#it's probably just a gameplay thing but from a narrative perspective? what the fuck

[xamiipholia]

Since it’s been a year since Burning Shores came out, some thoughts on Seyka:

TL;DR: Great character, really happy with her as a love interest for Aloy. They do some really interesting things with her that I never really see addressed so I wanted to talk about them.

She is tangibly shown to be much more of a match for Aloy through gameplay. Compared to other npcs, she solves things faster, does more damage, is a much more formidable melee combatant, faster climber - she even has a fucking Valor Surge using her Focus that does pretty significant tear damage to large machines like Slaughterspines. Environmental storytelling- Seyka’s skiff has at least 2-3 Tiderippers’ worth of parts, meaning she’s been out on her own killing the things to build boat motors, and she has some ambient dialogue that strongly suggests she’s fought and killed Slaugterspines before. Is some of this npc tech advancements in Burning Shores? Maybe, but it feels intentional. 

Seyka has a natural probing curiosity about the old world that for the most part Aloy’s other companions didn’t have without some significant hand-holding from Aloy to get them started, and some of her close friend (but not base team) characters just don’t have at all. I don’t mean this as a moral judgement, everyone is different and has different strengths and priorities , but it’s absolutely critical that a partner for Aloy have that kind of curiosity - it’s such a big part of her character. While she lives in this new world, she’s never going to be entirely a part of it. Like she says, she finds belonging in individuals, and not really the tribes. I don’t really see Aloy settling down in Meridian or Mother’s Heart. She needs to have a life of exploration and discovery and Seyka seems cut from that cloth too, whether she was always that way or being marooned gave her a fresh perspective.

Seyka did risk death using the focus and decided to do it anyway- in Rheng’s notes he calls for capital punishment for her. The threat is never *too* present but honestly I think that’s a broader critique of the series and pretty consistent with the writing of conflicts in Horizon. I agree they could have played up the dramatic tension a bit, but this is a person who weighed the risk of a military execution by a totalitarian state and immediately decided it was worth it to save her sister and others. I think Aloy can intimately relate, given what she went through for Beta.

Even though it’s a DLC, she has a TON of screen time, probably comparable to Kotallo in HFW, and Horizon does SO much storytelling through gameplay and ambient dialogue. I think she’s given a LOT of narrative space to breathe. She’s also has her own musical cues and leitmotifs that do a ton of foreshadowing work through the DLC - in terms of musical cues and framing she’s very associated with the acoustic guitar, and the flute melody in ‘Her Sky, Her Sea’ has for Aloy and Seyka the same function that ‘It Can’t Last’ does for Ellie and Dina in TLOU2 - next time you play Burning Shores, listen for it. That and the guitar cues from ‘The Idea of Home’ and ‘For His Entertainment’ do a lot of emotional work. It’s great stuff.

Okay and lastly- YMMV on this one - I’ve def talked about it with friends before but I don’t think I’ve said it on Tumblr. I’m a firm believer that meta narratives and the way that stories are situated and created in our own world matter and that art deserves to be taken seriously and dissected. I love Horizon, but it, and Aloy as a protagonist, are absolutely drenched in white savior and colonial storytelling tropes. Every time I play Frozen Wilds, all I can think of is Jack Sparrow going “and then they made me their chief”. There’s a lot of iffy stuff in the games, as much as I absolutely love them. We’ll have to see how H3 goes, but Burning Shores is MUCH better about this and honestly Seyka is a huge part of it. The story centers itself on a queer woman of color who is pretty tangibly presented as Aloy’s equal with her own strengths and weaknesses throughout the story and takes the lead just as often if not more than Aloy does, which I find really refreshing. It doesn’t entirely fix Aloy’s white savior issues but I think it’s a really good move for the narrative that continues the themes found in HFW about community and connection.

Horizon Zero Dawn: The Frozen Wilds (2017)

[mdhwrites]

Thoughts On Honkai Star Rail's First Three Arcs

This isn't going to be comprehensive and I won't talk about it from a gameplay perspective. Gameplay wise, I actually REALLY like Star Rail and wish it wasn't a free to play Gacha game as those elements are mostly what I feel hold it back. However, unlike most free to play games, let alone Gacha games, I find the writing of Star Rail actually pretty decent and even good much of the time. It's why I came back to it after taking like half a year plus off so I could see what new story they had for me. But like I said, this post at least won't be extensive. You can send me asks if you want my further thoughts on other parts. Also, just as a heads up, a lot of this is going off of kind of old memories of content I could literally only go through once. Oh, and final disclaimer: This isn't taking into account side content. Not only have I not done the Xianzhou's side quests yet, I only just got told I need to wait for more story, but reviewing that is a lot harder given the time lapse unfortunately. I could review specific companions but not overall side quest quality probably other than it being alright and the Xianshou have my favorite puzzles so far probably.

With that said:

1: Herta's Space Station and the Antimatter Legion

As a story, it's fine. As a tutorial it's... Bumpy to put it mildly. The biggest issue is a problem that will come back: Proper Noun Soup. You get a lot of information thrown at you and a lot of terms having to be clarified very quickly, made worse if you try to read the DOZENS of documents scattered around even the literal tutorial part of it. It makes sense for that information to be here, this is a research station and archive. There's a lot of info here. It does mean a lot is being thrown at once at the player though.

But as a tutorial, the most important element isn't actually so much if the story is innovative, it's not as it's just saving a station under attack, as much as it is about whether or not it hooks the player. And for that...

7/10 overall for the story here.

It's quick, the action is good, the stakes are high and aren't really undervalued or undersold and the boss battle is an incredibly satisfying conclusion. The enemy may be faceless but the face we get is both literally attractive and narratively tantalizing, giving a lot of interesting questions both about our character and our rival organization just by the act of us coming to consciousness. It's only real issue is trying to retain everything thrown at you and the time that has to be spent mostly explaining stuff to you in kind of awkward ways. It's far from bad though, especially since I use the whole scale so a five is a passing grade for me.

Jarilo-VI and the Eternal Freeze

9/10 overall for me. The biggest issues come down to two things. The first is the general pitch for the world: Final Fantasy 14 Heavensward but without the dragons and gods. That's both actually not a bad thing but also slightly bad for it. Removing dragons from anything is always going to be a bummer and you would think removing gods and cults would be a bad thing but it's not.

I'm actually being reductive even calling it a ripoff. The sort of classist story that it's telling is actually pretty normal fair for speculative fiction. By removing the extreme fantasy elements though, it focuses a lot more on the actual human stakes and the suffering that's being caused by the class divide. It's honestly a very human story with a well rounded cast of all sorts to give perspective and neat twists and turns. Nothing mind blowing but pivots that add charm to the archtype. Buuuuut it's still doing the archtype and so as a fan of fantasy, there's little new about it and what is new makes me chuckle like everyone having came from the same fucking orphanage. XD

And it playing it so by the numbers feeds into its second issue: It's. Fucking. LONG. It moves at a crawl due to its factions and the like, or that's how it feels to me. It had little to escalate to by being so human so it's kind of just buzzing along for at least half of it, which is the majority of the time you're in the slums. You're not making progress outside of turning some hearts and so you're just kind of twiddling your thumbs happily as you wait for when you finally get an option to jump back into the real action.

The climax is genuinely fantastic though and pays off that slow build with a grand crescendo as allies either come in now or have been helping you the entire way. Afterwards, you feel like you genuinely accomplished something and that things will be better. Honestly, I wonder what the production process for the worlds are because this COULD have been split in half probably and been more satisfying to do it.

Speaking of:

The Xianzhou Loufu and the Stellaron Crises

5/10

Like I said, I use the whole scale and I'll admit that this might be skewed due to me having spent so long away from the story right in the middle of it. Or, more like 3/4s which you would not be expecting when you got to the moment where the main story content used to cut off at.

Pacing is the big murderer here. Despite the fact that there is a ticking time bomb somewhere on this planet ship, you don't really feel like you're doing a lot. You're stuck in bureaucracy more than anything and it takes multiple dungeon areas for you to finally talk to any of the actual villains in the ship. Otherwise, it's almost literally twiddling your thumbs and waiting. Once things happen, they happen all at once. Not even with great payoffs but almost like they were just stomping out plot points that were in the way of the final boss and they didn't have the resources to finish the story properly so it could pay off wider elements.

Now, there was this element back on Jarilo but the situation was neither so immediate and the elements being introduced came back around. Much of what makes the Loufu's sky Venice have ANY flavor doesn't really lead to anything. It gestures towards it with the cult that eventually shows up but it's actually only briefly in the story and undercuts any interesting arguments it has by going "WE'RE PURE EVIL RACISTS WHO WANT IMMORTALITY BECAUSE IT MAKES US STRONG!" and suddenly they're not interesting in anyway... Only to then be replaced by a threat that is somehow even MORE one dimensional than 'evil cult'.

There's a real lack of personal stakes in it either. It has an interesting hook by going back to that pretty face who put a bomb in our chest back on Herta but they're more a cameo. Literally for her friend, Blade who gets one moment and then just pisses off because... *shrug* The statement he made about prices needing to be paid never amounts to much of anything besides that being the first cutscene of the entire arc. It doesn't make me excited for the end cutscene of this arc because we'll see where it goes.

BUUUUUT even if the main plot of the Loufu is a lot of wasted potential and kind of meh in general, it is dragged back to treading water by the B plot. This is the first one with a B plot away from your main group and the mystery it presents is actually neat. It shows a lot of good nobility for a pretty stoic character and a pretty interesting backstory that also doesn't have to weight the character down going forward. It's the one element I would say that really pays off with the Loufu.

That doesn't save it and it has a pretty laughable epilogue where a character who died with very little personality besides being good at their job is suddenly made out to be this charismatic saint who was friends with everyone and enriched the Loufu so much and I'm just sitting here going "SURE WOULD HAVE LIKED TO HAVE SEEN THAT EARLIER!"

Plus side, the gameplay lets me reanimate her corpse since she is a playable party member in the gacha which does make having her death be a big deal less of one.

Overall Thoughts on Star Rail's Writing:

If I am judging its writing quality just by whether or not the writing is good, without context, it actually ranks pretty darn high. Probably a 7/10 which is better than most MMOs, let alone free to play gacha games. That is the draw of Hoyo admittedly. A gacha game that's closer to at least AA quality, if not AAA.

But it being a Hoyoverse property also hurts it. A LOT. I played the first arc of Genshin Impact after all and while I think the plot is better here, there's very little distinguishing the two. That shouldn't happen though because one is fantasy... Star Rail is Scifi. If you look up pictures of the Loufu though and its characters, you would almost never guess that it's scifi. They have divination, they have alchemy, there's a sidequest where you bring someone's soul out of the soul containment part of the ship to put into a robot that's effectively a golem so you can communicate with the dead. The entire final part of the story is all about gods, reincarnation and magic and NOTHING else. Its boats are grown out seeds.

And that IS frustrating. Jarilo VI is also bad about this but they're at least a civilization who's development was pushed back. Them having a contemporary/fantasy style works better there, even if not perfectly. And I am a bigger fantasy fan than scifi but I came to this expecting a scifi game. If I'm lucky, I get a scifi aesthetic, MAYBE a little flavor... But often not even that.

It's why I pause on hard recommending Star Rail for its writing. It took the traveling wanderers excuse and so far hasn't done anything with it that having isolated islands wouldn't do just as well.

And while I may be Nameless, I would like the story to start forming its own identity.

======+++++======

For anyone curious btw: I have bought the first season pass when I completed it but have spent no money on the game otherwise. I don't have the money to spend on free to play games and in general I just don't. If I play consistently enough to clear a season pass though, I usually feel like the devs have earned a bit of money out of me in return.

I have a public Discord for any and all who want to join!

I also have an Amazon page for all of my original works in various forms of character focused romances from cute, teenage romance to erotica series of my past. I have an Ao3 for my fanfiction projects as well if that catches your fancy instead. If you want to hang out with me, I stream from time to time and love to chat with chat.

A Twitter you can follow too

And a Kofi if you like what I do and want to help out with the fact that disability doesn’t pay much.

