#i was just imagining a bunch of faceless npcs

[blooming-cecilia]

hate that i love you so | venti/reader

summary: "Somewhere along the way, I found myself content in your company. Sure, you were still pretty annoying. Their chaos and yours can be irritating, but you were there and I could never find it in me to really push you away."

gn reader (lmk if i accidentally let smth slip so i can fix!), high school au, popular kid venti/not so popular reader, fluff, mild angst? an attempt at more lighthearted angst, i guess lol.  just silly teens trying to deal with silly feelings

notes: hs au with venti beloved, from yet another brainrot session with @tomaytow! the trope is a little cliché but it’s nice to indulge in clichés every now and then, isn’t it? enjoy!

likes and reblogs appreciated! <3

 The lunch bell rang, and students poured out of their classrooms to head to the cafeteria, loud chatter filling the hallways. You weaved through the crowd as swiftly as you could, heading into the opposite direction from everyone else.

 You were headed to the library, and while you would have loved to have lunch with your friends, right now you couldn't stand to be with them—or anyone else for that matter.

They were up to their usual antics, teasing you with Venti, one of the more popular kids who unfortunately gained an interest in you. He has been quite vocal about his attraction. It confused you greatly when he first started paying more attention to you but it quickly turned into annoyance, with him constantly pestering you with his babbling and hanging off of you like a leech.

 He’s captivated your entire class: your friends were his friends, and it seems that the same goes for every person he meets. Even the faculty! They’re all amused by his antics in trying to woo you, encouraging his shenanigans. (You can still hear the loud cheering and whistling from your class from when he asked you if you wanted to have lunch with him today, his treat!)

Everyone seems to see his charms… except for you.

You hear familiar footsteps clicking alongside your own, the sound growing louder as you briskly walk down empty hallways that lead up to the library.

 You abruptly stop walking, and you can hear his shoes skidding to a stop behind you.

An hour. An hour of peace, an hour away from him and everyone else is all I ask for. Is he really that desperate for my attention that he can’t leave me alone for one hour?  

 “Why do you keep following me around? I told you I didn’t want to have lunch with you didn’t I? Are you deaf?”

”But, Windblume, I just wanted to— “

”FINE!”

 “...huh?”

 “FINE, YEAH, OKAY, SURE! THERE. THAT’S WHAT YOU WANTED TO HEAR ISN’T IT? I’M YOURS NOW. YOUR PARTNER. NOW WILL YOU SHUT UP?”

 “...”

“So? What? Nothing to say?”

 “.…I don’t want you to say yes to me if you’re just forcing yourself to say that.”

”…What?”

”Windblume… do you really hate me that much? Can you really not stand my presence? Does seeing my face everyday disgust you that much, just as you say it does?”

 It’s your turn to be silent.

 That’s... not true, your mind immediately supplies. You don't hate his presence, per se.... Admittedly, there have been more times than you can count on your fingers where you can say that you don't find his company annoying. In fact, he's rather fun to be around. You acknowledge the nice things people said about his personality, because it's true.

 You’ve asked yourself the same questions too, why do you hate the idea of becoming his partner so much? Is it the attention? The teasing from every single person you know of in this place? The jealous glares of his own fan club, muttering profanities about you under their breath?

 Is it all worth it? To say no to him to avoid what others will say, think, and do when it comes to both of you? Can you really handle hurting someone who’s shown that he truly cares for you, clear as day?

 But before you can respond to him, you look up and find an empty hallway.

 ---

 He doesn't come to school the next day.

 Or the day after that.

 Nor the day after that, too.

 He didn't show up for a week.

 You told yourself you were going to apologize and be honest with him after that day, but how can you even talk to him if he's not even there?

 You're worried, and with his loud presence missing from the room, you constantly feel eyes on you again. Nothing new, but this time it feels more distressing, probing. Everyone likely knows that something happened between you both and given your past responses... you're sure they know.

 Now a villain in their eyes, perhaps.

 It's uncomfortable, but you couldn’t care less. Your mind is still on him, his words and your own echoing in that empty hallway.

 When he comes back after more than a week's absence, everyone gathers around him, various concerns and questions thrown at him about his well-being.

 He's trying his best to seem fine and act as usual but you know it's a lie. (When did you start reading him so well?)

 He used the crowds as walls keeping you from having a quiet moment with him. When he doesn't have them with him, he simply vanishes, out of sight.

 Finally, after multiple failed attempts, you catch up to him after classes, and grab hold of his wrist to keep him from leaving.

 "Venti, wait!"

 "A-ah... W-[Name]...! Hi, haha..."

 He called you by your name. Not Windblume.

 "Venti... please.... I'm sorry. I didn't mean to yell at you and say such mean things—"

 "No, no. I should be the one apologizing. I've been so pushy this entire time, haven't I? Constantly following you around, all the teasing... You don't like the attention and noise but I forced my feelings and reputation onto you. It's my fault, not yours. So I understand. Why you're always so  irritated and why you said that. I don't know how else to make it up to you, I'll do whatever you want if you have an idea, but I'll stay away from you from now on—"

 "Don't go."

 "...What?"

 "Don't go. You wanna know how you can make it up to me? Stay here."

 "Wait what, I don't get—"

 "You shouldn't even have to make it up to me... I'm the one at fault—no, don't you dare refute that. I made you upset enough that you couldn't show up to class for a week. I've been an ass, both for yelling at you and for not being honest."

 "I did find you annoying. I hate large crowds and loud noises and you always had those with you. You're loud enough on your own but with everyone else in the mix… it really was annoying. I avoided you because I just couldn't be bothered by the mess and the racket because I had better things to do than to get caught up in he middle of your crowd."

 "And it got worse when you started to take interest in me. Your attention constantly on me, every single day. Where you look, the crowd looks too. I couldn’t handle the attention, like you can. I hated it."

 He winces.

 "But I don't hate you."

 Surprised, his eyes meet yours, small glimmers of hope reflected in his gaze.

 "Their constant chattering was nothing but noise to me. But when I started listening in, I realized, what they say about you is true. Who wouldn't want to surround themselves with such a wonderful soul? You deserve all the attention and praise you get."

 "The more time I spent with you, I saw nothing but sunshine in your smile and laugh. You find me, even in places no one else knows. And I felt at ease when you sit by my side and hum as you strum your guitar. In quiet moments like that, it felt like you knew me better than anyone else ever did."

 "Somewhere along the way, I found myself content in your company. Sure, you were still pretty annoying. Their chaos and yours can be irritating, but you were there and I could never find it in me to really push you away."

 "And when the one time I finally did... I couldn't take it either. I yelled at you, made you leave for a while and it's like I’ve lost sight of the lighthouse and I'm left, lost at sea."

 You take his hand in yours, softly caressing your thumb over his knuckles.

 "It really only hit me then how much you meant to me already. I don't know when I started to care so much about you but I do. Neither do I know what I really feel for you… all I know is that I don't want you to leave my side."

 "So stay. Please."

He's silent for a moment before he lifts his gaze from your intertwined hands to look back at you.

 "To be honest with you Windblume... I never really wanted to leave in the first place."

 You snicker, "I know," and he follows, laughter echoing in the empty hallway.

 ---

 "Wiiiiiiiindbluuuuuumeeeee!"

 A loud voice disturbs the quiet murmurs of the room. It's early next morning, so people taking quick naps on their desks grumbled from the disturbance.

 Venti lets out a small apology, setting down his bag in his seat, before taking your hand, dragging you out the door and down the halls.

 "Venti! Where are we going?"

 He doesn't answer, instead leading you through twists and turns of various paths and halls.

 You get out of the building and find yourself led into a quiet area, near one of the school's many gardens.

 You find his guitar case leaning by a tree, and a bag of bright red apples next to it.

 He stops and turns, giving you a fond look before engulfing you in a big hug and squeezing. Snuggling his face into into the crook of your neck and breathing in your scent, he mumbles.

 "Mm, good morning Windblume... I missed you."

 You let out a sigh, a small smile on your lips as you wrap your arms around him, gently squeezing back.

 "’Morning, Venti. Why are we here so early?"

 He breaks away from the hug, taking an apple from the bag and holding one up to you, intertwining his free hand with yours.

 "Well... I thought maybe we can have some breakfast and a little relax time before class starts? I could sing you a new song I've been working on!"

 You laugh, take the apple from his hands and bite into it.

 "Do apples count as breakfast? Doesn't sound like a full meal to me~"

 "Well it is to me!!!"

 "Honestly I don't know how you get full from just apples for a meal..."

 He just giggles as he takes out his guitar from its case.

 "Alright! For my first song of the day..."

 ---

 When you come back to your classroom five minutes before class starts, no one makes any teasing comment.

 You can feel some looks on you, and some concealed smiles, but no one makes a single remark about you two coming back to the classroom together.

