#and my first thought was like. they can't live up to the classic. and 3d always looks like shit | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

eirichele · 1 year

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i tried out engage here's my thoughts. (really mild spoilers)

• honestly alear is like... corrin on steroids. its insane how much they get praised for pretty much being just...mid. i played fates cq and still found this ridiculously distracting because there are parts where the characters say something like "oh, divine dragon, you're (kind/wonderful)" every two or three lines. please sir this is a wendy's

• the worst part by far in this game are the visuals. the character design is kind of all over the place. they look jarringly modern, you can't guess ages, sometimes you can't guess their class. i feel terrible for mika pikazo because they didn't work closely with her, gave her little to no direction and now she's left to get the backlash. that's no way to treat an artist.

• her art is just unfortunately not translated well to 3d, which is a shame because her celebratory art that she posted on twit was very pretty even if its personally not to my taste for a fe game. the models themselves are technically superior to houses, theres very little pixelation. but all the shots and cgs are just....... so badly compositioned. very much 3h vibes with the "characters spinning in a microwave". at some point they split the screen in half to show two characters in different places and it looks so awkward dkjkgfjkk

• the environments are MUCH better, and you now get to explore them after each battle to talk to the characters in them which is something i criticized of houses a lot so that's cool to see. unfortunately they're kinda stiff in cutscenes for some reason? like i said in-game cutscenes look pretty atrocious i just wish we'd go back to 2d illustrated portraits, especially when you have an artist who shines in that medium.

• sexualization is... pretty bad. def not fates level but it's there. your mom is introduced in a direct shot of her chest and she dies in an angle where you can see her boobs. i am not joking. there's an aversa expy so evil sexy woc is unfortunately a trope they still haven't let go of, and there's f!alear's whole chest situation too even though she's a minor..... mess.

• the dialogue is terribleeee. i think the vas did a GREAT job for what they were given but this is unfortunately an anakin skywalker situation where they're going to blame them for how bland and stilted the script is. it's just disjointed at times and so the deliveries can feel weird but how the fuck are you going to deliver "oh divine dragon, you're so shiny when you sweat!" (ACTUAL LINE BTW) they were set up!!!

• story-wise they don't really do much with the emblems. the lords are kind of just there. this mechanic is tbh a little disturbing to me because these spirits are just trapped in these rings and are... very happy about it. they go on and on about how they're gonna save this world and how they're gonna support their respective characters but there's zero mention of their own emotional situation. no missing their friends or reflecting about their lives or wondering what's next or anything, they're just kind of vassals to their characters. the one exception was sigurd who just kinda drops the bomb that he died as a young father and everyone is like "haha anyway moving on...." DUDE. very weirdly implemented imo but i guess they couldn't character assassinate this way so. double edged sword i suppose

• the gameplay kinda reminds me of awakening the first few chapters because the maps are ridiculously simple and a lot of focus is placed on the engage gimmick but it thankfully got better once you reach the somniel. then there's actual maps. which seem pretty fine to me tbh? unfortunately this game is just easy. you get really really good units early on and the emblems are BUSTED. i breezed through like 5 chapters in hard classic and when i saw my friend play they turtled relatively unopposed so its like. i'm not feeling the gameplay. it's just ok. maybe if i do actually decide to play this game one day i could do maddening but i honestly dont want to keep going lmfao

overall its like. exactly what i expected from the previews and i'm really glad i didn't even consider getting it lmfao. like always it just makes me kinda sad to see the potential in these games and all the inklings of ideas that were just kinda forgotten in favor of pandering to the player because that sells.

#t #trying to be fair rather than funny on this one but dw i will probably bully this game later

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stinkywormynoob · 10 months

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Worms lines I find funny or that live rent free in my mind

These are mostly from the soundbanks I play with.

Worms 3D, Worms 4: Mayhem / Ultimate Mayhem (there are some shared bits so I put them together)

Classic

If I ever see you again, I don't know... *laughing* (hurt by enemy)

Why you *mumbling in gibberish* (hurt by enemy)

Hello? (short on time) [it's just so cute]

I'll have that! (taking crate) [I like the way it's said]

Blues Man (Mayhem)

[insert multiple lines ending with singing because they sound amusing]

It isn't for you, doll, it's mine! (taking crate)

This one is for the woman who left me! (melee)

Oh wow, that was not cool! (hurt by enemy)

Horror

I'll be right back after my resurrection! *laughing* (death)

I will live again! *laughing* (death)

Worms W.M.D

Snobby Lady

I said take your shoes off! (first blood)

You have chipped my china! (hurt by enemy)

This must be the new car. (vehicle spawn)

Oh, I thought it was the milkman. (weapon crate spawn)

You may address me as Mum. (start turn)

Sit wherever you like... except there. (vehicle used to kill enemy)

1920's Girl / Charleston Girl

[insert multiple lines that sound weird even in context]

Even I fluff up from time to time! (hurt self)

Hope I don't break a nail. (craft)

*laughing* Oh, honey! (enemy miss)

Aww, shucks! (bazooka miss)

Russian Female

Иди отсюда! - Go away! (hurt by enemy) [funny tone, as if the worm heard a corny joke]

О Боже! - Oh God! (about to be attacked by enemy's strong weapon) [same as above]

Я пошёл! - I'm off! (using ninja rope or jetpack) [funny tone, as well as the fact the soundbank is supposedly feminine, but the worm refers to self in male gender)

Worms Rumble

My game's text isn't English and I can't change that, so I'll translate myself.

Nervous

I'm sure they're okay! (kill enemy)

I'm sorry! (kill enemy)

What do I do with this? (pick up weapon)

#worms #team17 #soundbank #text #game

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thegeneralreturns · 1 year

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If I Had to Rank the Best Picture Nominees

From worst to first...

10. TRIANGLE OF SADNESS - Of the seemingly never-ending buffet of 2022 movies that had a hate boner for the rich, the Academy selected the one that wasn't as entertaining as The Menu, wasn't as righteous as Glass Onion, and wasn't as straight-the-fuck-up mean as Bodies Bodies Bodies. But it was obvious and trite enough for most third graders to lose patience with, and it's the English language debut of an esteemed Swedish director. So here, have a Best Picture nomination. Oh, and a Palme d'Or!

9. ALL QUIET ON THE WESTERN FRONT - To watch the 2022 All Quiet on the Western Front is to miss the hell out of the 1930 version. Even ninety-three years after its debut, Lewis Milestone's classic is a stark and primal thing that laid the groundwork for depicting combat on film. So no matter how good this new version's intentions are (and director Edward Berger's intentions are indeed very good), we're still watching kids play dress up. All sheen and no impact.

8. ELVIS - It was one of the internet's favorite hobbies this past year to flip Tom Hanks an ungodly amount of shit for his garish performance as this film's Colonel Tom Parker. And yeah, he's terrible, but given the rest of the movie around him, could you really say he was wrong? Baz Luhrmann likes to make glitzy and over-the-top fairy tales with sad endings, and that kind of broad artifice is part of the game. The problem with Elvis is that in the middle of it is Austin Butler's gritty, realistic, and quite frankly brilliant method performance. He doesn't fit in. That, or the movie can't contain him. I'd have liked to have seen the movie Butler thought he was in. I'd have liked to have seen the movie Luhrmann was trying to craft around him. I don't think I got either.