[ramrage]

now tht the dust has settled..... thoughts on mwiii campaign ?

oh god this has probably been sitting here for 27 years, hasn’t it?, my apologies—tumblr mobile is super ass and butt with highlighting inbox notifications, even tho (to me!) theyre the most urgent but WHATEVER!, anyways thank you so much for the ask, the fact that people care about my opinions on anything is so flattering, so i smooch and kiss your head, basically

full, rambling essay (which tbh is way longer than it needs to be) below the cut

id be lying if i said i was pleased, and this is coming from a fannish perspective /as well as/ a plain ol’ gamer perspective.

starting with the fandom bit, specifically The Culling of Soap, because i assume that’s what youre here for:

so, im a complete and utter fool and actively sought out spoilers despite not wanting to see them, so i already knew soap was going to kark it. it is what it is. my hope—tho tbh, it was more of an assumption—was that it was at the very least going to come with nice, high-quality emotional moments to fuel the ghostsoap fire.

which would make sense, no? this was only the 2nd campaign ive ever played, but going off the writing in mw2 and the few scenes ive seen from the 09 campaign, i assumed they’d give a main character’s death a bit of care. like a whole ass heart-wrenching cutscene right after soap got shot. and they really could’ve.

how it went:

- little cutscene with soap (kinda anticlimactically) playing the hero and then getting shot

- return to regular gameplay in which you have to literally just. press a button or two.

but why couldn’t all of the above been a cinematic? like, the gameplay task wasn’t remotely challenging or engaging—it didn’t add to the experience. i can say that it reminded us that we were, in fact, playing a video game and not watching a movie, but?? who the fuck cares? the campaigns shine because they marry visual narrative storytelling with gameplay. ideally, you take the best bits of both to create a whole greater than the sum of its parts, but imo, that was very much not the case.

instead, they used the ash spreading scene as the emotional suckerpunch but omg I am so sorry, that nonsense was BEYOND corny. I was genuinely waiting for the soulful bagpipe rendition of Amazing Grace to start up (as is the tradition for at least irish catholics. i reckon the same goes for their scottish counterparts).

I must recognize the scene’s silver lining, though. That’s right. Three cheers for Ghost looking like the saddest wettest cat to have ever worn BOOHOO MAN joggers. Great choice, by the way, to put the boohooing man in boohoo man. Gotta give it up for that.

But overall, I was rather disappointed by the lack of banter in this campaign. Evidently, there was more banter that I missed, presumably because my style of play is running in guns blazing, screaming “LEEEROY JENKINS”

Which brings me to the Gameplay Section

It was a lot like DMZ! I like DMZ! Which is really fucking lucky because here’s a comprehensive list of mwii and mwiii game modes that are a lot like DMZ

- the campaign

- resurgence

- battle royale

- zombies

- co-op missions

- raids

and now for the game modes that /aren’t/ like DMZ

- multiplayer

I understand the Paper Pusher Powers That Be rushed development severely, hence the massive amount of reused/repurposed content, but like. I don’t care? Fuck that. At the end of the day, we were offered an expensive-ass bowl full of leftovers mixed with heat-and-serve frozen dinners. Not cool, man.

It makes me extra-pissed hearing that the developers got worked to the bone for this, and it pisses me off that they’re receiving a great deal of the heat re: the game sucking. It’s /so/ not their fault that corporate did as corporate does, that being focusing on the money instead of the quality of the product. y’know, the thing that actually compels people to spend money in the first place.

I have no idea how or if they plan on salvaging this, but I hope they do. It’s pretty damn embarrassing if they don’t.

[vaguely-concerned]

I love both games but it genuinely wounds me that dragon age inquisition is considered a better written game than dragon age 2 in wider gaming circles.  

da2 does SO many interesting things, from its very deliberately paced and solid three act structure, its arc as a tragedy, its use of the frame narrative and the metatextual implications of a stated unreliable narrator -- all the questions surrounding how much of what we’re playing is the actual truth or where the narrative is distorted by the storyteller: varric extrapolating from what he does know in situations where he wasn’t present, like the romances, or even him openly admitting that he’s taking liberties because it makes for a better story, you can sometimes deduce he’s protecting someone b/c he’s basically talking to a templar cop lol, every so often he doesn’t actually know what happened but doesn’t believe cassandra will buy that -- or simply out of love, like giving hawke that talk with leandra at the end of the dlc even if she’s dead, because hawke deserves the closure and this is the only way varric knows how to give it to them. it’s a story about stories, and you’re playing as hawke but really you’re playing from varric’s perspective; his stories for making sense of the world. the city and people he loves and, as becomes increasingly clear as you play, his grief at what’s happened to them. it’s a character study of a guy you get to know through his stories in ways he probably wouldn’t let you in person. gameplay wise we have no choice but to engage in what he presents to us as if it’s truth, even when it’s obviously not. and on top of all that it takes the themes of unreliable narrators and how history gets written from all the dragon age games and fucking RUNS with it and it’s just so gooooooooood and interesting I want to cry.       

and like... don’t get me wrong, I have played a truly unconscionable number of hours of da:i, and it has great individual character moments and a lot of wonderful stuff. but overall, structurally, it’s just a fucking mess lol

[a-snow-decahedron]

also! top five utdr boss battles

AAAAAA this got long I'm so sorry.

1. Undyne the Undying. I have only done the No Mercy route once but Undyne's fight feels both pretty difficult and a bit fair too. You can practice and learn to react to her. She could probably still reliably kill me if I try again and I respect that a lot. For narrative purposes, her fight is excellent. I'm sorry but her speech before as she reforms herself is some of the most impactful parts of the route. What the fuck. God I love her. Even when you win she just shows an unwavering will that is pretty admirable. God. The fact Alphys was a witness makes this hurt even more.

2. Toriel in Neutral or Pacifist. it's the fact that none of you wants it to happen, yet she needs to make sure you know you will be in danger yet Toriel is not good at making her point without making you fear for your life when going blind. And then she just pushes away her attacks. She is definitely not done making her point of getting you to stay but she also won't hurt you. And then you show her your determination not to attack. Or you say "if things get rough i will make it through* and kill her by accident and she still wishes you luck but it's so jarring to see her dust right there. I also wanna point out from a gameplay perspective that her being a boss monster and therefore seeing her soul break upon death also sets the tone in a way the other enemies fail to do before. Like that is what happens when YOU die. We only find out monsters turn to dust in Snowdin so before maybe you weren't aware of your actions, but Toriel makes it clear. Idk man. All the angles you can take with this fight fascinate me.

3. Asriel in True Pacifist. I like all the phases it gets because it feels so much like a final boss for the True Ending. The music is stellar (ha). And i can't help but be in love with the dynamic of saving friends, and especially seeing it right after doing a similar thing with the Amalgamates. NO AND THE END??? When Asriel remembers Chara, and he breaks down and the bullets avoid you. But he still wants to hurt you but not kill you and the UI just breaks... Undertale is such a game.

4. Spamton NEO in normal routes. Absolute banger of a soundtrack. Extremely fucked up story behind and set-up He may not be too difficult for everyone (he was easier for me than Jevil), but it's still challenging and satisfying. I went blind to his fight and was not disappointed by either scenario. Not to mention the fact Ralsei and Susie show up to help and the effect Soamton's words had on Kris (im so sorry for them).

5. Susie vs. Lancer. It counts as a boss fight in my mind. I think it's a big turning point for her. It is so brief, and yet it's the event that finally makes her current mindset and her love for her new friend conflict. It is such an intense thing. Being conflicted whether to let yourself get hit or not so Susie stops, seeing Lancer avoid hurting her before she does and then seeing her fail to smoke the last hit?? Definitely up there with some of my favorite moments in all of Deltarune so far and i feel it may be a bit underrated.

[hopeymchope]

Parascientific Escape: The sci-fi “escape room” visual novel-style series nobody talks about

I can’t help thinking that Parascientific Escape would probably have an active fandom somewhere on the Internet if it wasn’t TRAPPED ON THE 3DS ESHOP.

I mean, it’s an escape room-centric visual novel-style sci-fi Japanese game that is clearly inspired by Zero Escape and very anime in its style. There are endearing characters, including optimal waifus/husbandos, plus a gradual buildup of an interesting fictional world full of political intrigue, its own countries, its own companies, and of course... psychic powers. Because you can’t have a trilogy of Japanese visual novel-style games featuring escape room puzzles without mental powers, now can you?

But as I said... they’re trapped as download-only titles for the 3DS. That’s fucking brutal. 

Even so, there’s a pretty big 3DS/2DS user base still in existence. It’s not like they’ve never been translated or something, so at least we have the capability to play them. So if you look into them, what are you getting?

A basic overview: Parascientific Escape is a trilogy of anime-style games about solving escape room mysteries and tracking down evildoers via the use of psychic powers (obvious Zero Escape influences). There’s an overarching plot about a mysterious mastermind who believes it’s time for the recently emerged psychics of the world to take their place as the next evolution of humanity and get their own nation (obvious X-Men influences).

They don’t work very well as standalone stories; each story relies on information from the last one, culminating in a game that stars the protagonists of both parts 1 and 2 together as they finally unravel the motivations behind the events of the whole series and face off with the people behind everything. In addition, the escape room puzzles start out pretty easy in the first game build to be pretty frustratingly obtuse by the tail end of the third. And on top of all that, each game taken on its own only contains about 3-4 escape rooms. So when you bundle all three together, that’s when it all works as a single satisfying package. 

Don’t worry about burning a lot of cash to play the whole series, however. The three games are $5.00 US each on the 3DS eShop and are usually on sale for $2.50 each these days. I got the entire trilogy for $7.50 US!

So let’s break down the gameplay and setup in a little more detail. Don’t worry; I won’t give any spoilers that go beyond the first five minutes of any game in the series. The twists and turns are part of the fun here.

The first game is Parascientific Escape: Cruise in the Distant Seas. You play as  Hitomi Akeneno, a high school girl (because of course she’s a high-schooler) with the dual abilities of mild telekinesis and a type of clairvoyance that lets her peer past barriers or into the insides of objects. She finds herself trapped on a sinking cruise ship where some mastermind keeps systematically locking her into isolated sections while she’s trying desperately to escape. 

I really liked how you could look inside of an object with clairvoyance and then use her telekinesis to manipulate the various switches and levers within, gradually pulling some object you need out from within a maze. I also thought it was clever how the solution to a new escape roomight require you to backtrack to a previous escape room to investigate some object or area that wasn’t relevant to that previous room’s original puzzle. 

(One of the things I found most fascinating about this one is the ethical debate raised by Hitomi’s friend Chisono regarding how Hitomi got herself involved in all this. Chisono offers a perspective that is extremely unusual to see in most fiction. You can even say it’s pretty cold, but it’s not without having some merit to it. I don’t want to say too much about what I’m talking about, though; it’s better left as a surprise.)

The second title, Parascientific Escape: Gear Detective, almost seems standalone at first. You play as Kyosuke Ayana, a private detective and actual adult (!) who is 22 years old. A young woman shows up at his office and asks to hire him for protection. See, there’s a serial killer on the loose, and she believes she’s the next target.

We are swiftly told that Kyosuke was once in an accident that necessitated the replacement of his left arm and right eye. He volunteered to be a guinea pig for some very special prosthetics that granted him artificial psychic powers. As such, he now has “chronokinesis” — to the power to look back in time. However, he can only look back for five days, and he only has limited ability to move or manipulate the things he sees in the past. 

Naturally, Kyosuke’s investigation winds up trapping him within some escape rooms that require use of his unique abilities to solve. Some of the hints at the proper timestamps or exactly where you should be looking when you peer into the past are a little vague, though, which can cause momentary frustration. Because I like to always be making forward progress, I actually preferred Hitomi’s telekinesis/clairvoyance powers from the first game. Still, Hitomi had some pretty basic puzzles in her rooms. I can’t deny that these puzzles took more thought.

Outside of the escape rooms,  everything is undeniably a huge improvement. The first game presented strictly linear segments of storytelling between the rooms, but this one is more of an adventure game. You can choose where you go, select from a limited menu of things to do when you get there, and do all of it in any order you like. There’s usually a correct sequence order to progressing the story, but it’s typically pretty clear what the next step is, so it’s not like you’re just flailing about and trying a bunch of locations blindly. Besides, there’s no way to get stuck, so don’t stress it. There are even a lot of actions you can take that have no impact on story progression at all — they’re just there to generate additional dialogue that further develops the characters. 

The tradeoff is that you actually get fewer escape rooms overall. The first game had four, but the second only contains three. This is also the first game in the series to introduce multiple endings; you get a number of dialogue choices throughout, and unfortunately, it’s far too easy to trigger the “bad” ending. There are guides online to help you trigger the Gold Star “true” ending, however. Just hit up GameFAQs. You might want to use the guide on your first playthrough, because I can say from experience that it’s annoying to have to replay all the dialogue sections just to make the correct choices. (Luckily, you can skip over any irrelevant sections of each chapter — including the escape room puzzles.) 

