#it is an incredibly good fangame but it Is a fan game

[the-meme-monarch]

ut fangames as of late have had a lot of heart to them and they deserve all the praise they get but idk something makes me really defensive when people start saying "it's even Better than the game it's based on" like undertale get behind me

[chrisgraves09]

Hey, have another one of my ramble posts cause I just wanna get this off my chest.

When I first got into FNaF when the fourth game released, I was growing interested into the community and what it was like. That’s when I started lurking both Tumblr & Reddit in late 2016 during Christmas time. That’s when I getting into drawing. By then in early to mid 2017, I began joining the Five Nights at Freddy’s subreddit and Discord server and just… wow, seeing an entire community full of great people showing their support and love to this franchise is just incredible.

I began getting involved with showing off my drawing and art of the FNaF characters and lemme tell you, it was really nice. So nice that it was when I began my Freddit Users Drawing series where I would draw almost every single member in the Five Nights at Freddy’s subreddit. I didn’t even wanted attention for that alone. I was just showing my appreciation and my thanks for being a part of the Five Nights at Freddy’s community. From 2017-early 2020 I’ll say were my best years of being in the FNaF community. Being able to be excited for new game entries, books, merchandise with the community was so good that I wish I could experience that phase once again.

But then in mid 2020, I started getting inactive on Reddit and only focusing on Discord. This ain’t a problem in of itself mostly because I was focusing on the FNaF fangames that were released like Five Nights at Sonic’s, Project Readjusted (😵‍💫), and many others. Not to mention my high school graduation happening. By then, Twitter took over and I have only lurked there until many years later.

2021 came in and the first FNaF related controversy started and it struck a blow in my head. People started fighting, distancing themselves from the franchise, and I’m just sitting there if it’ll affect me in someway. Thankfully (for the moment) it didn’t and I continue making FNaF art like usual. Then 2022 came up with the Pear tree, striking another blow to my heart. And THEN 2023 came up with there being several people being not so good people and the whole FNaF + situation, making me question more and more if this’ll become an ongoing issue. And what do you know it? This year has the goddamn Talbert Files thing happening and probably more coming. And this is supposed to be FNaF’s 10 year anniversary. Everyone is becoming increasingly pissed, fighting with one another, and even leaving the franchise as a whole.

I said it before on Twitter and I’ll say it here: This community has devolved into just bitching around for the sake of bitching around and both Twitter and Reddit are especially the case. FNaFTwitter is by far the most miserable side of the community and I mean it. The Freddit community has become so toxic that I’m becoming so ashamed to be apart of it now. It’s not the same Freddit I used to know. I was originally gonna do a third Freddit Users Drawing series last year to remind me of the good old days. But it seems like that ain’t happening anymore. This is just depressing to look at…

All of this controversy, drama, and turmoil this fanbase endured ever since 2021 has unfortunately changed my perspective, mood, and feelings toward any FNaF “fan” that chooses to be an asshole. It’s gotten to the point where I wanna dissociate myself from the community. Specifically FNaFTwitter, Freddit, and even several Discord servers. I’ve became conflicted day by day and week by week and if I really want to stay in this dumpster fire of a community and deal with this bullshit mess or maybe leave everything behind and go on my own terms. I really don’t know what to do. Maybe time will tell in the future, who knows?

Ok, I’m done rambling for now.

[slightly-gay-pogohammer]

At least with a game that never comes out, you can't be disappointed by it's quality.

my biggest counterpoint is that. yea a bad disappointing game is, technically speaking, of course bad - it comes with bad writing, bad characterization, and also most of the time you have to pay for it

but. here's the kicker. even in shitty ass games that i hated, i could find something i actually liked!!! as much as i despise thieves in time, i have the second chapter very enjoyable, for example, and while yiik is a poorly thought game with abysmal writing i do find a few characters and OST pretty damn good, and going with fangames idk if any touhou fan ever played dream logical world but it's bad in possibly anything except some INCREDIBLY creative spellcard ideas with the fifth boss that i'd love to see used again!! and if anything, you have plenty of people to complain with!!! fun!!!!!!!!!

but when a game is just cancelled. what is there :( there are people in the tags that say that if a game is cancelled we could still get it in the future so it's good but. no we don't. we won't get alice asylum, because american mcgee said that having the game cancelled completely ruined the idea of game developing for him; we won't get the raving rabbids prototype, because we already got a raving rabbids game; we won't get the tomb raider angel of darkness trilogy because the devs were rushed and the first game flopped

like yea having a shitty game is more frustrating but not having one to begin with is way more crushing to me :(

[zecoritheweirdone]

SO. UNDERHERO.

When i first heard you talking about this game, i was still kinda in undertale recovery so i thought jt was an undertale fangame but in a more fantasy classic rpg-style

Very clearly i was dead wrong lmao

I genuinely like the premise of a young mook killing the hero and taking their place, and the artstyle made it REALLY appealing to me! Then once i learned it was adjacent to the mario and luigi rpgs i was pretty excited!

The world is such a fun place, with the villain hq being like an office building and the other worlds are cool in their own way, especially the ghost world but I'm incredibly biased lmao. The characters are fun, too! Cereza especially was great, and of course i too love puzzleman lol

The gameplay is fun! The battle system is unique and interesting while still having a good ol rpg kick to it, and i love that! Though admittedly it feels weird that the game is so low level-oriented, i feel super weird about beating the final boss at level 16 lol

The music... had its ups and downs for me. Some songs were genuinely amazing, but others just kinda felt boring

Of course, the game itself isnt perfect. Sometimes it can feel kinda bland, they really didn't try with the pause screen and im not the biggest fan of the ui (the mask kid's mask staring at me in the upper left corner is... unsettling, imo), and i never really got over how floaty and mildly sluggish the game could be. Also the physics were weird. Also i don't really like world 3 all that much lol

But overall this feels like that game that you look at the box art of while at toys r us, beg your parents to get it for you, they oblige, and you adore it and wanna talk about it to your friends and they have no idea what you're talking about, and you feel alone in loving it until you go online and either find a bustling fan community or find out a big youtuber made a video on it and new fans are entering the series nonstop

....was that a long winded analogy? Lol

Anyways i can totally see why you love this game and while i don't think it'll effect my brain as much as it did yours, i had a great time with it and definitely wanna reccomend it to friends and stuff!

