#obviously I have much more complex thoughts but the DLC REALLY made me start to love Chandlo more as a character

[snorpdawg]

Here is my review of Isle of Bigsnax

Aaaand post

[reds-skull]

So my thoughts on the train wreck that was mw3

(spoilers... obviously)

I reblogged a post talking about this a few hours ago, and it talked about this issue better than I could, but the mission with Samara made me grind my teeth literally. It doesn't mention that at the end of the mission, when she's forced to wear a bomb vest and hold a glock, in order to get to the detonator to stop the bomb you need to go through a crowd of people. I didn't shoot them but the game encourages you to. jsyk.

It's really fucked.

Overall, I'll be honest I didn't take anything too seriously. I heard it's a shitshow so I just looked for the full half of the cup. I also had a feeling someone's gonna die so I was scared for everyone all the fucking time.

[continued rent below]

My favorite parts are where Graves and Shepherd show up actually, since everyone's so fucking done with their bullshit it's so funny. Ghost straight up asking Laswell to airstrike them killed me, Soap being feral is a highlight.

Shepherd being the prisoner made me laugh idk I can't take that fucker seriously.

I liked seeing more of Farah and Alex. Playing as price was also interesting.

Liked seeing what happened in Verdansk that was cool.

Now for the shit... I was expecting a sort of chasing around the world part 2 after a couple of missions. And that's what it is? Kinda? I'll be honest I'll need to rewatch to understand what was going at the start...

Now for the last mission... I saw people talking about Soap's death coming out of nowhere and I can't help but disagree? Like since Verdansk with Makarov threatening Soap and then Shepherd telling him it will all come back to bite him in the ass... I knew it will be him.

But did it make sense for him to die at that moment? That is harder to tell, I think they're aiming for his death to be a catalyst for Price, to be more ruthless. We see that with him killing Shepherd, like Soap wanted to.

Was it necessary for Price's arc to have Soap die? Not really. He was already set on killing Makarov at the start of the game. I guess you could say he's not tolerant of Shepherd and Graves' grey morality, but they didn't really pose a threat to the 141 after mw2. Shepherd went off the grid and Graves was busy with Farah and Alex.

In general I was surprised that was the last mission. It felt really jarring, even if I know it's supposed to lead up to mw4.

Small note gameplay wise (and glitches) I actually liked the changes, but that's because my favorite games are stealth based, so having the option for it was more fun for me. But I see the average cod player not enjoying it (not really what they signed up for).

I was actually feeling like if I had the option to return the game I would, but it's a dlc and I sure have more than 3 hours on mw2 so I can't...

(first time I buy a triple A game on release and that's what I fuckin get... kinda deserved ngl lmao)

The 2 main things that should be taken away from this are that first this was an impossible game to make in a year, there's a lot of overworking we didn't see behind the scenes, and we can thank the execs and the current nightmare that is the triple A games industry. You can't make a good game at that short of a time.

Second thing is, this is cod. As much as it wants to criticize the military, on the bottom line they got ties with the American military complex. Because of that, Call of Duty will never be an accurate view of the army, and will always glorify western military.

I honestly was agreeing with some of the stuff the villeins say at times when they criticize the good guys. But the villeins are often so over the top evil you can't really agree with them. And that's the point, isn't it?

So it will always have that issue. My interest in this story is purely from a narrative point, irl I come from an extremely militaristic place so I'm sick of all that shit propaganda. Might be obvious for the rest of you, but for the ones that are not... do your research. Learn about how propaganda works. I promise it will be useful to you at one point in your life.

(getting sidetracked here... sorry recent events really bring up some emotions. Mostly anger.)

Just as a sidenote about my own comics - I'm just gonna straight up ignore mw3. Might work with the Verdansk backstory because I liked that, but in general just imagine I'm going off on a tangent. As much as I like angst I want it more emotionally fueled than the campaigns, so if anyone dies, it's on my terms!

I've been really fucking busy with uni so it might take a while, but I'm working on a nice fluffy comic (with an idea I've planned months ago so it's completely unrelated to mw3)

Whoever's still reading, I'll cya then!

[grenade-maid]

Man, in an attempt to get better in Guilty Gear Accent Core I've been watching some high level play, because that's what made Strive make a lot more sense to me. And it's like. Suddenly remembering why it took me until now to get really into fighting games, especially Guilty Gear, because high level play in AC is complete incomprehensible air juggling manic nightmare mode, compared to strive which, even watching the pros it is pretty easy to tell what they are doing, why they are doing it, and how I could do it too. That isn't a knock against the older games, it's just a level of rapid fire complexity and volume of information that I struggle to keep up with.

However, that also brings to mind the number of characters who appear in the older games but not in xrd and incredibly unlikely to come to strive, like my main girls ABA and Bridget. Because like, as much as I would love to see them in crisp 1080p PS5 graphics with the last two decades of game design refinement, there's something kind of nice about having characters that are unique to each installment. Because like, not every installment needs to completely supercede all those that came before. Each one offers something different in terms of mechanics, story, and characters. Making certain characters unique to certain installments creates an incentive to go back to those older ones and appreciate them for what they are, to spend time with them and learn more about the history of the series.

And like, considering that Arc System Works has ported basically the entire series to steam, that is a proposition that is actually pretty doable, unlike many series like Metal Gear Solid and Silent Hill where if you want to catch up with older entries you have to track down original hardware and sometimes even a physical copy to play it on. While emulation is obviously an option within reach for most people when it comes to the 8-Bit and 16-bit generations, once you start getting into ps1, especially ps2, and even more so ps3, not everyone has the hardware beefy enough to emulate those systems. Not to mention the level of bugs and glitches that can often be introduced through these methods which make the experience less than ideal.

I'm not a huge fan of how expensive the previous games are, and especially not the paid DLC and season pass stuff. But at least with strive, I can grin and bear it because the work they put into characters like Goldlewis in terms of making them feel really good and well balanced against the rest of the cast shows immediately upon playing them in a way that I never really felt with, say, Overwatch characters.

Anyway, no real point here, just early morning thoughts. Smoke weed everyone.

[whistlewhileiblogit]

Thoughts on TLoU Part 2....Again

Yeah, I am back with another vent, rant, thoughts on...thing. I wanted to wait a long time after writing my initial reaction to the game, because I figured I’d get more clarity or something. Anyway, so here are my unedited and unfiltered thoughts...8 months later. So as always, this is going to be rambly, and I’ll probably just bold parts of note in case anyone wants to jump around. So here we go!

Oh and, SPOILERS AHEAD

Things I liked: These pretty much haven’t changed. The game is obviously beautiful, the gameplay itself I enjoyed immensely (when mentally separating it from the plot), the Joel and Ellie flashbacks. They were fantastic, and made me feel very reminiscent of the first game. Jesse and Dina were cool, but I found them underutilised, which is a massive shame because they were cool characters.

Yara and Lev were also great, and again, Yara was another completely wasted character potential. But love them nonetheless.

So yeah...that’s pretty much it, I think?

Now for the things I didn’t like...

The writing is the biggest sin in the game to me, as it creates so many structural issues. The pacing is wild and jarring, we aren’t given enough time to bond with certain characters before they are killed off, the narrative itself manages to be incredible simple yet complex simultaneously, but it is a total mess.

Let me explain. The end of the game essentially comes down to “revenge bad”, no matter how you look at it. Sure, you can also include other aspects like, “do good deeds”, but they seem sort of tacked on, considering what happens throughout the game. Ellie goes through the entire story with vengeance for Joel being basically the only thing on her mind (or at least, at the forefront of it), and then just...doesn’t go through with it at the end.

Honestly, the game felt by that point that she HAD to go through with it, after all, how would she learn her lesson? Yet she learns her lesson, without actually getting revenge? So what was the point? Some have said that she learnt in that final fight with Abby to forgive Joel, but this makes no sense. Ellie had already started to forgive Joel before his death. Obviously, she wasn’t over it yet, but she clearly wanted to make amends with her father figure. Besides, she’s fighting Abby, after all. And she certainly didn’t forgive her.

I think a lot of people took Ellie letting Abby go as forgiveness, but in reality, it was in complete grief. There was no point in killing her anymore.

But again, THIS MAKES NO SENSE. Given every. Single. Thing Ellie went through the game, all to find and kill Abby. Losing others she loved and cared for, her family, her fingers (and her ability to play guitar which was the only thing she had left connecting her to Joel)...all of that and she just let Abby go?

It would have made so much more sense had she gone through with killing Abby, only THEN to realise it didn’t make her feel better in the long run. That she was still conflicted in her feelings for Joel. Why bother having Ellie go through every point in the game, only to have her back out at the last second and STILL lose everything? What is that saying? If you do the “right” thing, you’ll still get shit anyway? Ugh.

So speaking of Abby...I thought hey, maybe after all this time, I’ll be able to grow to like her! Yeah, nope. She is just as unlikable as always. Abby is a deuteragonist that we are meant to grow to care for, like we do Ellie. But here’s the thing; Ellie has an ENTIRE GAME beforehand PLUS a freaking DLC game that gives us so much time to love her. So you would think that the writers must think, we’ll make Abby super likeable! NOPE.

Throughout the game, Abby is stoic (which isn’t a bad thing on its own), serious, and just flat-out boring. Sorry Naughty Dog, but I don’t find a character who collects coins as her biggest personality trait interesting. She isn’t funny, or kind or particularly clever. She has her strength, and that doesn’t count as a personality. She’s also a shitty friend, and person, and gets called out for that in the game by Dr Preggers (still don’t remember her name).

Even Abby’s flashbacks do little to make me like her. Oh wow, she has a magical, amazing, super perfect animal-helping papa? And? I just can’t latch onto her character and story. Even if she were really well written and interesting, I wonder if I could have after the game presents her as a total fucking barbaric monster in the first two hours of gameplay.

