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sirbadgerduke · 3 years

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Retrospective Thought: Top Ten Games of The Year 2020

Another year, another batch of games have been released to highs and lows, to praise and woes. 2020 May have sucked big time due to COVID and restless political protesting/outrage, the selection of games have been pretty good if a bit middling overall, especially with the beginning of a new Console Generation. Here’s my top ten games of the year, titles I adored and had a blast with. 10) Cyberpunk 2077(PS4/XBOXONE/PC)

A bit of a controversial choice considering the dialogue surrounding it and CD Projekt RED. Needless to say that while it’s downright buggy and unplayable on the base PS4/XBONE versions, Cyberpunk 2077 is still a stellar Immersive Sim with RPG elements thrown in. A great story and a great cast of characters set within a sometimes gorgeous map make up for many of the “shortcomings/Broken promises'' in my honest and trivial opinion. Gameplay is solid/fun whilst needing some fine tuning in areas here and there and the music is top notch to boot. I’d honestly have to recommend getting this later on, after the major big patch coming in Feb as hopefully the bugs and glitches will be cleared(hopefully) by then. Still a great, memorable ride underneath the bugs, glitches and weird design choices, just be cautious if you plan to get it now.

9) Resident Evil 3 Remake(PS4/XBOXONE/PC)

While not quite as fantastic as the Resident Evil 2 Remake and mirroring similarities to the comparison between both original titles, Resident Evil 3 is still a really great Survival Horror Action title in its own right. Obviously it’s focus is definitely more on the action side of things, but while RE5/6 failed to even have a glimmer of horror, here RE3R still has a level of sheer terror in the form of Nemesis both in the beginning and in key moments. Nemesis himself, whilst in the background more than he was in the original, adds a layer of paranoia and dread as you think about where he’ll pop up again ready to take you out. Worth a check if you like the original RE3 game in my opinion.

8) Maneater(PS4/XBOXONE/PC)

A “Megashark Sim” game that could easily be mistaken for a long lost 2005 PS2 game remake or remaster for the PS4/XBONE Generation. Maneater is just pure, unadulterated dumb fun. Growing from tiger shark pup to Megalodon Tier Mega Shark, whilst a little repetitive every so often, is chaotically great, one that really makes you feel like the Apex Predator of the ocean, especially when you take down shark hunters with ease. The story is portrayed as this Reality Show, narrated by Chris Parnum, it takes itself serious enough with some earnest sincerity. If you’re looking for a good mayhem filled fun, pick this title up.

7) Doom Eterna(PS4/XBOXONE/PC/NS

Sequel to the sublime 2016 Reboot, Doom Eternal is one of the best Boomer FPS games to come out in 2020, if not THE best FPS game. An FPS that requires your attention to what weapon you are using and what enemies are currently hunting you down during a hectic gunfight, it often plays both like a Character Action and Puzzle title in equal measure. Continuing and expanding upon the story from the 2016 title, the lore and plot itself go into some both equally dumb and badass levels of nuttery you can only find in Doom. If you love old school shooters and Doom 2016, check it out if you want to rip and tear demons into a pulpy, bloody mess.

6) Final Fantasy 7: ReMake(PS4)

I haven’t played the original so my experience may be very different to those that have. I enjoyed this title more than I thought I would; from the combat down to the even the music(a strong point of many Final Fantasy games good or bad.)and the story itself is a rather great romp. The Characters, the art style, it all hits the checkmarks I look for in a Final Fantasy game and then some. While it’s not my favourite Final Fantasy, it's definitely in my top tier, even down to the combat which is both really stylish and flashy whilst maintaining a level of tact from the games in the series of yonder. Definitely worth a check out if you’re a fan of Final Fantasy games. 5) One Piece: Pirate Warriors 4(PS4/XBOXONE/PC/NS)

Aah, Musou titles that take an IP and franchise, gives it that Dynasty Warriors coat of paint and goes “that’ll do!” are a treat when done well. PW4 is one such title that does it super well, even to the point of introducing the Manga’s/Anime’s staple Giant Characters as authentic as they can do. What is left is a rather fun, meaty and character varied Musou title that isn’t just “DW but X” like certain others are(cough cough, Fire Emblem Musou). The fact that both Kaido and Big Mom are both playable with their forms makes me so glad that this particular Musou franchise is going strong. Huge recommendation if you’re a OP fan.

4) Nioh 2(PS4)

I adored the first Nioh title a lot; it’s locales, characters, weapon selection, enemy variety, etc. Nioh 2 is essentially “Nioh 1 but an actual budget behind it” and I’m here for it. Both a prequel and a sequel to the previous title, you play as a Shiftling, a half yokai/half human as you set out to track down the Yokai that slew your mother. Mission structure, enemy variety and level design has been improved by a huge margin, surprisingly whilst combat is granted with more options and a wider selection of weapon styles to test out with many QoL improvements that help to keep your attention firm and focus on the build you want to go for. 3) 13 Sentinels: Aegis Rim(PS4)

Oh boy, where to start with this one helluva trip of a title. Half Visual Novel and half RTS, Aegis Rim is a big Sci-Fi mecha romp definitely worth the praise and more. When I mean a Sci-Fi Romp I absolutely mean it too, not to spoil the plot or story of the game but I’ll just say it never lets up and goes 100% hard into the themes and concepts it presents to you. The RTS side of it is also super fun as a simple yet deep system with plenty of ways to upgrade your sentinels and plenty of ways to fight Kaiju. I honestly would like to go into further but that’s spoiler territory, trust me and get it for yourself.

2) Ghost of Tsushima(PS4)

Another “Samurai” game only less fantastical and more grounded, taking part in an Era of Japanese history many media don’t often go. Not much left to say due to a previous review of this title but here is the surmised version; a fantastic and gorgeous title that takes elements of various other titles and improves on them whilst a surprisingly well done story of honour, vengeance and protection wraps it up in a neat, tidy package that also includes a surprisingly fun Multiplayer component. 1) Yakuza: Like a Dragon(PS4/XBOXONE/XBXS/PC)

Aah, the Yakuza franchise, a franchise spanning more than ten games which includes remakes, spin offs and prequels. A new protagonist, a new setting and even a new combat system with a story beginning a new journey that will hopefully be of quality as Kiryu’s. There’s a lot to say that a series that changes and shakes its foundation in a way that would’ve been too risky for others to even attempt, is attempted by Ryu Ga Gotoku Studios and met with success and love.Yakuza 7 presents both it’s protagonist and story in a parallel of Kiryu and the first game but offering a different path and take. Kiryu is a legend, a sorta “god” if you will in the Yakuza underworld, whilst Ichiban is a nobody, a rung in a low level family and whilst Kiryu is a one man army who will fight with conviction and resolve, Ichiban has a party, friends who will pick him up and push him forward if he ever falters. A review is in the works in which I will go into more detail of just why Yakuza: Like a Dragon is my Number One GOTY of 2020.

And there’s my list of the greats of last years(arguably lol) , a shitty year that surprisingly wasn’t a total train wreck of releases, hopefully 2021 fairs much better with many great releases planned fixes for certain titles.

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horde-princess · 5 years

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I honestly can see a very korrasami-esque ending for Catra and Adora. It’s totally obvious by now that Noelle meant for them to be romantic and that she would like to end with them on a romantic route. Unfortunately, I don’t know if DW will be onboard for something very “in your face”. So I can totally see them doing a korrasami ending but making it a bit more obvious that it’s romantic.

i know ive always said “they will definitely absolutely kiss no doubt in mind” but now that we’re at the end i think i should actually take the time to discuss this more… i’m what you might a call a realistic optimist because i choose to have faith but i’m not ignorant to the realities of the situation you know? so buckle up this is going to be a long and probably unpleasant ride lmao

to be real, going into the last season I’m trying to not let myself have too many expectations with catradora. I do 100% fully expect that their relationship will be shown to be explicitly romantic by the end, but unfortunately, yes, its possible that they may not kiss. i’m at peace with that and i hope this post helps you guys see my thinking and come to terms with it too

obviously i dont understand all the underlying mechanisms of producing a tv show. i do know that dreamworks has hardly been a progressive studio in terms of lgbt representation. there are a lot of factors that would go into a decision about whether to allow a lesbian kiss in one of their projects, not least the fact that She-Ra is a reboot. having said all that, i’m still optimistic and there IS evidence in favor of a kiss that i think is worth talking about!

thinking about where to start with this discussion on Dreamworks vs. lgbt representation, Voltron came to mind. i’ve never seen the show but a quick google search brought me to this Geekdad article from an interviewer who did an investigation into Voltron’s lgbt rep failure and Dreamworks’ role in that. he argues that a lot of the blame belongs with the showrunners, because Dreamworks does at least provide resources and diversity consultants to help showrunners make respectful lgbt content, but the Voltron crew didn’t make use of them. the issue was not that Dreamworks actively blocked lgbt rep but rather that the studio did not work to ensure quality representation from the showrunners. which is a huge difference.

i dug a little deeper and found a transcript of an interview with the showrunners where they talk about the red tape they encountered, and what they say seems to implicate Voltron’s intellectual property holder as opposed to the Dreamworks studio itself. it sounds like Dreamworks’ hands were tied because the showrunners did not hold all the legal rights to the story.

of course we know IP is also an issue with She-Ra. however, correct me if i’m wrong, but I believe Mattel (the Masters of the Universe toy line) sold its property rights to NBCUniversal (Dreamworks’ parent company) a couple of years ago. this doesn’t mean all ties are cut with the original IP holder, but i think its safe to assume that She-Ra has some more wiggle room than Voltron did when it comes to the showrunners’ vision/creativity. especially because Mattel has been known to be pro-lgbt.

an interesting quote from Joaquim Dos Santos (voltron producer) was that after season 7, “She-Ra was in development within the studio and I think the studio was just sort of beginning to open its eyes to the possibilities of there being [lgbt] representation in their shows and there not being a huge public backlash for it.”

Also, in a different interview they said “to Dreamworks’ credit, I think the tide started changing internally” regarding the studio’s outlook on lgbt rep around the time that seasons 7/8 were in production.

so in addition to potential IP issues, Dreamworks is obviously concerned about their reputation and losing money. however we can gather from these quotations that (due to recent cultural shifts in the U.S.) Dreamworks has felt comfortable making efforts in the last few years to distribute more/better lgbt rep.

you also have to consider that Dreamworks KNEW what they were getting into with hiring Noelle. it’s hard to know whether lgbt representation was the vision for the show from the beginning or whether Noelle brought it with her (tho it seems like the latter). but either way, the studio must have been actively seeking to improve their lgbt representation because i’m sure she made her vision clear from the very beginning.

There’s a great article where Noelle talks about the fight to include lgbt rep in She-Ra:

“When you’re aiming to tell a story like that, you have to get everyone who’s working on the show, whether on the crew, or at the executive level, to believe in that world as well. It’s all part of trying to create the type of world in real life that you’re creating in the show. While I hope it comes across in a natural way in the show, it’s something you have to constantly fight for. You can’t take it for granted. I never take it for granted. It’s a really important thing to fight for, and a lot of it is just, “Trust me, this is gonna work. Believe in me. I can pull this off.” I am really fortunate to work with executives who do believe in me and who have allowed me to do a lot with this show. I’m very fortunate for that.”

So that is awesome to hear!! It wasn’t a tug-of-war situation with Noelle having to make concessions for execs who didn’t believe in her vision. She says the studio was supportive. But I think only time will tell us what the definition of “a lot” is.

Okay so, whew, that was a lot of information. i’ll be amazed if anyone actually reads this far lmaoo 😂 anyway i wanna move away from logistical stuff and talk about some other things Noelle has said about her show.

geekdad did another great interview with Noelle (and a Dreamworks PR representative!! it’s a good read) where he asked “if you wanted to depict a same gender relationship with foreground characters, do you think we’re at that stage yet in children’s animation where you could? Or do you think we still have a ways to go?”

Noelle replies “I think that remains to be seen, and I think… that’s something that–you should watch the show. You should see the storylines that we pursue in the future.”

When asked about catradora’s romantic undertones, “just keep watching” is something Noelle has said repeatedly in many different interviews. She wouldn’t say that if there wasn’t going to be a payoff at the end. It’s obvious she’s not at liberty to discuss the ending of the show, you can tell she’s always extremely careful with her wording when she’s faced with questions like this. But she consistently expresses, as a lesbian herself, that she has created a show she expects her own community will be excited about. Whatever actually happens, Noelle doesn’t believe that She-Ra will let us down 😌

Shes also mentioned that she’s grateful for shows like Steven Universe and Adventure Time that were trailblazers before She-Ra, because every successive show has the opportunity to be a little bit more progressive than the shows that came before it. We all have to continually strive to push the envelope and demand more inclusivity. If it turns out that that’s all She-Ra is–a small step towards quality representation–then yes of course it will feel like a massive waste (just because this story Noelle created is so incredible), but we’ll have to remember that the show is still playing a very important role in the history of children’s media. Even without a kiss, She-Ra has made incredible strides in lgbt rep. what i would hate to see is people complaining (god forbid calling it “queer baiting”) if there isn’t a kiss. Noelle and the crew have worked on this show tirelessly and passionately and we can’t yell at them for something they had no control over. the only people we should hold accountable are Dreamworks/Mattel. so i agree with you there anon.