YEAHHHH !!! tho it may have had some ups and downs,, i’m glad that you ended up enjoying it overall!!!!

also: yeah, i get that 😔,,, i also ended up trying to reload my save to see if there was anything else, but- alas.

apparently the devs are thinkin ‘bout making a sequel some time in the future, though! after they finish the current game they’re now workin on, that is,,,

[systemrestart]

Remi's 2023 favorites!!

I used to do this on twitter but given what's happened to that site, I'm doing it over here this year! This was a brutal year for me MH wise, but at least I was introduced to some good stuff.

List under the cut

Starting off strong with my favorite thing of the whole year......

[FAVORITE VISUAL NOVEL]

Heaven Will Be Mine

Worst Girl Games has done it again. I am so glad I finally read this. Very few pieces of media have ever so perfectly captured what it means to feel 'inhuman', but still trapped by Earth's, humanity's, "gravity". The relationships between the 3 girls, and the circumstances that shaped them, put beautifully to the page feelings I know many other queer people share. There is nothing else like this out there.

[FAVORITE VIDEO GAME]

Mystia's Izakaya

Mystia's Izakaya is truly THE Touhou fangame to play. So many fun characters to get to know and serve food to, really great restaurant simulator with minor rhythm game elements, gorgeous pixel art in both character portraits and environment, so many challenges to try and outfits/music/items to unlock......!! And there's still more DLC coming out.

The love and effort put into this game is astonishing, and I am so glad I gave it a shot despite being nervous about restaurant sims. Highly recommend, even to non-Touhou fans!!!!

[FAVORITE SONG]

Psi

The lyrics seem to be a criticism of the extreme pace of 'content consumption' online nowadays, which I have mixed feelings on, but regardless, the song itself is absolutely killer. Particularly the verses. The effects with the TVs during the second verse are also great, capture the chaotic and mildly ominous energy of the song extremely well. This is definitely the song I listened to the most this year

[FAVORITE MOVIE]

Glass Onion

Watched this at the very beginning of the year. One of the best live-action movies I've seen in a long time, genuinely brilliant. Really hoping for more Knives Out films, they've knocked it out of the park so far. I also think this one and the first Knives Out will be very rewarding to revisit

[FAVORITE ANIME/SHOW]

I didn't watch anything this year. whoops

[FAVORITE MANGA]

Until I Love Myself

Most of the books and manga I read this year were autobiographical/semi-autobiographical, and this was one of my favorites. This is about a nonbinary mangaka dealing with sexual harassment as a editing job, and the subsequent struggles they have with PTSD, navigating life in the wake of the #MeToo Movement, and their difficult feelings on their gender and body, and how those things affect how others treat/see them. Reflected a lot of my own feelings and thoughts on these things, and very insightful. Can be a rough read at time, but I highly, highly recommend it.

[FAVORITE BOOK]

Stone Butch Blues

Absolutely life-changing read. It is extreme heavy, deals in police violence (including sexual violence inflicted upon LGBT people), labour rights and protests, severe discrimination based on gender and presentation, extreme poverty in part due to said discrimination, difficult and multifaceted relationships between queer women and lesbians......... there is a lot here. It is raw, and real, and while there is agonizing hardship here, there is also incredible, deep love, for the community that keeps up afloat, keeps us going. Please, if you can stomach the content, I beg of you all to read Stone Butch Blues if you haven't.

..... aaaand that's it I think!! Happy new year y'all!

[ilaiyayaya]

The Anti-Big Oof, Some May Even Say "The Small Foo"

Just played The Murder of Sonic the Hedgehog today, a dumb, goofy little visual novel made for April Fool's Day a few months ago. It's really cute, it took me waaaay longer to get to it than I expected, I originally was going to read it the day it released, but uhhh i forgor💀 but now that I have actually finally read it, it's so good and was definitely worth reading. It's not very long, and there's not a ton to it, but it was created by a team of really dedicated Sonic fans including a few of the writers for the IDW comics and it is so incredibly obvious, it is absolutely filled with obscure little references to the series as a whole that only weird obsessive freaks like me would ever even notice. The number of times I went "WAOW✨" was immeasurable, the Knuckles OVA hat, "Big Oof" (classic), I think they even indirectly referenced the fucking Shadow pissing on Eggman's wife video, not 100% sure on that tho, may just be reading into it too much, but in my headcanon they're 100% referencing Shadow pissing on Eggman's wife frfr. It's crazy how the writing teams for every Sonic related thing now, the games, the comics, even the social media is just made up of a bunch people that are just as obsessed with Sonic as even the most insane fans, like the last 10 years of Sonic media has pretty much just been a collection of officially licensed fan passion projects and I'm all for it. Like obviously there's been the typical corporate made stuff that was obviously just rushed out for money and had no love behind it too, just like any franchise, but like, I'm not here to talk about that, I don't want to talk about that, I'm here to talk about PURE, RAW, UNFILTERED PASSION AND HOW FUCKING COOL IT IS!!!

The Sonic community in general is just insane in how passionate they are, like what other community has multiple entire expos dedicated to fangames, that have been recognized by major members of the official Sonic development team? (If you can't tell I am very excited for SAGE and SHC, the next 2 months are gonna be so pog >:)).

It's so exceptionally fun experiencing any kind of work in general that's so clearly made with a ton of passion put into it. Like art that you can just sense the passion oozing out of has got to be like, peak art, always, no matter the actual thing itself, if it's been made with a ton of love, it's peak, no question. It's why there's a lot of specific artists and communities that I just resonate with so hard, like when an artist or community just loves what they make, that's just like, so cool this is my excuse to mention Trigger/Gainax I love Trinax I love it when they have to make the final episode of an anime black and white and at 2fps not only for stylistic reasons but because they just HAD to put their entire budget into the 2 minute big robot scene like how could they resist and I mean this entirely unironically I fucking LOVE that they know exactly where their talents and passions lie and are willing to put everything into what they want to make at the expense of other parts that they don't want to make. Remember when in Promare Galo starts ranting about like ancient firefighters or some shit in the middle of a fight and it was basically just a stand-in for the writers wanting to rant about ancient firefighters or some shit? yea, that was cool. Remember when in Promare they kis-

Also I don't know where to put this but I want to say it because I thought of it, but references aren't just cool because you get the reference they're making, references are cool because they can show a clear love of the thing they're referencing, and that's why Sonic is cool ok bye :)

The fact that this game is the 2nd time they've referenced the Peter Griffin death pose in official Sonic media is honestly very concerning.

