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archer3-13 · 1 year

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SO! went out and actually got my hands on an engage physical copy. played through the first lil bit. thought id start up an internal reblog chain for myself here on thoughts on the game!

opening:

very abrupt but it goes hard on the music even if the visuals feel somewhat noncommittal and incoherent. in fact ill add right off the bat that the music here SLAPS HARD! like holy shit is it good.

title is in that kinda static manner a lot of title are these days.

prologue:

im playing on normal for a first run, cause i like to get a handle on what the developers are designing the bare basics of the game around. ie, the experience they assume most people are going to undergo when playing the game. idk, first impressions and all that.

anyways! prologue is doing the fe awakening thing of a flash forward [?] with a fight against scary bad man though instead of evil sorcerer were apparently fighting the fell dragon of this game itself. WHO WEARS NO SHIRT AND IS THEREFORE SUPERIOR TO GRIMNA BY DEFAULT!

its fine for what it is, the hook of the story and a quick run down on basic move attack mechanics. we even get to 'engage' and use an engage skill!

that said, i feel it misses the mark on what was effective about awakening paralogue. to clarify off the bat here, awakening is on the lower end of fe games for me personally, so when i say it misses the mark i really do mean it. awakenings paralogue setup worked by building a lot of dread and tension, oppressive music and atmosphere, the pre fight cg throwing us right in the action in a frantic and somewhat grim fight, the dramatic tragic twist with shishchrombob and a jarring evil laughter to play us off.

engage raises questions like awakenings, but thats all it really does. raise questions, otherwise being kinda flacid in atmosphere comparatively.

ch 1

which brings us to ch 1! alear wakes up, meets the stewards, and then suddenly were on the ground! feels like we missed a transition here, cause i wasnt sure if we had been in the sky or not like the game insisted we had but hey. i can forgive it a bit here cause a] its not an essential transition and b] the following stuff in the chapter is real good!

zombies show up, the corrupted, to cause some ruckus and the twins get into a sticky situation we have to unstick them from. namely that we actually get a 'diagetic experience' as it were cause the twins are on the map getting attacked as we rush out to save em. the twins run ahead a bit, zombie enemy turn ambush spawn and we dip into a cutscene then a cg

on a side note, the in engine cutscenes are such a massive improvement over what we had before! theres the dialogue skit sections of course where we do the awkward stand and nod like mascots that plagued three houses [though not as bad in engages case], but also we get actual action sequences animated in engine! and they look pretty slick minus some clipping.

anyways, cg marth shows up to bedazzle us [hes so pretty...], and we get some engage buisness to deal with and to help illustrate how op it is we get to mulch a bunch of enemies! fun.

on another side note, map sizes along with mov ranges so far have been reduced from average. infantry has sat at 4 well vander the paladin has sat at a 6 mov. armours im guessing have 3 move well flyers have 4 and non promoted cavs have 5 as it follows the heroes model as it were. in fact a lot of the mechanics and interfaces feel very heroes inspired which... im not entirely against as heroes does do a lot of things right and expanding on what works there in a full fe setting sounds very delicious to me.

dragon mama shows up at the end to save us from some more enemy reinforcements and we get a nice little reunion cutscene still [also very nice], and moment in general. dragon mothers cloths clip like no tomorrow in engine but shes very pretty and her voice actress giver her a nice melodic quality that i find very calming.

on an aside, i was giggling like a maniac the entire later half of the battle map for ch1. its a very over the top sequence but it just feels so fun to watch and its delightful to see some over the top choreography in action.

characters at the moment!

the twins: could not remember their names at the moment as they are just 'the twins' that exist in all of fiction

vander: is uther. reminded me of uther lightbringer from warcraft 3 when i first saw him and his personality and portrayal just kinda reminds me of uther in general. uthers pretty cool though and vanders definitely endeared himself to me in just a handful of scenes. more so then the twins anyways.

lumenera: sweet and melodic as i mentioned. i feel like the twist of the story is going to be that alear is related to the fell dragon in some way [fell dragon going 'i am your father!' or somethin] and lumenera is either the fell dragons ex or tryin to just put alear on a better path. interested in seeing and learning more anyways, and i feel shes the most endearing early game slated to die mother figure so far thats become very common in modern fe storytelling. at time of writing this anyways.

alear: somewhat timid, obviously gonna have a story about learning to be bolder. they talk so its a step up from byleth regardless.

marth: speaking more then i thought he would. hasnt said much yet but as ever hes sweeping me off my feet for no reason other then i like him.

#fire emblem #fire emblem engage #spoilers

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the-kipsabian · 8 months

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💖📥🌝🧠🍰

💖 What do you like most about your own writing? im pretty good at writing emotions and getting them across the way i really want to. also very much a fan of my characterizations, i dont put a lot of work in studying characters for nothing i feel like

📥 What is your fave fic to receive comments/messages on? i love all comments tbh, but since its my big project, immortal fears. it doesnt get a lot of them, but with the amount of work that goes into it and especially since its a multiparter, the setups for future chapters etc, when someone notices and points out those especially, its just. my everything

🌝 Who is one character you haven’t yet written for that you would like to? so im a very one trick pony, so theres a lot i havent touched up yet lol. a few names come to mind, but tbh right now i think nick wayne would be really interesting to give a go. i have no idea how to go on about that, but im attached to him enough that i would like to try (in before i end up writing something with him and jordo [cause fuck aew thats why lmao] if someone has thoughts lemme know)

🧠 What’s an idea you have that you can’t quite call a WIP yet? theres quite a few on my list tbh, but lets say agender!oc. when i have some more room on my list and ive cleared a lot of the longer stuff out, i'd love to start a multi parter with that. all bout self discovery about your identity/identities and all that. i feel like it would be very nice and also very personally healing to me as someone struggling with this topic currently

🍰 Name one of your fave comfort fics (doesn’t have to be your all time fave). :) 💜

fanfic ask game ~

#thank you for asking! <3 #midnightpretenders0

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loveydive · 2 years

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phf thoughts

likes

VERY interesting introspections on the characters and their relationship with each other. mostly fugos relationship with each member of the gang but all of them were so interesting. they really added sm more depth to them that i thought the anime really needed. i was mostly (pleasantly) surprised by the thought put into the relationship between him and trish even tho i could literally count the amount of lines they exchanged on one hand. i could detail what the book does for each relationship but i dont want to talk too long dgusadh

i lied. i really liked fugos unwavering loyalty to buccellati, his quiet acquaintanceship with abbachio, his genuine friendship with narancia, his confusing relationship with trish and what she represents to him and how she was so vital in changing everything in his life. the way he pays attention to mistas habits and stuff. even little things like knowing what buccellati’s favourite song was was nice to know. it really clarified their relationship and made them more human

i love the frequent rumination on his decision to abandon them. he goes back and forth on it so much, trying to understand it. and we read all of that i LOVE THAT. and he figures it out by talking with sheila. things like these are just not easily shown thru a visual medium.