In spite of my above whining, the second one is probably my single favorite story in the Parascientific trilogy. It’s a lot of fun.

The final game in the trilogy is Parascientific Escape: Crossing at the Farthest Horizon. Mysterious characters who were plotting offscreen for the previous two games are finally given faces, locations that were talked about extensively in both are finally visited, and the two protagonists of the first couple games finally meet and team up. It’s absolutely a culmination of what they set up in the first two.

The narrative jumps around from the perspectives of many different characters, but the most time is undoubtedly spent with Hitomi and Kyosuke. Sadly, there is no gameplay usage of Hitomi’s powers this time; the escape rooms are all done with Kyosuke, and they are more devious now than ever before. Personally, I found the next-to-last one to be incredibly obtuse and frustrating. I ultimately had to consult a video playthrough on YouTube for that. (The YouTuber in question didn’t seem to have the same issues figuring things out that I did. So I guess your mileage may vary.)

The “adventure game” segments make a return here as well, although they’ve also become a bit tougher to figure out. There are a couple of times when you might find yourself wandering the various location options, clicking on every possible action to try and progress. Luckily, there aren’t so many default options that you’re left flailing for very long. Even the longest period of clueless wandering lasted me a maximum of 15 minutes.

Once again, you have to make the correct dialogue choices if you want a positive ending. And once again, GameFAQs is your friend and co-pilot.

Ultimately, even the gated endings and occasional puzzle frustrations did little to curb my enthusiasm. I really had fun with these characters and their stories, I greatly enjoyed the majority of the escape rooms, and I was pretty satisfied with how it all wrapped up. The character designs/artwork get better and better as the series goes on. The selection of music tracks may be the same throughout the whole series, but I really dug on them, so I can’t complain. Do I have any other misgivings? Well, just one; the English localization is pretty sloppy. There are a pretty large number of typos, and the dialogue can sound stilted and awkward at times due to being a direct translation. It’s actually at its worst at the start of the first game. Luckily, after about 30 minutes of playtime, it settles in and finds its voice.

Seriously, they should really figure out a way to re-package these games for another system that doesn’t use the the dual-screen setup. Put all three of them together, and it’d easily be satisfying as a full retail release!

But for now, if you have a 3DS/2DS, they’re only $7.50 in total most of the time (and $15.00 at the worst). Do you like adventure game-style mysteries and visual novel-esque progression and, of course, escape rooms? You should give these a shot! And I hope these devs get to make games with bigger budgets and better localizations in the future.

[thessalian]

Thess vs Video Game Romance

Random Googling to identify a place name in Horizon Zero Dawn that I’d tripped over but couldn’t pinpoint to a location ended with me tripping over something that I really didn’t expect. I mean, I probably should have expected the thing, but I did not expect the thing.

Basically, for some reason, asking where “the Cut” is in HZD will get related queries about romances in this game, and more to the point, complaints about there not being any. I also found a top ten list of games that people wish had romances in them, HZD being one of them. Other items on that list included “remaster Elder Scrolls: Oblivion and Fallout 3 to let us have romances”, Final Fantasy XIV, Monster Hunter World (”Because we’re allowed to have a house; why not a spouse?” was the theory) ... and fucking Dark Souls - something about, “Why not a tiny bit of light to shine in the darkness of the world?”

How about because “that’s not the point”?

Now, I like a good video game romance as much as the next person. This is a lot of why I play Bioware games. But let’s be fair here: the romance - not just a particular romance, but the entire concept of romance - needs to fit into the game’s structure from both the narrative and gameplay perspectives, or it’s just going to feel shoehorned in and distract from the game’s themes. Some games just aren’t built to have a romance in them. Does that leave the option for fanfic romance later? Yes. Yes, it does. Like, @galleywinter has an entire fic series sort of thing that covers exactly that, in an AU sort of way. That’s pretty awesome, as it goes - means that the NPC is developed enough to want to have an IC relationship with and that there’s scope within the game to make a character with thoughts and feelings rather than just an avatar to hit things and get loot. But trying to shoehorn an in-game romance like that into the structure of a MMO like World of Warcraft? Nope. The only MMO I’ve seen that’s successfully done in-game NPC romance is, again, Bioware - with Star Wars: The Old Republic. And even that’s kind of kept off to the side somewhat, and is a lot to do with Bioware’s attempt at keeping the single-player experience and the multiplayer experience very separate. TOR has you there for your character’s story, whichever one you happen to be playing at the time (at least until the Makeb thing and beyond broke off from the “each class gets its own story” thing the game had going on). That works ... moderately.

By ‘the structure of the game’, what I mean is ... well, companions. Bioware games have you taking at least one companion around. TOR gives you one. Mass Effect gives you two. Dragon Age? Three. Thus it’s pretty easy to have your NPC love interest tagging along with you, which is what you want when you’re in love, right? Skyrim and Fallout 4 also have that, with Skyrim having the added advantage of “You have a house and if your spouse isn’t the adventuring type, they can stay home and you can come back to them to tell stories of what you’ve been up to and just Be With Your Partner”. That works fine. The thing is, the game’s mechanics and world set-up allow for that. A lot of the other games ... not so much.

Horizon Zero Dawn, for instance. Aloy is a Seeker. She hasn’t considered herself to have a permanent home since the Hero’s Journey thing kicked off in usual Dead Mentor style with the mess at the Proving. She’s been nominally alone for most of her life and she’s pretty clearly still not sure whether to trust people being nice to her. Flirtation is not something she necessarily recognises and it’s clear from when Erend does it that she’s just like, “What the fuck?” and it takes awhile to get past that. That’s character stuff, but there’s also logistical issues. Without a permanent living space, she doesn’t have anyplace for a spouse to just ... stay. And having an AI companion following her around would get really problematic for some of the stealth stuff that people enjoy in this game because either the companion’s AI would have to be incredibly good (which ... we just aren’t there yet) or the enemies’ AI would have to be programmed not to notice your companion, like in TLOU1. So it’s theoretically possible, but awkward and would distract from that feeling of quiet discovery that makes this game what it is. (Plus if you went for Varl, you’d have issues where you’re going into ancient ruins all the time and he’d be exiled for that.)

Do I support writing fanfic of Aloy figuring out romance with whichever NPC a player chooses? Hell yes. Do I support it being crammed into the actual game? Hell no.

Final Fantasy XIV ... it’s a MMO. I’ve already discussed why that kind of thing doesn’t normally work in MMOs. Plus there are too many NPCs, no voiced PC dialogue, and too much else to do without having to stop mid-quest to head wherever in the world your NPC crush is. If they’re not doing something rash, getting possessed and/or getting themselves killed, anyway. Again, I totally get it and at least one of my Warriors of Light had quite the crush on Thancred (largely while he was still being voiced by Taliesin Jaffe). But I can write that quite happily, if I want to, without actually having it acted out for me by little computer avatars.

Dark Souls ... I mean, come on, don’t even start. There’s hardly any human beings in that game. And one female-presenting ... being ... deciding to not kill you does not a romance make. Unless someone’s seriously suggesting shoehorning in a love interest from ... like, where? You’re an undead deciding the fate of the world; where the hell does getting smoochy with someone come in? “Let’s have a bit of light in the darkness of that world” my arse; I don’t even play Dark Souls and I know that’s not the point. Same situation as Horizon Zero Dawn, really - why do we need romance when there’s so much else to do and explore? When are we going to find time for it in between hunts? Is it supposed to happen during the hunting and exploration and awe-inspiring discoveries? Isn’t that going to break the ‘contemplative solitude’ mood that adds to this game’s richness and depth?

There’s an issue, I think, where the line between “a game should be accessible to everyone” and “a game needs to appeal to everyone” has been either erased or is so mobile that it becomes just a lump of, “a game should be accessible to me personally, all the time, and cater to my every whim”. I would personally love to play Dark Souls for the whole “the world tells the story” bit but I know that the mechanics would piss me off and the lack of a story mode is a deal-breaker for me from a health perspective as much as anything else. It’s FromSoftware’s prerogative to refuse to add a story mode. I may complain, but that’s on a sheer accessibility level.

The other place I may complain - and even then only a little - is when a game that does allow romances doesn’t allow the romance I would personally like. That’s only a minor annoyance, though, because romance is part of the structure of the narrative and the gameplay, and there’s this character that matches up perfectly with my own and the game says I can’t romance them. But again, that’s what fanfic’s for, and the only reason I sulk a little is that feeling of, “I can romance someone else but it’s just not the same”.

What I won’t do is demand that the structure and narrative mood of a game be substantially altered to shoehorn in a romance that I can create far, far better in fanfic. Not everything needs to happen on the screen. Video games are supposed to fire the imagination, not take its place. If you want your character to have any romance, with any NPC in any video game ever? That is exactly what fanfic’s for. And no writer, no matter how good a writer they are, will ever tailor romantic dialogue so exactly to your tastes as you will. So instead of demanding they try ... do so yourself. Or play a game whose structure allows romance.

Basically there’s a difference between demanding concessions for the disabled and demanding unnecessary shoehorned narrative elements because of personal preference. Honestly, things like that fall under the “Be careful what you wish for” category for me - I understand why they’re asking, to a point, but I think what they’d get if their dreams of romances in these games came true would probably be far less satisfying than they think for those specific games that weren’t designed to fit romance into their themes, plot and mechanics. It’s fair if all they want is a dating sim, but there are some perfectly good dating sims with combat! That’s kind of what Bioware does now (sorry, guys, but it’s true).

[masterbuilderintern]

What about the fight with b2j

Gonna do my best to explain it both narratively and how it’d work as gameplay

Okay so

Narratively:

B2J’s ties with Aphelion are purely because of Eve and West. They’re very close to him though, however. B2J actually goes to 1010 and confronts them directly, because at this point 1010 isn’t really rebelling anymore and just trying to get to NSR with NJ.

Ain’t nobody know that though, so B2J pop in on their BIG ASS Elli themed MONSTER TRUCK and go “What’s up fuckers, we’re here to kick your asses.”

Gameplay/Narrative combo explanation of how the fight works:

Mayday is offense and Zuke is defense. May will get up in your face, or in this case, 1010′s, and beat the shit out of you while Zuke utilizes his little floating drum things as shields to protect her.

There’s lots and lots of flirting.

Each of 1010 has some ability relating to what they could do in the canon game but tweaked a bit. I won’t be using the headcanon names for simplicity’s sake:

White: I almost made his ability pew pew shooty shooty, which would be fantastic from a gameplay perspective, but I just really like the idea of him being taser themed so he can electrocute the shit out of people. Would probably rub his hands together for greater effect before using it. Closer range but doesn’t need to touch someone to use it if he’s charged it up first.

Red: He can produce sawblades that he then can throw at his intended target sort of like a frisbee. Long-range, especially if he gives it a hella good throw.

Blue: This boy can summon a harpoon launcher. That’s it. Infinite harpoon launching, baby. Very long range.

Yellow: Missile punch! I feel like making him AND Green long-range explosive types would be a little too much so Yellow instead can form this sort of missile-like illusion around his fists and punch you to shit with them. They pack a, haha, punch, and will also explode if he puts his fists together. Like if he puts his fists together it becomes one big missile and he fucking jets towards you I’d imagine it’s scary as hell.

Green: This mother fucker just throws magic grenades from out of the void’s asscrack at you.

In a real game, they’d be playable characters you’d swap in and out, but narratively they’re just inexperienced enough that it takes five of them to defeat an NSR member

[lost-in-zembla]

Disco Elysium or: How I learned to Stop Wallowing and Love the Game

I will now review a videogame. No real spoilers. Just very vague descriptions below.

My writing this is uncharacteristic of me. I find most writing surrounding the video game industry to be repugnant. The industry (including the media surrounding that industry) relies upon the subsumption of subcultures on the fringe into the very center of the infernal machine where the dedicated and nostalgic nature of its fanbase can be exploited for capital. It’s the same process that produces Iron Man Funko Pops. Call me a jaded and pretentious pseudointellectual poseur, but in the case of Marvel the idea that this fucking billion dollar franchise with the biggest actors in the world somehow retains this guise of this ‘geek’ subculture is disturbing to me.

(If you have played the game Disco Elysium, then you can probably already see part of why I enjoy it so goddamn much.)

