#sounds like ps1 music

[the-bad-taste-aquarium]

Forest of Departure | Threads of Fate | Junya Nakano

[patricia-taxxon]

I wonder, as a music producer, what’s your opinion on Indigo Park’s soundtrack? Because to me it really stood out among other mascot horror games of its ilk.

a lot of these internet pieces mix their metaphors a little in the score. like its supposed to be a theme park, but a lot of the music is giving educational program for preschoolers. they should have at least broken out some cheap orchestral vsts, especially for the rides.

I felt the same way about petscop, like its a ps1 game but the music sounds like baba is you.

[on-a-lucky-tide]

Sergeant Riley can't settle so he goes for a walk. He follows the warm sound of a guitar right to Price's room. Inspired by that one loading screen and how it might have come to be.

CW: Simon Riley's life., Scousier Price than usual (because I fancied it, headcanon that he trained himself out of his accent as he got promoted, and, as a friend hypothesised, Price wouldn't codeswitch when it's just him and Simon).

Simon wasn't sure where he was going when he left his bunk and started walking. There were only so many times he could type out and delete the same fucking message, blue light illuminating his face in the darkness - are you using again? is he still out the house? are you eating? is she out of hospital yet? are you alive? - before he chewed his way out of his own fucking skin.

He didn't press send because he knew being left on read was worse than not sending the message at all. And yet, he still couldn't stop typing out those words.

As he prowled through the dark corridors, Simon remembered the words of some English teacher way back when; the definition of madness was doing the same shit over and over and expecting the same outcome. She'd said it in a clipped southern accent (and used a different word to 'shit') while handing him a referral note for internal exclusion, but her words had stuck more than the five hours staring at the wall.

Maybe he was mad. Any trooper or officer that found him lingering in the hallways, a hulking shadow with even darker circles beneath his eyes, would definitely fucking think so.

He wondered what that pretty young English teacher would say if she knew he punched people for queen and country rather than because they'd slagged off his mum now. She'd probably give him that same look they all had at the time. Pity.

Simon tapped each of his fingers to his thumb as he rounded the corner and stormed down the next corridor. It was 0300. A strange halfway point in the night when no one was awake, not the late workers who still had reports to finish or the early risers that liked to get a few fasted sets in at the gym before breakfast. It was just Simon, alone with the clutter banging around his skull and the itch beneath his skin.

By the time he reached the officer's corridor, he was worrying away at the already sore cuticles of his left hand, if only to stop grinding his teeth into a dull ache. Simon stopped at the far end and slumped against the wall, grey slab concrete cool through his sweat-soaked shirt. Then he heard it through the thrum of blood in his ears and the clutching tightness of his own shaking breaths: Johnny Cash.

At least he thought it was. Pretty certain. He followed the sound like a wrecking ship followed the beam of a lighthouse. Something to latch onto so he didn't drown in the winter sea of his own fucking head. He stopped outside the door, his shoulder against it, and closed his eyes.

It reminded him of peace and home. In the few moments of stability, his da always played Johnny Cash. Tommy was clean, no arguments, no alcohol, no violence. Just the summer sun beaming through the net curtains and the smell of cheap sausages on the BBQ in the garden as Simon thrashed Tommy on the PS1. As that husky voice played through their battered living room stereo, the Rileys could almost pass as normal.

"Are y'gonna stand out there all night, la?"

The music had stopped and Simon's eyes snapped open. He hesitated in the darkness, weighing up whether he could get away with sneaking off, but Price was the kind of man to follow up on weird shit. He was thorough like that. So Simon squared his shoulders and nudged the door open. "Lieutenant," he murmured, dipping his chin.

Price was sitting by his open window, the guitar slung across his lap. He examined Simon for a beat, his head tilted, shrewd blue eyes squinting. Once he'd seen what he was looking for, he looked away and moved the capo up the fretboard. "Struggling to get ya head down?"

"Yeah." Simon glanced around the room. If you looked closely, there were a few indications of character visible in the cracks in military perfection: the Liverpool FC scarf across the back of the desk chair, the football shoved under the bed, the fishing magazines sticking out the bin, and the ash tray on the windowsill. The bed was unmade, suggesting Price had made an effort to sleep and given up. "Could say the same for you, that."

Price hummed noncommittally. "Tomorrow's chocka, so I sacked it off for some time to meself." He glanced up and then followed Simon's eyeline down to the guitar again. "You play?"

"Naw," Simon shook his head. "Just recognised Johnny Cash. Me old man likes 'im." He glanced at the bed and the desk.

Price snorted and jutted his chin towards the bed. "Sit down, ya muppet."

Simon's arse hit the mattress like it was magnetised. Price had that effect on him. The moment Simon had learned Price was the best by every metric the SAS had, he'd got it in his head that he wanted to impress, to emulate. Every order and every shred of praise was eagerly consumed because it got Simon one step closer to filling the void of purpose in his chest.

"Yours too, huh?" Price strummed his fingertips over the strings, the note barely registering. "Strange, that."

"He teach ya?" The most his own da had taught him was to roll a decent spliff.

"Not a bloody chance," Price said, "Learned while I was at camp as a kid, like. It got me outta washin' my own dishes. Bit of Wonderwall... y'know."

"Not a lot's changed then."

"Watch it. Still got to approve the details for next week."

There was no heat to the threat. Price was shifting his fingers through the motions of what Simon assumed were chords without strumming. Something had flashed across Price's face at the mention of his da and the camp. Simon has got good at reading faces; if something was gonna turn violent, it was your first warning sign. He'd seen the flicker at the corner of Price's mouth, the flinch at the corner of his eye, and...

"Sommat on my face?"

"Just that bum fluff you're tryin' to grow inta beard, sir."

"Ahh, ya fuckin' git, s'not that bad." Price ran a hand over his jaw with a smirk. "Like to see you get close ta all this."

Despite himself, Simon grinned back. It was a small one; no flashing of teeth, more a flicker compared to a normal person. But it was there. Something dark, heavy and cold slithered out of his chest and he breathed a deep sigh.

"So, not a Cash fan, what're'ya inta? Moody bastard like you, mid-twenties, sommat like--" Simon recognised the tune after the first few chords from the playlists of one of Tommy's girlfriends. She'd been into that emo scene shit, with the side fringe and the mouth full of metal. "With bloodshot eyes, I watch you sleeping, the warmth I feel beside me is slowly fadi-- ah, nah?" Price grinned at the perplexed look on Simon's face.

"Dunno, never really had favourite music." He'd never really considered it. In the house, they listened to whatever his da wanted, and it wasn't like he could ever afford to own an iPod. "What did ya play at the camps?"

Price snorted. "Kumbaya."

"Bullshit."

"Nah. Camp coordinator were an arlarse. Nothin' too risque."

"But Wonderwall were fine."

"Eh, don't look at me, fella. They're one've yours."

Simon grimaced. Not one of Manchester's finest exports, but he wasn't gonna let that fly. "Hot shit comin' from a Scouser who ain't had a hit band since the Beatles."

"Oer, I'll give ya tha'." Price leaned back and strummed out a few chords of 'Hey Jude', and then changed. They sat in companionable silence as Price strummed through a mash up of familiar tunes. Simon watched his hands, the agile twitch of his fingers over the strings, and grew so focused he stopped covering the damage of his own.

"Ya know, if that gets infected on ops, could become a problem," Price said, indicating Simon's hands with a jut of his chin.

Simon clamped his fingers into his palms. "I'll get it looked at."

Price sat back, one arm folded across the top of the guitar, a finger tapping lightly against the wood. Simon would have given anything to know what he was thinking, if only to banish the Maelstrom of condemnation his own mind was conjuring to fill the gap. "Here, take this."

"What?" Before Simon could protest, the guitar had been thrust into his lap.

