#the mixing in of 3d animation looked TERRIBLE for the dragon also. the dragon design in general was also not great... please sir patagium

[collgeruledzebra]

ok not to be a hater but i tried the vox machina animated show and gang. It's mediocre.

[ruakichan]

I played Archeland (KR server) ahead of the eventual global release.  Here are my impressions.

Archeland is a sRPG gacha mobage from Zlongame, the team behind  Langrisser mobile and Kalpa the Universe.  Archeland is a very similar reskin of those games (especially Kalpa) but with their own story slapped onto it.  It was the only gacha release I had been looking forward to in 2022, so I hopped onto the fresh KR server ahead of the announced but not dated global release.

I need to disclaim ahead of time that I do not click well with sRPGs.  I prefer faster combat that is also visually engaging, and sRPGs rarely deliver on these fronts. I have given this subgenre many, many chances through the decades, and few click with me—often only on the strength of their story or characters and not on gameplay.

Archeland’s visual presentation is fairly attractive; the models and animations are great, especially in battle, though you can turn them (mostly) off for faster play if you find them tiresome.  Animation story cutscenes with the models are nice as well, though infrequent.  Music isn’t bad; nothing catchy but nothing terrible, and there’s a mediocre rhythm game you can also play if you enjoy the tunes enough to do so.

The story is... a story.  It’s a mix of politics and old lore, ala Exos Heroes, but the problem I have is that I don’t actually care enough about the cast to care enough about the story/events. I was originally sold on the premise of the main heroine being blessed-cursed by a dragon and that hasn’t really made itself known until waaaaaaay later. The cast is bland and toothless, which I find is a common thread with sRPGs, and is even more waifu-heavy than the impression I got from the pre-release promotions, which kills my enjoyment a lot. I also can’t get over how so many of the women, including the fighters with armor, also wear leotards.  It makes no sense from a defense standpoint!  I can’t tell if they’re trying to do a wink-nudge to Langrisser.  If so, we need more ridiculous shoulder-pad armor.

The game’s progress is heavily time-gated; it’s worse than Grand Chase’s mobage, which felt like it was impossible to ever catch up if you fell behind.  Between everything costing ridiculous amounts of stamina and your absolutely tiny stamina pool, this game either expects you to whale out for the right to do anything or to check in several times a day when your stamina tops off.  You will barely have enough to get your dailies done (which only take a few minutes after you clear an area due to the sweeps) and that’s it.  Raising your characters—and you will have to raise a lot—is a snail’s crawl worth of progress for the f2p, which is extremely demoralizing.

And characters... the SSR pool has a soft pity of 90 (any SSR) and hard pity of 180 (featured SSR).  Income is a trickle and banners roll quick.  And as per usual in many gacha games, the SSRs blow SR/Rs out of the water.  There’s a few SRs you can use but they’ll be benched the moment you get the superior SSR counterpart.  There’s also a gear gacha (60 pity), which has the character specific weapons, which ends up making particular SSRs even higher on the usefulness scale.  This game also doesn’t really support a casual style of play: you’ll need those meta characters to continue to progress or be stuck never getting the mats you need to make your characters stronger so you can continue to progress.

(As a note, I find it hilarious the summon animation is basically Exos Heroes but less tedious to sit through: mystery cloak figure that pulls always the cloak to reveal themselves. Only the SSRs get the cloak treatment here.)

The character designs aren’t bad and fit in the game’s theming and translate well to 3D and have nice animations.  It’s very waifu heavy and fanservicey for the dudebros, but the few male characters (which also include old men, cause we never get old women or women beyond the usual three variants of fanservice flavor) have great designs even if they don’t really do anything noteworthy.  Some familiar KR voice actors in the cast too!

There is a self-insert male MC (he talks, but he’s super bland), and the game gives you a core basic starter group that gets stronger as you progress in the game and remain useful throughout, which will help you clear story at least, but not much else due to the need for mono-element teams for some of the growth-grinding areas.

There’s guild joining though there isn’t much to it now other than getting friendship points, and pvp, which can thankfully be auto’d and currently doesn’t have any super necessary resources attached to it.  There’s also base building, though it’s not very obtrusive, but is tied directly to improving the strength of your characters in addition to giving you extra mats.  (You also unlock 3x speed and a slightly higher stamina cap here).  You will need a variety of characters to really make full use of this place, especially of the SSR type.

Story events (we have had two so far) are not easily cleared by new or weak/mid players, which is absolutely hilarious for a game that just released at the beginning of December.  You can get through the basic bits but clearing it completely will be difficult if not outright unattainable unless you whaled, luck-sacked, or no-life’d the game’s progress.  (I’m account level 44 and just lol on this current event; I didn’t to clear all objectives in the last one cause the final levels scaled so high compared to where I—and the majority of players—were at.)