No, I’m still not over Joel’s death. And despite what some people try and say, it isn’t BECAUSE he died. I went into the game fully expecting Joel to die (I was lucky enough to see no spoilers prior to playing), because I felt like that would be the next step narratively that ND would go. This was a terrible decision on ND’s behalf, but I’ll get into that later.

Joel’s death as the way it plays out, does not only Joel a great disservice- but Abby as well. If ND wanted us all to like Abby so much, they easily could have just made her show some remorse, or conflict, or even just a quick, somewhat merciful death to Joel. But instead, we get ~torture porn~, which becomes the first scene of many of these in the game. This scene is so fucking brutal and sickening, I personally cannot watch it. I have seen it ONCE, and after that I have avoided having to watch it again. And I am not a person with a weak stomach.

Instead of having a death scene worthy of Joel’s character, like having him save Ellie somehow or going out in a blaze of glory, as many have suggested...we got an incredibly beloved character being treated as merely a plot device.

Imagine if the roles were reversed, and Ellie had been killed in Part 2, not Joel. I doubt those saying they’d be cool with it really would be. Especially in such a disgusting, horrific manner.

And one of my biggest grievances with the game- the retconning. I’ve had some people argue with me, that the game doesn’t retcon anything. Those people are fooling themselves or just being wilfully ignorant. Part 2 completely contradicts facts from Part 1. Including:

- Joel didn’t completely lie to Ellie. He half lied. If Joel finds all of the recorders in the hospital, it is revealed that the fireflies DID find dozens of immune people. And killed all of them trying to make a cure...and it didn’t work. This is literal in-game proof that the fireflies never would have succeeded in their quest, had Joel let them kill Ellie.

- Part 2 would have you believe that the fireflies were doing well with their groups and their research. Part 2 shows a beautiful, modern-day looking hospital. But the fact is, as shown in Part 1, the fireflies were on their last legs, and killing Ellie to try and find a cure was their last-ditch attempt to find meaning in their cause. It never was going to work. The hospital is shown to be filthy, and barely up to scratch by all standards. The fireflies were struggling, despite what part 2 tells us.

- The character design changes. We have all seen the comparison pictures of the doctor in part 1 vs part 2. They tried to make Jerry (?) look so wholesome and kind, begging for humanities sake. That isn’t how it went down, and he isn’t the same person. They just wanted Joel to look like a total villain.

I also want to mention what a disservice the marketing was to this game. I know Naughty Dog is very anti-spoiler, for obvious reasons, but they went above and beyond hiding spoilers that they straight up falsely advertised the game. And no, I will not forgive them for that.

The game completely undoes what made the first game special. It was a story about two people, struggling to survive, and somehow through it all, finding a familial love and trust within each other, and fighting to keep it, no matter what.

Ellie and Joel ARE The Last of Us, and Part 2 literally kills of half of what made the first game so incredibly special. As soon as Joel was killed, I wondered how the game would remedy those moments, and aside from the few Joel flashbacks, there really isn’t anything comparable to these scenes. Ellie is alone, so she doesn’t get to develop, or show her personality. And even when she is partnered up for short periods of time, she is too miserable (for good reason), to be the joking, lovable character we knew from the first game.

Final thoughts...

All in all, I would say my opinions have stayed pretty much the same for Part 2. I will forever love Part 1 (played it not long ago for the millionth time), and it is always going to be special to me.

But part 2, as it is, is nonredeemable to me. It really could have been something truly special, like part 1, but I guess that’s just what made The Last of Us so special.

[zaph1337]

Monster Hunter Rating 26: Rathalos, the King of the Skies

Well, we’re finally here. I’m not gonna lie, I’m kinda worried that I won’t be able to do this monster justice. The only experience I have with it isn’t even a Monster Hunter game, and I don’t know how much I can count on the wiki not having any headcanons that a lot of MH fans would disagree with. Still, it’s gotta be done. The King of the Skies, the Charizard of Monster Hunter, the Flying Wyvern--ladies, gents, and enbies, please give a warm welcome to Rathalos!

(How it appears in Monster Hunter 1)

(How it appears in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate)

(How it appears in Monster Hunter Rise)

Appearance: Rathalos may appear to be a standard wyvern, but it has a few neat touches. First, it has a black flame pattern on its wings, which is admittedly something I did notice until I saw the Rise render. Its tail is also interesting, as it ends with a wide, thorny tip that kind of reminds me of an armadillo lizard; in fact, Rathalos reminds me of an armadillo lizard in general, mostly thanks to its spiny scales. Okay, obviously armadillo lizards don’t have wings, have four legs, and aren’t 70 feet long, but the scales are similar! Rathalos also has a black, beak-like nose that you’d be forgiven for thinking of as an actual beak, as well as what appear to be pointy ears.

Sure, Rathalos may be pretty basic in spite of everything I just said, but that’s kind of the point. It’s meant to be easily recognizable and iconic, so not deviating too far from what a normal wyvern looks like helps with that. It’s still distinct and powerful-looking, though, which makes it a perfect mascot for the series. 8/10.

Behavior: Rathalos have a pretty wide range of habitats, but I guess that’s mostly because not even nature will tell them where they can and can’t be. They’re basically at the top of the food chain, and the only things that pose a threat to them are monsters that are just as feared as they are (and hunters, of course), and even then, Rathalos never go down without a fight. Well, okay, that’s if they get in a fight with those monsters; they’re not stupid enough to actively aggress anything that they recognize as a clear threat unless they feel like they have to. They do get more aggressive during mating season, though, and after they mate, they’ll fly over their territories in search of threats, which they will go after like a honey badger breaking into a beehive. Rathalos stalk their prey from above before making their move, and after they kill it, they’ll take it somewhere to eat where scavengers and other large monsters aren’t likely to find it and try to steal a meal.

And...that’s it. Look, I know these games aren’t going to make monster behavior and lore as complex as real animals are, so it’s natural that they’d focus on how dangerous a monster is above all else, especially in Rathalos’ case, but monsters like Plesioth and Basarios/Gravios had more to them than their hunting habits and reputation, so you’d think that the same treatment would be given to the series mascot. There is a reason why there’s not much said about Rathalos, though, but you’ll have to wait until the next review to hear about it (no I’m not good at subtle foreshadowing, how could you tell?). Until then, I’m giving Rathalos a 6/10.

Abilities: I can actually speak from experience here since I’ve fought Rathalos before...in SSBU. Look, you take what you can get. If the title “King of the Skies” didn’t clue you in, Rathalos are very good fliers, and they’re just as dangerous in the air as they are on the ground. This is thanks to their multiple flame sacs, which allow them to spit out fireballs with explosive force, and their poisonous claws, which they utilize with divebombs. Speaking of which, they can simply rush at you from the air or on the ground, combining their strength and weight with their speed to knock you on your butt. They also use their tail “club” (it doesn’t really look like one, but that’s what the wiki calls it) as a blunt beating object, or they can just bite you if they want to be simple.

Rathalos don’t exactly do anything crazy, but the poison claws are interesting, and it uses all of its abilities to great effect anyways. 7/10.

Equipment: As expected, Rathalos weapons look pretty freaking cool. Here’s a Sword and Shield from the first MH called the Red Saber:

That sword looks RAD. It looks like a sword in the middle of the forging process that also happens to be made of lava, which is a concept that wouldn’t make any sense if you never saw this. The shield is also really cool, as it looks both tough and like it would cause some serious pain if you bashed something with it. Next is an Insect Glaive from MHRise called the Rathmaul:

I usually don’t like to use Rise weapons in these reviews since the renders are pretty small, but I had to rep my main weapon class, okay? Now, as for the Rathmaul itself, I like how the butt-end looks like a Rathalos’ tail, though I don’t know what the green part is. The blade of the glaive also looks cool; it doesn’t quite have the same pizzazz the Red Saber had, but it still looks really hot to the touch. Finally, here’s the weird-looking weapon of the review, the Rathalos Dual Blades from MHO:

Let’s skip the Hot Topic jokes and just agree that this is a really cool concept. From what I can remember, none of the monsters I’ve talked about so far have had Dual Blades that looked like claws, which is surprising to me. These also appeal to the Kid Icarus: Uprising fanboy in me, so that’s another plus. Now for the armor, I’ve got a couple armor sets from Monster Hunter Tri (yes, I know it’s the worst game in the series, but the wiki didn’t have any other renders I liked). Here’s the Blademaster armor:

If this looks familiar to you, it’s because SSB4 and SSBU both have DLC Mii Costumes based off of this armor. You may have also noticed that it looks freaking awesome. It’s regal, dangerous, and intimidating, just like the monster it’s based off of. As for the Gunner armor:

It’s still cool, but less so. Not enough spikes, plus the men’s helmet on the Blademaster set looks much better than the one here. Still, the set looks cool for both men and women, just like the Blademaster set does. The Rathalos equipment just looks powerful, and that’s exactly what your reward for killing such a powerful monster multiple times should look like. It’s almost demonic, which is interesting, since Rathalos itself doesn’t look that way (as far as dragons go, I mean. I’m aware that there are some people who think dragons in general are demonic). I can only imagine how enthralled people who started out with the first MH as kids were when they saw the kinda stuff they could make with Rathalos parts, especially since the monsters that you fought before it pale in comparison in basically every way. 8/10.

Final Thoughts and Tally: Well, of course Rathalos would get an above-average score! It’s the Main Monster, the one that’s been in every single MH game! You think it would have such staying power if it wasn’t impressive? I only hope I was able to adequately show off just why it’s the King. 7/10.

[urproblematicfav-arsonk]

There's a lot of things about Borderlands 3 that makes it kinda a garbage game. And all of those things are valid and true but a aspect of bl3 that deeply bothers me isn't something I've really seen people talk about?? Maybe they have but I missed it but I want to say my interpretation. (Also like, spoiler warning throughout all of this post)

To start off with: hi, I'm a autistic afab nonbinary person and this is relevant for this little rant I'm bout to go on.