"It'll keep ya hands occupied, stop yet pickin' 'em to pieces."

"But I can't fuckin' play."

"Yet." Price shuffled his chair forward and took Simon's hand. "Loosen ya wrist, ya meff. There'yar. Right, gotta press a bit harder. Gonna teach you Smoke on Water. Be playin' Oasis' back catalogue before ya know."

So Simon sat there as Price patiently positioned his fingers and helped him strum through his first song. Every time he nailed a transition or struck a clear chord, he got praise and it made the itch beneath his skin turn into a buzz. He wasn't stupid. He knew this warm reaction wasn't love, or even a crush; it was the reaction of a kicked shelter dog being shown the tiniest morsel of kindness. It should make him feel sick, but he was too enraptured by the fact his hands were making fucking music. Not violence, not pain or death. Music.

They must have been sat there for over an hour, because there was light peaking over the windowsill when Price leaned back to grab his baccy and roll ups from under the desk. As he prepped his ciggy, Simon's eyes rolled up to the ceiling to the smoke detector, and he smirked when he noted the wires hanging out.

"Sommat ta say, sergeant?" Price asked as he set the roll up between his teeth and struck his lighter.

"Naw, sir. Just thinkin' how I wanna be like you when I grow up."

Price snorted. "You wanna be better than me, Simon." He chucked his lighter onto the desk. "And you will be. Just gotta get your head straight."

Simon placed the guitar on Price's bed. "How'd you do it? Get your head straight..."

"Practice," Price nodded towards the guitar as he tapped ash out his window, "and distractions."

Some things would always be there. Some things... never healed. That flicker in Price's face when he'd spoke about home didn't come from nought; it was like looking in a fucking mirror. "I can do that."

"I know ya can."

They watched the smoke of Price's cigarette curl out the window together, and Simon felt the cold, icy talons of last night recede, and then...

"Price, if Riley's done sucking your dick, get to the mess! And if you're fucking smoking, I'm gonna rip your balls off."

"Yessir, right away, sir." Price pinched the end of his ciggy and lobbed it out the window, flapping a hand to dispense the last of the smoke. The other dismissed Simon out the door with a jabbing thumb, removing him from the scene should their good captain decide to perform a snap inspection.

The guitar thing... yeah, Simon took that and ran. It wasn't long before he bought his own out of a Cancer Research charity shop and downloaded sheet music over the base WiFi. Every time shit became too loud, his head too full of clutter, he sat somewhere quiet and strummed until his fingers were sore.

Years later, after Roba, after Price wrenched Simon from a hurricane of self destruction, held him under the torrent of a cold shower as Simon had wailed into his chest, only to find Ghost glaring back when the dust had settled, Simon would return to the guitar again.

This time the songs were a little different, a little softer, because his motivation - the thing that drove him crazy, that filled his head - had a shitty fucking mohawk and blue eyes that bore right through him. Johnny loved it when he played. And if Johnny asked, Simon would play til the gates of hell opened up.

[directdogman]

Sorry for bothering you but where did you get/find the songs used for Dayshift at Freddy’s? I know Henry’s theme is waltz in a minor but where did the other ones come from? Mostly “darxie land”, the hotel themes, and the flip side themesThey’re great and you definitely have good taste in background music if dsaf and dialtown mean anything

the music box covers are just edited midis of various songs to have their instruments replaced with music boxes and often stripped down slightly (aka, some instrument tracks removed). Some of these covers were made by me and some by friends. That's why 3 has 2 variants of hotel california.

The stock music is all Kevin MacLeod from Incompetech.

Dave's theme(s) were largely ripped from a Ps1 Rugrats game.

Steven's battle theme in 3 was made by taking Schubert's Serenade, replacing the main instrument with a ringing telephone noise and passing it through Wub Machine. Was basically just a spur of the moment idea that sounded too good not to use.

Some tracks (like the Flipside theme) were completely original and made by some of the people who worked on the production, mostly notably the Flipside theme by GlitchedPie (who did the flipside battle animations and a lot of the sprite overworld animation work in Undertale Yellow!) and Blackjack's theme, which was done by Roger's voice actor!

[thumpypuppy]

oo! your last ask was really interesting! do you have anything to say on the relation between the various Loop related tracks?

it’s very cool that you’re talking about your music in such a way, thank you for engaging with this community!

So Loop's theme is just kinda silly weird mysterious. There's a chromatic walkup at the beginning of the melody because weird and silly.

Loop's hangout is one of the few tracks written by Alice Liston, who is no longer with the studio, but she's an incredibly talented composer who took a lot of the fundamental aspects of the original song and turned it into something dreamy, which I emphasized with some unique instrumentation.

Spoilers ahead:

The Loop fight is yet another one of my MEGA BATTLE compositions where I go ham because it's a fight song and I have to do way too much.

We start with that chromatic walk up in our classic title theme synth and immediately launch into Sandra's intense drums backed with Spitfire Audio's Albion ONE strings to fill out some space.

There are a couple of wild synth solos here written again by Alice Liston, and the drums move into a standard time with a staggered syncopation before jumping back into double time on the riff. Toward the end we build into a kind of combination prog rock EDM drop, and then…

Lo-fi! We take everything down here to a more sonically simplified version using some synth guitar designed in MASSIVE, a couple of simple wave forms, and some bit-crushed drums. We also introduce a new simple counter-melody here with a fairly straightforward motif we repeat while the exact notes change depending on the chord. We're still riffing on Loop's theme at this point, but we're adding some more context.

(Side-note: If you're interested in emulating vintage consoles of a particular era, one of the most important things to look up is the system's sample rate and bit depth! I'm 37 so "vintage" in this case is like… Commodore 64, NES, SNES, PS1, Sega Genesis, Neo-Geo, etc. It's also important to look up for something like the N64 where a lot of the sound design came from, like a lot of DX7 presets.)

Now with a powerful fill from the live kit we come back to our normal instrumentation, restating our previous section. Toward the end of this section we slowly build in our strings ramping up to a half-time breakdown that will lead into a totally new part.

The strings build intensity while also taking the responsibility of playing our main Loop melody, and we throw in a Dormont-style counter-melody to add to a sense of nostalgia as we ramp up our heart-string tugging.

Next, we bring in lead guitar-style synth to double our Loop melody that's playing in the strings to add an extra helping of epicness because come on, an electric guitar playing over the soprano part of a string section is like pique epic/dramatic.

Meanwhile the drums are still going in half-time to give it a breakdown feel (especially leaning on that china cymbal to give it a classic death metal breakdown feel), but at this point we're starting to get more embellishments and double kicks to make use of the space left to build further intensity until we hit that 80s metal crash mute and pause for emphasis, and then tom roll into our next section.

With the break into a new section we're saying NO MORE! We're getting serious now! We have a lovely riff written by Sadie Greyduck, which has a really uncomfortable and tense progression built into it that's emphasized by the strings that have moved to the very high soprano range to keep tension.

Then on our next repeat we jump into yet another solo! This one was partially written by Alice Liston, but ultimately I ended up fitting it into context and completing it. One thing you'll notice here is that there are a lot of passing tones and chromatic walk-ups to emphasize the Loop-ness of the situation.

Now we're jumping into yet another me(n)tal breakdown! This is more riffing on the Loop melody, but then we hear that brass section jump in! We're moving forward and doing a little more light riffing while the rest of the band takes us home in a slightly stronger and more triumphant fashion.

Finally we pick up the pace and we're back to our old classic, the title theme, but it's add odds with the context it exists in and starts to move in a spacier direction, eventually morphing back into Loop's theme.

For the album version we put a cap on it with a piano restatement of the beginning of the song!

(Also I finally looked it up and the other piano I used besides Spitfire Labs "Soft Piano" is Native Instruments "The Gentleman".)