Overall the game experience has not been for me; I’ve played daily for a month and reached mid-40s and even pulled all the characters I wanted, but the game doesn’t really spark joy.

Archeland feels like it’s trying to appeal to a certain hardcore demographic, who enjoy strict adherence to meta.  Progress is very, very slow and unsatisfactory, and even the gacha itself isn’t fun because 98% of the character/gear pulls are absolutely unusable in any state—not even as proper fodder or stepping stones to making other characters stronger.  It’s very much “what’s the point” if you don’t see a rainbow.  The characters are generally unremarkable and the story nothing particularly special or gripping.  And of course, the combat, while fun to watch, I find very tedious (and sometimes downright frustrating when they’re trying to make it a “puzzle”) if there isn’t a sweep function.

Not sure how much longer I’ll stick around; since the game is still very new, improvements can still be made by the devs (as they did with Langrisser), but for now I am disappointed since I had been looking forward to it.  A sRPG fan, especially if you played Langrisser mobile or Kalpa, should give the game a go when it hits global if you like the look of the cast because it’s a very nice entry into this type of game, but anyone else might be disappointed by the actual product.

[doubleddenden]

So I watched 3 movies recently. Scoob!, Raya and the Last Dragon, and Luca. All around decent. Full reviews under the cut, but for the short of it

Scoob: 6/10

Raya: 7/10

Luca: 8/10

Scoob!: it's okay. The plot is passable and the animation is also passable. I like all the Hanna Barbara cameos and I like that Dick Dastardly is the villain. The voice acting is... very very noticeably not good, not in the sense that there wasn't effort, it's just not what anyone really wanted (in fact I guarantee you'll notice it right away for Shaggy). Except for Scooby, Dick Dastardly, and Simon Cowell. Yes Simon Cowell is in a 2020 movie and he's used for the "you're absolutely terrible" gag that was relevant around the time of Shrek 2. Art style is okay but characters do certainly come across as off putting in certain points. The music is... well it's got a nice sound track? Not really Scooby-Doo vibes though. It's more like a Mix Tape like how the Digimon Movie did. I will say, there were parts that actually SENT ME. This movie really wanted to say Fuck. And there's also plot points that are surprisingly dark. I will say, there's a lot of WB references and overall a lot of pop culture references that really kind of feel off in this type of movie, kinda harring. Anyway, 6/10, we don't need another one but I would be game to see other HB franchises revived in this style

Raya and the Last Dragon: beautiful art style (with the exception of the 3d Disney eyes on Sisu or however you spell the dragon. Seriously, I feel like I'm looking at Elsa's fursona). Very impeccable world building, very cool premise, loveable characters that can get a tad annoying, but still likeable, and dark plot and cool action. It's a very pretty movie with some of my favorite locations I've seen in years, and the fight scenes are very impressive. For a kid's movie, this could have easily dipped into pg13 territory. My personal opinion though is that an hour and a half is a very short time for this type of story, and things do feel a tad rushed. I feel like this movie would have told a much better story and given us more time to explore all of these characters and environments if it was an episodic series like Avatar or if it were a game. Speaking of Avatar, I love the animals and character designs, it feels very inspired by it. But yeah, its not bad, I just think maybe a season or trilogy of movies would have suited the world building better. It's definitely some high effort gritty world building for just a one and done movie. 7/10

Luca: it's a cute movie with not as much on the line. The plot almost goes a bit dark, but any time it comes close to being dark it's quickly reeled in. Art style wise, it's beautiful. I'm normally not a fan of the whole bean head noodle arms shebang that's in everything, but in 3d it actually works, and the characters have pretty decent expression. Everything else though is so beautiful, from the ocean to the small town to the day dream sequences, I like it all. I guess my gripe would be that a whole lot of stakes are raised that really don't amount to much (even for a kid's movie), and the villain is... well, I do dislike him, but not in a Randal from Monsters Inc sort of way, more like a brat that needs to get cut off from his money deal. The ending was super beautiful, though. 8/10

[thanagariansnarebeast]

Top 15 favorite video games: part 2.

7. Bioshock

I remember first reading about this game in the pages of Game Informer and being fascinated by the story and the environment of what was described. I had no idea how good it was until I launched up the game and finally took that first decent into Rapture. The claustrophobic environment, visual aesthetic of a dilapidated dystopia and the enemies being remnants of once good people were all an amazing experience. The story and characters were amazing, and the idea of an underwater city built to try and be free of any ideology or morality was fascinating, and finding out exactly how the city fell apart and collapsed under its own “greatness” was a very unique experience.

