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meaningofmotorsport · 3 years

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Mid-Week Motorsport Headlines - 21st July 2021

Don’t want to dwell on this much, as it is all that has been in the F1 news this past few days, but I do want to highlight the despicable racial abuse of Hamilton again! No matter how angry you are about what he did on Sunday, there is no reason to bring race into this, he made a mistake plain and simple, and does not deserve to be treated this way!

Also, Helmut Marko saying that they will bring lawyers into this, to try and increase the penalty that was imposed on Lewis, is a joke! These things happen in racing, we don’t like to see big crashes, and are glad that Max is fine, but racing is dangerous, and you can’t get away from that! More than anything, it suggests that Red Bull are still not ready to shoulder the responsibility of a championship, if they go off the boil in this way!

In more enjoyable F1 news, Alpine CEO, Laurent Rossi, says that Alonso is on course to stay with the team for 2022. This makes total sense, given the way he has performed on his return to the sport, and with his experience, he could help the team to grow in the future! With Alpine juniors like Piastri waiting in the wings, the decision to resign Ocon, may not have been wise, as his performances this year have never been astounding really, which you would expect with all the hype around him!

IndyCar

It has been a busy week in IndyCar, firstly as Grosjean, after loads of speculation, has finally confirmed he will race at Gateway this year, which will be his first oval appearance ever! This is the best oval to start on, at least of the options he had this year, as it is slower than Texas and Indy, and could allow him to build towards a full time ride next year! It will be interesting to see how he copes with the new style of racing, although I am sure he will adapt quickly!

The other bits of big news, are not directly to do with racing, but will help to boost the series going forward! It began with Motorsport Games, announcing that it will be making an official IndyCar game, coming out in 2023! This is something many people have wanted for a long time, and could really help to expand the series’ audience to a new segment of fans! The team making it, have been involved with games like rFactor, so they know how to make good racing games!

The other coup for IndyCar, which is arguably much bigger, is the new TV deal for the series! There were hints that it could go to CBS, however, they were dispelled by its management. This basically left NBC as the only option, but it isn’t as though IndyCar got a rough deal as a result, in fact, it could be the best one for many decades! Having 13 races on the main NBC channel is unheard of for Motorsport, and may really help to grow the sports fanbase! You can argue it will be balanced out by having two races exclusively on Peacock, which is likely being used to encourage fans to buy that package, but otherwise it is a great deal! The TV ratings for the races this year, are undoubtedly a huge factor in securing this contract, as IndyCar is starting to boom again!

Formula E

The layout for the London ePrix circuit this weekend has been revealed! It does look very technical, with many slow hairpin corners, as well as some long straights. Having the pits and start line inside a building may give a completely different aesthetic to the racing!

In some other small bits of news, Alice Powell, has been signed as sim driver for Envision Virgin, to help the team to develop their car into the future! A budget cap has been proposed for the 2023/24 season, to try and avoid the costs from spiralling in this series as well. It may come into force for the 2nd year of Gen3, to give the team a year to get comfortable with the new car, and is in response to some big teams spending as much as £40 million on a mostly spec car! Finally for Formula E, Andretti have stated they want to stay in the sport once BMW have left the team!

MotoGP

The Thai round of the championship has been cancelled for the 2nd year in a row, due to the current situation in that part of the world. This is a shame, as we have only raced once at the track, which gave us a thrilling race in 2019!

Pedrosa will return to MotoGP for the first time since leaving Honda in 2018, as he takes up a wildcard seat for KTM in Austria! As their official test rider, he should still be fit enough to do a very good job, and this experience could help to inform his development of the bike!

KTM have said that if Petrucci wished to go to do some rallying for 2022, they would help to support his efforts. This is a rather large hint that they do not wish to resign him for next year in MotoGP!

-M

Thank you very much for reading this article! To keep up to date with when they go out, and to see my reactions to races and other news, follow me on Twitter at: https://twitter.com/MeaningofMotor1

Also, if you want to support me, I have a Patreon Page at: https://www.patreon.com/meaningofmotorsport

#f1 #britishgp #indycar #indy500 #formulae #london eprix #londoneprix #motogp #motogp2021 #motorsport

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umnvatra · 4 years

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About Zhongli's state in the game right now..

I just want to vent(?) and let out my thoughts about this whole ordeal as a Zhongli simp. Take note that if you are someone who has Zhongli or wants Zhongli/is planning to roll for Zhongli and wants to read this post, be prepared. Because as much as i hate to say it, this one is gonna be harsh. I wish it wasn't, but the truth really hurts and is also something that i struggled to accept sjdjdjchsk

Ngl i'm probably going to get hands thrown at me because of this post but i really, really want to vent about what Mihoyo did to his character. This week has been a roller coaster when it comes to Zhongli. From being super excited for his release, being elated getting him, to being absolutely devastated at all the comments and information that had come out prior to his release.

Basically, as a 5*, Zhongli is very underpowered and underwhelming. This is something i hadn't noticed myself because my Zhongli still didn't have a proper build and weapon yet, but when i did, i felt my own happiness plummet at the weight of the reality.

I don't care if he is strong as a support or a dps, and no i don't want him to necessarily be good at being dps. But this will include a lot of stuff regarding damage because he is a five star with nuking potential. It's also this way because he is THAT underpowered. Even having him be a very good support would be a blessing, but as it goes, he is not.

First it was the comments in Youtube videos, arguing with each other about how bad/good he was. Those comments made me question a lot of things. But i felt absolutely crushed when Jinx and Tuner uploaded their stream of their Zhongli and Xinyan testing.

For those that don't know, Jinx and Tuner run a youtube channel where they test many things in Genshin and provide objective information about them based on the results of their testing. When i saw how incredibly disappointed and frustrated they were with Zhongli, i felt really, really sad. After all, they provide maths. Not only are they one of the genshin youtubers that i trust but they also study characters closely and tell you if a particular 5 star character is worth pulling for or not. And you guessed it, they concluded that Zhongli was NOT worth pulling for as a five star character because he is so heavily underpowered.

Then there comes the arguements presented.

Majority of people thought that Zhongli was going to be more of a support character rather than dps, and i could see why, but ironically he has more potential as a phys carry. And this information comes from the testing that Jinx and Tuner made.

However

Xiangling is still a better physical carry than Zhongli especially when you take into account the abilities she can use while attacking. Zhongli's pillar has questionable energy recharge generation, something that i too had noticed. Every tick of the pillar does NOT guarantee an energy, and it drove me crazy. Meanwhile you have Xiangling who can easily bring out energy with Guoba if she so wanted.

And you need C6 Zhongli in order for him to heal like Noelle too by the way. And Noelle is a 4* that is guaranteed on your first time playing the game. 👁

Zhongli's shield is good for sure, but then you have Noelle who can shield + heal. In terms of stuff being done, Noelle's is better. Zhongli's shield is strong yes, but it can STILL disappear after one or two hits from enemies (at least from our experience in higher AR. I have no idea if the same applies to lower AR).

Now for his meteor. Yes, his meteor is good. Not only is it spammable, but it deals great damage as well. BUT THEN you have Ningguang who can be a better burst spam and possibly deal more damage than his could do (remember, Ning has a lot of jades that could each deal 1k if built properly). The duration for petrification is 3 seconds too, which, a lot of people argue isn't enough time (personally, i have no problem with this since i do not mind it much). And apparently his meteor got nerfed because it does not increase geo damage and phys damage as it used to in the beta testing with petrification.

How about his ability in being able to break shields by holding E? Truth be told, i expected that he was going to be able to explode all shields in one go, but it does not work for every one of them apparently. Shields by hilichurls do break with just one E hold. But the ones by Mitachurls don't. I also tried breaking the Geo Hypostasis's pillar using his E hold and it did not break immediately. This could differ however. 👁 I'm still not sure if its because i have not properly built him right for breaking them or not. And about Stonehide Lawachurls... it's the same as the Geo Hypostasis pillar. The geo shield does not break immediately.

I'm not saying all this because i am mad at Zhongli. Rather, i am disappointed at what Mihoyo did to him. I am absolutely happy to get Zhongli. He is the one character i had been looking forward to for MONTHS. I saved resources in advance for him and even held off on leveling up my current team so i could dump all said resources on him when i get him. I stayed as AR35 for many many weeks because i wanted to level him up properly before ascending my World Rank. I think he is super fun to use especially with his burst and i absolutely adore the animation and when he crosses his arms and does his 'osmanthus tea' monologue at the most random times with his lil hand gestures. Even just listening to his voice while being idle fills me with so much happiness. There is so much joy in getting him. Which is why i am very disappointed at Mihoyo for how they butchered his character.

After Jinx and Tuner made their video about the results of their testing with Zhongli, i was genuinely saddened but i gradually came to accept the truth. It sucks, it hurts, but it is the truth. Even they said that they wanted Zhongli to be a GOOD character, but he is just insanely underpowered right now. You can invest resources into him and make him work, but compared to 4* and the other 5*, it takes so much effort. To make him decent, you'd have to level his stuff up so much but that also applies to four star characters and they perform better than him. Husbando > meta yes, but i gotta say that it still stings when my underleveled Xiangling and Fischl could do a much better job being a dps and support respectively than him when he's many levels above them.

Which brings me to the main point of this post.

Why was Mihoyo scared of making him strong? OP? Why did they nerf him so much? He is a 5* character Mihoyo, make him be STRONG at something. It's why he's a five star. But no. They watered him down so much to the point where even four star characters can do his own job better than him. His pillar doesn't even deal damage upon being destroyed just like Geo MC's. The range of his pillar's resonance is too small, and given the fact that his auto attacks can push enemies (except for the bigger ones of) or can be easily walked out of range to is 👁👄👁

And it deals criminally low damage. Like, why? Why not rack up the numbers? What is the problem????

The more i think about it, the more i can see the points that people have been pointing out. If the issue of energy generation with his pillar is RNG based, then that's simply screwed up. It already adds into the lists of problems that doesn't help with how underpowered he is. And as i am writing this post rn, there are lots and lots of Chinese players enraged about how weak he is as a 5* and causing HUGE fights in forums. People in the genshin subreddit had been debating again and again over heated arguements about his abilities. Even if you visit the genshin subreddit today and check every post about Zhongli, you will see people in the comments mention stuff about how he performs in the game and his abilities.

Mihoyo, give him a buff. I know that giving buffs isn't your thing, but there is honestly thousands and thousands of people expressing their disappointment and anger in how weak you've made him. He is a fan favorite. I love him. Majority of the genshin fanbase do. His character is really good and it hecking sucks that he is having major difficulties in fitting in on the game right now. He deserves better. Make him strong. Buff him. Adjust some of his abilities. Literally give. our. geo. dad. justice.

Those who don't care about damage is probably rolling their eyes at my rant rn but given how objectively weak he is compared to the other characters in game, it won't hurt if he gets a buff.

When the survey for Zhongli and Xinyan comes, rate him low. I know. It sucks. It's despicable. Even i hate it. But that is why we have to do it. If we become honest to Mihoyo about how much weak they made him, then maybe they are going to consider buffing or adjusting his abilities.

I'm sorry for the negative post. There is still hope for geo dad. He is incredibly fun to use but if you are debating on whether to pull for him or not, my answer would be

If you absolutely love him as a character, go for it.

Otherwise, just wait for now. Because his state in the game isn't looking so good at the moment.

For those that already have him and are also disappointed or saddened by what happened, take comfort in knowing that tons of people are still using Zhongli (including me who went through such roller coaster of emotions lmaoaoaoa) regardless of the information that he is behind in terms of being a dps and support. And that there is still hope for him (WAIT FOR THE SURVEY AND RATE HIM LOW YO 😭😭😭 IT WON'T GUARANTEE THAT MIHOYO IS GONNA BUFF HIM BUT WITH ALL THE PEOPLE RAGING RN THERE IS A HIGH POSSIBILITY THAT THEY WILL LOL)

Have some goofy screenshots that i took while playing as Schlongli

#[nanderthal.]#genshin impact #genshin impact zhongli #zhongli #hang in there my lovelies 😭😭#i hate it too but sjfjshfoehdoshs #our hope lies in the surveys #and the rage; ironically enough #other than that if you really want to use him then go for it 🥺#there is no one stopping you #he is super fun to play after all!!#he just deserves better goddamnit mihoyo 👁😭#give us that OP petrification #or even better pillars #anYTHING MIHOYO

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unclerippuascension · 3 years

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miitopia demo came out, im gonna talk about it

ok so just as a starting point, i LOVE miitopia. miitopia and tomodachi life are some of my favorite games on the 3DS. i’ve played both games (and restarted them bc the only have one fucking save file), i’ve watched vinny’s streams of both games (both highlights and the full streams, i have too much free times) and loved them, so when i heard miitopia was getting a remake for the switch i was... cautiously excited. so the demo is out now, and i have some thoughts.

first the goods the game looks great! i mean obviously its a graffical remake, so of course its gonna look good. plus its on a bigger screen and if you’re not like me and have a standard switch (and not a switch lite) the screen can be even bigger! mii customization is greatly added, like in the trailers you can add extra flair to your miis, and for those who like to make miis based on cartoon characters or just really elaborate OCs, it really helps. but they’re not in the default mii creator you add them in a menu fyi

now for the bads

how they handle miis, oh golly gee gosh i have some problems. it all stems from the fact that unlike the 3DS, the switch does not have a mii central, and honestly I expected them to make a mii central for the game. like a pokemon home kind of app where you could import miis. you have a few options if you wanted your old miis from mii-maker to be in this game.