Honestly I love fight/boss themes so much and they're always so fun to work on because I can go ham and the people I work with can do some of their more extreme work, plus it's always an excuse for Sandra to go nuts on the drums.

Thank you so much for sending in your ask! We're always so happy to get these and to hear how much our work has affected so many people! 🐶💙

[oddygaul]

Zenless Zone Zero

Well, I’ve been playing the shit out of this game, so fair warning, there will be significant brainrot ahead.

Overall, I really dig it. I’m a huge mark for character action games, and well-done life sims tend to suck me in; Zenless Zone Zero is nailing both those aspects pretty damn well. In fact, it’s nailing them well enough that… how do I put this… it starts to slip into the territory of being A Good Game Generally, rather than just a gacha. And while this is a big accomplishment for ZZZ, this also puts it into direct conversation with other full-price games, resulting in its gacha elements causing more friction than Honkai Star Rail’s ever did*.

*I’ll be comparing this to HSR a lot, because I play way too much of both and they’re made by the same developer. I recognize that it is pretty odd and potentially even problematic to A / B compare them when I could be looking at the game through the lens of, you know, Gaming At Large. But hey, that’s why this is a subjective journal and not a holistic review blog! It is what it is.

So, the aesthetic of this game fuckin rules - it’s like, late 90s to early 2000s VHS-core. The main characters run a Blockbuster, for Christ’s sake. Presentation-wise (and systems-wise, and, hell, music-wise), ZZZ is obviously borrowing a lot from the Persona series, but like… great? I’d love it if more things cribbed that style and made it their own, from the confidant hangouts, to the small but comfy explorable areas, to the dynamic menus with edgy character poses. The character design itself is all superb, all the way down to the crowd NPCs - some the shopkeepers here have cooler designs than the main characters of some other games. Even aside from the designs, ZZZ is doing a lot with lighting and color desaturation that really lends it its own unique vibe. They actually have a cohesive artstyle in here! wild.

The presentation of the story is also killer. Sure, a decent chunk of the conversations are just models lip-flapping at each other - although they at least emote and pose a bit here, unlike the Star Rail dialogue scenes with their demure princess waves. In the main story, though, we get not only a heap of fairly lengthy cutscenes, but also this really cool comic panel-style presentation.

I feel like there was a bit of a trend in the PS3/360 era of games to present a game’s story in this comic panel / storyboard style. I understood the motivation: games increasingly demanded a more involved, consistent storytelling approach, rather than the ‘One big rendered cutscene at the beginning and end’ they used to get away with, and the generation’s increased visual fidelity meant that doing even basic, in-engine cutscenes took a lot more resources to make something half-decent. In Spyro the Dragon on PS1 you could get away with a fun little 15-second gag with a barely animated polygonal yeti or whatever; in the PS3 era, you were going up against tryhards like Metal Gear Solid 4. Amidst this landscape, the pitch of having your illustrators pretty up some storyboards and put them in the game sounds like it’d save a lot of work - plus, consoles were finally outputting a high enough resolution that this sort of flat image wouldn’t be compressed to hell.

Thing is, I always kinda hated that approach. In some cases, I think that’s the popular opinion - I fuckin love Bayonetta, but I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone defend its weird slideshow cutscenes. Even in games where the execution is perfectly fine, though, it rubbed me the wrong way. I think of Infamous - objectively, the art’s solid and fits the tone of the game, and the motion graphics aim to capture some of the dynamism typical cutscenes would provide. Despite all that, it still feels cheap to me - all of the panning, effects, and graphic imagery feel like they’re trying to polish up something that inherently doesn’t fit.

In ZZZ, though, I’m loving every one I come across. It’s obviously still done for efficiency reasons - there’s already a handful of characters that exist only in these panel scenes, saving the team the effort of having to model and rig them. But the freedom this allows for staging and storytelling is huge; the characters are more expressive here than anywhere else in the game, and we’re able to see situations with huge crowds and new locales much more often than would be possible in typical cinematics. And the illustrations are genuinely good, too - full of character, cool poses and creative compositions/angles.

if everything actually had to be modeled, there's no way we would've gotten Legally Blonde Nicole

Plus, the cutscenes are constant, and boy do I love the animation here. It feels so rare nowadays for a high-budget game to do stylized 3D animation of this ilk. Your biggest budget games are all going for the cinematic look, and pushing realism as much as they can - and while I know an immense amount of work and craft goes into animating something like The Last of Us, boy, I just could not care less about something so lacking in flair*. Even bigger properties that use a stylized artstyle these days, like Breath of the Wild, still tend to lean towards fairly naturalistic animation. Zenless Zone Zero’s cutscenes, on the other hand, spin and stretch motherfuckers around like we’re back on the PS2, are filled with forced perspective, and I am absolutely living for it. It’s not even reserved only for bombastic action scenes, either - we get honest to god character acting-focused conversation cutscenes.

*Seriously, take me back to the Naughty Dog that animated Jak & Daxter. Jak’s hero animation is top tier to this day

Of course, the combat animation slaps too; each of the playable agents is absolutely dripping with character. Even characters whose designs initially left me cold won me over once I saw the amount of care put into their movement and combo strings. It’s honestly shocking to me that this is the same studio that made Genshin Impact, a game I dropped after about 2 hours because of how lifeless all the animation felt*. Unique run cycles for every character, actual non-human designs, the flourishes everyone has when stopping mid-combo to snap them back to idle, the absolute synergistic audiovisual bliss of the parry… it’s really impressive stuff from a young team.

*Same studio in name only, totally different team, I know, but still

Mechanically, I have some mixed feelings about the combat as a whole. Zenless Zone Zero is, without a doubt, aiming to present complexity and depth as a team battler - that is to say, it’s more about team synergy, tag combos, and knowing who to use when, rather than soloing as any particular character. Nonetheless, I really would’ve appreciated individual characters having a bit more depth to their movesets; a jump, a launcher, cancels, anything. As outstanding as all the animation work is, there’s some characters that only have a normal attack string on square and one special attack on triangle. Like, sub-Dynasty Warriors level of complexity here. It’s rough.

This is where ZZZ’s gacha nature gets a bit ugly: so far, more complex kits and skill expression are mostly locked behind rarity, which is kind of scummy. In Star Rail, for the most part, 4-star characters are defined as such due to their numbers: they still have mechanics and complexity, they just aren’t tuned as high as the limited characters. Hell, in some cases they have more complexity. Ruan Mei is an almost incomparably stronger unit than Asta, but Ruan Mei’s play pattern is fucking boring: you use skill every three turns when it runs out. Asta, meanwhile, basically has her own risk & reward minigame that demands more thoughtful SP management.

In ZZZ, on the other hand, the lower-rank characters straight up have less going on in their kits. Nicole has like… one tech, sorta. Anby has one single animation cancel to chain her normal into her special quicker. Lucy’s only skill expression is choosing whether to tap special or hold special. Meanwhile, Zhu Yuan, a limited character, has a normal string that bounces between melee and ranged attacks, can be dodge-canceled at any point in the combo to branch into variations of the string, and a hold-normal attack string that’s completely different and has the same branching dodge-cancel tech.

It’s one thing to lock raw damage and meta viability behind a gacha, but locking the characters that are mechanically more interesting to play straight up sucks. If I hadn’t been lucky enough on the standard banner to pull exactly the two characters I find the most mechanically satisfying, I don’t know that I’d still be playing - and this is the point where ZZZ begs comparison to other, non-live service character action games. Sure, it’s probably not fair to compare a random A-rank’s moveset to Devil May Cry V’s iteration of Dante, a feature-creeped nightmare of a kit 3 console generations in the making. But what about Sengoku Basara Sumeragi, my personal character-action GOAT? By all accounts a mid-budget title, yet it offers 40 full characters chock-full of more unique mechanics and animation cancels than you can shake a stick at.

