and makes it less fun? Not sure.

That is to say, these expansions weren't bad. They definitely realized that restarting your loadout was a more fun way to play and allowed you to ramp up, as well as refining level design to be harder and more interesting. That being said, It gets very same-y very fast and the levels were getting so complicated that using the compass to find out where I was supposed to go turned into an instinctual habit after every skirmish. There was a lot of back tracking, which for the most part they mitigated by releasing some enemies or changing the level somewhat, but also a lot of "look for this one thing you push against or shoot that you may not know about" that was more frustrating than interesting.

Narratively they were all pretty fun; the mission objectives, as obtuse as they could be, did a good job of tying into the feeling that your were progressing through alien bases and environments, getting closer and closer to your ultimate goal. All in all, if you like the base Quake II game and want more of a challenge, they're going to scratch your itch, but be prepared for some frustrating quick loads and jump/navigation puzzles.

Separately, Quake II 64 was interesting because due to the limits of the N64 the levels were much more concise and focused. It's definitely the shortest of the Expansions, each one of the others rivaling the length of the base game while 64 takes about 2-3 hours, but it was interesting seeing how they managed to accommodate console players while still having a faithful experience. It did however have some frustrating moments I can't imagine were fun on a controller.

Image from the Shadow costume DLC page on steam

Sonic Superstars (Steam)

This one. Oof.

So to kick it off: I paid $30 for this game. That should've been its launch price, as while it *technically* has more zones than the other classics (11 vs 8), three of those zones are 1-offs with only one act, and several of the acts in the other zones are gimmicky.

It's greatest crime however is that clearly the developers knew what made a classic Sonic game. The movement feels pretty good; Sonic's drop dash makes a return from Mania to become his unique gimmick vs the other characters, and it works really well vs. His old gimmick of activating w/e shield he had or shining. However the levels just... aren't that good. There's a few in there that are fun to run around, but a lot have gimmicks that are pervasive through the whole level and just aren't that fun. For example, the Press Factory Zone has two Acts, where Act 1 has a giant press in the background that slams into the ground at regular intervals, causing your character to jump up higher than usual involuntarily if they were on the ground. This was clearly fleshed out in the level's design, but it's just not *fun* to have to deal with. Act 2 changes that with a death machine that kills you instantly if you don't push buttons scattered throughout the level frequently enough, which just kinda sucks as a mechanic. I don't want to be panicking through the whole level and wishing it was over, but that might just be me.

This misunderstanding of what makes classic Sonic fun (and I believe a focus on single screen multiplayer) also led to it's most talked about issue: the boss fights. They suck. Like the best ones are bad, and the worst ones are some of the most frustrating experiences I've had fighting Bosses in video games. Worse, these bosses are at the end of every Zone, and at least half of the Act I zones also have bosses. I believe that this was an opportunity to slow down and have all multiplayer characters on the screen doing something at once, but it just isn't what I'm here for in a Sonic game.

The Final boss in all 3 "stories" is different per story, but none are less frustrating than the others. They all rely on instant death mechanics, have way too much health, have long phases where the player cannot do damage, and absolutely no rings in them (sans the last boss) to help you through, so you run out quite quickly. I spent several hours between all three of the bosses, and would not be surprised if it made up roughly half my playtime. They were also seemingly allergic to letting you use Super <character> in most fights as well, clearly thinking "Oh that trivializes it" and intentionally extending invincibility times long past their visual iframes (over twice as long, in some cases) in order to prevent cheese.

Did I have some fun with it? Yes, but only in the moments where it let me run through the levels without getting slammed by some bizarre gimmick or boss, and those aren't that common here. I'd pass on this one; Sonic Mania + is still peak classic Sonic and I don't think it's going to get beat anytime soon

... anyway I 100%'d it

Screen shot from the Steam Page

Bots are Stupid (Steam)

I played this one for like maybe half an hour before realizing I wasn't in the mood to play a lemmings game. I have no strong opinions on this as a result! Seems fun enough if you're into that.

Image from the screenshots on their steam page

Plants vs Zombies: GotY (Steam)

Gonna post this screenshot to show just how long it took for me to re-pick-up a shelved game I promised I would 100% later:

I got this mid 2010, and finally decided to revisit it now. And I did it! I 100%'d it! I couldn't do it back then, when I was a dumb little...