 You're confused, and Venti doesn't say anything either, just offering you a smile as he leads you to your seat, and heads to his own.

 The morning bell rings.

 ---

 Bonus:

#tulip writes #venti x reader #venti imagines #venti x you #genshin imagines #genshin x reader #ngl i struggled a bit trying to write that first part #bc i wrote this in one go in our dms and i started off in my mother tongue #so if its wonky or doesnt flow well sorry lol #hs aus give me much serotonin #just characters being silly kids #also had fun with the chat bonus #only added 5wirl bc honestly dont know who else to put in venti's class #i was just imagining a bunch of faceless npcs #the gc is like. a more casual gc for the class where they can talk abt whatever #only ppl who wanted to be in the gc are there but its still a pretty big gc w half of the class in it #reader is not there #they left bc they often teased in there too and reader is just like. ok not having this shit bye (leaves) #their section is named freedom bc i ran out of gc titles and just #did what my old class gcs used to do in the casual one w/o our adviser #jusr. #[section name][year] (UNOFFICIAL) #KJSHDFJSD #venti talking to everyone in the gc is his way of making it up to u :] #he offered to do what u wanted but u just said stay and hes like....that doesnt feel any different from what i usually did :( #i wanna do smth else too :(

[toxinfrog]

MIITOPIA SPOILERS BELOW

Okay, I just had a thought about Miitopia’s ending, and I’m sure it’s not original or correct, but if I don’t post it, I’ll never get it out of my head.

Okay, so the “Save them” ending for Miitopia: the good ending, the one where you give the dark curse a new face and let them be reborn and get a second chance at life. All well and good, happy ending, sorry to spoil it if you’ve read this far after ignoring the spoiler warning: But I want to focus on what happens right before you pick out the face.

The great sage addressed the hero, and acknowledges the kind choice, before the few lines were spoken that just hid in the back of my brain, waiting for a random midnight to jump out and consume my entire being.

Great sage: Well, you will need to give him a face.

Great sage: But I believe that should pose no trouble for you.

Main hero: None at all!

Okay, so maybe I’m looking too deeply into this…but excuse me?!?

Did the Great Sage and the Main Hero both just imply that the casting call process is not just a game mechanic for putting our favorite Miis into situations, but also an actual, in universe ability that the Main Hero just HAS?!?

I’m sure I’m misinterpreting something or looking far too deep into an otherwise innocuous set of lines that were probably changed slightly between translations, but partially because this is driving me nuts, partially because I kind of want to prove myself wrong by deeply considering the idea, and partially because I just want to entertain this idea for fun, let’s briefly consider the implications, if true:

The casting call process is happening in-universe. This leads to the strange concept that most characters only exist nebulously as a concept until they are casted and gain a face. They obviously have to exist to some extent before they are casted, as The King of Greenhorne is clearly referred to by The Mayor as well as The Dark Lord well before he’s casted.

The Main Hero could have been the one assigning every single role aside from their own, or at least some of them. This has some weird implications, but probably the least weird of the bunch: It seems that they can grant faceless entities a face.

The Main Hero is aware of this power. In other words, there is a good chance that they already knew what several major NPC’s were going to look like moments before actually meeting them. Not really sure what to make of that.

The Great Sage is aware of this power, and that it should work on the Dark Curse. This has the strangest implications: It means that the Great Sage is aware that some faces, perhaps even their own face, could have been chosen directly by the Main Hero. If they were aware of this back in Karkaton, it adds a second layer to them taking on the dark curse in the place of the Main Hero. Imagine the dark lord, except instead of needing to steal faces to control monsters, they could just cast miis as monsters without ever running out of faces or needing to go get more: No wonder The Great Sage allowed themselves to be possessed, considering the alternative of a truly infinite and unstoppable wave of monsters.

Anyways, sorry for rambling for so long about three lines that probably weren’t meant to be looked into that deeply.

#Miitopia #miitopia great sage #miitopia main hero

[unofficialshippingtrash]

3, 7, 10, 18, and 35 for the Genshin asks

3: Favourite party?

If we’re talking my favourite party to use, that’s a bit difficult, since I haven’t been playing long enough to have a lot of parties to rotate in and out. However, Jean/Bennet/Keqing/Fischl has been pretty fun to use as my current main team.

If we’re talking ideal teams though, then I want to run Jean/Eula/Diluc/Kaeya as team “sassy knights+the one trying to stop them all from killing each other.”

7: Least favourite character?

FUCK YOU ALBERT (or whatever your name is, too lazy to look it up) I HOPE YOU GET FREEZE TO DEATH ON DRAGONSPINE YOU CREEPY ASS BARBARA STALKER. AND STOP TRYING TO SOUND COOL BY USING “-SAMA” WHEN THERES A VARIETY OF ENGLISH WORDS YOU COULD USE INSTEAD (that last one is a very “me” pet peeve)

If we’re discounting faceless NPCs, then I’ve also got it out for Signora for just being a straight up bitch. And also hurting Venti.

10: Favourite element?

Cryo. Got a bunch of useful reactions, a lot of cute girls have a Cryo vision, and Ice has always been an element I’ve identified with personally.

18: Least favourite mission?

Fuck that one mission that makes you go to the top of Dragonspine. Anything involving Dragonspine sucks due to sheer cold being annoying, but that one’s particularly awful for the ludicrous timer challenges involved and also you need to beat it in order to unlock the artifact domain associated with it. I am forever grateful to Mike and his level 90 Diluc carrying me through that hellscape.

35: Random headcanon?

There was the whole “Jean/Lisa/Traveller unintentional love triangle” thing I posted a while back, but I’ll add another one, why not?

I always like to imagine that Diluc originally used swords while working as a knight, but switched to claymores after resigning both to distance himself from the order he hated, and also because bigger swords are great for venting rage.

#genshin impact #genshin impact asks #diluc #diluc genshin impact #diluc ragnvindr #jean genshin impact #jean gunnhildr

[boog-shitposting-edition]

So I been playing a ton of Kenshi and watched all of the Mandalorian in a single day shortly before and it’s got me thinking about what makes what I consider a good action hero, because there was definitely a time where I thought the phrase “good action hero” was an oxymoron.

I grew up around some angry, unstable dudes who had that bad habit of watching horror movies and opining that in the same situation they would simply shoot the monster with the gun the character was holding. I got some views on the model of masculinity that sees the male ideal as functionally a tool for performing violence, condescension and occasional reddit-approved banter with all other emotional responses pared away or suppressed. This seems like a good way to manufacture a product for performing labor rather than developing a whole functional human being. So I generally veer away from that sort of thing pretty hard.

So I’m resistant to the Mandalorian at first, right? All the ads are basically star wars apocryphica and a power armored fighty gun boy. The last star wars thing I’d seen was The Rise Of Skywalker and my faith in the franchise is low. But it’s been a hot minute, the hype dies down, and my girlfriend is a better and more patient fan than I’ll ever be so we give it a go. And the first thing that really nails it for me is what a DORK the mando is. I’m delighted, his life is violence interdispersed with being an absolute buttfumble disaster. He slips and falls over things he could never have predicted, he burns his life down for a baby he finds in the desert. Pedro Pascal references Boba Fetts stiff menace and plays it off as someone who has no social skills other than stiff menace and it’s FASCINATING. Him explaining to the village woman who is obviously into him that he hasn’t taken the armor off since he was thirteen isn’t a badass declaration of martial devotion, it is the single saddest and most awkward interaction I have ever seen filmed and it hits all the harder for the fact that this is a character I’ve mostly ever seen as an action figure with a spring loaded missile backpack. Instead of being a faceless emotionless action-cudgel, Pedro amps up the body language in his acting to really sell you this heavily psychologically damaged, desperate, viking-space-catholic mess with no life skills other than violence and a devotion to his people’s creed that borders on obsession. Rather than paring himself down making him a psychological fortress, the Mando is an incredibly obvious walking raw nerve (”I’m not sad-” “Yes you are.”) So, Kenshi.

I’ve heard about this game on and off a few years and finally got it a few days ago. It’s been in early access since 2012, appears to be mostly getting finished by its modding community, and glitches like absolute woah. There’s no core storyline, just a post-apocalyptic setting with some surprisingly detailed autogenerated NPC interactions with some options for starting conditions and the sole goal of surviving. It’s essentially a rapid sequence of story prompts hidden underneath a closely interlocked system of XP grinding, survival mechanics and dismemberment algorithms, and is appallingly my shit.

My first run at the game got pretty far, went from a lone confused desert wanderer to a 13 man village running a tidy copper-mining operation to trade with the ant people. In the early game, fight mechanics are basically a death sentence; my first character immediately got her leg torn off by a goat and I had to restart. All skills grow only by excersizing them; you have to fight to get better at fighting, you have to LOSE fights to gain toughness, and when you lose a fight the consequences can range from “these bandits are stealing all your food” to “this monster is eating your leg/heart/head” to “these slavers are taking your character away and your game experience is Different now.” And while I was proud of myself for finding a way to survive, grow and thrive with a low-combat squad, once I tried the basebuilding mechanics that basically just meant my town was a source of free food and money for local bandits while my squad starved to death, unable to abandon our locale. So I got fed up and restarted.