[wyrmblogging]

My Review of Synthesis, by ANTITHESIS: a Joker/Crow Roleswap Zine

I wasn't paid or asked to write a review of Synthesis, but I've been seeing a couple mentions of it here and there, so I figured I'd do a write-up of my thoughts!

What is Synthesis? Synthesis is a fan-made visual novel based off of and inspired by Persona 5 made for the ANTITHESIS zine. In it, Goro Akechi is the leader of the Phantom Thieves, and Akira Kurusu/Ren Amimaya is the "Detective Prince." The plot starts a few days before the Phantom Thieves steal Okumura's treasure, and there are four different endings to the game, with 2+ hours of gameplay.

My Thoughts This was the first visual novel i've ever played, and I feel that Synthesis was incredibly well put together. There were no glitches I ran into (until one at the very end, which I will talk about later) and the character art for Joker and Crow, in particular, were both beautiful, imo.

It took me around 2.5 hours to get all four endings, but I'll admit, I was speeding a bit to get the True Ending. (I did also get bad ending #2 twice, so...)

All in all, I don't think Synthesis would necessarily be disappointing to you unless you're expecting Crow and Joker to have sex on screen. Spoiler alert: they kiss once, and nothing more.

There's a bit of subtext surrounding the pressure that is put on Joker to always have a perfect facade up in public, specifically surrounding any relationships he has, and there is a small mention of Joker hypothetically getting outed. (as a note on this: the proceeds from ANTITHESIS are, in part, going to an LGBTQ+ charity, so i think it is a bit more understandable that there is some additional focus on something like that) I do think that the mentions of Joker's need to have a positive public facade is quite interesting, especially considering that he's in Crow's normal role for this game. No, this definitely does not make me want to write a character study on Crow. Anyways.

Good Things to note!! - I felt that everyone was in character, and Joker and Crow in particular felt in character considering the roleswap. - save and load features in the game work perfectly aside from one thing i'll note later - you can toggle between Joker's name being Ren Amimaya and Akira Kurusu - if you're replaying the game for a certain ending, you can skip all previously read dialogue until you reach the next choice to make - JOKER HAS THE FUNNIEST LITTLE METAVERSE OUTFIT HE LOOKS LIKE A JESTER I LOVE IT - goro ponytail. that is all. - aside from the language and some mentions of suicide (which is expected, it's Persona 5) Synthesis is entirely SFW! - goro says fuck

Things I felt weren't perfect - although we get some info on Joker and Crow's backstories in this AU, i wish there was more info! I want to know how Joker ended up working for Shido, and I also wanna know more about how Crow's backstory in general!! - I understand wanting to only have sprites for the main characters, but it was a bit unsettling to have dialogue options for a character that seemingly doesn't exist. (pretty sure that's common in visual novels tho,,, so maybe i just need to get used to it) - there's no full-body shot of Crow's outfit for this AU in the game, only a chest-up view - you can only get the true ending after you've gotten a bad ended and unlocked the New Game+ option, which makes sense from a coding standpoint (there are special dialogue options you Cannot Choose if you're not in the New Game+ option) is a little frustrating because you then need to replay the entire game. so thank god for the skip dialogue feature. - there is one glitch with the save/load feature that is specifically with the New Game+ option: you can't really save and load it. If you do, it makes it impossible to get the true ending, so if you're after that ending, you either need to sit there for ~2 hours for a full playthrough or use the dialogue skip option

Last Thoughts I'll be the first to admit that Synthesis probably isn't the most groundbreaking fangame out there, but I still find it incredibly charming and entertaining! I loved seeing the new outfits that Joker and Crow both had and I really did enjoy trying to get all the endings! Some of the dialogue near the end genuinely had me shocked (in a good way) and finally getting the true ending was SO SATISFYING.

The ANTITHESIS zine will have leftovers for sale next week (7/22/2022-8/5/2022) with proceeds going to an LGBTQ+ charity, and you can download Synthesis here if you're interested in playing!

[a-girl-called-bob]

I know everyone has their ‘nintendo franchises that are never coming back and it’s a fucking travesty’ list and i know that fangames and spiritual successors do exist but I still feel the need to scream about this so here’s my personal list of nintendo ips that I’ll nut if they ever decide to revisit

panel de pon/puzzle league - this is the biggest one for me personally, like it is such an ideal fucking form of the block puzzle genre that it is a crime that nobody else can just make one of those legally.  the version of it that they perfected by about the gbc-era pokemon puzzle challenge should just have been rereleased as-is on every nintendo system like so many of their other games like i would actualy have paid 40/60/whatever dollars for each one every single time like tetris or puyo puyo or fucking any of the other million franchises that get incremental updates every three years or so.  the ds game was an incredible stride forward too like the touch controls are such a natural fit for the style of puzzle game but because they directed intsys to completely file off the personality of the game it didn’t sell well and now the franchise is dead.  it makes me SO MAD

chibi robo - dude when i first read the plot summary for the fan translation of the DS game (the sequel, usually called “Clean Sweep” due to the patch name but its actual name is much longer) I cried real tears.  You’re just a li’l robot guy!  You go around this poor family’s house and do your li’l chores and make them happy!  And then I played it and it was at first much less emotional than I felt reading the summary and much weirder and goofier than i expected and then i played it some more and the emotions came back and hit me like a fucking truck.  The original on gamecube is really good too but the DS sequel (which takes place in the next generation like Jenny the kid from the first game is the mom in the sequel which!  wow!  Jenny Sanderson Autistic Icon with the Frog Outfit who Only Speaks In Ribbits becomes Single Mom living a hard but happy life with her son she had out of wedlock!  THIS IS SO FUCKING GOOD WHY DON’T MORE PEOPLE KNOW ABOUT THIS (yes the stuff with the literal devil would not play to an american audience in the mid 2000s i know BUT STILL)).  Nintendo basically torched the franchise by trying to go all in on Chibi Robo as a cute li’l mascot robot guy instead of doubling down on the weird parody of 2000s Americana and Toy-Story adjacent lore they had going on and it’s SO.  AGGREVATING.

earthbound - you already know what it is but like, this one I actually get it.  Itoi told the stories he wanted to tell, it’s over, he doesn’t want to make any more, and we should respect that.  BUT.  Tell me a full remake in the style of Link’s Awakening with the toy-like aesthetics but leaning heavier on the claymation models used in the promo material wouldn’t do goddamn gangbusters.  Seriously.  Is it pandering?  YES.  Would I drop 60 bucks on it without thinking for more than 0.2 seconds?  YES.