I want to begin by stating why I love this franchise so much.

Borderlands, whether you like it or not, is INCREDIBLY queer. And not in a coded kind of way, it's just flat out gay as fuck. And that means so fucking much to me. Borderlands 2 was one of the first times I ever felt fully represented in a game. Zer0 being this dumbass making Yugioh references and generally being a fun garbage boy and also being nonbinary meant a lot to me and I adore him to this day (nonbinary people can use gendered pronouns fuc off). And getting more and more into this series and finding out that basically every character was on some level queer was really cool to me. Maya being asexual and most of the characters being attracted to multiple genders so honestly and off handily was so refreshing and amazing to get to play through. The casual mentions of a woman's wife or some man's husband in the echo's you find or Moxxi talking about her ex girlfriends was one of the reasons I loved this so much.

Another thing I loved particularly about Borderlands 2 was how feminist it was. I can not tell you how quickly I lost my shit at Mr. Torgue talking about the friend zone being misogynistic(it is btw). And the repeated jokes about fully murdering men for being rude to women was some of the highlights of my first playthrough. Punching a guy till he explodes because he disrespected a sex worker?? Fucking immaculate.

SPEAKING OF SEX WORK.

Mad Moxxi is a icon. She is a mother of MULTIPLE children, a survivor of rape and assault and a fucking bad bitch who runs a now intergalactic titty bar. Getting to have not only a sex worker be respected in a narrative, Moxxi is fun and a genuinely complex character who isn't defined by her job or her appearance. She is emotional and strong and funny and flawed but amazing person.

And then there's the way the male characters a represented and treated. I'll be honest here, I haven't really played Borderlands 1, mostly because have been spoiled by auto pick up and also I just didn't feel like it. So my idea of most of the men are based entirely off of Bl2, the pre-sequel and Tales. Anyway, Mordecai in particular is a character I really liked upfront. I love how a lot of his motivation and character is driven by his love of animals and Bloodwing. He's kind and though troubled knows when to get his shit together and be there when he needs to be. His casual "are you okay?" After the latter falls in the Arid Nexus was such a nice moment and the way he genuinely tries to be there emotionally for all of the people around him who he cares for is so fucking rare to see in a male character. And his arc of giving up alcohol to focus on being a better bird dad and you getting to help Brick make Mordecai a special gift to celebrate his sobriety is so amazing and I'm so proud of him.

Mr. Torgue is my dad and I love him. As mentioned, he is normal and believes that the friend zone is absolute garbage talk is ICONIC™ and the best scene in that game fight me. Torgue is a crybaby. He is an emotional person who is not afraid to express his pain and hurt when people are mean to him. He respects women and loves unicorns. The fact that is physical appearance is a big muscle guy who screams but is the literal opposite of toxic masculinity will forever make him the best male character of all time and I love him and he is my dad.

Roland was a character that I was never in particularly attached to but I still respect him and did enjoy his presence. I really appreciated his leadership style being primarily based on empathy and logic as opposed to him being a big meanie man with a HUGE dick who yells at people. I always really resonated with the echo from Tannis talking about how she came to Sanctuary. Roland going out of his way to bring Tannis to safety while completely respecting her autism and struggle with socializing really made his death hit harder when Tannis was very obviously distraught by losing him. It really seems that Roland was the only one who didn't treat her differently. And as someone who's autistic, finding people who legit 100% understand and respect you and just let you live the way you want/need to is kinda hard and those are the qualities I'd personally want in a leader.

Angel is also a big spot of affection for me. Handsome Jack being a irrefutably horrible person who Angel flat out says gaslights people and killed her means a lot to me considering 99% of Bad Parent stories end with "I forgive u" getting to see an abusive victim take that narrative and say fuck you was powerful and meant a lot to me coming from my own abusive home life.

There's a lot of other things I love about Borderlands but if I keep going I won't stop lol so let's get into why Borderlands 3 makes me so uncomfortable.

One of the main things that bothered me was the sexism. Its nothing too horrifying but given how feminist bl2 was it was really shocking and a bit hurtful the number of times women are called bitches or made to seem crazy. If you recall I brought up how you punch a man to death for calling a woman a bitch? Yea no, in this game we mock women for having boundaries and opinions because lol she's just a CRAZY BITCH who just needs to stop acting so hysterical am I right guys?

Yea the whole mission with that stupid bear thing and his ex robot girlfriend made me insanely uncomfortable and upset. I kept waiting for the gotcha moment where it says actually this bear guy is a dick and he shouldn't use language like that but no we just,,,,,, are supposed to laugh along. I hate it.

Even though Borderlands 3 is still very much queer, this game introducing 2 new trans characters as well as a whole DLC about a gay marriage and one of the playable characters being a lesbian there was this some shit that bothered me.

The mission where you crash and ruin a lesbian wedding.

That mission made so upset and uncomfortable. I hated how traumatized and hurt Tumorhead was as I murdered her family and wife. I hated how unfulfilling the mission was where PLOT TWIST the lady was actually a spy or whatever. I hate how there's a mission about ruining some poor psycho ladies wedding. I would've much more preferred a mission where Idk Bloodshine asks you to help her kill a spy who's causing problems and then fucking go around Promethea collecting wedding decorations or something. OR MAYBE JUST NOT A MISSION WHERE YOU KILL LESBIANS FOR NO FUCKING REASON.

I'm mad, anyway.

I also hated how Tannis was treated in this game. Under absolutely no circumstance would Doctor Patricia Tannis ever willingly take up a position of leadership. She is a severely autistic woman who gets nose bleeds from talking to people she wouldn't just be like "I'm in charge now pls talk to me!!!" Fuck off. And the joke about her dating a minecart isn't funny. The whole thing with the chairs, though funny in its absurdities was still a very important and powerful moment of character exploration. Tannis is insane. She is traumatized and hurt and in a moment of severe torture, she humanized some inanimate objects to cope. Tannis crying over the echo over Phillip is a heartbreaking moment of true vulnerability. It is also funny, because that's how good dark comedy works. It can be both hysterical and emotionally ruining at the same time. So what exactly does Tannis divorcing a minecart mean? What is this saying about her character? Why is it funny? Because lol lol reference??? Again, fuck off.

I hate how the Calypso twins childhood is handled. Troy implies it was horribly abusive and traumatic. But when we met Typhon whatever, he acts like it wasn't that bad??? He acts like he just didn't buy his kids the latest iPhone and oh no whoopsie now they're evil, my bad guys. It feels super weird and I don't like it.

Speaking of abusive parents. THEY DID MY GIRL ANGEL DIRTY SO BAD. This was literally when I decided I hated this game. Angel being the one who killed her mother and not Jack was fucking horrible. Especially after the literal foreshadowing in borderlands 2 implying he did. The fact that Jack is treated like a fearful man making what he thought was the right decision was insulting. I get that MattPat manipulated the fandom into thing Jack is a uwu bean but fuck you, you're the writers and you should fucking know better. Handsome Jack saw his daughter had power and turned her into a living battery for him to use as he saw fit. He was not scared and he was NOT right. Fuck you and fuck you for framing child abuse as chill and ok if your spooked enough like that. And the mission directly contradicts the echo's in Get To Know Jack. If Angel killed her mom why does she ask Jack where her mommy is when he's putting her in her chambers?? Why is it in the echo Jack is aggressive and forcibly and hurtfully makes her go into her chambers but in the memory, he's quiet and passive about it?? That's literally just flat out bad writing. Also fuck you.

Anyway,

I think that's really all I wanted to say about this topic. Obviously, there are also things that suck about bl3 but I'll try to chill and not make this too long.

I mostly wanted to make this to see if people cared/are bothered by the same things I am. I've seen how some of the fandom treats the more emotional and gay aspects of this franchise(the people throwing a fit over Amara, the friend zone line, not respecting trans peoples pronouns, sexualizing and being gross about Moxxi)

Anyway that's it byeeeeeeeeeeeee

[indowolfgang]

About Jurassic Park’s lack of feathers: (y’all this is long)

most dinosaur related media doesn’t have feathered dinosaurs and a lot of people blame Jurassic Park. dinosaurs are my special interest and Jurassic Park is a big part of that so ima prove them wrong. first off i wanna say haters get owned: 2011: NASA scientists said it was the 7th best SciFi movie and 2012: Popular Mechanics said it was the 6th accurate and “was faithful to early '90s speculative genetics theories”

anyways... lets get into it

Games (that i have lol):

Ark: Survival Evolved: 10/29 dinosaurs

Compsognathus,  Deinonychus, Gallimimus, Megalosaurus, Microraptor, Oviraptor, Raptor, Therizinosaur, Troodon, Yutyrannus (this dino was actually found with direct evidence of feathers!)

at first i had no idea what type of ‘raptor’ they were referring to, but i checked and its a Utahraptor. the largest-known individual of Utahraptor was about 7 meters (23 feet) long so size is a-okay with me

i debated including the Pegomastax because the wiki says it has fur and quills, which could be argued as protofeathers, but since its from the early Jurassic its hard to say.. just to be safe i left it out

i only looked at dinosaurs cause there are a ton of made-up/mythical creatures, prehistoric birds/reptiles, and just a straight up vulture

The Isle: 3/30 dinosaurs 

Therizinosaurus, Orodromeus (AI), Austroraptor 

none of these are playable in survival mode btw

also i’m not sure if the game is going for accuracy or not, Dilophosaurus and Velociraptor are the right size but still... no feathers on known feathered dinos: Velo, Rex, or Utahraptor

technically feathers have never been found on Utahraptors but there is strong evidence that all dromaeosaurids had them since Microraptor and Dakotaraptor had them

