#except for between different game remasters

[lesmurples]

Great theory, but hear me out:

The Doctor and The Master implies a third, less prestigious renegade timelord named The Bachelor

[h0riz0nstuff]

Pros and cons of The Remaster

(in my humble opinion)

I've started a NG+ with the remaster, just because I want to explore a bit more and look for differences in the world, which aren't numerous but are there. Technically, this is still exactly the same game (except they just added transmog, which is honestly great). Still, I have a few gripes: - They didn't correct the pre-rendered cutscenes where Aloy reverts to her default outfit. I suppose this would have entailed actually making them dynamic instead of pre-rendered. Still, why do a Remaster and not even do that ? This is honestly the main thing that makes me feel it is a bit half-assed. - Now there's a palpable difference between the Frozen Wilds dialogues and the main game dialogue, but it goes the other way xD It is STILL a way less perceptible difference tho, I'm nitpicking. - Some of the skintones in those new dialogue scenes are all over the place. - A few weird visual glitches here and there and the NPCs tend to replicate a lot more and move less naturally in some instance. - Personal gripe: I don't like that the healing plants have butterflies flying around like in FW. I guess it makes them more easy to find ? I dunno. I don't like it somehow. Stuff I'm neutral about : - I don't really give a damn about the horse teeth. They're fine. The Good Stuff: - MOSS EVERYWHERE. Like, seriously. MOSSSSSSSSSsssssss. It's really great. Love it. MORE (well ok, not more… but maybe more ?) - The water does look a lot better. - I dunno if it's the case for everyone, but way more random encounters in the world (machine convoys, NPC patrols, bandits attacks). Also, did those NPCs become a little bit more sturdy ? Not sure. But there are way more of them than there used to be and that makes just venturing around without a specific goal way more enjoyable. - This also holds true for NPCs populating the upper reaches of Meridian Village. It's instantaneous while before it took a few minutes to happen (and that weird glitch that had one of them on a roof is gone). - Added animations in settlements, some of them incredibly cute. A lot of the cooking animations seem to come straight out of Forbidden West. I think they actually replaced one cooking animation in Mother's Craddle and added more too. And most previous animations happen more often too. - Oh ! And they added small FIELDS in Mother's Craddle too ! They don't look like fields but there are Nora harvesting and seeding in them. That wasn't there before and it's funny that it actually fills in a little hole about the Nora having so many harvest (not gathered) staples visible in their settlements. I also found dummies wearing HFW Carja gear in a corner of Mother's Craddle. - The merchant stalls have stuff added on the floor etc to make them more realistic. love it. - The one Strike gameboard in the Hunter's Lodge !… nobody seems to be playing it tho. :( Could have added an animation there, even if we couldn't actually play it. - More plants in settlements, more realistic ivy and stuff like that. It makes them looking so much better. - Photomode tweaks like being able to turn off machine lens glare ! Yes ! I wanted this so much in HZD. (Still no way to move the camera in settlements which is a bummer. And I don't like the Hero Halo around Aloy. I wish there was a way to turn it off too) You'd think they could have added the poses and expressions from HFW in there too, but no. *sigh* Still, the lens glare thing was my major ask so i'm happy about that. I know they must have some sort of reason for the fixed cam in settlements but that one still hurts.

That's all I can think about so far. I've taken tons of pics but they're still in the ps5 ^^;

[eziojensenthe3rd]

Midnight Gaming: A Goldeneye on the past, a Mario Kart to the future

So last night I played Goldeneye 007 and Mario Kart 64 past midnight, checked socials later to find... nothing much to talk about to be honest. Oh well....

So James Bond in the gaming space was certanly a franchise of mostly first person shooters, with some branches into other genres and a brief phase of third-person games near the end with the most recent major release being Bloodstone. The Bond game being developed by IO of the hitman series looks to be the next game to be released after a long hiatus and looks to be promising.

I've played quite a few bond games in my time with the James Bond Gameboy game that played like Legend of Zelda, 007 Nightfire and Everything or Nothing on Gamecube and some Quantum of Solace and a "remake" that were on Wii. Of course, the very first Bond game I played was one of two of the very first games I owned as kid on my then new Nintendo 64, Goldeneye 007.

You find someone in their 30s or 40s and ask them about Goldeneye, they'll almost certanly assume you mean the game and tell you about all the multiplayer matches they had with their friends. Slappers only on temple, rocket launchers in facility. You'd bear witness to a moment of pure happiness on their face, of course once they start to complain on how modern games arent as good anymore, thats your cue to just nod, back away slowly and once you're far enough away, turn around and break into a sprint. Getting some distance while they're distracted first gives you some insurance so they dont catch you quick, we have decent speed at the start but dogshit stamina, we'll slow down and get exhausted after a bit. You dont need to outrun, just outpace us, anyways.

I liked playing goldeneye a lot as a kid, the dam being pretty dam iconic level with its flyover at the start before moving into the main characters head as the level starts, the sniper rifle up on the first watch tower, the bungee jump cutscene at the end end. The dam level has to be up there with Dooms and Duke Nukem 3ds 1st levels as a great opening to the game.

A lot of folks tend to credit this game as being an example of a good movie license game, though thats only because the game wasnt made to tie in with the movie. Most movie license games are made to act as part of the films extended merchandise, you watched the film now heres the video game of the film. These kinds of games tend to be made cheaply and on a strict time budget since it needs to be released on time with the movie, and as a result, a lot of movie license games tended to be average "at best".

Now Goldeneye, its good, its aged, its the first of a style of First Person Shooters thats been seen in perfect dark and the timesplitters series, there isnt much analysis I can give it other than the games level structure does tend to deviate a bit from the actual film with scenes being different such as the sibera level and the bunker after it, to outright new levels that arent based on anything from the film itself such as that timed silo level. Maybe the game was based on the novel you may ask since a lot of the James Bond draws from the Ian Fleming novels, except thats not the case since Goldeneye was completly original. So no, the development just made whatever decisions they felt needed to be made on how the main story missions play out. Fun fact, if you played alot of the game on the easy difficulty in your early years and decided to play it on Agent difficulty for a blog series, you get to experience some of the differences between difficulties, such as the fact that in the silo level, the timer starts when the level begins rather than starting when you first place your first plasticine. So you get to experience a small panic as your memory gets thrown off completely.

If you wanted to play Goldeneye 007 nowadays, your best "legal" means is the xbox "remaster" that doesnt allow online multiplayer or the nintendo switch version that allows online but is locked behind an NSO + Expac Sub. We could have had a remaster along the same vain as Perfect Darks remaster on the Xbox 360 Live Arcade but that unfortunately ended up getting cancelled with only a leaked build being the only way anyone found out it existed. You can find a video of a playthrough here:

Goldeneye 007 had some prestige in a lot of gaming circles, so what did EA do? They had a game released that used the name but had nothing to do with the n64 game. It was called Goldeneye Rouge Agent and it started with James Bond fucking dying and you played a former mi6 agent who bums around with a lot of bond villains in a rather forgettable first person shooter. Was there any justification for calling it Goldeneye? Does the satellite weapon itself have anything to do with it? No its cause you have a golden eye that lets you use 4 powers. Thats it, its called Goldeneye cause you have a Golden Eye.