Elite Beat Agents/Ouendan - I’m actually okay with Nintendo not revisiting this franchise for a few reasons - the DS was really the ideal vehicle for it, the OSU fan community is wild and vibrant even if I don’t go there, and it’s just not the same playing with fingers or a mouse as it is with the stylus.  However.  They could make a just dance knockoff using the joycons to track hand positions and put their funky guys in suits up on screen and I’d probably still go ‘y’know what for the price of their B-tier catalogue games? I’ll give it a shot’

Kid Icarus - I’m not even going to go into this one in full detail we both know we’re not getting another one until 2037

Punch Out!! - actually I think we can leave this one behind it’s, uh, kind of driven by cultural caricatures.  the boxing is good and seeing someone speedrun one of these blindfolded fucking rules but.  there’s an irishman named Aran Ryan.  maybe we should just keep moving.

Warioware - I’ve recently been playing through Warioland 2 and I can confidently say that I could write an essay and record it on video about how this game’s level design is ahead of its time.  Nintendo’s platformer repertoire includes sprinklings of puzzle elements here and there, but more recently they’re all pretty firmly in the realm of ‘skill-based’ platforming with puzzle elements primarily as a gate to accessing bonus materials or collectibles.  Warioland is the reverse of this - in some cases you literally cannot fuck up too terribly, as Wario is too powerful to die.  There’s some occasional tedium (Warioland 2 in particular is structured such that you can’t get hit by bosses even once or you have to start over, which Sucks Very Much) but it’s really a design philosophy that I think is worth revisiting.

Freshly Picked Tingle’s Rosy Rupeeland - no I think we’re done here

[niadevbutreal]

Undertale Yellow has no business being this good while being an Undertale fangame, they legit just released a fanmade Undertale prequel. Not only does it have really well written and designed OCs when usually even one half well written OC in a fangame is like striking gold in the Arctic (I think Martlet is now my favourite Undertale character period, she's a total birdbrain but she's doing her best ok, and adorable while doing it) that match the themes and tone of the original, but there's only like three canon characters included and none of them are Sans. Hell he's not even referenced, this game deserves a reward for making an Undertale fangame without Sans alone, I thought that was impossible. Plus, the soundtrack slaps almost as hard as the original (it's how I found out about the game lol, rare YT recommendations W, haven't even watched anything UT related in years).

The original is still overall a better game, some of Yellow's attack controls are janky (looking at you Axis and El Bailador), some of the attacks can make you wish you were playing Shin Megami Tensei 3 for how bullshit RNG can make them (a certain final boss' wall but with one gap in them attack can go fuck itself for all the times the next one spawns with the gap near the top while I'm at the bottom on the side I am on), and spoilerless Undertale hits harder in the feels when it counts, but Yellow isn't all that far behind, which is fucking incredible given Undertale is still one of the best games ever made.

Still not going to interact with the fandom because no thank you (I don't count playing a fangame as interacting with the fandom), I am perfectly capable of enjoying something without interacting with its fans, but I can appreciate a damn good fangame when I play one.

[hashashafashasha]

i'm sure you've heard this a hundred times but to the one person who hasn't PLAY DELTATRAVELER PLAY IT NOW ITS AWESOME ITS AMAZING MY ONLY COMPLAINT IS THAT THE MUSIC ISN'T INCREDIBLE BUT OTHER THAN THAT ITS GREAT AND ALL THE SPRITEWORK IS GREAT AND ALL THE STORY IS GREAT AND IT HAS EVERYTHING YOU COULD EVER WANT FROM A UTDR FANGAME AND WON'T BE A HUGE DISSAPOINTMENT LIKE SOME OTHER FANGAMES I COULD MENTION AND EVEN THOUGH I'M NOT A HUGE FAN OF UNDERFELL ITS REALLY GOOD AND IF YOU LIKE DELTARUNE YOU'LL LOVE IT I PROMISE AND I'M SORRY FOR PUTTING THIS ON YOUR DASH BUT YOU HAVE TO PLAY IT.

play it please its really good and it'll really improve you and even if you think you've already played it an update came out recently so play it now please thankyou sorry you're welcome

[freakish-hazzard]

So I've heard multiple people say they think Spark The Electric Jester is a cash grab-y game meant to capitalize off the popularity of Sonic. This is a sentiment that Really Really annoys me because of how uninformed it is.

I can see why such an opinion would form. Its taking a lot of notes of inspiration from Sonic games, like a lot, and that can come off as trying to entice Sonic fans to buy it.

However, I think the difference between Spark and a game thats trying to copy Sonic for money, is that Spark brings many new ideas to the table alongside the Sonic stuff, while also being heavily inspired by kirby with the jester powers in the 1st and 2nd games. It has a unique identity while also wearing its inspiration on its sleeves.

It's also important to note that games heavily inspired by Sonic are not a new thing. Sonic fan games have been around since the 90s and there are a LOT of sonic fangames, and freedom planet, an original game that wears its inspiration from sonic on its sleeve, was released in 2014. There is a reason we have SAGE EXPO lol

Spark has quickly become one of my favorite franchises of all time, it is incredibly charming, the controls are so fucking fun to just use, the world is so interesting, the character designs are cool, and the music goes SO hard. And while the games do have some rough spots, overall its one of my favorite series of all time.

So it sucks even more when people spread misinformation about it being a bad cash grab of a game, because its blatantly not true. Not to mention its made by mostly one person, and he deserves support for his games that he puts time, effort, and money into.