you can create them from scratch or choose them from switch save data which are the same thing (which i mean if you can do that for EVERY MII in this game more power to you but i can’t) which is clunky and if you’re like me and are not good at making miis that aren’t all kinda same faced then you have option two

recieve miis from a friend or access key. now if you have a bunch of buddies who have a bunch of miis and really love miitopia too then you have no problem. but given that the mii fanbase is kind of niche and is heavily relying on the 3DS era from what ive seen, this kind of stuff isn’t a good fix.

and finally we have the ‘popular’ section. this is a collection of the most popular miis from the 3DS version miitopia...and i fucking hate it. because they’re all meme characters. literally its nothing but sans, waluigi, wario, and other meme garbage. the fun thing about miitopia is that the miis weren’t just memes, and since the pool of popular mii’s never changes you’re either stuck with making your own miis for every character in the game, hoping your friends have a bunch of miis or that you find a bunch of access codes online, or choosing one of the 20 warios in the popular section.

also this is a nit-pick, but you can’t have click a randomize all option. idk the magic of seeing batman in the cast of NPCs isn’t as fun when i have to put him there myself. I really wish Nintendo put in a little bit more care when it came to what is the core most gimmick of the fucking game. like when i have to remake a mii from my 3DS mii maker onto my switch like a fucking caveman, something is wrong. again, the solution should have been a mii central for switch.

another negative for me is that the horse feels kinda...idk pointless? maybe im just a crotchedy old fuck man i dunno. and the UI is a smidge weird, but its a 3DS game on the switch so I wont give them too much shit

oh and the fact this game is 49 dollars plus tax, now i hope they add more stuff to justify that but the negative jackass in me says they won’t. speaking of my hopes for the game, my biggest hope is that they add more to the post game. maybe add more post-game bosses, after the game’s story ended it kind of feels like there isn’t much to do.

but yeah, those are my thoughts. again i’m cautiously excited for this release bc of how miis are handled compared to the original as well as the pricetag.

#miitopia

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wolfandwild · 4 years

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My Shadowlands Wish List

Now that we’re getting closer and closer to pre-patch and the inevitable launch of the expansion, I thought I’d rattle off a wish list of things I hope we get to see in Shadowlands, largely from a lore/story perspective. (Or rather, my stupid foot was hurting so badly I couldn’t concentrate on writing my fic properly, so I decided to ramble off some not-so-hot takes, honestly they’re pretty mild in the grand scheme of things). I was in the first alpha wave, so I’ve had a pretty good opportunity to play the game as it is thus far, and I did want to make it clear up front that I’m fully aboard the hype train. Shadowlands is looking like a great expansion for a number of different reasons, and while I do have a few areas of concern, on the whole I am currently feeling very positive. Please also note these are just my random, late-night personal musings - your mileage may vary, and that’s a-okay. Mild Shadowlands spoilers below the cut.

You Get A Customisation! You Get A Customisation! Everybody Gets A Customisation! This one is pretty much a no-brainer. I don’t necessarily think Blizzard need to have absolutely every possible character customisation ready to go before launch, but I’d like them to continue adding further options over time. I move in a couple of different circles in Warcraft - I’m obviously involved in the writing/lore/character aspect of the game, but I’m also GM of a raiding guild and closely follow the gameplay/competitive side of things too - and customisation is one of those few things that gets everyone excited, regardless of their reason for playing the game. I’m looking forward to seeing a much more vibrant, unique and diverse Azeroth come Shadowlands pre-patch. (Mostly irrelevant side story - when Wrathion returned in the Patch 8.3 cinematics, my Twitter and lore Discords were basically going berserk with excitement, meanwhile there’s a hundred very confused dudes in my raiding guild who don’t read quest text being all, “What the hell is a ‘Wrathion’?”. I live in two different worlds, honestly). Another reason I’m excited about customisation (and I’m probably in a very small minority on this one) is because I actually really dislike allied races, and I think it gives Blizzard an option to add more flavour to character creation in the game without always having to cobble together a new race. I honestly think they should have simply gone for sub-race customisation from the beginning, to avoid having to ass-pull allied races out of nowhere. Using customisation over allied races also makes it far simpler to give something to both factions (e.g. high elves), or to add something for one faction without necessarily having to always add something to the other faction to keep things in balance. Giving an extra hairstyle to humans but not orcs generally isn’t going to cause that much of a fuss, but if one faction were given an allied race and the other wasn’t because there wasn’t a logical racial option, there would be a shitstorm of epic proportions. So you end up in a situation where one faction* gets saddled with a really random, sucky allied race just to be ‘fair’. *The Alliance. It’s the Alliance. Leave Britney Arthas Alone Arthas has never been a personal favourite of mine, but I respect that he has a fantastic story, and that he’s a cornerstone of Warcraft lore. His story is both satisfying and complete, and that’s exactly why they should leave him the hell alone. I don’t mind if he’s visited in flashbacks (like the Bastion cinematic), or if we explore how he affected still living characters (e.g. Jaina, Sylvanas, Bolvar), but I think it would be a mistake to try to make him a central character in the expansion. In contrast, someone like Kael’thas is an excellent choice for an additional arc, because his original story was a bit all over the place and there is still plenty of room for his character development. Arthas doesn’t need it, and I don’t think the minute potential gain is worth the risk of retroactively making the rest of his story worse. On a similar note... Warcraft III Was Released Nearly 20 Years Ago, It’s Time to Move On The Warcraft RTS was a landmark series of games, and was obviously without them we wouldn’t have the World of Warcraft. However, I think the future health of Warcraft’s lore depends on the ability of the writers to grow the story outwards and upwards, not to always default back to the same handful of characters for nostalgia’s sake. While characters like Jaina, and Thrall, and Sylvanas are great, they can’t carry the narrative forever. Shadowlands represents a unique opportunity to build up the next generation of characters and to blow the cosmology of the universe wide open. From what I’ve seen on the alpha/beta, Blizzard are definitely taking a step in this direction, and I’m hoping that’s what we get instead of Patch 9.2 - Oh Look, It’s Thrall Again. On an additionally similar note... Sylvanas Is Crazy, And She Needs To Go Down (I don’t actually think she’s crazy, but one should never miss the opportunity for an Avatar reference). One of my complaints about the recent lore developments in Warcraft its that it’s starting to feel a lot less like the World of Warcraft, and more like the Sylvanas of Warcraft. She’s playing 469D chess; she’s behind everything; she’s the sole driving force of the narrative. I don’t think that works in an MMO that’s meant to tell the story of an entire expanded universe. It makes things feel small. And before I get eaten alive, I want to be clear that I don’t dislike Sylvanas as a character - in fact, I think she’s very compelling and on a night when my foot wasn’t killing me so much I’d be happy to get into an argument as to why she’s actually one of the most consistent and well-written characters in the World of Warcraft. I don’t necessarily think she needs to die, either, but I think it’s time for her narrative to come to a close to make room for other characters in the story, and I don’t think Blizzard are going to get a much better opportunity to give her a satisfying ending than in a death-themed expansion. Justice for Tyrande (Or Vengeance, Whatever Uther Wants to Call It) Tyrande got done dirty in Battle for Azeroth, probably more than any other character. I’m not a massive night elf fangirl by any means, but their entire race was basically used as grist for the mill in Sad Orc Dad’s story, with no next to no narrative follow-up besides a cool cinematic that went absolutely nowhere in game. Outside the game, her character then got subjected to the cacophonous misogynistic crowing of the fanbase that occurs whenever a female character dares to be angry in the World of Warcraft. Much like Jaina, she’s decried for being ‘crazy’ or ‘irrational’ for, you know, being pissed that her people and her homeland were wiped out in an act of wildly disproportional aggression. I don’t know about you guys, but that would tend to make me a wee bit testy, but maybe I’m crazy and irrational too. In any case, I want to see her go off in Shadowlands. Fuck ‘em up, girlfriend. You Get One Villain. If You Drop It, I’m Not Buying You Another One I think most people will agree with me that the two weakest expansions (at least from a narrative perspective) were Warlords of Draenor and Battle for Azeroth. There are a few reasons for this, but for me one of the biggest issues was that they were chop-and-change expansions. Both were advertised and started off with narratives and themes that were wildly different from where they finished up. Warlords was part Iron Horde expansion, part Legion expansion; BFA was part faction war expansion, part Old God expansion... and that’s exactly the problem. Both times, I felt like we got two half-done expansions, instead of one single, cohesive narrative experience. If you look at expansions like Wrath of the Lich King and Legion, both of which were very well received, a lot of their success hinges on their presentation of a consistent narrative with a clear goal for players within the story. The Lich King, for example, was a consistent and very present villain. He menaced you throughout your entire journey, and so his eventual defeat on top of Icecrown Citadel was meaningful and impactful. Defeating N’Zoth, by contrast, felt pretty hollow, as we hadn’t had enough narrative build up to really care about taking him down. Part of the reason I’m excited for Shadowlands is it looks like we’re getting a nice, focused story development that builds up to a logical and satisfying villain in the Jailer. Why Can’t We Be Friends? Look, I bleed blue. I love the Alliance... but the faction war should not continue to be a driving narrative element in the World of Warcraft. I don’t want the factions to be removed, I think they’re a core part of the Warcraft experience and I’d be pretty sad to have to let them go entirely, but the cycle of hating one another then teaming up in an uneasy alliance in order to defeat a bigger bad, only to go back to being at one another’s throats the next day is... tiresome.

Ideally, the war would have ended after Legion - it was the most logical place to do so, and I think it was a big missed opportunity that they ran with Battle for Azeroth immediately afterwards. Unfortunately, I think this means the Alliance is going to just have to forgive and forget, which doesn’t really make a lot sense at this point given everything that happened in BFA, but for the sake of the overall story, it might be a necessary sacrifice. That said... I Am Once Again Asking for Alliance Narrative Agency I know there are a lot of (valid) complaints to be had about the Horde storyline, but the one thing the Horde has always had over the Alliance is that they actually get to drive the narrative forward. The Alliance are pretty much exclusively reactionary, and in a lot of ways are side characters to the main Horde storyline. I’ve made this argument elsewhere, but it honestly wouldn’t be too hard to remove Anduin’s part in Saurfang’s storyline in Battle for Azeroth and have it turn out more or less exactly the same way... which says a lot about the importance of the Alliance in the overall storyline. In short, the Alliance are secondary players at best, and downright irrelevant at worst. One of my biggest hopes for Shadowlands is that we’ll actually get to see some Alliance narrative agency. To be clear, however, this does not mean a simple rehashing of Horde conflicts with a blue coat of paint. Alliance stories are not Horde stories, and nor should they be. Having an Alliance leader turn into a genocidal despot is not the only way to create conflict or agency in the story - there are plenty of opportunities for character growth, development and conflict on the Alliance side without having to have one of our leaders do a heel turn (e.g. Tyrande as the Night Warrior, Anduin dealing with his experience in the Maw, Jaina confronting the fates of people like Kael’thas and Arthas, Taelia meeting her father, etc.), and I really hope we get to see some of those narrative threads come to fruition. I Want to Mount Everything Add a hundred new mounts. Two hundred. A pot plant with googly eyes, the four hundredth Alliance horse, your mum. I’ll ride anything; I don’t even care. (Please note this is the most important opinion I have).

#world of warcraft #shadowlands #shadowlands spoilers #battle for azeroth #lore #turns out i had a few more opinions than i originally realised #anyway shadowlands looks cool guys y'all should check it out #but i would always rather have some warcraft than no warcraft #so take that how you will

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merilly-chan · 6 years

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I am so done with a part of this fandom.

I’ve had it and I’m getting more frustrated by the second to the point where I simply stopped engaging in discussions.

First of all, before there are any misunderstandings, Kingdom Hearts 3 is far from perfect. I have quite a few gripes with it, especially with the pacing, and I am not denying anyone the right to voice their criticism in a civil manner.

But what is happening in a part of this fandom is not civil nor is it criticism, it is something I’d consider flaming. And worst of it all, it is so hypocritical that I want to smack my head repeatedly against a wall so I may forget I ever saw it.

Over the course of the last few days and weeks, I’ve continuously come across people saying that fans should not accept KH3’s faults and demand them to be addressed. Demand.

First of all, neither SE nor Disney owe us anything, no matter how much we wished for things to be different. We have no right to demand anything since they delivered a game that was not falsely advertising anything. Betrayed expectations are our problem alone and not theirs.

But what upsets me about all those entitled comments isn’t that they completely disregard the positive aspects of the game but that they completely neglect the circumstances of KH3’s development.

Some of the following is based on speculation but it’s a very good reason why some things are not satisfactory and why people are so hypocritical.

●To start it off, this game has been in development for a little more than 4 years after the engine was switched in 2014. Now some might argue that it’s a long time but it’s actually not. I’m not a game developer but some of this is just common sense.

The team working on KH3 had to deal with a completely new engine. They had to build everything from scratch when they’ve only worked with their in-house engines before. Previous KH games (except for KH1and perhaps the original CoM) had the luxury of being able to recycle a lot of assets and just polish it and change/add new components. With an engine they were familiar with. Now some might say that other games also manage to be made in such a short amount of time but let’s face reality here: most of them are copy and pasting lots of their previous work and, once again, are already familiar with the engine they’re working with.