I don’t mean we should gatekeep. My point is the media attached to these quote-geek-unquote industries wants to milk the same cash cow (e.g. 10 AWESOME THINGS IN THE LAST OF US 2!) Coming from an academic environment of criticism, I crave at least the appearance of an honest and thorough critique of art. In my experience, you really need to go past the surface to find any reliable ‘takes’ on contemporary videogames. That being said, there’s a lot of good work being done in the form of video essays.

In any case, I play videogames relatively often. Competitive shooters, mostly. But I suffer no story in videogames. Why would I? I read the most *genius* pieces of literature in the English language. I’m too *good* for that. So when I heard all the buzz about Disco Elysium last fall, it fell on deaf ears. Detectives? Disco? Isometry? Story-heavy. Ugh. I’m interested in none of that. But about a week ago, a friend of mine bought the game. Unlike me, he is a real adult with a real job so it was just a whim on his part, I believe. I looked at the game and, with Steam’s lax refund policy in mind, I bought it. In the past week I have put approximately thirty hours into this game. This review is a way for me to explore my own thoughts surrounding the game, thoughts that I didn’t include in my steam review (See below.)

So it was devastating, sure. And this devastation was somehow positive. One thing that I would like to make clear about me talking about this game is that it is fucking useless. Disco Elysium possesses that quality that exists in all great art; it is irreducible. When I try to explain this game to my friends, I find that my words fail to describe what’s so great about the game. Let me give you the elevator review I’ve come up with. *This game has allowed me to explore the breadth of human experience*. It’s an absolutely insane thing to say about a game. The writing, the art style, the story, the world, the RPG gameplay, they all work together to create a kind of experience that I have never encountered in a piece of art before aside from those few, fleeting moments when you feel as though you truly *get* an encyclopedic novel you’re reading (and in my case I usually don’t get it.)

I will not delve too deeply into the mechanics of the game. There are probably plenty of articles and videos that describe the game already. Put simply, the game is about choices. You can choose to solve the murder however you want. You can say absolutely batshit things to people. You can say mildly bemusing things. You can speak apocalyptic prophesies, espouse communism, conservatism, Moralism. race science.. There are moments when you genuinely *feel* like you can say anything, which is quite a feat when you really only have a few dialogue options at any given moment.

As you’ve noticed, this is not a review of the videogame. Playing this game after a tough breakup was sort of earth-shattering. I mean, not only am I navigating through a strange virtual world with its own history and culture and cosmological makeup, I’m diegetically grieving over being left by my *divinely* beautiful ex while I, the player, undergo a similar process and find similar coping mechanisms. Playing this game was like knowing the funniest clown in the world, a clown so funny that you thank him when he occasionally punches you in the chest to make you *feel things*.

The plan wasn’t to make a character whose qualities reflected my own. I just wanted to play the game. I wanted to win. It just so happened that because *I* was the one playing the game, the character essentially turned into me. It doesn’t help that I, too, have had my issues with alcohol, drugs, commitment, and mental health (in no particular order). The character ended up becoming *me* in a way that I’d never experienced before. I faced ethical dilemmas. My ideology was shaken. This game achieves unbelievable mimesis.

Here’s the wild thing: this game has changed me. I feel like a thirteen-year-old white boy who just watched The Boondock Saints and got a pretty okay over-the-pants handjob at the same time. I’m thinking about my life in terms of choices. The game enforces a kind of perspective of the world that highlights its contingency and the permanence of choices. You can, of course, save your progress in the game and reload whenever, but I found myself just sort of riding out the bad choices I made unless they were game-ruiningly catastrophic. (E.g. I had a “thought” equipped that made me fail every unrepeatable *red* check during a pivotal firefight; it was a hilarious disaster. We were essentially mowed down.) I stood by most of my bad choices. After all, I made the choice using the information I had at the time.

I am not good at this game. I absolutely bungled the investigation. I was just a pawn for forces far greater than myself. Seven people died, and I know that I could’ve saved a few of those people, if not all of them. I think about it sometimes. I think about what I could have done, how I could have gone deeper to find out what’s *really* going on, how I could take control of the investigation rather than be taken control of. Maybe I’ll play the game through again, but the first playthrough is kind of magical if you know absolutely nothing about the game like I did. If not for an absolute deus ex machina at the end, I would have been taken to the madhouse. It would have been an unbelievable failure.

During that deus ex machina moment, by the way, a goddamn tear rolled down my cheek. Yeah, I’m in a rough place, personally. But I don’t *cry* over characters in art. They’re not real. But damn if that changed.  I tell you it’s changed *me*. I care more for characters. I know they’re not real but they represent something that I can relate to, no matter who they are. This game has made me think about empathy more. Maybe it’s because I dumped all my points in the emotional skills. Maybe I’d be more violent if I rolled with the physical skills. Maybe I’d feel like a superstar if that’s what I chose to pursue in the game. Disco Elysium feels open-ended enough that if you sign up for the story, the aesthetic, and the investigation itself, then you can get whatever you want out of the experience. The game, again, achieves incredible mimesis.

The mimesis is so convincing in Disco Elysium that it feels as open-ended as reality, with one caveat: you *know* it's a game. You, as a player, know that the experience of Disco Elysium is a designed one, that it was created as a sort of origami structure, that there is narrative and, god help us, *meaning*. What this game-knowledge afforded me during my playthrough was the constant sensation of synchronicity. I found myself saying “I don’t know how this element will fold into the grand structure of the game, and it almost seems impossible that it should become part of the investigation narrative.” But because I know it’s a game, I am graced with the confidence of the highly religious. Everything will come together in the end.

This is not a review for a videogame. This is a confession. I am deeply flawed and I want to change that. My worldview has been shaken because of a videogame. I don’t want to be that kind of animal anymore.

I’m trying to empower myself, to become more aware that my choices do indeed matter, have always mattered. I’m trying to be more pragmatic, to consider the things I want to do in terms of their result rather than the momentary pleasure I will derive from doing them. Now *that’s* a change for me. 

I’m trying to be more empathetic, more willing to imagine the perspectives of others. 

I am trying to give the world around me the benefit of the doubt. It is easy for me to think of the world as a random coincidence of matter, but if you look at the world with totality in mind everything seems to take on this Spinozan glow of divinity. The human mind is a meaning-making machine, I think. If I look at the world as fundamentally devoid of meaning, then that is still meaning. It is nihil-ism. It’s still an -ism. But if I ascribe to the world a kind of glowing potential, as though meaning were to be found in every speck of matter, then I feel invited to participate in this massive dance that we’re all a part of. 

I’m trying to be more adventurous, because beneath the surface of things there seems to be a vast network of relationships, causation, possibility and, god help me, *story*. Or maybe it’s not beneath the surface of things, maybe there is no Deleuzian schizophrenic depth beneath the surface, perhaps the world is a homogenous and ever-developing surface upon which I constellate meaning and, thereby, create it. I’m trying to create a story for myself that will hold a candle to my experience playing Disco Elysium. I didn’t ask for this; it was just what I needed. It was, in a word, unforgettable.

[wolfandwild]

My Shadowlands Wish List

Now that we’re getting closer and closer to pre-patch and the inevitable launch of the expansion, I thought I’d rattle off a wish list of things I hope we get to see in Shadowlands, largely from a lore/story perspective. (Or rather, my stupid foot was hurting so badly I couldn’t concentrate on writing my fic properly, so I decided to ramble off some not-so-hot takes, honestly they’re pretty mild in the grand scheme of things). I was in the first alpha wave, so I’ve had a pretty good opportunity to play the game as it is thus far, and I did want to make it clear up front that I’m fully aboard the hype train. Shadowlands is looking like a great expansion for a number of different reasons, and while I do have a few areas of concern, on the whole I am currently feeling very positive. Please also note these are just my random, late-night personal musings - your mileage may vary, and that’s a-okay.  Mild Shadowlands spoilers below the cut.

You Get A Customisation! You Get A Customisation! Everybody Gets A Customisation! This one is pretty much a no-brainer. I don’t necessarily think Blizzard need to have absolutely every possible character customisation ready to go before launch, but I’d like them to continue adding further options over time. I move in a couple of different circles in Warcraft - I’m obviously involved in the writing/lore/character aspect of the game, but I’m also GM of a raiding guild and closely follow the gameplay/competitive side of things too - and customisation is one of those few things that gets everyone excited, regardless of their reason for playing the game. I’m looking forward to seeing a much more vibrant, unique and diverse Azeroth come Shadowlands pre-patch. (Mostly irrelevant side story - when Wrathion returned in the Patch 8.3 cinematics, my Twitter and lore Discords were basically going berserk with excitement, meanwhile there’s a hundred very confused dudes in my raiding guild who don’t read quest text being all, “What the hell is a ‘Wrathion’?”. I live in two different worlds, honestly). Another reason I’m excited about customisation (and I’m probably in a very small minority on this one) is because I actually really dislike allied races, and I think it gives Blizzard an option to add more flavour to character creation in the game without always having to cobble together a new race. I honestly think they should have simply gone for sub-race customisation from the beginning, to avoid having to ass-pull allied races out of nowhere. Using customisation over allied races also makes it far simpler to give something to both factions (e.g. high elves), or to add something for one faction without necessarily having to always add something to the other faction to keep things in balance. Giving an extra hairstyle to humans but not orcs generally isn’t going to cause that much of a fuss, but if one faction were given an allied race and the other wasn’t because there wasn’t a logical racial option, there would be a shitstorm of epic proportions. So you end up in a situation where one faction* gets saddled with a really random, sucky allied race just to be ‘fair’. *The Alliance. It’s the Alliance. Leave Britney Arthas Alone Arthas has never been a personal favourite of mine, but I respect that he has a fantastic story, and that he’s a cornerstone of Warcraft lore. His story is both satisfying and complete, and that’s exactly why they should leave him the hell alone. I don’t mind if he’s visited in flashbacks (like the Bastion cinematic), or if we explore how he affected still living characters (e.g. Jaina, Sylvanas, Bolvar), but I think it would be a mistake to try to make him a central character in the expansion. In contrast, someone like Kael’thas is an excellent choice for an additional arc, because his original story was a bit all over the place and there is still plenty of room for his character development. Arthas doesn’t need it, and I don’t think the minute potential gain is worth the risk of retroactively making the rest of his story worse. On a similar note... Warcraft III Was Released Nearly 20 Years Ago, It’s Time to Move On The Warcraft RTS was a landmark series of games, and was obviously without them we wouldn’t have the World of Warcraft. However, I think the future health of Warcraft’s lore depends on the ability of the writers to grow the story outwards and upwards, not to always default back to the same handful of characters for nostalgia’s sake. While characters like Jaina, and Thrall, and Sylvanas are great, they can’t carry the narrative forever. Shadowlands represents a unique opportunity to build up the next generation of characters and to blow the cosmology of the universe wide open. From what I’ve seen on the alpha/beta, Blizzard are definitely taking a step in this direction, and I’m hoping that’s what we get instead of Patch 9.2 - Oh Look, It’s Thrall Again. On an additionally similar note... Sylvanas Is Crazy, And She Needs To Go Down (I don’t actually think she’s crazy, but one should never miss the opportunity for an Avatar reference). One of my complaints about the recent lore developments in Warcraft its that it’s starting to feel a lot less like the World of Warcraft, and more like the Sylvanas of Warcraft. She’s playing 469D chess; she’s behind everything; she’s the sole driving force of the narrative. I don’t think that works in an MMO that’s meant to tell the story of an entire expanded universe. It makes things feel small. And before I get eaten alive, I want to be clear that I don’t dislike Sylvanas as a character - in fact, I think she’s very compelling and on a night when my foot wasn’t killing me so much I’d be happy to get into an argument as to why she’s actually one of the most consistent and well-written characters in the World of Warcraft. I don’t necessarily think she needs to die, either, but I think it’s time for her narrative to come to a close to make room for other characters in the story, and I don’t think Blizzard are going to get a much better opportunity to give her a satisfying ending than in a death-themed expansion. Justice for Tyrande (Or Vengeance, Whatever Uther Wants to Call It) Tyrande got done dirty in Battle for Azeroth, probably more than any other character. I’m not a massive night elf fangirl by any means, but their entire race was basically used as grist for the mill in Sad Orc Dad’s story, with no next to no narrative follow-up besides a cool cinematic that went absolutely nowhere in game. Outside the game, her character then got subjected to the cacophonous misogynistic crowing of the fanbase that occurs whenever a female character dares to be angry in the World of Warcraft. Much like Jaina, she’s decried for being ‘crazy’ or ‘irrational’ for, you know, being pissed that her people and her homeland were wiped out in an act of wildly disproportional aggression. I don’t know about you guys, but that would tend to make me a wee bit testy, but maybe I’m crazy and irrational too. In any case, I want to see her go off in Shadowlands. Fuck ‘em up, girlfriend. You Get One Villain. If You Drop It, I’m Not Buying You Another One I think most people will agree with me that the two weakest expansions (at least from a narrative perspective) were Warlords of Draenor and Battle for Azeroth. There are a few reasons for this, but for me one of the biggest issues was that they were chop-and-change expansions. Both were advertised and started off with narratives and themes that were wildly different from where they finished up. Warlords was part Iron Horde expansion, part Legion expansion; BFA was part faction war expansion, part Old God expansion... and that’s exactly the problem. Both times, I felt like we got two half-done expansions, instead of one single, cohesive narrative experience.  If you look at expansions like Wrath of the Lich King and Legion, both of which were very well received, a lot of their success hinges on their presentation of a consistent narrative with a clear goal for players within the story. The Lich King, for example, was a consistent and very present villain. He menaced you throughout your entire journey, and so his eventual defeat on top of Icecrown Citadel was meaningful and impactful. Defeating N’Zoth, by contrast, felt pretty hollow, as we hadn’t had enough narrative build up to really care about taking him down. Part of the reason I’m excited for Shadowlands is it looks like we’re getting a nice, focused story development that builds up to a logical and satisfying villain in the Jailer. Why Can’t We Be Friends? Look, I bleed blue. I love the Alliance... but the faction war should not continue to be a driving narrative element in the World of Warcraft. I don’t want the factions to be removed, I think they’re a core part of the Warcraft experience and I’d be pretty sad to have to let them go entirely, but the cycle of hating one another then teaming up in an uneasy alliance in order to defeat a bigger bad, only to go back to being at one another’s throats the next day is... tiresome.