Personally, at this point, I’m just here for the ride because i trust Noelle Stevenson with my life and She-Ra is the best show i’ve EVER seen. and i’m gonna keep talking about catradora kissing because

#she ra #asks/replies #this actually turned into a whole ass research article i'm insane for writing this lakjdlfs #no one can EVER doubt how seriously i take catradora

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littleeyesofpallas · 4 years

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The other day i had a kinda drunken rant I went on with a friend that I had wished I could’ve written down. But today I read an article about the shift in hollywood marketing from star power to IP and character driven power instead: the idea being that an original movie used be able to draw crowds with the basic idea of “your favorite star as <insert role>” but we’ve moved more towards the appeal of familiar franchise names like “from the creator of XYZ.” But I think this is an interesting place to draw the line because it does go back to that drunken rant. So, here I go again... this is gonna be lo~ng and boring (and this is the shortest possible version) and without pictures, but god knows i have no idea what i would put to accompany this super tangent-filled tirade, so I guess just buckle up...

(I apologize now for all the weird side subjects that I’m going to name drop but just not take the time here to go in depth with.)

I don’t even remember where my drunken rant with my friend the other night started so my first obstacle is finding a place to even begin with this because it has so many entry points and none of them are any closer to where this all ends than any other so like.... whatever... Shakespeare.

It’s a super complicated thing but in the first era of professional english theatre that Shakespeare ushered in (from the mid-late 1500s to early-mid 1600s) there were strong strong associations with theatre and prostitution. Maybe it was exactly what it sounded like, maybe it was elitist slander against the revolutionary accessibility of the arts to the poor as self debasing, maybe it was the church being really angry about literally everything all the time, maybe it was a little of all of that... But either way the persisting notion was that a theatre, established or travelling, was a place one could ostensibly go to pay for sex with the troupe’s actors. of course at the time women weren’t a part of that profession, and while they may have been as much a part of the theater going demographic as anyone else it’s hard to pinpoint how much of the already vaguely defined theatre sex trade they patronized --Point being when we talk about theatres prostituting their actors we’re talking about male theatre goers paying to have sex with male actors, and predominantly those young boys playing female roles. In most classic academic circles this is either wholly ignored, brushed aside/glossed over, or sloppily chalked up to “homosexuality.” But there’s a lot more nuance to that... which is part of the big mess of stuff I’m just not getting into here...

But this is where I draw my line of connection to Kabuki theatre. Kabuki somewhat infamously had similar practices as all-male theatre and as duel industry for theatre and prostitution. And as a parallel development it seems to make sense... In England and Japan alike, you have a group of people who by nature of their jobs charm people and constantly move from town to town. Even if a community or government thinks what they’re doing is wrong, by the time they can take notice or do anything to stop them: they charm, they fuck, they leave. But unlike Shakespearean theatre, kabuki has a slightly more convoluted history of development.

See, Kabuki started with Izumi-no-Okumo, a shinto shrine maid (ironically also in the 1500-1600s cusp, same as shakespeare) and although a lot of her personal history is lost to time you can imagine the basic development here: a shrine maid tells the myths, she tells the myths dramatically and with with character voice, then all that but with props, and costume, and then dividing roles into separate actors, and collecting donations for the shrine as regular practice anyway but hey look people donate more when they’ve come for a story they enjoy... and then oops you’ve invented theatre. Also on account of this being started with shinto shrine maids, the form naturally took an all female slant.

Whether it started with Okumo herself or not, as theatre became an established form, and a lucrative one at that, non shinto affiliated women quickly seized the chance to make a living outside the bounds of common peasantry, and with the growth of travelling theatre as an industry that same side venture of prostitution developed. But here’s where it gets interesting...

Due to things that, again I won’t dive into here, the untaxed revenues of prostitution painted a target on the backs of kabuki actresses, and women were eventually outlawed from theatre. The art form was of course immensely popular however so to keep the gravy train rolling the theatre form continued but now with all young-male casts, to retain the feminine aesthetics of female kabuki. This did absolutely nothing to stop the rate of prostitution however, so they outlawed it again and replaced the young boys with grown men. This still didn’t stop the prostitution but there was other stuff going on in Japan at that point and legislative attentions were pulled elsewhere.

And here’s my weird little take away from this... it’s not like Kabuki theatre suddenly went from being popular with horny straight men to horny gay men in a seemless and perfectly balanced transition. (and granted japan at the time was a lot more open about their grasp of sexuality compared to now and to the west in general) so presumably a lot of these thirsty theatre goers were just overwhelmingly indiscriminate in their tastes in fucking actors... But stick a pin in that, we’ve got a tangent to go on!

So around this same time Japan was having kind of a second rennaissance: japan’s high arts culture had first really risen to prominence in the heian period right before the long long descent into the civilwar we all know and lover for all its flashy samurai drama. When that 400-ish year civil war finally ended and then stabilized under the Tokugawa shogunate in the Edo period, the art scene finally had some room to breathe again, and among many other things ukiyo-e wood block prints saw a huge explosion in popularity. And part of this tied into Kabuki theatre, as an extremely popular genre of prints were actor portraits and theatre scenes. Actor portraits in particular are kind of culturally fascinating, because they weren’t simply prints of character illustration, they were frequently labeled with both the character played, the story they featured in, and the name of the actor playing them. moreover, despite the reverence of classical art historians now, these weren’t fine art at the time; they were mass produced, affordable and disposable. In major cities, everyone went to see theatre, and everyone bought, kept, and even collected actor portraits. As theatre seasons and troupes came and went actor portraits came to occupy and kind of cultural value space a lot like American baseball cards in how prestige, rarity, and trading became an entire subculture in and of itself within the sports/theatre community.

Now we see how Japan had created this thriving popular/mass culture, and celebrity culture for itself. And while the notion of a “parasocial relationship” wouldn’t be formulated and explored until the 1950s-60s in the wake of things like Elvis fever and Beetles mania, that brand of one-sided relationship where you as an audience member form a “relationship” with a celebrity that involves collecting information about their heavily curated persona is exactly what japan stumbled into some 300 years earlier. And in fact Japanese pop culture would maintain a lineage of parasocial relationships during the intervening years (in a way the deification and worship of the emperor as a god-king was a kind of parasocial relationship in the way a secular monarch doesn’t quite achieve) So it’s no surprise that when Takarazuka Revue opened in the 1910s as a new modern all-female theatre form, it attracted a familiar old brand of horny theatre audience --one that maintained a very nebulous relationship with the now much more stringent notions of gender and its relation to sexuality.

taking this tangent a little further, Japanese pop culture has always shown this interesting, self-aware approach to the parasocial relationship dynamic that western cultures seems to lack. I remember that when the 1990s put boy bands briefly into the spotlight, the thing that sunk them in the American eye seemed to be this weird sense of betrayal that the boys werent some garage band rags to riches story, and they didnt write their own music, or make their own dance moves, or even sing live at their own concerts. America seemed to be repulsed by this notion of a manufactured pop hit. Japan however (and Korea soon to follow) seemed to thrive in this instead; there was no pretense that J-pop idols weren’t manufactured, and in fact they took pride in the rigors of having been hand picked and raised to stardom --of course they were scouted and trained, because the idol could’ve been any of millions but it was them who got picked, it was them who sang the best, performed the best, climbed the charts, and fought to stay there. Stardom wasn’t an art form, it was a contest, and they were WINNING.

And the manufactured nature of that J-pop idol business model is what gave rise to Hatsune Miku (in fact there were multiple attempts in the 1980s to design and market a wholly fictional pop idol, but if anything they were too ahead of their time and lacked the technology to really sell the idea in its best form) because when your entire product is about making and curating your performers’ public persona, to the extreme level at which them having their own lives actually starts to contradict their stage persona and hurt their marketability... why bother projecting the persona onto a real person? Why not just cut the human component out all together and just market the persona for what it is? And for Japan I think that kind of relationship was one that they were culturally always just a few steps away from being ready to accept anyway, so it just took a little persistence.

Then came the anime waifu thing... Dating sims, and body pillow marriages, etc... and I think the pretty unanimous impulse to turn this into a enormous joke (and lets be real who could blame anyone for that) overlooks what actually happened here: paraosocial relationships in the purest form, with the fleshy middleman removed and with it the lie, not less false but somehow now false yet honest. A bizarre paradox to be sure...

But now lets back this up... Kabuki theatre. Prostitution. The change from women to young boys to men, and the almost hilarious unflappably bisexual audience who embraced it. I don’t think it was a component of sexuality as any historians who have looked at that time period bothered to conceive of it. Because even in an early japanese mass culture scene, the relationship was between the audience and the persona, and not the audience and the actors; The audience was always in love with the characters in their collectible trading prints, with their 15th century waifus, and they paid to have sex with those personas regardless of the bodies or real people involved.

...

okay, so, I typed all that out weeks ago and then just left it in my drafts, not even really intending to come back to it. And now that I’m here, I don’t know that I had a point to this when i went on my drunk rant. But i guess if there was any kind of a take away from this, it’s that I find that people have a lot of trouble separating personal identity from gender, from performance, from social dynamics... and in western culture, especially within recent history/memory, that’s kind of understandably hard to untangle. But historically people’s sexuality and sense of attraction have basically always been based implicitly on attraction to an idea made manifest in a persona first, and a body to match it only secondarily to that;

Society’s abiding dedication to forcing you into a gendered box, and to box gender into a narrow range of performance, is equitable to screeching fans being “in love” with celebrities they’ve never met and convinced that the steady feed of curated marketed personality traits constitute “knowing” those celebrity strangers. The idea that the person and the persona are the same is a lie told to sell product. Gender is just the brand. You’re the rockstar. Fuck marketing.

#long ass rant #who is this even aimed at #what do i even tag this with

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xb-squaredx · 4 years

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B-Squared’s Top 10 Games of 2019!

2019 was a year full to the brim of GREAT games, and as is the custom at the end of the year, people love to rank their favorites, so…I’d like to do the same! Of course my own tastes might be different from yours so if you don’t see a thing on here that you liked, chances are I didn’t like it…or more likely, there’s just too many great games out this year, and I couldn’t get to everything. I’d like to stress to that the rankings don’t really matter all that much, especially the farther down we go. Everything on here is an easy recommendation. Without any further ado…let’s take a look at my Top 10 Games of 2019~

#10 - River City Girls

I love action games, but 2D beat-em-ups never really clicked for me. They were largely before my time and I was thinking that it’d be impossible to get me into one in the current era of gaming. And then I saw Marian’s redesign for River City Girls and bought the game. What can I say? Abs are a great sales pitch. But seriously, getting Wayforward on the helm of a beloved classic franchise is already a great way to pique my interest, and while there’s SOME aspects of this game that I don’t quite gel with, it’s a fun, colorful romp through a ridiculous universe that I’d LOVE to see more of down the line. Featuring a role-reversal, with the girlfriends saving the boyfriends this time, River City Girls has gorgeous pixel art, an AMAZING pop-synth soundtrack that’s worth the price alone, and it’s a game that clearly had fun with the concept and that fun rubs off on you. From the stylish animated boss intros, to the co-op fun that can be had with a friend, everything in this game is brimming with charm. Basic NPCs have great designs in their own right, being able to recruit enemies as assists is a neat idea, and it all adds up to a fun, bite-sized adventure with a bit of depth under the hood if you’re willing to give it a look. Can the character designers get a raise for this game, please? And let Megan McDuffie just do all the songs from now on. ALL OF THEM.

#9 - Astral Chain

Most people assumed if we were going to get a Switch exclusive game by Platinum this year, it’d be Bayonetta 3 but instead Nintendo surprised us with Astral Chain, the anime cop action game we didn’t know we wanted. The game boasts great visuals and is probably the most content-rich Platinum game ever made for starters, but for me the true draw is in the combat. Playing as your police officer in tandem with an alien creature known as a Legion, this tag-team action game is unlike pretty much anything else on the market. While the game starts off very simplistic, the Legion itself moving and attacking with no input from the player, over time more and more options unlock and things get considerably more complicated. By game’s end, you’re drowning in options, and once things clicked, combat was always a treat. With plenty of enemies to practice with, Legions to master and a gigantic post-game filled with challenging encounters, I had more fun with the combat in this game than I did with a lot of other games this year. That said, I do feel that Astral Chain could have benefitted from trimming some fat or rethinking its overall structure. For being a new IP with some bold ideas, I’m willing to accept these as kinks that can hopefully be ironed out in a sequel. Oh, and add Lappy to Smash already. You know you want to, Sakurai.

