#why would i buy this when i can already play it on my 3ds to similar affect. it & still looks good there.

[fingertipsmp3]

Would it be overindulgent of me if I bought a kindle and a switch on the same day

[wickedghxst]

mgs3 delta is cool & all but i'd rather get that mgs1 remake...

[wiptw]

Pokémon Stadium Series

Nintendo 64 - Nintendo - 2000 to 2001

You as a Pokémon fan are absolutely fucking spoiled these days. Aside from the mainline games you have spinoffs and fangames offering different experiences, you have entire websites dedicated to documenting everything down to the internal maths of the series, there's no end to the free content you can access with an internet connection between emulators and battle sites like 'Showdown!', and it's now socially acceptable in most circles to be older than 13 and have something with Pikachu's face plastered on it (especially if you're female presenting, especially if your friend group is also infected with the Pokémon hype). Back in my day™ you had almost none of this. You had the anime on Saturday mornings, you had the early run Pokémon licensed merch which WOULD get you called a baby if you continued buying past 10-12, and you had the games. Those sweet, sweet games that indoctrinated a generation of young people into being gamers and awoke a horde of JRPG addicts.

Literally Me

So remember this when I tell you that Pokémon Stadium, both one and two, aren't great games because they do something back then that you can't get today; they're great for what they did back then. So Pokemon Stadium 1&2 were a duology of games from 2000 and 2001 respectively that allowed players to battle Pokemon in 3D, with the addition of some side content such as minigames included to prevent the game from being 100% Pokemon battles. Because otherwise, the game is in fact navigating a series of menus and completing Pokémon battles with 3D models.

Whether it's taking on the gym gauntlets, the marathon of battles in the Pokémon cups, or just free battles with friends and loved ones, 98% of the experience is either selecting Pokémon from a roster of pre-built 'rentals' or transferring them from a saved game using the Transfer Pak, then fighting them in a series of 3D environments. An experience which you can definitely do today using web apps but as I said earlier, we didn't have that.

The peak of Pokémon battles in 2000

So if you're buying Pokémon Stadium (either version really) you're already probably a Pokémon fan right? So that means you have Red/Blue/Yellow/Gold/Silver/Crystal, so why not just play that game and get the full experience? The fun of exploring, talking to NPCs, discovering new and exotic locations? Simple, because in those games battles looked like this

While in Stadium, battles looked like this

If you grew up watching the anime while playing the Gameboy games, there was this special kind of dissonance where you might find yourself saying "Yeah, (for the time) these graphics are RADICAL but I wish I had something closer to these cool Pokémon Battles they had in the anime." As you hide under the covers with your Gameboy Color worm light, nestled in your Ash Ketchum pajamas while you attempt for the 100th time to capture a ditto. Pokémon Stadium was the answer to this dissonance, providing you with vibrant 3D graphics unlike anything you'd ever seen before; bringing Pokémon to life in a way that would be unmatched until Colosseum came out during the Gamecube era.

So, to actual mechanics, you play both games pretty similarly; by building a team of Pokémon (either on your handheld or by using the rental mons the game provides) and take part in a series of battles to become the ultimate battle master. To use your own Pokémon, you'd need to use the aforementioned 'Transfer Pak' to plug in a copy of Red/Blue/Yellow (for 1) or Gold/Silver/Crystal (for 2) with a game saved to the cartridge; otherwise the rental Pokémon covered all released Pokémon (except for some hidden ones) allowing you to build your dream team, sans a few caveats here and there.

Evolved Pokémon have better stats but worse moves, while weaker Pokémon tend to have better moves to compensate

In terms of WHERE you can battle, there's two choices: Either in the Gym Leader Castle, or the Tournaments held in the center of the map on either game. Either way, the game will then have you battle through a series of 3v3 matches versus a set number of trainers who will also select 3 random mons from their full team of six.

A bit bare bones, but there's some spice to how things are run. For one, the rental system was a huge thing for us younger players back in the day. Even if you had the games some Pokémon were hard to catch, had evolution requirements some players couldn't complete (like the trade-mons), or were locked to a version you didn't have. The rental mons give you a list of every Pokémon (some exceptions, but not many) and then lets you build your dream team. Sure, you can't set their moves, EVs, IVs, and it's the era before abilities and natures but I CAN HAVE A MEOWTH/PERSIAN ON MY TEAM. Do you know what I had to do as a child to have this Pokémon outside of Stadium? I had to find someone in the American South who also enjoyed Pokémon, hoped they had Blue instead of Red, hoped they had a link cable, then get them to agree to a trade despite both of us being children (and therefore, objectively terrible) which likely meant giving away a rare Pokémon in exchange for what amounted to common garbage in their game because it was Version fucking Exclusivity™ and everyone seemed to know that meant you'd do anything to get that one fucking Pokémon you wanted.

In the handheld games, if you wanted to build your dream team then likely you'd have to put in some more effort than other games of the time would've required of you. With Stadium, your dreams come true, and if you already have that dream team you can just import them to fight in glorious 3D. Circumventing the fact that rental Pokémon are kinda terrible overall.

Don't feel like building? The challenge cup mode that gives you randomized team comps that has it's own charm (for masochists)

Not to say all of them were bad but construct a normal distribution of 'Good' to 'Bad' picks then that graph is gonna skew left so hard you'd be forgiven for thinking it was just a straight line. To keep every choice 'viable' Pokémon rentals were balanced around stats and moves. More powerful evolved Pokémon and Pokémon with high Base Stat Totals (BST) were given weaker moves and first form and low BST Pokémon were given generally better moves. Charizard might have better stats than Charmeleon and Charmander but his only fire type move is going to be something like Fire Spin. Conversely, Charmander might have Fire Blast but his stats are gonna make him an easy target for the computer's pokemon, which are not bound to the same builds as the rental mons you're using.

Once your team is assembled, then you're off to battle trainer after trainer after trainer with beautifully scored (for the Nintendo 64) soundtracks giving you an unearned sense of importance every step of the way. Battles themselves are conducted with a weird, but functional control layout where A and B access sub menus you then check with the R button before finalizing with the c-buttons, which on original hardware or a USB N64 controller is fine but on emulation with a more modern controller like Logitech, can be a little nerve wracking as you worry about whether your 'up' input on the control stick was up enough for the game or if you accidentally drifted right or left using an unintended move.

fun fact: the name of imported Pokémon affects their coloration in Stadium

Battles are also largely regulated by (at the time) tournament standard rules. Little and Pokecup have level restrictions, and all three non-random cups include clauses for sleep, held items, and repeat Pokémon. Additionally, in any cup if you win the round with all 3 Pokémon still in tact, you're granted a continue; meaning you can retry the battle if you lose. Additionally, there is no 'draw' outcome in these games. Use a move like Explosion or Selfdestruct and the game will register it as your loss on your final Pokémon, regardless of whether you took down the opposing fighter with you or not.

You'll be doing a LOT of back-to-back fights here against trainers with varied team comps, but even with over 246 Pokémon in the available potential lineup you'll get tired fast of fighting. This is, however, slightly mitigated by the 3v3 nature of the matches but even so be ready to here the same Pokémon noises, watch the same effects play out, and wait for the same health bars to tick down over and over as you claw your way to the spot of Pokémon Master.

The art style of non-battle scenes like the main map and minigame plaza have that nice, 90's charm to them as well.

If you do get tired of battling it out, then Stadium 1 and 2 both offer minigames for players to partake in. Either in a tournament format or by using the free-play browser, players are able to take part in a multitude of different Mario Party-esque (without the hand burning) minigames featuring the Pokémon as stars. Minigames consist of stick twirling, button mashing, and point collecting all while controlling fan favorite Pokémon such as Togepi, Eevee, Scyther, and Pichu with no real rhyme or reason behind why these game exist aside from a amusement park theming the minigame zones have for their icons and menus.

You won't get a real explanation as to why you're racing Donphans, cutting logs as Scythers and Pinsirs, or playing Simon Says with a bunch of Clefairy, but you don't really need that either. The games are fun, the models are charming, and watching Clefairy get smacked in the head for each wrong input brings me a level of joy I should probably talk about with my therapist. You won't likely spend hours in this mode, but it's a nice breather from the onslaught of battles otherwise.

fun fact: I still won't talk to some people because of the outcomes to Rampage Rollout over two decades ago. You know who you are.

Additionally there's a quiz minigame separate from the main selection of minigames with easy/normal/hard difficulty selections. Players compete to see who can be the first to get a number of questions correct before anyone else based on facts about the Pokémon (typing, size, silhouette, etc) or facts about the game (where you can find things in the game, names of routes and towns, names of figures in the game).

It's not the most challenging on easy or normal, but playing on hard the game will try to screw you with trick questions so playing with others becomes a balance of "do I let the question play out, or attempt to steal it before someone else can answer correctly?"

Sometimes even playing the game won't prepare you for how out of pocket the questions can get

The real advantage of 2 over 1 is that, in addition to minigames, the game has the trainer academy; a kind of in-depth battle tutorial to teach players not only the basics of Pokémon fighting, but also some secrets as well

You can learn about held items, a feature new to the second generation, as well as participate in mock battles to demonstrate the materials you've been reading and quizzed on. Some of this information for the time too was obscure or hidden knowledge, like the fact that using Defense Curl before using Rollout would boost the damage significantly or that using Stomp on an opponent who used minimize would double the damage.

Some type matchups just make sense, like Ground v Electric.

Overall though what really makes this game is the presentation. The soundtrack does a great job selling the feeling Nintendo wants you to experience, climbing the ladder in a tournament or the Gym Leaders Castle makes you feel powerful, and the little details on top of it all just tie it together in a nice package.

The fights, for example, are also narrated by "The Announcer". A bombastic voice shouting over every detail of a fight. When you score a crit, when you apply a status effect, even using certain moves will get the announcer loudly narrating each detail like a Pokémon prize fight. Seeing the ground rip apart when you use Earthquake is only half the charm, the other half comes from that man yelling in your ears "A DEVESTATING EARTHQUAKE ATTACK!". Clearing gyms or clearing opponents in one of the cups grants you gym badges, a dream for any child growing up on the handheld classics or watching the anime who wished they too could earn shiny bits of metal that gave them an inflated sense of importance.

I would literally kill everyone I came across if it'd get me a real life Zephyr Badge.

Stadium 1 and 2 aren't evergreen classics. They're stuck in Gens 1 and 2 respectively, the roster of Pokémon while impressive is largely useless and makes collecting trophies way harder than it has to be, and the games were made before things like abilities and double battles were introduced, leading to the Pokémon battling game missing out on the generation of Pokémon that made battling more fun (Revolution doesn't count, Revolution is dead to me and disappoints me more than I disappoint myself.)

But for the time especially, it gave fans an opportunity to experience a form of Pokémon more advanced than what the handhelds could output. It was a window into a world of potential that wouldn't be truly fulfilled until arguably the 3DS era of Pokémon released, and gave fans a fun little romp handcrafted for them at every twist and turn. Whether you were a gamer or you enjoyed the anime, there was something here for you.

Overall: 7/10 Sound: 8/10 (for the time) Graphics: 9/10 (for the time) Memorable Moments: Stadium 1: Hearing about Mewtwo, thinking he was an urban legend, then finding out he wasn't Stadium 2: Finally beating the elite 4 using only rental mons.

[psyf0rk]

im curious about the fandom video essay one bc for me, ive always viewed it as: aa gets ports. like a lot of them. as such, aa is way more accessible to play compared to layton, where youre either stuck with watching an old playthrough of the games, or trying to 1) get a 3ds if you dont have one, and 2) buying the games (which can sometimes be very expensive). plus, people probably vibe with the mystery solving aspect of one or the other differently. i’ve honestly been begging for pl ports for years, and not just for switch. but i think layton is definitely something thats like. a series that ppl look fondly back on. which is why you see so many people be excited when new world of steam was first announced.

anyway sorry for putting all this in your inbox it’s just been my biggest complaint for yrs that layton has not been ported over yet and the one game thats on switch kinda did poorly. i would love for the fandom to grow

HII !! firstly thank you so much for asking !! im really glad to know this sorta thing doesnt just bug me ,, and secondly i apologise for answering so late ,, i was travelling all day yesterday 😭😭

YEAH!! Ports was going to be one of my points that id put in the video if i were to make it ,,

I completely agree with your point , Ive already heard people say the 3ds is a “dead console” (and yeah it is i just cant accept it ) ((LMAO)) ,, making it inaccessible to SO many people ,, when they could have found out about it . Like , layton still has the potential to bring in new fans , Im an example of that ,, lost future captured my heart and bought every game like a week later ; The games themselves are masterpeices , and more people deserve to know about them.

Secondly yeah ,I know people may be used to the mystery solving aspect of one or the other ,, but thats another problem anyway I think the main glue that layton has is its story tbh (less so with prequel trilogy but thats another point )

They could port the first trilogy really nicely (like they did with aa1-3) and brand it as a mystery game could THE POTENTIAL IS THERE. !!!!. And id people probably dont look back on it fondly im so sad :( Theyre amazing games but idk i didnt play them in layton prime 😭😭🙏

Also ports not just for switch YES !!! Reiterating what you said ; Theyre only playable on decaying consoles , and the gaming industry is changing , level 5 should adapt to this and not stay stuck in the past !! If people stumble across layton and decide to look into it ,, it would be better for it just to be at least on steam r smth ,, so they can acc play it cause playthroughs are awful . Like can you imagine curious village with polished sprites ??? dude that would be so good .

And yeah !! lets hope NWOS revives layton ,, from what is seems it looks really polished but they were 3 games late to what AA did well ,, give a new protagonist focus . NWOS (from what ive seen) will center more around luke ,, which is what the prequel trilogy should have done . (AA made their second trilogy center around apollo, )

and dang it i rambled slighty off topic mb

😭😭

[alertarchitect]

I genuinely do not understand The Discourse around Palworld. Now, for full transparency, I don't really particularly care about the game, I've not played it, nor do I plan to. I'd rather stick with my FPS games and metroidvanias. I'm probably the closest to being a neutral party on the issue you can find in the gaming community. That being said...

Stop with all of the "[Megacompany X] needs to call their lawyers!!" nonsense. Yes, they have designs that look like Pokémon. Yes, they have designs that look like Monster Hunter monsters. However, I have one important question here...

Why the hell do you care?

First off, we're talking ripoff designs of IPs owned by companies that make profits in the billions. These companies, especially Nintendo, have - or at least have access to - very good lawyers. Do you really think Palworld - a game made by a company based in Japan, the SAME COUNTRY as the companies I see people saying are having their designs stolen, meaning this theoretical lawsuit would be 100% domestic instead of bringing the headaches associated with an international suit - would have made it to release if Nintendo, Capcom, or any other company had standing for a plagiarism lawsuit? Especially when Japan doesn't have fair use laws? That, to me, already tells me these designs are clearly in the "legally distinct ripoff" category, and that's okay. Obviously plagiarism isn't a good thing, but if this was close enough to be considered such under laws that don't include fair use provisions, it's FINE. Even if it's not the most ethical, ripoffs and bootlegs are gonna happen. This one is just has more publicity than most.

Second, these are - again - billion-dollar companies that make more money than most people can even truly comprehend. Why are you defending them so much? No matter how much I may like the older Pokémon games, such as Platinum, we are talking about one of, if not the single most profitable franchise on the fucking PLANET. Not only does it not need Random Schmuck #582183 to defend it online, the people behind it likely don't fucking CARE. The Pikémon Company is like 50% or more owned by Nintendo, which is a company that - as we've seen time and again with their takedowns of passionate fan projects with 0 profit incentive such as AM2R as well as their draconian YouTube content policies for creators - doesn't care about their fans at the best of times, and is actively hostile towards them more often than not. Why do so many people defend these large corporations like doing so is going to get you a "thank you" letter from Miyamoto? Why are you supporting massive billionaires like your life depends on it over some 3D models that, as previously established, are more in the "legally distinct ripoff" category than anything else? Are you so invested in their corporate wellbeing that you feel the need to try and do their PR & legal teams' jobs for them?

At the end of the day, Palworld is a game made by a team that seems genuinely passionate about their craft, that has been a fun experience for many people across the world. Let those people have their fun. And if the designs being ripoffs is such a problem for you, just don't buy the game. Simple as that. If you're that worried, let the notoriously litigious companies like Nintendo handle it. Don't try to be an ass to people just having fun in a video game. Hell, if you're so convinced this is a case of direct plagiarism, just stop supporting the people making stuff about it like we did with the people who played the Shitty Wizard Game. Obviously this issue is nowhere near as bad, as it's just a case of ripoff designs instead of people financially supporting an anti-semitic, racist TERF who sees financial support of her franchise as support for her ideals and uses the platform that gives to call for things like trans genocide, but the principle is the same in practice - just don't support it or anything to do with it, and chill the hell out.