7. AVATAR: THE WAY OF WATER - The first hour is great, the third hour is terrific, but the second hour goes all in on a shapeless nature documentary about the seafaring N'avi. That sounds good on paper, but... wait, if James Cameron's writing something, it doesn't sound good on paper either. I can't say I disliked the film, no one can do big quite like Cameron, but I saw it with all the 3D Imax bells and whistles. Once that avenue of consumption is non-viable, I don't see this film working all that well dramatically.

6. TAR - Boy, Todd Field really wanted to make a Kubrick film, didn't he? It's all there, from the deep-focus shots of clean environments, to the low rumble on the soundtrack that portends dread in every scene. Hell, Field even got Kubrick's habit of taking decades in between films down pat. If I don't seem as up-with-people about Cate Blanchett's performance as everyone else, it's because it's part of the machinery. So was Nicholson in The Shining. They're both brilliant performances, but they're not the kind of brilliant you notice on the first viewing. Field wanted to make a Kubrick movie, and for two hours of the 154 minute runtime, he got closer than any of his contemporaries ever have. The problem here is, if Field wants to make a movie to The Old Master's Standard, then he's going to need to live up to The Old Master's Standard. Kubrick would not have gotten away with having a character we've never seen before come in, baldly state the main character's arc as though we were children who needed to get it, and then vanish. This previously spellbinding film never recovers after that, leading to a third act that just... feels... gross. I just think it's weird that while a certain other Best Picture nominee is getting all due credit for its Asian representation, Tar depicts its lead's personal and professional rock bottom as having to actually live in Asia.

5. TOP GUN: MAVERICK - Unlike Avatar, which needed a theatrical experience the price of a small yacht to work, I watched Top Gun: Maverick on my TV, and thought it was just dandy. Tom Cruise threw hundreds of millions of dollars at the screen to convince us that fighter jets were cool. And he was right, too, fighter jets are fuckin' rad. A simple (some might even say "paint-by-numbers") story that's old as the hills subtly lays the groundwork needed for a final half hour that's the tightest, best edited, most well-constructed third act to an action movie I've seen since... Jesus, A New Hope? The more I think about this movie, the more I like it. And this is coming from someone who hated the first one.

4. WOMEN TALKING - How did this movie get the reputation as "The Vegetables" of this crop of nominees, and not Triangle of Sadness, which is so tediously pretentious as to have a Russian capitalist and an American communist drunkenly screeching quotes at each other? Women Talking is about the women in a Mennonite colony reckoning with their sexual assault by the men in their community, and deliberating on whether to stay at that colony, or to leave, and director Sarah Polley deserves all the credit in the world for both making this cinematic, and actually finding moments of levity and recognition. These are women who have undergone something terrible, yes, but they are also women who have history and get on each others' nerves. Their kids screw around in the barn and play jokes on each other. It doesn't sound like much, but it matters a great deal, as through this, we see what these women are potentially giving up by leaving. It's these moments at the periphery that makes the core all the more devastating.

3. THE FABELMANS - I've seen accusations that The Fabelmans is Steven Spielberg mythologizing himself, but that's grossly unfair. This is America, and we did it first. If anyone even slightly interested in film history laid down the tracks for him, then why can't Spielberg drive the train? This is a thinly-veiled, genuinely moving, and wonderfully entertaining Roman a clef of his own life packed with terrific performances, and when the aliens get here in a thousand years after we've blown ourselves to bits, and they ask for evidence that Seth Rogen can act, at least we can say we have it. It's humble without being self-lacerating, and it's the fun kind of meta instead of the irritating kind. Speaking of which, kudos to Spielberg for giving us the funniest and most satisfying final shot since Knives Out.

2. THE BANSHEES OF INISHERIN - I've rarely seen a comedy that left me this unsettled. Or a tragedy that made me laugh so much. Colin Farrell has never been better as a man on an Irish island in the 1920s whose preoccupation with his own image as a nice guy threatens to engulf all of the things and people he ever loved, from his sister, to his friend that doesn't want to talk to him anymore, to his pet donkey. If Everything Everywhere All At Once was the Zoomer ignition point for the kind of nihilism that engenders all-encompassing love and radical hope, then The Banshees of Inisherin feels like this ancient force of queasy malevolence that doesn't give a shit about placidity or empty gestures.

In any other year, I'd call The Banshees of Inisherin the best in show with a smile, and go on my merry way. However two guys named Daniel found out how to activate God mode.

And the best picture of the Best Pictures is...

EVERYTHING EVERYWHERE ALL AT ONCE - How many times in a given year--Hell, in a given decade--do we see a film that earnestly and actively tries to be the best ever made? People want to communicate, or they want to make money, but Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert throw the immigrant experience, kung fu fights, generational trauma, the multiverse, nihilistic despair, butt plugs, and the ebbs and flows of the mother-daughter bond at each other at relativistic speeds in an effort to go down in history. And Holy Hell, it worked! Far from cancelling each other out, these disparate elements cohere into a tear-jerking, mind-blowing, thrilling whole. It's not the actual, literal best movie ever made, but I wouldn't dream of knocking anyone for being taken with how close The Daniels got, because by God I'm taken with it too. I've seen everyone and their mom point at any number of reasons as to why this film reached so many people in the way that it did, but maybe, just maybe, Everything Everywhere All at Once blew up because we haven't seen this kind of ambition in a long, long time. It feels good to see. And we want more.

#oscars #academy awards #everything everywhere all at once #the banshees of inisherin

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wroteonedad · 2 years

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Meme Culture in Art

I consider myself to be a shitposter. Especially on my Instagram stories. Everyone who knows me will know this. I like to post everything.

On my days off, I like to go on my silly little walks which is the exact same loop every time. I walk along the pier, film a little video of the sea, put a fun little song I like over the top and post it. Two hours later, I'm scrolling through TikTok. I see a video of a 3D rotisserie chicken; dancing, running, jumping. Headless. Over the endless clips plays earrape. Nokia phone ringtones, Quandale Dingle, 'have some more chicken, have some more pie'. I like it and then repost it to my Instagram story. One of my old managers told me that watching my story is a giant fever dream to him. He's right.

Memes have been used in various art forms for years, even before a meme became a meme. I'm talking about Dadaism, political satire, conceptual art, even some forms of performance art to name a few. The prime purpose of these works are to make fun of a situation, to depict something in a humorous way, and sometimes, they're made to make no sense at all.

Dadaism began around 1916. The reason they started the art movement was because a group of artists wanted to create pieces of works that depicted the horrors of the First World War. The works included performance, montage poetry; thus all designed to either form a satirical nature or be completely non sensical. At the end of the day, this movement was created to be political, to go against what others thought, and to evoke them. It was a short lived movement, but highly noted in terms of art history and the developments that followed shortly after.

Marcel Duchamp had to be one of my favourite artists from this movement. And why? Because his work was so simple, yet so effective. The way he thought to sign a urinal as R.Mutt and submit it into an exhibition is ballsy. As far as meme culture in art goes, I always immediately discuss Duchamp because he is a joke artist that works effectively. There is nothing offensive, cynical or mundane about the joke art he created.