#8 - BABA IS YOU

Puzzle games are hard sells for me, since I don’t like the frustration that often comes from being stuck. You feel dumb, you get embarrassed and turn the game off in shame, or at least that’s my experience. But then sometimes you get a game so clever, so…weird, that you can’t help but be sucked into it. BABA IS YOU is a block-pushing puzzle game, with the twist being that the “rules” of a particular stage are often physically present in levels and are in fact blocks that can be pushed and manipulated by the player. ROCK is PUSH, WALL is STOP, FLAG is WIN and BABA is YOU. But what if you can’t touch the flag because the wall is in the way? Well, make it so WALL is PUSH to move it aside, or maybe make it so that BABA is WIN and you become the win condition itself. As the game goes on, more modifiers and rules are slowly introduced and absorbed into your own internal logic of the game, logic that increasingly has to be broken and remade to suit your needs. It’s a very empowering experience when the solution clicks and the results can often be hilarious and surprising. This game also GOES PLACES the further you go in, and I’d rather not ruin that surprise for anyone who might be looking into the game. Definitely one of the most innovated titles I’ve played in a LONG time. BABA is GOOD.

#7 - Power Rangers: Battle for the Grid

OK, so…hear me out. Power Rangers was a franchise I was obsessed with as a kid, and while I don’t follow it anymore, there’s still some love for it flowing in my veins. So when a small, no-name studio puts out a Power Ranger fighting game that takes the simplified controls of Smash Bros. and the tag-team craziness of Marvel vs. Capcom and slaps it all together for a cool twenty bucks or so? Well you got yourself a purchase and it ended up being WAY more fun than I expected. Power Rangers: Battle for the Grid is far from the best looking fighter on the market, it’s single-player content is lacking, and it’s roster, while interesting, isn’t as big as a lot of the competition, but damn if it isn’t fun to play. With characters taken from across the franchise’s long history, from the live-action movie reboot to the comic books, each choice has been inspired and resulted in an incredibly varied cast. With no crazy inputs for special moves, combined with a tagging system that lets you cycle through your three-Ranger team quickly, the game is the best kind of chaotic fun, but true masters can command that chaos and channel it into cool combos that make you want to say “Morphinominal!” Considering it’s a budget title, it’s also received a fair amount of updates throughout the year to pad out the roster with both free and paid DLC fighters, a full story mode and improvements to the netcode and overall presentation., so if you passed on it at launch, it’s much improved now. It’s not gonna be a fighting game on everyone’s radar, but I’d rather support it than the grind-heavy slog Mortal Kombat has become…Now just hurry up and add that monster that baked the Rangers into a pizza!

#6 - New Super Lucky’s Tale

If your name isn’t Mario or Sonic, 3D platformers are effectively dead. That said, there’s been a few up-and-comers in recent years that are trying to revive the genre. Hat Kid from A Hat in Time, the duo of Yooka-Laylee, and now Lucky from the folks at Playful Studios. The cute fox has quite the history, starting from the Oculus Rift title, Lucky’s Tale, to a full-fledged platformer on the Xbox One X, Super Lucky’s Tale and now the enhanced port/reimagining New Super Lucky’s Tale on Switch. Halfway between a full-blown sequel, and enhanced edition, the game takes assets from the Xbox original game, tweaking and refining everything from visuals to controls to level layouts. The result is a game that is incredibly well-polished. It looks great, Lucky is a treat to control as he moves from jumping, burrowing and sliding around fluidly, and the variety on display keeps things interesting. We’ve got full 3D levels, 2D levels, auto-runners, and even some marble maze levels and puzzles thrown in for good measure. It’s not a hard game, but it IS incredibly fun, and well made. We don’t get many 3D platformers these days, so cherish what little comes of the genre. I hope Playful and Nintendo continue to collaborate, as they really seem more at home here. Just…maybe don’t add more words to the title of the next game, guys.

#5 - Katana Zero

There’s no nice way to say it: there’s too many pixel-based, side-scrolling indie games out there, so the ones that DO stand out deserve to be celebrated. Katana Zero has a real ‘80s flair for starters, using bright neon, TV and VCR visual effects, and a synth soundtrack to give it some real style. When a game kicks off with you slowing down time and reflecting a bullet back at an enemy with your katana, you make a good first impression! Add in the trial-and-error that is planning the perfect route through a stage, the satisfying slicing and dicing of enemies, the unique, challenging boss encounters, and you have a game that was on my radar for a while, before I finally got into it at the end of the year. Its storyline is pretty interesting too, with some slight variances in how events unfold depending on your words and actions, though it ending on a bit of a cliffhanger is a bummer. That said, when a game leaves you wanting more, there’s worse problems to have. At the very least, there’s some DLC hinted at that might be interesting, as well as the implications that this is the merely the first in a trilogy, and at this point I’m game for whatever developer Askiisoft has in store.

#4 - Luigi’s Mansion 3

The GameCube was an odd era for Nintendo, as they attempted to innovate and try new ideas rather than rely purely on their old standbys. Case-in-point, rather than launch the console with a new Mario platformer, his second-banana brother Luigi got his first starring role in what would become the Luigi’s Mansion series. While not making QUITE as big of a splash as maybe Nintendo hoped, it’s garnered a decent fanbase, and when a sequel was announced for 3DS, people ate it up. Considering the gap between the first and second games, I think many people were surprised at the relatively quick turn-around for the third installment. I was also surprised at the overall quality and how much I enjoyed digging into it. For starters, Luigi’s Mansion 3 is easily one of the better-looking Switch titles, boasting some great lighting and particle effects, with some fun physics implemented for just about everything in the massive mansion. Luigi and company are animated with a lot of expressiveness that never gets old, and the music sets the tone perfectly too. From a gameplay standpoint, the toolset Luigi gains gives him ample options to poke at every nook and cranny, with the slimy doppelganger Gooigi being the clear stand-out. Some of the floors of the Last Resort hotel that Luigi must ascend are particularly massive and intricate too, some floors feeling like Legend of Zelda-style dungeons. While not a particularly challenging game, it’s still really satisfying to poke and prod at everything in sight, sucking in all the coins, gold bars and stacks of paper bills you can handle, not to mention slamming the ghosts around like the Hulk does to Loki. There’s also multiplayer! That I…haven’t really touched but…hey! More bang for your buck, surely!

#3 – Dragon Quest XI S

I don’t consider myself a huge fan of JRPGs. Or at least that’s what I thought before I tried out the Dragon Quest XI demo on Switch. I ended up falling for the game hard and bought the full release, carrying my demo data over and not stopping until I hit credits. Despite having never touched a Dragon Quest game before, outside of an hour or so of VIII, I was overcome with this feeling of nostalgia when it came to this game. That’s because Dragon Quest is THE quintessential JRPG game, the originator of all that we take for granted today. It was nice to feel right at home with a simple, effective combat system, rather than having to watch games re-invent the wheel in an attempt to stand out from the pack (sorry Xenoblade), and the story itself, while predictable and a little basic at times, was told well and told earnestly. It really nailed the feeling of going on a grand adventure, with enough twists on the formula to keep things interesting. The turn-based combat was elementary, but always presented me with fair challenges and lots of ways to solve the encounters laid before me, with enough quality-of-life features added in to minimize grind and make things more convenient. The Switch version of Dragon Quest XI featured a bunch of new content on top of a game that had more than enough going for it, and it’s clear a lot of work was done to make this port as faithful as could be, and it stands out not just as a great port on a system known for some shoddy ones, but as a title that’s brimming with as much polish and quality to rival first-party Switch titles. Don’t ban Hero in Smash and don’t miss out on this game if you haven’t taken the plunge already!

#2 – Devil May Cry 5

The Devil May Cry franchise has had its share of ups and downs over the years. For every game that’s considered a success, you have another game that doesn’t quite measure up. For years many thought the franchise was dead in the water after the attempted reboot, DMC: Devil May Cry failed to grow its audience, but when Microsoft’s E3 2018 show revealed to us a new installment, fans were ecstatic. Devil May Cry 5 boasts crisp visuals, deep combat and trims the fat, removing the wonky platforming and puzzles of earlier games to create a high-octane action experience that ultimately exceeded fan expectations. Its storyline firmly plants Devil May Cry 4’s Nero as a main character in his own right, wraps up the story of the Sparda brothers neatly, and if this ended up being the last title in the series, I think it’s that rare ending that ends up being totally satisfying. Combat is the real draw here though, the game giving players three distinct characters to learn and master. Nero’s robotic Devil Breaker arms allow him a decent amount of variety, while having a balanced, beginner-friendly combat style for new players. Dante remains the king of variety, having more weapons than ever before combined with his signature style switching, though the game is actually designed with all these options in mind so he doesn’t end up breaking the game like he did in 4. Newcomer V ends up being a breath of fresh air, controlling up to three demonic summons at once, forcing players to really think more strategically. The music is incredible too; Nero’s own theme, Devil Trigger, has been stuck in my head since last year and I don’t see it leaving any time soon. All things considered, Devil May Cry 5 might be the best game in the franchise, and a worthy contender for game of the year personally. Now if only we had a special edition with Vergil and the ladies playable…

#1 - Fire Emblem: Three Houses

I got into the Fire Emblem series with Awakening and really liked it a lot, however Fates, the next installment, left a bad taste in my mouth. I couldn’t really get into Echoes, itself a remake of the second game in the series, and I began to wonder if this franchise was really for me. I was willing to give Three Houses a shot, but I was not prepared for the game to blow past all my expectations. Fire Emblem: Three Houses isn’t just a good game, it’s a game that’s redeemed a franchise that’s stumbled a bit in recent years, and it likely cements Fire Emblem as a core Nintendo franchise for years to come. It has class, depth and real heart...with only minor creepy or pervy elements! Making a grand return to home consoles after more than a decade on handhelds, it goes big and it ultimately paid off, on track to become the best-selling entry in the series. The school setting might seem weird at first, and I wondered how well I’d adjust to it, but being able to instruct your units and influence their growth in battle was worth the learning curve. Things are introduced slowly enough that the flow of the game becomes relatively easy to manage, if a bit time-consuming overall. With four distinct storylines you can explore, TONS of character interactions and some interesting tweaks to the strategic gameplay the series is known for, I’m confident in saying that Three Houses is well-worth a purchase for newcomers to the franchise. Divine Pulse is a great quality-of-life addition that lets you undo mistakes, rather than force you to start over from scratch, and overall the UI and layout of the game gives you enough information to make informed decisions without overwhelming you. Makes me wonder how we survived before the games showed us who enemies would target on their turns before now. Admittedly, some aspects of the progression have some issues, especially at endgame, and visually the game really is not up to par most of the time, but these end up being tiny blemishes in the long run for me. They certainly weren’t bad enough to prevent me from starting a new path the instant I finished my first route. If I have one request…just make Claude a gay option. Give the people what they want, Nintendo!

Honorable Mentions

I’d like to add on some honorable mentions here before we close things out, though most of these are things I didn’t even get a chance to play, but they certainly might have made this list. For one, Resident Evil 2 Remake seems like a high-quality reinterpretation of the survival-horror classic, but I can’t do horror so I’ll likely pass it up. It’s also for that reason that I might not get to Control but I might try jumping out of my comfort zone for that one. The confusion surrounding both The Other Worlds AND The Outer Wilds is funny, but they’re both space-based games I’d be keen on getting to at some point down the line; the former is a great Western RPG by the folks who made the GOOD Fallout games, while the latter is an interesting space-faring puzzler with some interesting mechanics I’d rather not spoil for those not more in-the-know. Indie titles Sayonara Wild Hearts and GRIS definitely caught my attention with their great visuals, and in the case of the former, its soundtrack, even if the gameplay wasn’t quite there for me, and the weird fighting-game-but-kinda-RPG that is Indivisible demands my attention sooner or later. Bloodstained is the Castlevania follow-up I keep forgetting is out, and I hear great things about Yooka-Laylee and the Impossible Lair. The team behind the Yakuza series recently made a spin-off of sorts, Judgment that hit the West this year and while I like the Yakuza series for its quirky tone and fun combat, there’s still six other games I’d have to sift through, so going with Judgment, which is set to possibly begin a new franchise, seems like a good alternative. And how could I forget the likes of Shovel Knight as we finally receive the last expansion that’s been years in the making? I haven’t touched the King of Cards expansion yet, but I have the upmost faith in anything Yacht Club makes, so that’s surely a game of the year contender. 2019 was crazy good! Glad to close the year out with so much quality, and tons of great stuff to add to the ever-growing backlog.

Hope you had some good gaming memories made this year!

-B

#gameoftheyear #GOTY #GOTY2019 #astral chain #lucky's tale #baba is you #river city girls #devil may cry #luigi's mansion 3 #katana zero #power rangers #fire emblem three house #dragon quest 11 #xb-squaredx

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gatecoeur · 5 years

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Arelette’s Martial Arts Background

PREFACE: I am by no means an expert in martial arts.

I did have limited training in various styles (Karate, Shaolin Wushu, the TINIEST amount of Wing Chun and Tae Kwon Do, to be exact), and I’ve had an interest in the subject my entire life, so yes, I’ve done some research, but also please consider that I am susceptible to making mistakes (especially in the boxing section cuz lord knows how much I don’t know about the sport). If I have, please let me know!

