#I have many ps4 games i need to just START

[yelenasdiary]

New Friend Request

Pairing: Gamer! Kate Bishop x Reader

Summary: After posting on a subreddit looking for people to play a new game with, you received a new friend request.  

| Comfort? | 0.8K | No Warnings | 

AC: Here is something a little different to my usual works! I hope you enjoy this, I found it pretty fun to write!

It was Friday night, you had a weekend off from work and had planned to sit down with plenty of snacks and binge play a new video game you just treated yourself too. The only downside was that all your friends that you played video games with were either busy this weekend or had no interest in playing the new game you'd been waiting so long to play.

With a sigh and nerves kicking around in your stomach you decide to post on a subreddit asking if anybody else would like somebody to play with over the weekend. It wasn't something you'd done before but you liked playing games with friends more than playing solo.

Hours had past and your phone was left dry, not a single notification from anybody reacting to your post. Another sigh left your body as you tossed your phone to the side and decided to turn your PS4 off.

*DING*

(LuckyArrow has sent a friend request)

The notification stared at you deeply as the feeling of excitement and relief soon filled you. You punched in your passcode and quickly accepted the strangers friend request.

LuckyArrow: Hey! are you still looking for somebody to play Dying Light 2 with? I saw your post on reddit! ☺️

yourusername: Hey, I am! I just thought the game and none of my friends want to play it with me 😩

LuckyArrow: agh! that sucks! I have a friend, Yelena, she doesn't play video games much and refuses to play with me! If you want, I'd love to play it with you. Have you played the first one?

yourusername: That would be great! Thanks! I'm assuming your user is LuckyArrow on PSN aswell? I have played the first, have you? Oh! btw, I'm Y/n!

LuckyArrow: Sure is! You have a cute name! I'm Kate, are you from New York?

yourusername: Oh wow! 😅 Don't take this the wrong way but I wasn't expecting you to be a girl! I actually just moved to NYC! Are you also from here?

LuckyArrow: You'd be surprised how many of us female gamers are out here ☺️ Where did you move from? if you don't mind me asking

yourusername: Just a small town that was hella boring! hence why I got into video games haha!

LuckyArrows: I hope you don't mind, I had a look at some of the game you play! You have good taste, how far are you into the story of Dying Light?

yourusername: Thanks! & not very far, I don't really like playing games solo most of the time. I've completed the first couple of missions though so I'm able to play co-op.

LuckyArrows: Awesome! Well, I have plenty of time tonight if you'd like to play now? If not, just let me know when you're free and we'll work something out ☺️

yourusername: Actually, I'm free all weekend so now would be great! Do you wanna play on my save or we can start one on your game? Whatever works ☺️

LuckyArrow: I've already completed it, let's just do a save on your game! Send me an invite x

LuckyArrow: Sorry about the x!!!! I'm just used to sending it to friends 😅😅

yourusername: Don't stress! it's okay ☺️ I'll send you an invite rn!

Friday night soon faded into the early hours of Saturday morning, plenty of laughs and jokes were made between you and your new friend, Kate. You learnt a lot about her, you felt comfortable with her even though she technically is still a stranger online, you both planned to meet for pizza for lunch.

Who knew that a simple post online would lead to you making a new friend.

2 months later

LuckyArrow: Hey! you free this weekend? sorry I couldn't play last weekend, I had a mission...I missed you though! 💜

yourusername: Hey!! Don't stress it, you get to actually kick some bad guys butts! it's pretty cool! I am free this weekend, I took work off, I need a break anyways. I missed you too, did your mission go well?

LuckyArrow: Meh, it was a pain (literally) but one less menace on the streets to deal with now! 💪🏼, I actually wanted to ask if you'd like to come over...I can order pizza and we can play video games or something, whatever you like! 😅

yourusername: Of course! it'll be so fun! Are you okay though? you seem a little off? x

LuckyArrow: I'm Fine ☺️ wanna come over Friday?

yourusername: Lock it in! Friday, date night haha!

LuckyArrow: Haha...😅

yourusername: Are you sure you're okay?

LuckyArrow: I'm not good this...but, I'm not asking you to just come over as a friend..😅

yourusername: Kate, are you asking me out on a date?

LuckyArrow: I am...we don't have to do something so causal, in fact I'd like to take you out on a real date but I don't want to scare you off or make things awkward between us..

yourusername: Oh thank god! Honeslty, I'm so glad you asked because I've really wanted to ask you out but I also didn't want to ruin anything

LuckyArrow: Well now that makes me feel a lot better! How about I pick you up at 6pm on Friday?

yourusername: it's a date! x

Taglist: @red1culous | @bentleywolf29 | @kiwiana145  | @lissaaaa145 | @high--power | @parkerdaramitzzzz | @mmmmokdok |  @wackymcstupid | @kiwiana145  | @valiantmugcowboyscissors | @shin-conan-kun | @nattyolw | @ripofflizzie | @goofy-goonie | @makegoodchoices | @musicinourlips | @apollo2907 | @marvelfan98 | @wandaroman0ff | @dumb-fawkin-bitch | @lovelyy-moonlight | @santana1437 | @fluffyblanketgecko | @inluvwithfictionalwomen | @jaymieflorissssssss | @tita001 | @youralphawolf72 | @natashamaximoff69 | @a-dorkier-book-keeper | @hehehehannahthings | @blue-serendipityy | @secrettoallofyou | @romantic-slaps-on-the-asss | @marvel-fan-2021 | @mmmmokdok | @riveramorylunar | @ripofflizzie | @scarsw1fe | @toldthatdevil | @itsmv3 | @katiemay-025 | 

#Kate bishop #kate bishop x reader #marvel #fanfiction #hawkeye

[katyspersonal]

If you get this, answer w/ three random facts about yourself and send it to the last seven blogs in your notifs. anon or not, doesn’t matter, let’s get to know the person behind the blog!

Oh, nice chain! Alright, let's see!

1) I work at the post office! With customers, not as a postman! I am a little snarky but competent and super serious. Many customers that want to get into my window specifically. o_o" This is kind of time-consuming and not very rewarding, but it is really hard to find a better job in where I live. You know, the whole thing where companies only pretend to be hiring people and every interview is by default declined because they're content overworking their 2 workers doing work of 10 people? xD Fun thing: this is the THIRD time I am back at this workplace! Because they also keep trying to lessen their staff number to save money on salaries, but every time their business starts collapsing and they end up hiring again. They NEVER learn :/

(Lmao ffs I should just make this goddamn image my blog banner if this is the only punchline I know of 💀💀💀)

2) I bought PS4 specifically to be able to play Bloodb0rne! As good as I've gotten with lore and headcanons despite only "experiencing" the game via wikias and playthroughs, I NEEDED to lay my hands on it because asking all three of my friends for this or that screenshot became bothersome!

Bought it for half-price from a gamer that got PS5 and no longer needed PS4. Well.. Back then I could not have had an idea I'd end up getting into entire series, so now I know DeS is not accessible for me. Not sure if I can repeat this maneuver; not only PS5 costs more than I do myself, but also saving became impossible in where I live since then!

3) I've learned English 80% thanks to ask-blogging and RPing online! In fact, because of how much I am using English, at this point I am thinking on English more often than on my native language. I was pretty great in school English classes (best, actually), but the real turning point was having to go to English-speaking spaces for fandomry and RPing. I've just never found my place in Russian speaking fandoms, being a raging autist obsessed with every single canon detail is not common in them and makes people look at you like a looser that doesn't have """real""" life or """real""" hobbies if they act like this. :p So, when as a teen (16) I saw how much fun English-speaking fans had with fandoms here on Tumblr, I just HAD to try and level my English to be able to interact.

Granted, it is debatable whether local fandoms actually were never great, or it was my OWN bad luck of running into boring superfical level fans.. but I am glad that I've put my activity as a fan in this cursed hellsite, and ended up speaking English so fluently that many people are surprised it isn't my native one. xD

#ask replies #personal #shitposting #sorry for the memes it will happen again

[coolgreatwebsite]

Happy 1 Million Views to the Video That Broke Me

This is a repost of something I wrote over on my Cohost, but I figured a year later it should also probably live on the domain I pay money to have. Better late than never!

This is the most successful piece of content I have ever created. At one million views it is the thing I've made that people have seen the most. It is the thing that the most people have seen my name attached to. And it's total trash.

It's 2017 and we're a week or so out from the release of Sonic Mania, a game that I'm, at that point, pretty damn excited for. A kindly poster from the Something Awful forums (that I have known from many forums previous) poses a challenge: be the first to beat his short kaizo Sonic the Hedgehog 2 ROM hack and he'll gift you a copy of Sonic Mania on Steam when it comes out.

I was already getting the game on PS4 but I figured whatever, everyone else seems to be having trouble with it, I'm bored, I got nothing better to do, I'll give it a shot. I load up KEGA Fusion, start a low bitrate and resolution OBS recording because it'll probably take a few hours and who cares it's a forum contest verification video, and get to work. A hour and half-ish goes by and I'm finished with the hack. I upload the video to YouTube, post it in the thread, win my free copy of Sonic Mania, and that's the end of the story. Thanks for reading.

Except of course it's not the end of the story. A few months after I got done thoroughly enjoying Sonic Mania, I realized that I'd been getting a weird amount of new subscriber emails from YouTube. I decided to actually look at my metrics and noticed a uh, highly localized spike of activity. Give you one guess on which video (hint: it's the one this post is about). "The Algorithm" had suddenly taken it and was running away with it at lightning speed.

In the timespan between posting the video and this spike, YouTube had announced they were drastically raising the bar on the metrics you needed to hit to have your channel monetized. I was by no means a large YouTuber at the time, but I was meeting the old requirements for monetization just fine. I wasn't anywhere near meeting the new requirements until now and this video was blowing the hell up for whatever reason, so I decided to do what any good opportunist would do and made it an unwatchable experience.

I set the ad frequency on that thing to the maximum that it'd let me. I forget exactly how frequent that was but it was something absurd like an ad every 5 minutes. Maybe even more than that. I figured I'd either get rich or maybe it would make people stop watching and leaving the worst comments in the world. Seriously the comments on this thing are their own nightmare, a bizarre soup of people ascribing meaning to nothing, trying to suss out emotions where there are none, saying complete gibberish, I'd need an entire second post to unpack whatever the hell is going on there.

Well, I wouldn't quite say I got rich. The money you get off what most people would conventionally call a popular YouTube video is just not much in the grand scheme of things. But holy shit they didn't stop watching. If anything they were watching more. Why didn't they stop watching? This video was less than nothing. It was an ordeal to watch all the way through. Why were they doing this? Why was the algorithm showing this to everyone? Why this and not one of the things I put effort into or something that was at least meant to be entertaining at all? I didn't have the answers and I still don't.

Before this I personally wasn't lamenting the possibility of losing monetization on my channel as up until this point I had made around $40 total on YouTube in the decade or so I'd had a channel. But I had been spending a lot that time watching friends with channels around the size of mine who were actively hustling to, and unfortunately failing to, meet the new hurdle. They were putting out some really good shit. Way better than my stuff, frankly. And here I was getting launched to the finish line by... a throwaway, blurry, hour and a half long, commentary-free, save state abusing playthrough of a crummy Sonic ROM hack? That I had made as a means to a completely separate end?? That got promoted by a computer program for seemingly no reason???

It felt shitty. One of the friends I mentioned in that last paragraph was my longtime friend Fotts who was in the middle of getting their (sadly now dormant) series TAS Force off the ground. They were constantly tweeting about the ordeal of trying to meet the new monetization requirements and it was a damn shame because they were putting in a ton of effort and it was great. The kind of thing I'd watch even if I wasn't friends with anyone on it. It was a million times funnier than anything I was doing, and the complete opposite of my shitty contest video. If there was any justice in this world the views I was getting on this dumpster fire would be going to them. But as it turns out, there is no justice online.

I recalled a conversation I had with them a few years back while they, I, and a group of about 7 or so other friends were all wandering around an Orlando Wal-Mart wearing identical black t-shirts that read "MARVEL CAN SUCK MY COCK" in big block letters (long story). They had actually kind of gone through this sort of thing before. See, they're the uploader and one of the voices of this video you may or may not have seen with 6.5+ million views on it.

They lamented to me many of the laments I was currently lamenting. "This was just a stupid throwaway thing", "why is this so much more popular than the stuff I put effort into", "it's just me making PaRappa the Rapper say the word 'Chinese' over and over". Ok maybe that last one was a bit more specific to them. Anyway, I responded with (and I admit a lot of the reason I felt this way was because I thought and still think the video is funny) something along the lines of "you can't pick what hits for people, it might have been throwaway but at the end of the day you posted it because you thought it was at least a little bit funny, try and focus on the fact that you have a popular video at all rather than the fact it's not one of the videos you're particularly proud of".

But yeah damn turns out that advice is easier said than done when it happens to you, and it's even harder done when it happens to a factually not entertaining video. One you could have uploaded as unlisted and achieved your intended result with. The runaway success of this thing genuinely broke me on this whole "Internet" deal.

I should stress I mean this in a good way. I realized that it's not so much that you can't pick what hits for people, it's that you physically cannot pick what gets put in front of people. The people cannot pick what hits for them. A computer does. You can try and promote and affect what gets seen in your own small sphere of influence, but ultimately we are, on YouTube and on all of our social platforms, at the mercy of a black box of computer programs that I'm not even sure the people who created them understand anymore. I'd obviously known this on some level prior to this video existing, but bearing witness to it all happening firsthand to this video in particular was another thing entirely. Anything prior that I had achieved marginally similar success with (there were a couple that had broken 100k) was meant to be entertaining. It was meant for people to watch and go "I liked that", not for one guy on a forum to see and go "good work solving my maze Superman". I could classify the success as "neat, people liked that one" in my brain. This defied classification.

The only logical conclusion was that it truly didn't matter what I uploaded. It's all decided by a random machine picking things at random to serve random amounts of people, and the people click on it and watch it simply because it is there. You can poke at the machine, prod at the machine, try to guess what the machine likes, try to iterate on something the machine has previously demonstrated that it likes. It's all an effort to get the machine to put it in front of the people who will click it because it is there. That's what all the bigger capital-C Content Creators do. From the high level stuff of "what kind of things do I upload" to the low level minutia of "how many curse words can I say in the first minute", making it Big On Line in any capacity is about trying to appease an unknowable mechanical entity and nothing else. It's either that or you're "old money" in a sense, established before this all became the case.

And again, the bigger names do this. Entire companies do this. If I were "smart" I would have pivoted my entire YouTube channel to nothing but hour and a half long commentary-free bullshit hard ROM hack playthroughs. Maybe another one would hit like this did. But for the life of me I could not and cannot think of anything more soul crushing.

