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everyone’s trying to stump the akinator so i’m gonna try and see if he’ll know that i’m thinking of the little symbol on the front of his turban

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headspin

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Prince of Germa Kingdom? More like Princess of Kamabakka Queendom! 💋

Thank you so much @endjuice for the art, Sanji turned out gorgeous! The tattoo itself was done by sophievtattoo on Instagram!

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Honestly I had to

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My annual October sableye drawing.

I am sad summer and sunlight are gone but also just want this year to be over.

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I think he's happier to hear compliments about his friends than compliments about himself.

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nice ;)

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Chat, serious fuckin question? What is going to happen to me after I eat 30-40 olives?

I need to know.

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Inktober day 2: Spiders

He loves it, Robin!

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mspaint,

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On one hand, I agree. I always do a roleplay playthrough of Soulsbourne games for my first run, which means I am pretty much walking everywhere. HOWEVER, where I disagree and still insist that Dark Souls II is not as good as Dark Souls is in HOW it makes you wander.

Let's start with Dark Souls. In DS1, you're given an amazing starting cutscene that shows you the final boss, three of the four Lordsoul holders, and two other important bosses (Manis, if you believe he is the furtive pigmy, and Seath the Scaleless). This, right out the gate, gives you a sense of "Okay! These guys E X I S T". When you inevitably run into them, you'll perk up and get super hyped because Holy HELL! It's THEM! From the cutscene!

This leads you to your starting cell. You're just a random nobody in a cage, given a CHANCE to escape by a random knight who drops a corpse with a key on it. You escape, find him, and he tells you that if you ring a bell somewhere in the world, you'll find out the fate of those who are like you, cursed to forever walk this land without the peace of death. When you escape the asylum, you meet the most heartbroken failure of a man just chilling in the starting hub. He tells you there's actually TWO bells. Cool. You got all the info you really need to be honest. One's up in a church in the Undead Burg, the other is down below in a place called Blightown.

Now you have two things: wanderlust to find the old souls from the cutscene and curiosity to figure out where these two bells are so you can ring em!

Right out the gate, Dark Souls knew how to give you purpose with such minimal interactivity. It was honestly beautiful. I really love how Dark Souls gives your character direction because once they tell you where to go, it's up to you to figure out how to get there.

But Dark Souls II? How do they start you off? Well, you get a cutscene showing your dude or dudette jumping down a weird hole??? Some old ladies are chatting it up. You just kinda are wandering. And that's pretty much what you'll be doing the entirety of DS2. Wandering. Without any idea why.

The old ladies in the beginning feel like they are mocking you for even being there in the first place. You don't know who the hell is in Drangleic. You don't have even a shred of promise to find out why you're wandering this world. The whole game feels almost like a big middle finger to the player for wanting to explore at all. It seems their direction ended up going from, "Here are some hints as to what to do! Now go and explore this amazing world!" to "Why the fuck are you here??? You know what? Go and wander this wretched earth you miscreant. How dare you have a sense of wanderlust. Shame on you."

It feels so disingenuous to the player. A great example is the fucking hole in Majula. I saw that hole after talking to the DS2 equivalent to the Crestfallen Soldier in DS. He states that there's no way to get down there, "not without a ladder of some sort". Cool, okay. Guess I get a ladder item later on, that's cool. Flash forward to me losing my mind while I'm slowly going crazy from the lack of clarity on where I'm supposed to go, so I end up giving up on staying spoiler free for this game, watching lore videos for it and all, and I find out I'm supposed to buy the fucking CAT FALL RING FROM THE SASSY LIL CAT IM THE SHACK RIGHT BESIDE THE HOLE. WHY WOULD HE MENTION A LADDER IF I'M SUPPOSED TO BUY A RING?????

This is why I feel like DS2's whole design philosophy is to be as player hostile as possible. It feels less like a challenge and more like self mandated torture. I love Dark Souls. I even like Dark Souls 2. But man. The difference between the two games lies in how they want the player to feel when they explore. I remeber ringing both bells, heading back to firelink to chat with my crestfallen brother, him talking about the stench, thinking to myself "I'll get rid of it king", seeing that massive primordial serpent freak, talking to him and figuring out about the lordsouls, heading to Sen's Funhouse and getting the Lordvessel, and then beginning my second journey to get those lord souls. It all felt so magical. It felt like I was truly getting more powerful.

Then in Dark Souls 2, I'm just... Wandering. I get lost so often. It's literally what the game is cursing you to do. And that's nowhere near as fun as the fantasy of getting more powerful through your skill with a blade. I remember just perusing about, finding a long walkway with water on both sides in a dark land, seeing a colosseum like building in the distance, lighting two torches on the side for some reason, only to walk in, fight a weird sinner guy, kill him pretty easily, only to find out "Hey! This guy's got a Great Soul btw 😊" LIKE WHAT??? HOW???

The game's lack of direction and clarity absolutely butchered the fun for me. I can feel every inch of my body and soul clamoring to want to be over with this game so I can play Bloodborne next. I have yet to play it or Dark Souls III. Hell, I stopped my playthrough of Elden Ring like 40% through to start from Dark Souls because of how much I loved the way Elden Ring was made, and I stand by the fact that Dark Souls is just as magical as Elden Ring is. But Dark Souls II? It's... It's ok. It's not as great, that's for sure. But it's... ok. People overhate on this game for sure. But man, it's really struggling to make me love it the same way I fell in love with Elden Ring and Dark Souls...

The thing about Dark Souls II is that people will just try to run through it while exercising zero situational or environmental awareness, suffer for it, then complain the game is bad

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Guess what day it is :D

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Hatsune Miku said square up

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ness is feeling funky

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