[dojae-huh]

I have this looming suspicion that Taeyong, Doyoung, Jaehyun, and Haechan live in the same apartment complex. It seems like Taeyong is living separately on his own, but still in the same building as DoJaeHyuck. Judging from Haechan's words in their recent Home Not Alone content where he said that sometimes it's better living with members than with family, he is not living with both of his father and mother's families. He probably only stays over during weekends, but he does not live with them. The reasons why I suspect he lives with DoJae are 1) The sudden closeness of JaeHyuck. In their 6th anniversary content, it was revealed that it was JaeHyuck who went out the most together to eat. That was also the year where Doyoung was busy with solo schedules, paving the way for Jae and Hyuck to bond together and go out. 2) Although Do and Hyuck are already close, they are definitely closer than ever lately. IDK if I'm making sense with that, it's like they just truly see each other as brothers. Also, sometimes when you look at the three of them when all of 127 are together, you can kinda feel that they form a clique, like a little family XD Haechan likes posting pictures of either DoJae or the three of them. DoJae are living together. Jaehyun has been jokingly mentioning non-stop about Doyoung's "pants", and if I remember correctly, someone said it's because Doyoung does not wear pants in the dorm, he only wears an oversized shirt and boxers. Why would Jaehyun even know that if they're not living together and does not frequently see Doyoung in their home walking around only with boxers lol. Not to mention they often share the same stuff, often buys the same brands and couple items. Sometimes they are also caught wearing each other's stuff. Also, another gut feeling, that Jaehyun is actually close to Gongmyung. Fans like to play it off as Jae having a little crush because he's always smiley when talking about Gongmyung, but I see it in a way that Jae adores him as his older brother, that once he started being with Doyoung, he sees Gongmyung as a familial extension, like he finally also has an older brother. Jaehyun's expression everytime he comes up kinda made me suspect that. Of course, you won't hear from either of DoJae that, it would be the equivalent of slipping, so they run with the story that it's Johnny and Jungwoo that Gongmyung knows, when in reality, I bet he is more familiar with Jaehyun. Sorry if I'm rambling nonsense, cause when you follow them closely, you would notice crumbs and hints every now and then, and suddenly you'll be hit with a Eureka moment that things are finally making sense, lol. But feel free to refute any of this! Sometimes I think I am too delusional already but there is always this gut feeling that I cannot ignore XD

Did you read one of my older posts on the topic or did you come up with all arguments yourself? Because you repeat what I said in 2020-2021 verbatim, heh. Different people, same conclusions (deduction works).

I'll make a quick recap for newer fans. (Correct me if there are mistakes)

SM Rookies lived in two dorms: one for future 127, one for dreamies and those who didn't belong to a unit. So Ten and Kun lived with Dreamies. WinWin lived with 127.

Every year or two members switched rooms. Only Yuta and Taeil lived together for a very long time (+WinWin as the 3d roommate when he was with 127). I remember that Do lived with Taeil, Johnny, Mark. I don't remember if he shared a room with Tae or not. Jae and Yuta (2016). Jae and Johnny shared (2017).

In 2018 it was Jae+Hyuk and Do+Mark. However, highly probable they switched rooms after JaeDo came out to the group (i.e. in summer). There were many TMIs and slip ups hinting at that.

In second half of 2019 all 127 neos moved to new dorms (Dreamies and WayV as well, Chenle lives in his own house). They lived on two floors (5th and 10th), fans got room tours, lives, it was pretty public. Afterwards neos started to move out without announcing it loudly. Some left first, some only when the lease was over.

Officially it was: 5th - Do(+manager), Tae, JN+Hyuk, 10th - Yuta+Taeil, Jae+Woo, Mark(+manager). TMIs hinted that Woo spent most of the time with Mark, while Jae spent many nights on 5th. And that there were no managers. Johnny moved out first, then Yuta. Others, seemingly, waited till the end of the lease.

There were a lot of troubles with sasaengs gathering around the dorm building and bothering neighbours.

Now, back to the present. As you said, anon, it is highly plausible several neos live at the same apartment building/complex. 1) Convenient for a pick up by the manager, 2) the building needs to be close enough to SM HQ, 3) well secured, have many rooms for lease, 4) JaeDo and Hyuk have the wish to live together. There were rumours Tae and Jae had flats in the same building from ssg.

Jaehyun was introduced to the family. He is even close with Kim cousins, of course GM knows him well.

Haechan and Doyoung, Johnny and Doyoung provide a good contrast.

In the last live (7th years anniversary of the two joining 127) JN asked Do how long ago he bought himself a synth (to learn playing piano). It means JN not only doesn't live with Do, he doesn't visit his house. In the past few years Johnny often complained Do didn't tell him news about himself, Do replied that he wrote them in the 127 group chat. They talked about not seeing each other for several days during breaks between comebacks.

On the other hand, Do remembers Hyuk asked him to live together when they are old as a recent TMI ("Home not alone" series), something to share with the others as they weren't present. Do says to Yuta that he can rest, Do will make Hyuk feed him meet instead. It's Hyuk's chore to help with cooking and everything else.

Jaehyun had a synth in his room on the 10th he brought from home. If JaeDo lived together permanently, Do wouldn't need to buy a new one for himself. They also can't live together, only two of them, officially. Meanwhile, owning two separate flats nearby and basically using one most of the time is the classic way for gay couples in Asia.

JaeDo continue to match clothes often for dance practices, trips. And that is easier to do together as a morning ritual.

[speaking-from-the-abyss]

Some random thoughts on Obey Me! Nightbringer up to lesson 10 (with LOTS of spoilers)

If you ask why I'm making a post like this in this blog is cause I will defend that this is a queer coded game to my last breath –and cause is my blog and I do what I want.

Full disclosure: I'm not done with the first game yet so no spoilers for that one please. I'm guessing I'll get spoiled by Nightbringer anyways as the story progresses, and I already did lol, but I wanna gush about this game because I love it so much already.

Starting with the title screen, oh my gosh the art is beautiful. 10/10 would definitely buy a poster of this.

They continue using they/them for MC and that's a thing we all gotta appreciate. Thank u.

The layout and the art of the game is just SO PRETTY in general. Definitely an upgrade from the first game, credits to the designers and artists.

It's a rhythm game!! I like it, the gameplay is easy enough and in classic Obey Me fashion you gotta be really precise when you click or else, which adds a good layer of difficulty.

We don't have 8 different types of support items, just 4, which makes it easier to keep count of how many we have. I am still broke in-game to buy them tho.

WE CAN GET DEVIL POINTS BY COMPLETING LEVELS THANK U SO MUCH. In contrast, I feel like they give less materials when you clear a stage? I mean, they gotta balance it I guess, or maybe is just me.

The game was lagging like hell when I first started playing tho. Idk if it was the game or my phone that couldn't run it or what, but it's fixed now.

I love the fact they're using the character songs for the levels!!! I was waiting for the unit songs and they took a while, but they're there too. The remixes are fun and I can't believe how good they sound.

Speaking of sound, this game's ost is SO GOOD like huh? I was kinda expecting it cause it's a big production and all but bruh. Every now and then I end up having to stop because I gotta appreciate the bgm. There was this one funny song where a banjo started playing and I straight up laughed out loud. 10/10

MK is that you?

Coming back to the layout and the designs: THERE'S SO MUCH RURI HANA IN HERE!!!!!! Love it. 20/10. Best thing ever. Whoever decided to add that I hope they're having an amazing day.

Also, is that a Ruri Hana Miss Em?? Gosh I love this game.

And I'm not done gushing about the designs yet cause LOOK AT HIM!!! LOOK!!!! He's so cute!!!!🧡🧡🧡

HE'S SO PRECIOUS JUST LOOK AT HIM!!!!! 🧡🧡🧡

The art for the cards is really pretty and I need more Levi cards so badly asap

Also, there's a shit ton of extra content, wow. I'm not sure how I feel about the whole 3D models yet (mostly cause my phone only gives me bad renditions of them) but the extra content is slice of life funny bits. I like that they're voice acted, they're good.

Hey so y'know how you can click on the characters and get voice messages in the home screen and how you interact with them in the surprise guest screen? In neither of those I can click on Levi's tail and I consider that a crime against all Levi stans.

OKAY SO when this game was announced and as time went on and we got little pieces of the plot, not gonna lie I was worried. When it comes to time and time travel this franchise has a, well, a record. I'm still worried how it's gonna develop but for now I really like the things they're showing in the main story regarding the characters and the plot. Just, y'know, fingers crossed it doesn't become a mess.

Honestly the timeline is a mess already as it is. We met Luke and he has apparently just started learning how to bake, but in the first game he says he's been doing it for about 300 years, so it's been only 300 years between the end of the Celestial War and the beginning of the first game? Shouldn't the time be at least a few thousand years?? I'm solving this by doing a headcanon that time moves differently in different worlds cause otherwise the lack of coherence bothers me too much.

I'm so intrigued about Nightbringer himself. You think the prologue is giving us a red herring about who he is? Will it be a new character? An old one? Us from the future? They did a good job in implementing the mystery and I can't wait.

I was rereading this chat we have with them at the beginning of the game and something caught my eye:

Do you think maybe we'll start jumping between time as the story continues? So that we'll be at and see different time periods with different characters?? 🤔

This guy has an omurice for an icon when we all know he can't cook to save his life and I find that so ironic xD I like how much he's getting involved in the story so far too

I still don't know who gave them the right to go THIS HARD on a rhythm otome game. I love this thing what the hell. I wish I went this hard with my own projects.

That's all, I'll be waiting for more lessons to drop✌️

[radellama]

Games I played in 2023 - Part 2

Well. These certainly took longer to write than I expected them to. Who knew that I’d have a lot to say AND be incredibly picky about how I said everything?

Me. I knew.

Anyway…

Read part one if you haven’t already, and my resi part will be coming out… soon……… And once again, spoilers of varying degrees and strong opinions moving forwards.

~~~

Tomodachi Life, 3DS

I never had this game growing up, but my friend did, and they gave me a demo via DS download play. I really wanted to have it myself, but it was always so expensive that I could never justify buying it, and I prioritised getting other games that were higher on the list instead. Now that I have my cool 3DS where I can play whatever I want, I finally gave it a try!

It didn’t last long though, as there isn’t really that much to do here.

Similarly to Miitopia, this kind of game is only any fun if you have ideas for funny miis to play with, or are amused enough by using miis of you and your friends. I played for about 8 days, checking in with everyone and trying to put all the Chrono characters in. There wasn’t much to actually do, it felt like pointless unlocks and shopping just for the sake of it, instead of any intrinsic reason compelling me to do so.

Maybe I’m just too old now, and have outgrown the age where I would’ve potentially enjoyed this more, but I doubt that. It’s just boring, and once you’ve played for a day or two, you have pretty much played it all. I know that there’s more to do if you spend the time playing for a few minutes every day, like miis dating or having a baby, but I couldn’t get my otp Magland to like each other and Harland spent more time with Schala than Magus. Also I had to make Magus a girl, cause gay people don’t exist and Nintendo doesn’t allow mpreg.

This is disappointing, especially as I enjoyed Miitopia more than I thought I would. I thought there would be more to this dollhouse style game, but there isnt. There’s some funny charm in the flavour text and such, but ehhhhhh… Just play Miitopia. That vibe is there and there’s more to do in that game.

I’m not going to link any songs, as I didn’t find anything particularly stand out, and as I listen while writing this, I’ve barely made a dent in the track list, so I can’t be bothered. It all just sounds like the classic Wii-DS era Mii music. Whatever.

~~~

Harvest Moon: Tale of Two Towns, 3DS

I know I did a mock review a few years ago for this one, but. Y’know. This game is pretty good and I like farm sims. All the good stuff I’ve said in previous years about farm sims applies here; I get addicted to them easy and it’s dangerous for me to play them, cause it makes my autism go wheeeeeeeeeeeee

This game is one that’s close to my heart- I played it a lot as a tween and just enjoyed how much I felt like it captured the reasons why I liked the SNES Harvest Moon, while also expanding and adding more fun stuff. The gist of this game is that you are on your way to your farm, when you have an accident and forget which town you were going to live in. Both mayors want you to live in their town, and as you’ll come to find out, they’re fairly competitive against one another. Once you’ve picked your town, and start getting settled in, you’ll have an encounter with the Harvest Goddess, who explains that she collapsed the tunnel between the two towns because she was sick of the arguing- but wants YOUR help repairing relations. You do this primarily by entering the cooking festivals, held four times every month- the more you win, and the closer you get with the townspeople on both sides, the more you’ll be able to access upgrades for your house and tools, along with opening up the tunnel for easy access to both towns.

In the early days, you’ll be spending most your time working on your farm, and foraging on the mountain. There’s three screens on each side of the mountain with various foragable goods, fishing spots and wild animals to befriend – which is plenty to build up your inventory and earn some cash while you wait for your crops to grow. I really appreciate the early days in this game, as it’s not only nostalgic for me, but also a really solid tutorial. The first month is like an overall guide on how to play the game, with each town giving you a gift to start you off (Konohana giving you seeds and tools to grow crops, and Bluebell giving you a cow, which is just a much better deal lmao), showing you how the cooking competition works, and showing how to use the notice board and demonstrating the goal of opening the tunnel. You get a fairly well rounded understanding of most the mechanics you’ll be using, while also getting familiar with what you as a player will personally gravitate towards as you farm, forage, and befriend the locals on either side.

It’s not a lot of story, and it’s a very simple one at that- but it’s all this game needs. I remember as a tween, thinking that if there were ever to be a Harvest Moon movie made, that they should base it on this game; as it wasn’t overly complex, but still had fun characters and an easy to follow plot that would leave a lot of room for an adaptation to do what it needed to in order to make it work. I still stand by that, and will happily write the screenplay. Hit me up.

One cute thing that I love about this game, is that you can get closer with everyone, not just the bachelors and bachelorettes. In some instances, its required, which is a good incentive to give gifts and catch up with everyone when you can. Some date-ables need you to have high friendship points with not just themselves, but friends and/or family members that are important to them, otherwise you’ll be unable to marry them. That’s not the only reason to befriend people, however, as I learnt through this replay that you can unlock special requests once you’re close with certain people. This was an awesome revelation, as it varied the request board in a much needed way- when I was a kid playing, I’d only get super close with the bachelor I wanted and his required people so I could marry him. I didn’t ignore everyone, but I didn’t put much effort into raising their points either. I did this time though, which was great.

The request board is pretty simple, when you check it, there will usually be simple fetch quests from the villagers asking for something or to deliver something to someone else. This ranges from various crops, to foragables and other rarer items you need to collect or create. At the start of each month, there will also be special quests that are much higher in their difficulty, but also reap much greater rewards. In the early game, they’re usually requests for materials to open the tunnel between the two towns, or to upgrade your tools. Once you get closer with others, you can get special timed requests, which usually entail helping out with someone’s crops or livestock before the end of the day. This is a nice, simple mechanic to incentivise collecting items and growing your farm, and isn’t inherently bad.

What does hurt this, however, is how bloated and drawn out so much of this game feels. The special requests to upgrade your farm that I mentioned? ONLY at the start of the month. And, when you’re a year or two in, you can complete these big quests by day three or four usually- definitely before the first week is over. It kinda sucks to be forced to wait around all month just for an upgrading blitz as soon as the season turns over. I just wanted to unlock the mines, but according to the online guides, you need to have your house and property FULLY upgraded... I thought I was. I have the biggest house, both the chicken and livestock paddocks are fully expanded, I got a little more fields and a maker shed to process animal products into things like yarn and cheese and shit... BUT I HAVE TO DO THE BEEHIVES INDIVIDUALLY AT THE START OF EACH MONTH. THERE'S 6 OF THEM. I'M AT YEAR 4 OR 5 I'VE BEEN PLAYING FOR SO LONG... THERE'S NOT EVEN ANY NOTES OR INDICATION IN GAME THAT THERE WILL BE A MINE I JUST HAVE TO MAX OUT MY FARM AND FIND OUT. NOT TO MENTION THAT THERE'S UPGRADES FOR BOTH FARMS TO DO, SO IT TAKES FOR FUCKING EVER… It’s really shit to have the main way to feel progression being spaced too far apart to even mean anything. A simple change, like making the big upgrades available twice a season instead of once would help IMMENSELY. Even to expand upon the request system, and be able to make requests yourself to various villagers once you’re closer to them in order to upgrade your farm. That way, there’s still that focus on the community, and incentivises you to get close to people on both sides, as there will be materials that only one town has. I’m just spit-balling, but the progression needs to be more frequent!