I wouldn't say I had aspirations to be a Big Time YouTube Man, but at that time I would have maybe liked to be a Moderate Size YouTube Man. Or a moderate size Twitch man. Someone who had people watching but was still able to have fun with it and do his own thing. This newfound realization that it was truly a random lottery, even beyond the random lottery that most of human life is, that becoming any size bigger than Small Time was literally decided by an actual factual random number generator, freed me from the desire to do anything that I didn't want to do. If actively chasing success on these modern, algorithmically-driven platforms, actively going after "Kaizo Sonic 2 Full Run" numbers, meant putting aside the things I like and reinventing myself and the things I do down to the minute details in order to appease a literal ghost beyond anyone's understanding or control that changes what it's looking for on a whim, then I did not want to do that. I did not want to keep a timer for when I could talk normal, I did not want to announce my streams on Twitter with the link in a separate reply one day, in an embedded image the next, and in my display name the next. If there is absolutely one thing I do not want to do in my life, it's dance for a robot.

But the most freeing thing about realizing this is that it also meant if I just kept doing stuff I liked, maybe, someday, I could get lucky enough to where the unknowable internet robot would push that in front of a million or so people. In the grand scheme of things it's about an equal chance of that happening on something I like and am proud of versus something I made in a desperate cloying attempt to placate an algorithm.

Anyway damn this got long and rambly sorry about that lol. This was initially meant to just be a little toast to the 5 year-ish anniversary of me fully becoming an Internet nihilist. Remember folks, it's meaningless to chase success in an algorithm dominated landscape. In the words of a certain extremely Normal-type man, "real life isn't all just being true to yourself", but I reject the notion that the Internet is not or should not be, in spite of the legion of ghouls and freaks at the top of the chain actively trying to make that the case every day.

Be true to yourself. Do what you love, make what you love, post what you love, and maybe if you're lucky a computer somewhere will decide it's your turn, because that's the single deciding factor in all of this. In the mean time, you'll end up slowly and naturally surrounding yourself with cool people who get you, if only a little bit. At least that's what's happened for me so far. I've been pretty alright with it.

#article

[sonicasura]

Different Universes of Energy

After the multiple times of collecting energy being a goal/plot point in various Transformers media, I couldn't help but write this. A list that involves different energy sources from different fandom universes. The ones I'll be choosing are either very plentiful or have a large variety.

Marioverse

Oh yeah. We're starting with the series that has a clusterfuck of magical items. Mario practically beats everything on this little list from how many alternate power sources any Transformer can gather. Cat Shines from Lake Lapcat, Shine Sprites of Del Defino, Power Stars to Grand Stars found across the stars and the latest Power Moons scattered all over the world.

I ain't forgetting about the spinoff games either which has their own flavor for powerful collectibles. These are also the easiest to attain since there are many ways to acquire them. You can find one out in the wild, purchase from a store(Power Moons), win through competitions, etc.

Team Autobots wouldn't have much trouble following these rules. In fact, it's probably a fun break from the usual hardships as scavenging in the midst of a war is difficult. Getting coins is easy since coin blocks are common to find and some bots such as Bumblebee would find the games fun.

The Decepticons would have to follow things by the Marioverse rules though. I ain't joking either as there are many ways for inhabitants to send them packing. Powerups especially the Mini Mushroom, Mega Mushroom, Giga Catbell and Super Star.

One little Mini 'Shroom is enough to shrink Megatron to the size of a guinea pig then shove his ass into a cage. A bloke can become a giant through the Mega Mushroom or gargantuan sphinx via Giga Catbell and yeet Starscream across the kingdom. Can't forget the Super Star's invinciblity as Decepticons drop like flies thanks to pure rainbow power.

Every bit of technology in this universe is more advanced but also sometimes mystical. There's literally a vacuum cleaner capable of sucking up ghosts, go-carts that can ignore the laws of gravity, actual magic, to even stars that can grant wishes.

There's also the kingdoms who won't take invaders too kindly either. Bowser definitely gonna declare war and he's got a wide array of technology to pack a nasty punch. The Koopa King is quite a threat when you look at the spinoffs such as the RPGs. Plus he has teamed up with Mario multiple times should the need arise.

Speaking of the plumber, he definitely get involved alongside his friends. The Mario and Luigi RPGs to even Mario + Rabbids shows he can do more than just jump. Latter series literally gave him a gun which later got upgraded to dual blasters.

Best play nice or get your ass kicked by someone no bigger than your little toe.

Knackverse

Next up is the PS4 launch title series, Knack! There are two different types of energy sources that are very very abundant: relics and sunstones. Everything technological in this universe are powered by either one or both sources.

Sunstones are crystalized sunlight that can be found about everywhere. Caves, mountains, grass plains, and even in someone's backyard. They are often used to generate electricity whether through generators, electrical plants or even lamp posts.

Now relics are a bit harder to find. These can be found underground or in ancient structures so mining might be required. Relics produce relic energy which is often used to power vehicles, generators, weapons, etc.

Everything can be obtained without messing with the locals. Although either faction might have to go through a scrapheap to see how relics are used to generate power. They definitely be a bit confused for awhile as these ancient artifacts are essentially spun around akin to a hamster wheel.

Decepticons will have some very painful retaliation if they try to steal relics and sunstones from the populace. The Crystal Wars is proof that humans here act like space orcs but also still do. Ryder and Doctor Vargas literally threw hands with goblins the size of them. The same goes for the latter.

I don't think goblins would be too pleased with otherworldly invaders taking their resources either. Advancement in technology can also prove these aren't people to mess with. Airships are more common, vehicles don't drive on tires, there are tanks that can create forcefields and fire lasers.

Ancient goblin weaponry have been rebuilt. Every one remains a force to be reckoned with. Cannot forget about the people's protector: Knack. He has fought a lot of mechanical foes in various sizes(for both parties).

Decepticons will be fighting on his turf and that's a huge disadvantage on its own. Super Sunstones to grant temporary invinciblity, the Ultimate Move which can destroy barriers/forcefields, super moves that range from solar lightsabers to even a relic tornado. Knack is a crafty motherfucker and can pummel any Cybertronian who dares disturb the peace.

I'm pretty sure a relic haymaker to the faceplate will be hard to dent out.

JNDverse

Last but not least, we have Eco from the Jak and Daxter series. The closest in comparison to Cybertron's Energon from their respective origins but also diversity. Each has different unique properties depending on the color. Their origin being from a long lost civilization/creators now cascaded in mystery.

Eco is very abundant and manifests all over the world. The main source being Eco Vents which constantly spurts it out in a gaseous form. Large liquid pools can also be found but it's highly likely that its Dark Eco, the most corruptive of all types.

Crystals are another way to gather it so mining will be required. Even various wildlife drop eco upon death but not much. There are many ways to gather the stuff without stirring a fuss.

Huge advancements in technology is very common as the most common transport are hovercraft style vehicles like zoomers. Dune buggies are utilized in the deserts with some being capable of jumping large gaps or bust down fortresses from sheer firepower. Eco can also power weaponry.

Weapons powered by this natural energy can have all sorts of abilities that depends on the color. Short range shockwaves, gravity inverters, ricocheting bullets, etc. They don't lack on firepower especially if one has a Morphgun which can use all Eco types by switching cartridges.

Now the Decepticons will face retaliation by disturbing the peace but here it varies. Some cities such as Haven have too many civilians and incompetent military forces to properly protect themselves. *Looks at all the missions alongside lack of self defending NPCs in Haven*

Areas such as Spargus will retaliate immediately since EVERYONE has been trained to fight and is armed. It makes sense because most of the city's population are people exiled to the wastelands by Haven. Can't forget about the Demolition Duo.

Jak and his companion has tackled a variety of opponents including giant robots. The latter were made with Precursor metal which is very hard to break through and probably more durable than Cybertronian metal. Both had wrecked it.

Jak has a variety of Eco cartridges for his Morphgun but can also rely on his Eco Channeling abilities. He can transform into powerful forms through Light and Dark Eco. The destructive animalistic Dark Jak or the angelic time stopping Light Jak.

It's best to be wary unless you want a Dark Eco blast through the spark chamber.

That's it for now! Until next time folks, I'll see you later! Transform and Roll Out!

#sonicasura #personal opinion #maccadam #transformers #transformers series #transformers unicron trilogy #transformers animated #transformers g1 #transformers idw #transformers bayverse #transformers earthspark #transformers knightverse #transformers prime #mario #mario series #super mario brothers #super mario bros #knack #knack 2 #knack ps4 #ps4 knack #jnd #jak and daxter #jak and daxter series #jak #long post

[chocolatechimsugakookie2]

4Town Headcanons but make it 2022😋

T and Jesse are Drake enthusiasts! They will try to play every single album in one day!

Z will stay up playing NBA 2k and sometimes another member will join and if it’s not Jesse then he will stomp to Z’s room and unplug the game and walk away😭 saying something along the lines of “it’s 4 freaking am I need beauty sleep”

Z, Ro and Jesse (tbh all of them) will kill for Beyonce! She once hugged Z out of nowhere and he never been the same since

They have a shared TikTok account and they literally just put random stuff on there especially T and Tae! They love acting a fool and being funny any chance they get. Robaire persuades Z to do small dances with him on there so that’s always something the 4townies look forward too

They do have separate accounts, but they love trolling on the shared one

They go live on TikTok and instagram at the most random times! they sometimes will tell the 4Townies they’ll go live soon but usually they just start one out of nowhere and you just gotta hope you don’t miss it.

Also with the lives it’s always a surprise because you never know who is live until you click it! Sometimes it’s one member sometimes time its 3 it’s always different

The lives are always fun even if it’s just a Q and A

The lives might be cooking, playing a game, just talking, Z beating everyone in basketball, you name it!!!!

They also have separate instagrams!!

Definitely have a YouTube channel! It was all T’s idea which the group thought was crazy but they all ended actually liking the channel and posting on it!

Jesse posts himself throwing down on the pottery wheel! The videos are always calming and the conversations are always lovely. He posts vlogs and cooking/baking videos with Tae and Ro

Ro does vlogs as well and loves going to the bookstore and talking about the books. He has videos called “Reading with Ro” or “Read with me” and it’s like 25 mins of him reading his book quietly while serving looks and adding his opinions on what happens in the book.

T has a video for everything he does to be honest! He has so many prank videos it’s uncanny. His vlogs consist of him skateboarding, doing parkour, trying a bunch of food from different places, and etc. he is the king of Mukbangs and does them a lot with the other members! Z tends to join a lot because he has the most tea to spill and he likes free food

Z loves posting videos of him playing basketball and loves showing off his different ways of dunking! He will have like 15 min videos of him dancing and it’s always so entertaining. He has a few videos that shows his different daily routines for going to the studio and the 4Townies go crazy when he is shirtless while washing his face.

Tae vlogs going to animal shelters a lot! He will have videos of him introducing new animals, feeding them, and washing them! He has sooooo many cooking videos! His video of him making Tteok-bokki literally has so many views it’s crazy! He has like 20 minute videos of him teaching Korean and it’s so educational and cute.

They all have gameplay videos, but mainly T, Tae, and Z! They are all freaking hilarious and chaotic! Z might be the quietest out of the members, but I kid you not he is funny asf and so talkative during gameplays he is like Berleezy and CoryxKenshin!

There are like different versions of hoverboards of all shapes and sizes and they own all of them! But Jesse band them from riding them indoors because of him and Tae running into each other which caused them to break a vase and Jesse’s finger

Z lovesss the Spider-Man game on the PS4/5 he finished it twice because it was just that good

Tae, T, and Ro play Fortnight all the time! They have all the skins and play like pros

Every single one of them will get on Roblox and troll! They will literally tag team in murder mystery and make fun of the 12 year olds 😭

Robaire loves The Greatest Showman and the Princess and the Frog, and Black Panther

Z loves Avengers Endgame and All 3 spider-man movies (Tom holland) and Avatar (the tall blue people)

T loves the movie Ready Player One and Train to Busan and Encanto

Jesse loves Avengers Infinity War and Harry Potter’s Prisons of Askaban and Thor Ragnarok

Taeyoung loves Big Hero 6 and Spider-Man into the spider verse and Men in Black

Ro’s favorite show is the Mandalorian and Fresh Prince of Bel-air

Z’s favorite show is Wild N’ Out and Demon Slayer and Avatar the Last Air Bender

Tae’s favorite shows is Sweet Home, and Full House, and Naruto

T’s favorite show is Ridiculousness and Stranger Things and The Simpsons

Jesse’s favorite show is Teen Wolf and HunterxHunter and Neds declassified School Survival Guide

They definitely made songs with artists like Megan Thee Stallion, Billie Eilish, Sza, BTS

T and Tae makes everyone dress up every Halloween! they once dressed as Ghostbusters and T was the StayPuft monster and they made the most hilarious TikTok in the outfits

I have so many more ideas, so let’s see what I do soon ✨ ENJOY 😁

#4town #4 town #4townie #4*town #4town headcanons #4 townie #4 town headcanons #4town aaron t #4town aaron z #4town jesse #4town robaire #4town imagines #4town taeyoung #turning red 4town

[radellama]

Games I played 2023 - Part 1

As yet another year closes, I have been looking back at the games I’ve played over the year, and spent about a month trying to write them up. I feel like I got the system down for this, as it’s a fun tradition I’m glad my friends have encouraged. With refinement of my note-taking, and being heavily opinionated, comes very lengthy retrospectives/reviews. So elongated, in fact, that I need to split this year’s goty list into two parts. It didn’t feel like I played many more games than I have in previous years, but I certainly have a lot to say. Also, I skipped my Resi breakdowns last year for reasons you can read about when I post it, but it’s back this year >:)