i thought the little murolo reveal was nice

i rlly like sheila e as a character. nothing much to say. i just like her. but araki pls give her some real pants, shes 15 c: anw i like her, she was like a trish for fugo but actually voices and talks about her feelings! which i thought was nice.

i LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE the idea of a stand developing or a user developing more control over their stand as they develop as a character. like the stands being representations of the users and changing according to monumental life changing events?? GIVE ME MORE OF THAT SHIT PLEASSSSEEEE. fugos biggest weakness was his inability to control his stands killer virus. by the end of the book, he as significantly more control over it and i go crazy everytime. LOVE LOVE LOVE. jojo needs to do this more fr.

fugo wearing his gay little strawberry earrings

weird thing to mention but i liked the fact that they genuinely referred to giorno as a boy in the text. like to remind us of how young he is but how almost divine everybody treats him

i think its so funny how polanareff in a turtle is giornos right hand man and not real life gunman mista. SOLELY bc mista was like i cant do that bc 2x2 is 4 and thats why. that was so dumb but i love it.

trish being a singer after the events of part 5!!! awww am glad she is able to live happily after

the multiple callbacks in the text, the yacht photo that fugo thinks about and giorno hands him at the end. fugo being like we dont even know trish’s favourite music, and giornos callback to that. theres just a lot of setup that is called back paid off later on and it is just so satisfying to get that.

the bonus little chapter from trish’ perspective was nice. it was nice to see how she saw the whole situation and what she thought about the man who essentially sacrificed himself to save her

i noticed that a lot of the location descriptions really emphasised the background and history of them which i thought was interesting. and which i also thought lended meaningfully to the constant theme of like the past and the choices that we make in it. its good i like that. its like theyre fighting in a place with so much history AND against an enemy who is so weighed down by his own past for a future that fugo is fighting towards in the present. WHOO THE LAYERS THE MEANINGS * applause *

dislikes

in my opinion, i felt that the stands were toned down slightly in the book (mainly bc its WORDS) and its just difficult to write a satisfying stand battle as a result. the stands we DID get were fairly good for what they were but the nature of battles themselves were very anticlimactic. i felt that they ended too quickly and were too oneshotty? (angelica dies in one punch -literally-, massimo stood for a lil bit) but this isnt a major complaint. they did fairly good for having a completely different medium. esp with angelicas stand which was trippy and made me miss the team fr.

the enemies were hm. really flat. boring. they served their purpose as ppl that fugo needed to kill i suppose. like their personalities and motivations were just not it for me. except perhaps massimo. who basically was in the same situation as fugo but um. im trying to make meaning out of this. okay i just reread. massimo DIDNT have a dream. unlike giorno. unlike fugo with a resolve intact. he has a lot of apathy. i think for fugo, massimo was the kind of person that he COULDVE and WOULDVE become. and he didnt so 😎

not. a big fan of the moralizing of drugs in the story. i mean the bad guys of the story is the narcotics team who are all drug users or make the drugs. and its just hmmmm. dont. um. dont rlly like that haha but its not like i read jojo for an nuanced take on the drug trade anw so

i think the pacing was a bit TOO quick for me. some downtime wouldve been nice. but then again i read 170 pages in one afternoon so auidasd

overall - 7.5/10 - this book singlehandedly made me care about the gang in part 5 AND ESPECIALLY FUGO. for whom i barely cared about. it provides needed closure from the anime and tbh should be mandatory to read.

#cin.txt #cin reviews #i hate rating with numbers i think its dumb and i always change my mind on what rating smth should be #literally once a month im like actuaaly should be a 7. actually no an 8. wait no 7. hmmm 8?#esp this in particular since i was like hmmm do i need to rate it as a standalone book or as a supplementary material to part 5 #very very difficult om

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liquidstar · 2 years

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Hi! I haven’t read the Kaguya-sama manga, only watched the anime, and I was wondering how different the tone is once Kaguya and Shirogane start dating? Is it like, considerably less funny or is it funny in a different way?

well there are a lot more serious arcs that last for longer. (spoilers: almost immediately after their first kiss theres a pretty heavy one that centers around kaguya's dissociative disorder that goes on for a few volumes, we're gonna see that one this season actually) the further into the story you get the more "arcs" and continuing plot-threads there are in general. but the humor doesnt go away all together, there are still plenty of bullshit stupid comedy chapters. sometimes they have some more serious stuff peppered in, or maybe it just seems more serious now that we have proper context (like how in the early volumes and season 1 there was plenty of stuff you can look back on in retrospect and see was setup for the more serious character stuff). but the lighthearted tone doesnt go away all together, even the serious chapters have their moments of comedic relief. the jokes sort of stop being centered around “getting them to confess” and more-so just general character antics, and the occasional comedic misunderstanding.

SPOILERS but i feel like my only real complaint is sometimes i wish the story would balance its side characters a bit better, because i honest to god am not as invested in any of the other relationships. i feel like the ishimiko relationship was given way too much focus on miko's end (did we really need that whole falling-out arc between her and kobachi? just felt tedious). and then on ishigami's end he just sort of woke up one day and was like "actually im over tsubame. i like miko now." but like. on paper i do like their dynamic! i think its a cute concept! also the romance between fujisaka relationship was sort of like, set up, forgotten about, and then returned to like 100 chapters later lol. but im honestly just glad they made the moeblob character gay so ill take it (and its possible there were limitations on that end from the publisher or editor, since both characters are popular "waifus" so its only being done now that the manga is ending. thats total speculation though). also im sorry but mikado’s character did nothing like. he had potential but i feel like he was just kind of There.... like hes fine and all, but he sort of felt unneeded for the story, it doesnt feel like his presence amounted to much, sadly. wish wed seen more of the ttgc tho

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graffitibible · 4 years

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PLEASE dig more into the intricacies of ghoul and gogo's relationship I'd LOVE to hear more!!