This elongated feeling isn’t just limited to the requests and upgrades. It’s unfortunately present across the whole game. Which is such a shame, as it’s the reason why I never played past the second or third year as a kid. Befriending villagers and getting closer to them takes ages. Progress takes ages. And the food competition takes aaaages. There’s no auto play for it, and there is no reason to drag out an ‘ooohh who’s gonna win!?’ back and forth every. Damn. Competition. You compete 4 times a month, it gets old by like, the third one lol. There’s also a lot about this game that is just vague for no real reason- my biggest gripe being that you can upgrade your livestock’s production output by feeding it treats. In game, you just have someone say that feeding your livestock their favourite treats will increase productivity. The reality? There is a set number of treats for each type of animal, and you have to feed it that set amount for every level up you want to do, for a max of 5 items from that animal. So, where I though it was something like ‘feed the animals various treats to see which is their favourite,’ or ‘feed the cow 10 grain treats,’ - it’s actually ridiculous numbers like the cow needing 7 treats, 15 grain treats, 8 vegetable treats and 1 nutra treat PER LEVEL. PER COW. AND YOU CAN ONLY FEED AN ANIMAL ONE TREAT PER DAY. And there’s no way to keep track of it in game, you have to keep track of it yourself, which, in my opinion, is fucking horrific. I don’t mind the concept of having to feed your livestock various treats to level it up, but at least give some way to know how many to feed it! Have one of the villagers who likes animals tell you this as a reward for getting close to them, and maybe they can tell you how many of each treat you have to go. Or, have it be something you can get the stats of when you examine your livestock with a stethoscope! OR JUST HAVE IT IN THE LIVESTOCK BOOK IN EACH SHED. There’s so many ways that this could be a perfectly fine mechanic, but with it being that bloated and time consuming, it’s just ass!

And while I’m getting into the nitty-gritty of nitpicking- when you do timed requests for other villagers, like picking crops or milking cows, the items automatically go into their storage through an auto animation of the player putting their crops into their pocket. I wish that was an option for me on my farm, as it got annoying having to manually place every individual thing into my pockets when collecting crops and such. It’s things like this that make me want to get back into Stardew Valley again, as simple things like the auto grabber in the livestock sheds was a GODSEND that helped minimise the mind numbing grind, so that I can focus on enjoying the much better grinds that are more enjoyable.

One thing that this game has, that I really enjoyed when I was playing as a kid, is that the date-ables not only have heart events for when you’ve levelled up in your relationship, but also, YOU CAN TAKE PEOPLE ON DATES! If you catch your particular person when they’ve got some free time, they’ll ask if you want to go somewhere with them, and you can choose the location. Picking the right locations will reward you with a little date that goes well, and an increased amount of heart points – and if you pick a place that person doesn’t like, they’ll cut the date short due to feeling uncomfortable. This is really cute and fun, and though I wish you got more than a small handful of rotating sentences to see from your date- it is a nice way to be sure that you ARE close with that person, and can enjoy some time together. What I do wish, is that this was expanded a bit more, and even being able to go on friend dates with people you can’t date. I’d love to go for a walk in the mountains with the cool carpenter lady, or have tea with the grandma who runs the tea house – they’re my friends too, and it would be nice to have them do more than act as essentially set dressing and people to put up requests for you. Due to how simple these dates are, after a few of them, they don’t really feel like dates. The charm wears off when you notice that you’re just watching the two of you stand next to each other, while your date proclaims a random fact that’s not necessarily revealing anything of note towards your relationship with them, or their character. Having these be a bit more interactable would help solve this, as it’d be fun to answer questions the date has for you, or to do something together as a little minigame might be fun. Even something as simple as finding out info from other villagers as you get closer with everyone, and asking your date about the things you hear would be really nice! And, if you’re not dating, and able to go on friend dates, this would be a cool way to get closer with other villagers and learn a bit more about them and the history of the two towns.

One funny thing I noticed with these, however, is that ALL available bachelors or bachelorettes will ask to go on dates if you’re close enough- regardless of who you’re dating or even if you’re married. There is a jealousy system in place, where you’ll get the cold shoulder if you rack up too many jealousy points, and you have the choice to apologise or make it worse when they confront you with it. It’s a bit weird that people would still ask me on dates and get jealous after I was married. Like… Dude, you were at my wedding. There’s the occasional dialogue from other villagers that comments on married life, so it’s definitely not a secret. you KNOW I’m married, but still get pissy when I go on a date with my husband? It’s so silly, and that’s another point where I feel like a friend date system (that’s implemented with care) could resolve that strange point.

Of all the mechanics in this game, one that I simultaneously love and loathe is the filth on big livestock. First of all, I love that it’s such a clear indicator of when my animal is getting dirty, and if I leave it for too long they start to get filth clouds and flies following them. On the other, goddamn they get dirty so quickly. I don’t want to keep washing them every day, its a massive time sink and can be quite frustrating- especially when you’ve got a full barn with half a dozen cows, some sheep and alpacas. If it wasn’t as frequent, that’d be better, cause I don’t really care for the upkeep if I’m being honest. I just appreciate that it’s one of the only things that is communicated very clearly in the game. And, while we’re on the topic of bothersome things regarding the animals, the frame rate goes to hell when all the livestock are outside. It shouldn’t cause the game to nearly crash just by having all the animals outside, and it’s really annoying trying to milk your cow when you’re going at 1fps with massive slowdown. It’d be helped if the dogs and cats you train to herd them don’t cling to you and follow you wherever you go. I don’t really care if it’s cute or how pets act in real life (cause I know, my cats routinely come bother me for head scratches and cuddles while I’m writing these), but it’s really frustrating when you’re trying to pet your livestock and keep picking up 3 dogs in the process. Oh, oh, and one more thing, I grew up with the original DS version of this game, but played the 3DS remake for this; and while there’s not really any changes, the one change is this petting minigame for your livestock. While the livestock is out in the fields, you can sometimes see a little petting symbol above them, and interacting with them while that symbol is playing will launch the minigame. IT SUCKS. Like, yes, you can get extra hearts quickly through this minigame, but it goes on just a little too long, and would routinely crash my game when my black sheep wanted a pet. If the game automatically ended when you reached full hearts, instead of waiting for the timer to run out, that’d improve it- but this is ultimately an unnecessary addition and there’s no way to turn it off. Blehhhhh. You get so much more bang for your buck when farming livestock, but all this faff makes the crop growing seem so much simpler in comparison. I love that you can dig a trench for your crops, which allows you to place fertiliser at one end and it will fertilise the whole row, same with watering! There’s still a massive slowdown if you try to water a particularly large trench, but it goes back to normal when the animation is finished, unlike the animals, who still exist on the screen regardless.

Onto something I genuinely love about this game – the graphics. The style of the game is very cute, with a lot of the pre-rendered backgrounds having a painterly quality to them. The sprite art on the characters is also nice, even if it’s a bit of a generic anime style. I enjoyed seeing how the landscapes changed in each season, and seeing the little decorations put up during festivals is a fun touch. Pair this with the pleasant soundtrack, and it is such a nice, calming atmosphere to lose yourself in as you forage and farm.

Looking at this game more in-depth, it seems there’s a lot about it that becomes frustrating. However, I truly love this game. Within these weird flaws is a really cute game that I enjoy immensely, I just wish it was a little better so I could get more out of it. I deliberately pushed further than I ever played as a kid; I got so far that my animals started dying of old age LMAO. I would recommend playing with the fogu guide, as that was a lifesaver and clearly spelled out some of the vague things the game doesn’t elaborate upon. If you’re someone who likes farm sims, and hasn’t played this, I think that if you take into consideration how bloated it gets, you’ll probably enjoy this one! For at least the first two to three years. Lol.

Bluebell Town

Konohoana Town

Winter Theme

~~~

Story of Seasons, 3DS

Oh boy. I got addicted.

I really should stay away from farm sims, huh?

This game is the spiritual successor to the Harvest Moon series- or, more accurately, what Harvest Moon rebranded to after the split from Natsume. Look into it if you’re interested, I don’t particularly feel like rehashing the history for this write up… These take long enough to write as it is, and I’m just sharing my opinions!

Anyway, this is such a fun and pleasant game!

I’ve been struggling with general life and health issues this year, and I can say that playing this was a great distraction for a few months. It was genuinely refreshing to play a farm sim that was new to me while still feeling like I knew what in store for me. What I found funny about this, was that the sound design is the same as Tale of Two Towns. That was very strange to hear after just giving up on ToTT for being too much of a slog – at least the sound design is pretty good lmao.

The intro to this game is straight to the point, which I appreciated. You’ve been chosen to move to this small farming town and start working on your own lot to help boost the local economy. For your first week, you stay with your neighbour- an elderly woman who knows everything there is to know about farming -and she teaches you the basics. It’s a great safety net to slowly get introduced to the mechanics you’ll need to know, and allow you the time to get acquainted with everyone in town.

The big change for this game is that you will exclusively be selling your goods in the market, which will grow to have a rotating list of vendors to buy and sell from. This is an interesting idea, and is certainly one way to get a basic understanding of a supply and demand economy; but I’m not sure how I feel about it. Because of the focus placed on this market, there’s no shipping bin for you to just sell items at a base price. A few years into the game, you can unlock a personal stall at the market, which I suppose is the replacement for the shipping bin; but you don’t get that until you’ve been well and truly playing for a while. In the beginning, it’s a little rough when you only have one or two vendors- if you miss them and then hit a dry spell, you’ll just have to deal with a bulging inventory until you can sell everything! It gets better once you unlock more vendors, and I assumed as such when playing, but it doesn’t stop it from feeling a bit off-putting initially. Once you start unlocking more vendors, though, it becomes surprisingly in-depth. There’s a strategy to the market, especially when a particular vendor is paying extra for select items or when completing requests. If you sell an abundance of one type of thing, the price for it will drop- which I thought was an interesting application of supply and demand. I’m unsure how easily understandable this all is to a younger audience, as despite my math and business skills being subpar, I am still an adult with a lived understanding of the concepts at play here, and not the intended younger demographic.

I can say that once you get a grasp on all the mechanics at play, this game was a blast! I think my hyperfixation on this game lasted until about halfway through winter of the first year – which is pretty good mileage! The addiction lasted much longer than that, as I genuinely enjoyed playing this game over a couple of real life months. In the first two years, I didn’t really feel bored or at a loss for things to do. There’s a decent pace to the events held within each season- and with limited stamina and particular days to meet with vendors and actually earn money, there’s loads to cram into each day! Will I spend the day working on my farm, will I head to town to talk with my friends, forage for much needed materials and supplies, go bug catching or fishing, even swim in the river to dive for fish or rarer items like gemstones? There’s a lot to do, and it often reminded me of Animal Crossing. The diving when you swim in the river functions the same way, and with the ability to decorate and rearrange furniture in your house and certain areas of town; I couldn’t help but feel it was an interesting mish-mash of Animal Crossing and Harvest Moon.

To help demonstrate progress, there are tourist NPCs that wander the village square and comment on the town and it’s reputation. Once you start to attract more vendors and build on it’s popularity, there will be more of these tourists wandering around, which makes the town noticeably more lively. In the beginning when the town is pretty sparse, they just complain about it being a small country town- but with just one or two more stalls, you not only see a handful more tourists wandering about, but a shift to a more optimistic mindset towards the town too. Dialogue for local villagers will change depending on the reputation of town also, commenting on the popularity of the place and the kinds of wares available in new vendor’s stalls. This is a subtle thing, but I really appreciated it, as it did make it feel like there was a tangible difference happening to the town as I put effort into it. Villagers will comment if you haven’t said hello in a while, and sometimes I came across little events with certain characters, which adds to that local community feeling. I also found it quite amusing that the villagers will tell you in varying ways to leave them alone if you try to talk to them while they are eating. I was also surprised that once the town became more popular, more villager NPCs moved to town- ones you could date! AND, TWO OF THEM HAPPENED TO BE FROM TOTT!? You have no idea how surprising it was to see my husband Cam rock up to town, but his name was Kamil now. And Reina moved to town as well, though her name is… Licorice. I’m so sorry they did you dirty like that Reina... That is a fucking dogs name, not a name for a cute girl...

The visuals of the game are pretty nice, too. I think the watercolour inspired look to the character portraits is nice, though I think the in game 3D models creep me out a bit… There are plenty of QOL additions to this game that I really appreciated; my favourite being the crop fields having a little text bubble pop up labelling what crop it is, and crops automatically went into my pockets when I harvested them!! However, I’m not keen on the UI of the inventory, if I’m being honest. I understand that a scrolling list menu is pretty utilitarian, and keeps the UI clean and simple, but I think I’d prefer to have a more visual inventory so that it’s super clear what I am selecting. There are pictures and more details on the top screen when you select something from the list menu on the bottom screen, but ehhh… It didn’t hit for me, and I often felt a little lost when scrolling through the monotonous design. Nitpicky, I know, but I feel this is a slight downgrade.

There were other little things that became apparent the more I played, and unfortunately culminated into a mindless and sometimes frustrating grind. In the animal sheds, there is a feed dispenser and a treat dispenser, but they are so close together that often when I was trying to grab a treat, I’d end up with a handful of feed, and vice versa. Treats also had to be pulled out one by one, which is just silly when you have a lot of animals to give treats to. My solution to that was to just keep treats in my pocket at all times and map them to a quick select menu; but I would’ve preferred the treats be held somewhere else in the shed so that they’re not accidentally picked instead of feed, and that the treats automatically pulled out the amount corresponding to the number of animals in the shed (ie, if you have 6 cows, you go to the treat dispenser and it will pull 6 out for you in one go- instead of you having to pull out six individual treats).

When feeding animals outside, small animals like chickens and rabbits need to have food placed on a crafted feeder plate, but big animals like cows, sheep, llamas, alpacas and camels can eat directly from grass you’ve planted within their paddocks. This is great in theory, as you can fence off a paddock of your own choosing, and place grass and feeders within so that the animals can eat outside. What sucks about this is that I found the big animals would all crowd around one tile of grass, despite me growing 2-4 for them at any given time. Animals would get stuck on each other, and when I’ve got 16 big animals in the paddock all trying to eat from one tile of grass (which I believe is only 9 servings) it’s just a huge mess. Especially when I’m trying to go around and milk all my cows or shear the sheep and such. In the early days of the game, you’ll need to manually put each animal outside, and bring them inside at night, otherwise you risk stressing out the animal, making them sick, or skipping their produce the next day. When you’ve got a lot of animals, this takes up a lot of time, so its handy to buy dogs when they become available and let them herd the animals! This was present in ToTT, which I loved, but I often found that my dogs would glitch and get stuck in a default pose, or sometimes they’d seem fine and just never herd the animals back inside for bedtime. I had no problems when I only had a few animals in the sheds to herd, but when each shed can hold up to 8 animals, and you can have two small and two big animal sheds on each screen for a total of 32 in each half of your farm (not counting the dogs and cats!) there’s a lot of animals to take care of, and that’s when I noticed the most glitching out. Training the dogs isn’t so bad though, as you can use your whistle to train them for the actual herding, and playing with them by throwing a bone will increase friendship points with them quicker, which will allow them to herd more animals. What sucks a bit about this, is that you cannot play with the pets inside their kennel. Their huge kennels that are perfect for playing fetch. Especially on a rainy day when you have the extra time to play with them cause you’re not watering crops. C’mon. I want to play with the dogs. Another thing that was a bit upsetting was that the cats are next to useless here. You can’t train them to do anything, they’ll just laze around your farm (which is fair enough), but unlike in ToTT, they don’t herd small animals. No, they just randomly collect items here and there. Maybe they’ll give you a stick. Or some stones. If you build up your relationship with them, they may get gems and other valuables, but I found this to be quite basic and unnecessary when getting more dogs to help herd my animals was more immediately useful.

I wish the livestock animals had the same visibly dirty system that ToTT had, it’s one of the only things that was a genuine downgrade compared to that game for me. The animals don’t look dirty, the only visual indicators you get are for when shearable animals are ready to be shorn, as you can see the fluff. If the animal is filthy, you just get a little cranky symbol from them every now and then, or you’ll find out that they’re stinky when you pet them. This isn’t great, as you can miss that when you’ve got a lot of animals to keep track of, but letting them be too dirty for too long will increase their stress and risk them running away or getting sick. When you’ve got 30+ animals to take care of, you don’t want to waste your whole day, every day, brushing them all when there’s other important things to get done. Another thing I miss is the trench digging you could do for your crops. In this game, each tile you till will result in 9 of that crop (ie, plant one potato, you’ll reap 9) – which is awesome! I just think it would’ve been nice to have some trenches or sprinklers to assist with watering, as despite the process not being too bad, especially when you’ve upgraded your watering can, I was pretty tired of it by the end of the third year.

The worst part of this game is the bloated requirements to unlock stuff. This issue is still here, and I’d argue that it’s worse than ToTT! Not only are the requirements vague and hidden, they’re also outrageously stupid. To unlock more vendors, you need to ship a certain amount of particular items- which on it’s own makes sense. I appreciated that some of the villagers encouraged this idea too, but they don’t give any indication for how much of each thing you’ll need to ship. Looking at online guides to help, I was outraged with the numbers. I just think that if the NPCs are already hinting at it to me, there could also be a note book or quest log tab where the player has something like "maybe shipping X amount of Y will work?" so that it's clearer. If I, as an adult, looking up guides to assist, found this confusing and convoluted- I don't think there's much hope for the intended younger audience to see the whole game... Like, saying I should try selling various items is one thing- but trying to figure out with no further clues that what it actually wants is 500 seeds, 10,000 processed goods and 15,000 cooked recipes as just SOME of the criteria for ONE of the two remaining vendors to unlock.... Jesus. I was already very lost at why I unlocked cats but no dogs yet- turns out I needed to fulfill certain requirements, one of which is 30 seperate offerings to the goddess… Just to unlock dogs.

I don't have a problem with the game wanting and encouraging you to use it's systems to unlock more things, it's the fact that it's so vague and bloated I have an issue with. This year’s replay of ToTT was the furthest I’ve ever gotten, and I still ended up giving up before I could unlock everything because it became a slog to get through. Even in this game, where it’s paced much better, it’s still awful! At the beginning, you have the option to play on easy or normal mode, and I chose normal thinking that the differences would be things like managing the animals and crops being made easier, so I didn’t need that. Nope, as I understand it, the only real difference is the number of things to export. And even then, the numbers are still ridiculously high! This is the main gripe I have with this game, its a real dampener on the experience and it makes the time sunk into it with the cost vs reward pitiful. I made it to partway through year 5 or 6 before I gave up, because I was no longer having fun and the grind felt awful. That far into it, I should have unlocked all the basics, like EVERY VENDOR. There will be more cosmetics and recipes and blueprints to buy with new vendors, and when you get close with each vendor, they’ll give you an animal that will either live in the wild areas outside of town, or on the safari once you’ve unlocked it. This is nice! But why do I need to export arbitrarily large amounts of things without any clear indication of how I’m doing!? When a new vendor comes to town, they have a little cutscene introducing themselves with the mayor- why not have them come to town to investigate, or send a letter, or just the mayor suggesting it clearly to you; and say that they’re only interested if certain requirements are fulfilled. That way, it gives a clearer goal, something tangible to refer back to (either have the goal in the same tabs as the requests, or go ask the mayor at town hall) and a much easier time achieving it. There’s potential here, just executed poorly.

I don’t really know how to link this, but there were some other strange things I noticed about this game. The start button does nothing… you have to tap a button on the touch screen to pause the game. I don’t understand why the start button wasn’t good enough, especially when it’s not used for anything else? Also, I don’t know if it’s a quirk of the game, or just my copy, but when planting tress, the softwood and hardwood seeds are swapped. I plant softwood, and I’ll get hardwood, vice versa. Was very weird, so I just planted both to make sure I got some of the tree I wanted, as I’d inevitably forget and confuse myself lmao. There was also never enough fertiliser sold at the shop, and never enough weeds and twigs to find while foraging to turn into fertiliser. I wish it was easier to get a hold of more, as I seemed to have an excess of literally everything else at that point.

But, enough bitching- there’s an auto text mode during festivals and you can skip certain cutscenes! YIPPEE!! A lot of the gripes that I had with ToTT feel like they’ve been directly addressed and renovated in a nice way for this game. There are more things to do throughout the month- there are festivals and competitions regularly enough that it gives you a chance to work on your animals, crops, and fashion sense. The characters feel generally nice to get to know, and cutscenes aren’t just limited to the date-ables you’re romancing- there are farm rivals that will trigger cutscenes as well, and I played a little with one of the kids and she had a little social special event too. The town really felt so much like a small community when you know that getting closer with people can trigger cutscenes and events that show you more about them or your relationships with each other!

The maker sheds are not only easier to unlock, but more varied- there’s plenty of things you can do to the items you grow and gather, like creating more things for your farm, decorations for your house and the town, or even cool outfits and accessories. Did you know that if you equip certain combinations of accessories, you’ll get stat boosts? I didn’t until I read through the guides, and I equiped a combination that regenerated stamina periodically – it was SUPER helpful! Decorating your house, farm and town is fun too. I put it off for a bit because I was focused on the grind to try unlock all the vendors, but when that was seeming pointless, I built a bunch of cool furniture and made some lovely little settings with cute plants and nice decorations. Tourists will sometimes stand close to the decorations and comment on them too, which was a pleasant surprise. And, earlier I mentioned the safari- you can travel to it to forage for rarer items, or whack the mining point to get gems and minerals for upgrading tools and crafting cool furniture and accessories. I really meant it when I said that it didn’t feel like I was running out of things to do!

The music is generally nice too! I really loved that each season has both a day and night theme, I appreciated that after playing so many farming games that just have nighttime ambience when it gets dark. The summer theme for this game is also my favourite, its so pretty and I’d play it on my phone over other themes I didn’t like as much lmao. I was sad to hear the autumn theme was a bit strange and I didn’t like it as much, cause usually the autumn themes are some of my favourites from farming games- and although the winter theme was better, it got repetitive in a negative way real fast. Thats not so bad though, considering there are so many cute songs in this game (I think it’s gotta be double what ToTT had soundtrack wise!) I know for certain that when I hear the spring and summer themes from this game, I’ll have that fun nostalgic feeling when I listen. There is also a music festival held once a year, and in it they’ll play little medleys of songs from older Harvest Moon games – which was such a cute easter egg for older players!

In closing, I’m not sure what else to say, really. I love farming games, and this was a nice reminder as to why. I’m very glad to have played it, and although I still have a lot of gripes with it, I had a lot of fun. Which, that’s the point of a farming game, right?

Summer Theme

Flower Event 1

Competitive Festival