I’m still not sure what to call these, but I lean more towards retrospective- so be warned! Spoilers of varying degree and strong opinions moving forward.

~~~

Hitman: World of Assassination Trilogy, PS4

So... IOI did a complete overhaul of the Hitman trilogy, renaming it the World of Assassination trilogy, and streamlining all purchases to two primary options - base game and DLC. No more complicated bullshit! (Also their patch notes were some of the most entertaining I have ever read lmao) One thing that came with this massive overhaul was that everyone who has the base game can now access a few things - for free - that you couldn't before. Mainly, the freelancer mode. With this mode, we have access to 3 of the DLC maps and get to play a campaign that's a kind of mix between the story campaign and elusive target mode. Elusive Target missions are ones I didn’t really cover in last year’s review, and that’s because I didn’t play them enough to feel I should speak on them lmao.

In the elusive target mode, you're given a brief with a target to kill, dropped into the map, and you have to find and kill the target with no further assistance. It was pretty fun, but they are tied to real time- in that there is something like a 3 day window to take on the elusive target, and once it's over you can't retry. If you die, you're locked out from attempting again. It's a one and done kinda thing. I appreciate that- it makes the stakes much higher and places a huge focus on the stealth and recon aspects in particular; especially due to the fact that you cannot use your hitman senses to highlight the target in this mode. However, getting only one chance is a little sad, as the first few times I played last year felt a little discouraging when I’d made a simple mistake (or even had my controller give up on me) and I’d be locked out from trying until the next mission drops. And while I appreciate the ‘real time’ sense of these missions… Man, it just sucks if you’re an adult who gets busy between work and life and just don’t have an hour or two to sit and dedicate to figuring out these targets within the allotted time. They’re really fun challenges and it just seems like a bit of a shame that the accessibility I’m whining about goes directly against the point of these missions in the first place lmao. There is still a gallery where you can replay old elusive targets, but I haven't played that much... Cause what I have been addicted to, is the freelancer mode.

Compared to the story mode, in freelancer mode, you don’t have any story missions to help guide you into setting up a kill. And, just like the elusive targets, the stakes are higher and more self driven – you need to take down syndicate members in various levels leading up to a ‘boss’ level, where you’re required to pick out the syndicate leader based on limited intel and kill them.

It’s fantastic.

As I’ve played through the year, I’ve seriously levelled up the way that I play and approach kills. At the start of the year when this mode just dropped and I was utterly addicted to it, I sucked so bad and often had to restart campaigns after fumbling too badly – and I didn’t care! It was still super fun and it felt like I was learning more about the way the game worked so that I’d be more prepared for next time.

The targets aren't the same as the main story campaign the elusive targets; in the missions leading up to the syndicate leader, your targets are just randomly selected NPCs. When you do get to the leaders, they're more similar to the story targets, but due to there being so many (with the intent to confuse you and make you more observant while you identify the correct person) and them not being as basic as an NPC, there's still that free-er feeling as you play. It's honestly up to your creativity with tools/items/weapons and your knowledge of the levels to be able to pull these off. Some levels I’d be able to speed through in under 10min, others would take over an hour, or anywhere in between. Levels that I really enjoy, and therefore know pretty well by now, are SUPER fun to play because I already know the floorplan, I just need to figure out how to get to my target and how I'm going to kill them. It's completely up to you if you wanna try and get through it without getting caught, or try and make a mad dash after making some VERY public executions. While freelancer mode is very free-form, there are also mission objectives that reward bonus xp and currency for completing. Each level will have three objectives based on the type of syndicate you’re fighting, and a special objective you choose before each level. These are all optional, but in hard mode, the special objective becomes compulsory. I quite enjoy this, and I’ll often pick campaigns based on what maps and objectives I’ll be tasked with and strategise around that.

The other massive thing within freelancer is that you have a hub. A really nice hub. Its a big swanky house in the middle of nowhere, and the more you progress and gain xp, the more you get to play interior decorator. The focus of the place is the weapons storage area, which is where you’ll also be selecting and setting up your missions. Any weapons and items with rarity that you find or buy while out on missions will be taken back home and stored for later, and as you unlock and dress up other areas of your house, some tools and items will be lying around for you to take with you too. These are things like gardening tools, a stethoscope to be used as a fibre wire or a banana to help create distractions and accidents. It was really fun to work hard and bring home a bunch of awesome weapons, and it really hurt when I failed and lost all of my favourite gear.

I believe this is my first time playing a rougue-like style game, and once I got a grasp on how it generated targets, it was incredibly addicting. I also found it quite fun to play through the handful of DLC levels that are freely available here, as I haven’t bought the DLC and played through their missions yet myself. One of my favourite maps to play was the Bank in New York, and I quickly found a little exploit that I loved using. You usually spawned in the underground parking garage near the security room and the vault, and on the wall next to the security room was a locked cabinet with a bottle of chloroform. You could start every level by gassing all the security guards in the room by pouring chloroform in their air conditioning filter, pinch the vault keycards and unlock it, and then treat yourself to a nice handful of the in-game currency. Like, you could pick up 3 coins that were worth a couple hundred dollars each, and then pull the server and wire a couple thousand to yourself, and all before you actually started killing anyone. Unfortunately, about halfway through the year, this was ‘corrected’ by devs and there’s no longer chloroform near the security, and no more coins. I don’t know if its just misremembering, but I swear that it’s a little harder to get into the vault now too. I get it, sanctity of the game and whatever but… this is a completely single player mode. There was a patch added to change the wording of the stock market thing you unlock in your personal vault at home to make it clearer that you’re essentially playing a coin toss where you could lose most the money you’ve accumulated, but thats another element that has the potential to give you heaps of money if you’re lucky. This isn’t a huge and genuine complaint, but it is annoying and I miss starting off my bank missions by looting the vault. I still loot it almost every time I play, but it doesn’t hit the same anymore…

Anyway, all this to say that the new freelancer mode is awesome and that I’ve been having fun playing it all through the year. I’ve also been slowly chipping away at hidden objectives and such during the story campaign, which has been interesting. There’s so many ways to set up kills for all of the targets, and there’s heaps of funny easter eggs to unlock too. I also wanna mention how much I appreciate the sound design of the game, the game actually does a great job at communicating info with the audio cues – so much so, that when trying to play the game muted while I’m on the phone with a friend, I fail miserably because I’m missing important cues without that audio.

Overall, this has been a game that I’ve been playing a lot over the past two years now, and I enjoy heaps. It’d definitely crept up towards the top of my personal favourites, and I can’t wait to keep playing more.

Freelancer Safe house Theme

Safe house Outdoors

~~~

Mario’s Super Picross, SNES

I mostly played this around the Christmas and New Years period last year, struggling and losing my mind in the summer heat! (It reached 40°!! I don’t have air conditioning in my apartment it was hell!!! And we can expect similar this year!!!! I hate summer!!!!!)

I really like picross as a concept, it’s like if sudoku had a baby with colour by number puzzles. It’s simple! And it allows for some pretty challenging puzzles, especially when you get to bigger canvases.

Mario Picross was fun enough, and the unlockable Wario Picross was certainly a challenge! I just felt a bit disappointed by the fact that all the puzzles were just random things, and nothing related to or even resembling anything Mario. Like?? I dunno, it think it would’ve been fun to have the puzzles be the sprites of various items and characters from Mario games, and even recreating scenes from certain Mario levels in the larger puzzles. The only Mario element here is that the man himself congratulates you at the completion of every level, which is nice, but man. I really wish I could’ve been filling out a mushroom or a power star or something, that would’ve been fun.

The general UI and controls were fine, but I still like the Twilight Princess Picross the most out of all. Also the music was kind of annoying, so I barely played with volume. I’d just have my switch on the couch and play muted while I watched video essays or Bob’s Burgers lol. The exception is Wario Puzzle 1, CERTIFIED BANGER!

There’s not much more I can really say. If you’ve played Picross, you know what to expect. It’s a good brain teaser, I wish it was Mario themed instead of random general stuff, but it was fine. I played it and enjoyed it for the most part.

Wario Puzzle 1

~~~

Nonograms Prophecy, Switch

DO NOT BUY THIS GAME, IT IS A SCAM. IT IS ACTIVELY HOSTILE TO PICROSS PLAYERS AND CONTAINED PUZZLES THAT WERE UNSOLVABLE.

I initially bought this as a cheeky little impulse buy for my birthday. I like picross, what can I say? It was on sale on the switch store and I took it as a sign – unfortunately, it was a bad one.

At first glance it is a pretty simple, if bland, Greek God aesthetic in a black and gold cut out style. I’ve never really been particularly interested in the mythos, and never more than a passing interest- but this is literally just using the aesthetic for a game that has absolutely nothing to do with Greece or it’s religious historical culture.

Same goes with the soundtrack, a nice and simple acoustic guitar, but it is the ONLY song in the entire game.

Onto gameplay; due to the limited colours, it was incredibly difficult to see which square I was hovering over to mark, and when the numbers are greyed out they are practically invisible due to the value being almost the same as the background colour it is on top of. To make matters worse, the numbers grey out arbitrarily, which fucks up the literal point of playing the game. How are you supposed to play the puzzle if you can’t see the number of squares you’re supposed to fill out?

There’s also little things that should be standard on all modern digital versions of picross that are absent or poorly implemented here. You can’t press and hold to fill in multiple tiles, you cant x out a square you’ve coloured and instead have to clear it first and then x it out (and vice versa, why add that extra step in?) and the coloured puzzles have multiple of the exact same colour, with the only difference being inside the code and not visible to the player. How am I supposed to know which of the THREE SEPERATE BUT IDENTICAL SHADES OF PINK I’ve placed in the wrong pink zone?

There are some things that were interesting qol, like when filling out a chain of squares, a number would appear to show you how many you have filled. This would be an interesting and helpful addition to gameplay IF IT WORKED CORRECTLY. There was also an option to fill out an entire row with the L+R buttons, if it was one that had to be completely filled. That’s about the only thing in here that worked and was appreciated.

I gave up when getting past the piss easy early levels, and then realising that the puzzles were fundamentally broken and showing an incorrect number of tiles to fill. It was so shit, and this was noticed on my second or third day of playing, so I contacted Nintendo for a refund. I don’t usually ask for refunds, but this time I did.

Fuck this game, put effort into making a real picross before putting it on the eshop, fuckers.

~~~

Zelda Picross, 3DS

I’m pretty sure this is a fangame, and considering that – it’s pretty nice! Though, I am of the opinion this would be better on PC, as there were times where I could barely see the details of the puzzle, despite playing on a 3DS XL.

The whole game looks like a mix between the SNES and GameBoy Zelda aesthetics, with covers of various songs across the series in a similar sound. It definitely feels like a passion project, and for that, I can only commend it.

Now, onto the meat of it. This is actually a solid Picross, and a great taste to wash my mouth out with after the shit I had to get refunded. It’s not perfect, by any means, but it was good fun and I enjoyed my time with it, which is all that matters, right?

To play each level, there is an over world where you select and unlock levels to progress further. And, surprise surprise, the puzzles you fill out are all generally related to the Legend of Zelda! This traversal made it kind of feel like a massive Zelda dungeon, which was really fun! Another charming aspect is that you have hearts- except instead of enemies attacking you, you lose a heart every time you hit an incorrect square. I actually really liked this, as it feels so linked to Zelda, but also feels appropriate here. As you progress, you can unlock more hearts too, which is helpful for the boss levels. They entail two large back-to-back puzzles- which means if you use up most your hearts fumbling in the first boss puzzle, you better be extra sure you know what you’re doing in the second. To get to the bosses and unlock more paths, you’ll often have to travel through the over world maps and collect items. To unlock them, you’ll need to solve a picross puzzle depicting the item you’ll be getting. THAT’S ALL I WANT BABBBEEEEEYYYYYYY!!!!

Apart from it getting a little cramped and hard to read in later levels, my only other criticisms are that the colour palettes are pretty muted and a bit bland looking, which can be detrimental in some levels. Each of the puzzles have a different theming based on where you are, which is a great touch- but on levels like the ones in Death Mountain, there’s not enough visual change to tell the difference between filled and unfilled squares. Some are worse than others, but I think forgoing some of the fancy details here for readabilities sake would’ve worked in their favour. There’s nothing wrong with having cute details and art in the borders and background, but I think it ended up being too cluttered as it is currently. Another part that got a little frustrating, particularly near the end, what that the cursor doesn’t stand out enough and I get lost! I can’t see it most of the time, there’s not enough contrast for it to stand out, and even with the rows and columns highlighted, I’d still fudge choices cause I’m one square off!

Overall, considering my main issues with this game are that it’s visually not polished enough for my tastes, I’d say this was a pretty great game. I had a lot of fun playing, and it reignited my old ideas to make a pircoss fan game of my own someday… I’d honestly recommend playing just for the interesting way they’ve presented adventure mode, it was really good!

~~~

My Nintendo Picross - The Legend of Zelda : Twilight Princess, 3DS

Ahhh… My favourite picross game…

There is just a certain polish to this game that makes it stand out above the rest for me. I don’t feel like I even have to say much- you just read my other reviews. You know what I’ve complained about, and the kind of things I value in a picross game. I’m sure you can assume this one is pretty good.

I don’t really care for the second mode here where the numbers are semi obscured by covering two rows and columns, instead of each set of numbers being their own. It’s playable, but not my favourite, I vastly prefer the classic picross experience. That said, I would’ve loved more than just one level of the massive level, as it was quite fun to zoom in onto chunks and solve a picross that is just one square of a larger one.

Controls handle well and feel intuitive, the puzzles are fun and fit the theme. I like this game a lot.

Tutorial / Inside a House

Hyrule Field Main Theme

Ganondorf Main Theme

~~~

Castlevania, NES

This has got to be the most fun I’ve had with an NES game… like, ever. I thoroughly enjoyed so much about it, and in a way I feel that it reinvigorated my love for video games.

Despite not knowing what to do for the first few hours that I was playing, and not realising I could save within the collection I’ve been playing on to pause and pick up later, I didn’t care that I kept starting over every time I jumped back into the game. It’s a classic 80’s game, after all. How else are you supposed to play if you don’t continually replay the early levels as you try to push forward a few more screens?

However, I am glad for modern conventions like state saves and the like, as although I was loving it, I do have sensitive eyes and was struggling to play for my usual extended gaming sessions. Towards the end of my playthrough, I took advantage of save states and a few cheeky walkthroughs to get the best experience, as the game IS filled with a bunch of 80s bullshit, too.

The plot is VERY simple, and that’s something I enjoyed- as though there wasn’t much text (or subtext, for that matter) it was easy enough to follow along with. Dracula is the big bad, and we gotta storm his castle and take him and his monsters out! The visuals of the game are more detailed than I expected them to be, filled with a charming mix of monster movie and early gothic horror styles. While simple, the sprites for both Simon Belmont and the various enemies and bosses you encounter are filled with character, and with backgrounds that were filled with details- I only wish I could’ve played this on a CRT to experience the full depth! I find the CRT filters on LCD TV’s never truly mimic the way the pixels would bend and blur on those old screens, and simply opt for simple scan-line overlays that barely cut it.

As expected for a controller that consisted of basically a d-pad and two action buttons, the controls for this game are stupidly simple. This didn’t stop it from having an interesting weapons system, one that was surprisingly more complex than I initially understood it to be! Your main attack is your trusty whip, which can be upgraded a few times to have a longer reach, which is SUPREMELY helpful, and definitely felt when it’s taken away as you get hurt. The other method of attacking is via the subweapon system, which drop at various points from enemies or interactable elements of the levels. Along the way, you can collect hearts that are dropped- but these are not health. This took me a bit to figure out, as I kept dying and wondering why my health was so whack if I had been collecting so many hearts! Turns out, the hearts are more of an ammo counter for your subweapons. Once I figured this out, it really changed the way I approached the combat, and soon figured out which subweapons I enjoyed the most. I really liked the range of throwing the crosses like boomerangs across the screen, and throwing holy water to stun enemies while I whipped the hell out of them. There’s a bunch of other subweapons, those were just what I used most often, but it leaves room to experiment with what you want to keep on you, or where you want to swap out as you come across more subweapons. The more I played, the more I began to build strategies around what kinds of subweapons I had, and found that this system is actually a lot more nuanced than I assumed it to be in my early hours of play! Btw, if you want health, instead of hearts, you need to find a delicious roast leg in secret compartments in the wall. Mmmmmmm wall meat~

While the combat makes up the ‘action’ part of this game, the other part of it is platforming. Now, I really liked it once I got a feel for the controls, but it IS filled with a good dose of 80’s jank that is hard to get used to with modern gaming fingers. However, maybe it’s just because I am a cranky gamer, or because I grew up playing stuff of this era from my dad’s hand-me-downs… I loved the platforming here! I wanna reiterate just how detail filled the locations are, as it’s just dripping with character and creates a fun atmosphere to platform across. Although some stages had areas that were difficult to figure out what exactly was part of the platform I could walk across, you start to pick up cues and understand the visual language the devs are talking in. The platforming was a genuine challenge, there were times where I felt that 80s jank getting in my way, but there were also plenty of times where I felt I was so close, and that I just messed up what I was supposed to do. It helped that I could change the window boxed borders around the game, and had the gorgeous illustrated game cover to the side. It was me and Belmont’s mini skirt against the world!