Play the game, and then share your opinions on it, because a half baked, uninformed, and unnecessarily hostile opinion can be harmful to open discussion as well as the games reputation because people will think you've played the game. As for people reading reviews of media and games, remember to form your own opinions on the matter rather than believing just what someone else says, engage with that goddamn media!

Also i don't think those people even played spark tbh lol. I think if they did and still thought it was a cash grab, spark 1 wouldnt have 93% on steam, spark 2 wouldnt have 91% on steam, and spark 3 wouldnt have 97% on steam.

GO PLAY SPARK ITS REALLY GOOD!!

[captainfightingflower]

The Tee K.O. 2 avatars are so unfathomably ugly to the point where it feels like everyone’s praising them ironically.

How do people find the Tee K.O. 2 avatars CUTE?!? Are we looking at the same bunch of avatars?? I’ve never seen a piece of official media adapt character designs this fucking ATROCIOUSLY in my life! They’re violently inaccurate, incredibly uncanny, and don’t even respect their origin game’s source material. It feels like reading the reviews for the Mulan remake with how disjointed the praises are to the actual product. Did you guys actually SEE the avatars, or are you just saying that you did so Jackbox Games can get your precious games on time that you keep pestering them to release immediately?

I’ve seen people compair this to Super Smash Brothers, and that’s probably the most brutal insult i’ve ever seen someone hurl at that franchise. That game respects each characters, they adapt each character to perfection, being in that game is a thing of pride. The only one i’d really complain is inaccurate to their source material is Samus, but that’s it! Tee K.O. 2 is a fucking travesty where everybody looks like they were drawn by an amateur artist for their fan game, and i’m pretty sure if any of my characters were represented in a professional project like how Tee K.O. 2 did it; i’d instantly wanna dissociate from the entire thing all together!

This entire pack is just an officially licensed fangame, that’s it, you can not convince my brain that this is anything but a fangame that just so happens to be published by Jackbox Games. I’m honestly starting to believe that i’m being pranked, because how can anybody in their right mind unironically call these things CUTE?!? That’s what’s fucking getting me. There’s no way people fucking like this, there’s absolutely zero redeeming qualities about their design adaptions and i cannot wrap my brain around anybody genuinely liking these as anything more than a fucking joke.

If you like them: HOW?!?! Tell me, tell Fighting Flower, why do you like these design adaptions?! What’s cute about them?!? What looks good about them??%! WHAT’S EVEN ACCURATE ABOUT THEM?!?! HOW, HOW DO YOU LIKE THEM?!? WHAT’S ALLURING YOU TO THESE AFFRONTS TO GOD?!?!?!?!?!

Nothing against you personally for liking them, i just can’t understand anybody actually liking these frankly terrible designs. I’m more surprised how nobody feels as offended about it as i do. I hate these designs, because at a fundamental level: they’re just bad. Not badly drawn, just bad. You can say you like them, but they aren’t good adaptions of character designs, that’s just the factual truth: they aren’t good. Show this to any professional art teacher and they’d think you were playing a prank on them. It’s practically reaching bootleg levels of awful. These don’t feel authorised, these don’t feel official, they are BAD.

I could write an ENTIRE VIDEO ASSAY about how these design adaptions FAIL AWFULLY at being good adaptions. I could go on and on about how these things should’ve never left the drafts! I bet you even i could depict them better, and i ain’t even a professional! And i’m not claiming that ‘cause i think i’m more talented than them, i’m only saying that to show how BAD those adaptions are! That a fucking hobbyist can better adapt character designs to a game’s design philosophy than a group of PROFESSIONAL ARTISTS!

I hope the pack gets stolen like the movie Foodfight! and the staff is forced to start over from scratch, or at least put that thing in the damn oven and delay it to next year! It’s so unbaked, i bet you they don’t even HAVE drafts. They thought the first thing they could and chuck it in there, because it sure damn feels like it!

[timegears-moved]

so since you’ve been posting about them recently, what pokémon fangame(s) would you recommend? gay stuff and a good story would be a big plus obviously

okay so here's what i think abt the ones i've played (under a read more because it’s long)

rejuvenation:

my personal favourite!

it's long as fuck. my total playtime was at like 150 hours by the time i finished. that was with exploration and doing all of the sidequests but even without that the story alone could take up to 100 hours.

the story in general is really compelling. the only parts that are kinda meh for me (without going into spoilers) are the bladestar and hospital of hope plotlines.

with it being a pokemon fangame it being edgy at some points is pretty much a given, so uhhhh, tw for some violence, death, minor amounts of blood, a town being captured and enslaved, cults, and the game becoming survival horror and psychological horror at two different points in chapter 15.

there's an additional optional side story called where love lies that is recommended to play after chapter 12 i believe. wll is in desperate need of some fine tuning so it can be difficult to get through but it's there if you want it.

the characters are really good and i love a whole lot of them.

it's an episodic work piece so as more versions come out it could last a very long time

takes place in the fan region of aevium.

all pokemon up to gen 8 are planned to be available (obviously not all are available as of right now because it's incomplete). the devs will also add any further pokemon that get revealed in future updates (such as gen 9 when that comes out).

you can have any of the starters up to gen 8 as your starter (popplio fans stay winning) and you can catch the other ones at different point.

there are aevium forms and rift pokemon. aevium forms should be self explanatory but they're really neat and rift pokemon are basically better dynamax pokemon.

there are 18 gyms for each type and an elite eight rather than an elite four.

there six options for what the mc looks like: three dark-skinned ones and three light-skinned ones. going further there's a masculine, feminine and androgynous option for each. and even though you choose your gender in this game (with male, female and nonbinary being the choices available) they aren't genderlocked, so you can be a feminine guy or a masculine girl. i do take issues with how nonbinary is treated like a third gender here but honestly i'll take what i can get at this point.

at some point you unlock the ability to choose between two looks for the character of your choice. so not huge customization options but hey they're there somewhat at least.

banging music. a lot of them are reused or remixed existing official pokemon songs but the original songs that do come up slap (the gym leader theme??? hello??????)

there are different challenge modes available. unfortunately this is a bit of a mixed bag for me because even when playing on casual i found some fights to be incredibly difficult. if you can soldier through them then that's great but if you find yourself struggling don't beat yourself up about it.