Also, just the fact that to this day, you can go into an art gallery and just look at a literal signed urinal is hilarious to me. I think this piece alone has exactly the same energy as America by Maurizio Cattelan. Now I could go on about this man and his works forever. I could write essays about him. I tried to base my entire dissertation on one of his many controversial works. Ironically, the piece of his work I studied was not actually America. In fact, I never even mentioned the piece at all.

America is exactly what you would think it is. An 18-karet solid gold toilet created in 2016 that you could indeed use. It wasn't a piece of work that was displayed in the middle of a gallery in a glass case, unlike Fountain, it was in fact in a cubicle in the toilet. This was quite literally a piece of artwork that you could interact with.

This £4.8 million toilet was all fun of games to use, until the night it was stolen. I'm not sure what it is with Cattelan and his works being stolen or destroyed, sometimes both at the same time, but frequent misery follows with his works. The good news that came with this; the artist actually made three golden toilets. Perhaps he knew that this was going to happen, after all, you can't trust the Brits.

In other forms of Meme culture in the art world, we also have literal memes, blown onto small canvases and displayed in art galleries. This is Nothing Conceptual, works by Jesus Bubu Negron; a collection of memes that were created just for his friends. However, he ended up getting the opportunity to display them all in a gallery.

They're what I consider to be a very classic meme. Classic as in when they began to rise in popularity online in the early 10's. The artist says that submitting a collection of works to a gallery is like posting a video on YouTube and it going viral. These videos are typically going to be something out of the ordinary and something that is funny. It takes something absurd to get the attention of so many people across the world and I think this is something this body of work does so well. I would love for it to be a more common thing where you walk into a gallery and it is a carefully selected body of memes, all brought together in a gallery space to tell its own story.

Now, memes are easier to access than ever before. They're in your local gallery, they're on your Facebook as you scroll through your feed, they're even posted by tabloids on a YouTube live stream (goodbye Liz Truss. 2022-2022).

They really can be used for everything. Even for things as extreme as hate speech. Remember Pepe? The much loved disappointed frog that had a reaction image for literally any situation ever.

He started off as this little guy. Harmless. He was a character designed by Matt Furie in his comic series from 2005. Pepe began to circulate when Furie illustrated an image of Pepe pulling his pants down to have a wee and the image went around 4Chan with a caption that says 'feels good man'. Anyway, fast forward a few years, people begin creating images of Pepe looking distraught, captioning it with 'feels bad man'. This of course, became very popular within the 4Chan community. Katy Perry, Nicki Minaj and even Donald Trump (???) have all posted memes on their social medias, using images of Pepe. Pepe began to be used as a hate speech meme for the alt-right after Trump chose to Tweet himself as a Pepe. He gassed it up and within a week, tabloids were classing Pepe as a 'popular white nationalist symbol', I mean isn't that insane? Dudes literally a little frog. The whole hate speech concept went so far that his original creator, Furie decided to kill off Pepe to get people to stop displaying and creating him in such a way. But what are you supposed to do when your beloved cartoon is suddenly being redrawn as Adolf Hitler and the KKK? I guess you've gotta draw Pepe in a coffin and tell everyone that he died so he can't be used as a symbol for anything anymore.

The point is, memes can and will be used for anything. For good and for bad. They started off way before the human race even became aware of what a meme was and they've developed so far ever since. Harmless fun memes are the way to go, but I'm also sure it won't be the last time that we become exposed to a character or an image that spins so far out of control that it becomes an image of something that is out of your wildest dreams.

I think I'll choose to carry on with my silly little shitposting on Instagram. At the end of the day, even if I wanted to, I can't post anything offensive online because all of my work managers follow me.

To finish off, here are a few of my fave memes.

#art review #writing #memes #liz truss #pepe the frog #marcel duchamp #r mutt #maurizio cattelan #jesus bubu negron #gigi hadid #liam payne #andrew tate #sonic #the rock #breaking bad #neon genesis meme

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mrmallard · 1 month

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So I was just struck with a thought about Final Fantasy. I've been living and breathing Final Fantasy for months now, first with my FF13 posting and then with Kingdom Hearts, and then with playing FF13-2. I've also been catching up on the Snapcube playthrough of Final Fantasy 7 Remake as I grind in Old-School Runescape, and I'm literally on the last stream of the base game as I type this, so like I've been in the fuckin Final Fantasy trenches lately.

Here's the thought:

Final Fantasy can be divided into "ages" or "eras" pretty easily, and Final Fantasy 7 Remake is arguably the beginning of the current age of Final Fantasy. Furthermore, the third and final FF7R game - whenever the fuck that comes out, probably around 2028 or something - is probably going to be the capstone on this era of Final Fantasy.

I'm doing the classic conspiracy theory method of coming to a conclusion and working backwards, but hear me out.

Final Fantasy 1-3 are the Age of Innovation. FF1 comes out and does its thing, cribs a bit from Dragon Quest on one hand but innovates its own class system and magic and stuff on the other. Final Fantasy 2 comes out and it has this keyword feature where you can learn keywords and bring them up in conversation to advance the plot. It's a bit of a slog, and the levelling system has been overhauled so radically that one of the most efficient ways to grind is to have your characters beat each other up - it didn't stick. But it was an earnest attempt, and it was really interesting. FF3 was then the birthplace of Final Fantasy's job system, which FF5 and X-2 would run with.

Final Fantasy 4-6 is the Age of Refinement. The storylines of the first three games weren't... unambitious, per se, but Final Fantasy 4 kinda bumped it up a notch. You have this story of a dark knight who realises the error of his ways and decides to travel and better himself and is symbolically reborn, and you have this apprentice and this king, and there's a summoner character who the main guy is looking after - I haven't finished FF4, but the part I have played was very good.

FF5 takes FF3's job system and really fleshes it out. The plot is a bit breezy - unfairly maligned by people who want to shitpost about the main villain being a Soul Jar and a large ham - but it's an extremely fun play. Lots of job combos and character specialties and stuff.

And then you have FF6, which I can't speak about very much, but it's widely considered the pinnacle of the 16-bit era of RPGs. Huge, dynamic story, ambitious gameplay, dark themes - at least in America, Final Fantasy 6 was kind of this great marriage and refinement of everything that came before in the franchise.

And that kicks off what might arguably be the Golden Age of Final Fantasy.

Final Fantasy 7. Cutting edge graphics, a wealth of things to do and see spread over multiple discs, pushes the boundaries of video game storytelling. Final Fantasy 8 - takes the stocky little Lego men from FF7, turns them into fully detailed, proportionate and fleshed out people and renders an awesome video game weapon that never quite caught on as much as the Buster Sword. People complain about junctioning, and I can't say anything about that, but comparing FF7 and FF8 graphically is night and day.

Final Fantasy 9 then takes the improvements in modelling, texturing and proportion - and it uses it to render a fully realised steam-fantasy world full of hulking knights and skittering mice children, big angry antlions and small, hopping frogs. The 3D games went from little stock approximations of people, to realistically rendered and proportioned human characters, to a wide menagerie of characters from different species, of different heights and builds, textured as well as possible to convey one of the .ost ambitious fantasy worlds in video games up to a point.