~~~

Nintendogs, DS

I wasn’t originally going to write this the following entry, as these were short playthroughs compared to what I normally self impose for these lists. But, well, here we are. This and the next entry are kind of a call and response to each other too, btw, as I played them both at the same time to compare for the sake of my own curiosity.

Nintendogs was the very first game that I had for my little ice blue DS lite back in the day. I had just turned nine, and this was the very first console that was mine. I had a childlike obsessions with dogs, and this was before I found out how cool cats were! I would ask all the time if my parents could get a big dalmatian with a red leather collar so I could name him spotty. It was a dream I’d held onto since I was two, and my parents were definitely sick of me asking, so it was VERY exciting that I got a dog game, and not only that, but the dalmatian version!

Initially, I just started playing this as a half hearted nostalgia trip- it’s hard when you’re inbetween fixations and NOTHING is fulfilling any entertainment or stimulation needs. It was cute to revisit this game, and I got pretty far, considering I fudged stuff a bit to make it a little more interesting. After all, I’m not 9 with endless time after school and homework was finished!

There’s plenty of things to do with your virtual dogs, you can feed and bathe them, dress them up and play, take them on walks or train them to win competitions! The only ways to make money in this game are to win competitions, or sell items. Good thing you can both find items and train your dogs for 2/3 of the competitions while out walking! While on a walk, if you head to an empty park and have a frisbee, you can practice throwing with your dog until they get better at catching and returning to you. You can also head to the gym where you can train your dog to go through various agility equipment, unlocking more as you progress through the agility trials. Both of these are free to visit, only relying on your dog having enough stamina to make it to these locations and back home again- and like the training at these locations, your dogs stamina will build over time the more you spend time with them.

The other competition is the obedience trials, which is best practiced at home. Training your dog to do tricks utilises the built in microphone, requiring you to direct your dog to the trick you want it to do and then calling out the command. I quite liked these when I was a kid, and while I didn’t get as far this time around, I really appreciate that this game will teach you how to train your dog for everything required to win the trails, but also lets you create new and unique tricks for your dogs. I so vividly remember sneaking onto the computer (I wasn’t allowed to use it without permission, and especially not to use the internet unattended lol) and looking up forums on how to teach my dog particular tricks. If you manage to find and buy a keyboard, you can teach your dog to bark short melodies on command, or even teach it to stand or do flips if you and your dog are particularly close! Some tricks are much harder to teach, obviously, but I enjoy that the game literally gives you an easy guide on how to take care of and train your dog in all aspects, while also giving you the freedom to play around and see what else you can get up to while you play.

As the competitions are so integral to the game, you’ll quickly meet the commentators Ted Rumsworth and Archie Hubbs, who were gay married in my head before I knew what gay marriage really meant. While the commentators can drag on, they’re actually pretty funny and certainly have a charisma about them, working perfectly as a silly jokester who feels more down to earth, and a more straight laced professional who takes those jokes seriously. You can even run into Archie on walks, with his friendly Shiba Inu. He often has nice or silly things to say to you, and sometimes other neighbours will gossip about him, talking about that time he apparently ate a dog biscuit.

There’s also a plethora of items and accessories to find while you play, including but not limited to weird and interesting toys, a Mario Kart RC toy collection, musical records, lost shoes to chew on and funny hats. The musical records were particularly fun for me, and though I didn’t play enough this time around to collect them all, I have great memories with these. You start off with just one white record, and this is one that you can record your own sounds on and replay, with half and double speeds available. I remember mucking around with it as a kid and finding out you can layer recordings on top of each other, and if you record at half speed, it’ll sound like a chipmunk when played at normal speed- so of course I had to make an elaborate record about an alien landing on Earth and telling everyone to go away. Some records, like the nap time and marching band one will have effects on your dogs, such as getting them all sleepy or marching around the room together. There are also four ‘secret’ records you can find that are produced by our very own Archie Hubbs, and these would incorporate snippets of your own record as a kind of remix. You would not believe how funny it was when I showed my sister my version of Giant Socks ft. Fart Noises, you just had to be there…

The visuals are about as sharp and crunchy as you’d expect from a DS game, but I love them. This low poly look with pixelated edges is quite charming to me, and although it’s not the most spectacular graphics ever made, there is a lot of care and detail put into the dog models and all the items and environments you come across. When you save up enough to buy new looks for your house, there are so many gorgeous interiors to choose from once you unlock them all! The soundtrack is similarly iconic, I pretty sure everyone likes the bath time track! There’s also plenty of Mario references throughout the toys and accessories, so it can be quite fun to see what you can collect when you get closer with your dogs.

Unfortunately, as I played on my own for a few weeks, I couldn’t partake in street pass, but you’ll just have to trust me when I say it was pretty good back in the day. You can choose a pup, maybe choose something from your inventory to give as a gift, and close your DS as you went out. I’d often exchange gifts with my sister as we compared trainer level scores, and it was fun meeting with other kids at church on the weekend and showing off all the cool tricks and items we had.

The only real downside to this game is that it takes place in real time, but I don’t find that too detrimental. This is definitely a game meant to be played in short bursts, and as a pet sim, if you’re not all that interested in just hanging out with your dogs after you’ve maxed out the amount of competitions and tricks to teach in a day, I don’t think you’ll get much more out of it. What you see is pretty much what you get, there aren’t really any hidden mechanics that’ll drastically shake up the game, you just buy dogs and hang out with them.

I highly recommend this if you’re looking for a quintessential DS game to play, or just like dogs. It’s cute, has it’s own charm, and is quite frankly iconic. And it has middle-aged man yaoi

Bath Time

Walking the Dog

Friendly Whiff Record

~~~

Nintendogs + Cats, 3DS

I never owned this game growing up, but my sister did. She never played it, so sometimes I’d borrow it and try to play, forgetting each time why I’d put it down previously. This game is a pitiful attempt at recapturing the magic of the first Nintendogs, adding features that no one asked for, and changing or even removing the elements that made the first game work so well.

Lets start with the biggest and worst change, in my opinion. You can’t physically pet your pets. Now, I know what you’re thinking, it’s a pet sim, surely you can pet it? And while, yes, technically, you can, all physical interactions with your pet are via a silhouetted shadow of your pet on the touch screen, while your actual pet is on the top screen. WHY!?

Well, I know why. They wanted to utilise the oh so epic 3D visuals and to do that, they have to keep the pets on the top screen. BOOOOOOOOOO

This design philosophy that prioritises the tech over the actual gameplay is the poison that killed this game, in my opinion. I do not even play with the 3DS slider on because it strains my eyes real quick lol, yet everything important is placed on the top screen to utilise this feature. The bottom screen is delegated to being a permanent menu screen or just a silhouette of your pet. By segregating this tactile element, it’s not only making it difficult to interact intuitively with your pets, but it just plain ol’ feels crap. In real life, when I want to pet my cats, I read out and pet them. In the first Nintendogs, when I want to pet my dogs, it’s really easy to figure out that petting them with your stylus while they’re on the touch screen is how you do it. I just don’t think there’s any reason in defence of making this a hand-eye coordination thing with the silhouette dogs, like. It’s yucky.

Because of these changes, the trails have changed a lot too. The agility trial is now a lure course, where you turn a crank wheel and lead your dog down a race track with lure lines. This is… painfully simple; despite there being elevations to the trails as you progress- like cross-crossing lines and hurdles to jump -it lacks any sort of direction or skill between you and your dog. You just… turn a crank, and honk the horn if you need to recapture your dog’s attention. Turn it just fast enough that they run at their fastest, but not so fast that your dog will lose interest and not so slow enough that your dog will pounce and play with the lure. It’s not complex or even interesting, if I’m being honest, and you just make sure to take your dog to the gym a few times and buy good lures that can go fast and it’s almost a guaranteed win. The disc trials, by comparison, are much more complex. In the previous Nintendogs, the only thing that really changed was the minimum required points needed to qualify for rankings. Here, the further you get, the more things get introduced. There will be sand patches that slow down your dog, and highlighted point zones that give an additional boost to your score. In theory, I get how this is upping the stakes and making it more challenging to win, but it all feels like a moot point as the disc feels so floaty and garbage to throw. It needs a certain weight and spin to it so that you can guess how hard and far to throw for certain points, but nothing I did seemed to work. Why did they change the physics here? The disc was perfectly fine previously, and these new challenges might even be interesting if you could actually direct and throw the disc. The other big gripe with these competitions is that your competitors are on the same screen as you. Previously, you competed by yourself, meaning that if you fucked up, it was on you and your dog, no one else. Now? Other dogs can get in the way on the agility course or disc range. I get that it feels more like a competition, but aren’t we here for the skill demonstration? The most egregious is the obedience trial, as you can’t even compete if you don’t have the AR Cards that came with the 3DS. Like… HELLO!? It’s lucky that it worked by just opening a PDF scan of them on my phone, but a core part of the game like this shouldn’t be tied to something external like that, just for a gimmick. They don’t actually do anything to enhance the competition, they aren’t a core mechanic in how you train your dog, it’s just an awkward thing you have to sit in front of your 3DS while you play! They don’t even do much when you play with your pets at home, the only thing you can do with them is scan them in and then your pet will wear an accessory based on whatever card you scan… but only while you’re in the scanning mode. IF you are going to implement something like this, I think it’s only fair if you get a rare collectable in game thats a fun reward for scanning it in, something more tangible for the effort, yknow? Not this dumb gimmicky shit that’s forced in cause they have to. (I don’t even think there should be stuff like what I just suggested if I’m being honest, the LoZ:SSHD Zelda amiibo is the perfect example of.. wtf why?)

Also, the prize money is not that much, especially for coming first in the championship. I have a feeling that this is due to the fact that you can enter each competition three times a day, per dog, for a total of nine potential competitions - unlike the previous which was three entries total per dog, regardless of competition. While Ted is back to narrate the competitions, it’s clear that they got the feedback of there being too much text to get through, so he’s barely a presence at the start and end, doing nothing more than the formalities of it. I definitely get that it could get tiresome to tap through all the text, but the text was flavourful at least, and if they had more banter between Ted and Archie here, it could’ve helped. Even just having something like… press and hold A to skip. That would literally fix it. And… ARCHIE ISN’T HERE. ITS JUST TED ALONE ITS SO SAD. AND I DON’T LIKE THAT EVERYONE IS MIIS NOW, IT WAS FUN THAT THE ONLY FACES YOU SEE IN THE FIRST NINTENDOGS WERE THE PIXELATED FACES OF TED AND ARCHIE, AND NOW ITS JUST MIIS EVERYWHERE. YOU DIDN’T NEED TO SEE THE PHYSICAL NPC PERSON AS YOU WALKED THE DOG IN THE FIRST GAME, IT KINDA IMPLIED THAT THEY ARE ALSO PLAYING ON THEIR DS JUST LIKE YOU CAUSE YOU DON’T HAVE AN IN-GAME MODEL EITHER. WHAT THE FUCKKKKKKKKK.

MIIS ARE COOL AND ALL, BUT THIS FELT LIKE IT WAS TRYING WAY TOO HARD! The Wii/3DS era is rightfully iconic, but this just missed the mark. I dunno how else to describe it, but there isn’t that much charm in walking through town and coming across miis- it was fine the way it was in the first nintendogs! The music as well… it just feels like it’s trying too hard to have baked in nostalgia by using the classic wii/mii sounds we all like without bringing anything to the table. Archie technically appears as one of the cashiers of a store you can enter on walks, but I didn’t recognise him cause he’s a mii and he got a bit whitewashed :/

The walks as well… UGH. There was something very nice and deliberate about planning out the walk beforehand and then going out. You can pick where you wanna go, if you wanna try to get the ? Icons that will either be a present or a neighbourhood dog, it was nice. I also liked that it was 2D sidescroller style walking in that game, here it is point of view behind the dog as it runs forward for the EPIQUE 3D GRAFICKS. You don’t get to plan the route, and I disliked how certain spaces were only in certain areas. The more you walk your dog, the more you’ll unlock places like the town streets, mountain streets, beach streets, ect. In town, there is a gym, in the mountain and beach there are public parks, but to get to them you have to catch a sign asking if you wanna go to that section while you’re on the walk. It’s more spontaneous, and I found myself frustrated. If I wanted to go to the gym, I had to make sure I went straight to town and after that, it’s straight home. If I want to go to the park, I have to make sure to get through at least two areas every time and not accidentally run past the park sign- and even then, you don’t know until you get there if there’s going to be another dog there who will muck up your training session. I don’t care, and its annoying for no reason, what was wrong with picking your path beforehand? If they insist on having these segregated areas, why not at least let me pick where I want to start? The only thing that is kinda ok, I guess, is that when you talk to neighbours and your dogs get along, they might invite you to come to the cafe or park with them to let the dogs play for longer. That’s cute, but most the time I don’t wanna do that cause the gym is right behind you and I won’t be able to access it if I go out with you now. UGH. At least there are little cones lines up that if you manage to get your dog to zig zag through them without touching any, you’ll get a gift- but the gifts are always recyclable materials to craft items later and it feels like salt in the wound for getting rid of the agility trails while reminding us that the dogs don’t control very well so its annoying doing the cones anyway!

The interiors you can buy are weird too- theres some nice looking ones to unlock but they all cost a certain amount. That on it’s own is fine, but theres the basic one you start off with that’s free, and then every time you change to one you have to pay. So if I bought the Japanese style interior for $1,000, then bought a different one but wanted to go back to the Japanese one, I’d have to pay $1,000 again. The build is instant, but like? Bruh? This is a bruh moment because in Nintendogs, once you bought a design, it was free to change back to it at any time- it just took a day or two irl to install. WHY WAS THIS CHANGED?

Even something as iconic as bath time isn’t that fun here. I dunno. This game just sucks. If washing the dog isn’t fun, what’s the point. There’s so many stupid changes that just says to me that they didn’t understand why the first one worked, and forced too many new gimmicks without testing to make sure that they were integrated well. Oh and the cats? Literally useless. You can’t take them on walks, and you can’t enter them in competitions. But Rads, I hear you say, real life cats are like that too! And to that I say: THERE ARE ALSO CAT COMPETITIONS IN REAL LIFE! The lure coursing feels much more like a cat thing than a dog one to me, and cats could be trained to go through obstacle courses or do a little dance like obedience trials. The competitions are an integral way to interact with your pet, they help to set goals for how you want to train them and measure your progress, and it is rewarding to win something with them after you put all the effort in. If you have a cat here, I want to play with it, not just throw a toy at it and have it look at me. I have cats in real life that will just stare at me blankly when I try to play and throw toys at them, cmon.

I can’t even be bothered to talk about the other stuff in depth, you get the idea.

This shit sucks.

Lets Go For A Walk [Daytime]

BARC

Cafe Petrov