As mentioned the game gives you different start positions; wanderer gives you 1 character, some money and pants. Guy and his dog gives you a dog, which is fun. Exiled officer starts you with good skills and the hatred of your former commander, which complicates things. Cannibal Hunters starts you already in a fistfight with 30 cannibals. It’s exciting times. But I figure this time I’d like to start my squad a LITTLE more capable of defending themselves, so I look at the Holy Sword start; you’re a bandit who starts with a stolen holy weapon, minuses in most skills, no money and a 20,000 bounty on your head from both major factions.

So I proceed to character creation and notice I can pick whatever I want for player species/subspecies with this start. There’s robot people and warriors made of stone and baseline humans and all sorts of fun options, but you remember those ant people I mentioned before? In game they’re called the Hivers, you find ‘em in 3 recruitable varieties (prince, worker drone and soldier) and they have an interesting in-universe quirk; ones that grow up in the hive are pheramone-addicted, chemically wired into the needs and wants of all of their fellows, but if you’re away from your kin for over a fortnight this addiction dries out incredibly fast and cannot be reinstated. Hivers who ever spend any time away from the hive are declared “lost ones,” and are often taken advantage of in the outside world as they long for a new community.

In survival sims I dont often play dedicated fighters, I always feel like being a brutal fight-beast isn’t really in the spirit of finding a niche to exploit and growing from a fumbling plebian to a major power. But I was already starting this game with my ONLY advantage being a nice sword. And the soldier hivers gain a buff to experience gained for melee attack and toughness, and a debuff to literally all else.

Manual labor. Science. Engineering. Farming. Cooking. First aide. In a setting that heavily prioritized your ability to survive using multiple vital skill sets, my character would start with negatives in his skills for putting on band-aids and FEEDING himself. So I gave it a go.

Getting more wild here, it turns out the Holy Sword opening also takes place in a time in the setting with more recent warfare, so a bunch of the starting villages are destroyed and it appears that more of the nearby cities are controlled by the factions that have a bounty on me. So my character CAN’T rely on other people or meet anyone to recruit at first. He can run, he can scrounge and scavenge, and as mentioned above starting characters can take lethal damage from GOATS so he can’t even hunt for food; the only way I was getting a meal was if I robbed someone or ran into merchants on the road I could hawk my salvage to for a scrap of bread.

He eventually finds someone willing to join him on his travels in spite of being flat broke, a shek named Ruka running from a dishonerable loss on the battlefield, and comparing their skills he’s so useless for everything besides combat that I assign him to bodyguard her. And again, this game’s appeal is that the survival mechanics make good story prompts, so imagine that in character.

“Fine, I need a change. I’ll join you.” “Thank god. Lead the way boss.” “What?”

Things regarding my characters bounty are starting to heat up in town, so we head north into hiver territory. We get attacked by bandits and heavily injured, my soldier gets knocked out, so Ruka picks him up and carries him until we find a hive town. I saw these guys all the time in my last playthrough, I survived by selling to them, they’re super friendly, should be fine. Ruka walks into the local shop and before I can have her ask for directions and a medikit the shopkeeper is already shouting- “SKREEE! LOST ONE! GET OUT! LOST ONES BRING MADNESS”

Apparently, my protagonist being a hiveless hiver means there’s a THIRD faction that’s hostile to him; his own goddamn people. Ruka has to leave him under a tree not just outside but like 50 feet from the edge of town, and just has  to hope none of the local wild megafauna eats him while she rushes back in to buy things from the now abruptly friendlier shopkeep.

I’m finally sitting there, having Ruka watch my soldier hiver sleep while she cooks scavanged meat and waits for him to finish healing, that I realize what the story being generated here is and it’s a good one; a Hive soldier whose only skills are violence, frantically scavenging and stealing to survive until he can find the one circumstance where he’s comfortable, sacrificing himself to protect others. He steals a sword that’s obviously important to two major governments, just because he knows it’s powerful and thinks that power will justify his continued existence as a hiveless soldier drone, essentially buying his way back into his people’s good graces by performing his function. Literally wandering the world until he found a single person who was willing to boss him around again and devoting himself to their defense to a state of pathological damage just to feel like he has a hive again. It’s sad. It’s badass. It’s deeply, unsettlingly pathetic.

But I also think it’s what makes a really really good gruff action hero!

Hypercompetence in violence is really interesting when you acknowledge the damage it can do to your humanity in the storytelling! The Mandalorian is unsuccessful in repressing his empathy response so he just tries to tough through the pain it causes him as best he can, until he meets The Child and it snaps. The Hiver is essentially playing pretend at being still valued as a product for committing violence, even in the face of being openly rejected for his previously esteemed role. This stuff is INTERESTING.

TL;DR version, a lot of these “supersoldier raised by the military/fight wizards/karate” characters are super boring and obnoxious when they’re put forward as power fantasies, and really interesting when you realize that being raised by Fight Wizards is why they’ve never had a girlfriend and called their handgun “mom” once.

#kenshi #star wars #mandalorian

[vallonde-laid-bare]

Hey, still working on that campaign module, and I’m still putting work into fleshing out the villains before I build anything else. I feel like the most important ingredient to making a lasting impression with combat is to give the players a reason to care about that combat. You can have your players kill a bunch of faceless bandits and then have a showdown with their leader, but where’s the fun in that?

This is an example of the relationships between the lieutenants and their enforcers and allows us to see the many degrees of separation between the players and the villains at the beginning of the game.  In just the two NPCs we have Khor’s warband and the individual warriors that make up the barbarian horde. Above that is the barbarian lord himself, Khor, an overwhelming opponent in his own right. Above Khor is the shamed fire giant captain Hrugor, favored of the warlord Gorrum, and above them finally is Gogrum. This is just one of three lieutenants and just one of nine enforcers. Imagine the possibilities!

As always, questions and comments are welcome. I’d love to hear your thoughts.

#Dungeons and Dragons #5th edition #Vallonde #homebrew #campaign module #Fiend of the Fire Crags #Homebrew Monster

[zandoct]

Why Mass Effect Andromeda is Great

So I finished MEA the other day, and I loved it to pieces. Easily top 5 games of all time, and only ten good games have ever been made. So imagine my surprise when I, the Discourse Liker, logged on and discovered that this beautiful work of art hadn’t been received very well. Who let the critics get away with that? Anyway, I’m going to explain why I love the game and why it’s really good and even some things it did better than the original trilogy.

Spoilers for the new alien species ahead

The Magnificent Ten

One of the great strengths of MEA compared to its predecessors in the franchise is the small cast of intimately written characters that form the Tempest crew. The Tempest is approximately one half the size of Normandy SR-2 and smaller than the SR-1, which means that there aren’t any faceless, nameless crewmembers. Instead, you have what I call the Magnificent Ten, because I’m bad at naming things.

To me, keeping the crew small and tightly knit is a fantastic improvement over previous games. This gives more space for the interrelationships (i.e. the way characters interact with characters other than the player) and helps you feel like you have greater agency over the Tempest, as a home. Which is one of the major themes of the game. Come on now. For instance, Lexi’s character is explored by her interaction with Drack as much as it is with Ryder, or Kallo with Suvi.

Compare that to ME2, which had a brilliant but very large cast that hardly ever interacted with each other. As discussed in this video, the only way a player can have agency in RPGs is if the NPCs have agency, and a great way to achieve that is to explore their relationships outside of the player. Using the banter system from Bioware’s other major modern title Dragon Age is one great way of making a team a family. WHICH IS THE OTHER MAJOR THEME OF THE GAME.

A rigorous analysis of the characterisation of the Tempest crew would take an entire other essay, but I’ll just comment that I found the interplay of themes shared between the crew – especially their loyalty missions – to be one of the best expressions of theme, tone and allegory in any game I’ve played.

For instance, Cora’s arc is (partially) about how you deal with being rejected, and Peebee’s arc is about how you deal with rejecting others. Liam represents your own mistakes and Jaal represents the mistakes of others. Vetra represents letting go of a role and Drack represents stepping forward into a role. Obviously this is just my interpretation but the very fact the narrative can be interpreted in so many fascinating ways is testament to its… beauty.

The supporting cast outside of the Tempest family are also a diverse, fascinating bunch. The Angara are represented on Aya by Commander Evfra, Moshae Sjefa and Governor Paaran. They have an interesting chemistry and each represents an individual, subtle example of Angaran culture. This makes the introduction to Aya a little overwhelming, filled as it is with so many important characters and unknown conflicts. But it’s a great way to be immersed in your Ryder, who’s probably also blown away by one of the game’s major discoveries.