When the Bond License did leave EA's hands and entered Activision's, a Goldeneye remake was made and released onto the Wii and got ported onto Xbox and Playstation afterwards. This sounds like great news except for one small problem, it wasnt really a remake of Goldeneye so much as it was Call of Duty wearing a Goldeneye Skinsuit. To be fair, I like how the Goldeneye-make works like a secret Daniel Craig era film with a lot of the levels being reimagining on the old N64 Levels with some new levels added to suit this remakes story. Of course its all in service to a Call of Duty structure so there will be a lot of set pieces and quick-time events throughout.

Know what? Anyone remember Goldeneye Source? That mod that recreates the multiplayer from Goldeneye within the Source engine? Yeah that mod was pretty cool.

Our next game is Mario Kart 64 which was the second game I had alongside Goldeneye on my N64. The main title theme with Mario saying "Welcome to Mario Kart" will be etched forever into my memory banks till the day I die.

Everyones heard of Mario Kart, its a go kart mascot racer with mario characters, with power ups you grab to help you against your rivals. Its one of nintendo's ongoing series along with other franchises such as mario party, mario golf, mario tennis, paper mario, mario, super mario, new super mario and of course, luigis mansion.

Now, every Mario Kart game has its own thing its known for, something thats notable about that game that fans know it for. Super Mario Kart was the first, Double Dash has the dual characters on one kart, Wii had online, tricks and bikes, Super Circuit was the first portable one, DS brought a mission mode and the first to feature retro tracks from previous titles, 7 has gliding and underwater sections as well as kart customisation and 8/deluxe has the anti gravity sections on tracks. So what was unique to 64? What did it bring to the Mario Kart series?

Well, it was just a better playing Super Mario Kart that can be played with 4 players. Thats it.

It is as Mario Kart as Mario Kart could be around that time, while in retrospect it doesnt have much significance compared to its contemporaries, it atleast helped create the foundation that future mario karts were built off of. Plus the battle mode and courses were great in this. So heres a few of my favourites in no particular order.

Kalimari Desert: Cool track. Its notable feature is the train that goes around the level with several parts of the track that crosses the trains path. Either you stop to wait for the train to go past or you gun it and risk getting hit by the train.

Frappe Snowland: Yeah the snowman crowd you have to drive through can be troublesome but I like the look of this level. Just a nighttime snowy track to race through.

Moo Moo Farm: 8/Deluxe has Moo Moo Meadows which is a better version of what Farm does but Moo Moo Farms walked so that Moo Moo Meadows could run and I wont entertain hearsay on this manner.

DK Jungle Parkway: It has that massive Jump over the steamboat which is pretty dang cool. Does have some strict "keep off the grass" policies since if you ever dip a tire onto the grass, a random ape will chuck something at you.

Toads Turnpike: Honestly a pretty awesome track where you race on a busy highway, dodging several other vehicles on the road.

Yoshi Valley: A big twisty mess of a track with several different routes you can take along with a large spinning yoshi egg. Heck the game doesnt even show your position among the other racers as if to say this track is confusing but its more fun than confusing.

Royal Raceway: This is a nice simple track with an absolutely massive jump in it. Honestly its neat and you can visit the grounds of peachs castle.

Banshee Boardwalk: I always like spooky-themed stuff even in video games. The foreboding atmosphere, the cheep cheep that jumps over the track, the bat swarms that fly out of two places in the abandoned building of the track. Also you sometimes have a swarm of boos around you as you race that dont do anything but add to the atmosphere, I think the render used in those moments is neat and I feel it doesnt get seen much in most mario media compared to the other boo renders.

Rainbow Road: I get that this track has its haters do to how long and uneventful this is with only a few chain chomps to worry about. I get that 8/deluxe had a better version of 64 Rainbow Road. Regardless I like how the track looks and how final it feels. How this is essentially the final track of Mario Kart 64, like you're racing along on the games credits scene. All the characters having neon art thats dotted around the track is nice lil touch. Its the queer superhighway and I dig it.

Mario Kart 64 may not have aged too well but I hold a lot of sentimental value for it. It and Goldeneye were the first games I recall playing and since then i've been fascinated with video games ever since. Its a form of media i've been obsessed with for years now from gaming topics to walkthroughs to development and so much more. Its something i've held a lot of love and care for over the years.

I hold a lot of nostalgia for a lot the games I've played over the years but the thing about nostalgia is how much of an abused drug it is. Forget fentanyl or opiods, Nostalgia is one of the most abused form of chemicals this side of the universe  especially with how many companies try to exploit that nostalgia for financial gain. Nostalgia often comes from the happy memories we had with the people and things we once enjoyed. Absence makes the heart grow fonder so naturally people cheer for a remake or a remaster of the old stuff they enjoyed. However that absence along with the unreliable narrator that is our memories, a lot of what people feel nostalgic for are often much different than what it was really like. How often has something you felt nostalgic for didnt live up to that feeling and instead ended up being aged poorly? More than you'd think but less than you feared.

Every year so far feels like its trying to outdo the previous with how dreary and dreadful it is. 2025 already has a lot going for it and yet it decided to start the year off with the horrible wildfires going on in LA right now. The coming months will feel like a challenge at times and I worry about whats coming round the corner, especially since last week i've had to be taken to the hospital due to abdominal pain. Im better now and I was able to avoid surgery but that health scare did leave me needing to be attentive to my diet and habits because it really isnt fun having to go the hospital to try and figure out what the hell is wrong with you especially when you go around midnight and dont go back home until 7 am.

Its 9:09pm now at the time writing this, tomorrow is gonna be my birthday and my mothers. I'll be 32 this year and while there is some dread to have for this year, im gonna not focus on that and instead on what I enjoy such as the work I do writing these lil articles. For those of you who fear the future, know that you managed to survive all the years that came before you and im confident you'll survive this one too. Even as things feel terrible, as the world weariness grows, the few moments of happiness you share with family and friends will keep your soul alive. And hey if you feel you need to chase the rose-tinted dragon, well you certainly dont have a shortage of remastered or remade media to look forward too, just dont abuse that nostalgia cause as they say, theres nothing new in the past...

God I'd love to see remasters of the EA Bond Games... except Rouge Agent, that can stay where it belongs.

Thanks for reading this edition of Midnight Gaming. Feel free to leave feedback and game suggestions. Talk to you another time.

[laereviewsrandomly]

Lae Reviews: How To Train Your Dragon (2025)

NON-SPOILER REVIEW:

It's good. Honestly, there's not much else you can say about it. It's almost a one-to-one recreation of the original animated movie so if you liked that, you'll probably like this. It's visually stunning and the reworked music is great. The set and costume designs are amazing and were clearly crafted with care. However, the movie fails to do anything new with the story, which creates a bland feeling for the movie overall. It feels almost hollow.

NUMERICAL RATINGS: Characters: 6/10 Story: 8/10 Music: 9/10 Enjoyment: 8/10 Adaptation Quality: 5/10 Rewatchable?: Sure! Overall: 7.2/10

SPOILER REVIEW AHEAD Yarrgh! There be spoilers ahead...

It's hard to fully describe how I feel about this movie. I went to see it on a whim; I had nothing better to do with my day, and I realised it had released, so I bought a ticket and found myself in a cinema seat. I didn't know what I was expecting; I hadn't watched any trailers, and I was mostly there to see if they did Hiccup justice.