I think we all noticed how much they struggled with the new engine up to the final year where it finally started to stabilize a little. It’s impressive what they managed in that time where they had to focus on lots of different things. And it’s also the reason why some may think the combat isn’t as smooth as in KH2FM.

●Disney/Pixar were much more involved in KH3 than in any other title. This may just be an assumption but judging by the interviews regarding their work together, they weren’t easy to please and hung up on the details more than the overall integrity or the original plot. Disney seemed to care more about its own properties (although KH technically also is) than the original plot which was written by someone else. But since they own the franchise, they decide where the focus is and I dare assume the developers didn’t have as much time as they would have liked to add more original content and the stuff die-hard fans actually wanted.

It stands to reason that a certain song we’re all way too familiar with likely wouldn’t have made its way into the game in the quality that it had without Disney demanding it. (Because they actually have the right to demand stuff.) All that nit-picking and the focus on ridiculous details may be pleasing in the end but not anymore when something else has to suffer in return.

●There is only so much you can add if you take all these factors into account with the team they had at their disposal. KH3 doesn’t actually have that big of a development team compared to other game franchises. They can only do so much in 4 years while still adjusting to new technology and trying to keep gameplay, story and graphics somehow balanced.

Of course that doesn’t excuse every mistake or every decision they’ve made. (I certainly could have done without all those mini games for example.) But let’s be realistic here. If we take all “demands” from all the fans into account, add to that the demands of SE and Disney/Pixar, the game simply couldn’t become all that with the time/money/developers they had at their disposal.

Please get real, people. Not everything is SE’s/Nomura’s fault.

Which is where the hypocrisy comes in and I want to call some of the fanbase out on that.

People demanded this game the moment it was announced. Demanded a release date without them daring to delay the game, regardless of whether the game was even in a state to plan a set release date, and the prevalent emotion in a lot of comment sections beneath official statements/accounts was “finally release the damn game” and “what’s taking you so long?”.

Those very same people are now demanding that the game should have been everything they desired and much more than it actually could manage in 4 years. Some even claim now that they should have taken more time. A lot of them are in the faction that views that game extremely negatively due to exaggerated expectations. It doesn’t work that way. You cannot complain about a lack of content while demanding that they should hurry up before its release.

And this frustrates me. This utter sense of entitlement that SE should be thankful to them and their overblown demands. But sure, that is legitimate. Because they want the game, they want it perfect and within a year of its announcement. Who cares about how many people they would actually need for that and how much money that would consume? Because all companies who want to make money are evil!

I’ve got news for those folks: We can’t have everything. It’s impossible. If everything is so terrible, try creating your perfect KH3 in 4 years with limited resources and demands all over from those actually owning the franchise and the fans without wanting to lift a finger themselves. Kingdom Hearts may have become a fairly big franchise, but it can’t compare to extremely large franchises (yet) and the financial situation likely didn’t allow for more money to be spent.

Jeez, I’m so annoyed by a large faction of this fandom right now. It’s not even about legitimate criticism but rather that it’s the only thing you see from some without them even looking past the product. The gameplay should be perfect, the graphics better than ever, the story should be everything they ever desired and more (who cares what other people think as long as my own are fulfilled, right?), bigger worlds, more to do, livelier worlds, more endgame content, more riddles, more cutscenes (and less for others), more of this character, more playable characters in general, more worlds, etc. Do people even register the things they demand and whether that’s all possible in 4 years with a completely new engine and Disney meddling as well?

Seriously. So many fans only know how to demand things nowadays without actually sparing a thought on the people working on these games. But sure, let’s continue thinking all of them owe us for spending 70$ on their game and that we can demand them to cater to all our individual needs. That’s so much easier than actually showing at least a little appreciation toward what the developers managed to achieve.

I’m not saying to glorify everything with a fanfare, chanting how perfect it is. It’s far from that actually. But you can criticize a game without coming across as an entitled fan who did nothing more than buy and play the game and suddenly thinks that their headcanons and their believes are all that matter. There’s more to see than the final product, even if it comes down to that in the end.

The game isn’t all negative. If someone really thinks that then there’s no helping them.

#kh3 #kh #kingdom hearts #kingdom hearts 3

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spiderdreamer-blog · 5 years

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Why I Wish I Liked The Dragon Prince More Than I Did: An Overlong Metatextual Essay

New York Comic-Con is next week, and with it comes another panel on The Dragon Prince, the Netflix original animated series shepherded by WonderStorm, a company headed up by former Avatar: The Last Airbender head writer Aaron Ehasz, other Avatar veterans like Giancarlo Volpe, and video game voices such as Uncharted 3 director Justin Richmond. The series has racked up two seasons and a robust fanbase in the course of a little over a year, with a series of Scholastic books and a game on the way, as well as widespread fan support for what Ehasz claims to be a plan for seven full seasons (Netflix renews it seasonally rather than giving it the benefit of large series orders that bigger companies can sometimes employ for kid’s shows). I’m quite fond of it myself, as noted in previous posts: the world and aesthetic is beautiful (if a little choppy at times given the series’ cel-shaded CGI approach), the story and world has a lot of grand, epic effort put into it, and it has an excellent voice cast with other Avatar notables like Jack DeSena, Erik Todd Dellums, and a slew of Canadian mainstays who don’t usually get to tackle material this weighty (Jason Simpson is particularly excellent as Viren).

It’s all very well-done and in Avatar’s spirit....and yet. I wonder if it might almost be too much so. I wish I liked it more than I did in many ways, and after revisiting several of its forebears recently (respectively, Avatar itself, The Legend of Korra, and Voltron Legendary Defender, which is also a spiritual successor in many ways), I might have a good idea as to why. As such, I’m going to go through an overview of what I feel each series does in terms of telling its story, and then bring it back ‘round to Prince. I hope the results are entertaining.

First, Avatar: The Last Airbender. Eleven years after its finale, it remains a hallmark of American TV animation and is arguably still going strong as a franchise, with new comics and novels based on it being regularly published, and even a live action retelling for Netflix on the way (given the last time they tried “live action Avatar”, it sucked mightily, and yet somehow DIDN’T kill the franchise in its crib, I’m more optimistic about this than you might think). It’s a excellent series, incredibly close to my heart, though it’s far from perfect. There are a number of dead spots, episodes that don’t work as well dramatically even when they can provide great action or character work, and part of the reason why is its structure. Avatar is, in many ways, a travelogue show with certain destinations to hit for each new character and story point in each book, but the stories are still episodic much of the time, with many characters and locations showing up that we never revisit. This isn’t always the case, mind; several seeming one-shot characters such as Suki or Jet became fan favorites, and this tendency isn’t necessarily a bad thing even if we don’t see a certain person ever again. It broadens the world and makes it seem like a real place: everyone, no matter how “small” or “unimportant”, has their own story that is worthy of interest and humanity.

The double-edged sword here, however, is that often Avatar can opt for a more simplistic, pared-down portrayal of these places and people that makes them feel like fables (this is a problem that Thundercats’ 2011 reboot inherited and never really recovered from). Sometimes, this works, as in episodes like The Cave of Two Lovers with the hilarious hippies, or Zuko Alone and its heartbreaking portrayal of just how war hits those who are most vulnerable. Other times....well, you get The Great Divide and both sides of a conflict going BEHOLD, I AM MADE OF EXTRA-FLAMMABLE STRAW to a truly unpleasant degree in a conflict so flimsy Aang resolves it with a bald-faced lie (which IS admittedly hilarious). Still, the series finds its balance (ahem) eventually, even with the occasional sour note still being played (The Painted Lady in particular stands out as a weak point of the final season in attempting to come off like Miyazaki and landing more in Captain Planet territory). Additionally, some of its villains can feel a little more broad and typical of the genre: there’s not much depth to the likes of Zhao, Long Feng, or Ozai even as they serve to be rather fantastic antagonists, though others, including the ultimately heartbreaking Azula, prove to hold more interest in that regard.

Next came The Legend of Korra. A particularly genius innovation of Avatar that makes it perfectly suited to prequels and sequels is the Avatar cycle itself: one can, in theory, explore as many past or future lives of the Avatar as one wishes. Korra, somewhat inevitably, decided to follow the one after Aang (albeit with one big peek backwards in the terrific “Beginnings” two-parter, which follows the first Avatar, Wan, and his struggles), and as a result, there’s a fascinating blend of text and metatext in that very choice. Textually, Korra must learn and grow into the Avatar she wishes to be rather than constantly looking over her shoulder at Aang and what he might have done, even if he might serve as great guidance. This is difficult for her in a number of respects, not limited to the fact that many in Aang’s story are still around and living their lives, and that his legacy was ending the war and ushering in a new era for the world. Quite a lot to live up to, as she discovers repeatedly.

Metatextually, the creators, understandably so, did not simply wish to repeat themselves, so the thought process was “how do we make Korra and her world as different as possible?” Thus,opposites and progress: where Aang was kind, playful, and nigh-unfailingly empathetic (generally, if you pissed him off, it was a sign something had gone horrifically wrong with your life choices), Korra is hotheaded, eager to fight, and egotistical about her ability to bulldoze through her problems. Aang lived in a pastoral world with encroaching industrialization; Korra makes her home in the thriving steampunk metropolis of Republic City. And instead of Avatar’s overarching Big Bad in the Fire Nation and Ozai who sought power for its own sake, each book/season now had a singular antagonist (Amon, Unalaq, Zaheer, and Kuvira), all of whom seek theoretically noble goals for either the wrong reasons or with incorrect methods. The character dynamics are changed too; while Aang grew up an orphan that ran away from a monastic order, Korra was raised in comfort and happiness (arguably even spoiled in some respects), and she gains an ever-growing social circle that come with their own sets of problems, particularly in what she must define as her Avatar duties and keeping them in balance with her personal desires. Even the music can be different, with Book 1 in particular emphasizing robust jazz as the “character” of Republic City.

This was, in all honesty, probably the right approach to take in many instances. While I love Avatar’s core cast, a sequel that jumps this far ahead should arguably focus just as much, if not more, on the new generation as the old. And, true, some of Korra’s most delightful moments come from past and present colliding, such as how Aang’s son Tenzin tries to live up to his father’s legacy as an Airbender even moreso than Korra as the Avatar, seeing Zuko remain an awkward goober well into retirement, or Toph eventually finding a marvelous equilibrium as a cranky old woman who lives in a swamp and would like everyone to just leave her alone and not hug her, please. Aang in particular gets some useful reexaminations as someone who could be just as flawed in his own way as Korra, good person he might have been otherwise, with resentments flaring up about how he may have favored Tenzin over his other children due to their airbending connection. They’re ultimately resolved, of course, but it’s arguably quite daring and ambitious to give a lovable hero such prominent feet of clay. As is the thought of giving its villains nuanced arguments in favor of their ideals rather than simply making them unimaginative brutes, or tackling tough issues of spirituality, equality, and what the best forms of self-government might be. And that’s Korra in a nutshell: it wants to tackle big, weighty themes within an all-ages action/adventure series, and I admire it a great deal for this tendency.

However....like its parent series, this comes with its own series of pitfalls. Because the status quo in Korra’s time is a relatively stable one, and because this is an action series, there must be factors introduced to disrupt that stability. And since there is no overarching puppetmaster pulling all the strings of each disparate antagonist or thread (though connections do exist and sometimes in novel ways), this leads to each book sort of....trying to establish a new status quo with each new threat. This is a perfectly valid way to do things, mind, and many other series have done so successfully. Where Korra struggles is in lining everything up for its characters. I would say Korra herself, as the lead, largely does not suffer from this since, well, she IS our viewpoint and we follow her in some fashion in most episodes as the main plot driver; even “Beginnings” is tied directly to her struggles with both the conflict and her motivations. Tenzin, as noted, is a terrific and very different kind of mentor figure. And the introduction of Varrick in Book 2 provides a much needed wild card who can flit in and out of conflicts in ways either hilarious or destructive, and his eventual character development is oddly touching for such a goofy, outsized figure. But the rest of the supporting cast can often be left poking around for things they can do since, well, we can’t just get rid of them, that’d be mean. Mako and Bolin probably get hit with it the worst, acquiring tedious romantic subplots, flitting between occupations with little rhyme or reason, or getting what should be a truly touching development (finding their extended family in the Earth Kingdom) landing completely flat because we aren’t even sure this has been an issue for them before.

The antagonists also run into a problem of tone and weight. Because none of them outside of perhaps Unalaq at points (he definitely seems more than a little pleased at deposing his brother’s leadership) are interested in craven power for the sake of it and their own greed, this requires them to be more complex figures than the likes of Ozai or Zhao, who were fantastic for their story functions but primarily functioned as petty, cruel tyrants. Again, this is in theory a great idea, and Korra having to learn just as much from the “bad guys” as she does from more positive sources is very fitting for this franchise’s themes. But what ends up rearing its head is that this IS still an action series, and thus conflicts must be facilitated through fighting much of the time, so every so often we have to throw in something Really Bad for the antagonists to do to remind us that they are in fact on the wrong side of an argument. This can leave things feeling a little flat as a result. Another problem occurs in that Korra is often not given the same rhetorical skills as her opponents. Some of this is character development for a moody, uncertain young woman, true, but it’s a little frustrating to hear Korra continually offer weak-sounding entreaties of “but that’s bad” after long, eloquent speeches. This eventually fixes itself in the final confrontation with Kuvira, but I would’ve liked to see more of a strong moral backbone for Korra in addition to her asskicking skills.