A significant problem some critics have with the game is that only two sapient species were introduced in this new galaxy. While it would have been cool to see one or two more, the intense focus on two cultures is more reflective of the how the game interrogates having a smaller crew.

Plot Course, Setting Course (or; The Process of Renewal)

Another key criticism of MEA is that it is very iterative of the original series: keep in mind though that the original series is also iterative in its own way, drawing inspiration from a number of sci-fi/fantasy sources (KOTOR I’m side-eyeing you big time)

I think it can be refreshing to examine the themes of the original series with a new perspective granted by the different events and characters of MEA. Fundamentally, stories are only compelling because of what it tells us about humanity. Yes, the ancient Prothean tech is reminiscent of the Remnant. But they have different goals, different culture and most importantly, their two commentators – Liara and Peebee, respectively – are affected by them in different ways. As William Faulkner said:

“The only thing worth writing about is the human heart in conflict with itself.” What I mean by this is that the similarities between the Protheans and the Remnant are less important than the different effect they have on the player and our companions.

The same goes for the Reapers and Kett and their twisted idea of uplifting other species. The Kett’s semblance of Ur-fascism is part of what makes them thematically distinct from the Reapers, rather than their superficial aims. Throughout the series, the Reaper’s philosophy was vague and mainly gathered from piecemeal exposition of the supporting cast, especially Legion and Saren rather than the Reapers themselves. The Kett are also enigmatic for most of the game, but what you learn about them is more concrete than their all-powerful Milky Way counterparts.

A fantastic scene, demonstrating that there's a niche for moments with no dialogue in Bioware games.

Discussing ‘the Kett as fascists’ is worthy of its own article so I will only briefly explore it here. In 1995, Umberto Eco provided a great analysis of fascism, both past and future. He states that fascist ideologies can be extrinsically and intrinsically contradictory while also being equally valid under the umbrella of fascism, something he calls Syncretism. For instance, Nazism and Mussolini’s fascism disagree in their treatment of religion, but both are quite clearly forms of fascism. He goes on to describe the theoretical qualities of ‘ur-fascism’, a hypothetical social order that could potential arise from any of the aforementioned qualities. I propose that the Kett are best analysed from the perspective of these qualities:

1. Cult of Tradition. The Kett oppose developing their philosophy. For instance, The Archon is harshly scrutinised by the Primus for trying to develop a new strategy for exalting the Angara. “We will take Heleus the way we always have.” To Archie’s credit, he’s hardly a true progressive, just an example of syncretism in action, and he’s also more of a practical leader than an ideological one.

2. Fear of difference (or diversity). The Kett only wish to integrate the aspects of species they deem appropriate, in a carefully predetermined way. They do not allow actual species into their hierarchy and they do not tolerate unexpected diversity. Eco refers to this as “an appeal against the intruders” but this can equally apply as “an appeal against the conquered” – that strategy is just as common in human history as the former.

3. Irrationalism (or, action for action’s sake). The Archon is not compelled to justify his actions to the player, and instead simply acts. To criticise himself would be to generate difference, or imply that his ideals may be unworthy, and that is unacceptable.

It is difficult to consider the Reapers so politically, as their motivations are left more ambiguous. For instance, one cannot draw a comparison between the Reapers and the Citadel Council as easily as one can between the Kett and the Andromeda Initiative, who both arrived from beyond Heleus. The differences between the Kett and the Reapers, then, are subtle but still significant.

Me looking at the discourse surrounding Andromeda

It’s also worth keeping in mind the struggle Bioware faced in producing a game that incorporated the themes of the original series (discovering ancient things to lead into the future, the interaction between technology and humanity) while also doing something new. In fact, MEA very clearly is trying to revisit the concepts of the first game in a new and improved light, and I think from that perspective MEA excels.

But there is plenty new here, don’t forget that! They were damned if they didn’t incorporate enough of the original series and if they didn’t innovate enough, and I think this lies at the root of its lukewarm reception. That and the complaints about cinematics. WHICH ARE BASICALLY ON PAR WITH THE ORIGINAL SERIES SO SHUT YOUR MOUTHS

S.A.M., INTERFACE

Paragon and Renegade, eat your heart out

As you can probably tell, this essay has focused much more on narrative and metaphor than on gameplay, purely because I find gameplay the least compelling part of all games. However, most would agree that the combat of MEA is the most fun of the franchise and the difficulty is very well gauged. I also think the dialogue interface (no pun intended, hahahaha get rid) is a real improvement. The demise of Paragon/Renegade system is finally here, and the game is better for its loss. Every decision must be judged on its own merits and the tone of dialogue options is much easier to predict by having four consistent possibilities.

The psych profiles Lexi compiles are also a much cooler way for the game to express how your Ryder is developing than a coloured bar. It’s a shame that ‘persuade’ abilities are lost: a system similar to Dragon Age Inquisition, where perks in history, politics, academics etc can increase your character’s expertise and hence persuasiveness would have been nice. But MEA doesn’t give you an easy way out, and sometimes you have to make a decision knowing it’s the wrong one. That’s very cool.

Also, right lads, no listen right, they actually FIXED side quests in MEA. Don’t you dare look me in the eye and say the side quests were anything but trash in ME, ME2 and ME3. Don’t you dare. Other than the fetch quests, ME3 wasn’t too bad, but MEA gets them really right. I would have liked a bit more cinematic dialogue in some of them, but it’s SO much better than Shepard and co silently jogging around a heartless rock jungle, pressing buttons. Also, who are these folk who love ME2 but attack Dragon Age Inquisition? What the hell is going on?

We Made It (to a conclusion)

One of the key differences between the original series and MEA is the scale. MEA is about a small supercluster of the galaxy (a piece of a corner of the universe, as Suvi calls it) and the few factions that are influential there. In ME1-ME3, life as we know it is at risk on a galactic scale. There are hundreds of different factions and a broader cast. Which you prefer is a matter of personal taste, but the intensity and detail of MEA’s story is a refreshing change for the franchise. I’ve often felt the vast, vast lore of the original series is done a disservice by the main plot, which renders all of it largely futile because all that matters is defeating the Reapers. Both games are about survival, but Andromeda’s smaller stakes allow for a variety of factors – political, environmental, military, philosophical etc – to influence that survival. In the original series, the only thing that influences survival is resolving the reaper threat. The original series is about heroes of legend rising to the challenge of saving the galaxy from an ancient conflict. On the other hand, Andromeda is about an inexperienced, relatively ordinary group of people who are prematurely forced into difficult situations and have to make a home out of them. I know which one I’d rather believe in.* Let me know what you think, send an ask or reply or w/ever

*Just kidding I love every Mass Effect game. Righto, cheers

See ya

#mass effect andromeda #Mass Effect #review #mass effect andromeda spoilers #mea spoilers #mea defence #mass effect andromeda defence #mass effect andromeda positive #angara #kett #fascism #bioware #umberto eco #remnant #peebee #liara t'soni #kallo jath #suvi anwar #the reapers #andromeda initiative #narrative #analysis #me #serious

[theultravioletcatastrophe]

Every whole number x when f(x)=sin(x^0.75), such that f(x) is decreasing

…okay, I put that equation into Wolfram Alpha, but the graphs it shows you by default are extraordinarily hard to read, and you can’t get any further detail without signing up for a Pro (i.e. paid) account, soooooo…. I’m just gonna answer all of them! Hope that’s okay! ^^;;;

1. First console you’ve ever owned?‘Twas the original NES. I was so happy when my parents bought it (although tbh my dad bought it as much for himself as for me). I spent so many hours playing the SMB games… ahh, good times.

3. Favorite childhood game?Hmmm, probably Super Mario Bros. 3. That was the one I spent the longest playing, anyway. My mom even went to the trouble to borrow the strategy guide from the library, photocopy the whole thing, and bind it together into a book for me. My mom was the best. ;_;

4. Longest consecutive hours you’ve played a game?Whew, uhhh, not as long as some people, I’m sure. I don’t think I’ve ever spent more than 8 hours straight playing games. I’m certainly no match for the likes of Neptune and Vert, that’s for sure. ^^;;;

5. Game with the best soundtrack?I actually really really like the soundtrack from the first Hyperdimension Neptunia game. A lot of those songs just get stuck in my head, y'know? Especially Nepgear’s theme. :3

6. An underrated game from within the last few years?Hmm, gonna go with Akiba’s Trip: Undead & Undressed. It apparently only got a 64/100 on Metacritic, which is WAY too low for how fun this game is.

7. Most disappointing game you’ve played?Honestly? Most of the Jak and Daxter series. I really really wanted to like those games, but I just… couldn’t. There was just something about them that really turned me off. I enjoy other, similar games, so I don’t know what it was. I got all of them for super cheap (like probably $5 each) so it’s not like I spent a bunch of money on them, but I still felt ripped off, y'know?