Also, you may have already noticed, I am not going to use the word kung fu in this VERY long headcanon blurb, but the word wushu instead. Even though we colloquially have come to understand any form of Chinese Boxing as kung fu, the word itself actually means “to master an art” (idk in which Chinese dialect tho, sorry); it’s technically applicable to other artistic skills like cooking and painting. Wushu on the other hand means “the art of war”, and is used as an umbrella term in *insert proper Chinese dialect here* when referring to any Chinese martial arts style.

I want to give the language a chance to be properly understood, as the improper use of the word kung fu (I’m guessing) was probably a result of Britain’s colonial occupation in China, so that’s why I’m doing it.

Anyways, the full headcannon’s under the cut, so if you’re interested, read away!

Here’s a comprehensive list and explanation behind every martial arts style Arelette is canonically proficient in:

Tai Chi (also written as Taijiquan)

As you may or may not know, Arelette was hospitalized at the age of 7 due to episodes of extreme pain. After five months of no improvement to her chronic pain, she was admitted under HumGen’s care. HumGen was rather adamant about keeping Arrie physically active, as it was a well-known combatant of chronic pain, and determined that Tai Chi was the perfect starting point for her.

However, as you can imagine, a 7 year old is going to be VERY angry about being forced to do something that is generally perceived to be an activity for old people. However, Arelette’s Shifu, who also happened to be one of the doctors at HumGen, was having absolutely NONE of her shit, and dared her to punch him. Arrie of course listened, and her Shifu blocked it, before demonstrating to her a slowed-down version of his block.

From that point on, Arelette was absolutely hooked, and trained almost daily. Later masters of hers would often commend her on her focus and control over her breathing, despite being so young.

Kyokushin Karate

In 2002, Montréal’s martial arts community was buzzing about an up-and-coming professional who had won in his debut match by a knockout in the first round; a Québecois man by the name of Georges St. Pierre. Arelette, being an impressionable 8 year old kid when it happened, was absolutely obsessed, and learned that Georges had studied a specific school of karate that had a particular focus on full-contact sparring.

It took her a while to convince HumGen doctors to let her study Kyokushin, being worried about her pain and all. In the end though, the organization did hire a Sensei that Arelette trained with twice a week.

She still continued her Tai Chi training, much to everyone’s surprise, but the art was basically on the back burner for her by the time she was 12. Arelette got her Karate black belt when she was just shy of 15 years old.

Wing Chun

Oh come on, you knew this was coming. It’s 2008. Ip Man comes out. If you think for ONE HOT SECOND that Arelette managed to get her grubby little hands on it, but was later so obsessed with it that she started imitating Donnie Yen’s moves to the point of memorizing them, then you’re SO wrong. Arelette really appreciated Wing Chun’s style and philosophy, and upon later research, was absolutely amazed to find out that Wing Chun had been originally developed by a woman to teach women to defend themselves.

What’s even better was that there was (and still is) a well-respected school in Montréal that teaches Wing Chun. As soon as Arelette found out, she BEGGED her parents to enroll her; her parents of course obliged, while also enrolling the rest of her siblings. Until Arelette moved out of Montréal, she trained under Grandmaster Nam Anh’s school.

Xiang Xing Quan

Xiang Xing Quan is an umbrella term for the styles of Wushu (usually Shaolin) that focuses on the imitation of animal movements. Arrie is proficient in the Eagle Claw and Fu Jow Pai/Tiger Claw styles, as they’re fairly compatible with her habit of turning her nails into claws. She has also been trained in Shaolin Snake-Style Wushu, as the style focuses on aiming for weak points of the human body.

She studied each style per year that she was living in Québec City, as she did not want to stagnate her martial arts training. She’s not as strong in these styles as her other martial arts studies, due to a lot of tragedies that happened to her in that time, but she’s still proficient enough in them, and tends to use at least some of the techniques rather often.

Also, as a note, this style is the style that Arrie got the mass majority of her weapon-wielding training.

Boxing

Arelette had noted but never understood why so many of the people she had fought tended to either be full-out boxers or had fighting styles that were boxer-esque. She was brought to believe that boxing was an inferior fighting style, but had no choice but to take up the sport as a way of keeping herself fit during her first year living in New York City, since boxing gyms tended to be a bit more on the affordable side for her.

She really underestimated how strategic boxing could be (which she later found strange, since all fighting in the end has to be somewhat strategic), along with how hard it was to limit herself to only her hands. She really appreciated how boxing has given her an insight as to how a lot of her enemies fight. Though she doesn’t hit the boxing gym as much as she did in 2014-2016, she still swings by at least once every week (typically on a Wednesday) to blow off some steam.

Pencak Silat

Once Arrie started accumulating more disposable income, she started looking into a fighting style she had come across during her time in Madripoor, which she had come to learn through research was called Pencak Silat. She was particularly interested in the speed of its movements, plus its focus on striking with elbows and striking against pressure points, having learned from first-hand experience how much it all hurt to take hits from.

She found an underground school in New York City that taught Madripoor’s variant of the fighting style, which is one of the more aggressive and deadlier variants of silat. Due to her other life demands though, this was the style that took her the longest to master, as she had sporadic lessons in between 2017 and the 2023 Blip.

Jeet Kune Do

Another martial arts style that should obviously be on any martial artists’ radar; it was developed by Bruce Lee, after all. Arelette’s been taking sporadic classes since the Blip.

This is due to Jeet Kune Do’s mathematical philosophy of the economy of motion, which more or less promotes the idea that a fighter’s ultimate goal is to conserve both energy and time during a fight. Fair to say, it’s very relevant to Arrie’s career, hence why she took up the style.

#;hc #;skills #;long post #(( in case y'all were wondering what I was up to all day today lmao ))#(( also yeah don't doubt me when I say that Arrie can and will put you flat on your ass in seconds if she wants to ))#(( i have more hc's as to why I picked these styles specifically but I'll go into that in another post lmao ))#(( GOD I LOVE MARTIAL ARTS ))

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eggoreviews · 5 years

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Top 10 Switch Exclusives

With Nintendo finally pulling themselves out of the mild rut they found themselves in with the Wii U, the Switch is now producing games of monumental quality, so I’m here to take you through the top ten essential Switch exclusives for those of you who just don’t know which games to pick!

Note: I’m including Wii U ports here bc the Switch did them better and they’re still Nintendo so u know

10. Octopath Traveler

One of the many fruits of Nintendo and Square Enix’s growing partnership, Octopath Traveler is an adorable, retro-style JRPG that released on the system in mid-2018. The game features turn-based combat and eight playable characters that vary massively from each other in their personalities and backgrounds, meaning the game always has a fresh perspective. Overall, this is a creative but somewhat underrated title for the Switch that you should definitely pick up if you’re a fan of RPGs.

9. Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze

The latest entry in the DK series brings all of the bright colours, charm and difficulty in glorious HD on the Switch. While this was ported over from the Wii U, it’s certainly a worthy port to say the least. For fans of challenging platforming, Donkey Kong will tick all the boxes for someone who enjoys fun, colourful gameplay that will sometimes make you want to tear your hair out in frustration. Though, if you want things to be slightly less hard, the brand new funky mode lets you play as Funky Kong (but to be honest with you, it’s still hard. I know I keep mentioning it’s hard but I just really need to drive that home).

8. Bayonetta 2

The critically acclaimed hack ‘n’ slash series Bayonetta, while it began on the Xbox 360, is now a Nintendo exclusive, and the sequel to the already mind-blowing first game is definitely something to behold. The fast-paced, combat heavy gameplay is perfect for the Switch and, of course, Bayonetta as a character is as brilliant as ever. So if you’re someone who would enjoy fighting massive demon creatures as a semi-naked, sassy witch then boy is the franchise for you.

7. Super Mario Party

It’s the game that everyone’s citing as ‘the one that made Mario Party good again’. That’s right, the latest iteration of Mario Party on the Switch has ditched the weird car system that made it not into a board game, and now it’s a board game again! Perfect for any small awkward friend group or big party you misjudged and brought a Switch to, this game comes packed with 80 new minigames. Which is a lot. So if you like Mario and party, then pick this up. Prepare for lots of motion controls.

6. Xenoblade Chronicles 2

Another one for JRPG fans, it’s the latest entry in the series that made a name for itself for having anime-style protagonists with weird British accents, it’s Xenoblade 2! Another one of Nintendo’s charming, unique series, Xenoblade boasts an array of memorable characters, a polished, enjoyable combat system and a story just weird enough to be placed alongside most other JRPGs. Throw on top of that a solid DLC add-on in Torna and you’ve got yourself one fine viddy game experience that will definitely swallow up a couple hundred hours of your life.

5. Splatoon 2

The Splatoon series is one of Nintendo’s newest, shiniest IPs that sees their first and hugely successful foray into an online shooter. Splatoon subverts everything we know about the online shooter genre, which now seems to be over-saturated with gritty, laggy messes with little depth and has given us a genuinely fun and colourful game. A variety of game modes, weapons and customisation options for your Inkling bolster this game’s addiction factor and, on top of that, the recent Octo expansion throws in a genuinely solid single player campaign to boot. This is one basically everyone needs to try.

4. Super Smash Bros. Ultimate

The latest and greatest in Nintendo’s flagship fighting series, Ultimate was basically dropped on us at E3 and gave us all a heart attack. If you somehow haven’t heard, Ultimate brought back every single veteran to the series, as well as a solid handful of new characters, plus DLC coming this year that includes Joker from Persona 5 and a plant. If that hasn’t piqued your interest, I don’t think anything will. One of the most ridiculously fun multiplayer experiences you will ever have is waiting for you in this game, especially when playing locally with friends, and the new spirits system has helped to conceive an equally amazing single player campaign, World of Light. This game is oozing with fun and intense love for the gaming industry and you can really tell how much hard work they put into this. Go play it.

3. Mario Kart 8 Deluxe

Quite possibly the definitive multiplayer experience, Mario Kart has been a staple of most people’s get-togethers since the first entry on the SNES. And much like Smash, Nintendo have created the series’ best entry in 8. Ported over from the Wii U, this game includes all of the DLC plus some new characters and karts, so for some reason you can now play as Link in Mario Kart! Cool! I don’t think anyone knows how to feel about this! The point is, it’s fun so you should probably play it.

2. Super Mario Odyssey

Odyssey is hotly contested to be one of the best 3D Mario games since 64, but even if that somehow isn’t true, you can’t deny how wonderfully unique it is. Each kingdom brings something new to the table; a lush, interesting environment in each one. With so many highlights to pick, from the brilliant puzzles to the new Cappy possession system to the boss fight with the massive dragon, Odyssey is packed full of content and collectibles to keep you coming back. Plus, the festival sequence in New Donk City? I want to play that bit forever.

Before I reveal the top pick that might seem glaringly obvious now, here are some other games that didn’t quite make the 10 but are also v much worth your attention!

Kirby: Star Allies

Pokemon Let’s Go Pikachu/Eevee

Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker

New Super Mario Bros. U Deluxe

Hyrule Warriors: Definitive Edition

1. The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild

I mean, what else was it going to be? Zelda came roaring through the gates when the Switch was finally released and boy, did it deliver. Being the first Zelda game to delve properly into open world, an intense amount of love and detail was poured into every single moment of this beautiful game. Following the themes of lost memories and friendship, you travel across the vast land of Hyrule as Link trying to recover the memory of who he was 100 years ago. And each combat, each encounter, each visit to literally anywhere will leave you laughing, crying or anything in between. This was a game so powerful, it immediately became my favourite game of all time. I know there are a lot of people out there whose hearts are still with Ocarina, but for those new to the series who want a genuinely amazing, heartfelt experience, let Breath of the Wild swallow your whole life. As sinister as that sentence sounds, you really won’t regret it.

Thanks for reading! Let me know your favourite Switch game down below, if you wanna. Hope u find some money in one of your pockets that you didn’t know about.

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moistwithgender · 5 years

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(Overdue) Media round-up (January 2019)

Feb’s almost over and I was gonna write about what I’ve processed when I realized I only posted about the anime I watched, I think? So this is a catch-up post for manga and games, before the end of this month in a few days. If you want to read the January anime round-up, it’s in my “curry watches anime” tag.