OH THANK GOD, i have SO MANY THOTS about this relationship

im putting this under a cut because it got. ridiculously long lmao. im sorry you can indulge me if you want

one of the hardest things about writing ghouls pov is that he is, consistently, a ridiculously unreliable narrator. their awareness of themself and other people is on so many different levels of disordered thinking and his sense of self is so distorted by a chemical cocktail of neuroses, compartmentalized trauma, and a lifetime of severe self-loathing. they’re like ten layers deep into this mental bullshit and don’t have the tools to unpack it. whenever ghoul meets someone new, theres a fundamental paranoia and fear regarding what their motives might be in regards to him. thats why they approach everything with so much defensiveness and the general assumption that someone has an ulterior motive. this is actually pretty common coming from kids with roughed up backgrounds like ghoul’s. unprompted kindness absolutely terrifies him because they assume theres some kind of trick there - historically, all the people in his life who were supposed to be “safe” weren’t so this is one of the rules of the world that ghoul’s internalized as fact. and because ghoul is scared basically all the time they tend to grab that fear and channel it into being angry instead because that nets him more control of the situation.

basically: ghoul is two thousand tons of radioactive maladaptive coping mechanisms packed into a five foot two goblin who hates the idea of being scared all the time and has chosen instead to channel all that fear into being An Absolute Nightmare.

narratively, i needed ghoul to have at least one positive relationship in his life so that there was a basis for some good relationships in the fabulous four collective. i needed ghoul to have some kind of context of “this is what it’s like to trust someone, this is what it’s like to love someone so goddamn much you’d do unspeakable things to keep them safe, this is what it’s like to have someone in your life who has your back unconditionally.” granted, thats not how this relationship ended, but at least for a minute there, gogo and ghoul had each other’s backs. that was important because i needed ghoul to have some experience in navigating a positive relationship.

it wasn’t originally gonna be newsagogo, but i did know that gogo was gonna cross paths with ghoul prior to their run-in with poison and kobra - this was something i settled on sometime while i was writing part two of “starry-eyed.” gogo was meant to be a) one of the ways to contextualize a lot of the Shit in the zones that ghoul didn’t have an opportunity to learn about on their own time and b) one of the key ways that ghoul gets to cement a real genuine sense of justice. prior to that, ghoul had this unfocused hatred of bli the way most people in the zones do but didn’t have a real big picture understanding of how best to chip away at that kinda construct. the closest thing to it was gangs that were super bloodthirsty and liked to hunt dracs for sport but these groups weren’t interested in dismantling the institution of bli, just the catharsis of blasting dracs to hell and back. so when i got to this run-in proper, there were enough similarities in their characters (both tech-heads, both with some deep-seated vendettas against bli, both prone to couching their Real Problems in humor and deflection, etc.) for me to go “hang on.....what if....” and i could kill 2 birds with one narrative stone.

that being said oh man i did not expect writing that relationship to hurt the way it did.

because on a lot of levels, these two really got each other! ghoul can read gogo’s expressions and body language so easy. ghoul, like jet, is an extrovert; he recharges best around people they trust. gogo’s the same. like, one thing i feel like i didn’t do well enough in that chapter was cement that, objectively speaking, gogo didn’t strictly need ghoul’s help. newsagogo is fully capable of setting up and running that station all on their own. ghoul suspected this from the start, sure, but gogo has a good grasp of tech and could probably do most of the setup herself. BUT she offers this hand to him because she doesn’t like running this station alone. she likes people and likes being around people - hence why she’s so desperate to get herself really networked into the desert and capable of calling up other dj buddies of hers. it’s pretty common practice for a dj to have a partner or team to back them up (in case they need a runner, in case they need to pack their stuff and go, in case they need someone to spot them, etc.) so gogo was in the market for that - and ghoul was a good candidate. a tech-brain, someone good with radios and obscure gear? that’s ideal runner material, and gogo doesn’t have to do this shit on her own.

and newsagogo was a really good influence on ghoul in a lot of ways. she’s the first person to go “hey let’s just do shit for fun” without any ulterior motive. takes them out drinking for fun, likes to drink soda on the roof for fun (this did not always end well but the intention was in the right place). that’s a new thing for ghoul, who’s always felt fundamentally unwanted. in every group and crew and relationship he’s had prior to this one, there was always the undercurrent of “they’re using me. they’re using me and once they’re done using me they’re gonna ditch me or kill me.” so while gogo’s doing these casual bonding activities ghoul is like WHAT IS THE ULTERIOR MOTIVE HERE and their paranoia is eating away at him and theres really honestly no other shoe that needs to drop here but thats not something that registers on ghoul’s radar.

even with that rocky start ghoul was picking up a lotta stuff from gogo, like that aforementioned sense of justice. and it was with a positive relationship like that one that i could bring out just how person-oriented fun ghoul is. like, the way i write the fab four, someone like party poison is task-oriented. fun ghoul (and jet star, actually) are both person-oriented. that’s why fun ghoul becomes so ride-or-die for newsagogo. this is actually like...their default state of being if allowed to get close to people lol. fun ghoul has a distorted sense of self that causes him to rank their own safety and self-worth way below everyone else’s along with a default propensity to love people...deeply. ghoul loves people ungently. they love people with everything they are. will easily put himself in a position to die if it means that the people they love are safe. part of this is setting up just how easy it was for the fab four and ghoul in particular to make that suicidal, sacrificial call in “SING” but part of this is just who fun ghoul is as a person. so when gogo gets hurt, ghoul goes ahead and conjures up every scrap of leverage he has against tommy chow mein and basically sets it on fire because that’s what ghoul loving someone is like. it’s ghoul trying to take apart anything that threatens the people they give a shit about and being wholly capable and willing to set himself on fire to keep the people they love warm.

they complimented each other incredibly well in a way that surprised me. like, ghoul gets people in a way gogo doesn’t, and vice versa. gogo has the attack plan and knows how they intend to set about dismantling bli with careful, calculated movements, but ghouls the one that suggests “hey, you know that if youre a dj you actually have a lot of political capital in the zones, technically??” like not with those words but thats the basic gist behind what they suggested. prior to that it didn’t occur to gogo to use DJing as a route to get what they needed but DJs have a lot of clout in the zones with the right crowds and ghoul’s hunch turned out to be correct. gogo’s the person who can do the face-to-face interactions in a clear and concise way, who can sell good headlines on the airwaves, but ghouls the one who comes at those interactions with the requisite suspicion to realize when things could be off - it’s that paranoid initiative that saves gogo’s life when that bomb goes off.