8. The game with the best atmosphere/scenery?The Metroid Prime games, for me, had some of the best settings. Nicely-rendered and completely appropriate for the feel of the game. If you’ve never played any of the MP games, please do so. If you can play the Wii controls versions, so much the better (it’s playable with the Gamecube controller but once you use the Wiimote to aim Samus’s gun you’ll never go back).

10. Prefer PC or console?Based solely on the number of games amassed, PC wins out, but I honestly don’t prefer one over the other.

11. Have you written any fanfic or made any fanart?…not of video games, no.

12. Most bizarre game you��ve ever played?It’s pretty tame, but probablyyyyyy…. Goat Simulator. Like, what the fuck even is this game.

13. Scariest game you’ve played?Well, I haven’t actually played it yet, but the scariest game I currently own is probably Spooky’s Jump Scare Mansion.

14. Do you watch playthroughs online?Not really, no.

15. Favorite animal in a video game?This is kind of an odd question… I’m gonna have to go with Gex the gecko, particularly from the second game. I loved that game so much.

16. The best year in gaming you’ve experienced?Literally every year seems better than the last, so I can’t really answer this question. This year has been pretty amazing so far, but then, I’ve said that about every other year past, so… ^^;;;

17. Have a video game themed background or lockscreen?LOL of course I do! My desktop wallpaper is Neptune and Nepgear, and my phone’s lock screen and home screen are both pics of Purple Heart.

18. Worst game you’ve played?Ooh, interesting question. I don’t really know if I can answer this properly? One of the games that stands out to me is called Sparkle 2 Evo. The graphics were nice but the controls were awful and it was nearly unplayable. The devs might have patched it since, but I kinda lost interest in it so I don’t really care at this point.

19. Hardest game you’ve ever played?The hardest game I’ve seriously played is probably VVVVVV. Fuck that game. >:(

20. Favorite publisher and/or developer?If I don’t say Idea Factory (and/or Compile Heart) I’ll feel like I’m betraying my beloved Neptune, so I’ll go with them.

21. If you had to play one game for the rest of your life, what would it be?I don’t know if this really counts as a video game, but I’m gonna have to say Mamono Sweeper.

22. If you could turn one game into movie, which would it be?The first game that sprang to mind was Metroid Prime 2: Echoes. It was such a cool game, I’d love to see a cinematic version of it (also can you IMAGINE Samus on the big screen? EEEEEEEEEEEEEE).

24. Ever cried because of a video game? Which one(s)?Oh, probably! I know SMB3 made me cry when I was little because there was one level I just couldn’t beat no matter how many times I tried it. I forget which level it was now, lol.

25. Proudest accomplishment in gaming?Hmmm, probably the time I finally actually beat Indalecio in Star Ocean 2, when you do the event where his power limiter is removed and he basically becomes a god. Fuck me sideways, that was an insane fight.

26. How often do you play online? Co-op?Almost never! The last game I played co-op was MegaTagmension Blanc + Neptune Vs. Zombies (I played with @aboutthreeneps), but I really don’t do online gaming much.

27. Have you gotten any friends into gaming?Maybe? Most people I’m friends with are either already into gaming, or else they’re not interested, so…. probably not.

28. Who got YOU into gaming?Hmm, I guess it was my dad. I watched him play a bunch of games when I was a small child and was like “THAT LOOKS SO COOL I WANNA DO IT TOO”.

29. Watch cutscenes or skip them?I usually watch them, unless it’s one I’ve seen a bunch of times (or one you can’t skip… damn unskippable cutscenes).

30. On average, how long does it take you in the character creation screen?…quite a while. It depends on the game, I guess. When I made a new character in Stardew Valley today, I spent between 5-10 minutes, but when I was creating a character in Saints Row IV, I probably spent close to an hour tweaking every little variable to get it just right.

32. Do you cosplay?Not really, although I did cosplay as Squall from Final Fantasy 8 one time. I still have the gunblade sitting around somewhere.

33. Favorite female npc?34. Favorite male npc?These two questions are really hard for me to answer! Mostly because I find games fall into either one of two categories: ones where the NPCs are faceless and forgettable, and ones where the NPCs are extremely well-done and I love all of them.

35. Best protagonist?Neptune, duh.

36. Best antagonist?I like GLaDOS from Portal.

37. Ever been made fun of for playing video games?Hmm, I don’t think so.

38. Have you tried a game, hated it, then tried again, and loved it?Again, I don’t think so? There’s been plenty of games where I’ve been like “meh” at first and then “OMG THIS GAME IS AWESOME” later, but I don’t think there’s any I really hated that I went back and liked later.

39. Do you play for achievements/trophies?Not explicitly, or at least, not at first. I tend to play through the story of a game first, and then on my second playthrough I’ll try to get most of the achievements.

40. Favorite voice actor?A new favourite, but a favourite nonetheless: Megan Hollingshead.

41. Gone to a midnight release before?Nope! Any of the games I’ve been excited for either never had this sort of event, or else they did but I just got on the bandwagon too late. I’m incredibly behind the times when it comes to keeping up with this sort of thing. T_T

42. A game you will never forget (in a bad OR good way)?Star Ocean 2. That game will stay with me forever. In a good way. :3

43. Favorite sidekick or companion?Ooh, good one! I really liked Eryn from Fairy Fencer F. She’s such a sweetie, and Fang treats her like garbage for most of the game, so I think I was especially drawn to her because he wasn’t.

44. Do graphics matter?They have to be done well, and the style has to fit with the overall style of the game. Other than that, I don’t care. A game isn’t instantly better by having more realistic graphics or whatever, I don’t care.

45. Do you like funny or more serious games?I tend to like more funny games, overall.

46. Always, sometimes, or never use subtitles?Sometimes. It really depends on the game.

47. First person or Third person?Both??? How is this even a question lmao

48. A game you’ve always wanted to play but have never gotten to it?Bastion. I watched a friend play some of it and it looked super cool, and I own it, I’ve just never played it for some reason.

49. A game you haven’t played in forever, but want to replay?Hmm, I kind of want to play Cave Story again. I love that game

50. How many games to do you own?I currently have 186 games in my Steam inventory, and counting the various consoles I own it’s probably at least 250.

51. First character you’ve had a crush on?I can’t really think of any right now! I did kind of have a crush on Princess Toadstool in Super Mario RPG, I guess that’s the earliest character I can remember.

52. A game you will always stand behind, and support no matter what?All of the Hyperdimension Neptunia games. I own all 4 of the main series games (Re;Birth 1-3 and VII) and 4 of the spinoff games (Nep U, Hyperdevotion Noire, MegaTagmension, and PP), and I’ve bought more Neptunia merchandise than I have for any other game series.

53. Your most immersive game?Most of the Pokemon games, for me, have been pretty immersive. Like, I take it upon myself to learn everything about them, I keep written notes on lots of stuff, I actively plan out my strategies in advance, etc.

54. A sequel you really want?Hmm, can’t think of too many. Most of my favourite games are series anyway, so they already have sequels. :P

55. How much time, on average, do you play in a week?Hard to say, some weeks I barely play at all, some weeks that’s all I do. I’d say on average, like taking the arithmetic mean, it’d be around an hour a day.

56. Do you tell people irl that you play video games?Oh, for sure. There’s not really a stigma around it anymore since everyone plays video games these days (the whole notion of “gamers are over” and all that).

57. What is an overrated game you’ve played?Basically every MMO I’ve ever played. I just don’t get the appeal.

58. Ever have someone walk in on a sex scene between you and you LI?I’m going to assume that “LI” stands for “love interest,” like as in the love interest of the main character of a game, otherwise this question makes no sense (even as is it doesn’t make much sense). No, this has never happened. I can’t recall any games I’ve ever played that have had explicit sex scenes. Other than, like… HuniePop or something, but even that’s not really explicit, it’s mostly just moaning. (Unless they released some super-X-rated update or something, I haven’t touched that game in a loooooooong time.)

59. A game you are looking forward to this year?

FOURGODDESSESONLINE

61. A game you know everything about?Star Ocean: The Second Story. I know that game like the back of my hand. I could probably play it blindfolded.

62. Would you want to work with video games when you are older?I want to work with video games now! I *AM* older, dammit! (Especially after watching all of New Game!, I really wanna work for a development studio. I don’t even care doing what, I just wanna be in the industry!)

63. What’s a game that has inspired you?Hmm, I can’t really think of any games that have “inspired” me. Like, in what way? I don’t know.

64. Describe your favorite video game using only three words?Neptune = best girl. (I don’t know if an equals sign counts as a word, if so you can take it out and my point still stands.)

65. Any favorite screenshots of games?I’ve posted a few on my tumblr, mostly from Nep games.

66. Game with the yummiest looking food?Uhhhh…. hmmm. I mean, Portal had that delicious-looking cake. Stardew Valley has some decent food too.