Games:

Puresabe’s 2019 New Year Rockman Hack (NES): Puresabe does one of these every year and they are always pretty hard! But I think the last few years have been much more balanced than their older projects. They are always just boss fights, but with complex patterns and sometimes multiple phases. Being just a boss fight (or two) means they are super short, but you will spend most of your time learning them. Also there are no checkpoints, so every death means you’re back to phase one. It’s very fun when it’s a good hack, and this was a good hack. I had a very rough start to the year and considered giving up, but went back and beat it, for good fortune in the new year. (Beaten 1/2/19)

The 2nd Super Robot Wars (NES): I decided 2019 would be the year I got into SRW, and so I started here, because the first game actually has no hard plot. I enjoyed it to a point, but the difficulty climbs to an absurd degree, and I wish I’d cut my losses and just youtubed it. The game allows you to save at any time during a turn, and resetting the console means it recycles the RNG and you can get different luck. This is...required. Most of the way into the game, I was having to reset twenty times in a row per unit action, just to make sure I could survive an enemy attack, or successfully hit an enemy. The funniest thing is that when I finally beat this, I almost immediately started up one of the later games, so clearly the kernel of value was visible to me through all that bullshit. (Beaten 1/13/19)

Super Smash Bros. Ultimate: World of Light (Switch): I had been chomping at the bit for what felt like forever just to play this mode of this game, and not only was it good, it surpassed my expectations multiple times. This mode has a lot of twists for something that mostly implies narrative, or otherwise ignores it. I’m the rare person who mostly plays Smash Bros solo because I have NO FRIENDS, and this was worth the price of admission for me. I don’t consider Smash Ultimate itself beaten yet because I haven’t beaten Classic Mode on 9.9 difficulty yet. I have finished with 9.8, like, four times. Please kill me. (Beaten 1/18/19)

PaRappa the Rapper (PSP): While taking care of my cat, I found an opportunity to actually use my PSP for the first time since...2008 or 09? When I bought it secondhand? Jesus. Anyway, it turns out that PaRappa actually has absurd input detection and an equally hard to parse system for what counts as “freestyling”, which ultimately results in a final stage where you’re...required to play notes that are completely unrelated to what it says to do on-screen? I still beat the game (in a single sitting, too. it’s short), but I was pretty frustrated. Greenblat’s aesthetic is iconic, and the songs are very fun to listen to (this game has maybe the only potty humor I actually enjoyed), but the game part is actually the problem. (Beaten 1/25/19)

Patapon (PSP): I played PaRappa spontaneously, but I’ve actually meant to play the Patapon series for quite a while. This is less a song-performing rhythm game and more of an action/strategy type of rhythm game where you consistently keep a beat to keep morale up. It’s pretty good, but missions can be 3-6 minutes of consecutively hitting four notes and then waiting four notes, and while that itself sounds doable, I am just terrible at rhythm and messed up a lot of good opportunities. The difficulty curve in this is high in the beginning, lowers over time, before hitting a huge spike and then being a cakewalk for the last four or so missions. There’s also a lot of grinding, which means this rhythm game came out to almost a 16 hour run. A bit tiring. Not sure when I’ll jump on Patapon 2, but I hope it’s easier to play, since my impetus for picking up the series was the intro FMV for the third game. (Beaten 1/30/19)

Games beaten in January: 5 Games beaten in 2019 thus far: 5

Manga:

Getter Robo Vol 2 (Finished): I didn’t feel like plowing through 51 episodes of the old 70s anime, so I decided to just read the much shorter, and somewhat unrelated manga. In the show, the heroes are what they are, heroes. Likable mains for kids to watch on Saturday mornings. In the manga, as per Go Nagai’s influence (and the main author, Ken Ishikawa, who I LOVE and who was Nagai’s assistant), the heroes are violent asshole moron sociopath terrorists who gradually become more unhinged as they are exposed to the very radiation that powers the machine they use to fight dinosaurs (though said gradual descent is more of a thing in the later manga/OVAs). Also, the villains are dinosaurs. Turns out they had the original ancient civilization and Getter Rays chased them into the Earth’s core and they want to planet back. That’s Getter Robo! It’s very good.

Getter Robo G Vol 1-3 (Finished): This is kind of more of the same as the first, and again, I didn’t want to watch the 39 episodes, I wanted the primer so I could play SRW. As I’ve approached the later games, it turns out they prefer to take influence from the shows, not the manga. Oops! Whatever. In this sequel, it turns out the Dinosaur Empire was a pawn or something to It Was Aliens, the Hyakki Empire, and it’s...more of the same. In both the GR and GR G mangas, I found the occasional chapter with wildly different art, and I figured that those were Ishikawa’s gorgeous art, and the majority was Nagai’s. But, I’m not sure, and I wonder if those were revised or extra chapters done years later. Idk. Anyway, they are both very fun reads, even if they serve more as primers of the lore.

Shin Getter Robo Vol 1-2 (Finished): HERE’s where things start to get really good, and surreal, and bleak. This manga is not adapting a tv series (though later OVAs would reference it. This manga is actually I think where a lot of the inspiration for Gurren Lagann came from, and if you like that series, you should read this to see the connection. I can’t really explain without spoiling either (though if in 2019 you don’t know what happens in Gurren, you are super lucky and need to go watch it all asap). NOTE, this takes place after the 7 volume Getter Robo Go manga, which has a show but I think is unrelated, but more importantly is probably the BEST Getter Robo series. I read that before knowing a thing about Getter and still loved it (though I think having context will really benefit it). GR Go is the biggest justification for getting into the series. If any friends of mine want to look into this series, I’ll actually help give them a guide. Interestingly, the most modern Getter series (of which the most recent was in 2004 (please come back)) all take reference from the darker mangas, not the old 70s show.

Mazinger Z Vol 1-5 (Finished): I think Go Nagai’s works are weird, melodramatic, gross, and just kinda badly drawn. They are great experiences, if you go in with a grain of salt and also avoid the *most* transgressive ones. Don’t google Iron Virgin Jun. Just. Don’t do it. Devilman is probably his best work, but Mazinger Z is another series with a much more famous long-running 70s cartoon (92 episodes!!!) and burned itself into the nostalgia of Japan. Whereas Devilman eventually becomes traumatizing, Mazinger Z is pretty laid back and goofy, while also being Nagai’s brand of The Most Dramatic Thing Ever. If you follow me, you might’ve seen me post pages in my manga tag. It’s a LOT. Though, actually, I don’t think this manga is all that great. It can be *really* funny, but I don’t even remember if the series actually ends. If you read one or two volumes and want to put it down, I think you’re safe to. You got most of the lore. The biggest events seem to take place in later series that I haven’t delved into yet.

UFO Robo Grendizer Vol 1 (Finished): I actually haven’t been able to find anywhere to read Great Mazinger, the sequel series, so I skipped to Grendizer, which is the second sequel. It’s pretty unrelated continuity-wise, so it’s easy to pick up. This is only one volume and yeah they really just want you to watch the 74 episode show, but I’m good. Still, this is a fun book, and Nagai throws in his batshit ideas. The main character is an alien prince whose tragic backstory is literally that the villain kidnapped his younger siblings and all the country’s children and just! Dropped them all from the sky to their death in the middle of the city! And they don’t censor it! GO NAGAI! I really need to read the autobio manga Gekiman because of what snippets I’ve seen, Nagai is actually a super mild-mannered dude who doesn’t really get where his ideas cross lines. If you want to say “oh that’s just wacky Japan”, it’s really not, he was public enemy #1 with parents all over the country for a long time.

Super Robot Retsuden Vol 1 (Finished): This is a single volume crossover of Nagai super robot IPs including Mazinger Z, Getter Robo, Great Mazinger, Grendizer, and Steel Jeeg (a guy who’s more Ultraman-adjacent than super robot), and there’s no real plot beyond “oh no new bad guy! buy the toys, kids!” It’s throwaway, and I mostly read it to see who Jeeg is without getting into his own series. Also, it was drawn by Ishikawa, so I felt a bit obligated. His art is just so pretty.

Lucifer and the Biscuit Hammer Vol 1 (and maybe 2?): Satoshi Mizukami is a godly storyteller who uses the language of shonen to tell deeply mature and introspective stories for adults and if you follow my posts you might remember me gushing about Spirit Circle and Planet With. I actually haven’t touched this series since February started but I need to get back in because the first two volumes out of ten are amazing (warning, though: there’s a pet death and it’s real sudden and was hard for me to handle). Please read Mizukami’s works.

Manga volumes read in January: 14-15 Manga volumes read in 2019 thus far: 14-15

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Okay that’s everything. I wrote a lot more than I expected to. If you read all that, thanks. If you are interested in any of the things I wrote about, great! If you decide to play through SRW2, don’t, stop, don’t do that. In a few days I’ll be writing about a much better SRW game.

#curry plays games #curry reads manga

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rayxnkh3 · 5 years

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Let Let it Go Go

Haynah na hey a na naaaaa. Okay that’s enough of that, Arendelle! Frozen world was an absolute visual and eventful treat that definitely leaned into the fact that it is such a popular IP. Also, this was a long level so very long review incoming!

Story:

Once again a world where it’s a rehash of the movie but with Sora, Donald, and Goofy mixed up in things as well. There seems to be some sort of overall link to the princesses in the worlds that Org13 needs and it’s nice to see them mention it more and more as you progress through the worlds.

Donald comments at some point about being worried about falling down. Donald, you don’t take fall damage, I have seen you fall 15 stories and shrug it off like you just went down one step. Calm down.

Now, I am a fan of Let it Go, but why did we have to have the entire thing as a shot for shot remake of the film? (Probably because it’s so popular) But it does seem odd and out of place considering we don’t get entire other songs from all the other IPs. Tangled didn’t replay “I have a dream” and I friggin love that song. Though Sora’s comments at the end were hysterical and it made it abundently clear that some of the writers/designers didn’t quite get why it was there too. (Sidenote: If Donald or Sora sang this instead I would’ve fallen over with laughter =D)

Almost immediately after we got “Let it Go” we started “Do you want to build a snowman”, which would’ve felt odd and out of place as well but if that is a constant in this world than I am more okay with it. My problem was Anna recalling the events of the start of the film OVER the song itself. Thank goodness for subtitles or I would’ve had no clue what anyone was saying. A character talking over a singing childhood version of herself does not make for a good cutscene.

Kristoff comes off as sort of a creepy guy in this version. If you didn’t see him earlier talking to Sven and voicing Sven himself than it just comes off as creepy. Kristoff makes that voice so he has someone to talk to due to his loneliness at the start of the film, this is charming and kinda sad which makes you feel sympathy for the character. Without setting that as a groundwork then you get some weirdo who voices his animal in the presence of his friends. Odd.

Elsa’s giant ice monster (whom this moment forward I am calling Frosty, because I can) gets so much more personality in this world. You see them (cause I don’t know what gender they are, mixed in with who knows if snowmen have genders) striving to catch up and protect Elsa after she gets kidnapped. Their concern for their master makes them strive to fight heartless and team up with Sora to save them. Hell, Frosty even holds up a giant heartless moon towards the end to protect Sora. I was devastated when they fell into a giant void of darkness. Good job KH3 for making me care about Frosty just to kill them off, good storytelling, sad feels.

Design:

It can be really hard to make a land of just ice and mountains appear visually stunning, but for the most part they did a great job. The ice and mountains were varied and there were multiple shapes, sizes, and shades of ice to keep things varied amungst the world. The sledding scene had such gorgeous reflective ice on the ground I was sad it passed by so quickly.

The heartless in this world were particularly great. The ice deer heartless were so friggin adorable! I felt bad when I had to murder them all. The ice dragons on the other hand were terrifying and the final boss was stunningly gorgeous! Excellent job art team who designed these heartless’s looks!

Only small nitpick about the look was we didn’t ever visit Arendelle itself. The level is called Arendelle yet we didn’t set one foot inside the village. Tangled let us go into the city and it was an absolute treat! I would’ve loved all of the Nordic designs of the town had we had a chance to enter. Ah well, there’s always the next KH and Frozen 2.

Mechanics:

The ice labyrinth at the beginning of the level was an absolute treat. It felt like a classic dungeon crawl and was filled with areas to explore, enemies to kill, and “puzzles” to solve. It might’ve dragged just a touch too long but overall it was an absolute blast to play through and got me pumped for the rest of the level. It was a completely pointless part of the level, didn’t contribute to the story in any way, but was quite fun!

Up and down, up and down. That was the basics of the level itself and overall I can’t complain too much, but why did it have to be the same thing so many times? Going up and down the mountain once, possibly twice, would’ve been fine. But constantly trying to get back to the Ice Palace and not once going to the village to change things up felt very repetitive.

So going down on Goofy’s shield. The first third was a nightmare. Terrible movement, locked camera, and fidgety enemies. Not being able to see the enemies mixed with not being quick enough to dodge said enemies attacks got frustrating rather quickly and I found myself hoping it wouldn’t last long. The second third was a quick turn around as flying down the mountain collecting munny (as my friend described it) felt like Snowkids on the N64, which is a good thing. The last part was fighting said Ice Dragons and they were medium difficulty. Having three of them was a tad harsh at this point into the event but overall it was alright.

On a brighter note, when Frosty appeared and we trekked through the snow storm beating up heartless together, it felt very random but definitely a warm welcome to my party. Yes, I made a pun, get over it.

The final boss was an absolute cinematic masterpiece. The design of the ice wolf mixed in with the floating wolf heads was challenging and gorgeous. There was a moment of awe and stupor as the wolf turned into a frackin moon and crashed down upon Sora and gang. Great fight that kept up the action without making me feel overwhelmed, while simultaneously just being beautiful to look at. No goop monster this time.