Me awaiting the possible destruction of my goat

When I say the movie was frame for frame the original animated movie, I truly mean it. They barely tried to change anything up, which is both a gift and a curse. On the one hand, it meant that the story was just as enjoyable, and I had fun watching it. On the other hand, it felt like a disrespect to the animated medium. If you're going to do a new adaptation of something only to copy and paste what has been done before, what's the point in adapting it? It lacked its own soul in that sense. You watch Hiccup touch Toothless for the first time in this movie and you feel nothing. Sure, I was Leo pointing in my head at the parts I loved from the original movie, but I knew that my excitement only stemmed from being able to see How To Train Your Dragon in a cinema again.

It technically did everything right, except when it came to being an adaptation. It felt like when games get a remaster, there's nothing new to the game, and they still want you to pay full price just for a graphics upgrade. If I had to choose between the original and the remake, I would choose the original.

That being said, I think the actors did a wonderful job. Mason James is a really good Hiccup. He embodies the character well, and I feel like he put a lot of care into his performance. For me, he made the trip to the cinema worthwhile. I liked how much emotion he put into his role and I appreciated that Hiccup cried several times in this adaptation. I genuinely smiled during his test drive scene and for a moment, I forgot that I was watching a remake.

I have nothing bad to say about Stoick either. Using Gerard Butler again was the only good choice and I'm glad they did it. It was awesome seeing that gruff Viking chief on my screen again. Gobber was a surprising one for me, though. I had no idea that Nick Frost was cast as Gobber, so it was a shock when he came in during the opening sequence. However, I think he is an inspired choice for it. He had some good comedic timing and he actually felt different to the animated Gobber which I liked. I cannot say the same for Hiccup's group, though. All the young Vikings felt weird, off in some way. Astrid felt stiff throughout the movie and I found myself unsure of whether they had changed her character or not. It might be me misremembering the first movie, though (I can't say I have rewatched it this year (I'm too busy rewatching the second one all the time)). Fishlegs was okay, I think he was the best out of the lot, but there was something about him that just felt like a parody of the original character. Ruffnut and Tuffnut felt watered down too; they weren't quite as silly as the animated movie, which saddened me. Though, Tuffnut's dick joke was funny. I definitely did not expect it. Snotlout was just kind of sad to watch; I think the extra scenes with his dad made him feel more like he needed a hug in this movie. Which was a weird feeling for me to have about Snotlout.

The music was fantastic. I mean, what do you expect from these movies? Test Drive will always make me want to ascend to the heavens, and Romantic Flight will always make me come down again. I liked how they remixed the music slightly so it sounded fresher; it was nice to hear a new version of different songs.

The set design was insanely good. Every scene in Berk looked like it had been fully built for the movie and it just made me smile from ear to ear. Every costume was beautifully done. Even though some costumes, for example, Astrid, were not the same as the animated movie, I could not find a reason to complain about them. Everyone and everything was absolutely stunning to look at. The CGI was no different. In an age of ugly CGI jobs, this movie comes in and knocks the ball out of the park. The best example of this is Toothless. He looked fantastic. No notes. Perfect blending with the real world. All the dragons looked incredible, but Toothless really took the cake (greedy dragon).

Overall, if you're looking for a new take on the How To Train Your Dragon novels - this isn't for you. If you're looking for a new way to watch the animated movies, give this a go! I wouldn't say run to the cinemas, maybe wait until digital, but it's a good time. I mean, how could it not be? It's basically the same movie! It's just as visually stunning as the original movie, and the majority of what makes the series good is present.

[worm-disco-until-i-die]

Metroid Prime 2: Echoes was really good. It was a lot like Metroid Prime 1 (shocking). I played it on my Steam Deck through Primehack, so it played just like the remaster as well.

The gameplay was solid. No complaints there. I had heard that Echoes is more difficult than Prime 1. That's sort of true, but I didn't have much trouble with the game except for a couple of bosses. And even then, I never died, and really, it was just me throwing myself at the boss until I found the gimmick/solution. (After I wrote this I read they tweaked the difficulty for the wii version, which is what Primehack is running, so maybe that's why it wasn't so bad)

Graphically, the game was good. I never had any frame drops. The textures were clear, and there were no pop-ins or anything. There was enough variance in the environments. I thought the sky boxes were really pretty and sometimes I would just stop and look at the ones in the Temple Grounds, Agon Wastes, and Sanctuary Fortress. I thought Torvus Bog was really pretty confusing and bland. I really liked the Sanctuary Fortress for being a big sci-fi megastructure.

Finding the lore was cool, and I found the conflict between the Luminoth and the Ing interesting. It really leans into that environmental storytelling and lore from descriptions strategy that Dark Souls uses so well. The story of the game itself is pretty standard. At least Samus has a whole one (1) character to talk to this time. Even if she's mute.

Solid 8.5/10. It's more Metroid Prime. There's not a lot of innovation here, but Retro had a winning strategy. Don't fix what isn't broken.

This section is already too long. More thoughts under the cut

I went through the Temple Grounds and Agon Wastes wide eyed and determined. I thought the dark world was interesting. Hopping from safe zone to safe zone was fun, but I can see how some would find it tedious. I'm glad you get the Dark Suit early. Although I don't particularly like how it looks.

About halfway through the Torvus Bog, fatigue and confusion started to set in. I guess it's fitting that the Bog level is where it sort of felt like a slog.

I hate those bipedal Dino things that you have to shoot in the back. I hate the squid guys that you have to wait until they charge you to damage. The enemies in this area had crappy gimmicks, but at least they're all in this space, I suppose.

I also hate the space pirate commandos (before you get the Dark visor) and the Ing Hunters, but at least you just have to have patience to fight those and you aren't constantly strafing underwater in a pond the size of an above ground pool.

I made myself keep going though and I'm glad I did because the Sanctuary Foretress ROCKS. I'm a sucker for big sci-fi megastructures and it delivered there. I enjoyed how different it was from the natural environments of the other areas. I thought the mechanized enemies were neat.

I could absolutely see someone getting through all that, only to be told you need to find the Sky Temple Keys in areas you've already been to, to throw up their hands and say, "ok nevermind, I'll just look up the ending". But i think those people would not have been scanning every little thing they could find. The clues for those keys are handed straight to you, and the rooms you need to be in are highlighted in the entry. You just gotta use your brain, people!

There were moments when I was not using my brain either though. Which were the boss fights. Overall, I thought they were cool and good. However, I would throttle the Grapple Guardian with my own hand and arm cannon if I could (see Torvus Bog dinos). Each phase of Emperor Ing I have my issues with. But there were some good standouts too. I actually liked the Spider Guardian fight, I thought it was a good implementation of the morph ball combat. On the other hand, I did not like the Caretaker Class Drone. That was not good morph ball combat. I thought Quadraxis was a good fight. It was a cool way to mix morph ball and regular combat. My favorite bosses were the Dark Samus fights. Mostly because it could be just us wailing on each other.

I can't comment on the music because I am an anomalous person who likes to play games in silence. So I didn't hear it much. Although what I did hear was every explosion sound like it was being put through a phaser effect pedal.