67. Most violent game you’ve played?Honestly, probably One Finger Death Punch. Being that the entire point of the game is slaughtering hundreds of enemies with either your fists or whatever weapons you happen to find lying around. I mean, it’s all stickmen, but still.

68. An older game that you’ve just recently gotten into?I honestly can’t think of any! The oldest game I’ve gotten into *recently* is the aforementioned Akiba’s Trip: Undead & Undressed, but that came out in 2014, so I don’t know if it’s old enough for the purposes of this response.

69. Your first LI?…not quite sure what this means. Love interest? Like, first character from a game I fell in love with? First game I played where the main character had a love interest? I honestly don’t know how to answer this one.

70. Do you play any mobile games?A few. Not counting portable consoles (i.e. the 3DS or PS Vita), I have a handful of games on my phone (Sailor Moon Drops, Monument Valley, Mushihimesama, I even have Carmageddon on my phone (yes, they released an iOS port of that game somehow)).

71. A game you can’t stop talking/thinking about at the moment?Well I did just pick up Stardew Valley again, so I’m probably gonna be thinking about that for a while. Same with that Neptunia idol game, I just started playing that and it’s super fun.

72. Have any guilty pleasure games?Of course not, why do you ask?

73. A game with the best fandom?Overall, my experience has been that Neptunia fans are all pretty awesome. :D

74. Which game has the best lore?I actually love the lore from the Metroid series. The whole history with Samus and the Chozo is so interesting to me.

75. Do you focus on main storyline/quest or do sidequests first?I do both! I’ll play the main storyline until either (1) I need to grind more because the enemies/bosses are getting stronger, (2) I need to get better equipment and need either materials for crafting, or money for buying stuff, or (3) the main story is in a lull and I get an interesting side quest. Usually once I go off on a sidequest tangent, I don’t come back for a good long while (to the point where I’ll stop playing the game for a while and then when I come back to it I’m like “ok wtf was I supposed to be doing? I don’t remember, maybe I’ll just start over again lol”).

These were fun questions, thanks for asking! ^_^

#ask #euthymiclurker #video games #ask me a thing! #also sorry rachel someone inadvertently beat you to the punch #partly due to my inability to do complicated math anymore lol

[tumblunni]

Ok just... just... GIVE ME A SECOND to talk about the spoilery monster rancher stuffs, okay? Why THAT ENDING hurt so much but also fit so well with the rest of it, and why the third season kinda sucked so much despite being the continuation we all desperately craved. And why its still gonna have a place in everyone’s hearts, even the haters, JUST because it gave a conclusion to THAT FUCKING ENDING! I dont care if people say it would be more deep or whatever to leave on the downer cliffhanger, I still think it SHOULD have had a third season, just that it should have been better. Or I mean... maybe it would have worked better as a movie or a short ten episode season or something. Just there should have been SOME sequel to that ending, but a very very lighthearted season about a goofy tournement kinda wasnt what it should have been.

OKAY THE ENDING THE SEASON 2 ENDING the giant and damn awesome subversion of everything about the genre, which fit so well with everything else the show ever did, GAHHH Like.. there were SO MANY subversions and just interesting detailed twists on common ‘mon show’ tropes. One of the earliest episodes begins with an asshole trainer treating his Worm monster the same way a lot of people honestly might do while min-maxing in one of these videogames. He’s disgustingly abusive and feels like he’s justified because he’s making his monster stronger, and that’s all that it’s good for. And the show establishes its tearjerker tone early on by having this guy only repent after his horribly abused monster sacrifices itself to save him from the baddies, even after how badly he’d treated it. And he’s begging apologies to its dead disc stone, while it’s too late to do anything about it. But the show STILL gives him a chance at redemption, because our heroes trust him to raise a new newborn Worm, and to do it right. That’s just... what the show is. It went really REALLY dark, but it did this with this kind of determined optimism! And even the funnier episodes could have high stakes, and there was always the reminder that we were living in this dystopia and just trying to keep our smiles during it, because otherwise how can we change it?

And thats why season 3 fumbled by like.. not introducing its stakes early enough. Or.. at all. it was good that they finally introduced some good comic relief villains and generally villains with more motivations and backstory, but it combined badly with the no-intial-high-stakes thing to give a season that just felt way too happy. In a show that certainly had happiness in it before, but I mean it never felt hollow?? It kinda felt disrespectful to follow up a super depressing cliffhanger with such a badly explained and rushed flip back to the status quo, and then such a sparse plot with so few incentives to keep watching. Its only initial good point was that it resolved the cliffhanger AT ALL, but it could have done it WELL, and also established a new reason to wanna watch the show now the one big huge main plot has been resolved. Following up after the bad guy is defeated is always a hard thing, you cant just put no effort into it... Tho I feel bad even saying that, cos seriously season 3′s villains were the best part. They just might have fit better in season 1, or just if the plot kept up the slack surrounding them...

BUT YEAH JUST THE SUBVERSIONS!! I could fuckin ramble forever about how great they were! Seriously it was just THE BEST ‘ending’ to a ‘stuck in another world’ story, ever! Having the main kid finally get back home, but at the ABSOLUTE WORST MOMENT, after all his friends have sacrificed themself to save that world and he’s the only one left alive. And he doesnt even get enough time to process the shock, he barely even sees the rescued world before he just wakes up home as if nothing happened. And he’s stuck feeling like he can’t adjust to being part of this world anymore, and he’s mourning people he can’t even talk to anyone about. Imagine how worried his parents must have been when he became depressed seemingly overnight and refuses to tell them why! And then it just ends on him crying in the rain and the ghosts of his friends trying to motivate him to get back up and find a reason to live again. That was ONE HELL of a cliffhanger, yo! So yeah OF COURSE people were cheering for a new season, but also OF COURSE that new season would fail if it insufficiently followed up on the emotional impact of the cliffhanger and then had a bazillion episodes of barely anything emotional ever happening again, when the first series had you crying your eyes out as early as episode 4...

oh and like DEAR GOD all the OTHER really good subversiony episode plots aaaaa like even down to little stuff like how genki actually fights alongside his monster pals. And he’s a total badass who does succeed in doing more than most humans could do, but still he’s just a human going against monsters. he knows what he’s doing is rash, but he does it anyway because he cares about his monsters and couldnt just let them die without throwing himself in front of the bullet. And every battle in this show is life or death rebellion against an oppressive regime like that! Random low risk tournement episodes used to be.. like.. FILLER in this series. It was a terrible idea for the entire third season’s plot... And I also loved how the team actually did help people along the way as they journeyed to defeat the baddies, and it wasn’t JUST fighting. They had a whole tearful episode about everyone struggling to hold back a dam that the baddies had sabotaged to wipe a village off the map, and it was INFINATELY MORE INTENSE than half of the things Pokemon has ever done, lol! (not that I dislike pokemon, just the anime in particular is a bit naff) God, how they were all strangers to this village and how they actually had bickering between the team members on whether they should really do this, and all the different ways they tried to save the dam and how they made it way too clear that they were gonna die from friggin holding this thing back with their bare hands. And how they organized the whole town to work themselves to the bone trying to divert the dam, and how a bunch of their attempts failed and they came so close to not having enough time! You had me weeping for the potential deaths of a hundred nameless faceless npcs just from putting me in the shoes of our heroes reacting to it! You made a little kid understand the complexity of civilian casualties in war! And OH MAN, Golem’s backstory! How he was a former war soldier who just shattered mentally after being forced to kill so many other monsters. And he was so gentle at heart, and he sat there guarding this church full of disc stones for god knows how many decades, blaming himself for what happened. Like.. it showed that even when you’re fighting villains, killing still breaks you. Dear GOD, his face when he came back down from his friggin ptsd flashback anger episode saving the heroes from the baddies, and he saw all the dead baddies, and just... you could not talk to that man and tell him that killing was justified just because they were BADDIES. Even if its in self defense, he still has to look at his hands that just murdered people. I’m so damn glad the heroes managed to befriend him and take him away from that place, cos that moment came so close to sending him back to his guilt spiral! If anything, I think that the dub calling them ‘baddies’ actually made all these moments way more effective. The childish terminology makes you think this is gonna be a paint by numbers story, so it hurts more when its anything but! Even in a world with a concept like ‘the bad guy magically turns people into his bad minions’, they still managed to deal with complex grey morality, and that’s one hell of a crowning achievement!