Final Thoughts:

This level was on the longer side and it definitely feels like it’s because Disney knows how well received Frozen was. There was also a lot of hype built up during marketing that revolved around Frozen, so I get this being a long level that pays homage to it’s source material. Thankfully it was a 1080 spin of fun from start to end, though it went a little heavy on some of the Frozenness of it all. As I said in the title, Let Let it Go Go.

Level of Enjoyment: Fat body Olaf (Large and in charge)

#KH3 #kh3 review #kh3 frozen #spoilers #gamedesign #gamereview #let it go

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britesparc · 5 years

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Weekend Top Ten #368

Top Ten Things I Kinda Hope Will Happen Now Disney Owns Fox

So this week the merger of the millennium finally went through, and the mouse ate the fox. That is, Disney completed its acquisition of 20th Century Fox, bringing a diverse range of film and TV IP all under one roof. A big, domed roof, with two circular ears on top.

What to make of it? There is the knee-jerk fannish joy at the thought of the X-Men finally being able to join their Avenger cousins under one MCU roof; there is also the worrying prospect of one company holding so much power being able to wield that power uncharitably. Job losses are inevitable; maybe up to 4,000, I read. Fox 2000, a subsidiary production company that has made a name for itself with a slew of critically-acclaimed movies with an indie sensibility, is already being shuttered. So I think there is probably a degree of caution to be exercised when contemplating Mulder and Scully investigating Doctor Strange or the Na’vi turning up in the Galactic Senate.

However, for the time being I’m allowing myself to think of the positives, of the IP mash-ups or events that could transpire both in fiction and “IRL” as they say on the internets. So here, then, are ten things that I’d either like to see happen, or will happen, or would be cool but are incredibly unlikely.

Now to rewatch that Patton Oswalt filibuster from Parks and Rec…

Restore the Fox Fanfare to all Star Wars movies: probably won’t happen for new movies going forward, but I still think it’s not Star Wars without the “barump-bada-bump” Fox theme at the very start. Personally I think all Star Wars should have it, even the new ones.

Bring the Marvel Universes together: this is inevitable, isn’t it? The Marvel characters for whom Fox has historically owned the cinematic rights – principally the X-Men and Fantastic Four – are absolutely bound to appear in the MCU. Quite how and when this will happen I don’t know; I’m hoping for something a bit beyond “oh, Thanos accidentally created mutants,” if I’m honest. And I think the plans for the MCU in the early stages of Phase 4 are probably already kinda sorted (the film line-up looks like it’s taking shape, and I reckon the Skrulls will be the Big Bad of the next Avengers film, not Magneto or whoever). Really, I’m more interested in a rebooted Fantastic Four (go on, set it in the ‘60s! You know you want to!) and with Doctor Doom being a major MCU villain, the next Thanos if they do it right.

Reboot the Alien sequels: I’ve got a fair bit of time for Alien 3, and I’ve been told to give Alien: Resurrection another chance, but let’s be honest: after two masterpieces, the various Alien movies have been a seriously mixed bag. So why can’t Disney “do a Halloween” and decide to make a new Alien 3 that disregards all the other films that take place after Aliens? I mean, it sort of almost happened with Neill Blomkamp’s project, before Ridley Scott’s renewed interest in the franchise scuppered a return to the world of Hicks, Newt and – of course – Ripley. It’s currently fashionable to make “decades-later” sequels – even Ghostbusters appears to be getting one – so this could be not only fascinating but also hugely profitable. Get to it, Mickey!

Make “The X-Files: The Next Generation”: confession time, true believers: I’ve still not got round to watching the two recent X-Files mini-series, despite being an enormous “X-Phile” in the ‘90s. I know they got mixed reviews, but that’s neither here nor there to me. No, I want a regular series (but stick it on streaming so it can be gory, scary, and only 10 episodes), and I want it to feature a new raft of agents who are investigating new X-files. Maybe give Chris Carter a vanity credit and hand it off to someone else. In a lot of ways, The X-Files was the new Star Trek, so giving us a look at “the future” and the next group of people who’ll keep the flame alive, would be a good way to build the brand. And, yes, it’d still be in continuity, so Mulder could show up at some point!

Deadpool 3: I know I’ve already sorta talked about the X-Men, but that was more about incorporating and rebooting the characters within the MCU. Deadpool is a special case. He should still be Ryan Reynolds, he should still look and act the same (and, yes, he should still be R-rated). But how the fourth-wall breaking foul-mouthed ‘merc will react to being rebooted will be fascinating to see.

Stop making Die Hard films: just stop. Don’t reboot it. don’t make another sequel. Don’t do a prequel. Just stop. Do a gif search for “Simpsons he’s already dead”. Die Hard is, sadly, over. And I say that as someone who flat-out adores the first film. It has ceased to be. It is an ex-franchise. I’m sorry, Bruce, but that’s the truth.

Cancel The Simpsons: speaking of The Simpsons…! Yeah, I feel bad for saying this. As much as I love Die Hard, I love The Simpsons more; I think I love The Simpsons more than anything else Fox has ever done. And picking on them now, after thirty years? It feels like bandwagon-jumping; like trying to be cool and edgy. The fact is, I’ve not even seen a new episode for about ten years. How crazy is that? It used to be my favourite show of all time and there are probably over a hundred episodes I’ve just never seen. But that’s sort of my point. It’s not about whether it’s still good, or good enough, or as good as; it’s been going too long. the relevance it had, the cultural cachet; that’s gone for good. The Simpsons can never be The Simpsons again. I think give it a rest, cancel the series, but if you still want to keep the flame alive, make the odd movie or mini-series or TV special or something. I don’t mind more Simpsons, just make me really want it, y’know?

But bring back Futurama: as one door closes… Futurama was probably better than The Simpsons during the time it was on the air (although I don’t think I’d say it was ever quite as good as The Simpsons was at its height). So good, it’s an utter shame it had to stop when and how it did. I know Matt Groening might be busy with Disenchantment on Netflix, but maybe he can be persuaded to come back for some more journeys with the Planet Express crew? The opportunity to skewer the present day with futuristic barbs is right there for the taking.

De-Specialise the Star Wars Special Editions: I don’t mind most of the changes made by Lucas in the Special Edition trilogy. Obviously cleaning up the matting and removing the “force field” underneath Luke’s landspeeder are welcome additions. But the extra Wampa footage is unnecessary; Han shooting first really does cheapen the character, I don’t care if that’s a crying manbaby/edgelord/neckbeard/incel sorta thing to say; but the biggest flub is the utterly redundant Jabba scene they stuck back into A New Hope. Get shot of that; it gives us nothing the Greedo scene didn’t give, but clunkier and with not-entirely-convincing effects. Unaltered, and separate from the movie itself – with the human actor in a shaggy coat playing Jabba – the scene is a curio, a lost gem; but it serves no purpose in the narrative and the whole “stepping on Jabba’s tail” bit is, well, shite. If that’s the only thing they lose, fine, it’ll be worth it. I’m inevitably going to be buying these buggers in 4K, though, so I’d rather they offered a cleaned-up theatrical cut if they’re not prepared to pick-and-choose a “definitive edition”.

Don’t just close Fox Animation: from Anastasia through the Ice Age movies to Ferdinand, Fox’s animation department isn’t quite Pixar but they’ve done a really good job. Buy with Disney Animation and Pixar, does the company need another animation house? I hope they can find room for Fox, maybe as a slightly more grown-up or edgier place; after all, Pixar and Disney co-exist and there seems to be room for both.

#top ten #disney #fox #merger #animation

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loftyloftyloftyloftylofty · 6 years

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<rant>

I’ve kept a lot of stuff to myself lately and I’d like to take a quick opportunity to vent and maybe get some feedback from people. If that’s your dig, click the Keep Reading banner below.

Otherwise, I’ll see you again soon with more progress!

I’d like to start this one off by saying thanks. I appreciate that you’re taking the time to read this.

Lately, I’ve been spending a lot more time working on Cat Story. This isn’t really breaking news, but I think it’s important to mention that I’ve been pushing myself a lot harder.

The effort shows! Or, at least, I feel that it shows. I’ve been doing a better job of maintaining regular weekly updates on Patreon in addition to Tumblr, I’ve been doing a better job of crossposting these updates to Twitter and Facebook, I’ve been doing a better job of being active on Steam. I’ve been taking more opportunities to interact with other gamedevs on Twitter and Tumblr and trying to get out of my protective shell a little bit and make some friends!

With that said, I feel I can still improve a lot in the context of social media, but it’s hard to measure the impact that it’s actually having. I can see reblogs and retweets and shares, but I’m not really sure if all of this stuff is expanding my existing audience or not. I hope that I’m able to share my project with more people by putting more effort into more platforms.

I think that once Cat Story releases, I’ll be able to get a better understanding of how effective each of these platforms will be for communicating with people that play my game. I see other game developers doing it, and I see bigger game companies doing it, but I’ve just got this nagging feeling that putting extra effort into Twitter, Facebook, etc isn’t going to be worth it in the long run and that I could be leveraging that effort in other ways.

I’m curious on thoughts and feedback from other game developers about how much of an impact other social media platforms have had on your reach and your audience.

Thankfully, in the somewhat niche social media market of indie gamedev, the landscape is almost entirely real, living, breathing people. It’s nice to know that the likes, shares, reblogs, etc that I receive are real, and I appreciate the help!

Moving on from social media, I feel that the extra effort I’m putting in really shined through in the latest Patreon demo. I’m really proud of the fact that I released a demo on time with the features I wanted, and was also able to finish off some bonus content and improve the quality of the demo map by a pretty significant margin. I expect each new demo to be leaps and bounds of progress, because I really, really want to finish this project.

I want to move on. I want to do even bigger things. I want to hire people. I want to run conventions. I want to host tournaments. I want merchandise. I want a brand. I want to be the name in the games industry that is known for doing it right. I want my characters on billboards. I want to collaborate with companies like Nintendo. I want to be one of the people with the resources to do things like dropping huge donations at GDQ or funding and publishing other gamedevs. I want my own MMORPG IP. I want to usurp the E3 stage. I want multi-platform worldwide releases. The list goes on and on and on, and I won’t be satisfied until I’ve accomplished all of it and more.

I’ve said this a lot; Cat Story is the first big step. I want to release Cat Story this year. I’m working my tail off over here to try to make sure that the game releases this year, and to be frank, I’m starting to get a little more than just ‘hung up on it’.

The daily grind of game development has outgrown any pretenses of being a hobby and matured into an aggressive animal of a lifestyle.

Progress every day isn’t optional. Every bit of ground I can gain matters.

Even on days where I feel worn out or tired or uninspired after work, I refuse to let myself go to bed without knowing that I’ve made some kind of progress on the engine, or finished some pixel art, or sent an email to get in contact with someone, or did some research that’ll help me out later on. Sometimes it’s reading books that helped other developers. Sometimes it’s just reiterating on the same ideas to improve them just a little bit more. Sometimes it’s simply making a list of more stuff that needs to get done so that I have a more concrete starting point when I wake up.

Long term consistency is king. Recently though, I’ve really doubled down on what I expect from myself in terms of maintaning consistency.

It's definitely difficult and demanding to maintain this progress-centric mindset. I feel like I’m sacrificing a whole lot of other opportunities to stay on task, and I’ve been able to justify it so far with the belief that working as hard as I can, every single day, will be enough.

That’s something of a dangerous mentality to have, right? The idea that the merit of the effort put into a work will be the deciding factor in success? Plenty of garbage is successful simply because there’s an awesome marketing team behind it.

It’s difficult to make any one-size-fits-all statements regarding the success of games, and while it’s undeniable that doing a really good job is helpful, I’m not sure if doing a really good job is going to be enough all by itself.

To address this, I’ve started reaching out to folks who work in marketing and publishing to get their input and start making friends, so we’ll see how that goes. In the meantime, sometimes I find myself in that weird, melancholy mindset where I wonder if all the effort will be worth it.

It’s always a gamble though, right? There is no guaranteed, safe way to release the kind of game I want to create. There isn’t a formula for producing these kinds of games that just magically automatically equals success.

I’ve sacrificed a whole lot of stuff for this project. Friends. Careers. Family ties. Time.

I’m going to continue working as hard as I can until the project is finished, but I don’t really have any super-effective ways to cope with the fear that I won’t get the momentum I want from the finished product.

The best I’ve been able to come up with is, “If you’re afraid of not being successful, hustle harder.”

So, here I am, slam-dunking my demo stretch goals, partially because I want to do the best I possibly can, and partially because I’m absolutely terrified that if I don’t continue kicking cosmic amounts of ass, I won’t be able to follow my dreams full-time after Cat Story releases.

I don’t want to be part of the nine-to-five status quo grind anymore.

I don’t want to climb some weird corporate hierarchy in a company that doesn’t belong to me or share my vision of what a company should be.

I don’t want to have to work around a schedule that isn’t in alignment with my own goals.

I can do better for myself and the only way to do better is to work harder. This is what it takes. It’s hard, but it’s necessary. I have incredibly-ambitious goals and my plan is to work so hard that my dreams, which probably seem completely unrealistic, become clockwork victories.