Jurassic World Evolution: 0/69 (nice) dinosaurs

based on the movies Jurassic World, Fallen Kingdom, and eventually they added a Jurassic Park DLC. despite the Jurassic World movies not counting the Jurassic Park sequels (Lost World and JP3) as part of its time line, the Jurassic Park DLC includes skins from those movies. not much to say here... i’ll get into the movies further down

i didn’t count the pteranodon, cause its not a dinosaur and, still, no feathers

Saurian: 4/8 dinosaurs

Dakotaraptor, Tyrannosaurus Rex, Acheroraptor, Ornithomimid

i’ve only included the dinos that are currently in-game, the wiki says they are planing to add another playable dino, Anzu (feathered), but so far it hasn’t even been added as an AI yet

they are actually going for scientific accuracy so all the dinos that should have feathers do and they are, as far as i can tell, realistically placed. Good Job!

games are hard to talk about... usually games that feature dinos will have an element of ‘fantasy’ (Ark especially) and JWE is based on the Jurassic World movies so its dinos can only look like the movies dinos. The Isle is most likely suffering from the status quo, most dinos in popular media look like big lizards so they didn’t want to take a risk. the game isn’t finished and its possible it’ll go from a dinosaur sim to a shooter, since there are human models in game and controls for weapons. i’ve also heard players rumor that you’re not actually playing as the dino but as a camera that follows it around (which would explain the nigh vision mode). chances are The Isle will end up like Ark: man vs dino

Movies:

i thought about discussing The Land Before Time movies (cause i was obsessed with them as a kid lol), but that was pre-Jurassic Park so i’ll give it an honorable mention. ANYWAYS... Jurassic Park, Jurassic Park: Lost World, Jurassic Park 3, Jurassic World, and Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom. none of them have feathered dinos. lets look at why that might be 🤔

Jurassic Park:

no feathered dinosaurs. BUT, feathered dinosaurs were not very mainstream in the scientific community until about 3 years after the movie came out,

“Three years after the first Jurassic Park debuted, paleontologists announced that the small theropod Sinosauropteryx was covered in a fine coat of fuzzy protofeathers. This was just the initial drop in a flood of feathery dinosaur discoveries which confirmed that a wide variety of dinosaurs bore archaic forms of plumage, from simple filaments to asymmetrical feathers that would have allowed them to fly.”

[from this National Geographic article (x)]

looking more into the history of feathered dinos, i found well... a lot. its really difficult to find a concrete time for when paleontologists discovered (and agreed on) feathered dinos, some places say 1860, 1923, 1979, 1983, it goes on forever, one source even said 2001. Archaeopteryx, which an early Jurassic creature, had complex, bird-like feathers. so why no feathers on other dinosaur reconstructions? its possible these discoveries were ignored by the larger scientific community in favor of the well established depictions of big, slow lizards

[if u wanna do even more reading about feathers check out this All About Birds article (x) and the History of discovery section on the Archaeopteryx’s wiki (x)]

JP definitely upped the Velociraptor’s size and did my Dilophosaurus dirty, so i will fault them for that. the big ass raptor has stayed in pop culture for-fucking-ever. it feels like everyone is making naked Utahraptors and calling them Velociraptors. and g*d... my poor Dilophosaurus... why’d they make you spit? and why so small? you’re really 6-7 meters (20-23 feet) long! you are a large carnivore!! also it is possible that Dilophosaurus had feathers, though again, because its from the early Jurassic, it would have been more like a fur

Lost World:

no feathered dinosaurs. i cant really fault them for not changing the dinosaurs looks in a sequel, also trust me when i say it could have been worse the dino depictions in the book are insane... Chameleon Carnotaurus anyone?

the movie also didn’t explain why there were different dinos at Site B compared to the actual park. my best explanation is from the book: Site B was where the dinosaurs were actually hatched and raised, they were moved to the park just before they got to big to handle. so we are to assume that any non-Jurassic Park dinos we saw in Lost World were originally planned to be moved. sucks that they left this detail out of the movie adaptation, cause a lot of fans got confused (including me lol)

Jurassic Park 3:

no feathered dinosaurs. an incredibly mild attempt at ‘feathered’ raptors was made in JP3 by giving the males quills, but at that point the movies had an established ‘science’ and completely changing the look of the animals at the end of a trilogy might have confused a few people (even if it was more scientifically accurate)

Jurassic World:

no feathered dinosaurs. they literally stated in the movie that they left out accurate feathered dinosaurs because Dr. Wu was asked to create: “Dinosaurs that look like what the public expects dinosaurs to look like. Scary. Scaly. Wild.” Dr. Wu also states that the dinosaurs have never been actual dinosaurs. their DNA is a melting pot of DNA.

(i swear i read something about Dr. Wu attempting to make feathered dinos, but because of all the non-dino DNA he couldn’t get the genes to stick, i can’t find a source or any proof of this so i guess that can be our lil headcanon lol)

though for a more real life reason,

“The reasoning behind this being continued through the subsequent movies, though, is more about how imposing the featherless versions look.” ... “It seems more likely that the filmmakers went with how most people would perceive dinosaurs in the hopes that dino experts would take notice.”

[from this Screen Rant article (x)]

so basically JW cared more about scary, recognizable dinos than accurate ones

Fallen Kingdom:

no feathered dinosaurs. again a sequel is a bit too late to change up your designs. unfortunately the change had to happen in JW or not at all

In Closing:

basically Jurassic Park came out just before paleontologists announced Sinosauropteryx, which popularized feathered dinos. even then Jurassic Park was restricted by the technology of the time. the early ninety’s was not the best time for CGI and i can’t imaging making feathered animatronic dinosaurs that could stand up to the rain they filmed in. new media is definitely stuck in the past, look at the movies that come out and compare how many are sequels or prequels or remakes or whatever. Jurassic Park was a great movie and obviously the vultures that make movies are gonna try and ride its brand into the sunset. blaming the movie for stopping new scientific discoveries from entering the mainstream isn’t fair. the movie did a lot to bring current science into the lime light, it popularized warmblooded, avian dinos and showed them as intelligent, fast moving animals instead of slow movie monsters

but JW had no excuse!  they should get majority of the blame for making the public afraid of feathers cause they themselves were afraid of feathers! they had the technology, the budget, and the opportunity to follow in its parent movie’s footsteps. they could have at least TRIED to be accurate but they just stuck to what people knew cause that was more profitable. science is only as interesting as the toys you can make of it i guess...

a final note, just for my sanity: JP dinos aren’t real dinosaurs. not even in fiction. they’re DNA is so full of garbage that their inaccurate appearances could be explained away with that alone. the books get into this more, talking about all the failed embryos and how many diseases these creatures had. even delving into their lack of social skills and how the raptors didn’t act like a pack, but a group of aggressive individuals. unfortunately the average viewer isn’t gonna know about all this set dressing. hell, i didn’t even read the 2 books until recently (end of 2019/ start of 2020) so i was as ready to believe whatever the movies showed me. honestly the books and movies are all good in different ways, not accurate, but good. read the books if you want more gore and technical explanations and the movies if you want, well... more story, they add a lot of stuff that wasn’t in the books

one day i’ll get into the differences in the books and movies.. one day

[ this was originally a response to someone but tumblr hid it, cause links. so i’ve edited it to be a standalone post and also WAY longer. feel free to add on or correct any mistakes i’ve made (be respectful tho) ]

[coolgreatwebsite]

Cool Games I Finished In 2019 (In No Real Order)

We’re here. The end of the decade. 2019 was a weird, turbulent year for me. Despite my cross-country move already being a year behind me somehow, nothing’s really settled yet. Living situation is still weird, still separated from most of my belongings, I left my full-time QA job for a contractor position at a mobile game advertising company that may or may not convert into a full-time position... everything about what’s going on with me still just feels like I’m completely winging it, and while that’s not a position I’m really comfortable being in for such an extended amount of time, everything seems to be working out okay enough despite it. All this is probably why I spent most of my time playing the shit out of a handful of games rather than playing a bunch of different games this year! Needed some sort of stability. Also when I did manage to pull myself away from the timesink games and play something else, a lot of them ranged from “okay” to “real bad”. But I still managed to play just enough stuff that I liked to where I can put out yet another one of these.  Here’s a bunch of cool games I experienced for the first time in 2019.

Phantasy Star Online: Blue Burst (PC, 2005)

I haven’t bothered to do two thirds of the story quests yet and have barely touched any Episode 4 content so this game technically doesn’t count for this list, but if I left it off I would be neglecting to mention an extremely large portion of my video game playing time this year. I fell back into PSO preeeettty hard this year after the surprise announcement of Phantasy Star Online 2 finally coming to the US. Guess what: game still rules. It feels stiff to play and it’s obviously far less expansive than it seemed back in 2000, but the core of Phantasy Star Online is still as fun as it ever was and the aesthetics are still entirely my shit. I love everything about the way this game looks and sounds, I love stumbling on a weird new weapon, I love participating in the custom seasonal events the server I’m on runs, and I love how oddly relaxing the experience of playing this game and taking it all in is. I will probably continue to play Phantasy Star Online into 2020. I will probably still dip back into it after PSO2 US servers finally launch. If I know you and you want to join my Discord server for PSO get at me. PSO forever.