Ideally, the war would have ended after Legion - it was the most logical place to do so, and I think it was a big missed opportunity that they ran with Battle for Azeroth immediately afterwards. Unfortunately, I think this means the Alliance is going to just have to forgive and forget, which doesn’t really make a lot sense at this point given everything that happened in BFA, but for the sake of the overall story, it might be a necessary sacrifice. That said... I Am Once Again Asking for Alliance Narrative Agency I know there are a lot of (valid) complaints to be had about the Horde storyline, but the one thing the Horde has always had over the Alliance is that they actually get to drive the narrative forward. The Alliance are pretty much exclusively reactionary, and in a lot of ways are side characters to the main Horde storyline. I’ve made this argument elsewhere, but it honestly wouldn’t be too hard to remove Anduin’s part in Saurfang’s storyline in Battle for Azeroth and have it turn out more or less exactly the same way... which says a lot about the importance of the Alliance in the overall storyline. In short, the Alliance are secondary players at best, and downright irrelevant at worst. One of my biggest hopes for Shadowlands is that we’ll actually get to see some Alliance narrative agency. To be clear, however, this does not mean a simple rehashing of Horde conflicts with a blue coat of paint. Alliance stories are not Horde stories, and nor should they be. Having an Alliance leader turn into a genocidal despot is not the only way to create conflict or agency in the story - there are plenty of opportunities for character growth, development and conflict on the Alliance side without having to have one of our leaders do a heel turn (e.g. Tyrande as the Night Warrior, Anduin dealing with his experience in the Maw, Jaina confronting the fates of people like Kael’thas and Arthas, Taelia meeting her father, etc.), and I really hope we get to see some of those narrative threads come to fruition. I Want to Mount Everything Add a hundred new mounts. Two hundred. A pot plant with googly eyes, the four hundredth Alliance horse, your mum. I’ll ride anything; I don’t even care. (Please note this is the most important opinion I have).

[itsybitsylemonsqueezy]

So I finished watching Yakuza 7: Like A Dragon. Spoilers under the cut. 

(Mainly positive take, some criticisms. C+/B I’d give it.)

So, first of all, I didn’t play it, I just watched people on youtube so my perspective of gameplay should be taken with a grain of salt. But I really liked the turn taking fighting style! Like a real JRPG, I thought it was fun, it seemed fun anyway, and the strategies to JRPG make more intuitive sense to me than fighting games, which I don’t know at all. I did end up missing the hand-to-hand combat like... aesthetically and it kinda breaks universe rules a little. But, like, Ichiban seeing combat as a sort of heightened fantasy reality actually helps with that and the plot still treats us like average combatants. Like, there’s still no murder, despite a lot more weapon use, including guns. So... it’s a little sad and weird universe-wise, but seems fun to play. 

Ichiban is a great protag! Definitely not Kiryu! He has two dads, like 8 spouses, a lot of hair... He’s only 7 years younger than Kiryu and that’s... that’s a choice ^^; But he’s got a lot of good things going for him and I like his build. Interesting rage-grief he has going and a thing about revenge that Kiryu never had. And I like that actually, I like that Ichiban gets hit with different things than Kiryu did, but he still has flaws. Kiryu was never blind with rage the way Ichi got, but then, Kiryu also didn’t save his brother. Like, they have VERY different shit going on, which is GOOD. So I’m kinda annoyed that in the end we took Ichi’s dad and brother, just like Kiryu’s? Like... damn :/ Lame. Lazy. 

I love Ichi’s team! I love Adachi, Nanba, Saeko, Joon-gi, Zhao. Top notch peeps! I like that they all just like him and are here for a fun adventure with him. They’re all here for something different, which is also really cool. Zhao is sort of redefining who he is in... retirement I guess? Trying out being a companion rather than a leader. Saeko is longing for family, connection, a place to belong. Adachi was here to accomplish a goal, to restore his honor and provide justice. And Ichi’s been a big help to that. Joon-gi is... a whore. I’m sorry! He’s just this beautiful, obedient man who’s just here on lend and he does whatever the fuck you say. Do not put him in charge of decisions, he’s terrible at them, but he knows a lot and has a vast network. But he appears just to be here to serve everyone’s needs, so to speak, and to moon after Ichiban like everyone else. And Nanba. Nanba hates adventures. He hates germs. He hates people and friends and danger and doing things. But he’s here. Because Ichi makes him hate things a little less. Nanba is a cynical, cowardly bastard, and Ichi’s a fucking sunshiney idiot always trying to fix shit that isn’t his problem. And he makes Nanba get up and fight. He makes Nanba believe in tomorrow. Nanba doesn’t trust people, Nanba doesn’t hope. He’s a pessimist and lives only to complain. But he is first in line to get shot for Ichiban every fucking time. He’s always the first to Ichiban’s side when he’s in trouble. Leaving and betraying Ichiban broke his fucking heart and my ship is probably showing A LOT here but I don’t care. I fucking love Nanba, I love his arc, I did NOT see it coming. And they are definitely my ship out of this. The fact that Nanba without fail is always the first to put himself in danger for Ichiban guts me. With how much he doesn’t believe in good things ever happening, it destroys me that he’ll dare it all for Ichiban. Fucking wild. 

I thought it was cool to bring up a political villain, but... we didn’t really carry through on Bleach Japan’s thematic importance. We revealed them to be cruel and hypocritical, but we didn’t end up actually saving the slums or proving why the slums needed to be saved and that’s... kinda lame :/ 

I was really hoping that we might make a stand on why grey spaces were needed, on why organizations like the yakuza are needed but instead we... disbanded? And I don’t even know why? 

Like, it was to fuck over Ryo Aoki. But... he was a TEMPORARY problem. All you had to do was move the organizations underground until he was unseated, which the Tojo already was??? 

But instead... we brought down Tojo and Omi and... WHY?! Like, SERIOUSLY, can ANYONE tell me WHY! Because I have a LOT OF FEELINGS about why that’s a BAD CALL.

What are all those guys going to do now? “Oh, we’ll just make a security company” YOU’LL WHAT?! THOUSANDS of guys used to shake downs will now be hired to patrol rich estates and cover banks and business buildings?! Fighting WHO, themselves?! A LOT of that job is just watching some fucking cameras, what... what the fuck are you talking about Watase?! 

But I guess that’s still better than Daigo’s “I have no fucking idea” plan

NO WONDER Majima’s depressed at that funeral you JUST TOLD HIM his new job is BABYSITTING SOME RICH FUCK’S BUILDING. Fuck you guys! 

And HAVE WE LEARNED NOTHING ABOUT POWER VACUUMS?! CRIME doesn’t disappear just because there’s no one there to manage it! That just means it gets worse! And rasher, crueler people grab power in the interim. Smaller but rougher groups will appear. More and worse crimes will happen now. You just disenfranchised thousands, not all of them are going to come with you to play security detail and not all of them WANT to. So why EXACTLY did we disband the yakuza? What problems did that solve??? 

What about all that shit about the yakuza being a home for people who didn’t fit in? What about people who fell through the cracks in the system, who don’t have anywhere else to go? 

If the yakuza, as an idea, was so fucking bad, WHAT WERE THE LAST SIX GAMES ABOUT?!

You can’t have an established series that accepts the idea that crime and violence are sometimes necessary or are even good things and have a compelling protag who does that, ONLY to turn around at the last second and pretend like it was always wrong!

If you were gonna act like the idea of organized crime is a Bad Thing, THEN THAT NEEDED TO BE A CONFLICT FROM THE BEGINNING

But you didn’t even do that!

We DIDN’T disband the yakuza because organized crime is inherently morally corrupt, no we disbanded because some prick thought he could use us! A PRICK WHO IS NOW DEAD! THE FUCK?! 

And DON’T GET ME STARTED on how this reframes Kiryu’s narrative. KIRYU WASN’T RIGHT FOR LEAVING YOU FUCKING BASTARDS. 

THE WHOLE POINT OF KIRYU’S ARC WAS THAT HE WAS FUCKING WRONG TO ABANDON HIS RELATIONSHIPS I- *screams into pillow*

AND why does Kiryu need to be dead now?! There is no more yakuza! Who does he need to hide from?! 

OH no wait, my mistake! We didn’t disband ALL the yakuza, just Omi and Tojo! You know, the two biggest cities in Japan. I’m sure THAT won’t have Fucking Consequences. But Kiryu still has to be dead for uh... Reasons.

This was just such a fucking dumb universe-building move. It’s not been thought through, it betrays the whole point of the franchise up until now, and I’m honestly just mad that they didn’t even feel the need to address it? Like, the yakuza’s just gone now, but it’s whatever. Who would even care about that. Like, that’s not going to be a plot point next game. It won’t matter, at all, I promise you. All of the in-universe implications this has, none of it matters. And I’m not even mad I’m just... tired. And annoyed a little. that you can’t be bothered to tie up your own rules. You won’t give your own writing decisions weight and that’s just... kinda sad. It’s just lazy and sad that they don’t care enough to connect the pieces. But I’ve had my heart broken enough by yakuza writing decisions. Of course they would do this, of course they haven’t thought enough about their own series to really consider what ending the yakuza would mean. Why would they? 

I’ll still watch the next game. Like, Ichiban is likeable enough and I’m interested in his arc enough that I’d play or watch next time. But... *sigh* We’re the Yakuza series with no yakuza. And y’all gonna act like that’s a good thing or pretend it doesn’t even matter. And I really don’t know what to do with that since you haven’t bothered to examine it either. 

On a nice Kiryu note, I did like that he was scaled appropriately, I like that Ichiban is Wiped Out after almost every fight. He’s a good fighter, but he has human endurance. Kiryu’s still god. He hits the hardest out of anyone you fight and you Don’t win and that’s As It Should Be. I’m REALLY glad they at least let me have that. I’m glad they let us fight Kiryu and we passed and it was a cool passing of the torch. I was so worried they were going to destroy Kiryu’s legacy and at least they didn’t do that. 

The coin locker baby thing... it was cliche and convenient, but in the way that Yakuza is cliche and convenient and melodramatic and over the top. It was sort of fitting and familiar that way. Shame we ended Swashiro like that, I think we could have done more and cooler shit with him but, eh. 

SPEAKING OF MORE AND COOLER SHIT

...all that effort, just to kill him? Alllllll that long time, that hard conversation, that break down with Ichiban... just to kill him. Just to make him Nishiki, all over again. 

I... fuck you. 

Why do you refuse to write a goddamn redemption arc

Fuck, you don’t even have to write it, have it happen off-screen if you’re so fucking afraid of it. Just have him recuperate in a goddamn hospital and, I don’t know, by next game just show that he’s doing better and is getting therapy and whatever.