Fuck, can we please get a new Sengoku Basara? Please? I’m desperate out here. I’ll take anything, y’all.

There’s also the inherent issue that plagues every action RPG (usually deftly avoided by the character action genre), which is the delicate balance of player success depending on the numbers vs actual mechanical skill - a balancing act made even more noticeable due to the gacha genre-standard of characters taking weeks of grinding to level up. This is a topic for another day, but suffice to say, a big part of the reason Honkai Star Rail works for me as a very pretty version of Cookie Clicker is because of the Autoplay option. In Zenless Zone Zero, if you’re not willing to grind out the same mob fight for a week or two, you’re gonna hit an endgame roadblock of doing chip damage to a boss you’ve mechanically mastered because you’re underleveled, and boy, that never feels good.

For all those issues stemming from the gacha, I will say, it’s great that the story missions let you use the characters that are actually supposed to be present for those missions, even if you don’t own them. Aside from how nice it is to have an opportunity to put the whole roster through their paces, it goes a long way for actually getting invested in the story. Honkai Star Rail’s storytelling is a hot mess for many reasons, but it’s always particularly jarring rolling up to a sidequest at like, a local theater troupe with a wanted space criminal, the sitting president of a completely different planet, a ten year old child, and a shirtless cyborg cowboy, none of whom have canonically met each other; ZZZ’s approach sidesteps this issue. The proxy angle even provides a pretty valid diegetic explanation for why agents that don’t know each other might be working together.

Now that we’ve sort of meandered back to the story after talking about animation led us on a long detour - the story is surprisingly solid. In particular, I really appreciate how straightforward the writing is. I don’t know if the issue lies with the original text or the localization, but Star Rail’s dialogue, even in simple missions, tends to be incredibly meandering and overstuffed; ZZZ is a lot better about letting all its characters talk like actual humans. It also helps that the plot so far is a lot more grounded, and spends more time focusing on each faction’s group dynamics rather than the overarching plot. These games live and die by their characters, so leaning into those strengths is a smart move.

Zenless Zone Zero is, unfortunately, fully in line with Hoyo’s weird conservative politics - in particular, 1.0 and 1.1 are absolutely stuffed full of copaganda. With how many safety regulation jokes they made at the construction company, I initially hoped they’d lampoon the police faction a bit, or make a commentary on how comically heavily armed New Eridu’s police force are. In a vacuum, Zhu Yuan shouting combat lines like “Stop resisting!” or “Freeze, hands up!” while blasting someone with her gigantic, ‘JUSTICE’-emblazoned rocket launcher shotgun feels like it ought to be satire. Every time we talk to the officers, though, it’s just line after line about their solemn duty to protect the people of the city, how essential and important they are for the community, and so on and so on.

This wholehearted embrace of the world’s current power structure is something Zenless Zone Zero approaches in nearly the exact same way as Star Rail. In both games, your playable character is someone that’s sort of operating outside the law - in Star Rail, as the maverick organization that is the Astral Express, while in ZZZ you work as an illegal proxy. Despite this setup, any time the protagonists come into contact with a governing body, they are no less than thrilled to help them enforce the will of the law.

In Star Rail, you aid the local governments (one of which is an undemocratic monarchy) in committing massive cover-ups to hide their failures from the populace not once but twice. In ZZZ, you aid the police to an obsequious degree - playing along with them to not arouse suspicion is one thing, but helping them organize a fucking community day on Sixth Street? Fuck that. Hell, said community day is even shown to initially be DOA because none of the local residents trust the police - and you best believe we get two full scenes of the MCs changing the resident’s minds, resulting in them spouting shit about “Oh, it was our fault for judging the police too harshly - they really do have our best interests at heart!”

is it tho

There’s an argument to be made that the N.E.P.S. are a little different, given that they exist in a post-apocalyptic world with monsters popping up every day - and ZZZ’s copaganda is certainly a little less flagrant than something like Spider-Man helping the NYPD install civilian surveillance networks in Insomniac’s Spider-Man. And, sure, perhaps this can help excuse why they post fully armored, rifle-wielding soldiers in the Lumina Square DMV, and provides some justification that their existence is more helpful than the real world’s civilian-murdering property guards.

Thing is, though, at every turn you’re hit with dialogue and situations which make it clear that, no, they’re the normal cops. Every other sidequest seems to involve calling the N.E.P.S. in on somebody or helping with an investigation, and for every time we see them handle ethereal activity, there’s two instances of them being called in for petty property theft or something similarly minor - even the playable character has heaps of dialogue choices threatening to call the police on someone*. Much like Star Rail’s reactionary politics were strangely at odds with the ‘blazing a new path’ ideals of the trailblaze, Zenless Zone Zero’s obsession with the police puts a damper on its underground, counterculture aesthetic.

*Including a case where both options threatened this, leaving me without a non-narc dialogue choice.

illustration by Lv01KOKUEN

And finally… I don’t know where to fit this in, so I guess it just goes in its own little section at the end here. Lots of people, myself included, have touched on the Persona inspirations - and they’re certainly significant. One thing I’m surprised I haven’t seen anyone mention as a huge influence is Yasuhiro Nightow’s Kekkai Sensen / Blood Blockade Battlefront. From its sense of style to its worldbuilding, ZZZ damn near feels like fanfic to me. Hell, it’s right in the name - BBB? ZZZ? And this is on top of the dimensional crossover / big city vibe, the retro fashion, the different factions. Victoria Housekeeping might as well be Libra 2.0 - Von Lycaon is a damn near perfect 50/50 expy of Klaus and Stephen Starphase. And then Belle / Wise, who assist these powerful fighters in a noncombat role just like Leo, also turn out to have some sort of special magical eyes granted to them by untold powers from within the dimensional rift??

I’m here for it, don’t get me wrong - love Nightow. But that can’t be coincidence, right?

[alicethepiper]

okay i did some snooping for @highball66 (here's his post: https://www.tumblr.com/highball66/747320411462778880/do-you-think-that-the-rebecca-easter-egg-was-more?source=share) and then it just turned into me being obsessed with the differences and now we have this. what were we talking about originally? the photo of rebecca and sexism in resident evil? anyways...

so i went through the s.t.a.r.s office in both OG2 and remake. this footage is from the ps1 version (it's totalllly not emulated) (i own the gamecube version but this was easier to capture footage on). idk why there isn't any sound, i wanted the lovely music in the back while i bonked myself into desks but its whatever. i also looked through the desk and didnt get the rebecca photo? it might not happen when claire is in the room with you, which is kinda funny. i mean yeah if i found a kind of sus photo of some girl in some dudes desk i would probably not take it out of the desk and show it to the random woman i'd just met.

here's the screenshots of all the desks. the first one i'm guessing is barry's. i totally misremembered it as chris' desk because i thought the comment leon makes about the n.r.a was funny (i only know what that is because of trixie mattel, go figure). the second one is chris' for sure. i like leon's comment about it being messy, it's funny. the third one is (i'm guessing) jill's. there's a picture of a dude on her desk that leon assumes is her boyfriend, and there is also her blue hat/berret (i think it's hers?) that i zoomed in on. the fourth desk is messy, and inspecting it doesn't give us any comments, but inspecting the boxes and the health kit satchel thing gives us the comment about leon guessing it to belong to a rookie, so i feel like it's obviously rebecca's. it looks like her stuff is all in boxes still, so im guessing that another bravo/alpha member is already at that desk and they're gonna share it (i have no clue who the desk belongs to tho).