I finished the game with 79% items and a playtime of 15:59. I missed two E tanks, four missle expansions, and a handful of other stuff. But I thought that completion level was pretty good for not using a walkthrough.

Again, strong 8.5/10. I'm not sure what I'll hop into next. Probably not Prime 3 because I expect it'll just be even more Prime.

[arsene-inc]

A week in the life of a TTRPG addict (19/08 - 25/08)

Published a game

I publiseh another one page rpg : Chaos at Cosplay Con

Cosplayers have been taken over by their costumes, gaining their powers. The players are the only that are still themselves, despite gaining powers. For now...

I Played

This week, I played Knight. The end of the big, big campaign prelude. A big recurring boss. Its final battle to save Art itself ! Getting tired of the players rolling over some fights, not pulling punch. Then a player did 100 damge, counting the resistances and armor, a big 40% of the boss health in one go. needless to say, they saved Art. Now, due to how the ttrpg club is scheduled, the campaign is on pause for a season. Time plenty to modify every monsters and boost them. also read the rules, may be useful as the gm.

I was supposed to gm session 2 of a World wide wrestling mini campaign. Sadly a player out of 3 just didn't respond. Waiting for more news on them before deciding to continue with two or to search for additionnal players.

Receptions

This week, in the cart there was : Here, there, be monsters; Brave Zenith and Salamandur household, a setting supplement for Pacts & Blades that really needed it. Since I only received them Friday, I haven't read them yet. I started Brave Zenith cause i love a settting with playable jellies, and mixologist as a class.

I also completed my Knight collection with the Nodachi Supplement, instead of mecha-knight, here comes the mecha-samurai. And not ttprg, but tcg, since i published TCG oracle, I received my pledge for Altered TCG. Really Nice art, love the difference between common, rare and unique versions of cards. But I miscalculated. With the pledge came a display of boosters. So i thought Hey let's buy an album for al these cards. I too, the 360 cards version in the kickstarter. Except...the display is 37 boosters, each with 14 cards. This doesn't math. Luckily I had an other album with some place in it.

I read

I love the Shangri-La Frontier manga. Already reread it several time. So to check a rpg that could play this, I read DotDungeon remastered by snow again. I love the interaction between the real life of the plmayer and the mmo characters. Things based on how many piercings the player have, their tattoos. The goal of exploring a world. Really want to play this

[sorcerous-caress]

You're right and I know you are but I actually got so upset that I am now violently sick. I am literally only sharing this because I am fairly certain you're also autistic and BPD but I hate so much that like the one time in mainstream media we are given a bi/pan man who is effeminate and prefers men but isn't a derogatory stereotype but every post about him is like He’s The Most Masculine, Actually and actually the reason we don't see him express attraction to women is because he's so shy actually ignore that he can hookup with Laezel who would not stand for that and is main character trait is confident (and I don't think I've started fights so at least there's that)

I used to not understand the problem with the Astarion fandom but then I came to painful realization he has straight fans who actually seem to hate his canon character

Anyway sorry for all the Bobstarion… gay bpd bitches are gay bpd bitching. You're the best for reading this tho 😭💀💚

I know this feeling very well anon.

You've completely summed it up, he is finally a non-derogatory representation of an effeminate queer man and straight fans burnt his canon to the ground so they can make their dream masculine babyboy shy twink.

God it fucking stings doesn't it? It literally hurts just to think about how much Larian risked by even putting Astarion in the game. A western game at that too where forum after forum are full of incels complaining about women not being inflatable sex objects in their game.

Baldur's gate 2 and 1 never was this inclusive, it was strictly hetro except for the remastered npcs. Astarion by himself probably made them lose half their "old-school" homophonic demographic.

And the fandom takes all of that and makes him another fucking joke of a character? All the people who have never played the game would search up the Astarion tag and get a completely wrong impression of him.

Not once did a character before him made me leave a game because I was disgusted with myself. His storyline and writing is phenomenal because I too objectified him at the start then the game called me out for it in act 3 and it changed my world view so much.

God did you know early access had Gale and Wyll be awkward if a male Tav hits on them? That only Astarion was the always accepting person regardless of gender?

Even now he is still the only male character between the two who openly expresses his interest in men! Who embraces being flamboyant and doesn't try to fit into a narrative.

I completely understand anon, and I know how much bpd and autism highlights these feelings and make them dig like nails at your brain. Yes I have them too. And I'm glad you feel comfortable enough to share your thoughts with me.

It must be more frustrating for you tho, for liking Astarion and being lumped in with the rest of his weird fans without your consent. You can't even filter their posts out because they treat their takes as "normal" and how it's not them belittling a queer character no! They're just being "wholesome"

Fuck the batstarion shit still gets on my nerves. I saw one with a baby bottle feeding him??? It just feels so infantilising because he isn't some cute animal he is a fully grown and matured person. If it's just a kink then sure idc but please tag it at least.

Then they make him "shy" around women. You know why that god awful take was probably born? Because most of his straight fans picked women and went into his romance. So they think that his clumsy personality in act 2 is because they're a woman and he is so used to men.

It's fucking disgusting, Astarion would treat both men and women with the same clumsy romance, all my Tavs were nonbinary and he never treated them differently.

You have every right to feel this way, you have every right to be furious at this. Especially with a character you care about so much.

But people will take advantage of that, people who want to start fights for the sake of fights or drama blogs who are itching to make a callout post. People don't like others poking holes in their logic no matter how good your intentions are.

Homophobia exists, racism too, look at how ignored Wyll is by these supposed fans. Look at how popular Gale x Astarion is than x Wyll because both of them are white.

It's okay to vent and it's okay to feel frustrated and stuck. God knows during some bpd episodes I come very close to deleting this blog bc of the smallest of reasons, so Imagine actually having a valid reason to be mad like you.

Take a step back, fuck those people honestly. Fuck anyone who ever did this shit just for their own self indulgence, who left all the media that panders to straight people and came and took Astarion too just to strip him of all of his traits and put him in the hetro box.

So leave them be, they suck, they're shitty and never willing to listen. Don't waste your frustration on them, it's better to yell at a wall, at least, unlike them, it might reply back with something productive one of those days.

Again, I hope you feel better soon. I genuinely do, these feelings suck beyond words can describe. Do something you like or revisit your favourite works that stay true to Asterion's character. Ground yourself with anything that might help.

Don't feed them or reply to their arguments, please. hopefully, they leave the fandom once the new manufactured tumblr sexyman is released and the Asterion tag.

[thekingofwinterblog]

you know, if there is anything positive to take away from the absolute braindead idea that was Suicide Squad Kill the Justice leage, and the way it destroyed the Arkham setting in such a decisive fashion, its that Rocksteady Studios will hopefully serve as a reminder for other game studios that they can in fact go bankrupt when they decide to destroy their own franchises, and unlike movie universes like Disney Star Wars(which has been propped up by disney money even if every single product after rise of skywalker except the mandalorian, has been an abysmal failure financially), it is much easier for Game Companies and franchises to crash and burn permanently.

Harley executing Arkham Batman feels very much like Joel getting his head caved in with a Gold Club, and just like that game, There is no future for a sequel to either game.

There are two differences between Rocksteady and Naugthy Dog.