6. God of War (PS2)

This game was a birthday present when I was 15 and I loved it, I love Greek mythology and I love action games, so this was an amazing gift. The opening of the game is one of the best I’ve ever played, and the boss fights are some of my all time favorites. The music in this game is incredible, and I love the accurate representation of the Greek gods being complete fucking assholes and ruining lives because they just don’t care. Kratos is a great anti-hero (or villain, ether one is fair) and the Blades of Chaos are a really unique video game weapon. The sequels are amazing but this one holds a special place in my heart.

5.   Devil May Cry 3

Another birthday present, this one from the year before, this game was a very interesting experience for me; I’d never seen such a difficult game, or one so anime inspired. This game oozes goofy, over the top fun and demon slaying is always fun. The combos and weapons in the game are fantastic, and the story might be a big generic; but the game never takes itself seriously enough for that to be an issue. The characters in the game are great and Dante and Virgil being brothers who are enemies is a fun dynamic. This game also has some fantastic boss fights they really make you have to master your timings and attacks.

4. Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic

I fucking love Star Wars, I fucking love RPGs, and I fucking love good stories and characters; and this game has all of that. The story of this game is one of my favorites in anything, not just video games but all media, and the Revan twist is something that I didn’t see coming and really blew me away the first time I played this game. I’ve probably played through the story 7 or so times and I still love it, Bioware is at its best here and the character interactions and your decisions effecting everything in the game and you being able to ruin entire planets with your decisions really makes you feel like what you are doing is important to the galaxy. HK 47 calling everyone a “meatbag” is endlessly hilarious, and might be the first sassy Star Wars robot. I was at a con recently and got an autograph of Jennifer Hale (Bastila Shan) and its something very special to me in large part because of this game.

3. Mortal Kombat (2009)

Mortal Kombat 9 was such an amazing experience when it first came out. The past 5 Mortal Kombat games had been 3D, and had really suffered in quality because of it. The stories and characters had become terrible and the franchise was dying. Then came Mortal Kombat 9, or just Mortal Kombat as its actually called. The first 2D game in the franchise since the good old days of UMK3 and Mortal Kombat Trilogy, it was a reboot of the franchise that still used everything that had come before to set up the story. Knowing the old games was a benefit to the twists and turns of the story and altered timeline, but not essential to it. This was also the re-invigoration of the tournament scene for the MK games, which was a very welcome return. The roster of this game is damn near perfect, with the dlc adding an old favorite, the only good character from Deadly Alliance, Freddy motherfucking Kreuger, a new character that was a lot of fun, and I had the PS3 version so I also had Kratos which was awesome. Everything in this game represented a return to form and a new beginning for a franchise that desperately needed it. Mortal Kombat X and 11 have both been fantastic as well, but I chose 9 because of not just it being a fantastic game, but what it did for the series.

2. Dark Souls

I love dark fantasy and I love armor and weapons in video games, and this game has that as well as fantastic combat, and some amazing gothic horror as well. The bosses in this game are some of the best in any game and the game may be punishingly difficult, but the feeling of accomplishment when you finally get over some massive hurdle you were stuck on or finally slay a powerful boss that had been using your body as a punching bag is so incredibly satisfying. The sad state of the world in this game is also refreshing, instead of being some amazing savior sent to kill the big bad fucking up the world; your goal is ether to prolong the dying world for a little while longer, or end it and start something new. Killing gods that have been corrupted and used to be heroic adds a tragic twist to fighting bosses and makes killing them bitter sweet. I absolutely adore how you can make different characters and create builds around certain spells and weapons and I really wish more games would incorporate systems like that, even if they aren’t exactly balanced in any Dark Souls game. I also love how when you get past the opening area you can pretty much go where ever you want, the level design is almost perfect, with every location being somewhat connected to the next, often times looping in on each other.

2. (tie) Dragon Age: Origins

The second Bioware game on this list, it has all the roleplaying and great character writing of KotOR and more, a deep universe that they created; this game was in development for a long time to create a rich lore and new twist on fantasy tropes. The world really feels fleshed out and the characters feel like real people, with issues and hang ups and oddities that make them not just archetypes like most games have. Making decisions that effect characters and your companions can often be tough because you really care about what happens to them and how they feel, and how the world sees you. The gameplay isn’t perfect, its an odd mix of turn based and real time, but it still works pretty well. I put Dark Souls and Dragon Age in the same spot because I love them both for the same yet opposite reasons, if someone could take the roleplaying and world building of Dragon Age and combine it with the stats and combat and boss fights of Dark Souls it would create the perfect game for me.