ofc once ghoul realized that they gave this much of a shit about newsagogo he immediately tried to stop thinking about it because this kind of unconditional caring for someone? that’s brand new. and it terrifies the shit out of him. because all of a sudden, ghoul doesn’t have the handy back door that they’ve always had. if shit really gets bad, he tells himself consistently, they can just leave. they can ditch whoever they’re with and it’ll be fine. but when ghoul gives this much of a shit about someone, the idea of leaving feels like trying to carve your heart out with a spoon. every time gogo expressed this casual affection ghoul does his best to brush it aside or willfully forget it - but they dont, really. subconsciously that’s always there. and no matter what kind of bad blood manages to end up between them, ghoul can’t forget that this is the first person who he actually wanted to call a friend; they keep that pendant gogo gave him for the rest of their life.

but ultimately, the pair of them fell apart because they both grew in such a way that they couldnt be in each other’s lives forever. gogo prioritizes the cause over her interpersonal relationships; that’s just the kind of person they are in this stage of rebellion against bli. gogo can look at her personal happiness and acknowledge that something like that is secondary to their goals. war is about sacrifice and gogo understands this. newsagogo knows that she might not survive to the end of it, knows full well that their agents might not survive to the end of it, and has accepted these consequences. losing some of their agents doesn’t shake gogo the same way it does ghoul.

because ghoul’s the kind of person who can’t accept that. this is the first positive relationship he’s had in their life and he doesn’t wanna lose it. he doesn’t wanna lose newsagogo over a big blanket cause. the seeds for that kind of “will die bleeding for this cause” are there, but ghoul is a socially-oriented person and very person-oriented in general. and fundamentally, fun ghoul is a deeply compassionate person who can’t help but empathize: the micro will always supersede the macro. it’s easier for ghoul to charge into battery city to save a little girl than it would to charge into battery city for a vaguely defined reason that might further a broader cause.

unfortunately, because gogo and ghoul had two such different approaches to this and because ghoul is a volatile person, they did that thing where uh. again, this is pretty common in abuse survivors, but ghoul did that thing where he detonates their positive relationships because this was always a foregone conclusion to someone ensconced in so many paranoid maladaptive coping mechanisms and at least this way, with ghoul going off, the relationship gets to detonate in a way that ghoul can control. a lot of those moments where ghoul acts like an absolute little nightmare have to do with that notion of control; this way, fun ghoul gets to decide when and how the relationship ends and for someone who did not get a lot of control over anything in their early life, this is how he compensates.

i wrote this fuckin. tragic “friends who drifted apart, who didn’t see the cracks in the foundation of their relationship until they were using them to splinter themselves away from each other” with no basis in anything canon and fucked myself up over it and why did i do this?

this was an essay and a half but yeah feel free to yell at me about newsagogo and fun ghoul cause THATS a niche fucking friendship i didnt expect to mess me up the way it did

#danger days #fun ghoul #newsagogo #anon #*fabrication #i feel like i didnt even touch on everything lol #me tears in my eyes: im doing this for narrative purposes. it is for narrative purposes #i tricked myself into caring about this friendship and then it hurt. oh lord but it hurt #oh yes almost forgot: cw for some brief mention of abuse #its more like 'this is a mindset significant/common to abuse survivors' but stay safe friendos #ohhh my god tumblr what did you do to cut feature why is it like that #functional. functional website!

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mydearwtson · 4 years

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its book doctor hours again

Im thinking about how that necromancers book starts with gideon trying to escape the ninth & failing & becoming depressed for a while which acts as intro to the ninth planet, and thats quite a lot of time spent on that setup, but then theres ALL the setup needed for the challenge and the other planet and all the other houses, with our protag not understanding the challenge thats going on for a while, so we spend a lot of book in what amounts to being introduced to the story elements. a lot of ppl say it drags at first so i also feel fair in my assessment of this being a bit of an issue.

im mulling over whether like an emperor’s new groove style intro might have helped this, not necessarily the whole framing device but a little like that. Gideon for one thing absolutely has the personality for it. it also doesn’t necessarily need to open on the darkest moment but maybe one of the first murders in the locked room maze and some intro to lyctorhood as a concept. I kind of wanted to have heard about lyctorhood before the first announcement... so it could have come in there. it would be so easy to have a really throw you in scene and end on Gideon like why did I even fucking agree to come here, and then you’re shot back into the first chapter which is like How gideon fucking agreed to come here .

gideon not having a real active goal until she’s into one of the other challengers is also a big momentum problem, which isnt entirely solved by changing the linearness. the deal for her freedom was just her showing up.. and like she doesnt need to do anything. wanting freedom is a great character goal in theory but didn’t quite play out. and making her be silent made her even MORE passive... this isn’t even getting into how much the slight romance thing did not sell asjknd i need to stop

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loststormtrooper · 5 years

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Ive been slowly reading the Splinter Cell books and im almost finished the third one and I have complaints

Spoiler warning I guess for books that are over 10 years old if anyone cares about them.

So the first book was great. They got one of the bond writers to do it and it was so good. Splinter Cells identities have been leaked and Sam Fishers life is at stake throughout the whole thing because for the first time ever, the enemy know who he is. His chapters are in first person which makes everything feel so much more personal. All the other chapters following other characters are in third which gives this nice cutscene kind of feeling that games have when they show something your character wouldnt know. Its a book series based on a game, it just felt right. Sam's daughter gets kidnapped because The Shop (big bad weappns company) wants to stop Third Echelon from getting in the way of their sales and Sam is the one who is trying to stop them and stop them from doing deals with The Shadows which are trying to get the US out of the middle east so their country can take over another. Fisher ends up disrupting these deals and saves his daughter. But like, how it goes is so well. Sams daughter gets invited overseas with her friend and they both ger drugged and kidnapped by someone they thought was their friend! The stakes are high af because they killed off the friend and are going to kill Sams daughter and him if he cant stop all this stuff from happening. And theres the whole war nuclear weapon deals going on that he also has to stop. So good.

Anna Grimsdotir isnt present in this book because they need wiggle room for the next book and shes replaced with Carly who is also an analyst. Theres this nice tight nit friendship between Sams team at Third Echelon with Lambert, Carly, Sam, and and Mike that sets things up for the next book. Also Sams Grav Maga teacher, they flirt a bit, nice side story which leads into the next book. Pretty much everything leads into the next book because even though Sam defeated The Shadows, The Shop is still a major weapons dealer and have the identities of other Splinter Cells and needs to be stopped.

So next book, Operation Barracuda. Sam and his team need to find out who leaked the Splinter Cells information and stop The Shop. Uh oh! It was Mike and he had to kill Carly IN THE THIRD ECHELON OFFICE because she was about to figure out it was him and he escapes and the Triad offer to get him out of the country, he just has to get to the right place and theyll fly him out. Good setup for these cat and mouse chapters where and FBI agent is trying to keep up with Mike. Also Mike was actually planted in Third Echelon years ago and he and his brother have deals with the Triad to sell stuff which The Shop does t like because theure supposed to sell things to them and then they sell to the Triad.