Cookie’s Bustle (PC, 1999)

You ever play a game that just speaks to you? Even through a language barrier? A game so incredibly out there and bizarre in the exact way you love that you can’t help but adore it despite barely understanding it? Holy moly did I ever find that game. I learned about Cookie’s Bustle through a news story last year about some rare games leaking from a Japanese collector’s stash. Didn’t manage to get it to run back then, but my off and on attempts to get it working finally paid off in March of this year and I’m so glad I kept trying. I knew nothing of this game other than it had a weird name and was about a bear doing sports, and it turned out to be a fully voice-acted and mostly unsubtitled adventure game starring Cookie Blair, a 5 year old girl from New Jersey who sees herself as a teddy bear and has traveled to Bombo World, an island nation once visited by aliens and currently in the middle of a civil war, to participate in the Bombo Sports Tournament. Dead level, I probably shouldn’t have been able to genuinely love Cookie’s Bustle as much as I did. The only context I had for what was happening and what I was supposed to do was provided by a 20-year-old Google translated walkthrough with broken images, the game’s slightly higher than usual reliance on English loan words, and 30-ish years of video games and anime allowing me to halfway pick up on a handful of Japanese words. However, Cookie’s Bustle is dripping with an undeniable and off-beat charm that genuinely transcends language. Even if you can’t understand the words and specifics, you can understand the basic plot, characterizations, and emotions they’re going for. Cookie’s Bustle manages to both be completely off-the-wall bizarre and feel totally genuine and heartfelt at the same time, a balance very few games manage to successfully hit but many of my favorites do. One could say that’s why it seems to have resonated with a decent amount of other people this year, too. Games rarely make me feel sad that they’re over. but when they do that’s how I know they’re one of the good ones. Seriously, go look up a longplay or stream of Cookie’s Bustle if you (understandably) don’t want to go through the hassle of setting it up and figuring out how to play it, it’s impossible not to love.

Devil May Cry 5 (PlayStation 4, 2019)

Here’s something crazy to think about: Devil May Cry 4 came out 11 years ago. Aside from being a potent reminder that time is moving too fast and we’re all going to die soon, that means that there hasn’t been a DMC for over a decade. Devil May Cry 5 does not bare this fact even a little bit. Not only did they pick up right where they left off and manage to make another Devil May Cry game without missing a beat, they made arguably the best Devil May Cry game. I mean I still like the story and single-character focus of DMC3 the best, but DMC5 is the best playing game in the series without a doubt. Nero finally feels like he has a complete and complex toolset, Dante is the most mechanically dense and fun to play he’s ever been, and they even added a new guy that’s... neat to play as, until you start trying to S-rank the harder difficulties. Then he’s kind of annoying to play as. But it’s still cool that they tried something totally different and mostly got it to work! They also did something very stupid that I love and used this game as an excuse to make literally every single piece of Devil May Cry media canon. Like, characters exclusively from the anime and the books show up and act like they’re someone you already know and love? And they go out of their way to explain the most esoteric lore shit possible?? And despite it all they still intentionally give DMC2 as short a shrift as they can??? It’s so dumb, it rules. It’s just one of the many things about the game that show that even with so long of a gap between entries, no love for the series was lost by the people that make it. I don’t think the suits at Capcom expected this game to hit as hard as it did though, because despite there being clear areas where the game could be expanded on with DLC there still hasn’t been anything announced. I hope they’re maybe saving it for some sort of DMC3-esque special edition, or maybe just already working on DMC6, because even after getting all S-ranks I still wanted to play more. The game’s just that damn good.

Hypnospace Outlaw (PC, 2019)

I expected very little from Hypnospace Outlaw. I backed the game on Kickstarter solely because it looked cool and I thought a game about fake GeoCities was neat, and then I immediately forgot about it until it released. Admittedly my lack of expectations stemmed mostly from the fact that it’s kind of hard to set expectations for a game you never really thought too hard about, but even in the brief period of time where I considered it enough to give it money, I never expected it to be much more than a pretty-looking 101 Great GeoCities Jokez delivery vehicle. Boy was I wrong. I mean, it is incredibly good at that, but Hypnospace Outlaw is so much more than a funny period piece. The basic premise is that you’re in alternate universe 1999 and have just become a community moderator for an Internet service provider that allows people to connect to the Internet while they sleep. You’re tasked with browsing the game’s weird fake Internet and issuing demerits to users who violate the five basic Hypnospace rules, but it quickly evolves into something way bigger. Hypnospace Outlaw’s greatest strength is its exceptional ability at weaving together subtle world building, small and engaging character arcs, esoteric microjokes, and a genuine sense of mystery and discovery into an incredibly cohesive and engaging package. It’s as much a game about the people that use and run its weird fake Internet as it is about that weird fake Internet itself. And a lot of the problems both face echo the problems we face with our real world Internet today. When I was mapping out writing this article like a month or two ago I was prepared to go on about how at its core, Hypnospace Outlaw is an incredibly poignant story about how uncaring tech corporations actively harm their users and always have, but then a couple of days ago I read Colin Spacetwinks’ game of the year list and his #1 entry put most everything I would have said about that topic down in a way more eloquent and well-written way than I ever could have. And then I remembered that Friend Of The Site Heidi Kemps covered some of the same angle but from the perspective of the early Internet in an article earlier this year, again way better than I could have. So I highly recommend you read those when you’re done here. What I wanna bring up instead is just how effortlessly surprising and interconnected a lot of stuff in Hypnospace feels, using a mildly spoiler-ish late game example. Two of the first “zones” you’re allowed to moderate when you start Hypnospace Outlaw are Teentopia and Goodtime Valley, which are essentially alternate universe Yahooligans and a little slice of Hypnospace just for Boomers respectively. On Teentopia you’ll see a bunch of kids that are wild for Squisherz, Hypnospace’s alternate universe version of Pokémon, and over in Goodtime Valley you’ll see (much like there was back in real world 1999) a few pages made by religious fundamentalists convinced that everything the kids like these days is the work of Satan. This of course includes Squisherz, and you can find a page by one organization full of crackpot conspiracy theories with flimsy evidence that TOTALLY DEFINITELY backs up their claim. Squisherz contains a wolf, which the Bible warns about many times! This giraffe monster CLEARLY has a pentagram in its design!! And the eye of this snake-like Squisherz is the eye of Horus, an Egyptian occult symbol and NEED I REMIND YOU that Lucifer took the form of a snake in the Garden of Eden!!! It is very clear what this page is goofing on and throughout the course of the game it doesn’t get updated at all, so it’s very easy to laugh at it and forget about it. Very late into the game, you get an optional sidequest. Adrian Merchant, one of the CEOs of Merchantsoft, the company that created Hypnospace, was found out to have logged traffic indicating he was a frequent visitor of a website called Children of HORUS, and a call is put out to investigate what that even is. You can easily find the website, but it asks you for a password if you click the Enter button. Adrian Merchant is consistently portrayed throughout the game as a complete idiot, and the solution to this puzzle has you capitalize on that. Another early game objective ended up with you finding a list of cracked passwords, and one of those passwords happens to be for the instant messenger account of Adrian Merchant. If you can remember that he was even in that text file from forever ago, and then put two and two together that of COURSE that dumbass would use the same password for everything, you just punch in his messenger password and you’re granted access to the Children of HORUS page. It turns out that HORUS is an acronym that stands for Hiding Occult References in Utmost Secrecy, and the page itself is a basic leaderboard with a list of names and two numbered columns reading “Hidden” and “Found”. In that list of names you’ll find A. Merchant, along with the names of various other CEOs and celebrities you might have read about elsewhere in Hypnospace. One of the other names on this list is F. Kazuma, the CEO of Monarch, creators of Squisherz. The funny conspiracy theory website from the beginning of the game that you most likely forgot about was, about this one specific thing, correct. There was an eye of Horus hidden on the snake from Squisherz. Not as any sort of Satanic plot, mind you, but only as part of some weird millionaire dickwaving contest. This dumb tiny revelation is not called out by the game at all and nothing comes of it, it’s just there for you to notice if you’ve been paying enough attention. Hypnospace Outlaw is LITTERED with stuff like this. Weird small interconnected things you wouldn’t expect to be interconnected. Little dumb things you wouldn’t expect to have any sort of payoff but somehow do. And it’s also just as chock full of big things. Having all the pieces fall into place at once to where I was able to access Hypnospace’s equivalent of the dark web was the best sequence in a game this year for me, even beating out the outlandish shit in DMC5. Getting and solving the final case was a rush. Hypnospace Outlaw is full of incredible moments big and small. It’s genuinely engaging and affecting, which is so much more than I was expecting from a game that was pitched to me as “Funny GeoCities Cop”. It almost has no right being so good. But it is. Hell, even the music rules! I didnt even get into that! I don't have enough time or space to get into that now! The music is so goddamn good! I know I started these lists because I had no interest in ranking games, but every year I sort of jokingly-but-not-jokingly say “haha this game sure would be my number one if I did that!” for at least one game. It’s time to fully lean into it. I don’t gotta rank ‘em all, but I can pick a favorite. Hypnospace Outlaw is my favorite game of 2019 with a goddamn bullet.

These games were also cool, I just had less to say about them:

Etrian Odyssey (Nintendo DS, 2007): Man, this series just started out good, huh? I dabbled with the first two games in college when I got a DS flashcart but never really dug in until EO4, and the first game is enjoyable in just about every way the modern ones are. Definitely more barebones and punishing though. Kero Blaster (PlayStation 4, 2017): This is a game by the creator of Cave Story that does not aim to be Cave Story, and that’s fine! A fun little shooter in its own right, though I do think the shooting in Cave Story felt a little better than it does here. Space Invaders Extreme (Nintendo DS, 2008): I played the shit out of this game in college thanks to that flashcart I mentioned before, but I never finished a playthrough in full until this year for some reason. Still way stylish and way fun! I need to get a copy of the second one... CROSSNIQ+ (Nintendo Switch, 2019): Incredibly chill puzzle game that can be as hard or easy as you want it to be. Almost uncanny in how well it emulates the style of late PS1/Dreamcast games. Super Mario Maker 2 (Nintendo Switch, 2019): Mario Maker 2 is kind of weird for me. It’s a solid improvement in a lot of aspects, but a clear regression in a lot of others. Also the online multiplayer is the second least amount of fun I’ve had with a video game this year (Secret of Mana swooped in and stole the number one slot near the end). Still, I had a lot of fun with it and I’ll probably end up going back to it eventually. Katamari Damacy Reroll (Nintendo Switch, 2018): The original Katamari Damacy is still every bit as fun and charming as it was upon its original release. This port is weirdly based on the Japanese version with the English text inserted, which means no English voice acting and Wanda Wanda only plays in the multiplayer mode. The Joycon sticks also aren’t the greatest for doing charge rolls. But none of these faults detract too much from the game. Bring on We Love Katamari Reroll! Earth Defense Force 5 (PlayStation 4, 2018): Sandlot somehow keeps finding ways to make each new EDF bigger and explodier, and EDF5 is the biggest and explodiest yet. I think the mission design in 4.1 was more solid overall, but 5 feels the best to play and has the most fun tools. Also the dialogue is the most absurd its ever been, and the final boss goes for it way harder than the series ever has. Pokémon Shield (Nintendo Switch, 2019): This game is honestly just okay, but leaving it off would again be neglecting a game I put a ton of time into this year. Pokémon Sword is fun in the way most Pokémon games usually are, and extremely half-baked in basically every other aspect. I’m still having a good time putting together teams and finding shinies and doing The Pokémon Thing regardless.