1. The Elder Scrolls 4: Oblivion

I absolutely loved playing this game when it first came out, and I really wish I could get it to work on my PC so I could relive the glory that is this game. Skyrim is probably the more obvious pick for most people, but Oblivion was my first Elder Scrolls and first Bethesda game; and Oblivion has better rpg mechanics and a better story in my humble opinion. I love the Dark Brotherhood questline in this game more than any other questline in any game ever, its so fucking good. The game looks like shit graphically now, but back when it came out it was gorgeous, and I remember the first time I played it on an HD tv I was blown away. The rich world and the big name actors being in it was a real treat, and having Sir Patrick Stewart play the king really gave that character the gravitas and importance that was needed to establish a character quickly. Sean Bean being his son was also fantastic, and brings this list pretty much full circle because of him being in Goldeneye. The armor and weapon designs are really good for the most part, and I love collecting all the Daedric artifacts and creating havoc with them. I still get excited when I hear the music from this game, and its orchestral quality really adds to the epic feeling of the game. There’s no one stealing sweet rolls or arrows to the knee in this one ether.

There are a lot of other games that I love and that were hard to leave off this list, but its pretty long as it is; and I’m sure eventually new games will take the place of some of these.

[sharksfood]

so this thought just came into my head and i want to explore it.

in my life i’ve only seen 3 films so far that i read as books before they became movies. im not counting comic books/graphic novels that became movies bcs thats a little different, books that became tv shows, or plays that became movies. but its interesting to think about that.

i didnt read harry potter until well after the films (all of them lmao) were released, i’ve never read how to train your dragon, i’ve never read the hobbit/lotr, the animated alice in wonderland came out in the 50s, i have only recently read the last unicorn, i read World War Z after the movie came out (and ive never seen all of the movie), and i read the neverending story when i was cast in the play.

the books that i read before they came out in film are; The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe, Warm Bodies, and Goosebumps.

Goosebumps kind of fits but it was made into a tv series first, and im not sure if i read the books or saw the shows first. i did both, i know that much.

I read Warm Bodies only bcs I wanted to see the movie but thought the book would be cool to read (its amazing and has a completely different feel from the movie), and Lion Witch Wardrobe was bcs my dad read it to me when I was younger. That and The Magician’s Nephew are the only Narnia books ive ever read.

I was going to try and read Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children before the movie came out, but that work out for me.

if you want to count comics and graphic novels, then the list gets bigger. but comics already have the characters drawn out, so unlike books, you dont have an idea in your head on what the character looks like. that is so often changed in film, plus you loose so much detail and nuance when you go book to screenplay to film (this is also true with comics, but its still different)

However, and the biggest reason as to why I’m thinking about this, two movies will be coming out in the next few years, and both of them are based on my favorite books of all time (aside from the alice books of course). 

The first is Captain Underpants! I know that this is a book series with words and pictures, so technically its a graphic novel series, but they’re kids books! and those tend to have an awful lot of pictures. This series was my FAVORITE (other than the alice books) as a kid!! they were fun, hilarious, relatable, and just all around super great. So when i saw the trailer for the animated film that’s coming out this year based on the series i was ECSTATIC!! Were it live-action i would be bummed out since kids picture books usually fair better when animated (im not a fan of the diary of a wimpy kid movies....) but this animation is handled a lot like The Peanuts movie. The animation look like a color and 3D version of the exact art style!! its wonderful and im SO EXCITED

The other one, and this i am VERY VERY nervous about, is Ready Player One. that is my favorite sci-fi novel ever. i often say its my favorite book ever bc it deserves more love! and i do so much love it. ive reread it i dont even know how many times. and what do you know, they’re making it into a movie!! when i heard about this i had so many mixed feelings, and most of it has to do with the style of the book and the characters.

-Ready Player One Spoilers-

In Ready Player One the protagonist starts out as a dirt poor, fat, unattractive teen boy, and later he gets more physically fit/healthy and rich. he claims to still be unattractive at this point (mostly bcs he jues doesnt like how he looks and he looses all his body hair). this is very important to the character! i’m afraid that in this movie hollywood will do as they always do and make him a skinny conventionally attractive teen from the get-go. people will probably pull the Holes excuse of “the filmmakers didnt want to make the actor gain a bunch of weight and then loose it all” BULLSHIT they can cast a fat actor! and through his training and as they film the movie he can loose some weight or they can use movie magic (like when they made chris evans a scrawny little thing). its not that hard, people.