17 year old...

.. Old popcap games hold up better than wine. You should play it, and no other PvZ entry, and I'm done with this review actually

Screen shot from the Steam Page

moon: Remix RPG Adventure (Steam)

This is a modern rerelease of an old anti-rpg that was on Playstation, brought to you by the brilliant minds behind Chibi-Robo, Little King's Story, and Captain Rainbow. I hadn't even heard of this before some friends started playing it on Discord and I was like "Oh my god I love these designers!"

It's got everything I like about those games aesthetically: Wacky character designs, a strange world, some funny and obtuse dialog and all of that can range from very funny to mildly unsettling (in a positive way). You play as a young kid who got isekai'd into a SNES styled RPG world, and you must find "love" to progress through and I assume escape. You can do this by helping out the NPCs of the world and by saving the souls of the "monsters" that the original protagonist, the brave knight, killed to level up and exp. Getting love levels you up and allows you to stay awake for longer, allowing you to travel further into the world and well into the night in order to solve all the problems and puzzles of the people inside it.

It's fun, but it can get a bit... complicated and confusing. While the charm of the characters and world had me coming back quite a lot, I found myself stuck with no clue how to progress after a while, and often wasted entire in game days waiting for something to happen or trying to activate an event, only to be incorrect as to what that event was. Eventually I looked up a spoilered guide to help me along, but even that was tricky to follow and involved waiting for a number of in-game days to do something I never would've thought of, and eventually I put it down. Someone more patient could probably get a lot of fun out of this game, and indeed I did while I was still able to figure out what to do, but eventually it gets a bit too unclear for its own good

As the image says, this is from the thumbnail to the games announcement in a Nintendo Direct

Mario vs. Donkey Kong (Switch)

It is wild that after writing that review for Sonic Superstars, I have to come out and say that it'd still be a better bang for your buck than this one.

Don't get me wrong; it's a pretty fun game to play in bite-sized pieces and when it was new on the GBA it was definitely worth it. Now though? It's a very weak entry that doesn't really stand out among the multitude of much more clever puzzle platformers that have released in the 20 years since.

I give Nintendo a lot of flak for their pricing structure, from Pokemon always overcharging for any classic rereleases (when they even bother), Link's Awakening releasing for the full $60 price tag, DK Tropical freeze selling for MORE than it did on its original console despite not adding anything other than an easy mode. They're an easy target for this kind of criticism, and it's well deserved.

This one though is especially egregious. The original GBA game had a scoring system that, while archaic, combined collecting all of the collectibles and racing against the clock into one system. Rather than modernizing it by adding any sort of friend leaderboards or nuance to scoring that makes it difficult to level out, they removed it entirely. Instead, there's your normal mode where you have lives (that actually serve no purpose) where you collect all of the things, and then a new TIME ATTACK mode, which has to be entered separately and does not consider your times in the levels otherwise. You also have to unlock it by beating the game. If you're a 100% freak like me, that means you have to replay the game a bare minimum of twice.

It's pure padding for the sake of it, and it shows. Additionally (and spoilers I guess), apart from a small file screen reward for 100%ing the normal levels, there is absolutely nothing for getting all the time attack medals. It's a huge waste of time, and feels like a mobile game with its simplicity.

In terms of improvements, there's very little. The game looks fine, like any other modern Mario spinoff, but that's where it hurts. SMRPG remake made a point to stick to original style to make a great modern imagining, Mario Wonder heavily stylized itself to stand out against its other 2D platformer outings, but this game chose to be exactly what you'd expect with little attention to flair or style. Where the tiny in-engine cutscenes of Mario running after DK on a flat plane and yelling 14 times on the GBA was quaint, here they're lazy and hollow, especially when they did bother to render out the other cutscenes. It's definitely better looking than the faux 3D the GBA had to go for, but again fails to stand out against any recent Mario game, with even Super Mario Party feeling like it made more of a point to portray character expression than this.