All of these bad guys have one goal though. Theyre dealing with a rogue chinese general that wants to invade Hong Kong. So theres all this infighting and build up to when people, even the bad guys, start to figure more stuff about the other groups. The Triad, being in Hong Kong, dont want to be invaded, but the deals theyve done with bad guy general have provided him with a nuckear submarine that he threatens to detonate on the US coast unless they withdraw from Taiwan.

During all of this that krav maga teacher and Sam have had a few dates and are at Sams place. But when they are walking down the street she is gunned down and Sam is forced to leave her dead body on the street with people around because he cant risk being having anyone looking into who he is, even local police and government because he is in a secret agency. Amazing side story. It's a lot like the side stuff with his daughter in the first book, it gives him more motive outside of it just being a job, these people have killed 2 of his friends, one of which he was really into.

Back to bad guy stuff. FBI guy gets killed by Mikes brother after he goes into a shady place to arrest him. The triad are already there and hes just dead now. But he did arrest Mike so they got info from him which leads same to the Triad. In a pretty cool turn of events the general invades but theres no one to stop him! Oh wait! The Triad takes arms and fights off his army and its rad. Sam had gone into that shady building (just remembered its a night club) and gave them information about the generals attack and then left. It was a different chapter because he wasnt being stealthy, he just walked in and demanded to speak to people and it worked. When all this general vs Triad stuff is happening, Sam is dealing with The Shop. The general is defeated, the leak for the Splinter Cell information is in custody, and The Shop is finally shut down!

Next book... set before the first and has a new writer. All of it is in third person and it doesnt feel like the first for obvious reasons. Theres a handful of spelling errors spread throughout which really take you out of it because now youre thinking about this spelling error.

Starts with Sam having to sneak onto a ship thats going to crash onto the US coast and its packed with radioactive material or bombs? It wasnt clear to me. But he stops it and gets out. Its a pretty one track story whereas the other two books had a handful of stuff going on and it all worked neatly. Third Echelon need to know where the nuclear stuff came from to know who did it. He sneaks back on the ship which is under quarantine and takes a sample or something? There was something about having to get engine manufactuing codes to find out where the ship had done repairs and see where it came from but that branching plot just ends later in the book when Lambert says that his analysts found out where it was from. Sam need to find out where nuclear stuff came from. For reasons i cant remember because nothing in this book is worth remembering half the time, Sam has to go to Chernobyl to collect radiated material to see if they match. Thats not the unmemorable part, how they decided to go there to find it specifically is. Anyway, its a match and they figure out who did it and why by knowing who made the ship and how they got the nuclear material. The whole Chernobyl bit could have been better. It didnt feel like anything was at stake. And there was this awkward side story with a woman who helped him get into the dangerous areas unnoticed where theyd flirt and nothing would come of it and then theres nothing else about her ever again.

Then theres all this stuff of Sam infiltrating other places which leads him to another place which leads him to another place. Its very linear and theres a few chapters where he sneaks into a private island thats impossible to sneak onto but he does and it doesnt feel like anything is at stake. The whole book is about having to find out who did this one almost bombing and poisoned a whole towns water supply with radiated material, making it a wasteland, before the US declares war on the wrong nation for ot. But every time they get more information, they suddenly have more time and need to hurry, but then they do that and get more time but need to hurry! At one point they mention the president will declare war in 24 hours and im pretty sure its been like 4 days since then and nothing.

Also! Theres this terrible character cliche guy i hate. There's like 5 chapters spread out through the book where its this weird guy who is clearly the villain ( not bad guy or terrorist, hes just a bad villain) that talks all fancy and as if hes got this grand plan happening and keeps talking about chess and imagining chess moves after he gets new information. Its annoying and i hate him. Get a new character. It doesnt even have to be him, use one of the heads of the bad guy groups that are already established, god. I've got 6 chapters to go and Sam doesnt even know about that chess bad guy yet.

Tbh im considering skipping the next book because its the same writer and the Conviction books and Blacklist book are written by other people. It hasnt been release who i dont think though. Its all a pseudonym.

So i just finished Splinter Cell Checkmate. Its 2 days after i wrote that whole thing and it gets way better in the last 5 chapters. It was much more fast paced and actiony. The rest of the book was slow and not that interesting. There was a bit that brought back a character from earlier who was shot in the head but the bullet hit ar a weird angle and he was left to die. Sam found him and theres this nice calm part of the chapter of Sam trying to get him out without making his wound worse but he wasnt fast enough and he dies. Then Sam finally gets the location of the annoying chess bad guy with some information from now dead guy. It literally ended with Sam saying "...checkmate " to him which fealt really forced... they never met until now and Sam onlt mentioned chess once in the whole book besides that. I think he played it with a friend for a paragraph while they chatted. Epilogue was ok too. The woman who helped him into Chernobyl was in a wax museume and Sam rocks up with a passport for her to get out and fly back to the US with him. Was weird. They flirted maybe twice halfway through the book and then he rocks up with that. She didnt even know his name until the epilogue because he used an alias.

Anyway, first two books are great, third was super slow but ended ok.

#splinter cell #sam fisher #operation barracuda #checkmate

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tumblunni · 7 years

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gettinG REALLY KINDA SALTY about digimon world next order u guys GOD GODDDDD its like the sequel we always wanted to digimon world... IN GAMEPLAY IN GAMEPLAY ONLY the plot is SO BAD its so bad in THE WORST WAY its a good game with a bad plto, so it frustrates me infinately more cos i WANT it to be good enough to live up to the rest of the game! and it has infinate spewing geysers of potential that went completely untapped cos of lazy bullshiT!

and its not like they had a lot to live up to or anything?? like.. the first digimon world practically DID NOT have a plot 90% of it was just free open gameplay with sassy dialogue yes but no real overarching narrative it had an excuse why the story started, and it had a very cathartic ending to it all. But it was all up to you to decide in what order our nameless protagonist did it all, who he met, how he won, what bits he might have missed entirely even! it was so fun cos it was a game where EVERY quest was a sidequest! the only real thing that would stay the same is that you needed to complete a certain amount of those sidequests to unlock the final boss quest, but which ones you pick is totes up to you. Except that there was an annoying bug in the PAL version that meant that one area had a random chance of being locked off thus the ending fight never spawns :P But even if i never actually finished the game I still had infinate enjoyment making my own story, yknow?