And that’s 2019 (and this decade) in the bag! I don’t know where anything’s going from here, but I’m going to ride it out as best as I can! I hope you do too! As always, thank you so much for getting to the bottom of all these words. I’m hoping to be in a more stable place mid-2020, and then I want to get back to all the things I haven’t had time to do. I want to get back to streaming, I want to write more dumb articles like The Best Babies, I want to do it all! I hope I will be able to do it all. Until then!

[wisteriafield]

So, Nioh

Overall I had a really enjoyable experience with it, I’d like to be able to try multiplayer but it’s a thing that’s kinda hard to get an organic experience of, PS+ aside.

The mission system is something I like to be able to replay stages/bosses that I enjoyed instead of having to wait for a NG+ cycle, the problem is that only a handful of bosses stand out, the final boss Kelley/Yamata-no-Orochi was kind of a letdown as a fight, Hundred Eyes was a cool design but a strange boss, I don’t think I’ll like it on NG++ when it turns into Touhou. The bosses I liked the most were something halfway between youkai and humanoid like Otani and Mitsunari.

Auxiliary abilities like Ninjutsu and Onmyo start out slow, but get more useful once you can stack skills to get more uses out of them, especially when you get the instant cast to be able to keep up buffs mid-fight. The slowdown talisman basically makes every boss a sandbag which is great for farming/stress relief.

The stance and skill system is what I like most about Nioh, player animations have actual discipline in them compared to a DS character, and it creates a higher skill ceiling of the R1 poke-roll to butt dynamic in a DS boss, for room to do stylish aggression with stance dancing and Ki pulses, on top of having a visible stagger break meter to know when to take advantage of it. I found high stance the hardest to use, it didn’t really increase stagger on high toughness NPCs, so it was more of a liability with its speed and ki cost. Though on Spear I preferred high stance, but things like low stance having a spinning pivot sidestep instead of a straight line dodge in mid? Really small things that I enjoy.

The game is very responsive, it doesn’t have queued inputs so you don’t roll after getting hit just because you were quarter of a second later, occasionally my item use inputs get eaten up, but its a lot less confusing managing items with Nioh’s control scheme (it’s very friendly)

The level design is amazing, having great setpieces and backgrounds use for dueling (Ohashi Bridge, Yomotsu Hirasaka, Azuchi Castle), and winding levels that have branching paths that lead to the same end, for different players with different means and attitudes, its very much like Dishonored’s excellent level design. I also like the sub-missions remixing the stage layouts. All in all, if DS level design can be compared to a metroidvania, Nioh feels like a more complex Castlevania: Harmony of Despair. It caused me some degree of frustration or confusion because I wanted to map out all of the areas in my head like I do with Dark Souls, but unfortunately I’m still not familiar with all of them, so I ended up running in circles or not knowing how to access some off-path areas.

My favorite weapon designs were the Douji-kiri Yasutsuna and the Hinomotogo, runner ups include the Tombo-kiri, Hozoin Jumonji Spear, Munechika Mikazuki (Gramps...!!), “Craneboy” Juzumaru Tsunetsugu, Raikiri, and the Furewakegami Hiromitsu. I haven’t gotten the DLC to try any of the Odachis.

The game’s aesthetic and approach, to me, make it more of a successor to Otogi, which was ironically made by From Soft before DS, but they have said before that their inspirations were taken from Onimusha as well as Diablo (the gameplay dynamic reflecting that strongly in particular) on top of DS. The levels didn’t have as much variance as DS in aesthetics, but they do hit all the right ones as a period piece.

For the player character being its own character, William was unfortunately underused and felt kinda boring, he mostly just reacts to stuff around him and doesn’t talk nearly as much in cutscenes as he ought to (when people are addressing him directly for instance), and him being the player character brings in some very traditional play of white savior tropes. 

I thought that the naturally conclusion that Europe is trying to stir conflict around the world to create Amrita would set the stage for the sequel taking place during the Bakumatsu and the forced opening of the borders by the US to be for them to try and secure Amrita for themselves, and, in essence, have the player continue the fight after fighting for Ieyasu Tokugawa by fighting for his shogunate in the Shinsengumi against imperialists, but oh well, they’re obviously not taking that direction, as much as I’d have liked (probably because its hard to justify wearing armor for war in that age, among other things). The other idea I had would be to set it in the Heian period during the Genpei War.

Anyways, its understandable that the RPG elements aren’t for everyone looking for that masocore action experience, so I might be an outlier because I played MonHun for over 1000 hours and plenty of hours in CV HD and have minor experience with Diablo

I’ll just suck it up and buy the season pass now, I wanna build an odachi and stream the Osaka DLCs blind for yall since I get good bitrate on the PS4 now.

Stuff I’d like to see revised to the sequel

More skills/an active Mystic Art

Revise enemy damage output, allow players to learn from mistakes midfight and don’t completely trivialize the health bar by making everything 1 or 2 shot you at literally any point in the game

Design challenges that aren’t the Monster Hunter approach of Putting Two Bosses in a Arena That Weren’t Designed as a Single Fight (only one I cleared so far was Nobu+Noh)

I wasn’t sure how to make the best use of Blacksmith functions (Soul Match, Reforge) until halfway or near the end of the game

Make it a little easier to understand where specific Smithing Texts drop when they aren’t one-time quest rewards

Rebalancing Guardian Spirits/Living Weapon, every GS felt useless or extraordinarily niche compared to Kato, the starter offensive GS. I really like the unique animations for LW but its really overpowered to build around it

In fact, the way the game handles its RPG elements, you don’t really build anything until you finish your first run through the game, which doesn’t really set in habits of what players should do with their equipment for the new difficulty, how to look for sets for their weapons, or guiding them through substat rerolling. Your build isn’t based on your stat allocation nearly as much as how you pick your armor set and give it the proper substat bonuses

More types of youkai

I feel like due to the differences in nature of the games, a procedural generated dungeon like Chalices would fit Nioh a lot better than BB

Edit: almost forgot, almost all weapons within the same type have the same stat scaling, they should really change that up

[lasorciereviolette-blog]

On Witch

(So RP’s are a bit slow right now so I might as well continue down the saltapalooza that has been opened up due to a post on how Sega’s flanderized Amitie over the years. 

This one’s kind of all over the place, because it’s not a strict flanderization argument per se and since Witch is my favourite I like to gush about her. I’ll try to keep on topic as much as possible though.

So I’ll start by saying that honestly, this could be a lot worse in several ways. Sega’s done at least a little homework on Witch. It took them nearly a decade to put Witch in one of their games (no, 7 does not count since she has no lines) but it looks like she’s here to stay seeing as she was kept on the roster for both Tetris and Chronicle.

But... Now what? See, my analysis has led me to the conclusion that Sega have absolutely idea of what to do with Witch.

I didn’t always have that viewpoint. At one time I thought Sega had done a pretty good job with Witch. She showed up, her story was reasonably funny, and she was actually allowed to behave like a selfish jerk unlike certain characters. 

However, a little while ago I came across a translation of Yon’s cutscenes. And I came across an unfortunate discovery: Witch’s campaign in 20th is nothing new at all. Nope. It’s just a copy-paste of her few scenes in Yon, and one cutscene in Sun.

Let me elaborate. See, in 20th Witch is trying to collect ingredients to create a potion in one of Wish’s spellbooks. Collecting these ingredients involves taking parts off of certain cast members, namely Draco’s tail, the Acorn Frog’s eye, an imp’s horns, a ladybug, a dark wizard’s hair, and a fish’s scales. On the surface this isn’t a bad premise. I didn’t mind it too badly before I knew anything about Yon. Except in Yon, Witch’s goals are almost identical. She needs Draco’s tail and Seriri’s scales, and wants to collect Carbuncle’s finger grime (... somehow) just in case she ever needs it. When she comes across a sleeping Dragon, she also tries to seize the opportunity to grab some snot.

The details aren’t exactly the same, at least. Which is nice, because if the scenes were word for word the exact same I’d be even more peeved. I can at least give the writers that much. The thing is, after waiting so long for a beloved character’s comeback, why did they decide just to recycle half the cutscenes from other games? I suppose this can be forgiven since it’s an anniversary title, but it’s still a little odd.

And then we get to Tetris, where Witch has a total of... One scene. When DLC was released, she got another very short scene. While these were both original, there... Really was nothing to them. All she wants to do is perform an experiment with blocks in one, and in the other she mocks Draco, which would have been absolutely unsurprising if you had played either Saturn or Yon in the past. Witch’s appearance is very much a token one and she doesn’t even really interact with other characters besides Draco Centauros when there was an opportunity to have her bounce off of the members of the Starship Tetra, or Amitie, or Ringo. Or maybe to put her in Primp and have her hang out with some of the people she used to. Talk about a waste. Witch is a fun and dynamic character who has been allowed to remain a bit of a jerk. There was plenty of room to have her interact with new characters, but instead they threw her into space and called it a day. Hell, she’s a comet witch and she doesn’t even notice she’s in space!