~~~

Katana Zero, PC

Katana Zero is a relatively unique game; it’s a 2D sidescroller, but not quite a platformer- it has stealth elements, but is more focused on the mowing down of enemies to be a true stealth game. Either way, what you’ve got here is fun, especially once you start to understand the game and how it works.

One massive thing I appreciate is how the narrative elements are so entangled with the gameplay elements. The story revolves around Zero, a bathrobe-wearing, katana-weilding, samurai-film-loving swordsman who is tasked with killing certain individuals, leaving no survivors behind. To assist with these missions, he’s given a dose of chronos- a drug that alters the user’s perception of time, allowing them to slow down and rewind time through precognition. The more missions you go on, the more you slowly find out about the drug and circumstances surrounding it, along with revealing more hints towards Zero and his past.

As he is an amnesica, the only things we know about him is that he fought in the war, as evidenced by his service medal- and that he is a highly skilled, if socially withdrawn, killer. In between missions, he must attend therapy sessions, where he will be briefed on his next target and given a new dose of chronos. There are also little sequences where he befriends a young neighbour girl, and various other one-off sections with colourful characters around town. These all function like interactive cutscenes, meaning that there isn’t much time spent idly holding the controller and waiting for things to happen. You will be playing and making choices, even in quieter moments.

A real stand out factor of what makes this short game so memorable is the delivery. Not only in the gameplay and other details, which I will get to in a moment, but in the text itself! The text boxes have a timed delivery- with colours, animations and some sound effects for emphasis. This is AWESOME and really helps to demonstrate the tone of each conversation, accentuating the flavourful writing. Each character feels distinct in their presentation due to the way their text is literally presented, and when prompted, you get timed responses to choose from when in conversation. You’re given options for how you want to interact with others, from serious to humorous- even given the chance to interrupt people and really piss them off. The writing itself is quite enjoyable, as it knows when to be serious, and when to not take itself so seriously. In certain sections, you can even watch the conversations of certain enemies before they’re aware of your presence, which are quite entertaining to snoop on.

Into the gameplay itself, there is certainly a rhythm to it that takes a moment to fully understand- but once you do, it’s really satisfying. The big gimmick that ties into the narrative is the slo-mo - of which you have a limited amount of time to work in slow motion, which can be incredibly helpful when bum-rushing particularly tricky groups of enemies. The main skills you can utilise are a quick roll, which is practical and fun; melee items, which can be found and thrown across the levels; and your katana, which is a one hit kill for enemies, and can also help with extending jumps and dashes across the levels while you slash away. There’s also a crouch you can use to sneak around levels, but I did not use this often enough to really comment on. For the things I did use, however, I am quite pleased with the deceptive depth built into them. Melee objects seem simple, just pick up and throw; but depending on which item you’ve picked up, you can obscure yourself in a cloud of smoke, throw molotov cocktails or grenades at enemies- or at oil barrels, which was a personal favourite of mine -or simply rely on the tried and true reliability of throwing knives or other blunt impact objects to kill enemies or otherwise interact with the level. Sometimes, you’ll even come across melee that’s more special, like a flame thrower or remote detonation mine that can be used with more tactic.

The main method of killing will be via your katana, it is the name of the game, after all. Most enemies are one-hit kills, only requiring you be in range and slash at the right time to take them down. Some enemies will parry attacks with shields or melee weapons of their own, requiring two or more hits OR for a tactical roll to slash from behind. You can also parry the bullets shot at you if you time it right, flinging them back in the shooter’s direction for a nasty surprise. It’s simple, yet there are options for how you want to approach your enemies- meaning that you can’t blitz through with button mashing alone. You’ll want to pay attention while you learn through trial and error- as once you gain a bit of confidence in your understanding, you may want to experiment with baiting groups of enemies to your advantage- I sure liked playing with this! If an enemy shoots their gun upon seeing you, it’ll alert all the enemies in the immediately surrounding areas to flock to where they heard the gunshot. This can be a pain in the ass if you’re caught off guard, BUT, if you can adapt, or even plan to have this happen, you can wait for enemies right by the door they’ll appear from and slice them straight away. This is the kind of thing I think will seperate a lot of players’ experiences with this game, as the game gives this incentive to get good while being quick and nimble- so if you’re up to the challenge of bettering yourself through the way you behave and interact with the levels, it’ll definitely change the way you feel about the combat! I can tell you personally, just from playing through roughly 3-4 times, my first play that was largely brute force based vs my most recent where I prioritised efficiency and dexterity felt so different- AND BOTH FUN!

While this may sound a little overwhelming, especially when I tell you that you WILL be dying often, the game isn’t discouraging as it allows a quick respawn at the start of the room you’re in- meaning you can try again almost instantly without ruining the flow of gameplay. One of my biggest critiques of the game is, due to how fast paced everything is, I often found myself losing Zero amongst the flurry of guns and katanas, which mucks me up a lot. The only detriment to it being so fast, especially upon respawning, is this. Sometimes I’d get stuck for a second and keep dying on loop at the beginning of a level because my human brain and eyes were lagging behind and unable to physically process the rush of everything going on. This user error was the only thing stopping the experience from otherwise being seamless, so make of that what you will. I can say that I DID get better the longer I played, but I seemingly reset after putting down the game each time. It’s a great indicator for when I was getting too tired to play properly, as it was incredibly quick at pointing out through the rapid fire of stupid deaths when I’d just lost the knack for the session. One thing to counteract this is that there is a plethora of customisable setting within the menu. I had my friend Nika help me adjust everything so that I could play with minimal strain to my eyes, and it was greatly appreciated! I even joked that the tell of a great game is when the settings menus were as robust as the game itself- I’m not kidding when I say there’s a lot to customise! That is definitely the kind of accessibility within gaming I’m after; and I feel so perplexed that an indie game such as this can provide these options, while a large majority of AAA games barely let you remap buttons where you want.

Anyway, aside from the gameplay, the visuals and soundtrack are fantastic. There’s a distinct retro-dystopian-cyberpunk feel here, taking advantage of that tactile analogue feel of late 90s tech. There’s a branded focus on the cyan and magenta colours, which is super fun- but all the environments feel vibrant and detailed, even when they’re not pushing the saturation limits of your screen. You’re really able to see and appreciate the beauty of modern pixel art graphics here; the fluid animations make sprites feel so lively and full of character, there’s so many details in each level to appreciate, the dynamic lighting within levels is fucking gorgeous, and the level design was visually clear without being so in-your-face that it detracts from itself. Like, I noticed that during the levels as you walk through, theres a subtle glow around interactable elements, like floors and doors you can burst through. It’s not calling attention to itself in an obnoxious way, and honestly I find it hard to notice when you’re focusing on the action- but, if you’re ever feeling a little lost, the tiny glow as you get closer can really help steer players in the right direction- in a way that may even be subconscious when you’re not looking directly for it. In fact, I could say something similar for the early levels that teach you the foundations of this game as well. The tutorial sections do a great job of demonstrating the way it wants you to play; once you’re on your own- playing the real deal -I often felt as though there was an open dialogue between myself and the developers, the common tongue being this game. I love when games feel like a conversation in this manner, a back a forth between player and creator in a way that’s memorable- no matter how short the game is.

Pair this with an amazing soundtrack and some brilliant sound design, and you have yourself a winner! Seriously, you don’t know how conflicted I’ve been trying to pick my top 3 tracks here. Everything has a nice cohesion to it, while also being quite broad in sound. There’s a nice, almost vapourwave-esque style to most of the main level’s tracks- something fun and upbeat that showcases the beauty in synth music, and all without being too distracting from gameplay. There’s subtle changes in vibe depending on where you are in the game as well, so it’s not like you’ll ever get bored! And the light jazz sound in the quieter tracks brings a more subdued feeling without taking away any of that charm. I’m glad that the composers had the skill and confidence to pull these various moods together in the game through the music, as it allows for various emotional beats to play without feeling cheesy or abrupt. I already mentioned the sound effects that play during speech text; but the rest of the sound design is greatly appreciated in creating that atmosphere, along with auditory cues to help with gameplay. Even something as simple as the end of every level- where your objective has been completed and you have to walk back through the rooms with the carnage you left behind with nothing but the sound of your feet as you make your leave -is incredibly impactful.

For a game that is so fast paced, I was pleasantly surprised that it let moments just breathe. Walking back through levels, the sessions with the therapist, the nightly routines of watching the news and drinking tea before bed… Moments of reflection, forcing you to just sit and BE with the characters. You can’t avoid it, at least, not in the main story mode. It’s great. For those that don’t care as much about seeing the story in replays, or just want to challenge themselves, there’s a dedicated speedrun mode; and for those that bought the game on steam, theres an April Fool’s patch called Katana HERO, which is a frankly hilarious story of a spirit hunter who is trying to slay all the evil spirits. For something that’s notthedlcbro, there was a lot of effort put into the reskins and new dialogue that was very fun. I found Katana ZERO quite funny in certain moments already, HERO was just an enjoyable step further in that aspect.

I’ve been putting it off until now, but my other major critique is, in fact, with the story of this game. And it’s more of a half-hearted critique, as we are left with a vague twist and a lot of dangling threads that are setting itself up for a continuation. We know from the dev team that they are steadily working on a free DLC update, which is great to hear. However, I can’t help but feel that there could have been a way to keep this short story more self contained instead of relying on this update to tell all. There’s a billion and one examples of games that set themselves up to have a grand conclusion in the DLC or sequel, and end up falling short due to any number of factors- often the worst of which being the time between releases and the stagnating interest from fans as they wait. What we have here story-wise is special, don’t get me wrong, but I find myself being very cautious towards a DLC being able to truly clear up any questions and satisfactorily wrap up the narrative. I want to trust them, as they’ve delivered a great base game and April Fool’s patch, but I’ve experienced all too many games that fall short from things like this, and it’d be a massive shame if the overall experience is soured by leaving players on a puzzling ‘huh???’ for years before getting a conclusion that doesn’t quite live up to expectations. I think it is important to note that their progress on the DLC was likely interrupted due to the pandemic, and for an indie team I’m more than willing to wait as long as they need to get it out- these are just concerns I have, ones that more often than not can hit indie studios harder. I will say, that up until the very last chunk, the game had a fantastic pacing that I vibed with, great escalation and tangible stakes to drive the story, and very charismatic writing that I appreciated. The reveals and rapid fire of new perspectives upon the credits ARE interesting, and I’ve been thinking and talking about them for a while after playing- and that is something I’d like to give credit to. Despite the minor gripes I have, I was left with a great experience, one I’ll gladly replay through the years as I patiently await the continuation. The impact it’s imparted is already enough, as that’s what I’m usually looking for to validate the time sunk into any game that I play.

Lastly, I have no idea how to transition into this, but this game often reminded me of Donkey Kong Country 2 & 3. This game is not at all like DKC 2&3, and if you play either game expecting elements of the other, you will not find them- yet I consistently felt a distinctly DKC sense of familiarity. The way Zero yells when he dies sounds similar to the kremlings when you jump on them, the 2D level progression that’s not quite focused on platforming in a traditional sense yet still has undeniable platforming elements, the minecart section, the reticle aimed at you in the meat packing facility, the banging music and attention to detail… I DUNNO. IT JUST KEPT REMINDING ME OF DKC!? I want to stress that this is a good comparison, as I thoroughly enjoy both games- a lot of effort clearly went into both. ALSO I would enjoy more time with the minecart, it was really fun and way too short. I am a minecart level apologist for both DKC and KZ idc.

To wrap up, I absolutely see why Nika fell in love so hard with this game, and I’m glad I finally got the opportunity to try for myself. It was great to run my first playthrough with her watching, and I have enjoyed poking around and experimenting with the game myself. I feel like there’s plenty more I could say, but you get the picture, so I wont. I’ll just leave you with the only thing left to say-

R.I.P. Strong Terry, you’re lifting with Baby Jesus now...