so the bad plot shenanigans in next order are annoying because they also made really foolish gameplay decisions to FORCE you to follow this main plot stuff is way less open, very very VERY commonly you can unlock a damn area, walk around in it, and every sidequest in it just refuses to start because you havent hit the right chapter milestone. and it gets to be increasingly stupid excuses too! most of the time the npc is just like ‘yeah i have a huge emergency but I DONT WANT TO TALK TO YOU ABOUT IT’ *sits there panicking forever* How the fuck do they even know I’m ‘not worthy’ anyway, and why would it MATTER??? In DW1 if youre underlevelled for an area you just find out cos you fail the quest! you at least get to see what it is and KNOW what you have to work towards to be prepared next time! plus the plot is just a huge fuckin textdump of nonsense pseudo science that is never explained, its EVERYONE ELSE just doing stuff offscreen instead of letting you even see the potentially cool plot threads! and whenever anything has to happen they have some made-up excuse why everyone can just magically know what the villain is planning, due to this pseudoscience, and they HAVE to explain it EVERY TIME which just makes it far clearer that its a terrible plot hole??? and they waste all this time on this yet skip over vitally important stuff like ENTIRE CHARACTER ARCS and LETTING YOU ACTUALLY PARTICIPATE. All you ever fuckin do is be the one to defeat machinedramon cos everyone else is inexplicably weak and useless! oh and EVERY FUCKING BOSS IS MACHINEDRAMON AGAIN AND AGAIN goDDDDDDDDDD

anyway, The Awful Plot is that [insert made up magic excuse here] is turning everyone into Machinedramon clones with a virus and somehow this is bad because as well as digivolving to an arbitrary form they also turn evil for no reason and then its just YEARS AND YEARS of people explaining exactly how the virus must have been created and like five different contrived things we can do to slow it down and then after like FIFTY HOURS we finally get out first appearance of the fucking villain. as a silhouette. in the background. im at 90 hours now and i still dont even know his fucking name, or why the fuck he wants everyone to be machinedramon. but man it was vitally important to instead waste time explaining the ‘antivirus enforcer program’ and how it would totally be useful only to reveal it was taken out offscreen before the game even started and now it’s a villain. cos like we needed five more fake villain minions to delay this actual villain man’s appearance, UUUUUGH! none of them even talk! its just magic virus that makes you magically evil. and why did we need to explain the compelx metaphysics of an antivirus when ultimately you could have just said ‘its omegamon, he’s a big hero in this setting, he got turned evil and now we have to save him’. Why did we need a misdirect that this antivirus wasnt a person??? why did we need to go on a quest to find a guy who can make flower seeds and then plant the flower seeds in the most contrived way waiting 1 ingame day between each step, then somehow the plant is a clue that omegamon is evil SOMEHOW and then its still 30 hours til we fucking meet the guy... sorry, sorry, this probably makes about as little sense as it did to me. i just had to try and give an example of a particular main quets line that FUCKING PISSED ME OFF and i STILL dont know what any of it means so i cant even explain it to you! i got spoiled for the goddamn ending and i STILL dont know why there was an omegamon-predicting rafflesia that took one ingame month to get past...

BUT YEAH SORRY IM TRYING TO SUMMARIZE THIS

theres some mystery villain who’s turning everyone into machinedramon for no reason thats the plot and youre not really given a reason why this town needs you to recruit more digimon except somehow if you get [insert amount here] prosperity that’ll take enough time that jijimon will finish magically hacking [insert plot device here] to find the next location of [whatever the thing is]... i mean its vaguely mentioned once at the start that a machinedramon destroyed the town or something? so i guess maybe we can assume all the townsfolk actually died and we’re getting new ones/searching for their reincarnated selves or something. Man if that was ACTUALLY THE INTENTION and ACTUALLY EXPLAINED then it would have been pretty damn good! it’d add some interestingness to the sidequests if the digimon had to recover lost memories of being someone else in the city once. plenty of potential for interesting interactions if their new digiegg’d self is a wildly different form or something! Like that could have been a good setup for the one endearing fashion designer skullgreymon who’s super sad about looking so scary. Also seriously WHY DID SKULLGREYMON NOT GET TO OPEN A FASHION SHOP?? why did they remove that feature from reDigitize, this game is for a far more powerful console so it couldnt have been impossible to add in... (I still have no clue how they managed to pull off actual digimon customization on the first generation psp! WHY IS THIS THE ONLY UNDUBBED GAME) so yeah the original DW1 even had a more solid establishing plot here, even though it was 99% less text! ‘for some reason digimon are turning violent and losing their abiloty to speak, all my friends at this city slowly dissappeared into the wilderness, please solve this mystery and bring them back’. THAT WAS INTERESTING! That had an actual reason why recruiting shopkeepers equals plot progression, you were ACTUALLY DOING SOMETHING, not just waiting for someone else to decode an ambiguously explained ‘frequency’ to point you at your next key item/FIGHTING THE SAME DAMN BOSS AGAIN :P

ALSO ALSO why no analogman WHY NO ANALOGMAN how does this make ANY SENSE?? why is it even machinedramon in particular, if not for the fact it was analogman’s digimon in the first game??? thats just getting my hopes up for no damn reason! why didnt we get to see The Very Original Villain come back and get fully voiced dialogue and maybe some more development on who he is and what his backstory is or whatever his plot was minimal back then because it was a very low tech game, now we have NO EXCUSE for it :P its just ‘yeah his entire presence in the plot is that someone on the writing team was inspired by his postgame sidequest, i guess’ cos a ‘machinedramon virus’ did technically exist, but it was more like just an excuse for why the final boss battle was replayable for your enjoyment. a random digimon would turn into the final boss battle (sans analogman cos he’s Mysteriously Vanished And/Or Potentially Dead seriously that was SUCH A SEQUEL HOOK and they DIDNT TAKE IT) so like seriously they took ANALOGMAN’S ACTUAL VIRUS POSTGAME THING THAT HE MADE and yet no analogman! WHY! and also it fucking sucks to try and base a whole game’s plot on a single dialogueless sidequest that was just an excuse for battle replayability some guy just probably took 0.2 seconds to think ‘yeah maybe the computer the villain left behind does a virus thing to make the boss replayable’ and some fuckin bright spark decided to make an entire game about it IT DOES NOT WORK hell, a good writer could have made it work! if theyd expanded upon the vagueness and explained things! or gave motivations! or used it as a reason for analogman to retURN AND HAVE A FUCKING PLOT seriously WHY did they have to make this game be marketed as A DIRECT SEQUEL TO THE FIRST GAME they were just setting themselves up for failure yo every fucking thing in the game is 100% unrelated except someone else is doing analogman’s signature plan and the protagonist from DW1 makes an entirely pointless cameo just to remind you its supposed to be a sequel and is FAILING