Which leads me into the next part of this rant, the fact that Sega only really seemed to look at Yon and one cutscene in Sun and determined her entire character from there. Before Yon Witch was primarily a comet witch. While she did make potions in Seriri’s Happy Birthday, Witch’s gameplay was focused more on flight and spellcasting. Based on her moveset in other games, Witch not only shares most of Arle’s spell set (being proficient in fire, ice, and lightning magic, as well as being able to cast Brain Dumbed and Jugem) but has her signature Meteor spell and a few other comet style magics such as Big Bang. These spells have a distinctive star theme when she casts them, distinguishing her from Arle.

Pretty cool, huh? She is also somewhat of a melee fighter, not being afraid to swat people with her broom. (this isn’t the greatest of examples but it’s cool so)

Coming back to her broom flying, a whole game was built around it called Comet Summoner. It didn’t have much of a story, but it did feature a bunch of cute levels and a powerful boss that may or may not have been Witch’s future self. And this future self was strong, with a huge red aura, several health bars, and the ability to not only zip around the stage at high speeds, but cast spells of her own and combo you with a mix of melee and magic if you fuck up and get too close to her.

Witch would make a good fighting game character. 

This is getting a bit off topic, but point is, Witch is versatile. But unfortunately it seems that apart from her spell names Sega can’t be bothered to remember her versatility and just wants her to make wacky potions. I’m not opposed to her making wacky potions, it’s not necessarily bad, but at one time she was a lot more than that.

She was more complex as a character than she seems to be in 20th or Tetris. Maybe not in Yon, where she appears very little, but in Madou Monogatari she got some attention. Yes, Witch is selfish. Yes, she’s pretty power hungry. Yes, she’d probably sell quite a few people out for a single corn chip. But there are some people who are dear to her, like for example her grandmother Wish. While again, I can’t read Japanese, Witch Leeroy Jenkins’s into a room when she sees her grandmother’s body on the floor in Tower of the Magician. Afterwards, Witch’s body language is pretty clear to see.

She’s clearly very worried about Wish and does not appreciate any harm coming to her. Even jerks have loved ones, I guess?

Let’s give Sega the benefit of the doubt, maybe that one trait just hasn’t come into play yet. After all, Wish hasn’t appeared (but she has been mentioned). Sure. However, there are other traits that the Sega games ignore when it comes to Witch’s character.

First, Sega has arguably made Witch into an even worse jerk. In Compile’s games, Witch is often abrasive and rude, but she will defer to an expert’s judgment in a situation she doesn’t understand. Case in point, Saturn. Upon coming across the Yog smoke, she avoids possession because she immediately listens to Arle and Rulue’s advice. She doesn’t argue, she just does it. 

Contrast this with 20th. 

In general, Witch is crafty and rather full of herself in Saturn, but not so much as Rulue. She has a low opinion of martial arts and so that makes her play well off of Rulue (It probably also explains her animosity towards Draco), while she has a high opinion of her magical skill and loves to soak up praise. Witch also shows little ill will towards those who quit the tournament after a Yog presents itself, which might hint at some sensibility the character doesn’t tend to have much of after this. 

Witch is also a bit of a snarker in this game:

There’s character here besides her excitability, or getting pissed off when things don’t go her way. Now Saturn does bring up Witch’s legendary temper, but we don’t really see the results of that in-game. 20th really pushes that informed attribute into the spotlight, where all her thoughtfulness and cleverness go out of the window for her to make a bad potion that obviously contained too many substitutions, to the potion not being useful in the first place, to her beating up Lemres for stating the blatantly obvious. Witch doesn’t really come off any smarter than Draco at the end of this, because all of this was obvious! She just comes off as an even worse ass than usual because of Sega’s wackiness mandate.

I also really don’t get what the point of her fighting Lemres even was. Lemres seems disappointed at the end that he didn’t get to talk to Witch more, but the story just ends. There isn’t any kind of payoff or character growth here. Just... Nothing. Again, a total waste of potential, having the two comet mages meet and then do absolutely nothing of value. Love it, Sega.

Oh yeah, there were two more things Sega forgot about. First, this.

Witch is probably an actual pervert, to contrast with Schezo’s fake perversion (which may or may not be real perversion too sometimes, because Saturn’s fun like that). So that’s another thing Sega forgot, for better or for worse.

Which leads me to the last bit that Sega’s forgotten. This too I can’t really say if it’s a good thing or a bad thing. I like that it exists in Compile’s games, but if Sega remembered it would likely devour what remains of Witch’s personality. In certain games, there are implications that Witch may have a crush on Schezo. She fawns over him in athletic clothes in Puyolympics and as seen above, asks if he’s cool and wants to touch him in Saturn. Then of course there’s the whole “I want you” scene that solidifies the thing. For all I know there could be evidence for or against this in Tower of the Magician, which is a game where the two spend quite a bit of time interacting with each other, but since I haven’t learned to read Japanese in the last few hours I can’t comment on that, as much as I want to.

Now whether this is a good or bad thing for Sega to ignore really depends on your interpretation of this trait. I’m personally torn, because again I’m glad that Witch has not been reduced to a lovesick one-note failure. On the other, it’s a facet that a more competent writing team could have explored with some success. So it sucks that it’s been abandoned completely, but the end result could have been really terrible had Sega noticed this, so... Yay?

Okay, so I’ve written blocks of text. What does it all mean? Well, it means Witch isn’t immune to being flanderized in Sega’s works. It could be a lot worse, but there’s plenty of Witch’s character that’s been left out of current Puyo and plenty that has been aggrandized into a worse person. Right now Witch reminds me of a mixture of herself and Saturn’s take on Rulue, which... Really sucks, because no wonder Sega can’t figure out how to make Rulue stand out if they give her traits to other characters! Poor Rulue. Give her some love, Sega. She doesn’t deserve this kind of shafting.

As for Witch, you’re not going to get a total sweet kindhearted girl out of her. She was never that kind of character and that’s not a bad thing. But throwing on Rulue’s most boastful traits and making her a worse jerk, then giving her cameos because you don’t know what to do with her isn’t a good way to characterize her. Return some of that sense into the mix! Like I said in my Schezo comments, not everyone needs to be a wacky joke 24/7.

[jejemonmon]

Analysis + Semi-Theory: Zen's relationships with other people (including the RFA)

Yo, so this has been on my mind for a while and I just had to share my thoughts with you, because you made a post before about Rika that had some similar points and I wanted to add on to that.

You know how Rika made had a “connection” with each RFA member (aside from Jaehee) that made them agree to join the RFA and caused them to be so torn up about her “death” and just generally really affected by her in every way?

Logically speaking, Zen should have been just as impacted by her as Yoosung, Jumin, and Saeyoung and really emotionally distraught and traumatized by her “death” as a result. She sought him out, she was his earliest fan when no one else was, she attempted to made him successful and give him a “family” with the RFA.

But he always kind of avoided her. He sidestepped and rejected her help and friendship most of the time. He even declined to join the RFA at first, as I recall someone saying in one of the chat rooms. He only joined once V saved his life. Even when the game starts and also throughout the game, Zen always keeps the rest of the RFA at an arms distance, save for V, who he allowed to get up to his elbow, so to speak, because he saved Zen’s life and gained some of his trust. He doesn’t seem to act like his true self at all around most of the RFA. No one really knew anything about his past until MC shows up.

It’s just really interesting and weird to me. People always brush Zen off as being “less important” than the other RFA members, and that just makes me roll my eyes. Honestly, him deliberately keeping himself somewhat disconnected from Rika made me like him more. Because while some people really liked the bigger overarching plot, it wasn’t what I signed up for when I decided to play an otome game. (I prefer the universe theories about the game itself and Zen knowing he’s in a game and Seven and V and the wizards and etc.) I wanted to learn and fall in love with the individual characters themselves and not groan and roll my eyes every time the convoluted plot got in the way and took up time and then boom you and the character you’re pursuing magically decide to share deep feelings for each other with little to no buildup or progression of said feelings. At least that’s how it is during the excessively plot-smothered Deep Routes, which just felt like a hot mess tbh.

I got off on a slight tangent there. But I always think of Zen as someone who was able to see through Rika’s bullshit at least somewhat and didn’t become so overly attached and emotionally invested in her. (That’s one reason why the secret ends felt so OOC to me. Zen would have never just settled for being kept in the dark by Jumin, Seven, and Jaehee, and while he’s impulsive, he’s too detached from Rika to want to send her away. Although that might be the “white knight” in him who always feels like he has to speak out and protect the oppressed. Idk.) Zen was always the one who, while emotional and hotheaded, actually reacted like a sane person should in some of the extreme situations - the bomb, Jumin keeping MC in his apartment, V keeping secrets, forcing a stranger to jump into a dead girl’s job without thinking of how she feels, etc. The rest of the RFA is so blinded by Rika that they ignore logic most of the time and do things that don’t make sense because “it’s what Rika would have wanted”. They’re so caught up in this dead girl’s charity organization that has itself basically become super shady and conspiratorial, ignoring a lot of things that are so obviously sketchy and borderline illegal. And yes, I’m including Jumin, Mr. “I’m so logical”, who threatens the MC if she doesn’t agree to join the RFA and also declares she’s useless and obsolete if she doesn’t fulfill Rika’s duties. Like, jeez, mob boss much? He basically is one in every way except for official title.