i know this is the part you've been waiting for: the lgbt stuff. like previously said the mc can be nonbinary if you wish but here's the other ones from what i can remember: venam (wlw), melia (wlw), adam (gay), crescent (bi i think?), erin (ace), ryland (trans man), and a character who originally came from reborn who uses xe/xem pronouns. there's also a side quest early on where you can help two guys get together.

tldr; if you can handle the length and difficulty then i definitely recommend rejuv!

rejuv mutuals feel free to add any details that i might've missed :>

reborn:

rejuvenation is a spiritual successor to this

a lot of the stuff from rejuv still holds up here (6 mc options (with nby choice), 18 gyms, etc.) but tbh i find it hard to recommend this one because i’m up to the beryl ward rn and it's been very bland.

takes place in the fan region of reborn.

there are pulse pokemon here instead of rift pokemon, and i think mega evolution is the best thing to compare these to.

i think there's pokemon up to gen 7 here. same starters as rejuv except for the gen 8 ones.

aside from the mc the only other lgbt character i know about is your rival cain, who is bi. there's probably more (such as the xe/xem character that reappeared in rejuvenation).

just play it if you're really interested. it's not required to understand rejuvenation's story and while it personally does nothing for me you might like it!

phoenix rising:

tbh i'm still at the beginning of this game so i don't have a lot to comment on unfortunately but my only issue so far is that the game can be laggy when it runs.

it's episodic just like rejuvenation and is currently still being worked on, with the first episode having been released.

i've found it to be very cute and charming so far. it's probably one of the only pokemon fangames to not have unnecessary edginess. ofc i'm still at the beginning so i'm remaining cautious incase the game decides to go fucking bonkers at some point.

takes place in the fan region of hawthorne.

there's no gender option for the playable character so their gender is entirely up to interpretation. you're only asked to choose a masculine or feminine style at the beginning that'll decide your default look and eventually you can unlock trainer customization and the customization options aren't genderlocked. idk how thorough the customization options are beyond that though.

i can't remember how many pokemon are in this one by generation, sorry. i have seen up to gen 7 so far though.

the starter options are petilil, growlithe and staryu. different but not inherently bad.

one of the rivals, perrin, uses they/them

relic forms! basically this game's version of regional variants. ambipom got one so that was more than enough to sell me.

insurgence:

still in the process of playing this one but it's pretty good!

i really can't say much on the story atm but it's drawn me in. though it's definitely the edgiest one out the ones i've listed so far so tw for these things: blood, violence, death, cults and a disturbing scene of pokemon dogfighting.

good news is that there's a light story and a dark story. i'm currently playing the dark story as that's the original but from what i can tell the light story is basically the same except without the above. you can also change modes at any time so if you try the dark story and find it to be too much then you can change to the light story no problem.

characters have honestly been kinda hit or miss for me so far but i'm holding off judgement until i finish it.

takes place in the fan region of torren and i think there's additional regions to explore during the postgame, making for lots of content.

pokemon up to gen 6 are available.

this game has delta forms, which again, is basically regional variants. there's a fuckton of them too so it makes for some fun team planning.

the starters options are eevee and delta forms for bulbasaur, charmander and squirtle. eevee is available from the game corner after the 2nd gym so you can let that influence your decision. i chose delta charmander because it looks sick as fuck.

there are new mega evolutions for prexisting pokemon as well as mega evolutions for delta forms.

eight gyms here but each gym is based around a theme and uses two types rather than one.

aside from minor npcs there isn't much going on here in term of lgbtness. the mc is also restricted to just boy or girl options this time. i'll be pleasantly surprised if i find anything major though.

there's trainer customization but tbh it's rather lacking. the clothes are neutral but the hairstyles are genderlocked (there is a bald option for the male mc and you can wear a poop hat if those do anything for you).

so basically:

recommend: rejuvenation and insurgence

can't say but hopeful: phoenix rising

play if you want but i personally don't like it: reborn

[neokad]

Touhou VI: The Embodiment of Scarlet Devil - or my first journey into a bullet hell game

Touhou is that one pew pew game series with cute anime gals, right?

Source: https://pixiv.kurocore.com/illust/54033795

Just like what I think are many people, that’s pretty much all I knew about the franchise as a whole! And to be honest, for a long long time, I was AFRAID of going any closer to anything Touhou-related! Because of them being bullet hecks, they seemed like the most frustrating and unfun games I could possibly be playing! But then... time passed... Fast forward to somewhere in 2020: I was watching the biyearly Games Done Quick event, and one of the first runs showcased during it was none other than Touhou Luna Nights! But while the speedrun itself was very impressive, the thing that really captivated me was well... everything else! Even though this was only a Metroidvania fangame, IT LOOKED LIKE SO MUCH FUN! The graphics, the special effects, the mechanics... everything just seemed like a dream!  In spite of that, I only picked the game up and played it about a year later, thanks to a Steam sale! And to keep things short, I ADORED it. It was a bit too short, but everything else was spot on, and even better than I thought it would be from what I saw at GDQ! But that’s sadly a review for another time :(  Because I literally fell in love in this game, well... I thought “screw it, I’ve been morbidly curious for years now, let’s actually try a freakin’ Touhou game!” 

And so, after some research I’ve learned that the sixth game - the first one released on Windows PCs! - was the one that served as inspiration for Luna Nights as a whole - its characters, music, stage aesthetics and more! It just seemed natural to settle with this one~

How did it go? What did I think about it? Well, that’s why we’re here: those are my thoughts about Touhou VI: the Embodiment of Scarlet Devil.

Now for a pointless history lesson: as I said earlier, Touhou 6 was the very first game published for Windows PCs, all the way back in 2002! The five previous games were actually exclusive to a Japan-only machine, the NEC PC-98, a line that prevailed strongly in Japan before Microsoft conquered the world. As such, it’s really the first game that’s still relatively accessible today, as PC-98 emulation is... not really a stable thing yet -_- So even though this wasn’t quite true, it’s as if I started my journey into Touhou with the original! And once I started playing, I was honestly surprised at one thing once I hit the title screen: this game actually has lots of options to make the experience easier or harder!

I know that being able to change your starting lives, starting bombs, choose your overall difficulty and such isn’t groundbreaking at all, but honestly? I didn’t expect things to be so customisable in a bullet heck game series - a genre that’s known for being merciless to players! I did decide to go on Normal to have the “intended” experience, but things aren’t as daunting as you may think!