i'm gonna upload the video of me roaming around the s.t.a.r.s. office in remake separate to this one since i can only upload one video per post. but basically, my guess is that alpha and bravo shared desks but just had different shifts. in remake, you can see that the desks are kind of split into two parts, so it seems like everyone had their own desk but they were joined. i couldn't find any hints as to who our alpha members bravo counterparts were. here's a forum talking about it that i read some of before doing my own search: https://residentevil.org/threads/the-stars-office-is-missing-something.12312/

[tyreforhyre]

thinking about ps1 horror/tactics rpg Koudelka with what can only be described as frankly stellar acting during cut scenes because all the main characters were just three theater people in mocap and that they just shot like a stage play and modeled the characters after them and used their voices. also the battle music sounds like this.

also directed, written and ten billion others things by Hiroki Kikuta who you may know as the composer of Secret of Mana

[safety-pin-punk]

Saw your CD burning post, do you have any cd player recommendations? I like fucking off in the middle of the woods so I'd prefer something easily portable and I love the 2000s technology aesthetics if that helps, doesn't need to be extremely fancy, I just wanna burn my gayboy music onto dinosaur discs

My absolute favorite thing to recommend people for cd players is, no joke, an original PS1. Articles and a video about that under the cut from Fact Fiend :)

BUT that unfortunately does not answer your question. If you can find yourself a Sony Discman thats in good shape, that would probably give you the best sound for what you are looking for. Aside from that, maybe something from Craig Electronics? They are cheaper, but the CD2808 (and maybe others) look like they came straight out of the 200s. Can't vouch for the sound quality, but they'd get the job done

[otakween]

Digimon Rumble Arena 2 - Final Thoughts

Omg, I think this is my favorite of the fighting games yet! There was just something so satisfying about it. They found a good sweet spot in terms of difficulty level and simplicity in the gameplay. Also, I'm so happy to get to the PS2 era and that PS2 games WORK on my PC! I've never had a PC that could run PS2 games until now so this feels huge 🥹

Notes:

It's probably because it's on the PS2 instead of PS1, but this game felt a lot sleeker and more "serious" than the first installment. There was no goofy Guilmon voice saying "DIGIMON RUMBLE ARENA" and no Culumon going "which digimon are you gonna play as, huh?" instead we got intense techno music. Although those goofy aspects of the first game were charming in their own way, this one kinda feels like it's for the cool older kids in comparison lol.

I played through single player and did feel motivated enough to unlock all of the digimon this time. I think it's because the criteria for unlocking digimon were way more straightforward. (Also, I was just having fun).

The janky sports mini games from the first game are gone which is probably for the best. In their place we get "secret stages" that are set in the same arenas as normal fights but have different rules. I liked that idea and feel it added a lot to the replayability factor.

I did play through using "normal" digimon twice (Flamemon and Guilmon) but then I just had fun demolishing everyone as boss digimon. Playing as the boss characters definitely feels like cheating, but oh well. Maybe someday I'll challenge myself and do hard mode with Neemon or something. Or maybe not

I found both the controls and the UI to be pretty intuitive which I often find are big barriers to fighting games. It was a nice touch to add instructions to the load screens. Doing each character's "ultimate" attack was fun.

I really enjoyed the digivolution feature. It was easy to understand how you were supposed to achieve it and when you digivolved it actually lasted a decent amount of time. In some digimon games the digivolution is more like a quick summon that doesn't last very long. Here you get enough time with the higher level forms that it feels worth it.

Loved all the dub voice lines. It was pretty funny how your digimon would go "I win!" or "I lost..." basically repeating what the narrator had just said. Hearing the attack names scratched the itch I had from Battle Spirit 2. Some of the "taking damage" sounds were pretty distinct, especially Biyomon's ("owie!")

Winning as BelialVamdemon felt wrong lol. Just a massacre.

I thought the variety and creativity in the stages was good, but some of them were pretty annoying. Steam Town and the Great Waterfall were my least favorites because there was so little surface area to actually fight on. I thought the ones with moving platforms and the Toy Town one that was a sidescroller were really fun. It was satisfying seeing my opponents get KO'd by the scenery mwahaha

In some stages the camera would zoom so far out that I would lose track of my digimon and die as a result.

I enjoyed some of the silly little touches they added via items like "Sleepy time" (makes all of your opponents fall asleep) and "Piñata party" (turns you into a piñata).

Neemon being a boss was funny and unexpected.

I really enjoyed the boss stage because it was over quick, kinda like a wild west showdown. My fave move was cornering the boss, knocking him over, and then throwing him off the ledge >:) Come to think of it the boss in the first game was way harder because it was very difficult to dodge his attacks sometimes and there was less room to move around.

The Black versions of Agumon, Gabumon and Guilmon were interesting. I did feel like this game was a little too Adventure heavy though. We only got one digimon each from Tamers, Adventure 2, and Frontier (not counting bosses). I don't like the obsession this franchise has for Adventure in general...

There's only one more Digimon fighting game for me to play! That's wild to me. Looking forward to it.

[doom-nerdo-666]

Horror does have a place in Doom

(Mainly felt like making this post after a video by thebeansprout13, even if this comes out later because it was in my drafts for a while)

This is a very talked about, overplayed topic on Doom and it tends to repeat, sometimes because certain opinions/observations are more popular than others.

I think horror is an element in Doom and there's a lot of ways to talk about this, both in favor and against or even somewhere in the middle.

The 90's games

We all know about Doom Bible's canned ideas of the characters and story but even then, Doom is clearly inspired by Aliens, Evil Dead, DnD and so on.

But maybe this mix of inspirations (And the weird presentation of the games) means there's different things to pick apart.

If Doom was a movie, it could have been a B-movie with a goofy, campy nature and still have some eerie atmosphere or gross practical effects.

At first we have:

Some dark, suspense based music tracks.

Darker areas meant to show off lightning and "slow" moments.

Probably the default movement speed and the history behind "ALWAYS_RUN".

Doomguy being hurt in the box art and ingame status bar.

The Arch-vile's intended design of an eerie HR Giger inspired alien.

Textures like the flesh walls with metal pipes, twisted faces and some hanged corpses people thought were based on a real pic of Mussolini (But it's actually GI Joe figures).

But then there's:

The fast gameplay and combat that can happen.

Cartoony designs and assets.

The metal music (And other tracks like those that sound kinda like jazz).

The campy writing style in the manuals and intermission screens.

The presentation of Daisy's death.

Some of Doomguy's faces.

The name "BFG" and how some assets were made like using toys to make the guns.

Maybe whenever a level was clearly gimmicky and "gamey" or experimental.

The ridiculously low-tech aesthetic with blue carpet floors and maybe how Phobos' sky doesn't look like Phobos.

So it seems Doom always had a mix of elements and that's why people even argue over this, though i also see benefits of Doom being a "blank canvas" when it comes to its staying power.

Doom 64 was the more horror focused classic game with its take on Hell and some demon designs (But still not showing Doomguy's bloodied mugshot or some assets of classic Hell).

Even its theme song was barely metal (And i think John Romero really liked the PS1 port).

And D64 is also seen as "the real Doom 3" though this is a bit of a topic i mentioned in a different post.

Doom 3

A "reboot" of the series and a new entry in a time after the series was dormant (And mostly carried by fan mods).

D3 pushes things to a specific direction that John Carmack thought it was natural.

Some fans think the same, others thing it's opposite to what they expect out of Doom, some even accept it as a new thing.

D3 is much more story focused, with a bunch of cutscenes, background/lore, characters and most if it isn't goofy.

Demons are redesigned and some barely resemble their original versions (Might be because they looked "goofy" even if we have fanart that knows how to make them eerie; Meanwhile, D3's Arch-vile didn't capture the original design that much).

New demons represent a new art style that makes them "more serious and scary" or at least surreal.

The UAC stuff is still low-tech but in a more detailed, "professional" way.