And, it would be remiss of me to go this whole review without mentioning the music. IT’S GORGEOUS. I CANNOT TELL YOU HOW HARD IT WAS TO JUST CHOOSE 3 SONGS TO LINK AT THE END, THERE’S SO MANY INTERESTING TRACKS!! Considering the limitations of the 8-bit era, there is such a depth and masterful composition to these songs that it was a genuine treat to listen to. Of course I’ll be linking the classic Vampire Killer, but for such a small OST, there are so many bangers! It was so nice hearing familiar motifs across various songs, and honestly just fun hearing what I consider to be amongst the best of NES’ sound. I feel like I could listen to some of these tracks for hours, but I already have with how much I spent in some levels!

Maybe this earlier era of gaming is just something easier for me to connect with quickly, but I can confidently say that I have no nostalgia clouding my vision, as I never got the chance to play this growing up. It’s something that I always wanted to play, and it’s a series that has come to mean a lot to me the more I play and learn about it- but seriously. What a game. It’s difficult, but not in a way that makes it impossible to just pick up and start playing. If you want a challenge, and haven’t already, I cannot recommend this game enough.

Stage 01 Vampire Killer

Stage 13 Heart of Fire

Stage 16 Out of Time

~~~

Castlevania II: Simon’s Quest, NES

This game fucking sucks. I love it.

In a similar style to Zelda II being a strange semi-rpg side scroller, Simon’s Quest is a bit of a departure from the simple action platformer it’s predecessor was. Though, I’d argue that this strange shake up feels more at home here than it did in Zelda II, as Castlevania was already a side scrolling game. Expanding it to exploring a whole world instead of exclusively Dracula's Castle is an interesting step, and despite the fumbling that is mainly down to poor translation and console limitations – this game was a surprising hit for me.

We continue on from the last game, following Simon as he deals with a curse placed upon him in the previous game when he defeated Dracula. To lift the curse, we must travel across the lands and retrieve Dracula’s body parts in the hopes that reassembling and defeating him once and for all will cure Simon. To do this, we must travel the land and find helpful hints and items within the various villages scattered about, and fight our way through the castles of Dracula’s loyal followers, who guard his body parts from people like Simon. The clearest way that the curse shows itself in this game through the day/night cycle, where enemies are twice as strong (or Belmont’s twice as weak), zombie-like creatures invade the villages, and all the villagers lock themselves away. I find this so fascinating because the sheer ambition of this narrative style is really pushing the limits of the NES – whether or not it was successful is to be elaborated on, but they tried and I love that.

This leads me to the perfect place to start discussing the gameplay itself, which is… ehhh… a bit of a mixed bag. As I just mentioned, the transitions from day to night are ambitious- but not great in practice. The cycle lasts about 3 minutes real time, which is far too frequent and actively destroys any and all pacing or momentum you have going. It also feels disproportionate for a cycle, the nights drag on FOREVER and the days barely last. It especially sucked when I was trying to get to a specific town with the express purpose of trying to talk with someone or buy something, only for it to turn to night just as I’d arrived. It’s just so poorly implemented due to the hardware limitations, and regardless how interesting or narratively involved it is, I’d estimate a good third of my playthrough was spent sitting in a village corner away from beasties and writing notes for this very write-up. This is THE biggest roadblock that turns people off this game, followed closely by the piss poor translation – which is a shame, because if you’re willing to trudge through all it’s failings, I actually think this is an awesome game.

There were definitely moments where I really got into this game, and even spent time thinking about it when I wasn’t playing. The enemy sprites are so cool and expressive for 8-bit, the music is even more banging (who doesn’t love bloody tears!) and there are occasional clever things to do that make it easier to progress, like throwing holy water to see where the false floors are. I also appreciated ‘quests’ like the crystal exchange, it was easy enough to follow despite the weird translation, and it was very clear that I was supposed to buy and trade them once I came across villagers who adamantly DIDN’T want to trade with my lame ass crystal. Even things as simple as coming across the house where you find the morning star merchant was really fun – I never played this as a kid, but that moment felt like a shot of pure nostalgia.

As I mentioned earlier, the translation fucking sucks here; which sucks even more because this has a few rpg elements thrown in, so it is important to actually talk to villagers and see what they have to say. One of the most well known things about this game is the botched translation regarding the red crystal; where, in the Japanese text it was clearer that to activate it and progress, you need to equip it and hold down in the right place. In English, it’s utter nonsense, and I only knew what to do as I had knowledge of this exact scenario. I wish it was translated clearer, as I had already figured out that pressing down was a good way to use the shield, and would bounce back fireballs if I stood still. It already had set up an understanding of the kind of button inputs to use with items, so it’s a shame that the instructions on what to was botched. There were some characters that had funny things to say through the strange choice in words, and I found it particularly amusing going through the village where everyone hates you. I keep repeating it, but I just need to keep saying it, I WISH THE TRANSLATION WAS BETTER. I’d recommend looking up fan translations/translation notes, as there’s a fascinating discrepancy between the two, and the JP version was more successful at setting up a certain tone and vibe amongst the villagers that helped get it just that much closer to successfully pulling off their ambitious ideas.

I can say for certain that the music helped tremendously, and this maaaaayyyyyy be my favourite soundtrack out of the trilogy. Let me replay it a thousand more times and I’ll get back to you. There’s such a bombastic feeling to the tracks when you’re walking around during the day, and at night it feels a little more subdued, but still in a kind of action-oriented way, if that makes sense. It’s dangerous for Simon to be out at night with his curse, but it’s still dangerous for the enemies at the other end of his morning star whip. I also liked the kind of eerie and adventurous vibes the castle themes have- I linked castle 1 cause its a banger, but if you’d be so inclined to check out castle 2, highly recommend.

Platforming in the game is pretty much the same as in Castlevania I, though there were more sections that felt like classic 80s bullshit. I even got stuck in a really weird spot and I found it quite amusing. It sucks a bit that water is an insta death, especially when there are some precarious platforms to jump across, but it wasn’t so bad. With regards to dying, I’m not sure I fully understand it, as you seemingly get three chances before you’re given a game over with the choice to continue. Continuing respawns you where you died, which is great, and the L is that your hearts are reset as punishment for sucking. That’s fine with me, as you’ll quickly rack up the hearts you need again when killing enemies, especially when you have the morning star, as there’s not much else to do during the night.

Before I get into the endgame stuff, I should talk about the rpg shit that’s here. When you kill enemies, you get hearts and experience points. You can level up in every castle, and doing so will expand your health and defence. There are also merchants in most towns, and a strange hooded person selling something special in each castle. Hearts aren’t just weapons ammo here, they are also currency, so there’s definitely an incentive to kill enemies instead of trying to outrun them. It was interesting to see such a basic NES system, but it worked, so I can’t complain. I’d be curious to see a modern take on this game, not only to get a chance for the original intent and ambitions to shine- as well as a more accurate translation for those of us overseas -but also to see if this rpg system should be expanded upon, or left the same. I’m not sure if I have a preference, but it is something I thought about a few times while playing (despite not generally being one for needless remakes and reimaginings lmao)

As the whole deal of this game is to collect pieces of Dracula, reassemble him, and then kick his ass for good, I found it quite interesting that you can actually equip pieces of Dracula! Using his claw and eye were particularly cool when thinking about them in-universe, not to mention they were just practical. Once you’ve collected all the pieces and make your way to Drac’s castle, I thought the set up was awesome. See, the village nearby was completely empty, save for one old lady who says “let’s live here together.” If I’m not mistaken, the town where everyone hates you is also en route to the castle, so it makes sense that they’d recognise and blame their supernatural troubles on the Belmont. By the time you get to the titular Castlevania, you’ll find that it’s completely empty.

How eerie.

I loved this, it was so unnerving, and at this point in the game, you will have battled many enemies and gotten used to keeping an eye out for them – so to enter the final castle and have it be completely devoid of life was something that stood out to me. All you have to do is find your way to the final chamber, and reassemble Dracula. His fight is piss easy, but going with the narrative in-universe, I’m fine with that! Overall, I think what made me connect with this game was how compelling the tid bits of narrative were. Not because it was outrageously complex and ground breaking – but because it gave a fitting, if tragic, context and justification to go on this journey. With the success of the Netflix Castlevania series, and the generally positive reception towards it’s spin off- Castlevania: Nocturne, I’d be incredibly interested in seeing the tale of Simon adapted and elaborated upon. Whether this is through a modern remake or animated adaptation, either would scratch that curious itch for me- but I may just have to write my own fan adaptation in the meantime, ahaha!

Near the end of the game, I did find myself getting lost as I struggled to orient myself. The ‘open’ exploration being horizontal in nature is the main reason for this, but despite this, I found it quite cool how large they were able to make this world feel for a 2D sidescroller. What sucks balls though, is that your ending will change depending on how long you take to gather up Dracula and kill him again – and most players will go through multiple day/night cycles while they play, locking themselves in for the ‘bad’ ending. That’s the one I got, though the way the text was worded didn’t seem all that bad to me. It was a positive, if tragic, outcome, all things considered. Thankfully, in the age of the internet, it’s really easy to look up the other endings – but a few years down the line when I get ACTUAL nostalgia for this game, and not just the feeling that I should've had nostalgia for this as I would've adored it as a kid; I’m certain I’ll be attempting to get the good ending for myself.

It’s clear that despite it’s many flaws, I loved this game, and consider it to be a misunderstood gem. I’d highly encourage putting in the effort to look past it’s shortcomings, find a good walkthrough for backup, and give it a try. It didn’t quite hit all of it’s lofty ambitions due to limitations in hardware, and was also undercut further in the west with the poor translation, but I truly felt the passion the team put into this, and enjoyed it all the same.

Stage Theme Bloody Tears

Castle Theme 01 Dwellings of Doom

Day Time The Silence of Daylight

~~~

Castlevania III: Dracula's Curse, NES

The opening ‘cinematic’ of this game says everything you need to know about this game: Castlevania is back, and better than ever.

I found it quite charming that the intro had an old film look, with the visuals of the tape rolling to make it feel all the more grand. By this point, the devs knew what they wanted to make- confident in creating the gothic horror imagery they want to portray, and succeeding! I said it eariler, and I’ll say it again – I am so surprised and excited to see just how much detail they managed to put into an 8-bit NES game, and Dracula's Curse is a step up once again.

The gameplay is a return to the familiar style of the first game- though, the second hasn’t been completely forgotten, as at the completion of areas, you have to choice on which path to take as you continue your journey. It’s interesting, and though it doesn’t feel as open as Simon’s Quest, the world here still feels very large.

This is also helped by the fact that there are so many innovations on the gameplay to keep it feeling fresh. There are new gimmicks to certain levels, like swamp water acting like quicksand, water rising levels, and more complexity to boss fights. There are also some quality of life changes I noticed: in Castle II, I often died when platforming as my jumps would be compromised by hitting my head on a block above me and falling directly into water below. Here in Castle III, I noticed that when you jump under some platform bricks, you can jump through your full arc instead of hitting your head on them. Clearly, I died enough this way in II that it was noticed and appreciated here.

The main new thing to this game, however, is the buddy system going on. While you journey, you have the option to come across some friends who will join you. There’s Grant Danasty; a pirate guy who can climb walls and ceilings, and uses a short dagger to attack- Sypha Belnades; a powerful magic user who is weak at everything else- and Alucard, the son of Dracula and bearer of PENIS BLAST!!!!

Okay… He can turn into a bat and fly around the level, and use magic fireballs, it just looks like he’s throwing it from his penis. Out of the three recruitable characters, Sypha is the only one who doesn’t have a boss fight. Grant was turned into a monster by Dracula, so you have to fight and knock some sense into him- after which, he joins you. And Alucard challenges you to a battle, of which he’s using as a gauge to see if you are strong enough to help him with his patricidal agenda. Trevor Belmont is the guy you start with, and who is always available to switch back to, though he’s exactly what you’d expect from a Belmont. This character switching system is quite fun, though I don’t think it’s any secret that I love Alucard and therefore mainly played as him or Trevor for most the game. I did start a replay to make sure I recruited everyone and try out their move sets- everyone has a special ability that uses the hearts as ammo, and has different strengths and weaknesses compared to Trevor’s more well-roundedness (especially when you’ve upgraded his whip!)

The music here is absolutely stunning, people love the Castlevania soundtracks for a reason, and it’s due to the masterful composition of this trilogy. There’s even a familiar deja vu to enjoy amongst all the new tracks.

I honestly don’t have much more to say on this game, I just enjoyed playing it and didn’t feel the need to take many notes, as it’s a solid step up and refinement for the series. My only real criticisms are that some of the sprites readability isn’t very good, and detracts from the detail filled world. The background blended in with intractable objects and resulted in times where I couldn’t clearly see where the stairs and platforms I’m supposed to be using actually were. I found this the worst in 9-01, and struggled with eye strain the most in this game. As I’m playing on a modern tv, I do wonder if playing on a CRT would’ve made this critique a moot point, but I’ll just have to chalk that up to the sacrifice of detailed pixel art in the 8-bit era.

Oh, and I guess I should mention the fight with Death, as it was definitely a challenge- one I found harder than the Dracula fight. So hard, in fact, that my only note on it was: DEATH ON 8-03 WAS INSANELY HARD! SAVE STATE FUDGE FOR DESSERT!

This was just a great time, and I’m tied between recommending this or Castle I as the definitive experience for new players wanting to try the og stuff. I’d say just play the whole trilogy, but I had such a great time with all of these games, and it was super fun playing the game that the Netflix Animated series was mostly based on.

I love Castlevania.