Then we have Voltron Legendary Defender, shepherded by Lauren Montgomery and Joaquim Dos Santos, both of whom started as storyboard artists on Avatar before graduating to directors and eventually producers on both it and Korra. Voltron is a franchise with its own weird, bifurcated legacy, with several TV series, comic book lines, and other media based on a weirdly cheery, hot-blooded cut-and-paste dub of a grim, mystically minded mech series from the 80s all coming before this incarnation. As such, these two were hired not so much to reinvent the wheel as to provide their own take on an established property; it’s a situation more comparable to what generally happens with superheroes or other mythic legends. I would say Voltron ends up as the most purely ambitious series, even moreso than Korra, that has come out of the Avatar braintrust thus far. It’s a show with not one lead character, or a trio, but six main characters who could easily take the helm and be our focus depending on the episode. And rather than an earthbound narrative, it shoots for the stars, offering a sprawling galaxy of worlds, species, and adventures. It sounds at first like a tall order, an impossible task.

And yet, I would say the series largely succeeds in fulfilling those ambitions, mostly because it’s clear Montgomery and Santos have taken a number of good lessons from their prior projects and know how to properly build things up, as well as managing everyone’s individual arcs. Mysteries are established as early as the pilot with stray details (Allura’s evasiveness about the Black Paladin’s bayard, Keith’s knife, Pidge’s background, Shiro’s missing year), and all are eventually paid off through character development and revelations. And while there’s a bit of the travelogue feel on occasion, everything is far more serialized than even in Korra, each major milestone leading to the next fluidly. The antagonists also feel like a marriage of the best of Avatar and Korra’s approaches. Zarkon and Honerva could have felt like regressions to Ozai, but both prove fascinating figures in melding those qualities with a more nuanced portrayal of just how tyranny can take hold (though Avatar flirted with this a little in its brief portrayal of Sozin). And while Sendak is more of a Zhao-like brute, you get a strangely melancholy sense from him at some brief moments, as if this is all he really knows how to do. Lotor, meanwhile, is the best portrayal of the character yet, jettisoning the more unsavory traits that can be distressingly common and keeping him as a raw, complicated figure who wants to do real good, but is beset by paranoia and a ruthless streak of pragmatism. The moral lines are thus a lot cleaner and easier to manage than Korra. While there’s occasions where the heroes struggle with how to go about doing the right thing, and those are excellent dilemmas, the all-encompassing war makes things less messy and an UNTENABLE status quo that must in some way be defeated; unlike Ozai, who only tipped into outright megalomania by the series’ end, Zarkon has kept a stranglehold on the universe with very few pockets of resistance and no opposing armies. It also continually shifted said status quo, never content to rest on its laurels and offering big shakeups like the Lion swap, Zarkon being slain and staying that way, and plotlines such as the Earth invasion. Even in the early seasons, we don’t stay with the “these guys are the only ones fighting” narrative for terribly long, with groups like the Blade of Marmora being introduced and tied into the larger narrative through characters like Shiro and Keith.

Thus, I would say Voltron is ultimately the most consistent post-Avatar series outside of Prince, but this also occasionally comes with its own tradeoffs (though you will not find me believing the series ever became truly “bad”; the later seasons are too connected to the early ones for me to feel that way, and there’s much in them I love). Because everything fits together so neatly and we’re often off and running to the next plot point, this can occasionally leave us without much breathing room to process things or leave some details obscured in terms of “how things work” (the magic and sorcery in the series can often run more on Plot Needs and Feelings rather than strict rules, for example). This hurts some of the character development occasionally, although you can actually arguably see where some of the missing pieces are and that it’s entirely possible things just got cut for time. What I’m thinking of here are things like Allura and Lance’s romance, which is sweet enough but could’ve used just one or two lines of reckoning with how both of them feel about it/their relationship changed, hearing from Shiro about how he might have felt about his clone and melding with them/building up his romance with Curtis more (though we can probably guess how THIS got cut down), or a couple more bits of setup with Lotor’s ultimate plans. The series’ visual shorthand is usually excellent, but in these cases and a couple others, I think some dialogue elaboration would’ve helped things and made them even stronger.

Now, you might be wondering “wasn’t this about The Dragon Prince? When the hell are you gonna get to the point, Spider?” Well, my long-winded pontificating is at an end for the previous series, and now it’s time for More Of That with this one. Prince borrows/lifts much of the setup from Avatar: an opening narration establishing the world, multiple kingdoms and factions fighting for control through a long war, and questions of prejudice and cooperation, as well as a trio of main characters trying to make things right as they travel. Much like Avatar, this has great benefits, and if there’s one thing I would say Prince improves on that series, it’s how the adult characters and antagonists, like in Korra and Voltron, feel like more complicated figures out of the gate. Viren might seek power, but there is a real devastation to moments like Harrow’s brutal rejection of him, and Harrow himself is a leader who struggles much more readily with the responsibilities of his position, musing poetically that an adult is much less free than a child. And the trio dynamic that develops is markedly different from Avatar’s in some key ways, namely in how old resentments and prejudices can affect things, or Ezran, the youngest of them, often seeing the most clearly through that fog.

You might perhaps sense the block I’m struggling with at this point in the series, and indeed, Prince almost feels a little TOO much like the travelogue sensibilities of old-school Avatar: we have to go here, then here, etc. There’s also a curious lack of scale to the proceedings in a number of ways: the big battles never quite feel as large as they should, with the action succeeding more on one-on-one intimate levels, and the towns can feel oddly underpopulated. They can still hold interest, of course: Ellis and Ava’s storyline is incredibly touching, and I’d love to hang out more with Lujanne at some point in the future. Quirky grandma types are the best. But compared to how Korra and Voltron pushed forward into new types of character dynamics and ways to tell the story, Prince can often feel like a regression or trying to build off an Avatar-weaned audience instead of trying something truly unique and new. The characters are a bit younger, a little more childish, and the calculation is more than a little evident. This isn’t ultimately some great sin, mind; there are plenty of echoes of Avatar in both Korra and Voltron, but what continues to draw me back to those series even with the noted flaws is that they dare to be different and try and forge their own identities, break away from the familiar.

And there’s nothing to say that Prince can’t similarly improve and build on itself, of course, and it already has in some ways. I disliked Soren and Claudia in season 1 largely because their “adorkable” qualities felt oddly forced and not quite sincere, but both have proven to hold more interest in the second season, the former dealing with guilt and expectations, the latter proving to be alarmingly flexible in terms of her morals. Ezran is left in an absolutely fascinating place by the end of the season too that breaks up the trio dynamic and could be just what things need to distinguish themselves. The awesomely-voiced Aaravos is instantly intriguing; this guy knows WAY more than he’s telling, and I’m eager to see what his deal is. And while DeSena’s presence is familiar and comforting in many ways, he does strike a notably different note with Callum than he did with Sokka; while the former can be energetic and nerdy in some fashion, he’s less concerned with questions of masculinity and lacks the latter’s hilarious drama queen overreaction tendencies.

Ultimately, as said at the start, I quite enjoy Prince and would in theory love to see it continue to tell the full planned story they have in mind (though some rumblings about potential mistreatment of WonderStorm employees are alarming/I hope they’re addressed, and I may just be a LITTLE salty about how little attention they have received compared to the regularly bullshit conspiracy theories the Voltron crew has been subjected to). But for me, personally, it’s going to have to really commit to those proposed changes to really forge a new identity for itself. Otherwise....I’m not sure I’ll ever really LOVE it.

#the dragon prince #tdp #avatar the last airbender #the legend of korra #voltron legendary defender #vld #atla #tlok #analysis

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6ad6ro · 5 years

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im watching the projared explanation vid rn n i'm gonna keep adding to this as i watch. think of this as like real-time commentary? even tho it’s not real-time at all like i’m just pausing the video to make lil comments. here’s vid btw. but geez it'd be weird if all he did was cheat (like it's icky i’m def against cheating... but how would that matter to you if it doesn't involve u personally?).

TLDR (this was written after the fact): i’m rly leaning towards believing him about not doing the underage stuff. and i wished i had listened to my initial gut on that. i could care less about exchanging nudes with fans if they were 18+. i also could care less about any relationship drama. anyways i watched all of it and wrote a LOT. it’s kinda interesting (not rly) to see my opinion change over the course of the writing? i was really tearing into jared at first ahaha. but i’m putting it under a readmore. it’s not written well at all so read if you dare...

just started watching. first of all i will say it feels very scripted (is he lying/acting/performing? or is it just well thought out??) idk and LOL at him purposely looking unshaven and like a mess... like THAT was at least on purpose and makes me immediately not rly trust him? but idk i can't actually judge him based on this rly... then again what a sappy fucking thumbnail.

aw geez IT'S LIKE HE'S DOIN A REG COMEDY VIDEO like stop acting dude? i know he's... well he’s weird and seems like a very “scripted” person if that makes sense? but... it's just a rly weird move to try and make a "here's the real story/apology" video this way. not how i’d do it at all (and i’ve been there to a much lesser degree so)...

oh and i know he's SUPER mad at the two (at the time) underage ppl? and justifiably so if they lied. but idk his claim that the only reason for them to remove their accusation posts was "bc they held no water and they knew the timing was right to safely do the most damage"? uh dude you're one of the more well known youtubers like IMAGINE all the ppl that were harassing these guys? well at least they were both lgbtq etc and the gaming community has a traditionally open mind about that (sarcasm).

btw i kinda hate the term "the tea" too? soo much. but just bc it's another appropriated term white kids overuse... but even still i probably wouldn't have opened up a vid like this... well i'll just say it... was he straight up pointing the finger at gay ppl etc for harassing him n bein shallow n only enjoying the drama etc? like idKKK it just felt like he was calling out sassy gay ppl ONLY like why did he even say that??

yeah bc straight white gamer dudes NEVER gossip about drama. they NEVER act shallow. dude ur fanbase is like... some of the most shallow, gossipy ppl out there. i can't TELL you how many AWFUL videos i watched of your fans n other youtbers talking about you. and how... INSANE? it was? that they only rly called you out for "cheating on your cute wife" bc the accusations of underage shit n manipulation yeah nbd! but god forbid you cheat on your "attractive cosplay wife".

srry i'm rly tearing him apart here... i'm not meaning to. almost every gaming personality has shit fans. even i? me. a nobody. have to double check new followers to see if they're nazis etc? it's so common... anyways i'm not actually damning him in any way yet even if i'm bringing up so many lil issues i have w this vid lol srry?

btw i used to follow his tumblr. there was WEIRD shit going on, esp right before it shut down. like the "i got hacked" thing seems really convinient? IDK srry it's just my gut but he reminds me of sociopaths etc i used to be friends with. how he explains things and talks... like they all sound a lil like dennis from always sunny? idk my gut is tellin me he's full of shit i'm sorry. gonna keep watching. wait he really WAS hacked? i mean i guess i believed he was hacked at first bc the guy posting awful shit and claiming to be a pro-hacker was... well he was too crazy to be made up. a real fucking maniac loser.

as time is going on, unless all of this stuff is fabricated? he seems ro have found a crazy amount of proof that he didn't do the underage stuff. like... maybe the weird vibes he gave off is this stuff drove him insane? like... i’ve been friends with/dated quite a few fucked up, gaslighting assholes? trying to figure out what the fuck is going on can drive you a little nuts. he's kinda winning me over here a lil... again if the underage/manipulation stuff is untrue? i could care less about the other stuff. and i LOVE ross? but srry... who cares about that other stuff...

to explain what changed my mind: most ppl that he reminds me of are sociopaths etc. or rather, people that really fucked my life up. so i have a lotta baggage regarding them? and they're bigger in my mind than the other types. i won't lie the way he explains things and argues points REALLY bugs me? but i know ppl like that who are good people. or at least not psychopaths. immature, basic idiots at the worst (not that im callin HIM an idiot). anyways that alone doesn't make him guilty. watchin more now.

i was about to bring up that its actually really... cool? that he's focusing on the underage shit rather than the cheating/drama? bc thats all that needs to be explained rly? but LOL he just got to the "game grumps" part n in losing it. am i rly about to drown in this drama? fuck dude lol noooooo....

okay finished it. fuck man idk i feel stupid. right at the start i even was like "noooo he couldn't have!" but the underage stuff is like... like that shit makes my brain boil n stop working n go into “ill kill him” mode. and jared was so silent and so i figured he was doing damage control (ignoring it until it went away) rather than research to show people this was all fake/getting legal advice?

i kinda think he didn't do any of the real icky shit. i still get a vibe he might be a weirdo. and i don't think heidi necessarily made ALL of that stuff up? and i could care less that he was getting sexually involved w his fans like even I have been flirted with due to running a game gif blog (god knows why). and like FUCK it's so normalized for ppl in bands to sleep w fans? so why on EARTH would people think youtube gamerz are “too good for that”? anyways...

my point is, i think i mighta been wrong about him n the underage stuff. idk what to believe about the other stuff? the only thing i know for sure is that ross o'donovan is a very sweet n nice guy. and i'm so glad the drama between him and jared was imagined. it was prob just shitty to have fans ask him about it over and over...

okay lol if you just read all of this please go do something more fun and interesting now lol! i'm gonna put this all under a readmore and put a tldr on it! and... go to bed bc fuck its 2am OOPS!