Gameplay is slower, with a focus on reloading and the lantern.

Darkness focus and horror etc.

More serious tone, with little music.

D3 marine never smiles and looks worried most of the time.

Besides UAC and Hell, there's the Martians as a way to "extend" the universe but they're still mostly mysterious and not shown a lot.

The premise of a UAC marine having to fight demons after the UAC unleashing Hell is technically there, but it's also differently done from the original games (At least/specially if you look into the "lore" in the old manuals).

This game divided some fans, though a prespective i like to hear more is one that likes the idea but not so much the execution and i also always bring up how unfair it is that later versions (BFG edition and others) tend to have new problems or cut content for no reason, while not fixing certain flaws.

Because you'll still find some older fans thinking Doom was supposed to have some form of tension or horror, compared to those that prefer the fast action side of things.

Oddly enough, Hell in the series always had potential to be weird but D3, the game with the most experimental demon designs, didn't really took advantage of those elements.

At least D3 has some mods that fix some people's issues with the game, whether or not it leads to them respect the game more.

If you ask me: Doom 3's horror isn't just the dark corridors or slow "doomed" marine, but it's the crazy designs like the Bruiser having a screen on its mouth or the Revenant having transparent skin.

And i think D3 has its fair share of goofyness like the Turkey minigame (And the others in RoE that later versions deleted for no reasons) or that one fat zombie going "mmmm boy" that farts.

Doom 2016 and Eternal

D2016 is like an extreme opposite to D3: You are the horror and gameplay is more focused on movement and projectile avoiding that there's barely hitscan enemies besides the Possessed Security and maybe the Hellrazer.

Besides the arena focused combat, there's the Glory Kills, alt fires, upgrades, Mick Gordon's music, the character of the Doomslayer and so on.

But bits of D3's style are still present, speciall Mars and Hell a bit since Doom technically wasn't always "Mars" (Otherwise, more people would bring up the classic Phobos aesthetic and specific textures but even Hell still doesn't carry certain elements back).

(In fact, when D2016 was revealed, people complained about the lack of color and even said the demons looked "MOBA-ish")

The Hellknight is clearly inspired by its D3 design but one major difference is being eyeless instead of the weird eyes (Or are they sockets?) it had in D3.

Most demons have a rather "focused" aesthetic of chitin armored creatures and even lore explaining how they work or even how the UAC was involved in some being created/modified (Which may or may not affect the appeal of Hell being a weird dimension of evil that Doomguy has to put up with).

It's also somewhat known that D2016 was influenced by outside factors for Doom: The Doom comic ("Rip and tear") is obvious but there's probably other theories like anything to do with Death Battle or internet copypastas/webcomics joking about Doomguy (And i guess Brutal Doom but there's still arguements about it).

Doomslayer being a killing machine that scares demons is like an inverse to the "doomed" D3 marine: Putting classic Doomguy in the middle since he's both a strong action hero but still gets hurt (Even his portrayal in the 90's comic is like this).

The existence of D2016 is also a result of Doom 4 being cancelled: A game that was so deviated from Doom, it didn't even feel like a D3 sequel (And maybe it wasn't).

In a way, D2016's appeal relies on some bits of fanservice and at least getting basic ideas that people associate with Doom, which contrasts D3 not relying on "outside factors" but also chosing specific parts of the series while also executing them in a way that i'm not sure if it was ideal for D3 itself.

Then there's Doom Eternal, which builds up from 2016 in a lot of ways (And in was that people either like or hate it but it's still a very beloved and popular title).

The aesthetic is more colorfull and brings back some classic designs (Not entirely as they're put inside the new aesthetic), there's the concept of the "Doom universe", lots of new mechanics and a lot more to like (But also things that divided some fans).

Eternal's "videogamey" pickups were technically based on how some people thought pickups in D2016 overlapped with the environment, even if people liked how items in D2016 "existed in the setting" (Because even in classic Doom, you didn't have those kinds of pickups).

There's a lot of debates about Eternal's lore and aesthetic that leads to comparisons to 2016 but i'm thinking on making a post dedicated to that (Specially with some prespectives, opinions and stuff that most people don't consider).

Regardless, Eternal has clearly different media influences compared to the originals and feels like a different genre.

Basically, if classic Doom is a "campy B-movie", Eternal is a "saturday morning cartoon with gore" (And D3 is a serious sci-fi horror movie, i guess).

(And let's not forget: Different people are behind these games, in a series where people already interpret them in their own ways)

Sometimes, i think Doom is like the Planet of the Apes movie series:

D3 is closer to the original premise but 2016/Eternal are seem to be the more liked iteration of the series.

(Meanwhile, we have Mighty Doom as the most cartoony Doom game but in a cute way while the RPG Doom's had a different cartoonyness and sense of humor and a rather serious intro comic)

"Horror" in Doom to fans (And what else)

If you look at some pieces of fanart (Or even fan redesigns) and some mods, there's definitely an appeal of Doom being more horror focused and tense, even without affecting certain designs or the personality.

It's why one could not only defend D3 but even think that D3's issue isn't being different but rather doing a flawed job at its own direction.

Because 2016/Eternal also have their own differences from the original games but they seem to mostly nail their own direction.

I even see "horror" complement the "power fantasy" concept of modern Doom: Making Hell weirder and stranger, which makes Doomguy/Slayer feel even stronger.

Because "horror" as a concept can mean a lot: Not just dark corridors or walking slow, but it can lead to really interesting designs that make Hell feel threatning and weirdly creative.

After all, if it's possible to make a game out of "fans want a Doomguy that is more powerfull and the gameplay is fast", i don't see why we couldn't have one that is "fans want a tense, bone chilling experience and the demons look scary but still cool", even if you see those cool fan redesigns as better than what we got in D3.

(I like to believe that different types of Doom can coexist)

Even D3 haters may find or cherrypick some parts of the game they like (Which also makes me think it's another good reason why MetaDoom is a really cool mod).

I believe it should be possible to make a game that has elements of both "paths" represented, even if it means like a level with disturbing environments and then you find a goofy collectable toy in a secret.

I also said this before but i kinda get D3 hate coming from older fans but not people who got into the series at 2016 and after, because you technically "skipped" the "dark age" that some fans went through.

How hated D3 really is depends on which opinions or mindset overcome the others, because fanbases and hobbies almost tend to have an "anglicized canon" that is rather pushed by some specific people.

Anyway, i tried to add as much i could in this post but i'd like if someone like a Youtuber or older fan were to analyze this and even add more to this or correct potential flaws.

It's a topic that could be more explored, because even people that argue "Doom was always X" overlook elements that support their claims.

Other links to check, i guess.

How i think a good D3 re-release could be.

Doom 3 power ups and Doom 3 enemy roster rant.

"Doom 3 alternatives" for some picky fans.

The D2RPG intro comic.

Bunch of stuff related to Quake and Wolfenstein.

"Remastering" the 90's Doom games.

How a Doom movie or show could be good.

I mean, there's more on this blog but these could be good enough.

[tr1ck5]

I wasn't originally planning on writing any of this, but I've read so many wonderful and deeply personal love letters to FFVIII yesterday and today for its 25th anniversary that it kind of emboldened me to.

So here goes I guess, kind of somewhat personal wall of text about a ps1 game, under the cut. You've been warned!

Okay now I don't know how to start. You could say FFVIII came into my life at exactly the right time for me to absolutely imprint on it.