Beginning [Level 1]

Mad Forest

Riddle

~~~

Super Mario Odyssey, Switch

The first time a friend got me to try Odyssey was in late 2019. It was his favourite game at the time, and he really wanted me to play it. I gave it a good 40 min or so, but I really wasn’t enjoying it. I commented that I felt that it was trying too hard to recapture the style of Mario Galaxy and failing, and that I’d rather play galaxy instead. Obviously, 40 min isn’t enough time to truly understand WHY I didn’t click with it, but now, after 25+ hours, I can tell you exactly why.

It’s shit.

I was selling old switch games I never played and was able to take advantage of a deal to get Odyssey relatively cheap, and it was the only switch game in stock at the time that seemed somewhat interesting. I thought I may as well give The Mario Title for the switch a go- and give it a fair go at that. I played through every world until I finished the game, exploring and collecting as much as I could, but there was no way I was going to attempt 100% completion.

The basic rundown of the game is the base Mario formula you’d expect. Peach is kidnapped, it’s Bowser’s fault, go save the Princess. The companion character, your hat, joins you as his sister has been kidnapped with Peach; so you both have a common goal. There’s other details to it, but I really couldn’t get invested and I often found myself very lost plot-wise. In 3D Mario fashion, every new instalment seems to stray further into that vague open-ended, pseudo open world style of gameplay. Having such a loosely connected plot and not much more of it connected to the main goal of collecting power moons lacked the clear motivations I needed to get through the game. Like, what am I doing? Am I just collecting power moons? To upgrade my ship and travel to a new kingdom? To do what…? Collect more power moons?

There wasn’t any charm here for me, and I constantly felt as though the game were hollow and devoid of the Mario characteristics I’d expected as a bare minimum. Perhaps thats a failing on my part, but I DO enjoy games where there’s not strictly a reason why the game is happening, just that it is – but you see… those games are usually mechanically interesting, or just plain fun enough that it outweighs my need for plot to help suck me in. This game was not fun, I don’t think I enjoyed myself at all, maybe save for moments where I was desperately trying to look for positives and begrudgingly noting that one area isn’t that bad… I guess. It just feels shit, and I had a similar problem with BOTW. It may be something as simple as outgrowing the target audience, or being a nostalgiaphille who prefers the games from decades ago ‘just cause;’ but I really feel that there is a disconnect in this era of Nintendo and I’m struggling to enjoy any of it, despite generally wanting to enjoy them.

The main gimmick of this game is your hat friend (who’s name is Cappy, despite being a top hat?), and their ability to possess creatures all over the various Kingdoms and utilise their unique skills to complete platforming puzzles across the levels.

I HATE THIS.

All the possessions are functionally the same thing. The fucking onion that I hate. The octopus with a butthole. The fire thing. THEY JUST JUMP. YOU KNOW WHO ELSE CAN JUMP? MARIO. GIVE HIM A FUCKING IRON CAP OR FIRE FLOWER TO CROSS THE DOMAIN AND LET ME JUST JUMP AND DO ACTUAL PLATFORMING. Some of the possessions are really stupid too. I can be a slab of meat, or a manhole, but I can’t be a spiny? There’s hammer bros, AND FIRE HAMMER BROS, BUT MARIO CAN’T JUST BE MARIO BUT WITH A FIRE FLOWER?? I CAN BE A PIRAHA PLANT IN THE LUNCH LAND, BUT NOT IN DONKEY KONG CITY??? WHAT IS GOING ON!?

I remember complaining about the arbitrary and limiting nature of the possessions to my friend, and he said, “If these were flowers you ran into to absorb their powers the same way you do in Galaxy you wouldn't be bitching.” Yeah, cause then I wouldn’t be some big stone guy with glasses to use bad version of the lens of truth, or some fucking onion. I don't want to be an ONION I want to be MARIO. Power ups in Mario are ADDITIONAL powers using MARIO as a base. These possessions are REMOVING Mario and ONLY letting me use the new power. THAT’S SHIT! I would rather deal with power ups like in Mario Galaxy where it’s an addition to the Mario abilities, or a strategic gain one lose another (like the bee mushroom, you can fly and walk/climb on honey, which Mario cannot, but if you touch water you’ll lose the power, unlike Mario who can swim) Said friend brought up the spring mushroom in galaxy, but I hated that power up for the exact same reasons I hate these possessions! They’re dumb gimmicks that don’t do anything!! Most the possessions are various forms of limited jumping, and if it’s not that, it’s some dumb one (maybe two) trick gimmick thing that controls poorly!! Whoop dee doo!!!

To top it off, the base Mario controls suck too. They felt terrible and really weird for me. The depth perception is the worst I’ve experienced in a 3D Mario; I’d often try to jump off things and be flung in a direction no where near where I directed it, and I couldn’t get the hang of the motion controls. The motion controls on the switch are the worst I’ve ever played; and I asked friends and went through various forums trying to make sure my joycons were calibrated properly, but I can only conclude that the controls just suck. They suck badly. I was never able to perform the cap jumps with any consistency, so I avoided using them and had to get creative in other ways (or just give up on trying to get to particularly difficult-to-reach areas). One thing that WOULD’VE HELPED would be if you were still able to access those particular moves with button controls, HOWEVER you’re fucked if you wanna play handheld only, or just can’t seem to figure out the motion controls. This is yet another reason why I will never understand the switch lite (or the fact that the switch is touted as a hybrid console to play docked or handheld, but it’s clearly meant to be docked with game design that actively fucks over players in handheld modes or are just otherwise unwilling or unable to use motion!), but to not even have a toggleable option to play with button only or motion controls is baffling. WHY IS ONE OF THE MAIN DRAWS OF THE GAME LOCKED BEHIND MOTION CONTROLS!? I WILL NEVER UNDERSTAND.

The camera was also incredibly frustrating. It was locked onto some kind of predetermined path (one that felt specifically designed to yank away from where I was TRYING to position it) which made exploring even more frustrating. Half the moons of each level that you need to collect are hidden in corners and strange areas that you’re intended to find through exploration, which you do in part with the camera controls. If I’m constantly in a battle with the camera, despite it being one I can supposedly control, what the hell am I supposed to do!? Even when I’d position it where I wanted, as soon as I started walking, it’d reposition itself, but never in ways where I could leave the camera and just trust that it would generally point to where I wanted. What’s the point.

And, not that boss fights are anything stand-out to me in a Mario game, but all the fights FUCKING SUCKED. I hate the controls and I hate these ugly rabbids looking fuckers! I don’t even like the extended Bowser clown kid lineup, but that’s preferable to random ass rabbit characters. GROSS. What’s wrong with Bowser and Bowser Jr? The lack of Bowser’s presence felt sucky to me as well, I missed him and feeling the looming threat and consequences of his actions if we don’t step up and punch his dick. It’s just a wedding. Oh no. A wedding that Peach doesn’t consent to and even though Bowser is evil and pushy, he still has some minimal form of respect to leave Peach alone when she walks out. (Also, did anyone else feel a bit weird when Mario joined in on trying to propose as an alternate option for Peach? Just me?) When we finally got to Bowser’s dick-punching… THAT SUCKED TOO! Shitty icing on the shitty cake. Fart_Reverb.mp3

While I’m complaining about game mechanics, I want to talk about the main collectables – coins and moons. Theres… not really a difference between them, to be honest. Moons are the same deal as the power stars from Galaxy… but dumb. They’re just hanging out in the levels, free for the taking the same way coins are. Even if there were little mini game things to complete before getting a moon, they felt more like an obligation on the game dev’s part to ‘spice it up’ with ‘varied methods of collection.’ Some moons are more special than others for reasons I cannot see- why are some moons given a cutscene when you collect them, but others aren’t? Why is the ‘grand star’ of moons just three moons at once, which feels even more un-special. I also don’t like that there’s no intrinsic stakes to collecting the moons, it’s the exact same value to find a moon by simply walking up to it, or doing a simple ground pound, to something more complicated that actually requires platforming or some other kind of challenge. Some of these moons are easier to find than coins, which is why they feel as devalued as them. I vastly prefer the way this was handled in Galaxy, where there are different tiers of stars to make it feel proportionate to the effort you put in to collecting them. There’s the power stars themselves, which are usually the main goal of any mission and require some traversal and platforming or puzzle solving of some kind to find and unlock. There’s the power stars that are broken up into bits, where the challenge is much easier but spread out so you have to collect all the bits before unlocking the star, and there’s the grand power stars that were usually locked behind a boss fight. There were easily understood stakes with that system, but here in Odyssey, there’s not a single difference between finding a single moon or a cluster of three, other than the physical number. It’s dumb, and it feels lazy and almost insulting that they’d strip it down to something so basic. Kids could understand Galaxy, why do you feel the need to make it even more basic and like a participation trophy?

The thing with the moons being the same value as coins, is that the coins don’t matter either. Coins are the health currency of the game, but also the economic currency. If you die, coins are deducted and you respawn. If you die with no coins… nothing happens. Your health isn’t even restored when you collect coins, which breaks any connection between coins and health to me. If they’re taken away as punishment, shouldn’t they also reward health when collected? There’s not even the classic 100 coins = 1up here. (Did you also notice that there’s not a single mushroom item in the game? Way to go on skipping more Mario iconography!) Coins being as perfunctory as they are, and in some cases even rarer to come across compared to moons, completely deflated any value either of them have to me. Why am I collecting either? Sure, I can unlock more levels if I collect enough moons, and I can buy stuff with my coins, but every level has a seperate local currency that you have to collect to spend within that world anyway! WHAT IS THE POINT OF ANY OF IT!!

Lastly, I want to touch on the visual and audio vibes of the game, of which I feel disappointed in both. Visually, yeah, there’s a lot of detail and it’s pretty and whatever… but it all felt very bland and hollow to me. So many levels are surrounded by a sprawling abyss of nothing, which felt really uninspired and made me miss when efforts were put into skyboxes and distant parallaxed background elements to make it feel dense and detailed without overwhelming the player or the system. A particular example for me is Bowser’s Weeb Ass Castle – for the end goal of the game, it REALLY felt like something you could slap together in Unity (derogatory). Where’s the spectacle, the theatrics? I can’t even recall anything feeling particularly Bowser about it, it’s just a Japanese inspired level…

I couldn’t even enjoy levels that were technically fuller and more detailed, due to recognising characteristics of other bland levels that come before and after. It felt like an illusion, that the levels had so much shit there, yet there was barely anything to do. Gripes with previous 3D Mario entries, warranted gripes, are ‘fixed’ by… doing the same thing. It’s just that it looks prettier with modern graphics, so it’s technically better enough for the devs to say, “nuh-uh! We fixed it!”

Take for example, a big issue many people have had with all 3D Mario games since Mario 64, is how the pacing feels choppy with continually getting spat out at the end of a level when you collect a star. That’s something frustrating that stayed all the way until Galaxy, where even when you could reasonably collect two or more power stars within the one level, you’re forced to exit the level and re-enter it fro each individual star. I can say similar things about botw, and them taking on the criticism of “there’s too much text!! We want voice acting!!” to become a game that had poorly voice acted cutscenes, ALONG WITH WALLS OF TEXT TO READ ANYWAY. In Odyssey, there are STILL issues with the pacing of collecting stars and still being forced to come to a halt while you watch a cutscene or need to re-enter a level, but because it’s not the same explicit getting-spat-out-of-a-level as previous games, it’s somehow the ‘fix’ players have been asking for. Do you see how that’s a non-solution dressed up as the fix made in response to criticism, without the devs actually addressing or even understanding WHY complaints were made about it in the first place? But cause it’s been ‘fixed’ in a weird way, its not only ‘innovative’ for the newest era of 3D Mario, but its alllll better.

So much of this game felt like a very empty identity crisis, barely resembling Mario or the Nintendo polish I’ve come to expect. Mario has always been a weird series with things that really push what it means to BE a Mario game – but I feel for most previous entries in both his 2D and 3D adventures, there’s always been enough recognisably Mario within the game that it’s easier to roll with whatever whacky thing they’re introducing. Galaxy was already pushing it as a ‘recognisably Mario’ kind of game, but at least it was charming with some solid NPCs and a decent, if simple, plot to follow and tie everything together. I’m more than willing to admit that rose-tinted nostalgia glasses may be fuelling the way I’m digging my heels in on this during comparisons to Galaxy, but I feel that Galaxy was the furthest I can appreciate the pushed boundaries of what makes a Mario game, and where I draw the line in no longer being able to connect with and appreciate it.

Apart from looking bland, the game often sounded bland too. The first couple of worlds have very ambient and minimalistic music, which sucked in my opinion – and although there are some great tracks later on, it just made me feel even more like this game lacked the Mario charm I’d been told to expect. The top 3 tracks I’ve linked at the end are all really nice songs, though they sound like they’re from completely different games, and none of them a Mario one. I felt saddened by the fact that I had to play through 5 worlds before I came across a track that I enjoyed, and even then, it was just enjoyable in a general sense, and not in a way that felt like it belonged in a Mario game. When I listen to the tracks I don’t even know WHICH LEVEL they belonged to for most of them, they don’t sound like the music that should be playing when you’re playing, and more like I just muted the game and put on a playlist of other music.

There’s a lot of elements in Mario soundtracks across the games that can be drawn on to further refine and evolve for a new game, but again, I can only describe the soundtrack as an identity crisis. While there are some of the classic tracks we all know and love rearranged for the game, it was so few and far between that it actually felt jarring to hear Mario music in what is supposedly a Mario game. One of the last worlds you unlock is a massive reinterpretation of the outside of Peach’s Castle from Mario 64, and thats the main area that you hear anything that sounds like traditional Mario in this game. It was disappointing, and I found myself too burnt out and cynical to enjoy something that felt like too much like nostalgia bait instead of loving homage. Overall, while listening to the soundtrack again as I write this, it is genuinely and objectively a nice collection of songs.; it just lacks a certain je ne sais quoi and the specific Mario-flavoured cohesion to tie it all together in my opinion.

One thing that I did enjoy- for the most part -were the 2D platformer sections present in every world. In these sections, you go through a pipe and get turned into an 8-bit Mario to platform across an area and get a power moon. In the early hours of my playthrough, I considered this the highlight of my playthrough… but the more I played, feeling frustrated with the intended platforming and level progression of the game, the more I felt jaded towards these sections. They’re genuinely nice, a short section that’s a return to form for cranky old gamers like myself, and accompanying them is an 8-bit remix of the level’s theme, and Mario will be wearing pixel interpretations of whatever outfit you had on. It’s fun! I want to love it more than I do, but towards the end of my playthough, it began to feel like pandering in order to secure old fans as part of the target audience, while also capturing kids and new fans that are more easily excited by putting a hat on a dinosaur and being able to run into things with bad controls.