Sneaky Driver

Breath of a Serpent

Delusive Bunker

Come and See

~~~

Marvel’s Spider-Man, PS4

This is a game that I’ve had on my shelf for a few years now, and I finally decided to give it a go. I’ll be honest and say that I didn’t really have an interest in playing, as I am so completely burnt out on the Marvel-ification of superheroes and also don’t really play these kinds of games much. I bought it because it was $18 on sale and it is one of my best friend’s favourite games. (The same friend who likes Odyssey… He should play better games, I am for reeeeeeeaaaaaaaal)

While the game isn’t that bad, I found myself incredibly bored and under stimulated with the repetitive nature of the gameplay. It does have it’s perks, (which is a massive one-up on Odyssey), and the saving grace of this game is it’s story. It took me a while to get into it, but once you’ve started to get a feel for everything and play past the tutorial sections, you start to see why people enjoy it. There’s a richness to it that has definitely been absent from the most recent entries in the MCU, and it was great to see a Spidey story that wasn’t the same ol’ Uncle Ben With Great Power Comes Great Responsibility spiel. We all know it, regardless of how much you know about Spider Man, and instead I would say it’s a genuine treat to see a Spidey (and Peter!) who have been at this for a while. There’s a lot of flavour text to help support this, through things like the in-game twitter parody, and collectables you find across the map, of which Peter will nostalgically comment on as you inspect them- I found that this did help to make the city feel like something that’s already been lived in, and not just starting up for the events of this game. The best demonstration of this, however, is the relationship between Peter and MJ. They’re exes who are just starting to rekindle their friendship as they cross paths and decide to team up and try to work together as events unfold.

You start the game by putting away Kingpin, and starting a domino effect that starts to put the city at risk. Without his mafia-style grip on the underbelly of New York, smaller criminal gangs are attempting to take over in the absence, which leads to trouble for our hero. There are three main stages to the story campaign, of which I felt the best was the first. While you swing around fighting crime and helping people, you’ll be able to tune into the JJJ livestreams which give an interesting, if vindictive, view of how the people view Spidey and related events- even if he seems a bit too fixated on him and comes up with some wild conspiracies.

I think most fans would say that swinging around as Spidey is the biggest draw to the game- though I’d argue that I found more fulfilment doing friendly neighbourhood activities. There are also various battles and boss battles along with select missions to be had around the map, so there is a lot to do. During the main story campaign, you will take part in scripted events AND play sections where you play as other characters- MJ and Miles. Playing these short sections, which are usually stealth oriented, was overall a nice change in perspective. It helped make the world feel just that little bit bigger and connect various main NPCs to Spidey and what you get up to. In between the three main phases of the campaign missions, there are various side missions and objectives to fulfil- such as various crime related missions where you infiltrate and take down baddies with the help of a local police chief, more environmentally focused missions provided by your friend Harry (who is absent for this game), and little quests given by NPCs in the world who need help from their friendly neighbourhood Spider Man.

There’s a lot going on here, and that is both to it’s benefit AND detriment. I enjoyed doing most of Harry’s eco missions; it not only varied things up with little, but provided a further reminder that Peter IS a scientist, and quite a clever one at that. Plus, you can’t be kicking butt allllllll day! It was also nice to help NPCs out when you could- but there were a lot of missions and quests that felt like copy paste jobs and I got tired of them real fast. In the overworld, while you swing around, you can come across crimes to stop, enemy bases to expose, and later on various little puzzles or skill challenges as you progress. These encounters were grindy and repetitive, and I found that once you’d gained an understanding of both how to enemies behaved and how the combat worked, it’s not actually that in depth! It kinda sucks, actually, because even if you only did encounters that were radioed in, there’s so many that even if you’re not aiming for 100%, you’d still spend a lot of time idly swinging around and doing the same old fights over and over. Encounters don’t feel challenging, they’re just hard because there’s six waves to fight through. Anyone who isn’t a boss is a copy paste from one of four variants of the same enemy. Guy. Guy with weapon. Guy with shield. Big guy. Sometimes you’d get a guy with a rocket launcher or a jetpack, but it’s nothing more than a garnish. I’d have hoped that it at least felt different to fight the different syndicates- the first third has you fighting a Chinese Mafia group, very organised crime based enemies. The second third is mainly escaped convicts after a break out, which is much messier with in-fighting and lack of organisation. And the final third has you fighting Sable Agents, a form of private military/mercenaries for hire who’ve run amuck, and have brute force and numbers on their side. If there were more variation in the feel of these different stages in the story shown through the way you needed to fight and take down these groups, I feel it would’ve helped immensely! But no, all three stages of the story have battles and enemies that are quite literally the same, but just reskins depending on which syndicate, with the Sable agents just ever so slightly different because they have jetpacks and armour. OoooOOoOOoooooh. So gaming. I think that if they were aiming for more of an organic feel with enemy encounters and the like, they should aim higher than for them to be set dressing to eventually ignore, and instead put effort into making battles not only varied and challenging, but enjoyable, too.

Even the most fundamental part of the game- the web slinging -felt fatiguing and tiresome early on. I guess it’s nice, but it didn’t feel too impressive to me. I found the controls rather sticky- pun intended -and felt like I had barely any control over the movement and direction. When I’d run up a building, Spidey felt like he was going all over the place instead of where I’m trying to get him to go. And don’t get me started on trying to get off a building once you start crawling or running across it- he’s stuck and I couldn’t find any way to get him off in a timely manner without resorting to button mashing! It sucked the most when I was in the middle of a car chase or other time sensitive manoeuvring and I’d get stuck on the corner of some dumb building – goodbye momentum! Fighting was also ass, as I’d often get stuck in corners when wall crawling or attempting some of the fancier move sets you unlock later on. I don’t really think it’s that great when so much of a AAA game made me feel like I had to resort to button mashing just to get out of the way…

If that wasn’t bad enough, during the more stealth oriented sections where you play as MJ or Miles, you don’t have access to much, if any, move sets; and have to get by with something much more limited. The stealth sections are ass, and I think people who genuinely praise these sections haven’t played other stealth games. I’m a relatively new appreciator of the stealth genre myself, but cmon, the stealth here is bare bones at best, and is infinitely better when you’re playing as Spidey compared to the mandatory sections with MJ or Miles! Crawling around, finding info and trying to escape unnoticed is so much more fun with Spidey, and although I understand the point of these sections is to demonstrate not only how powerful and skilled Spider Man is, but also how dangerous the enemies are- I just plain ol’ didn’t enjoy them! Some stealth scenes were more interesting than others- I mostly enjoyed creeping around Mayor Osbourne’s apartment – but as a whole, it is just so bare bones and not good enough to have made it to the final cut in my opinion. I don’t know what else they could do to make these more interesting, making more stealth based objectives for MJ and Miles to do during these sequences might be a start. Another thing might be to have more time playing as these characters in a non stealth context, but I don’t feel too solidly on either suggestion.

I’m clearly quite frustrated over these sections, but that’s because, to me, they concisely describe an issue that I have with this game. It’s trying too hard to be a jack of all trades, while being a master of none. So much of this game felt like obligatory game design choices, the safe ones you make because they’re popular and work and can be easily replicated in most AAA games. The very first note that I wrote down for this game was that the map reminded me of the botw map- bad. I don’t enjoy these pseudo open world games that try to put so much busy work in the overworld that doesn't actually amount to much, and it’s boasting points are mainly on the technical specs and not the experience of the game imparted on players. For a hero that’s defining characteristic that sets him apart from other heroes is the fact that he is a friendly neighbourhood Spider-Man, so much of this game felt about the big picture instead of the little guy. By having so much crap in the world over saturating Spidey’s downtime, it detracted from the feeling of helping the people of New York, and just felt like he was helping the city as a vague concept. Yes, fighting crimes and keeping the city in check is important, but let us spend more time at the FEAST Shelter so we can help out when we want, instead of limiting it to scripted story moments. Even if Peter can’t always get to the shelter, show us more of how Miles is doing once he starts volunteering his time there. And show us more of MJ please, she’s a very clever and interesting character, and to have most of her screen time being limited to shitty stealth sections or cutscenes was a bummer, especially because, although what we get of her is decent, it would’ve been a bit nicer to see more about how the actions of Spider-Man were affecting her work and personal life as well. I feel there plainly wasn’t enough time to get to know these characters, and that they were all severely lacking in those ‘filler’ moments – y’know, the ones that let us know more about these characters and their world when they’re not faced with life or death. Some comments here and there from Peter and MJ wasn’t enough, and in this department, even though I do think the story is solid and the best part about this game, it is too refined when it could’ve afforded to go a lot more in depth. Even things such as important moments regarding Aunt May or Doc Oc didn’t hit very hard for me because we barely spend any time with them- and what little time we DO spend with them is through whatever Peter is directly involved in. Having some time to cut away and SEE how the work Peter and Doc Oc are doing is DIRECTLY impacting the people they’re trying to help, and not just having some random guy show up when the product is nearly finished and the funding is cut. Let us KNOW how hard Aunt May is working in the FEAST Shelter without the director there, and what kind of a toll it’s taking, not only on herself but on the people she’s trying to help. I feel that it was in desperate need of more humanising moments for everyone, and not just Peter. It’s a video game, not a movie! Lean into the fact that there are so many more ways to demonstrate characters and settings through this interactive medium, a comic book character should be one of the easier things to adapt!

The visuals were fine, it’s a pretty standard PS4 game- but I noticed a lot of issues when playing, and some that would’ve been game breaking if not for auto saves. There were instances where enemies got stuck in walls or behind fences and were literally inaccessible to me, meaning that I couldn’t complete battle objectives because the battle was never won. There were also a few times where the camera puzzles set up by Black Cat just didn’t load correctly. The location had everything there to start the puzzle, except for the camera, so I couldn’t start anything until I swung around for a bit and came back, hoping it spawned in correctly this time. The worst example of this though, was that during one of the eco missions, I was supposed to redirect satellite dishes to relink them during a storm. Very simple mission, however, I was swinging around for over 40 minutes trying to figure out what the hell I was missing, because even though I’d linked up everything, the final part of the mission didn’t load in or whatever and I couldn’t complete the mission. It was so frustrating that it marked the end of that play session for me, and when I eventually went to restart the mission, it worked fine and was solved in under 5 minutes. For a game native to the PS4, it wasn’t optimised that well, which is a shame.

The audio was generally pretty nice as well, there’s a few nice tracks, but I don’t really feel that anything was stand out to me; other than the fact that there is a dynamic soundtrack thing going on. This means that when you’re just walking around, you’ll hear the city ambience in all it’s glory (including this cool easter egg). However, as soon as you start swinging, the bombastic track for epic cool spider guy starts playing, and can feel quite awkward when you abruptly jump into a song, especially when you didn’t intend to. The soundtrack has an overall orchestral feel, one that feels on a similar caliber to blockbuster movies, so while I didn’t personally connect with many of the songs, there’s not really anything bad to say about this soundtrack either.

In my final nitpicking, I’m going to get a bit more spoilery than I aim for these write ups. The final third and ending of this game sucked balls. Sable as the main antagonist for the endgame felt bland, and she had a rather abrupt change of heart at the end. I feel she would’ve been a stronger threat if she, and her men, were better not only narratively, but morally too. Having a private military for hire should’ve felt like a threat, and I can’t help but feel if they proved that they ARE better at Spidey’s job and really shaped public perception of him into being an amatuer and a menace, that would’ve been a morbillion times more interesting. By having them just be an oppressive, fascist-lite, military brute force that is just as corrupt and uncontrollable as you’d think it would be, it devalued all level of threat for me. Shouldn’t the main issue here be that Mayor Osborne hiring these guys is not only a smear campaign against Spidey, but something so effective after the main fuck ups at the start of the game that the people of New York are WELCOMING of this protection? I just found it cartoonishly over the top and too simple that the big military guys were arresting and locking up civilians for no real reason, looting them and kicking them out of their building, and otherwise wasting all their resources by focusing on Spidey and not, yknow, resolving crimes and other disputes. Fuck cops, but the very least they could’ve done is make it more obvious that the police can’t do anything anymore, as these guys are stepping in and taking over ALL aspects of life in the city. Having them stated to be crazy oppressive and whatever felt pretty watered down when they functioned exactly the same as the amateur but organised crime of the Masks in the first third, and exactly the same as the chaotic and brutish crimes of escaped convicts. The only tangible difference is that theres more physical layers to peel off Sable Agents when in combat: there’s more towers to pull down and armour to smack off – THATS IT. Part of what should’ve made Sable so much more of a commanding force is that they’re acting in direct response to a viral epidemic started by Doc Oc. Not only do I find it unrealistic that everyone was actually wearing masks during the pandemic, but this whole section just felt like a complete mess, gameplay wise. I found myself most annoyed by the crime system in the overworld, as there will be both escaped cons AND Sable agents shooting you down as you swing through the map. While this is an effective display of how fucked the city has become, I was quite disappointed to find that of all the enemies you can fight in the overworld at this stage, the ONLY ones that count towards map completions are the ones that are radioed in. There’s no other incentive to make it worth my time to fight all these people, no extra things to trade for to gadget upgrades or new suits. Nothing. On top of all this, the actual end of the narrative was rather abrupt and crap tbh. I know with the foresight of having played this years after release that it got it’s own sequels and spin offs, but I’m a firm believer in narratives being able to hold on their own internally without relying on the MCU-ification to make them retroactively better.

In closing, it’s clear that this game was not for me. It’s fine if you like superheros, and don’t care about how thin the genre cocktail of gameplay styles are in actuality - but I think my standards are too high and I wasn’t impressed, especially due to this being a fucking Sony game. I know they have the budget to do better, c’mon. And although I didn’t care for it, there were a lot of options for customising your play experience, like choosing suits, power-ups and gadgets to aid in battle, and the freedom to leisurely explore the map if you’re so inclined. I did 100% the story and all collectables and challenges on the map, but not to a gold-star degree or with the aims of platinum trophy. Fuck that.

At the end of the day, I want to praise the parts of this game that should be standard within games of this budget, but weren’t, and sometimes still aren’t. This is a completely single player game with a large campaign filled with variety and interesting things to do. There is still a demand for games like this, and I’m glad that this aspect was something that not only helped it to sell well, but also show to developers and stake holders that there IS a demand for enriching single player games. There were also a great amount of accessibility features that were fairly easy to access and understand, so those that may need a bit of extra help and adjustments to get through the game are able to enjoy the same experience. These are things that should be encouraged, and for that, I commend it.

But, play a different game if you care about the fighting or the stealth. Neither are done well here lol.

The Golden Age

Anything For A Story

Renewed Rivalries

[necromancy-enthusiast]

in what ways is the 3ds better friend

Oh boy anon, I am so happy you asked, because the 3ds rivals the playstation 2 as my favorite video games console, so buckle in, because I have Many Thoughts about this. The switch, as I’m sure you know, has been an incredible success. Nintendo learned from the mistakes they made with the wii u, and they’ve been raking the money in ever since. But like I said before, which I imagine is what prompted you to ask this question in the first place, is that once you get past the novelty of the switch, it feels underwhelming. I primarily play it in handheld mode so my opinion is colored by that, but the thing is, it's supposed to be both a home console and a handheld console, and theoretically it's supposed to perform at least to generally equal standards. But it doesn't.

The original switch's battery life is garbage, and there's a huge downgrade in graphic fidelity between TVs and the switch's native screen. I'm by no means one of those people who thinks anything that isn't absolutely cutting edge is A Sin Against Viddy Gaems, and yeah I also get there's bound to be some downgrade, but I think that games shouldn't play like powerpoint presentation slides in handheld mode, I think that's a reasonable thing to ask. From what I've gathered this has been improved in the switch lite and oled versions, so I'll give them that, but the thing is that these deficits suggest that the ‘handheld’ mode was more of a sloppy after-thought than anything, sorta like an ‘just shove it on there we’ll deal with the problems later once everyone’s already bought one so it’ll incentivize them to buy the new upgraded version’ thing.

As long as we’re talking about hardware issues though, one thing I think is totally inexcusable is the problem with the switch joycon drift. That wasn't an honest mistake, Nintendo knew about this problem long before the switch came out. Originally they wouldn't even repair joycons out of warranty, but people made enough of a fuss about it that they started to. Apparently, with the switch oled they’ve ‘improved’ the joycons.

Note the term ‘improved’. Not ‘fixed’. ‘Improved’. Meaning that even 6 years after it launched, people are buying brand new switches and getting joycon drift. That’s total bullshit. I’ve heard people try to excuse these issues by saying ‘it’s wear and tear, of course it’s going to degrade after a lot of use’, which is also utter bullshit. How do I know that?

The oldest Nintendo console I have is an N64 that I basically inherited from my older siblings (lol I’m kinda the collection keeper nowadays). Now the N64 is uh… It has a weird controller that has awkward movement controls. But it still works just like it always did despite being over 20 years old. My ps2 is also over 20 years old and trust me, it has seen A LOT of use, but the original controller it came with and the extra I got a few years later also work just as good as new. So why does Nintendo suddenly get to pull the ‘wear and tear’ excuse when they’ve proven they and other video game companies can make durable controllers in the past?

I can’t really think of another video game console that has so consistently had such long reaching hardware problems, and not just little problems, problems that make some games basically unplayable (lol just try playing the game Card Shark on the switch with a drifting joycon, it’s not very fun), but Nintendo gets away with it because they’re Nintendo, and because the switch was their comeback. People love underdog stories, so that plus Nintendo’s brand loyalty (that Sony and Microsoft would probably put out a hit on someone to achieve for themselves, if it were only so simple) has made people feel lenient towards them…