Regardless what I and many, many others think about the Game, and the way it cratered in sales very, very quickly once word got out about it's abyssmal story, the game did sell astonishingly well in that first period, more than enough to make their money back and then some. Sure as a long term project it effectively killed any future sales on anything except remakes/remasters of the original, but it made a lot of money for the company.

Suicide Squad will most certainly NOT sell enough to make any kind of similar profits.

The bigger difference though, is that though the future continuation of The Last of us as a Gaming franchise is as dead as Joel, Naughty Dog has other franchises it can fall back on in the long term, most notably Uncharted.

Rocksteady has no such franchises. other than one, single obscure FPS from 2006, The company has no other games whatsoever under its belt other than the Arkham Games.

This was their one, single, golden goose franchise, and like so many others in the last 10 years, they arrogantly decided to torch the franchise with no heed to the consequences, assured that fans would just buy it regardless of quality, assured that they could piss in a glass and call it wine, and everyone would drink it and praise it to the heavens.

They will not.

Rocksteady has just committed, fittingly enough, Suicide, and this game will go down, maybe not the biggest video game disaster in history, but certainly one of the most predictable, and avoidable icebergs ever in the industry.

Hopefully, others will take note once the fallout actually sets in, but probably not. We'll probably see more than a few similar disasters unfold before western video game companies take the hint that people are bloody tired of this abyssmal, predictable, and almost always poorly executed form of "Deconstructive" storytelling plaguing modern western storytelling.

[cthulhubert]

Some more random translation from Japanese thoughts:

Read a few volumes of Frieren: Beyond Journey's End, or in Japanese, Sousou no Frieren. I love looking up the meanings of words in other languages, seeing how they cut up the world in different ways than English. Japanese is especially interesting because it feels like all the kanji lead to a lot of words that are so specific they feel like jargon. "no Frieren" unambiguously glosses as "Frieren's"; but 葬送? "Attending a funeral procession; seeing off the deceased; burial of someone's remains; observing a burial."

Even if we had a word that meant close to the same thing, not sure a translator would've used it. Really upfronts the bittesweet and gloomy aspects of the series, compared to the title in English, huh?

A friend's playing the latest remaster of Final Fantasy VI, and we were talking about the differences between the Woolsey (SNES) and Slattery (GBA, Pixel) translations. While Woolsey made some great choices (especially in Chrono Trigger), he apparently also made quite a number of unambiguous errors, and Slattery kept most of Woolsey's more famous fun lines.

Here's Mato (professional Japanese localizer, been a fan of his blog for forever) on the differences: Legends of Localization.

But we talked about one change he thought was definitely worse:

Slattery has Kefta spamming every arbitrary negative word in English he can think of, but in the original text, Kefka is saying "Chikushou" over and over until he can only say "chiku" repeatedly; it's clear that he's having a meltdown. Not a time for verbosity.

Chikushou is one of the first ten Japanese curse words I learned, but the explanation of what it meant was so unclear I barely recalled it. "Damn it" is JDIC's first choice gloss, and it's probably a good one because it turns out the etymology is religious (ish: Buddhist), and just like how people say "damn" without actually intending to invoke the righteous wrath of God, a Japanese person just says it because they are annoyed. But it was originally an insult towards a person, saying they have been or deserve to be reborn into the Animal Domain, that is, they are lower than a real human, that they are brutish and ruled only by their desires. (This is right after you smack Kefka one, so you can see why he goes there.)

I ended up thinking about the choice of "esper" for the summoned creatures in VI. It's a great word, and I always thought it was very evocative of some kind of magical creature. Maybe just because I played Final Fantasy VI III at a formative age, or maybe because it sounds like vesper or whisper. It's actually from Extra Sensory Perception. Japanese loves its acronyms so "ESP-er" becomes "esper" becomes anybody with psychic powers. But despite that being common lingo, the magic creatures in FFVI were called 幻獣 ("genju", 'phantom beasts'), as they are in every iteration of the series (except VIII which uses GF).

While I was looking around on the final fantasy wiki, I noticed that the word translated as "magitek" is actually not that at all. It was actually "魔導", "mado". I've been chuuni, so I recognized "魔" ("ma", 'magic') off the bat, though not "導", It was interesting that it looks and sounds so similar to "道"; "do" is path or way, it's the kanji they use for the tao, and you might recognize it from "judo" and "kendo". 導 basically means conduct or guidance.

魔 on its own actually means something more like "evil spirit" than "magic", you add 法 (principles/law/system) to get "mahou", which is a very good match for "witchcraft". And 魔道 is in fact "the path of evil". The main reason I mention it is because like chikushou, it has a connection to Japanese Buddhism, which uses "mado" to refer to a netherworld where evil spirits dwell. 魔導 then is something like "leading (evil) spirits", which is a good fit for what magitek does in the game; though it's also generally used for sorcery and black magic.

[thessalian]

Thess vs Not-Really-Shopping

Still reinstalling so, so many games. Probably not all of the games, not right now, but ... some games I thought I’d never touch again. Like, Baldur’s Gate 3. I was going to say I’m not sure why I’m bothering, but ... I guess I know. It’s because it was a gift and it was really expensive and it does have some good qualities and maybe the bug that more or less fucked me over in my last playthrough has been fixed by now. I mean, it’s due for actual release at the end of next month, and the dev notes say they’ve been working really hard to get it done. I’m still leery, but mostly because I really do not like how the companions are written. If this was an actual TTRPG, this is the kind of thing that I would very definitely discuss with people in a session zero, because this amount of antagonistic bullshit is just ... no, for me. You’re a bunch of people in a lot of trouble working towards a common goal, so maybe you should be trying to find a bit more common ground to make the whole experience tolerable instead of leaning into your personal prejudices hard enough to make life really uncomfortable for the good-natured random stranger in your midst? I get they kind of want “dark and edgy”, does Larian, but I don’t think anyone gave them the memo about “sometimes you need some counterpoint to that or it just becomes this endless slog through unrelenting nasty and who actually wants to play that?” I guess some people do, because a lot of people like it a lot more than I do - and in fact like the companions a lot more than I do - but I’ve mostly been warming to the ones who aren’t constantly sniping at everyone, constantly trying to pick a fight, and occasionally threatening to kill the rest of the party. Seriously, if this was a TTRPG, some of this shit would land the entire game on r/rpghorrorstories over on Reddit. Buuuuuuuut my basically-brother bought it for me when it first came out on early access and it was really expensive and I feel like I have to keep trying. So I will keep trying.

(Divinity 2 can go piss up a rope, though; their companions are even worse.)

I’m also installing the Dishonored games. I don’t generally do well with first person, but I’m going to try again anyway. I’ve been running a homebrew Dishonored TTRPG; not having played the actual game feels like a missed opportunity. While those who have played told me I had the vibe remarkably well for someone who’s never touched the games, I still kind of want to try. I mean, not immediately, because between pollen and increased barometric pressure because of one banger of a thunderstorm heading in this direction, my head can’t really take it.