They’re spreading themselves thin, in a way that feels non-committal in a way that’s overly safe. I would’ve rathered they put more effort into buckling down and making the possession concept a lot stronger, or whatever other weird direction they wanted to go in, and just believe in it. They’ve already built games around the concept of ‘Mario but he has a water gun,’ and ‘Mario but there’s weird gravity;’ but where those games felt more successful is that they felt like they put more effort into exploring that concept in multiple ways – whereas I feel that theres not really anything fun, interesting or innovative about the possessions in this game. For a game that’s only defence against most of my critiques being, “but it’s for kids! And people new to Mario!!” I want to ask, what exactly is this promising for the future of 3D Mario? The whole game wasn’t that memorable, and that mechanic felt so all-over-the-place that it didn’t get a chance to really shine. I can’t really visualise any levels or gaming moments when I hear the soundtrack or think of this game, and I’m a more visual thinker- that should be easy for me! It’s a glorified tech demo, and even that is a generous description in my eyes. It’s just so epic to play a Mario game where you’re encouraged to not play as Mario for most of it! (But it’s all still Mario, because you have his hat and moustache! Duh!)

I feel like I have so much more to say, but it would be getting even more nitpicky and whingy than it already is. I’ve cut back a lot of what I wrote down when playing, this is the SHORT version!

Well, ok it’s the shorter-but-still-a-classic-Rads-review-slash-retrospective. I’m not really sure what to call these, retrospective feels the most appropriate, but yeah. That’s all I’ll say about Mario Odyssey for now. My copy has found a much better home being regifted to my younger cousins who got a family switch last Christmas. They enjoy it very much, and I fucking hated it and what it represents.

Fuck you, Mario Odyssey!

Steam Gardens

Bubblaine

Bowser's Castle 2

#rads reviews #goty #not tagging individual games again. it can be a surprise when you read more :P

[hopeymchope]

Danganlike, Ahoy: Process of Elimination

As we wait for the team behind the Danganronpa series to finally release the game they've been working on for almost five years now next month, why not fill the time with another recent release that's inspired by their work?

I've just started playing it myself.

Process of Elimination just came out in April, and the team behind it has been open about the fact that Danganronpa was one of their primary inspirations. As such, we once again we have a situation where a group of eccentric anime-style people are trapped in an isolated location where murders ensue! (At least this time, the cast isn't being forced/encouraged to all murder one another. ... Well, not YET.)

And the player character? We play as a detective-in-training with extremely low self-esteem who wears an all-black uniform and sports an ahoge sprouting from the black hair atop his head.

In other words: Shuichi.

We play as dollar-store Shuichi Saihara.

"We have Shuichi at home."

In all seriousness, his name is actually "Wato Hojo." But far as I'm concerned? This motherfucker is Discount Shuichi until he earns his own name. But make no mistake — I'm legitimately hoping our protagonist will manage to come into his own. I wish you the best of luck, D.S.!

Before we get any further, know this: There's a free demo available for this game! You can try out the early parts for free on your Switch, PS4, or PC! So there's very little reason NOT to do so if you're at all interested in a new Danganlike mystery Visual Novel-esque game with puzzles to unravel!

With that out of the way... if you're still here, I'll happily give you more info on the basic setup/backstory of the prologue and how the gameplay generally works.

Unfortunately for Discount Shuichi, he's far from the only detective on the premises when deaths start occurring. In fact, he's but one of MANY. But to explain why that's the case, we need to dig into the setup/backstory of this thing.

Here's the setup/backstory of our adventure: A serial killer who goes by "The Quartering Duke" appeared roughly a year ago. Since that time, he's committed more than 50 double murders, racking up an heretofore-unprecedented 100+ kills. To make matters worse: The fact that he's been on such a successful spree without generating any clear leads has led to multiple copycats springing up in his wake.

The citizens are living in fear, requests for bodyguard and private detective services are at a historic high, and the government has resorted to leaning on the Detective Alliance (or "DA") for assistance with the crime wave.

"Who dat," you ask? The DA is sort of like a detective union: A loose alliance of 100 private detectives who are given a numeric rank based on their skills and experience. So kind of like the Detective Library made famous to DR hardcores by Danganronpa Kirigiri, albeit with fewer members.

They're officially free agents, but they're largely contracted by the government as of late. Also: The members of the DA can't reveal their real names/identities. Instead, they only go by an adjective that describes them and the word "Detective."

A group of quirky detectives that each have a noteworthy trait? Is this taking inspiration from Rain Code BEFORE Rain Code is out?!

For example:

Gourmet Detective is an excellent chef in addition to her detective bonafides.

Rowdy Detective is typically aggressive and ready to throw down.

Techie Detective prefers to rely on technological tools for his work.

Posh Detective is... posh.

And as you no doubt see in the above image, our own character is dubbed the "Incompetent Detective." I wish I could say that was undeserved, but... nah. It check out.

When we first meet Discount Shuichi, he's botching a job he was assigned as an assistant at a smaller detective firm. He's brought into the Detective Alliance at the lowest rank of 100 JUST in time for he and another 13 sleuths to wind up isolated at DA's island headquarters with their communications out. And he quickly proves that he's not very swift on the uptake when it comes to the clues around him. I actually joked to my S.O. that maybe they'd dub him the "Inept Detective"... and two minutes later, he got the "Incompetent" label. And I laughed. It's harsh, but for now? It's fair.

Oh, and he even gets knocked out and wakes up inside a locker that is within his new murder-prison. +1 Shuichi Point!

Anyway, back to the story: To the surprise of everyone who isn't the player, a quartered dead body is soon discovered. It appears entirely likely that the Quartering Duke has made his way to Detective Alliance Island and is now trapped among them! Pretty soon, we're collaborating with other detectives to examine the crime scene and determine what went down.

I just started playing last night, so I don't have a lot more to report than that. I've only completed the first chapter/mystery so far. At the moment, it looks like we might only have ONE culprit throughout this game who commits all the murders... but given that we're already set up that there's a ton of copycats during the prologue/backstory, I wouldn't be too shocked if we encounter one or two others as the game goes on.

The bulk of the game is a visual novel experience with occasional binary choices that can lead to (minor/short) branches in events and/or impact your end-of-chapter score/grade. The balance is similar to a Danganronpa so far: You're mostly reading, but there's still one important segment where gameplay takes center stage and gets much more involved than merely reading the text. That core "gameplay" comes in the investigation sequences.

Isometric Investigative Action!

This is when we use our "dPad" (an iPad parody, not a directional pad) to direct all the titular detectives around the building. I'm not going to get into the story reason for why Discount Shuichi has this authority, so let's just talk about what he can do with it.

See, there will be "Mystery Points" that require a certain level of "Intellect" to unlock, and you can assign detectives with various numeric Intellect rankings to investigate them. If you put another detective beside such an investigating detective and assign them to "Assist," you get a significant boost in their Intellect skill that will help you break down the Mystery Point faster, revealing the clue underneath. Most Mystery Points will only take a single "hour" or "turn" to identify what the relevant evidence is, but some take multiple turns. Furthermore, once you identify a piece of evidence at such a point, you'll find that some of them require closer analysis to reveal all of their secrets. And each of our detectives ALSO has a numeric "Analyze" ranking. If they meet or exceed the rank needed to analyze the evidence, they can do so in a single hour/turn, revealing whatever additional info it holds.

Detective stats include a numeric Move rating, too! it controls how far they can move during a single turn. Usually, each turn lets you move a character and then assign them an action — but you can also choose to give a character full access to traveling the ENTIRE map if you need them to get very far very fast. Doing this means that moving will be ALL they can do for that particular turn, though.

Starting get the picture? The game is one of time and resource management. You have a limited number of hours/turns before you must complete an investigation, and each detective on hand has set numeric ratings that limit how much they can move and what they can successfully complete within a single turn. Your mission is to complete the analysis of the crime scene and all its evidence before your time is up, leveraging your team's unique stats to carve the most efficient path.

The first investigation is 50% tutorial, so it's pretty easy to complete it within the allotted hours/turns. For that reason, I don't yet know what happens if you take too long to find everything in an investigation. The game only threatened that doing so would cause "ANNIHILATION." ... Which sounds bad.

I think that's enough of an introduction to Process of Elimination. I'll just close by noting that it only contains Japanese voiceovers (no dub) and, although I found some elements of its story to already be super-obvious, they've been reasonably quick to reveal the most obvious elements during the first chapter rather than lingering on the mistaken assumption that we hadn't already figured their crap out. So I'm optimistic that they won't make this narrative TOO obvious or simple in the long run.

Looking forward to uncovering more!

#process of elimination #danganronpa #rain code #master detective archives: rain code #wato hojo #i mean... #discount shuichi #visual novels #video games #danganlikes #danganlike ahoy

[suzuran777]

Ever Maiden ~Daraku no Sono no Otome-tachi~ Review & Guide

This time I’m reviewing something a little bit different than usual, Liar-soft's horror mystery yuri game, Ever Maiden. It recently got ported to the PS4 and Nintendo Switch, but I decided to play the PC version first. I’m going to avoid mentioning big spoilers, but I will summarize some things that happen in the first chapter!

The plot of the game focuses on the Puellarium, a school isolated from the outside world, protected by a dense fog and a forest of thorns. Many girls who study here have only one goal in mind, to become the ‘Ever Maiden’. What exactly the Ever Maiden is only gets explained later in the game, but it's known that the girl with the highest grades will eventually obtain this title. One day, one of the students find a mysterious girl sleeping in front of the school's gate who doesn’t remember where she came from. This girl is our protagonist, Alouette. Nobody from the outside world is supposed to know the exact location of the school. Who is this mysterious student?

To become a student here, one must possess the 'maiden aptitude', which at first seems to be the power to make flowers grow and bloom. Later in the game you learn that the students can create many other things with this power too and not just flowers (for example mannequins, clothes and even mechanical tools). The Puellarium is a very strict place and students can only create things that are within the school’s guidelines. Whenever something is created that doesn’t belong there, they don’t get punished but it needs to be destroyed immediately. There's also many other rules, like not touching each other, not going outside at night etc.

Alouette quickly gets used to these rules, but her curiousity sometimes causes trouble. After a series of strange dreams she accidentally breaks the curfew and discovers that the Puellarium's appearance changes at night. Crystals are scattered everywhere and the moment she touches them, she starts experiencing strange flashbacks, as if she has been to this school before. At night she also meets a mysterious student who calls herself Olor, who tells her about the school’s mysteries. Soon after Alouette starts going outside at night, she finds out that students can get ‘corrupted’ when their mental health declines. Once this corruption reaches a certain point, they transform and it’s not possible to return to their original form. Whenever this happens, Rook shows up to fight them. During daytime, Rook always pretends that anything that happens at night is just a dream, but Alouette knows the truth already. Corrupted students who they defeated are always found dead the next day. Other mysterious incidents also occur, like students suddenly losing their memories and strange shared dreams. Throughout the story, the main characters slowly discover the mysteries of the Puellarium.

This game is almost entirely linear and you only get some choices near the very end of the game. Occasionally, you’ll be able to select locations on a map, but the selected order doesn’t matter and you can access the next scene by visiting all locations. The pairings are also pre-determined, similar to the BL visual novel Uuultra C which I’ve also reviewed here. The only difference is that each pairing doesn’t have their own route, but most of them do have their own chapter in the main story. For example, after the introduction the first chapter mainly focuses on Macaw and Pavone, after that you learn about Robin and Canary and finally, Alouette and Rook. It's also possible for Alouette to end up with Averla if you pick the alternative ending, although it feels more like a ‘bad’ ending. 

I couldn't really find a guide, but it was not difficult to obtain the endings because there’s only a few of them. You can see the choices/endings below, though beware of some vague spoilers!

Guide/choices Choice 1: 彼女のために死ねるか否か (Die for her or don't) 頷く Nod > Averla ending 首を横に振る Shake your head > Continues Rook's ending

Choice 2: 最期の一言は (Your last words) あなたを愛している I love you > Bad end 私は死んでいない I'm not dead yet > Continues Rook's ending

After that you can explore the locations on the map, but you only get a few turns. Make sure to visit the prayer hall (礼讚祈堂) first, which is where you'll find the next choice.

Choice 3: どこを調べるべきか (Where should I investigate?) アドラーを調べる Examine Adler > Continues Rook's ending.

After that visit the sitting room (座学室) to unlock the prayer hall basement (礼讚祈堂地下). Make sure that you don't visit the clock tower (時計塔) without doing all of these things first, or you'll get a bad end. Running out of turns also gives you a bad ending because it forces you to go to the clock tower.

Impressions I was surprised to see the whole game was just one linear story, but I thought it was a super interesting experience. This is actually the first yuri/girl’s love visual novel I’ve played, until now I never saw many people talk about them. This game’s only available in Japanese right now, but it also showed up in MangaGamer’s licensing survey (16th place), so I’m hoping it will get an English translation some day! I’m also a big fan of horror and tragic stories, so I really wanted to try it. Most of the romance in this game is a bit tragic because touching each other is not something the school allows, but the game does have a good ending, so don’t worry if tragic stories aren’t your thing. Ever Maiden is also advertised as a horror game, but I think it’s not necessarily a ‘scary’ game, it just gives you a feeling of uneasiness. At all times I felt like something was not right and that the school was hiding a big secret.

Every character is really unique and and they all have their own interesting personality. I personally liked the relationship between Robin and Canary. Robin spends a lot of her time in the library, so she knows quite some secrets about the school and wishes to escape some day. Canary seems like the type who obeys all the rules and is even instructed to tell Alouette of all of the school’s rules, but I really liked that she didn’t care about the rules if it meant helping Robin. By the way, I think it’s interesting that all of the characters are named after birds, maybe because they’re all like birds trapped in a cage (the school).

The art is something I can’t forget to mention either. The main artist is Ooishi Ryuuko, who's well known for some other visual novels like Shingakkou. Similar to Shingakkou, I think the art is very expressive and perfectly suits the theme of the game. The characters all wear the same school uniform, yet the colors and designs still make them look very unique. The flower motifs can also be found everywhere in the game, for example the main menu screen, the text box, background, clothes, CGs.... and so on. I also found it really interesting that whenever one of the characters was corrupted by the ‘evil’ seeds and transformed, they were usually surrounded by the flowers them or their partner loved the most. I think there’s a lot of symbolism I still have to look into, but for now I’m just going to look at the CGs once more and enjoy the art!

I do wish the ending was a little bit longer, because it mostly focuses on Rook and Alouette. It does answer all of the big questions, but I really want to learn more about the outside world... At some point most characters mentioned their hometown and family-dynamic and I just really want to know more...! The music is also really good, though there’s only a few tracks. I think some more variety would have been good, but that’s just a minor complaint.