But that good will and grace that Nintendo garners from many of its fans is wearing thin, which I think is fantastic because at the end of the day, Nintendo is another company that wants to make as much money as possible, and it should be held to much, much harsher standards! Especially since it’s a multi-million dollar company! But that’s another topic.

Another thing that has really started bugging me after I started messing around on my n3ds again is that the sheer amount of customizability in the 3ds absolutely puts the switch to shame. The switch has virtually nothing. You can mostly just change between the UI being black or white. But the 3ds has themes and folders you can organize your games in (or you can just have them all show on the main screen so you don't forget you have them, like I do with the switch -_-). They also have badges! Admittedly you get them through the badge arcade game, which is a 'free to start' game that tries to get you to pay real money, but you can easily get a lot of good stuff for free anyway.

I wouldn’t say this next part is bad, but it does indicate a change in Nintendo’s strategy and how that was likely influenced by their financial situation. The switch has a lot of ports. A lot of them. Like I said, this isn’t bad in and of itself, those games become easier for people to access in an easy, legitimate manner. But why would they suddenly change this? Traditionally Nintendo has been very picky about what it chooses to port, but nowadays the switch eshop is absolutely flooded with games of varying quality. It’s nowhere as near as bad as steam’s ‘quality control’ issues, but like I said, it just points to Nintendo’s underlying problems.

I’m not saying the 3ds didn’t have problems. Apparently when it first launched some people got headaches when they played with the 3d effect on, but given how a handheld console projecting 3d graphics like that was a brand new thing and how they actually seriously improved that (and how it’s totally optional anyway, it’s not necessary to the experience like oh I don’t know, the damn controllers of a home console), I think it’s more reasonable, and its launch titles were underwhelming (except Samurai Warriors Chronicles, God I love me a good Samurai Warriors, but admittedly it ran kinda eeehhh on the original 3ds, but the n3ds is much smoother).

Still, the 3ds is indicative of a time when Nintendo was flush with money and success from the wii/ds era in the 00s. The switch is indicative of when they were hemorrhaging money due to the wii u's failure and the 3ds' rocky start in the early-mid 10s. Marketing the switch as an all-in-one console was pretty smart, because I'm 99% sure they made that choice so they wouldn't have to split resources and money on developing two separate systems like they were generally expected to, since at this point Nintendo has practically cornered the market on traditional handheld game consoles. But it's clear the handheld part was tacked on and not given much thought, and that the whole process was rushed and occurred in a time of financial desperation.

[dogtoling]

Do you ever get tired, or annoyed, of these questions? Because I can sit here and come up with more questions all day, and watch you answer them. I can slow down, or stop if you like. Just want to know if this is bugging you.

Besides Splatoon, any other games you like?

Side thought: I feel like games like Splatoon break the immersive lore by calling everything "ink". It's a trap that games like Pokemon fall into, where Pokemon has everything starting with Poke. By calling so much stuff "ink" or stuff like that, you break the immersion. Do you really think that Inklings would name everything starting with ink? Or Splat. No, they wouldn't. That would be as weird as humans calling everything "human" or something. It just doesn't make sense. Inkopolis, Inkadia, Splatsville, and more.

No I don't really, I like excuses to write essays. The only time asks get on my nerves is when people come to my askbox to try and use me as a publisher for their own completely unrelated theories, in which case MY GOD, get out of MY ASK BOX and just go post it on your OWN BLOG. I think this is just a general PSA at this point for people thinking of sending asks... before you send an ask, take a moment to think if it's actually a QUESTION, if it's something i'm likely to be able to answer, and if the answer to both of those is "no", ask yourself why you're sending it. I don't mind the occasional non-question asks, but sometimes there's just stuff that's like... what am I supposed to say about that? And it might just get the delete treatment. I don't really like saying this stuff because I don't want to discourage people from sending asks (because I like receiving them and seeing people's thoughts!), but there's been numerous times before where I've gotten an ask that's got like nothing to even do with me and could've easily been a reply or an original post! But as far as asks go, I don't mind as long as it's... actually an ASK most of the time. It usually makes my day seeing an ask notification, actually, so no, I don't really mind repeat asks. In fact I'd even encourage them if my previous reply raised more questions.

As for game series, I like Pokemon (regrettably), although scarlet and violet were incredibly disappointing to me and I played the game for like... a week. I don't see myself going back to it honestly lol. But Pokemon is definitely my second-largest interest. Battling is my least favorite part of it. I just really like creatures. I DON'T like the inconsistent (or hard to decipher, rather) worldbuilding and for that reason, I haven't bothered making content about it. (But I am part of some PMD groups on other sites...) I like Zelda a lot but I wouldn't call it something I'm REEEAALLY into. Twilight Princess is my favorite, I've only really played 3D Zeldas... I like them, but my GOD the timeline is a freaking mess and I can't be assed to get into the details of the world and lore (there's a lot) so I also don't do zelda content, lol. It's something I enjoy occasionally whenever a new game comes out, but Tears of the Kingdom hasn't sold me so far, to be fair. I'll still buy it and I'm sure I'll love it, but what the hell, man. I already spent 300 hours exploring every single inch of Hyrule in BotW, I hope the main objective isn't exploration again. Other than those two it's mostly smaller games, and I don't really play a lot of games, honestly. Night in the Woods continues to be one of my all-time favorites over stellar characters, a really immersive story, gorgeous art and music. Like I can't think of a single thing I don't like about it except how it will trigger an existential crisis literally every time (which is also the point). It's like the one singular indie game I would say I'm "into", I've played (VERY FEW) other indie games in my time, but pretty much all of them have been a case of "ok cool" and moving on. Night in the Woods tho? Every time the end of the year comes around I WILL think about it and probably play it. Obviously Minecraft is on this list and it might honestly be the best game of all time, but I can barely consider it a game because it's so much more than that, lol. With that being said though I CANNOT be assed to actually play it myself almost ever due to how time-consuming it is (and also building is really hard lol). But honestly? If I had to pick only one game to play for the rest of my life it'd be Minecraft and that's not even a contest... that game can be anything you want it to be!

Splatoon's naming conventions. True, they are, um... unique. I don't think they break the immersion though, depending on what brand you're immersed in. For Splatoon as the funny game it sets itself up to be, it's perfectly in line - I find some of the weirder stuff breaking my immersion VERY OFTEN but that is solely because I build my image of the Splatoon world to be much less cartoony than it actually is, and then you get sucker punched by the silly elements that are just normalized. I think in Splatoon's case (at least with Inkling societies) ink- and splat- are just one of those cultural naming conventions that isn't strange at all in-universe because they're like, used to it. I do wish the localization team got even a little more creative with their naming of places, though... the one good thing I can say is that it makes it really easy to come up with authentic-sounding place names if you're coming up with original locations. Just slap "ink" on it and it's done.

[nekupen]

Nekupen Triple Feature - Valve Deathmatch Games

You probably know who or what Valve Software is, right? Well, I bet you didn’t know Valve has some “oddities” that you don’t see people talk about oft-oh shit they do. Yeah, Valve has games that aren’t talked about as much as others, as any prolific video game company does. Plenty of people know about Counter-Strike: Condition Zero's single player campaigns and Ricochet But I wanna talk about the games that actually interest me, which happen to be the ones centered around Deathmatch. Y’know, that one mode in a lot of early first person shooters where you’re rewarded for how much murdering you can do compared to everyone else. These are games you can still get on the store, though two of them come bundled in with official Half-Life games. I’ll be covering: Deathmatch Classic, Half-Life Deathmatch Source, and Half-Life 2 Deathmatch -DEATHMATCH CLASSIC-

So, Quake, right? That other FPS series by Id that’s like DOOM except its 3D and lovecraftian. That game that had such a popular deathmatch scene that someone won a fucking ferrari owned by John Carmack in a tournament? Imagine that but it's in Goldsrc (Gold Source) and it’s BAD. Seriously, it's just Goldsrc Quake, which is funny because Goldsrc is already heavily modified from Quake’s engine. But it stops being funny because it’s just, QUAKE. The arsenal is basically the exact damn same as Quake’s except instead of an axe, you got a CROWBARRRRRR.

It even has the same items. Really this game is a constant stream of “Why does it exist”?. Like, it’s not even bad…It’s just that you’d still get a better experience playing Quake anyway. Who is this game even for? People that think the Goldsrc engine is superior to the Quake engine? Let’s be generous and say they made this because Half-Life Deathmatch is not exactly like regular Deathmatch, which would be why they called it Classic…..But why play Deathmatch Classic when you could play Quake? This game was released in 2000 as well, I genuinely doubt THAT many people were playing it then as they are now. It’s a neat-ish novelty but it’s not worth the five bucks. In fact it used to not be five bucks at all, it used to come free with a patch for Half-Life- Okay, tirade over, next game

-HALF-LIFE DEATHMATCH SOURCE-

In May of 2006, a month before Half-Life 2: Episode One was due to drop, Valve gave owners of Half-Life: Source a free game: Half-Life: Deathmatch Source. And….It did alright. I mean it has more players than Deathmatch Classic but that’s not a high bar, the smallest country has more people existing than Deathmatch Classic has players. It probably helps that unlike the former you get Half-Life Deathmatch: Source for free as part of purchasing Half-Life: Source. The problem is, it’s also Half-Life: Source. And the bigger problem is, it’s Half-Life Deathmatch. So Half-Life’s combat is different from, let’s say DOOM and Quake. It requires more strategy and less glue eating. So it’s only natural that the multiplayer reflects that properly, right? WRONG, just as Quake has its unholy trinity consisting of the Rocket Launcher, Lightning Gun, and Railgun, Half-Life has its own + one more., the SMG for its alt-fire, the Tau Gun for its damage potential, and the Crossbow for long-range damage. Throw in trip-mines for good measure. And as you can probably guess, it's not fun at all fighting against people using this meta. I’ll be standing around minding my own business, then boom, GRENADE I’ll be climbing a ladder, then BOOM, Tripmine. I’ll be in the middle of an intense fight then BOOM, TAU GUN. Having to fight against these weapons is just, not fun. It’s draining and makes the game far more unenjoyable than it should be.

-Half-Life 2: Deathmatch-

Unlike the former two, Half-Life 2: Deathmatch came out within the same year and month as its singleplayer component, coming out just fourteen days after Half-Life 2. Like Half-Life Deathmatch: Source, you get it bundled with a game: Half-Life 2: Episode One, but you can also buy it separately if you wish. And I’d say there’s merit in getting it because it actually succeeds at being fun. Now, I will clarify that I don’t consider “fun” the same as “good”. I still have some gripes with the general idea of Half-Life and Deathmatch being together and Half-Life 2 combat doesn’t sell me on that premise. However, the game is way more fun to play than Deathmatch: Source as there’s not really any bullshit weapons, and there’s reason to use all the weapons…except the shotgun, just use the revolver.. There’s also an actual layer of strategy involved, because included in your arsenal is the iconic Zero Point Energy Field Manipulator. With it you can fling props and objects at people, and there’s usually a good amount near you so you’ll always have the option. And honestly, I think the entire idea of just flinging objects at people on its own is a valid selling point. You can’t tell me you wouldn’t play a game where you can kill someone with a fucking toilet. And on top of that, the game has an active player base. Not a huge one, but you can expect to see more than 7 players at least. Half-Life 2 Deathmatch is the only game out of all these three I can recommend buying or playing in good conscience.

-Closing Remarks-

So, let’s break it down. Deathmatch Classic has no real reason to exist and barely anyone plays it. Half-Life Deathmatch: Source is a worse version of something I already don’t like but Half-Life 2: Deathmatch is at the very least decent and can be acquired with a good game. So moral of the story: If you want a Deathmatch game in Source that isn’t mediocre or just good…Just go fucking play Open Fortress or Jabroni Brawl. Or hell, play Deathmatch Classic: Refragged when it comes out eventually.

[justasmallbloginabigklainefandom]

A tentative Zelda games ranking, by me

1 + 2. Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom

Honestly, they share the first position, but for the list's sake, let's put them on both slots. I think these games are best played together, after all, unlike other games that are follow-ups on previous games. I think these games are wonderful and showstopping and amazing. I like the stories of both games (although I do prefer BOTW's story), I like the relation between this Link and Zelda, I love the exploration and the setting, I love the characters. Mostly, I love the freedom it gives. Both games share the world and its physics system and it gives you an immense amount of ways to play this game (although I do prefer TOTK's gameplay and mechanics). It is just a blast to play.

3. Majora's Mask 3D

And that's probably why this one is right underneath it. Here's the thing: I don't like the linearity and dungeons of classic Zelda (yes, you can boo!) and that's probably why I would never see this franchise as one of the best. From all the classic Zeldas I've played, MM feels the most free, because the time loop allows you to do things differently every time. And that's also part of the tragedy: if you do one thing, you cannot do the other. Realising that some of these events exclude another, is one of the best and worst moments. Termina is also a wonderful setting, I like the story and characters, and the moon is terrifying.

4. A Link to the Past

To be honest, this one and Link's Awakening can swap places. I enjoyed them for the same reasons. Yet, the reason ALttP is so high up is because it surprised me. I didn't think I'd enjoy it this much, and that it was this big. It's simple, otherwise, but I genuinely didn't expect much of it, because people don't talk as often about this game compared to others. So that is why it is so high up. I was so blown away by it, since I had moderate expectations, and they were blown out of the park. That led to a lot of fun.

5. Link's Awakening DX

Here we go back to the exploration part. I loved exploring Koholint island so damn much. I already knew of the plot twist before playing, but it still hit like a brick. So yeah, the setting, story and characters really make this game great.

6. Orcarina of Time 3D

Yes, you can boo. So, as I mentioned, ALttP surprised me. OoT didn't. This game was great, but I also knew it was going to be great, does that make sense? As a result, I wasn't super blown away by it. I love the setting, the story and the characters, but I also knew I was going to. This is ultimately why it's ranked lower than others.

7. Skyward Sword HD

This one and TP also tend to switch, but more on that in the TP section. SS is my first linear Zelda. I didn't buy it on release because I loved BOTW and I knew that everything I loved about Zelda was introduced in BOTW. But FOMO is strong, I guess. And here's the good: I love the setting, I love the story, I love the characters, especially the relationship between Link and Zelda. These are probably my favourite Link and Zelda of the franchise. From all the linear Zeldas, this is the only one whose cutscenes i rewatch online. But the actual game was, uh... Well, as I said, I realised I am not fond of dungeons and linearity. It also doesn't help that this game had a LOT of backtracking, so after a while, you'd seen it. Skyloft was cool, but apart from that, there's barely any reason to go to the sky. What's in the sky? The sky. I did like the motion controls! Yes, I am a motion control defender (you can boo again). Keep this in mind. I loved swinging around with my sword.

8. Twilight Princess

Okay, so, uh, Twilight Princess is better than SS in almost every way when it comes to the setting and the dungeons and what not. This is because the Hyrule in TP is so much bigger and there's more to explore, and as I said, that's my favourite part of any Zelda game. Like, I think this is my second favourite iteration of Hyrule. The dungeons were also way cooler and there were cooler items. The character were on par with SS (except for Link and Zelda, although I still liked TP!Link and Zelda). The only thing that SS definitely did better than TP is the story. I don't care too much for TP's story. It was just fine. So, why oh why is TP lower than SS? The controls of TP fucking sucked. I know I am a fan of motion controls, but my GOD, this game sucked because of its controls and as a result I didn't really like playing it that much. Apart from the sword and shield controls, everything else either sucked entirely or was just annoying. Okay, so maybe TP is a better game than SS in many ways, but does that matter? Cause if I don't like playing it, then the other stuff kinda gets thrown out, because what's the point of a cool setting if I don't like playing through it? (I should've just played the GameCube version)

9. Cadence of Hyrule

I mean... it was fun. I really liked it, and it had some great points like a playable Zelda, a randomly generated world which made exploring wonderful, Ganon randomly being here to play an organ, and a great usage of the franchise. More people should play it. BUT it was also very short and I only liked it because I turned off the rhythm based gameplay. Aka, can I really recommend a rhythm game if I didn't like the rhythm?

10. The Minish Cap

The reason this is last place is because I have nothing to say about it. It was fine. I had fun playing it, but I also don't really remember any of it. I had fun while it lasted, but it didn't leave a big impression, or so it seems.

[nitrosodiumofficialuses]

Toxic Waters Lite: The Gimmick Weapon (Part 1)

Still stuck on this one element. I've done my best to narrow my choices down to A, the harpoon gun, B, the riot gun, C, the mine launcher, D, the acid gun, and E, the biological weapon.

I'm gonna knock A off because, after giving it some thought, it's not applicable to TWL. A long-range precision gun that requires intuition/leading your shot due to projectile speed and drop is cool in a game like Half Life, where you explore environments of multiple sizes, and in three dimensions, no less. TWL's world is very Nicolas-centric, and environments have to be built in a way that the player can generally see everything. I've recently played some Donkey Kong Country and my major complaint for that game is the camera doesn't compensate for height, meaning you're taking leaps of faith much more often since you can't see the bottom of the screen. And it's a very movement-based game by design, you're leaping around and blasting through barrels, while TWL is more position-based in how you handle puzzles and combat, i.e. altering your environment by changing water levels or using cranes. In no section will you be shooting enemies from across an abyss, so a high-precision weapon isn't required in a game where you're entirely in a claustrophobic facility. At the same time, you can't even have a scenario like that, because TWL doesn't have vertical aiming, only left or right. So, you can't even make the argument that it could be cool to climb to a good sniping spot and pick off enemies from a distance. Plus, projectile speed and drop works better when you're fighting at distances where you'd have to account for that. I don't care if it lets you root enemies to the spot, that's not worth it, because you'll still have to kill them afterwards.

Now, B. This one was entirely thought up after I watched a System Shock review (the 1994 one, not the remake). There's a riot gun in that game which launches rubber pellets, totally useless against rampant cyborgs and the like, but good for remotely activating levers and explosives. There's a similar tool in Prey (which was a spiritual successor to the "shock" games anyway), but it's a toy crossbow. Obviously, this would function like a long-range button press, and maybe stunning enemies as well. This is more useful in 3D games where enemies can lie in wait or have complex AI patterns, or if the game has traps and it's safer to activate something from a distance. Already, I can see uses in situations where you have to find a way across a pool of water - the puzzle can be quickly solved if you hit a lever with a rubber bullet and call the elevator remotely. I feel like the utilisation of this would be niche, and once again, something that works better in a 3D game.