OKAY OKAY SERIOUSLY LETS TALK ABOUT *HIM*

mameo mameo poor mameo you literally only existed to trick people into buying the game with a fake plot that doesnt exist it was marketed as if he’s the villain, and it got everyone curious about it, and then no he isnt he’s just mistaken for the villain once in his introduction as an excuse to drag out another pointless sidequest instead of progressing the plot then he just becomes a mostl;y voiceless useless npc who does more magic unexplained science to magically amke the plot do whatever the writers need it to do without needing to ACTUALLy have a REASON why it HAPPENS, gaAAHHHH he’s just magically a super hacker now, like how jijimon is magically a super hacker now, and blablabla jijimon for some reason couldnt track down the next place the villain would strike but mameo can the end end of mameo’s entire plot gone. oh, aside from a brief mention again that he’s developed a prototype antidote for the machinedramon virus and then it fails. which just exists to be an excuse for another plot to happen without (AGAIAN) any actual reason it happened, or any form of development or player participation. blablabla oh no one of the hero’s friends’s digimon got infected by the virus so now you get a boss battle against them, and they dont have to leave the plot or change or grow cos magic antidote thing turned them back. But it didnt REALLY work, she’ll just turn back into machinedramon in like 50 days or something blah blah. please feel sad for this character you barely know, who is facing no consequences for what they did, but we’re telling you they might maybe sometime in the future, but of course they never will because the plot doesnt actually have a time limit. Also please believe that mameo is useful! and its just ITS JUST SO FRUSTRATING!!! cos mameo is still THE BEST PART OF THE DAMN GAME! he’s the only character who seems to have any damn effort or emotion put into him, his english voiceactor really stands out in a cast of bored-sounding people. It feels like whoever voiced him was maybe actually a fan of the first game? And he gets to sound so cool and act so cool and look so cool and have really good sassy moments and then HAVE NO PRESENCE IN THE PLOT AT ALL! GAHHHHH!! why must you waste EVERYTHING???

ultimately the only real thing this game gave us was finally having a name for DW1 protagonist, and getting to know that he grows up to work with computers and gets to retain his ability to visit the digital world forever, and he still loves his partner [insert name of whatever you called it when you played] but EVEN THAT is fucking wasted!!! They say that Mameo’s original digimon from last time was somehow cursed to be stuck as a digiegg, as an excuse for not.. yknow.. having to canonize any particular partner choice and upset the fans. Even though the postgame cutscene in the first game already canonized Mamemon as his partner and you literally named him for it! (the excuse in-universe is that Mameo is a nickname and we still dont know what his canon name is. also he has a cute mamemon patch sewn on his beanie hat this time! that made my heart melt even as i was grumping about bad plotlines lol) Oh and this is also probably just an excuse for mameo being sidelined with no plot role, like he’s too powerful to let him actually fight or anything :P its making me mad cos im kinda imagining how this game would have worked so much better if mameo actually was the protagonist??? like, have him summoned back to face this new threat, and his powerful digimon is knocked back down to a digiegg and has to start over. i mean the actual protagonist ALREADY HAS THAT PLOT! you literally start as someone who’s EVEN STRONGER than mameo, you have an omegamon and then machinedramon kills it/them and you start over. And like.. if they decided to make a new hero cos they wanted male and female options, honestly just give me a female version of mameo and im fuckin fine. Pokemon Crystal retconned in a female option to a game that didnt have one before, and nobody complained! Oh and they dont even need to justify why mameo is clueless in this setting, cos its literally a different digital world anyway. Somehow. he fell through dimensions or something, they explain it very poorly. (WHAT A SURPRISE) actually, THAT is a huge wasted potential too! cos it means he never even gets to have a tearful reunion with jijimon and other npcs he met last time, instead every digimon that was in DW1 is just explained away as being a parallel universe equivelant that’s never met mameo. SeriouslY WHAT is up with this game and explaining ridiculous excuses to justify their pltoholes instead of just NOT WRITING THE PLOTHOLES??? i mean you could have just said this is like the digital world of the future. just like how mameo’s original adventure had him return to the human world and only one day had passed, maybe the amount of time it took him to grow up is the equivelant of centuries in the digital world? so Floatia could still be a new town, and everyone could be like descendants/reincarnations of the old npcs, and the digital world could have gained a bunch of new areas and etc. EASY EXPLANATION it wasnt necessary to make up a FUCKING HOUR LONG PLOTHOLE VERSION WITH METAVERSE SCIENCE

ALSO why dont we ever get to have any character exploration of like.. anyone?? why doesnt anyone get personality or scenes where you can actually get attatched to them and stuff. why are they just silent floating npcs that do NOTHING and then suddenly are revealed to have had a plot offscreen while you weren’t looking?? literally you are not even introduced to the two male and female friend characters they just.. come into existance in the plot you dont really get a scene of their personality or them getting to know you, or anything?? its just ‘oh i guess two other humans fell into the digital world’ then they sit around as silent npcs for 30 hours while you do everything without them then they just add some miscellaneous comments at the end of a main plot quest and oh i guess its been revealed that female character’s salamon digivolved into gatomon offscreen with no real emotional reason why it had to happen now, or any sign she was even training in the same way you are?? and then that just continues oh i guess she has an angewomon now and then you find out that offscreen her and angewomon were arguing about a problem that was never mentioned before offscreen you dont even SEE them arguing and its like you dont find out what its about no you just get a literal text that her and angewomon had a fight offscreen and angewomon ran away offscreen and hey can you go find her cos for some reason I CANT EVEN DO MY OWN DAMN PLOT then its just ‘oh no please worry that the character youve never even reallY MET has been struggling from a thing never mentioned before, and now she might die from a virus we never saw her get infected with’ and YOU have to defeat her beserk form and cure her and calm her down while her tamer just STANDS THERE and also btw she DIGIVOLVED INTO ANGEWOMON OFFSCREEN IN THE FIRST PLACE so its ‘hey please find my digimon who ran away’ and she’s A DIFFERENT DIGIMON when you find her! its THAT rushed! and then she digivolves again immediately afterwards because somehow being saved by SOMEONE COMPLETELY UNRELATED helped her bond enough with her tamer to become mega level and also the plot of her having the virus is just magically discarded instantly cos WHY NOT And after ALL this bullshit, what is it that they even argued about? it was just The Oldest Trope In The Book, a stupid misunderstanding caused by people not talking about something even though there is no reason why they wouldnt. Angewomon got upset that her tamer wanted to go home to the human world, thinking she’d done something wrong to cause it. And her tamer had just NEVER MENTIONED to anyone ever that she had twin sisters who’re suffering from sitcom disease or something and she’s worried they might not be okay without her. And like.. honestly why did there even NEED to be an excuse why she needed to go home? its natural for someone to miss home, it could have been solved much quicker in like one damn conversation yo. ‘hey i dont want to leave because i dont enjoy having a digimon, its because i have other friends back home too’ And honestly its kinda contrived how angewomon would even not understand that to begin with? this angewomon has a personality like a very young child too, which just makes it even more of a shame that we spend barely any time with her as her rookie form and pretty much never even LEARN that she’s like a little sis figure until this damn sidequest. this is the longest screentime these two ever had, and the first and only time theyre mentioned to have personalities and backstory! and its THEIR FINAL SCENE T_T and seriously it DOESNT EVEN MEAN ANYTHING to see her digivolve into a mega when none of these characters ever actually get to fight, or even exist in the plot theyre just stated to be having their own adventures offscreen. EVERYTHING OFFSCREEN! i mean GAHH the new gameplay even woulda justified this?? like, instead of having two digimon partners maybe you could bring along an assistant character to fight with you! or hell, maybe you could have both! if they can prove they can handle two playable characters onscreen at once then why not three? make everyone like social links that get stronger as you befriend them! and it;’d be a big help to developing your own digimon too, yo! like, these characters are at preset levels to you’re always gonna be able to be more powerful than them if you try. but it makes it less painful when your digimon reincarnates, you could partner up with a champion-level friend and they could help you train out in the field! hell, maybe add a feature of them being able to join in with the training gym too?? that’d be a better excuse for the daily bonuses than just... there’s daily bonuses. why does one particular training gym give better results on thursdays? maybe cos a certain character is there on that day and helps out!