...It’s just kinda’ hard to find effective ways to address the fears that come with these really big goals.

So, that’s where I’m at. I’ve probably still got about 3 hours before I need to head to bed for work in the morning, so I’m gonna’ get back to doing the thing.

Thanks again for reading. Hopefully this stuff helps people understand my point of view a little better:

Get back to work. These games aren’t going to make themselves.

#GET BACK TO WORK #GameDev #Game Development

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robbiejohnsonyr3ax3021 · 3 years

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University - Lip Syncing - Learning how to animate the mouth

For last two weeks, we have been learning how to lip sync mouths for a short piece of dialogue, provided to us by my tutor. There was a lot I feel I have learned from this and a few things I still need practice on. This post will explain my approach and thoughts to Lip syncing.

We begin with a Box & my approach/ set up

Before creating a drawn Lip sync, we were asked to create a lip sync by using a small rectangular box. This was so we could learn and get used to the types of movements needed to give the effect of a mouth moving with dialogue. But I started this there were a few things I had to do prior to animating.

First, we were provided with the same power point which was used to explain how to lip sync, I used this as a guide to help me identify what shapes and movements were needed to pull of the effect of talking. In the past I had juggled information like this within multiple tabs along with the animated piece itself, to help keep everything on one system. But, this time, I have placed the information (power point) onto my Laptop so I can look over to my laptop for help instead of searching through multiple tabs, resulting in faster more effective work.

With this set up ready, I printed out four exposure sheets that were provided to us. The exposure sheets are used to write down what frame number a word starts at and what it sounds like, for example the I place the word “Very” in the “Sound” section of boxes write the full word on the first frame it begins and then write the sounds of each letter such as “EE” for the Y in “Very”. My tutor advised us to think of the words being said, were being said by a young child, for example “R” becomes “r” and “S” becomes “s”. This helps us identify the sounds for each word as well as the duration for each sound in the number of frames it appears in.

Lastly, this was not asked of us by my tutor, but I did this final step as a method of double checking my work and helping me keep track of what word I was up to whilst working. In the top left corner of the screen, I would write in red the full word that was being said and underneath it the sounds being made within each frame. I took the information I wrote down on the exposure sheet and translated it onto the computer. From doing this, I learned that I was off by a few frames from the exposure sheet for two words, being 3 frames ahead for one and 8 frames late on another. If I had not identified this, it could have caused the lips sync to de sync and result in miss timed mouth movements, ruining the effect I was going for.

After finishing all the preparation, I began animating the box. I began by placing all the key shapes and position for the box, for each word in their respected frames. I used the power point as a reference for the each shape the box would squash and stretch into, for example a short and long box for the long “O” sound, as well as adding a slow in and out to represent a jaw stretching down and raising back up to form the next shape for the next word.

Once I had made each box for each mouth movement, I then went through the work again, this time inbetweening the box into each position to make the movement more fluid and less static. This was useful as not only did it make the animation more fluid, but it also showed me whether, I had made the right shapes for each word. For example, the long “O” sound was correct to me, however the words proceeding it seemed very erratic and too fast in the box’s movements, so I minimised the amount of movement needed between each word.

Drawn Lip Sync

With everything I have done so far, it was time to create a drawn animated lip sync, using the box as a rough guide, I was ready to try the drawn lip sync. I began with drawing a basic closed mouth and slowed into the beginning of each word, with the power point as a rough guide for how wide open the mouth should be. Usually, I would do like I did prior, draw the key frames, then in between once I had done all the key frames. However, I was worried, if I had taken this approach, I would not be able to sync the mouth movements accurately in time to the dialogue, so I went one word at a time.

I would say the aspect I found the most difficult when drawing the lip sync, was the timing of each sound to the number of frames required for each sound. For example, in the words “very big” in the dialogue and the speed they were said, made it difficult for me to determine how many frames to use on each word. The power point explains how words should be animated in two’s, however if need be, vowels can be animated with a single frame. So words that mix vowels a none vowels within a small number of frames was hard to determine.

Another issue I had was although the Power point and a example clip were useful, I was unsure how sounds such as “r” in read and “ip” in lips would translate to a drawn mouth movement. To resolve both problems, I would find a mirror in my house and say/ mimic the line in front of it a few times, I’d repeatedly doing this, until I formed some what of an idea as to how to draw the mouth movements for these words. Admittedly I felt a little insane doing this, but it was actually very useful, so tried to translate what I figured out the best I could.

Once all the animation was finished, I coloured in the mouth, added teeth and a tongue in the mouth to help emphasise some of the words through their movement, as well as adding a coloured background. I also created a singular chin layer, so I could focus on moving the chin, whilst retain a somewhat familiar shape of the chin through out the animated piece.

Final thoughts

Overall, I feel happy with the outcome of this work, I will need to keep practicing over time to get better at it and recognise mouth patterns better, but I felt like I came away from this project taking a lot away with me. Luckily for me, our next project also uses lip syncing for characters acting in a short scene, so fingers crossed I can take what I have learned and apply successfully in the next project.

Additional Images not used in the post above

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un-enfant-immature · 5 years

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Week-in-Review: E3’s forever franchises and Elon Musk’s submersible Tesla

Hey, weekend readers. This is Week-in-Review where I get hopped up on caffeine and give a heavy amount of analysis on one story while scouring the rest of the hundreds of stories that emerged on TechCrunch this week to surface my favorites for your reading pleasure.

Last week, I railed on Google’s new Stadia game streaming platform. The injection of competition into the tired PlayStation/Xbox gaming rivalry is certainly welcome, but Google is making such a concerted play into a tight niche that it’s hard to imagine them following through. I got some great emails and DMs with a lot of good back-and-forth, most notably pointing out that I didn’t give Google credit for some of the details they did give on multi-player, I also got some less helpful responses, but hey, I guess I’m the one that asked for the feedback.

Lol https://t.co/HhMgAuFMhp pic.twitter.com/f9V3HpYuqF

— Lucas Matney (@lucasmtny) June 9, 2019

On that note, check out my comparison of Stadia with Microsoft’s new xCloud service that they revealed this week.

Alright, onto new things. Actually, let’s dig into my week at the E3 gaming expo. I swear this isn’t only a gaming newsletter, but let’s talk forever franchises…

I spent the past few days on the show floor of the conference checking out what the latest and greatest gaming trends were, what I saw looked pretty familiar though.

Entrenched franchises are a special kind of force in the gaming industry.

Walking around it was wild how so many of these studios are coasting off of 20 or 30-year-old characters and storylines. Sega had a massive booth this year showing off some reskinned Sonic the Hedgehog shit. Watching the Square Enix keynote was a special kind of hell, I admittedly do not have a very religious connection to the studio, but their announcements were all related to reboots, rehashes or remasters. Nintendo, which I dearly love, dug into the success of Breath of the Wild by promising a direct sequel for the title, something that’s a bit unusual for the Zelda series, Jesus, even Animal Crossing is nearly a 20-year franchise at this point! Every large booth dragged gamers’ attention to something derivative.

This obviously isn’t some sort of breaking news, but as the years stretch on from the gaming industry’s conception, it’s fascinating to see how the founding franchises are keeping their shine.

What’s fascinating is how this impacts the boom and bust life cycles of game studios and massive publishers. While larger movie studios need to constantly be vetting new tentpole franchises, once game studios find a hit they join this club of mainstays where the marks of success become more dependent on creative execution rather than creativity itself. This can make life pretty profitable for studios like Rovio that strike gold and can spend a decade milking their former glory and fading out, but it’s still fascinating.

It also makes the introduction of new IP such a nerve-racking, high stakes process. You look at someone like Hideo Kojima and the buzz Sony has been trying to build around Death Stranding and you just realize how insanely complex it is to craft a hit with nothing but marketing and talking head hype. Word of mouth and network effects build these franchises over time, but there’s so much invested beforehand and for new IP, it’s hard to guarantee a winner.

Why does Toy Story fade after a few films but a singular piece of gaming IP can suck hundreds of hours out of a gamer’s life over several releases? I’d imagine being able to hold a role in the progression of a character fosters a closer bond with the user, gameplay can be dozens of hours long but more often than not the storyline is pretty straight-forward leading you to fill in the blanks, which can be powerful. Games are fundamentally more than just stories.

But then, as I walked around and watched gameplay and cinematic trailers, I was left with the takeaway that so much of the dialogue in some of these games is garbage. When are the writers behind the “golden age of TV” going to trickle down into crafting some of these single-player campaigns? But then are more rich and rewarding storylines going to cause these franchises to have shorter shelf lives because we’ll get to know the characters too well? I don’t really know, if you work in the games industry I’d love to pick your brain.

Send me feedback on Twitter @lucasmtny or email [email protected]

On to the rest of the week’s news.

(Photo by Steve Jennings/Getty Images for TechCrunch)

Trends of the week

Here are a few big news items from big companies, with green links to all the sweet, sweet added context.

Salesforce buys Tableau Marc Benioff is known to signal Salesforce’s future via its M&A, so the company’s largest acquisition to date is probably worth taking a closer look at. Read why Salesforce is spending $15.7 billion on Seattle-based Tableau.

Samsung gets ready to re-release its Foldy phone The Galaxy Fold has had a pretty raucous life in the press and it hasn’t even successfully been released yet. Read more about its coming launch.

Musk’s Tesla submarine It wouldn’t be a Tesla shareholder meeting if some bizarre headlines didn’t surface. Apparently Musk claims that the company has vehicle designs for a submersible Tesla based on the aquatic car from the James Bond movie. Musk said it’s technically possible to make a functioning version, but added, “I think the market for this would be small — small, but enthusiastic.” Read more here.

GAFA Gaffes

How did the top tech companies screw up this week? This clearly needs its own section, in order of awfulness:

YouTube CEO serves up an “apology”: [YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki addresses hate speech controversy]

Deepf**ked: [Facebook will not remove deepfakes of Mark Zuckerberg and others from Instagram]

Extra Crunch

Our premium subscription service had another week of interesting deep dives. TechCrunch’s Sarah Buhr chatted with some venture capitalists that are investing in female fertility startups and tried to get to the bottom of what signals they search for.

What top VCs look for in a women’s fertility startup

“…Longer term, women’s health has a special interest: a new understanding of women’s reproductive health will generate novel insights into other domains, including longevity…”

Here are some of our other top reads this week for premium subscribers. This week TechCrunch writers talked a bit the future of car ownership, and whether people raising venture capital should even bother dealing with associates at the firms…

The future of car ownership: Building an online dealership

Fundraising 101: Do VC associates matter?

Why is Andreessen Horowitz (and everyone else) investing in Latin America now?

Want to read some of this stuff, but haven’t signed up? We’ve got a deal going where you can sign up for $2 and get two months of Extra Crunch.

#TechCrunch

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doorplays · 7 years

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HORIZON: ZERO DAWN REVIEW

So, I finally finished this game the other day! And I wanna talk about it. So! Here's a review.

Horizon: Zero Dawn is a game made by Guerilla Games, a company known for their Killzone Series. I don't really know much about it, though it seemed like it was a decent IP that had a decent following. For Guerilla Games to go from a gritty shooter series to a hopeful post-post-post-apocalyptic open world RPG seems like a total 180. And IMO, it paid off. Let's talk about this game!

GRAPHICS

Guerilla used their in-house game engine for this game. It's called the Decima engine, and it's already been used in some games like Killzone: Shadow Fall and Until Dawn. This game has proven that the engine is really fucking good. This game is PRETTY. It oozes with vibrance at every nook and cranny. At the Embrace, you see wonderful foliages and great skies. Beyond it, you see thick forests, expansive deserts, snowy mountains, towering buildings, and all of it, ALL OF IT is beautiful. Guerilla really did good with including a photo mode in the game, cause i spent a LOT of time taking pictures! I'm excited for the future games that will use this engine, ESPECIALLY Death Stranding.

A common complaint I hear with this game is that the facial animations leave much to be desired. I think that the animations during conversations are serviceable enough, and don't really detract from the experience. The only time I found it weird was when talking to a character near the end of the game. Other than that, the experience was smooth sailing.

GAMEPLAY

The combat in this game is very Monster Hunter-like, in the sense that you hunt and gather resources from the carcasses of animals and machines. You get a feel for how the enemy moves and attacks, and you act accordingly with your bow and spear. To evade enemies, you can run around and dodge roll out of their way. As you go on with the game, though, you find a variety of weapons that allow you different playstyles. You can lob elemental bombs, set tripwires, even snipe enemies from afar! The way ranged weapons work feels so smooth and satisfying. I especially like how it's easy to reload and craft ammo on the go.

An added aspect of gameplay is stealth. You can hide in tall grass to approach your enemy and kill them from the shadows with your Silent Strike. If you do this well, the machines won't even notice, and you can continue stalking them. This stealth aspect is important in bringing down human enemies and picking them off one by one. It's an interesting dimension that encourages the hunting aspect of the game.