#DONT reply or message me if you wanna fight about this #projared

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blackjack-15 · 5 years

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Curtain Call — Thoughts on: The Final Scene (FIN)

Previous Metas: SCK/SCK2, STFD, MHM, TRT

Hello and welcome to a Nancy Drew meta series! 30 metas, 30 Nancy Drew Games that I’m comfortable with doing meta about. Hot takes, cold takes, and just Takes will abound, but one thing’s for sure: they’ll all be longer than I mean them to be.

Each meta will have different distinct sections: an Introduction, an exploration of the Title, an explanation of the Mystery, a run-through of the Suspects. Then, I’ll tackle some of my favorite and least favorite things about the game, and finish it off with ideas on how to improve it.

If any game requires an extra section or two, they’ll be listed in the paragraph above, along with links to previous metas.

These metas are notspoiler free, though I’ll list any games/media that they might spoil here: FIN, mention of SSH, ASH, non-spoiler mention of STFD, CAR, RAN, TRN, DED, GTH, SPY, LIE.

The Intro:

The Final Scene is the fifth game in the Nancy Drew series and the game that caps off the Classic Nancy Drew games (according to my own very non-scientific divisions of the Nancy Drew games), as the games that follow are bigger, longer, and more complex — not to mention they start tying themselves together, opening up Nancy’s world, and at least make some use of her “amateur detective” title rather than always being set up for the mysteries, or having her stumble upon them while on vacation.

For full disclosure, I will start off here by saying FIN is one of my least favorite games in the Nancy Drew franchise for one big and a few small things, so I’m going to attempt to be as measured as possible, addressing its good points just as much as the bad points.

From here on out, Nancy Drew games grow more but they also grow more unevenly, making jumps in some areas and failing in others. FIN is slightly uneven, but it’s still more balanced than the games that are to come, and I quite enjoy that balance in this game.

FIN is also the game where Her Interactive realized that just having Bess, George, and Ned (apart from one or two throw-away characters) as phone contacts was going to become dull very quickly. Eustacia is an attempt at bridging that gap, but it’s the next game that actually solves the problem, opening up the Nancy Drew world with the addition of the two most enduring (and endearing) phone contacts of the series – Frank and Joe Hardy.

Complexity-wise, FIN is closer to STFD and MHM, taking a step back from TRT’s complexity and richness of location and character. It’s the last “small” game, as far as location goes (excepting a few later games like CAR, RAN, and DED), with the tiny theater feeling almost claustrophobic.

This feeling is compounded with the lack of puzzles in the game; it’s mostly a “sleuthing” type game like STFD, but without the variety of sleuthing locations and continually refreshed locations that other heavy sleuthing games like GTH or LIE have.

While the Royal Palladium Theater is as important to the story as the Mansion from MHM or the Tower in TRT, it just doesn’t have the atmospheric presence that the other two locations do. The theater is gorgeous, but it doesn’t feel like a character.

This is the last “small” game for Nancy in-world as well — between the moderate publicity she got at the end of TRT and the enormous amounts of publicity she gets for this game, Nancy has moved up in the world. She’s still an amateur, but she’s no longer a small-town or anonymous amateur detective.

FIN attempts to be a game that rides on high drama, and it largely succeeds — except for the fact that a few large logical gaps in the game cut the tension and the drama, leaving the player happy but always wanting it to be a little bit More.

The Title:

As a title, “The Final Scene” is a decent one — we’re dealing with the final “scene” of the theater, the final “scene” of the three-day deadline, the possible “final scene” of Maya’s life — and the final scene of the culprit’s time at the theater, as well. It’s a cinematic title, fitting for such a cinematic theater.

That does lead us to the question — what “final scene” is the title talking about?

As a kid playing this game with my sister, I probably would have said that the “final scene” is that climactic moment when the police are clearing the theater and Nancy has to hide, where she finds Maya, and where Joseph confronts Nancy, raving about the theater and his ultimate, insane plan.

As an adult, nearly two decades later, the phrase “final scene” has a bit more of a somber tone. Although this issue will be addressed fully in the “fix” section, it should be mentioned here.

Joseph is in the “final scene” of his life, via his age, and has determined that this — this three-day madcap abduction, featuring a clueless cast of know-nothing know-it-alls and a hapless demolition crew armed with a 2,400 pound closing curtain — will be the ultimate Final Scene.

Viewed that way, the title is just as effective, but it’s a somber title — matched in tone by “Last Train to Blue Moon Canyon” and “The Silent Spy”. This isn’t a problem in and of itself, but it is a problem that the tone of the game doesn’t back it up.

Ultimately, it feels like “The Final Scene” was picked because they were like “oh, theater pun! Tip the intern .05c for that, Timothy!” rather than “this fits in many different ways, providing nuance to new and returning players”.

The Mystery:

When the game starts, much like TRT, there is no mystery — but that doesn’t stay true for more than 20 seconds. Nancy’s visiting her (and Bess’ and George’s) friend from high school, Maya Nguyen, in St. Louis, where Maya is interviewing cinematic “hunk” Brady Armstrong.

When Maya goes into Brady’s dressing room, however, she screams — and when Nancy gets in the room, she’s gone. Maya’s disappearance is punctuated by a threatening call from her kidnapper (abductor? Maya’s too old to be kidnapped, per se) telling Nancy she has to stop the demolition of the theater or else Maya will be killed when they knock it down.

From there, Nancy abandons any of the usual whispers of tact that she employs and straight up yells at the other people in the theater (and the police outside), trying to find Maya through what seems to be sheer intimidation tactics rather than Actual Sleuthing, desperate to beat the 3 day deadline.

It’s not easy, what with no one but the old caretaker of the theater, Joseph, cooperating with Nancy — not even the police, despite a witness to the kidnapping testifying of, well, the kidnapping. Nancy uses her smarts and a bit of luck (along with a lot of snooping) to solve the question of who kidnapped Maya and what every one of the people within the theater were hiding.

As a mystery, FIN is gripping — a personal stake, a strict mission, and four people hiding things explicitly from Nancy, rather than each other. It’s a shame that the mystery is a little undercut by a scarily easy-to-figure-out culprit — and the mystery that their state of mind brings up.

The Suspects:

Joseph Hughes takes care of the Royal Palladium Theater and has for decades. He’s the first suspect that Nancy meets — over the phone, right after Maya’s kidnapping — and is the first to know about the kidnapping.

Joseph is an obvious culprit, but obvious in a different way from any of the previous games. In the past, it’s about the 1/3 mark that the culprit becomes stunningly obvious, and it gets a little old watching Nancy treat others as if they’re equally (or more!) suspicious. Joseph, however, is not only obvious as the culprit immediately — he’s the closest when it happens, for one thing — but he’s also obviously insane.

There are several culprits where the first reaction might be “wow, they’re crazy”, but Joseph is obviously suffering from clinical dementia, exacerbated by the looming fate of the theater and losing the thing most familiar to him. It’s not that I expect this fact to be treated with delicacy in an early Nancy Drew game — or the early 2000s as a whole — but the fact that it’s not even touched is concerning to me.

This isn’t really touched on in the fandom as well. Joseph is Obviously Unwell and needs medical help and care for his condition, but even the ending of the game just plays it off as “wow, what a crazy culprit, good thing Nancy caught him” instead of “wow, this Ill man really needs help and it’s tragic that his dementia led him to endanger multiple lives”.

He’s an uncomfortable suspect and an even more uncomfortable culprit, and he really just bothers me. A lot of people class him as their favorite “sympathetic” suspect, but the question of how much “Joseph” there even is left is both one that’s incredibly important and incredibly overlooked.

It makes rating Joseph as a suspect hard, and even harder to rank him as a culprit. Other than the shortness of this game and its lack of puzzles, Joseph is probably the biggest reason I don’t replay FIN. He makes the game significantly less fun, and is alternately disturbing and pitiable.

He’s also the one that Her Interactive decided to “trick” the fanbase with, as he follows the “early cleared suspect who becomes Nancy’s helper” trope…with the exception of being cleared even a little bit.

I appreciate the attempt at subverting the formula — though since the formula started in the 3rd game, subverting it by the 5th might feel a bit early — as it shows a willingness to come up with new and fun ideas. I just wish it worked here.

Simone Muller is Brady Armstrong’s hard-liner agent, running every part of his life and fame — and doing, by all accounts, a fantastic job with it, as he’s the hottest rising star in Hollywood. She’s catty, awesome, practical, and cunning; she’s an unflappable woman willing to do what it takes — teenage detectives crawling out of her wardrobe or not.

Simone doesn’t really do anything the whole game other than be incredibly entertaining with her fake names for Nancy (Fancy Jackson is so disco, but she could totally work it) and order a funeral wreath for Maya — which, macabre or not, is a total power move.

Simone might not be the most moral person (though she’s hands down the most moral suspect in FIN) in the world, but she knows what she wants and gets it, and is one of the two active suspects (as Brady and Nick are passive), which already makes her more likable.

She also is the first to bring up “Samantha Quick” (as a stage name for Nancy), marking the first (but certainly not the last) time we’ll hear of the superspy.

Simone is the most moral and innocent of the bunch, and is (not coincidentally) the only one with a love life — a very successful-seeming love life, if her PDA notes are anything to go by.

She is also in all probability a Domme. So that kind of rocks too.

As a suspect, Simone is a decent one, seeming shifty without hiding something, and ultimately self-interested. She couldn’t have been the culprit, as she had no need to make Brady more famous in connection with the theater, but she was more than willing to spin a bad situation to her gain.

Simone is entertaining, competent, and even has a few character traits (her willingness to take a chance on making a hot dog seller into a star; her relationship with Georgie-Bear, etc.) that make her delightfully 3D.

Brady Armstrong (Thompson) is a hot-dog-seller-cum-actor discovered a few years ago by Simone and (secretly) the descendent of the theater’s owner, JJ Thompson, setting him up as the legal heir of the theater and the person behind the demolition.

Brady is, without exaggeration, an idiot, whose “big idea” for the land that the Royal Palladium is on is “Planet Tinseltown”, an idea that he’s very proud of for its originality, even though it’s not an original idea at all.

He’s alternately sheltered and taken advantage of by Simone, but you can’t really feel sorry for him, because he’s an enormous douchebag who wants Maya out of the way because she discovered the truth about him.

As a suspect, Brady is decent; secret past in relation to the theater, surprisingly unscrupulous for his general personality, and out to silence Maya. It’s nice that he is kind of the villain in that he refuses to stop the demolition even while lives are at stake, but that he’s not an over-the-top cackling maniac.

One of the best decisions Her Interactive made in this game was to have their suspects each be guilty of something Bad but not the ultimate Crime, rather than having them like Rose in MHM who is so innocent as to be boring. Brady’s a good example of that, and it saves him from the garbage heap.

Brady ultimately is a dumb bro who thinks that everyone wants his dick, but he’s just dumb enough to think himself intelligent, which is a dangerous trait that leads perfectly into his actual villainy. He very much could have been the big bad, but it works out better for his character that he’s not.

Nicholas Falcone is the founder of the incredibly niche organization “Humans Against the Destruction of Illustrious Theaters”, named specifically to spell “HADIT”, who’s still moping about his grandmother’s past with the Royal Palladium and has, according to police records, actually kidnapped someone in order to stop a demolition before.

Though a fan-favorite, I never really understood the pull to Nick; he’s just the “crunchy hippie” type douche to Brady’s “slimy prep” douche — he’s still a douchebag, all things considered. Maybe it’s the facial hair, which I believe is the first for the attempted “scruffy yet handsome character”, and the second overall (after Jacques in the last game).

Maybe it’s the tragic-yet-legally-questionable backstory, inspiring sympathy in all of us that were young enough to see the matter as black and white.

Maybe it’s the horribly cringe-y slang even for 2001.

The ‘happening’ slang is a weird point with Nick; while it’s probably intended to make him seem ‘hip’ and ‘with it’, it has the opposite effect when Nancy, a recent high school graduate (and thus younger than Nick) has no idea what he’s saying.

Sure, Nancy’s a square who doesn’t really use slang herself (though that’s relaxed a bit more as the series went on), but she went to high school. She’s gonna recognize modern slang, as observant as she is — which leads the player to the only conclusion possible: Nick is using horrifically outdated slang and trying to make Nancy seem even less ‘hip’ than she is already.

Welcome to the Twilight Zone, buckaroo.

It turns out that Nick’s grown up at the theater, so Joseph refuses to tell him to leave despite the fact that Nick has literally kidnapped someone to stop a theater demolition before (which honestly should be a huge clue who the villain is).

He’s harboring a grudge against JJ Thompson for never compensating his great-grandmother Louisa Falcone. While it’s a douche move, Nick has no legal right to the theater (see below), so it does come off a bit “…huh?” at the end for him.

As a suspect, Nick is one of those suspect-of-the-times characters that made a lot of sense back in the early 2000s and hasn’t made any sense…since. While he has his motivation in his grandmother being slighted, he’s mostly just there to spout slogans and sound ‘radical’. In 2019, he’d be a #keyboardwarrior, competing with Simone on Twitter and Instagram over who could “get the word out” most effectively. #corporategenerica #cancelcharmstrong

Whether Nick works as a character largely rests on if you can overlook the unsigned contract and if you find his spiel charming or annoying. He’s a time capsule of turn-of-the-century Seattle activism, and Her Interactive nails that…but it’s just not interesting to me.

The Favorites:

While this game is one of my least favorite among the entire series, it has plenty of high points that are incredibly enjoyable.