C is a grenade/mine launcher. This helps TWL dip its toes into the immersive sim genre, as laying mines allows to set traps, alter the environment, plan your fights, and play more defensively. Now, "grenade launcher" can mean a lot - bouncy grenades like Quake, impact-based plastic explosives like Half Life, remote bombs like TF2's stickybomb launcher, or proximity mines like F.E.A.R.. I'd probably go for proximity mines, but with some sort of twist to them. Given the limited mobility and perspective of Nicolas, it's best if you can't activate them by stepping on them yourself, so I might consider making them "bio-mines" or giving some in-game fluff explaining why they only damage enemies. There are lots of things you can do with mines; load an elevator with them and send it up to an enemy-infested floor, place some behind you to buy yourself some time with a horde, fortify an area you know you'll be moving through a lot, lead enemies into them (the old Pied Piper strategy always works with zombies), and of course, use splash damage to kill multiple enemies while expending only a single unit of ammunition. With a lot of Gimmick Guns, especially in more modern games (Prey and Severed Steel come to mind), the game will either give the gun to you early on or give you lots of ammo for it to encourage you to experiment with it. I don't want to saturate the player with mines, since doing this is a double-edged sword - encouraging the player to use a tool will make them use it, but it can make them ignore their more basic, versatile tools. Prey strikes a good balance by making the GLOO Cannon disable Typhons instead of killing them, and Severed Steel gives the arm gun 5 possible shots at any time, making them use their other tools to kill enemies and recharge. I can probably do this by flipping my own advice on its head, giving the player a taste of the mine launcher with some free ammo for it, but making refills from the upgrade station expensive, encouraging players to hunt around, using all their weapons and getting the most bang for their buck (pun 100% intended).

D and E will be answered later. Probably tomorrow.

[icharchivist]

i feel you on being sad about ff7r, i actually loved it at first because i personally really liked a lot of things about how they expanded the midgar section of the game and i wasn't thinking too hard about how some of the plot changes might remove a bit of nuance, or the sephiroth stuff, because i was just having so much fun while i was playing. but then the ending happened and the stuff with zack on top of it and i progressively got more annoyed because i just wanted it to essentially still be the original story??

i won't go on too much about it because i don't wanna leave an essay in your inbox but i just feel like, the original game is from 1997. it certainly has its own flaws and things that might make people not wanna play it, and it deserved to be recreated in beautiful 3d graphics and brought to the attention of a newer generation of gaming fans who may not have given ff7 a second look before. i wanted people who would get into this amazing story for the first time because of the remake to get the original story, more or less, and could've overlooked some flaws with how they expanded/changed it if it was still basically the same plot! i'm still gonna play every part of the remake but the whole stealth sequel thing they're doing is such a bummer to me lol, i've already talked to a lot of my friends and family about it and strongly recommended that they play the original game even if it might be a bit dated.

🥺🥺🤝🤝

i'm glad to hear about your experience with it and relieved it was a bit of the same.

oops a bit more under the cut (no spoilers this time though! just salt.)

Honestly i'm a bit on the same ground there because i did really enjoy playing the remake, it's fun, it's dynamic, there's new quests i think are really fun and great, and i was so hyped with seeing everyone else that i was willing to give even Sephiroth a shot. tbh originally i thought it might be just straight up hallucinations that aren't motivated by Sephiroth himself, just playing on Cloud's trauma, and while we lost the subtility, i am a sucker for exploring more of Cloud's trauma and complete collapsing "This Is Fine" mental health.

I was always a bit iffy about the Specters but i did go through the game mostly happy with what i got. But yeah ultimately it's really both the conclusion of the Specters storyline and the Zack scene that left me "huh." for a while.

And honestly my reactions when the game was over was just "okay i'm not. sure what to do with it but i'll guess we'll have to wait and see."

but it's sitting on it for a few years now that really make me go, actually, i really dislike it 😭

Originally i think i wanted to go easy on the game because i was buying onto the "well maybe it's too much to expect them to do a plot that is exactly the same as the OG, they keep talking about how they don't want to redo the game 101 and i guess that's fair", but now in retrospect i'm just "... but it was advertised to be a remake. And Yuffie's DLC can show very well how they can do new things adding to the game without making it a straight up sequel. and why is ff7 having a metacommentary plotline anyway" and that's when i started to get beef about it. Like, it's shitty to punish the fans for them being mad they got sold something under false adverticizing.

The Grief theme from the OG is something i care a lot about so this was one of the first thing i started to think in depth about, and since it also meant trying to make sense of "why do i want /this/ death to happen again" it eventually made me think of the others themes i cared about the remake would not be able to follow through properly and *there* you get how i am today, fully jaded about it.

Truly the "Sephiroth locked himself in the Nibelheim Mansion" character arc. Going in with curiosity and coming out with, actually, the more i read the more i think it's too bad.

As for the second paragraph: 100%!!! Like, i've been here for 15 years and i know for a fact that recommending the OG is always met with "oh but it looks so bad" (it's stylized not bad!!! oh well), or "i can't focus without voice acting" or "but the gameplay sounds boring", which is added to how all the others entries in the series have polished graphisms to start with (even if some are early polished 3D and have clunky animation as a result, it still holds up that the more "modern" player can get into it yaknow)

and idk when you compare it to like RE2 Remake that balances remaking the old game with new graphisms and everything and then changing a couple of things either to upgrade the story or to make it more coherent with later update in the franchise.... It's kinda like the type of things we expected i guess???

And i've seen people decide to get into ff7 for the first time by the remake itself. Some people are waiting to see where the plot is going to go via the remake. And while the remake can work as a sequel if you squint, idk how i think about it being the first contact someone has with the saga. (tho i don't know how much i can criticize on that level since i started with Crisis Core, then watched Advent Children, and then i read the wiki for the OG and only played the OG years later. So i have no lesson to give on the "but you're not experiencing the ff7 saga in the right order :(" front)

I have a friend who's a game dev who also only got into ff7 via the remake, and we discussed it last time we met because he knows i'm a huge fan and he wanted my opinion as a Veteran™. Turns out, while he liked a few things from the game, there was a lot out of it that he didn't like and couldn't figure out why (except a few things he called "idk what's going on but it sounds like Nomura's fuckery", you can feel the KH veteran out of him). And the more we discussed it the more he realized that a lot of the things he really didn't vibe with were truly Remake Only Decisions. Like he didn't understand on what level Sephiroth is meant to be a legendary Antagonist while all he does is just being a generic villain who shows up early just to go "heheh i'll do evil", or complained about super long and eventless dungeons that were really just, remake only stuff. and he hated the Specters bc he kept seeing it as breaking from the immersion of the story itself and their appearance seemed to be completely separated from the main story, as if it was another story running in parallelism to the one we're going through.

On the other hand when i started to tell him how it was in the OG for instance and especially the difference in Sephiroth's writing he was nodding along like "*that* i get why it was impactful". (and he's not the type to lie about his feelings on something just to go with the opinion someone is holding, convos got heated before lmao)

So yeah like. idk. I just kinda wish they were forward about it not being a remake. and not derailling the plot of the game itself in order to make a metatextual critism on how fans demands those type of remakes and refuses to accept deviations from it.

So i'm all with you on that too 😭 i'm just so sad bc i remember in 2015 when they announced the remake being so hyped and finally feeling like the OG would be more accessible to people whom i knew at the time didn't want to bother with such an old gem game. But now i feel like it's kinda made even more inaccessible since i feel like some people would stop at the remake itself bc it's already a game that is way way bigger than the OG ever was, and it's already time consuming to start with just to have the same story told in another medium.

When Ever Crisis was announced it was supposed to be a mobile game which would actually go through the whole plot of the saga, without changing anything, but with characters's chibi, and i remember the devs using EC as a shield there like "well if you want to play the OG in good quality tune in for EC". And i didn't keep up with EC's newest news but at the time it was announced it was going to release one chapter at a time for the duration of the server, which. is such a downgrade in every front and also means you won't be able to keep the game on the long term doesn't it? and after the fiasco that was First Soldier this is even more of a dubious take.

All in all it's just, genuinely such a cynical remake and commercial approach it just makes me so sad.

so yeah i'm 100% with you on this one :(

and same i'll play the games, esp since there are still good things into them, the gameplay is enjoyable, the explorations are so fun, it's nice to see the world of the OG being given this approach! For all the stuff i would complain about there's a lot i actively like about the remake, for instance i'm so so glad we get more Aerith & Tifa scenes where they show how close friends they become (bc god the eternal shipwar pinning the girls against one another in a petty catfight was the most annoying part of the pre-remake fandom, despite the OG only ever treating them as good friends, not rivals, so the fact the remake hammers in even more "tHEY'RE!!! FRIENDS!!! STOP IT!!!" is everything to me.).

And there's stuff i think are genuinely good like, actually exploring Sector 7 and making us care about the people in it much more than the OG could prepare us for it! muah very good no note.

It just genuinely sucks that the biggest problem with ff7r is the actual core of the plotline they're going with to drive the whole story onward. Everything else goes from fine to amazing. And then this thing doesn't work for me. but since it's the most important thing of the game, it undoes everything that made me hyped to start with.

so yeah :( fully 100% with you on this one. Guess we have to push our "play the 1997 game" agenda even harder now. rip :sob:

Thank you once again for sharing <333

[rainbowgothdisaster]

important note: this could all be very assumptionous, but botw i fell in love with right away. it broke away from typical zelda games which was fun bcuz i only played the 3ds remake of ocarina of time and never finished it. totk feels like it tried to be more zelda game in the worst ways. so the disappointment is hitting hard and since my brother didnt finish botw i cant discuss it with him.

so glad i didnt buy totk

im borrowing my brothers. its............... fine. i guess. not

the music is worse, the story is too intrusive, switching some controls is irritating for someone who played botw at least 5 times in the last 2-3 years, i forget about these abilities more than i forgot about cyonis, idk why but travelling feels more irritating? why would i need my horse or walk when its just. idk. is it slower than before?, i feel like im losing health and stamina more but maybe im just too used to knowing how to manage it, i feel like i dont naturally make rupees and pick up materials as much as before like i have to go out of my way doing that, i dont find the zonai archetecture interesting in anyway its so bland, i feel like basic things that i used my eyes and brain for are being explained which. shut up., im not as sticky as i used to be im so demotivated from climbing

if it can import my horses why cant it know i know how to do stuff in the previous game? or why not have an option to turn off like parry and archery tutorials? if theres one way to make me put down a game its treat me like an idiot.

maybe im not far enough but i do not care for the new characters ive seen so far, theyre endearing in the basic way of "this is a child and has a cute design" but not very much in actual personality. its a cluttered cast, before i was here for zelda and made friends along the way and reconnected with old ones. this time i already have friends that would be fun to work with more closely but instead they pointed me to who im working with.

i dont feel as strong a connection with these sages as i did the champions. the champions i was heart broken bcuz imagine your friends all die you fail your mission and then you fucking die and wake up 100yrs later everyone youve ever known dead (and tbh anyone you cared about died just before you, except for The Person and you were fighting the odds with a tooth pick and white girl in a nightdress there is no way he actually thought hed get away), a faint memory in history, and you can barely remember them but are one of less than a handful of ppl that know them as a person instead of an ancient hero. 100 years is just 1-3 generations and yet its all so distant. i had reason to care for them from the get go. ive met the sage of wind and was just kinda. bored. these ppl are ancient and not mine and my connection is on a new person who i cant actually make memories with to make boss fights more dramatic.

maybe im just salty bcuz i thought teba and his friend was hot (i spent so much time in rito village guys, everyone liked sidon i was on teba (and the champions i thirsted for them so so much esp daruk and revali)) and they just pointed at tulin like "take this, it could help you on your adventure"

the puzzels are more intuitive and interesting, theres more characterization for previous characters and voice acting, everyone is so much hotter, uh zonai are sexy as hell???, zelda. babygirl. what are you trying to do to me with this makeup?, ive only come across two but i like taking the koroks to where they need to go :3 he go camping wit fwiend :3, i love the foreboding shadow child, fun boss fight, im not motion sick during the dungeons

[furryphantomnacho]

When I say it aloud, it feels petty, but I've kept a list of things I have wanted over the course of our relationship.

I wanted a proper ring set to show I was married. Nothing extravagant as I'm uncomfortable with expensive or flashy jewerly, but something that said someone put a ring on it.

A sectional sofa or decent living room furniture instead of the hodge podge of items I've bought 2nd hand or found for free over the years.

A kayak or canoe. I love to be outside when it's warm and love the serenity of gliding over calm, deep, dark water most of all.

A miniature village. I have always had a thing for those small Lemax style Christmas village displays. I know as a hobby or collection, it can get expensive, which is why I'm more than fine with 2nd hand, thrifted, or individual pieces purchased over time.

A hot tub. Again, would be ok with one purchased used as long as it was sanitized (and I'd do it myself anyway, because I like to be clean). Even an inflatable hot tub would be nice. I have arthritis and spine issues.

I think I keep a list of these things because they were promised, and I don't feel they are unreasonable requests, not over the course of a decade or more. Especially not in comparison to the things we've financed and struggled to pay for, for his hobbies and interests.

When he got into sewing, he wanted to do automotive reupholstery. We bought an industrial sewing machine, fabric, and special needles and thread. The machine itself was 3 grand. Bolts of fabric are ridiculous.

When he wanted to do fabrication and YouTube videos, we bought an LLC license, camera equipment, outsourced production for a very niche item, a drone for aerial shots, and spent money for him to travel to locations to film for himself or others.

A 3D printer, when a "cheap" one was still a grand and the technology still new. One of the kids tripped over the cord, causing it to fall and break. He had it sitting on a converted barstool with the power cable stretched like a tripwire across the room. We had a tiny toddler. Didn't buy the warranty.

3 motorcycles. One was a project piece that was given away when the project became too much. The other two were Harleys.

Power tools. Dewalt brand, because it has to be.

A bus. Yup. A bus. That is a whole story in and of itself, and maybe I'll get around to posting about it, but it was a converted 60's something commercial bus.

A greenhouse. That he had to have set up before winter, but wouldn't use in the winter, because it was cold. Is now wondering if it's already too warm in the greenhouse for the plants. Gardening equipment; fans, tools, special soil, seeds, grow tents, lights, and chemicals.

A 70-inch TV, for our hodgepodge living room.

His daily commute vehicle is usually something fun or unique to his taste and interests.

Another Xbox for his room once we moved into separate rooms. Says it's to co-op with the kids, rarely plays with them.

Guitars. Ones a LesPaul. Amplifiers, speakers, pedals 😒, etc.

Another truck. It's older and doesn't really run right now. Needs parts, but otherwise, it sits in front of the house. He said we needed it for all the projects we have to do around the house. I use my wagon or have things delivered for the projects I do.

Other electronic equipment; hard drives, computers, monitors, projectors and screens, microphones, and software.

So maybe it's not that petty? Maybe I'm angry because there IS an unfairness to our dynamic?

Part of the reason I bring all of this up is because, yes, I finally got the ring set, after over a decade and this past 2 Christmases, Ive gotten 4 pieces of my village. Yesterday, I had a sectional couch delivered. It's glorious and huge and me and my babies can stretch out together on it while being next to each other. It was a bit less than 3 grand. I put 200 of my school money down on it and am looking for a job, in part to pay for it and balance the bills out.

I feel so guilty about it. I didn't do it behind his back, as he had suggested it to begin with and even put it on his credit, but the guilt is astounding.

I ended up giving him my debit card for him to purchase his special soil because I felt so bad. I just enabled it, didn't I? Made it worse? Perpetuated the cycle? I have a feeling he checked the account balance and will know I was misleading on what I had in there. I said just had 200 for the couch and a bit extra, but I didn't say that there was a little more behind that. The couch money and extra are just what I had earmarked for use, I was trying to save the rest.

Last night, after he did some work, and he called me out to see, he asked if I was only staying with him for the possibility of the money he could make once he retired. I told him it had never been about the money, that as long as he tried and made things equal, that's what I really cared about. I would buy him all the things if I could, I try to even when we don't have the money, just to show him that I love and appreciate and care that he is satisfied. I want him to pursue his interests but want the same consideration for myself in return.

He's had a couple of offers for high paying technical positions that align with the best parts of his career. Things that spilled over into personal interests and were added to the list of things bought and financed over the years. I told him that while it would be great if he could make that kind of money, what I really wanted was for him to be happy, but he still had responsibilities to his family. His retirement will cover most of our basic living expenses, and me going back to work should cover the rest, so anything he does would be in addition to that.

I found this a little hurtful. When we first got together, he told me his friends thought I was a gold digger, a uniform chaser, a dependa because my first husband had been military as well, because I had a young kid and was working as a waitress or other odd jobs. He said he lost those friends because of me. That it was their response to our relationship that caused him to cut them off.

I guess I'm in it for the long game?

That's sarcasm.

If I was a gold digger, then I would be a pretty terrible one, that's for sure.

He did ask if buying the couch made up for earlier this year. I said sure.

I keep going back to how guilty I feel about the couch.

A friend of his that has become somewhat friends with me retired and took a new position. I reached out and asked if this major company was hiring for someone with no job experience who hadn't completed their degree and he said he'd hook me up, sent me the link and had me fill out the application. Said he would get in front of it and talk to the hiring manager directly after the long weekend. Part of this process included an assessment, which I'm pretty sure I did terribly on as afterward I got an automated email saying the company had decided to go with other applicants.

It was a blow for sure. I don't know what to do with that. Do I message the friend and ask whats up or do I just say thanks for the opportunity and move on?

I graduate in August. If I can pay for it. His benefits for me run out next month, and he hasn't offered to sign over any additional months.

I'm trying to work through all the negative emotions today, but it's difficult.