Jesus fucking christ, he doesn’t have to MATTER in the next game just... don’t kill him. Jesus. Please.

All that fucking work and you’re STILL going to give Ichiban the trauma of losing someone he was trying to save. 

I just... it’s really gutting how much you don’t like your characters and you don’t like to write and you’re cowards. You won’t take risks. You’re too afraid of fucking up so you won’t do what the narrative calls for. 

Killing Masato was lazy-ass, punk-ass, coward shit and I wont’ stand for it. I did not expect to care about his ass by the end but you guys REALLY made an effort in making him a three dimensional character there at the end and explaining why Ichi would care about him and I was willing to come with you! I was willing for us to invest in this dumbass. We walk him all the way up to the edge and step him back. We let him let go. And then you just. fucking. gave up. You goddamn cowards.

I’m so tired of this shit

For all that, it was genuinely a really fun game and a really fun story with a lot of likeable characters. I think a solid C+, even a B. I really did enjoy most of it. It’s just... in usual Yakuza style, they only fucked up 2 things but they were a REALLY IMPORTANT 2 things. 

Oh and I did like the fact that Ichiban Still Doesn’t Know. No one tell him.

[crystalelemental]

I know it's way too early for this kind of speculation, but what do you think FE17 will be? the Genealogy remake would be interesting, but that'd possibly damn FE18 into a Thracia remake, much like Shadow Dragon/New Mystery. unless they decide to make it into 1 game, which doesn't sound probable to me. maybe they'll make a new story, with less, uh, questionable morals to keep the new 3H fans interested into the franchise? will they keep the calendar, the instruction stuff, or go back to the laid back way of Awakening/Fates/Echoes? you don't have to give a long answer if you don't want, I'm just musing a bit here

“You don’t have to give a long answer,” as if that’s ever stopped me.

What do I think it will be?  I have no idea.  But given its popularity, they could be considering it like a Tellius situation, with a prequel game.  I don't think they can go sequel (more on that in the other response), but prequel with Seiros as the focus, going from the Red Canyon Massacre to the end of the War of Heroes?  Sign me up.  I would love more on that.  And I adore games that focus on side stories (Thracia, Blazing Blade), so I'm super on board for a fleshed-out side story about that period in Fodlan.

I can't say what they'd try to do with gameplay, but I do think they'd keep a sort of "home base" kinda thing at a minimum.  The instruction aspect of Three Houses was very specific to that game, and truthfully, I don't know if it will maintain.  Not to be how I am constantly, but I hope it doesn't.  I really feel like the monastery exploration and having to fine-tune instruction for students was more tedious than anything, and ultimately didn't add much to the gameplay experience.  I also feel like the calendar was kind of a bad call too.  A lot of events, as they're laid out, feel like they should be happening back to back.  But because of the calendar focus, you have situations where it implies you traveled far off to engage in a big battle, but then just walked back to the monastery for a whole month before marching out the same direction.  I don't think it blends events together all that nicely.  Frankly I think Fates' decision to have a pocket dimension where you can take care of your bullshit was a better way to hand-waive the question of how you're able to backpedal and stock up in the midst of a campaign.

That said, any non-remake game, and possibly even the remake game, will take inspiration from Three Houses in the same way Fates and Echoes did from Awakening.  The massive success of Three Houses is guaranteed to be an anomaly to them.  They still don't know why Awakening worked, I doubt they'll know why this one worked.  So I anticipate a lot of character tropes and storytelling angles will be reused in future games.  They'll try to mess with perspective and the idea of hidden history muddying the morality of things for sure.  I don't think there's any benefit for them to go back to more clear-cut morality.  Even if there's a lot of fan argument about it (Edelgard and Dimitri fans), that's never a bad thing.  That's still attention being drawn to your game.  That's still discussion around it.  No press is bad press, and this game is still more popular than the rest of the series ever had been.  So they'll keep characters like Lysithea, and Bernadetta, and have that attempt at a complex plot, and a bunch of mysteries that never get answered, and oh god every MU is going to be like Byleth now oh god oh fuck.

But personally, I want the next game to be a Genealogy remake.  I have issues with Genealogy as a whole, both gameplay and story-wise, and a remake could salvage at least some of that.  Support conversations definitely could, and a changing of certain story elements would be nice, although Fallen Julia's already in FEH so like...there goes my greatest hope.

That said, I don't really want them to do too much?  Like, Echoes added a few characters, and while those are some of the best in the game, a lot of that I feel like was to add any sort of significance to Alm's journey beyond the end goal.  Alm's route would be boring as all hell without Berkut, so his inclusion was a massive benefit to the game.  But I can't think of a situation where my qualms with Genealogy is "This just isn't engaging enough, we don't have enough people."  Genealogy almost has too many characters.  If anything their bigger problem is that characters and themes they set up are never utilized.  So it's more about reworking the narrative a bit rather than needing to include things to make a blander game stand out, you know?

I definitely don't think they'd combine Genealogy and Thracia.  I mean they could, but I don't think it's a good idea.  Genealogy, again, has too many characters already.  Combining the games leads to the question of where the hell Leif's army is, and that's adding like 50 characters to the roster.  Since you deploy every unit you have in Genealogy, that's...way too much.  They'd have to completely rebalance the game.  Not to mention Thracia doesn't play at all like Genealogy, and is way too long to be a brief side-story or DLC exclusive.  There's just no effective way to integrate the two.  I think it would be better to just make the game after that the Thracia remake, which...honestly is the best possible outcome as far as I'm concerned.

Binding Blade may not have come to the west, but people know Roy, and this series started over here with Blazing Blade.  We know a lot of Binding Blade information, by virtue of dedicated fans being upset the logical continuation of their starting point never got translated.  Comparatively, Genealogy and Thracia are pretty damn isolated, and it shows in their CYL placements.   They're not well known games at all, and gameplay-wise, they're really awkward and (in my humble opinion), not actually fun to play at all.  A remake is ideal for those games, because it gives them a chance to gain more attention and popularity in the general public's eyes.  Which is good!  Genealogy does have a worthwhile story to tell despite my gripes about its problems, and I honest to god thing Thracia's one of the best stories in the series, with one of the best protagonists in the series.  These games deserve more recognition than they get, and they're not gonna get it until they get remade to be more accessible.

It also dawns on me that the "less questionable morals" may have been about Genealogy's whole incest thing.  Listen, I get it, but they can't take it out.  I don't say this lightly, but that is like...the central point of Genealogy.  The awakening of Loptous is a matter of converging its bloodline, which had only one surviving member.  You really cannot work around this one, without making things either too confusing or too stupid.  If they really felt the need for that, they might back off of the remake entirely, which would be to their detriment.  But considering the Byleth/Rhea situation, I don't think they'll have much trouble.  And besides, it's pretty clear that an act of incest was the catalyst for almost destroying the continent, so I think it's safe to say the game doesn't agree with the practice.

[an-obligatory-blog]

a nahyuta headcanon

slash character-study-slash-analysis

I’ve been playing SoJ for the first time (I’ve watched a playthrough beforehand) and I got this sad thought about Nahyuta in the middle of Case 3

The headcanon is this: Nahyuta’s quirk of researching anything vaguely related to a case ridiculously thoroughly (ex. memorizing rakugo scripts when knowing the definition would’ve been enough probably, watching all of Retinz’s shows, etc.) is a product of his resignation to the belief that Ga’ran and DC Act won’t go away.

Explanation under read more. SoJ spoilers ofc. Warning: I might’ve gotten a lil long winded with this post.

First, let’s establish the kind of person Nahyuta as a prosecutor is.

He is known as the Last Rites Prosecutor because of his religious beliefs.

He has a big reputation as an international prosecutor, cracking hard, difficult cases

The skill that he is known for is his “foresight” (”seeing the karmic threads of fate”)

Note: This “foresight” is referring to him “predicting the flow of the trial”-- this isn’t him being omniscient, it’s has everything to do with information (ex. predicting the defense’s arguments, using inductive reasoning to shoot down the defense’s argument (see concluding that the twins in 6-2 are silent because of a prank plan w/o having the prank script revealed to him due to his observations))

He is thorough with his investigations-- this includes researching relentlessly any kind of information that’s vaguely related to the case as mentioned earlier. He does this more in the States than Khura’in for obvious reasons.

He doesn’t tolerate perjury from witnesses or when information is hidden from him

He slings insults towards the defense with his sharp-tongue and throws beads. (As you will know after finishing SoJ, much of this is because of Ga’ran’s influence. Him hating defense attorneys so fervently is an act.)

I would like to note that a lot of these characteristics aren’t unique to Nahyuta, especially his “foresight”-- prosecutors have laid traps for the defense before. Prosecutors have predicted the defense’s arguments before. Prosecutors have been... prosecutors. They do their job. For me personally, I find this understandable because at the end of the day, I thought it was ridiculous to expect that the new prosecutor is going to pull a special move in court to the point where it feels significant to the player. This applies to Blackquill and his “psychological manipulation.” Yes, it’s there, but it’s no wonder that people have said “they haven’t done anything that prosecutors haven’t done before” or at least, “it doesn’t feel like they have.” That’s because you do the same things in court as you have done before-- you point out contradictions and voila. New gameplay mechanics makes the trial flow feel different-- not whatever the prosecutor’s specialty is (specifically DD and SoJ as they are the main culprits for that).

But what it does do for Blackquill and Nahyuta is characterization. It characterizes who they are as a prosecutor. With Blackquill, not only does it relate to being Metis’s student, but also his behavior in court-- playing mind tricks with the judge and the defense and laughing, quietly or otherwise, when they fall for it.

So here, I want to draw your attention to how it relates to Nahyuta specifically. Forget about how “other prosecutors have done this before” for a moment and take this “foresight” as a specific character trait to Nahyuta.

What does this mean? Notice how I bolded the word “information” earlier. Nahyuta’s reputation and behavior as a prosecutor is centered around the concept of “information.” The information he knows but the defense doesn’t. The information he doesn’t know but deduces from other pieces of information. The information that he gathers from the Internet from late night studying or the information he goes to a burger joint to get. Etcetera. Etcetera.

Keep this in mind and let’s step back into the main plot of Spirit of Justice. 

Khura’in’s legal system is in deep shit-- to put it simply. The Defense Culpability Act essentially eliminated defense attorneys from Khura’in from being active.

The burden of delivering justice, aka “giving what people deserve”, falls entirely on the prosecution’s side.

From the perspective of (AA) court, the only way for “justice” to be served is if the prosecution is absolutely correct. After all, if the prosecution’s charges are “just”, then the court’s decision will be “just.” If they aren’t, the verdict won’t be either. That’s how it works in Khura’in during this time.

So let’s say that you’re a prosecutor in this broken system, but you still want to serve justice-- what do you do? You have to be right.

This is where why Nahyuta being an international prosecutor is important-- he’s supposed to contrast Gaspen from 6-1, who despite being Chief Prosecutor, is still incompetent. Why? Because Gaspen doesn’t care about being right-- he cares about his win streak and he can get it easy if he stays in Khura’in because there are. No. Defense attorneys. Easy wins. 

You can’t do that if you’re an international prosecutor. You’re going to face a lawyer in court some way or another and you can’t just pass by without some actual skill. 

You cannot improve as a prosecutor if no one is there to point out the flaws of your arguments. You cannot improve as a prosecutor if you never face a lawyer in court. You cannot improve as a prosecutor if you remain as a domestic prosecutor in Khura’in.

That’s why Nahyuta is a “skilled” prosecutor and Gaspen is not.

But wait. Nahyuta is under Ga’ran’s thumb. If all Ga’ran wanted to do was to keep Nahyuta on a leash, why appoint Nahyuta to be an international prosecutor? Wouldn’t it be easier to watch him if he stayed domestic?

This is where the “headcanon” part of this post comes in (aka the part where I make up things): Nahyuta specifically requested to become an international prosecutor to make most of the broken system: a system that has no defense attorneys.

He could’ve done this from the get-go after gaining some trust, but I like the idea of him wanting to stay domestic at first to get close to Ga’ran and help the rebel cause, but after being blackmailed and now having his mother’s and sister’s lives on the line, he requested to be an international prosecutor. Why? Because that’s the only way he’ll ever get better at being a prosecutor-- the only way to minimize the chance of making a wrongful conviction in Khura’in because he can’t afford being wrong if he wants to serve justice. And it’s not like he can just back out as a prosecutor with Ga’ran breathing down his neck. Ga’ran allows this because there’s nothing to lose with having a better prosecutor and she can just keep watch on him from overseas easily (if Inga can have spies watching the civil trial, then Ga’ran can watch Nahyuta even if he’s flying everywhere). If he truly wants to make Khura’in broken ass system to “work” as much as possible, he’ll literally have to be the perfection a von Karma dreams to be-- not just in terms of win streak like Manfred, but an actual god of prosecutors. A prosecutor that is always right because he’s borderline all-knowing.