...plus it allowed for a happy ending after all. God, i cried for all those poor minor mooks getting brought back to normal in the end. Honestly, even though it hurt, I would have accepted it ending on all of the hero monsters being dead forever for the sake of bringing back all the dead civilians and brainwashed baddies. Sacrificing yourselves to save so many others! God, this show’s characters are too goddamn pure. AND COMPLEX TOO! man I loved how grumpy and selfish half of the hero cast is, yet they’re still heroes despite it, and god just HOW THEY ALL DIED TOGETHER AND OUR PROTAGONIST IS THE ONLY ONE FORCED TO KEEP ON LIVING that was such a fucking cliffhanger thank you terrible season 3 for fixing it man i can forgive anything you do because you did that baby mocchi lived and ate some mochi cakes and tiger and hare lived to bicker with each other once more and golem could find some peace knowing all the people he saved, even if he might never be free of the guilt of those he failed to save and suezo and holly didnt have to be apart again, he didnt have to end his life finally proving his ‘usefulness’ at the cost of everything else (SERIOUSLY SUEZO LOW SELF CONFIDENCE EPISODES KILL MY HEART) and genki didnt have to have his childhood completely destroyed by his ‘magical adventure’ plot ending on so much of a trope subversion even if still it was good that it happened it was a really fuckin good plot all that suffering just made the happy ending that much happier! GOD I miss this show very much...

#im sorry #today is a monster rancher day #monster rancher spoilers

[stewy497]

Stew Reviews - Dust: An Elysian Tail

What’s this, two reviews within a week of each other? What absolute madness is this? Could it be that Stew finally grew a sense of discipline and decided to start posting consistently? To that I say, dream on Mister Strawman. I had been planning this review for some time, and the Switch release of Dust: An Elysian Tail last month presented an excellent opportunity to finally tackle it, but at the same time I’d already planned out the introduction to my inFamous: Second Son review, and I didn’t want to miss the window of relevance as badly as I usually do. So, I took the logical option and decided to push myself, just this once. But enough about my scheduling habits, we’re here to talk about games, so let’s do that.

SPOILERS AHEAD. PROCEED WITH CAUTION.

As with so many other similar independent projects, Dust: An Elysian Tail is a 2D Metroidvania hack-and-slash platformer, developed by Humble Hearts game studio – that is to say, one dude named Dean apparently trying to look more popular than he really is. As much as I tease him for that however, I can’t help but admire the guy’s dedication to the project – the core gameplay is solidly constructed, the visuals in particular I imagine to have taken a lot of work, and the story manages to apply itself to some surprisingly mature and complex themes despite the slightly childish presentation.

Dust takes place in a world populated with anthropomorphised animals and is set against the backdrop of a war-torn land consisting, against all odds, of mostly lush, green forests and meadows. You play as the enigmatic Dust, a faceless teal-furred canine with an oversized hat and a mysterious backstory. Without any memories of his past, he embarks on a quest to rediscover his true identity at the behest of Arah, a magical talking sword, and a small orange bat/rabbit thing named Fidget. Yes, the plot starts out somewhere between Disney Classics and My First Fursona – a comparison that only worsens with the introduction of soul merging and induces flashbacks to the Final Fantasy VII House - but over the course of the game it acquires more depth and deviates towards more interesting themes.

The aforementioned war is more of a looming threat than something actually present in the foreground for most of the game, but as the plot unfolds it’s threaded through a series of encounters which showcase just how far-reaching the conflict is, as guilty and innocent alike are affected by it. The point where I decided I was fully on-board with it was during the second act, where despite their best attempts to avert catastrophe, Dust and Fidget are unable to save the life of a dying villager – something that Dust doesn’t take particularly well. The sequence works because it’s a subversion of the usual narrative, and Dust’s grief and frustration with himself  reveals a more introspective element not often seen in this sort of story. The contrast with the cartoonish visuals only serves to make it more effective, and it’s only slightly undermined by the voice acting.

I wouldn’t say that it’s awful by any means, but there’s a certain amateurish, almost caricature-like quality to many of the voices in Dust. The titular character himself is by far the worst offender, as he seems to confuse dramatic, tortured delivery with standing too close to the microphone. Every time he delivers a “wh” sound it comes out like he’s just finished running a half-marathon and listening to it makes me want to tear my own ears out. And considering how many whats, whys and hows the average clueless amnesiac character throws around, that’s a lot of tearing.

On the gameplay side of things, there’s not much to say that I haven’t already said. You jump around on collections of floating rocks a whole bunch, sometimes there’s a group of enemies between you and where you want to be, so you start mashing buttons until the path is clear again. In all honesty, while the combat is perfectly functional and somewhat entertaining, I feel like there could have been more to it – for a magic sword, the list of available combos is rather disappointingly short; light combo, ground throw, air launch, air throw, plunging attack. You’ll have seen every one of them by the time you reach the fourth screen.

Transitioning between moves feels sticky at times too, since many of them have long animation cycles that can’t be cancelled out of, which tends to leave you vulnerable or waste crucial seconds that results in a particularly long streak of hits ending prematurely. Then again, it does mean that the combat demands some degree of skill, as button mashing is more likely to leave you vulnerable than a carefully executed string of movements, which is part of what keeps it entertaining. Annoyingly Dust has inherited that quality of Symphony of the Night wherein the protagonist is thrown back by any incoming damage, which is particularly annoying during the time trial levels. It also makes Reed’s quest almost impossible if you don’t prepare for it, since the required revival stone is expensive and grinding up cash simply isn’t feasible while Dust is constantly taking damage.

The platforming is fairly bog-standard as metroidvania goes, but while in other examples of the genre exploration is demanded to make progress, it feels far less necessary in Dust as the progression is fairly linear. The movement abilities typical of the genre like the double jump or wall climb are simply given to you as you need them. The only purpose exploration serves in Dust is to hunt for treasures and secrets, making it less “exploration” and more “arbitrary backtracking for the sake of 100% completion”.

A treasure chest might give you some decent gear, but enemies also drop crafting blueprints regularly and the shop system makes it trivially easy to acquire the necessary components; any time you sell a material to the shop, it is catalogued and periodically restocked with no input required on your part. You don’t even need to visit a shop to buy materials, since an early quest allows you to craft items without visiting the blacksmith and grants you access to a portable shop to boot. Granted, grinding for the rarer materials would have been annoying, but this makes it zero effort to complete the item-gathering quests.

And as long as I’m complaining, there’s also a secret room in the snowy mountain stage which is literally impossible to find without a walkthrough; you have to find a cliff face in the middle of the level with an hourglass carved into it, and deduce that if you kneel in front of it for ten seconds, a tornado will appear from offscreen and teleport you to the secret room. Yeah, it’s poking fun at Castlevania 2’s obscure puzzle solutions, but acknowledging that what you’re doing is stupid does not equal biting satire, Dean.

Lastly, the final level isn’t great. The lion’s share of it is spent cutting a path through the big bad’s soldiers to confront him, most of which can block your attacks even when lying prone and concussed by a sliding tackle to the ankles. It completely obliterates any sense of flow in the combat, and, contrary to the rest of the game, makes button mashing a valid option. The final boss probably would have been about perfect if he wasn’t supported by these hangnails.

 Additionally, since this is the final confrontation in a long and bloody war, the game sends you in with a squad of NPC support fighters. All this does, however, is clutter the battlefield and make any given encounter impossible to read. I’m not even sure the NPCs are capable of damaging the enemies, but like I said, I couldn’t tell through the clouds of dust and waving spears.

For all my whining, however, I can’t deny that I’ve enjoyed my time with Dust each time I’ve gone back to it, and if there is a second instalment planned for the world of Falana, then I await it eagerly. The beautiful visuals, gorgeous soundtrack and compelling story do a lot to make up for the game’s more annoying aspects. If you’ve an itch or a particular soft spot for this sort of 2D action-platformer then it is a strong contender that I’d definitely recommend.