Final Fantasy X, warts and all, represents the end of that golden age in my opinion.

It was the final game in the series to be developed by Squaresoft before they merged with Enix. Hironobu Sakaguchi was credited on Final Fantasy games up to X-2 as a producer, though I think he left the company before FF11 came out - I think X was the final game he was involved with from start to finish. And it's an interesting mix of old and new - this is one of the few games not to use an Active Time Battle system, using turn-order instead, but the technology was a step beyond the pre-rendered backgrounds and text-only dialogue of the PS1 trilogy. The setting is also notably unique; I think it's visually based on the Philippines, as opposed to like a steampunk fantasy setting or grim dystopian cyberpunk.

Final Fantasy 11 and 12, imo, is kind of like an Age of Expansion. This is where Final Fantasy began to really transcend what a Final Fantasy product could be. There had been spinoffs like Chocobo's Mystery Dungeon, Chocobo GP and Mystic Quest, as well as stuff like the SaGa games on Game Boy that were localised as Final Fantasy Adventure - and shit, you had an anime OVA based on FF5 and a blockbuster movie which bombed at the box office - but to bring that into the main series for the first time, Final Fantasy 11 was a fucking MMORPG. That was... well, maybe not unheard of given Ultima Online, but it was certainly a bold move to take, especially chasing the success of World of Warcraft.

Final Fantasy 12, to my understanding, takes the sort of tone and ambition of a game like Final Fantasy Tactics and combines it with state of the art gameplay systems that were unlike just about anything that was on the market at the time. And even the spinoffs of the time were especially weird and ambitious, like Crystal Chronicles on the Gamecube. This was also where Square Enix began to publish sequels to older properties like Final Fantasy 4 and 10 - the franchise was expanding and testing the boundaries of the franchise, almost aggressively so.

Final Fantasy 13 then began one of the most notorious flop eras in gaming history.

In hindsight, this era of the franchise was moreso defined by growing pains. The jump from the 6th gen to the 7th was pretty huge across the board, and this is where a lot of Japanese gaming giants had a ton of trouble on console hardware. Capcom had a dogshit generation on the PS3, for example - it wasn't just Square Enix.

But the next step in the main franchise, Final Fantasy 13, was struck by bloat and ambition. They built a whole new engine for the game which cost millions of dollars, and it had a lot of shortcomings - you couldn't really render large, populated areas without slowdown, not on the scale that current-gen hardware kind of demanded in that exponential-improvement kind of way, and the development was beset by logistical issues - my understanding is that at one point the team entertained the idea of making Vanille the main character, but they'd already released the announcement trailer with Lightning at the forefront so they were hamstrung by that creative decision.

This was the period where Square Enix execs began saying stuff like "turn-based combat is dead, players don't want that any more, we want to pivot towards more action-driven combat that provides more immediate feedback to the player". And even then it felt kind of like a desperate pivot to further dig their heels in and double down on FF13's differences - even moreso after games like Persona 5 proved that there was still a ravenous, fanatical fanbase for turn-based combat, and that those types of RPGs were still popular and profitable - but this aspect of the corporate narrative would end up staying the course and defining the next era of Final Fantasy.

The game looked gorgeous, but the resulting release caused such a crisis that instead of moving forward on the other two Fabula Nova Crystallis games - Final Fantasy Versus XIII and Final Fantasy Agito XIII - the core creative team would desperately pivot into a trilogy of games that continued the narrative of FF13, basically trying to iterate on it until it was fixed.

Instead of a thematic trilogy of Fabula Nova Crystallis games, they had a literal trilogy of XIII games, a loosely connected instalment on the PSP that kind of carried the spirit of the original series plan, and a hotly anticipated game - Nomura's baby - that had been in development hell for almost ten years straight. That game would be completely divorced from the Fabula Nova Crystallis series and released as Final Fantasy 15, helmed by a new director and buoyed by an entire self-contained multimedia franchise unto itself, which subsequently had a rough launch and was iterated on with DLC for years until the director quit. At which point Square cut their losses, cancelled the rest of the DLC and released a book to tie up the material that never got released.

And like FF13 and FF15 had its fans, and they ended up being pretty okay in the end. I know someone who adores FF15 and its cast. I have a lot to say, positive and negative, about FF13 and 13-2 - I really love FF13-2, actually, and I'll defend the writing of the first game pretty voraciously if prompted.

But with all that said, I haven't even mentioned Final Fantasy 14 yet. And I'm going to keep it short by tying Final Fantasy 14 into the ethos of this era of Final Fantasy. It is a microcosm of this entire era of the franchise.

Final Fantasy 14 launched as an ambitious, user-unfriendly BOMB.

The developers weren't great at communicating with the playerbase. I think the graphical requirements were pretty high, so a lot of people couldn't play it, and players who COULD play it didn't particularly like it. People stuck with it, but it was a dead game being outpaced by its own predecessor in Final Fantasy 11 and it was something of a millstone around Square Enix's neck.

Final Fantasy 14 went from being one of the worst reviewed, worst selling, worst regarded Final Fantasy games - and a real turd of an MMO to boot - to being one of the most successful, most celebrated and most well-regarded MMORPGs ever.

And it got there by TEARING THE OLD SHIT DOWN A D REBUILDING IT FROM SCRATCH.

Square Enix did that at great cost, relying on the word of a young upstart named Naoki Yoshida, and pulled one of the biggest hail maries in video game history.

And that kind of sums up FF13 and FF15.

Final Fantasy 13 was a rough game. The team decided to make a direct sequel in Final Fantasy XIII-2, and then another one in Lightning Returns, to salvage the engine they used and to try and bank on the momentum of its narrative and characters for the entire generation of video games.

Final Fantasy 15 launched in a rough state. They spent YEARS patching that game, releasing DLC (free and paid) and banking on it as a franchise unto itself.

Neither of them succeeded as much as FF14 did, but they managed to eke out their own niches. Square Enix spent almost ten years iterating, polishing, salvaging. I maintain that this era was extremely fucking rough to maintain or justify, but it did lead us to the big moneymaker - Final Fantasy 7 Remake.

So far I've argued for five different "ages" or "eras" of the Final Fantasy franchise. We've had Innovation and Refinement leading into a Golden Age, leading into a rapid Expansion and being stymied somewhat by... well, let's call FF13 to FF15 the Iteration Age, because "Clusterfuck Age" isn't kind. The games were extremely rough, so they were ultimately saved through iteration.

Final Fantasy 7 Remake aimed to evoke the Golden Age of Final Fantasy while refining the gameplay that had defined the Iteration Age of Final Fantasy.

The mindset behind Final Fantasy 13's combat is that turn-based combat was a dying genre, and the executives wanted to move the brand forward into more action-based combat that would grant the player more immediate feedback. That game used a simplified ATB system, bolstered by a Paradigm Shift system which kept the player on their toes. Final Fantasy 15 had more of an action RPG bent to it, but it was hit and miss - I tried it once, and I couldn't get into it.