The design of the theater and the secret rooms is fabulous. The Palladium Theater is based off an incredibly sumptuous real life theater, and the animators went to great lengths to represent it accurately. The music, the colors, — these are great, and go a long way to making the game great to look at. The fun little knock-off posters in the lobby are a great example of this.

Nancy yelling that RUBBER IS SHOCK PROOF when absolutely nobody asked is a fun little moment that I look forward to, as well as Simone’s hilariously over-the-top funeral wreath.

The fact that the flower people were just like “hmm a Quirky Message” and not like “…call the cops” just shows that absolutely no one other than Nancy (and even not even Nancy sometimes) is taking this kidnapping seriously.

Eustacia Andropov is a bright, shining star in this game and remains, almost 30 games later, one of the most memorable phone characters that the series has ever produced. Her morbid sense of humor, dry tone, and absolutely awesome voice actor all combine to create a character that is possibly my favorite in the entire game, and definitely sits in the Phone Contact hall of fame.

There’s not really very many puzzles in FIN, so The Amazing Monty might take the title of my favorite by default.

The best overall moment of the game is Nancy being like “gross used gum” and immediately putting it into her inventory. Disgusting, Nance.

Though Nancy’s pretending to be Brenda Carlton is a high point as well.

The Un-Favorites:

My least favorite part of this game is that Nancy, in order to not make the game last five minutes, doesn’t ever consider Joseph a suspect, and instead confides everything in him, even setting him up to be in charge of giving evidence to the police.

When that evidence disappears, she doesn’t suspect him for a moment — that alone kills the game, and it’s the worst feeling in the world when you have to consider that the game makes Nancy stupid in order to have a game at all.

The Falcone part of the game is another part that is my least favorite — and not just because no one pronounces “Falcone” correctly (darn you, Seattle-based Her Interactive!).

Louisa Falcone’s name is on the contract, yes, but she never signed it. That means that the contract isn’t legally binding…and also means that Nick has no right to the theater, either. The fact that Her Interactive didn’t even bother to fact check this does sour the whole storyline for me, which is unfortunate.

The last “unfavorite” in this game is how empty the theater feels. The lack of more than a dozen puzzles and far too few things to click on, look at, or investigate (in some ways, the opposite problem that STFD had) makes the game feel even shorter than it always is, and takes away some of the enjoyment I have (and the potential to have) of the Theater as a Character.

I don’t really have a least favorite puzzle in this game — though if I had to choose, it’s the endless identical keys at the very high-stress ending sequence. My absolute least favorite moment in the game is when Joseph’s giant head appears over the trapdoor and Nancy’s forced to stare at it for upwards of 30 agonizing seconds.

The Fix:

So how would I fix The Final Scene?

The biggest single, contained thing to fix would be The Joseph Problem. Not only does he make it over distances that a sprinter would struggle with in too small a time to even teleport, but there’s also the whole dementia thing, along with Nancy blindly trusting him and never treating him as a suspect.

Besides the issue of Joseph’s apparent Instant Teleportation, which is a common problem in Nancy Drew video games, the most game-breaking problem with Joseph is that Nancy trusts him implicitly, refusing to consider him a suspect even a little bit — even though he tells her to— instead choosing to make him her partner in…solving crime?

A simple fix would to be to make her not do that, but I’d actually prefer to change as little as possible about these games in the fix section, so instead I propose this fix: make it explicitly in-character for Nancy to do this.

It would make sense for Nancy to be weak to people of a certain age; her father, given the timeline, would have to be slightly older (a young lawyer during Alexei’s trial as a 20 year old), Hannah is elderly as well, her Aunt Eloise — the backing for this in-story is fairly strong.

So if Joseph reminds her of these older people in her life (and make her say this at least three times during the game), it then makes sense as to why Joseph would be above suspicion.

Sure, the player would still have the ability to see her trust of Joseph as a mistake, and it might even be a little frustrating still, but then at least the reason isn’t “Nancy is an Idiot”, it’s “Nancy’s making a mistake” — and a mistake justified in-story.

The Final Scene fails as a game — literally, as a game— because of its lack of, well, detecting and puzzles and other game mechanic stuff. Sure, it’s a snoop-heavy (versus puzzle-heavy) game, but there’s not even much snooping to do. Play a few mini games, talk on the phone, and you’re at the culprit confrontation before you expect it.

Alternately, miss noticing one tiny thing and you’re stuck on Day 1 without the ability to progress.

Obviously, including a few more puzzles is a great way to help this problem (Houdini was involved with the theater! Why aren’t there more secret locks and false walls and stuff?), but that should be added along with making the progression from day to day smoother.

Give Nancy a concrete goal that establishes itself at the beginning of the day, and prevent it from being able to happen until a few other tasks/conversations have happened as well. Making this obvious prevents the sense of time/urgency from being lost while Nancy wanders the theater playing mini-games.

Giving the police more of a presence would be a good idea as well. Nancy, despite lack of visual confirmation of a kidnapping, still qualifies under the law — then and now — as a witness of a kidnapping.

The police coming in on the second day didn’t ruin the plot or shut down the theater; a few detectives coming in on Day 1 wouldn’t do it either. It’s pointless for the police not to have a presence — it’s not like Nancy’s not gonna investigate anyway.

A junior police detective at the very least to add in as a “bonus character” that Nancy can interrogate/work with would be a good compromise. I know an extra character is a big “add”, but it’s better than hours with faceless police jabbering.

The Final Change (geddit?) is more thematic than concrete, and thus wouldn’t take more than a line of dialogue here and there.

“Rot” is present, thematically speaking, throughout the first part of the game: the theater is falling apart, there’s the “rotten” person who kidnapped Maya; Joseph’s brain is succumbing to age-driven “rot”; Nancy even calls out Brady as a “rotten fraud” (which he is). Simone represents the “rot of Hollywood”, and Nicholas, besides being a “rotten” person (kidnapping), is also stuck in the past of the theater — a past rotting away.

Bringing this to the forefront, reinforcing it through dialogue and Nancy’s own musings (or to Bess/George/Ned, working their characterization), would go a long way to thematically tying these character to this game. Making the characters and game inseparable is the mark of a successful Nancy Drew game — think GTH — and FIN is in sore need of it.

#nancy drew #nancy drew games #clue crew #the final scene #nancy drew meta #FIN #video games #my meta

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sozotohakai · 5 years

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meet the mun

Repost do not reblog !!

Tagged by: @weiwuxiian (thank you!) Tagging: @xueyaang @shensheng-aoman @ask-cross-marian @avellaturortem @crowleiii @manadcampbellrpblog @crystallizecrimsonbutterfly @illusiive if you want to, and anyone else who wants to!

LAYER ONE: THE OUTSIDE - Name: Chris - Eye Color: Brown - Hair Style/color: Varies, I tend to prefer mid-length hair, with layered cut style, and they’re naturally dark brown, I’ve dyed them with strands of copper or strands of auburn in the past, I’ve felt like letting them be just their natural colour but I’m pretty sure it’s possible I’ll dye them in one of those again in the future. - Height: 5′7 (170 cm) - Clothing style: Uh. That is a good question :’) Casual I guess, I love most jeans/tight pants that are either blue or black, I love my tops to be fitting though not too tight but I have various kind of tops I like (from tank top to short sleeved shirt to long sleeve ones), I do have a weakness for button up shirts though. Boots are also my faves kind of shoes. - Best physical feature: I guess, my overall figure?

LAYER TWO: THE INSIDE - Your fears: I think my overall, big fear is the fear of physical pain, but it’s translate most in fear of drowning, of sharp objects pointed at me or near me in someone else’s hand, fear of heights, and fear of stingy insects. I think I do have a phobia of wasps and bees and the likes though, like, I used to be deathly afraid of every insects, even butterfly. I’m still a bit uneasy when anything insects gets close to me, but I only really fear afraid when I know it can sting (or if I don’t know if they can, like if I’m surprised by buzzing but can’t see it, or if I don’t know the insects). I tolerate bees? By that I mean I just freeze and repeat like a mantra it’ll die if it strings it won’t easily sting you. But wasps? Nah man, I’ll hide behind anyone I know or I flee. If you ever see me make a sudden, wide off-way from a straight line, you know I heard or saw a wasps or something insect-y. Like. At least you know i’m the best radar for them. At least, it is the fear of being stung by then, rather than of the insects themselves, so I’m okay with just seeing them and/or hearing them if they can’t access me. Although the sounds make me tense like BUZZING-oh its okay XD - Your guilty pleasure: I see a cat, I hope I can pet the cat, I won’t bother the cat but if there’s cat and cat willing, I’ll pet cat. Same with dogs, though cats feel calmer so easier to be around. Also tbh food? I’m weak to good food, or just anything tasy enough for me, which is pretty much anything (that isnt overcooked or the very few tastes I wont like). - Ambitions for the future: In all honesty, being able to continue with the life i’ve created. Take care of mom, visit&see my brother every weekend, spend my way between writing and working on little things and my hobbies. I do wish to be able eventually to travel and meet my online friends (and/or welcome them here). And tbh I have zero wish to get known, if I get some fanbase and just enough to contribute at home, i’ll be the happiest. The only real dream for future I have is a shared one, mom and my bro (and I) kind of hope we’ll one day be able to live in a house together, either those houses that can be split in smaller houses (like three small flats making up a bigger house), or simply that it has enough rooms for each of us to have a personal space.

LAYER THREE: THOUGHTS - Your first thoughts waking up: Vary, half the time it can be some leftover dreams so it’s like, finishing a thought from a dream (including at times literally thinking oh i’m dreaming ohhhh i’m waking up), sometimes it’ll be the slow realization of a sound, most often there’s also hearing if mom is awake (or not). Then I can daydream a bit. - What you think about before bed: Most often, daydreaming to sleep.

LAYER FOUR: WHAT’S BETTER? - Single or group dates: Not sure tbh, I guess both depending on people and context? - To be loved or respected: Respect. You can love without respect; but respect is a form of love in itself. Like I’d honestly much prefer someone who respect me but doesn’t feel much of anything, that someone who “loves” me but doesn’t have respect. Of course, if I’m loved and respected, that’s the best. - Beauty or brains: Either one or both. I honestly see people as whole, so I can see “details”, but I also see the whole. Probably both is the most correct reply, though beauty has a bit less impact on me than brains, but beauty is subjective so. - Dogs or cats: Both, though I do have a preference for cats, cat-energy is like... calm. I mean they can be no calm at all, but their overall energy feel calmer than dogs. But I love both.

LAYER FIVE: DO YOU. - Lie: I myself tend to be truthful, although I can also simply omit truths if voicing them has no real impact or need, mostly it’s like, if something doesnt feel important to share, I wouldn’t really think of it, but if asked or if the subject comes to it, it might pop into my head. So basically I don’t lie (unless I’d have a pretty good reason life safety), I’d mind my words with hurtful truth (if they have to be voiced), and I don’t really care if i’m lied to, as long as it’s not malicious. - Believe in yourself: I think? I’m secure in myself now, so yeah I guess there’s this implicit confidence I know myself enough. Like I can have insecurities, but I guess I believe in myself to handle it so. - Believe in love: I do, I believe in all forms of love, including at first sight, though I also believe it needs work to remain love, and the loves that don’t have a real label (like, there’s romantic, platonic, queerplatonic, and then those loves you can’t really place as any of the three but could be any of the three). And I believe friendship love and family love are just as strong as others, but I kind of believe more in family of the heart than of blood? And that its basically luck when you have a heart’s family that’s also blood family. Like they are part of your heart family, and the fact you’re blood related is just a secondary detail. - Want someone: I do feel like it would be nice to have a partner (or partners, I’m neutral about exclusivity), but I’m going out of my way to look for one. That’s why I also feel like if I ever have someone, it’ll be a friend, someone I know and we think okay we could be partners too. I’m not ruling out meeting someone that gets me doki-doki but yeah, I’d still want to know them better first. I easily crush, but I don’t easily fall (and I easily friendship crush too and confused crush sooOOO).

LAYER SIX: EVER? - Been on stage: Not really? Presentation yes, but nothing else. I mean one time a presentation took the form of a small sketch but. Yeah no real stage. - Done drugs: No. - Changed who you were to fit in: I don’t think so? I adapt, but that’s part of myself. But I don’t change the other parts? Like I’m quiet naturally, I can become chatty about cetain things (especially if I feel comfortable, which is harder in person), and I’m not going to shut up nor am I going to speak up if I don’t want to. If I can see people aren’t listening, i’m also not going to bother trying. The same kind of logic is applied to anything, I can notice what works and doesn’t work in a given setting, but I only adjust if I want to and if it’s not going against who I am.

LAYER SEVEN: FAVORITES - Favorite color: Blue, green, silver, gold, white, black. - Favorite animal: Foxes, cats, felines&canines in general, horses. I also blame WWX and LWJ from making me coo harder at bunnies now. EDIT: Yo I’m an idiot whose brain didn’t work, but I actuall love wolves as much as foxes, they need to be properly mentioned and I dont know why I forgot :’D - Favorite movie: I can’t say I have faves in movies? There are movies I enjoyed, but none I consider faves, unlike animes/mangas or games. - Favorite game: Tales of Symphonia, Fire Emblem Path of Radiance, Skyrim, Tales of Vesperia, Breath of the WIld, Pokemon games (X/Y so far my favourite with weakness for FR/LG).