Further in the game, you get the option to hack enemy machines to do your bidding. This is very useful since this unlocks the ability to get mounts. It's very nice to see your player character riding a Strider through the landscape, and it's immensely more satisfying to see your player character hack a Thunderjaw and let it rip through small herds of machines. You'll have to complete some quests to be able to hack all the machines, though.

Speaking of the machines, all of them are unique challenges in certain ways. There are those who shoot you from afar, and those who come in close and attack with their claws. They're definitely challenging enough to give you that rush of adrenaline.

Other than combat, there are other aspects in gameplay in terms of exploration. As you explore the game, you see handholds on rockfaces that you can get a grip on so that you can explore. It reminds me of Assassin's Creed, only dumbed down a bit. This part of gameplay is kind of frustrating for me, as it doesn't feel natural oftentimes and feels like more of a chore. However, it feels exciting in some aspects. It feels very nice to go down a zipline, and it's dramatic when you rappel down a cliff.

My main complaint with gameplay is that melee combat doesn't seem too satisfying. Sure, you have your Silent Strike and Critical Hits, but you don't see as much variety with melee weapons as you have with ranged weapons. Your spear only improves in damage once early in the game, and doesn't change much until the end of the game. I would definitely like for Guerilla to explore this aspect more.

Another complaint I have is inventory space. Though you have options to upgrade your inventory, I find that more often than not, my inventory is full and I have to sell a lot of stuff. The rewards box system is also hard to manage when the boxes are filled with traps and rocks that you have to sell/drop.

All in all, the gameplay of Horizon: Zero Dawn feels good enough, but I feel that it could definitely be better in some aspects. The game itself is very challenging, however, especially when you find yourself fighting a lot of machines at the same time. You definitely won't get bored.

STORY

This. This is where Horizon: Zero Dawn shines the most. Just. God. There's so much, SO MUCH, to get into here.

Let's start with Aloy, the character you play in the story. She was motherless, and made an outcast by the Nora, and her driving motivation at the start is to find out /why/. This motivation flings her far and wide into the world of Horizon, even beyond the Nora borders, and as she seeks answers to her questions, her world gets bigger and bigger.

With each quest you do, you find out more about the world. You soon learn that there is more than one tribe other than the Nora, and a few quests further you discover how /different/ their cultures are. And as you delve in more Ruins, and explore more settlements, you find out the deep secrets of the earth, and hear the whispers of the past. The storyline is really great and well executed, and each twist widens your view of the world.

The side quests don’t /feel/ like side quests for the most part. They don’t feel like boring fetch quests. They have their own story to them, with their own unique characters. Stories of hunters bulling through elitism to hunt the greatest machine. Stories of enacting vengeance against slavers. Stories of giving peace to those who grieve. It’s refreshing to see that these side quests are stories all on their own.

And the /characters/! My god, they all feel so unique. Erend the lovable drunk, Sona the headstrong warleader, Nil the sociopath, Vanasha the spy, Blameless Marad the spymaster, a lot of them are so great to interact with. I especially like how charming Vanasha, Nil, and Marad are.

We also have another look at the world through the discovery of datapoints. Each datapoint contains audio/text referencing an event in the far flung past. Tidbits like this make the experience all the more interesting, since you end up getting a better picture of what the past was like, and what the Old Ones were up to.

What I don’t like about the story is how the villains for the most part aren’t compelling enough. I would have loved a better look into them. Maybe if they had more scenes, I would have given them more thought.

Another thing I’d like to point out is how effortlessly diverse it is. There’s a good amount of LGBT flirting and relationships, a diverse amount of nationalities even within the Nora (which is irrelevant in the current timeline since these nationalities are dead), and there’s even an implied transgender character!

Even the fact that we’re playing a female character is amazing. Heck, a lot of things in the game are amazing when you think about it. Single father raising a headstrong child. Matriarchal society with a progressive matriarch. A growing city-state tribe of sorts that overthrew its shackles and is starting on the shaky road to being more progressive. Despite all this the societies still show the same prejudices that we show! It still feels real, yet feels more optimistic, and I like that.

You know what I also like! NO ROMANTIC SUBPLOT! There are characters that flirt with Aloy, but for the most part she’s focused on her mission. As a person who isn’t that into romance stories much, I really appreciate this.

All in all? The story is the best I’ve experienced ever since Mass Effect. It’s very compelling, turns a lot of tropes on its head, and is a refreshing take on the post-apocalyptic genre. I can’t wait for more installments.

FINAL THOUGHTS

Guerilla Games has managed to bring forth a wonderful IP that has rekindled many gamers’ love for games in this age. It has the right combination of gameplay and story. It exploits the capability of the PS4 to its fullest potential. It makes me want to feel lost in its world and just explore every corner. As long as Guerilla keeps adding more installments, I think this series has the potential to become one of the greatest series in gaming. And I can’t wait for the time when that happens.

#horizon #horizon: zero dawn #horizon zero dawn #hzd #door plays #door reviews

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brokenbase · 7 years

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Horizon: Zero Dawn - BROKEN BASE REVIEWS

That's right - we were lucky enough to score an advanced copy of Horizon: Zero Dawn from Sony! So, what did Steve think about one of the first big console exclusives of the year? Well, go ahead and watch the video! Or, if you wanted to read the review, you’re in luck - the full script is just below the cut!

Horizon: Zero Dawn, the latest game from Killzone developer Guerrilla Games, is already under a lot of pressure. Not only is it one of the first big releases of 2017, but it’s the one of the biggest guns in the PlayStation 4′s exclusive line-up for the year. A new IP, a new heroine, a new engine - even after a fantastic debut and some serious hype, Horizon: Zero Dawn still has a lot left to prove.

There’s a lot to cover when it comes to Horizon. Not only is the game massive in scope, but Guerrilla Games have pulled from a number of other gaming franchises to create one of the most eclectic sandboxes in recent memory. While there’s nothing wrong with pulling inspiration from other, successful franchises, that doesn’t necessarily guarantee success.

Thankfully, Horizon: Zero Dawn manages to blend its different ideas into a cohesive - and more importantly, fun - open-world action game.

Players take on the role of Aloy, a young woman surviving the harsh wild of a post-apocalyptic Earth. Giant robotic animals roam the planet, leaving humankind to fight for its very survival. As one might expect, it doesn’t take long for Aloy to get swept up in a worldwide conspiracy, forcing her to leave home in search of answers.

To put it bluntly, the first few hours of the story are rough. Aloy is enjoyable enough, but the story of an outcast trying to fit into society is downright generic. It’s far too easy to predict exactly what will happen, and it’s not nearly interesting enough to create any sort of emotional attachment.

Once the intro is out of the way, Horizon’s story does get better. The game’s world and the people in it manage to create a setting that’s both far-flung and believably grounded - given that this is a world where giant robot dinosaurs roam the wilderness, that’s saying something. It definitely helps that many of the player’s actions actually make an impact: Seeing decisions and questlines come full circle as the game progresses is a great touch, and does a lot to make Horizon’s side quests feel like more than inconsequential errands.

But it’s the story of the machines and their origins that’s the true star of the show. Horizon’s A.I.-centric plot may be a new take on an established concept, but a number of genuinely surprising twists and a distinct identity keep it from feeling stale. Sadly, the pacing is extremely lopsided: the story becomes an unrelenting deluge of information during its second half, and it can be overwhelming at times.

What’s worse is that Aloy’s personal story doesn’t hold up nearly as well. Her storyline takes a backseat for far too long, and the main villain doesn’t have enough of a presence throughout the game to feel like a real threat. By the time the credits roll, the whole revenge plot feels like more of a sidenote than anything.

As a whole, characterization is flawed: Aloy herself is enjoyable, and some of the side characters are great, but nearly everyone else is either forgettable or entirely unlikable. For whatever reason, Aloy’s closest ally is an absolute prick throughout the entire game, while the central villains are basically nonexistent. It’s completely backwards, and choices like these derail the story on more than one occasion.

Simply put, the narrative of Horizon: Zero Dawn is all over the place: some parts of the story are fantastic, while others drag the experience down. Personal tastes will be a factor in your enjoyment of the story, but once it gets going, the good usually outweighs the bad.

Anyone who’s played an open-world game from the past ten years will know exactly what to expect from Horizon: Zero Dawn. The entirety of the game’s single-player story takes place in a massive seamless map filled to the brim with NPCs, quests and hidden collectibles. Players complete story missions to advance the plot, and side quests to earn optional rewards. Scaling specific machines will reveal large portions of the map, and fast-travel points open up as players explore the world.

At first glance, it might seem like Horizon’s strict adherence to the standard open-world formula wouldn’t leave much room for new ideas...and while that’s true in some respects, it’s also selling the game short. The overall structure may be familiar, but the gameplay itself is an entirely different beast.

With a focus on stealth, ancient weaponry and RPG mechanics, one would be forgiven for assuming that playing through Horizon: Zero Dawn is a slow, methodical experience. In reality, that’s only half-true.

Players will spend the majority of their time playing Horizon doing one of two things: engaging enemy combatants head-on, or sneaking around them. Combat and movement are fast and loose while simultaneously rewarding those who play with precision. It’s possible to let off a slew of arrows quickly, but it’s far more satisfying to pick off enemies one at a time with carefully-placed shots.

Human enemies, for the most part, don’t provide much resistance. Their sheer numbers can be a threat, and more powerful variants are introduced as the game goes on, but they don’t hold a candle to the robotic enemies that players will face.

Without the ability to take out a target with a single shot, combat against the machines becomes far more tactical. Weapon choice, enemy layouts, terrain, available ammo, healing items - everything has to be taken into consideration before taking the first shot. Actual combat is a chess game of positioning, targeting weakpoints and isolating weaker enemies, and it’s a blast from beginning to end. Fights against multiple machines can be a bit too chaotic for their own good, and certain enemy types are overpowered, but these issues are minor in the grand scheme of things.

Of course, combat is more complicated than just bows and arrows. Aloy’s arsenal does a fine job of both encouraging experimentation and allowing players to find a specific style that works for them. Different ammo types and elemental status effects offer even more variety, though the upgrade system isn’t quite as successful. Purchasing or crafting better gear is definitely helpful, but grinding for the specific parts required to do so relies entirely on random chance. Get ready to hunt a lot of rabbits.

Skills points and leveling up are the final piece of the combat puzzle, and it’s exactly what you would expect. More experience means more skills, such as slowing down time while aiming or more powerful melee attacks. It’s another way that players can customize their play style, but it’s nothing new, either.

The rest of the gameplay is fun, if not entirely noteworthy. Puzzles and platforming are basically automatic, and don’t provide any real sense of challenge. Collectibles are fun to find, but the rewards for finding them aren’t anything special. Dialogue trees are an interesting addition, but there are only a few instances where Aloy’s response actually changes anything.

It’s a shame that the smaller aspects of Horizon’s gameplay aren’t as polished as the core mechanics, but it’s clear that Guerrilla Games focused on what matters. Combat feels great, and sneaking through an enemy encampment is extremely satisfying. It would have been nice if everything were as engaging as the combat, but Horizon nails its core gameplay so well that these small missteps are easy to forgive.

From the moment that players press Start, one thing is obvious: Horizon: Zero Dawn is absolutely gorgeous. Nearly everything about the game’s presentation is phenomenal, from the environments to the character models to the sound design to the insane level of detail.

Watching as Aloy or any one of the massive machines move through the environment is a sight to behold, and the sheer number of different animations is staggering. Lighting is another highlight, with the use of color and shadow standing head-and-shoulders above most other games in the industry. Horizon is a game that revels in creating atmosphere.

What pulls everything together is the game’s unparalleled sense of scale. True, there are plenty of games with massive open worlds, but few truly take advantage of their sandboxes. Horizon, on the other hand, is constantly using the scope of its world to amazing effect. It’s huge, in every sense of the word, and it’ll make your jaw drop more than once.

Granted, the presentation isn’t perfect. Facial animation is noticeably limited, and characters don’t really emote. Some of the voice work (typically whenever children are involved) also falls short, and a few minor technical issues pop up from time to time. That being said, a few infrequent hang-ups aren’t nearly enough to derail one of the best-looking games of this generation. Horizon: Zero Dawn is both an artistic and technical marvel, and proof that there’s still plenty of room to grow in the current generation of consoles.

Horizon: Zero Dawn isn’t a perfect game. The story is unfocused, the intro drags on for far too long, and the pacing is ridiculously unbalanced.

But, when you look at the bigger picture, it’s easy to see just how good Horizon really is. The game may draw its mechanics from a number of different series, but everything comes together so well that it’s hard not to be impressed. It’s also a technical marvel, with an unparalleled attention to detail and infinitely impressive scale. The game may stick to some open-world traditions a bit too strictly, but at the end of the day, Horizon is still one of the most polished games in recent memory.

If Horizon: Zero Dawn is just the first piece of Sony’s exclusive line-up in 2017, then PlayStation 4 owners have a lot to look forward to.

#Broken Base #Horizon: Zero Dawn #Reviews #Writing

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