Another character, and this was super important to me and was a big subplot, is that Wade best friend, Aech, whom he only knows through the game (OASIS) plays as a white, straight, guy avatar, but they’re actually a black lesbian named Helen. And she plays this avatar to protect herself and to get a job and be taken seriously within OASIS. is super sad she has to do this, but its a big part of her character. she’s also fat as well, and im REALLY worried that in the movie she’s going to be a skinny straight white girl.

Two other characters who have important characteristics are Art3mis (Samantha) and the creator of OASIS James Halliday. Art3mis is Wade later love interest and GF. She is notable bcs her avatar is just like her, a chubby girl with black hair, but sans her port-wine birthmark. I know they’ll keep her birthmark, since its an intimate reveal, but they’ll probably make her skinny and i hate it. Now it’s only half canon in the books, but i’ve chosen to go with it, but at one point Wade talks about James Halliday’s childhood and his personality and all that, and mentions that he might have been autistic. Now, since it’s only he “might have been” in the books, the filmmakers will probably not make him autistic. That’s fucking sad to me, I mean, it would be amazing!! This character is one of the smartest, most famous, most prolific video game programmers/designers in history!! And he’s autistic! That is some wonderful representation and the filmmakers should jump on that opportunity. It’ll inspire so many autistic people who have a passion for video games to pursue their dreams. But, i have a hunch they wont go with it.

Two other characters, Daito and Shoto, are Japanese young guys who claim to be brothers (and their characters are) but are just friends in the real world. My initial hunch was that the filmmakers would keep them Japanese, but given the recent whitewashing of important Japanese characters, I have my doubts.

My few other concerns are that this movie won’t have 80s pop culture as the main style and focus of the era they book is set in, not to mention OASIS and most of people’s interests. It’s incredibly important to the novel, but so many dystopian movies choose to go with gritty, futuristic, edgy stuff. The other concern is how they will handle the real life vs OASIS look, since over half of the book takes place inside a VR video game. I’ve seen news that they are utilizing VR technology, but i havent read too much. I’m wondering if they’ll animate all of OASIS and the avatars and action and anything in the video game! That would be awesome.

So these are all my thoughts. I havent looks at who they’ve cast yet, so I’m going to do that right now. I do know that Steven Spielberg is directing it, which could be fantastic or terrible. Okay, cast time.

------

So the IMDB doesnt say who is cast as Daito and Shoto, but Wikipedia says that Win Morisaki of PrizmaX will play him, which is great! I hope that’s what happens.

Art3mis/Samantha will be played by Olivia Cooke, who in my opinion is way too old. She’s older than me! The character’s age (i think) isnt mentioned in the book, but she’s got to be 17-20, and Olivia Cooke looks older than that. She’s also not chubby, but hey, maybe they’ll fit that. She also doesnt have the birthmark, but that’s gonna be makeup. (wouldve been cool if they found an actress with a port-wine stain on her face...)

Parzival/Wade will be played by Ty Sheridan. He was Cyclops in X-Men Apocalypse. He’s the right age, but way too fit and attractive. DAMN IT Well, I guess there’s always makeup and special effects, but i’m 80% sure now they wont make Wade fat.....

Aech/Helen will be played by Lena Waithe who is almost PERFECT. She’s much older than Aech, who is around 18, but like Samantha i imagine they’ll have make up and acting to cover it. My biggest concern is that she’s not fat like Aech, which means they’ll use a body suit or effects or Lena will gain weight, or they wont do anything.....

T.J. Miller will be playing I-r0k, who is another OASIS player and a bigtime douchebag jerk. This is perfect. We don’t know his age, or really anything other than his personality and avatar, and T.J. Miller is hilarious so this/ll be great.

Mark Rylance will be playing James Halliday, witch is fine by me. He’s not quite what I imagined, but thats what makeup and wigs are for. He’s worked a lot with Steven Spielberg, so that makes sense as to why he’s cast here. I just hope he can portray an autistic character well and with respect.... (would be better if he IS autistic but ya know.....)

Simon Pegg will be playing Ogden Morrow, the co-creator of OASIS, and thats perfect. No complaints.

Nolan Sorrento (the antagonist of the book and head of operations at Innovative Online Industries) will be played by Ben Mendelsohn, who was Director Krennic in Rouge One. He is much older and not quite and slimy as I imagined him, but this can totally work. I pictured Nolan Sorrento as Andrew Scott in my head, since he seems like the perfect evil, charismatic, slimy, attractive but ugly inside business man.

----

So, after looking at the current casting choices im a little let down, but still excited! I’ll have to wait patienly for the trailer, since this thing is coming out in 2018. Dang, this turned into a Ready Player One post, but its been on my mind recently.