Final Fantasy 7 Remake finally signalled the franchise's shift into hard Action RPG combat. It still relied on classic RPG menu mechanics, but this is where you had that immediate feedback they were talking about back in 2010.

The game had a stagger gauge, just like Final Fantasy 13. It had free-wheeling action combat, just like Final Fantasy 15. And it catered HARD to the lofty, lofty expectations that diehard FF7 fans had developed over the years, carting over as much of that Golden Age appeal as they could and welding it to the highest triple-A standard they could.

It was aesthetically based in the old aspects of the franchise. But its core mechanics stemmed entirely from the franchise post-FF13.

That momentum continued with Final Fantasy 16, which was straight-up an action RPG helmed by the gameplay director of Devil May Cry 5. And we now have the second game in the Final Fantasy 7 Remake series, taking the more menu-based approach of FF7R and expanding it to an entire fuck-off overworld map on 2 PS5 discs. It's a part of a trilogy, but Remake was fleshed out into its own unique, standalone entity, and Rebirth - as a sequel and continuation of that game - takes the expansion of Remake and takes it in a new, crazily ambitious direction: marrying the PS1 era Final Fantasy overworld map with modern open-world gameplay.

It being a sequel isn't reactive like Final Fantasy 13-2 and Lightning Returns was. I mean, as an adaptation of the same source material as the first Remake game, it kind of can't be reactive in that way. I dunno, I'm tired as shit. But I still think despite that, there's a clear difference between 13's mad struggle to salvage itself and the way that the 7R games have been coming out. The iteration is still there, but it's in more of the way that FF7 became FF8 which became FF9, more than how FF13 became FF13-2 into LR:FF13.

That might be giving the FF7R games way too much credit. The way FF7 became FF9 is a way different story to how Remake became Rebirth. But my point is that 7 Remake kind of represents the series finding its footing, with later games - including the latest mainline Final Fantasy game - kind of following in its stead.

It's building a brand new ship based on the previous ship, using what worked in the previous ship while discarding the old. The stretch between FF11 and FF13 was like trying to take an old ship and turn it into a speedboat, and it kiiiiiiiinda worked - but man, it was not an ideal way to sail.

Final Fantasy 7 Remake takes what Final Fantasy 13 started - in spirit, ala moving away from turn-based combat, as well as in function, ala the stagger bar. It's coached in the distant past, but it's built on the bones of the immediate past. And it managed to marry the best aspects of the two.

To strain this already labored metaphor - Final Fantasy 7 Remake retains the form of what it's adapting. It relies on how it looks and how it conveys that air to appeal to an audience.

But it keeps that audience, and any newer audience members, engaged with modern function.

So Final Fantasy 7 Remake keeps everything you love about an old ship. But it never gave up on being a speedboat, as roughly as that worked out the last couple times, and now they've spend thousands of man-hours working out the kinks? This ship has the functionality of a speedboat. Or at least, it offers what people love about speedboats without compromising the image of a ship that people have in their minds.

Look I know that's nonsense, it's almost 5am and I'm tired. Let me wrap this all up.

I wouldn't be able to name this "era" of Final Fantasy, but I know that FF7R signalled the start of a new era for the franchise. We went from humble innovation, to the refinement of those innovated concepts, to a point where the core iterated experience could be taken significantly further than expected in scope. That gave way to a period of technological exploration and a pushing of boundaries and norms, shifting into something of a stubborn decline born of impotent overambition, before the series was finally able to meet its loftiest standards and make good on the decade's worth of promises they started off with.

All I can say for sure is that the same way FF1 signalled what this franchise would become, the way that FF4 refined the best aspects of those first three games and defined the strengths of the franchise going forward, the way FF7 expanded the scope of the world-building and presentation to unseen heights, the way FF11 toyed with what a mainline Final Fantasy game could even be and the way FF13 showed how much you could bungle a mainline release and subsequently salvage it if you try hard enough - and how every game between those keystone releases managed to iterate on and expand on what that initial keystone release did, for better or for worse - Final Fantasy 7 Remake signalled the start of a new cycle of Final Fantasy games. I've tried to explain what I mean, but at the end of the day, that's all I've got.

And the reason why this was significant in the first place when I started writing it is because I was just thinking.

What then?

What happens after the last Final Fantasy 7 Remake game?

What do the 2030's look like for Final Fantasy?

Where is there left to go?

I think the future comes from devs like Naoki Yoshida, the dude who managed to finagle Final Fantasy 14 out of being one of the worst MMOs of its era to being one of the best MMOs of all time.

I think FF7R3 will probably have to mark a changing of the guard, and a bold push forward into the unknown. A new setting, a new standard, breathing new life into a broadly iterative franchise that's mostly relied on the scraps of the past for the last 14 years.

Those scraps have fed some fantastic video games, but I feel like it has to build to a big finale and the next era has to work to define itself. Fuck it, let's get weird. Let's get a Final Fantasy with prominent aliens. Let's get a whole hero's journey in the vein of a Very Specific Video Game I'm Referencing, and have it so you're some random dude who has to get a thing to save your planet or your people, but by the time you return to rescue your people, you're so fundamentally changed that you can't stay there with them any more. That hasn't been done in a hot second.

And I say stuff like that because Yoshi-P's revamp of FF14 was the exact shot in the arm that Square Enix needed. His success in assembling a team to rebuild that game from scratch, and then subsequently becoming the figurehead for one of the most successful Final Fantasy titles ever, partially comes from being new blood to the franchise. He liked it enough and was familiar with it, but he was working on Dragon Quest when he was asked for his opinion on FF14. Final Fantasy 16 was a bold, mature step in a new direction that ended up being hampered by an arbitrary lock to a single platform. It was new - referential as always, but refreshingly new.

We're seeing just how far old concepts can be stretched. But when that's over, when that pet project ends, what's next?

I want to see what a new generation of devs - in proximity to the Final Fantasy franchise, not necessarily in experience - brings to the table. I want to see the next Final Fantasy 14: A Realm Reborn, not the next Final Fantasy 7 Remake.

And 7R is fantastic - I'm loving my 7R experience. But there's one more Remake game coming out. Maybe one more mainline instalment between then and now, if we're lucky. And I think that will bring this era of Final Fantasy to a close.

So what does that mean for the next era of Final Fantasy?

Personally? I want to see ambitious new talent take their crack at making their own Final Fantasy 7 - bringing this innovated technology into its own - instead of remaking a shiny new FF7 Remake. I'm definitely not asking for a new Fabula Nova Crystallis situation, that was a multi-car pile-up, but I am thinking about a future for Final Fantasy that is actually a Future.

Man I'm going to bed, sorry for the long post.

#long post #final fantasy #essay

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forbidden-creepypasta · 4 months

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The Red Star

As most nostalgic, pre-Playstation oldfag gamers know, Chrono Trigger was one of the best RPG's of its time, and continues to maintain a huge fan base to this day.

Among the most hardcore Chrono Trigger fans, many movements to produce 3D renditions of the old Super Nintendo game in a "nextgen" feel have been attempted, but SquareSoft has shut every operation down with threats of licensing rights lawsuits and prosecution. For this reason, many talented game developers took to modding their own versions of the game to play with close friends or by themselves, because releasing these fan-mods on the internet would result in a huge risk.