This game also allows you to play as not only Reimu, the poster character of the franchise, but also Marisa! Both of these girls also boasts two different weapons each, with their own strengths, weaknesses and bomb attacks! Again, I genuinely did not expect so much breathing room even though looking back... I feel like I should have : P

Once I actually started playing the game itself, there’s yet another thing that surprised me: the difficulty curve... it’s... manageable??

Now granted, I’m a person that plays a *lot* of games, and on top of that, I play lots of action games as well, games that require quick reaction times, good pattern reading and so on so forth. So there’s a chance my judgement on the game’s difficulty might be wrong or biased... but to me? Embodiment of Scarlet Devil actually has a good difficulty curve! The first stage of the game has many enemies that can shoot many bullets, but they’re slow, predictable and relatively easy to avoid because you have lots of space to maneuver around! On that same train of thought, Rumia, the first stage’s boss, certainly doubles down on the number of bullets she can throw at you. But, their patterns are once again pretty slow and predictable, making things much more comfortable at the start of your adventure!

But hold on a minute here, how does this game actually plays? Well, this is where I need to let out a horrifying truth:

Touhou is actually really, REALLY fun.

At first it does seem like a pretty standard shooter: you shoot at things, dodge bullets, collect power ups to boost your weapon’s strength, and make sure you don’t die too much in order to reach the final boss in good shape. However, what I ended up loving about Touhou are its many, many mechanics that spice things up beautifully! The first one I wanna focus on is “Grazing” and it’s actually pretty simple: if you do your best to get close to a bullet or a laser without touching it with your (very small!) hitbox, you graze that bullet! Not only will a satisfying sound effect play out each time you graze something, you will also gain points each time you do this maneuver, making it essential for a high score, and especially, to gain extra lives faster!  Secondly, there’s bombing! I am totally repeating myself here, but while each character has a different kind of bomb to their disposal, they each function in relatively the same way: you get to launch a strong attack against your opponents, get invincibility frames, and on top of that, get rid of any bullets that are currently on the screen! I love bombs in this game because they create a great balance: you can totally use them for offensive purposes, buuuut they also serve as a great defensive clutch if you just find things too difficult at the moment.  Bombs even have two extra layers to them! When you will get hit and lose a life (and believe me, you will) your bombs will get refilled back to three, urging you to not hoard them too much even if you’d prefer to save them for a tougher part. Because if you die, you might just “waste” bombs in a way! However, here’s an advanced kicker: if you manage to hit the bomb button just as you are hit by a projectile (8 frames within death I think!) you not only are able to save yourself from losing a life, you also won’t lose a bomb at all, either! This is a very difficult trick, but a very cool and potentially important one if you plan things out in the heat of battle ^^

Then there’s a mechanic that, to my knowledge, got introduced in EOSD: the POC, as in Point Of Collection! Now, as you destroy the many enemies after Reimu or Marisa, they naturally drop many power ups and point icons, and because there’s many of these you’re bound to miss them. However, this is where the POC comes in: if you are at full weapon power, you will earn the ability to collect every icon on the screen! This makes sense and is actually very smart, because most players - myself included - tend to hug the bottom of the screen as bullets are more scarce and slower here. BUT reaching that POC close to the top of the screen is a great way to incentivise players to risk things in order to get a massive amount of points and gain extra lives way faster! And finally, as soon as you do reach that max power, the game will automatically wipe every single projectile off the screen, so it’s even possible to time when you’ll get your final power boost to make things easier on yourself!

All of those mechanics together make Touhou EOSD a pure joy to play! It’s simple on the surface but has such interesting mechanics and risk-reward elements that can push you out of your comfort zone, but never forces you to! And sure enough, I got addicted~

Even though I did say that the game had a good curve and started off not too difficult, it does not mean that your journey will be easy: even early game bosses such as Cirno and Meiling took me lots of practice to get consistent at, by studying their patterns and testing out which strategies worked the best for survival. And eventually, even Patchouli and Sayaka’s stages will test you out with lots of predictable-yet-deadly bullets to test out your screen reading skills and even reflexes.

Touhou may be more accessible than I thought, but do not be mistaken: on Normal, this game will still challenge you, and I absolutely love it for that <3 

Another thing that helps this game out is - please pretend to be surprised - the music. Touhou has always been known for bringing some very good tunes all around, but besides Luna Nights’s incredible soundtrack, I actually never got to listen to any of them besides Bad Apple and one fanime opening my bestie sent me one year ago. And well... it’s true!

The game uses some very artificial, even out-of-tune instruments for its music, but strangely enough, it REALLY works! It gives the music a very nostalgic, warm feeling that’s hard to describe, but it works so well at making those songs catchy as all heck! It also helps that the compositions themselves are pretty strong and surprisingly complex for its genre, too! I would pick a favourite theme to show off, but the soundtrack’s just really consistent and good all around!

Sadly, I mostly cannot say the same for the game’s presentation. This game is a PC app from 2002 and it sadly somewhat shows. I’ll even bring a special mention to the in-game portraits, which are hilariously HORRIBLE! Thankfully dedicated fans have made a patch to improve the game’s visuals so that they’re more in line with later titles, but at base it’s really not the prettiest gem visually...

...except for the spell cards, the bosses’s strongest attacks, which are genuinely gorgeous multicolored motives that will struck you in awe before you are inevitably destroyed by them, it’s great! My favourite is the one you get from Meiling’s mid stage encounter, pictured above!

Before wrapping up this long, long post, I do wanna add this: the game will unfortunately only give you the good ending only by playing on Normal and above, and only if you beat the game without using any continues. This is called a 1CC, or 1 Credit Clear. Even if I don’t think the bad ending’s actually that unsatisfactory, I did want to get better at the game! So I practiced for many hours a day for a couple of weeks, memorized each boss’s patterns, learned where to graze, when to optimally reach the POC to get as many points as possible... this game pushed me to get better with an incentive, a reward waiting at the end, on top of the satisfaction of simply cheesing what used to be so difficult at some point and... well, I think this is the proof of a well-crafted game right there. After many failed attempts, I finally managed to 1CC this game (pictures below!!) and it was, genuinely, one of the most satisfying moments in my gaming life <3 

So... yeah. I might be a Touhou fan now. Welp.