If you read through all of this, good job! let me know what you think! i probably dont talk about Ready Player One very often but thats bcs i dont know anyone in real life (other than my dad) who has read this book, and the online fandom seems nonexistent. Who knows?

But yeah, I guess I made this post bcs I wasn’t able to share the collective nervousness, complaints, and excitement of Harry Potter or LotR or Percy Jackson fans when their fav books became movies.

[team-skull-admin]

My favorite 40 games of all-time

Made an arbitrary list of my favorite games of all-time cause I wanted to figure out where Breath of the Wild is on it. It’s, uh, pretty high. Assload of text below the break.

40: Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow I'm not the world's biggest Symphony of the Night fan (outside of the incredible soundtrack) and I think this is where Iga's seamless platformers found their footing.

39: Call of Juarez: Gunslinger I love goofy, experimental games like this and Far Cry: Blood Dragon, but I think the schtick in this (an unreliable narrator bragging about their heroic exploits) works better than Blood Dragon's dorky 80s nostalgia.

38: Rayman Origins A beautiful platformer with incredible level design. The music for the diabolical secret level is seared into my memory.

37: Cibele A short, story-centric indie game that captures the essence of playing MMOs in the mid-2000s and long-distance relationships. The awkward conversations in this game made me think about my WoW years for an entire weekend.

36: Mario Kart Wii It's not technically the "best" Mario Kart, but I actually enjoyed the motorcycles and I have fond memories of crushing my brother while we downed beers and talked shit.

35: Guild of Dungeoneering I'm usually not super into "We made X game, but added CARDS!" even though I love card games, but they nailed the loop here. I vaguely remember one of the decks being super busted, though.

34: Tropico 4 Adding a political slant to Sim City by making you the leader of a banana republic was just the slant to that formula I was looking for, and I lost a weekend circa New Year's '13 just delving into this hard.

33: Gran Turismo 2 My brother bought a PS1 off a friend when they upgraded to a PS2, and I grabbed a copy of this cheaply at the local EB Games. Once I wrapped my mind around the simulation, upgrading cars and havin fun with them here might have more to do with me being somewhat of a car person than anything else.

32: Metal Gear Solid 4 I should really put the whole series on here, but MGS4 deserves special note for making the core stealth actually fun and somehow tying all the loose ends of the insane plot together while dialing up the insanity even further.

31: Sim City 2000 I figured out how to make a 50,000 person city when I was like, 8. I still have no fucking idea how I did this. It took me till my 20s to crack 100k.

30: Pokemon Black/White People are torn on this game, but the contentious design decision to hide the old Pokemon in the postgame made every new encounter incredibly exciting in a way the series hadn't been since the orignals. The writing also shows signs of the maturity that Sun/Moon would follow through with.

29: Dragon Warrior Monsters 2 I think most would deride this series as a soulless Pokemon cash-grab on the surface, but they're actually roguelikes with a crazy monster breeding system and the most rote of stories to get you into the core loop of exploring new keys to breed ever crazier monsters.

28: Diablo 3: Reaper of Souls Diablo 3 vanilla's reliance on the auction house created design issues that were hard to look past, but Blizzard abandoning it for the expansion made the game into an incredible dungeon crawler. I never laddered, but had fun for hundreds of hours chasing loot with friends.

27: Fallout 3 I'll never forget the feeling of walking out of the vault for the first time, and feeling like I could go anywhere. I also think this is the only Bethesda game that regularly pays off when exploring - weird shit like the Republic of Dave or the man stuck in the tree are fantastic rewards for poking at the less inhabited edges of the map.

26: Bassin's Black Bass featuring Hank Parker I'm honestly wondering if the rest of the world has picked up on this game's low-key genius since I saw it for 15 bucks at a retro game store recently, but this game's arcadey fishing is incredibly satisfying and snappy. It has some major, obvious, irritating mechanical issues, but the core gameplay loop is so good I don't care.

25: Middle Earth: Shadow of Mordor I still remember my nemesis. This motherfucker was right at the beginning of the game, inside the first quest area, and was like level 5 or 6, but had a defensive ability that made it harder for me to gank him easily. So he killed me. Twice. And leveled up each time, becoming a level 12 badass who could literally sniff me out when I hid. But he was weak to fire, and I lured him to a campfire and set him ablaze, getting my revenge.

24: Super Metroid I feel like most people would have this game higher on the list, but I think the controls are floaty and Meridia is overly confusing. The rest of the game is incredible and I can't believe they pulled it off on a Super Nintendo.

23: Pokemon Sun/Moon After XY and ORAS were disapointments I was cool on Pokemon, but Sun/Moon challenged a ton of series conventions and got a lot right in the process. I can't believe how deftly this game handles dysfunctional families.