I remember playing the demo that came with a bunch of other demos from a PSN magazine; I'd watched my older brother play a lot of FFVII beforehand and I was enchanted by the story, graphics and characters, the music... Even though my understanding of english at the time was next to mediocre so I relied on him to explain things a lot. I was like... 8 or 9 then so loads of subjects and plot points went completely over my head but it didn't matter at all to me (It was kind of hilarious when I replayed it when I was older because I was like damn, this story is a LOT more convoluted/complicated than I remember wth??? Lmao)

When VIII finally released and I watched my brother play, I was now 10/11 and sometimes he'd play without me so I missed a lot of stuff (and it's rather funny because I remember looking at Squall and co at first and being like whoa, those adults have got their shit together so much and wow how I ever could have looked at Squall and thought that, is beyond me lmao) but when he was done with it I picked it up and played. And sucked. But it stayed with me through my teenage years, never too far.

I was then a lot more fluent in english and literature in general so it pretty much was my first real big 'story-driven' video game ever. I was so damn invested, and, perhaps most of all, I saw myself in Squall so damn much it was borderline uncanny. I think it's so comforting (or alarming depending on how you want to look at it lol) that that seems to be a common thing for all of us die-hard fans. We just 'get it', don't we?

I've... always been a 'weird' kid. That kid other kids somehow know to stay away from, because something is 'off' with them, before they learn how to mock and bully. And I was aware of my 'otherness' as much as them, for as long as I can remember. I never quite fit in, anywhere, no matter how hard I tried. I didn't have a lot of friends, and the very few I had I always kept at arms' length for self-preservation reasons. If I was never vulnerable, if they knew nothing deeper than surface-level stuff about me, they could never hurt me. And this way I wouldn't get too attached, so when they left it wouldn't hurt. Sound familiar?

Admittedly it's safe to assume that I had a somewhat fucked-up childhood (I mean, I wasn't an orphan forced to become a child soldier but still lol) as these behaviours didn't appear out of nowhere, and Squall's inner monologues and way of seeing things just resonated so much with me, I couldn't believe this guy was the hero that saved the day, despite all his traumas and anxiety... But he was. And he did. And his friends cared for him despite it all. And someone fell in love with him, flaws and all. He realized his way of life wasn't sustainable forever and he just... changed. But he wasn't unlovable. He wasn't irredeemable and broken! I cried so much the first time I finished that game. It felt so fucking unfair, I felt like I'd grown and matured right alongside Squall but as the credits rolled and the tv screen turned black I was met with my reflection; alone, in my room. Where were my friends, where was my Rinoa?

I'm an extremely private person. Sharing deep things about myself is extremely difficult for me and twice now I've come this close to erasing the entirety of this post. I have to fight the voice in my head that says this is irrelevant and useless at best, and dangerous to divulge so much personal info at worst. When I talk about personal things, even to the people closest to me, I start shaking and I feel nauseous and cold all over. Even today, right now as I'm typing this!

But this damn video game made me realize that I would never be happy and at peace if I was never honest and vulnerable. Because when you spend years around someone and know loads of things about them yet they know nothing about you, you're not a friend; you're an acquaintance. To love is to give a person the means to hurt you and trust them not to. You have to take that leap.

I eventually found my friends, and my Rinoa; I'm still having trouble trusting and opening up and relying on others but it got better, and it gets better still, and it's in part because of that. one. video game. Ain't that just crazy? A little bit, probably. Who cares.

I feel this wall of text of a post is all over the place and probably TMI but wow good on you for reading through it all lmao. Am I gonna regret posting this in the morning? Most definitely. But hopefully I have the strenght to leave it up. Hopefully someone somewhere can also relate, like I've related so much to all of your posts on this game! Ultimately I am deeply grateful and amazed by this community, we're the black sheeps, the underdogs, the often ill-understood... But I wouldn't want it any other way.

Happy 25th anniversary, Final Fantasy VIII.

[notmrkillwolf666]

Dead Internet Theory and why you should start an unionize

Ok, let me start off with two things. 1# I never done this before but I fucking corpos push me to do this because of all the AI bullshit.

two# if you don't know what is The Dead Internet Theory is like I was, there 2 video are different on it but they are a still good watch on it.

since it become no sneaking suspicion that corpos are useing AI to trying to replace artist for a lower cost (which it's fucking stupid because hasbro, xbox/Microsoft, others are multi dollar company that end up showing how fucking Greedy they are,)

This will keep happing unless we put our foot down, tell this corpos that this shit is wrong/fuck off with this, and start a union to fight back this mess.

but what this have to do with the Dead Internet Theory?... well, if at some point if we can't tell who human and who AI/bot on the Internet. we have to go outside and meet in-persons to to talk to real people (or on discord or calling your friends on your phone.)

stuff like hardcover book, DVDs, music vinyl, art, dvd movies and so much more are now going to be more rare than gold. I am serious. since AI is making all these stuff that are difficulty to tell which one is made by a human or a bot, unironically we have to go back to the past and start buying these stuff when people used to me that we don't have to buy these things no more. because they will all be on the Internet to buy and get (or you can be a 7 sea pirates to get these stuff for "free" cuz fuck them corpos.)

Now?... now all I want to do is buy older/hardcover stuff since I know that was not made by a fucking AI bot but made by a human being. now all I want to is unplugged from the Internet and go live in a cabin in the woods somewhere to never be seen again.

this shit is starting to become a real life cyberpunk and I. DO. NOT. WANT. THAT.

So you should do this.

#1: meet in person to talk to people (or discord or any other way) and if that person is a VA, artist, animator, etc. start a unions and make it loud and clear that we don't want this AI shit in our creative industries. (as well if it's somehow possibly to ban AI then do it.)

two#: start to buy all the DVDs, hardcover book, DVDs movies (or VHS Movies), music vinyl, TTRPGs and board games to play with your friends.

and 3#: find hobby in real life, like gardening, swimming, sewing, and or playing older videos games like PS1 to PS3, gamecube, N64, etc.

For one more thing I need to say before I start to wonder how long before AI become self aware. All of this remind me of pandora box, the person who made ChatGPT/OpenAI open pandora box, so much happen in 2022 to 2024 when chatGPT/other AI stuff that I can't put into words of how much this fuck over the creative industries and cost so much people to lost their job because of greedy corpos who want to cut corners. everyone is scared of AI, even the person who made chatgpt for god sake.

but I have forgotten something important to the pandora box story.

"Pandora opened a jar left in her care containing sickness, death and many other unspecified evils which were then released into the world. Though she hastened to close the container, only one thing was left behind – hope."

and you what happening in the gaming industry?... Bethesda had Unionizes. which it own by Microsft/xbox. sure it does now sound much but to me, this sound like a piece of snow that is ready to go down hill into a SnowBall.

IF THERE WAS TIME TO UNIONIZE, THE TIME IS NOW!. NO IFS OR BUTS OR WHEN!.

kick start union, support real artist, VA, animator, indie movies, indie video games, and people who are making books and so much more.

MAKE IT LOUND AND CLEAR THAT WE DON'T WANT THIS AI SHIT IN OUR CREATIVE INDUSTRIES AND FIND A WAY TO BAN IT!.

thank you for reading my hate on corpos and AI, I fucking hate it here.

[styrmwb]

Favorite Final Fantasy Music (FFVIII)

eight

VIII is a weird game. Everything about it is weird. The plot is weird, the gameplay is weird, the world is weird, the characters are weird, and of course, the sounds are weird. They're unique! Like VII, VIII has a very distinct sound, and I love it. I love VIII for all of its strangeness. I think out of the 3 PS1 games, it's not my Favorite soundtrack, but it's fucking Final Fantasy. There's literally not a bad soundtrack in this entire goddamn series. This shit is B tier AT WORST. Let me tell you about my favorite songs, as I love to do, and you can judge me silently in your transparent gray textboxes if you so wish.