That is an absolutely ridiculous standard. 

But with a shitty legal system like Khura’in’s... perhaps that’s the only way. I’m sure by now you see the connection between “wanting to be a borderline all-knowing god of law for the sake of salvaging Khura’in’s justice” and “having your entire reputation as a prosecutor center around information”. (You can connect this to Nahyuta’s aesthetic-- a holy man who’s eyes seem to pierce through your soul.)

Of course, this is the “only way” if you just accept that DCA or Ga’ran won’t go away. The “only way”... if you resign to Ga’ran’s regime.

I like this headcanon because adds a personal layer to the qualities Nahyuta has, but shares with past prosecutors. Hidden information pissing him off/catching him off guard, him being extremely thorough with investigation to the point of studying the most seemingly pointless shit... perhaps the important thing isn’t so much he can “read the karmic threads of fate” but him “wanting to read the karmic threads of fate” hah.

But we know that even being perfect isn’t enough. 6-3 proves that and that’s why it’s special in the narrative of SoJ.

We know by 6-1 that the DCA is bullshit and by 6-5 we then knew for certain that it was just a tool by Ga’ran to remain in power by silencing her opponents. But 6-3 shows that it runs deeper than “oh we need DAs bc what if the defendant is innocent”. Nah, in 6-3, the entire incident happened BECAUSE of the DCA. You can’t brush it off as the prosecutor being shitty like in 6-1. It didn’t matter if a godlike prosecutor came in and indicts the right person every time. Nah, you NEED the presence of DAs to argue a defendant’s case-- for a person to trust/feel safe around a legal system to serve exactly what they deserve, accounting for mitigating circumstances like self-defense. When there is no faith in the potential defendant’s case, of course they are going to do illegal shit like lie in court or frame another person to take the blame-- even if you should’ve had something like self-defense on your side. Pointing at “the right guy” isn’t enough to “serve justice”.

If Nahyuta deluded himself into thinking that “maybe if I study or try hard enough, maybe that’s the best Khura’in could ever have,” he probably snapped out of it by the end of 6-3 because no, it doesn’t matter how good of a prosecutor he is as an individual, the problem is much bigger than him. Fuck, maybe he’s extra pissy in 6-4 because of that and lashes at the much more inexperienced Athena. I don’t know that’s just a wild shot in the dark.

And of course, he stays silent for Rayfa’s and Amara’s sake until the very end.

...

The inspiration of this headcanon is how the writers of SoJ made Nahyuta being “hard to read” a deliberate character trait (that he shares with his mom). We know his behaviors and his motives behind his actions, but I feel like by the end of the game, his personal feelings throughout the game is a mystery. His acting and his poker face didn’t help in that regard. I wished there was more foreshadowing in that regard-- I will never not be salty that Athena’s hearing wasn’t used as foreshadowing in 6-4 that Nahyuta doesn’t believe what he says. (or hell, maybe even in 6-2 if they really wanted to).

I don’t think I would be nearly as passionate about this character as I am now if his personal feelings was a simple, open book, of course. Despite the writing flaws that I will gripe about time to time, he’s my favorite prosecutor at the end of the day.

Side note: I like to believe that he got a good impression and liking towards Ema as a detective because 1) forensics is without a doubt, a great source of information that Khura’in didn’t have before (to a large extent) and 2) in 6-2, Ema legit fingerprinted and analyzed everything out of passion and perhaps Nahyuta felt some sort of kinship with wanting to know everything.

[sigmalied]

Sig’s Anthem Review

Verdict

BioWare’s Anthem is a genuinely fun and engaging experience that sabotages itself with myriad design, balance, and technical oversights and issues. It is a delicious cake that has been prematurely removed from the developmental oven - full of potential but unfit for general consumption in this wobbly state. Anthem is not a messianic addition to the limited pantheon of looter shooters because it has somehow failed to learn from the well-publicized mistakes of its predecessors. 

Am I having fun playing Anthem? Absolutely. Does it deserve the industry’s lukewarm scores? Absolutely. But this is something of a special case. The live service model giveth and taketh away; we receive flexibility in exchange for certainty. Is Anthem going to be the same game six months from now? Its core DNA will always be the same, but we’ve already begun to see swift improvements that bode well for the future. 

Will my opinion matter to you? It depends. When I first got into looter shooters I was shocked at how much the genre clicked with me. They are a wonderful playground for theory crafters, min/maxers, and mathletes like myself who find incomparable joy in optimizing builds both conventional and experimental by pushing the limits of obtainable resources ad infinitum. The end game grind is long and at times challenging as you make the jump to Grandmaster 1+ difficulty in search of top-tier loot to perfect your build. This is what looter shooters are all about.

If you don’t like the sound of that, you’ll probably drop Anthem right after finishing its campaign. But if you do like the sound of that, you might find yourself playing this game for years.

TL;DR: This game is serious fun, but is also in need of some serious Game & UI Design 101. 

I wrote a lot more about individual aspects of the game beneath the read more, if you’re interested. I’ve decided not to give the game a score, I’m just here to discuss it after playing through the campaign and spending a few days grinding elder game activities. There are no spoilers here.

Gameplay

The Javelins are delightful. I’ve played all four of them extensively and despite identifying as a Colossus main I cannot definitively attach myself to one class of Javelin because they’re all so uniquely fun to play and master. Best of all, they’re miraculously balanced. I’ve been able to hold my own with every Javelin in Grandmaster 1+. Of course, some Javelins are harder to get the hang of than others. Storms don’t face the steep learning curve Interceptors do, but placed in the hands of someone who knows what they’re doing, both are equally as destructive on the battlefield. 

I love the combo system. It is viscerally satisfying to trigger a combo, hearing that sound effect ring, and seeing your enemy’s health bar melt. Gunplay finally gets fun and interesting when you start obtaining Masterworks, and from there, it’s like playing a whole new game. 

Mission objectives are fairly bland and repetitive, but the gameplay is so fun I don’t even mind. Collect this, find that, go here, whatever. I get to fly around and blow up enemies while doing it, and that’s what matters. Objectives could be better, certainly. Interesting objectives are vital in game design because they disguise the core repetitive gameplay loop as something fresh, but the loop on its own stays fresh long enough to break even, I feel.

The best part is build flexibility. Want to be a sniper build cutting boss health bars in half with one shot? I’ve seen it. Want to be a near-immortal Colossus wrecking ball who heals every time you mow down an enemy? You can. There are so many possibilities here. Every day I come across a new crazy idea someone’s come up with. This is an excellent game for build crafters. 

But... why in the world are there so few cosmetic choices? A single armor set for each Javelin outside the Vanity store? A core component of looter shooters has always been endgame fashion, and on this front, BioWare barely delivers and only evades the worst criticism by providing quality Javelin customization in the way of coloring, materials, and keeping power level and aesthetics divorced. We’re being drip-fed through the Vanity store, and while I like the Vanity store’s model, there should have been more things permanently available for purchase through the Forge. Everyone looks the same out there! Where’s the variety? 

Story, Characters, World

Anyone expecting a looter shooter like Anthem to feature a Mass Effect or Dragon Age -sized epic is out of their mind, but that doesn’t mean we have to judge the storytelling in a vacuum. This is BioWare after all. Even a campaign that flows more like a short story - as is the case with Anthem - should aspire to the quality of previous games from the studio. Unfortunately, it does not, but it comes close by merit of narrative ambience: the characters, the world’s lore, and their execution. 

(For a long time I’ve had a theory that world building is what made the original Mass Effect great, not its critical storyline, which was basically a Star Trek movie at best. Fans fell in love because there were interesting people to talk to, complicated politics to grasp, and moral decisions to make along the way.)

While the main storyline of Anthem is lackluster and makes one roll their eyes at certain moments or bad lines, the world is immediately intriguing. Within Fort Tarsis, sophisticated technology is readily available while society simultaneously feels antiquated, echoing a temporal purgatory consistent with the Anthem’s ability to alter space-time. Outside the fort, massive pieces of ancient machinery are embedded within dense jungles in a way that suggests the mechanical predates nature itself. The theme of sound is everywhere. Silencing relics, cyphers hearing the Anthem, delivering echoes to giant subwoofers… It’s a fun world, it really is. 

As for the characters… they might be some of the best from BioWare. They feel like real people. Rarely are they caricatures of one defining trait, but people with complex motives and emotions. Some conversations were boring, but the vast majority of the time I found myself racing off to talk to NPCs as soon as I saw yellow speech bubbles on the map after a mission. And don’t even get me started on the performances. They are golden.

The biggest issue with the story is that it’s not well integrated with missions. At times it feels like you’re playing two separate games: Fort Tarsis Walking/Talking Simulator and Anthem Looter Shooter. And the sole threads keeping these halves stitched together during missions - radio chatter - takes a back seat if you’re playing with randoms who rush ahead and cause dialogue to skip, or with friends who won’t shut the hell up so you can listen or read subtitles without distraction. I found it ironic that I soloed most of the critical story missions in a game that heavily encourages team play.

Technical Aspects: UI & Design 

This is where Anthem has some major problems. God, this category alone is probably what gained the ire of most reviewers. The UI is terrible and confusing. There are extra menu tabs where they aren’t needed. The placement of Settings is for some inane reason not located under the Options button (PS4). Excuse me? It’s so difficult to navigate and find what you’re looking for. It’s ridiculously unintuitive.  

Weapon inscriptions (stat bonuses) are vague and I’ve even seen double negatives once or twice. They come off as though no one bothered to proofread or edit anything for clarity. Just a bad job here all around. And to make matters worse, there is no character stat sheet to help us demystify any of the bizarre stat descriptions. We are currently using goddamn spreadsheets like animals. Just awful. 

The list goes on. No waypoints in Freeplay. Countless crashes, rubber banding, audio cutouts, player characters being invisible in vital cutscenes, tethering warnings completely obscuring the flight overheat meter… Fucking yikes. Wading through this swamp of bugs and poor design has been grueling to say the least. 

And now for the loot issues. Dead inscriptions on gear; and by dead I mean dead, as in “this pistol does +25% shotgun damage” dead (this has been recently patched but I still cannot believe this sort of thing made it to release). The entire concept of the Luck stat (chance to drop higher quality loot) resulting in Luck builds who drop like flies in combat and become a burden for the rest of the team. Diminishing returns in Grandmaster 2 and 3; it takes so long to clear missions on these difficulties without significant loot improvement, making GM2 and GM3 pointless when you could be grinding GM1 missions twice as fast. 

At level 30, any loot quality below Epic is literal trash. Delete Commons, Uncommons, and most Rares as soon as you get them because they’re virtually useless. I have hundreds of Common and Uncommon embers and nothing to do with them. Why can’t we convert 5 embers into 1 of the next higher tier? Other looters have already done things like this to make progression omnipresent. You don’t have to reinvent the wheel here, BioWare. It’s already been done for you. 

When you get a good roll on loot, the satisfaction is immense. But when you don’t, and you won’t 95% of the time, you’ll feel like you’ve wasted hours with nothing to show for it. We shouldn’t be spending so much time hunting for useful things, we should be trying to perfect what’s already useful.

It’s just baffling to think that Anthem had the luxury of watching the messy release of several other looter shooters during Anthem’s development, yet proceed to make the same mistakes, and some even worse. 

Nothing needs to be said about visuals. They are stunning, even from my perspective on a base PS4.

Sound design is the only other redeeming subcategory here. Sound design is amazing, like the OST. Traditional instrumentals meet alien synth seamlessly. Sarah Schachner is a seriously talented composer. 

I’m just relieved to see the development team hauling ass to make adjustments. They’ve really been on top of it - the speed and transparency of fixes has been top-notch. They’re even working on free DLC already! A new region, more performances from the actors... I’m excited and hopeful for the future. 

[familiaralien]

Decided for this Halloween season to make a TOP 10 HORROR GAMES TO PLAY list to share with all of you.

This isn’t a list of the “best” games but more so games that left a lasting impact on me. They won’t be numbered because I kinda go back and forth on which one I feel deserves the most recommendation of the bunch. So yeah that said let’s get going!