22: A Link Between Worlds This was Nintendo's hit at what was to come with Zelda - a smart, experimental take on the franchise that's easily its best 2d outing.

21: Muramasa: The Demon Blade Vanillaware's magnum opus, a gorgeous Metroidvania where everything is hand-painted. The combat's loop of mixing launchers with sword management is also incredibly fun, if not particularly deep. But fuck I loved looking at it so much and it felt good.

20: The Walking Dead Only time a video game made me cry.

19: Banjo-Kazooie The only 3d collect-a-thon platformer from that era that still holds up, it combines cheeky humor and an incredible soundtrack to craft a world that's always surprising.

18: Borderlands 2 is better crafted, but I enjoyed the dry wit and more grounded guns of the first. I've replayed this like 4 times and I'm not entirely sure why, but I have a blast each time.

17: Doom (2016) Apparently the secret to making this license work in a modern context is to give Halo combat arenas a healthy dose of cocaine and play Meshuggah riffs over it. It so fucking works.

16: Saints Row: The Third I think the writing in GTA is usually sophomoric at best and its attempts at commentary are eye-roll worthy, but having a game say "FUCK IT" and just Mel Brooks that experience is such a wonderful idea. It's also hard to pull off, and SR3 totally sticks the landing (unlike the sequel).

15: Super Mario World The best traditional Mario game. I replayed it recently, and it struck me how much secret exits add to the level design versus 3, and how freed Koji Kondo is by the new hardware. The castle music's classical overture sticks out.

14: Monster Hunter 4 I liked Monster Hunter 3's various iterations but I hated swimming. Taking out swimming and replacing it  with mounting was enough for me to sink hundreds of hours. I actively avoided getting Generations because I knew it would interfere with school.

13: Mario Golf (GBC) The perfect portable game. Golf works well on the platform, and adding basic RPG hooks was enough to make a rote story totally engaging.

12: Super Mario Maker I think the real triumph of Mario Maker isn't the levels (which are usually terrible), it's how Nintendo imparted the feeling of being creative in such an easily digestible and satisfying way. It's an achievement that ascends past Mario design (which still works here) into something greater and more profound.

11: Hearthstone I fucking hate this game and I keep playing it because the Arena is like literal fucking crack and every time I have an opponent at 1 life and they beat me they can eat fucking dicks.

10: Super Mario RPG Clever writing and a strange world grabbed me way harder than Intelligent System's later Paper Mario games. It's too easy and doesn't look as slick now, but the writing still holds up.

09: Mass Effect Trilogy You can't really separate these, as the experience that makes Mass Effect great was carrying your Shepard and their decisions from one game to the next. Everyone will remember Garrus, Wrex, and co. Shame about the ending.

08: Tetris I am weirdly good at Tetris. I know what a T-Spin is. I sank hundreds of hours into it on Facebook. I don't regret it.

07: Persona 4 Describe a game to me as a mix of a J-RPG and a slice-of-life anime and I'll run to the hills, so the fact this game's sharp, mature writing and "just one more day" calendar mechanic combined into one of my favorite games of all-time is a shock. They also put in Pokemon with fucking demons, how cool is that shit?

06: Ocarina of Time I can't believe this game came out in 1998. The world is still fun to traverse, and the dungeon design (especially as an adult) still holds up at the top of action-adventure puzzle design.

05: Magic: the Gathering I wish it was less expensive otherwise it'd be higher.

04: Breath of the Wild I can't believe Nintendo reinvented the wheel so well that I'm putting the game so high on the list. Every design decision in this game is carefully considered to make exploring this iteration of Hyrule that much more satisfying. And its incredibly clever chemistry engine, where every object in the game has chemical properties that can be manipulated as well as physics, creates a ton of emergent gameplay scenarios where you're constantly asking "Can I do that?" and the game almost never lets you down.

03: World of Warcraft Sometimes I regret the 4000 hours I spent in Azeroth, but I'd have a hard time giving up the friends I made there. I could probably shred and like, speak another language though.

02: Pokemon Red I was the perfect age for Pokemon mania, and the fact that the core game was literally designed to appeal to me didn't help. I still love collecting the things and min/maxing ways to beat the Elite 4 with minimal grinding.

01: Mega Man X I think this is literally the perfect platformer. Moving X feels incredible. There's nothing in any of the levels I think is out of place. The soundtrack is a masterpiece. And the game's hidden secret is so insane you'd probably call bullshit on any kid who told it to you at recess. I'm really glad the rest of the world picked up on it after Arin Hanson did a Sequelitis about it, because I've been beating this drum for decades.