#platformer #hack and slash #fantasy #story rich #furry #anthro #humble hearts #review

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also the final dungeon sucked and am i like the only one who hated the whole twist entirely? literally the only good bit was that mr never before foreshadowed trash hype killer villain god disguised himself as igor that was a good twist if it was anyone else, if it was a random npc like with p4′s deity final boss, then it would have had no redeeming qualities seriously it was SO THEMATICALLY BAD seriously shido is SUCH a climax boss and you have actual reasons to hate him and an actual grudge and it feels good to kick his ass! even if his boss design is stupid looking! yaldabaoth is just... nobody he’s an abstract representation of the theme of the whole plot, which already got answered it was SO DUMB to just have out of nowhere everyone learns the same lesson again in a giant literal metaphor way dude we ALREADY answered the questions about ‘whether humanity prefers to be obedient and enslaved rather than make their own choices’ and it was so artificial that public opinion of the phantom thieves suddenly tanks to 0 after they save the day?? if everyone forgot about us cos of evil godman brainwashing then HOW IS THIS A LESSON THATS BEING LEARNED. They just had to love us EVEN MORE so they were able to break the rbainwashing! like seriously it was just like.. you wanted some excuse to have everyone cheer on the phantom thieves as they watch the battle why not just have all that happen WITH SHIDO I mean he’s said to have stolen a bunch of metaverse research and know all about it it would make him much more of a threat if he did more with that say that HE is the one using mementos to brainwash the public have the phantom theieves fade from existance cos of that ‘kill myself to collapse my own palace’ plot shido did have it like.. it looks like eveyrone got out fast enough, theyre right at the entrance to the real world, but its just too late everyone fades away seeing the real world in the distance and screaming for anyone to grab their hand, but nobody sees them same effect same scene, just with shido and without three more hours of repetitive plot and a terrible TERRIBLE final dungeon! you could even still have the whole thing of the velvet room attendants fighting back against igor and saving you and then you go back and do the final fight just have it like.. igor was actually good and it was all a test, he faked betraying you. cos this is your final test- standing up to the ultimate authority figure. and he congratulates you for overcoming his challenge, and like.. reveal that the entire prison warden thing was a test for justine and caroline. they were the ones being rehibilitated. like, a test to gain free will that he always does for each new attendant. OR just have the same plot of evil igor imposter and stuff, but we dont need to have it happen after shido’s plot and lead to just goddamn repetition of p4 izanami withoutr any of the characetr development. Seriously he doesnt even get any moral ambiguity or anything! He’s just evil! He doesnt even really believe he’s doing what humanity wants! And him acting as your helper for fuckin 90 HOURS wasnt like a sign of character complexity or anyting, it as just a lie! Think of how much more interesting it could have been if yaldabaoth had a plot like ryoji, like he’s the human form of a god created to destroy everything but he ended up developing genuine affection for the protagonists and regretting the role he must inevitably play. That would have been repetitive but the plot we got is repetitive anyway!! and like seriously just SOMETHING SOMETHING somehow make him working with shido! remove the ENTIRE FINAL DUNGEON. It was padding in a game that was SO RUSHED aside from this damn moment! take that screentime and flesh out haru’s screentime more! DAMN YOOOOOOU have shido being a super mastermind who’s working with this evil god have shido be a wild card, even?? or have him as someone who’s like.. his pride and jealousy caused him to make a pact with this evil god in order to gain like.. fake wild card powers. He’s not able to actually use the metaverse on his own, he’s relied on manipulating his trash son,  and now he’s without even that option he gets so desperate he WILL NOT ACCEPT his loss and goes all super saiyan by fusing with yaldabaoth. Yaldabaoth’s lack of personality doesnt really matter here, because he’s being a plot element instead of a final boss all on his lonesome. He could even be more sympathetic, cos all we see of him is as a mcguffin holy grail acting as the warden to everyone who GENUINELY wishes for imprisonment rather than free will. We dont get to hear his voice, we dont get to see him brainwashing people who clearly didnt make that choice, just to repeat an already-answered question about whether humanity as a whole would make that choice. Its just ‘hey here’s a mcguffin that exists because of the suicidal wishes of humans, and shido has stolen it and is using it to power up, holy shit’. And all we know about yaldabaoth is that he/they/it wants to grant wishes, and has no morality to determine which are good or bad. Not that its a fuckhead with dreams of granduer who wants to trick everybody into wishes they didnt ask for, and has NO PERSONALITY instead of being izanami WITHOUT PERSONALITY and just... GAHHH So yeah like BLINDSIDED, SLAP IN THE FACE, we thought we defeated shido, we were trying to grab the holy grail but WHOOPS HE’S BACK AND HE GRABBED IT. Like, after the whole climactic ‘shido is collapsing his own palace’ scene, when everyone leaves the velvet room they’re just at the site of that locked door, skipping the whole shitty dungeon. And then we see the holy grail right there and we get the exposition about it right there, and how it could reverse all of shido’s bullshit at the cost of ending the metaverse, blah. No need for a boring month of being unable to do anything but see cutscene after cutscene of BUT WE DEFEATED SHIDO BUT NOTHING IS HAPPENING. And then like.. SURPRISE! Shido isnt really dead! we accidentally led him right to this mcguffin that he can now use to become SuperFinalBossmanRematchMode. And this is where we get the exposition of how he didnt really die, it was a fake death pill. OR, if we wanna get EVEN MORE climactic goodness, maybe shido DID die from that, and now like.. his soul is trapped in the cognitive world forever as this horrifying shadow fusion thing and he’s still whining about how its your fault and taking no responsibility for his actions. So SUPER SMACKDOWN TO FINALLY END IT ONCE AND FOR ALL! And its still high stakes cos its all ‘holy shit it should be impossible for him to still exist’ and ‘holy shit he fuckin ate a god’. And like, if yaldabaoth got fuckin bitchslapped before he could even be a presence in the plot. ‘Yeah hey i was pretending to be igor- ARRGH HOLY SHIT SHIDO NO’ Mr actual climatic boss reclaims his throne, rather literally. Makes him more imposing than he is when he’s really just another palace ruler and you never even confront the real world shido or anything. I mean you kinda already beat his plans when you removed his only minion who could access the metaverse, you just do the rest of the palace to collapse his career too... and then like fuckin.. somehow have the same thing where the metaverse and real world start blending. But it’d even have a better explanation than just Yaldabaoth Can Do That, I Guess, And He Didn’t Do It Until Right Now Because Reasons. You could say its like a consequence of the metaverse revolting at shido’s running away from death. Say his willpower is so strong that he can fuckin fuck up reality with it! His ego is THAT big! And then hoodly boo, same thing with everyone cheering you on so you summon satan and save christmas. But the final boss could look less stupid than a fuckin faceless art studio model made of chrome that pulls a gun out of its butt. Or I mean it could look even more stupid, it could just ahve shido’s shit face pasted on top XD But shido’s already proven that he can give a climactic boss fight even while looking like a dumbass wearing too many ShakeWeights(tm)! OR ORRRRRR Instant fix that could LITERALLY make the whole thing better without changing any dialogue except one namebox. Just say Yaldabaoth is someone else. Just give him the name of a fan favourite villain from early persona *COUGH NYARTHALOTEP COUGH* It would fit better with the YEAHHHHH BOYYY factor of his big twist of being fake igor, it would keep that hype going instead of murdering it with a personalityless villain and eight floors of just stairs and light puzzles. EVEN BETTER if they actually did go far enough to make it a proper nyarly cameo and give him a design as cool as his old ones. Like seriously the thing of being twisted representations of everyone’s parents would work SO WELL here thematically! it could be a rgeat moment to FINALLY see and hear more about protagonist’s parents! And like half the party has issues with family that we already saw in the other palaces, so it could be a great fake boss rush style memory lane of all those guys. instead of just pulling guns out his butt that cast all the same status effects. It could be ESPECIALLY good for GIVING POOR HARU MORE SCREENTIME AND DEVELOPMENT. Seriously, just imagine how fucked up it would be to see a twisted fake dad doll attatched to some fucker’s tentacle face, all these months after he died? it was a good idea to at least mention how he was the only palace owner who died, but it was a shame it meant he was also the only one who didnt get to cameo here and give the corresponding party member some more dialogue and developments. Especially cos Haru is fuckin awesome against bosses! HARU 4 EVARRRR But seriously even if everything was exactly the same and they just made one small reference to some character we already know something about, at least it would give us some frame of reference for yaldabaoth’s actual goddamn motives. who in the FUCK thinks its a good idea to tape on an extra 10 hours after the climactic boss to give us Nobody Mc Grail who Does Bad Cos He Want To. Srsly its like if P4 ended with ameno-sagiri and didnt even have all that izanami stuff and moral ambiguity and seriously i am gaining SO MUCH appreciation for how they managed to make a sudden unforeshadowed boss have AN ACTUAL SOUL. And she related to the themes of the story without being repetitive!  Still not as good as nyx/ryoji in my opinion, but it wasnt just ‘we are contractually obliged to throw in 1 (one) Evil God (tm) at the last second, because its a persona game’ the final scene was good, the everything else wasnt 100 Yes to Satan Saving Christmas Thank God for Giant Bullet Blow His Face Off but not THIS PARICULAR GOD because he is a detestable flaw in a game that I loved very much! at least he got fuckin sploded and got a good ‘im fucked’ face without even having a face. Seriously that brief REACTION SHOT was sooooo fuckin cathartic! his ONLY PERSONALITY he ever got was being a smug asshole who thinks he’s the best final boss ever, and we got an actual moment of ‘ha ha ha ha i win i win, i- OHHOTDIGGITYJESUSCHRIST’ *splat* thanks satan now can we seriously have no more evil gods ever, they have officially outlived their welcome can satan just shoot all of them in the head before they even get to be in the story ilu satan (also im curious now to do more research on ‘satanael’ and see what the difference even is about this form? is it just a different aspect of the christian devil like how satan and lucifer are also available in this game? or is satanael actually just a different mythological figure and the whole ‘satan saves christmas’ meme is just cos they sound similar?)

#p5 spoilers