... Oh, There's 2 more worlds. Gameplay, right, I should talk about it. There are 6 levels, 6 plus levels, 2 boss fights, and 2 extra levels per world. Generously, that's only 30 additional levels, which sounds like a disservice to say "only", but consider that most levels consist of mainly 2 screens area to traverse and take a couple minutes max. These new worlds aren't really ground breaking either; The one they like to show off in promotional videos revolves around a windy flower mechanic which is interesting, but not expanded upon well. The other one is an ice world, where the gimmick is that you slide. It's as fun as it sounds.

Basically, If you've ever played the GBA version of this, give this a pass entirely; you're better off not spending any money for an essentially identical experience with practically no gameplay improvements or additions. If you've never played it before, it is worth no more than $10, and given that it's a $50 Mario game with a physical cartridge release, that's not going to happen anytime soon.

That price is also taking into account that you, yes you, right now, can find and emulate GBA games *for free*, so like if you really want to fill in your Mario experience with some classics... it's right there, you can just do that without waiting for Nintendo to sensibly price their game.

Image from the promotional section of their steam page

Corn Kidz 64 (Steam)

I'm not really sure what the Corn stuff is about, nor if there's some deeper lore or aesthetic this game is referencing, but it's an N64-style 3D collect-a-thon so yes absolutely I'll give it a go.

I spent a surprising amount of time on this one; it's a lot more involved and fine-tuned then a lot of my recent Indie 3D platformer experiences, which I enjoy. It reminded me a lot of playing Banjo Tooie as a child, where the world had a lot of different platforming challenges and some parts of it need to be unlocked or activated before you can progress or understand what you're supposed to be doing. The humor's very N64 Rareware as well, combined with some early 2000's teenage looks and jokes.

The game itself only consists of 3 worlds: a tutorial, the second world (which is where you spend most of the game) and a final linear challenge world. Despite that though you'll probably be spending a good amount of time looking for everything in order to progress out of the second world and to the final level, and the game doesn't over or under-stay its welcome. My only complaint is that sometimes it's very unclear what you're supposed to do next, and if you're not paying very close attention to the world you may miss a platforming challenge that leads you to the next thing you need to collect, or you may see something that you can't interact with yet but seems like you may be able to. It could do with a couple more hints, in my opinion.

It's a very good callback to old N64 era BK and Conker, and for only $7 it's definitely worth a purchase!

Image is official promotional material, though I found it on the Splatoon Wiki

Splatoon 3: Side Order (Switch)

This one snuck up on me, which is a pleasant surprise. My favorite part of Splatoon has always been the side content and single-player stuff, and the Octo Expansion in Splatoon 2 was my favorite content in the series so far, so I was excited to see this had dropped. And it did not disappoint! There seems to be a trend where DLC with Pearl, Marina, and Agent 8 is the best content in the Splatoon series, and the replay-ability on this one is welcome.

To summarize, you must ascend a spire in Marina's new game project (They even show you her laptop, which has splatooned Unity & Premier Pro interfaces while explaining plot), with Agent 8 and the Pearl drone. The tower is 30 floors tall, 3 boss fights, and each floor has 3 options for what upgrade and challenge you want to take. Upgrades take the form of Color chips, which you place in your Palette to add or increase your abilities to make the rest of the ascension better. It is incredibly Slay the Spire, but instead of different characters and cards you have different palettes, and it's always worth grabbing the color chip whereas skipping cards in StS is a must.

It starts out pretty tough (after the tutorial), but not so bad it's discouraging. There are several currencies and key items; Membux are essentially score you are rewarded with (harder floors give you more) that you can spent mid-run on Vending machines (rest floors) to get different side weapons, specials, or chips. Prlz (like Pearl) are the reward currency you get upon ending a run, where your chips and membux are converted to score and then to Prlz, which you then spend on hacks Marina has that unlock more stuff for future runs and make them easier. Locker Keys are given every time you clear a boss fight for the first time per palette, with 3 keys available per palette and each palette has its own favored color chips, main, side, and special weapons that represent a Splatoon character. These keys unlock lockers that contain some goodies like more palettes and lore rewards. There's a lot of content there.

I had a lot of fun with this one! The variety in color chips and palettes helps carry the repetitive nature of ascending the tower, and the number of unlocks ensures that for the most part you wont run out of reasons to keep playing until you've beaten the boss with all the palettes. I will say that there is an issue with the number of different bosses though; there are only 3 sub bosses (floors 10 and 20), and only one top boss who has no variety, which gets very tiring when you have to beat him no less than 12 times. The floor variety will also see you getting a lot of repeats, but the difficulty levels and randomized objectives carry those a lot better.