#vnreview #visual novel #vn #ever maiden #evermaiden #liar soft #liarsoft #review #girlslove #yuri #yurivn

[jessjustplay]

I finished playing Final Fantasy X (again)

October 22, 2023

Game: Final Fantasy X HD Remaster First Time/Replaying: Replaying Game Time: 40 hours Console: Nintendo Switch Started: December 5, 2022 Finished: October 21, 2023

I finished this game last year in February, but some time in December I got an itch to play it again. At the time of my initial replay, I didn't have a TV so I played the entire thing on my tiny Switch screen. Now that I had somewhere to dock the Switch to, I wanted to re-experience the story again on a big TV!

So yes, I started Final Fantasy X back in December 2022 and it's taken me almost a year to finish it. In my defense, I have been playing a lot of other games! FFX was sort of just a back-burner, in-between-playthroughs type of game.

However, a few days ago I picked it up and could not put it down. Once you get past a particular area (that blasts an annoying announcement on-repeat the ENTIRE time), the game is very fun and picks up speed as the story unravels. I also decided I wasn't going to "do everything" which threw out a lot of that anxiety.

I have a PS4 now, so I thought, "If I'm going to 'do everything' I might as well go for a Platinum trophy!" I'm glad the Switch doesn't have a trophy system because it lets you enjoy the games without worrying about marking tasks off a list, but with how annoying FFX's side-quests are, if you're going to put yourself through that pain, you might as well get some sort of accolade!

I have no idea when I will start my Platinum attempt, but I really would like to try one day. I've played this game SO many times sinc eI was a kid - why not? People on Instagram telling me I should go for an easier Platinum trophy not only annoys me, but also makes me want to do it even more.

SPOILERS START HERE

Anyways, the endgame of this playthrough was really exciting! I told myself I wouldn't be getting an extra aeons or any of the ultimate weapons, so it was nice just walking around, leveling up, and going into boss fight after boss fight.

Normally, I would have Yuna's ultimate weapon and her Break Damage Limit would save the day! But this time I didn't have that and I relied HEAVILY on Bahamut to save our skins.

Seymour #2 took me two attempts, the Zanarkand Guardian was one attempt, the Zanarkand Trials Glyph Monster Dude took me 3 or 4 tries, Yunalesca was one attempt (!), Seymour #3 was one attempt (!!), and Braska's Final Aeon was ALSO one attempt (!!!).

I was surprised I was able to do do the final leg of the endgame in one attempt without dying. Not to mention, whie fighting Braska's Final Aeon, he petrified Wakka and that man disappeared! I was tempted to restart the game but then I thought, "It's not like I'm getting any EXP from this fight!" So I BEAT THE GAME WITH TWO CHARACTERS ONLY. At one point, Lulu and Yuna had less than 200 HP and I was freaking out!

What saving me was summoning Bahamut once, getting LUCKY AF that he didn't die, dismissing him, then using Yuna's overdrive to summon him again. I also used Auron to zombie Jecht and that helped for awhile, and I used Tidus's talk command once and that 100% saved Lulu and Yuna from dying. *THANK GOD*

Here are my final stats:

While I was more critical of the game this time around (more on that in another post), I still enjoyed this game and it will always be special to me! It's interesting though, I used to cry a lot watching the ending of this game, but this time I didn't. It's official - I'm old lol

When you're young, losing the person you "love" seems like the end of the world, but as you get older you learn people come and go. Yuna, you are 17. You will find someone new!!!

I did, however, cry during that one scene watching Yuna's sphere of messages (after beating the Zanarkand guardian boss). IT IS SO SAD!!! 😭 I felt my throat closing up watching that (specifically the Kimahri part). KIMAHRI, YOU'RE THE BEST! I need to write a Kimahri appreciation post.

#final fantasy x #final fantasy #finished

[coughdontfeelwellcough]

Sicktember - sick and injured

Fandom: Spider-Man (insomniac game.)

Words: 1484

Authors notes: Welcome to my first sicktemper post for this year! I wrote this after replaying the ps4 game ready for the new one but they're are no game spoilers and both Peter and MJ are aged 23.

I hope you enjoy!

Peter wasn’t going to make it home. He’d just gotten out of a rough fight and Peter was not in good shape. He needed help, he couldn’t exactly collapse on the streets of New York. He refused to go to May, she couldn’t know about he was Spider-Man and that only left one person. 

Peter crash landed on MJ’s balcony, hissing in pain as his body collided with the floor. He’d lost a lot of fights in his time but it had been a long time since he’d felt pain like it. 

“Jesus! Peter!”  MJ was at his side, helping him limp into her apartment. He made it to her couch where she helped take off his mask, wincing at the sight of his bruised and bloodied face. 

“You need a Doctor.” she grabbed her phone and Peter had to reach out to stop her before she dialled 911. 

“Don’t.” 

“I don’t think you’re in any shape to negotiate right now Peter. What the hell happened?” she asked. 

“Met the new guy, calls him Tombstone. Don’t tell Fisk but this guy could give him a run for his money,” Peter replied. 

“And he did this to you?” 

Peter nodded, wincing at the movement. “Him and his thugs.” 

“Did you stop him?” she asked. 

“No, but I imagine Yuri is hot on his tail.” 

MJ sighed and put her phone away, it wasn’t like she’d been able to explain to the paramedics anyway. They’d danced this dance before and Peter hated how defeated she looked every time. 

“What hurts the most? Because to be honest you look like hell.” 

Peter tried to laugh but it just sent stabbing pain through his ribs. “Right shoulder is definitely dislocated, I’d say at least six broken ribs, a few dozen cuts and bruises oh and I’m pretty sure my left leg is broken.” 

“Fuck sake Peter, anything else? Any limbs hanging off I should know about?” 

“I’m all good.” “I highly doubt that.” 

MJ went to fetch her first aid kit, one she kept specially stocked up for the many Spidery related injuries. He remembered the first time he’d drought Curtis Conners and had stumbled into her apartment with claw marks across his chest. She’d screamed and almost driven him to the hospital before he’d managed to calm her down. 

“I’m going to start with your shoulder, just deep breaths and it’ll be over.” MJ grabbed his right shoulder and forced it back into the socket. Peter whimpered and leant back against the couch, heart pounding. No matter how many times she’d done that it never hurt any less.

“I’m just going to rest your leg for now and then we’ll get you changed in a bit, let me first clean you up a bit,” she said. 

MJ took a damp cloth and started cleaning the blood and sweat from his face.

“Peter, you’re really warm.” she said, touching his forehead with her wrist. “In fact you’re burning up, are you ill?” 

“I dunno know, maybe? I wasn’t feeling so great earlier but then the whole Tombstone thing happened and I kinda forgot about it.” Though now she’d mentioned it Peter was suddenly aware of how achy and clammy he felt, a headache forming behind his eyes. 

MJ sighed, pushing her hair back from her face. He knew that look, she was disappointed in him. 

“MJ I’m..” 

“If you say sorry right now Peter Parker I will end you. It’s just how do you go out and fight mob bosses without realising you have the flu?” 

Peter shrugged and coughed roughly into his fist. Each one sending a stabbing pain through his ribs and tearing at his throat. 

“You sound awful,” MJ said, patting his back as the fit ended. 

“Well, I feel great,” he replied, wincing. 

“Shut up so I can take your temperature and see how high your fever actually is.” 

Peter did as he was told, only coughing lightly as she placed the device under his tongue. A minute later and it beeped a red 103.4 flashing up on screen.

“You don’t do anything by halves do you?” MJ asked, frowning. 

“One of the joys of being me, I might heal quicker than most but it means I get sick quicker too.” 

“I remember, we were sixteen and on the ferris wheel in Central Park when you suddenly and violently came down with the stomach flu…” 

“Ew, don’t remind me.” Peter groaned. 

“Well it’s burnt into my memory, I’ll never be able to wear strappy sandals again.” 

Peter wanted to laugh but only ended up coughing, thick and chestily into his elbow. 

“Okay, I think it’s time to get you out of your suit. You can’t be comfortable and it can’t be doing anything for your fever.” 

“Whatever you say Doc,” Peter sniffed. 

“Do you think you can stand?” MJ asked. 

“I once fought Rhino with my leg broken in half three places and a concession, I think I can manage this.” 

It took both of them to get Peter on his feet, MJ had her arm around his waist as all remaining colour leaving him face the moment he tried to put weight on his injured leg. 

Getting him changed was a challenge, Peter couldn’t stand for any length of time and could barely go a minute without coughing. By the time he was dressed in some spare comfy clothes he was exhausted and trembling. His flu symptoms were truly starting to hit him, his head felt fuzzy and he could feel the congestion starting to settle in his chest. MJ joined him on the bed, rubbing his back as he coughed miserably into his wrist. 

“How are you feeling? Honestly,” MJ asked. 

Peter sighed, his voice weak and shaky with pain and illness. “Not great.” 

“Can I get you anything?” 

“Some tea would be lovely,” he rasped, the pain in his ribs was the worst and he struggled to keep the tremble out of his voice. 

“Okay, tea coming up,” she replied, kissing the top of his head. 

“Can you help me back to the couch?” he asked. 

“Are you sure? I thought you might like to lie down.”

“I’m not taking your bed MJ, the couch is fine.” 

MJ gave him the look again but he refused to back down, it was bad enough he’d dumped himself on her in such a state. He wasn’t about to make her give up her bed as well as everything else. 

“Okay,” she sighed. “Come on.” 

They stumbled back to the living room, MJ managing to get Peter back on the couch as he coughed and struggled to catch his breath. She helped him get comfortable and even got a stack of pillows to rest his broken leg. 

“Do you have a blanket? It’s freezing,” Peter asked, 

“That’s your fever talking,” MJ replied, still she returned with a blanket. 

She wrapped around his shoulders before running her fingers through his hair, checking his fever.

“You’re getting worse,” MJ sighed. 

“It’s a talent of mine,” Peter rasped. 

MJ gave a weak smile and kissed his forehead. “Do you want to try some medicine? You’re really burning up.” 

Peter gave a stuffy groan. “You know it won’t do anything.” 

“Humour me okay?” she said, putting a couple of Tylenol in his palm. 

Peter nodded and did as he was asked, and he leant back against the couch, his expression miserable as he failed to mask the pain. MJ squeezed his hand, he knew she hated it when he got hurt and even though he had healed faster than most it didn’t stop her from worrying.  

MJ finished making the tea and returned to Peter hacking up a lung, the sound as harsh and congested as ever. He barely managed to calm his breathing, a nasty wheezing coming from his lungs. 

“Here, drink your tea,” she said, passing the steaming mug.

“Thank you,” he croaked.

“Losing your voice? I never thought I’d see the day,” MJ teased. 

Peter pouted, giving her his best sad puppy eyes. MJ just laughed and brushed his hair out of his face, running a hand over his feverish skin. 

“I hope you’re feeling a bit better.” 

Peter nodded, coughing pitifully into his wrist and almost spilling his tea.

“You know, you are terrible at looking after yourself.”

Peter smiled, leaning over to rest his head on MJ’s shoulder. 

“It’s okay, I know you’ll be there to look after me.” 

MJ wrapped her arm carefully around his shoulders, kissing the top of his head. 

“Of course I will,” 

Unfortunately getting injured on the job was just part of being Spider-Man, it never lasted long but it was always good knowing he had someone to go to. Peter rarely admitted it himself but he needed Mary-Jane Watson, she was his other half and he could always count on her to put him back together. 

#sicktember 2023 #sickfic #coughing #fever #injury #sicktember

[nei-ning]

Now that I've finished reading book about autism, let me just tell you, it was VERY eye opening! LOTS and LOTS of things which match me!

Therefor I wrote everything down and now, I'm gonna do my best and translate the list here. It WILL be long so be prepared. There's few questions where I left my own answer. Those are marked with *

Disorder without impairment of intellectual or language functioning.

"This was it!" a decision of refusing to do something anymore

Inner knowing of being autistic but still not knowing / realizing it

Anxiety, endless hole in the stomach

Sentences / words get stuck to play in the head as a loop

Anxiety feels like an another living being who lives inside you

Always felt of being different from others

No any help from anti-depression medicines and countless of therapy sessions

Trying to fit in women's most common mental health issues: Is this guilt after all, shame, too strong desire to please, super conscientious all the way to exhaustion, reaching for perfection, having eating disorder while hating her body. Maybe just chronically depressed? I'm none of these.

I don't care what others think of me

I can manage but only about those things which I'm interested in

I ignore everything boring

My human dignity does not depend on my body

Is sleeping difficult? No since I fall asleep every evening like a sauna lantern (saunalyhty)

Fear of not being believed

I can behave. I warn I can fake and maintain a facade.

I want to be honest and open

When talking, words fall on the floor and are forgotten there. I feel powerless since it feels like none understands me.

I'm often angry when others don't get it what I mean

I'm in a contact with other people more than I could handle

I like to talk long about the same subject and I don't like it when the subject it changed quickly.

Difficulties with eye contact

Hard to work together since others don't think like I.

Others' slowness is infuriating.

I don't like repeating things. Saying it once should be enough

In social situations I act and fake. I fear people.

I can't handle of being interrupted. Example: If another person on the phone wants something else than what I have in mind in that moment.

I don't like changing plans

I get tired easily and need breaks often

Few powerful objects of interest. Many things don't interest at all

Oversensitive to sounds (always wearing headphones)

I'm smart on certain things but on others completely useless

Can't survive from simple calculations or can't follow simple instructions

Challenges in routines. Taking a shower and brushing teeth are very challenging. I can manage but it's very challenging / demanding.

Everything practical and physical demands a lot of efforts

(Small) Talking is difficult since I never know what to say

Autism is caused by biological reasons and is heavily inherited

Autism is not an illness / disease. You can't train yourself out of it and there's no medication to it.

Difficulties in communication and social interaction

Limited behavioral patterns and targets of interest which can, for example, lead to it that routines are important and changes difficult

Senses can be over- or undersensitive.

Autistic has to reason that what others can do naturally

Strong sense of honesty and justice

It's easier to focus on details than on a bigger picture

It can be hard to start a tasks or end them

Most autism tests are made for MEN only

Do I like to play games? Yes (PS4 etc)*

I pay attention on cars' register plates? Yes*

Numbers fascinate me: Yes and no. (I believe in angel numbers so in that sense yes, otherwise no)*

I don't enjoy reading belles-lettres: No, I don't.*

I enjoy gathering information about different subjects, like cars: Depends (I like plague / Black Death!)*

Do I like social happenings and meeting people: No

I have to rest and recharge long after being social

Autistic girls couldn't handle changes, didn't know how to shower, couldn't get their teeth brushed, were extremely sensitive to sounds, got temper tantrums at home, slept badly and they had no friends. They were lonely girls who didn't play with dolls but broke them or only brushed their hair.

To autistic child being held by force / against their will in order to calm them is very damaging. Touch feels uncomfortable.

Autistic understands everything literally

Parents never asked at home how school day was so I learned not to speak about myself

Using words wrong infuriates

Do you feel the need to share your experience with others or is it irrelevant? - It's not if nothing hasn't happened. I don't feel I have anything to tell.

Autistic is strict about details

Music, writing and drawing helps autistic person to release tension

Autism can also be caused by "mother's coldness" which has caused child to withdraw and shutdown.

Autistic girls are handy (drawing, making jewelry, hobby) or then they like animals (or both)

Focuses so hard on drawing (for example) that forgets to eat, go to bathroom etc.

Synesthesia (seeing colors or forms when listening music, getting a taste of something in mouth from words, music, people etc. Example: I once saw a man on TV and he tasted like beetroot!)

Doesn't feel like fitting in society's roles, like how you should look

No connection to body

Periods surprise every time

Doesn't realize being sick

Eating disorder is common on adult autistic people

Connection to anorexia