and anyway where was i OH YEAH WHY IS THERE NOT AN ACTUAL CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT PLOT FOR MAMEO IN PARTICULAR he at least got an establishing scene and some cool dialogue, so im more invested in him than the other empty presences in this plot! like, we could have examined his actual emotions about his childhood digimon partner being stuck essentially in a coma with no idea if he’ll ever see them again. a guy hugging the digiegg of his poor dead mamemon is something you’d think they’d give SOME attention to! but he just talks about it so casually as if we should all already know, and then its NEVER MENTIONED AGAIN. It literally IS just an excuse to keep mameo from being able to fight alongside you! more plots! you could have an actual friendship sidequest of him being like your mentor, passing down the torch to the next generation of heroes. we could explore the plot of an adult digimon tamer more! what is it like, is it ever difficult? What is his day to day life even like? its implied that he’s able to go to the digital world at will like the 02 protagonists, so can his mamemon come to the human world too? did he have to take it to school and hide it in his bag like davis and co? did he basically live The Better Written Version Of That Season??? Did his parents ever find out? Does his mamemon still run on digimon world rules, like is the gameplay actually meant to be canon in-universe? does the protagonist digimon only live 10-20 days while everyone else gets to have a good ‘ol long life? has it been sad for mameo that his best friend keeps dying and reviving like 12 times a year, and never remembers him? i really hope thats not how it works, seriously. itd make for a good sad plot tho... And seriously why couldnt this have been the same jijimon in the same town and they get to meet again and we get nostalgic heartwarmingness???

oh and the other ‘friend’ character is even worse, seriously he does absolutely nothing except complain about how upset he is that other people dare to be better than him wah wah but a girl digivolved before me wah he started off looking like a normal cute nerd guy but then he deliberately infects his growlmon with the virus to try and become stronger, and he seems to get off scott free for it?? cos the plot is so vague and undeveloped it rushes through his realizing he’s wrong and it just seems so un-genuine. and we dont even get to see him meeting his digimon again and apologising once he gets reincarnated! its just you see him die horribly cos his tamer infected him with a fucking death virus out of ego that he’s so perfect and so strong he could handle the power. and then you just.. see him again and he’s a baby jyarimon and its all fine. you just see jyarimon following this tamer’s silent npc model around and its like DID YOU EVEN APOLOGISE AT ALL?? apparantly his digimon never even got mad at him or anything about it! it makes me feel so damn sad for the poor guy, i mean he spent so long trying to tell his tamer he’s not useless for not being stronger than the otehrs,a nd blaming himself for not being able to digivolve, and yet STILL tamer guy chose to ignore him and force him to virus-digivolve while he was begging not to! And we dont get to see the consequences for this! we get to see him learn his goddamn canned lesson of the day but we dont get to see him apologise and yukimura the guilmon just reincarnates and goes right back to being a silent mindlessly obedient npc who never complains when he’s mistreated :( and its so fucking stupid cos the plot even started off promising, it started off seeming like the problem was just ‘i’m not strong enough to protect people like you are, protagonist’. but its so badly written it felt like it derailed into him just being egotistical?? and whining about being blessed with this magical monster pal who isnt THE BEST magical monster pal so why even fucking bother. and the game acts like he’s justified cos he has ~a boring school life~. He has no problems at all but he’s just AVERAGE and not THE BEST, and oh gosh that terrible terrible fate has just worn down on him and made him have no self confidence. except yknow for all the scenes where he’s screaming ‘IM THE BEST, I DESERVE THIS’ throughout this fucking stupid plot... its like i can see what he was supposed to be, but they really failed??? i think i would have liked what he was SUPPOSEd to be... also it sucks that yukimura’s evil digivolution is inexplicably skullgreymon instead of megidomon (i think thats the name?) Yknow, the one guilmon actually turned into in tamers and it only had a one episode appearance but it was really scary cool! man it never gets to reappear in the games, no wonder i keep forgetting its name :P

aaaaargh and i just listened to the final battle music on the soundtrack and i havent got that far yet but i just know its NOT GONNA BE AS GOOD AS THIS SONG DESERVES im getting so much feels imagining what if the final boss actually WAS analogman from the first game, and if the supporting characters ACTUALLY HAD CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT and they could fight alongside you to defeat him once and for all! and what if this game’s status as the direct sequel to DW1 wasnt just a fucking baldfaced lie. seriously why didnt they just remove this nonsense plot and let it be its own original thing, if they werent gonna actually put effort into making the cameos actually decent.... MAMEO YOU DESERVED SO MUCH BETTER AAAAA

#bunni plays next order #im sorry im just full of grump #this soundtrack is SO good #god it deserved a more emotionally resonant final boss to match it

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