In a similar vein, the Bioshock games. Well, okay, possibly not Bioshock 2, because the idea of playing as a Big Daddy is kind of offputting, but I want to play the original - or maybe more the remastered original. It’s first person and that’s always a bugger in combat for me, not to mention the headaches, but I only want the story and there’s a god mode so it’s fine. That’s generally my way out of “games I struggle with playing”, honestly - it gives me some breathing room to get used to how things work before I get about eighteen different shades of headachy and / or frustrated. Unfortunately that’s not so much an option in games like Dishonored or Assassin’s Creed (I own a few of those too and I’m also reinstalling them, and at least there’s not the first-person bit to worry about), but maybe if I do things like Bioshock and possibly The Outer Worlds (though I recall a bugger of a migraine the last time I tried it; though that was before the new glasses ... except the ‘new’ glasses were a couple of years ago and I probably need my prescription checked again), I’ll get enough feel for first person to give Dishonored a proper try. I mean, going through old files, I have been forcibly reminded that I was something of a beast on the original Overwatch so that should carry over a bit. I mean, sure, I was very careful to take screen breaks between matches in a way that destroys immersion in a story-driven game, but there’s also not the “too many bright lights / bright colours / particle effects” issue with Dishonored and Bioshock that I had in Overwatch. So maybe it’ll balance out?

It’s kind of nice, this. While I’m glancing between the Steam sale and my wishlist and going, “Meeeeeeeeeeeh...” because not sure if I want any of them that much right now, I’m also getting functionally ‘new’ games at my disposal without having to spend anything. Not to mention that it’s the same shopping feel of “Do I want this enough to have it at my disposal right now?” - though in this case it’s “Does the minor annoyance of having to wait to play anything until it’s downloaded outweigh the joy I’ll have in having it at my fingertips?” instead of “Could the money be better spent elsewhere?”, so it’s way less high stakes. Which is honestly all to the good - I am so susceptible to sticker shock it’s not even funny.

Now, of course, it’s deciding which one to play first. I mean, part of my current play time is devoted to my second play through of Wylde Flowers (turned out I did miss an outfit but the dev team was kind enough to point out which one and it was an easy fix so CRAFT ALL THE THINGS achievement huzzah!), but ... so many gaaaaaaames. Though I’m supposed to have a Shenanigans session tonight so I can’t get into anything too ... involved. Though more so than I thought today because I was going to go out and pick up some things but ... pissing it down with rain with incoming thunderstorms, and I can’t hold an umbrella. Even a quick pop to the corner shop is going to be a bit much, never mind “out to the grocery store for basmati rice and more little marshmallows for my hot chocolate”. Though with three servings of lamb dopiaza and aloo gobi after a cooking bonanza last night, the basmati rice may be non-negotiable. Regular old white rice just is not the same, and I’m not paying corner shop prices for basmati; I refuse. The prices the supermarkets are charging are bad enough.

Aaaaaaaand that’s a rant I don’t want to go into so I’m going to go back to looking over my Uninstalled folder (and maybe my Nope folder) and see if there’s anything else I want Right This Second Now. Also check my zinnias because they were looking a little droopy this morning and I want to make sure they perked up after the watering. Yeah, pissing it down with rain and somehow none of it got into my window boxes.

[fulgursmediaanalysisdrama]

After collecting more side quests and items that seemed like side quests but weren't I finished Ikana Castle and moved on to Stone Tower

There's no place for me to progress though, not even using the bunny mask for longer jumps. On the third floor I'm just stuck, I can reach only two platforms neither of which have any buttons or anything to interact with except for one hookshot pillar used to traverse between said platforms. It clearly is the only place to progress though, as the game had the rare instance of directly stating where to progress. And like, you generally being locked out of story relevant areas completely unless you have the tools to advance, and I don't think there be another tool I need other than the song.

What would suck is if I need to call back the plaforms I used to reach the third floor in a specific order in order to build a bridge to the fourth floor

The reason this would suck is that no matter where you fall from on the first or second floor you get send back to the entrance, but now I did get send back to the third floor after being knocked off the hookshot pillar (by something I couldn't see, but I was standing on top of it and all enemies are generally out of reach? There's only a few bats that don't even spot you), so I'd assume that I can always continue on from floor 3. Unless it wants me to manually go back to floor 1, as I can't reach floor 2 from 3.

Unrelated, but I do have sidequests left over that I'm 100% aware of. They have the usual problem of unclear objectives huge time waste by waiting or both. There's a lot of redoing in this, some of which is sped up, but I thought the appeal of this game was resetting cycles and doing things differently to achieve different things.

Not redoing the same things in the same way, with it not even speeding up and getting repetitive/boring (especially since most "challenges" are just annoying, in the sonic locking the player out of having control way, and don't provide any meaningful challenge to interact with in a way that can really be practiced. Everything that can be practiced is boringly trivial once you figure out how the mechanics work, if it wasn't spelled out to you), a number of times only to then time skip/wait and do one or two things before resetting and redoing again.

Sure at some point you have done everything and there's not that many things you need to redo any given thing for but in fact it's really annoying. Like at least make rechallenging the bosses worth something and keep the swamp healthy, the mountain thawed (you'd still get a reward upon replaying if you finish the temple quickly and gain the gold dust, since you don't need the sword for the dungeon), etc etc.

Shit like making me recollect the Zora Eggs because I didn't want to recollect the fairies is garbage btw, but at least more understandable. Now I just wish I had done the band side quest before the dungeon as the new wave bossa nova is permanent at least. What pains me still is that this is a remake and they fixed none of the errors of the first version, the quality of life changes that do exist hurt the immersion more than anything I have listed in this post of my big thread imo.

They were lazy quality of life changes too, bare minimum effort. But this is the way of this company, remakes as nintended. Money good, putting effort for money bad.

It's even more shocking as good remakes are 100% possible (ie a link between worlds), and what I'm asking is in the realm of a remaster. This is a remaster, I shouldn't have been calling it a remake my bad.

Anyways: tears of the kingdom is just a breath of the wild remaster and neither game is particularly good, botw is excusable as an interesting experiment that had good ideas with often poor execution. No one but Nintendo fans was impressed by this open world title, and no one should have been. Totk is an insult and should make it clear that botw wasn't bad because of lack of experience or anything but because of a lack of effort and care. The same bad designs got repeated uncritically even in the face of criticism, the reasons why botw was popular and sold well weren't examined and no growth took place, no improvements were made.

[cooledtured]

Highschool Dungeon Crawlers

JRPGs are a very popular genre nowadays. Whether it be because of people's love of anime or just because hits like Persona 5 made people crave more, their popularity can't be understated. Over the years we have managed to get a variety of amazing games that each offer their own unique experience. And Tokyo Xanadu is no exception to this.

Tokyo Xanadu tells the story of highschooler Tokisoka Kou who lives in the city of Tokyo that's still recovering from a devastating earthquake that happened a decade ago. One on the way back from work he sees classmate Hiiragi Asuka being cornered by some shady men. While trying to help he ends up sucked into a world known as Eclipse and saved by Asuka. Asuka explains to Kou that it is her job to go into Eclipse to take out the monsters there and prevent them from eating people sucked into this world. While initially wanting to keep Kou out of this, once the people close to him are targeted Kou resolves to fight alongside Asuka in order to protect them. Together with Asuka they gather together other people who awaken to their powers in order to prevent any more victims. 