Overwhelmed by sounds and lights. Can hear fridge's humming or kids outside even that windows are closed. Chat happening at the back of the bus, neighbors. All sounds flood in brains.

Remembers a lot from what s/he has heard

It's important for autistic person to control the situation

Stimming: A way to express emotions. Can appear as sniffing something, stroking pleasantly feeling items, movement (exam: dance), singing, repeating words, biting / chewing, listening sounds, pulling lips etc.

Hands need to re-learn things constantly (like how to peel potato)

Hands can survive from small tasks, not from big ones

Hate towards it you should constantly be doing something

Hard to be around people who are constantly moving, their movement(s) gets on the nerves (aka pisses off)

Doesn't invite anyone to visit them since visits are exhausting

Addiction of routines. Same food every day, each summer the same vacation destination, doing things in specific time because then you can prepare yourself for them.

Easier to understand self-made instructions

Cleaning little by little (task per day) so that housework doesn't become overwhelming

Talking rudely to yourself, keeping yourself stupid

Hard to interact with others' conversation. Usual respond is weird look and: "What?"

Fight / disagreement with a parent. Doesn't get along with father or mother

Laughing at things which others don't get

Perfect rest from sounds and movements (exam: No TV on)

Desire to intervene in matters (exam: baking) if result is not perfect

Lack of sense of direction

Unable to try new route to a market (fear of getting lost)

Anxiety which comes from familiar thing having something new or strange in it, that I haven't "grow up" but stayed "as a child".

Doesn't understand why people scream in concerts, games etc.

Difficulties of getting a female friend (for female autistic persons)

Lack of empathy

Cognitive empathy: Doesn't understand how to react in certain situations

Can do emotional empathy

Let's others decide

Doesn't have strength to go through the same things over and over again with a friend

Easier to get along with boys

Ready to sacrifice a lot for a friend

Fictions affect deeply (exam: as a learning material)

Too critical

Constant collisions and misunderstandings with people

#Autism #Nei reads #Gonna reblog this and add the rest #we are half way there! #text

[myblogandotherrubbish]

✨9 people you’d like to get to know better! ✨

thank you to @annasinterests for the tag!!!

i can’t lie, i haven’t done anything like this before, so I hope i do it right! there will be a few low pressure tags at the end for people i’m mutuals with!! no stress if you don’t wanna do it! there may also be one (1) person i tag who is not a mutual but who i think is great. just to clarify i also think everyone’s great.

okay here we go.

last song: All Around Me by Flyleaf. No, I cannot escape my 13 year old self. However, I have also been really enjoying synthwave and vaporwave stuff recently, and also getting into a lot of Alex G! 🎵

favourite colour: green all the way, but my second favourite colour is purple!! truly though, I love all colours, but those are my most favourite, they make me so happy 💚 💜

currently watching: i’m currently re watching The Boys! I’m a big fan of that show, I love the whole fucked up evil superhero vibes. i’m also planning on starting to watch Westworld soon, and i need to get back into Hannibal. Also if anyone wants a great detective series to watch, watch True Detective, it changed my life. Okay I’m done now. 📺

last movie: omg i feel like i never watch movies anymore but I have so many that i love, hmmmm i think the last one i watched was probably Little Miss Sunshine as it is one of my favourite ones ever. BUT if we’re talking about movies that i watched in a cinema, i can’t lie the last one i saw was Jackass Forever. love those guys. or was it Halloween Ends. who knows.🎥

currently reading: ohoho!!! i have just finished reading Brutes by Dizz Tate. i would highly recommend it, it’s a wonderful representation of working class girlhood and small town secrets. i also finished Sharp Objects by Gillian Flynn. all i can say is what a book, it astounded me, 11/10 📚

sweet/spicy/savoury: spicy and savoury all the way babeeyyyyy. i love spicy food so much. maybe too much. my stomach hates me. I do like chocolate a lot, but i can eat more savoury food than sweet which is a win in my opinion. 🌶️

relationship status: in a relationship!! I have been with my wonderful girlfriend for nearly three years. our anniversary is in march. she is the light of my life and my best friend. 💖

current obsession: ah yes. the things i am so normal about. i just very recently got a ps4 from a friend so i have been playing lots and lots of games. my favourites were the last of us, the last of us part two, and red dead redemption 2. especially rdr2. of course, i’m so normal about it, and the ending and story didn’t break my heart into a million tiny pieces. if you’re reading this and want to talk about these games REACH OUT TO ME I am so passionate about them and would love to talk 🕹️(this was the only gaming emoji I could find forgive me)

last thing i googled: i cannot lie it was probably ao3. or like, potato soup recipes. I love potato soup 🍲

currently working on: staying relatively sane. i graduated this july, and life feels weird right now. i’ve started working full time and i am very tired™️ all of the time. i am autistic so life can definitely be very overwhelming but i’m clinging on. unless of course you meant a project i’m currently working on, then i am currently working on trying to possibly start writing fanfiction of my own. unfortunately i also have horrendous writers block and crippling performance anxiety. let’s just say my 13 year old self’s fanfiction wasn’t doing rounds on wattpad in 2014. we shall see we shall see. ✒️

thank you for the tag again!! this was so fun and I hope it was okay and not boring!!! i will now tag some of my mutuals. and also some maybe not mutuals. ignore me if you don’t want to do this. please do not feel pressured. mwah 💋

@beefrobeefcal @fangirl-is-a-lifestyle @ladyoftheteaandblood @saturn-cherries @oblivion-wonderlust @stuffinmybrainhole @toxicanonymity @bil-daddy

[eeluastuff]

Christmas is geting closer, and do you know what that means!?! Christmas presents!! Its time to start wishing what we want..

My wishes has been Little big planet 3 and Sackboy a big adventure. Of course I need an play station, so I might buy an ps4 myself!

I have owned Lbp3 before, but my parents sold it when they sold our ps3.. (and I have played all of the games.. Lbp and Lbp 2 I played at my friends house, and then I played Lbp 3 with that same friend at my house. It has just been kinda MANY years from that..)

But yea.. If I get the Sackboy a big adventure that means I can finally see vex!!!

#cristmas #lbp vex #lbp 3 #lbp #sackboy #sackboy a big adventure #lbp newton #rawr :3 #yeyeye #hehehe #silly goofy guy

[scramble-crossing]

Hi friend! I am a resident kh fan who's been into the games for over 10 years. I actually started the bc my friend forced me to play twewy, I loved it, and she was like ~ooooo~ these characters are in KH you should play it~~

Little did I know that at the time, it was literally the last game in the series that they were in lol.

But! Here's a handy dandy guide if you would like to get into them!

There's a lot of different numbers for the games but repeat numbers and extensions, are just different versions of the games. So don't worry about "2.5" or "0.2" necessarily.

Ok!

So the game order to play:

Kingdom Hearts

Chain of Memories

Kingdom Hearts 2

358/2 Days

Birth by Sleep

Re:coded

Dream Drop Distance

KH UX

0.2 Fragmentary Passage

Kingdom Hearts 3

Melody of Memory

I know it's a lot but luckily, they made it really easy by bundling remakes together. There's a game called 1.5+2.5 and that's just the first 6 titles. 2 games (days and re:coded) were just made into cutscene movies so you don't have to play them. I highly recommend just watching the scenes for Chain of Memories bc it's a very different type of gameplay and a lot of people don't like that one as much, but it's important to the story. One little thing I don't like about the bundle is it switches the order for kh2 and days. Try to keep that in mind. Then after that you need 2.8. It will have a remake of DDD, a cutscene movie of the original plot of khux (mobile game), and 0.2. It's a new extra chapter to birth by sleep. It's pretty short but still important. You can find these all put together for PS4 (and PC I think?) called Kingdom hearts the story so far

Then KH3!! The game many were waiting for so so long. (Make sure to include the dlc scenes)

After that is Melody of Memory. It's a rhythm game that only has about half an hour of actual important plot.

Then the mobile game. Which unfortunately had been shut down but you can find videos of the entire plot in chronological order. Oh and an extra little story called dark road. That is what has baldur.

So to summarize:

1.5+2.5 remix

2.8

Kh3

Melody of Memory

Mobile game

(and you can condense it more by getting 1.5+2.5 and 2.8 in one bundle and watching MoM and KHUX on YouTube)

The only purchases would be story so far bundle, and kh3.

Sorry this is a long ask but I felt like it's important to explain all the different titles. Feel free to message me if you have any questions!

Oh geez tysm!!

Its very kind of you to type out a guide for a series with like...man 11 whole games??? There's a RHYTHM GAME??? With PLOT IMPORTANCE??? I mean I guess I'm not too surprised. I don't think there's much this franchise can do to surprise me anymore - knock on wood (<- just learned about Baldr mass murder like three hours ago)

Anyways, it's good to know that there's a bundle game out there to make things easier for newcomers! Yknow a few months ago I stumbled across one of them - I think it was 358/2 Days - at a second-hand game store. I didn't grab it right away and kind of regretted it (I mean I tried to play neo twewy first, might as well have a simialrly awkward introduction to kh), so I drove right back a few days later and the thing was ALREADY gone! Would've been cool to own, but my main concern with getting into this franchise was that I'd miss games due to them running on out-of-date consoles or else being rare or pricey, so I'm glad there's still an easy way to play it via bundle!

I mean with a name like that who can resist

I'm gonna have to look into this later...winter break plans perhaps? 👀 The twewy-kh pipeline feels inevitable so I might as well embrace it.

And if I procrastinate well hey, there's always a chance there'll be twewy crossover pt. 2 in the upcoming game, and if Sho's there I swear I WILL drop everything to play game # fourtwelve in a franchise I've never touched before. That is a promise.

#I really appreciate it!! I feel like every time Ive tried to look this up Ive gotten a different answer #or maybe all the 2.5s .0s 3.14152s just confused me #im preeeetty sure ive seen 1.5 + 2.5 kicking around a nearby gamestore before! itll be good to dust off the old ps4 #look out world. fable kingdom hearts era is on the horizon (possibly. maybe.) #ref #asks

[bellmo15-blog]

To everyone saying that Beelzebub in the newest Helluva Boss episode should of been fat because she's the Queen of Gluttony, let me just point out that gluttony as a concept does not necessary have to mean "getting overweight" even if that is the most common depiction of the actual sin glutony in Christianity. It can also mean over-indulging in just about anything you enjoy such as parties or drugs, like the in the episode itself! Binge watching your favourite shows or movies could even be considered gluttony itself. Sometime around last year I started trying to go out of my way to get the platinum trophy in most PS3, PS4 and PS5 games I play and that could be considered over indulging especially if it ends up being a game I really enjoy. And do I even need to bring up the saying "Glutton for punishment?" Hell, most of you reading probaply do commit some act of gluttony without realizing it. So Beelzebub being skinny and a party loving pop star bee demon doesn't both me at all. And also she's kinda hot two so there's that!

Plus, this isn't even the first time Helluva Boss has had a completely different interpretation of a ruler of a particular ring of hell. Remember when Asmodeus, the king of lust, was revealed? That guy was WAY different from the seductive incubus/sucubus I bet many of us was expecting!

#Helluva Boss #Beelzebub #Gluttony

[sublime-beyond-loss]

My Thoughts On Having Run The ‘Keeping The Narrator Company’ Livestream

As we enter the final days of the livestream, which you can find here: https://www.youtube.com/user/MyLittleCoward09/videos

I wanted to put some of my thoughts down for posterity. I was going to wait until the last day or so of the stream to post this, but I don't have any faith in my PS4 to hold out so I figured it was best to get this out now, just in case. This is going to be a long post so TLDR: That Ultra Can Deluxe.

What was the actual point of this stream? Why did I do something so odd and pretty dang unwise? Well, to get it, you kinda have to actually like the Narrator as a character, which a lot of people don't. I've seen so many people go along with the initial joke and skip button him into oblivion without picking up on the existential horror of it at all, and others do it intentionally because they just don't like him. For me, I was troubled by the way the game forces you to go through with it, so I thought, why not commit to doing the opposite for awhile? 

When you pull back the jokes and all of the existential dread talk, I think, at the end of the day, this stream was meant to bring some small sense of hope to an incredibly bleak part of this silly game. I don't believe that's consciously why I started it, but that is what it ended as. I did originally start this largely as a joke when I needed to go into quarantine after I caught a certain virus, despite being fully vaxxed, but then the existential dread kicked in and I tried to embrace that as an experiment.

As I ruminated on some things, as was bound to happen while doing this, I came to understand more and more why this scene got to me in the way that it did. As it so often does, The Stanley Parable tends to mockingly hold a mirror up to your face, and I saw so much of myself in this scene. I hated that there was nothing I could do to stop the self-destruction brought about by insecurity, couched in humor and exaggerated ego, until it was not, which I immediately picked up on the first time I played this scene, long before it started to spiral out of control into pure horror. 

I struggle with criticism and parsing out what is valid criticism and what is just someone being flippant in their critique, and I speak of this both from the perspective of a writer and just as a person. I've done an incredible amount of harm to myself trying to please others and so often at the expense of myself. I'm still working on undoing all of that damage and learning how to just be me without the shame others instilled in me. So, yeah, I find the whole thing a bit relatable.

It was a bit of a gut punch that the game forces you to partake in this character's self-destructive insecurities and that there's nothing you can do about it, because let's face it, absolutely no one was going to avoid pushing forward in this game they just bought, no matter how hard the game tries to make you feel bad about it. There's a million different ways to interpret how this scene ends for the Narrator and what the epilogue implies for him too, but I won't get into any of it or else we'd be here forever. In the end, I decided that I was going to shake my fist in defiance of the whole thing for a little while, even if it was always going to be in vain. 

That's not to say I hate the skip button scene, not at all. I think it's one of the best pieces of writing to come out of the The Stanley Parable, and I wouldn't have put my PS4 at risk otherwise, but I do dislike the inescapable hopelessness of it. So I made my own hope. Aggressive compassion and silliness in the face of a cruel and unyielding outcome. Hell, if you really want to get meta with it, I even gave the version of the Narrator who wanted me to be consumed by this mentality the peace of mind he so badly needed lol.

I've been in a deep depression for awhile now, and as stupid as it sounds, this game really helped to pull me out of it for the time being. I laughed and had fun and it had been so long since anything made me feel so happy. And then, shortly after that, it became one of those autistic hyperfixations of mine, and as any autistic person can tell you, there is nothing that feels quite so good as having a new obsessive interest to completely engulf yourself in. It has been a very, very long time since this has happened for me, probably well over a decade at this point. I think this stream was a way for me to hold on to this feeling for a little while longer and have a great time with it before it passes. It has become such a rare and fleeting thing for me now and this may very well be the last time I experience it.

Aside from that, this stream was a way for me to express myself and put myself out there after having been so withdrawn for so long. It was a way for me to be my weird, wonderful self with a devil-may-care attitude and with no shame involved, despite the occasional self-deprecating humor. Most would consider this a stupid, tedious, pointless thing to do, but I had fun, and that's all that matters in the end. I fully expected this stream to just be me with the occasional person popping in to tell me what an idiot I am, so I never expected that it would gain a bunch of regulars who understood what the stream was meant to represent. Thanks for helping me keep the Narrator company.

#the stanley parable #the stanley parable ultra deluxe