Touhou VI: The Embodiment of Scarlet Devil was such a pleasant surprise for me: I expected a game I’d find somewhat boring at best and frustrating at worst, but I ended up having a very, very good time, and honestly? It’s not as hard as you’d think it is! You can beat a Touhou game, so long as you are interested in practicing and getting better, and I promise it’ll feel rewarding in the best of ways <3

I just wanna say thank you to Luna Nights and Team Ladybug, because without them, I would have never been curious and then surprised by how cool this game is. Thank you <3 

And many thanks to you, the reading, for staying until the end! Thank you for reading!

[hlvrai-quotes]

Since you also know FNAF I can confess to you that I really love all those old shit-tier fan-games. I mean, a far as I know, Candy's for example is actually good now, but if I remember right the quality of the completely original one was...uh...something. Like there's something about objectively shitty or mediocre things with so much heart poured into them, like someone went "I will create a fan-game, because I love the source!" and did the best they could, and even though it may have not been the best objectively, they put it out there, and I just think that the passion is something incredible.

YESYESYES THOSE FANGAMES.. *chef’s kiss*

[playing-stories]

The Wonderful World of Itch.io

This is a love letter to the creators of free itch.io games. 

There is something incredibly refreshing about spending an evening on the itch.io free games page. They’re little bite-sized pieces of game play, but its not just the novelty of springing from game to game, from genre to genre that makes a few hours on itch.io feel like a cold drink on a hot day. I love itch.io because it feels like a reprieve. I talked in my last post at length about how Cyberpunk 2077 represents the flaws with the game industry and ‘gamer culture’ in a major way. This time around I want to take a closer look at the alternatives. 

Six Cats Under

Six Cats Under (Team Bean Loop) is both the most cheerful game I know of, and the most bittersweet. The basic premise is that you are an elderly lady who has died and you need to make sure your many many sweet kitties don’t go hungry. You achieve this by haunting your house as a poltergeist and getting those little kitty cats to eventually open the door and let themselves out. Six Cats Under takes the crazy cat lady stereotype of unmarried older women and uses it to explore a happy life we well lived. The game makes it clear that the old woman was not dissatisfied with her life, and these cats are not there to fill the void. She just loved cats, and lived surrounded by them. Six Cats Under did make me a little sad. It reminded me of those stories of the elderly who are left for weeks alone after they pass, with no one checking on them until they start to smell. Its an undignified and sad way to go and we hear about it all too often. For this woman though, its okay. All she wants for is for her sweet kitties to leave the apartment and then she’ll be at peace. No regrets, no unfinished business, no lamenting the path in life she chose. Playing in this woman’s domestic space, and using that domestic space to manipulate the cats according to their own distinct personalities is a joy. This game is a wonderful exploration of life and death. It is charming and happy. Importantly though, it doesn’t force you to be happy. You can be sad for the death of this woman, and either way it’ll comfort you. 

https://teambeanloop.itch.io/six-cats-under

make sure its closed

The description of make sure its closed (corpsepile) reads ‘I made a short game about something that used to scare me as a child’. What stands out about this is something that I’m sure is the case for a lot of itch.io horror game creators - its a game about what scares them in particular. make sure its closed features a garage door that is tricky to close and something horrible just outside. The game is incredibly simple in its controls and execution. It feels a lot like a scary story someone might tell around the campfire but a really good one. While I can’t comment on corpsepile’s creative process, to me what comes across is a real authenticity, that corpsepile wanted to tell their players why they they were scared of the garage door. We all have our own garage door. A place in our homes or another place that we feel is otherwise safe that gets our minds ticking over outrageous but horrifying ideas that something might be lurking just out of site. For me, it was the corner where the stairs in our hose would go out of sight. make sure its closed puts you back into that childhood body and asks you to revisit that childhood fear, making it visceral and uncomfortably familiar.

https://corpsepile.itch.io/make-sure-its-closed

Kill the Ice Age Baby Adventure: The Game

This game is very silly and very funny. Kill the Ice Age Baby (kypello) is like walking though a strange fever dream. Kypello implores the player not to play - ‘you’ll lose braincells’ but having ignored their request I found myself very invested in seeing the end of the ice age baby’s life. The humour of this game comes primarily from taking established properties, characters, and even political figures and completely alienating them from their intended context. Ronald McDonald gives me speech in which he expresses his WWII opinions. The primary villain, the ice age baby, is a character who was once supposed to inspire warmth in audiences of the hit animated movie saga Ice Age is appropriated to become something so utterly divorced from the intended context. This is something that game studios cannot do. Not because they aren’t funny or clever enough, but because this sort of appropriation would result in legal headaches and would simply not be allowed. The beauty of Kill the Ice Age Baby comes partly from the fact that it cannot exist outside of the margins. 

An assessment of the political implications of this can be found in a video on the McElroy brothers by let’s talk about stuff in which she addresses why corporate alienation is so effective - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9nNYQc98Ftw

https://kypello.itch.io/kill-the-ice-age-baby-adventure-the-game

Browsing the free games on itch.io feels like the modern day answer to zine culture. They are organic, grass roots, and are often created in the margins. Just a quick browse of the Top Free Games Page will highlight just how often these games forefront LGBT+ characters, stories, and relationships (There’s This Girl by Angela He, one night, hot springs by npckc). They engage with topics that are often (or completely) ignored in larger game studios such as mental health issues (Adventures With my Anxiety by Nicky Case). They are sites for fans to express their love for other media (Transient - A Good Omens Fangame by Oemuff), and they can be satirical, or even scathing subversions of the world around us (Eat the Rich by Call Of the Void).

These games are small, but they feel like an escape from the alienation that bears down on large studios who produce games for mass markets. Much like zines, these games were made for the love of making games, and the love of whatever the game is about and it shows. Creators on Itch.io show us what videogames have the potential to be if we could all pursue what makes us happy rather than necessarily what will sell. Sitting down and playing these games allows me to briefly live in that world, and it is a joyful place to be.

https://itch.io/games/free

P.S - support game creators if you can! They do need to pay their bills at the end of the day!