Tokyo Xanadu's gameplay combines dungeon crawling with hack and slash combat. Combat revolves around performing combos on multiple enemies in combination with abilities. As players level up more attacks are unlocked allowing for even possible combos to be unleashed on enemies. Players are also able to switch between a multitude of different characters, each offering their own unique way to play. Whether you want to get in close with the enemy or stay back with long range attacks, you'll be sure to devastate the enemy.

However the thing that truly makes the game unique is its customization capabilities. Each character’s weapon has a core that grants unique effects and sub cores that give other, less powerful effects with level ups granting access to more slots. By swapping out various cores and sub cores it's possible to make wildly different versions of the same character. With this unique customization ability, the possibilities for what you're capable of are endless.

Tokyo Xanadu offers an experience that promises hours of entertainment. With fun combat, an engaging story and even a variety of side content, you won't be able to put the game down once you start. If you are going to pick the game up though, make sure to get the remastered version as that one offers even more content.

Logan Floyd-Mcgee | Writer POP-COOLEDTURED SPECIALIST cooledtured.com |  GROW YOUR COLLECTION

[jamiedotorg]

Day of the Tentacle: Remastered

This review contains spoilers.

Day of the Tentacle was released in 1993 under the name Maniac Mansion II: Day of the Tentacle, a sequel to the 1983 Maniac Mansion. The remastered edition came out in 2016, it was directed and designed by both Dave Grossman and Tim Schafer, of LucasArts.

This game has been on my backlist for a year or two, but I had been told by so many people that I would not regret playing it and I certainly did not. As soon as I booted up this classic I was sucked back in time to my childhood. The graphics were given a serious upgrade, but this nostalgic point and click reminded me of the countless hours I would spend on the library computers playing the Arthur, Blues Clues, and Scooby-Doo doo games online in my little corner. They even give you the option of switching back and forth between the classic and upgraded graphics! That being said, let's talk about how the game works.

This point and click is rather straight forward, with a few to-begin-with confusing adjustments. You play as three main characters, and with some practice you can easily swap between them whenever you desire, exchange items between them as you play, and move between the Hotel/Inn in the past, present and future. The main objective is to stop the tyrannical sentient Tentacles that are trying to end the world! Your character will work to solve item-to-NPC puzzles where they have to make the objects they pick up interact with other characters to do your bidding, and thus change the story moving forward. A great example of this would be Hoagie changing the flag of the United States in the past to resemble a Tentacle, so that Laverne, in the future, can wear it and look like one to get past the Tentacle guards that keep her captive.

While the game is fairly short, it feels long for a point-and-click, and it is worth noting that I would not have played this game to a hundred percent as quickly as it estimated if I was without a walk thru. There is over a hundred items to pick up, lots of rooms in the hotel, and you have to go through it three times, with each character in different time periods with plenty of NPCs to interact with. Without a guide, I would have gotten stuck on the puzzles which are not so obvious, with plenty of random missable achievements to accompany the difficulty of the puzzles and while it is not a long game to have to go back and replay to get that last one you missed when you first played through, it can be hard to remember who picked up what and where, which would make it take longer to revisit some parts of the game.

The characters are a group of ragtag 90s kids, starting with Bernard, your trusty nerd, Laverne, the smart Med student, and Hoagie, the husky Roadie. As previously said, there are a lot of NPCs to interact with, like the founding fathers in the past, the mad scientist and the Weird Ed in the present and the tentacle guards and strange beauty contestants in the future, and of course I can't forget our dead friend Cousin Ed, who turns out to be the most useful mummy character I've ever had the pleasure of spending time with. Each of them is odd on their own but have fun and quirky dialogue and the achievements are even more so, like microwaving a hamster to thaw him out after sticking him in an ice case, and then microwaving him again just for the heck of it! Or asking Laverne to use a fork on a cat because she's hungry, making sure anyone that looks at your achievements list knows exactly what kind of player you are.

Overall, I loved playing through this game, and wasn't left feeling a want for extra content as the pacing was exceptional, and Maniac Mansion is included as a mini-game. It took me around 4 and a half hours to complete for a total of 1,000 Gamerscore.

Day of the Tentacle is available to purchase for $14.99 on Steam, XBOX, PlayStation 4 & 5, and iOS, and free with XBOX Gamepass.

This has been an honest and free review from someone who played the game and enjoyed it! Give the developers some love and let them know what you thought if you've played/watched a playthrough of this classic.

Steam.com Trueachievements.com Imdb.com

[twincanine]

i really like categorization questions like this ("is a hotdog a sandwich" or "define a chair to include all chair and exclude all things that are not chairs") - i think it reveals an interesting gap in the space between ideas and words, and how that gap looks different for everyone. i dont... love how they tend to get extremely aggressive online because like, my view of these is that there can't be a perfect answer in any of these categorization questions, and the insistence that there must genuinely be, without ambiguity, an answer, is a bummer.

that being said, the questions are more interesting if there is a party that takes that absolute position, like BDG does, if only so that the discussion can lob exceptions to the rule in a way that reveals the ambiguity underneath, "behold, a man!" style.

My Favorite Exception Answers, From the Above Poll, Ranked

5. Jeopardy

this is like, i think a traditional gotcha in a space like this. it's a trivia game that uses video screens that could easily be a big bulletin board. but also, it's broadcast video. it is a video of a game. video game.

(poll respondents seem to say no, but its not unanimous)

4. 3 Versions of Chess, but especially Chess.com (4 if you include Clubhouse Games)

i think the Wordle question does an interesting job of this, but the versions of Chess require a bit of introspection - most folks would say chess pieces on a table are not a video game, and the wii version is very hard to say isn't, but the Chess.com lives in that beautiful uncomfortable space between.

(the respondents of this poll do not think it's ambiguous - theyre reporting so far that Chess.com is a video game.

3. Mario Bros, Game and Watch

i love that this ties into Jan Misali's other big polls, as a Mario Game, but the way that it subverts the question here is that the original Game and Watches did not have video screens, despite functioning similarly to video games. if it quacks like a duck, etc. i remember playing a remaster of this for the gameboy - game mechanically, thats identical, and id expect it to be a lot less controversial, but is the original a VIDEO game?

(an overwhelming majority of 380 respondents so far say yes)

2. Homestuck

i like this one as a "how much of the whole has to be a game?" question. i have not watched and/or played Bandersnatch (though i can see it contrasted against choose your own adventure books and dvd and Dragon's Lair here - surprised not to see a Telltale game), but i think both also contrast against the cinematics and cutscenes in other video games. we accept that some amount of a game is allowed to be something else, a book or a movie, but is Homestuck's flash game components enough to make it a videogame?

(as of time of writing, the majority of 363 people think it is not - i do!)

1. Polybius

this doesnt exist. if it did exist, it would, i believe, pretty uncontroversially be a video game. but it doesnt exist. so it's not anything but a story and an idea. but its a story and an idea of a video game.

(time of writing, nearly 60% of 371 respondents say yes, an idea of a video game is a video game)

i really like @innuendostudios 's discussion of qualia and descriptive, suggestive defintions like the roguelike defintion in this video, and i do think its fun to find where we all draw those lines intuitively.

not planning on doing anything with this, just thought it would be fun to make a poll for it! here's the results summary page, for those who are curious.

[crqstalite]

annnd right back to me3. hello dee.