5. Silence and Motion This is a silly song; I love how silly it is. It's perfect for a silly future city ruled by a very silly man. This starts by feeling very strange and cautious, probably like how you would feel if you entered a random futuristic city in the middle of an icy wasteland - and then the circus music starts? and it makes you feel like, oh actually this place is good? Then it speeds up. You feel a sense of rush. A silly sense of rush, but a sense of rush regardless. And Boom, the fuckin super speedy xylophone kicks in, and this song sounds like a busy city, with people running around, it SOUNDS like what a busy news station would sound like. That's my favorite part right there.

4. Blue Fields bum bum BUM BUM bum bum bum bum BUM BUM. Going from a silly song into a fun song. Fun, yet also calming. Blue Fields is the perfect name for this song, because to me, the main instrument in the melody reminds me of water? This might be an insane person take but like it sounds like a pool looks to me. But not like a community pool I mean like a classic backyard pool with the good blue siding. I'm rambling worse than I usually do. I do not get sick of listening to this song while walking across the overworld, and it is very important for an overworld song to be something you are not going to get sick of, cause you're going to be ALWAYS listening to it.

3. Balamb GARDEN This song sounds like a school. This is a song of LEARNING. And like sure it's a school where you're learning to be a child soldier but like who cares this is an AMAZING song for where it plays. It feels like school, but it also feels like home (it is home!). I love the strange piano sound it has (again, FFVIII has a very unique sound and I love it for that) and then you get the odd flute/wind instruments as well. As I was starting this list, I was expecting me to put a lot more battle themes, but it turns out I love the overworld themes a lot more than I thought??? Anyways, let's immediately throw that thought away and go into:

2. The Extreme Here's the battle music. The final battle music even. This song starts out so cool, giving you the same FITHOS LUSEC WECOS VINOSEC "motif" that has been spread through a few points throughout the game, and a somber piano opening before going full into the actual meat of the song, which is INCREDIBLY COOL SOUNDING. It's all like, awesome fuckin synth instruments and a high energy melody and backing that pumps you up as a final boss theme should. I love the part where the synth goes ham up and down the scale towards the middle of the song, and then of course there's the part where it slows down and brings in the choir reminding you of almost like, the core of what this encounter is, against a magic wielding sorceress (who I swear the translation should have been witch but whatever!!!). Banger song.

1. Force Your Way Honest to god contender for best normal boss theme in the whole series (VI might have it beaten out by a slight margin). I LOVE the intro so much; the organ and the heavy string hits building up the atmosphere with the little bwoodooloodooloodoo in the back going into the sickest synth melody you've ever heard in your goddamn life. Throw in a little heavy MIDI guitar and you've got the hypest moment of your life. I can imagine Uematsu had a LOT of fun crafting this one for the game, this is easily the pinnacle of how unique FFVIII's sound is and I hope I've beaten you over the head with this fact that I've made enough. This song should make you feel like you should pick up that Yamaha keyboard your family has sitting in the basement and you should fiddle with it for At Least Like 2 Hours.

Honorable mentions this time go to The Man With The Machine Gun, Maybe I'm a Lion, Fisherman's Horizon, The Castle, and water and water and water water (Don't Be Afraid)

[archoneddzs15]

Sega Saturn - Snatcher

Title: Snatcher / スナッチャー

Developer/Publisher: Konami Computer Entertainment Tokyo

Release date: March 29, 1996

Catalogue No.: T-9508G

Genre: Cyber Punk Adventure

Snatcher is one of the cult classics and unlike many cult classics, this is actually good. Set in the cyberpunk future you take the role of Gillian Seed, a bounty hunter whose goal is to source out the cybernetic creatures known as Snatchers. Sound like a certain cult movie to anyone? Yep, Blade Runner in Japanese game form is a nice way to describe Snatcher.

Snatcher has been available on many formats such as the Japanese home computer systems mainly the NEC PC-8801 (where it was born) and MSX 2 [1988], NEC PC Engine Super CD [1992], Sega CD [1994], Sony PlayStation and Sega Saturn [1996]. The strange thing is that the only English version released was for the Sega CD, the least successful console that this game was released for. Crazy! Anyway, Saturn fans will be very happy to know that the Saturn version is the best version released to date. Unlike the PlayStation version, the Saturn version is uncensored plus it has the benefit of having high-quality graphics from those versions that came before it. Now if only someone would produce an English patch for it (and the PS1 version, and the PC Engine Super CD version too.)

No one, at least in America, had ever seen a game like Snatcher, and thanks to the fact that Policenauts, Snatcher's unofficial "prequel", hasn't been and probably never will be released in America, we'll probably never see a game like it again (there is an English fan-translation for both PS1 and Saturn versions of Policenauts). It's a game that never fails to keep you on your toes. It manages to genuinely scare you, even though it never actively tries to. At one point I would even refuse to play the game at night, because as I would walk from my basement up to my room to go to bed, I would keep looking over my shoulder to check if a snatcher was sneaking up on me.

I actually grew up with Snatcher thanks to the Sega Saturn version, not the Sega CD, though I heard the Sega CD version is extremely popular. When a game that's running on a meager 16-bit machine with an onscreen graphics palette of only 112 colors (or in the case of the Saturn, a 32-bit console with an onscreen graphics palette of 256 colors) manages to scare you even after you've turned it off, that's the mark of something truly powerful. It could also be the mark of a paranoid coward, but I'd say it's a combination of both. Everything about the game is perfect. The graphics are in the style you'd find if you picked up an issue of Shonen Jump comic books, or manga. They're colorful and detailed, and even though they rarely move, they're too good for you to care. The sound is excellent. The voice acting is truly excellent, and although the voice actors seem to be overplaying their roles at times, we have to remember that decent voice acting at all in a pre-Metal Gear Solid era was pretty rare, and probably nonexistent to begin with. 

The music is excellently composed, and the right tunes play at the right times to get your heart truly racing. (The Saturn version swaps out the Sega CD and PC Engine's Roland Sound Scape [RSS] technology.) The game structure is a massive menu with a few shooting sequences thrown into the mix. It's the most entertaining menu ever made, in my opinion. All the choices one would want to make are there, and it rarely feels limiting. The shooting sequences are far and few between, and this is a good thing because once you start getting into the game, you'll want no interruption from your investigation. The storyline is top-notch- there are just enough plot twists and character developments to make it truly great. Luckily, there's no way to die in Snatcher. If you get killed during a shooting sequence, you push a button and attempt it again. Clumsy gamers like me appreciate the fact that you have infinite lives. All in all, there is much to love in Snatcher. Anyway, back to the game. Ungodly carnage, the greatest video game story ever, and an interface that is just the coolest. It's just pure quality at its finest.

As always, Konami gives us a quality color-printed disc and some nice stickers.

[rivetgoth]

Got knocked on my ass by one of the most intense acid trips I’ve had in years last night. Went on a whole bunch of weird Halloween funhouse journeys in my mind to Severed Heads and scared myself by rotating made up PS1 video game models in my mind. While I was peaking I got really really into indri lemurs which are the only mammals besides us that uses rhythm. Listened to Skinny Puppy and thought once again about how they’re the greatest band of all time. Thought about how much control or lack thereof we have in the cycles of our lives. Then about halfway through the trip I said a prayer to Uncle Hunter took a shot of Chivas and went to my second ever illegal warehouse rave and it was so immensely unbelievably fun. The crowd and atmosphere were perfect and the music was so good, I felt like I could’ve kept dancing forever. It was a cloudy night with light misty rain and the smoking patio was semi-enclosed so you had a roof above your head but huge gaps of the upper walls were wide open and letting in the cool air while you took a break from dancing. The inside was all fog and lights and sound and crowds of dancers. I think I felt the closest to being on molly someone who can’t take molly can feel. When we drove home I just felt so lucky that my conciousness exists in this form right now and I get to experience these things. And I was able to fall asleep pretty easily for once!! Probably because of how exhausted I was lol.