Soma

Developed by the same folks that brought us Amnesia the Dark Descent this game chooses not to play into more primal fears and instead is an intense journey of existential horror. Its not a game that will scare you silly but will make you think deeply about what makes you human and the preservation of self through digital data.

I would elaborate more on this entry but this is one of those game that definitely should be played blind to best consume all its twists and turns.

Five Nights at Freddy’s: Sister Location

Hey don’t fucking scroll away this isn’t a troll I promise! Unlike well... every other entry in the series which is pretty mediocre horror Sister Location is legitimately well written and crafted. It tone is somewhere between System Shock 2 and Portal if you’re wondering what to expect. The only bad thing i have to say about the game is it does have 1 unavoidable jumpscare, its otherwise a wonderful bite sized sci fi horror game.

PS: If you’re wondering no you don’t have to play any other FNAF game to understand the plot of this one. Its very self contained like that.

Ib

While there’s way too many RPG maker horror games out there I always felt this one stood out a lot. Its far from the prettiest RPG maker game but its atmosphere is fantastic regardless of the limitation of the software used. You truly feel like you’ve enter a world where art has come to life. Its also a game with a bunch of endings so it has a lot of replayability as well.

PS: This is a free to play game so no investment besides you time is needed to try it out.

Spooky’s House of Jumpscares

Don’t let the silly title fool you this game isn’t just a simple joke game meant to poke fun at horror game trends. While it does seem like that for the first few minutes the game quickly turns into a full on homage to a huge variety of horror media from games to animation to even a creepypasta.

PS: The original version of this game is free to play so its certainly worth your time.

Silent Hill: Shattered Memories

I’m probably committing some type of sin by putting this on my list instead of P.T. but P.T. is too hard to obtain now due to Komani being arse.

Anyway I’ve spoken about this game before but its worth repeating this is arguably the only good (non P.T.) Silent Hill game produced post Team Silent involvement. The game is the truest psychological horror game ever produced as it LITERALLY evaluates how you behave in the game to determine everything to how NPCs are dress, how conversations go and ultimately how the game will end. The only real downside to the game is the chase scenes which are often more far annoying than scary.

The Count Lucanor

I know some people have biases against games that use more simplistic pixel art but the style works in the favor of the narrative imo so please don’t hold that against it. The Count Lucanor takes a lot of inspiration from fairy tales of ol’ but with gameplay you’d expect from any modern horror games: Ya know lots of hiding, lots of puzzles, lots of moral choices, lots of secrets, multiple endings, being largely defenseless. Though with the latter point its far more justified as your playing as a prepubescent boy.

While the game itself isn’t horribly original in its gameplay its execution gives it a unique almost Disney tone though with a bit more edge.

Resident Evil 7: Biohazard

I was actually originally not planning to add this entry because I thought everyone had already played this game but apparently a lot of people skipped it? I imagine that may be part of the stigma of the series going downhill for a while but I assure you this is probably the best and most terrifying entry in the series to date!

Taking a lot of inspiration for the first game in the series but changing its perspective to 1st person RE7 is an unnerving experience that will keep you on your toes. I only hope Capcom keeps this trend up in the future.

The Cat Lady

This is “kinda cheating” entry because this game is more a side scrolling adventure game with horror elements but hey the game is listed as “psychological horror” on Wikipedia so I will count it!

The Cat Lady is probably the entry I would consider the most “artsy” if that makes sense. Its plot doesn’t serve to frighten but more to make one think about death, depression and dealing with loss. While many of the line deliveries in the game are stiff and some of the language is dated the game is extremely unique experience I can’t recommend enough.

DreadOut

While there’s crapload of games out starring Japanese horror there’s not so much for other Asian countries. DreadOut fills that niche wonderfully as a sorta Indonesian Fatal Frame as your sole weapon through the game is a camera. That said it stands out as its own thing as it focuses more on exploration (at least in act 1) and has what I would consider a fun sense of humor you don’t often see in games of this nature. Its not a flawless games as for example there are scripted deaths/jumpscares but its ghost designs are very unique and the world is very lush and detailed.

Little Nightmares

This was a huge toss up between this and Inside since both are side scrolling puzzle platformers with a dark atmosphere but in the end I chose this one for its aesthetics alone. Little Nightmares is a legitimately beautiful yet creepy game, it almost reminds of a dark and edgy Miyazaki film which is fitting as Spirited Away seems to have been a big inspiration behind it. While the game is very short its DLC adds just about an entire second game onto it base narrative giving you plenty more time to take in the messed up gluttonous universe of the story. 

Honestly it feels like we got but a mere taste its setting so this is definitely a game I feel desperately needs a followup.

BONUS JOKE ENTRY!: 

Deadly Premonition

This is one of the worst yet most entertaining horror games I’ve experience in my life. When introduced to this game I was given the description of it being basically “The Room” of horror games and in essence that’s pretty accurate. The gameplay is a mess of bad decisions with graphic so bad people often think the game is much older than it is. While the story has moments of actual good writing those moments are sandwiched between long periods or jaw dropping stupidity. Its clear the writers were aiming for a Twin Peaks like gaming experience while... failing spectacularly to understand what made Twin Peaks actually good.

If you’re looking for something that’s equivalent to a corny haunted house attraction this Halloween season this is the game for you.

[secret-diary-of-an-fa]

If Violence Doesn’t Work, Magic Will (God of War Trilogy Review)

WARNING: This turned out too long to proofread properly this morning, so there are one or two egregious grammatical cock-ups that I’ll have to edit at a later date.

Oh, Kratos, you loveable, mass-murdering hunk o’ Grecian man-flesh, what would we do without you? Probably die of old age instead of a chain-blade to the fizzog, that’s what.

That’s right, folks! I’ve been playing the classic God of War games- specifically, the original trilogy. There’s a new one out, which apparently has much more dad-angst and much less gratuitous nudity (and I will play it eventually), but for now I’m all about those first three games. By golly did they ever set a gold standard in the hack-and-slash genre. Let’s have a quick reviewski, shall we?

Well, first off, it’s worth noting that the games are actually slightly misnamed. Kratos does become the god of war at one point, but he only spends like, fifteen minutes of playable time being the god of war before Zeus decides that giving an obvious nutter like him deity-level power miiiiiight have been a mistake and smacks him right back down to mortal status. Really, he’s just a very angry bastard who commits genocide on a semi-regular basis, but I guess Bastard of Genocide didn’t have the same ring as God of War and you know what the marketing department is like.

Anyway, comic-effect nitpicking aside, I love the God of War games. Partly, it’s the sheer scope of the plot. Yes, each game is technically a separate entity in its own right, but they’re really telling one coherent story… which I will now spoil with carefree elan. Kratos was once the leader of a Spartan army, until he faced defeat. Then he called on Ares for help and offered him his services as a murderous psychopath in return. Ares took the deal, but eventually tricked Kratos into killing his own family (like you do) in the belief it would make him a better warrior. Kratos broke his service to Ares and, years later, Ares went even more bananas and attacked Athens. The other Greek deities decided that Kratos was the best guy to kill Ares, so they gave him his chance for revenge. He killed the former god of war using the power trapped in Pandora’s box and Zeus et al made him the new god of war. That’s the first game. The second game picks up with Zeus and company realising that Kratos might be a tad unstable, what with being a naturally violent man who’s perpetually trapped inside the trauma of having killed his own wife and child. Zeus tricks him into relinquishing his godlike power and casts him into Hades… which doesn’t pan out well, because apparently dying just doesn’t take if you’re sufficiently irate. Thus, Kratos claws his way out of Hades and recruits an army of Titans to wage war on Olympus. Building this army takes up the second game. The third game begins and, with all the pieces in place from Game 2, the war kicks off. Kratos gets a hint that he’ll need Pandora’s box again and sets off through through the war to retrieve it and Pandora herself- the living key to the box. In the process, he basically has to kill everyone on Mount Olympus. Pandora very nearly helps Kratos achieve a sense of inner peace and redemption, but then dies unlocking the box, which turns out to already be empty, because the secret weapon- hope- was already absorbed into Kratos the last time he used it. Kratos- always angry- is now also broken, and after he exacts his final revenge on Zeus, he also kills himself (obviously it doesn’t work, ‘cause there’s a new game set after these events… but the thought was there). In doing so, he unleashes the power of hope and bestows it on mankind. Now that’s a plot! It does a great job of affecting the scale and feel of an actual Greek epic and there’s something very awe-inspiring about that.

God of War has always been praised for its combat, and it’s certainly satisfying to kill a whole army’s worth of overconfident dipshits with a blur of blades and the occasionally ludicrous bit of magic. However, when it comes to gameplay, it’s the puzzles that I really like. Yeah- it’s a game series called God of War and it’s got surprisingly cerebral environmental puzzles in it. That’s a pretty ballsy choice on the game developers’ part and I wholeheartedly applaud it. The puzzles themselves play fair, for the most part, and the solution is never completely ridiculous. There were times when I had to call up a strategy guide on my laptop, but I always knew it was because I was having a brain-fart and overlooking something obvious. I never got the sense that the games were dicking with me (well- there’s one bit that isn’t really a puzzle where you have to climb a spinning cylinder covered in swords that can fuck right off, but we’ll let that pass). Mostly, though, the appeal of the puzzles is that they force you to slow down and look at the world you’re in properly. A lot of effort went in the art direction in the God of War series and the end results are some of the best-looking and most breathtaking vistas in any games. It’s nice that you get to do something in that environment other than repainting it with other people’s lovely vermillion viscera.

Ultimately, however, the appeal of God of War lies in how resolutely over-the-top and truculently immature it is. Kratos himself has basically no ego or superego: he’s pure, enraged id, driven by a deepseated sense of betrayal and loss combined with an obvious addiction to sex and violence, and the gameworld is the perfect place for him. Beyond the combat, there’s also lashings of nudity and very specific acts of wholly unnecessary brutalisation that Kratos will carry out on helpless opponents outside of combat regardless of what you the player think of it. There’s a bit where he rips of Helios’ head so he can use it as a flashlight, and another bit where he saws off Hermes legs just to steal his fancy go-faster shoes. He even bumps off one of his own allies- Gaia- because she let him fall off Mount Olympus and went into battle without him (the game actually makes you do this bit yourself- you have to hack her arm off while she’s trying to pull herself onto level ground so she falls of the mountain. Later, when she comes back, mortally wounded, you have to dive into her giant body through an open wound and punch her heart until she has a heart attack. No, really). Oh, and there’s sex, too. Not with Gaia- which would probably be too logistically challenging to animate. After Kratos has murderised about half the pantheon, you can choose to take a break and celebrate a rampage well done by boinking Aphrodite. Most games would have their lead character take the object of his desires in his arms then cut tastefully away. Not God of War III. The camera moves away from the act itself… but not in a tasteful way. While you play a button-prompt based mini-game in order to bring Aphrodite to orgasm, the camera watches her two handmaidens, who look on and provide sports-commentator style analysis of how its going… until they get so excited that they start fucking one another. You can play that minigame as many times as you want. Then you can go right back to ripping people’s heads off with a sword tied to a rusty chain as though nothing happened. I can’t imagine that happening in any other game series. Well, maybe Saints Row, but that’s a thought experiment for another day.

Fundamentally, most games of the last couple of console generations demonstrate a degree of restraint. No matter how dark and fucked up their subject matter is, they want to portray relateable characters and tell a story that doesn’t alienate potential players. The original God of War trilogy doesn’t give a tuppeny fuck if the things that happen in it make you uncomfortable and as a result, it’s probably the weirdest, freshest thing I’ve played since… well, since Saints Rows 2, 3 and 4. It approaches its gameplay segments like a B-movie director approaches each scene of his films. It looks at the characters, props and setting on hand and asks “OK- what’s the most extreme and shocking thing that could happen using all these?” Then it just does that thing.

The new God of War is supposedly a lot more mature, portraying Kratos as an old man, trying to be a better person for the sake of a new son. From a narrative perspective, that’s probably the right move, since there’s only so many times Kratos can murder and fuck his way through an entire civilisation without learning a single cocking thing before it starts to seem silly. I’m not sure if the series will flourish under such a tonal shift, though. After all, the originals were good because Kratos was a psychopath with a sublimated deathwish and the sexual contenance of a meerkat with access to viagra. Once my PS4 is fixed/replaced and I’ve had a chance to play it for myself, I’ll let you know. For now, I’ll be focusing on God of War: Ascension (the prequel). I suggest you get yourself the original trilogy and see what I’m raving about for yourself. Until then, my vengeance (by which I mean blog entry) ends here.