(also hi kaidan)

[spinningbuster98]

The Metroid Prime Remaster

Welp! I played it! So here’s my personal thoughts

I think everyone knows by this point that this is mostly a face lift of the OG, meaning that structurally it’s the same game. This means that any issue you might have had before will still be there, like the Artifact Collecting. Personally I’m fine with this, as the game is very honest with what it is, it’s not a Remake.

However there are a few new options, such as settings for people who are Color Blind, the option to turn on or off the Pal Narrator, and of course at least 4 different control options: Dual Stick, Gyro, Classic and Hybrid (a mix between Classic and Gyro). I’ve only tried out Classic since that’s the one I’m most familiar with, and it’s....mostly fine. I immediately noticed that movement felt looser than in the OG, causing me to “slip around” and make inprecise jumps. Thankfully you can adjust the sensitivity in the options so I was able to recreate the feel of the OG controls much better, though they’re still not 100% precise, around 90% on the way there.

I’ve seen people whining about the Y axis controls being reversed....and yeah they are....but there’s an option to revert them back guys XD

As some have already pointed out there is a sort of delay with the charge shot, if you keep holding the button you will first shoot a couple of shots before actually charging (with the exception of the Ice Beam). This wasn’t the end of the world and it’s relatively minor but I still hope they patch this

But enough about this, we all know what we REALLY wanna talk about here

The graphics

This is honestly the best looking Switch game I’ve seen, it genuinely looks like a PS4 title. Yeah some textures are pretty simple when you look at them up close, and you can sometimes tell that this is actually a 2002 game, but it’s still goddamn impressive, especially since it runs at a consistent 60 FPS, no drops whatsoever!

However I wanted to adress something that I’ve only seen few people talk about. Yeah the game is really pretty, but does it preserve the original’s atmosphere?

Because here’s the thing: remasters and remakes often have the bad habit of screwing up the OG’s aesthetics in an attempt at making the game look prettier, usually by messing with the lighting. Some famous examples being Sonic Adventure DX with its brighter-than-the-sun lighting and plastic characters, or the 3DS remasters of Ocarina of Time and Majora’s Mask.

Prime Remastered is generally more colorful than the original, and brighter also. And yes I do believe there are a couple of instances where this messes up a little the look of some parts of the game.

An example being Flaahgra, who is now too brightly clolored for a corrupted, poison producing monster plant, or the Hive Mecha Room, whose green fog effect is too saturated. Anothet example are the leaves throughout the Chozo Ruins: in the OG they were a dull red color, indicating they were rotting, but here they’re bright orange.

However I believe the game is mostly careful in preserving the original’s atmosphere.

The Tallon Overworld certainly emphasizes its greens, giving its natural setting a stronger feel, but on the whole the picture is still “greyed out” due to the overall rainy atmosphere, just like in the original.

The brighter oranges of Magmoor Caverns emphasize its “hotness” pretty well.

The Phazon Mines are still pretty dark looking and now Phazon is more bioluminescent than ever, emphasizing the area’s neon-like atmosphere

Phendrana was mostly unchanged from the original in regards to lighting I found.

Perhaps the areas that received the biggest makeovers were the Space Pirates’ labs and frigate: the areas are now brimming with a new cool-blue color pallette generated by all the computer screens and force fields, though they’re still quite dreary looking at points. I’m of two minds here: on the one hand it sorta changes the OG’s atmosphere quite extensively here, but on the other it replaces it with something that is still pretty effective in a way, as i think this serves to emphasize the areas’ more cold and sterile feel (they are laboratories where amoral genetic experiments are being performed after all), and naturally their Sci-Fi flavor.

In general I’d say the game knows when to crank down the brightness, sometimes even more so than the original

The room with the dead parasite queen on the Frigate is noticebly darker here, making it moodier, and the room with the Omega Pirate is generally darker, letting you mostly see its phazon spots, and with the area lighting up in response to attacks

I genuinely believe these two instances (and others) add to the OGs atmosphere!

However even the original had many instances when in wanted to be more bright and colorful, to emphasize the beauty of its locales, and the remaster does an absolutely outstanding job here, with completely new assets, particle effects galore, and plenty of “light beams coming from the sky” kind of shots giving places like the outdoors of the Chozo Ruins, Phendrana, and especially the Underwater Frigate (which made my jaw drop) an almost heavenly feel!

When it comes to graphical details many from the OG’s Gamecube release are kept and even enhanced, like the after effects of each beam’s charge shot, water droplet that not only fall on your visor and arm cannon but actually trail downwards or upwards depending on the curvature.

In the original there were some jet streams that didn’t fog up your visor, like the ones in the depressurization room on the Frigate, but they do now.

The Space Pirates on the Frigate have missing chuncks of flesh and are bleeding (though for some reason some of the ones you find already dead don’t have this feature, weird)

Not only can you sometimes see flashes of Samus’ face, but for a split second she will be looking at whatever direction you’re aiming at

The Ice Beam doesn’t register on the Thermal Visor, but the Plasma Beam appears bright yellow

The lava in Magmoor produces heat waves

When you enter a bright area from a dark one the brightness level will initially be higher before being toned down, to give the idea that your eyes are adjusting

There’s a lot more here. However there are also some details missing strangely enough

Your beam shots don’t light up hallways anymore

Some light effects are missing

The mirrors in the Chozo ruins don’t reflect your image anymore (though they do reflect thye rest of the room which is something the OG didn’t do)

The scar on Tallon IV visible at the beginning is far smaller for some reason

In the room with the two big broken test tubes that used to contain two Parasite Queens the left one used to be covered in lots of green slime that formed a trail leading to a big open vent, indicating that that’s where the Queen you fight came from. Here there’s far less green slime giving a much less clear visual message

While you can still see Samus’ arm with the X-Ray Visor you can no longer see its blackened silouhette for a split second when switching beams

There’s more, and it’s a shame but for the most part I’d say the original’s sense for attention to detail is kept and even enhanced.

Some enemies have also received some slight redesigns which....are not bad but I tend to prefer the originals, like the adult Sheegoths having “angry looking eyes”, or Meta Ridley being slightly more organic. They’re minimal, so I don’t have any big issues.

For some reason on Normal Hive Mecha shoots the same number of Wasps for each phase, only on Hard does it correctly mimick its original behaviour which is weird.

 The Log Book entry for the Metroids has been modified to specify that they’re TALLON Metroid, a new variant born from Phazon Mutation, which is a nice touch.

The Wasp Hive on the ceiling of the room with the Incinerator Dron is now scannable, nice.

So is this the definitive version of Prime? Depends

The multiple control options and the better graphics are enough for most people. I think this is probably the best version to date overall though still not 100% definitive, due to those litle snags regarding the controls and those few instances where the atmosphere is not quite up to snuff with the original, and the missing effects.

Still this is overall one of the best remasters I’ve seen, especially in an industry where the word remaster is often synonimous with “half assed”. There was lots of genuine love and effort put into this and for this it should absolutely be commended.

Please give us Prime 2 and 3 as well Nintendo, you dirty money goblins! Releasing the Trilogy most likely one game at a time when stuff like the Crash Nsane Trilogy exists...

Also no Fusion Suit, can’t wait for the DLC :^)