If you have Splatoon 3 already and enjoyed the single player content, this is more good stuff. That being said, the $30 expansion pass on top of the $60 base game is steep, so if you're not into Splatoon already then this is probably also not gonna scratch any itches.

[blahandwhatever]

Goodbye, Lenovo IdeaPad u430 Touch. Hello, Samsung Notebook Pro 9.

Laptop upgrade pros and cons:

+/- Mostly better specs, except less storage space (but should be enough for me)

+/- Beautiful display, though colors a tad too saturated for my taste - but I can change that

+ Slightly bigger screen

+ More balanced vertical/horizontal proportions

+ Screen positioned closer to eye level, so less looking down

+ Basically everything about the top half of the laptop

- Old laptop had the most perfect keyboard ever - keys pleasingly shaped, perfectly sized, beautifully laid out, and heavenly to type on - and now I’m going to be slightly resentful of every other laptop that inevitably fails to live up to that standard

- The black keys against the bright silver was a nicer look (and the contrast made things easier on the eyes without using backlighting), and the shiny border around the trackpad was nice, and the white power indicator light was less annoying than the blue

- The power button is awkwardly positioned on this one

- The smooth rounded sides were more comfortable than the annoying raised edge

- More visible fingerprints, dust and dirt on this one

- Basically everything about the bottom casing

+ Less distracting prettiness makes it easier to just focus on the screen

- Higher resolution makes text look skinnier and I don’t like that; wish standard fonts would get updated so they look on high-resolution screens the way they did on old ones

+ Nice bendable-every-way screen + S Pen features

+ Hopefully sturdier hinges, given both the higher-endness of this laptop and the fact that they’re made to be turned all kinds of ways. These were the downfall of my old laptop, along with the my-fault coffee spill on precious, precious keyboard

= Shiny screen, as touchscreens tend to be, which looks very nice but is hard on the eyes

+ Touchscreen still works perfectly with anti-glare screen on, unlike old laptop’s

+ Fast! I was amazed to find that Adobe Premiere Pro loaded in like six seconds (as opposed to three minutes)

+ Runs quieter

+ A little lighter despite bigger size

+ Better trackpad, but I mostly use a mouse anyway

+ Charger goes on left side, so no annoying cable on right side when using mouse

+ Things plug into ports more sturdily; less chance of accidental pulling out

- Worse sound! I’m surprised by how much worse the sound is given that this is a higher-end laptop. My old one also had downward-firing speakers but still sounded good. This one doesn’t sound good no matter what way I position it

- Another annoying operating system transition, but nothing like going from Windows XP to Windows 8. I don’t know yet if I’ll keep Windows 10 or downgrade

- More annoying gimmicky stuff that I’ll have to figure out how to disable

- Less pleasant name

Anybody want to take all these notes and make me my perfect laptop?

[the-book-in-the-mirror]

Mary Plays Pokemon Gaia - Part III: Museum mayhem + the second gym (reposted from Twitter)

[Previous post]

[Original Twitter thread]

Tumblr... 😩 this post *finally* finishes the first Twitter thread. I should have pulled photoshop way earlier.

So new town [Aerous City] has:

- A cafe where you can have a battle (not sure if it's a daily event)

- Some guy selling the amulet coin for 5k bucks (I would rather find it for free as other game but alright)

- A good joke

Also you can give some guy a harbor mail and he'll thank you with the shock wave TM - pretty damn useful early game if you ask me.

One last thing before progressing: there's a house where you can have "inverted" battles where the type matchups are completely reversed. meaning you can use water against water/grass for 4x weakness, electric as super effective on ground etc.

But it's time to move the plot I guess?

Fishy!

So in the end there wasn't much plot stuff but it's a bit refreshing that you don't get to battle admin/bosses of the villain team straight away. oh and I guess these guys have some restore-the-glory-days-of-the-past kind of deal.