One such game freak who lived in Silicon Valley the year that the primary CT remake was released decided that he was fed up with SquareSoft's attempt at butchering a classic story line that was already strong enough as it stood without introducing an entirely new continent with a complicated back story (Chrono Break). His online handle is known as "Anderson," but no other information about his whereabouts have surfaced since he released a small, two gigabyte mod based on the original SNES game entitled "Red Star."

The file mirror where the mod could be located has been lost since 2005, and only five people have reported their experiences with the game on the private forum tracker where the game was first uploaded.The forum posts are less than three sentences long and consist of nonsensical, cryptic statements, such as "This can't be the way it ends" and "won't stop falling, won't stop falling, redstarwontstopfallingpleasestopfallingpleasestop," and "You can't save Crono. Don't try. Forget about this game...."

I am one of those five, and the last remaining player who is willing to tell my story. The others have cut themselves off from technology completely. They don't even have computers or consoles anymore. Mostly, they stick to the outdoors or confine themselves to an almost Amish existence.Two of them are dead. I found the game by rifling through one of the deceased player's garbage bin outside their apartment until I could recover her hard drive.

Before playing the game, I had a lot of questions, but was only able to physically locate one other person who'd downloaded the modded file. I swore that I wouldn't reveal his identity, but he lives in the Rocky Mountains, in complete isolation. He doesn't own a phone, and when I knocked on his door to request his findings to compare to my own, he brandished a twelve gauge shotgun and told me never to bring up "that thing under the earth" again. I could only assume that he was referring to Lavos, but the fear in his eyes suggested that he thought the game was real. That's the only way I can explain it.

Being an almost religious Chrono Trigger fan, I took a week of vacation at work before I finally switched out my hard drive for the one I found in the trash outside the dead girl's place. After firing up my computer, I found the file in the recycle bin, but it had not been permanently deleted. The icon was a red knife, similar to the sprite of the knife that the "prophet" Magus used to attempt to destroy Lavos after the Mammon Machine disaster in the Ocean Palace. I restored it and double clicked my mouse.

The program immediately full-screened itself, and when I attempted to alt+enter and shrink the playing window, the game didn't respond. It was like its own hacked instance of a ZSNES emulator, except the graphics and textures were nextgen quality. The title screen still consisted of the game's name, but instead of a swinging pendulum back and forth to symbolize the theme of time travel in the game, it just sits, completely motionless.

When I pressed start and proceeded to start a new game, I didn't get the chance to name Crono or choose "Active" or "Wait" for my battle status.

I expected Crono to wake up in a nextgen 3D rendition of his upstairs bedroom with the sound of chirping birds and his mother pestering him to wake up and get to the Millenial Fair.

Instead, the opening shot is a pan over of West Cape, where the player can choose to fight or recruit Magus as a party member in the original game. In Red Star, Magus isn't there, and Crono should be dead at that stage in the game.... but he's not. Chrono is standing over what appears to be a group of graves, which would be identical to each other except for certain key items that adorn the tombstones.

Crono himself is wielding his sword and staring at the ground with his eyes closed. He is clearly weeping, and at this point in the game, I decided that I was a little upset with the game designer for providing no explanation whatsoever of what was going on. I felt like a troll had doctored a fucked up scene in the game to insult CT fans everywhere. However, that's when I noticed the symbols carved on the tombstones.

From left to right, each of them had some sort of illustration etched in the stone. The first was a sparkling pendant, which most unanimously agree is Marle's, from when she first bumps in to Crono at the fair and triggers the disastrous time travel sequence that kicks off the original game's plot line. The other easily distinguishable graves are Frog's, where a drawing of the Masamune is clearly visible in the stone with the Hero's Medal draped around the blade. On the tombstone to the right of Frog's, a pair of thick horn-rimmed glasses with the left lense busted out rest on its top surface.

The other graves have been rubbed off or filed away with the intense winds of the 12,000 BC time period. I knew they were Crono's teammates, but I didn't understand why they were dead at the very beginning of the game. In the nextgen graphic system, I suddenly felt a very real connection with Crono, as he was no longer a small 16-bit sprite on the screen, but a 3D rendered model who appeared to be in a great amount of pain.

After witnessing Crono's fit of depression and his moment of reflection at the graves, I gained control of his player model. I immediately opened the menu to see if he retained any of his abilities from the first game, and to scope out my inventory, status, and items.

The major difference I found from the start of a normal game is that Crono is completely maxed out, almost as if he had every item and possible stat point from a previous run through, but he has no equipment except a sword with a glitched out title for its name (it's undiscernable, but it looks like "Egg Reaver."

However, having not chosen New Game +, I was surprised to see that all of his techniques were learned, with one addition to the list past Luminaire. The spell was called "Double Jeopardy."

When I lead Crono out to the world map, I discovered that the futuristic ruin of 2300 A.D. had arrived thousands of years earlier in the timeline. Instead of domes, there were only wiped out huts and burned out continents as a result of the Day of Lavos, which I could only assume occurred in 12,000 B.C. instead of 2300 A.D.

I spent a good three hours walking around random places, looking for an actual blip on the map that would lead me to something new, but with every empty hut I walked in to, Crono seemed to glance at me through the screen for a second, as if irritated. His face seemed to say "Why are you wasting my time?" Every hut held nothing but an empty fireplace. There were no save points or chests or vendors. I didn't understand what I had to do, and there was a stabbing in my head that got worse the more I explored the wasteland of snow and destruction. Instead of taking twenty seconds to travel from one place to another like in the SNES game, the 3D rendered 12,000 BC was harsh and I often found myself getting lost because there was only an occasional tree in the harsh snowy landscape. It was like trying to navigate through the Icicle fields in FFVII, except without red flags to mark your position.

Eventually, I found a skygate in the middle of nothing but burned out plains and snow that continually fell, and melted because the ground was scorching hot. I assumed that Lavos must be directly underneath the Earth, having already risen up to destroy humanity. I expected to see a Death Peak or a Black Omen ---- SOMETHING that would signify Lavos's reign over the world, but the peculiar skygate on the burning pitch was the only thing of note I'd discovered in my ordeal of playing through Red Star, almost five hours ago.

Confused by this and exhausted with walking around an empty scorched continent after almost four hours, I took a break and walked downstairs, leaving Crono in the middle of the skygate. I didn't press the A button yet, but instead of waving his arms at me to hurry up, he just stared at me blankly, looking defeated. I decided I desperately needed a glass of water and some Advil. I would need to be ready to confront whatever was on the other end of that teleporter ---- which I assumed would be a modded, hacked out version of Lavos that was insanely hard and had to be solo'd by Crono himself.

I was wrong.

When I returned to my computer, Crono's demeanor had changed for the better. I can't say that I was eager to return to playing when he was basically mourning and moping around in the blizzard like an emo kid, but my discovery of the skygate changed his expression somewhat. I started to think that maybe I was one of the first players to find this small area in the huge, mile long expanse of nothingness. Crono started waving his arms at me like in the SNES version, but instead of looking like a puppet sprite, he looked ready to kick some ass. This was the Crono I remembered ---- even though it seemed as though his entire party had perished, he was still ready to face Lavos by himself, just as he sacrificed himself the first time in the original game.