LAYER EIGHT: AGE - Day your next birthday will be: July, 2nd - How old will you be: 27 (I still mind-freeze because part of me still feel like I’m, what, 24? Not quite anymore at the 20/21 stage, but not really past my mid-twenties) - Does age matter: Not really, it’s people personality and their ability to handle the world, as well as how they interact with it. In a sense, its the age you feel like that matters more, but to yourself. Like yeah you can care about the number ages of people around you, but its how they are and feel and act that end up mattering more.

#outofhost

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seiginotora · 6 years

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Regrets

I started the first chapter of Season 1 of Trinity Concept in June 7th of 2015.

In September of 2018 we’ve finally reached the 11th chapter.

While it feels great to have reached the end of this part of the story, I won’t lie; I feel like this has dragged on a bit too long. Partially it’s my fault; I don’t get paid to do this webcomic. I’ve been doing this largely for fun, so I could tell a story. Paying for models and sets out of my own pocket so I can bring worlds and characters I have in my mind to life. I also have the job that I DO get paid for that often drains me of my efforts to work on the webcomic. And then there’s my little... hobby, I guess... in the form of Armbar Error Society. Though to be honest, I’ve never considered AES to be a hobby; more like another venue to tell stories. I’ve been in AES a lot longer than I’ve been working on Trinity Concept; if it were an actual wrestling promotion I suppose you could say I’d be a company man through and through. I’ve been exceedingly loyal to AES and the great individuals who also have their stake in this incredible community. They’re a family, and I’ve been richer for knowing each and every one of them.

But I digress; this is about the webcomic in general. And with it, the regrets I’ve had in telling this fantastic story.

I regret how slow it’s been, primarily. If I had to do it over again I might have put in more effort for more frequent updates. I had wanted to shoot for a Monday through Friday update schedule, but that quickly fell through because of real life struggles. I definitely want Season 2 to be more frequently updated, but in order for that to happen I’ll have to pour efforts into writing the entirety of its script first, then render as many panels as I can to a point where can get away with pulling off such an update schedule.

I regret the pacing of the story as a whole. Or is that the presentation. Or maybe a combination of the two. In either case, I wish Trinity Concept looked and felt better than it did. For one, the action scenes. I do what I can with what I am able to use; basically Daz Studio and PhotoShop. And for the most part, they work out okay, but for the scenes in my head, they aren’t the best to go about it. And then I look at some incredibly done animated works on YouTube; stuff like the Source Filmmaker movies and MMD and I just marvel at how well animated they are and I wish that my own animating skills were as good. But sadly, I can only do what I am able to do in Daz3D and it sucks, to be brutally honest. Oseiko, Jeanne, and Pagan all deserve better and I wish I can give that to them, but I can’t.

I regret not having a bigger fanbase, and this isn’t any of your faults. I refuse to blame anyone other than myself. I cherish what fans I have and I love you all for hanging in there for as long as you have. But sadly, I’ve never had that many fans of my works, and that stems from all the way back to The 18th. I’ve put in so much time and effort into the webcomic and yet I’ve only a handful of fans. I don’t even have a TV Tropes page dedicated to Trinity Concept. And to top it off, I tried to set up a Patreon for Trinity Concept, but that was a disaster as no one donated any money to help me. And I want to reiterate; I don’t blame any of you for that.

There’s a lot of regrets going into the end of Season 1 of Trinity Concept. But it’s okay. I love writing. I love telling stories. And I want to keep telling the story that’s been going on right now. But I need help. I need advice. I need clarity.

So I’m asking all of you. The fans who follow my works. My friends who support me. Even fellow creative writers and artists and such who may glance at this by chance.

What can I do to help make this webcomic better?

I’m open to suggestions. I want to keep going. But at this stage of the game, I’m not sure how much farther I can go with what tools I have and with what I am able to do. I could try Patreon again, but would there actually be an effort to help me make Trinity Concept better or would it be a waste of time like it was last time?

Again… I’m open to suggestions. Whatever advice and encouragement and maybe even actual creative aid would be welcome.

Thanks for reading.

#The Trinity Concept #Trinity Concept #webcomic #editorial

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amisbro · 6 years

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The Month of April...

Has NOT been kind to KLab when it comes to Shining Live Okay to be fair they didn’t have MANY botches this month and the ones that they DID were NOT under their control..technology is hell and we all know this. We have to go back to April 1 in Japan (March 31st US time) when Shining Live had an issue on the JP side that cause the game to have issues and thus the JP side couldn’t play the April Fool’s event at that time. The event became available again a few days ago and that is a good thing but it might have had some unforeseen consequences. For anyone that has noticed the schedule generally goes like this - Beginning of the month the new songs are announced for the month - A few days after the fact some of the songs (namely story songs) are put in an event that would feature at least one of the characters of the next story. - During the event (and namely towards the end of it) an announcement is posted that there would be a new chapter posted for the players to read (if they have the story passes) and then they can play the new songs in the game. THIS is generally the pattern from what I have seen but as we know this month had the unforeseen event of the AF event not going off well in the JP server and so KLab and Broc had to figure out how to fix it. The idea (and it was a good one) was to redo the event for one day on the 15th of this month and from what I know this went off without a hitch. I wish I could say the same for the KLab Game Center and more specifically tonight’s episode when they did the song performance. They were in the middle of the “KGC Plays” part and they were playing “Original Resonance”. During the run they did with Sarah (sub host for Matthieu last week and Alex this week) the game was playing on her phone but the capture software they used malfunctioned and they lost the signal. This forced a redo and during it sadly Sarah only got a clear on the song. Now typically when they do these we usually get them doing the pulls for the featured photo shoot (or shoots) and then they might also talk about the next story part to come out. Our theory was that Team Royal (Myu and Cesshi) were to get a “Off the beaten Bus path” thing or so forth and if that was to be the case (and if it still is) then great...the thing is we have about 11 days left (soon to be 10) and no public announcement was made. Is it possible that they didn’t plan to do the story part with them (because the next song for Cecil is really his S1)? Yeah it is but then WHY would you put in either the song from Amazing Aria as I found out from @baku5ds on the tweeter machine and why would Ai no Reincarnation be on the list for him? For Myu why would Aspiration be a song that got put on? I think what happened was that the AF getting screwed up in Japan kind of gave everyone pause so when they did the redo they pushed it back so its going to be around the end of the month (which means it would be released on the 26th of this month I’m guessing) and then they will get back on track with the next story being closer to beginning of the month next time. There IS one other possibilty but I dunno how likely it is I’m wondering if they will skip the story part for this month and then put it in with next month to double up the chapters. So next month we get the story with Royal team and then the Dramas possibly before S1 starts. THIS however also makes me think about HOW MUCH more simple the old Music games were as opposed to this game. Look...I know this game is one of the top grossing (or was one of the top grossing) rhythm games and that is something to think about especially for Broccoli and KLab. That isn’t my issue but this is By requiring the story parts to be put out on a monthly basis and making them an integral part of the game mechanics when things like this happen and it (potentially) pushed back the story release until near the very end of the month if not into the next month that possibly makes the song release schedule now off by a month and that is something that needs to be looked at. This hit me harder when I was playing Music 3 earlier and I was showing some of my accomplishments to @heavens-saved-my-life. Broccoli knew how to keep the games simple and ,while the games DID have a story, they weren’t so focused on it that you HAD to complete the story to complete the game...factually of the three games I have completed the setlist on two of them in Music 2 and 3. Do you know how much of the story I have completed? Not that much! But this is where Broccoli could have gone to KLab and gone “Okay look...a good portion of our fanbase when they play the Music games PROBABLY just want to play the songs by unlocking them but you have SIF and probably want to do something with that kind of system so do what you need to” and they did...now we have a game where the setlist artificially roadblocks the player because of the fact that the story has to be released to give you progression. This also in a way shines a bigger spotlight on the decision to NOT do a Music 4 with the B-Sides from Season 3 ,Shining Theaters that came out around then and also songs from Season 4 and any other ones I missed. It sure as hell would have made MORE SENSE to me than doing this “reset” that Broc appears to be in the middle of...then again if we noticed they haven’t exactly announced anything about the “QN games” (Debut ,All-Star and After Secret) yet so did they give up on that project or what is exactly going on? I think I’m getting more anxious about a lot of this as a fan/reporter because when you see something like what happened with AF (and again this is no one’s fault) and the way it kind of threw the schedule out of whack I relate to it because if I have a set schedule I try to follow it otherwise its chaos and that is a fact. Its also slightly telling though that each week they put the Shining Live part of the show near the forefront as if to say in some way “Let’s get this over with and get the fuckers what they want so they’ll leave” cos spoiler alert I do just that cos I don’t give a damn about anything past that...tried to care about LL before but...that’s a NOPE! Give me an English port of I-Chu and watch how quick I drop SL though. Now I know what the next thing I’m going to hear is “Isn’t this an overreaction...its just one story part” True and I am the KING of overreacts trust me on that but at the same time I know there are people that probably are waiting and wanting for certain people to be added and seeing this happen just delays that. Its bad enough that they have to wait and slog through month after month after month and that has to be tiring on them. Its just something to think about because look... If you are a STARISH fan or a QN fan (present) you are pretty much sitting pretty cos you KNOW Broc is taking care of you. The issue is that HEAVENS fans have had to sit and watch as they got passed the hell over because of what is going on NOT JUST with this game but because its the current one that becomes a focus point for us. YES we know that Dolce Vita is coming out but what we DON’T know if Broc has intentions of giving us a port of the game to play. If they are as stingy with that game as they were with the others we already know the answer. As far as Shining Live goes I have been on my break collecting my logins (and lamenting the fact that I am not in this event because of DST) but I hope for Broccoli and KLab this month is just a blip and next month things will be back in order. A lot is gonna ride on what they do now and moving forward and I hope KLab gets that because UtaPri here is still a small fanbase but its a passionate one so for the folks over there here me ,a 4 year fan of the franchise, out DO NOT F**K THIS UP! That is all my friends and until later on: Good day ,Good Night and Good Bye

#Amisbro #Shining Live Concerns #KLab #Broccoli #April has not been kind #let's hope its just a blip

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daleisgreat · 4 years

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25 Years of PSone - Flashback Special!

I am back with another videogame anniversary special this week. In last week’s flashback on the Saturn & Virtual Boy I ran down all the other platforms that had milestone anniversaries this year. Of course I realized I neglected one days after posting it, and realized last month marked the 15th anniversary of the PSP in North America. I was originally going to combine my PSP memories with the PSone as we approach its 25th North American anniversary, but as you will soon see, I have quite a lot to say about the PSone, so it looks like the PSP will be touched on in the near future. With that said, hopefully I can grant you a brief reprieve from the real world times we are in if you indulge me while I reflect back on Sony’s unforgettable console debut in the gaming world.

I will start off with the PSone, which was originally abbreviated to the 1990s stateside gaming press as the PSX. When the PS2 hit in 2000, Sony retroactively changed the PSX branding into the PSone with the requisite late-gen slim design having that official branding. The PSX was later a whole separate PS2 variant only available in Japan, so the PSone labeling helped clear up any potential confusion with the Japanese PSX. As I mentioned in my flashback last week, I was initially not on board with the dawn of 32-bit systems after the initial polygonal games like Star Fox and Virtua Racing appeared ugly to my then 11 year-old eyes, and after trying the Saturn and PSone at retail kiosks shortly after their launches, I was bamboozled at the concept of ‘loading’ and being forced to wait for gameplay after not experiencing that on nearly all 8 and 16-bit games. The only bright spot I can recall in the first couple years of the PSone was having fun at my cousin’s blasting each other to bits in the excellent combat driving game, Twisted Metal. For the first few years of the PSone’s lifecycle in America, I easily dismissed it and stuck with my NES, SNES and GameBoy in those early years of the PSone because that was all my family had back then and they understandably did not want to cough up a few hundred more dollars to upgrade to a whole other platform. For the Christmas of 1997, after enough pleading with them to upgrade to a new gaming system I made my case for the N64 and was delighted to see it awaiting under the Christmas tree. That was due to my gaming preferences at the time and it being a four player powerhouse that worked ideally with my family and friends and also due to not getting my first job late in that console cycle it lead to me siding with it as my preferred console that generation. I do not regret it, but I did not miss out entirely on the PSone during this era as I had a couple friends around this time that got PSones instead and I wound up playing a fair amount of Sony’s first console hanging out at my other friend’s households.

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The early NFL GameDay and Madden titles were the first big PSone games I played regularly against a friend. This video does a nice quick job explaining how the two were fierce competitors in early years of the PSone. In 1998 my friend Rich upgraded to a PSone and the bulk of my PSone playing the next two to three years wound up being at his place. We played a ton of 16-bit Madden in the years preceding, so naturally the first PSone game that was our go to was Madden NFL ‘97. It only looked like a slightly touched up version of the 16-bit games and still stuck with marginally bigger and detailed sprites (or incredibly weak looking polygonal footballers, it is hard to tell when looking at videos) when compare to the 16-bit Madden titles. I recall us then switching the football games up with Sony’s NFL game, NFL GameDay ‘98 for a little bit of variety, and being impressed with its superior polygonal graphics. That all changed a few months later when Rich got the then-brand new Madden NFL ‘99 that holiday season. That was a landmark game for the series, and it righteously blew us away when EA Sports delivered a brand new polygonal graphics engine to compete with GameDay, and its graphics and gameplay blew GameDay away. Madden NFL ‘99 also debuted the multi-season Franchise mode that is a staple in single player Madden features today, and was revolutionary back then. Rich and I played Madden NFL ‘99 regularly and it was our new favorite pigskin game that gen.