After that you finally get to enter an art gallery where you'll battle... a bunch of smeargles with gimmicky movesets. really. It's a grand total of 10 smeargles and ngl, it wasn't particularly hard but got tiresome quick. you get an egg by the end.

alright babes here are some updates

Plot's still slow, you gotta reach some temple now. the gyms almost feel like an afterthought here, since you don't need badges to use HMs. So I evolved Prinplup, Mareep and the artist's egg was an Eevee.

I had to slow down a bit though cause a lot of my team is underevolved and a few opponents are getting rough. on the way to the next town there was a guy with an Absol...

...and when you get in town, you rival asks for a battle and he has a Grotle with curse that kicked my ass the first time - I only have a flying physical attacker to deal with it, you see. I regret not actually spending some time looking for a Litwick now.

A few cool things in the [Nestpine] town:

- You gain access to move deleter right before the second gym;

- Rayquaza is the first legendary mentioned in this game despite Regigigas being the one in the title screen;

- There's a guy that changes your mons balls to nest balls.

The gym is this town is a flying-type with a cute gimmick: you need to press the button on the ground to play the chatot tiles sequence you have to reproduce to open a path.

And there is kirlia. god please be less useless.

AND HOLY SHIT FINALLY

lol the chatot hair

And yeah, her main mon is a lv. 23 chatot so this match isn't anything special.

[ember-amber]

While I'm posting about ds3.

Give me the goddamn immediate stance attacks back. Fuckers keep saying ashes of war are an improvement over weapon arts, that those were really gimmicky and weak.

But GOD do the elden ring stances feel clunky and just don't look as cool. Have to wait until the weapon is fully IN the stance to press r1 or r2. In ds3 i could press l2 and then immediately after press an attack button and get the weapon art, it felt so fast and smooth and reliable.

Also making stomp into two sepparate ashes is dumb

[eyeballtank]

First let me post the update's notes.

Added an oxygen system where both characters have a visible bar that decreases the longer they are on water and resets if they leave water; They die instantly if the oxygen reaches 0 (This feature right now is lazily implemented because i just added “oxygen -= 1” in the code without using a Timer node or even a Yield statement so i should improve this some day).

Life system: Both characters share a life and if one dies, the life goes down.

Picking up coins adds a new life (Actual number of coins needed and max lives might change).

Fixed an issue where the game crashes if the Companion touches the Lifeguard floater.

The Companion can use the floater too and when it’s picked up, both characters are affected (There may be some weird bugs because i tried to fix an issue where if the floater is picked while the Player is getting hurt, their hurtbox would still receive damage).

Fixed volume sliders being at 0 but not silencing the sounds: Now they’re at 50% which also affects the sounds (Meaning you can see it to 100 just to see how loud it can get); These sliders are still a bit buggy but maybe next time.

Changed how things disappear (Keys, doors etc) to avoid yield related statements in code.

Now, about the "slideshow" cutscenes

Think of how older games in general had passing images and text boxes that changed, sometimes over time or others with a press of a button.

This part interests me because these story segments will always be different in each "instance", not just the images or text but specially the number of images/texts used and even how long a certain image/frame/slide etc stays (Because there will always be more text than images and some images are meant to stay for a few extra "frames" while the next changes).

Another part is the actual controls like moving forward/backward as if the Player was flipping a book or the ability to outright skip a cutscene.

Because a lot of YT tutorials will be more about cutscenes using animated characters and i'm not sure if copying GDQuest's Godot Slides projects is a good model to follow.

Random example but look at Faselei https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b-9rELc2eHo&t=62s and just the basic idea of images changing but not as much as the characters' texts.

Obviously i'll also need good art for this but a good enough template is a start.

What else:

I hope the next update is about level design revision because of how mechanics are introduced.

I might try to "increase" the levels by splitting parts and seperating them with new areas, so the Player is introduced to mechanics in a better way.

This also means redoing the yellow books by creating more of them with dedicated messages about said mechanics instead of the 3 books i got right now.

With how levels change, i may try some new features like "moving vertical walls/doors" affected by green switches for some gimmicky area or some new type of platforms like disappearing/appearing ones or something that spins.

I also thought of a projectile enemy for the sake of it but a more interesting idea is an enemy that targets the Companion,

Also still haven't done a save/load system but again: Worried if there's specific differences between exe and HTML versions to consider.