I pressed the button and used the skygate. I couldn't have been prepared for what I would see. Neither could my spiky, red haired, katana wielding friend.

The game wasn't a game anymore. The growing headache that I had experienced since I had gained control of Crono a few hours before instantly culminated in to an explosion of hallucinations and a feeling of "swirling" in my brain.

I didn't feel as if I were possessing the player model, but I was having an out of body experience. I could see myself playing, far away in my darkened room, my eyes glued to the screen for a moment I'd been anticipating for a decade.

Closer to home, though, I was more aware of the game environment. I felt as though I was standing right next to Crono, but I could control him at the same time. I didn't feel my fingers on a keyboard or control pad. I simply thought of what putting the commands in to the menu would feel like when I played the game, and Crono obeyed. I felt myself being dragged along as he moved up a wet corridor that resembled the tunnel to the second form of Lavos in the original copy. I was a passive observer who decided the hero's actions, but whatever I chose, I felt privy to the mercy of my own commands.

I knew that when we faced Lavos, I would be terrified, and I also knew that the tunnel wasn't very long. We were almost there. The ground was burning in to my feet, if I even had any feet in this place.

I expected to see a powerful being, unlike anything I'd ever witnessed before, but there was nothing in the chamber except for an egg.

The Time Egg --- or Chrono Trigger.

Confused by this, I moved Crono closer to it, but I couldn't figure out why the egg would exist here when it shattered to bring back the deceased Crono on Death Peak in the SNES port.

I tried "pressing" every button, skirting the corners of the chamber --- everything. I wasn't in combat. There was nothing to do here.

That's when I started checking menus in my head. My inventory was empty except the Egg Reaver sword, but one thing had changed between the West Cape loadout and the one I had now.

Double Jeopardy was now yellow on the tech list instead of white. I could use it.

And I did.

Crono fell instantly to his knees. I couldn't move him. In the same moment, the egg exploded, and in a burst of hot light, the only thing I could focus on was the figure of beautiful, blue-haired girl. I recognized her as Schala after some time, as her graceful figure was much different than the small Nintendo mode, but the blue hair was a real giveaway.

She ripped the sword from Crono's paralyzed grip and ran him straight through the heart with it. He fell in a lifeless clump, the life from his sharp green eyes draining in to a nullified, blank stare, all in the course of a few seconds.

She turned her sharp gaze to me, and I'll never forget what she said next.

There's a second Red Star. A second Lavos.

I could think of nothing to say. I was only puzzled by her actions, and simulataneously distraught that the coolest character out of every role playing game ever made had just been murdered in front of my own eyes.

"Why did you kill him? He's the only hope you had against another Red Star." I sounded like a fool, and I felt like a helpless, gaseous spirit in her presence, but I tried to reason with her.

He was destroyed by the first Time Devourer. The Chrono Trigger brought him back to save us, but he had to meet his fate. No one before you came this far.

"I killed Crono." I said in shocked disbelief.

Yes, but you've also ended the ice age and saved us from the second reign of Lavos. Time has been restored, and it will progress as it should have before the second red star began to fall.

I stared at her, and although I was a fan of her resistance to Lavos in the first game, she'd just destroyed the best piece of my nostalgic, RPG childhood. I hated her. In the next moment, I could feel my feet on the ground, and I was suddenly aware of my eyes, my hands, my physical body.

I was in the game, and that's where I wanted to be. I had one last question for her.

I picked up Crono's sword, and it felt light and powerful in my grasp. I felt an electric surge of energy in my arm that seemd to beg for me to start moving, to start harnessing that power as a weapon.

I stepped forward, and I could still see the command menu in my head. I lined up my arrow on my favorite tech of all, and one that I believed would be fitting for Crono's killer. I selected "Confuse."

"Why are you still here, Schala?" I asked.

I don't know. The fabric of time and fate has been protected for eternity, but the Kingdom of Zeal has passed, and I have no further place in the world. Neither do you. We are stuck here. It seems that Anderson did not provide scripts for an instance in which the game was actually completed.

"You know, Schala, for a Chrono Trigger sequel, there's not a lot of combat in this game." I said.

Lavos has been vanquished. There is no further need for violence in our world

I gripped the sword a little tighter. It sizzled in my grip, aching for my target.

"I beg to differ." I said with a smile.

Credit to: Violent Harvest

#creepypasta #creepy stories #horror microfiction #video game pasta #video game creepypasta

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leoly · 4 months

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2023 media year in review

Anime/Manga Trigun Stampede: Of course this is my anime of the year how could it not be. Amazing CG anime, great soundtrack, phenomenal character redesigns. Stampede Vash is societies baby girl and he deserves it.

Frieren Journeys End: Was put onto this by a friend recommendation so I already knew it would be good going in but managed to be better than I expected. Love love love the animation and character designs. I feel like it was a big year for like classic fantasy aesthetics in newer shows.

Dead Mount Death Play: Finally got onto this during my nostalgia moment fueled by trigun renaissance. Its actually very fun with the expected huge cast of crazy characters. Ive only read the manga so far but stay posted for when I get onto the anime as I am sure I will have many thoughts.

Games Baldurs Gate 3: What can i say about this game i haven't already screamed in desperation at my friends. its insanely perfect the game da4 wishes it could be. In the middle of a deep drought in classic fantasy rpg games i love it and wish larian all the success going forward.

Honkai Star Rail: I can't believe she came from behind to be my best gacha of the year but she did. The change from genshins live action gameplay to turn based may have been not great for some but I adored it. Sometimes i just want to not think when im playing a gacha yknow. Also the story is interesting so far and is playing to a lot of tropes i like so we'll see where it goes in 2024

Final Fantasy XIV: Of course my beloved, the post endwalker patches were kind of a mixed bag for me while it had a lot a liked there were also some things that ended up feeling very strange to me. I am excited for Dawntrail however and will definitely keep playing going into the new expansion.

Shows Severance: I feel like I watched this show a lifetime ago but damn what a good show i love old man yaoi and the psychological horror of capitalism.

Yellowjackets: i love yuri and cannibalism cults!!!!!!!!!!!!!! YAY!

Vtubers ment. Josuji Shinri!!! My favourite debut of this year seriously can not longer imagine tempus without him. Thank you for being my best boy and dearest wife for 2023.

Hiodoshi Ao RE_gloss has a lot of interesting members but i find ao extremely cute. I promise to study jp at some point so i have more than a vague idea what shes talking about (crying)

Nerissa Ravencroft I had been waiting for gen 3 of holoen for what felt like centuries. I'm still a bit mixed feelings on the group in general but I'm really impressed with both Nerissa's design and her amazing singing voice. I think her first 3D live will be one to drop everything for. Perhaps the Towa-sama of en?

Uncategorizable mentions: seeing mcr live, Smiskis, cheese filled mochi donuts and as always my beloved friends <3

#leotxt

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game-boy-pocket · 2 years

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Alright, Direct thoughts time I guess. I'm not gonna be all flowery and happy because I honestly wasn't that impressed so if you don't wanna read the mean ol spoiled nintendo fans thoughts then keep scrolling.