[comicteaparty]

July 6th-July 12th, 2019 Creator Babble Archive

The archive for the Creator Babble chat that occurred from July 6th, 2019 to July 12th, 2019.  The chat focused on the following question:

What other works would you say influence what your comic is?  Are there specific examples that show this influence?

AntiBunny

AntiBunny http://antibunny.net/ takes heavy influence from hardboiled crime comics of course. Sin City is probably the most obvious influence, but additionally manga in general is a part of the character design. The story draws from two favorites from my childhood TMNT and Secret of NIMH. Those two contain anthropomorphic animal characters, but give you an explanation. That's one of the things I wanted to set AntiBunny apart with is that it's not just furry for furry's sake, but that these are a distinct species. Mutants or artificially created life forms. It also means they have to live in a human dominant world where they don't really belong. On a more minor note, Daria directly influenced Pooky's design. This is a great question. No creator is without influence. An artist takes in what they see and reshapes it into something new. That's nothing to feel bad about. Even Shakespeare had to draw from mythology, history, and previously existing literature.

Pencilz

A lot of the themes in The Caraway Crew https://tapas.io/series/The-Caraway-Crew are Lovecraft-inspired, but I also take influence from mysteries like Twin Peaks / X-files and also the cartoon Gravity Falls with its mystery/humor fusion and sibling-team dynamic. I mostly want to do a twist on darker themed stories, one that that doesn't promote a "life is terrible and nothing matters" gloomy outlook (the thing I see in a lot of works and absolutely hate).

Joichi

For my webcomic; Lavender Tea: it's from a mix of influences - Ano Hana: Flower We Saw That Day, 'ORANGE' and the restaurant romcom: 'Working!!' After reading Orange or watching Ano Hana, I badly wanted to draw a story focus on those themes of love, loss and joy with my cast of kids in self-exploration and romance. I had to split my comic to be in 2-part chronological stories; 1 in highschool and the other when they grow up in College, is where I'll focus more on jobs.(edited)

I'm figuring out a way to tell muliple character lead's different stories, than focusing on one since I feel it doesn't give the full 'scope' of the story I want to tell.

Desnik

Warlock'd (http://ask-a-warlock.tumblr.com/) is inspired by the Arthurian cycle, biblical apocrypha, Reynardine stories, and Robin Hood. I also read a lot of history books/commentary and translations of diaries from the 12th century. A more modern influence is the video game Chrono Trigger in terms of tone (seemingly playful and lighthearted but with some very dark secrets and concepts), and maybe even Link's Awakening, which apparently is one of those games that was inspired by Twin Peaks so I suppose I should get around to watching that.

Attila Polyák

For Tales of Midgard https://talesofmidgard.com/comic/book-1-cover-page/ I'd say the inspiration is not mostly for the plot, but for the way the world is build. I lot of general concepts I use come from two book series: LoTR and Dune. The worlds in these books are just so vividly alive and detailed. Anyone writing fantasy would benefit from seeing such well crafted worlds. And those worlds work so well, even when you think about it and you realise that you just read a book about an interstellar empire run on space cocaine, it still just works, not just for the story that's told in it but without it as well. And since I'm mostly aiming for the portrayal of a fantasy world with my comic, well... It's no surprise that these books greatly inspired me.

kayotics

Ingress Adventuring Company (https://www.ingress-comic.com/) is probably a weird combination of dungeons and dragons and Ranma 1/2. D&D is pretty obvious, in genre and storytelling style. The movie version of Howl's Moving Castle is a good inspiration, and Ghibli movies in general. (it wasn't until after I started my comic that I read the book of Howl's Moving Castle and realized that the main characters are basically the same man). A lot of the video games I played as a kid (Banjo Kazooie, early 3D zelda, and Sly Cooper) were big inspirations for tone and humor. Ranma is definitely my biggest influence from a crafting and comic creation standpoint, even though I don't read it as often anymore.

The Cakegamer

Neguri-Senpai (https://neguri-senpai.blogspot.com/) is just your classic 4 panel manga (aka a yon-koma) that got made because of a simple joke about a teacher of mine to a friend. Later on I made it into a real thing and now i upload a new episode on a weekly basis (every sunday). What influenced my work the most are other 4-koma mangas like "seitokai yakuindomo" and "azumanga dayoh" with their simple jokes that can get the reader to laugh in just 4 panels. Another work that I sometimes heavily reference the manga "JoJo's bizarre adventure" since I'm a great fan of the series. You can see an example of my reference here: (btw, yes I stretched it out and changed the the layout of the panels with ms-paint so it may look a bit weird but i only did it to make a better comparison with the original JoJo manga)