Rich and I would play a lot of other competitive multiplayer games over the next couple of years. I have good memories of us renting games on a weekend night and tearing each other up in games like Knockout Kings 2000 and NHL Rock the Rink. After I got my first job the next year I would occasionally purchase a PSone game I wanted to try to bring over to play. The N64 AKI wrestling games we played to death, and I wanted to try out what the PSone grapplers brought to the table. I recall us detesting the unplayable trash that was WCW Nitro (minus its laugh-riot of character select screen taunts), but having a pretty fun time with the deep roster and gameplay options available in the first WWF Smackdown game. I remember getting really into ECW after discovering their first wave of DVDs in 2000, and eagerly picked up ECW Anarchy Rulz. Looking back, that aging game engine from Acclaim was barely playable, but we managed to have a blast with the absurd gameplay modes available at the time like barbwire and brimstone deathmatches. After hearing how the gaming press was giving it game of the year-caliber buzz, I took a chance and picked up Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 2 on PSone after I could not track down the harder-to-find Dreamcast version, and it worked out for the better because that game became an institution with Rich and I as we played countless bouts of Trick Attack and HORSE against each other. I could not hold a candle most times against Rich, but could care less since the gameplay was that lethal combo of accessible and fun, and that THPS2 had one of the all-time best licensed soundtracks, with a few selections like “Bring the Noise,” “Blood Brothers” and “Guerilla Radio” that remain in my running playlists today. I know, I know, you probably do not want to read entirely about sports and wrestling games, but for most of the 90s that made up a majority of what I consumed, but rest assured I am now moving on to some of the acclaimed single player titles the PSone is renowned for. My friend and podcast co-host Chris is a big fan of RPGs and I would chill at his place and enjoy watching him play through the story of Final Fantasy VII, Star Ocean, Grandia and Final Fantasy Tactics. Chris tried to help me wrap my head around them and guided me through first couple hours into FFVII and Tactics, but I did not have the attention span for those steep learning curves of their complex battle systems, especially Tactics. I recall watching my brother get wrapped up in FFVII and Legend of Dragoon and will never forget his anger at repeatedly failing against Seipheroth in the final FFVII boss battle, but will equally never forget his glee at finally conquering him. I finally made an honest effort at putting time into a new FFVII playthrough a couple years ago on my Vita, and I managed to make it out of Midgar which I considered a huge accomplishment. I only made it a little ways past that however and never got past that tall creature in a marsh I later found out was one of those battles you were not supposed to win. Speaking of FFVII, I played the demo recently for the newly released FFVII Remake and it looks dazzling and it sounds like that first installment of the Remake is getting high marks all around, which is great to hear for one of the most identifiable and best-selling games on the PSone.

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I re-uploaded this podcast from my archives where we breakdown nearly all RPGs on the PSone. Brought on a lot of RPG-vets for this episode which yielded one of my favorite episodes in our near-200 episode run! I remember hearing the legendary FFVII vs. FFVIII fan debates over the years. For the first couple of years after its release, Final Fantasy VIII was almost universally panned by gaming mags and the newly emerging online gaming media at the time before it slowly built up a vocal contingent of defenders similar to how Luigi’s Mansion got its fanbase once the ‘it is not Super Mario’ hubbub at the GCN launch gradually died down. I remember when my brother finished FFVII and with his birthday approaching understandably wanting to play the next one right away and him pleading with my mom for FFVIII for his birthday. This was a year or two after it was already out and I remember warning my brother it was not received that well, and he blew off my warnings and persisted with his birthday wishes for it. He eventually procured Squall’s journey for his birthday, and I will never forget it asking him several days later for his first update on it and him furiously responding, ‘That game sucks, I already traded it in to Gamestop!’

To put a bow on RPGs on the PSone, I would like to nudge you towards another podcast I recently uploaded from my archives in time for this flashback where we did a multi-part history of RPGs special, with the PSone getting its own episode since it had so many highly-rated RPGs. As you have read by now, I am no expert at this genre, but Chris and a few other friends I brought on are and it lead to a thorough discussion breaking down nearly every major and minor RPG on the system! It was a fun roundtable I will never forget with the first half dedicated to passionately dissecting all the Final Fantasy titles on the system to the back half making sure nearly all other PSone RPGs get their due. I have embedded it in this article for your convenience, or you can click or press here to queue it up for later. Another multi-episode special of On Tap saw us focusing on the history of comic book games. I brought on longtime friend and comic book expert Matt for the perfect co-host for this series. He took his research for this line of episodes remarkably seriously and tracked down and bought any comic book games he was missing for each system to fill in any gaps and by the time we wrapped up our comic book games history series he purchased nearly every comic book licensed game there was. When it came time to cover PSone and Saturn comic book games we spent a weekend trying out many of these games Matt tracked down online. With the exception of the excellent Marvel-licensed fighting games by Capcom and a handful of other titles, a vast majority of the rest were a dumpster fire of barely playable platformers. I vividly recall Fantastic Four, The Crow: City of Angels, Blade and Hellboy: Asylum Seeker standing out as the cream of the crap. We suffered through a lot of dreck that weekend, but it was worth and it culminated in an episode where a lot of ragging was done on some atrocious games. I do not have that episode re-uploaded from the archives as of this writing, but I plan to eventually and will embed it here soon so you can experience our pain!UPDATE 6-23-2020 - I finally uploaded the podcast covering PSone comic book games to my YouTube channel; it is embedded at the bottom of this special, or you can click or press here to check it out!

The primary reason I never got a PSone during its lifecycle was because when I landed my first job in 1999 and finally had disposable income, it was either announced or much-rumored by that point that the highly anticipated PS2 would have backwards compatibility with the PSone library so I held off on getting the system. I would however purchase a handful of PSone games in the year leading up to the PS2 launch knowing that they would work on the PS2. I loved SNES Street Racer, so PSone Street Racer was one of my first PSone games, and it had a nice bump up in visuals and somehow pulled off split screen multiplayer for up to eight players! The 3DO version of Road Rash got a nice performance boost on the PSone, but like the 3DO version also does not have support for its killer licensed soundtrack during gameplay. Sadly the PSone’s exclusive follow up, Road Rash: Jailbreak failed to deliver, and the beloved franchise has rarely been seen from since. Street Fighter Collection: Volume 2 was how I first experienced the turbo speed and hyper combos of Super Street Fighter II: Turbo that I fondly remember doing regular match-ups against my classmate Josh! The wrestling nut in me experimented with a couple other exclusive wrestling games on the system. Power Move Pro Wrestling was a decent early polygonal wrestling game, which I could have seen being addicted to if I played it when it originally released in 1996. WWF WrestleMania: The Arcade Game and WWF In Your House were mildly entertaining Mortal Kombat-esque takes on wrestling games, but needless to say I stuck with the N64 for my main wrestling games fix during this era. I loved both Destruction Derby titles on PSone back during this time, but I revisited them briefly in prep for this flashback and am sad to report they have not aged the best and I forgot how loose they controlled and how some inadvertent spinouts could lead to a quick demise. Another oddball title was the Kurt Warner backed Arena Football Unleashed. It is Midway taking the Blitz engine and giving it an Arena-rules makeover, but with more vicious hits and tackles that the NFL would not endorse in their games.

I want to make sure to get a couple other quick props to a few other assorted PSone memories. Loaded was a fun overhead two player action title to mindlessly blast away in coop. I was impressed with Blizzard’s port of Diablo and how well it surprisingly handled the co-op action with not too many performance hiccups. Another PC hit series my brother and I dug, Delta Force did not make as smooth of a transition to PSone with Delta Force: Urban Warfare being a bit of a choppy mess. The hit multiplayer series Worms I first discovered on PSone with Chris introducing me to the series with Worms 2 and I instantly became a fan of its fantastical weaponry like Banana Bombs and exploding sheep. One of the scant few times I got my mom to play games with me was knocking out several rounds of Jeopardy 2nd Edition where it was then impressive to hear every question…errr answer audibly read by studio host Johnny Gilbert. On one of the annual 24-hour Extra Life charity drives I participated in, a friend brought over one of the strangest PSone titles ever in Incredible Crisis, to begin to describe its zaniness would be impossible, so I will point you towards this video instead. The aforementioned Capcom Marvel fighting games you cannot go wrong with, but a decent alternative was the pair of X-Men: Mutant Academy fighting games from Activision.I remember they had Professor X as a hidden character and going to town dishing out damage with his array of wheelchair attacks! I never got into the hardcore sim Gran Turismo titles, but it was another title that I would be fine watching Chris show off its then best-in-show graphics and presentation of realistic cars and driving physics. Finally, the Tekken 2 and Tekken 3 were in regular rotation at friends. Like Virtua Fighter 2 on Saturn they proved that polygonal fighters were here to stay, and I remember being stunned how good Tekken 3 looked when next to its arcade counterpart and how Namco squeezed everything they could out of the PSone with that title.

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It was a different time for WWF games in the early years of the PSone as this video elucidates how a Mortal Kombat take on a wrestling game came to be. PSone and PS2 owners were spoiled with a constant supply of demo discs courtesy of OPM and Playstation Underground. I remember Chris keeping up with the demos and him constantly popping in the latest one whenever I swung over. The Playstation Underground discs especially stood out since they were essentially a virtual magazine, complete with mini-documentaries and interview features, cheat codes and content unlocked save files. I have been able to experience these again with Giant Bomb doing an exquisite job regularly reliving this era with their ‘Demo Derby’ video series I give a high recommendation for everyone to check out. I also remember the final years of PSone’s lifecycle that introduced the concept of the $10 budget game that saw dozens of low-budget games release brand new for at that price point. A lot of these were utter trash like All-Star Slammin’ D-Ball where I discovered it is possible to screw up a dodge ball game, but there was an occasional gem sprinkled in there, and it was part of the fun chancing one when randomly perusing the racks at Best Buy on a routine payday visit back then.

My last dive into PSone gaming was downloading the various PSone classics released digitally on PS3. According to good ‘ol reliable Wikipedia, there were 265 PSone Classics released for PS3 download in North America. I downloaded around 30 of them. Most of them were $6 each, with a few multi-disc games going for $10 I think, but they frequently went on sale for half off and it was a great way to track down games I always wanted for a bargain, and having most of them being cross-compatible on the Vita was a handy bonus too! I booted up a few of them prepping up for this, and a big standout for me were the five volumes of the NAMCO Museum catching my eye with their impressive explore-able museum filled with all types of fan service that made me get a lot more than I expected when revisiting arcade classics like Galaga and Pole Position. One day I will make time for the other downloaded PSone Classics in my PS3 library I have long neglected and heard nothing but great things about like both Mega Man Legends titles and the pair of Suikoden games. Speaking of PSone Classics, that brings me to Sony’s entry into the console-mini market a couple years ago with its critical and commercial flop, the PSone Classic. I love my NES, SNES and Genesis mini consoles, but I avoided Sony’s version with its surprise amount of issues that are far too numerous to breakdown here. From what I understand, a lot of it can be resolved by modding the system, but ultimately I prefer having my PS3 be my own personal PSone Classic. My PS3-slim model still plays all my PSone discs, and combine that with my own curated PSone Classics I have downloaded on it and I see no need to upgrade to the PSone Classic and its Dual Shock-less controller.

I will wind down here by stating how I went until three or four years ago unexpectedly stumbling into procuring a physical PSone. I was helping a longtime co-worker move an old couch, and afterword we were having a quick breakfast when she suddenly had a lightbulb-turned-on look dawn on her and she exclaimed, ‘hey, you like games, right?’ I responded that I do, and she went on to say how her son left a couple boxes of games in her closet and insisted I take them for helping her out. I felt it was a bit much for moving a couch, but she persisted and double checked with her son after a quick text. Upon opening up the couple of shoeboxes when I got home I discovered it wound up being the PSone-slim, with two controllers and about 20 games mostly of the Crash Bandicoot and alternative sports variety which was fine by me! The PSone/Saturn/N64 generation I remember being a crazy ‘fanboy war’ era. Aside from the standard lunchroom verbal jabs that were exchanged, that generation in the mid-to-late 90s was when the Internet, online forums, boards and messenger programs became ubiquitous and only fueled the fire. As stated above, I remember sticking by the N64 during this time, but over the years as you have just read, I came around on the PSone over the years. I may have touched on an unorthodox lineup of games compared to what people that were playing the PSone during its active retail timespan, but I do not regret any of the PSone ‘classics’ I experienced one bit. Please check back here later this year for more Sony platform flashback specials on the PSP and PS2, and if you want more retro gaming flashbacks then please take a look underneath here for a list of my previous flashbacks!

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Here is the podcast I did covering all of the comic book games released on the PSone, along with other systems from that era like the Saturn and N64. My Other Gaming Flashbacks Dreamcast 20th Anniversary GameBoy 30th Anniversary Genesis 30th Anniversary Saturn and Virtual Boy 25th Anniversaries TurboGrafX-16 30th Anniversary and 32-X 25th Anniversary

#videogames #psone #playstation #final fantasy vii #final fantasy #destruction derby #street racer #tony hawk #tony hawk's pro skater #madden #gameday #the crow #hellboy #marvel vs capcom #crash bandicoot

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