So back to my main point. I think people tend to overlook how emotionally isolated Zen is from the rest of the RFA, something that he probably did deliberately. He doesn’t really like anyone in the RFA, except for V, and he mentions that a lot. He never believes that any concern or help that the RFA gives him is genuine. He doesn’t believe Jaehee is actually his fan, he doesn’t think Seven was actually trying to help him out (he thinks Seven was just being goofy and his weird trolling self), and the whole debacle with Jumin which everyone knows about so I’m not gonna go into (and tbh I still question Jumin’s sincerity and motive other than personal and financial gain bc Zen would owe him, so I don’t blame Zen for thinking the same way). He doesn’t believe anyone could actually care about him. He only knocks down some of his walls and lets V in a little bit because V fucking saved his life. But other than that, Zen has isolated himself so much emotionally that he hasn’t formed real relationships with any of the RFA members except V, nor does he really trust them, like them, or consider them friends. He doesn’t open up to them, and he keeps on the same mask that he shows to everyone else. He can’t afford to let anyone in, because they’ll just reject and betray him like his family.

Think about it too - Zen doesn’t really have any friends outside of the RFA either, like at all, save for a few people from his biker gang days, who I doubt he was his complete and true self around either. He’s super independent and relies only on himself, because that’s the only person he has. But he’s so desperate for affection and validation, which is why he seems desperate for a girlfriend yet simultaneously rejects so many people who are interested in him under the guise of focusing on work. When in reality, and he’s said this and there’s proof from VN flashbacks and in game events, that no one has actually treated Zen like a real person, or tried to understand him enough to warrant him opening up to them, except for V and the MC. That’s why he falls for the MC so fast, because she treats him unlike anyone else has before, like a person, and actually cares about what he wants. (Remember, V lies and keeps a lot of things from Zen, but Zen’s less torn up about it because while he trusts V more than the rest of the RFA, he hadn’t completely opened up to him, so he saves himself from some amount of emotional hurt.) The RFA may mean well, but they ultimately grossly misunderstand Zen, try to force what they think he should do on him, and treat him either like he’s an object on a pedestal or just too dumb to fully grasp or contribute meaningfully to a situation.

Basically, people don’t give Zen enough credit, and they brush him off as a background character with a shallow personality. There’s so many obvious things Cheritz has given us to showcase more of Zen’s character and personality, but the fans either make fun of him for it or call him annoying because of it. He’s super intuitive and guarded and I can definitely understand why he never completely bonded with the RFA. I love them, but quite frankly, they consistently fail to treat Zen like a person and don’t care about what he ultimately wants, but rather what they want from him. He protects himself from getting hurt by never getting completely emotionally invested in these people and reminding himself that they’ll probably all let him down someday. Which they do. No one actually sees Hyun Ryu, instead of ZEN, save for V and the MC.

This is really good analysis and oh my goodness way more than I could ever do. I never really thought about it this way.

While I mostly agree, I think some points should be open to discussion.

I personally feel like the RFA members treated him like a real friend, family, but the connection wasn’t there because of Zen. They were open to him, but he wasn’t open to them. That contributed to all the misunderstandings they had, so in that sense I don’t feel like I could ever blame them for how they treated him at times.

I also don’t recall Jumin ever threatening MC or saying those things to her, but maybe that’s just my bad memory. There’s many more I can say about that, but I think those who know his character better can explain it more substantially than me. I wouldn’t want to spout inaccurate information about him.

As for the fact that we don’t give Zen enough credit, I must agree. Although, since the April Fools DLC, more and more people have grown fond of him. I’ve been receiving messages from people saying how they’ve grown to appreciate Zen more after they realised this and that from my theories. So it’s definitely getting better, I’d say. I think overall, it’s really up to people’s types. Even before I had realised all this, I already liked Zen because I liked how romantic and caring he was. Others like Yoosung because of how cute and innocent he is. It’s the same for the other characters. And people see Zen as annoying because well, letms admit it he can be at times!

As I have said previously, all of the characters are complex. I chose to closely analyse Zen, and so have you, and that’s why we really love him. On the surface, he seems like just a romantic, narcissistic guy. I can’t blame anyone for not liking him. Same goes for the other characters. If I analysed their character more, I’d probably end up falling for them too, and that’s what others did, and that’s why they like who they like.

Thank you so much for submitting this. You wrote so much and you had a lot of valid points. Though this is as deep as I can go with my opinions because I’m currently rushing through a lot of work, I hope that you guys can also give your two cents on this. Reblog/Reply! Let’s start a discussion :D

[8bitsupervillain]

Dragon Quest Heroes -thoughts and so on.

Recently I've been playing Dragon Quest Heroes: The World Tree's Woe and the Blight Below. It's a pretty decent game, it's a Musou game so if you've played any of the Warriors games (Dynasty, Samurai, Gundam, or its Berserk variants) you'll have some notion of what to expect in terms of gameplay. It is a very solid game, and I did quite enjoy my time with it, I would go so far as to say that this might be one of the best spin-off DQ games out there, but I find it lacking.

It's not terribly complex, almost all the levels and missions are a variation on "kill all the things." Which is fine, simplicity isn't a bad thing, but the game really doesn't do anything to shake it up. Kill all the monsters and progress to the end of the map. Kill all the monsters by killing the big ones that are the mini-boss "mawkeepers." Defend the Yggdrasil root... by killing all the monsters. There are a small number of side-quests that involve you having to kill a certain boss monster in a certain way, but they're the minority, ninety-nine percent of the rest of the game is slaughter all the monsters.

The action itself is pretty good, I like the Musou games and I found this one to be really pleasing to play through. That might be because I'm a big fan of the Dragon Quest games, but I don't think the game gets a free pass because it's wearing the skin of my beloved. If you were to do only the critical path of the game you're looking at a fairly solid thirty hours or so depending on how good you mash those buttons. There are a few missions toward the end of the campaign that grate on my nerves, and they are all invariably the missions where you have to keep the monsters from destroying a stationary target while running around the map. Normally this won't be a problem, but in the end game it becomes frustrating because of the high-level unique enemies the game starts spawning in addition to the Mawkeepers that open portals that summon more and more monsters as time passes.

Storywise the game is somewhat lacking; during a festival of some sort a man in a dark robe uses magic to turn the normally docile and peaceful monsters of the world into ferocious monsters that attack humans on sight. Surprisingly the game never makes a big deal over the fact that you are having to engage in the wholesale extermination of creatures the main characters and numerous others claim to be friends with. You play as the (either female, or male) captain of the royal guard for the kingdom of Arba; there's not much of a difference between the two captains other than Aurora gets ice-magic, and Luceus gets fire-magic. You're joined by a healslime named Healix who is somehow unaffected by the sudden change in monsterkind, and as the story advances you're joined by characters from previous Dragon Quest games. The story is fine, I suppose, it's not exactly the deepest thing written especially by the rather lax standards held by Dragon Quest as a whole. There's a small, mild attempt at a twist about roughly the half-way mark but it just comes off as so rote and predictable it's not really worth mentioning other than as a "oh yeah" moment.

The story isn't told particularly interestingly, maybe if this had been a proper Dragon Quest it might have been told differently but the story is just kind of poor. Each chapter always seems to breakdown the same way: "We need to go to this part of the kingdom to see how they fare against the monster attacks. Oh no, the town/city/castle/whatever is besieged by monsters. Let's save whoever's in charge. Look it's *insert character from other Dragon Quest here* 'Let me help you against these monsters.' I'm from a different dimension, but I'll help you in this time of need." Repeat five or six times until you unlock every character from Dragon Quest IV-VIII, except Psaro, he's his own sidequest.

For the most part I like the characters they included from the other Dragon Quest games. It makes perfect sense that they didn't include the player characters because they're all more or less blank slates. I can understand the reasoning behind why some characters were chosen but honestly Nera is a waste of a character. She's just so weak and uninteresting that almost anyone would have been a better choice. If you really needed a spellcaster that badly why not Maribel from Dragon Quest VII? (Please note that I am aware that Gabo and Maribel actually made the cut for DQ Heroes 2.) Hell do something really unexpected put in the first recruitable character from Dragon Quest II, that would've been a surprise.

I love the fact that Psaro the Manslayer is quite obviously a DLC character added after the game was done, because he does not contribute to the story one bit. The boss fights in this game are honestly kind of weak, there's a couple that are interesting I liked the fight against the Dragon of Light and Darkling that happens after. The final boss fight was cool, even if it wasn't particularly tough. The one thing I really dislike about this game is the sidequests that are inevitably about collecting a certain amount of whatever alchemy ingredient the quest calls for. The drop rates for these items is pathetically small and you'll often be running a circuit from one end of the map to the other trying to force monsters to spawn just for a very small chance of them dropping the item required. Granted you could also use the mini medals you acquire through the game to buy whatever quest item you need. Even then though you'll find yourself repeating the process, only now for mini medals. I liked Gragworts quests, because that lizard guy is just a delight to interact with, but his quests almost always just boil down to "kill the creatures in X amount of time" but they are pretty easy, and usually worth the effort.

There's not a whole terribly lot to do after you finish the story mode. Each of the characters usually has a small handful of quests you can perform for them to unlock special items that are usually just some equipment that always results in unlocking an alternate costume for that character. Which is nice, even if the costume is just a recolor of their standard outfit. There's only three costumes that do anything significant; if you do Alena's colisseum quest you unlock her DQIV outfit; and if you beat the super-boss Zoma (the final boss of DQIII) you unlock the heroes costume from Dragon Quest III for Luceus and Aurora. It's not much of a reward if I'm being honest, but the Zoma fight is hands down the best fight in the entire game.

I'm actually kind of surprised there weren't more bosses from the other Dragon Quests in this game. Maybe they added in some of the bosses in DQH 2 (I know they added the Dragonlord), but I thought it would've been really neat if you could test your mettle against bosses like Malroth, or Nimzo. They could've made a packaged deal, and after beating Psaro you unlock a fight against Aamon, that would've been really neat!

Overall I quite liked this game, the story is admittedly super weak, and the side quest stuff is quite repetitive after awhile. But I'm glad I played it, hell I sunk 78 hours into hundred percenting the game so I guess it did something right.

I hope that Dragon Quest Heroes 2 fixes some of the issues I had with the original.