I care not for Fire Emblem. I also care not fore Advance Wars but I'm still happy to see that this game is coming, I don't want it, but any time Nintendo ressurects an old IP is fine with me. Also the character designs are fun.

I care not for Mario sports spinoffs, but I do think we were overdue for a new Strikers game. I don't want it, but I admit they fill a role, and I do appreciate the more unique rough and edgy style of the striker games, and of course Next Level is bringing their usual brand of extra expressiveness to the Mario crew that Nintendo isn't as good at doing themselves... I do worry that this may be a little more sanitized compared to older strikers games.

I'm just not feeling Splatoon 3. I loved the first Splatoon. I had an okay time with the second one but it felt like more of the same... and this third one so far just looks like even more of the same than before... I guess we'll have to wait and see more of the single player campaign.

Kirby is horrifying now I see.

I guess Chrono Cross rumors were true. I don't feel a storng urgency to play that game, I like Chrono Trigger just fine but I am not one of those people that would put it in my top 10 or even top 50, and I hear the sequel isn't that good. Maybe if it's cheap I'll check it out.

I've been curious about Klonoa forever so i'll check that out if the price is right.

LIVE A LIVE is a genuine suprise. That game has been on my backlog forever. I'm actually not a huge fan of the 3D HD stuff though so I think I may stick with the fan translated SNES version unless they include the original with the remake ( something I feel every remake should be doing. )

Already said my piece about the Kingdom Hearts releases. If you don't have a playstation, pirate it. DO. NOT. SUPPORT. CLOUD. GAMING. It's fucking stupid.

I was excited to see new stuff for Metroid but it all turned out to be difficulty options that should have been in the base game and a boss rush, which also should have been in the base game. Can't complain too much when it's a free update, but I really wish these things didn't have to be added later. Not everyone has guaranteed ongoing internet access.

The EarthBound re-releases.... sigh... I'm just tired of Nintendo and their fans feeling like they deserve a pat on the back for doing things that they've already done before, and should just be an expected thing that they should always do, and doing it a few years later than they should. Earthbound releases are not a huge deal anymore. None of Nintendo's retro releases are and they really shouldn't be praised for the way they handle their retro games, especially since they used to do a much better job at it, but failed to make sure it carried forward to current generations.

Switch Sports is also a genuine suprise. I thought that series would have died with the wii. Is the same audience for those games even on the switch? I know Switch has outsold the Wii at this point but that's largeley due to it being a handheld and not a great console to share with other ppl. I don't exactly see Granny Ethel playing tennis at the retirement home with a Joycon. Still, I liked Wii sports. If I can get it for a bargain bin price, maybe i'd pick it up.

I forgot that I bought portal on Steam ages ago and never played it... oops. I really should give it a go, it's one of those instant classics, yes?

Mario Kart's DLC is pretty cool. Mario Kart 8 really is going to be the best Mario Kart game at this rate, huh? The Switch version already had more tracks than any other Mario Kart game before it thanks to the DLC from the Wii U version being bundled in. And they only want a quarter of the game's price to double the number of tracks? This is way better than a new Mario Kart game imo.

If I didn't mention an announcement, it means I have no thoughts about it.

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chasingtwentyfour · 5 years

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Toy Story 4

Before I'm going to dug into my feels, there's a quick disclaimer: Don't read it if you don't want to be spoiled.

To infinity and beyond

Yes.

If there is one line that summarizes the movie, then that would be it.

To Infinity....

And

Beyond...

This year, Disney has given us all our childhood back, from Dumbo, Aladdin, The Lion King which will be out next month, and the anticipated and the unexpected sequel of the Toy Story franchise. It's been 24 years since the first movie came out and we all admit that we grew up watching it and regardless of age, we still waited each year or decade just to refresh and join the journey of woody, buzzlight year and the other toys (and cast)

Toy Story is one of my favorite Disney films that I grew up to. I remember back then it was 2005, when I first watch the two movie franchise of Toy Story ( 1 and 2) and back then, I'll be watching through VHS player that flashes in our television and take note, the technology isn't that hightech yet.

Toy story is also the first cartoon movie that I've never seen before. Technically, I grew up watching 2D disney movies and had no idea that it was a 3D animation which is actually one of the reasons why it hooked me up the most and had no idea that it will be the boom of the high teach animation. Also, Toy story is actually the first 3D animation that was made and after that, multiple cartoon films with 3D animation came out.

The film first out in 1995, followed by 1999 and then the third sequel released on 2010 which I'm most devastated about because I wasn't able to watch it on cinema and waited for the bluray to come out. I was 10 at that time actually. (Hihihi)

When I was watching the third sequel on dvd. It always stuck in my mind that this would be the last franchise of Toy story and they will never ever gonna make a sequel ever again, and let's just admit it guys, we all thought that the third franchise would be the last, am I right?

We are all wrong

Though we heard speculations about the fourth franchise, but we don't know if it's true and if it's true, when will it come out?

Just as last year, my heart is so happy when I watch the teaser of the toy story 4. I had mixed emotions that time and my 5 years old self, is jumping with joy

Now earlier, me and my 8 years old brother watch the toy story 4 in the cinema near us. It's really funny cause when I entered the cinema, there are more ADULTS than the KIDS. I REPEAT. THERE ARE MORE ADULTS THAN THE KIDS. Which I realized, these adults watching grew up watching toy story and wanted to relief their nostalgia.

Honestly, My tears dropped when I heard the " You got a friend in me" intro in the movie. I also enjoyed watching kids and my brother enjoyed every minute of the movie because I could totally relate to them. Those laughter that I heard, the smiles on their faces is what totally I am when I was the same age as them. Looking back, I realized that movies like this are timeless and be passed on to one generation to other because every new generation deserves to experience classic which is one of my realization why Disney keep on doing live actions of the cartoons and keep producing sequels of the classic because it is time for the new generation to experience it and have something to remember about their childhood. Which is one of the reasons why Disney or us, keep retelling the stories. It is timeless, indeed.

Now going to the film, I enjoyed every moment that the cast do especially the Bo and Woody reunion which I totally shipped from the beginning, their journey on their new owner, Bobbie, which was passed on to Andy, itself. It also shows flashback as a backstory and of course, introducing new toys (cast)

I thought that the third film was the saddest among the franchise, this one is the saddest (in my opinion) I honestly can't believe that Woody choose to be liberated and stay with Bo, actually, I'm half sad and happy at the same time, because at least, Woody follows his heart and choose which makes him happy. Though it's kinda sad cause he was now apart with his toy friends that he was with together through years. But in the positive side, they accepted him. Because above everything else, their friendship values the most.

To be honest, I was expecting that Bo and the others will join Woody and their owner, Bobbie.

It is such a whirlwall experience, my childhood has came back and so far, Im satisfied because I waited 9 years for this to happened. My inner self is still wishing that Disney will add another franchise, but I think, it is really impossible for now.

To infinity and beyond

#toystory #toystory4 #cinemalife #purelyopinions #childhood #feels

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